#haruwrites

He remembers seeing you for the first time in some math class in sophomore year, and he’d, in his hormone-ruled, bored-out-of-his-mind teenage brain, spent the better half of the period just looking at you. He never worked up the courage to say anything about it to anyone, but you were the prettiest thing he’d seen in his 16 years on Earth, and he hated the way you made his hands all clammy.

Even years later, he looks back on the months he spent being your friend, and he still feels that crushingly familiar clench of his chest.

Maybe it wormed its way almost permanently into him those weeks he first sat next to you in American History. It was a compulory course and both you and he hated it. The teacher - Durand, but Daryl took to calling him Dickhead and Deranged just to see which would make you roll your eyes the hardest - was a notorious douchebag, round glasses over a nose that was entirely too big to stay on his face and three strands of gray hair that seemed to be holding onto his head by spite alone.

He never seemed to take Daryl seriously, even though Daryl knew more than double the amount of history you did. You could pick his brain for hours about the pirates and the Sumerians and the Cherokee and their legends, and he’d let you, despite the glare that marked over his face for anyone else.

In exchange, you let him pick your brain, too. Over the piece of apple pie the two of you would share on the rare occasion you’d both scraped together enough to figure it would be worth buying, he asked about your future. He tried picturing himself with you through it all despite knowing there was nothing for him outside of this shithole town, and he listened to you talk.

He could listen to you talk for hours.

You had big dreams, considering you came from the same place he did, but he had faith you could do it. He knew you could, and even looped his pinky with yours, your thumb pressed up against his while he promised to make it to graduation. He had to watch you toss your cap and flip the bird at 4 years of hell, didn’t he?

But then winter came, and with the Christmas break rounding the corner, Merle came back too, peeling into the dirt road in front of the Dixon dump and taking Daryl along with him. You remember coming back when the second semester started, the same room that had once been used for History now a Government class, and you had hoped to suffer through it together.

You made it through one school week until you’d started asking around.

Nobody got themselves involved with the Dixons - with their surly tempers and their permanent scowls, but you’d gotten into the habit of ignoring those words when you were with Daryl - so when no answers turned up, you weren’t really surprised.

You figured he must have finally gotten his out from his old man.

It was only at graduation that you’d found out what happened to him, overhearing one of the principals talking about how both of Will Dixon’s sons had run away from home and how he’d drunkenly bragged about finally beating sense into them, and, though you knew it was selfish, as the ceremony ticked on, you still hoped Daryl would come back in time to watch your cap toss.

He never did.

When he finally did come back to Georgia, it was a little over a full year later. The old lady that ran the diner the two of you hung around after school had told him that you got a scholarship offer in May - some bigshot school out west - and that you’d packed your bags and left in August.

You weren’t set to come back until the year ended in April, and he wasn’t planning on staying.

He wasn’t planning on making staying anywhere a habit, and, in the blink of an eye, twenty years passed.

A second blink and the world fell.

Everything changed so quickly that it truly did feel like an instant as minuscule as a blink - the dinosaurs had the meteor, and life before them had the ice age - and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just a breath before a new age flooded in.

It seems like everything he thought about was about the future. Some of it he would have considered trivial before - when the next meal would come, when the next time he’s going to fill his canteen is and where the next source of freshwater is - but, in this blip of time, he hesitates to call it that.

Sometimes, when he went out on his bike or shouldered his crossbow and slipped his knives into his holsters, he thought about how Li’l Asskicker and Carl would grow up - how they would never really get to be kids in the same way Rick probably wanted them to be - and almost nothing he did felt trivial anymore.

It scared him, he guesses - how much he cared about those kids and how much everyone else did, too.

He wished someone cared about him like that when he was younger.

It was good, though, this pressure. Daryl was never really one to half-ass anything in the first place, but with the intake of Woodbury and the Council’s decision to start bringing people in, there was a new drive to care. It rippled through the prison, and he liked it, being a part of something bigger than himself.

He felt like someone new.

Someone that mattered - that did good - instead of being some asshole with a bigger asshole for a brother.

At least, he did until he saw you.

Two weeks after taking in the people of Woodbury - with one week spent out recruiting and another spent in the infirmary because they’d met some less than friendly people who definitely did not fit the recruitment criteria - he saw you from around the corner, an all too familiar face helping Carol with meal prep in the courtyard.

He didn’t eat lunch that day, and to say he avoided you was an understatement.

There was something about you that brought back feelings he would have rather left in the past. You reminded him of when he was a teenager, stuck in his shitty hometown with his piece of shit old man and no way out. But at the same time, you reminded him of those nights spent down at the creek, skipping stones and staring at the stars, that comforting lack of second-guessing because he knew he was, for the first time in his life, in the company of someone who actually wanted to spend time with him.

You reminded him of that diner with the warm apple pie, and he never could forget the first time his heart ever beat against his ribs like it was too big for his chest.

But, most of all, you reminded him of first love and his broken promise - of a future he could never have had.

Daryl hated it, being confronted with his past like that.

So yeah, maybe he did revert back to his old ways of hiding and just trying not to think about his problems, and yeah, maybe he did take one too many runs back to back so he wouldn’t have to keep fighting the urge to look for you despite simultaneously being scared shitless at the thought of talking to you, but it was successful in staying away from you, and that’s all he cared about.

Or, well, he thought it was.

Because, though it’s been nearly two decades since you’d thought about high school - with it long since becoming college, and college into adulthood - it’s crossed your mind more than you’d liked to admit lately. It’s an odd feeling, an ill-fitting nostalgia creeping through the holes of your blanket-covered cell bars, but it was oddly comforting. You never thought you’d ever think of that place as comforting, but maybe it wasn’t high school that you found yourself chasing in the dead of night.

It was him.

Daryl never really knew how popular he was - here, and back then, when those minutes before and after gym class divulged into shushed remarks about his looks and half-serious confessions of crushes muttered to the secrecy of the changeroom’s four walls - but you did. You were always on the other side of it, silent in your agreement.

Woodbury - or, well, ex-Woodbury - was no different.

He’s a far cry from that scrawny little kid you split your lunch with all those years ago, but there's still the linger of boyish handsomeness to him that made your cheeks heat when you thought about him too long. There was no mistaking him for anyone else, but that subdued, ultraviolet warmth you’d grown familiar with was gone from his eyes.

He’s not seventeen anymore, flipping his uncut hair from his face as he taught you how to skip stones and catch fireflies, but you wanted to talk to him all the same. There’s not much left from the old world - let alone much that you could have considered good, or wanted to remember - but he’s one of the few things you’d cared enough about to keep safe from the pulling tide that faded your memories.

