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Title: First Taste of Love, Bittersweet (2/6)
Fandom: The Walking Dead (TV)
Pairing: Rick / Daryl
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4370 (26000 total)
Summary: “You have to promise to come back,” Rick says. He is not crying, he is not. Though no one could blame him if he was, because he knows ‘moving away’ means his bestest friend will be gone forever. “Pinky-promise!”
“Pinky promises are for babies,” Daryl sniffs. “We gotta seal the deal with somethin’ else.”
A/N: Written for the RWG February 2016 Challenge, with the theme of “Firsts”. Title from Deana Carter’s Strawberry Wine. I imagine Rick to be about five years old at the start of this fic, and Daryl around seven or eight. The lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
legolastariel has also directed me to a graphic of how they might look at such an age, which can be seen here.
~
The days bleed into one another, the way they always do when Rick’s having fun, and soon enough, Rick knows he’s earned Daryl’s friendship, earned his trust, even, when Daryl shares with him his first treasure.
“A Tootsie roll?” Rick asks. His eyes widen with wonder when Daryl pulls the candy from his pocket. It’s got a worn-out wrapper, one that’s rather linty, like it’s been in his pocket too long.
“Yeah,” says Daryl. “Found it in, um.” He pauses for a moment, fiddling with the candy in his hand. “Found it,” he says at last, like it’s his final word on the matter.
Rick doesn’t ask any more questions, because a Tootsie roll’s a Tootsie roll, no matter how linty, so they pick off what fuzzy bits they can with their fingers and eat it anyway.
Daryl’s treasures, Rick finds, are like a double-edged sword—fascinating, but with some minor drawback, much like Daryl himself. There’s the tasty chocolate Tootsie roll with bits of fuzzy lint. A red sucker Daryl finds, wrapper half gone, that they wash off and take turns licking anyway. A pocket knife with the initials M.D. scratched into the handle, obviously not Daryl’s, that they use to carve their initials into a tree.
Unwavering loyalty with a foul mouth.
Rick only finds out about the last one when, on an afternoon he gets to the playground before Daryl, the boys circling the bike racks with their fancy road bikes gather around Rick, looming, big, intimidating. This is a shakedown for the hush money they’ve seen his sister giving him, and Rick knows it, but there’s no way out.
“Hey kid,” the tallest of them says, as his friends flank Rick from every corner. “Why don’t you share with us some of that money you got? We’re your friends too, right? Just like that kid you been hangin’ out with.” He turns to his buddies to whisper What’s the kid’s name? Meryl? Sheryl?, rolling his eyes when all he gets are shrugs in response.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Rick says stoutly, though his voice is as small as he feels right now.
“C’mon, Joe,” says one of his friends, adjusting his bandana. “Kid says he ain’t got any money. Let’s just go.”
“Yeah,” says another, looking at his watch. “The milkshake place closes early today, we gotta leave if we—”
“No,” says Joe, narrowing his eyes at Rick, and it’s not the suspicious cat-glare that Daryl’s turned on him often enough, but something feral and mean, like a panther that’s got its prey within its sights. “That, right there,” he declares, “is a lie. Now, I seen that pretty girl you come here with givin’ you money every day. Why, I bet you’ve got a whole stash of crisp little dollar bills hidden somewhere on you, don’t you?”
Rick shakes his head, even though it’s true, of course. It’s hidden in the same place he keeps all his sacred riches—in his shoe. The others gathered around Rick frisk him, patting down his clothes, and one of them even jams his grimy hand into Rick’s overall pocket, right in the centre of his chest.
“Nothin’ here,” shrugs the one who’s searched Rick’s overalls. He pockets the pellet of tropical fruit gum Daryl had given Rick though, which makes Rick more than a little sad; Daryl said he’d been saving it, before finally bestowing it upon Rick, like a treasure, exotic and rare.
Joe keeps scowling at Rick, like there’s something about this situation that’s not quite right. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.
“Still think you’re lyin’,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “And you know what we do to liars?” Joe leans right up to Rick’s face, close enough for Rick to smell the sourness of the chocolate milk he must’ve had for lunch. “We teach ‘em a lesson.” Joe stands back as he waves his buddies forward. “Go on, boys. Teach him a lesson.” His smile is all kinds of nasty. “Teach him all the way.”
All the way, as Rick finds out, involves the group of boys shoving Rick around like a lightweight beanbag between them, until a kick takes him out at the knees and he falls to the ground, hands scraping against the concrete, raw. Another kick to his back makes Rick curl into himself, hoping to make himself as small as possible until an adult comes along and finds him, or these boys tire of him and leave him alone.
This isn’t like the pinches or soft shoulder punches Robin inflicts on him when she says he’s being a brat; this is pain, unlike any he’s ever felt before.
He’s huddled into a ball on the ground, fighting back tears and hoping the flurry of kicks will stop, when all of a sudden Daryl’s there, clawing his way through the circle of boys, all taller and older, a whirling dervish of fists and feet and teeth as he snarls and rips Rick’s tormentors off him. And when they jump on their bikes, riding away, terrified—one of them at least has the guts to shout that it’s just not worth it, before also taking off on his bike—Daryl slings rocks after them, hollering, “Yeah, you run on home! Run on home to your mamas, you lousy—”
Here he lets loose a stream of filthy invective, which is quite possibly every dirty word Daryl knows, some of which Rick’s never even heard of. He’s pretty sure some are even made up, the ones to do with dog’s asses or shit-brained sheep, though Rick cowers and puts his hands over his ears for the rest of Daryl’s tirade, once he realizes what’s going on.
Then it’s quiet again, too quiet, and Daryl’s hands, bruised and torn, knuckles stained with blood that isn’t his, come to cover Rick’s, gentle. “Hey,” he says softly. “Hey. It’s all right now. They’re gone.” He helps Rick up, dusting off his dirtied overalls and wiping the tears away from Rick’s face, wet. “It’s okay.”
