Arron was running as soon as the damn door opened, dragging a weight behind him ("Daryl," Arron remembered). He couldn't run fast enough. Couldn't get away fast enough. The halls were too long, too much twisting turns. It was a maze!
There was a weight on him, keeping his unconsciously body from twisting up in the blankets.
He was sliding down to his knees before the pile of junk everyone dragged in with them. Panicked hands fumbled over the weapons that lay on top of the bags. A crossbow pushing into the other person's hands, a bag, just a random one, was passed to another set of hands. A katana was strapped to his waist, bags he could recognize in with his eyes closed were gripped tightly in his in his hands.
Scenes flashed before his closed eyelids, eyes darting back and forth under the skin covering them.
"Get down!" Rick's voice was echoing the space, and Arron was pulling Daryl down flat with him. A bomb went off in front of them.
Buzzing. His ears were ringing in remembrance. "Go," Arron was muttering desperately, "go."
Arron pushed Daryl ahead of him , towards the new hole in the wall.
"Run." Arron whimpered, body jerking, muscle's tensing up. "Get down!"
Arron pushed Daryl on the other side of the truck, throwing his own body over the man. ("Protect.") Just as he wrapped his hands around Daryl's ears, Daryl did the same for his.
"Pa." A palm was smacking him in the chest.
The blast was so massive, Arron was scared the truck was going to go sliding, taking them with it.
"Pa, wake up." Daryl, Arron thought absently as he reach for consciousness. "Wake up, Pa," Daryl was saying, "Yer dreaming, 'gain."
"Daryl," Arron slurred exhaustedly, arms tightening around the man's waist.
"Yeah, Pa," Daryl was shifting against him.
Arron cracked an eyelid open, looking through a sleep clouded eye at the other man. A moment later, both eyes were open just staring. "Daryl." Arron reached out, gripping the man's face. Daryl is fine, he told himself. Daryl was alive, and that was all that mattered to Arron.
Daryl moaned into the sudden kiss, feeling teeth nipping his bottom lip. Rough hands were pulling his body onto a slightly harder one, still sluggish with sleep. The panic from the nightmare seemed to be egging Arron's hands on, touching him all over, making sure the younger man was really okay, unharmed. Daryl returned the favor, his own fingers stroking at Arron's bare skin in reassurance. Sex that night was slow, sensual, with Daryl on top, pressing down into Arron. Arron marking up Daryl's body with love bites, muttering to him so lovingly, possessively. Daryl responded with praises and reassurances.
"On the road again," Arron was singing to himself as he packed up the tent Daryl and he shared when they stopped for the night, "Can't wait to be on the road again." Daryl just let Arron do Arron, helping where his soar body would let him.
"I don't know what's going on with that RV," Arron was saying a few days later as he followed the caravan to the side of the road. They would have had to stop anyways, even if the RV hadn't started smoking from under the hood again, due to the pile up, up ahead.
"Probably that hose, 'gain," Daryl replied, already throwing his door open. Then he was saying in a louder, more resentful voice for the others to hear, "Wouldn't 'ave been a problem if Merle was here! He would 'ave already fixed the son o' a bitch."
Someone is cranky today, Arron thought, slamming his door shut, wisely keeping his mouth shut. It made sense that Daryl would be short tempted these days. Between the nightmares and the aftercare sex that the two had been having every night, his kid was probably ready to fall over. Not that Arron was doing much better. Just, Arron tended to retreat when he was exhausted, turning into a listless mute. He didn't even bother to keep up appearances, just following Daryl around and tried to silently keep the kid calm as best as he could without giving away their current status of Lovers.
The munchkins tried to stay out of their way, for the most part, but the adults didn't seem to see the dark bags under their eyes. Between Lori, Shane and Rick, though, they were ready to murder everyone here. Lori was too loud. Shane still tried to boss them around. Even though Rick had seemed to get the hint of 'stay away unless it was important, then be quick,' the dude was still annoying to Arron. That left just Dale, Andrea, and Carol in their good books (the only 3 that had no reason to bother them outside accepting hunt kills [Carol] and watch shifts [Dale and Andrea]). Then there was Glen and T-dog. Those two were neither here nor there to Arron and Daryl. Some days they were annoying, others they kept to themselves.
It seemed today, about an hour in to their adventure of pushing heavy ass cars out of the way, while Daryl worked on trying to fix the RV, T-dog was having an annoying day.
"Ow. Fuck!" T-dog yelled, pulling his hand back from the car door he was holding onto, blood gushing down his arm.
Arron just sighed.
"What happened?" Rick asked, leaning over the other side of the car to look at T-dog.
"Sliced arm open."
"Shit," Shane was cussing from the other side of Arron, where they were pushing the back of the car. Then he was yelling towards the rest of the surviving group by the RV, "Anyone have a first aid kit?"
Andrea looked up, from the door of the RV, at Dale, who was sitting in a lawn chair keeping watch. Dale shook his head, no. Lori and Carol followed suit, both looking at each other then shaking their heads, no.
"Well," Rick was saying, looking at the wound in worry, "we can't just let it be like that. What if it gets infected?"
Shane added, "What if a walker smells it?"
