He was sure she was having trouble holding it together and he didn't know what it was. The farm burning or the idea that her little girl was really gone finally hitting her -no grave to even visit now - but he couldn't do shit about it. Himself, he was at sea without Rick and it made him feel even more off-course still. Realizing how much he'd grown to rely on the man. How easily he just fell into line when someone said jump.
Merle, Rick, Shane, Herschel. Didn't matter.
But Carol wasn't going to play that part. She mostly didn't talk. He felt it might be because of hunger, mostly. But even one night, after they'd raided a garden and he'd snared some rabbits, she still sat there, hollow. Her thin arms wrapped around herself.
He was going to bring it up, her quiet. Which was funny, given how he wasn't one to gab himself. But then she broke first.
"We gotta find them," she said. "We shouldn't have split up. We need to be together. It's safer."
He nodded. He agreed, but only to a point. Dragging a pregnant lady and two kids like Beth and Carl around, plus an old guy like Herschel? Hadn't been the easiest thing to manage. He sensed Rick was running out of answers.
"We need to go back, toward that gas station on the road by the truckstop," she said.
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
"Then let's do it," she said. "This is not...I can't stand being stuck here like this."
He looked around. They were in the pit of someone's living room. Fire burning in the fireplace, but aside from that, it was bare and shitty. Furniture pushed against the doors and windows. Basement full of walker corpses. Ash and trash from their dinner spilling all over the blue carpet. But it was a nicer house than the one he'd been raised in. Nicer than any house he'd ever expected to live in. It was a house, for one thing: not some stepped-on trailer in the woods with a bathtub full of meth stains.
Her lip curling at where they were: well, what the fuck did the woman expect? And maybe her lip was curling at him, too. His dirty fingernails and scabbed knuckles and clothes he hadn't changed in days.
He stood up and collected his pack and crossbow. Wiped his knife bloody from rabbit-skinning on his knee.
"I'll take watch," he said. "We'll head out in the morning."
Three days later, though, they were still here at this wreck of a house, the heavy rain keeping them stuck in place. He found himself on watch again, his body filling up with irritation at the lack of movement and her lack of talk. The rain was great for collecting drinking water and washing clothes - Carol had set up buckets on back step, which she collected continuously, in a loop of routine, like washing was some kind of ritual she couldn't swerve out of - but her words dented into his mind.
"I can't stand being stuck here like this."
The traded the nightly watch in the kitchen, where the porch and its blown-out windows left them the most exposed. She was somewhere in the back and he was glad for it. They'd barely interacted all day. She had brought him a clean t-shirt when he came back in from checking snares but that was it. He was starting to wonder if she was going crazy. If he'd be better off ditching her. She wanted Rick back so bad, she should go find him her fucking own self.
He lit a cigarette - it was a shitty Newport, but you couldn't be choosy anymore - and sat on the counter, staring at the sheets of rain out in the muddy yard. How long had they worked to find a place that could sustain them, only to be run off or surrounded? Funny thing was, here they were, in what he could see might be a workable location, and now all she wanted to do was bolt? And all he could think of was how she couldn't stand him?
He ground out the smoke into a coffee cup and then there she was. Standing in the kitchen.
"Here," she said. "I'll take watch."
She wore fresh clothes. A white shirt with a low neck, new jeans he'd never seen before, rubber boots. Her hair was wet, dripping onto the collar of the shirt and she was holding a pile of clothes.
"What?"
"There's water back there, if you want to wash up," she said. "And I found these in the bedroom."
He looked down at the clothes. Another t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt. All folded, smelling faintly of cedar.
"Go on," she said. She grabbed his rifle from the sling on his shoulder, slipped up to where he'd been sitting on the counter. He could smell a faint soap smell coming off her and there was something about her that was smiling, though it wasn't on her face. Something about it that was good will. Like she could read his shitty thoughts and was trying to amend for something.
He took the clothes and grabbed his crossbow. He suddenly felt self-conscious next to her. About how he smelled. How stiff with dirt and blood his clothes were. Even his boots were crusted with it. He'd rinsed them off in the rain but the dirt and shit of this world was never-ending. He didn't look back as we went but he was sure her eyes were on him the whole way.
There was a utility sink in the old laundry area, next to the washer and dryer. On the useless machinery she had set up piles of washed clothes, folded. On the floor were more clothes, drying while hanging on racks she'd rigged up with string and branches. The sink was full of water and on the ledge of it was a bottle of shampoo and a bar of yellow Fels-Naptha soap. There was another pail of dirty water at his feet.
He peered around toward the other room. Didn't hear anything. And so he decided, what the fuck. Took off his shirt and boots and jeans and stood there, naked. Might as well wash all the way. Nothing like a good hard shower or a long dunk in a lake, but it wasn't like he had a better option.
So he stood at the sink and pawed a wet soapy cloth all over himself. Dunked his head in the cold water, ran the Fels-Naptha through it to strip out the grease. Wiped the cloth through his pits and under his balls and up his ass and behind his ears and knees. Down his pale skinny legs and dirty feet. Squeezed out the cloth over and over, dirty water raining into the pail at his feet.
