"You bleeding?" Daryl was immediately concerned. Injuries out in the wild were pretty serious most of the time, especially if Warren didn't have access to medical supplies. No matter how bad the Walker virus was, it was imperative that every person kept in mind the fact that Walker bites weren't the only things that could kill them. Anything from an untreated spider bite to a mild untreated cold could sprout complications and send even the strong into a three-by-six pit of mud and earth.
"I'm fine." Warren wiped his fingers on a tree, pressing his other hand to the wet spot. "It's nothing. C'mon." He was resolute, and once he began walking, Daryl could do little but follow. He wished he could lead the other back to Alexandria, but he knew better. There was more he needed to know, first, before he forced them together unceremoniously. Because he would, in the end, he knew he would. He already enjoyed Warren's company - out in the open, with no social pretenses, no conspiracies, no underhanded gun-waving, just a hunter facing a hunter, a jumpy deer facing a semi-friendly dog - and he wasn't going to be forced to leave the kid behind, not in any circumstances.
It was hard to read what direction they were heading at first, as the sun was entirely gone and the forest was shrouded in rich, dark tones. But eventually they came to an area where the canopy opened up, and the stars peeked through the trees. It was slightly west of Alexandria, and slightly north, and the stars were bright and unmarred. In the glow of the moon, Daryl finally caught sight of Warren's camp, and he was honestly surprised.
It was a large field, extending into the distance, the corn visible even from there. A small greenhouse with glass walls and an overly complicated looking irrigation system sat right in front of them, full to the brim with plants. Green strawberries and unripe tomatoes and other vegetables were gathered together in their own mini forest behind the glass. Besides that, there was... nothing. A set of wooden doors lead deep into the earth, and a two small concrete blocks peered from the earth, with windows into something. Warren went straight for the doors, hefting one open, and disappearing inside. Where ever Warren lived, it was apparently underground.
Daryl approached the doors, testing their resistance. They were wood, with a metal plate on the inside that had a heavy duty bar lock. Below them, concrete stairs went down a short distance. He stepped down them, bending down so as not to slam his head on the ceiling that dipped drastically in front of him, slamming the heavy door behind him. The stairs were short, and ended in a wall, with a small table at the very bottom of the stairs. There was a bin underneath, with weapons inside.
"Put your crossbow in the bin!" He heard Warren's voice from the depths of the hall, and narrowed his eyes. The hall was small, and dark, and had two obvious doors before ending in an open room. Apparently, the lack of the clatter of a weapon in the bin was apparent, because Warren continued. "Trust me on this, your crossbow wouldn't do well one-v-one-ing the concrete walls! You can grab it at any point, I'm not taking it from you!"
Eventually, Daryl obliged, but begrudgingly. Warren was right, of course; he could tell if he tried to carry anything down the hall he would knock it into the walls. He almost had to turn sideways to even navigate the space himself. He took a step into the hall and peered into the doorway on the right, which housed a kitchen. It was obscenely small, barely enough room for one person to stand between the counters, with one of the windows he'd spotted above the sink. He stepped inside, pulling open a cabinet curiously. "You ever gonna tell me why you don't live in Alexandria?" He called, trying to be casual. He knew he was prodding a secret when he asked, and he knew not to push too hard if Warren resisted. But if anyone was to ever trust the kid, they'd need to know what happened, and maybe if he was gentle Warren would give up the info on his own. As he spoke, Daryl peered into the empty cabinets with narrowed eyes. There were maybe a few cans, a pot or two, but the place was bare, which was surprising for how cramped it was.
When no reply came, Daryl stepped into the hall again, peering into the other doorway almost across the hall. It was a bathroom, with a tiny shower, a toilet, and a sink. The cabinet above the sink was open, and mostly bare, an empty bottle and a mostly gone tube of toothpaste the only contents. "You said they'd wanna find you or somthin'." Daryl added, stepping back into the hall. The only other door was the one on the end, and it had no door, just the frame. He stepped forward, peering in.
Warren was standing next to a bed that took up most of the space, shirt rolled up, putting bandages on his chest. There were long, red scars there, puffy and strange looking, one a little wet. He was wrapping these in gauze and tape, barely paying attention. "You get into it with them or somethin?" Daryl asked, and the words were so loud they scared Warren, who nearly dropped the tape he was holding as he squeaked in surprise.
"N-No." Warren pulled his shirt down almost frantically, embarrassed. "I don't-let's, uh, do something else." He forced out, throwing the bandages on the bed and rooting around in a drawer. Daryl leaned in the doorway casually, watching the small figure dig around aimlessly for several minutes.
