I decided to replace Andrea with Connor so they could have their first proper chat.
timeline: episode 3 - "Save The Last One"
Salvation
Chapter 4 - Talk
Of course he couldn't sleep. There was a different reason for it this time, an almost refreshing one. He wasn't awake right now because he was trying to keep the nightmares at bay. No, right now, he couldn't sleep because he was excited. In a positive kind of way. It was well true that he was pretty much crazy by now, from the lack of sleep, from the hunger, from the world breaking down all around them, but the excitement kept him going, kept him on the right side of things just enough.
He had his brother back.
He was lying right there on the ground, staring at the ceiling.
Connor had no idea how much time had passed. How much time he had spent just lying here on this kitchen bench inside the RV, staring at him. The Irishman simply couldn't stop. It was pitch black outside by now so he figured that he'd kept staring for a pretty long while. No matter what, he just lay there and watched in awe, watched his chest rise and fall. Rise and fall.
He's alive.
That was reason enough not to give in to the sleep he so desperately needed. He smiled yet again instead. 223 breaths of air and still counting.
He was there, he was alive, he was breathing.
He wanted to fucking weep.
A clattering noise on the table right next to the spot where he was sleeping startled him, made it even more impossible for him to fall asleep. Connor shifted a tiny bit and listened up, only slowly becoming aware of the rest of his surroundings. He eventually and properly moved and sat up, closing his eyes and swallowing hard when the harsh dizziness and black spots all over his vision took hold of him. It took him a very long while to adjust to the new position, to get his blood to flow the right way. He was 70 per cent sure he was going to puke if he wanted to, but fought the urge hard just because he knew that he needed those half-digested sandwiches in there. After all, those had been the only kind of meal he'd had in god knows how long.
Connor shifted and moved until he was properly sitting opposite Andrea, the small kitchen table separating them. The Irishman looked down at the table curiously when he noticed what she was doing. There was a gun on the table, parts sprawled out all over as she was trying to put it back together. He sat there and watched for a bit, feeling slightly uncomfortable because even she wasn't paying any attention to him at all. No one had talked to him ever since that discussion outside the RV. Out of all of them, only Lori and Carol had been kind enough to him to make him feel at least somewhat welcome and okay.
He knew that he shouldn't blame them. He was well aware of what he looked and smelled like these days. With the beard, the dirty clothes, the freaky hair and lack of sleep and food. All those people seemed so civilized compared to him, with somewhat clean clothes and shaved chins and cut hair. Even after weeks of travelling alone and losing it, he was still used to different reactions from people whenever they'd met him before the outbreak. Back in the old days, it had been fairly easy for him to make friends with anyone. His charisma and looks had helped a lot. He'd been aware of that back in the day and had taken advantage of it. Now that it was all gone, those days and reactions were over and done with as well. Disgust, uneasiness and pity was all that was left.
Weeks of traveling alone, weeks of not caring about anything anymore. They were the first group of living people he had come across in weeks. He hadn't bothered taking care of himself anymore up until now. No one had seen him before today, no one had cared, so he had allowed himself to look miserable, to really live through this pile of shit and let it all slide away. But now his appearance just made him feel uncomfortable, and he could tell that it was doing the same to them. He needed to get his old vibe back. He needed to get them to trust him, to become his friends. There was no other way to get Murphy to trust him again otherwise. He needed to get it back together for him.
Because as long as he had Murphy everything was alright.
"D'you need help?" he asked to get the thing in motion.
If they weren't going to talk to him and get to know him, he was going to get them to talk and like him.
Just like he'd always done it before.
Andrea looked up from her gun parts and examined his face and hands for a while, wondering, until she got back to her work.
"No thanks. I need to do this on my own."
Well, fuck it. What a nice start.
The Irishman took a quiet but deep breath and tried to get it together. He frowned a little at first but then forced himself to smile, trying hard not to make it creepy but charming and inviting, like his old self would've done it. Even with the beard and messy greasy hair and crazy eyes.
"I know ye do, but I noticed that yer doing it wrong" he suggested carefully.
Andrea just eyed him again, a bit angry, and bit warily, but Connor still gave her a friendly smirk.
