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The first time Daryl sees him, he’s high as a fucking kite.
Merle, that bastard, and his fucking friend had been tripping all day, and Daryl had barely stepped a foot inside the house before they had grabbed him and sat him down between them. From there, it had been short work. Teasing, humiliating, and finally some daring, and then he had given in.
Not that he blames them. In the end, they hadn’t forced the pill down his throat. Or the ones that followed.
It was something new. Merle’s dealer gave him something new every other month or so, and Merle had a blast testing it and making Daryl follow him into the shithole.
The pills had been pink and star-shaped. Looked like a vitamin for a kid. He swallowed them dry, but the metallic taste still lingered in the back of his throat. And then he was gone.
They were good. Colors and shapes, weird sounds, and his body became light, and for a time, he forgot every damn thing. Even Merle and his asshole friend going on the coke beside him.
But then he saw him. Unlike everything else, he looked normal. As normal as a guy in a hospital gown can ever look. He stood in the living room, right across from Daryl. He was barefoot and pale, his hair short and dark brown. He looked thin beneath the gown and had dark rings around his eyes. His cheeks had the sunken look one gets when they get enough food to live and thrive, but not to put on weight.
He looked completely out of place in the twirling, colorful world the pill had thrown him into. And he was looking right at Daryl.
Despite the many bags of pills and white powder on the table between Daryl and his brother, he didn't look disgusted. He didn’t look fearful or suspicious. He didn’t look like nothing. He just looked. Straight at Daryl.
Their eyes met, and something strange happened. For the tiniest of a second, Daryl was gone from his house. Gone from Merle, gone from the drugs, and gone from everything in his shit life. Instead, he was in a hospital room.
Nothing special about it, except for the man lying in the bed, pale and unmoving, his eyes closed. The guy from his living room.
Daryl blinked, confused, and looked to his right where the guy stood, watching himself on the bed.
He turned to look at Daryl, to say something, but then Daryl was back in his house, and the guy was gone. Colors swirled around him, and he thought he saw the floor turn into writhing snakes. Then he threw up and passed out on the table.
…
In the glories aftermath of the little star pills, Daryl is lying on his bed feeling shitty as hell. Somewhere around four in the morning, he woke up with vomit on his shirt and somehow dragged himself to bed. Merle and his friend were out cold on the table, and Daryl let them be.
He wakes again around midday and crawls to the bathroom to throw up. It’s just bile, but he tells himself it helps. He throws his shirt aside and goes back to bed. He can’t sleep, though. His head spins, and colors still look a little too bright in his bleak room, and even though it’s a cool day, he’s sweating like crazy.
And then he is there. Standing by the foot of his bed.
Daryl groans and rolls over, so he faces the wall. “Fucking Merle,” he mutters and closes his eyes. Good idea if the colors weren’t much sharper in the darkness. He opens them again and just stares at the wall for a time.
Then he glances over his shoulder. The guy is still there.
“Go away,” he grumbles and looks back at the wall.
“You should drink something,” the guy says, a clear southern accent rolling the words around.
“I know,” says Daryl. Isn’t the first time Merle is testing his shit on Daryl; he knows the drill.
“Then go and get some,” says the guy. He sounds calm but firm. With a little authority, maybe. Daryl can’t help but get annoyed. Of all things his mind decided to cook up, it has to be a bossy-ass jerk.
“Don’t want to.” He closes his eyes, hoping the colors can get the guy away.
“Too bad,” says the jerk. Daryl opens an eye and sees he’s standing in the kitchen, a glass of water on the table before him.
Huh.
He glances to his right and sees the guy watching him with his arms crossed.
Slowly, Daryl picks up the glass and takes a sip. The guy raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. Daryl drinks all the water, and in such a hurry, he gasps a little when it's empty.
“Happy?” he asks his hallucination. The guy gives him a small smile.
Daryl puts the glass down hard on the table and flips the jerk off as he passes him on the way back to his room. The water cleared his mouth, and he can’t deny he feels a bit better, but fuck if he will say it out loud. And especially not to his hallucination.
He falls back down on his bed and closes his eyes, very aware that the guy is still in his room.
...
