#cannon adjacent

[melon1987]

I saw the opportunity and I took it lmao, although I might be a bit late to the party >_>

That Narinder figure is still such a wild thing to have just appear out of nowhere like holy gosh

[sirloony]

Mono theory/headcannon!

(Ive just gotten back into the fandom and havent fully gotten all the lore from the new media so if this isn't entirely accurate im sorry this is purely for fun)

I heavily belive that Mono is stuck in a time loop but I heard somewhere that its only him whos stuck in the loop. Which got me thinking about the implications of that.

I think that the original Mono before any loops didnt have any powers and was just a normal (but heavily traumatized) child stuck in the No Where.

The pale city didnt have a thin man, just the signal tower. Its effects were alot less powerful then what we saw in little nightmares 2 but it was still brain washing and getting people hooked.

I think its possible that Mono is a key role for each one of the Ladies at the Maw, meaning that original Mono would have gotten betrayed by the first lady (who i think is the grannie in the LN1 dlc)

After the original betrayal thats when the loop begins and the signal tower chooses Mono (Thin man) to become THE face of the city, just like how the lady is THE face for the maw. But unlike the lady where the power gets passed on from person to person, Mono just restarts the loop once he grows up, with little to no memories of how he got there. Each timeline is a little different but it all ends with him getting betrayed.

Eventually Mono is reduced to just instinct. Hes not a resident of the NoWhere but he isn't really human either if that makes sense? Hes something in-between. His goal is to just follow the urge to get closer to the tower. With each loop, his powers get stronger and stronger as he loses more of what he once was.

With six I feel like things are way more different then any other lady (since she doesn't become the lady in the end there is definitely something different about her) she still betrays Mono but this loop is different from the others. I think six restores some of the human hes lost and he feels the urge to learn to be human again, dispite having no idea how. Which makes her betrayal all the more heartbreaking to mono since shes the only thing that filled that void.

Hes still a little kid no matter what, just more confused when it comes to normalcy but more aware of the NoWhere just by instinct.

I hope this made any sort of sense, if you guys wanna add on to this or adjust to fit the lore better be my guest I would love to talk more about it :)

Im not 100% married to this idea it just came to me

[rui-ayaki-lower5]

So I dont know which of you trainers is in charge of that blonde thunder-breathing kid, But you need to take him to a psychologist or something! Mid-battle against me he dropped some really heavy baggage and last I checked I'm not a therapist!

[freddiefagbearsdiner]

Garroth and Laurence Deserved Better

Garroth and Laurence had so much potential to be like. Good well written fleshed out characters. And I get it. 2015 block roleplay. Leave me alone. Let me dream.

With Garroth being the runaway heir to the throne to the major city Irene overthrew way back when wile having a brother that’s one son being the spawn of Satan from a young age but with the added pressure of his father only worsened into a power hungry fiend dead set on power and status. And then there’s his sweet little half brother Vylad. Poor kid. Damn.

Have him struggle with having run away at such a young age. He was the prince. Come on. There’s not a damn chance he knew what the hell he was doing. I just know he grew up not lifting a finger and then all of the sudden he gets this grand idea to run away and go to guard training? Yeah, sure.

And alright, give him the benefit of the doubt. Assume that he had training. He was likely required to have some kind of skill and if it was to be anything it was to learn how to be militant. Maybe less about physically fighting and more about strategizing, but still. It was without a doubt good training. But that’s it. He was a good fighter. How do you think he interacted with lower classes? That was likely engrained into his brain not to treat them as kind of sub par. He’s kind. Yes. But there’s no way he isn’t at least a little bit snobby.

You’re not going to tell me that he was well equipped with skills to navigate the real world just like that. He’d previously had no purpose for them. So why would they have been taught? He got into guard training im convinced under some kind of Alias. Maybe Garroth even is an Alias. Because come on. He’s not going into the guard as his real name being Ro'meave. Or maybe it’s one of those scenarios like when Princess Diana became Queen Diana skyrocketed as a baby name for girls and he just didn’t have to require his last name in order to enroll. Perhaps it was in a tumultuous time. Possibly from Garroth’s disappearance. Maybe the lord of O’Khasis (his father) put out news that his son was missing so the number of guards went up in hopes of finding him and gaining good favor with one of the biggest powerhouses there is.

Garroth didn’t go in just knowing how to do things. He didn’t grow up in a small village learning how to do things. He likely struggled. He likely messed up a lot. He very likely just overall sucked for a little bit. The trauma of being thrown into a world you thought you knew but actually know not a single thing about is traumatizing and hard. He had to have been a child and that’s not easy for even an adult to understand and handle. The sudden change of this new person showing up into the swing of things like a random baseball smashing through the window is going to set off some alarm bells.

He doesn’t trust people. That’s another thing. He’s been hiding his identity for what we can assume to be for years now. He’s no doubt like. In his late 20’s early 30’s now. So it’s not just a oh it’s been a year. No this is a grown ass man. He’s been hiding for a while. He’s bound to have shown it once. Maybe even twice. Phoenix Drop might not be the first village he’s been in. Maybe he had to flee the first village because he trusted the lord he was serving and they threatened to turn him in because the news was still relatively fresh (within the first few years. Maybe year three) that the eldest son and heir to the O’Khasis throne was missing and offered some kind of high reward. A head guard is useful but a hefty bonus of gold, jewels, and status is much more useful.