“What if they come back?” Rick asks, trying to stifle a sniffle. “What if they—”
“They ain’t never gonna hurt you again,” says Daryl, adamant. “Told ‘em you were my brother. Only reason they’ll come back is if they want another piece of me.”
And Rick’s just so touched by that, that he throws himself into Daryl’s arms, because Rick has an actual sister who isn’t even half as nice as Daryl is sometimes.
Daryl freezes up after Rick’s wound himself around Daryl, like he’s never been hugged before, but he doesn’t peel Rick off him, and Rick takes it as permission to keep hugging and hugging, because he’s just so happy. Daryl is boney in all the wrong places, and he winces when Rick squeezes where he’s taken a few punches, but in the end, he only manages a half-hearted stop when Rick’s hung on for too long. Doesn’t try very hard when he attempts to pry Rick off him.
“So?” Daryl asks, when Rick’s gotten all the grateful hugging out of his system. “There a reason those assholes jumped you?”
Rick’s brow furrows at Daryl’s use of the word assholes, because Rick’s not allowed to use that word, but he decides Daryl deserves to be told the truth, in return for this bold and daring rescue. “Think they saw my sister givin’ me some of her pocket money,” says Rick. “Because of, you know.”
Daryl nods; he does know, since Rick’s filled him in on the ‘I’m at the [insert place here] with my sister and not at the playground’ act. “You oughta leave that stuff at home,” he says. “If you don’t carry it with you, they can’t steal it from you.”
Rick’s stashed a fair amount of it in a gumdrop jar at home, but he still carries a little money around, just in case. Daryl only means well though, so Rick says, “I guess. Should use of some of it too, maybe.”
And as Daryl nods an absent uh huh, Rick looks up, eyes suddenly bright with the idea of a lifetime, except he’ll have to find a way to talk Daryl into it too. “Hey!” says Rick. “We could get ice cream!”
Daryl squints at Rick, like he’s not sure if Rick’s serious about the offer, or if they have enough money for that. “How much you got?” he says finally.
Rick empties out his shoe, shaking the small collection of coins and crumpled bills he has onto the ground between them. “I have this much!” he says, beaming at Daryl as they kneel on the grass, pooling their resources.
“Won’t work,” Daryl says. He’s counted what they’ve got, after adding his own handful of change to the pile. “Cheapest one’s at least five dollars, at the diner down the hill.”
“Oh,” says Rick, pursing his lips into another tiny pout.
They both know the cheaper alternative is the kiddie ice cream cones from the candy shop several blocks over, but those taste like melted sludge. So Rick’s gathering his worldly riches into his shoe again, heaving a sigh of extreme disappointment, when Daryl breathes, “Hold on. I got an idea!”
“You do?” Rick says, brightening instantly. Daryl always has good ideas, whether it’s for new games they can play, or finding secret places to hide around the playground.
“Yeah,” Daryl nods, mouth curved in a way that’s almost a grin. “Follow me.”
“Okay!” says Rick. And as he follows Daryl off the playground, he can’t help the uncontrollable excitement welling up inside him, because this is the first time they’ve left the playground, so it counts as their biggest adventure yet.
Daryl leads Rick down several streets and a few winding alleyways, but when Rick has to scamper to catch up, tugging on Daryl’s vest to huff, “Wait for me! Wait!”, Daryl turns to look at where Rick’s caught hold of his vest. Clutching on like they’re some kind of two-man train.
“You’re so slow,” Daryl frowns.
Rick flinches, because Robin’s always saying things like that. Like you’re too small, too slow, too everything. And wasn’t that why he was here with Daryl in the first place? Because he was too small to take with her? That was why he didn’t get to go to all the ‘cool’ places, like the movies, or the mall, or the arcade where she and her friends would thumb quarters into the machines and play all afternoon. He looks up at Daryl, eyes wide, terrified that he’s going to leave Rick here too, abandon him like Robin’s so fond of doing, because Rick can’t find his way back if Daryl does.
Daryl, for his part, only mumbles a quick sorry. Takes Rick’s small hand in his and laces their fingers together, tight, like they're latticework stitches of the same woollen blanket, the kind Rick’s mom loves knitting. Like their fates are intertwined somehow. And as Daryl gives him a twitch of a rare but reassuring smile, Rick can’t help but feel that they are.
When they come to an intersection, a place Rick knows he’s not supposed to be, because of Rule Number One—No Crossing the Street On Your Own—he takes a deep breath and grips Daryl’s hand, tight, because he’s not alone, and they make their way across the street together.
They arrive at the busy town square, one that’s bustling with shoppers and dog-walkers and moms pushing their baby strollers. All around them are the sights and sounds and flavours of life: the clatter of baking pans slotted perfect into displays, the aroma of their golden biscuits and cream puffs wafting through the air; the crying of the gulls overhead, always looking for a stray morsel to eat; people laughing, as they weave through gift shops filled with doodads every color of the rainbow; the sound of water, the kind of muted roar that only comes from—
“There,” says Daryl. He points at the fountain in the middle of the square, water bubbling at its base, and the occasional jet of water spraying out, like a sleepy geyser. “That’s how we’re gonna get more money.”
“Isn’t that stealin’?” Rick asks, doubtful. Seems to him like it is, taking things that aren’t theirs.
“You want an ice cream or not?” says Daryl. “’Cause if you do, we ain’t got enough.”
Rick shuts his mouth because he does, and they don’t. “How do we do it?” he asks.
Daryl surveys the structure of the fountain and the number of people milling around it, the flat of his hand turned up against the afternoon sun.
