Chapter Text
Daryl is there when it happens.
Nobody looks at where he's lurking in the corner of the infirmary, twitching all over the place to pretend he's busy. He ain't, he's just being pathetic; there's no one to shoot anymore, nothing to hunt, nothing to do except to flee from whoever tries to talk to him, and the moment the commotion starts, he simply presses deeper into his corner and watches it all while his stomach fills with dread.
There's yelling and scrambling and shoving, so many people crammed into the room he couldn't reach the door even if he wanted to.
It's over within minutes.
Rick shakes Tara's hand off his shoulder and jerks back from the bed like he's snapping to attention. Beside him, Carl presses his mouth into a straight line as Tara covers Michonne's body with a blanket.
“Dad?”
Rick swings around and cocks his head at his son. He hasn't blinked yet, and the sight is so familiar, it gets Daryl moving even though he doesn't want to.
He rushes forward, startling Carl into stumbling back. “Rick,” he says, and then he's empty already. They've been here before, but he never got the hang of it and he never found the right words to comfort him either.
For the lack of anything else, he grips Rick's shoulder and squeezes tight.
Rick twitches out of reach, sways right to the door and out of the infirmary, still with that awful blank look on his face, and Daryl can't blame him, he doesn't know much about appropriate reactions and grieving either, but this—even he knows that Rick's face ain't supposed to look like this.
At least now Rick doesn't have to watch Tara put a knife to Michonne's head.
“I should…” Carl starts.
Daryl swallows around the lump in his throat. “Nah,” he says, laying a heavy hand on Carl's neck. “Jus' let him. He'll come back.”
Carl scoffs, and Daryl keeps holding on, letting the boy be stoic until Carl doesn't even blink away his tears anymore; he just stops blinking altogether.
That, at least, he can understand.
*
The streets and houses and fences and grounds are littered with people. People-bodies, not dead bodies. He never had a problem with getting rid of people-bodies before, but after hours of doing nothing but, he longs to burn a goddamn walker for a change.
Rick's overseeing the whole process. He stands amidst the chaos, the wounded, dozens of allies who ain't part of their group but came to their rescue anyway, and he directs every last one of them to a task.
Ezekiel takes his people home quickly, and Carol follows him only to come back a few hours later with the corners of her mouth turned down and an expression on her face that forces Daryl to flee again.
Maggie goes back to Hilltop after getting a few weapons for their own fight.
Makes sense, but it still leaves an uneasy feeling in the bottom of his stomach to see guns leave Alexandria just because the Hilltop people want to go home.
There's no need, because this is a home too.
He guesses.
This is also where Negan threatened to bash in Carl's head, where the trash folks betrayed them and where Michonne died and where everything else happened while he sat in his cell.
But they're safer in numbers, that much he knows, and it ain't right that they're leaving now.
*
On day two, when the sun beats down with enough force to make him sweat just from keeping to the shade, Rick stands in the middle of the street, nodding at everyone passing by and looking for all the world like he's waiting for something.
Can't be good, whatever it is.
Daryl spends an hour watching him out of the corners of his eyes before he's uneasy enough his legs wander over on their own accord. “Rick,” he says. Maybe he's hiding behind his hair, but since Rick's gawking in the distance, no one would know. And there's no answer. “Rick, what you're doin'?”
Rick turns his head. “Cleaning the streets. The smell's gonna drive us out of our homes if we don't take care of it now.”
Daryl nods and keeps on nodding for a bit. “How 'bout you sit down for a while and let me take it from here?” He curls his fingers around the not-yet-familiar strap of a crossbow he very much dislikes while Rick greets Tara with an intense nod. Daryl huffs. “You listenin'?”
“I'm listening,” Rick says. “The fence at the gate needs work. Can you take a look at it? I can't leave here.”
There ain't no sign that Rick even heard what he said, but Daryl turns towards the gate anyway - he's got his orders now - and keeps himself occupied until the sun's setting and it ain't safe to stay outside the walls anymore. Then he finds other work; hoisting bodies onto carts, hammering nails into wood, neatly avoiding every talkative person until his hands ache and his head feels fuzzy and he finally gives up.
Rick's still standing on the street where he left him.
The endurance of that man is frightening.
Before Daryl can reach him, Gabriel walks up to Rick and clasps his shoulder. The way Gabriel's leaning forward probably means he's talking in that quiet, half-whispering voice he's got going for him sometimes, and it's raising Daryl's hackles even though Rick doesn't seem to notice Gabriel's there at all.
Daryl stops and gnaws on his thumb, waiting for a signal that he needs to step in—Rick turns his empty stare on Gabriel and shrugs his hand off, and Daryl rushes over before he knows it. “Hey, man-”
“He's supposed to look after Judith,” Rick rasps. “He's supposed to look after her, but he's out here leaving her god knows where. How do you expect me to do my job if he ain't doing his? I need to focus-”
“Rick.”
Rick snaps his mouth shut and looks away.
Gabriel leaves with a sedate nod, and Daryl briefly glares after him before he turns back to Rick.
“You done?”
“No.”
Daryl reaches out, but he ain't fond of being shrugged off too, so he drops his hand again and pretends the gesture ain't as pathetic as it is. “You've been out here all day,” he tells Rick. “You gotta rest at some point. No way 'round it.”
“I'm not done yet.”
“Yeah, you are.” Daryl jerks his chin towards Rick's house. “Come on, the work ain't gonna go nowhere.”
Rick shakes his head. He's a mess; curls sweaty, eyes too bright, the shirt he's been wearing for days giving off an ominous stench.
Daryl's heart clenches with something that might be pity. “Come on, man,” he mumbles. “No one's sayin' you can't pick up where you left off first thing in the mornin'. You just gotta rest for a while.”
Rick scoffs as if he's the one humoring him instead of the other way around.
It's fucking eerie, but Rick follows him to the house anyway, quiet and brimming with the kind of energy Daryl doesn't know what to do with. When they're inside, Daryl falls behind and gladly lets Carol take over the duty of herding the man to the bedroom. He stays at the door until they trudge upstairs, then he leaves, picks the next empty house he can find, and throws himself on the couch.
Then he gets up again, marches back to Rick's house, and flings himself on that couch instead.
Frowning through the dark, Daryl makes himself comfortable and keeps an ear on how Rick's boots thud over the floor right above him.
Sounds like he's walking in circles.
*
The thudding keeps up until Daryl builds it into his dreams, so he doesn't wake at once when the trampling of boots gets even louder; it's the cocking of a gun that causes him to shoot upright, glancing around the room with his heart drumming and his body braced for an attack.
It's just Rick.
Rick who marches past him, shotgun in his hand and Python in the holster next to a suspiciously familiar knife, the fucker, and he's already opening the door.
“What you're doin'?”
Rick stops, swaying with the abruptness. “I'm gonna kill Negan,” he says, turning to look at him. “Come on, let's go.”
Swallowing against the gross taste in his mouth, Daryl swings his legs over the edge of the couch and gets to his feet with what he hopes is a non-threatening expression on his face.
“Sooner or later, one of us has to do it.” Rick spreads his arms and walks over to him. “If you know any arguments why 'later' would be better, let me know.”
“That ain't- Rick.” Daryl licks his lips. “The funeral's today.”
“So?”
Fucking hell.
Daryl reaches over, careful, and takes the shotgun from Rick's hand.
There's no resistance.
There should be.
But this ain't Rick. This is a caricature of the man, and the real Rick's hidden somewhere deep under those dead eyes and calm nodding. For a moment, Daryl ain't sure he wants to be around when Rick wakes up and falls back into his usual cycle of violence and despair when he's trying to deal with shit.
Because he will. Always does.
This time ain't gonna be different.
Daryl swallows and reaches over again. His cheeks heat as he fumbles his very own knife out from underneath Rick's belt, then he steps back and worries at his lip.
Rick cocks his head. “You taking the Python too, Daryl?”
“Nah.” Got his hands full already. And he ain't gonna take the last weapon from him, no matter how off Rick is.
With a listless shrug and none of the urgency from before, Rick aims for the door again. “I don't got any bullets left anyway. But I guess I thought different of you.”
“What's that mean?” Daryl asks, grinding his jaw when it comes out too quiet.
This ain't important. Rick never makes sense when he's like this. It shouldn't bother him.
In the open door, Rick stops and stares at the bloodstained street. “I thought you'd want him to die after what he did to you. To all of us.”
The gunshot wound in his shoulder flares up, making him wince, making him focus on it so he don't gotta focus on whistling between dark trees and kneeling on the earth and counting, counting, eenie meenie—
Daryl balls his fists around Rick's weapons. “The hell makes you think I don't want him dead?”
First Dwight, then Negan.
That's the plan, and it's gonna damn well stay the plan until the job's done.
Rick looks back over his shoulder and smiles in a way that makes Daryl's heart drop to his feet. “That's why you're taking the guns, cause you want him dead?” Rick huffs out a quiet breath. “If that's your decision - be my guest. I didn't think he'd get to you, that's all.”
Thank fuck Rick leaves after that.
Daryl stands rooted to the spot until his fingers are numb from clenching them so tightly.
This is just crazy-talk, nothing more. Michonne died, and Rick's losing it. Doesn't come as a surprise.
And what if Rick never directed his bullshit at him—there's a first time for everything, and now he can cross that off his list too.
After a few more minutes, Daryl gets his ass moving and hides the weapons in a drawer behind some placemats. He takes care not to look out of the window to see what Rick is up to, because that ain't his problem.
If the man wants to set up shop in the middle of the street and do nothing - fine.
Daryl cleans up even though it's stupid to wash before lowering dozens of bodies into the ground. The dead might not care, but it's the decent thing to do, and when even he notices that there's a severe fucking lack of decency going on around here, it's gotta be bad for sure.
He makes a mental note to pick up some fresh clothes from Aaron's place after they're done, then he leaves the house and joins the steady flow of people on their way to the graveyard.
*
His palms are sweaty and he's got to avoid at least three attempts of too-friendly faces trying to talk to him, but when the others start wandering back to their homes, it's done, at last.
Daryl stalls, inhaling the smell of fresh earth around him, and tries to ignore that Rick's fidgeting all the way over by the wall where he spent most of the funeral. After he was late to begin with. Without so much as looking in Carl's or Judith's direction.
With a sinking feeling, Daryl blinks down at the many crosses and earthy bumps of the new graves. There's nothing in his head but a numb worry he can't shake. He's too empty to grieve, or maybe they've done this so often he's just over it—as if there's a limit of grief in him or any person, and once it hits the mark, you can't go on feeling sad about more losses.
Doesn't sound right, but that's where he's at for now.
In his peripheral vision, Rick makes a sharp turn and marches off.
Daryl follows at once, too light on his feet without the weight of his crossbow on his back, but it's got its uses now; Rick's almost sprinting by the time he pushes out of the gates to wherever the hell he thinks he's going, and Daryl wouldn't be able to catch up otherwise.
“Rick!”
Sidestepping a walker hanging on a spike, Rick darts off between the demolished cars and into the shrubs. His hand flutters around his hip like he wants to draw his gun. Twigs are snapping left and right, and soon it's gonna be dark and every damn walker in the area will hear him, and all he's got is a gun without bullets and a knife.
The knife he hid, which Rick stole again, without taking the shotgun too.
Daryl ducks under a low-hanging branch and weighs his options.
Rick's got every right to be not-right. He lost the woman he loves (again). This shit clings to him like a curse, forcing him to repeat the same experience over and over. It's alright that he ain't alright.
“If you're not with me,” Rick calls out, “I'd appreciate it if you stopped following me.”
Doesn't mean he gets to be an asshole about it.
Rick swings around to face him just as Daryl jumps over a knot of gnarled roots, and then he can't stop anymore—he barrels chest-first into the man. Their foreheads knock together with a dull thud before Rick's back collides with a tree and stops them from falling on their asses.
“What the hell, man?” Daryl groans, blinking through the pain. “What're you doin'?”
Rick blows out an aggressive breath and puts some distance between them. “I told you.”
“No, you didn't. You talked up a load of bullshit and now you're out here plannin' who knows what just an hour before dark!”
Rick struts back over. “I'm doing what needs to be done! You gonna stop me, Daryl? You think you can?”
Daryl stands frozen, itching to do something without knowing what would help. “You ain't makin' sense,” he says, and when that does nothing to wipe the empty look off Rick's face, Daryl squares his shoulders. “Yeah, alright. I'm gonna stop you.”
“Try-”
He's got Rick in a choke hold in an instant.
“Jesus Christ.” Rick kicks back at him. His boot connects with Daryl's shin, making him stumble backward. They struggle in a stupid circle, back and forth around the fucking tree. “He needs to die! I can kill him-”
“Hell you can,” Daryl snaps, hissing through his teeth as his skin breaks where Rick claws at his arm.
“He needs to die!”
Daryl pushes his arm up against Rick's jaw to shut him up.
The back of Rick's head collides with his cheekbone.
“That's it,” Daryl growls, turning Rick around by force and herding him back the way they came from. “Go on now or so help me.”
They round a bush without any grace; Rick struggles enough Daryl's arms burn with the strain to keep him in check, and if they keep this pace up, it's gonna be dark before they're back through the gates.
Trying for gentle, Daryl lowers his voice and some of the pressure around Rick's throat. “Think about Carl, man. And your little girl.”
Rick cranes his head under his arm like he's set on breaking his own neck. “I am thinking about them,” he wheezes. “You think I don't know Negan won't let anyone of us live after what we did?”
This is wrong.
This is supposed to be grief, not an actual plan.
Daryl loosens his hold, but only a bit. “Even if you're lucky enough to get inside and kill him, there ain't no way you're makin' it out of there alive. No way.”
Rick has to know that.
He has to.
There's no more struggle and no more talk. Rick lets himself be herded back, just like that.
Daryl keeps him close anyway. Not so much forcing him, but leading him. Because he ain't trusting the peace, and it ain't normal for Rick to give up like that either. Or not to wash.
Because Rick hasn't, yet.
His shirt's rank with sweat and bark and earth and blood, and now Daryl's got the same dirt all over his own shirt, and it might be a small price to pay and all of that, but it ain't like Rick.
None of this is right.
When they're back at Rick's house, they stop in front of the steps and look up at the door.
Daryl chews on his lip. “You good now?”
“Mh.”
He lets Rick go, watching him trudge inside with a heavy feeling in his stomach. After a minute, Daryl follows him and settles back on the couch to keep watch.
'Plan' his ass.
Rick's plan is to take out Negan and die in the process, and to hell with him if Rick thinks he's gonna let that happen on his watch.
He won't, simple as that.
*
His head's thudding from the lack of sleep and the head butt Rick gave him, but the moment Rick comes down the stairs, he's ready for him; Daryl rushes over and leans against the wall by the bottom step to block the way. Rick stops mid-step—Daryl sees it out of the corner of his eye, since he finds it ain't that easy to look up at his friend just now. He fumbles with the hem of his shirt instead and tries to keep his voice low.
“You gonna do it again?”
“Depends,” Rick drawls. He walks down until they're almost eye to eye and Daryl's got to look at his face after all. “You plan to stop me again? Or will you let me do what needs to be done?”
“I ain't gonna chain you up, if that's what you're askin'.” Daryl swallows. “I would, though. If that would make you stay.”
“You're leaving?” Carl stands in the doorway to the kitchen with a stoic face. “Now?”
Sighing, Daryl pushes away from the wall and resigns himself to going through with the (dumb) plan he came up with last night. “No one's leavin',” he mumbles. “We're goin' out for a while, is all.”
“Are we?”
Carl scoffs, looking up at Rick. “Well, I hope you make it back, then. Since, you know, I remember how you said it's stupid to go after him alone.” He shakes his head and walks back into the kitchen.
The tap starts running.
Feeling sort of righteous, Daryl turns back to Rick and raises his eyebrows.
“We're going?” Rick asks, head cocked, hair standing up every which way and shirt decidedly not clean and—there's no garden to tend to here.
There is, but they're at war; they don't have enough crops to give Rick the distraction he needs, and they all know by now that letting him stay cooped up and under observation only ever does so much for his sanity too.
A few days of being away from here might do the trick.
Daryl nods. “We are. So you better pack now.”
“You're coming with me?”
Something pulls tight in his chest. He only got back the other day himself, there ain't enough reserves in him to deal with this, who's he to try to get Rick back from the brink without having slept in forever, without even feeling a thing, without—
But it's Rick.
It's Rick.
Daryl looks away, gestures upstairs. “Won't hurt bein' out in the woods for a while. Why don't you pack-”
“Woods.”
“Yeah, woods,” Daryl mutters. “I ain't gonna leave to kill Negan with you, Rick. I ain't gonna be the one who tells your kids their daddy didn't make it.”
There's a beat of silence.
“What if I let you kill Dwight? Right now. You kill him an' get what you want, and when that's done, you come with me and help-”
“You fuckin' serious?” Daryl stares, trying to control his breathing and the sting in his eyes and the goddamn headache thudding behind them. “You can't allow me shit, Rick. I'm gonna kill Dwight no matter what. If you think I won't, you ain't thinkin' straight.”
“How the hell would I know? You haven't told me what happened. You barely said a word since you got back! All I got is my imagination, and trust me, that's running wild right now.”
“Cause it ain't none of your business,” Daryl says, sort of quiet without meaning to.
Rick pushes in his space. “Oh, it is, alright. It's my business. The less you say about it, the more I know there can't be any other option than for him to die.” Rick twitches, grunting. “They both have to die. We're gonna go and kill them both. That's even better.”
“No,” Daryl stresses. “We're gonna go out-”
Rick waves him off, but he steps back all the same. “Into the woods, I heard you. And then what? You think that gets you closer to killing Dwight?”
Daryl points towards the kitchen where Carl's probably still listening in. “No, but it gets your crazy ass away from here so you've got time to get it back together!” He licks his lips, fucking nervous of all things, and lowers his voice. “You gonna fight me on this?”
There's no answer, but after a moment of quiet staring, Rick stomps back up the stairs, shoulders tense until they disappear around the corner.
“Think it'll help?” Carl asks from where he's leaning against the door frame again.
“Worth a try,” Daryl says, face warm and head heavy. “You good with that?”
Carl looks up at the ceiling as if he could stare right through the wall and see Rick hopefully packing, maybe climbing out of the window. “Guess so,” he says with a shrug. “At least being away won't make it worse.”
“And you?” Daryl asks awkwardly. “Holdin' up alright?”
“Yeah.”
Of course he is.
Daryl reaches out to grip Carl's shoulder but drops his hand again before he makes contact.
“I filled up some water bottles for you,” Carl says. “But there's not much food left, so…”
“Keep it. I'll hunt.”
In the kitchen, Judith lets out an indignant squawk. Carl goes back to her with a wave, not looking sad or worried or anything he should be. There's Judith to take care of, and Carl simply does it. Rick losing it is familiar territory, and he doesn't so much as bat an eyelid at it anymore. And he was fucking close to Michonne too, as close to a mother figure someone can be for that boy nowadays.
Daryl clenches his fists and swallows against the acid rising in his throat just in time for Rick to come back down the stairs.
“I packed some of your stuff too.”
He begs to differ since he's got next to nothing in this house, but he ain't questioning the man now that he got him to cooperate. Daryl grabs the water from the kitchen and leaves with a brief pat to Carl's back who's still fiddling with Judith, then he digs up Rick's weapons under his watchful eyes.
It's awkward enough Daryl keeps his eyes to himself and even pretends not to notice that Rick's way of saying goodbye means craning his head around the kitchen door and staring at his kids for a couple of seconds without saying a word.
It's none of his business.
They go to the gates, steering clear of most people willing to stir up a conversation. It probably looks like they're off for a hunt, and that's just fine with him.
Out in the woods, they walk without a goal for the better part of an hour, and something settles in his chest at the same rate as Rick gets increasingly more antsy. Like some wicked law of nature set on keeping them apart.
Daryl flexes his fingers in case he's got to grab Rick by the lapels again and waits for the other shoe to drop.
Eventually, Rick stops with a sigh that's entirely too long. He looks confused for a moment, scowling at a tree to his left.
“Rick.”
Nothing.
Daryl bumps his knuckles against Rick's shoulder to get him to snap out of it. “You think we're far enough or what?”
“For what?” Rick asks. “Our people back home to hear the gunshot?”
“What gunshot?”
Rick shrugs. “You're gonna shoot me. That's what we're out here for.”
“Nobody's shootin' no one.”
“Didn't think so,” Rick says.
Daryl grinds his jaw and fights the impulse to solve this the good ol' way - with his fists. “We're out here so you stop scarin' the last livin' kids in Alexandria, man.” He huffs. “Sayin' I wanna shoot you. Jesus Christ, Rick. You're off your nut.”
“Okay.”
Daryl blinks. “Okay?”
Rick shrugs and starts moving again. After a few seconds, Daryl follows, lost and on edge.
*
When the sun starts to set, it dawns on him that Rick hasn't said a single word since 'Okay', and if he'd known that, he would've tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. Or did something else entirely. Anything, really, instead of following Rick through the woods while the man stomps so heavily, he's alerting every game and walker for miles.
Means they ain't getting bored, but it also means they're bloody and reek of death with no way to tell whether it's gonna rain soon.
It's a depressing fucking hike, that's what.
Doesn't get better when Rick stops in front of a tree and says, “I told her.”
Before Daryl can open his mouth to ask, he hears the snap of twigs and a carrying conversation, and even though Rick must've heard it too, he marches on without turning around.
Daryl huffs, tuning into the sound of rustling leaves until he makes out Rosita's voice—distinctively bitching about whatever she's bitching about now. There's always something, and Daryl can't really blame her for it.
“I told her,” Rick says from afar.
Daryl hurries after him, breaking a twig under his boot on purpose. A few seconds later, he just so avoids making intimate contact with Jesus' leg shooting out from behind a goddamn tree.
“What the hell, man? Stop with this ninja crap.”
“Sorry.” Jesus grins and lowers his leg. “You're still out hunting?”
Rosita frowns. “It's going to be dark soon, in case you're on your way to Hilltop.”
“I told her.”
They turn to Rick and watch him lean against a tree. At least he stopped walking, Daryl guesses, panicking a bit.
Rosita wrinkles her nose like she can smell the bullshit from this distance. “What's with him?”
“Nothin'.”
They turn to look at him instead.
Daryl averts his eyes to study his fingers. They could use some washing. Showers only do so much when you spend the day in the woods, and he hasn't even gutted anything yet. Keeping clean should be considered a full-time job nowadays.
Not that he'd know much about full-time jobs.
“Daryl.”
Daryl clears his throat. “We're takin' a walk,” he says at the same time as Rick tells them, “I told her.”
“You didn't,” Rosita says, eyebrows climbing up her forehead as she looks back at Daryl. “He didn't tell me shit. Why does he keep saying that?”
Daryl shrugs and snatches Jesus' arm when he aims for Rick's tree. “Don't think he means you. And I don't think that's a good idea either. Sorry, man.”
“What is the idea, then?”
“Taking him out so he can get some fresh air?” Jesus blinks out of those huge eyes of his, and Daryl raises his hand to bite at his thumb. “To get some distance?”
“I guess.”
“When will you come back?” Rosita cocks her head. Something changed in her face—she almost looks understanding. Maybe.
Or maybe fucking not.
God, he's been gone for too long. He's out of touch with all of them, can't read their faces like he used to.
“Dunno,” Daryl says. “Tomorrow, I guess. Or the day after that.” He waits for a few awkward moments, but no one asks him anything else, so he just nods and starts walking again.
Rick follows in an instant, then the footsteps of both Jesus and Rosita trudge after him too.
“It's going to be dark soon,” Rosita says again.
Jesus hums. He's got his god-awful coat gathered up around his knees like a gown so he ain't leaving a trail as big as a highway, and Daryl wishes they'd just go home and leave him to it.
They're gonna be fine. Both Rick and him did worse things than sleeping rough for a night.
“'s fine if you wanna go,” Daryl tries, too quiet for his own liking. “I can take it from here.”
Rosita rolls her eyes. “Like we'd leave you out here on your own like that. What do you think's going to happen when you come across any Saviors? Or Negan him-fucking-self? You think Rick will put his crazy attitude aside to fight them?”
Daryl comes to a stop, clenching his fist. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees a small building through the trees - might be a hut. A cabin in the woods. “I didn't ask you to come,” he says quietly, and then he nods towards the clearing. “Let's check this out. Maybe we can set up there for the night.” He eyes Rick, feeling his heart squeeze dully. “It'll be fine,” he says to the others.
“Because you say so?”
Daryl manages to hold eye contact with Rosita for all of two seconds, but he hopes it's enough to show how serious he is about this. “I know how to handle Rick.”
That gets her to shut up, but every attempt to catch Rick's attention fails until Daryl walks over and bodily guides him towards the cabin like he's herding an unresponsive doll.
It'll be fine.
Chapter Text
It's a cabin, alright, and it's empty and dusty and got a roof and a door and a single broken window. There's also a porch surrounded by a railing with paint that's peeling off the wood just from looking at it, and two musty, old chairs.
He could sleep for a week.
Daryl plops down on the dirty wooden floorboards just inside the cabin and tries to keep Rick in his line of sight where he's pacing on the porch. Rosita takes watch because 'the circles under your eyes make you look like my late abuelo', and when Jesus actually grins at that, Daryl considers hitting the guy.
But he's too exhausted, and Rick keeps on pacing, and if no one's getting any sleep, nothing about this can get any better either.
So he rolls on his side and closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, the light's fucking bright, and Rick is curled up a few feet away from him, right in the middle of the room. He looks like a child.
His stomach does something funny—turning and fluttering at the same time.
Daryl swallows down the old pain that wants to creep up his throat, all the stuff he's been shoving down there since he was a kid, and he's so good at it by now, it almost works too; only a few minor thoughts slip through, most of them about Rick.
With those, he can deal.
With the rest, the things that mean criss-crossed scars and cut-off hands and I need you and cells and dog food and barns on sunny farms and—those things he can't deal with very well, despite his training. He's had the best, but there's still a limit somewhere, and one of these days, something else's gonna happen and it's gonna be the last straw, and he's gonna explode all over the place, raw and disgusting.
But not today, because today's about Rick. The man he's watching while he sleeps.
Something crunches.
Daryl glances up and out of the window - no glass; only the wooden frame's left of it - at Jesus chewing on a carrot.
“Hey,” he says, lifting his eyebrows in question while he holds up the carrot. “Want one?”
With quiet movements, Daryl gets to his feet, dusts off the worst of whatever clings to him, and steps outside. He leaves the door open to keep an eye on Rick, just in case.
On the porch, Rosita sits against the wall with her knees pulled up and nods at him, half-hidden behind an apple as she takes a noisy bite.
“Mornin',” he mumbles, blinking against the sun.
Jesus hands him both a carrot and a cigarette, and for a brief moment, Daryl feels like hugging him. He doesn't, but he thinks about it.
“So, what's the plan?” Jesus asks.
Daryl shrugs and carefully slips the cigarette into the breast pocket of his shirt.
“Let me try this the other way around: what are you going to do now?”
Eying the carrot in his hand, Daryl weighs his options and comes up empty for reasons why they shouldn't help him with Rick. Because there ain't no fucking reason for it. He should be glad about all the help he can get, and instead, he feels anxious and uneasy just because they're here with them. Ain't right.
“Reckon I'm gonna hunt us somethin'.”
“Your plan is to hunt,” Rosita says slowly.
Jesus steps forward to block her from view. “That's a good start,” he says sort of encouragingly like Daryl's a schoolboy all over again. Back when his teachers thought it'd pay off to give him encouraging nods and smiles, that is. “Will you leave Rick at the cabin while you're out there? Or should he come with you?”
There's nothing in his head.
Daryl takes a bite off the carrot and shrugs.
“There's not much going on in these parts of the woods, I'll give you that. Almost half-way between Hilltop and Alexandria from what I can tell, so it's unlikely we'll meet any Saviors out here.” Jesus pauses, pulling a face. “Well, unless we're suddenly meeting all of them, but I guess then it doesn't matter where we are anyway.”
“There a point to this?”
Jesus stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking chipper as he rocks back on his heels. “I'd say you need at least one guard, two would be better now that we are - if you remember - at war. You can't rely on Rick to protect himself or you in case you get into trouble, and you can't leave him here on his own. He'll probably wander off—or worse. But you shouldn't try to hunt with him without backup either.”
Daryl nods, swallowing the rest of his breakfast. “You're sayin' I can't do it.”
“No. I'm saying you shouldn't try to. I'm saying you shouldn't have to try when we can keep you company for a while instead.”
Scoffing, Daryl turns and catches Rick's unruly hair; the man stares at them through the broken window.
“I'm gonna head out,” Daryl says before he knows it. “To hunt.” He licks his lips. “For food.”
“We'll be here,” Jesus says easily.
Daryl takes off, only just remembers to grab his crossbow, and tries his best to keep his head free of any thoughts. Only hunting's important; small trails, quiet rustling, the strain in his arms from keeping the crossbow up and ready to fire.
It's good. Better than their questions in any case, though even now, a few worried thoughts about Rick slip through the professional, healthy coping mechanism he's got going for him.
It's stupid because Rick ain't alone right now, and he ain't no child either, waking up from a nap and crying for his mama. Rick's a grown-ass man, and he can damn well take staying in a cabin in the woods with Jesus and Rosita for a few hours.
Daryl sighs and strings up the squirrels he already caught and marches back the way he came from.
When the clearing comes into view, he's greeted by the sight of Jesus and Rosita loitering on the porch like they're on vacation or something. At least until Jesus spots him and starts jogging his way like he thinks he's unable to carry dead fucking squirrels by himself.
“What?”
Jesus stops, rocking back on his feet. “Rosita and I had a talk. Listen, we can't stay longer than tomorrow, at least not me, or the others will think something happened. Well, they probably already think something happened.” He frowns. “Anyway, I'll be off tomorrow morning, but you should know that you can't- I mean, it's not advisable to leave him in there.” Jesus nods back to the cabin. “And I'm saying this as a friend, not because I think you can't do it.”
“Was your idea that I shouldn't take him.”
“Alone,” Jesus says, nodding like that makes it any clearer. “You shouldn't leave Rick in there on his own.”
“He wasn't. I left him with you.”
Jesus rolls his eyes. “Oh, stop being difficult. Just don't leave, alright? He's not good-”
“What's that mean?”
The answer starts with a shrug and ends with Jesus scrunching up his nose, and Daryl's had enough. He marches up to the cabin and right through the door.
There's no chaos, no fire, blood or splintered wood. There ain't no dead people hanging from the ceiling either: Rick sits on the floor, his back against the wall and his arms crossed over his knees. Harmless, except for his empty eyes. But there's no danger anywhere near him at all.
Daryl stomps back outside and drops the squirrels in Rosita's lap before he points at Jesus.
“Hey now.” Jesus raises his hands like he thinks Daryl's gonna fucking punch him. “It may not look like much right now, but you didn't see him before.”
“Then get on with tellin' me.”
Behind Jesus, Rosita rolls her eyes, and just like that, Daryl relaxes a bit.
“Well,” Jesus says, fidgeting. “When you left, Rick got up and stood at the same spot for at least an hour, right? And then he moved, but he moved to the window and stood there for an hour and after that, he opened the door and - guess what - he stood there staring into the woods, and a minute before you came back, he closed the door and went to sit down.”
“He's got good ears,” Daryl says roughly.
“I'm telling you-”
“I heard you, alright. Jesus Christ.”
Rosita gets to her feet and pops her back. “You two all done? Do I get to say something now?”
Daryl grunts.
“I'm staying,” she says, matter of fact. “Jesus is gonna go to Alexandria tomorrow to get someone else to come back here. I'll stay with you until then.” She looks at her fingernails, shrugging. “I could use the time off anyway.”
Next to him, Jesus says something that sounds friendly.
Daryl sits on the steps to the porch and looks at the squirrels Rosita dropped. He should gut them. And he should say thank you. Tell her he's grateful. He wants to, but first—he gets up and opens the door and sits where he can watch the unmoving form that is Rick, and then it's this much easier and his heart doesn't feel so bad either, and Jesus and Rosita moved on from the topic already.
“Thanks, I guess,” Daryl says anyway.
“Yeah, well.” Rosita checks her gun before she jerks her head towards the trees. “I'll go pile up some wood for a fire.”
She's off, and just when Daryl thinks he's safe for a while, Jesus leans against the moldy railing of the fence around the porch and smiles down at him like he expects any small talk to happen now.
There ain't no small talk, but the rest of the day turns out not too bad, despite that he's got to glare Rick into submission when the man tries to consume his food by looking at it.
In the evening, Daryl takes watch, and something in his chest he had no idea about pulling tight finally relaxes.
It's gonna be alright, like he said.
*
In the morning, Jesus leaves while Rosita gripes about accidentally stepping on her last apple, then she pins him with a hard stare.
“Are you planning to leave anytime soon?”
Daryl frowns. “I told you I ain't.”
“Not to go back, you idiot. Do you plan to go hunting in the next hour or two? Because I'm hungry and squirrel only does so much.”
Daryl stares.
“I'm gonna go to Hilltop, get us—I don't know, tomatoes or something. You know, vitamins? I'll be back in a few hours?” Rosita frowns. “You think you can manage until I get back?”
Jesus Christ, these people sometimes.
“I'll try my best,” he says, and for good measure, he smiles with all of his teeth.
That gets her to leave, thankfully.
A minute later, she comes back.
“I mean it. If you go off to chase bunnies or whatever you're doing in the woods all day, Jesus won't let me hear the end of it and Rick's gonna go more off the deep end too, and that helps no one.” She pulls a face. “Just don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, alright?”
“You can't know that,” Daryl says, but she's already waving him off and aiming for the trees. “You can't know if he's gonna be like that,” he calls after her.
He doesn't remember overhearing a single conversation between Rick and Rosita. Did they ever even fucking talk? And if not, how does she think she knows what Rick needs or doesn't? And why on earth does she pin that on him? He's got nothing to do with this.
He ain't Rick's keeper.
Come to think of it—the newer people back in Alexandria probably ain't seen him having a single conversation with Rick either.
Because they don't talk anymore, because everything's bad and nothing's good anymore.
Huffing, Daryl glances through the excuse of a window and flinches back when he finds Rick standing on the other side and staring at him from a few inches away. “Jesus Christ, man.”
They look at each other until Rick's gaze wavers; he moves to the door, opens it, and proceeds to stare at the trees from his new spot on the porch.
For a while, Daryl tries to talk to the guy with no effect, but if he's honest, he's got no idea what to say to Rick anyway. Sorry for your loss, sorry you have to keep repeating the same experience over and over, sorry for not being there earlier, sorry I didn't beg like Negan told me to, sorry I punched him, sorry I followed Dwight, sorry I didn't find you before Joe found me.
Daryl stretches his neck, popping something that's been making him uncomfortable for a while, and leaves Rick standing on the porch to check out the back of the building.
There are trees. A few bushes. Dead leaves, bird shit, a branch with moss on it.
Daryl drags his heels, walking back to the front. Rick's still there, though he migrated to sit on a chair, and he's sharpening a twig.
