The kiss wasn't supposed to happen.
They'd been avoiding each other for weeks now, never speaking directly and barely even looking at each other, both too proud to face one another while still licking their own wounds. Well, Paul had actually tried, once, to try and talk it out with him, but Daryl had left the room so fast you'd swear there were walkers chasing him out of there.
So yeah, consider the hint taken.
He didn't try again.
And to think Paul had actually thought this was his it, that he and Daryl really could make it work between them and just be… something together. Happy, maybe. But nevermind what he'd thought now, since clearly he'd been wrong. They never meant shit.
Paul doesn't remember when exactly did it start— way before any of them acknowledged it, that's for sure, and maybe even from the very first time they locked eyes— but as the War went along and came closer to an end, it somehow became natural for the two of them to seek each other and spend more and more time together, talking about nothing and everything under the night sky sharing a bottle of whatever liquor they manage to swipe. It was good, it felt right, and so Paul let the other in just like he had done with Maggie not long before.
Of course, it wasn't exactly the same thing.
It was one of those nights that it happened the first time; Paul had been in the middle of a speech, something about the human nature and condition and his thoughts on it, before suddenly there were lips on his as Daryl interrupted him with a kiss.
Perhaps he should've been surprised— and he was, for a total of maybe two seconds before he returned the kiss— but just like with their friendship everything about it just felt logical at the time, like the obvious next step. Daryl's tongue tasted like hard whiskey and cigarettes and in anyone else he would feel grossed out but with Daryl it was just intoxicating.
And so of course he kept coming back for more.
Even though he'd made the first move, Daryl was still hesitant at first; borderlining on shy and sweet really, words Paul would never think to associate with the hunter and yet still couldn't be more true. So slowly, gently, he peeled away worry after worry, wall after wall, until they were laid bare in front of each other, open and vulnerable, and moved together as one.
Their night watches together became something else, something more, as they now traded kisses too under the sky. At day they would smile and they would banter together, flirting in their own little way, and Paul's fear of getting too close was forgotten and abandoned.
Until he mentioned telling Maggie about them— maybe even moving in together, officially, since most nights they would end up in Paul's trailer bed one way or another— and Daryl simply shut down on him, pacing restlessly and looking at Paul as if he'd grown a second head, as if he had no idea where any of it was coming from and was appalled.
And Paul… Paul knew that look. It was the same he used to wear whenever one of his past lovers would bring up getting serious.
Call it karma if you will, he doesn't care, all he knows is that it hurt like a bitch and so Paul all but hit all breaks and dropped it, hoping they'd go back to normal and maybe he'd be able to salvage it. Except after that Daryl started avoiding him like the plague, refusing to even look at him, and call him proud but Paul didn't exactly react well to it to being rejected so strongly.
And so it went; the two of them barely speaking when once they'd be glued to the hips, with only the memories of all the nights spent together as proof of what almost was, heart wistful but already defeated. Until.
Until now.
The kiss wasn't supposed to happen. He never expected it to.
Almost as if by irony, it was night when it happened. Paul had been tucked away in his trailer for the night, lost in one of his many books, when there was a knock on his door and suddenly Daryl was there, staring at him with an unreadable look in his eyes and the scout was barely able to let out a surprised "Daryl, what—?" before a kiss catches him off guard.
It's humiliating to admit but Paul melts into it, accepting the kiss without seconds thoughts and not even once thinking about refusing the other. God, he's missed it, he's missed Daryl, so much he can barely put into words.
The man tastes the same he did their first time together, and the frantic kiss says what neither had the courage voice out loud yet. It says I'm sorry, it says I miss you and begs please love me again all at once in the same breath; desperate hands feeling each other's faces and bodies without once breaking the kiss as if to make sure they remember it right, and Paul doesn't know if the tears are his or Daryl's.
He doesn't know how long they spend there either, just lost in each other's embrace, until their mouths are swollen and exhaustion creeps in, and only then Paul notices they never closed the door in the first place.
And maybe that should mean something, somewhere in the corner of his mind he can sense a metaphor there, but currently all he can think of is how Daryl came back and is just there, with him, again. He came back, he came back, he came back.
No one ever did before.
They stare into each other's eyes for a while— both so full of adoration and longing— trying to ensure they were on the same page and it wasn't just wishful thinking clouding their minds. But they are, fuck, they are. And it's not long before Daryl opens his mouth to ask:
"Can I still move in with you?"
And Paul laughs.