Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This is a (late-late-late) response fill for the USS Caryl's 1st Kinky/Non-Kinky Drabble Challenge on tumblr regarding the following prompt: "Blowjob: Daryl has never had one before. Carol rectifies this travesty." – I didn't make the deadline (like by half a year – found this in my unfinished folder and decided to release it into the wild) but figured this one had to be written.
Warnings: Contains spoilers for all four seasons of the Walking Dead, sexual content, allusions to domestic violence, emotional/psychological trauma related to domestic violence and abuse, smut, strong language, oral sex, first time oral sex, adorable awkwardness and more. Set somewhere between the end of season three and the beginning of season four – basically picks off a few weeks after the season three finale.
Carpe Diem (or something)
It'd been something of an adjustment, getting used to other people again. The survivors from Woodsbury had come with virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs. They'd been scared and uncertain, perhaps just as wary when they'd filed off the bus, blinking owlishly in the bright Georgian sunshine – stubborn and unwilling to trust.
Suspicion had been the word of the week, and frankly, it'd been two sided.
But, as people are so fond of saying, time heals all wounds. And eventually, the residents of Woodsbury began to relax, creating a community where a family, a single group, had once stood. She liked to think they were stronger for it.
Still, it had taken some time to get used to. After so long on their own, living hand to mouth, squished together like a can of sardines, the influx of new faces, new sights, sounds, smells, problems and personalities had been more than a bit jarring.
It'd meant more than a few hungry nights, but they'd made do, sharing equally as a show of good will. Daryl and Glenn had organized more supply runs, taking to hunting more and more, trying to supplement the canned food they'd managed to set aside for emergencies. Rick and Hershel had broken ground for farming, teaching Patrick, Carl and some of the older boys how to make snares in the woods around the prison – nothing went to waste.
She'd even heard a rumor that Mrs. McLeod, one of the feisty older ladies from Woodsbury, was making a quilt out of the fur pelts. Nattering on in Spanish and quick to hand out a mint or some little sweet she'd managed to squirrel away to each and every child that came to her cell bearing a furry little prize.
But it wasn't just the boys. Everyone had stepped up and eventually the folks from Woodsbury started to make the prison their own – feeling comfortable enough to start leaving knickknacks in odd corners or piles of papers in the mess.
Home.
Not to be a stick in the mud, but for her, if she was being honest, it was the sudden influx of, well, stuff that had taken some getting used to. She'd always had this thing about neatness; it was one of the few neuroses she'd held onto after Ed died. In a way, with the world ending and all, it had only gotten worse.
She'd kept their house spotless. Not because Ed had demanded it, but because keeping house had been one of the only facets she'd been able to control when things got bad. It was a way to control her life and salvage her agency all under the guise of being exactly what Ed expected of her. A quiet, meek little mouse that had dinner in the oven and a spotless kitchen the moment he walked through the door.
It'd kept her sane, given her purpose, especially when Sophia started school. It was busy work, really, something to fill the long, lonely hours. It seemed so stupid now, but that had been her life. She hadn't been happy, not by a long shot. But at the time she'd figured that was just the way things were.
Ed had been good at that, making her believe she could be happy – content – if she tried just a little bit harder. If she smiled more and overlooked the empty beer cans. If she pretended she didn't mind the bruises or the lip-stick on his collar that was four shades darker than anything she had in her vanity. That she could forget the nights when he came home late, smelling of sweat and back-shelf liquor, ignoring her protests as he stumbled into bed, making like he wanted to lay hand on her before the booze brought him down.
She'd just finished washing up from breakfast when her eyes strayed over the side table by the door. She smiled sardonically at the mounted plaque that had been duct-taped to the wall above it. Seize the day.
She nearly snorted, shaking her head as she flicked sudsy-water off her hands and called Patrick over to dump the washing tub outside. She watched him go, black curls bobbing as he tried to navigate through the heavy door that led to the outside stairwell.
Seize the day? The phrase seemed to have a completely different meaning these days.
She wiped her hands on a dish towel, considering the idea for a long moment before a small smile flirted with the corners of her lips. Then again, the advice wasn't entirely without merit.
It was long past dusk by the time Daryl finally slouched in from outside. He was shouldering a brace of hares, two fat pheasants, half a dozen squirrels and a triumphant, if not slightly embarrassed, sort of grin as the entire room exploded into wolf whistles and appreciative murmurs. He handed his haul over to Carl and Patrick to skin for tomorrow's lunch - trying and ultimately failing to avoid the fanfare as a group of people stopped him in mid-pace.
She just smiled at him from across the room. Her eyes were dark, smouldering with promise as he met her stare overtop David and Henry's heads. It was an innocent sort of look, deceiving in its subtlety as she inclined her head a fraction of an inch to the left. She looked for all the world like she normally did, smiling pleasantly as people filtered in and out of the room, but Daryl practically squirmed under the weight of it.
Anticipation and eagerness rose up at the implication, thick and sweet between them. She couldn't help but laugh when the man tried and failed to make a quick exit on stage left.
He knew that look.
He hesitated in the doorway after supper, still uncertain of where they stood before she finally settled on reeling him in, knowing without having to ask that the first move was always going to be hers. For all his roughness, Daryl was too skittish to do otherwise, to unerringly sweet and unsure.
She couldn't deny it wasn't a nice change. But she had a feeling they'd be eighty-five and in wheelchairs and he'd still be treating her like spun glass regardless of the fact that she'd already proven herself to be unbreakable. Men.
She closed the door to her cell firmly behind him as he slouched inside, having just enough time to twitch the blanket closed before he was crowding close. His breath was hot against her shoulder as she turned around to face him, letting her pull him down for a lingering kiss before eventually breaking it - shy. Still, he allowed her to fuss over him as she nudged him down to sit on edge of her cot, wetting a cloth in the basin she'd snuck up to her cell for this very occasion.
He just arched a brow, watching her unhurried movements with a wry sort of amusement. "Should I be takin' some sort of hint here or somethin'?" he grunted, expression slanted, made grim by the shadows despite the mirth she knew stood in its place.
But she just smiled, wringing out a splash of luke-warm water before she started skimming it over his skin, wiping away the blood and grit as he eyed her from the shadows. He'd seen some action out there today, that much was obvious.
A heady flush of pleasure and anticipation stole across her skin as he started to relax, his long day of hunting finally seeming to catch up with him as thin streams of warm water beaded down the jut of his hips. She adored him like this, in the scant moments before the mask started to dissolve - when he finally let his guard down and allowed himself to just sit back and enjoy it.
That was what a Dixon's trust granted you. A certain brand of lee-way when it came to the things he wasn't quite comfortable with. It was a hard won trust, full of more false starts and hedging frustrations than she'd ever experienced in the admittedly short span of years between her first tenuous attempt at dating and eventually marrying Ed.
But for moments like this?
It was worth every second.
A/N #1: Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – There will be one more chapter because this got a lot longer than I figured it would. Story of my life, right? It will be posted tomorrow, so stay tuned.