It was about an hour before the doors swung open. Daryl hopped to his feet, attempting to brush the dirt from his pants. He'd been playing around in the dirt next to him, drawing figures with a branch - Merle, with his blade hand, Carol, a cookie, Warren. He gently brushed over these with his foot, as they were bad and needed to never be seen by eyes other than his own. Warren didn't seem to notice as he stepped out, closing the door behind him. He was wrapped up in a jacket over his shirt, and he looked pale, brown skin a little ashy. Daryl stepped up to him quickly, now worried. Did he do something because Daryl was angry? Warren didn't look the peak of health.
"I need to go hunting." Warren said, letting Daryl hover awkwardly at arm's length. He sounded sick, too, and his eyes betrayed him worst of all. There are people who, when they're not feeling well, cannot fake it as their eyes look tired and worn and frail, and Warren was one of these people. He looked like he may collapse at any moment. "I don't have any food left, so I need to bring back something to eat." He cleared his throat, tried to make himself sound less lethargic and sick.
"You want me t'help?" Daryl asked. Warren without food was a starving young man, and that didn't sit well with Daryl. He didn't want the kid to starve outside the walls when help was so close. It didn't matter what happened, and answers could wait. "You stay here 'n I can bring you back somethin'."
Warren paused, surprised at the gesture. "I was going to make you a deal, actually." He smiled, and it was weak. "You can probably tell I don't feel well - I think I ate bad canned something, I don't know - and I can't carry anything heavy. I was going to offer you answers if you helped me." He smiled, a little brighter, and a little more grateful. "Though, it's nice to know you'll help even if I didn't. Not many people are that kind."
"Not many people got nothin' t'lose." Daryl replied. "I'll help you get somethin' big, and once we get there you can decide whether or not you tell me anythin'. No strings attached." Daryl nodded. He didn't care about answers, and he didn't want to push for them. He just wanted Warren okay. He was jittery, hovering and worried, wanting to press his palms to Warren's face to see if he had a fever, if he had chills, if he was warm and cold at the same time. Infections were horrible, by yourself, and untreated could kill, and even the common cold or flu or sore throat could take down someone at this rate. Even if Warren felt well enough to carry his own buck, Daryl would insist on going - sickness slowed reaction times, and that could kill a man out here now.
"Thank you." Warren was relieved, shifting his quiver onto his back. "You're a good guy, you know that?" He chuckled, starting off towards the woods. "I can count the number of people that would help me right now on one hand."
"How many s'that?" Daryl asked, matching stride easily, Warren's short legs meaning Daryl had to slow his pace to not leave him behind.
"One." Warren laughed, pausing a second to shift his bow onto his back. It was a new bow, black, thick, hefty - a new compound model, with pulleys and gears, unlike his old red one - and he fit it around his shoulders, leaving his hands free.
"New bow?" Daryl inquired. The forest was quiet around them as they walked, he noticed, and there weren't any Walkers. There were some outside their camp, he knew, but there weren't any here, and this put him on edge. None in sight meant something was keeping them out, or there was a large group among the trees.
"It's my dad's. I use it for bigger game. Both bows belonged to my dad, actually, which is part of the problem. He was a much bigger guy than me, so he got bigger bows to suit him. The red one has such a strong draw weight that I can't make it reach full draw without breaking my wrist - which I have done, by the way, a few years ago - so I can't get the most out of it." Warren lifted his right wrist, which didn't look broken, but made a lot of loud crackles when he twisted it gently. "It pushed back so hard on this wrist that I broke it in four places and needed enough pins that I can't go through a metal detector anymore." Warren chuckled. "Not that I'd need to, but."
"You're left handed?" Daryl asked, miming a bow action, with his left hand drawing it back and the right holding it. Warren nodded, lifting the bow off his shoulders again and coming to a halt in a small clearing of trees.
"Yeah. Dad was left handed too, which is why I can use his bows easy." Warren held out the black compound bow, letting Daryl look at it. The finish was pristine, and it was obvious Warren took a lot of time making sure it was well cared for. It had To Jerome engraved on the handle. "This one dad fixed up for me specifically." Warren said, crossing his arms. "He made it so the let off is enough where I can get a full draw on it. Basically, he fixed it so when I get the string all the way back, the pressure it releases from the pulleys is just enough so I'm at max for what my wrist can do now without it pushing it overboard, so I can use it to hunt proper game like deer. The red I can only get about half way back before my wrist starts to hurt, so I hunt small game like rabbits with it, since I don't need a full draw to pierce rabbit hide." He chuckled.
