#stray scribbles

The second his lieutenants clear out of the room Daryl’s against him. Fisting into that leather jacket, gripping and shoving in restless hands. “Fuck you” hisses out and he tugs him in tight for a heartbeat, soaks in the heat against his own battered body before pushing hard, stumbling after. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck.”

Daryl’s wrecked, shredded raw by this past week. By the two years and the lifetime leading up to it. He needs something to ground him, something familiar, and the feel of Negan against him should be like goddamn sanctuary but the asshole’s gone and done exactly what he’s always done: made taking any kind of comfort in him impossible.

(It’s a comfort anyway, and Daryl knows it. Impossible to beat down. Part of Daryl’s been aching to see him his whole life. Wanted him through the brutal beatings from his father. Through the Governor, losing Merle. After the prison fell and everything seemed hopeless, the one thought that kept hitting him over and over like a light in the black was everyone else might be gone, but Negan’s still out there. Has to be. We haven’t found each other yet.)

He can taste Negan’s breath as he knocks into him again. Feel the smirk in it. He’s known Negan through enough lifetimes to know he’s finding all this goddamn hilarious and Daryl–– Daryl hates him for it.

And he does. Hate him. Has to. This smug, stupid bastard. Dancing his way through every one of their lifetimes, leaving burned out wrecks in his wake. He’s a constant plague on Daryl’s endless existence and he hates him, hates him so goddamn much. Pushes his forehead to Negan’s chest to keep his mouth from going elsewhere because, because––

He can’t.

He shoves off and manages not to follow this time. Breaks away, body aching, staring with wide, shaken eyes as disgust pulses brutal through him. Disgust at this asshole. At what Daryl’s seen so far of him in this lifetime. The nightmare of that clearing. Way he’d dragged Daryl off and locked him up, just to prove he could.

...And at himself. At his own body for the sheer damn relief it feels, finally standing here with him. Like, with every wrong thing in this brutal nightmare of a lifetime, one single thing’s finally gone right.

Daryl’s never gone a life without meeting Negan, at least for a second. A glimpse on a battlefield. Startle of recognition across the prow of a ship, once. Something. He doesn’t know how it works. If they’re immortal, somehow, ‘til they find each other. If it’s just some endless sick trick of fate. But the notion of a whole life starting and ending without seeing Negan?

Daryl’s throat chokes: exhaustion and anger, loathing, and wild, frantic relief because...

“Ever think this might be our last lifetime?”

They’re sitting on opposite sides of a dark cell. One free and one caged. And both of them just as trapped as the other, bound up in this endless cycle fate’s set for them.

Maybe.

‘Cause who the fuck knows, these days.

There’s too much blood on both their hands, this lifetime. Too many scars on these shells’ skin. And they’ve lived through wars before. Plagues before. Volcanoes erupting and bombs exploding and a thousand times people panicked and screamed out the world was ending. But it’s never been like this. Not like this.

Low eyes drift along the shadowed edge of the cell, fingers twitching and spreading against the cold floor. There’s death and betrayal sitting stronger than steel between them. Two feet and a whole world apart. And isn’t that the same old song and dance for them? 

Think the apocalypse would change that, but.

“Life after life we kill each other, thinkin’... Just thinkin’, fuck, no big deal, right? See each other next time ‘round.” That’s Negan’s mantra, anyway. Always been. That smug grin he aims Daryl’s way in every new life. Sorry for killing you, now don’t be a sore loser. Like he’d just won a point in some game Daryl’d never agreed to play.

Not like he doesn’t have his own points, though. Not like he hadn’t killed those Saviors in that outpost this lifetime, just to try and catch Negan first.

“What if next times run out though, huh? What if this is it? Our damn... extinction event?”

It’s been a cold weight in Daryl since that night in the clearing. Maybe since longer. Beth. Merle. The farm burning. He’s had a flicker of this thought a hundred times since Atlanta, but he’s never voiced it. Could never voice it. Not to anyone who doesn’t get what the notion of forever ending feels like.

And now...

All Daryl wants is to break down these walls and beat the life out of Negan. All he wants is to hold onto him. Feel something real.

“What if we die here, and ain’t no one else ever born to come back as?”

There’s something about spending a thousand lifetimes with a person that somehow softens you up to them. That turns the boil of frustration in your gut to a boil of anticipation. Resignation into almost fucking relief when, after years of keeping half an eye out, almost unwillingly, he finally swaggers into view.