The drunk ass takes a swing at Daryl and miss. His next jab hits home and sends Daryl back against the wall. The roar in the bar rises, and Daryl looks towards the table where Merle is, but the bastard isn’t even looking up from his game.
Daryl spits a glob of blood out onto the floor and isn’t paying attention, too busy feeling around with his tongue to see if any teeth have gotten loose. He gets another jab to his jaw, then one to his stomach. He doubles over and gets a punch to the back. He drops to the floor, gasping and with arms folded across his stomach.
“Bitches kneel,” grins the asshole. Daryl looks up through the tangled strands of his hair and sees the fucker palm his crotch. “Bitches respect the men.” His fingers toy with the zipper. Laughter fills the bar.
A hand in his hair forces him to straighten up on his knees, making him face the fucker’s front. He notices how the belt buckle is shaped like a bull’s head. His eyes go down a bit, and the laughter is like a fucking roar in his ears. He digs his nails into the hand holding his hair, not carrying about how cowardly the move is.
“Better take it, bitch,” says the fucker, and begins to unzip his jeans.
And then he’s there. Dressed like a hospital patient and standing beside Daryl, looking down at him. Daryl glances up at him and sees the cold fury on his face, but he knows it’s not directed towards him.
“I’ll handle it,” the guy says.
He’s kneeling where Daryl knelt, the fucker grasping his hair. As the zipper goes down, the guy lets go of the hand in his hair and instead slams the heel of his palm into the fucker’s crotch. The fucker howls and stumbles back.
The hospital guy jumps to his feet, arms raised as the fucker’s friends get up from their table and come at him. The guy stands still and waits. When the first one attacks, he grabs him by the wrist and spins him around, right into one of the others, and the two crash into a table, breaking it.
The last one manages to give a punch to the face, but the guy doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. Instead, he gets in close to the asshole and takes him down by a quick punch to the gut and a foot behind his leg. He falls down heavy, and Daryl stands with his arms raised and looks down at the men.
No one is laughing in the bar anymore. The only sound is the groaning from the fuckers lying on the floor. Merle is finally looking at Daryl. His eyes are wide with surprise.
Breathing heavily, Daryl looks sideways at the hospital guy who just smiles at him, then he slowly lowers his arms and straightens up. He leaves the bar without looking back. No one follows him.
In the parking lot, he leans against his truck and inspects the bruises on his knuckles.
“I’m Daryl,” he whispers.
“Rick,” says the guy.
“Thanks,” says Daryl. Rick smiles.
...
The crossbow is a familiar weight in his hands, and the strain of holding it up and steady has long since turned to a welcomed exercise. His body is still as he waits.
“What if they don’t come?” asks Rick. Daryl doesn’t even blink. He knew he was there.
“Then I move,” he says quietly. Rick is sitting beside him on the ground, arms resting on his bended knees. The hospital gown is closed by ties on his back, and Daryl can see large places of bare skin. His legs are bare, and as his hands hang limp over his knees, the plastic bracelet catches the sun.
He’s smiling, and Daryl knows he likes to sit in the sun.
“Where are you?” Daryl asks. The smile fades as Rick looks at himself lying in the bed. Daryl can feel the coolness of the hospital room. Air-condition, probably, since the window is closed. Good idea; the air outside is only getting hotter and hotter as days go on.
Nothing much has changed in the room. New flowers on the bedside table. Another drawing made a kid is taped to the wall above Rick's head. The chair beside the bed is empty. It has been empty more and more lately.
“I’m always here,” says Rick. The smile is gone completely now like it was never there.
“Sorry,” mumbles Daryl. He hates doing this to Rick. He can feel how much it hurts him, like it's himself being hurt by knowing he is alone in a hospital. Wife, friend, kid, coworkers. Daryl has no idea how it's like to have any of it, but Rick's pain is his own.
“Doesn’t matter,” says Rick and leans his head back so the sun can hit his skin. Daryl shifts slightly, the crossbow turning a bit heavy before he adjusts his position. “I like it out here.”
Daryl smiles. He likes it too.
A twig snaps, and they both look towards the sound. A rabbit. A bit small, but Daryl isn’t picky. He hasn’t tasted fresh game in almost a month, thanks to Merle’s scams. He lowers the crossbow slightly and looks down the bolt, and waits. Waits until the rabbit is where he wants it, then he fires.
