Chapter Thirteen: Krabinay
**Daryl**
The Lieutenant pulled back the curtain so they could watch Carol and Grace disappear out the door of the infirmary, before Daryl scowled.
"You like this?" He demanded.
"Not one bit," the Cajun replied, sighing heavily. "Can't be hypocrites, though, can we?"
"Speak for yourself," Daryl snarled.
Quirking a brow, the Lieutenant made a sound likened to a shrug in the back of his throat, before pulling out a key from under his sheets and leaning forward with a pained grunt to get at his chains.
"What the hell is that?"
"Swiped it."
"From where?"
"Only so many hiding places on a nun," unlocking the chains, the Lieutenant laughed almost manically and tossed him the key.
"Where?"
"Let's just say if she would have felt my hand she would have slapped me," the Cajun said, carefully getting to his feet, adjusting the tight bandages that kept his ribs in place, painfully pulling them tighter.
Daryl hastily unlocked his own chain and stood up cautiously, testing his limits. He felt better than he had the day before, but that wasn't saying much.
"Feels good to be up and about," the Cajun said with a wince.
"I'll bet, you alright?"
"Yeah, over did it yesterday. You?"
"I'm better standing than I was lying down." As he said this he eyed the man named Cash who was quietly observing them moving about. "You have a problem, slick?"
"Not at all, Shaggy, just admiring Scooby-Doo's gritty reboot," he replied, motioning to Clyde at Daryl's heel.
"Go to hell, jack ass," Daryl snarled.
"Yeah, while you and Fred are out hunting down the amusement park ghost, why don't you dig up some of that fortified wine I've heard Catholics keep around for blood rituals," the man replied. "Could use a good thing in this otherwise shitty day I've been having."
Tilting his head the Lieutenant inquired if Daryl wanted to handle it, he jerked his chin and the Cajun understood, moving towards the man's bed, using his towering, lithe, military-muscled form to intimidate the man.
"Look," he began, peering down at the man, nose to nose, "you're an intelligent man, it's time you learned a few things, yeah?"
The man swallowed, narrowing his eyes.
"First thing, you best be a little nicer, everybody loves a good southern gentleman, second, I'm a patient man, but 'Shaggy' he's got a temper and third, I don't want to hit you in your face, but I will if you keep pushing. You feel me, gunny?"
"But you won't, Cajun?"
"No?"
"No," the man replied with a small smug grin.
Daryl felt his hackles rise and he moved in closer to the two.
"You need a good reason to beat a man, right?" Cash asked, eyes going from the Lieutenant to Daryl and back again. "But you won't beat me without due cause."
Daryl watched the Lieutenant back off slightly. "What?"
"See? The dogs on my heels, they will, they kill and rape and take. They don't have that off switch in them. That piece of humanity remaining in their little bird brains. You and your friend there, you don't mindlessly beat on people. That's interesting to me. I've been pushing you and him all morning and most of the night, and the best you have is a threat."
"What?"
"I mean so far I've called you retarded, I've hit on your women – I'm assuming they're yours the way you both got riled – I've been belligerent and miserable and so far, none of your people seemed angry. It's only just now with your bed and chain removed you even got up in my face. You feel me, Cajun?" The man inquired, reaching for his nearly empty pack of cigarettes.
"You're testing us?" Daryl demanded.
"I'm not that smart, Shaggy," the man replied, fumbling through his stuff for a lighter. He pulled out a barbeque lighter and used it on his cigarette. "Don't get me wrong, I like to know that you're good people. But good won't count for shit when the hounds come braying at your gate."
"You ride with these men?" Daryl demanded.
"Ride is probably the wrong word to use, you don't ride with them, you fall in and the current just sort of takes you."
Kicking a nearby chair closer with a loud scraping, the Lieutenant eased down in it.
"Alright, you tell us everything and we won't string you up," he reasoned.
Taking a deep drag of his cigarette, Cash nodded. "You have a nice set up here, sweet girls to take care of you, enough people you don't need to worry about being on your own, fighting your own battles. But in Arkansas…things aren't so sweet and green…Look, let me say one thing, you find strangers waltzing up to your door, you don't hesitate, you put them down."
"Why?" Daryl growled. "Why would we do that?"
"Because idealism is for dreamers and dead men. Hell, you shouldn't have even brought me here."
"Why?"
"Because people die, that's the way of the world. It's always been this way, but now more than ever the animal in us is crawling back out of the primordial soup and we're nothing more than packs of creatures." Breathing out heavily the man ashed in his empty water glass and licked his bottom lip, "what'd you do with their vehicle on the highway?"
"Rolled it into the woods."
Cash nodded. "Good, you stay hidden from them until they pass this area."
