Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

If Rick wanted to lie, he'd say Daryl gets better by Junior year. Problem is, Rick's a horrible liar. Whether it’s the looming dark cloud of pressure on the horizon that comes with being upperclassmen or his father's general existence, Daryl gets somehow worse than the end of Sophomore year. Originally, Rick theorized that summer vacation would give Daryl enough time to get his head on straight by the time school came back around; it did the exact opposite, in the end. More freedom meant Daryl had more opportunities to fuck around, fight, and get involved with the wrong crowd of people.  

Rick thought, foolishly, that he could single handedly keep his boyfriend from going down the wrong path. As it turned out, that was the one crucial mistake he made. He knew that being overbearing would lead to one or two things: Daryl simmers down, or Daryl ends up despising his company. By September, the latter wins, and Daryl and Rick show up to the first day of Junior year by separate means: Rick in his car, Daryl by foot.  

Their group meets in front of the school under the big oak tree that has Maggie and Glenn's initials carved with a heart encompassing them. Daryl shows up last, almost twenty minutes after they've all gathered, ripped black jeans and cut off t-shirt sporting an old 70s rock band. Despite his bitter attitude on the phone earlier that morning when Rick had asked him if he wanted a ride, Daryl strolls up to Rick like nothing had gone down between them and pecks a quick kiss on his lips.  

"G'morning," Daryl breathes. Kissing Rick again, he's quick to apologize for his coldness. "I needed to think." 

Rick smiles. "I understand, it's all good." Or, maybe it would be all good if Rick's passenger seat hadn't been vacant of Daryl in almost three weeks.  

Over the summer, Maggie and Daryl's green hair faded completely. They tried to dye it again in July, but went swimming far too often and it rinsed out by August. They don't try again. 

Coincidentally, Maggie, Daryl, and Rick have English together. It's not with Mrs. Bucken again, but instead with a lovely, small, young woman named Mrs. Kelly. She's timid when she firsts addresses the class, explaining that it's one of her first years teaching, but she's excited to work with them. The older Daryl would've jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of this, but this Daryl punctuates each of her sentences with the snapping of his red rubber band. 

Old, worn, drained of color, the band has seen better days. Daryl sleeps with it on, showers with it on, gets fucked by Rick with it on, and fucks Rick with it on. With each time it cracks against his skin, Rick worries it'll snap. It never does. To Rick's right, he hears snap, snap, snap.  

The kid with the mullet from last year, Eugene, is sitting at their desk clump, too. He eyes Daryl with caution, and rightfully so, because the boy is on edge, snapping his rubber band, leg jiggling under the table. Rick gently nudges his nervous foot under the table, rubbing their calves together. Daryl freezes up at first, his sharp inhale audible to all those around him. Upon realizing it's Rick, though, and the intentions aren't malicious, Daryl relaxes. Rick sighs, continuing to rub their calves together until Daryl is calm enough. 

For the first few days of class, Mrs. Kelly only talks about the class expectations, per usual. Like her voice, her classroom rules are fair. Daryl doesn't try to fight them, he doesn't even try to haze her or puff out his chest in mock disobedience. Daryl is quiet. 

Now, they are two weeks into the year, and Daryl is trying his best to ignore Eugene in his peripheral vision. The boy in mention is clicking his pen rapidly by Daryl's right ear. As subdued as Daryl's been for the past few months, he is only one boy, and self control was never his strong suit.  

"Fucking Christ, cut that shit out," Daryl barks. Seeing this coming a mile away, Rick is quick to jump in. Daryl sits across from Rick, so it's easy for him to wrap his foot around Daryl's ankle, pulling him back.  

Eugene, once terrified of his attacker, puffs up like a bullfrog and goes face to face with Daryl. "Why? You sit there snapping that damn rubber band all class, but I can't–" 

Daryl is standing now, fists clenched at his side and his teeth bared. For a moment, Rick is stunned; Daryl hasn't done much more than the everyday activities required of him in months, yet here he is, hackles up, ready to jump over his desk and choke a kid out. The moment passes, and Rick has his arms around Daryl before he can even process getting up.  

"It's not worth it," Rick hisses. Maggie is standing now, too, her hand on Daryl's chest, glaring daggers at Eugene over her shoulder. Daryl struggles in Rick's grasp. Its foreign, and despite the circumstances, welcomed. "Hey – babe, he's not worth it. Sit down." 

At the front of the class, Mrs. Kelly is staring in shock at what just went down in a matter of seconds. Unaware of the tension forming under her nose, it must've looked like Daryl snapped out of nowhere. For the students, this isn't out of the ordinary. They know Daryl. But Mrs. Kelly doesn't, and to someone who doesn't know him, Daryl is scary. 

"I'd kick yer nuts up into yer throat if you had any!" Daryl spats. He doesn't fight against both Maggie and Rick restraining him. He knows that’s a battle he won't win. "Fucking pussy!"  

Finding it within herself, Mrs. Kelly finally steps in. "Both of you sit down or I'm calling security." Everyone shuts up then. Rick hadn't even noticed how loud it was. "You don't wanna get in trouble this early in the year, do you? Sit down and I'll let this slide." 

The first step is to move Eugene to a different desk clump. The person who replaces him is cool, calm, collected, and watched the confrontation with smiling eyes. "I'm Sasha," She greets. She eyes Daryl with curiosity, not fear, not disgust. Daryl is silent again, his feet tangled with Rick's, snapping his red rubber band.

Maggie's yard is an excellent place to go stargazing. She isn't doing much gazing, though, opting to have her tongue shoved Glenn's throat instead. Between their rolling bodies and Rick and Daryl's motionless ones, two boxes of pizza lay ajar and empty. Rick is finishing off his lemonade while Daryl scrapes up the last of the ketchup on French fry crumbs.  

"You believe in aliens, right?" Daryl asks. He's sucking on the end of a blunt. 

"Of course." 