Rick isn’t much of a hunter, and Daryl can feel his reluctance when Daryl pulls the bolt from the small body. But Rick doesn’t judge. He’s never had to go hungry. To have to find his own food. To lie awake at night trying to ignore the gnawing pain in one’s gut, but Daryl had to. And so Rick knows.
Daryl decides to stay a bit longer, not really eager to go home since Merle’s getting bored and loves to take it out on him. Rick is thrilled. He sits beside him and enjoys the sun and talks about this and that. Daryl doesn’t answer because hunting requires the skill to stay silent. But Rick is only heard by him and talks therefore without concern.
Daryl actually likes it. Since his uncle died, he hasn’t had a hunting partner. And while Rick can’t help kill and bring home the game, he is good company.
Once or twice they are in the hospital. A doctor comes in and checks the machine Rick is hooked up to, or a nurse comes to take some blood.
“Can’t even feel it,” says Rick as the nurse pulls the needle from his arm and wipes a cotton ball against the small bleeding hole. “I should feel it, right?” he asks Daryl, a small hint of fear in his voice.
Daryl shrugs. “Don’t know how a coma works.”
“Coma,” says Rick, his eyes getting distant. He’s remembering. Or trying to, and Daryl cuts him off. Getting shot is not something Daryl likes to try again. Rick's memory is jumbled, confusing, but the blast from the shotgun and the searing, flesh-ripping pain is always the same. The first time Rick remembered it with him there, Daryl had nearly crashed his truck.
He opens up again later, but Rick doesn’t show up anymore that day.
…
It’s scary how little Rick remembers. Not about the shooting but about himself and his life.
Names he remembers. Or first names, that is. His own, Rick, his wife’s, Lory. His kid is named Carl, and his friend is Shane. He knows where in the county they are and what year it is. The rest is just gone.
Daryl asks him sometimes, but Rick really doesn’t know. Daryl knows he doesn’t know.
Daryl doesn’t know why he asks, really. Maybe because Rick knows everything about him. Name, Merle, his home. The work Merle drags with him to do. The drugs, the alcohol, the anger. Rick knows it all, and Daryl doesn’t know shit about him.
It helps that Rick doesn’t judge him. He just doesn’t. No why or how.
He just doesn’t.
…
He’s lying flat beneath a Volvo at the garage when he’s suddenly at the hospital with Rick. Lory and Shane are there, the first sitting and the latter wandering around the room, stroking his jaw, along with a doctor holding Rick’s information on a clipboard.
He drops in mid-conversation and immediately feels Rick's unease.
“What?” he asks, but Rick isn’t listening. Instead, he is staring at Lory, looking more hurt than ever. And scared shitless.
“And there is no other way?” asks Lory. Daryl doesn’t like her. Unlike Rick, he has seen the looks she and Shane give each other. But now he gets worried, for everyone actually, for Lory sounds… broken. Hollow with that scary tint of desperation, Daryl heard from his mother so many times.
The doctor takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. “There is, but honestly – and I’m actually not allowed to say this – I do not see the point.”
“What the fuck are you saying?” growls Shane, beating Daryl to it by a second. The doctor glances at Shane but keeps his attention on Lory, who stares at her hand, which is holding Rick’s tightly.
“We can keep him alive, but the lack of brain activity is… unsettling, to say the least. He should be more responsive, but as you know, that is not the case.” The doctor shifts from one foot to the other. Daryl slowly gets what he is saying, and by fucking god, how can a doctor ever say that?
He looks at Rick. He’s pale, so fucking pale, and tears are gathering in his eyes. Fucking hell. Daryl can feel his fear, and it mixes with his own. He knows Rick can feel his and wants nothing more than to draw back and release him for the extra pain, but whatever is going on, he needs to know.
“Keeping your husband alive is costly and most likely pointless,” says the doctor. He talks calmly, professionally but still with a hint of concern. Daryl dislikes him instantly.
Shane explodes. “Are you saying we should turn it off?” he yells. “Kill him?”
The doctor doesn’t look scared or offended but pained, like it nearly kills him even to suggest it.
Daryl wants to strangle him.
