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It all started because the opossum that Daryl was absolutely sure was dead turned out to be not so dead and used the very last of its dying not-so-dead energy to bite the shit out of Daryl’s leg. Rick was witness to the feat of dying strength...and also witness to the little squealing sound that Daryl made when he jumped out of his skin at the sudden and quick movement of the white animal mostly lodged in his snare.
Of course, Daryl bitched about the stupid animal and then tried to shrug off the bite like it was absolutely nothing, despite the fact that it got a good chunk of blood all over his sock. He didn’t exactly limp back to the prison, but he was sure favoring his right ankle and of course Hershel saw it and then Rick’s eyebrows shot into his hairline at the intense argument of “you need an antibiotic” and “fuck you, old man, I don’t.”
But in the end, Hershel was more persistent than Daryl’s angry grumpiness and the doctor shoved some pills down Daryl’s throat to be on the safe side, murmured that he hoped he didn’t have rabies, and scooted off to be with his daughters. Rick, for his part, stayed the hell out of it because Hershel was right, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Daryl that.
And then that seemed to be the end of it. Just a little tiny incident with the snares that would be forgot about tomorrow. That is, until Rick found Daryl lying on his stomach in the middle of Rick’s garden, clutching a tomato like it was his own living child and cooing at it.
Rick paused, his whole body going stiff as a board and his eyes as wide as a doe’s. He watched as Daryl stroked the tomato gently like he was touching a priceless jewel and then leaned forward and put his lips on the smooth red skin, sighing gently like it was a Sunday afternoon and he was cuddled up with his boo. Rick felt suddenly like he was intruding on a very intimate moment between Daryl and his tomato and decided that this was way weirder than anything else he’d ever had to deal with, and that included the freaking zombie apocalypse.
Rick turned on his heel to leave, but as he did, Daryl spotted him and rolled over and Rick could really see his eyes now, kind of dilated and glassy. Daryl lifted the tomato so that Rick could see it and grinned like a cheshire cat. “Rick, this is Rafaelo...eallo. Ello. Rafael. O.” Daryl furrowed his brow and stared at the tomato. “I wanted to name him Rafael. But he said there was an o.” Daryl draws out the letter, making his mouth as round as he possibly can. “Ooooooo. Cause he’s a tomatoooooooooooooo.”
Rick blinked. “Um…” he started intelligently and then swallowed. “Daryl, are you high?”
Daryl blinked up at him and then went a little cross-eyed before he blinked again. He swayed in his seated position and stared at his tomato and then giggled. “You’re funny,” he said.
Rick’s mouth hung open like a fish before he noticed it and immediately snapped it shut. “Okay,” Rick said, “we’re going to Hershel. Come on. Get up.” Rick reached down and struggled to get Daryl on his feet and Daryl swayed dangerously, but remained standing. Rick reached for the tomato to put it down, but Daryl growled at him and stumbled away, clutching it like a lifeline to his chest.
“Don’t you fucking touch Rafaelo,” Daryl snapped at him and Rick held out his hands in a peace gesture before Daryl calmed down. In a small, tiny little voice, Daryl looked up at him and said, “He’s my friend.”
Rick blinked because that’s the only reaction he could think of that even made any sense and then he slowly steered Daryl back toward the prison. Daryl stumbled along in front of him, managing to weave and wave in such a complicated pattern and with so much stumbling of his feet that Rick was actually super impressed that he didn’t just faceplant and squash Rafaelo into the ground.
After about five minutes of walking across the yard and an extra ten minutes of trying to tell Daryl where the door was, they finally made it inside and to Hershel’s cell, where Daryl promptly collapsed on Hershel’s bed and started cuddling his tomato and grinning.
“Hershel,” Rick said and rounded on him, “we have a problem.”
Hershel furrowed his brow at Daryl and nodded back up at Rick. “I see we might.”
“What did you give him?” Rick asked and Hershel shrugged.
“Standard antibiotics,” he said, “they shouldn’t be having this reaction.” On the bed, Daryl began to sing.
“Well, they are,” Rick told Hershel.
