thearena | our hope here’s never found [closed]

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our hope here’s never found [closed]

WHO| Luke + folks who volunteered to keep his half-frozen self alive.
WHAT| An attempt to escape an angry sabretooth tiger leads to Luke falling through a snow-covered lake. Ice isn't the only thing that'll break, though -- this here log's all about time-breaking.
WHEN| Early Week Two
WHERE| The iced-over lake and the shelters of his rescuers.
WARNINGS| TWDG s2 spoilers, near-drowning, ref to gore, death, zombies. More added as they come up.

Maybe it's a blessing that there isn't chance to feel dread sluicing through his gut or that long, torturous stretch of time for the delicate craquelure across the ice to spread until it reaches him. By the time he hears that bone-snap rolling across the clearing he's already falling -- and he snaps his gaze sideways as water rises on all sides, fur and curving, spit-slick fangs flashing in his vision. The snow-blanketed layer of ice is caving beneath the smilodon too, the lake swallowing them both.

Pain needles into his skin, the muted thrum of moving water flooding his ears. His pulse quickens in his throat. The lake's so scorchingly cold that the muscles in his chest constrict like thick bands of rope, his ribcage viciously clamping around his lungs and triggering a trapped-animal panic. And for a long, terrifying moment, a few seconds that seem to last an eternity, he fights the shock-reflex to hyperventilate, screaming in his own skin. Bursts of fractured light go off in his skull.

He hasn't snuck more than a shallow gasp of a breath in, the beginnings of a dull ache already setting in his lungs -- and amid the manic whirling of his thoughts, a single, fixed idea crystallizes right at the forefront of his mind.

He was going to die.

Before the cold could leach the strength out of his body and kill him the water would, tearing into his starving lungs and drowning out a would-be scream with a pain he still remembered too well, his mouth opening uselessly.

hate to break it to you, kid, but everybody dies

there're worse ways to go

(i ain't goin' anywhere)

Luke angrily squeezes the voice out of his mind, forcing his eyes open and staring into deepening darkness. Air bubbles jet from his nostrils, floating past him the other way – and with a stab of alarm he realizes he's facing the lake floor, straddling the knife-edge between panic and focus as he paddles his arms to reorient himself. Something moves soft and slow in his peripheral vision, drifting away: the water-blurred photo of a family sitting at the porch, relaxed and smiling. Even dad. The last memento he had of a time that had been and would never be again slowly being destroyed.

By the time Luke realizes what he’s looking at, it’s too late. He makes a low, pleading noise in his throat, a different sort of struggling desperation - something child-like and needy - surging through him as he grasps for the token once, twice. It flits teasingly out of reach, displaced water only pushing the photo further from his numbed fingers until all he can do is look on briefly, wrenchingly helpless, as it slips away from him. Following the drowned smilodon to the bottom of the lake.

--out, had to get OUT--

Luke kicks away and swims up and up towards the thick crust of ice walling him off from the surface, eyes darting left and right in search of the hole he fell through. He drives his palms against the ice, a stream of bubbles escaping his lips.

This couldn’t be it.

you're done like dinner, boy

but it’s okay

maybe it’s for the best

maybe it’s better that you won’t have to fight so hard just to end up seeing them all die one by one all over again and knowing it’s on you

Adrenaline screams through him as he feels around for weak spots and hammers his fists again and again with a frustrated, fiercely anxious futility that pushes him to the edge of tears, his lungs burning, too big for his chest like taut, overblown balloons about to burst.
A broken slab shifts out of the way of his fist as it breaks the surface, the ripples scattering other loose chunks of ice– and then his head punches up a half-second afterwards, dark hair plastered over his eyes. There could be a tribute poised to drive a spear through his skull but he wouldn’t know it while he gasps, big, hungry gulps of air, coughing up the water sucking into his throat while his scrabbling hands find the splintered edge of the hole. He latches on with a white-knuckled grip.

The wind slices his wet skin like a knife.

Paddling his feet, he gathers a breath and forces his clumsy, trembling muscles to work under the crippling weight of his water-logged parka and backpack, straining to haul the deadweight of his body up and over the edge with everything he has. He roars through clenched teeth, dragging himself from the hole inch-by-torturous-inch until his soaked-dark boots slide out of the water and the realization that he’s made it sweeps over him in dizzying waves, overwhelming.

He's free.

He flattens bonelessly against the ice, breath shivering in and out of him. There’s some thirty feet of army-crawling to reach the shore - he claws his dripping hair out of his eyes to look, wincing against the wind. He’s spear-less now – and without a fire, he’d be dead in an hour, if that. If nothing got to him first.

He pushes on.

(OOC: I’m open to handwaving Luke having his ass helped along by your character back to shelter mostly because I know he won’t make for very good company while half-frozen, but we can start threads wherever you’d like. He’ll be better able to hold a conversation when he has stabilized – or depending on how badly off we want Luke to be, while he’s suffering from confusion and hypothermia-induced hallucinations and struggling to talk.)

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When the snow had grown heavier, Daryl, Beth, and Rick had relocated their tent to an abandoned, roomy cave and set up camp there. The floor had been lined with pine branches, concentrated underneath the tent to help insulate it from the bitter cold seeping up through layers of rock and frozen soil. The bottom interior of the tent also had cold-buffering layers, in the form of deer skins and goose feathers, with the trio's jumble of sleeping bags and blankets laid out over top of it all. There were several designated places for fires throughout the cave, both for cooking and for heat, and a good supply of dry wood that Daryl had been adding to with every trip he made outside.

It was during one such trip when he'd happened upon an uncomfortably familiar face. Luke, soaked to the bone, half frozen and unable to form coherent words — he'd stammered something about Clem, maybe, Daryl couldn't make sense of it and Clem was nowhere to be seen — and already past the point of being capable of shivering.

The rest had been a blur.

He'd hauled Luke back to his campsite, stripped him out of his wet clothing with some difficulty, dried him off using a spare blanket, stuffed his own dry woolen knit cap down over Luke's head, then had manoeuvred him — wrapped in a dry blanket — into one of the sleeping bags before going to stoke the nearby fire, and arranged Luke's clothing to begin drying. He'd checked on Luke afterward and there had still been a distinct lack of any shivering happening.

Unsure of what else to do, Daryl had simply watched for a while, nudging at him, checking his vitals; his condition hadn't been improving much. Ultimately, and with great reluctance, Daryl had pulled off his boots, undressed down to the light one-piece outfit, and had joined Luke in the sleeping bag, his front to Luke's back, pressed close enough for Luke to benefit from his body heat but without clinging to him.