"Look, I know I look fuckin creepy right now, and I know that you people don't trust me, I get it. Ye don't have a clip in there, right? So it's all good. I don't wanna hurt ye, or shoot ye, I just wanna help ye with the gun. I swear. Cos I know my way around those and right now, yer doing it wrong. I just don't wanna see ye puttin it together the wrong way because you could hurt yerself later. I already screwed up once by not helping ye with the walker. Gotta do it right this time, aye?"
Andrea looked at him for a very long while, turned her head a little to look at the rest of their group inside the RV, until she let out a defeated sigh and gave him the pieces of the gun. He took them with a smile on his face.
"Just helping ye, don't worry, I don't wanna lecture yah. All ye gotta do is put that in first" he said, starting to put the pieces together, still smiling happily as he explained what he was doing. His hands were shaking from the lack of sleep and malnourishment, but even with that he still did it expertly, simply because he really appreciated the distraction. Andrea watched him for a moment, rubbing her neck absently, until she started talking.
"You're not some criminal or part of a gang, are you" she muttered, noticing his gun skills.
He just scoffed.
"No. The exact opposite, actually. Why, do I seriously look this fuckin creepy?"
She smiled a tiny bit, but then ended up laughing, looking away.
"Yeah, you actually look really creepy. Sorry. It's just….."
He looked up curiously and she just snorted again.
"Well the beard and the hair and the tattoos are kinda off-putting."
He put the gun back together with shaky but delicate fingers and then looked up again to give her a faint smirk that made him look more like his old self, and certainly a bit less.
"Well first thing in the morning, if ye happen ta have a razor or a bunch of scissors, gimme a shoutout" he muttered and then handed her the cleaned and completed gun. "Anyway. Here."
"Wow" she muttered and took it back. "That was even faster than what Shane did this afternoon" she retorted and turned it around in her hands a bit, until she started dissembling it again, trying to imitate what he'd done before. "So the opposite…are you with the police as well?"
"Not exactly" Connor muttered and corrected her movements. "I was..well…special forces. Plus, when yer growing up country in Ireland and living in South Boston, ye kinda pick up a few things."
Andrea was just about to keep the conversation up when they were suddenly interrupted.
Carol had started crying in the back of the RV.
Connor raised his head a little to look at her, falling quiet. He honestly did feel sorry for her, but right now, her crying wasn't exactly helping, it frustrated him in fact. Because it was ripping him right out of his perfect distraction. He'd been surprised how quickly he'd gotten used to talking to people again, how much he appreciated it in fact. Especially after he'd spent weeks without saying a single word.
The truth was that up until now, the loneliness had been unbearable. Thick with depressing thoughts and hallucinations and numbing shock. The talk with Andrea had made him forget about it for just a moment. The fidgeting with the gun had successfully kept his mind off things. But now Carol's crying brought all of those dark feelings and emotions back right in an instant. Her crying was the cue to let him, to let everybody know that there was no point in chitchatting, no point in seeing any positive outcomes or anything positive about this whole thing in general. Carol had lost her daughter. Andrea had lost her sister. He had…. Closing his eyes and clenching his fists, Connor fought hard to blend the crying, blend everything out. Even Andrea. He couldn't give in to any of this. He wasn't allowed to give in and…
Crying, crying, crying. Everything was depressing as fuck. There he was again, pretty close to losing it. Connor only snapped out of it when he suddenly heard the rustling of a sleeping bag, heard Daryl sit up and look towards Carol, too.
The Irishman opened his eyes and looked at the back of the hunter's head, once again losing the ability to think and breathe because he was an exact copy of Murphy. For a moment he thought that the man was going to lose it again. After all, the tiny sane part that was left of Connor already knew that his twin's look alike was an angry, pissed off, impatient, aggressive redneck who was annoyed by everything around him. Luckily, nothing like that would happen. It certainly made it a whole lot easier for Connor to pretend that this was Murphy. Murphy who was always willing to help, who would never let mothers weep, who would go out there to set things right.
