She went in every month to get a tally mark on her back and just that.
Correction she always went in the fourteen day of each month to get a tally mark tattooed on her back and nothing more.
The first time she went in Beth –Beth is her name- she made him tally twenty four marks on her back. He didn't ask why and she didn't explain. He just tattooed her back; that was his job. Though he wasn't going to lie, he wanted to know.
Beth Greene, the good girl as she was known, intrigued him, and he was always left with a curiosity towards her, who wore sundresses, radiated sunshine, and who didn't seem like the type of girl who get tattoos or so many at that.
Beth Greene tallied her back every fourteen of the month and had been doing so for the last twelve months after her first time, and he was intrigued every time she walked out of his door.
Then, one day, he saw her outside his tattoo parlor, and everything changed.
She was dressed in the dinner uniform all the waiters at Lolis Diner wore, a dull orange dress that ate her petite frame. She wore a trained smile, and even though she did look worn out after the dinner rush she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
He noticed her beauty the first time she walked into his parlor.
She strode in with confidence. With determination set in her face she told him what she wanted, where she wanted it, and did not squirm once when he place his needle on her skin. Her beautiful, pale, soft skin that had him mesmerized, that he wish he could touch more of.
Anyways the first time they saw each other outside his tattoo parlor, outside the smell of the sterilizer he used, and the hundreds of Polaroid's that displayed his previous works, she smiled at him that beautiful smile only Beth Greene could produce.
"Hey," she greeted him with a blush, "I thought you only lived in that tattoo parlor of yours. You know since I have never seen you outside of it and this a small town and all."
And a small town theirs sure was.
In their town everybody knew about everybody. The gossip in their town was what the people thrived on; lived off. Rumors there were spread faster than the speed of light, and secrets were never secrets.
That was the reason Daryl preferred the secluded life of a hermit. Only going back and forth between his home and his parlor, going only to the grocery to store when necessary or when he ran out of smokes and lunch at the diner.
And he liked his life like that. The rumors and the gossip were already ridiculous in their town and he's a Dixon so for him those things were worse than for anyone else. He never paid any mind to what the town people said. Said about him. They always had words for anyone that was odd or eccentric or a rebel. So he would have known sooner about the meaning of those tally marks Beth paid him to tattoo on her back if he hadn't chosen to remain ignorant with his tunnel vision life.
"My brother made me go out tonight," Daryl replied after he realized that he was just staring at her, "He's tired of seeing me live like a hermit, and I was tired of his nagging so I came here."
Here being Lolis Diner. The diner that had the best cheese burgers in town, the epicenter where rumors commenced and apparently the place where Beth worked as an afternoon waitress too.
"And where is the nagging brother then?" Beth asked as she giggled at his response and after she took his order and served him a coke.
"Late, like usual," Daryl replied enjoying her giggle and wondering why with her he didn't answer with grunts and looks like he usually does.
And when he thought about it later he would realized that his peculiar conversations with Beth Greene happened because she was like no other.
Beth was eccentric and odd and rebel on his eyes because tattoos were frowned upon in their town, and she still got them.
Also Beth wasn't the type of girl who lived off gossip; most of the time the gossip was about her too. And he wasn't going to lie, Beth gave him an ease; a comfort that made him be honest with her and that caused knots to be tied in his stomach whenever he saw her or her skin, ready to be permanently marked by him.
"Well, I'm actually going on my break soon," she commented as she placed his cheeseburger order, "Would you mind if I join you?"
"Nah," he answered enjoying her blush for a second time, "I wouldn't mind."
And so she joined him after she retrieved his cheeseburger and a BLT for her.
During her thirty minute break they talked a lot. They talked as if they were longtime friends and not relative strangers who she got tattoos from or who he tattooed.
They conversed about his parlor and how he went to open it. She asked him what was the weirdest tattoo he had ever given, to which he answered "a silhouette of Tom Selleck in coffee."
He asked her how long she had been working at Lolis Dinner and if she knew what was that made the cheeseburgers awesome.
They conversed so much that he was grateful that Merle was a no show, because he preferred to spend his time with intriguing Beth Greene than his rude older brother.
And that was what he did for the record.
After his dinner with Beth at the diner a new friendship blossomed. They went on to see more each other in places that wasn't his parlor or the diner. And you know what he didn't miss the life of a hermit at all.
Instead of just going from point A to point B like he was accustomed, he started to go to point C and D and E and whatever point Beth and he agreed to meet.
He ate at Lolis Diner not just for lunch after that night.
