Fiction and Fantasy, Baby.

Thumbnail from Amanda Ejiri at AmandaEjiri.artstation.com // This started out as a place to put my poetry and original writing pieces, but then I posted fan-fiction once and I've resigned myself to this blog being just that now; little ficlets I don't want to put on AO3.

[meldy-writes]

Stupid Prizes

(TWD Daryl Dixon x reader)

Content Warnings: 18+ minors dni, explicit discussion of sex, handjobs and fingering.

I want to preface this by saying I’ve never written smut before, just read a lot of bad smut that disappointed me. This is pretty much plot with porn at the end, it’s a part 2 to a small bit of a larger fic I’ve been writing that I posted here a few months ago.

You can read it here:

Part 1

Summary: You were in the process of taking over your family’s farm from your father with the support of your step-brother and a close family friend in the form of your farmhand when the dead started walking. Now the people you loved were dying left and right and you were trying to keep what was left of your family together while your problems piled up. Your newest one: a group of survivors have set up camp on your property and are starting to outstay their welcome but you’re starting to think you wouldn’t actually mind if one or two stayed behind after the others are kicked to the curb. Your sister Maggie seemed fond of the one who’s good at the supply runs you were always nervous to send her on alone and the surly hunter you liked to rile up was just your type.

After a long day of making sure things on your farm were working smoothly, you had decided to relax (or at least try to) out on the porch swing, lazily rocking back and forth as you stared out towards the gate at the front of your property waiting for Maggie to return from the run she went on with the boy from that damned group. Though you tried to remind yourself she was full-grown and tough as nails just like you taught her to be, it didn’t stop you from agitatedly tapping your freshly painted nails (courtesy of Beth who got bored a little after lunchtime) on the sweating glass of ice cold lemonade you’d been nursing. The sun was going to start setting in an hour or so and she’d promised they’d be back before dark. If that Glen guy got your younger sister killed, you were going to wear his guts like a pashmina.

Your eyes wandered from the distant driveway to the camp on the far side of your yard. The group there were all sitting around a cooking stove, fresh venison stew bubbling over the flames. It was fairly far from your house, but your eyesight was good enough for you to identify the lone figure sitting a little ways away from the rest of the group, carving at an antler from the buck you killed the other day. Daryl Dixon was hot-headed, antisocial, and endlessly easy to rile up. He was your new favorite toy. You had noticed the way he looked at you almost as soon as you met him and his people and decided to have a bit of fun with him when you ran into him out in the woods. The way you'd made his cheeks turn all pink and had him floundering for words was just so satisfying, especially when it seemed like he always had something sharp and sardonic to say. You knew it’d be easy for you to yank his chain, he made no effort to hide how he watched you; it was like he didn’t expect anyone to ever pay attention to him—but how could you not?

His body was all hard muscle and he was so good with his hands, always working on something whether it be skinning something he’d caught, making arrows for that crossbow of his, working on his bike, or carving at something like that deer antler. Not only that, but he was an incredibly adept hunter—he was leagues better than you were, though you’d sooner chew glass than ever admit it—and though he didn’t seem to care one way or the other for anyone in his group and didn’t go out of his way to be nice to anyone, he was still in the woods every day searching for that little girl even when everyone else was giving up. Everything you’d observed about him told you he could only ever be an asset, not a liability like the others. Despite his short temper he was a good man with solid principles, great judgment, and exceptional skills—he was someone built for hard, honest work; of that much, you were certain. It was like you’d built him in a factory to be the perfect farmhand, something you desperately needed now that Otis was gone. You were fairly confident you could convince him to cut ties with his people and stick around once the others were sent packing. All you needed to do was give him the right incentive and boy, were you willing to give it to him.

If you couldn’t convince him that’d be a real shame, but hey, at least you could have a little fun with him while he was still around. “Hey,” a clipped greeting brought you out of your thoughts and you realized you’d been staring off into Daryl-related-space so long that Maggie had returned and you hadn’t even noticed.

“Howdy,” you said, trying to seem like you hadn’t been zoning out while thinking about big, rough, work-worn hands. Maggie didn’t notice you shift to sit up a bit in the swing, she was too busy taking the steps two at a time and trying to rush past you into the house. The tempo of her walk and the way her eyes kept to the ground had Big Sister Alarms going off in your head. You’d seen this behavior before. Though Maggie had left home for university after graduating high school, you’d stayed, having taken a couple gap years before attending Horticulture and Livestock Science courses at the community college nearby. You’d lived with her during the entirety of her teenage dirtbag phase after your dad remarried when she was underage drinking, smoking weed, shoplifting, and committing the most egregious sin of all—raiding your closet without permission. This march up the porch steps she was doing was so reminiscent of when she’d breeze past you on school mornings, trying to get out of the house before you could look up from your breakfast and notice she was wearing your favorite crop top.

“Pump the breaks,” you told her in an unhurried but suspicious tone that had her freezing with her hand on the screen door. She looked over to you like a deer in the headlights. You crooked your finger, “c’mere a second.” She took her sweet time taking the steps to stand in front of you, leaning against the porch railing in front of the swinging bench you were still rocking in. You looked her up and down before some movement behind her caught your attention and you spied Glen watching you both from a little ways down the driveway, where he was securing the horses they’d taken into town. When he realized you saw him he quickly clammed up and made a b-line for the camp under the trees. You felt a knowing grin stretch your face and Maggie let out a ’what?’ in a flat tone, trying to pretend she didn’t know what you could possibly want with her. You pointed at her. “You,” you said, pausing for dramatic effect, “had sex.”

She immediately broke, groaning in annoyance, “Jesus Christ, what, can you smell it on me?”

“No,” you said with a laugh as she moved to plop down next to you on the bench, making it jostle and sway in a chaotic manner for a moment. You debated whether you should tell her that she looked sweaty and guilty and that her shirt was all crumpled and haphazardly untucked, before settling on just pointing out the thing that had turned your inclinations into certainty. “When you left this afternoon he was trailin’ after you like a lost dog. Ever since you got back, though, his tail’s been waggin’ like it’s going out of style.” You nodded in Glen's direction, who had paused to look back at the two of you several times during his return to the group. You put on a cooing pout like you found him adorable. ”Such a sweet little pup. You’re gonna crush that boy if you’re not careful.”

“Alright, fine, yeah, we did it. Do you want a medal?” You snorted at her defensive sass, knowing she’d picked it up from you.

“Sorry for the third degree,” you appeased, “you know I have a chronic case of Nose-in-Business Disease.”

Maggie crossed her fingers and held them up reverently like she was in prayer. “Here’s hoping it’s terminal.”

“Ha!” You reached towards the table beside you and grabbed an empty cup. You handed it to her before taking the pitcher of lemonade and pouring her a glass. “Fuck you, too.” There was a quiet moment where the two of you just sat, sipping lemonade and swinging together. You slumped down a little and rested your head on her shoulder and in response she rested her head on top of yours. “So, is he your boyfriend now? Am I gonna have to give him the Bernadette speech we gave Jimmy?”

Bernadette was the biggest, fattest, meanest pig on your farm. When Jimmy had first started dating Beth, you and Maggie had cornered him, asked him to go on a walk, and then took him to the pig pen where you told him you’d chop him up and feed him to her if he ever hurt your baby sister. Poor thing had practically pissed himself. “No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Maggie replied tiredly, “Is it even worth wasting time thinkin’ about? You’re not gonna let him stay.”

You hummed jokingly like you were contemplating the idea. You were, actually, now that you got a look at the way his eyes longingly gravitated towards your sister. So far as you’d heard, he was good at doing supply runs. Sooner or later, Maggie would have to go into town again. If she had someone she trusted who could look out for her and genuinely cared about her safety and well-being, you’d feel a lot better about sending her out like that. “Well, I’m not gonna take in the whole litter,” you cover, “but we can keep one or two if you like. I mean, you’ve already given him a name and grown attached so there’s no helpin’ it at this point—but he’s your responsibility, I’m not takin’ care of him for ya. You’ll have to feed him, brush him, take him for walks—Oof!” you doubled over, some of your drink spilling onto the deck by your feet as Maggie elbowed you in the stomach.

A mean cackle fell from your lips before she caught something in your words. “Wait, hold on, one or two?” That sobered you enough to be able to respond to her own interrogation. “Do you have your eye on somebody?”

you made a noise of non-committance, “maybe.”

“It’s not Shane, is it? Because I know he seems like your type, but—”

You made a loud, protestant noise of disgust that had the camp across the yard looking up in alarm like something might be attacking you. When they saw Maggie laughing her ass off and you looking at her like she belonged in a padded cell they reluctantly returned to their own business, wondering what it was that had prompted such a visceral reaction from you. “No! What’s the matter with you? He’s so creepy! The way he acts around his best friend’s wife gives me the heebie jeebies—and that haircut is not doin’ him any favors. I liked the curls he had when he first got here better.”

“Okay,” Maggie relented, still laughing, “who is it then?”

You brought your glass up to your lips, hoping it might hide the bashful smile on your face and keep up your cool and casual facade, “Crossbow Boy.”

You heard her choke on her own drink at that. “Daryl?” She said his name incredulously like you’d just told her it was Dale instead. “But he seems so…” You gave her a flat look and watched the gears turn in her head as she flipped through a whole mental catalog of things to say, probably trying to find something that didn’t also apply to you. Gruff, rude, introverted, contemptuous, stubborn… “I mean, I don’t think he’s bathed the entire time he’s been here,” she eventually criticized, seeming to have given up.

“I know,” you agreed with a scrunch to your nose. You then bumped her shoulder with yours conspiratorially and returned to resting against her like you had been, “think I can seduce him into a shower? Let the water rinse away the muck and reveal all sorts of old scars underneath, make him all shiny by latherin’ him up with a soapy washcloth, have him bend down and bury his face in my tits so I can wash his hair for him…”

“Gross,” Maggie deadpanned, trying to get you to stop.

“Really, though,” you continued, ignoring her, “He’s got arms like tree trunks, he ain’t afraid to get dirty, and he’s clearly got a lot of practical skills. We could use an extra workhorse around here; I don’t think Jimmy and Glen are gonna be able to help me carry hay bales or work the cultivator—and I don’t want Daddy doin’ it anymore, he’s gettin’ too old. Besides that, he’s got such big hands and he seems so good with ‘em. I got a good look at them the other day, they’re all rough and calloused. I’d love to feel ’em scratch against my bare skin when he grabs my hips and—”

You cut yourself off, much to Maggie’s clear relief, when the screen door opened and Beth popped her head out. “What are you guys talkin’ about out here?”

“Nothin’,” you and Maggie said together. Beth rolled her eyes and stepped out, taking up the last little bit of space on the bench next to Maggie and making you both scooch to the side to make more room.

“You were talkin’ about sex, weren’t you?” What the fuck, was she a witch?

“What do you know about sex?” Maggie scoffed, prompting you to repeat her question with a different, more suspicious inflection.

“Yeah, what do you know about sex?“ Were you going to have to make good on your promise to axe-murder Jimmy?

“I know more than you think I do,” she answered confidently, “I see things and I hear things. I definitely heard (y/n) talking about Daryl’s ‘big hands’ and ‘tree trunk arms’.” She let out a dreamy, sarcastic sigh. “The window into the living room is open, by the way.” You whipped around to look behind you in a panic, trying to discern if that meant your father had heard you talking, too. “Daddy’s upstairs readin’ The Bible, don’t worry.”

