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[peachfuzz]

Connie had a terrible habit of wandering without notifying anyone that he'd be doing it. If no one ran into him while he was prepping to go, and asked what he was up to, he would leave people guessing when the last time they saw him was. He never planned on making anyone worry, of course, but Connie had long since gotten used to doing things on his own and though he liked the crowd he now ran with at the compound, it never occurred to him to report something like this to them.

It had only happened a few times in the month and a half since his arrival, and until then the longest he'd spent out was two nights. With all the fuss that was kicked up over that, he'd then tried to limit his outings to afternoon excursions or something that would get him in early the next morning before anyone realised he'd been gone at all, but this time he got distracted and ventured further without thinking on who might be wondering about his absence.

And so this time, it had been twelve days since anyone had last seen him.

He came back mid-morning with his old school backpack he'd managed to hang onto despite everything on one shoulder and a newly found but dirtied neon orange messenger bag over the other. Both were packed full of his findings, and he was chewing on some turkey jerky he'd uncovered in his travels as he strutted back into familiar territory.

His shirt had an entirely new tear in it, from getting snagged in a tree branch on his way down from where he'd been sleeping one night, and his hair tie had broken, leaving his mass of hair bobbing with every step, but Connie was, in fact, completely okay.

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[peachfuzz]

Connie closed his eyes as Bertolt continued to pick through his hair, managing to relax a little under the attention. He listened to the story, thinking for a long moment about the ways his own mother used to fuss over him. Admittedly, he'd been troublesome and had given her far too many reasons to worry and fuss, but at least he could look back on that fondly now.

He sighed at the squeeze to his shoulder, staring and picking at a spot on the hem of his pants that had frayed.

"I won't. Seriously. I didn't mean to make everyone so worried. I just got so used to doing shit by myself since everything happened, and I kinda keep forgetting it doesn't have to be like that any more."

[bertall]

Bertolt doesn't mean to worry to much about him, but over the weeks he's started to view Connie as a little brother of sorts. It's definitely what Berwick would've done. "...Just between you and me, I used to be like that - set in my own ways, I mean. Before Reiner and I met Marco and Jean, it used to just be four of us. Reiner, Annie, Berwick, and myself. We..." He frowns softly, his stomach starting to drop as he starts to pick through his words. "We ended up losing Berwick and getting separated from Annie. After that, it was just the two of us for what felt like years to me. When we found Freckles and Ponyboy Kirschstein, I was terrified that they'd turn on us like other groups did to people."

Like what people did to lone soldiers or a small group of injured and weak ones.

"They didn't, but it took me a long time to stop looking over my shoulder so much. It's hard trying to adapt in this world but we look out for our own. You're one of us." Whether Connie likes it or not, he's family in Bertolt's eyes. Maybe they never would've met before the outbreak, but that's in the past. Right here, right now, that's what they were to Bertolt. Until something made Reiner change his mind or someone hurt him, that's how it'd stay, no matter how uneasy he felt from time ot time.