And this is where Daryl has stayed since. Contemplating his life choices. Wondering what he'll say if Rick or Beth sees them. Trying to suppress the waves of bone-deep discomfort as they come. It's all well beyond his comfort zone, even while keeping the physical contact as impersonal as it can be in a situation such as this. At least Luke's finally regaining some colour, he notes. Breathing more steadily, warming up. Daryl continues checking him over every so often, but otherwise remains still behind him, head tipped back so that he isn't breathing down Luke's neck and making things even more awkward.

This more than makes up for accidentally mangling Luke in the last arena, he reckons.

There's no answer.

She just peels away soaked, clinging layers while he lies unresistingly, looking up into her face with searching, hazy eyes, with faraway eyes, his chest heaving quick and shallow like a dying bird's. Paling skin's stretched taut over his ribs like a shirt shrunken in the wash, goosebumps crowding every inch of it. But he forgets to feel a pang of embarrassment, forgets to shiver as she tends to him. Soft rolls gather under her chin when she dips her head to look back at him, smiling, her eyes tired but patient. He blinks slowly, and for a moment he thinks he sees the shades of someone else's features flickering across her own.

"Mom?" he tries again, almost pleading. She begins brushing him dry, head to toe, willing prickling waves of sensation into half-numb flesh with a vigor and urgency not all lost on him.

‘It's as cold as all get out,’ she says, smiling on like nothing's the matter. Like she's doing something as domestic and ordinary as setting the bed. And suddenly there's something about her -- her nose, maybe, or the curve of her mouth -- that isn't quite as he remembers. ‘Let's get you warm n' dry for school.’

He tries to nod but he's tired, so tired, his strength sucked out of his skin and hair and bones. So he lays quietly a moment, letting her words wash over him and trickle slow into the folds of his brain. She pulls a hat over the damp tangle of his hair, swaddling him in something warm and thick, and he isn't sure when he becomes aware of a vague malaise creeping at the edges of his awareness until it’s more than a hovering presence and it’s in him, under his skin, settling dense in the pit of his stomach.

Something clicks into place, ringing on and on through his head.

"You're... d-d-ead," Luke says slowly, like he's testing the words for the first time, and they just drop from his mouth. Heavy, toneless. Hanging in the air with the weight of a death sentence.

But she doesn’t seem to mind. Or maybe she hadn’t heard at all. Her smile is peaceful, imperturbable. And he watches her face for a long time, aching. A sort of hollow, phantom ache for a part of himself long cut out of him.

“Y-you’re--” His gaze falls on the crater-like wounds hungrily gouged out of her neck and shoulder for what feels like the first time, staring helplessly at the maggots wriggling in her flesh - had they always been there? - before he blinks and looks back up into her eyes and sees Daryl.

But then he disappears too.

* * *

Luke doesn't wake up.

That’d have meant he had fallen asleep first. But something or someone won’t let him. Always nudging him back into half-consciousness whenever he begins to backslide.

She comes back every now and again. Sometimes bitten and drenched in blood and sometimes not, sometimes with maggots and sometimes without, but always strangely serene. It's hard to look at. Worse than the darker corners of wherever-he-is where Carver waits for him now, his wry, knowing half-grin made savage by his broken jaw and dripping, bloodied teeth. The upper half of his face is collapsed.

Luke realizes that he’s shivering and that his hands and feet hurt so bad as if all the little bones have been crushed under a sledgehammer. Carver seems grimly satisfied.

‘What did I tell you? Lambs to the slaughter, Luke.’ Carver rasps out, wheezing out a laugh. He doesn’t just invite staring – he relishes it. ‘Tell me this -- how can you keep them safe when you can’t even take care of yourself?’

Luke closes his eyes, shutting him out, weathering it out. Time slipping away from him again. When he wills them open what could be an hour or a minute later, everyone’s gone. The tent's walls gradually come into focus, the domed ceiling. He stares for a long time, grasping for understanding while it all seems to slide out of his still-thawing brain like water through a sieve.

“C-C...lem?” Luke stirs sluggishly. There’s a slippery-swish of a noise and he looks down, finding himself bundled up and zipped into a sleeping bag. There’s something else, too. Someone pressed to his back. He strugglingly turns to look over his shoulder, his elbow grazing something smooth and warm and Jane's name on his lips. But she's not there -- and he's left staring, trembling and dumb with exhaustion, a slow-dawning recognition showing in his eyes. They light up with muted surprise.

Edited 2015-02-14 05:50 (UTC)

Eventually the unpleasant tingling, stinging of Daryl's nerves abates into something closer to tolerable, a sort of low level buzz of discomfort. He's stretched out an arm to cushion his head and just does his best not to focus on their physical proximity to each other. It's made marginally easier by Luke facing away and being incapacitated, apart from those occasional bouts of whatever the hell they are — hallucinations, possibly, judging by his mumbling and strange, thousand-yard stare. The shivering's a good sign, though; he's coming out the other side of it.

Daryl has purposely refrained from massaging any of Luke's limbs to encourage blood flow, because of an old lesson in survival courtesy of his late uncle, Jess: it tends to do more harm than good, with hypothermia, and can be potentially fatal. Something about the veins opening up too quickly, putting strain on the heart. He hadn't saved Luke just to kill him through ignorance.

Then Luke's moving again, the motion seemingly with more purpose than his previous twitching, but as Daryl meets his look with raised eyebrows, he's still prepared to retreat out of the way if it turns out to be another round of tripping balls. But there's comprehension, his eyes more focused than they have been at any point prior to this. Maybe he's ready to explain why he'd decided to go for a swim in freezing temperatures.

"Didn't even buy me dinner first," Daryl deadpans.

Pain has more of a presence now, possessive and squeezing mercilessly around his brain, letting little else slip into his awareness. The joke doesn’t fly over Luke’s head, at least. But it takes a while to penetrate the thick fog blurring his senses. He’s too confused for awkwardness or amusement, too lost trying to figure out whether or not the man beside him is just another trick of the mind, some creation pieced together from unresolved emotions and odds and ends of memories.

His brow knits with the effort.

Then, after a long moment, he makes the decision to roll onto his back, freeing his arm from the rustling sleeping bag. An equally slow process like emerging from a cocoon and adjusting to a strange, new body. He turns his head. Blinking, considering Daryl. Carver hadn’t been within reach of him and neither had mom, not when he had the strength in him to try. But now it’s different. Now he's reaching for Daryl's shoulder with careful, unsure fingers like he hasn't known human touch for hundreds of years, his arm so heavy. Shaking.

