Chapter Text
They meet on the first day of freshman year in an English class Rick dreads taking.
They’re all assigned to the same desk clump, in the back left corner, the furthest from the door but the closest to the windows. Most of them Rick knows by name, but there’s one he doesn’t. He knows Maggie Greene, who’s exceptionally beautiful and seems to be the only one in the world who didn’t go through an embarrassing phase in eighth grade. Carol Peletier is familiar, too, and he had classes with Glenn Rhee throughout middle school. The stranger is seated right next to him: long, dirty blond hair, a backwards hat, scars and freckles and band-aids across his scowling face. Rick’s seen him around, sure, it's both the blessing and curse of living in a small town, but his name is unknown.
“Daryl,” He introduces himself when it’s his turn to do so, egged on by the teacher. “Dixon.” Oh, Rick knows that name. Only in brief passing, in instructions on which house to not ride his bike by. It explained the cuts and bruises, the cigarette smell, the way Glenn angles his body away just slightly.
Daryl doesn’t want to be here, he makes that perfectly clear from the start. The teacher strides around the room, ranting about course expectations and the books they’ll be reading. She knows the Dixon name, too, and Daryl tilts up his chin defiantly when she pauses by his desk, her fingertips grazing the surface of it when she lists off the various behaviors that won’t be tolerated in her classroom. Daryl grins at each one, sharp teeth poking out of chapped lips, no doubt making a mental note of each one. They make eye contact, and she moves along.
Mrs. Bucken isn’t unfair, nor is she a horrible person. She releases their reins after her spiel is finished, allows, and even encourages, them to talk quietly amongst themselves.
“This class will only work if we all get along,” She explains, eyes on Daryl. “Introduce yourselves, make friends. High school begins now.”
Daryl spits at her turned back.
Maggie lays across her outstretched arms, irritation contorting her pretty face. “As if we don’t already know each other,” She mutters. “There’s only, like, a thousand kids in this school.” She scans the group through narrowed eyes until her attention lands on Daryl. “What’s your deal, then?”
“My deal ?” Daryl echoes, eyebrows raised. “What’s yours ?”
Maggie straightens to match Daryl’s eye line, chest puffed out in challenge. “You know mine. I grew up on a farm with my Catholic father breathing down my neck and I learned how to ride horses before learning how to walk. And if you even think about hitting on me I’ll kick your nu-”
Daryl interrupts her with a sneer. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry. You ain’t my type.”
Maggie’s face goes from surprised to insulted. Daryl smirks.
“Uh,” Glenn speaks up, breaking the tension surrounding Maggie and Daryl’s staredown. “I-I’m Glenn. I have two sisters, they’re twelve - y’know, twins - and I, uh, like playing video games.”
Carol chimes in next, her voice smooth and quiet and in such stark contrast to everyone around her. “I’m Carol and I don’t really know anything about myself.” They all laugh. She blushes and hides her smile behind her hand, tucking her chin to her chest.
They all turn to Rick expectantly. He scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, I’m Rick Grimes. My dad’s the sheriff of the county.”
Everyone nods, it’s old news, but Rick doesn’t miss the fleeting hint of fear in Daryl’s blue eyes before they go dark and emotionless again. They don’t talk for a while, Maggie showing Carol some notes scribbled in a notebook and Glenn pulling out a portable gaming system, tongue poking out in concentration as his thumbs work to fight fictional enemies. Daryl picks at a peeling band-aid on his face, grimacing when the adhesive grip tugs on his skin.
Rick tilts his head, examining the red scratch he can see peeking out of it. “How’d you bust up your face?” He asks, line of sight going from the cut to the bruises under the boy’s eyes.
Daryl hesitates, fingers pausing, staring at Rick, considering. Slowly, he says: “Fell off my bike.”
“Must’ve been a nasty bail,” Rick comments, eyes wide.
“Yeah, it was sick.”
“Sounds sick,” Rick agrees. Daryl is smiling at him, a bit lopsided and showing off his crooked teeth. “So I guess we’re kinda stuck with each other for the rest of the semester, huh?” He was talking directly to Daryl, but at that point, the whole group was paying attention to their conversation, no doubt wondering how Rick manages to crack Daryl’s hard exterior.
“Seems like,” Daryl says, still grinning.
Maggie sighs. “Might as well make the most of it.”
The bell ringing punctuates her bold statement, and the rest of the class files out like a hoard, pushing and shoving to meet up with friends and groan about how they missed summer. The five of them hold back, hovering by their desk clump.
Daryl looks at them, backpack slung over one shoulder, and asks: “Do any of you smoke?”
None of them smoke, but they still join Daryl under the bleachers during lunch. It's chilly, the leaves turning red and orange and yellow, and Daryl lights a cigarette that he dug out of his back pocket while everyone sits crisscross and eat their lunch.
“You don't have food?” Carol asks. Daryl shakes his head, shrugging, and takes another drag. “Here.” She holds out a tasteless french fry. Daryl eyes it like it might attack him, but he eventually takes it, munching on it around the smoke.
Glenn has all their schedules laid out on the ground in front of them, comparing and searching for any other shared classes. “Rick, we have chemistry together first block, I didn’t even see you. Maggie and Carol, you two have second block Algebra together? Daryl, you and Rick have last block Algebra together. That’s about it.”
Rick passes his plate of food over to Daryl, silently offering him his fries. “Could be worse.”
His new friends hum in agreement. Daryl crushes out his cigarette with the heel of his boot and continues stuffing his face with food. Glenn watches him with a scrunched up nose, rolling his eyes.
“When did you start smoking?” Maggie asks.
Daryl pauses to think. “When I was nine.”
“What the hell?” Maggie gasps, baffled. “Why so young?”
“My whole family was doin’ it.” Daryl shrugs nonchalantly. “There was always cigs around. Jus’ picked one up one day and no one stopped me.”
“Your life is crazy,” Rick says, half-joking, half-not.
Daryl grins. “You don’t know the half of it.”
The first book they're assigned is Ethan Frome . It's paperback, no more than a hundred or so pages, but the text is tiny and Daryl squints down at it as he flips through it. Maggie reads the description on the back out loud and they all groan at the same time. It's about an affair in a small Massachusetts town that no doubt ends in tragedy.
“This sounds boring as shit!” Daryl exclaims, hands in the air.
The teacher ignores him, rambling on about the different themes and motifs they'd come across in their readings. Carol is already invested in it, eyebrows furrowed as she reads through the yellow pages.
“Your final essay,” Mrs. Bucken is saying, “will be on whether or not this story is a personal or social tragedy. We will have various discussions. If you wish to not partake in those, you can instead answer the question in an essay of no less than five thousand words.” The class releases pained moans and a couple heads hit the desks, Daryl’s being one of them. “Now, get reading!”
Glenn dives right in, determined to catch up to Carol, while Rick tries his hardest to focus around Maggie tapping her pen and Daryl’s motionless body beside him.
