Chapter Text
Ian tells him of places they can seek out, though he warns him that it may be difficult to find anything of use. Despite this, he seems to think this quest good for him. That there is some sort of value in it, despite the high chance of finding nothing.
And there is, indeed, little to find. Most buildings are abandoned, and any leftover rotting pieces of attire he finds wouldn’t have fit him even if they were not already eaten by the environment.
He enjoys the trips into abandoned buildings anyway, because he gets to watch Ian explore it too. His face pensive, a sadness in it that Samson isn’t familiar with, as he brushes dust off old picture frames, long gone people frozen in time smiling up at them.
For the first time, he thinks of himself as lucky. He may have lost this world, too, but he hadn’t lived long enough in it to truly mourn it.
The land they travel is wide and bountiful with everything else that is not man-made.
There are large expanses of fields where he trails his fingertips along the top of the long grasses, reaching up so far as to his torso. Great forests that seem to never end as they pass through them, tall trees surrounding them with moss blanketing their thick hides. The dappled sun glowing through the mass of leaves above, sheltering them on the occasion of rain.
They pick and eat berries, and Samson hunts when he feels that isn’t enough. For a while, they meet no infected. A few they have seen from afar, but ignored, and they have not noticed them in turn.
Until, upon the end of a week of travel, they hear screaming.
He stands still, not frozen so much as focused. With intent, Samson tracks the noise. It is not difficult to fall back on his previous, instinctive skills, honed from years of being wild.
It is not too far away, the struggle. And it must be a struggle, for he can hear the distinct fear of the living. Samson looks at Ian, tilting his head. He wants to go, but he also wants permission. Ian only hesitates a second before giving him the slightest of nods, and Samson springs into action, a war dog given duty.
Trees become a blur, his muscles tense in anticipation. He rounds a hill and finds three infected chasing two living people. One of the infected is blatantly fresher than the others- it has been newly turned.
Samson roars, and for a second, everything stops. The two humans stop running. The monsters halt in confusion. Three feral gazes snap to him, and invigorated by the volume of his appearance, they shift target without a second thought.
The first of them trips in their eagerness, the second lags just slightly behind the third.
He roars anew, matching their angry screams. A dark part of him feels eager for the fight. Most of him feels nothing at all as he kicks out at the third. As it falls back, the second reaches him. It manages to dig its claws into him just before Samson grabs it by thin hair and its body both and pulls until they rip apart from each other.
With its spine, his old weapon, he slams it against the first infected, who has picked itself up from the ground and continued, stumbling, towards its target. Its neck cracks as it hits the ground, and it does not get up again.
He turns swiftly to the third, but it never attacks him again. An arrow is lodged in the back of its neck.
The whole thing had lasted less than a minute.
Samson stands amidst the carnage, chest heaving, and turns to the two humans. It is a man and a woman, he notes. And the woman has her bow pointed directly at his heart.
They’re shaking in fear, both of them, the man pale with nausea as he glances from the ripped head in Samson’s hand to the blood now speckled across his bare skin.
With a cringe of realisation, Samson drops his weapon. He has enjoyed his quest so far, and the peace he has experienced in it alongside Ian, so much so that he had forgotten what it was like to feel dirty. And longer since, he has forgotten what it is like to be feared.
A long time passes, and slowly the pointed bow is lowered.
“You’ve not turned.” The woman breathes, and he remembers the claws that had dug into him. The blood splattered across the small wound.
He nods. It is true, after all.
“What the hell.” The man gasps, looking fainter yet. “What the hell. Mary he’s- that’s a bloody alpha.”
“Can’t be.” she hisses, with an admonishing glare. But she- Mary- looks unnerved. Both of them are rightly wary, and rightly confused.
“Who are you?”
“Samson.” He says, willing his voice not to halt. He doesn’t know how to make himself smaller, so he only stands, looking at them, hoping it does not appear as a glower. “I’m searching.”
“Searching?” Mary frowns. “What for?”
“Jesus fucking christ.” The man continues to mutter, his voice now shrill with disbelief. “what the fuck are you.”
“David.”
“Mary look at him. Look at what he just did-”
“He saved us.” she snaps. “I- thank you. For doing that.”
Samson grunts. This does not seem to soothe them. He can’t decide what to do next, so he thinks of what Ian would want him to do. What a knight would do. He wishes he was there, but he had run some distance, and he suspects Ian is still a minute or so away.