Negan. He’s always been Negan to Daryl, whatever his name might actually be in that lifetime, back as long as Daryl remembers that face. Subtly different sometimes. Weathered by the world, the times, or ethnicity, but always that same smug self underneath. Daryl’d know him anywhere.

Daryl’s own name that stuck came on later, in a little English town too small and too out of the way to ever bother keeping track of the year. That lifetime they’d met each other too young for the old memories to even start filtering in yet, when they’d just been two boys feeling drawn to each other by something they couldn’t quite place. He’d been an asshole, even then, but in a way that kept pulling your gaze back over. Persistent, and challenging, and interesting in a way that’d grown on Daryl, hooked him right the fuck in until he’d woken up one morning with the memory of Negan slitting Rick’s throat a lifetime before out of sheer fucking boredom.

And yeah, Rick was there sometimes too, through Daryl’s lifetimes, along with a few other souls. Connected by fate or whatever the hell, all of them, filtering in and out. None of them ever remembers, though. No one but him and Negan. No one as often as Negan, either. Daryl could go a dozen lifetimes without running into Rick, or Carol, or Aaron. And sometimes it takes Daryl a while to recognize their souls in their new skins.

Negan, though? Negan’s always there eventually. Always giving Daryl some kind of hell or another. Trying to coax him into fucking crime sprees in some lifetimes, just for the hell of it. Trying to kill him in others, ‘cause why the fuck not, right? One time he’d asked Daryl out for coffee, and that’d thrown Daryl for the worst loop since he’d gone and sat by Daryl’s bedside during the plague. (And if I catch it? A careless shrug. That broad, shit-eating grin as he pressed a damp cloth to Daryl’s forehead, playing nursemaid like he hadn’t shoved a sword through Daryl’s heart during the war three decades before. Fucker couldn’t take one damn stupid thing in their lives seriously. I’ll see you in the next one, won’t I?)

Goddamn prick, a fucking whirlwind. Thorn in the side of Daryl’s eternity.

valentines meme || @spilledblood​

It takes a beat for Daryl to make sense of it, the red film wrapped around a long, narrow box. It looks like something he’d expect from a jewelry store maybe, all dolled up, but it’s not that. He’s pretty sure it’s not that.

Not like he’s ever been given jewelry.

Never been given chocolate either, obviously, once he pulls the film loose and hesitantly edges one corner of the box up. He probably looks like he’s checking for a damn landmine, but it’s not sure how else to handle it. People don’t give him shit. Not nice shit, not more than basic survival needs, anyway. And now that he and Rick are… what they are to each other, it hadn’t occurred to him that might change along with everything else.

There’s a heat in his cheeks and a fluttering his chest and it’s stupid. Rick’s given him food before. (Supplies. For survival.) This shouldn’t be all that different. But… hell, this is chocolate.

“Didn’t get you nothin’.” He knows what today is, more or less. Far as Alexandria’s time keepers can be sure of their dates, anyway. But it’d never occurred to him it might matter. He’s never been with anyone like this before Rick. Sure as hell never been someone’s Valentine.

A smile touches his lips at the sheer absurdity of it. At being handed fancy chocolates by the guy he’s–– sleeping with. At the way his chest is going warm from it. He digs a piece out: that kind of hard dark shell with something soft hidden inside. He bites over a grin, glancing up.

@wexarethewalkingxdead​​​ sent:

Rick moved toward Daryl, passing Carol and silently asking that she let him take the lead this time. His eyes never wavered from Daryl's face as he took several strides to reach him as he stood at the foot of the bed. His hands land on his shoulders, pressing him down as he moves to straddle the man's hips. His mouth fell on Daryl's mouth, pushing his tongue into his mouth as he kissed him. He desperately wanted the man to know how much he loved and desired him.

--.--

The intent was there in those eyes but there was still a doubt in Daryl’s chest ‘til Rick was pushing him down. Climbing over him. Mouth scouring his deep and dominating and just exactly how Daryl needed.

And, christ, he needed this. 

A choked breath knocked out and he was sinking back onto the mattress, tugging Rick over him with greedy hands. Fingers threading into those dark curls, tugging his shirt ‘til the fabric strained. Gripping desperate and don’t you dare stop. The solid weight of Rick’s body grounded Daryl’s still quaking limbs, and he couldn’t even remember what he’d been saying a minute back but he could still feel the pressure of it. The panicked, flighty feelings of not good enough and making it easier for everyone that’d been pushing him to walk out.

