Sometimes it's just under the surface, so close to spilling out of him in one big rush, he can taste it on his lips.
Rick, can we talk.
When the urge is really strong, he almost convinces himself that he should just get it over with. Pull out the entire sorry thing, like a splinter from his memory, a niggling thorn in both their hearts. He tries to tell himself they can stem the bleeding, together, and watch the wound scab over, then heal.
It would hurt, but so does this. They live in a bubble of trust with each other, and it's manageable. It's safe. He's always safe with Rick.
But it hurts, and weakens them, they bleed slowly, steadily. Rick's concern for him, Daryl's fear, his terror. It hollows them out like an infection, turning healthy tissue into puss.
Hurting Rick is unbearable, but letting it all go, now, will destroy him. And then Rick will be worse than useless, living with the knowledge of what happened. The burden is heavy, but it will double if Daryl tries to share. The truth and the fear will spiral into the here and now, out of the nightmares that won't stop.
So he deals with them the only way he knows how. When he startles awake in the pitch dark, tangled in the sheets, sweaty, clammy, his throat clogged up with the scream he just about managed to suppress, he takes himself away. Slowly, quietly, he slips from Rick's side and out of the room, steals from the house and over the wall like a shadow. Nobody knows he's leaving, nobody sees where he goes. He roams the woods, shoots walkers, possums, anything else that moves. Eventually, his brain calms down, and he returns, the same way he left, and is back in bed before Rick stirs in the first light of day.
Nightmares aren't the only thing that wakes him. As often, it's a sharp cramp in his gut, a tearing sensation preceded by a strange hollowness. He doesn't hide those episodes from Rick. There'd be no point, all he can do when it happens is to bolt for the en-suite, praying he'll hold it together to get there in time.
His tormentors fucked him up good, with the crap they fed him. He's not told anyone about the dog food, or his suspicion of what else was mixed into those sandwiches. He should've refused to eat them, but he'd been so weak, so broken. He'd decided that sub-standard energy was better than none at all. He'd been wrong, fucked up, like so many times before. He can't tell Rick that.
Tara found him some pills after Rick urged him to describe the symptoms to her. "They're for IBS," she read off the label. "Might help with gastritis, too. Take them for a few days, see if it gets better." It hasn't, not yet. The nausea he gets as soon as he takes more than two bites of his food makes him irritable, and the digestive issue makes him weak – and worries Rick deeply.
When Daryl staggers from the bathroom during those awful nights, Rick is sitting up already, and helps him back to bed. Rick gets a cool wash cloth to wipe his face, and a fresh shirt or boxer shorts if Daryl has sweated so much that he starts to shiver. Then Rick goes to the kitchen and makes tea that tastes of weeds and bark, and that settles Daryl's stomach and helps him fall asleep again.
He can't speak about any of it to Rick, but he doesn't have to. Rick never asks anything of him, there's no condition linked to his love. He's there when Daryl needs him, no payment expected, not even the truth.
Yet Daryl wants to give something back, wants to return to what they were, before. Half hopes, if he's honest with himself, that it might help heal whatever got broken in them both.
The first time he tries, only days after returning to Alexandria, he pulls away with a hiss before Rick's hand really alights on his busted ribs.
"I'm so sorry, man," Rick whispers in the moonlight. Daryl, lying on his back and breathing through the sharp throbbing of his heartbeat, shakes his head. Then he remembers Rick can't see him.
"'s my fault," he says through gritted teeth. "I wanted it."
"Let's just wait a while." Rick sounds so patient, so gentle. So sad.
"Alright," Daryl whispers. He wants to say something else, but he can't think what. Thank you? I'm sorry? Don't leave?
They shift around until they're nestled into each other, Rick around Daryl's back, like they used to sleep. But they barely touch. Not until after another of Daryl's nightly episodes, when Rick, with a sigh, pulls Daryl close, and Daryl is grateful for the shared body heat.
The second time it happens, Daryl's wounds have healed somewhat. Rick's hand alights very gently on Daryl's middle, and for a moment Daryl thinks his intestines are about to wreak havoc again. He quickly rolls onto his side, away from Rick, braced for the slicing cramp that usually follows the odd hollowness that's already settling in. But it doesn't come.
He stays on his side, with his hand on his middle, heart thumping too fast.
"I'll go make tea," Rick says, and the mattress shudders as he sits up. Daryl rolls onto his back and reaches for Rick's elbow.
"False alarm. Sorry."
Rick considers him in the dim light from the bedside lamp, eyes gentle. "You sure?"
Daryl nods.
"It's okay, you know," Rick continues. "You're not ready. We'll just wait."
"Soon," Daryl says, trying to mean it.
Rick smiles. "Yeah, soon." He twists around until he can turn off the light, and lies back down on his side. Daryl finds his hand in the darkness and pulls it onto his chest. That's how they fall asleep.
The third time they try, there's no explaining it away. Daryl's ribs are barely even sore anymore, and his stomach's been better, too. The light's already off, and this time Rick makes the first move. Daryl feels ready, he wants Rick so bad. But when Rick's hand alights on the waistband of his underwear he's suddenly frozen, and he can taste bile collecting at the back of his throat. This time, it's not his body that's fucked up, it's his head. He wants to scream with rage and despair.
Rick's hand is frozen, too. He already knows it's a no go. His fingers slowly withdraw and he rolls onto his back, without a sound.
"'m so sorry." It's hardly words, more of a sob, and Daryl cringes at the neediness he can't suppress. Then Rick is back, hovering over him, an inky shadow through tears and darkness.
"Can…can I..." Rick wants to know if he can touch.
"Yeah…course…" Daryl wants to be held, to be soothed; he flings himself into Rick's arms, and next moment he's being held so close, so hard, everything else falls away. He whimpers as his ribs protest with an angry twinge, but Rick can't hear, not now. Rick's sobs are noisy, his ragged breath is loud, and Daryl holds on, buries his head against the other man until he can hear nothing but Rick's racing heart.
Nothing is resolved that night, nothing cleansed. They need to talk. The unspoken words bubble under the surface, sit in their side like thorns. They surface in nightmare, and Daryl can no longer run far enough away to shake them off. He never asks what Rick does with his bad dreams. Another thing they never acknowledge.
The unanswered questions remain. They're right there when Rick puts his warm hand gently on Daryl's aching belly at night, when they sit silently in the evening, tired from a day of scouting, negotiating, and making plans.
They need to speak about it, purge it, let it go. There are things in both their memories that need to be shared, so they can be conquered and left in the past. But they have no energy to spare for the seismic shift that will occur when the truth, the nightmares, the dread breaks free.
Rick never says, You can tell me, Daryl. He knows Daryl can't, no more than he can himself. As long as what happens doesn't become words, they can live, they can get on with what needs doing.
Their shared silence wounds them, never deeply, never fatally. They only bleed a little, but they feel each other's strength trickle away, silently watch the wounds stay open, never getting smaller, never scaring over.
They're at an impasse, and nothing can unstick them now.