Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: For imorca because she tagged me on tumblr and literally just said: "Milton x Jesus, tho" and here we are because I am an entire trash can, apparently. Set in an AU where Milton escaped Woodsbury with Andrea in season three instead of staying, but lost Andrea before they could get to the prison and ended up on his own in the wild. Everything basically follows canon, but Milton is on his own until around the time when Team Family discovers Alexandria where in fix his comes across Jesus.

Disclaimer:Grief/loss/healing, depression, adult language, canon appropriate violence, blood and gore, sexual content, slow burn.

Scintilla

Chapter Nine

He didn't have to go far to find what he was looking for.

A walker.

It was likely one who'd ambled away from the main herd - slowly shuffling through the thinned out brush on the edge of the neighborhood. Far enough away to be out of sight and sound of both the house and the main group as he squared his shoulders and forced his legs to move.

He didn't waste anytime. With his disguise he approached without notice, mimicking the walker's movements until he was directly behind the shambling thing. Trying not to internalize the relatively good condition of the body and the clothes – which, save for being filthy and soaked by the storm, barely looked weather beaten at all - as he followed its slow trajectory across an overgrown lawn. He waited until they'd moved into the cover of a garden shed and safely out of sight before he set to work.

The parallels to last time were stark and poignant as he sliced it's arms off at the elbow. Hacking through bone and flesh as the stink of old blood rose humid and flush in his sinuses. He pushed to the ground with a hard shove before chambering on top of it. Weighing it down as dull ivory snap-snapped at him, growling. But he just gritted his teeth back. Seeing a flickering image of him and Andrea holding the first walker down. Bashing its teeth against a rock and rendering it harmless. Just another thing she'd managed to teach him before-

It hadn't been her time.

It should have been him.

But that wasn't what ended up happening.

He'd never understood that.

Not once.

She'd been the strong one.

The one that could have actually made a difference.

It'd haunted him all through his months alone.

All the way to the moment beside the fire with Paul when everything changed.

He grabbed the walker by the chin, forcing the poisonous thoughts back as he fumbled with the thickness of his gloves before he grabbing his machete and sinking the blade into it's open mouth. Pressing down, down, down until it cut through muscle and sinew and thunked down against bone. Grating with a cringing pitch that set his teeth on edge as he put his weight into it.

He barely reacted when the blade jerked, abruptly severing the walker's lower jaw from the rest of its face. Not even so much as flinching when the glinting mess landed right in his lap. Showing off old fillings and a single gold crown.

The truth was he was too busy making sure all the teeth were safely dug out of the upper jaw to notice.

He had to move quickly.

Paul was running out of time.

He repurposed a good chunk of the thick translucent tubing they used for siphoning gas into a makeshift lead. Tying it around the walker's neck as he led it out into the open in front of him.

It was insurance.

But it wasn't a 'just in case.'

At this point it was a logical certainty.

He tied it to a tree at the edge of the backyard before streaking over to the window again. Crouching down long enough by the window to make sure Paul wasn't in imminent danger before retreating again. Anger burning like acid in his gut as the second voice kept talking. Slicing. Hurting.

He was shivering again, able to feel the temperature drop in real time as the wind-chill only increased. Fumbling with the small amount of gas he'd been able siphon from the tank of one of the bikes parked out front as he crawled along the edges of the house. Finding a dusty liquor bottle - vodka, cheap - in a stack of recyclables under the porch.

He'd only just finished with the makeshift wick - ripping a spare bit of shirt into strips - when the back door swung open and a man stumbled out. Shotgun drawn. He had less than a moment to flatten himself to the dirt. He used the handful of seconds as the man's eyes adjusted to the dark to pull out his gun. Easing the safety back slowly. Negotiating with a higher power that likely didn't exist to let the storm hide him.