The behaviour calls into question just how far along in his recovery Luke actually is. But after shifting to accommodate the change of position, Daryl settles back into watchful stillness, his already less than thrilled expression working its way toward annoyance as he follows the approach of Luke's hand with his eyes, in the manner of someone anticipating a snake strike. Except he allows Luke's hand to make contact with his very solid, non-hallucinatory and now tense shoulder.

This ain't a petting zoo, he wants to say, but bites back the comment. Considering the ordeal Luke's been through, he can be spared a little leniency while he thaws a bit more and gets himself situated.

Beneath the annoyance, there's the genuine concern that had prompted Daryl to take action in the first place, which is expressed in his look of questioning uncertainty when his eyes return to Luke's face. Conversation will have to wait until he's able to scrape together a few thoughts and participate. In the interim, Daryl figures he ought to stay where he is for a while longer, to be sure his efforts haven't been for naught.

Luke half-expects his hand to pass through empty air. Though with his touch still so cautious, almost tender in a clumsy way, it’s like he expects Daryl to crumble away instead. With all the little bones in his fingers throbbing so fiercely he barely feels him at all. But it’s dense flesh and bone behind his fingertips, he knows that much. Warmth too.

He draws his hand back, left with more questions than answers as his gaze climbs the tent’s walls again and he puzzle over holes in his memory with that same sort of obsessive curiosity like poking at the sore pocket of a yanked tooth with his tongue. It takes him a while to realize he’s fully naked under the bag and longer yet to understand why.

“Wh… where’s… ev-everyo-one?” Luke chokes out, eyes shiny in an almost feverish way as he searches Daryl's face with fearful, clinging desperation for an answer - the barest hint of one - he both is and isn't ready for.

Don't say dead.

Please don't.

Daryl's grateful when the investigative touch doesn't linger any longer than necessary, and it saves him from having to force an end to it. Things are awkward and strained enough without throwing unneeded physical contact into the mix. "Around," he replies, a vague answer for a vague question.

Rick and Beth are, at any rate. Possibly gone to gather more branches or water, or maybe even checking on some of his snares that he'd been teaching them both about. Neither of them are quite at the same level as he is as far as tracking and hunting go, but they're actively improving, and it's important they keep learning and honing those skills — just in case. There's no guarantees in a place like this, and he might not always be around. Plus they're damned useful tools to have in one's survival arsenal, especially back in their own world where it's the difference between making it and starvation, all too frequently.

But he isn't dense and doesn't care for bullshitting right now; he has a good idea of who Luke is actually inquiring about, and that isn't Rick or Beth. His sigh is little more than a soft exhale, barely audible even in the wintry silence surrounding them, probably more felt than heard.

"Haven't seen any'a yours," he admits quietly. "Found you near a lake, mostly drowned and well on your way to freezin' to death. You said Clem's name." Or the closest approximation of it that constricted lungs, frozen lips could agonisingly choke out; he still isn't entirely sure what that message had been. "Mumblin' about her. Only tracks around were yours and a big cat's." So he was certain Clem hadn't been anywhere near the lake when Luke had gone for his swim, at least not on that side. It may not be a comforting answer, but it's all he can provide as far as Luke's own group is concerned.

"... When's the last time you saw 'em?"

What had Luke been doing on his own so far from his group, anyway?

He doesn’t know what to say for a while. But he doesn’t have to. His face says enough as he works through parsing the answer he's given, hope draining from him a little - a slow bleeding out - with Daryl’s uncertainty. It’s a softer fall, a shorter drop than it could be. But all the unresolved tension forms a lump that settles cold and heavy in his gut all the same. He blinks back at Daryl, silence stretching on as if he’s expecting a different answer. But he knows this is all he gets. Sometimes – more often than not these days - the truth just isn’t good enough. Yet it is what it is and all he can do now is force himself to rest and regain as much of his strength as he could to forge back to camp and start his search there.

A chance he has only because of Daryl.

His expression grows solemn with quiet acceptance, with a sense of purpose.

“…wa-was out hu-untin’ with Ja-ane…” He begins after a while, fighting to talk through herky-jerky, sob-like breaths that threaten to break his words apart into unintelligible sounds. It’s a frustrating effort he refuses to give up. “Got sepa-parated, an’ one a’ th-them tigers came a-at me out-outta nowhere. Ch-cha-chased me a wh-ile an’, an’ I cou-could-uldn’t lose it. Didn’t s-see the lake… was co-covered in, in s-now… an’ then next th-thing I knew, I-I was under.”

He pauses, squeezing his aching hands into his armpits as if it might take the edge off the pain. Then he closes his eyes a moment, jaw rattling.

“You by...by yours-ss-elf?”

Edited 2015-02-18 02:16 (UTC)

He's frequently witnessed that dimming of light in someone's eyes as their hope unfurls and slips away like so much smoke, yet hasn't become inured to the sight, each repetition as sorry as the last. It feels vulgar, somehow, watching it like this, closer than he ever thought he'd be (or ever cared to be), with the vibrations from Luke's shivering felt where their bodies are still in contact. But he's reluctant to look away, and wonders if there will come a time when guilt doesn't colour his interaction with Luke. At least this time around Luke's blood isn't painting the floor, and Daryl's is quiet in his veins.

That means Jane may still be out there searching for Luke, unaware of what's happened to him. If she's lucky, she won't draw the attention of any other tigers or Tributes of questionable integrity, and if she's not...

"Rick an' Beth are close by. This's their camp, too. We've been together from the start."

Once either or both of them return, he may consider trekking out a ways to look for Jane or any others from Luke's group, just in case. It will also depend on the rate of Luke's recovery, and whether he's well enough to make it on his own relatively soon — but either way, Daryl intends to offer to accompany him back to his own camp when that time comes.

Reaching for another one of the unused blankets, he tugs it free and pulls it down into the sleeping bag they're both currently occupying, doing his best to tuck it tightly around Luke's body over top of the original blanket he's wrapped in. With the tent zipped shut against the frigid air blowing into the cave, a fire nearby, all the layers separating them from the ground, and of course Daryl himself, he thinks Luke's pretty well insulated. After a while longer of watching, feeling him convulsively shivering with an almost worrying intensity, Daryl sets his jaw and tentatively drapes an arm across Luke's chest, awkwardly pulling him in just a little closer. His voice is low, almost toneless in the way that whispers are when he mutters, "Might've been kinder to let you die out there."

Now he'll undoubtedly face a more gruesome end. The Gamemakers don't seem to appreciate it when their play things survive this well.

