The sun was at its peak now, indicating that it was probably midday, and normally that was when Elyza broke into a house so they could have a snack in an actual table instead of the floor. The blonde, however, seemed to be distracted and in a bit of a hurry since she'd barely spoken at all after leaving the convenience store. Alicia was starting to worry.
"Aren't you hungry?" She tried for a casual approach, not wanting to sound too concerned. There was no answer for a while, and Alicia almost decided to drop it when the Aussie spoke.
"Let's walk a few more blocks and then stop, alright?"
Alicia nods, happy to hear her voice after a silent walk. Elyza was a few steps ahead of her, so the brunette took a moment to look at her body language unconsciously. The way the blonde's hips barely moved as she walked, her backs always straight in a somewhat professional posture as the shotgun moved up and down from its strap, the messy hair, the boots that made her a bit taller than Alicia. All of those things almost seemed to jog a very distant memory in the girl's brain, but it was too distant to reach and she was afraid of what she'd find once she was able to grasp it. It was a like a whole set of memories was locked inside her mind and the more time she spent with Elyza Lex, the weaker the locks became.
Then she looked over to Elyza's wounded hand and realized it was bleeding. The blonde didn't seem to have noticed, or if she did, she was ignoring it. Judging by how red and swollen her skin was, it was probably the latter. "Your hand looks awful, we should change your bandages."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not." Alicia quickened her steps to catch up with her. "Stop being stubborn for one freaking minute and let me help you. Please?"
Elyza sighed, but didn't slow down. She turned to look right into Alicia's eyes – something that was becoming quite frequent, she noticed – and nodded softly. "Okay."
Alicia nodded back and guided her to one of the abandoned houses by her elbow. Of course Elyza prohibited her from entering before she checked the perimeter. "I'll try not to screw it up this time."
The brunette was about to retort, but Elyza was quicker and vanished into the residence. Alicia stood by the door with arms crossed and brows furrowed, one leg moving up and down nervously. She knew Elyza still blamed herself for what happened back at the store, even though she had no reasons to. They've been hanging out together for only 6 days, and that was not nearly enough time to form that kind of connection with someone.
When they first met, the blonde irradiated a laidback and badass attitude, and Alicia was pretty sure that this girl who killed five walkers with 2 shots of her shotgun feared nothing and cared for nothing. But as time went by, she figured out her weakness was probably how attached she easily got to other people. Maybe that was why she'd been traveling alone for so long before meeting Alicia.
Love is weakness.
The words echoed through her brain, and Alicia blinked, shocked. Where did that come from? She shook her head, forcing herself to focus on other things.
Like the fact that Elyza still hadn't come back yet.
"Elyza?" She didn't want to shout in case a walker was nearby, but her heart was racing now. "Everything okay?"
The place was quiet, and the rational part of Alicia told her to just stay put and that she would be back soon. The emotional part, however, urged her to rush into the house and rescue that dumb blonde, and for once her emotions won. She ran, both hands gripping the baseball bat she used as weapon, her untrained steps too loud for her taste.
It didn't take long for Elyza to walk out of the kitchen and bump into her. "Woah! What are you doing here? I told you to stay put!"
"You were taking too long! I got…" Alicia stopped to catch her breath. "Worried."
"I do the worrying around here, sky girl," Elyza said that in a somewhat jokingly manner, but Alicia was too agitated to play her games at the moment.
"Why? Why do you care so much about me? You're just some random stranger who saved me once and owns me nothing, what makes me so damn special that you go out of your way to help me so much?" All of the emotions bottled up for the past few days came crashing down at that moment, and Alicia knew that she should stop sounding crazy and just be grateful for having a badass walker-killer by her side. But her mouth couldn't stop spilling words apparently. "What if you had died in this goddamn house, what then? Don't just leave me behind while you play hero Elyza, holy shit!"
Once her breakdown ceased, they just stood in silence staring at each other. Elyza licked her lips and averted her gaze, adjusting the strap of the shotgun on her shoulder (she did that when she was nervous, Alicia had realized). The brunette tried to stop her heavy breathing little by little, now feeling awkward for the explosion. She closed her eyes and scratched the back of her head. "…I'm sorry."
"No, you're right." Elyza said, looking up. "We gotta have each other's backs. We're a team, right? You and me."
