So, this ended up being more than a drabble, thus I am a few days late for Halloween.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
"Right On Time"
The doe never saw it coming.
She had been quietly feeding among the trees, grateful for a moment of respite from the creatures who were even more terrifying now (not that her kind had been given much of a break from them before) than they had been when metal would catch the unsuspecting, not teeth. She had only sensed the barest hint of the predator when it lunged out of the night. Her death was quick and clean, the best kind of death anything could hope for in this new world that was actually more old than new. She didn't even have time to register pain before the remains of her severed head hit the forest floor.
If she could have seen, could have heard, her assailant she would have thanked the universe even more for her quick death. A chimera lumbered over her remains. The face of some disfigured feline, skin and scale spotted with patches of course brown fur. Six long filaments jutting from around the mouth, looking to all the world like something better suited on a catfish than a land based animal. Body the same awkward mix of scarred skin, scales, and patches of fur. Though the separation of the three seemed more deliberate on the body. Puny wings stuck out on the back, waving futility in the late night air. Never meant for flight, but useful enough for what passed for nature to keep them. Claws and teeth and tail, every bit of a demon out of a campfire tale.
Because it was.
It gulped the essence of life down quickly, wanting to drink as much of the blood as possible before it started to cool. Feeding with a churl and a snorf, slurping greedily but trying to enjoy the rare meal. So good. So needed. Blood and flesh it had been craving desperately. Desperately enough that it had almost slipped.
The great head lifted, muzzle covered in sticky bits of liquid and flesh, and it peered intently in the direction it had come from. There was a church, holy ground, down that way. Just a little, white church; maybe even desecrated enough that it could have entered. There were people there, milling inside and out. They smelled so good, delicious mix of fear and sex. It had needed to find food, quickly, lest it make the mistake of attempting to take on that group.
They were hunters. Ferocious hunters on par with himself. They had younglings, and he had never liked harming the young. There were other reasons. Reasons Merle would have laughed at him for, not that Merle would have had much room to speak. Those people were family, and Daryl loved them deeply.
They had always been alone in the world, he and Merle. The demon that birthed them had died a pitiful death, unbefitting for one of her kind. Drunk and engulfed in flame. Somewhere God had been laughing when she died, of that he was sure. Their crazy daddy hadn't know how to raised halfbreeds. He'd cut it into them that they had to stay hidden. No matter how painful it was to keep up the mask of humanity, daddy made it hurt even worse to let their claws out.
Momma's kin had fallen from grace so long ago, and the world just wasn't the same. Hell, it wasn't the same as it had been when momma was a little kit in the times right before the industrial revolution. They couldn't just let loose and stay out away from humanity. Not in an age of social security numbers and public schools. Daddy had done it because he thought he was protecting his boys.
Daddy didn't know nothing about raising no halfbreeds. Merle had been raised enough by momma, and he had been raised by Merle. And in a world where a slip of their true selves would have ended them in an enclosure (or taxidermied), he didn't fault Merle for drinking and drugging his pain away. He was just taking care of Merle the way Merle had taken care of him.
Daddy was ashamed of his own weakness, a weakness that birthed two halfbreeds. Daddy loved them. Daddy didn't care about them. Daddy loved them. Daddy didn't know how to raise them. Daddy loved them.
A sharp snap of his tail, cracking like a whip, sent the head of the doe flying into the undergrowth.
He was pretty sure he would never come to terms with his pa. A man who loved a demon, but was afraid of his half demon brats. Who always made sure they had books, but not always that they had food. Who had sent Merle to his first stint in juvie for killing the neighbor's goat (and oh the story he'd cooked up to explain it to the law) to feed them, but who gave his own life at the end to help get Merle out of prison when the horseman of death came a calling.
Maybe. He never knew what to believe about his heritage. If god had thrown his ancestors down or if that was a tall tale to spook the humans. That they had just started believing their own hype. They could breed with 'em. Probably something supernatural. Plus that whole not being to enter holy ground when transformed thing. Then again, they could be infected. Jenner musta had a field day with his test results. Best not think about it too hard. Not when he'd lost himself to the point he'd gnawed his food down to the bone.
