Daryl Dixon has been smoking the same cigarettes since before he knew how to smoke cigarettes, back when the nicotine would burn his young lungs and his brother's friends would sit back and laugh.
He's been smoking for a long ass time, and it's always been the same. Same brand (a good brand, expensive as hell, but he'll budget to buy cigarettes), from the same place, from the same person. For going on twenty-five years.
So he's confused when some blonde girl is standing behind the counter, because aside from the fact she doesn't even look old enough to sell anything, she sure as shit ain't Dale. And it's Thursday, and this is Dale's Pit Stop, and since he's known what the hell a routine was Daryl's been sliding a twenty to Dale and Dale's been sliding two cartons to Daryl. On Thursdays. In Dale's Pit Stop. So what the hell?
"Hi, how are you?" He ignores her bright face and her bright smile, turning to look around the store for its owner. It takes two seconds; Dale's Pit Stop isn't really much of a shop. It's just four walls made of coolers full of beer and soda, three rows of old junk food, and shelves stocked high with tobacco behind the counter. Which he turns to look at now, to look at the wrong person. "Where's Dale?"
Her face gets even brighter, eyes and smile going wide, and he thinks there's something wrong with someone so happy for no reason. "He's at home today. I'm his niece, Beth!" She sticks her hand across the counter, like she wants a handshake. He ignores that too. She snaps her hand back after a second, still smiling like he's not being a dick. "I needed a summer job, so he's letting me run the store Wednesday through Saturday."
Daryl keeps looking at her. Beth. He wonders what the hell her parents were thinking when they named her that. It's an old name, a name that reminds him of schoolmarms. Beth sounds like the kind of girl who lives on a farm and knits sweaters and never goes out on Friday nights, very wholesome and boring. And looking at the girl in front of him - pale skin, bright blue eyes like a doll, white teeth all neat in a row, and long blonde hair she let out to dry all wavy and shiny in the summer air, Daryl thinks she looks just like her name sounds. Wholesome and good and boring.
He thinks all this and says nothing.
"Well can I help you find anything?" She asks, smiling. Fucking employee of the year.
"Get me two packs of Reds." She turns around to face the wall of tobacco and he watches her try to find what's right in front of her fucking face, and he's so annoyed. Because his life is chaotic. Nothing goes right, nothing works like clockwork, there's no damn order. Except for in his weekly exchange for some damn cigarettes. And now…
"Right in front of you." He growls, and she still manages to grab the wrong carton. But his palms are itching and he'd be outside enjoying the end of some well-earned nicotine by now if Dale were here, and he doesn't know why but her stupid smile is making him mad. So he snatches them up and slaps a twenty on the counter, fuck the change, and tears out of there fast. He's sucking the wrong shit down before he even reaches his truck. Stupid bitch.
Merle is in rare form by the time he reaches their apartment. He's lounging on the couch, feet propped up on the card table they pass for furniture, watching soap operas and drinking a beer. And none of that is unusual. But the place is clean and Merle looks clean, sober even. And Daryl knows he's in for some shit.
"Hey there, baby brother." Merle's voice is easy, his smile is wide. He looks and sounds relaxed, relatively normal, but Daryl can see it in his eyes something ain't right.
"Fuck's going on Merle?" He's mumbling, he doesn't really wanna know. But he sits in an armchair he'd picked up off the side of the road anyway.
"Nothin's going on that can't be fixed. We just need a couple bucks, that's all. Got some shit to sell, get Joe what he needs. But don't you worry, baby brother. College pricks are home for summer, we'll make Joe his money 'fore he even realizes it's gone." A smile, a swig of beer, and back to the TV.
For the love of fucking Christ. Merle'd just gotten out of jail, fucking around with Joe - one redneck asshole taking orders from an even bigger redneck asshole. Fucking around, smoking shit he was supposed to be selling, coming up short, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
It was always something with his brother. Always something and he always pulled Daryl into it and shit. Daryl was lucky he could even keep a decent job; that he had a boss who looked the other way. He'd never been arrested but he felt like his luck was running out. And he wanted to strangle Merle because he'd never dreamt of being an astronaut as a kid, never dreamt of being shit, but he sure as hell had never wanted to be a part-time drug dealer.
