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The industrial building towered behind the thick greenery of the forest, a couple of hundred yards ahead. Rick was crouching through the shrubbery, closing in on the target, steps soft and careful against the leaves on the ground. He knew that Daryl was nearing the empty parking lot at the edge of the forest somewhere to his left, crossbow drawn and eyes peered.
Rick stopped and listened, hearing only the sound of summer birds chirping and the wind caressing the leaves in the trees. No one could be seen through the broken windows of the building and the rusty vans outside looked abandoned. Standing, he noticed Daryl do the same to his left, nodding in the direction of the warehouse before they stepped out of the forest and onto the concrete. Daryl's feet were quiet against the pebbles, knees slightly bent as he ran up to a door at the side of the building, Rick in tow with his handgun lifted.
The door creaked as Daryl pushed it open and Rick caught it before it had time to make any more noise, holding it still so Daryl could slip inside before him, crossbow first. Rick closed the door quietly behind them, then gestured with two fingers for Daryl to move ahead.
They had discovered the warehouse – and judged by the delivery trucks outside that it might be worth checking out – out of sheer luck on a supply run the day before. Hesitant to approach it, thinking that if something seemed too good to be true, it most likely was, they had explored the area inch by inch at first. The forest had been abandoned, only a couple of walkers approaching them in the dark as Rick kept guard the first half of the night.
Heavy shoes against concrete floors echoed in the enclosed space of the corridor they had entered through the door. If the place was occupied after all, they'd be discovered soon. Rick gripped the gun tight with both hands, holding it out in front of him as they closed in on a corner. They pushed their backs flat against the wall, shoulder against shoulder, and Rick leaned around the edge of the wall, discovering that the rest of the dark corridor was empty. He bumped his shoulder against Daryl's and pointed a finger around the corner.
Soon enough, they made their way into a large open space filled floor to ceiling with shelves. Some sunlight came in through the slim windows by the ceiling, dust particles swirling in the air. Most of the shelves appeared empty, but Daryl grunted in protest when Rick was about to complain and disappeared around a corner. Rick roamed the room, scanning the shelves for useful items. The building must have been a distribution center of some kind – for online shopping perhaps; now a post-apocalyptic goldmine.
Too focused on the labels on the empty racks, Rick stumbled over some cardboard, gripping one of the shelves on instinct right in time before he would've tumbled to the floor.
"You good?"
Daryl had re-appeared, back to the sunlight coming in from the windows, the shape of his body throwing a shadow on the floor. Rick nodded as he straightened again.
The rattling of metal against metal suddenly echoed through the room, and Daryl flinched and ran off towards the sound.
"Daryl," Rick hissed before following him, making sure the safety on his gun was off.
It was darker there, the sun unable to reach that far into the room. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, their boots rasping against the concrete as they approached the noise. In the dark, Rick could only make out the silhouette of the trapped walker rattling the chain link fence of an enclosure. It collapsed to the floor with a wet thump the moment Daryl's arrow pierced its forehead. Daryl pulled the arrow through one of the holes in the steel mesh and rubbed the tip of it clean against his shirt.
"There could be more," Rick suggested, squatting down by the walker; a male worker dressed in a blue uniform, name tag askew and covered in pink gunk.
Daryl hummed in disagreement. "Someone's already been here. Probably took them all out."
Rick got to his feet. Daryl was right. The empty shelves had told him as much.
"Saw another room out back," Daryl said.
Rick followed him between the shelves out into the sunlight to a locked door. A few windows were placed on the wall, too high up for Rick to be able to look inside. While Daryl worked on picking the lock open, Rick scooted some boxes across the floor to stand on. Wiping the window free of dust, he managed to look inside the dark room. It took a few moments before his eyes had adjusted to the dark, and when he finally managed to make out what was inside the room, Daryl twisted the handle and pushed the door open.