He nods dimly, tired. Lets Daryl maneuver a second blanket around him, the unyielding press of Daryl’s body against his and his arm stiff against his chest creeping into his awareness. And though touch and heat are muted through thick layers of fabric, he has enough presence of mind for some remote part of his brain to recognize, in a dull flicker of a thought, that this is the closest someone has lain with him in a long time. The blood churning thick and sluggish in his veins quickens slightly. Or maybe it’s been that way for a while. Luke can’t tell.

They come to him, bits and pieces of memories like pages torn out from different chapters of his life, fuzzy at the edges. He doesn’t fight them back. They’d find a way through anyway. They always do.

Laughing against someone’s skin, his own tingling with eager heat. Sheets tangled around their bodies and half-lidded eyes gazing back into his, full of quiet expectation. Ducking his head and kissing the places where the bones pressed closest to the skin, kissing ribs and the hollows between them with a gentle, carefully controlled hunger and all the time in the world, all teeth and tongue, and tasting the tang of sweat on someone’s skin. Breathing in the spice of someone’s skin.

Luke closes his eyes.

The sense-memories slither through his grasping fingers and scatter, gone too soon. It becomes easier to forget them when Daryl whispers to him and the words slowly penetrate, leaving him feeling hollower and colder than before.

“'S'that what you’d t-t-ell some… one else?" He asks lowly. The beginnings of anger seethes in his belly, his breaths coming in those short, hiccuping heaves that makes talking a struggle. "The pe-people y-you trust, tha-at you care ab-bout?”

He stares dull-eyed at the tent wall for a long time, quiet, while his head cools and the haze clears and he remembers, always remembers, that it was a choice on Daryl's part that allowed him be here. That allowed him to have this conversation in the first place. Maybes were irrelevant. Maybes didn't change a thing, even if some hurt to think about.

Maybe some things were better left unquestioned.

"Kno-ow you coulda, coulda left me j-jus' like that... b-but y'didn't." He muses aloud, words rattling in his throat. "M'still h-here. N-ever gave up. An' I su-ure as hell ain't g-gon-gonna quit now."

Daryl's mostly unmoved by the display of anger, knowing it stems from a misinterpretation of his words, of his intent. It isn't that he regrets what he's done to help Luke survive, he regrets that it's more than likely made their sick captors all the more determined to kill him. Realistically, probably both of them. He's seen enough footage from past arenas to know this isn't an unfounded concern. Should he be glad to condemn Luke to that manner of cruelty? If it comes to pass, he'd be indirectly responsible for it now.

And he nearly poses the question to Luke, but there's really no point in pursuing that line of thought or conversation and putting them even more at odds with each other. It's not so unlike when he'd tried to apologise to Nick, and the way Nick had seemed determined to take his words in the worst ways possible. But Daryl has a hard time blaming either of them, when he's all too aware of the way his own failings and inability to relate to people tends to cause these disputes. That, and the fact neither of them possess any real understanding of him or the way he thinks, and they never will, if he doesn't let them.

"I'd say the same to anyone," he readily affirms, voice still pitched low and quiet. He's closed his eyes in exasperation by this point, and remains that way, because it makes everything else about this situation marginally easier to handle. "Don't regret doin' what I've done. But you might be made to, later on, by the people who trapped us here." He deliberately tightens the arm he's kept across Luke's chest, hand gripping his shoulder, a gesture that comes suspiciously close to being friendly as he seeks to diffuse that misguided anger the rest the way. It's doing them no favours, and is just wearing on Daryl's already limited patience. If Luke wants to be a jackass, he can do it all he likes when he's back with his own group, but not here.

"So you know," he continues, attempting levity, "I'll be pissed if you go an' die on me after all this trouble I've gone to, keepin' you alive. You still owe me a damn fine dinner too. You remember that."

He may or may not even intend to collect on that one day, but that can be for Luke to worry about.

Anger’s never worth holding onto for long. It’s a parasitic emotion that can stealthily suck the life out of someone if they let it and that has taken its share out of him the nights he had spent locked away in the pen, cold and desperately hungry, bruised more often than not for mistaking Carver’s rule for a democracy. And as he lies here with Daryl, jaw tight in a challenge to no one in particular and his thoughts churning slow, he recognizes that he hasn’t the energy to keep it alive. Less of a reason to after Daryl’s answer sinks in word by word. His frown softens, unseen. And there’s the suggestion of an unspoken apology, maybe, in the way something uncoils inside him, a careful release of tension, his shoulder finally relaxing in Daryl’s grip. The rest of his body follows in helpless, tired surrender, his pulse slowing in his throat.

“The-they’re gonna t-try anyway...” He manages after too long. His voice is low, frayed at the edges. “‘cause… folks li-like th-em, they don’ need a rea-reason. An’ if-f that’s the c-cost a’ sur-survivin’… gu-guess it, it ain’t t-t-too different than wh-what it’s been like for the l-la-ast couple years.”

He remembers the xenomutt, half-insectoid half-reptilian and all ruthless, calculating predator, tearing into a screaming Nick and he squeezes his eyes shut as if it’d help to force the image out of the corners of his mind.

“F-for any of us.”

The pain never stops coming. And it just buries them under, buries them alive, weighing heavier and heavier until something gives, a little or a lot. And though what cracks might learn to heal in time around the right people, the echoes of grief once so fresh and raw, that ache is always there, lingering. Like a bone that never knit together quite right. That’s the price of staying alive, because good things don’t come freely.

His anger’s long gone by the time he feels that sinewy arm pull tighter around him, clutching blankets closer to his chest, and for a moment his body half-expects something to follow. Pain or tenderness, he doesn’t know which, doesn’t know why. But he waits and waits, long enough for his anxious, prickling nerves to go quiet and waves of sleepiness to push and pull at him more compellingly, willing his eyes to close.

“...yeah.” He murmurs low in his throat.

The skill for knowing a joke when he hears one demands a certain level of mental alertness that’s not all there and wouldn’t be for a while. But maybe, after he woke up--

Daryl may be an apocalypse survivor like the rest of them, but the similarities more or less cease there as far as he's aware. He'd not had much of a childhood to speak of, the concerns and responsibilities of adulthood thrust onto him before he'd even reached Clementine's age. No carefree summers spent with friends, no prom nights leading to backseat romances, no partying his way through college, and strangers had treated him better than his own blood did. Friendship, acceptance, love in any form, even feeling safe — luxuries he was never really given or able to afford before the apocalypse.

For the other survivors, as best he can tell, they've endured a couple years of living like this. For him, it's been over three decades of existing in this sorry state, and yet he has it in him to extend selfless kindness to someone he barely knows, to risk his own life to save theirs. Someone who was remarkably quick to assume the worst about his words and work himself into self righteous anger over them.