“Where do you live?” he asks. They exchange a look. “I can escort you.” He is sure Ian won’t mind.
“What’s in it for you?” Mary asks. Though she seems sincerely grateful for his saving them, she does not trust him. “Where are you from?”
“South.”
“Just south?”
He shrugs. His and Ian’s home has no title. It is simply home.
“Are you… immune?” Mary asks slowly. “To the fuckers?”
Immune. One of them. Cured. None of the terms really feel right. He is something in between it all, of human and monster and immune.
“Yes.” He gestures to his wound again, then the other scars on display. They surely speak better for him than his words do. “I won’t turn.”
The lie is easy. Lies often are.
David groans. “Mary you can’t-”
“He’s helpful.” She interrupts, a calculating gleam in her eyes. Reminds him of how other alphas would assess him before a fight. “We might need him, on the way. If- if that’s alright.”
“Yes.”
“We live up north- by the coast.” She hesitates, then says, “It's called Lindisfarne. An island. Heard of it?”
He shakes his head. If pressed, he would not know the names of any of the locations around them. There had been signs for some of the villages he has since seen, but his reading is still rusty and he hadn’t thought of asking Ian to read them aloud to him. He regrets it now. Perhaps it would have made him seem more trustworthy. With little else to say, he only grunts again.
It is then that Ian catches up to him, and decides to make himself known. He looks as guarded as Mary and David does, as he enters their vision with a hesitant wave.
“Hello.” He walks, without pause, to Samson’s side. He looks from the dead infected, to the blood stained Samson, and then the two survivors. “I heard you yelling from all the way back there, so I believe we should be getting away before any other infected come to see what we’re causing a ruckus about.”
Mary and David exchange another one of their quiet glances, uneasy and communicating in ways Samson is not allowed part of.
“He’s with me.” Samson tells them, taking a step beside and behind Ian, so that he hovers just behind his shoulder. With a scowl Ian cannot see, but Mary and David certainly do, he makes his claim on the man, and his loyalty clear.
They make way, Mary leading and making conversation alongside Ian, Samson quiet just behind them, and David trailing after. Likely keeping an eye on him, to make sure he doesn’t try to attack either of them. His worry is misplaced. Samson can’t think of any way to prove this, other than to just walk, and not talk, and make sure they survive.
They don’t talk about the one fallen, the human who had died and died anew at Samson’s hand. Or it could have been one of them who had done the finishing blow- he doesn’t remember well enough which was which, of the three beasts. Just that one had been fresh.
It is not a far journey. They tell Ian (and by extension, also Samson) that they prefer to keep close, when they go out like this. That they might still make it before the tide blocks the path. There is one more encounter with the infected on the way, but Samson kills it before it gets the chance to scream and give away their position. He feels satisfied in having followed them, then. That he was needed, as he promised.
What he enjoys less is the barbaric display he has made of himself in front of Ian.
Perhaps he should have made the journey alone, after all. He would have been lonelier, and he would have had a hard time to keep himself from going back just to make sure Ian was safe without him. But he also wouldn’t have made it obvious how he hasn’t come very far at all, in his recovery back to humanhood.
Ian has fallen back to walk beside Samson instead of Mary. Samson doesn’t look at him. The more he thinks about what he’s done, ripping apart flesh with only his hands, the more he regrets coming here at all. And still he does not even have the clothes to cover himself with, to hide all of this.
They stop for a brief pause by a stream, to drink and so David can go relieve himself a little away from them.
“Samson?”
Samson drags himself to the present, and looks down at Ian. He seems so gentle, as he often does, and is holding a wetted rag in his hands.
“May I?”
He doesn’t need to clarify. Samson doesn’t deserve his kindness, but he takes it anyway, because he is greedy for comfort. He holds his arms out obediently, and Ian slowly works the cloth over his skin. He rubs gently, and with meticulous care. Every once in a while his fingers will brush over newly cleaned skin, trailing across an old scar, and Samson will shiver at the contact.
Once his arms are clean, Ian starts on the light splattering of blood across his chest, his shoulder, and then his face. Just as gently, and with just as much, if not more, care. When he cleans the side of his face, Samson closes his eyes and cannot help but to lean slightly into it. But this, too, is temporary.