“You can already guess how this ends,” Maggie mutters, pen stilling. “You know, tragically. That's how it always is in literature. Relationships that begin in spring or summer always end happy, and relationships that begin in fall or winter end in tragedy.”
Daryl snorts. “That leaves us fucked, huh?”
“Don't swear.” Glenn frowns, looking up. “What do you mean?”
Daryl peers up from under his bangs. “We met in the fall.”
“C’mon,” Maggie complains. “It doesn't work in real life.”
Daryl shrugs, unconvinced, and lays his head back down. Rick’s pretty sure he falls asleep.
Rick manages to get through the first chapter of Ethan Frome , but he nearly loses consciousness in the process. As expected, there wasn't much action going on in Massachusetts in the early 1900s. Carol and Glenn are discussing it when the bell rings for lunch.
“It seems more like a social tragedy,” Glenn says, weaving through the crowded hallways. “It's such a small town, everything is everyone's business.”
Carol shakes her head. “I disagree. Ethan’s such a private guy…” Their voices fade out into the background as they enter the loud cafeteria, getting mixed in with the buzzing hum of dozens of teenagers screaming and whooping.
Daryl moves closer to Rick and Maggie when they go through a particularly thick throng of people, grumbling under his breath. He hovers outside the lunch lines while they grab their food, glaring as people pass by him and messing with the assistant principal.
“C’mon, man,” Rick hears Daryl say as he approaches. The boy is smiling, a shark-like thing, leaning against the monitor’s shoulder. “Lemme take smoke breaks.”
“No way, Daryl.” Luckily, his tone is light-hearted, tinted with amusement as he nudges Daryl back towards Rick. “Go eat lunch ― and no going outside!”
Daryl leads them outside anyway, the shit-eating grin still on his face. They sit in a jagged circle, picking at the not-so-appetizing food on their styrofoam trays while Daryl lights a cigarette, foot tapping quickly. The smaller his cigarette becomes, the slower his foot goes, until it still completely, the nicotine calming his nerves.
“I can’t wait to read The Catcher in the Rye ,” Maggie says, eyeing her copy of Ethan Frome like it might jump out at her. “Everyone says it’s the best book you’ll read in high school.”
Rick hums, having heard positive things about the novel from upperclassmen. “From what I’ve been told, you either love it or hate it ― no in between.”
“You don’t read that til Junior year, though,” Glenn says. “Unless you wanna read it on your own.”
Everyone laughs, already at the age where reading books in your free time was more a myth than a reality. In middle school, it was more common, but by high school they grew out of it, preferring to spend time doing less than ideal activities. Most of them, anyway: Carol and Glenn still seemed invested in it. Daryl fishes around in his pocket, tongue poking out. He finds what he’s looking for after a few seconds, a crumpled cigarette, and places it between his teeth.
“No, c’mon,” Rick chastises, going to pluck it from his mouth. “One cigarette is bad enough, you’re not smoking two in five minutes.”
“I won’t light it,” Daryl says. “I jus’ wanna chew on it. Anxiety thing.”
Rick’s eyes flicker down to Daryl’s nailbeds, chewed down and bloody. “Okay, but don’t light it.”
“You got it, Mom.”
In the distance, the bell rings. Daryl sighs, body limp, while the group packs up their stuff. He stays seated as they all stand, watching a leaf get tossed around by the wind. Rick nudges him, offering out his hand, gently coaxing.
“Nah, I’ma stay out here,” Daryl says. He glances at Rick. “Stay with me?”
Rick rolls his eyes. “Daryl, no. We can’t miss class.”
“ Yes we can,” Daryl argues, tugging on Rick’s hand. To the departing group, he calls: “See y’all later!”
Their friends wave, slightly confused, but trudge off in the direction of the school anyway. Rick admits defeat and sits back down next to Daryl, figuring if he was going to skip a block, it might as well be the last one. Daryl keeps chewing on his cigarette. He is unmoving beside Rick, minus his mouth, knees tucked up by his chest and the skin of his knees pink where they were exposed to the cold air by torn fabric. His sweatshirt, black and a couple sizes too big, is littered with holes as well. Rick stares at them, seeing only pale strips of skin. Daryl isn’t wearing anything under it.
“Aren’t you cold?” Rick asks, eyes still on the holes.
Daryl shrugs. “Nah.” He spares Rick a glance, one eyebrow raised. “Are you?”
“No.” Rick’s lie is known when there’s a gust of wind that makes his spine go rigid, the cold air cutting through his jacket and raising goosebumps on his skin. Daryl must be cold.
But he shows no evidence of such, just grins in delight until Rick shivers and presses closer. Daryl goes still, uncomfortable under Rick’s sudden weight. Before Rick can pull back and apologize, though, Daryl’s arm goes around his hips and keeps him in place. Rick blinks in surprise, cheek pressed against Daryl’s surprisingly soft shoulder.
“Sorry,” The boy murmurs. “Jus’ scared me. You can stay.”
Rick makes a content noise in his throat, nuzzling into Daryl’s warmth. The boy was a furnace, radiating heat and comfort, seemingly unaffected by the chilly autumn air.
“How come we've never known about each other til this year?” Rick asks, eyes closed and lost in his own world.
Daryl snorts. “I knew about you. Like you said, your daddy was a cop, you were best friends with Shane Walsh ‘cause his daddy was friends with your daddy, and you dated Lori Williams up until this past summer when she cheated on you with Shane.” Rick is sitting up now, frowning, confused. Daryl shrugs. “I knew you. You jus’ didn't know me.”
“That's not true,” Rick argues. “If we’re talking in terms of knowing about each other, I knew about you―”
“No,” Daryl deadpans. “You knew about my family. You knew the Dixon name. You didn't know me . It's not the same.”
“How is that my fault?”
“I never said it was.”
Rick hesitates, watching Daryl’s expression before saying: “Well, I wanna know you.” Daryl blinks, taken aback, and if he was thrown before, he's absolutely stunned when Rick rests his head back down, exhaling into his neck. “You're stuck with me.”
“Guess so.”
Daryl goes digging around in his pocket again until he finds his lighter, hands trembling as he goes to light the abused cigarette. The end refused to light, the tobacco no doubt dry and stale, the filter too moist from being shoved in Daryl’s mouth for so long. He curses, the lighter fumbling to the ground, his reflexes too slow to grab it in time.
“Colder than I thought,” Daryl murmurs offhandedly. Rick picks up the lighter for him, it’s black with the words “ Fuck off” carved into the side, messy and almost indistinguishable.
“Did you do that?” Rick asks, handing it back.
“Nah, I think I stole it from a kid who stole it from another kid who probably stole it from another kid.” Daryl smiles at the story, turning the lighter over in his hand, tracing the carving over the love-lines on his palm. “Don’t think I’ve ever actually bought a lighter in my life.” He chuckles, shoulders shaking in mirth. “Just steal ‘em from people.”
“The lighter industry is failing because of you,” Rick jokes, earning himself more laughter.