Daryl sits on his stupid lumpy couch, elbows on his knees and sighs. His brother is so stupid, so fucking dumb he wishes he would just get put away for good. And Daryl's so goddamn angry all the time, an anger that makes him itch inside, makes him want to break everything – himself, if he could. He's broke and he's never had his own bedroom and he feels like he was born dirty. He's thirty-five but he feels old; he knows time isn't being easy on him.
He feels tired and he feels like a piece of shit and he feels like if he just didn't wake up tomorrow everything would be better. He wants to lash out like a child, demand that Merle get a trade and a real job, stop living off of him. He wants to fling himself from the balcony. He wants to beat his dead father, beat his dead mother for ever having him. He wants to say no, he won't do it.
Instead, he lights up a cigarette and asks when they're leaving.
Selling is shitty, but now it's done and he wants a drink. Merle was right about the college kids. Stupid kids, rich and bored, will drown their made up sorrows in anything, including the crystal he and his brother sold at some party across town. They've made back Joe's shit, thank God. Merle thinks the bar is a good idea, some nasty beer and a nasty woman for later. But Daryl wants the relative quiet of their apartment, so he drops his brother off and heads to Dale's Pit Stop.
He just wants to pick up a six pack, but when he rolls up a few minutes before midnight, he sees blondie sweeping up and kind of just wishes he could die. For the fifth time that day. He gets out the truck anyway.
"Hey! Run out already?" She asks, stopping her sweeping to smile at him as he walks in. She looks genuinely happy to see him, which is just…weird.
But he ignores her, as is becoming custom, and walks past her to a cooler, grabbing some beer. She moves to ring him up and he slides exact change across the counter.
"So, you seem to come in here a lot. Not a lot of people came through yesterday, even less today." Blondie stops chatting and looks at him very seriously for a few seconds before asking to see his ID.
And Daryl thinks he's going to lose his shit. Right here. In this stupid little store. Because he's just spent the last few hours selling homemade crystal to dicks, and she already messed up his smokes, and now she wants to see his fucking ID?
"You serious, girl?" He's cutting her a glare that's been building all day, and all she can do is smile.
"Beth," she corrects gently, "and I know it's silly, but Uncle Dale told me to ID anyone that looked under forty. And sometimes you just can't be sure."
He just about throws the plastic card at her. Which makes her smile. Because fucking of course.
"Thank you, Daryl," she says, reading his name off the card and handing it back. He snatches it, grabs his beer, and turns to leave. The couch sounds good as anything right now, and he can't wait to be there.
He's got one foot out the door before her voice stops him.
"Wait! I know I'm probably really annoying, and I know you probably wanna get home. But I've been craving a milkshake since this morning, and you look like you've had a bad day. So I don't know if you wanna go to Patty's with me, but you can. If you'd like."
And he's staring at her like she's stupid, because she is. Small girl, probably five feet nothing, weighing jack shit, asking strangers out to eat in the dead of night. Strangers who don't even like her.
But Daryl runs on certain patterns – he doesn't say the things he's thinking, and he generally does shit he doesn't want to do. So, he nods, waits for her to lock up the store, and clears a space in his passenger seat.
And that's how he ends up at Patty's with Beth Greene every Thursday night.
The girl is a force of nature. She's eighteen and she gets what she wants. She smiles and stands up for herself, always. He admires her, though he'd never tell anyone that. She's curious about him, asks him questions when he obviously doesn't want to talk about whatever's pissing him off that day.
Merle is family, blood. He loves Merle but he doesn't like him. And he wouldn't say he likes Beth, not exactly, but he tolerates her. It feels good to see someone other than his ugly brother, other than the shits he works with. It feels good for someone to look at him and not look away, not act all prissy and scared, like he's up to no good all the time.
