Perfect Storm || Daryl Dixon

3: exchanging formalities at the end of the world

"One maniac at a time, we will take it back..." - The Phoenix, Fall Out Boy

--)->

Without another word or argument, he passed her the knife, only speaking to cuss every so often when she caught a severed nerve. Erin had no idea what she'd said or why it had silenced him in such a way, but she was thankful for the peace; quiet allowed her to work better and quicker as she cleared out the visible infection. She tightly wrapped his arm in the clean-ish bandage, double wrapping it to prevent the blood seeping though.

"So," she spoke up as she finished tying up the ends, breaking the awkwardness that had hung in the air around them for the past few minutes, "do you have a name?"

"Why do you care?" Her head snapped up at the seemingly snide remark before she saw the look of genuine questioning in his eyes.

She tied off the last knot and gently pushed his arm back towards him as he inspected her handiwork, "Why wouldn't I care? You're the first human I've seen in the past three weeks, I wasn't going to let you die if I could prevent it and I'd like to know the name of the man I'm talking to. Mine's Erin."

"Merle," he muttered gruffly, still looking at the bandage, "Where'd you learn how to do medical stuff?"

Erin leaned back against the wall behind her and pulled the rucksack onto her lap, checking everything was still okay inside it, "My brother was a doctor before this all happened - he taught me basic first aid with the most basic materials." Merle nodded at the explanation, accepting it sounded legitimate. "So, Merle... mind explaining how you came to be missing a hand?"

His entire body suddenly tensed up and she almost scolded him, saying that it could trigger the bleeding again if he wasn't careful but he spoke first, sharply and quickly, "Some idiots in the group I was with chose to listen to some fancy police officer over me and left me cuffed to a railin' on the roof. Had to saw my own hand off to get away from the creepers tryin' to get to me. Freakin' murderers, leavin' me there to die..."

As he huffed and seethed, she slowly started to understand why his demeanour had changed so suddenly when she mentioned not leaving him for dead. Perhaps that put her on his good side? She sure hoped so...

"So... how long have you been here?" She didn't question what creepers were, assuming that was his term for strays.

"Couple a' days, maybe three... Didn't really keep count since creepers were all over the building," he replied nonchalantly, like it didn't really bother him too much. She guessed it probably wasn't a big deal in the whole scheme of things, but still - he hadn't eaten anything in three days?

"How have you been eating? Drinking? Fuck, do you even have any weapons?" Her eyes widened as she looked at him incredulously, watching as he pulled a face of discomfort as if he'd just sat on a pin. Maybe he had, who knew what was lying around on the floors of this place...

"Keep ya voice down... I didn't kill all of 'em, there's still a few bastards lurking around..." he hissed with a look of pure annoyance washing over his features. At least it wasn't anger; she definitely didn't want him to revert back to angry Merle - calm Merle was just fine at the moment... "The lower floor of this place was a kitchen or somethin'. Still had decent food and there was bottled water in some of the vendin' machines. If I met any creepers along the way, I had a saw and a workin' fist."

"And evidently if any humans walked in, too," Erin added, a twinge of pain in her temple reminding her of the blow she'd received from said fist.

Merle raised an eyebrow at her, his grey eyes boring into hers as if silently challenging her to a fight, "If ya lookin' for an apology, ya ain't gettin' one. How's I supposed to know if you were friendly, huh? I've run into enough crazies to know I should'n trust every human I come across..."

His mention of 'crazies' brought back the vivid, nightmarish memory of her last and only encounter with one of those particular groups. There had been around ten of them, eight men and two women, all ravenous and inhuman as they'd caught them off guard in the middle of the night, attacking her and Todd before they had a chance to grab a weapon.

The two had barely escaped with their lives, grateful that their knowledge of the surrounding woodland was greater than that of their attackers and that human meat hadn't given them much more of an upper hand strength-wise. She hadn't slept for weeks after that encounter, terrified that any noise in the darkness could be another hungry group starving for the taste of flesh, but they hadn't returned and Erin hoped that they hadn't found some other poor souls to feast on in their absence.

She couldn't believe how quickly some people had resorted to cannibalism, forgetting any trace of morals from their lives before the apocalypse... In her eyes, they were just as inhuman as the strays...

"You'd be a fool to trust me, but I reckon you're gonna have to. I doubt we'll find any others in the city, the only hope we've got is each other," she sighed, knowing how ridiculous the proposal sounded. She sure didn't trust him either, but at least sticking with Merle would give her another pair of eyes and ears, and perhaps a bit of conversation.

Merle narrowed his eyes at her, debating in his head whether to trust this stranger or not. Then, he looked around at the stairwell, taking in the destruction he'd be left in if he stayed alone and that seemed to make the decision for him, "...Alright... this don't mean I like you but I'll give ya back ya weapons since ya seem to know how to use 'em. I do want one or two for myself, though - if we get in a mess with a bunch of creepers I don't wanna be dependin' on ya to save me."

Erin nodded, agreeing that it was a reasonable deal as he got up and opened the crate he was sitting on, revealing all of her knives and guns dumped inside it. Slightly pissed that they'd been in front of her the whole time, she passed him the rifle which he strapped across his shoulder and one of the smaller machetes with a blade of around six inches. He took them without a word, struggling a bit with getting the strap over his head one handed, but when she went to help he batted her hands away and shot her a glare.

When he was done shuffling and she'd tucked all her weapons back into their rightful places, he straightened up and hummed under his breath, "I think this will work well, Erica-"

"Erin," she corrected pointedly as he shrugged, clearly unable to care any less than he already did.

"That's what I said. Now, Emily, let's go find my brother..."