Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s no warning.

Aaron’s sure there should be, always assumed if anything like this happened, there’d be some kind of alert, a red light going on in the back of his head, but there’s nothing.

No alert, no sudden high-pitched whirring, no deep sense of wrongness.

One minute, Daryl’s standing at the stove making Gracie oatmeal, like he does every single day, and the next he’s going rigid and his eyes are rolling back and he’s twitching, knees crumpling as he hits the floor.

+

Ever since he got back from the Sanctuary, Daryl’s looked haunted.

Eyes dark, unseeing. There are days where even Gracie’s chubby fists pulling at his hair make no impact, where he looks at Judith like he doesn’t quite recognise her. Where Carl is the only one who looks at Daryl like he gets it, but even that isn’t much -he was there a day, after all. Daryl spent a month in captivity.

The war’s over, Negan’s dead, and Daryl gets headaches bad enough that, on bad days, sunlight makes him cry.

He doesn’t talk about it. Doesn’t even allude to what happened in that cell, and Aaron’s talked with Paul about it, obviously, the both of them speaking in hushed voices while Daryl slept, but Paul saw the tail end, saw blood and Daryl at the end of his tether, splintering apart.

No one except Dwight and Negan know what happened in that cell for sure, is the problem. Negan's dead, and it’s not like they’re going to ask fucking Dwight what happened, even if he is on their side. Supposedly.

So Aaron - everyone-. They know something bad happened, they know Daryl’s different now, a little hollow where he used to be full of snark, but they’d just thought… with time…

And now Daryl’s having a seizure and Aaron’s freaking the fuck out and trying not to freak out and tugging the table out of the way with one hand, a task that should be herculean but feels like nothing, adrenalin pounding through him the way it is.

Daryl’s twitching on the floor, legs, and arms jerking, eyes rolling in his head. His breath sounds shaky, trapped like he’s caught up in a net and can’t get free.

He looks completely out of it, nothing there at all, no spark of understanding as Aaron drops to his knees and blocks out the way Gracie’s suddenly crying.

She doesn’t understand why her daddy’s just dropped to the ground, and neither does Aaron, and Christ he wishes Paul were here, or Rick, or Michonne -someone who might know what to do when he has no fucking idea.

He just waits, some vague notion that he shouldn’t hold Daryl still filtering into his brain, and after what feels like an eternity, Daryl goes limp against the wood flooring.

There’s drool clinging to his chin, dripping down his shirt, and his eyes are closed but fluttering, like he’s trying to open them but can’t quite manage it.

Aaron strokes over his jaw and wipes away the spit clinging to his beard and feels his heart break at the way Daryl flinches, even hazy as he is.

“Hey,” he says, soft, because-. He doesn’t want to be loud, right now. Gracie, at least, has gone from wailing to soft sniffling whimpers. “Daryl, sweetheart, come back to me. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Daryl makes a garbled noise and his eyes slide open, dazed and unfocused but he’s alive, and Aaron didn’t realise how terrified he was until right in that moment, seeing Daryl out of it but still breathing.

Still breathing.

The whole episode -seizure? It was probably a seizure, sure as hell looked like one- can’t have taken more than four minutes, but it feels like a year since Daryl locked up next to the hob.

“Hn?” Daryl grits out, jaw loose, “Grace?”

Aaron’s heart clenches. “She’s okay, Dare. She’s in her chair. No, don’t sit up-there, just. Lean against me, c’mon, good. Good job.”

He has no idea if this is what he’s meant to be doing, but he made sure Daryl didn’t smash his head off anything and get a brain injury, and he thinks for right now he’s doing okay.

“Aar’n?” Daryl looks confused, blue eyes blinking sweet and slow, and it’d be cute if it weren’t terrifying seeing someone usually so focused and with it so very not okay. “S’happened?”

“You had a seizure.” Aaron swallows. Strokes over Daryl’s neck and kisses his forehead and ignores the sweat clinging to his hair. He showered last night -he’s going to hate that he needs another one. “You just started twitching, locked up, fell. I moved everything out of the way. You didn’t get hurt. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

Daryl pats at Aaron’s hip, soft. “‘Kay. Need sleep.”

Panic squeezes his chest. “No, honey, you can’t sleep yet. I don’t know -. I don’t know what the procedure is here, I need to get someone, someone who knows what they’re doing. Do you have a preference?”

He winces. Stupid question, really, when Daryl’s both riddled with PTSD and trust issues. As well as slurring his words. Great going, Raleigh, you idiot.

“Paul,” he mumbles, “Rick. ‘Chonne. Carol?”

“Paul’s gone to check your traps, but I’ll get Rick and Michonne. Carol’s at the Kingdom -it’ll take a while for her to get here.” Because she will, Aaron knows. All of the family will be converging on the house, soon, no doubt about it.

“‘Kay.” Daryl blinks, muzzy-eyed. “Grace.”

“Yeah.” Aaron nods, swallowing, “yeah, I’ll get someone to look after her. Just let us care for you, okay?”

Daryl gives him a look that, even in his completely obliterated frame of mind, comes across as shut the fuck up, dumbass.

Well. At least he hasn’t lost his sparkling personality.

+

Calling for Rick takes all of five seconds - he leans out of the kitchen window and yells, and Rick comes running out with his Python in hand and a sleepy-eyed Judith on his hip. He’s quickly followed by Carl and Michonne, both looking ready to fight.

Maybe he should have tried to sound less panicked, but. He is panicked. So.

“It’s fine!” Aaron calls, and Rick lowers his gun but doesn’t holster it, head cocked in that are you shitting me kind of way, the cocky way that’s always been vaguely sexy. Daryl talked about it once like he’d seen God, and. Well. Aaron gets it, even if he’s happy where he is. “I just -. You need to come here. Please. It’s Daryl.”

They share worried glances before jogging across the street, Michonne swinging her katana back over her shoulder and Carl following at a more sedate pace, gun clipped back to his belt. Rick, ever the dramatic, is still holding his Python like a lifeline.

It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that they’re all experienced killers. He’s seen Rick covered in baby puke and tomato juice too many times, now.

They come through the kitchen door still looking alarmed, and it doesn’t decrease at all when they see Daryl leaning against the counter, pale and lazy-eyed.

“Is he-,” Rick asks, swallowing, eyes looking so violently pained that Aaron wants to cradle him up like he does Gracie when she gets cold.

“No,” Aaron says, and gets back down next to Daryl. Daryl blinks at him with barely-there understanding. “Hey. Rick’s here. Michonne, Carl, and Judith, too.”

Daryl lolls his head over, looking like it takes all the effort in the world. Judith makes grabby hands for him and he makes a weak little hum noise.

“What happened?” Carl asks, standing against the door, arms crossed.

Rick gets down on the floor, passing off their kid, and Michonne sets Judith down next to Gracie, practised and easy. Her hands are shaking, just a little. Aaron knows the feeling.