“All right,” he says, “here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll kneel on that edge of the fountain there, where people’re sittin’. You hold my legs down, and I’ll scoop up what we need. That way, neither of us get too wet.” Daryl rolls his eyes when Rick gives him a worried look. “We don’t need that much.”
“Okay,” Rick nods. And without further ado, they slink forward, commencing their mission of raiding the water fountain for coins.
As they near, Rick can see a healthy number of coins scattered throughout the basin of the fountain, but some are indeed further in, probably pushed that way by the flow of the water. Unless they take off their shoes to wade in and harvest the coins, Daryl’s idea seems to work best.
The sun’s beating down on Rick’s back as he holds down Daryl’s legs, and it feels like his white cotton shirt’s sticking to skin, clammy and sweaty all at once. But the fine mist of water from the fountain does wonders to cool Rick in the horrid heat, so he just steels himself and bears Daryl’s weight as best he can. Daryl, in the meantime, manages to gather two fistfuls of change in his not-so-subtle scrabbling for coins on the fountain floor, before a woman with a baby carriage screeches at them, like those clawed bird-women Robin showed Rick in a movie once.
“You leave those coins alone!” she shrieks. Like they’re bottom-feeders of the lowest degree, daring to scrape up coins not meant for funding ice cream dreams. “Those are people’s wishes, young man!” She glares pointedly at each of them in turn, though her gaze is directed mostly at Daryl.
Daryl just looks up with his mean cat’s eyes, making sure to grab an extra-large handful of change right in front of her. “Don’t think they’ll mind much,” he says. “Since I’m just tryin’ to make another wish come true.”
At that, Rick nearly loses his hold on Daryl, but just manages to catch him in time. Hopes like mad that the flush filling his cheeks at Daryl’s words can be credited to the overwhelming heat of the day.
In any case, the woman stalks off with a haughty sniff, pushing her baby carriage along as she goes, and when she’s turned away, Daryl swipes another handful of change from the basin. Signals Rick with a wet wave of his hand to reel him back in to land.
They know not to linger too long—they don’t know if the woman’s going to call the cops on them or not, but they aren’t sticking around to find out—and together, they hightail it out of the fountain, the square, hands and knees wet with the slimy recycled water of the fountain, but pocketfuls of coins the wealthier.
“We’re rich!” Rick exclaims, when they’ve made it a safe distance away, three blocks down and one right turn. Daryl’s spilled their bounty on the grass between them, arms soaked to the elbow, but even he grins too, at the result of their hard work.
“Not yet we ain’t,” says Daryl. “Gotta count it first.”
Rick organizes the coins into tiny piles, according to how much they’re worth, and they find, thankfully, that Daryl had thought to grab more quarters than he had nickels or dimes. He can’t count any higher than thirty cents, though, so Daryl has to take over for him, and they discover that in total, they’ve swiped the equivalent of three dollars and seventy-five cents in change.
“This is enough for a real ice cream,” Rick says in awe. He carefully hides their loot in the grass, a pulled-up handful of dirt and dead plant matter obscuring the coins. In case any birds or bullies want a share of their prize.
Daryl nods, thoughtful, before he gathers up the coins and tugs Rick after him. “C’mon,” he says. “I know a place.”
The place Daryl knows turns out to be The Finer Diner. It’s not far from the school where the playground’s located, but it’s on a street Rick’s never gone down, since his parents do all their shopping at the complex up the hill. Daryl throws the door open when they arrive, and the two of them hurry in, treading over black-and-white checkered tiles, taking in the sight of red vinyl booths and barstools, and the sound of a jukebox in the corner, crooning a soft, soothing thing that Rick can’t make out the words to.
“This—this is so—” Rick tries, as he looks around. He’s caught between a jumble of exciting and cool and fantastic, but Daryl seems to know what he’s trying to say.
“You like it?” he asks, with a shy smile. “Used to come here with my ma, sometimes. Before my pa started…well, before.” Daryl shrugs, like his home life’s not worth talking about. Like his time with Rick’s the only thing worth focusing on.
“Do I ever!” Rick exclaims. He peers up at the menu of desserts the diner’s got listed on the blackboard, and from where he stands, he can see the options for ice cream parfaits: strawberry, chocolate, blueberry or peach.
They’ve got just enough money for a small parfait, so when they agree on a chocolate one, they head to the cash register to place their order, instead of waiting for menus and a waitress.
“What can I do ya boys for?” asks the waitress at the register.
Rick squints up at her name tag, but the handwriting scrawled across it’s too faded to read, so he decides to let that go and do what they came here for. “A small parfait, please!” Rick pipes up. He raises his eyebrows at Daryl for a quick look of confirmation—chocolate?—and Daryl nods a yeah, before Rick adds, “Chocolate, please!”
“One chocolate parfait, comin’ right up,” she beams. “And is that to stay or to go?”
Rick defers to Daryl on this, so Daryl takes a look around the diner; the booths are full since the diner’s starting to fill up for dinner, and it’s clear Rick’s too short to wiggle his way onto the high barstools. “To go,” Daryl says for both of them.
She rings them up, and while they get an odd look for paying with their handfuls of coins and Rick’s crumpled dollar bills, she doesn’t stop them to ask how they obtained their ill-gotten gains. And though it’s a near thing, Rick doesn’t break down and volunteer the truth, either.
He wants that chocolate parfait.
It comes in a plastic cup with two matching spoons, and it’s just perfect, the way it’s alternately layered with vanilla soft-serve and chocolate sauce. There’s a sprinkling of peanuts around the sides, and the whole ensemble’s topped with golden banana slices and a rolled chocolate wafer.
