Never said I was smart

when & where: one of the offices inside town hall, night of the 26th of july.

getting high during a natural disaster was probably not the smartest way someone should cope with yet another shitstorm (this time hilariously she could say that in the literal sense). using a council persons office as her own private drug den was probably a bad decision too but honestly at this stage colette was running out of fucks to give.

what could possibly happen if she got caught anyway? they lock her up for the night? make her sit through a lecture? ‘don’t do drugs, drugs are bad!’

anyone with any authority had better things to do.

the green fay had provided her with at a decent token rate was hitting the spot though, stronger than what madison grew, smoother too but she suspects that has something to do with all the sweet talk fay exposes them to, all the ‘you’re growing for me so well babies’ colette likes to amuse her self with imagining they mutter in the crops direction.

by the time she hears the door creak open she’s got a nice little buzz going on, her thoughts blurring pleasantly so she’s not at all bothered by the events happening outside her own little private cocoon.

The last fifteen minutes, after his little trip outside resulted in him getting even more wet and scolded by some medic, he had began wandering around the hall, trying to find some unoccupied corner to hide in until they were told they could leave. Most of the doors upstairs he tried were locked, probably private offices of council members who didn’t want townspeople touching their stuff. Not that he really blamed him. If he had an office, he’d keep it locked too.

Maverick wasn’t bothered the storm. Per say. having grown up in Seattle, crappy weather and storms were something he was used to. And having traveled through the entire country and the vast array of weather the different areas brought, he wasn’t worried about the storm itself. No matter how severe it got, they would be fine within the thick walls of the building they were sheltering in.

It was the walls that surrounded the town that worried him. A month or two back, he had noticed a couple of the support beams on the back wall looking weak but was unsure if the council had gotten the maintenance workers to replace them. Not that he knew much about construction…actually he knew nothing about construction, it just seemed like a problem to worry about. Strong winds could destroy a lot of stuff. Who knows how strong the walls really were.

With the sounds of the storm seeming to die down, he made his way to the front with intentions of going to check out the wall if the weather allowed. Opening the doors, he was met by a strong gust of wind and a downpour of water. Not that he minded. The cool rain was refreshing after so much humidity. Although the severity of the storm put a halt to his plans of checking the wall. He was about to go back inside when he noticed the blonde on the steps.

After calling her name, he made his way down the steps, lowing himself down beside her. “My mom always said you’ll catch your death being outside in a storm. This time I think she might actually be right.”

Merrick smirked at his reply; but was grateful he didn’t try and lure her inside. They hadn’t ever really talked about everything that happened - the Kit Stamp ordeal was not his fault, but she wasn’t sure she ever told him she didn’t blame him. She wondered if he still thought about it as much as she did - how that one event changed so much of her inside, some days she thought she might scream from the burden of it all. But they worked well together - he was focused where she was scattered, and when they were on runs together they’d always  been successful in the past. 

He was probably not being sidelined for runs now, though. Merrick wondered if it was Holly’s doing, Holly’s closeness to the council that left her sitting on the sidelines. 

Maverick had been one guard duty when the Sky hard started to darken. Despite Holly’s orders, he still worked a shift a week at the gates. Sitting around, waiting for his ankle to heal was too much nothingness for him to do. Even if he took up another job, he still wouldn’t have been following the medics orders.

Even after someone came to get him and the other guards to seek shelter, he was one of the last’s to enter town hall. If anybody asked, he was prepared to blame his ankle injury when in reality he was reluctant to leave the gates unguarded. All he could think as he made his way through the wind and rain, rifle still sling across his back, was how easily something could go wrong. The walls could be weakened by the harsh winds and nobody would know until freaks were roaming the streets.

“Probably not.” He advised, looking past Cha’s shoulder at the rain pelting the glass. Had the town been prepared for the storm, they might have had time to reinforce the windows or at the vary least bar them over. “Just to be safe we should stay closer to the middle of the building, away from windows and crap. Come on.”

The sight of Mave whenever Chahid felt like they were in a particularly dangerous situation always got their heart thumping. Even though being close to Mave already was a comforting experience, there was always the happiness to be close, near. 

