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Touches.
It started out as a strange sort of ”dance”. A subconscious ”dance of touches”. I dont think Daryl gave it much thought to begin with. Neither did I.
The prison was beginning to feel like an actual home. Yes, it was grey and dark, the windows were barred. Conversations tended to echo. The walls were damp, even ”sweating” when the Georgia temperatures outside sky-rocketed. Still the word ”home” came to mind when out on a run and thinking about the prison. Little things picked up on runs had started finding their place in the rooms we used the most. Glenn and Daryl taken off in one of the trucks one afternoon and come back with an overstuffed sofa with a blue flower print. Later it had been two mismatched armchairs, one of which Hershel without words had claimed as his. Looking at him sitting comfortably in his chair, often with Judith in his lap always brought a smile to my face.
Of course all these things didnt mean we could let out guard down. There were still walkers who were attracted to the sounds of activity in the prison. There were still the risks of going out on runs. We knew there were other surviviers. And not all survivors were the peaceful kind. But still having a place to call home, gave us a sense of calm.
Man is a strange creature. We seem to want to settle into routines and habbits as quickly as possible. When we sad down around one table at dinner every night, we always sat in the same places. There were more tables scattered around the room but we chose to squeeze in tight around the same table. Perhaps it originated from the months we roamed aimlessly on the Georgia backroads. Saftey in numbers, the need to know where everyone was at any given time etc. I always sat next to Daryl at one end of the table with Carl around the closest corner. Judith was passed around between all of us, depending on who had a free lap, an empty plate or just the need to feed our little girl. That truely was what Judith was. I might be her father and Carl her brother but Judith belonged to all of us. One of my favourite things was to watch Daryl feed her. Such an abrupt man turned into a big soft gentle man with a certain light in his eye when he with infinate patience fed Judith her bottle or spoonfed her the more solid food. Daryl was born to be a dad. I dont think he ever knew it himself, claiming that he never had anything to do with children before the turn. He blushed furiously and shrugged it off when anyone commented on how natural it came to him and when the women awed at the sight of him and Judith. I wasnt the aweing type but the sight of him and Judith did make me feel…funny. Like a big knot of warmth sliding down my spine. I didnt feel anything like that when I saw her with Hershel or Glenn. I have never claimed not to be a little slow at times.
So Daryl and I sat squeezed up together at the dinnertable. We were touching from tighs to shoulders. I never thought anything about it. It was just how it was. Daryl had taken to sitting close to me during the winter when we were on the road. Id cought a cold and my breath was weezing something fierce. I knew Hershel were more worried than he let on. We didnt have the medical rescouces to deal with a pneumonia or tonsilitis. I tried to not let on how awfully weak I felt. I took watch like always. I knew my fever was running high and I was shivering bad. I suspected everyone else were asleep when Daryl suddenly slided up next to me. I was startled. That man could move without a sound if he wanted to. He must have thought I looked pathetic cause he sat down next to me on the big rock Id taken to sitting on to get off the ground. I had a thin blanket wrapped over my shoulders. Not that it felt like it made any difference in my staying warm. He looked at me and then slided up close, took off his poncho and draped it over the both of us. He didnt say anything, just sat close. That in itself was strange cause Daryl avoided touch at all times. Rarely he patted Carol on the arm or ruffled Carls hair. But other than that he tended to flinch if someone placed a hand on his shoulder, or came up to high five him or even passing him a little too close. Id often wondered what had happened to him to make him so unaccostumed to human touch. But Daryl wasnt the kind of man you would ask questions like that. I allowed myself to slowly sink into the warmth of Daryl and feeling myself relaxe.
I must have fallen asleep which was not okay when being on watch. I slowly resurfaced, I felt warm, relaxed and better than I had for days. I realised that I was resting my head heavily on Daryls shoulder. I was surrounded by the very special scent that was purely Daryl. Spicy, warm, earthy. Safe! I think Daryl had sensed that I was awake cause he grumbled ”Ya got a heavy head!” I leaned away from him ”Shirt, Daryl. Im sorry I shouldnt have fallen asleep. You should have woken me up. It was my watch.” He replied ”Well, you needed to rest. You are not sleeping enough. I know you are not getting more than an hour or two every night. You’ll burn out like that! And I…well, we all need you to be the best you can”…..I was stunned. Daryls conversations usually consisted of grunts, shrugs and bodylanguage. I hadnt often heard him say this much in one go. He untangled himself from the poncho and jumped off the rock. Probably went to get the small capfire going. It wasnt until after his bodywarmth had disappeared that I realised he had allowed me to practically sleep on him. He had intiated the close contact.
That was the first time Daryl and I sat close. From then on we always sat next to eachother when we ate, when we took a break etc.