Daryl smiles. "Good. Do you believe in an afterlife? Like, heaven and hell?" 

Rick shrugs. "No idea. I don't really ponder death, Daryl." 

Daryl frowns, licking salt from his fingertips. The action stirs something in Rick's belly, yet he makes no move to get closer to Daryl or act upon the tingling in the base of his spine. He knows how that'll end. Still frowning, Daryl lays back in the grasses, his arms behind his head like a pillow, and watches the night sky. Rick mirrors his position, grimacing slightly when a stick jabs into his shoulder blade.  

"I think when you die," Daryl breathes, snapping his rubber band, "You just... die. No blackness, no afterlife... just nothing. It's incomprehensible, really, the concept of nothingness. We have to die to figure it out." 

Rick watches him. "Does that scare you?" It should scare him. It scares Rick. It would scare Rick when he's sober.  

Daryl shakes his head, releasing trembling breaths. "I'm scared, but not of that. I'm scared because I'm not scared of it." 

"Daryl..." 

"It's just a bad high," Daryl insists. The blunt is a roach now, burning Daryl's fingertips, and Daryl is crying, but not because of the burning. "I wanna sleep out here." 

At some point during Daryl's sphleel, Maggie and Glenn abandoned them in favor of Maggie's soft bed. Rick and Daryl are alone under the stars, Daryl crying, Rick stoned and sated.   

"Can I stay with you?" Rick asks, referring to tonight and every night for the rest of their lives.  

"Yes, please," Daryl replies, hopefully with the same intentions.  

"The first book we're gonna read," Mrs. Kelly is saying, her voice gaining confidence as the minutes go by. "Is The Catcher in the Rye." She holds up a small mustard yellow paperback with red-orange carousel horses decorating the front. In the same yellow color, the title of the novel stares the class down, daunting in its serif-style font.  

When Daryl is handed his copy, he looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself. He touches it cautiously, skimming his fingers over the cover gently, as if he was afraid he could bruise it.  

“Can we make notes in these?” Daryl asks, sounding far away.  

“If you’d like, yes, these books are yours to keep if you want them,” Mrs. Kelly says. She smiles slightly at Daryl, whose eyes still scanned the book, before moving on.  

Daryl fiddles with the rubber band around his wrist, not snapping it against his skin, but feeling the texture between the pads of his fingers. Rick catches Maggie watching him, too, out of the corner of his eye. Their eyes meet, mutual understanding, and Maggie starts talking.  

“I’m excited to read this,” She says, a bit too loud, and Daryl flinches. Maggie reaches out to comfort him, then retracts her hand before it gets too close. “Sorry, sorry.” 

Daryl blinks at her, expressionless, then says: “I’m excited, too.” 

Maggie frowns at Daryl, this time actually gathering his hand between both of hers. He doesn’t fight it, lets her press her lips to each individual knuckle, dropping his hand only when she felt like her work was satisfactory enough. Daryl offers her the tiniest hint of a smile, a fake one, a forced one, but a smile nonetheless.  

“Get reading, buttercup,” Maggie says, shifting in her seat. Daryl nods and opens his book, glancing at Rick while doing so. Rick makes sure to smile, flashing his teeth and shrugging. It was near painful to do, but it makes the smile on Daryl’s face widen just the slightest bit.  

Daryl finishes The Catcher in the Rye in one night. Rick finds him three beers deep, spread eagle on his back in the dew-soaked grass of the elementary school. It’s five thirty in the morning when he finds him, stretched amongst the dented bottles, the book asleep against his ribcage. None of the pages are dog-eared, there’s not a bookmark in sight. Daryl read it all in one go, not stopping to sleep or eat, but only to drink.  

Like this, Rick finds him.  

“Daryl,” Rick says, crouching down beside him. The boy isn’t asleep, far from it; he’s blinking up at the gray sky, breathing evenly, muscles slack. For the first time in a long, long time, Daryl looks… at peace. “What’re you doin’, man?” 

“I finished it,” Daryl replies. His voice is rough, he hasn’t spoken in a while. He’s just been reading and reading and reading. He runs his tongue over his dry lips, tasting the salt in the air, wetting the dry spots of beer on the corners of his mouth. “He wanted to be the catcher in the rye, Rick.” 

Sitting back on his heels, Rick rubs his thumb over the soft skin in the crook of Daryl’s elbow. “I… don’t know what that means yet.” 

“You gotta read it.” 

“We just got it yesterday, Daryl.” Rick rubs his eyes, glancing over at the west side of the playground at where the first pink rays of the sunrise were beginning to peek out over the treetops. “Can you come home now?” 

Daryl glares at him. “Your home, or my home?” 

“Our home,” Rick urges. Daryl smacks his lips again, thoughtfully, considering everything and nothing at all. For all Rick knows, he’s thinking about Holden Caulfield and New York City.  

“I wanna go…” Daryl drifts off, the end of his sentence unclear, suspended between them in the stagnant morning air. It taunts Rick’s reach, a fleeting ghost of Daryl’s lost battles, like a cigarette burn or the welts on his wrist from his red rubber band. Where do you wanna go, Dare? “Anywhere but here.” 

Daryl has nightmares. They play with his head when he sleeps, during the hours that should rightfully belong to him peacefully, that should be an escape from his waking reality. It's unfair, in Rick's humble opinion. Rick can't help Daryl fight the battles that rage on inside his subconscious, much less when he's asleep. The best he can do is wake Daryl when the dreams become too bad. That's what he does now. 

"Daryl, Daryl. Wake up." 

Daryl wakes drenched in sweat, tears in his eyes and hand on his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat. Upon seeing Rick through the darkness, he jumps slightly, then almost immediately relaxes. With only a little bit of coaxing, he settles into Rick's embrace.  

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Rick asks, gently dancing his fingers through Daryl's hair.  

