Chapter Text
“Do you think we should start trying to track the others?” Then Adrian elaborates honestly, “By ‘we’ I really mean you, with me cheering you on.” Adrian mildly grins at the admission but is looking at him curiously. “Because you can find animals, so, can you find people?”
“Maybe.” Daryl mutters.
“Even if you don’t, we can try.”
Doubt creeps in as Daryl murmurs unhappily, “Might not be anyone out there to find by now.”
“Won’t know until we try.” Adrian persists.
“You up to walkin’?” Daryl can see the color halfway back to Adrian’s cheeks and notices he certainly sounds more like himself. The hopefulness and that cheeky cheerfulness is back. It is a relief that Adrian is looking and sounding better, even if Daryl does not share in his positivity.
“Yeah, sweetheart.” Adrian leans in and wraps his arms around Daryl’s shoulders. They stay tight together for a moment and it does calm Daryl down. Then the singer tips his head, whispering proudly against Daryl’s ear, “The world threw all its shit at us and here we are. We’re sticking together.”
We are…
“Damn right.” Daryl tells him firmly, very adoring of his lover at this moment. They have come through a hell of a lot and remain unbroken, albeit rattled. He needed that reminder.
Though, they should get moving if they want to start tracking, so he breaks away from Adrian and gets to looking.
They make it about five minutes before the silence is broken, reminding Daryl of the good old days. Adrian asks quietly, “Since the world is shit and nobody’s around, you wanna hold hands?”
“D’ you?” Daryl raises a brow, figuring that’s why he asked. He sure knows he gave no indication. It seems silly, if anything, since they are both grown men and not teenagers. They have walked along together so many times without doing something plainly silly in Daryl’s eyes.
“Maybe we both do.” Adrian shrugs good naturedly, reaching for him. Daryl lets it happen in spite of his reservations, holding his lover’s cupped hand once it reaches him. He wants to be ready to pull away and fire his crossbow or gun at a moment’s notice so in a compromise he keeps their fingers unlaced and wriggles his fingers free when Adrian attempts to twine them. Then it will be easy to pull away.
They shift into the woods and stay especially tight to one another since they are holding hands. It is kind of a relief to have Adrian close after losing so much else. Plus Adrian’s touch no longer sickly and clammy, but warm again. He likes the reassurance, though he would not admit it aloud. He knows he can keep track of Adrian this way, too. Keep him from going where Daryl cannot protect him.
He begins to look for signs, but also keeps an eye on his lover. The hunter moves slowly, not just because he is being careful and attentive, but because Adrian should not be rushed after the last couple of days he has had.
Wonder if he’s right, if someone’s still out here.
Sometimes it is nice catching a little of Adrian’s hope, even if it is always short lived for Daryl.
For now, they trek about the area. Adrian stops beside him when Daryl pauses to have a real close look at a broken twig or a possible footprint. It is slow going though. When Adrian talks, Daryl reminds him they need food too, so they revert to the kind of silence that comes over their more dire hunting spells. It is a little different hunting while holding hands.
Almost lost him though. Daryl thinks at one point when he considers letting go of Adrian’s hand for good. Instead he rubs his thumb across the back of his lover’s palm and stays put.
Morning tracking is fruitless, but come afternoon they run across bludgeoned walkers. Daryl looks them over closely, noting how the blood is still fresh enough. Not the real dark kind it gets once it fully dried, melting into the ground. Plus, there is human blood there too - but that worries him. Someone has been here recently. “Coulda been one of ours.”
“Bet it was. Good job, sweetheart.” Adrian gives him a little peck on the cheek and squeezes his hand.
Daryl rolls his eyes a bit, as it hardly felt like he did anything noteworthy. He keeps hold of Adrian’s hand all the same.
They finally let go of one another when they find the railroad tracks and spot walkers feasting on what had to have been a couple of people from the prison. Daryl aims his crossbow while they take in the scene. Their tracking led to nothing but death and Adrian stares for a minute at the half gnarled bodies, the clothing they recognize, and a tiny shoe. A family they had brought in months ago. One of the early ones. People they know but not family, not in that way.
Daryl swallows down the understanding that this is just how it is and he starts to walk off. No point following the trail anymore. No point lingering.
Then he hears a stifled breath and turns around, spotting a tear rolling down Adrian’s cheek as he stays where Daryl had left him. His stare is fixated on the feasting walkers. The shock glistens in his despondent blues so much Daryl swears he sees his lover’s pupils quiver.