"Your dad was good with bows." Daryl commented, handing the equipment back to Warren, who re-shouldered it before continuing on. "Seems like your dad was good at a lotta things."
"Yeah." Warren smiled, proud almost of his father, or his connection to his father, Daryl wasn't sure. "You might wanna shoulder your crossbow for a hot second, we're coming up on my wall and I don't want you to break anything on it." Warren said. Daryl held tight to his crossbow, wary of the command, as they approached what he realized quickly was Warren's wall.
It was a barrier, five feet tall, of barbed wire and string. It wrapped around trees and extended in both directions, fencing them in. String was laced between the layers of wire, and on the strings were cans that rattled softly in a breeze. "Huh. You made this?"
"Took me months. It's still not finished - I was gonna wrap it all the way around, even keep out Alexandrians, but I ran out of cans." Warren chuckled, weaker from the walking and talking now. "There's a way to crawl through it, but it's not quick. You'll need your hands, which is why I said to shoulder your crossbow." He adjusted his own things, made sure they were secure on his back, and approached a section of the wall near a large, dead oak tree. "I'll go through first, so you can see how to get through, and then I'll cover you, okay?"
"Right." Daryl lifted his crossbow to his eyes, wary. If Warren was covering him from that side, he'd do his best to cover Warren from behind the wall. He was still watching, though, because he knew better than to just blindly stumble through it. Warren stepped up to the tree, pressing on flat palm to a wire just at his eye height and lifting it maybe an inch. This left a gap big enough for him to step through. He gently bent down and moved through, pressing his back against the tree and shuffling to the other side, where he repeated the action, widening the gap on the other side and stepping through. It seemed simple enough, Daryl noted, giving Warren a moment to ready his bow before shouldering his own.
"The trick is staying up on the tree. I sort of Jacob's Laddered it a little, so the gap gets smaller the farther away from the tree you get." Warren chuckled. Daryl observed his form for a moment, standing on the other side of the wire. Even possibly ill, Warren was relaxed, his bow easy between his fingers, his left foot slightly back. There was something about this ease with the bow that intrigued Daryl, fascinated him and interested him in ways he hadn't found in people before. Other people might have added different adjectives to the observation - if it was someone else, they might have said they found Warren beautiful in that moment; statuesque; dreamy - but Daryl wasn't other people. If he did have those sorts of thoughts, he was yet to be aware of them, as he'd never considered Warren in such a way. But somewhere in the deep recesses of his subconscious, they were there, and he was able to recognize them without acknowledging them by thinking Warren was fascinating.
It didn't take long for Daryl to cross the wall himself. Knowing the trick, that it was widest at the point where the wire met the tree, made it an easy cross. But as he ducked out to the other side, he turned, looking it over. "How we gonna get a deer over this wall?" He asked.
"Either take it around to the gap, or toss it over the top." Warren chuckled. "It's slightly shorter and thinner in the middle, so just heaving it over the wall is an option." He shrugged. "We can get to that when we get there, though. I'll be surprised if we find anything heavy enough to even be a problem."
"You haven't seen buck here?" Daryl was somewhat appalled, because any regular sized male deer would be a hard thing to manhandle over the fencing, so he wasn't sure what Warren even thought they would find.
"Just the juveniles, a few doe." Warren shrugged. "I think it's because they don't recognize I'm a threat until I'm there. The big males know better." He spoke, lowering his voice as they started off into the woods proper. It felt more wild out there, less safe, and immediately Daryl was on guard. This was his home, and he knew as well as anyone his home could wreck them both very quickly. "Dad always used to use a tree-stand and just wait, so I never learned how to track anything. I'd use it, but the ladder collapsed and it's impossible to get up there now."
"Well, you're in luck." Daryl grinned, big and stupid and god he shouldn't have felt this elated to be simply useful but he wasn't going to question the feeling. "My brother taught me how t'track game, before th'start of it. Walkers make it harder, but ain't that bad."
"Can you teach me?" Warren asked, bent low to mimic Daryl's low stance as they waded through thick underbrush, trying to be quiet amid the vines and leaves and sprouts. He was already letting Daryl take the lead, letting him move forward first, because Daryl was going to be the one to find dinner at this rate.
"Right now?" Daryl was slightly caught off guard. He'd never taught anyone how to track, and he wasn't sure where to start. But Warren nodded, and his eyes were big and curious and needy even though they still looked so tired, and Daryl couldn't tell that face no. "A'right." He bent down, squatting in the bushes. He wasn't sure how to show someone how to track, but he figured the easiest thing he could do was just do it, and hope Warren picked it up. "First thing we gotta do is find evidence of a deer at all." Daryl explained, softly, starting forward again. The brush rustled around them as they moved, slowly, carefully, Daryl's head swiveling to check everything.
