Author's Note:
So...This a caryl/The Outsiders AU I'm co-writing with the lovely Woe-Is-Jamey from tumblr
I'll be writing all Daryl chaps and she'll handle everything from Carol's POV
Basically all Outsiders characters (with the exception of Johnny) are portrayed as TWD characters with Daryl as Dally and Carol as Cherry :)
I love the book so I'm super excited about this AU and I really hope you guys like it
So...First chap, nothing too crazy, just a little bit of good-old-fashioned cussing.
I own nothing, otherwise T-Dog would still be alive and reading The Outsiders wouldn't hurt so damn much...
Anywho, enjoy!

Chapter One: Just Not Good Enough

An ordinary boy.
An ordinary name.
But ordinary's just not good enough today.
Superman's Dead- Our Lady Peace

Daryl perused the corner store's goods, careful to appear aimless, disinterested.
Of course he was neither of those in the slightest, unable to help but eye the candy bars and packs upon packs of cigarettes hungrily, plotting his escape route. The store manager was already glaring at him suspiciously from behind the counter, constantly craning his neck to watch as Daryl wandered among the aisles.
It was understandable. He was a greaser after all.
Some no-good poor boy who did nothing but drink, fuck, steal and break shit. Not the type of guy you could leave to his own devices.
Didn't mean the manager wasn't an asshole. Not to mention stupid, since Daryl had already managed to grab a pack of smokes and two chocolate bars.
At this point he was just trying to see what he could get away with. Didn't really see why mister Employee-Of-The-Month over there gave a shit anyways.
Wasn't like he needed the stuff. Not like he was living hand to mouth every single day, relying on a meager pay at the garage and whatever he could snatch...

Daryl gritted his teeth, taking a deep breath as he felt his temper bubble to the surface.
The kind of temper that Merle so often warned was going to get him thrown back in the clink- if not killed.
He'd scoffed when Merle had first told him to keep his temper in check- the advice more than a little hypocritical since Merle had tried to beat some bar-fly to death just for calling him by their Pa's name.

"Ain't tha' temper 'a yers wha' got ya where ya 're today?" He'd replied, teasing.

Merle's answer however, was deadly serious.

"Tha's 'xactly my point Lil' Brother."

Since that conversation he'd tried to be a bit more cautious, though he'd hardly turned his life around and became an upstanding member of society.
Too many bills for that and not nearly enough money to pay them for handling things legally.
Besides, if he were being completely honest, screwing over assholes like the store manager was pretty fun anyways.
In the spirit of that, he surreptitiously slipped another pack of menthols into his jeans pocket with a smirk.

"Hey!" Mister-Employee-Of-The-Month shouted, stepping out from behind the cash register.

Okay, so apparently not as surreptitious as he'd thought.
Diving out of the aisle, he laughed loudly as he heard the manager cussing, breathing heavily as he struggled to keep up while Daryl ran full tilt from the store.
He was about three streets away when he finally slowed down, assured that he'd lost the asshole a good two blocks ago.
He could vaguely make out the sounds of someone getting the shit kicked out of them not too far off- poor bastard- when he saw T-Dog careening around the corner, straight towards the noise.

Jogging to keep stride with him, Daryl motioned for him to slow down. "Hell man, slow up! Fuck's goin' on down there?"

"No time for slowing up man, bunch of socs jumped Rick, Glenn n' the others are holdin' 'em off, c'mon."

Daryl swore loudly, following T to the scene of the crime, hands curling into fists.
Rick was Shane's kid brother, bit of a punk sometimes, but alright overall, for a kid. More importantly, he was one of them.
And whoever made the mistake of targeting him was going to have hell to pay.
The fight was at a turning point by the time they arrived, Shane, Glenn and Morales managing to hold their own despite being severely outnumbered.
Rick seemed to be curled in on himself at the end of the alley and the others were certainly in need of a breather.
Daryl dove towards the closest opponent- some scrawny blonde bastard- and threw him aside, T repeating his strategy, forcing the socs out of the alley.
Once the wimps were thrown into the open space of the nearby lot, they couldn't fight for shit.
He'd hardly even begun to lay into them, to really blow of some steam before they were running down the street towards their stupid little red car.
Pussies, he scoffed, lighting a smoke, nodding to Johnny as he saw him running towards them.

He liked Johnny, might even go so far as to admit he had a soft spot for the kid- if Merle wouldn't beat him like a rug for it.
His home situation was shit and having been there Daryl felt compelled to show him the ropes, teach him how to handle himself.
Kid was jumpy- an asshole of an Old Man and a nasty jumping by some socs had made sure of that- but he was decent in a fight, always backed them up.
He almost wished Johnny would stop looking up at him like some kind of lost puppy, but at the same time it was part of what made him so endearing.
Daryl figured he'd probably looked up to Merle that way when he'd been younger and something about the kid's demeanor was just begging to be looked after.
So he watched out for him, like he might for a kid brother if he'd had one.
Besides, kid always lent him smokes.

"Missed a bit of a tussle 'ere Johnny-Cake," he teased, causing Johnny to cuss softly at having arrived too late.

T-Dog chuckled loudly. "Don't worry 'bout it man, they took off before the fight ever really started, let's just see how Rick's making out."

With a small, silent nod Johnny followed them back into the alley.
Rick seemed pretty shook up, but no worse for wear other than a long cut on the side of his forehead, which Glenn was attending too as Rick tried to calm himself with a smoke, the others silently standing guard.

"You catch them?" He asked.

"Naw man," T-dog answered apologetically. "They got away, the dirty fucks."

"Kid's okay?" Daryl double-checked, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

"I'm alright," Rick snipped, an almost suspicious look crossing his face, tone questioning. "Didn't know you were out of the cooler yet Daryl."

"Got out early fer good behavior," he replied, passing what remained of the cigarette to Johnny.

Folks getting jumped tended to make him a little antsy, so he figured a decent drag might calm him down, stop the little tremor that had started in his hands.

Johnny mumbled a quiet thanks as T-Dog complimented Rick on the tuff fucking scar he'd have and Morales berated Rick for walking alone, causing another spat with Shane and the kid that he figured was all kinds of none-of-his-fucking-business, so he left it alone, cluing back into the conversation with a yawn when T mentioned the movies.

"Speakin' 'a the movies, I'm walkin' over to the Nightly Double t'morrow night. An'body wanna come 'n hunt some action?"

Morales shook his head. "Sorry man, me and Glenn are picking up Rosa and Maggie for the game."

Shane sighed, shaking his head. "Working tomorrow night."

Shrugging, Daryl turned to Johnny. "How 'bout ya'll? Johnny-Cake, you an' Rick wanna come? T-Dog?"

Johnny nodded slowly, not the kind to speak unless forced, Rick answering for him. "Sure. Me and Johnny will come, alright Shane?"

"Sure, since it's not a school night."

"Well..." T-Dog muttered, "I was planning on getting hammered tomorrow, but maybe I'll meet up with ya'll later."

"Tuff e'nuff," Daryl replied, satisfied. "Well, I gotta meet up with tha' damn social worker wit' Merle soon, best get a move on."

The others nodded in understanding -most of them having to deal with social services on a relatively regular basis- and waved him off.

As he walked away, following the train tracks to his shitty one bedroom apartment for a change of clothes, he couldn't quite ignore the twist in his chest that told him he'd started something. Set some unavoidable chain of events in motion, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out what the fuck it meant.
Taking a final drag on his smoke, he forced himself to shrug it off, to pretend the unexplainable gnawing in his gut wasn't there.
Only tomorrow would tell what it meant.