No, Daryl Dixon could always be seen sitting at the dinner's counter near closing time and helping Beth mop the floor after. The two could be seen leaving the diner in his bike or at his parlor laughing and sketching new tattoo designs. (Which were always stick figures from Beth.)
And one would think that his intrigue for her would die after he spent more time with her. After she wasn't just a customer that went into his parlor every fourteen day of each month who made him tally her back.
That wasn't the case, however. As he got to spend more time with Beth the more he was intrigued, the more he became enamored.
He still didn't know why she tattooed her back with tally marks, but the question was forgotten after a while, because Beth Greene was more than the tally marks, he found out.
Most of his customers were just, that , customers. Customers that he permanently marked with ink and with sometimes meaningful pictures or words, or sometimes with just hands down stupid as fuck pictures or words.
(And just for the record he never misspelled a word.)
But Beth was more than that. A million, billion times more than that.
Beth was spontaneity. She always had surprises for him.
She was carefree laughter, and teasing.
Beth gave him compassion and understanding.
She gave him tattoo suggestions and late movie nights and songs sung just for him.
She gave him a life that wasn't one of loneliness.
She gave him love.
It had been six months since the dinner. He had since added six tally marks to her back.
By then their friendship moved past being that.
There was forehead touches and long stares into each other's blue eyes.
There was arguments and makeups and love making.
Incredible was their love making by the way. It was from another world.
He was always left with scratches on his back and she with bruises on her skin.
She was left with a sore throat from her screaming and he with sore knees (he could live in between her legs).
Their sheets were always left tangled, their rooms messy with clothes haphazardly thrown.
One thing about them was that when it came to having sex they weren't shy.
They made love in his parlor and behind the dinner. They made love on his bike and on her washer machine and in many eccentric and odd places. Places where rebels like them would only dare to make love.
They had just finished making love for the third time that night at Daryl's cabin when he finally found out what the tally marks meant.
Earlier that day they had fought.
Like most of life he was plagued by insecurities. They chased after him when he opened his parlor and when he tried to be more than what any other Dixon had ever been.
That particular day the insecurities that overwhelmed him were about her; their relationship.
They had been at the grocery store together and he happened to hear an old hag –one that lived off the gossip- scorn at their relationship and marvel about how Beth was ruining her life. Because yes Beth was odd, eccentric, and a rebel, but she was still too good for a guy like him; a Dixon.
And he believed that too sometimes. He believed that Beth was too good for him. She was too good for a guy with scars in his back and who preferred the companionship of the few than the many.
He believed that Beth was meant to be surrounded by people. She was light and light was meant to be shared and lived off, that was why fire was ignited after all. He believed Beth deserved much better than a guy who had skeletons in his closet placed there permanently by his father, and who would never live off the bad reputation bestowed upon him. Because yes he became more than what other Dixon's had ever been, but he still wasn't worth more. He was just a tattoo artist who lived the life of a hermit and felt sorry for himself.
However, Beth wouldn't have any of his bullshit.
"I'm not perfect, Daryl," she whispered into his skin as he stroked her nude back, that now had forty-two tally marks, "Please don't assume I am."
"I don't assume, girl," he replied. "I know you're perfect. Or at least too perfect for a guy like me."
"No, Daryl I am not perfect," she rose from her place on his side and added, "I have skeletons in my closet just like you do."
"I am not sugar and spice and everything nice. I am a girl who lost her mother and brother and couldn't take the pain."
Sitting up displaying her back to him she whispered, "You wanna know why tally my back?"
"I tally it because when I was sixteen I tried to kill myself. My mom and brother died. I couldn't take the pain and I thought death was the answer. But it wasn't…it's not. As soon as I cut my skin I regretted it. The pain in my skin was worse than the pain in my heart. "
Turning to face him she showed him her scar that she always kept hidden with bracelets. Softly grasping her arm he went on to kiss it whilst she went on to say,
"I tried to kill myself forty-two months ago, and I get the tally marks to remember what I did. To remember that I lived. That I choose to live."
"Daryl, I am not perfect. Nobody is. So please stop thinking that I'm better than you. Because I'm in no higher level than you."
And she was right, she wasn't.
Beth was light and love and everything that he never thought a guy like him would ever deserve. However, Beth was still as odd and as eccentric as him.
Beth was an imperfect perfect, and as he went to move her under him and go for round four of love making, he couldn't help but marvel at the enigma that she was. Because Beth was a fighter but also a lover.
Beth was the girl who would never cease to intrigue him, and the girl who choose to mark her back because she survived instead of hiding it because she did.
AN: This came thanks to Tumblr. Enjoy even though I'm not sure about whatever this is at all:)