A/N: THIS IS A COMBO BETHYL WEEK/TUMBLR PROMPT. The prompt was: can you PLEASE write a one shot of a bethyl first kiss? I think it would be a quiet moment when they've just been reunited(idk they're 2nd night back together?)and beth would initiate it, of course. I think daryl would be kind of timid but wouldn't pull away and beth would reassure him and go in for another one. this time a bit more enthusiastic and then daryl would be totally into in and it'd be passionate, but not like a hot makeout sesh. I have it pictured I just need it in writing ja feel
Daryl took another drag on his cigarette, grateful for the feeling it gave his body after not having one for so long. His eyes moved back to the camp to his right. It seemed he couldn't keep his eyes off the area ever since she had been found. Beth. His heart lifted at the memory of seeing her face for the first time the day before. The joy in his heart warred with the rage he still felt when he saw the cut on her cheek and the brace on her wrist. He glanced down to his cigarette and gave it one last pull before snubbing it on a rock.
Movement from one of the tents pulled Daryl's eyes and thoughts to the slowly moving zipper. Beth's blonde head popped out of the tent and she glanced around, her eyes meeting his and her smile lighting up her face in the diminishing firelight. She stepped out of the tent she was sharing with Michonne and quietly zipped it back up before turning and walking quickly to the tree the hunter was sitting under.
"Hey," she greeted as her boots toed his before she turned and sat beside him. He grunted in return, nudging her with his elbow and giving her a smirk when she chuckled. "Can't sleep?" she asked after a moment of quiet nudging and poking.
"Nah, decided to let Rick spend more time with Judith," he replied softly, his eyes taking in her soft smile and facial features. Beth seemed to have aged during their time apart, not that he had any room to comment on it, he knew he had grown more gray hairs in his goatee and he was sure he looked uglier than sin now. Beth's apparent aging had made her look fiercer, angrier, and more prepared to survive to the hunter. He found her beautiful. He had always found the blonde beautiful but now that beauty seemed more corporeal than it used to. She seemed to have grown into herself, as weird and cliché as that probably sounded. The man blew out a sigh and he could feel the blonde watching him.
"I'm glad everyone made it, I knew they would," she told him softly and he nodded.
"Glad you aren't tellin' me 'I told you so, Dixon,'" he told her, his lips quirking in return to the sly grin she gave him.
"I hadn't thought about doing that but I think I will now, just because he told me that." She leaned toward him, her blue eyes sparkling in mischief and happiness. "I told you so, Mr. Dixon," she teased and he found himself chuckling in response. The chuckle died in his throat when her face turned serious and she bit her lip. A nervous, almost scared look crossed her face and Daryl found himself wondering if she was thinking back to where she had been kept over their time apart.
The blonde hadn't really told anyone what had happened or who she had been with while she had been separated from him. The hunter only knew bits and pieces that he would overhear her mumbling to herself. Something about "the Greater Good."
"Did you think that of me, after I was taken?" her voice cut through his thoughts and he met her eyes briefly before looking back out to the trees around them. He didn't need her to expand on her question. He knew what she was asking. Had he thought of her as a dead after she was taken? Her question made him uncomfortable and not because he had thought she was dead but because he hadn't. He had known somewhere deep in himself that she was not dead. His deepest fear had been that he wouldn't ever be able to find her again.
"I saw Maggie's signs," she told him and he could hear the disappointment and heartbreak in her voice. "The ones telling Glenn to go to Terminus. I know why she didn't put my name in the signs too. She thought I hadn't made it and maybe she would have been right, if I hadn't had you." Daryl scoffed and Beth scowled at him. "It's true! You don't know what you do to me, Daryl." Daryl's heart stopped for a moment and he stared at her with wide eyes. A soft blush was visible on her cheeks in the fading firelight and she looked at the grass by her feet.
"You made me into a fighter, a survivor, but Maggie didn't know that." She continued, as if her outburst a moment before hadn't happened. "I….I need to hear what you thought about me being taken…" Daryl cleared his throat and looked at the ground between their feet as silence fell between them. He glanced at the blonde from under his bangs and shook his head.