Against one of the walls stood a few lockers, a kitchenette covered another. The chairs around the round table in the middle of the room lay scattered on the floor.
Daryl scavenged the cupboards of the kitchenette, taking out a few cans and placing them on the counter. Crushed tomatoes, soup, tuna, an assortment of vegetables. Rick found a metal shoe horn on the floor and used it to pry open one of the lockers, revealing its empty insides. In the next one he found a pair of boots, a men's size ten, and some photographs of a smiling family. He took out the shoes and moved onto the next one, taking out the empty duffel bag inside and throwing it to Daryl who began shoving cans into it. He found a few half empty bottles of shampoo, some aspirin, a box of tampons and some other more or less useful junk that he stored in his backpack. They were out there for food. The rest was just a bonus.
Rick made for the fridge, a pungent odour punching him in the face as he got the door open. Putting a hand over his nose and mouth he took out the pack of water bottles he found inside, puzzling it into the now filled duffel bag.
Suddenly, a hiss came from behind them, and on instinct they turned on their heels towards the door, gun and crossbow aimed towards it. Daryl was the first to react, shooting the walker between its glossy eyes. It fell face first onto the floor, the arrow piercing through the back of its head, revealing the approaching mass of animated flesh behind it.
"Fuck," Daryl growled, reaching behind him for a second arrow.
Rick shot the next walker in line, lumps of blood and flesh and skin splattering against the dirty white wallpaper, its fall to the floor allowing the next one inside. Daryl backed up against the counter and reached out for the back of Rick's sweaty t-shirt, pulling him back next to him.
The firing handgun echoed in the small space and made Rick's ears ring, until all it did was click, and Rick got out his knife and shoved the blade through the soft eyeball of the walker in front of him. Some skin from the arm Rick had held onto slid off and dropped to the floor with a damp noise before the walker it belonged to fell on top of it, and Rick charged towards the one behind it, the blade easily sinking into its softened skull. The next walker was a few yards away, one of its arms hanging on by a tendon and dangling against its side as it approached.
"Now!" Rick yelled and Daryl snatched the duffel bag off the floor and followed him through the door, escaping the snapping teeth of the next walker to enter the room by an inch.
Daryl ran backwards and fired his crossbow. The walker collapsed, a pile of mushy limbs and brittle bones, and the two men found their way to the corridor they had come from and made it out into the sunlight, carefully shutting the door behind them. They stood against it, hands on knees as they breathed heavily.
"That was close," Rick stated, wiped his knife clean against his pants and shoved it into the sheath hanging from his belt.
"Too close."
"Got anything good at least?" Rick pushed his curls away from his forehead, a droplet of sweat falling to the ground.
"See for yourself."
Rick didn't even have time to squat down by the duffel before Daryl jerked him back with a grip of his t-shirt, backing them both into the shadows behind a dumpster.
"Wh-"
Daryl put a finger against his mouth, and Rick silenced and they crouched down behind the container. There was barely an inch between their faces in that position and Daryl avoided Rick's gaze. Daryl's breath was warm against Rick's lips. Daryl stared at the ground, listening to shoes twisting into the gravel, the low hum of voices, rattling of keys. Rick fought the urge to flick some walker gunk off Daryl's shoulder, and lost, making Daryl glare at him like that time Rick had handed him a "darling" in an exaggerated Kentucky drawl. Rick shrugged. Rick couldn't help himself despite Daryl's habit of moody protests; he relished every opportunity to throw him off balance with it, knew that it wouldn't stop Daryl from reaching out for him in his sleep during the night.
"Someone's been here," came a man's voice from the parking lot.
"You're being paranoid." A woman's voice this time. "No one's come around here in months."
"Look at the gravel, it's all fucked up." There was a click of a gun.
"That could be from anything. Probably just an animal."
"An animal in biker boots?" The man scoffed.
"Or one of the dead guys, then."