“Yeah…”
Rick watches him for a moment, watches him shove the cigarette back into his pocket and pick at the rip in his jeans. “Where are you going after this?” Rick asks, painfully away of time dragging on.
Daryl eyes him, searching for an ulterior motive, no doubt. “Home,” He says. “I’ll probably try and suffer through Ethan Frome or something.”
“Mm,” Rick agrees. “Can't be that bad.”
“Yes, it can.”
“You're absolutely right ― it can. Can't wait.”
“Yeah…” Daryl says, eyes on a bird a few feet away from them pecking at crumbs. “Can't wait.”
The first few weeks of high school go past in a blur. They have five or six discussions about Ethan Frome , all of which Daryl opts out of. He sits by himself in the corner of the classroom, hood up and head bent, scribbling out the answers to questions in long essays. The first time he gets a grade back, everyone ― Mrs. Bucken included ― is shocked to see the A+ inked in red at the top corner. Even Daryl blinked in disbelief, handling the paper cautiously, like it was going to explode.
“Good work,” Mrs. B had said, sounding genuine. “Keep it up.”
Daryl keeps it up. For the most part, anyway.
They finish Frome on a Friday, a warm day despite the month. Halloween is a handful of weeks away and spirits are high, the five of them skipping out to the bleachers come lunch time, high on finishing the most boring book ever.
“Social tragedy or personal tragedy?” Maggie mocks, hand dramatically throw across her forehead. “A fucking boring tragedy, I don’t give a shit.”
Today, Daryl has lunch money. He got a job at a cafe alongside Carol, and was slowly learning how to be responsible with his checks. “Ethan’s a bitch,” He declares. “And I wanna punch him in the face.”
“His wife was the problem,” Carol argues.
“Fake feminist,” Daryl tosses back.
“Shut the hell up, asshole.”
Everyone laughs. Everything's okay.
Rick leans against Daryl’s shoulder just like he did every day, listening to him dive into a lengthy conversation about the novel. Rick avoids mentioning that for a group of people who apparently hate the book with a burning passion, they sure do spend a lot of time talking about it. He smiles to himself at the thought, biting at his lip and adjusting his head.
“What’s so funny,” Daryl asks, noticing the grin on his face.
“Nothing,” Rick lies. “You're just so cute.”
“Fuck yourself, man.”
The bell rings and their friends gather up their trash and belongings. Maggie pauses, looking over her shoulder at Rick and Daryl. “Y'all staying out here?” She knew their routine by now, but she still checks every day.
“Yep,” Rick answers.
“Okay, have fun.”
No one ever asks what they do when they skip their last block, which is at least once a week. It's easy to assume: talk and smoke. Rick talks, Daryl smokes. This time, Daryl has something different in mind.
“You ever try weed?” Daryl asks, as if Rick didn't cringe at the sight of cigarettes every day.
Rick snorts. “Of course not!”
Daryl raises his eyebrows, exposing his cornflower blue irises from their normal hiding spot under his bangs. “You wanna?” He’s already digging around in his backpack, retrieving a small baggy and a strange looking object. Noticing Rick’s confused look, he says: “It's a bowl.”
“I dunno…”
“You could try shotgunning?” Daryl offers. Almost like it was second nature, Daryl empties the weed onto his phone screen, using his thumb and forefinger to grind it up. Then, he wets the pad of his finger with his tongue, just slightly, and scoops up the weed, packing the bowl. Rick watches, mesmerized, and almost forgets he has no idea what Daryl just asked him.
“What is that?”
“Shotgunning?” Daryl looks up; Rick nods. “I inhale the smoke and breathe it into your mouth, then you inhale.” He shrugs, bowl in one hand, black lighter in the other.
Without waiting for Rick to answer, he tilts the flame downwards towards the weed, inhaling until the hidden red cherry under the herb disappears, then exhaling a cloud of white smoke. Rick notes that he tilts his head upwards and away from Rick, considerate despite his previous offer. Daryl glances at him, gesturing gently with the bowl, head cocked in question.
Rick scooches forwards slightly. “D-do it again.”
Daryl goes through the motions again, this time releasing a breathy sigh around the smoke. His head is still craned back, exposing the long length of his neck, the tendons twitching. Rick suddenly can't breathe.
“Wanna try now?” Daryl asks, somewhat raspy, coughing just slightly. “Shotgunning, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Rick says. He’s practically in Daryl’s lap now, watching the fading embers instead of Daryl’s face.
“Okay.”
The bowl was still lit, enough for Daryl to inhale deeply and hold it in his mouth. As one, they move closer to each other, lips almost touching, lips parted, as Daryl exhales gently and Rick inhales. It's, to say the very least, unexpected.
Rick yanks back, coughing up a lung, while Daryl almost falls onto his back laughing. Rick struggles to recover, simultaneously coming up with a slew of names to call Daryl when he got his voice back. The boy in question was cracking up, having to put the bowl down to avoid spilling it.
“Fuck you,” Rick croaks weakly.
Daryl wipes tears out of his eyes. “Aw, c’mon Ricky. You did great, c’mon, lighten up.”
What really pisses Rick off it that he's not pissed off at Daryl at all. He looks so good, smiling with his teeth showing, hair messy, band-aids on his face tugging in protest at his crinkling cheeks. Rick stares at him, listening to him try and stifle his giggles, remembering how close they'd been just seconds before…
“Kiss me,” Rick says before he can stop himself.
Daryl freezes. “What?”
“Kiss me.”
Daryl gaps at him for only another half of a second before suddenly Rick’s mouth is being smothered.
It's certainly not the best kiss Rick’s ever had. Daryl’s lips are chapped, wet from being bitten and licked. He tastes like smoke and strawberries, and like copper blood, and the way he moves his mouth lacks any real rhythm or skill. Rick is obsessed with it. He never wants it to stop. It stops.
“Why’d you stop,” Rick gasps, head spinning, not completely registering what just happened. Daryl is staring at him through narrowed eyes, considering.
Then, Daryl’s leaning in again. It's better, still not perfect. Their noses bump, their teeth brush, but Daryl’s hand has found its way out of his lap and onto Rick’s face, holding him still, as if he was afraid Rick was going to dart away. His fears are for naught: Rick isn't going anywhere, maybe ever again.
Rick does find himself in Daryl’s lap eventually, tightening his grip on the soft hairs at the nape of his neck when their tongues brush. Daryl’s lips move from Rick’s own down to Rick’s neck, mouth and teeth attacking the sensitive skin. Rick sighs softly, face nuzzling into Daryl’s shoulder, and then they still, panting into the shared air.
“Gotta smoke the rest of this bowl,” Daryl says, lips against the shell of Rick’s ear. “Wanna help?”
“Only if we get to kiss more.”
“Of course.”
So they smoke and they kiss, and it tastes like weed and blood and strawberries, and neither of them would change it for the world.
Daryl’s not as skilled in math as he is in English, they figure that out pretty quick. He's good at it, sure. He's a smart kid. The problem is that he's lazy and refuses to do anything but stare at Rick the entire class on the rare occasion they actually go.
