Rabbits

by LeighJ11

Two strangers seeking comfort together at the end of the world, and one survivor praying no one takes her rabbits. Rated M for sexual scenes, swearing and violence. You've been warned.

Oh my God. So, I actually wrote it! I am so new to this fandom. I literally binge watched all the TWD seasons in a matter of weeks. I haven't had much time to really get into the FanFiction side as of yet. However, I have this one author who has been so good to me, and wrote some really bad ass TVD (The Vampire Diaries) and she just started writing TWD. It was really because of her that I decided to watch the show at all. Her pen name is Trogdor19, and she is SO kick ass. If you're a Caryl fan, you've hit the jackpot with this lady, I'm telling you.

Anyway, I was reading one of her TWD pieces, and one line kick started this piece inside my head. I originally went to her with the idea, because I really wanted justice to be done to it, but she boosted my confidence and was like, "you have to write this," and she's such an amazing woman that I threw caution to the wind and did it! I really hope I've done Daryl justice, even from an OC character point of view. Also, I've never wrote with an accent before, and I took a lot of cues from the fiction I've read, and the episodes themselves. I really hope I did okay. Please review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own one character in this one shot, and the plot. The Walking Dead, and Daryl do not belong to me, and I make no profit from this. I also have no beta, so all mistakes are my own.

God, damn it all to hell. Fighting the reanimated every day, and surviving, doesn't mean shit when I couldn't even have a wash in peace. No fucking privacy anymore. Just because I was knee deep up shit creek in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse, didn't mean I couldn't take a goddamn bath. I bent lower in the dip concealing the creek, hiding behind a slick, solid wall of mud, and watched intently as cool water rushed over my bare toes. The reanimated ones were stumbling through the trees, heading towards the rabbits I had cooking.

Oh, hell no.

First, I couldn't wash my pits without onlookers, and now I couldn't eat the fruits of a hard day's labour? Nearly three years in, give or take, the animals seemed to be dying out, which meant there weren't many of them left to catch and eat anymore, between humans and the reanimated picking them off. Just finding the two rabbits I had today was a miracle, not to mention it had been a complete accident, because I couldn't hunt for shit. I would have settled for a can of anything as long as it hadn't gone rotten. God, who was I kidding? That was what I was settling for. There wasn't anything else.

I gripped the knife tighter in my hand and took a deep breath. I was barely even dressed. I didn't get naked a lot, not even to wash, unless it was really safe, which it never really was anymore, and hadn't been since I had lived in a house, had a dog, and a family to see on the weekends. But I had to clean up somehow, and that meant bathing in underwear. Which I had been trying to do, until the moans, and stench of the dead had alerted me to their presence. Now, my wet hair clung to my bare skin like the grip of seaweed and I cringed away from it, digging my freshly cleaned fingernails into the mud wall I was hiding behind.

Could never stay clean anymore. No more time to delay. They had nearly reached my rabbits, and without them, I would starve tonight. There was barely an hour left of daylight, which meant no more time left in the day for me to find more food, and I didn't know if I would find anything tomorrow either. I bounded from the creek with a heavy push upwards and a surge of adrenaline at the thought of going hungry, throwing myself into the closet reanimated corpse. I stumbled but managed to keep my balance as I took a firm grip on its chin.

My knife drove up into its already broken jaw and pushed tight, squeezing the skin of my fingers between the blade handle and the reanimated skin. It twitched before going limp, and I yelped as its weight took me down. The others had been drawn over by the sound, and I took a quick count as I tugged my knife free of the one beneath me. Ten. With a grunt, I shoved to my bare feet, nearly stumbling as my frozen toes glided over wet stones from the creek. The other reanimated had converged into a wall, consisting of at least six out of the ten. Damn it. I hated it when they paired up like that: like pack rats.

I took a running jump to the next one, sliding the blade in and out, fast as I could. Just nine left. I took a breath, chest heaving and goosebumps running across my bare arms from the cold air. I needed to work out more. Three years later and it still knocked the breath right out of me to take down so many at once. I took the next three out, pinned against a tree, leaving the wall of reanimated to deal with last. I didn't want to run into a pack of six, but I couldn't see a way to distract them. I wasn't willing to give up even one of my rabbits as a diversion.

