This chapter starts out harmless enough with C & D's mission continuing, but the block in italics is Daryl's dream flashback to his childhood and an incident of him getting beaten mercilessly by his father, and the following block until the next .-. separator describes his and Merle's reaction to his dream. The dream is graphic and violent, and the following block describes symptoms of PTSD. If this triggers you, please stay away either from the chapter as a whole or from these two blocks - they are not required to follow the plot but only go into the reasons for Daryl's issues with people and touch and further describe his complicated relationship with Merle.
„A new one!" She sounded excited, and he quietly smiled to himself. Taking in the license plate through her eyes, he took the number down on his pad, along with the make and model of the car it was fixed to. He added that the driver was a blond, fair-skinned woman with short wavy hair framing her face, and the passenger was a higher-ranking Feina in a dark purple robe. He was done with his notes on the car just as the gate was closing behind it again as it entered the compound, hiding it from sight.
Running one hand across his eyes and then down his face, he noticed how tense and tired he was. „Lie low for a minute, would you?" he asked Carol. „I need a moment. I'll let you know when we can continue." Saving his open files and closing his battered old laptop, he set it down next to himself on Merle's couch, putting his pad and pen on top of it. He winced as he slowly rose to his feet. Making his way across the narrow hallway and into the kitchen, he glanced up at the timer and saw, amazed, that it was late afternoon already.
They had been at this for nine hours with only two short breaks - one mid-morning and the other shortly after everyone else had finished lunch at the food stalls and restaurants she had passed. So far, they had managed to evade drama by avoiding people as much as possible. But two breaks in nine hours was too little, and getting tired would make them both prone to mistakes. He would call it and get her to her bus. Shaking his head over their - his - losing track of time like this, he limped to the kitchen cabinet holding their supplies and opened it.
As he'd suspected from last night's ruckus, Merle had raided it after returning from a night out with his pals, leaving him with the stale heel of a dry, tasteless loaf of corn bread. With a sigh, he proceeded to make himself a cup of synthcaf so he'd have something with which to wash the crumbly thing down. Next, he checked the fridge for something to put on his bread or at least eat with it - he would even have settled for more of the equally tasteless, dry and crumbly protein cubes Carol found so disgusting -, but the contents of the fridge were depressing. He threw away what he'd found and picked up his cup again. Shaking his head with a grunt, he fed Carol the image of his right hand holding his cup and his left holding the plate with the heel of bread as he went back to the couch.
„I'm afraid I'll have to call it for today", he announced as he sat down, careful not to spill caf all over Merle's bed. „This is all the food I've left here, so I'll need to go shopping before the stores close. We've just got enough time left to get you on the bus and the train safely -„ He stopped himself, his face turning pale. Maybe she hadn't noticed.
But food wasn't the only thing he was out of luck with. Of course she had picked up on his blunder and called him on it. „You shouldn't know that I ride a train home", she stated flatly, her voice brittle. „Do you know where I get off? Do you know …" She hesitated. Just like him, she knew that if he answered her next question the wrong way they would be severed all but immediately. But she had to know. „Do you know where I live?"
He had set his caf and his plate down on the wide, flat arm of the couch, his hunger and thirst forgotten. Staring down at his hands resting on his knees, he spoke out loud, confident that she would hear him through their meld. She was all but reading his mind at this point. „No, I don't, but … I've been tempted to follow you all the way home." The fingers of his left hand dug into his knee, causing pain to flare up in his scars and in the joint. „I'm sorry", he whispered.
Through their link he felt her shock. Admitting this much was almost enough in itself, and they were both aware of that. „We knew the rules, going in", she pointed out softly. „You mustn't, Daryl. Please. You must not follow me." Her mind shied away from the memory of the empty days and nights she had known before meeting him. She never wanted to live like that again. „I have lost so much already …„ Her loneliness choked her for a moment and she was unable to continue. The depth of her heartache made his chest tighten. Bracing herself, she breathed: „I can't lose you, too."
