A.N. So someone on tumblr suggested this prompt a while back, and I randomly felt inspired to write on it. Something along the lines of Daryl gets a papercut and makes an embarrassingly big deal about the minor injury. Pretty sure this is my first Walking Dead fic and the first thing I've really written in years so I hope you enjoy!
The hunter had twisted his ankle the day before, concentrating too hard on the doe in front of him, and not enough on the gnarled, unearthed roots of the tree beside him.
Despite his insistent proclamations of his well-being, the resulting injury earned him two days of limited activity, much to his growing displeasure.
Day one was characterized by a mood of doom and gloom. The brooding redneck's surly attitude, and abundant death glares put a noticeable damper on the mood of the whole prison.
Instead of staying in his bed and taking a day to relax, Daryl sat himself down in the middle of the main room so that everyone who came in or out would be aware of his displease as communicated through the scowl he sent their way. As if they were purposefully rubbing their freedom and ability to walk in his face.
By day two Carol had had enough, so she sentenced Daryl to inventory, a task she had been working on for the past couple days. It was Carl's idea to make a list of everything they had so they could tell when they were running low on something important and could plan a run in advance, rather than waiting til they were completely out and desperate.
A room had been cleared near the library and the warden's office, shelves were brought in and loaded with everything that wasn't being used, blankets, canned goods, boxes of pasta, toiletries, feminine hygiene products, flashlights, and even candy bars. A clipboard hung on the wall by the door, holding pages of notebook paper meticulously organized, industriously categorized and clearly labeled by Carol, so that the quantity of each object could be easily found.
She had a couple reasons in enlisting Daryl as her helper, one to give her some company, because sitting in a dim room by herself counting tampons wasn't high on her list of things she like to do alone, two, to give Daryl something to do in the hopes that he would lessen his complaining. She figured if she set him up in a rolling chair he could get around the room easily enough, and you didn't need feet to count cans. But mostly Carol just wanted to get Daryl away from the other prison inhabitants. She was one of the few in the enlarged group that was not only used to, but could handle Dixon death glares and random fits of rage, but for most the new comers, the angry redneck would make them extremely nervous and skittish resulting in them all avoiding the main room and the work that needed to be done there like a plague.
The fact that Daryl quickly accepted the menial task of inventory showed just how stir crazy he was becoming, as he wordlessly followed Carol into the supply room.
"Sit" she ordered, pointing to a wheeled chair she had moved from the warden's office.
Daryl took a moment to glare at Carol, and then at the offending chair before gracelessly throwing himself into it. The momentum of his action causing the chair to spin which earned a stifled laugh from Carol and an audible huff from the hunter.
"Here," Carol said, offering him a clipboard once he got his spinning under control. "Pretty much all you have to do is go down the list and write down the number of each item next to its name, I'll be doing the same thing with this section over here" she explained, gesturing to a different shelf.
Daryl didn't grace the instructions with a response, instead giving his assigned area a long withering stare before resignedly rolling himself closer, awkwardly pulling himself along the ground with his good foot.
Carol watched him a bit longer than necessary, finding his motions rather amusing, before heading over to her section to begin her monotonous task.
They continued on in silence for a good while, the only sound the occasional crinkle of pages being turned and the light scratching of a pencil. There was no real way of judging time in the dim storage room but Carol would have guessed at least an hour had passed since they set about their tasks.
Her focus was painfully interrupted by her heart attempting to leap out of her chest when a crinkle of pages from Daryl resulted in one of the loudest and longest string of curses she had ever heard.
"SON OF A BITCH" he began, bending over at the waist, his arms tucked firmly between his stomach and thighs.
"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT" he continued, clenching his eyes shut as tight as he could.
"FUCK MOTHERFUCKING FUCK SHIT HOLY FUCK" his rant only increased in volume as he tried to get a hold of himself.
At this point, Carol had recovered enough from her hearts momentary seizure to realize that something was very wrong.
She flew across the cramped room, latching on to Daryl's shoulders from behind and forcefully swiveling the chair so that he faced her.
She took in his scrunched up face, clenched eyes and hunched body and immediately began to panic.
"Daryl!" she yelled, gripping his shoulders tighter and giving him a little shake. His lack of a flinch only increasing her worry.
"DARYL WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, TALK TO ME" she yelled over his nonstop string of profanity.
"MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF PAPER FUCKING SLICED MY FUCKING FINGER OFF. SHIT. FUCK. STUPID FUCKING LIST. STUPID FUCKING ANKLE. FUCK. FUCK!" he finished, his speech, cracking one pain filled eye to look at Carol who stood before him, mouth hanging open, eyes full of confusion and disbelief.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME" she yelled, her sudden outburst causing Daryl to leap out of his hunched position and fly backwards in the chair. His now eyes locked onto hers, a look of fear briefly flashing through them, his mouth now taking its turn to drop open.
"ARE YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME" she repeated taking a menacing step closer, causing Daryl to push off backwards in his rolling chair until he hit the shelf behind him.
"You made all that noise…..over a FUCKING PAPERCUT" she bellowed, leveling a fury filled glare on the cowering Dixon.
"I thought you were fucking dying! And all it was, was a FUCKING PAPERCUT?!"
Daryl, having covered from his initial shock, took the opportunity to look indignant.
"It was not just a fucking paper cut!" he whined, his voice sounding painfully high pitched and childish even to his own ears. "I nearly cut my fucking finger off!" he insisted, finally releasing the offended finger from its clamp in his other hand to show Carol just how much damage had been done.