“You need a tutor,” Rick declares when he sees the D scribbled on top of Daryl’s test paper ― the third one in two months.
“You be my tutor,” Daryl offers, sounding bored and uninterested. He doodles a star on Rick’s hand, then swipes his thumb over it, watching the ink smudge.
Rick thinks about it. “Okay. Come over tonight?”
Daryl straightens. “Oh really?”
“To do math ,” Rick clarifies, tapping the tip of Daryl’s nose with the eraser on the end of his pencil.
“Ugh, you're the worst.” Daryl slumps again. “I have work ‘til seven,” He says. “I’ll come over after?”
“I'll pick you up,” Rick agrees, scooping up Daryl’s hand and pressing a quick kiss to the knuckles. Daryl grins, lopsided and showing his teeth. “Only if you get me a free brownie, though.”
Daryl’s eyes go dramatically wide, faux offense on his face. His free hand slaps against his chest. “You want me to steal ? Rick, please, I have a reputation to keep up.”
Rick shakes his head, laughing. “Right.”
Daryl giggles, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. The teacher continues to ramble on, ignorant to their conversation and distractions. They sit by the window, just like they do in English, but it’s just them in their small corner. Outside, snowflakes drift down, melting as soon as they hit the ground. It wouldn’t stick, not for a while, not so early in November. The months continue to speed by, far too fast for Rick’s liking or Daryl’s mental health. Lately, he’d been slacking, avoiding school work and staying home whenever he got the chance. “It’s a thing,” Daryl insists. “Seasonal depression, or whatever. I dunno.”
Rick had made a mental note to keep an eye on him.
But that was months ago when the days just started getting colder and shorter and the shackles just found their way around Daryl’s ankles. Rick assumed, based on no prior knowledge, that come Christmas time Daryl would perk up. Now, Daryl watches the snow outside with a blank expression, tapping his pen rhythmically and not noticing how Rick stares.
“Hey,” Rick says, catching his attention again.
“Hey,” Daryl replies, teeth poking out of the corner of his grin.
Rick bites his bottom lip. “You okay?”
Daryl blinks at him, innocent confusion on his face. “What? Yeah, of course.”
Rick exhales, hoping the smile on his face looked convincing enough. “Okay, just checking.”
After studying Rick’s face for a few long, drawn out seconds, Daryl turns back to the window. You better not be lying, dickhead. Rick thinks, considering pressing his lips to Daryl’s knuckles again. But their conversation had turned a few heads, and they weren’t public yet, so he had no choice but to go back to his work and let Daryl ponder the snow by himself.
Rick arrives at the coffee shop at 6:45, hovering at the back of the line trying to spot his boy. Daryl is behind the counter, a black t-shirt stretched across his shoulders and an olive-green apron slung on his neck. Carol is dressed similarly, except with a skirt instead of black jeans. Daryl spots him and grins. Rick waves, taking a seat at a table near the fake fireplace.
“Hey, sport,” A waitress greets. Rick knows her, she goes to their school, too. Rosita Espinosa is jaw-droppingly beautiful, even at fifteen, with clear skin, full lips, and dark beige skin. “Can I get you anything?”
Rick shakes his head, watching in his peripheral Daryl clock out and yank the apron over his head. “No, thank you. Just waiting for Daryl.”
“Right.” Rosita’s lips quirk in a smile. Daryl joins them hastily, a small paper bag in his hand. “Hey. What's that?”
“Brownie for Rick,” Daryl says. “You gonna tell on me?”
Rosita rolls her eyes, tone light, hand on Daryl’s bicep. “Fuck no. See ya later.”
“Bye, Rose.” Daryl turns to Rick, handing him the brownie. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Rick stands, smiling, pressing a kiss to Daryl’s cheek. “How was work?”
Daryl shrugs. “Fine. Let's go study.”
They slide into Rick’s car, Daryl’s hand automatically switching on the radio. He finds a station with classic rock throwbacks and puts it on low so it's more background noise than anything else. Daryl dismisses his seatbelt, instead opting to bend one leg at the knee and hug it to his chest.
“You good?” Rick asks, alternating between watching the road and watching Daryl.
“Yeah,” Daryl says. He adjusts himself so he's facing Rick more, switching which leg is bent. “I've never met your parents before. Or been to your house.”
Rick blinks. “Oh yeah. It’ll be fine, they'll love you.” Daryl doesn't look convinced. “Hey, Dare. They’ll love you.”
They don't talk for the rest of the drive back to Rick’s house. Daryl stays watching the world flash by out the window, a thumbnail in his mouth and his knees to his chest. A few times, Rick considers reaching out, placing a hand anywhere just to maintain some contact or offer comfort. He doesn't. He grips the steering wheel and wonders if he’ll ever meet Daryl’s parents.
Rick lives on a dead end street, the very last house. His lawn is neatly trimmed beyond the white picket fence, he has a porch with a swing and a forest in the backyard. It's more of a wood , actually ― it's not quite big enough to be a forest. Daryl stares in wonder when they pull into the driveway. The sun has dipped behind the trees, the sky is mostly dark with a hint of orange struggling to stay lit. It's beautiful, really.
“C’mon,” Rick says, nudging him gently. “We’re studying.”
They meet at the hood of the car and Daryl stops Rick, an unreadable expression on his face. “We’re friends ,” He says. “Just friends.”
Rick blinks, then understands. “Okay. Just friends.”
“Okay.”
With Daryl half a pace behind Rick, they step through the front door. Daryl looks around, wary, on edge, subconsciously taking a step towards Rick so their shoulders brush. Rick doesn't mention it.
“Mom!” Rick calls.
“Rick!” His mother is a bright woman, she envelops him in a hug as soon as he's over the threshold. “Who's your friend?”
“Mom, this is Daryl.” Rick steps back, showing Daryl in all his glory. His mother is good at pretending she doesn't notice all the cuts and bruises, much to Rick’s ― and no doubt Daryl’s ― appreciation.
“Hello, dear! Lovely to meet you!”
“Hello, ma'am,” Daryl says, voice small. Rick comes to his rescue.
“We’re gonna go study.” Rick tugs on Daryl’s elbow. “Bye, Mom.”
“Do you want any snacks?” His mom asks, already moving towards the kitchen.
“No, thank you!” Rick insists, shoving Daryl up the stairs. “Thanks, Mom, bye.”
Rick’s room is small, quiet. The theme, established by his mother before he was even born, is dark blue. The bedspread, curtains, and rug are all shades of navy, even the lamp that Rick turns on. He thinks it’s more indigo , but everyone else disagrees. He makes a mental note to ask Daryl about it one day.
“What time do you have to be home?” Rick asks, tossing his bag on the ground. He sits on the edge of the bed, excited to eat his brownie, already tearing into the paper.
Daryl doesn’t answer right away; he’s walking around Rick’s room, looking at pictures and little league trophies and old toys. The acoustic guitar that Rick got for his eleventh birthday catches his eye. Rick never learned to play it, if the thin layer of dust over the surface was any indication. Daryl smiles down at it, thumbing over the strings. A pretty noise follows his fingers. He moves on, a complete circle around the room. Rick watches him and munches on the brownie.