Daryl watches with a small knot in his stomach that he refuses to call anxiety, but there ain't no war cry, no sudden lurch or drastic movements. Rick's simply peeling bark off a twig.
If that helps - good for him.
Even crazy, Rick finds something to do. It's a good sign, he guesses. They're the same like that; ain't made for sitting around.
He's got to find some work too, no matter how trivial, but around them ain't nothing but trees and—the cabin.
With resolve, Daryl marches inside to try to make this shithole of a derelict hut more homey.
An impossible task, but after a while, with most of the clutter and trash thrown out, the room looks bigger and somewhat clean, and he figures with a blanket or two, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to stay here for a few more nights. However long it's gonna take to bring Rick back from where his mind wandered off to.
If they had blankets, that is.
He blinks away the dust in his eyes, quickly glancing through the window to check on Rick—who's got the crossbow in his hands. Daryl rushes outside. “What're you doin'?”
Rick looks up at the nearest tree like that's the source of the question. “I told her,” he says and goes back to tinker with his crossbow.
The new one, not his original crossbow, which is being held hostage by dead-man-walking Dwight.
With an uneasy feeling doing something strange in his belly - probably hunger - Daryl settles on a chair and watches Rick. He feels creepy about it because Rick ain't reacting to him at all, but it gets better when Rick starts to randomly smile at the tree again.
Good that he's watching him. Who knows what other crazy ideas Rick might come up with.
Besides—making arrows.
Rick's making arrows for his crossbow.
“Rick,” Daryl says.
Rick holds a self-made arrow next to one of his own, comparing, sliding his fingers over it to catch the bumps and nicks, testing the flexibility. It looks professional, and it irks Daryl for reasons he can't put his finger on, so he gnaws on it instead.
“You hungry?” he asks, mostly to break the awkward silence.
Stupid fuzzy thoughts run wild through his head with no meaning, reason, or direction to go. This is bullshit, all of it. The hell they're doing here in the middle of fuck all? How's Rick supposed to get better by sharpening arrows for a crossbow that ain't even his?
It's nobody's fucking crossbow, but still it gets all the attention while he's sitting here getting nothing.
Rosita comes back. Daryl glances up, trying not to look too grateful - failing, if her smirk is anything to go by.
“Missed me?” She sort of cackles and drops a heavy knapsack in his lap. “That should do it for now, and…” She shrugs off her backpack and gives it a pat. “Blankets!”
“You read my mind or somethin'”?
“Is that your way of saying thank you?”
“I told her,” Rick says.
“Anyway- Oh.” Rosita pauses in the open door and turns to lift her eyebrows at him. “You cleaned up? Nice.”
Daryl shrugs.
Rosita rolls her eyes. “I'll take a nap now since I'm assuming I have to take watch later. Be good and make dinner in the meantime. I brought plenty of food that isn't squirrel.”
The door falls shut in a futile attempt to give her privacy, and something like gratefulness surges through him, though he doesn't know what for.
Ain't important; he's got a job now.
Rick keeps working on his arrows while Daryl gets a small fire going. In the knapsack, he finds enough food to last them a few days - if he keeps hunting - and he decides on potatoes for the lack of any other opinions on the matter.
As soon as the pot is cooking over the fire, Daryl leans back in his chair and watches the light flicker over Rick's steady hands. His fingers move as sure as ever, as if he's a normal person who says normal things to normal people rather than trees.
The same sentence over and over. He should probably ask what it even means.
Rick sets the crossbow down with careful hands, then he glances over, nods, and gets to his feet.
Daryl sits frozen like his mind already forgot about the living, breathing person inside the shell that's his friend.
At the edge of the clearing, Rick stops, opens his belt, and takes a piss against the tree he keeps smiling at.
Daryl averts his eyes.
The potatoes might be ready soon. But not yet. He needs—something, his skin is itching with it. He fishes the cigarette Jesus gave him from his breast pocket, inhaling its scent. The thought of smoking hasn't crossed his mind in weeks. He didn't even think about it when he was in the cell.
The last thing he deserved was a reward like that.
Daryl licks his lips and gently shoves the cigarette back in his pocket, letting his hand linger to make sure it's safely tucked away. When he looks back up, Rick sits next to him again, half in the shadows, and watches him with a face he can't read.
Daryl drops his hand to pick at a loose thread on his jeans. “You hungry now? Rosita got us potatoes.”
When's the last time you had potatoes, Rick?
All the different ways he shoved potatoes in his mouth over the course of his life, and now he can't remember the taste of a single one of them. Makes him wonder if something like fries was ever real. Could just be something the mind comes up with when there ain't nothing to do but wait.
Maybe he just recently came up with the idea of fries too. In the last weeks. Could've been in the cell, or maybe that too is one of the things that ain't ever been real.
Maybe none of this is.
Maybe he's thinking about potatoes because he never left the cell at all.
Rosita opens the door, muttering something around a yawn that's got enough bite in it Daryl snaps out of his thoughts, embarrassed even though they can't know what he thought about.
Rick stares at him.
Daryl stares back, half-convinced this is normal, that this is something he would do and that Rick would do; Rosita filling up a bowl in the background, complaining that they only have the one and that she'll eat first because it's ladies first.
This is a possible scenario. Nothing he'd make up.
He hopes.
*
Time stretches.
Rosita's vegetable-induced good mood blows over until she's back to brooding in silence, and Rick keeps sitting on his chair and sharpening new arrows like the crazy son of a bitch he is, and Daryl finds he can't go hunting even though they're almost out of food again.
He can't do it - getting up and taking his crossbow and going in the woods and bringing back some meat. Instead, he watches Rick do his work until he can't justify doing that either. It ain't right to sit on his ass all day when there's stuff he could be doing—like cleaning up the place to make it nicer.
So that's what he does.
Half an hour in, Daryl creates a makeshift broom out of a twig and a few leaves. Through the stupid window, he ignores both Rosita and Rick who ignore him right back, and sweeps the floor and even the walls as thoroughly as he's never swept a thing before. When he chased off every bug, spider, dead snake, and whatever else crawled out of those corners into the wild, he dusts off his palms and makes to rearrange the furniture.
Meaning the three blankets.
He can't decide where to put them.
Obviously, Rosita's goes back to where he found it; in the corner half behind something that might've been a sideboard back in the day.
Rick's blanket goes to where Rick sleeps, which is square in the center of the room, and that won't do.
Weighing his options, Daryl shoves both their blankets around until his mind catches up on what he's doing, and then he huffs and stomps outside again. For good measure, he throws a glare in Rick's direction, but the man's too busy trying to make dozens of arrows to notice him.
From the look of it, half of them will snap before they're even fired, but he guesses it's the thought that counts.
Or whatever.
“Rick, listen up,” Rosita says with a tired tone to her voice. “I'm not sure if you want to hear this, but since you're not doing a good job at saying no, I decided that I'm just going to take my chances.” She glances at Rick while the man focuses on the wood between his fingers. “Right now, the way you're trying to deal - I know how that feels.”
Daryl leans against the questionable railing, feeling both curious and like an intruder.
It's gotta be about Abraham. He remembers someone making a remark about Rosita leaving with Sasha to do the same thing Rick tried to do - blasting Negan's head off in a foolish rush - but that can't be true.
Rosita looks fine. There ain't no reason for her to do something that stupid. Thinking about it—yeah, he can see that. But going through with it? Nah, she wouldn't do that.
“Thing is,” Rosita says, “It took time for me to get better, and we don't have that time now. If you say you need this, I won't question it. Nobody here will. We can't tell you what's best for you, but there has to be a sign from you, Rick. Something that lets us know you're trying.”
Daryl flinches, pulling her attention before he knows he's doing it. “That ain't fair.”
“For all we know, he could be lost in his own mind for a pretty long while. Don't you think it's a good idea to at least try to find out if this is going to be temporary or not?”
Rick looks up with a solemn face.
He should go hunting. He's so tired of tomatoes and potatoes, of generally all -oes he can think of. No one can survive on vitamins alone, much less so if potatoes ain't real in the first place. He should go fucking hunting.
Rick stares at him.
“It's temporary,” Daryl croaks. “Rick is- It's temporary. Just leave him be.” Jesus Christ. His feet won't move, what the hell, he's the one able to feed them, provide them with meat, make sure nobody's ever gonna go hungry, and he can't even get off the damn porch.
A twig snaps, deliberate and loud.
Daryl rushes out a breath, looking away from Rick's strange face as Jesus comes out of the bushes, loaded with backpacks as if he thinks they're gonna stay out here until the end of time.
Jesus raises his hands like they're wild animals instead of the people he fucking looked for. “Hey, guys.”
There's no answer from anyone, and from one second to the next, it's too much, the tension is too weird and the air too heavy, and his shirt hasn't stopped clinging to his back ever since they got here. Daryl marches around the cabin like a man with a goal, and even out of sight, he rushes right up to the bushes and picks some berries like that was the plan.
Maybe it was.
He's left in peace for all of two minutes - he's counting, alright - then someone comes closer on light steps that hardly disturb the leaves; Jesus.
“Everything okay?”
Daryl straightens, scowling at him. “What you're followin' me for?”
Jesus smiles. “To ask if everything is okay.”
A berry bursts between his fingers, staining them purple-blue and making them stick together. “No,” he says and inspects the stain more closely.
Jesus hums. “I didn't think so. If there's anything I can do, let me know.”
Daryl frowns and gives in to the urge to shove his purple finger in his mouth. “I ain't the one bein' all crazy,” he mutters around it. “If you wanna help, go an' try to ask Rick about it.”
Jesus smiles again, in that weirdly carefree way of his. “I brought some stuff over from Alexandria, if you want to take a look. Oh, and Carol might come by soon. She said I should give you a warning, just in case.”
His heart aches. “Alright. You did.”
“I did.” Jesus reaches out like he wants to touch him, but he drops his hand with a sheepish look before he actually makes contact, thank the Lord. “Wanna see what I got?”
“You sound like Merle's dealer,” Daryl says, but he follows Jesus to the porch anyway, where his gaze gets drawn to Rick without his input. Rick's got a magnet inside of him, he knew ever since he first laid eyes on the man.
And he left his brain by the bushes, apparently, because he walks over and hands Rick the berries, and then he goes back to leaning against the railing.
Jesus empties his bags (water, food, flashlight, batteries) and finds the right words to talk to Rosita at the same time.
It shouldn't come as a surprise, but somehow it does.
Daryl watches them for a while before he looks back at Rick.
He's still fiddling with the arrows like he's one of them crazy people working on sculptures all day long, but the important part, the part that sticks and makes Daryl's throat scratchy and his stomach all weird, is Rick's hand; there's a blue stain, just like on his own, and there ain't no berries left at all.
*
“Did you?” Daryl asks. They're on watch, Rosita and him. The fire burned down a while ago, and her words won't leave his head. “Get over it.”
“Yeah, why?”
He looks at a tree to his left, pretending to listen to a noise. “Just askin'.”
“Are you asking for me or are you asking for you?”
That's just rude. There ain't nothing for him to get over, and she fucking knows it.
Rosita sighs. “When was the last time you slept? Really slept, Daryl.”
“What's that got to do with anythin'?”
Rosita looks away, leaving her profile in the dim light of the night. “There are stages to this, you know? I was so angry I didn't sleep either. First at him, then at Sasha, then at myself.” She heaves another sigh. “I was so angry I got Olivia killed, and guess what? That didn't make me any less angry either.”
Daryl stares at the red glow of the low-burning fire and blinks away some kind of pressure behind his eyes. “Negan killed her,” he says, a bit too sure for someone who ain't seen it happening.
“He gave the order, but if my bullet had hit his head instead of his fucking bat, what I did would've been a good thing. But I missed, so it was a bad thing, and the fallout wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made that choice in the first place.”
“But you ain't like that anymore.” She said so. To Rick. She said so. “You got over it.”
He wouldn't. If he had to see what she had to see—sweetheart lay your eyes on this- were you together that sucks- took one for the team so take a look- take a damn look—but he wouldn't have to see something like that because there ain't never been someone for him like there was for her. Like Abraham.
Not the breaking up part, not the together-before part, not the loving part.
Their situations ain't the same, she's even worse off than him, Jesus Christ, what's he even comparing, this ain't a competition, Dixon, get a fucking grip.
“Go to sleep.”
Daryl whips his head around, terrified that he said any of it out loud, but when he sees her wiping at her cheeks, his own grow hot with embarrassment. “Sorry, I'm- I'll go.” He stands, twitching back when her hand closes around his wrist.
“That anger you carry around with you, I've seen it for weeks every time I looked in the mirror. It didn't help with shit, Daryl, it only got in the way. Sasha had to die before I could snap out of it, but when I look at you, I don't think you can afford another loss like that. You need to stop being angry now.”
Daryl averts his eyes, tuning into the sound of Rick rolling over on his blanket inside the cabin. “Always been like that,” he says, voice rough with whatever, and takes his hand back to cradle it against his chest. “Learned to live with it before, gonna do it again.”
When he closes the door, he takes a deep breath and then another, thumbs pressed against his eyes until they sting with something other than this stupid conversation. It takes a moment before he's ready to lie down, then he curls on his side and watches Rick's motionless form, blinking slower and slower while his heart's heavy with the thought that Rick might feel the same way as Rosita.
Rick deserves so much more, so much better than any of this. It ain't right that he has to suffer.
It ain't right.
Chapter Text
He shoots upright when the sun's already shining and the faint sound of Judith giggling rips a hole in his heart, followed by Carol's good-natured answer. Daryl swallows his instinctual urge to flee and flops back down on the hard floor, trying to get his brain to wake up after having slept for too long.
Rick and Rosita must've been quiet on purpose, though he doubts Rick's in the right mind to do anything on purpose right now.
The whole thing is strange.
After a minute of clearing his head, Daryl gets to his feet and stretches the worst kinks out of his back. There ain't no mirror here, but he doesn't need one to know he looks like a mess.
Somewhat frantically, he smooths the wrinkles out of his shirt and the tangles out of his hair. Then he brushes over his face, detecting that his stubble ain't stubble but wild growth by now, and with his inability to even grow a decent beard, he probably looks like the actual redneck he is; dirty skin, greasy hair, wrinkled clothes. Someone who sleeps with his shoes on even though a damn guard's sitting outside all night long.
On the porch, Carol laughs.
Daryl gets a grip and opens the door.
“Morning.” Carol smiles at him from where she's casually leaning against the railing. She's got Rick's gun in her hand and is wiping it down with some kind of rag she must've brought with her.
To his right, Rosita sits on what he considers to be his chair and salutes him. To his left, Rick sits on his own chair and does nothing. In front of them all, Judith sits on the earth and builds a tower of dirt.
Well, then.
“Didn't know we were gonna have guests,” Daryl rasps, squinting against the early afternoon sun. “You should've woke me.”
Rosita rolls her eyes at him.
“And disturb your beauty sleep?” Carol says lightly. “I don't think so.”
Daryl busies himself with gulping down half a bottle of water and watching Rick out of the corner of his eyes. Good thing he's already swallowing, because acid rises in his throat the moment he sees that Rick ain't doing anything at all; he just stares into the distance like a soldier fresh home from war.
Probably cause he is.
But they all are.
Carol most of all, but she ain't staring at trees. She hid away in the Kingdom instead, fixing up traps to warn her about people rather than walkers and making him tell lies so she could go on living. Thing is - she came back guns blazing, and there's no reason to think Rick ain't gonna do the same.
There's a commotion.
When Daryl finally takes his eyes off Rick, Judith swings her rattle rather boldly and Rosita passes him with a nod.
“Later,” she says, righting the cap on her head before she disappears down the path they trampled between the trees toward Alexandria.
Daryl's left blinking until he remembers that he ain't holding Rosita prisoner and that she can do whatever she wants. And there's a free chair now, so he sits on it, kicking his legs out and crossing his ankles.
All of this, the sun and the quiet, Carol and Judith, the whole fucking scenery, even Rick somehow—it's nice.
A bit too nice, maybe.
“Here.” Carol hands him a sandwich. “Oh, don't give me that look. Just let me feed you.”
“Ain't exactly a hardship to eat your sandwiches.” And he ain't giving her any looks either. It's just that she insists on 'feeding' him all the time now even though she can't know about that problem because they never talked about it because he doesn't talk to her at all in case she wants to talk about him lying to her.
So.
“Eat up.”
Daryl takes the offered sandwich and wolfs it down to keep her from asking about Dwight or dog food or vomit or the bucket in the corner of his cell.
It's a good sandwich.
He eats another, just for the sake of it.
Carol seems happy about it, like she's always happy when someone likes the food she made.
Rick don't seem happy about it, but he's watching him all the same, and if Daryl squints - which he ain't gonna do - he thinks he sees an expression on Rick's face that ain't blank at all.
Yeah, this is too nice.
There's a war going on, and they sit with their faces turned towards the sun, a toddler in their midst, cleaning guns and eating sandwiches and watching trees.
No fucking way this is real.
Carol leans over and circles her fingers around his wrist.
For a bit, he feels like crying. Carol touched him hundreds of times, thousands, and he never once felt the urge to cry because of it. Though—if he's having a reaction like that, it might just be the answer to bring Rick out of his head too.
Did he touch Rick in the last few days? He probably did. It took a while to get the man to eat, and he sure as hell ain't done that without touching him. And he held Rick in a choke hold and herded him back to Alexandria. Full-body contact, and Rick's still in fucking shock or whatever.
There ain't no such thing as a magical touch to make it all better, Jesus Christ.
“I think that's all,” Carol says. She's got her backpack over her shoulders, and Judith's rattle is nowhere to be seen, and all the sandwiches are gone except for a small stack of them next to the door where they keep their water.
Daryl swallows, shaking the cobwebs out of his thoughts as Carol picks Judith up from the ground.
“It's time to say goodbye to daddy now.”
Rick reaches for his daughter to pull her in his lap and presses a kiss to her forehead. As if that's something he does now. Reacting like a sane person.
Blinking dumbly, Daryl tries to get a hold of a single thought in his head and fails. He's too tired (fucking tired after sleeping half the day) to come up with the right combination of words to ask Rick what the fuck's going on with him, but then again, Rick probably wouldn't answer anyway.
“We need to go before we lose the light.”
Rick nods and gives his daughter another kiss.
Carol lifts Judith from his lap and doesn't let herself be bothered when Judith kicks her pudgy legs with a mighty frown on her face. The kid walks in the air, squawking as her small foot connects with Rick's torso.
The faint gunshot wound in Daryl's shoulder twinges in sympathy even before Rick hisses and sets off alarm bells in his head so fast he feels dizzy with it.
When's the last time someone checked that wound? How on earth did he forget that Rick was fucking shot a few days ago?
Carol stops in front of him, suddenly below his eye-level, and Daryl notices with amazement that he's standing upright rather than sitting down.
“Thank you,” he says roughly, reaching out to smooth over Judith's hair. “For comin' by.”
“Take care of yourself. Don't forget the sandwiches.” Carol smiles with her mouth pulled into a firm line, and then she leaves.
Daryl watches her go, unsure how to process any of it. The fuck's he doing, honestly? He should check Rick's wound, but there ain't no way he's gonna get Rick to take off his shirt without Rick giving him trouble for it. Might as well be that Rick refuses, and then he'd have to do it for him, and that he can't do.
Undressing anyone ain't on his plan for the day.
If he had a plan.
“Rick,” he says, curving his back down to level with him. “You take a look at your wound lately?” When there's no answer, he hovers until he can't stand it anymore, then he rolls his shoulders, pulls his head out of his ass, and taps on Rick's arm. “Hey, man.”
Rick cranes his neck to look up at him. “It's fine,” he rasps. “Don't worry about it.” A moment later, he turns back to the trees and goes motionless again.
Dropping his hand, Daryl rushes out a breath and pulls a face when it comes out with a stutter. Don't worry his ass. One of these days, he's gotta check the wound, no matter what Rick's got to say about it.
Would be his kind of luck to wait for Rick to get his head back in order only for him to die of a blood infection or some shit like that.
*
After he spends the night on watch, he's running on fumes.
He's tired and hungry, and his mood's shitty and getting even shittier when footsteps echo through the trees, too fast to be a walker's. Where are these dead assholes anyway? For all the damn haunting they've been doing, now they're keeping their good distance, for whatever reason.
“Hi!” Jesus steps into the clearing with a smile or maybe a grin, and Daryl scowls at him.
“Hey,” Maggie says from behind him, and Daryl stops scowling and looks at the ground instead.
“Shouldn't have come all the way out here,” he says, fiddling with a hangnail. “'s not safe.”
“Got many walkers here?” Maggie asks.
He doesn't need to look up to know she's checking the area for their usual pile of dead bodies. There ain't one, only the heap of dirt and garbage he hauled out of the cabin.
“So,” she says, close enough it'd be plain rude to keep avoiding her face, so he looks up, gnawing on the inside of his mouth. She's squatting next to his chair and more or less ignores Rick who's sitting beside him.
It's about all Rick's doing; otherwise, he just watches the trees as he does nowadays. Though he's got his fingers on his gun, resting on his thigh in a way that looks familiar enough Daryl ain't disturbed by him being armed again.
Not much, anyway.
“Daryl, you with me?”
He blinks. “Yeah.”
“Good. Now - tell me the plan.”
Jesus makes a beeline for the cabin.
Daryl turns in his seat, keeping track of him as if the cabin is his actual house and home now. It fucking ain't. It's the crazy-hut he keeps Rick in, nothing more. But Maggie's waiting. “Jesus,” he says anyway, loud enough to surprise himself, and then he's got to come up with a reason for it and clenches his teeth against his own stupidity. “I meant to ask you somethin'.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jesus wanders back over with a friendly smile on his face. He ain't gonna refuse whatever made-up plan he'll throw his way, so Daryl picks the first thing that comes to his mind, if only not to disappoint Maggie.
He won't ever do that again.
“I got an idea, I guess. But we'd need more people for it. Dunno if you already got a plan in place-”
“Spit it out,” Jesus says with a grin.
“We could lay traps for them. The Saviors. Blow some shit up so both Alexandria and Hilltop are harder to reach. To stall them, you know?”
There's a beat of silence.
“That's actually a great idea.” Maggie holds onto his knee for balance as she turns to Jesus. “We don't have any dynamite left, do we? Some fireworks?”
Jesus shakes his head. “If we had, Gregory hid it in a safe place and… Well.”
“We've got some leftover dynamite, so I've heard. Dunno where, though.” Daryl licks his lips, glancing over at Rick, at how he ain't even trying to be part of their conversation. Now that he's looking closely enough, he's sure Rick stopped blinking altogether.
“From the herd on the highway?”
“Yeah.” Where Rick and Michonne got to be heroes. Stuff of legends, apparently. Not that he'd know, since they left him behind in the Kingdom.
'They' meaning Rick.
Maggie gets to her feet and looks at Jesus. They have a wordless conversation until Jesus taps on Daryl's shoulder and points with his head, and Daryl finds himself standing up, just like that.
Must be some kind of natural calm Jesus radiates or he sure as hell wouldn't just obey him.
“Stop pulling a face.” Jesus steps around the corner of the building and leans against the wall, hands stuffed in his pockets and ankles crossed like he's ready to enjoy the goddamn sun.
Daryl glares at his profile.
“Just give them a minute, okay? It'll be fine.”
“I know it will.” Daryl shuffles through the dead leaves on the ground so he can't hear what Maggie and Rick talk about on the porch.
“What do you think's going to happen?” Jesus sounds curious, and when Daryl looks up, he finds his eyebrows lifted in something that might be amazement. “Honest question,” Jesus adds.
“Nothin'.”
“You think he'll talk to Maggie?”
“What do you want from me, man?”
Jesus shrugs. “I'm just bored. Sorry for needling you, but it's hard not to. You're making it pretty easy.”
Without his input, Daryl growls, but instead of flinching back in terror, Jesus just snorts.
“Alright, alright, I got it. No jokes.” Jesus sighs, looking around like he's taking in the scenery. “Nice spot you picked here, I give you that. On the way over, we only found a single walker. I bet there's a swamp nearby.” He grins. “Walker-soup.”
“You ever shut up?”
When Jesus shrugs, Daryl leaves him be and gives in to the urge to peek around the corner.
Maggie kneels in front of Rick and talks at him, but her voice is too quiet to make out specific words. On his chair, Rick ain't saying a word in return, and Daryl pretends he's feeling sorry about it instead of—something else.
“Like I said,” Jesus says, “I don't think he'll talk to Maggie if he hasn't talked to you yet. But laying traps is an excellent idea, even if you only came up with it now.”
“The fuck do you want, Jesus?”
It's genuinely puzzling him why that guy keeps riling him up on purpose with that big eyes and weird smile of his—oh Jesus, oh no. He's gotta be flirting or some shit, god help him.
Daryl takes a cautionary step back, feeling his lips curl up when Jesus' smile falls off his face and makes room for a harder stare, a meaner one, something real for a change.
They watch each other, Daryl ready to let his fists fly, and Jesus, from the look of it, ready to bust his nuts with a well-aimed kick. Then Jesus rolls his eyes and lets his head drop back against the shabby wood of the wall.
“I didn't think you'd meet the cliché, but I guess no one can do much against their upbringing.”
Something flashes through his mind, running hot like lava. Daryl pushes forward without thinking. “You've got no idea what you're talkin' about,” he hisses. “Better keep your mouth shut if that's all that comes out of it!”
Jesus blinks. “I don't know what just happened.” He lifts an eyebrow, and Daryl clenches his fists. “I'm gay,” Jesus says slowly.
Of course he fucking is. “What you're tellin' me for?”
“Boys.” Maggie sighs. “I'm gonna get goin'. People are waiting for me in Alexandria.”
“Wait a sec. Daryl, you're getting this wrong and I want to make sure you-”
“I don't care, man.”
No. No. He cares, alright. Aids and all. He doesn't care to be informed about it, that's what.
“I'm not hitting on you,” Jesus says loudly. “I'm not stupid. My eyes work just fine. And sorry that I brought up the redneck cliché, but for a moment there, you looked like I would have to put you on your back—in a fight. In a fighting way. Because I thought you'd jump me.” He cringes. “Also in a fighting way.”
“Really?” Maggie grins, wrinkling her nose.
Daryl licks his lips, and then he rounds the corner and marches back to Rick, sitting his ass down on the second chair.
In the background, he hears Jesus and Maggie having a hushed conversation, and his ears burn and he doesn't look up until Maggie steps in his line of sight to say her goodbyes. He wants to hug her, but they never did except that one time and now he's sitting and that won't work anyway. So he nods at her and nods at Jesus when he confirms their plans, and then they're off, and Daryl listens until Maggie's complaints about not needing a bodyguard get too quiet to hear.
Then he sags in his chair and digs the heels of his palms in his eyes.
Eventually, Rick stands with a muffled hiss and walks to his favorite tree.
Daryl stares after him, past his hand. Rick's been wearing the same damn shirt since before they came here. Since the fight in Alexandria. Since he's been shot.
It's gonna start walking around on its own pretty damn soon, and he hasn't seen the wound either. There's gotta be a bandage on it, and it's gotta be rank and Rick will die of an infection—Rick's a grown man, pissing against a tree. And he's a grown man watching another man pissing against a tree instead of telling Rick that he needs to see the wound now.
He didn't even ask how Hilltop's faring. He only came up with a reason to help in the war they started because he needed a damn excuse for not letting Jesus inside the cabin.
Useless, is what he is.
The shame of it throbs in his cheeks and gets him to his feet. “Rick,” he calls, meeting him halfway. “Lemme see the wound.”
Rick sits back in his chair and opens his shirt and opens his belt and shoves his pants a few inches down and lifts his undershirt.
Daryl's hands shake. He kneels in front of him and pokes at the edges of the bandage, a sharp smell in his nose and worry numbing his thoughts. “It's gotta come off.”
Rick nods, and Daryl gets to work.
The process ain't pleasant. The bandage is rank, and the wound is red and puffy, and they don't have fresh bandages to cover him back up.
Daryl jogs inside and fishes a shirt out of the bag Rick packed.
It's one of his own, somehow. He remembers that Rick said he packed some of his stuff, but it's a miracle Rick found anything to pack to begin with. The only reason he's got any clothes in that house is because he's using the washing machine every now and then.
With a shrug, Daryl rips a piece off it to use as a washcloth.
Back outside, Rick hasn't moved, and even though it must hurt something awful, he ain't moving either when Daryl cleans the wound with careful fingers and half a bottle of water.
To cover the mess back up, Daryl cuts two lengthy pieces off his shirt and binds them together so he can wrap them all the way around Rick's torso. The next time he sees Rosita, he'll send her out for real bandages, but for now, this should do.
When the makeshift bandage is as secure as it's gonna get, Daryl sits back on his haunches and inspects his work.
“Thank you,” Rick says quietly, and without moving.
Daryl's heart clenches painfully. “You're welcome,” he mumbles, and after a few moments of silence, he reaches out and buttons Rick back up.
It's freaking awkward, especially fastening the belt, but as soon as Rick's clothes are back in order, there's something on his face that could be a smile, and it's directed at him. At least for a moment.
Means he's still in there. Not lost.
Rick's still in there, and Daryl finds, rather abruptly, that his own hands have stopped shaking too.
Chapter Text
An hour after Maggie and Jesus left, Rosita comes back with Tara in tow.
It's busier here than living at Alexandria ever was, and Daryl's eye twitches without his input. Then again when he glances at Rosita and realizes that her hair curls around her face in a decidedly clean way.
“Hi,” Tara says with a bright smile. She too looks clean.
Daryl grunts and watches as Rosita drops her backpack and pulls out several water bottles, which she neatly lines up next to their food pile. If it weren't for all the people coming by at every hour of the day, they would've starved to death by now.
Or died of thirst. That one first.
“What have you been up to?” Rosita squints up at him. “Eventful day?”
Daryl shrugs, pulling his feet under his chair to give them more room on the porch. “Maggie came by.”
“Oh?”
“We thought we'd lay traps for the Saviors, blow up some of them roads so Alexandria's harder to reach with vehicles.”
“Cool.” Tara sits down against the railing and draws up her knees. “Any ideas where?”
“Nah.” Daryl shrugs again, picking at his fingernails. They're dirty, very much so, especially in contrast to the women. At least Rick's all dirty too. And watching him out of the corner of his eye.
If Rick thinks he ain't noticed that yet, he's further gone than he thought.
“I've got a map in here,” Rosita says, slowly patting her backpack. She looks at Tara. “We still got an hour of daylight left, give or take.”
“We just got here,” Tara whines, though she sounds friendly about it.
“It's not like there's anything else to do around here. The cabin will stand on the same spot when we get back.” Rosita points her thumb at him. “Most likely, Daryl and Rick will sit on the same chairs too. They don't really move, you know? There's not much to miss.”
It's not a lie, exactly. He still huffs.
Tara snorts and gets to her feet with a dramatic sigh. “We could use him, though. Just in case.”
No.
Rosita rolls her eyes. “We're not getting lost, Tara. I said I have a map.”
Tara looks at him.
“'s fine,” Daryl says, letting his hair fall in front of his eyes so he doesn't have to see her friendly expression turn sour. “Go on without me.”
There's a beat of silence, and despite staring at his fingers, he's pretty sure they're both looking at him. Maybe even Rick.
“You're not coming?”
“He's not coming,” Rosita says. “It's for the best anyway.”
“How's that for the best?”
Something in his neck pulls tight, ready to cramp or outright snap any moment.
“Forget it,” Rosita mutters. “We'll just mark a few useful spots on the map and be back before dark. I know these woods. There are basically no walkers around and we haven't seen a single Savior either.”
Daryl nods like any of those reasons crossed his mind and only looks up when Rosita stops in front of his chair.
“You look better,” she says, her face pulled into something that looks uncomfortable. “We'll be back in an hour or so. Don't do anything stupid until then.” With a nod, she turns and aims for the trees, leaving Tara to blink between her retreating back and him sitting without moving.
Imitating Rick, more or less.
“Well. Later, I guess.” Tara lifts her hand for a wave, but she looks so goddamn curious, he's got no idea how to get out of this until Rosita calls out an unnerved “Tara!” and she finally gets going.
Daryl waits until they disappear from view before he allows his shoulders to uncurl and his stomach to unclench. What the hell even—he looks better? Since when is he the problem here?
His neck prickles.
It's Rick's crazy-stare glued to the side of his face, raising goosebumps on his skin and his hackles at the same time.
Daryl steels his nerves and looks over. “What?”
Rick shakes his head. “Nothin'.”
No fucking way Rick's judging him.
“They're just fixin' up the map, find some spots for us to blow up. They'll be alright.” Daryl frowns, waiting for any kind of reaction. There is none, and he can't read Rick's face either, but he knows it ain't a pleasant one. “It's a good idea,” he mumbles. “Dunno what your problem is.”
“It's a good idea, alright,” Rick says roughly. “I know that, because that was the plan.”
No, it wasn't.
“That was the plan,” Rick says again, then he gets up and stomps around the corner. A few seconds later, Daryl hears him hammering away at a piece of wood he started to patch to a hole in the back wall where the wind whistles through every night.
Daryl takes a deep breath and pointedly looks the other way. He wants to smoke, but since he's only got the one cigarette, he should save it for a special occasion. Not wasting it to make all of his thoughts disappear out of his head.
God, that would be amazing.
And Rosita's accusation is grating on his nerves too. Looking better, what the hell.
Maybe he regained some color or something.
Or fat.
Or Rosita is just seeing things.
Maybe he's surrounded by crazy people, and that's all there is to it. Seems right, since he can't remember the last time someone said anything to him that actually made sense.
Daryl squats down and takes his time to sort through the twigs and dried leaves to light a fire. There ain't no reason to hurry about nothing out here when the only job he's got (self-appointed, at that) is to keep what's left of Rick's sanity intact - meaning sitting next to him on a chair and looking at trees - and even that seems to have come to a fucking end.
Given the fact that Rick's talking again.
And stomping back to the front of the cabin and up on the porch.
“They were asking for help,” Rick tells him. “Why didn't you go?”
A thin line of smoke starts to curl up into the cloudless sky. Daryl pulls up his shoulders and prods at the twigs. “You know why,” he says, and ain't it cute that his voice almost breaks as if the reason is a different reason altogether, one he's got no business thinking about, much less confessing to a man who lost his mind.
“I don't, Daryl. I don't know why.” Rick heaves a breath that rushes out harshly. “That wasn't about me.”
“Hell it was,” Daryl mumbles, but he gets to his feet all the same and reaches for Rick's shoulder, curling his fingers around nothing when Rick jerks out of reach. “Rick,” he says, lost.
Rick shakes his head, then he picks up a handful of twigs that didn't go in the fire yet and sits back on his chair. With a steady hand around Daryl's very own knife, Rick takes a random piece of wood and peels off the bark. “You're tryin' to help, I know that, but you gotta-” He grimaces, briefly glancing up at him. “There's no harm in thinking about yourself first every once in a while. You shouldn't forget that.” Rick sighs. “Or understand it first.”
Daryl nods. He should ask what that's supposed to mean, but if he's honest—this sort of bullshit would've been too much for him to handle on a good day, and he can't even remember the last good day he had.
His best bet is to leave it alone until he bites the dust for good, so that's what he's gonna do.