He made that shitty town more bearable, even if it was for those few months. Gritting your teeth and enduring had become tiring until he’d grimaced at that first History Inquiry project and made you laugh with the annoyed upturn of his lip. 

You’d planned on thanking him at graduation, but he’d left months before then. 

You’d planned on a lot of things to be frank, but there’s no reason to linger in the past when now is a shell of what then was.

There’s even less of a reason when now feels heavier than then ever was.

Today would have marked ten days without incident, a first foray into the monumental double digits until the sun had set behind the return of the run crew’s RV and Beth was forced to flip the number back to zero.

It’s been four hours since they came back - a quarter of the group gone from the unfriendlies they’d met, another dealing with the aftermaths of the encounter and one more made up from those the crew’s recruited - and it’s the first time in those four hours that you’ve left the dingy wing of the infirmary.

You didn’t hate it in there. Far from it, actually, with Hershel and the others being half-decent company and seeing the work you did benefiting people, but the infirmary, especially on days when the crews rounded back, meant the stinging smell of blood and death lingered no matter how much you scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. It stuck to every crevice on your body, and it permeated. Guilted you for not trying hard enough and not knowing enough.

On days like this, everywhere you went seemed too small and too unforgiving, and you’re not sure if you can stand tossing and turning in your bunk. The night sky is a friendlier sight than your ceiling, and the view from the abandoned watchtower is a hell of a lot better than the tiny, barred-up window at the corner of your cell.

If you’re lucky enough, maybe sleep will steal you for a couple of hours before the sun comes up. At least enough to make it through the next day.

You have faith it will - you can already feel the first wave of exhaustion pull at your bones.

Taking a breath, you press your hands into your pockets after pushing the door to the Prison open and slipping out. Autumn is beginning to seep through the cracks of summer and the nights are starting to get colder, but your jacket should be enough until you climb up and find sanctuary in the sleeping bag you’d left there three days ago.

It doesn’t take long to reach the door - if you jig the knob to the right before twisting and skip the third step from the top, the trek upwards is close to silent - but when you open it, the creak yields, at first, an expletive before the annoyed voice tears through the quiet.

“I already told ya I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout-”

The volume of him makes you take a step back, the sound of a man making your body lock up for just a second before you recognize the mess of hair atop his head and the wings stitched on the back of his vest, and you make quick work getting to him, crossing the platform in a single stride.

“Daryl?”

And he’s quick to realize the person speaking to him isn’t Carol like he’d thought. Though he really really really hopes it’s not you, the familiarity of your voice leaves little room for speculation, even before he turns his head and - for the first time in a long time - really, really looks at you.

“Oh.”

His heart beats in his ears and locks his throat before he can muster up anything else to say, and for a second, you wonder if you should introduce yourself to him. 

“Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t expectin’ no one to be here.”

But the knowing upturn of his eyebrows - his apology, and the way he scoots himself over to make room for you the same way he did in those library reading nooks - tells you you don’t need to, and your shoes slide against the concrete as you drop down to a sit.

He remembers you, too, the sweat of his hands too obvious with the fact, even though he wishes he didn’t.

He wishes there wasn’t a familiarity in the way you sidle your body against his, swinging your legs underneath the railing and over the balcony, and he wishes he couldn’t feel the heat coming off of you.

He wishes it didn’t wrap him up like the warm rays of sun, and he fights down a smile at the fact that you always were so bright. He wishes he didn’t remember you like that - glossed over in a blinding, yellow hue.

Daryl wishes he never remembered you like sunshine - he wishes he didn’t still.

Picking up the glass next to him - just to occupy himself and bide the time until his nervousness hopefully washes away into general apathy - he takes a sip before setting it down and taking a pull of the cigarette in his other hand.

The smoke is slow to fill his lungs, but he welcomes it anyways, holding it there as the nicotine-drawn buzz settles in his brain, and then he breathes it out, angling his head up and away from you.

You never liked it, the Malboros he’d swiped from his old man that he’d keep tucked in the smallest pocket of his worn-down backpack, but you’d told him one night, not unlike the one you’re both trying to find solace in right now, that you were scared of what his father might do if he found out.

Then you slipped in the obviousness of his health, just to break the tension of vulnerability, but it hit Daryl like a truck, the fact that he’d never had someone think about him like that before - like they actually cared.

“Heard your brain cells can rot if you do that.”

He raises an eyebrow at you only to be met with a small smile playing at your lips and the slightest bit of a sparkle in your eye, and the taste still lingering on his tongue reminds him of what he’s been doing. The glass is half full with the room-temperature whiskey he’d tried to make himself feel better with after stitching up his own wounds, and there’s ash from his smoking gathered beside one of the railing's poles, and despite the knowing you’re probably right, he sighs, waving your concern away.

“Ain’t worried. Don’t got a lotta them anyways.”

The cigarette between his fingers is lit still, and he takes another drag before the grayed end of it crumbles to the floor, fighting the upward tug of his cheeks at the sound of your amused huff and your quick response.

“That’s why you gotta take care of the ones you still have, Daryl.”

Scoffing, he tilts the edge of the glass towards you, holding it out for you until you take it from him, and he tries not to think about how the tips of his fingers burn when they brush up against yours. It’s not as sweet, the innocence of a teenage crush long since faded into the dull pang of expired love and loss, but it rushes through him all the same.

He would have offered you a cigarette, too, but you’ve never been one to pick up habits that bad.

A comfortable silence falls over the two of you then, the sky offering a serenity the two of you are less than strangers to, and you wince from the liquor when you finally take a sip. It’s nothing like the moonshine he’d smuggled from his dad’s stash - it went down a hell of a lot smoother than you remember that shit going - but your tolerance has taken a nosedive since weekends unwinding and inter-departmental parties had ended.

Besides, the only places you could get alcohol back in Woodbury were way above your paygrade.

Placing the cup back onto the concrete, you steal a glance at Daryl, spending just a second studying the curve of his nose and the jut of his cheekbone. He’s more handsome than he’s ever been, and you can feel the heat rush up your neck before you blink away the thought.

Get a hold of yourself.

But you can’t, not when he’s so close, and you’re not sure if it’s wholly unselfish, what makes you drop your eyes down from his face, but you do, and you realize why he was so on edge when he heard the door open.

