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“It still feels weird, doesn’t it?”
Daryl fishes an old, wrinkled twenty out of his pocket and pushes it across the counter. “What’s that?” He doesn’t want an answer, only asks her because it’s expected.
“This.” The clerk works the old-timey cash register, puts the money in the drawer, makes change. “Trading money for goods and services.”
Daryl nods once, quick and sharp, and grunts. Sure-I-agree-just-leave-me-alone.
“Though I don’t know why we all just decided to use the same old dollars and cents. It’s not like they mean anything anymore.”
She’s a bit of a talker. Aside from that, she seems all right. A lot like Daryl really, like everybody who’s managed to survive. Six years ago, when the world went to shit, she was probably softer, pretty, maybe looked younger than her years. Now she’s lean and hard, skin parched red from too much sun. Her hair is dry and thin.
Five months ago, the battered remains of science and government emerged from a secret bunker outside Denver to deliver the cure and a way to kill huge herds of walkers in an instant – some kind of sonic blast that fries their brains with no harm to the living. No fuss, no muss. No more walkers. No more virus. Just corpses to burn and whatever’s left of whoever’s survived.
The store clerk is worse for wear, just like him, like his tribe, like everybody. But she’s clean and she has honest work. She’s waiting for him to say something but Daryl still hasn’t mastered any desire to string together long sentences, especially for the benefit of strangers.
“Yeah. It’s weird.”
He grabs the comic books and the small, stuffed bear and puts them in his bag as he heads to the door. The six-pack, he holds onto. That beer has been in those cans for more years than he cares to count and doubtless tastes like weak piss, but he figures Rick won’t mind and Daryl sure doesn’t.
Goods and services might be making a comeback, but everything at the small, makeshift general store is left over from before. In time, Daryl knows, people will make and sell home brews like they did back in the old days. Other stuff, too. Factories will start up again and so will mass production on a much smaller scale than before – everything just right, everything clean and safe and the same. But that won’t happen for a while yet.
Hell, even Rome wasn’t built in a day.
***
When leaflets started raining down from those same mysterious men in those same black helicopters – THE MONSTERS ARE DEAD, MAKE YOUR WAY TO ATLANTA FOR THE CURE – they were wary. Eugene had promised a cure once, years back, and they’d gone toward DC on his word. That had all turned to shit and lies and death. Whatever hope Daryl ever had, he’d given up then.
Not one of them had been anxious to actually trek to Atlanta. Trap, trap, everything’s a trap. But they started passing more dead walkers than live ones and they met a group coming back from Atlanta with vaccination scars on their arms who said the cure was legit. Carl pointed his gun at them for a while, not for any reason but general principle – how dare they give false hope? – before lowering it at his father’s command.
Daryl agreed with Carl. He would have stayed out in the country and avoided the supposed cure forever, regardless of what any stranger said about it. But Rick made the call, of course he did, and they headed back to Atlanta for the first time in years. Atlanta with its fucking million degree weather, where blood and guts had heated and decomposed over six years, leaving grungy, dark splotches seeped into the asphalt. Atlanta, where a few people administered shots to the hundreds and then thousands who eventually arrived, all fearing to hope.
People have died since but none of the dead who got the vaccination before kicking the bucket have turned that Daryl knows of. That’s all the proof they have that the cure works.
Most bodies still get a stake through the head, if not a gunshot, just in case.
***
Abraham’s still alive, Carol too, and Tyreese. They have something going on, the three of them together, but Daryl’s not clear on how that particular trio works. Seems to make Carol happy and that’s all that matters.
Tyreese was torn up after Sasha died back in Alexandria, and Abraham watched helplessly as both Eugene and Rosita were gunned down last year in Memphis.
Daryl doesn’t like to think about Memphis. Every last one of them went savage then, as if Rick’s darkness infected them all. None of them had any business making it out of that one alive. By the time it was over, Tara was bit. It was Glenn who put her down.
They all lost their way for a while after that, even the instinct for survival, everything but their hard outer shell and their need to stay together. All but Beth, anyway. Beth never lost that big, open heart of hers, never even lost hope altogether. But she couldn’t stand to look at most of them anymore after that, so she took off with Robbie.
Robbie, they’d met on the road. He stuck with the group for a time, long enough to fight a few battles and win Beth’s heart. Before she went, she gave Daryl a kiss for luck and told him to be happy. They’ll see her again someday. Maggie will make sure of it.
Michonne’s too fucking tough to kill. She and Rick had a thing for a while that ended about two years back. They’d been good together but better friends than lovers she said. Daryl doesn’t like to think about it. Nobody knows that seeing them together (that fucking self-satisfied just-been-sexed hitch in Rick’s step after a night with Michonne) was like ice water in Daryl’s veins, that it destroyed and taunted him every day until it was over and for some time after.
Carl and Judith are both alive, tough as nails and twice as sharp. Their mere existence is a fucking miracle and the only reason Daryl can think of to give thanks to a god he doesn’t believe in.
***
Not Michonne. She goes back to Atlanta for reasons of her own.
“There’s an apartment over the old bar in town,” Daryl says. “That seems as good a place as any to lay my head.”
Rick is wrestling with some sort of manual till, digging long, neat rows for his vegetable garden. At Daryl’s words, he stops his labor and cocks his head in that way he has to look at Daryl like he’s spouted wings.
“I figured you’d stay here with me and the kids.”
“What made you think that?”
Sure, Daryl has thought so too, even assumed, before realizing how pathetic it is. He is a grown ass man after all, perfectly capable of living on his own.
Except there’s a part of him that can’t imagine any other thing than staying with Rick now, Carl and Judith too. The kids are as good as kin but he doesn’t feel that way about their father. His feelings for Rick are far messier than that.
Rick hangs his head and peers up through his lashes. He looks almost bashful but his answer is sure. “Cause I want you to.”
