Oz / The Walking Dead Crossover Fic: "A Place to Call Home"
Title: A Place to Call Home
Fandoms: Oz / The Walking Dead
Characters: Chris/Toby, Daryl/Glenn, Merle
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 2713
Summary: In the midst of the apocalypse, Chris and Toby find the survivors at the quarry. Toby thinks they may have found a home. Chris has other plans.
Notes: Written for hc_bingo's April challenge -- crossover. Prompts used: loss of possessions, bruises. As always, Merle's opinions are not mine.
A Place to Call Home
by Severina
The campsite is up in the hills, far enough from the city to avoid the undead - the walkers - and with a fresh water source. There's a ring of tents and a battered Winnebago, people moving purposefully about the clearing. It's the first organized site they've come across since fleeing the hordes in New York and heading south.
"Nice setup," Chris muses.
Toby glances at him warily. He recognizes the look. It's the same look Chris wore for months back at Oz when they were apart, when he was running the angles with O'Reily and figuring out his best play. It's the look that left multiple dead bodies in his wake.
"Chris."
Chris turns to him with a wide smile. "What? I'm just sayin', we could use one of those tents, Tobe."
Toby hikes his meager backpack onto his shoulders, eyes Chris for another moment before turning his attention back to the camp. He's tired of always being exposed, tired of being dirty and hungry, tired of being on the run from predators. And these people - they look decent. They look… good. Not like the group they ran into in West Virginia when they were traveling the back roads there, hardly ever staying in one place. The group that robbed them blind, scattered their possessions to the hills. The group that took down Cyril and Alvarez and god what they did to Sister Pete…
Toby closes his eyes, tries to put those images out of his mind.
"I say we go introduce ourselves," Chris says. "I'm fuckin' tired of sleeping under a tarp with one eye open."
It's only when Chris tries to push past him that Toby opens his eyes, stops him with a hand on his chest and juts his chin toward the row of hubcaps and empty tins strung between the trees. Chris's eyes glint merrily when he glances down, and he lifts an eyebrow. "What I told ya," he says. "Nice setup."
He shifts to edge beneath the rope with its rudimentary warning system, takes a few steps into the clearing.
Toby hurries to catch up, the memory of Cyril's broken body still fresh in his mind, of the blood that stained the ground around Sister Pete. "Chris!" he hisses. "They look fine, but we can't just-"
Chris has already stopped a few feet away, hands on his hips and head cocked. "Shit," he murmurs before yelling out, "Merle fuckin' Dixon!"
Toby freezes, aware of every eye in the campsite suddenly turned their way. He sees a dark-haired man automatically move toward the gun holstered at his hip even as he pushes a woman behind him. Toby's had experience now with every facet of a lawman, from the cop who read him his rights, his face plastered with disgust, Kathy Rockwell's body not even cold behind him and Toby's vomit still staining his shoes, to the most vicious and bloodthirsty hack in Unit B. He knows a cop when he sees one. He lifts his chin and steps up to Chris's side, does his best to look experienced but not too threatening.
Chris, for his part, only strides closer to a man with a grizzled two-day stubble who has glanced up sharply at the voice, eyes narrowed. It only takes one look for Toby to know that this one is bad news. Maybe not West Virginia bad, but still bad. Then Merle's face splits into a grin, and he pushes himself up from the old log he's straddling, lets the squirrel he's skinning drop into the pot. "Holy fuck! Keller, is that you?"
"Sure as hell ain't Big Bertha," Chris says.
The reference means nothing to Toby, but Merle guffaws like it's the funniest thing he's heard in days as he pulls Chris into a bear hug. "What the hell, boy," Merle says when they part. "Last I heard you was up in Oswald doin' hard time."
"One of the bleeding hearts let us out when the shit really hit the fan," Chris tells him. "Found the fucker shanked less than fifty feet from the front door."