Daryl, who closed the hood of the RV, walked over rubbing the oil on his hands with a wash cloth. He took one look at the wound and sighed. "Come on. I think Merle has a bag of medical supplies in the back of the motorcycle." Then, he was walking off. Arron, after taking a moment to watch his backside, followed after him.
Daryl was already digging through the saddle bags when T-dog caught up with them. "Ah," Daryl started, pulling out the gallon Ziploc that Arron immediately recognized, "found it."
"You knew where it was this whole time?" Arron snapped seeing the bag. It was Merle's drug bag. "And you kept it?" for some reason that pissed Arron off. Daryl knew how Arron felt about Merle's drug use, yet the boy just let his brother keep doing it. Arron was constantly looking for that damn bag in hopes to throw it out.
Daryl just struggled, looking away from the man in guilt. "I found it when we were packing up the camp," he explained, jumping down from the back, "thought it would be useful."
"Useful?" there was a bite to Arron's tone. He didn't believe Daryl for a second. Maybe the part where the boy thought it was useful at the camp, but Arron would never believe his boy didn't know where it was already. Arron wasn't stupid. He knew a part of Daryl idolized his brother.
Daryl, himself, was too straight laced to do the drugs his brother did, too shy to follow in his elder brother's footsteps, but the boy would never do anything to upset Merle either. Selling out his older brother's drugs to Arron would have upset Merle, but not selling them out meant Arron got angry. Merle got violently angry though, Arron did not. While, yes, Daryl knew Arron would flat out brawl with his older brother to protect him, Daryl didn't want to be the reason it happened. Eventually, Merle got everyone back, blood or not. Arron getting in the middle would just be prolonging the inevitable, while damaging the relationship to the point of death for one or both of them. Arron, on the other hand, pulled away in his anger. He put distance between himself and the source until he could calm down. At worst, Daryl just won't hear from him for a few days (little did Daryl know, Arron's temper was just as explosive as Merle's, that's why they were still good friends. Daryl was just treated differently because Arron loved him).
"Yes, useful, Pa." Daryl wasn't going to say anymore. Any more and it would be a flat out lie.
"Fine," Arron growled, throwing his hands up, as if to say "why do you do this to me," and turned away stalking off to help push cars again.
"Er," T-dog glanced back and forth between Daryl and Arron, "Sorry?" The black man didn't really know why he was apologizing. It just seemed like the thing to do. If he hadn't needed to wrap the wound, Daryl and Arron wouldn't have had this, admittedly vague, fight just now.
Daryl waved the man off. "Don't worry about it," he said as he dug through the bag. "Has nothing to do with you."
"Walkers!" Dale screamed, hands cupped around his mouth.
Arron had never seen Shane and Rick on the same wave length before. Both men slid right into the car they were pushing and shut the doors behind them. It happened so fast that Arron doubted his eyes. Arron crouched down behind the car looking over and Daryl's direction. The man held a finger to his mouth, pointing downwards, hinting to Arron that he was crawling under the car he was previously digging through. Arron nodded, lying flat on his stomach and army crawled under the car in front of him, trying to keep an eye on the other man as best he could. Then, one of the doors to the car they were pushing was opening and closing, and Rick was sliding in under the car. The man's eyes were darting around, probably looking for his family unit.
By time the horde of walkers started to pass through, everyone was hidden, either under a car or locked up in the RV or vehicle. They stayed where they were, not even daring to breathe afraid the walkers would hear them. Arron turned his head, seeing Carl, for once, tucked into his mother's hands, Rick under a car near by them. To Rick's other side was Sofia somehow separated from her mom by two whole cars. Maybe she was on her way over to Carl when the warning came. T-dog was half in a car, the door slightly cracked, which was dangerous for the bleeding man, but then again, Arron could see him moving something above him; a dead flesh eater's body from the car. For once, smart but still stupid with an open wound. Glen was just flat out dodging walkers as the passed trying to get to Sofia, her being the only child without an adult and her mom too afraid to move.
As soon as the last sounds of feet dragging faded from Arron's immediate area, Arron was army crawling out from under his vehicle. Crouched low, he took a gamble to peek up over the hood or the car to see where the horde was. He didn't see anyone. He looked over to Dale, who was watching the horde over the edge of the RV roof. There wasn't an all clear yet, so there must be a few stragglers. Arron almost jumped out of his skin when something touched his back. Looking back at Daryl, he sighed in relief. "What the hell," he whisper yelled at the man.
"Sh." Daryl hissed lowly, looking over the hood with Arron. The male crouched down again, looking at Arron. He brought his hands up, pointing two fingers at them then pointed them in Sofia's direction. Arron nodded, checking to make sure his katana was secure. Which that done, Arron reached out, putting a hand on Daryl's awaiting back, and forward they went. The tactics they were using was the same as when they were trying to rescue Merle in Atlanta, only instead of pausing because of Rick's leadership skills, they were pausing to check other side of the cars. They were 3 cars away, a few freshly shot flesh eaters giving away their trail, when a high pitched scream broke the silence and a small body darted out from under a car, making a beeline for the forest.
"NO!" Arron shout out after the child qt the same time a woman screamed, "SOFIA."
Daryl and Arron took off after the child and walker, not waiting for the all clear.