AN: so, for any of you that are still reading my fics. I'm sorry i disappeared for so long. Life has been busy, and honestly my feels have been at an all time low. latey i've felt lie dipping my toe back in the water. this fic is based on the Alpha, Beta, omega trope and has nothing to do with the whisperers. it's zombie AU and Daryl and Carol are younger in this fic
I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter 1
xxxxxxxxxx
Daryl Dixon was the first Alpha born into his family in one hundred years. Looking back on it now that was probably why his family hated him so much.
Well maybe not his momma. His memories of his momma where scattered and faint. It was as though they grew fainter with every day that past since her death. Until suddenly he was 27 years old and she'd been dead eighteen years and he hardly remembered her. There was still that feeling though, that warmth, that the fleeting images of her in his mind still fluttered through his stomach. She hadn't hated him, that he knew for certain.
And maybe not Merle either. His brother was a beta like their Daddy. Daryl had always been able to scent the conflict that existed in Merle. His fierce devotion to Daryl was hard to hide. Merle was nothing if not loyal. But Daryl often wondered if that devotion was against Merle's control. Something in his biology that Merle could not control. Nature's instinct, that Merle would feel such loyalty towards Daryl when the gods or fate or whatever the hell ruled the universe and handed out destinies decided that Daryl should be an alpha. Born to be the leader of his family.
Merle, Daryl knew both loved him and hated him for it. Resented the pull and possessiveness he felt towards his brother. Resented the fact that it was Daryl the Alpha not him. Resented the fact that some innate force inside him demanded he pull his daddy away from Daryl when he was beating him and protect his Alpha. Merle has struggled with all of this until, unable to handle the conflict, until one day he'd disappeared. He was just gone. No Merle didn't hate Daryl. It was more complicated than that.
But his Daddy, his daddy had hated Daryl. Hated him with such an intense hatred that only someone of the truest evil could hate his own family member with.
The law provided the ability for Alphas to emancipate at 14. For once in his life Daryl has been thankful for his designation in life. The day of his fourteenth birthday he'd packed his bags, and had hightailed his ass out of that house. His daddy would have kicked him out anyway.
He'd been on his own but, he'd been free.
Daryl pulled himself up, and out of the gutter on his own. He'd finished school on his own, all the while holding down a job, living in a shit hole of a rented room in a building that should have been condemned. Widely known that the scent of Alpha's dissuaded Beta's and Especially omega's from entering a space, criminal enterprises offered reduced rent to emancipated Alpha's to camaflauge their back room business dealings.
Daryl hadn't cared. It was four walls and a roof. He kept to himself. Never feeling the urge to challenge others. Never feeling the need to exert his own dominance.
The population according to most estimates boiled down to about 80 % beta. The most common of the designation. About 15 % worldwide were Alpha's. Like him and 5% of the population were Omega.
Daryl had met omega's although few and far between. Most omegas gave Alpha's a wide berth. The natural mate of an Alpha was an Omega, but nature had it seemed made the ratio of alpha's to Omega's three to one. It was said that an Omega's natural scent was unbearable for a Alpha. The need to possess that scent, to own it, to mark it as their own was an all encompassing need that some Alpha's could not contain.
That had never happened to Daryl. The few Omegas he's had the chance to meet had smelled good, but nothing that had called to him so badly, it had made him loose control.
Still when he's turned 15 he'd taken the government issued suppressants that blocked his natural instincts and desires even though if he had been honest with himself he hadn't needed them. Life was just so much easier if you followed the program, the rules. Doors opened for a suppressed Alpha that would slam in an unsuppresed Alpha's face in fear. So he'd taken them for 12 years while he worked tirelessly to better his own life taking every opportunity afforded him but never once had he felt the need for them. Never once had an omega's scent filled his mind his body with such an intense need and longing.
Not until today. Not until the damn apocalypse had started and it was the end of the world. Not until he'd met her; Carol.
And wouldn't you know the government was gone, and his suppressants had run out two days before she had shown up in camp.
Daryl stared across the quarry camp. She was around his age, but she tried to hide herself in frumpy clothes and a pixie haircut. He knew instinctively what she was doing, trying to hide herself in plain site. She was still blocking. While the government had given Alpha's suppressants they had given Omega's blockers to hide themselves. For protection. She must still had some left. No one in the camp had realized what she was yet.
She was there with some dipshit of a dumpy boyfriend Ed. An asshole Beta, that Daryl was having a hard time controlling the urge to Challenge.
Daryl didn't like the way Ed looked at her. It reminded him of his asshole Beta dad. Daryl did not like the way Ed talked to her, like she was dirt, and Daryl really didn't like the way every moment he spent within range of Carol he was becoming more and more intoxicated by her scent. She was imprinting on him and they hadn't even been in arm's reach of one another. She was gonna run out of blockers and then Daryl would really be in trouble.
He scowled in the darkness and he watched her crawl into the tent with Ed. His fingernails digging so hard into his palm they bleed. One word that he never thought would ever come out of his lips, came out in a husky growl.
"Mine"