*
When Daryl has been staring at the fire for long enough his head feels like it's cooking from the inside, Tara and Rosita come back to the cabin, chattering on and on about strategies he ain't got the capacity to listen to right now.
Beside him, Rick keeps on making arrows.
“We have to lead them away, so that's our best option,” Rosita says, nudging him with her boot from where she leans against the wall.
Even now the smell of shampoo and civilization floats around her, and Daryl abruptly itches for a shower. Or a stream to wash in.
A pond with a walker in it would do it at this point.
He hasn't thought this through - coming here, staying, packing, getting Rick to heal. Keeping them fucking clean. Not that filth and grime ever bothered him, but usually, if he's caked in mud and blood, it's because he's actively doing shit, not cause he's sitting on his ass all day.
Cleaning up their cabin doesn't count as being productive in his book.
“There's a hut, a bit like this one,” Tara says to him. “We go a mile east and hole up there for the night. Better than getting lost in the woods when the explosions go off.” She's sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her, and she ain't talking to trees or making arrows even though she too lost someone she loved.
Everyone's lost their loved ones around here. Except him. Not having one does come with an advantage, he always knew.
“Can you blink twice if you understand what we're saying?” Tara asks. “A vague grunt? A lift of your shoulder?”
Daryl clears his throat. “I heard you. Plan sounds good.”
“Thank you,” Tara says, grinning. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”
Rosita frowns down at him. “Did you get some sleep while we were out?”
“No.”
“Guess it's watch for both of us then,” she says, and Daryl's pretty sure she's talking to Tara, but some kind of heavy exhaustion settles over him anyway, just thinking about staying up another night.
They'll have to do his job for him like they've done it all day already. And the day before, in Rosita's case. Probably tomorrow too.
He's got no idea how to stop being this useless.
After a few moments of quiet, Tara starts telling Rosita a story about Gabriel he couldn't care less about, so Daryl takes his chances and makes a beeline for the cabin. Before he can close the door, Rosita squeezes through and lowers both her voice and her eyebrows.
“Did he say anything to you?”
Daryl gnaws on his lip. “Why?”
“I haven't heard him say 'I told her' in a while. That's gotta be a good sign, right?”
Right. He forgot about that, busy as he is with—other stuff. “Yeah, I guess.”
Rosita nods, all business and impatience. “Did you ask him how long he thinks this is going to take?”
“Nah.”
That, he didn't forget. He just doesn't want to ask.
There's movement behind her shoulder; Rick making his slow way over the porch.
Something in his belly curls, warm and uncomfortable.
Daryl rolls his shoulders. “Don't matter now. I heard you - we've got stuff to do. I'll- This time, I'll come. I'm gonna bring Rick with me too.” He looks away when Rosita keeps frowning at him in a way he can't make sense of—and doesn't care to either.
He said it, so that's how it's gonna be. Damn woman needs to learn to trust his word. And Rick's ability to sneak through doors without making a sound, looking all vacant and crazy but probably listening to every word they're saying anyway.
The warm thing in his belly curls a bit more.
“If that's alright with you, I mean,” Daryl says, somewhat defensive as he glances at Rick's stoic face. “Don't wanna presume.”
Rosita looks at the ceiling and mutters something under her breath. “Go to sleep, alright? You're giving me a headache.” She frowns at Rick who wordlessly walks past her. “We talk in the morning.”
When the door falls shut behind her, they stand in a weird silence until Rick squeezes his shoulder and goes to his blanket. Outside, Tara starts up a quiet conversation, and it takes the sound of it drifting through the window for Daryl to finally get moving.
With a long sigh, he sits on his blanket and pulls off his boots, then he lies down, watching the light of the fire flicker over the dark wood of the ceiling.
Next to him, Rick rustles with his clothes. He's closer somehow, not even a foot away, and for a moment, the warmth inside of him intensifies until it passes alarming and reaches panic-territory.
Just knowing Rick's getting better makes his thoughts go slow and fuzzy with gratefulness. There's light at the end of the tunnel and all of that. He can already see the faint outline of it, and strangely enough, it has a familiar form.
Looks like Rick, he guesses, but maybe that's just the exhaustion talking.
*
When he blinks awake, Rick's lying on his side, head pillowed on his arm and eyes lazily focused on Daryl's chest.
He glances down, suspecting a big-ass spider and finding nothing except his shirt, which is caked in so much dirt it's embarrassing. He should change it soon, before it becomes sentient or something.
Rick might be put off by it—though Rick's own clothes could stand on their own by now. He sure as hell ain't taking offense at that.
“What's there to frown about right after waking up, mh?”
“Mornin' to you too,” Daryl rumbles. “And I ain't frownin'.”
He thinks.
Rolling on his back, Daryl rubs his eyes and gets caught in a greasy knot of hair that's plastered to his cheek. He grumbles, yanking his fingers loose until Rick lets out something that's either a rush of breath or an actual laugh. His heart skips a beat, so he says, “Yeah, bet that's funny to you.”
“Sorry,” Rick says around a slight grin.
It's a bit much this early in the morning after nothing but vacant looks and silent brooding.
Daryl sits up and puts his boots on just in time for Rosita to come marching in with purpose.
“Oh good, I was about to wake you. Jesus just got here. He said they found some dynamite in Hilltop after all, but it's not enough, so Tara and I are off to Alexandria to get the rest. We should be back in an hour or two.” Sort of pleased, she looks first at him and then at Rick. Then she huffs. “Next time I'm gonna talk to those chairs of yours. The response will be just as overwhelming.”
“Mornin',” Daryl says again. “Sounds good.”
“Because it is good,” she says, pulling a face. “Later.”
Daryl trudges after her to the porch and raises a hand to wave Tara and Jesus good morning. Or goodbye, whatever.
Once they're gone and he hears Rick stretching (heartily groaning) behind him, Daryl rummages through Rosita's knapsack and comes up with a few apples and some dried meat of questionable origin. He hands both over, and they settle on their chairs—as Rosita put it.
Ain't wrong, he guesses, even if it sounds like they're old folk sitting on their porch all day harassing the youth.
They pass the time by doing nothing.
Daryl sits and eats and watches Rick fiddle with his twigs until his internal clock informs him that the others will be back soon, and if Rick's only talking when they're alone, onlookers ain't gonna do no good if he wants to check on Rick's wound again.
Which is the case. The plan for the day, so to speak. Because Rick's fingers keep twitching to the makeshift bandage like it's itching, and that can only be a bad sign.
With resolve, Daryl gets to his feet and walks the two steps over. “Time for a checkup.”
“Yeah,” Rick says, laying the twigs aside. Sort of immediately, he unbuttons his shirt, opens his belt, pops the buttons on his jeans, and pushes them down as far as they'll go with him still sitting. Then he holds his undershirt up to his chin and nods at him.
The speed of it all is weird, but Daryl decides to worry over the wound instead, and the fact that he forgot to ask Rosita to bring back real bandages. Or something like antiseptic cream—though last he heard, there ain't much left of it anyway. It's back to crushing leaves and mixing them with berries.
They should keep a look out for some thyme and lavender, just in case.
And he should get this over with.
Daryl glances at Rick before he kneels in front of the chair and starts working on the knot of the shirt-bandage. When it comes off, the wound underneath looks as red and puffy as it did before, and Daryl feels his hands flutter for a moment.
“Not good?”
Daryl glances up through his hair. “Nothin' to worry about yet, but you gotta take more care.”
But of course there ain't no answer to that.
With another piece of his ruined shirt, Daryl carefully cleans the wound of dried blood and whatever else seeps out of there.
Every now and then, Rick's stomach twitches like he's sucking in air without sucking in air, and the barely-there fat of his belly curls away from Daryl's fingers, making him slip, clumsily brushing over the soft skin above Rick's hipbone.
Daryl pulls his lip between his teeth and sits back to cut up a fresh bandage. “You should drink more. And eat more.” He puts down the knife, glancing up at Rick's face. “I'm gonna remind you if you forget.”
“I know.”
This time, he can hear the quick intake of breath as Rick sucks in his stomach, fleeing from his fingers while he covers the wound back up.
“Sorry,” Rick mutters.
Daryl leans closer, Rick's smell heavy in his nose as he wraps the fabric around Rick's chest. “Ain't your fault.” He ties a knot, giving it a tug. “You're gonna heal in no time, you'll see. Sleepin' a lot is a good start.”
Rick scoffs. “It's really not.”
“Why?”
Rick makes a noise that sounds stuck, somehow. Uncomfortable. “You saw me sleep after Lori died?”
Daryl twitches and covers it up by giving the knot another tug.
“I didn't take more than naps for weeks.” Rick lets out a harsh breath, stomach fluttering under Daryl's fingers, reminding him to actually take them off again.
He sits back on his heels, gripping the seat of Rick's chair for balance.
“You know what that means?”
“I don't,” he admits.
Rick laughs, a small, horrible sound that cuts straight into his heart. “It means I'm grieving the wrong way. I shouldn't grieve to begin with. I told her, Daryl. This isn't how it's supposed to be.”
“Told her what?” he asks around a lump in his throat that makes it hard to ask at all. He ain't sure he wants to know, but he's very sure Rick needs to say it, this thing he's got stuck in his head. This thing he said to Michonne that won't let him rest.
Rick looks down at his knees. He puts his hand over Daryl's where he's gripping the seat, squeezing lightly. “Doesn't matter anymore.”
Daryl waits, heart hammering and palms sweaty even after Rick lets go again, but there's nothing else, no explanation or comment or heartfelt talk. God, he wants to know so badly, but if Rick can't tell him yet, he's just gonna have to wait. Rick will come around when he comes around.
All he can do is try to help him as much as he can until then.
Daryl reaches for the hem of Rick's open shirt and gives it a slight tug. “Let's get you outta this, alright?”
Rick blinks down at himself and lets out a small “huh” before he gets to his feet.
It takes a moment before Daryl can look away from Rick's stupid blue briefs right in front of his eyes, then he scrambles up and stalks into the cabin to bring the man new clothes. Because that's what he's doing now. Instead of helping him work through his grief, he'll dress Rick and maybe even comb his fucking hair.
“You should change too,” Rick calls after him.
He'd be offended if it wasn't so true. Doesn't mean he can follow the order; Rick only packed a single shirt for him, and that one got cut up for medical purposes.
With a huff, Daryl grabs a fresh set for Rick and goes back outside to watch Rick peel out of his rank undershirt.
“Here.” Daryl hands over the clothes like he's handing him something of importance rather than shirts that don't stink to the sky. He could combine it with a bow to win a medal for being the best servant ever.
Rick takes the stack with a frown. “What about you?”
“'s fine.”
Slowly, like he's only now learning how to do it, Rick dresses himself, closing every button and then opening a few again, up by his throat. His shirt underneath shows, and Daryl lowers his eyebrows at it.
“Instead of watching me do it, you could do it to yourself, you know.”
Daryl freezes.
“Just take one of mine,” Rick says with the air of someone who couldn't care less. “I don't know where you keep your stuff since you don't have a room. I only packed what I could find.”
Lord above.
Daryl stalks off again. His face feels warm somehow, and he takes his time picking through Rick's clothes until he finds a shirt that looks like it ain't gonna explode in a rain of buttons once he tries to close them.
It's a close call.
Almost as uncomfortable as the one Jesus gave him after taking him to Hilltop. That day. That final, final day.
It's embarrassing, though Abraham once told him that 'chicks dig it'.
Nobody digs nothing his way, so Daryl keeps his eyes to himself when he collects Rick's dirty clothes and starts a laundry pile in the farthest corner of the room. There's no way he's gonna get Rosita to take them back for washing. He can already imagine the face she'd be pulling for suggesting it.
The pile's just gonna have to stay there until they leave. A while from now, when Rick's better again.
*
Sometime in the evening, the silence around the cabin starts to grate on his nerves like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. The fire's already lit and Rick's eating stew, slow but steady, and the sky's still bright enough he ain't too worried that Tara and Rosita ain't back yet.
For all intents and purposes, it's a perfect night, but there's a pressure behind his eyes anyway, throbbing and painful and uncalled-for.
What he'd give to hear the unstoppable chatter of Tara coming through the trees right now.
With a weary sigh, Daryl pulls at his shirt in the hope it's gonna stop strangling him and focuses on Rick's hand holding the bowl.
They're nice hands, now that he thinks about it.
“It's been a week,” Rick says.
He hasn't kept track of the days, but that ain't important anyway. Not when Rick's gonna say some stupid shit like going back now. He can't even talk to anyone but him yet. There ain't no way Rick's gonna make it in Alexandria in the middle of a war.
“I miss sleeping in my bed,” Rick says.
Makes sense. Makes perfect sense.
Makes so much sense that the pressure behind his eyes steps up its game and makes him want to curl away and hide somewhere.
Rick's bowl drops with a clatter.
Daryl watches it bounce off the wooden floorboards, blinking stupidly, then some more when he sees the mulish look on Rick's face. “What?” Daryl says, bracing himself, just in case.
“Instead of sitting here,” Rick says in a low voice, “you could be out there and do something useful.”
Turns out bracing himself ain't the same as being prepared.
“They're at war. You should be helping with that, don't you think?” Rick sounds calm and collected, and Daryl ain't no shrink, but it's clear as glass that Rick's talking about himself. Doesn't mean it hurts any less to hear him say it.
And he can't just say that to Rick either. Unloading another burden on his shoulders, making Rick believe he's abandoning his people even though he is.
Redirecting Rick's temper at him is the sanest option for both of them.
“Guess I just don't care that much,” Daryl tells him.
“I see.”
He ain't. Rick ain't seeing shit, that's the whole point of him.
Daryl glances over and finds Rick's face pulled into an angry grimace. That's good - enough anger to keep his attention, not enough to make him go berserk. He knows all of Rick's buttons, and it does come in handy sometimes. “There's more important matters right now,” Daryl adds.
“More important than killing him?”
Daryl nods.
“He tortured you.”
“Yeah, alright. I remember.” Daryl takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the fire and the broth cooking over it, the trees surrounding them. The smell makes the uneasy feeling in his chest easier to bear somehow. This is what he's known all his life, and Rick can't beat him here no matter how shitty of a friend he's trying to be. It calms his nerves enough he even considers saying something true for a change. If he's honest, he already forgot what the point of riling Rick up was. The man's holding a monologue anyway. There ain't no need to choose his words carefully where Rick's concerned. Never has been.
“That's all you gotta say?”
“Good god, man,” Daryl mutters. “We can't kill all of them anyway. Negan's death ain't gonna make a difference. And you ain't the only one who's lost somethin' because of him. Better think about that the next time you feel like pickin' a fight.”
They're quiet.
After a while, Rick gets up and rounds Daryl's chair. He doesn't say anything, and Daryl's neck tenses in preparation for what's to come.
It's Rick's hand. It lands on his shoulder, curling around the bone while Rick's thumb digs into the muscle below, rubbing in a slow circle.
Daryl stares into the fire and focuses on not twitching away. On not noticing how nice the touch feels after sleeping on the hard floor for so long.
“You can't expect me to know what's going on in your head when you never told me what happened.” Rick sighs. “I know we're not going to talk about it and you don't have to. Just tell me when I'm being a dick, alright? Don't just take it because you think I need this.” Rick squeezes his shoulder. “I don't, Daryl. You hear me?”
By the edge of the clearing, leaves rustle suspiciously.
Daryl's heart skips a beat, glad that the moment's over. Sad that Rick's gonna step away from him even though he's been in his space for nearly a week, never straying further than around the cabin. He shouldn't depend on Rick being close at all times.
It's gotta be unhealthy.
“Daryl, you heard what I said? You need to stand up for yourself from now on. You can't trust me to get this right. Not anymore.”
It's not Tara or Rosita. It's a walker; a stinking, slow and glorious fucking sight.
Daryl stands. “I heard you,” he says, grabbing his crossbow from where it's leaning against the railing and pulling the string back without looking at Rick in case—just in case. “And I ain't have to do shit,” he adds, quieter than he meant to.
Arrow loaded and crossbow ready, he turns to the walker and takes his time to aim just to savor the feeling of doing something productive. The moment the thing drops to the ground with a final snarl, the door to the cabin closes with a quiet click.
When Daryl glances over, the porch is already empty.
It's easy to pretend his heart's beating in overtime from the strain of his muscles when he pulls the walker out of smelling-distance, not because he can't stop thinking about what Rick's doing right now, how he's memorized the image of Rick lying on his blanket not a foot away from his own so well he sees it in his mind in perfect detail.
He should take watch.
Yeah, he should.
He does, and he even bickers with Rosita and Tara when they come back looking a bit worse for wear but with enough dynamite to get the job done.
Tomorrow, he'll be tired, but that's gotta be better than facing Rick curled up and ready to sleep, face unreadable and demands coming heavy again.
Everything's gotta be better than that.
Chapter Text
Daryl spends the night pouring over the map and memorizing every possible route and place of attack until he's sure he can find his way back from any given point. The rest of the time, he frets over what to do with Rick until said man steps out on the porch before Tara and Rosita even wake up. Judging by the quiet in the cabin, at least.
Rick rolls up his sleeves, nodding at the map on Daryl's lap. “You figure out where to hit?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Rick raises his eyebrows. “You plan on sharing that information?”
Through the broken window, he hears Tara whispering. Daryl clears his throat, mouth dry and unpleasant, and looks up at Rick through his hair. “That mean you wanna come?”
“If you tell me which way to go.” Rick pauses. “I'll follow you anyway, but I'd feel better if I knew where we're going.”
“Alright.” Daryl clears his throat again and waves Rick over, shifting his hair out of the way when Rick leans down to watch his finger pointing out the various routes and spots he made out during the night.
After a while, Tara joins them outside. “I couldn't live like this,” she says, popping her back with a groan. “I don't know how you guys do it.”
“Which one do you think is best?” Rick asks him, head cocked and all of that, the complete picture of a sane and healthy Rick he sure as fuck ain't or he wouldn't ignore Tara like that.
Because he's the polite one now, apparently, Daryl gives Tara a nod that could count as 'good morning' before he turns back to Rick. “There's several points we could hit, dependin' on what we wanna do. The swamp would be good, but we can start wherever.”
Walker-soup, as Jesus put it. The guy was probably right.
“Swamp sounds perfect,” Rick says as Rosita stops in the open door to blink at him, and he keeps his routine of ignoring all of them in favor of fetching two water bottles and handing one over.
Daryl takes the bottle, dumb.
“Rick,” Rosita says, slow and frowning. “You seem chipper.”
“It's kind of eerie, really. And creepy. No offense.” Tara grins, doing a little wiggle-dance like—actually, he's got no idea why she's doing it.
“Thank you,” Rick says, and takes a huge gulp of water.
Rosita sighs. “So, where do you want us to go?”
There's a beat of silence until Daryl realizes that everyone's staring at him. “What- Yeah. I guess the crossroads, if you wanna?”
They bend back over the map, and his face stays warm under all the attention until they finish their small breakfast and Rosita divides the dynamite with steady hands.
“That should do it,” she says eventually. “We can stash the rest inside for now, but we should find a safe place for it when we get back.”
With a nod, Daryl carries the leftover dynamite into the cabin. “Can't do shit with it once it rains, though.”
“I'm not saying we should put it up in a tree,” Rosita calls after him. “I just don't want to blow up while I'm sleeping.”
When he gets back out, Tara stuffs some fruits into her backpack and slings it over her shoulder. Rosita follows, if much more careful with her own pack. “We're doing this or what?”
“We go over it one more time,” Rick says.
They look at him. The silence feels uncomfortable even though he's been leading them since for-fucking-ever and has only been out of it for a few days. Compared to everything that came before, this lapse ain't nothing.
Daryl opens his mouth to tell them just that, but Tara beats him to it.
“Rosita and I go to the crossroad and wait until you blow up the street by the swamp. When we hear the explosion, we set off our own load in the hope that it leads stray walkers our way instead of—well, your way. As a result, we're hopefully ripping a hole in the street that's big enough these assholes can't cross over with their trucks.” Tara nods, sort of grim, before the dark expression on her face makes room for her usual smile. “We hole up in the cabin we found last night, and tomorrow, we all meet back here.”
Daryl nods, swinging his crossbow over his shoulder. “Let's do this, then.”
They part ways; Tara and Rosita disappear between the trees, and he keeps standing on the porch with Rick, who doesn't seem keen on moving yet.
“You good?” Daryl asks.
Rick unholsters his Python and inspects the chamber. It's still empty. “It'd be easier if we had vehicles to transport the dynamite. Less chance of blowing up when we stumble over a root.” He throws him a wry grin. “We should pack some food too, just in case.”
For a moment, Daryl lets his thoughts tumble around in his head, thinking of polite ways to tell Rick to fuck off without him actually leaving. Then it's too much. “So, what? You're back to normal now?”
“What do you mean?”
“With all the talkin' you've been doin' in the last hour.”
“It's not like I wasn't able to talk before,” Rick says with a lift of his eyebrow. “I just didn't feel like it.”
Because that makes so much sense.
Daryl looks away and carefully hoists the backpack with their dynamite on his back.
“I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable,” Rick offers, but he sounds so unsure about it, it damn well raises Daryl's hackles.
“You didn't.”
“You should've said something if-”
“Dammit, Rick. All I was gonna say is that I'm surprised you're back on track.” Daryl looks at the trees, wishing them on their way already. “You gonna pack some food now or what?”
There's a huff of breath that could be a laugh, but Daryl ain't turning around to look at it. He waits until Rick appears by his side, his own backpack slung over his shoulder, then they're off.
*
The walk takes a good few hours, and while they started when it was still morning, the sun's way past its peak when they finally arrive at the swamp. And the dozens of walkers stuck in it.
“Ain't that a pretty sight,” Daryl says, setting his backpack down with care.
“They could get loose once the dynamite goes off. Best not to risk it.” Rick looks around like he's counting the bodies. “We got a few hours, might as well make use of the time.”
Daryl loads his crossbow and confirms that his knife's where it's supposed to be; under his belt instead of in Rick's hands, making damn arrows for no reason at all. “Don't get stuck,” he says, glancing at Rick and waiting for his nod.
They get to work.
Daryl shoots until he's out of arrows, then he balances over the already fallen bodies to reach the other walkers with his knife. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Rick doing the same, if maybe with a bit more grace.
Makes sense, with his slim frame and all.
Daryl frowns at himself and kills the rest of the walkers he can reach before he plucks the arrows back out of their rotting heads. When he's back on solid ground, Rick's clambering out of the mud himself, fighting with his boot and looking so put out, Daryl feels his mouth twitching up like it plans to smile or something.
This is his friend, just barely on his way to recovery. He shouldn't make fun of—Rick falls face-first into the mud.
“Jesus.” Sort of giggling, Daryl hurries over and grips Rick by the elbows to pull him out.
Rick's shoe plops loose with a squishy sound. “Shut up,” he says, but there's no heat behind it and his cheeks look red even under all the muck. Under his beard. He's got mud in his— “You done staring?”
God fuck.
Daryl jerks to his crossbow, picking the first leaf from the ground to wipe down his arrows.
“I didn't mean it like that,” Rick says, oddly enough.
The leaf crumbles in his hand. Stupid thick fingers.
“Daryl.” Rick does what he always does when he's set on getting a look at his face; bending until he catches his eyes.
“What, man?”
“I was just pickin' on you,” Rick says. “You can stare all you like.” That hangs between them until Rick sighs and lets his eyes roam all over the place like they're on vacation and there ain't dozens of rotting bodies stuck in the goddamn mud. “That came out wrong too, didn't it?”
“I got no idea what you're tryin' to say.”
“I guess I'm trying to get back in the game. I'm a little rusty, you know?” It sounds like a question, and Daryl's had enough.
Enough of riddles and jokes and weird silences.
He jerks his head past the walkers, pointing at the street. “Let's check the other side, make sure them trees are thick enough cars can't get through there instead.”
Rick nods, thank the Lord, and they get back to work.
The street leads in a slight curve around the swamp. Once they blow a hole in it, the Saviors and their cars would either have to go through the mud - hopefully getting stuck - or they'd have to bring a serious arsenal of axes to cut down the trees. Either way, it's gonna mean a major dent in their schedule, and that's all they can hope for now; stalling their plans.
“There ain't no gettin' through here,” Daryl says with his eyes on the dense cluster of trees. “We good to go?”
Rick cocks his head. “Your plan, your say.”
“You know you're annoyin', right?”
“I've been told,” Rick says, sort of nonchalant in a way that has Daryl look away and proclaim they're goddamn ready for the next step of their plan just because he can.
They place the dynamite in small, scattered stacks on the street. Rick, claiming he's already muddy enough, volunteers to balance over the walkers to lay the line through the swamp.
“Think this'll do?” Daryl asks when Rick's back safe and sound without (much) new mud on him.
Rick rubs his hands over his thighs, smearing streaks of dirt on the denim. “It's late enough Tara and Rosita should be ready. We do it now, the walkers in the area will come here and get stuck again, the rest will be drawn away by the second explosion. I don't think it'll get crowded enough in there for them to unstuck each other.” Rick squints. “Is that a word?”
Daryl grins a bit. “Don't ask me, man.”
“But I am,” Rick says mildly, though he doesn't seem to expect an answer.
There are goosebumps on his arms, and there shouldn't be. The air's warm. Sticky, even. He'll probably sweat through his fresh shirt too, and then what?
Yeah, then what.
“Daryl.” Rick flicks the lighter open. “You ready?”
When Daryl nods, they get in position; Rick crouching by the end of the line and Daryl walking a few feet into the woods, ready to bolt.
The second the fuse is burning, Rick starts to sprint and grabs Daryl's arm in passing like he thinks he would've stayed there otherwise. The explosion goes off when they're far enough away not to get sprinkled with mud, and a wave of righteousness surges through him so strongly he feels like grinning.
This is where they belong, out here wreaking havoc. Doing something useful, finally. Something worth their time.
Daryl grins, sprinting—skidding to a stop.
There's a walker in their path, and it's ugly.
His good mood dwindles a bit, but after Rick gets rid of the rotten thing, they slow down to a jog and eventually to a walk, and he decides a single walker ain't worth getting pissed about.
“Feels good,” Rick says, quiet and out of breath. His arm bumps against Daryl's, and something in his neck relaxes - a muscle he pulled tight for too long without knowing it was there in the first place.
Yeah, feels good.
*
When they reach the cabin, the sun's already sinking.
Daryl drops his backpack with a sigh and unloads the food and water they didn't need. He gulps down half a bottle against a slight headache pounding behind his eyes from the lack of sleep. “You want the rest?” he calls. “You gotta remember to drink yer fill, man.”
Nothing.
Daryl cranes his head around the open door of the cabin and blinks at Rick's back. He's standing in the middle of the room like he's grown roots and stares at the small pyramid of leftover dynamite in the corner. “Rick?”
“Yeah.”
Daryl gets to his feet and carries the water inside just so he's got something to hold on to. “What're you doin'?” he asks, neatly shoving himself in Rick's line of view.
“Thinking.”
“'bout what?”
Rick looks straight through him as if he ain't seeing him at all. “How I could use what's left of the dynamite to lure Negan out of his fucking fort and blow us to hell.” He glances up, giving him an odd look. “If I should blow it up now so I don't have to hear you tellin' me it can't be done. If I should blow it up now so I don't have the option to do it later. If I should blow it up now so there ain't gonna be a later, just in case.”
They're quiet for a bit.
“Doesn't sound like somethin' you would do,” Daryl says eventually, because he can't think of anything but the ancient idea of giving up that's buried in him somewhere, and finding out Rick's got it too is something he could've done without.
“That's what I thought, too.”
“Alright,” Daryl says. He holds out the water bottle. “You want this now?”
Rick cocks his head, staring at him in a damn well terrifying way. “I don't want your water, Daryl. I want to know how you plan to stop me.”
“I don't,” Daryl mutters. “You ain't gonna go through with it anyway.”
He knows, just as he knows the quiet little voice that tells Rick this solves all of his problems.
There's a reason the idea is ancient, not new; he got fucking over it. Negan didn't invent the act of punishing him for something he deserved to be punished for. He spent his childhood doing nothing but. There's no reason to think he ain't gonna get over a week's worth of the same old shit he survived for years, and if he can do it, Rick sure as hell can too.
Daryl tightens his fingers around the bottle, crinkling the plastic as Rick starts to pace through the room.
“Stop that,” Rick says, close to snapping at him. “God, I can't think about anything when you're around. The second I look at you, all I see is that you're even more miserable than I am. You're driving me crazy.”
Daryl holds onto the water and keeps on breathing.
Maybe he got Rick wrong. Maybe this is it after all.
Blowing up takes only a second—could be worse. And no one's gonna know it was Rick. It'll seem like an accident, and the rest of them will go on living their lives none the wiser.
“This is what I'm talking about!” Rick snaps. “Instead of deciding what I can't live with - because I told her, Daryl, and I don't even think I lied - I have to think about what you can't live with instead!”
“No, you don't.”
Rick skids to a stop and stares at him.
Daryl heaves a huge breath that stutters in his lungs before he blows it out again. “Make up your mind already,” he says tiredly. “I ain't gonna leave, Rick. Don't drag this out.”
The cabin falls quiet. Rick keeps staring at him and Daryl keeps staring through his hair at the floor, counting the stains on the dirty floorboards.
Eventually, he feels weary enough to move away and leans against the wall so Rick could snatch the dynamite if he wanted to.
Even further down the line of eventually, Rick joins him.
Their shoulders are touching.
“Give it here, then.” Rick takes the water and drinks with his head leaning back against the wall. When the bottle is empty, he licks his lips.
Daryl watches - out of the corner of his eye only, in case he needs to flee from something that ain't a stack of dynamite at all. Though he ain't sure what else it could be. Something he doesn't want a name for yet.
“I have no idea what to do with you,” Rick says.
“Not blowin' us up would be a start.”
Rick huffs out a breath. “Yeah, alright. I got that part.”
“If that's settled now…” Daryl shakes his hair out of his face and looks over properly, braver than he's got any reason to be. “I could eat somethin' that don't grow sprouts. Or expired a year ago.”
“You want to hunt?”
Daryl chews on his lip. “You wanna come?”
Rick shrugs. “Always do.”
They go.
His cheeks feel too warm for most of it, but the sun's setting and urging them to hurry, and Rick kills three walkers without sparing him a glance, so Daryl lets his face be his face and focuses on the small tracks he spots between the trees. It's not only one rabbit; it's two, and on the way back to the cabin, his heart beats steady and fast with something like content.
If it was sane to be content after Rick told him he considers blowing himself up to be an option.
If sane or not sane was something he'd concern himself with.
At the cabin, they eat in the flickering glow of the fire like they used to all these months on the road, even abandoning their chairs and sitting down on the ground for it. It's so goddamn freeing, Daryl feels an old need rising that can no longer be ignored.
After he licks his fingers clean, he trudges inside to the dirty pile of clothes and rummages around until he finds the cigarette Jesus gave him. Back outside, he lights it, blinking through the smoke of both the cigarette and the fire at Rick looking right back at him.
One of these days, Rick's gonna realize this wasn't the first time he offered to die for or with him.
He wishes it was out of obligation. But it ain't. It's about something else, something more shameful he's got no interest to explore because this is already as nice as it's gonna get. There ain't no reason to poke at it.
When the fire burns down, Rick wanders inside, leaving the door open like he expects Daryl to follow—which he does, after taking a piss and making sure the fire won't flare up again.
In the cabin, Rick lies on his back, face barely visible with only the moon shining its sparse light through the broken window.
Daryl stays in the doorway. “Someone's gotta take watch.”
Meaning him. Rick ain't ready yet, not if he's thinking about blowing them up.
Which reminds him to get the dynamite out of here.
“You gonna take it outside?” Rick asks as Daryl places the sticks in his backpack.
Daryl hovers, nodding.
“Come back in when you're done.”
Someone's gotta take watch, Grimes. Look out for your bony ass.
Daryl stashes the backpack a few feet away from the bushes by the backside of the hut, close enough no one could steal it without them knowing and far enough away they ain't gonna blow up if a walker stumbles over it and sets the whole thing off.
He drags his feet, looking up at the sky to guess the time. With all artificial lighting gone, the stars multiplied by the thousands. He could live to a hundred years - as unlikely as that would be - but he wouldn't be able to count them all.
Would still be a better way to spend his time than finding out what Rick's got to say now. Or what he wants to do. Probably not blowing them up, since Rick was calm enough when he took the dynamite outside.
Thank the Lord, Rosita wasn't here to witness any of it.
With a sigh that's a bit too long even for his own taste, Daryl goes back inside, trying to adjust his eyes to make out Rick's outline under the thin blanket.
“Daryl,” Rick says, quiet and steady. “You know you're supposed to talk me out of it instead of waiting for me to kill myself, right?”
Daryl crouches down next to him, blocking all the light so he's unable to see Rick's face. He's unable to move too when Rick's hand wiggles out from underneath the blanket and closes around his knee.
“You know you're not supposed to risk your life like that because of some fucked up sense of loyalty?”
“Dunno,” Daryl says roughly, because he doesn't.
Fuck, he's gonna cry.
“That's alright,” Rick says. “I'm telling you now.”
Daryl huffs out a breath, flinching when it comes out with a quiet sound underneath. Get a fucking grip, Dixon. “You gotta tell me how to help you,” he mumbles. “I thought this would be good, stayin' out here so you've got time to get better.”
Rick squeezes his knee, then he rolls over and rearranges the blanket for long enough it's clear that he's trying to make himself comfortable.
There ain't gonna be an answer, and Daryl doesn't know what to do anymore.
He leaves the door open and sits down on the chair in front of it, feet up on the railing and crossbow in his lap. For the longest while, he feels the weight of Rick's eyes against his back, but he feels too much of everything to turn around and look back at him.
Chapter Text
Rick comes marching out of the cabin just as the sun starts to rise.
Not a single walker showed its ugly face all night. Daryl's tired as hell, got a cramp in his thigh from sitting on his ass for so long, and is basically asleep. “Mornin',” he mumbles, rubbing the sand out of his eyes.
“I know what to do now.” Rick aims for his backpack, and after a moment of searching, he fishes out—a pen.
Daryl blinks, trying to wake up his brain. It takes him a couple of seconds to connect the words to their last conversation, and then he can't decide if it's a good or a bad thing. Rick knowing what to do.
About what, anyway?
Jesus Christ, he should've kept notes or something.
Rick bustles into the cabin and comes back out with their dirty clothes tucked under his arm.
“You goin' somewhere?” Daryl asks, sort of unsure.
“Alexandria.” Rick stuffs the clothes into his backpack, then his hand stills on the zipper and he glances up at him. “For a visit,” he clarifies. “To stock up on water and what food they can spare.”
Daryl looks away. “Sounds good.”
It does. He ain't faking it.
He ain't.
With a huff, Daryl gets to his feet and stretches his tired bones before he disappears between the trees to go about his business—to get one last minute of peace, out of Rick's sight. The way Rick's starting out can't mean nothing good for the day, he can already see it coming.
When he trudges back to the cabin, Rick stands on the porch; backpack over his shoulder, gun in his holster, and hands on his hips. He looks so much like before, Daryl's mouth goes dry.
Didn't drink anything all night. That's why.
