to be cringe is to be free

You’ve been at the Atlanta camp for two weeks and you still haven’t spoken a word to anyone. There’ve been plenty of whispers and nervous glances in your direction, speculations about what must be wrong with you. What must’ve happened to you or what you must’ve done to end up with one hand and arm so black and blue you could barely use it. But, for the most part, everyone’s accepted your benign presence. You lend a hand where you’re useful with laundry and dishes, do any task handed off to you, and smile politely whenever someone helps you. Carol helps you rehab your wrist. By making sure to pull your weight, you earn their trust, at least as much as you can without talking.

The only problem is Shane.

Ever since Rick returned and Lori started sleeping in his tent again, Shane’s been fixated on you – getting you to talk, specifically. He tries everything from attempting to connect with you like a human to making jokes at your expense to try to get a rise out of you. Nobody does much to stop him aside from occasionally telling him to quit it or redirecting the conversation to take his attention. Daryl’s the only one who even bothers trying to apologize.

“Hope you don’t think we’re all like that, mouse,” he murmurs one night when you’ve stalked off to be alone on the bed of a nearby creek. You heard him approaching, of course, but hadn’t turned toward the sound. When he plops down onto a rock next to you, your eyes finally rake over him. Lanky, scrappy, eyes full of fight. A secret kind of handsome he wouldn’t admit to anyone. He touches your thigh so quick and soft you might’ve missed it if not for your laser focus on his every move. “I’m glad you’re here, if that means anythin’ t’you.”

You nod slowly and give him a tentative smile. It does. It means everything.

He seems to understand. He gives your shoulder a gentle squeeze and stands back up. “Good. Now come back to camp and get some sleep. I’d be pissed if you got bit right after my pep talk.”

Your sheepish little laugh etches itself into his ears.

And then Shane starts flirting in his latest attempts to get you to speak. Back in your world, it would’ve been called sexual harassment, something worth calling out. Here, in a world overrun with the dead and run by men like Shane, it’s just another thing you have to put up with. It’s clear that he’s making the others uncomfortable, especially the women, but even Glenn and Rick exchange eye contact and roll their eyes. Everyone hates his latest tactic – with all his c’mon, baby and just want to hear that pretty voice – but they still set their jaws and avert their eyes.

Daryl always watches from a distance, his fists clenched and his eyes on fire. His attempts at comfort become routine, the two of you sitting by the creek or on top of the camper in the quiet nighttime. He talks to you softly, searching for your smiles as he comes up with stupid jokes and stories just to take your mind off of things. He doesn’t expect you to talk back; he can read your expressions well enough you don’t have to.

It all comes to a head, though, when Shane touches you. 

His usual routine starts up around the fire. Everything had been nice up until then, Lori and Carol exchanging sweet stories about raising toddlers while everyone smiles and eats the fish Daryl went out and caught earlier that morning. Shane finishes first like he always does; he wolfs down his food like he knows his next meal is soon.

Then he walks around the fire and lilts, “How about tonight, little lady? I’d like if you sang us a campfire song.”

You scoot slightly away from him and hunch your shoulders to make yourself small.

“C’mon, doll, don’t be like that,” he sighs, slinging an arm around you. Everyone stiffens when you gasp at the contact. “Aw, there you go making a peep for me. Hey, I’ve got an idea now.” He drags you in closer to his body. Your bowl of food clatters to the ground as you try to lean away from him, heart beginning to pound in your chest, but he only tightens his grip on you. “Gonna say no to me? How about that?”

Daryl’s voice rises up from the dark. His footsteps storm across the field as he hollers, “Leave her alone.”

Shane laughs as he straightens up – but his arm loosens around your body. “What’s that, Dixon?”

Daryl’s hand drops down, bruising and cruel, on Shane’s shoulder. He yanks Shane to his feet and shoves him back, away from you. “Don’t test me, Shane, I ain’t from your world. Man grabs a woman like that in front of me and he’s gonna have a problem on his hands.”

“If she doesn’t like the attention, then the lady can speak for herself.” Shane leans forward and mocks, “Can’t you, sweetheart? Or’s the cat still got your tongue? Pretty little thing like her’s not gonna get very far in the new world if she won’t talk.”

Daryl puts his hand at the center of Shane’s chest and gives him another sharp push backwards. At the same time, he tugs you behind him, creating a brick wall with his sturdy body. Everyone else holds their breath. Rick’s got his hand at his waist, on his gun, ready to jump in. Daryl spits, “She pulls her weight like everyone else. She don’t have to talk if she don’t want to.”

“Well I think-”

“Don’t care what you think,” Daryl cuts him off. You cling behind him, your fist wrapping in his shirt now as you breathe in his leather and denim and forest scent to try to ground yourself. “Bother her again and see what happens when I ain’t bein’ nice about it.”

Shane sizes up Daryl for a second, analyzing the seriousness clouding his eyes. When he decides that Daryl’s not fucking around in the slightest, he steps back, kicks the gravel, and gripes, “She’s not worth the effort, anyway. Ugly bitch.”

