The Walking Dead: Hunger

Unintended Muse

A/N: This is a work of Slash Fiction, this chapter especially. You have been warned.

Chapter 1:

The Oak

Death? Death meant nothing in this new world except no more running, only walking. No more fighting, only biting.

There was only a small sound when he hit the tree. The sun hadn't gone down all that long ago and Daryl Dixon was on patrol in the woods around the church. There were only a couple of walkers wandering in the dark and he took them down without breaking even the tiniest sweat. It was so nice – so quiet – that his body was finally starting to gear down from the Terminus escape when someone not dead rammed his side and threw him into a wide oak. A hand on the back of his head bounced his face off the wood and Daryl was too stunned to do anything as that someone spun him around and pinned him to the tree with their body, one forearm crossing the front of his throat.

Daryl got his hunting knife free, but a strong hand wrapped around his wrist, keeping him from doing anything with it. There was a beat of hot breath on his face and then the arm was pressing forward, making a dent in his air. Daryl grabbed at it with his left hand and the arm slid away, pinning that hand to the tree beside his head. Then the voice came and he recognized it straight away even though the name eluded him. The asshole from Terminus.

"Drop the knife and you won't have to find out how hard it is to load a crossbow with a broken wrist." His voice was calm despite the small struggle.

Daryl went to say 'Fuck you' and barely got a second in before the man – Gareth, he suddenly remembered – did something with his hand that sent sharp shocks of pain up his arm. The knife slid away, making a soft thump in the leaves at their feet. The pain stopped, but Gareth's hand was still tight on his wrist.

"If you're gonna kill me, do it. Don't fuckin' play around."

"I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to say that I won't at some point, but in this second, no." Still so calm, but there was something else there. Something strangely contemplative. It threw Daryl off.

"Then back off me." Daryl pushed at Gareth and moved him a little before the man braced himself harder against Daryl.

"No."

"You were gonna kill us back in Terminus."

Gareth's head tipped to one side and Daryl could see his face better in the low light. His eyes were distant, staring past Daryl's head into the tree behind him. The hair on his face seemed a tad thicker and his lower lip looked almost swollen. It shined as if he'd just licked it and maybe he had.

Gareth nodded and there was a distinct note of annoyance in his voice. "Yes, we were going to kill you. It's not like we wanted to. We're not monsters. If you remember, your man Rick offered us violence first. It didn't have to go down like that."

Gareth's eyes ran over Daryl's face to linger on his mouth. He stared at it hard like he'd never seen one before. "Everyone I worked so hard to protect is gone. You have no idea the kind of things I've done."

Gareth moved his eyes back up to Daryl's. "I don't like killing people, but there is someone I wouldn't mind seeing dead. Who was it? Who blew up the tanks and destroyed my family?"

Daryl locked his jaw and his eyes narrowed down to shadowed lines. Gareth surprised him again. He smiled and it was the smile of a man just before he broke. "You know what? I don't even care! There's nothing inside and I...I just don't care!"

Daryl pushed against him and at the same time, Gareth leaned closer. He froze as a tongue licked over his bottom lip. Then Gareth was kissing him. The ice filling Daryl's muscles melted and he twisted his body between Gareth's and the tree, fighting him. Gareth forced his tongue inside Daryl's mouth and pulled back right before his teeth could come down.

The smile was still on his face. Gareth rolled his head to the right, eyes running over Daryl's face. "You are a fighter. How do you keep doing it?"

"Get off me," Daryl growled. There was a note of panic there that he hated even as it came out. He shoved his body at Gareth's and made the man move an inch, but then he was back against the tree. Gareth's knee popped between his legs, rubbing at him. Daryl's throat tightened as he felt the first stirrings in his cock.

Gareth felt the change and pressed himself to Daryl's hip. His voice was still calm, but there seemed to be more air in it. "Your people destroyed everything. I'm so hungry and tired and alone and I bet you are, too."

"You don't know nothin'," Daryl spat. "Get away from me."

"I don't care. Idon'tcareIdon'tcareIdon'tcare." Gareth's knee moved between Daryl's legs and a small sound came out of Daryl's throat. "I am just so empty without them."