The hunter looked at crying Carol for a moment and then got up. Grabbing his crossbow and sorting his clothes a bit, he eventually got moving and came to a halt right next to Andrea.
"I need my clip now" he muttered and held his hand out so she could give it back to him. Just like any other time before, Connor got caught up staring at him without blinking whereas the hunter ignored him completely and pretended that he didn't exist.
"I'm gonna walk the road, look for the girl" he said to Andrea instead and turned around to leave.
He wasn't exactly surprised to see and hear how the Irishman got moving as well. Of course the fucker was gonna follow him outside. Daryl simply kept the act of ignoring and pretending that the guy didn't exist up. He kept walking, starting to zigzag his way through the abandoned traffic snarl on the interstate. He'd passed the first two cars when Connor tried to talk to him again.
"Wait. I wanna come with ye."
Daryl rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth, considering to just keep going, but he already knew that it was going to be useless. The weirdo was obviously not just crazy and filthy, he was also a psychopathic stalker or some crap. He wasn't gonna stop. Daryl turned around and gave the man an angry glare.
"No way?"
"Aye, ye can't go out there on yer own, there's walkers everywhere?"
Daryl scoffed and eyed the man in front of him head to toe. All skinny and creepy and half dead and half asleep, he was pretty sure he just needed to breathe some air into the guy's face and he was going to collapse. As if he'd be of any help out there. He was just going to be a liability no matter what.
"I don't need no babysitter. And I ain't going nowhere with some psycho nutjob I don't even know" he growled and turned around again to try and get moving once more.
"I think he's right Daryl. You can't go out there all by yourself" he suddenly heard Dale say from somewhere above them. The hunter stopped in his tracks and looked up at the RV. The old man was standing atop his vehicle, shotgun in his one had, binoculars in the other, still looking so incredibly ridiculous with the Hawaiian shirt and the hat.
"We can't lose any more people" the old man added, but Daryl only scoffed once more.
"Yah can keep your trap shut up there, Gandalf. This ain't none of your business" he retorted and then looked back at Connor, pointing at him.
"You ain't following me, you prick. Get it? If I see yah following me, you get an arrow in your ass" he said and then turned around angrily, ready to head for the woods."Now fuck off." He quickly zigzagged his way past the abandoned cars again, eager to get away from both Dale and the Irish weirdo. He'd just made his way over the crash barrier and stepped into the woods when he saw that the blonde started following him despite the threat.
Daryl narrowed his eyes a little and Connor did stop, but then the hunter just scoffed and kept going again. Now that he thought about it, maybe it was a good thing that the Irish prick was going to follow him. Because as soon as it was just the two of them in those woods, maybe he had a better chance of losing the guy or simply getting rid of him. The fucker better fucking try to attack him. At least this way, he'd have an excuse to shoot him in his ass for real.
He'd been searching the woods for Sophia for 20 minutes now. Connor had kept quite the distance from for the longest time, not saying a word, just following him and staring him and generally being creepy behind him. Maybe even a bit too creepy, even for the hunter. Daryl had spent the first five to ten minutes turning around a lot to keep an eye on the weirdo, to check that he wasn't going to stab him in the back, but he quickly figured that this wasn't going to work. He couldn't concentrate both on the guy behind him and any possible tracks in front of him. And he knew that Connor wasn't going to stop following him.
Well he'll be fucked Daryl thought angrily. The only way to make this work was to let the guy catch up to him. The only way to make him less creepy and less dangerous was to see what he was really made of by interacting with him. Gritting his teeth angrily and gripping his crossbow tighter, Daryl started slowing down, only hating the guy even more.
This was just childish. This was just blackmail, in fact. Fucker and his peer pressuring him into talking to him just so he would stop being creepy. It didn't take long and they were pretty much right next to each other, but even then Daryl refused to look at the other man or even talk to him. He tried, thought about it, but then ended up being too stubborn to start anything. He concentrated on any traces he wanted to find of Sophia instead, although he knew that it was way too dark to achieve anything like that.