“He had a seizure.” Aaron swallows. Watches the way their eyes go wide, mouths dropping open. Rick swallows and grips the hand Aaron isn’t already holding, tight and firm. A grounding presence. Daryl makes no indication as to whether he even knows what’s happening. “It was-. There wasn’t any sign, you know? It was just, so sudden. He was making food for Grace and he just collapsed, started fitting, eyes rolling in his head. Like the fucking Exorcist. I moved everything out of the way, kept him from hitting his head, but…”

“Has he been sleeping?” Michonne asks, voice gentle. She strokes over Daryl’s calf, slow and calming. “One of my friends from before, she’d get seizures -she was epileptic. It was worse if she hadn’t slept well, or was stressed.”

Aaron chews his lip. “He’s been sleeping the same he ever does. But... Lately, he’s been… Getting these headaches, ever since…”

He doesn’t have to say it. Rick’s jaw jumps, eyes going hard and cold for a moment before he takes a calming breath. Carl hisses out a breath between his teeth. Michonne just nods, slow. Like she’s processing, thinking it through. Aaron loves her.

“You think maybe he sustained a head injury?” Michonne confirms, and Aaron swallows back bile and the thought of Daryl getting hurt because the truth of it is that he does, and this is the hand they’ve been dealt, now.

“I think it’s likely. He doesn’t talk about it, but. Probably, with all the rest.” It goes unsaid between them that Daryl might not ever tell them, that that horrific period of time might forever remain a secret.

Until Carl swallows and thumps his head against the wall. “When Negan took me into the Sanctuary.” It’s gritted out, between clenched teeth. “Daryl was there, like. Cleaning their shit, bruised up, and his head was-. It looked like there was blood? In his hair? But I couldn’t get close to him, or anything. They wouldn’t let me. I tried. I really- I did. But I couldn’t.”

Rick reaches for his son, wordless, and Carl nods like he knows what it means. “So you think… Maybe that did it?”

“Maybe.” Michonne sighs. “I can’t remember much, but I know that head injuries can give people seizures. If it’s been untreated for so long, and he’s just been dealing with it, maybe this is his body’s way of telling him to take a break.”

Daryl, who up until this point has been his usual brand of stoic, if slightly to the left of their reality, grunts. “Ffffuck you.”

Rick snorts. “Fuck you, Dixon. We’re here to help.”

Daryl leans his head into the cupboard he’s backed against and sighs, like, can you even believe this asshole.

Judith harrumphs. “Bad word.”

“Sorry, little miss,” Rick tells her, all earnest, “I’ll give you extra M&M’s if you don’t repeat it.”

Judith considers the deal for a moment and then, with a nod, agrees.

Michonne sighs. “I wanted those M&M’s, Rick.”

“Me, too,” Carl whines, but he doesn’t look too upset about it. He’s still looking at Daryl, head cocked in imitation of Rick, anxiety making his jaw tick.

“What do we do?” Aaron asks, and Daryl rolls his eyes at him. Aaron ignores the way it makes nausea swirl in his gut, reminding him so vividly of Daryl seizing on the floor, the utter helplessness of it.

“We have to contact Hilltop,” Rick sighs. He drags a hand over his beard. “Maggie’ll want to know. Eugene got the radio working, so it shouldn’t take long. Either get Carson here or Daryl over there. I prefer Carson coming over, but if he’s got the equipment…”

Aaron nods. Kisses Daryl’s cheek and smiles when his lips twitch at it, trying to turn to the side even though drool’s crusted over his face. “Whatever he needs.”

“Sssap.” Daryl tells him.

Aaron thinks about the way the light shone around him before he collapsed, how golden and good he’d looked. How panic is still making his fingers shake, because Daryl, like Paul and like Gracie, is something he cannot lose. “Yeah, I am.”

Chapter Text

Paul comes back to the house to find the kitchen crowded, with Daryl slumped on the couch in the living room.

Paul slings the line of rabbits from the traps onto the counter, moves close to Aaron with a quizzical look on his face, peering towards where Daryl is stroking Judith’s hair with one hand and holding Gracie’s chubby fist with the other.

“Uh,” he says, tapping at Aaron’s hip, confusion scrunching up his features, “what’s…”

Aaron tucks his head against Paul’s shoulder, holds back a sob. Paul is-. He’s home, the same way Daryl is, the way Eric used to be. He knows what it’s like to love Daryl so much it hurts, what it feels like to love someone so painfully. He gets it, and he loves him, and Aaron loves him back, and up until now he’s been holding it together pretty well but now-. Now Paul’s here and Daryl’s on the couch recovering from a fucking seizure because of the torture he sustained at Savior hands, and it feels like relief, to not be struggling with the whiplash of emotions all alone.

Rosita exits the kitchen to give them some privacy, and Tara follows soon after.

“Daryl had a seizure.” He whispers. “He was-. Making breakfast, because he always does, and he just collapsed, Paul, he fucking- started shaking and trembling and his eyes were rolling in his head and he was drooling everywhere and I don’t-. Michonne and Rick think it was the Sanctuary, they fucked him up, gave him a head injury or something, maybe the lack of sleep made it worse. We have to go to Hilltop, or get Carson and Maggie over here, or-.”

“Hey.” Paul says, kind. He pushes Aaron off his shoulder, hands firm on Aaron’s biceps and looking him in the eye, head tilted up. It’s so strange, how much smaller Paul is than both Aaron and Daryl, when his personality fills up every room he enters. “We do whatever we have to to keep him safe. Yeah? It’s scary. I know it is. I wish I was here to help, baby. You need to calm down, though. No point in working yourself up. He’s safe, yeah? He’s safe, now.”

Paul plays with some of the curls at the back of Aaron’s head, stroking through his hair until his breathing steadies.

“He’s safe.” He repeats, and kisses Paul a little desperately. “He’s fine. He’s safe. He’s going to get help.”

“Yeah.” Paul smiles. It’s wobbly, eyes worried even though he’s trying to be a pillar of strength. “I wanna see him. You good?”

“Yeah,” Aaron says, even though he definitely Is Not Good and may in fact Start Another War, “yeah, go on. He asked for you.”

Paul’s smile twitches into something more real. Like even after a year of this, of the three of them, he still can’t fathom them being a unit, of himself being a part of it. Being wanted.

They’re all so very fucked up.

Everyone moves away to let Paul go to Daryl, and Aaron watches from the kitchen and swallows down some water and tries to ignore the low-level panic.

He’s trying to not think about what happens if it isn’t a head injury, if it wasn’t stress or sleep deprivation -about brain tumors and cancer, something he hasn’t thought about since the world ended. He’s trying not to think about the friend he and Eric had lost to the illness before, who wasted away and became a shell of a person. He can’t-. Focus on that, right now. Can’t imagine Daryl as someone else, someone sick with something incurable.

The thought that he’d rather deal with Daryl being bit than seeing him waste away over weeks and months enters his head, and he bites the inside of his mouth raw in punishment.

He allows himself fifteen more seconds of mind-altering panic before he follows his boyfriend into the living room.

They’re given a wide berth as they settle next to Daryl on the floor, everyone congregating elsewhere and pretending not to look. They’re terrible at it.

