oOo

"The hell was that about, Daryl?" Merle barked as soon as they were out of earshot. Irked and not feeling up to it, Daryl prepared himself for an unwanted chiding. "We were 'bout to luck out with them cottonpickers!"

Daryl looked over his shoulder before hissing at his brother, "They got kids, asshole. Need it more than we do."

"That ain't never bothered you before, and that sky-scraping beanstalk was more tower than kid." Merle laughed a single humorless chuckle and sobered up, fixing Daryl with an inquiring stare. "If my memory serves me well, I remember you being 100% in on it right before the deed. The hell changed ya mind?"

Daryl gripped his crossbow and stared ahead, ignoring his brother for the time being, and keeping eyes and ears alert to any biters that could cross their path as they weaved their way through the endless traffic.

His thoughts went back to the encounter.

Sure, at the beginning he'd been game for the robbing stint. He didn't know them. He couldn't begin to care what would happen to them once he and his brother liberated them of their belongings and left them to fend for themselves with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

That's what he'd thought. That's what he told himself a thousand times over. And maybe that mentality came easier for his brother, but for Daryl, his resolve weakened when he saw them up-close and interacting with each other.

He was stabbed with guilt, which only grew overwhelming and sunk deeper into him the longer he stood there.

There had been pain and despair and tears, and Daryl cursed himself for feeling for them, but he did.

And after the girl had proposed an exchange, which he knew to be no good for them, Daryl had found the perfect opportunity to make up an excuse to get him and his brother out of there.

Now Merle wanted justifications and he just couldn't tell him the truth.

"Man, I ain't gotta tell you shit. Ain't gotta justify myself to you." Daryl shrugged off the hand that had found its way to his shoulder, its weight overbearing and accusing. Any second longer and it would've felt like his brother would personally pluck out the truth from his brain.

Merle pulled his lips back in an animal smile, a vague threat behind his words, "The hell you don't. I don't know 'bout you, but I ain't goin' 'round saving people outta the goodness of my heart!"

Merle gripped Daryl by the shoulder, forcefully this time, and turned him around to face him. The momentum threw Daryl against a random car, which shook and squeaked with the weight slammed on it.

"Get off me!" The younger brother lashed out instinctively and pushed Merle off at the same time that a biter from inside the car hurled itself at the rolled up window with a snarl, startling the two brothers. Daryl jumped and raised his cross at the female, while Merle aimed his rifle.

She wasn't a threat, they deemed, and left her behind, banging tirelessly on the glass window.

Daryl stormed off in advance and Merle followed after. "Ah, it's like that, ain't it, baby brother?" he resumed his line of interrogation, "What on this damned earth is wrong with you?"

Daryl whirled around suddenly, almost causing Merle to run into him, and stated clearly, "Fuck off, Merle," before he could stop, one of his thoughts slipped out his mouth, "They didn't even know what the hell was goin' on!" His eyes widened just for the fraction of a second at the slip and he turned back around to resume his stalk.

"Exactly." Merle strutted to his side and presented him with a cold grin. "They ain't gonna make it long as it is, why not end their sufferin' before it even begins, ya know, out of mercy?"

Daryl felt apprehensive at the thought. The notion didn't sit well with him, it made his stomach clench just the tiniest bit. "Like I said, asshole, they needed it more." He hoped the finality in his tone would lead Merle to drop the topic.

"Smell that? I smell bullshit," Merle said theatrically, "Yesterday you didn't open your damn mouth when we stole that 'poor' fucker's stash at gunpoint." He gave a half shrug, mocking nonchalance. "Hell, sweet cheeks was even wantin' to strike a deal. She had balls, that one." He chuckled. "We shoulda taken it and they woulda been none the wiser. We shoulda taken 'em up on their kind counteroffer and they wouldna known shit until it bit 'em right in the ass."

Daryl stopped and stood in his spot, back turned to his brother. His eyes stared unseeing at a baby bottle at his feet.

It was true, he didn't necessarily have to tell that family about the city, especially after Merle had clearly signaled him not to.

He had blatantly ignored his brother and felt a strange compulsion to speak the truth, to spare those people some bit of misery, because God knows, and he himself had witnessed, they were going through enough shit as it was.