Daryl deflates under the petting and sighs against Rick's neck. "It wasn't that bad. But it was the worst one." Rick doesn't press him anymore, just continues playing with his hair and humming quietly until Daryl's ready to speak on his own. "You left me." 

This makes Rick stop in his tracks. "Left you? Like, on the side of the road?" 

Despite the circumstances, Daryl finds it within himself to chuckle dryly. "No, Rick. Like, you dumped me." 

Rick doesn't reply right away. He doesn't resume his caresses or humming. He just lays there, feeling Daryl's heartbeat against his own and memorizing for the umpteenth time how he feels in his arms. Rick sighs, nuzzling his cheek into Daryl's hair and closing his eyes. If he's not careful, he'll fall back asleep right then and there.  

"You know that's not gonna happen, right?" Rick finally murmurs without opening his eyes. "I love you, Daryl." 

Daryl ponders for a moment. "Love isn't even real," He declares. "But if it was, I'd love you the most." 

The absurdity of the concept makes Rick laugh a humorless laugh. Daryl hesitates for a moment before laughing, too. Blushing, his cheeks hot against Rick's collarbone, Daryl falls asleep with his hand up Rick's shirt, the material of his rubber band sticking against Rick's skin. 

- 

"You finished this already, right?" Glenn asks, holding up his copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Daryl glances up from the blunt he's rolling, nodding. "Can you help me answer a few questions?" 

"Sure." Daryl licks a strip, finishing off the roll and tucking it behind his ear. "What's up?" 

They're sitting outside eating lunch, as usual, sitting criss-cross in a circle. Surrounding them is a plume of smoke, blown from puckered lips around the orange end of a Newport. Daryl hates Newports, but Carol's the only one with a pack, and they're her favorite. So they smoke Newports. 

"What's the significance of Holden's hunting hat?" Glenn asks, chewing on the end of his pencil. "I swear I'm usually really good at this stuff, but I want your input, y'know?" 

Daryl nods. "I, personally, think it signifies how he's hunting for something. Whatever it may be." 

Rick sits back, bathing in the pitiful autumn sun, listening to his boyfriend rant about Holden Caulfield. They haven't been this invested in a novel since Ethan Frome, but at least this is admiration, not hatred. Glenn sits criss-cross, scribbling notes down in his notebook. Maggie nudges Rick. 

"Hey, is he doing any better?" She asks, eyes on Daryl while she speaks to Rick. Rick watches Daryl, too, scanning from the bags under his eyes, to the rubber band on his wrist, to the scabs on his knuckles. 

"He's... getting there." Rick's nose scrunches at the choice of words that fall off his tongue. "He's fighting again." 

"Fighting who?" 

"Anyone who's stupid enough." 

Maggie smiles, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Rick attempts to muster up the energy to return the smile, but when it comes out awkward and misplaced, Maggie reaches over and takes one of Rick's curls between her fingers, tucking it behind his own ear. "I'm okay, you know," She says. Instead of pulling her hand away, she leaves it at the base of Rick's neck, scratching softly with her fingernails.  

Rick smiles at her. This time, it's genuine, and she can tell because her fingers tighten around his curls. "I know."  

"He'll be okay," Maggie continues, speaking of Daryl without looking at him. He looks fine now, deep in conversation with Glenn about ducks and hunting hats. In fact, he looks beautiful, smiling around the end of an unlit cigarette, the filter soggy from being chewed. In that moment, Rick falls in love all over again.  

"I know." 

Not five seconds after it happens, there's already a bruise forming on Eugene's cheek. Daryl is panting, up and out of his chair before anyone could sense the heat pooling in his belly – does rage become harder to control on an empty stomach? Rick hasn't seen Daryl eat in days. It's odd that that's the only thing on Rick's mind, considering his boyfriend has just delivered a nasty right hook to a boy who, in Rick's opinion, was totally asking for it.  

"Say that shit again," Daryl is snarling. Maggie doesn't put her hand to his chest and Rick doesn't try to restrain the bull opposite him. Mrs. Kelly is absent. The substitute teacher stands at the front of the classroom with his mouth parted and his hands limp at his sides. He's a small Indian man, with eyes the color of dark roast coffee, blow to three times their size. Trapped between his duties as an authority figure and his moral integrity, he remains a neutral party, as does everyone else in the class. Through clenched teeth, tendons on his arms showing, Daryl repeats, "Say that shit again." 

Bruised cheek, wet irises, balled fists, Eugene says that shit again. "I just – I just don't understand why Holden didn't just kill himself, you know? His life is so, so hard – I'm not strong enough for that. I would've killed myself, I think." 

Daryl says absolutely nothing. There's nothing for Daryl to say. His knuckles are bleeding, stained the same color of his rubber band when it was fresh out of the box. Instead of saying anything, or punching Eugene again, or sitting down and acting like nothing ever happened, Daryl leaves, and Rick doesn't follow him, because Daryl is strong. Daryl is so strong.  

Stronger than Eugene.  

Rick and Daryl are in Walmart playfully fighting over which brand of toothpaste is best when they run into Tara again. Older now, she blinks at them in surprise when she rounds the corner into the dental hygiene aisle. It's eleven at night, so to find another human is bizarre in the first place – but these two, she didn't expect.  

"Rick, Daryl, hey!" Nevertheless, she's cheerful.  

"Tara, right?" Rick says, smiling in greeting. "Don't you have school tomorrow?" 

"Don't you have school tomorrow?" Tara fires back, hands on her hips. Daryl is snickering behind his palm, taking the opportunity to swipe his preferred toothpaste while Rick's distracted. Without thinking, Tara says: "You two are still together?" 

That stops Daryl in his tracks. His knuckles are still bruised from Eugene's cheekbone, and the red rubber band stands out under the fluorescent lights. Rick blinks and the floor sways beneath his feet. The playful smile disappears from Daryl's face, and Rick finds that's what pisses him off most about Tara's question. Not that someone was obviously letting the details of their relationship slip from their tongue, but because Daryl was happy two minutes ago. When something so beautiful is so rare, you tend to want to hang onto it.  

