long-suffering sigh. “sorry if i startled you. i’m a fully compliant PDS sufferer. i’m wearing mousse & contact lenses to minimise your distress.” kieren hated every word of this bloody speech, and yet he always forgot what came next. “i … have been administered neurotriptyline recently … and will not enter a rabid state.”
Taking a walk at this time was the easiest way to avoid..well people. Discovering he wasn’t alone by the sound of someone walking up behind him? Caused the quick-to-rise-up out of instinct now panic that made him bolt up to a standing position from the stone fence he sat on, gaze averted towards the ground. “Sorry! I–!” What?Initial shock immediately shifted into there’s no way this is happening curiosity..Kieren was..? His lips parted as he finally made eye contact with someone like him for the first time since he’d been put with his parents when that placelet him go. Every detail of Kieren’s face he could see in the moonlight was studied with rapt attention before he realized he should say something. “It’s okay.. Me too..”
a glance is cast to the doors, currently guarded by jerry. she has no idea if ezekiel will come out of his chambers. but he has to soon, because they have things to do. she understands he’s grieving, an entire community lost at the hands of the saviors. but that was all the more reason they needed to get up and fight. they couldn’t accept defeat. ❛ i don’t know kid. he’s gonna have to sooner or later. or else we’re all on our own. ❜
Blaine followed Carol’s glance to the doors that Jerry seemed to never waiver on the post he’d taken up almost immediately after the few of them returned. His teeth worried against his bottom lip as he saw the war torn and lost look on a face that was doing it’s best to remain stoic in spite of their circumstances. Jerry inspired him to be a better person. Stronger. And seeing the man so desperate to hang onto what they hadhave here made Blaine’s heart ache. “Do you think he’ll want the rest of us back out there? Or are we just going to run when they come? Because we all know they will..”
❛ sitting in silenceonly adds to the quiet. ❜ if he wanted to escape the quiet, sitting by her was the wrong way to do it. she didn’t talk to most, not if she didn’t have to. her way of trying to protect other people and herself. she’d already gotten too close to ezekiel, she didn’t want to get close to anyone else.
Carol was..well..right. Common sense said so but here he was, wanting her company and willing to look the fool just to not be a bother. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, Blaine cracked a small smile and his feet slid across the ground so he could wrap his arms loosely around his shins. “Do you think he,” his chin lifted towards where their King had locked himself away, “Will come out any time soon? Everything that happened? It feels like we lost him, too. I think that’s the worst part..”
❛ can’t you see that i’m busy ?? ❜ it’s not really that big of a task. she’s simply cleaning her pistol, but she doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone, especially younger people. she’s not going to be the reason they end up six feet under. not again.
“I promise I won’t get in your way.” Blaine had already sat on the ground beside her bench after debating approaching her for several minutes from afar. “You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to. It’s just–too quiet here now..and I won’t distract you from..um..that. Okay?”
From the look on Eugene’s face, it was clear that he did not completely believe the young man. “Long days are not normally known to cause such an outburst of emotion. I would say that something else is troubling you.” His eyes trailed up to the stairs. “If I am correct, and I usually am, I would say that would be the cause of your sorrows.”
Blaine could tell that Eugene wasn’t buying his flimsy excuse. Not that he could blame him. It was an outright awful, panicked one he came up on the spot. Biting into his lip, he studied the man closely and dug deep to find the courage to talk about why he was sitting alone in the state he was in. Okay, mostly bothering him. A surface scratch, a test of the waters to see if they could really talk. “Please don’t say anything? You don’t have to answer me..but..? Doesn’t this place ever terrify you?”
The sound of crying was not a rare sound in the Sanctuary. It could usually be heard at least once a day if you were standing within the walls. However, Eugene still wasn’t used to hearing it constantly. When he heard it, he usually tried to investigate where it was coming from just in case he could lend a hand. This time, he found a young man alone, crying. “Is there something wrong?”
The staircase felt impossible to climb halfway up the wrought iron steps. Blaine gave up, legs too heavy to make it. With no one around, which was a blessing in disguise, his rear hit the metal and elbows dug into his knees. The heels of both hands dug into the hollows of his eyes and he broke down. Crying in a place like this wasn’t going to do anyone any good. As a matter of fact, it could do them a whole lot worse depending on the reasons why and what it might imply. Staring at Negan’s left hand man, or so that’s what Blaine labelled him in his short time here, the younger of the pair swallowed and tried to pass of his reasons as NOTHING. “Hello. I.. It’s been a long day is all. Sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was around..”