Toby presses his lips together. He can still see McManus's lifeless body sprawled on the cement. There were walkers everywhere by then, spilling through the open gates, and one of them was hunched over McManus's body. It had looked up at them slowly, a piece of Tim's stomach lining still hanging from its jaw, and Toby had said a quick prayer that McManus had been dead before the thing - the monster that used to be his best friend - had started eating him. Then he'd swung the table leg that was his only weapon back then, hit the thing that used to be Sean Murphy over the head. He'd stood and battered at Murphy's skull until there was nothing left but blood and broken bones, couldn't stop until he finally realized that the person screaming in his ear and pulling at his arms was Keller and that the other walkers were converging on them. It was only then that he realized that he was screaming, too.
"That bleeding heart saved our lives," he says softly.
"Whatever." Chris shrugs, and juts his head toward the dark-haired cop now striding decisively in their direction. "What's this place like? They okay?"
Merle sniffs. "Bunch o' rubes," he says. He eyes Toby carefully before sidling a little closer, lowering his voice. "We got plans, me an' Daryl. Fill ya in later."
* * *
"You know they're fucking, right?"
Toby tenses across from Chris, glares daggers that Keller doesn't even acknowledge. They've settled in nicely at the quarry, despite Chris's friendship with Merle. Toby's formed tentative friendships with a few of them; has sat up late listening to Dale spin fantastical yarns, stood watch while the women take care of the laundry, laughed at Glenn's pizza delivery horror stories. He's taken watch shifts on top of the RV, spotted and stopped a walker before it could get anywhere near the camp. He knows that he and Chris are safer now than they've been since… well, since before they even got thrown into Oz. And just as importantly, he and Chris have a tent over their heads and food in their stomachs, both of which are mostly courtesy of Merle's brother. The brother that Keller is about to throw under the fucking bus.
"Chris," Toby warns.
Chris doesn't even blink. And Merle follows Chris's glance across the clearing, narrows his eyes when he sees that Chris is looking at Daryl and Glenn, the two men hunched together over a broken down Buick. He spits on the ground. "The hell you talkin' about? My brother ain't no fag."
Toby bristles. He knows it's in his best interest to keep quiet, let Merle and Daryl sort out their own shit on their own time. But he's spent too many nights curled up in Chris's arms, too many nights stifling his moans when Keller pushes slowly inside him. So he straightens his back, lifts his chin. "Something wrong with fags?"
"Sure as shit somethin' wrong with fags," Merle splutters out. "Love ain't fittin' unless it's between a man and his woman. Fags ain't nothin' but goddamn butt pirates. Fuckin' twisted is what they are." He leans back, nods toward Chris. "Tell him, Keller."
"Yeah, Keller," Toby bites out. "Tell me."
When Chris only glances out over the clearing, Merle's eyes widen. "You and him? Bullshit."
Chris lifts a shoulder. "We were cellies back in Oz-"
"Oh fuck, it don't count in prison, man," Merle drawls. "A man's got needs in the Pen. Do what ya gotta do."
"That's right," Chris agrees.
His tone is casual, laid-back, not a care in the world. But his eyes tell another story, warning Toby wordlessly to keep his mouth shut.
Toby's never taken kindly to Chris telling him what to do.
"Is that right?" Toby says smoothly. The voice of the attorney in him, too long silenced. "So if Chris, say, fucked me up the ass while we were cellmates, that doesn't make him a fag?"
Merle shifts uncomfortably. "Ain't like he could nip out for a fine piece of tail like Blondie over there, now could he?"
"Right," Toby says. He keeps his focus on Merle even as he hears the shuffle of feet as Merle's words carry to the RV, the murmur of concerned voices. He doesn't know if Andrea heard, doesn't look around to find out. "So if there's no women around, it's okay."
"Ain't never okay," Merle says. "Just… understandable."
"Uh huh," Toby says.
"Toby, shut your mouth."
Toby ignores Chris, props his elbows on his knees and leans forward. "So we've established that Chris fucking me in prison didn't make him a fag. Now I'm unsure, maybe you can clear this up for me. Did me fucking Keller last night make me a fag?"