As he led the way through the clusters of people gathered in the town hall, he had to fight the desire to hold on to the other. Not for fear of losing him in the crowd. There were enough gaps between the people milling about that it was easy to snake their way through. More for comfort and assurance that they were both safe. If the ways did come down during the storm, or it got worse some how, the people he cared about would be safe in this building.

Chahid had felt the wind, seen the rain, noted the panicked looks on the faces around them, but had gotten little of the actual surprise themselves. Maybe it was because the thunder was the most pressing matter. The sound of something crashing down from the sky. The little beams of lightening simply didn’t have the same effect of necessity, of imminent danger. 

Even after someone came to get him and the other guards to seek shelter, he was one of the last’s to enter town hall. If anybody asked, he was prepared to blame his ankle injury when in reality he was reluctant to leave the gates unguarded. All he could think as he made his way through the wind and rain, rifle still sling across his back, was how easily something could go wrong. The walls could be weakened by the harsh winds and nobody would know until freaks were roaming the streets.

merrick loved storms. 

growing up in an old farmhouse, storms brought wind and noises one that could send shivers down your spine, power outages easily putting them into pitch darkness, a spookiness that, as a teen, merrick adored. 

storms were a burden when she got older, something she had to endure as she went to work, traveling through blizzards and blustery winds and torrential downpours. but there was no work now - she was still being sidelined for supply runs, though she often disappeared on her own, finding herself in the papers office or the bar working on her own novel more often than not. 

which meant, for the first time in years, she could truly enjoy it. 

everyone else was terrified - a sound reaction to a summer storm like this - huddled inside the makeshift town hall. she should have been comforting her sister, a small voice lecturing her for not immediately running to holly’s arms. logan was out there, ethan was in the warehouses - but merrick couldn’t make her feet move towards the one she knew needed solace the most. 

instead, she sat on the steps of the town hall, the rain seeping into her pores as she let it wash over her. the winds were still strong, but not strong enough to pull her away - instead, she let it envelope her completely, only startling when the sound of someone’s voice called her name. 

“i’m fine,” she yelled back - she had to yell, to be heard - but the clouds were darkening again, and she knew it was probably not long before she had to return to the inside world again, her shoulders sinking slightly as she did. “come out here for a minute,” she invited instead, “it’s incredible.” 

It was the walls that surrounded the town that worried him. A month or two back, he had noticed a couple of the support beams on the back wall looking weak but was unsure if the council had gotten the maintenance workers to replace them. Not that he knew much about construction...actually he knew nothing about construction, it just seemed like a problem to worry about. Strong winds could destroy a lot of stuff. Who knows how strong the walls really were.

With the sounds of the storm seeming to die down, he made his way to the front with intentions of going to check out the wall if the weather allowed. Opening the doors, he was met by a strong gust of wind and a downpour of water. Not that he minded. The cool rain was refreshing after so much humidity. Although the severity of the storm put a halt to his plans of checking the wall. He was about to go back inside when he noticed the blonde on the steps.

Maverick did his best to relax, fighting the urge to pull his leg back as Holly started prodding at his tender ankle. “Taking time off doesn’t feel right anymore.” He agreed. More than one medic, as well as a couple council members had advised the boy to take time off from runs and guard duty until he was completely healed. After injuring it yet again, he had taken a full week off of all duties just to rest, the worry that he’d be stuck with a permanent injury a strong enough warning. After that week, he still wasn’t completely healed but hadn’t been on a supply run since, knowing the risk of hurting it even worse to the point of unable to be fixed was too strong to tempt.

“Uh, no, actually. It wasn’t Fletcher. He was…busy when I got back.” He described the nurse who had cleaned him up after the other man had walked away, too distraught from their conversation to do his job. In the back of his mind, he blamed the other medic, the one who’s name he never learned, for why his ankle was still injured. The trust he put in the former EMT ran a bit too strong if he was being honest with himself. “It happened on the last run I went on. To the hospital about a month back. Thought it’d be healed by now.”

