Chapter Text
The world being in disarray hadn’t struck Daryl or Merle as some new, novel development. The amount of shit hitting the fan had increased, but their lives had always been chaotic to put it mildly. The plan had been simple. Get in with this group, hang out a few days, then line them all up, take whatever they pleased, and move on. That plan had been a far cry from where he found himself now. Daryl felt like the rug had been ripped out from under his feet since Merle went AWOL.
Without his brother around he found himself burning bodies and digging graves for a bunch of clueless suburbanites who’d done nothing but look down their noses at him until now. Well not all of them at least. Whatever tension there had between him and the rest of the group had simmered down since Merle went missing. Hadn’t cooled off nearly enough that it completely calmed the itch under his skin that told him to keep looking for him. Merle always got under your skin one way or another. He couldn’t seem to crush that twinge of guilt deep in his chest, but with the chance of tracking Merle’s path through the maze of downtown Atlanta being zero, Daryl had stuck around.
The havoc of towns and cities being fire bombed, and the droves of people escaping Atlanta had so far been enough to keep Daryl focusing on keeping himself alive and not dwelling on the finer, more tragic details of what was happening. But the longer he stayed with this camp, with these people, the more he felt it. The amount of families and kids being torn to shreds out there. They were recovering from last nights attack and the tension in the air was driving him up the wall. Andrea was still holding vigil over her sisters body.
He kept busy. Sweating his balls off in the heat as he and some of the others were loading up the bodies scattered around camp. Daryl came across a body sprawled out on the ground, It greeted him with a faint growl as he leaned in. He answered it with a knife to the brain. He started to gather it up and motioned for Glenn to come over and help him out, pausing when he noticed a mottled tattoo on its right forearm. Some kind of evergreen branches arranged around coiled snake. Cryptic and simple, just as a soul mark should be.
Glenn jogged up and started gathering up the corpses legs, “Good thing you noticed this one, could’ve been bad.”
Daryl shrugged and grabbed its arms, nodding at the tattoo, “Might as well meet his maker for good.” he said, “this fat ass sure as shit ain’t gonna meet his intended.”
Glenn paused and glanced at the tattoo. He looked up with tired smirk like he thought Daryl had been joking, his gaze then drifted down to Daryl’s own forearm. His face bloomed with realization, as though he hadn’t noticed it before just now “Wait, you believe in that old wives’ tale?”
Glenn was alright by him, but he still didn’t appreciate the baffled look on his face. He gave him a sidelong glare and jerked his head towards the rotting body.
“You believe in dead people walkin' around?”
***
It had only been fitting that his first genuine experience with a Seer had been something so mundane. It had been decades ago when he was still young, Merle had been on the other end of the county doing god knows what with some older kids from around there. Daryl had for once been glad to be left behind, glad to have a go with Merle’s crossbow out in the woods by himself. That humid summer night ended with him heading back and running across a neighbor he’d never spoken to before. He’d ended up moving that hag’s dry-rotted couch to the curb in the hopes for some food. She had been glad for the help, and while he was standing around expecting some kind of reward she emerged out of her house with a pen and paper, took him by the shoulder and pulled him to eye level, whispering as she drew out a wide set of white wings with a bundle of arrows nestled between them.
Soul Seeing was an old trade. Old enough that not a lot of people put much stock into it anymore. In the past it had been tradition to have your soul read once you had come of age, the Seer would share their visions of your soulmate in front of the community. The vision would be composed of symbols that both soulmates would have in common. The recipient would carry something with them containing the symbols, typically a tattoo or a piece of jewelry in the hopes that they’d meet their intended partner who’s soul matched theirs.
In the modern day Soul Seeing had been bumped down to the same level as palm reading. It was a vague enough ability that bullshitting people was easy. Stare deeply into some suckers eyes and rattle off something mystical sounding, blurt out some symbols and hope they don't care enough to find a second opinion. It was a hard gift to prove being that it wasn’t much useful beyond personal relationships, otherwise the few genuine Seers left might’ve noticed the reanimated corpses coming up on the horizon. The drawing had been enough for him back then.
He’d study that scrap of paper in the evenings sometimes, out in the backyard where he kept it in a bag under a brick. Hidden to keep his family from somehow getting at it like they managed to do with everything else. When life had dealt him a particularly shitty hand, he’d make his way out to the edge of the woods, kick over the brick, clear out any debris that had gotten in, and unfold the drawing in the last light of day.
He kept it with him for years. Merle and his friends gave him shit for it back then, calling him superstitious. It didn’t stop him from making those wings his own motif. He got heckled for weeks after following the old tradition of getting the design tattooed on his forearm. Self-awareness hadn’t been his strong suit in those days. If you’d asked him back then why he held onto those damn wings he’d have chalked it up to it just looking cool.
***
It got his mind wandering. He thought about seeing the world crumbling, watching this idiots mope around around like sitting ducks on top of a hill, unsure if he’d ever see his brother again. He looked down over the trees. Tracing paths in his minds eye, imagining what he’d do out there alone.
He and Glenn piled up the rest of the bodies in awkward silence. Once they finished Glenn made himself scarce, leaving Daryl alone to dig a few more graves. He traced his fingers across his tattoo. He remembered that sliver of hope those wings had given him when times were rough. He remembered those nights when he’d hide out in the backyard waiting for whatever chaos was tearing through his house to calm down, knowing in the back of his mind that there was more out there for him. There was someone out there to be with him. Even if he never made it there to meet them, they existed. There was a whole world outside his shitty reality. There was someone out there for some useless degenerate drifter dependent on his older brother.
He blinked back to attention, glancing around and taking stock of everything. There was no sense in getting moon eyed over it ever again if his intended had already been taken by the plague, with little left behind but a shambling corpse. He felt his throat clench at the thought. He quickly shook it off. He pushed it to the back of his mind and got back to work. There was a pile of bodies for him to burn, a row of graves to fill. A little crowd was watching Andrea from afar, wondering when she’d have to take the shot or if someone would have to do it for her. The world was thoroughly up shits creek at this point. He scrubbed at his face and gave his forearm one last look then got back to piling up bodies. There was no point in thinking on it again. Didn’t look like the chaos would calm down for a while, not by a long shot.