Chapter 23:
There was a lot of excitement and hope blooming, and lots of trying to calm down, as everyone had a smile on their face when Clark's words were processed. "We can get cured?!" Kenny asked for the tenth time, tightly holding onto Clark's shoulder, and Lee freed him once more. "Yeah." He chuckled, wincing at the pain in his guts, but confirmed once more. "Yeah, I just got a ticket for curing Clementine."
Their focus shifted to Clementine, who blushed since the only thing she noticed happening when Clark used Purification was the stickiness between her thighs disappearing.
"Can you-" Kenny stopped himself, but Clark nodded, asking for a handshake. A moment later and with less energy, Kenny was cured as well, but no mention of anything. And then, it was Lee's turn.
Even the effects of the mantats had been wiped from their body, the craving gone even when they had only taken two so far.
Seeing the fatigue on Clark's face, they worried. "Clark-"
"It's okay. It just costs energy to use it." He cleared for them, a relieved nod being exchanged. "We have to get out of here today, go back to the motel." Kenny voiced for them, with Clementine back to frowning in worry.
"I-"
"I agree." Clark stopped her, grabbing her clenched fist and squeezing in reassurance. "I've just got the highest ticket I could ever get-"
"The diamond tier?" Lee asked, and Clark nodded.
"The option we have is either I turn off Gambler and roll it normally. Or we risk it."
"Wait, what do you mean risk it?" Kenny asked, looking at the other two. "I have a trait, Gambler. Basically, I roll a dice with 20 faces on it. The higher the number, the better the result. If I get more than 17, the ticket turns into a special of the same tier. And if I get a perfect 20, it becomes more." Clark explained, with Kenny frowning now, at attention.
"And if you get 1?"
"The ticket gets destroyed." Lee sucked a breath at that, Clementine stiffened, and Kenny clicked his tongue.
"Do you- has it ever happened?" Kenny asked, with Clementine simply staring at you in worry, as if you were taking a burden too heavy for yourself. "No. Just today, I've had 20 twice; before that, I've mostly gotten above 15. The one I got less, nothing happened."
"Then your damn one lucky moth-"
"Kenny!" Lee cut him off, and the southern man raised his hand in surrender. "It's on you. I say use the die-"
"And I say don't." Lee began from where Kenny ended it. "Based on what you said, Diamond is the highest you'll ever go. Even if you get a perfect 20, it won't do anything-"
Immediately, Clark got a small migraine. "Yes, it will." He winced, Clementine closer to him, checking the head wound. "That- don't ask- but apparently, the D20 die is special, in that it can bypass the initial limits set."
"So, there's a chance that you get- what, adamantium?"
"Legendary." Clark corrected, but he could see where Lee would go based on the previous names being of ores and previous stones. "Clark- I say don't risk it. Take what you got. Even if you don't get a healing or recovery… thing, you might get something that gives you near infinite stamina or even a better way to deal with pain."
"Even then-" Clementine interrupted, glaring at both adults. "You don't have to pick either of them." She voiced out, watching as the good mood disappeared between them, understanding Clementine's meaning. "You can rest. Recover slowly… normally-"
"It'd take months for that!" Kenny growled, and Clementine stood up to him, leaving his side. "Then so be it!"
"Cle-" He tried-
"No, shut up. Clark!" She turned to him, sharply, with real anger and frustration on her face as she turned back to the adults. All her previous soft, gentle facade was gone, smile and worry or stress wiped off from her face, as the only thing that remained was anger.
Anger at her friends for forcing her Clark to go through what they were suggesting.
"He's not going to do anything until he can sit straight without a wince. If it takes him months for that to happen. Then so be it." Clementine announced, half paying attention to her Clark and half to the adults.
Kenny's jaw went tight. "Clementine-"
"I said-" She turned her head, with firm eyes that didn't budge. "So be it. He's not a tool you get to wind up and point at your problem."
…
…
"What'd you just say, you little ungrateful-"
"Kenny-"
"Ungrateful?! PLEASE!" Clementine raised her voice, higher than she should have, but she didn't care anymore, as her body felt hot with anger and spit at the men in front of her. "Who was the one that's been feeding you for the last few days?! And then weeks before that?!"
"Clementine!" Lee got between them, but the two simply ignored her.
She didn't stop, her voice sharp and cutting, finger pointed at Kenny's chest. "Clark! Clark has been doing that! And now you want to risk him breaking so you can run back to your family faster?!"