Transformation took a lot out of him. Compressing his body into a human form took even more. Guilt wasn't something he should be feeling. He'd needed this meat. And Father Gabriel had provided the food for his family for the time being.
Still, it was no more than two winters ago when they had half starved. It terrified him to think of his little asskicker growing weak and lean. People came to the prison with stories of little ones who had fallen to disease and hunger. The couple who had found them too late to save their child; the little mite dying that very night in the coma he'd never woken from. The collective horror mixing with his childhood issues to form a potent stew of guilt, even though there was no reason for it.
He would find his clothes and bow, find a nice kill. Bring home a bounty to help ease the guilt away. Merle would've laughed. But he would have understood. The Woodburians had had enough stories of Merle going out of his way for them to make him think Merle would have understood.
Eileen had bawled her eyes out one night, mourning his brother's passing almost as much as her husband's. Clutching that little box of baby clothes Merle had gotten for her on a special run like it was salvation. Fuck, the world was cruel. Even crueler that she never got to use those clothes. They'd found her dead in her cell, not turned yet, one morning. Herschel said probably a clot. Said pregnant women were prone to them. There had been nothing anyone could have done. Yada yada, fuck whatever ran the universe.
The sudden and powerful longing to get back to his family didn't come as a surprise.
He didn't hesitate to thrust his claws into the soil, burying the tiny remnants of his kill so it didn't attract any other predators in the area. Sure, a little bit of the dirt might survive to his human form, but his new family was used to seeing him mangy and dirty. Hell, he was pretty sure they had started planning the wedding when he'd combed his hair for Carol back on the farm.
Carol. Fuck, but that woman would be the death of him. She was a weeble, push her over and she came right back up. Too good for that bastard husband of hers. He should have given the walkers who ate Ed flowers, not bullets. Too good for a monster like him.
Not that it had stopped him from initiating a mating stance a few days ago. Damned good thing no one knew what he was. Or, if they suspected it, that they didn't seem to know demon customs. The partner seeking a union was traditionally supposed to show submission to their prospective partner. He couldn't help himself, laying his head on her shoulder like he did. He wanted her to accept him, form a union with him, live the rest of their lives as a unit. Daryl and Carol, even their names sounded like they belonged together. Glenn teased him enough as it was without that information, thank you.
Who was he fooling? If she could see him right now; gorged on a fresh kill, tail snapping in the breeze, she'd run the other way. Rick would send him away. Or the group as a whole would send him away. They'd probably accuse him of eating Beth. He wouldn't blame them at all. Simple bad press or no (and, no, not all of it was made up), he was far more terrifying than some dumb, dead bastards. If that happened? Honestly, he'd probably throw himself to the nearest herd and be done with it.
He was an outdoor cat so starved for affection that he was clinging to the screen door of their group, hanging on for whatever scraps he could get. To the point he was ready to die at Terminus, as a human and with family, than live to be rejected. He couldn't have saved them all, anyway. Maybe one or two of the others. Maybe. Terminus had a lot of fire power. They had gotten away because his intended could be the kind of woman that nightmares had nightmares about. And if he had turned, managed to not get gunned down, and saved who he could? He wasn't strong enough to face the disgust he would have seen in their eyes.
Selfish Daryl fucking Dixon. Like the county lawman had always said. The prick of a pig shoulda just shot him and been done with it.
The night was becoming oppressive. The strain of hunting in his underused form, and the stress of an unrequited mating display, were weighing on him. He needed to get his clothes. He needed to get the damned hunting done to quiet some of the louder ghosts in his machine. He needed…
He needed to rip the head off the demon bitch who was stalking too close to his family.
She had come out of the trees a few yards ahead of him, head high and scenting the air. The wind was picking up, driving the scent of his people and dispersing it in a greater radius. Her wings were held high in a claiming gesture. This bitch had caught the trail and was heading straight for the people he cared for. Straight for the younglings. And his intended mate.
Blood from an earlier meal streaked across the creamy skin of her chest, splashed across the scales of one shoulder, and disappeared into a patch of silver fur. Something more of an insult that she was hunting his nearest and dearest just to stock her larder. Her wings said that she meant to have them, that she would fight any of her own kind that stood in her way.