Her words, and the heartfelt care with which they were spoken, nearly broke him. Nobody had ever said anything remotely like this to him, nor spoken to him in such a tone of voice. He managed to heave in a lungful of air against the weight crushing his chest. „You won't", he choked out, feeling as if he was letting go of a lifeline in outer space, the last thing tethering him to life - the only thing making life worth living. „I won't follow you any more."
They didn't speak again as he accompanied her the last few minutes of her way to the bus stop and then made sure to withdraw completely as she boarded the bus. Unlike the days and nights before, he stayed away as she rode and walked home, keeping his side of the link closed as he walked the aisles of the store, picking up the things they needed from the shelves, until he felt a feather-soft mental touch from her end as she let him know that she had arrived home safely.
They both had a lonely evening.
.-.
The first slap, an open palm to his cheek, hadn't hurt too badly. He'd had far worse, and they both knew it. Unfortunately, the expression on his face seemed to have given him away, and a malicious grin spread across his father's face. „You dirty little bastard", he hissed, and his hands went down to his waist to unbuckle his belt. Daryl's insides seemed to turn liquid with fear as his father pulled the belt out of its loops. „I'll teach you to talk back to your da, you maggot. I'll teach you to grin." Of course Daryl would never have dared to grin, but this was as good an excuse as any.
No excuse was needed, really.
For some time, those were the last words spoken as old man Dixon ripped his younger son's T-shirt off and proceeded to whip his naked back with his belt, both with the end that had the holes in it and later, when this began to seem insufficient, with the buckle end. Daryl knew better than to scream – that always made it last longer, and the lashing itself harder. There had been days when he hadn't been able to hold in his agony – there still were, but today was not one of them. He bit down on his lip until he tasted salt and copper as the blood from the cuts on his back ran down his sides in jagged lines to drip down from his chest and belly. Blood sprayed onto the floor and the walls every time his father whipped his belt up again to strike him once more. The only sounds in the room were his father's harsh, labored breathing and the meaty sound the belt made every time it came down on his exposed skin.
His father only relented when Daryl collapsed soundlessly after what seemed, to him, like an eternity. The droplets of blood on the floor beneath him were swimming in and out of focus and he found himself unable to support his weight any longer with his hands braced on his knees, bent forward for easy access so his father wouldn't have to raise his arm too high lest he tire too quickly. He fell in a heap, and the next thing he saw was the belt dropping to the floor next to his face in a loose coil, its edges soaked with his blood. His father kicked him in the back, once, twice, snarling. "Clean up this mess, you filthy piece of dog shit", he instructed Daryl, and stomped out.
After what felt like hours, he finally managed to pull himself to his hands and knees, still shaking with pain and terror. Slowly, feeling like an old man, he pushed himself up to his feet and staggered out to get water and a rag. Experience had taught him to clean the room first and himself later, and so he ignored the blood that had dried on his skin in an abstract pattern. He wiped his own blood off the scuffed and worn linoleum tiles and the furniture, and then started in on the fine spray patterns on the walls. He was fortunate in that the flower pattern on the wallpaper, which was so old that its edges had started peeling off the plaster, was dark enough to hide the worst of the stains, and he managed to water down the smudges on the lighter areas enough so they wouldn't draw anyone's attention. Before long, the dried blood would be as brown as the faded flowers anyway.
Once he had cleaned the room he staggered to the shower where he emptied the brownish water into the tub and then turned on the faucet. Getting out of his pants, underwear and socks, every movement painful already with the bruises of his latest beating blooming on his skin, he stepped under the drizzle of lukewarm water, clenching his teeth against it hitting the open wounds on his back. Only when the water started running down his face did he allow himself to cry soundlessly. He hated himself for crying, and he hated himself for allowing that monster to do this to him again and again. The pain was no more than his just punishment.
The shower curtain started to blur behind his tears – it seemed to all but dissolve. Suddenly he was staring at a white ceiling, and he was in more pain than ever before in his life. At first, he couldn't even pinpoint its location, but then someone wearing a bright red paramedic's jacket leaned into his field of vision and touched his left leg, making the pain spike so he almost blacked out.