He knows everyone is freaking out. That Daryl is loved beyond what he could ever understand. He also knows that in that moment he wishes it were just them, their tiny family, alone and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Paul’s stroking over Daryl’s thighs when he gets there, giving soft smiles to Judith and Gracie and telling them they’re doing a good job at keeping Daryl still and safe. Daryl is, at least, more aware than he was before.

He’s focusing on Paul and Aaron in succession, eyes moving between them, smile still loose and off but slowly becoming more normal. “Had a seizure,” he tells Paul, and Paul nods, swallows.

“Aaron told me. How are you feeling?”

Daryl pulls his hands away from the kids and settles them, heavy and warm, on Paul’s fingers. Both Judith and Gracie look at him like they’re offended by the lack of attention. “Better now you’re here.”

“Is that right?” Aaron asks, cocking an eyebrow. “I watch you collapse and I don’t get flirted with, and he comes back and immediately gets loved on?”

Daryl huffs. “Sh’tup. Love you both. So much.”

Christ. He must still be feeling off, if he’s admitting that so readily in front of so many people.

Tara makes a sound like she’s dying, where she’s sat by the window and badly pretending not to listen. Aaron gives her a pass, because out of all of them she’s been looking maybe the most worried, eyes red with tears and jaw working to hold back from crying again.

“For real.” Paul says, pinching him. Daryl’s lips purse in discontent, but it makes relief swell in Aaron’s chest. Paul wouldn’t be acting this normal if he was terrified. Yeah, he’s nervous, they all are, but he looks infinitely more relaxed than Aaron, shoulders loosening the longer he sits before Daryl and tracks his every move with his aqua eyes. “How are you?”

“Dizzy.” Daryl admits, “like the world’s spinnin’, y’know? Sick, a little. Tired. An’... Don’t remember much. Just dropping and then comin’ to with Aaron freakin’ out.” His voice is low, slow. But at least it isn’t slurred, hasn’t got that drizzly, dripping edge to it that he had just after he came around.

Aaron doesn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t freaking out. He still is. “Yeah, well. If I ever have a seizure, you’ll see how fucking scary it is.”

Daryl grits his teeth. His classic protective response, his you are never hurting, ever, if I can help it look.

Paul massages the tense muscles in Daryl’s thighs and makes a thoughtful noise, soft and lilting. “Have you ever had one before?”

The room goes still and quiet around them, as if all of them are annoyed by the fact they didn’t think to ask that before now.

Daryl’s face goes terrifyingly blank. “Twice.”

Aaron blinks. “Twice? When? When did you… I’ve never seen you have one?”

Daryl rocks his head into the sofa and shakes it a bit. Gracie makes a disgruntled noise, slapping at his shoulders with her chubby fists. “Get Rick to take the kids for a sec, yeah?”

Rick swoops in, no doubt having been listening to everything, and disappears with the children as fast as he came. Judith twists her head back to watch over them the whole way to the kitchen, eyes locked on Daryl with razor sharp focus despite the fact she’s all of three years old.

Daryl makes a closed fist at her, and then opens it. Repeats it twice. Their little it’s okay signal, it’s all going to be fine. Judith wrinkles her nose and nods sharply, reaching for Gracie’s socked foot to distract her from the lack of Daryl.

She’s so good. Aaron’s going to give her so many M&M’s for this, once he can think past all the horrified panic swirling through his head.

Daryl lowers his eyes. Gnaws his lip. There’s still drool clinging to his chin, somehow, despite the fact Aaron’s wiped it off twice now. “My daddy, he… When I was a kid, he hit me once. Well. He hit me a lot, but... One time, he hit me. Too hard, slammed me into a wall, knocked me out cold. After that, a couple months after, I had’ne. Not… big. An’ then again a few years later. Got beaten up by some’a Merle’s bastard friends.”

Paul’s hands grip tighter for a moment before going loose again. It’s the only sign he gives that the news bothers him at all. It doesn’t escape Daryl’s notice, if the softening of his eyes is anything to go by.

He gives Aaron a wry look over Paul’s head. Aaron is too busy fighting down rage-induced nausea to respond with anything but a tight grimace.

“I got a scan,” he tells them, “y’know, seeing if there was damage or whatever after Merle’s buddies… There weren’t, I healed up fine. They said I shouldn’t ever have one again, weren’t lookin’ like I was epileptic or nothing.”

“So it’s not...unlikely, that this happened because of a head trauma?” Aaron asks, trying to be as gentle as possible.

Daryl sighs. “No. It ain’t. I know I gotta get checked out, I know, but I-. I don’t wanna talk about that, not with anyone ‘cept you, and -.”

“Not until you’re ready.” Paul nods. “That’s okay. When you’re ready, we’re here for you. But only when you’re ready. We won’t have to go into detail. Everyone got knocked around in the war -explain the general circumstance, it’ll help.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” Aaron observes, and Paul quirks a smile.

“Yeah, well.” He shakes his head. “Not the only one with a shit childhood, was he?”

Aaron thinks about his mother and her cold eyes and the food she shoved down his throat, the way she’d clamp a palm over his mouth and make him swallow it even if he retched and vomited. The way his father used to look at him like he was scum, lower than dirt, even if he never raised a hand to him. The way they both used to whisper about fairies, faggots, all those sick nasty nancies taking over and destroying the American way.

No. Daryl and Paul weren’t the only ones with shitty childhoods.

He presses a kiss to Paul’s cheek, rubbing the coarse hair of his beard against his mouth. Knuckles at Daryl’s soft stomach.

They deserve so much more than this bullshit. It’s so fucking unfair that even after all they’ve suffered, all they’ve been through, there’s still more.

That even dead Negan’s still invading their home and ruining their easy life.

Daryl strokes his hair. “Love you,” he repeats, voice soft.

“We love you, too,” Paul says, his own voice just a little wobbly, eyes shining. “We’re going to fix this.”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods, working his jaw. “Yeah, we will.”

Chapter Text

Maggie turns up at the gates with a face like thunder, Glenn sat in the passenger seat of the Ford she’s driving, Carson stuffed in the back with a bag of medical supplies.

There’s a hard look in Maggie’s eyes that makes Aaron want to cower, even though there’s no reason at all she’d be angry at him. At any of them, except for the Saviors.

He has a feeling that it’s going to be a little tougher for all of them to interact with civility towards the turncoats, now.

Daryl is in the medical center of Alexandria, on a mattress pulled down onto the floor lest he have another fit and fall, and Maggie goes into the room before Carson only after gently kissing Paul and Aaron on their cheeks.

“He’s alive,” she reminds them, “that’s the important thing right now.”

“We know.” Aaron says, and it somehow feels more solid with her there, as if Maggie’s presence is what will help them, and not the doctor she’s brought along.

“Hey, Mags,” Daryl says when she walks in, head popping up off his pillow and smile gracing his features. It’s like the sun peeking over the horizon. So fucking beautiful. Aaron is scared shitless of him, for him, in every single way right now.

His brain keeps repeating don’t leave me over and over, phantom feelings of Eric’s blood crusting and itching on his palms. He rubs his hands off on his jeans and ignores the knowing look Paul gives him.

He doesn’t shrug off the arm curling around his waist, though. He needs to be steadied, or he’s going to drop like a fucking rock just like Daryl in their kitchen.

