Once Bitten, Twice Died
By Cider Sky
On a level of simple personal survival, understanding and forgiveness are crucial...
- Edward Albert
Finally, they began to treat him like before; before a Walker sunk it's rotted teeth into him.
He figured the turning point had been when they were forced to move camp after a close call with a small herd of Walkers.
Daryl had been right there with them, fighting the undead bastards off with the same fervor as before, his aim deadly and his ability to dispatch the undead unmatched.
They had all piled into their cars while he collected his arrows and for a moment he was sure they were using the attack as an opportunity to finally dump his infected ass.
Instead, Glenn beckoned him from the RV, urging him to move.
"Daryl, c'mon, let's go!"
He hopped into the RV and noted that, for the first time, no one was going out of their way to avoid him, to touch him.
Glenn collapsed into the small kitchenette seats, exhausted, sitting across from Maggie who had drawn her knees to her chest.
Daryl stood, not used to being in such close quarters with them, not wanting to be.
"God, that was close." Andrea muttered as she checked her rifle over, bumping shoulders with him as she moved around the rumbling RV.
It wasn't much, but damn, it was a start.
He couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take the nauseating smells of baked beans and instant soups.
So, he picked up his crossbow and decided to go hunting. He needed something substantial. He needed meat, fresh meat.
"Where are you going? You're not – you know," Glenn paused, taking in the crossbow, the purposeful stride. The kid thought he was leaving and honestly, he was surprised anyone would stop him if he chose to, "- you don't have to –"
"I ain't leaving. Goin' huntin'." Daryl grunted before continuning towards the woods, all too aware of the fact that Dale was watching from a fold-out and Rick and Lori were listening in, though they were doing their best to appear as though Carl's homework was extremely engaging for all three of them.
"Can I – I mean – someone should go with, right?" Daryl stopped, cocking an eyebrow.
"No way." Maggie stopped pretending to stoke the fire, brushing her hands off before she stood, crossing the gap between them with a few short steps.
"Maggie –" Glenn started. Daryl rolled his eyes, huffing as he turned away. Though the girl hadn't expressly told him anything, he knew where she stood. He could see in the way she watched him so nervously, how she was careful not to touch him.
It was Maggie and Shane. It seemed they would be the hardest to win over, not that he was going to bend over backwards to do anything about it. He couldn't give a shit, not anymore. Shane never liked him anyway and there was no way in hell he was going to change anything now.
Whatever, it was absolutely mutual; he didn't trust the other man, didn't believe any one of those lies that came from his mouth.
"You can't go with him. He's dang-" Glenn pulled her aside, looking more annoyed with her than anyone's ever seen.
"No, Maggie, he's not. He got bit saving my ass back there. Would you say the same thing if it had been me?" She didn't answer but it was clear enough.
"We'll be back before dusk." He gave her a small smile and ran after the retreating hunter.
The hunt was mostly carried out in silence but neither man was really looking to make conversation. The group had enough going on, Lori's growing stomach being the focal point of most conversations these days, and it was nice to just be quiet,
They managed a few squirrels and a stray hare but the real payoff came when he spotted the young buck. It was lean and wouldn't provide as much meat as they needed but it was something.
It was an easy kill and true to Glenn's word, they were back at camp before dusk.
The prospect of fresh meat was far too exciting a thing and Daryl found himself being thanked and praised, as though they hadn't spent the better part of two weeks ignoring him.
He wondered if they knew how twisted their actions were and then he realized how stupid a thought that was.
Of course they didn't know. He had never met a group of people more self-absorbed and caught up in everyone else's problems than this one.
The night progressed as though it had never happened, as though the past few weeks had been a weird hallucination. They laughed and chatted, mostly amicably, and gushed over how good it felt to eat fresh meat, how they would all sleep well tonight.
But Daryl didn't share the sentiment.
The venison, something he had always enjoyed, tasted like dirt. He chewed it, trying to understand what was wrong. Had it gone bad? No, no one else seemed to notice and he had butchered the animal himself.
