The Lone Buck ↣ The Walking Dead

Chapter 4

Daryl Dixon suddenly appeared out of the trees with his crossbow in his right hand, Shane breathed a sigh of relief as his heart raced at the thought of another walker coming into the camp frightened him. He wasn't scared of the walkers he was scared of losing his new family.

He knew the cries from Carl and the other children would catch Briony's attention and she would be here in a matter of minutes, he couldn't wait for her to be reunited with her family.

"Son of a bitch, that's my deer!" Daryl cursed, looking at the deer that had been gnawed by the rotten faced creature. Everyone stepped back as Daryl got closer they knew how angry he could get, Dale gave Shane a knowing look.

"Look at it, all gnawed on by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless poxy bastard!" Daryl proceeded to kick the carcass while everyone watched in disbelief.

"Calm down, son. That's not helping." Dale tried to reason. Shane knew that Daryl was in a foul mood now but it would be 10 times worse later, whether Briony was there or not.

"What do you know about it old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to "on golden pond"? I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?" Everyone could hear the frustration in Daryl's voice and no one wanted him to be angry, especially as it would add up to finding out about his brother later.

"I wouldn't risk that." Shane spoke and Daryl just sighed.

"That's a damn shame. I got some squirrel... about a dozen or so. That'll have to do." The head of the walker started to move its teeth, gnashing it's jaws together.

"Oh god." Amy and Andrea coward away, looking at the moving head and decided to walk away from the scene as it disgusted them too much.

"Come on, people. What the hell?" Daryl groaned and shot it in the head with his arrow. "It's gotta be the Brain. Don't y'all know nothing."

"Daryl?" Shane heard a voice from behind him, a very timid voice. He saw Daryl look up and saw his eyes just lit up. It was as if his world had just come back to him.

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Daryl. Briony's brother. Was standing there just staring at Briony, she didn't know what to say or do and they both stood there in silence looking at each other. Everyone decided to walk away and leave them alone for a bit since there was no more danger. Shane thought that it was best they saw each other alone.

Shane walked past Briony and smiled at her, tapping her shoulder, knowingly. This is what he hoped for and this is what he wanted. Shane signalled everyone to follow him and they did so as the two stood there staring.

Even when everyone had cleared from the scene they still stood there just taking in each other existence.

"Are you just gonna stand there all day or come over here and give me a hug?" Daryl smirked, Briony dropped her bow and bag of arrows and raced over to her brother who she thought was dead. She shoved her whole body into his embrace as she cried on his shoulder.

He smelled of sweat and woodlands but she didn't care, this is what she longed for and all that hoping actually guided her to him. She started hearing him sob in her shoulder and they both cried into each other, Daryl never would've done this in front of the group as he wouldn't of wanted to come across weak. But Briony, Briony was his weakness and had been ever since she was born.

Not that this was a bad thing, in fact this was a good thing as he would do anything to protect his baby sister. He vowed to himself that he would never let her face any of this by herself again. Now that she was in his grasp he wasn't going to let go of her. Ever again.

"I wondered when I'd be seeing your ugly face again." He joked as he slowly pushed her away from his body to look at her properly. "You're still ugly as hell." He chuckled and Briony smiled still crying over him.

"Well, we know where I get that from don't we." Briony responded with a sob and smiled.

"Cheeky bitch." Daryl looked away from her and at a log that was lying in the forest. "Come sit for 5 minutes before we grab Merle?"

"Wait, Merle's here too?" Briony gasped and her eyes brightened up and her smile widened. "I haven't seen him."

"He's probably been sleeping cause he's been on that trip to the city. Lazy son of a bitch." Daryl informed his little sister as they both walked to the log and sat down on the hard, rough wood.

"Oh, so that's where all those people appeared from." Briony nodded to herself, finally understanding who those people were. "So, how have you and Merle been?"

"Coping, it's been hard without having our baby sister there but you're here now and Merle will be so happy to see your dumb ass." Daryl told her with a smile.

"So has Merle changed? Talked about me?" Briony asked, she wanted to know what it had been like without her there. She was sure Daryl wanted to know the same for her.

"Merle's not changed one bit, I mean he'd probably be a lot more protective of you that's the only thing that's changed. But we always talk about you. We knew you were out there. You know, I'm sorry for making you leave, we both are. Once he died, we just wanted you to be happy. It didn't make you happy but I promise we ain't never gonna leave you again." Daryl answered which caused Briony to sigh deeply, all the horrid thoughts returned to her.

"It killed me, not having you two by my side was the worst thing. I had nightmares every night, Aunt tried to help but nothing she did could control it. They couldn't fix it like you did." Briony's eyes started to sting as she brought up the past. "It's been so hard, especially as you two didn't keep in contact, I didn't know what to do with myself."

"We thought we did what was best, but we knew we fucked up as soon as you left. Let's not worry about that now cause we're all back together." Daryl comforted her and put his arm around her, holding her close to him.

"You remember that photo we took, when I was a kid?" Daryl nodded with a smile, those were the best and worst days of Briony's life.

"As if you be thinking I'd forget 'bout that?" He responded as she rummaged through her bag and pulled out the creased picture and passed it to him. He scoffed but smiled at the picture. "He would mentally and physically abuse you, he would neglect you, he would make you feel so worthless every day of your life and do you know what every day you would put a smile on your face and get on with it. You're one tough mother fucker." 

"You know why I did that? It was you. And Merle. I always thought of how strong you were and I always wanted to be like you. Strong, independent. You both were always there for me. I never thanked you two for it, I always took you's for granted." Briony was so disappointed in the way she acted with her brothers back then, she never thanked them.

"You were a kid, how was you meant to know? You were brought up thinking that that was acceptable behaviour and it's not and it never will be. You're whole life you've known nothing but violence and it ain't fair." Daryl raged, he knew their father was a disgrace. He never should've had kids, ever.

"Anyway, changing the subject I got you a little something. I've been holding onto it. I was meant to give it to you the day you left." Daryl grabbed his bag from his back and started rummaging through it. "There's the little bugger." He slowly pulled out his arm and in his hand held a Browning BDA with Briony's name engraved in it.

He passed it to her and grabbed three boxes of ammo out of his bag for it as she studied it. She ran her fingers along the side of the gun, feeling the rough edges and the small dips where her name was engraved.

"Wow, thank you." She looked up at her brother and hugged him tightly, he patted her back and squeezed her a little.

"Hey let's go get Merle and cook up some squirrel." He suggested, giving her the three boxes of ammo, she put the gun in the pocket of her jeans and placed the boxes of ammo in the arrow bag then picked up her bow and walked alongside her brother. They were reunited. She knew their bond was strong, strongest sibling bond there was.