The end of the world is fucked up.

And while that statement might appear obvious, there's more to it than that. The dead may walk with only one desire of consuming the flesh of anything that squirms, but other monsters wearing human faces walk among them, surviving by any means necessary.

Full grown adults who swore on their souls to nurture and protect a group of young, troubled children fled the school grounds in search of their own safety with the knowledge that these said children would die without them.

A leader- a broken, terrified leader, lying and manipulating his people- his family - to ultimately protect himself. A lie that like a web, stretched and strained until it snapped, resulting in the death of another.

A group of people turning children into soldiers for their own sick needs, playing it off as for the "greater good" while getting off on the gutting of a young, horrified boy's tongue and the chopping of a girl's finger.

A child okay with taking the life of a dangerous but pleading woman, doing so without a single regret.

A girl, so lost in her madness and delusion, attempting to murder her own little brother only to succeed in the death of a girl who once thought the world, the whole universe and its stars of her.

The end of the world is a living, breathing nightmare.

It's suffocating when you think about it too much, paralyzing when you let it overwhelm you in the quieter, safer moments of the day.

Mitch should feel lucky, considering everything that's happened since the walkers arrived and ended the world. He's alive and living in a relatively safe place among his family, all limbs fully intact and his eyes kept blind to some of the horrors witnessed by the others.

He figures this is one of those quiet moments; all feelings- physical and emotional- seem to be flooding through his blood to upset his stomach and brain. He's stopped fiddling with the damaged solar panel, unable to give it his full concentration due to the nagging of these thoughts.

He's concluded that the apocalypse is lonely.

It's such an odd thing to think about, especially considering that he's surrounded by the others and the walking dead. Lonely shouldn't be the first word to come to mind. This family he's gained, one much stronger and more supportive than the one he shared blood with in the past, move around him every day. They speak, they laugh, they fight, they sit in silence and enjoy each other's quiet company.

Being lonely shouldn't be an issue, but years and years of survival being a number one priority tends to push other things to the side, things that Mitch often felt guilty or embarrassed thinking about.

It's hard to feel things in the apocalypse, much less express them. While he does have Willy, a boy he considers his brother, there are certain things he would never share with him. Never.

As for the others… well, he'd rather keep to himself in the end.

Mitch knows he staring, but he doesn't bother to stop. Resting his chin on his arms, most of his face obscured by the solar panel anyway, he knows they won't notice him.

Clementine and Louis stand over by the gate, smiling and talking-

Well, Clementine's talking.

Louis' expressions and hands are all he has left to speak for him.

He's back from a hunting trip with Aasim and Willy. Mitch watched as Clementine greeted him with a hug when they all walked through the gates. It was a little awkward with her crutches and the rodent being in the way. Louis tossed the thick possum he had draped over his shoulder to Willy and smiled down at her with a grin so wide and full of glee that Mitch could clearly see it all the way from where he was.

Then, Clementine reached up, cupped his cheek, and brought him down for a slow, warm kiss.

He doesn't know how they do it- fuck, he doesn't know how Louis does it.

For months after the delta, he wouldn't look anyone in the eye, he wouldn't eat in front of others, and he sure as hell wouldn't let Clementine touch his face, much less kiss him. Not that he couldn't be happy sometimes. He could smile and lowly chuckle, and wink and give thumbs up and play his piano and assure everyone he was okay, but they all knew he truly wasn't, especially when they all turned away and left him alone.

Mitch can remember nights when he'd be outside and Louis would walk by him. He still expected him to whip out that deck of cards of his, smirk, and ask him to play. It never happened, of course. Louis just walked past him with his eyes lowered to the ground and his brows furrowed with sorrow, or perhaps pain.

How long does it take for a tongue to heal after being cut out?

Even Ruby couldn't give an estimate.

Mitch doesn't like to think about that- it does something weird to his stomach and causes a tingle to run along his jaw and into his teeth. Fuck.

