[Rough Draft] Keres : The Walking Dead

Home-like

Keres' POV:
We head back inside and a Daryl starts talking about his childhood as we all sober back up. He tells Beth that he was just drinking with Merle before all this happened. That he wasn't anyone before the apocalypse.

"Better being a nobody than a prisoner related to a cop." I chuckle and they both look at me.

"Your brother?" Beth asks and I shake my head.

"Nah, my brother was too new to the force for anyone to really know who he was...My dad. A decorated cop for over 30 years." I mutter and Beth looks at me with furrowed brows.

"But I thought you said-." She starts saying.

"Just because you're a cop doesn't mean your a good person." I scoff and she looks at the ground.

"Guess I was made for the apocalypse, huh." I joke.

"Both of us." Daryl adds.

"Keres, killing people for over 20 years." I chuckle and put my hands above my head like I'm presenting a sign.

"20?" Daryl asks sounding confused.

"Dad blamed me for my mom's death even though I wasn't technically born yet." I mutter and look at the ground.

"Really? How could he blame you for that?" Beth asks shocked.

"Easy, she was wasted and drove into a tree. Dad didn't want to admit she was under the influence so he made it sound like she went into early labor on the police reports and that's why she was 33 miles in the middle of fucking nowhere with her son in the middle of the night." I explain.

"Then how-."

"Shane cut me out himself. Wrapped me up in his own shirt and walked the 33 miles out of the woods until he found a car that brought him and into the hospital." I say and Beth looks at the ground.

"My dad was so angry he just had Shane pick my name. Came up with Keres." I shrug and they both just look at me.

"Were you guys close?" Beth asks.

"He was over 10 years older than me, we had a few years together before he left for the academy with Rick. He'd come and visit but...I don't know..." I shrug not wanting to think too much about it.

"I'll tell ya what. We could really use someone like him right now." Daryl says.

"Yeah, but hopefully he'd have his hair back." I chuckle and we all start laughing.

This is the first time I've been able to think about him and not feel upset. Where I'm laughing about a memory of him.

"When I first met him I was with Merle, and uh...Shane didn't even try to hide his dislike for him. It was pretty mutual. But I knew how to track and hunt, so...we became part of the group." Daryl explains.

"Remember when I met you and...thought you were mute...only to find out from Shane that you weren't." Daryl continues and I smirk.

"You pretended to be mute?" Beth scoffs.

"I'll never forget the look on his face when he saw you. It was like...everything was gonna be okay." Daryl says about Shane and looks at the ground.

"I'll never forget the first time I saw you either." Beth says.

"Yeah, right before I passed out?" I scoff but she shakes her head.

"No, I saw you running from the field to the house. You had this determined look on your face. And when you guys brought Carl in...you were calm, like you knew he was gonna be alright. But you were also kind of scary, like you didn't need anyone to protect you." She explains and I nod my head.