Savage World •••Daryl Dixon•••

Hallway Late Nights

Asher and Daryl stayed curled against the wall for what felt like an eternity before either of them moved. Daryl gently cracked his neck and turned his head to face the girl who sniffled against his skin. She shifted a bit but refused to move away from him any further than she had to.

"You okay, baby girl?" She nodded and reached up to tap on a strand of his soaked hair.

"You showered." They both broke into laughter after she spoke. Daryl brushed away her hair, the ends still dripping on his vest and shirt.

"So did you. They let you do that much at least." Asher nodded and slid to curl up sideways against his chest with her head cradled against the space between his neck and shoulder.

"You smell nice now." She snickered and traced a small pattern into his skin. "You smell like flowers."

"Just perfect." Asher smirked and continued to make patterns from his jawline to his collarbone, the male tilting his head a bit to give her more space.

"Dixie? Does anything scare you?" Daryl snorted gently in thought.

"Not much scares me nowadays. Why? Does somethin' scare you?" The girl shrugged limply and bit the inside of her cheek.

"Nothing big or scary or nothing. Just stupid stuff like fast movement, guns, closed spaces, and thunderstorms." He lifted a brow at the last one, a small smirk curling his lips.

"Thunderstorms?"

"Yeah, but it ain't the rain. I love rain, but thunder is what scares me sometimes. When it gets too loud, sometimes I mix it up with... his footsteps." Daryl still felt his blood boil at any mention of them, any sort of hint at what they did.

"Asher, he's dead. You killed him back in Atlanta." She bit her lip and nodded, remembering that time in the woods.

"I know, but sometimes I wake up and I have this moment of terror because I'm afraid that this is all just a dream I'm having. That them, this place, and even you are nothing but something I've made up just to escape them." His naturally stern expression softened and filmed over with kindness.

"We're real, sweetheart, see my hand?" She shifted her gaze over to his hand held a little bit away from her, calloused fingers loosely curled to seem less like a slap. He reached down and slid her hand into his, gently curling his fingers around her thin ones.

"I'm real. You're real. This extremely girly shampoo is real." They both smiled at his joke again. "And it's okay to be scared of thunderstorms, Asher. Just don't let that fear control who you are." She nodded and a small yawn escaped her thin body. "Tired? I'm sure it's late, get some sleep."

"What about you? You haven't slept since before Atlanta."

"I'll be okay." Asher pushed to her feet and held out her hand for him to take. He gently held her hand and let her pull him to his feet, his other hand motioning towards the room deemed his and hers for however long they were to stay. Sleepily dragging her feet, she lead him to the room where he stopped in the threshold. Asher turned and tugged on his hand in a silent ask for him to keep following her. It took a few tugs, but Daryl soon caved to her want and shuffled after the girl into the room.

"Asher, I'm not going to sleep."

"But it's an actual bed, Dixie. Not a rotted couch or the cold ground and actual mattress with actual sheets. Please?" He shook his head no, so she let his hand go and moved around to start pushing against his lower back. "You saw those big metal doors, they were thicker than me. Nothing's getting in and you can't keep going like this. Just for the night."

"C'mon kiddo, you're barely bigger than my leg all this pushing is just gonna tire you out faster." He didn't want to admit that she was right and that he did need sleep. But this may be the safest they'll ever be again. She stopped pushing at his back and he turned around in time earn a shoulder to the gut as she took a running tackle. They both fell back and landed on the soft blankets trying to catch their breaths.

"I win, Dixie." He rolled his eyes playfully and snatched her up before rolling to his side that placed him between the door and her. He used the pillow and she used his bicep before slipping her fingers between his.

"You won this round, but I'll getcha next time." Daryl whispered into her hair before gently kissing the back of her head. "Sleep tight, Asher."

"Sleep tight, Dixie." She was dead to the world in seconds, and try as Daryl might he was swift to follow. The group of women had gone to their room with the full intention of prying that poor girl from her Stockholm Syndrome and Daryl Dixon. Except Carol, who had gone to make sure that nobody was hurt. The entire set of women stopped short at the sight they were met with inside their living space. Daryl protectively curled around the small girl with his back to the door, his arm outstretched to act as her pillow that gently held hands with Asher's much smaller ones. As silently as they arrived, the ladies moved back out into the hallway and down a little ways so they wouldn't wake the duo.

"Okay that has got to be the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life." Spoke Jacqui with a small squeal at the picture in her head. "Just wish we had a working camera to take a picture of them."

"Daryl would kill us all if that were the case. Who knew he could be such a sweetheart." Andrea chuckled and glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the man didn't wake up and hear them. Carol softly smiled and nodded at the idea of waving around a Polaroid of the Dixon man snuggled to the little blonde no older than Sophia.

"Asher's got that man wrapped around her finger like a ring." Lori smirked as they giggled at the shared memory of the various touching moments they had at camp.

"And to think, we were wanting to take this from them."