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"DOING A LITTLE astronomy tonight?"Nathan's gaze was on the still sky, his mind blank and his eyes heavy. He needed to sleep, but he was scared to close his eyes, afraid to see anything.
"Did you know that the brightest star is the sky is Sirius?" He remembered that Samantha used to joke around with him when they were younger, saying look, Sirius, it's you!
"I'm not really into that stuff, but the more you know." Shane chuckled, standing next to him. Nathan nodded silently, taking out a cigarette and he held out one to his partner in crime.
"Nah, don't smoke," The former cop said. "I stopped, 'cause Sam hates them..."
Nathan nodded again, lighting the poisonous stick and taking a long drag.
His sense to talk was nonexistent, his mind being elsewhere between memories and right now. It was as if he were watching a biography of himself, experiencing everything he's done. He remembered the first time he met his best friend, when his father died, when he met his brothers in the Army, his baby brother joining - and then the bad stuff starting coming to him, punching him in his heart and creating deep wounds of sadness, shane, and constant guilt.
Nathan Barton was both the wounded and the blade.
"How do you do it?" Nathan questioned, gazing at the dark haired man.
Shane peered at him quizzically. "Do what?"
"How do you not...feel?"
Shane still stared at him, as if the gears in his mind was slowly moving. That haircut made him look more like a redneck than Daryl.
"Turning it off," He begun slowly, looking out into the farmland. "You won't survive if you get your emotions involved. It's all about doing what needs to be done. This new world is going to be hard, and you need to be hard in order to survive."
"And are you adapting?" Nathan already knew the answer - Shane Walsh was just an example of how man must evolve in order to make it through the world.
The partners in crime met eyes.
"Yeah," Shane averted his eyes. "If you're strong enough, you can just turn it off."
Nathan took another drag, the substance intoxicating his lungs. He had promised himself to quit for Samantha's sake, but his addiction was stronger.
If the Army had taught Nathan one thing, it was to not walk as a human but as a weapon with legs. He never liked the feeling of being less human, the feeling of being nothing but a void - what was the point of living if you were nothing but a monster?
