i clung to your hands so that something human might exist in the chaos.
[summary inside]
twd | oc x oc
season 3 - ?
i do not own the walking dead. i only
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❚ CHAPTER FOUR ❚ ◜ 𝒗𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒕 ◞
LEO HAD SUTURED A wound just once before. It'd been possibly months ago, when Roman was still with him and survival hadn't felt so trivial. They'd been escaping from a herd of walkers after finally having found shelter. Roman had tripped, lost balance, and slammed face-first into the corner of a nearby table. He'd clung to Leo, blood spurting from the gash across his cheek, and had tried to hide his pain through consoling murmurs. His hand had been clutched against the incision, trying to staunch the flow of the blood as it rushed through his fingers like boundless rivers, and although Leo's stomach had turned at the thought, he had known immediately what he would need to do.
⠀⠀He had his own firsthand experiences with stitches; bleary nights sneaking out of the academy-with his friends-which mostly always ended with hospital visits. Of course, he'd never lent much attention towards the doctor stitching his marred skin together, but he knew enough of the procedure, knew that once more there wasn't any way to beat around a festering wound, lest it hatch an infection. And he would've done anything before allowing any sort of harm to be inflicted upon Roman.
⠀⠀Presently, Leo's heart lurched as he thought of Roman, of his Ro. As Thorne, stiffly and begrudgingly, seated herself in the chair adjacent to his, Leo pushed away all thoughts of someone who wouldn't help him now. He grabbed the bottle of alcohol and carefully dispensed the liquid onto his hands. The tiny cuts scattered across the breadth of his palms stung, like his skin had been pried apart at the seams. He restrained a wince building up in his throat, and afterwards sterilized the needle. Then, he pulled out a jar of peanut butter. He glanced up, sliding the jar towards Thorne.
⠀⠀She stared at it like it was poison, like she had been affronted by the offering. Leo sighed. "Never had peanut butter?"
⠀⠀Her back straightened, and she pressed her lips into a thin line, presumably to suppress snapping at him, but still she curled her fingers around the jar, still she unfastened the bright-yellow cap, and then she was staring at the peanut butter as if it were the last vestige of food. Slowly, Leo withdrew a spoon from his bag, the tips of his thumb and index finger pinching the handle. Gingerly, he placed it down in front of her.
⠀⠀Thorne's hand twitched slightly, a hesitant gesture, as if she were about to reach for the spoon. Through the thicket of dark hair cloaking half her face, she glanced up at Leo, brows furrowed, mouth twisted with umbrage. "I'm not some animal. You can stop acting like I'm going to pounce on you."
⠀⠀"I don't think that."
⠀⠀Thorne scoffed. "Is that why you act like I'm untamed? Like you'll startle me with the slightest stir?"
⠀⠀It was true, to a certain extent. His moves were measured, a tiptoe around a slumbered fiend. But he wasn't afraid of her. No. Leo had been around true predators, those who sought prey and could not fit remorse into a mind possessed by an irreversibly changed world. People like that relished in the agony of others. They tore through tender skin with their blades, watching on as their victims were reduced to heaps of ribboned flesh and stark-white, gleaming bones. They watched on, as screams ripped from frail throats, as the screams morphed into gurgles. They watched it all with a cruel smile, a false-god admiring the wrath of his self-made destruction. Leo did not know Thorne, but he knew she wasn't that. If she were, he would've been dead the moment he'd seized footfall in that store. And although it'd been for only a millisecond, Leo had seen it on her face, had seen a softening in her features as he'd pulled out the jar of peanut butter.