"I ain't hiding from no one," Daryl growled. "Assholes want a fight, they'll have one."
"Maybe you'll win that fight too," Cash said, "better hope you do, though. Because if they win, they won't give one fuck about taking your women then and there over your corpses, you feel me, gentlemen?"
"How many of them travel at once? Not the whole group, surely?"
"The assholes hunting me? No, they would have only sent out twenty or so on my ass."
"How many as a whole?"
"I don't know exact numbers back in Arkansas, but I can tell you there's too many for me to know everyone's name and face and that they outnumber their women ten to one."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning they're going to want to take back a few for fun and games."
"And you let us let our women out there?" The Lieutenant inquired.
"They're fine for now. The group sets up in a location, the men on my ass today were the hunting party, the others won't poke their heads out for a good week when their boys don't show."
"Where do they set up?"
"They tend to prefer making their own camp in the woods, somewhere untraveled."
Daryl eyed the Lieutenant's profile as the soldier angled his head towards him.
"How we do know you're not just stirring the pot, numb nuts?" Daryl snarled.
"You don't. I'm trying out a little of that Georgian trust, that you all seem so fond of. Besides, why would I incriminate myself by sharing my adventures with a group like that unless I was trying to save lives?"
"Why are they on your ass?" Daryl demanded.
Everyone paused as they noticed Annie tentatively approaching, her hazel-brown eyes wide, behind her Sister Joan walked, eyeing the men out of bed quietly, her hands holding a tray of breakfast.
"Grace let us go," the Lieutenant explained swiftly. "Said as long as we didn't overdo it we may as well get some moving around done."
"Lying's a sin, you know," she replied smoothly, setting a plate of something before Cash.
"Well, may as well add it to the list," the Lieutenant replied.
Daryl snorted, still eyeing Cash warily. He didn't like or trust him, but he believed his words. Sad that it didn't take much for him to believe man had fallen such a long way.
"Well, aren't you a cute little kitten," Cash purred to Annie.
She eyed him quietly, moving to stand close to the Lieutenant's side.
Daryl tensed. He didn't like the man talking to her.
"Don't talk to her," the Cajun said calmly.
Ignoring him, the man reached into the pocket of his worn jacket and pulled out a small, ugly looking keychain with a ragged looking bear holding tightly to a heart. He dangled it out for her.
"What's your name, darling?"
Annie clapped her hands, trying to catch the keychain as he swayed it. "Annie."
"Well, that's a pretty name, why do they call you that?"
"Because that's my name, couyon," she said, catching the keychain. "What's yours?"
"Cash."
Returning to the Lieutenant, Annie pulled herself into his lap. "Cash isn't a name, it's money," she pointed out, studying the keychain.
Cash smirked. "Sure is, darling. She yours?" He asked the Lieutenant.
"Yeah and I catch you talking to her again I'll take you out back and show you how we treat gators down on the bayou."
"They become shoes," Annie chirped, looking to the Cajun for confirmation that she was right.
Daryl had a feeling they had this conversation before.
Pressing a kiss to the top of Annie's head, the Lieutenant smirked. "That's right, boo, we stick our feet up their behinds and wear them two-stepping to the fais-do-do."
"Alright, that's enough throwing around testosterone," Sister Joan exclaimed, fluffing Daryl's pillow and motioning them over. "If you boys are going to be loose, you're going to be gentlemen."
Daryl lingered for a moment long after the Lieutenant and Annie hopped back onto his bed, eyeing Cash quietly from the foot of his bed, before sniffing and moving back to eat his breakfast. When he got the chance he'd stomp the asshole into the mud, didn't care much for him or his day/night attitude. Didn't care much for what he had to say either.
Beating the bearer of bad news was fine with him.
..-~-..
..-~-..
"Chien."
They had pulled the curtain between them and Cash, while Daryl cleaned his crossbow out of boredom, with his big assed moose-dog taking up half the bed, the Lieutenant was sitting with Annie curled against him, jabbing her finger at pictures in a giant glossy paged book she had retrieved from the dorms.
"Ciel."
"Is that the colour or the sky?" Annie demanded.
"Sky."
"What's the colour?"
"Bleu."
"That's the same!" She argued. "We say blue too."
"Ah, but you don't put a fine French twist on it, yeah?"
The girl made a sound, poking her bare feet against his. "Your feet are really big," she pointed out loudly, "Mr. Daryl's too."
Tsking playfully, the Cajun beamed. "Maybe your feet are too tiny. Ever think of that, little missy?" He asked, poking her ribs playfully, before tweaking her chin.
Annie giggled and tucked her jaw to her shoulder to prevent the attack. "No! I'm still little, that's why."
