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By now, Daryl’s used to coming back to camp and finding everything has gone to shit while he’s been away, but this is worse than most.
There’s smoke and there’s fire, screaming and chaos, more walkers than they can ever really expect to kill. But like so many times in his life before the apocalypse, Daryl has a truck full of gasoline and a bad idea and so maybe, just maybe, this time will land him in the arms of a police officer for something other than being tackled to the ground and read his rights.
Because he’s done. He’s just so fucking done with propriety and hesitation and keeping up appearances, and he’s going to do it, going to storm up to Rick when this is all said and done and just fucking tell him. He’s rehearsed the words in his head so many times that he’s surprised he hasn’t literally said them in his sleep by now. And hell, maybe he has and whoever heard had just been kind enough not to mention it in the morning, but either way, he’s going to say them now, going to take his balls in his hand and make goddamn sure that the next time Rick charges into battle, he knows what he has waiting for him when he gets home.
The fire erupts and it’s working, attracting the walkers to the water so they can burn to ash in its depths, but there are still too many of them, and from his perch on top of the truck Daryl can see Rick fighting like a man possessed, his once-white t-shirt stained with blood that’s too red and fresh to have come from a walker, and Daryl jumps down from the truck and starts fighting his way through to help him.
And after this is over, he’ll tell Rick how he feels. It’s all planned. It will be a quiet moment, the first one after the battle, during that fuzzy time when adrenaline is still coursing like liquid fire in their veins but it’s muted by silence, by the way it feels when the lights go out and everyone goes home safe to their beds. Rick will be standing on the porch, his pupils blown wide as he turns and sees Daryl walking toward him. Daryl will be wearing his leather jacket--
Dammit. He doesn’t have his jacket. It’s gone, out in the woods somewhere. But there’s got to be a leather jacket somewhere in Alexandria. He thinks he may have seen Tobin wearing one, so maybe he can go borrow it from him, because the leather jacket is important to this image. It’ll be a little big on him, but that’s better than just walking up on the porch in a vest that’s seen better days over a frayed black button-up t-shirt that’s splattered with gasoline and ash and walker gore.
So after the fight is over, Daryl will go to Tobin’s house and borrow his leather jacket and then go home. Rick will be standing on the porch, his pupils blown wide as he turns and sees Daryl walking toward him. Daryl will be wearing Tobin’s leather jacket and looking cool and collected, mysterious in the moonlight, and he’ll shake his soft hair off his forehe--
Holy shit, his hair’s a fucking mess. He can’t even remember the last time he’s showered and he’s pretty sure Judith spit up in it at some point since then and he can’t go home and fucking confess his undying love to Rick while he’s got baby puke and god knows what else stuck in his hair. So he’ll need to wash up and then he’ll need to dry his hair because this also doesn’t work if he’s dripping wet looking like a dog that’s been flea-dipped.
So after the fight is over, Daryl will go to Tobin’s house and borrow his leather jacket and then go home, where he’ll take a shower and wash his hair and then borrow Maggie’s hair dryer and blow-dry his hair, and then he will go downstairs. Rick will be standing on the porch, his pupils blown wide as he turns and sees Daryl walking toward him. Daryl will be wearing Tobin’s leather jacket and looking cool and collected, mysterious in the moonlight, and he’ll shake his soft hair off his forehead and flick his cigarette to the ground--
Shit, does he have cigarettes? He stabs another walker and then checks his pocket quickly, feeling the comforting box and lighter nestled there carefully. Which is good, because cigarettes look cool. Or at least he thinks they do? Honestly he’s not sure what looks good to straight men. They don’t like girls smoking so maybe Rick won’t like a smoking man either, but he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with his hands while he walks if he’s not adjusting his crossbow strap or smoking a cigarette, and he can’t just let them flop free because then he’ll start biting his thumbnail and that doesn’t look cool either. So he’ll go in the kitchen and find a drink to take out on the porch and offer Rick.
So after the fight is over, Daryl will go to Tobin’s house and borrow his leather jacket and then go home, where he’ll take a shower and wash his hair and then borrow Maggie’s hair dryer and blow-dry his hair, and then he will go downstairs and make two mugs of coffee. Rick will be standing on the porch, his pupils blown wide as he turns and sees Daryl walking toward him. Daryl will be wearing Tobin’s leather jacket and looking cool and collected, mysterious in the moonlight, and he’ll shake his soft hair off his forehead and hold out one of the mugs to Rick, who will accept it gratefully, and then--
Well, fuck, if they’re both holding coffee mugs then Daryl can’t exactly place his hands on Rick’s cheeks like he wants to when he says his piece, and that’s part of the romance.
