Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead!

He's maintained and earned many calluses since the turn, all except the tiny one on his third finger that supported pencils and pens. And, damn, does he miss it when he's trying to write some goddamn poetry.

It's what men did, right? Write out fluffy words on parchment paper and present them to their woman. Except he didn't have any parchment, only the frayed bits of travel brochures he had dug out of Deanna's desk when she wasn't looking. Countless attempts in, he had scratched and blacked out all his scribbles in the margins, leaving him without even those miserable scraps of paper.

What was he going to do now? Stand in front of her and recite from memory his wimpy offerings? Hell no.

Daryl threw open desk drawers, finding everything but useful office supplies: pocket knives, a tape measure, a half-used bottle of peach-scented hand lotion, even fucking alligator clips. No paper. Not one single sticky note to carry his pitiful attempt at romance.

With a hefty huff, Daryl slammed the drawers and buried his face in his palms. In his seventeenth draft, somewhere in between the words 'I' and 'love' his right hand had cramped up. He rubbed the ache out while glaring at the missing callus.

What the hell was he doing? No Dixon had ever pulled up a chair and wrote lilting words that stoked the fires of love in anyone's heart. His family had tended to stick to what they were good at: brash insults, cursing, overzealous yelling, and, to show true affection, a grunt coupled with a pat on the back. Poetry sure as hell wasn't in his blood and here he was, Daryl Dixon, trying to woo Carol with rhyming stanzas?

The whole venture was doomed from the start, for fuck's sake.

It was all Glenn's stupid idea, this poetry business. Now that he thought about it, Glenn's grin had been just a tad too wide for a serious suggestion. Daryl's chair squeaked in agreement. Why had he taken the younger man's advice and jumped into this literary disaster? "Wanted to try..." he groaned.

"What are you doing?"

Both he and the chair let out a grinding squawk they spun around to face Carol. Like a cat, she had sauntered in on silent feet and a lazy grin tugging at her lips. His heart pounded; she was getting too good at that.

"Nothin'." Flushed, he reached back to shove his failures in a drawer but fumbled as she leaned over him, her chest pressing against his shoulder just so. One deep breath of her scent and the struggle was over. Carol snatched the brochures from his loosened grasp.

Fuck.

He crossed his arms and hid behind his curtain of dark bangs.

"Doesn't look like nothing," Carol mused as she cocked her hip and tore her eyes over his jagged script.

The damn chair squealed when he tried to spin so his back was to her. Carol propped her leg out against his thigh to stop his escape.

"Did you write this?"

The Dixon in him wouldn't admit it, but her pursed lips and even tone drew the eloquent response out of him, "Mmhmm."

He'd get Glenn for this. Insist he go out and gut a squirrel for Maggie or something...whatever the proper equivalent would be.

Carol replaced the brochure on the desk and shuffled it in with its partners. He could hear the way she shifted them around, paused to gaze over awkward words, unskilled attempts at defining feelings. She left them alone to stand square in front of him.

The back of his neck burned.

"Hey." He could see just the thinnest sliver of her midriff where her shirt had ridden up. "I appreciate this." At her chuckle, his blush deepened. "Much better than anything Ed ever tried to compose."

He huffed, unsure how to feel about that fact.

She straightened. Carol's cool fingers sought out his, brushing over the swollen lump on his third finger where the pen had rested. He let her uncross his arms as she brought his hand to her lips. "But, you can stick with what you know."

"Don't know nothin'," he insisted, then gasped as she straddled his legs. The chair let out a whine about their combined weight.

"I beg to differ." She wiggled her hips against his lap suggestively and he had to hold her waist before things got out of hand in Rick's office of all places. The things she did to him!

Carol stilled and swept the hair off his face.

"Was all Glenn's idea," he admitted guiltily, eyes downcast. He couldn't even take responsibility for this bad attempt at romancing.

"Sounds like a Glenn idea." Carol began placing sneaky kisses at the base of his neck, up his throat, before finally pressing one over his mouth. Daryl chased her retreating lips with a moan. "I like your ideas better."

Daryl balked, "Stop."

Carol stooped so they were at the same eye level and arched a brow at him. "Are you seriously going to make me list everything?" It was her turn to cross her arms. He caught her waist again as she rocked backwards, purpose puffing her up. "Cherokee Roses." Carol ticked it off on her finger before continuing, "I don't know anyone else in Alexandria whose husband cooks up a mean opossum."

"Ya jokin'," he rasped, throat dry.

Carol shook her head and then turned serious, "Welcoming me back after Terminus, after everything." Her low words glided into his ears, soothing. "Listening when no one else did." She leaned forward again. He didn't remove his hands. Earnest honesty blazed in her eyes. "Loving me when I couldn't love myself."

Daryl pulled her to him. "Stop."

"No, you stop." Her breath tickled his temple.

"None o' that...it's not romantic," he insisted. "It's just..."

With an eye roll, Carol corrected him, "Daryl, giving a woman flowers is always romantic."

He blushed again, half of him unwilling to argue, the other half simply overwhelmed with her. The way her legs encased his, the rise and fall of her chest. He reached to trail fingers over her exposed skin, sliding them up under her shirt, then along her spine.

"Being you is romantic," she pressed her forehead to his, hands traveling up his chest.

"Hush." Daryl tilted his mouth to hers, bumping their noses. "Just wanted...ta say..." His heart stuttered, staring into those eyes of hers, her fingers entwined with the hair at the nape of his neck. With a quirk of his lips he proclaimed, "I love ya."

"I saw you had that written down." Carol returned the small smile before kissing him long and hard. "Gotta say, it's your best line."

The chair squeaked in agreement.

And as she quickly popped open his shirt's buttons, pausing her work only to plant hot lips on his, Daryl conceded that there's something to be said for reciting poetry after all.

Author's Note: Needed to do something lighter and fluffier after these last few weeks! Thanks for reading!-randomcat23