“Breakfast before we go,” Rick says, pointing at a neat stack of apples on Daryl's chair. “I left a note in case Tara and Rosita come back before we do.”
Something's off here, but he can't put his finger on it, so Daryl takes a damn apple, a water bottle too, and picks up his crossbow. “Happy?” he asks, taking a noisy bite just for the sake of it.
“I never thought I'd see the day,” Rick says solemnly. While shoving him off the porch. “Come on now, quit stallin'.”
They're off through the trees.
When they first came here, the walk took hours on end, but they didn't have a goal back then. It shouldn't take longer than an hour to reach Alexandria when they're heading straight for it.
Still too long to spend in silence.
“What's the plan?” Daryl asks, chewing.
“Catch up with Carl,” Rick says slowly. “Sit with Judith for a while. That sort of thing.”
Daryl hums, heart swelling.
“If you don't feel like it, you don't even have to come,” Rick says, slowly again. “I could get there on my own.”
Daryl walks on.
Rick shrugs. “Had to ask,” he says, and then he ain't saying anything for a while, at least for half the way to Alexandria, before he starts giving him sidelong glances again. “It won't take long. We'll raid the kitchen, wash our clothes, ask how they're all doing. We'll be on our way again before you know it.”
Yeah, something's definitely off.
Daryl looks over and is confronted with a dead leaf on Rick's shoulder.
“We'll stay at the cabin for a while longer- Ah, damn.” Rick shakes his head. “That was supposed to be a question. God, this is gonna be harder than I thought.”
Daryl reaches over and brushes the leaf off Rick's shoulder. “You suck at gettin' your point across, you know that, right? And if you wanna stay, we'll stay. Rick, man- You gotta know I ain't goin' nowhere.”
Rick rubs his temple. “I know that, Daryl. You're a real piece of work that way.”
That ain't making much sense, but he's not about to poke the man for an answer just to listen to another riddle.
“As far as our plans for fresh clothes go,” Rick says as he rounds a low tree trunk, “You never told me where you keep your stuff.”
Daryl blinks at a clump of moss. “Don't have much.”
“And that not-much stuff you have, where's that?”
It sounds like a question he can't refuse—a bit like an order, really, and he was never good at defying those if they came from Rick.
“In Aaron's garage,” he says, shrugging when Rick stops walking. “I ain't over at their place often or anythin'. I just needed to store the few things I have, and Aaron offered. The rest I got with me anyway.”
Rick works his jaw and gets moving again. “You could've kept it in our house.”
Daryl marches on, willing Alexandria closer even though they haven't walked for longer than thirty minutes yet.
Lord above, he knew something was off and now this—endless questions after endless hours of blissful fucking silence for the past week.
“Daryl.”
Daryl picks up speed. “Ain't my house.”
“Yeah, it is,” Rick says at once. “'Our' includes you. How can you not know that by now?”
Any more of this and he's gonna burst right out of his skin, and there ain't gonna be nothing left but goddamn ashes. See what Rick's talking at then, making even the ashes so uncomfortable they'll fucking wish for a breeze to blow them away.
“Dunno why we're havin' this conversation,” Daryl says, forceful enough to make Rick understand that this is the limit. “It ain't like it was back then. Like we used to live. 'Ours' means your family now, not the whole group.”
“You are family. I told you you're my-” Rick stops, looking so pinched Daryl wouldn't be surprised if the man busted a vein. “Never mind. Forget I said that. You can get a few shirts from Aaron's, yeah?”
Daryl blinks. “Yeah.”
“Good, because that,” Rick says, nodding at his very own shirt on Daryl's chest, “looks like it's a pretty tight fit. Not that I mind, but I'm sure you'd be more comfortable in your own clothes.”
Jesus Christ, he's gonna burn up from the inside or something. His face feels like it's on fire already.
Thankfully, they walk the rest of the way in silence, though Daryl only just keeps himself from fumbling with the hem of his shirt. Rick's shirt. He ain't wrong; it does sit pretty tight.
But it ain't as uncomfortable as Jesus' shirt was, for some reason.
The train of thought disappears somewhere into the back of his mind when they reach Alexandria's gates. People stare, but Rick walks straight up to the house and ignores them all. Daryl trudges after him, peeling the backpack from Rick's shoulders when Carl comes outside to meet them, Judith on his hip and a half-smile on his face.
He mumbles an excuse, sidestepping Carol's accusatory eyes in the hallway, and rushes over to the washing machine.
It's already running.
With a sigh, he dumps their clothes in front of it and settles in for a wait.
“I'll take care of it,” Carol says from behind him.
Daryl turns around, heart heavy and apology ready on his tongue, but she stalls him by holding up her hand before he can even open his mouth.
“Now isn't the time,” she says. “And you shouldn't be here yet.”
There ain't no way she wants him gone for good, that ain't possible, is it, is it—
Her small hand lands on his shoulder. “We will talk about it, Daryl. Just not now. We have time.”
The floor is dirty. Probably from his own shoes. He keeps dragging mud everywhere, practically leading a trail so everyone knows where to find him at all times.
“You told me what I needed to hear,” Carol says quietly. “But you didn't tell me about you. I had to find out from the others.”
Daryl swallows around the lump in his throat. God, he did her so wrong.
Carol's hand leaves his shoulder and comes up to his chin, lifting it until he has to look in her face. “I'm not angry at you. Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm not angry, Daryl.” She purses her mouth. “Are you?”
“Me?”
“Angry,” she says patiently. “That I left like I did.”
“No. You did what-”
“Well, there you have it,” she says with a sharp nod, then she drops her hand and smiles. “If neither of us is angry, I see no reason to rush this. We can talk about it all when you come back for good.”
The strength of her is almost frightening. She talks about anger and conversations like that's something he can actually do or overcome, not something that's got him in its grip.
“Gotta go to Aaron's,” he offers, wincing when his voice breaks in a funny way.
“You go on ahead. I'll wash these for you. If I can squeeze out some more time, I'll come visit again and bring them over.”
They part ways with an awkward clap to her shoulder and images of their last hug flooding his mind; how she clung to him, begging him without words to reassure her that everything was fine. He did, and he shouldn't have, and here they are, clapping shoulders.
He leaves the house with Rick sitting on the couch with Judith, Carl working in the kitchen, and Carol sorting their laundry.
The second he steps outside, he catches Aaron looking over, beard long and face hard, and something else clutches at his heart.
Maybe Carol was right—he shouldn't have come here yet. Whyever that's the case.
By now, the streets are free of blood and bodies, both from walkers and their own. For a moment, Daryl thinks about visiting the graveyard, but then Aaron's already there, reaching out and dropping his hand again before he makes contact. It's a familiar gesture, and Aaron's face might look harder now, but it's still the same. He knows that man.
It's fine.
Daryl blows out a breath and follows Aaron to his garage, listening to the few things Aaron wants to share. Ain't much, and he ain't much listening either, but maybe Aaron knows that too.
After a while, Eric peeks around the corner and calls Aaron over.
Trying to look busy, Daryl packs some shirts and jeans, momentarily proud when he remembers to pack socks too, and then his social batteries - never quite full even on good days - are almost drained. Before long, he finds himself glancing over at Rick's house more often than not.
Right before he can't keep still any longer, Jesus comes walking down the street, looking more at home in this town with these walls and fences than he ever did himself. As soon as Jesus spots him - however he manages to do that while Daryl lurks in Aaron's garage even though Aaron left with Eric to do whatever - he marches over.
Jogs.
Striding over with carefree steps, smiling his stupid smile. The nearer he gets, the more it falls off.
Reasonably sure he ain't pulling a worse face than usual, Daryl sighs.
“You're back?” Jesus stops in front of him and shoves his hands in his coat pockets. “Or visiting?”
“Visitin'.” Daryl licks his lips. “And someone oughtta tell you - Aaron's spoken for. No chance there, I reckon.”
God, what the hell even?
Jesus blinks, and all of a sudden, he laughs.
Daryl turns away and aims for Rick's house.
“Oh, hey, come on.” Jesus catches up to him, matching his steps. “Thank you, I guess, but that wasn't the reason I came by. I wanted to share some good news with you guys. Or you, since I saw you just now.”
“You really do never shut up, do you?”
“Nope.” Jesus laughs, then he clears his throat. “Anyway, in case you want to know: your idea inspired some people in Hilltop to follow your example-”
“What?”
Jesus slows down. “Laying traps, making it as hard as possible for the Saviors to get to us in great numbers? Or to get to us fast in great numbers. They're all getting ready.”
“That ain't…” Daryl swallows. That fucking ain't what he was trying to do at all.
Jesus shrugs. “Doesn't matter. It's doing some good, especially for those not ready to actually join the fight. They have something to do now, that's all that matters.”
“Daryl.” Rick stands on the porch and looks down at them with his hand on his hip and his backpack slung over his shoulder, and Daryl could cry right there and then.
He doesn't, of course, but it's a close call.
“Gotta go,” he says to Jesus, glancing up and waiting until he catches his eyes. Then he nods, letting the man know he heard and understood even if he can't say anything about it.
It's possible Jesus knows about that by now anyway.
When Rick walks down the steps, Daryl falls in line. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
Jesus stays behind and looks after them as they leave. It ain't as weird as it probably should be, but his palms feel too sweaty to focus on anything anyway, and Daryl only starts breathing freely again after Rick slaloms them around the many groups of busy-looking people and they're out of hearing and seeing range of the walls.
“Our idea to lay traps inspired some of them Hilltop folks to do the same,” Daryl tells him, somewhat quiet.
Rick hums. “Your idea.”
It's all he says, and they walk back to the cabin in silence.
*
It's getting dark when they arrive back at the cabin, but it's still easy enough to find; the fire's already lit, and Tara pokes at something cooking over it while Rosita relaxes on a chair with her feet up on the railing.
Taking care to make some noise, he steps into the clearing with Rick following right behind him.
Tara looks up and waves at them. “Hey there.”
“How did it go?” Daryl asks, plopping down on the free chair and ignoring how Rick walks straight into the cabin. When the door falls shut, Daryl focuses back on the others.
“Everything went according to plan,” Rosita says around a yawn. “We got a few stragglers over the night, but nothing serious. And I caught us dinner on the way back.”
“Dinner.” Daryl squints at the spit over the fire. “You caught a rabbit? What, you shoot it?”
Tara laughs, bumping her knee against his. “It was already half-dead, alright. She caught it with her hands.” She looks at Rosita and smiles in a weirdly soft way. “That's why we're roasting and cooking it. Just in case.”
Daryl grunts.
“How about you?”
“I had some apples.”
“Oh my god.” Tara laughs again. “I meant the plan, you weirdo.”
Right. “Went well.”
“Yeah? And you went to Alexandria today?”
“What's this, twenty questions?”
The door opens and Rick steps out with his hair standing up like he carded his fingers through it for the last minutes.
“Just saying,” Tara says, poking the rabbit again. “You could've washed, you know. Taken a shower? In a house? When you were in town.”
That idea didn't come nowhere near his head at all. Daryl glances up at Rick, who looks just as blank as he feels himself.
“You saying we're ripe?” Rick asks.
Rosita snorts. “If you want to use that word, yeah. I'd say 'ripe' expired a few days ago, but who am I to tell you to clean up? I'm not your mother.” She lifts her eyebrows, looking at Daryl. “Or yours, for that matter.”
“Jesus, woman.” Daryl stands, stumbling when his foot catches on the strap of his backpack.
“Did you take watch last night?” Rosita asks.
A longing rises in him, sudden and uncalled-for, and pulls him in two directions at once; wanting to spend time with Rick, checking on his wound and getting him to talk. On the other hand, having more people around means sleeping with Rick. At the same time.
God, he's tired. His eyes burn already. Or maybe it's the smoke from the fire.
“He did,” Rick says, voice low like he's speaking up against his will.
Ain't his fault they're all in such a hurry they can't wait for him to finish his train of thought.
Tara blows out a noisy breath. “Go to sleep already, I can barely watch this. You're gonna keel over and land right in the fire, and then you're gonna burn to death and attract every walker for miles.”
They look at Tara doing her little wiggle-dance again.
“I have actually no idea why I said that. Oh, wait, before you go. What I said before—you know where the lake is, right? In case you suddenly developed a phobia of actual showers.”
With his face on fire, Daryl stomps inside and leaves them to snicker. Rick doesn't, but he ain't got nothing to snicker about since he's just as dirty as he is.
Daryl plops down on his blanket and tries to get rid of his boots without sitting up.
It ain't working, and he grumbles until the door opens again and his traitorous heart skips a hopeful beat when he sees Rick.
“What's up?”
Rick sits right down on the spot; his knees drawn up, arms slung over them, and his back leaning against the closed door like a living barricade. “I need to tell you something. You up for that?”
Daryl blinks, halfway to being insulted. “I'm up for that, alright.”
“A few days before our fight with Negan, we were out scavenging, her and I.” Rick bows his head, talking to his thighs rather than him. “You remember that?”
Daryl grunts, soft, because no he fucking doesn't, he wasn't at Alexandria back then, and Rick seems to have forgotten all about it.
But Rick also doesn't talk about things. That he's doing it now means it's important, and Daryl feels he shouldn't be lying down for this, but he can't think of a way to sit up without raising Rick's attention.
“She was worried about our chances,” Rick goes on, slow and quiet. “We were on our way back and I- I told her, Daryl. I loved her, and I told her I could lose her so she'd understand that living without me wouldn't be impossible.” He looks up, holding his eyes until Daryl sits up after all, self-consciously smoothing his shirt back down. “I said that, and now I lost her, and I can't decide what would be worse - that I lied? That'd mean it's alright for me to give up now. Or that I told her the truth? That'd mean the fight's not over until it's over, no matter which of us is still standing. It'd mean I have to move on now.”
This ain't right.
Rick should open up to someone who's equipped to deal with this. Someone who ain't him.
It's such a fucked up thing to say to the woman he loves, and he knows just how Rick meant it, but that don't make it right. No reason to tell Rick, though. Judging by his hanging shoulders and the tired look on his face, the trees and the arrows and all of it - Rick already knows.
“I'm sorry,” Daryl says at last. “I dunno what else to say.”
All he's got to say would be something like, 'yeah, it was the truth, course it was, you'll get over it cause you got over Lori too, and Carl's still here, Judith, your friends. And me. I'm here, 'm always here and you don't see it'.
Rick rubs his hand over his face, hiding for a quiet moment before he drops it again. “I don't want you to say anything. I just wanted to explain what's on my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because I owe you that much.”
He really don't.
Rick sighs. “Seeing Carl today reminded me how far I still got to go. He's what keeps me anchored to that place now. I know it's supposed to be the other way around, but I don't think he needs my help anymore. At least not in that regard.”
The words sting in a way he doesn't understand. Carl so grown up and hardened from the world they're living in that he needs nothing from his old man anymore. Rick relying on his own kid to keep him going. The both of them trying time and again to have a normal family only for it all to get ripped away again.
Rick forgetting him when he's talking about anchors as if Rick still doesn't know that's exactly what he is to him.
The only one. There used to be more, for a time, but nothing's left of any of it.
“I don't need to include you, Daryl. That's a given.”
Daryl eyes him through his hair.
“You think I would've come here with Gabriel? Jesus, maybe? Aaron?” Rick scoffs. “I don't know them. I know none of them as well as I know you, so I know I don't gotta try so hard now.”
“The hell's that supposed to mean?”
“I reckon the chances of offending your sensibilities are pretty slim,” Rick says, slow like he thinks he's lost it somewhere in the last minute. “I don't have to be careful around you. Where Carl is my anchor to civilization and good manners—” Rick grins, somewhat demented. “You're everything but. You're what keeps me anchored to life, the raw and simple way of it.”
Alright then. Alright. That's fine.
Fine.
“I wouldn't have said anything if you hadn't asked,” Rick says, still slightly grinning. He looks a bit deranged. “How you think anyone but you would've stayed through the bullshit I pulled over the last week is beyond me. You're somethin' else, Daryl. You haul me all the way out here to get my shit together and expect me not to think you're special? Well, think again.”
A laugh bubbles out of his chest. Daryl coughs and decidedly ignores it when it happens again.
“Yeah, you keep on laughin',” Rick says, getting to his feet. “I'll find a way to get it in your thick head, you just wait.”
“I've got no idea what you're tryin' to say,” Daryl says honestly, but he feels lighter somehow, like all the confessions lifted a weight from his chest rather than put more on it. “You lost me back when you said you don't gotta try.”
Rick stares at the ceiling and flares his nostrils. “I'm going now,” he states. “You sleep. I'll send Rosita in to get some rest too.” He looks over, briefly, then turns to the door. “This conversation ain't over, by the way.”
He wouldn't have thought otherwise.
When Rick's outside, Daryl blows out a long, satisfying breath and finally lies back down. He expects to stay awake for hours with bits of their talk running through his head, but the moment he closes his eyes, he's already asleep.
Chapter Text
It's so quiet, his heartbeat is the only sound he hears. Then comes his sight, blinking through the dull light of the morning, followed by a weird tingling against his back.
“Mornin'.”
Daryl twitches, flipping over with flailing arms.
“Did I wake you? Didn't mean to.” Rick sits in the corner of the room, knees raised and arms folded on top of them. His face is in the shadows, but it looks like he's okay. Peaceful, for the lack of a better word.
“'s fine,” Daryl mumbles. It's still quiet around them, even through the broken window. “Where're the others?”
“Left.” Rick taps his fingers against his knees, and Daryl could swear he's smiling. “They said they'd be back by tonight, but with the way Rosita's been huffing, I wouldn't be too sure about that.”
“Ah, let her.” Daryl clears his throat, pulling a face against the gross taste, and from one second to the next, he feels disgusting altogether. There's no way around washing now that he's been made aware of it. Even he's got his limits. “Any plans for the day?” he asks, propping himself up on his elbow.
“Seems like you have one.”
He hasn't looked at Rick's wound for a while. They've got bandages now - courtesy of Rick, who (unlike him) remembered to pack some the day before - and it's only reasonable to combine redressing the wound with cleaning up.
So yeah, he's got a plan for once.
Daryl grins. Then he ain't sure Rick can see it from all the way over by the wall, and his grin falters again. “What you sittin' there for anyway?”
“Waiting.” Rick shrugs. “Trying to take my mind off things.”
There's nothing he can say to that without making it awkward.
Daryl sits up with a cough, making it awkward anyway.
“I always thought it's amazing how you ease my mind just by being asleep,” Rick says, eyebrows raised as if he expects him to agree. “I think it's the way you breathe. If someone who's as aware of your surroundings as you sleeps like that, things can't be too bad. You wouldn't do it if anything was off.”
Something's stuck in his throat. Daryl tries to sputter, but it sounds like he's having a seizure.
“Figured you didn't want to hear that.” Rick grins. “What's the plan you're sitting on, then?”
Not dying of heart failure would be a good start. “Lake,” he says, and more words won't come.
Apparently, it's still enough.
Rick leaves him to get dressed, and a few minutes later, they're sitting outside already. Daryl eats breakfast while Rick sorts through their backpacks, hands quick and sure like they used to be.
If they'd known this is all it'd take back when Lori died—no, that was different.
They were more like people back then, not yet hardened by all the gruesome shit of the last year. Taking Rick camping wouldn't have made a difference.
“The way I see it, it should take us an hour or so to get to the lake,” Rick says, bent over the map. “It's around where Aaron took us to when we first came here.” He glances up, eyebrows raised and face open, and looks so much like before, recognition shivers down Daryl's back in a warm wave.
“There any good spots for traps?” Daryl asks, holding eye contact until Rick looks back at the map. “If we're out there anyway,” he adds.
Rick throws him a quick smile. “Probably. Take some dynamite with us, see what we can see?”
It should be weird.
Daryl waits for the weird to hit him, make him hurry to the dynamite to hide it deeper in the woods, but it doesn't come. Rick looks as normal as he's gonna get, as if he ain't thinking about anything other than laying traps.
As if he's got dementia or something and forgot all about blowing himself up.
“Or not,” Rick says with a shrug. “We can just go to the lake, no problem.”
“No,” Daryl mumbles. “We do it like you said.”
“Yeah?”
“'m gonna carry it, though.”
Rick smiles again, fucking alarming.
Without his input, Daryl's lips curve up too, and then he's had enough and clears his throat. “Let's get goin'.”
*
During their hike to the lake, Daryl squints at the rays of sunshine poking through the crowns of the trees and wonders how long he slept and how long Rick sat there, waiting.
Or listening to him breathing.
Whatever.
He doesn't mind that much, but the way his thoughts keep stumbling over the why makes him worry after all.
Nothing to be done about it, though. Obviously, he ain't gonna ask.
When they finally reach the lake, Daryl sets his backpack down by the tree line, mindful of the dynamite, and lets out a long sigh. Determined to wash off the days upon days worth of grime, blood, and sweat, he takes off his boots and unbuttons his shirt, then he stands around for a bit, hesitating until Rick gets moving too.
He sees it in his peripheral view. Privacy and all, he won't watch—Rick stops moving again.
There ain't no rustle of clothes or the sound of fabric sliding over skin. There's nothing, like Rick stopped dead altogether.
Daryl glances over.
Rick sits on his ass, the map spread out over his lap and a focused look on his face.
Well. That's fine.
Rick's known about the scars since the farm and Hershel fixing him up anyway. No reason to get coy now, especially not when Rick ain't even looking in his direction.
With dumb, shaking hands, Daryl peels out of his clothes. Just in case, he keeps his back turned away from Rick to hide his scars, but then he realizes it ain't no good to drop his pants and hold his private parts in Rick's face either.
Before, during the months they've spent on the road, he used to wash up after the others were done. That ain't happening now, with how Rick's set on memorizing the map.
Jesus Christ, it's the end of the world and he's blushing like a damn schoolgirl.
Daryl grits his teeth and shoves his pants down.
The earth keeps on turning, and Rick keeps on studying the map.
Daryl marches into the lake, splashing water everywhere and making such a ruckus he's sure Rick's got to be looking over by now. He doesn't dare to check and focuses on his balls fleeing back into his body instead; with the trees hanging over the edge of the lake, the water's cold as hell.
He dives under, feeling like a frying pan in need of a soak before one should even attempt to scrape off the burnt crust. And there ain't no reason to hurry when he's got to march out buck naked once he's done, and Rick's still sitting on the bank.
The point of this was to get them both cleaned up.
Rick better get moving soon. He ain't gonna help him wash or anything.
Or undress.
The thought is alarming in a way Daryl hadn't imagined possible and makes him linger in the water long after he's clean.
Once he gathers up all the courage he can manage, he clears his throat. “You gonna come in here anytime soon or you gonna wait till them clothes find their way on their own?”
Rick looks up from the map and cocks his head. “I thought I'd take the time to admire the view first.”
His face starts to burn so fast, it's fucking ridiculous. He knows Rick's talking about the scenery and not—what even? “Just a lake, man,” he mutters, thanking everyone who may listen for the cold water and his inability to do something drastic. With his lower body parts.
“Yeah, just a lake.” Rick puts the map to the side and starts to take off his clothes.
Daryl waits for the perfect moment, weighing his options like he would before an attack. As soon as Rick shoves his pants down and is surely only a few seconds away from stepping into the water, Daryl stalks out, dripping and freezing and bustling to his backpack.
Something snarls.
Daryl whips around, slapping his hair wetly against his cheek.
The goddamn walker ain't even walking, it's pulling itself on by its arms.
Behind him, Rick snorts.
With jerky movements, Daryl grabs his crossbow and sends the dead prick to hell. It goes down - more down - with a hiss, sounds like a kettle, really, and Daryl nods at it, pulling his lip between his teeth.
Ain't enough.
He gnaws on his thumb, just in case, all of his senses focused on Rick behind him sloshing around in the water.
God. Goddammit.
“You good?” Rick calls over. It sounds like he's grinning.
Daryl stands, gnawing his arm off while the strap of the crossbow digs into his skin. His cold skin. It's wet too, and he's presenting his bare ass to his friend. Including the scars. “'m good.”
There's a beat of silence.
“I'm gonna go under,” Rick says, slow like he wants him to be aware of the fact.
Daryl turns his head enough to see Rick disappearing beneath the surface.
He ain't running, but it's a close call.
By the time Rick comes up sputtering water, Daryl's reached his backpack, and when Rick comes up for the second time, he's pulled his jeans - fresh, the important factor - over his hips and is already closing them.
It stays awkward, but that's probably just him.
The shirt from before smells still reasonably clean, so he buttons up and heads down to the water to wash the rest of his dirty clothes. He keeps his eyes down, focusing on the task at hand and very much not on Rick. Or on the uncomfortable feeling of jeans pulling at wet skin while he ain't even wearing underwear.
Which he should've packed in Alexandria, but didn't.
God.
When Rick walks out of the water, he stops beside him on the bank and scans the trees.
There ain't nothing going on by the trees. He would've heard—
What the hell's Rick doing?
Rick turns to face him, unashamed to an extreme. He's got his hands on his hips too. Not much chest hair. But he's lean. Could use a few more meals.
Could use his clothes.
“Good thinking,” Rick says, pointing his chin at the pile of clothes Daryl forgot he's been pushing underwater.
Daryl grunts.
“Looks better, doesn't it?”
His brain is empty.
He doesn't want to, but he follows Rick's line of sight like the pervert he is, and when he sees what it's about, he blows out a huge breath of relief. Then he frowns at the open and unprotected wound on Rick's side. It's probably a magnet for all kinds of nasty things, but it's still better to focus on that than the rest of what Rick's presenting him with.
Like his chest and one of the muscles in his waist jumping, moving the hair there.
Daryl looks away.
His heartbeat thuds in his ears even though he's seen dozens of naked men in his time. Maybe more. Hell, Merle never had any decency at all. He got his fair share of seeing that dick flap around since the day he was born.
But this is Rick. He ain't his brother, and it ain't right that he's seeing him like this.
When Daryl arrives back in the real world, Rick's wandered off to fight with his jeans the same way he did, if a bit more furiously since he insists on wearing the tight ones. He had the foresight to bring fresh underwear though, and that makes him the winner after all.
Daryl sighs in envy and wrings out his clothes when Rick calls him over to redress the wound.
The wet earth squelches between his toes, and as soon as he's far enough away from the bank to step into the clearing, the sun beats down from overhead.
It's nice somehow, like he imagined a vacation would be. If he ignores the body rotting between the bushes.
Daryl hangs his dripping clothes over a branch, then aims for his backpack and quickly shrugs out of the borrowed shirt and into one of his, finally. Not as tight, no sleeves, no weird feelings.
Just better.
When he's done, he turns to Rick.
The man sits on the ground, lounging against a stone with his legs stretched out in front of him. He ain't wearing a shirt, and the first two buttons of his jeans are open and allow them to sit low enough on Rick's hips to give Daryl access to the wound.
For the life of him, Daryl can't think of a time when Rick used to flaunt himself like that.
It's just wrong. On many levels.
Damn well myriads of them.
Blowing out a tense breath, Daryl walks over and crouches down, trying his best not to get blinded by how fucking pale Rick is. His arms look ridiculous, tanned like they are while the rest of him ain't.
Rick squints up at him, eyes half-closed against the bright light. “Doesn't hurt much anymore. Feels a bit tender, is all.”
Daryl nods and carefully pokes around the edges of the wound to check for an infection.
There ain't none, which he knew because there's no pus or real pain or anything else bad. It's just irritated skin, warm now that Rick's sitting in the sun. Or maybe he's always warm, that's possible too.
Fact is, he ain't hot.
Daryl stretches his neck until it clicks.
“Not good?” Rick asks, somewhat quietly.
God, he almost wishes Rick would go back to making arrows. He was easier to deal with then, somehow.
“Looks fine. Should only take a few more days.” Daryl finally takes his stupid fingers off Rick and goes to get some gauze out of his backpack. When he's back at Rick's side, he covers the wound and fixes the gauze with a few band-aids around the edges, pressing them down until they stick to Rick's skin. “When you looked at the map earlier,” he says to fill the silence, “you seen any good places for us to hit?”
“A few,” Rick says slowly. “But it's still early. We might as well stay here until we're dry. And I gotta wash my clothes too.”
Daryl clamps his mouth shut in case he says something fundamentally stupid like suggesting to wash the man's clothes for him.
There's gotta be a line, grieving friend or no.
“You look like you again.”
“What?”
Rick points at his arm. “No sleeves make you look like you instead of you wearing someone else's clothes.”
Daryl grunts, flexing his arm without meaning to. “You gonna put on some clothes too or you got some plans I don't know about?”
“What plans could I have that involve less clothes than commonly accepted?”
Daryl moves over to sit next to Rick rather than in front of him. “Joinin' the naked brigade,” he tells him. “Openin' up a nudist camp. How should I know? I ain't the naked one here.”
With a laugh, Rick gets to his feet. “I ain't naked, Daryl. Stop bein' such a prude.”
Daryl huffs a bit, half-watching as Rick crouches by the water to wash his clothes and half-pretending to simply enjoy the sun.
*
They wiggle their toes in the soggy earth of the bank, watching their clothes dry and sharing a pack of extremely questionable crackers until the stench of the walker decomposing in the sun gets too intense.
“Where to now?” Daryl asks as he stuffs their clothes into Rick's backpack.
Rick goes back to bending over the map, and Daryl joins him for the lack of anything else to do.
If he hadn't looked at Rick's wound just an hour ago, he'd think Rick might be running a fever with the warmth he's radiating right now. Even their arms stick together.
It's weird, Daryl finds.
As weird as that comment Rick made about him - wearing no sleeves makes him look more like himself or whatever he said.
“You listening?”
“Nah.” Daryl bumps against Rick's shoulder, careful not to set the dynamite off and blow them to pieces. “Don't matter, just lead the way.”
Rick folds the map up with a sigh. “We talked about this. You need to stop relying on me like that.”
“I ain't relyin' on you.”
“Then stop trusting me with all you've got,” Rick mutters. “That easier for you to understand?”
Daryl stares, heart hammering. “No, it ain't.”
Rick shakes his head, turning and marching off so quickly, Daryl barely catches up to him. “You got a sudden amnesia I should know about? All of this started because I was convinced we need Hilltop, and then I convinced all of you to fight in return. That's what you get when you rely on me.”
“You're pushin' it,” Daryl says quietly, not hot anymore at all—on the contrary. He's sure that if he checked, Rick might radiate a lot of things right now, but warmth ain't one of them.
“I got you all up and runnin' like we were mercenaries working for whoever paid the most. My judgment's been shot to hell ever since we left the goddamn farm, Daryl. Took me until now to realize it, and trust me, I'm not letting that happen again.”
Daryl rounds a bush and keeps his eyes on the narrow path in front of them. “That why we're out here?”
“No,” Rick says, his tone sharp before he reigns himself in again. “That's not why we're out here. Right now, I'm telling you to stop-”
“You ain't tellin' me shit,” Daryl snaps. “You keep holdin' monologues an' expect me to make sense of them, but I ain't. You want me to get it, you gotta say what you mean or you best shut up now.”
Rick slows to a stop. “I'm saying you should question my judgment from now on. You saw what happens if you don't.” He licks his lips, looking at the trees around them. “Everyone we lost since I made the call to deal with the Saviors. Everyone we almost lost on top of that.”
Something about Rick makes him look small and big at the same time. His head is bowed forward and his knuckles are white where he's curling them around his gun holster, but he still keeps his back straight and his shoulders pulled back, and there's a damn near soft expression on his face that makes no sense at all.
Daryl wants to fucking grip his skinny frame and shake him until he's back to the way he used to be—bloody and dangerous and fierce and wild.
Not like this.
“Wasn't your fault,” he mumbles instead.
“Daryl.”
Daryl lifts his chin, trying to stare Rick into submission like Rick wanted him to do with Ezekiel. A taste of his own damn medicine right here and now.
“When he took you-”
Daryl shakes his head. “We ain't talkin' about that. It wasn't your fault. It ain't never your fault, man. Stop beatin' yourself up about it.”
Rick turns away.
They stand in silence, Daryl staring at the back of Rick's head and Rick standing like he's about to become one with the earth or some shit. Like he's grown roots, planning to stay in this spot forever, and hell yeah, he's gonna wait him out. This is the one topic he ain't gonna back down from even if they stand here until it's night and the woods will be crawling with goddamn walkers—
A walker comes staggering out from behind a tree, ugly as fuck.
Scowling, Daryl shoots an arrow in its head before it can do more than prepare for a snarl.
“For a week, I didn't know if you were still alive.”
The arrow's stuck in the eye of the stinking corpse, and Daryl finds that he can't move.
“I didn't find out until Negan- Until he brought you home.”
“Rick.”
Rick plucks out the arrow and wipes it on a tree. Then he hands it over, looking past him. “Don't tell me to stop beating myself up about that.”
They walk on.
Something heavy settles in his chest. It feels like dread, just warmer. He already knows he ain't much of a fan of it, but it settles in like it means to stay all the same.
Daryl keeps his eyes on the ground, sometimes on Rick's back, and follows. He meant what he said. He's gonna follow him wherever. Don't mean he wouldn't like to know where they're going, but Rick offers no more words on the matter.
Nothing at all, not even a huff or scoff or sigh or goddamn yawn.
In the end, Rick stops with his back to him and taps the map against his own shoulder like he thinks Daryl's a dog waiting to hurry to its master's heels.
“What, we lost now?” he gripes, yanking the map from Rick's fingers. “Good load of nothin' all this walkin' did us then.”
Rick glances about, face alert like he suspects a herd heading their way. “We ain't lost,” he says, turning to face him. “Take a look. If I'm right, we should be about here-” His finger circles an area much too big for Daryl's liking, and then draws a straight line. “We go through here, and a few miles out, there's that road. See? That's where we're heading.”
Memorizing the outline, Daryl tries to get a feeling for the place they're in, letting his age-old instincts take over in case they need a quick way back later.
“You're welcome,” Rick says.
Daryl slaps the map against Rick's chest, ready to come to fucking blows with him, but suddenly there's something to do, walker-wise, and it saves him from deciding where to punch Rick so he ain't accidentally end up pummeling him to death.
The fight ain't good, but it's something.
There are eight, and then there are none.
One of his arrows splinters for good, there's rotten blood in his barely dried hair, and Rick looks like he fell face-first against a tree. Which may have happened.
They walk on in silence because firstly, he wouldn't want to listen to Rick even if he had the best intentions ever, and secondly, Rick ain't saying anything either.
So there's that.
When they finally reach the road, the sun starts to set, and it turns out blowing this one up won't do any good without blocking the sides of the road first.
By the time they finish piling up enough half-dead trees and branches and twigs and whatever else they find lying around, the sun's about to disappear for good.
Daryl sighs. “We doin' this or what?”
“It's getting dark.”
“I noticed.”
There's a glint in Rick's eyes. “Traps in case they can still drive around the road?”
“Rick.”
Rick grins, flashing his teeth through the dim light, and Daryl's resolve crumbles alongside his sour mood with a speed that's fucking frightening.
They ram branches into the softer earth beside the road, burying them so only the pointy ends stick out. They're sharp enough tires will either earn a few holes or burst entirely. It's gonna slow down their vehicles in any case, and they can't ask for more.
