Daryl felt the blood drain from his face. His crossbow almost dropped from nerveless fingers before he managed to make himself clutch it tighter. "How do you know about that?"
"I know a great many things —" Adam paused when the old man interrupted with a snort. Adam glared at the old man for a moment before he continued. "— and those things include that feeling. It's almost a buzz, isn't it?"
"You tell me right now!" Daryl demanded, bringing up the crossbow and aiming it. There was no way Adam could know what was wrong with him, was there? He didn't dare let himself hope that there might be a cure.
Adam just stood there, stance easy and hands open. Not a threat, see?
Daryl didn't let that fool him. Two guys alone out here? They had to be dangerous — or they'd'a been dead long before now. But if this came to a fight? He figured he could take Adam.
"Listen, pal," the old man said, putting aside his guitar, but making no other move to get up from the chair. "We just want to talk to you. From the looks of it, we have information you need to survive. You want to know what it is? Put that damn crossbow down and relax. Adam, break out the whiskey. I'm a bit parched from all that singing."
Daryl slowly stowed his crossbow, thinking furiously as he tried to find the trap in the old man's words. Was feeling the buzz a symptom of turning into a walker the way he feared, or was it something else, something these two knew about? He watched Adam rifle through one of the packs, and relaxed a bit when the other man pulled out a bottle. The old man leaned over and snatched it away, and Daryl found himself chuckling at the look of annoyance on Adam's face.
He went to sit next to the old man, and when the bottle was offered to him, he took a swig. Maybe he was a damn fool, but one thing he'd learned since the end of the world. The more you knew, the better chance you had. He handed the bottle to Adam. "All right. Tell me what I need to know."
Methos took the bottle. How to demonstrate? He knew Immortals who would kill themselves to show that they couldn't actually be killed, or slice their hand to the bone to show off the way the wound healed. Killing himself was definitely out — especially since there were zombies around that rose from the dead. That left cutting himself, although slicing himself to the bone was out. Yes, it was dramatic, but he wasn't exactly a fan of pain and blood. Well. Not his own, at any rate. He raised the bottle to his lips and drank. What to do… He lowered the bottle and handed it off to Joe. "All right, introductions. My name is Adam Pierson, and this is Joe Dawson. And you are?"
The young man shifted uncomfortably on the ground next to Joe's chair, and for a moment Methos thought he wouldn't answer, but then he said, "Daryl Dixon."
"Okay, Daryl. First thing you need to know. You're going to think what I'm about to tell you is impossible, but every word of it is true. And I can prove it."
Daryl looked intrigued, but then his expression shuttered. "Lots of impossible happening last couple a years. What's some more impossible joining the party?"
"You say that now," Methos muttered to himself. Louder, he said, "There are Immortals in the world. Joe isn't, but I am. So are you. That's why you felt that buzz that led you here."
"That was the old man's singing, not the buzz," Daryl scoffed. "Tell me something that don't sound crazy."
Methos smirked at Daryl's reaction. Just as he had expected. "All right. All Immortals are foundlings. None of us know who our parents are. We can't have children, either."
"And there ya go. I know who my mama and daddy were. And my brother. Wished I didn't more times than I can count, but I weren't no foundling. Not like they would have adopted another mouth to feed they didn't need ta."
Complete denial, Methos thought. And the younger Immortal probably had no way of discovering the truth about his parentage, with the end of the world. He continued, his words falling into the familiar cadence of an explanation he'd given many times over the years. "We cannot die, except once, when we come into our Immortality. After that, we can heal everything except losing our heads."
"You have got to be shitting me."
He shrugged. "I knew someone who grew back a hand he'd lost at the sword of another."
Daryl snorted, his eyeroll almost audible.
"He's not going to believe until you show him your party trick," Joe pointed out, punctuating his sentence with a healthy swig of the whiskey.
"You're not helping," Methos groused under his breath. He truly hated this part. He slipped the knife from his boot and drew the blade sharply across his forearm. He swore under his breath when the knife bit too deep and nicked an artery. That hurt, damnit. "I'm Immortal, and I cannot die. Neither can you. This will heal — and if I cut you, you would heal the same way."
