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Sometime in the early hours of the morning, the second night after their flight, Nick finds Luke huddled up against one of the cold stone decrepit walls, and he sighs.
They’re hungry. Both of them, all of them, the whole damn camp of half-living stragglers that have made it this far. Somewhere close, Sarita is barely breathing, and the half-circle of people around her are trying to keep calm and trying to plan. Luke, once, would have been the beacon for them – he would have tried to placate Kenny’s trembling hands, tried to keep Rebecca away from any more horror, tried to comfort the sure-dying woman with the wound they’ve tried so hard to heal.
Now, Luke has dimmed. He has had to step away and he’s lying like some broken thing, his hands tense as though still around his gun. Nick has stayed quiet since Luke has been gone, as though being impassive could save him from it all, but he can’t shy from this responsibility. He can’t abandon his best friend.
He kneels down next to him. Luke makes no move to show he’s noticed, but stares blankly ahead, shoulders shaking something awful.
Nick settles down, tries to pat the dying grass beneath him as though it will make a bed.
“Hey,” he says, and his voice catches on its lack of use. “You look pale.”
Pale is a kind word for it. If Nick weren’t so used to seeing it happening – over and over, again and again – he would think Luke has a bite hidden somewhere up his sleeve. But Luke doesn’t look like the rest of the bite victims had; he just looks done for, exhausted, empty. It makes Nick feel sick.
There’s no response. Luke just stares at nothing, one of his hands coming round to hug at his stomach, as though to keep the hunger hidden. Nick’s own stomach makes some awful sound. He ignores it.
“Please talk to me.”
He doesn’t. It’s no surprise, really. When Nick had been grabbed roughly by the shoulders by that asshole Troy and led into the centre of the camp, to see Luke being pushed to the floor and spat on by Carver, stolen food still in his guilty hands, he’d known that Luke had changed. He’d been hoping to see that face ever since the night Walter saved his life, but he’d never wanted this.
He’s not sure what happened in the space of those few days to destroy Luke like this. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, maybe loneliness, maybe guilt – maybe one or two close calls with the undead that Nick should’ve been there to stop.
They haven’t had a chance the chance to talk, really. He’d only heard rumour of Luke finding them and hiding out, waiting, but before he could even process the low warmth in his belly, and the worry making his head pound, Luke was there, caught, disorientated, and then they were gone, and Carver was dead, and they were smeared in guts and gore and Clementine had raised her axe then- then –
Nick closes his eyes, just for a moment, and sees blood. When he opens them, Luke remains unchanged.
“I missed you,” Nick says, and tries to keep his voice steady when he says, “Why did you leave us back at the ski lodge? I thought you were dead.”
Luke drags his gaze over to fix, vaguely, on Nick. He swallows and licks at his dry lips. “Sorry.”
Once, Nick’s temper would have made him fly right off the handle, but now he just shakes his head. “I don’t want an apology. You did right by us. You came back.”
Luke snorts and draws his knees up to his chest. “Yeah. That really helped, didn’t it?”
With Alvin and Carlos dead, and Sarah missing, and Sarita close to something awful, Nick can see his point. He doesn’t speak it though. Instead he tries to remember how Luke used to smile. “If it weren’t for you —”
“Don’t,” Luke says, almost sharply. His gaze has focused and he’s glaring at Nick. There’s dried blood at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t, Nick. Nothing went right. Nothing- we were too hasty, I told everyone, I said it would go wrong, I said —”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Luke snorts again. Colour has come back to his cheeks, but it’s a painful, burning red. He twists his fingers around each one another and looks away again. Nick follows his gaze and sees Clementine across the way, walking aimlessly, looking over at the huddled group around Sarita every now and again. Even from here, her silhouette looks guilty. Even from here, her hands look bloodied.
“It was Carver’s,” Nick attempts again, but at the mention of that name Luke’s wincing.
“Carver was good and dead long before Carlos —” His voice breaks, and he drops his head down onto his knees, threading his fingers through his hair. “We shouldn’t have tried to leave when we were so out of shape. We should’ve kept- we should’ve tried another night. I should’ve spoke up more.”
They hear a pained moan from Sarita, spreading over the ruins like a low fog and sending a chill down both of their spines.
“Then what? We try the plan another night, and somebody else ends up dead?” Nick knocks the back of his head against the stone behind them and grits his teeth. “Stop blaming yourself. You can’t control every single thing. People are always gonna get hurt.”
“Not the people I’m supposed to be protectin’!” Luke lifts his head and there’s a fire in his eyes. It’s more life than Nick has seen since his return and he tries to be optimistic about it. “I lead us out of there in the first place. I lead us away from the cabin. I fuckin’ failed you all.”
“Hey,” Nick says, quietly. The warmth deep in his belly is back and it spreads, golden. “You’re just one man, Luke. We all chose to leave.”
“I could have saved them. I could have avoided gettin’ caught. They could all be alive right now, if only I …” He trails off and shivers, a full-body shiver that flips Nick’s stomach. “I don’t think I’ve ever done right by you all.”
There have been times recently, forever ago, often, where Nick has felt undermined by Luke. Luke, so bright, can be harsh with it; he always has the right ideas, always looks down on Nick’s fuck ups, always is the first to say when he’s made a mistake. If that criticism came from anyone but him, Nick would hate them.
None of that matters now.
Nick puts an arm around Luke’s shoulders and pulls him close.
The night goes on around them. Sarita draws in great breaths that threaten to collapse her lungs entirely. Clementine stalks through the stone, shoulders hunched with the weight of it all. Kenny rants and rages. Luke shivers, and shifts, and then stills. Nick holds him. The night goes on.