"Yeah," Daryl snaps. "The fuck does that mean?" 

Tara's eyes find the rubber band. "People talk, Daryl." 

A threatening step forward, Daryl's momentum is only slowed by Rick's arm across his chest. "Who the fuck–" 

"Leave it, Dare," Rick's says, tone cool. "Goodnight, Tara." 

They leave with Daryl's choice in toothpaste. They don't hold hands, and they don't talk about it. 

"I'll sleep on the couch tonight, if you want," Rick offers, pulling off one t-shirt in exchange for a bigger, baggier one more suited for sleeping. Daryl stares at his golden reflection in one of Rick's baseball trophies.  

Without looking away, he responds. "It's your bed." 

"I know, but you slept on the couch last night. This is fair." Rick says that lightly. None of this is fucking fair. If it were fair, they'd be cuddled up in Rick's bed, skin to skin, kissing until they fall asleep and kissing as soon as they wake up. Controlled breathing. This is fair.  

"Alright." 

Rick's couch is not uncomfortable. It's seen better days, though, picked up from the furniture store before Rick was even a thought in his parents' minds. It's plain gray, minus a few stains, and the fabric is reversible. Rick draws pictures in it under the dim light of the moon filtering through the window. He writes out his name, he writes out Daryl's name, and he encloses them safely in a heart. After staring at it, unblinking, until his eyes sting, Rick swipes the fabric and destroys the drawing.  

Rick's couch is not uncomfortable, and that's the only reason he manages to fall asleep. Restless and dreamless, Rick doesn't even recall when he slipped into unconsciousness. What he does know is that when he wakes it's not at a normal hour. He wakes because he feels someone staring at him through the darkness, eyes wide, not breathing, not daring to make a sound.  

It could be his parents, a robber, or Daryl. His parents would've said something by now, and a robber would've killed him. Which leaves only one option.  

"Daryl?"  

Daryl moves away from the doorway and to Rick's side silently, like he was gliding, and crouches next to the couch. Rick is still more asleep than awake, lulled by the knowledge that he wasn't about to get gutted in his sleep, so when Daryl whispers into his ear, he's unsure if he's dreaming or not. 

"I love you, Rick, you know that, right?" Daryl is petting his hair, gentle, sweet, Daryl's been awoken by nightmares and sought out Rick, desperate for contact and safety.  

Rick opens his eyes, having closed them at some point during Daryl's grooming, and sees Daryl clutching something to his chest with one hand. Bright red in the pale light, The Catcher in the Rye stands out against the black fabric of Daryl's t-shirt. Pages are dog-eared, ugly yellow with age, and the cover has rivers of white from where the book was folded and jostled about.  

Daryl shifts. "Can I sleep with you?" 

Rick blinks. "Down here?" 

Daryl nods.  

The first of dawn's light comes filtering through the window, and Daryl curls up on Rick's chest. The couch is barely big enough for Rick alone, but they make it work. The book sleeps on the coffee table, next to a stained ring of a time when someone forgot to use a coaster. Finding Daryl's arm, Rick rubs the sensitive skin of Daryl's wrist, along the raised scar tissue, and doesn't feel a rubber band.  

They sleep until noon, and don't go to school. 

"If you just... just breathe, okay?" 

"Breathing is easy." 

"You make it seem like it isn't." 

"Because I don't want –" 

"Stop that, will you? Just stop that." 

Daryl huffs dramatically and lays across the table, resting his head on his arms. Maggie sits across from him, crisscross in an old armchair that still held some of its fluffiness. Above them, the singular light in her basement flickers like some sort of horror movie prop. Maggie taps her fingers on her thigh in time with the flickering. She's really starting to piss Daryl off.  

"The fuck do you want from me?" He snaps, breaking the uncomfortable silence.  

"Some fucking effort."  

Daryl sits straight again, his spine going rigid, and gapes at her. "To fucking breathe? I know how to breathe, you don't have to teach me. What kind of fucking therapist are you?" 

Maggie laughs humorlessly. "I'm not a fucking therapist. I'm your concerned friend." 

Daryl scoffs. "You sound like Rick." 

"What's your fucking problem?" Maggie hisses, leaning forward. Daryl bares his teeth, more than happy to fight back. "Why are you hating Rick? He hasn't even done anything–" 

Daryl slams his hands down on the table that separates them, barking out: "I don't hate Rick. Don't ever say I hate Rick." 

"He thinks you do." 

Daryl frowns, sitting back on the couch. Maggie chews on her thumbnail and taps her foot; Daryl recognizes the effects of nicotine withdrawal. He knows its reflected on himself, too. He hasn't had a cigarette since yesterday morning before he crawled onto the couch with Rick.  

Rick. 

"That's not my fault," Daryl mutters. "It's not. I-I'm fucking trying, Maggie." He lets a note of desperation tug at his voice, to emphasize just how hard he's trying.  

"I know." Maggie sighs. She buries her face in her hands and takes a few moments to breathe. "I know. I know you are, Daryl. I'm sorry." 

Daryl sniffs. The overhead light continues to flicker obnoxiously, and the harsh color doesn't make it any better. He misses the soft lighting in Rick's room and how it made everything blue-purple-gray, cold but warm, too much and too little. He misses Rick. But Rick is home, in his blue-purple-gray room, doing homework and studying, because he's so, so good, and Daryl is so, so bad.  

So bad.  

Daryl doesn't realize he's started hyperventilating until Maggie is suddenly on the couch next to him, gently coaxing his head onto her lap. She hums to him, cradling his head, stroking his hair, and Daryl cries. He misses Rick, but Rick won't miss him. 

It makes this easier. 