In that moment, it feels so absurd he could almost laugh. He doesn't, but his tone hints at all those things left unspoken when he says, "Always been this way, for some'a us." But he doesn't feel sorry for himself; even self-pity is an impractical luxury at this point, and a waste of time besides. It won't change anything for the better.

From an outsider's perspective, he might appear to be comfortably asleep — carefully pressed against Luke with an arm slung across him, eyes closed, expression untroubled — but it's far from the truth. His nerves are still alive with persistent discomfort, his ears trained for the faintest noise that might signal potential trouble heading their way. And Luke's breathing, which he doesn't like the sounds of at the moment. He's mindful of Luke's exhaustion, had felt the tension draining from his body, but purposely, insistently jostles him with a knee, knowing he can't be allowed to slip into unconsciousness just yet.

"Hey. Stay with me. S'for your own good."

His prior terseness hadn't exactly encouraged the conversation to continue, he realises, and silence won't be helping Luke stay awake. Better to keep his mind engaged in some way. The question is how.

"Tell me somethin'," he suggests. "Don't matter what. A memory. Whatever." Just talk.

Some have been hurting and bleeding away for a long time. He doesn’t doubt it. Life has always been cruel and unfair in ways, hardships never dealt in equal in measure. And while he knows there’s no good in comparing the pain of others he finds himself doing it anyway, sometimes. And it’s why he aches so deeply for Clem. Why Daryl’s comment silences him.

Luke can’t help but feel a line’s being drawn in the sand. But he understands. They’re little more than strangers bound by what might only be a single common experience, the shared misfortune of being haunted by the dead. And while he has some idea of what Daryl’s capable of, in ways good and bad, and a vague sense, he thinks, of the life he lead before the world’s end from nuances in body language and the telling choice of words colouring their exchanges, there’s much that remains unknown. He had an ally in Daryl and he’ll take that gladly. And if this is all he’d come to learn about him, he’d be fine with that. That’s just the way it is. Everyone takes what they can get and they make do.

Luke settles into solemn silence more comfortably than he expects after a while, fading – and he'd slip away if Daryl hadn’t other plans for him. A nudge brings him back and he blinks, dimly startled, reminded of what he’d be if he doesn’t make ever effort to keep awake.

What’s he to talk about?

He thinks of the crushing pressure in his lungs while being slowly starved of air, aching for breath with every fibre of his being, needing it more than he had ever needed anything in his life. Thinks of how his mind had raced in circles like a rat in a heated cage, clawing at his skull from the inside. And about the visceral loneliness while drifting through that emptiness so far away from anything and everything he cared for, a black hole of a place that sucked up every sound, every last little whimper of a scream trapped in his throat, and sucked the photo from his grasping fingers, trying to take his hope with it. It had just been him and fear down in the deep. Nothing else could exist.

His mouth twists and for a moment there’s a hot, tickling sting at the corners of his eyes. He just blinks and blinks until it’s gone.

“I d-don’ know.” Luke says. He stares unfocusedly at the tent wall, more aware than he's ever been of the goosebumps beading his skin and of lying in another cave, at his weakest, with someone he doesn’t know well. His voice is firmer, flatter. Almost stern. "S’gon’ be f-fine."

Edited 2015-03-05 04:45 (UTC)

It hadn't been fully intentional, constructing this additional layer of disparity between them with his vague comment about his life. Nor had he meant to disregard or belittle the trials Luke's been through himself. Had he really come across that abrasively? Probably so, judging by Luke's present reluctance to talk. Other people made it seem so effortless — opening up and sharing shit about themselves, their experiences, without simultaneously shutting down the conversation in the process. It's an art he has little hope of mastering at this rate.

"You best keep yourself awake, then."

As cushioned and insulated as the tent floor is, the stiff ache in his back is becoming hard to ignore — a combination of the earlier exertion in getting Luke back here, not letting himself get enough sleep, and old injuries exacerbated by the cold weather. He takes due care in disentangling himself from Luke and slipping out of the sleeping bag, rezipping it shut afterward to keep the accumulated heat trapped within. Now with enough space to stretch in, he rolls his shoulders and arches his back to pop the vertebrae back into alignment as best he can.

It's well past time to check on things outside, anyway.

After ensuring the tent flap is fully closed behind him, the immediate area beyond the cave is given a thorough scan, the waning fire tended to, then lastly Luke's damp clothes get some attention, and he isn't pleased to discover that there's still ice in some of the crevices. He does what he can to break it up and scrape it off, and repositions the clothing around the fire to continue thawing. Some sort of clothing line would be even better, but the closest he has to one is already heavy with meat and skins strung across it.

"Better not be noddin' off in there," he calls over his shoulder as he works with the fire, using makeshift cookware to warm some of the venison stew they've managed to toss together. It lacks any real seasoning aside from what the meat itself and miscellaneous plants can provide, but it's pretty good — in his opinion. Most importantly, it's hot and filling and high in protein, which is exactly what Luke could use right now, even if all he can handle is the broth.

Stew in hand, having been poured into one of the repurposed sponsor gift containers, Daryl returns to the tent and settles cross-legged on the sleeping bagged-and-blanketed spot beside Luke, and looks at him expectantly. "Wanna eat?"

There’s shuffling and rustling and zipping, the hungry sputter-snap of the fire. He stops listening for movement beyond the tent walls after a while and closes his eyes again, the thoughts hiving in his mind slowing until they settle like a heavy layer of dust. No use pushing himself to plan what comes after he’s in better shape to haul on his clothes and step back out into the snow. The effort to focus hurts and he hates that it does, a dull, aching sort of thing somewhere between a headache and that feeling of being tired to his skin and hair and bones, that devastating, wasted level of tiredness that tugs the body and brain in crazy directions and brings someone close to crying or throwing up. But either one takes too much energy. He thinks he’d laugh at the irony if he could but he lies there instead, soaking heat into his bones and trying to be good.

It’s not easy being a liability. No one wants to be.

He smells Daryl coming before he hears him. Catches a whiff of something fresh and gamey that wakes his senses and he rolls over to have a look, staring at the container with glazed-eyed wonder. He blinks, nodding faintly. He wants to live. Nothing’s changed.

“Th… thank you.”

He rises up on an elbow, shakily determined like a newborn foal. There’s little freedom to move while cocooned in a sleeping bag and he fumbles around for the zipper, yanking it down partway before planting his hand down and pushing to sit himself up against the warm weight of the blankets. It’s a battle – and he’s self-aware enough at this point to feel a stab of embarrassment over something that had once been so easy. Sides heaving, he keeps his eyes down, giving himself a moment before trying again.