When they finish both sides of the road, the sun's gone and his hands are sore. Plenty of splinters are firmly lodged in his palms, and he's got sweat running down his back, joining the dirt and the dried walker blood on his fresh clothes.
So much for washing.
“Ready?”
Daryl stares at what's visible of Rick, unconsciously taking a step forward until Rick bends down to light the fuse.
They're off in a sprint, rushing past the trees. Daryl darts to the left to get swallowed by the woods in case of roaming walkers. Just as the dynamite goes off, Rick closes up behind him. He smells like trees and fresh sweat.
“Dammit.”
“You good?” Daryl slows down to a walk. “Rick?”
Rick pants against his neck, catching him off guard, and then his fingers close around Daryl's arm and slide down until he grips him by the elbow. “I can't see a thing,” Rick says, somewhat amused. “Sure hope you know the way.”
Oh. Well.
With a nod, Daryl looks around to orient himself until he remembers that Rick probably can't see him nodding either. “Yeah,” he lies. “Just hold on.”
Rick tightens his grip on Daryl's arm, squeezing and then settling comfortably.
They get going.
Every now and then, Rick stumbles over something and jerks Daryl back, and his breath rushes in a hot wave past Daryl's ear. It's intimate enough Daryl wishes them back to the cabin, but only for a moment. If he's honest, he wouldn't be too sorry if the walk took a while longer.
This is good.
This is—yeah.
He licks his lips and shakes his hair out of his eyes even though he can barely see a thing anyway.
After a while, the distant snarl of a walker shuffling through the woods brings him to a sudden halt. Rick bumps into him and grunts out a surprised sound as Daryl presses back against his chest to let him know about the danger.
He lifts his crossbow and peers around.
It's impossible to say where the sound is coming from. He's half-tempted to tell Rick to hold his breath so he can listen more closely, but Rick's thumb digs into the crook of his elbow and he's panting shallowly behind him, and he might be actually afraid right now.
Must be scary not to see anything, Daryl guesses, sort of panicking. He lowers the crossbow and reaches around to pat Rick's hand. “Think it turned the other way.”
Rick jerks into motion as if that was a signal instead of a stupid attempt to reassure him. “Sorry,” he says, stumbling back again. “Sorry.”
Daryl clears his throat and listens.
The snapping of twigs and the telltale growl-snarl thing these undead fuckers got going for them gets quieter with every beat.
“Yeah, that one smelled somethin' tastier than us,” he says after a moment. “Come on.”
They walk on, fucking again, sweating in the humid heat of the night.
Their skin sticks together in places that ain't supposed to touch to begin with. Daryl puts his foot down when he's got goosebumps everywhere and tries to get his mind off it altogether by focusing on the splinters in his palms and the image of the map in his head.
They could be well off course by now.
He can track, but that don't mean he's some kind of predator with night sight, and there ain't no trail to follow because they made the detour to the lake first.
And now that he thinks about it, the day seems a bit too nice in general, except for Rick's brief attempt to earn himself a black eye. They haven't done anything like this in forever, not since the prison.
Rightly so, because they're at war. This ain't the time for skinny dipping and nightly strolls through the woods.
It might just be in his head, the whole fucking thing—Rick slowly healing, trusting him to take care of his wounds, teasing him about being a prude. Might be that he's still in the cell and he's coming up with all of this shit because he refused to eat his dog food sandwich too many days in a row.
“I think there's another,” Rick whispers.
Daryl skids to a stop, swaying them both with the abruptness. He strains his ears, crossbow up and ready to shoot anything or anyone coming their way. Maybe even dinner, if they're lucky.
But there's nothing.
He listens a bit more, closing his eyes and holding his breath.
There ain't even a damn bird singing. Everything around them is either sleeping or dead.
“Might've misheard,” Rick whispers, so close Daryl feels it on his skin, right there on his neck.
“Or the growlin' was my stomach,” he presses out.
Rick snorts like an idiot. “Keep walking, alright.”
The muscles in his back pull tight, but he gets moving all the same. There ain't no reason to be nervous; he'd hear a walker as much as he'd hear the Saviors. There ain't nothing more scary or dangerous than those options out here, and he's been in his fair share of dark woods, both before and after the world went to shit.
There ain't no reason his hands should be shaking.
“How far do we still need to go, what do you think?”
He ain't got a clue.
“I think I'd die out here.” Rick huffs out a quiet laugh, rubbing his thumb in a neat circle over the inside of Daryl's elbow. It's rough, and the nail catches on Daryl's skin, just for a moment. “If it weren't for you.”
He's acutely overwhelmed by the possibility that Rick might be talking about being out here in general. The cabin, the hunting, the watch duties.
God, the fucking dynamite.
Yeah, there's no way he's going there.
“Nah,” Daryl rasps. “You'd climb up a tree or somethin' and wait until it's light, and then you'd find your way back.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Rick takes a deep breath like he wants to say something else, but then he breathes out again and stays silent after all.
Daryl steers them on, desperately searching for something to lighten the mood while Rick's thumb keeps rubbing against him. It's a miracle Rick got that much coordination left. He'd think Rick would solely focus on not stumbling. Or breathing against him. Or being so close that they could do it like he's done with Beth—no.
He ain't gonna give the man a piggyback ride, Jesus fucking Christ.
Through the trees, surely a sign from the Lord hearing his very insistent prayers, he sees the dim and still far away light of a fire.
“Almost there,” he mumbles, clearing his throat when it doesn't come out as chipper as planned.
Keeping quiet, Rick hangs onto his arm until Tara's stupid laugh echoes over to them. Then the sound of two guns getting ready to fire.
“Just us,” Daryl calls, and the moment they step foot into the clearing, there's some sort of commotion. Someone tramples forward, Tara talks, Rick lets go of him, the fire burns too bright—
“Yeah, everything's good,” Rick says, craning his head to catch Daryl's eyes as if he's talking to him instead of the others. He nods at the cabin and waits until Daryl starts towards it before he turns to Tara. “We found a good spot on the map and took some of the dynamite…”
No reason to listen to the tale.
Daryl stomps past Rosita's questioning eyebrows and barely keeps himself from slamming the door shut behind him. Inside, he's finally able to release the breath he's been holding in for reasons he's got no interest in exploring.
For a few seconds, he stands in the middle of the room and has no idea how to go on.
Around him, everything's clear and bright with his eyes still adjusted to the dark of the woods. Outside, Rick tells the story of their success, including visuals, judging by the crinkle of the map being unfolded.
When his heart slows down enough that he feels like a person again, Daryl places his crossbow next to the door, drops his backpack, and plops down on his blanket without any grace.
Something's wrong with him. Something bad.
This ain't civilization; this is a goddamn hut in the middle of the woods, and being here shouldn't be too much.
It just shouldn't.
“I can still see it, though,” Tara says outside. Her voice sounds light as if the weight of her loss ain't weighing her down in the slightest.
It's gotta be a lie. Or she's good at pretending.
“Rosita,” she goes on, “you see it too? I'm sure there's that one spot on his neck - I think I can actually see skin there.”
“Shut up,” Rick says lightly. There's a certain gruff to his voice nowadays, and no matter how hard he tries, Daryl can't remember if it's always been there or if he's only noticing now because he tried not to listen to the man too closely ever since he realized why he started doing it in the first place.
“Can't say that I see it,” Rosita says. “But I can definitely smell it.”
Tuning out the idle chatter, Daryl pulls his boots off and decidedly doesn't think about why he ain't sitting on the porch with them even though his stomach feels hollow and there's gotta be some food left. Instead, he takes off his shirt to keep it clean for a while longer.
Caring about that ain't ever been his priority, but that don't mean it's nice to hear people refer to his smell.
Honestly, that woman.
With a sigh, Daryl lies down and closes his eyes, half-listening despite himself as Rosita tells Rick that they spotted a few Saviors at the old crossing. Whatever they did there to begin with. Rick ain't saying much in response, but he wouldn't know what to say either.
There are two options: either the Saviors wanted to come and they stalled their plans by blowing the swamp to hell, or the Saviors wanted to scout ahead and now their surprise ain't a surprise anymore.
If everything happened like he thinks it did and he ain't in his cell after all.
Can't be sure of that.
Can't prove what ain't there, only the other way around.
“You asleep?” Rick's there, next to him. He hadn't heard him come in.
Daryl grunts and pulls the blanket up to his chest.
“The Saviors-”
“I heard.”
Rick nods, close enough Daryl sees the movement out of the corner of his eye. Good thing too; he ain't feeling like looking over. “If you want to go back and help the others, I won't stop you.”
Blinking rapidly, Daryl holds his breath while his thoughts run in eight directions at once to come up with an answer that ain't just 'no' without any reasoning.
Rick fiddles with his blanket and then lies down beside him, right there on his side without even propping up his head. Every time he exhales, Daryl feels it against his bare shoulder.
“You don't have to stay here if you don't want to,” Rick says quietly.
“No shit.” Daryl wipes his hair out of his face and lets his arm stay pressed against his forehead, focusing on the splinters in his hand. “'m good here. Like you said, we stay for a while longer.”
They're quiet, lying in the dark while Tara tells endless tales of who knows what to Rosita, who ain't keen on listening to anything coming from anyone—except for her. The whole thing is strange.
All of this is strange.
He should be sitting out there with them to keep watch.
“I've made my decision, by the way.”
Daryl blinks at the ceiling, waiting for Rick to go on. When he doesn't, Daryl drops his arm and glances over.
They didn't take all the dynamite. There's still enough to blow up this shithole of a cabin, and Rick knows where it is. Of course he does. It ain't a secret.
Rick could get up in the middle of the night, take it, and finish the job.
If that's what he decided to do - giving up rather than moving on.
Christ almighty, there ain't no way his brain came up with any of this shit on its own. This is Rick's own particular brand of crazy. His imagination just ain't that great.
And he knows, deep down, that if Rick was gonna give up for real, he wouldn't tell him about it first. He would simply do it.
“Alright,” Daryl whispers. He turns on his side, sort of uneasy about showing Rick the scars even though Rick saw them earlier and is currently unable to see them, in the dark. Still - Rick's so close, the blanket would just have to move a tiny bit and then Rick would see them for sure.
“Night,” Rick says. The word puffs against his back, right between his shoulder blades.
Daryl is out like a light.
*
In the morning, Daryl wakes up.
Outside, Tara chatters like she always does while Rick yawns in that very specific way of his.
The decision's made - moving on it is.
Chapter Text
Daryl combs his hair with his fingers to get rid of the most offending flakes of dried blood dangling in front of his face, but it damn well hurts when the splinters from last night dig deeper into his skin with every brush, so he gives up again.
His fingers are too thick and his nails too short to pull out the damn wood, and to no one's surprise, there ain't no tweezers in anyone's backpack either.
Also, Rick's been watching him from where he's sitting on his favorite chair for a few minutes now, and Daryl tried to ignore it, but he can only spend so much time failing to comb through his hair and eating his breakfast until he's forced to say something.
If he knew what to say after all the damn talking yesterday.
He's got a bit of a brain-hangover, and Tara and Rosita ain't helping either; they're doing who knows what over by a tree at the edge of the clearing. Carving into the bark or some shit, leaving their initials like lovesick fools.
Daryl shakes his head and scowls over at Rick, who ain't even got the decency to look embarrassed when he's caught staring. “What, man?”
“You're still here,” Rick says, cocking his head. “I've been trying to decide why that puzzles me. Because it shouldn't.”
There he goes again, drilling right into his thoughts with his madness.
“Can't say that you don't make me wanna pack my things and leave,” Daryl tells him. It ain't even a full out lie, that's the problem.
“But you wouldn't,” Rick says, absentmindedly scratching at the bandage. “You never left. Well, except that one time with Merle back in the prison, but you came back on the same day, so that doesn't count in my book.”
“I don't even remember half the shit I done back then,” Daryl mutters.
Rick throws him a glare that's sort of soft and sharp at the same time. Looks like it takes some effort to hold it up too, with the way Rick's heaving one big sigh after the other.
The sun ain't even fully up yet, for fuck's sake. Why's he friends with that man?
“I never thought about it before. You being here. Like you leaving was never an option anyway.” Rick shrugs, pulling his face into that weird grimace again. “I'm sorry about that. It ain't right of me to assume you'll always be there just because you were in the past.”
Daryl makes himself huff because he doesn't know what else to do. “I wasn't always here. You told me to stay back in the Kingdom.”
Rick shakes his head. His hand's still on his stomach, but it doesn't look like he's scratching anymore; he's just holding onto it. “I'm sorry about that too. Telling you to stay behind when you clearly didn't want to.”
“'s fine. I made it back to Hilltop, didn't I?”
They're quiet.
Daryl finishes his breakfast and watches the trees, and Rick starts up his sighing marathon again.
Then he gets to his feet and walks over, crouching next to Daryl's chair with his fingers curled around the seat for balance. “That's the problem, Daryl, don't you see? I thought you needed to stay in the Kingdom because they'd come looking for you—and they did. But you made it to Hilltop, and Maggie told me you hid in the storage room with her. Didn't get caught, didn't let her get caught. And then you made it all the way to Alexandria. Don't you get it?”
“I don't,” he admits roughly. “Ain't important, man. Just let it go.”
“You always make it,” Rick says as if he ain't hearing him at all. As if he wouldn't bother either way - holding a conversation or a monologue might just be the same for Rick. “You could've hidden in Alexandria just as well as in Hilltop. I'm sorry I didn't see that. I won't decide for you again, not like that.”
Christ, this ain't about him at all. This is Rick's judgment crisis again. The asshole thinks he can project his problems onto him, and hell if he's gonna let him.
“I'll listen to you from now on,” Rick says. “You hear me?”
Rick doesn't hear him, that's what. He'd fucking stop talking otherwise, instead of demanding that he falls in line even though Rick's the one fucking apologizing.
Daryl clenches his hands around the splinters, digging them even further into his skin. “I hear you.”
“Good,” Rick says, and then he covers Daryl's hand with his and something breaks loose in his chest. Daryl jerks away before he knows it, and he can't stop moving until he's standing and walking backward and his hands won't unclench and Rick's still crouching, frowning with his whole face—
“Guys!” Jesus comes jogging into the clearing.
From the other side of it, Tara and Rosita call out, sprinting over.
Rick jumps to his feet, fingers on his belt like he's ready to draw and shoot on sight. “What happened?”
Tara skids to a stop next to him. “What's going on?”
“Something happened at Hilltop—or not at Hilltop, but with a group there. You know, one of those who went out to lay traps like you guys do?” Jesus takes a shaky breath. “Turns out they came across Negan.”
That hangs between them for a moment.
“And?” Rosita demands.
“One of them made it back,” Jesus says softly, then he clears his throat. “He didn't make it, but he told us that the road they were preparing with traps is still intact. They blew up one of the Savior's trucks, but that's it. The rest got away, and they caught the others of his group, so…” He swallows. “By now, the Saviors have to know the attack came from Hilltop.”
Rick jerks forward. “Negan's on his way to Hilltop now? How long did it take you to-“
“We have to go,” Tara says. “We have to help them.”
Rosita rushes into the cabin. “These people can't fight for shit,” she calls from inside. “We need to leave now.”
“That's why I came,” Jesus says. “You're the closest. It takes twice as long to reach Alexandria and-“
“No,” Rick says.
Jesus freezes, and Daryl would freeze along, but he ain't moving anyway. Tara doesn't seem to hear them; she follows Rosita into the cabin and they're talking fast.
“No?” Jesus asks, drawing the word out.
“We're not prepared.” Rick looks at the ground while Daryl takes a step back from both of them. “An uncoordinated attack like that is a suicide mission. We can't risk it.”
“We can't risk it?” Tara marches out again, wildly pointing at Rick's face. “They already risked their lives! Negan's coming whether we're ready or not!”
“We are not,” Rick presses out.
Rosita loads her gun, bumping against his shoulder with the movement. Daryl inches back. “So, when are we prepared? When you sat around some more? Think a vacation is doing shit for the war, Rick?”
“Maggie's there! And Enid. We gotta help them.” Tara stares from one to the other, face incredulous. “Come on?”
There's a beat of silence, and Daryl takes another step back because this ain't happening.
It just ain't.
Rick unholsters the Python and licks his lips. “Take this,” he says, holding it out in the circle between them.
“I can't believe you.” Tara snatches the gun, shaking her head and turning to Rosita. “Come on.”
Rosita stays rooted to the ground, staring at Rick even as Tara pulls at her arm. “You're not coming?” she says like she's been deaf for the last minute. “You're gonna stay here and what? Let them take their chances? Let them die for a war you started?”
Somewhere in the back of his head, Daryl thinks he's hyperventilating. He's almost by the door already, if he's quick enough he could slip through and—Jesus frowns at him from a foot away.
“Come on!” Tara yells, pulling at Rosita's arm until she stumbles.
“I ain't going if he stays here!” Rosita yells back. She rushes forward, pushing at Rick's chest with both her hands. “This is our chance, how can you stay here?”
“It's not a chance,” Rick hisses. “It's suicide! The hell you think four people can do against them?”
“Daryl.”
Daryl twitches back as Jesus takes the gun out of his hand. He didn't know he had a gun in his hand.
“Let me take this,” Jesus says, quiet while Rosita yells at Rick and Tara yells at Rosita and Rick snaps at both of them.
“They killed Abe! They killed Glenn and Spencer and-“ Rosita stumbles when Tara pulls at her arm again, but Daryl already knows what's coming next. “They killed Michonne!”
Something clamps down on his shoulder. He shakes it off, darting forward to get Rosita away from Rick and someone snarls, what the fuck—
There are walkers.
Jesus howls, and Daryl whips around to see his own elbow connecting with Jesus' face while Tara shoots a walker and Rosita shoves at his chest, yelling something he doesn't understand.
“Come on,” Tara pleads. “Let's go!”
Daryl jerks, unable to move an inch because something holds him back from behind, and he's fighting it, twisting his body to get away.
“Daryl!”
It's Rick, but maybe it's a walker.
Maybe Rick is a walker. Oh god, goddammit.
His throat closes up. He rams his knife in the skull of a walker with overly long hair. Ain't Rick. Can't be sure with the rest, can't be sure, he—
It's quiet and there ain't enough air, and when he does manage to squeeze some into his lungs, it stinks like rot. Dead, everywhere around him and nothing's moving even though there's still a weight against his back, against his shoulders, almost painful but not biting, it's gotta be Rick and no walker, no walker-Rick—
“Daryl, hey.”
No.
Daryl shakes himself loose and steels his nerves, glancing back to confirm it's Rick.
It is.
Rick's panting and he's got blood on his shirt, but he is whole.
At the sight of it, something in his head snaps for good.
Daryl nods, and then he can't stop nodding and walks backwards to the trees and turns and marches on until he can't smell the dead anymore and can't sense Rick's footsteps behind him, and then it's fine, it's gonna be fine.
He's at the lake, some time after.
There's blood everywhere on him, but he only killed a single walker, the long-haired one.
Right?
The others must've left during the fight. Or after. He wouldn't have attacked them—no, he'd know that. He knows his friends. He wouldn't mistake them for walking corpses.
Daryl wades into the water, clothes and all, and sits down so it comes up to his chest. The lake ripples, turning a faint red around him, but he thinks it ain't his. At least nothing hurts. Only his head.
He hasn't left Rick since they got here. Since the Kingdom and the storage room and the cell and chasing Dwight and Denise and buttons and the quarry and making the mistake of following Aaron to Alexandria.
His hands won't stop shaking, and he puts them underwater so he doesn't have to see.
*
Vaguely, he remembers a time when he was friends with Michonne. A lifetime ago. Long enough ago it doesn't justify a panic attack or whatever that was. He liked her, back at the prison, doing their thing, going on runs.
She was a friend, and then, after the prison fell and Rick and her got closer—maybe not so much anymore. Wasn't her fault, though.
Maybe it wasn't even his.
Daryl walks back through the woods, slow and drying and mouth pulled to the side so he ain't gonna start crying or some shit like that.
Something ain't right with Rick, but here he goes and does this. Makes his guts feel hollow. He was so selfish and stupid. Even if he hadn't stomped off without his crossbow, he ain't sure he could fire it now with his hands shaking as they do. Like Merle's back when he was in detox. Cold turkey once a month and a good load of nothing it did him in the end. Cut off his own hand, left for dead, and there ain't been enough drugs left to take anyway.
As the clearing comes into view, Daryl slows down and looks at the tree Tara and Rosita were mucking about with before everything went to hell. He reaches up with his stupid shaking fingers and traces the beginnings of something that might be a carving. When he rubs his thumb over it, another splinter breaks his skin, making him flinch.
Daryl drops his hand and walks to the cabin.
The walkers are gone; only faint traces of blood and gore are left, including some of their stench. Rick sits on the porch, face solemn and a deep line on his forehead. He looks sweaty.
Daryl blinks around until he spots the dead on their usual walker pile. “You did that by yourself?” he asks quietly.
Rick gets to his feet and raises his hands in a non-threatening way that looks all the more threatening. “It's almost evening,” he says, and Daryl doesn't know what to do. He could apologize, maybe. “What's wrong with your hand?”
“Nothin'.”
“Are you wet?” Rick steps closer, eying him from head to toe like he's seeing him for the first time. “You're bleeding. That ain't nothin', Daryl. Sit down.”
“'s fine,” he says. Then he sits anyway, too exhausted from nothing at all to put up a fight even when Rick grips his chair and pulls it around to face the fire.
Who would've thought there was that kind of strength in him, with his scrawny arms.
Rick crouches in front of him, craning his head to look up. With the fire behind him, his face is in the shadows and it's hard to tell what he's thinking. “Are those splinters? From laying traps last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright.” Rick inhales a little too long and breathes out with a sigh. “One step at a time, right? I'm gonna get those out now.”
He's trying to process what the hell that's supposed to mean, but Rick doesn't give him a break to sort his thoughts; he takes a hold of Daryl's hand and peers down at his palm like he's got a magnifier hidden somewhere on his person.
“Just splinters, man,” Daryl says, low and tired. Exhausted. He's a bit cold too, and damp, and the dim light ain't making sense either. He sure as hell didn't sit in the lake all day.
Did he?
Rick huffs and angles himself to the side so the light of the fire reaches their hands. This close, he smells like them berries from the backside of the hut.
That the others ain't back yet probably means they're dead.
Daryl sucks in a quick breath as Rick pulls out a splinter. His fingers are deft even though his hand feels rough and calloused from using his gun and wielding his knife. From being their leader.
“Earlier,” Rick says in a quiet voice, flicking the splinter into the fire, “I didn't mean to decide for you. I guess it's gonna take me some time to change my attitude. Fucked up as that is.”
Daryl frowns. “You didn't decide for me.”
“Yeah, I did.” Rick looks up, smiling with his lips curving down instead of up. “Because I thought I knew what's best for you. Again.”
It's quiet.
Rick works his way methodically over his palm, turning it this way and that until the last splinter burns to ash in the fire. When he's done, he places Daryl's hand back on his thigh and gives it a pat before he lifts the other and starts over.
It's been more than a few minutes since Rick took his hand and didn't let go. He can't remember the last time anyone touched him this long, and the warmth of it wanders over his arm and right up to his neck. Maybe a bit inward too.
To his chest.
Or lower.
Rick fights with a splinter, bending over Daryl's hand to get a better look at it. “I was worried when you left like that.”
“I thought we established that I can take care of myself,” Daryl mumbles. “Nothin' to worry there.”
Rick huffs out something that sounds like a laugh. “I always do. I guess that's something else I didn't know.” He shrugs, picking the last piece of wood from Daryl's palm. “I just thought you should know.”
For a long moment, Daryl sits still and holds his breath, but then it's too much after all and something in his brain snaps again, making him yank his hand back and ball it into a fist. “You thought I should know you're worried? That's what you worry about.” He stares down at Rick's face. “Instead of worryin' about what the fuck came over me or how I didn't even- I- Rick, we should've gone with them. I should've gone with them, but I didn't even think about that! All I thought about was gettin' away from nothin'-”
Rick's hand lands on his thigh, heavy like a stone.
His leg bounces up without his input, making him clench his other fist too. “You know what happened?” Daryl growls, shaking his head when Rick opens his mouth. “I brought us here cause you needed time. And space and, Rick. I'm-”
“You're allowed to grieve too,” Rick says.
“That ain't- I thought you were a walker! Back then, I wasn't sure. I couldn't-”
“Daryl,” Rick cuts in. “Daryl, listen to me. I didn't lay claim to the right to need time to heal.”
Daryl jerks up from the chair and turns his back to Rick so he ain't gotta see his face, if only for a moment. “I didn't lose no one.”
Rick's knee creaks as he gets to his feet and steps up behind him. “Not like that, no,” he says softly. “But this isn't a competition. You're allowed to grieve in your own-”
“But I ain't like you!” Daryl whips around, pointing a finger in the dark. “I don't confuse walkers and people or fucking trees and people! That ain't me!”
They're quiet.
The implications of his statement sink in bit by bit until he feels his guilt seep out of him and settle between them, heavy and thick. The smoke of the fire burns in his eyes, making him blink fast.
“You're not like me because I'm the only one allowed to see things that aren't there? Or maybe hear things too?” Rick steps closer, smelling of smoke and fire and death and berries. “Or because I lost someone I loved, and it's more right to mourn someone you love like that than to mourn someone you only love as a friend?”
“The hell you talkin' about?”
“I loved her. I can say her name if you want me to.”
“No, Rick-”
“Michonne. I loved her and she died.”
He's got nothing to say anymore. The amount of words he's allowed per day is used up, empty, and his head's empty too, as is his stomach and his heart and everything else. Damn hollow, all of it, and he ain't a friend to Rick. This ain't what friends do; forcing them to talk about things that hurt them so badly they have to flee into the woods to deal with them.
But Rick didn't do that.
He brought Rick here.
Daryl looks up, searching for clues in Rick's face and finding none. “Why did you come out here?” he rasps, clearing his throat and asking again. Then again. “Rick.”
“Because I needed time,” Rick says. “Don't question that now.”
“'m not.”
Though he is, somehow. He's questioning everything Rick's doing because Rick stopped making sense sometime back when he made all these arrows that never came up again. When Rick woke up one day and talked to him as if it was a normal thing to do.
“I know you're not grieving for her like I do,” Rick says quietly. “Nobody does. Why would they? But her death isn't the only reason to be sad. Not for me, and especially not for you. At some point, you gotta acknowledge that or we'll be stuck here forever.”
For a short moment, they're quiet again, then Rick turns away and walks off to the edge of the porch - still in sight, but with his shoulders tense enough it's clear he wants to be left alone.
The hollow in his stomach gets so bad he's nearly sick with it.
There's nothing he can do. He wouldn't know where to fucking start with it all.
Daryl walks into the cabin and closes the door behind him. His blanket is where he left it, and he chews on his lip, watching the ratty thing.
He lies down and curls around it because there ain't no one to see him do it.
Maybe there won't ever be again. Maybe Tara and Rosita are already gone. Maybe Negan took Jesus too, and he's in his cell now. Hell, maybe they all are. Maybe Rick's finally coming to the conclusion that he ain't worth the trouble after all, and this is gonna be the end of that too.
God.
Goddammit, Carol would kick his ass if she were here. With words, at least.
The door creaks open, and Rick comes in with a quiet sort of sigh. He pulls his blanket over to Daryl's and lies down.
The fire outside is still burning, shining like a beacon for every bad intention and every dead beast roaming these woods. Someone's gotta take watch.
“If you're not sure,” Rick says, scooting closer behind Daryl's back. “If you're not sure what's real, you ask me.”
Something's burning inside of him. Feels like his heart.
Daryl swallows, staring through the window at the flicker of the fire. “This real?”
“It is.” Rick touches Daryl's back with his knuckles, then spreads his fingers and lays his palm flat against him with just enough pressure to keep him breathing.
And he does, alright, but it comes faster and faster, and then his throat closes up until he's ready to burst at the seams. “I'm sorry for your loss,” Daryl forces out, turning over and squashing Rick's hand under his back.
Rick's so close, he can see every detail on his face, every line and scar and hair. There are barely any laugh lines left; it's all grief and sorrow and hunger now.
“I'm so sorry,” he says again. “Wish you wouldn't have to- Wish it was better for you. That it didn't happen again and again.”
Rick takes a hitching breath, fingers curling where his hand sticks to Daryl's skin. For a moment, he looks like he's about to cry, but that can't be right.
“You gotta tell me how to help,” Daryl whispers. “Wanna go back to Alexandria? Or to Hilltop? If you- Rick.”
Rick presses his fist against his forehead. It connects with a dull sound, and then again, again.
God, he did this. He brought it up, the topic of hell. Being out here on their own can't be good. Rick ain't healing at all and he should've seen this coming.
Daryl catches Rick's hand, pinning it down to the small space between them. It twitches under his palm, but Rick doesn't fight his hold even as he shuts his mouth around an awful fucking sound.
“You said you decided,” Daryl mumbles. “Remember that? Was for a reason, right? Just think about that.”
“They might be dead already. Everyone at Hilltop.”
Daryl looks at his friend, barely resisting the urge to let go of his hand and clear the curls from Rick's face instead. “Could be.” No reason to coddle him, Rick knows how it goes. “You still decided. About not blowin' us up. About not helpin', about—about healin' first. Gotta stick to your plan now.”
Rick breathes out a thick sound. “What, then everything's gonna be alright?”
“Maybe,” Daryl says, flexing his fingers when Rick withdraws his. “Can't be worse than now,” he adds, and then he finally looks away from the man.
His stomach rumbles.
“Don't go,” Rick says.
It sounds like a demand, if a bit shaky.
Daryl sits up and rakes his fingers through his hair. He can't remember when they stopped shaking. “I ain't goin',” he says, frowning as the words sink in. He huffs and struggles to his feet. “Thought I made that clear.”
“Take watch from in here?”
If that's all it takes.
“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” Daryl goes to put out the fire, leaving the door open, just in case. He collects his crossbow, Rick's knife, and both their backpacks before he walks back into the cabin.
By the time he rummages for something to eat, Rick turned his back to him. He's only wearing his undershirt, and the blanket's drawn up to his chest; gray fabric against almost white skin in the pale light of the moon. No colors anymore, nowhere at all.
It's a good look, somehow.
Daryl sits down against the wall, keeping both Rick and the window in his line of sight, and doesn't move again until the birds start singing and the moon disappears to make room for the sun.
Chapter Text
For the longest time, he doesn't notice that Rick's awake. One moment, he's minding his own business by fondling his palms to marvel at the smoothness that comes with the lack of splinters, and in the next, the hair on his neck stand up and he whips his head around.
Rick lies on his side, head pillowed on his arm and eyes open and clear like he's been awake for a while. Without making a sound or relieving him of watch.
“Uhm,” Daryl says, instead of good morning or maybe even what the hell, man.
It's sort of weird.
When Daryl heaves himself up from the floor, Rick gets up too, but he ain't saying anything either.
Definitely weird.
Daryl leaves the stuffy cabin behind and steps out onto the porch, blinking at the sun and popping his back. Every time there's a gust of wind, the pile of dead walkers stinks the place up something fierce.
There ain't no sign of Tara and Rosita, of course. He would've heard them coming. As annoyed as he was by their presence sometimes, the loss of Tara's endless chatter and Rosita's silent brooding runs through him in a sharp pang of regret anyway.
Traitorous heart.
Might be heartburn, actually. Making him soft or something.
Rick steps up behind him, flooding his nose with his smell. The man ain't stinking, but he ain't smelling like roses either. Like sleep, though, and warmth.
If warmth was a smell.
Rick touches his back again, high enough to trap Daryl's hair under his hand. He splays his fingers, pressing gently before he wanders off towards the trees.
Daryl looks after him until Rick fumbles with his belt, and since he ain't planning to watch the man piss (again), he turns away and rolls his shoulders against the tingling feeling where Rick did that back-clap that ain't really been one.
God, he's tired. He should get some real sleep tonight. Barricade the door and curl up in front of it.
But one of the rotting fuckers could come in through the window, and then he'd be dead. Chewed upon before he could even open his eyes.
Daryl groans out a sigh, helps himself to a bottle of water and some leftover jerky, and shoves it into his mouth.
When Rick comes back over, he puts his hands on his hips. “We're almost out of food.”
Daryl grunts.
“I thought you might go hunting today.”
“Alright.” Daryl shrugs, squinting up when a strange feeling hits him. “What're you gonna do in the meantime?”
“If you tell me where you put my knife, I'll go out and find something to kill.”
Daryl stares, chewing stupidly. “You know that knife's actually mine, right?”
Rick breathes out a laugh. “Yep, I stole it. You gonna tell me where it is? I need to…”
“Kill somethin',” Daryl supplies. “I put it in your backpack last night.”
With a nod, Rick goes inside and walks back out carrying both his knife and the crossbow in his arms. He hands over the latter before he shoves the knife under his belt and—hovers.
Daryl swallows, finishing his jerky. “So we meet back here later?”
“If that's okay with you.”
“You askin' for permission now? I ain't your keeper, Rick.”
They frown at each other.
Daryl lets his eyes roam over Rick's face, trying and failing to read him. Used to be easy, not that long ago. Now Rick's mouth got a harsh look to it and there's a line on his forehead that tells him nothing, and the rest of his face is hidden underneath his beard. Back to mountain man it is. It should look ugly, but once Rick's beard reaches a certain length, all it reminds Daryl of is the freedom of the road.
He sighs. “You're just gonna kill one of them walkers, right?”
“Probably more than one, but yeah, that's the general idea.”
“Alright then.”
“This is your cue to voice any concerns you might have,” Rick says, eyelids drooping low enough that he looks like he's got about ten brain cells left and all of them are occupied with keeping him standing.
With a snort, Daryl swings the crossbow over his shoulder and closes the door to the cabin. “I ain't got no concerns. You'll do just fine.” They're quiet, standing at an angle and watching each other. Daryl clears his throat. “Later, then?”
Rick reaches out so fast, Daryl nearly flinches back when Rick grips the side of his neck and shoves his fingers under his hair. “Yeah, Daryl. Later,” he says, squeezing once before he drops his hand and pulls the knife from his belt.
Daryl blinks after him as Rick marches off between the trees until he realizes that he's watching him go like he ain't gonna fucking see him again.
Of course he will.
After he caught some game, that is.
Daryl rubs his neck and gets going. He half-heartedly tries to pick up a trail underneath the umpteen walker footprints from the day before, but there ain't much to see. Around him, it's quiet like all the walkers in the area are herding past him, pushing on towards Rick who's itching to kill something.
Whatever the hell that even means.
After a while, Daryl stops pretending to follow a trail and changes course until he comes up to the lake, gleaming and peaceful in the sunlight. Rick was right to look at it like he did the last time. Admiring the view, like he said.
Makes sense.
Daryl closes his eyes and turns his face towards the sun, listening to the wildlife around him, all the endless chirping and squirreling and rustling through the trees, bushes, leaves. Everything that's small enough to go unbothered by the dead keeps on living, breeding, and dying. Nothing changed for them, and when humanity's gone for good, they wouldn't know the difference either.
The thought is somewhat freeing.
Daryl walks up to the edge of the lake, setting down his crossbow and taking one last glance around for stray walkers or people before he sheds his clothes.
