Chapter Text
Daryl knew he was different. There weren’t no big words that anyone ever said for what was different about him, but he knew something in his brain didn’t work quite right. Merle said it was like his body grew but some of him stayed the same, young, a kid inside of his mind when he should be a grown up. It weren’t like he ever minded, not when he was a teenager and people at school thought it was funny. But then he got older and people started calling some of the things he did weird, they started pointing and staring and though he didn’t care what those assholes thought of him anyway, it didn’t mean he wanted them to carry on saying stuff behind his back.
So over the years he learnt to hide a lot of the things he did that others didn’t. Merle helped teach him. Well, Merle punched his arm and told him to pack it in if he was doin’ something a little too weird for his age. He learned not to suck his thumb in public because it wasn’t something adults did, no matter how much it made him feel better, he instead chewed on his thumbnail. Some people still tutted, but they didn’t point and laugh so it was better.
He learnt that most adults didn’t act like he did when they got scared or upset from a nightmare. Most adults would wake up, realise it was all fake and get over it, maybe have a drink or a smoke and go back to sleep. They didn’t want hugs or comfort, or bundle themselves in blankets and keep themselves awake to watch out for monsters. Merle got sick of that pretty fast, so he learnt to keep quiet, to pinch at his arm until it hurt to stop from crying and try to act like more of an adult.
Merle said it was something mucked up in his head that was the problem and over the years Daryl begins to be able to see the differences between himself and others. When Merle gets frustrated he grumbles, he stalks about a bit but the anger is really all kept on his face and locked away inside. Whenever Daryl got angry it felt like he didn’t know how to keep it in, he usually ended up screaming, hitting and kicking at things, yelling and going red in the face until he felt better. He got worked up easier over things, he didn’t like when he got upset and wanted to cry and Merle would call him a pussy for sniffing back tears over something.
It wasn’t easy but he found ways around it all. Merle always said he wasn’t dumb and he knew he wasn’t, he could read and write just fine, his grades weren’t appalling when he finished school and he was pretty good at fixing problems. It was just when it came to people and stuff he got a bit mixed up and found it difficult to work out just how he was meant to be acting about everything. Emotions were hard and dealing with them was even harder, especially when other people were talking about them. Sometimes he couldn’t understand it at all, but that’s where Merle came in.
Sure his big brother was an asshole most of the time, but there were other times where Merle helped make things just a little bit clearer. Like when he’d shove Daryl away if he sat too close and call him a pussy, it helped Daryl learn how far away to sit from others. Or the time when Merle would tell him to keep his stupid questions to himself because only babies didn’t know the answers. He learnt to hide it all away, to keep the broken part of him hidden and act like an adult. It didn’t mean he understood anything any better, but people stopped staring at him so much, so he guessed that was a good thing.
When the infection spread he’s glad Merle was there to help him through it all.
Instead of it just being people that confused him, suddenly it felt like the whole world didn’t make any sense anymore and all the rules he’d set in place were crumbling apart and leaving him on edge. People were crying in the streets, some were fighting and acting like animals did when there was prey to hunt and it leaves him completely lost within it all and looking to Merle for answers. He helps pack the truck, he does as he’s told and gets in the passenger side so Merle can drive but all the news reports from the past few days mix with the questions in his head and make him feel more confused than ever.
“I don’t understand Merle.” He finally manages to mumble into the silence between them, fully aware of how hard Merle is gripping the steering wheel and how he wants everything to make sense again. There’s no reply from his brother, they keep driving and there are people in the roads, some screaming, some bleeding, some of them doing things he’s only ever seen coyotes do. Daryl fights down the urge to yell out his frustrations and chews on his thumb, feeling uneasy. He wants to know where they’re going, he wants to know why they’re leaving home, he wants to know what’s wrong and why Merle won’t tell him. “Merle? I don’t under-“
“I know you don’t! I know you don’t understand Daryl!” Merle snaps and like that he’s flinching, pulling away from his brother to glare out the window, biting down harder on his thumb to stop the tears that threaten to fall. He hadn’t meant to make Merle mad, he just wanted to know what was happening. They drive for a while longer, long enough that Merle finally loosens his grip on the steering wheel and Daryl doesn’t feel quite so worried about getting hit anymore. When Merle stops the car though Daryl does worry a little, especially since they’re nowhere in particular.
