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Daryl flinched violently, breath speeding up. “Shane?” he asked, out of the blue, sounding small and lost. He was slurring a little, but the name had been crystal clear.
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FYI for readers: the rape/non-con takes place in the past but it is discussed in the present. Few graphic details are mentioned, but it certainly could still be upsetting. Mind the tags and take care of yourselves.
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Bookmark Notes:
Rovia had the decency to turn away, but Rick nevertheless checked under the front of Daryl’s boxers without pulling them down his thighs. He could still hear “Shane?” echoing through his mind in that timid voice.
Rick finished in front and gently pushed the pliant, spaced-out man onto his stomach. He was pulling down Daryl’s boxers for a quick scan when he finally spoke again. This time, it was a growl, angry rather than fearful. “No,” Daryl said ferociously, struggling weakly. “I don’t want- don’t haveta-”
“Relax, Daryl. We’re done.” Rick said soothingly, pulling the boxers back up once he was sure the man hadn’t been sitting on a walker scratch. Daryl rolled himself back over, glaring blearily.
“Done. Yeah. Don’t haveta suck your dick anymore, or let ya…” He trailed off, then started up again just as forcefully. “I can stay. I fuckin’ feed ‘em. Earn m’place. They’ll let me- they’ll let me stay. Hell, your Lil’ Asskicker eats cause of me.”
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Later on, Rick would be surprised he survived long enough to explain himself to Jesus.
He was struggling to understand what Daryl had just said, the implications, the wrongness of it. Daryl fell back into a doze as Rick stood there staring at him in gut-wrenching shock. He spared a moment to be grateful that Carol was out of the room, knowing Daryl wouldn’t want her to hear that fear in his voice.
Jesus, an even less welcome audience, froze when Daryl spoke, hovering at the foot of the cot.
“Rick?” he asked a minute or two later, voice friendly, like they’d just run into each other at a grocery store somewhere. “Does Daryl think that he can only stay in Alexandria if he sucks your cock?”
Snapping back to the present, Rick felt like he’d been shoved off a cliff. “What did you just- no! No, of course Daryl- Jesus, he’s confused. He's not talking about me—you heard him, he thought I was Shane.” Seeing Jesus’s face harden, his jaw clenched and his hands shaking in fury, Rick realized that he was one wrong answer away from a snapped neck. Shit. And Rick’s only weapon was a knife at his ankle that he didn’t have a prayer of reaching before Jesus got to him. He’d hung his holster by the door to make sure Daryl didn’t try to grab for a weapon in a disoriented moment.
Stupid.
“I did hear him talking about Shane a few minutes ago, yeah. Then I heard him talking to you, using his nickname for your daughter. So…” Jesus took a single step forward, his posture completely casual. Rick took a step back as Jesus continued, voice suddenly dripping with venom. “Try. Again. Why would your brother,” he spat the word contemptuously, “think that he has to earn his place in your 'family' by getting on his knees for you? Hm?”
Rick knew he needed to calm Jesus down, and quick, but the horror of Daryl’s inadvertent confession suddenly hit him full-force. Because in that moment he could see it all, the way Shane would have been able to play on Daryl’s insecurities back then. Worse, looking back, he thought he could see a strategy to Shane’s hazing and bullying. He’d gone out of his way to make Daryl feel like an outsider.
He had to pause, take a harsh breath, and stifle his thoughts. From somewhere deep in the past, he dredged up his Friendly Policeman voice.
“Rovia... er, Jesus. Think about it for a minute. Think about every time you’ve seen him with me, every single time, from the war all the way back to that first day with the truck. Has Daryl ever seemed uncomfortable around me? Have I ever treated him like anything less than family?” Jesus stopped advancing, but he still looked ready to pounce. Rick hurried on, “Now Shane, Shane was a member of our group back at the beginning. He was my partner on the force before everything went to hell. You know some of the story, I was left behind in a coma, Glenn found me wandering around Atlanta. Well, Shane, he was with Lori and Carl at the quarry. They'd escaped together. They thought I was dead, and my wife was… with him, Shane, for awhile. That was a few months before Judith was born.”
Rick hated every second of this, diagraming out his daughter’s biological parentage—and he hated it even more with his new knowledge of Shane’s depravity. But Jesus’s face remained perfectly blank, so Rick kept trying, “Judith is Carl’s sister, but she isn’t… she’s not biologically mine.”
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