His thoughts turn sort of hot and muddy without a reason in sight.
It's just that it's weird. Rick not telling him that he was awake this morning. What did he even do? Watching while Daryl tried not to fall asleep? Where's the sense in that?
With a huff, Daryl wades into the cold water. He's got goosebumps all over at once, and he lets himself cool down for a while, ducking under to get rid of the grease in his hair and combing through it until he can't be bothered anymore.
When he's clean enough, he stumbles back out, self-conscious even though no one's around to see him.
He settles on the same spot he dried off with Rick - the half-circle without overhanging treetops that lets the sunlight through so he doesn't freeze his ass off in the shade. He leans against what he considers to be Rick's stone now and pulls up his knees.
It shouldn't take longer than a few minutes to dry, and then he's gonna pick up a trail and hunt some food, bring it back home. To the cabin.
Rick might be back by then too.
It won't be late, but not too early to get a fire going either. And skinning whatever he's gonna catch will take a while too.
The day will go by in no time, and then Tara and Rosita will be back. And Jesus. Carol maybe, with Judith. And Rick, of course, but he's always there. Watching him and sleeping next to him and having stopped staring at trees and making ominous comments. Rick picked up the habit of touching his back out of the blue instead, and his neck too, and he always smells of something Daryl can't quite catch. Something wooden.
Maybe because he's sleeping on the floor.
A fly settles on his knee.
Daryl swats it away, rubbing a few water-drops around an old, unimportant scar. Thankfully, he can't see the nasty ones on his back. Most of the scars he can see are on his arms, but it ain't worth getting weird about them since they all got them by now. Hunting, collecting wood, building shit, fighting.
Don't matter.
There's another one on his stomach, ages-old. Courtesy of Merle.
When a phantom itch rises up, Daryl places his palm over it, refusing to check if it's bleeding again - he ain't stupid - but then it hurts for a second and he looks down anyway, lifting his hand to peek underneath.
It's just a scar. Faded, sitting under an ugly patch of hair.
He cringes, unable to look away like something's pulling him in, reminding him it's been ages since he looked at himself. So long the view looks almost foreign by now.
He didn't look in the cell. It was too dark and he didn't feel too hot in the first place, but now, with the sun shining and the damn birds singing overhead, all of him is too fucking clear to see; scars and too much hair in some places, not enough in others. Thick and clumsy fingers, and his goddamn dick rising like it's got any business to rise anywhere.
Daryl clenches his teeth, and then he remembers he's got a face and lifts his hand to feel for his beard. Not even that is proper, it's just a few hairs here and there in his damn age. Too fucking soft and not thick at all, not like Rick's.
Or maybe Rick's is soft. It's definitely thick.
Rick ain't got as many scars either. He's sort of perfect that way, at least from where he's standing. From where he was looking at Rick even though he shouldn't have.
Before that walker came and Daryl shined his pale ass for all the world to see.
And then Rick saw him too. Like he is now.
Daryl looks down again, twitching when his mind presents him with the memory of taking off his clothes, facing Rick rather than keeping his back to him. Like Rick did too, later. Showing him the wound, naked and unashamed about Daryl getting an eyeful.
An old shame closes up his throat, the kind that sits so deep he almost chokes on it every time it makes itself known.
He's up in a flash and back in the water, wading in until it comes up to his chest. He's throbbing, and it's been so long, he can't even remember the last time he did this.
He can, but he doesn't want to think about it.
At least he doesn't have to see himself do it this way.
Daryl swallows, momentarily disappointed when the cold water does nothing to shrivel his dick back down. He closes his eyes half-way and wraps his hand around it, pumping, getting rougher the second Rick's beard comes to his mind, and then his face is on fire and he pumps even harder, and it almost hurts, alright, but it's still okay.
It's good.
It ain't.
He's done in less than a minute.
Daryl stalks out of the water before he's even soft and glares down at his clothes, forcing them over his wet skin while trying to keep his mind free of any thoughts.
He can't remember the last time doing this felt good. Must've been back before all the grief and insanity. Not at the prison. At the farm—vague thoughts of 'what if' tumbling through his head at night, thinking about that beard even when it was just him in his tent and Shane and Lori were still running around. Dale. All the Greene family still alive and kicking.
He should've let go of that stupid fantasy forever ago. It's as wrong now as it was back then.
A deer comes crashing towards him and skids to a stop.
Daryl yanks up his crossbow and shoots an arrow in its neck. Then one in its head. He doesn't lower his weapon; that deer was fleeing from something, and that something might as well be not-quite-living.
But nothing happens, no snarling or gargling or whatever these things let out follows from anywhere.
After a minute, Daryl lowers his crossbow and frowns down at the deer.
How's he expected to get that back to the cabin in one piece?
*
Half an hour later, Daryl grunts through the woods, ruining his last shirt and his back on top of it, but there ain't no way he's gonna stop for a break or he ain't never getting that deer back on his shoulders.
The fucking things you do for dinner these days.
When he gets back to the cabin, Rick scurries over to him, sort of fluttering around without helping in the slightest.
With a final grunt, Daryl drops the deer by the porch and stretches his back while Rick—watches. Out of a clean face. There ain't no blood on his body, or gore, or anything nasty at all.
Daryl frowns, pressing his fist against a painful kink in his back. “Haven't found anythin' to kill or why're you back already?”
“No, I haven't. Yet.” Rick rounds him, waving his hands through the air like an idiot. “Watch out.”
Daryl realizes Rick's gonna touch him about two seconds before he actually does it; Rick holds him steady by his shoulder and digs the knuckles of his other hand right into Daryl's muscles until something pops back into place.
Daryl bends with the pressure and lets out a lengthy, heartfelt groan.
“Good?”
Daryl clears his throat. “Yeah, 's good. Thanks.”
Sadly, that makes Rick drop his hand again. Could've dug those fingers in for a while longer, in Daryl's opinion.
It's quiet for a beat, and the deer ain't that interesting, so Daryl glances up and jerks right back when he finds Rick's staring at him with a look so intense his stomach almost drops.
“I didn't mean it like that when I said you were my brother,” Rick says, and Daryl's stomach drops for real. “You know that, right? It was the best I could come up with at the time, that's all. I didn't mean we're limited to that.”
The hollowness doesn't come gradually - it's just there, from one second to the next.
Daryl turns and aims for the trees, and the pit comes with him, digging a hole beneath his ribs.
“For Christ's sake, Daryl.”
Rick's at his back, then by his shoulder, rounding him until they're face to face and he's forced to stop. “What, man? I heard you.”
“No,” Rick stresses, “I don't think you did. You heard somethin' I didn't say.”
They're quiet, somehow. Daryl chews on his lip while Rick paces back and forth as if he's the one being terrorized instead of doing the damn terrorizing.
“You done, then?” Daryl asks when he can't be bothered anymore if he's rude. “Cause I've had it up to here with yer riddles, Rick. I ain't gonna listen to more of it if you don't start makin' sense soon.”
This time, he thinks he even means it. He might've found his limit after all; who knew there even was one?
Rick works his jaw and comes to a stop in front of him. “I'm trying here. I'd appreciate it if you met me halfway.”
“Are you fuckin' serious? You think we'd be here if I wasn't tryin' to help you?”
“Alright.” Rick nods. “Alright, then. Let me try it this way if you can't hear what I'm telling you: I'm supposed to be a wreck. I'm not supposed to be stable enough to do anything, let alone make decisions for you when I said I wouldn't.” Rick bends, trying to catch his eyes when Daryl keeps evading him. “You think it should be like that?”
The pit in him fills up again, but only a bit. The brother comment still ain't making sense, though.
“Yeah, I do,” Daryl says slowly. “I don't care how much you loved her, man. You can't think that anyone wants to see you go down with grief, 'specially not Michonne.”
Rick twitches forward. “I tried so hard to lose my mind those first few days. Because it wasn't enough, Daryl. Not after Lori.” Rick grips his shoulder, squeezing almost painfully. “But the thing is, it didn't work, no matter how much I wanted to.”
If Rick expects him to believe he tried to hold himself to some kind of demented standard for grieving, there can't be too much 'trying' going on. He's got the craziness down on his own just fine.
“Do you have any idea why that is?” Rick asks while he slowly kneads Daryl's shoulder, which just furthers his fucking point. “Do you know why I'm not a wreck, Daryl?”
With his heart beating in overtime, Daryl barely manages to stay in place instead of making a run for it, straight out bolting for the trees never to be seen again. “Cause you changed,” he offers, cringing when his voice comes out too rough. “That ain't a bad thing. Just means you've adapted.”
For a moment or two, Rick gives him a blank look. Then he drops his hand. “Jesus Christ, Daryl.” Without a warning, he turns away and walks right past Daryl to the edge of the clearing. “Gotta get to killing something now,” Rick tells him somewhat fatalistically. “I'll be back later.”
Daryl doesn't watch him go. Once a day is enough, and he sure as hell ain't gonna mourn his loss now that Rick's giving him an hour or two of fucking peace.
Goddamn crazy, is what he is.
With a scowl, Daryl walks back to the cabin, set on getting at least one thing right today, and if it's just skinning a damn deer.
*
When the sun starts to set and he's up to his elbows in deer, there's movement at the edge of the clearing.
Daryl looks up with a weary sigh, hands halfway to his crossbow before he recognizes Tara, with Rosita following closely behind her.
Not dead.
He sits back on his ass and wipes his hands on the fur to get rid of the worst of the blood. “How bad?”
Rosita huffs, going straight past him into the cabin. Daryl turns his eyes on Tara, watching her sink down on a chair with a sigh.
“You can have your gun back,” she mumbles. “We didn't need it anyway.”
“No fight?”
“No fight.” Tara pulls his gun out of her backpack, then Rick's, and sets them both down on the floor. “The Saviors didn't even come up to the gate. Just one truck, the rest stayed out of sight of the fence.” She sighs, looking down at her empty hands. “They had the group they caught chained up by their necks, turned already. I didn't know them, but they were part of the community there, so….” Tara shrugs, looking helpless. “The Saviors set them free right in front of the gate and drove off without saying a word. God, I think that was the hardest part.”
Daryl makes a small sound, unwilling to disagree while his heart hammers with guilt and shame and everything else. “Nobody else got hurt?”
“Like I said, they drove away again. We stayed in case they came back, but well. They didn't. Talk about anticlimactic.” Tara shakes her head.
They sit in silence.
This is one of those occasions where he should reach out to comfort her with a squeeze to some body part, but he's bloody all over and he doesn't know what to say either. He looks down at the deer. “Got us a deer,” he tells her. “Least we eat good tonight.”
Tara lifts her eyebrows, nodding and shaking her head at the same time. “I guess. Listen, about yesterday-”
“Nah.”
Tara frowns. “You don't even know what I was gonna say.”
Daryl looks away. “Sorry, I didn't-”
“Yeah, alright.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, Maggie told me to tell you that you should come by if you want to help. Some of the people over at Hilltop could use archery lessons.”
Something warms him, suddenly. Pride maybe, or worry. Don't matter. Feels good.
“I can talk to Rick when he comes back,” Daryl says. “A day trip to Hilltop ain't gonna do no harm.”
There's a beat of silence.
“No- I mean, yeah, obviously, but Maggie asked me to ask you. If you want to help.”
“What, you expect me to leave Rick here?”
Tara stares, blinking very slowly. “No,” she says, “I'm saying that Maggie asked for your help when you feel like coming. You. As in Daryl.”
They frown at each other until Daryl lowers his eyes.
“She ain't makin' a lotta sense, then,” he says, shaking his hair out of his face. “Guess that's her hormones talkin'.”
“Whatever.” Tara makes to stand but plops down again when Rosita joins them outside, complete with her cap on her head and a frown on her face.
He sort of missed having her around. “What were you doin' at the tree back then?” he asks on a whim.
“Nothing,” Rosita says, still frowning.
Tara sputters.
Oh, alright, there's something, and that something is better than either of them pestering him about what Maggie said to who. “You carved somethin' in there? In case you forget your names.”
“We didn't carve our names in a tree, Daryl.”
There's a tug at his lips, and strangely enough, it feels like a grin. “Yeah? Then why you blushin'?”
Tara snickers, bumping her shoulder against Rosita's hip and almost sending her crashing into the railing.
Rosita glares, but at him rather than Tara. “It's none of your business.”
“It was supposed to say we are here,” Tara says. “You know, instead of xxx was here like those graffiti always say?”
Rosita turns her glare on Tara, and Tara takes her hand, holding it until Rosita rolls her eyes and snatches it away again. She doesn't leave, though; she just scoffs while Tara beams at her.
None of this makes sense, and Daryl feels the corners of his mouth turn down, and then Rick comes marching into the clearing, his clothes bloody and his face fucking clean. He nods at them and marches into the cabin.
They haven't stopped blinking after him when he walks back out and aims for Daryl's chair in a way that's just alarming.
“Um,” Tara says.
Rick squats down in front of him, the arrows he made when he apparently tried to lose his mind clutched in his hand. “Daryl,” he says, raising the wooden sticks like an offering. Behind him, Tara gets up and shuffles away.
“You okay?” Daryl asks quietly, glancing at Rick's face. It looks fresh and clean while his shirt's dark with blood that stinks to high heaven, and none of this makes sense either.
Rick sets the arrows down on Daryl's thighs, holding them steady so they won't roll off. “I thought it was about time I gave you these.”
“Oh my god,” Rosita mutters, and a moment later, the door to the cabin closes behind her.
Daryl looks down at his friend, and instead of anything else, his eyes get caught on Rick's beard and he ends up blurting, “You grow that out for a while longer and you're gonna look full-out Moses again, like back on the road.”
Rick grins, looking crazy. “You asking if I'm gonna let you trim it down?”
“No way.” He blinks, and Rick grins again, still crazy.
“You telling me you like my beard, Daryl?”
“Ain't tellin' you shit,” Daryl mutters, and then he finally grabs the arrows.
Rick doesn't let go of them, though. “I won't let you near my beard if you won't let me near your hair in return,” he says, slow and very insane while he reaches up like he wants to touch it.
Daryl presses back against the lean of the chair, horror-scenarios about greasy strands rising in his mind. But they ain't greasy; he washed them only a few hours ago.
Still.
“No way,” he says again. Somehow, it comes out soft, and his scalp prickles like his hair actually knows it's being talked about. The hell, even. He shakes his head, latching onto the next best thing. “How come you're clean when your clothes ain't?”
Rick adjusts his grip on Daryl's knee, keeping himself steady. “I went to the lake after I was done.”
Okay.
Makes sense.
Daryl frowns anyway. “You remembered the way?”
“Yeah.”
His heart starts hammering for reasons he ain't sure about yet.
Rick gets to his feet and looks out into the clearing. There's some sort of color on his face that wasn't there before. Looks strange on him. “I wouldn't have,” Rick says roughly. “But I came across there earlier, and I- Well, that made an impression on me.”
Daryl freezes all over.
The damn deer. The deer and he rubbed one out in the middle of the day and fucking Rick—Rick couldn't have seen because he did what he did in the water. Underwater.
But he strode out.
Jesus Christ, he strode out right after he was done and the deer came crashing towards him and Rick must've been there and he ain't feeling so good—
“It was an accident,” Rick says. “I wasn't spying or anythin'.”
Daryl stares at Rick's boots and the arrows and his hands. They're still bloody.
“Daryl, I wasn't-” Rick huffs out a quiet sound. “It wasn't like that. Don't freak out on me now.”
Alright.
“Alright,” Daryl says, somehow. He feels a bit like crying, but Tara chooses the moment to wander back from wherever she was, eyes big and darting around, and Daryl can't afford to think about what Rick might've seen, so he just doesn't.
The thinking days are over. From now on, he ain't gonna think about shit at all.
*
After he stuffs his belly full of meat topped off with a handful of berries, Daryl does his best to ignore that Rick keeps glancing at him. All of them, really, and he ain't here for this, not after the day that's already been going on for at least twice its normal length.
It just won't end, so he's had it, and he excuses himself pretty quickly—means he goes into the cabin and closes the door and that's it.
He places the arrows next to his crossbow and sits down, sliding his fingers over Rick's work to feel for the edges. They're smooth enough, flexible, sharp. The only thing missing is nice, colorful fletching on top. Maybe there's something back in Alexandria he can use.
There's a knock on the door, then Rick peeks through the broken window. “You decent?”
Sounds like he's grinning.
Daryl blows out a heavy breath, too tired to be embarrassed. The cat's out of the bag now. Can't wrestle it back in—can't make Rick unsee whatever he saw. He might as well get over it.
“Any ideas for the fletching?” he asks - as a peace offering more than anything else.
Rick comes in and makes sure to close the door before he squats down beside him. “Feathers won't do it?”
Daryl hums, running his thumb over one of the sharp tips. “Nah, too soft. Plastic's better, 'specially nowadays. Feathers would soak up all kinds of shit. Blood and gore and walker goo.”
“Sounds nasty.”
“Exactly.”
Rick bumps his knee against him. “Carol might have an idea. Lots of archers in the Kingdom.”
They watch the arrows in companionable silence while Rick's leg presses against his in a weird, warm point of contact. “Means a lot,” Daryl mumbles. “To me. That you made them.”
“You're welcome.”
The light of the fire flickers through the window, leaving quick shadows on Rick's face. It's dark enough the stars start to pop up in the sky, and Daryl feels so at ease somehow, he doesn't know what to do without the panic running in circles through his head.
“You tired?” Rick asks softly.
“Yeah,” Daryl admits.
Rick sits down at an angle to him, dragging the heels of his boots over the wood and stretching out one leg while the other stays bent. He leans his arm on it and takes a deep breath like he's gearing up for a confession.
“No,” Daryl cuts in. “No more tonight.”
Rick huffs.
“Got nothin' to do with you.”
“I know. I know that.”
Daryl lifts an eyebrow. “Then why're you lookin' at me like I killed a damn puppy?”
“Because no matter what I say or do, you're always misinterpreting me, and you're so wildly stubborn about it, you don't even tell me where I went wrong so I can fix it.”
“There ain't nothin' to fix cause nothin's broken, man.”
They're quiet for long enough Daryl starts to eye his makeshift bed. Eventually, he gets ready for sleep by unbuttoning his shirt, which Rick takes as an opportunity to scoot closer with a face that says he ain't done talking after all.
Daryl pretends he ain't seen shit and proceeds to get undressed, to lie down, to stare at the ceiling. Works pretty well overall, until Rick lies down beside him. His blanket ain't even near his body; it's in a heap in the back of the cabin, and now Rick's lying on the blank floor.
He's so fucking tired of it all, but even without looking at Rick, the man's so close he can smell the dried blood on his clothes and the mild breeze of the lake on his skin, and he just can't stay mad at him.
This vacation of theirs is shaping up to be something he should've seen coming a mile away, at least so he could've avoided it by staying in his goddamn cell.
Might've been better than being here when all of this blows up in his face. There's no way back once his mind decides it's a good idea to go down that old, dusty, perverted route. He just knows it.
“Stop brooding.”
“I ain't broodin',” Daryl tells him. “'m waitin' for you to piss off so I can take a nap.”
Outside, Tara laughs at something, bright and clear.
Rick hums and fumbles around until Daryl looks over and sees Rick's fingers pressing down over his belly.
“How's the wound?”
“Itches like it's got no business to. I guess that means it's healing.” Rick rolls on his side, facing him. With the light of the moon at his back, it's too dark to make sense of the look on his face, and that's without even taking his damn beard into account.
Daryl's cheeks grow hot. Ain't right to think about beards and such while Rick's so close he could touch him if he reached out. Which he ain't gonna do.
God, he should've covered himself with the blanket, at least his chest, but now it's too late or Rick's gonna know what he's doing when he reaches for it.
All of this is such a mess, he's got no idea how they even got here.
“I can deal with it on my own from now on,” Rick says. “You don't need to worry anymore.”
It takes him a moment to remember what they were talking about. When he does, it stings. “Was no trouble.”
“I know it wasn't. You took good care of me.”
Daryl scoffs.
Rick breathes against his face, smelling like meat and smoke. He must've scooted closer; Daryl's elbow brushes against Rick's shirt already, and then Rick drags the pads of his fingers over the soft skin on the inside of Daryl's arm and lets out a quiet sigh. “You liked the arrows?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I'm gonna take watch tonight.”
“How's that make sense?” Daryl mumbles, turning his head to look over, but Rick's too close this way so he looks back at the ceiling again. Or maybe he closes his eyes, he ain't sure yet. His arm tingles. “Tara and Rosita can do it. I'm just gonna take a nap. Gonna relieve them soon.”
Rick makes a sound in the dark, something that says he's fed up even though he ain't done shit to Rick in the slightest. “There ain't no reason you should do all the heavy lifting,” Rick tells him.
He ain't fed up at all; he's fucking smug.
Daryl laughs, sort of stupid, and then he groans, also stupid. “Get outta here, Rick.”
“Yeah, alright.” Rick slides his fingers down, briefly squeezing Daryl's hand before he gets to his feet. “Get some real sleep for once, if you would. A good night's rest should help distinguish you from the walkers, I'm sure.”
Daryl flips him off and lets his hand stay right up until Rick's grinning face disappears through the door. He feels slightly out of control. Might be the warmth flooding him because of the stupid quote. It's insane Rick even remembered it.
Makes him feel like back then; the vague optimism of seeing possibilities all around him, barely a handful of them crushed yet. Most of them died for good, but some seem closer now than they've been in years.
He ain't sure yet if that's a good or a bad sign.
Chapter Text
His back hurts and a random strand of hair tickles his nose, and the second he blinks his eyes open, Rick says, “I have no idea why I didn't see it before. I can't even call that blind, it's just embarrassing.”
Rick sits a foot away from him with his back leaning against the wall and his knees drawn up in front of him. He looks at Daryl like they've been having a conversation for at least half an hour now.
They didn't.
At least Daryl hopes he would've woken up for that.
Sort of stressed, he glances around. Tara and Rosita are nowhere in sight, and when he listens, he can't hear their voices on the porch either.
Rick laughs, more or less to himself. “Right under my nose all this time, and I only start noticing when you drag me out here.” He waves his hand through the air. “Not seeing the woods for the trees and all of that.”
Whatever Rick figured out - if he's looking that brand of crazy about it, it can't be good.
Daryl pulls the blanket over his chest to hide from the harsh light of the morning. “I've got no idea what you're talkin' about,” he says, slow and clear in case Rick lost it again.
In case Rick's epiphany is about what's wrong with him, not Rick himself.
“You know what I said to Maggie when she wanted to fight Negan right away?” Rick stares at him like he expects an answer, but Daryl draws a blank, barely keeping up with the time jump. “I said 'they have Daryl'. And do you know what I realized then?”
“No,” Daryl croaks.
“Nothing.” Rick nods. “I realized nothing.”
They stare at each other.
There ain't no way to get up without either flashing his chest or his scars. He has to stay where he is, forced to listen to Rick's crazy rambling until the end of times. “You ain't makin' any sense,” Daryl says warily.
“I'm making perfect sense. I've been so blind that I wouldn't even have noticed anything if you hadn't brought me out here.” Rick frowns, sort of accusing. “And you never told me. How long have you been keepin' this to yourself, Daryl?”
They ain't doing this.
Daryl moves to sit, but Rick flings himself forward like fucking Batman and stops him with a hand on his arm, clamping his fingers shut and holding on as Daryl tries to shake him off. “Let go of me, man.”
“No, I won't.”
“Rick,” he warns, about three seconds from exploding in a violent clash of fists, maybe a head butt or a good kick thrown in too because Rick's had it fucking coming. He told him there ain't nothing to talk about because there ain't nothing wrong with him, simple as that.
Rick lets go—and takes a hold of his hand instead. “You're not going to make this easy, are you?”
“I ain't doin' shit,” Daryl mutters. “I don't know what you want. None of this got anythin' to do with me. I- This is all you.”
That should do it.
Rick just nods and keeps holding his hand.
Daryl forces himself not to flex it or draw away for good even though he's half-naked and that's what he should worry about instead.
“I remember when you came back with this,” Rick says as he rubs his thumb over Daryl's palm, rough against even rougher; the ugly patch of burned skin where Daryl stubbed out his cigarette ages ago. “I didn't know what to say to make you feel better. We were in such a bad place and I barely held it together.” Rick sighs, gently brushing over the scar. “I should've tried. Should've let you know, at least.”
“Know what?”
Rick looks up and moves their hands to his lap, holding onto him as if that's a thing they do now. “That I noticed you were hurting. Not your hand, but in here.” He points at his chest. “I think you thought no one saw that. But I did.”
Daryl scoffs. “That before or after your speech about all of us bein' dead?”
Rick shakes his head. “Can't you just hear what I'm telling you?”
“I always hear you,” Daryl says, and then it's all too much, every last thing about it; the conversation, the touching, the topic. Rick's smell in his nose and the others so quiet as if they ain't even close, meaning they're all alone out here in the woods.
It's too comforting, raising something warm in his belly, something that wants to make itself at home. God, that feeling ain't even new, and go fucking figure what happened the last time he became aware of it: not a damn thing.
When Daryl pulls his hand back, Rick sighs.
“Daryl, listen. I saw you back then and I'm seeing you now.”
“Yeah, alright.” Fucking stalking him while he thinks he's having some private time, that's what Rick's doing.
“And you won't die on me.”
Jesus Christ.
Daryl gets to his feet, bright light and lack of clothes be damned.
“I won't allow it,” Rick says. “You know what would happen?”
“I'd be dead, Rick. Happens to the best of us.” With a frown, Daryl reaches for his shirt. “And you ain't the ruler of death. You can't say shit like you won't allow it. Death ain't somethin' that happens cause someone allows it or not. It just happens.”
Rick stands, fluttering in his line of sight like he wants to catch his eyes. Too bad, because he ain't gonna look at the man. “You keep me sane,” Rick stresses. “If there ain't no you-”
“No.”
No goddamn way. And if Rick thinks he's being sane now, he better take a good long look at the mirror and recheck the damn screws in his head.
The second he's done buttoning up his shirt, Daryl bends to put on his shoes. “You didn't use to be like this, you know that? Wouldn't have gotten far as our leader if you'd always talked up a load of bullshit like this.”
“Liked me better when I was saying less?”
Daryl stands, squaring his shoulders, sad and hot at the same time. “Kinda,” he says. “Least you made sense back then.”
When he leaves the cabin, Rick follows.
Tara and Rosita are nowhere in sight. Of course they ain't.
“I'm sorry,” Rick says from behind him, and his voice sounds weird enough Daryl almost turns back, but his nerves are too frayed and he ain't sure what'd happen if he saw something else on Rick's face now. Something that'd mean he can't leave, because that's what he's gotta do; get away for a while to clear his head.
Behind his back, Rick skids to a stop and hurries away. A few moments later, he comes back and rounds him. Daryl blinks at the crossbow in Rick's hand and the arrows in his other. He takes both, glancing towards the trees with a longing in his heart that even he feels might be a bit extreme.
“I'm sorry,” Rick says again. “I didn't mean to overwhelm you like that. I'll slow down, alright? I'll-”
“You're doin' it again,” Daryl says quietly. Tiredly even, as if he's been running around all day instead of just getting out of bed.
Emotional shit tends to do that.
“I'm sorry.”
It sounds final, so Daryl nods, sucks his lip between his teeth, and leaves.
*
Halfway to Alexandria, Daryl knows several things.
Firstly; the arrows are perfect against walkers - easily piercing their skulls - and for squirrels too - running through the small animals and into the bark of the trees behind them without losing so much as a splinter. Until he gets some fletching, they'll do just fine for targets at a short distance.
Secondly; he forgot to bring any water with him, but since he would've stomped off without his crossbow if it ain't been for Rick, he can't be bothered to feel bad about something as minor as staying hydrated.
And lastly; Maggie asked for archery lessons, and instead of being at least somewhat useful and going to Hilltop, he's trotting (fleeing) back to Alexandria as if anything's left for him there.
There goddamn ain't.
But he could visit Carol, sit with her for a while. She's calming, but she also wants to have a talk.
Maybe visiting her can wait until—something changed.
Whatever that might be, it's coming. He feels it in his bones.
Could just be Negan, though. Or Dwight, which means he gets to kill him soon and get his damn vest back.
Daryl broods the rest of the way, hands tacky with dead blood by the time he reaches the gates and is met with too many wide eyes. He glares around until they scurry off to wherever they came from.
Naturally, Carol catches him before he's even close to the house. She rushes over with a worried face that turns soft soon after, and the line on her forehead smooths out to crinkle around her eyes instead.
It's a good look.
With a rush, Daryl realizes he missed her.
“Daryl,” she scolds, linking their arms. “I thought something happened. It's not nice to give a lady a start like that.”
Daryl scoffs, face warm. “What makes you think nothin' happened?”
“I know you,” she tells him, while rolling her eyes. “Did you have breakfast yet? Carl's making some eggs. They should be ready in a few.”
“Nah.” Daryl swallows. “Sounds good. Eggs.”
Carol sighs in a drawn-out way and glances up and down the street before she pulls him to a stop. “Not that I don't appreciate your visit - I do, Daryl - but I told you to stay away for now. You look like shit.”
A mighty urge to gnaw at his lips rises in him. Daryl shrugs, eyes fixed on Rick's house. “Been a while since you said that. I guess I thought it's time to come by, see what's up.”
“Nothing's up.” Carol cranes her neck to catch his eyes. “Something did happen, didn't it? At the cabin?”
“Nothin' happened,” he says, drawing away from her. “Felt like takin' a walk, is all.”
They climb the steps to the house, closing the door and shutting out the early-morning activities on the streets. Daryl follows the smell of cooking eggs into the kitchen and stops in the doorway to take in the familiar picture; Carl at the stove wielding a spatula, Carol by the cabinet taking out an extra set of plates and cutlery, and Judith sitting in her feeding chair with her little hands tightly clutched around a bottle of juice.
“Oh, hey.” Carl gives him a short wave, but then his expression changes and he looks one-eyed and sad, the corners of his mouth pull down and a line appears between his eyebrows—
“Rick's fine,” Daryl blurts out. “He's back at- You know, back there. But nothin' happened.”
Carl frowns. “I didn't think so,” he says, looking over at Carol and gesturing with the spatula. She takes over while Carl walks up to him. “You alright?”
In the back of his head, the urge to flee flares back up like an insistent itch. Maybe it ain't been such a great idea to come here if what he gets is more damn talking rather than an hour or two of peace.
Carl hugs him.
It's awkward.
After a few seconds of blinking, Daryl wrinkles his nose against the hair in his face and pats Carl's back. “Alright, kid,” he says, shoving him away by the shoulders and taking a step back. “Everythin' good here too?”
Carl nods. “The barricades are going up this morning. We've got some more people coming over from the Kingdom to stay in case we get hit here first, and-”
“Who's hungry? Daryl, ready for some eggs?”
Carol makes them sit down.
He's got to clamp his mouth shut around a moan just because he's chewing on something that ain't a berry or meat that he had to hunt himself. And this way, he ain't got time to fret about Carol not wanting Carl to tell him of their progress either.
When they're done eating, Carl reaches over and wipes Judith's face with a napkin. “Do you want to take her for the day?”
When Carol doesn't answer, Daryl freezes, his thumb halfway in his mouth with the stress of it all. He blinks, suddenly overwhelmed with the possibility of walking that huge long way with a toddler in his arm and a herd swarming them and eating them both and Rick finding their bodies—
“No way,” he says, and then he backpedals in case he misunderstood. “I ain't gonna stay that long. Gotta get back before dark.”
“It's early in the morning,” Carol says. Apparently, she understood just fine. “I took her, remember? I have no doubt Judith will be as safe with you as she was with me.”
“But what if she ain't?” The thought is horrible enough he feels it creeping up his back in a cold, nauseating wave. “She's just a kid,” he stresses.
Carl rolls his eye.
Carol gets up and jerks her chin towards the door.
With a bit of leftover dread sitting heavily in his stomach (or it's the eggs), Daryl follows her into the hallway and then stands for inspection—because that's what she's doing. Carol's got her head cocked and a towel in her hands like she's back to being just another housewife, but she can't fool him. She's the most efficient of them all, and she's scary, and she's his best friend.
Apart from Rick.
Who ain't his friend anymore.
Friends don't watch the other take care of what's none of their business, and they ain't holding hands either. Not like Rick's constantly holding his now.
Carol sighs. “There has to be a reason you're here, and since you don't want to tell me what that is, I can only assume that you're feeling a bit lonely out there. Am I right? And maybe Rick is too?”
“'m not lonely,” Daryl mutters. “Don't think Rick ain't either. But I didn't ask him.”
“Okay.”
“You wanna have the talk now?”
She smiles even as that line on her forehead reappears. “No, Daryl. I'm asking if you want to take Judith for the day. I could come by later to pick her up, there's no need for you to go all the way twice in one day. We can have our conversation anytime we want in the future. I told you there's no rush.”
Daryl sucks his lip between his teeth. “None of you make any sense. I'm startin' to wonder if y'all ate the same poisoned mushrooms or somethin'.”
Carol's hand comes up to his shoulder, resting with barely any pressure. God, she's so small and fragile, he feels like a mountain beside her.
“Fine,” Daryl mumbles. “I'll take her.”
“I'm sure she missed you a great deal,” Carol says, smiling before her eyes dart behind him. “Listen, I know I've said it before, but please don't come back yet?”
Daryl looks around, rolling his shoulder under the light weight of her hand. “Why?” he asks at length, though he ain't sure he wants to know the answer.
She looks behind him again, towards the staircase. “Because you need time. You've been around Rosita, right? You've seen how she changed. That's what I want for you, and you're not there yet.”
“I'm not- What?” Daryl stops, fucking baffled. “This ain't for me. We're out in the middle of fuck all cause Rick's the one losin' it.”
“Hon, he isn't.” Carol's mouth is a flat line, and then she nods and goes back into the kitchen. By the time Daryl forces himself to stop blinking, Carol walks back out with Judith in her arms and Carl at her heels. “I'll be upstairs for a minute, pack some of her things.”
Still trying to process what her comment was about, Daryl takes Judith and lets Carol herd him to the front door.
What's that even supposed to mean - Rick 'isn't'? Rick sure as hell is. He made arrows, for fuck's sake, and he said the same words over and over while staring at a goddamn tree.
If anyone's losing it, it's Rick, no questions asked.
“Mh,” Judith says.
Carl strolls over and leans against the wall like he's getting comfortable to watch him or something. “I have a question,” he says, raising his eyebrows and generally looking like trouble.
With a sigh, Daryl adjusts his grip on the small body in his arm. “Shoot.”
“What are you doing out there all day? I just don't get it.” Carl holds up his hands. “I don't need to know any details, please don't, but—doesn't it get boring?”
“Leave him be,” Carol says as she walks down the stairs with a small backpack in her hand.
“I was just asking, not forcing answers out of him at gunpoint.”
Carol fumbles around until Judith allows her - while pulling a face - to sling the tiny backpack over her shoulders. She doesn't look impressed, and Carol ain't either. “You know how he is,” she says when she's done, and then she winks at Carl. “When's the last time you heard him say no to anything?”
Carl snorts.
