MIGHTIEST OF GUNS
CHAPTER 29
Kristen kneeled at the low coffee table as Hershel sat on the adjacent love seat – a local map spread between them. Mentally, she repeated all of his words to herself, doing her best to commit them to memory. A part of her was sure that Daryl would be able to find his way regardless, but she didn't want to risk getting lost. Risk getting separated from Sean and Liam.
They seemed surprise by how willingly she volunteered to go venture out with Daryl. Admittedly, she had never been the best or the bravest when it came to this new world. And it was unrealistic to expect her to be. You didn't go from unassuming waitress/surrogate PTA mom to weapon-wielding warrior princess overnight.
Andrea had begrudged the monotony and misogynistic implication of being expected to stay behind and keep the camp domestically. Kristen had almost welcomed it. The routine of it all, the chance to focus in on a mundane task – laundry, cooking, keeping track of supplies. It represented a small semblance of the life they had been forced to leave behind.
But now, even that semblance of a life was gone. Now she would spend the rest of her life wondering, if maybe she had been a bit more like Andrea, if maybe she had been more eager to perfect shooting and stabbing – things would have turned out differently.
The bleak and unexpected silver lining of Val's passing – Kristen was no longer afraid. If someone had asked her what the worst thing that could happen was, her ready response would be some variation on what had happened their last night at the farm. And here she was now. Still breathing, still standing. You can't get any lower than the bottom.
That wasn't necessarily true though.
She could still lose her brothers. She could lose this group. Her sanity. Her sense of self. But if she could survive the blow of losing Val. She could survive anything.
It was that grim determination that made the decision to go with Daryl an easy one.
Leaning against the doorway, Daryl watched Kristen converse with Hershel and did his best to swallow back his own unease. Initially, he had thought going on a run would be the best thing for her. He had seen the way she stomped in the walker's skull on the road. The girl had a lot of pent up rage and grief at the moment. Without some kind of productive outlet to release it, she was bound to explode.
Even now, he could see it in her. Though listening to Hershel, she nodded too quickly, too eagerly for it to be natural. Her posture and form, usually calm and composed was frenetic and jumpy. Her hands were fidgeting, fingers flying across the map before her.
Daryl had always been good at reading body language. Yet another survival skill in his arsenal that he'd developed over the years. As a kid, he had gotten so good at reading his dad. Came to learn that a seemingly innocent cracking of joints, a stretch of the spine or neck, meant that a sudden beat down was imminent. Meant that Daryl better make himself scarce. The sound of it still made him flinch.
He was still lost in his own thoughts when Liam appeared at his side, his expression bleak. "Make sure she comes back."
Daryl nodded solemnly. "'course she will."
"No, I mean it. She doesn't come back, then don't bother coming back yourself. I'm not trying to be a dick. But Sean's losing it. Lose her and he'll literally try and kill you, man."
Despite the sentiment, Daryl felt his lips twitch at a grin. He still had to admire the family's sense of protection. "Thanks for your concern."
This time Liam smirked, a sad strained smile. "Nah man, it's not that. I just know that if Sean steps to you, you'll fucking kill him. Don't want to lose all three of my siblings in one week."
Daryl felt his grin slipping. "We'll be back. I promise."
Daryl and Kristen hardly spoke as they prepared to leave. A tense heady silence seemed to have developed between them. That seemed to happen often with them. At times they felt so in sync and natural around one another. As though their shared presence had been a reality forever.
And other times it was almost as though the reality of their situation, of their mutual circumstances sank in. As though they both realized simultaneously that they were simply thrown together with a stranger in a chaotic world. In those moments they were always fumbling and awkward.
If Daryl were to be honest…and crude – all he needed was to fuck her. He understood their present circumstances, it was hardly ideal. It was probably immoral to even think about her in that light, considering everything that had happened recently.
But he was still a man.
He provided for her, killed for her, spent his nights now pressed tightly against her. Yet for everything, he had hardly touched her. One drunken night of sex at the CDC didn't make up for everything that had built up between them. And there was something about this new world, about the primal needs to hunt and protect that made his blood boil in a way that it previously hadn't. It wasn't just about screwing. It was some territorial urge to mark and enjoy what he seemingly had claimed as his own. Some shameful caveman instinct. Me make kill. We go cave. Make boom boom.