Gareth took Daryl's silence as a go-ahead and kissed him again. Daryl didn't do anything. To join in or stop this. Gareth's lips moved against his, worked his mouth open. His tongue dipped inside - tasted - Daryl's mouth. He released Daryl's wrist to grab his hip. Holding him, Gareth thrust against him.

Daryl's breathing was loud when the kiss broke. Gareth's lips looked even more swollen than they had before and the thought crossed his mind that they must hurt. Eyes half closed, Gareth let out a breathy moan that sent a jolt through Daryl's body. "I don't care. This isn't revenge. This isn't anything but what I need.

"Is anyone going to come looking for you if you're a little late getting back?" Gareth's eyes opened all the way, zeroing in on Daryl.

The question was so outside the realm of anything Daryl expected that he found himself shaking his head in answer. Daryl felt Gareth's body move against him as he chuckled. Gareth slid his hand around from Daryl's hip between his legs. A long moan was Daryl's only response to the touch through his pants. Gareth kissed him again.

"Fuck," Daryl moaned. It had been so long since he'd even let himself think about anything like this. Before the end of the world, long.

Gareth squeezed and massaged him through the jeans. He put his mouth right beside Daryl's ear. "Please...I need this so bad...need you...I need to feel and forget and..."

Daryl swallowed. He knew that he should have been thinking about the people back in the church - his family - but it was getting so hard to think of anything other than the hard body pressed against him. What he really needed to do was finish his rounds and get back to them. They needed him more than he needed to do this.

Another darker, more selfish part of himself spoke up. Every one of them could easily take care of themselves if anything happened while he was out here. Why in the hell couldn't he let himself have just this one little thing? Daryl answered with the fact that Gareth had been planning on killing them and doing God only knew what with their bodies. And so the argument went on until Gareth slid down, tugging open Daryl's belt and jeans.

Daryl watched him do it, but in the back of his mind, he still saw that room they'd run into during the escape. Ribcages hanging on hooks. Like meat. Why would they do that? What kind of sick –

His cock came out so hard and then there was Gareth's tongue – his mouth. Daryl touched Gareth's head, careful to keep it light as if holding him too tight might make the dream shatter. He'd wake curled up and alone on one of the pews in the church and –

Gareth didn't stop, only forcing Daryl's cock further into his mouth. Daryl's head rolled back against the tree and a shiver went through him as Gareth moaned, the vibration spreading all through his cock. He looked down when Gareth slid back, pressing kisses down the underside of Daryl's cock to his balls.

"Oh, fuck..." Gareth had opened his pants when Daryl wasn't looking and his hand was currently shoved deep inside them. He kept on pressing wet, sloppy kisses to Daryl's balls while his fingers worked inside of him. Gareth's eyes closed. "Want...I need..."

Daryl nodded. "Yeah."

Gareth grabbed Daryl's hips and used them to pull himself up. He pressed his lips to Daryl's again. Gareth rubbed his cock on Daryl's and let out a breathy moan. "Want you...please..."

He pulled Daryl away from the tree and Daryl realized that if he was going to do something to fight back against Gareth, the time would be now. He didn't. Something else inside him had taken over and all Daryl could do was watch as Gareth leaned forward against the tree. The man shoved his pants down and rocked a little on his feet.

Gareth let out another moan that went straight to his cock. That something had Daryl lick his hand and hock a blob of spit into his palm. He ran it over his cock and then pushed a finger into Gareth. Gareth pressed his face to the tree.

"Mmm, don't...don't worry about that...just, hurt me...come on. Please, Archer..." Gareth stopped moving. "Hey, what was your name?"

Daryl stepped up behind him, nerves twisting his stomach into tight knots like they always did with this. "Daryl."

Gareth looked over his shoulder, that beautiful lip between his teeth. It slid between them and he said, "Fuck me, Daryl. Make me feel you."

One hand on Gareth's hip and the other on his cock, Daryl worked on doing just that. After only a short while, Gareth was rolling his face against the tree in a way that had to hurt – had to be scraping the skin off him – but he didn't seem to notice if it did. Other than Gareth, Daryl found that he couldn't hear any other sounds. No footsteps on dead leaves or undead groaning in the night. Things he'd become very used to hearing.

