Blood Soaked Arrows (On Hold)

(9) The Name

“Damn it Daryl that hurt!”

“Well if ya’d stop squirming around it wouldn’t hurt as much.” He grunted before stabbing the needle back into my skin.

I made a face trying to hold in another curse but in the end I just couldn’t do it. “For gods sake’s stop man-handling me ya’ backwards hick!”

His blue eyes never wavered from his work even though I had just insulted the man. I hadn’t expected that of Daryl, for him to be so calm and focused on stitchin’ me up even if he was a little rough doing it. He was being so…I don’t know, helpful that made me feel bad for being such an awful patient.

I was about to say something to him, apologize for being such a bitch, when he yanked on the end of the stich. “Son of a Bitch!” I cursed and jerked my arm away from him.

Luckily he had finished stitching up the gash on my arm and simply leaned forward to cut off the extra thread. He quickly knotted the end of the thread and just when I thought that all of my suffering was over he slapped the freshly closed wound.

I jerked my body away from him and barked out a whole stream of curses. “Damn it Dixon what the hell! That hurt!”

He tossed the medical crap back in the bag, not even attempting to make it neat, and then picked himself up. He had been kneeling on the ground playing doctor while I rested against the side of the car; neither of us had wanted to use the ‘tank’ because Sophia had somehow managed to fall back asleep in there. Probably exhausted from crying all morning, I assumed.

“Pansy.” He scoffed before leaning down and smacking the loose dirt off of his jeans.

Insulted I yelled back, “Oh yeah? Well how ‘bout you go out somewhere, get severely injured, wonder around all by yourself, and then get stitched up by some beefy man. We’ll see who’s the pansy, after that.”

Daryl abruptly stopped smacking the dirt off of his clothes and slowly met my eyes. I glared back at him, arrogantly believing that he had no clue where I was coming from, and then something shifted inside of him. Those blue eyes of his darken, giving him a more hostile and threatening look.

“Were ya’ thrown off a horse?”

I frowned at him. “No I was in a car accident, remember?”

He knelt down until he was at my eye level. “Did ya’ fall down the side of a hill and get an arrow shot through your side?”

Not understanding what he was rambling about I folded my arms over my chest defensively. “Ya’ know I didn’t.”

“Did ya get shot in the fucking head after going through all of that?” When he yelled that one out he had made a gesture to the side of his own head, which made me notice the stitching along his temple. In one heaving moment I realized that Daryl had been through something similar only by the sound of things it was far more eventful.

“Ya’ got shot in the head?” I leaned forward, lifted up a hand and brushed some of the hair away. Daryl jerked away from my touch but not before I got a real good look at his injury. The stitching had been done by an expert but the wound, my god if the bullet had gone just an inch to the right he would have been killed.

“That ain’t the point.” He huffed, “Ya’ got off easy with these cuts, it could’ve been a lot worse and your taking all of it for granted. It’s stupid bitches like ya’ that really piss me off.”

He got back up and spun around to leave. “Daryl wait!” My body was sore and stiff but I managed to pick myself up off of the ground. Daryl didn’t stop like I had hoped he would he just kept on walking, making me struggle to catch up to him.