"My family might be DEAD!" Kenny spat, his voice shaking at the last word, no longer holding back the horrific image in his mind, his voice turning raw and ugly, spit leaving his mouth.
His hands were fists at his sides, and the vein at his temple was doing something Clark could see from the bed. "Duck. Katjaa. They're out there, and I'm in here, safe and sound, doing NOTHING while-"
"Then GO!" Clementine's voice came back just as loud, just as raw, her whole body shaking with it. "Nobody's stopping you! You want to go back to them so bad?! GO! Walk through that horde alone, Kenny! See how far you get!" Kenny almost jumped at her to slap her, with Clark jumping in to save her, even if that meant slicing through Kenny's neck.
"Clementine-" Lee's voice, hard now, not managing anymore. Just trying to stop what was coming. "That's enough-"
"No-" She turned on him, and Lee went quiet from the look on her face. Not because it was threatening. Because it was the face of someone who had been sitting on something for days and had run out of room to sit on it. "No, Lee. I'm not done."
She turned back to Kenny, behind Lee.
"You want to talk about what needs to happen?" Her voice had dropped, which was worse than the shouting. Lower and steadier, and carrying something in it that had weight. "Fine. Let's talk about what needs to happen." She took a step, two, then three, toward Kenny, and passed Lee, standing right in front of the man with the board and body shivering in barely contained fury.
And Clementine didn't back down, her hand into fists, shaking from the extreme emotion she was feeling. "Your family is at the motel. Behind a fence. With Lilly, and Mark, and Carley, and Larry, and Ben-"
"Ben's fucking useless-"
"Behind a fence!" She cut through him, suddenly pushing him with everything she had, as if his interrupting her made her want to unleash her anger. The action surprised Kenny and others, coming out of nowhere, and Kenny hit the wall behind him.
"With walls and a gate and people who know how to use a gun. My Clark-" Her voice broke slightly on the word my and she pushed through it, chin up. "My Clark was lying on a lobby floor with a bone sticking out of him and glass in his side and his skull soft under my hands 5 days ago! And I sat there." She pressed two fingers to the center of her chest, hard. "I sat there for hours, Kenny, with his head in my lap, talking to him, because someone had to. Because Lee had moved to the other room-"
"Clementine." Lee's voice was very quiet.
She looked at him. And something moved through her face that was the opposite of an apology. It was the look of someone who had decided the truth was the truth regardless of who it hurt to say.
"You moved to the other room with him," she said, jabbing Kenny in the chest, "to wait. I know why. I know you had to be ready. I know what you were going to have to do." Her jaw tightened. "I know all of that. And I'm not blaming you for it." A beat, because she lied. She blamed him. She hated him for abandoning him- "But I was there. I was the one who didn't move. I was the one talking to him while he couldn't hear me, and I'm not-" Her voice fractured at the edge again, and she stopped, took a breath, and came back steadier. "I am not going to watch him break himself again because neither of you can wait two more days."
"And what's gonna change two days later, huh?" Kenny shot back, bringing her attention to him. "What's gonna happen after? He's not going to magically recover by doing nothing! It's better he take one of the fusions-"
"Yeah? What happens when he breaks?!" She shot back, making Kenny and Lee pause for a moment.
"Clementine." One word. One word from him calmed down the forest fire that she was feeling inside her, the rage, the anger, the resentment that had built up for almost losing him.
"No." She turned back to him, her eyes starting to tear, her expression settling into something complicated, something between disappointment, understanding, but also so much love and hurt. "You always do this. You always-" She stopped, pressing her lips together. "You always treat yourself like you're the thing that gets spent so everyone else can continue."
"Clem-"
"I'M NOT DONE YET!" She yelled, jolting everyone to be straight, their ears straining outside while their eyes went to the door, which made her chuckle in mockery. She was tired- extremely tired of seeing Clark hurt and malnourished and exhausted and doing everything for everyone else.
"You gave your barely recovered state to Carley when she was starving herself." She held up a finger, making everyone turn back to her, their eyes more serious as they regarded a Clementine who was going through grief, even when Clark survived.
"You fed everyone on your very first day, including Larry, the one who had driven out of the group in the first place when you could barely survive out there, all alone-" another finger- "You gave me this locket and refuse to take it back whilst also giving Carley the ring that could have protected you better from that exploding ghoul-" two fingers went up- "before all of that, you saw everything that you held dear, die or turn." She stopped counting. "And now, they want you to go through torture, 15 minutes of torture, for a chance that you might heal? All for what?"
