Chapter Text
Daryl’s twenty three, and Merle’s shouting at him to “Pack yer shit, we’re going, Daryl!” From the doorway. Their daddy is laying on the sofa, heaving and sweating. He hasn’t been well for the week, and Daryl had taken some sick enjoyment out of seeing his daddy in so much pain. Like everyone else in the world, the two had been keeping eye on the news, as it spouted the fear-mongering and lies through the screen. Will Dixon had scoffed at a reporters question to evacuate a few days ago. He had gone out hours later the same day, and came home yelling Daryl’s name for help. There was blood dripping down his wrist, and a whole chunk bit out of his arm. Daryl nearly threw up as he tried his best to bandage the concave bite.
Now, the bandage was leaking black sludge, barely blood, and Will Dixon clutched his gun and laid weak on the sofa in front of the static tv. Merle paid him no mind as Daryl came running out his shabby bedroom with his two bags filled.
“Ya’ gonna help me grab him, or wha’?” Daryl nodded towards their father, and Merle barked a laugh.
“He ain’t comin’, little brother. He’s gonna jus’ be one of them by the time we load him into the back of the truck. Doesn’t deserve it anyway.” Merle sneered, and DRyl nodded silently. Their dad watched him, wide blood-seeping eyes that almost glazed over, staring hard at Daryl’s face. He was too weak to talk, couldn’t get his voice to work past the illness, but Daryl knew what he was trying to convey.
‘Don’t you dare leave me here, boy.’
Daryl could feel the sneer, felt the spit dribble past his dads big fat mouth as he screamed at his youngest son. ‘Don’t you dare.’
“Sorry, old man.” Daryl whispered, not sure Merle even heard. He swung the one bag further over his shoulder, and stalked out of the house after Merle as he gripped the other packed bag tight between white knuckles.
Merle and Daryl loaded up the oldest’s truck up, and drove for hours in silence. There was a heavy settling in Daryl’s chest, something aching to be spoken. He knew Merle wouldn’t have clear answers, because nobody in the whole world knew what was happening.
The dead were riding, and ripping the living apart. Their daddy had been bit, and was surely dead by now. They reached the outside of town in under the first hour, and the last few were spent silently driving to an unknown location between the two.
“We Dixon’s survive, little brother.” Merle had once told him, when Daryl was only six and first learning about the real world; the Dixon’s world, the Dixon way of life. Survival, not living.
Daryl’s voice broken when he spoke after hours of silence between the two. Merle was gripping the steering wheel: It was getting dark outside, by summers standard at least.
“We’re surviving, right Merle?” Daryl asked, chewing the skin around his thumb and jogging his knee. He felt very weak inside, hallowed in the chest. Merle rolled the window down to spit and clench his jaw.
“Shut it.” Merle replied, and Daryl shuffled back into himself a little. He winced when he reached tender skin around his nail, and looked down at the red blood pooling.
He stuck his thumb in his mouth, to clean away the blood and lick his wounds, but Merle snatched his wrists and pulled his arm back with a snarl.
“Don’t you do that shit now.” Merle hated his teeth, Daryl’s eyes wide and staring down his older brother, who always looked so much more alike to their daddy than Daryl had. “Don’t act pussy on me, Darleena. We ain’t got time for all that, with the world ending. Don’t be my burden, now.”
Daryl watched his brothers face. His intense stare, their bloodshot eyes and the vice grip around his wrist. The truck sped up, and Merle wasn’t watching the road. Merle had a grip on the steering wheel that could have ripped the torn leather, and Daryl felt a bubble of fear swell in his stomach.
He gulped, licked the inside of his mouth clean of the blood still pooling from the bite, and nodded.
“Sorry, Merle.” Is what Daryl wanted to say. Merle instead stared at his muted brother for a moment longer, and practically threw his wrist back towards the younger and grumbled under his breath as he finally turned back to the empty road.
Daryl slumped into himself, and watched the blood harden and darken around his thumb the rest of the trip.
Until their road reached the highway, and the place was filled. Merle swore, a dozen times, and Daryl stayed silent watching with his large eyes at the millions of crowded cars. It was pitch dark, but Daryl didn’t need his sight to practically feel the anger and impatience and fear radiating from the crowd. Daryl hated crowds enough, let alone the angry kind.