❝ They ALL look like someone. It’s a part of being the undead. ❞
She’s grown too used to the sight of CORPSES lying around by now. They aren’t human in her eyes anymore, and haven’t been since Heaven knows how long. Has managed to detach herself of emotion when it comes to looking at them because what else is she supposed to do ? She’s a regular FIGHTER; goes out every week or two with her team to pick through the d e b r i s and decaying buildings to find something useful, and bringing something as feeble as FEELINGS into it is … messy.
Of course, Quinn u s e d to care. Remembers the FIRST creature she had killed ——— the sound of its skull caving in and the feeling of KNOWING that it had once been properly, fully alive. Once upon a time, it too, had breathed. It had loved and cared for others, and she’d killed it with an old bat she’d found in someone’s basement. Had to be consoled for at least an hour before she could keep going, and that was only because they were SURE they were being followed. Then, when the whole thing with Finn had happened, she’d learned to keep empathy out of it. Caring wasn’t worth the pain.
❝ Come on, we’ll leave through the back exit. There could be something we NEED in the kitchen, and we don’t want to miss that, ❞ she instructs with the words and mind of a calculated leader. ❝ You take up the front, and I’ll take up the back and make sure that that THING’S definitely dead. Just keep walking, okay ? I’m right behind you.
❞
“She looks like my mom.. I don’t even know if she made it or not..”
Blaine walks as he’s told without giving any sort of verbal confirmation that he understood what she was telling him. Moving was more than enough. Eyes glued to the personthing on the floor until he had to step around to continue on. His blood ran cold, fingers that weren’t holding the grip of his gun with a white knuckled tightness balled into a fist at his side.
“I’m sorry. I’m good now. Promise.”
Quinn’s detachment was something someone like him who lacked it envied. The world would be so much easier to take if he could look at it as all a means to an end that didn’t matter what route you took through a sea of bodies and death as long as he came out on the other side okay. Maybe someday. He was trying. Just wasn’t there yet. Steps that felt ten times heavier than any he’s ever taken carry him towards the back. Most important, the kitchen.
“Let’s just get what we need and get out of here,” he squints stopping by the next wall and holding his breath as he steps far enough to glance around it. Noise, repetitive and quick that only he seems to be able to hear. A rapid gush of an echoing wet in his eardrums, heart pounding and blood rushing fast. CLEAR. “I think that might’ve been the only one..” Oh God, he hoped so.. A quick, sharp glance over his shoulder checked to see if she was there. Of course she was. Quinn was a person he trusted beyond trust. That’s why he’s here with her, after all. “Was it dead?” Please tell me it was dead.
Blaine’s ankle felt like it was caught between breaking in half and on fire. A makeshift walking stick and being able to half walk wasn’t going to get him back to The Sanctuary before it got darker. He needed to find somewhere safe until morning. His pulse was already racing at the idea of being stuck outside alone all night. Hand barely touching the grip of his gun when he got a clearing, then a road. All clear. Or..not. Stopping as he turned towards a noise and ended up a gun pointed directly at him.. You know what it feels like to have your heart momentarily stop? Nothing new, not in this world anymore, but it was never a feeling anyone could get used to. Eyes round as saucers stared up the barrel at the woman behind it, his stick hit the floor and his hands went in the air.
“I’m sorry! I messed up my foot and–it’s getting dark. I was only looking for a place..” Half sentences and the mantra of please don’t kill me in his head was all he had as he stood resting most of his weight on his left foot praying that this wasn’t how his story was about to end.
Blaine was visibly shaking–hands constantly wringing together as he stood staring down at the body laid out on the floor. Unable to look away, he shook his head and tried to step around her like he was told to do. A stumbling attempt but he caught up to Quinn blindly, gaze locked behind his shoulder now. That was his problem. ‘Step around it.’ Sure, this wasn’t the first corpse he’s seen. Living in this nightmare–any time they stepped out of the camp–it was impossible not to see the broken shells of people littering the city or town or what felt like EVERYWHERE you looked. Sometimes he could focus on the task at hand long enough to only get queasy or not feel anything at all (a rarity..but it happened a couple times?). Others? Others were like now. It’d be so much easier if he could be like Quinn. Think of them as ‘it’ and they cease to be a reason to give a second thought past the mission and what was truly important. He was trying. He just..couldn’t. That level of disconnect wasn’t in his reach yet.
“She looks like someone..” He couldn’t bring himself to say who. “I need to get out of here.”
pianokeysandbowties back up 