Patty's is good. Several hours after buying cigarettes, the right ones now, Daryl picks her up and drives them ten minutes outside of town to a little diner that's usually empty around midnight. It's quiet, the waitress is good, and the burgers are decent. Beth gets her milkshake and gets on Daryl's nerves and he doesn't hate it.
Tonight though, she's got a glint in her eye that he doesn't trust. Merle's been gone for a few days now, so life is quiet, but there's always a bit of apprehension, fear of the unknown when his brother skips town. He tries not to let that show, but Beth reads him like an open book.
"You're upset," she says, sipping on some milkshake, "but we'll get to that later." Nah, he thinks, we won't. She continues, "There's a party. Next weekend. And I really want you to come with me."
And she's looking at him with those saucer eyes, the way she does. And Daryl feels something he's been feeling lately. No, he doesn't like Beth Greene. Not really. But he thinks she's pretty. He's never seen anything really pretty in his life – his mama wasn't, the girls he and Merle fuck aren't. But Beth is. She's clean and bright and her smile is wide. She's annoying, but she's pretty.
Still. He ain't going to a party. Not with a bunch of kids. Not with this girl. They have an understanding in this booth. And that's it. There is no relationship outside of nicotine and milkshake fixes, and he likes it like that.
And the fuck would he look like, showing up to some barn party with this girl? Is he supposed to swing back beer with the same college pricks he's probably sold to before? Going to this party with this girl is one of the biggest hell no's of his adult life. And there have been some pretty big ones.
He tells her as such. But girl can't be phased, so after milkshakes, after awkwardly avoiding talking about Merle skipping town, when he's driving her back to her car at Dale's, she hands him a scrap of paper from her purse.
"It's just the address," she says, not reacting to his flinch as her fingers brush his palm. "I don't know, in case you get bored, change your mind or something." And she's gone, smiling like she knows him. Like she knows he'll show up.
Which he does. Show up, that is, kind of. Merle's still gone, he doesn't work Saturday nights, and he ain't got jack shit else to do.
Well, it's not exactly that. Beth'd seemed nervous two days prior, sitting in their booth at Patty's. And Beth is generally a lot of things, perky and too damn eager mostly, but never nervous. It sets him on edge, but he doesn't ask. She just barely skirts around the fact her ex-boyfriend will be there.
It's juvenile. It's really fucking stupid shit, shit that he couldn't be concerned with when he was her age – being nervous to go to a party just cause someone you used to suck face with would be there. But, he doesn't know, call it intuition or something, girl who invites strangers out at night wouldn't be nervous because of just that.
So, he's worried. Maybe. Though he refuses to think of it that way as he sucks down a second cigarette, still sitting in his truck, parked on the edge of this kid's property. He's worried, and he's here, and this is fucking stupid.
She doesn't need a knight in shining armor, and if she did, he sure in hell ain't that guy. She's probably fine. Probably drinking wine coolers and talking about college and letting some pale, pansy ass boy hold her hand.
Probably. But he can't get the image of her two days ago out of his head – pleading smile, barely contained panic as she asked one more time, please Daryl, come with me, it'll be fun. The look of resignation, determined but resigned none the less, as he told her not a chance in hell.
And just as he's thinking, simultaneously - she shouldn't have come if she didn't want to and maybe I should just go check it out, someone is pounding on his passenger side door before cranking the handle. In the black of the night, bonfire light illuminates her pale face and pale hair from behind her. He can make out tear tracks on her face and kind of scrambles, mostly falls, to open the door for her.
She practically jumps in, smelling like fire and woods and beer, and immediately starts crying. Screaming, really. It isn't at all how he imagined she'd cry, if he'd ever imagined such a thing. She's usually a composed girl, sunny and aware that she's pissing him off or pushing too far. She's calm under pressure. She has a sure voice and a clever smile and a lot of other pansy shit that doesn't equate to the fucking wailing she's doing right now.
How the fuck did his life come to this? What is this, even? He doesn't let himself be in situations with small, barely legal adults. Especially not those that cry. He sighs. Lights another cigarette. Considers lung cancer, thinks he'll sneak smokes if he ever needs one of those breathing machines. Listens to her choppy, sporadic, tear choked breathing.