Alicia stared at her with glossy eyes and rubbed them with the sleeve of her jacket. "Yeah." She sighed heavily, suddenly very tired. "Come on, let's fix your hand and eat."
"Aye, aye, Commander."
Alicia smiled at that and both headed out for the kitchen table.
"I could teach you how to shoot," Elyza commented casually as Alicia took care of her hand. The brunette grabbed a new bandage after cleaning the blood with a wet towel and was wrapping it around her hand gently. "Even though I don't feel like guns suit you, honestly."
"Me neither," Alicia mumbled, focused on her task. Elyza watched her with a soft grin, her chest warm by how tender the girl could be underneath the huge layers of sarcasm.
"Knives are not really practical, you'd have to get too close… Unless you knew how to throw them." Elyza was still thinking about better weapons Alicia could use to defend herself that didn't include having to bash skulls like the baseball bat. It was messy and not really effective. "Maybe something sharp, but lengthy."
"What, like a sword?" Alicia said that with a smirk on her face, not really meaning it. After Elyza got quiet at the suggestion, she had to look up. "…That was a jok—"
"Hell fucking yes."
"Oh, please." Alicia scoffed, finishing wrapping up her hand. "All done. Does it hurt?"
Elyza moved her fingers a little bit to test them. "Not really." Then she carefully lifted Alicia's hand that was still covering hers up to her lips and placed a gentle kiss on it, smirking. "Thank you, my lady."
The brunette rolled her eyes, pulling back and cleaning said hand on the wet towel. "God."
"But seriously, though," Elyza continued, as if nothing had happened and as if she didn't notice the huge blush on the girl's face. "I can totally see it. You, in the middle of a hoard of walkers, two swords in hands, a killer stare on your eyes, decapitating all of them in a tornado of blades…"
"You watch too many movies," Alicia got up and started grabbing some food from her bag. "Besides, where would we even find a sword?"
"I might know a place."
"Somehow I don't doubt that," Alicia's lips tugged up in an almost smile as she opened one can of cold beans. Turning back around she looked for a spoon and napkins and placed them on the table once she found some, sitting down as well. "Eat up."
Alicia started munching on the food, but noticed Elyza just sat there motionless, with a very fake pout on her face. She had to fight really hard the urge to not roll her eyes. "What is it now?"
The blonde just lifted her hand up. "Hand hurts."
"You said it didn't hurt a minute ago."
"Well, it doesn't if I just stay still, but I don't wanna risk brusque movements."
"So what? Use your right hand," One of the first things Alicia had noticed about Elyza was that she was left-handed, but she would never admit paying attention to small details about the girl.
"My right hand sucks. What if I spill food all over myself? We can't waste our water on washing a stain, that'd be dumb."
"Oh my god," Alicia's expression yelled 'done with you' as she stared. "What do you want then?"
Elyza just propped her face up on her right hand and opened her mouth, a smirk clearly visible. Alicia took a while to understand what the hell she was doing, but raised her eyebrows once she got the message. "I am not feeding you, are you serious?"
The blonde let out a raspy chuckle and sat back straight, finally grabbing the spoon. "Worth a try." She was not, in fact, terrible at holding things with her weaker hand, which made Alicia all the more flustered.
"What's wrong with you?..." Alicia mumbled, clearly not angry, but just embarrassed. She put a spoonful of beans in her mouth in the hopes of not having to talk for a long time while she ate. Still, deep down she was happy that Elyza was back to her normal self instead of all the awkward silence from earlier.
"Not gonna pass up the opportunity of having a cute girl feeding me," Elyza managed to say in between bites. "Ew, cold beans are the worst."
Alicia felt her cheeks burning. She was still getting used to the fact that Elyza Lex could shift from flirtatious to casual conversation in a matter of seconds and wondered just how much of what she said she actually really meant. She knew the girl cared for her to some extent, or else she wouldn't have risked her life time and time again to save her ass. Alicia just wished she knew what exactly was the truth behind the blonde's actions.
She also wondered what would happen if she decided to be a little more adventurous with the cocky Australian.
Alicia did nothing for a couple of minutes and then, without saying a word, moved her chair closer to the other girl and held out a spoonful of beans in her general direction. Elyza stopped her arm midair, mouth hanging open as if she was seeing an illusion. Alicia just pushed the spoon forward, urging her to eat.