He’s fidgeting. Ever since he put out his cigarette, he’s restless and can’t quite figure out what to do with his hands in the same way he was when you’d asked him why he never wanted to go home back in the school library, and it sends you back, too, a familiar pit growing in your stomach. It’s like he’s that kid again, scared of telling you - or, well, people - things that hurt because his stupid brother and dad drilled into him that he’s less of a man for even feeling hurt in the first place, and it’s equal parts infuriating and concerning.

You can tell that the gears are turning in your head as you try to piece him together; a run crew came back just today, and you haven't seen him in a little while. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection - especially with everyone’s propensity to talk about how Daryl brought them in - and though you might regret it, you decide to pry.

Not pry, just ask.

Conversation used to flow so easily between the two of you. Were you naïve to hope it would again?

“Bad day?”

It’s small, your voice, teetering in the air with its uncertainty, but Daryl doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glances down at the space between you, wrapping his fingers around the highball before meeting your gaze, and he bites the inside of his cheek, weighing the option of telling you or not.

“Jus’ tired is all.”

And though he hesitates those first few words, your eyes are so kind - so genuinely caring - that he can’t stop himself from saying more.

That was what he was scared of.

Why hasn’t he let you go? 

“Sick’a fuckin’ losin’ people.”

The frustration when he speaks is palpable, and you’re not sure if it’s bravery or stupidity that makes you move - maybe it’s both, culminating in your own desire that someone would finally see through your crippling bravado and offer you a hug or something - but your hand snakes out to grab his before you even think, shaking it slightly in the strength of your squeeze.

Then he freezes, and for a second, you think you must have overstepped - that he’s going to push you away and yell at you and leave - but he doesn’t. He just takes a breath, the heft of it rising his shoulders then dropping it as he squeezes your hand back harder, a silent thank you in the press of his fingers against yours.

But still, he lets go, afraid the warmth in his chest might make him do something he regrets, and you chew at the dried skin of your lip, thinking about the right thing to say.

Fuck, you could never navigate things like this - it got better as you got older, sure, but words always seemed to fall short when it came to you and him - and when you finally settle on something, half of you wonders if it was just because you thought it better than nothing.

“I feel you.”

Because what else are you supposed to say? That it’s going to be alright and that he shouldn’t blame himself because it's so blatant he is? It’s thin ice you’re walking on, the fear of sounding patronizing drowning out the spark of hope you want to light him with, because you remember the man he was. He’s never had anyone fighting in his corner, and you’re not callow enough to think he thinks of you as something - someone - different.

But he does. He does think of you as someone different, and he wants to say more, but he doesn't know where he stands with you, or with himself. If he says what he’s thinking - that he feels like it is his fault and that he’s not sure if he could ever stop feeling like that. That he’s scared shitless and like it’s some big joke that people actually look up to him for things - wouldn’t that make it feel too real?

So he doesn’t. He just tips the lip of the glass against his and takes another sip to make sure his mouth is occupied, staring down at the bottom ridge of it until you speak again, and he’s helpless to do anything but look at you.

“At least it’s beautiful out tonight.”

He’s sent back to twenty years ago then - the scrawny redneck you’d somehow deemed good enough to be your friend forcing his old habits back to the him of the present - and he can’t help the squeaked little noise of a response. Words have always been hard for him, too. They’re hard for him to think of and even harder for him to form, and it’s made worse by the fact it’s almost like he’s back at 16, convinced that you’re too pretty to talk to.

“Yeah.”

And though you hear his hum of agreement, he never looks away from you, admiring the curve of your familiar smile and the rise of your cheekbones.

The lurch of his heart comes back then - the same beat against his ribs that he hated all those decades ago - and it’s stark then, the realization you’ve never really left him.

“Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

Pressing his lip to the edge of the glass once more, he welcomes the burn of whiskey when you smile at the moonlit horizon, and he watches as you lean your chin against your arms.

There seems to always be an ever-present smirk on his face whenever it comes to ‘settling shit’, the promise of making a show of his unwavering power dangling in front of him and ramping up his excitement with each passing moment. You can’t remember how many times you’ve sat in this seat - the last group was a while ago, you think, the place with the huge house at the top of that hill - but as Negan’s hum changes into a whistle, that stupid overwhelming fear shoots through you, taking over your body for a second and banging your knees against the door when you flinch away from him.

The knock reverberates through the truck, the enclosed space doing you no favours when you take a sharp inhale at the pain, but the whistling stops, the crush of asphalt and the squeak of his leather jacket taking over as he turns to look at you. 

“Oh, c’mon. Loosen up, princess. It’s not like this is your first time.”

You bite the inside of your lip to keep from responding to his poorly hidden double entendre and that stupid nickname which has wormed into his vocabulary. It was a joke - at least it was when it was a throwaway comment from Sherry after she had one too many sips of cheap vodka - but Negan seems especially inept when it comes to how close he thinks he is to you. He had pinpointed it and insisted upon it being some playful replacement of your actual name, and every fucking time he said it, you feel your blood start to simmer.

But you know what happens when you upset him.

He makes a show of it in front of the furnace, and you remember the pain which tears through you, but in private - a handful of Saviors for insurance and away from prying eyes, in front of his own stovetop and his squeaky cupboards and his hidden drawers - that’s what terrifies you. 

Actually, no. What scares you is the fact he can do all that and then act like it never happened.

He’d greet you in the morning like he was greeting an old friend, and just go on with his day.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Negan.”

Arat scoff does little to hide her smile - neither does he, an upwards curl of his lips before he turns away to do just that - and you let out a breath, shifting in your seat in an attempt to regain your bearings. It’s like walking on eggshells, each time you talk to him.

He’s volatile.

One day he’d brush it off with a laugh, but some days he would pin you into place with a look, and you’d go to bed with one more bandage than you’d had the night before. But he’s mellowed out since you’d first met him; either old age is taking its toll or he’s become comfortable in the status quo he’d hammered in with swings of Lucille and burnt faces by the iron.

“Well, shit, who pissed in your cereal this morning?”

You let the question linger, and Negan peels into the gravel-faced clearing before you can let silence fully steal the space between the three of you. He slams the brakes as he turns into his spot, and it sends your body forward. You barely have time to lift your hands to brace for the stop, but you manage enough, your forearms pressing against the dashboard.

“Whoops,”

He pulls the keys from the ignition then, pulling a laugh from his chest before you hear a click from between the two of you, and he gets out, resting his arms against the top edge of the truck before leaning in with a wide smirk.

“Guess you should’a worn your seatbelt.”

Asshole.

