Not Dead [Daryl Dixon x Male OC]

4 - Knee-High to a Grasshopper

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Upon the forest floor laid trees of yesteryear, fallen in storms long forgotten. The seasons had been harsh, stripping away the bark and outer layers, yet rendering them all the more beautiful in Nick's eyes. They had the appearance of driftwood, twisted in patterns that reminded Nick of seaside waves; even the colour of the moss was kelp-like. They were soft, damp, yet his fingers would come away dry if he were to touch it.

Nick tilted his head upward, feeling his curls tumble across his forehead; the pines were several houses tall, reaching toward the golden rays of spring. Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, the silence and the singing working together as well as any improvised melody. A new smile painted itself upon his freckled face, chapped lips semi-illuminated by the dappled light.

Streaks of blood splattered his cheeks and painted his eyelashes as the snarling roamer hit the ground, rusted hatchet snug in it's skull.

God, he had missed this.

A leather boot placed itself upon the roamer's caved in head, Nick pulled out the hatchet with a grunt - chunks of flesh splayed across the worn leather.

As nice as the veil of safety and protection the group had given him these last few days had been, he couldn't deny himself this. Freedom. Being out there, seeing the dead up-close, it was what he needed. It was where he felt closest to himself, the scent of decay around him and the feeling of blood on his skin.

Nick thumped against the trunk of a tree, licking his lips before he placed a cigarette between them, setting it alight.

Killing the dead was the closest he could get to a fix, the adrenaline rush the closest thing he had to his drugs from the old world.

Cigarettes did little to curb the urges of a heroin addict, after all.

Fingers danced across the inside of his elbow absentmindedly, the skin marred and littered with bumps; track marks. He watched as the irritated, red holes stretched under his fingertips, he missed it. The drugs. The high. Hell, even the come down. Sat on a dingy sofa in the home of a person he didn't know the name of, smoke in the air and needles on the floor. That was his life. That was who he was. Who he would still be if the world didn't go to shit and corpses didn't start walking.

He sighed, raising his hand to run down his cheek only to wince at the action.

Fuck.

Ed had really done a number on him back at the pond, the swollen black eye and busted lip evidence of that. However, if given the chance, he would do it all over again; give the man a solid kick to the nuts while he was at it this time. His hand fell back to his side, thumb picking at the dirt and blood that built up beneath his fingernails.

His black wifebeater had small, scattered blood stains in the fabric - nothing compared to how his old t-shirt had been drenched in the stuff. The thought made him shiver. Being so clean somehow felt wrong, unsafe. Before, he could pass amongst the roamers as if he were one of them, going unnoticed in the midsts of a herd. Now, they smelled him from miles away.