“Daryl,” Maggie says, and her eyes go soft, “you scared me. Hear you scared your men more, though.”

“Pft,” Daryl huffs, because. Duh. “Whole lotta dramatics for nothin’.”

Maggie arches an eyebrow. From the doorway, Glenn lets out a noise like a deflating balloon. A man who knows what it’s like to be on the other end of that look and doesn’t envy Daryl’s position for a moment.

It’s been a while since Aaron’s seen them, since he’s had reason to go to Hilltop now Paul’s living with them full time. But they look well, so much better than they had in the war. The scars across Glenn’s forehead from a hard knock he took at the end of the long fight are slowly but surely fading, a pale pink instead of the raw red they had been.

And Maggie’s got more weight on her, after Hershel; cheeks rounded back out, no longer carrying stress like Atlas carried the world on his shoulders.

Even if now her eyes are drooping with worry and exhausted fear, hands pressing into Daryl’s forearms as she fusses.

“You gonna call your lady off, Korea?” Daryl asks, voice droll, and Glenn snorts.

“The lady might damn well knock your head off if you call her that again,” Maggie tells him. But a smile pulls at her mouth anyway. “I’m glad you’re still you.”

Daryl’s face goes carefully blank for a moment before it returns to normal. “Still messed up ‘s’ever, you mean.”

Glenn sighs, and Aaron swallows. Paul’s fingers clench around Aaron’s waist.

Maggie just shrugs. “We’re all a little messed up. But I’d say you’re pullin’ ahead in the race, at least for now. How’d Carol react?”

Daryl winces.

Paul twitches at Aaron’s side. He received the majority of the ire of that particular conversation, and even over their crappy radio Carol sounded as unstoppably terrifying as ever. Aaron had not envied him. He knows he’s still sort of scared shitless of Carol, after her shovel talk about making Daryl happy.

“Not well,” Aaron tells the room at large, “she’ll be here at some point soon, I think. The call was a couple of hours ago.”

Glenn nods. “Well, if anyone’s going to scare Daryl into never having another seizure again...”

Aaron snorts. Daryl sighs. Paul seems like he wants to say something about it not working like that before he wisely closes his mouth.

A fight that Paul Jesus Rovia doesn’t want to have? By God, the situation must be far more dire than anyone could have predicted.

Carson sets up his things on a table next to Daryl’s lounging form, hands steady as he darts looks at the archer. Daryl gives him a weak smile in return, hands twitching like he wants to have them in Judith’s hair, braiding with kind fingers.

“How long’s it been since you had the seizure?” Carson asks, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Daryl’s bare arm.

“About eight hours,” Aaron tells him, because it’s not like Daryl’s been very with it.

“Do you have any lingering symptoms?” He continues. Carson pumps the bulb and keeps an eye on the little monitor as he talks, already aware of how jumpy Daryl is about medical shit. “Nausea, lethargy, dizziness, confusion?”

“Tired,” Daryl tells him. He closes his eyes, rests his head back against the pillow they’d given him. “Did feel sick for a while, but s’gone now. A little dizzy, like everything’s still but I’m on a damn boat in a storm. Only a bit confused.”

“No different than normal, then,” Glenn pipes up, and Maggie shuffles back just to smack him in the thigh.

Daryl huffs.

“Well,” Carson says, “heart’s normal, but since it’s been such a long time since you had the fit, I’m not surprised. Ideally, we’d be doing MRI scans and checking for damage, but since we haven’t got access to that, the best I can do is check your eyes, check for skull fractures, any abnormalities. This isn’t my area of expertise. We don’t even have an X-Ray.”

“S’alright,” Daryl tells him, and then, like he has to pull the words out from his throat, “got… knocked about a bit, at Sanctuary. Had a couple seizures before from head injuries goin’ untreated, d’you think it’s that?”

Carson gnaws his lip. “It’s possible. More than possible, it’s likely. Thank you for telling me, it narrows down the diagnosis.”

They all ignore the obvious tension and anger radiating through the room, all of them buzzing at the injustice of it all and not saying a word.

Carson mumbles to Daryl about checking his eyes, pupillary response, and Daryl obligingly follows the light from the little torch with a set to his jaw like he’s annoyed about it but not going to bitch and moan. He palpates his skull, moving slowly and telegraphing his movements, and they all tense when Daryl’s eye twitches, fingers spasming, as Carson brushes over the back of his head.

“Sensitive?” He asks, although it’s clear he knows.

Daryl hisses out a breath. “Made my vision go a bit… fucky.”

Carson quirks a smile. “That’s the medical term, yeah.” He sighs. “It seems like it is due to a head injury. Have you been sleeping, eating, drinking? Not getting enough of those can make symptoms worse, leave you liable to another attack.”

“Not been sleeping great,” Daryl admits. “But I ain’t ever slept great.”

Carson glances around the room, as if to say is he telling the truth?

Aaron locks eyes with Paul and then Glenn, Maggie last. They all nod, a little jerkily, like they feel as if they’re betraying Daryl.

Daryl grits his teeth like maybe he believes that, too.

Paul nudges him with his foot and gives him an apologetic pout. A pink flush crawls over Daryl’s cheeks before he hastily looks away, fists clenching.

“Well,” Carson sighs. “Try to rest more. Don’t exert yourself, don’t spend too much time in the sun. I’d recommend bed rest, but I know you won’t do that, so just try not to exhaust yourself. I can give you some sleep aids, some painkillers for any headaches. Head injuries take a long time to heal. You might have more seizures.”

Daryl nods. Grits his teeth.

Aaron clenches his fist around Paul’s and tries not to feel upset and angry, because it won’t help them right now.

“If he does,” Carson continues on, directing his words to Aaron and Paul, now, “it’s important that you don’t hold him down. It could hurt him worse. Move anything out of the way he could hurt himself on, and wait for it to pass. Put him into recovery position, if you can. Try to time it. It will pass. He’ll get better with time. Start looking for triggers, ways to know a seizure is coming on.”

Paul nods. Aaron swallows down bile as he relives the way Daryl had jerked and spasmed on the floor, mouth wide open and drooling.

He doesn’t hear Maggie and Glenn leave, but Daryl uncoils a little, eyes going just a little less sharp. It’s touching, to know that even though Maggie and Glenn are family, he still trusts Aaron and Paul implicitly. To keep him safe, to protect him, to understand what he’s going through.

Aaron’s chest aches with the love he feels for him.

“Got it.” Paul says. “So, no strenuous, day-long sex romps?”

Daryl groans weakly at him, eyes narrowed to slits. “Fuck’s sake, Jesus.”

“I ask for the sake of my dick and your brain, Daryl,” Paul tells him, all prim and proper, “it wouldn’t be sexy if you started fitting while I’m stuffed down your th-.”

Carson makes a sound like a strangled cat. “No strenuous sex, no. Nothing intense or anything. Try to keep it light and easy. Nothing that hurts, preferably.”

Daryl gets a glint in his eyes that says but that’s the best part. Aaron feels his will to live drain out of him.

“We won’t,” Aaron promises. He gives Daryl a Look, and it makes him roll his eyes but shift back anyway, like he’s listening and not enjoying it. “We’ll take care of him.”

Carson locks eyes with him, nods. “I know you will. And make sure to take care of yourself, too, Daryl.”

Daryl waves him off, a little movement that screams ehhh, maybe. “Alright, Doc.”

Carson gets to his feet. Nods at them, and sees himself out.

Aaron drops to his knees at Daryl’s side and curls into him, presses his face into his shoulder. “Don’t have another seizure. I’ll kill you.”

“Can’t promise that,” Daryl says, soft, “I know it’s scary. I love you. Sorry.”

“Mmf.” Aaron huffs, peppers tiny soft kisses against the coarseness of Daryl’s scruff, the deceptively soft skin under his jaw. “Love you, too.”

Paul drops beside them, hands pawing at Daryl’s chest, his neck, his jaw. “We’re going to be tough on you. You know that, right? None of us are going to let you out of our sights.”

Daryl whines, pitiful. “Gay.”

Paul rolls his eyes. “I shove my dick down your throat and make you come so hard you forget how to think, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Well.” Daryl shrugs. Strokes gently over Paul’s biceps. He’s got an obsession. Aaron’s legs, Paul’s arms. Preferably all around him at any given moment. “Apparently all you need to do to stop my brain working is hit me like a goddamn jammed vending machine, so next time don’t expend so much goddamn effort.”

Aaron slaps him. Paul giggles.

“I’ll try and remember that,” Paul tells him, gravely. He presses a kiss to Aaron’s eyebrow. “Sorry we both stress you out so much.”

“That’s alright.” Aaron tells them, and it is. Sure, it’s scary as fuck being in love with two men as reckless as the ones he’s curled around, and yes, there’s nothing more horrifying than them making jokes about the various ways they’ve been hurt. But he’s also so grateful to love them he could cry. “You make up for it in other ways.”

“Yeah.” Daryl hums. “Like with our massive dicks.”

Outside of the room, there is a horrified wailing noise followed by choked laughter.

Aaron more than knows the feeling.

Chapter Text

By the time the buzz caused by Daryl’s seizure has died down, he’s starting to feel a little ropey.

It’s nothing much -overstimulation, probably, too much noise or some shit. He’s been doing okay, if a little confused and fucking out of it, and his whole body aches with the leftover sense-memory of hitting the floor like a sack of shit, but.

Okay, all the same.

Now, though, leaning back in bed and watching Aaron and Paul move around the medical center’s main room, perfectly in sync, his vision is doing that thing again.

Flickering in and out like a bad light and making his stomach roll with nausea. Sound rings in his ears like an explosion’s just gone off, making Aaron’s voice sound staticky and unreal.

“Uh,” he says, since he’s pretty sure they’ll be pissed if he feels like shit and doesn’t say anything, after the disaster that was the morning, “‘m gonna pass out.”

Not the most tactful way to put it, but the words are out.

It’s a relief to let himself go, after that.

The world turns hazy and grey, bile rises in his throat, and he has the presence of mind to think this is fucking humiliating, before Aaron and Paul leave him with the shrinking of his vision.

+++

Coming round again feels like his brain’s been shoved through a meat grinder.

His hearing comes back first, slurred and watery like he’s at the bottom of a lake, before light filters in through his twitching eyelids and he manages to move his hand.

“Fuck,” Daryl grunts, and is at least glad he doesn’t seem to be as bad as the first time, when everything came out like he was half-man half-snake, all hissing words and drool. “Ow.”

Paul’s face swims into focus, eyes wide and beautifully blue-green, mouth bitten red from worry. He’s saying something, lips moving, but it all sounds wrong. Comes through like those stupid fucking whale noises rich people used to listen to when sleeping.

He pats Paul’s cheek, limbs a little shaky, but it makes Paul’s lip tremble anyway. Fucking idiot. “Y’gay,” he tells him, and Paul bites his thumb and shakes his head and presses a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Fuck,” Paul mumbles. If Daryl didn’t feel three degrees away from reality, he might’ve managed a witty line like that’s what I said, but as it is it’s difficult just to stop his eyes from crossing. “I get why Aaron was so fucking scared, now.”

Daryl twitches at Aaron’s name, peering behind Paul blearily and trying to make out the shape of him. Long legs, curls, ragged beard. That’s the bitch. “S’not fun,” he tells them both, and they let out twin sounds of hysterical laughter.

“No,” Aaron agrees, “it fucking isn’t. Next time, can you say something less ominous before blacking out so I don’t literally shit myself?”

Daryl blinks. Everything is… wonky. But not bad. Sort of like the way coming off of Merle’s uppers used to feel, before he started puking. “Y’shit yerself?”

Paul huffs. “No. But it was close for both of us.”

Daryl focuses back on him, best as he can. “Good. Can’t shit yourself when I can’t make fun.”

Paul rolls his eyes, but Daryl still tracks the tears running down his cheeks before he rubs them off on his shoulder. His chest aches, but it’s not the fainting fit.

And, Christ, god, apparently he just has those now, and suddenly he’s remembering the bike and the world outside the gates and how fucking dangerous it is anyway and now he has this whole other medical problem because the Saviors thought it’d be a fun time to torture him into near-insanity through sleep deprivation and beatings and he can’t breathe and what’s the fucking point, anyway, if he can’t fucking do anything without collapsing, why is he even fucking alive.

And it’s not even like this is the worst, either, like fainting is all the bad he can get. He could have another seizure and crack his skull in the middle of a herd and get feasted on or he could hurt Gracie by accident or crash a car or his bike -the bike Aaron gave him, the one he loves so fucking much because it’s his and it’s Aaron’s and it’s theirs-, or he could bite Paul’s dick off in the middle of sex like he’d joked about.

In that moment, even with Aaron and Paul surrounding him, laying in their bed, all he can think about is the fact the two things he was good for -hunting, fighting-, those might be gone, too. He either gets better or he gets worse, and even if he does get better one wrong knock to the head and he could slide back all over again.

It takes Paul’s hands on his hips and Aaron’s fingers stroking over his forehead for him to come back to himself, little by little. Blue eyes, soft mouths, hearts of gold. Looking at them hurts like staring at the sun, and not for the first time he wonders why they bother with his bullshit.

“Sorry,” he croaks, and he didn’t even cry having a seizure but now he’s having a breakdown like a pussy because he’s just realised the Saviors took everything from him and he might not ever get it back. His throat feels raw. “Sorry.”

“Baby,” Aaron whispers, voice sounding broken and fucked up and awful, and if it weren’t for the terror of the moment Daryl might bitch at the pet name, “don’t apologise. This is scary. It’s terrifying for us, we can’t imagine how bad it is for you.”

Helpless, hopeless, like watching your family get blown up and shot and smashed to pieces by a bat and knowing it’s your turn, only it isn’t going to stop and the pain lives in you, now. Your body’s the villain you need to fight, and it’s a fight you don’t know if you can win.

It sounds too much like one of Paul’s fluffy bullshit books, though, the ones he pretends to hate but binge reads when he can’t sleep, so he just makes a sobbing noise and hopes it gets his point across.

“Flashback?” Paul asks, and Daryl remembers the look on his face when he’d skidded into place in front of him, the shock and horror seeing Daryl crush Fat Joey’s skull into nothing but a meaty pulp. How he’d pulled the bike over halfway back to Hilltop to vomit in the grass, and instead of pitying him or panicking Paul had just told him about the book he was reading to take Daryl’s mind off the dank cell reeking of piss and shit and bile and back to the present moment.

“Yeah,” he grunts. He sits up, slowly, arms weak and trembling but not like before, the first time. “Y’know they were talking about cuttin’ my brain open before I got out?”

Aaron and Paul both recoil instantly, horror and revulsion crossing their faces followed quickly by untempered rage, lips curling up and fists twisting.

Daryl laughs, humorless. “Heard ‘em talking about it, after they finished carving me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Seeing how a brain worked, how walkers get made, s’not like I had too many braincells left anyhow, not like I were smart enough or-. Still don’t know if it was a joke, or...” He thinks about fists and knives and Dwight’s smug face and Negan swinging that bat over his shoulder, the cell and the way it smelled like him but in the worst way.

“Lobotomy,” Daryl laughs, but it feels fake and strained, and Paul and Aaron seem to think the same, if the way they jerk back is anything to go by. “In the apocalypse. An’ that’s when I figured… Was gonna die anyway, might as well die trying to fuckin’ leave.”

Paul turns away, but Aaron climbs on top of the bed and settles over Daryl like a heavy blanket, limbs sprawling and face tucking into his neck.

“I love you,” he whispers. His beard tickles Daryl’s throat. “I love you and you’re one of the smartest, bravest people I know, and they knew nothing about anything, and especially not who you are. We’re going to get through this.”

“Love you, too,” Daryl murmurs, and holds back bile and tears and the worry of not being able to do anything, be anything, all because the Saviors looked at him and saw someone fun to break. “Paul?”

Paul’s shoulders twitch, and his head drops down, and when he turns back to face Daryl and Aaron both his eyes are rimmed with red. “I should have blown the whole place sky high,” he murmurs, voice rough. “I should have listened to you when you said they were bad people, I-. If I could go back and kill them all, I would.”

Daryl’s lip twitches. “You wouldn’t’ve. You know there were workers there, people who didn’t have a choice. I was angry atcha, for a long while, but I know now you made the right choice.” He reaches a hand out. “Come here, shithead.”

Aaron huffs and rolls to the side so Paul can flop on top of them both like his strings have been cut. He buries his face into Daryl’s neck, and Daryl’s too busy trying to fight off the lingering suicidal thoughts to even wince at the way Paul’s beard scratches the skin of his throat.

“You didn’t say,” Aaron mumbles, face settling into Daryl’s hip, “why didn’t you-.”

“‘Cause it wouldn’t matter,” Daryl murmurs, tangling his fingers in Paul’s hair, stroking over the thick line of Aaron’s back, “‘cause they didn’t take the one thing that matters from me.”

“What was that?” Paul asks, and his voice is tremulous and pained, like Daryl hurting hurts him, too, and Daryl loves him, loves them, the family they’ve carved out of the dirt, so much it makes his chest throb.

“Lovin’ you,” Daryl tells them. Aaron’s hand twitches and squeezes at his skin, spasming like he can’t help it. “All the shit they did to me, and it didn’t take you from me.”

Daryl is a nice enough person he pretends not to notice the tears dampening his collarbones. He sleeps, instead.

+++

Daryl’s woken up by a tiny, chubby hand pulling at his overgrown goatee.

He opens his eyes slowly, to Gracie’s tiny chubby face, eyes wide and dark and beautiful, so squishy all over it’s like she’s wearing bracelets. It’s possibly the best way to wake up -made even better by Paul leaning sleepily against the wall behind her, eyes gunked up with grit and hair a frizzed-out mess.

“Hey,” he mumbles, and munches Gracie’s tiny baby hand without any teeth, making her squeal and beat him on the shoulder. “Hey, baby girl, how you doin’? You sleep well with ‘Sita and Tara? You good for ‘em?”

He glances up at Paul for confirmation, and Paul smiles. “Yeah. They dropped her off just now. She slept like a log, apparently. Almost as well as you.”

Daryl snorts. “That’s jus’ the brain injury.” He pokes Gracie’s nose, stroking over her velvet-soft skin.

“I’ll tell Aaron you made that joke.” Paul warns him, but there’s a glint in his eyes that says he appreciated it, anyway. He and Paul have the same dark humor, the kind that Aaron understands even if he doesn’t personally use it to cope the way they do.

“You won’t.” He’s fairly confident. Aaron might understand, but this is still new, untrodden waters, terrifying. Daryl doesn’t know how to deal with that, so poorly timed jokes it is.

Gracie giggles, so at least someone finds him funny.

“Where’s he?” He cuddles Gracie to his chest, giving her downy-soft head a smattering of kisses, warm and sweet while he tickles her round belly. She’s so soft, all over, just a little marshmallow but with thoughts and feelings and three overprotective father figures who’d die for her eighty times over.

Paul winces. “Carol called.”

Daryl flinches. “What’d she say?”

“She’s about half an hour out. Aaron’s at the gate, waiting for her.” Paul scratches his jaw, avoiding Daryl’s eyes as his voice lilts out, “she didn’t sound pleased.”

No, Daryl thinks. She wouldn’t. She’s a mother hen to the extreme, and ever since the Sanctuary she’s been even more intense about it, shoving cookies down his throat every time they saw each other.

No doubt she’ll be extra pissed he never mentioned the almost-lobotomy, and she won’t take the assertion of it possibly being a joke-between-Saviors as easy as Aaron and Paul did.

(Though, frankly, they might have been more upset if Daryl hadn’t been riding the knife-edge of paralysing anxiety and suicidal urges, newly woken up from a fainting attack. He’s not about to test that theory.)

He imitates the sound of an explosion; whistling through his teeth and squishing Gracie’s soft little tummy when he murmurs “boom!”, and Paul snorts.

“She still scares the shit out of me, you know.” He says, taking Gracie from Daryl and holding her on his hip.

He looks so easy with her, now, so much more at home. At first, he’d treated her like a bomb ready to detonate. Now he munches on her fingers and tells her stories and makes her smile so wide drool drips out onto her chin.

“Carol?” Daryl asks, slowly shifting to the side of the bed.

Paul pauses and puts Gracie down in the little pillow prison they’ve made for her before helping Daryl to his feet.

He goes to bitch, but then his vision swims a little and he thinks. Hey, what the hell. Might as fucking well get some help since his brain’s gone and pulled some jammed printer bullshit.

Paul helps prop him up while he takes a piss, and passes him a glass of water and glares until he drains it. Daryl ignores it and focuses on the way Paul washes his hands for him. He’d be angry, but it feels nice. “When we first got together, me and you-... She threatened me with Shiva, told me I’d make a good lunch for her if I hurt you. I know she did with Aaron, too.”

Daryl smirks. He can imagine the look on her face; that calm, easy housewife look with something more like a guillotine behind her eyes. “We’ve been together a long while.”

Paul hums. “If you weren’t such a raging homosexual I might even manage to be jealous about that.”

Daryl huffs. “We need to go meet her.”

Paul sighs, but helps him get dressed. His hands are steady and soothing even through the whirling panic pressing in Daryl’s skull (useless asshole can’t even stay conscious to-). “I love you. You know that, right?”

Daryl freezes, one leg in a worn pair of sweats and the other bare and blindingly pale in the medical center’s halogen lights. “What’s wrong.”

Paul blinks, and then shakes his head, rapid enough for a few strands of hair to slip out of his half-assed bun. “Nothing. I just-. You having the seizure, then fainting, it made me realise… none of us are invincible. It always seemed like, you know, you could make it through anything. And you can make it through this, I know that.”

He swallows, and Daryl watches a teardrop cling to his thick lashes before he leans in and presses a hand to the nape of his neck, steadying him. “I can’t lose you.”

Paul’s voice is cracked and wavering, the most openly vulnerable he’s been since Daryl’s head went and skipped like a record and had him doing toddler breakdancing on the kitchen floor.

“You won’t.” Daryl tells him. His own voice is rough and scratchy in his throat. He leans close and presses his mouth to the bearded line of Paul’s jaw. Feels the warmth and the steadiness and wishes he was less fucked up, that he could help instead of ruining everything, and.

Paul grips his hip. “Don’t beat yourself up for this. It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.” He pauses. “Except for not telling us about a head injury. Next time, maybe don’t be such a stubborn asshole and admit you need help.”

Daryl laughs. Paul grins, and it’s watery but there and that’s all Daryl really needs.

“I love you, too.” His voice is dry, and Paul presses a kiss to his mouth that’s more affection than heat or lust. Just comforting warmth.

“Let’s go face the music, sunshine.”

Daryl groans. This is going to be hell.

+++

The gates are just creaking open when Daryl and Paul make their slow way down the street.

Paul’s doing his best to ignore the way Daryl’s using him like a human armrest, but they both know he looks washed out and gaunt just from standing.

Rage crusts itself around his insides for a moment before he leans in to breathe Paul’s scent; bergamot and honey. Safety. Home.

If he collapses, Paul will keep him safe.

Of course, if he collapses right now, Carol might just turn around and shoot Paul right in his pretty face. So. Best to not chance it, probably.

The car coming through the gates comes to a slow stop. Daryl leans against Paul and takes small breaths in through the mouth, trying to stave off the nausea rocking his guts like a boat on a stormy sea.

Carol looks much the same, except for the way her hair’s grown out a little more since they last spoke. Not by much, but it’s a messy halo around her head, a shock of grey that makes her eyes seem even sharper in comparison. There’s no exhausted lines to her face, either; well rested without the bruises under her eyes. Still strength and steel in the way she walks, but something a little more gentle, too.

It reminds him of her back on the farm, so much time ago. The way she was both strong and soft, kind at her core but slowly learning how to fight back and take life between her palms and say: I’m keeping this.

She speaks to Aaron for a moment, wrapping one arm around his waist and smiling when he squeezes her back, and then makes her way towards Daryl, body coiled with tension.

Paul flinches slightly next to him, and Daryl manages a wry smile. “She ain’t gonna kill you. Probably.”

“Wow.” Paul mutters, but he smiles at Carol as she reaches them, hands on her hips. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”

Carol gives Paul her classic Stare of Disappointment, and Paul shrinks back as much as possible with one arm around Daryl’s waist.

“Stop bullyin’ him.”

Carol’s eyes flick to his face, warmth leaking into her expression despite the way she’s practically vibrating with the need to fix everything. “That’s part of the fun.” She leans close and Daryl hugs her so tight her breath hitches.

Fuck. He’s fucking missed her.

Paul and Aaron are the loves of his life. He wouldn’t for a moment consider leaving them until they get sick of him. Rick’s his brother, Michonne and Maggie like sisters, but Carol is his best friend. The first person he ever met who told him he was good enough. The first person who looked at him and didn’t see Merle’s shadow, but saw him for who he was at his core.

She set in motion the feeling of deserving love, of deserving affection; of being owed the kind of peace he never expected for himself.

Without her, he never would have been brave enough to be with Aaron or Paul, to have put himself out there.

So he recoils a little when she smacks his arm and calls him a moron as she pulls back from the hug, tears in her eyes.

“You scared me,” she says, voice wavering just a little. She swallows before stroking his chin and his eyebrow with her soft hands. Gentle, but scarred. “I can’t lose you.”

Daryl swallows back self-loathing induced nausea and leans into her hand, kissing the arch of her wrist. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not the one at fault, Pookie,” Carol sighs, and then flicks her gaze to Paul, so close and watching them with a soft smile on his mouth. “And neither are you.”

Paul lets out a breath, smile a little wider. Daryl’s hand clenches around Paul’s firm, muscled shoulder: see, I told you.

Aaron walks up behind them after Rosita closes the gate and has Eugene pull the car to the side, and he doesn’t hesitate in giving Carol a kiss on the cheek before coming to Daryl’s side and keeping him upright.

So maybe he wasn’t as subtle with the vertigo as he thought he’d been. Shit.

“Let’s get you back to the med center, huh?” She asks, and nods them onwards. “Book ‘im, boys.”

Paul laughs against Daryl’s jaw and Daryl tries not to let on just how sick he feels, how much his head hurts, and lets himself smile.

+++

Carol gets settled in with a cup of tea (Tara brewed it, so it’s weak and barely even tea, but she warms her hands around the mug anyway), and Daryl settles against the wall on the mattress and breathes slowly through his mouth to push the roiling of his stomach away.

Paul and Aaron left them a few minutes ago, letting them have time for themselves, and sometimes it takes his breath away, how well they know him. How much they love him, how much he loves them.

“You look like shit.” Her voice is blank, but there’s a sharpness to her tone that spells trouble.

Daryl snorts. “Thanks.”

Carol takes a sip of her flavored hot water and nudges his thigh with one of her boots. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Daryl’s hands clench on the starchy sheet over the thin mattress. “Tell ‘em what?”

Carol glares. “You know what. About the Saviors, about your head injuries. About the fact you have a history of seizures -don’t pull that shit with me you have a history of seizures even if it only happened twice, you fucking asshole. Why didn’t you tell them? Me? It could have been so much worse, Daryl. It could have been while you were on your bike or in a herd, and what then? What would we do then?”

Daryl drops his head and lets his hair cover his eyes.

Thing is, she knows why.

Sometimes, when the pain is so great and so constant, you forget to acknowledge it. It fades into the background hum of life. So what if it burns when you breathe, or moving your head too quick makes bells ring in your ears? So what if you lose your footing, as long as you get back afterwards?

When you’re used to tuning out the pain, sometimes the only way you realise it was there is when it’s gone.

“You know.”

Carol scoots forward, boots making a squeaking noise on the linoleum. “I do. But we love you. We want you safe. We love you even when it hurts, even when it’s hard. You understand that, right? We wouldn’t love you any less if you took some time to heal, if you just-. Sat the fuck down and let us dote on you for once.”