So, yeah, he had spared them out of sympathy and compassion, and there was no way in hell Merle was going to hear word of his true reasons.

"They were pathetic," he started, feeling the excuse rolling out his mouth with flawless execution, "I ain't some fucking coward to attack defenseless people," he lied through his teeth. Not only had the man from the day before been unarmed but the father from the family, standing at the back, armed with only a bat and a seething glare, had looked the very opposite of pathetic.

Even the rest of his family, through watery eyes and anguished expressions, had managed to stand their ground against two armed strangers and their far-fetched demands.

The girl at the front rising virtuously from her deeply intimate emotional breakdown to stand toe to toe with him was surprising enough, but it was the vulnerability in her eyes hidden by a thin layer of courage as she held herself high that had spoken to him the most. His stomach had knotted when he'd seen her. It had vaguely reminded him of his young self, staring up at his old man after a beating, trying to hide the hurt behind defiance.

So he'd acted according to his gut.

"Who gives a shit?" Merle snapped and kicked away the baby bottle unintentionally in his stride, bringing Daryl's attention to the outside world once again.

Daryl avoided his gaze, half out of anger, half out of shame. Shame of what? He wasn't sure.

Something clicked in Merle's brain. "Was it the girl?" When Daryl's shoulders visibly and unavoidably tensed at the spot-on guess, Merle laughed sardonically and threw an arm over his little brother's shoulders in mocking camaraderie. "Oh, baby brother, your lil bleedin' heart is gonna be the death of you. If all it took for you to back off was that blasted girl flashing her pretty peepers at you, then the world is gonna screw you like a cheap whore at every turn."

Daryl slapped his brother's arm away and glared pure ice at him. "Don't talk about shit you know nothing 'bout," he warned. Merle let it go with a final chuckle as if the whole situation was clear to him now. Daryl was aware of his assumptions but didn't bother to correct them, allowing the subject to die right there.

oOo

They made it to the pick-up truck in relative silence and only one other biter encounter along the way, which had been swiftly dealt with. Daryl wanted to put the thought of the family to rest, resigned with never seeing them again.

Merle had grumbled the entire time, mostly to himself, but loud enough for Daryl to hear, and it had annoyed him to no end, bringing him to the verge of smacking him.

Hopping over the road partition, Daryl took a quick peek at the back of the truck, satisfied to see it was still there; the aforementioned stash of food and supplies stolen the day before. Their personal pot of gold, the jackpot of the apocalypse.

Merle had been reluctant to park on the empty lanes. It had felt exposed and risky, but they'd found a spot next to some broken down cars that helped camouflage their truck with their uselessness.

Their goal had been to comb through the gridlock on the lookout for salvageable goods, expecting to find trucks ripe with non-perishables and other good shit other people might have left behind as they fled. Most of it had been left untouched over the last two weeks.

They'd been expecting the inevitable biter encounters, as had been the case; the sons of bitches were everywhere. What they hadn't expected was to find a family fighting for their lives against a sizeable group of them.

Daryl hadn't given them much thought, and had intended to leave them be and go on his way, but his brother's mind had started cooking up something the second he'd laid his eyes on them. So they'd waited in the figurative shadows and devised a plan.

A plan, which had gone down the drain when the other party had presented itself to be more strong-willed than they'd thought.

There had been mixed signals about how the whole spiel would end, but in the end, the family had been imprudently steadfast. I mean, who the hell negotiates with armed people? That girl, apparently.

And thanks to Daryl, they'd gone unpunished throughout the whole thing, only suffering mild emotional trauma from the harsh reality laid upon them. Could've been worse.

Now, despite his brother's conjectures and interrogation of his state of mind and will, Daryl felt somewhat lighter as the cause of his actions.

They were about to drive away, Merle at the wheel, when Daryl saw something that made his jaw literally drop open with an almost audible pop.

"Gotta be fucking kidding me…" he whispered, taking his feet off the dashboard and sitting up straight.

Merle turned his attention to him and looked in the rear-view mirror, letting out a whoop at what he saw.

They were gaining on them, running at full speed, but still hindered by their baggage. Daryl felt like smacking himself in the face. The girl led the way, father hot on her heels. She waved one arm in the air to attain their attention.