Daryl gaped at the blood welling up from from the wound, then seemed to realize just what Methos had said, and scrambled to his feet, fury obvious in every line of his body. "You damn crazy-ass fucker. What the hell are you trying to pull? You ain't sticking that knife in me!"
Shit. Methos stood, wadding up a cloth to put pressure on the wound, and made sure he was between Daryl and Joe. "I'm not trying to pull anything. I told you it was going to sound impossible. I'm only telling you the truth. Look. The cut is healing already." He shifted the wadded up cloth, wiping away blood, and revealed the half-healed wound.
"What the—" Daryl cut himself off, staring in disbelief as the wound visibly healed. "That's… that ain't possible."
"I told you. We're Immortal. The healing is just part of it."
"I don't heal like that." Daryl sounded half-convinced, despite his denial.
"Maybe once you had normal, human healing. But something happened to you recently. Some time when you thought you almost died. That's when it happened. You did die, and came back. Immortal. And you've felt that buzz, off and on, when walkers are near, since that incident."
Daryl's eyes widened as he realized what Adam meant. He shook his head. No. He didn't believe it. A week ago, when he'd been scavenging for baby stuff, the deck he'd been standing on gave way. He'd been fine though, even though he'd fallen about 12 feet through the rotting wood to the ground. Just knocked out. Hadn't even had a headache when he woke up — he froze. No, no, nonono.
There was a roaring in his ears as he pulled out his own knife and slashed at his arm, staring as the deep cut healed almost immediately. He couldn't breathe. Adam was right. He'd actually died that day! Nausea churned in his gut as his knees gave way. He pitched forward, struggling to hold himself up on all fours, and lost everything he'd eaten in the last little while as the memory of the accident washed over him.
Daryl looked up at the sky through the broken slats of the deck, still half stunned. The sun was a lot lower than it should have been. Fuck. He hadn't checked that the deck was solid before walking out onto it. He coulda got his damn fool self killed because of that oversight. Idiot. He needed to be more careful. If he'd died, who would take care of Little Asskicker? Fear sent him scrambling to his bag, checking to make sure the precious cans of formula were undamaged. He blew out a breath, relieved. He needed to get back to the prison, back to his fam— Don't be stupid enough to think that shit, moron.
He was still cursing his stupidity when he got back, snarling at anyone who got in his way. Finally they left him alone with Little Asskicker. He carefully cleaned her and changed her, and then settled her into his lap.
As she sucked down everything in her bottle, he promised her never to be so careless ever again. He held her after she finished, until she fell asleep in his arms.
Daryl shuddered. He had nothing left to come up.
"You all right, kid?" Joe asked, his brows beetling as if puzzled. "I know this is ups—"
"Upset? Seriously? Adam said… He said I died, and all you can say is you know it's upsetting?" Dayl staggered to his feet. "Upsetting? What if I'd died for real? Who would take care of the group? Who would make sure Little Asskicker got her bottle and had clean diapers and such? Who would make sure Carol was all right? If I'd'a died for real that day, she would be dead in that damn cell she was trapped in. Who else would have looked for her? Who'd —" he broke off sharply, horrified he was showing his weakness to the strangers.
Adam and Joe looked at each other, then Adam said, almost gently, "Little Asskicker? A baby? You know she's not yours. We can't have children. I explained that already."
Daryl glared at him. "Her name's Judith. And I know that. You think I don't know that she's Rick's? Or maybe Shane's, I dunno, but she's mine, my responsibility to make sure she's safe."
Joe and Adam traded glances again. Daryl was about ready to wipe those oh-so-concerned looks off their faces. "If that's all you got to tell me, thanks for nothin'. I'm out of here." He grabbed his crossbow and headed towards the treeline. If he wasn't going to kill himself to keep from turning into a walker, he needed to get food, maybe some squirrels or a deer, to bring back to the prison.
He stopped abruptly when Adam stepped in front of him, arms spread wide. "Hold on, Daryl. There's so much more you need to know."
"Then talk," he gritted. Yeah, he was still curious, but he was tired of this. He had no more patience for Adam. "There's no call to drag this out any more than you've already done."