Merle is on his feet in a heartbeat, and Chris is barely a step behind. But Toby gets up slowly, smoothes his hands down the front of his filthy trousers. He shakes his head as he steps away from the Dixon tent. "Homophobic piece of shit," he mutters.
He expects Merle to hurl himself after him, listens for the sound of thundering footsteps in the dirt and braces himself to turn and swing, to give as good as he gets. But the only thing Merle hurls after him is insults.
* * *
"Oh yeah, they're definitely fucking."
Toby looks up to find Chris staring defiantly at Daryl and Glenn across the clearing. Thankfully, the two men appear oblivious, still working over the engine of the old car. In the aftermath of his revelation of a few days ago, the only fallout appears to be between Chris and Merle - and not having Merle hanging around their tent making lewd innuendoes about the women and sneering down his nose at the thought of doing any damn work to help out isn't exactly a hardship. He bites back on a sigh. "Just let it go, Chris."
"You know Merle still don't believe me?" Chris waves a hand in Daryl and Glenn's direction. "Look at them, practically hanging all over each other. Got the evidence in his fuckin' face!"
"So what?"
"So what?" Chris repeats incredulously.
"So what if he doesn't believe you? So what if they're fucking? What does it matter? Chris," Toby says, "it's the end of days. Mankind could quite seriously be destroyed by what's happening right now. Why can't two people just love each other, now more than ever, without everyone else butting their noses in? That's half the problem we had in Oz-"
"Love's got nothing to do with what we had in Oz."
"Says the man who was willing to go to the chair for me," Toby says.
He lays his hand lightly across Chris's arm, but Chris brushes it off in irritation when he rises. Toby looks up and has to squint to see him, Keller nothing but a dark blot in the rays of the afternoon sun. "It matters, Beecher," he says.
He fully expects Chris to make his way to Merle's tent and plead his case again. He glances over and watches Merle swipe a cloth over his rifle barrel twice, three times before he realizes that Chris should have come into view by now, that Chris isn't intending to talk to Merle about anything at all. Chris is intending to show him.
Toby looks up in time to see Chris lean against the fender of the Buick, get up close and personal in Glenn's face. He looks the kid up and down, rests an arm across the edge of the open hood. Even over the distance he can hear the soft purr that Chris puts into his voice, knows from experience how bright his eyes must look to Glenn, how seductive his smile. "Hey," Chris says.
"Shit," Toby mutters. He throws down the cloth he was using to clean his knife, scrambles across the clearing.
"H-hey," Glenn says.
"So," Chris says bluntly, "I hear you're a good lay. What'd'ya say you and me-"
"W-what?"
"Chris!" Toby calls out.
"Leave 'im be," Daryl says softly from the other side of the car.
Toby can see the whole thing going pear-shaped, knows exactly how it's going to play out. But he scurries forward anyway, makes a grab for Chris's arm. "Keller, just-"
Chris wrenches his arm away. "What, you jealous, Beecher?" And when he turns back to Glenn Toby steps aside, because there's no stopping this juggernaut now, no way to get off the speeding train. He knows it, even as Chris raises a hand to tip Glenn's ever-present baseball cap aside, to flick playfully at his hair. "Maybe I got a hankering for a little sweet and sour."
Glenn flinches away, eyes wide, trapped between Keller and the Buick. He pushes ineffectually at Chris's arms, and Toby's been there, knows that it takes a hell of a lot more violence than what Glenn is offering to break that embrace. The look of panic on Glenn's face stirs him to try again. He pitches his voice soothing, calm in the eye of the storm. "Chris, come on, just come back to the tent-"
"Get off me, you freak!" Glenn yelps.
"I said leave him be," Daryl clips out.
Chris laughs. "Why, he yours? Come on and make me if you give a shit."