“If you're all done here,” Daryl says. “I don't need to listen to you talkin' like I'm simpleminded or somethin'.”
“Oh, come on, nobody's thinking that.” Carol throws him a quick smile. “Now, do you need anything else? Food, water? I've got some cookies.” She bustles into the kitchen before he can answer and leaves him to brave the brat who's staring at him like he's the most interesting thing he's seen all day.
Hell, maybe he is. It's still goddamn morning.
“Those arrows look new.”
Daryl hums, angling his face away when Judith makes a grab for his hair. “Rick made them.”
“You should've seen it,” Rosita says from above them. “He looked like he was defusing bombs or something. He was so damn focused.” She grins, walking down the stairs with a fresh look about her. Healthy somehow.
Behind her, Tara follows while smiling with her whole damn face, hair wet, cheeks red and—
Oh.
“Oh,” Daryl says.
They held hands. Before.
Like that.
Frowning again, Rosita stops at the bottom of the stairs and only eases up when Tara rolls her eyes and takes Rosita's hand with such a slow movement, even Rosita's got enough time to prepare herself for it. She still looks grumpy though, and a bit uncomfortable, but she doesn't pull away.
Daryl stares at them, first confused and then with a blind panic rising. Something's stuck in his throat.
Is this jealousy, good fucking Lord, how did that happen, and when, and why—no.
This ain't jealousy.
“What?” Rosita says, scowling.
Daryl shrugs, watching the door to the kitchen and willing Carol to come out with whatever she's packing in there for goddamn hours. Hell of a lot of people in here suddenly. He sucks his lip between his teeth again, chewing a bit.
“I'll wait outside,” Tara says softly.
Daryl gives them the pretense of privacy by averting his eyes and feels quite proud when the door closes and he ain't even flinching back.
“Spit it out.”
Rosita's standing in front of him. The hallway's empty otherwise; Carl's gone to wherever, Tara's outside, Carol's in the kitchen.
It's just him and Judith and Rosita and the idea of holding hands when giving up is so much easier, and how the fuck did any of this happen?
Daryl settles on, “I don't get it.”
Rosita crosses her arms and pulls a face that's so uncomfortable, Daryl feels like recoiling physically. So he does. “Are you talking about the girl-thing or the thing with me in general?”
“I- What?”
“I always liked girls,” she states, eyebrows high. “That doesn't mean I needed to share that particular info without a reason.”
“That ain't what I was- You can do whatever the hell you want.”
Rosita frowns at him until her face loses some of the harshness, turning softer without actually changing anything. She sighs. “Alright, you don't know. God, Daryl, if you want to know something, use your words. Tara's waiting and we're expected in Hilltop by midday.”
Daryl gnaws on his lip. “You said you wanted to die,” he mumbles, looking down as Judith's hand gets tangled in a too-long strand of his hair. “I don't get how you went from that to—to Tara.”
“I changed,” she says, slow like she can't grasp the concept of him not understanding. “Just because I felt like that doesn't mean I have to want it forever. The world's moving on and I had to too.” She sighs again, then steps closer and lowers her voice. “Listen, Daryl, we don't have time for endless recuperation anymore. What you're doing out there, it's the limit. You gotta know that.”
Could be that there ain't a single person in either Alexandria or Hilltop that believes they're out there for Rick rather than him.
Could be that he's gonna cry right here and now if he can't pull himself together.
Daryl swallows. “You didn't have time either.”
“No,” Rosita says with a brief smile. “But I made a decision, eventually, and when I decided that I want to live, I looked for something that helped me stay that way. You know, instead of something that'd remind me of all the shit that led me to believe I didn't want to live anymore in the first place. Because Daryl—that didn't go away. Not completely. I don't think it ever will. It's an alternative that's always there, and if things go south again, I reserve the right to change my mind.”
He's quiet for a moment, trying to process her words and failing.
It's a lot, but he's gotta try - he's never heard her talk for that long with anyone.
“The decision ain't definite? Ain't that gonna hurt Tara if-”
“No,” Rosita cuts in with a glance to the door. “I don't think about that. It's my decision, and I won't depend on someone else like I did with Abe. I'm not saying this is the right way, but it worked for me.” She pauses, catching his eyes. “Just decide for yourself, not for someone else. Otherwise it won't stick.”
They stand in silence, and it doesn't feel as uncomfortable as before even though his head is swimming with thoughts.
“Thanks,” he says at length. Then he clears his throat and heaves Judith on his other arm. “For tellin' me,” he adds awkwardly, but Rosita's already rolling her eyes.
“Yeah, whatever. If you want to come with us, we gotta go now.”
Carol comes through the door, backpack in her hand and face full of heavy wrinkles, and Daryl's stomach sinks at once, torn between hiding behind his hair and simply leaving. She's heard it all, and she'll think he—
“I packed some fresh food, water, and half a batch of cookies I made the day before.” Carol hangs the backpack over his free shoulder, then picks up his crossbow and hands that over too. “I'll come back before sundown and pick her up. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” he mumbles, inching towards the front door.
Carol follows him to give Judith a kiss on her forehead, then she leans in further to kiss his cheek too. “Have a nice day.” She smiles like she's sending him out to school for the first time; proud and a bit sad at the same time.
Daryl turns away, hurrying to where Tara waits on the porch.
They leave.
Judith starts squirming on the half-hour mark, and his arm feels heavy and tired, and Tara and Rosita don't bother him at all; they ain't even looking at him, funny or otherwise, except for when a lone walker wanders close and they take it out without hesitating.
A few minutes away from the cabin, they take their leave, and Daryl heaves a big breath, mind set not to let his thoughts wander until Judith's safe and sound at the cabin and he has time to—decide.
*
Rick sits on the porch, thankfully changed out of his bloody clothes. His face breaks out in a smile the moment he sees them coming, and he gets up to meet them.
His aching arm is so damn worth it just to see Rick smile like that. It should be hard to tell under Rick's massive beard, but Daryl still knows this is the real deal, not the shadow of a smile that's been on his face ever since that day in the clearing where they met Negan.
“That's what I call a surprise,” Rick says when he's close enough. His voice is soft, eyes flickering from Judith to him and back again.
Daryl flexes his fingers, making Judith crane her neck to look up at him. “Wanna take her?”
“I do,” Rick says, still soft. He lifts her from Daryl's arms, brushing against him and staying right in his space.
The sun beats down on their heads, birds chirp in the trees around them, Judith bubbles out a laugh when Rick pokes a finger in her belly, and something's wrapped around his heart and squeezes so tight he can't breathe—
Daryl takes a staggering step back. He drops his backpack and his crossbow, taking a bit more care with the arrows even as he bends over, hands on his knees and eyes pressed shut against the silly idea of suffocating right here and now while the fucking sun's shining.
Jesus Christ, he thought that was a one-time thing. What the hell is wrong with him?
“Hey.” Rick rushes after him, and there ain't no smile on his face anymore, and Judith looks stricken, and if it wasn't for the end of the world, he never would've met them.
Any of them. He'd be in his shitty trailer or on his way to the station, picking Merle up from lockup, being at the machine shop down the road to earn a few bucks. Maybe one of those days, Rick would've stopped him and checked his license. Maybe he would've pulled him over for drinking and driving when he ain't been drinking and driving, a suspect just cause he looks the part. Redneck trash, druggie brother in jail. None of the men in his family made it past fifty, it's a tradition, and he would've followed it.
“Jesus Christ,” Daryl wheezes through his constricting throat.
Rick rubs over his back while Judith blinks up at him, tiny fist curled around the strap of her backpack and face curious. No one would've let him anywhere near her before.
The goddamn dead had to rise from their graves for him to get a chance at- at—
“Fuckin' shit.” He jerks away from them both and focuses on breathing; in and out and in and out until his head clears, until his stupid thoughts rein themselves back in and his chest feels lighter again.
When he's ready to face them, he finds Rick sitting on his chair with Judith bouncing on his leg and babbling quietly to herself.
Rick notices him looking almost right away and catches Daryl's eyes with a slight frown but otherwise friendly face. “You hungry?”
Blinking, Daryl clamps his mouth shut around the excuses and explanations he was ready to fire off. “What? I- Nah,” he mumbles. “Had some eggs for breakfast. Carl made them. He looks good, they're good.”
Rick nods and turns his eyes back on Judith. “And the others?”
A bit more comfortable, Daryl moves to sit beside him, elbows on his thighs so Rick can't see that his chest's still heaving, if less than before. “Didn't talk much to no one but our people. Carl said they're raisin' some kind of barricades, and Tara and Rosita are on their way to Hilltop to help out there. Said they'd be back later.” He squints up, licking his lips. “And Carol made cookies. Packed some for us.”
Rick snorts out a laugh.
“Part of the war effort, I guess.”
They share a brief grin, then Rick lifts Judith up and blows a kiss on her belly, and Daryl relaxes in his seat, content to watch.
Time flies, somehow.
When the sun starts to set, Rick tells him to pick a few berries, and then he makes him wash them before he allows Judith to eat them. The stupid little gesture warms his heart to a degree Daryl hadn't thought possible, and he finds himself frowning with the stress of it all.
“You're quiet,” Rick says, also quiet.
Between them, Judith fiddles with one of her plastic shovels and piles up leaves with an intense look on her face.
“Long day.”
“Only that?”
Daryl shrugs, looking down. There's a purple stain on his fingers, and he rubs at it with a sigh. He's got so much to think about, and he ain't even started yet, but he feels tired just knowing he's gonna have to do it, and soon. “My mind's kinda reelin'. Dunno.”
A twig snaps near the edge of the clearing, making them both look up. Rick's hand hovers over Judith's shoulder.
“Ain't nothin' there,” Daryl says after a moment of listening.
Rick nods and sits back like he ain't got the need to check for himself. Like he just trusts his word even when it concerns his little girl.
“Do you know how much it helped that you brought me out here?” Rick asks suddenly. “I've been meaning to tell you for a while. Thank you, Daryl. I mean it.”
“Wanna send my mind reelin' some more?”
Rick breathes out a laugh that sounds sweet enough Daryl glances over to see Rick wiping his wrist over his mouth like he wants to cover it up. Would be a damn shame.
“Pretty sure I will,” Rick says, still slightly grinning. “I'm actually countin' on it.”
Oh god, oh god.
“You workin' your way up to say somethin', Grimes?”
Rick cocks his head at him, absentmindedly fingering his beard. “Yeah, I am. You're making it pretty hard, though. Like I knew you would.”
Daryl squints up at the clouds. It's gonna start raining soon. Something loosens in his chest just from knowing this day's gonna end with rain. This ain't a damn fairy tale, and he's glad that whoever watches over them gets that.
“We can't stay here for much longer,” Rick says, quiet enough to make him look over again.
“You okay with that?”
Rick sighs. “No, Daryl. Are you okay with that?”
A gentle tremor builds up in his hands, making him shove them in his pockets to hide the fact. “Yeah,” Daryl says. “'s okay. Can't stay here forever.”
Rick watches him with sharp eyes. “You know what? I don't think I'm feeling too hot yet. I'm sure a few more days should do the trick.”
It's a lie, and Daryl sags back into his chair with a sigh that's more relieved than he'd admit under goddamn torture. He's running out of time here. He's got to get his shit back under control, and fast.
Chapter Text
Rick keeps shooting him glances, but he also keeps shooting Tara and Rosita glances. They're sitting by the end of the porch talking about a Hilltopper named Sven. Apparently, he's got a natural talent for aiming with a bow.
Good for him.
Good for him that there's others who are willing to teach him, since Daryl don't even though Maggie asked him to.
Daryl snaps out of his dull thoughts when Carol comes to collect Judith and take her back to Alexandria. There's a round of hellos and some small talk before she bends down to pick Judith from her dad's lap with a smile reserved for those under the age of five.
Come to think of it—sometimes she looks at him like that too.
Daryl glares at her.
She lifts her eyebrows. “Stop pouting, Daryl. Eat some cookies.”
“Cookies?” Tara calls over. “Why did no one tell me we've got cookies?”
“Because these two are useless,” Carol tells her, though she's smiling at him like a sane person rather than someone who thinks he's a kid, and he guesses that's alright. “I'm gonna get going. Eat up, see you all in a few days.”
Daryl waves, watching her leave—for a few days. Is she gonna come back in a few days or does she think they're gonna go back to Alexandria in a few days or are they expected to visit there in a few days or what?
“Hey,” Rick says.
With a groan, Daryl presses his thumbs against his eyes. “Sorry, my head's about full.”
“That's fine,” Rick says in a low voice. “I'll get a fire going. You stay put.”
As if he's done anything but since he brought Judith over.
Now that he's officially allowed to, he ain't gonna change that either; he just continues to lurk at the edge of their routine, watching them prepare the fire and eat cookies and make even more small talk. He listens in on Tara and Rosita who ain't too fond of taking watch tonight, with Tara straight out insisting that either both of them stay up or neither—which is cute and all, but if he's got to take watch tonight, he ain't sure he'd be able to defend anyone, let alone sleeping people.
Daryl braces his elbows on his thighs and lets his head hang, set on doing at least something productive, and if it's just thinking through his options.
There are only two: living or dying. Leaving - living but not living here - ain't an option at all.
The whole thing should be a no-brainer.
And like Rosita said, it don't have to be permanent. He could change his mind again, if the occasion arises.
Like Rick changed his, going from I'ma blow myself up now so I ain't gonna blow myself up later to insisting they have a talk at least three times a day about increasingly personal matters Rick shouldn't care about to begin with. And all the hand-holding on top of it.
Might be that Rick changed his mind about several things at once. Not just about living, but about him too.
If he read that right.
It's hard to tell after all these years, but even if he's wrong about what Rick wants from him, that doesn't change the fact that Rick made a decision first, then changed his mind, and is now sticking with it.
If Rick can do that, he can do it too.
And he never even fucking decided not to live in the first place. So there's that.
When Daryl looks up again, the sun's sunken low enough to hide behind the tops of the trees, the fire's already crackling to life, and someone put several tomatoes on a spike and leaned the whole thing against the railing. Gotta be Rosita. He can't see Rick eating goddamn tomatoes for dinner, end of the world or no.
“Listen,” Rick says, walking over to the others on the far side of the porch.
They form a loose circle and listen to whatever Rick's got to say to them.
Daryl watches as Tara's eyebrows wander up to her hairline. His hearing's fantastic, but Rick somehow manages to keep his voice quiet enough that he can't make out what they're saying.
Which means it's on purpose, and that means the entire thing is pretty shifty, but not enough to haul his ass over there and ask what the hell their problem is.
It's nicer over here anyway; from where he's sitting, he's got a good view of Rick's backside. How he cocks his hips, curls his fingers around his hipbone, how his jeans pull tight over his thighs. He's got no ass in his pants whatsoever, but even in the apocalypse, that man somehow never lost his sense of style.
Small miracles and all of that—at least now that it ain't too bad to have thoughts like that. If the hand-holding doesn't turn out to be some twisted idea of Rick's to make him feel better.
Or whatever.
Jesus Christ, he held hands with Beth too.
But that was different, he guesses.
He hopes.
Rick looks over his shoulder and straight at him, and Daryl doesn't blush or anything, but it's a close call. Here he sits, marveling at Rick's talent to find fitting jeans even though he looks like he's wearing a sack of potatoes at all times—while trying to decide if living is worth the trouble.
Maybe the cell broke his mind after all.
Dwight, the fucker.
Add Negan to that, the fucklord.
Or hell, fuck the other option that ain't come up for a few days now but can't be dismissed either: he's yet to prove this current shitshow is real to begin with.
How long do hallucinations last? There's gotta be a limit, he guesses, and the more time passes, the less likely it is that he's making this up.
Daryl sighs and looks around. Rick seems to be gone, but Tara and Rosita are sitting on the other side of the porch with their backs turned to him and mind their own business so completely, it's almost suspicious.
Between all of them, the fire curls nicely into the sky. A light breeze takes the bite of smoke away from his face while the flames keep him warm, and then Rick's there again, next to his chair.
He's got something in his hands, shaped like cans.
Daryl looks up, barely able to make out Rick's face because he's standing between him and the fire.
“I hope you're hungry,” Rick says, holding out one of the cans with a smile.
Daryl gapes. “That beans?”
“Pinto beans.”
He lets out a small, involuntary sound. “Where the hell did you get them from? I ain't seen one of those since—” He was hiding with Maggie in Hilltop's basement.
Rick grins, crouching down by the fire.
“You went to Hilltop?” Daryl asks, still staring. “When?”
Shrugging, Rick peels the lids of the cans back and positions them over the flames. “Earlier,” he says, somewhat sheepish. “I didn't know when you'd be back and I thought… Well.”
“You thought you'd go and scavenge some beans that happen to be my favorite.”
“Yeah.”
The heat of the fire is a bit much, and he hasn't eaten any hot food yet, and he's sweating already. “Rick, I-”
Rick hisses, shaking his fingers when he burns them on the hot metal. “I know, I know. Let's just eat, alright?”
They do, after a while.
Tara and Rosita stay on their side of the porch, but Daryl ain't looking over in case they're making out. Ain't no reason to see that. Each to their own and all, but no.
Somewhere along the way, maybe around his third spoonful of beans he thought he'd tasted the last of years ago, the decision ain't looking so much like a decision anymore - it's a no-brainer like it should've been all along. Rick brought him his favorite food, and Rick lets him eat in peace even though he yearns for another two to three hours of talking in damn riddles, and Rick took his hand and held it, and on top of it all, Rick still grieves.
He's grieving, and sometime in the past week, Rick started taking care of him instead of the other way around, and it took him until now to realize it.
Over the fire, Rick's eyes seem like they're burning. It's just the reflection, but it ain't a bad look at all. Does something funny to his insides.
“It's good,” Rick mumbles around a mouthful.
Daryl looks down at his own beans while his heart swells with possibilities, all of them vague except for one. Like back at the farm, though this time, he wants it to stay.
He wants it bad now that he might get the chance to have it for real.
“Daryl.” Rick's voice is down to a whisper, but the others should have a hard time catching their conversation anyway. “This is real.”
He remembered.
Daryl's heart skips a beat before it starts to hammer in overtime. “Yeah,” he whispers, mouth going dry despite the food, and then he finishes his beans and a few cookies just because he can and doesn't say anything else.
Before he turns in, he stops behind Rick and squeezes his shoulder to say thank you and maybe I ain't sure what this is yet or maybe even if you come inside and hold my hand again, I won't mind.
Possibilities, alright.
Shouldn't he have one of them attacks just from thinking about it?
But he ain't. All he's got is a slight shiver on his back, and that ain't even uncomfortable.
Daryl goes into the cabin and lets out a content sigh. He pulls off his shirt and his boots and stretches out on his blanket, determined not to volunteer for watch until someone outright asks him to do it.
No one does, but Rick comes in shortly after him, sheds more clothes than reasonable, and lies down on his back right next to him.
For a bit, they watch the ceiling in silence.
His limbs feel heavy already, but a thought keeps nagging him, insisting he ain't getting any sleep if he doesn't put it out there.
Daryl clears his throat, half-hoping Rick's asleep even though he's breathing too fast for it. “What if…” Daryl starts, turning his head to look at Rick's profile. He smells like fire and beans - two of his favorite things right in front of him, and Daryl changes course in the last moment, self-conscious again just because Rick ain't touching him, now of all times, when he's got that stupid possibility in his head. “When you said I ain't your brother, what did you mean?”
Rick smiles, and this close, it's the most marvelous thing. Daryl looks away. “I thought your head's about full tonight.”
Outside, Tara laughs, but the crackle of the fire drowns out the rest of their chatter.
“I never had a real brother,” Rick says at length. “I had Shane. Then I lost him.”
Daryl gnaws on his lip, unsure about the change of topic. “I had Merle,” he states, and it's been long enough the sting in his chest is manageable now.
“I didn't feel about Shane the way I feel about you.”
Yeah, okay.
Okay, retreat.
Trying to do it slowly, Daryl rolls on his side, turning his back to Rick because he's just pathetic. Behind him, Rick shifts too, but he ain't looking to see what he's doing.
“But you already knew that,” Rick says softly, close enough Daryl feels the words against his hair. “You wanted to ask something else.”
Daryl blows out a breath, trying to hitch up his shoulders and failing because he's fucking lying on one of them. He scowls through the dark at the wall which ain't done nothing to him, and then he mans up and gets it over with. “What if the attacks don't stop?”
“The attacks?”
“Rick,” he mumbles. “You know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Rick mumbles back. “But those ain't attacks, Daryl. It's just your way of coping. I know you don't want to talk about what happened when Negan took you, and I'm-” Rick rushes out a sigh, raising goosebumps on Daryl's neck. “I won't ask you to, but I want you to know that you can. Doesn't have to be today or tomorrow. But if you ever want to, we talk about it. I'll listen.”
Daryl grunts, exposed and comfortable, and digs his teeth in his lip to keep himself from scooting back the last inch and press back against Rick's chest.
“And if it doesn't stop, we deal with that too,” Rick says. It sounds final, a bit dismissive like he either thinks it's impossible the attacks might stay or like he ain't too keen on discussing the subject.
“You think?” Daryl steels his nerves for the last thing that's been screeching through his mind for days now. “Cause I don't wanna stay useless like this.”
“Then don't,” Rick says lightly. “You do what you do, and I'll keep an eye out for you. If you get in trouble like that, I'll know.”
An entire mountain drops from his chest so fast he's afraid he might float away without the pressure keeping him grounded. “Alright,” Daryl says, scooting back the last inch.
The blanket's rough against his back, and then it ain't; it's Rick's shirt instead, his chest pressing up against Daryl's scars, and then it's Rick's arm winding around him and holding him close.
Might be even better than holding hands, Daryl thinks as he closes his eyes.
Better than any other option that crossed his mind for sure.
*
Daryl wakes when the sun's already up, comfortable even though the blanket got tangled under his back and is poking into his ribs rather fiercely. Through the window, he hears Rick puzzling on the porch, but Rick's blanket is still warm, and still lying beside his too.
Nice way to wake up.
For a few moments, Daryl blinks around the room, taking in the dust and the wood and how familiar it's all become. How much changed since he first cleared it out—no longer than a week or two ago.
Everything feels different now, but it really ain't. Only the possibilities are new, the rest is as it always was; they've got to fight, someone's grieving, they need to scavenge food and water, they depend on their weapons, they call each other family even if it's grown and twisted so much since the start, someone's in love, someone's holding fucking hands…
In the end, it really might just be him who's different.
Daryl sighs and rolls on his back, and he notices that his brain is fully awake at the same time as it presents him with a perfectly memorized rerun of when he realized that Rick started to take care of him instead of the other way around.
Makes even less sense now than it did yesterday.
And it ain't only Rick who's thinking that either; Carol hinted at it too, and Rosita, maybe even fucking Carl. There's so much wrong with this, he's got no idea where to start.
Daryl gets up and puts his clothes on with none of the comfortable warmth left from waking up. As soon as he steps out through the door, Rick turns to him, mouth full of something that makes his stomach rumble.
“Mornin',” Rick says after swallowing. “Seems like you needed that. Feeling better?”
Yeah, this is definitely the wrong way around. This is Rick's show now, when before it was his.
Scowling, Daryl plops down on the second chair. “Where're the others?”
Rick reaches over and hands him a sandwich. A real one, tomato, lettuce and all. “I sent them away,” he says as he shoves the rest of his own sandwich in his mouth. “They won't be coming back.”
“Why?”
Rick shrugs like it's obvious, then he unscrews a water bottle and takes a few long gulps. “Because I want to be alone with you,” he says when he's done, and gives Daryl a careful look. “And I think we should talk.”
Daryl bites his sandwich in half to make it alright that he ain't got an answer. Goddamn possibilities. Means they need to talk, alright. He ain't stupid. But he also ain't gonna let this slide, whatever Rick thinks he's doing by switching up their roles like this.
“Oh, stop looking like that. It won't be as bad as you're making it up to be.”
Lettuce was never his favorite food, but the idea of eating something he used to peel off his burgers just a few years ago makes his throat close up. Or maybe it's Rick and his talking, who the hell knows.
Daryl swallows until he's able to speak. “Alright, first question: why does everyone think we're out here for me instead of you?”
Rick blinks.
“Yeah,” Daryl mutters. “You thought I didn't notice that, did ya?”
“Why is that a problem?” Rick asks, sort of careful again, raising the itch in Daryl to shake Rick until he stops being so damn civil. “It worked out, didn't it? We both got better, doesn't matter why.”
Yeah, apart from the fact that it's fucking humiliating to have whole herds of people thinking that he needs some kind of therapy out in the woods with Rick, who talked to trees.
“Daryl.”
“What did you tell Carol when we went to Alexandria?”
Rick sits back and cocks his head. “I told her nothin'. She told me that she's grateful I'm taking care of you.” He snorts. “I guess it's too much to ask for you to be grateful about that too.”
Daryl nods. He eats up his sandwich and nods some more. Then he finishes Rick's water, heart beating in his throat before he's even started. “You remember that Michonne died, Rick?”
“Believe it or not, it's hard to forget.” Rick pinches the bridge of his nose and falls quiet. After a while, he rolls his shoulders and sits up, staring right at him. “Alright, let's get this over with. You spit it out now and don't hold back.”
“We're out here cause you lost yer damn mind!” Daryl hollers, surprising himself, and then he gets up and paces for a bit so the damn embarrassment ain't gonna flat out drown him. “That's why we're out here. One loss too many. Broke your head. Had to get you away.”
“Mh,” Rick says.
“You deny that and I'm gonna fuckin' punch you, Rick. I swear to god.”
Rick looks up at the sky. His chest is heaving, pressing up against his tight shirt and deflating again. It's goddamn distracting. The whole man is distracting, but most of all, it's Rick's refusal to let him pick a fucking fight.
“You got nothin' to say for yourself or what?”
“I do,” Rick says at once. He's got his head cocked again, and then he's standing and closing in on him, and Daryl's already by the wall and got nowhere to go. “I ain't sure you want to hear it, though. Your memory isn't as flawless as you think it is if you forgot what I told you about my conversation with Michonne. What I told her I would do.”
“I don't-”
“I made my decision,” Rick goes on, crowding in until Daryl's back hits the wall. “You were there for it. You helped me make it. I said I'd live, so that's what I'm doing. This is not despite Michonne, this is because of her. This is for her.” Rick bends, catching his eyes. “And I'm grateful you helped me through those first few days, Daryl. I am. But that ain't why we stayed.”
He's gonna hyperventilate again, he can fucking smell it coming even before Rick places his palm on his chest and presses down over his heart. Daryl whines a bit, twitching with all the damn possibilities in his too-full head. “Rick, I ain't-” He swallows. “You want me to listen, you gotta stop doin' that.”
There's a pause.
“Oh.” Rick drops his hand. It swings sort of wildly before Rick lifts it and rubs his neck. His cheeks fill with color.
If that ain't the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, he don't know what is.
“Well.” Rick takes a step back and gestures to the chairs. “Let's sit down again, alright? There's something else I wanna discuss with you.” He glances over. “If you're done with that topic, I mean.”
Daryl grunts and sits down and looks out at the trees. He's done, alright. If there's one thing he's got no need to hear, it's Rick telling him about all the different ways he's lost his shit over the last weeks and how that was so clear to see that even a man grieving for his woman felt the need to step up and take care of him.
Rick thrusts another sandwich at him.
They eat in blissful silence for a minute or two, then Rick's back at it.
“When we're going to Alexandria,” he says carefully. “Do you feel like we're going home?”
Daryl finishes his sandwich and shrugs.
“Did you leave your stuff with Aaron because you thought when I said 'our house', I only meant my children and Michonne?”
He didn't think shit because it wasn't a damn interpretation; that's what it meant.
“For Christ's sake, Daryl. We've been over this.”
Daryl grunts.
“Why on earth are you going to war for a place that isn't even your home?”
“Cause y'all like it there,” Daryl tells him. “And the kids need it.”
“You shouldn't risk your life for something only others want,” Rick says, but he shakes his head before he's even finished. “That's stupid, of course you do. I'd do the same. But that doesn't make it right. Alexandria's supposed to be your home too. Tell me what keeps you from feeling like that.” Rick pulls a face. “Apart from the war, which ain't gonna last forever.”
Daryl stares at the pile of rotting walker bodies and balls his fists.
That night after they first found Jesus, that day in the sun with Rick and him off on their own like in the old days, when Rick said goodnight and turned right and he said goodnight and turned left, and Michonne was sitting on the right and he was none the wiser until they came out of Rick's bedroom dressed in barely nothing—that fucking night, Abraham had asked him if he ever thought about settling down.
Shit ain't settled, Daryl had told him, and it ain't settled now either. If things weren't fucking settled when Rick and Michonne played house, they ain't ever gonna be.
“Alright.” Rick stands and hauls his chair closer, bumping their knees when he sits down again. He bows forward to brace himself on his thighs and leans right into Daryl's space. “First off, I'll assign you to a room. I'll make you sleep in it, just watch me. You'll come home to that house and into that room every night, and in the morning, we'll have goddamn breakfast. So that's a start.”
Daryl huffs out a laugh despite himself.
“Yeah,” Rick says, sort of grinning. “Now before I'll lose myself in the details of moving rooms and bribing whoever's willing to get us a real bed so we don't have to sleep on the floor, tell me if there's anything else you need me to clarify. Somethin' I said in good conscience that got twisted in your head until I sound like a monster.”
Daryl rolls his eyes so he ain't got the time to think about beds and such. A new room for a new beginning. It's just dumb. Shouldn't be this exciting either; they've been sleeping next to each other all this time, and that was fine too.
It ain't like there will be anything else happening. Then. In a bed.
Something that would've happened already if Rick had any interest in anything at all.
So.
Daryl gnaws on his lip and looks away. “You said not to go to Hilltop.”
Rick lets out an angry huff. “They're allies, but they're not our people. We're all in this together, but they're not us, Daryl.” He bends, catching his eyes and holding them. “We can't save everyone. You gotta know that by now.”
“But they came to save us too,” Daryl mutters. “We would've been fucked if they hadn't.”
Rick nods, reaching over to squeeze his knee. His thumb catches on the seam of Daryl's jeans, and lack of experience or no, Daryl knows it ain't a sexual touch by any means, but his back gets all sweaty anyway, and it's hard to focus again.
“I'm grateful they did,” Rick says. “I am. But they came because they had our own with them. Maggie, Carol. If it hadn't been for them, neither Hilltop nor the Kingdom would've come, and I wouldn't have blamed them for it.”
Rick sounds so sure, Daryl's heart clenches in sympathy.
“If I'd gone with Tara and Rosita when Jesus asked us to…” Daryl pauses, bowing his head to hide at least one eye behind his hair. “Would you've let me?”
“Daryl,” Rick says urgently. “You're getting this wrong again-”
“'s fine.”
“No, it isn't.” Rick sits back up, and Daryl mourns the loss of his hand immediately, but then it comes up to his face, and suddenly his hair's gone and he's exposed and Rick cradles his cheek. “I would've gone with you. I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen: I can't have you die.”
Pressure builds up in his throat, wandering up to his eyes. His breath starts coming heavier, and maybe this ain't such a good idea after all—
“God, I can't have you die,” Rick says, and for a moment, his face goes all crazy again. “I wouldn't make it. I know myself, I couldn't-”
Something chirps.
Daryl closes his eyes, grateful beyond anything, and turns his head an inch. Rick's palm drags over his cheek when he tries to see what's making the noise.
A squirrel. On the railing.
Rick moves his thumb to the corner of Daryl's mouth, and Daryl is ready to submit to anyone touching him that way, but this is even better, this is Rick, and—Rick lets go of him, and Daryl is free to reach for the crossbow behind his chair. So that's what he does.
With his face on fire.
The squirrel squeaks, and then it's just lunch.
Rick wets his lips, under that huge beard of his. “Come inside with me,” he says roughly.
Daryl sucks in a breath and holds it, close to bursting.
He ain't stupid, just inexperienced, he knows what Rick wants, and it's impossible: Rick's had a wife and then Jessie and then Michonne, he made kids - or one - he's all for women, and he ain't a woman at all. He's never touched a man or thought (in detail) about touching a man, and there ain't nothing he can offer except scars and rough skin and hair everywhere, and Rick ain't gonna like that. And he won't know what to do with Rick either. Taking it up the ass ain't something that just happens. He can take a lot of pain, but maybe he ain't even good enough for that, who the hell would want that anyway, and with him of all people, and it'd require him bending over, and he'd be exposed, and Rick would see it all and—he's hard.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Dunno,” Daryl says, muscles coiled tight from head to toe.
Rick's hands flutter over their legs like he doesn't know where to put them. Maybe on the big smudge of whatever stains Daryl's jeans just above his knee. He can't remember.
Rick lets out a shaky breath. “Or we could go to the lake?”
Where Rick saw him that one time. Where he probably watched him after all.
“Dunno,” Daryl says again. When he glances up, he sees Rick looking at his crotch with his eyebrows close to his goddamn hairline.
Yeah, alright, he's always been fast to get going, but that doesn't mean he's just gonna—put out like that.
Now or ever.
“Let me help you unwind,” Rick says, sort of coaxing while he sits back and adjusts himself so blatantly it looks like Rick thinks he can persuade him by putting on a show.
Might just be the case. Daryl's ready to drop to his knees and press his face against it, hell, that's one of the few things he ever fantasized about, but half his mind's hung up on the damn squirrel dripping blood down the railing and staining it in a splotchy line, and he's got no idea how to proceed from here, no matter the direction.
“It ain't like I don't want to,” he rushes out. “I just gotta skin the squirrel before it goes bad.”
Rick heaves a gigantic sigh. “Alright. Yeah, alright.” He nods and scrapes the chair back as he gets to his feet. “You do what you gotta do. I guess I'm gonna head to the lake and clean up in the meantime.” After a short pause, Rick sighs again, picks up his knife, and leaves.
Daryl sits frozen, half-hard and jittery.
He's fucked it all up now, but that was to be expected. Rick should've known how it's gonna be.
Why the hell does Rick think he can whip out his dick and make a lifetime of shit disappear with it anyway? As if he ain't been looking at the man for years while Rick never looked back at him.
As if Rick ain't been in bed with someone else only weeks ago, and still would be if she hadn't died.
Rick's gotta think he's stupid or something, not to see all that.
Well, he better fucking think again.
Chapter Text
Rick comes back clean and gorgeous.
Daryl's hands haven't stopped shaking even while he's gutted the squirrel, and he feels so goddamn depraved on top of all the other shit that's swirling through his mind, he just keeps kneeling on the porch next to what's left of the animal and waits to die.
This is so bad, he might actually cry.
Rick plants himself in front of him. “I can't tell with you,” he says, complete with his head cocked and his hands on his hips. “You gotta give me a clue here.”
It's still morning. Late morning, but still.
The squirrel's gonna go bad before they can eat it because he finished gutting it instead of setting it to the side for later.
“Daryl.”
“Yeah,” he says, eying the dried blood on his fingers and the small heap of intestines on the ground. “Yeah,” he says again, braving up to glance at Rick.