No use pretending that isn’t enough so Daryl nods.
“All right.”
There's a lingering silence while Rick stares at him. He seems to be fighting a smile. Daryl doesn’t know how to deal with it so he steps back. “I got some comic books for Carl and somethin’ for Jude. Guess I’ll go give it to them.”
“Sounds good.”
“And there’ll be beer in the ice box when you’re done playing farmer for the day.”
Rick does grin then, and it’s almost big enough to chase away the shadows. There were times over the six years of hell when Rick was more beast than man. They are all what the past six years made them and Rick more than anyone gave himself over to the worst of it to keep them alive. They lost a lot along the way, but they fared far, far better than most.
So, yeah, farmer Rick has a monster lurking inside of him and he knows it. Wants to be more human and he tries. Doesn’t much matter to Daryl.
He wants it all.
***
Aside from fish, there aren’t many wild things left Daryl can kill to put meat on the table. It doesn’t mean he stops trying but it annoys him more than it should since killing game is his job, the one thing remaining that he could provide better than anyone else given the opportunity. According to the news on the radio, there’s an operation underway to repopulate the wildlife and they’re breeding livestock, but it’ll be a while before the benefits of that take hold for regular folks.
Carl doesn’t want to fish and he doesn’t see the point in hunting if there’s nothing left to kill. It’d be easy to call him sullen, but there’s an edge to him that’s angrier and more jagged than that. He half-assed his thanks for the comic books Daryl brought him. Hell, maybe he’s outgrown them. But Glenn still likes comic books so maybe that’s just Carl being Carl.
These days it seems like he’s outgrown everything, including his family. Can’t really hold it against him, given all he’s seen and done, but Rick wants so badly to pull him back, give him his childhood now. It’s painful to watch the growing tension between father and son.
When Carl announces, seemingly out of nowhere, that he’s going to Atlanta for some new program that’s training the engineers needed to rebuild, Daryl expects a loud fight. Rick goes with the clenched-jaw silent treatment instead, just walks away. Carl squares his shoulders and heads off in the other direction. The subject doesn’t come up again for a couple of days.
“If things were the way they ought to be,” Rick tells Carl over dinner. “You’d be working up the nerve to ask the girl you liked to prom.”
Rick does this to Judith too, talks about how it would be if the last six years never happened. But she was born into this world. It probably sounds like a fairy tale to her: Tales from the Land of How Things Ought To Be. It’s a land where she wouldn’t know how to use a knife for murder (she killed a man, to defend herself and her family, about two weeks before the helicopters came; it didn’t seem to faze her, Rick puked over it) or for skinning and gutting an animal in five minutes or less. But there’s still hope that some kind of normalcy will take hold for her.
It’s different for Carl. He remembers the way things were and knows the world now is nothing like that. And he may be prom age, but he’s seen and done so much that it doesn’t matter. He’s decided he’s moving out. The world needs engineers and Carl’s going to be one. As far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t need permission. He’s not wrong about that, but Daryl hates to see the hurt it causes Rick.
Carl shovels another fork full of Mac ‘n Cheese into his mouth and glances at Daryl. Something flickers in his eyes that means he’s gearing up for a smart ass response. Daryl barely shakes his head but Carl picks up on it. He goes instead with the plain spoken truth. “Doesn’t matter how things ought to be. This is how they are.”
"Yeah, this is how things are.” Rick doesn’t sound happy about it. But Carl understands it for what it is, same as Daryl does. Rick won’t fight him on leaving home.
“Michonne already said I can stay with her when I get there.”
“Damn right, you’ll stay with Michonne,” Rick tells him. “And you’ll do what she says, too.”
Carl smiles at Daryl, can you believe this guy, but Daryl barely notices. He’s watching Rick and thinking of what it’s costing him to let his boy leave after years of clinging to him for dear life in a world full of predators.
“I’ll be fine, dad.”
“I know the worst is over. Compared to these last six years, everything seems easy.” Rick leans back and sets down his fork to give Carl the dad-lecture stare. For the first time in a while, Carl seems open to it. “But the world’s still rough for anyone on their own. Hell, Atlanta’s got what? About eight-thousand people now? And no real law.”
“They’ve got volunteer police,” Carl says. “It’s a work in progress.”
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Rick says. “I need you to be serious about this, Carl. I mean it when I say you need to stick with Michonne. She might need you as much as you need her.”
Daryl figures Michonne doesn’t need anybody but if there’s someone she wants in her corner, it’ll be Carl.
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
“Jesus, yes. I promise. I’ll stick to Michonne like Daryl sticks to you.”
Daryl frowns.
“Well,” Carl drawls, sounding sly. “Maybe not exactly the same.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean, squirt?” The question’s out of Daryl’s mouth before he realizes he’s scared of the answer.
“Nothin’,” Carl says, his hands raised in surrender. “Nothin’ at all.”
***
There’s never been any question that Carl is Rick’s son, and the memory of Lori still shines bright over him. Those are his parents and he never belonged to anyone else but himself and his baby sister. Still, letting Carl go feels to all of them like losing a part of their humanity. Many of them have been around long enough that they remember the child he was.
Carol embraces Carl for several long minutes and tells him to be safe. Her tears are good to see in a way, so much emotion from a woman who grew brittle over the years. Daryl takes them as another sign that maybe she’s going to be all right.
Judith clings to Daryl, but she’s still more stoic than most of the grown-ups around her. Off to the side, Rick stands with his arms crossed, looking down the road, up to the sky, checking and re-checking the Harley that Daryl repaired and gave Carl as a going away present.
Carl finally takes Judith by the hand and walks with her over to Rick. He picks her up in his arms and the three of them hold onto each other for what seems like a long, long time. If he were a different type of man, Daryl might cry over it. He looks over to the rest of the group to see that most of them are.
Finally, Carl pries himself away and settles on the big bike. Before he takes off, he circles the group to stop by Daryl.