Luckily, the Irish guy finally started being less creepy all by himself. He obviously took the hunter's slowing down as an invitation to start talking to him. Or maybe he thought that his giving in without shooting him in the ass meant that they were friends now or something. Without invitation or suggestion that Daryl wanted to talk, Connor actually started babbling on his own. Talking to him as if they'd known each other forever and as if this were the perfect opportunity for nonchalant chitchat. In a way, that was still creepy and weird. At least it was less creepy than the staring and following him and being ready to backstab him, Daryl figured, so he let the guy talk.
"Ye know, and I keep driving down the road until I see that massive, fat walker crawling across the street like some fuckin ugly snail. I swear ta god, I wanted t'stop and take a picture af it cos it looked so fuckin funny" the Irishman recounted his travel down to Georgia a couple of minutes later and started giggling. He even nudged Daryl, much to the latter's disapproval. The hunter grunted an angry "Getcha mitts off of me" and shoved the other man's hands away harshly. It didn't faze Connor though, for he just kept talking. "I kinda wanted ta run 'im over with te car but then I thought it would crash me ride instead af that fatso. Oh you should've seen him Murph, he didn't even wear any fuckin pants."
"It's Daryl" the hunter growled and Connor looked at him. For just a moment, Daryl could see that flash of deep sadness and depression in the other man's eyes again, but it disappeared the moment the Irishman turned his head. Instead of acknowledging his name or previous warnings, Connor chose to ignore them completely yet again. He simply kept talking about something else instead.
But something seemed to have come lose inside the guy after all, because after a couple more minutes of talking and not getting an answer, the Irishman eventually fell quiet with a little sigh. Daryl waited for a couple of minutes but it quickly became evident that the man next to him was done talking. Crazy and pathetic or not, even the blonde seemed to get the appropriateness of stopping his talk when the other showed no interest in the conversation. He went back to being moody and half out of it instead.
Daryl was actually surprised to notice that the newbie really wouldn't bother him anymore. He looked at him from time to time until he eventually growled. No matter how hard he tried to fight it: He was curious. He wanted to know what had happened to the guy to make him look so miserable and pathetic. Of course, Daryl wouldn't talk to him when the others were around because he didn't want them to get the wrong impression of him. After all, he wasn't some sort of sissy like Rick who loved to stick his nose in other people's business all the time. But they were alone now. Just the two of them. He could get rid of the guy, shoot him in the ass, or he could in fact, just ask him right here and now without anybody else noticing that he had cared a bit. He let out a sigh and looked away to still make it less sincere.
"How did yah end up in that church anyway?" he mumbled and saw how Connor looked up.
"What?"
"What are yah, deaf? I asked yah prick how you ended up in that church. Geez" Daryl immediately snapped, mainly because he was a bit surprised by himself and how he'd really just started a conversation on his own with this weirdo.
Connor looked at him with a slight frown as if he couldn't quite believe it either. Then he just scoffed and looked straight ahead.
"Came through te front door."
Daryl rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Fuck you" he just said and tried to walk a bit faster, immediately giving up, but Connor snickered and immediately eased up.
"Nah, just shitting ye. I heard some radio broadcast a while back. About Atlanta? So I took a car and drove down here. At least til I saw the church and decided ta pull over fer a bit."
"They got cars in Ireland?"
The Irishman narrowed his eyes.
"Fuck you."
Although he didn't want to, Daryl actually smiled, if only just a tiny bit that he quickly hid. Annoying that he was, it was kind of funny to make fun of the Irish weirdo. They wouldn't speak for a while, but curiosity held Daryl in a tight grip.
"Is it the same over there?" he eventually asked and Connor looked at him.
"Where?"
"What now, yah stupid as well? I mean Ireland, you dumbass."
Connor just shrugged and looked away again.
"Dunno, been years since me last visit."
Daryl scoffed.
"So what, you ain't even a real leprechaun with gold nuggets and shit?"
Connor shoved him.
"Stop fuckin with my home country, ye prick. I was born in Ireland, but I'm fram Boston, alright. I came here more than 15 years ago."
"Yeah, well I don't give a shit" Daryl simply retorted and fixed his eyes on what he thought could be tracks. He knelt down for a moment to examine them, only to find out that they belonged to an animal, not a little girl. He let out a grunt as he got back up and then walked on, zigzagging his way past the trees. After another long moment of awkward silence he eventually tried again.