Finally, Daryl stops in front of Rick. Looking at a framed picture on Rick’s nightstand instead of Rick himself, Daryl answers: “I don’t wanna go home.”
Rick pauses. It’s Thursday, a school night. “Daryl…”
“Please.” Daryl’s voice is so, so quiet.
It’s 8 o’clock. They study and they don’t talk about it. Daryl is a quick learner when he wants to be. To Rick’s surprise, he focuses on the lesson Rick is reviewing. He chews on his bottom lip and taps his foot. Rick wants to kiss him, but his bedroom door is open and his mom peers in every once in awhile.
“Is Daryl staying for dinner?” She asks on her third visit. “Dad will be home soon.”
Rick and Daryl exchange glances. “Uh, yeah,” Rick says, and Daryl nods. “Um, can he sleep over, too? We just have so much to go over…”
His mother hesitates. Daryl stops breathing.
“Yes, if it’s okay with his parents,” She decides. Daryl exhales. “Get him a sleeping bag, okay?”
“Got it,” Rick says to her. She shuts the door when she leaves, and as her footsteps fade down the hallway, Rick turns to Daryl. “Sleeping bag is just a formality. You can sleep in my bed if you want.”
Daryl is kissing him. Rick kisses back, more than happy to do so. Daryl’s hands comb through Rick’s curls, making him purr in delight and break the kiss to arch further into the touch. Daryl laughs, lips on Rick’s cheeks, forehead, nose, jaw, neck. Rick realizes when his lips are by his ear that he’s been reciting, thank you, thank you, thank you . Rick doesn’t say you’re welcome.
Sheriff Grimes recognizes Daryl right off the bat. He comes home when everyone’s already seated at the table, full plates of steak and various vegetables in front of them. The door slams, announcing his arrival and halting the conversation. When he walks in, his eyes immediately go to Daryl, and his brows raise at the same time Daryl’s entire body slouches in his chair.
“Mom said you were having a friend over,” Rick’s dad says in his booming voice. “I didn’t think it’d be a Dixon.” Daryl growls, deep in his throat, and Rick considers putting him in a chokehold to restrain him. Rick’s dad only smiles, raising his hands in surrender. “Relax, kid. I’m… familiar with your dad and brother, you look like them, that’s the only reason I knew who you were. You look more like your mom, though.”
Daryl relaxes just slightly, still on edge.
After that, dinner goes surprisingly well. Daryl and Rick’s father avoid speaking to each other (Daryl avoids speaking altogether). Rick keeps trying to prompt him into talking, like when his mother asks about his job and how he likes his classes. Daryl only talks about Ethan Frome when he's asked if he hated it as much as Rick did.
“It was too predictable,” Daryl says, talking with his hands. Rick’s parents listen, intrigued, slightly put off. Daryl only speaks about books. “The writing style was bland, the plot structure was weak ― ugh it was just the worst!”
“You got an A+ on your essay, though,” Rick points out, proudly nudging his shoulder. His parents exchange a disbelieving look.
Daryl hides under his bangs again, hands pressed together between his thighs, teeth working on his bottom lip. “Yeah, I did.” He doesn't talk for the rest of the night.
By the time it's over and Rick and Daryl manage to slip upstairs, it's 10 o’clock and Daryl’s mouth is splitting into a huge yawn. “My dad’s gonna kill me,” He says, watching Rick pull back the sheets and blankets. Rick ignores him, adjusts the pillows and feels Daryl swaying in place behind him. “My dad’s gonna kill me.”
Rick lays down first and Daryl crawls over him, sniffling. They tangle their limbs instantly, Daryl curling into Rick’s side and Rick’s fingers twisting into Daryl’s hair. Lazy excuses for goodnight kisses are shared until both of them are more asleep than awake. They sleep.
Rick’s alarm clock wakes him at 5:00 on the dot. The sheets beside him are cold, creased; there are lines on Rick’s skin from these creases, these mountain ranges on his bed. Daryl is gone. Replacing him is a gaping hole in Rick’s bed and heart. He glances around, in search of a note or a sign, anything that might offer an explanation, but there is none. Daryl is just gone.
Daryl doesn’t show up at school, either.
Maggie is nervous, Glenn is on edge, Rick is numb, Carol is… different. It’s like she knows something they don’t, and the disappearance of Daryl in the night is concerning, but not surprising. When Rick explains, everyone becomes worried and panic; Carol is cool, calm. Tranquil. English class is empty, English class is scary, Daryl’s desk is lonely.
Mrs. Bucken notices his absence, too. “Where’s Daryl?” She asks, pausing mid-lecture to address the desk clump in the corner. Rick exchanges glances with the rest of them, getting shrugs in return.
“We don’t know.”
Her frown deepens. “Well, catch him up on what we go over, okay?”
Rick agrees because he has no choice but to. He doesn’t know when he’ll see Daryl again. Maggie, Glenn, and Carol remain silent through the exchange and the rest of the class until the bell rings. For the first time since the first day of school, they eat lunch in the cafeteria.
The next day, Daryl comes back to school.
Rick thinks the floor will open up underneath Daryl’s feet and swallow him whole. It doesn’t.
Daryl is wearing a black sweater, the one with holes in it, the hood tucked up over his head. It does a good job hiding his hair, but his face is still visible. The bruises are still visible, purple and green and red under his eyes and swelling his cheek. His mouth is small, clenched shut in ― what, pain? No one knows for sure because he doesn’t talk, or he can’t talk, and he doesn’t kiss Rick, or he can’t.
“The hell happened to you?” Glenn asks, fear making him agitated. Daryl looks at him under a curtain of dirty blond hair and doesn’t reply. Foolish Glenn. “Where were you?”
Carol slams the cover of her book shut, loud and clanging the desk. They are in English class, halfway through The Great Gatsby unit. Daryl thinks this book is boring, too. He thinks Nick and Gatsby are in love. Glenn’s attention is diverted from Daryl to Carol, who he glares at, irritated.
“Leave him alone,” Carol snaps. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business when my friend is missing from school and comes back looking like he’s been jumped―”
Daryl makes a noise, a fruitful attempt at breaking up the tension. Voice rough, throat sore, eyes red with threatening tears, Daryl says: “My mom died.”
There is silence. It’s suffocating. Daryl is waiting for someone to say something, sitting on the edge of his seat, chewing on his bottom lip like he does. Glenn is pale, drained of color, drained of words, tongue parched. Carol looks away; Maggie reaches out, her hand on top of Daryl’s. Rick stares at him, hearing only his own pounding heart, praying someone will say something.
The bell rings. Daryl runs.
They run after him, all four of them sprinting down the hallway after a ghost. Teachers join them with longer legs and faster strides and not even they catch him. Rick, underneath his panic, is impressed: for a kid who smokes so much, Daryl certainly can run. Maybe he should join the track team.