Looking down at his ankle, he didn’t think it looked that bad. Maybe a four on his pain scale. Even he knew that didn’t mean much. Due to the abuse he went through during his adolescence, his tolerance for pain had been majorly skewed. In high school, he had spent two days with a broken wrist before a meeting with his social worker had sent him to the ER for a cast and some pain medication.

“That sounds like you’re gonna make it worse. Is it really that bad?”

“well it’s definitely not good.” she sighs a little, they could avoid it maybe, she could rewrap it so movement was limited and if maverick followed any and all  instructions to keep off it as much as possible, maybe with some hope and luck it’d heal correctly.

“we don’t have to if you’re absolutely set against it and don’t mind a slower recovery time, but you’re going to need to take it especially careful for here on out.” it really would be the quickest way to get him back on his feet again but she wasn’t about to force the issue, as much as she wanted to, the clinic had a strict policy in place, a the patient came first approach, and the comfort of said patients was paramount.

personally though, if she could, she’d be more inclined to put the fear of god into him, like she’d done with logan when he’d injured himself in the past, rattling off excruciating details of how his injuries could affect all aspects of his life until he’d given up any comebacks and let her take care of him her way.

It was driving him mad how much time he had to take off, feeling like the bum of the town, due to such a silly injury. Vic had gotten shot and it didn’t seem to hinder him in any grave way. Although thinking back, when Maverick had gotten stabbed back in high school, he barely took any time to himself. The only reason he wasn’t at school the next day was because he had been at the hospital most of the night, waiting around for somebody to stitch him up.

With a sound of fake distress, Maverick slumped across the tablet, arm still outstretched for the bottle. His hand brushed up against Malakai’s abdomen, his touch lingering against the other’s warmth. “But I want more.” He whined, his words dripping with extra meaning.

Whatever they were drinking was slowly becoming Maverick’s new favourite. The drunkenness he was feeling was almost enough for him to forget the shit show they really lived in. The floating, spinning feeling wasn’t too much…yet. A few more shots and he might be singing a different tune. But Malakai still held the bottle. “That can’t be it. No sports? Musical talent? Quirky interests? There’s gotta be something.”

“Well, maybe you should handle your liquor better. You’re already drunk,” the kettle said to the pot. Still, didn’t matter, considering Kai still had the bottle and decided to take another swig from it. They deserved it, after all. A night full of laughs was much better than a tear fest, after all. Plus, it was beyond fun to tease the younger. Even if it did make him an absolute hypocrite. 

If Maverick ever needed to talk about his dreams or what was going on in his head, he would do his best to make sure Chahid had the means he needed to read his lips. A flashlight in the tent or simply waiting until the sun rose to talk. Rarely did he need to talk, far too used to bad dreams. Only in the beginning did he share with the other, not wanting them to worry when they first started getting grouped together.

In the darkness of the older’s room, whispering into the silence, knowing that they had no way of seeing what he was saying, Maverick did feel a little guilty. Cha was sweet and nothing but a tender, kind hearted person. When they first met, he never pushed himself trying to offer comfort, letting Maverick come to him, offering a strong shoulder to cry on and all the time in the world for him to calm down. It felt like a low blow for him to be talking, sharing what was wrong without the other being able to hear. Not that it mattered that he didn’t care if anybody heard at all. He only wanted the thoughts out of his head.

“I don’t know how to face Bash right now…it’s too weird seeing him without Sammy.” He continued, feeling even guiltier as he confessed into the darkness. It never crossed his mind that anybody in his family or his friends from Seattle survived. Life was easier to handle when everybody was dead.

Chahid wondered if Mave would feel strong enough to share with them what was wrong the next morning, some part of them wanted to ask, because they feared it was worse than something that just needed a hug. Something that was more intense, far more intense, than company could fix. Their heart was beating in their chest, fear of what was to come. They knew they would keep an eye on Mave more now the next day. They had always done that, ever since they were grouped together. While Chahid wasn’t such a natural fighter, having difficulty with any type of violence, and Mave protected them, they felt like there was a lot they could still do. 