He didn’t wanna go. Didn’t ever wanna lose any bit of this. But sometimes he just wasn’t sure how not to run.

Now, though. Now he was clinging. Needy noises breaking in his throat on every surging kiss. Body opening up against Rick like some kind of offering. Penance. He’d snarled and shrunk like a wounded animal but here Rick was, all patient power and better than he deserved, taming him back down. Reminding him what home was.

It was so damn much more than he’d ever hoped for. Everything he’d spent ages dreaming of.

...How insane that it didn’t quite feel like enough?

(con’t)… But Rick does. -- @majestiel

from X

Daryl’s not sure what brought him here of all places.

…Hell, screw that, ‘course he is.

He’d thought about tracking down Carol first, but Carol can more than handle herself and some asshole like Ed isn’t gonna make her break stride. He’d thought of checking on Aaron –– back in bliss with Eric, probably –– or Glenn, just to see him standing again. And there’s a tiny, niggling voice at the back of his brain wondering if it’s possible to track down a five, six year old girl named Lydia.

But when it’d come down to it, there’s only one place Daryl’s instincts could drag him. So, here he is.

Standing on the kind of street that would gladly hose him off it, all white pickets and flowerboxes, and a sheriff’s department car parked in the driveway across the street. He’s leaned back against a bike he’d rebuilt a decade ago or last month, arms that feel too weak and too empty of scars shoved deep in his pockets.

There’s nothing for him in this house. Not one person in there’s gonna recognize him. But he can’t stop himself from looking.

The door swings open and he spots Lori first, and he’s surprised how hard the sight of her hits him. They’d never been close, not in the ways Daryl’d gotten close with the rest of them over time, but at the start of all of it they’d been family. Her hair’s got a red tinge to it he didn’t quite remember, and she’s got an easy-elegant beauty about her he did. She’s his first real glimpse of someone he’d met after the dead rose, and he’s so focused on her he doesn’t notice anything else ‘til he hears a low, shaky “Daryl?”

.-

They’re alone on the street now, and Daryl can’t stop staring. Fingers itching to follow suit and trace over this man, drink him in. Rick’s in front of him, alive and whole and so young. Looking back at him with eyes so much older, eyes that know all the same stories Daryl’s eyes do.

He gives in finally and reaches out, bumps a knuckle against Rick’s elbow just to reassure himself again that he’s real. He’s here and he’s real. And, somehow, he knows Daryl.

“I looked,” croaks out, Daryl’s own voice barely familiar in his throat. There’s a choked feeling that won’t die and his knuckles go up again, catch in the cloth at Rick’s elbow and hang there. (Here and real.) “Six goddamn years, Rick. I couldn’t stop lookin’.”

“You found me.” Rick says it so simple, a soft look in his eyes, and it’s like the war and the fight and the distance never happened. They’re what they always were to each other, underneath the filth of the world and their own bullshit.

He hangs in Rick’s eyes another heartbeat. Wets his lips, looks down.

“Everyone’s sayin’ the only people who remember that shit… the mass hysteria or whatever…”

“That what you think it was?” Rick asks, and Daryl huffs a snort, casting a sideway smirk at him.

“Can bein’ sick make ya know things you don’t know? Places y’ain’t ever been, people you…” The smile falters. His gaze sinks again, foot scuffing loose asphalt at the road’s edge. 

Rick’s feet shift an absent step closer.

“I survived the bridge.”

“Guessed that,” mumbles out, and Daryl’s not sure if he means back then or now. He’d hoped for it back then. Hadn’t been able to let himself stop hoping. But the belief had died a little more with every day. Now the guilt for every moment he spent hunting or trading or visiting the communities instead of searching for Rick is swelling sharper back through him. Of failing, of missing some trail––

“I was carried off in a helicopter.”

Daryl’s pulled sharp and quick from his thoughts. A snort startles out.

“Sure. And the Easter bunny was flyin’.”

Rick doesn’t smile back. For a beat, there’s a look in his eyes that seems older than Daryl. His gaze drifts down the street, seeing something past it. Something that doesn’t exist yet and, hopefully, never will.

“Not unless he’s got one sick sense of humor.”