"No, I never thought you were dead," he admitted. He could see the immediate reaction of his words on the blonde. Her face smoothed, her shoulders relaxed, and the air around her became lighter and he realized that she had needed to hear that he had had faith in her abilities, in her. Seeing Maggie's note and realizing that her sister had assumed her dead had obviously put the blonde in a funk. A funk he had just lifted. "I was scared. Scared I'd never be able to find or see ya again."
Her blue eyes met his and she smiled softly, her hand moving to lay over his on top of his crossbow and squeezing it slightly.
"Daryl Dixon doesn't get scared," she joked but it fell flat as he stared at her. Her eyes searched his and he wondered what secrets she would be able to pull from them. Would she be able to see how much he cared for her?
"Yeah, I do," he whispered. "You don't know what you do to me," he repeated her words from earlier, his heart in his throat as the words tumbled out, his body shifting in discomfort. Beth nodded, her small smile gracing her lips again and Daryl found his eyes falling to it before raising them back to her eyes. Her eyes were focused on his lips and he felt his stomach knot in nerves.
"While I was…gone…you were like the northern wind, I could imagine what you would do and did them. That's what kept me alive. There's one thing I imagine you doing but I know it won't happen…" Daryl felt confusion fill him as her words tumbled through his brain. "I learned something important over my time apart. You need to tell people what you want to say, you never know when they'll be gone."
"I know you're not one for words and this time…I won't be either. I need to do something before I lose the courage or something happens," Beth turned her body to face him more directly and Daryl stared at her in confusion as she leaned in closer to him. Her face neared his and the hunter found himself bewildered. Was she about to do what he thought she was going to do? With him? Out of everyone they knew, she was about to kiss him? No, that couldn't be…
Beth's eyes closed and her lips met his softly, chastely, instantly stopping his thoughts in their track. The blonde leaned back slightly, her eyes still closed as a sigh ghosted from her lips and across his as his eyes searched her face for any sign of regret. Her face was calm, happy, relaxed, and her eyes fluttered open to meet his for a brief moment as she nodded slightly before closing as she leaned in again. Her little nod told Daryl everything he needed and wanted to know and his eyes closed, his lips meeting hers halfway as his hands lifted and placed themselves on each side of her head, his fingers curling into her hair as their lips met with sighs and groans coming from both people.
A strange sensation of fluttering lifted through Daryl's stomach and into his chest and he found his lips smiling against the blonde's, whose own lips returned the movement as her hands moved to his hair. This kiss was passionate. Daryl had kissed women before, long before the end of the world, but none of those kissed compared to this one with Beth Greene. Her lips were soft and addicting against his own and he found his thoughts whirling on nothing but the feel of Beth.
Part of the hunter wanted to continue, push this kiss to the next level, push their bodies together and show the blonde just how much he cared for her but the rest of him couldn't, wouldn't, do that. Not yet. He wanted to explore and learn more about…this, whatever it was he was feeling and they were becoming, and he respected and perhaps loved the youngest Greene girl too much for that. He curled his fingers into her hair more, gripping the strands slightly before slowly leaning back away from the soft lips of the blonde. Beth tried to follow his lips with hers, her fingers attempted to pull his head back to hers and he chuckled slightly, pecking her lips again before leaning further away from her and smoothing her hair with his hands.
The couple took shaky breaths before meeting the other's eyes, Beth nodding her understanding at the unspoken reason he had for stopping and he grinned slightly, his hands moving from her hair to her cheeks and down to her fingers before returning to his crossbow as he glanced around again, remembering that he was supposed to be on watch and not kissing the beautiful woman in front of him.
A throat cleared from the camp and Daryl's head whipped to face their guest so quickly that a crick formed in his neck and he winced in pain. Rick gave the couple a knowing smirk before nodding his head to the tents. Daryl nodded and stood, his eyes staying focused on the ground to keep from meeting the teasing look he knew Rick was giving him. Beth moved quietly, her cheeks a pretty pink as she walked beside the embarrassed hunter, her hand grabbing his nervously and squeezing it.
Daryl gave her hand a squeeze back before letting it go and holding her tent's flap open for her. She smiled and entered her tent, turning to face him.
"Good night, Daryl," she whispered. Daryl leaned in, pecking her lips again before moving away and going to his own tent with a smile on his face.