“You still mad at me for leaving him?” Carl asks.
“I’ve never been mad at you in my life, kid.” It’s the truth.
“Good. Because he can handle it. He’s got Judith to fuss over.”
Daryl tamps down the desire to defend Rick. It’s not fussing, is what he wants to say. He’s a good dad who loves his kids. Carl’s lucky to have him.
Carl smiles. “And he’s got you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not the same,” Carl agrees. “But it could be a lot more than what you think if you’d just let down your guard.”
Daryl doesn’t have time to respond or even react. Afterward, he’s not sure what Carl meant by it. It’s easy to convince himself that it’s nothing. Doesn’t matter. By the time Daryl gets over the shock, Carl’s a ways down the road, leaves kicking up behind the bike as he heads for Atlanta.
***
Daryl’s room over the garage has its own small kitchenette and bathroom so he could have plenty of privacy if he wanted it. Instead, he spends most of his time with Rick and Judith. Some things become routine – morning coffee, fishing trips, laughing at Rick’s attempt to farm as the chill of an early winter begins to fall, looking at Rick too long, thinking maybe Rick’s looking at him too. Carl’s words ringing in his ears.
As everyone starts to get their feet under them, other things change. Carol opens a school at the old diner on Main Street. There are a couple of school houses still standing from before but they’re miles from the center of town, and the few living parents want their few living kids nearby at all times. There are five students in all, ranging from six to sixteen. It’s a pitiful number of surviving children, even for a small town. Nobody likes to think about it.
Most nights, Daryl wakes up in a cold sweat from the nightmares, heart racing like a jet engine, trying to think about anything else but the horrors of the past. He can’t escape his skin, won’t get on his bike and leave for fear it’ll worry Rick or Judith, who are on the other side of the house dealing with nightmares of their own.
It’s only afterward, wrung out and exhausted, that Daryl allows himself to imagine what he wants instead: Rick coming to him, grabbing him, never gently, and pushing Daryl down, coming down over him, naked, trembling, and pressing him down into the mattress (down, down, down), pushing the air out of him and then taking him, hot and sweaty, growling, nipping and pushing his way in hard and dry, burning out everything of Daryl that isn’t Rick, Rick, Rick.
***
Being in love with Rick has taught Daryl more about himself than anything else, that there’s no backing out of who and what he is. But Rick isn’t like that and he doesn’t see Daryl that way (“Brother”) so nothing ever came of it and nothing ever will. Daryl’s numbed himself to that truth. Even his jealousy over Rick’s relationship with Michonne was a fact he’d had to live with at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.
The past six years has laid waste to any sense of shame Daryl may have had. But it all amounts to nothing as long as Rick is just out of reach.
***
They’re gathered at Glenn and Maggie’s, a cozy one story house on the edge of town, for a family potluck dinner. Normally, they’d talk about security, people scheduled to patrol the streets (not Rick, never Rick, he’s done with that) and keep the peace. Daryl expected they’d discuss the gang of bikers, there are four of them and that equals a pretty big gang these days, who have recently started riding into town and out, making a show of talking big and drinking big. So far, they haven’t stuck around long enough to cause trouble but they make people nervous.
Maggie’s news takes precedence over all that. She’s already four months along but she didn’t mention it until tonight. Daryl doesn’t blame her for holding it close out of superstition or fear.
The fear probably won’t go away. Fear of the pregnancy, the birth, and the world she’s bringing this child into. But she glows, she really does, and Glenn is smiling so big it looks like his face might break from the force of it.
“I’ll talk to Michonne and Carl as soon as I can get a call to go through,” Rick says softly, leaning close to Daryl so no one overhears. “See if there are any doctors in Atlanta who might want to make the trip up and help Maggie with the delivery when the time comes.”
Daryl takes a draw off his whiskey and nods. Of course that’s the first thing Rick considers. Maggie looks over to them, the barest trace of a smile on her face, but Daryl thinks he sees sadness in her eyes. Maybe she’s thinking of Lori, that horrible day, or maybe she just knows that Rick and Daryl, sitting close together on an old loveseat, are thinking of practical things. Daryl tips his glass to her.
“Listen, you two,” Abraham says to the parents-to-be. He’s buzzed from the whiskey and still overloud. “If it’s a boy, I know you might be tempted to name him Hershel. And if you do, that’s respectable. I never met your daddy but fuck if I don’t feel like I did. He was a great man.”
“He would have loved you, Abe,” Maggie says. Her smile now is big and true. “Would have cleaned out your mouth with soap at least twice a day, but he would have loved you.”
“Well, before you say that, hear me out.” Abraham laughs. “Because what I was about to say is that everything has changed, but there still aren’t any circumstances in this whole fucking world where saddling an infant with the name Hershel is a good idea.”
Glenn groans and pours himself another. “I think I can see where this is going,” he says.
Maggie laughs, enjoying the moment for what it is. Daryl feels an overwhelming sense of love for her.
“Now ‘Abraham,’ that’s a fine name for a boy,” Abraham says.
“Yep, there it is,” Glenn tells the room at large.
Abraham remains undeterred. “It’s an old name,” he continues. “Biblical. Strong. If it’s good enough for fucking Lincoln and me, well –“
“I think you’ve had enough,” Tyreese interrupts, slapping Abraham on the back.
“Come on, Rick,” Abraham says. “Back me up here.”
“Yeah, Rick, what do you think?” Glenn asks. “And don’t say ‘name it Rick’.”
Most of the group is at least as tipsy as Abraham. Rick is a little farther along than that. He’s loose-limbed and warm, pressed against Daryl’s side, his arm outstretched along the back of the loveseat behind Daryl’s head. When Daryl leans back, just so, he feels it on his neck.
“I think Hershel was the best man I’ve ever known.” Rick’s drawl gets even lower and slower when he’s been drinking and Daryl can feel the words rumble through him. “And that baby, if it’s a boy, would be lucky to carry his name. Then again, Abraham’s a hell of a name, too. And a hell of a man.”
