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Fleeing from Carver‘s compound had been stressful, however it provided one clear upside for Nick: He got to be around Luke more again. Ever since they spent half a year on a business trip he had grown to like spending most of the day with Luke. A budding apocalypse would make being glued to another person‘s side a necessity. Once you have a role to fulfill, like at the compound, it became less likely to spend the day with a specific person. It‘s not like Nick never saw Luke – they gravitated towards each other, being a pair and all. There‘s just something different about being around a guy you like for so long or sleeping next to him that Nick prefered to seeing him around occasionally.
Either way, Nick was back to his habit of sharing a bed with Luke. The place their group found in the woods did not have enough space for everybody to get a room to themselves and Nick and Luke were an obvious pair to occupy a bedroom together. It must have seemed blissful from the outside: He would wake up with his best friend next to him, they would meet everybody downstairs and eat breakfast. Then they‘d go fishing together, or Nick would go with Pete while Luke checked out how the cabin held up, or they would venture out and check for other sources of food. Every evening, the group met again in the cabin. Once everybody got tired, Nick and Luke would go to their room and play boardgames and talk. Eventually, they would sleep.
The reality was worse. It was still an apocalypse after all. An outsider would not know about Nick‘s night terrors. They would not know about the deep guilt and sadness he felt. They might guess from how he acted out but they would not know. His shame was invisible, too. The shame that followed his outbursts and made it hard to apologize. Walkers he did not know were manageable. But how could he cope with putting his own mother down – what disgusting wording, who „puts down“ their own mother? But it‘s what he did – she was no longer actually herself, she was a walker, a body possessed by an illness nobody could figure out, and all hope was lost. Some nights, he managed to sleep. Others, he relived executing her at close range. He hallucinated and imagined blood and brains and other parts of her.
He could try to ignore most sensations, but some were too real. Like today; he felt he stepped on something mushy on the riverbed. The sound was louder than possible and echoed in his mind. No matter what it actually was, to Nick it felt like a piece of flesh. He screamed and staggered back onto the grass, holding harder onto his gun. „Damn it, Nick!“ Pete yelled. „What‘s wrong with you?“
A knot made of anger formed inside Nick‘s throat. „Shut up!“ is all he managed to yell back. What else was there to say? That he was stepping on his mother‘s remains? So he reigned his anger in and focused on scouting the riverbed out again.
The sound continued to haunt him all day. When he came home he could barely eat, too disgusted by the thought of brains in his food. There were none, rationally he knew that. His mind however was unable to differentiate mushy food from actual organs with that wretched sound still reverberating inside his ears. Sarah happily chattering while eating broke the camel‘s back; he slammed the table while standing up and moved to the living room. Too carefree, too loud, too much.
He could feel the others‘ glances on his back. Soon enough, they would send someone to talk to him. Probably Luke. Nobody else liked talking to him like this. Rebecca was on his side when he got violently protective of their group and house and that was about it for sympathies with his outbursts. He couldn‘t blame anybody. He did not know how to deal with himself after all. He sat with his back to the kitchen door and tried to calm down.
After a while, the floorboards behind him creaked. „You‘re worrying us,“ – Nick recognized this as coming from Pete – „and we cannot keep worrying about you like this.“ Nick looked at the ground. „You know this, son.“
Maybe he did know that. But how could he stop behaving like this? There was no switch he could press. As the floorboards creaked again, he stared out the window. He kept thinking about what Pete said. He was right. With so little words he had said everything he needed to: The group can‘t go on if we act out and lose it. Nick just really didn‘t know how not to lose it during these times.
Maybe he should distract himself now, he thought. He went upstairs to the room him and Luke shared and, thankfully, Luke was there. Nick had sat on his ass long enough for most of his housemates to return to their rooms, avoiding staying in the same room as him. At least Luke didn‘t avoid him during or after his outbursts. Pete didn‘t either, really, but he knew when to keep his distance.
Luke smiled when he saw Nick enter the room and gave him a little „hey“. He was currently mixing a deck of cards. „Wanna play something with me?“ Nick didn‘t wait and sat down opposite of him. „Of course, man,“ he replied. „And thank you.“ Luke shook his head and replied „I don‘t know what you are thanking me for.“ But Luke knew, Nick was sure. After many years around each other, these things went unsaid. Nick‘s temper was nothing new, just intensified by the stress of walkers and survival. When looking for refuge from fights or his own feelings, he often found himself at Luke‘s side. And that was, again, enough for him for now.