"For my family," Kenny told her, told them, as he glared at her and she glared back at him. "Even if that means you have to destroy mine?" She shot back, watching the certainty, the confirmation, that yes, if the price was Clark's sanity, he would pay.
"And for Carley-" Clark started before Lee could stop everything from worsening, the other two also turning to him, watching him, studying him. One with clear eyes and the other- blurry. "And Lilly, Mark, Ban, Larry, Duck-" He turned to Kenny- "Katjaa-" before turning back to a defeated-looking Clementine, her shoulder sagging and losing all the fight in her- her shaking abruptly stopping.
Kenny's eyes had widened further than anyone had ever seen, the fire in him dying quicker than Clementine's, as if he had finally broken from whatever spell he was in and saw what he had been saying. "Clark- I-"
Clementine looked at Clark as if he had betrayed her, his chest hurting from her pained face, and then she turned back to Kenny, as if Clark had proven all her points and more. "How much more are you going to take from him?"
Her question, with the most dead tired tone, stabbed Kenny right where he wasn't expecting, almost folding him in two. But Clementine didn't care, she simply walked away- for the first time in five days, or more like, for the first time since they were together, she had left Clark's side for other reasons than daily needs.
"Clementine-"
"I'm tired, Clark." Her tone was flat because she had no more energy to show her worry, her fears, her anxiety and stress, her heart ached and hurt, almost regretting falling in love with the most selflessly selfish man on earth, who wanted to give everyone his all, so they wouldn't leave him. So, he wouldn't lose them, just like how he lost his parents and his relatives.
"Do what you think is right. I'll be there." She told him, no longer being able to look at him, to stare at him- at least for now. "But I can't- I won't listen to your screams and cries of pain anymore. I can't-"
"Sweet-"
"No. Lee. You don't have the right to call me that anymore." She snapped at him, shutting him up. "I get that you're worried about Carley and others. So, I want you- both of you-" The embers in her sparked into fury once more. "To suffer as he suffers. I want you to stay in this damn room for the next 15 minutes, or however long it takes, and watch and hear him. And when it's over, and he comes out of that stronger- because he will-" She glared at him- at her love- her heart, her husband. "That will be the last time he'll ever do anything like this for you-" Clark seemed to pale at those words- "No more." She decided, then and there.
"Clementine," Clark called, and for the first time since he met her, since he loved her and held her in his arms, she ignored him, shutting the master bedroom door behind her.
As soon as she was gone, everyone stayed quiet, with Clark looking at the door with hurt.
The door didn't open again. No matter how much Clark hoped it would.
Lee and Kenny were very quiet. One had the look of regret, shooting Clark a glance of apology, while the other stayed firm, even when he knew he was in the wrong.
"She's right," Kenny said. His voice had lost everything it had been carrying five minutes ago. What was left was smaller and rougher and more honest than anything Kenny had said in the five days they'd been in this apartment. He sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed, elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor. "She's right about all of it."
Clark didn't say anything.
"I knew it while she was saying it." Kenny's jaw worked once. "Didn't stop me." He shook his head slightly, the motion of a man disgusted with himself and not bothering to hide it; instead, he accepted it. "Duck's nine and he's got more sense than me half the time."
"Kenny-"
"Don't." He looked up at him. "Don't do the thing where you make it okay. You're not allowed to do that right now."
Clark closed his mouth. That wasn't what he was going to do. At all.
Clark turned to look at Lee, and the man looked to the floor, with shame, but Clark understood. "Thank you." He told the man and saw him get surprised. "For preparing to protect her, even from me."
"I-"
"It's fine." Clark began, thinking of Carley, as he thought of the people who were with him. "I understand. We have to go back to the motel as fast as we can." He told them, worried for the former reporter or journalist. She never did tell him what her previous job was, really, but she told him she worked the news. He looked back to Lee, "Carley- she's in danger, even if not from the ghouls or others, she's in danger from herself." He explained, not to Lee or Kenny or even Clementine that was just standing behind the closed door that Half Life let him know about. He was explaining it to himself.
That he had to, for her sake. Lee, Clementine, and he were stuck in this place, which was all the people that Carley cared about more than her own life. "To her, we might have died and turned." He repeated, out loud, as he turned off Gambler.
