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For half an hour he doesn't stop shaking.
Not once. No reprieve. It grips him and twists him, jerks his gut around, almost forces him to stop. As they head away from the tree he thinks he might just vomit, might just bend over while Aaron watches and puke his guts up. And he knows Aaron wouldn't ask him to explain, might not say anything, and somehow that only makes the thought of doing so worse.
So he bites it back. Swallows down the pain, the nausea, the feeling of his world rocking back and forth like an ocean churning through a storm.
He's never seen the ocean. Never really wanted to. He sure as shit doesn't want to now.
They walk. He tries so hard not to stumble and for the most part he succeeds. He holds it together. Since Atlanta he's held it together. Despite what Carol said, he hasn't collapsed. He hasn't given in. Not completely. He keeps going. It's what he does. The world hits him and hits him and hits him and tears into him with its teeth, rips him up the way a walker never could, and he keeps on fucking going. Doesn't lie down and die.
Didn't beat them off when they had to run, didn't curl up in the car with her and pull her corpse into his arms and wait for it to all be over.
No matter how much he wanted to.
He's getting better. He plods along and drags breath into his lungs, and he thinks that he really believed he was getting better, and he probably is. But better is so relative. He doesn't want to lie down and die anymore, but a lot of that is that he's taken to believing that death is too good for him. That he doesn't get let off so easy. He has to do this the hard way.
Her hair shining, even through the blood. It made no sense, it was impossible, but somehow for a moment he was sure it was her. Bound to that tree and torn apart. So much worse than a bullet in the head. In Atlanta Beth died quick. She didn't suffer. He takes no comfort in that, though he realizes maybe he should. But he thought it was her. He really did. Thought he might see her face again.
Almost wanted to. Even like that. Just one more time.
He keeps going because he has to. There was that W. That's important. He has to know.
They all have jobs to do.
"Daryl."
Touch on his arm. He stumbles to a halt, swings a glance back at Aaron. The man is standing beside and just behind him, brows drawn together. That horrible gentleness on his face. Since he first saw it, even when he was angry and not trusting, it made Daryl hurt. He ached for it. Aches. It's been so long since he saw any kindness.
Since the shack he's wanted things, new things, and he doesn't understand any of them.
"You should stop for a second," Aaron says softly. He hasn't removed his hand. "Just for a second. Take a breath."
No questions. Not even gentle ones. Just care. Daryl squeezes his eyes shut and bites down so hard on the inside of his cheeks that he tastes tangy copper and iron. He doesn't want to stop. If he stops he'll start to think. He just wants to keep going.
"It's all right." Still soft. Still gentle. God, he hates this so fucking much. "You're okay."
No, he is not okay. He's never been okay.
Except once. Almost. Before it got ripped away from him. As it turns out, forever.
Breeze shaking the leaves, whispering in the grass. Faint smell of decay. Taste of his own blood in his mouth. Her blood on his lips. He was sick then, it was so fucking sick, but he licked it off and he wanted more of it because in the end it was what he had. After, when even her body was gone, her blood on his hands. His mouth.
He's not okay. Aaron knows it. Has known it. Aaron saw him. They don't talk about it, never have, but Aaron has to have seen a lot.
Maybe more than anyone else.
Maybe he does need that. Even as it's breaking him.
"It's okay," Aaron murmurs again, and then - and it really does break him, so hard and so suddenly - "It wasn't her."
Daryl freezes. Just locks the fuck up. Every muscle taut, breath nonexistent. He's not even sure his heart is working. He might as well be dead, just for those seconds. Might as well be nothing.
That's too much. That's a step over a line.
Which is maybe why he lunges across another one.
He whirls, grabs, seizes Aaron by the shirt, leans in. Maybe snarling something. He's not sure. Roaring in his ears and he can't hear anything clearly. Aaron shocked, eyes wide, trying to pull away, but he won't let go. Can't let go. Words are burning his mouth, burning holes in his tongue - you don't know, you don't fucking know, fuck you, you don't know what happened, how dare you, how fucking DARE you - and Aaron is grabbing him back, hands on his shoulders, maybe trying to steady him, but there's this kindness and this gentleness, and he remembers screaming at her, drunk and sick, and she didn't back down. She stood her ground, even with tears in her eyes. She wasn't afraid of him.
In the end she reached for him. Grabbed him and held on.
He broke apart then and he breaks now, eating up that last distance, ravenous. So desperate, scrabbling at the sides of a well, tearing up his fingernails. Raw and bleeding. Aaron's mouth under his, so hard, all violence, teeth colliding with teeth. He's bleeding again, thinking with such viciousness, You see, you see what happened, you fucking prick, you taste that. How it was. You taste it.
And then the power part of it melts. Falls back into that well. Heat. Fire.
When Aaron's back hits the tree he feels the impact like it's him. The roughness of the bark, the sun blasting over them both. On his back. This all hurts and he needs it, because right now he's going and he's not thinking. Hand against the side of Aaron's face and angling him, shoving deeper into him, kissing. Being kissed. It's not all him. That fallen part of him cringing, crying, reaching out.
That touch. What he could have had. He's so sick but he's here and Aaron...
Not fighting him. Giving him this.
He's hard. He realizes it without shock, without any surprise whatsoever. He rolls his hips forward, seeking friction, pleasure like a slap in the face. Death's too good for him but could be this isn't. Could be this is what he gets if he doesn't get to die.
Aaron's hands on his hips. Dragging him forward. Suddenly all that gentleness isn't so gentle.
Suddenly all that gentleness is hard against him.
He groans, closes his teeth on Aaron's lower lip and tugs, more copper. A hand tangled in his hair, tongue thrusting against his, finding a rhythm that makes him a little weak, and he shivers. It's good. Rocking his hips, both of them, clumsy and awkward but somehow finding a way - most of the time - to line their cocks up just right, knows he's doing it the way he needs to by the sounds Aaron is making. No words but the hint of them. Potential of something else.
Fuck, Daryl. Oh, fuck, like that, yes.
He's sick, this is so fucked, but another time, another place... He could be weaker.
It could be better.
No, it couldn't. He doesn't get this. He doesn't get to die and he doesn't get this. He gets to be tied to a tree and ripped apart. There's a beat in that, a rhythm of its own. A heart pulsing blood out through a wound until there isn't any more.
Please. He's panting, grinding, tasting both of them. Pleasure is that beat, throbbing through him. Aaron holding him there, guiding him now. Pushing against him just as hard, just as needy, faster. Faster.
Aaron saw him burn. Aaron gets to see him bleed.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He whines, all tight, teeth clenched against the hot mouth under his, shudders and comes so hard and with so much heat, fire eating him up, falling into it and caught and held.
Followed. Aaron shaking against him, gasping in his ear. Hints of words. He wishes he could hear them.
He doesn't get this, except he does.
Nothing for a little. Leaning on each other, close, and now it's gentle again. Hurts so much but he shrinks into it, still trembling, and Aaron curls his arms around him and whispers things he can't make out.
No.
He wants to wrench himself away. Shove it all away. He's not okay and he never will be.
But it wasn't her.
I'm sorry, he wants to say. Now, now that all the poison is out of him, at least for the moment. He wants to say he's sorry because this is sick and he's so fucked up, and even if Aaron gave him this, it wasn't his to take.
But he doesn't say any of that. Soon they'll pull away from it and it'll be like it didn't happen. It won't be okay but he has a job to do. He doesn't get to die. He doesn't get let off that easy.
He'll keep going. It's all he could ever do.