A/N: Hi there!
I was supposed to be writing something else, but it's not really working out at the moment, so I thought I'd change things up a bit and try my hand at smut.
This is what I ended up with. I'm still hoping to manage the intended smut in the second half of the story, but it just sounds funny in my head, not sexy like when I read other people's fics.
I hope you enjoy the story anyway :)
Ever since the Governor had escaped, Michonne had been tirelessly looking for him, she just couldn't get over what had happened to Andrea. She should have never left her friend with that psychopath, should have dragged the blonde kicking and screaming if that was what it'd come down to. But she hadn't, and Andrea had died; another loved one she hadn't been able to save. So, Michonne kept looking.
In the beginning Daryl had gone with her. She hadn't been happy about it at first, the last thing she needed was someone to slow her down, but he'd soon proved to be an asset rather than a hindrance. She'd been pleasantly surprised by the fact that, much like herself, he didn't favor small talk. But what had most surprised her had been how quickly they'd adapted to one another. In next to no time, they'd learned each other's strengths and weaknesses and had started using the former to compensate for the latter.
Then, out of the blue, he'd come to her and said he would no longer be going out to search for the piece of shit who had brought them such loss. She had been stunned; couldn't believe he'd given up so quickly. He'd explained that, as much as he wanted to kill the son of a bitch, he also wanted some kind of life, and he couldn't see it happening if they kept going the way they had been. He tried to get her to stop hunting as well, or at least to slow down, but she just couldn't. So, she'd carried on by herself; nothing to it, she'd done it before.
The problem was, though, she'd forgotten to take into account that life happens, and Daryl had become such a constant in hers that his sudden absence had left her a lot more disappointed than she'd cared to admit. A lot more. She hadn't let it show, of course, but the fact of the matter was she'd felt a void forming in her chest and had excused herself to go deal with it. Which she had done by going back out the very next day, telling herself it was for the best, this way she didn't run the risk of losing yet another person dear to her.
Daryl had many of the same feelings as Michonne where the Governor was concerned, and he'd gone hunting with her for the first few months. But he'd somewhat come to terms with what had happened with Merle and had eventually stopped accompanying Michonne, which, he'd been shocked to realize, had brought about a new problem for him: loneliness. The prison population grew each day, his family was there, and he had his brother and sister by his side, for fuck's sake, but, still, he felt lonely. He'd just gotten so used to having Michonne around 24/7 it didn't feel right when she wasn't there, no matter how long it'd been since they'd last gone out together.
This seemed particularly odd to him because neither of them spoke much. They'd go full days without saying more than a couple of words, but it didn't bother him. Quite the contrary, in fact. He liked that they didn't need to vocalize in order to communicate, that they seemed to have grown instinctively aware of what the other was thinking. He was also reassured in the knowledge that she'd always have his back, as he would hers, because they worked so well together. And he missed that. Missed it a lot. Missed it so much he'd come to a decision: he would either convince her to forgo the damn search around LaGrange or he would go with her.
Daryl's efforts to keep Michonne from once again taking off to look for the Governor had gone about as well as he'd expected, which is to say he currently found himself occupying the passenger seat of an old SUV as she drove them to their destination. They had initially decided to travel on Daryl's bike, as the one horse wasn't exactly an option. For some reason, however, the matter of which mode of transportation they should use had attracted the input of other members of their family, turning a quick 'bike?' 'yeah' conversation into a half-hour debate that had somehow, without really including them, resulted in a car being elected.
They both had to confess (each in their own heads, just so we're clear) that they'd been rather disappointed with the decision. In their early days of hunting, they'd almost exclusively used the motorcycle, which had provided a level of human contact neither of them had known they'd been craving for. Therefore, when they'd settled on going out together, the time they would be spending on the bike had been one of the things which had excited them the most. Unfortunately, though, Rick and Carol's list of reasons why they felt a car would be a better option had caught Michonne and Daryl quite by surprise, not leaving either of them enough time to come up with a counterargument better than 'I like having someone's body pressed against mine', which they couldn't very well say out loud.