Blink.
The velvety blackness faded into the blurry image of overhead fluorescent strip lights racing past him as he was being pushed along on some sort of guerney. On the edge of his field of vision he saw a hand holding up a plastic bag filled with a clear liquid, with a tube running down from the bag toward himself. His left side consisted only of pain, and he dimly remembered the gray face of a Feina looming over him as he scrabbled away from it on all fours.
Blink.
Merle standing next to the bed he was lying in, his eyes red.
Blink.
Being helped out of his bed, one person holding his shoulders over his reflexive retreat, one person gently lifting his legs off the bed, then both of them helping him stand as his injured leg gave way under him and he fell back.
Blink.
Shuffling along unaided, his hands - with his left still bandaged - maintaining a vicelike grip on two parallel bars to his left and right as he dragged his bad leg along and tried to put his weight on it. For just a moment he managed to stand, but then he collapsed, the ground rushing up to meet him as he fell on his injured side and the world exploded in pain. He screamed –
.-.
- and sat up in his bed, his throat raw from his screams, his heart racing, his T-shirt and sweatpants plastered to his skin by his cooling sweat. He slapped the switch of the lamp on his nightstand with a hand shaking so badly that he almost pushed the lamp off at first. „Fuck, fuck, fuck", he whispered hoarsely, then touched his left hand to his aching throat. Apparently he had screamed out loud, and he could hear Merle crashing into something outside before the door all but exploded into his room as his brother stormed in, wild-eyed with shock.
"You okay?" Merle panted, staring at him. He sounded panicked, as he always did when this happened. They would ignore it come morning, as usual, but right now, Merle was big brother worried for little brother who was terrified and in pain. Even though he did his best to act as if Daryl's condition didn't concern him under normal circumstances, he couldn't help but care whenever what had happened caught up with Daryl in his nightmares. Merle came closer, slowly, shyly, his eyes firmly on Daryl's face, avoiding the scars left on the inside of his brother's bare arms, avoiding the outline of his legs under the blankets. "You need anything?" he added softly when Daryl didn't answer.
Daryl couldn't meet Merle's eyes. His hand went from his throat to his back, feeling the raised, jagged, crisscrossing scars there through the sweat-soaked fabric of his T-shirt, the look on his face distant. His chest was still heaving from his screams, but his loud panting was subsiding to the point where they could hear a neighbor banging on his wall or floor or ceiling in protest. Still looking dazed, Daryl shook his head, unable to speak. He felt himself trembling with reaction, and all of a sudden he was tired as never before in his life. His body had been awash with adrenaline, and he was left drained as it wore off. His head drooped.
And suddenly Merle was there, holding him, steadying him so he wouldn't keel over. Daryl leaned into his brother's warm, strong arm, smelling sweat and booze and cigarettes on him – and everything was okay again. He was safe with Merle, he had always been safe with him. He went along as Merle gently got him out of his bed and to the kitchen where he carefully helped him sit down, making sure he wouldn't fall off the chair before preparing a cup of synthcaf for his brother.
He then went back to Daryl's room and changed his sweaty sheets, putting the used ones into the hamper for the next trip to the laundromat. When he came back to the kitchen, he set the bottle with Daryl's painkillers in front of his brother wordlessly, looking away in silence as Daryl opened it and took three of them at once. When Daryl leaned on the table with both elbows to keep from collapsing, Merle came closer again, gently touching his shoulder, careful to avoid his back. „Wanna go back to bed?" He never sounded like this during the day. He sounded the way Daryl imagined a father should sound when talking to his child. Daryl's heart ached with love for Merle as he nodded slowly.
