Unglued (Desus)

Chapter Thirteen

Notes: Jesus has 6 weeks left, in case you're wondering

The two men continued up the mountain. They were mostly quiet, talking only occasionally. Jesus was still annoyed about the comment Daryl had made earlier. Why was it so bad to not want to kill an innocent animal? Why was it so bad to feel something once in awhile?

The fog had thickened, and Paul couldn't see his own hand. Luckily, as they got further up the mountain, the trees disappeared. They no longer had to worry about running into them. The ground was covered in giant chunks of rock, and they were making slow progress. It didn't help that they couldn't see how much further they had until the top.

Paul stared at the ground intently, trying to avoid tripping over the rocks around him. He was walking slowly, lost in thought, when he heard a crash behind him, followed by rocks crumbling down the mountain.

"Daryl?" He called. "Are you okay?"

"M'fine." Daryl assured. But Jesus could hear the strain in his voice.

"Stay there, I'm coming." Jesus ordered.

He walked through the fog, blindly trying to find Daryl. He walked for a few seconds before tripping over something on the ground. He looked down, seeing that the object he had fallen over was Daryl.

Daryl was covered by a few large rocks, struggling to move.

"Daryl! You aren't fine!" Jesus exclaimed.

He was glad that his wrist was mostly healed. He would definitely need both hands to move the rocks off Daryl.

He kneeled next to Daryl, and began shoving rocks off of him.

He finished a few minutes later, and he pulled Daryl to his feet.

Jesus examined the other man carefully.

"You have some nasty cuts." He pointed out.

Daryl shrugged.

"I've had worse."

"Okay. Well, just try to be careful, yeah?" Jesus replied, frowning.

They continued up the mountain again.

*****

"Isn't it odd that death has a cure now?" Jesus asked.

They had finally reached the top of the mountain, and were now slowly making their way down.

"What do you mean?" Daryl questioned, though he didn't care all that much about what Jesus was rambling about.

"I mean, that death used to just be death. But now it's like a disease, and it has a cure. It's just no one wants the cure. No one wants to be a walker forever." Jesus explained.

Daryl frowned.

"Kind of. But you can still kill walkers, thank god. And really, it's not much of a cure."

Jesus sighed.

"I suppose you're right."

The further down the mountain they went, the warmer it got. It was still freezing though.

Jesus shoved his hands deeper into his trench coat pockets. His whole body felt numb.

Daryl snuck a glance at Paul. He noticed that he wasn't smiling like usual. His eyes lacked the brightness that Daryl liked so much.

Wait. Since when did he think about Paul's eyes?

"Since always." A voice muttered in his head.