He needed a good roll, something that would either help him with Surgical Destruction or heal him in the blink of an eye.
Lee turned. His expression had the quality it got when he'd arrived at a decision that cost him something and was going to say it anyway. "You're going to do it."
Not a question.
"Yeah."
"Because of Carley and the others." Also, not a question.
"Because of all of them." Clark looked at his hands again. "And because-" He stopped, finding the honest version and making himself use it instead of the easier one, because she deserved to know. "Because she said I treat myself like the thing that gets spent, so everyone else can continue." He paused. "She's right about that, too-"
And then, he remembered. He remembered Carley's face when he took her hunger, her state of malnourishment, and gave her his. The look of anger, the disgust in her eyes when she realized what had happened, and then helplessness when he refused to return her state back to him, and Clark had ignored it, not understanding that look in her eyes then.
Clark didn't understand it back then, and neither does he know. He struggles with it. He has powers, abilities that can make the lives of his friends better, a hundred times better. He had to use it for them. But his lack of understanding hurt Clementine, so-
Clark Rogers came to the decision that her words, her promise to Lee and Kenny, wouldn't be empty. That it would carry weight. He would stop putting others before his health. He would stop treating himself as an object, as disposable. As something that no one would care if it broke, because she cared. She cared enough that she had to leave for a moment, to come to terms with loving that kind of man.
And Clark didn't want to make Clementine regret that. That being with him would only bring her more tears and worry, not for herself, but for him-
[Sisyphean]
|Legendary Trait|
"A lifetime defined by futile struggle." Your mind is inhumanely durable, even if you get bored, even if you get tortured, even if you have to push a boulder up a mountain for hundreds of years, your mind may bend, but it will never break. You are rendered MASSIVELY resistant to any external mental interference.
Immediately, the trait got settled, as his mind grew stronger, and Clark could feel it within himself. That confidence that he would never break from his lifetime of struggles.
No one had the right to call his struggles futile but himself. And whether it was futile or not, Clark Rogers would still continue to struggle until his dying breath. He would live for her, because dying was so easy. And what better way could he tell her that he loved her?
But just for today, he hoped that Clementine wouldn't be angry with him afterward. Just for today.
"What are you doing?" Kenny asked, watching as Clark took the blanket and put it around his mouth. "A gag-" his voice muffled, and both men were by the side of his bed now, looking to each other and finding that same helplessness.
'It wasn't too late.' Kenny thought, his heart beating harder than ever. As he watched Clark, a kid, prepare himself for pain. "You-"
"I need your energies." Clark interrupted, voice barely heard as he asked for their hands, voice firm and with authority that he didn't have minutes ago, and both men's bodies obeyed, his other trait, Larger than Life, brimming, as if he was finally using it to its real effect.
Within a moment, both Lee and Kenny were hit with a wave of fatigue, exhaustion to their bone, as Clark summoned his horn under the blanket and ate dates, one after the other.
Until he was full, and then Lee watched as he ate more, banana peels being thrown to the side, one after another. With the situation being so dire, none of them realized his ear tip being red in a blush- 'I should have eaten before covering my face!'
He still kept his ear out in the hallway, hearing nothing but one pair of footsteps in the hallway- his stomach hurt as he looked at the fusion feature, at the end result. Surgical Destruction.
With a reassuring nod to himself, he selected it, using one of the third fusions before the cooldown and a new item replaced the Astral Injector-
Surgical Destruction | Uncommon Item:
An injection that MASSIVELY increases recovery for 15 minutes, destroying your body and rebuilding it to be at its peak. In short, you could compete in the Olympics without training. But while the effect is active, you will have to endure the pain of your body being destroyed and burned inside out. Your body needs energy to transform and heal from years of neglect. So, make sure you eat a lot. If you don't, well… Find out. Warning: This item can only be used once per person. Using it twice will melt and rot your body into a slime.
"There's a ghoul- walker I'm guessing, in the hallway. I'm counting on you." He told them, all of them, even Clementine, through the door, as he bit the blanket, a syringe in his hand that he jammed in his thigh, the thing pushing the liquid inside on its own.
And then nothing, as Clark waited and clenched his teeth. He could feel the pain of his injuries, and some tingling sensation slowly spreading through his body, until it covered them all-
"Arg-" pain- almost like someone had pinched him.
