#like deadass I know it’s a strong ass word but I sincerely I just—cannot be arsed with them

[mikrokosmoswrites]

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[shimmershae]

Sometimes logic is the most, I don’t know, logical thing to apply to a situation.

Because Daryl Dixon has shown every*damn*body who his number one priority is this season.

He’s dropped wholeass conversations and pretended like people in front of him were all but invisible to meet Carol Peletier halfway on a dock when her ship come in and sweep her up in his arms and off her feet in the most exuberant and happily relieved hugs ever and essentially ignored the rest of the people loitering around because his vision narrowed strictly to her.

Right before that, he blew off discussions and scouting trips to investigate whether the latest big bad threatening the communities’ safety had returned in favor of waiting for her ship to come in and he continued to blow the whole situation off to get Carol alone for some quality just Carol and Daryl time.

Knowing the Whisperers were still out there, he still daydreamed of escaping to somewhere new and leaving everybody behind—everybody except Carol because she’s the only person he can envision actually escaping for and with.

The man made her a friendship bracelet and flirted and blushed in her presence like an awkward dork with a crush.

He expressly told Carol he needed her to stay.

He bodily restrained her from taking a second shot at Alpha when the bald baddie taunted her and he looked past any misgivings he might have had to tell her he believed her about the Whisperers nobody else had seen but Carol.

Before that, he came running when Carol screamed his name in that old school and fat chance convincing me he didn’t help carry her injured ass all the way to the same infirmary that he waited outside of like a worried husband.

He’s made her dinner trays with flowers, looking out for her physical well-being when she’s been lost in her ongoing grief and he felt powerless to help with it.  

His thoughts, this season, have rarely strayed from her and his eyes have been open and watching out for her because he wants to be her safety net while she’s been struggling so very much with Henry’s loss and her consuming need for vengeance. I mean, granted. Daryl Dixon is no fuss, no muss pretty much 24/7, but have y’all ever seen a man get his ass ready that quick to follow a woman without some kind of promised benefit to him? Yeah. Naw.

He did his version of getting the Dixon flirt on again when they were tossing acorns at a can—because they be cutely competitive af.

Daryl Dixon when teased by Carol Peletier about whether his budding friendship with a sweet and seemingly perfect fellow community member could be more?  Deadass told her with utmost seriousness and sincerity that it wasn’t like that—not at all.

And then proceeded to pocket the double capper acorn Carol gave him as a good luck charm right over his heart and later gaze at it longingly in the privacy of his own room.

When they were doing their good cop/bad cop routine with the captured Whisperer, Daryl only really lost his cool when the Whisperer made some lewd and disrespectful comments to Carol.

The man has argued for her to sit the more potentially dangerous missions out and remain in the relative safety of Alexandria.

When she went along anyway? Again she was his primary focus. So much so he stopped her from walking into a literal trap, called her on her bullshit, and comforted her when the tears come in a way that honestly? Daryl Dixon has never really shown the inclination to do. By thumbing her tears away from her cheeks, hugging her tight and nuzzling her hair while telling to tell him. To open up to him with her feelings and her fears. And that they “have a future.”

Carol was so much in his sights on that same mission that he immediately recognized when her attention strayed and sent their group running after her into the unknown.

He followed, of course, and Carol’s name was the only name that ever passed from his lips. She was the first person he sought out in the darkness. The first one he encouraged to follow him to relative safety.

When her claustrophobia reared its ugly head, he was the one informing others so that they might offer their own comfort and he didn’t stand a second for Magna getting all up in Carol’s face.

He asked Carol to follow his light when her claustrophobia had her frozen. Everybody else, including a dear sweet deaf woman and her sister—also losing her hearing, were told to follow his voice. 🤦‍♀️

He let Kelly’s ass somersault at his literal feet and gently tugged Carol to safety.

He followed her back into that dark cave and pleaded to her with tears in his eyes and emotion tightening his voice to come back with him and he was all about getting her to safety when that faulty dynamite slipped.

Daryl Dixon didn’t even look back to make sure any of his other friends and community members had made it out of that cave until he knew Carol Peletier was a safe distance away.

Try convincing me his ensuing emotional breakdown wasn’t just as much, probably more about Carol breaking her recent promise to him to think more clearly and be more cautious. Helpful word of advice? Stop while you’re ahead.

