They were like the cool kids in high school that no one could really get close to. They were always around and yet, no one could spend any extra time with them that they weren't willing to give. They lived in their own cell block and no one was allowed to stay in there with them. This, after all, was their prison and they had rules and they were good, fair, and kind people so no one ever had reason to argue or question. They were just a very tight knit with only those in their original group.
Tim watched them; admired them, envied them. He felt like he was back in high school, watching them and wishing that one of them would see him and acknowledge him.
The one with the crossbow was the coolest, tracking and hunting the fresh meat provided at the prison and the main one in charge though he was constantly looking to the farmer for help or advice.
The woman with the katana appeared every few weeks, but she was always so serious, Tim tended to try and never make eye contact with her, knowing she could kill him with one swipe.
Hershel was the nicest, always smiling at anyone he passed and his daughter, Beth, the babysitter, was just like her dad. Tim looked at the girl and knew back before the world had ended, she had definitely been one of the popular, cool girls. She was too pretty not to have been.
She had probably been the prom queen.
Beth was Judith's main caregiver as well as looking after the other children. Daryl, the one with the crossbow, organized and went out on every run they made and he had come back once with a tub of sidewalk chalk, presenting it to Beth, being rewarded with a smile that rivaled the brightness of the sun.
Tim had watched as Beth had hugged him; had watched the way Daryl had stiffened at the contact and had grunted something before turning and walking away. Beth hadn't seemed to notice – or if she did, she hadn't seemed to care – that she had clearly made him uncomfortable.
She obviously didn't think Daryl was too cool or badass.
Tim noticed after that that if Beth and the children were outside, drawing on the walls with the chalk, and Daryl was anywhere in the vicinity, Daryl seemed to be watching. Just quick glances over and it was done so discreetly, Tim knew no one else noticed and he wondered if he, himself, was imagining it.
Beth was part of the original group, the cool kids of the prison, but ever since he had arrived – being found and questioned by Daryl and Rick, the farmer, as he wandered in the woods before being brought to the prison – Tim had never felt too nervous approaching her. She always had a smile for him and when she asked him if he was settling in well enough, he knew she was asking because she was nice and genuinely interested in his answer.
He had been bold once and asked if he could see C-block, where they and only they went into, and she had laughed a little and shook her head, shifting Judith to her other hip and he was standing so close to her, he could catch a whiff of her rose scent. In a world that smelled constantly like blood and death, Beth smelled like roses. He wasn't entirely too surprised at that.
It was only when they had walked away from one another that he realized that since Daryl was the one who went out on all of the runs, he was probably the one to have brought her back rose-scented soap for her to smell like that.
Tim looked at the others in the prison.
There really weren't any around Beth's age. He was probably the closest to it. He had asked her once and she had laughed a little, embarrassed, and answered that she was pretty sure she was eighteen, close to nineteen, now. He had grinned and told her he was around twenty-two and she had blushed, but then shrugged a shoulder, telling him that age didn't really matter anymore, did it? He supposed it didn't, but he didn't really get why she had said that.
Not only was Daryl a hunter and had a crossbow, he also had a motorcycle. If those in C-Block were the cool kids of the prison, Daryl was the bad boy that all the women swooned over and there were definitely those who swooned. Daryl didn't seem to notice though and if he did – which he probably did because the tracker noticed everything – he ignored it completely. Tim had actually wondered a couple of times if Daryl might actually be gay.
But then, he would see the way Daryl's eyes lingered on Beth longer than they stayed on anyone else, and Tim wondered how no one else noticed.
Tim had always been an early riser – before and after everything happened – and since being in the prison, the habit hadn't died. Those in C-Block seemed to be early risers, too, Glenn and Maggie usually in the tower on guard duty, Rick and Carl amongst their crops, Carol cooking and Beth with Judith, helping with anything that needed helping. Daryl was either at the fences, killing off walkers, walking the perimeter, or at one of the cars, working under its hood.
This was where Tim saw him this morning when he had finished his usual four laps running around the prison. He watched for a moment, hesitating. He wanted to walk up to him, but years of social tier conditioning had him pause. He couldn't just approach him. If Beth was the most open of the cool kids, Daryl was the most surly and stand-offish. Still, Tim found his feet propelled towards him.
He stood there for a moment and cleared his throat awkwardly.
Daryl lifted his head from the engine and regarded Tim standing there with slightly stand-offish, slightly narrowed eyes. But his face showed no emotion and he said no words.
"Um, my dad used to be a mechanic," Tim heard himself stutter and he knew this was why he had never been a cool kid when in school. "I know some stuff. If you ever need any help."
He was actually proud of himself for getting that all out.
Daryl eyed him for a moment, studying him, not saying anything, and then still, without a word, he nodded his head once, and then cocked it slightly to where he was and Tim released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He stepped to the car and lowered his head beneath the hood to look at what Daryl was working on.
"Hey," Tim heard Beth's voice nearing. "You left this in our cell-"
Her words stopped abruptly when she came to the other side of the car and saw Tim was there as well, staring at her with obvious surprise on his face. Our cell? He looked to Daryl, but Daryl was standing, taking the bandana Beth was holding and slipped it into his back pocket.
"Thanks," he said in his grunt, obviously not at all bothered that Tim had heard Beth say what she had.
Beth's cheeks blushed a little, but then she looked at Daryl and smiled a soft smile. "Be safe today," she told him in a quiet voice and Daryl nodded, staring at her and nothing, but her, and Tim pretended not to notice Daryl's hand going to Beth's hip and giving it a squeeze.
Tim stood there, still bent under the hood, watching the two. A moment later, when the shock had begun to wear off, he wasn't sure why he was surprised.
After all, didn't the prom queen and bad boy always wind up together?
...
I found this document on my computer that I had written a couple of years ago. I don't even remember writing it and I searched the world wide web, making sure it wasn't anywhere else before I rewrote and tweaked things and finally posted it.
Thank you for reading!