“--and if that mockingbird don’t sing, Daddy’s gonna buy you a diamond ring--”
“Hershel,” Rick said, “figure this out.”
Hershel nodded quickly and went to his medicine bag, pulling out the pills he had given Daryl earlier.
“--Daddy’s gonna buy you a billy goat...wait, that would eat you.”
“HERSHEL!”
“They’re standard Ampicillin,” Hershel said. “I don’t---” And then he paused. He frowned and held up one of the pills to the light and said with dread, “oh.”
Rick blinked rapidly. “OH?” he said, “Oh? What oh?”
“They don’t have any marks on them,” Hershel said, “No numbers or identifications and it doesn’t look like they were factory made.” He looked down at the bottle. “Someone must have put their own pills in the bottle to disguise them.”
“--and if that horse and cart fall down, you’ll still be the sweetest tomato in town--”
Rick put his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows. “What are they?”
Hershel blushed and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “They could be anything.”
“Well, is he going to be okay?”
Hershel turned to Daryl and nodded. “Let’s find out.” They wrangled Daryl into a sitting position so that Hershel could check his heartbeat and look at physical signs like his dilated eyes. After doing a brief check-up, he turned to Rick. “He should be fine,” he said and walked back over to his medicine bag with Rick following. “He’ll probably just have to get through it and he’ll be back to his normal self tomorrow. We’ll just make sure he rests and drinks a good amount of fluids. And I’ll give you these in case he needs them.” Hershel picked up some standard Tylenol and Rick glared at him until he checked the factory numbers and nodded. Rick sighed and pocketed the Tylenol and was about to thank Hershel when a loud sob came from the bed. Both Hershel and Rick turned around.
Daryl was laying on the bed on his stomach, with one hand out and trailing the floor, a half-eaten tomato lodged in his palm. “I ate him,” Daryl cried into the bed. “I ate my friend.”
Hershel snorted in laughter and Rick glared at him. “This isn’t funny,” Rick said, despite the mirth bubbling up in his own stomach.
Hershel wiped his grin off. “Of course,” he said and clapped Rick on the shoulder.
“Rick,” Daryl whined, “I ate my friend. What does that? Walkers. Walkers do that. You have to shoot me, Rick. I eat my friends.”
Rick suppressed a grin and came forward to rub Daryl’s back. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“Don’t come too close,” Daryl said, dead serious. “I might eat you.”
Rick coughed to suppress a chuckle and then struggled to get Daryl standing. “Okay. I won’t. Let’s get you to bed.”
Rick pulled Daryl out of Hershel’s room and steered him to his own, managing to pour Daryl into bed and pry the half-gone tomato out of his hand, promising Daryl that they’d have a funeral tomorrow when he didn’t shut up about it and, yes, Daryl could be the one to dig the grave.
Rick walked away from Daryl’s cell rolling his eyes and vowing that the was totally going to keep the tomato and tell Daryl all about his stoned shenanigans in the morning. And he very much thought that that was all he needed to do to take care of Daryl.
***
Rick went to his daily business of working in his farm and helping manage small repair and construction projects around the prison, pausing for the lunch that Carol cooked all of the workers and smiling at the calmness of the atmosphere. But then, as lunch ended, Rick caught sight of Beth, running after Daryl who had something clutched to his chest like a lifeline.
Rick watched in shock and awe as Daryl beelined past the group picnicking out in the grass and made it about ten feet before stumbling across a hole in the ground and falling straight on his face into a patch of heavier grass. Rick heard a distinct “poof!” and then watched as feathers flew up and around the area that Daryl had just gone down into and it was only then that Rick realized that Daryl must have stolen the pillow that Beth had so carefully been working on.
Rick shot up and across the field to where Daryl was lying in the grass amongst a pile of turkey and dove feathers. Beth was red-faced and livid, more angry that Rick had ever seen her and looking like she was just about ready to pummel the shit out of Daryl’s ass.
“That. Was. FOUR. MONTHS. OF. GATHERING. FEATHERS,” Beth shrieked and Rick had to pull her from Daryl, who was starting to moan in the grass like he was just now realizing that his nose had smacked into a pile of dirt.
