Author's note: Another short about what goes on in Daryl's head. This one takes place before the first season even starts and no one has died yet (obviously). I think that Daryl was secretly really protective of everyone straight from the start and spent his whole day (at least in the beginning) making sure everyone got something to eat. I would love to hear your thoughts?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the story itself.
Daryl watched as the group he had recently joined up with happily did meaningless chores such as laundry and raking away the leaves from the camp. He snorted by this, these people weren't going to last more than a few days. Merle and he had run into them just days before, and started hunting for them; they ate everything brought to them like they were starving and it had only been a week since this crap had all started.
Gods, it was like these people had never had to go a few days without food before. He felt a familiar feeling of jealousy ring through his body; these people didn't know about hardship before now and he had lived his whole life in conditions like this, or even worse. They would probably never have to know what it was like to give in to someone for something that you need. Sleeping with them for shelter in a storm, work odd jobs or act as handy man on farms for a few meals a day when hunting wasn't working. It was a sad existence and he wished that it didn't have to be that way. Of course, wishing had never got him shit.
Of course some people had it even worse than that; he could see that by even examining the people of the camp. There was one woman, Carol he'd learned was her name, had to deal with an abusive husband everyday of her life and even now into the end of the world. He felt sorry for her and angry at the same time, he could tell that her little girl had no idea that daddy hit mommy but he couldn't help but wonder how long that would last. Or how long it would be before daddy decided to make a move on little daughter. It wasn't uncommon for someone abusive to just suddenly move onto the kid and that tiny girl was a prime candidate. Innocent enough to not even know what was happening until it was to late.
His bastard of a father hadn't taken long after the death of his moma to take to striking him. Merle had already been out of the house by then, not even returning for momma's funeral, as if he knew that the old man would beat him senseless. Then came the touching, Daryl's skin still crawled at the thought; he had only been 14 at the time and that was the same time he'd gotten out of that house, that town and went on the road by himself. Though he had put up with it for six weeks before leaving and those were the darkest days of his life, even more so than those nights he spent in the forest alone during some kind of storm.
Nothing had been easy at that time; no one gave work to someone that young and he had had no other option but to take to the woods. Merle had quit the army a few years later and managed to find him while Daryl was working on a fishing boat. They had taken to the road together after that and things got easier with the two of them, so when the dead started chewing on people it hadn't really affected him much. He had already been at the point in his life where nothing could shock him anymore.
He had never told Merle why he had left but he always suspected that Merle already knew. Perhaps he hadn't been the only victim; he had always wondered to why Merle (one who by definition hated authority) would just go and join the military. Why he didn't come home when moma died. Perhaps he couldn't relive those memories, because that was certainly why Daryl never returned. In fact if it was just beating, he probably would have stayed a lot longer; he liked to think he even would have gone to high school; graduated.
The apocalypse didn't really affect him because life was already that way; hunt, make sure family (brother and or group) has had food today, scout out tracks, find source of water, and make sure belongings are in the top shape they could be. Nothing really changed; it's just that his family somehow grew a lot larger over night.
One day soon he would do something about mister abusive, but they would have to have a very good hunting day for him to have time to do anything about it. It would happen though; Dixon's took care of the family.