"Hey, short stack, what's this 'Mr. Daryl' stuff?" Daryl inquired.
Annie rubbed her face. "Um…sorry, Mr. Dixon."
"No, that ain't right neither." He replied.
The little girl seemed to be getting agitated trying to figure out what she did wrong, so the Lieutenant swooped in, kissing her forehead and beaming. "You call him Uncle Daryl."
"Is that right?" Annie asked, turning her big eyes on him.
Daryl swallowed thickly, before nodding once. "Yeah, sounds about right."
The little girl seemed to ponder this, before closing the book and leaving in across the Lieutenant's legs, clambering down from the bed and moving around it towards Daryl's.
Carefully, she hopped up onto his bed and curled around him like a little snake.
Daryl tensed, he wasn't sure what to do exactly.
"My boo has forsaken me," the Lieutenant mused.
"Just for a little while," Annie chirped.
Cautiously settling his arms around the little girl, Daryl winced as she accidentally pushed against his wound.
"So, what you do think? What's the plan?" He asked the Lieutenant as Annie settled.
"I dunno. Meet up with Delgado first and foremost, feel his people out, let them know of the situation, then recon the area for the group, I suppose. Either live and let live or…do what needs to be done."
"What about numb nuts beside you?"
"Oh, I'm still planning the pillow thing we discussed."
Feeling a tiny hand linking with his Daryl chose to ignore it, not sure whether to encourage it or not.
"I like your style, Fay." He rasped.
"I like yours, cabri." The man replied with a small grin. "First things first, though, we wait for our girls to get home."
"You son of a bitch!"
Daryl and the Lieutenant both exchanged a curious furrowing of their brows, before the Cajun drew the curtain back in time to see Rick standing in the doorway of the infirmary, being helped inside by Beth and Sister Mary Elizabeth.
Cash's eyes brightened. "Well, killer, this is an interesting development, isn't it?"
"You knocked me out and left me for dead!" Rick growled.
He looked like hell reheated, but that wasn't something new for him, but new for right now. Last Daryl had seen the man was getting a little healthier weight to him, looking less pale and deathly, but now the shadows had returned, giving him a haunted look.
"I left you precious food and water, that's hardly leaving you for dead, Huckleberry."
Breaking away from Beth and Sister Mary Elizabeth, Rick grabbed hold of the man by the front of his shirt and hauled his ass out of the bed, dragging him to the door.
Daryl and the Lieutenant got up, following the commotion.
Outside on the lawns, Rick dragged the beaten Cash by his arm, heading for the gate.
"Mr. Grimes!" Sister Mary Elizabeth exclaimed, following them closely, trying to help the poor man to his feet. "Mr. Grimes, stop this! Please?"
"Rick!" Glenn shouted, emerging from the dorms. "Rick stop!"
"Are we going to step in or let it happen?" The Lieutenant asked, shielding Annie's eyes from the scene.
Daryl squinted at Rick as he continued to ignore everyone, heading for the gate with the new guy.
"Take your time."
"Better stop him, the guy's an ass, but he might know more about this group on his tail," Daryl said.
"Go ahead, cabri, I've got your back," the Cajun said.
The Voodoo Dialect
Krabinay - Krabinay are a multitude of evil spirits. They dress all in red and do high impressive jumps. People are warned away from Krabinay. However, they are very tough and can offer a great deal of assistance to a houngan. These loa behave in a truly devilish way. Possessions induced by them are so violent that spectators are advised to keep their distance. They take pleasure in cynicism. However, they undertake treatment of desperate cases.
The Cajun Dialect (A Reminder)
Fais-do-do – Means sleeping or in this case a Cajun style dance hall party.
Chien – Dog
Ciel – Sky
Bleu – Green (I'm kidding, of course, it means blue)
Jodie Kay - *le gasp* You sadist! ^_^! Thanks for the review, maybe you'll get your wish!
DarylDixon'sLover - Thanks!
songbird1313 - Ah, don't worry, I understand. Reviews are harder than writing the damned story, aren't they?
HGRHfan35 - Ugh, Cash...I hope the Lt. and Daryl get a chance to smack him around a bit.
Merle's Right Hand - Never piss off a nun. True story.
Yazzy x - I agree! Wholeheartedly!
itsi3 - Who knows what drives men like Cash and Merle to shove their feet into their mouths?
Brazen Hussy - I like my cash wet and limp...is that wrong?
Axelrocks - Rick does seem to need someone to take a lot of the burden...but then again he puts a lot of the burden on himself, doesn't he? Poor babes.
shelly2 - Oh gosh, first-timer reviews are always welcome and so lovely to hear. Thank you. I think you're just aces! ^_^
SilverWolf84 - Grace is a sadist at heart I think.