So after the fight is over, Daryl will go to Tobin’s house and borrow his leather jacket and then go home, where he’ll take a shower and wash his hair and then borrow Maggie’s hair dryer and blow-dry his hair, and then he will go downstairs to find his man. Rick will be standing on the porch, his pupils blown wide as he turns and sees Daryl walking toward him. Daryl will be wearing Tobin’s leather jacket and looking cool and collected, mysterious in the moonlight, and he’ll shake his soft hair off his forehead and be very very aware of his hands so that he doesn’t bite his thumbnail, and then he will step up in front of Rick and cradle the man’s face in his calloused hands, weaving their gazes together like the fabric of their hearts, and Rick will furrow his brow in confusion but then Daryl will speak in a low, sex-laced voice:
“Rick Grimes, I cannot go another day without telling you how deeply I love you. You are the sun in the morning and the moon at night and I would follow you into battle no matter what the risk. You are my captain, my leader, my love, and I would be honored to stand beside you as your partner as we face this long road together.”
Yes. Fucking perfect. And then he’ll lean forward and kiss Rick, and their lips will slot together like gears that were designed to rotate around each other, and it will be just exactly right, and from then on it will be Rick and Daryl, lovers and partners and everything else they can be to each other.
But for now, there’s a war to be won. He races through the herd, stabbing left and right and tossing already-dead bodies out of his way as he goes. Walkers stopped having faces a long time ago, back in the grass beside a warehouse with busted-out windows, and Daryl uses that advantage now, barely sparing a glance at the dead as he takes them out with his knife and tries not to think about how off-balance he feels without an extra ten pounds of weight on his back.
The crowd parts, and Daryl locks eyes with Rick across the herd for a moment before one of the walkers gets a little too close for comfort and Rick has to turn away to take it out. Then there’s another, and another, and Rick lets out a war cry as the hatchet he’s carrying slices through the air, punctuated by heavy thunks as it lands in dead flesh. Daryl jogs forward and joins the circle that Rick has going with Michonne and some of the Alexandrians protecting each others’ backs, and for a long time there’s nothing in the world but cinder and ash and blood, Rick’s presence steady at Daryl’s side as it should be.
//
After the fight, there’s no time for quiet moments. The wound on Daryl’s shoulder is still bleeding and he begrudgingly lets himself be doctored, not flinching away from Denise’s careful fingers on his skin, as Rick sits vigil beside Carl’s bed. And a hospital room, even one that used to be someone’s bedroom, with Carl lying pale and drawn on the bed as Rick and Daryl stand nearby--that doesn’t exactly sound like the sort of setting where love confessions are welcome.
So he leaves the infirmary, goes back to the house, takes a shower. He even blow-dries his hair, earning himself a very bemused look from Glenn as the other man happens by the bathroom while Daryl is standing there with the door open, fighting with the settings on the hair dryer. But Glenn has good news--Carl will pull through. He’s going to be down for several counts while his face heals, but he’ll live, and Daryl’s chest loosens a bit from the tightness he’d felt ever since he saw the blood on Rick’s shirt and knew it must be from someone they loved.
Rick isn’t back when Daryl’s hair is dry, and he’s probably going to be staying over at the infirmary until Carl wakes up, so Daryl dresses in some clean-ish clothes and heads over to Tobin’s house.
Tobin’s leather jacket fits even worse than Daryl had imagined: tight and bunched on his broad shoulders and loose and shapeless down his torso, and it really looks more “elderly gentleman at the golf course” than “badass biker confessing his love” but beggars can’t exactly be choosers, so he takes the jacket and heads back to the house. He’s exhausted by now, the adrenaline from the fight having worn off entirely, and he’s hoping to get a couple of hours sleep to tone down the bags under his eyes before he talks to Rick, because dark circles under his eyes aren’t sexy.
And this has to be perfect. So Daryl needs to look his best, speak his best, smell his best--
He stops at Aaron’s house and asks to borrow some cologne, then sprays way too much on himself and starts back toward the house. He rehearses the speech in his head again as he walks.
“Rick Grimes, I cannot go another day without telling you how deeply I love you. You are the sun in the morning and the moon at night and I would follow you into battle no matter what the risk. You are my captain, my leader, my love, and--”
“Daryl?”
It’s Rick’s voice, strained and broken, gruff with the force of all the battle cries he’d been shouting at the sky while they fought side-by-side for hours. He’s standing on the porch of the infirmary, still wearing the ruined once-white t-shirt that’s splashed with Carl’s blood, and to be entirely frank, he looks like a steaming pile of shit, with circles under his eyes that make Daryl’s circles look like they don’t mean nearly enough business. His hair is still caked with sweat and blood, the skin on his neck streaked with a blackish substance that Daryl doesn’t even want to speculate about, and he sways on his feet a little as he stands there, exhaustion radiating off him like steam from a hot sidewalk.