“We got jobs to do,” he tells her, Hershel’s voice ringing in his ears, and Carol quirks an eyebrow.

“Sure we do. Some of those jobs require you not having a seizure to get done.”

Daryl winces. Low fucking blow and a little too soon.

“I’m not holding the seizure against you, Daryl. No one is. No one is trying to say you’re weak, or you’re stupid, or anything you think we’re implying. We’re saying that you’ve been doing too much for too long and you’re burning out. And if you keep burning it, there won’t be anything left.”

He thinks of Atlanta, of a wild goose chase that led them to Beth, to failure, but also eventually to Alexandria. He thinks about a mother and a child rotting in a half-way house and burning them while Carol pressed against his back and sobbed for the children she’d lost.

“We ain’t ashes.” His voice is cracked and raw, and Carol’s laugh is watery in return.

“You will be, if you don’t buck up and admit you need help.” She strokes over his calf, and he finally raises his eyes to look at her, at the way she finally looks alive and rested and okay.

And he thinks about the fact that he thought he’d been doing so well, so fucking well, except for the nightmares.

And how maybe he wasn’t, not at all. How maybe doing well is always going to be skewed when your basis for normality is a childhood made of beatings and false apologies.

“I was scared.” It’s the first time he’s admitted it in a long time, and he watches the way Carol has to choke back her tears, the way her lower lip wobbles before she pulls some of the steel back into herself and straightens. “I didn’t know what was happening, and I was so sure I’d hurt someone, got someone hurt, done something stupid -. And I was scared.”

“I know.” She crawls next to him and buries her face in his shoulder, arms wrapping around his waist, soft warmth like he remembers from his mom when she’d been alive. “I know. I’m so sorry, Pookie.”

Daryl buries his face in her grey head and lets himself break apart, and she doesn’t say anything when his tears leave her hair damp.

+++

Carol slips him a cigarette.

Everyone’s been telling him not to smoke (don’t know what it could do, might trigger an episode), but Carol knows him and doesn’t try to keep this from him.

They sit side by side next to the med center window, passing the cigarette back and forth, and he slowly finds a way to put everything into words.

“When I was at the Sanctuary,” he starts off, slow, taking a drag and letting the smoke curl out of his nose. Carol doesn’t look at him. She knows the drill of secret-spilling. “They tortured me. You knew that. I mean. Everyone-. But. They locked me in a room and fed me dog food sandwiches and kept me awake for days with a song playing. Made me look at Abe’s picture after it-. After it happened.”

Carol links their fingers together on her thigh, and he takes strength in the familiar feel of it.

“Stripped me naked, cut words into me, burned me. I almost got out, once. It was a test. Tryna see if I was broke, yet, if I’d just go back. But I didn’t. And they came, whistling, and Negan told ‘em… He told ‘em all, y’know. Beat him up. Whatever. And they did. They smacked my head off the ground an’ I fought back, y’know, but… It didn’t matter. There were too many of ‘em and they were angry.”

He swallows. He thinks about putting the cigarette out in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, punishment for not trying harder, for not being better, before he passes it off to Carol instead.

She puts it out on the windowsill and flicks it outside.

“They fucked my ribs up, they let the gunshot go untreated, but my head… Everything else was easy compared to that. I couldn’t see. An’ it wasn’t even just because it was dark, all the time. I just -the light hurt, the dark hurt. Everything fucking hurt. When I puked all over Fat Joey just sitting up Dwight took me to Carson -not that one, his brother. He’s dead, now.”

“An’ he checked me over, told me it was a concussion, whatever. I’d be fine. I’d had concussions before.” He swallows. “A lot. But when they were takin’ me back to the cell, one of the guards said ‘should just cut his head open, see what kind of shit’s in there’.”

Carol’s spine locks up. Her fingers clench so tight around his that his own hands go white from the pressure. “Daryl…”

“Let me-. Lemme finish.”

She nods, but there’s a tick in her jaw.

“Said maybe they could find out how walkers were made. Said it probably weren’t much different to my brain, anyway. They had a ready test subject. ‘Not really a lobotomy if the idiot doesn’t have a brain in there’. I didn’t know if they were jokin’. But it sounded real. And I just-. I thought, y’know, might as well die trying to get out than die maybe givin’ em something.”

“I killed Joey, when I got out. I bashed his brains in and it was fine, until halfway to Hilltop and all I could see was Abe and how he’d looked when Neg-.” Daryl takes a sharp, shuddering breath. “Anyway. That’s… That’s it. I know I shoulda told you earlier, I-.”

Carol cuts him off by swinging her arms around him and shushing him right in his ear. He’s reminded of Terminus, seeing her again after so long not knowing where she was or if she was even alive. The warmth of her embrace so intense it makes his throat close up.

“You don’t owe me that.” She pulls back, and she doesn’t bother hiding the fact she’s crying or the way she’s shaking with barely repressed rage. “You don’t owe anyone that story, or that history. But you do owe people the ability to care for you in a way that helps. If your head hurts, let someone get you painkillers. Give you a massage. Get dicked down by Jesus.” She smirks, eyes bright with unshed tears. He laughs. “The people who love you want to help you. So let us help.”

Daryl lets out a shaky sigh. “I know. I know. I jus’-. S’hard.”

“It fucking sucks. It’s bullshit. The shit you went through is traumatic and terrible and fucking evil, and if those Saviors aren’t dead they will be soon. But you are not there, any more. You’re here. You’re alive. And your brain is telling you enough is e-fucking-nough, take a break, so you’re going to take a break. You’re going to let other people hunt and go on runs for the next two months. You are going to take painkillers and rest.”

Carol sits back and pokes his chest. “You’re going to have some time with your family. You’re going to spend time with Jesus and Aaron and Gracie. Rick, Carl, Michonne, Judith. Everyone. And any time you get more pain than is normal, any time it spikes, you say: I need some time, and I need some fucking drugs.”

Daryl doesn’t bother trying to fight her. She’s got her crazy eyes on and he’s aware of the fact she could kick his ass ten different ways, especially since he’s so weak right now.

“Okay.” He smiles, flushing when she looks shocked he agreed so readily. “Anything else?”

Carol lets a beatific smile split her face, like the sun coming out. “Yeah. You’re going to be my best man at the wedding.”

Daryl freezes.

He leans his head back against the wall and flutters his eyes. “Sorry, I’m having a seizure. I can’t hear you. What was that?”

Carol smacks him on the arm and cackles when he yelps. “You’re going to wear a suit.”

“No.” Daryl shakes his head, ignoring the way bright spots light up his skull. “No fuckin’ way.”

“A tuxedo,” Carol hisses, voice dark. “And wingtip loafers.”

Daryl closes his eyes. “They shoulda fuckin’ lobotomized me.”

And then, through the med center door, he hears Aaron’s voice.

“If you joke about this again I’m going to murder you for real!”

The laughter that peels out is only a little hysterical, but it lifts something from his chest. It makes him feel a whole lot less vulnerable and filled with shame, with Carol snorting giggles into his shoulder while he howls.

Not useless, maybe. Just resting.

Hell, if resting feels this good, maybe he can do it all the fucking time.