“If you heard it all, then why even ask what we were takin’ about?” Maggie asked in a huff, crossing her arms over her chest.

Beth giggled, mirroring your position and leaning against her, “wanted to make you squirm a little.”

“You’re kinda evil and vindictive when you wanna be,” you mused, kicking your feet hard and making your side of the bench swing more than the rest.

“Gee, wonder where I got it from.” There was another quiet moment after that before Beth spoke again, “So, you really gonna sleep with ‘im?”

“Oh, most definitely,” you confirmed, “but not just yet. I wanna wind him up first.” Your sisters gave you a synchronized look of bemusement, so you elaborated. “You know when you take a music box and you wind it up and you just keep twisting and twisting and twisting ‘till you can’t anymore and then you open the lid and the little ballerina spins around like crazy? That’s what I wanna do; I wanna see how far I can push him. He doesn’t look it, but he’s real easy to tease. We ran into each other out in the woods yesterday and not even ten minutes into talkin’ I had him just about ready to take me against a tree.”

“Is that a good idea?” Maggie questioned with concern, “he kinda seems like he’s got a short fuse. What if he, you know…”

You waved her off, “eh, I’m pretty sure I can handle him. Honestly, though, I kinda hope I can’t handle him if you know what I mean,” You tried to keep Beth from seeing you poke your tongue into your cheek and pantomime a blowjob from where she was by hiding behind Maggie a little.

“You’re such a perv,” she reprimanded, grabbing your arm and yanking it down.

“Nah, just lonely. Bet you know the feeling, Little Miss Drug-Store-Hookup.”

“You two are so lucky,” Beth mused, “you’ve got stuff to talk about when it comes to boys.”

Your brow furrowed and you emerged from your hiding spot to peer at her. “What the hell are you on about? You’re the only one on this bench with a whole-ass boyfriend.”

She snorted, staring off across the property, “hardly.” She brought up her legs, resting them up on the edge of the seat and wrapping her arms around her knees, “Jimmy and I were only dating a few weeks before everything happened. Daddy’s actin’ like we’re already married and Jimmy’s so busy tryin’ to be ‘the man of the family’ now that Daddy’s gettin’ older and Shawn and Otis aren’t around that he barely pays attention to me.”

“Oh, is he now?” You said, amusement tingeing a cruel smile. You’d noticed him trying to step up and fumble his way through farmwork. The kid didn’t know his ass from his elbow when it came to hard labor. It was funny to think he was doing all that to try and learn how to do your job.

“I tried tellin’ him you were already ‘the man of the family’ way before people started gettin’ sick and not to bother or he’d make you mad, but it’s like he didn’t even hear me.”

You brushed off the way Beth tried to placate and vent to you. You shouldn’t be surprised to hear any of that. You’d run into Jimmy’s dad way too many times at the farmer’s market, which is to say you ran into him at all. He always tried to ‘help’ you by taking ‘heavy’ boxes of produce you unloaded from your truck right out of your hands and placing them in all the wrong spots at your stand, making more work for you when you’d inevitably have to rearrange and move everything once he’d left. You always told him you had it handled, but the man said he couldn’t stand by and ‘watch you struggle’, giving you unsolicited advice about how you were in your thirties now and not getting younger so you needed to start thinking about settling down with a strong man who could do all the hard stuff for you so you could focus on giving your dad grandkids. He always said it like you were making sacrifices for your family by taking on so much responsibility for the farm; like it wasn’t something you could possibly want for yourself or fulfill your life with. “Jimmy’s young. He’s never really had to work before and he was raised traditionally,” you said as graciously as you could. You really wanted to say he was dumb, wouldn’t know a day of work if it bit him on the ass, and had been indoctrinated into blatant misogyny, but he was still Beth’s boyfriend so you had to at least act like you liked him in front of her. “The idea that I would be in charge over Otis or Shawn probably doesn’t even compute to him.” She hummed like she agreed, which made you a little sad. You half expected her to rush to his defense; she’d done so with other boyfriends that you hadn’t been half so critical of. In fact, she tended to fall ass-over-teakettle for just about any boy that struck her fancy. You remembered her being with boys for less time than Jimmy that she’d cried about for weeks after it was over, but it seemed like she was already checked out of this relationship.

She seemed checked out of a lot of things since you’d lost Shawn and her mom and you couldn’t blame her. You’d been exactly her age when you and Maggie lost your mom. You hadn’t handled it well, but you at least handled it better than Beth, who hadn’t seemed to have handled it at all. It was like she was pretending it wasn’t happening and that they really were just sick like Otis and your dad believed. You didn’t share that worldview, it was why you and your dad fought so often these days. You had your eyes open, you saw what he didn’t want to. You thought keeping those people in the barn was dangerous and desecrating. They fester, they rot, they don’t stop even after they’re completely torn apart. They’re dead and they should be laid to rest, not kept around in a barn and…fed. You refused to go near the damn thing and you didn’t want anything to do with it. You didn’t want to go in there and see the way your loved ones had decayed—you should have fought harder to have them buried while they still looked like themselves, because now things were getting out of hand. It was getting harder and harder to keep the ones already in there from getting out and eating people when they came back with new additions to the rapidly growing collection. You’d thought once or twice about sneaking in there and putting them all down or just straight up setting the barn on fire, but it was too risky and too big of a waste. You’d like to be able to use that barn again some day.

“What are you thinkin’ about so hard over there?” Maggie asked, pulling you back to planet earth for the second time that afternoon.

You gave her a merciless smirk and began to make up something else. “I’m thinkin’ about how I need to reinforce the well lids tomorrow, it’s been eatin’ at me since we found that bloated guy in the one we use for livestock. I might just ask for Daryl’s help. Can’t wait to see him wipin’ sweat from his brow after workin’ those muscles in the blazin’ hot sun. I’ll offer him a rag and some lemonade, watch him towel himself off and gulp it down. If I’m lucky maybe a few drops will spill from the corner of his mouth and drip down his—”

Beth had laughed you off and left to go inside halfway through your monologue, probably thinking Maggie was a glutton for punishment the way she asked for your thoughts like that and eventually Maggie got sick of hearing your depraved and horny descriptions and pressed a hand over your mouth to keep you from speaking anymore. “Okay, I’m done talkin’ about this with you.” You licked at her hand, instant regret washing over both of you as she now had a wet palm and you remembered she’d been touching horses and dust-covered shelves all day and hadn’t washed her hands yet. “Dumbass,” Maggie muttered, wiping her hand on her pants and glaring at you.

“Yeah, that was poorly judged on my part,” you admitted with a grimace, pouring yourself more lemonade and chugging it down to try and get the foul taste off your tongue.

She chuckled, getting up from the bench with her hands raised over her head as if she was trying not to physically touch the conversation you’d been having, her empty glass left abandoned on the deck of the porch. “Don’t take too much time ‘windin’ up’ Daryl, you really need to get laid so you can stop talkin’ like a nympho.”

You blew a raspberry at her as she left, pulling the swing forward enough for you to put your feet up on the porch railing, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want me to answer!” Shaking your head, you let yourself sit for a little bit longer, watching the people in the camp trickle around as they got ready for the sun to set and started to get up to grab dinner or to go for seconds. Daryl had a helping in his hand and he was devouring it like it was his first meal in weeks, shoveling spoonfuls of meat into his mouth and tipping the bowl to slurp up the thick broth of the stew. You loved a healthy appetite on a man, you bet he licked his plate clean. Maybe he’d lick your plate clean, so to speak. As you were admiring him, all sorts of thoughts (smutty ones, morbid ones, and your regular old garden variety anxieties) swam through your head now that you were alone and didn’t have Maggie to mess with and take your mind off things a little bit.

The more time you spent dwelling on just what you were thinking of doing, the more stupid and ridiculous you felt. Were you really going to go to all sorts of trouble just to keep around a man? A man you didn’t even know? Why? Because you were horny? Because you needed help around the farm? Because the world was going to hell, all sorts of worries about whether you could handle taking care of everything on your own were piling up, everyone else was already dead, and you were starting to realize you didn't want to be alone forever? All you could hear in your head now that you were by yourself was Jimmy’s patronizing father telling you to ‘settle down’ and ‘let a man do it for you’ and that just made you want to walk into the pond at the edge of your property and drown yourself.

You kicked your feet off the railing and stood up fast, stomping down the porch steps as the bench swung wildly in your wake. Hell no. Nope, you were not letting yourself get drawn in by piercing eyes that followed you around the farm, pining for comfort just because you were a little lonely and things were starting to overwhelm you. You just needed to take a breath and get a grip—or maybe the heat was just getting to you, perhaps a dip in the pond wasn’t such a bad idea.

You didn’t need help. Not from him, not from anyone. All you needed was your family and who knows how much of that you’d be left with if these people stayed any longer. You didn’t have the time, resources, or patience to care for another two people on this farm, let alone a whole separate group with two kids that you’d end up feeling like you’d have to babysit all the time considering these people were letting them wander off into the woods to get lost and get shot at (see? these people can’t even be trusted to take care of their own kids, how are you supposed to trust them with your family?). You shouldn’t have told Maggie you’d let Glen stay—you shouldn’t have even entertained the idea of letting any of them even linger. You know you’re not supposed to give a mouse a cookie. Without even realizing, you rushed out towards the edge of the property where the pond sat secluded behind a thick line of trees and bushes. Your head buzzed with a million and one thoughts, teetering between ‘to hell with everything, I can handle this on my own’ and the overwhelming pressure of everything you’d been dealing with the last few months pushing down on you like a hydraulic press.

As you got to the edge of the water you stripped all the way down knowing no one but your family even knew the place was there and left your knife on a nearby rock for easy access just in case before you ran in and dove into the water. It was refreshing and the shock of cold on your skin almost had you gasping and swallowing a mouthful of the stuff. You came back up for a second, but only to take a deep, dramatic breath before dunking yourself back under to let out the loudest scream you could manage. All of it was swallowed up by the pond as bubbles streamed from your mouth and your throat grew raw from the strain of it. It felt good to let it out, all the worrying, all the frustration, all the fear… It left you feeling comfortably empty, like the deep, heavy, knot-like burden that had settled on top of your lungs had been detangled and pulled free from your chest. As you held yourself under the surface, you could feel your thoughts quiet for a moment, letting the water surround you and calm you, as if none of your problems could touch you so long as you remained there. You came up, taking in a deep breath and pushing your wet hair out of your face. This was nice; just the cool down you needed. Honestly, you didn’t know where the hell your head had been. Maybe Maggie was right and you were just desperate to get laid after being alone so long. Yes, sure, it would be nice to have a man with Daryl’s…assets around, but you did not need him—and he certainly wasn’t worth throwing yourself at in an attempt to have him work around the farm for you, that was practically prostitution. In what direction, you weren’t even sure. You’d gotten by just fine up until now, you could continue to do it on your own, right? And Maggie was tough and smart. She didn’t need someone babysitting her on runs.

Yeah. There was no need to look for someone to do things for you or worry about ‘what if’s’. You leaned back and let yourself float around the pond, feeling the ripples and waves of your movements make the water sway around you. You hummed to yourself a little bit, a lullaby you used to sing to Beth when she was little, letting it wash over you and calm your nerves like the water had... that lasted all of a second before your hamster wheel started spinning again and you realized that once you left the pond all your problems would still be there, waiting for you to solve them all by yourself, and you could feel your stress start to well back up around you and make it so you felt you couldn’t breathe—like you were still under the surface, gasping in pond water.

What were you thinking, you couldn’t do this! You were confident before the world shit the bed because Shawn was there to help you with the hard things and to fix the machines when they broke down or made funny noises. Now he was gone and all you could do was worry about what you’d do if the hay baler broke down or the feed mill went kablooey. You regretted not taking the time to learn basic mechanics from him.

You regretted so many things when it came to him and Annette. You wished you hadn’t been so hostile and suspicious when they first came to live with you. You were so certain Annette was trying to replace your mom. Every time she talked about getting new drapes to replace the moth-eaten ones in the dining room or mentioned buying a new couch because the springs were practically poking through the cushions on the old one in the living room you’d snap at her like she was trying to redecorate the whole place and remove every whisper and trace of your mom you had left. You also wished you hadn’t made Shawn’s life a living hell for the whole first year he was living with you, paranoid that his eagerness to help you on the farm was some ploy to steal it out from under you. They just wanted to be family.

You also regretted the way you treated Maggie growing up. You’d been so awful to her, too. You were her big sister and she wanted to be just like you, so of course she’d go through your room and pester you all day long and cling to your pant legs. You’d give anything to go back and appreciate those days now. Back then the ten year age gap was practically a chasm—you didn’t want a little six year old coming around and bugging you, especially when your mom was so sick. It also didn’t help that your father didn’t bother trying to get sober until she was born, there was resentment about that, too. None of that was her fault but you still took it out on her and it became a struggle later down the line when Shawn stepped in and tried to play big brother and you got all territorial. It was so hard trying to form a closer bond with her after she’d grown distant and defensive. Teen Maggie didn’t want anything from you except apparently your wardrobe and your jewelry. You got through to her eventually, but you knew she was still hesitant, even now, to come to you when she needed something and you would have had so much more time with her—with all of them—if only you didn’t waste so much of it shutting out the people you should have been close with. Now Shawn and Annette were gone and you worried every time Maggie left for supplies that watching her ride off would be the last time you ever saw her.

Then there was Beth; you babied her, you knew it. You just didn’t want her to go through what Maggie went through with you. You never wanted her to doubt how loved she was. She humored you about it but you worried—you worried because like it or not, she’d be a woman soon and you didn’t want her to resent you or put distance between you if you continued to treat her like a child who had to have her hand held so she didn’t wander into traffic. You also didn’t want her to depend too much on you and neglect to learn how to stand up on her own. What if the day came where you weren’t around to help her anymore and she was left completely bereft?

You used to have someone to bounce your worries and regrets off of—someone who always lent an understanding ear and a reassuring presence. He always assured you he’d be there whenever you needed guidance and that you could call on him if it ever got to be too much and you needed help. That someone was Otis, but now he’s gone, too and it’s all that douche-canoe deputy’s fault, you just know it.

The vacant, serial killer stare he had when he came back that night was all you’d needed to see to be sure. He was spewing some bullshit story about how Otis had valiantly given his life to make sure Hero Guy Shane made it back safe with Carl’s medical supplies and the whole time he was clutching Otis’s rifle with white knuckles. You’d yanked the gun out of his hands so violently that night, barely even hearing the crap he was trying to sell you. You didn’t want the details, all that mattered to you was that Otis was gone. The man who taught you to hunt; to shoot rifles and bows against your father’s wishes. Otis was the man who practically raised you when your dad was fighting the bottle and losing and your mom was too busy with baby Maggie to pay attention to where you were or what you were doing at any given time. He was the best person you ever knew and now he was just…gone. He was gone and Shane was still kicking around—Oh, but you’re the bad guy because you want them to leave.

Before you even knew it you were crying. You didn’t think you’d shed a single tear since the dead started walking, way too determined to be the solid foundation your family needed to keep from sinking into the ground. You wondered if David felt this overwhelming sense of dread when he prepared to fight Goliath. Did he worry the task no one else dared to tackle would be not only his undoing, but the undoing of everyone he’d ever known and loved if he made a mistake or cracked under the pressure? You wondered if he turned to anyone for comfort or strength or if he had carried the burden entirely on his own shoulders. If he did, he must have been as terribly lonely as you were, even when surrounded by his loved ones.

As you wiped at your tears you heard a rustling in the brush to your right. You were suddenly stiff, straining to hear what it was. It sounded like footsteps—human footsteps. You waded through the water as quietly as you could, trying to get to your knife before whatever it was got to you. Just as you reached the rock it was resting on Daryl burst through the treeline, crossbow in hand. You gasped and sank down into the water to cover yourself better. “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me! What the hell are you doin’ out here?” you found yourself shrieking.

He tensed at the sound of your movement and your words, instinctively pointing his crossbow in your direction before recognizing you and putting it down in a huff. “Saw you stormin’ down here by yourself. Wanted to… I don’t know, see if you were alright.” He shook his head and you could hear him muttering ‘ridiculous’ to himself under his breath. You hastily rubbed at your eyes, desperately hoping that it just looked like you had water droplets on your face. “What the hell are you doin’?” he challenged, tossing your question back at you.

You gave a sarcastic sneer, feeling defensive considering he caught you with your pants down—or more accurately, with your pants off—and crying in a pond. “I’m filing my fucking taxes,” you told him snottily.

“Right,” He snorted, “It’s a waste of time worryin’ for you, nothin’s gonna getcha. You’ll just bite the head off anything that gets anywhere near you.” You could already feel your composure slip as Daryl took your attention, the little verbal sparring match providing a good outlet to let off steam. He turned like he was going to walk off and leave you for a moment, but then he whipped back around and took a few steps towards you, frustrations seemingly renewed. “D’you know how stupid it is wandering off alone? Especially to do somethin’ like this?” He gestured first towards your clothes then at you, pink dusting his cheeks that you could mistake for anger or heat from the setting sun if you didn’t know better by now. “The hell’s your problem, anyway?”

“My problem?” You repeat incredulously, your frustration bubbling up again. You were going to lash out. Hard. Since he wanted to know so bad, you’d be happy to lay it out for him. He was a big boy, you were sure he could handle it just fine. “You’re my fucking problem!”

“Yeah?” He challenged, angry and huffy, but clearly excited that you were picking a fight—seemingly wanting one himself. Careful what you wish for, tough guy.

“Yeah!” You doubled down, standing up from the water to start your hissy fit in earnest, feeling a conflicted sort of thrill when you saw Daryl’s eyes go wide, pupils dilating as he realized you were completely naked and storming out of the water towards him. “I see you starin’ at me all day long, do you think you’re slick? You ever gonna do somethin’ about it? Shit or get off the pot, buddy!” You see him lick his lips, see his eyes narrow, see him take another step towards you, but you’re not done. This had been building up for a while and you sure as fuck weren’t going to dump it on your little sisters, the whole reason you got this bad in the first place was because you were trying to shield them from all the shit you’d been slogging through. “But that’s not all, no! No, If that’s not enough, I have to reinforce all my well lids to make sure I don’t have any more corpses fallin’ in ‘em and I have to keep check of all my livestock ‘cause God only knows if they’ve drank any of the contaminated water and gotten sick! If they did come in contact but aren’t showin’ symptoms and then we eat the tainted meat—then what?” Daryl takes a step back, nostrils suddenly flaring as you come up to get in his face, finger poking into his chest roughly as you offloaded all the things that had been piling up. This was clearly more than he’d bargained for, but he’d just have to deal with it. “Plus now I’ve got those…freeloaders lookin’ at me like I’m killin’ them with my bare hands just ‘cause I don’t wanna give them a handout and half my land! The last time we had strangers on our property it ended with them offering to help my step-brother mend our fences and then turnin’ tail and leavin’ him to be torn to shreds when he got his foot stuck under the wheel of a tractor and one of those—those corpses made its way onto the property and when we tried to bury him, he came back an’ bit my step-mom! Those people at least had the decency to wait a day before they made me lose a family member; not even eight hours after your people came they killed my fuckin’ farmhand! Speakin’ of which, now that Otis is gone my workload is twice as high because I’m the only one who can do a lot of the hard stuff! Daddy’s too old, it’s too labor-intensive for Patricia, Beth and Jimmy are too young, and Maggie…she went to college because she wanted to do somethin’ else with her life. She shouldn’t have to work the combine harvester or heft the feed bags or fix the fences.”

Tears were prickling your eyes again and you could hear your voice starting to falter, but you couldn’t stop. It was like you were projectile word vomiting all over the poor guy. The hand that had been prodding him began to ball up his shirt in your fist instead, looking for something solid to grab onto so you wouldn’t sink into the mud below your feet under the weight of your self-appointed burdens. Your voice grew softer, less angry and more defeated as you went. “If that wasn’t bad enough, we’re runnin’ out of gas for the generators, Maggie has to keep riskin’ her life going into town for supplies, Daddy’s stubbornly still tryin’ to work the fields and makin’ me think he doesn’t trust me to actually handle things and I’m startin’ to think he’s right not to. To top it all off, the hay baler has been makin’ this grinding noise that’s drivin’ me crazy! I don’t know how to fix it! Shawn knew how to fix it…” Your voice failed you after that, tears spilling over. You gave up on trying to keep some semblance of dignity in front of this guy, suddenly realizing what it was you had done, quite literally showing your bare ass and making yourself more vulnerable with a complete stranger than you’ve ever been with anyone. “He kept…buggin’ me to watch him do it—to learn, but… I never saw the point. I thought he’d always be there to do it for me.” You finished out with a sob.

“So…” You heard Daryl’s voice say gruffly and with caution as if he was walking barefoot on a floor covered in mousetraps, “your solution to all of that was to get naked and go swimmin’ in a duck pond?”

You huffed out a self-deprecating laugh, forehead now resting against his chest next to your balled-up fist as you realized you felt lighter than you had in years after getting all that off your chest. “Guess so.”

“That work?”

“For like a second,” you admitted, “The cold water cleared my head a little. It was like puttin’ a band-aid on a burst pipe.”

A hand came to rest on your shoulder, feather light and awkward like he was worried you might turn and bite him if he wasn’t careful; a fair assumption. “I dunno about a lot of that shit, but…I can take a look at the baler, sounds like it just needs an oil change and maybe its gears cleaned.”

Everyone you’d ever depended on for one reason or another had either disappointed you to the point you refused to do it again even after they’d proven they wouldn’t let you down anymore, or they’d died. You knew the score, so why the hell did his offer make you feel so hopeful? Why did you still want so badly to ask him to stay on your farm after you kick his group to the curb, even after you’d just told yourself you didn’t need him and that it was stupid to want to rely on a man you just met? You kept contradicting and re-contradicting yourself over and over, your resolve on the matter of needing someone flying back and forth between either extreme like a pendulum. You were just so damn fractured these days and here he was offering to fill in some of the cracks.

“Thank you,” you said sincerely, lifting your head to stare into his eyes. They were so damn blue you could almost swim in them, just like you had in the pond behind you. You figured they’d be as good as anything to drown in. You watched them flicker down to your lips and before you even knew it you were reaching your hand into the back of his hair and yanking him down to crash his mouth to yours.

He moaned in surprise, or maybe pain as his teeth knocked against yours before finding a rhythm with you, the hand at your shoulder squeezing and then flexing against your skin while you used the grip you had on his shirt to try and tug it off his body. He stiffened up and pulled away like you burned him, and it occurred to you that maybe he didn’t actually want you the way you thought he did. Maybe you really did just piss him off. You opened your mouth to apologize, arms moving to cover yourself in embarrassment but not managing to fully complete either action before he yanked the tank top he was wearing over his head and dived back in to kiss you again, his hand coming up to grip the wrist you were about to use to cover your tits and move it out of the way so he could press you fully against his chest, his other arm coming to wrap around your waist to keep you pinned to him.

You gave in for a second, reveling in how everything about him engulfed you—his arm snaking around you and squeezing like a python, the big warm hand circling your wrist, completely cuffing around it like a shackle keeping you tethered to him, his chest a wide and expansive place to lean against and let yourself rest, tossing aside all thoughts but the ones of what you wanted to do to him—with those thoughts flooding into your head, you yanked your hand free roughly, using it to push against his chest. A frustrated grunt came out of him as he fought to keep you close, but when you used the distance to start deftly unbuckling his his belt he didn’t put up any more protest, instead putting that rough energy towards aggressively kicking off his boots, stepping on the back of his heels to pull his feet free, knowing they’d need to go if you really wanted his pants off.

Before long, he was as naked as you were, your mouth was back on his, and you were sucking his bottom lip between your teeth; using it to tug at him as you walked backward into the water. He followed blindly and eagerly, placing his hand over yours as you cupped his cheek, your other hand threading into his hair again giving you a good grasp on his head. So enthralled was he, that he didn’t even notice the smirk you pressed into the kiss as you used the new leverage he gave you to turn your body and toss him farther into the pond where he collapsed into the water with a loud splash. By the time he emerged, gasping and wiping the water off his face with a heavy shake of his head you were cackling loud and hard, just as you had when you’d teased Maggie a half-hour earlier.

“Sorry, Tiger, but I’m not doin’ anything with you ‘till you’ve had a proper bath,” you said through your laughter.

Another loud splash sounded as Daryl smacked his hand against the surface in frustration, slinging water with his angry hand gestures, “I’m gettin’ real sick of these games of yours, girl.”

You hummed, wading back towards him, hand coming up to rub against his chest then over his bicep, subtly wiping away the grime there and watching the dirt on his skin wash away where your hand touched him. “No you’re not. In fact, I think you like playin’ my games. Wouldn’t keep lettin’ me get away with it if you didn’t.”

His arms circled you again, eyes dark and piercing into you with a dangerous determination you’d been waiting to see, “I ain’t plannin’ on lettin’ you get away, period.” You’d taken the lead up until now for the most part, but now he’d taken control. His kisses were sloppy and unpracticed but so eager you couldn’t help but think it was cute. You got the sense he didn’t have a lot of experience but he’d had to have learned something from somewhere. His lips traveled from your mouth down to the column of your neck and your shoulders, the whiskers on his chin leaving a tingling tickle on your skin that had you keening into his touch. You let out a whine like you were helpless and he’d won just like he seemed to want out of you. Poor thing thought he had you under his thumb now; he had no idea he was right where you wanted him to be.

Your fingers threaded and kneaded into his hair yet again, scratching at his scalp and encouraging him to continue his attentions. It was only when he grew bold enough to bite down lightly on your skin, sucking a hickey into the place above your clavicle that you’d have to hide with high collar shirts that you decided he’d had enough fun. If he thought a little brute strength was all it took to make you roll over and show your belly he had another thing coming. You could gain the upper hand in most any situation because you weren’t afraid to fight dirty. Your hand slid down his skin, grasping his length in your hand. It was hot, velvet smooth, and thicker than you’d anticipated. It was also hard as a rock; stiff and at attention, just for you. You hadn’t gotten a good look at him when he’d stripped, too preoccupied with keeping him distracted so he’d follow you into the water. Now you could tell he was perfectly adequate—a decent enough length and curved in a way you knew would make you scream.

You bit your lip, anticipation making you clench down on nothing and press your legs together for a bit of friction, thankful that the sudden shock of your touch on such a responsive area of his body kept him from noticing your own reaction. He gasped, shaky and uneven like he’d been dunked in ice water (a thought that made you chuckle given the circumstances), bucking into your hand with his nose burrowing into the nape of your neck. You whined in earnest at that, the skin there being sensitive. It caused you to squeeze him in your hand and press your chest close to his, writhing in his arms at the ticklish feeling you wanted to both lean into and wriggle away from. One of his hands moved to your thigh, digging his fingers into the muscle in response to your movements. Your clit throbbed in response, the callouses on the pads of his fingers and his palm scratching over your skin pleasantly. “Quit squirmin’ for a second, damn.” he panted, breath fanning over your neck. It felt so hot but it still made you shiver.

You couldn’t take this. Your goal had been to make him snap, but you were beginning to fray your own nerves with this teasing. You moved your free hand from his hair to grab the hand at your thigh and positioned him so his fingers brushed your opening and his palm pressed against your clit. Your eyelids fluttered for a second at the contact but you didn’t dare close them; not when Daryl was pulling his head away from your neck to look at you with a dazed expression on his face, one you’d seen on a few men in the past. Usually, you thought it made them look dumb and pathetic and it’d make you feel strong to have that sort of power over them—it’d never made you feel…hungry like this before. You thought you’d feel satisfied if you could get this rough, angry, stubborn man to look at you like you’d hypnotized him the way the far and few between men of your past had but somehow you just wanted more and more, like a terrible gluttony had taken over you.

You briefly recalled that your first sexual encounter had been rather similar to this. A fleeting fling with a guy you almost gave your first time to back in highschool because his parents were out of town and he had unsupervised access to their liquor cabinet and a hot tub—you knew your father would keel over and die if he ever found out where you were and what you were doing and that was exactly why you’d went. You weren’t on the best of terms back then. You’d taken a few sips of some sickeningly sweet schnapps and then got frisky in the hot bubbling jets of the tub. His fingers had clumsily pressed at your pussy in a way that stung and whispered ‘so wet, that for me?’ probably something he’d heard in a porno that he thought was a slick and sexy line but it just made you laugh cruelly and shove him away, suddenly scared and unsure you wanted to do what you were doing. Your first and only reaction in those situations is to lash out. “We’re in a hot tub, idiot, everything’s wet. Ain’t none of it’s your doin’, I assure you." You’d stormed off to go home after that and snuck back into your bedroom completely unsatisfied. That boy had been the first in a string of disappointing suitors and pretty soon you found ways to take control and find your own methods to satisfy yourself since the men that came to court you never seemed to know how nor did they bother to stick around long enough to learn, though that’s mostly because you chased them away.

You’re no longer thinking about any of that, though, because Daryl is pressing a finger slowly into you, eyes on yours to gage your reaction and the rough, thick digit is such a welcome feeling inside you that you clamp down on it and moan low, louder than you wanted to be as you learn forward to kiss him again. You began stroking him, his skin slick in the water as you traced a vein on the underside of his dick that made him twitch in your hand. Every other time you reached the tip you’d swipe your thumb over the slit, wiping away the beads of precum and he’d grunt out low and curl his finger as he pumped it into you, eventually adding a second and intensifying the incredible stretch you felt. You knew it’d be nothing compared to what it’d feel like to have him panting above you, pushing his cock into you over and over as his abdomen flexed with the movement of his hips and the thought of it had you fluttering around him harder. Your kisses had grown sloppy and unfocused, both of your attention being diverted to other activities to the point you were just breathing heavily against each other’s mouths.

You could feel it, you were on the cusp of an orgasm, the coil in your stomach tightening with every thrust of his fingers. Your hand was still gripping his wrist, white knuckled like if you let go you’d float away. You used that hand to help him press his palm harder into your clit, jolting as shocks of pleasure shot up your spine at the contact. The damn jerk was so perceptive. He only needed that one little nudge to notice and suddenly with every pump of his fingers he was pressing at that button like it’d win him a prize. You could feel him practically throbbing in your hand by that point. You were so close—you were both so close.

You were rising higher with every rub of his fingers against your walls, every purposeful press of his palm, every jerking thrust into your hand, every grunt against your lips, every panted breath against the raw flesh of your neck that he’d sucked marks into, but it wasn’t until you heard him whimper—something desperate that you were certain he hadn’t meant to let out—that you reached your peak. A quiet “c’mon, please,” as he pressed a kiss against the shell of your ear was your complete undoing.

You cried out, muffling it against his shoulder as you came hard, biting into his skin and clenching down so suddenly around his fingers. Your thumb rubbed at that bulging vein you’d been tracing the whole time and he let go, slumping against you all at once. You couldn’t focus on what you were doing after that, too busy crying into the muscles in his shoulder at the way he kept his fingers curled and his palm hard pressed against you while he continued to thrust into your palm, his cum washing away in the pond water like the dirt on his skin had.

You came down gradually, catching your breath. Your ears had been fine tuned to him and the noises he made and for the first time in the last handful of minutes (ha ha, that was clever. You’ll have to torture Maggie with that one later), you could hear the woods around you again. The birds in the trees, the wind in the leaves, the sound of someone stepping on a twig just beyond the bushes… “(y/n)? You out here?” Shit, that’s Beth.

You immediately used your grip on Daryl’s wrist to yank his fingers out of you, keening at how sensitive you still were in the post-orgasm bliss and reeling at the loss of him inside you. You rested your forehead against his chest and tried to recover as you prayed to any higher power listening that you did so quickly because Beth’s footsteps were getting closer. “I-I’m here, Bethy, stay where you are!”

Her steps faltered and there was a pause before you heard her say “…why?” in an incredulous tone.

Great question, Beth, glad you asked. It’s ‘cause I just got finger-blasted into oblivion and I still got the guy who did it’s dick in my hand!

“I uh…I went skinny dippin’ in the duck pond, Beth, I’m naked.”

Your sister scoffed and you could practically feel her roll her eyes, but she did as you asked and stayed where she was. “Oh please, we’re both girls, it’s nothin’ I haven’t already seen before.”

That made you chuckle, glancing up to meet Daryl’s eye. He looked mortified, blushing bright red and thankfully too flustered to be able to say anything snarky that’d give you away. You winked at him coquettishly. “No, Bethy, you’re a girl. I’m a woman. Trust me, if you saw what I have goin’ on over here, it’d scar you for life.” You started making your way out of the water as you spoke, your hand gliding up his length one final time as you pulled away, keeping contact with him as long as you could until you could no longer reach him. His eyes scrunched shut and he must have bit his tongue to keep from making a sound, his body leaning towards your touch as it disappeared as if you were tugging on a leash attached to his hips.

“Whatever you say,” Beth said, sighing. “Daddy just told me to come get you ‘cause Patricia's got dinner ready. It’s lasagna made with that venison Daryl brought back the other day.” She paused again before blurting out “hold on, is he over there with you?” A witch. She’s a witch!

You were so startled by her accusation you stumbled in your already frantic scramble to get your clothes back on, tripping yourself on the leg of your shorts and almost falling to your knees as you struggled to get the denim up the wet skin of your thighs. “No…”

“That ‘no’ sounds like a yes.” Beth let out a teasing giggle only a little sister who caught their big sister doing something she shouldn’t be can produce. “Tell him Rick’s lookin’ for him and he better hurry up and put some clothes on, ‘cause he was gonna search over here next.”