Shane stalks away from camp, muttering something about clearing his head.

Daryl turns to you. You’ve never noticed how blue his eyes are before. Aquamarine, really. A deep tropical sea. He holds your shoulders with both hands, firm but sweet. “Y’alright, mouse?”

Arms crossed tight over your chest, you nod and bite your lower lip to try to suppress tears. You’re not even sure why you feel like crying. Maybe Shane being a dick or maybe, more likely, the warm feeling of someone taking care of you for the first time since you escaped. Then you quickly and quietly murmur the first words you’ve spoken since arriving at the camp, eyes flicking up to his: “Thank you, Daryl.”

For a moment, he’s too stunned to reply. He’d imagined your voice before, but his mind could never match the divinity of hearing the real thing. Then he shakes off the surprise, knowing that drawing attention to it would only embarrass you, and offers, “I’ll move my tent over by yours, if y’want. Make sure he don’t give you anymore trouble. Would that be alright?”

You nod quickly and then scamper into your tent for the night. If you were still out there when Shane came back, you know he’d rehash the whole situation, getting worked up and probably ending up throwing a punch at Daryl.

After moving his own tent over, Daryl can hear you quietly crying most of the night. You’ll go quiet for a little while, listening as the others put out the fire and shuffle off to sleep. But then you’ll start back up. It’s clear you’re trying to stifle your tears; Daryl can hear the strangled fight of your throat. A familiar ache twists in his gut for you and he can’t listen to it a moment longer. The moon’s heavy and high in the sky when he taps on your tent and mutters gruffly, “It’s Daryl.”

You unzip it for him with questions all over your face and tears shimmering on your soft cheeks.

He hovers, crouched, in the opening. “I just- I just wanted to see if you’re alright.”

You scoot back and wave him inside the tent. He hesitates but only for a moment. He even kicks his shoes off before he joins you, awkwardly maneuvering his long limbs into the corner so he’s not intimidating. The two of you sit in silence for a while, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the sheer panels at the top of the tent.

Then you break the quiet. “Why’d you stand up for me?

Daryl tries not to make a big deal about you offering him a full sentence. After so many nights imagining the sweetness of your voice, he’s getting a sugar high. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

“Nobody else was gonna,” you whisper into the darkness, “since he’s in charge, I guess.”

“He ain’t in charge,” Daryl scoffs as he gradually relaxes. “He tries anythin’ with you again, I’m gonna do a hell of a lot more than just shove him.”

You scoot a bit closer to him and press, “Why?”

Daryl just shrugs. “You’re nice. I like you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Well, you’re quiet, at least,” he amends with a chuckle. He shakes his head and tells you, “Everyone here’s so damn loud all the time, ‘specially when they shouldn’t be. I grew up with loud. I like quiet.” His voice goes softer. More intimate. He adds, “Ain’t nobody deserve to get talked to the way Shane talked to you back there. And him touchin’ you…that just- It got under my skin. Can’t sit back and watch shit like that.”

There’s decades unspoken within that admission. You can tell, without him saying a word, that Daryl must’ve spent a lot of his life dealing with men like Shane and not being able to stop them. Now that he can, he will.

 Daryl ends up sleeping in your tent that night. Blame it on the sudden rainstorm or the good conversation or something else entirely. Whatever the cause is the first time, in a few days, you end up sleeping in his. Someone new joins up with the Atlanta camp and has nothing to her name but the clothes on her back. It’s a miracle she’s made it this long. When Rick tells her there’s no room for her, you nudge Daryl and give him a pointed look. Pursed lips, hopeful eyes. He understands. You have a soft spot for women on their own in this shitty age, so he knows you’re not gonna back down. You’ll sleep on the dirt under the stars if he doesn’t make the offer first.

“You can take mouse’s tent,” he offers gruffly. “Little blue one under the big oak tree.”

Rick glances suspiciously between the two of you. Daryl’s become your mouthpiece lately, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of decision he should announce on your behalf. Rick narrows his eyes in your direction. “That okay with you?”

You nod ardently and give Daryl a poke in his ribs. He sighs and clarifies, “She’ll sleep in mine; I ain’t here half the nights anyway.”

That’s not true anymore. Ever since he started watching over you, Daryl always stays the night, at least until he hears you snoring peacefully. But Rick accepts it. Whatever’s going on between you and Daryl isn’t his business to worry about; he’s got bigger things on his plate.

So you move into Daryl’s tent.

It isn’t long before sleeping back to back turns into late nights talking face to face. You do a lot of listening at the beginning. Spilling his guts to someone who won’t speak to anyone else feels safe to Daryl, somehow. It’s not like you’re gonna go shouting his history from the hilltops. Daryl tells you about growing up with Merle, about the secret grief he can’t tell anyone else, about the way he cares for people by hunting and keeping them safe because that’s all he has to offer. With time, you start to talk, too. You tell him how you’d been at Emory for college during the outbreak, how it had taken all your courage to go back to school after dropping out the first time you tried, how your roommates were some of the first to die on campus.