A rustle made them stop. He didn't need to look to know Warren had tensed, the small rabbit stillness evident without seeing it - he could just feel it in the air, the tension a high-strung thickness to the air around them. He listened, hearing the thing come closer, and it was immediately apparent that it wasn't a deer. It was footsteps, unsteady, beating rhythmically against the leaves and grass, and the low, gurgling hiss of someone choking on their own blood and unable to care. Daryl stilled, feeling the pressure on his shoulder, the light touch of a hand bracing itself - Warren had strung his bow and was aiming it, unwaveringly, at the Walker's head, using Daryl's shoulder to help support his hand. He could feel the hand on his back shake, just slightly, and tried to still himself, match his breathing to Warren's. He trusted Warren, trusted the boy not to hurt him, and he knew if he was hurt it wouldn't be Warren's fault. He felt Warren's inhale and matched it, stilling his shoulders as he did so. In with Warren, out with Warren.
The arrow was silent when it left the bow, the only sound the slight brush of feathers against Daryl's leather vest. It whizzed forward, striking the Walker in the eye, sending it tumbling, crumpled in the grass. Immediately, the two were up, cautious now, and quiet, padding over to the Walker and retrieving the arrow, assuring each other it was hit and dead. The squelch of removing arrow from wet flesh was loud in the silence, and Warren winced at the sound, rubbing his arrow off on his pants. Daryl looked down at the Walker, the eye a mass of blood and tissue, torn through from the arrow's removal, and then he looked past the Walker's head.
"Warren." He gestured for the boy to bend down, shifting the head away slightly. Just underneath the shattered skull were tracks - large, split toe hooves, moving off into the forest. The spread between them was small. Daryl didn't need to speak to communicate the next step - follow. He could tell the deer in question had been moving slowly, as the tracks were even and closely spaced, and he followed them slowly. Warren watched from behind, eyes more up, looking for anything else that may surprise them. He seemed to appreciate the slow pace, Daryl noticed, as he was keeping up well and relaxed, even in the dense underbrush.
A firm hand pressed to his shoulder, and Daryl stopped, turning slightly. Warren's head was up, neck long, smelling the air, wide eyed stare so alert and rabbit scared that Daryl tensed. First came the smell, the heady, musky odor of fresh death, the hot copper and something burning in the air that sent a chill up Daryl's spine. The fingers on his jacket tightened, and then he was hearing it, the deep rustle of leaves and heavy, uneven footsteps, the choking, garbled moans of the Undead. He reached out, instinctively, grabbing Warren gently by the shirt, unsure if he could keep up and unwilling to leave him behind. "Move." Daryl hissed, knowing they had the advantage, knowing that by tracking down wind they were more likely to stay hidden and knowing he needed to be quiet or they'd lose that advantage.
He kept an eye on the trail - which, he noticed, started to pick up as they followed it, like it was running from Walkers just as much as they were - and kept himself low, moving quickly through the bushes. He only paused when he saw it, the heard of shambling bodies moving between the trees. He counted fifteen in all, which wasn't that bad. He was expecting a troupe of twenty or more, but fifteen wasn't too bad. That, and Warren was breathing heavy, the running taking it out of him, and it was taking most of the boy's efforts to hold in a cough. He pressed a hand to Warren's back - cold, surprisingly, though it was warm out and the boy was wearing a knit jacket and obviously sweating under the fabric - and caught his eyes, pulling his knife from his belt.
There was nothing left to do but fight.
Warren nodded, pulling a screwdriver from the back of his belt. It was sharp, and obscenely long, like the ones for mechanical work. Hand on Warren's back, they inhaled together, and exhaled together, Daryl mouthing a countdown - "Three, two, one," before springing up, out of the bushes, and into action.
If an outside perspective had managed to look in on the pair, they would have noticed something extraordinary about how they fought together. It was not that they fought the same, or that they fought even similarly, but it was that they fought in a way that fit. Of course, there were blunders, and most of them had very little to do with their own styles and more to do with Warren being out of form, but that did not take away from the moment. They performed like dancers who had learned their parts separately and were displaying the full thing together for the first time - it was sloppy, but they made it work because it had the potential to work. When Warren would bend to catch his breath, Daryl would slip over him to attack a Walker and pin it, and Warren would, in turn, keep another off of Daryl's back. When Daryl went hard and missed, Warren would be behind to take the kill. The pair worked in sync, in their own way - while Warren was a fox, agile and small and fierce, Daryl was a hound, bred for the hunt, fast and brutal and merciless.