"Like what?" Daryl asked, taking his eyes from Warren to scan the room. There was the other window, and there were several old wood pieces stuffed in the room it was almost impossible that someone could live in here. He wasn't going to ask how they managed to fit a queen mattress through that hallway and get it into the room, but they did.
"Poker?" Warren pulled out a set of slightly beaten cards. "I'm not a good player, but it'll pass the time well enough. We just... don't have anything to bet with." Warren shrugged, toeing the medical kit under the bed deftly as he spoke. Daryl sort of narrowed his eyes at the idea, thinking for a long moment. Warren was obviously one for secrets, but he also seemed fairly plyable. It seemed he was almost just more embarrassed at the things he had going on - those bandages, for instance, which, if they hadn't looked like old scars, Daryl would have said something - but maybe, if Daryl could use the poker as a medium, he could find out some things.
"I've got an idea." Daryl said, shifting off the doorway and stepping into the room. "We bet with stories. You lose, you tell the number of stories you bet." He shrugged, trying to not be too hostile looking, hands in his pockets. "You can find out 'bout me, 'n I can find out 'bout you."
Warren considered the idea. Eventually, he nodded. He apparently didn't think he was that bad at poker, or he had a lot of stories. Outside, thunder rumbled deeply in the distance, disturbing the peace of night around them. "We have time now, I guess." Warren chuckled, looking up at the tiny window as rain began to patter onto the ground. "The, uh, the only place to sit is the bed. Sorry." Daryl didn't care, flopping down on the heavy mattress. "Five card?"
"Mm. Blackjack." Daryl said. "Not as many cards. Won't lose any." He chuckled, swiping the deck from Warren's hands in a deft motion and shuffling. "'Less you think you're shit at blackjack."
"I can play blackjack." Warren puffed himself up a little, letting out the breath in a half chuckle as well. "You wanna play until we're tired, and then tell stories? So we don't get distracted."
"Sure." Daryl shrugged. "Whatever."
~o~o~
It didn't take them too long to realize Warren was fairly shitty at Blackjack. When they finished, and both decided they were done playing, Warren was in the hole five stories, and Daryl only down one. Warren slipped back on the bed, laying down and staring at the window where the rain had begun to patter against the dark background of night.
"I guess you want me to start?" He asked, softly, lulled by the sound of rain into a welcomed contentment. Playing cards - and specifically losing at cards - took a lot out of him, Daryl noticed, slipping back on the bed as well so he could also recline. He didn't respond, just staring, taking in Warren's features properly as he could in the dim light. Not just the general sweep of features he'd absorbed before, but the details - the exact tone of Warren's skin, which was more a honey tan than anything, or the build of his face, with a slightly flatter nose and a smooth, semi-round jaw. The way he reclined back on his arms like a Greek on a chaise-lounge, the way his lithe, tanned, almost dark fingers seemed tense even when unclenched, the moderate plumpness of his lips. Eventually, Warren turned to look at Daryl, lips pursed in mild frustration. "Yes or no?"
"Yeah, yeah." Daryl hummed, distracted. Warren reminded him of people he'd met before, before the Walkers started, but he was hard pressed to remember exactly whom. Women, mostly, he could recall, very feminine. Warren huffed slightly, laying down proper, looking at his hands above his head.
"Okay so... I guess, since I've got a lot to talk about, I might as well just tell you everything up to this point. That should be enough stories, I think." He inspected his fingers in the dim light, quiet for a moment. "My dad built this place. Like, laid the rebar, poured the cement kind of built this place. He was a war vet, Vietnam when he was younger and a tour in Iran, which was super brief." He paused, sitting up and heading to a nearby desk, rummaging for something in the drawers. "I have a photo of him somewhere. I was his first kid with mom, and I had two sisters, twins, that were eight." He pulled a battered photo and shoved it towards Daryl, who took it gently. Photos were cherished possessions in the apocalypse, and he didn't want to damage it. "This is from when we went to Disney when the twins were five. My dad's name was Jerome, my mom was Denise, and then the twins were Lela and Lesia." He chuckled.
Daryl took the pause to look at the photo. In it, a man and a woman posed together, supporting two young children, and a third posed between them. The man was obviously Warren's father, Jerome - dark skin, almost blue in places, and steel gray eyes - and was smiling brightly, sporting a Mickey Mouse hat on a head with very little hair. The woman beside him, Daryl figured, was Warren's mother, Denise - a petite, strawberry blond haired woman with pale skin, freckles, and large blue eyes. She looked elated, the happiest a mother could be, holding happy, bubbly children. The twins were dark, like their father, one with blond hair and one with dark brown, both worn in tight Micky-esque pigtails on top of their head. And then there was Warren, posed in the middle, forcing a smile in a sweatshirt in what was obviously very hot weather.