Daryl takes them outside, so they can sit on the pavement to share. And as they take turns holding the cup between them, so their fingers don’t go numb from the freeze, Rick finds they’re close enough to enjoy the breeze of the fan from inside the diner. Hear a little better, the sound of the jukebox playing. From this distance, farther from the kitchen clang of pots and pans and the calling out of food orders, Rick can just about make out the lyrics of the song from earlier. Something about not being able to help—no, it was can’t help.
For I can’t help
falling in love
with you.
It’s different from the songs Rick’s parents let him listen to, songs about the wheels on a bus, or row, row, rowing a boat. A good kind of different.
Daryl grunts when he sees Rick straining to hear the rest of the words. “You like that sappy shit?” he asks, taking the opportunity to dig into their parfait first.
Rick just shrugs, another thing he’s picked up from Daryl, and picks at their meagre parfait, grateful at least that they were able to get the one. “You know,” he says, regretful, nodding down at the dessert between them, “we coulda gotten another one if you’d let me be on coin-gatherin’ duty earlier. I mighta been faster—that lady wouldn’t have caught us!”
Daryl just snorts and doesn’t bother with an answer, scooping up a hefty portion of the ice cream and spooning it into his mouth. Like time’s a-wastin’ if he spends it on talking. Snags a banana slice from Rick’s side of the parfait, before popping that in his mouth as well.
“I coulda done it quieter than you too,” says Rick, spearing a banana slice of his own before Daryl takes them all. “And you’re so heavy.” He’d almost lost his grip on Daryl a few times, back at the fountain, though Daryl doesn’t need to know that.
Daryl narrows his eyes at heavy, before deciding Rick didn’t mean anything by it. “Look,” Daryl says, “I didn’t wanna get you in trouble. Nobody’d care if I did it, though.” He shrugs. “Ain’t nobody ever cared about a Dixon,” he adds, like it’s just the way of the world.
“Oh.” Rick blinks, surprised, because that’s not the way it works in his world. He spoons a small dollop of vanilla soft serve and chocolate syrup into his mouth, thoughtful, before sharing his most honest truth. “I care about you,” he says simply.
Daryl stills, stunned, spoon halfway to his mouth, which Rick doesn’t understand at all, because he’s only telling Daryl what’s in his heart.
All around them, the song plays on, wrapping them in a melodious layer of warmth. The crickets chirping in the roadside grass aren’t quite so loud, the last rays of the setting sun aren’t quite so bright, and as Daryl leans in, slow, Rick’s struck by the feeling that something’s about to happen, something big—momentous, his mom called it—when Daryl makes a clicking noise with his tongue, that sound he makes when he’s frustrated. Fishes out the scrap of rag from his back pocket.
“I swear to god, you eat like a little pig,” says Daryl. He dabs at Rick’s cheeks with the rag, holey and fire-engine red, a cloth that Rick knows is only used for Very Important Occasions, because of how hard it was to get. Cut it from my ma’s apron, Daryl had told him, proud. “You look like you fell into a puddle of mud and landed on your face.”
Rick twists out of Daryl’s grasp with a whine because the ice cream’s melting while they do this, but for the rest of the time, Daryl’s strangely silent, like he’s still mulling over what Rick said. Maybe it’s the reason he lets Rick have the rolled chocolate wafer on the top. Or maybe it’s for the same reason he lets Rick win most of their games of Tic Tac Toe. Whatever the reason is, Rick will take it, if it means he gets to crunch through the butter-rich morsel of chocolate, of which there’s only one.
He saves half of it for Daryl in the end though, because that’s only fair.
When they’ve slurped up what’s left of the peanuts and ice cream between them, Rick starts to sit back, patting his belly, satisfied, but Daryl sighs and tugs him upright again.
“We gotta clean up,” he says. He tilts his head pointedly at the mess of sugar and sweetness that’s smeared across Rick’s cheeks and nose again. “Get rid of the evidence.”
“Oh. Right,” says Rick. Yes, there was that; Rick had let Daryl in on the fact that technically he wasn’t supposed to be at the playground, and that technically his sister was supposed to be watching him while she hung out with her friends. So Daryl’s just thinking for them both, as he rubs anxiously at Rick’s cheeks with his little rag and his mumbles of gotta get rid of the evidence, like they’d committed some ghastly crime.
Rick sits dutifully still, letting Daryl wipe away proof of their transgressions, but there’s a knit to Daryl’s brow, irritated, when he finds there’s a place his rag won’t reach. “There, in the corner of your mouth,” Daryl says, pointing. “You’re gonna have to lick that bit away.”
Rick tries, his tongue searching, licking blindly at the spot Daryl’s directed him to. “Is it gone yet?” he asks, worried. If he was caught, there would be no more playground days, to say the least of parfaits of chocolatey goodness.
“No, it’s still—” Daryl gives a grumpy little huff, when more of Rick’s self-licking attempts seem to smear whatever Rick had on his face around, putting Daryl’s earlier cleaning efforts to waste. “Here, lemme try.” He reaches out, palm coming to curve along Rick’s face, warm, as he wicks away the offending smudge with his thumb. As he does so, his thumb brushes over Rick’s lips, and Rick can’t help the electric shiver that runs through him at that.
Daryl blinks at the motion, but all he does in return is suck his thumb into his mouth, then his fingers, licking the last dredges of sweetness from his hand. “Ain’t no sense in wastin’ any,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah,” Rick says, his mouth suddenly dry, with no idea as to why. “Yeah.”
That night, after Robin’s brought Rick home and he’s been safely tucked into his rocket-ship bedding, he presses his fingers to his lips again. Retraces the ridge where Daryl’s thumb brushed across his mouth.
That, too, had been a good kind of different.
(tbc - Chapter 3)
End Notes:
- The wishing fountain Rick and Daryl raid is based on this fountain here.
- A parfait similar to the one Rick and Daryl share from the diner can be seen here.
- The song playing on the jukebox is Elvis Presley’s timeless Can’t Help Falling In Love.
