AN: this is a new short story, I've had the idea for awhile, but worried it would be too much like a previous story I had done. Serpentine fire convinced me to post. Let me know what you think :) Trigger warning for child abuse in the first chapter.

I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead

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Chapter 1

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When it had happened to Daryl as a child the doctors had brushed it off. His daddy lost in a alcohol induced rage for god know what, had taken advantage of Merle being gone for the night. So savage had been the beating, his daddy had taken off his belt and began whipping Daryl's back with it, only for Merle to get home and discover what was happening. Merle had charged the old man and knocked him off his feet. Daddy had lost control of the belt (a gaudy old thing, with a hideous large buckle) and it had whipped around his small body, hitting his groin through his thread bare jeans. The prong of the belt buckle had impaled in his groin. He'd screamed as Merle had knocked out his daddy.

Merle had raced him to the hospital once he'd pulled the belt out of his little leg. The prong removed, Daryl had started to bleed profusely. Merle had made jokes at how lucky Daryl was that it had missed all the important parts. In truth Merle had been worried about how much blood Daryl was loosing, and the way his face was becoming more and more pale.

The usual excuses had been made. Merle had claimed it was a hunting accident this time. The doctors and nurses had been skeptical but had long since stopped trying to get the boys to tell them the truth about their various and multiple suspicious injuries.

The doctors said Daryl had been lucky, the belt buckle prong had only nicked his femoral artery. If it had been punctured or tore, Daryl more than likely would have bleed to death before Merle got him to the hospital.

Two nights he spent in the hospital, alone, at the age of eleven. It had been a relief to Daryl to get away from his daddy, but he wondered were Merle was. Why he had left him all alone. When Merle had finally come to pick him up, he'd told Daryl that Daddy had drank himself to death. Suffocated on his own vomit, in a drunken stupor. They were free.

Throughout the years, he'd noticed problems with that leg. The inside of the leg, would tingle, like a pins and needles sensation,or become almost painful, like the whole damn inside of his leg was asleep and he just could not wake it up.

Daryl never bothered to tell Merle. Although Merle was now his guardian he knew information like this would be shrugged off. The asshole would just tell him to shake it off. High school biology had given him the answers he'd been seeking. The area in his leg, that had held his femoral artery, where the prong had impaled him, was also filled with nerves. So, he assumed the belt prong must also injured a nerve. No big deal, or so he thought, until he realized it really was a big deal.

He had not wanted to go to Sex Ed class in high school. The thought of sitting there, listening to one of his old decrepit teachers explain the birds and the bees had been horrifying to Daryl. Even if the school separated the boys and girls so the kids would feel more free to ask questions. No one asked any questions. What the other boys had done, was sit and snicker while Mr Kopel the gym teacher, blushed and stammered his way through explaining about how "boners where natural," and everybody had wet dreams.

Daryl hadn't.

Not once, had he even come close. Becoming excited at inopportune times just did not happen to him. In fact it never happened to him. Not at once.

He swiped Merle's never ending stash of porn. Nothing. He tried random hook ups at bars when he was older. Nothing happened. The desire was there, well somewhat anyway, he'd never been very excited about hooking about with random women. But he felt those urges just like everyone else. He wanted to have sex, he just couldn't. He wasn't gay, he knew that for a certain.

It was the story of his life, nothing seemed to work out for him. His own body turned against him, and his traitorous god damn dick just did not work.