Fic song is Rolling Stones - Laugh, I nearly died

TROY'S POV:

With the Clark's and my brother in my Dad's office, he berated me like the screw up he always saw me as. To be perfectly honest, I was screwed up. At least, I knew that. I was reminded of it enough growing up.

My dad's voice echoed in my head, his words were nothing new.

'You're a dumbass, you know that.' 'The hell is wrong with you, Troy? Why can't you be more like your brother?' 'You need to be an example for this family, Troy. So get your head out of your ass or I'll get it out of there for you.'

"Lighten up, Dad." Jake interrupted his rant.

"Stay out of this, Jake. He needs to hear this or he'll never learn."

I glanced around the room, my attention went to Alicia.

She was about to say something when Madison caught her wrist. A nice gesture, even though I didn't deserve it after the harm I brought their family. Especially Nick.

To my surprise, he was the one that got my father to stop talking.

"Do you get off on bullying your son in front of company?" He stepped forward, his arms folded across his chest. A tense twist to his mouth.

What was he doing?

My Dad turned his cold eyes onto him. "I beg your pardon, son. Do you know who you're talking to? Who's house you're standing in?"

I wanted to say something but I didn't know what to say. Clearly, nothing I did was good enough.

"Yeah, a wrinkley, miserable, bigotted old geezer who talks shit to his only real family. No wonder Troy's messed up." He gestured to him. "With a father like you-"

"Nick!" Madison cut him off.

Nick gave a wry smile. "What? We're just supposed to stand here and watch?"

"It's not our place," She determined.

It wasn't my place either. So I backed out of the room with my Dad screaming obscenitites at the back of my head with all his might. They rolled off my back as best as I could manage.

All I wanted to do was kill the No-Brainers. That seemed to be the only thing that made me feel better lately.

I ran up the stairs to grab my gun from my closet, then pocketed the extra ammo. When I turned around Jake stood in the doorway.

"Thanks for trying but I don't need your protection from Dad. He's gonna yell. That's what he does." I loaded the gun.

He came closer. "You shouldn't go out angry. What if you get in over your head?"

I shoved past him with care in my eyes. "Then shoot me in the head." I took the stairs two at a time.

"Troy!" He called after me.

Being in this family had always been lonely, but I had never realized just how much until the end of the world rained down a shit storm on us and we had to host dozens of survivors. Those dozens of survivors had to be closer to my family than I was. If the Clark's could have a perfect world here I wouldn't be in their picture. Guess that was no one's fault but my own.

My truck was only a little ways down the road. The last person I expected to find there was Nick leaned up against the driver's side with his hands in his navy blue coat pockets. He had cut his hair a few days ago. Now it hung a bit before his forehead. It looked nice on him, he looked like a different person.

I slowed down once we made eye contact. "What are you doing here, Nick?"

He shrugged. "Figured you could use the company."

"Well, I don't want it."

His brow arched. "Is that any way to treat the guy that defended your honor against your asshole father?"

"I didn't ask you to do that." My eyes ran over his face. "Why did you?"

A heavy breath left him. "Maybe I've been where you are."

"Doubtful,"

Nick had this Poet air about him that made this world a little easier to live in for him, something the rest of us hadn't yet figured out. He seemed to fit right in wherever he needed to. When I first laid eyes on him I couldn't quite figure him out. There was something inside of him that I recognized. It took a few days to pin point that it was the darkness in him. He may not be where I was but he'd been through his own version at one point.

He reached behind his back to pull out the pistol from his pants. "You go out there like this, you'll need back up."

My forehead creased. I didn't say anything as we both got into my truck.

I had a suspicion that this trip wasn't just about me, that he needed it as much as I did. He just didn't know how to go about asking for it.

So I kept my mouth shut. For now.

We rode in silence. Mostly silence.

"Why do you let Jeremiah talk to you like that?" He voiced.

I thought about not answering but it was a tiny space with nothing but time stretched ahead of us.

"I learned to block it out years ago, not much of a choice really."

His dark eyes felt heavy on my face. "You're not blocking it out. You misdirect it to everyone else. Those people back at the border. My family. Everyone. You can't go through life like that, Troy."

The anger I dampened rose. "And why not?" I glanced at him before turning my gaze back to the road so we didn't crash. "What has anyone else done for me? I already know what everyone thinks of me. What's the point in trying to deviate from it?"

"You know, when you asked me to kill you the other night I thought about doing it. Want to know why I didn't?"

I rested my arm on the door while I used the other to steer. A huff left me. "Do tell, Nick."

"You're not as demented as you let on and -"

"I'm plenty demented." I interjected.

