Work Text:
AN: This is for freefromthecocoon who wanted “Mistletoe” and post season 10, post Whisperers, Caryl.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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She was bundled up in her coat. With the hat and scarf that he insisted she wear, and the gloves that he’d found her to keep her fingers from freezing off, there was precious little of her that was visible except her face. Her nose and her cheeks were bright pink from the cold and biting icy wind.
She was adorable—though she would have probably glared at him for describing her in such a way.
But she was. And she was beautiful—even if she might have argued with him if he’d insisted on describing her that way.
He was content to walk a few steps behind her, crunching their way through the snow, while she satisfied the strange need to amble that ate at her restless soul.
Daryl’s brother, Merle, had never been much of a wiseman or a poet. He’d spent too much of his life strung out on shit he had no business taking to leave too much of an impact behind. The truth of the matter, though, was that there was something of a philosopher in Merle when he was lucid and sober—not that too many of his ideas would have been appropriate for greeting cards.
Merle had always said that every soul was bound to wander until it had a home—a real home—and real fucking reason to settle.
Dixons didn’t know how to make homes. It had, perhaps, been the downfall of their whole damn family line.
But Daryl was trying desperately to make a home for himself. He was trying desperately to make a home for others, too, that he knew needed one.
Lydia deserved to at least know peace and happiness for a few years before she was declared absolutely and unquestionably an adult. She deserved to know what a home was before she was expected to make one of her own.
Daryl wasn’t much of a father, and maybe he was never meant to be someone’s old man, but he was doing his best. They had a nice little house in Alexandria. It was warm and he worked with everybody else to make sure that there was water and food for the whole community—his own home included. He did his best to provide her with stability—something he’d truly craved for his whole damn life—and, even though he didn’t bring the best manners with him, he insisted on things like meals consumed at the table and time to just sit and talk about how her day had gone or what she’d learned and whether or not the other kids were still fucking with her about where she’d come from.
Daryl had had, after all, more than one heated discussion with a parent or two over their child’s behavior and he was pretty sure that, soon, he’d have it so that Lydia was able to simply be Lydia, instead of always being doomed to be the girl that had been Alpha’s daughter.
Daryl wanted stability for Lydia because he was committed to being her old man. And, even though he’d never imagined himself as being anyone’s old man, if he was going to do it, he was determined to do it to the best of his ability. His old man, after all, had taught him what the hell he shouldn’t do. He need only do the opposite of what his father would have done to figure out how it was that he was supposed to help her cross the final few years into adulthood.
For as much as Daryl wanted stability for Lydia, though, he wanted it for himself, too. He’d never had a childhood—not the kind he’d dreamed of having. Even in adulthood, he’d never had the kind of home that he’d dreamed of having.
A wife, kids, a dog—all in a nice little house.
He had the house. Dog was getting older, but he was still a happy family pet. Lydia was as close to a daughter as Daryl could dream of having—at least at this point, though he didn’t ever pretend to know what the future might hold.
And God knew that he loved the woman he wished would be his wife.
He loved her with every fiber of his being.
But he didn’t know how to tell her, and she didn’t seem to notice, so he settled for just having her live in his home as his best friend, and he followed her, every evening, as she traipsed through the snow and followed that restless soul of hers that was bound to wander until she had a home into which she could settle.
If only he could get her to realize that he wanted, desperately, to help her build that home.
The Whisperers were long gone. Alpha and Beta were dead. The rest of their tribe—or whatever it was best to call their herd—had disbanded with the loss of their leaders. It turned out that none of them were truly dedicated to their way of life when their leaders fell. Those that seemed truly unable to live among society had disappeared. Most of them were never heard from again. A few were killed because they were too wild to know how to act and had threatened the lives of others. A few others blended into the tapestry of nearby communities and, over time, they started to find a place for themselves that gave them a sense of self that went beyond their place in the Whisperer pack.
Every evening, Carol’s restless soul took her out to walk their land—all of it, technically was their land now that the Whisperers were gone—and to walk beyond that which they’d once been dared to cross. Every evening, she marched—despite the weather—across lines they’d been told not to cross. She went out to make sure that Alpha hadn’t somehow returned from the dead to threaten the life that they had. She went out to make sure that no new threat loomed over the horizon.
Yet it seemed she was afraid to really give in and live the life that was offered to them for the fear that she had of seeing it snatched away.
