AN: This is in response to the prompt that someone had for an angsty one shot involving a given line of dialogue. The prompt was a response to my request for things to help me get writing during the quarantine lockdown. I'm not sure if this is what they had in mind, but it just sort of happened. As you can probably see, it got a bit out of control, as well.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
This is set around Season 3, but I took a few poetic liberties just for the sake of the story. It's only a one shot for entertainment purposes.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Tread easy.
That was the only thing that Daryl figured he could do when the wind was blowing just like it seemed to be blowing in the prison these days.
It was on the days like these, when Daryl was feeling more than a little overwhelmed with the tight quarters and the number of people around him—people that he often felt he couldn't truly understand—when Daryl mostly heard his brother's voice in his head.
Sitting up in the guard tower, his feet hanging over the edge, Daryl smoked a cigarette, nursed a beer from the collection he'd found on one of their numerous runs, and talked to Merle. He didn't actually talk to him out loud, of course, because he wasn't insane, and he didn't really believe that he was talking to his probably-deceased brother. Rather, he talked to him in his head because he found some comfort and familiarity in the act.
The prison was safe, and it was comfortable, as far as comfortable things went these days. The runs they'd been on lately had been successful and, in addition to bringing in the things they needed most, they'd found more than a handful of true luxuries. They had new beds, a decent selection of clothing, and books and magazines, of all sorts, that would keep them all entertained for a good long while.
Daryl's hunts had been going well and, in addition to the food they'd found, they weren't going hungry any time soon. They were also planting a few things, so the ground around them literally grew the promise that things would only get better.
It was all coming together and, honestly, every one of them should have been happy to spend their free time sitting up in the guard toward, with their feet dangling over the edge, enjoying some of life's simpler comforts and letting the breeze dry off the sweat they'd worked up doing morning chores.
Instead, though, it appeared that Daryl was nearly the only one that was Zen in the whole damned group. At least, he was the only Zen one that he could find.
Beth had cried the night before. She'd cried piteously in her cell until Daryl had run in there, half expecting to find her hunched over the fallen body of her father or sister. He'd expected something horrible. He'd found her, hands on her face, sitting on her bed and bawling. He had no idea what she was upset about, and he still didn't know. The blubbered response he'd gotten was so completely incomprehensible that he'd only deciphered it enough to decide that it wasn't anything of immediate concern, and it wasn't anything that he could fix. When he'd wished her good luck at working out whatever her problem was, she'd become angry—violently so—and she'd thrown a wooden garden gnome in Daryl's direction. She'd missed—mostly because her aim was simply wretched, or maybe because she didn't really want to hit him, or maybe just because she couldn't see him through the blurriness created by her tears—and the gnome had hit the bars of her cell. She'd cried, then, because his hat had broken off when he'd hit the ground.
Daryl would offer, later, to reattach the gnome's hat with some penny nails and a hammer he found, but he was going to make sure the dust was good and settled before he did. A wooden gnome wouldn't have hurt him too badly, but she collected random things that could do a great deal more damage than the grinning little wooden idiot she'd wept over the night before.
Beth wasn't the only Greene girl on the warpath, though. Daryl hadn't seen Glenn in enough time to declare the Korean a missing person. Sure, he'd caught glimpses of him, here or there, which attested to the fact that he hadn't, somehow, gotten dragged out the fences by Walkers or been consumed in the tombs, but he had been really putting into practice his ability to "hide-in-plain-sight" that he'd seemed to master doing runs in and out of an overrun Atlanta.
About two days prior, Glenn had made a mistake. Daryl wasn't sure what the mistake was, but he knew it was huge, and he knew it was practically unforgiveable, and he knew that they didn't have the resources with which Glenn could buy himself out of the shit-pit that he'd dug for himself and fallen into.
Maggie had yelled about it but, like her sister, her furious yelling was incomprehensible to Daryl. He'd heard her talking about it—a mile a minute and in that high-pitched voice she got when she was conveying something that only other women and dogs could hear—to the other women in the prison. They'd all listened, solemnly, with furrowed brows and tight lips. It was serious, and if Glenn didn't get creative about cleaning up his messes, he was either going to have to wait it out, hiding in the shadows, or leave the prison—it was as simple as that.