I backed away from the oncoming wall and tried to think. But then arms grabbed me from behind and I whirled around, impaling the skull with my blade without thinking twice. My heart stopped for a wild moment until my eyes confirmed that I hadn't killed a living person. It hadn't happened yet, but I feared it would. Instincts were everything these days, and I always needed to stab first and assess later, but it still scared the living shit out of me that one day I'd look down at the corpse and find that I had ended somebody's life.

I turned back to the problem at hand and yelled as the wall of reanimated landed atop of me, bringing all six down in a perverse version of pile on. I pressed my knee quickly into the chest of the first one, grunting from its weight. Two had rolled off of the pile but were crawling back, leaving me to deal with four moaning, hungry corpses on top of me. With gritted teeth, I stabbed the first one through its gaping mouth, whose ribs I was breaking with the pressure of my knee. I yanked it out quickly as it collapsed, spraying me with wet, clotted blood. I was not risking a cut from its infected rib bones to my bare skin.

I attacked the one on top of it, and that one fell on top of the one already on me, providing me with a barrier made of flesh. The threat of being bitten was removed for now, but the two hungry ones were still coming for me, stretching out arms and broken fingernails with the intent to catch my long hair, or the tender skin of my face. I grunted as I pressed my head back into the dirt, avoiding them with clenched teeth. Different fingers snagged my hair at the scalp to the left while I fought the threats on top of me, and I turned towards the new danger with a cry of pain.

That barely passed my lips before it developed into a scream, my eyes only taking in the descending teeth coming towards my nose. Shit! I squeezed my eyes shut, but then the body suddenly dropped, thudding against the hard-packed mud. The echo of a 'twang' pierced my eardrum, popping it so that every sound was louder and it took me a couple of extra seconds to notice the stinging pain in my neck. With a thumping heart, I opened my eyes. The reanimated one was down, and its brain had been impaled by a long, fine arrow.

I shakily reached up two fingers to touch my throat and come away with hot, wet blood that was my own. The arrowhead must have grazed me as it went straight through the corpse, I realised but I didn't have time to puzzle through who had shot the arrow. I still had two on top of me to deal with, and they were in even more of a frenzy than they previously had been, now that blood was dripping down my throat and pooling on to my collar bones. I strained my chest to reach up and stab the first one, and then another arrow impaled the second one shortly after, before I could deal with it myself.

I gasped and flung myself back to the floor panting, my shoulders and chest on fire from the multiple weights crushing me. I needed a second to think about the bowman or woman, and whether they were going to be a threat to me. Nobody helped anybody for free, and I didn't have anything to offer. I couldn't spare the rabbits. I hated that I only had a knife on me, cramped between my blood stained fingers. My gun was in my jeans, left down by the water where I was planning to wash them after my own bath.

Another whistling arrow pierced the air and I snapped my head to the right to see the last reanimated drop to the floor, their outstretched arm landing across my chest, because they had gotten so close to getting me. Damn. This person was skilled, whoever and wherever they were. That didn't work out so great for me. Against arrows, with only a knife, I was a goner. I kept the reanimated corpses on top of me, despite their blood and rot spilling onto my exposed skin. I turned my head so it didn't go in my gasping mouth or up my nose. There was another problem I had to deal with.

I wasn't dressed and I had already been vulnerable without that problem. Should I stay hidden, and let my mystery helper believe I was dead? No, they had seen my knife kill one before they shot their second arrow, so that wasn't going to work. Weapons were dearly precious, most especially arrows, so I doubted they would leave without retrieving them. Was that the answer then? Wait for them to come from their hiding spot and retrieve them? Then stab them wherever I could reach? But no, they could be genuinely nice, though I doubted it.

Worse still, they could already have an arrow loaded and pointed at my forehead. Or a gun. It would be suicide to underestimate them so I wouldn't believe they were only carrying around a bow. Which meant conclusively, I was out of options and royally screwed. Also, if they were a bad person with the intent to kill me, or take my supplies, I had no way out of it unless I reached my gun in time. Which, against arrows, I doubted I would be able to do. Ah, fuck. I grunted as I started to shove the corpses off of me. My neck was stinging like a son of a bitch.

The arrow head hadn't done any serious damage, or I'd be dead, or bleeding out, but it had taken a good few layers of my skin and left a royal sting in its place. I rolled onto my knees and stood dizzily, taking the three arrows from the reanimated skulls. I glanced around as I took in a gulp of air, trying to spy my mystery helper. My eyes flickered to the rabbits. They were still there. I couldn't see down into the creek, but if they hadn't taken my food then I doubted they had made it to my backpack and my pile of clothes. I grasped the arrows tight and waved them in the air. "Come and get them," I called.

In my other hand, I grasped my knife tightly. A branch snapped loudly behind me making my stomach convulse until I analysed the sound and realised that it too loud, almost purposeful, as if the person wasn't used to making such loud noises and was simply warning me of their approach. I spun around, raising my knife as a precaution. "Don't," a voice rasped between strands of dark hair.

I gulped at the crossbow pointed in my face, an arrow already loaded and aimed at my throat. "Couldn't you aim it at my head? I don't want to choke on my own blood if you decide to kill me," I groused.

Sarcasm was not the answer to my problems, but dry humour was all I had at my defence, as it were because I was very aware of the fact that I was half naked. Exposed. Bra and pants, that was all I had to cover the most intimate parts of me, but everything else was on display. Soft belly and lean legs on display, despite all the blood and gore. But the stranger didn't seem to notice, only keeping his eyes on my face. "You gonna make me shoot ya?" He grunted.

I shook my head slowly, still gripping my knife. "Do you plan to?"

"Nah, if ya don't make me," he replied, his fingers still tense on the bow.

I swallowed and tentatively offered his arrows with the hand not grasping my knife, staring him in the eye like a warning. "But you want something for helping, right? People always do."

"You don't know shit 'bout me," he rasped as he slowly leaned forward and snatched the arrows out my offered hand.

I gasped at the violent gesture and stumbled back, my toes cold and my footing unstable. The man raised the bow where it had been dropping, his finger already tightening on the trigger. "Why did you help me?" I asked quickly.

He shrugged. "'Cause ya needed it."

I frowned. "I could kill you."

The man's face didn't twitch, and neither did his finger. "Nah, you cain't."

"Then why are you still pointing your bow at me?" I challenged.

"'Cause I ain't stupid, thas' why. Might not try kill me but ya could still try jump me."

I laughed. "Dude, I'm shivering my ass off. I can barely hold my damn knife." I admitted.

His eyes flicked to my knife hand, where the blade was shaking so violently I was minutes away from dropping it despite the strength with which I gripped it. His eyes glanced back at me, finally seeming to notice my lack of clothes and his cheeks flushed red.

I quirked a brow in surprise. "The world ends and you still blush at a semi-naked woman?"

The man scowled but lowered his bow. His act of trust made my heart clench. I hadn't been planning to hurt him, big as he was and with bulging biceps to match, but it seemed he was decent enough. He had helped me, hadn't killed me on sight, hadn't taken my stuff or tried to attack me in any way. Really, that was the best situation I could be in nowadays.

I planted my hands on my hips. "You got a name?"

"Daryl," he muttered, pacing a little on the spot. "No one else with ya?"

"No, I'm alone," I admitted again.

"You got a name?" He repeated my question back to me.

My lips twisted. I had already shared a lot of truths. What was in a name? Still, I hadn't spoken to a person in months, and I hadn't been asked my name in longer. The only reason my voice was still intact was from my own ramblings. I swallowed down the trepidation and answered anyway. "Danielle, or Dani for short."

"You English," he proposed it as a statement, rather than a question.

"Gee, when did you notice?" I replied, deadpan.

His eyes glanced over me again, noticing my shivers more than my bare skin. "You got clothes?"

"Down at the creek." I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. "I was washing when the reanimated came in."