There's no way he can't notice the coiled tension in Daryl's arms, the taut stretch of his shoulders. Just like he can't have missed that Merle has joined the group gathering around his little display, eyes darting between Keller and his brother. Toby lifts a hand once more, one last futile attempt to drag Chris away, and then everything seems to slow down. He sees Chris's hand make a grab for Glenn's dick, sees Glenn's fist come up just as Daryl launches himself across him and throws a wild punch. Chris ducks partially out of the way, enough so that the swing that might have knocked him cold only grazes his cheek - but then Daryl is on him and they are tumbling into the dirt.
It takes three men to drag Daryl off him.
When the tumult has died down and Daryl has stalked off, Shane steps forward. His hand hovers at the butt of his gun, and the look on his face makes it clear that he won't hesitate to use it. Toby thinks he might even enjoy it.
"You don't fit in here, Keller," he says. "We're goin' to have to ask you to move on."
Chris sneers up at him, smiles viciously around his bloody lip. "Fuck you," he says.
Shane shakes his head, turns to him. "Toby," he adds, "you're welcome to stay."
For a moment, Toby thinks that's the truth. He imagines having enough food to eat, fresh water to drink, a dozen people he can rely on to watch his back. He could actually have a home with these people. But when he glances at Chris, he knows that's just a pipe dream. "Thanks," he says. "Truly. But I'll be leaving with Keller."
"Tobias," Lori starts. She glances warily at Chris before she squares her shoulders, meets his eyes imploringly. "He's not good for you."
Toby can't help hearing the reflection of his mother's voice, of his grandmother, of Sister Pete. He lifts shoulders that suddenly feel heavy. "I love him," he says simply.
* * *
They've put the quarry two weeks behind them and Chris's black eye has faded entirely when they run into another group. It's touch and go for a while, until Chris bloodies their leader's lip and Toby knocks the teeth out of one of his henchmen.
They're heating up a can of corn over the fire that night when Joe sits down on the log across from them.
"If you're going to be travelling with us, you need to know the rules," he says without preamble. "First, there's no lying. You lie, you die - simple as that. Second, if you want something you gotta claim it. Just call out 'claimed' and it's yours." He leans back, studies them both by the flickering firelight. "I think you're gonna fit in just fine."
.
Fandoms: Oz / The Walking Dead
Characters: Chris/Toby, Daryl/Glenn, Merle
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 2713
Summary: In the midst of the apocalypse, Chris and Toby find the survivors at the quarry. Toby thinks they may have found a home. Chris has other plans.
Notes: Written for hc_bingo's April challenge -- crossover. Prompts used: loss of possessions, bruises. As always, Merle's opinions are not mine.
A Place to Call Home
by Severina
The campsite is up in the hills, far enough from the city to avoid the undead - the walkers - and with a fresh water source. There's a ring of tents and a battered Winnebago, people moving purposefully about the clearing. It's the first organized site they've come across since fleeing the hordes in New York and heading south.
"Nice setup," Chris muses.
Toby glances at him warily. He recognizes the look. It's the same look Chris wore for months back at Oz when they were apart, when he was running the angles with O'Reily and figuring out his best play. It's the look that left multiple dead bodies in his wake.
"Chris."
Chris turns to him with a wide smile. "What? I'm just sayin', we could use one of those tents, Tobe."
Toby hikes his meager backpack onto his shoulders, eyes Chris for another moment before turning his attention back to the camp. He's tired of always being exposed, tired of being dirty and hungry, tired of being on the run from predators. And these people - they look decent. They look… good. Not like the group they ran into in West Virginia when they were traveling the back roads there, hardly ever staying in one place. The group that robbed them blind, scattered their possessions to the hills. The group that took down Cyril and Alvarez and god what they did to Sister Pete…
Toby closes his eyes, tries to put those images out of his mind.
"I say we go introduce ourselves," Chris says. "I'm fuckin' tired of sleeping under a tarp with one eye open."
It's only when Chris tries to push past him that Toby opens his eyes, stops him with a hand on his chest and juts his chin toward the row of hubcaps and empty tins strung between the trees. Chris's eyes glint merrily when he glances down, and he lifts an eyebrow. "What I told ya," he says. "Nice setup."