“You two know each other long?” Mary asks. She’s sitting on a rock, having watched them as they wait. Her face is unreadable, at least to Samson. David has also come back, though he’s busy taking stock of what they have to bring back to their island.
“A while.” Ian answers, not taking his attention off Samson. He hums, satisfied, when he brushes away the last speck of blood. Only then does he look away, crouching down to clean the cloth in the stream. “Over three years, now, I believe.”
Samson hadn’t expected him to count the years spent before his re-awakening. That he does so, after all, is shockingly meaningful to him.
“Must be hard, living out there. No real safety net.”
“There’s ways to make it more peaceful than you’d believe.” Ian says vaguely. His home is well placed, strategically speaking. The monuments speak of a claim on the land, the river functions as a border on one side of it at least. Samson had sometimes crossed these borders, that is true. But there is an instinctive understanding of territory that had long since been established, even before Samson had taken over the area of his previous pack, and killed the alpha before himself.
Mary only nods in response. She is clearly curious for more information, Samson can tell by the way her eyes keep on tracking them. He recalls their correct assumptions, before Ian had caught up with the skirmish. An Alpha. They know, but they have a difficult time wrapping their heads around it.
“Your friend says he’s immune.”
“Oh?” Ian smiles slightly, but Samson can tell it's strained.
“Is it true?”
“Is there any reason you’d rather ask me, than him?” Ian asks, rather pointedly. Samson is shocked to see such an attitude in his friend. There is also another odd surge of affection for him, to be defended by him. He hadn’t expected it. Maybe he should have. Perhaps Ian had come with Samson, not to indulge Samson, who had wanted to keep Ian close to be able to protect him, but because Ian was wanting to protect Samson in turn.
Mary flushes and looks away. David grimaces. They don’t speak more as they continue walking.
They reach the island before nightfall, the tide just so that they’re able to walk the crossing without getting their feet wet. Samson looks around at the ocean and the lapping waves as they walk the stone path, amazed. He has never been so far before, not from his old territory. Not from Ian’s home. Their home, he thinks, more confidently than he ever has. Something between them feels stronger for Ian joining him. Or perhaps it is meeting other people that do not belong with them that has made Samson more sure that there is, in fact, a them.
They get inside with shockingly little fanfare. The men holding post at the gates seem startled to see Samson, towering over his companions and half naked as he is, but they don’t put up any effort to cast him away, or else deny him entrance.
They get surrounded immediately upon having the gates closed behind them. Samson has the odd sensation of having walked into a trap, and keeps close to Ian’s side. He is determined to not let them separate them, whether it’s based in kindness or not.
An older lady, with long grey hair and an air of authority, speaks quietly with Mary and David before approaching Ian and Samson.
“They say you two saved their lives today?” her face is set into a severe expression, a masked grief. They must have told her about the fresh infected, whoever they were. Someone known, at least. Someone worth this serious demeanour. “That makes you welcome guests in my book. My name is Jenny.”
She reaches her hand, rather impressively, to Samson first. He takes it only with a second’s delay. He had expected more of what Mary and David had done, avoidance and apprehension, albeit with a hesitant gratitude.
He recognises that he needs to give back what she has given him, and introduces himself. “Samson.” He rasps. He hasn’t spoken since the battle. Today is a bad day for speaking, in general. But most days are, and he keeps pushing through it anyhow. She does not betray any unsettlement at how his hands envelop hers.
Jenny turns to Ian, and they also shake, but she is frowning now. “I know you.” She says, with a sharp volume. Her eyes widen. Ian looks uncomfortable. Samson has to keep from making her let go of his hand.
“Doctor Kelson? Dear Lord, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”
“Forgive me,” Ian has that strained smile on his face again. “It's been so long.”
“Ah, it’s alright. We were never close.” Jenny assures him, nearly amused. “you helped my kid when she broke her leg at football. Gosh, decades ago now. Time flies, doesn’t it. You’re something of a myth here.”
A few people mutter, after hearing Ian’s name spoken aloud, confirming her statement.
“I see.” Ian says. He does not look any more comfortable, even though she has long since let go of him. His eyes keep flitting to the closed gates, not maintaining eye contact, and Samson recognises his own sense of being trapped in the tense set of his shoulders. Ian, like himself, has spent too much time in the open land to enjoy a walled in place like this.
“It’s late. I hope you’re both planning on staying the night. Mary said that you-” she nods to Samson, “were searching for something?”