A whisper of cold ached across his teeth. Gritted and bared into the white-out. Watching the looming shape look left over the deck, then right. Clearly cautious as the man spat audibly and cleared his throat. He didn't start breathing again until the tell-tale rasp of zipper echoed loud in the frozen quiet. Quickly followed by a splattering stream that hazed steam in an arc as the man urinated off the back deck.

His lip curled in disgust, but otherwise he didn't move. Trying to figure out how he could use the man's untimely arrival to his advantage before the walker he'd tied to the tree on the opposite side of the yard provided it for him. Growling mutely and rustling in the thorny brush as something caught its attention in the trees.

"What the shit?"

The man walked right past him. Ignoring the snow-covered lump in the snow as the walker moved restlessly. The tubing of it's leash caught in the branches of the shrub so that it crushed against the remaining leaves with an audible thrash.

He didn't hesitate.

Not even for a second.

The moment the man's back was turned he leapt to his feet. Using surprise and gravity to his advantage as the man flailed - panicking - wrenching him backwards. Shotgun slipping through bare fingers, almost too slow to be real. Before he was slapping his hand over the man's mouth and slicing his knife across the struggling arc of vulnerable skin it found there.

Red sprayed out in a fine, arterial mist long before he let the body drop. Watching the man die without expression as blood jetted - unstable and hot - across the rough of his pant legs. Feeling nothing. Nothing but contempt and the cold and a thousand other fractions of anger and rage, longing, possession and worse- things that frightened him in a way he hadn't realized anything still could.

Knowing that despite how terrible it sounded, he would do it again in a heartbeat.

Perhaps not for himself.

But he would for Paul.


He'd heard someone say once that even monsters had hearts.

But now he knew it was a phrase that was host to a trick question.

That part depended on who was writing the story.


Afterwards, in a strange tilt of fate, it turned out that all he had to do was wait.

Because after about ten minutes the door swung open and predictably-

"I swear to god, if your prick has frozen off don't you think for one minute that I'm going to-"

He threw the cocktail right through the open door. Feeling the hot whoosh of the explosion as the man in the doorway screamed. Flailing as the brittle-dry wood crackled into flames.

He ran around the house, fumbling with his lighter as he cursed and struggled to get the rest of the wicks lit in the wind. Knowing he only had a handful of moments to get this done as he lobbed the next two under the front deck. Igniting the trash and refuse underneath as an accelerant before flickering red and orange started climbing the wood-slate sides. He shattered the large bay windows in either side of the house with a rock before throwing the forth and fifth into the main room.

By the time he'd raced around to the back again the group was already trying to pile out of the burning house. The first man's screams turning high and agonized, blocking the door as he writhed. Flaking burning skin across the snow before a looming shape, Benny or maybe the leader, kicked him out of the way. Sending him rolling off into the snow drifts as the audible hissshh of dousing flames issued from the ground not five meters from where he was crouched. Momentarily drowning out the building panic as the four of them - no Paul - collected on the section of deck that wasn't burning. Guns up and aimed blindly into the gloom. Yelling and cursing as he backed up slowly, hunkering down beside the walker he'd tied to the treeline. Knowing he wouldn't have long to wait before-

That was when he heard them, coming in from behind. The herd - or at least part of it - drawn by the noise and the flames. He rose slowly to his feet as they emerged from the trees around him. Behind him. Beside him. Pushing and shoving and crowding against him as he let them envelope him. Staggering forward with them, a walking cushion against the hail of panicked bullets as the walkers lunged after the group. Falling on them in a living crush as one by one they went down - tearing and screaming.

He peeled off when he got to the house. Hauling himself up the porch steps as he dropped all pretenses. Conscious that the herd was distracted as a bullet pinged off the siding just above his head. Nearly losing his balance against the ice as he flinched, hand automatically going to his cheek as the ricochet sprayed pulverized wood into a thousand sharp little arrows. He ignored the sting as he stuffed his gun into his waistband and pulled his scarf over his face before stumbling inside. Yelling for him.

"Paul?!"