This would have made him so much less trusting of Aphmau to begin with. Why the hell should he trust some new person they literally found in the forest. Appreciative. Yes. Judgmental and closed off? Absolutely.

And then we have Laurence.

Laurence. God. Poor Laurence. Give the man a break. We know that he deserved better. We all know that his flirtation is just a big ruse to hide the insecurity. We know he has trauma over losing a lord and essential father. We know he has trauma over Sasha. And lord knows we know about the Nether.

That wasn’t just a little week long stay in the nether. I think out of the most of them the nether would be the one to get to him the most because as much as losing a loved one hurts tremendously. The loss of a loved one is, and can be, a very almost passive thing. It’s something you can kind of chose to ignore until you’re ready to process it. Again, kind of. You can only sit in denial so long until it begins to rot at the realities you've created for yourself. It will catch up to you whether you are ready for it to or not. You can take it in bits. Even if those bits are larger than expected and harder to handle than needed.

Laurence struggled with anger. We know this. But it doesn’t make sense that it’s just a little struggle with anger. It doesn’t make sense that he’d be able to get good consistent sleep. It doesn’t make sense that he’s not at least a little uncomfortable or fragile around the sight of a torch light being a little too big or a campfire a little too hot and wild.

Give me doubt. Give me vitriol! Give me a Laurence with properly written trauma! And not in a tropey way. God. Yes they have nightmares but that’s not just a trope that actually happens to people. Being stuck in a paranoid daydream is real. Being stuck because you smelled or saw or heard or tasted something is real.

Give me Laurence who really does yearn for close, meaningful connections but the nature of his profession not only makes that dangerous but the nature of his new nature makes that even more difficult and dangerous because oh goodness. Lookie here. If you even for a second lose sight of how you are you’ve done exactly as what they said you’d do! <3

[dickfics69]

Emotional Motion Sickness (A Rickyl FICLET) | Chapter 1

PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8 | PART 9

AO3

Summary: Daryl gets sick before a supply run, and denies it vehemently. He is a big tantrum baby. Rick is constantly worried and drama ensures.

Chapter 1 Summary: Daryl wakes up with a cold and resolves to be a dick about it.

AU: This fic has some timeline and plot-point changes. They are still in the prison and the second Governor fight never happened. He died in the first one and the last few months have been them adjusting to all the new Woodbury inhabitants. Rick and Lori broke up when Shane was killed, but Rick still lost his mind when she died. Daryl and Rick have just recently gotten together. Farmer Rick era is lot shorter than in the show. An original character is introduced for plot furthering purposes.

Content warning: adult language, sickfic, mess, snot, bodily functions, hurt/comfort, vivid nightmares, adult content, 18+ for eventual smut (still deciding hehe), original characte

Word count: 1.5k+

My personal Daryl playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2PrdzgwtCiUgwDLLBy5C4g?si=c83773b44c964bb1

TY to @dumbslxtclub for being my editor

Chapter 1: We're gonna need a bigger bed

Daryl’s sleep was restless, interrupted – punctuated with a deep-set tickle in his nose, a dull headache and feverish mind. A mind filled with prickly nightmares of his friends and family being devoured by the undead. More than once during the night, Daryl awoke in a fright only to be comforted by Rick’s steady breathing underneath his head, and his strong deputy arm sleepily caressing the small of the hunter’s scarred back. He looped his left arm under Rick’s torso, snuggling in tight, preparing to be a slave to sleep for what felt like the fiftieth time that night. Just as he was about to drift away, a sharp tickle entered Daryl’s nose. Whipping his arm out from underneath his sleeping love, he aggressively rubbed the itchy side of his nose with his spare thumb, propping himself up on his elbow and away from Rick so as not to wake him.

“Heh..heh…hah-” The tickle grew and Daryl brought up his whole palm to attack the burning itch that settled in his left nostril. ‘Jeeeeesus fuck! Just go away,’ he thought as the flat of his hand aggressively scrubbed at the side of his face and nose. 

It didn’t work.

“Heeh Ngxxtsh, NnnGggt, GTsh, AAtchNGXshuUU.” Liquid poured through Daryl’s finger and thumb that plugged his nose closed, as he attempted to stifle the fire that rippled through his sinuses.

Content with his semi-silent sneeze attack, Daryl wiped the snot that coated his hand on the flimsy prison sheets with frustrated disgust. Ugh, fuck this.

Tentatively, he lays back down on Rick’s chest, checking his leader's face all the while to make sure he didn’t wake while he dealt with his nose. Wrapping himself up in the prison bedding and nestling into the Deputy’s warmth, Daryl waited for sleep to take him yet again as he listened to the fall rain beat down on the windows and the drips of water percussing the floors of the cell block. The cold weather had snuck up on the group gradually and then all at once, the gray skies and constant frigid rain dampening the spirits of the prison inhabitants. The hunter was used to the swift changes of the elements though, and continued his day to day activities; quality time with Rick in the watchtower, going out hunting, the watchtower with Rick, going on supply runs, more sex in the watchtower with Rick. Daryl was always wandering back into the prison drenched to the bone with a head of sopping wet hair that he made no real attempt to keep dry. So, logically it made sense that he would come down with something eventually, but still. It’s just allergies, I don’t get sick.

