When Daryl wakes, the warmth against his chest is jarring until he realises that it's radiating from Beth's back. Her skin is pulled tight over her shoulder blades just a breath away from his mouth, bone-white like coals burning hot. His fingers twitch where they rest curled tightly around her waist and the movement causes his knuckles to nudge against the soft, warm hand covering his.
He stills. The shallow rise and fall of her chest tells him she's sleeping deeply and he doesn't want to disturb her. She needs the rest. But it's not just that. His body comes to a grinding halt as his semi-conscious brain tries to make sense of his surroundings.
There's a warm glow creeping in through a thin line in front of him. After the moment it takes his eyes to adjust, the line comes in to focus as the inside of a battered trunk and that image quickly yanks him in to full consciousness. His registers his belt buckle holding the door closed and he finally releases the breath he'd been clinging to. It held. The warm glow that's continuing to creep in calms his uneasy heart as morning announces itself and by doing so tells him they made it.
As his awareness broadens out he realises that he can't hear anything except for the sound of Beth's gentle breaths. He can't hear the unwelcome groans and shuffles of walkers which also tells him that the herd passed. Closing his eyes, he buries his face in the waterfall of blonde waves in front of him.
Relief and the lingering sweetness of Beth's shampoo flood his senses as he fills his lungs. They're alive. They're safe, or whatever passes for safe now. As his body's threat systems slowly come down, it is only then that he fully registers that he is curled around Beth's sleeping frame, holding her to him tightly like she might slip away at any moment.
Becoming aware of his body even further, his stomach drops out through the balls of his feet when he realises that his jeans, their jeans, are bunched around his thighs and his cock is nestled between hers.
Fuck.
He remembers, all at once and so vividly his breath catches and his cock twitches. His body runs hot and cold with guilt and arousal as he watches his hand cupping her jaw, feels his cock thrusting inside her. Over and over. He licks his tingling teeth as he recalls the moment he came undone, claiming her bared throat and filling her quivering pussy with his seed.
His eyes hone in on the angry red teeth marks that brand her throat even in the pale morning light. The sight causes his blood to run hot and his gut to shudder at the unwelcome arousal he feels seeing his mark on her body.
She isn't his.
She isn't anybody's anymore.
He lets his gaze fall to where her lily white fingers cover his knuckles. Compared to his, her hand is tiny and glows where it rests against his dirt and sun stained skin. Her fingers are rigid where they hook into his palm, anchored to him in sleep in a way he finds strangely settling.
Only he's not sure he should. His stomach tightens with anxiety because she might not want him to touch her like this. She did last night, asked him to even, but she might feel differently when she wakes up. She might regret the whole thing.
Except that's not her. She doesn't say things that she doesn't mean. She told him she wanted him and she meant it. He knows that, but it does nothing to loosen the knot in his stomach that last night is something they can't come back from. Propelling them forward to something new and unknown. Everything has changed and Beth was the last irreplaceable piece of their life before that he had left.
She's family, the one that taught him what that word really means. Not blood but a group of people he'd take a bullet for. She's all that's left of it, and that thought is so painful he has to push it aside for now.
He came to know her on the farm, out on the road and in the prison. So, why is it that he suddenly feels like he doesn't really know her at all? He wonders how he never saw her until now. She was right in front of him all this time but somehow he didn't see this beautiful, brave fucking girl. She's everything he's not and if he thinks on it much longer he might start to wonder who was saving who when they ran away from the ruins of their home together.
He feels the moment she wakes when she stills in his arms. His heart stutters in his chest.
Moment of truth.
Her entire body jerks and she pulls herself up onto her elbows frantically, each and every muscle winding too tight as panic fills her blood with adrenaline. Head spinning from side to side, her eyes fly around the trunk desperately until they meet his, and they still.
He feels her body relax instantly against his chest where his own heart is now threatening to fly out from behind his ribcage. She turns to face him. Relief smoothes her brow, softening her eyes as a small smile lights up her face. He feels the warmth of that smile in his chest and it shoves at the guilt taking root in his stomach.
It's small, just the corners of her mouth turned up, but every bit of it is for him. She looks relieved, and she should be – to be alive, even not to be alone. But it's more than that – when her eyes meet his she looked pleased that it's him she finds. Confusion grabs him by the throat as she holds his gaze and presses into his body, bringing herself flush against him again.
He's frozen as he watches her silently seek comfort in the closeness of his body – in him. He's really fucking grateful for the unbroken silence as his mind whirs and haphazardly attempts to process a situation that he doesn't understand or have any frame of reference for.
His body is twitching at the weird but not unpleasant feeling of having Beth burrowing into his chest. He doesn't understand why she would want this, but she does. So he lets her. And it isn't hard to do.
She pillows her head against his chest, hot breath streaming across the hollow of this throat, and he couldn't tell you why he does it, but he gingerly rests his chin on her crown. There's something about her proximity that has his nerves twitching and jangling just under his skin.