Looking at his brother he can see that Merle looks tired but there’s more behind it that he doesn’t understand. It’s kind of the same look Merle’s had before, and he wishes he knew how to fix it. Looking around outside the car there’s nothing around them, just road ahead of them and a smear of blood with some road kill still pulverised into the tarmac next to it. Probably a fox or something, long dead and rotting. They sit for a while and Daryl finds himself fidgeting, rocking his leg, biting his nails and trying to stop himself from asking more questions that’ll piss Merle off.
Then something moves in the bushes to the side of them and he’s on edge, alert like he’s on a hunt and watching as someone staggers out onto the roadside. They don’t look very well, there’s a lot of blood, he looks grey instead of pink and Daryl can’t help but draw a little closer to Merle when the thing makes a noise like a growl.
Merle’s hand falls to his shoulder and the look on Merle’s face says he’s being serious right now, it’s the kind of look that means he’ll get a smack if he doesn’t pay attention. So he meets Merle’s gaze as he talks and makes sure to nod at the right times. “Now I need you to listen to me alright little brother? What I’m gonna tell you is important now, the most important thing I’ve ever told you and you have to understand okay?”
He can feel the questions bubble up in his throat, he wants to watch the man on the road as he crouches down to begin eating at the remains of the fox. But instead he nods, leaning a little closer to Merle and making sure not to get distracted since this is important. “I’m listening Merle.” Daryl confirms with another nod, hoping his brother knows he has all of his attention.
“You see that man out there?” Merle asks, pointing to where the man from the bushes is eating the meat from beneath the fur, tearing it apart with his hands easily. It looks gross, there’s blood everywhere but he turns back to Merle instead of staring at it, giving him another nod. “He’s dead Daryl.” His brother says, his voice calm but it just brings up a thousand questions for Daryl.
Looking back to the road he watches the man eat the fox, stripping bones free of flesh and smearing his face with blood. He doesn’t look very dead. Chewing on his lip he fidgets a little with his hands, trying to connect the pieces and stop the questions. He remembers mama and the fire, he remembers their dad yelling at him that she was dead and gone and Merle trying to explain it all to him in a way he’d understand. Daryl still remembers it all now, but what Merle had said then and what he was seeing didn’t make sense when he put them together.
Merle is watching him, waiting for him to reply and though he knows Merle doesn’t like questions he knows he hates it when he pretends to understand even more. “But Merle, you said when things die it’s like they’re sleeping. They don’t move no more.” He remembers that, and every lesson of hunting afterwards had proved it to be true after they stopped twitching and shit.
His brother runs his fingers over his cropped hair and then nods before continuing, and Daryl’s pleased he’s not mad at him for not getting it. “Well it’s like they’re sleepwalking okay?” Okay that made a kind of sense. “But these things, they ain’t just dead, they’re sick too alright and when something is sick you can’t let it touch you right? Because if they bite or scratch you then you’ll get sick and die too. They’ll infect you Daryl and once that happens there’s no fixing it.” Merle holds his shoulders, digging in his fingers and making sure their eyes meet. Daryl feels unsure about it all, but Merle’s never lied to him before when it was important.
“Like with rabies?” He asks, remembering an earlier lesson in his life and flinching back a little when Merle snaps back at him.
“No, no not like fucking rabies. This is worse than that Daryl.” His brother snarls, his movements are angry, short and sharp as he hits the steering wheel before grabbing at Daryl again and shaking him a little. “You cannot get bit you hear me? You don’t let no one who’s got bit near you, and don’t let none of those things touch you alright?” Merle looks really pissed right now and Daryl knows this must be really really important right now. So he nods, and he makes sure to repeat the information to himself before replying.
“I won’t Merle.”
His brother nods, patting at his sides before opening the door of their truck and gesturing for him to follow. “Alright, now get your bow and come with me.”
Daryl doesn’t know what they’re doing, but usually Merle only told him to get his bow if they were going hunting and right now this didn’t seem like a good hunting spot. “Merle?”
He doesn’t get a chance to ask a question before Merle is holding him back, the two of them standing before the truck as the headlights illuminate the man eating the fox. “Alright now do you remember when I first taught you how to hunt? Remember what I told you when you got upset over having to kill the rabbits?”
Nodding in reply Daryl holds the bow a little tighter, still unsure as to why they were thinking of going hunting right now. “Sometimes we have to kill things for us to live and we’re more important than rabbits.” He recites, a lesson well learned and repeated out loud whenever he got upset at having to shoot another defenceless creature to stop his growling stomach.