"What the hell happened to you?" And if he sounds like he doesn't care, it's because he's really confused right now.
She doesn't look at him, keeps crying, but answers through hiccups, "I shouldn't have come. I mean, you should've come with me when I asked you to, because I couldn't just not come. But I shouldn't have."
She's damn near hysterical and his skin is crawling. He doesn't know why the fuck he came, because Lord forbid his being here actually account for anything…and now he's dealing with this.
He wants to handle it as well as he can, doesn't want to actively hurt her more, but the best he can come up with is: "The fuck are you goin on about?"
More tears. More hiccups. All of a sudden a very loud, unanimous shout comes from the direction of the house and then whatever music was playing inside can be heard from all the way out here. Her sobs get louder. He's a grown man, he seriously can't believe this is his Saturday night. So he starts up the truck and starts back toward town, her car be damned.
They make it all the way to his apartment without her saying a word. He just wants a beer; going to that party was stupid and a bad idea and he's already fucked his night, but he can salvage part of it. He wants a beer, he's taken her away from a place she obviously didn't want to be, and now he doesn't care if she walks home or sits in his truck all night or follows him up.
She's following him up. Which…okay. Whatever.
His apartment is a mess, but when isn't it, and Merle still isn't back. He doesn't think his brother's going to be showing up tonight, so this is fine. Not how he ever envisioned a Saturday night, but fine.
He doesn't offer her a seat, actually hasn't said shit to her after leaving the party, but she looks around with tear bright eyes and decides the armchair he frequents is a good choice before plopping herself down in it. She kicks off her shoes and hugs her knees to her chest, making herself small and comfortable, and he can't handle the surrealism of Dale's niece dozing in his living room, so he takes approximately three steps into the kitchen and grabs a warm beer from atop the counter. Pauses, grabs another.
Turns out Beth is a lightweight. Turns out, Beth's never actually had a drink before. She's not a sad drunk, thank God, but she is a talker. And despite Daryl's complete lack of encouragement, she tells him a lot. Too much, actually. Shit he'd keep close to his chest if the physical evidence didn't give him away.
She tells him about her mama: dead. She tells him about her daddy: a once recovered alcoholic who couldn't handle her mama's death; a man drinking himself sick again. (He tries not to think of the bitter irony of a girl working in a liquor store to make up for the money her alcoholic daddy is drinking away). She tells him about her brother and sister: actual adults with actual lives, she says, who went back to their lives in the city after The Funeral; who left her and her daddy and the farm.
She tells him about one time in her bathroom, very late at night, when feeling nothing hurt worse than feeling anything ever had; when she thought glass to her skin was the best option to feel something. She tells him this in such a detached way, like it happened to someone she used to know, that he feels uncomfortable. She tells him this and rubs at a spot on her wrist he notices is usually covered up, and breathes, but that wasn't right, and then I felt too much of everything.
And now the party, and how some fuck up of a kid she'd been dating when her life was great couldn't handle her family shit, couldn't handle her sadness, and ended things. How she'd been invited out for the first time in a long time, and she wanted to go, felt like she had to because all people did anymore was talk about her – how much she'd changed and did you hear what she tried to do? So she'd gone and Jamie or Jessie or Jimmy or whoever had been there with a new girl, and no one had talked to her, and nothing actually happened or went wrong, but there were too many people, and I don't know, I think it was a panic attack. He still isn't sure how it would've helped for him to be there, but he doesn't say that, hands her another beer.
Maybe she is a sad drunk. Maybe he shouldn't give her another beer, what with what she just told him, but he's the last person equipped to handle people and their emotions. So, let this beer put her under and he'll handle the rest in the morning. Because this isn't the Beth he knows and this night has spiraled easily into one of the weirdest he can remember and if he thought it could be salvaged he thought wrong.
She's almost done with her second beer, so he leaves her to smoke on the balcony that groans like it isn't supposed to support his weight.
