Seven is the magic number

  “Probably. Depends on how it’s holding up but it had three floors and a cafeteria along with a bunch of other stuff. Pretty thick glass too.”

“Hmmm... okay.”

            —-I’d hate to be your knee… ❞

*Bop*

          ❝……..❞

   He watches Steve stab a stick through the eye and flinches when it falls over but continues thrashing and reaching for him. Right as the stick hits the brain he looks away and only glances up from a pile of leaves when Steve picks up the conversation where they left off.

  “Sure I’ll draw a map or something.”

Steve thinks Russell is being a smartass by saying that he’ll draw a map, but since Steve prefers the kid staying at camp instead of physically showing them where the center is, he decides to let the comment go. “That’s good.”

   Or it might bring more walkers their way but Steve was running this show so Russell doesn’t say anything. They can wait it out and see what happens.

   Sharing bits of his past with Steve sounds too much like a bonding experience but there’s no way to explain how he knew about the urgent care without doing so. He takes in a breath and sighs heavily, rolling his eyes before giving in and talking about it.

  “One time gran and I were driving to visit some folks. Some friend of hers — anyway she started feeling real sick and we stopped there to get her checked out. It’s kind of rural and might have been hit but it’s kind of on the edge of town anyway so .  .  .” He shrugs.

But he doesn’t call Russell out on it when the kid decides to explain himself. “Well then I guess- ah damn it.” The walker sees them and growls, slowly turning towards the both of them. “Hold on bro.” Steve walks toward the thing. He almost shoots it before seeing a large stick on the ground. Without breaking stride, he picks the stick up, gets a bit closer to the walker, and stabs it through it’s eye. It falls to the ground but doesn’t die right away, so Steve has to force the stick deeper into it’s head before it stops moving.

Steve stares at the thing for a moment before turning around and making his way back to Russell.

   He glances down towards the knee that was now covered with some torn up fabric and shrugs. “It’s just dirt and rocks. I don’t think it’ll get much worse. 'Sides Nate would be irked if I dug into his stash.” On second thought .  .  . Yeah he was going to do that after he’d walked a little.

  “We need more medical supplies. There’s an old urgent care center not that far from here.” Russell lifts one eyebrow, gauging Steve’s face for his reaction to the suggestion. It was subtle and it’s not like he was the one asking to go find said supplies.

Steve squints in the direction Russell gestures to. “I sent a few people scouting for some supplies, but I’m not sure that’s one of ours...” As he kept looking at it, he can’t recognize the form of the person, nor the shambling way it walks. “...Yeah that’s probably a dead guy. It might go away on it’s own after a while.” Normally it isn’t nessissary for them to waste ammo and energy on the creatures since they tend to wander off on their own. But it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on it until goes somewhere else.

   Fuck that’s a stupid plan.

   His eyes widen when Steve echoes his thoughts and he very nearly panics — thinking he’d said that aloud, but no Steve’s only continuing their conversation about what would happen if a huge group of the undead showed up. He stops walking to look in the direction he points and considers the logistics of getting to this supposed cabin. At least Steve had an idea of what to do should shit hit the fan.

  “Yeah Steve I’ve got a shit ton of walker’s on speed dial to overrun this place. The fuck man? I’m just,” he trails off with a sigh and shakes his head, “never mind.” Russell couldn’t have normal conversations anymore. The others .  .  . they didn’t want to try and talk with him. Whenever he started to act like himself they’d shut up even more and run the other direction.

   Ironic as it is Steve is the only one he can be himself around.

   Within reason.

Of course, there was always the option of breaking the kid down until he was too submissive to leave, but there’s a limit to how much Steve is willing to push people, if for no other reason than the fact that they might break the wrong way and lead to something horrible happening. And though he’s unaware as to how bad Russell’s mental state is, he has a feeling that he shouldn’t push him too much further if he can help it.

   That was an understatement and then some. Nate talked nearly nonstop and when it wasn’t driving Russell insane he was kind of thankful for that change of pace. Hearing someone else talk distracted him from his own problems — namely that of not having any family left or a place to call home beyond Steve’s fucked up camp.

   His face twists up when Steve implies they might do something other than sleep and he glares at him.

   The weight of an arm around his shoulders slows him down and he seems to physically shrink underneath it but he keeps on walking anyway. What Steve offers next gets him to stop.

  “Seriously?” Skeptic of anything Steve has to offer he doesn’t quite believe the carrot on the string is legitimate. Could be poison. “Yeah that might be alright.” It might be enough to keep him from going through with it someday. As of right now he’s only got a few scars he keeps covered up with the long sleeves and sweatshirts.

   No one yet has seemed to have an issue with his choice of wardrobe.

  “Do you have a plan for when the walkers show up?”

“Plan? Walkers show up all the time bro. Unless you’re referring to a horde.” He pauses, contemplating on whether he should tell Russell what he plans to do, before deciding there’s no harm in it.

“If you go a little ways in that direction;” He jabs a thumb into the distance. “There’s a cabin. It’s small, but it’ll fit all of us. Assuming we know they’re coming in advance, we’ll hold up in there until they bypass us.” He removed his arm from Russell’s shoulder and stares at the tents. “Hopefully nothing bad would happen to the tents. Maybe collapsing them before we leave would cause less damage in the long run...” He trails off for a moment.

  “If you haven’t noticed by now Nate’s the one who does most of the talking.” Russell typically kept his mouth shut while Nate would ramble on about whatever the flavor of the day was. Either women or alcohol. On occasion he’d shake it up with a random as fuck topic.

   It had only been weeks and already he was starting to forget about Gran and Statesboro and the smell of charred siding.

   Russell quirks one eyebrow at the threat and very nearly makes one of his own. Except it wouldn’t be a threat. He’d seriously considered it a few times. Really Steve? Because I’m ‘this close’ to finding a way to off myself.

"But that shouldn’t be a problem, since all you should be doing is sleeping.“ He doesn’t mean to insinuate that they might do anything other than sleeping, but for whatever reason his tone makes it sound like he is. He wrinkles his nose, not liking the mental image he inadvertently gave himself.

If he knew Russell entertained the idea of killing himself, he would be less hard on him. As much as the kid gets on his goddamn nerves, he doesn’t want the idiot to die. He needs him. But Steve doesn’t know, so he interprets Russell’s silence to mean that he did not want to be tied to a tree like a misbehaving dog.

   One of the reasons he’ll never admit to leaving is that he was afraid of turning into them — of no longer caring and just going with the flow of things and giving into status quo. He shivers and picks up the pace, practically feeling Steve’s presence behind him.

   He kneels down and reaches in for his backpack, digging through the few medical supplies he had left over from getting his ass kicked. One bandage later and he was practically good as new.

Despite having concerns about his own well being should he decide to bunk up with Russell, he doesn’t think Nate would be at any risk if the trucker were the one to stay with the kid. Not that it was hard to believe so, since he was speaking hypothetically and therefore there was no real danger in anyone’s part. But if Russell tried to escape again, then having someone sleep in the same tent as him would have to be a reality.

“Hmm?” Steve isn’t sure how he feels about Russell apparently goading him for a reaction. The temptation to smack him across the back of the head intensifies. He refrained again because if he didn’t, Russell might stop talking to him about wanting to leave, and it was better for the kid to have that out in the open instead of internalizing it and giving Steve a false sense of security.