So they watched for the signs, they kept their eyes on Maverick, and they stood up for him when the situation needed it. They would have Mave’s back, because Mave had theirs. And whatever anxiety was rolling through his body now, Chahid felt them pressing through them as well. They swallowed, keeping the other close. They wanted to turn on the light, see what he was saying, devise a plan, know if they needed to be there for him tomorrow. But they didn’t, because they wondered if the fact that Chahid couldn’t hear, was the reason why Mave felt comfortable enough to talk. Maybe he simply didn’t want anyone to hear him. 

In the morning, Maverick would wake up early like he always did when he snuck into the older’s room. He would sneak out, like he used to do when he was a teenager and staying the night where he wasn’t supposed to, and slip back into his own room or downstairs before any of their roommates were any the wiser. He’d do his best to leave before Cha woke up, wanting the older to get more sleep since he always felt bad for disturbing him. He might even slip out before falling back asleep himself, pretending that this interaction never happened. If he lived in denial, he wasn’t hurt anybody but himself...right?

Maverick was sure than he was drunkenly reading into what the older was saying. There was no way that anything he was thinking that Malakai was implying was true. He just meant…he had to mean that he was good at dealing with a lot of stuff and a lot of baggage that others brought with them. It was a foster kid thing. He himself could handle a lot. But that didn’t stop Maverick from thinking about Kai handling him in a certain way.

“Handler.” He repeated the word carefully as the other drank, chuckling at the way it felt leaving his lips. He moved closer to Kai, using the excuse of reaching for the bottle to hopefully cover up any eagerness that might have shown through. “What else is in your nature? Other than an extreme liking of alcohol and telling me how stupid I am, I mean.”

Thinking wasn’t exactly Kai’s strong suit. He tended to speak before he thought. Always. Deal with the consequences after. There weren’t many situations where it got him into too much trouble. He was used to this. The talking. Conversations taking a turn; however, this was Maverick and maybe he didn’t realize any turns until the younger moved all that more closer. But perhaps it was Kai, who began reading too much into it, as the other grabs at the bottle. “Hey,” he scolded with a huff, a pout playing on his lips and ultimately pulling to bottle out of Maverick’s reach. “S’mine now. No more for you,”

Maverick tried to find the same comfort in the other like he had every other time he had come to him. The soft comfort of their arms around him. The familiar spice smell that he could never quite place as anything except Chahid. It was nice. It was always nice. It was a smell that had become reassuring. As long as that smell clung to his shirt or the bed linens, he knew he wasn’t alone.

In their group during the convoy, it had been a coincidence that they were shoved together. Neither of them having anybody to call their own so they sort of drifted together. The first night they shared a tent, Maverick had woken up with a start after having dreamt of the quarantine zone where he lost his family. He was grateful of Chahid’s lack of hearing, a bit embarrassed for the nightmare. But the other had woken easily to his stirring, offering gentle back rubs and kind words. The following morning, Maverick couldn’t stop himself, still a little anxious around the large group of new people, hanging around Chahid while everyone discussed what the next move was. The transition from friends to…whatever they were now was a natural one too. Both seemed to lean into a kiss one night after yet another nightmare had woken them.

The words Chahid spoke were the same as they always wore. An offer for a listening ear if he so chose to ever talk about his dreams. Rarely he took the offer, instead choosing physical comfort as a distraction. Tonight, he took advantage of the darkened room, knowing that whatever he confess wouldn’t be heard. “My brother’s here…but only Bash. Sammy didn’t make it.” He whispered, turning his head into their hand.

Maverick usually never shared, didn’t turn on a light, didn’t face Chahid to tell them about his nightmares. And it had never bothered them, because they weren’t so sure they could offer too much advice, any support, just anything but a listening ear. But most importantly: they would rather be what Mave needed than to be something they thought he needed. 

It had always been that way between the two of them. This natural pull between the two of them after they had been placed together purely by chance. Chahid had never had a friend like him, had never been someone’s rock before. Or maybe… not someone’s one person in such a way. They had been there for Cassie’s mom when she disappeared, but it had been from a distance, no matter how close they got, there was always a palpable barrier between them. 

But whereas they didn’t think they would’ve ever had a friend - or whatever they were now - like Mave before, with every moment of every day, they just grew to love him more, to love more and more about him, to care more and more about him. 