He's thinking about everything she told him; it makes him angry. Because there are routines in his life, so damn precious in their rarity, and Beth Greene telling sob stories in his apartment does not fit in that routine. Because Beth Greene doesn't get to be sad.
It isn't her place to be fucked up. That's his domain. They don't have a relationship outside of nicotine and milkshake fixes, except maybe now they kind of do, but in that relationship there's balance – Daryl gets to be surly and angry and for good reason, because his life is fucked and his brother is an addict and he has nightmares that keep him up at night and make him a dick in the morning. That leaves space for only one other kind of person – a Beth, someone who smiles and laughs and thinks about stupid shit and doesn't get it, someone easy and light to be around.
She doesn't get to encroach on Daryl's territory. She doesn't get to shift shit around, doesn't get to have darkness. Daryl doesn't need any more of that, doesn't want any more of that. If she's got darkness, then there really is no light and he's pissed that he even started depending on her for that.
He reaches for another cigarette, but todays been a fucking day, and this pack is gone. He's about to turn back into the apartment, look for his second pack, but she's there when he turns, blocking his way.
She looks sleepy. More than sleepy, she looks bad – her eyes are red and puffy, her hair has gone frizzy and unhandled, her dress is wrinkled and she's been spilling beer on it between hiccups. But besides that, the way she's holding herself looks like she's given up, like a deflated balloon. Like every smile and every laugh was a lie and she can't do it anymore. This is what's really left of this girl, this is what she has at the end of the day.
It's sad. And he's still angry at her for not being what he wants her to be. But looking at her looking at him, with eyes that have given up, with a scar bright as the moon, he admires her – she can fake it; he can't. He's had three decades to get his shit together and at least try, but he can't fake it and people look at him and know him. But Beth can make herself anyone she wants to be, and he knows in the morning she'll be bright again, she'll be full of air and life. It's disconcerting to know she becomes this thing when the lights go out, but it fills him with pride to know that no one knows about her weaknesses, no one is allowed behind what she presents.
"I'm tired now," she mumbles. He almost tells her it's obvious, almost tells her to move so he can get another smoke. He also almost tells her she's fucked everything up being the way she is; that he thinks she's strong despite being so small.
But, because he's Daryl, he settles for telling her to sleep on the couch.
He was right about the next morning, about her being a fully inflated balloon again. She doesn't even act like anything happened, just sings along as he drives her to get her car and promises to see him Thursday.
And Thursday afternoon is very normal. She has another customer when he gets there, so he has to wait, but he slides her change and she slides him smokes and when she asks if he'll come back later for Patty's, he grunts his usual yes.
He's beginning to think Saturday night was all in his head. Wouldn't be the first time he's hallucinated.
But then they get in their booth, and he knows some shit is coming because she was too quiet on the ride over.
"I really want to apologize," she starts, fiddling with the paper from her straw.
His body clenches up, shoulders first, down to his toes. This is uncomfortable territory already, and he doesn't have the comfort of a drink or a smoke to mask it.
So he stares at her, tries to make his eyes go dead, because that usually works in letting people know he doesn't want to talk. It only encourages her.
"Just let me say it," she rolls her eyes. "I'm really sorry for going berserk Saturday, and I'm sorry for crying in your car, and for sleeping on your couch. And, okay, I'm sorry, but your couch kind of smells." She has the audacity to smile at him now, and it's true, the couch does smell, so he doesn't smile but he doesn't glare either.
"But you handled it like a champ, so thank you." And now she's smiling at him in earnest, like he's done her some big favor.
Maybe he has. This girl doesn't have friends anymore, barely has a family. They're the same, him and her.
He shrugs a little, nods like his neck is stiff; doesn't glare but doesn't say any of the sappy shit he's thinking, either.
"You're sweet when you try, Daryl Dixon," and she's hoisting herself across the table, nearly knocking her five dollar milkshake over, to plant a kiss on his cheek; she smells like his cigarette smoke from the car ride over and sweat and a little like generic shampoo.
She's too busy righting her milkshake to notice his blush.
Someone knocking a few days later wakes him. It isn't Merle, because unfortunately Merle always has a key and never has the presence of mind to knock before barging in.
It isn't Merle – it's Beth. Standing in the hallway of his apartment in an old t-shirt and shorts, looking bleary eyed and a little lost.
"The hell are you doing here, girl?" He asks, not stepping back because he's not inviting her in. He's still sleepy, and she can't just show up at his place, and don't she know what boundaries are?
"Just wanted to get out the house is all," and she's edging so close to him he has to step back, lest she brush up against him. So now they're both just…standing in the doorway. And she looks like she doesn't know why she's here; he sure as hell doesn't.
But then it's like she comes here all the time, going to his armchair and making herself comfortable again. Beth is a good person, doesn't say anything about the pizza left out on the table, or the dirty clothes littering the floor. She just curls in on herself and looks at the TV – an infomercial channel he'd fallen asleep to the night before.
And he really, really doesn't know what to do. Which, he thinks, is happening too damn often around a girl he never imagined he would see so much of.
But she doesn't seem like she really wants anything from him, except to use his goddamn armchair, and for as much as he hates random, chaotic shit happening in his life, Daryl's accustomed to it. And at least it's this girl throwing a wrench in his plans (he was going to sleep all day, maybe crack open a few beers, then sleep some more). He's good at ignoring people and he's good at acting invisible. So he lays down on the other, shittier couch, and watches infomercials with her.
"I'm kind of hungry," she mumbles a few hours later. He wasn't exactly sleeping, more in the space in-between, but her declaration is the first thing either of them has said since she arrived, and he feels like she's woken him up.
"Order a pizza," and he's reaching behind the couch in the general direction he threw the menu last night. When he can't find it he gives up and stares back at the TV – they're hyping up Tupperware that's fucking useless and he wonders why she's stayed here so long.
But Beth is hungry, and she gets what she wants. So despite his lack of help, thirty minutes later she's opening a fresh box of pizza on his card table. She doesn't ask about plates or napkins, and he's thankful because there aren't any.
Instead, she moves the box to her lap and stretches her feet out so they rest on the table. She ordered mushroom and olive pizza and her toenails are painted blue. He observes both of these at the same time and files them both under being inconsequential; except, her feet are pretty, in a way he didn't know things like feet could be. They're just…there. Dainty and pale, and now he notices she has strong, slender legs. They aren't tan the way he would expect for a girl that lives on a farm, but that's okay. Her legs are pretty too.
"You should have some," she's saying, trying to stretch so he can grab a slice. But it's his lazy day and he isn't reaching for shit, not even food.
"Fine," she huffs, and she's the most ungraceful thing he's ever seen as she gets to her feet, pizza box balanced in one palm, and shuffles to the couch. He keeps trying to convince himself he doesn't like this girl, that she's more annoying than anything. But he wants to laugh at her frustration when she can't just lift his legs up enough to make a seat for herself. Her touch isn't as intrusive as her kiss, and he doesn't really mind it in that it doesn't piss him off, so after a while he lifts his legs for her, and she scooches in on the spot he vacates.
He lets his legs fall back over her own, and she grunts out a "here," before tossing the box on his stomach.
And he knows this isn't so bad. It isn't Merle, strung out and coming up with dumb plans, and it isn't being alone, which usually has him working through a six pack to avoid his own mind. It's kind of like their Thursdays together, except today she's so quiet, and he hasn't forgotten her face when he opened the door. But if she doesn't want to talk about it, he isn't going to initiate that conversation.
He doesn't know if this, being around someone and not feeling suffocated, not wanting to cut them with words so they can feel as bad as he does, is what friendship is. But, he figures as she wiggles down until his feet rest on her stomach, he figures this is close.
And for all the peace of mind he gets around this girl, for all the times she almost makes him smile or gets him to blush, maybe she's getting something out of this, too. Maybe he's actually useful to her, a grumpy bear to poke just for giggles, or a place to crash when shit ain't right.