It’s a lost look, the kind that’s lived hell and loneliness day in and day out, and Daryl finds himself less interested in following it to its source than pulling Rick back from it. He twists his fingers tighter into Rick’s sleeve. Nudges the soft skin of his elbow.

“Carl’s in there.”

And he’s back. A smile blooms over Rick’s face, beyond warm, beyond grateful. Heartbreak moving in reverse. Daryl feels an echo it in his own chest, and lets them linger in that for a moment. Then: “…And Lori?”

Rick nods, but Daryl wonders if he’d heard another question (if Daryl’d put one there), because his fingers move absent to hook into Daryl’s sleeve now and he answers: “She and I were on our way towards over before everything. Couldn’t admit it yet, but. We were too different people, and all this has only…” He shrugs, and Daryl nods ‘cause he gets it. He knows them, or knew them, or will know them, in another life. “Gave her my blessing to go to Shane if she wanted. Two of them got close, apparently, while I was in the hospital.” An odd look enters his eye that’s not quite happy, not quite bitter, and Daryl chases it toward give Judith a shot to make her way into this world.

Daryl thinks about Carl and how that boy doesn’t know him. Thinks about how grateful he is that he’s just breathing at all. Rick’s warm under his hand and Daryl realizes he’s gripping his elbow now, not the sleeve. Just holding onto the one thing he’d been so damn sure he’d lost forever… and hadn’t.

“N’ what’ll you do?”

Rick’s eyes come back to him and sweep down slow, intensity and an ache of possibility forming. A new direction, second chance. A fresh start on all they might’ve missed before.

“We,” Rick says, firmly, and Daryl’s life clicks into place after more than six years of drifting, “are going to find the rest of our family. And then we’re giving ourselves the life we should’ve had in the first place.”

“Together,” Daryl offers, meaning all of them, both of them. Rick’s hand catches his nape, his eyes catch and hold Daryl’s, and they seem young for the first time Daryl’s known them.

MAGICAL CURSE PROMPTS || accepting || @godblessrickgrimes​

He’s resisted the urge as long as he could, white-knuckled his way back to Alexandria without anyone giving him more than an offhand puzzled look. He can barely feel the crescents where his blunt nails are biting into his palms, and his jaw’s worked so tight that he’s not sure he could wedge it open to explain himself even if he wanted to.

He’s less shocked that he’s been cursed than most people would probably be, honestly. There are things in the world that can’t be explained by anything other than magic, the whole rising dead bullshit just one example. What he hadn’t expected was that refusing to give some random woman on the road a hand today would result in, well––

He’s stumbling through town in a building haze, tripping toward the only safe place his feet can lead him. Up the porch steps, yanking the door open, and gripping at Rick’s nape with desperate hands the second he gets in range. A relieved breath knocks out when the searing burn fades the second he makes contact.

(If you’re so opposed to lending a hand, how about I teach you the value of human contact? Christ. Some absolute fucking Beauty and the Beast bullshit going on there.)

He comes back to himself slow. Realizes he’s panting, gripping into Rick’s hair like a lifeline with his eyes rolled shut.

“Shit.” He flinches back, and the pain hits again. Sends him crumpling back into Rick. “Shit.” Gripping his sides now. It hurts less when he grabs at Rick’s shirt, but the pain’s not fully gone ‘til his hands have shoved under the fabric, gripping at his waist, touching skin. And hell, how the fuck is he supposed to explain this?

“I need you,” falls out and… alright, damn. That’s–– not exactly what he’d–– “to touch me. I need to touch you, I need––” Shit, shit he’s explaining this all wrong. Just… “It hurts when I don’t–– fuck. It, I mean––”

He gives up, burying his face in Rick’s shoulder with a groan.

they fell into each other a number of times during that first winter. rough, wordless things while they were off on their own scavenging, when the stress and the strain got to be too much, when the harsh distance from lori and the thinning resources and the weight of everyone relying on them threatened to crush them under. sometimes it felt vindictive, sometimes it felt desperate, and sometimes it just felt like having something solid to lean on for a few minutes. they never talked about it in between, both read it as nothing but stress relief, but it solidified them as two people needing each other, trusting each other, and relying on each other through anything.

it ended when they found the prison. after lori, after judith, after merle and the governor, and the world settling down slow after. it ended after that first winter, but that was alright.