Samson casts his gaze to Ian, who with only a slight grimace takes on the role of explaining their situation.
“Just some clothing.” Ian explains simply, “perhaps someone to trade with.”
“We have plenty of that.” Jenny agrees, and her shoulders sag, pleased with how simple their objective is. “not easy coming across anything good, nowadays. But we have more than you’d think collected, though some of it needs to have their holes patched up. We’ve been trying to make our own stuff, too, but it’s nothing fashionable.”
“We’re not looking for fashionable.” Ian assures. “Are we, Samson?”
He shakes his head.
They’re given a room in Jenny’s house. She assures them it’s no trouble, and that she won’t mind. They let go of their things there, consisting of a single large backpack with some limited food, bottled water, a few books and blankets for the nights.
There is a single, double-bed displayed before them.
Ian does not show any signs of discomfort about this. Samson isn’t sure what he feels himself. At home, Samson sleeps on the ground. He has chosen this himself, much to Ian’s displeasure. But the ground is what he is used to, and Ian only has the one small bed down in his shelter.
And as it is, Samson doesn’t require nearly as much sleep as Ian does, anyhow. Large parts of the nights are spent sitting guard, ready for anything or anyone to try and get inside. It hasn’t happened yet, but Samson worries.
He has no monsters to sit guard for now, only these people. These kind people. Who have given them shelter and appreciation for saving part of their pack. Happy, too, for trade.
That will be an issue, Samson thinks. He hadn’t thought they would find a pack of humans with the means to trade. He’d thought they’d just get lucky sometime and find something he could wear. Perhaps even steal it off a freshly made infected, if they came across one more his size. They don’t have anything to trade, no food that this group wouldn’t already have, no weapons, nothing of value, so much as Samson understands what is valuable to people like this.
An idea starts, a spark of something.
“I think we can trust them.” Ian tells him, undressing for bed. “Enough to sleep, at least. I believe these are Spike’s people.”
“Hm.” Samson stares at the door. He hears Ian get into the bed behind him, the shifting of covers. His idea starts to form into something solid.
“It’s late.” Ian continues, never deterred in speaking to him, “we should sleep before negotiations tomorrow. I think we could get something for the books, though I’ll be sad to part with them. Come now, you need rest, too.”
“Hm.”
“I hope you won’t sleep on the ground again, now that there’s actual space for you on the mattress.”
Samson hesitates, then blinks and turns away from the door. It doesn’t have a lock. He doesn’t think he’ll actually get many hours of sleep. But Ian doesn’t often sound so… tired, he supposes.
Is it the meeting with the other humans? He knows Ian is as unfamiliar with other human interaction as himself. It is a draining affair, speaking and walking with people you don’t know, or trust. And they had all looked so oddly at them, despite their acceptance; At Samson’s large size and scars, and Ian’s uncomfortable demeanour and different skin. None of them have protected themselves with Iodine as he has.
He takes off his rudimentary skirt, and enters the bed as well. It’s difficult to deny him when they’re both here, now, and only have each other as a means of familiarity and comfort. He cautiously burrows under their shared duvet.
It is warm, and surprisingly soothing. They lay on their sides, peering at one another in the darkness.
“I’ll hunt.” Samson tells him. His voice has lowered into a whisper, though he’s not entirely sure why. He thinks it's to avoid anyone overhearing, but he’s not saying anything to keep secret. “Tomorrow. With them.”
“That’s smart.” Ian smiles gently at him. His eyes don't directly meet his own, but Samson doesn’t mind. “You’re an excellent hunter. Is it for trading?”
He nods. “We’ll keep our books.”
“That would be nice. But it means we might have to stay longer.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologise for. Perhaps it will be good for us.” Ian sighs. He clearly does not think it will be good for them. “Socialising. I forgot that I… hadn’t missed it.”
“But you were alone.”
“I was. A long time, yes. But I’m not alone now.” Ian closes his eyes. He’s already fading away, voice getting the quality of a mumble, “I have you now. I don’t want anyone else.”
Samson nods slowly, half his face pressed into a pillow. He blinks at Ian, whose breathing eventually evens out in sleep. He continues to watch him, not really thinking about trading or worrying about anyone coming to attack them. Just observing, memorising the planes of his face, the spots of age, the smoothed out wrinkles on this relaxed face.
He’s never laid so close to him before.
He suddenly thinks he’ll miss it, when they leave.