Chasing Amy (Daryl Dixon/The Walking Dead)

Chapter 26 - Disagreeable

"W-What do you mean?" I stuttered, backing up immediately. I didn't enjoy being around Daryl when he was like this, and I would've done anything to go back to the group at that point.

"You know what I mean," He seethed. I did know what he was talking about. His facial expression reminded me of last night, when he couldn't even look me in the eyes after I turned my back on the group. "You wanna leave? Do ya? Go ahead, see if I care."

"I don't, Daryl, I don't want to leave." I rubbed my forehead tiredly, his anger hurting me more than I felt it should have. "It was a mistake, I was tired, and I was upset..." Of course I didn't want to leave. I was safer with them than I was with my old group, besides having Rick around. And if I was completely honest, I did enjoy speaking to most of the people here.

"You ain't got time to be upset!" Daryl continued, his face growing redder by the second. He looked like he didn't get any sleep last night, his eyes were glazed and bloodshot. "You wouldn't have lasted two days out there. You've gotta think things through."

He tapped a finger to his temple with each word, before pressing it to my upper chest in a familiar attempt to intimidate me.

"I knew I was right about you."

"No." I stepped forward, growing sick of his repeated insults, that were obviously wearing thin with me. There was no point in just standing there and taking the brunt of Daryl's bad mood, because I knew he would just walk all over me.

"You don't know me. You think you've got me all figured out, but you really don't." I was keeping my voice in a whispered shout, trying to control my emotions, which were going all over the place, blurring the lines between my attempted calm demeanour, and the vastly approaching tears. "I'm doing my best here."

"Whatever," He huffed, turning back to his motorcycle.

"Why do you care so much anyway?" I asked, not accepting his attempt in ending the discussion.

"I don't." The back of his head shook as he rested the squirrels on the seat of his bike.

I bit the inside of my cheek to try and hold back any kind of anger I felt, and thankfully it worked. Daryl's moodiness had been getting me down from the moment we met. The worst part was, I felt strangely closer to him than I did with the majority of people out by the campfire, but somehow he just didn't seem to recognise that.

"You do care."

Those words that tumbled out of my mouth came out as a surprise to both of us, my eyes quickly going wide with embarrassment and fear as Daryl froze completely.

"And..." There was no point in stopping now, he was probably going to ignore me forever after that. "And you hate that, because I'm weak or stupid or whatever else you wanna call me. B-But you care. I know you do. You care about this group and you hate it because you don't want to care."

My cheeks were practically flaming, my knees shaking beneath me as he turned his head to the right, not meeting my eyes. The silence was tense, and he still couldn't look my way.

"Piss off," Daryl mumbled, in a half-hearted attempt to offend me. He looked completely off guard, and exhausted. I could have slapped myself. "Just stop followin' me around like some fucking preppy little schoolgirl."

The fact that he wasn't looking at me was, in part, a relief. He couldn't see my horrified expression, the quickened rise and fall of my chest.

He had unknowingly struck a nerve, which I was glad he couldn't see, as I was sure he would use that against me in some argument, like he always did with any kind of weakness I showed.