and with this I have officially caught up to where I left off in the show so many year ago.
I laugh at myself for expecting at least one review or PM on this story sometimes. It really is funny how many times I hit the refreash button before I post. Then, I remember this is just for funnsies and not a legit thing, and I'm not so upset anymore. Reviews are nice, even if its to cuss me out, it would help me narrow down what particular style of writing I should keep to but *Shrugs*... Each chapter seems to be written diffrently baced on my mood. I am trying to incorporate a few of the other characters in the story line as well, but they honestly don't cross my mind all that often until I go back to the actual show for research, which doesn't happen often.
I have been mulling over a different show lately. One probably more geared to my intrests of today than this one, but I don't really want to drop this story, as I want to finish it, and thats what I feel like would feel like when posting another story.
Other news, I am thinking about scrapping 'Before Time Itself.' I have come to the conclusion, now that I have my own child, that it is all wrong. The research I put into it was mostly baced on my own ideas of babyhood and every other scentance I was forgetting that it should be baced more on the early 1990's pricing and situations. I mean, I do the same here, but its not as obvious in this story as it is in the other one. Maybe, I should just revamp it?
~Loner
There was something here…. What? He didn't know. It was just one of those particular feelings that would randomly pop up. All he knew was there was something, but he was too tired to figure it out. There was so much pain. He was so tired.
NO, his mind roar, fighting his body's reaction. I can't sleep now.
Daryl always did prefer the company of trees more then humans; the thought amused the 16 year old Arron into a faint painful grin, the bandages taped to his face pulling on flesh and thread as he bent down to examine the uneven footprint hidden under freshly fallen leaves. Honestly, the wounds on his face was probably spurred this little rebellious action Daryl was pulling now. It wasn't Arron's idea to be out searching for the 8 year old so soon out of the hospital. He just wanted his own bed and some real sleep. The kind of sleep that wasn't interrupted by nurses just as he closed his eyes, the kind that didn't have that irritating beeping rhythm of the heart monitor in his ear (he really regretted telling the doctor's his chest hurt too). While the good news was Arron got a get out of jail/school free card, the bad news was Merle was paying for bad temper in Juvenile detection for six weeks (apparently, beating your father in self-defense did that to a child) and Daryl ran away from home. I was only in the hospital for 24 hours, Arron thought with a frustrated sigh as he moved forward. He touched the snapped bush branch. Already everything has gone to hell. The sap from the branch looked dry.
This was gonna be a long day. Arron sighed again, face twisting up in pain as he straighten his back too fast. He lifted his mummified arm up, running a hand over his face, then dropped it with a grim look. The doctor's had done what they could to minimize the damage, but even they couldn't promise no scar tissue. The medical field was advanced, yes, but things like scar tissue removal were still new. His insurance, through his parents, considered the treatments cosmetic, not life threatening; thus, it refused to help cover it. At full price, his parents couldn't cover it, not without putting of their divorce for another 20 or so years anyway, and everyone knew Daryl and Merle's parents, parent now that their mother was dead, were already so far in debt there wasn't a point trying to force them to own up to damages.
"Life in the fast lane," Arron was telling himself, again, reminding himself to slow down, "is exactly like the slow lane." It was him mantra when he moved too fast because of the pain it caused. He paused in his forcefully slow tread, he'd turning to a particular tree to the right. Arron wondered over, even footsteps following after smaller heel-heavy prints to the tree. Just the scenery is clearer, Arron thought as he ran his fingers over the bark where the blood of a small animal (squirrel, probably) stained the tree. At least the kid wasn't unarmed.
Arron had a paranoia bred from hanging around Merle for most of his life and living on his own. So, when the hairs at the back of his head pricked, Arron was gripping a throwing knife on his forearm.
A twig snapped to the right and the knife was flying before Arron's head finish turning toward the flesh eaters limping through the trees. Two moves later, the rest of the bodies were falling next to the first before they finished stepping forward.
God damn it, Arron complained mentally, now, I gotta go get them. With great reluctance, Arron moved away from Daryl's latest trail (the man was way better then he use to be at covering his tracks) to collect his knifes. Honestly, he pondered on the idea of wrapping the ends in wire or something , like some shit he watched in Naruto, but threw the idea out when he realized a second later that he wasn't in the era of online ordering anymore. Finding the supplies alone took months, not to mention having to invent a
pulley like contraption that would wind up the wire… then the possible tangles or dents and bends the wire would adopt from the windup contraption… yeah, scrap that idea. Arron was lazy, but he didn't have a death wish. It would be convenient, though.
It took days of Arron wondering in excruciatingly slow circles to find the boy. It really wasn't his fault, though. Daryl was the one going in circles. The boy clearly didn't have a particular direction or really any plan at all when it came to running away… Arron spent many days sleeping against the cold, hard ground, staring up into the canapés above him contemplating the idea of sleeping in one like they did in the Hunger Games before passing out from exhaustion.
Daryl was standing before him, clothes caked in mud from his adventure, a make shift bow raised, carved arrow pointed in the direction of a deer a few feet away from his position.