Daryl runs right past the bleachers, and he keeps running, and he doesn’t stop, but everyone chasing him has to. They’re out of breath and Daryl won’t stop. Rick doesn’t remember when he started screaming Daryl’s name, but he knows his throat hurts and he forgets every word except Daryl .
“He’ll be fine,” Carol is saying, her voice a mantra, her voice a plea to the sky. “By tomorrow, by Monday, he’ll be fine.”
Daryl is found a few hours later, but it’s not ideal. He isn’t found at a park on the swings, cooling down on his own accord, he isn’t found at home, in his bed, warm and asleep. He isn’t even found cowering in an alley, smoking a cigarette, arms wrapped around himself. They expected to find him in one of these positions, not in the flooded yellow circle of a streetlight, a wild expression on his face and cops surrounding him on all sides.
The bizarre thing is, no one seems mad at Daryl. When Rick arrives at the scene alongside his father, all the officers are completely calm, standing a few yards back from Daryl. On the ground at Daryl’s feet, there’s a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka, no doubt stolen from the convenience store a few blocks back that was surrounded by cruisers and flashing lights. Daryl isn’t fighting, he’s running towards Rick when he sees him, crying and weak and crying, crying, crying.
“His mother just died,” Rick’s dad is telling a flustered shop owner. Rick’s dad is stooping, collecting the stolen items, shoving them back against the other man’s chest. “He ran two blocks and stopped, turned himself in. C’mon, man, just take your shit back and we can all go home in time for dinner.”
“I want that delinquent punished!” The shop owner roars. Officer Grimes presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, developing a headache.
“He will be.”
Rick doesn’t really register what happens after that, all he knows is that he and Daryl are pushed into the back of Rick’s dad’s cruiser, and Daryl is crying. Rick is too tired to cry, though he imagines he will in time. Rick’s dad waits until the scene clears, a good twenty minutes, an iron grip on the steering wheel, knuckles white, teeth clenched. Only when they’re alone, drenched in darkness, chorused by Daryl’s sniffles, does he speak.
“Daryl…” He begins, testing the waters. “You can’t just… damn it.”
“Dad―”
He is not Rick’s dad now, he is Officer Grimes. “You’ll be fired from your job and suspended from school for thirty days, that’s the easiest I could get you off.”
Daryl’s sniffles cease, head raising from where it was resting against Rick’s shoulder. He blinks at the back of the Officer’s head. “Okay,” He agrees. It doesn’t sound like him.
Grimes turns around. “How’d you get those bruises?”
“You know how.”
There’s a staredown, Rick is caught between the two sides. His father is studying his boyfriend, now a criminal, his boyfriend is studying his father, now a holder of information that not even Rick knows. He had assumed Daryl had gotten in a fight to get the cuts and bruises.
Tentatively, Rick’s father asks: “Is it safe for you to go home?”
Daryl pauses. “No…”
“Right. You’ll come home with us, then.”
No one talks for the rest of the ride home. Daryl stops crying. Rick doesn’t look at him, he looks out the window and pretends the breathing around him belongs to strangers.
Daryl sits on Rick’s bed, looking at his hands instead of Rick, chewing down on his bottom lip. He’s been at it for a while now, rocking in place, lip bleeding, teeth stained, body slouching. Rick fixes up his room, rearranges things that don’t need rearranging, just trying to keep his hands busy. The elephant in the room is suffocating, it adds weight upon Daryl’s shoulder, crumpling him, burying him. Rick yearns to help him bear this load, but something stops him.
Daryl swears.
Rick turns, seeing the blood drip onto his comforter before Daryl could collect it in his palms. Daryl’s mouth opens to apologize, letting more blood spill out over his lip; he shuts it quickly. Tears leak out of his eyes, silent sobs. Rick sighs.
“It’s okay.” Rick’s voice sounds foreign, even to him. “Stay here.”
He returns with tissues, a towel wet with warm water, and an ice pack. Sitting next to Daryl on the bed, he gently wipes his face with the cloth, mindful of how jumpy and sensitive the boy is. He then applies the ice to the bruise on his cheek, still swollen, still affecting how well Daryl could speak.
“If it keeps bleeding,” Rick says, pulling back to studying his handiwork. “Just use the tissues, ‘kay?” He holds the pack against Daryl’s cheek a second more, gesturing for Daryl to take over. Their fingers brush when their hands switch.
“Rick,” Daryl tries. His throat is overused or underused, either way sore and pleading him to stop speaking. “Rick.”
“Yes, baby.” Rick cups his cheek, the one not decorated in bruises and chilled by ice.
Daryl sniffles. “‘m sorry.”
Rick sighs, bringing his forehead to rest against Daryl’s. They breathe the same air for a while. “Don’t be. You’re fine, Dare. You’ll be fine.”
Daryl kisses him. It tastes like blood; Rick ignores it. The ice pack drops between them and Daryl is laying back, guided by Rick’s gentle hands on his back, on his hips, on his thighs. Rick’s bed creaks with their movements, dips under Daryl’s weight, conforms to their shapes. Daryl looks tiny against the blankets and pillows, face stained with blood and tears. The bust on his lip has reopened under Rick’s mouth. They move past it, ignore it. Rick focuses on coloring Daryl’s neck with bruises of its own. These are given with love and promises and more love.
Daryl whines. He’s crying again, keening under Rick.
Rick pulls back. “You good?”
Face wet, lip bleeding, Daryl is shaking his head. “I―”
“C’mere,” Rick says, sitting back on his heels. Rick goes for Daryl’s shirt, but he doesn’t get far. The boy’s hands are a vice around his wrists. Rick sighs. “Your shirt is covered in blood, sweetheart. You can’t sleep in it. You need to sleep.”
Daryl blinks. “Sleep?”
“Yes, baby, sleep. C’mon.”
Daryl lets him tug off his shirt. Rick sees more bruises, vast assortments of scar tissue, old and new, cigarette burns. He ignores them. He has to ignore them. Daryl does just the opposite of that, bending his spine to curl in on himself just slightly, staring down at the bruises and running his fingertips over where his stomach rolled. The baby fat would be cute if it wasn’t purple, green, and blue. Rick kisses Daryl’s forehead, urging him to lay back, to ignore what he sees.
“Lemme go wash this,” Rick says, attempting to detangle himself from Daryl’s grip. His efforts are for naught; Daryl holds on somehow tighter, enough so that their bones roll and crack in the eerily silence of the night. “Okay, never mind.”
Like something out of a ventriloquist act, Daryl moves stiff and uncoordinated under Rick’s guiding hands. They manage to nestle under blankets, Rick being mindful of where he could hold Daryl and where there were too many bruises. Rick predicts Daryl will sleep for too long, or he won’t sleep at all.
The latter wins.