Rick backed up against the wall, putting some distance between him and Daryl. His thighs were burning from squatting down so tightly. Daryl looked unaffected, still just listening closely to the voices.
"Let's just get inside. There's still some stuff on the second floor."
The man and woman disappeared through the door. Rick shoved a fist against Daryl's shoulder.
"Come on. There's just two of them."
"And fuck knows how many more walkers inside," Daryl protested. "We got what we came for."
"Never took you for a coward, Daryl Dixon," Rick teased and got to his feet.
Daryl grumbled but followed Rick back through the door. They followed the couple as quietly as they could, soles of their shoes pattering against the concrete floor. They took a right turn instead of the left Rick and Daryl had made an hour before, climbing some stairs and entering through a door at the top. As the door closed behind them, Rick and Daryl snuck across the floor towards the staircase. The door had a little window through which Rick spotted the man and the woman surveying the room behind it. The space was smaller than the one on the bottom floor, but also stocked from floor to ceiling with shelves.
Rick looked over at Daryl. He nodded and lifted his crossbow, and Rick pushed the door handle down, knife lifted and aimed out in front of him. The man had his back turned towards them, a handgun in his thigh holster. Rick cocked his head towards it, and Daryl's gaze dropped to it. The woman was busy at the far end of the room, picking small cardboard boxes off the shelf and placing them in a backpack on the floor.
Sneaking across the floor, knees bent and back arched, Daryl closed in on the man while Rick rounded one of the shelves to keep out of sight from the woman as he approached her. A grunt came from the man as Daryl knocked him to the ground. That would hurt when he woke up. Rick watched through the shelves as Daryl snatched the handgun from the holster, shoved it into his own and picked up the man's bag from the floor, the items inside rustling.
"Jimmy?" the woman called out, and Rick pushed up against the shelf to escape her hunting gaze. "You okay?"
The woman stepped across the floor, searching between the shelves. Daryl silently slipped behind one of them just in time for her not to spot him.
"Jimmy!" she yelled and ran up to the man, kneeling beside him on the floor.
Rick couldn't see her anymore from where he was standing, but he was able to watch Daryl load his crossbow as he stepped out of the shadows the shelves provided.
"We ain't gonna hurt you," Daryl said. "We just want your stuff."
Coming to stand next to Daryl, Rick observed the woman. She looked agitated, a hand still against the man's cheek.
"Take whatever you want," she spat. "Just let us go."
Rick nodded and put a hand to Daryl's shoulder, speaking softly into his ear. "I'll see what I can see."
As Daryl held the woman captive under the threat of his arrow, Rick left to search the large room. Most of the shit was stored in boxes, and most of it seemed to be DVD's. Grabbing a few at random and shoving them into his backpack, he ventured deeper into the room. He found and grabbed some kids' stuff, a few toys and a plushy, but it wasn't until he reached one of the shelves shoved up against the wall that he hit the jackpot.
He was stuffing his backpack with the protein bars, some artisan crap that despite that fact would do the people back at Alexandria just fine, when Daryl called out for him.
"We should go," Daryl said when Rick returned, eyes dropping to the man stirring awake on the floor.
"Yeah, fuck off," the woman snarled.
Daryl lifted the crossbow towards her with a growl, but the woman barely flinched. She was focused on the man before her, slapping his cheeks until his eyes opened, and he gazed up at her with disoriented, searching eyes.
"Let's get."
Rick backed towards the door, keeping an eye on the couple on the floor. Hurting them any more would be unnecessary. They got what they came for and more. Close combat wasn't worth the risk.
Evidently, the woman had other plans. With a scream, she forced herself into Daryl's space, knife aimed towards his side. Daryl held out his hands to block her approach, but it was too late; the blade sank through the fabric of Daryl's shirt and stained it red in seconds.
"What the fuck lady?" he bellowed, pushing her to the ground so she landed on her ass next to her husband. He put a hand to his side and looked down at the mess.