One by one, they vaulted over the partition, the man stopping to help his wife, and started jogging towards them, past their 'camouflage'. They stopped by the bed of the truck and leaned against it to catch their breath.

Daryl could only stare, unbelieving. He had done them a favor by leaving! And they had come running after? What was the damage on these people? Did they not understand that they should not be around them? He and Merle were not ideal companions, they wanted nothing to do with outsiders. Those people would only slow them down, and there were limits to his compassion.

He heard the girl talk to her family in a language he didn't recognize, almost breathless and bending at the waist. She addressed her father in particular, as he didn't seem at all content with the situation. They argued shortly before the girl said her final words and turned her back on them.

Merle jabbed him in the arm and licked his lips as the girl rigidly approached Daryl's rolled-down window.

Daryl squinted up at her, her form surrounded by blinding light. She stood there for a few seconds, unspeaking, just staring at him with a deer-caught-in-headlights look. She gave a nervous crooked smile before her lips pursed in trepidation.

Merle leaned forward, about to speak, when a young voice caused her to jump, "For fuck's sake, talk, you wet sock!" Surprisingly, it had come from the girl with the big wild curls, the sweet looking one, who apparently also had a mouth on her.

The father stepped in front of her, covering her from view. He raised the bat in his hands, twisting them around the weapon in a bone-white grip, the anticipation of violence in his eyes, and mistrust, so much mistrust it gave Daryl the impression he was strictly against what was going on at the moment. That it hadn't been his idea.

It had most likely been the girl's, she had been the involuntary advocate for her family before. Whatever the plan was this time, whatever had brought them back, it would've most likely had been her idea. Which was ridiculous, why were they going along with it? Either she'd had a very good justification for doing such a stupid thing or they were all idiots.

He turned his gaze from the side view mirror and focused on her. He was starting to get impatient. Was she or was she not going to talk?

"Um…" she started. Well, it was something. He was about to snap at her to get a move on when she continued. "I know you said you uh, you didn't- or wouldn't take us to the city. And we completely understand why!" She raised her hands and waved them in dismissal.

Daryl saw the red staining the tips of her fingers and remembered how she'd killed the biter; the bow was on her shoulder but she had no quiver, it had likely been decorative, Daryl thought, and she was using it as a club. But why and how did she have such an item if they hadn't found out about the end of the world until not an hour ago? A bat was understandable, but a bow? Her words brought him back.

"But I- we were discussing and thought that since you seem to not uh, or rather," she seemed to contemplate her sentence. He could sense her nervousness from where he was sitting, see the beads of sweat forming on her golden brown skin and rolling down. "Imma start over!" She shook her head dismissively and made a rewind gesture with her hands and Daryl could've laughed if the situation and his mood allowed for it.

She took a deep breath, sneaked a glance at her family impatiently waiting and on alert, and looked down on him with rich cinnamon brown eyes filled with a mixture that was two-parts anxiety and one-part tenacity. The look caused him to straighten in his seat and sharpen his ears to her words, no matter how impatient he had grown.

"You clearly don't need our supplies, I know that, I saw your stuff in the back but I'd already kinda guessed it," she started with slowly growing confidence, "And we thank you for telling us about the city, really, thank you." She accentuated the words by nodding earnestly, eyes wide and staring straight into his own, and Daryl felt a hot flush creep up his neck. Not trusting his mouth, he nodded.

"And thing is, we only have ourselves to offer. Uh, I mean, not ourselves ourselves, I mean as in, safety in numbers and all that, you know?" She glanced at her feet, cringing, before gathering herself again and straightening up. "So the new offer is, take us with you, wherever it is you're going, and we'll look out for you if you look out for us," she finished in a somewhat stronger tone and steeled herself in her spot for a response, her fingers fidgeting, picking under the short nails for residual blood.

"Very well, young lady, the court will now go over the motion," Merle said, leaning in to see through Daryl's window, elbowing him and smirking up at her with a wink that made Daryl's skin crawl.

There were many times when he felt an enormous urge to smack Merle for all the shit he said and did, and he was his own brother, now imagine if he wasn't. If she was smart, she would turn back around and leave. Permanently.

