Daryl Dixon x reader Imagines/Headcanons

Imagine Daryl falling in love in you despite your age difference

Setting: Alexandria (Reader lives with the group since the beginning)

× Shortly after you joined the group, Daryl notices himself slowly falling for your kind hearted nature. Not only are you doing your best to help everyone of the group, you also never seem to judge him, you see in him more as a pathetic redneck despite everyone else's opinion about him. He's proud you care enough about him to spend time with him during guard duties or runs, it doesn't even matter who accompanies you, you always make sure to spend as much time with him as possible. Because of these reasons, he can't deny his feelings for you for long but unfortunately, he's way to shy to admit them to you. The chance you won't feel the same is too high to risk it.

× It's no secret that Daryl is a reserved and quiet person but in front of you he seems to forget how to speak. He always gets all shy and awkward while talking to you. Actually, it's quite adorable to see him stutter while asking you whether or not you want to go on a hunt with him and to see him start blushing everytime you give him one of your beautiful smiles. Moreover, when he actually manages to form a whole sentence he sometimes speaks harsher to you than he intents. Because he is not able to control that, these incidents happen quite often. Luckily, you're never angry when he's acting cold towards you from time to time.

× For everyone expect you, Daryls crush on you is more than obvious. No matter how hard he tries to hide it, it doesn't take long for Carol, Rick and Merle to discover his feelings for you. Merle tended to make fun of Daryl at every given chance which only made his self doubts worse. Carlos and Rick tried to encourage Daryl to ask you out after your arrival in Alexandria but (to his dismay) he's too shy to follow their advice.

× The worst part about being too scared to admit his feelings is having to witness other men talking to you. You're a young, attractive woman who knows how to survive in the new world, so he shouldn't be surprised many men are interested in you. Shane and Spencer are probably the worst in his eyes. Spencer is always around you, trying to impress you in some (totally lame) way. What upsets Daryl the most is the way Spencer creates body contact at every given chance. He often imagined himself walking over to you two just to punsh Spencer until he gets that you belong to him and he isn't allowed to rest his hand on her back or stroke her cheek. Sadly, he's to scared to admit his feelings, therefore he's only able to hope no one else takes you away from him.

× Daryl makes it to his mission to ensure you feel alright all the time. He does stuff for you like bringing you something to eat after getting hurt on a run in order to make sure you eat enough and heal as fast as possible or like giving you an extra blanket when you're cold at night.

× His self-doubts certainly stand in your way. Because of your young age he's even more self unconscious than usual. The simple thought of showing someone his body, especially his back, or even just to open up to someone emotionally scares him severly. He tries to open up to you bit by bit but it takes a very long time. Every so often he catches himself thinking about how you deserve someone better than him, that he can't give you anything because he's too old and too emotional unstable for you. After all, he is nothing but damaged goods. Why would someone like you be interested in someone like him? You're not nearly in his league, you're just too pretty and too young for him. Even if he would be younger, in his opinion a stunning and intelligent woman like you would never be interested in some redneck like him.

× One way to show he truly cares for you is to give you little gifts from time to time. These gifts can be anything from a new knife, a book he hopes you will like, a bottle of tequila or just little things you mentioned enjoying before.

× Daryl is extremly protective over you. On runs and in general he does everything in his power to keep you save and he doesn't hesitate to scare people away which are a bad influence for you in some way or another. The moment he doesn't have a good feeling about someone, he makes sure they stay away from you.

× A habit of Daryl is looking at you literally all the time, either to make sure you are alright or just to admire you from the distance. He loves to see you smiling about just little things and how your eyes light up every time Daryl compliments your fighting skills. Besides, he always stands beside or behind you to keep an eye on you without someone noticing (of course Carol sees it though). Since his first priority on runs or in the woods in general is to protect you from any possible danger.

× Despite his age, he has nearly no experience with relationships, so communicating with you is sometimes very hard for him, especially when he's angry or distressed. Daryl has no idea how to act in order to start a relationship with someone and for this reason, you have to make the first move. One night you finally gather enough courage to kiss him and confess your feelings. At first he nearly doesn't believe you, it appeals like he's dreaming, never in a million years would he have guessed you return his feelings. Finally, he's brave enough to tell you how much you mean to him, even if it takes him some minutes with a lot of stuttering and breaks to sort his thoughts. He does his best to not fuck this up because he's scared to lose you.