Arron sighed in both relief and aspiration. "You ain't gonna catch nothin' with that thing," he called out to the boy, startling him into shooting the ground, instead of forward ,at the deer. "Let's just ignore tha shitty ass bow an' horrid arrow fer now." Arron slowly inched forward, grabbing the boy's left shoulder, ignoring the tense muscles under his fingertips, his other hand coming up to press on the boy's spine. Arron's movements were jerky in aggravation and rough with the treatment. "Shoulders back," he advised, "back straight," then he kicked at the boy's ankles, almost knocking the boy over, "feet even with your shoulders. This ain't no crossbow yer tryin' to hold. The stance is different. More ridged."
The 8 year old just turned his head to stare at Arron in shock. "Wha' are you doin'?"
"Apparently, teaching a run away how to hold a bow. Now," Arron reached over grasping the hands Daryl had on the crude bow, "adjust your grip, like so." He moved Daryl's fingers into the correct grip. "Lift bow," Arron lifted the bow almost even with the boy's chin, "then pull this arm back, evenly with your hold hand. Elbow up!" He suddenly snapped, smacking the underarm of Daryl's pull hand.
Daryl just followed Arron's instructions, too dazed to really do anything other than go through the impromptu lesson.
"Now, stay there until you've memorized it. Seriously, it's a miracle you caught anything at all."
After a few minutes of Daryl blinking like that chick in twilight with the horrid acting, eyelashes fluttering open and closed over gray eyes, the boy seemed to come back to reality. "Ain't you supposed to be in tha hospital?" the child asked the older boy.
Arron sighed in frustration. "No. I'm supposed to be at home, in bed mind you," the teen stared pointedly at the boy still wrapped up in his arms from the lesson, "but someone decided instead of just waiting for my release, they were going to just up and disappear when I wasn't lookin'."
Daryl had the decency to blush in shame. "Sorry," the younger brunette whispered quietly.
"Yeah, well…" Arron pulled away from the child, "don't do it again." Suddenly, Arron was grabbing the ugly bow in Daryl hand, swiping it from the boy in a motion that had Arron biting back a flinch of pain. "This bow!" The teen said, snarling the word bow with discussed that had the boy before him flinching, "It's hideous! What the hell made you think a shoe string and a twig would be a good idea?"
"Worked for making a fire," the boy responded almost immediately, happy for the topic change.
That was it. Arron didn't make a fuss about Daryl's stunt of running away. Though, he did pretty much move in with Daryl, without officially moving in, to keep an eye on the boy while Merle was away in Juve. Daryl didn't say anything; just let the teen come and go. Occasionally, they would share Daryl's bed on bad days. On good, monotonous days, Arron would suffer sleeping in Merle's gross bed.
Arron found Daryl trying to pull his broken body over the cliff side. The man was clearly delusional as he reached for something not there, the word "Merle" leaving the younger man's lips. Arron moved faster than he had in years, his old bones practically groaning at the movement, and gripped the hand tightly, just as the other man's footing slipped from its parch. The resulting yank of the extra weight had Arron digging his heels into the ground, body refusing the idea of falling head first with Daryl. Arron reached over with his other hand, already feeling the damp hand in his starting to slip, and grasped a thick wrist tightly. "Heave," Arron told himself as he pulled, heels sliding in the mud, "hoe." Daryl's body moved upwards as Arron's went backwards feet slipping out from under him. Arron dug his heels into the dirt again, refusing to let Daryl fall again, and pushed his weight against his heels, sliding his body back a ways before his heels slipped again. Daryl's waist was over the cliff. "Once more," he was saying, readjusting his grip to grasp strong forearms.
Daryl's eyes seemed to focus on him for a few seconds, "Arron." Then, they were unfocused again, but Arron could feel the muscles under his hands flex, trying to help, even as Daryl's other hand dug into the dirt on the other side.
"Heave," this time Arron was saying it for Daryl as he dug his heels in again, pulling, "hoe!" Next thing he knew, Daryl was flying over his body, all but over the cliff side now, with just his knees dangling out. Arron just lay there, taking a few minutes to catch his breath. Daryl's face was turning to hide in Arron's collar bone, just taking a minute to calm down some.
Arron had no idea what was going on with Daryl. Judging from the glimpse he got from the cliff side as he struggled to get Daryl's limp body off the ground, it was probably a concussion and a whole hell of a lot of pain. It was kind of amazing to think about on the walk back to the farm. Three walker bodies had been floating in the river just below the cliff, telling Arron the story of battle. Arron wondered if Daryl would remember why he was wearing a ring of ears around his neck or whatever dilutions the man clearly was having in that moment of life and death. Arron would love to hear the story one day.
The next morning, after finally breaking the tree line, after a long night of fighting and treating through the under bush, a gunshot was resounding though the clearing around the farm house. Arron, already dead on his feet, could hear the bullet buzz by his ear. Then, both him and Daryl were going down as darkness overtook his vision. He took a moment to complain to himself about the wasted resources even as he reviled in the knowledge that, at least, one person in the group was paranoid enough to shoot first. He needed to congratulate who ever that was, then scold them.
"At least," he found himself muttering to the dark figures that seemed to pop up around his darkened vision, "don't miss."