emma𑁤

It wasn’t your best of days, but you were captivating nonetheless. Even when it was littered with abrasions and bruises, your face was just so perfectly framed by the mess of unkempt hair, and even though your eyes were dressed in dark bags and layers of terror, they were brilliant. Simply put, you were a disaster of the most beautiful kind, and Daryl knew the moment he laid eyes on you that he was wading upstream, knee-deep in shit’s creek.

That was back in the beginning, when walking corpses and unimaginable gore were still new territories for most people. You were shaken up from the events that led you to this new group of people in the first place. Back then, you were more human; still affected so deeply by loss. Watching your family die left you vulnerable, malleable, terrified. With the constant threat of pain and death looming over you, your mind was sharper. Constantly balancing along that thin line between fight or flight.

That day, though — the day you met him — you discovered a new fear response: fawn.

The second your eyes befell him, you froze. Your pupils wide, gulping dryly in the Georgian sun, time came to a stop as you took in the site. There was something unsettling about him. He didn’t just see you, he studied you. You could practically feel him soaking you in, memorizing every detail. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was about him that made you squirm. Maybe it was his narrow slits where his eyes should have been, tracking your movements, or his large frame reminding you just how weak you really were in a man-eat-man world.

Luckily for you, he didn’t spend much time around camp. He was a hunter — fitting, you thought — and he was usually off in the trees somewhere.

Though, despite him being out of sight, he rarely left your mind at ease. His eyes left a lingering impression on your flesh. You could always feel the chill of his cool gaze tracing over you. As you worked around camp or tried to keep cool from the sun, you constantly glanced over at the forest in any direction. You felt as if he’d be standing there, watching you. You never saw him there at the edge of the woods like you anticipated, but you always wondered if he was still there, lurking deeper in the in the shadows, beyond your line of sight.

He quickly instilled a sense of paranoia in you. You always watched for him, always hoping he’d be there despite the sense of danger his presence alone caused you.

The others around the quarry began to worry for you. They noticed the way you’d shrink away when he walked past, they felt you physically recoil. The Dixons had a reputation. Whether it be back home where they wreaked havoc on the locals, or there at the quarry where those they terrified relied on them too much to get rid of them. They worried for someone like you, very clearly and quickly becoming the target of the younger, quieter Dixon.

You supposed it could have been worse — right? At least it wasn’t the asshole cop with a fetish for widows, or the older Dixon spouting racist idiocy at the drop of a hat. All things considered, you were fed, clothed, and you even had your own tent. Comparatively speaking, you were probably better off than most people in Georgia, or, maybe even the entire USA. At least, that’s what you told yourself.

“Y/N.” Shane interrupted your thoughts. “Ya got an extra pair of hands you could lend to the girls down by the water?”

You glanced down at the hands in question, folded idly on your lap as you rested for the first time in days. Since your arrival at camp, Shane had been very clear about having another mouth to feed, and how you needed to earn your keep. So, every day, you crawled out of your tent, stretched your aching muscles, and found a new task to occupy your time. Yesterday, it was sewing the holes in everyone’s clothes. The day before, it was repairing fishing lines. Before that, gathering wood and boiling water. You had hoped today would be the day you got to take a break, just like everyone else got a day to rest every now and then. Hell, even the Dixons didn’t hunt every single day.

“I guess.” You shrugged, groaning as you pushed yourself up to your feet and brushed the dust from your jeans.

“Guesswork ain’t puttin’ food in your belly.” Shane retorted. “Go on now.” He concluded with a pat on your shoulder. You clenched your jaw as his hand made contact with your shirt, struggling to contain the scowl that begged to show.

Down by the water, the ladies were chatting casually, dunking garments in and out of the water as they did. All of the women were there, save for Lori, who conveniently managed to evade laundry duty every time. You wondered if it had anything to do with the previously mentioned asshole cop and his fetish for widows.

“Shane sent you down?” Carol wondered, squinting up at you as she wiped sweat from her face.

“I told him we had it covered.” Andrea added.