Clark was dumbfounded, alongside Lee and Kenny, both glad. "Well, that was anti-climactic," Kenny muttered, pushing himself up, with Lee standing up as well, recovering a little. "Umm, I guess we'll take care of the walker outside."
"That's all?" Clark asked, feeling the tingling sensation go away, and he could feel himself slowly getting better. His injuries hurt a little less-
Then it hit.
It hit like the fat ghoul in the lobby- all at once, without warning, the kind of force that bypassed thought entirely and went straight to the body. Except that the fat ghoul had been external.
This was internal. This was every nerve ending he had firing simultaneously, this was his bones deciding they didn't want to exist and melted away from his body as new ones grew instantly, this was his blood running hot and then cold and then hot again in the span of a single heartbeat.
Clark howled.
The blanket between his teeth fell uselessly as Clark clawed at his own skin to make it stop. The sound that came out of him wasn't a scream. It was worse than a scream as his throat bled from the intensity of it, and Clark shocked on his own blood.
Lee and Kenny were at his side before the sound had finished.
"Clark-" Lee's hands were on his shoulders, firm, trying to hold him to the bed, but Clark's body wasn't listening to anyone right now as he kept clawing and clawing at his chest, then stomach, tearing his clothes and then flesh-
Immediately, Kenny moved to take his arms away from his own body, struggling more than ever, but succeeded at crossing them over Clark's stomach as he put all his weight on his arms.
"CLARK!" Clementine burst in- Kenny grunted, as he felt the kid get stronger, and stronger still- "SON OF A-" He cried out, as Clark's claws started to grow bigger- no, it was his whole body growing bigger, taller-
"What's happening?!" Lee shouted, all thoughts of keeping quiet gone as their main priority was to stop Clark from tearing his own flesh and organs.
Clark's spine did something.
He arched off the bed with the force of it, both men losing their grip, and the sound that left him this time rattled the windows in their frames. His vision had gone white at the edges, his pupil covering his whole eye socket, black, and then the whites returned, the black growing smaller and smaller until it became nothing but a line. A slit pupil, his green eyes going greener. But there was barely any sanity in them.
Kenny grabbed his freed right arm again and Lee his left as he tried to claw his heart out, because it was burning and melting inside him, and they hauled him back down to the mattress, and Clark fought them without meaning to.
"Hold him-"
"I'm trying-"
He threw Kenny.
Not deliberately. His left arm moved, and Kenny was attached to it, and the force of the movement sent the man into the wall hard enough that the plaster cracked. Kenny hit the floor, and Lee looked at the dent in the wall, and then at Clark, with the expression of a man rapidly revising his assumptions about what he was dealing with.
Clark was on his feet.
He hadn't stood up. He had simply- stopped being horizontal.
He was taller.
Not much. An inch, maybe two. But the ceiling felt closer than it had, and his shadow on the wall was the wrong shape, as it showed him growing ears on top of his head, and there was fur- he registered it distantly, there was fur at his forearms. Black. The same color as the malnourished cat that Duck wanted to play with.
His face felt wrong. His jaw, his brow ridge, the angle of his cheekbones- all of it in motion, settling into shapes that weren't quite Clark's and weren't quite the cat's, and then a hiss, louder than any cats, as his spine snapped and tore through his flesh, a tail, covered by black fur, kept growing as Clark tried everything to stop the pain, using purification after purification on himself to get rid of the contents of the syring.
Not knowing that it had already been fully absorbed and had become one with him. It had already done its job, and the pain, the bone being melted and a new one growing, the organs melting inside him and new ones being sewn from their wastes- all of it was his body's way of healing.
But Clementine, standing behind Lee, could see it in his eyes. The way the giant and still growing Clark was holding himself back, focusing on his body or the walls, rather than them, meant he was there.
"Clark!" She called for him, and his head snapped towards her, eyes that belonged to an animal and not her husband, as his tail, his uncontrollable tail that even he couldn't contain, snapped towards them, with Lee taking the full blunt of the hit and sending him hitting the wall. As it moved again, Clark's claw moved as well. A swipe was all it took as a heavy thud fell in front of Clementine, and her love howled in more pain.
She took a step back-
"HIDE!" He howled, standing up, and his head hit the ceiling, as he growled and grabbed his own naked torso, using Purification, but nothing still- the door of the apartment broke down, falling with another heavy thud, and growls and moans of ghouls answered her husband in its hybrid form.