You scrunched your eyes closed in mortification as you heard Daryl start hastily making his way out of the water behind you, the warning Beth gave seeming to jumpstart his body into action. “Thank you, Beth,” you grit out in embarrassment.

She began to walk away, her footsteps starting up again as she left for the house. “So much for waitin’ and windin’ him up first. Guess he’s as easy to tease as you said.” Her muttered words were not quite quiet enough to not be heard. You were going to kill her.

“Thank you, Beth,” You repeated with emphasis, imploring her to shut up. You looked over at Daryl who was doing everything he could to reach for his shirt without turning his back to you, an awkward little action that almost distracted you from the way Beth’s grumbling had him whipping his head up to glare at you with his nostrils flared like you’d made a fool of him again. The fire in his eyes was really something else, he seemed like he wanted to tackle you into the mud and pin you down. For a second you felt a bit like a prey animal and the thrill of it made you want to prod the bear some more. In your panic to get your clothes on you’d completely missed the step of putting your underwear back on, skipping straight to your jean shorts. You picked them up as they sat prim and proper on top of your tank top and were glad they were at least one of your cute pairs. You blew him a kiss and tossed them into the crumpled heap of his pants splayed out on top of his boots and finished getting dressed quickly so you could scamper off before his realization that he’d quite literally played right into your hand the whole time blew up in your face, heart pounding like a jackhammer in a way you’d never felt before.

This was exciting. This was new! You suddenly felt like all the problems you’d worried would ambush you as soon as you left the pond weren’t so unmanageable. You were fairly confident you’d just bagged yourself a new farmhand, afterall—one who could keep your equipment from breaking down.

You couldn’t wait for your next chance to play a game with your new favorite toy, you’d make sure to give him a prize worth winning.

[meldy-writes]

Stupid Games

(TWD Daryl Dixon x reader)

Summary: Takes place during S2 You’re the eldest of the Greene sisters (about 10 years older than Maggie). You’re mean, overprotective of your family, and overall just kind of a mythic bitch. Daryl can’t seem to keep his eyes from wandering over you whenever you’re around. One day you run into each other in the woods while hunting down the same deer and Daryl finds himself being toyed with. Maybe you’re not as cold and forbidding as you let on, but then again, maybe you’re just luring him into playing a stupid little game with you.

Read the companion piece here:

Part 2

A/N: This is an excerpt from a fic I want to post to AO3 but don’t have anything substantial enough to post a full chapter yet so I wanted to post this here and see if it was good enough to keep working on. Might post another part I have written as a companion piece if people like this enough.

The first time Daryl laid eyes on you, you were just a distant figure on the roof of the Greene family farmhouse as he rode in at the head of the convoy on his bike. You were sitting on the porch overhang, looking out over your father's land with the vigilance of a grizzled soldier on the front lines. He watched you stand up as they drove up your gravel path. You put out a cigarette you'd been smoking in an ashtray resting on an open window ledge before climbing into the house. He and the rest of the members of his group that had stayed behind at the highway the night previous had made it up to the path and met up with the people who were already working on something judging by the pile of rocks they were collecting in a wheelbarrow by the time you reemerged on the porch. You surveyed him and the others with a set and piercing stare, arms crossed defensively over your chest as if daring one of them to cause trouble and give you a reason to beat their ass. You were followed out of the house by an older man in his seventies and the rest of Daryl’s group. You took stock of the new arrivals, starting with him and working your way over everyone, scanning them like you could see everything there was to know about them on their skin and didn't like it. When you were done you fixed your gaze back onto Daryl as if you'd identified him as the biggest threat. He hated the feel of your suspicious stare, though he told himself it was typical of people to see him as nothing but trouble and to treat him like dirt so he should be used to it. The way you tilted your head from your elevated position on the raised porch—like you were looking down at an ant and trying to decide whether it was worth the energy to squash it—made him fidget.

“How is he?” Dale asked after Carl when Rick and Lori came out of the house looking like they’d just been through hell and hadn't slept a wink.

“He'll pull through,” Lori responded, relief clear in her voice, “Thanks to Hershel and his daughter, (y/n),” She said motioning towards you, “and their people, and–”

“and Shane,” Rick added, “We'd have lost Carl if not for him.”

Daryl watched your already cold eyes darken and a snarl twist across your face at the statement, failing to suppress an eye roll before you yanked your head away from the group and the conversation like it disgusted you, choosing instead to stare off towards a barn at a distant end of the property. He wondered what your problem was, but he wasn't wondering long. It was revealed soon after the group arrived that someone had gone with Shane when he went to retrieve medical supplies for Carl and that that person did not return with him. Someone you and your family cared for.

If it wasn't made clear by the way Lori recognized those living at the farm house as not just your father's people but yours as well that you were the oldest child, it would have become obvious by the way your sisters looked to you for comfort at Otis's funeral. The little blonde one bawled her eyes out and clung to you like a child clings to their mother while Maggie, the woman who'd rode up to them on a horse the other day, leaned down to your height to rest her head on your shoulder. You tucked the sniffling teenager under your arm protectively, rubbing at her shoulder and pressing a kiss to her forehead and then turned to bump your head softly against Maggie’s in a comforting way. Your lips pursed like you were sucking on a lemon as you tried your best to stay strong and not start crying like your sisters, pinning Shane with a frigid and accusatory glare that he expertly ignored as he told the story of how he and Otis were ambushed by a group of walkers while retrieving the medical supplies for Carl and that Otis had valiantly stayed behind to cover his retreat, shooting into the herd with a pistol before ultimately being swallowed up by the swarm and getting torn to shreds. Daryl found it miraculous that Shane managed to recover the gun but not the man that had supposedly been firing it in his daring escape—and by miraculous he meant shady. You didn't seem to be buying Shane’s story, either.

After the service your father motioned toward you and told you to show the guests where to set up their camp, as he graciously agreed to let them stay until Carl recovered and they had located Sophia. You nodded dutifly with a muttered “Yessir,” motioning to Rick with your head, beckoning him to follow as you untangled yourself from your siblings and began marching off in a direction with purpose, not looking back to check if anyone was following you. If the group couldn't keep up with your quick gait that was just too damn bad. They did their best to match your pace, some, like Daryl, breaking off to fetch the vehicles and bring them over to where they were meant to stay. When you got to a spot under some particularly shady trees a good distance from your house you stopped, looking around as you waited for the group to congregate. When everyone was grouped up again you addressed them directly for the first time that morning. Your voice was down to business and detached as you pointed out where the boundaries of the camp would be and where the well they could use for water was. “One more thing,” You said with the same rural twang as your sisters, your tone changing to one of warning as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other, jutting out your hip and resting your hand against it. Daryl followed the movement, your curves drawing his eyes in a way that made him itch and blush. “My daddy believes we should be good christians—help our fellow men and give ‘em the benefit of the doubt, but I don't share his blind faith. I don't know you people and I don't trust you. I can’t afford to, I have a baby sister to protect. Beth is sixteen, you understand? She's a child. If I catch any of your men lookin’ at her, talkin’ to her—sniffin’ around her in any way, I will rip their balls off like I'm takin’ a part off a Mr. Potato Head.” You made a popping sound with your lips that had Daryl's stare fixing on them instead of your hips, and gave a motion with your hand as if grabbing at something and yanking it down. “Clean off,” you reiterated, staring Glen down who swallowed thickly and tried to give you a friendly and disarming smile that did not change your attitude in the slightest. “Maggie can take care of herself but still, if someone upsets her, with God as my witness there will be hell to pay.”

There was a loud silence from the group after your blatant threats of bodily harm that was broken by Dale, ever the peacekeeper. “We understand where you're coming from, you have nothing to worry from us. We're good people, you'll see. Thank you for letting us stay on your beautiful property while Carl recovers and we look for Sophia.”

You scoffed, “You're only here because we shot your boy,” you reminded bluntly as you turned to leave for your house, “don't thank us.”

Daryl’s first impression of you: You were a bitch, but a bitch who loved her family. The only times he ever caught you cracking a smile or being anywhere close to kind during those first few days was when you were with them. You seemed to disagree with your dad on a lot of things, but it was clear you both respected and loved each other and that you had a bond that had been worked on and cultivated to be strong enough for you to argue and debate and still look at each other with love. After every tiff he’d catch you having in the windows of the front room, spitting and pinching the bridge of your nose and tossing your hands up while your dad calmly spoke back you would sigh, relax your gaze, and kiss his cheek or his forehead before stomping off with a storm cloud over your head. You’d grin wolfishly as you and Maggie laughed conspiratorially on the porch in the afternoon, teasing each other as you ate cherries together, trying to hit each other with the pits you spat out. Your whole face would soften when you looked at Beth, practically glowing with unconditional adoration as you played on the guitar Dale had originally found for Glen and accompanied the little blonde girl as she sang her heart out. Your voice was low, bluesy, raw, and filled with vibrato. There was an untrained authenticity to it that was almost hypnotic. It paired well with your sister who sang like a songbird, pretty and light as if she’d been taught by actual birds. You were happy to let her take the center stage, supporting her through harmony while your fingers strummed frets with a clumsy sort of charm, like you were taught to play at one point but never practiced, and were now making all sorts of mistakes that were going to become bad habits without a proper teacher. It was later revealed that Otis had taught you the basics a few years back and you’d only bothered to pick it back up now that he was gone and Beth needed someone new to perform with. You softened for Patricia, as well, helping her in the kitchen and going out of your way to assist her with her chores on the farm despite having plenty of your own responsibilities to fulfill.

Daryl’s group, however, you continued to treat like shit on your shoe. You made no effort to hide that you wanted them off your property as soon as possible, only showing a hint of compassion when it came to Lori and Carol, the mothers of the group who were distraught over the perils of their children. They were the ones you supplied the group’s meals to, giving them bushels of produce and bottles of milk and sending your sisters over to hand them baskets of eggs, even going so far as to offer Carl some of your late step-brother’s hand-me-downs to wear, but you still had a cold sneer on your face when you handed things over and you didn’t speak to them unless it was to ask how Carl was recovering or if they were making any progress finding Sophia. You were only asking to try and gauge how much longer you’d have to wait before kicking them out, and you grew more and more agitated the more the group settled in. Every time Rick or Dale or anyone tried to appeal to you or your dad about staying longer or staying permanently you’d bristle like a cat being pet the wrong way. You made a point to avoid them most of the time, which was just fine with Daryl because every interaction he did have with you pissed him off, and only fueled his own frustration when it became harder and harder to ignore you or look away.

For instance, the first one on one conversation he ever had with you was out in the woods while he was looking for Sophia. He was about to give up the search for the day and head back when he picked up the trail of a deer. He stalked it through the woods, thinking it’d be better to provide the farm with some venison than to return empty handed again. When he finally found it, he took aim and shot it at an angle that had it sprinting off with a limp in the direction of the farm. That’s when he heard a startled gasp and watched as you rushed out of the nearby foliage with a rifle, taking aim at the retreating deer before realizing you couldn’t get a clear shot on it. You then turned to where he was, gun dropping in your arms as you pinned him with a furious look. “Congratulations, Numb-Nuts, it got away.”

“The hell are you doing out here?” Daryl snapped, face red at the way you were treating him like a dullard with no idea what he was doing.

You seemed flustered by the question, looking down and kicking at the dirt with your horse-riding boot. “Came out to hunt and figured I’d look around for the missing little girl while I was at it,” you said with a casual shrug, avoiding his eyes until you seemed to remember you were pissed at him at which point your head snapped up and that signature sneer of yours was back. “Saw the deer and was gonna take it out but somebody went and scared it off.”

“I shot it in the leg on purpose,” Daryl explained defensively, getting angry and up in your face, “see that trail it left? It’s carryin’ itself back to the farm, less effort this way.” He looked you up and down and scoffed, nodding towards your gun. “What's with the rifle, Annie Oakley? You shoot that thing, every walker in a five mile radius is gonna come here to tear you and that deer apart.”

You slung your weapon over your shoulder and crossed your arms defiantly, “It takes a buck down in one clean, quick shot. The animal feels little to no pain if you know what you’re doin’ so it’s not suffering with an arrow in its ass for half a mile. Plus, I woulda been outta here with the buck slung over my shoulder long before anything came over to check out the noise.” You were confident, clearly convinced you knew better and that your methods were best. Daryl couldn’t have that. He had a good decade’s worth of experience on you and he hadn't had his hand held the whole time he was taught to track the way you probably had. He licked his lips ready to knock you down a peg.

“Yeah, but you’d be so exhausted from caryin’ it the whole way that if a walker came up on you, you’d be too tired to fight it off. Maybe you’d be able to drop the deer and fumble for your rifle, but that’s as far as you’d get. It’d be on you in a second. Would a little thing like you be able to fight it off? You even got a weapon other than that big ol’ Elmer Fudd gun?” As he was talking he saw your expression shift. You tilted your head like something had just occurred to you and you were sizing him up.

Suddenly, you brought your right leg up, bent at the knee so you could lift a jack knife from your boot, and flicked the blade out so it pointed at his chest. That shut him up for a second. He really hadn’t expected the quickness with which you had it drawn on him. “Believe me,” you let out a bored, breathy sigh, a smirk on your face like you knew you had the upper hand, “I’ve got some experience dealing with ravenous things that want to pin me down and devour me, I can handle myself just fine.” …were you still talking about walkers? You were, right? The way you poked the tip of your knife against the skin of his chest peeking out from under his open collar and gently dragged it down until it caught on the button of his shirt had him feeling goosebumps on his flesh and hearing innuendo in your words. You took a step towards him, looking up at him through long lashes with your chest puffed—either in pride or in an attempt to get him to look at your breasts. Regardless of the reason, It was working. “What about you? You sure you can catch up to that deer before somethin’ else does? You said it yourself, it’s hurt and slowing down—a biter could take it down in a matter of moments. Then what, tough guy?” Daryl had nothing to say in defense of that. Partly because your slightly seductive shift in demeanor had his mouth going dry and partly because you had a point and he knew it. He remembered the last time he’d hunted a deer like this, it’d carried itself all the way back to the quarry camp before getting caught on the fishing line of the perimeter alarms they put up and then it’s stomach was ripped apart and it’s innards devoured by a walker that followed the sound of a wounded, frightened animal and jingling cans. You must have seen in his eyes that you’d caught him because your slight smile spread into a full-on Cheshire cat grin. You retracted your knife and returned it to your boot, turning and sauntering off in the direction the deer had run off in. “guess we’d better go find it, huh?”

Daryl stalled for a second, stunned by your behavior. One second you’re spitting venom at him and making him feel like he’s two feet tall, the next you’re purring like a kitten and being the biggest fucking tease he’d ever had to endure. He mentally smacked himself when he realized he’d been so focused on the sway of your hips as you walked away that he wasn’t following you like he should be. He began jogging to catch up with you, falling into step easily as you both picked up the deer’s trail again. “You even know how to track?” He couldn't help but keep trying to pick a fight with you—he didn’t even know why, but as much as bickering with you pissed him off, he also found it fun. You didn’t treat his meanness like something you had to quell or cry about like his group did, you stood your ground and tossed your own barbs right back at him. It was like a game. A game he seemed to be losing, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop playing.

You looked over to him, a brow raised as you scanned him up and down. “Yes, I do. Do you own a shirt you haven’t ripped the sleeves off of?” You nodded to the button down he was wearing. He’d torn the sleeves off a few days ago because it was too hot to wear them and he needed the fabric to tie markers off on trees to denote what parts of the woods he’d already searched through in case the others ever decided to get off their asses and help look for Sophia. He had a few other shirts that had sleeves at some point but no longer did that he wore in a common rotation. He must have had a sour look on his face at your retaliating comment because you shook your head and chuckled under your breath, “don’t play stupid games if you don’t wanna win stupid prizes.”

You walked through the woods mostly in silence after that, not wanting to make an abundance of noise and end up accidentally spooking the deer. That became a competition as well, with you both smirking in triumph every time the other stepped on a twig or kicked up a bit of dirt in your effort to leave as little evidence of a trail as possible. Eventually, as you were coming up on a clearing near the edge of your property where the tall grass almost completely covered the view of your home in the distance, Daryl stuck his hand out to stop you and put a finger to his lips, pointing towards the buck you’d both been after peeking out through the foliage, whining softly and doing its best to lick at the wound in its back leg. You took cover behind a honeysuckle bush and Daryl nodded at you and your gun, “I got the last shot, your turn.”

You hesitated a second, scanning the woods and warily looking towards your farm. “Too close to home to use the gun now, it’d attract the dead to our property. Lemme borrow that crossbow of yours.” You held your hand out for it and Daryl clutched it away from your grasp. You looked at him first confused by his reluctance then annoyed, “please?” you said petulantly. After a beat of studying your face he eventually relented, but only after you’d started pouting a little. The second it was in your grip you hefted it up, remarking that it was heavier than you expected.

Daryl watched you handle it a bit clumsily as you got used to holding it and his fingers itched to show you how to aim it right. In the end, he couldn’t help himself. He came up behind you and put his hands on your hips, angling them the right way so you had a solid stance. He felt you stiffen under his hands and could hear your breath catching in your throat. “You wanna stand like this,” he coached, his arms coming around you to adjust your elbows and help you aim the weapon straight. You leaned back against his chest a little, maybe unconsciously, maybe on purpose. “Then just use the arrow tip like a sight and pull the trigger.” He could feel you shift as his breath brushed against the skin of your neck. The way you acted made you so big and imposing, but actually having you in his arms made you feel so small and demure; like he could envelop you entirely and keep you all to himself if he wanted. The way you’d been acting the past half hour made him feel like you might want that, too. The idea sort of excited him a little—made his pants and his chest feel tight. There was a quiet moment where he expected you to aim and fire, but it passed and the arrow still hadn’t been shot. He turned to look at you and see what the hold up was. Surley, you weren’t that unsure of your aim. He flinched back a bit when he moved his head in your direction and almost brushed noses with you, as you were not looking at the deer and had instead shifted to look back at him, a look on your face reminiscent of a cat playing with a cornered mouse.

“You really are just like any other man, aren’t you?” you crooned out in a teasing tone.

“What?” his mind went blank in his dumbfoundedness and that was all he could manage to utter.

“In my experience, I’ve found that any man who’s attracted to a woman is always willing to believe two things about her: One, that she doesn’t know anything about anything and needs him to help her, and two, that she’s just as attracted to him as he is to her.” Daryl’s mouth opened and closed like a fish at that statement, unsure what you meant or how he was supposed to respond. In that time you yanked yourself out of his grip, redid your stance, took aim with perfect form, and let loose an arrow with absolutely no hesitation. The deer let out a sad bleat as it was shot in the eye and then it crumpled into the grass, dead as a doornail. You handed his crossbow back to him with a nasty, shit-eating grin. “Do I really strike you as the type of person who’d ask to borrow somethin’ I didn’t know how to use? Honestly now, all I had to do was bat my lashes and push up my tits and you were all ‘here, let me get up close behind you and show you how to hold this big heavy tool’.” You said those last three words in an erotic and over dramatic moan, getting close to press your breasts against him as you ran your hand up his chest.

He pushed you away, a heavy blush heating his face while you began to cackle maniacally at him. “How the hell was I supposed to know you knew how to use it when you were fumbling with it like a toddler?” he barked out angrily as you stepped out from behind the bush you’d both been hiding behind and began walking towards the farm, still laughing. “Hey! Ain’t you gonna take the deer? It’s your kill!”

You turned around with mirth dancing in your eyes and a wide happy grin on your face. The light of the setting sun bounced off your hair making it look so shiny as the light summer breeze ran through it, making it float and sway around you in such a pretty way. Daryl felt his heart pound hard in his chest as he glared over your retreating figure. You were walking backwards, tucking a few strands of hair that had flown into your face back behind your ear as you said, “Who, me? But I'm just a ‘little thing’ who’d get tired if I carried it all the way back. You’re the big strong man—use those big strong muscles to carry it back for me. Oh, and since you’re the big strong provider, you can go ahead and string it up, drain it, and skin it, too. Thanks for your help,” you sing-songed sarcastically, “I just don’t know how I ever woulda done it without you!” Daryl began to huff, storming towards you for a second, unsure of what he’d even do if he caught you, but he felt like you’d just tricked him and he didn’t like it. You held your hands up in your defense as you saw him coming. “Stupid games, stupid prizes,” you reiterated with a shrug as you giggled and turned, running back towards the farm and leaving him in the thicket with the dead buck.

Daryl got the sudden sense as he watched you slow your pace to a jog then a brisk walk once you’d gotten far enough away that this had all been a test of some kind. He couldn’t tell if he passed or failed, but you certainly seemed pleased about the results either way. He kicked at the ground, a clump of dirt launching into the air as he did so, and moved to heft the buck over his shoulder. He didn’t know if or when you’d ever come looking to play again, but if you did, he’d make sure he won.

As he strung up the deer in a tree a little ways away from the group’s makeshift camp later that afternoon, cutting at its arteries and letting the blood drain out of it, he imagined what you might look like when he got the upper hand on you. What would you look like when the sneers and the smirks were wiped away and you were pinned down, completely at his mercy—all flustered with your cheeks flushed, trying to squirm your way out from under him. He bet you’d still have bite. He bet you would still spit venom, but maybe he could get you to purr for him, too. Maybe he could get you to look at him the way you looked at your family, all sweet smiles and gentle touches. The thought made him eager to play another one of your stupid little games.

[infinityuserboxes]

[simonghostrileys]

Incredibly fucking slow at it 🤧

[slagginbitch]

i fixed it

[robin-the-robo]

[beetles-and-rock]

Y'all already know I’m trash.

[meldy-writes]

Idk why, but I’m thinking about a bnha OC with a quirk similar to Erza Scarlet’s magic in Fairy Tail. like, her parents quirks (a blacksmith who can give metals special properties that boost skills and have effects like enchanting weapons in video games, and a fashion model with a pocket dimension full of clothes and accessories) sort of combined to form hers where she has a little pocket dimension that stores both outfits and weapons that have specific special abilities, like a bow that shoots arrows made of light or a set of armor with wings that allows her to fly, but the catch is she has to make every outfit herself; ie she can generate fabrics and metals but she can’t just will a whole ‘fit into existence, and her outfits and weapons have to be made from materials generated from her quirk because any foreign objects disintegrate on contact with her little pocket dimension. I really want to write this out in a fic because I woke up in a cold sweat after thinking about this quirk idea with a scenario in my head;

Ok, so picture this: the OC is really sweet, and because her mom is a model and bakugou’s mom is a designer they’re childhood friends and his personality has rubbed off on OC a bit over the years, and during the sports festival someone steals a ball of yarn from their bag—just regular yarn, I imagine they’d probably really like knitting and needlepoint and sewing even just in their off time and not for their quirk.

