Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: This is only my second Walking Dead fic, and my first one shot. Hopefully, it's all right! Written for the USS Caryl Winter/Holiday Themed Challenge on Tumblr. I had so much fun writing this, so I hope you enjoy reading!
Roses in Winter
He should have been sleeping.
Daryl was fortune to have an hour to himself, his services not needed elsewhere—no supply runs to make, no problems at the fence, no shift to stand watch. Since it was an opportunity that happened to be few and far between these days, he should have disappeared up to the perch for a nap. Instead, something else required his attention, and he needed to get it done while the cell block was nearly empty. That, and the holiday was fast-approaching, at least by everyone's estimation. Christmas, according to some of the children who'd kept a vigilant tally, was tomorrow.
He didn't put much thought into holidays anymore—hadn't ever, really. Days seemed to blend into one another and the special occasions of the old world didn't hold the same meaning. The group never acknowledged them, except maybe for a birthday or casual remark of someone guessing the approximate date. But here, because this place had provided a more stable home than they'd had in awhile, Daryl could only assume people had become nostalgic. The kids, mostly. They were still searching for a tie to their old lives, anything resembling normalcy, so the adults had worked behind the scenes to scrounge up a celebration. Daryl had gone with Michonne, Maggie, Carol, and Glenn on a couple runs for presents, decorations, and, well, a generous amount of alcohol for the rest of them.
It would be their first holiday as a group.
Daryl pulled back the curtain of the cell he'd taken to occupying. He didn't own very many things, but still, the small space managed to look haphazard. Tugging a pillow across the mattress, he reached into the case to unearth a heavy object he'd wrapped in a frayed towel.
Sitting on the floor cross-legged, Daryl placed the object in question on the floor in front of him. Lifting it out of the cocoon of the towel, he gave it a gentle shake, inspecting every outside inch to make sure it hadn't been damaged. It'd been a real miracle that he'd even got it to the prison without it shattering in a billion pieces, even more so that it had been found intact in the first place.
Daryl watched the fake snowflakes swirl around the glass dome, specks of glitter caught in the overcast daylight. They fluttered and settled on a hand-painted, carved rendering of a bouquet of Cherokee Roses—so beautiful they almost looked real. The base of the snow globe underneath Daryl's palm was inlaid with more of them, 'GEORGIA' written in a colorful script. He supposed it had been one of those tourist things once.
On their secret run for presents, Daryl had caught Carol looking at it. She'd held it in her hands and given it a good shake, and he'd watched her while she followed the very last snowflake down onto a flower petal. He'd noticed the barely perceptible grin at the corner of her lips, the shine of tears welled up in her eyes when she put the snow globe back where she'd found it and brushed past him with a fleeting look. Daryl knew she would have never taken it for herself. Carol had gone along on the run with her mind entirely focused on those kids.
So, once Carol had disappeared well out of his line of sight, Daryl took the snow globe and covered it up in his poncho for the journey back to the prison. He'd brought it to the cell after a late night shift on watch, and now it was just sitting here.
Daryl wasn't any good at this type of thing, but he knew there was something not right about giving a Christmas gift unwrapped. Carol probably would've understood if he just placed it in her hands, but some part of him wanted her to be able to open something—be surprised by it. Carol had done a lot to put this whole thing together and never asked for anything in return. She deserved it.
There was one problem.
Daryl had zero experience wrapping presents.
Gift wrapping was not a skill in his arsenal. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
Growing up, his family hadn't been the type for gift-giving. Hell, they never had enough to afford them, let alone all that shiny wrapping paper and everything else that came with it. Daryl had a few blurry memories of sparse presents at Christmastime when he was very small, but none of them had been wrapped.
He could put an arrow through a walker's skull, hunt down wild game, and track close to anything without thinking about it. Those things had become second nature to him. This, however, was uncharted territory.
Daryl was a hunter, not fuckin' Martha Stewart.
And he was sure as hell not going ask someone for their help. Stubborn Dixon pride won that battle.
He'd figure it out himself. Hopefully, there'd be something left to give by the time he got it covered in paper.
Daryl didn't have that quintessential, glossy holiday-themed paper at his disposal. He couldn't even cobble together a good cardboard box to put the snow globe in, which would've made this wrapping business a lot easier, he was sure. Covering a box in paper seemed simpler than trying to configure it around something so oddly-shaped that the chances of it looking like a disaster were inevitable.
Heaving a sigh, Daryl dragged the pile of old newspapers from under the bottom bunk. He'd been just shy of hoarding them for the past week, collecting enough of the yellowed pages to give himself leeway for mishaps. He spread a page across the floor and put the snow globe at the center, gathering the edges to a point above the glass dome. Daryl crushed the paper in his fist, only momentarily satisfied when it stayed put.
No, that wouldn't work. That looked like shit.
Daryl wadded the paper into a ball and tossed it to the far corner of the cell.
On his second try, he had to take out his hunting knife and cut around the edge of a newspaper section that was too tattered for use. This trial fared no better than the first—the paper ripped around the bottom of the globe, caught on one of the carved ends of a leaf in the design. Daryl let out a frustrated grunt and threw the heap of newspaper carelessly behind his shoulder.
The next few attempts went the same way. Daryl enveloped the bulky snow globe in sections of newspaper, only to have the faded material rip or almost disintegrate beneath his fingers. He hacked away at the ragged bits with his knife to take out his increasing aggression, which only proved to limit his crappy supply of newspaper sections.
He would have to make do with what was left.
Finally, he placed the snow globe on its side and folded the paper around it, doing his best to ignore all the tears that threatened to send him in an annoyed rage. Daryl rolled the snow globe up in the newspaper until it had the appearance of a burrito.