He shifts to edge beneath the rope with its rudimentary warning system, takes a few steps into the clearing.
Toby hurries to catch up, the memory of Cyril's broken body still fresh in his mind, of the blood that stained the ground around Sister Pete. "Chris!" he hisses. "They look fine, but we can't just-"
Chris has already stopped a few feet away, hands on his hips and head cocked. "Shit," he murmurs before yelling out, "Merle fuckin' Dixon!"
Toby freezes, aware of every eye in the campsite suddenly turned their way. He sees a dark-haired man automatically move toward the gun holstered at his hip even as he pushes a woman behind him. Toby's had experience now with every facet of a lawman, from the cop who read him his rights, his face plastered with disgust, Kathy Rockwell's body not even cold behind him and Toby's vomit still staining his shoes, to the most vicious and bloodthirsty hack in Unit B. He knows a cop when he sees one. He lifts his chin and steps up to Chris's side, does his best to look experienced but not too threatening.
Chris, for his part, only strides closer to a man with a grizzled two-day stubble who has glanced up sharply at the voice, eyes narrowed. It only takes one look for Toby to know that this one is bad news. Maybe not West Virginia bad, but still bad. Then Merle's face splits into a grin, and he pushes himself up from the old log he's straddling, lets the squirrel he's skinning drop into the pot. "Holy fuck! Keller, is that you?"
"Sure as hell ain't Big Bertha," Chris says.
The reference means nothing to Toby, but Merle guffaws like it's the funniest thing he's heard in days as he pulls Chris into a bear hug. "What the hell, boy," Merle says when they part. "Last I heard you was up in Oswald doin' hard time."
"One of the bleeding hearts let us out when the shit really hit the fan," Chris tells him. "Found the fucker shanked less than fifty feet from the front door."
Toby presses his lips together. He can still see McManus's lifeless body sprawled on the cement. There were walkers everywhere by then, spilling through the open gates, and one of them was hunched over McManus's body. It had looked up at them slowly, a piece of Tim's stomach lining still hanging from its jaw, and Toby had said a quick prayer that McManus had been dead before the thing - the monster that used to be his best friend - had started eating him. Then he'd swung the table leg that was his only weapon back then, hit the thing that used to be Sean Murphy over the head. He'd stood and battered at Murphy's skull until there was nothing left but blood and broken bones, couldn't stop until he finally realized that the person screaming in his ear and pulling at his arms was Keller and that the other walkers were converging on them. It was only then that he realized that he was screaming, too.
"That bleeding heart saved our lives," he says softly.
"Whatever." Chris shrugs, and juts his head toward the dark-haired cop now striding decisively in their direction. "What's this place like? They okay?"
Merle sniffs. "Bunch o' rubes," he says. He eyes Toby carefully before sidling a little closer, lowering his voice. "We got plans, me an' Daryl. Fill ya in later."
* * *
"You know they're fucking, right?"
Toby tenses across from Chris, glares daggers that Keller doesn't even acknowledge. They've settled in nicely at the quarry, despite Chris's friendship with Merle. Toby's formed tentative friendships with a few of them; has sat up late listening to Dale spin fantastical yarns, stood watch while the women take care of the laundry, laughed at Glenn's pizza delivery horror stories. He's taken watch shifts on top of the RV, spotted and stopped a walker before it could get anywhere near the camp. He knows that he and Chris are safer now than they've been since… well, since before they even got thrown into Oz. And just as importantly, he and Chris have a tent over their heads and food in their stomachs, both of which are mostly courtesy of Merle's brother. The brother that Keller is about to throw under the fucking bus.
"Chris," Toby warns.
Chris doesn't even blink. And Merle follows Chris's glance across the clearing, narrows his eyes when he sees that Chris is looking at Daryl and Glenn, the two men hunched together over a broken down Buick. He spits on the ground. "The hell you talkin' about? My brother ain't no fag."