In the darkness of the older’s room, whispering into the silence, knowing that they had no way of seeing what he was saying, Maverick did feel a little guilty. Cha was sweet and nothing but a tender, kind hearted person. When they first met, he never pushed himself trying to offer comfort, letting Maverick come to him, offering a strong shoulder to cry on and all the time in the world for him to calm down. It felt like a low blow for him to be talking, sharing what was wrong without the other being able to hear. Not that it mattered that he didn’t care if anybody heard at all. He only wanted the thoughts out of his head.

It was good to see Holly up and moving. Maverick worried about everyone who had gotten sick, not jus those he was close to. Seeing so many of the living on what seemed like their deathbeds was terrifying. The visual reassurance that everyone was going back to normal was enough for him not to mind the ache in his ankle so much.

“They’re right though. I have to remind my roommates to take it easy all the time. Not that they listen too much.” He sighed with a small smile as he followed her into an exam room. Maverick was the youngest of his roommates, so none of them really took him too seriously unless it came to guard duty or supply runs. “I’ll be an easy patient for you. I don’t think my ankle is healing right.”

He climbed up on to the exam table, toeing off his shoe, telling himself that it was okay to go to somebody else to check out his injuries. The other medics in the clinic were just as capable and trustworthy as Fletcher was. Holly had taken good care of him and his injuries when he first arrived. He wasn’t really even sure how he ended up finding and clinging to tightly to Fletcher.

“i think we’re all guilty of not listening to advice that would probably be good for us around here.” holly comments with a wiry smile as maverick props himself up on the exam table, her forehead furrowing as he tells her what the problem is.

”let’s take a look at it.”

she drags a stool to sit near him, gently clasping his ankle and resting it against her lap as she peels off his sock and the bandage underneath, the skin is bruised and she can see that it’s slightly out of line, swollen still and misshapen. it looks like an almost fresh injury instead of something that occurred over a week ago, assuming it had happened on the last run of his she knows about.

“fletch looked you over last time?” the question is basically redundant asked only for clarification purposes. “a sprain? when exactly did you hurt it and have you been resting it since?” she knows fletch would have advised him to lay off his ankle as much as possible, he took a great amount of care with all their patients but he was especially close to maverick, she can’t imagine him not being extra careful. 

she doesn’t want to assume that maverick hadn’t followed his advise to the letter but she knows the young man has an almost scary amount of determination when it came to not being kept down for long and she can only imagine that an injury would cramp his style enough that he might disregard his own pain if he felt he needed to.

“Uh, no, actually. It wasn’t Fletcher. He was...busy when I got back.” He described the nurse who had cleaned him up after the other man had walked away, too distraught from their conversation to do his job. In the back of his mind, he blamed the other medic, the one who’s name he never learned, for why his ankle was still injured. The trust he put in the former EMT ran a bit too strong if he was being honest with himself. “It happened on the last run I went on. To the hospital about a month back. Thought it’d be healed by now.”

Looking down at his ankle, he didn’t think it looked that bad. Maybe a four on his pain scale. Even he knew that didn’t mean much. Due to the abuse he went through during his adolescence, his tolerance for pain had been majorly skewed. In high school, he had spent two days with a broken wrist before a meeting with his social worker had sent him to the ER for a cast and some pain medication.

Sometimes Maverick wondered what life would be like if the world hadn’t ended in. Sometimes it made his chest ache to know that he never would have met the people he is so close with now. On the contrary, he’d still have his family and friends that he used to be so close with. In the end though, he was certain things wouldn’t be much different than where he was now. Getting drunk in the middle of the day to avoid having to deal with his real problems. After all, back before, he had been working full time at Walmart of all places while putting himself through college with zero idea of what he was going to do once he got a degree. His parents encouraged him to go, to get a degree and figure out what he wanted to do later. A year left in college and he still had zero real idea what to do. In that sense the apocalypse had been a blessing. No more did he have answer questions or worry about what he was going to do with his life. Not that he had exactly landed himself in the best situation in Fairvale. The role of the little brother that always needed protecting wasn’t his idea of a good time either.