You’re not sure at what point your abrasion had distorted in his head into banter, but, frankly, it pisses you off. It pisses you off because he couldn’t be more obvious with the fact he doesn’t think of you as a threat. As far as he’s concerned, you’re some angry chihuahua he’s ultimately got control over. Angry as all hell, but harmless at the end of the day. The more you think about it, the more it pisses you off, and though your mouth opens in the beginning of a retort, Simon’s static voice breaks through before you can form anything further. 

The group reached checkpoint C first.

“Pass me that, won’t you?” 

Grabbing the walkie-talkie from the cupholder, you chuck it at him without another thought, turning to open your side’s door as it hits his chest with a thump, and he even laughs at that, not missing a beat before the push-to-talk is engaged and his voice rumbles into the microphone. 

They reach a second checkpoint not much longer, the chained-up rotted soon after that, and radio silence follows after they reach the wall of burning trees. It must have freaked them out - it was Simon, after all, whose voice was the first and last they’d heard. They would have had to have known something was coming at this point, even if his presence at the flames was purely by chance. 

Sooner or later, they were gonna get sloppy. They were gonna get nervous - get desperate, and slip up - and they have no fucking clue what’s in store for them.

As the sun inches under the horizon, you sip nervously from your water bottle, the carabiner attached to its lid tinking against metal as your hand shakes. The Saviors had started getting into position just after sunset - an order that was barked by Negan echoed by Laura when she’d decided they were moving out a little too slow - but you’re stuck in place, your heart pounding in your chest and a lump in your throat that you can’t get down no matter how hard you try.

You’re leant behind a car, Arat sat in the driver's seat as she absentmindedly toys with the safety on her pistol, and you’re thankful for the Virginian night. It hides the shaky breaths visible from the chill after an unfamiliar RV pulls into the clearing, and it hides the flash of panic that crosses your face when Simon pulls out someone you can’t quite make out in the dark.

It’s starting.

You don’t know how many people are in the group. You’re sure Negan has told you - that big mouth of his never quite shuts up between the orders he gives you and the monologues he considers ‘conversation’ - but you never listen.

It can’t just be him, though, you’re sure of it. One man can’t have caused him to go all on the offensive like this.

Negan’s sat in that red-lined RV now, a short conversation with Simon wrapping up with a wolfish grin shot in your direction before slinging Lucille over his shoulder and waltzing into the open door, and you clip your water bottle back onto your belt, rubbing your temples to try and forget it.

It feels so pointless, every time you’re dragged to one of these stupid confrontations. You don’t even do anything here. You don’t grab automatics to ‘get shit done’ - you don’t douse cut-down trees in lighter fluid or tie up the infected for some sick psychological torture - you’re just some spectator in all this.

Every time Negan looks at you like that, that expression wiping across his face like that night you’d first met him, it’s like a taunt. It’s like he knows, even without making you kneel next to the squelch and crush of a head, that he can make you break out in a cold sweat and make you remember the fear that coursed through your veins when you had been.

You hate that he’s right.

When you hear the first few whistles, your hair stands at the back of your neck, and you try to blink away the first few tears threatening your vision. The Saviors are close - they have to be, even grouped up, whistles can’t get that loud - and as the two tones get even closer, you close your eyes and lean forward, putting your head between your knees as you prop yourself up against the trunk of the sedan. 

It was only a matter of time before they were caught. 

In the position you’re in, you urge your bloodflow to your brain in hopes that maybe - just maybe - it’ll work well enough that it won’t make you think of the first time you’d heard those sounds. You hope that it’ll melt the ice lining your muscles, but you don’t have to hope any longer when the lights of the parked cars turn on, breaking you out of your spiral with the momentary flash of white as you squint your eyes to adjust to the brightness. 

Despite the pain at your temples when you stare into the lit clearing, you’re thankful for it. It reminds you you’re here, not in a long-buried memory, and though you hate being here, you hate being there even more.

But you know this weirdly settled thankfulness won’t last long. As you watch them get onto their knees, whatever’s left of your morals are screaming at you to do something try to stop the way Negan swings open the door and waves Lucille like he’s at some pissing contest, but you know it won’t do anything. You know you can’t do anything.

You’re not sure if savior complex is the right word for what you’re feeling, but it feels funny when you’re in this type of situation.

There’s always an illusion of help - that maybe if you screamed loud enough or just spoke some stubbornly-ignored reason, you could be able to stop him - but you know you can’t. As the first bash of Lucille breaks skull, you know there’s no way to stop him. He swings and swings and swings, and it’s so silent save for the group’s sobbing and the constant thunk of his strikes.

You’re not close to them at all - the length of a car and several people separate you from the group - but you can see them well enough when you turn your head, your heart hammering against your ribs when you recognize that one of them is a kid and one of them looks so pale that she might pass out at any given second. The headlights illuminate them like some sort of demented spotlight, Negan’s shadow distorting across their bodies and their bloodshot eyes as he lingers the bat in front of one of them for too long.

You know what he’s getting at - he’s testing their fear, he’s testing how much more he needs to push before they crack and run back to their community with their tails between their legs - and you remember when you were there, a different type of acquiescing running through your mind. You knew you couldn’t do anything when you were the one knelt on hard ground. You knew that there were too many guns pointed at you and there was too much violence in Negan’s eyes.

The only people who would act on that impulse would be the stupidest people in the-

Holy shit. 

The only people who would act on that impulse are here. Or, at least one of them was.

He swung at Negan - that man who had blood running down his chest and blood covering his hands - made hard contact with the corner of one of Negan’s cheeks, and though he’s subdued in almost an instant, you can’t look away. An odd sense of fascination keeps your eyes glued to the scene in front of you.

You don’t remember the last time anyone’s swung at Negan - let alone at a lineup - and you can’t help the spark of a long-forgotten hope that sparks within you.

He’s brave, that much is obvious. 

But still, he’s stupid as all hell, held down to the ground as Dwight points a crossbow at him, staring straight at the barrel of it like a trapped animal, and you watch them drag him back into place, a sick feeling crawling into when Negan rises back to his feet.

You know what’s coming. You were on the receiving end of this once, too.

You know defiance gets you nothing except another grave to dig.

And though you’re expecting it, your hands balled into fists at your sides as if to somehow cushion the consequences of not looking away, you still recoil when Negan brings Lucille down on a different man.

It’s different, this time. This man doesn’t use his last bit of consciousness for a well-deserved ‘fuck you’ to Negan. He uses it to tell someone that he’ll ‘find her’ - holds on to his coherence and fights the rushing blood and pain to try and get out more - but he can’t, Negan’s voice filling the space with a mock of sympathy.