Fandom: The Walking Dead (TV)
Pairing: Rick / Daryl
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4370 (26000 total)
Summary: “You have to promise to come back,” Rick says. He is not crying, he is not. Though no one could blame him if he was, because he knows ‘moving away’ means his bestest friend will be gone forever. “Pinky-promise!”
“Pinky promises are for babies,” Daryl sniffs. “We gotta seal the deal with somethin’ else.”
A/N: Written for the RWG February 2016 Challenge, with the theme of “Firsts”. Title from Deana Carter’s Strawberry Wine. I imagine Rick to be about five years old at the start of this fic, and Daryl around seven or eight. The lovely
legolastariel has also directed me to a graphic of how they might look at such an age, which can be seen here.The days bleed into one another, the way they always do when Rick’s having fun, and soon enough, Rick knows he’s earned Daryl’s friendship, earned his trust, even, when Daryl shares with him his first treasure.
“A Tootsie roll?” Rick asks. His eyes widen with wonder when Daryl pulls the candy from his pocket. It’s got a worn-out wrapper, one that’s rather linty, like it’s been in his pocket too long.
“Yeah,” says Daryl. “Found it in, um.” He pauses for a moment, fiddling with the candy in his hand. “Found it,” he says at last, like it’s his final word on the matter.
Rick doesn’t ask any more questions, because a Tootsie roll’s a Tootsie roll, no matter how linty, so they pick off what fuzzy bits they can with their fingers and eat it anyway.
Daryl’s treasures, Rick finds, are like a double-edged sword—fascinating, but with some minor drawback, much like Daryl himself. There’s the tasty chocolate Tootsie roll with bits of fuzzy lint. A red sucker Daryl finds, wrapper half gone, that they wash off and take turns licking anyway. A pocket knife with the initials M.D. scratched into the handle, obviously not Daryl’s, that they use to carve their initials into a tree.
Unwavering loyalty with a foul mouth.
Rick only finds out about the last one when, on an afternoon he gets to the playground before Daryl, the boys circling the bike racks with their fancy road bikes gather around Rick, looming, big, intimidating. This is a shakedown for the hush money they’ve seen his sister giving him, and Rick knows it, but there’s no way out.
“Hey kid,” the tallest of them says, as his friends flank Rick from every corner. “Why don’t you share with us some of that money you got? We’re your friends too, right? Just like that kid you been hangin’ out with.” He turns to his buddies to whisper What’s the kid’s name? Meryl? Sheryl?, rolling his eyes when all he gets are shrugs in response.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Rick says stoutly, though his voice is as small as he feels right now.
“C’mon, Joe,” says one of his friends, adjusting his bandana. “Kid says he ain’t got any money. Let’s just go.”
“Yeah,” says another, looking at his watch. “The milkshake place closes early today, we gotta leave if we—”
“No,” says Joe, narrowing his eyes at Rick, and it’s not the suspicious cat-glare that Daryl’s turned on him often enough, but something feral and mean, like a panther that’s got its prey within its sights. “That, right there,” he declares, “is a lie. Now, I seen that pretty girl you come here with givin’ you money every day. Why, I bet you’ve got a whole stash of crisp little dollar bills hidden somewhere on you, don’t you?”
Rick shakes his head, even though it’s true, of course. It’s hidden in the same place he keeps all his sacred riches—in his shoe. The others gathered around Rick frisk him, patting down his clothes, and one of them even jams his grimy hand into Rick’s overall pocket, right in the centre of his chest.
“Nothin’ here,” shrugs the one who’s searched Rick’s overalls. He pockets the pellet of tropical fruit gum Daryl had given Rick though, which makes Rick more than a little sad; Daryl said he’d been saving it, before finally bestowing it upon Rick, like a treasure, exotic and rare.
Joe keeps scowling at Rick, like there’s something about this situation that’s not quite right. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.
“Still think you’re lyin’,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “And you know what we do to liars?” Joe leans right up to Rick’s face, close enough for Rick to smell the sourness of the chocolate milk he must’ve had for lunch. “We teach ‘em a lesson.” Joe stands back as he waves his buddies forward. “Go on, boys. Teach him a lesson.” His smile is all kinds of nasty. “Teach him all the way.”
All the way, as Rick finds out, involves the group of boys shoving Rick around like a lightweight beanbag between them, until a kick takes him out at the knees and he falls to the ground, hands scraping against the concrete, raw. Another kick to his back makes Rick curl into himself, hoping to make himself as small as possible until an adult comes along and finds him, or these boys tire of him and leave him alone.
This isn’t like the pinches or soft shoulder punches Robin inflicts on him when she says he’s being a brat; this is pain, unlike any he’s ever felt before.
He’s huddled into a ball on the ground, fighting back tears and hoping the flurry of kicks will stop, when all of a sudden Daryl’s there, clawing his way through the circle of boys, all taller and older, a whirling dervish of fists and feet and teeth as he snarls and rips Rick’s tormentors off him. And when they jump on their bikes, riding away, terrified—one of them at least has the guts to shout that it’s just not worth it, before also taking off on his bike—Daryl slings rocks after them, hollering, “Yeah, you run on home! Run on home to your mamas, you lousy—”
Here he lets loose a stream of filthy invective, which is quite possibly every dirty word Daryl knows, some of which Rick’s never even heard of. He’s pretty sure some are even made up, the ones to do with dog’s asses or shit-brained sheep, though Rick cowers and puts his hands over his ears for the rest of Daryl’s tirade, once he realizes what’s going on.
Then it’s quiet again, too quiet, and Daryl’s hands, bruised and torn, knuckles stained with blood that isn’t his, come to cover Rick’s, gentle. “Hey,” he says softly. “Hey. It’s all right now. They’re gone.” He helps Rick up, dusting off his dirtied overalls and wiping the tears away from Rick’s face, wet. “It’s okay.”