Lori, as well, didn't seem immune to whatever bad mood bug was going around. This morning, just after breakfast and just in time to give him a bout of indigestion that he could take with him for the rest of the day, she'd laid into Rick hard enough, about something, that Carl had volunteered to go and clear Walkers off the fences at the bottom of the yard and Rick hadn't spoken to a soul as he'd passed through the prison and gone directly down to the gardens to lose himself in the sweet silence weeding their sprouts.
Of course, it wasn't entirely unusual that Lori laid into Rick. She did that right regularly, but it was unusual that it should come at a time when it appeared that so many other women in their little group were prepared to rip out the throats of those around them with their teeth.
Daryl had chosen to hide to avoid accidentally coming into contact with anyone looking for someone's ass to chew on. He wasn't in the mood to deal with their moods.
Merle would have called it in the air. He would have said they were all on the rag. He would have said they'd all linked up—like satellites or something—because that's what women in close proximity did with each other. He'd waxed poetic about it before, and Daryl could practically hear his brother philosophizing about it now. That was why a den of women, Merle would say, was far more dangerous than a den of venomous snakes—they were more unpredictable, and twice as likely to strike.
The only one, it seemed, who hadn't fallen victim to the prison synchronization was Carol. Daryl had worked all night, hunting nearby for nocturnal prey and keeping watch for anything they needed to be aware of. His nighttime shift was why he had no shift now, and Carol had seemed perfectly pleasant when she'd come to call him for breakfast and suggested he get some rest with the same sweet smile she usually gave him. Maybe she just didn't get as bitchy as the others when she was on the rag. Daryl surely wasn't going to ask her. He'd just enjoy the fact that she'd shown no interest in screaming like a banshee, crying uncontrollably, or chucking anything in his general direction.
He'd taken a nap, but he didn't need half as much sleep as most of them seemed to require. That was one reason that he often volunteered to work all night, when the weather was better and it wasn't as hot, while the others slept. Carol's shift would be over soon—so she'd have a break before her next set of chores—and Daryl was waiting her out.
He liked being in her company and, he guessed, she didn't hate his company too badly. She didn't run from him, and she rarely ever scolded him. She was the only woman, since his mother had been swallowed up in a house fire, that Daryl really liked having close to him.
He didn't tell her that, though, in case she found it overwhelming or it made her realize that she didn't want his company like that.
He would rather have a best friend in Carol than nothing at all.
When he saw her throwing in the proverbial and literal towel, and leaving her place cooking and doing laundry to take her break, Daryl finished his warm beer, put out the cigarette he was smoking, and left the guard tower. He dodged anyone that got close to him—not wanting to catch any residue from someone's pissy mood—and slipped into the prison. He knew Carol's routine by now. Fresh off the line from working—and particularly given that she'd been doing hot work around fires—she'd go straight to the wash barrels and draw up water to wash off in her cell. When she was clean, she'd come out of her cell and start looking for how she wanted to pass her time. That's when Daryl would see if she'd rather trade the company of the paperback, which she selected from the shelves they'd set up in the common area, for his company. Although, sometimes, she never had to make a trade at all. Sometimes, Daryl was feeling quiet himself and, he'd learned, she was happy to sit with him outside somewhere and read her book while he simply sat, being quiet—and she didn't elbow him and push him to have something profound to say, either. She could simply accept that, sometimes, he just liked being quiet.
Daryl gave Carol her space to wash and refresh herself. He did his best, too, to keep it from being obvious that he was waiting on her. He didn't casually stroll through the common area until Carol was already reading the back of a book—another one of those that she seemed to favor, the kind that made Daryl sweat a little when he'd looked them over after she'd returned them to the shelves, with half-naked people cavorting on rocks on the seashore.
After his casual walk through—during which he made sure to pass Carol before skidding to a stop and half-circling back—Daryl got her attention.
"Hey," he said, pretending to just notice her there, reading the back of the book.
She looked up, brow furrowed, and frowned before she smiled at him.
"Hey yourself," she offered, the smile growing a bit wider.
"You—gonna read a book?" Daryl asked, nodding his head toward the paper back in her hand.
Carol shrugged.
"I guess," she said. "I didn't have any other plans. Did you?"