He shook off the image as he tossed his bag into the back of the SUV. Kristen hugged Carol and Maggie tightly, kissed the tops of her brother's heads. Rick had taken the time to give her an additional gun, shown her how to turn the safety on and off. Daryl had felt strangely irritated watching the interaction. He had already shown Kristen those things at least a dozen times. Yet she listened politely, graciously accepted the weapon.
When she climbed into the passenger side of the SUV, he glanced at the new gun in her lap. Wordlessly, he grasped it and replaced it with one of his own. Kristen looked at his quizzically but said nothing. Silently, Daryl turned on the ignition and they pulled away from the house.
Kristen procured Hershel's map from her jeans pocket. "Hershel said there is a small avenue of shops about four miles north east of here. He said there's a small corner store there we should be able to get supplies from."
She began to point out road signs and mile markers when Daryl halted her. "I know where it is already. Ya don't need that map."
Kristen raised her brows in surprise and irritation. "You saw me going over this map with Hershel for over half an hour. If you already know your way, why wouldn't you just say so?"
Daryl shrugged awkwardly, not taking his eyes off of the road. He couldn't tell her that he didn't want to interrupt simply because it was good to see her trying to be stronger. "If somethin' happens to me now, ya will be able to make it back yerself fine."
She scoffed openly at this. "As if. Everything that could wrong, you not making it back is the last thing I'm worried about."
This time he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. "Really? You ain't worried at all?"
He had been trying to be playful, gently ribbing her – but she didn't take her eyes off of the passing landscape. Her voice was sad and sincere. "Of course I'm worried about it Daryl. You always have to make it back."
Her tone was so genuine that it caught him off guard. He found himself watching her profile intently and had to remind himself to focus on the road.
Pulling into the parking lot of the shop arcade, he was relieved to find it abandoned. There were surely walkers afoot but at least it seemed they wouldn't be running into any other scavenging parties. Observing the line of shops, the variety – it was tempting to not raid them all. They had lost so many things. Needed so many things. If he had been with Rick or Glenn, even Sean or Liam, Daryl would have made a real day of it.
And though a part of him even felt like Kristen could handle a big raid, he remembered the promise he had made to Liam. They would keep this short and sweet. Kristen reached to open the passenger side door when Daryl laid a hand on her leg, stopping her.
"Whoa, girl. Can't just go bargin' in there."
"I wasn't, I was just opening the door."
Daryl took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He hadn't really taken into account what a run with Kristen would actually be like. Despite her admitted shortcomings in terms of survival, she still had a penchant for thinking she knew best. She was still stubborn and annoyingly headstrong.
"You tell Glenn off too for opening his car door when you guys go out on a run?" Her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Her tone of voice and the imagined transgressions running through his mind at the moment caused his temper to spike. Suddenly and roughly, he gripped her wrist and spoke severely.
"Look girly, when we're out here, when we're on a run – it's my call. And you're gonna listen to whatever I say. No, I don't police Glenn the way I'm gonna with you. I know Glenn can handle himself. And if he can't, he and I both understand that it ain't my problem. But you? Yer my problem. Ya understand?"
Kristen nodded mutely. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted slightly in surprise and something else. Arousal? Annoyance? Daryl wasn't sure. The silence between them was thick and heavy until he motioned towards her door. "Go ahead, let's go." Gingerly this time, she grasped the handle and pulled.
Outside the SUV, they huddled together and Daryl went over the logistics of the plan. Be silent. Let me lead. Watch for my signals. No unnecessary risks. Minimize gun use if possible. No lingering. Take what we need. In and out. Kristen was composed and still as she listened. None of the forced enthusiasm and overly eager nodding that she had exhibited with Hershel. She was really listening to him.
Following Daryl to the store's entrance, Kristen felt calm. Strangely, the jittery fear that had consumed her since the farm's demise had seemed to subside. She could only attribute it to the fact that for the first time, she was acting on the offensive. Making the choice to venture into the danger, rather than cowering and dreading a fight. For the first time since the very night she met Daryl, when she had run outside to join him in defending her family – she felt empowered. For all his backwoods hillbilly bravado, he was doing more for her personal female empowerment than any women's magazine or talk show ever had.
The front display windows were smashed in, a bad sign. It meant that people had likely already cleaned the place over. Even more pressing, it meant that walkers were more likely to have gotten inside. Lightly, they stepped through the opened floor to ceiling window, careful not to catch themselves on the jagged edges. Light streamed through into the store, giving them a clear view of the mess before hand.
