HEY! so this is my first ever fan fic, I'm shit nervous so please be kind but criticism is welcome. I defo have plans for a smutty angsty part 2 (yum) so maybe you'll enjoy. Anyway, luvs ya xx
I also am very new to tumblr so bare with me. P.S i forgot which characters live in Alexandria so if i got things wrong SUE ME. let a bitch have some fun.
tw: swearing and mean!Daryl
summery: reader goes out for a run for beauty supplies and Daryl gets pissed.
Alexandria had been buzzing for days over Deanna’s stupid party idea. Most people were excited for it; a chance to pretend things were normal again. To wear fancy clothes. To laugh without checking over their shoulder every five seconds.
You thought it was ridiculous at first.
Then you remembered what it felt like to be a woman before the world ended.
Perfume. Lip gloss. Soft skin. Pretty dresses. The little things that used to make you feel human.
You’d practically had to beg Rick to let you take one of the cars, swearing you’d stay close and be back before dark. The entire drive, you kept telling yourself it was stupid, risking your life for makeup and nail polish. But every time you found another unopened bottle of perfume or untouched makeup palette, you couldn’t stop smiling. For once, it wasn’t about survival. It was about feeling alive.
The gates of Alexandria groaned open just as the sun started dipping low.
The second your tires rolled through, you spotted Daryl storming across the street toward you.
His crossbow hung over his shoulder, jaw tight enough to crack teeth. The second you climbed out of the car, he started yelling.
“Where the fuck ya been?” he snapped in that thick southern drawl. “Ya outta ya damn mind? Does Rick know ya went out there alone?”
You slammed the car door harder than necessary. “Jesus Christ, Daryl, shut up. S’none of your business where I went.”
“It’s handled, okay? I’m back alive.”
You rolled your eyes and reached into the backseat for the bags, but Daryl snatched one straight out of your hands before you could stop him.
“What the- give it back.”
He looked inside. His face darkened instantly.
Boxes of makeup. Fake lashes. Nail polish. Perfume bottles wrapped carefully in cloth.
For a second he just stared. Then started breathing heavy through his nose in fury.
Then he looked at you like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Are ya fuckin’ serious?” he barked. “Ya almost got yerself killed for this shit?”
You folded your arms defensively. “It matters to us.”
“To the women here! To me!”
Daryl scoffed, angry in the way he only got when he was scared.
“All this so ya can look pretty for some asshole at a party?”
Your expression hardened.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice, rough and mean.
“Really are a stupid slut sometimes, y’know that? Riskin’ your neck just to get laid. For a dick to suck. Pathetic.”
The words hit harder than you expected. You have always butted heads with Daryl ever since Rick saw something in you and kept you safe at the prison. But this… Daryl took this too far this time.
For a second, you just stared at him.
Dumbfounded. The words knocked the air clean outta your lungs. Then your face twisted into something cold and furious and something in you snapped.
“A slut?” you repeated quietly.
Daryl’s jaw tightened, but you kept going before he could say anything else.
“You think that’s what this is about?” You laughed once — sharp and humorless. “Jesus Christ.”
The words came out venomous before you could stop them. “God forbid women wanna feel good about themselves just because we do. Maybe if someone actually touched your dick once in a while you wouldn’t be so damn miserable all the time.”
Something in Daryl’s expression hardened fast.
“Funny,” he said coldly. “Comin’ from someone so pathetic and desperate to be looked at, she’ll risk dyin’ for some lipstick.”
You ripped the bag from his hands so hard a bottle inside clinked loudly.
“You know what’s pathetic, Daryl? The fact that the world ends and somehow it’s still a man’s fucking world.”
His eyes like steel not backing down.
You stepped closer, voice shaking with anger now.
“You all get to keep yourselves. Rick gets to be a leader. You get to be the tracker, the hunter, the survivor.” You pointed toward the bag. “And the second women wanna feel like themselves again, it’s stupid? Dangerous? Slutty?”
“No, that is exactly what you meant, asshole.” You shoved his chest in frustration. You knew he was stronger than you but he stumbled a step back anyway. Like he was weak.
Your eyes burned into his.
“We spend every damn day covered in blood and dirt, scared outta our minds, trying not to die. We don’t get mirrors. We don’t get softness. We don’t get to feel pretty or normal or human unless we fight for it.”
Daryl looked away for half a second, guilt creeping across his face, but you were too angry to stop now.
“I didn’t do this for men,” you spat. “I did it because I’m tired of surviving like I’m already dead.”
Silence settled heavy between you.
The wind shifted through the street.
“You know what?” you said quietly. “Fuck you, Daryl.”
You nudged his shoulder as you walked away with the bags.
And for once, Daryl Dixon had absolutely nothing to say.
You turned the corner fast, trying to outwalk the sting burning behind your eyes.
Your grip tightened around the bags in your arms hard enough to crinkle the plastic. The sound of the party preparations drifting through Alexandria suddenly felt ridiculous now — music, laughter, people pretending things were normal while your chest felt like it’d been ripped open.
Maggie hurried after you, boots skidding on the pavement.
“Hey, slow down,” she said softer this time, finally catching up beside you. “ you okay?”
You laughed bitterly under your breath. “Do I look okay?”
Maggie glanced back toward the street where Daryl still stood near the gate.
“Damn,” she muttered. “That looked intense.”
“That’s one word for it.”
You shoved open your garden gate harder than necessary, climbing the steps while Maggie followed close behind.
“He called me a slut, Maggie.”
Her face dropped instantly.
“All because I went out for this stuff.” You held the bags up angrily. “Like God forbid women wanna feel like themselves for five damn minutes without it bein’ about men.”
Maggie stayed quiet, letting you vent.
“He acts like wanting makeup or perfume is stupid because it doesn’t help you survive.” You scoffed, fumbling for your keys with shaking hands. “Like surviving’s the only thing we’re allowed to care about anymore.”
“What a douchebag?!” Maggie huffed.
She helped you with the bags and set them on the sofa.
Inside were makeup palettes still sealed in plastic. Bottles of perfume. Hair products. Nail polish in every color you could find. Face masks. Lipsticks. Brushes.
For a second she just stared.
You pulled another bag open.
Fake lashes. Jewelry. Skincare. A curling iron you prayed still worked with Alexandria’s power.
Maggie’s mouth actually fell open a little.
You shrugged, trying to stay angry instead of emotional. “Drug store outside Richmond. Most of it was untouched.”
Maggie carefully picked up a small bottle of perfume, turning it over in her hand like it was made of gold.
Then she laughed softly, completely stunned.
Despite yourself, the corner of your mouth twitched.
Maggie looked back into the bags again, eyes wide now as the reality hit her.
“You did all this for us?”
“I just…” Your voice softened slightly. “I wanted one night where the women here could feel normal again. So I can feel me again” you admitted quietly. “Even if it is fake.”
Maggie’s expression softened immediately.
“It ain’t fake,” she said. “Wantin’ pieces of yourself back after everything? That’s human.”
Your eyes stung again at that.
“Ya know, I don’t think Daryl meant all that. Maybe you scared him.” she said rubbing your shoulder
“Well, he still said it.” you sighed. She knew there wasn't much she could say to comfort you so she gave up on the idea of trying.
Instead, she set the perfume down carefully and looked back up at you with a grin slowly spreading across her face.
“Well,” she said, already examining the products, “we are absolutely not wastin’ this.”
You finally let out a real laugh — small, exhausted, but real.
“All of ‘em,” you repeated. “Tell ‘em to come to my house before the party.”
Maggie’s grin widened instantly.
“Oh, this is gonna be chaos.”
Your house was loud for the first time since the world ended. Not panicked loud. Not screaming loud.
Music crackled through the old boom box sitting on the kitchen counter, the cassette tape warbling every few seconds while laughter bounced off the walls. Somebody had found wine somewhere. Somebody else was already tipsy.
The entire downstairs smelled like hairspray, perfume, and burnt hair from the curling iron currently plugged into the bathroom outlet. And somehow the power actually held.
“Oh my God, hold still!” Rosita laughed, yanking Tara back toward a chair while trying to fix her eyeliner. “You move one more time and I’m makin’ you look possessed.”
“I already look possessed,” Tara snorted.
Carol sat near the couch with a tiny compact mirror in one hand and lipstick in the other, looking genuinely stunned.
“I forgot how weird this feels,” she admitted quietly.
Maggie appeared behind her immediately. “Good weird or bad weird?”
Carol smiled softly at her reflection.
Across the room, Sasha was helping braid Enid’s hair while Rosita argued loudly that everyone needed winged eyeliner “for morale.”
“You are not touchin’ my face with that tiny weapon,” Michonne warned from the armchair.
“You survived Terminus but eyeliner scares you?”
You laughed from the bathroom doorway, curling iron in hand. The sound felt foreign coming out of you after the fight with Daryl. For a while, you’d almost forgotten about it.
“Okay, who’s next?” you asked.
“Me!” Tara yelled instantly.
“No offense,” Rosita said, “but I’m going first. My hair is a hate crime right now.”
The room erupted into laughter again. Music played louder as someone turned the volume knob up. Maggie immediately grabbed your hand, dragging you toward the middle of the living room.
“Nope. Absolutely not. You are participating.”
Before you could argue, she shoved a hairbrush into your hand while Carol held up a dress she’d found in your bedroom.
“What?” she asked innocently. “You’re wearin’ it.”
“You absolutely can,” Rosita cut in immediately.
“You’ll look hot,” Tara added helpfully.
Michonne looked up from painting her nails. “You kinda have to now. Democracy.”
You groaned while everybody started talking over each other. And for the first time in years, it felt less like surviving. More like a sleepover. Like being women again.
Daryl sat alone on the porch steps outside Aaron’s house, cigarette burning slowly between his fingers.
He hadn’t moved in almost an hour.
The sounds drifting across Alexandria made his jaw tighten every time another burst of laughter carried from your street
Women yelling over each other.
The warped sound of some old cassette tape.
He stared out into the dark, expression hard.
Truth was, you and him had been fightin’ since the day you met. Back on the road, before Alexandria, before any of this almost-normal bullshit.
You thought he was an asshole.
He thought you were spoiled.
First argument happened because you complained about mud ruining your boots.
Second because he caught you trying to wash blood outta your hair with their last clean water.
Third because he nearly got bit dragging your stubborn ass outta a department store after you stopped to grab a stupid denim jacket.
And somehow after that… the bickering never stopped.
You mocked his grunting and his attitude.
He mocked your “princess bullshit.”
You stole his cigarettes once just to piss him off.
He replaced your favorite knife after you lost it and never admitted it was him.
Half the time, neither of you even remembered what the arguments were about.
But somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like hate.
Which honestly just made it worse.
Because Daryl knew exactly when things changed.
It was the prison. You’d gotten sick.
Fever so bad you could barely stand, still trying to help clear walkers off the fence because you were too damn stubborn to rest.
He remembered screaming at you for it. You screamed back. Then passed out twenty minutes later.
After that, he started watching you without meaning to.
Fixing things around your cell block. Leaving extra food near your spot. Checking if you came back from runs. And every single time he almost admitted he gave a shit, you’d say something smartass and ruin it.
Daryl took another drag from the cigarette, jaw tightening.
"Maybe if someone actually touched your dick once in a while you wouldn’t be so damn miserable all the time."
He shut his eyes briefly.
But not half as much as seeing your face after he called you a slut.
Because he didn’t really think that.
Truth was, when he saw those bags full of makeup and perfume, all he could think was how you almost died.
Over something he didn’t understand.
And fear always came out mean with him. Always had.
From down the street, another wave of laughter drifted through Alexandria.
Then your voice yelling something over everybody else.
Daryl’s mouth twitched despite himself.
Still drivin’ him insane.
Still the first person he looked for every time a gate opened.
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