“Okay,” Rick told her, “it’s okay. Daryl is just a little off today.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Beth asked Daryl and then rounded on Rick. “He just RAN into my cell and just...just...took it. And then started running!”
By then, Maggie and Carol had approached and were looking around at the three of them in wide-eyed awe. Rick cleared his throat and figured it was best to explain. “Um...so Hershel gave Daryl some antibiotics this morning and they were...they were not antibiotics. He’s, uh...he’s kind of--”
“DIRT SMELLS WEIRD!” Daryl yelled, still firmly lodged in the grass.
“...high,” Rick finished.
Carol put a hand over her mouth and Maggie widened her eyes even further. Beth blinked down at Daryl and narrowed her gaze. “High?”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “High.” He moved to the grass and pulled on Daryl’s arm to get him into a sitting position, making sure he hadn’t broken his nose or anything else in the fall.
Daryl looked up at him with an unfocused gaze and suddenly grabbed Rick’s shirt and fisted in into his hand. “The colors,” he whispered to Rick and Rick just nodded back.
“Sure, Daryl,” he said, “the colors.”
The girls couldn’t keep their eyes off of Daryl and Rick really couldn’t blame them. This was the first time that any of them had seen Daryl without any inhibitions. Sure, they had all had the occasional drink and there were times, like at the CDC, where everyone had been wasted off of their ass. But Daryl had a stomach of steel when it came to alcohol and he wasn’t really a loud or noisy drunk and he most certainly wasn’t this kind of random that he was sitting in the grass and starting to label colors by the most complicated ones he could remember.
“Is he…” Carol started and then shook her head, her hand still on her mouth. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Hershel says he’s fine,” Rick told her, “but I guess he’s not just going to stay in bed where I left him, so can you watch him?”
Carol blinked, but then nodded. “Of course,” she said and moved toward her best friend, but Daryl shrieked like a banshee and grabbed for Rick in panic. Rick was pretty sure that what Daryl was actually going for was his pants’ leg, but that’s not what he ultimately got and Rick gave out a surprised little grunt as Daryl’s hand connected with his left ass cheek and squeezed.
Carol took a step back and Daryl curled himself around Rick’s legs and Rick had to stumble to balance himself as one arm came around to clutch his thigh and the other hand just kept on squeezing. “Boobs,” he said as if that explained everything and Maggie’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline at the same time that Beth just threw up her hands and walked away, totally done with the situation. Carol kept blinking.
“Boobs,” Rick repeated and then went bright red as Carol and Maggie looked up at him.
“I’m scared,” Daryl said and clutched Rick harder, the hand on his thigh going dangerously up.
“WHOA now!” Rick said and jumped away from him, leaving Daryl out in the open to scramble into a standing position and rush back toward Rick, hiding behind him.
“I don’t like them,” Daryl said in a serious whisper to Rick. “Don’t make me go with them.”
“With Carol?” Rick asked.
“With BOOBS,” Daryl said and Rick rolled his eyes and his pink blush went to apple red.
Carol started snickering and just shaking her head. “I think he wants you, Rick,” she said in a knowing voice and Maggie just snorted in laughter and agreement. Rick blinked at the two of them, because what did that mean, but before he could ask, both girls were walking across the field and giggling at him and Daryl.
Rick watched them go until everyone was out of hearing distance and then he rounded on Daryl. “What is wrong with you?” he said, “I left you alone to sleep it off.”
Daryl looked up at him with the biggest and widest eyes Rick had ever seen him have and for a second Rick was lost in a seastorm of the deep depths of the ocean. “You’re pretty,” Daryl told him in a voice that was way too loud and personal for the open field they were currently standing in.
Rick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, we’re going to the guard tower so you stop bothering everyone.”
And then the worst thing in the world happened. Daryl, the stoic and tough hunter. Daryl, the man with the steel stomach and the even steelier eyes. Daryl, the one who walked through firefights like he was walking through the farmer’s market. Daryl, the quiet and serious, calm and determined hunter, Rick’s rock, began to sniffle and snort and then all out sob. “You,” he said, struggling through tears and what Rick was pretty sure was a little bit of snot, “You...hate me.”