Daryl’s walking towards him before he realizes he’s moving, and maybe now’s the time. Maybe it won’t be perfect, won’t be exactly like he’d planned, but Rick is here now and alive and who knows if that will still be true ten minutes from now, and Daryl is overcome with the urge to say it.
“Rick Grimes, I cannot go another day without telling you how deeply I love you. You are the sun in the morning and--”
Fuck, his eyes are blue. Daryl’s noticed that before, of course. It’s one of the most striking features about the man. But every time he notices it feels like the first time, and he dissolves into thoughts of what he could compare the color to. ‘Sky’ seems too cliche. ‘Sapphire’ isn’t quite right, and neither is robin’s egg, and he guesses it’s the same color as the shitty plastic kiddie pool he’d found at a dump site as a child but he can’t exactly say that either.
“Thank god you’re back,” Rick is saying as Daryl draws closer. “I was so worried--”
“Rick, I got somethin’ to say,” Daryl says, stepping up onto the porch next to the man and taking a deep breath. He lifts his hands slowly and watches as Rick’s brow knits with confusion, then mans the fuck up and puts his hands on Rick’s cheeks with a slap--
Shit. He did that too hard. Goddammit. Rick blinks in surprise but Daryl’s still determined to do this, and he holds his hands on the man’s face with probably too much force. Oh god, now he’s squeezing Rick’s face like a vice and he’s got crazy eyes and he knows he does, breathing too hard and too fast, and frankly Rick is starting to look massively concerned and who can blame him because Daryl’s standing here trying to squash his head like a melon and absolutely reeking to high heaven of Old Spice and old, mildewed leather, and holy fuck Rick’s eyes are so close, and he just needs to say something. “I love your eyes, for they are beautiful like the sky at twilight--” Blueberries! Fuck, they’re just exactly the color of blueberries, at least when they’re dry and refrigerated, but that’s not romantic enough either, and then Daryl realizes with horror that his goddamn mouth is moving and he looks Rick deep in the eyes and says--
“I like your fucking blueberries.”
Rick blinks again, and Daryl blinks again, and shit his hands are still on Rick’s face so he drops them, and what the fuck does Rick think he means by that, oh god, he’s fucked this up royally and it’s never going to be okay again and to make matters worse, lil Daryl is chubbing up in his pants at the proximity and wouldn’t that just be great, if he fucking came in his fucking pants like a thirteen-year-old seeing a naked photo for the first time, and holy fuck he just wants to run back to the house and just fucking cry because this is terrible, this is--
He whirls around, eyeing his surroundings for the best escape route, and he’s just about to take off at a sprint when Rick’s hand closes around his wrist.
“Daryl,” Rick murmurs. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Daryl mutters. “It was supposed to be perfect. I had it all fucking planned and--”
“Had what planned?”
Daryl turns around and looks at Rick, then drops his eyes to the porch and starts chewing his thumb like a rawhide bone. “Was gonna tell you shit.”
Rick laughs softly, a tired laugh but with some actual joy behind it for the first time in months. “Tell me what?”
“That I’m… okay hang on. I got this.” Daryl takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders. “Rick Grimes, I cannot blow another--wait, I cannot go another day without…” He trails off, frustrated, and chews at his thumb even harder.
“Daryl,” Rick says. “You can say anything to me.”
Daryl eyes him for several seconds, then straightens his shoulders even more. “Ah, fuck it,” he says, raising his hands back to Rick’s face but softer this time, and before he can talk himself out of it he’s leaning forward and pressing his lips to Rick’s.
Rick lets out a surprised little huff of air and then Daryl feels hands slide around his waist and pull him close as Rick opens his mouth to Daryl’s tongue. Daryl grunts in satisfaction and moves his lips on Rick’s, and it’s clumsy and ridiculous and he’s probably using way too much tongue but Rick doesn’t seem to mind, and even with as unpolished as the kiss is, Daryl’s body ignites like the pond had earlier that day and holy shit, Rick either has his Python in his pocket or he’s very happy to see Daryl, or maybe even both, and--
“Stop thinking so hard,” Rick murmurs against Daryl’s mouth. “Just kiss me.”
Daryl takes a deep breath, letting everything flow out of his mind except this moment on this porch with this man and the rest of their lives ahead of them, no matter how short or long that might be. The kiss slows down, becomes more a caress of lips than a battle of tongues, and Daryl whimpers against Rick’s skin and tangles his hands in Rick’s hair and pours everything he has into the movements of his fingers against Rick’s scalp.
They break apart a few minutes later and lean their foreheads together, Daryl’s heart pounding like a marching band has invaded his chest and Rick breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in a way that makes Daryl’s mouth dry. Daryl swallows hard and looks up into Rick’s eyes. “I love you. That’s all I wanted to say.”
Rick smiles and runs his fingers over Daryl’s jaw, then leans forward and kisses him again, soft and slow and chaste. “I love you, too.”