There were far more Walkers than Daryl counted - more had stumbled in, because the noise of dropping bodies was more than enough - and it seemed to take all the strength out of Warren to keep fighting, but they managed to make their way through them. They were lucky the Walkers came in waves, and not in one large herd, because the total count - twenty five, Daryl counted when they were done and spent and through - at once would have done them in.
Warren was bent over, coughing loudly once they were through and the threat of danger had ceased. He couldn't catch his breath for the briefest of moments, before he managed to swallow and regain the ability. Daryl hovered, holding out a hand to help Warren to his feet once he was finished.
"You okay t'keep going?" He asked, looking Warren over as the boy cleared his throat and regained the ability to speak without dying.
"Yeah, yeah. Just. Yeah." He nodded, obviously in pain, but Daryl wasn't going to push them both to head home when they'd already gotten all the way out here.
"Just don't make me have t'carry you and the deer." Daryl chuckled, trying to lighten the moment, and Warren was obviously grateful. Being fussed over was something he wasn't really in the mood for, and Daryl could tell. Daryl could tell a lot about Warren, he realized, as they re-found the tracks and began forward again, this time a little less wary and just as slow. He could tell a lot about Warren because Warren was a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy - expressive, especially in terms of facial and body language. The kind of expressive that screamed that he'd been trying to say things for years and had been ignored, so he'd let his sense of self get bigger and bigger until it bled out into the universe around him for all to see. Merle was like that, Daryl thought, the tracks bringing them up towards a river running high with the past day's rain. Merle never held back, let his own beliefs bleed into the universe, until one day the universe bled him dry in return.
Daryl paused, tracks in the mud fresh. He looked up, seeing the twitch of the ears above the river grasses that had grown tall and lush. The antlers were the most visible, six or seven points as far as Daryl could read, which meant a buck that was large and lean. He could hear it huff gently on the other side of the bank. He was about to motion to Warren the idea that maybe they could lure it over, but before he could, Warren was already hopping across the stones in the river. He was almost fairy like, Daryl thought, shaking his head and readying his bow. Hopping across stones so lightly.
Warren's arrow whizzed through the air first, striking the large beast in the chest. It wasn't enough to outright kill it immediately, and it brayed loudly and leapt over the river bank, struggling up the other side. Daryl didn't let it get much farther before he ended the hunt, letting the deer's large body drop against the side of the river. Warren hopped back, out of breath and laughing. "That went far better than what I had planned." He said.
"What did you have planned?" Daryl asked, grabbing one of the strong, supple grasses from the bank and testing it, before strapping the deer's front feet together.
"Chasing it." Warren chuckled. "Further out. But hey, this is much better." He smiled, leaning down to stroke the deer's face and press it's eyes closed, before pulling his arrow and Daryl's arrow from the thing's side. "Thanks for helping me cart it back."
"Shoulda told me 'fore I came out here." Daryl grumbled good naturedly, slinging the deer's legs over his shoulders and testing the position. It didn't hurt him, but the beast was heavy and going would be slow. "I dressed all nice 'n everything."
"Aww, trying to woo me? But we just met~!" Warren cooed, jokingly. Of course he was joking, Daryl figured. Not that he was actually trying to woo anyone. Or anything like that. "But I did make you a promise, and you did dress nicely." Warren smiled, like the outfit had actually done some good, and god dammit Daryl didn't want to admit Carol was right, but praised her all the same. "You want to know about Alexandria."
"Yeah." Daryl grunted, starting off into the woods. "Don't wait up on me t'respond or nothin' though." He chuckled, shifting the buck's weight. At least home was more of a straight shot than their arrival path, so it wouldn't be that far to cart the fucking thing.
Warren hadn't been listening, bow and arrow loose, pointed at the ground as he thought a moment. "You heard from Aaron a lot, I bet. He knew a lot. He found me out here, before I'd started the wall, before I'd even gotten used to being on my own. To him I was a frightened child, I think, but he took me in anyway." Warren picked his head up, remembering suddenly he was the only one armed and able to keep watch. He softened his voice as he spoke again, the woods thick and quiet around them.