He leaned closer to me. "You're not as demented as you let on and you've convinced yourself that you don't feel the pain you inflict on others." He let his words sink in, then sat back.

We came to a stop a few minutes later.

I struggled to keep it together because I didn't want to let my guard down in front of Nick of all people. Sure, I liked him okay, but he was a soul on the go. He could leave at any moment.

Against my better judgment, I chanced a look at him.

"You're lost. Welcome to the club." He opened his door and jumped out.

I followed with a stinging in my eyes that I had to blink away before I rejoined him.

We scouted in silence, never straying too far from each other. Ironically, it was hard to find No-Brainers to kill when you actually wanted to kill them.

"How long are we going to keep at this?" Nick asked.

"I didn't ask you to tag along." I walked ahead for the trees.

He followed. "You really have a death wish."

I stopped in my tracks, lowered my weapon, then turned to him. "So what if I do, Nick?"

His eyes narrowed until his jaw clenched. "That's why you came out here, wasn't it? You plan on accidentally getting bit so I have to put you down?"

That would've been a good plan.

"You're giving me more credit than I deserve." I headed for the direction in which we came, fed up with feeling things when I was around him. "Let's split up."

"Troy!"

I paused with a look over my shoulder. "I can't apologize for who I am, Nick."

"I'm not asking you to," He was about to say something, then cut himself off before he got the words to say, "I may not know why you are the way you are but that doesn't mean that I don't care. Our people need you, Troy. You think that Jake can do what needs to be done if a horde comes across the Ranch? Or that he'll be able to rally up fighters against Taqa and his men when that fight comes? The Ranch needs you. Don't give up on it because your Dad's an ass."

There was a wetness in my eyes that I had to blink away again. His wisdom brought out the demons in me that I didn't want to inspect. Before he came along I was drowning in my own mess. Now it kind of seemed like I had a life raft.

I turned around to face him and my heart stopped at the No-Brainer a foot away from him.

He stared at me with honest brown eyes, unaware of the death-bringer behind him.

My rifle raised at the No-Brainer and I pulled the trigger..

Nick's eyes held a tinge of fear.

The Dead dropped behind him.

He turned at the unexpected scene.

A few others dragged from the trees.

He looked back up at me in disbelief. He quickly grabbed his pistol.

I put my gun away to replace it with a hunting knife. I wanted blood and blood was what I was going to get.

I hacked into the oncoming heads with the help of Nick. There turner out to be more than a few, more came out of the woods than we expected. I could feel Nick's hesitation while it formed into excitement.

He ran out of bullets along the way and had to resort to his makeshift brass knuckle dagger. He clocked the shit out of a few then turned to stab more in their ugly little heads.

Whenever he showed his true colors around me I felt like I was let in on a secret the rest of the world didn't know.

There wasn't anything like this that could make me feel something. Well, other than Nick. And occasionally his mother when she poked her head into my business. She could tell that I had a fascination for her son. Her words came back to me. "But you have such a strange fixation on him."

The end of my knife sunk into a head of a No-Brainer that headed Nick's way, one that he wasn't going to get in time.

He threw me a look before finishing the clearing job we sought out to do.

My high built as high as it could get me before I was covered in their blood and there were no more killing left to do.

I moved toward Nick.

He had the same heavy look in his eyes. Only it changed when he saw me. A grin formed on his face, but it wasn't all there.

We wondered back to the truck in a haze. A lot of the time there wasn't a need to talk between us, not that we had this inexplicable connection that didn't require words, we were just tired of all the bullshit.

I headed for the drivers side when he grabbed my arm. I looked at him.

"Let's give it a minute before we head back."

My rose in question. Did he want to do more killing?

He dropped his hand. "How about we catch our breath?" He went around to the bed of the truck, stepped up onto the tire then he was over into the bed. He held his hand out.

My wrapped around his as he holsted me up. I swung my long legs over one by one. My back laid against the chilly, hard plastic of the bed. I blew out a heavy breath.

We laid there several minutes so we could rest our weary bones.

"Do you feel better now?" He asked eventually.

"Do you?"

He turned his head to look at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I looked at him. "You and me, we're more alike than you think. Black sheep. Children of violence. It's just you wish you weren't."

He was about to say something but turned away instead.

"It's okay, Nicky."

"Don't call me Nicky."

I cracked a grin. "What are you going to do about it?"

He surprised me with a tired laugh. "Nothing, I suppose."

We stayed like that, staring up at the twinkling lights in the dark beyond because it was nice. It was simple. It was easy.

"You ready to go back?" He asked after a while.

My head shook. I was as content as I'd been in a while.

"A few more minutes."

A/N: I'll upload more when I have time :) Please let me know how you did or didn't like it.