Lory bursts into tears. Shane is there at once, holding her, and she cries on his shoulder. The doctor looks away, giving them a moment.
“I understand you need to think this through,” the doctor says and shifts his clipboard from one hand to another. “But I recommend you make a decision soon.”
“I need to go home to Carl,” says Lory and breaks free of Shane’s embrace. She all but flees the room, leaving Rick alone with Shane and the doc.
“I know how hard this must be,” says the Doc to Shane. “But believe me. He won’t wake up. The Rick you knew is gone, and his body is just slowly dying. I know you don’t want to, but please talk to her.” He leaves the room too, and Shane takes the chair, gripping himself by the neck and lowering his head in clear despair.
Daryl looks at Rick, who is staring at Shane with disbelief.
“You can’t mean it,” Rick says to Shane. “You can’t.” But Shane can’t hear him. Only Daryl can, and his heart fucking breaks for Rick.
He wants to console him but doesn’t know how. His family is talking about killing him. His doctor is recommending it. Fucking hell.
Gently he draws back and just lies beneath the Volvo for most of an hour, not knowing what to do.
What can they do?
…
The answer comes sooner than expected, though fucking far from the one they wanted. Daryl lies in bed, smoking, despite knowing how bad an idea that is. And then Rick is there beside him, looking slightly amused.
“Haven’t smoked since high school,” he says and closes his eyes. Daryl takes a deep pull and holds it before exhaling. Rick grins a little stupidly.
“Shane stole his dad’s, and then we hid behind the library and smoked.” Rick smiles guiltily but still fondly of the memory. Daryl snorts.
“Bad kids, huh,” he mocks, but there’s no heat in it. Rick grins at him.
“If my dad caught us, I would’ve been grounded until college.”
“Daredevil.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” says Rick and closes his eyes as Daryl takes another drag.
Flicking the ash against the windowsill, Daryl lets fall in the already growing pile. “How are you?”
Rick still smiles, but there is no joy in it. “A little better. Not much. They haven’t been back.”
The hospital room is silent except for the steady beeping from the machines. The chairs by the bed are empty.
He shifts on the bed, making room so Rick can lie down beside him. Their shoulders touch, and he hands Rick the smoke. Rick toys with it a little, letting it roll between his finger before bringing it to his mouth. Daryl watches as Rick places it between his lips and then sucks the smoke into his mouth.
When he exhales, the smoke curls around his lips, thick and heavy, before disappearing up to the ceiling. A pink tongue sneaks out, wetting the lips.
Daryl swallows and looks away, hoping Rick doesn’t pick up on the heat suddenly filling him. If he does, he doesn’t show. Instead, Rick just takes another inhale and hands the smoke back to Daryl.
“Those will kill you, you know,” Rick says. Daryl huffs out a laugh, smoke leaving him in small puffs.
“Chances are you’re going before I am.”
“I don’t want to,” says Rick and leans his head back, straining his neck. Daryl can’t help but look. His knees are bent on the bed, and the hospital gown is training against his legs, threatening to fall down to his stomach. Daryl wonders if he’s wearing any underwear underneath. “I want to live.”
“Better wake up then,” says Daryl. “Before they turn you off.” The words feel harsh in his mouth, and they taste like shit. He doesn’t want Rick to die either. But what can they do?
The door to the hospital room opens, and they both look towards it. A nurse comes in, followed by the doctor and two men in suits.
“What the fuck?” mutters Daryl. It’s past midnight. No guests should be allowed.
“A few days more, and they will agree,” says the doctor to the men. They look like something out of a movie: tailored suits, sunglasses, and armed, as Rick notices.
“And he’s completely sedated?” asks one of the men. He’s bald and clearly the older of the two. The other one is younger and has his dark hair cut in a military buzz style.
“Completely,” assured the doctor. “But it will be easy to wake him when the time comes. Before the machine is turned off, he’ll be injected with the new sedative, and he will appear dead.”
“Good,” says the young suit. “They want him as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” says the doctor and holds out a hand towards the door. “Shall we?”
They leave the hospital room.
The smoke drops from Daryl’s fingers and lands on his chest. “What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t know,” says Rick. He picks up the smoke before Daryl can get burnt. He looks paler than normal as he takes a drag. “What did they mean by sedated?”