Daryl shrugged. He always did his best to try to appear cool and completely calm in Carol's presence. Merle told him that women liked that. They didn't like a man that they knew they could affect in any way. They preferred it if you weren't interested in them. The minute they could smell your interest, they'd be out the door like greased lightning. They liked it, too, when you were an asshole to them. Not an all the way asshole—not like his old man or Carol's ex-husband—but a somewhat asshole. They liked to be given shit just like everyone else. If you were too nice to them, just like if you were too interested, they'd leave and go look for something else. Merle had assured him of that. Daryl would do just about anything to keep Carol from running away from him, but he hadn't yet figured out exactly how to appear uninterested and still draw closer to her—if that was something, she'd ever really be interested in.
"I'm not doin' anything," Daryl said. "So—if you wanted to do somethin', whatever would be good."
He inwardly winced a little. It hadn't come out like he wanted, and no matter how many years he'd watched his brother successfully manage to bring home any woman he set his mind on luring back to the trailer for some kind of wild night, Daryl had never really mastered the skill of coming across as anything more than the dumbass that made his brother chuckle.
Carol's interest looked at least a little piqued, though. She raised her eyebrows at him.
"Anything?" She asked.
The way she asked the question made Daryl's pulse kick up a few notches. He swallowed against the quick wave of anxiety that it caused him. He reminded himself that he was acting cool.
"Yeah," he said. "Sure—I mean…whatever you want."
Carol smiled faintly to herself. She chewed on whatever she was thinking a moment more, smiled a little more sincerely, and nodded her head at him before she bounced slightly on the balls of her feet from turning around quickly.
"Just let me get something? I have something to show you. I could—meet you in your cell? If you don't mind…"
Daryl nodded his acceptance. He noticed that, rather than leaving the book, Carol took it with her. Whatever she had in mind was fine for now, but it was clear that she still had intentions to spend time with the half-naked sea-faring folk whenever she had some downtime.
The prison was pretty much empty at the moment—unless Glenn had taken refuge somewhere where he could hide, unseen and unheard, from Maggie. Daryl went to his cell. He'd accepted it when sleeping on the perch had simply proved to be too difficult to sustain because of all the noise that happened when he most often seemed to be napping.
His cell was simple. He'd accepted one of the nice beds they'd found on a run to replace the prison bed. He'd accepted a nice quilt and a couple of good pillows that Carol had put in there when they'd come back with everything. He had a dresser with the few articles of clothing he owned, a little nightstand that mostly served to hold his lantern, and the tall basket where he threw his dirty things for Carol to easily gather when she was doing laundry.
He also had a very colorful privacy curtain—made from a quilt, split to allow for the opening, that Carol had hung for him, after a run, because she said he'd benefit from the happy colors. When he came into the cell, Daryl pushed the curtain up and hooked it over the hooks mounted on either side, as he often did during the day and when he wasn't sleeping, so it would let in some natural light.
His cell wasn't very clean, and he quickly set about straightening the blankets on the bed and arranging the pillows. Carol's cell was neat and tidy, and she was bound to think he was a slob every time she came in to get his laundry. Of course, she wouldn't really be wrong.
Carol cleared her throat to let Daryl know that she was there, and he turned, feeling his cheeks grow warm.
"Didn't make the bed after I woke up," he said, as though he could pretend that he ever made the bed.
Carol smiled to herself. She stepped into his cell. Whatever she'd brought to show him was balled tightly enough under her arm that, if he didn't know she was bringing something, he would have never recognized it was even there. He thought, too, that maybe she looked a little odd—maybe she was a little pale with a bit more color just in her cheeks—as she looked around his cell like she'd never seen it before and like it wasn't the same as every other cell in the cellblock.
She had the appearance of an animal that might bolt.
"You alright?" Daryl asked. She snapped out of whatever she was working through in her mind and smiled at him.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You wanted to show me somethin'?" Daryl asked.
"It's frivolous," Carol said. "I just—grabbed it on a run because…I don't know. I just did. I thought—I might ask what you…what you thought about it."
Daryl didn't point out that her cheeks blushed a darker red or that she looked a little like she might pass out.
