It Comes With The Name

Bonus Chapter: Foolish One

Lauren sat on the porch of the old house the group had claimed for the night, nursing a half-drunken bottle of whisky she had found tucked away in one of the cabinets. Unfortunately, that had been the only thing they had found in the house.

They had developed a sort of routine after being on the road for a certain amount of time, a very depressing routine. Find a house, try to scavenge, come up pretty much empty-handed, sleep on empty stomachs, and then pack up and do it all over again the next day.

She was staring blankly out into the darkness surrounding the house, sipping from the bottle periodically and hoping the booze would help to dull the ache in her heart.

Daryl made his way outside, leaning against the porch railing as he looked out over the woods. There was a slight chill in the air, winter would be upon them soon. He glanced over at Lauren for a moment, taking note of the whisky but saying nothing. He knew what the bottle represented.

"You gonna say something or you just gonna watch me drink?" Lauren said after a moment, not even looking at him. She kept her eyes on the trees as she took another sip.

Daryl gave her a side eye before turning back to the woods. "Ain't none of my business what you do to yerself."

"You're right, it's not." She agreed, taking another swig.

Silence fell between them for a few moments before Daryl spoke again. "It won't help ya know."

"I know that." She said simply, continuing to drink. "No offense but you're not exactly the person I should be taking drinking advice from."

Daryl didn't take her insult to heart, he never did. Besides, she was right, at the beginning his solution to pretty much everything was to get shitfaced. His drinking had calmed down the past few months, mainly due to the lack of alcohol at their disposal.

He shrugged his shoulders and leaned his head back against the frame. "Ain't advice, just a fact. A bottle ain't gonna numb the pain. It'll make ya forget for a little bit, but it'll come right back when ya sober up."

"Well, that sounds like a problem for future Lauren..." She drank again, leaning back against the wall of the house. She looked up at him again, offering him the bottle.

Daryl looked down at the bottle for a second, a small part of him was tempted to take it, but he shook his head. He couldn't keep the group safe if he was drunk. "I ain't touchin' that."

"Suit yourself." Lauren shrugged, taking it back. She was clearly already a little tipsy. Daryl wondered how long she had been out here by herself. "It's the only thing we found in this damn house, might as well use it."

He sighed at her stubbornness, but he wasn't going to try to stop her from getting drunk. She was a grown woman, she could do it to herself if she wanted. "You know Rick would tell ya off if he saw ya drinkin' like this."

"Why do you think I'm on the porch." She rolled her eyes. "Rick has other things to worry about than my drinking. Besides, I'm not drunk... I'm barely even tipsy."

Daryl looked at her for a moment before he spoke in a deadpan tone. "Oh, right. "Barely tipsy"." He motioned to the bottle in her hands. It definitely didn't look like the work of a barely tipsy person.

"It was half empty when I found it." She muttered, looking down at her shoes.

Daryl took in her state, she seemed to be doing worse than he originally thought. Her back was pressed up against the wall as she sat on the floor, clutching the bottle in her hands. Her face was flushed and her eyes were rimmed red like she had been crying. Lauren noticed him looking at her.