Edited 2015-03-11 01:37 (UTC)

There's undisguised surprise in Daryl's face at being thanked, just as there often is whenever he's shown genuine gratitude or kindness in any form, as though it's never expected. Because it isn't. And he experiences maybe the smallest pang of regret over how he's consistently distanced himself, intentionally and not, during every prior encounter with Luke, when it could have gone differently between them — better. Possibly to the point where he could've been out there with Luke and Jane, maybe could've prevented things from going south so badly. Who knows.

Luke isn't a bad guy, and in another life would probably be just the sort of person Daryl might seek out and enjoy having the company of. But in this one, all he can do is watch with a sort of patient indifference as Luke struggles, before it occurs to him that offering help beyond what's strictly necessary to keep Luke alive might actually be appreciated. That it's probably okay to be kind, especially right now.

And so he is, moving closer and sliding an arm around Luke's shoulders to take some of his weight. "Your clothes are still half frozen," he mutters, and passes the container of stew to Luke to free up his hands. Gripping underneath one of his arms, Daryl helps him up into as close to a sitting position as he can manage, and remains there in case he's needed. The physical contact is neither rough nor impatient, but it is kept impersonal.

"Deer they got here prob'ly ain't even real deer. But they taste fine enough." As do the fish, geese, and other miscellaneous critters they've managed to catch and snare so far, at least in Daryl's opinion. Admittedly he'd eat them regardless of their flavour, but it's a weight off his mind knowing Beth and Rick can both stomach the fare as well without complaints or sickness. He figures this means Luke should do alright too.

For a moment, on that weary-worn face, is the look of a kid who doesn't know what do with a gift they've been given when it's pushed into their hands without expectations attached, no guile or games. A look Luke thinks he's unmeant to see. He doesn't know what to do with it any more than Daryl seems to know what to do with his gratitude and he feels a knife-twist of pity, lowering his eyes and using the offering of food as an excuse to pretend that he didn’t notice. He gets the feeling he might not be the only one.

He pokes his arms out between the blankets half-sliding, half-hanging shapelessly off his shoulders, reaching for the container and gripping it hard to compensate for the tremor running through his frost-nipped hands. Then Daryl saves him from his futile struggling and helps him up – and he lets him like he has before, resigned to his weakness, but not unthankful. His head sags heavy when he wills himself to nod, a barely-there, breathless sort of nod while he closes his eyes against a wave of dizziness. But he manages to stay up. And when he’s ready, he brings a corner of the trembling container to his mouth, sipping carefully at the dark, steaming broth and the bubbles of fat shining at the surface.

Daryl’s probably right. Maybe none of the geese or fish or deer out there, none of the things they’ve roasted over the fire, are real. Maybe they're nothing but living bundles of code programmed to act and think and taste like they’re expected to. But, God, it’s hard to think of it that way, to think of anything, when the broth’s hot and so good, mindlessly good in the way nothing out of a can or wrapper could ever hope to be. He makes a low, needy noise in his throat as he tips the container back, a few drops escaping him and dribbling onto his chin, his neck. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters until he’s drained all the broth and he pauses to breathe, blinking down at the container cradled in his hands like he’s noticing it for the first time. He stares a while at the chunks of meat left and licks his lips like a dog hunting for extra scraps, wiping at his face a little sheepishly with the back of one hand.

He glances sideways at Daryl.

“…you gon’… gonna eat?”

That Luke doesn't resist the offered help is counted as a small mercy, because Daryl isn't in the mood to force aid on somebody who doesn't want it. That's a level of unnecessary inconvenience he isn't prepared to deal with. Once Luke seems to have the dining situation handled pretty well on his own, he retreats back to where he'd been and resettles himself, trying not to watch — because frankly that's just weird — but also mildly concerned about the likelihood of spilling or choking, with the way Luke's going at it.

But Daryl's the last person who's going to criticise others' eating habits, even if he'll be the one having to clean up the resultant mess.

Having never felt the pressing need to fill silences with inutile conversation, the sounds of eating are enough for him, so he busies himself with cutting off thin strips from a small length of animal hide he'd retrieved during his trek outside. No such thing as idleness in the wilderness; they all have jobs to do, as Hershel and now his youngest would say. He's content to work in quiet, his gestures smooth with the ease of long practise.

At the stammered question he glances up, hands stilling, and despite himself those few spilled drops are inevitably noticed, the dark, watery trails left in their wake standing out starkly against Luke's present pallor. The memory comes unbidden, one he'd rather hoped to have buried and squared away by this point, and with effort he looks away, dropping his gaze back to his hands. Guilt has been mitigated by the passage of time, but the visceral sense-memory of violence remains too vivid for his liking. It has no place between them now.

"Gonna eat later," he answers, tone just this side of gruff, but not before the pause has become a bit awkward. Gradually he resumes his knifework, trying not to pay any mind to the way the tent walls feel as though they're closing in. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears is distracting. "Want seconds? There's more'n we can eat, you're welcome to it. Hunting's been good here."

For neither the first time or the last, he’s sure, Luke’s left hanging a moment, watching shades of memories flit across Daryl’s face and wondering what those eyes are seeing for the long stretch of time that they linger on him before Daryl dips his head and busies himself again, absorbed in his handiwork.

“Yeah. Sure has been.” But for how long? Luke looks down too after a while, plucking a leftover chunk of meat and chewing on it thoughtfully, lips and chin greased with deer fat before long. He’d have thought stress and shock would have done a number on his appetite – but he underestimated his body’s will to survive. “Look, I-I know we g-got off on… on the wrong f-foot b-back in that s—space station, but… th-that’s in…n the past n-n-ow.”

He pauses, leveling Daryl an expectant, patiently determined look for a beat before deciding he doesn’t need to wait for an answer. “If we…we’re gon’ sur-survive this s’long’s w-we can, then our people n-need to lo-ok out for each, each other. ‘c-cause if we don’, no one else will.”

His voice drops, low and intimate, a conspiratorial whisper. “W-we’re all we got… an’ th-there’s only so mu-uch them spons-s-ors can do to help, even if, if you co-cozy up to them. So if, if you n-need anythin’, you… you an’ your people are, are welcome t-t-to come by an’, n’ join us. So-ort yourselves out.”

There’s power in numbers; something the Capitol no doubt understood when assigning them to separate districts, dividing them. He refuses to believe in coincidences.

“W-we can... we can make it work, if, f'we’re all in it to-to-together.”

"Luke?! LUKE!"

Clementine see's him. Luke had left her and Nick a while ago, too long ago for either of them to feel comfortable sitting and waiting for him to come back on his own. There was too much trouble out there for him to run into that could end up costing his life. She didn't want to have to wait until the night to find out if her friend would be among the list of fallen for the day.