Daryl cannot swallow down the drowning feeling that hits, but he takes a couple steps back to get nearer to his lover and nods. “C’mon.” He meets the heartbroken blues and after a still pause, Daryl steps closer and holds out his open hand.
Even with a second tear rolling down his cheek, Adrian takes it. He clasps Daryl’s rough, dirty palm so much firmer than he had been holding him minutes ago.
Only two tears, but it had been enough. Daryl keeps an equally firm grip on Adrian’s hand for now. He walks him away from the bloody remains of people they had once known, heart cooling towards hope.
There is no hope out here. All he has now, is Adrian.
Daryl tightens his hold possessively and Adrian returns it. They hold fast to one another and start moving down the train tracks.
They slow at the realization that someone else is close by. Daryl lets go of Adrian’s hand to get his bow up but it immediately becomes clear that is not necessary. This guy is fucking cooked.
The man is laying by the railroad tracks, sporting a bloody jagged cavern that can only be a walker bite. He seems to be finishing a bawling session, face wet and voice choked as the two men approach with wary slowness.
“I should have asked the last people who were here but… can.. can you.. finish me?” The stranger staggers out the heartbroken words pleadingly. “I don’t want to be.. one of them.”
“I’m sorry. Of course we’ll help.” Adrian says regretfully to him as they approach, while Daryl is raising his bow and eyeing nearby trees in case it is a trap.
All is quiet and still, save for the stranger. His wound is not bleeding harshly, likely clotted minutes or hours ago, but it is a deep bite. Only a matter of time now.
“What people? How long ago?” Daryl is swift to jump on the news of anyone that might be from the prison.
“Just… I don’t want to be one of them.”
“What people?” Daryl restates more harshly, aiming his bow at the guy’s forehead. The air starts to shift between them until Adrian interrupts.
Adrian glances at him before settling apologetic eyes on the stranger. “It could be our people.” His words are far more pleasant and soft than Daryl’s snap. “We’d really appreciate knowing, and we’ll take care of you as painlessly as we can after.”
The man shifts his stare off Daryl and nods once. “A man and a woman with a bunch of kids. Haven’t… haven’t seen so many kids at once since before this all started.” He almost barks out a laugh but it chokes and dies in his throat, tears springing back into his eyes. “Guess I’ll be with my kids soon.”
“Was there a baby?” Daryl asks immediately, knowing Adrian had said Tyrese left with Judith and a couple of other kids. “A lil’ girl?”
“Yeah.” The stranger nods and his head soars at the thought of Lil’ Asskicker making it out safely. “Well, a baby. Maybe it was a girl. I didn’t… didn’t get close. I had just gotten.. this.” He gestures brokenheartedly to his gaping wound. “A tough looking son of a bitch that might actually - actually stand a chance out there carried the baby. Black guy, short hair, built like you two.”
“So then.. Who was the woman?” Adrian wonders aloud, beating Daryl to the punch.
“Short hair… real short, salt and peppery…” The stranger supplies when Adrian gives him a look. “Not too tall… Plain looking but alright, I guess.”
“Carol?” Adrian asks while looking to Daryl in a wave of pleased surprise. Although it sure sounds like her, the hunter does not get his hopes up. Besides, this news is at least several hours old. There is no telling what has happened since.
“They hurt?” Daryl asks gruffly.
When the man shakes his head no, Adrian asks which direction they had gone in and the stranger points up the tracks from them. “I said to stay on the tracks. I hope they listened.”
“Tyrese, Carol, Judith, and a couple of other kids - maybe those girls Carol was looking after.” Adrian supposes out loud. “That was it, five people? Two adults, two kids, and a baby?” The stranger nods. “Thank you. Anything else you can tell us?”
The bleeding stranger shakes his head no, then winces. “Well, they didn’t look hurt or upset or anything. That’s all.”
Daryl swallows down his nerves as Adrian kneels beside the man while nodding. He sees the way his lover settles himself on his knees at an angle beside the stranger while offering up a false smile that does not reach his eyes. “You had someone special?”
“My wife, Laura and our… our kids.”
“She’s waiting for you?” The dying man nods as a tear falls and Adrian asks him to tell the pair of them about Laura. To tell them how beautiful and wonderful she was, so he starts to.