One night, you go quiet after he asks what’s usually an easy question for others, the kind of thing that counts as small talk these days: “How’d you survive before you found us?”

“Like I said, I was on a campus,” you reply, so full of deflection Daryl can see right through it even in the deep dark pre-dawn, “so there was plenty of food and places to sleep and everything.”

“So why’d you leave?”

“Wasn’t safe anymore.”

“Walkers get in?”

Your voice cracks. “No.”

He cradles your cheek. The gesture doesn’t feel romantic in the moment, just human. “What the hell happened to you back there? I’ve never seen an arm broken as bad as when you showed up here.”

Even in the pitch darkness, he can sense your expression going glassy and faraway. It tumbles out of you like vomit: “The ROTC group on campus decided they ought to run things. Military guys. They gave everyone a choice: Stay with us and do what we say or risk going out on your own. I stayed. I didn’t see any reason not to. I knew some of the guys. Figured it’d be okay. Figured it’d be a couple weeks hunkered down on campus and then the CDC or something would come rescue everyone and explain what to do.” You scoff at your own former naivety. Daryl’s never heard your voice turn dark and cruel like this; he’s used to you being scared, being sweet, being gentle. Not being harsh. “Turns out if you give a bunch of college-aged guys complete power and no consequences for their actions, they turn nasty real quick.”

Daryl prods, quiet and desperate to know, “They hurt you?”

And you start to cry. Tiny, whimpering, ashamed. The sound skewers him through the gut.

He lifts his arm, an invitation, and you scoot into him, burying your face in his chest while he rubs your back. “Shit, I’m sorry. Y’don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t’a- Fuck. Let’s try to get some more sleep before the sun comes up, yeah?”

“No, it’s- it’s okay. I wanna tell someone. Wanna give it less power.” Strangling back the tears, you whisper, “I guess I’d rejected one of the guys my first year at school. I didn’t even remember, which, to him, was even worse than the rejection. His buddies got him all worked up about it. I could tell things were gonna turn on me, so I told them I’d leave. No worries, right? But they decided to keep me there. As a pet. That’s what they called me. Their pet.” The bluntness that follows makes Daryl’s stomach turn. Your voice is flat. Emotionless. “Last time I checked, people don’t gang rape their pets. They had me in a dog collar all the time. Locked up. Naked. Carved their initials into my skin. I ate out of a bowl on the floor. And worse stuff. Way worse.”

Daryl studies your side profile, barely discernible at this hour. He doesn’t say sorry, doesn’t show pity, doesn’t make you feel less than. He just asks, sounding impressed and amazed more than anything else, “How the hell did you get away?”

You swallow hard and roll onto your back, staring at the tent’s ceiling. There’s a tiny hole Daryl keeps meaning to patch that lets in a single sliver of waning moonlight. You tell him, “No matter what, I can keep myself quiet. Shane thinks that makes me weak. It’s the reason I’m alive. I waited for them to leave me alone; I knew they’d have to eventually. One of my hands was cuffed to a bed frame all the time, near the floor so I couldn’t stand up. The bed was bolted down and everything. But I managed to get my wrist underneath my knee.” Daryl winces before you even confirm the horror of it: “I just kept breaking the bones until I could get the cuff off. I grabbed the closest clothes I could find, snatched a knife from the kitchen, and walked right out. Didn’t make a sound the whole time.”

“And you fought off a whole infested city with one hand to get here?”

You shake your head and explain, a bit of mischief in your tone, “You don’t have to fight if they never notice you in the first place. There’s always someone louder than me. When I have to kill ‘em, I kill ‘em quietly. Come up from behind. Knife through the ear, straight to the brain.”

Daryl lets out a low whistle. “Christ, mouse, you’re a badass. Fuckin’ fearless.”

You shrug and reason, “No point in being scared of walkers when there are men like that in charge everywhere now. All a walker can do is turn you. Bet you’ve spent this whole time thinkin’ that’s the worst thing that can happen to you during all this.”

He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and whispers, “Yeah, I thought that.”

“Worst thing you can do is be a woman and trust the wrong person,” you correct softly. “So I keep quiet. If I don’t give them anything, they can’t use anything against me.”

He doesn’t argue.

He doesn’t minimize it.

He just says, “Makes sense.”

Then there’s quiet for a long time. Long enough that the sky starts changing colors toward dawn.

Finally, with your breathing starting to slow again, Daryl murmurs, “Knowin’ that now, it’s- it’s important to me. That you talk with me, I mean. It matters a lot. Thank you.”

As morning threatens to burst the tender moment, you reply, “You’re the first person who’s protected me. Not just since the outbreak. In a long time.”

“Get used to it.” Daryl sits up and stretches out his arms. “I’ll go get us some breakfast.”