Then he swings again, and your stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself, rushing up your throat and through your lips. You turn back away from the scene, hoping that it’ll erase you from whatever the hell is going on, but it doesn’t and in a split second, you’re throwing up. Everything you’ve just seen finally catches up with you and you’re really throwing up, but nothing is coming out except pieces of a granola bar and the ocean of water you’d tried to calm yourself with.

It hits the line between the gravel and the sparse grass, and you take a step back to avoid it, but nausea hits you like a wave and makes you stumble. The trunk of the sedan stops you from moving any further, and you place a hand on it to steady yourself before taking a step to the side and then another, leant forward with your arm in front of you until you can brace on a tree.

Jesus Christ, did you really manage to forget the reality of this? Did you really manage to forget how the air smells when it’s tinged with this much fresh blood? Or how fucking haunting the sound of so many people crying is?

It seems you have - at least, you forgot how overwhelming it was - and you’re not sure if you’re furious or happy that you have.

But now you remember. You remember kneeling and your ribs stinging with each breath you took. You remember the smell of your friend’s blood coming from right next to you. You remember the way your eyes burnt from all your crying and the way your chest hurt with each sob that ripped through you. You remember it all, down to each blade of grass.

Stop overreacting.

There’s always that voice in you that berates when moments like these happen. It curls its lips up in disgust at the fact you’ve let yourself become so terrified, and you loathe yourself for it, a reminder of how it had all gone wrong that day and how you’d let it. It speaks tenfold, the image of that man even just trying to swing at Negan sharpening its words to a point and cutting you with its disappointment. 

Even though you try to convince yourself you’re not there anymore, it all feels so real that you can’t help but spiral.

God, you’re such a fucking- 

“Hey! Hey, y’alright?”

You’re not sure how long you’d spent lent on that poor tree, the intensity pulling you from reality, but it doesn’t matter because, when Arat places her hand on your shoulder, you flinch away, stumbling on your shaky legs. It feels like it’s been ages - your mouth is cotton and your ears are ringing - but it can’t have been long, the sun barely starting to rise.

“Yeah, fine. Great. I’m great.”

Wiping your mouth with your sleeve, you ease yourself back into a stand, blinking hard before looking around and ignoring the suspecting squint of Arat’s eyes. You’re pretty far out, a couple meters past the closest vehicle, and when you spot the pistol strapped to her thigh, you can’t help but wonder if you could just go. 

If you just reached down and took it - if you just concentrated enough pressure to one spot at the side of her head - would she be knocked unconscious, giving you the opening to run?

But you know you can’t. Well-aimed pistol whips barely knock people out as it is, and you haven’t eaten anything substantial since the day started. There was no way you’d be able to do it. The second you bolt, Arat would tackle you. Even if you knocked her out, you wouldn’t make it far, your legs would give up as if they knew he would end up finding you.

He always does.

“Here, eat this.”

A tiny plastic packet is pressed into your palm before she steps back, grabbing your arm and dragging you back towards the clearing. With the darkness ebbing away, the headlights have been turned off, and you can see everything without its blaring harshness.

The scene looks even sadder in natural lighting - tracks of dried tears and slumped shoulders lined up one by one - and all of them refuse to move their heads from where they’re frozen.

But one of them is missing.

Leaning against the sedan, you rip open the packet with your teeth, your fingers still lacking feeling from what Arat had caught you in just moments ago, and you try not to look at the center of the clearing as you force down the crackers.

It’s then when you notice the RV is gone, and it’s then when you realize Negan’s gone too.

It doesn’t take long to connect the dots, and when you finally glance back over to them, you finally figure out who’s missing.

He’s the leader, then - curly hair and fur-lined jacket.

Break him, and everyone falls in line.

The sun comes up soon, lighting the clearing through the gaps between heavy-set trees, and the RV peels in not long after. You watch with the same pit in your stomach when Negan pulls him out by the back of his collar, and as he yells his demand of him to chop off his son’s arm off - as he stops him before he really does it - everyone knows that, whatever Negan had set out to do, he must have done it.

Dwight loads the man who punched Negan into the van he’d come out of - and he shifts his weight when he gets in, swaying like an animal trying to escape - and you find yourself curious about him. You watch as Negan leans in just a foot away to talk to their leader before rising back onto his feet, and you learn that the man’s name is Daryl.

And as much as you hate agreeing with Negan, he really does look like a Daryl.

“We'll be back for our first offering in one week. Until then, ta-ta.”

He throws their axe over his shoulder, a nonchalance in his gait, and he’s quick to hop back into the truck he drove over, letting out a theatrical sigh as if to say ‘all in a day's work’ without actually saying something. Though, knowing him, he’d probably love it if his voice carried for a moment more.

You contemplate where to go as you watch everyone start to disperse - if you’d asked, would Dwight be willing to let you sit shotgun in the car he’s keeping Daryl? Or should you follow to wherever Arat is going and try to figure out a way to thank her for the saltines that have settled your stomach for the time being? - but you don’t have time to move your feet before you hear a familiar voice calling your name and banging against the car roof.

“Get on in, princess.”

Negan sticks his head through the driver’s seat window, and you pull your lips into a line before taking a deep breath and turning your feet in his direction. He’s looking at you with an easy smile, but you keep your eyes on the ground instead, walking behind the wall of cars to mitigate some of the embarrassment you feel at any type of association with Negan.

You look over at the group before pulling at the passenger side handle, and some of them are looking back at you. The woman who had spoken up is studying you, so is their leader and the kid and two of the other women, and you feel shame course through you at their glares. You tear your eyes away from them and blink harshly before hitting the seat, and you slam the door shut, taking a deep breath as you refuse to look at Negan as he barks orders through the open window.

You watch them as all of the Saviors loads back up, and you can’t stop yourself from wondering if this was what you looked like on that night, too. Was this what you would have looked like on that soccer field if he hadn’t taken you before the sun rose? 

You can’t blame them for it, though.

Because it’s your fault for letting him push you around like this, isn’t it?

Because you’re so scared of being out there alone, you’d do anything to survive, wouldn’t you?

Because he’s scarred you enough times for you to think like that, hasn’t he?

Swallowing hard, you try to stop that stupid voice from running by pulling your legs up to your chest and tapping a lazy rhythm onto your shin. It’s comforting. It reminds you of the world before - when you’d slaved over schoolwork to it playing mindlessly out of your old cassette player - but also of how things were before you met Negan, its tune playing through that rusty old vinyl player you’d dug up.