Daryl sees the knife coming off Adrian’s belt and wants to offer to do it, but it is too quick a movement for him to do more than watch Adrian land it in his skull. Clean, quick, and no chance to come back. The man is mid-sentence talking about his wife with a shine in his eyes.
He made sure the guy died thinking somethin’ good, like he promised to. He would have just lifted his bow and fired. I damn sure wouldn’ have bothered.
Adrian lingers there for a minute before wiping the blood off his knife using the man’s pant leg. Before he finishes, Daryl reaches for his lover.
He grips his forearm, hauling him up gently. “Come on, Adrian. Ya did good.” He knows it hits differently when it is a living person but the guy was on his way out. A mercy kill is different.. Nobody should be forced to turn into one of those things.
Adrian nods and it is Daryl’s turn once more to reach for his hand, making sure to keep the hold tight as they walk away from the body.
They try to stick near the tracks without being sitting ducks, hoping to come upon Carol, Tyrese, and the kids. The headstart is only hours yet the trail is so sparse that after a while Daryl is not even certain they stuck to the tracks anymore. He wishes there was some sort of sign of them.
But Carol’s out there, keepin’ Lil’ Asskicker safe. She’s got a better chance than.. than I thought.
While the sun falls down they find nowhere safe to rest and Daryl does not want to camp outside again. A small part of him wants to keep cutting the distance between them and Carol, too.
The evening air grows a little chilly though and he fears what it could do to Adrian while he recovers, so he keeps them prowling after nightfall, trying to find some decent coverage. It feels like they landed in the ass-end of nowhere.
Then they hear the walkers and pick up speed, only to have to change direction as more come from the other side. They pick up the pace and yet the group is persistent and coming hard on one side. Suddenly being out after dark is all the more dangerous as Daryl realizes they are running into a small herd. That or a small herd is catching up to them, but semantics aside they are screwed.
After booking it a little ways ahead of the herd they come out on a road with a horribly weathered, abandoned old white car. It seems like the only choice they have with that sizable herd bearing down on them, so they approach it curiously. They seperate so Adrian can investigate it while Daryl turns around and eyes the forest where the incoming walkers ought to come from, bow up and ready.
“Too bad it looks so beat up or there’s a chance I could’ve hotwired it.”
So could Daryl, but he had not said so. It is not exactly a proud thing for him, considering he learned it with Merle’s group while lifting cars for a chop shop to make some cash years back. “Can ya?” Daryl thought Adrian was better behaved than that.
“I was more of a bad boy in high school than you think.” Adrian answers while prowling around the front seat curiously. “This thing seems like it had engine trouble though. Like it got stripped already or something.. fuck I don’t know cars well enough to tell, I just know what wires to rub together.”
Adrian climbs out, turning towards the raspy groans coming out of the woods that Daryl had been concerned he was hearing. So Daryl grabs a fistful of Adrian’s jacket and yanks him towards the back. They had little other choice with so many walkers as they would definitely get overwhelmed if they kept fighting hand to hand. He rolls in and drags Adrian in on top of him before slamming the trunk shut.
He knows Adrian is worried because the singer does not make any kind of joke about them being thrown practically on top of one another when they fall in. They silently hurry to find a way to close the trunk, using a bandana off Daryl’s bag to tie the trunk closed because the damn thing is broken. Of course it would be - some fucking luck. The whole car is shot to hell, so Daryl mentally grumbles that he should have expected as much, but then he hears noise and both men still.
The rasping undead groans and moans start to bleed into the car. Both men stay perfectly still as their vehicle is approached. The walkers outside are swarming and moaning, providing a frightening backdrop for the pitch black they lie in. The two men remain still, both watching through the crack from the not completely closed trunk. The shadows of walkers.
He feels Adrian shifting on top of him, getting into a more comfortable position after five minutes pass and they are not ripped apart. Even when they end up hunched over, side by side, Daryl reaches his hand up, laying it over the back of Adrian’s head for a moment before returning it to steadying his crossbow. They keep watching the shapes and shadows through the cracks, hearing the horrific, hungry moans seeping in.
Neither one of them says a word. The walkers will hear.
The groans and number of bumps jostling the car starts to die down, but it takes hours. With nothing out there, hopefully the walkers will disperse in time. Walkers move fucking slow when nothing interesting is going on though.