Easily, he handed over the mystery bottle, trying to keep his alcohol bogged brain in the moment rather than any deep depressive state that he had been living in for weeks. “Oh, you like handling me, huh?” He smirked, his eyes roaming drunkenly over the man in front of him. Attraction and arousal wasn’t exactly the place he wanted his mind to go, but it was better than other states of mind. It’s not like there was any harm in a little flirting. Or potentially more. “I bet you say that to everyone.”

The fundamentals weren’t all that different. There was chance of hope before the end of the world came to be. Kai was starting off his career. Finally found something he loved. Felt like he was making a difference. An impact, even. Though his awful coping mechanisms still clung strong, as Fletcher sure as hell knew. He still pushed everyone and anyone away. In fact, it wasn’t until Fairvale did Kai’s walls slowly begin to break down. After all, he’d lost everything. What was there to fight for, if not someone he cared about? So maybe it was a new purpose. To fight for those he loved, rather than just going day by day trying to gain some type of will. 

It never mattered how many times Chahid told him that they didn’t mind or assured him it was okay. The words never stopped him from feeling guilty about bothering the other. Sometimes he wished they would get over their fears already so they could share a room like they used to share a tent before Fairvale. Not that he would ever express that to them. He knew how deep some fears and worries ran. His own deep seeded fears and anxieties, after all, were the reason he wanted them to be able to share in the first place.

A sense of guilt began to settle inside the sorrow that filled his chest as he felt Cha start to wake to comfort him. He knew it was unlikely, but he had really wished that this would be one of the rare nights that they didn’t wake up. It wasn’t that he wanted to cry alone. If that had been the case, he would have stayed in his bed. More so he didn’t want to explain what was causing him so much distress. Admitting that he was sobbing over good memories was more embarrassing than the nightmares. Still the warm around wrapped around him helped a little, just not as much as they usually did for the nightmares.

The nightmares, all he needed was the reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore. That whatever terror he had experienced in his sleep was gone. Now the arms around him simply reminded him of everything that had changed and what he had lost. No longer was he a newly adopted teenager, waking up from the reoccurring nightmares of a certain foster home that he had been in. The arms didn’t belong to his dad or Bash, the two who usually came running when he woke up screaming. He knew that in the morning, there wouldn’t be homemade waffles on the table like his mom used to make on the weekends. Sammy wouldn’t be there to tease him. Knowing these facts only made him cry harder, his arms tightening around Cha’s middle. “I’m sorry.” He choked out through his tears.

Chahid nuzzled their face into Mave’s hair for a moment, accepting the smell, it lingered and they enjoyed the closeness. No matter how much they had of this, it would never feel like it was enough, every moment was something Chahid basked in because they knew it was only for a moment. The painful feeling of not having something that was right in front of them, of knowing that if they wanted it, they could have it, but they were too scared to reach out. 

Tears soaked through their shirt, but it wasn’t anything new, it didn’t surprise them, just made their heart bleed. They didn’t mind it one bit however, they didn’t mind Mave sneaking in, didn’t mind him waking them up, if anything, it was the preferred thing. They would rather he come to them than anything else. If they could help him, if they could mean just the tiniest bit to him, that was enough. That would be good. Maybe with time, they could help him even more. 

In their group during the convoy, it had been a coincidence that they were shoved together. Neither of them having anybody to call their own so they sort of drifted together. The first night they shared a tent, Maverick had woken up with a start after having dreamt of the quarantine zone where he lost his family. He was grateful of Chahid’s lack of hearing, a bit embarrassed for the nightmare. But the other had woken easily to his stirring, offering gentle back rubs and kind words. The following morning, Maverick couldn’t stop himself, still a little anxious around the large group of new people, hanging around Chahid while everyone discussed what the next move was. The transition from friends to...whatever they were now was a natural one too. Both seemed to lean into a kiss one night after yet another nightmare had woken them.