Abraham smiles. “Thank you, brother.”
“Now, if it was me,” Rick continues. “I’d name that baby something new, start it out with something of its own. We’ve had to leave so many behind. Our own history pulls at us every day. We’ll never forget the people we lost, and we’ll keep those memories alive for our children.” He looks at Judith, who’s sitting at the coffee table with a coloring book. She’s named after a teacher Carl liked, but even he didn’t feel an overwhelming connection to her and nobody else in the room knew her at all. “This is their world now, so I say start them off fresh, however we can, and maybe they’ll show us a better way.”
The room is quiet as Glenn nods and puts an arm around his pregnant wife. Maggie’s eyes are bright with tears.
“Amen to that,” Carol says.
***
“Is she an angel or is she a devil?” Rick mutters.
“She’s a lot of one and a little of the other,” Carol says, sharing a look with him. You’d never know there was a time they were at odds.
“She wants a puppy,” Rick tells the room.
"That’s amazing,” Tyreese says.
“If by amazing you mean a big, messy pain in my ass.” Rick’s smiling at his daughter indulgently and not one surviving human on this earth could have any doubt his little girl is getting her puppy. Only Judith is unsure, but she’s suspicious by nature.
“What’s amazing,” Tyreese says, pulling Carol close. “Is that litters of puppies are coming into this world and we’re taking them in as pets for five year olds.”
“Things are different,” Daryl says. “That’s for sure.”
Rick smiles. “Truth is, Daryl wants a cute little puppy as much as Judith does. He just won’t say it.”
It’s true. Daryl denies it. “Fuck you, man. I don’t need no puppy.”
They all laugh – his people, his family – they love him but at times like these, they don’t take him seriously. He wants to remind them that he’s actually kind of a badass but they’d only laugh harder. He hides a grin.
“I just don’t know if we’re ready for a dog,” Rick says.
“What the fuck is there to be ready for, man?” Abraham snorts. “It’s a damn puppy. Get over it.”
“Abe’s right,” Daryl says. Might as well go all in on the dog thing since he’s got some support.
“Holy shit,” Abraham exclaims. “Did Daryl fucking Dixon just admit I’m right?”
“Don’t get carried away, hoss.”
“Guess I’m screwed, then,” Rick admits. “I can’t say no to Judith and Daryl both.”
Rick’s eyes are warm, like ice thawing under the morning sun. Daryl feels that warmth way down deep, in a place no one else can reach. He looks down at the floor.
“Yeah,” Maggie says, coming up behind Daryl to tap him on the shoulder. She leans down and says softly in his ear. “Rick really can’t deny you much, can he?”
“What’s that, Maggie?” Rick asks. “Sharing secrets?”
“Nah.” Maggie winks. Daryl doesn’t know what the hell she’s thinking. “Just telling Daryl here that he doesn’t ask for much.”
“Not nearly enough,” Rick agrees.
Rick’s drunk off whiskey, he’s slumped back in a kitchen chair, his legs spread out like an invitation and he has a wicked gleam in his eye.
“I must be drunker than I thought,” Daryl mumbles to himself, glad no one seems to hear him.
***
Tyreese convinced him he might as well make it official and at least get some money or trade for the work. Perseverance is a small town but they’re up to nearly sixty residents now and growing. It’s a beautiful spot, relatively safe and clean, tucked into rolling hills with breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains all around them. But more than that, it seems that somewhere along the line – Terminus, Alexandria, Memphis, or any of the hundreds of smaller skirmishes in between – their group made a name for themselves. They’ve got a reputation for survival. Seems like new people move in every week, most side-eyeing Rick with something like fear and an unspoken plea: If there’s trouble, please protect us.
Rick acts like he doesn’t notice, but Daryl knows he feels the weight of peoples’ expectations. Daryl wants to tell them all to fuck off and leave the man to tend his puny crops and raise his little girl. Let him try to find some small measure of peace in this world.
Hell, Farmer Rick doesn’t even carry a gun anymore, but that doesn’t seem to matter. People want to be on his side.
Yes, Daryl looks to Rick, too. Wants to be at Rick’s side always. And of course Rick’s the guy you want next to you in a firefight; he’s a general who leads from the front, but he hasn’t risked more or lost more or bled more for the group than any of the rest of them. He’s just the one who believed in them first and most relentlessly, the one who called them “family” and meant it.
He’s the leader, the figurehead, the goddamn mascot. Glenn and Maggie do so much for the town, they’re basically co-mayors. People respect them, but it’s not the same.
What gets to Daryl, keeps him up at night along with the nightmares of the past and the fever-dreams of what he can’t have, is that the new arrivals don’t look to Rick as simply a savior or protector. They're taking his measure, too. That's what the world has been and while the walkers are gone for now, Daryl doesn't reckon anyone who lived through them and what they wrought is going to go back to any kind of normal beneath the surface for all their lives. Maybe Rick’s right and if they all live that long, the next generation will do better.
***
And he finally has to admit, though he doesn’t know what to do with it, that Rick looks at him differently too, in a way that’s --- intense. Pity, concern, denial – but maybe more – maybemaybemaybe - flirtation, desire, want (impossible, impossible, don’t even go there, Dixon). If there are some words Daryl should say or some action he should take (grab him, kiss him, wait for the punch, tuck tail and run), he doesn’t have a clue what. So he turns from it to spend long hours at the shop, under car hoods, tinkering with motorcycle engines.
He’s tinkering away one evening in December, oblivious to everything but the motor in front of him, when the bell over the shop door jingles and he looks up to find Rick standing there.
“Another long day, I see.”
Daryl grunts a response and focuses his attention on the motor like it’s someone bleeding out and he’s the only person around with a needle and thread. Rick doesn’t say more so Daryl finally says, “Yeah, just finishing this up for Glenn.”