In the morning, Rick will rouse Daryl with delicate kisses along the dip of his collarbone. He won’t know Daryl hadn’t slept a wink, and when he figures it out, he ignores it. He ignores it in favor of making Daryl twitch under his mouth, trying his absolute hardest to kiss away the stiffness in his muscles. Daryl, a mess of exhaustion, eyes lidded and mouth parted, falling asleep under Rick’s mouth, curves to Rick’s movements, twists, dances.
When he moves to lay on his stomach, Rick shuffles along his bedside table for the tube of lavender-scented lotion he swiped from his mother’s room the night before. Uncapping it, he squirts a considerable amount in his palms, rubbing them together and relishing in the sleepy chuckle Daryl gives him when he peeks over his shoulder.
“Smells good,” Daryl hums, face in Rick’s pillow.
“My pillow or the lotion?” Rick jokes, another kiss placed on the nape of Daryl’s neck.
Daryl moans when Rick presses the heels of his palms into the muscles of his back, pressing down, down, down, deep into Daryl’s core. “Both,” Daryl manages, the reply cut short by another choked-off moan. “Fuck.”
“Yeah?” Rick laughs, moving to straddle Daryl’s back. The bed makes protesting groans, showing its age when they shift around. Daryl continues to hum, moan, sing, each sound a perfect melody to Rick’s ears, flowing off his tongue like the perfect rhythm of poetry. Rick would not put it past Daryl to be thinking of stanzas for a poem right now.
“Yeah,” Daryl breathes. “Yeah. Rick, hey―”
“What’s up?”
“Can I suck your dick?”
“God, yeah, please.”
And they shift positions, Daryl bending despite his bruises. His mouth, once unable to even speak, closes around Rick like it was created just for that. Daryl laughs, sucks, drools, kissing along Rick’s thighs and testicles until Rick is near tears, sobbing with his hands buried in Daryl’s hair.
And when Rick finishes all over Daryl’s face and in his mouth, he kisses Daryl, tastes himself on his tongue. Daryl isn’t mortified by this, he sits back with spunk on his bruises and in his hair and he laughs like springtime and lemonade.
Christmas comes and goes. The cuts on Daryl’s face scab and peel. The bruises fade away and his voice returns to normal. The semester ends in January with promises of new experiences, new teachers to hate, new classes to skip, new friends to pretend to make. They leave their desk clump in the corner hesitantly, glancing over shoulders and tripping over each other’s feet. Mrs. Bucken ruffles Daryl’s hair one last time, tells him to quit smoking and keep writing.
“I’ll keep writing,” Daryl promises. He doesn’t promise to quit smoking. Mrs. Bucken lets him go reluctantly, knowing as well as everyone else she won’t have another Daryl pass through her classroom in a long, long time―if ever. In a lot of ways, Rick pities her. Differences aside, he knows first hand how attached one could get to Daryl Dixon. Rick finds solace in knowing he’ll still see Daryl every day.
“She liked you, you know,” Rick tells Daryl. They’re in the crowded lunch room, confined here by the melting snow outside, only able to stare wistfully out at the bleachers from behind windows.
Daryl scoffs in reply. Rolling his eyes at Rick, he takes another bite of his pizza. “Yeah, right.”
Rick laughs, reaching over to brush a strand of Daryl’s hair out of his face. “She did. Were you a bit difficult? Sure. Did you cause more trouble than you’re worth? Obviously.”
“Better have a point to all this,” Daryl jokes.
Rick’s smile only brightens. “You didn’t let me finish! Yes, you’re a dick, but you’re also smart and talented and amazing and the best damn essay writer she’ll ever have.”
Daryl mock glares at him for half a second before his facade cracks and he’s laughing, doubled over and hiding his blush in the corner of his elbow. “Fuck off, man, you jus’ wanna get laid.”
“Yeah, that too.” Rick laughs, nudging Daryl’s shaking shoulders with his own. Steering the conversation in a different direction, Rick hums thoughtfully. “Your birthday’s coming up soon.”
“It’s May tenth.” Daryl raises his head to blink in confusion. “It’s March.”
Rick shrugs. “Few months. That’s sorta soon.”
Daryl cocks an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What are you gonna get me?”
“Weed.”
Daryl’s teeth are pointy and white. “You’re the best.” With no regard to their surroundings, Daryl pulls on Rick’s til their lips connect, kissing him right there in the middle of the cafeteria. Their relationship wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t public, and it was less than expected of Daryl to make public displays of affection. Rick was in no way complaining, though.
“So,” Rick attempts to say, trying with little alacrity to escape Daryl’s mouth. “Any classes you’re feeling good about this semester?”
Daryl shrugs, places one more sloppy kiss on Rick’s cheek. “I dunno. Zoology sounds pretty cool. History;s gonna be a pain in my ass though, isn’t it?”
Rick rubs his knee sympathetically. “You have zoology with Mags, right? And we have Economics together.”
“Yeah, true.”
“Perk up, Dare.” Rick nudges him again. “Do you wanna come over after school? My parents are going out to dinner with my dad’s boss.”
“See,” Daryl says, voice cracking. “You do just wanna get laid!”
“I never denied it!”
“Rick Grimes, you give me grays.”
May 10th is not an eventful day. Rick and Daryl skip school, climbing out of their windows at four in the morning. Rick has weed stuffed in his back pocket, Daryl has blunt paper and a five dollar bill that went through the washing machine in his. Hand in hand, already started on one blunt that supposedly tastes like pineapple but tastes more like ash, they walk until they find a pond.
The sunrises as they sit, laying out a blanket Rick found in the back of his closet. The fabric is scratchy and the design is hideous, no doubt stitched by an old lady in a nursing home, but Daryl plops down on it and kneads in like a kitten. Around them, the dew sparkles pink and lilac on the flowers, twinkling like daylight fireflies and Daryl looks so lovely sitting there like he belonged. A kiss to Daryl’s chapped lips, a whispered happy birthday passed through the air between them. A grain of sand could break this contact.
“Look,” Daryl urges. A doe and its fawn tiptoe their way out of the treeline, pausing momentarily to glance in their direction. They go silent, Daryl practically buzzing beside Rick, and the pair of deer move onward, around the far edge of the pond and into the wood on the other side. Daryl is grinning, wide and sincere, the pastel light of the sunrise gleaming on his white teeth and rounded nose and Rick decides May 10th is the best day of the entire God damned year.
“You’re so good, Dare,” Rick says, and he hasn’t spoken anything truer.
“Spring is the best season,” Daryl declares. He brings the blunt up to his lips. Rick watches him, mesmerized by how the blush dusting his cheeks matches the sunrise.
If Daryl was a season, it'd be spring.
He is, after all, the merciless anger of the thunderstorms, the lull of the mornings, both a lion and a lamb. Flowers grow out of the cracks in his surface, just as they do through the frozen ground. He is the strength returning to the sun, the briefness of it all. Fleeting, dirty, and unpredictable ― Daryl is just like spring.
“Are you okay?” Rick asks him. It's a silly question, it's out of place. Daryl’s nose wrinkles, his face contorts; he is thinking it through. Daryl’s wearing that black sweater with all the holes in it, the one that’s known many hands and seen better days. It’s comfortable around his skinny frame, loose around his ribs, safe and familiar.