He let out the loudest and most complicated sob/cry Rick had ever heard and Rick had to take a step back just to assess the situation. He felt like the biggest tool known to man, the worst asshole ever in existence. He felt like scum on the bottom of a Walker’s shoe because he had made Daryl cry in the middle of the field and Daryl wasn’t stopping anytime soon. “Hey,” Rick said, and moved up to him, putting his hand on Daryl’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. I don’t hate you. I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you...you…” Snort. “Do!” Daryl batted his hand away mostly successfully and started stumbling toward the guard tower. Rick figured that was good as that was where he was going anyway, so he followed Daryl at a distance until Daryl hit the steps to the tower and didn't seem to understand how to lift only one of his feet.
Rick put a hand on his back and helped him move up the steps, all the while listening to Daryl’s quieting sniffles. “I really don’t hate you,” Rick said and tried to remember what exactly he had done to make stoned-off-his-ass Daryl think that. “I’m sorry I said you were bothering the others. They all like you.”
Daryl shook his head. “YOU HATE ME,” he said and managed to make it through the door to the guard tower with only a couple of bumps. He collapsed on the floor in the corner. “You never want to fuck me,” he whined and banged his head on the wall and Rick stilled in the doorway, as rigid as a piece of glass.
“F…,” he couldn’t even say it. He cleared his throat. “Fuck you?” he said, trying not to think about how his voice sounded as squeaky as a teenager’s.
“Yes!” Daryl said with force and looked up at Rick, trying to focus his eyes. He slouched in the corner, his front legs thrown out in front of him and his back at a ridiculously uncomfortable angle to the wall. “All the time I’m like hey, Rick, fuck me and you don’t.”
Rick bit his lip and then took a step inside, shutting the door behind him. “Daryl...I don’t think that you’ve ever said ‘hey, Rick, fuck me.’ I think I would have remembered that.” His mind whorled around at a million miles an hour and one thought stuck out harder than the rest--if Daryl was really asking, would Rick? Something deep within him said yes, and wasn’t that kind of scary.
“No,” Daryl protested and lifted his hands just to let them flop heavily back on the floor. “I do, I do. All the time. I ask you and I ask you and you don’t. Except that one time we were fish.”
Rick was so surprised that his head actually jerked backwards of it’s own accord. “Fish,” he said.
“Well, mermen,” Daryl told him, in a voice that was clearly correcting Rick’s mistake. “Wait,” he said and frowned. “I think that might have been a dream.”
Rick nodded slowly. “I’m thinkin’ you’re right on that one, buddy,” he said and tried not to think about how that would actually work.
“It’s just…” Daryl said and looked up at Rick with his mouth open and his eyes glassy, totally stoned out of his goddamn mind. “I love you,” he said and then started to sob.
Rick sighed heavily and sat down next to him. “It’s okay, buddy. I love you, too,” he said, because what else was he going to say? Of course Daryl loved him. He loved his goddamn tomato. Daryl fell to Rick’s side as easy as butter to bread and clung to him with the vice grip of a semi.
“You’re, like, the warmest,” Daryl said and sighed happily, his tears drying on Rick’s shirt. “You’re my favorite.”
“Sure,” Rick said and patted him on the back. “Why don’t you go to sleep?”
“STRAWBERRIES!” Daryl yelled into Rick’s chest and that was the last thing he said before he dozed off.
***
Rick made DAMN sure that he was standing in the doorway, grinning like he’d just won the lottery, when Daryl woke up the next morning. He watched Daryl blink and lift his head, his hair stuck in fifteen billion directions and the “friendship bracelet” he’d made Rick make out of honeysuckle and dandelions still adorning his wrist.
“Morning, sunshine,” Rick said, laughter bubbling in his voice.
Daryl groaned and slapped his head down against his pillow. “Fuck,” he said, his voice muffled by the thin fabric.
Rick laughed and walked forward, holding out a trowel he’d taken from his farm tools. Daryl turned his head and blinked up at Rick, frowning. “The fuck is that?” he asked.
“You remember anything from yesterday?” Rick asked him back.
