JEFFREY DEAN MORGANas Sam In Desierto (2015)

JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN as Sam in Desierto (2015)

The Revolving Door

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader ❧ Era: Season 5 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: scary situation, slightly graphic depictions of death ❧ Word Count: 3.7k

❧ Requested by anonymous

❧ Summary: A close call during a run leads you to have a bit of an existential crisis. One of the new guys comes to cheer you up a little bit.

❧ A/N: Finally back to oneshot requests! This was interesting to write. I really like dealing with more abstract concepts and how they relate to the show's plot, so I wanted to include that in this little story. Also Daryl is very soft in this oneshot, which we love to see. I just feel like if he's in love with someone (whether he knows it or not), he's going to be really soft and sweet with them, so that's that on that.

Even before the world ended, life moved with the shadow of death lingering not far behind. That was the way it was, how it always would be.

At age seven, your grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. That was your first taste—the realization that death could touch you, in some way. You developed an irrational fear that you would get cancer too, and you’d die before your life even began, before you even knew what death really was.

When you were fourteen, your cat died, the one who’d been in your family since before you were born. That was the first death, the first time the esoteric concept of the cessation of life spilled into your little world, and, as it always did, took.

Death took everything in the end, if not biological death, then decay, rot, corrosion… At least it was certain. The caveat was that it came at such inopportune times, without warning and lacking in the grace to allow time to grieve. When the world became what it is now, it only got worse, and death became not only certain, but constant, unyielding, waiting.

It was only a matter of time before it hit you, before a life was snuffed out right in front of you. No meaning, no comfort, no justice, just cold, unadulterated death.

That’s what Noah’s death was.

It wasn’t like you knew him, not really at all. He’d arrived with some group just days before the run. Aaron, Alexandria’s recruiter, had organized their arrival, and though they seemed much more hardened by the outside world, they seemed close-knit, and that signaled to you that they cared about each other. If they could care about each other, why couldn’t they care about Alexandria?

They proved they cared by volunteering to help with the power grid. It had been going down periodically since before the newcomers arrived, and finally it was deemed necessary to plan a supply run for spare parts.

Deanna assigned you to be a runner with Aiden, Spencer, and Nicholas long ago, not a week after you found the community with your own group. You were never particularly fond of any of them, especially Nicholas, who proved himself a coward time and again, often opting to save himself before any of his co-runners.

Still, it was an important job, and one you took seriously. You hadn’t lost anyone on any of your runs, and for that you were grateful. Things changed, though. They always did, eventually.

At some point, maybe when it was the moment you were trapped in that revolving door with Nicholas, surrounded by walkers on the other side of the glass, or maybe when the idiot shoved his body against the door to free himself, letting the walkers pull Noah to a gruesome, bloody death, you blacked out.

Shivering in terror at the sight before you, the one your mind could erase for a moment, but your eyes could never unsee, someone had pulled you out from the revolving door. You were sure it was Glenn, but the world became hazy after the screams faded and Noah’s body was dragged further into the sea of flesh-eating creatures, at once alive and dead, horrifically uncanny in their endless limbo.

Stuck in that revolving door, you were in that limbo, too. Just for a brief moment, you were stuck between life and death, unable to control just which direction that revolving door would take you in.

The bloodied hand that hit the glass in front of you woke you from your stupor for just a moment. Darting your eyes to the face of a young man being ripped apart, his mouth split open and the skin tearing until his jaw was separated, you screamed until there was no air left in your lungs and your throat felt like it was made of sandpaper.

Somewhere along those several moments of Hell, you went limp, lifeless except for your pried open eyes, stiff and petrified, yet glistening with fresh tears.

The infirmary was empty now as you sat with those thoughts, wondering how it all went wrong so fast.

Of course, it was Nicholas, and before that it was Aiden, who’d managed to get himself killed, but in your mind, there could’ve been something you could’ve done, at least to save Noah…

“Hey,” a gruff voice sounded from behind you.

You were still too out of it to hear, until he rested a gentle hand on your shoulder. Odd, considering how rough he seemed.

“You okay?”

You blinked your eyes and took in a deep breath when you realized he was talking to you. Who else could he be speaking to?

You sniffled and looked at him quickly before returning your gaze to your feet, dangling off the side of the infirmary bed.

“Fine,” you replied shortly.

Daryl, one of the newcomers, who knew Noah, studied the cut on your leg. Well, it was more of a gash. Had you been more lucid when they carried you to the infirmary, you’d have insisted upon saving the space for a more seriously injured patient, but alas, you were in shock, unable to move or speak until just this moment.

You could hardly remember even getting it. It must’ve been some piece of shrapnel that hit you during the minor explosion, the one that got Aiden killed, but besides a sharp pain in your thigh at the point of contact, you couldn’t feel it.

“Denise said you got cut,” he said. “Stitched you up but you didn’t even flinch. Either you’re real tough or somethin’ happened out there.”

“Didn’t Glenn tell you?” you asked. “Or Eugene?”

He shrugged, and tentatively sat himself down beside you. You stiffened a little at the sudden gesture, surprised that such a usually standoffish man would do such a thing. Now that you thought about it, why was he in here in the first place? You hardly knew him at all, and you’d only talked to him in passing, once when you tried to introduce yourself, and he all but ignored you, only looking you dead in the face and freezing upon the realization that you were talking to him, as if no one had ever asked him his name before.

“Heard somethin’,” he said, looking down at his hands in his lap. You ventured to study them, worn and grimy, with dirty fingernails and small cuts you could only assume might’ve had something to do with that crossbow he was always lugging around. He didn’t have it now, though. He was disarmed, and almost non-threatening for once. “Didn’t hear it from you, though.”

“Why would it matter if it comes from me or not?” you replied.

He gave you a serious look now, and somewhere in that face, you wondered if the phrase “of course it matters” was really embedded in there, or if you were just projecting it there like a blank canvas. Nevertheless, he seemed more understanding than anyone who’d spoken to you since that afternoon.

“I know what happened,” he said finally, after several moments of just looking at you. “I wanna know what happened out there… to you.”

A brief moment in time, but suddenly lightyears passed before you, in that man’s eyes. How could that happen? How could worlds beyond your wildest dreams be nestled deep in those clear cerulean-colored irises? How could every answer to life and death and everything in between even be clearer than it was now?

You didn’t know what came over you, maybe it was just how strangely profound it was to be looking in his eyes, to feel his body so close to yours, radiating whatever power it had over you, but you felt overcome with emotion then, and upon recalling the event, you broke—sobbing before the man you barely knew, and holding your head in your hands as you wept.

“I—I saw him… get ripped apart… bitten…”

The sobs distorted your speech, and you let out various gasps and whimpers between each word as tears soaked your cheeks and even dripped from your chin onto your lap, where Daryl’s hand held yours.

Perhaps you didn’t notice it at first, in your crying state, but it was a featherlight touch, as he had hardly a grip on your shaky hand. Just a slight feeling of warmth hovering there, not suffocating you, just there.

“You didn’t need to see that,” he said quietly, a gentle tone to his voice, which usually seemed so gruff and coarse. “No one does.”

“I was in that revolving door, with them, with Nicholas… I could’ve—could’ve tried to stop him. I—I mean I did but… but he just kept pushing… and pushing… trying to get himself out, letting the other side open up to the…”

You shook your head, raising your other hand to wipe your tears. “God, I tried. I did… Your friend died because of my people.”

Though you hardly even considered Nicholas your “people” at this point, he was an Alexandrian, and a coward who got Noah killed.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward to try to see some part of your face as you looked down, “it wasn’t your fault. You did what you could. You tried. That’s all that matters. It just… happened.”

You sniffled, looking up and getting lost again in Daryl’s face, looking at it as if to find some relief to your pain.

“We always think there was somethin’ we could’ve done,” he said, training his eyes on yours. “Truth is, death comes for us all, don’ give a warning or nothing, just… just shows up, and in a second, they’re gone. Nothin’ you can do about it, ‘cept try to stop it, and you did. Nicholas… Noah’s death is on him, not you.”

He bit his lip as he watched the tears continue to trickle down your face, and soon berated himself internally for not getting you a tissue.

“Here,” he said, jumping up from the bed and crossing the room to grab a box of tissues. He pulled out several, and a wad of small white sheets entered your field of vision as he held them out to you. “No one should cry without a tissue.”

You mustered a small, half smile, just the corner of your mouth curving gently. “Thanks… Daryl.”

He nodded, and set the box of tissues on the bedside table before sitting back down beside you. You couldn’t believe he was still there, but unbeknownst to you, he wasn’t going anywhere, not when the woman who had this mysterious hold over him since he first saw her was sitting in the infirmary, hurting in more ways than one.

“S’nothin’,” he said, shifting awkwardly as he cleared his throat.

When the tears began to subside, you saw him more clearly, and you couldn’t help but smile a little wider at him, and the fact that he was sitting by you again, holding your hand.

Even he hadn’t noticed he’d done it this time, even holding your hand a little tighter now, but it felt so good he didn’t really mind. Odd, since touch often disturbed him, even confused him. Here, touching you in just the simplest way, it was a comforting touch, one that made sense.

“Have you ever seen it before?” he asked. “Someone die?”

You licked your lips in thought. “No, not like that. I’ve seen people come back from the outside, with bites… They would die from the fever, and we’d have to put them down.” Shaking your head at the memory, you saw Noah’s face again, seconds before the rotting hands grasped at his flesh and clawed at the skin of his face until he was reduced to shreds. “I’ve never seen someone get eaten alive by walkers. I guess that makes me kind of lucky, huh? To have gone this long without seeing it.”

“Nah,” he said. “No one’s lucky or unlucky, not anymore. Like I said, shit just happens.”

You took a deep breath and dabbed at the incoming tears, then reached over Daryl’s lap to grab another tissue from the box. “It could’ve been me,” you said. “I could’ve been the one to die instead of Noah in that revolving door. Had things turned out differently, just a millisecond of something else happening, he’d be sitting here, and I’d be…”

“That’s just life, ain’t it?” he said after you trailed off. “Can’t go back… Least you’re here now. I don’t know… philosophy, or anything like that, but I know they’re dead and we ain’t. It ain’t always right, but someone’s gonna live, and someone’s gonna die.”

“You think in black and white, don’t you?” you asked, slightly amused by his outlook. You wished it could be that simple. “I think it’s more like we’re not alive or dead, kind of like walkers… We teeter on the edge of death, and yet we live, right?”

“Guess so.”

You shrugged and wiped your nose with another tissue. “I don’t know, it doesn't even matter. Just another way to cope with something we don’t understand.”

He licked his lips as he watched you slightly peel back your bandage on your thigh. The cut seemed rather deep, close to causing nerve damage, as Denise had told him. Upon seeing Nicholas struggling to keep you steady as you walked with him through the gates, his world centered around you. Perhaps he’d underestimated his affections for you before that, but if he denied it at all now, he’d be fooling himself.

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said, stumbling over his words a little as they poured out of his mouth.

You smiled bashfully at him, brushing back your hair subconsciously. “Well, thanks. I guess I’m glad, too. I’d just feel a whole lot better if everyone came back home. That’s how it always should be.”

It terrified you to think that one day would be your last in Alexandria, that you’d go out on another run and never come back, like Noah had. That fear would never go away, but something in this moment made it feel all right, like it was just another part of life, and as long as you had moments like this, death could never touch you.

“I’ve lost a lot of people,” he said. “Lot of good people. It don’t ever get easier. It just don’t… but if nothin’ else, it kinda reminds ya that… I don’t know, life is…” He struggled to think of the word, raising his head and staring at the ceiling in slight embarrassment of his lack of grace with words at times.

You smiled. “Precious?” you asked.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at you with a crooked smile. “Yeah, precious, I guess.” He cleared his throat, realizing “precious” wasn’t the most “manly” word he could say in front of you. “Life is precious.”

Several minutes of silence passed, as somewhere along the line you felt so comfortable in Daryl’s presence, despite how much it bewildered you, that even just sitting there with him felt like getting to know him. He had this aura about him, this glow that heated you up from the inside out. It was unlike anything else you’d really felt before, and it was exactly what you needed to begin to heal from this tragedy.

If you could’ve spent all night there, just next to him, you would’ve.

“You should go home now,” he said, noticing your yawns getting closer and closer in interval. “Come on, I’ll walk ya.”

“Oh, it’s just across the street.”

“I know,” he said, rising to his feet and outstretching his hand to help you up. “It’s dark out.” You tilted your head, amused by how ostensibly protective he was, even in a community of people who all knew each other and looked out for one another. He cleared his throat, noticing your soft smile. It was almost dizzying how beautiful you were to him. “And, uh… that leg ain’t gonna get ya very far. Come on, I’ll help ya.”

You rolled your shoulders in flattery at his chivalry. It was very cute, you had to admit. He was quite cute, too… Handsome, if a little scruffy. He could use a hot bath, a bit of shampoo in that messy hair, a fresh change of clothes...

“What a gentleman,” you said, taking his hand and rising to feel his arm wrap around your waist, to which you blushed at the rather sudden gesture. You weren’t that injured, but you weren’t going to say anything, because you liked his strong arm around you.

He blushed a little at your words, too, and cleared his throat as he walked out with you. “Just… couldn’t let ya walk on your own like this.”

Of course, he knew you were capable of walking, and that Alexandria was safe enough for you to walk home on your own, but even the idea of something bad happening to you, combined with the strange desire to spend as much time with you as possible, and maybe just a hint of wanting to hold you for a few minutes, drove him to be a little more chivalrous than he needed to be.

“Mhm,” you hummed, stepping down with him off the porch, his eyes trailed on your feet and making sure you didn’t miss a step the whole time. “Well, I appreciate it. Actually, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today.”

He looked at you curiously, still guiding you across the empty street to your house. “What else did I do?”

“You visited me,” you said, as if it were obvious. “You made me feel better. In another life, you could’ve been a psychiatrist.”

He laughed heartily, the first time you’d ever heard such a sound from the usually serious man. The warm lilt to his chuckle was the stuff dreams were made of, airy and light, with a touch of depth to it, as there was always more than meets the eye with him, you concluded after that night.

“Never thought someone would ever say I’d make a good shrink,” he said, helping you up the steps to your house, with a drop in his stomach at the idea that he’d have to leave you now. “Almost sounded like a compliment.”

You laughed as you turned the knob of your front door, and he let go of you, rather reluctantly.

“It was,” you said. “It means you’re nice to talk to.”

Never in his life had anyone said that to him. At least, not someone like you, sweet and pure. Every bone in his body turned to mush when you looked at him, and the thought of you in so much danger that day made him more hopeless and frightened than he’d ever been before.

Even seeing you cry, knowing that such a horrible sight plagued your mind, made him want to be by your side, to be whatever you needed to keep the sights and sounds of a cruel, hostile world of death at bay.

“Well, uh… Maybe we should talk more,” he said, hedging his bets that you really did like to talk to him, though it seemed like a bit of a long shot. “If ya want to, of course. And, if ya ever need anythin’, I’m just over there.” He turned to point towards the house he had been assigned, the one he shared with Rick and a few of the others in his group.

You were transfixed, though, on his face, admiring his side profile and feeling that warmth again inside of you. He really did care.

“Thanks, Daryl,” you said, folding your arms over your chest against the chill of the night air. “I’d love to talk to you again… And, um… I’m here for you, too. My door’s always open. Well, metaphorically.”

He nodded with that same small half-smile. “All right, well I’ll see ya later… And keep your head up.”

“I will.”

You watched him begin to walk away, until he stopped in his tracks and lifted his head. “Oh,” he said, and turned around swiftly, digging into his jean pocket. “Uh, here.” He pulled a wad of bright white tissues from his pocket. You saw him stuff them in there from the box just as you were leaving the infirmary, and you raised an eyebrow at the gesture as he held them out for you. “In case ya have to cry again… I mean, if you want ‘em.”

You smiled, feeling tears begin to form again, and a few already dripping down your cheek. “Thank you, Daryl.” You took the tissues, and immediately dabbed your cheek. “You’re very sweet.”

His breath hitched and his back straightened, and you were sure you might’ve seen another blush bloom upon his cheeks. “Ahem, well, uh… goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

As it happened, you did need the tissues again, because you couldn’t stop thinking of that day, those horrible moments you were trapped in that revolving door, that twilight zone between life and death, where any sudden shift could result in the door giving way to either side.

You happened to make it, and Noah didn’t. It wasn’t your fault, you had to realize, but it happened, and you were still here.

Death was still there, too, waiting in the wings, like it always had been, even before. When your cat died, when your grandma got sick… It was always there, like an old friend, one you could catch up with after a long time of not seeing each other, and yet it wouldn’t feel like a day had passed, and you could just pick up where you left off.

It didn’t mean that it wasn’t a tragedy, that it didn’t hurt, or torment you, but it could make you appreciate the revolving door of life, the… precious nature of it all, with life as fragile and easily taken away as it was, and would always be.

Daryl, that quiet, serious man from outside the walls, reminded you of that, of how important it was to have those little moments that made life as precious as it was.

You kept one of those unused tissues in your bedside table drawer, sentimental as you were. You told yourself you were keeping it for a rainy day, when the tears came pouring down like they had that evening, but really, you knew why you kept it. It was Daryl.

He was right—no one should cry without a tissue.

~

Thanks for reading! Likes, reblogs, and comments of any kind are always appreciated!

Haha. Norman regarding the Taylor Swift concert, his favorite songs, and his reaction to Nova singing Lover.

I often think about Daryl from when he was a kid. One of the main thoughts I have about him from then is how badly he wanted to grow his hair out to how it is now but Will would never let him. The longest it ever got was probably how it was at early prison-era length. Will would notice his hair getting too long and yell at him, forcing him to get it cut by his mom.

It hurts to think about the sweet little boy, holding back tears sitting in his mom's lap as she starts cutting his hair. I like to think his mom was kind though, he had at least one loving parent before she passed. She'd cup his face in her hands and promise him that it'll always grow back as he lets a few loose tears fall. He could never cry around Will but with his mom, he could if he needed to.

Around the Whisperers era, you're about to cook dinner when you tell him he needs a haircut and he practically panicked inside thinking you didn't like his hair long anymore, he thought you loved his hair from how you would comment on how you loved how it grew out over the years. You'd notice that pause within him and state, “Not a haircut, just a trim. Wanna be able to see your pretty eyes, baby.”. He'd show a soft smile and agree.

You'd pull out a chair for him to sit down on as you go and grab a handheld mirror and some scissors. You'd come back into the kitchen and situate yourself on his lap and show him exactly where you're going to trim the length to in the mirror. He'd wrap his arms tight around your waist as you got to work just trimming the ends.

When you were done you'd set down the scissors and cup his cheek in your hand, wipe away the few hairs that fell on his face, and hold up the mirror to him in your other hand. He'd say it looked good and as you set the mirror down and begin to pull yourself up off his lap he'd pull you tighter against him.

He'd begin by now cupping your face in his hands and kissing you. He'd trail his kisses down your cheek and jaw, peppering them down along your neck. He'd slowly pick you up to make sure you have your legs wrapped tight around him as he makes sure as well that he has his arms wrapped tight around you.

He'd carry you to your bedroom as you bury your face in the crook of his neck. He needed to show you his gratitude somehow. It was gonna be a long night of him showing you how much he loved you, how much he appreciated the tender love and care you showed him.

Leedus handholding 😍🥰😍

NEGAN + spotify profile 🎶 companion playlist 🎵 [insp + insp]