Rick reached out and took the stolen gun from Daryl's holster.
"Daryl," Rick mumbled, aiming the cocked gun towards the woman. "We're leaving."
Daryl followed Rick reluctantly out the door and it slammed shut behind them. They hurried down the stairs and through the corridor, returning out into the Virginian sunlight once more, the smell of warm gravel filling the air.
"Car's this way," Daryl instructed, hand still pushed against the open wound in his side, and they disappeared into the woods.
They walked in silence for a while, Daryl tracking their past footsteps through the shrubbery to find the car and Rick following suit next to him, eyes strained on the bleeding cut in Daryl's side.
"What did you find?" Daryl asked when they were out of ear's reach from the couple at the warehouse.
"Protein bars. Lots."
Daryl hurried through the shrubbery. Rick was just about to demand that he wait when a branch snapped somewhere in front of them, and Rick reached for his knife and shoved his free arm against Daryl's chest to push him up against a tree to their right to hide them both. Daryl frowned and opened his mouth to complain at first, but then relaxed and stilled under Rick's force.
"Just some animal," Daryl commented after a few moments of silence. "Long gone."
"Hm."
"You gonna let me go?"
Rick wasn't sure exactly when this unspoken thing between them, like so many other of their silent understandings, had begun. When the looks between them had turned into something deeper, when Daryl had relaxed under Rick's touch instead of flinching away, when they had started protecting each other with a new kind of determination. When Rick had started being unable to tear his eyes from a minor stab wound.
Daryl's eyes were dropped to Rick's chest, and Rick backed away to catch his gaze.
"You good?" Rick asked and lifted his arm off Daryl's chest.
"Yeah."
"You..." Rick reached out a hand. "Got something..." He picked out a dry leaf from Daryl's hair, pushing a few damp strands back to reveal his face.
Daryl leaned his head back against the tree, backed away from Rick's touch. Rick wanted to kiss that neck, exposed like the belly of a napping tiger.
"Not here."
"No one's around," Rick protested.
"Ain't safe either way."
Rick dropped his gaze to Daryl's lips, contemplated ignoring that fact for a moment, before taking a step back. He ran a hand down Daryl's side instead and edged his fingers against where the knife had sliced into him, coaxing the hint of a shuddering sigh out of Daryl.
"I don't think you need stitches," he concluded, fingertips caressing the intact skin next to the wound.
"It's just a scratch," Daryl muttered and circled the tree out of Rick's reach. "Ain't no need to baby me."
Daryl pressed on towards the car and Rick caught up to him a few moments later. As they walked, Rick found himself thinking of a time when Daryl had been a little bit blonder, a little bit more reckless, when Rick himself had been a little bit friendlier, a little bit more clueless, and when pretty much everything had been different; long before this thing between them had started.
"I got you something."
Daryl's gaze traveled to Rick's face and returned to the ground so quickly that Rick could've imagined that it happened at all. Rick shoved a hand down the back pocket of his jeans and fished up a crinkled pack of cigarettes he had found in one of the lockers in the break room. He pushed the pack against Daryl's shoulder to get his attention, and Daryl took it and looked down at it for a moment.
"Thanks," he mumbled as he pocketed the gift.
"You're gonna strain your face if you smile any wider."
They had hid the car away behind a bush, covered the hood with some extra branches just in case. Rick insisted on driving, gently pushing Daryl away from the door the moment he put his hand to the handle. Not without complaints, Daryl sunk into the passenger's seat, a hand still pressed against the open wound. The bleeding had slowed down by now, but his shirt was soaked with a sticky, dark red.
The car engine stuttered to life when Rick twisted the key in the ignition. The heat inside was suffocating and heavy, the smell of warm plastic nauseating in the cramped space. Daryl rolled down his window, leaned his elbow against the door, rubbed an agitated hand back and forth over his thigh.
They had driven further than in a long time to find that warehouse. Rick doubted they'd be back before dark but pushed the car as fast as it could go anyway.
