Chapter Text
Zoey had never held hands with anyone except her father.
It seemed sad when she thought about it. She couldn’t ever remember her mother reaching down to take her tiny hand when they crossed the street. She’d never had many friends to hold hands with. And considering that her asshole of a step-father had flat out asked her if she was a lesbian in the middle of last year’s Christmas dinner…well, she’d never been on a real date.
So when she’d fallen and received a deep gash on her forearm (thankfully within yards of a safehouse), and Francis had practically hauled her inside where she tried not to cry, but fuck there was so much blood, the last thing she expected was for Louis to kneel down beside her, reach out, and take her hand.
It meant more than she could manage to articulate at the moment. But he held onto her even as blood from the cut trickled down her arm and onto his hand. Even as Billy cursed under his breath and gingerly applied a rag to staunch the wound’s flow. Even as Francis tried to make jokes about it, and Zoey became so irritated with him that she punched his kneecap (which just made him laugh).
She found she could not will herself to release his hand, even when the cut had stopped bleeding and Bill and Francis had wandered off to some crates to restock on ammunition. Louis said nothing, apparently content to keep holding onto her until ten minutes later when she kicked open the door and the four of them hurried out onto the street in a burst of gunfire.