Daryl frowned so hard he almost made it to Merle levels of proportion. “If I say no, could you be my friend and back me up?”
“Nu huh,” Rick said, shaking his head and holding out the trowel again. “You said you wanted to bury Rafaelo. I thought tiny grave, tiny shovel.”
Daryl gave him a glare that would stop a charging rhino and knocked the tool out of Rick’s hand so that it fell and clamoured loudly on the floor. “Fuck you,” Daryl told him and stood up, storming out of the cell angrily. It would have been quite the picture of rage, Rick thought, if it wasn’t for the flower bracelet and the fact that Rick could still see the hint of where he’d drawn the “Cutie Mark” on Daryl’s hip of a bow that Daryl had just fucking insisted upon.
***
Three hours later and Rick was working in his garden, when a pissed off archer with a scowl on his face that would break rock stormed up to him and sat down heavily next to where Rick was kneeling and preening his crops. “...hey,” Rick said when it didn’t look like Daryl was going to start the conversation.
“Hey,” Daryl said, his voice clipped. Rick noted that he was finally back to his normal self--no cutie mark, no flower bracelet, no tear streaks. It was almost like it hadn’t happened, almost like they could have forgotten it. Except now Rick knew what “I love you,” sounded like in Daryl’s voice and he really shouldn’t care because he’d never been into men, but something about the gruff little vibrations in Daryl’s voice just sent tiny tremors of tingles running up and down Rick’s spine like fingers on a piano.
“So…” Rick started, but Daryl cut him off.
“Told you I loved you,” Daryl said and picked at the ground.
“Yeah,” Rick said back and turned around so he could properly sit next to Daryl. “Don’t worry about it. You were high as a kite.”
Daryl grunted. “Yelled at Hershel for awhile. Made me feel better.” He picked up a blade of grass and started tearing at it. “Um, but...I mean the tomato thing was ridiculous and stealing Beth’s pillow was just fucking weird. And the mermen...god, let’s forget about the mermen.” He paused and twirled the grass in his hand. “But, um, that last thing.” He grunted. “Kinda true.”
“...what last thing?” Rick asked for clarification and tried to stop his heart from beating out of his chest.
To his utter surprise, Daryl blushed. “...love you,” he said in a small and drawling voice.
“Love me?” Rick repeated.
“Kinda...kinda been wanting…” Daryl tried, but then shrugged. “Don’t matter. Look, wanted to tell you sorry. And to ask that you, you know, forget it. So we don’t lose our friendship. And I’m gonna keep my feelings to my damn self when I’m not hooked up on mystery drugs.”
“Wait,” Rick said, still processing, “you want to actually fuck me? You actually love me?”
If it was possible, Daryl got redder. “Don’t wanna make a big deal out of it,” he said and tore his blade of grass in half.
Rick blinked and before he could even register what the hell he was doing or take a minute to even pause and ask himself what kind of drugs he was on, he leaned forward and pressed his lips so fleetingly soft to Daryl’s. Daryl made a surprised little grunting sound and stilled his whole body, but that was just wrong and not what Rick wanted, so Rick put his hand on Daryl’s cheek and pressed his lips in further and moved them and then Daryl sighed, his body curving toward Rick and relaxing and they were kissing--really kissing--right there beside Rafaelo’s surviving kin and it was good and great and freaking glorious and then Daryl tilted his head to just the right angle and then there was tongue and Rick was about to explode from the sudden need and want rushing up to coat every inch of his skin and somehow, someway, he found himself totally in Daryl’s lap and Daryl’s hands were down his pants and cupping his ass and this time is was oh so sexy and Rick just gasped from the sheer realization of it.
They broke away and Daryl blinked up at him, his eyes dilated--not from drugs this time, but just from sheer Rick and Rick moaned at the thought of that and said, “oh, yes, I’ll fuck you,” against Daryl’s lips and then Daryl was up and hauling him into the prison and sure, all their friends probably heard, but Rick couldn’t have give one iota of a fuck because he had the one thing that had been missing from his life that he didn’t even know was gone. He had his Daryl. All because of one silly veterinarian's mistake and a stupid dying opossum.