"So what's the deal with this Murphy guy and the picture? He ditch yah back at the church or something?"
Connor wouldn't answer this. Daryl turned his head a little to see the other man's reaction, but the Irishman actually shut down completely. There was a hardened almost blank look on his face that made it impossible for the hunter to read him. The silence went on for a good minute, and although Daryl had been somewhat hoping for an answer regarding the whole 'lookalike' thing, he eventually gave up and scoffed.
"Fine, whatever."
They didn't speak for a while until the hunter actually felt a bit bad about the whole thing. For whatever reason. He figured that whoever his doppelganger had been, the guy had probably lost him just like they had lost people of their own by now. So he eventually decided to give it another try, change the subject to keep talking to at least make some sense of this strange Irish weirdo.
"Atlanta's done by the way. We come from there. 's all overrun" he informed him neutrally and Connor turned his head to look at him.
"Really?"
Daryl nodded.
"Why do yah think we're running around here now. Just tryin t'find some place t'stay. As soon as we've found the kid."
Connor scratched his beard and frowned.
"What happened t'that kid anyway?"
Daryl shrugged and checked out another trace he figured could belong to the girl, but of course it actually didn't.
"What do yah think happened. We were on the highway when a herd passed us. Kid got scared and ran away. Now we're tryin t'get her back."
Connor raised an eyebrow.
"And you think yer gonna find her."
Daryl frowned and gave the Irishman an annoyed look.
"It ain't the mountains of Tibet, it's Georgia. She'll be howled off in a farmhouse somewhere. People get lost, they survive. Happens all the time."
The Irishman scoffed and looked away.
"Not always."
There was silence for a while and the hunter glared at their newest member from time to time yet again. He understood that the man had been talking about his past. Although he was still curious he didn't bother asking him about it again, simply because he knew that it would be useless. The guy wasn't going to talk about it. And even if he would, there was no way he was going to show any interest in the weirdo again. They had talked way too much already. He hadn't meant to start a real conversation with the newbie. He didn't want to talk to him, get to know him. Mainly because the guy was creepy, weird, annoying, and shouldn't become a part of their group. He wasn't part of their group. He was out here with him to get rid of him. He cursed himself for having done exact opposite and immediately stopped talking.
They kept walking in silence until they saw a little campsite up front,right next to a large tree. When they got closer they could see that the branches started shaking. Daryl pointed his flashlight and the tree and frowned with a confused "What the hell?". Connor looked up to see what was going on as well. There was a walker hanging in the tree with flesh missing from his legs, looking like a scary Halloween ornament. It certainly wasn't a flattering sight. It was upsetting and actually pretty disgusting to see that much half eaten flesh, muscle tissue and even bones swinging not too far from their faces. The walker started moving and snarling a lot more the moment he saw them. The snarls where suffocated by the rope around his neck but it only seemed to make him more aggressive. His dead hands tried to reach out and scratch them almost desperately from up there, making his half eaten legs swing even more in the air. Daryl saw a piece of paper nailed to the tree and started reading.
"Got bit. Fever hit. World gone to shit. Might as well quit."
Connor scoffed.
"Wow, we've got fuckin Shakespeare here" he muttered but then pulled a face when the undead's stench started to creep up on them with all his movements.
"Dumbass didn't know enough to shoot himself in the head" Daryl went on and then pointed his flashlight at the bloody feet. "Turned himself into a big swinging piece of bait. And a mess."
Maggots. There were maggots crawling all over the fleshy half eaten calves. Connor could see them when the beam of the flashlight hit. He usually didn't care much and had seen his fair share of blood and guts in his life, but now that he was starving, sick, dehydrated and exhausted, it was enough to make him gag. He started coughing and turned away from the sight, looking down at the ground instead.
Daryl turned around and looked at him with a frown.
"What's up with yah now?"
Connor growled.
"Shut te fuck up, I'm fuckin sick. Think I gotta puke."
Daryl snorted and turned around again.
"Ain't you a pussy."