“Fuck this. Fuck all’a this. We ain’t staying here, that’s for sure.” With that, Merle dangerously swung the truck around with careless caution, making Daryl feel almost carsick from the harsh turns and close calls to hitting too many other cars tiny and packed together.
“Careful the tires, Merle.” Daryl offered, as he practically bounced in his seat as the truck powered through too many potholes coming out of the busy trafficked highway.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Merle shot back.
-
The truck broke down not even an hour later.
“Told you.” Daryl had the nerve to say, and earned a clap on the back of his neck. Merle told him to shut it, and they loaded everything from the truck onto the bike.
“Hop on, Darleena.” Merle smirked as he slapped the back of the bike. Of course, Merle wouldn’t let Daryl drive the thing for shit, and had always been the passenger.
Daryl scoffed. “You got all your shit packed?”
“You talking about my blue sky?” Merle smirked, then cackled as Daryl hopped on. “First thing I grabbed, little brother.”
The drive off for the night, camped and hunted during the day, and kept moving.
-
Until they found the camp.
-
Daryl may not have gone to school for long, or hung around with anyone that wasn’t his older brother. He belonged to the woods, would live and breathe the wooden air. He lived off roadkill and his own game, and hunted day in and out. He’d spent hours lost in the woods as a kid, and hadn’t felt equally as safe when he finally found his own way home days later.
The poor little Dixon boy, lost to the system and forgotten easily. The neighbours shook their fist at the scrawny boy in desperate need for a haircut and stability. Like they were any better…
But, although Daryl could have been considered a recluse to anyone but his brother, who already knew of his introverted and strange tendencies: Daryl Dixon knew where he wasn’t wanted.
This camp, this stability between strangers trusting each other to be their numbers and keep each other safe, this was not a place for Daryl or Merle Dixon.
Especially not Merle.
Unlike Daryl, Merle had a presence like he was on fire. He had the temper of roaring flames too, angry at the slightest turn, pissed when he didn’t get his way. That ex-cop didn’t help retain Merle’s anger much, neither did the high-tempered blonde woman of the camp. Merle didn’t like to be told no, let alone by any /woman/.
Daryl kept to himself, chest heavy with the knowledge that Merle had said under the protection of their shared tent, that the plan was to ransack the place when the time was right, and leave these assholes to cope with shit.
“They don’t deserve to live, Daryl.” Merle sneered, and Daryl glanced up at him with furrowed brows. “Not these types’a people.”
“That’s sounds a’lot like murderin’, Merle.” Daryl said, cautiously quiet. Merle sucked his teeth.
“To hell with what it sounds like! These people are the assholes who’d spit at us down the street. Clutch their rich designer handbags and shit when they saw us. They don’t care about us, baby brother.” Merle threw his arm out, gripping his knife in the other hand. Daryl watched through his eyelashes where he sat across the older man.
“You remember what I told you; Ain’t nobody going to care about you but me, Darleena.” Merle pointed, poking Daryl in the chest. The younger Dixon nodded, silent and chewing the skin off his bottom lip. “Stop doing that shit. ‘M going hunting.”
With that, Merle had left, and Daryl had followed minutes later. He didn’t go out to the woods, instead he went down to the creek of water. He stayed there the rest of the evening, in his own head as he slipped flat stones and chewed his bottom lip.
There was a deep haze plaguing his head, the same cloud that had been hovering for years now. After all this time, Daryl was still unsure of how to clear it.
“How’d you do that?” Carl’s chipper voice behind him was not the answer.
He jumped, although it didn’t show on his body or face. Daryl was light footed, always had been for hunting. Still, he glanced up and down at Carl who stood with a clear distance between them, and his brow twitched.
“Do wha’?” Daryl grumbled, his voice deep. Carl came over, short legs wobbling on the stones.
“The jumping thing.” He picked up a stone, and experimentally chucked it into the water with a splash. “I can’t do it.”
“Skipping stones?” Daryl asked, and Carl nodded. “You ain’t ever skipped stones?”
Carl shook his head.
Daryl sighed, and got up onto his feet. “Alright. You need a flat one.”