Daryl skids into the coffee shop soaking wet, shaking out his hair. Rosita yelps in protests, something about ruining the hardwood floors, but Daryl throws her a look over his shoulder and flops down in a chair next to Rick. Glenn, Maggie, and Carol all sit, dry as can be, and turn their noses up at Daryl's dripping mop of hair.  

"Raining hard?" Rick jokes, stealing a kiss.  

Kissing him back, Daryl shrugs. "The rain always looks worse from inside." 

"That's poetic," Maggie comments.  

"It's true," Daryl shoots back.  

"Here," Rick says, nudging a hot chocolate in Daryl's direction. "Already ordered for you and everything." 

Daryl smiles, leaning in to kiss Rick again. "You're the best." 

"I know." 

"Hey," Carol says suddenly, her hands tucked into her sweater and playing with loose threads from the inside. Everyone turns to her expectantly. Daryl snaps his rubber band. Carol continues slowly when she realizes everyone's waiting for her to speak. "I, uh, kind of... have a boyfriend now." 

Shouts of surprises glee rise up around the table, and Carol is blushing into her chai tea latte. Glenn gives her a gentle pat on the back while Rick leans over to squeeze her hands. Her smile is enough to split her cheeks.  

"That's so great, honey," Maggie says, clasping her hands together. "Who is it?" 

"Um... you know that kid, uh, Ed in our chemistry class–" 

"Whoa," Daryl interrupts. "Wait, that Ed? Ed who's shit I rocked for harassing those girls Ed?" 

Carol rolls her eyes. "That was one time, Daryl. And you don't even know his side of the story–" 

Daryl scoffs in disbelief. "The fuck, Carol?" 

"Hey," Maggie hisses. "Leave it alone, she's happy, Daryl." 

Daryl snorts. "Whatever." 

Rick watches Daryl carefully, but the boy goes into a blank state and watches the steam rise from his hot chocolate. Sighing, Rick goes back to the essay he had been writing, and Maggie goes back to discussing weekend plans with Glenn, and Carol buries her nose in her phone again.  

No one likes Ed, but Daryl really doesn't like Ed – and Ed doesn't like Daryl. They get that out in the open the first time Carol invites him to hang out. The parking garage is covered in a fine layer of snow, one that's easy to melt if they hold their blunts close enough to the cold powder. Maggie shivers in her boots and long socks, the pale lengths of her legs visible as she stubbornly wears a black mini skirt. Fishnets obstruct the view of her skin.  

Daryl wears a pair of his own, mostly hidden under his black jeans, but where the fabric has torn on his knees, you can see the crisscross pattern of the stockings. They poke out where the cuffs are rolled up, too, right before they disappear into his shoes. His shoes are soaked through, scuffing up the snow around Glenn's car as he paces, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette. It's his pacifier, stifling his fit, and he sucks and sucks and bites down – hard – when Ed sneers in his direction.  

"Fight me, you fucking–" Daryl starts to say out of the corner of his mouth, his main priority is the cigarette and not dropping it into the snow. Rick stops him.  

"Daryl..." 

"No, Rick, if he wants to be a fucking douche he can–" 

"Daryl, please." 

Daryl scoffs and continues his pacing and chewing. Rick watches him from his perch on the hood of Glenn's car, his toes skimming the snow, until he can't take it anymore and tugs Daryl over by the sleeve of his jean jacket. Daryl stumbles slightly, but Rick takes it as a good sign because he doesn't put up a fight, and eventually settles to stand between Rick's bent legs, muttering threats under his voice.  

Ed remains protected behind Carol's watchful, narrow eyes, throwing taunting looks out of the closed window of her passenger door at the back of Daryl's head. Rick makes sure to keep Daryl's attention on him, holding the collar of his jacket and pursing his lips at each bad name his boyfriend calls Ed under his breath. 

"I'm gonna kick that cuntswab's ass, Rick. I will," Daryl promises. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and tucks it behind his ear, giving Rick easy access to his mouth.  

"I'm sure you will and I support you one hundred percent," Rick says, leaning in to snatch a kiss. To his surprise – but unfathomable delight – Daryl indulges him and deepens it. His tongue and lips are cold, tasting like the minty end of a Marlboro, and Rick eats it up, because it's so Daryl that it hurts. When they break apart for air, Rick mumbles, "I miss kissing you." 

Daryl smacks his lips. "Do we really not kiss that often?" 

Rick shrugs. "I'm not keeping track." He most certainly is, though. And no, they don't. 

Daryl kisses him again, quick, chaste pecks on his mouth, then on his nose, then his forehead. His tongue comes out when he travels down Rick's jawline, down his neck until his lips brush the fabric of Rick's jacket and he admits defeat. "S'too cold to give you a hickey," Daryl murmurs apologetically, rubbing the sensitive skin behind Rick's ear with his thumb. "Sorry, love." 

"It's fine," Rick says, smiling, breathless and happy as can be. "You can make up for it later, yeah?" 

Daryl laughs and agrees, abandoning the idea of kissing in favor of leaning forwards and resting his forehead on Rick's shoulder. Rick thinks he could've fallen asleep if things went a little differently.  

No longer hidden from Rick's view by Daryl's body, and out of Maggie and Glenn's line of sight from where they're leaning over the edge of the parking garage, Ed has a fistful of Carol's hair in his hand, whispering something inches away from her face. Rick starts, his grip on Daryl's hips tightening. In that moment, he decides he doesn’t give a fuck about what Carol wants.  

"Babe," Rick growls, nudging Daryl. "Kick his ass." 

Daryl raises his head, blinking in confusion, before following Rick's gaze over his shoulder and see the scene himself. Rick feels Daryl become hotter with rage. "What the fuck?" 

Before anyone can process what's happening, Daryl has the door practically ripped off its hinges and Ed's collar gripped between his fists. Ed's head makes a sickening smack against the concrete floor. Carol yells something that Rick can't hear over the pounding of adrenaline in his ears, and Daryl's straddle punching Ed like it's his fucking job.  

