Changing To Adapt ➵ TWD

➵ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪꜰᴛʏ ꜱɪx

Rick spins toward the noise, rifle aimed and finger steady on the trigger. Lucas didn't even see him grab it.

But nothing happens in the second they spend quiet and waiting. A second that feels like an eternity with his breath trapped in his chest, knees shaky in their half-bent position. 

He finally exhales, and then everything seems to happen at once.

Shots fire at the wood under Rick's feet, and Lucas swears vibrantly, scrambling back with the hope of being protected by the trees.

He hits the ground instead, and the world dissolves in a rush of sickening, white-hot static.

Someone is screaming. It isn't until reality comes crashing down that he realizes it's him.

"Fuck-!" Lucas chokes on his breath and grabs frantically at his shoulder. 

Rick's yelling his name, ducked behind the opposite side of the bridge. The prison is retaliating, firing back at the threat, and it's all he can hear.

Dirt kicks up into the air with every shot. Lucas knows he can't move without being spotted again. His fingers scrabble for purchase against his shirt, but blood seeps through anyway.

He drops his head back against the ground.

"Lucas!" 

His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wants nothing more than to confirm he's alive, but it doesn't happen.

Abruptly, things go silent.

If he strains his ears, he can hear the rumble of an engine closing in on the prison, just before it takes down their front gates, and skids to a stop in the middle of the field.

Lucas holds his breath, trying in vain to see past the shrubbery he's hidden behind. When he feels the dirt kick up by his head, he quickly scrambles up onto his left elbow.

Rick presses him back down before he can react, and Lucas lets out an exhale, wide eyes watching him.

"Let me see." Pushing Lucas's hand away in place of his own, Rick examines his injured shoulder with squinted eyes, chest stuttering up and down in an attempt to catch his breath.

When steady fingers start prodding at his shoulder, Lucas instinctively tries to grab at Rick's arm and pull it away. But he jolts with a sudden question, breath coming out ragged, "Hershel, where's Hershel?"

Twisting his head toward the gate, Rick yells overhead, "Go, Hershel! Get the hell outta there!"

Lucas glances over his shoulder, using Rick to prop himself up. Walkers are in the field. Hershel's in the field.

"Fuck, we need to go," His teeth clash together with an audible noise.

Rick's wild eyes land on his, and he nods, clutching at his good arm to steady him. "Ready?"

"Gonna have to be."

Lucas is tugged to his feet, blood running down his arm and taking an exit stage left off his fingers. The exit wound is left unattended as he applies pressure to the front.

Rick turns the corner, only to be met with walkers they attracted. Blocked from both sides, and trapped against the gate.

"Fuck it." Lucas tugs his machete free, leaning against the fence when he swings it down on the closest walker. 

Pulling the hammer back on his Python, Rick only manages two more shots before he's out of bullets. He uses the gun itself to cave in their skulls.

But he's not god.

Lucas's stomach drops when he sees Rick being grabbed, "Rick!"

His machete is stuck through the corpse on the ground, and there's another being held back by nothing but Lucas's arm. Would he make it to Rick in time? It'd be easy to pull the machete free, but his hand is wet with blood and slips off the handle the second he tries.

A frantic noise jumps out of his throat, and Lucas dives into bad choices by taking the corpse down with him.

Pain flares up his shoulder when they hit the ground, and he scrambles for his weapon, furiously wiping his hand against his already bloody shirt.

The jarring growl from behind alerts him to the risk of his idea, but he succeeds just in time and swings around to catch the walker in the jaw.

Lucas drops against the grass, breathing ragged as it falls, dead at his feet.

Rick.

"Shit-!" He whips around.

Still struggling against the weight of two walkers, Rick is stuck against the fence. Lucas blinks, and then he's not. 

An arrow, feathers flecked in green and red, pierces through one skull and stops just inches from Rick's.

"Oh my fucking god." Lucas lets his weight pull him back down to the grass. He knows whose arrow that is. 

Daryl's face abruptly blocks the glaring rays of the sun in Lucas's eyes, as though he was sensing his thoughts. But he hisses when the man tries helping him to his feet.

Daryl grunts when he sees it. "Got yerself into some trouble again." He takes Lucas's right arm and hoists him up, checking for the exit wound. He exhales, quietly, when he finds it. Better the bullet is out.

The effort they went to in order to make the prison as homey as a prison could get, was ruined within a single day.

Bodies fill the field. Blood rains down on specks of green.

Lucas searches the vicinity for Rick and exhales when he finds Merle helping him through the mass of walkers.

Despite them collectively hating on his brother, Daryl came back. And that says more than words ever could. 

"You came jus' in time." Lucas breathes out, squinting up at the man.

Daryl keeps a hand on Lucas's shoulder to keep him steady and standing, and hums. It's as much of an agreeance as anything.

0o0

I know it's not my best chapter, but I'll only spend even more days trying to make it good, and then you guys would have to wait longer, so I posted it anyway!