“We on the same page here?” Rick's eyes dart around, sort of skittish like he never is before he squats down to Daryl's level. “I'm getting mixed signals from you and- We're not talking at cross-purposes, right? You don't think I was asking you to count cobwebs or sweep the floor with me.” After a moment of waiting, Rick reaches out and pokes Daryl's knee with his forefinger, what the actual fuck. “Daryl. This is pretty extreme even for you. I'm startin' to get nervous here.”
Daryl grunts, somehow. “'bout what?”
“That I read something into this that isn't there,” Rick says, and ain't that just fucking hilarious. “That you're too good of a friend to tell me that this is just me and you've got no interest after all.”
Daryl grunts again, but the sound morphs into something else and his chest constricts and then he's laughing.
This is the most absurd thing he's heard in forever, and Rick looks so confused and stupid and—oh, he probably thinks he's being rejected. That he made all of it up and put himself out there for nothing.
Daryl stops laughing. “Sucks, don't it?” he says. He shouldn't because it's mean, but he can't help it. Can't help it either when he grips Rick's poking hand and squeezes it. “Sorry, man.”
They're quiet for a strange little moment. Rick's expression tells him nothing, and he ain't moving either. He just squats there with his thinking-face on. Then he lets out a deep breath that sounds almost relieved.
“That's what this is about?” Rick asks softly. “I'm sorry, Daryl. I'm sorry I didn't see you, you gotta believe me. I'm not gonna ask how long-”
“Don't.”
“I won't,” Rick stresses. “It's none of my business. Just know that I wasn't aware of it, yeah? I was so focused on keepin' us alive and human, finding food and shelter, and—I just didn't have a mind for anything else.”
Daryl squints over, turning his hand a bit, under Rick's. “You had a mind for Michonne,” he says roughly. “And for that Jessie woman too.”
Rick nods, looking away.
There's nothing to say to that because it's the truth. Rick didn't see him, but he saw others. No need to rationalize it away or find excuses.
“'s different with them,” Daryl allows even as it hurts to do so. “Women. Easier to see.” He sucks his lip between his teeth. “But you got it now?”
“I got it now,” Rick says, heavy and sincere and all of that shit that makes him wanna smile and roll his eyes at the same time.
Daryl heaves a nervous sigh and gets to his feet. “I'm gonna go clean up now.”
“What?”
“I'm gonna- You know. Get clean. Don't go anywhere.” Daryl cringes, and to his horror, he can't even look at Rick now that he admitted that they've got a plan. One he agreed to without actually agreeing to anything. And one he shouldn't be all bloody and sweaty for.
Daryl leaves. The last thing he hears is Rick huffing behind him, but he remembers to grab his crossbow this time, and that's gotta count for something.
There ain't a single walker on the way to the lake or when he strips and dives under and hovers in the water, feeling spied upon even though he's very sure Rick didn't follow him.
His hands won't stop shaking. His dick ain't been entirely soft since Rick started on him during breakfast.
It's a whole mess.
Jittery, Daryl washes the blood off his hands and arms before he gets out of the water and squeezes back into his clothes, which are still bloody. He's got to look like a wet dog; dripping everywhere, hair hanging limply around his face, drops of water sliding over his back, making him want to crawl out of his skin.
A mess.
When he gets back to the cabin, something's fixed to the inside of the window and blocks the view of the interior. It looks like a blanket - maybe Tara's or Rosita's.
Rick sits on the porch.
Daryl walks closer, mouth dry and acutely aware of his jeans clinging damply to his legs. He stops next to Rick's chair and watches as Rick cleans his knife. The stolen one.
Rick's now.
“So,” Daryl says.
Rick smiles up at him, then he looks back at the knife and rubs Carol's rag over the handle without sparing him another glance.
Just like that, Daryl's hands stop shaking. He knows Rick's playing him like a fiddle, but that's just because Rick always knows what to do. With him. To make it all better.
He rounds the chair and grips Rick's shoulders from behind, curling his fingers around the muscles there. They're nice shoulders. Good for gripping. “So,” Daryl says again, kneading a bit.
“Thank god, finally.” Rick folds the rag over the knife and gets up, pushing into his space and trapping one of Daryl's hands under his, still on Rick's shoulder. “I wasn't sure if you ran again or if you thought you'd have to wash up for me.”
Daryl shrugs. “Both.”
“You don't have to do that,” Rick mumbles. “I don't care about a bit of blood, you know that.”
It's not a very sane thing to say, but he ain't got any sane things to say either.
Rick bows his head until their foreheads lean against each other. This close, he smells weirdly sweet. “Wanna go inside now?”
His hands try to take up shaking again, but the one on Rick's shoulder got a hard time with being pressed down like that, and he's got different plans for the other; Daryl slides it up to Rick's neck, rubbing his thumb over Rick's pulse point by the edge of his shirt. It pumps under his finger, strong and heavy in a rhythm that sets Daryl on fire so fast, his dick decides it's gonna make the decisions from now on, maybe until the end of fucking times if this feels so nice already—
“Daryl, you gotta tell me now.”
“Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah, let's go inside.”
Rick crowds in, deliberately scraping his beard over Daryl's cheek and herding him through the door like he's a sheep. In the cabin, it's warm and dark. One of the blankets blocks the sun while the others lie in a heap on the floor.
Like Rick thought this through. Prepared for this.
Daryl swallows and watches as Rick drags one of the chairs inside, closes the door, and pushes the lean of the chair under the handle.
“That should do it,” he says, all normal and unaffected as if this ain't a big deal at all.
Because it ain't, for him. Rick's done this hundreds of times.
Maybe more.
Rick kneels down on the blankets, looking up until Daryl sits next to him, awkward and shaky. A drop of water slides down from his hair over his throat and raises the sudden image of Rick pressing his beard there to soak it up, but then Rick's reaching for him with purpose and the nice image disappears and makes him twitch back, a habit of years and years of training he can't fucking break even now.
Just barely out of reach, Daryl opens his mouth, denial ready on his tongue, but Rick simply follows him, puts his hand on Daryl's chest and pushes until he's lying down.
He ain't even frowning. Rick's supposed to be frowning.
“I'm- Rick,” Daryl tells him.
Rick settles on his side, crushing Daryl's arm under his ribs as he props himself up on his elbow. “I think that would be me,” he says mildly, while he sneaks his fingers over the buttons of Daryl's shirt.
“I don't know,” Daryl mumbles, twitching in every direction he can think of without actually meaning to get away. It's just his goddamn nerves firing all these crazy feelings through his body.
He can't think straight while Rick's shoving his shirt open, exposing his chest with a look that's got no business being on Rick's face. Not directed at him.
He doesn't know what to do. He can't fucking think.
With a small laugh, Rick pops the buttons on Daryl's pants. “I think we need to take the edge off first,” he says, still smiling as he pulls down Daryl's zipper. “You're not gonna enjoy this otherwise.”
“Dunno,” Daryl says, because he doesn't. He's lying around like a dead piece of wood until Rick's quick inhale tells him that the man realized he ain't wearing no underwear. Daryl pulls his dick out so it ain't squished as uncomfortably and catches Rick's wrist in the hope that he's gonna look away from there. “Rick, I never-”
“I know.” Rick looks up, struggling under his grip. “Doesn't matter to me.”
That's just ridiculous.
Daryl holds on tighter. “You have no idea what I was gonna say.”
“I don't need to. I knew already.” Rick's face turns dark, and he spreads his captured hand low over Daryl's belly. “You've never let anyone touch you. But I will now, and that seems only right to me.”
Jesus Christ almighty.
He's so far out of his depth, he's got no idea how to ever be normal again. “So you know everythin' or what?”
Rick breathes out a short laugh. “About you, yeah. Everything I need to.” He slips his hand out of Daryl's grasp and slides it down, skimming the tips of his fingers over Daryl's dick and catching it in his fist when it twitches up to meet him.
“Rick.” Daryl twists his hand in the blanket, hips stuttering up into the loose circle of Rick's fingers. His face feels like it's burning.
“Lemme take the edge off, alright?”
“What- How, what edge?”
Rick grins, a small, private thing that makes Daryl's heart skip a beat and his dick twitch pathetically. “By getting this out of the way,” Rick says, tightening his fingers around him. “So we can take our time later, when you come down again.”
God help him.
But god ain't in the mood to do just that; Rick's moving his hand already, pulling hard and fast, and Daryl's so ready to burst it ain't even too dry after a few strokes because he's leaking like crazy. He scrabbles for purchase until he finds Rick's shoulder and holds on tight.
“Good?” Rick rumbles.
With a helpless groan, Daryl pushes up to rub his cheek against Rick's. The moment he feels Rick's beard scraping over his lips, he remembers that they haven't kissed yet, and then he's coming already, kicking his legs and almost dislodging Rick's hand with his bucking.
Rick strokes him through, panting and mumbling nonsense. “Like that, Daryl. Come on.”
As soon as he sucks in enough air for it, Daryl lets out a small, final whine and drops back to the floor so he can stare at Rick's face. “Tell me what to do,” he rushes out. “Tell me what to do, Rick, what am I supposed to do, you gotta tell me-”
Rick cuts him off by letting go of his dick and dragging his wet palm over Daryl's chest, smearing come everywhere. “That's not up to me, Daryl. But I can tell you what I'm gonna do now. That alright?”
Daryl whines again.
“I'm gonna take off your clothes,” Rick says, low and rough and rubbing his fingers through the mess on Daryl's chest. “All of them. And then I'm gonna look at you, take my time about it until I know you that way as I know you in every other way.” He links their fingers, sticky and warm. “And when I'm done with that, I'm gonna put my mouth everywhere I looked at you. You good with that?”
How the hell would anyone say no to that?
“But what about—” His hands. And what he's gonna do to Rick.
“You do whatever you want to do, nothin' else.”
He's pulling Rick on top of him before he knows it.
It's painful, with Rick being fully clothed and him being oversensitive, and he ain't gonna breathe for long with Rick's weight on him, but he can feel Rick's dick pressing against his hipbone, and knowing that Rick's into this - him - is worth it.
“I'm sorry it took me so long,” Rick whispers, and something in Daryl's chest snaps—he sobs, but only once, then he reigns himself in again.
Now ain't the time. Never, but especially not now. He's got Rick now.
He's his.
And Rick was right; he's so much calmer already, his whole body feels like it's moving underwater. In the nicest, warmest water ever, with a heavy Rick-shaped blanket rutting gently on top of him.
“Yeah?” Rick breathes.
Daryl nods, and while he's still in motion, Rick licks into his mouth.
With a moan that gets swallowed immediately, Daryl holds onto Rick's shoulders and opens wide.
It's been so long and he wanted so bad, and Rick tastes exactly like he smells - like them berries from the bushes at the backside of the hut - and it's a bit overwhelming, especially the not-breathing part, but he ain't gonna stop him. Rick said he got plans, and the plans sounded nice, and fluttering nerves be damned, Daryl wants them all.
They keep kissing until Rick's gentle rutting turns into filthy grinding.
It's the hottest thing he's ever imagined happening, but if it was up to him (it is now, it is) he'd rather have Rick naked to watch it happen too.
Daryl makes himself be heard by gripping Rick's hips and squeezing them tight.
“What?” Rick asks, breathless.
“Take off yer clothes.”
Rick rolls off him in an instant to do just that.
Because he can give commands like that now.
And maybe he could touch Rick too, instead of lying back and letting him do all the work.
“Can I?” Daryl asks anyway, dumbly shy as he peels off his clothes and watches another man, his friend, Rick, do the same. “Touch you.”
Rick blows out a depressingly long breath. “If you gotta,” he drawls, shoving his pants down and kicking them off. “I guess I won't stop you.”
They grin at each other, dumb as fuck.
Rick ends up on his back while Daryl props up on his elbow because he doesn't know any other positions, and if it worked for Rick, it's gonna work for him too.
Daryl starts learning Rick by dragging his fingers over all the skin he can reach—which is a fucking lot, but they've got time, and Rick don't seem to be in a hurry either.
“God, I knew I'd love your hands. Your whole arms are godsend, Daryl. I don't think you're aware of that.”
Daryl grins, sort of smug as Rick digs into the muscles on his upper arm.
The moment he slides his hand up to Rick's throat, he realizes he's stumbled on a goldmine; Rick's beard is soft as hell, and Rick's hard as hell too, and he's stretching his head back like a cat with a sound that's gonna get Daryl up again in no time.
“There?” he mumbles.
Rick hums, breathless.
Daryl leans forward and scrapes his teeth over Rick's throat, and all their plans fly right out the window because he needs to do that again, and when he does, he's close enough to hear and feel Rick moan at the same time.
It's so overwhelming, Daryl stops again and looks his fill instead.
The skin below Rick's beard is wet from his mouth. When Rick swallows, his Adam's apple bobs, and his dick too, curving up next to the wound Daryl has looked at so often.
“I'm,” Daryl rasps, helpful.
“Whatever you want. Whatever you want, Daryl, whatever.”
Daryl drags his palm over his chest and scoops up what hasn't dried of his come yet. “Tell me how you want it,” he says, sort of demanding, a bit out of line maybe—he shakes his head and reaches down to curl his fist around Rick's dick. It feels overly hot, like his own cheeks and his everything else. Daryl lets his hair fall in front of his face and gives Rick an experimental tug. “Tell me if it ain't-”
“Oh.” Rick bows his head back with a groan. “God, your hand is rough.”
“Sorr-”
“No. No, that's a good thing. I never-” Rick lets out a breathless laugh and arches his back when Daryl twists his fingers around the head. “Who would've thought callouses were such a turn-on for me?”
Well now.
“I fuckin' love your hands, Daryl.”
Well now.
Daryl grins and watches his work until Rick digs his heels in the floor and thrusts his hips up to meet him. His head stays bent back, throat stretching until it's almost obscene.
And all the noises he makes. He sounds a bit out of control.
Daryl pumps his hand, shaking, and leans back down to suck at the skin below Rick's beard, hiding just enough so Rick can't see the realization on his face that this is allowed, that Rick's losing it because he wants to and that it ain't something to be ashamed about. That he could do it too. That Rick might wanna see him do it too.
But his coordination ain't the best, and he can't focus both on kissing and moving his hand, and watching Rick's more important for now, so he leans back up.
Rick moans out a somewhat drastic sound and pushes Daryl's head back down. “Don't you stop.”
“I ain't,” Daryl croaks. “I never, I-” He swallows, watching Rick fuck up into his hand, and goes back to mouthing at Rick's chest, close enough to feel each groan before he actually hears it.
He might just die from it all, no joke. An entire herd of walkers could climb through the blanket-covered window right now, but he'd still focus on making Rick feel good.
It's always been his priority, but not like this.
Probably ain't healthy.
“Oh god.” Rick arches up from the floor. “Tighter, tighter-”
Daryl moans and does what he's told.
“Yes,” Rick breathes, and then he's coming with a heavy sort of gracefulness that leaves Daryl fucking floored, and he reckons it ain't important if this is healthy or not.
This is it now, there ain't no turning back. He doesn't want to, and Rick, he thinks, who's looking up at him like he's never seen his face before, like they didn't do something so wild right now, they should both be hiding in a hole somewhere - Rick doesn't either.
*
Daryl wakes with Rick sticking to his back, an almighty itch on his chest, and tender fucking lips. When he opens his eyes, he realizes that the sun is already up and peeking through a hole in the blanket.
With a groan, he looks away from the offending light and drops his head back down on what he guesses is Rick's arm. The other is curled loosely around his waist.
Should be uncomfortable.
Daryl wiggles a bit, to make sure it ain't.
“Wha'?” Rick snaps to attention by squeezing the air out of him. “Oh.” He deflates again, sniffing into Daryl's hair. “Mhh, mornin'.”
Yeah, it is.
That's about all the sense he can make of this, though.
It's absurd. All of it.
Waking up with Rick cuddling him from behind. Falling asleep after spending the whole fucking day on their heap of blankets. Not being able to breathe properly because Rick's holding him so tightly and breathing against his neck like that, and being hungry, and the fucking sun shining, and above it all—he's yet to have a negative thought about any of it.
This ain't right. He should be panicking.
“You gonna be weird about it?” Rick asks, sort of polite and maybe even uninterested, since he's like that sometimes. An asshole. Who's raking his fingers through the hair on Daryl's chest like he ain't even aware he's doing it, and who's also poking him in the back with his morning wood.
It's just too much, so Daryl helps himself by giggling, then clamping down on it until it's closer to a manly chuckle.
“What's so funny?” Rick grumbles. “Are we gonna throw hands now or not?”
“Nah,” Daryl says, grinning at the holey blanket. “I thought it'd be weird, but then I woke up all gross and…”
Rick shifts closer, rolling against him in a way that gets his blood pumping again. “And what?”
Daryl shrugs and takes a moment to calm down. “And there ain't no way that I made up what we did. Or this here. My imagination ain't that great.” He pauses, frowning at himself because he just told Rick (again) that he's got no experience and that they'll have to go through a long ass list of firsts before he's even in the near vicinity of what's considered to be normal. “Anyway,” he says, sort of lame. “I ain't freakin' out, so there's that.”
“Good, because this is real, alright. It's not getting any more real than this.”
Daryl snorts, but the sound gets stuck in his throat as soon as Rick slides his hand down and honest to god hums as he finds him hard. “I just told you I'm gross.”
Rick sighs, scooting close enough their clothes wouldn't fit between them.
If they'd gotten dressed again, after dinner when Rick insisted they go through with his plans after all, and then went on to touch him in places Daryl's gonna be blushing about forever, and his private parts ain't even been on the receiving end of it.
“Daryl, I'm gonna say something.”
Hell no.
“Rick, wait-”
“No, not that,” Rick says quietly. “I will, eventually. But not just yet.”
It's only fair. Rick's gotta live up to eighty before Daryl will work up the nerve to tell him too. He hopes Rick knows that.
“Tomorrow,” Rick says while he eases his fist over Daryl's dick, “I want you to come home with me.”
“Home.”
“Yeah. I've got a couple of thoughts on what's gonna keep us busy today, but tomorrow, we need to go back. And when we're there, I want you to get your stuff from Aaron's and put it in our room.”
Daryl sucks his lip between his teeth and thinks. He gets a sudden vision of walking through Alexandria's gates with goddamn beard burn all over his face.
“We'll find a new room,” Rick says, low. “One with a bed. Or—I know you need your space. I guess you can sleep in your own room and we just meet sometimes-”
“'s fine.”
Rick squeezes him, hard.
Daryl stutters out a moan, jerking back against Rick who has to angle his wound away with a quiet hiss. “Sorry.”
“Shut up,” Rick tells him. “We got a deal or not?”
Daryl swallows, torn between pushing into Rick's hand and turning around to get his own on the man wherever possible. “Ain't fair to distract me before askin' somethin' like this.”
Rick laughs. “That's why I'm doing it. You in?”
Jesus Christ.
“Fine,” Daryl mumbles. “But I ain't goin' to Alexandria like this.”
“So we wash up before we leave, no problem.” Rick slides his palm over the head of Daryl's dick to get it wet, then he sets up a fast rhythm. “Now, don't hold back.”
“Rick.” Daryl grips his arm in warning. “I ain't gonna last like that.”
Rick twists his hand and thrusts sharply against him. His cock slips right between Daryl's thighs, and Daryl's mind fucking explodes.
“Are we-” He clenches his butt, alarmed and ready. “When we got a bed-”
“You bet we will,” Rick mutters. “As soon as we get a bed, I'll fuck you. God, I'm gonna fuck you so good.”
“Jesus Christ, Rick.”
“Gotta find some slick to open you up,” Rick tells him roughly. “And you me. Been thinking about your fingers inside me ever since I got off on how rough they are.”
Daryl sort of whimpers.
“Yeah, and thick,” Rick adds, pumping his fist at a brutal pace. “You're gonna work wonders with your hands, I know you will.”
He doesn't even have time to properly imagine it—he's coming with the most embarrassing moan, trapped by Rick's tight hand and the solid line of his body behind him.
“That's it, let me hear you.”
His brain is fried.
Daryl flings himself around and reaches for Rick's dick before he even knows he's doing it. It's leaking so much the backs of Daryl's thighs are wet with it, and Daryl bends down at once, ass in the air and tongue on the fluid that builds up for him.
“I'm not sure you'll like that,” Rick says gently, though his voice ain't too steady, and he's giving him even more to lick up in a matter of seconds.
With Rick's taste in his mouth, Daryl sits back up and waits for the old shame to come.
It doesn't.
All he can think about is that he's got a taste of Rick already, and it ain't the greatest thing ever, but it's for him, so he figures the whole thing's gonna grow on him no matter what.
“It's you,” Daryl states, and then he pushes Rick on his back and gets to business.
Rick lets out a long, whooshing breath. “Oh, okay.”
Filling his mouth with him don't taste like berries either, and Rick didn't wash, and Daryl's eyes are watering and he can't really breathe, but it's Rick. Making little hiccup sounds and holding Daryl's hair out of his face and mumbling under his breath.
It's all Rick.
He's got this.
When Rick starts rubbing his thigh against his arm, Daryl's got it too - he's seen enough porn with Merle doing a running commentary to know he's gotta hoist Rick's leg over his shoulder. So that's what he does.
He realizes why they did that (with women, no gay porn in Merle's trailer) the second he bends back down to take him into his mouth and he's spreading Rick open without even meaning to.
He probably shouldn't. With a man.
But Rick keeps on moaning and Rick thought about his fingers too, so he's gonna allow him to—he's willing to—maybe someday Rick's gonna want to be touched there. And then he'd open for him like that too.
So.
Daryl holds on tight and tries his best until Rick digs his heel in his back so abruptly he almost chokes.
Daryl groans around him, unsure and lips stretched painfully. His mouth is so full he ain't gonna fit in another inch, but suddenly Rick's pulling him up by his hair, and he doesn't want to stop, and they sort of struggle—
“Dammit, Daryl,” Rick rasps. “I can't- I'm comin'.”
Oh.
“Oh god, hold on, sorry, sorry—”
Yeah, he's coming, alright.
Daryl fights and wins and swallows it all, down to the last fucking drop just to make a point.
No berries for sure, but he can feel Rick twitching on his tongue with every swallow, and that's because of him, because of what he's doing, no one's there to take credit for it but him, and who the hell cares about berries anyway?
Rick pats his hair, panting shallowly. “If you keep surprising me like that, I'm gonna have a heart attack by the end of the month.”
Daryl lets him slip from his mouth, vaguely proud and so warm there's a good chance he ain't ever gonna be cold again. He grins to himself and moves over to mouth at the small plaster over Rick's gunshot wound.
Doesn't smell infected, doesn't feel hot.
Feels like it's gonna be okay.
When he's satisfied, Daryl sits up and lets Rick's leg slide down from his shoulder. He keeps his hands on Rick's thighs though, partly because they're caging him in so nicely and no one ever lay back and spread out for him like that, but mostly because he ain't got it in him to stop touching Rick just yet.
“I'm sorry it took me so goddamn long,” Rick says again, all hoarse and heavy even though his cheeks are red and his chest is heaving. His fucking beard is all over the place too, and his curls are plastered against his forehead. He looks so damn content and sated, Daryl decides it ain't worth it to sob this time.
He drags his fingers through the hair on Rick's thigh and gives it a squeeze. “'s done now.”
It took Negan and Dwight and the cell for them to get their heads out of their asses.
That wasn't all, but he's over that, thinking about who needed to die to make this happen.
They're here now. That's enough.
“Breakfast?”
“Cookies,” Daryl says with a slow grin. “Carol's cookies, man. We gotta eat them before they go bad.”
Rick laughs up at him, still slightly out of breath. “If you agree not to put your clothes back on just now, you got yourself a deal.”
Goddamn insatiable, is what Rick is.
Daryl bows his head in a very generous manner. “Deal.”
*
Everything they brought to the cabin fits into their backpacks just fine, including the blankets. He ain't sure how to feel about that, just as he ain't sure how to feel about leaving the cabin behind.
They'll go to the lake to wash up first - overdue after two days in bed doing any number of things that made him sweat - but even though it was his idea, he doesn't like leaving to go there either.
“If the cabin stood for this long, it'll keep on standing for a while longer,” Rick says as he herds him out of the clearing. “Anytime you need to catch your breath, you tell me and we'll come back for a day or so.”
Daryl rolls his eyes and earns himself a scowl.
“Or not. There's always the option to sulk in a corner until you explode. If you prefer that instead…” Rick spreads his arms, stomping around a scrawny bush. “Be my guest, Daryl.”
Daryl raises an eyebrow.
“We still get a room,” Rick goes on. “In my book, that means you won't need to get away for a few days in the first place. You can just as well hole up in there and lock the goddamn door if you feel like it.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” Rick says, stomping onwards.
The silence lasts for about a minute before Rick starts telling him about different methods to stew a rabbit.
By the time they reach the lake, Rick's monologuing about where to find fletchings for the damn arrows.
“Rick,” he says, sloshing through the water, careful to keep his eyes to himself in case Rick gets ideas again. “Shut up, man.”
“Fine.”
They hang up their clothes to dry in the wind.
Rick lasts until they shared the last apples between them, then he starts lecturing him on crops: which one he had the most problems with back in the prison, trying to grow shit in the courtyard. Which one he thinks Maggie should try growing in Hilltop if anyone asked him about it (no one does since he's running around with a crazy face and a loaded gun most of the time). Which one he'd like to eat again, and that it's a shame that they can't ask Eugene since it seemed he had some kind of insight into the whole crop business that they can never hope to achieve themselves.
Daryl kisses him. He's careful, just in case, but Rick shuts up and opens for him instead, and that's all that matters.
“Goddammit,” Rick whispers when he draws back. His eyes are closed, and he reaches for Daryl's wrist without looking. “Let's stay for a while longer, yeah? A day or two-”
“No,” Daryl says. “We goin' home, like you said.”
Rick cracks one eye open to look at him.
“If I don't stress around, you don't get to either.” Daryl leans in for another quick kiss, his heart still overly excited every time as if it can't believe its goddamn luck. “Now get dressed. I don't think anyone in Alexandria wants to get blinded by yer pale ass.” Daryl makes to stand, but Rick tightens his hold on his wrist and they end up kissing until a walker stumbles by and ruins the mood.
Ain't important; they can do this whenever they want now.
In private.
In their room, where no one sees.
They get dressed and leave, quieter this time, though Rick's still worried—he reckons that's what this is, because Rick's been so insistent that he's the reason they stayed and that he's just fine himself, dandy, fucking awesome altogether, it'd be funny if Rick lost his nerve now. If Rick would finally admit he ain't been feeling so hot either.
It's been two weeks tops, maybe three. He doesn't know, he doesn't care, but he does feel better. Ready.
He's just gonna have to make sure Rick is too - like his intention was all along.
Daryl stops walking, sliding his fingers over Rick's arm to get his attention. “Tell me the plan.”
“What plan?”
“Plan B,” Daryl says, pointing at Rick's head. “The one you got in there that makes you all twitchy.”
Rick licks his lips and glances around with a sigh. Then he cocks his head, and he's the same Rick that's been leading them since forever. “Pack our bags, take what's left of our family, and hit the road.”
A shiver runs down his spine, stealing his breath before he can think of an answer. But he ain't got no answer anyway. He doesn't think he wants to have one.
Ain't his decision. He'll follow wherever.
“You gonna talk to them first?” Daryl asks, a bit unsure.
Rick gives him a sharp nod. “To everyone who isn't attached to this place. Everyone we found ourselves or became part of our group through actions, not because we live behind the same walls.” Rick bends, catching his eyes. “I won't ask if they want to leave. I'll ask if they want to fight this war. Majority vote, no one gets left out.”
They're quiet for a moment. When he listens closely, he can hear a walker shuffling somewhere to their right, slow and uncoordinated like it hasn't locked onto them yet.
“You gonna ask me too, Rick?”
“Don't need to.”
That's rich, since he ain't got a clue how he'd decide himself.
Rick bumps against his shoulder and gets him walking again. “We're both for war,” he tells him, sort of nonchalant as he waves his hand through the air. “It's a simple decision: we're going to kill Negan to make good on the deaths we caused.”
Daryl sucks his lip between his teeth and tucks the image of Glenn stuttering I'll find you back into the deepest corner of his mind. “Alright,” he says. Because it is. Like Rick said; it's simple. He can't think of anyone other than Gabriel, possibly, who'd vote for leaving anyway.
They all lost too much by now. They need revenge.
It's alright.
A couple of minutes away from Alexandria's walls, they slay a walker together, and it's kind of romantic enough he thinks about kissing Rick again—so he does, real quick and with his hand on Rick's nape to keep him close in case it's all over the moment they walk through the gates.
But it ain't.
It's just Carol there, waving at them with a smile, and then someone he's never seen before waves too - someone Rick knows since he greets him by name, and then Rick gets called away already; something with the barricades and deciding where to install the monster that looks like a catapult.
Rick gives him a look, from the side. Like he's waiting.
Daryl peels Rick's backpack off his shoulder. “Gimme that. We meet up later at—at the house.”
“At home.”
A few feet over, Carol lifts her eyebrows.
“Yeah, fine,” he mutters. “At home. I'll even do the washin', but only this once. Don't ya get used to it.”
Rick throws him a grin that looks dirty enough to send another shiver down his back, this time in the best possible way. “I'm countin' on it,” Rick says, and then he claps him on the shoulder and leaves.
Daryl releases a breath he didn't know he's been holding in. As if Rick would've made a damn announcement or something.
Looke here, we're fuckin' now, just so y'all know.
“Oh, stop making heart eyes and go on home,” Carol says, shooing him off. “I'm making lasagna tonight. See you at dinner.” She's off too, with a wave and no immediate threat to have a big ol' conversation about anything.
Daryl blows out another breath and thanks everyone in heaven who might be listening when he can slip into Aaron's garage unnoticed to pick up his meager belongings.
When he gets to the—when he gets home, he finds Carl and Jesus sitting in the kitchen, with Judith cooing from the sidelines.
“Hey.”
Carl takes one look at him and says, “God.”
Jesus whistles through his teeth and grins in a way he doesn't want to know about, especially since his eyebrows disappear under that stupid beanie of his. Goddamn gays and their extra senses.
He hopes Rick didn't leave a hickey on him or some shit like that. They ain't fucking teenagers.
“Oh, come on.” Jesus throws an apple at him. “Are you moving in or what's all this?”
Daryl eyes the apple in his hand and shrugs with one shoulder. “I guess,” he says, turning to Carl. “Sorry all of this took so long.”
Carl shrugs back at him. “I saw this coming since you left with Merle back in the prison and Dad got worse. But it's your loss, really. Not mine.” He snorts like the teenaged menace he is and conveniently ignores that Daryl's gaping like a fish because that ain't what he meant at all. Jesus Christ. “Just try not to die, alright? I think he's hit his limit.”
That sits heavy, and the apple ain't looking so tasty either, so he shoves it in his pocket for later. “'m gonna go put my stuff—up there. In a room.” He cringes and flees, catching Carl's “Second door to the left” when he's halfway up the stairs already.
Second door to the left ain't Rick's room.
It's Carl's.
Which is empty now; no signs of life apart from a big ass mattress on the floor with no sheets.
That brat went and conspired with whoever, probably Jesus judging by his stupid grinning down there, and switched up their rooms.
“The hell you thinkin', kid?” he hollers down the stairs. “I ain't takin' your-”
“Yeah, you are,” Carl hollers back. “If I gotta take Judith, I get the big room with the nice view. And I already moved. You touch my stuff, I'll end you.”
Goddamn embarrassing, all of this.
Daryl goes to the window and scowls at the close-up view of the wall, rolling his shoulder against the faint twinge of the gunshot wound. A scar by now. Unimportant, as all the rest.
None of it matters, not the sight or the room or the conspiring, because he's got things to do now; wash their clothes, find a set of sheets, get back into the duty roster, prepare for dinner with Carol and the whole lot. And that's only today.
Tomorrow, there's another day, and after breakfast with Rick like he threatened him with, he could go to Hilltop and train their people like Maggie asked him to.
And then, the day after tomorrow or maybe the day after that, when Rick counted the votes and everyone decided, they're gonna go to war.
They're gonna kill Negan, both Rick and him, and then Dwight, and then everything will be alright.
Pages Navigation
WalkerDorker on Chapter 1 Sat 23 Sep 2017 09:07AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 1 Sat 23 Sep 2017 09:07PM UTC
Comment Actions
Chainsawlicker on Chapter 1 Sat 23 Sep 2017 04:37PM UTC
Last Edited Sat 23 Sep 2017 04:45PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 1 Sat 23 Sep 2017 09:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
trollny_stark on Chapter 1 Sun 24 Sep 2017 05:46AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 1 Sun 24 Sep 2017 07:26PM UTC
Comment Actions
AmyDarko (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 06 Oct 2017 09:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 1 Tue 10 Oct 2017 09:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
mary_y on Chapter 1 Tue 13 May 2025 04:36PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 1 Wed 14 May 2025 09:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
ThedaBara on Chapter 2 Sat 30 Sep 2017 07:42AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 2 Tue 03 Oct 2017 09:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
WalkerDorker on Chapter 2 Sat 30 Sep 2017 07:58AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 2 Tue 03 Oct 2017 09:50PM UTC
Comment Actions
AmyDarko (Guest) on Chapter 3 Fri 13 Oct 2017 11:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 3 Tue 17 Oct 2017 10:47PM UTC
Comment Actions
ThedaBara on Chapter 3 Sat 14 Oct 2017 12:57AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 3 Tue 17 Oct 2017 10:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
WalkerDorker on Chapter 3 Sun 15 Oct 2017 03:31PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 3 Tue 17 Oct 2017 10:56PM UTC
Comment Actions
AmyDarko (Guest) on Chapter 4 Tue 17 Oct 2017 11:59PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 4 Sat 21 Oct 2017 09:18PM UTC
Comment Actions
ThedaBara on Chapter 4 Wed 18 Oct 2017 04:37AM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 4 Sat 21 Oct 2017 09:19PM UTC
Comment Actions
WalkerDorker on Chapter 4 Thu 19 Oct 2017 06:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
AmyDarko (Guest) on Chapter 5 Sun 22 Oct 2017 07:20AM UTC
Comment Actions
WalkerDorker on Chapter 5 Sun 22 Oct 2017 06:08PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 5 Wed 25 Oct 2017 05:44PM UTC
Comment Actions
Chainsawlicker on Chapter 5 Mon 23 Oct 2017 06:30PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 5 Wed 25 Oct 2017 05:41PM UTC
Comment Actions
AliceDays on Chapter 5 Sun 09 Aug 2020 09:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 5 Wed 19 May 2021 10:09PM UTC
Comment Actions
ZombieJenny on Chapter 6 Wed 25 Oct 2017 07:38PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 6 Wed 25 Oct 2017 08:01PM UTC
Comment Actions
ZombieJenny on Chapter 6 Wed 25 Oct 2017 08:03PM UTC
Comment Actions
AbyssWalker on Chapter 7 Sat 28 Oct 2017 02:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 7 Tue 31 Oct 2017 10:13PM UTC
Comment Actions
AmyDarko (Guest) on Chapter 7 Sat 28 Oct 2017 05:38PM UTC
Comment Actions
DrSchaf on Chapter 7 Tue 31 Oct 2017 10:14PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation