Who: Daryl Dixon and Rick Grimes What: An awkward kiss When: During the Mistletoe Plot [Backdated] Where: The Grimes' Residence Rating/Warnings: Teen/Language mostly Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
Daryl had officially moved in with the Grimes family. It seemed silly for him to travel back and forth to his place, and Hell, he didn't stay there that often anyway. Moving in with them had just seemed like the best option.
All of his things, or rather, lack of, had been moved in one trip and it had taken him all of half a day to unpack what he had. Daryl wasn't above pulling his weight when it came to household chores, he'd cleaned up the bathroom that he'd been sharing with Carl and then vacuumed his own room.
Daryl put the vacuum cleaner back into the hall closet, and then went to the kitchen to find something to eat.
Pulling open the fridge, Daryl stood there staring blankly into it for several long moments. There were nearly too many options for him to choose from. There were several different types of sandwich meat, leftovers from the night before, and other things.
Daryl was trying to decide what he wanted when he heard the kitchen door open. He leaned back, looking over at Rick as he entered into the kitchen. "Hey," he shut the fridge since he was still undecided on what he wanted.
Except there was something that he wanted, but it wasn't food.
A strange sensation came over Daryl as he stood there looking at Rick. He'd thought about what it could be like to kiss Rick, but he'd never had this sort of desire to test that out before now. He felt himself being pulled to Rick, and the distance between them became shorter until he was standing directly in front of him.
Daryl licked his lips, heart beating quickly in his chest as everything inside of his brain told him to stop and yet he couldn't stop the forward movement as he closed the short distance between them, and fitted his lips against Rick's.
~*~
Obsession was a thing Rick was more than slightly familiar with given his history as a police officer. He could get fixated on a case, work it for weeks, and never give up until he could say with absolute certainty he'd done all which could be done. No case was ever closed without being closed either. Their department had kept a real Cold Case unit which anyone would admit was largely run by Rick Grimes. When he'd left for California, he'd thought for days about those old cases only he seemed to care about, but his children had needed him more.
His family had to come first.
Rick hadn't gotten fixated on much beyond farming since coming to Orange County---then suddenly he was kissing Daryl Dixon in his kitchen and everything else in all the world fell away. His hands fisted into the front of Daryl's clothes, pulling the man's hard chest against his own as he angled his face to fit his lips more securely over Daryl's and pushing at his lips with his tongue until he could get inside the heat of his mouth.
A deep groan came up from Rick's chest as if it were being torn out of him.
In his mind, a flare of memory passed through reminding him of how the walkers sounded as they yearned for flesh.
It was how he felt kissing Daryl: as if all thought had left his head until nothing remained except hunger.
Pulling back, the spell was broken as a piece of mistletoe fell from the doorway to the floor. Rick blinked at it blankly. Had he hung that? Had Carl? They had never been the type to use mistletoe before. It looked strange, too. Brighter than he would have expected.
"Do you---" Rick cleared his throat, "Want me to fix something to eat?"
~*~
His hands settled right above Rick's lean hips, his fingers curling into the cloth of his shirt while his lips worked over Rick's.
Daryl kissed Rick back as if his life depended on it. His tongue slipped past his probed apart lips, darting into Rick's mouth to taste him. He swallowed up the groan Rick offered, his body reacting to the sound. He felt dizzy from the rush of blood from one place to another, from the lack of oxygen as he kept kissing Rick but all that changed the moment that Rick pulled back.
Reality came crashing back down around Daryl, and he froze.
What the hell had come over him? Why had he -- shit, this was bad wasn't it?
Daryl wasn't a man with many regrets, and even this he wasn't regretting yet but he worried that it would affect their friendship. His hands slowly relaxed their grip, and he licked his lips out of reflex more than anything when Rick broke the silence.
Laughing, Daryl took a step back. "Yeah, I -- yeah." He gave a small nod, averting his eyes down to the ground and then back up at Rick's face for a moment. "Sorry," he muttered, "don't know what happened there." He too cleared his throat and moved away from Rick, moving toward the sink and picking up a cup he'd used earlier and filled it up with ice cold water since his entire body felt as if it was on fire.
~*~
Strong.