“What if they come back?” Rick asks, trying to stifle a sniffle. “What if they—”
“They ain’t never gonna hurt you again,” says Daryl, adamant. “Told ‘em you were my brother. Only reason they’ll come back is if they want another piece of me.”
And Rick’s just so touched by that, that he throws himself into Daryl’s arms, because Rick has an actual sister who isn’t even half as nice as Daryl is sometimes.
Daryl freezes up after Rick’s wound himself around Daryl, like he’s never been hugged before, but he doesn’t peel Rick off him, and Rick takes it as permission to keep hugging and hugging, because he’s just so happy. Daryl is boney in all the wrong places, and he winces when Rick squeezes where he’s taken a few punches, but in the end, he only manages a half-hearted stop when Rick’s hung on for too long. Doesn’t try very hard when he attempts to pry Rick off him.
“So?” Daryl asks, when Rick’s gotten all the grateful hugging out of his system. “There a reason those assholes jumped you?”
Rick’s brow furrows at Daryl’s use of the word assholes, because Rick’s not allowed to use that word, but he decides Daryl deserves to be told the truth, in return for this bold and daring rescue. “Think they saw my sister givin’ me some of her pocket money,” says Rick. “Because of, you know.”
Daryl nods; he does know, since Rick’s filled him in on the ‘I’m at the [insert place here] with my sister and not at the playground’ act. “You oughta leave that stuff at home,” he says. “If you don’t carry it with you, they can’t steal it from you.”
Rick’s stashed a fair amount of it in a gumdrop jar at home, but he still carries a little money around, just in case. Daryl only means well though, so Rick says, “I guess. Should use of some of it too, maybe.”
And as Daryl nods an absent uh huh, Rick looks up, eyes suddenly bright with the idea of a lifetime, except he’ll have to find a way to talk Daryl into it too. “Hey!” says Rick. “We could get ice cream!”
Daryl squints at Rick, like he’s not sure if Rick’s serious about the offer, or if they have enough money for that. “How much you got?” he says finally.
Rick empties out his shoe, shaking the small collection of coins and crumpled bills he has onto the ground between them. “I have this much!” he says, beaming at Daryl as they kneel on the grass, pooling their resources.
“Won’t work,” Daryl says. He’s counted what they’ve got, after adding his own handful of change to the pile. “Cheapest one’s at least five dollars, at the diner down the hill.”
“Oh,” says Rick, pursing his lips into another tiny pout.
They both know the cheaper alternative is the kiddie ice cream cones from the candy shop several blocks over, but those taste like melted sludge. So Rick’s gathering his worldly riches into his shoe again, heaving a sigh of extreme disappointment, when Daryl breathes, “Hold on. I got an idea!”
“You do?” Rick says, brightening instantly. Daryl always has good ideas, whether it’s for new games they can play, or finding secret places to hide around the playground.
“Yeah,” Daryl nods, mouth curved in a way that’s almost a grin. “Follow me.”
“Okay!” says Rick. And as he follows Daryl off the playground, he can’t help the uncontrollable excitement welling up inside him, because this is the first time they’ve left the playground, so it counts as their biggest adventure yet.
Daryl leads Rick down several streets and a few winding alleyways, but when Rick has to scamper to catch up, tugging on Daryl’s vest to huff, “Wait for me! Wait!”, Daryl turns to look at where Rick’s caught hold of his vest. Clutching on like they’re some kind of two-man train.
“You’re so slow,” Daryl frowns.
Rick flinches, because Robin’s always saying things like that. Like you’re too small, too slow, too everything. And wasn’t that why he was here with Daryl in the first place? Because he was too small to take with her? That was why he didn’t get to go to all the ‘cool’ places, like the movies, or the mall, or the arcade where she and her friends would thumb quarters into the machines and play all afternoon. He looks up at Daryl, eyes wide, terrified that he’s going to leave Rick here too, abandon him like Robin’s so fond of doing, because Rick can’t find his way back if Daryl does.
Daryl, for his part, only mumbles a quick sorry. Takes Rick’s small hand in his and laces their fingers together, tight, like they're latticework stitches of the same woollen blanket, the kind Rick’s mom loves knitting. Like their fates are intertwined somehow. And as Daryl gives him a twitch of a rare but reassuring smile, Rick can’t help but feel that they are.
When they come to an intersection, a place Rick knows he’s not supposed to be, because of Rule Number One—No Crossing the Street On Your Own—he takes a deep breath and grips Daryl’s hand, tight, because he’s not alone, and they make their way across the street together.
They arrive at the busy town square, one that’s bustling with shoppers and dog-walkers and moms pushing their baby strollers. All around them are the sights and sounds and flavours of life: the clatter of baking pans slotted perfect into displays, the aroma of their golden biscuits and cream puffs wafting through the air; the crying of the gulls overhead, always looking for a stray morsel to eat; people laughing, as they weave through gift shops filled with doodads every color of the rainbow; the sound of water, the kind of muted roar that only comes from—
“There,” says Daryl. He points at the fountain in the middle of the square, water bubbling at its base, and the occasional jet of water spraying out, like a sleepy geyser. “That’s how we’re gonna get more money.”
“Isn’t that stealin’?” Rick asks, doubtful. Seems to him like it is, taking things that aren’t theirs.
“You want an ice cream or not?” says Daryl. “’Cause if you do, we ain’t got enough.”
Rick shuts his mouth because he does, and they don’t. “How do we do it?” he asks.
Daryl surveys the structure of the fountain and the number of people milling around it, the flat of his hand turned up against the afternoon sun.