The calm never lasted though. Tonight, his mother came to haunt him and brought company. Nick never dreamed coherently, instead experiencing only devious fragments of his mind. The fragments he could recall this time were of his mother staring right at him as he shot her. Luke and Pete turning away from him. Brains and blood coating his hands and arms. Terrifying gurgling and squelching, screaming. His mother reaching out to him and holding onto his arm even after her second death. Pain in his joints from firing a shot. There was no saving her and Nick knew.
He woke up and started shaking. Despite trying not to, he also breathed heavily. And despite not wanting to, he once again seemed to have woken up Luke – they were lying back to back and Nick felt him move. He cursed himself internally. „Nick?“ Luke sleepily said. Why did he have to be such a light sleeper? „Can‘t sleep again?“ he asked while turning around. Nick hummed disagreeingly. „Wanna talk about it?“
Did he? Luke always knew what was going on inside his head and asked anyways. Usually Nick felt no need to divulge all private details of his emotions. This time, however, he felt slightly differently. It had been weeks since his mother‘s demise and he had kept himself from thinking about it. He knew exactly why: When he remembered her death, he knew his own was coming, too. This knowledge was eating away at him. Death was a part of the human condition but this wasn‘t what they expected, they didn‘t expect to watch all their loved ones die in quick succession, to watch society crumble, to shoot their own loved ones – none of this was normal. Even natural deaths turned humans into monsters. How could he keep all this inside?
„Actually, Luke,“ Nick‘s voice trembled. „I‘m scared of sleeping. We‘re all gonna die and we‘ll be lucky if we are put down. But ever since I shot my mother, I feel her insides all over me. And the parts of everybody else. And I just don‘t want anybody else to feel like that.“ He didn‘t feel like he was making sense.
Luke didn‘t say anything. Couldn‘t?
Moments passed. Nick was about to look over his shoulder when Luke wrapped an arm around him and got closer. „Let‘s not let that happen,“ he whispered against Nick‘s neck. He shuddered and a lump formed in his throat when he felt Luke‘s breath hit him. A small gesture, so casual. Nick didn‘t know what he expected from Luke – a few motivational words? He was a big presence, able to talk people into and out of things. He almost seemed carefree. Him dropping his guard like this was almost exciting to Nick. When else did he get to see Luke all soft, fragile, worried? He put a hand on Luke‘s on his torso. „Let‘s not,“ he whispered back. Nick almost wanted to tell him he needed him. A shocking thought he pushed aside. Wordlessly, they fell back asleep.
Their dance continued: Anytime Nick woke in terror, Luke put an arm around him. At one point, he just did it the moment they went to bed. Nick fell back asleep faster and Luke became more honest. Some nights they would even talk about their fears – secrets between them. Their bed at nighttime, their connection through touch, became a space in which fears spoken out loud were prevented from manifesting. At the end of the day they had each other.
One night Nick woke up so rattled he started thrashing around in bed in panic. It took some moments to calm down and by the time he did, he was lying on his back and Luke was propped up on his elbow next to him. Nick looked up at him, wiped his greasy hair off his forehead and said: „That one was pretty bad, huh?“ Luke just nodded and looked at him with an earnest expression on his face. Luke wasn‘t a staring kind of person, he was a talker. „What‘s up?“ Nick said inbetween heavy breaths.
„Don‘t leave,“ Luke just said. Nick froze. „I won‘t, I promise,“ he replied. Luke put his free hand on Nick‘s chest and said: „I need you around.“
The moment felt too heavy. Nick‘s scalp went hot, then cold, and his hands started sweating. Why? Emotions at nighttime had a height that was unparalleled when the sun was up. He didn‘t know what to say to that. A sudden impulse took hold of him: He grabbed Luke by his neck and pulled him closer. Slowly enough to give him a chance to protest. The weight on his chest became heavier as Luke supported himself. Nick raised his head and pressed a clumsy kiss on Luke‘s lips, half missing them, and pulled back again.
„I think I need you, too,“ he said under his breath. Luke exhaled and dropped himself onto Nick, head nestled against his neck. „I‘m glad you do,“ Luke exhaled. Nick didn‘t know if he was allowed to but proceeded to put a hand on Luke‘s head anyways. What they were doing felt like a transgression of social rules and which, he did not know. It felt like another secret they would keep between them. It was something they would take to the grave and he knew. He suddenly knew they were running out of time and there was nothing he could do, so he resigned himself to holding Luke in his arms and being held by them for the nights they spent at the cabin. The calm never lasted, but it was good enough for now.