Daryl had real strong hands. That was something Rick doubted he'd ever forget as his sides still ached from the tension in his friend's grasp. There had been plenty of sex in his life with Lori. She'd been a passionate woman and a generous lover. Rick couldn't say he had any complaints where her performance in the bedroom had been concerned. He could also say she'd never made him want to know what it'd be like to walk around bruised from her hands after a rough fumble.
"Think it was the mistletoe. One of those Orange County things we don't talk about or understand, you know?"
He forced a grin as he got the fixings out for hot ham and cheese sandwiches. It was comfortable to fall back into the habit of making food. Rick could do the usual things without thinking about how he knew Daryl liked the company of other men or how he'd never lain with anyone except his wife. They were friends, good friends, with a history both in this life and another which they didn't talk on without it being necessary.
As he buttered bread, Rick asked, "You care if I fix up a hot ham and cheese for lunch? It's a favorite of mine. Easy but never fails to be good."
Rick didn't think as his eyes seemed to fix on Daryl's and words fell out of his mouth as if they were water sinking through a sieve.
"I didn't mind that. Kissing you. Don't care if it was some strange OC thing. I didn't mind."
~*~
Daryl glanced over at the fallen mistletoe, and lifted a shoulder. "Probably. There's a lot of weird shit that happens here, so I'd say it's one of those things." It seemed as if every day something new was happening. He downed his glass of water, feeling a little better after the fact.
Daryl was refilling his glass when Rick posed his question about lunch. "Yeah, that sounds good to me." Daryl was rarely picky when it came to food. As long as it was decent, he'd eat it.
He stared at Rick for several long silent moments. What did he mean he didn't mind? What --
Daryl's brows furrowed, a line appearing between them as he tried to puzzle it out some deeper meaning. Maybe there wasn't any deeper meaning behind it, maybe Rick was just trying to make him feel better or something. Then again, knowing Rick, he meant exactly what he said and maybe just maybe...
Letting out a long breath through his nose, Daryl gave a small nod. "Good to know. Just in the event of some other strange OC thing or I just get the urge to kiss you again without it." Daryl nearly winced at his own foolish words, although he covered it up by taking a sip of his water and turning back around to face the sink.
He took another big gulp of his water, placing the now empty cup back down beside the sink before wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
~*~
Kissing wasn't reserved for married couples. Rick had been positively prudential compared to most of the boys in his acquaintance growing up, but even he'd been willing to kiss a girl. He couldn't stop the flush which stained his skin at the thought of Daryl kissing him only because he felt like it some time or another. What would that be like? Would it feel the same as it had when they'd been pushed towards each other by the damned OC insanity? Would it be worse?
Could it possibly be better?
"I don't mind kissing without marriage. It's the other things I never thought much of doing without the rings. Before you start in, know I have already heard every single argument you're going to send my way for why it's ridiculous to wait on marriage nowadays. It's how I was raised. It's what I thought was right. Now? I don't know. I do know I'll have your food on a plate in the next five minutes so make yourself comfortable. Ain't like you've never eaten with me before."
They shared all their meals since Daryl had come to live with the Grimes family. It was a family affair to have Daryl at the table. Rick didn't see anything wrong with treating Daryl as if he were family because he felt as if he were family to Rick. He felt things for Daryl he hadn't felt for anyone else in a long while. His feelings weren't necessarily brotherly at all, but it was easier to consider him a brother than anything else.
Like a lover.
"You mind if it's a little more brown on one side than the other? I never can quite get the first one done up right. Something about not gauging how the heat rises."
Rick knew he was being deliberately obtuse, talking about a sandwich with one side darker than the other when neither of them cared a bit how their food was cooked so long as it was hot and edible. He didn't know what else to say was all.
~*~
A line appeared between Daryl's brows. Now? What was that even supposed to mean? Was Rick saying that he wouldn't mind something...Goddamnit all he was just getting ahead of himself. Daryl let out another long breath in order to try and clear his head. Placing the glass back down where he'd gotten it from, he turned around to face Rick.
There were a lot of things running through his mind, a lot of them he wanted to come right out and say but there was something holding him back. For the first time in his life, Daryl Dixon was holding back. "Look," he began, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, "ain't nothin' to me man. The waiting. I get it. I grew up in the same place you did, remember? I just chose to be a rebel is all." Daryl could understand that all too well. "As far as everything else, well…" he shrugged and then moved over to the dining room table, unsure of what to say himself at this point.