"Stop!" Carol wails. "Daryl, stop!" 

Maggie has her arm around Carol's waist, holding her back from jumping head first into the middle of a fight she won't win, and Glenn stations himself at Rick's shoulder, the pair of them ready in case Daryl needs any assistance. But Daryl doesn't, and he delivers punch after punch until Ed finds it in him to fight back. Daryl gets a mean right hook to the cheek, hard enough to have him reeling back. Before Ed can get too cocky, though, Rick's throwing himself in at his boyfriend's aid, grabbing Ed in a headlock and wrestling him to the ground.  

"My dad's a cop," Rick spits through gritted teeth as Ed struggles in his grasp. "I've been practicing how to bring down assholes since I was five. Give up, asshole." Ed goes limp in his arms.  

"You good?" Glenn's asking Daryl, who's spitting out blood in the snow. "Yeah?" 

"Yeah, 'm good."  

Glenn smiles and grips the denim across Daryl's chest. "Atta boy, Daryl." 

Daryl's teeth are straight and red.  

"The fuck, Daryl?" Carol hisses, escaping from Maggie's now reluctant grasp.  

Daryl leans against Glenn's shoulder when he replies, "The fuck me? What the fuck was he doin'?" 

Carol sniffs, pushing Rick off her boyfriend's body and glaring at them. "None of your business," She says through her teeth. Rick stalks over to Glenn and Daryl.  

Daryl growls low in his throat. "It's our business when that asshole is–" 

"He's my boyfriend," Carol says, applying pressure to Ed's wounds with her shirt sleeve. Maggie scoffs in disgust: she bought Carol that shirt. "I don't – I haven't said anything about you and Rick." 

Daryl pauses. "What about me and Rick?" 

"Stop," Rick says, stepping between them. "Stop. This isn't about me and Daryl, Carol. Ed's a fucking asshole–" 

"Want round two, douche-bag?" Ed hisses from his very unthreatening position on the ground. Daryl lurches from Glenn's arms and is almost on top of Ed again before Maggie stops him with an arm across his chest.  

"Leave it," Maggie says, deadpan. She waits until Daryl is back at Glenn's shoulder. To Carol, she continues: "Look, we love you, Carol, but we won't support this. We all saw what was happening just now. And we aren't blind, we see the bruises and the cuts." 

Carol sniffles, Ed leers, and somewhere, a bird sings.  

"Then you aren't my friends," Carol declares after a moment's silence.  

Maggie measures the weight of her words. "I guess we aren't. Let's go, boys." 

Piling into Glenn's car, they leave Carol on the roof with blood-stained snow, and they don't call her, and she doesn't call them.  

Daryl kisses Rick more than ever. Random pecks during school, long goodbye kisses, kisses with tongue, and kisses as he rides Rick's cock for the first time in months. He cries when they finish, silent tears on his face, and he tries to hide them from Rick by burying his nose in the pillow and facing the wall. Rick lets him believe he has no idea. 

"If I was going to kill myself," Daryl muses, flicking his rubber band. "I'd do it with like, pills or something. Something quiet, you know?" 

Rick looks up from reading Gatsby. "What?" 

Daryl shakes his head. "Never mind." 

Tara takes Carol's place at their table in the coffee house. She chats with Rick while he waits for Daryl to get off work, and next to them Maggie fills out an application for the position Carol quit after their fight on the roof.  

"Do you miss her?" Tara asks, sipping the last of her iced tea. The straw is stuck at the bottom between ice cubes, making an annoying slurp/bubbling sound.  

Rick shrugs. "Sometimes. I have other things to worry about, though." His eyes trail after Daryl's moving figure behind the counter. Tara watches him.  

"I'm sorry about... that night in Walmart." 

"It's fine," Rick laughs. "Really, it's fine." 

Maggie raises her eyebrows but doesn't ask.  

"Is he...okay?" Tara questions, dropping her voice. "Like, is he getting better, worse...?" 

Rick hesitates. "Better, I think." 

"Have you guys considered like, therapy or anything?"  

Maggie laughs. "Yeah, I'll get the bull tranquilizer, you guys help me load him into the trunk." 

Tara laughs reluctantly. "Good point." 

"He's getting better," Rick reinstates, firmly. "He's fine." 

Behind the counter, Daryl drops a knife and slices open the palm of his hand. Rick can hear him swear from a few yards away. "Fuck! I cut myself." 

When Rick finally falls asleep, after hours of restless turning and getting the sheets twisted around his legs, he dreams of drowning. He looks up at the water above him, watching the sunlight dance beyond the waves. It’s surprisingly peaceful. He remembers watching interviews of near-drowning victims, and they always say that in your final moments, it’s an incredibly peaceful experience. Until now, Rick called bullshit. But this is serene; his lungs aren’t screaming for air, his muscles aren’t begging him to claw to the surface. He’s just floating in blue, held in suspense, not concerned about gravity or falling or breathing.  

And then, his phone rings.  

Rick attempts to reach for it to shut the ringing off – the blasted ringing that was destroying the peace of drowning – but his arms wouldn’t work. His phone rang and rang, overheating and searing his skin, even in the water. As if on cue, his lungs and muscles began their natural protest, and the sun above him was blocked out by a looming shadow. A voice was trying to reach him through the water, desperate and begging, calling his name. At the same time, the water around Rick turned maroon, filling his nose and mouth with the taste of copper. He was floating in blood.  

“Rick!” The voice called, “Rick, please!”  

In a feat Rick tries struggling to the surface, only for the blood to turn the water around him thick and impossible to swim through. The person, the owner of the voice, whoever they are, continues to plead for help, and Rick’s heart thuds against his chest. I’m trying! He wants to yell, but when he opens his mouth, the blood runs hot and syrupy down his throat. Choking, Rick blinks until the shadow above him begins forming a face, and the voice shouting for him becomes familiar.  