“All right,” he says, “here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll kneel on that edge of the fountain there, where people’re sittin’. You hold my legs down, and I’ll scoop up what we need. That way, neither of us get too wet.” Daryl rolls his eyes when Rick gives him a worried look. “We don’t need that much.”
“Okay,” Rick nods. And without further ado, they slink forward, commencing their mission of raiding the water fountain for coins.
As they near, Rick can see a healthy number of coins scattered throughout the basin of the fountain, but some are indeed further in, probably pushed that way by the flow of the water. Unless they take off their shoes to wade in and harvest the coins, Daryl’s idea seems to work best.
The sun’s beating down on Rick’s back as he holds down Daryl’s legs, and it feels like his white cotton shirt’s sticking to skin, clammy and sweaty all at once. But the fine mist of water from the fountain does wonders to cool Rick in the horrid heat, so he just steels himself and bears Daryl’s weight as best he can. Daryl, in the meantime, manages to gather two fistfuls of change in his not-so-subtle scrabbling for coins on the fountain floor, before a woman with a baby carriage screeches at them, like those clawed bird-women Robin showed Rick in a movie once.
“You leave those coins alone!” she shrieks. Like they’re bottom-feeders of the lowest degree, daring to scrape up coins not meant for funding ice cream dreams. “Those are people’s wishes, young man!” She glares pointedly at each of them in turn, though her gaze is directed mostly at Daryl.
Daryl just looks up with his mean cat’s eyes, making sure to grab an extra-large handful of change right in front of her. “Don’t think they’ll mind much,” he says. “Since I’m just tryin’ to make another wish come true.”
At that, Rick nearly loses his hold on Daryl, but just manages to catch him in time. Hopes like mad that the flush filling his cheeks at Daryl’s words can be credited to the overwhelming heat of the day.
In any case, the woman stalks off with a haughty sniff, pushing her baby carriage along as she goes, and when she’s turned away, Daryl swipes another handful of change from the basin. Signals Rick with a wet wave of his hand to reel him back in to land.
They know not to linger too long—they don’t know if the woman’s going to call the cops on them or not, but they aren’t sticking around to find out—and together, they hightail it out of the fountain, the square, hands and knees wet with the slimy recycled water of the fountain, but pocketfuls of coins the wealthier.
“We’re rich!” Rick exclaims, when they’ve made it a safe distance away, three blocks down and one right turn. Daryl’s spilled their bounty on the grass between them, arms soaked to the elbow, but even he grins too, at the result of their hard work.
“Not yet we ain’t,” says Daryl. “Gotta count it first.”
Rick organizes the coins into tiny piles, according to how much they’re worth, and they find, thankfully, that Daryl had thought to grab more quarters than he had nickels or dimes. He can’t count any higher than thirty cents, though, so Daryl has to take over for him, and they discover that in total, they’ve swiped the equivalent of three dollars and seventy-five cents in change.
“This is enough for a real ice cream,” Rick says in awe. He carefully hides their loot in the grass, a pulled-up handful of dirt and dead plant matter obscuring the coins. In case any birds or bullies want a share of their prize.
Daryl nods, thoughtful, before he gathers up the coins and tugs Rick after him. “C’mon,” he says. “I know a place.”
The place Daryl knows turns out to be The Finer Diner. It’s not far from the school where the playground’s located, but it’s on a street Rick’s never gone down, since his parents do all their shopping at the complex up the hill. Daryl throws the door open when they arrive, and the two of them hurry in, treading over black-and-white checkered tiles, taking in the sight of red vinyl booths and barstools, and the sound of a jukebox in the corner, crooning a soft, soothing thing that Rick can’t make out the words to.
“This—this is so—” Rick tries, as he looks around. He’s caught between a jumble of exciting and cool and fantastic, but Daryl seems to know what he’s trying to say.
“You like it?” he asks, with a shy smile. “Used to come here with my ma, sometimes. Before my pa started…well, before.” Daryl shrugs, like his home life’s not worth talking about. Like his time with Rick’s the only thing worth focusing on.
“Do I ever!” Rick exclaims. He peers up at the menu of desserts the diner’s got listed on the blackboard, and from where he stands, he can see the options for ice cream parfaits: strawberry, chocolate, blueberry or peach.
They’ve got just enough money for a small parfait, so when they agree on a chocolate one, they head to the cash register to place their order, instead of waiting for menus and a waitress.
“What can I do ya boys for?” asks the waitress at the register.
Rick squints up at her name tag, but the handwriting scrawled across it’s too faded to read, so he decides to let that go and do what they came here for. “A small parfait, please!” Rick pipes up. He raises his eyebrows at Daryl for a quick look of confirmation—chocolate?—and Daryl nods a yeah, before Rick adds, “Chocolate, please!”
“One chocolate parfait, comin’ right up,” she beams. “And is that to stay or to go?”
Rick defers to Daryl on this, so Daryl takes a look around the diner; the booths are full since the diner’s starting to fill up for dinner, and it’s clear Rick’s too short to wiggle his way onto the high barstools. “To go,” Daryl says for both of them.
She rings them up, and while they get an odd look for paying with their handfuls of coins and Rick’s crumpled dollar bills, she doesn’t stop them to ask how they obtained their ill-gotten gains. And though it’s a near thing, Rick doesn’t break down and volunteer the truth, either.
He wants that chocolate parfait.
It comes in a plastic cup with two matching spoons, and it’s just perfect, the way it’s alternately layered with vanilla soft-serve and chocolate sauce. There’s a sprinkling of peanuts around the sides, and the whole ensemble’s topped with golden banana slices and a rolled chocolate wafer.
Daryl takes them outside, so they can sit on the pavement to share. And as they take turns holding the cup between them, so their fingers don’t go numb from the freeze, Rick finds they’re close enough to enjoy the breeze of the fan from inside the diner. Hear a little better, the sound of the jukebox playing. From this distance, farther from the kitchen clang of pots and pans and the calling out of food orders, Rick can just about make out the lyrics of the song from earlier. Something about not being able to help—no, it was can’t help.