“It’s okay.” You shrugged, sitting down on your knees at the edge of the water. “I had an extra pair of hands.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s instrument.” Jacqui said as she wrung out the shirt she had just washed.

“That is what they say.” Carol agreed.

“Please.” Andrea snorted. “That’s just a saying some old men made up so we wouldn’t play with ourselves.”

Everyone paused and looked at her then. She glanced around at everyone and shrugged.

“What?” She asked defensively. “It only takes a few minutes to realize we’re better off doing it ourselves.”

You all snickered at that, finding little reason to argue.

“That goes for a lot of things.” Jacqui said.

“Yup. Laundry, dishes, dinner… If you want it done right, you do it yourself.” Carol commented.

As the ladies carried on with their domestic complaints of men being useless in just about every job description that doesn’t include brute strength, your mind wandered elsewhere. Your eyes scanned over the water as you mindlessly scrubbed smelly jeans. Their voices became distant and distorted. Images of rotting teeth displayed behind your eyelids every time you blinked — tearing into your sister’s flesh, ripping her apart, eating her alive. If you listened closely, you could hear her scream. You could see your dad reach out for her, arm stretching into the horde of death. You could see them grab him too. You could feel their cold fingers wrap around his arm and pull him in. You could smell their blood.

“Y/N?” Amy snapped her fingers in front of your face. You blinked, realizing all five of them were watching you with worry. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” You nodded. “Yeah, just… Tired.” You assured them.

“Well, no wonder.” Carol mumbled. “Been here eight days and haven’t taken not one break. You need rest.”

“Shane wants me to earn my keep.” You reminded her.

“You’ve been earning it just fine.” She argued. “You do more around here than he does for Pete’s sake. Just cause what we do doesn’t look hard doesn’t mean it’s not hard work.”

“Preaching to the choir.” Jacqui scoffed. “Women have been saying that since the beginning of time. The men protect and hunt, we do everything else. Everything.”

Between the six of you — Carol, Jacqui, Amy, Andrea, Mrs.Morales, and you — the laundry only took about an hour. None of you were complaining, as you’d all seen it take a full day before with less hands on deck. For a small camp of people who had to leave behind everything they’d ever worked toward, you all sure knew how to rack up some dirty laundry. Then again, with this heat, maybe you were glad that hygiene was still a priority.

You skipped lunch that day, as the pickings were slim as it was already and you figured the kids needed it more. You instead decided to retire to your tent for a quick nap before Shane came around again with some obscure task for you to complete.

Surprisingly, nobody bothered to wake you that afternoon, or that night. By the time you woke, most people were asleep. Someone had left you a tin can full of stew from dinner that night outside your tent. You figured it was Carol, as she was the most likely to care enough to do so. You scarfed down the cold leftovers viciously before you stumbled down to the quarry to wash up.

A lot of the women tended to bathe at the same time, as a way to look out for each other, but you’d overslept so you’d just have to make it quick.

Your clothes clung to your wet skin as you redressed yourself. You squeezed excess water out of your hair as you wandered back to camp. The night was quiet, except for Ed’s snoring. You wondered how the walkers hadn’t found you all here yet. You were sure his snores echoed all the way down to the city.

You took a seat on the steps of the RV, folding your hands together in your lap as you stared at the remaining embers of the campfire. It was a rule to keep flames low, even when it was cold. You sort of didn’t mind. The glowing ashes resembled twinkling stars if you squinted hard enough.

Your thoughts began to take over as they often did while you remained fixated on the remnants of a dead fire. A distant rustling caught your ear. You struggled to adjust your eyes to the dark, scanning in the direction of the noise until two figures emerged from the trees. Quickly you realized it was Daryl, sneaking off into the woods in the middle of the night. You weren’t sure if he noticed you there.

You wondered what he could have been doing. Surely hunting in the dark was no easy feat, so what was he up to? You glanced back down at your lap, where your hands sat idly, folded together.

“Idle hands are the devil’s instrument.” You whispered to yourself as you fingers twitched. You had a choice or make that night. Funny how those old sayings often rendered true. Had you not been sitting there with nothing else to do, maybe you wouldn’t have made the decision you made. Maybe things would have been different.