Stale M&M's (recently plagiarized as "Sweet Tooth") The Walking Dead Fanfiction

11. Season 4 ~ On Pause

Summary: The survivors inside the prison enjoy a small, sacred moment to recover after the last few days.

~

With the sickness finally a past threat and those still affected being well taken care of in their recovery, people began moving out of the office blocks and back to their own cell blocks — or free cells in B and C block for some like Oliver, with D block still a bloody mess.

Without Carol around, the cafeteria remained out of operation and people were instead handed out preserves from the food storage closet. Nobody was on fence duty or on watch, but instead focus seemed to have been set on cleaning up after last night. The breach in the outer fence had been boarded up. Daryl, Tyreese, and Bob were digging graves while Michonne and Hershel were getting a start on clearing the walker corpses from the parking lot, and Carl's father was already down in the gardens, doing his thing. Carl actually wanted to join him for once, but first, he wanted to find—

"How's your package deal doing?" Michonne asked as he passed by — she didn't even need to say a name. Carl knew who she was talking about. He smiled at the idea that he and Oliver had become two parts of one thing, never one where the other wasn't. Although, perhaps more obviously than they'd realised.

"Okay," Carl answered shyly. "You seen him around?"

Michonne shook her head.

Last Carl saw him was when he was unpacking their things in his cell an hour ago. If he knew Oliver at all, if he ever wasn't at the cafeteria this time in the morning Carl betted he'd be in the library, so he headed there. Upon arriving, he found the book aisles empty of teenage book thieves, but knew Oliver had visited recently because his inhaler was sitting on a shelf — in the children's section.

Carl felt himself grinning as he picked the blue cartridge up and put it in his pocket. He imagined Oliver had forgotten the thing after picking up a book in its stead. It was like following a trail. Where would Oliver go to read in private?

Following a hunch, Carl returned to the deserted office blocks.

As expected, Oliver was sitting on the step by the open back door, facing the beat up parking lot. He was nose-deep in a book and didn't even hear Carl coming until he was only a few feet away. He shuffled over to let him sit beside him on the step, then continued to read. Carl looked out across the parking lot, to the trees, and saw the morning heat rising over the craggy tarmac.

"Feels like the prison's on pause or somethin'."

Oliver hummed vaguely, distracted by his book. Carl watched the clouds swim across the sky, all calm and quiet and lonely, and he thought of Oliver, all calm and quiet and lonely, too, with big brown eyes.

Carl knew he should leave him to read in peace, but he couldn't help himself.

"Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

"Never finished it in storytime, and Ms. Peletier's... gone... whatever that means... so..."

"She'll be alright," Carl told him. "We'll see her again."

"How do you know that? We don't even know why she left, or if she even did? What if she's in trouble and your dad left her out there?"

"He wouldn't do that," Carl said defensively. There was an apology in Oliver's eyes, but he didn't say it aloud. Carl didn't need him to. "We've known Carol since the start," he told him. "She's a survivor. Things that should've killed her, didn't. Daryl says she's got nine lives."

Oliver cracked a grin. "He doesn't really believe that, though."

Carl shrugged. "He believes in the chupacabra, so I wouldn't put it past him."