“And Doc assuring them they would sigh…oh, shit,” Daryl looks at Rick with wide eyes. “Are they tricking your family into turning you off, so those men can… can…?” he waves with his hand towards the door the Doc and suits just went through. Who the fuck were those assholes.
A shadow passed over Rick’s face. “They wouldn’t do that.” Daryl wonders if he means the Doc or his family. And he isn’t so sure about either of them.
“Stay alert. If they come back, I wanna know what they talk about,” says Daryl. Rick nods, face still a dark shadow.
The next day, Daryl ditches his job and takes to the woods with his crossbow. He doesn’t hunt, however, but instead sits on a fallen tree and waits.
Those suited men from the day before never left his mind, and he is worried. Very much. He and Rick talked most of the night about it, but they are no closer to an answer.
He isn’t surprised when Rick shows up later that day, looking like he always does, except for an utterly devastated look on his face.
“She signed it,” he whispers, tears in his eyes. Daryl draws him into a hug, and Rick lies his head on Daryl’s shoulder. It's times like these that Daryl has to force himself not to think, not to wonder.
Wonder how he can touch Rick, feel him. His heat, his heartbeat, and the tears that dampen his shirt. How can he when Rick really is in some hospital and in a coma? Yet, he still does. He clings to Rick, who holds on to him like a drowning man.
“What do we do?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” mumbles Rick into his shoulder. “They’ll do it tomorrow. Give Carl and Lory time to say goodbye.”
A day? fucking hell. Do they even have time… No! They have time. There has to be time. Daryl is not going to let them trick Rick’s family into this. And those suited fuckers won’t get their hands on him.
“I need to know what hospital,” he says. Rick is still in his arms and then slowly, ever so slowly, lifts his head.
“They are dangerous,” is all he says.
Daryl steps back and picks his crossbow up from the forest floor. “So am I.”
…
The hospital room makes him want to throw up, but he forces himself to look around. Rick stares at Lory and his son, who clings to each other by his bed. Shane’s hand is on Lory’s shoulder, and Daryl can feel Rick’s confusion about it all.
But right now, it doesn’t matter. Daryl walks around, trying to look out the window, but it faces some hospital garden. Not helping at all. He can’t leave the room, can’t leave Rick.
Finally, he kneels down before the clipboard hanging from the end of Rick's bed and tries to read in the dim light. And he gets the name of the hospital.
It’s less than two hours away. Daryl can feel his heart nearly miss a beat. So close, all this time.
Rick stands beside him in his room as he quickly packs a bag. He slings the pack over his shoulder and grabs his crossbow, and Rick gives it a doubtful look. “I don’t think you can get that inside.”
Daryl knows that. He loads his things into his truck. Rick is in the seat beside him, looking impatient and a bit green.
Daryl places the tips of his fingers on Rick’s arm. “I’ll stop them.”
He isn’t fast enough to pull back as Rick grabs his hand tightly, and suddenly he just doesn’t want to.
“I know,” Rick says, eyes out the front window.
“Hey,” says Daryl, making him look at him. “Save me, save you. Right?”
Rick swallows and then nods. He doesn’t let go of Daryl’s hand the whole way.
…
His whole body is tense. The place is too white, too perfect, and smells wrong. Unnatural. Rick walks beside him, his nervousness threatening to pile onto Daryl and undo him and make him turn tail and run.
“Which way?” asks Rick as the hall ends in a T.
“Your hospital,” says Daryl but looks around for a sign or something. A sign on the wall to his right tells him where to go. They go down the hall to the right, passing room after room after room. Some doors are open, and he sees sick people in beds and their families beside them. He sees nurses and doctors, machines and flowers. An alarm goes off somewhere behind him, and a handful of nurses appears out of nowhere and runs past him. When he looks over his shoulder, he sees them disappear into a room at the other end of the hall.
He keeps walking, clenching the paper the nurse gave him in his hand.
“Excuse me, Sir?” a light voice says, making him turn on the spot. A short woman with blond hair and a clipboard in her hands stands behind him, frowning a bit. Daryl can feel himself panic, but Rick steps up.
The strain in his shoulder eases, and his whole body relaxes, and he flashes an easy smile at the nurse.