And if he likes the feel of her stomach under his feet, soft but strong like she seems to be; if he likes the way she smiles or how bright her eyes get after she's been crying; if the sound of her voice does anything close to making him feel calm…then that's okay.
He can be friends with this girl. And if she wants to move pizza boxes out of the way and get up close to his side; if she wants to thank him for the nothingness that has been their day in a voice verging on tears but soft with gratitude; if she wants to give him another kiss, more on his jaw than his cheek this time…well, that's okay, too.
So, Thursday's in Dale's and at Patty's, and sometimes random weekends in his apartment. But Merle is back now, so he's given her his number…can't just have her coming over when his brother is home. He's 100% positive he doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. Trying to explain it to Merle would be a mess, impossible because Merle takes everything out of context and because hanging out with a teenage girl just doesn't make sense for him.
But it's happening, and it's good.
He was right about her being good for him – he looks forward to Thursday in a way he hasn't looked forward to anything in a long time. It's good to be reminded he matters to someone, to have another part of a routine that justifies his being. It's good to have someone smile at him, though he doesn't smile back.
And he was right about him being good for her – because her daddy is dying, she's pretty sure of it, and even with the job, she can't afford school in the fall. She's embarrassed all the time, and angry because her siblings got to go to school, and now she's been left behind. It's uncomfortable sometimes, and he never knows what to say, but she tells him about shit and he listens, and when her daddy drinks himself under, he's got an armchair with her name on it.
It's happening, and it's good, but he's doing more than noticing her now and she's getting damn regular with those kisses to his cheek, to his jaw or forehead or whatever she can reach – once on the neck, when he was driving her back to her car, and he swore he was going to drive them off the road.
It doesn't feel sexual, not in the dirty way shit like this has always felt with the occasional chick he's fucked. It feels like…like a bunch of shit he doesn't have the words for. But mostly, when he's noticing her, when he finds himself thinking about her face or her hair or her voice, it feels like a want so simultaneously subdued and aflame that it balances itself out to nothing – like maybe he's always wanted her and maybe he'll always want her, and it's okay to just be in that. He doesn't feel like he has to do anything, now or ever. That noticing her, and wanting her, and burning hot for a few minutes after her soft lips leave his skin, is enough.
"I'm not ready to go home yet," she says after a Thursday night spent teasing about his hair.
Truthfully, he isn't ready, either.
Merle's found yet another dealer, this one dirt cheap, so he's been strung out for the past few days. And now that he knows what an escape feels like…he never kept the place clean, per se, but living in Merle's dirt and around Merle's shit makes him angry; reminds him of who he is and where his place in life lays.
She doesn't want to go home to her alcoholic daddy, and he doesn't want to go home to his junkie, redneck brother.
So he drives and she turns on the radio, singing to whatever station she can get a clear signal on. He drives until they reach an abandoned parking lot, but they don't get out. Summer is ending, and there's a little nip in the air at almost two in the morning.
They both have work tomorrow, but she's used to being tired for her Friday shift now, and he's just used to being tired.
For a while, neither of them does much of anything. She's singing along, and he's making a point to blow the heavy smog of cigarette smoke out the window – she once commented her clothes were starting to smell like him.
It's a quiet night and he's thinking about nothing; it feels good. His mind feels warm, devoid of anger for the time being. They can see nothing as far as their sight will let them – not far away enough from the city to see the stars. Just black. That feels good, too, like being in a bubble. Just the smell of nicotine and the sound of Beth's little voice, more humming than singing.
And then she's right there next to him, on him, her head warm against his shoulder, hair soft and unbrushed against his arm.
"Gonna smell like smoke, girl," he says. But he doesn't much care, and he knows she doesn't either.
She says nothing, keeps humming. But now she's nosing at his neck.
This is…new. Kissing him there isn't, not anymore. But she's never just nosed at it.
It's enough to make him feel warm inside, makes him feel languid all the while his stomach clenches. The feel of her breathing on him is almost distracting enough that he doesn't notice she's moving higher. But he notices, and she is – nosing her way up and up, across the hairs on his chin, taking pause there and squeezing his arm. He can feel the weight of her eyes on him, and he doesn't know what to do, never ever does. So he smokes, tense as the button of her nose meets the edge of his lips.