"Tha' what?" He didn't laugh, but the way he asked the question sounded like he did.

I flushed, the first bout of warmth touching my face since I tried to wash in the cold water. Darkness was closing in now, and the cold was more intense but it didn't touch the heat on my cheekbones. "Well, what do you call them?"

"Walkers." He glanced down at the creek and back at me. "You gonna try anythin' if I take ya down there?"

I pulled a face at him. "Why do you have to come down? You want to watch?"

He flushed again, but the darkness had closed in tighter in the trees that he was bracketed by, and I could barely see it. "I's gonna go before ya did that."

I frowned. Stranger, yes but also some company and a mouth that replied to me. I shouldn't be like this. Shouldn't want to be around people I don't know in the middle of the apocalypse but I'm so lonely it's an ache inside. "You don't have to go," I whispered into the darkness.

He frowned back at me. "You don't know me; an I don't know ya neither. You ain't stupid 'nough to invite strangers to stick 'round, are ya?" He seemed genuinely troubled by the question.

I scowled at the rejection and turned towards the creek, stepping over the corpses on the floor and stomping across the grass. I distantly heard Daryl's bow whirl upwards and my shoulders tensed. Had he always meant to kill me when my back was turned? Why bother? I had been facing him, and stood far enough away for him to shoot me for ages now. Maybe I had surprised him. I decided to keep on surprising him. I kept my back turned, chucked my knife over the small crest down into the creek, and then unhooked my bra. I hadn't heard Daryl move closer, but I heard an intake of breath, sharp and shocked.

I smirked and hooked my thumbs into my pants, tugging them only a little before gravity took them to the floor. The moon shone over me, guiding my blood-stained body down into dip concealing the creek, and then into the cool water. I shivered all over as I stepped in. I wished I could get used to such frigid temperatures, but I missed hot water with a vengeance, and every time I climbed into freezing cold creeks like this one, I was reminded just how much. I didn't look over to see if Daryl had followed because I didn't want to be disappointed if he hadn't.

I was being reckless, I knew that. I didn't know him, and he could still decide to hurt me. That was a real fear I had to consider in the new world. Some men just took what they wanted now, because there was no one to tell them they couldn't. Still, Daryl didn't look like that type of man, or I wouldn't have been stripping for him. I also hadn't gotten naked to bathe for a really long time, but those very reckless decisions seemed a little less reckless in that moment, because I felt like I was on the knife's edge. I had nearly died today.

I mean, I died nearly every day. When I fought the reanimated, when I searched for supplies, and when I hunted for food. But I had never gotten that close to being bit. I'd been grabbed by a hand. I'd been tripped up by a leg, and I'd landed on top of a corpse that was just stirring in the beginning of interest at fresh meat. But I had always been fast, and alert. Always had my own back. I hadn't today. I hadn't been fast enough. If Daryl hadn't been there, that reanimated corpse would have chewed my nose off and then come back for more pieces of me. The horror of the thought made my stomach clench.

I owed Daryl my life, but that wasn't why I was provoking him. I was alone, and I had nearly died, and I nearly died every day. I had no one who would miss me, no one would recognise me on the street if I turned into one of those things. I'd just be another one of the masses. Another thing to kill. In this world, I was nobody. A lost soul, a shell fighting and eating and sleeping. For what? I didn't feel helpless, or suicidal, but I needed to just feel a little bit alive. Plus, I didn't live in society anymore. Why should I have lived by societies rules?

Why should I have cared about being naked in front of a stranger? Why should I have cared about coming on to that stranger? There was no one to reprimand me, no one to punish me for doing wrong. No rules. Daryl even seemed a few years older than me, enough years to be considered controversial in the modern world. Except, we didn't live in that world anymore. I finally braved the view and turned to face the river bank, finding Daryl there with his crossbow slung carelessly over his knee, and my two rabbits. My gut twisted, and I paused mid-turn.

"Ain't gonna take 'em, they was gonna burn," he answered my frozen gaze.

I relaxed and that seemed to answer another question for him. "You ain't eating much are ya?"