Instead of scouting out an alternative way back into the cave to possibly rescue C0nnie and Magna later? The man tried to singlehandedly take on the source of so much of Carol’s grief—Alpha herself, when he so recently discouraged Carol from such a lone wolf action—and ended up seriously injured as a result.

Back at Hilltop? In spite of the hurt he felt, Daryl told Carol perhaps the truest truth there is when he said “I’m never gonna hate you.”

During this same time frame, he made little reference to the two people lost at the cave. Not because he doesn’t value their lives because he does. But he values the community’s overall safety more and the only times he’s ever been shown to blink in that regard? It’s always been because of Carol Peletier.

After the fall of Hilltop, when he and Negan crossed paths and Negan alluded to Carol as Daryl’s girlfriend? Daryl doesn’t even blink. And whereas before, the safety of the community mattered more? The man chills with someone he deadass hates waiting patiently all night for Carol to come back to him. Let’s not even talk about how many hours he probably paced and waited inside Alexandria’s gates.

So. Who do y’all suppose has been Daryl’s number one priority all damn season? Huh?

I’ll give you three guesses and the other two don’t count. Just for giggles I will demonstrate who it ain’t by giving a basic outline of the kind of focus her bond with Daryl has gotten.  

At the beginning of the season, Daryl was on his way down to the docks to wait for Carol’s boat to come in with he crossed paths with a new friend and Dog happily sought out pets because what Doggo of any salt or intellect will turn down pets from a pair of kind hands that have fed it before?? Daryl and this friend shared a cute little two second convo that was interrupted and abandoned with his first sight of Carol waving at him like he was her sweetheart there to welcome her home and this friend basically ceased to exist from that moment until her sister went missing for a short while.

Daryl, already being present after accompanying Siddiq to Hilltop and caring about the overall welfare of the communities and such, helped in the search for Kelly and even told this new friend a funny story about his own (departed) sibling as a means of comfort and gave her hand a reassuring maybe two second long squeeze.  Honestly?  There were so many echoes of his friendship with Denise when I see these two together.  So many.  But I digress.  

Once Kelly was found and safe, Daryl’s attention reverted back to form and he didn’t linger at Hilltop.  They had a weird little interlude where I still can’t figure out whether she was trying to butter him up to keep her own family’s secret or was genuinely welcoming him as a fellow found family member.  

Anyhoo, their paths didn’t even cross again until they did a combined search for Alpha’s horde and Lydia and Daryl acknowledged her with a shoulder tap to get her attention—I mean, he was approaching her from behind and she couldn’t hear him so.

What little bit of interaction they had in the cave basically came about because of Carol and I gotta tell you. The man deadass forgot she existed when he was trying to help get Carol out of there.

We’ve already kinda covered what I thought about his reaction to the cave in, but I will say this. Leave y’all with a little food for thought: if Carol was underneath those rocks, can any of y’all logically see the man leaving there for any reason short of Judith and RJ being in immediate danger?

Can you? Because I can’t.

If they had managed to tear him away even briefly, his ass would be right back first chance he got. And suppose he’d run into Alpha in the meantime. I don’t think he would have attacked her until he found a way to get to Carol. Naw. That attack was all about Carol (and maybe Lydia) from the word go. Else Daryl would have been smart and patient and found his way in that damn cave to mount a rescue.

You know why?

Because logic. The story’s shown us the way this season. Logic and history. A whole ten fucking years of history.

Daryl Dixon can’t lose Carol Peletier anymore than she can lose him.

Only in the absence of all logic can anyone ever think differently.

Explains a lot, huh?

And some people are still up in arms over Daryl simply soldiering forward and not having the singular thought of C0nnie, C0nnie, C0nnie in his brain when his communities, his long established found family, and the one person he absolutely cannot lose still need safeguarding.  

I mean, he cares but Daryl done told every*damn*body already.  Take it from the man himself, the reason why.  

“It’s not like that.  Not at all.”  

I know logic isn’t really this show’s strong suit, but in this case?  The story has been leading us to one logical conclusion all season, and I don’t think it’s the one that some people out there are prepared to accept.  I mean, yeah.  I’d feel some kinda way, but.