The next time our touches changed it was also on Daryls initiative. After dinner a few of us stayed sitting around the table. Maggie, Glenn, Daryl and myself. Just talking. Not planning runs in detail but talking about what we would like to bring home with us on future runs. Maggie, Glenn and Daryl were more or less a fixed run-team. They had a worked in routine that made them get in, get it done and get out very quickly. I felt the best if I knew all 3 of them were out together. Strenght in numbers and all that. I stretched and leaned back and hit Daryls arm. It was draped across the back of my chair. I expected he would pull back but he didnt. I felt a bit tense but slowly relaxed and started enjoying the feeling of his warm arm across my back. We sat like that and talked about all and nothing for a while. This wouldnt have been such a big deal if it hadnt been Daryl, the no-physical-contact Daryl. I almost choked on my own tongue when I suddenly felt a finger lightly carressing my shoulder. It was a feather light touch but it was there. I turned to look at Daryl. He blused, grumbled something about hitting the sack and left. Had Daryl just carressed me? What was that all about? I sill felt the warmth of his arm like a ghost across my back.
I was walking the perimeter of the prison. It was a warm day. Not too warm and humid but one of those days where we would have enjoyed sitting in lawnchairs with a glass of icetea and listened to the birds. That was what we would have done before the turn. Now there werent any lawnchairs, well kept lawns or icetea. But the weather made my morning-perimeter-check almost enjoyable. I enjoyed breathing deep without feeling the humid Gorgia heat almost suffocating in my lungs. A hand brushed mine lightly. Daryl had taken to joining me on my morning-walks. We didnt talk much. Daryl never talked much. I didnt either but compared to Daryl I must come across as a regular chatterbox. It was a nice relaxed silence. Just being in eachothers company before we went our separate ways to tend to what ever tasks we had around the place. His hand brushed mine again. I looked down my nose so he wouldnt notice I was actually looking. He could have walked further from me so our hands wouldnt have to touch. I had to assume he did this on purpose. And there it was again. Looking at him out the corner of my eye, it gave away nothing. His face didnt give away anything. When we finished our walk, our hands had brushed against eachother at least a dusin times. Daryl then patted my shoulder as he went off to join Glenn who motioned to him, that he needed Daryls help for something. I stood there for a while. Not looking in the direction he went, just stood there. Then I turned and walked towards the garden.
It wasnt often we could enjoy a cup of tea with real sugar. But right now I was inhaling the warm aroma of red berries-tea. Glenn and Maggie had been lucky a few days earlier and come across a tea and coffee-shop that was close to untouched. I guess people didnt really think of clearing out those kind of things in the beginning after the turn. Both the coffe and tea was probably expired but none of us cared about that. We felt like Christmas had come early when they pulled up infront of the prison and the car was loaded with coffee, instant coffee and lots of different kinds of tea. There was even a sack of white sugar. Of course we had to ration it but somehow that made it even better and even more like a little treasure when we each had a mug of steaming hot coffee or tea. I had never been a coffee-drinker. Liked the smell but not the taste. Daryl had snorted and muttered something like ”Figures! Real men drink coffee, black coffee. Tea is for the sick!” Well, I didnt care, he could have his black tar. I held my mug with both hands and enjoyed the warmth and smell when I had it infront of my face. I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed. I sat outside in a corner of the prison yard. Daryl sat next to me. Of course. We´d taken to drinking our favourite beverages together. We sat close so we touched foot, hip and shoulder. I hadnt felt this relaxed in a long time. One leg was stretched out infront of me, the other was bent. My knee peeked out through a frayed hole in my jeans. I should look for a new pair the next time I went out on a run.
I thought an insect had landed on my knee, probably something blood-sucking. My movements were slow, as my body had been warmed by the sun against the wall when I opened my eyes and looked down on my knee to swat at whatever bug that was irritating me. My heart stopped as I saw Daryls indexfinger gently swipe back and forth against the skin peeking out of my pathetic jeans. I didnt move a muscle. I dont think I even took a breath. From the instant I saw it wasnt an insect but infact Daryl, the touch changed from being irritating to being something else. Something… something that send little warm rays of ”something” from my knee up my thigh and down my calf. I looked sideways at the man next to me. He looked like he was in a world of his own. Like he wasnt even aware that he was touching me even when he was actually looking at his hand. He had a peaceful but fareaway expression. His blues eyes which Id found myself seeing quite often lately when I closed my eyes at night, looked almost dreamy. Suddenly he flinched. Like he was pulled back from that dreamy state. I swore silently to myself. What was it that pulled him back from these situations? When I wanted him to continue…when I wanted to not lose the feeling of his skin against mine. Even if it was a tiny bit of skin. He quickly looked over at me and pulled his hand away. Daryl was always graceful in his movements but now he scrambled clumsily to his feet. The coffee in his cup sloshing down his hand. ”Fuck…fucking hell…” he swore and shoke the black fluid off and blew on the faintly red marks on his hand. He mumble ”I promised Carol…she asked…I gotta…” and left. Once again leaving me behind to stare at his back.
