The place they were holed up for the night was all kinds of shit.
After they had burned down the cabin they had kept walking the rest of the night and the next day. Twenty something hours of not sleeping, heat of the sun, and lack of water had finally caught on with them by the time they found a house Daryl had approved for their night's rest.
It was an old farm house, with a leaky ceiling and mucked up floors. They hover by the door for a while, before Daryl tells her to stay back as he goes in to check the damn place. She wants to help, but in her current state of drowsiness it's not the best possible idea.
Daryl comes back in five minutes, shrugging his shoulders and telling Beth to enter the old house. She stumbles in, and closes the door after her, before looking back into the dark corridor and at Daryl. They both are feeling the hangover still. He's tired, but so is she, and there is still much to do before they can actually relax.
Daryl tells her to go check out the kitchen, and the bedrooms while he hangs his crossbow on his back and proceeds to make sure that the place is nailed shut tighter than a dolphin's ass. Beth wanders into the kitchen, while listening to the sounds of furniture being moved and grunts of Daryl as he works quickly to safe guard the house. She goes through the cabinets slowly and meticulously, even if the reason for it the heat of the day and the lack of water, mixed with the hangover from all the moonshine they had consumed. She isn't surprised when she finds only a can of beans and another can of chickpeas, but she is surprised when she finds a can of pears and another of peaches. Smiling like the proverbial cat that ate the canary, she carries her bounty into the living room, where Daryl has made a camp. He's used most of the furniture to block the windows and doors, so the pillows and few not so dirty rugs are the only thing resembling something soft to sleep on.
"We need clothes," Beth whispers, because she doesn't think she can manage anything louder. Her throat is so sore and her tongue feels like sandpaper.
"Upstairs is clear," Daryl grunts, "'m heading out to find us sum' water."
She replies him with a smile, and wanders upstairs slowly, patting her way with her hands because the stairway is pitch black. She makes it upstairs, and finds the bedrooms, immediately feeling sad about the people that lived there before all this. Apprehensively she goes through the bedroom, and the drawers and the closets finding some clothes that fit her but not Daryl, and then vice versa. She gathers all she can carry and makes her way back downstairs. Daryl isn't back yet, but she's distracting herself by sorting through the clothes and makes a mental note to tell Daryl to at least try them on.
She's sitting in silence when Daryl returns and places a small jug of water on the ground.
Normally, she would chatter his ears off, or sing, or at least hum something, but now she's sitting quietly on the floor and stares at the fireplace, hugging her knees.
"Hey, drink up," Daryl says, surprisingly soft, and pokes her shoulder. She nods in agreement, and reaches for the jug and takes a tiny sip, and then another. She feels instantly better, smiling faintly.
With that, Daryl sits down on the floor, dropping his crossbow next to him, taking the jug from Beth and drinking. She shifts, and hands out the cans she found over to Daryl, gesturing for him to open them. He grunts something in agreement, and places the jug back on the floor, and poking it towards Beth. Then, he picks the cans one by one, prying them open with his knife, and then handing them back to Beth. Just like always he wouldn't take the first pick, and Beth won't pressure him. Instead, she smiles, and begins to scoop the contents of the cans in four different bowls. She shares them, but not quite equally, giving slightly more to Daryl. She then hands over the bowl of cold chickpeas and beans to Daryl, setting the smaller bowl of pears and peaches on the floor next to him.
She nibbles at the chickpeas and beans slowly, while Daryl scarfs them down quickly and restlessly. She isn't even half way done with her meal, when he reaches for the bowl of peaches, and gobbles them into his mouth. She scrunches her nose at him, hiding her smirk, watching some of the sugary liquid dribbling down Daryl's chin, and sticking to his beard, He gets up, picking up the crossbow again, and grunts something about making a quick round around and through he house.
"Eat," he commands, and pokes the water jug at her, "Drink."
She nods again, flustered, and offers a tiny smile as an agreement. She wants to offer to go with him, to help him, try and be useful, but by the look on his face he definitely doesn't want any company and he scurries off quickly, leaving Beth to eat her own meal.
When alone, once more, she can't help her mind wandering, and she ends up thinking about the family who lived in the house. She hopes they are safe. She shudders when she finds herself thinking about her father. Her eyes watering and she quickly wipes the tears away. She thinks about Maggie and hopes she's alive and well with Glenn. She hopes Judith and Carl are with their father. She hopes Michonne is taking care of Rick.
She feels like sobbing. She doesn't want to start to sob. So she picks up the bowls and the cans, teeters into the kitchen and drops the bowls and cans into the sink, before she returns to the living room, and begins to try the clothes. She goes through them again, and stuffs some of them into the backpack, because even though it was still warm during the day, the nights were already cooling down, and Beth's almost certain that that nippy, freezing nights were just around the corner, ready to hit them both like a ton of bricks. So, clothes are what they need. She feels proud of herself for finding clothes that even Daryl would wear.
By the time she's done with the clothes, Daryl comes back into the small living room they had camped in, dragging something that looks like an old, half deflated air mattress and a pump for it. So, the sight makes her blink few times, almost disbelieving the sight, staring at the Archer eyeing at his prize, weighing at it for a decent amount of time, as if to determine how he could logistically fit that damn thing in their small backpack, or how he can fit them both on it without touching. She's not exactly sure about that, but the look on his serious face makes Beth want to giggle and she does her best to conceal the amusement.