You hadn’t heard it since. 

“Hey, your little… blegh, during the shit that went down, you alright?”

Your eyebrows meet in the middle of your forehead as you turn to look at him, trying to figure out if there was some hidden motive behind what he’d just said only to conclude that there doesn’t seem to be. 

“Yeah, fine. Doing great. Don’t worry about it.”

Your face relaxes as you speak, and you shake your head to try and convince him to drop it. Turning back towards the window, you study the trees as they pass by once again, and it feels like you’re back in yesterday, blurs of green the same way they’d been when he’d driven you to the clearing. There’s some peace to be found in the colour, but he breaks it before it settles.

“Go see the doc when we get back.”

It turns out that your response just wasn’t convincing enough for him, so he tells you what to do, and you think about how this is always how it is with him. You think about how it’s never a suggestion - how you never get a say - and how it’s always an order you’re just expected to follow.

Guess you’re clocking into your shift earlier than expected.

“You got some boyfriend I don’t fucking know about or something?”

Scrunching your nose at his digging, you give him a curt response - ‘I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re implying’ - and when he speaks again, you can hear the way a corner of his lips turns up.

“You haven’t been screwing around?”

You don’t dignify him with an answer.

Instead, you let an emptiness linger as you chew at the inside of your cheek, wondering if you really should say what’s hanging on the tip of your tongue. It could get you in trouble - no, it could get you in a shit ton of trouble - but you do it anyways, some feeling gnawing at you to take a hint from that Daryl guy and just be brave for once.

“You didn’t have to kill the Asian guy.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

“I let you get away with a lot of shit, y’know that?”

Then panic comes - it drips slowly, down from your hairline and stings from your forehead down to your chin - but you stave it off before it can shake your voice.

“I’m just saying that you-“

He interrupts with a raise of his gloved hand, the pieces of dried blood on it cracking with the open and close of his first, and for that second where you think he might hit you, you flinch away by instinct, pinching your eyes closed to brace for it. 

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done it, but the impact never comes.

“If you were one of the limp-dicks out there, I would’ve thrown you in a cell for questionin’ my goddamn authority.”

Instead, he places his hand back on the steering wheel with a small smile, his words making you let out a breath, and you find yourself listening more intently than you care to admit. 

“But that’s why I like you, isn’t it, princess?”

Your jaw strains at the stupid nickname, but the playfulness that’s wormed into his words makes your tensed shoulders relax just the slightest. 

“Pullin’ me back and really putting shit into perspective when that shit needs it. I like that, keeps me in line. It shows you’re really lookin’ out for the future of this place.”

It takes all the strength in you not to scoff, but some of it slips out, a tiny huff followed by a twist of your lips, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand that it’s definitely not a smile. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows you’re not looking out for the Sanctuary or the Saviors when you find the courage to mouth back at him. Why else would he keep dragging you out to shit like this?

It’s to keep you in line, you’re sure of it. It’s to keep you in line as if reminding you of that night would keep you locked in your room and stuck where he wanted you. He’d dragged you back to the Sanctuary one too many times for him to just not care about you anymore.

“It was just- it was just unnecessary, Negan. If you liked the balls on the guy who punched you, you could’ve just taken him and left and ended everything there. You didn’t have to kill the Asian guy or do any of the stuff you did afterwards, either.”

The breath that escapes his mouth as a barely-audible whistle, his frown oddly approving before he questions you. His voice isn’t condescending or accusatory, you don’t think, but there’s a dangerous edge to it, like something could go wrong if you answered it wrong. 

“You know what they did, right?”

But you don’t have the right answer, so you just don’t say anything. 

“They ambushed the whole fucking satellite station! Killed every one of them! The blood’s on their hands, so I would say it was pretty fuckin’ courteous of me not to cut off their dicks and kill every last one of ‘em, wouldn’t you?”

You can’t find the words to refute that - not when his voice rises enough for the vibrations to run through the car and work their way into your bones, or when he gestures with that same gloved hand that’s done more than its fair share of things to hurt you - but even if you did, he gives you no time to respond, anyways.

“So you still wanna debate morals, princess? ‘Cause I don’t think you understand the whole damn scope of what they did.”

His voice drops down, but it doesn’t hide his irritation, and you swallow down the spit that’s made home in your throat. Nobody told you what that group did, but you think you know why, biting down the smile pulling at your cheeks. 

They’re the only ones to have tried it and done it successfully.

“Yeah, I guess I don’t.”

Enemies to friends to idiots to lovers trope | Savior reader | Blank slate female reader | Negan-related trauma and discussions of that trauma | Negan | Eventual smut | Specific warnings will be at the beginning of each chapter 

Something from me <3

So, uh, I hope y’all are ready because this is my first attempt at a series and I have literally no clue what I’m doing. It’s a long time coming, I think, so I’m hoping that you guys like it lmao. This fic will closely follow the events of seasons 7 and 8 (the Negan arc), and potentially continue afterwards if I feel like there’s still more story on my part to tell. 

Chapters

Each chapter will follow the events of the titled episode. Be aware of slow updates.

Chapter 1: The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be [5k]

Chapter 2: The Cell I

Chapter 3: The Cell II

TBA

Thank you for checking this out, and I hope you enjoy the series (´･ᴗ･ ` )

You can barely hear Sasha whimpering to your left as you watch each swing - your own sobs threatening to bubble up from your throat and rip past the quiver of your lips. The rush and deflate of adrenaline making your head feel like cotton - and even though you want to, you can’t look away. Abraham’s head is pulp battered into the ground, some of his blood running almost black against the shine of headlights as streams of it map down whatever is left of his neck, and you hate the gait of the man in front of you.

Negan twirls his bat then, too carefree and too jovial, and in a second, something hits you. It’s warm, the streak of it marking across your forehead and gathering where your eyebrows furrow, and it takes a second before you realize what it is.

It’s Abraham.

It’s his fucking blood.

You can’t even will yourself to move and wipe it off. The second Negan opens his mouth, you freeze, each neuron in your body refusing to fire as your chest tightens up again. Hands balled up against the middle of your thighs, you think you can feel your fingernails through the layer of fabric you’re clenching, Your head drops, the shock holding your eyes open finally slinking away, and fat teardrops wet your knuckles, blurring your vision.

Maybe it’s for the best, the fact you can’t see through the haze of your own torment.

But you can hear him. You can hear him move. He walks away from you, the crunch of gravel sounding with each step, and you whip your head in his direction when it stops.