Still fucking Gareth into the tree, he gave the surrounding area a quick look. Nothing and then he caught it: movement. It was a good ways off, but just the sight of one of those things stumbling through the trees made his balls tighten and not in a particularly good way. He slowed and Gareth glanced at him. The man leaned a little around the tree to see what was taking Daryl's attention away from him.

"Fuck," he moaned and Daryl felt the muscles in Gareth's ass tighten around him. He rocked harder against Daryl, fucking himself harder on Daryl's cock. "Goddamn...monsters..."

Keeping his eyes on the one in the distance, Daryl gripped Gareth's hips and really laid into him. Gareth hugged the tree and his head dropped to hang limp on his neck. He moaned through the harsher pace. The thing that had been a person shambled slowly in their direction and Daryl realized one very big thing: he didn't care.

If it did reach them – if it tore them to bits – what was that? Death? Death meant nothing in this new world except no more running, only walking. No more fighting, only biting. And the most important thing: the dead don't have to worry about their kind trying to kill them.

So why'd he spend all this time running from death? Always fighting against its gnashing teeth as if this world was any better than theirs? As if there was any difference between the worlds anymore?

At some point, Gareth had started stroking his own cock and when he came, he pulled Daryl along, too. Daryl grunted and groaned as he spilled, sounding like one of them and not caring one bit about it. He would be dead soon enough, so it was just one less difference between him and them.

The silence that fell after was a thick one, broken only by the soft groan of the walker coming for them. Once upon another time, it had been a woman – went shopping, made dinners – but now she was nothing. Her blonde hair had become only ashy wisps in the time since her departure and the floral dress that hung to her knees was torn and muddy. It made Daryl sad to see her like this, to know that this was what awaited them all in the end.

Daryl reluctantly pulled away from Gareth and grabbed his jeans. Gareth hung heavy on the tree for another second before hitching his pants up with one hand. With the other, he reached beneath the neck of his jacket to pull a knife the length of his forearm from where it had been hidden down his back. He used it to split her forehead in two before Daryl could retrieve his knife. Still holding the blade, he buttoned and zipped his pants.

Leaning against the tree, Gareth watched Daryl adjust his clothes. "If I had anything left to bet, I'd say that the people you're with won't let me join your merry men even if I begged on my hands and knees."

Keeping his eyes on the ground, but Gareth in his periphery, Daryl said, "Rick would kill you the second he saw you. You said you're alone...no one else from Terminus made it out?"

Gareth shook his head. "I stayed around Terminus for a bit, killing things and watching the fires go out. I couldn't find anyone else. What we did there, it wasn't because we liked hurting people. Everything I ever did in Terminus was for the safety of the people I care about. All of them are gone, now. Any of those people you're with...are they your family? Blood family, I mean."

Daryl glanced at him. He was finding it harder and harder to look at the man. "I had a brother in the beginning, but..."

"Man or monster?" Gareth smiled and it was a bitter thing.

For just one second, Daryl was back at the granary, Merle stumbling toward him blind of everything but the hunger consuming him. He blinked and it was gone. He dragged his eyes up to Gareth and there was something there that made Gareth's body tense as if readying to get out of reach. "An asshole shot him in the chest so that he'd turn. I put him down. The rest aren't blood, but they're family to me. I can't help you. Why did you have body parts hanging – "

Daryl felt the explosion before he heard it. Dread washed through his stomach as he looked in the direction of the church. It wasn't really that far off and he could see the fire through the trees. Daryl scooped up his bow and took off.

The fire on the broken church was so bright. Walkers had taken over the clearing and Daryl whacked the closest with his crossbow. He ran toward the church and the screams he could hear coming from inside. The front door opened and Carol was the first one out. A scream drew his attention to a person under several burning walkers, but he couldn't see who it was. Daryl made it several steps toward them before a hand grabbed his arm.

The smooth voice said, "It's not nearly as big as the fire at Terminus, but I guess it'll do."

Everything went black.

Sneak peek from the next part, going up Wednesday:

Chapter 2: Fireside

Everything below the knee had disappeared, replaced by a poorly wrapped bandage that was dripping a trail over the ground. He didn't move when they dropped him.