I flushed and began to rinse my body and bleeding neck with the water, wishing for a good loofa and my favourite body wash. Might as well chuck in a hot shower if I was allowing myself to indulge in fantasy, and maybe a plaster too. "I can't hunt well."

"How'd ya catch these then?" He asked, beginning to build a fire on the dry spots not wet by the flowing water.

"Accidentally shot them when I was being chased by the reanima-" I cut myself off, and corrected it to, "walkers." When Daryl gave me that look like he was laughing, without actually doing so. "You shouldn't make a fire, you know, you'll just attract them." I murmured as I bent at the knees to wash my upper body.

Despite the flush on his face, Daryl still watched beneath his lashes as I washed away more blood and grime, and instead revealed clean, soft skin. It made my stomach tighten into a mess of knots. He looked like he wanted me, but wasn't used to wanting anything. Was he as lonely as me? When was the last time he had spoken to someone who could speak back?

"Ain't many 'round here, surprised you had s'many as ya did," he answered as a fire sparked to life beneath his hands.

"How would you know?" I ducked under the water and rinsed out my hair before resurfacing.

Daryl looked up from the fire at my fully revealed body and straightened up a little from his slouch. "Why'd ya get naked I'front of me?"

I shrugged as I walked out of the water and bent down to pick up, and open my backpack. "Why not? No rules anymore, nothing to say I can't. Why? Don't you like what you see?"

He didn't answer but kept his eyes on me anyway as I dried off in the open air for a minute and then threw on my only other pair of underwear, jeans, socks and t-shirt. I put my only pair of boots back on despite wanting to warm my feet at the fire because I had spent long enough tempted fate, and if I needed to run it wasn't going to be barefoot. I would wash my other clothes in the morning before I left, and then wrap them in plastic to stop the inside of my bag from getting wet. One pair to wear, and one to wash. That's how it had to be now. It made me miss my wardrobe.

"You hungry?" I asked, glancing at the rabbits that were cooling on a piece of fabric Daryl must have produced.

He shook his head in the negative and watched me between strands of his hair. I assessed his thick arms and healthy face beneath his long hair to make sure he wasn't trying to take pity on my lack of food. But he looked fine. Like he had eaten. In fact, despite the sweat of the day, he looked clean. Like he had somewhere to wash up. Like he had a place. I picked up the fabric wrapped rabbits as I sat down beside him and began to cut up the now cooked rabbit with my clean knife, offering him a leg. He shook his head again, so I shrugged and bit into the warm meat. It was greasy and tender, and so damn good I couldn't help a moan.

"You really ain't eating are ya?"

I didn't look at him because I didn't want his pity. I was doing fine. Before had been years ago, and I was still alive. Still breathing. I didn't need Daryl's pity, despite wanting to get in to his pants.

"I'm fine," I growled, brutally tearing into the rabbit leg again.

He was silent as I ate half of the rabbit and when I was done I wrapped it all up in the fabric, not bothering to offer it back to him, and stuck it into my backpack. The fire had warmed me straight through now and I looked back over at Daryl. He was really quite handsome, more so because of his hidden, mysterious eyes and lack of facial expression. He just spoke words; he didn't give anything away about what he was feeling. I decided to just go for it. We were sitting close together, almost knee to knee, so I kept my eyes on him and reached over a hand to the crotch of his pants. He jumped, his fingers locking around my wrist and throwing my hand off.

I gasped, my cheeks flooding with heat and my throat closing with embarrassment. I wasn't sorry. I knew what I wanted, and I wanted him. Rules didn't apply anymore, so there was no one to tell me I was being too brazen, but I was still embarrassed by his rejection. "Had to try," I said as cockily as I could manage through a tight throat.

"Ain't no body gonna use me cause I'm the last man 'round," he grunted, and it was the first emotion I had heard from him. Doubt.

I glanced around at him again from where I had been staring into the fire. "We're using each other, Daryl. But using each other for sex? What's so different from using someone for survival? Or company? Or protection? Everyone's using somebody now."

His shoulder shook for a moment as if he had laughed, or scoffed. Agreeing with me, or laughing at me? I couldn't tell. "So ya wanna fuck?"