Hell of a sense of timing. He'd never met another demon outside of his kin, the few of his momma's people who would come see them. Looked for the signs of one most of his life. Though, hell, demons smelled human in human form. He could have passed 'em every day of his life before the outbreak and not known it. He finally gets to see another of his kind up close and in the flesh as an adult (He's pretty sure his memories of his grandparents are distorted. He remembers them being bigger and fiercer than he grew up to be. But they were pure and he's just a halfbreed. So, yeah.) and he'd probably have to kill her.
Well, he'd die before he let her get close to Carol. Might as well be ready to make her die instead.
Daryl rushed forward; he was upwind and he was going to use the element of surprise before he lost it. Which is why the muscular leg kicking back and catching him directly in his face surprised him so much. She didn't follow the action with a pounce while he was down. Probably thought she could bluff him into backing off, wanting a lazy kill. He'd make sure she regretted her unintentional mercy.
Lashing his whiplike appendage out, the end of his tail flew true and cut into her thigh. The cry he expected never came. Good thing, it might have driven some of the group out here to them. An outcome he hadn't thought about when he was deciding to attack. Dixons didn't do diplomacy. Smart girl, smarter than him he'd wager. He'd give her that. But he wouldn't give her anything more. The wind around them was picking up. He needed to get her off of his territory before a storm came in.
"If you're trying to claim those people in the church you can stop now. They don't belong to you," she hissed out through her gritted fangs. Her stance had shifted into a defensive one. Coiled up and ready to fight and tear to keep what she claimed if he made another move. She was obviously waiting to see if he'd try attacking again. "They're mine."
Springing up, he closed the gap between them. She crouched more, not willing to chance him getting in another easy shot. But not swinging yet, either. Her hesitance made him think he could still drive her off without anyone else being alerted. She was desperately trying to avoid a fight while keeping her claim.
"The hell they are. I laid claim on them awhile ago, Elvira. Gotta a mating claim going on one of the women. Best be backing off, bitch."
He had expected her to back off, or maybe swing. Going after someone else's mate was the kind of thing that could get the community at large gunning for you. Or so his uncle had told him. But they could be infected, and the community at large had been decimated the same as the humans. There was no recourse to be had if she managed to drag Carol out into the night.
Daryl was prepared for either action she might take. She could slink off or there would be one less demon in the world. Hell, there might be one less demon in the world on the principle of the thing. The confusion in her eyes followed by derisive laughter? Now that threw him off.
"Pookie?" She teased, easing her stance. And, oh damn. Really? Really?! If Andrea were alive and standing here she'd tell him to be observant. The universe just couldn't ever decide if it loved him or hated him. "A correction. Just because you do a mating stance, and throw a water jug, doesn't mean you have a claim. Though I'm pretty sure I can learn to live with the love now that I know your intentions."
She backed away from him, never taking her eyes off of his. Even as pain drove across her face, the crack and crunch of transformation filling the air, she kept her eyes on his. He knew she was something special before this, alright. Now? Now he was ready to drop down on his knees and propose they raise a passel of bad ass kits together.
As the last few scales receded she rightened herself to a more human stance. Damn. Damn. Fuck, this woman. He wanted to fuck this woman. Daryl was ready to take back every bad thing he said about god ever if Carol would agree to have him. He'd thought she was the total package before. How wrong and how right he'd been.
Of course he would have to see her naked for the first time after finding out she was absolutely perfect. And she was. Scars crested across her body, but they gave her character. Some of them were old scars, from before her asshole husband had come into her life. It just made him want to caress the proof she was a survivor even more. He willed his body to behave. Not that his body ever listened to him.
Daryl blessed her tact as she made a point to look at his face. Even though it was obvious he was taking in a good glance. Committing her to memory. Internally commissioning an oil painting of her lying across a chaise, one hand delicately draped across her eyes, the other lazily stroking his fur, his head lying indecently in her lap as he knelt beside her. filaments from his face just brushing the slightest bit against a patch of silver curls…
The woman was gorgeous as a default. Bare, in the moonlight, facing down a demon like some warrior goddess of old? Hell, he could name three people back at camp who would fuck her demonic form if given half a chance.
Fuck, he was going to go need to find a body of cold water soon. There was no way this night could get weirder.
"I think we need to talk," Carol said tactfully.
Nope, there was weirder. Right on time.