Sleep. Sleep came- sleep came eventually in congested, mouth breathing waves of sickness and anxiety and denial. Not. Sick.

-----

Daryl’s legs didn’t work anymore – a gunshot. Fuck. He could still move though, could still crawl on his arms like those walkers who lost their legs through the fray and sat in the ground snarling at the heartbeats that ran by them. I. Am. Not. Dead. Yet.

Carl, Michonne, Judith… Rick, where the FUCK was Rick? Accepting his fate, Daryl propped himself against the mid-century weatherboard of his lov- best friend’s old house.

“Fuck, Daryl!” Rick ran up to the hunter, propped against the side of his old house and dragged his head into the leader's lap.

“I ain’t dead yet, -  just a bullet - I’m fine,” Daryl insisted, but Rick’s tears ran with crimson blood as Michonne and Carl came tumbling in slow motion towards him, Judith crawling behind.

“What do we do?”

“I love him.”

“Can’t help this dad.”

“It’s the end.”

“The bow… get the…bow.”

“We need it.”

“We shouldn’t”

“Maybe just a taste?”

He couldn’t place where or who the voices were coming from, but before he knew it, Daryl’s auditory functions were infiltrated by hissing and gurgling.

Looking up from his hand folded around Rick’s, he saw the emptiness, the lifelessness and the hunger behind the eyes of all of those whom he loved so dearly.

He knew what was coming and yet he looked out beyond Michonne, beyond Carl, towards Judith. His Judith. Hoping, praying, begging¸ that she would crawl into his lap the way she always would when she was scared. But as he looked towards her, Daryl caught the eyes of a creature not known to him anymore, something they all feared but never voiced.

His shoulders dipped, accepting his fate. He felt the pressure in his skull and chest as his once best friends engulfed his body, gaining fuel for the new world of the undead.

Pain. Pain. Pressure. Burning. Can’t. Fucking. Breath. I’m gone. I’m dead.

------

“Huh…EESh..Uu!, heh…huh..hu’ESSHH’u…huhsnkxnt..uhhhhh.” Daryl sneezed himself awake, barely whipping his hand up in time to catch the last itchy sneeze.. Ugh. Rick’s half asleep body jolted slightly at the sheer force of the outburst. Ngg, sorry love. 

Snot bled out of his nostrils onto Rick’s clean, dark green Henley. Fuck, more washing. You don’t deserve this comfort.

As the early morning light painted the cramped prison cell, Daryl brought his hand up in a feeble attempt to wipe the mess that he created on his partner's shirt. Suddenly remembering his dream, Daryl whipped his heavy head up to look at his love’s face, which was stretching with early morning sleepiness.

“Mmnh…good morning snuffles,” Rick said with a yawn and an outward stretch of his limbs, leaving Daryl feeling surprisingly cold and alone with the brief absence of muscular arms around him. ‘It’s okay, Rick is alive, he’s alive, Daryl. You’re alive. It was a dream, you idiot. And also, you ain’t sick.’

As Rick reshuffled to bring him into a closer embrace at his armpit, Daryl quickly snorted back the liquid that was threatening to escape his nostril once again, to avoid suspicion, to avoid the attention. The disgust that was thrust upon him whenever he was ill as a child came flooding back to his attention, threatening to flood his eyes with tears. Fuck you, dad.

Not wanting to talk, not wanting to share the details of his dreams, Daryl just wrapped his arms around Rick again, but not before giving his nose a quick scrub, trying to evade the rest of the early morning tickle that had made a home in his sinuses. To no avail.

“Hh..hieehShUUu! Ng’nxxgt..guh.” The sneezes that he so longingly tried to suppress snuck up on Daryl like a walker in a river, effectively turning Rick into his own personal snot rag and further forcing himself to admit the inevitable. I’m fucking sick, but ain’t no way they gonna know that.

”Bless you!” Rick cooed, running a hand through Daryl’s shaggy locks, “You were snuffling and snoring all night, you coming down with something?” Rick’s concern was genuine but Daryl only knew how to be a dick about this sort of thing.

“’Mmmb..fin…hehf…fiiin..heh..h…fheh..HAH’EESCHshu…Hu’ESCht..h’nnggxt..ugh.”  As Daryl attempted to say the simple phrase ‘I’m fine’, he managed to capture the last volley of sneezes in a cupped palm around his dripping, yet completely blocked up nose.

Sniffling back a line of snot, he relaxed back into Rick’s embrace and mentally begged that he would just leave it alone and just let them hold each other like every drizzly fall morning before Judith woke up. Judith-

“You’re really catching something, aren’t ya?” Rick sounded a lot more awake and a lot more concerned. He brought a hand up to check Daryl’s forehead, but the hunter simply flinched away and grunted in defence, pushing aside his traumatic dream from the night prior.

“Mb’fine!” He retorted through gritted teeth, willing himself not to launch into a coughing fit and destroy the mask he’d so expertly established.

“Alright. If you say so.” The leader responded by patting down the stray hairs from his partner’s feverish head. “If you’d like to clean up your snot trails on my shirt though, that’d be ace.” Rick half laughed, hoping for more than a grunt back from the older man.

Of course, Rick knew better. He knew he knew better, trying to get a reasonable response from Daryl when he was like this. But it was always the same, whether his stomach hurt, whether ragweed was in bloom, whether he’d impaled himself on his own arrow and been shot by a friend, Rick tried to make him smile, to ease his suffering, to be there, just to alleviate his pain a tiny bit.

But Daryl was a stubborn prick, even with the love of his life, he was one determined arsehole.

Drawing his hand from underneath Rick’s waist, Daryl pointedly flipped his partner off, “’Mb fucking finde Grimbes you fuckind’ mother fucker!” Yeah, that shut him up.

Before Rick had a chance to add a word in, Daryl sat himself up quickly. Too quickly for his congested head, but not quickly enough to absolve the concerned blue eyes boring into the back of his head.

“Daryl, please- “

“Gotta piss.” He interjected, wiping his nose hard with the breadth of his palm.

It wasn’t a complete lie though- sex with Deputy Rick Grimes tended to have all kinds of consequences below the belt buckle. Not that I’d ever complain about that, Daryl mused before climbing over Rick’s body. Standing vaguely upright, he snorted back some more congestion, chewed anxiously on the side of his thumb and stared down at his partner who wore an unreadable expression that Daryl guessed was not unlike his own. Some tense silence followed, and Daryl gripped the edge of the top bunk to steady himself.

“We need a fucking bigger bed.” Daryl punctuated the morning's tension out of the blue as he stormed out of the cell, the hanging blanket flapping deliberately behind him.

He wasn’t gone two seconds before he re-entered the cell, nose full of congestion and head filled with cotton wool.

“Just be ready for the rund, mb’kay?” He ordered, receiving a nod with the same unreadable expression as before, and then he left to take his piss for good.

Being sick on a rainy supply run? Shitty. Being sick on a rainy supply run with a quiet but concerned boyfriend? Shittier. Being sick on a rainy supply run with a boyfriend and his thirteen year old son? The shittiest. Being miserably sick in the rain with an over concerned boyfriend, his chatty son, and some annoying knife throwing Australian chick? Terrible, frustrating, uncomfortable and downright humiliating .

Buckle up Dixon, get your acting hat on, because the next few days are going to be miserable.

[freddiefagbearsdiner]

Zenix and that whole betrayal bit.

not proof read, these are just my immediate thoughts based off of some lore I thought about the other day.

How I'm planning to handle Zenix and his betrayal to the village and Garroth is a good bit different.

What I'm leaning toward is that Shadow Knights are told to kids as a kind of warning story so they're good and don't go messing around in things they shouldn't. Like how you tell kids that if they're not good, Santa is going to bring them coal.

This is much more of a tale told to kids that have a habit of hitting or harming other kids. Not anything severe, but definitely a, don't harm people or the Shadow Knights are going to think you're a good enough recruit and take you away to be one of their eternal hell soldiers. You know. Casual stuff you normally tell kids.

Obviously.

So, now that we have that out of the way, I'm thinking of taking a Gene and Dante approach to all of this where Zenix fucks around and finds out with some of his friends. They do a summoning ritual on a mostly broken portal they found in the woods. Yeah. The summoning ritual does nothing but for a few days, the kids just kind of hang around this portal because, hey, this is a pretty neat spot.

That is until one kid decides to amp up the spook factor and bring fire into the mix. Yeah. That kid is Zenix. The ritual is complete and the portal opens up to absolutely just reign hellfire on this poor group of kids who were just trying to have fun and make light of the horrible lessons their parents and grandparents thought were good for them. They weren't bad kids, they just likely never had anyone show them the proper way to treat people and process their emotions in a nonviolent way. Those kids are now dead and or shadow knights.

These shadow knights come out and attack this poor group of kids and kidnap them so they can be taken to the nether for either soul power or just plain ole shadow knights. These kids are taken and the village nearby is wiped out within hours.

How Zenix leaves is sometime around when he's like 10-12. Not too young to be fooled by the tales but still not old enough to not be at least a little scared by it. When he comes out of the nether, he's just now maybe 15-16 years old. He's spent the end bit of his childhood being held captive and brainwashed to be a shadow knight.

Where he's found is unsure, but we know it's by Garroth and that he was pretty messed up when he was found. The shadow knight, Gene, most likely, kind of just dumped him there without much guidance and just told him that he needs to make his transformation official and kill someone.

He's this clueless kid with extremely violent tendencies and no way or knowledge on how to fight or even how to hold a sword and suddenly this massive guard has found him and is taking him in and teaching him how to be a guard...? Okay. sure. I guess that could work.

I'm thinking that Zenix is the on who killed the original Pheonix Drop Lord but just by sheer luck because we see how bad he is at Archery. I'm actually maybe even going to take that a step forward and say he was aiming for Garroth but missed. Anyway. Him killing the Lord of Pheonix Drop doesn't quite work because of his status and level of closeness with Garroth vs the lord. He didn't particularly interact with anyone but Garroth so it would make the most sense to kill Garroth.

And I'm definitely using Brendon getting shot as a hefty source of like, oh, I better practice. Why not make it on someone who doesn't really matter to me?