Thanks to Adrian being inside at the prison when the Governor launched his attack, Daryl knew that at least a few people had escaped - Beth, Maggie, Judith, Tyrese, and the whole bus which would have included the other recovering people. He knows Carol is out there, with Judith.
He thinks that wherever they are, they could be miles away. He could never see any of them again and the moans of the walkers remind him how much danger there is. Any of them could easily meet the same fate as the man on the railroad tracks earlier today, or before that the torn apart people they had tried to track.
After well over an hour he sees a reaching arm in his periphery as Adrian takes his hand. He comes in slow, making sure Daryl can see him and not get startled. This time Daryl laces their fingers together. They wait in the silence, rubbing fingers and caressing palms while knowing they still have one another.
Neither moves much, eyeing the crack in the trunk to constantly watch the walker mob lessen.
The walkers wander outside and the weather grows danker. Eventually, Daryl shifts so he can draw Adrian close. He makes sure the singer has his body heat to fight against the chill of a dripping, rainy night. His chest is pressed into by Adrian as he snuggles near.
It does feel good to keep him close.
The night is slow and miserable but Daryl thinks to himself how much worse it would be without Adrian. All the worrying he did while Adrian was sick would be multiplied tenfold if he was wandering out there with Daryl having no clue where he was. It does bring a dollop of guilt down on him to know he feels so much more intensely for Adrian than anyone else, but he still worries about them all. Where are they?
When the walkers seem to have gone, and it has stayed calm for some time, Daryl reaches for the bandana to release them, but Adrian stills his hand. When he goes to give a questioning look, he is met with pursed lips and clinging hands as Adrian swoops in for a kiss.
Ah, of course Adrian would want to steal a kiss now that they needed to be less worried about making noise. They take just a minute for that, and then put their foreheads together.
“You and me,” Adrian whispers.
“Me ‘n’ you.” Daryl answers just as quietly, then pulls back. He unwraps the bandana and nods. Adrian nods back, then pushes up on the trunk as Daryl aims his crossbow out. Nothing is there to greet them though, save for morning sunlight.
Adrian gets out first and peers all over, even checking under the car in case a crafty walker is still there. He offers his hand to Daryl to help him out but the hunter slaps it away lightly with a roll of his eyes and climbs out alone and unaided.
“I give it one star.” Adrian remarks sarcastically as they look over the battered car.
“Never again.” Daryl mutters about their accommodation for the night.
They pop the car’s hood and Daryl pokes around inside since he knows more about their inner workings than Adrian, but the vehicle is unsalvagable. Daryl steps away, calling it quits, but Adrian pops up with a tarry looking digit. After a second Daryl recognizes the slick black as oil. He watches as his lover uses the oil to smear letters onto the white car body.
Adrian & Daryl were here, bitches <—
Daryl raises a brow at Adrian’s word choice while picking up whatever might be useful. Their names look strangely nice together. It could lead strangers to them but then again, it is just as likely to help their own people find them. The arrow is in the direction they begin to walk in, once Adrian wipes his hand clean on the car roof while grinning gently at Daryl, who rolls his eyes, hoists the garbage bag of clutter he had gathered onto his shoulders, and moves to start walking.
Feels like they got a whole lot of walking to do.
Just when his thoughts start to darken, he feels something touch his backside and instinctively yanks his body away. He realizes almost immediately that he is starting to aim his crossbow at Adrian and lowers it with a scowl. His stare drops to Adrian’s lifted hand. “Why’re ya grabbin’ my ass?”
Adrian is wide eyed and still from Daryl grabbing his weapon, but he immediately starts to grin at the lighter side of it. “I was gonna put my hand in your back pocket instead of holding yours.”
That’s an option?
Like Adrian is demonstrating when catching sight of his lover's expression, Daryl’s ass is suddenly pressed into again by that light weight through his back pocket.
He frowns a little at the sophomoric nature of it but starts moving with his weapon down. “Don’ sneak up on me.” Daryl grumbles. It was one thing at the prison to be grabbed and dragged into dark corners and closets, but they are vulnerable on the road with so little and nobody else.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Adrian apologizes gently and he starts to pull his hand away, so Daryl slides one of his around Adrian’s waist and pulls him a little closer. The hand resettles against Daryl’s ass like a comfortable weight. Then Adrian squeezes.
His crossbow is shouldered again as they walk, finding this cozier than hand holding even if he feels guilty being here with Adrian when someone from the prison could be needing him right this second.