She was afraid to be happy because she feared losing that happiness once it was felt.
And all that Daryl could do was dream of sharing that happiness with her.
Even a moment, he knew—one precious moment—would be worth it.
One moment with her was worth more than an entire lifetime of being without her.
Maybe that was why he’d steered her out in this particular direction. Without her even knowing it, he’d carefully steered their steps. He’d staggered here or there, suggested that they look at one thing or another, and chased a few imaginary rustlings in the bushes. He’d steered her here because he’d seen it while he’d been hunting, and he’d stopped to look at it. He’d stopped to dream of bringing her there.
His heart kicked up to what felt like a thousand beats a minute when he realized where they were. They had finally arrived.
“Hey!” He called out, getting her attention. His voice carried, it seemed, farther in the icy weather. She stopped and turned around. She was red-cheeked and red-nosed and his heart ached because he loved her so much that just seeing her, no matter how many times a day he saw her, made him feel like he would explode.
“Something wrong?” She asked.
“Gettin’ kinda late,” Daryl said. “Gettin’ cold. We oughta head back before long. Don’t wanna be out in the dark.”
“Just a little longer,” Carol said.
“Why?” Daryl asked.
“What?” Carol asked.
“Why just a little longer?” Daryl asked. “There ain’t nothin’ out here. Just cold an’ dead, Carol. The whole world’s hibernating. Maybe we oughta do the same thing.”
She smiled at him. He saw the twinkle in her eyes even from this distance. He loved her smile. Immediately his chest flooded with a warmth that could have almost made him sweat inside his coat.
She walked back to him, her boots crunching as she moved, and she stood a few feet in front of him and smirked at him. She was about to get his goose—or to do her best to do it—and he’d let her have it. There was nobody he’d rather have bust his balls than her—though something of his inner Merle Dixon really wished she’d do more for his balls than just that.
Ten years was a long time to wait, but he’d wait a lifetime for her if he had to.
One minute, after all, would be worth it all.
“You wanna hibernate, Daryl?” Carol asked.
“Maybe I do,” Daryl said.
“With me?” She asked. She wagged her eyebrows at him.
A million times. A million times a day it seemed—though he knew that wasn’t really the case—she’d presented him with something like this. It was the perfect moment. The perfect opportunity. And, yet, every time she did it, Daryl found himself without the ability to breathe. He found himself entirely unable to respond to her with the words that would, possibly, get him what he wanted most in the world.
And, once again, his brain seized up with anxiety and it failed him.
“Stop,” he heard himself mutter.
This time, though, his own word hit him in the chest like a bullet.
Because he saw the smile fall slowly from her features. For a brief moment, she looked at him intensely and intently and then she nodded her head. She stepped around him and she started back in the direction that they’d come. He watched her putting her feet in the spots his boots had left.
He mustered up every last bit of courage he’d ever had because his gut told him that if he didn’t, he’d never get even that one moment of sheer and utter happiness.
“Hey!” He called out.
She stopped. She turned enough to look at him over her shoulder. He ignored that her shoulders slumped forward slightly.
“What?” She asked.
“Come here,” Daryl said, waving at her.
“I thought you wanted to go back,” Carol said.
“Just come here,” Daryl growled out. He hoped the touch of irritation he allowed in his tone would make her come back.
She let out a dramatic sigh, probably to pay him back for his irritated tone, and stomped back with her boots making larger holes in the snow than before. She stood directly in front of him. She squared herself up with him, in a way, and he tried not to laugh at the fact that she looked very tiny in her over-sized winter coat and bundle of scarves.
“Well?” She asked.
Daryl let himself smile at her. He loved her. He gathered up every bit of courage that he had, because even if she told him to go to hell and she ran away from him forever, he was about to have, at the very least, one minute.
“Look up,” Daryl said, pointing upward toward the canopy of gnarly tree branches that stretched above them, heavy-laden with the naturally occurring plant.
“What?” Carol asked, looking at the trees.
“Mistletoe,” Daryl said. “You know what that means.”
She looked at him, half a smirk on her face. She searched him out and the smile fell.
“You don’t want to kiss me,” she said.
“You have to,” Daryl said. “That’s—the rules. I didn’t make ‘em.”
A new smile toyed at the corner of her mouth.
“You never wanted to kiss me before,” she said. Daryl’s heart thundered mercilessly in his chest. He felt a little lightheaded. He reminded himself that nothing ventured was nothing gained.
