ONE EYED BOY [C. Grimes][Rarl]

yellow bus

[Ron's gotta be there for Carl, even if it means blood, guts, and driving a bus.]

[Warnings: Gore, PDA]

The yellow, rusted, school bus was a hideout that Carl and Ron visited regularly. It's placement was random, setting off on the side of an abandoned road, untouched since the initial end of the world. One of the things that made it so great was that it's keys had been left in the ignition, and even though they'd never even tried to start the old thing, it proved to be lockable from the outside and in. This allowed privacy and insurance of no dead surprises on their return.

This visit was different, though. It was their first time outside the walls since the walker siege, almost two months ago, and the first time Carl had been outside Alexandria since the loss of his eye.

Ron didn't trust himself with guns anymore, but Carl was a useless shot, due to his new inhibition, so it was up to Ron to hold the gun that he'd shot his own boyfriend with.

It'd all been an accident; a huge mistake. Walkers were everywhere, his family was dead, and Carl had reached out for Ron at the wrong moment, resulting in the knee jerk reaction that had left him half blind.

It wasn't as if Carl blamed him. He attempted to prove Ron's innocence almost constantly by showering him with love and affection, but it never seemed to make Ron feel completely guiltless.

Even now, watching Carl veer ever so slightly to the left as he walked, the anger at himself bubbled in Ron's stomach. Ron causally reached out for Carl's hand, leading him back onto the path without his know so.

Carl smiled at the blond boy, even though the bad side of his face was stiff with scar tissue and scabbing, and smile didn't seem to reach his sad blue eyes.

"We're almost there," Ron crooned softly, tearing his gaze away from the mauled face of his lover, chewing his lip as they weaved through the trees of the forest, just a mile outside the Alexandrian walls.

Carl had seemed to mellow since the accident, and it'd been up to Ron to protect him as much as he could. He'd sensed a new fear in Carl, as if he was afraid of being unable to take care of himself, so Ron had promised that he would, when Carl couldn't.

That wasn't to say it wasn't difficult. Walkers lurked behind trees, and it was hard to stay safe in the forest near their mutual home. Ron most usually took down the molded, fermenting corpses with his knife, for fear of alerting more with gun shots. The Beretta was for emergencies only. Any excuse to not hold the weapon was a good reason, to Ron.

Reaching the highway, they cleared the area of the few walkers that traveled the burning asphalt. Walkers seemed to enjoy the scorching Virginian heat that the road absorbed, even when the the fleshy layers of skin on their feet stripped away with every crooked step, sizzling in their wake. Sweat dripped down Ron's back as he lunged at the last walker once more, shoving it to the pave easily. These monsters grew more light weight by the week. Their organs would rot out and spill out their lacerations as brown and black sludge, easily ridding them of a good 20 pounds, and that wasn't to mention the ones missing whole limps and chunks. Carl could only imagine what it was like back home, where it got at least 10 degrees hotter then Virginia, easily.

"Atlanta would put this summer to shame," Carl said as they dragged the deceased walker off the road.

"And Florida would top even that," He added as an after thought. Ron shook his head as he stood, wiping his brow.

"Fuck that," he said, swallowing thickly. "Too hot for me."

Carl's laugh made the hairs on the back of Ron's neck stand up. It was a sound that he hadn't heard in a long while, and it was like chilling music to his ears.