"Dad was always good to us, always joyful and playful. But he was also strange sometimes. The war fucked him up, Mom said. He would sometimes go out for hours with a rifle and come back dirty and tired, and say nothing about it. I think he was convinced they wanted to take him back out there, and the government was coming for him, and that we weren't safe. That's why he built this place, not 'cause he thought we'd all die in an apocalypse, but because he wanted us to have a safe space." Warren shifted to sit by Daryl, taking the photo in his own hands. He ran a thumb gently over the face of his father, the cracked paper photo crinkling under his fingers slightly.
"He taught us things, things which, when I was a kid, I thought were just a game, but really meant something. He taught me how to hunt, how to use a bow and arrow, because guns were too noisy and too easy to misuse. He only used guns himself because he was trained, he said, trained in the art of being too scared to hurt someone, but we weren't allowed to use any of them. I thought it was fun, but it was practical, and pragmatic. The only guns we were allowed were flares, and only when we were hunting. He said only use them if we were hurt, and he would find us. I never had to use it." Warren sighed, flopping back onto the bed.
"He built he house we lived in. He was good with his hands, good at making things. Mom encouraged him, because that's what she was good at. She was a nurse, a pediatric nurse, and her strong suit was taking care of special needs kids. She was good at that kind of thing, and she was good at taking care of us. She and Dad were good together, and worked well together. She made good food. She was patient, and when Dad insisted that he build an underground bunker for us, she made sure he didn't starve while doing it. The farming was her idea. She told him if he wanted to live in God Knows Where, they would need some crops. So they picked up farming as a hobby." Warren chuckled. "Mom called it intense gardening." Here, Daryl chuckled.
"What about your sisters?" He asked, softly, after a moment of quiet. Not that Warren needed prompting, but he honestly wanted to know.
"I don't think I've ever had better friends, and they were eight." Warren chuckled. "Lela was a genius, I swear to god. She kept making things out of legos that were one set of wires short of being a robot. Math was her forte; when I was homeschooled, sometimes I'd get her to do my algebra for me. Lesia went more for art stuff, and it was hard to tell if she really liked art, or if she just wanted to be different. Sometimes, I think being a twin got to her a bit, and I think she strove for independence most of all." Warren sighed, turning over on the bed and gently drawing on the bedspread. He was sad, now, and it was easy to tell.
"What happened to 'um?" Daryl prompted, softly, knowing it was coming next but speaking anyway. Warren was quiet for another long moment before he spoke again, soft now, less excitement in his voice than before.
"Dad heard about the breakout first. Mom insisted we didn't use the bunker yet, that it was nothing, that the news said it was some Ebola strain or something. Dad gave us flares anyway, said to use them if we were bit, because he'd heard from some sources of his - he'd never tell us where, but he had proven these good sources in the past - that once you were bitten by one of the victims, you were gone too. He said fire them if we were bit, because... because the rest of the family needed to know you were too far gone to save." Warren paused a long moment, and Daryl stayed silent, watching the sadness encompass Warren's face entirely. "I remember Dad woke me up late one night and told me to run for the bunker, and I did. I ran hard. I had a lot of my things already there, because I could help dad sneak things out when Mom wasn't looking. He went back for Lela and Lesia and Mom. And I looked back at the house, and saw... three flares. One right after the other right after the other." Warren clutched at the bedspread. "And there was a fourth, I know there was one, but I never saw the flare itself."
"How?" Daryl sat up slightly, leaning over a little, unsure how to comfort the obviously stricken boy.
"The house caught fire." Warren wiped at his eyes. "I watched it burn to the ground, and then I locked the doors." He sat up suddenly, scrubbing at his face like it would make the tears that were forming stop. He hiccupped, rubbed at his eyes again, and shook his head. "I'm done. I'm done talking. You need to go." He shook his head, pushing Daryl away even as Daryl tried to reach forward to put a hand on Warren's shoulder.
Daryl didn't fight it, didn't question it. Warren was too bitter when he spoke, too on edge, and he knew better than to fight against it. He got up, stepping back, letting Warren have his space. "You sure?" He asked. He knew the answer, but it was better than lingering awkwardly.
"Go." Warren snapped, rubbing at his eyes. "Just go."
And Daryl did. The rain was cold on his hot skin as he left, but being kicked out into the torrent in the middle of the night did not deter him.
He had some questions he needed to answer.