The rest of the evening, until the sky turned to a warm yellow-mixed-orange, the two found themselves skipping stones. Carl turned out to be a natural, once he got the hang of it. He couldn’t quite beat Daryl’s five-skip-streak, but Carl had been determined to beat it. He only reached three.
“How did you do that!” Carl laughed, as he watched Daryl do it again. He faked anger behind his smile. “You’re cheating!”
“There ain’t no cheatin’ in skipping stones.” Daryl snorted, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Maybe you’re just not that good.”
“I am! You said I was!” Carl protested with a grin. Daryl shrugged.
“I lied.” He slipped his last stone as Carl laughed boyfully. The kid was alright, although a little annoying and weak, he seemed nice enough. Maybe Carl jumping him earlier had been the solution to his hazy brain, because he felt clearer now that he was focused on teaching the kid.
It seemed the Dixon’s had never deserved anything nice, because there was a clap followed by a shrill whistles from behind them, and both of the two snapped their heads around to find Shane standing nearby with his hands on his hips. Looking pissed.
Daryl faltered, glancing down at Carl for a second, then back down at the ground.
“Carl! Your mom said stay close to her. Now why have I found you all the way out here?” Shane’s sentence faltered, trailed off like he wanted to say ‘out here with Daryl’, or use some other rude words to describe the man. Redneck.
“We were skipping stones. It fine, Shane. Daryl’s cool.” Carl argued, although he scuffed his shoes and seemed a bit dejected at Shane’s anger. Daryl didn’t know why he was upset; Shane had always been like this, hadn’t he? The Bad Cop, the guy Merle wanted to kill-
Daryl’s heart sank. Without a word, he walked off, Carl watching him as he pushed past Shane wordlessly. He’d get asked about it later, berated for it probably by the ex-cop, but he couldn’t care less.
He couldn’t look at the man his brother was planning to kill, not for a second longer.
-
Merle’s close to cracking, and Daryl can tell. He’s pushing Daryl around more, poking him in the back and snapping back quicker than before. Shane’s pissed him off, and they’ve been in more fights than Daryl could count on one hand. Daryl’s trying to stay away from his brother, so that’s why he leaves early morning out the tent, and into the woods to hunt.
If he had known how much he’d regret it, he’d slap himself across the face and tell his past self to grow up.
No grown man was afraid of another grown man’s anger.
-
When he comes back, there’s another Sheriff called ‘Rick Grimes’, telling him that he’d handcuffed Merle to a roof, and left him there.
“Hold on,” Daryl smacked his lips, brows furrowed as he paced. This Rick Grimes stood ahead, wearing a blood spotted shirt and squinting in the heat. “Let me process this.” He wiped his nose, and snapped back around to Rick. “You sayin’ you handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you left him there!?”
Rick nodded, glancing away for a moment.
“Yeah.”
Daryl saw red, and threw the few squirrels he had managed to hunt right into Rick’s face. He charged, but before he could reach Rick Grimes, a barrel of muscle came pounding into his side, knocking him breathless for a moment as he groaned on his back.
He snatched his knife out of the makeshift holster of his pocket, freshly sharpened as Daryl flew to his feet to bare his teeth at the Good Cop.
Him and Rock tussled for a moment, Daryl’s heart pounding at the sight of the random man who had probably killed his older brother. They didn’t understand, because of course they wouldn’t care to. Daryl would be lost without his brother. Merle was a piece of ass, sure, but as Daryl was pinned back by Rick on his arm, and grabbed by Shane tightly on the other, Daryl wanted to scream at how Merle was right.
‘Ain’t nobody going to care about you but me.’
As Daryl felt tight muscles restrict around his throat, and a palm grip into his short cropped hair, Daryl’s brain fogged over. He felt himself lowered onto the ground, as his knees were forced to buckle and his torso be pulled down by Shane’s muscle. He didn’t whimper, but the restriction made his chest seize.
“You best let me go!” He yelled like a child. His attempts were futile. “Choke-holdin’s illegal.” He grumbled, still gripping knife in between his fingers.
“Well, you can file a complaint.” Shane sneered into his ear, and Daryl spat down at the arm around his throat. He struggled and gripped, trying to tear away the ex-cops body off of himself. He clawed, but Shane stayed gripped to him. Daryl spat again as Rick came closer.