Reaching beneath the bottom bunk, he grabbed a roll of duct tape—better than nothing, he supposed. Daryl ripped off a piece with his teeth and folded one side of the paper over to secure it under the tape. He did the same on the other side, before he sat there tearing off chunks of duct tape and slapping them over all the rips in the newspaper. By the time he was finished, the misshapen thing looked more like a ball of duct tape and nowhere near remotely gift-like.
Daryl fixed his handiwork with a narrow-eyed glare and decided it probably didn't matter in the end.
It was past midnight when Daryl found Carol in the space they'd turned into a common room. Daryl had waited until everyone drifted elsewhere, the children long since asleep, the adults ready to arrange the presents for them. Carol was preoccupied hanging candy canes on the branches of the artificial tree Glenn uncovered during a run. The tree had been adorned with plastic ornaments, snowflakes made by the kids, and construction paper chains. Beth had fashioned something of a makeshift star out of tinsel that sat at the very top. There were already several presents lined up on quilt they'd draped around the base of the tree.
Carol caught sight of him and offered a smile. "Merry Christmas."
Daryl nodded. "Mm-hmm." He gave the tree an appreciative glance. "Looks good."
"Just something extra for the little ones," she replied. "I'm not sure if they're any good, but it's festive."
Carol set the half empty box of candy canes aside and crouched down to the presents arranged near the base of the tree. She picked up a box and stood, beaming proudly.
"Here." She held the box out to him. "This is for you. It's past midnight, you might as well open it now."
Daryl looked from the present to Carol, and then back again. He felt something inside himself crumble, ever so slowly, with humiliation.
He didn't know how she'd done it, honestly.
The gift was meticulously wrapped in that way Christmas presents were supposed to be—at least in every movie or picture Daryl had seen. A rectangular package with neatly folded edges, crisp lines and just the right amount of clear tape to hold it in place. No rips at the corners, no awfully worn out paper, no tape abuse. Daryl thought Carol had to be some kind of miracle worker—how else would she have been able to find wrapping paper covered in a blue and silver snowflake design in the middle of the end of the world? Not only that, but the present had been topped with a matching silver bow, as well as—now that he really took a moment to study it—a tag with his name printed in her cursive. It made sense, the more he thought, that Carol would have prior experience wrapping presents.
And it made him feel terrible to have to show her the complete monstrosity he had behind his back.
Daryl held his gift to her at arm's length, anyway, because he couldn't back out now. He shuffled his feet, avoiding her eyes for a moment.
"'s for you," Daryl said. "Nothin' much. Looks like a piece of shit. I ain't any expert in this stuff, but I figured I couldn't give it unwrapped."
"Oh, Daryl, thank you," she answered. He could see tears brimming her eyes. "I can't remember the last time I opened a gift on Christmas."
"Makes two of us," Daryl said.
They settled on the floor in front of the tree, cross-legged, the presents from each other in their laps—like it was a normal Christmas. While Carol had previous memories of normal Christmas mornings, Daryl would be glad to call this something close to his very first. Gifts aside—though he'd never had the privilege of unwrapping one that looked like a work of art, so lovingly put together—he guessed this was how holidays with families were supposed to work.
"You first," he insisted, glancing up from his name in Carol's handwriting on the tag beside the bow.
"All right." Carol lifted the lumpy mass of newspaper and duct tape. She peered at Daryl across from her, picking at his thumbnail. "It's not that bad, you know."
"You're jus' sayin' that," Daryl said.
"I never say anything I don't mean," Carol told him. "I like it. It's very…you."
Daryl made a noise, then squinted at her. "Open it."
Carol found a space that wasn't covered in an obscene amount of duct tape and poked her finger through the thin newspaper. She peeled the paper off by layer, unearthing the fragile object inside. The newspaper-duct tape mess fell away into her lap and she held the snow globe at eye level. Carol shook it, watching the faux snowflakes and glitter sway gracefully around the delicate Cherokee Roses. She allowed a tear to slip down her cheek, brushing it away with her palm quickly.
"You brought it back," she said, astonished. "Thank you, Daryl. That means a lot, you doing that for me."
"Couldn't leave it there," Daryl admitted. "You're welcome."
Carol smiled. "Okay, you next."
Daryl looked down at the box in his lap. He kind of hated to ruin her painstaking work, but his eagerness to unwrap the gift was embarrassing. When Carol's attention had been momentarily occupied by the snow globe again, Daryl removed the tag—To: Daryl, From: Carol, a heart drawn beside her name—and tucked it away in his pocket.
He plucked off the bow and tossed it onto the floor in front of him. Carol set down the snow globe gingerly and seized the bow, leaning over to try to stick it on him. Daryl dodged her attempt, twisting out of the way, the box in one hand held up near his face. She tried for his shoulder, but he moved again, earning her something between a not-so-annoyed grunt and a faint hint of laughter.
"…Stop…"
"Aww, come on," Carol said. "It's Christmas."
Daryl shook his head. Carol reached across and stuck the bow on his chest.
"Ain't stayin' there," Daryl said, but promptly gave up. He tore into the paper, scraps ending up in a pile around his knees.
Underneath the pattern of snowflakes, he found a simple, white rectangular box. Daryl lifted up the top and placed it next to him. He pulled a carefully folded pair of black jeans out of the bottom half and into his lap.
Carol saw the tiniest grin appear at the corner of his lips. "Thanks."
"Since you won't let me sew the holes in your knees," Carol said, wearing a playful frown. "It's been drivin' me crazy."
"Thanks," he said again, with a nod. "Appreciate it."
When they lapsed into comfortable silence, Carol admiring the peaceful scene of Cherokee Roses in winter, Daryl tugged the silver bow off his chest and reached over to stick it on Carol, right above her heart.
Daryl smirked. "Merry Christmas."