Chapter Text
It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. When a couple of squirrels or birds isn’t enough. When the rabbit traps come up empty. When the days are short, and the light disappears before he can bag anything.
Because that’s what he’s there for, right? Daryl, the hunter. Daryl, who can track. Daryl, who brings back food. Except it’s not enough; the woods are shutting down for winter—nothing to spare, no freebies. No fall-backs.
He’s in the woods as soon as he can be, before most of the others are awake—he tells whoever’s on watch when he leaves. In the back of his head, he hopes the others know, understand that he’s doing what he can. Doing all he knows how to do.
Slinging his gear together in the bare morning light, a voice from a gully creek-bed tells him they don’t. These people don’t know, don’t want to know—he’s just some redneck piece of shit. He’s good with a knife and a bow, sure; he brings in food and supplies, yeah. But these people aren’t his family—he doesn’t have a wife and son, father or daughters. He doesn’t have friends. When he bothers them, when he doesn’t bring enough meat back; when he loses that inch between ‘helpful’ and ‘useless’—they’ll get rid of him.
He doesn’t want to think about it—he needs to focus, make sure he’s moving quite through the pines, make sure he’s looking for game trails and tracks. Make sure he doesn’t trip over a goddamn root, snap his ankle—he has to stop walking, take deep breaths. He’s not sure how long it would take to crawl back to camp. What the others would do if he made it back. Wait till he passes out, and leave? Or maybe Rick would put him down like a lame-legged horse. He’s not sure he would even rate a bullet.
Walking slow, he finds tracks in the dirt—three toes, the long middle one claw-tipped, a small dip of a hind-toe. The pine-needle carpet is rucked up, scratches and foraging holes like some kind of answered prayer—turkey tracks, a rafter of them.
Like some kind of wash, he doesn’t feel so heavy, sort of warmed up against the cold. This, this is good. This is great, and he’s smirking thinking of how the others will look at him when he brings in a 10 pound bird—he would shrug, tell them it wasn’t anything to get worked up about. They would smile, and he would sit with them by the fire, feeling like that place was his—like he’s earned it that day.
But that voice in the back of his skull still whispers at him, like a hit to the gut. He can dream all day, but he’s still got to catch the damn thing. The tracks are maybe an hour old, and those big bastards can move miles quick. They make a mess wherever they go, so he follows the tracks easy, through the bones of trees and bushes, empty branches pulling at his clothes. Over a hill, and he didn’t expect to be up so high—the ridge stumbles to a stop, a steep drop covered in rocks and ferns and dead leaves. The creek bed at the bottom is pebbly, phyllite glinting where the sun hits it through the water.
The scar on his side stings like a bitch as he edges down, gripping roots and rocks to keep his balance. The creek’s colder than he wants, soaking him to mid-thigh at the deepest part; he’s scrambling up the bank, water squelching in his boats, back into the woods before he picks the trail up again.
It’s cold, like little fingers of ice stealing his heat; even with the coat and long sleeves, he shivers. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning, and he knows it’s not helping; but sometimes he can’t make himself take a can of something, a piece of whatever they have left. It’s partly his fault there isn’t more—he should hunt farther, track for days until he finds enough. But when the light starts to slip away, he turns around, heads back. It makes him nervous, being gone so long. Something could happen, someone could get hurt—and where would Daryl be? Out in those fucking woods, not catching shit, wasting their time. It makes him nervous, because they could just leave, pick up and go. It would just be him and the woods and the walkers.
So when Carol or Lori or whoever asks if he’s gotten his share of food, he says yeah and goes on his way. If they notice, no one says anything. They must approve—what’s he done to earn it anyway?
A clearing thick with tall grass; Daryl hears soft clucks, catches sight of dark bodies moving. Dropping from sight, he pulls back an arrow, ignoring the shake in his fingers. He tries to aim, tries to force his shivering arms to stillness, fails; he crouches, rests his elbow on his knees and fires.
Heavy wings flapping, cackling loud as they pull themselves up, and the rafter disappears into the tree line. Daryl stalks into the grass, swapping the bow for his knife; the bird is down, an arrow buried in the broadside of its thigh. Daryl stops the little noises and struggles with a quick twist of its neck; using the knife, he digs out the arrow. He dresses it, fast, wiping the muck and blood onto the grass.
At the creek, he stops to wash the body cavity, clean his arms and hands, his knife. He’s wet all over, and not exactly doing back flips about having to climb back up that ridge. The bird’s not huge, maybe 6 pounds, but enough to complicate things. Still, he can’t drop the urge to smirk, even when he scrapes the shit out his elbow and almost drops the damn turkey. He’s breathing hard at the top, has to lean on a tree before he can go on.