I turned in surprise, because he looked like he had always been rough around the edges, even before the reanimated took over the earth, but I hadn't really expected him to call it a 'fuck'. I stared at him for a moment, but his face didn't tell me if he was serious or not. "Are you asking?"

"Ya asked me first," he grunted, almost in challenge. He propped his knee up and then balanced his arm on it, staring me out.

I bit my lip and reached my hand across again, smoothing it across his forearm. "Everyone's using each other, right?"

He glanced back at my hand and then back at my face, peering at me intently through the hair hanging in his eyes. "Yeah," he whispered.

I didn't know if that was a yes to my question, or a yes to sex, but I made a decision on what it meant and leaned towards him. He kept his eyes on me but didn't move and I pressed my lips against his. They were rough and chewed. I tried to be careful, almost afraid they would fall apart with the slightest pressure. But I didn't think gentle was in Daryl's DNA. His kiss was rough, almost too much, and there was no tongues or caresses. I was glad of it. There was no reason to pretend this was more than it was.

It wasn't romantic, and it wasn't special. It was two strangers, living day to day, who needed a release to stop them going crazy in a world gone to hell. Daryl shoved at my shoulders, knocking me to the dirt with his weight. I spread my legs for him, letting him press me into the cold ground beside the fire. His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling at the roots. I moaned breathlessly, my hands pushing between our bodies to slide them up under his vest and shirt. His lips broke from mine and he pressed clumsy kisses to my neck as I touched his broad chest and tight stomach. My own stomach clenched with want.

It had been so long since I had touched a man. Kissed a man. Had them touch me back. Daryl was rough and I wasn't practised but it was the best damn feeling in the world. His hair brushed my shoulder as he peppered more kisses across the un-injured side of my throat. My nails dug into the skin above his waistband, and he grunted against my neck, his teeth biting down non-too gently into the tender skin. I groaned loudly, too loud considering the dangers around us. Daryl grunted again and pressed the length of his arousal tight between my legs where I had spread them to ride each of his hips.

"Fuck," he bit out and the raw sound had desire curling deliciously down into the centre of me.

I grappled for his pants, fighting to undo the button and free him. He shifted some of his weight to his forearms and took over while I undid my own jeans and tugged them desperately. My chest was heaving and I could barely breathe. Excitement made my head spin and I stopped for a second to process how alive I felt in that moment. Hot skin against mine, warmth on my face, rough fingers on my hips and the bite of my jeans on my thighs. Daryl picked up where I left off, tugging my jeans only far enough to clear the space for him to push inside me. I grunted against my teeth as he pressed between my tight legs, constrained by the fabric of my jeans.

His chest settled heavy against mine as his hips pumped hard between my thighs. There had been barely any foreplay, but I was so slick there may as well have been hours of it. Daryl groaned in to my ear and I tightened around him instinctively, goosebumps dancing across my whole body, exposed or not. I could barely move with him because his weight was so heavy on top of mine, but the lack of movement I was making, and my inability to move at all made the friction between my legs so intense my vision was getting spotty. He began to kiss my throat again and I readjusted my hips so that his pelvic bone rode my exposed clit.

Hot breaths burst out of my mouth into the cold night air and I gripped his still clothed shoulders tighter. The fact that we hadn't undressed, apart from the necessary items seemed to fuel the flames between my thighs hotter. Just because it was more dangerous to get undressed with dead people around didn't mean it wasn't possible as I had proved not long ago. Daryl had just climbed on top of me. Yeah, I had propositioned him, and yeah, he was using me just as much as I was using him, but he had to want me, just a little bit. Lack of options didn't make standards drop.

He had to feel some kind of attraction. I gritted my teeth and pressed my hips back against his, wanting to prove to myself that he wanted me. Wanted me enough to need me. Not emotionally, not to protect him, not to comfort him, and not to survive with him or for him. But enough to indulge in my body, in the heat between my thighs, to enjoy the glimpses of my skin when I was bathing, and even when I was covered in blood from killing. I needed someone to just want me. To know me. I needed to know I was in someone's head, that my scent was a memory for them, imprinted on their skin.