“Rick, please!” Daryl is calling for him, wrists bleeding out into the water, into Rick’s mouth. His skin is impossibly pale, almost transparent enough for the sun to shine through him. “Rick, I need you, wake up, please, oh god –" 

His phone ringing is what wakes him.  

Rick shoots up, panting like mad, sweat making the sheets cling to his body. He raises a hand to his chest, feeling his heart thud to the vibrations of his phone. Half-heartedly, Rick reaches for his phone, casting a glance to the clock. 4:16 am. Daryl’s contact picture – an image of the two of them kissing in Glenn's pool – makes the screen too bright.  

“Daryl, Jesus Christ, what?” Is Rick’s icy greeting.  

“Rick, please, wake up, I need you.”  

Rick’s dream, still fresh in his disoriented mind, grips at his throat. He can still taste the blood. “What? Daryl, talk to me.” Phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, Rick fumbles for his clothes, locating his keys on his nightstand. He already knows what this is about.  

“I – need help.” Daryl’s voice sounds different. If Rick wasn’t already acutely aware of the boy’s every mood, every being, he might think it was someone else. But this is still Daryl, no matter how weak, fragile, and dead his voice sounds. “There’s blood. God, Ricky, there’s so much blood.”  

“Where are you?” Rick is thumping down the stairs, fully aware of waking the entire house.  

“My car, a few blocks away. I thought I could make it to you,” Daryl says. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

Rick doesn’t even bother grabbing his keys, instead stuffing a handful of towels under his arm and sprinting out the door. His lungs burn, his teeth feel cold where his tongue is pressed against them, but he does not stop. He keeps Daryl on the phone, not speaking or asking him to speak, just listening to his labored breathing and willing it not to stop. At some point, Rick’s body gives in, and his lungs stop their protests and his throat stops aching. It's his dream in reverse. This time, though, he will make it to Daryl. 

Daryl’s truck is easy to find. The headlights blare through the night, illuminating Rick in their spotlight when he rounds a corner. It’s parked haphazardly on the side of the street, like Daryl just jerked the wheel and didn’t bother with anything. One wheel is up on the curb, tilting it at a weird angle. Daryl hasn’t breathed in a while, his side of the phone still and quiet.  

“Daryl, hey,” Rick skids up to the driver’s window. He doesn’t know why, but he half expected Daryl to be smiling at him when he got there, lopsided and like daylight fireflies. What he sees is a corpse. This isn’t Daryl, but it’s also too Daryl, and Rick’s entire body locks up. Too pale. Too much blood. Not enough life. “Daryl, please.” 

Daryl’s eyelashes, the long ones that kiss his cheekbones delicately in the mornings, flutter. “Hey, Ricky.” One hand, near-transparent and ghastly, reaches up to feel the skin on Rick’s cheek. “You’re so beautiful, y’know that?” Blood still trickles feebly out of his wrist.  

“Oh, Daryl,” Rick sobs, leaning their foreheads together. “Oh, sweet Daryl.” 

With his mind elsewhere, Rick wraps Daryl’s wrists in the towels, moving him over to the passenger seat with ease. There’s no fight in Daryl left, hell, there’s hardly any blood left. He’s unconscious by the time Rick slams on the gas and tears off in the direction of the hospital.  

Rick should call Maggie. He considers this when he’s already in the hospital parking lot. Carrying Daryl bridal style, like he did once at the lake, smiling and laughing and stepping on dandelions, Rick dashes into through the automatic sliding doors. They take him immediately, rip him from Rick’s arms, and he is so, so alone.  

It's a case of missed time, really.   

Daryl sleeps soundly on the bed in front of Rick, his dreams undisturbed by nightmares for the first time in months. On his wrist, which is tanner than Rick remembers it being, his red rubber band sleeps soundly as well. His arms rest softly on the pristine white sheets, his fingers twitching occasionally. A long row of stitches starts from the end of Daryl's left thumb to nearly the middle of his forearm. The arm with the rubber band is still whole. 

With nothing else to do, Rick allows himself to think – albeit, irrationally. 

Could this have been prevented if Daryl wore a rubber band on each wrist? After all, he cut the one he didn't wear it on. The logical answer is no, one singular rubber band wouldn't have prevented this, but Maggie still isn't here yet and Rick begins to feel like the floor and ceiling are closing in on him. It occurs to him then that he hasn't even replied to his parent's frantic text about why he was rushing out of the house so late.  

Had to drive Daryl to the hospital. I'll explain later. 

He hopes the text provides enough information about the situation that they won't press for more or consider how truthful he's being. The clock ticks slowly by, until finally, Maggie is ushered into the room by a reaper in a white cloak.  

She looks stricken, unreal – really. Her face is pale, drained of blood and any emotion that isn't fear. When the doctor who shows her in leaves with a sympathetic glance in Rick's direction, Maggie decides the floor is a better place to deal with this.  

Maggie falls to her knees beside Daryl's bed, sobbing silently into the white sheets, struggling between wanting to hold his hand and run from the room. Rick knows this because, not minutes before, he was her, and she was him, devoid of anything.  

Rick feels sick when Maggie looks up at him, red eyes and snot on her face. "Is he... is he gonna..."  

"I don't... I don't know," Rick says.  

Maggie sniffles. "We... We were so dumb, you know?" She wipes her nose on the back of her hand, leaving streaks of snot and tears on her ivory skin. "Thinking a rubber band could've prevented this." Rick wants so badly to reach out to her, to comfort the gut wrenching force of guilt, but how can he when he hasn't even soothed his own? 

"Yeah..." Rick says, and watches the clock tick onwards. "Come here, Mags." 

And Maggie crawls into his lap – there's only one chair – and they watch Daryl breathe and breathe and breathe.  

"We contacted that brother you told us about," The doctor tells Rick after pulling him out of the room the next morning. Rick scowls, perfectly able to picture Merle on the other line, crude insults thrown over the phone about his unconscious brother. "He's on his way down." 