"Deanna was nice. She was patient with me, with the fact that I was scared. But she was also unforgiving. I had to tell her, and the camera, everything, and I mean everything. She was asking about my past, which wasn't too bad, and then about my family, and then she started asking about medical history bullshit. I asked if we could stop. I didn't want to talk about my medical history with strangers, but she had she had to know, because they needed to know ahead of time if I was going to be a medical hassle, basically. I mean, she didn't say hassle, she was a congresswoman, she knows better than to speak like that, but that was what was implied. So I was basically forced to come out to her without my consent, and since that's the second time that's happened in my life it definitely was way less fun than it could have been." Warren sighed.
"Come out?" Daryl squinted, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips like he wasn't sure the words Warren were using meant what he thought they meant. "Y'mean like, you're gay?" He asked like he knew he was missing something, like he knew there was a gap in his information and he couldn't be right.
"Well, you're not wrong, but not really." Warren chuckled. He paused a moment, checking behind them, hearing the soft rustle of something and nearly getting scared by a small squirrel that bolted between his legs. He suppressed his shriek, and when all was silent, he continued. "I mean, I am gay, but that's not what I meant by coming out. I meant I'm trans." He paused. No look of understanding washed over Daryl's face. "Like, transgender. Born in the wrong body?" There it was, finally, that oh moment Warren had been waiting for. Daryl wasn't stupid - he knew what trans people were, of course, he'd just never heard the right words for him. When his education system on those types of things was mostly Merle, all he'd heard were things like tranny, which he figured was a slur since it was Merle talking, after all.
"So you wanna be a girl? Are a girl?" Daryl tried, confused.
"No, I was born a girl." Warren chuckled. At least Daryl's fumble with the whole thing went over well - clearly, Warren enjoyed the idea that Daryl thought him so much a man that, when told Warren was trans, assumed it went the other way - and he chuckled at himself good naturedly. Warren sighed, a second wind from all that laughter picking up his voice, and stifling the weakness that was starting to spread in him. "But yeah. Born a girl, definitely am a guy, definitely didn't want the free set of tits I was gifted when I was twelve but whatever, they were free, and I couldn't return them anyway, yadda yadda." Warren giggled. "So I had to tell Deanna's lovely camera about that whole thing - where I was in my transition, how long I'd been where I was, all of it. I mean, I get having to explain I was on testosterone, but like, not why."
"So you gotta take hormones 'n shit." Daryl nodded, taking it all in. He realized saying he'd never met someone who was transgender was a lie, because the statistical likely-hood of him never meeting someone from a rather large minority group was fairly low, but he'd never met someone who was out and trans, and especially not someone who seemed willing to explain.
"Yeah. I'd been on a low dose for a while, since my parents didn't know until it was almost the end anyway, so that was kinda helpful. But I told the cameras, and I told Deanna not to let anyone see the tapes, because I wanted to kind of tell people individually, after I'd gotten to know them. I didn't really want to come out to a bunch of people because the odds that someone was transphobic were kind of extreme and I wanted to be able to judge who they were first." Warren shrugged, pausing to let Daryl straighten his back. It popped, and he stretched, before re-shouldering the buck and moving forward. "Well, apparently the fact that Deanna wanted the tapes hidden meant everyone and their brother wanted to see it, and before I knew it everyone in the town knew. And a couple of folks didn't like it. I heard shouting at night, people would throw things at my door, glass and cans and trash." Warren paused, the wall within sight now, the day hot above them. "And then one night I woke up to breaking windows, and I was carried outside and... well, beaten." Warren shrugged, like he didn't want a pity party, he didn't want Daryl's tears, because that's just what happened. "I don't remember a lot. I just remember waking up outside with the doors closed and feeling like a truck had run me over."
Daryl dropped the buck in the leaves, stepping forward like he was going in for a hug and stopping himself. "Don't sound like the people I met." He said, a little angry at himself for trusting those fuckers. "Who was it?"
"I don't remember. I don't want to remember." Warren sighed, tired now, much more tired than he had been all day, eyes weak. "I just... I was so scared when I saw you, because I thought they'd sent you to see if I was still alive, like they might come hurt me again just for existing outside their walls." He shook his head, pressing his hand to his forehead. "I just want to leave that behind me."
Daryl shifted, nodding, understanding. He knew what it was like, wanting to leave bloody pasts behind. And as he nodded, he was already thinking how he was going to get his people out here, because he'd made a promise, and while it was now no longer an option bringing Warren back - the chances of him getting hurt were insane, honestly - he wasn't going to just start breaking promises. Not yet.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Lots of footsteps. Both men paled, the moans loud around them, the air thick with the sound and the hot stench of death.
They'd been ambushed.