As he knew, from far too many nights like this, how much Merle truly cared, he did his best to control his limp on the way back to his room and tried not to lean on him with his full weight. The dozen steps from the kitchen to his room left him shaking with exhaustion, and Merle helped him sit down again first before getting a fresh T-shirt and sweatpants for Daryl from the wardrobe. His face seemed frozen as he held them out to his brother, and Daryl knew why he couldn't go on. "If you could jus' leave 'em here and help me lie down, please", he mumbled, patting the bed next to himself. Merle dropped his clothes on the bed as if they were burning him. First he folded Daryl's covers over to the far side of the bed, then he knelt down and grasped Daryl's calves, infinitely gently, and Daryl felt tears welling in his eyes, completely unable to handle the situation as Merle carefully swung his legs up and onto the bed for him.
Once he was lying down flat on his back, Merle handed him his water bottle and helped him drink, got his painkillers from the kitchen and put them back into his drawer, and finally adjusted Daryl's blankets so he would be able to pull them over himself easily once he had changed into his fresh clothes. "Will you be okay?" he asked quietly, looking down at his younger brother. His face was unreadable.
Daryl had to fight against the emotions choking him and tightening his chest before he could answer. "Yeah, I will", he whispered, his voice still shaking. Merle turned toward the door, ready to flee the room. "Merle?" Slowly, hesitantly, Merle turned back to face Daryl once more. "Thank you for helping me." Merle's face seemed to splinter under Daryl's look as he nodded once before he turned back for good and left, softly closing the door as he stepped out into the hallway.
.-.
Carol lay in the darkness of her room, staring at the ceiling with wide, horrified eyes. Even though this dream couldn't have been culled from memories, like her dreams about Ed and Sophia, it had still been horrible. She couldn't fathom why she should dream about getting beaten as a child, or about the aftermath of what seemed to have been a bad accident. It had been incredibly, terribly vivid, but she couldn't imagine where she was getting these ideas. Closing her eyes against the memory of blood sprayed on a wall, she tried to go to sleep again, but the dream images kept her wide awake for a long time.
.-.
Daryl's touch was careful as always when they linked up the next morning. He was out in the open somewhere, just like she was - his view of the street he was walking along bled into their link as they went over their plan of what to cover in their observation schedule for today. Something about the way the image moved as he walked along struck her as odd, but she couldn't pin down what it was and quickly dismissed it. She wasn't supposed to receive that kind of input from him anyway, so it would be better all around to ignore it.
Suddenly the image winked out, and she registered its abrupt absence - it upset her. „What happened?" she asked without thinking.
It seemed that he knew what she was talking about anyway. „Getting close to work", he explained, adding with what sounded like a chuckle: „And you're not supposed to know where I am."
She smiled to herself at his answer, and he felt her affection radiating out to him. This, on top of the love he had felt from Merle the night before, nearly brought him down. He stopped for a moment, drawing a deep breath and fighting back tears.
„Hey, what is it?" she asked, instantly concerned when she felt how much her feelings for him seemed to be affecting him just now - when she had never noticed such a reaction from him before. As she had no wish to deal with this literally on the go and in passing, she found a bench and sat down, beginning to root through her handbag for show so nobody would wonder why she was suddenly taking a break when before she had been hurrying along.
He managed a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. The blurry image of his surroundings swam into view again for her as he started walking once more. She felt a sharp pain in her left leg, and heard him hiss at the same instant. Simultaneously, the image that came from him wobbled askew before he caught himself and continued walking. As before, something was off about the way the image swayed back and forth with each of his steps.
She froze on her bench, goosebumps rising on her arms even though the sun was warm on her skin.
He was limping.
His left leg was hurting.
Her heart started hammering in her chest.
It was always his left leg, she realized, even when he claimed he'd only been sitting on a hard chair for too long.
Something had happened to him that had him in constant pain. Something that had his left leg in constant pain. She had felt it through their link on the first day of their mission, and she sometimes felt it when he was walking around while they were in a meld. There was a scar on his left ankle.
She had dreamed about his accident the night before.
She had dreamed about him getting whipped with a belt.
Had he shared her dreams, the way she had shared his?
„Daryl", she whispered into their link, her mind empty. „I'm sorry, I can't. Not today."
No attachment.