No.

Rosita.

It’s frantic, the way you wipe away your tears, liquid coating the flesh of your thumb, and when they come into your view, they’re red, a sick mixture with Abraham’s blood painting wet on them. Bile rises from your stomach to replace your swallowed-down scream, and the mortified look on Rosita’s face haunts you from across the lineup.

He just took one or six or seven for the team, Negan taunts, so take a damn look.

His voice sounds like scratching, like rope burn against an open cut and the twist of a dull knife.

So take a damn look.

Then it all happens so fast; the spring of a bulky figure rising to his feet, the hard right hook he lands on Negan, and the only person you could think of with enough courage and stupidity to be that fucking headstrong is-

“Daryl-“

Your throat is dry, the length of it feeling cracked from breathing in the miserable midnight air, and his name barely even comes out above a whisper. Your body surprises you with the way it moves - an inch, maybe, your knees driving your upper body forward - but you know you can’t get to him.

Even if you could, what would you do?

It’s not the forest he knows like the back of his hand. It’s not some abandoned warehouse or apartment building you and Daryl were assigned to scavenge. It’s not digging out a bullet he took a little too close to the femoral artery. You know this. After all that’s happened, how could you not?

The two of you against the world, it just isn’t enough.

Not anymore.

But it doesn’t stop you from moving, your shoulders sitting past your knees as the skin on your palms rip from the jagged rocks on the ground. It’s stupidity that fuels you. It must be. Daryl’s misplaced courage and his overwhelming stupidity must have rubbed off on you, but you’re not as headstrong as him.

In the same way it had propelled you forward, your body stops you, freezing you rigid as Negan’s men tackle him to the ground. You hear him then, another twist of the blade as he yells his disapproval towards Daryl, but then you hear him chuckle - watch him amble in a circle and crouch down to where his people are holding Daryl down - and you’re terrified.

This is the end.

A man comes running out of the crowd then, half his face burnt and a mop of thin blond hair, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize the crossbow he’s holding is Daryl’s. You know that crossbow - you’ve held it and laughed when Daryl watched you miss the practice targets, felt the sore weight of it in your arms as you became accustomed to its draw, took it apart and cleaned it when he broke his finger tinkering with his bike - and you’ve saved his life with it more than once since the prison.

But it’s just a crossbow, no matter how much it means in your hands or Daryl’s, and the man holds it as such, pointing it at Daryl’s head as if he was an animal meant to be put down.

He looks it, swollen eyes darting around and held to the ground, a hand pulling his hair like he’s meant to be inspected. 

Your blood runs cold as you watch, helpless and shrinking while Negan toys around with Daryl’s fate in his head, and the only thing you can do is hope and pray to a god you’re not sure even exists that Daryl will come out of this alive. 

But then Negan says no, and it takes you aback, a relief washing over you as he gets dragged back between Rosita and Michonne, but it doesn’t last long. The second Negan starts up again - a hand on his hlp and a gesture of his bat - there’s no relief to be found anywhere. 

The first one’s free, then what did I say?

It torments, his tongue, dancing along weighted syllables.

I need you to know me

You feel it crush your lungs, and it steals your ability to breathe, the implications of his words dawning on you.

He’s going to kill someone else.

He’s going to kill someone else and he’s going to make you watch.

Again.

In a split second, he turns, his back to you as he lifts his bat, and though it happens so quick, time stands still.

You hear Glenn’s skull crack on the first swing, and you physically recoil. The second one makes you sob, and you’re sure it’s not him, but the force of Negan’s swings makes it feel like the ground is shaking. You wish it was. You wish the earth would tear apart and swallow you into it whole. You wish anything would just happen so you wouldn’t have to just sit and watch and listen.

Negan taunts. All he fucking does is taunt and taunt and taunt. He laughs and patronizes and leans in close as if fascinated by the blood rushing down Glenn’s face and the eyeball popped out of his socket. He plasters on fake concern, a fake apology lining his lips as if he felt any semblance of actual remorse for his actions while Glenn gathers the last bit of coherence he can to talk to Maggie, but he can’t fool anyone.

Each time he brings his bat down, it’s an ever-present ringing in your ear. Again, again and again - laughing, laughing and laughing.

You can’t be here.

It feels like a nightmare, but each time you breathe, you can feel a breeze on your wrist, the arms propping you up falling and surrendering your weight to your forearms instead. No matter how much you try to convince yourself this isn’t real, each broken puff of air reminds you it is.

So you close your eyes.

You rest your forehead on your stubborn wrist and close your eyes and hope that if you just blinked hard enough, you’d wake up. That this, this would stop.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t stop because it’s not how reality works.

But he does. Eventually, when his arms tire and there’s nothing left that you can recognize as Glenn, Negan stops, his voice straightening you back into a sit.

You were supposed to watch, and you’re terrified of what would happen if he had caught you.

Even after he stops, reprieve doesn’t come. The smell of metal lingers in the air, stinging your nose and making your skin crawl, and the only thing you can hear are the sobs ripping through Maggie’s throat. It’s muffled at first, the water you’d felt like you were under ebbing away, your brain returning to you as if it had shut off to keep you from even conceptualizing what you’d just seen, but its efforts can’t stop you from replaying every single goddamn thing.

Time drags on forever, drawing the sun up from under the horizon and painting a haze of fog over the trees, and exhaustion pulls at you. You’re in a limbo, teetering on the edge of fatigue and anxiety-induced restlessness. Your arms have long since forced themselves into a rest - somewhere between Rick getting into that RV and the overwhelming waves of nausea - but you’d long since given up on trying to control your body.

It’s your head that you need to control.

Because you keep seeing Negan’s first swing - keep seeing Abraham brace for it - and you can feel his blood on your forehead.

Then it’s Glenn, the crack of his skull and the twitch of his lifeless body.

Then it’s everyone.

You watch it happen to Rick, to Michonne. You watch it happen to Eugene, to Sasha, to Aaron and to Carl. It’s so vivid behind your eyelids that you’re not even sure what’s real anymore. You want to scream into the gravel just to feel the raw tear of it at your throat, but you can’t find the power to do it. You’re not even sure you can lift your neck from the way it falls limp toward your chest. 

Steadying your breath, you clench your fingers to force blood to return to them as you hear the engine run closer, and you pull your arms up from underneath you, lifting your head. Your breath is trapped in your lungs as you watch the RV roll in, your gaze passing brain matter and guts before it’s stuck on the front door. Rick’s been gone for hours by now, and you’re not sure if he’s even still in there.

