Work Text:
He felt drunk, but not the kind of love punched he felt after the first time he kissed Lori. It was a staggering, overwhelming and dreadful feeling. Like reality had slipped completely and all he had was this haze to stumble his way home in.
Carol was on the porch, dried blood still melted onto her forehead, her shirt disheveled and her knuckles white as her fingers clenched around the railing. She watched him, eyes narrowed and brows raised.
His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, fanned out to rub his forehead and she knew he had done something fucked up.
Guilt bled from his eyes and down his sullen face as he came up the stairs to stand beside her. She turned to him, not needing to prod for answers that he was ready to give.
“I kissed Jessie,” he admitted after a long, tight inhale through his nose. She shrugged. There were worse things in the world to do.
He let his head fall to his hands again, a step staggering towards her and she put her hand up to his shoulder to steady him. “What if they don’t come back?” he almost cried but choked back the mangled sound in his throat.
“I don’t…” she started and he felt her fingers curl tightly around the collar of his shirt and when he dared to open his eyes hers were clenched shut. The pads of his fingers touched her wrist, trailing down the silky inside of her arm made rough by the sticky red stains that dried there. He held her forearm, giving her permission to slack a little and lean towards him.
Between them was one moment of relief, squeezing passed as they held each other in an embrace, his fingers woven into the curls at the back of her head, hers holding to his shirt with all the strength they had. The smell of blood that wasn’t their own mixed together with the grit that caked their bodies as they fit them together, melded by the comfort they gave each other.
They didn’t lie to each other that everything would be okay and they’d get to live in this Wonderland like one happy family. They didn’t pretend that every second that passed without a sign from Daryl or Abraham or Sasha or Glenn was another nail to their cross.
But for a second they believed that it would all be alright.