He spoke about letting him go, if he cooperated. Or some shit. Daryl kept squinting his eyes and fisting his hands in flexes to sort his head out. He reframed from crying, because he wasn’t a pussy. Merle was gone, probably, but he wouldn’t forget what his brother had taught him.
Fuck it. He thought once he was released. Ain’t no way Merle would die on some shitty roof. If there was any chance his brother was up there still, not dying of heat let alone a herd of walkers, Merle would expect his little brother to go after him.
He hadn’t expected the others to offer to come along also.
-
Really, they weighed him down. Rick Grimes, Daryl learnt quickly, was not light on his feet, and the stupid chinaman was downright annoying, regardless if he was Korean or whatever.
Finding Merle’s severed hand almost made Daryl sick, but he instead yelled and screamed his distress instead of crying about it. Because he wasn’t a sissy.
-
For the next week, Daryl tries his hardest to put distance between him and the other camp members. He doesn’t so much as say a word to them, let alone let out a few grunts occasionally. Shane stared at him, when he’s not busy watching Rick and Lori. Glenn tries to speak, ask about hunting. They’re about the same age, and Glenn probably thinks that means they should be friends. But Daryl’s not like most people, and has never had or wanted friends especially none his age.
Carol’s watching him too, giving him looks when she’s not busy avoiding Ed or protecting her little girl. Her face is unreadable, and it makes Daryl a little sick to see.
Rick’s the worst.
The man won’t leave him alone, asks him where he’s going at every turn. He’ll ask about hunting, before and after Daryl’s been.
Daryl was once walking out of the woods, five obvious squirrels hung around his neck and a rabbit tied on his waist, and Rick had come stumbling over heavy-footed with a flash of his nice teeth.
“Catch anything good?” He had tried, and Daryl had sneered, baring his own teeth to mock Rick’s smile.
“Lost yer’ eyesight?” He scoffed, glancing the man up and down with a wave of his arm. He dropped them down by the fire, where Carol and Lori sat starting dinner whilst watching their children, and glanced over his shoulder at Rick who watched him walk away with a sunken face.
Daryl would have laughed at his expression if Rick wasn’t the guy to have killed his brother. He clambered into his tent, and didn’t leave for the rest of the night.
-
In the week after Merle had been gone, Daryl had tried to avoid the rest of the group. His attempts to put as much distance between himself and anyone else proved futile when Carol’s little girl came up to him one afternoon, shyly glancing through her light eyelashes and clutched her doll.
Daryl had been brooding off near the entrance to the woods since morning, sharpening his knife and mentally planning his tracks. He had been going out further and further, and it seemed the later he came back, the more off-looked Officer Friendly Rick Grimes appeared to look.
Daryl had glanced up at the little girl, where he sat with the knife between his hands. He purses his lips as her feet shuffled her closer.
“Wha’?” He snapped, on edge since Merle’s disappearance. He cursed himself mentally when the girl flinched back. He had heard the pitiful whimpers from her daddy’s tent late at night.
“Um…” She mumbled, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek. He noticed she had been crying, and placed the knife down gently. He ducked his head a little, to reach her eyes.
“Ya’ alright?” He asked, a softer tone. Her feet shuffled again.
“The others won’t play with me.” She admitted, sniffling as she pushed the doll she had clutched to her chest, out towards Daryl a little. “Do you wanna?”
“Wha’?” Daryl stilled, his heart sinking in his chest.
She shouldn’t know. He’d been so careful, she shouldn’t have known. She shouldn’t be offering, because if she was offering that meant she /knew/.
“The other adults are busy.” She explained, and Daryl’s chest relaxed just slightly. She thought he was adult. Okay. Good.
He’d keep it that way. He wanted none of these strangers to know his truth, his classification.
“Mmm.” Daryl mumbled, glancing up at the busy camp. Everyone did seem busy. He shuffled so he sat on the floor, instead of the fallen tree’s log. He beckoned her over, hoping everyone was busy enough not to look at Daryl and the excited little girl sitting ahead of him, holding out her doll and explaining animatedly the story’s she’d already come up with.
Daryl would deny it later, if anyone were to ask, but his chest had felt soft and free as he kept his attention on little Sophia and her silly games. He felt his brain fuzz over, and for once, he wasn’t afraid of the feeling.
He had been so engrossed in the stupid play, that he didn’t notice the two sets of eyes watching the two play. One set with confusion, and the other glaring anger from each side of the camp.
When Sophia was called by her mom, and the girl gave Daryl’s hand a squeeze as she said goodbye for the day, Daryl felt a warm bubble in lungs. His brains fuzzy, and his heart swelling, he was content.
But glancing over to Rick from his side, who was walking over with a grin on his lips, Daryl shot to his feet and nearly ran into the woods. With his knife and bow attached to his body, he fled Rick’s soft gaze, afraid he’d slip even further into territory he had never wanted to go.
He stayed the night in the woods, and came back early morning when everyone was still asleep.
Nobody, of course, had worried or asked after Daryl, and that was what Daryl wanted.
-
They’re at the campfire when it goes to shit.
Everyone else had seemed happy, cheering their drinks and huddling close to their family members for warmth. Everyone’s smiling, glancing between each other with twinkling eyes that sparkle in an animated fashion; sharing glances that say ‘this could be our family’.
Daryl’s not apart of that, of course. He’s sat off to the side, nearer Carol and Sophia. Glenn’s surprisingly close too, but even so there’s an obvious distance between everyone and Daryl, like they’re a flock huddling away from something harsh and mean. Like he’s Merle, or Will Dixon.
Rick’s watching, like he always is. Daryl’s convinced himself it’s for precaution, scared Daryl’s going to turn out like his big brother, and try to kill them. Daryl shivers at the thought.
It’s all going just fine, but there’s a groan behind him, and he’s snapping his head around and gasping quietly at the walker looming over him, growling and reaching and snapping its teeth at him reader to eat. He ducks out of the way, and grabs his knife. There’s a few yells of the others around him, and as the walker trips of the log he has been sitting on, he stabbing the thing in the head where he sat on his ass with his legs splayed out.
There was a silence, before another grown yelled from behind, and Daryl turned to watch a walker take a chunk out of Amy’s neck from behind.
Then there’s yelling. A lot of yelling.
Daryl doesn’t hesitate, remembers what his brother taught him. He’s up on his feet before he can think. Everyone nearby him before had scattered, and Daryl realised as Shane plummets an axe through a third walkers head, and Rick beats a legless walker trying to wrap its teeth around his ankle, that they’ve been caught by a horde, and they mught be fucked if he didn’t try and help.
He knife is out of his pocket before he can register the metal between his fingers, and he spits into action. Dale and T-Dog, they had their guns. Dale had taken the high ground, and T-Dog wasn’t far behind where he stood hanging off the RV’s ladder. Both acted as snipers, as Rick and Shane stabbed and beat the walkers coming towards them. Daryl got closer to them, helping them clear the circling horde slowly. He bit his lip, hard, where he heard girlish screams from inside the RV.
“Carl, get inside! Now!” Rick screamed, as he pulled his young son rough by the arm to stand behind him, up against the RV’s side. Daryl stabbed a walker that was reaching for the boy, and Carl rushed inside after his mother not a second after. Rick glanced to him, up and down, as Daryl gripped his knife tight between flexing fingers. Rick nodded, once, not seeing the glazed eyes of Daryl under the moonlight, and grabbed his gun to shoot another walker straight through the forehead.
Daryl had every right to run, to take as much shit as he could and clear his own escape out of the camp and never return. He’d do far better on his own, anyway. To hell with safety in numbers, he’d go look for Merle and find him and they’d laugh about that stupid camp they found themselves in, and live ‘till they died.
He could. Leave. Right now. Just go…
“Help!” A young man’s voice crackled, further down the ambushed camp. It filtered over the guns, as Daryl dropped his bow from his sim and turned to his right. Nearby, but not close enough, lay Glenn with a walker mouthing at Glenn’s face. His stupid hat had fallen to the side, crumpled and tread on by however many walkers. It seemed they wouldn’t stop coming, and Daryl glanced between the four still shooting, Daryl having been the only one to hear the man’s screams.
He fretted for a moment, fingers flexing again as he debated.
He should just leave.
“Help! Please, help me!”
He should just grab the guns and supplies he could, and leave.
“Is that Glenn?”
“Holy shit.”
For fuck sakes.
Daryl groaned, grabbing his knife and plunging it into every walker that came into his path, someone much have covered his rear, because gunshots followed him and nothing came up from behind. By the time Daryl reached Glenn, and picked up his stupid hat on the way, the horde was dying down slowly, and a trail of bodies followed his trail.
“Hold still.” Daryl groaned, kneeling and grabbing the walkers thin hair. He pulled it back tight, and before his skin had a chance to slide off of his skull, Daryl stabbed the brain and let its body fall back. Glenn pushed the disgusting thing off of himself, and panted.
He spat a few times, walker hair and gunk down his throat, and Daryl knew he too probably looked a mess. Like he cared.
He threw the hat onto Glenn’s chest, and as Daryl stood a grip grabbed his wrist. Daryl flinched, and Glenn let go.
“Thanks, man.” Glenn nodded, and Daryl grunted. He hauled the chinaman to his feet with one swift move, and the two watched Shane shoot the last walker of the horde down.
There was silence. Deep set quiet ringing around them. Daryl didn’t know what to do, but he certainly didn’t like how close Glenn was standing.
He shuffled away, as the RV door opened slightly. Out popped a blonde head of hair, tied up to reveal wild white eyes. Daryl glanced to Amy’s body, and suddenly Andrea’s scream filled the silence again.
Daryl shuffled further away from Glenn.
—
Jim was bit, and Amy was dead. Daryl’s neck hairs flared when he he caught sight of the older sister cradling the dead body of the younger. Not because he felt sympathy: he barely knew either of them, and Amy had always thrown disgusted looks his way. No, Daryl was on edge because of Andrea’s stupidity.
She was cradling a dead body, one very soon to become a walker.
He bit his tongue, because he misses his own brother too. But he felt sick just thinking about Jim’s selfishness.
Daryl didn’t expect them to be leaving the camp so soon, and when Rick had explained to the group that they would be off, he distantly thought of which direction to start heading after Merle.
Because he definitely wasn’t staying with these people, who were selfish and stupid enough to not kill the dead before they got killed first.
So, after Amy had turned and Andrea had finally stabbed her walker-turned-sister in the skull, the camp was being uprooted for travel.
Daryl sat on Merle’s bike, biting his thumb as he pondered taking some of Merle’s cigarettes to calm his pounding heart.
When Rick came over though, his voice fuzzy in Daryl’s mind, his heart thumped louder in his ears.
“Wha’?” Daryl slurred around the edge of his thumb between his teeth, and Rick’s eyebrows furrowed.
“I said; we’re leaving in about two hours if we pack soon enough.” Rick repeated himself, and Daryl grunted in response. Rick’s face pulled. “You gonna start packing up, too?” He said gently, and Daryl’s eyes shot to the man’s face.
“Huh?” Daryl’s unclear head made him a man of not-too-many words. That seemed to both amuse, and confuse Rick Grimes stood about him.
“You’re- you are coming with, right?” Rick asked, hands on his hips and casting a shadow down Daryl’s sat form. He blocked the sun from Daryl’s eyes, but he still squinted, trying to read the man’s ever-changing, and ever-confusing, expression.
And Daryl should have said no. Should have told this Rick Grimes Good Cop where he could shove it. Merle would yell and flint his arm out and say ‘Hell no, Officer Friendly!’ or ‘Too fuck with your kind gestures ‘n’ shit!’ But Rick had spoke like he wanted Daryl to come along, like he’d be upset if he /didn’t/.
Like Daryl meant something.
And Daryl hadn’t had anyone care about him enough to think he meant shit, let alone this. Rick was just doing it to be nice. He probably hated Daryl deep down, like everyone else. Merle was the only one who had ‘got’ Daryl, and even he at times had underestimated Daryl.
The younger Dixon bit his lip, looking down at the ground.
He shouldn’t. But Rick had said it like he /wanted/ Daryl to come along, that he /wouldn’t/ mind.
“Yeh. Sure.” Daryl grumbled, and Rick’s smile matches his sons for a moment, bright and happy in the middle of the end of the world.
Daryl knew he was stupid, to trust Rick’s words. After all, Merle had said ‘Ain’t nobody going to care about you but me.’ It was foolish to think anyone would grow to care about Daryl Dixon, let alone Rick Grimes of all people.