If I had died the very next day, the very next hour, and came back as one of them, then Daryl would kill me. I didn't mean anything to him, he didn't know anything about me, and he wouldn't do it because he cared about me. But he would still kill me, because for just that moment, just for those few desperate, passionate minutes on the cold floor, besides a hot fire in the middle of the end of the whole damn world, someone would know me. There was no one alive, truly alive on this earth that knew me anymore. Except for Daryl, and that meant something now. It had to.

I pressed my hips hard against his, lifting and pressing with grunts of pleasure. "Know me," I whispered in to his ear.

His fingers dug into my hips, and his lips pressed hot to my ear. "I do," he grunted.

I had been so close that I was practically sobbing for release, my fingers tense on his shoulders and my moans loud in the night. The moment the words moved from his mouth to my ear, my whole body locked up in preparation. He understood. It meant something. He must have sensed how ready I was because he pressed his face into my neck with something akin to desperation. His lips were clumsy on my skin and then his teeth closed on my pulse. I screamed, undignified as my inner walls clamped down and I had one of the most intense orgasms of my life.

My neck stained, my head pushing into the dirt and my body locking up with waves of pleasure as Daryl groaned hot and low in my ear, pressing so tight against the soft skin of my inner thighs that I knew I would have bruises tomorrow. I had just began to panic about our lack of condom, coming down from my high when he quickly pulled out from between my legs and lifted to his knees. Panting, hair hanging over his face and shoulders hunched, he wrapped his hand around his arousal and pumped just twice with a violent, tight fist before he unloaded on the ground.

I had lifted on my elbows to watch him, my legs trembling and still exposed, but now I collapsed on to my back, my chest burning, and my face hot. I could barely catch my breath.

"Walker," Daryl grunted, quickly zipping up his pants.

I gasped, fighting the lethargic pull on my eyes and sprang to my feet but Daryl was faster and had already pierced its eye by the time I zipped my jeans up. I fell back against the wall of mud and laughed. "No damn privacy anymore," I gasped, still tingling between my legs.

Daryl turned to face me, glancing me over and then our surroundings, as if it was something he had stumbled across, and he hadn't spent time here with me, and inside me. "How many walkers ya killed?"

I frowned. "That's the first thing you ask after sex?" My chest was still fluttering.

He didn't reply and I rolled my eyes. "I've lost count. A lot."

"People?" He asked next.

I swallowed. "None, and I hope I never have to."

"Why?" He groused, beginning to load up his things.

My chest tightened. I didn't know him. He didn't know me. He saved my life, and we shared a quick fuck. He didn't owe me anything, and we had used each other to our advantages, just like I pitched it. I had been alone a long time, so I just had to suck it up. He was leaving, like everyone else does in the end, alive or dead, and I would go on, alone. Surviving. I remembered his question at his expectant face and wrapped my arms around myself. "Because I haven't needed to."

He was quiet for longer, long enough for me to get my coat on and zip it up, stamp out the fire and gather my dirty clothes up. It was really dark now, deep in the creek and with no fire. The thought of sleeping alone made me shiver. Daryl stepped closer and his body language told me he was still hesitant, despite us just sleeping together, not five minutes ago.

"Ya wanna come with me?"

I glanced down in surprise from where I had been looking up at the moon. "Really? Where?"

He shrugged like he didn't know but he seemed to have a destination in mind. "Not far, got couple people ther' too."

I smiled and shrugged like it was no big deal. Like it didn't mean anything, but it meant everything. "Okay."

We started to walk, Daryl with his bow poised and me with my gun at the ready. Like I guessed, he knew where he was going. There was no pause to determine where we were, and he didn't stop. After a while, my stomach grumbled loudly. Daryl snorted. "Eat some m're of that damn rabbit and gimme some."

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed that you can now head on over to my other story, "one at a time," where we continue life with Dani and watch as she settles in with our favourite group of survivalists, and gets a hell of a lot friendlier with the hottest red neck in town. Please, leave reviews if you liked it, for both pieces, and I hope to see more of you!