It’s just afternoon, so Daryl hauls the bird around, following rabbit and coon tracks. He doesn’t get much—nails a couple squirrels, digs up a stand of wild onions, finds a cluster of mushrooms on a dead trunk. It’s the best Daryl’s brought back in weeks. There’s maybe an hour til sunset, but he can’t stop shivering and his head feels light on his shoulders, eyes blurry; he turns back.
The campsite is over this hill, just behind those trees. And he can’t help that fucking sick feeling, how his lungs stutter cold air in and out like he’d run the whole way back. He’s tired and cold and just wants to sit by the fire, drink some of Carol’s nasty-ass tea. Then he’s stuck, standing still, holding dead animals and shit like they are fucking Christmas presents. Because he wants to puke or scream or just run the last few yards. Because anything could be over there waiting.
Because today, for sure.
Today, he’ll walk over that hill, behind those trees, and there will be nothing. They will be gone; all the tents and bags and shit—just gone, like nothing had ever been there. No fire pit, no foot prints, pine-needles and brush completely untouched. Empty, except for his bike and tent, alone in this tiny clearing like that’s the way it was supposed to be.
Sometimes, when Daryl manages to sleep, he dreams about it. About coming back to nothing, about coming back to ripped-up bodies. About running after shadows in the pines, because someone is lost, and Jesus Christ, he’s got to find them, and every second that goes by he knows they’re getting farther and farther away—sometimes he finds a bloody hand, sometimes it’s a doll or a little shoe—he’d wake up sweating with his heart trying to break through his ribcage. He doesn’t sleep after that, gets up and walks the perimeter until the sun is up. Then it’s back to the woods.
Someone laughs—Maggie or Beth, probably—and it’s like a slap, wakes him up and gets him moving. He whistles a little bit out, lets them know it’s not something else snapping branches. He forgot to, once; scared the shit out of Carl and Beth. She’d kind of squeaked and Carl’d pulled his gun and then the whole camp was rushing over with bats and knives and shotguns. He’d said sorry, handed over whatever it was that he’d shot. He doesn’t forget that look in Lori’s eyes, pulling Carl against her pregnant belly like she’d be glad if they’d shot Daryl.
So he whistles, walks past the cars into the little camp. Carol and Lori sit around the fire, poking it down for the night. Rick and Hershel are huddled over the map, spread out on a car hood, while Carl and Glenn are cleaning guns nearby; someone’s on watch, and the others must be in their tents. They look up at him, like they’re surprised he’d come back at all; it’s awkward as hell, every one staring, not saying a word. He fidgets and looks away, feeling like maybe he should just back away into the trees.
But Carol’s up, smiling and laughs, “Oh my god, is that what I think it is?” And then everyone drops on him like a swarm, grabbing things from him, talking at him and smiling. Maggie and Beth are there, pulling at the turkey—they were raised plucking chickens, so he figures they know what they’re about. Carol is asking what kind of mushrooms are those, how should they cook them—he’s feeling like he can’t breathe, and lets them take what they will, brushing through the tangle of people so he can skin the squirrels.
He’s looking at the ground, almost runs into T-Dog, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Well, shit,” T-dog breaks into this big grin, like he’s not dirty and tired and fucking desperate. Like Daryl was some old pal who decided to surprise him with a six-pack or something.
“Ain’t nothing’,” Daryl grunts, avoiding a clap on the shoulder. T-Dog just smiles, shakes his head and joins the others, leaving Daryl to himself. He skins quickly, a few cuts and he’s pulling fur and skin off like a glove. He can’t help but watch the others, off and away like he’s an outsider. The way they smile at each other, hug and talk so easy, he knows he is. And as much as he wants to, he can’t really blame them.
He’s not stupid, he knows what he’s been like, how he is. He’s some Appalachian-backwater redneck; he’s not exactly friendly on good days, and he’s easy to set off—volatile, some teacher had called him way back. It doesn’t matter if that’s really him or not, it’s what these people believe—what he’s let them go on believing, because he’s been too fucking wrapped up in his own shit to fix things.
Here he is, like some kind of half-trained, mangy thing thrown in with the goddamn house pets. He doesn’t even know where to start. So he gives Carol the squirrels, allows her to squeeze his arm as he brushes past; he digs out his blanket, drops down by the fire and works on not shivering. He knows he needs to find new clothes, some that aren’t so baggy and maybe he’d be warmer. The others move around him, setting pots and things against the embers, letting him be.
He’s comfortable and half asleep when they settle in around him to eat; Glenn on his left, Carol at his right. Over the fire, he sees Rick watching him, waits for Daryl to meet his eyes. Then he nods, tells him ‘good job’; he has to stop himself from flinching when Glenn shakes his shoulder in agreement. He ducks his head, allows himself a small piece of turkey, tries to ignore them. Fucking Rick Grimes and his bullshit. But the fire is so warm, and there are people on both sides, and he can almost believe for a moment that this is his place, where he belongs. But it’s only a moment; there and gone, because he doesn’t want to lie to himself.
Because tomorrow they could still leave.