Cleaning that wound was his top priority right now, but he also knew that it was pointless to try to convince Daryl to let him do it right now. The man would call a sawed off leg 'just a scratch' if it just meant people wouldn't bother and leave him alone. Though Rick was usually fairly confident he wasn't just people.
After driving in silence for a while, Rick had to admit that the car had started producing some pretty worrying noises. A final offensive whine of metal against metal came from somewhere underneath the hood and Rick's foot over the gas pedal was rendered useless just like that, the car slowing down and jerking to a halt.
"Piece of junk," Daryl muttered and got out of the car, retrieving his crossbow and the duffel bag from the backseat before kicking the door shut behind him.
Rick got out, shrugging the backpack onto his shoulders, and helped Daryl roll the car into the forest and hide it in a bush before they began walking down the road towards Alexandria. Their already slim chances of making it back before dark had been nullified in seconds. The asphalt was steaming under the afternoon sun, fabric sticking to wet skin. It didn't take long until Daryl disappeared into the shade of the forest.
This thing between them, Rick thought. Something unsaid, something silently agreed upon. Daryl was sunlight through the treetops, a sliver of consoling heat Rick found himself leaning towards again and again. Rick wanted to put all that shed blood back into his veins, wished that the memories attached to all his scars would fade.
Some branches were ruffled in front of him, and Rick reached for his gun, snapped it towards the sound. He dropped it when it was Daryl who came out into the sunlight.
"Found a house."
The door creaked as Daryl pushed it open a little while later, crossbow pointed into the hallway. There was no sound but the wind swirling through the building, disturbing the settled, thick layer of dust on the floor and the pages of some old magazines as they flapped against the floorboards. Daryl cleared the kitchen and moved onto the rest of the little house while Rick explored the living room, rubbing his thumb against dusty family portraits, exposing smiling faces and dark curls.
Rick found Daryl in the hallway moments later when he returned from the bedrooms.
"Are you gonna let me clean that wound?" Rick asked and put a hand to Daryl's uninjured side and held him steady, ducking his head to catch his flickering gaze.
Daryl looked at him through thick lashes and nodded, a barely there movement giving Rick the permission he needed.
"Alright."
Daryl sat down in the kitchen, put his crossbow to rest on the table while Rick searched through the duffel for the water bottles, then his backpack for some cotton pads he had found back at the warehouse.
"You think there's any alcohol around to clean it with?" he asked, mostly to break the silence.
Kneeling down in front of Daryl and placing himself between his parted legs, he put a cotton pad against an opened bottle and spilled some water onto it. Daryl lifted his shirt, revealing the divided skin. The depth of the injury wasn't worrying. Rick put cotton to flinching flesh and rubbed off some dry blood as Daryl hissed.
"Thought you said it was just a scratch," Rick mumbled and exchanged the soaked cotton for a new piece.
It took some searching, but Rick managed to find a roll of gauze in a bathroom cabinet. After returning to his knees in the kitchen where Daryl was still on the chair, he wrapped the fabric around Daryl's waist, covered the clean wound and rolled his shirt back over the gauze.
"Thanks," Daryl said.
"Ain't no thing," Rick answered.
When it looked like Daryl was going to continue speaking, Rick lingered on the floor, head angled back to look up at him. Daryl parted his lips, just to press them together again a moment later, hesitated for a couple of seconds. Shutting his eyes, he opened his mouth to speak again, voice barely more than a mumble.
"Just... Here's fine."
Daryl watched as Rick got to his feet and placed a hand to Daryl's cheek. Closing his eyes, Daryl leaned into the touch and smoothed his own hand over Rick's. Rick let himself be pulled against Daryl, who got to his feet and put his nose to the crook of Rick's neck, breathing in. Daryl twisted the fabric of Rick's shirt into his fist, held him tight as if he'd dissolve like cigarette smoke in the wind if he didn't.
