date night
@abiggerworld
Paul hadn’t used the wheelchair in a couple of weeks (good thing, too, since continually fixing the thing with hope, dreams and scrap metal wasn’t going to keep working for long). Hadn’t used the crutches much, either, unless he was being extremely careful not to use them in front of David (doubtful. The wheelchair had suited him better, keeping his hands free). Just the walking stick, now, and only when he needed it.
Of course, now that he was doing better, he was busy again. They all were, of course, but David couldn’t help wondering if with plenty to occupy him, that little spark might have been extinguished. He’d almost decided it was probably safer to make that assumption. Apocalypse, and all. Not like making long term plans for anything but survival was really on the cards, right?
David was busy, too; mostly the basics, the odd bandaid on a boo-boo for someone small and scared, antibiotics for infections, a very memorable tooth extraction he was never going to stop dreaming about. And then one of the men sliced his forearm open on some machinery, which took about 200 stitches and had people slapping his back every time he headed to collect a meal.
It was that afternoon that he saw it again. On Paul’s face, sitting at one of the long tables, eating a plate of lentils and green beans — that expression that wasn’t just ‘thanks for saving me, let’s be friends’ but something a hell of a lot more loaded. So, time to hatch a plan.
It took him a day or so to collect up enough things for a reasonable picnic. He’d asked for something a little extra from the kitchen and been given a flat look. Until he leaned in and told the inventory manager that he wanted to surprise someone.
“A date,” she’d said, with her eyebrow cocked, before she returned to her list. “This isn’t the Hilton.”
“I know.”
“And who, pray tell, is the lucky girl?”
It was time for David to raise an eyebrow, then. “Jesus.”
Her face softened, and she sighed, and smiled just enough for David to be sure he’d won the round. “Fine,” she said. “Just wait here, I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”
People loved Paul. He deserved that; he was always the one who volunteered for the toughest foraging jobs, always the first to put himself between a walker and someone innocent. A tin of peaches, some cheese, bread… yeah, this would work. He thanked her, promised to come look at the moles on her arms in the next few days, and headed off with a canvas bag full of what definitely passed for a pretty decent post-apocalyptic date. And then he went looking for Paul.
He knocked, and then let himself in.
“Thought maybe it was time to pick up where we left off,” he said. “Feel like an adventure outside the wall? To do nothing but eat and talk and if we’re lucky, kill a couple of bad guys?”