After a quick check, the air mattress seems to be intact and without any tears.
"A'ight," Daryl breathes, grouching down, and attaching the pump's nozzle to the mattress. Beth's curious, as to how this is going to end. She's already so tired that she can barely keep her eyes open, but she's still curious about the air mattress. It would be a change for sleepless nights and cramped quarters, so she keeps on watching Daryl pumping it full of air.
Daryl proceeds to grunt and growl for the next five minutes with his bounty. He glances at Beth every now and then, seeing her looking at him. He's determined to get them both a good night's sleep.
When the mattress is finally full, he quickly seals the air vent on it, dropping the pump from his hands and tossing the mattress on the floor with a soft thud. This time, when he looks at it, there's a faint smirk on his lips, proud of what he has accomplished.
Wiping his hair off his eyes, he glances at Beth, still sitting on the floor, her eyes now closed. The second her head nods down, she quickly opens her eyes and straightens herself, looking around and meeting Daryl's incredulous stare. And then she yawns once more.
"There," he states, pointing at the mattress, "All done."
"Mhmm," Beth murmurs back at him and smiles sleepily.
"'m gonna check the house. Once more," Daryl says wearily, not sure if he should say or do something or not, "Ya go - - ya go sleep, 'kay?"
"Yes, Mr. Dixon," she agrees, without much of a fight, shifting and sliding on the mattress boneless.
Daryl gives her a quick look, to make sure she was alright. He feels responsible for her still feeling hangover-y. He also feels like this is getting to be a little too much for him. He's never been too good with talking, and Beth is all about talking. She's not useless, she's strong. She has pulled her own weight and she has forced Daryl to open up about what happened at the prison. So if anything, he's doing this for Hershel. He's going to keep the girl alive as long as there's still breath left in him. He adjusts the strap of his crossbow across his chest, and watches Beth pull the backpack under her head as a makeshift pillow, and curl into a ball with a deep, content sigh. And before Daryl can excuse himself, and maybe find another place to sleep – and still watch over for her – Beth's sleepy voice stops him.
"There's enough room for you too, you know? It's better than a hard, cold floor."
It takes a minute or two for him to make a decision; all the while he keeps chewing the inside of his cheek. He lowers the crossbow down on the floor, and shrugs his angel wing vest off. He looks apprehensive for a while longer, before he gathers enough courage to plop himself down on the mattress next to the petite blonde that had already turned him into an arsonist.
But, as air mattresses go, the problem wasn't Daryl plopping down on the air mattress. It wasn't even the fact that him dropping down on it shot – no, launched – Beth into air.
The problem, the real, big problem is the way she lands back on top of him.
She lets out a high pitched squeak when her body becomes airborne and her arms and legs flail, and Daryl's hands instinctively reach out to grab her. With that, she slams against him chest-to-chest with force. She keeps flailing her arms and suddenly she realizes she's leaning against his nuts with most of her weight, and eliciting a loud groan of pain from Daryl, who is trying to still Beth by grabbing her waist, and tugging her up, away from the private parts.
It doesn't help the situation much at all.
She's still dazzled, and as she tries to get up, she only manages to wiggle on top of Daryl, more than she intended. He tries to help her to get up, resulting only to him pulling her pert butt flat against his cheek. He feels himself blushing immediately, the nips of his ears burning. She wiggles, squirming against his face, mortified about the entire situation.
"DARYL!" she screams and frantically tries to get up, but at that point they were a tangled mess of limbs and clothes and the blanket she had been curled under was now making it impossible for her to get up and off Daryl, as it too was wrapped around their legs.
"Hold still! Jesus!" he barks an order, trying to steady her and pushing her as gently as he can down his chest, but then she slips and her knee is pressing against his balls and dick instead of her hand. And his dick – it seemed to have a life of its own – is now throbbing, and twitching as Beth wiggles more on top of him, and tries to get up.
"Oww!" he barks, "Fuck!"
"I'm sorry!" she whimpers, turning her head and searching for his eyes. He's flushed, his ears are red, and hue of red spreads over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. She knows she's as red as a tomato by now.
"Hold on," Daryl grumbles, as he sits up, and lifts her up almost effortlessly and lowering her down on his knees on her stomach, from where with a little to no effort at all, she manages to clamber up and sit back down, straddling his thighs.
"I'm so sorry!" she squeaks, a hint of embarrassment, shock and fear alternating in her sparkly eyes.
"Wasn't ya fault."
"Did I hurt you? I did, didn't I?" she babbles, "Oh, I wish we had ice packs! You didn't find a first aid kit or anything?" she inquires, and her hand twitches few times as if to reach over and make sure all the places were working like they should be, but stopping herself each time.
"'m fine," he growls, trying not to look at Beth. He's already had her ass on his face, her hand and knee on his junk, he doesn't need her to realize he's getting a massive hard-on from all this and that he can't come up with a way of getting her off of his lap without her noticing.
"But I hurt you!" she insists, tilting her head, and trying to get him look at her. She shifts, lifting herself up on her knees, he lets out a moan - - and she realizes what is going on.
"Oh!"
Daryl is certain he's not going to get any real sleep tonight. Not with the petite blonde next to him; and the memory of the fucking adorable look of shock in her sparkling blue eyes when she realizes that he's got a throbbing bulge in his pants and it's almost certainly because of her wiggling on top of him.