To his credit there was a lot of blood, and as far as paper cuts go, having one in the webbing between your fingers was just about as bad as it could get, but Carol was not to be appeased, anything short of a life threatening injury was not going to excuse the hunter from her wrath.
She grabbed the hurt appendage mercilessly, yanking Daryl and his rolling chair closer in a violent tug, earning an unsuppressed yelp from the injured redneck.
"This." She stated, eerily calm, giving the hand a slight shake.
"This!" she repeated, louder, thrusting the hunter's hand towards his own face
"THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE FREAKING OUT ABOUT"
Daryl's eyes followed his flapping, injured finger, glaring at it hard before fixing his gaze on Carol, bottom lip poking out in a slight pout
"It fucking hurts!" he complained, desperately trying to revive his dignity, but quickly realizing he was done for.
"Oh I'll show you pain, Dixon!" Carol snarled, yanking the man up out of his chair and marching him out of the room leaving a trail of fluttering papers and a slowly spinning chair behind.
No one commented as the pair burst into the main room and headed up the stairs. A clearly pissed off, stomping Carol all but dragging a slightly terrified looking Daryl through the prison was not a situation anyone wanted to get involved in.
Carol threw the man towards her bed, not feeling any pity as his head smacked against the top bunk.
She grabbed her first aid kit from the corner of the room and stalked back towards the hunter, ordering him once again to "sit."
Carol stuck a piece of cotton into the bottle of rubbing alcohol, allowing it to soak up a good amount of liquid, before harshly clamping the swab directly onto Daryl's bleeding cut.
The man didn't even try to hold back his high pitched yelp as the cold, overwhelming sting of the alcohol seeped into his already throbbing wound.
Carol eased up her pressure slightly, beginning to dab the cut with a bit more gentleness, his pain finally getting through to her and earning some pity.
Daryl could tell she still wasn't happy, as her eyebrows were drawn down tight and her mouth was stretched in a thin line, but she no longer seemed to be enjoying his pain so he figured that was a good sign.
He watched as her methodic movements in cleaning up his bloodied hand seemed to calm her down, the tension easing from her face until she stared at his hand with a soft, if not slightly sad expression.
After a few quiet moments, she spoke, voice low.
"You really scared me, you know? She refused to meet his eye, instead she seemed determined to focus on his hand, her fingers lightly stroking around the offended area.
"When you started screaming? You really scared me, I thought something really, really bad had happened"
Her eyes flicked up to meet his and he was overwhelmed by the fear he saw in her gaze.
"m'sorry" he replied softly, not thinking of anything else he could say, but he held her gaze evenly, trying to convey with his eyes the fact that scaring her was the absolute last thing he ever wanted to do.
Her face lightened just a bit, mouth barely flicking up at the corner.
"It's okay" she breathed, refocusing her gaze on his hand as she struggled to secure a bandage to a difficult area.
"I didn't scream…." Daryl argued, still a little offended by her early comment on his reaction.
She fixed him in her sights, her eyes gleaming in a way that promised he was about to be made fun of.
"Please Dixon, you were hollering so bad, at first I thought Judith had wandered into the room and was crying for attention!"
She sent him a malicious smirk, suddenly realizing just how much dirt she had suddenly gained on the reserved man before her.
Daryl swallowed hard, a blush rising up his neck, his eyes pointedly staring away from her.
"It fuckin hurt alrigh?" he tried as a last ditch effort to save himself from eternal embarrassment.
He was completely unprepared, however, for Carol to burst into full on gut busting laughter, within seconds her face had turned red and she had tears leaking from the corner of her eyes.
Daryl could feel his face flushing, but a small part of him still couldn't help but be a little glad that at least he was the one who put that smile there.
"W'so funny" he grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest, returning to the pout he had put on earlier.
Carol took her time in stopping her laughter, eventually fixing Daryl in a level stare.
"Daryl I have seen you bloodied and beaten, forced into a chokehold, shot in the head, impaled by an arrow, kicked around by your brother and injured in just about every way I can imagine. Every time you refuse medication, complain about your bedrest, and make everyone around you feel mean and stupid for thinking you couldn't handle the pain, but yet you can be brought down…..by a paper cut."
"Yeah yeah" he growled "don't fucking piss yourself in happiness"
"It's just nice to know that you're not totally made of stone! Kind of makes me wonder what else could get you screaming out loud like that, but maybe not so much in pain this time…."
She sent an obvious wink his way, grinning like she knew she'd won, which Daryl reluctantly admitted was the truth.
"Stahp" he replied, face flaring up again, suddenly finding his boots to be an incredibly interesting thing to look at.
Carol refused to accept this however and forcefully lifted his head up with a finger under his chin.
"Don't worry Dixon" she smiled cheekily "it'll be our little secret" she finished with another wink, grabbing his injured hand and placing a light kiss on the unbandaged area, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time.. Giving his cheek a final little pat she whipped around, standing up tall and sashaying her way out of the cell.
Daryl's eyes followed the sway of her hips until they disappeared around the corner, trying to ignore the entirely different burning he now felt in his hand.
He debated what his next move should be for a moment before deciding he was probably in a good enough condition to continue on his inventory work with Carol. Maybe this time he could manage to get a paper cut in a more beneficial location, he figured the "get better kiss" he would earn for "accidentally" cutting his lip would make it all worth it.
With that thought he quickly hobbled after Carol, determined to make the best of his last day of limited activity.