The door swings open then, slamming against the side of the truck before Rick’s thrown out of it. You swallow hard at the way he hits the ground, shoulder first and dazed in a way that you can’t find any words to describe. Negan comes soon after, a nonchalance in his swagger before he picks Rick up by the collar, and the way he drags him across the gravel punches up into your chest.

Rick’s struggling to keep up - to find his bearings - but he never does, palms breaking against the ground for some semblance of balance and a panicked look on his face. He lands that way too, on shaking knees while Negan spews another monologue, the same twist, twist, twist of that dull knife returning to you. 

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen Rick like this - this defeated. 

There was always a drive in him to accomplish. He needed it to continue. It drove everything he’s ever done to show Carl that there was a whole future out there that was possible, but that drive in him is slowing, almost speeding to a stop.

He’s weak on his arms as his eyes dart around him, all of you listening as Negan just keeps talking and talking and talking. You hate the sound of his voice, but you find yourself wishing that it was all he would do. If he just talked then he wouldn’t be able to really do anything.

It’s all hope, though. All useless hope because it doesn’t take long for him to gesture with a gloved hand and for a cacophony of subservient triggers to sound behind you. You can feel cold metal lingering just an inch from the back of your head, and you bite your lip until it bleeds when Negan calls Carl up.

Michonne tries. Even through her tracks of tears and her quivering voice, she tries to reason with Negan, but nothing gets through to him. Rick knows already. Rick understands - probably better than anyone, you want to scream it out to him - but you know it won’t do anything. So you keep your mouth shut and fight the pool at the corner of your eyes as you avert your gaze for your own safety, the hopelessness in you churning and churning into something more explosive.

Nothing messy, clean, 45 degrees. Give us something to fold over.

God, does he ever just fucking shut up?

Rick’s begging easily cuts through your thoughts, crying and pleading for it to be him - for it to be him and please not Carl - but Negan berates him, screaming and yelling so loud it sends you into yourself, flinching away and trying to get as far from them as possible. Your head knocks against the gun behind you and there’s a forceful push to your head to get it back to where it was, and the air around you sears your lungs as he counts down.

It’s some sick game for him, you know it is, and all you want is for it to be over.

Metal slides against rock a few beats after Negan’s one, and though you’re not even looking in Rick and Carl’s direction, you squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the squelch of sliding flesh and the sharp thunk of it meeting bone.

It never comes, though.

Thank God it never comes, but when you look back, there’s nothing in Rick’s eyes. As Negan yells at him and chastises him, there’s nothing but surrender and yielding. The drive is gone, replaced by an all-consuming fear of what’s next, and your stomach is unrelenting in the knots it twists.

All you can do is hope that it’s over - that you’ll be able to carry Abraham and Glenn back to Alexandria and give them a proper burial - but, there’s an odd feeling within you. While Rick’s fire is gone, yours is sparking, kindling alight. You’re exhausted, the fatigue weaving into your joints and the fibers of your muscles, but something swims volatile within it, too. 

Maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s determination and fury and resentment mixing together and settling in the night that’s passed. You’re not sure. All you know is that it’s consuming you, burning away at your numbness and your hopelessness. 

It powers you enough to finally lift your eyes and drag them over everyone else. They look the same way you do, tracks down their cheeks and shoulders slumped, empty eyes and shaking breaths, and you can’t even bring yourself to look at Maggie. You can hear the way her sobs linger in her throat, and even if you try to force a glance, you’re scared you’ve cried all your tears and something inhumane will come up instead.

Please, just let this be over.

And it almost is. God fucking damn it, it almost is, but nothing good’s happened today.

Why would it change now?

Why would you hold on to that idiotic idea?

Negan calls a name then, a familiar one - the burn stamped to his flesh flushing up the memory of the crossbow pointed at Daryl’s head - and just as his arms loop underneath Daryl’s, the streak of red down his open chest blurs in your vision.

No. No, he can’t-

Despite everything - despite your shaking legs and your burning lungs - you lunge for Daryl as he kicks at the ground in a frantic attempt to secure his footing. Blood still lingers on your palms from the last time your body acted before your brain, and you realize, no, this is the stupidity. This is that dangerous mix of Daryl that you must have picked up, but it’s not just him. It’s also desperation.

Desperation not to lose him. Desperation not to feel alone again.

No, no, no - they took Abraham, they took Glenn - you’re not sure if you could handle-

“Daryl!”

There’s a grab of your shoulder then, pulling back with such force that it knocks you down to your side, a kick to your rib rattling through your torso, and you don’t have the energy to fight the pain searing through you. They’re too strong and you’re too drained, thick soles of hiking shoes and steel-toed boots digging hard against your bones, and the ground’s sharp rocks indent your skin as if to humiliate you further.

“No! Get off’a-”

They hold you down by the hem of your shirt and by the collar of your jacket as Daryl yells, his shoulders jolting against the hands on him with the same desperation yours are. He’s never had someone like you - everything that was good and could still be good, he believed in them because, even though he fought it, your stupid smile twisted his pessimism and tore it into hope - and he can’t be the reason you’re gone too.

It’s barely a scuffle - it takes no time for the two of you to be overpowered, both of you held in clammy, trigger-happy hands - and you watch from the ground as Daryl’s thrown into the car, hunched over and shifting on his feet as if waiting for an opening.

It never comes. His crossbow is pointed almost mockingly at him, and when the doors pull shut, there’s no proof he was ever there except the ground where he was knelt. The pebbles that once lied even now piled up around the clearing his knees had made. 

They don’t let you up until Negan’s done talking, something about liking Daryl and how Rick shouldn’t try anything unless he wanted him back in pieces taunting you in the back of your mind. When they finally let you go, they look down at you with nothing but duty in their eyes - an upturn of disgust on their lips - and there’s no remorse to be found anywhere on their faces.

To them, you’ll never be anything more than a nuisance. Nobody here could be, Negan made sure of it. You could barely even be considered a threat in the state you’re in, your cheeks stained with dried tracks and your hair streaking down your forehead from cold sweat. No, to them, you’re a chore.

They look at you and can smell the hopelessness permeating your body and swimming through your veins if they even cared to linger for more than a fleeting glance, but after they load back into the trucks and peel out, leaving you to pick up each piece of yourself and wipe away the haze of tears and bruises and blood with your trembling hands, something new settles within you.

Finally, anger comes, rooting deep in your chest. It burns through your blood and shakes each breath.