Rick stares. "You're not gonna let him take him home, are you? Back to the asshole who–" 

The doctor raises a hand. "No, we're going to try and prevent that, Rick. We need to talk to Daryl and Merle about it first, though." 

Frowning, Rick asks, "What other options are there?" 

"Boys homes." The doctor shrugs, not meeting Rick's eye. "At least for the summer." 

"There isn't one within a few hours of here..." Rick says, slowly. The doctor sighs, rubbing the bridge of their nose. They mutter, I know, and reach out to Rick before thinking better of it and dropping their hand. Now that Rick is alone in the hallway, he allows himself to cry.  

"A boys home?" Maggie squeaks, drawing all the attention in the dining hall to them. She slams her hand over her mouth and ducks her head, repeating quieter: "A boys home? What the fuck, Rick?" 

Rick sighs and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. "I don't know, Mags. That's what they said." 

"But..." Maggie breathes. "There's not one around here. The closest one is like three hours away." 

"I know." 

Maggie sits up straight, voice rising again. "Is-is his dad gonna agree to that?" 

Rick shrugs. "Does he have a choice?" 

"Does Daryl?" Maggie asks. "It's his life." 

"I don’t know." 

Maggie sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Rick rubs his eyes until they hurt. Hours pass and people leave and enter the dining hall, talking in hushed voices and munching on slimy pizza. Rick and Maggie's slices have gone cold along with their hearts.  

Maggie leaves at six in the evening, chasing a text from her father. "Call me, okay?" She says, lips by Rick's ear. Rick nods, squeezes her hand where it rests on his shoulder, and then he's alone.  

At six forty-seven, Merle walks in. He spots Rick after a moment of searching, one that Rick doesn't aid him with because if he can put off interaction with Merle Dixon, he sure as hell will. "Hey, Daryl wants to see you." Merle saunters around the table, raising an eyebrow at their untouched pizza. "Y'all gonna finish that?" 

Rick wrinkles his nose. "All yours, Merle." 

"Sick." 

The hallways in the hospital are empty at this hour. Moved from his room in the ER, Daryl now rests in a room on the third floor with a window facing the west. When Rick walks in, the sun is setting, and everything is orange and pink. Daryl is reading Catcher, head bent and eyebrows knitted together, staring at the pages with such intense focus Rick hardly recognizes him. He feels bad for interrupting, but he doesn't, also.  

"Hey." Rick tentatively lowers himself into the seat beside Daryl's bed. "How're you feeling?" 

Daryl smiles. "Fine. Did you eat?" 

"Yeah." Rick lies.  

Daryl frowns. "You're lying. Why didn't you eat?" 

"I wasn't hungry." 

"Rick–" 

"Daryl." Rick grows more annoyed by the second. Daryl slumps his shoulders in defeat. "Did you talk to the doctor or lawyer or whoever?" 

"Yeah." Daryl plays with a loose thread of his blanket that was once pristine before knowing his nervous habits.  

"Well?" 

Daryl pauses. He's calculating his words, turning them over in that pretty little head of his – that Rick knows. It's comforting, really, to see Daryl so alive. He already knows the answer.  

"I can't go back there, Rick," Daryl says slowly. "I just... I can't." 

"I know," Rick whispers. "I don't want you to, either. I want what's best for you." 

Daryl chews on his lip. "You know what that is, right?" 

"Do you?" 

"For the second time in my life, yeah, I do."  

Rick leans back in the chair, fighting back tears. "You know you'll be three hours away? We won't see each other until next year, Daryl." 

Daryl sniffles. "I know." It's silent. Daryl's lip is bleeding with how he chews it.  

"It's gonna be hard," Rick points out needlessly. Can they even fucking handle that? They saw each other every day and it was still hard. A terrifying thought invades his mind. Is it even worth it? Of course it is, he immediately knocks away the idea.  

"It doesn't have to be," Daryl says. He watches Rick, expression unreadable, eyes dry and mouth straight. Once again, someone voices Rick's fears for him. "Rick, is it even worth it?"  

"No, Daryl, don't do this," Rick laughs humorlessly. "Don't do this now." 

"Rick, fucking look at us." Daryl gestures wildly around the room. "Rick, I'm no good for you. You know that, Rick." 

"Fucking stop, Daryl. We don't have to do this." Rick is near hysterics, fear rising in his throat, bubbling in his belly, stampeding in his mind.  

"I want you to be happy, Rick." 

"I am fucking happy," Rick insists. So why does it feel so fucking forced? He's crying now, the tears streaming down his face freely, and still Daryl remains stoic. "Are you?" 

"Of course," Daryl whispers. "Rick, I love you so much." 

"Then why are you–" 

"Because I want what's best for you!" Daryl shouts, fists balled in the sheets. Now he cries, too, silent, angry, desperate tears. Rick finds some sick comfort in knowing this is hurting him, too. "And I'm not it. I'm just not, Rick. And being three hours away won't make us any better." 

Rick laughs wetly. "So this is fucking it?" 

Daryl hangs his head and doesn't answer. They sit in silence for a long time, until the sun is long set, and the stars above them weep as well. Rick recalls a time when they laid out under the open sky in Maggie's yard, and everything felt huge and suffocating at the same time. Daryl tasted like sadness and youth, like grass and vodka, and everything good in the world.  

And they both lied, to themselves and each other, about the future and taking it on together. Back then, Rick didn't think he was lying, and Daryl probably didn't, either. But here they are. 

Finally, only when Rick feels like he can speak without cutting up his tongue, he asks. 

"What was the first time?" 

Daryl looks away from the window. "What?" 

"You said this was the second time you knew for sure what was best for you. What was the first?" 

Daryl doesn't cry again. "Kissing you that first time. Under the bleachers." 

Rick nods. "Yeah." He gets up. "Yeah." 

He leaves without saying goodbye.