Trembling exhales tickled Rick's neck and sharp teeth scraped his jaw when Daryl moved his mouth across his skin, exploring every inch with his lips. Daryl sucked the skin under Rick's ear, put skin between his teeth, tugged at blonde curls at the back of his head to expose his neck. There was an urgency to the line of kisses Daryl made down Rick's throat, a kind of fumbling intensity that had surprised Rick those first couple of times. Now he knew that Daryl's kisses were an accumulation of a whole day's worth of unsaid words and interrupted touches, so many hidden thoughts put into action.
The windows in the living room were boarded up, a shelter from sunlight and distractions. After they stumbled out of the kitchen and through the hallway, Rick's back hit a wall and Daryl's mouth was back on his throat, sucking the skin over his racing pulse. Daryl dipped his fingers underneath the hem of Rick's jeans, grasping for the fabric of his shirt and untucked it.
"Hey," Rick breathed, leaning his head back against the wall as Daryl's lips slid down his collarbone. "Easy."
Forcing himself away from the wet heat of Daryl's mouth, he curled his fingers around his belt to yank Daryl against him. Inhaling sharply, Daryl put his forehead to Rick's and looked down between them as Rick unbuttoned his jeans, pulled the zipper down half way. Rick put a hand to Daryl's cheek, brushed his thumb against his jaw and kissed him slow and soft until he made an impatient sound at the back of his throat. It was always enough to set Rick's blood on fire. He could never tire of that game, could never not see how far he had to push it until Daryl's impatience turned into frustration and he'd say words he didn't dare say, ask for things he'd only repeat when Rick did it all over again the next time. Rick slipped his tongue between Daryl's parted lips and his hands down the back of his jeans, grabbed at his ass until Daryl whined and jerked forwards and let himself fall into Rick's chest. And Rick didn't want to deny him anything when he sounded like that and clinged to him like he trusted him.
Rick knew that Daryl couldn't last with the endless string of mumbled declarations of how good he was that Rick couldn't keep inside when they did this was just another one of those things; implications of something they wouldn't pronounce.
Afterwards, Daryl sat at the edge of the couch at Rick's feet with his eyes closed, inhaling deeply at the end of a cigarette. He always smoked like it would be his last time, cherished every breath, inhaled as if to make sure the smoke would caress every dark corner inside him. Rick moved to sit behind him, wrapped his arms around him and pulled him to his chest, kissed his naked shoulder. Daryl fell back into the embrace and blew some smoke into the dark room.
"Can I try?" Rick asked.
Daryl turned his head and glanced at Rick suspiciously, eyes narrowed. Then he took a last drag, held the smoke inside for a few long seconds before exhaling and handing the last inch of the cigarette to Rick.
He held the cigarette between his thumb and index finger, hesitated for a moment, then put it to his lips. The smoke was sandpaper in his lungs, heat rasping at his insides until he coughed, his body rejecting the intrusion in an instant.
"Rick Grimes," Daryl said, eyebrows raised and the shadow of a smirk on his lips as he watched Rick scoot over to the edge of the couch to get room to cough. "I know you were a man of the law and all, but... Don't you go telling me you ain't even had a cigarette before." Daryl scoffed, but the mockery sounded like nothing but fondness.
This thing between them, Rick thought when Daryl slammed the hood of the car shut the following morning after a couple of hours of tinkering. He watched through the window as Daryl rounded the car and got into the driver's seat, twisting the key in the ignition until the reluctant engine returned to life. This thing between them was as unlikely as the dead rising again, should've been just as complicated. But it was easy, Rick thought when Daryl steered the car back onto the road. And it was good.
Rick reached out for Daryl's hand, lifted it from the gear shift and placed it on his thigh and his own hand on top.
It was possible that it couldn't last. Not many things did those days. But if Rick could've chosen one thing to keep, something that was his own, it would've been this.