Flames were licking across the walls. The floors. The ceiling. Groaning beams and crackle-dry paint as smoke rose choking and thick. Turning the world opaque and searing as he pinged unsteadily from wall to wall.

"Paul!"

His heart was in his throat. Already thinking the worst. That he was too late. That they'd killed him before they left. That one of his Molotov cocktails had gotten him. That the fire had already reached that far. That-

"Here!"

He found him in the center of a closing circle of flames. Kicking out at the burning carpet in front of him. Still tied to the banister. Nearly falling on him as he misjudged the distance - glasses useless in the smoke.

"Milton? Mil-"

It was like a shot of adrenaline.

A system-wide reboot.

But touching him was even better.

Feeling the firm of him under his hands as he hacked through the rope and took Paul's weight into the crux of his chest and pulled him to his feet. They swaying there for delirious half second – coughing - struggling to breathe through the growing smoke.

"Milton? How did you- how are you-" Paul rasped, voice throaty and raw like he hadn't had anything to drink in hours, maybe days. Eyes wide as he took him in. All of him. The frozen, blood soaked layers. The stench of gore and gasoline. The hanging entrails and fresh human red that was splattered across his face. Bloody beads of it still clinging to the light hairs that feathered the downy-fine of his neck and the tops of his hands. A walking nightmare of unrecognizable sharpness. Calculating but still vulnerable - still weak.

"There's no time," he returned, shaking his head. Pulling a section of intestine from around his neck to drape it over Paul's shoulder. Ignoring the slight flinch as the supporting beam above their heads caught fire. Groaning like the precursor to an imminent fall. "Can you walk?"

He was already smearing the foul smelling gore from his clothes onto Paul's. Coating his face and everywhere else there was bare skin by the time the man nodded. Helping him through the burning house and out onto the deck as an ever moving sea of dead continued to spill out of the trees. Cramming up against the sides of the house, some of them already burning. Whirling, off-centre messes of bubbling skin and burning hair as Paul stiffened against him. Inhaling roughly as patterns in the crowd slowly began to emerge. Showing where the men had fallen - surrounded by squirming clusters of walkers ripping and chewing - tearing into the people who'd almost taken something precious from him. Some of them still screaming – still alive.

He ignored the screams.

He couldn't face that.

Not now.

Not yet.

"Trust me," he whispered. Soft and ragged and such a mix between the person he'd been and the person he was now that he half wondered if Paul would recognize it all at.

He waited until the man nodded - chin high, bloody and decided - before he led them out into the crush. Paul's hand firm in his own as they caught each other's eye just before they allowed the herd to swallow them.

It wasn't a goodbye.

But it was something.


It took time, but eventually they made it to the clump of trees. Scanning the milling herd and the ones still pouring in before he made a decision. Deciding to wait it out as Paul started stumbling, wounds already leaking a spitting red trail behind them as he edged warily away from the tied up walker. He pressed down on the man's shoulder wordlessly. Easing them down slowly – ever so slowly – into the jutting hollow behind the cluster of trees. Keeping Paul safe and out of sight as he sank down in front of him. Sharing the chilled weight of each other as they crowded as close to the armless walker as possible. Keeping them camouflaged as the house burned – collapsing in on itself as he shook out a thermal blanket and domed it over them. Hiding them from sight as they shared the press of each other's weight. Curling close as the air underneath the blanket slowly began to warm. Creating an eco-system of iron-rust and stale humidity as the armless walker shifted restlessly with the crowd.

If they made it through the night, maybe-


"Come on," he rasped, hours later. Parched with sin and surging nausea as he slung Paul's arm over his shoulder and pulled him to his feet the same moment dawn broke across the cloudy horizon. Taking all the weight the man was still too unsteady to handle on his own as he mainlined the scent of him like an anchor. Reassuring himself that they were both here, now, as the last of the herd wandered through the hissing coals and burned out ruins of the house.

"Let's go home."


A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. There are a few more chapters, stay tuned!