After Brendon is shot and gets better, Garroth being shot is a much more serious issue. Because Zenix kind of maybe knows what he's doing now when it comes to a bow. And Hell, this is where I think stuff gets really interesting. Because, what if, for even just a brief second, Garroth's heart stops. But, being how immensely chaotic my OC I've created to be the stand-in for Aphmau in a way, hits him on the chest really hard once and starts him back up again. Kind of like how you'd smack a computer monitor that blue screened. Works just fine again, just needs a little encouragement, you know? But that's all it took for Zenix to be a shadow knight. He just needed that brief moment of death in order to fulfill that quota. He's an amalgamation.

All in all, Garroth lives and is fine. He's all good. He takes a good few days to recover. His heart stopped briefly, but not anything that the doctors thought would cause any issues. Just something to keep an eye on for the next couple of months or so.

I'm still keeping the whole nether, Kiva, healing potions bit because I think that's something too relevant to just cut out entirely. It's planned out to be a much more cohesive series of events though, so keep that in mind. It will still be different, but it will still definitely follow the same outline. Mostly because, well, Garroth wasn't just nicked. This man died for a few seconds and that's not something that should be taken lightly. The healing magic would be useful not just because Garroth is hurt, but because Garroth is now the only guard in the village that is perpetually not drunk. Aka, Dale. The village doesn't just care about Garroth, they kind of need him to be reliable so that they can remain safe.

Markus, in his canon, is a guard, but from a very long time ago as he goes by a completely different moral code than Garroth as well as having no clear clarifications on him that he's actually a guard, and he's also kind of became the Lord of Pheonix drop somewhere in the time that he showed up to now, so that's another thing.

[dickfics69]

Emotional Motion Sickness | Part 2

PART 1 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8 | PART 9

AO3

Rick x Daryl

Summary: Daryl gets sick before a supply run, and denies it vehemently. He is a big tantrum baby. Rick is constantly worried and drama ensures.

Chapter 2 Summary: The cold morning wears on and Daryl gets sicker and more irritable, lashing out at those who are trying to help him. He is fragile and does not believe he deserves any sort of comfort.

AU: This fic has some timeline and plot-point changes. They are still in the prison and the second Governor fight never happened. He died in the first one and the last few months have been them adjusting to all the new Woodbury inhabitants. Rick and Lori broke up when Shane was killed, but Rick still lost his mind when she died. Daryl and Rick have just recently gotten together. Farmer Rick era is lot shorter than in the show. An original character is introduced for plot furthering purposes. Also this is Daryl on the cusp between feral Daryl, and 'I will protect my people within an inch of my life' Daryl, because it's fun to write both

Content warning: adult language, sickfic, mess, snot, bodily functions, hurt/comfort, vivid nightmares, adult content, 18+ for eventual smut (still deciding hehe), original character

Word count: 2.9k+

My Personal Daryl Dixon playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2PrdzgwtCiUgwDLLBy5C4g?si=c83773b44c964bb1

As always ty to @dumbslxtclub for editing and hyping me up

pls enjoy and feel free to leave comments :)

Chapter 2: Daryl is Daryl

Daryl stood motionless under the stream of icy shower water, willing himself to wake up from whatever nightmare he was about to enter. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been in there, but he knew he needed to get out before the freezing water rendered him as good as dead. The only semblance of warmth Daryl could feel was the hot trail of sticky liquid that flowed from his nostrils without inhibition.

With a wrist pressed hard against his nose, he sniffled back hard, hoping to quash the intense tickle that seemed to only get worse as the morning trudged on.

“Fu..huh…ck…HAH’EESCHshuU…Heh..h’AATChoO…Fuhc’heh’eeEITChuuU…

hih’EtSSCht…Nnng '' The sneezes ripped out of Daryl with full abandon, bending him at the waist and scraping his throat in their natural glory. Launching into a coughing fit, he braced the walls of the shower for support as he surrendered to the mercy of his lungs..

When he had recovered enough to open his eyes he was rudely greeted with a wave of intense dizziness and specks of black invading his vision. He shut off the water and snorted loudly, attempting feebly to clear the congestion that had become a permanent feature in his nose. Jesus it’d be nice to breathe again.

Wrapping a small towel around his waist, Daryl was wracked with a deep shiver that set a chill deep in his bones, he knew would not go away.

He shook his mess of chocolate brown hair out like a wet dog and looked down at the pile of black clothes that he haphazardly grabbed from his old room at the top of the cell block. His faded jeans with one too many blood stains, one of Rick’s soft undershirts that he had stolen because it smelt like him, and the oversized sweatshirt Carol had found and gifted to him last winter. 

Daryl dried and dressed, still unable to shake the chill that had made an unwelcome residence in the hunter’s sick body. He hoped that his leather vest would be the answer to keeping his body warm today. Not that he knew where it was. ‘Probably screwed up in a pile of Rick’s things’ he mused, picturing his bearded partner repeatedly tearing it off his body in hot fits of passion. A tiny smile crept into the corners of Daryl’s mouth, as his steadfast resolve softened slightly.

Lifting his head, Daryl caught a glimpse of his reflection in a distant, broken mirror. He walked up to the grimy basin to study his face a bit more closely. Regarding his own reflection was an activity Daryl seldom took part in, but he had to know what he was dealing with today.

Chewing briefly on the side of his thumb, he looked up and was taken aback by the sickly image before him. If he wasn’t breathing and continually fighting the urge to sneeze, he could’ve sworn that he’d died and turned into a walker. His skin was pale and clammy, the only colour coming from a feverish hue in his cheeks and the pink around his chapped, irritated nostrils. Daryl’s normally icy blue eyes were lost within the tired purple bags that sat beneath them, looking like he’d gone several rounds with the butt of a revolver. His damp hair stuck to his forehead, and a thin trickle of mucus was beginning to settle on his upper lip.

Growling to himself, Daryl picked up the rag in front of him and blew, and blew, and blew his nose hard. He was disgusted with just how quickly he filled up the fabric and how little relief it actually granted him.

The blowing disturbed the weak equilibrium his nose had established in the brief time he was out of the shower. His angry sinuses sought their revenge with an intense burning that no amount of sniffling, wiggling or rubbing could suppress. A slave to his body, Daryl had no choice but to grip the basin tight and strap in for the ride.

“heh…h’ATSCH uU… h’EITCHEW… Hh’EsTCHUU… Hh’GstcHh, GstcHh, h’EITch …heh…heh…HAH’EESCHshuU!” He collapsed to the floor with the sheer intensity of the attack. He sat pitifully against the concrete wall, welcoming the cool touch on his over exerted body.

Breathing hard and shallow, the hunter tried to remember the last time he’d ever felt so goddamned awful, but came up short. Tears pricked the corners of Daryl’s tired eyes, but whether it was from the sneezing or the anxiety that had risen up in his throat, he was unsure. Letting his cantankerous guard down for a second, Daryl allowed himself a moment of longing. He so longed to be held in the arms of his love, having his head stroked and being told that ‘everything would be alright’- a newfound luxury he vowed never to take for granted. He longed for warmth, for rest, for sleep, for vapour rub and hot tea. He longed to cry.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. The fall of The Governor, while decreasing the immediate threat, had brought more challenges with the residents from Woodbury joining ranks with those at the prison. More hands to help, but more mouths to feed. The demand for supplies seemed to have tripled overnight, putting immense pressure on Rick and the council. There were too many people relying on Daryl and he refused to be a burden to anyone, especially his love. 

‘Pull yourself together Dixon, it’s just a fucking cold.’ 

Mental pep talk done, Daryl dragged himself up from the floor, splashed his face with cold water, snorted and headed for the door. 

Stopping in his tracks, he heard the unmistakable voices of his best friend and boyfriend talking rather loudly down the end of the cell block. Now, eavesdropping wasn’t usually on the list of Daryl’s preferred past times, but today he granted himself the exception. 

Opening the bathroom door a crack, Daryl committed to some solid mouth breathing and listened pointedly. 

“I’m just asking you to talk to him-” Rick’s voice echoed through the draughty tomb. “He was sniffling and sneezing all night and I just don’t think he’ll make it through the next couple of days.”

“Do you two ever talk to each other in the watchtower or?” Carol laughed heartily. ‘Jesus, of course we do.’

“J…Jesus of course we do!” Rick’s spreading blush was almost audible as the two men shared the same thought. “Com’on this is serious Carol! I don’t know what to do, he’s just so damn stubborn. You’re his best friend, how do I deal with him?” 

‘Deal with me?’ A ripple of pain burst through Daryl’s chest. He wrapped his arms around himself in order not to shake the door open with emotion. 

“I know, I know Rick.” Carol comforted, “The thing is, Daryl is Daryl, and sometimes you gotta wait a long time for a personal victory.” She hesitated for a moment before continuing.“May I give you some advice?”

“Yes, anything, please,” Rick practically begged, which left Daryl feeling immensely worse, if that was even possible.

“Avoid smothering, give him space, and please try not to say anything stupid.”

They kept talking but Daryl’s heart burned. ‘So much for not bein’ a burden, idiot’. He was hurt and angry but leaned into the rage as he pondered his next move. Two options presented themselves- wait until they were gone and leave the bathroom with a skerrick of dignity, or or, bust into their conversation for a thinly veiled upper hand? Logically, he knew what to do, but hell! Daryl was Daryl right?

“Sorry I mbissed the dambnd mbother’s club mbeeting!” Daryl’s congested voice echoed through the tomb of the cell block, drawing concerned blue and green eyes to meet the feverish man. “Just leave mbe a ndote next timbe, mbaybe I can joind y’all!” He stormed through the pair, making a pitiful effort to bump into his boyfriend on the way past.

“Daryl, babe -” Rick reached out to grab his partner’s arm, only to be violently shaken off.

“-Dond’t fugcking touch mbe!” he warned with an unintended sickly, feral energy radiating from his eyes. A mini stand off between two lovers and a friend. ‘Welcome to the Daryl Dixon Drama Kingdom’ he mentally decreed before storming off in a delirious, guilt ridden rage. ‘You really are impossible.’

Carol and Rick stood standing in shock, almost unable to process what had just happened. She crossed her arms in frustration and he hung his head in defeat. 

“Daryl is Daryl” he echoed, as his boyfriend’s descending footsteps drew to a silent finish.

—

Still reeling from the events of the shower block, Daryl stormed into Rick’s cell to look for his vest; shivering, snorting and sneezing all the while. Rifling through the piles of mixed up clothes he eventually found it tucked under the mattress of the top bunk. He threw it on and stupidly hoped he’d somehow feel better. Instead he sneezed thrice and launched into yet another waist-bending coughing fit. The dry barking was turning into wet hacking, and Daryl desperately tried to deny the sensation of drowning surging through his body. 

He contemplated laying down to sleep a while before he had to pack the truck, but Rick could be back at any second, and with the way he’d acted this morning, keeping up appearances was of the utmost importance. So off he went to breakfast. 

—

A quick survey of the room and everyone seemed to be chatting amongst themselves, unaware of the events that had plagued Daryl’s morning. Unfortunately there was a seat free next to Carol, and of course she had to look up at him and beckoned him over. 

He slipped sheepishly in beside her, hoping that she’d just eat her cereal in silence, but luck was not on Daryl’s side this rainy season.

“Look at your hair! I swear it’s getting darker and longer by the day!” She ran a hand through his ratty layers, purposely feeling for a fever she could already tell was there. Daryl begrudgingly knew this, but welcomed the touch anyway.

“Mbmm.” he wheezed, losing the identity of his voice to the virus that plagued him.

“I could give you a haircut you know, get it out of those pretty eyes.” She cupped his chin, offering a little bit too much comfort, but Daryl didn't recoil. 

“Ondly if I get the Carol super special,” he mused, sharing a genuine laugh with his best friend. Looking at each other for a moment, Daryl felt a twang of guilt deepset in his sternum. His war wasn’t with Carol, and it shouldn’t be with Rick but still, he needed to absolve something.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked earnestly.

She smiled fondly, “It’s okay to not be okay,” she whispered, and for a split second, they were the only two people in the entire prison. 

*CLANG*

A sad plate of dry toast suddenly landed in front of Daryl, making him jump slightly from the bench. Trailing his tired eyes along the table, blue met blue as Rick placed himself next to the hunter at the table. He wore a mix of anger and disappointment across his face and inhaled sharply through his nose, almost mocking the sick man who could not. .

“Eat.” he spat, turning back to his own plate of food.

“Mb’not hungry,” Daryl mumbled, anxiously biting his fingers again. 

“Daryl just-” Rick stopped him himself and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Fine, whatever, I don’t care” the exasperated man relented, heeding the advice of a friend.

‘Petty breeds petty, I guess.’ 

After a while, the people around him joined in on other conversations. Rick laughed heartily at something Michonne had said, and Carol had turned away to attend to a couple of the smaller girls that had recently joined the group. Daryl was sure he knew their names, but the fog that pressed on his head rendered his neural pathways useless today. He picked a bit at his piece of toast, a knuckle pressed hard against the base of his sensitive nostrils, determined to ward off another attack. 

“Someone’s excited to see their Daddy this morning!” The melodic voice of one Beth Greene rose above the others as she walked over and handed baby Judith to Rick. The deputy’s face lit up as his daughter giggled with joy and made attempts to grab at her father’s beard.

The horrific dream that Daryl had pushed into a recess of his mind, crawled out suddenly to slap him in the face, forcing him to close his eyes and shake the traumatic images away once again. She’s alive, Daryl. You haven’t lost her. Opening his eyes, he scooted a little closer to Rick and reached up gingerly to tickle the toddler’s chubby leg. 

“Mbornin’ lil’ ass kicker.” His voice, thick with congestion, wavered slightly but the little girl squealed with delight at the presence of her tough tracker man. Daryl adored Judith more than mere thoughts could comprehend. They all did. The possibility that something could ever happen to her constantly weighed heavy on his mind and he really hoped Rick couldn’t sense his vulnerable fear.

He could.

Rick didn’t need to mindread to see the upset behind the eyes of his beloved. For longer than they had even been friendly, Daryl had been plagued by vivid nightmares that rendered him anxious and temporarily catatonic. Rick was grateful that being ‘together’ meant that he could finally offer some comfort when the dreams got really bad, but the pain always lingered. Since birth, Judith and Daryl had been inseparable. He stepped up and became a surrogate father when Rick had lost his mind all those months ago and it melted the Deputy’s heart to see his daughter slowly cracking the tough exterior of a man who was truly pure to the bone. Their bond was a great beacon of light in the dark and dungy prison. But recently, Judith had become the lead protagonist in Daryl’s vicious subconscious and that. Broke. His. Heart. 

Rick brought up his hand to tentatively stroke his thumb against another, and breathed out a pent up sigh of relief when Daryl's hand gave a much needed squeeze back. They looked at each other with a keen sense of each other’s mind, and allowed themselves to love and be loved for a moment. 

The moment was fleeting though, as Daryl’s nose once again commandeered the man’s body. Eyebrows furrowing, nostrils quivering and eyes glazing over, he twisted his nose in a final spasmodic sniffle before clamping a hand to his face, and launching into a barrage of painfully suppressed sneezes.

“H’nngt, nngt, nngt…ha’kngt…h’nnxxt-tchu…h’Ggst…heh..heeeh…HA’mmmpht!” Daryl forced himself to muffle the last sneeze into his sleeve of his sweatshirt, a mess that was growing in tandem with his humiliation.

“Bless yo-”

“Dond’t.”