The meat was fine.
But still, it tasted gritty and flavorless, smelled and tasted too bitter. One bite and he was back to thoughts of powdered eggs and Spam, his stomach turn violently.
He forced himself to swallow, refusing to loose his stomach contents in front of the group, and pushed his share aside, a low frustrated growl emanating from his throat.
It was getting to him, the hunger. He hadn't eaten in well over five days and every little thing was setting him off.
He tried his best, not wanting to scare anyone. No matter how they acted towards him now, he knew it was still there, that wary fear.
But fuck, it was frustrating. Nothing tasted right; venison, hare, squirrel, hell he had even tried frog, but it was all the same.
He figured, the way he was going, starvation wasn't far off, and wouldn't that just be a giant 'fuck you' from the universe.
He was gutting a particularly fat hare he had caught when the thought occurred to him.
The stench of blood was overpowering, giving the air a metallic quality and, he was willing to admit for a short moment, intoxicating.
He had eaten raw game before, mostly in the name of survival. He knew that if you did it right, if you didn't let the exterior of the animal contaminate its insides, if you didn't puncture the organs, it was relatively sterile.
He couldn't help but let out a morbid chuckle at that. What could possibly make him sick, now? He was infected with whatever had taken mankind down. E. Coli could kiss his ass.
The thought of food, of being satisfied was too much and he threw all caution to the wind, not giving a single fuck over the fact that he was sitting right there in the middle of the camp.
He plunged a hand into the hare's abdomen, rooting around and pulling out the meaty pulp of a kidney.
Without a second thought, he popped the morsel into his mouth, not even bothering to wipe the blood that was dribbling down his chin
And damn.
He had never tasted anything so good in his whole mess of a life. He let loose a relaxed sigh as he chewed, eyes drifting shut.
It was as though it was brining him back to life, peeling away the exhaustion and the fatigue that had settled in his muscles, clearing the cobwebs from his head.
A shocked silence fell over the camp and there was no doubt in his mind that it was because of him.
Hellwiththem, he thought. It was too damn good.
"Dude." Finally, after several mouthfuls of blissful, uninterrupted eating, Daryl looked up at the camp.
Lori looked shocked, a little perturbed before firmly telling Carl to shush when he let loose a small, "Ewww!"
Carol and Rick looked, well, they looked as though they had known all along. Andrea gave him a once over and then appeared disinterested, but Glenn, his forehead was wrinkled in disgust and his mouth open in a grimace.
"That's disgusting."
They got used to it, as strange as it had initially seemed.
Even Shane, who had been certain this was just another sign that things were not okay, stopped complaining.
It became normal.
On nights Daryl came back from a successful hunt, he would cook a portion of the meat, most of it, and leave some uncooked for himself.
No one really said anything anymore.
He never said a damned thing about how good they all smell to him, however. How, more than once, he's nearly taken a bite from each of them.
They really don't need to know about that, he reckons.
On days of a failed hunt, or when they've been hunkered down for too long, someone will get close and he'll be able to smell them, their sweat and even the blood in their veins, and he swears on his life he can hear their hearts beating.
He grinds his teeth and hates himself for salivating.
But he never does it, will never do it.
"The Walker Stalker."
The conversation was mildly interesting, at best, but it wasn't until the next bit that he figured he should be worried,
"Oh, good one, how about, The Darylnator."
He stopped mid cut, knife just at the squirrel's ribcage, and lifted his head.
"Too lazy."
Carl and Glenn were hunched over no more than 10 feet away from him, separated by a small thicket of bushes. He supposed they thought he was out hunting because what were they talking about? Superheroes? Again?
"The Dixonator?"
Daryl rolled his eyes and stabbed his knife into the tree. This was getting ridiculous.
"You're really bad at this."
"What are you two goin' on about?" Glenn and Carl whipped around, looking for all the world like they had been caught doing something bad.
"The Dixonator?" Glenn looked down and then fixed him with that puppy dog look, sheepish and helpless.
