A Matching Set (Caryl Post Season 10 One Shot + Grimes babies + Lydia and some Aaron).
Just a little tooth-rotting fluff I found on my hard drive half finished. Kinda, sorta Christmas fic but not. Read it. You’ll see. Sorry not sorry.
“Play lots of Tetris as a kid?”
The mountain man beard does precious little to hide Aaron’s brief grin as he waits for Daryl to add more to that blurted, out of the blue question.
Daryl doesn’t blame him. They ain’t talked a lick since they set off beyond Alexandria’s gates with a wobbly ass wheelbarrow and an ax in dire need of sharpening. Once or twice, Aaron’s hummed a few notes of a couple vaguely familiar Christmas tunes, but other than that? Radio silence. Surprise or not, however, he figures the question’s pretty on point. Especially considering their current means of passing the dwindling daylight hours. “So. Did ya?” he asks again, blue eyes averted and squinting as they search out any signs of potential danger, human or otherwise. Nothing’s there. Hasn’t been since they took the head of the last Whisperer snake, but old habits? They die hard. And if they’ve kept his heart beating this long, he’s not looking to abandon them. ‘Sides. If there were anything out there, he has no doubts Dog would be the first to alert them. Provided, of course, he wakes his lazy ass up in time.
Rising and carefully slotting the last piece of tinder into place atop their firewood pyramid, Aaron lets his own eyes flit over the gray horizon. “See anything?” Soon as Daryl shakes his head, he allows his shoulders to relax. Then he laughs to himself quietly. “As a matter of fact, I did play. You?”
Breath whining past his chapped lips, Daryl doesn’t respond. He’s too focused on heaving the wheelbarrow out of the mud that’s caked around its wheels, his boots, even the abandoned ax. Loaded down as it is, shit’s definitely heavier than it looks, and he gives up, at least momentarily. “That the last of it?”
Aaron nods, bending to reclaim the ax. “That’s the last of it.” Daryl’s muttered thank fuck has his eyes crinkling in a way they haven’t in ages, at least not in the presence of anybody but Gracie. “Need a little help?”
It takes the both of them working together to get the wheelbarrow out of the rut and bumping along the path home. They’ve been walking a while, Dog trotting on ahead, before Daryl picks the dangling thread of conversation back up. “Played,” he admits. “Hell else was detention good for?”
“Pfft. Bet your ass was the permanent hall monitor.”
“You’re looking at a Hall of Famer.”
“Ah, the Daryl Dixon approximation of a belly laugh. I’m breathing rarified air.” When his teasing is merely taken in stride, his steps start to slow and he regards Daryl with something akin to wonder. Dog even turns back to stare.
Feeling his friend’s eyes boring a hole in him, Daryl mutters, “Hell you staring at? Wanna trade places?”
Aaron takes but a second to consider the offer. “I think I’ll pass.”
“No shit. Figured you’d say…”
The sky’s bleached of any color by the time Daryl’s finally headed home. The streets of Alexandria empty.
No wonder because there’s a storm blowing in. First one in what promises to be a long winter season. At least according to their self-appointed weather man Eugene.
Personally? Daryl thinks it’s all some grade A bullshit. Pouring over half a dozen dusty old Farmers’ Almanacs like they hold the answers. Plotting random patterns and pieces of data on time-yellowed paper in chicken scratch that would have put Merle’s own to shame. He doesn’t need or believe any of it because he can feel it in his aging bones like some kind of wizened old wizard. Course, it doesn’t take much these days to make old hurts echo. And the cold he’s feeling now? It chills his blood. Makes him ache and wish to high hell he’d worn the ridiculous hat Carol had tried to shove down over his ears this afternoon before he and Aaron had left out. Embarrassing piece of yarn might have come in handy filtering out the hollow, haunted whistle of the wind, but damn if he was going to sacrifice his dignity like that. Wearing a whole-ass pom-pom on top of his head. A rainbow one at that. Nah. Weren’t all that long a walk from Aaron’s. “Almost there,” he reminds himself. “Almost.”
Dog’s got a little extra giddy-up in his step as he trots ahead.
The mutt looks back and whines as if to tell Daryl hurry and Daryl can’t help but huff something resembling a laugh as he reshuffles the load of firewood stacked clear to his chin to get a better grip. His breath fogs in front of him like thick, odorless cigarette smoke and shit. His fingers might be halfway numb, but they twitch reflexively for the vice he hasn’t allowed himself to indulge in months. Shaking his head, he includes Dog when he grumbles. “Getting soft.”
Dog hangs back and stares him down as if to say speak for yourself.
“Ain’t the only one,” Daryl generously allows when a particularly biting gust of wind swirls around them both. It lifts his hair from his forehead and makes his eyes sting. Has him hunching his shoulders clear to his ears as if that’d do him any good, and he finds himself hurrying just as much as the little fucker that finally abandons him, home within his sights. “Ain’t the only one.”
He sheds his muddy boots just inside the kitchen door and tries to make a grab for Dog before he runs off, he really does, but the damn animal’s too squirrely. Too excited to see his kids. To see his girl. Daryl can relate.
“Ten minutes later and we were going to send out a search party.”
The soft lilt of her voice brings a smile to his mouth before he’s even seen her. “Promised I’d be back.” All the leftover tension from the trek back through the woods melts away beneath her gentle touch and he leans his head back against her chest with a sigh.
“I know that,” she murmurs fondly. “Judith knows that. RJ too.”
“She worries. It’s sweet.”
What’s even sweeter is the feel of her hands in his hair, her nails tickling his scalp, and the smile he feels curve against his cheek before her lips leave a kiss there. “C’mere.”
She’s straddling his lap, arms hooked around his shoulders, and nose nestled against his own before he can ask her twice.
Daryl cups her head and coaxes her closer, her hair slipping like silk between his fingers. He kisses her until they both sigh.
Her smile fills his heart and works a lump into his throat. “Always. Know that.”
She traces the bridge of his nose, the line of his jaw, the curve of his ear, and pouts. “Your ears are cold.”
“Should have worn the fucking hat.”
“I’m not one to say I told you so, but…”
“You really should have worn the fucking hat. I mean, look at me. Really look at me. This isn’t the time or place for vanity,” she teases.
“That’s the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen.” She giggles like a girl. Like Judith. Like Lydia when she doesn’t think anybody’s watching. And he’ll tell her a thousand times the sweater is ugly just to hear that sound again, even though she’s still the prettiest thing he ever did see. “The ugliest damn sweater.”
“The ugliest. I left yours upstairs at the foot of the bed.”
“They’re a matching set.”
The logs are crackling in the fireplace when he comes back downstairs and joins them.
RJ and Judith have their heads together nearby, talking in whispers and giggles. Both of them seemingly transfixed by the orange sparks that float and flicker like fireflies against a midnight sky.
Lydia’s got a book and Dog in her lap and a blanket tucked around her toes. A soft, hesitant smile plays upon her lips when she spies him, and she’s quick to bury her nose back in her book before it can visibly stretch from ear to ear.
“Stahp,” he gives a preemptive grumble when Carol glances up from mending his raggedy ass pants and her sassy mouth starts to twitch. “Woman,” he warns with an accusatory finger when the first laugh sputters free. “If I didn’t know better…”
“Is Aunt Carol in trouble?” RJ asks his big sister.
Judith’s smile is soft and knowing even at her tender age. “Not really.”
Lydia does the answering this time. “Probably.”
“Did the Brave Man kiss Mama all the time too?”
“He did,” Judith answers wistfully.
“It’s what two people that love each other do.”
The dancing twinkle in Carol’s blue eyes softens into something else altogether, something that although it makes Daryl’s cheeks flush pink in the glimmering firelight, he brings her hand to his mouth and presses the imprint of his smile to her palm. “Hear that?”
“Ain’t telling me nothing I don’t know, Sweetheart. Now ‘bout this ugly ass sweater…”
“Nobody else could pull it off as well as you do, Pookie. Nobody.”
