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Farrier looked in a word… haggard.
The apocalypse was harsh on those with safety nets, but it was harsher still on those who were alone, in the deep end without a life jacket, drowning slowly but surely.
His skin looked stretched over the sharper points on his face. He’d obviously had to make sacrifices on his own, sacrifices that left him without food, water, or shelter. Collins felt as if his eyes were glued to the sharp jut of his cheekbones, the hollows under them. He pressed a kiss to sun browned cheek, and then the other’s mouth, still full and round but cracked and dry with thirst.
He pressed a bottle of water into Farrier’s hand, all but tripping over himself to get some water into his partner. Maybe he should’ve been more considerate of how long they were going to be a duo, whether they should try and ration what they already had, but Collins couldn’t much bring himself to give a damn seeing as of five minutes ago, all signs pointed to Farrier being very much dead, and very much impossible to find.
As Farrier greedily drained the bottle, Collins pressed his hands to the other man’s waist, barely managing to fight off the worry tugging at the muscles of his face, trying to coax a frown out of him ever so slowly. He was so thin- Collins forgot they’d been apart for so long, and that all things considered Farrier wasn’t in great nick before they were separated.
“How are you still standing?” he breathed, locking eyes with the other man when he finally pulled the bottle free from his lips. Wetness sat in droplets on and around his lips, and Collins watched Farrier’s cheeks puff out briefly as he swallowed the water sitting behind his lips. He sucked on his lips to catch those last few drops before he answered, and his voice was smoother, washed free of the grit and dryness days without ample water earnt a person.
“You shouldn’t have come looking for me” he grumbled, and a crease formed between his brows where something exasperated and worried had settled over his features.
“I couldn’t not come for you” Collins ran a thumb over Farrier’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together and relishing the familiar feeling of his skin against Collins own. “I know where the others are headed, we can find them again, together.”
“You don’t know that- you can’t predict something like that you silly bugger,” Farrier pressed a hand to the back of Collins neck, squeezing, before he pulled away, grasping briefly at Collin’s forearm to keep them moving. He hadn’t forgotten they were out in the open with the sun quickly dragging itself up over the horizon. They needed to be moving.
They moved together, Collins steadily funnelling rations to Farrier despite the latter’s protests. He looked like death warmed up and he was too proud or too scared to see how close to the line between dehydration and death he was to admit it.
“They need you Farrier- Alex is practically frothing at the mouth to take down Philippe- he’s so preoccupied with protecting everyone that he doesn’ realise Phil is trying to do the exact same.”
Farrier clenched his jaw, eyes roving over the horizon, they were in the glare of the sun by now, and even before he’d been separated from the group he knew daytime was rarely any easier than nighttime. “Well if we ever manage to find them, I’ll be sure to knock both their heads together.”
Collins hummed with a giddy, foolish sort of look on his mug, and Farrier couldn’t ignore the contagiousness of the expression, shaking his head and biting back a similarly idiotic grin.
Collins had a rough idea of where the group had been headed before he took off. They were all bound for a prison, one Farrier was familiar with, for better or worse. It was secure, and if they could get themselves inside in one piece, they’d be sitting prettiest of all. You could grow food in there, raise livestock, even. It was one of them self-sufficient places, that grew their own grub to save money, but if they could get it back up and running again, it could very well save their lives too.
They travelled almost nonstop all day, Collins talking his ear off about all that he’d missed- which was mostly spats within the group and any close shaves with the undead locals. They polished off a tin of peaches between themselves at mid-day, when their clothes began to stick to their sweaty, unwashed skin and they called a timeout in the shade of a tree that’d cracked up the bitumen of the road it sat on the side of with it’s roots. Even with the world as they know it gone to shit, nature always had to have the last laugh, thriving whilst they were all clinging to survival. Suppose that’s karma for you.
The sun was dripping under the horizon when they heard a commotion- by now roads had turned to dusty tracks and the grass tickled your elbows as you walked, so the fact that they’d heard anything at all was a fair enough shock to the pair- let alone when that commotion was punctuated by the loud, sharp bark of a dog. “What the bloody fuck” Collins breathed, stuttering in his step a bit as his hands drifted to the gnarled, wire-wrapped bat over his shoulder. Farrier needn’t look at him to know what he was thinking- wild dogs.
Though, as they slowly inched their way closer, it was clear enough to hear it was only one- one dog and the quiet drawl of quiet human chatter. It did nothing to quell their nerves.
There was the sound of a quiet stream that slowly joined the canvas of noises filling the space, a soft babbling noise that occasionally found itself interrupted by a splash or a bark- sometimes a laugh, quickly hushed back to silence. Nerves turned to confusion, what were these people doing?
Farrier was dropping to a crouch when Collins took off, bounding a few steps and throwing his arms up, Farrier just about felt his heart drop from his chest, bounce down each rib, funnel down through his intestines and drop out his arse.
“Guys! Guys it’s me! I found him!” by now Farrier had caught on, but that didn’t make him want to swat Collins any less for terrifying him like that.
The group of three was sat down on the bank of the stream- food cans and bottles of water strewn about, perhaps a late lunch or an early dinner. Tommy looked well and truly asleep against a backpack, caressed by the cool breeze blowing over from the water and a dragonfly that occasionally landed on the toe of his boot for a few seconds before buzzing back off to the stream. Philippe was cleaning his guns, and ended up pointing the barrel of a, thankfully, deconstructed pistol at Collins as the idiot of a survivalist came bounding out of the grass at them before he noticed and (hesitantly) dropped the useless piece back to his lap.
Alex was about waist deep in the water and seemingly naked, if his clothes strewn about the bank were anything to go off, and he was scrubbing himself clean in the fresh, flowing water whilst, most curiously, a dog bounded around in the water next to him lunging at unseen creatures below the ripples.
It was all very idyllic.
Perhaps he’d allow himself to rest, just for a moment. It had been a while.