Blessedly, the shelves were still stocked with food and supplies. Kristen wanted to hurry over, to fill her two large bags with the things she knew they desperately needed. But something (likely Daryl's stern speech) told her to wait for his cue before doing anything. Sure enough a moment later, the shuffling gait of walkers could be heard and several appeared from the various aisles.
Kristen was suddenly unsure of what to do. No unnecessary risks. Minimal gun use. Approaching the walker to stab it seemed a bit of a risk. But if she decided to shoot it, she'd be wasting bullets. Suddenly she was annoyed with herself. She had let Daryl get under her skin, let him make her over think things.
As he continued to shoot walkers down with his bow, she pulled her long hunting knife from her waist and walked past Daryl towards the nearest walker. She took a deep breath and steeled herself as it shuffled towards her. She raised her arm to send the blade through its eye just as Daryl shot it down with a bolt.
She turned around to give him a look that would surely read 'what was that for?' when to her horror she watched as a walker crept up behind him, knocking him to the ground before falling atop of him. Before Kristen could even raise her gun, he had his knife through the creature's skull.
She wanted to go to him but knew there were still walkers to take care of. Almost emboldened by witnessing his near demise, she stabbed and slashed with a new-found determination.
Daryl swore at himself. He had been stupid and let himself be too distracted by what Kristen was doing. Ironically, the same reason he had told Sean and Liam that neither of them could come along – that Kristen would put them at risk by being too distracted about their safety. And now here he was..
Worse yet, he had fallen on the floor littered with shards of glass. He wheezed as he climbed to his feet, already able to feel the little pieces of glass embedded in his skin. Wincing, he grabbed for his discharged bolts and ran through the aisles desperate to find Kristen. He was surprised and strangely glad that she hadn't immediately ran to him. She was beginning to recognize what objective needed to be done for them to survive.
At the same time, his first instinct was to yell at her. He found her several aisles over, perusing the shelves of hygiene products. a freshly killed walker at her feet. Her eyes warmed with relief when she saw him up and about but he lowered his voice threateningly regardless. "What the fuck are you doing? You're supposed to wait for my lead."
She raised her brows indignantly. "Daryl, you were on the ground. There were more of those things in here. I took care of them." There was the smallest hint of pride in her voice at having taken down the other half dozen walkers while he was seeimingly incapacitated by one. He couldn't tell what he was more annoyed at – her for not listening, himself for being distracted, or the irrational boyish irritation of feeling one-upped by a girl.
He shot her a dirty look and grabbed her forearm, prepared to quickly raid the shelves and get out of there. Shooting pain ran down his side from the glass and he swore under his breath, abruptly releasing his grip on her arm.
Kristen was suddenly overtaken with concern. "Dar, what happened?" It was the first time she had ever called him something besides Daryl and despite the glass embedded in his flesh, he felt a rush a warmth. "Nothin'. Just that damn glass in my side."
She reached and lifted the fabric of his vest and shirt, swearing at what she saw. The little bits were of no concern really. She had stepped on her fair share of broken bottles throughout her bar-keeping career. The body always found a way to eventually take care of itself. Several shards were large and ugly though, blood trickling down his side. The force that he had hit the floor with had forced the pieces deeper into his skin and it was worrying.
Daryl might be in charge but this was her territory. Tending scrapes and bruises, field dressing her rowdy brother's wounds following neighborhood fights and misadventures – it was her expertise. Her maternal instincts kicking in, it was her turn to grab Daryl roughly by the arm. While ensuring that the building was free of walkers she had passed a breakroom of sorts with a long table.
Forcefully, she lead Daryl inside. Firmly she instructed him to lay on his good side on the long table, remove his shirt. He was so surprised by her sudden self-imposed authority that for once he did what she said without question.
Leaving him in the room, she browsed the shelves until she found a bottle of disinfectant alcohol and a pair of tweezers in the beauty aisle. Returning to the breakroom, she broke the seal of the bottle with her teeth and unceremoniously poured it over his injured side. He winced at the sudden sting and she smiled sympathetically and warmly.
Expertly, she began to pull the larger shards of glass from his skin with the tweezers. The sensation was uncomfortable but with each piece removed Daryl felt a bit better. She kept the door propped open with a chair, both of them with one ear quirked for the sound of any approaching threat.