"Clark!" She called for him in worry, but he pushed himself off the bed, crouching as he dashed towards the bedroom door frame, Stone Skin covering him from head to toe, destroying the wall and crushing the runner variant's head underneath his feet.
She stumbled backward next to an unconscious Lee, as she stared with open jaw at the destruction, at his destruction, while he cut the ghouls with swipes of his hand, all while screaming in pain.
As soon as the crouching figure of him was gone from her eyesight- because he had to crouch, the ceiling was there, and he was ten feet of pain and instinct, and the last shard of something holding him back fought to protect them first, Clementine woke back up from her daze, gulping air, and pulling Lee towards the closet without another question, as she could still hear the howls and the walls shaking as he threw himself at it to stop the pain.
…
…
…
There was a small wave when Clark reached the ground floor as he massacred everything without thought, finally letting the final thread in him snap as he let Half Life and Cat Form thrive with no reservation, as, inwardly, he curled in on himself to protect himself from the pain.
The lobby was filled with dozens of them, attracted by his howling that could be heard on the entire block and more. He heard a chim, a notification that he had a ticket, but Clark was in no position, as his body moved.
A ghoul, the screamer variant was letting out that inhuman shriek, as if competing in a screaming contest with the hybride. And Clark, as soon as it spotted the shrieker, jumped- no, dashed towards it, crushing the meat shield that were the ghouls with its weight and speed, barely reaching his hips.
As soon as Clark reached it, it grabbed it by its ankle and swung it twice, both times at the ghouls approaching him, and once it had enough space to itself- Clark bit through the now silent ghoul's throat, swallowing it, as his animalic instincts told it to eat.
And to eat more, as the hybrid howled at the rotten meat in front of him, as its body took whatever energy it had from the rotten flesh and used it to make him better, faster, and stronger.
[Gold Ticket Acquired.]
|A New Variant of Walker — You have encountered and eliminated your first Screamer variant.|
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…
…
With every dozen ghouls that would fall to him, Clark would eat at least half of them, as he ran around the apartment complex, naked, while being ten feet tall, his entire body covered in gore, chunks of flesh missing on his thighs that were slowly recovering, and blood, fur covered his forearms and shins, while his hair had turned closer to a lion's mane, but dark.
While he didn't know how long had passed, back in the apartment, hiding with unconscious Kenyn and Lee, Clementine was counting the seconds of each minute, holding back her panic and fear and worry for him, as she pulled her last finger into her fists and then showed one finger- eleven minutes.
It- Clark- saw another wave of food sources, among them, one tall, but bloated figure coming to him, as his body and mind slowly got used to pain, screaming less, but grunting with each step. Half Life screamed at him to eat, and the animal obeyed, claws slicing through ghouls' heads and bodies as if they were nothing-
His instincts warned him of the tall bloater kind, and Clark's body moved, claws, sharper than ever thanks to Sharpen, sliced it in two. And then it took the head, mouth wide open and bite, destroying the skull and whatever brain that was left of the explosive variant as it died in Clark's maws.
[Gold Ticket Acquired.] |A New Variant of Walker II — You have encountered and eliminated your first Explosive variant.|
It didn't matter, as Clark, the hybrid, moved for more, struggling just a little while running back towards the apartment complex, its instinct telling it to go back.
As soon as the timer hit fourteen minutes, Clark's dulled mind was slowly returning, as it- he looked around him, his body feeling numb all over. His knees hit the front lobby, body unresponsive, as he looked at the stairs, Half Life letting him know of the frantic footsteps running towards him, and it brought him comfort.
That he hadn't hurt them or her. Slowly, but surely, Clark's size decreased, the fur all over his body receding back inside, as he finally saw her, alongside limping Lee and Kenny.
"Shit." They rapidly ran down the stairs, and then the destroyed door wall that he rammed through in his rampage. Clementine was the first one to reach him, as he finally returned full human, face and chin covered in black blood as she looked over him, finding some healed bite marks that had scarred, while the holes in his body, from the bone fragment and the glass shard, not fully healed, since he was constantly using Purification in an animalistic state, but he could be moved.
Her gentle hands went through the back of his head, as Clark hugged her hip and glued his face to her belly, tired, but home as he took her worried scent. She showed no worries or annoyance as he dirtied her clothes with gore and guts.