Then he was laughing at himself a little, for being naked, for being so pissed. For finding a lump of lint in his belly button and little bits of who-knows-what in his chest hair. For taking a minute to wash his dick and getting a little hard. Feeling himself up with harsh-ass soap his momma used to use on his old man's greasy uniform, no less. What a hard-up bastard he'd become.
He remembered Carol's hair dripping all over her shirt, the neck of it sprinkled with drops. Her tits popping up in a way he hadn't noticed before. The soapy smell she had - the exact one he could smell right now himself. His dick got harder and he felt terror at her discovering him back here, popping a hard-on. Over soap. Then she'd really want to get the fuck out of here. Get away from his freaky pervert ass.
Quickly, he dressed, the clean clothes she'd given him sticking to his wet skin. He looked at himself in the back step window as he headed back and saw the nasty whiskers ruining the freshness of his clean hair and face.
He ducked into the kitchen, where she sat watching the porch. The rain was stopping now, little drips coming from the gutters.
"You know if there's a razor anywhere around?"
She smiled, jumped down.
"You hold it down here," she said. "I'll go grab another one. Used the first one myself and it's pretty much trashed."
"Not a straight razor, then?"
"No," she frowned. "Disposable."
He frowned back, but she was breezing past him, and he could feel that same thing again. Smiling coming off her, even if he couldn't see her face.
The razors were pink and in a little plastic bag. He held it up in front of him and she laughed. Or tried not to laugh.
"Stop," he said, and then she full-on laughed.
He was poised over the kitchen sink, where he was using the slop-water from their dinner and shaving. She'd found him a better bar of soap so he didn't have to suds up with Fels-Naptha at least. As he trimmed the scruff with his knife, and then scraped his face clean, she sat with her back to him, watching the yard. It was getting dark out and as his face became softer and smoother, he began to feel more anxious. The laughing was gone from her and the only sound was the wind through the trees, birds chattering, water dripping.
He ran his hands over his jaw, over his mouth. Smooth. Soft. Like a woman, almost.
"Done?" she asked. She'd turned her head to stare and he felt shy. Nodded at her.
"Feels better, doesn't it?" she asked. But then she turned away, as if she didn't care what he answered. It did feel better; no denying it. He hadn't ever been too particular about his looks; the crowd he and Merle ran with weren't the kind that cared about that shit. But he felt like more than just an animal now. Even if they were stuck here, caught in the rain and lost from their group, he felt like it mattered, again. What he did. How he moved in this dirty world. It was like she had felt bad for being all bitchy about being stuck here with him and the clothes and the soap and the water were her way of saying sorry.
At least, he hoped so. He glanced at her, but her back was to him, her head up scanning the yard for movement.
He rubbed his neck, swept away stray hairs with his fingers. Then he looked around the wreck of the kitchen for some matches to light some candles. There were little shelves above the sink and each one had a little fat red candle, half-burnt down. He was rummaging in a cupboard when he found a fifth of something. Fireball, by the look of it.
"Well, goddamn," he said.
"What?" she said. Not turning.
"Wanna drink?"
They sat beside each other on the counter, trading the fifth of Fireball for a bit. It was awful, she said. So burnt-tasting she suggested he use it as aftershave.
"Never used that shit before the turn," he said.
"You? I don't believe it," she said, smirking. "You couldn't be anything but a fancy kind of man, Daryl."
He felt shy again. Conscious of the clean clothes. His dick in his hand earlier. Her thigh next to his.
He handed her back the Fireball and tried not to touch her fingers, but did anyway. He worried she could tell what he was thinking. It was dark but the fat red candles glowed around them. Just a hint of a smile danced around her mouth.
"Had enough?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Don't want to pass out. That won't do neither of us any good."
She nodded.
"Rain's letting up," she said. "Tomorrow you want to set out?"
"Yeah," he said. "I think that's best."
They were quiet for a bit. She held the Fireball but didn't drink. He looked at her hands, circled around the bottle and around the rifle. There was something about her that never seemed shocked. Unsettled. He wondered what all Ed Peletier had done to this woman, to make her so calm around the storm. It kind of made him sick, because he could just imagine. Same shit his daddy had done to his own mother. Same shit Merle did to any woman that pissed him off, too.
"I'm sorry we lost everyone," he said. It just came out; he didn't know it would. "That you got stuck here with me."
"Daryl?"
"We'll find them," he said. "Don't worry; it'll be okay."
She turned to look at him. Set the bottle down behind her on the counter. He jumped down, then. Nervous about how close they were. How woozy-drunk he felt. Wasn't used to slugging it back like that. Wasn't used to the quiet, either. She just stared at him. Moved the rifle from her thighs and slipped it to her around her shoulder. Tilted her neck to the side and let the smallest bit of a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Then a little more. Until she was grinning at him, all the way.
And that was it. That undid him. He dropped his crossbow on the floor and pushed toward her, his face up against hers, their eyes wide open, eyeing each other's mouth, eyeing each other's eyes. A moment like that, less than an inch away, breathing each other's cinnamon breath, and then she pulled him to her and everything for that minute made perfect, exact sense.