“It’s after eight,” Rick tells him. “I’m on my way to Carol’s to pick up Judith.”
Daryl finds himself unable to respond. Saying something normal to Rick is apparently beyond him…Oh, yeah, I forgot she was spending the day with Carol, I could have picked her up. How was your damn day, Rick? How about this weather?...He should say those things, but he can’t even manage to look Rick in the eye.
“Walk with me,” Rick says.
“M’busy.” Daryl doesn’t actually want to be a dick about it, so he adds, “I’ll see you home later.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
Daryl does look up then. He doesn’t actually say, ‘excuse you, what the fuck,’ but he’s pretty sure Rick can read it on his face.
“Walk with me,” Rick repeats. It’s definitely a command. Fucking high-handed, bossy, entitled bastard.
Still, it’s the sad and thrilling truth that every single, infinitesimal molecule in Daryl Dixon’s body was seemingly created by God or the universe or whatever for the sole purpose of responding yes whenever Rick Grimes gives an order. Son of a bitch knows it, too.
Daryl doesn’t say anything. Five minutes later he’s locking up the shop and they’re heading to Carol’s.
The weather’s mild but the temperature’s dropping; Daryl has to button his coat against a sudden blast of cold wind. The town’s sole bar, the one Daryl would have lived over if he hadn’t moved in with Rick, is a couple of blocks down and around a corner. Sweet Home Alabama is playing on the jukebox, loud enough that Daryl could sing along if he had a mind to. There’s a woman’s laughter, a janky old truck pulling in, engine loud, that’s it. Daryl looks down the clean, empty street they’re on and up at the street lights overhead and laughs. Rick glances at him.
“Still can’t get over the fact that we have street lights on Main Street,” Daryl says. “It’s like something out of Andy Griffith these days.”
“Seems like it,” Rick agrees.
“You know, Abraham found those military trucks and he’s bringing them in tomorrow.” Daryl’s not normally one to try and fill in Rick’s lengthy silences with chatter, but tonight he can’t seem to help it. “That’ll keep me busy for a while. I was thinking of just bunking in the shop tomorrow night.”
“No.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Daryl asks. “No.”
Rick shakes his head. He stops walking and turns to face Daryl, forcing him to do the same. Daryl prides himself on being able to read every kind of Rick mood, but he’s having trouble tonight. That changes, too, in an instant – whatever seemed dangerous and unknowable while they walked in silence – because looking him dead in the eye, Daryl can tell that Rick is exasperated more than anything. He runs a hand through his hair.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Rick asks.
Daryl feels himself pull back, physically and in every other way. He’s not ready for whatever this is.
“No.” That’s Daryl’s answer. And I’m sticking to it, he thinks.
Rick nods. The light from the nearest street lamp casts a soft glow, but no one’s around to see or hear them. No defense. No distraction.
“Well, then.” Rick looks around, hands on his hips, head down, then up again. He stares at Daryl like he’s forcing himself not to look away. He’s – nervous – Daryl realizes. The thought settles him some. “There’s something I should tell you.”
“All right.”
“Fine. I’ll just say it.” Rick exhales. “I bet you didn’t know that when I was at the academy, I had sex with a man.”
The air’s cold enough that Daryl can see Rick’s breath. That’s what he thinks of, how it must be a little colder than he thought, before it hits him, what Rick just said.
His double-take must be impressive because Rick laughs. “Yeah, you heard me right.”
“The police academy?”
“Yes, I was at the police academy.” Rick speaks slowly and uses small words. Normally, Daryl would be insulted but he figures in this case it’s necessary. “Up in Austell, when I had sex with a man. More than once.”
“Okay.”
“Well, you’re obviously in shock and I have a whole monologue planned out here, just in case,” Rick says. “So I’m just going to say it if that’s okay with you.”
Daryl nods. Shock’s one way of putting it. Never in his wildest imagination did he think – he’s thought about it before, of course, about Rick up and giving up pussy one day to declare himself to Daryl. He never imagined a scenario where Rick’s already been with a man.
“Daryl, stick with me here, okay?”
Daryl realizes he zoned out for a minute. “Sure, yeah. Of course. Go on.”
“I’ve felt an attraction to men, certain men, since I was old enough to know what my dick is for.” Rick’s face is flushed and his voice is shaky. This is a difficult thing and when things are difficult for Rick, Daryl wants to make them easy. So he nods and drops his hands to his sides, steps maybe an inch closer. He hopes Rick at least senses acceptance.
It must work. Rick’s voice is steadier when he continues. “I guess I was bi, but I liked women well enough that it never seemed like it would be an issue. Until I met this guy in my class –“
“Shane?” Daryl interrupts, unable to suppress a surge of jealousy.
Rick smiles. “No,” he says. “Not Shane. His name was Mike. Great guy, ended up down on the force in Atlanta.”
Daryl waits for Rick to say more. He doesn’t.
“So, that’s it?” Daryl asks. “You fucked some guy named Mike?”
“Should there be more?”
“Let me guess,” Daryl says. “You were high? Drunk?”
“We’d been drinking that first time, but that’s not why I slept with him.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Daryl knows he sounds defensive and angry but he couldn’t help it if he tried.
He doesn’t know why a part of him wants to fight this, call Rick out like he’s a liar. How did he never know about this before? If Rick wanted him at any point in over six fucking years, he could have told him, ended this torture.
“Didn’t see any reason,” Rick says. “Not for a long time. The thing with Mike only lasted until we graduated. Lori and I got serious after that and that was it. I was faithful to my wife.”
“Did she know?”
“Yeah. It didn’t bother her.”
“Right. She didn’t have to worry about you straying.” Not with anyone, man or woman, not like you had to worry about her, Daryl almost says. But he lets it hang in the air between them, unspoken. It wouldn’t be fair. She thought Rick was dead at the time.