"Sleep," She whispered to him, her fingers running through his bloodied hair, no longer in search, but comfort and love. "Sleep. And when you wake up, we'll be back in our room." She promised, and Clark hummed, closing his eyes. His body immediately shut down, falling sideways, even with Clementine stopping it-
"Let me." Kenny offered, crouching next to the kid. Clementine said nothing, as Kenny, with a grunt of pain and effort, took the naked Clark on his back.
"Let's go." He told Lee and Clementine, who nodded, taking the lead and scouting ahead to dodge any other ghouls that wanted to take bites out of them. Though finding bodies after bodies during their walk, Lee had to break the silence.
"Damn."
"Yeah- and I really don't want to complain and all-" Kenny started, getting Clementine and Lee's reaction. "But can we cover his junk at least. It's rubbing on my back, and it's really not helpful-"
Without meaning to, Lee burst into a chuckle, which Clementine shared just a little. But at the end of the day, she did use her pink leather jacket to cover his junk. Even if she was upset with Kenny and even Lee a little, she wanted to reach the motel sooner now, rather than later, so Clark could recover.
…
…
…
"Back off!" Carley shouted at the two men behind their fence. She aimed the rifle at the torso of one of them as they froze. Outwardly, she looked like a rekt, as she kept watch from the top of the RV, with dull, dead eyes, even when Lilly had begged her, in front of everyone, which was not Lilly-like at all, to at least rest or eat something. But she refused.
She ate enough even when she didn't feel hungry and wanted to vomit up what she ate, so at that point, why should she waste food? Ever since yesterday, the fourth day since Lee's group had gone missing, Carley was a wreck.
Instead of being devoured by her immense grief, she tried to distract herself with work, with hunting in the morning, but she could only remember the cold during the night, missing Lee in her bed. In the morning, she missed seeing Clark by the fire, or Clementine keeping Duck busy, or training with Clark.
Everywhere she looked, the only thing she could see was the three most important people in her life, gone. In just one day, instantly.
She saw how Katjaa tried to be strong for Duck and heard her crying in the night when she walked around the parking lot to burn her thoughts away because she couldn't sleep. She didn't sleep.
So, she had changed shifts with Ben, forcibly, and stayed watch, even though Lilly begged her to rest. To stop what she was doing, Lilly had failed, as Carley kept watch. The hope inside her was still there as she looked beyond the fence, waiting to see Lee's face, Clementine's smile, and Clark's presence.
And for a second, her hope bloomed, her exhausted face brimming with a smile as she heard footsteps, only for it to break as it was strangers with a red plastic can for gas.
"Whoa… hey- lady relax… We- my brother and I… We just want to know if y'all could help us out a bit."
"I said back off!" She loaded the rifle- "Carley." Lilly was there, next to the RV and then the fence, as the brothers raised their hands higher in surrender.
For a moment, Carley thought they might go away, but then their eyes went to Ben, then Duck, and an afraid Katjaa. Carley's finger twitched-
"You're outnumbered here. Drop your weapons and turn around. Go back where you came from." Lilly ordered, and Carley's finger stopped twitching.
"Okay, that's fine. but you'd really be helping out a fellow survivor-"
"Didn't you hear it loud and clear from the lady?!" A new voice, a familiar voice, spat out as everyone turned, with someone gasping, as Kenny had a gun pointed at the two strangers whose unnatural calm shattered.
"Fuck off, before I put a hole in both your heads."
"Kenny?!"
Immediately, Carley's rifle was pointed to the ground as her eyes teared in immense relief and joy. They were fine-
Mostly fine as Lee was carrying an unconscious Clark with Clementine right behind them.
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Author note: Can't believe I managed to write a freaking long chapter while I was busy.
So, this might be the only chapter you guys get from me for this week. And the one after that.
So enjoy it. I had to rewrite this chapter a bunch of times since it was going dark a lot. And i didn't want dark.
This chapter, Clementine finally spoke her fears regarding Clark. And what it could possibly mean in future if he does continue, which thankfully, he won't.
Or at least, TRY because an habit that is powered by trauma is and will be hard to beat to. Helps that you have loved one near.
On the matter of Gambler for diamond ticket, I had Clark turn it off cause when I rolled the D20, I got a perfect 20.
Then checked the legendary tier and saw some wayy to op shit that I decided to keep it Diamond only.
Other than that, that's all I have.