For I can’t help
falling in love
with you.
It’s different from the songs Rick’s parents let him listen to, songs about the wheels on a bus, or row, row, rowing a boat. A good kind of different.
Daryl grunts when he sees Rick straining to hear the rest of the words. “You like that sappy shit?” he asks, taking the opportunity to dig into their parfait first.
Rick just shrugs, another thing he’s picked up from Daryl, and picks at their meagre parfait, grateful at least that they were able to get the one. “You know,” he says, regretful, nodding down at the dessert between them, “we coulda gotten another one if you’d let me be on coin-gatherin’ duty earlier. I mighta been faster—that lady wouldn’t have caught us!”
Daryl just snorts and doesn’t bother with an answer, scooping up a hefty portion of the ice cream and spooning it into his mouth. Like time’s a-wastin’ if he spends it on talking. Snags a banana slice from Rick’s side of the parfait, before popping that in his mouth as well.
“I coulda done it quieter than you too,” says Rick, spearing a banana slice of his own before Daryl takes them all. “And you’re so heavy.” He’d almost lost his grip on Daryl a few times, back at the fountain, though Daryl doesn’t need to know that.
Daryl narrows his eyes at heavy, before deciding Rick didn’t mean anything by it. “Look,” Daryl says, “I didn’t wanna get you in trouble. Nobody’d care if I did it, though.” He shrugs. “Ain’t nobody ever cared about a Dixon,” he adds, like it’s just the way of the world.
“Oh.” Rick blinks, surprised, because that’s not the way it works in his world. He spoons a small dollop of vanilla soft serve and chocolate syrup into his mouth, thoughtful, before sharing his most honest truth. “I care about you,” he says simply.
Daryl stills, stunned, spoon halfway to his mouth, which Rick doesn’t understand at all, because he’s only telling Daryl what’s in his heart.
All around them, the song plays on, wrapping them in a melodious layer of warmth. The crickets chirping in the roadside grass aren’t quite so loud, the last rays of the setting sun aren’t quite so bright, and as Daryl leans in, slow, Rick’s struck by the feeling that something’s about to happen, something big—momentous, his mom called it—when Daryl makes a clicking noise with his tongue, that sound he makes when he’s frustrated. Fishes out the scrap of rag from his back pocket.
“I swear to god, you eat like a little pig,” says Daryl. He dabs at Rick’s cheeks with the rag, holey and fire-engine red, a cloth that Rick knows is only used for Very Important Occasions, because of how hard it was to get. Cut it from my ma’s apron, Daryl had told him, proud. “You look like you fell into a puddle of mud and landed on your face.”
Rick twists out of Daryl’s grasp with a whine because the ice cream’s melting while they do this, but for the rest of the time, Daryl’s strangely silent, like he’s still mulling over what Rick said. Maybe it’s the reason he lets Rick have the rolled chocolate wafer on the top. Or maybe it’s for the same reason he lets Rick win most of their games of Tic Tac Toe. Whatever the reason is, Rick will take it, if it means he gets to crunch through the butter-rich morsel of chocolate, of which there’s only one.
He saves half of it for Daryl in the end though, because that’s only fair.
When they’ve slurped up what’s left of the peanuts and ice cream between them, Rick starts to sit back, patting his belly, satisfied, but Daryl sighs and tugs him upright again.
“We gotta clean up,” he says. He tilts his head pointedly at the mess of sugar and sweetness that’s smeared across Rick’s cheeks and nose again. “Get rid of the evidence.”
“Oh. Right,” says Rick. Yes, there was that; Rick had let Daryl in on the fact that technically he wasn’t supposed to be at the playground, and that technically his sister was supposed to be watching him while she hung out with her friends. So Daryl’s just thinking for them both, as he rubs anxiously at Rick’s cheeks with his little rag and his mumbles of gotta get rid of the evidence, like they’d committed some ghastly crime.
Rick sits dutifully still, letting Daryl wipe away proof of their transgressions, but there’s a knit to Daryl’s brow, irritated, when he finds there’s a place his rag won’t reach. “There, in the corner of your mouth,” Daryl says, pointing. “You’re gonna have to lick that bit away.”
Rick tries, his tongue searching, licking blindly at the spot Daryl’s directed him to. “Is it gone yet?” he asks, worried. If he was caught, there would be no more playground days, to say the least of parfaits of chocolatey goodness.
“No, it’s still—” Daryl gives a grumpy little huff, when more of Rick’s self-licking attempts seem to smear whatever Rick had on his face around, putting Daryl’s earlier cleaning efforts to waste. “Here, lemme try.” He reaches out, palm coming to curve along Rick’s face, warm, as he wicks away the offending smudge with his thumb. As he does so, his thumb brushes over Rick’s lips, and Rick can’t help the electric shiver that runs through him at that.
Daryl blinks at the motion, but all he does in return is suck his thumb into his mouth, then his fingers, licking the last dredges of sweetness from his hand. “Ain’t no sense in wastin’ any,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah,” Rick says, his mouth suddenly dry, with no idea as to why. “Yeah.”
That night, after Robin’s brought Rick home and he’s been safely tucked into his rocket-ship bedding, he presses his fingers to his lips again. Retraces the ridge where Daryl’s thumb brushed across his mouth.
That, too, had been a good kind of different.
(tbc - Chapter 3)
End Notes:
- The wishing fountain Rick and Daryl raid is based on this fountain here.
- A parfait similar to the one Rick and Daryl share from the diner can be seen here.
- The song playing on the jukebox is Elvis Presley’s timeless Can’t Help Falling In Love.