Softly, she talked as she worked extracting glass, a valiant effort to distract him. "I know I'm no Hershel, but I have actually done this before. Several times, glass and splinters. When they were little, Liam and Sean were always running around down by the docks."
She removed a particularly large shard, replacing it with a splash of alcohol as she continued. "This one time I guess the kids bet Liam that he wouldn't jump into the harbor off the pier. And being a little asshole, he did it – even though you know we aren't swimmers." Daryl smiled softly to himself, remember her fear, bathing with him in the lake. She grinned at his small smile and continued. "I guess he lands in the water and freaks out, wraps his bare arms and legs around the wooden base of the pier, scrambles back up. Came home that night and he had at least one hundred wooden splinters all over his arms and legs. I had to sit up with a needle on the stove with him for hours and hours picking them out. This is nothing compared to that."
"The stove?"
"To sterilize the needle! God Daryl, how you survived this long is beyond me." She smiled at him wryly. Turning back to the task at hand, she couldn't help but get a good glimpse of the scarring of his back and shoulders. Her smile falling, she resumed working with a much more tender touch.
When the final large shard was removed, she poured a last bit of rubbing alcohol on for good measure and wiped the remaining blood away with her sleeve. For some reason her head was feeling fuzzy from the close contact. Sure, they had spent the previous night sharing a bed, but this was different. It was much more intimate than being smushed on a sofa, multiple layers of fabric between them. When Daryl sat up so suddenly, his face only centimeters from hers, she felt her breath catch in her throat.
Strangely and suddenly, she wanted him desperately. Something about the day they had spent together. Something about the way they were together. The way he'd boss her around and scold her, always trying to put her in her place. It both annoyed her and thrilled her. He was the first man that she truly felt evenly matched with. With all the others, she'd always find herself either surpassing or pretending in terms of will.
But with him, it was the constant back and forth of who knew best of who was right. She knew that she could never overpower him in terms of size or physical force and something about that made her blood run hot and her skin tingle. At the same time, she never felt belittled or less than him. Their strengths were equally matched, simply in very different ways. She always found herself wanting him to try and control her. If only for the rush that came in defying him.
More than anything, she wanted to forget the pain of the last few days for a few moments at least.
It was in this mindset that she boldly leaned forward and kissed him deeply. Leaning into his bare chest she hummed contentedly as he opened his mouth to meet hers. His arm snaked around her, his hand finding its way to grasp a handful of her hair. It was intoxicated and much needed.
Daryl's mind was swimming. This was everything he needed but yet…
It was a distraction. It was dangerous. He had already been made foolish by her presence once today. He'd be an idiot if he let it happen again. If he put them into potential danger because he couldn't control himself.
He broke the kiss, shoving her back more roughly than he should have. Her eyes were wide with surprise and lingering arousal, her lips swollen from his kiss, hair mussed from his hands. The sight made his jeans tighten even more than the kiss itself. That unquenched arousal and self-irritation manifested itself in irrational annoyance with her. "The fuck you doin?"
Kristen's face suddenly flushed with embarrassment, her words coming out rushed and flustered. "I…I'm sorry. I don't know, I didn't mean to."
Daryl suddenly felt ashamed for being so harsh with her. All he ever wanted was for people to reach out to him but it seemed each time they did, he'd fuck it up. It wasn't as though he protested when she kissed him in the first place…
But now wasn't the time to deal with that. Softening his expression, his pulled his shirt and vest back on and left the room to gather their needed supplies. The point of this whole fucking trip after all. He tried to ignore how hard he had gotten.
Kristen felt humiliated the rest of the run. What had she been thinking? What was wrong with her? It wasn't even just the rejection that had her cheeks burning. The worst part was that she had been stupid and foolish. Couldn't keep it in her fucking pants on a run? She could feel the permanent grimace on her face as she filled her packs with supplies. Thankfully, the rest of their run was uneventful.
The ride home was largely silent, even moreso than several hours earlier. Whatever camaraderie they may had developed on their journey had again dissipated into a heavy tension. Kristen trying to disappear from embarrassment into the leather backing of the seat. Daryl (unknownst to her) trying to stop himself from pulling over and fucking her right there.
Needless to say, it was a long drive home.
Authors Note: Sorry for the long delay guys. Crazy busy with school and internships lately. But don't worry, no plans to abandon this little story! Hope you're all enjoying the new season – so many OMG moments thus far! FYI next chapter is going to be largely smut so you've been warned.