"Shut up, I didn't eat anything fer four fuckin days."
He looked at the walker again.
"Well that's one thing these walkers and us have in common. I guess it's the closest he's been to food since he turned. Look at him, hanging up there like a big pinata. The other geeks came and ate all the flesh off his legs."
Daryl turned around to face Connor when he heard how the Irishman started throwing up.
"You fuckin sick shit I said I was trying ta keep the last bit of fuckin stomach contents in me" the blonde complained as he shakily wiped his mouth. He then tried to take a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, gently placing his hand on his belly.
The hunter smirked a tiny bit and shrugged as he focused on the walker again.
"Well call that payback for annoying the crap outta me for the past hour with all yer bullshit."
"Fuck ye, I was just tryin ta make friends."
Daryl scoffed.
"Friends. Yah wish" he growled and turned around to leave.
Connor got up and frowned.
"Hey, what about that fucker, shouldn't we shoot him?"
The hunter turned around and frowned as well. Connor was pointing at the walker who was still hanging in the trees, snarling and fighting thin air.
"No. He ain't hurting nobody. Ain't gonna waste an arrow either."
Connor searched his clothes until he suddenly produced a weapon out of nowhere, which started Daryl a bit and instinctively made him point his crossbow at him in his defense, thinking that the guy was going to snap now, erratic that he was.
"Well then it's a fucking bullet. Every fuckin stinking thing we take out is a problem less" the Irishman snarled and turned around, taking aim at the walker, not Daryl, who immediately darted forward. "What are yah, some sorta psycho? Yah ain't shooting that gun!" he spat and tried to slap the weapon out of the Irishman's hand angrily. "The noise's just gonna bring more of 'em and it's a fuckin waste of ammo! He made his choice. Opted out. Let him hang."
"No, that fucker needs ta fucking die, Murph!" Connor said, eyes changed completely to a point where he looked absolutely insane and dangerous yet again. He would not let go of the gun when Daryl tried to take it. The Irishman kept his spiteful eyes fixed on the undead in the tree.
"I fuckin told ya, it's Daryl!" the hunter exclaimed angrily and successfully snatched the gun out of Connor's hands when he tried to take aim. Daryl then shoved the Irishman and kicked his leg. "I said no gunshots, yah freak!" he spat and then aimed his crossbow at the walker, pulling the trigger to kill him with an arrow. Then things finally quietened down a bit. Daryl's heart was still pounding in his chest because for a moment he'd really thought the guy was going to shoot him.
"There yah have it now, happy? Stupid freak. Wastin an arrow like that. Should've shot yah instead!" Daryl shouted and turned around to leave. He was incredibly furious with the guy, but even angrier with himself. See, this is whatcha get for talkin t'this weirdo and thinkin he might be cool after all, he told himself and scoffed angrily. He'd obviously been very fucking wrong about this guy. He certainly wasn't alright at all if he could suddenly snap like that from one moment to the next, swinging guns he'd hidden from them just because of one stupid walker. Where the fuck had he gotten that gun from anyway? Rick and Shane had taken one off him back at the church to make sure he wasn't going to hurt anybody, and here he was, gun wielding freakshow. He could've shot anyone up until now. Carol, Andrea, even him. Right back inside the RV when they'd been trying to rest. The Irish nutjob was a ticking time bomb. Fucking hell.
When he turned around he could see that Connor wasn't even following him anymore. He just stood there, still in the same spot, not moving at all as he stared up at the shot and hung walker in the tree. Standing and staring. A complete nutter indeed. Daryl walked on for a moment, already moving pretty far away from the other man, who still wouldn't follow. Eventually, the hunter did slow down though, yelling back.
"What now, yah gonna stay here? Better fuckin do! I'm leavin, have a shitty life you whacko!"
For a couple of seconds he really believed that the Irishman would stay there. But of course. He wouldn't. He startled and turned around to look at Daryl when he noticed that he'd been yelled at from pretty far away. It was no real surprise that he immediately started jogging after him, but the hunter still rolled his eyes angrily and quickly got going again, hoping that the Irishman would fail to catch up to him.