It's not entirely comfortable and yet at the same time he doesn't want to move. He doesn't want to move and he really doesn't want her to untangle herself from where she's nestled against his torso. Feeling her curled around his chest, he marvels at how their bodies are perfectly aligned. They fit as though they were made for each other, sliding together like pieces of a puzzle.
His hand finds the small of her back, fingers spreading to span the soft bare skin beneath them. There's no heat in it, though there so easily could be. No, his fingers are exploring the landscape of her body because they want to know her. In the wake of her smile he thinks he's allowed somehow, as though the curve of her lips invited him to do so.
That in this shared silence their bodies are talking to each other. His thick fingers stroke soft circles down the curve of her lower back and fall into the spaces her muscles dip. In this new world Beth not only allows his touch she returns it. Soft fingertips trace the hard corded muscles of his arms in something like fascination, exploring him with a hesitant curiosity that mirrors his own.
There's silence except for her heartbeat answering his and the steady rhythm of their breathing. With every inhale his chest presses against hers and he feels her hot breath tickle his collar bone as she softly exhales. Back and forth. Over and over. Their bodies conversing peacefully with an ease their minds haven't caught up to.
Here in this moment there is nothing else. The world shrinks down to him and her, and, remarkably, he thinks that he could be ok with that. More than ok, maybe. They don't speak. They just lie in each other's silences as the dawn outside blooms and seeps inside.
Daryl appreciates silences, has always found comfort in the spaces between words. With their bodies pressed so tightly together he feels her heartbeat gradually fall in line with his until they're beating in unison.
We're alive.
They share the unbroken silence as the sun rises, and somehow it feels so much more intimate to him than last night's frenzied union. That was sharing their bodies. Admittedly, in a breath-taking release of tension that he really fucking hopes will happen again, but at the same time if it doesn't then he can live with that.
This is something more and his spine is tingling with the unfamiliar tenderness of it. They stay like that for a while, until the sun has risen fully into the sky and the light has lost its warm glow. When the bird's unarguable chorus can be heard in the distance their inhales deepen and their bodies start to stretch of their own accord.
When Beth starts to pull her jeans up her thighs before Daryl's hand cover hers and stops her. Her eyes fly up to his and she blinks up at him with a slow question. Gnawing on his bottom lip he pulls the handkerchief from his back pocket and, with a shaky inhale, reaches between her thighs.
Her eyes flare and ripple like waves on an ocean he's never seen as he gently cleans his cum –their cum- from the apex of her thighs. She continues to stare unblinking as he returns the rag to his back pocket. If her eyes were luminous in the slithers of moonlight they are shining back at him now so brightly it's mesmerising but he can't look away.
When the intensity of her gaze becomes too much his lip catches between his teeth and as though sensing his discomfort, she blinks. Once they've pulled their jeans up, Daryl goes about unfastening his belt from the opening. Crouching beside him, Beth unsheathes her knife and holds it up, ready to take out the silent walker they both fear is waiting for them.
His wary eyes flick to hers before he pulls his belt free and the trunk lurches open with a loud groan. The sudden burst of sunlight bleaches out his vision for a harrowing second, forcing his eyes shut before he pries them open to squint at their surroundings. Finding the coast clear, Daryl pushes the trunk further open and hops out.
He holds a hand up for Beth to wait as he simultaneously scans the road and loads his bow. With his crossbow raised, his darting eyes give the road and the treeline another once over before he turns back to Beth, stooped in the trunk still with her eyes trained on his face.
When he's convinced that none of the corpses he can see are reanimated he holds his hand out to her. She takes it with a crooked smile, climbing out quickly and scanning their surroundings in his place as he hastily threads his belt through his jeans.
Shouldering his bow, he turns to find her sheathing her knife and pushing her shoulders back. Her long swan neck rolls out the tension and as her head tips back his eyes catch the teeth marks on her pale skin. He's drowning in guilt and arousal when she turns and gives him a searching look.
Where do we go from here?
He holds her gaze and watches her eyes flicker as he threads his fingers through hers. Out here in the pale dawn she's pure light. When she smiles up at him even the weight of his bow feels lighter.
Tightening his grip on Beth's hand, he tugs her towards the treeline and the familiarity of the woods. In truth he has no idea where they're going or what's in front of them, but for the first time since they started running he isn't filled with dread. When Beth's hand squeezes his he feels a ripple of something akin to excitement pass through him.
We made it. We're alive.
Self doubt is quick to crawl in through the cracks and rattle his spine with uncertainty. But you can't keep her alive, not out here.
No.
He no longer accepts that. Maybe before, but not in the new world they've just christened. When she looks back at him, eyes bright and shining, he doesn't see failure anymore. No, he sees hope, hope that's seeped in and is taking root.
Watch me try.