"Okay, I know I said I would stop comparing you to a superhero, but, hear me out, I think you might actually be one -"
Carl nudged the older man in the ribs, effectively cutting him off.
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry."
But Daryl shrugged and Glenn could swear he could see a slight upturn of his lips as the hunter turned to Carl.
"Walker Stalker. Not bad."
"I was bitter." Andrea came up and said to him one day, as if explaining her behavior for the past weeks. As if it made up for everything.
But it did.
It explained all of it, those quick glances, the painfully executed avoidances, the fact that she wasn't exactly being cruel to him.
"I couldn't look at you and not think about Amy, just when I thought I was moving on –" Her eyes were rimmed red, puffy; it looked as though she had been up all night crying.
"I was mad at you. Mad that for some reason you survived and Amy didn't, I should've been grateful that you were okay and – I'm sorry." When he didn't say anything she seemed to remember the satchel on her shoulder.
She pulled out a small bundle of crossbow bolts
"I should piss you off more often." Daryl said, reaching forward to take the arrows. He figured it had something to do with the world she came from before, back when she was some high and mighty lawyer, the way she felt the need to give him something to make right by him.
She watched as he turned them over in his hands, bent them slightly, and checked the tips.
"Found them on a run with Shane, thought you might like them. I noticed yours were looking a little beat." She was right; his bolt's days were numbered.
She started to turn away but Daryl stopped her.
"Hold up." It came out before he had time to really think about it, his voice low, rough.
"If I could switch places with her, with Amy, I would."
He could see the tears forming in her eyes and she sniffed, rubbing a hand across them.
He ducked his head in a small nod, not one for dealing with crying women, and headed off, across the field, to break in those new arrows.
Things changed again when they found out that the Walkers had no interest in Daryl.
They'd sniff at him, look him up and down, but ultimately would become disinterested, further proving that whatever Daryl was now, it wasn't completely human.
He couldn't sleep that night, or the night after.
"You are." He didn't know when the woman had become a damned mind reader and so in tune with his subconscious, but he wasn't sure he liked it.
"Human, that is." Carol went back to folding his shirts and they never spoke of it again.
He stopped hiding his scar.
It hadn't been a big thing; he hadn't even thought about it. It was almost like he just forgot one day.
And it wasn't even the scar that drew the most attention.
"Oh my God!" Andrea gasped, mischief clear in her eyes, "The sleeves! They're gone!"
Lori and Carol chuckled along with her and Daryl rolled his eyes.
"Ya'll got nothin' better to do than worry over a man's sleeves? Good Lord."
That only made them laugh harder but he wasn't complaining.
It came in handy, his apparent invisibility to Walkers.
He could walk right up to one, damn near shake it's hand and then kill it with a Q-tip if he wanted.
He would never say it out loud, but it took all the fun away from killing 'em and it really made no difference for the rest of the group.
Walkers still chased and hunted them down.
It didn't make a difference until the day their efforts to knock over the local surpluss store went to terribly wrong.
Carl, trying to do his part in protecting the group, got himself separated from them, from his parents.
And it could have ended so terribly. Could have. Daryl never thought he would be fucking thankful for this thing inside him.
"Carl!" Rick shouted, blowing a Walker's head clean off. They were relentless, uncountable.
Carl had backed himself into a small crawl space, out of sight of the others as the Walkers swarmed, groping and grabbing.
"Carl! My baby! Let me go, Rick! Carl –"Daryl could hear Lori's shouts from across the store, though he couldn't see the panicked mother, couldn't risk calling out, being as close as he was to Carl's position.
He crouched down, mostly out of habit because he knew those thing shad no interest in him, not anymore, and made his way to the spot he knew Carl to be.
The kid gasped, holding out that pistol before breaking into a wide smile.
"Daryl! I –"
"Listen to me, okay? Just be quiet, keep your head down and don't say a word, got it?" He said somewhat roughly but this was no time to be gentle with the kid.
Carl understood though, nodding, wanting to show him that he could be an adult too, that he could do something scary and not be afraid.
