The acidic scent of hair dye was pungent and stale. Easily noted even through the useless cleaning chemicals and dying earth.

Brian recalled the time Theodore went blond headed old twink for a blink. Christ was he an idiot. An idiot he missed. Both men desperately mourned their friends.

They had started to feel the enormity of the disappearing world. What good was a big city without little people to fill it to it's brim.

Four eyes gave the place a much needed sweep. The door was steel, sound, safe. No ghostly groans shared the room. The men pulled a large wooden shelf full of shampoo and products in front of it for extra reinforcement.

A dust covered barber's chair beckoned to Brian. Despite the thick layer of aged breath that exhaled when he sat, the old leather felt comfortable. Worn in by years of people. 'Living people.' The thought brought comfort in itself.

Brian relaxed his shoulders for the first time since leaving the loft and rolled his neck. His spine gave it's two cents with vocal cracks along his back. It felt wonderful. He cupped the back of his neck and closed his eyes.

Justin lay stretched out to Brian's left. His head rested on the pillow of the hair drying station, his feet propped up on a stack of old celebrity magazines. Printed in another time. It was nothing short of surreal how life was now compared to then.

It was almost impossible to believe. Back when the world cared too much about appearances and too little about too much else.

How we organized humanity by too many variables. Orientation, Race, Religion, Social Class. Who had the most money. Who was hot. Who was not.

All of the above had been ridiculously placed into perspective in this new place.

Everyone had dwindled down to just three important groups:

1. Dead.

2. Alive.

3. Both.

The two men rested there, content in mutual silence. Though neither liking to be alone with their thoughts; Brian spoke first.

"Hey, when we're dead, will you still…" he slid his tongue to his cheek and turned just his head to his partner.

He opened his eyes to find Justin already looking at him. "…blow me?" Brian clicked his tongue and smiled.

Justin gave as good a grin his tired muscles would allow. He loved it when Brian still found a hidden moment these days to flirt. To better sustain their humor in case one of them forgot how to use it.

He also hated it. Hated the spiral of feelings it uprooted in his mind. A tornado of thoughts.

Looking on the Brightside, they were both there, that moment…breathing and loving like the living do.

But then, there was the other side. Justin didn't want to look on the other side.

Imagining one or both of them eventually, inevitably…turning. No. He wasn't going there.

It was one of those weighted worries that would dissolve you from the outside in, if you let it.

A gut wrenching worry that although in truth it consumed you, you did your best to pretend. You convince yourself it's not really melting into your veins. Seeping through your pores at every moment.

You don't let the worry emerge. It's hard with nothing but will and faith to fight it but it can be done.

Justin always did it. Pushed away the thought of he and Brian becoming one of them. Quelled the sick in his stomach and the ache in his heart.

He gave his body a final stretch and stood. Blue eyes reflected mischief as he sauntered toward Brian. "Eat the meat." He told him through a real smile and straddled the man's lap.

Brian hadn't moved but a single part that stirred the man's lap. Brian hadn't moved but a single part that stirred enough for Justin to greet it with a grind.

Brian flashed a smile of his own as his hands found the man's ass, their second home. He gave a squeeze. "Rigamortis. You're dead bed is looking up!" The 'P' popped in the quiet.

This was a thing they did. Every so often (when reality whispered for a moment) they'd exchange slogans for the new world order. Imagine Kinnetik successfully smearing the world with one of the endless forgotten arts.

Justin wiggled a little that jiggled Brian's thought. His pale finger's traced the brunet's jawline and gave a soft smack to his cheek. "Eating flesh and looking fabulous."

Brian's hand snaked away from Justin's ass to find the crotch of his jeans. He palmed Justin through the denim earning him a gasp and a grin. Justin leaned his head back allowing himself to enjoy the friction.

"You can have a friend. You can have a brain. But you can't have your friend's brain." Brian said, already moving to unbutton Justin's pants and grip him.

A shiver Brian was proud of vibrated the kid. 'The Kinney Touch.' He'd once called it. It pained Brian more these days to imagine those ones. The good ones. Before. Even the old bad ones were better than this.

He thought briefly of his parents, his sister. He hadn't known what had become of them. 'Would he have felt differently if he did?' He shook away the inquiry and focused on Justin who was blissfully babbling through Brian's strokes and tugs.

