Blood Bourbon

Realities

Shaking his head as he pulled himself out of Daryl's memories, Ryker found the room had gone deathly silent. Around them, the humans were stunned, their hearts racing as they processed what Daryl had just told them. Before any of them could respond, Daryl looked up from where he had been staring at the floor and offered a painful, thin, smile. "I know, I told you it was far fetched. None of it makes sense, obviously it was some sort of hallucination, the drugs not letting me differentiate between real and not, something like that. People don't turn into animals or have teeth like that. It must have been because of all those horror movies they showed me while I was there."

"That was a real memory, Daryl." Ryker offered, wincing, knowing that the next few moments were going to hurt his cowboy even more. Wondering if he had any right forcing Daryl to confront things that he had convinced himself weren't real. "Shapeshifters are real. Vampires are real."

Daryl shot him a surprised look, confusion and anger warring with one another, before he jerked his gaze around the room to where the humans were nodding gravely. "This isn't fucking funny guys... I just..."

"I know Daryl." Charlie ran his fingers through his hair and straightened, meeting Daryl's increasingly panicked gaze steadily, "but Ryker is telling the truth. All that stuff, is entirely possible."

"They weren't monsters." Daryl growled, jerking away from Ryker and to his feet, his gaze searching the room for a moment before locking on one of the doors. "They were people. I know they were people."

Ryker stood, but held up his hands and remained where he was as Daryl paced back and forth across the room. "Daryl. KnightCorp is an organization that protects and enforces laws for supernaturals. You're right, we are people. We try really hard not to be monsters. But what was happening in there, the company was pushing them into starvation, beating them and forcing them to hurt people."

"You are." Of course his cowboy locked in on that statement, stopping dead and staring at him incredulously,. When Ryker nodded, Daryl continued desperately, "you're trying to say that you're not a human. That you work for a monster run company and do everything you do ... as..."

"I'm a vampire." Ryker whispered, before letting a small amount of that part of him show. His teeth grew in his mouth and he knew his features would look a little more predatory, a lot less human.

"Oh." Daryl looked around the room in askance, zeroing in on his brother. All Charlie could do was nod carefully. Finally, his cowboy shook his head and glanced to the ceiling. "I need some air. I need to think."

Then he turned and walked into the kitchen. Ryker flinched as he heard the sound of the back door opening not long after, letting his features return human as he tried to figure out what to do.

"He needs to process things by himself." Charlie offered finally, drawing Ryker to realize he was still in a room with others, "just give him time to work through it all."

Ryker inclined his head, "I'll follow him, but I'll stay back."

He didn't look back for confirmation as he left the house and hunted down his distraught cowboy, following him as he paced through the fields and orchards aimlessly.

A small part of Ryker told him that it was done, all of it. He didn't know what to expect out of telling Daryl that he wasn't human, but he had definitely expected something other than that blank lack of comprehension. It was as if he had never even said it at all.

Was that acceptance? Rejection? And what had those bastards been trying to do to Daryl? The treatment was obviously not about a sick little boy having his life saved, but why the training and attempts to make him hate monsters?