Not Dead [Daryl Dixon x Male OC]

2 - Just Embers

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"Whoo-hoo-hoo! Yeah-hoo-hoo!" Glenn cheered over the blaring sound of the car alarm, hands gripping the steering wheel as he continued howling. Nick, who had his head stuck out of the passenger's window, stuck his tongue out and laughed along with him, howling out his own cheers - wind lapping at his face and hair. "Fuck yeah!"

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The orange embers of a fire barely there licked away at the logs and sticks placed in the make-shift campfire. Getting out of Atlanta hadn't exactly been easy, but they managed. Nick was the one to suggest smearing themselves in roamer guts, after all, he'd done it a million times before. Hell, he was still coated in blood as he sat amongst the camp of people he barely knew the names of. He didn't predict the rain though, that wasn't in the plan at all.

He glanced around haggardly at the group he found himself in, all sat around the low-burning fire. The sheriff, Rick Grimes, was sat between his son and wife, all huddled together. The rest settled down on logs, or on the floor like Shane had.

Nick settled on resting a bit away from the group itself, not too far away, but far enough that none of them could reach for him if they tried. He was as weary of them as they were of him. However, despite that, Glenn somehow managed to stay close - leaning on the edge of the wooden log, shoulders almost touching Nick's. Nick didn't move, he didn't see Glenn as a threat to anybody, let alone him.

The group seemed...alright. The tension surrounding them was something he couldn't exactly pinpoint nor did he necessarily understand, but they gave him food and warmth, so Nick couldn't find it in him to complain. He was itching for a smoke, but as he eyed the kids he couldn't work himself up to light one.

"Disorientated." Crickets chirped as Rick spoke, his grip on his son and his wife tight, but not smothering. Everyone seemed to watch him, listening like children hearing a bed time story.

"I guess that comes closest. Disorientated. Fear and confusion - all those things but... disorientated comes closest."

"Words can be meagre things." The older man of the camp, Dale, said as he put down a mug he had been holding. Judging from his outfit, Nick assumed he had to have been a fisherman before all this, or just a horribly cliche tourist. "Sometimes, they fall short."

"I felt like I'd been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else." His wife - Lori, as Glenn had told him - looked away at that, curling in on herself slightly.

"For a while I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from... ever."

"Mom said you died."

"She had every reason to believe that. Don't you ever doubt it." The look shared between Shane and Lori didn't go unnoticed by Nick.

"When things started to get really bad, they told me at the hospital... they were going to medevac you and other patients to Atlanta, and it never happened."