Toby bristles. He knows it's in his best interest to keep quiet, let Merle and Daryl sort out their own shit on their own time. But he's spent too many nights curled up in Chris's arms, too many nights stifling his moans when Keller pushes slowly inside him. So he straightens his back, lifts his chin. "Something wrong with fags?"
"Sure as shit somethin' wrong with fags," Merle splutters out. "Love ain't fittin' unless it's between a man and his woman. Fags ain't nothin' but goddamn butt pirates. Fuckin' twisted is what they are." He leans back, nods toward Chris. "Tell him, Keller."
"Yeah, Keller," Toby bites out. "Tell me."
When Chris only glances out over the clearing, Merle's eyes widen. "You and him? Bullshit."
Chris lifts a shoulder. "We were cellies back in Oz-"
"Oh fuck, it don't count in prison, man," Merle drawls. "A man's got needs in the Pen. Do what ya gotta do."
"That's right," Chris agrees.
His tone is casual, laid-back, not a care in the world. But his eyes tell another story, warning Toby wordlessly to keep his mouth shut.
Toby's never taken kindly to Chris telling him what to do.
"Is that right?" Toby says smoothly. The voice of the attorney in him, too long silenced. "So if Chris, say, fucked me up the ass while we were cellmates, that doesn't make him a fag?"
Merle shifts uncomfortably. "Ain't like he could nip out for a fine piece of tail like Blondie over there, now could he?"
"Right," Toby says. He keeps his focus on Merle even as he hears the shuffle of feet as Merle's words carry to the RV, the murmur of concerned voices. He doesn't know if Andrea heard, doesn't look around to find out. "So if there's no women around, it's okay."
"Ain't never okay," Merle says. "Just… understandable."
"Uh huh," Toby says.
"Toby, shut your mouth."
Toby ignores Chris, props his elbows on his knees and leans forward. "So we've established that Chris fucking me in prison didn't make him a fag. Now I'm unsure, maybe you can clear this up for me. Did me fucking Keller last night make me a fag?"
Merle is on his feet in a heartbeat, and Chris is barely a step behind. But Toby gets up slowly, smoothes his hands down the front of his filthy trousers. He shakes his head as he steps away from the Dixon tent. "Homophobic piece of shit," he mutters.
He expects Merle to hurl himself after him, listens for the sound of thundering footsteps in the dirt and braces himself to turn and swing, to give as good as he gets. But the only thing Merle hurls after him is insults.
* * *
"Oh yeah, they're definitely fucking."
Toby looks up to find Chris staring defiantly at Daryl and Glenn across the clearing. Thankfully, the two men appear oblivious, still working over the engine of the old car. In the aftermath of his revelation of a few days ago, the only fallout appears to be between Chris and Merle - and not having Merle hanging around their tent making lewd innuendoes about the women and sneering down his nose at the thought of doing any damn work to help out isn't exactly a hardship. He bites back on a sigh. "Just let it go, Chris."
"You know Merle still don't believe me?" Chris waves a hand in Daryl and Glenn's direction. "Look at them, practically hanging all over each other. Got the evidence in his fuckin' face!"
"So what?"
"So what?" Chris repeats incredulously.
"So what if he doesn't believe you? So what if they're fucking? What does it matter? Chris," Toby says, "it's the end of days. Mankind could quite seriously be destroyed by what's happening right now. Why can't two people just love each other, now more than ever, without everyone else butting their noses in? That's half the problem we had in Oz-"
"Love's got nothing to do with what we had in Oz."
"Says the man who was willing to go to the chair for me," Toby says.
He lays his hand lightly across Chris's arm, but Chris brushes it off in irritation when he rises. Toby looks up and has to squint to see him, Keller nothing but a dark blot in the rays of the afternoon sun. "It matters, Beecher," he says.
He fully expects Chris to make his way to Merle's tent and plead his case again. He glances over and watches Merle swipe a cloth over his rifle barrel twice, three times before he realizes that Chris should have come into view by now, that Chris isn't intending to talk to Merle about anything at all. Chris is intending to show him.