“Exactly.” He thinks Merle sounds a little proud of him right then, but the moment passes and Merle is catching his chin, meeting his eyes and looking serious again. “Now I need you to listen to me real careful now little brother.” And Daryl makes sure to listen real hard when Merle looks at him like that. “You’ve got to kill the biters for us to live because we’re more important than they are.” Merle explains to him and Daryl feels his brother’s grip tighten on his chin when he tries to look back at the man and the fox.
“But you always said don’t ever point a weapon at a person unless I wanted to go to prison.” He remembers every lesson Merle ever taught him, he remembers it all and right now having to shoot them meant he’d be breaking a rule. It didn’t make any sense.
Merle looks pissed, but it’s a quiet kind of pissed, like he doesn’t want to yell about it. Instead his brother sighs and Daryl doesn’t like that sound at all. “Well things are different now Daryl. There ain’t no prison, there ain’t no law or police anymore. All there is now is you and me and making sure we survive.” He knew sometimes to survive you had to kill things, but rabbits and squirrels and deer weren’t the same. “Now for us to survive we have to kill the biters. They ain’t people no more Daryl, they’re just…they’re bad alright? And we gotta take them out before they kill us.”
The guy doesn’t look bad. He’s just kneeling on the road and eating the remains of the dead fox, smearing blood all over himself and his grey skin, looking ugly and wrong. Chewing on his lower lip he gives a half shrug, not fully understanding but Merle had never lied to him when it had been important before. Merle moves beside him, nudging for him to pull back the string on his bow and hold it ready to fire. He does so, of course he does, but he doesn’t like it when Merle makes him point it at the man on the road.
“Now remember what I said about headshots?” Merle asks him and of course he remembers. Daryl remembers watching a deer struggle in pain, staggering through the brush, bleeding, calling out, crying in pain before Merle had shot it right between the eyes. Don’t let it suffer. “You gotta take these out with one or they’ll just keep getting up to kill you Daryl. So do it now, one shot to the head.” Merle encourages him, pushing the crossbow up so he’s looking down the sight and he feels a little sick as the man comes into position for him. He hesitates, he shifts his weight on his feet and doesn’t like when Merle nudges him again. “Come on little brother.”
He feels sick, there’s more questions running through his mind and there’s a fear that twists in his gut when the man in the road stands up, fur caught in his teeth as he moves towards them. There’s another growl and though he sounds like an animal, he’s still a human and he knows only bad people shoot humans. “I…I don’t want to Merle.” He stutters, not taking his eyes off the man that stumbles closer and reaches out his arms towards them.
“No one wants to, but you gotta stop being a pussy right now and do it you hear?” Merle snaps and the stumbling, bloody mess of a man moves towards his brother instead. Daryl flinches back a little and watches as Merle moves away from him, a glare on his face as he moves towards the man he’d said was bad. “I ain’t got time for you being a fuckin’ sissy Daryl, now shoot him. Kill it before it kills you or kills me.” Merle yells to him and Daryl knows he’s shaking, his crossbow still in his grip but his fingers don’t want to do it. “That what you want?” His brother asks and he’s shaking his head, because of course he doesn’t want that. “You want it to kill me huh? Cause it’s gonna bite me if you don’t take it down.” Merle steps further away from him, closer towards the growling man and Daryl can feel his heart thud harder in his chest when the man gets within grabbing distance of his brother. “You need to shoot it Daryl!” Merle yells. “It’s going to kill me.” The man growls and lunges like an animal. “Daryl!”
Daryl doesn’t remember bringing the crossbow back to position, or staring down the sight, or even pulling the trigger, but he remembers the way the man falls to the floor with a bolt in his face and how scared he’d been of losing Merle. He sobs when it’s over, crossbow falling to the floor with a clatter and covering his face from the sight of it all. Merle’s fingers move to hold the back of his neck, keeping him steady as he steers him back inside the truck and sets his bow in his lap for him.
“You know I had to do it little brother.” Merle tells him, voice low and calming, one Daryl remembers from when he was younger and scared of nightmares that haunted his sleep. “You needed to do it. You needed to learn, now don’t you ever hesitate again you hear? You even think about it and you remember that if you let one go it could kill one of us alright?” He can’t answer, he’s too busy curling into his seat and not caring if Merle thinks he’s a sissy for crying over it all. His sobs hurt his chest, he still feels sick and he doesn’t totally understand, but he knows Merle almost got hurt and he never wanted that to happen again. “You did good little brother.” Merle croons and Daryl knows things are fucked up when his brother doesn’t yell at him for sucking his thumb.