“No, she didn’t.”
“And after?” Daryl asks. “What about Michonne?”
“You know how that was.”
Daryl does know – those two were more friends with benefits than anything else, both fine with what they had until they weren’t, then it was over and they went back to just friends, no drama necessary.
“And to be honest,” Rick tells him. “I didn’t think about it because once the world went to shit, it didn’t seem to matter, but if I had, I would have thought, well.” He falters and looks at Daryl like he wants him to fill in the blanks.
But Daryl can’t do that for him. He’s reeling and confused and strangely angry. Rick seems to understand that well enough. After all, he can read Daryl about as well as Daryl thought he could read him.
“I didn’t know there were any available men around at the time, definitely not anyone I wanted.” Rick finally says. “Maybe if I did…”
“What makes you think there is now?”
“Daryl.” Rick doesn’t say anything but his name.
The music from the bar down the street stops playing. Daryl notices the silence but he’s focused on Rick. He’s gone from anger to hope and he hates it. It fills him for some reason with that old sense of shame that he doesn’t fully understand. Open and obvious, that’s Daryl Dixon.
Rick hasn’t said that he wants Daryl. He’s only revealed that there’s no reason Daryl shouldn’t have him unless Rick simply isn’t interested, never has been, never could be. It could be the final nail in the coffin. The reason, after everything, that Daryl can’t have what he wants.
Except that Rick’s not that cruel. Deep down, Daryl knows that, too.
Rick reaches out a hand and Daryl’s involuntarily swings forward to meet it, but they don’t clasp them together palm to palm or lace fingers. Instead, Rick curls his hand around Daryl’s wrist, warm and loose. He’s holding him in place, caressing the soft inside of Daryl’s wrist with his thumb, no doubt feeling his pulse quicken.
Maybe this is good, Daryl thinks. Maybe this is right. But he’s waiting for the hit, too, the bad news, the killing blow.
Rick steps closer and there’s heat in those blue eyes. Daryl can’t help but believe in it.
Down the street, somebody screams and there’s a loud crash. Daryl doesn’t notice when Rick drops his hand because he’s already in motion, running to the bar as gunshots ring out.
***
The bikers hightail it out of town before anybody can get a beat on them. When they arrived at the bar earlier that evening, they played some Skynard on the jukebox, made too much noise, broke a couple of glasses, got asked by Jake to leave, then they pulled their guns and shot him dead. It’s a grim reminder that the real world, the violent and random and fucking unfair world, has never been far from reasserting itself in their little town.
They hadn’t met Jake and his wife, Lila, until they arrived in Atlanta for the cure. The couple came to Perseverance with the group to run the bar. They served sandwiches and cans of old beans for lunch. They foraged far and wide for liquor to serve and made moonshine for when that wasn’t enough. Jake was a good guy, a survivor. He was hard but friendly, friendlier than Daryl for sure. His love for Lila was on display for everyone to see; as far as Jake was concerned, his woman hung the moon and the stars.
They drive a stake through his brain and bury him on a Thursday in cold, hard ground.
***
Ultimately, it’s Carol who won’t let Rick off the hook because Carol’s never been able to let Rick off the hook, not for one goddamn minute, and Daryl loves her but he hates her for this, despises her when she pulls Rick aside after the funeral.
“I know what you want,” she tells him. “You want a normal life, and I wanted it for you, Rick. But everybody’s scared now.”
Her hand is on Rick’s arm. He pulls away.
“Everybody looks to you,” she continues without pause. She doesn’t spare a glance for Daryl who’s taken his position at Rick’s side. “Everybody’s asking why you don’t carry a gun, why the great Rick Grimes won’t even go on patrol.”
“He’s retired.” Daryl grinds out the words to let Carol feel the weight of his anger.
She doesn’t even blink.
“Rick, you know I’m right.”
Rick bows his head and clenches his jaw. Daryl knows, like Carol does, that he’s giving in to the inevitable.
***
Daryl offers to lend a hand but quickly backs off when Rick shakes his head. They don’t speak for the rest of the night, but Daryl stays. He keeps watch in silence. He has a lot of time to think – about how he’d like to get his hands on those bikers, how he should have known better, should have been on alert to keep their people safe.
Of Rick’s hand on his wrist, the tremor in his voice, of what Rick was about to say or do before the world interfered. It’s not worth getting into now, everything’s gone haywire and it feels almost like a dream. They have bigger problems than what Daryl wants and the needs of the group are again the weight around Rick’s neck.
Rick’s a good man who had to call on the deepest, most monstrous part of himself to protect the people he loves. Daryl knows that, he respects it. And he knows that burying those guns, for Rick, was like burying that monster. It had to feel unnatural in a way, giving them up. He carries a gun like it’s an extension of his arm, after all. But it was necessary for Rick to have any chance of becoming the man he wants to be.
Now that choice is gone.
It’s nearly two in the morning when Rick’s finally satisfied with his work. The old Colt Python shines like a new penny. Rick stands and spins it in his hand, relaxes his arm to let it hang by his side, flicks his wrist and draws lightning quick.
“I’ll head into town first thing.” Rick’s voice has the low, hollow sound of a man resigned to a terrible fate.
Daryl doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to. If Rick’s going to be Sheriff, Daryl will be at his side.
***
Daryl got another one, banged his head on the bar and choked him out in a brutal fight. He’s got the shiner to prove it. Lila blasted a shotgun shell through the last one and smiled while she did it.
All in all, a good night’s work. But violence has a way of popping off more of the same and the bikers aren’t the only trouble they’ve had in the past few weeks. Daryl’s got his eye on a family that moved in just a week ago, a husband, wife and their eleven year old son. They seem harmless enough, but weak and fussy in a way that Daryl doesn’t trust. Rick’s got his doubts, too.
Everybody’s on high alert. They won’t be taken by surprise again.