And he's sucking on that cigarette like it'll save his life; in and in until his lungs burn with it like when he first started and he's forced to exhale. Before all the smoke can even get out, she presses her lips to his, fast like she had to make herself do it, fast like she's nervous.
They don't move. There's still smoke burning in his mouth and her hand's gone slack on his arm.
But her lips are so much softer on his own than on his skin, and it's okay, he thinks, to admit to himself that he wants more than to think about her, that he wants this – wants to know the taste of her mouth. He wants to feel the strength of her stomach, of her legs. He wants the tangles of her hair in his hands.
He pulls away, exhales what's left in his mouth above her head, and leans back down just as she's leaning up, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth. And it's the craziest thought, but he has it right then, that he lived so long without her mouth on his, without her voice and presence a constant in his days; that ever since befriending her, he's forgotten what hate strong enough he wishes he were dead feels like.
She tastes like milk from her shake and cherry from her Chapstick, waxy but good, so much better than acrid, cheap alcohol. Her mouth is soft and gentle, warm when it opens for him, and he thinks she must like the way he tastes because she moans harmonious at his tongue in her mouth.
When she pulls away to breathe, she doesn't look like some lost, sad girl unprepared to go home and face her reality. She looks sedated and sleepy, blinks slow like molasses and so damn pretty; more than pretty, beautiful in that he wants to kiss her like that all the time just to see her face at the end. And she looks victorious. Like she's gotten her way, and she has, but also like she's proven something to herself.
His cigarette is almost nothing now, and she slides it from his fingers to hers, catching it between her lips.
He doesn't want her to taste like him, and it doesn't necessarily look right, Beth with a filter sticking out of her mouth, but it's kind of cute. So he watches, lids heavy but calm, waiting for her mouth to be free so he can have it again. Because kissing her is good; being with her is good. It softens his edges even as it makes his insides clench and his dick harden.
She's still attached to his side, sucking in then blowing out into his face, smiling wide and slow as the smoke swirls around, silky but heavy with heat before disappearing. She does it again, then twice more before the thing is gone; she throws it out the window like she's seen him do countless times before.
He catches her mouth again just as she's opened it to start singing along to a commercial. He doesn't need to think much doing this, and she isn't either. It isn't rushed, lips and teeth don't crash together; nobody's fighting for dominance. It's been a long day for both of them, and this feels like such a revelation, such a long time coming that the excitement of it is exhausting. They're kissing, and it's enough.
It's almost like a trance, her hand at his bicep, one of his at the nape of her neck, testing the soft baby hairs against her neck there. He could fall asleep like this, he thinks.
But a blaring sound cuts into the middle of a song neither of them were hearing. She's slow to pull away, and twists the volume down to nothing but white noise.
"It's not even tornado season yet," she yawns next to him, annoyed at their interruption. She's tired, and so is he. His brother won't be asleep yet, but her daddy should be.
When he drops her off at Dale's, he turns the radio back up just in time to hear this is not a warning, before the sound of Johnny Cash crackles into the cab of his truck.
This will be a story told in two parts. By no means is it very long, but I've never written anything of such length for pleasure, and while I'm excited I also just wanted to get this part out into the universe. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I love this ship, and I've been reading it for a while now; I love writing them but it can be so challenging at times. Daryl is really hard to capture without the emotions we're used to from S3 onwards…just grabbing that pure anger he lived with before he trusted and loved and it was taken away from him, and doing something with it is interesting but so difficult. And Beth is just a walking cliché I really don't want to fall into but, like, how can you not? Plus, my forte is writing small scenes from the midst of stories, not creating the stories themselves. This has been a great challenge and it's evolved and is evolving continuously – I didn't know what I wanted to write when I started it, except for the first two or three sentences. If it all crashes and burns, I'll blame it on Cigarette Daydreams by Cage the Elephant for even putting the slightest of ideas in my mind. Thank you so much for reading this xx