Making out while on watch. Not anything either of them could do shit about. He stood between her parted legs and couldn't get enough. His hands up her shirt, hers gripping onto his waist, the bottle knocking over on the counter behind him. Both of them falling apart laughing at how stupid it was. How good it felt.
"You must think I'm some idiot," he said, between kisses on her neck, and pushing her bra strap down.
"Not at all," she said.
"Well, I am," he said, rolling her shirt up so he could get at her tits better. "Just give me a little more time with this here and you'll see."
She ducked back and reached behind her to unclip the bra. Then she pulled up his shirt so they were even. Pressed her mouth against his left nipple. Sucked like a baby. He could have died, it felt so good.
"You forget that I'm a woman," she said, her hands sliding down toward his belt and undoing it. "Living with low expectations is how we survive."
He smirked at that, and then watched her hands part the buttons of his jeans and find what was there: his hard dick, no disguising it. He felt at a loss again.
"Low expectations, right?" he sighed, as they both looked down at him.
She ran her hands up his cock, gripped it tight. He coughed a bit as she squeezed, trying to cover his groans.
"Always nice to be surprised," she replied, her hand pushing down his jeans and then going to undo her own pants. "Let's do this, huh?"
"Right here?" he said, looking around at the wrecked kitchen, the counter covered in spilled Fireball.
"Nowhere else," she said.
He'd never fucked a woman standing up. And never without a condom. Carol didn't seem to care one way or the other about that. Once her boots and pants came off, she grabbed his dick and pushed it toward her until he had no choice but to dive in. And then she wrapped her long legs around him and held him to her and they stayed together like that for a minute, their foreheads pressed together tight, mouths an inch apart, until he couldn't stand it and had to rear back and press up into her again.
God almighty, it felt good. It felt like nothing else. Warm and tight and perfect. Her heels digging into his ass to make him go harder, but her arms loose and elegant around his neck. Even this storm couldn't knock her over. He was wondering how he'd come to read her so wrong. How he'd not understood that this was a road they were closing in on, nearing down, unable to avoid. How had he been going down it beside her but not seen this is where they'd end up?
He was going to come now. Any minute. So close. And while she was shutting her eyes and sighing and taking everything he gave her, he worried it wasn't enough. He was going to finish and how'd she get anything out of it? More low expectations? Well, fuck that shit.
"Come here, sweetheart," he said, his arms scooping beneath her.
"Daryl?"
He lifted her ass up, and then she stood, wobble-legged next to him. Her head beneath his, the fresh soap smell everywhere.
"Lemme make you a fire," he said, taking her hand and leading her back to the living room. "Lemme do this right."
She smiled; they were both mostly naked; her with her bra hanging off her shoulder like a purse; him in his pants and boots. But she followed him anyway, blowing out the red candles as they walked from the kitchen.
There was carpet and there was light and heat.
There was him taking off his boots and jeans and motioning for her to lay down in front of the fire.
"What about watch?" she asked, though she laid down all the same.
"I'll listen," he said. "We both will."
And then his mouth was on her tits, and her belly, and then between her legs, licking at all that sweet and wet, everything sliding against his smooth face. Tasting what he loved best about a woman's body. The secret part you couldn't easily see; the part that made her sigh and squirm. The part he could never really figure out but he took his time. Listened for threats beyond them, listened for her small soft sighs. Felt her hands grip his ears. Registered which rhythms worked and which didn't. Slipped in a couple fingers, then, and then he was sure he'd got it right; her little knob all swollen and sensitive and then she cried out, "oh!" in a way that made her whole pussy twitch so hard his dick jumped.
She wasn't done calling out when he was back inside her, riding it all out. She said his name, so soft. Not asking him for anything, just saying it: Daryl. Daryl.
Yes, he thought. He couldn't speak. When he came, it felt like a bow, unstrung and plucked at the very same time.
No watch that night. He said he could handle it, but he knew it was because he couldn't help himself. She made them a nest of blankets by the fire. He strung a barricade of furniture and empty bottles across the wrecked kitchen. Feeling like a giddy idiot while doing it, too; he was stark naked, holding a crossbow, everything smelling like Fireball.
She had broken a chair into bits and was feeding the fire with it when he came back. She looked at him naked as she sat by the fire and he felt self-conscious again, his cock all soft and bouncing around. But she didn't laugh, just tossed the chair leg into the flames and then they got under the blankets together, the rifle on her side, the crossbow on his.
"Sure this is okay?" she asked.
"Mmm hmm," he said, fitting his face between her tits, wrapping his arms around her.
"You comfortable?"
"Yeah. You?"
She nodded and he kissed her. Though he felt completely lazy and tired, his dick was getting hard again. Even though he knew they needed to sleep. Even though he knew he couldn't keep his hands off her for long. Even though he felt her hands slip lower, curl around his cock. Soft and sure. Calm as always. That same feeling about her that he realized made him feel safe. He leaned back to let her get a better grip.
It wouldn't be the first sleepless night he'd suffered since the turn. But it would for sure be the most enjoyable.