“Can I help you?” the nurse asks, and he doesn’t miss how her eyes go over his body: his dirty clothes, the tanned and scarred skin on his arms and hands. But Rick has a charm no one else has.
“Sorry, ma’am, I got lost. Can you help me?” he sounds so friendly, so at ease that the nurse gets affected by it. Rick holds out the paper, and she takes it with a smile, reading the room number.
“Ah, yes,” she says. “A little further down the hall, just after the guest toilet on the right.”
“Thank you,” says Rick and sounds really relieved, like he has wandered around the hospital for four hours. She hands him back the paper and continues her walk to the next room.
“Shit,” breathes Daryl.
“Look like you belong,” grins Rick. “Then you can look like trash and still get in. Daryl looks at him.
“You say I’m trash?”
Rick rolls his eyes, and Daryl huffs out a laugh. “Comes on.” He goes down the hall, past the guest toilet, and finally stands before the door. He checks twice with the number on his paper, then takes a deep breath and opens the door slowly.
The room is as it always was, but now, he can see Rick lying on the bed with his own eyes. He can hear the machine with his own ears.
“Fuck,” he can’t help but say.
“Yeah,” agrees Rick.
On the chair beside the bed sits Shane. He looks up when Daryl enters, and their eye meet. Something in those eyes makes it run cold down Daryl’s spine, and he knows this isn’t good.
“Who are you?” asks Shane, and Daryl, who has a lifetime of reading body language, knows when someone getting ready for a fight. He swallows and wants to step back out of the room and run for the hills. Rick makes him go forward.
“What the fuck do I say to him?” he asks Rick, who honestly looks just as lost.
“Not the truth.”
“Well, no shit!” Daryl hisses, fear getting him pissed off. “Here to visit,” he says to Shane. The guy doesn’t trust him one bit, and it practically flows out of him in waves. He gets up from his chair, and Rick backs up, hands raised.
“I’m a friend,” he says, but Shane doesn’t believe him. He takes a step towards Daryl, who sees the color of the shirt, no, the uniform, and he turns to Rick.
“He’s a fucking cop!”
Rick frowns, his eyes growing distant. Daryl looks around, sees the drawing on the wall. The little man in the picture is wearing a hat and a star on his chest. He’s holding the hands of a woman and a little boy. “You’re a fucking cop!” he nearly screams at Rick.
“I don’t think I…” Rick trails off, eyes blinking.
A man raises a shotgun. Shane is over him, yelling at him. Carl is quiet in the car on the way to school. Lory turns her back to him and slams the bathroom door. The shotgun goes off.
The beeping sound from the machine speeds up. “Get out of here,” says Rick. Shane, who had reached for his gun, turns away from them to look at Rick in the bed, alarmed by the machine.
Daryl takes a step back and hits something. He turns and sees Lory stare at him, frightened. He sees the papers in her hand. He sees the signature.
“No!” he yells and rips the papers out of her hands. She screams and moves aside as Daryl heads for the door. He doesn’t get far, and his leg is ripped from beneath him, and he crashes to the floor.
It’s Shane who tackled him. His arms are around Daryl’s legs, and even Rick can’t get free.
He can’t focus, and images and memories flow back into him. And Daryl sees them all. He blinks, confused, not really knowing what is real and what is not.
Unwillingly he opens up for his own past, and the two of them are momentarily caught in a whirling storm of memories of two lives, so very different.
When he finally manages to break free from the storm, Daryl lies on the floor, Shane on his back. His arms are gathered in Shane’s hand, but he’s thankfully not handcuffed.
The room is in chaos. The papers are thrown around, with Lory tearfully trying to gather them. The doctor and a nurse are trying to talk to Shane, but he just yells at them.
He twists his arms so hard, Daryl fears they will break. Still, he struggles as the last few images go through his head. He flashes back and forth, and for a second, he is in hell. Then, it’s a new place. Pure darkness. And in the middle is Rick, lying down, dressed as a cop and bleeding from a wound on his side. His eyes are open, but he’s staring into nothing.
He wants to scream, but his voice is gone.
Pain in his shoulders brings him back, just as Shane gets Daryl up on his feet, who shakes the images out of his head. No time.