For the first time in his life, he longed to be far away in one of his nightmares, surely nothing could be as hellish as this? Snorting back as quietly as possible, Daryl folded the sleeve of his wet jumper into his lap. Fixing his gaze just above the heads of the people in front of him, he separated himself from the concerned eyes that sat either side of him. ‘Ahhh, when will death come?’

Shockingly, nothing happened and no one said anything. His head was pounding like the sputtering engine of his motorcycle, nose leaking like the roof in their penitentiary, and a violent buzzing bounced its way around his sinus cavity like a bee on the first day of spring. Still. He got away with it, giving the man a fighting resolve to get on with the day and hold steadfast with his denial. ‘I ain’t that sick anyways.’-

“-That’s one hell-of-uh cold you got there son!” Herschel Greene had entered the dining room and click-clacked his way over to Daryl on his crutches. ‘Shit’. “If ya got some time this mornin’ I can check you out, give you some relief for that congestion, hm?”

‘Don’t be a dick to Herschel, don't be a dick to Herschel.’

“Ahh, thagnks for th’ offer, but m’finde. I got allergies s’all.” Not a particularly convincing response on Daryl’s part, but with a wave of anxiety washing over him he just needed to get out of there.

“...Okay, sure then.” The vet responded without a lick of belief. - “Oh Rick, I’d move lil’ Judy a bit farther away if I were you, she don’t have that natural immunity yet, and we don’t want her catching whatever nasty bug Mr Dixon has.”

Yep. Yep. That was it. Daryl was humiliated, pained and deliriously febrile. But he didn’t care anymore. Not enough.

“I already goddamnd told you doc, I. Ain’t. Sick!” He shot up from his seated position, stepped over the bench and planted himself intimately close to Herschel’s face. If he didn’t have an audience before, he definitely had a sold out performance now. Someone tried to grab his hand. Carol? Maybe. Possibly Rick, but it didn’t matter. 

He tore his gaze from The Vet to the rest of the room, an unhinged growl escaping his throat, not unlike a feral cat. 

“Y’know what? Screw you all!” A final fuck you to the peanut gallery that showered him with a mix of shock and concern. He turned and stormed out of the room, forcing himself not to look back, to postpone the guilt that would inevitably hit him sooner or later. 

Swinging the door open with haste, he almost bowled an oblivious Sasha down. But he kept walking, heavy boots beating down on the cold concrete floor. He dramatically spat some mucus onto the ground and then turned towards the armoury. It was time to pack the truck and go.

[freddiefagbearsdiner]

More On Zenix and The Treatment/Social Lore of the Nether

This is a continuation of this post

Names have the potential to hold power, I'm sure that this isn't a surprise to anyone here. Names and words have power. Whether that be something as an insult or a singular word that is heavier than ten mild insults.

That's kind of how I'm going in my rewrite with how the Nether is treated.

Something I notice and have mentioned before is the implementation of media convenience Christianity. What's popular instead of the actual true beliefs and implementations of the religion itself. Today, I see a lot of Christianity's older generations talking about Christianity in such a damning way. And it's not just hard Christianity, that's not what I see happening. What I'm talking about is the absolute just pick-and-choose nature of how the religion itself is taken and talked about. I mean, come on. Of course your kids don't want to be a part of the faith. What did you expect? You claim it's this great wonderful thing but it sounds more like misery than having no faith at all, or just all in all, a different faith system altogether. Of course, younger generations are going to look at you being this awful person claiming this so-called great thing and go, yeah, no thanks.

That is kind of how it goes in my rewrite.

The Nether is talked about with the same kind of warning you would hear from telling a child about the boogeyman. He's going to scare the hell out of young kids, but older kids are going to challenge that. They're going to realize that it's not a real thing.

Except with this, it actually is. The Nether is told to kids in the basic lesson of: if you're mean and try and harm other living things, the Shadow Lord will think that you'd be a good recruit and send his Shadow Knights to come and get you so they can drag you down to the abysmal heat and be one of his servants.

The reason that no one took it seriously was because of how lightly it was talked about. It was talked about just as this urban legend that all of the old people are scared of. It wasn’t anything more than a superstition.

The elder generations also kind of made saying the nether a bad thing. It was always something that was referenced in a different light or whispered. Even spelled out if they really just wanted to be heard.

Miscommunication is what caused children and teenagers to start doing these old rituals for fun little ghost stories and acts of rebellion. This is what caused something called The Nethrithic Panic. The Nethrithic Panic happened because the rumors and proof of villages being attacked by gangs of what claim to be shadow knights were appearing more frequently across the region.

It became a popular insult to call someone aggressive a netherite. It was almost considered a kind of slur in a way. It wasn’t a nice insult to call someone that.

This is how I go about Zane trying to arrest Markus in my rewrite. He was accused of being a Netherite.

How it’s solved is by Laurence still. But it definitely is like. What begins the process of Zane having Phoenix drop be his main target. He points out that he’s such a pure man that Irene’s relic sits on his sword.

Part of the belief in the faith of Irene is that those who have impure intentions are unable to hold the sword of Irene. And Laurence tries to touch the sword only to fake a reaction. Zane knows this is false, but the guards don’t, and so he’s forced to leave it be.

Laurence saves Markus once again. Sadly, no fake engagements are made. Not yet.