She runs ahead of Nick at first, ploughing her way through the deep snow despite her small size. Clementine's determined to help him. From what she can tell -- broken ice and Luke crawling -- he must have fallen through into the lake and given how cold it was now... if they didn't hurry he'd get hypothermia! If he did then Clementine didn't know anything they could do would be enough to keep him alive.

"Hang on!"

Reaching the edge of the ice she comes to a halt, bites her lip and starts to take a step out towards Luke.

Funny how much farther away the lake’s edge seems to be the farther he crawls.

On and on it goes and he chases after it helplessly, pulling himself towards the shore from under his pack and smothering layers of fabric fast on their way to freezing stiff, his body shaking with that dazed, aching exhaustion not unlike what came after being beaten half to death. A feeling he’s come to know well.

He looks up, squinting through wind-stung eyes. Smooth snow dunes stretch as far as he can see, an eerie stillness hanging heavy in the air. No life out there, it seems. But he knows that can’t be true.

He blinks slowly, huffing, his eyelids drooping heavy. And then he lies flat, breathing. His heart thuds rabbit-like in his chest, a faraway feeling. Just a little while, he tells himself. Just a second. The ice singes his cheek and he closes his eyes, eyelashes sticking, thawing, a thin, soft dusting of snow steadily gathering over his backpack. Lying like this, he can almost feel the life bubbling in his throat - life so desperately hard-won - begin to slip away from him. Trickling drop by drop without struggle. And what scares him the most is not that it is, but that it doesn’t bother him half as much as it should.

That’s when he hears her.

She could have said anything because it’s her voice itself that shakes him, so urgent and small and afraid. So much closer than he expects. And when he lifts his head, blinking against the daze settling over him, she’s there at the shore, alive and very real -- and edging towards him. Panic tears through him in waves and his eyes snap open wider, glassy and sharp, lips peeling back into a grimace.

He's seen this before.

He knows what a disaster waiting to happen looks like.

“No –- S-STOP!”

A sudden image of her crashing through the ice flashes through his mind. Water churning around her thrashing arms, her mouth open in a soundless scream.

“S-st-tay back!” He looks down to his throbbing, mittened hands and back to her, lips parted, his throat just bobbing helplessly around an anxious plea written all over his face. “I’ll c-come to you, jus’… jus’ gimme a m-m-minute!”

With renewed purpose, he sets his teeth and fights his way closer, inching along on his forearms.

Edited 2015-02-18 04:17 (UTC)

Everything up until now had been somewhat bearable by their standards. For every time one of them steps out of the caves to scavenge, there's always that gripping tug in Nick's flesh that it could be the last time they'd see each other in the arena. His calls for Clementine to stay close seem to fall on deaf ears, but he finds himself speeding up to catch up to her anyway, because that's how he knows something bad just happened. And he doesn't even have time to envision the worst as he approaches the the lake.
It's already happening. "Oh, fuck. Luke!"

He also takes the first step on the lake before looking down. Fuck, he can barely tell if it's even safe enough to cross. Fighting off every instinct to think that it'd be easy to just run and grab Luke to safety, he holds his hand out in front of Clementine to keep her from going. Luke's not the only one he wants to keep safe. "Clem, don't!"

He wants to go. Hell, he'd rather switch places with Luke if he could. A part of him even wants Clem to go and help, knowing that she's the lightest of them. But the risk is still there and he can't lose them both. It hits them then that it could be Luke's turn to die this time. Maybe the Gamemakers want to see how the other friends would react after what happened before. They could just make the ground crumble under them and they all fall.

There's gotta be something... he wants to say, but remains helplessly silent instead. Any movement he'd make would make him give into the urge to run over and risk killing them both. Helplessly silent...like when he watched Bill pummel Luke to the ground and Nick couldn't do a damn thing to stop him. The memory has him tighten his grip on Clem's shoulder, with their parkas probably making it feel like less of a squeeze than it actually is. He's holding himself back as much as he's doing the same to her.

"We need to help him!" Clementine protests, though stops at the press of Nick's hand on her shoulder. Despite that, every inch of her is straining to go out onto the ice and help pull Luke to safety. She's lighter than all of them and if anyone could do that it would be her.

The ice though, it looks thick but it broke under Luke, who knew if it would break again. That's why he tells her to stop, the reason that Nick stops her but even though she's scared of falling in herself all Clem can think about it how horrible it would be to watch Luke fall through too.

"We need to... there's got to be something we can do! We need to get a... a stick! Something!" she turns her eyes up pleadingly at Nick, then back out to Luke on the ice, who seems so very far away.

A gust of wind swipes at his face and swallows up the sound of Nick and Clem’s raised voices. But he doesn’t need to be able to pick out the words to know they’re radiating the same fear that’s hiving in his belly while they look on, taut-faced and helpless, something in them waiting to snap.

He blinks away the tears pricking his eyes and keeps the two of them in focus as he works his way across agonizingly slowly, placing one arm in front of the other, one, two, one --

The ice suddenly gives under his elbow and he lurches sideways, far enough for his chin to brush the ice, a bolt of queasy, balls-clenching terror ripping through him. The jagged edge of the hole snags on the sleeve of his parka, tearing at it as he draws his dripping arm out. It's aching fiercely. He snaps his head up to fix Nick and Clem a helpless, despairing look, panting -- and for a moment he's sure to his bones that if tears his eyes from her for just a second, if Clem isn't in his direct line of sight, she'd take a step. She'd creep forward in the hopes of meeting him halfway and she'd splash and flail and --

Luke needs a moment to find his voice. To untangle it from around his heart lodged in his throat, pulsing frantically like a bird crushed in someone's fist. The smallest mewling noise escapes him, a useless plea, his chest heaving shallowly as his gaze sucks into the hole in the ice and climbs the cracks that seem to spider closer and closer towards him the longer he looks. He squeezes his eyes shut a moment, fighting to gather his thoughts and chasing them around like hundreds of papers wildly blown around in the wind. When he opens them again, Clem's still there.

Still alive.

His gaze sharpens with purpose. He shakes his head, jaw set, willing himself to focus.

"M' fine...!" He calls out haltingly, a dotted line of sweat beading his forehead. Something tickles his throat - spit, maybe, or a bit of the water that had rushed eagerly into his mouth when he had surfaced - and his next attempt to talk dissolves into a short coughing fit. He tries again, his voice strained with the effort of shouting into the wind.

"M'fine, I jus'... j-jus' put more w-weight on th-is part than, than I sh-should've."