“Judith was out like a light,” Rick says finally. “No reason to wake her up just to bring her home.”
“Yeah, she’s safe with Maggie and Glenn,” Daryl reassures him.
The headlights cast a harsh, bright light against the darkness of the country road that leads home. It feels like they’re heading into another world, one that belongs only to Rick and Daryl. Careening from the violence they’ve just left behind to shelter and peace. It’s Rick’s home, yes, and Judith’s and Carl’s if he ever decides to return. But Daryl’s not a guest. There’s no division between them and he thinks of it again – like he always does, in flashes – Rick’s hand on his wrist, the look in his eyes, naked and raw, that Daryl didn’t dare name at the time.
Daryl knows now, with the certainty of the adrenaline that runs through his body, that Rick wanted him then. It’s been just a thought in the background, an idea of what could have been, on hold or maybe gone forever. But tonight’s victory makes Daryl feel strong, almost invincible in a way. It’ll be dangerous if he doesn’t get a grip on it.
They reach the farmhouse and sit in the truck for a minute longer than necessary before Rick shuts off the engine and they head inside.
Why not now? Daryl thinks. Why can’t have what I want now? Rick unlocks the door and steps inside, turns on the dim hallway light and turns toward Daryl. “Well –“
Whatever he’s going to say, he doesn’t get to finish because Daryl’s done, done with being scared and timid. Done with the second-guessing and the denial. So he does what his body tells him to, what he wants, and he walks right up to Rick, right into his space, pushes him back with the force of his own forward motion until he has Rick pinned against the wall.
Rick’s mouth is open, like he still plans to say something. His eyes are wide with surprise. Good. He should be surprised. Fuck him for every minute he wasn’t begging Daryl to do just this. Because Daryl kisses him, with Rick’s back against the wall, he kisses him, nothing gentle or questioning about it.
Rick goes still for a second, and Daryl starts to back up – ohshitohshitohshit – but then Rick smiles, half-feral, and grabs Daryl’s waist to pull him back in. He curls a hand around the back of Daryl’s head to hold him in place and he kisses him back.
It’s all teeth and tongues and both of them gripping each other for dear life, pulling each other in tight until there’s not a bit of air between them.
Rick kisses the side of Daryl’s face, his jaw, his neck. “Come on, now, come on,” he breathes into Daryl’s skin.
Daryl’s afraid to come up for air. He keeps one hand against the wall to anchor himself in place because he could just fall down from this, lose it completely and never get up. This is happening. It’s actually happening. He laughs and Rick laughs with him, kisses his mouth again and finally pushes him back just to pull him back in as quick and walk him backward into the house.
Daryl makes a protesting sound, but only because he doesn’t want to waste time walking. He’s hard as a brick, cock straining against his jeans like a schoolboy about to go off.
“Hush,” Rick says. “I’m not gonna fuck you in the hallway when I’ve been dreaming of getting you in my bed for I don’t know how long.”
Jesus. Rick’s been dreaming of this, too. The knowledge gives Daryl power and the confidence to say, “Fine, whatever you want but take me hard. I want to feel you for a long time after you’re done.”
“You’ll never stop feeling me.”
They make their way into the room and part just long enough for Rick to turn on the bedside lamp and for them to strip, both so overeager and clumsy it’s as if neither has managed to undress themselves before. Normally, Daryl would laugh but he can’t muster it. They’ve seen each other naked of course, but not like this and Daryl wants to remember it. Rick’s farmer’s tan, his muscled chest, strong thighs and the slight softness of his belly, all pale and perfect. His cock is hard and big, his desire unmistakable.
Daryl’s imagined this more times than he can count. In his mind, it’s always rough and quick, Rick taking him dry. He doesn’t know why he thinks this way, why he needs the hurt, needs Rick to do the hurting.
Rick opens a drawer and takes out a small plastic bottle of lube. He watches Daryl as he tosses it onto the bed.
“We don’t need that,” Daryl says.
“Yeah, we do.” Rick walks back to Daryl and pulls him in again for another kiss, this one slow, deep and filthy. Their naked bodies are pressed together and all Daryl wants to do is yield to it, to Rick. He twists himself around to fall backward onto the bed, pulling Rick over him.
“Please, Rick. Please.” Daryl doesn’t know what he’s asking for really, why it feels so good to beg.
“You want this rough,” Rick tells him. Because of course he knows. He drops all his weight on Daryl, rubs their cocks together and presses his forehead to Daryl’s to stare deep into his eyes. “I know, don’t worry. I’ll give it to you but you can’t make me hurt you, not in any lasting way, not ever.”
Daryl bucks up against him, giving into an urge to somehow fight it out, make Rick angry enough to turn him over and pound into him with one hard thrust. It doesn’t work, but Rick does grab his wrists to push Daryl’s hands up over his head. Daryl moans. Yes, he thinks. I win. Give me this.
Rick kisses him, a soft peck on the lips. “You.” He grinds into Daryl, forcing his painfully hard cock against his stomach. “Are.” He nips at Daryl’s jaw. That might leave a bruise. “Such.” Is he still talking? Daryl wonders. How can he even form words? “A.” Rick reaches down with one hand – the other still holding Daryl’s wrists above his head – to bend and push Daryl’s leg up to his chest, leaving him completely exposed. “Slut.”
Rick pulls back to take a look at his handiwork, Daryl open and needy, panting with want. Daryl can only imagine what he looks like, what he sounds like. “Aren’t you?” Rick asks. “Just want to give it over? Everything.”
“To you,” Daryl says. He closes his eyes and throws back his head, mouth open, just take it, he wants to scream. He can’t hold out much longer.
Rick falls down on top of him, dropping his full weight back onto Daryl, and kisses him again. He moans into Daryl’s mouth. “Only me.”
“Yours.”
“Damn right you are,” Rick says. Daryl hears the sound of the bottle cap being flipped open, of Rick squeezing the lube onto his hands. “Give me everything.”