Location: the med clinic

Closed starter: @thehollyxwood

Maverick wasn’t sure his ankle was healing right. It had been almost a month since his trip to the hospital with the rest of the runners. He knew it should have been healing, but he still struggled with putting full pressure on it. The words that…we’ll practically everybody told him kept repeating in his head as he made his way to the clinic. If you don’t take it easy, you’re going to be stuck with a permanent injury. All he could do was hope that it was still healing and he wasn’t stuck with a limp for the rest of his days. He had been taking it easy since coming back from that run. Other people’s definition of easy too. No supply runs, limited shifts on the wall, no running around town.

As he pushed open the doors to the clinic, he almost started looking for Fletcher out of habit. Trusting any other medic wasn’t something he did well. Doctors and authority figures in general he had a hard time trusting. Blame it on his time in the foster care system as a child. Most of his issues stemmed back to that. Growing up most doctors and teachers, even his social worker didn’t always believe him when he tried telling them something was wrong. He was always dismissed as the problem child. But things were still tense when it came to Fletcher. The conversation he had had with his found brother still made him anxious about interaction with him. The memory of him walking away, letting someone else deal with Maverick as he cried—while completely justifiable with what Fletcher had been dealing with—still hurt his chest.

Instead, he sought out the other medic that he trusted. The woman he first met when arriving at Fairvale. Holly. He was also curious how the woman was doing since contracting the sickness. When he got back from the supply run, he had meant to stop by and see her. But everything with Fletcher had thrown him off majorly.

When he finally found her at a nurses station in the back, he knocked on the wall as not to scare her. “Hey, Hol. You got a minute?”

the clinic had been painfully slow, she wasn’t complaining since a slow day at the clinic meant nothing major happening outside of it, which was always going to be a miracle in her eyes considering the long list of tragedies they’d dealt with in recent months.

still slow meant there was nothing for her to really do but organize and clean and while it was fairly common knowledge that those two things definitely made her top ten list of favourite activities to do to pass the time, there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.

maverick’s interruption, his knock on the wall, as she’s jotting down notes on what needs to be replenished at the nurses station is the most welcome sound she’d heard since she’d come on shift earlier that morning.

he was fletchers patient mostly, prone to getting himself into all sorts of wars, but she’d been the medic in charge of his initial intake into the community and she hadn’t forgotten that it was his information that had helped to save her sister when she’d been taken.

“They’re right though. I have to remind my roommates to take it easy all the time. Not that they listen too much.” He sighed with a small smile as he followed her into an exam room. Maverick was the youngest of his roommates, so none of them really took him too seriously unless it came to guard duty or supply runs. “I’ll be an easy patient for you. I don’t think my ankle is healing right.”

Despite the small scowl still on Maverick’s face, his words weren’t mean to be insulting. If more people in town had Fletcher’s compassion and tenderness towards the other surviving humans, the world would already be a better place. Never mind the walking dead just beyond their walls. Too many people had lost themselves and their humanity before finding Fairvale. That much was clear. That was why he liked Fletcher so much. He was still very much a human who cared for everybody, even when he was lecturing Maverick to the point of a mental breakdown. “There are worse people to be compared to.” He agreed, wishing that he could find it in him to be kinder to others. But he struggled to trust people, to properly show them that he cared.

Maverick wondered if the sigh that came from the older had to do with his excessive drinking or the potentially offensive comment about Kai being unable to keep him safe. “Never said you weren’t tough. But I’m a handful. Just ask…Fletcher.” He had to stop himself from calling the medic his brother. To him, found family was just as real as his adoptive brother’s that he hadn’t seen since Seattle. It still was a painful comparison that he didn’t want to make. “I don’t need help. I’m doing just fine.” He insisted, unsure if they were still talking about supply runs or Maverick’s obviously unstable mental health.

Fine would probably be the opposite of how Maverick was. Still, Malakai didn’t want to press. Especially in their drunken state. Getting all into depressed talk didn’t go hand and hand with alcohol and suddenly, he was wishing they had tequila. An upper was certainly needed. Maybe even a different stimulant, but alas, even weed was a pain in the ass the find. God, Kai never thought he’d miss the ole’ days, bu he was realizing that he took his hectic life for granted. Really, things started looking up for him once out of the system and in Uni. and passed Uni? Even better. Had a career started and everything. Kai never thought he’d be able to do that. Ever.