So like, someone steals their yarn probably thinking it’d have some magic ability and OC just goes up to the announcer booth and asks Present Mic if they can make an announcement and over the loudspeaker everyone in the stands, including 1-A who only knows them as a super bubbly sweet person just hears them go “ Hi, this is OC from class 1-A, and this announcement is for whatever dirty little rat-handed sneak-thief stole my yarn. I’m assuming you took it thinking it had some special property because of my quirk, but it doesn’t. it’s just normal yarn—normal, high quality yarn, and it’s really expensive. I want it back. So to whatever ballsy little shitheel stole it; if it isn’t put back in my bag before I find you, your ass is grass.”

I want to write this but I just have a bunch of little fun ideas for ficlets and no real overarching story ideas so idk if i’m gonna do anything for real with it.

[meldy-writes]

another fun little thing that sprung from this idea (because Bakugou’s birthday was here recently) is that I assume OC would have gotten into needlepoint at some point in middle school, and they taught it to themself by making Bakugou throw pillow covers with swears on them and will now make him a new one every year for his birthday. like at the start of the month he’ll be like “this time I want it to say [some vulgar violent phrase],” and then later on in the week in the dorms Kaminari and Sero will be in the common room and OC will be working on the couch and they’ll be like “whatcha working on?” and with a bright, innocent smile, OC’ll just show them a needlepoint frame with the words “Die, Fuckstick” sewn into it with flower designs all around it.

[meldy-writes]

Idk why, but I’m thinking about a bnha OC with a quirk similar to Erza Scarlet’s magic in Fairy Tail. like, her parents quirks (a blacksmith who can give metals special properties that boost skills and have effects like enchanting weapons in video games, and a fashion model with a pocket dimension full of clothes and accessories) sort of combined to form hers where she has a little pocket dimension that stores both outfits and weapons that have specific special abilities, like a bow that shoots arrows made of light or a set of armor with wings that allows her to fly, but the catch is she has to make every outfit herself; ie she can generate fabrics and metals but she can’t just will a whole ‘fit into existence, and her outfits and weapons have to be made from materials generated from her quirk because any foreign objects disintegrate on contact with her little pocket dimension. I really want to write this out in a fic because I woke up in a cold sweat after thinking about this quirk idea with a scenario in my head;

Ok, so picture this: the OC is really sweet, and because her mom is a model and bakugou’s mom is a designer they’re childhood friends and his personality has rubbed off on OC a bit over the years, and during the sports festival someone steals a ball of yarn from their bag—just regular yarn, I imagine they’d probably really like knitting and needlepoint and sewing even just in their off time and not for their quirk.

So like, someone steals their yarn probably thinking it’d have some magic ability and OC just goes up to the announcer booth and asks Present Mic if they can make an announcement and over the loudspeaker everyone in the stands, including 1-A who only knows them as a super bubbly sweet person just hears them go “ Hi, this is OC from class 1-A, and this announcement is for whatever dirty little rat-handed sneak-thief stole my yarn. I’m assuming you took it thinking it had some special property because of my quirk, but it doesn’t. it’s just normal yarn—normal, high quality yarn, and it’s really expensive. I want it back. So to whatever ballsy little shitheel stole it; if it isn’t put back in my bag before I find you, your ass is grass.”

I want to write this but I just have a bunch of little fun ideas for ficlets and no real overarching story ideas so idk if i’m gonna do anything for real with it.

[meldy-writes]

in the process of writing a George Weasley x Reader fic that includes the classic trope of Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendship between the reader and Cedric, honestly i’m kind of loving the scenes I wrote where they interact together. The reader and Cedric… just being two pretty best friends.. iconique.

[meldy-writes]

side note about this fic, a mutual was proof reading a chapter and legit said ‘bitch had a hot girl summer, and it shows’ abd i’ve been dying laughing

[meldy-writes]

in the process of writing a George Weasley x Reader fic that includes the classic trope of Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendship between the reader and Cedric, honestly i’m kind of loving the scenes I wrote where they interact together. The reader and Cedric... just being two pretty best friends.. iconique.

[sassycolortheorist101-blog]

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

(hope this helps some ppl)

[meldy-writes]

I’m thinking of writing a harry potter fic, It’d be George Weasley x reader, but I don’t think I’d post it chapter by chapter until it’s fully finished, seeing as I’m already making everyone that read my walking dead wip wait an obsene ammount of time for the next chapter, however, I might post bits and pieces that could work as oneoffs here just to get a bit of feedback on it. Specifically i’m thinking of posting the Yule Ball centric chapter I had in my head. Would that be something literally anyone would read?

[meldy-writes]

i love your daryl fic on ao3!! do you know how many chapters its going to be? :)

lol nope, and I have absolutely no clue when I’m gonna post the next one, but it’s probably going to be sometime soon because classes start in a few weeks and If I know my own punk-ass I’m gonna want to procrastinate.

[meldy-writes]

Conclusions

This is super-de-duper late and kinda short but here it is.

(y/n) plopped her plate down at the table with a goofy grin as she poked Glen in the side and told him to ‘scooch’ so she could sit between him and Daryl.

“someone’s in a good mood,” Maggie commented before bringing her fork up to her mouth.

“That’s ‘cause it’s Peach Night, Bitches!” came a gleeful response as her friend began digging into her own meal; a hearty squirrel stew with string beans and a generous portion of—you guessed it– peaches on the side.

The four didn’t always eat together, but it happened often enough for entertaining conversation to be easy amongst the group, and it was happening more and more often these days seeing as Glen and Maggie were rarely ever apart and a similar phenomenon was beginning to occur between (y/n) and Daryl. The Prison group noticed this about a week after it started and ever since a select few had taken it upon themselves to try and get Daryl and (y/n) together.  So far, they’d been unsuccessful, but that night was different. Maggie wasn’t sure how, but she could just tell.

For the most part, dinner conversation went on like it did every other night, but Maggie couldn’t help but notice the archer across the table from her kept shifting his gaze between his plate and the woman beside him. After a few minutes more, he sucked the stew off his spoon and began using it to ferry his own peaches onto (y/n)’s plate.

The woman paused mid-sentence to look at him.

“…and you know, Mags, we really should start—What are you doin’?”

Daryl shrugged, having finished shoveling the canned fruit onto her plate, “well you like ‘em, don’t cha?”

“I thought you said you liked ‘em, too.”

He scoffed, “I only said that ‘cause those peaches were the only thing you wanted to talk about all freakin’ day. You damn near burst into song when we found ‘em on that run last week; you like ‘em, now you got more. Quit yer bellyachin’.”

(y/n) let a small, fond smile slip onto her face as she bumped his shoulder with her own.

“Thanks,” she said.

She got a disinterested grunt in return, but anyone could see how red the tips of his ears were.

Maggie squinted at the two, looking back and forth between them before she finally slammed her hand on the table with a triumphant grin and loudly announced, “you two are havin’ sex!”

(y/n) paused, fork-full of fruit halfway to her lips while her companion beside her began to choke on his own food.

From her left she heard Glen mutter “A little louder, Maggie, I don’t think the walkers outside the fence heard you,” as he looked around at the other tables of people around the room who stopped to stare at their table after the outburst.

He was promptly ignored as his wife was pointedly daring the accused party to deny her statement with a fixed stare.

After a beat (y/n) lowered her fork, and with the straightest face she could manage, she turned to Daryl and said, “we are? Daryl, Sweetie, why didn’t you say somethin’? I would have put my fork down.“

The man snickered between coughs but kept his gaze fixed to his plate.

“I’m serious,” Maggie insisted, “you’re a thing, you’re sleepin’ together.”

“Have been for about a month, thanks for sharin’ with the class, Mags.”

Maggie blinked, eyes turning owlish as she opened and closed her mouth a few times, simply flabbergasted that they just admitted to it. She thought that if they were trying to keep it secret, they would at least try and deny it a little bit.

“We’ve been tryin’ to get you two together for forever now, why didn’t you ever say somethin’?”

Daryl spoke up then, pink-cheeked and surly as ever, “It wasn’t any of yer business. Just ‘cause you an’ Glen like makin’ yer relationship front-page-news doesn’t mean everyone’s gotta.”

(y/n) rubbed his back in soothing circles as she added, “an’ it was easy to find time to be alone when you just kept, ya know, givin’ it to us. Plus, I thought it was funny how you guys were tryin’ so hard.”

Maggie pouted at that, but Glen began to chuckle, “fair enough,” he said through bites of stew as he elbowed his friend in the stomach, “so how’d it start?”

“Ya don’t gotta answer that, (y/n),” the archer informed as he put his head in his hands.

(y/n) ignored this as a shit-eating grin began to form on her lips, “He’s been takin’ me out on his hunts tryin’ to teach me how to shoot the crossbow. Remember that day we brought back a buck? I bet him if I could shoot it ‘tween the eyes he had to give me a kiss.”

The table erupted into laughter, and after a few more jokes the conversation drifted back towards more familiar topics, but still, Daryl was more quiet than normal, and (y/n) could feel it. After Glen and Maggie had said their goodbyes and turned in for the night, she turned to him, leaning her chin on her hand and leaning far against the table to try and catch his eye.

“You upset with me for tellin’ them about us? We agreed we’d do our own thing at our own pace and let the others come to a conclusion on their own. Not my fault they came to the right one.”

“It ain’t that.”

“Good,” she joked, “for a second I thought you might be ashamed of me or somethin’.”

He rolled his eyes at that and began to elaborate knowing full well at this point she wasn’t going to drop the subject until she knew what was bugging him.

“It’s just everyone’s gonna know now, they’re gonna look at us different. They’re gonna watch us. I hate havin’ eyes on me, it makes me itch,”  he began chewing on his thumb; a nervous habit of his that (y/n) found absolutely adorable.

“I dunno, I think if anything, we’ll have fewer eyes on us,” she assured, reaching to take his hands in hers.

“You think?”

“Yeah. A will-they-won’t-they situation is much more entertainin’ to watch than a couple that’s already established. Once word spreads around and the new-gossip shine’s rubbed off it people will look somewhere else, I promise you.”

Daryl’s eyebrows furrowed as he processed her words, turning them over in his head while he admired how small and delicate her hands seemed in his bigger, callused ones, “Yeah, guess yer right. Come on, we got the first watch, right?”

(y/n) grinned and nodded as their gazes met. She was just about to get up when Daryl suddenly took his hands from her grip and took a quick look around. Just before she could respond his hands were on her cheeks and he was pressing a quick kiss to her forehead, and then he was up and halfway out to the blacktop like nothing happened.

She gasped, faux scandalized as she scurried up to follow him, “Daryl Dixon, was that a public display of affection? Is that going to be an everyday thing now?” She gripped the back of his vest in one of her fists to try and get him to face her again, but all it did was serve as a sort of tether to drag her along behind him.