“Yeah.” Daryl nods and sucks the last of the smoke out of the blunt. “I’m okay.”
If he’s lying, Rick won’t find out for a long while. If he’s telling the truth, Rick will scoop him up and kiss him amongst the ferns. He does this now, one arm under Daryl’s bent knees and one around his shoulders, carrying him bridal style and stepping on dandelions.
Spring becomes Rick’s favorite season and he captures fireflies to keep in jars.
On his back on Rick’s bed, Daryl arches up towards the ceiling. The blankets stick to his back, sweat pools in the dips of his baby fat and biceps. His hand, resting on the pillow beside his head, curls and uncurls into an undecided fist, unsure how it wants to present itself to the world. Above him, Rick has one hand around Daryl’s cock and the other on the side of Daryl’s pillow unoccupied by said fist.
June has been good to them. With the end of freshman year around the corner, Daryl’s attitude changed from the bitterness that overcame him in the winter, to the windchime brightness of summer.
He’s still a brat, though.
“We―ah―gotta go meet the gang,” Daryl struggles to say, then contradicts himself by pulling on Rick to tug him into a deep kiss that was more a tangle of tongues than anything else. Rick laughs into the corner of Daryl’s mouth, drooling slightly. “Dude!” Daryl splutters. “Gross!”
“Hurry up and finish, then,” Rick challenges, twisting his fist around the head. Daryl swears far too loudly, Rick’s parents in the living room below them, and Rick has to slam his hand down on the boy’s mouth and still his movements in a flight of panic.
Panting around the makeshift muzzle, Daryl says: “Keep yer hand there.”
It takes five more strokes before Daryl is biting down on Rick’s hand until he tastes blood and finishing all over his own stomach. “Fuck,” Daryl says, strained, barely managing to kiss Rick back; he remains slack jawed while Rick places loving pecks along his mouth and cheek, waiting out the afterglow. Daryl’s fingers, once indecisive, find residence in Rick’s hair, carding through his curls and scratching at his scalp.
“Ready to go?” Rick asks, escaping Daryl’s grip. He leans over the side of the bed, fishing their clothes out from under it and coming to find his pants on the other side of the room. Clambering off the bed, he glances at Daryl over his shoulder. “The coffee house, right?”
“Where else?”
“Right. We’re like the characters in Friends .”
“I’m Joey,” Daryl declares. “You can be Ross.”
“I’m insulted. Consider yourself single.”
Daryl laughs, tossing a pillow at Rick. “Shut up. Fine, you can be Chandler.”
“Deal. Daryl, I want you back.”
“Fuck yourself.”
They listen to Mac Demarco on the way to the coffee house. Daryl sings along to every song, looking from the window to Rick, never not smiling. Rick smiles back, one hand on Daryl’s thigh. He’s unsure of this shift in emotion, reminded every day of the image of Daryl under the streetlight, bathed in yellow and cover in his own blood. His mother, laid to rest in a grave along the edges of King County’s smallest graveyard, is still a mystery to Rick. She died ablaze, smoked to death by her own cigarette, sound asleep as the flames engulfed her. Half of Daryl’s house joined her in the ashes.
But Daryl is here, smiling and alive on the way to the coffee house. Rick is taking a detour before he can even decide it's not the best idea.
Daryl glances over at him when he takes the wrong turn, not speaking or questioning him with words, just watching carefully. Rick drives with no destination in mind until he finds one, a parking garage towering over the rest of the buildings, right in the middle of town. The parking is free, there’s no one here to monitor who comes and goes, so Rick drives his car until they're at the very top.
Daryl gets out before Rick does, walking immediately over to the edge, leaning over the concrete wall and gazing down at the street below. Rick follows slowly, coming up behind Daryl with a hand on the small over his back and glancing over, too. There’s nothing down there that catches Rick’s attention, not more than the boy beside him, at least.
“Hey,” Rick says, tugs on Daryl’s shoulder to make eye contact.
Reluctantly, Daryl turns to Rick, a bit irritated from having to look away from the pigeon he had previously been invested in. “‘sup?”
Rick becomes interested in a particularly long strand of Daryl’s hair, where the brown turned dirty-blonde in the sun. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Daryl blinks, head cocked to one side. “I’m fine, Rick, promise. I’m gonna be fine.”
“Pinky promise?”
Daryl holds out his pinky, linking it with Rick’s. “Pinky promise.”
Still holding Daryl’s finger, Rick feels a crushing sensation on his lungs. It takes him a moment to realize it doesn’t frighten him, and it doesn’t feel like it’s weighing him down. Quite the opposite, really; he feels like he could float away, off that parking garage, pinky linked with Daryl’s.
“Hey, I love you, Daryl.”
Daryl doesn’t run. He doesn’t flinch or stiffen or stumble over his words. He smiles, faint bruises still coloring the wrinkles on his face, filling his laughter lines with temporary ink. “I love you, too, Rick.”
And then they’re kissing, chaste and soft, as close to the sky as they could get. And then Daryl’s pulling away, his fingers playing with the curls on the nape of Rick’s neck. “Can we go meet them now?”
Rick laughs, racing Daryl back to the car. Daryl fastens his seatbelt on his own accord now, the first time Rick hasn’t had to remind or force him to. When they secure a parking spot outside the coffee shop, Daryl pulls Rick into another kiss, repeating those three words without actually saying them, and Rick begins to believe that they will be okay.
Glenn and Maggie are sitting practically on top of each other next to a semi-awkward looking Carol when Rick and Daryl join them. There’s already two lemonades waiting for them on the table, collecting condensation and creating rings on the wood surface. Rosita is hovering like she does, one hand on her hip and the other twirling a piece of her hair, laughing at a joke Glenn told that Rick and Daryl only heard the punchline to.
“Hey,” Daryl greets. “What’s up?”
“We have news,” Maggie says instantly. We apparently meant her and Glenn, judging by their joined hands resting on the table by their drinks. With a reassuring nudge and a shared glance from Glenn that was absolutely oozing adoration, Maggie announces: “We’re dating!”
Rick laughs, sitting next to Daryl and rubbing circles in his thigh. “Congrats!”
“Really?” Daryl says, not able to avoid sneaking some sarcasm into the conversation. “Couldn’t tell.” He gestures to their joined hands, earning himself some obnoxious giggles from the two lovers. “Really though, congrats.”
“Thanks you two.” Glenn is smiling more than Rick’s ever seen him, lighting up the room. Maggie is no better, her beautiful features even more stunning when they’re beaming.
Everything goes on like normal. Carol confesses that she’s started writing poetry, even reading some when Maggie badgers her enough. Rosita sneaks them free pastries and refills and dances amongst the customers, and Rick is completely and utterly in love with Daryl Dixon. He knows the feeling is mutual, despite the nagging in his conscience telling him otherwise, when Daryl, in the middle of the conversation, holds up his pinky. Rick takes it with his own and they smile.
They’ll be okay.