Daryl pulled out his chair, rolling his shoulders after he'd sat down. "Good, I'm hungry." He actually wasn't, but he knew that if he didn't eat he'd be a grumpy sonofabitch later.
Waving a hand, Daryl shook his head, "I don't mind at all. Better that way if you ask me. Hell, I've eaten burned ones before when Merle decided that he didn't want to cook for me so I had to learn how to do it myself." Daryl had learned to do a lot himself during his younger years. "Those were definitely some rough times right there."
~*~
"Merle Dixon cooking anything is a terrifying thought."
Rick placed the first sandwich down in front of Daryl with a grin. He risked touching the man's hand with his own for a moment almost too brief to have even happened. All he'd wanted was to see how it felt. He had squeezed Daryl's fingers the way he had Lori's too many times of a morning in the days when they'd been a married couple. It felt different given the size of Daryl's hands, the strength in them, but the same since the gesture meant the same thing to Rick regardless of the hand he was touching.
Love was a funny thing. The holidays tended to make it easier to believe in love. He could imagine the beautiful setting of a family gathered around a sparkling tree at night, presents wrapped with care for the kids and for each other while the whole place smelled of baking. Rick could heat up a pie even if he couldn't produce one from scratch and the smell of the spice was the same whether he'd made it or Sara Lee had done it up.
Fixing his own sandwich quickly, Rick went ahead and grilled up another sandwich which he cut into two triangles they could share. It was something he'd done back in the day when courting Lori. They'd been so awkward around one another. It made it easier to sit and eat than sit and stare at one another. Neither of them had been the type to put on weight easily. Daryl looked too spare by half.
"Made a little extra in case you wanted another half," Rick offered as he settled into the seat at Daryl's side.
The square table afforded them enough space to have their own side each while still letting them be close enough to feel the warmth of the other.
Had Daryl always felt so warm?
"Earlier wasn't anyone's fault. Nothing to be mad or anything about. It happened. It's the kind of thing happens here. Is that alright?"
~*~
"Hell, I had to take what I could, man." He chuckled with a shake of his head. There were plenty of times where he'd rather eat his dad's cooking than Merle's and that was saying a hell of a lot.
The simple, and extremely brief brush of Rick's hand against his own caused a shock of electricity to shoot up his arm. It was stupid, so, so stupid of him to think that it meant anything outside of an accidental brush.
Daryl picked up his sandwich with one hand, and took a big bite. It was damned good, even if he wasn't that hungry to begin with. He took another bite, suddenly wishing that he had thought to bring himself another glass of water, but it was fine. He could get himself a drink after he'd eaten.
It surprised him that Rick sat down beside him instead of across from him. Curiously he glanced over at him, raising a brow slightly at the offered other half. "Thanks, I'll probably take it since I'm hungrier than I thought I was."
It was true enough, and he shifted slightly in his seat as he too felt the heat of Rick's body near his own.
Daryl gave a nod, "Yeah, it's alright. I understand. This place is... well it's fucked up most days." He chuckled softly with a small shrug of his shoulders, "Could be worse though." It could be like the place in their dreams. Daryl honestly hoped that nothing like that ever happened here.
~*~
The urge to reassure Daryl he'd never have to settle for scraps again was strong, almost too strong for Rick to suppress. He managed only because he wasn't certain either of them could handle more than what they'd already dealt with in one encounter. Daryl might know he had a feeling which brought him to like men, yet Rick Grimes only had a feeling he wanted Daryl Dixon which was hardly the same thing.
"It could be worse."
That was easy to agree to given how things worked in Orange County. Daryl was looking good across from Rick. He was warm, happy, healthy, and he was eating good food which Rick had prepared for him with his own hands. This was their home and they were eating their food. It was a happier place for them. There was little which could be worse than the world in their dreams, but the OC was better by far.
Standing abruptly, Rick went over to get them both a fresh glass of water, brushing his hand with Daryl's once more as he set his in front of him.
He made certain he caught Daryl's eyes as he smiled at him, stating firmly, "We have each other. It could be a whole helluva lot worse."
Rick meant it, too. They'd figure this all out. Together.