"Sure," Daryl said. "Whatever it is…"
Carol nodded her head and worked her lips. She took a deep breath like she needed fortification or more air. Daryl knew she was claustrophobic, but the prison, and even the prison cells, never seemed to bother her much, not as long as she knew she was free to come and go when she pleased.
Carol carefully unrolled that which she'd tucked up under her arm.
Daryl watched as the garment went from a bunch of black cloth with no discernable form to something that made his pulse pick up, his breath come in with a little bit of a challenge, and other parts of his body to wake up and remind him that—whether or not they got out very much—they were very much a part of him and fully functioning.
He swallowed. He reminded himself that being cool, uninterested, and a bit like an asshole was what might very well make this go in his favor—even if the very thought of it only served to make him certain that he'd never fully understand women as a species.
Daryl didn't know what the damned thing was called, but it was underwear—and it wasn't Fruit of the Loom or Hanes straight off the shelf at Walmart. It was black. Silk or satin, maybe, with red ribbons that ran up the front of it with all those little hooks that must have held it closed. It looked like a fancy one-piece bathing suit, but Daryl knew it wasn't the kind of item that Carol—or anybody else for that matter—was going to be wearing while lounging on sheets in the yard during their free time.
That was the kind of underwear that was saved for special occasions and special people, or, in some cases, Daryl supposed, for paying customers.
"Well?" Carol asked, breathing out the word. "What do you think?"
Daryl was one hundred percent sure that he didn't know what to say, because he wasn't sure that what he actually thought was going to be a good idea to share with Carol.
"What'd you grab a thing like that for?" Daryl asked. There were equal parts truth to the question, and equal parts attempt to sound like just enough of an asshole that she wouldn't run away too quickly.
Her face fell slightly. She turned it to look at it. She shrugged her shoulders gently.
"I don't know," Carol said. "Impulse? I've never…worn anything like it before, but I've…thought about it."
Daryl wondered if he'd had this particular breathing problem for a long time or if it was something new. The pack of reds that he was smoking had looked fine. The tobacco was a little stale, but it wasn't enough to be alarmed. Still, it was giving him a hell of a time at the moment—especially since he was also doing everything he could to keep her from noticing his breathing problem.
And it was fucking hot in the prison. Daryl had never realized, before, that the whole damn thing was like a sweatbox. They lived in a concrete and metal sauna.
It was so hot that it was hard to swallow, and Daryl hoped she hadn't noticed the strange sound of his spit getting stuck in his throat while he searched for just the right thing that Merle would say.
The right thing might mean that he got to see that particular garment a little better and, more than that, it might mean that he got to see the woman wearing it. The wrong thing might mean that she was leaving and, if she did, it might mean that she was never coming back—and certainly not with that little black silken treasure.
Daryl laughed nervously.
"You'd look fuckin' ridiculous," he said.
He'd meant it as the kind of statement that, if he'd been closer to Carol and felt able to move any part of his body, would have come with a playful punch to the shoulder. He was practically glued in place, though, and he felt somewhat paralyzed. He felt even more so paralyzed when he saw Carol's facial expression. She very clearly had taken it more like a sucker punch to the gut than a playful punch on the arm.
Her expression, alone, made Daryl feel like his stomach turned inside out.
"Forget it, you're an asshole," she said, rolling up the garment and returning to its safe spot beneath her arm as she left his cell—this time moving much more quickly than she'd been moving when she'd come to his cell.
Daryl stayed stuck in his spot for what felt like an eternity while he tried to convince his leaden feet to move. When he was free from his paralysis, he followed after Carol. She was already in her cell. She'd already dropped her privacy curtain—one she'd chosen, much like she'd chosen his, for the happy colors of the quilt. He could just barely see the flicker of her lamp through the slit as the quilt still swung, announcing that it had only just been closed in a hurry.
At least he couldn't hear crying from inside.
There was no knocking and she wouldn't have let him in anyway. Daryl was sure of that. He was also sure, though, that he was going in, one way or another. He announced his intention as he slipped through the slit.
"I'm comin' in," Daryl said. "I'm just lettin' you know."
He closed his eyes for a second, as though Carol might have somehow lost her clothing and regained it in the thirty seconds he gave her, and then he opened his eyes. She sat on her bed, arms crossed, with the garment beside her.
"I didn't ask you to come in," Carol said.