“It’s yours,” Daryl says. “I’m yours.”
He’s writhing, desperate, trying so hard not to come before Rick’s inside of him. Then Rick’s fingering him, the slick lube warm from his touch; Daryl opens his eyes to see Rick stroking a good amount of it onto himself. Then he feels Rick’s cock pushing against him, but he holds back before the final push, denying Daryl the one thing he wants most.
Daryl pushes himself up, just a little, realizes his wrists are free and pulls Rick in for a quick kiss, all he can muster, and looks him in the eye.
“Just don’t ever let me down.”
And as Rick takes him, finally, as he plunges and bucks and moans and comes inside, and as Daryl goes off like a rocket, all the while looking into the wild, beautiful, intense blue eyes of the man he’s wanted for so long, he knows that Rick never will.
***
But violence never really ends. It’s always existed and it always will. Those who seek to do harm now are battle-hardened and damaged beyond imagination. Rick straps on a gun every day. He wears a badge and he goes into town. He does what he has to, to keep them all safe.
Daryl continues to work part time at the shop but he carries his crossbow and a gun with him and he goes on patrol. He has Rick’s back. Most of the town is armed to the teeth. With the meager population scattered and any kind of central government small, weak and distant, everybody knows that they need to take care of themselves and each other. That’s the new reality. It feels a lot like the old reality.
But for Daryl, everything’s changed. He seems to be the only one surprised that he and Rick are together. He’s sleeping in Rick’s bed, their bed. Judith took the change in stride. She closes her eyes and makes a gagging noise whenever she sees the small, quick kisses Rick plants on Daryl in front of her, his new way of saying hello and goodbye and be safe.
That’s reality, too.
***
The roughness Daryl craves, the way he needs to submit – Rick understands and he gives it to him. But he’s gentle, too. And Daryl likes that almost as much. They kiss, slow and deep and wet. Rick caresses Daryl’s skin and whispers. “You blush when I touch you, you know that?”
Daryl always knew that given the chance, he’d turn over everything to Rick, body, mind and soul. What he didn’t imagine was that Rick would do the same.
***
“What’s that?”
“Standing still, just ---“ Rick pauses, as if searching for the words. “Staying in one place long enough to call it home and mean it.”
Daryl doesn’t answer. But he thinks, yes, of course it’s strange. It’s hardly worth talking about. A year ago, he couldn’t have envisioned this life. With all the uncertainty and fear that never vanishes completely, it’s still so much more than anyone had dared to dream.
They’re leaning against the railing of the farmhouse’s big, wrap-around porch. It’s a bright, clear day. Perfect. The house is high on a hill, giving them a good vantage point to see all the way out to the main road. It’s one of the reasons Rick claimed it.
Carl and Michonne will be arriving any minute, up from Atlanta for the big celebration. Beth and Robbie are coming too, traveling in from Birmingham. It’s been a year, more or less, since the helicopters came and just a week since Maggie gave birth.
Grace Greene Rhee was born a couple of weeks early but she entered the world screaming, strong and healthy. Glenn and Carol played midwife since the doctor hadn’t yet arrived. In private, Carol will admit that Glenn was better at being a worried husband and father than helpful in any way to the birthing process. Maggie’s perfectly happy to advertise her husband’s shortcomings publicly, declaring to anyone who will listen that Glenn, who has walked bravely into danger hundreds of times and waded into an ocean of blood and guts without flinching, just about passed out when Carol handed over the scissors and asked him if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord.
Rick drapes an arm around Daryl’s shoulders and pulls him into a loose embrace, brings him around so they’re face-to-face and kisses him lightly. This is the kind of thing that happens now, right out in broad daylight, with Judith and Dandelion playing on the grass nearby. Rick’s easy affection is the thing so strange to Daryl he might never get used to it.
Off in the distance, they see an old truck turn the bend onto the gravel road. It’s loaded down with supplies and kicking up dust. That’ll be Carl and Michonne, Daryl thinks with a surge of happy anticipation. They’re only about five minutes out.
Rick smiles. “I’m all right, you know.”
That seems to come out of nowhere too, but Daryl’s not surprised by it. The truth is, he’s still got his doubts about how ‘all right’ Rick is on any given day. Daryl, after all, is witness to the look on Rick’s face when he loads his gun, the tremor that runs through him on the rare occasion he has to pull the trigger.
“Yeah, I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Rick kisses him again. This time, he pulls Daryl in tight, probably thinking that Judith’s too distracted to look up and see them or maybe he simply doesn’t care. He runs his tongue along Daryl’s lips until Daryl opens up for him. They kiss long enough and real enough that they’re both just about breathless by the end of it.
“Guess I don’t know much,” Daryl says.
“That’s true.”
“You weren’t supposed to agree, asshole.” Daryl punches Rick in the stomach, light and playful.
“What you don’t know, Daryl, is that the reason I’m okay – the reason I will always be all right – is that I have you.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s true. I love my kids but that love, it rarely gives me peace. Mostly, it keeps me up at night worrying.”
As the man who sleeps next to Rick, Daryl can definitely attest to that.
“So you don’t worry about me,” Daryl says. “Good to know.”
“You can take care of yourself,” Rick tells him. “But you’ll never have to do it alone, not while I have breath in my body. And I know you feel the same.”
“Fucker.”
It’s as close to a declaration of hearts and flowers and undying love as men like them are likely to make.
Rick pulls away and walks down the steps to gather up Judith and wait for Carl and Michonne to pull up. Tonight, they’ll all head into town to meet up with the rest of their group and celebrate one year of precarious civilization. They’ll all make fools of themselves cooing over little Grace and congratulating the new parents.
The world’s still a harsh place but it’s good enough for now, and anything that needs to get better has a chance to. They have time, and a place of their own, to figure out the rest.
~**The End**~