He motioned the kid onto his back, crouching down long enough for the kid to get a proper hold, and stood, crossbow in front of him, Carl's small arms wrapped around his neck.
They made their way slowly through the other side of the department store, through a damned herd.
Carl clung to him, his arms too tight around his throat, but Daryl didn't say anything.
The Walkers stopped occasionally, eyeing the strange package on the man's back as he literally pushed his way through. When one or two of them got a little too close, a little too interested he would stop, staring it down, waiting for it make a move, and when it eventually turned away, he would continue.
Blood and guts covered the floor and every so often something would crunch under his feet. And the smell –
The whole place was abuzz with flies and the smell was enough to bring anyone to tears.
It felt so wrong, to be brushing against these things, walking amongst them, and to not be attempting to kill them.
He didn't dare to think what this meant for his humanity; to really, really explore that would be too much.
"Daryl –" Carl whispered when one got too close, hand out as if to touch, to explore this strange thing on the man's back, but Daryl shushed him. The exit was just ahead, only a few more steps.
Finally, they made it to the door, but he didn't dare pick up the pace or allow the kid to get to his own feet.
They still had to meet up with the others, at the rendezvous point that had decided upon, and the parking lot was thick with Walkers.
It took longer than he would've wanted, the pace grueling and slow, but they made it.
Carl crawled down, throwing himself forward, at his mother and father and the rest of the group. He couldn't help the small, fleeting smirk as he watched them crowd around the kid.
"That was incredible!" Glenn offered as he approached.
"I've never seen anything like that before," Andrea was beside herself as she stood beside Carol, both wiping at tears that were no longer needed, they had all been sure, so sure … "they didn't even look –"
"We were watching," Dale said as he held up binoculars, "we couldn't believe what we were seeing!"
"I'm okay, really - they didn't bother us, mom, we just walked right through –" Carl regaled them from his place, squashed between his parents.
Even Shane, who had been watching with mixed emotions, spoke up.
"That was - something." Daryl took it for what it was, for it was all he was going to get from the other man.
That night Lori gave him the most bone-crushing hug he had ever received, her hand cupping his jaw when she finally pulled away.
"Thank you, for everything." He gave a small nod and turned to walk away but she wouldn't allow it. If there was something he liked about her it was that she was determined, when she had something in mind, she pursued it. "Hey, I know you have a hard time with this but you have to know, there is nothing I take more seriously than my son."
He watched her, careful to keep his expression in check, because he had no clue where she was going with this.
"There aren't many people I trust completely with my Carl's safety, but you, I trust him with you."
Daryl suddenly felt very exposed, very aware of the scar on his arm, very aware of the way the moonlight tended to play off his eyes (Carl, actually, had been the one to mention it) and he suspected Lori could see it.
She was good that way.
She quickly made her exit, not wanting to hold him emotionally hostage.
"I just thought you should know that."
Later, when he had had time to process the day Rick, too, came to him, thanking him, just like Lori had.
Between the two, he was fairly positive it was the first time anyone had actually expressed gratitude this directly to him in his entire life.
Fuck.
He hardly knew what to do with it, hardly knew what it really meant as words of the past floated around in his head, trying to remind him: worthless.Infected.Dangerous.
"I don't think I can ever repay you, Daryl, for what you did."
"Ain't like they were gonna' come after me." He grunted because, well, it was true.
"I know, but I don't think it matters, don't think you had to do anything about it if you didn't want to." The two men stared into the fire. It was Daryl's watch and it seemed to be the only time he got any peace, anymore, but Rick, Rick didn't bother him. The man always had enough to worry about, too much to get on his ass about every little thing.
"I don't pretend to know what your going through, to know what it's like," Daryl could at least appreciate the fact that the man did his best to avoid looking down, at that scar, like everyone else seemed to do, "but I do know that you're as much apart of this as anyone else … maybe even moreso."
They sat in silence for the rest of Daryl's watch and when Rick finally slipped away, muttering a small 'goodnight', the hunter leaned back to stare up at the stars.