"Seriously?" Elyza said, shocked.
"Just take it before I change my mind." Alicia replied, as dry as she possibly could. Elyza smiled and moved her mouth, eating the whole spoon in one deliberately slow bite. The brunette could feel the girl's tongue swirling around it and immediately wanted to yank it away from her mouth, but found herself hypnotized by the way her lips cleaned the entire silver flatware. She did that ridiculously well, and Alicia's heart leaped a beat as she stared. Elyza finally removed her lips from the spoon and started to chew.
"We're in an apocalypse, we don't have enough water to quench that amount of thirst, love." Were the first words that came out of the blonde's mouth after she swallowed the beans. Alicia blinked, the spell officially broken, and moved her chair away from her with a slap on the blonde's arm.
"Shof op."
Both froze at the same time, Elyza's laughter stopping completely. She could feel the hairs in her backs stand up as a powerful shiver went down her spine; the same thing apparently happened to Alicia.
"…What was that?"
"I meant… Shut up." The brunette stammered. "I think there was a… a bean on my teeth or s-something." Alicia couldn't be less convincing if she tried. Elyza exhaled and nodded, not wanting to push it.
"Probably some forgotten slang. We have those too," Elyza cleared her throat and resumed eating with her right hand. "Like 'oy mate, put on your thongs and let's head down to the my rellies' barbie next door'."
Alicia couldn't hold back a smile at that. "What's that even supposed to mean?"
"Get to know me a little more and maybe I'll tell ya." And the Aussie was back with the teasing, which was honestly a relief.
Alicia definitely didn't want to think about how fast her heart was beating because of the strange words that unconsciously leaked out of her mouth.
Lunch was over and the two girls were back on the road heading east. Elyza was back to her normal self with pointless chitchat to improve everyone's moods and silly games that made Alicia laugh. Every now and then they would come across a walker and Elyza would simply shoot it in the head with extremely good precision and then just resume their conversation, something that always surprised the brunette. She didn't like guns in particular, but seeing the Aussie use them so easily was honestly stunning. Alicia looked down at her baseball bat and felt silly all of a sudden.
"Hey," They were walking side-by-side, hands brushing occasionally. "You said you knew a place."
"I know lots of places." Elyza smirked.
"You know what I'm talking about." Alicia blinked the sunlight off he eyes. "The… sword thing?"
"Ah, so that did get your attention," The blonde side glanced her, then nodded. "Yeah, I know somewhere on the underground. They sell some pretty cool weapons."
Alicia knew that asking the girl how she even came across a place like this was going to be pointless, so she just nodded in agreement. "Is it anywhere near here?"
Elyza didn't answer right away and fretted with her shotgun for a while. Alicia knew when to be patient, so she simply waited while listening to their steps on the hot concrete. "Kinda."
"Meaning…?"
"We might need to sidetrack for a bit." Elyza didn't want to hold back from finding the brunette's family; that was the main concern for both of them right now. She knew how much Alicia missed them and honestly, for what was worth, making sure the girl was safe with the people she loved was all Elyza could think about right now.
"Alight," Alicia blurted out suddenly, making Elyza turn to her.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure everyone is safe." Alicia said that almost as if she was trying to convince herself more than anything. "We'll find them eventually." Then she stopped on her tracks, looking down. Elyza halted as well, facing the brunette with soft eyes. "And I might as well learn how to protect myself in case something happens to you, too."
The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, but nodded, understanding. They couldn't take anything – or anyone – for granted in the scenario they found themselves in, that much had already been made clear. It'd happened with Alicia's ex-boyfriend and neighbors, and Elyza's parents and some friends. No one was safe.
"Okay." Elyza said and smiled, approaching the brunette to poke her shoulder affectionately. "Let's go get you some gear then, warrior."
Alicia smiled back and they resumed the walk. "If I'm a warrior do I get to wear warpaint as well?"
Elyza laughed out loud at that and brushed off some of the black make-up from her eyes to smear it over Alicia's cheek. "If you want to, cutie. It won't suit you at all, though."
As soon as she said that, she knew it was a lie.
Chapter 2 is up! I'm loving writing for this fandom, I hope you enjoy my work as well!
- niigoki