Justin bent forward again, his legs trembling and grabbed his partner by the hair. Brian had repositioned his hand to accommodate the shift. It was a delicious kind of torture that he hadn't been granted a pause.

Brian's mouth merged as seamless as always to the kiss. Hand and tongue (just two of his talented parts) were raise worthy coworkers.

Countless encounters such as this had taught him all of Justin's reactions. Two thigh quakes and a lip bite later, he'd felt his satisfied warmth coat his hand. He rubbed his thumb once more over the slit before pulling away; simply because Justin always called it cruel and unusual punishment.

It got him a swat to his chest this time and he savored every part of it. It stung only a second compared to what it helped. It reminded him there was still a heart in there that beat and felt things like it was supposed to.

As Justin repositioned himself Brian held his gaze. "You. It's what's for dinner." He added the slogan, licking a bit of Justin from his finger. The blond scrunched his nose but was not exactly grossed out. At all. He very much liked this man tasting him.

Reality grew loud again. It's whispered hush, a distant thing.

Thuds engulfed the back wall. The place that had once housed gossiping Queens awaiting beautification now sounded horrific calls of an impatient crowd. The steel door they'd entered from rumbled with each hit. Expired hair care and stupid, useless something or others clattered and shattered to the ground.

Knock.

Knock.

Both men competed for most ungracious host. That door would never swing open with welcome. There stood the threshold of alive and not.

Quickly they moved to the reception area, reassessing and withdrawing their weapons. Justin's gun hung at his side, his other hand felt the air ahead of him as he walked. A thick bladed knife felt strong in Brian's palm, his grip was tight.

The storefront display window was boarded from the inside. Roughly positioned sheets of plywood covered the bulk of It's width. Clearly, once upon a time, other poor bastards had seen this place as a promising place to hide. Monsters always know where to look.

A lapse in the boards made visible, the old barber shop pole that'd hung on the place through generations.

Brian recalled the countless times he'd gotten lost in it's spin. When he was sat across from Michael at the diner; gazing out of the window as he rambled on about Astro whoever-the-fuck. He'd give anything to go back to those times.

He looked now, it's spinning had stopped as the earth spun on. For the time being.

The once glistening thing struggled to shine; all too like the sun these days. It was setting now. Golden orange beams flickered the best they could.

The rays bounced from the twisted red, white and blue.

The men no longer held nostalgia for their (or any other) countries colors. It mattered not.

Finally, Earth had finally achieved world unification…

…Every place sucked the same. Every leader struggled with the little people to survive.

Watching the sunset could no longer be a romantic experience. With it's descent ascended a terror of the dark and all that lurked in it's shadows. It brought a cooler chill and erased any remnants of lights.

It turned the depressing gray into unyielding black. Though, like Brian and Justin, the sun still chose to rise each day regardless. Perhaps the fiery star aimed to cast the drab planet in various shades. Justin especially missed the colorful place Liberty Avenue used to be; ostentatiously coloring it's rainbow on every inch.

Over the last months Justin had attempted to paint when he and Brian where holed up in the loft. When they were pretending the gray didn't exist. Pretending the rainbow-ed flags of Liberty still flapped in a breeze void of decay.

But every time, each optimistic painting began to mock them and Justin would coat it in gray paint and throw it against brick.

His always impressive imagination provided not the ability to draw a positive conclusion for them.

He gripped the sleeve of Brian's shirt as they listened. Yes, there. Distinctive, definite.

Shoes on pavement. Running.

Two hearts leapt from elation and trepidation.

Encountering other living was a reminder of hope, or undreamt dream that just maybe things would one day be back to how it was. As dysfunctional as ever, perfectly.

Also too, encountering other living could be a reminder of reality. That even when they absolutely had to, people wouldn't work together. Evidenced by the looters that struck when the dead did, and the frenzied mob that had lit Mikey's street ablaze.

They had to be cautious.

The footsteps stopped in front of them. A thumping fist on the store's entrance. It was a blue wooden door mostly hidden by the reception desk that protected it.

"Is there someone in there?" A voice spoke. A gloriously familiar voice that had both men rushing to move the desk aside. Ben Bruckner.

"Someone who doesn't want to fucking eat us?" Hunter's voice added.