“Wanted to kiss you a thousand times,” Daryl said.
She furrowed her brow and tipped her head to the side.
“You never asked,” Carol said.
“You always seemed—busy kissin’ other people,” Daryl said. “I figured—one day—if I was patient? I might, somehow, land you under the mistletoe.”
Carol looked up again and when she looked back at Daryl, she was smiling.
“This isn’t where we usually come,” she mused.
“I hunt here a lot,” Daryl said.
“This is the first time I think we’ve come out this way,” Carol said.
“Ain’t that fortuitous?” Daryl said with a smile.
“Did you do this on purpose?” Carol asked.
“Depends on—whether or not you gonna kiss me,” Daryl said.
His heart thundered in his chest and then nearly screeched to halt when she reached her gloved hand to catch him behind the neck. Daryl had barely ever been kissed in his life before, but he’d certainly never been kissed the way that Carol kissed him. He’d never really wanted to kiss anyone, honestly, the way that he’d wanted to kiss Carol.
He wasn’t sure if he was any good at it, and he wasn’t sure if she enjoyed it all that much, but he liked kissing her. So, he wrapped his arms around her and he pulled her to him and he kissed her more—long and hard and then soft and repeated. He peppered her face with kisses and nuzzled the warm skin of her neck before he tested the softness of that skin with his teeth and the saltiness with his tongue. And then he came back to find her lips and he tasted them again. He closed his eyes and he tasted her.
He kissed her until his lips felt numb and the cold wind was biting at the dampness left behind by saliva. He kissed her until he tasted blood from chapped lips and he wasn’t sure if it was hers or his or if their blood was combining together in some kind of obscene mistletoe-demanded blood connection.
He feared letting the kiss end, but all things had to end.
And the moment, no matter what followed, had been worth it.
Carol’s face was redder than it had been before. She looked at him with eyes that seemed twice the size they had been before. Her pupils nearly blotted out the blue of her irises.
“Did you mean that?” Carol asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
“The kiss?” He asked.
“Was it—just some…mistletoe thing?” Carol asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
“I’m not that damn superstitious or whatever,” Daryl said. “Maybe I just hoped the mistletoe would—help me out a little.”
“So, you wanted to kiss me?” Carol asked.
“Told you,” Daryl said, “that I wanted to kiss you a thousand times. You told me once that—I deserved to be happy. I deserved someone to make me happy.” Carol nodded her head. Daryl felt like he drew a little unexplained strength from the fact that she looked like she needed him to find it. “What if—I wanted that someone to be you?”
“Daryl—I…” Carol stammered. Daryl could see it in her face. Fear. It was that same fear she’d worn before. She was afraid to be happy—truly happy—because she feared losing it.
Daryl touched her face with his own gloved hand and she leaned her cheek into his palm like she appreciated the warmth. He brought his other hand up to warm both her cheeks at once and he smiled at her.
“We’re safe as we ever been,” Daryl said. “Future looks pretty bright. I love you. I think—I always have. I got a house, Carol. But—what if you were to help me make it a home?”
Carol stood, content to let him warm her cheeks in his hands and she closed her eyes to him. A smile slowly spread across her lips. She opened her eyes to him again and they were damp.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Carol said. “I—I love you, too.”
Daryl laughed to himself as relief flooded his chest.
“You mean that?” Daryl asked.
“If you do,” Carol said.
“Come on,” Daryl said. “Let’s—head on back to the house. Where it’s warm.”
“Daryl,” Carol said, catching his arm as he started to walk away. He turned back to look at her. “When we get back—it’s all going to go very fast. Because we’ll have to tell Lydia. And we’ll have to tell Michonne and the others.”
“I don’t want to keep it a secret,” Daryl said. “Jesus—I wanna tell everyone. You don’t wanna keep it a secret or somethin’, do you?”
Carol shook her head.
“But—do you think—we could just stay here? For just a few minutes more? Just the two of us? Under the mistletoe?”
Daryl smiled to himself and quickly rushed to catch her in his arms again. He let his kiss be the only way that he answered her.
And he was pretty sure that, somewhere inside him, his soul sighed as it settled in a way that it had never settled before. Because these minutes spent under the mistletoe with her were just the start. Every minute of the rest of his life, now, was going to be spent with her.
And he couldn’t wait for every single one of them.