It Comes With The Name

Chapter 24: Where Is My Mind?

"Moving to the suburbs?" It was maybe an hour or two after his argument with Lauren that Daryl heard Lori come strolling up to his camp. He barely spared her a glance, annoyed that yet another person was here to bother him. "Listen, Beth's in some kind of catatonic shock. We need Hershel."

"Yeah. So what?" He said dismissively. What did that have to do with him?

"So I need you to run into town real quick and bring him and Rick back." Lori said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Her tone only irked Daryl further, he grit his teeth and didn't respond. "Daryl?"

"Your b*tch went window-shopping." He snapped, finally looking at her directly. "You want him? Go fetch him yourself. I got better things to do."

Lori looked taken aback by his outburst. She blinked in surprise before furrowing her brows. "What's the matter with you? How could you be so selfish?"

"Selfish?" He felt the frustration bubbling up inside him. How could anyone in this group have the nerve to call him selfish after all he had done for them? Sure, he wasn;t always the most warm and welcoming person, but he had provided more than enough for these people and they always asked for more. "Listen to me, Olive Oyl, I was out there looking for that little girl every single day! I took a bullet and an arrow in the process! Don't you tell me about me getting my hands dirty!" He stood up, now looking down at her. "You want those two idiots? Have a nice ride. I'm done looking for people."

He dropped his bolt and the knife he had been using to sharpen it and stormed into his tent, done with the conversation. He heard Lori scoff before heading back towards the farmhouse. Daryl sprawled out on his sleeping bag with a huff. He wasn't sure why exactly he had been so cruel to Lauren or Lori for that matter, they hadn't done anything different than usual. But the interaction he'd had with his brother kept replaying in his mind... if you could even call it an interaction. Hallucination? Real or not, his words had stuck.

It didn't help that the whole interaction replayed in his dreams every time Daryl had fallen asleep since the incident. The dream always started in the same place. He had just been thrown from Hershel's horse and had tumbled down the hillside into the small body of water. The fall must have knocked him out, because the next thing Daryl knew he was fading back into consciousness. He could vaguely make out a figure kneeling over him. As his vision began to unblur, the figure started to come into focus.

Out of all the things Daryl was expecting to see, Merle's face leaning over him was at the bottom of the list.

"Why don't ya pull that arrow out, dummy? You could bind your wound better." His brother said in his signature condescending tone.

Daryl couldn't help but laugh to himself. Of course that was his version of being helpful. "Merle..."

"What's goin' on here? You takin' a siesta or something?"

Daryl squinted, his head pounding and body aching. "Having a shitty day, bro." He muttered.

"Like me ta get cha a pillow? Maybe rub your feet?"

Daryl groaned. "Screw you."

"You're the one who's screwed from the looks of it." Merle chuckled."All those years I spent tryin' ta make a man of you. This is what I get?" Daryl closed his eyes, already sick of his brother's voice again. "Look at cha, lying in the dirt like a used rubber. You're gonna die out here, Little Brother. And for what?"

"A girl," Daryl said weakly. "They lost a little girl."

"So you got a thing for little girls now?" Merle taunted.