Id taken to doing a lot of pondering during the following month. I didnt know what it was with Daryl. I didnt know what these little….”approaches” or ”advances” meant. I knew that I didnt mind them. Id come to the conclusion that I liked them. In fact when Daryl pulled back after one of these little ”incidents” I missed them. Not just immidiately after but for the next few days when he was acting distant, awkward around me, not looking me in the eye. These thing I went over and over in my head while working in the garden. A while back Id found an oldfashioned discman on a run. Carl hadnt even know what it was to begin with. He was truly a child of the ipod-generation. I kinda enjoyed putting in a cd, pressing ”play” and the strange little hiss before the music started. The selection of music wasnt great but Id found some Five Finger Death Punch. Id nearly giving Daryl a heartattack when Id tried playing it for him. Daryl was a Georgia Satelites-kind of man. He understood that, he said. The noise I listened to was giving him a headache. I smiled while thinking of this. FDDP certainly drowned out the gurgling noises from the walkers at the fence. The music left room for nothing but this pondering about Daryl. I didnt know how to handle it when he pulled away. I didnt think I handled it very well as he was touching me either. Id never considered myself an awkward or shy person. Quiet yes but not awkward or doubting myself. I usually didnt get myself in situations where I didnt instinctively know how to handle myself. I immidiately snorted at that thought. I was in the middle of an apocalypse. Of course I didnt instinctively know how to handle myself and I thought of little Duane almost beating my skull in with a shovel. So apocalypses and Daryl Dixon made me feel awkward and out of my depth. Daryl made me see myself in a different light. During all my pondering Id come to the conclusion that yes, Daryl was my closest friend but there was something more than friendship. I wanted to be near Daryl, I wanted to feel him touching me, I wanted him to be close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body. Getting to the this realisation had been very strange. The last time Id thought about anyones bodyheat had been when I was 18 years old and falling in love with Lori. At that point the smell of her hair or her warm smooth skin had send all my nerveendings on high alert. Lori…Daryl… Was I attracted to Daryl? Attracted in the way Id only been to a woman? I had to realise that yes, I was. The feeling of friendship, of kinship, of family had evolved to something I could never in a million years have expected.
I was having this line of thoughts interrupted by something hitting my back. I turned around as I pulled out the earphones. Daryl was standing at the opposite end of the long row of carrots Id been weeding in between. He was sending me one of his small left-favoured smiles as he held up a tiny rock. ”You cant hear a bomb going off with that noise in your ears” he said. ”Figured you needed some water in this heat”, he was holding a bottle of water. I smiled and walked towards him. I realised that I thoroughly enjoyed looking at Daryl. I suppose in all his ”unspectacularness” he was in deed quite spectacular. His dark hair constantly in his oh so blue eyes. His skin-colour that was getting darker now during the warm season. He has this little mole at the left side of his upperlip what that gave him a sort of softer look around his mouth. He was thinner than he should have been, as were we all, but Daryl was all muscles. I had a whole internal conversation with myself while walking towards Daryl. Yes, I was genuinely attracted to this man. On all levels. His moody nature, his spot on dry sense of humor, his fierce urge to protect his family and his looks as well.
We chatted a bit while I drank my water. He had plans of taking Michonne on a run to to isolated farm houses that he hoped would have been left untouched by other scavengers. While we talked I could feel him ”zoning out” again, as Id taken to calling it in my mind. He gradually stopped talking and the look in his eyes became sort of distant. As always I wondered where he disappeared to when this happed. Slowly he reached out and took between two fingers one of the sweat-drenched curl that had dropped over my forhead and put it back in place behind my ear. His fingers gently touching the shell of my hear. My breath hitched and that seemed to shake him out of his ”zone out”. He quickly withdrew his hand and looked at me like he was afraid of my reaction. He probably was. Without a word he turned on his heal and stalked away…again! This was driving me crazy. I felt like I was walking through a minefield or trying to tame a deer. Every little breath I took or a twitch of a muscle would spook him and he would run off and I had to wait until he found the courage to carefully inch his way back.