"I know it," Daryl said. "But—I also knew you weren't gonna let me in and what I had to say was important."
"Oh—I think you've said enough," Carol said.
"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "More'n I fuckin' meant to—and not a damn thing I meant." Carol frowned at him, but she didn't run him out of the cell. Daryl was being given the opportunity to fix this, but he was well aware that he'd better not fuck it up. The opportunity was not likely to come more than once. "It occurs to me that—I mighta been doin' too much listenin' to Merle. And—maybe you ain't like other women. At least—maybe you ain't like Merle's women."
The line between Carol's eyebrows only deepened.
"What the hell are you talking about, Daryl?" She asked, seeming to forget everything that had happened for at least a moment. "Did you—hit your head or something?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Merle always told me that—women were different animals than men," Daryl said.
"Maybe we're different," Carol said. "In some ways…"
"He said that—women didn't like when men acted interested. In anything about 'em."
Carol stood up from her spot on the bed.
"Are you—interested?" Carol asked.
Daryl considered it a moment. She hadn't denied what he'd said, but she hadn't confirmed it, either. He was not entirely sure that this wasn't some kind of trick. So far, though, listening to Merle hadn't gotten him any damn where, and it had left him staring at the possibility of very much pissing off his favorite person left in the world.
Maybe it was time to listen to his gut, instead.
Daryl nodded his head.
Carol's expression softened and her shoulders rose a little. She stepped a half step closer to Daryl.
"In me?" She asked.
Daryl laughed nervously to himself.
"Who the hell else, Carol?" He asked.
"Then—why were you such a…a fucking asshole, Daryl?" Carol asked.
There was less bite than there had been before, despite her injection of an expletive into the description. These words, in this tone, were more the kind that came with a punch to the arm. Daryl felt his chest loosen just a little.
"Merle said women like it when you're an asshole," Daryl said. "A little bit of an asshole…and you've never fought it before. You like it when I fuck with you—and you fuck with me."
Carol seemed to chew on his words.
"I like it when you tease me," Carol ceded. "And—I like teasing you. When it's the right time or…situation. But—it's because I—it's because I like you, Daryl."
"Same," Daryl offered, nearly choking on the word. "So, why'd you get so pissed off? You—on the rag?"
"What?" Carol asked.
"The rag," Daryl said. "You—on the rag? That's why you got pissed off when…you normally, you know, like it when I fuck with you?"
Carol furrowed her brow at him again. He hadn't hoped for that expression. He didn't know, exactly, what he hoped for anymore, but it wasn't that expression.
"Are you asking me if I'm on my period?" Carol asked. "Why—would you ask me that?"
Daryl considered his answer.
There was very little that he could do now. He could either answer her, honestly, and hope that she relaxed again and the line between her eyebrows erased itself, or he could simply decide that the only thing he was destined to do today was dig himself a shit-pit that went down about halfway to China, and just walk out of the cell and cut his losses.
She hadn't pushed him out the cell yet, though, and they still had a few more hours before either of them had to work. He'd rather spend those hours with her than without her, no matter what they were doing to pass the time.
"Merle said that—when a bunch of women get together, they sync up like satellites," Daryl said. "All of 'em go on the rag at the same time. And when they get all bitchy, and cryin', and just crazy, it's usually because they're raggin'." He shrugged. "Beth threw a fuckin' garden gnome at me and Maggie an' Lori, both, have been screamin' pretty much about everything for two damn days. I just figured…everybody synced up."
Daryl didn't know what to expect, but he didn't actually expect Carol to smile and laugh quietly to herself.
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe—it's true. To some degree. And—maybe you don't want to know this, but it's a little better than leaving your entire education about women up to Merle, but women's moods do sometimes change throughout the month. Throughout their cycle and…with other hormonal changes that take place in their bodies."
Daryl knew that some men were disgusted by periods and all the mess that went along with them. Maybe it was only supposed to be natural to find such things terrible and gross and everything else. Daryl, however, wasn't actually horrified by them. They were a part of nature and, in reality, nature was one of the things that Daryl found most fascinating. Things that were natural were just doing what the hell they were supposed to be doing—what the hell they'd been doing since the dawn of time. What was natural was reliable—except in the cases when Mother Nature seemed to change things up and to rage against the world for one reason or another.