On particularly bad nights, Clementine would plop down beside him on the steps when everyone else went inside and bury her face in her hands. It was the same worries and regrets as always, and the only thing he could do is place a hand on her shoulder and tell her everything's fine, that Louis is alive and healing more and more each day. Sometimes he made up shit just to make her feel better. Sometimes he told her something about himself to distract her. Sometimes he just sat there uselessly until she left.

Louis got better over the years; learning his own brand of sign, playing his piano, writing in a book that Aasim gave him, doing art projects with Tenn, and eventually, agreeing to go on more dates with Clementine.

Soon, it was like he was his chipper self again; a Louis full of smiles and jokes, and in turn, Clementine became happier, more content and comfortable.

How the fuck do they do it?

How do they make it work between them after everything they've been through? How does Clementine know everything Louis wants to say, and how Louis know the right way to pick her up and carry her to where she needs to be? How do they trust and laugh and love each other the way they do?

How do they deal with those... feelings?

On top of the walking dead, the potential threat of death- or something worse- breathing in the air every moment of the day, and the constant struggle to maintain something as worthy and safe as the school and the family within it, they also had to deal with gross feelings?

They know the risks of romance, yet it's like they don't care. How do they not care?

Watching Clementine and Louis kiss used to make him roll his eyes, mutter, and look away with annoyance and disgust. He never stopped to watch from the corner of his eye with such questions until this past year.

Now, when they kissed in front of him, it made him feel gross in a different way, like he's unintentionally intruding on those tender moments out of pure curiosity.

Because now, when he watches Clementine and Louis kiss, all he can think about is James.

Goddamn James.

He taps his agitated fingers against the handle of his screwdriver while continuing to inconspicuously observe the couple as they move away from the gates.

He finds himself peering down at their connected hands. Mitch hears something about "tuning the piano" … whatever the fuck that means, before Louis takes away her crutches and scoops her up into his arms like she weighs nothing. Clementine laughs, playfully glaring at him as they walk across the yard. Louis leans over to kiss her on the cheek before they disappear behind the double doors.

What it must be like to just… lean over and kiss someone like it was the most normal thing in the world and have no one bat an eye at it. Or, to reach over and grab someone's hand and hold it, to walk around connected to that person so tenderly. Never, not in a million goddamn years, would Mitch ever dream of doing that.

Kissing and handholding is… gross .

Gross until he begins to think of James again. It becomes much less gross after that.

These gross thoughts of kissing and touching and disgusting mushiness are what keeps him tossing and turning in his bed at night and it's beginning to drive him insane because how can another human being have this kind of power over him?

Mitch, humiliated by his own thoughts, buries his face in his arms and groans. God, what's wrong with him?

In his frustration, he gathers up his things, tucking the solar panel under his arm and strides over to the basement doors. The coolness of the basement pressing into his warm skin makes his side as he moves down the stairs, but still, even as he sets himself up at his workbench, those intrusive and embarrassing thoughts still prod at his mind.

It's always prodding at his mind now. Ever since the disaster that was defeating the delta and losing Violet and thinking Tenn was dead and bringing Louis home in his condition and being petrified that Clementine wouldn't make it and when James finally agreed to join the group.

The screwdriver falls to the cement floor with a startling clang! , causing Mitch to flinch and mutter a string of awful curses.

"Fucking fuck shit-" Mitch snatches up the tool and jams it back into his toolbox with a heavy sigh.

Mitch swore to himself that he'd never fall in love.

He wasn't ever going to deal with this shit.

Romance didn't have a place for him in this world, that he was so damn sure of. He always thought he was safe from it all given he's spent most of his life around the same people without experiencing such feelings. Ruby? Aasim? Marlon or Brody? Clementine? Louis, Sophie or Minerva? Nothing. Not once did he ever look at any of them and think,"Yeah, I'd play tonsil tennis with them!"

Until he got to know James.

"Fuck."

To fall in love would always be an ultimate downfall- always.

He watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to Violet and Minerva, to Marlon and Brody, to several other couples over the years surrounding the school- they're all dead.

Except for Clementine and Louis.

And it makes no goddamn sense.

Mitch scoffs.

Perhaps suffering with the loss of a tongue and a leg gave you a free pass. You can be in love all you want and kiss and hug and sleep together and cuddle and do all that gross shit for the rest of your life, you just have to give up an important body part in exchange.

"What kind of fucking world is this?" he mumbles, using his teeth to tear off a piece of duct tape. Slapping the sticky strip where it needs to be, he leans back to examine his work. Hopefully, it should work again now that he's rehooked some of the wires and patched up the crack.

Then, he laughs.

It's not a humorous laugh, or even really a bitter one. He just doesn't know what else to do, so he chuckles quietly to himself as he rubs at his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair.

And in the silence of the basement, he simply says, "Goddamn James."

The source of all this gross nonsense.

Mitch couldn't stand the guy at first. He wore walker skin and he didn't care if Willy thought that was the coolest thing in the world, it was enough to make Mitch want to bolt in the other direction. The only reason he didn't put up more of a fight to keep him from staying at the school was that he helped save Clementine's life.

Without James' help in pushing the wheelbarrow carrying a dying Clementine, who knows if AJ would've made it back to the school in time. He'll always be grateful to him for that.

Over the years, he and James have, well… grown closer, to say the least. And it wasn't until recently that he discovered James' feelings matched his own, thanks to Willy.

"-but he came back, didn't he?"

"So?"

"You're still mad?"

"If he doesn't want to stay here where it's safe, fine, but don't up and leave for weeks at a time without telling anybody anything and then come back like nothing happened! Who fucking does that?"

"Don't be mad-"

"Why? He needs to make up his goddamn mind and not string everybody along with him."

"But, he promised he'd stay this time."

"He said the same thing before."

"Aren't you happy he's here?"

"Don't matter what I think."

"...You know what I think?"

"Hm?"

"I think he came back for you."

"That's… stupid."

"No, it's not."

"..."

"He looks at you a lot, y'know... like the way Louis looks at Clem."

Thinking back on it now, how did he not notice the signs earlier? The constant stolen glances, the lingering touches when James offered to train him on the many uses knives have, the brightening eyes whenever they saw each other from across the yard, the nights they volunteered to go on watch together just so that they could talk, James willingly opening up to him about his less-than-kind past…. Everything.

To call this love might be jumping to conclusions, but holy shit, it's something. And it's something that scares the shit out of him.

Because the thought of reaching over to pull James into a kiss has crossed his mind too many times, and the idea of James kissing him back does something awful to his stomach and chest.

He's thought of just manning up and confronting James about what happening between them, but that tiny thought of "falling in love is always the ultimate downfall" creeps into his mind and he chickens out.

And then the thoughts only get worse.

Because really, which is more tragic? Losing someone you felt for but never got the chance to express it, or losing someone who, in the end, knew how you felt and returned such feelings?

Is the risk worth it?

The fact that this is even a legitimate question with only negative outcomes proves his point in that the end of the world is fucked up.

Clementine and Louis deem it worth it, obviously. He can hear one of those dumb speeches Louis used to make now; "The only thing we really got is this moment. It's the only guarantee we have. Tomorrow might not come, so enjoy today."

He wonders who took the risk first, Clementine or Louis?

Something small, warm and hopeful, spreading across his mind. If things worked out for them... then really, why shouldn't they work out for him? Unless the end of the world really did deem him unlovable, then why shouldn't he try? Impending death or not?

He nearly falls off his stool when the basement doors fling open with an eardrum breaking screech and thud.

"Mitch?" Willy's voice echoes down the stairs, excited and loud. "James' back!"

Well, fuck.

"Enjoy today," he mumbles. "Take a risk."

Or continue to remain in the safety of silence...

"Fuck."