It was taking more and more out of me to see Daryl look at me like he felt I was something solid that he wanted to hang on to, then flinch and walk away. I felt hollow when he walked away from me like that. Knowing Daryl these times he touched me, with the exceptions of that first time on the rock in the cold and during dinner, it wasnt something he consciously thought about. And I was quite convinced he wasnt ever going to approach the subject himself which meant I had to do it. I also know that talking to Daryl about this, probably meant I had to corner him somewhere. And that felt like a betrayl. I know it took so much for him to reach the level of trust he had in me, in all our family. I didnt want this strong and strangely fragile man to feel cornered by me. But I couldnt see that I had a choice. I needed to speak with him about this, I needed to hear what his thoughts were. Also for my own sake cause I needed Daryl and him pulling away from me was hurtfull although I was sure he never intended it as such. I needed him as the pillar of strenght and as the friend I come to depend on him as. And perhaps I needed him on a level that Id never have expected.
The chance to try to sort this out came sooner than Id expected. Before dinner, I was going to the showers to get all the dirt and sweat off me. Id reached out to grap the doorhandle, when it was opened from the inside. I felt my heart skip a few beats. I knew we’d cleared this area of walkers a long time ago. But unexpected noises and movements still startled all of us. Of course it was no walker on the other side of the door but instead Daryl. He’d obviously also needed to wash off the grime of the day. His long hair was still damp and in his eyes. My immidiate thought was that it gave him an endearing look, somewhat like a wet kitten. I shook my head internally at my own thoughts. I needed a level head now and not mushy thoughts that was actually not only beneath me but also beneath Daryl.
Daryl looked as startled as I felt when he saw me. He tried to squeeze by me in the narrow hall. My first thought was to grab his shoulder to make him stop. But I knew how much it spooked Daryl if he was touched without initiating it himself. ”Daryl. Please. We need to talk about this” I said. I couldnt make him look at me, he continued to try to worm past me, looking down and mumbling ”Msorry. I dont …Im…I dont know whats wrong with me…I cant! It wont happen again.” He stated stalking down the hall. ”Daryl, please stop.” I knew he heard me but he didnt respond, just kept on walking. ”Daryl! Dammit! Stop! Dont walk away from me!” as soon as the words where out, I regretted them. I never wanted it to go like this. Like I was somehow commanding him. Oh, he made this so damn hard! He did stop, dead in his tracks. Not turning around, shoulders up under his ears like he expected a strike. Daryl broke my heart without even knowing it. I knew what I said next would make or break of friendship. It would make or break whatever potential there was for more. ”Daryl….I…shit! I want to do this rigght and I feel like Im walking on eggshells here. Please at least look at me”. He slowly turned around, not looking at me but at least I wasnt talking to his hunched up shoulders and rigid back. He beat me to it and said ”Look Rick, I dont know whats wrong with me and I understand you are pissed at me. Ill stay away from you. I promise. Just dont be angry!” I had to stop this, stop him before he left me again. ”Daryl, please I dont want you to stop! Im not angry!” I know I could have handled the whole situation a lot better but I felt so pressured that it just came tumbling out and Daryls head snapped up in a way that could have been funny but wasnt. It was just another testament to how certain he was that he was unwanted, that his need for affection was unwanted. Silently I cursed the people in his pre-apocalypse life who’d made him think so little of himself. I wanted to show him that he was valued, that he was needed and that I infact craved him being near me and him touching me. I had no way of knowing what Daryls past history with romance was. But I suspected that he had spend most of his time with Merle and a great many things could be said about Merle. No doubt that in his own way he loved his younger brother but I couldnt imagine the kind of people who hung out with Merle would be anything good when it came to romantic relationships. I wanted to let Daryl see that he could have something good, something safe, even something romantic. That he was infact worth that, that he deserved his.
He was still standing with his back to me, as if he didnt dare turning around and looking me in the eyes. I knew the next move had to be mine. I took the 4-5 steps totwards him and put my hand on his shoulder. ”Daryl please. Please look at me!” I must have sounded pleading enough cause he did turn around. My hand fell off his shoulder. I knew I didnt have much time before he would feel cornered and leave. I slowly reached out and took his hand, gently interlacing our fingers. ”You gotta believe me, man. I want this. I was never not wanting this!” He looked at me from under his whisps of hair that wa always in his eyes. I wanted to whipe it from his forhead so I could really see his eyes. When I sensed that he wasnt going to say anything but he didnt pull away, I felt that now was as good a time as any. I leaned in and saw his pupils grow larger as I did and I kissed him. A chaste kiss. Perhaps not even a kiss as much as me touching his lips with mine. I felt his lips like something quite surreal. Daryl Dixon. Me. Kissing. When he didnt respond, I started to pull back. He reached out and got hold of my arm with the hand I wasnt hold. His breath ghosted on my face when he said in that raspy voice of his ”Rick! You dont have to spare my feelings. But you cant toy with me!” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and leaned back in and kissed him again, trying to put every emotion into the kiss, putting a soft pressure on his lips to show him that Id never play with him like that. And finally he kissed me back.
The end.