Unruffled, she narrowed her eyes and rested a hand above the window while leaning in. "Don't make fun of me," she said, her voice low and somehow intimidating, but pleasant?

It only made Merle whoop in excitement.

She walked off to stand in front of the truck, arms crossed, a glare like she was trying too hard. Daryl could see her hands shaking where they gripped her biceps.

The rest of the family walked by to stand with her and started talking quietly among themselves. The father made sure to stand facing them head on, and his ever-present glare made Daryl both anxious and angry.

He had done nothing but to help them thus far, and he had the audacity to look at him like that. But it was wise of him to be wary, let at least one of them have the common sense of not trusting every stranger that crosses their path. Very rarely did strangers have good intentions, them included.

Safety in numbers… that wouldn't be a bad idea if he and Merle weren't already good as they were.

They didn't need anybody else. Unexperienced as they were, it would be more babysitting than looking after one another. They didn't need them fumbling about, being careless, getting them into unnecessary danger. Not to talk about the drain of resources; what they had was great for both of them, add five more people to the equation and not so much.

Following his logic, it was a clear no go.

Merle brought Daryl's focus back, "…and we get 'em alone, take out the big nig-"

"The fuck you on 'bout, man?" Daryl furrowed his brows. The sunlight coming in through the window grew immensely hot on his exposed arm and he retracted it.

Merle's lecherous smile grew. "I'm talking about making sweet, sweet love to big-jugs, baby brother." He jerked his head in the direction of the mother, the ends of her bob swishing back and forth as she raptly engaged in the hushed chit-chat of the circle. Her husband noticed the gesture with his gaze like that of a hawk and Daryl could swear the man's form would explode if he tensed any further.

"You gone daft?" Daryl cursed his brother's inappropriate libido. Another of the reasons they should just leave.

Merle raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sorry baby brother, you want 'er? 'Cause I'll just as gladly stick it in sweet cheeks, or between the sweeter cheeks of-"

"You're disgusting, man, ain't nobody sticking it in anybody."

"There goes that bleedin' heart again, Daryl. You ain't telling me what to do here, you hear me!" Merle snapped, running out of good humor.

"It's fucking human decency."

"To hell with that, I have my needs. Who the fuck gives a shit about human decency anymore when there's barely any damned humans left?"

"You rather be one o' them mindless shits?"

"Now, listen here, you wanna play champion to them negros, go right ahead, but if they turn against us, that's on you!"

Daryl stared at his brother's profile, his features twisted in animosity. He took a moment to quickly digest his words. Would they turn against them? The father seemed to always be on edge, but more out of protectiveness than anything else. If everyone kept to themselves and crossed no boundaries, there would be no reason for mutiny. But no, he had already drawn the line, they wouldn't be joining them, it was the logical thing to do.

His eyes caught the glint of the girl's bow and briefly met her eyes. She looked so hopeful. His resolve faltered for a second.

They didn't have any more time to think things through or discuss matters.

Daryl heard them before he saw them; a group of two dozen biters, if not more, emerged from the forested area, making towards them, probably had caught their scent in the sweltering heat.

There was no other choice, then. He leaned out his window and slapped his hand on the truck to bring the family's attention to him and he gestured to the biters and then to the back of the truck. "Hurry up and get on, we gotta get the hell outta here."

Merle, getting on par with the situation, cursed under his breath, glared one last time at his brother and once everyone had hastily climbed climb onto the bed of the truck, making it dip every time, he started the engine and put his foot to the pedal, leaving the damned biters grasping at their dust.

Daryl heard vague exclamations of surprise and relief in that language he didn't understand through the window separating the cabin and the back. He looked over his shoulder to see through it, to make sure they weren't sitting on their stash or doing anything they shouldn't.

He was met with the girl's brown gaze, as she sat closest to the partition, and she smiled gratefully at him. He nodded in acknowledgment and faced forward.

He felt both chagrined and relieved for defying his own reasoning and going with his instinct.

He had no idea why he was so keen on defending those people from his brother's ill intentions, and the world itself and its cruelties, but he was following his gut feeling and it had never wronged him before.

He just hoped it wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass.


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