At any rate, there was nothing about a period that Daryl could find all that disgusting, honestly. There was blood, sure, but he wasn't really squeamish about blood.
He simply nodded at Carol.
"But you ain't on it?" He asked.
Carol shook her head.
"Judging from—the way I feel right now? I'd say I'm—a couple of weeks, maybe a week and a half, away from mine. Since you want to know."
"OK," Daryl said, nodding his head. "Good—good to know."
Carol laughed to herself.
"Is there anything else you want to know?" Carol asked. "While we're discussing Merle's Dixon wisdom?"
"Not about that," Daryl said. "But—there's somethin' else I wanna know."
"What?" Carol asked.
Daryl's whole body woke up and responded to the call of his gut. What he wanted to say rested just on the tip of his tongue. It tasted good to him, even if it went against what Merle might have said he should say or do.
Carol liked teasing. She'd said it flat out, and she'd certainly teased with him a great deal in the past. But, maybe, she just didn't like the asshole kind of teasing.
He scrounged up his courage and smirked at her.
"You gonna—give me another chance? To see that—thing you got? Give you my opinion?" Daryl asked.
The color drained out of her face for a second, and then it was replaced with an almost scarlet blush. He could see that her breathing had picked up, but he wasn't going to call her out on it if she didn't call him out.
"That depends," she said. "Are you going to be an asshole again?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Not if you don't want me to," he offered.
"Then I might—let you see it," Carol said. "It's—over there."
She gestured toward the bed, but she made no movement. It was Daryl's turn. It was his move. He stepped forward. He didn't know what he intended, exactly, until he'd caught her face in his hands. She looked at him, calmly, and waited. She accepted the kiss he offered her. She kissed him back, pushing him beyond the gentle kiss he'd first offered.
"Might need to see it on," he said, when the kiss broke. "To—judge it right."
Carol smiled.
"That could be arranged," she said. "If you'll—give me a minute to change?"
Daryl still didn't let go of her face. He almost felt like he couldn't. He felt almost terrified that if he moved—if he gave her the space she needed to put the thing on and let him see it the way that he wanted—she might never let him back into her space.
"OK," he said quietly, still finding that he could move neither his hands nor his feet, and his eyes were firmly locked on her face.
She smiled at him.
"If you play your cards right," Carol offered, "I might—even let you see it off again." Daryl's breathing somewhat seized up. There was no way she hadn't seen it, but she didn't call him out. He liked her smirk.
"Yeah?" He pressed.
"Maybe—on the floor?" Carol asked. "Maybe—see what it looks like…next to your clothes?"
He wondered if, with his hands still on her face, she might even be able to hear his blood rushing through his veins as his heart pumped furiously. He nodded his head. It was the only movement he could make for a moment. The smirk stayed on her lips. He loved her looking at him like that.
"OK," he said, finally gathering himself up enough to let her go. He turned and walked back toward her curtain. "I'ma be outside," he offered, hoping she couldn't see that there was a bit of discomfort in his moving about. His body had clearly decided to gear up for what it could only hope was coming.
The prison was still and quiet. Everyone was outside—except for maybe Glenn, because Daryl still didn't' know where the Korean was hiding—but Daryl wouldn't have given a shit if they'd all been standing just outside the cell. He would have remained there and waited for Carol to call him back inside the space.
"And Daryl…" Carol said, her voice quivering just slightly, possibly from nerves. Daryl stopped halfway through her curtain and turned around to look at her over his shoulder. "Just as a little something more to add to your—understanding of women?" Daryl hummed at her to urge her to continue, smiling to himself simply from the expression on her face and the tone in her voice. "Even though—even though I might feel emotional and, maybe, a little bitchy on my period, that's not at all how I feel about two weeks, or a week and a half, before." She laughed quietly, and Daryl appreciated the laughter. It was contagious, and he laughed, too, but it also helped to untangle some of his nerves.
"No?" He asked. "How the hell you feel, then?"
Carol smiled at him. The smile was enough to make him feel like he was turning inside out, but he appreciated it—he appreciated everything about it. She was teasing, and this was, without a doubt, the good kind of teasing.
"Horny," she responded with nothing more than a smile.