Toby looks up in time to see Chris lean against the fender of the Buick, get up close and personal in Glenn's face. He looks the kid up and down, rests an arm across the edge of the open hood. Even over the distance he can hear the soft purr that Chris puts into his voice, knows from experience how bright his eyes must look to Glenn, how seductive his smile. "Hey," Chris says.
"Shit," Toby mutters. He throws down the cloth he was using to clean his knife, scrambles across the clearing.
"H-hey," Glenn says.
"So," Chris says bluntly, "I hear you're a good lay. What'd'ya say you and me-"
"W-what?"
"Chris!" Toby calls out.
"Leave 'im be," Daryl says softly from the other side of the car.
Toby can see the whole thing going pear-shaped, knows exactly how it's going to play out. But he scurries forward anyway, makes a grab for Chris's arm. "Keller, just-"
Chris wrenches his arm away. "What, you jealous, Beecher?" And when he turns back to Glenn Toby steps aside, because there's no stopping this juggernaut now, no way to get off the speeding train. He knows it, even as Chris raises a hand to tip Glenn's ever-present baseball cap aside, to flick playfully at his hair. "Maybe I got a hankering for a little sweet and sour."
Glenn flinches away, eyes wide, trapped between Keller and the Buick. He pushes ineffectually at Chris's arms, and Toby's been there, knows that it takes a hell of a lot more violence than what Glenn is offering to break that embrace. The look of panic on Glenn's face stirs him to try again. He pitches his voice soothing, calm in the eye of the storm. "Chris, come on, just come back to the tent-"
"Get off me, you freak!" Glenn yelps.
"I said leave him be," Daryl clips out.
Chris laughs. "Why, he yours? Come on and make me if you give a shit."
There's no way he can't notice the coiled tension in Daryl's arms, the taut stretch of his shoulders. Just like he can't have missed that Merle has joined the group gathering around his little display, eyes darting between Keller and his brother. Toby lifts a hand once more, one last futile attempt to drag Chris away, and then everything seems to slow down. He sees Chris's hand make a grab for Glenn's dick, sees Glenn's fist come up just as Daryl launches himself across him and throws a wild punch. Chris ducks partially out of the way, enough so that the swing that might have knocked him cold only grazes his cheek - but then Daryl is on him and they are tumbling into the dirt.
It takes three men to drag Daryl off him.
When the tumult has died down and Daryl has stalked off, Shane steps forward. His hand hovers at the butt of his gun, and the look on his face makes it clear that he won't hesitate to use it. Toby thinks he might even enjoy it.
"You don't fit in here, Keller," he says. "We're goin' to have to ask you to move on."
Chris sneers up at him, smiles viciously around his bloody lip. "Fuck you," he says.
Shane shakes his head, turns to him. "Toby," he adds, "you're welcome to stay."
For a moment, Toby thinks that's the truth. He imagines having enough food to eat, fresh water to drink, a dozen people he can rely on to watch his back. He could actually have a home with these people. But when he glances at Chris, he knows that's just a pipe dream. "Thanks," he says. "Truly. But I'll be leaving with Keller."
"Tobias," Lori starts. She glances warily at Chris before she squares her shoulders, meets his eyes imploringly. "He's not good for you."
Toby can't help hearing the reflection of his mother's voice, of his grandmother, of Sister Pete. He lifts shoulders that suddenly feel heavy. "I love him," he says simply.
* * *
They've put the quarry two weeks behind them and Chris's black eye has faded entirely when they run into another group. It's touch and go for a while, until Chris bloodies their leader's lip and Toby knocks the teeth out of one of his henchmen.
They're heating up a can of corn over the fire that night when Joe sits down on the log across from them.
"If you're going to be travelling with us, you need to know the rules," he says without preamble. "First, there's no lying. You lie, you die - simple as that. Second, if you want something you gotta claim it. Just call out 'claimed' and it's yours." He leans back, studies them both by the flickering firelight. "I think you're gonna fit in just fine."
.