Almost there.

He carefully edges around the hole, grunting through his teeth as he drags himself along, needing Nick and Clem's grounding presence at the edge. Needing them more than they'd ever know while the crickle-crackling of ice beneath his chest and elbows nearly locks every quivering, overworked muscle in his body. His insides twist into a knot that pulls tighter and tighter as he counts the seconds that crawl by. Just waiting on edge for that snap he'd feel to the pit of his stomach before it dropped and the rest of him would follow. The ice creaks and groans like a rickety bridge as he pulls himself closer and closer to safety, sucking in desperate, wheezing breaths. But it holds. And suddenly his reaching, pawing hands sink into the powdery fluff of fresh snow, brushing Nick's boot.

He made it, thank fuck. He made it. Exhaustion crashes into him, a heavy, roaring wave that pulls him under and sucks the giddy relief and tingly adrenaline jitters right out of him. He slumps into the ground, his sides heaving. No strength to turn over and get his face out of the snow.

"...was with, with J-Jane, she's..." He chokes out between shivers and burning lungfuls of air, closing his eyes. "s-still out there."

There was no time to look for Jane, not with the state Luke was in. They had to go with the assumption that she knew how to take care of herself. They all know how to get back to their hideout. Panic nearly settle in when he came to the realization that the three of them were vulnerable to be picked off by somebody else. All the energy he would've used on panicking focused primarily on carrying Luke back to the cave as quickly as he could. Fear of possibly losing them both in one fell swoop helped him ignore his own tired body as he carried Luke back to the cave.

They're safe from the harsh winds in here, but if Nick's own rapid heartbeat is saying anything to him, it's that it's not over yet. "Y-you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine, man." He says while looking at Luke, hoping that the latter is listening to him as he gently eases him down by their campfire. Though it was mostly said for Nick's own peace of mind, the good it's actually doing. Even as he does his best to avoid assuming the worst, his eyes still ask for some sort of reassurance. Tell me you're gonna be fine.

"Fuck, fuck. He's gonna freeze to death if we don't hurry." With no time to wait for a response, he immediately goes to their supply stash, jittery hands pulling out blankets and whatever else that's dry. "Clem, keep him talkin'!"

Clementine does her best to help with carrying Luke, though she's small and Nick ends up taking the brunt of his weight of course. She runs ahead at points, checking the coast is clear before darting back to help. It's tiring for her in this deep snow but she's not about to let up for an instant with Luke's life on the line.

They make it back and she almost runs ahead to grab the supplies before Nick tells her to stay by Luke and keep him talking. Since they've been out the fire has died down some and she hurriedly starts putting more stick on it. "We need to get him dry!"

Luke wet clothes had frozen in the walk back.

"Luke? Luke?" she puts her hands on his arm and God, he feels so cold. "It's going to be okay, we're back at the cave."

The sound of someone breathing hard and fast hovers on the fuzzy edges of his awareness, his body jostled to a hurried rhythm. His arm dangles at his side, swinging through the air. “Nnnguh, go –“ Luke tries and tries but he can’t get his mouth to work right. His tongue moves sluggishly, mangling words. “B-bu--back…“

No one hears him. No one understands, or he doesn’t think they do because the world is still bobbing in his vision when he cracks open his eyes and they roll around in their struggling efforts to focus. A fresh wave of frustration wrenches at his brain at being so powerless, so useless, nearly bringing him to tears.

Maybe it’s a half-hour later; maybe only a few minutes. But at some point the wind grows muted and distant and the jostling stops and he’s being eased down onto a hard, uneven surface. The air around him is suddenly charged and alive with frantic, fumbling movements and disembodied voices and all he wants to do is sleep. But his friends - his family - have other plans.

A barely-there, urgent touch of his arm rouses him. His eyelashes have begun to thaw and he blinks away the tickling wetness dribbling into his eyes, the bright, clear vault of sky above him having become a craggy ceiling. Clem’s there too, her fear-tightened expression hovering in his vision, and he stares back long, searching her face with wonder and all-consuming attention as if meeting her again for the first time in years.

“Y-you’re... o-okay…” He stutters out, his shivering breaths misting in the air. The realization finally sinks in and his face slackens with a weary relief that settles heavier than his layers of frozen clothes, taking all the struggle out of him. "You're..."

They had been on the trail of a small animal when the tiger overtook them. Despite its size, it had slunk between them with the ease of a shadow, and never made itself known until a branch snapped beneath a swipe of its tail, as if it had wanted to catch their attention. Both of them turned in an instant then, to find the big cat crouched to pounce, still examining its selection of prey.

Jane knows what Luke'll do a split second before he does it, but it doesn't stop her from turning eyes round and gleaming with fear on him, desperately urging him not to be a hero. She's just in time to watch him wave his arms over his head and shout, flagging the carnivore his way. With its choice practically made for itself, the tiger lunges, and that's all Jane sticks around to see. Whipping in the opposite direction, she goes crashing through the winter-beaten woods, windbreaker snagging on a dozen gnarled branches. Tears sting her eyes and freeze on her flaming cheeks. She doesn't stop until her vision begins to spot out.

Lungs burning, she hunkers down beneath a snowdrift and waits for the inevitable cannon fire. An hour trickles by, but it never comes. It brings her more relief than it normally would have-- a cat that big wouldn't have left anything behind to become a walker. What-ifs to stymie any optimism file in instantly. It could have grazed him, he could have gotten away somehow and bled out somewhere else. She can't be sure of anything, not here. The only thing she does know is where he'll go if he's still alive, so that's where she makes her way.

All it takes is one look at the tracks leading up to the cave for her to know something is wrong. Though the lack of blood is baffling, the signs of dragging, that one of the bigger sets of footprints couldn't manage to walk, are impossible to miss in the deep snow.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..."

Dread sets in her guts like a tight knot as she rushes after the footprints, denying herself the luxury to hope for better. She can't lose two of them in one day, she just can't.

They'll hear her coming, clearing her way through the snowfall and frosted underbrush as fast as her legs can carry her. Her knife is out as she bursts through the cave's mouth, completely winded and crackling with anxiety like a thundercloud. Darting eyes take in the scene as her vision adjusts to the dimness much slower than she'd like, going from Nick, to Clem, to Luke sprawled on the floor.

"What happened?!" Is all she can manage, voice brittle on her dry and tight throat. If the tiger hadn't gotten him, then what had?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

our hope here’s never found [closed]

let me know if i need to change anything!

it's lovely just the way it is, man

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holy fuck, a terrible typo there

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Magical timeskip to the caaaave~ OTL Thank you both for your patience

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