“Get this man out,” says the Doctor, but it’s the nurse who Daryl stares at. She’s holding a tray where three syringes are neatly lying in a row.
“No!” he yells and tries to get out of Shane’s grip, but the idiot maneuvers him through the door and out into the hall. And there he sees the suits. Baldy and the young one. They are watching them as they step out, and Daryl panics.
With all the strength he can find, he stomps down on Shane’s foot. A cheap trick, but it works. Shane lets him go with a pained cry, and Daryl spins him around and heads back into the room.
Just in time to see the nurse inject the drip with whatever’s in the first syringe.
He jumps forward, hands out to slap that stuff out of her hands. But, instead, an arm locks around his throat, and he nearly chokes.
He’s pressed back against a hard body, the arm tightening its hold mercilessly.
Black spots gather around his vision, and he wheezes in air. The nurse dropped the syringe in the chaos, but Doctor had already picked it up and stuck the needle back into the plastic tube with firm determination.
With a last struggle, Daryl slams his head backward, feeling more than hearing a crunch as Shane’s nose breaks. He yells, and the hold on Daryl’s neck loosens just enough for him to surge forward and enough air through his lips to scream at the top of his lungs.
“Rick!”
And Rick opens his eyes.
For a second, Daryl is gone from the hospital, gone from the darkness, and instead is standing in the middle of a crossroad in a big city. The buildings tower above him, grey and cold, but the sun shines down on him, hot and bright.
He looks to his right and sees Rick. Relief and something close to pure happiness fill him, especially when he sees and feels that Rick is okay. He’s still pale and dressed in his hospital gown, but he’s standing tall and smiling back at Daryl.
Then he sees the others.
A large, muscular man with red hair and beard. A thin woman with short grey hair and a weary smile. Another woman with dark skin and dreadlocks. A woman with brown hair down to her shoulders and a kind smile. An Asian guy with a baseball hat. A woman with dark skin, her arms crossed, but her eyes shine with humor.
He and Rick look at them, and the six people look back, and they know.
Daryl blinks.
He’s back in the hospital room but lying on the bed, staring at himself being held by Shane. The six others are also in the room, looking at him, at Rick, and at themselves. Shane lifts his hand and punches Daryl in the face.
Then he is nowhere. He blacks out, leaving behind the people who are there and somehow not. He falls into nothingness.
…
For someone who has always felt alone and thought it was just the hand he was dealt, it’s a welcome feeling knowing he is never alone.
It isn’t easy to convince Shane and Lory that Daryl is just a friend who somehow learned that the doctor was keeping Rick in a fake coma, but they manage.
Rick is heartbroken when Lory tells him about her and Shane. The years of love and friendship are cracked but not broken. They will heal, but it will take time.
Time Rick spends with Daryl in a small apartment. Merle was pissed, but Daryl didn’t give him any chance to stop him. He wants to be with Rick. Now that he can actually feel him, actually touch him and see him, he will never let him go.
He never feels alone again.
He and Rick lie naked in the bed, and at the same time, they stand in an alley behind a pizzeria, grinning at the jokes Glenn tells. They ride across fields on the back of a dark brown stallion, Maggie showing them how. They smoke with Abraham and play with Michonne’s little boy.
But it’s not all fun and games.
More than once, Daryl sees those suited bastards. They stand across the road when they shop groceries, and they sometimes sit in a car near the apartment when Daryl gets home from work. They never do anything, but Daryl knows they are plotting. And he’s ready. So is Rick.
The suits are not the only problem.
They all step up when Ed gets drunk and help Carol defend her girl, Sophia. Rick drops a few hints at the local police station, and they give Carol the strength to make charges against her husband. Turns out she lives close to Maggie and her family’s farm, and she easily finds a home there.
In those rare times when Daryl’s overwhelmed by it all. Drowning in the shame surrounding his name and the scars on his body, then he’s with Carol, who knows. They all know, but Carol is still the one he goes to. And she kisses his forehead and holds him in her arms, and he finds enough courage to go back and tell Rick the stories about his childhood.
And Rick kisses him and draws him into bed, and holds him all night.
They all hold him. And in time, Daryl feels less shameful about his life. One day, he might even be proud.