“Not if you keep makin’ a deal of it,” he threatened weakly as the couple walked out of the building and into the quiet Georgia night.

[meldy-writes]

[meldy-writes]

OMG I saw your Daryl fic thingy and was wondering if you take fic requests??? Could you do one during the prison era where Daryl and the reader get together and they don't tell the group, not in like a 'let's keep it a secret way' more in a 'it's none of their business, let's just be together and let them come to their own conclusions way' and the others just think they're hopelessly oblivious and keep trying to get them to confess?? It's ok if you don't wanna you can just delete this. >->

 When I posted that fic like, six months ago, it was just a scrap from a direction I decided not to take in a longer fic. I didn’t think anyone would want to request extra stuff from me! I love this idea a lot actually, I’m gonna do it.

[boykeats]

Rural Boys Watch The Apocalypse (rough draft) by Keaton St. James

[transviktortalis]

[meldy-writes]

!!!! Love love LOVE this

[meldy-writes]

I know exactly what comes next in my fic and how i’m going to write it, but i’m just sitting in bed plotting out future chapters instead of writing. oopsies.

[meldy-writes]

Luckiest Girl in the World (Daryl Dixon X Wife! Reader)

Context:So I have an alt AO3 because for some reason I didn’t think a walking dead fic fit with the fanfictions I had under my Pen Name’s account, but at this point, I don’t think it really matters. Anyway, there’s this Daryl X Reader fic I’m writing on this alt account and I’m at the point where I’m writing two ways the story could branch, and there’s this little scene from the path I didn’t take that could work as a drabble. If you like this, or if you want to read the fic for context, it’s here. Be warned, it’s pretty long.

Summary: The Reader has been with the group since the CDC, and along the way, she fell in love and married Daryl Dixon. Now they’re in Alexandria and Aiden, one of Deanna’s sons has begun to harbor a crush. He doesn’t seem to realize that she’s taken. (Daryl’s not really mentioned until the last couple of paragraphs, but I thought those paragraphs were cute enough to warrant this being tagged as an x reader fic.)

Aiden sat at the top of the fence with her, casually leaning back in his seat. The front legs of the plastic chair were off the ground, his feet planted as he rocked back and forth.

“You’re gonna to fall backwards, you know.” (y/n) stated.

“You worried I’m going to get hurt?” he teased, leaning even farther back.

“No. In fact, I think it’d be funny. I just don’t want your mommy to yell at me.”

He let out a snort and put his arms behind his head as he began to rock back and forth. She rolled her eyes, amusement dancing on her features as she eyed the back legs of the chair in anticipation. As she predicted, they eventually snapped, and Aiden promptly fell backwards just as she’d cautioned.

She let out a barking laugh, and a few people passing by stopped to look up at her as the flushing boy tried to shake off the embarrassment.

“All right, all right, it’s not that funny.”

“Oh, I beg to differ, that was the most entertainin’ thing I’ve seen all week,” she argued, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Then your life must be very boring.” He countered bitterly, his pride hurt just a tad from how demeaning her tone was and how promptly she’d always shut him down.

“Oh, no. it’s not borin’, it’s just not fun, either.”

He finally recovered from his little mishap, tossing the broken chair down into the grass below to be fixed later, and choosing instead to sit against the wall. (y/n) kept to her perch, eyeing the expanse of pavement in front of the fence gate.

“You know, if you can’t find fun, you can always make it. There’s a game a lot of us play when we’re on watch to pass the time, want to play?”

She rolled her eyes. “I gotta keep my eyes on the gate”

“It’s a talking game. You can still keep watch. It’s called The Worst. We each share the worst experience we’ve ever had with something, and the one that’s the most terrible wins the round.” He continued, eyeing her with a charming smirk that, despite his best efforts, she hadn’t registered as flirty, yet.

He was an attractive guy, and after she’d saved his life on that run, and yelled at him, they’d bonded. He’d even swallowed his pride and let her train him. They’d gotten close, and they were both attractive, sarcastic, and confident people, so he couldn’t understand how they weren’t together yet. No matter what he did, she always shut down any plans he tried to make to hang out alone outside of the occasional look-out duty, and she always spoke to him like she was talking to a child. A very stupid child.

He didn’t let it deter him, though. No matter how much it hurt his pride. She’d eventually come around.

She turned her nose up at his suggestion, looking at him like he just told her the sky was green, and she was about to gently tell him he was a dumbass.

“That sounds like a game you don’t wanna play with me.”

He asked her why she felt like that.

“Because you’d always lose.” She stated simply, turning back to the scene past the gate.

“Okay, you don’t always have to play the jaded soldier. This world is shit, it’s fucked us all over one time or another, quit acting like you’re the saddest sack in the world.” He scoffed, smacking her shin with the back of his hand playfully.

She sighed, shrugging her shoulders.

“Alright, then. But if this ends up bummin’ you out, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Internally, he celebrated. This was the first time he’d ever gotten her to agree to something she initially said ‘no’ to. Slowly but surely, he was winning her over, he was sure.

“Alright, easy. Worst night of your life. Mine was that time I left that supply run group behind. Usually, we’d go into detail, explaining what happened, but, you already know about that night ‘cuz I told you about it.” He stated sadly. She’d talked a big game, so he was pulling out the big guns. “What about you?”

Let’s see you top that, Debbie Downer.

She smirked, sensing the challenge in his voice.

“A long time before we all came here, we were stayin’ on Maggie’s dad’s farm. One night, it got overrun by a horde, an’ everyone got separated. I was with Carol, an’ a walker fell on top of me, tryin’ to bite into my shoulder. She thought I was bit, so she left me behind, but I was wearin’ a real thick jacket. I was fine, but I had to cut it open and drench myself in its blood so the herd wouldn’t sniff me out and tear me to shreds. I had to slice my way through a sea of those suckers, an’ then stumble through the woods covered in gunk for a whole day and a half ‘fore I found my people again. That was the first walker I ever killed on my own. Damn terrifyin’.”

He was quiet after that, face white as a sheet as he shuttered and coughed awkwardly.

“Y-your turn to come up with a topic.” He finally uttered.

“Worst walker encounter you ever had. Mine was this time at a mechanic shop out in… It had to be North Carolina. A guy tried to--well, it’s not important what his intentions were, the point was that he had me handcuffed to one of those automatic levers they use in autobody shops to lift cars, an’ I was hoisted off the ground. He had the keys in his front pocket, an’ I’d managed to get his head ‘tween my thighs to snap his neck. I was tryin’ to reach for the keys with my feet when he re-animated. I was strugglin’, I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t use my arms, the only reason I got out of it was ‘cuz he accidentally bumped up against the control for the lift, and his head ended up crushed under the mechanism. I’ve had a lot of close calls, but I think that was the only time I ever truly felt like I was gonna die.”

Aiden let out a low whistle, letting her words settle. Maybe she’d been right after all. Still, depending on how she saw things, his might still be worse.

“Mine was right at the beginning. My girlfriend was with us while we were traveling for Mom’s campaign. I left for twenty minutes to grab some lunch, and when I got back to our hotel room, she was a walker. I don’t know if she was bitten, or if she had an accident, or if someone… I don’t know. All I know is that I had to kill her with my bare hands just to stay alive. I... dropped the hotel room tv on her head.”

He shuttered at the memory, and to his surprise, he felt (y/n) place her hand on his shoulder and squeeze comfortingly. He grabbed for it, but she pulled away before he could.

“Let’s uh, choose a more up-beat topic,” he continued weakly, “Worst date you ever went on. Mine was this girl Cierra Mauldry in sixth grade. I kissed her goodnight on her porch, and our braces stuck together.”

She laughed at first, but a long-suppressed memory resurfaced at the mention of dates, and instantly she was somber again.

“A guy I worked with at the CDC,” she started softly.

“He’d had a crush on me for a while, an’ I’d just learned that my dad died, so I was in kind of a vulnerable spot. I said yes to grabbin’ dinner together, an’ takin a walk ‘round the facility. When we got back to his room, he wanted to sleep with me, but I didn’t. I didn’t really like him that way, an’ I didn’t think it was fair to him to string him along, so I told him ‘no’, an’ that we should just remain professional from now on. Next day, he didn’t show up in the lab, an’ my boss sent me to go get ‘im. I found him as a walker hangin’ from his closet.” She took a hiccupping breath, reliving the memory in her mind, and scrunching her eyes shut. “Worst part is I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name.”

They were both quiet after that, and soon, they heard Spencer calling up to relieve (y/n) from her shift. She grinned sympathetically down and Aiden, and gave him the goodbye of:

“Told you it was a bad game to play with me.”

Still, when she got up, he scrambled to his feet as well grabbing her arm to stop her before she made her way down the ladder.

“Well, hey, I still had fun. I got to know you a bit better. I’d like to continue doing that, maybe you could come over for dinner and eat with my family tonight.”

She smiled the smile she usually did; like she was talking to a slow, and simple child.

“I’m sorry, Aiden, but tonight’s not great. Daryl’s gotten kind of close with his recruitn’ buddy, and his husband wants us to come to dinner tonight so he can finally properly meet me.”

Aiden scrunched up his eyes in confusion.

“What? What does Daryl getting close with them have to do with you? If they wanted to get to know you, couldn’t they just approach you without having to go through him?”

She smiled wider like he’d said something adorably stupid, as she clarified:

“I didn’t explain it very well, It’s more like a couple’s dinner party sort-of thing.”

Aiden blinked. What? What the fuck? Was she insinuating that she and Daryl were… she couldn’t be, right?

“You and Daryl are together?”

She nodded as if his statement was beyond obvious, “we’re married,” she corrected.

He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to picture the violent, mean, constantly dirty guy with the long, long hair together with the clever, beautiful, and secretly caring woman he’d been trying to flirt with for the past week and a half, but he just couldn’t picture it.

“How?” he blurted out.

“How do people get married?” she teased flatly.

“No, how did you two end up together? You’re so different!”

She smiled softly, looking down at her fingers as she began to twiddle them. This smile was different than any of the ones he’d reluctantly wrangled out of her. This one was genuine, and bashful, and affectionate, and dazzling. Aiden knew it wasn’t for him, and it almost felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be just by looking at her.

“He an’ I are a lot more alike than people realize. We’re more alike than even he realizes, I think. That doesn’t matter though. These days, it’s not about whether you’re similar, or if you’ve known each other for a long time, it’s all about who you can trust and depend on. It’s about who you’d die for, and who’d die for you. We might not have ended up together in the old world, but in this one, we’ve got somethin’ strong. Somethin’ special.”

She grinned brightly, practically knocking the breath out of her companion as she looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

With that, his grip on her arm retracted, and she finally made her way down the ladder. He watched her walk down the street and run into the man they’d just been discussing. He watched as she strode over to him, and gripped his leather vest, trying to pull him down for a kiss.

He noticed how Daryl grinned fondly and put his hands on her waist, placing a quick peck on the tip of her nose. He noticed how she leaned into him with her whole body. He noticed how the sun reflected off the ring on her finger, the ring he had not gathered was supposed to be a wedding ring until that moment. He noticed how soft Daryl was for her when no one else was around.

Or maybe, he was always like this around her, and Aiden had just been too absorbed in himself to realize.

[nctinmotion]

Source: This