The air in the dim cell was thick; like a warm fog that had seeped in through the doorway. It hung dead in the small space, and the stale air filled your lungs with a heavy breath.
Gripping tightly to an old and slightly torn rag, you dip it into the small bowl of cool water. The metal bowl laying on the mattress beside you. You watch as the fabric soaks up the water like a sponge, and pulling it out of the bowl, you listen to the extra water drip and drop back into it. Squeezing the thin fabric of the excess liquid, you raise your hand with the rag. Pressing the cool wet cloth to your bruised cheek, closing your eyes at the feel.
It rushed over your skin, a cooling sensation that instantly calmed the screaming pain that resided inside the left side of your face.
The cell was quiet, as though the sound of the world was lost as soon as you passed by the sheet hung in the doorway. And you relished in the silence, for your thoughts could finally be heard. You could fade away into the serenity that the calm quiet brought. The escape being exactly what you needed. Especially today.
"How ye holdin up?"
Daryl Dixon's low and gravelly yet surprisingly soft voice startles you. His sudden presence in the doorway and words that echo in the small space cause your leg to bump into the bowl of water beside you. Sloshing a little bit of it onto the sheets.
"The door might be just a sheet, but you could still try and knock you know." You mutter under your breath, looking down at your lap.
Daryl snorts lowly, almost as though he's fighting back a small laugh.
"I'll remember that for next time." He comments, and you listen to the patter of his heavy boots carrying him further into the small cell. It isn't many steps that he takes, but his footsteps are slow and seem to echo off the walls that enclose the two of you.
For a moment, you question if he'll take a seat beside you on the bed. But instead, Daryl leans his back flat against the wall across from you. Answering you with his easy movement.
"Is it a bad one?"
His question sounds off of the cold cement walls around you, and radiates straight through you. His words heavy but his tone light and cautious.
"Is there any other type?"
Daryl hums under his breath as your comment falls into the empty air, and his blue eyes break their gaze on you. Looking down at his boots that are caked in now dry mud.
Silence fills the cell once again, but this time it isn't as comfortable as it once was. For a burden hung in the air, and made it hard for you to breathe deeply. The situation was clear to Daryl but it was something you had wanted to keep hidden for as long as possible.
Removing your eyes from looking to the much older redneck leaning against the far wall, you look to your lap. And as the silence and anxiety of the moment continues to magnify, the searing pain in your cheek returns. It was never quite gone, but you were distracted long enough to forget the pain for a short time.
"It ain't your fault," Daryl says suddenly, his low voice breaking through the thick quiet void. "Ye know that, don't 'cha?"
Slowly, your eyes raise. Hesitation evident in your every movement. But soon, your eyes land on him. His shadow falls over the floor in a dark pool, but his eyes look at you with a certain softness. One you wouldn't expect from a man like Daryl Dixon. With his rough and calloused exterior and lone wolf attitude that was slowly beginning to fade. He looked too masculine or perhaps too rugged to have a softness hidden inside of him. But everyone had secrets, you thought. And maybe his slightly tender interior was Daryl's.