And so, there they were, sitting in uncomfortable silence as the landscape sped by. Because, and they weren't quite sure why, gone was their easy, companionable silence, having been replaced by awkward attempts at small talk and insistent thoughts of how much they wanted to touch each other. It seemed like being deprived of the closeness they would have had on the motorcycle had only served to increase their want, which soon had them trying, and failing, to chase away daydreams of hands running over arms, shoulders, thighs, backs, and the like.
After about an hour Michonne and Daryl arrived in Manchester. They had decided to start with the towns around LaGrange and only afterwards hit their main target. It would be a long trip, but they'd opted to cover as much of the area as possible in one outing, so as to avoid wasting gas by going back and forth between the prison and their location.
Michonne turned into a side street to park amid some convenient overgrown bushes near a cluster of small homes and they hopped off the car to begin their search. It was slow, difficult, relentlessly dull work, but they kept at it for hours, clearing house after house, store after store, building after building. With all the clearing Michonne had done during her five-month long hunt for the Governor she had probably singlehandedly rid Georgia of a good seven hundred walkers. Daryl's month-and-a-half likely had him at the two-hundred mark.
When the sun started to go down, they made their way to one of the homes close to their vehicle and, after knocking twice, Daryl trained his crossbow on the front door to cover Michonne as she kicked it in. He took care of the first undead coming down the hall and she helped the remaining two part company with their heads before they moved inside. Daryl blocked one entrance with a couch and the other with a refrigerator prior to joining Michonne, who had already started to clear the dwelling, and in next to no time they were sitting on the living room floor.
"Fuck, I'm starvin'," Daryl said.
"Me too," Michonne responded.
They ate some of what they'd brought from the prison, briefly discussed their plans for the following day, and decided Daryl would be first on watch.
Michonne had fallen asleep as soon as her head had hit the sofa, which had left Daryl alone with his thoughts, something he hadn't expected to be so problematic. His mind kept going over the day they'd had and, much to his discomfort, it had decided to focus on how good Michonne's body had looked every time she'd swung her katana. What was wrong with him? Why the hell did he suddenly find her walker-killing skills so damn hot?
It's true that he'd always considered her a beautiful woman, as well as smart, strong, and fearless, but still... It had taken all the restraint he possessed for him not to push her against a wall and kiss her very plump lips while placing his hands on the small of her back. She might then wrap her arms around his neck, bringing their chests together as they deepened the kiss and he moved his hands downwards, and… shit! What the fuck was going on? This had never happened to him before. Not while he was awake, at any rate. If he didn't stop immediately, he would have some explaining to do when she woke up. He'd better go smoke a cigarette.
The time had come for Michonne to be on watch, so there she was, watching. Except she wasn't watching the doors and windows, like she was supposed to. Nope, not even one bit. What she was watching was Daryl. More specifically, Daryl's arms, Daryl's shoulders, Daryl's mouth, and whatever other parts of Daryl's body his inconvenient clothes failed to conceal. She wasn't quite sure why he had suddenly sparked her interest, but spark he had, so she was indulging her imagination. And it was taking her on quite a ride. She was having to exercise a lot of self-control not to jump him right then and there.
Towards the end of their rest period, she managed to rein things in and let her brain (mostly) reclaim command, which led her to think about what was happening. Why had Daryl suddenly become almost irresistible? What was different from the numerous times they'd been out searching before? 'Nothing' was all she could come up with. But, if nothing was different, then why now? Sure, their months together had shown her how caring and protective of the group he was, something she wouldn't have guessed. She'd also been impressed by his survival skills, although that she had guessed. And she couldn't deny he was easy on the eyes, even if not her usual type.
Well, when she put it that way, maybe the whole thing hadn't been so sudden after all.
As awkward as their car trip had been, it was nothing compared to the week that had followed it. The situation had gotten to a point where Michonne and Daryl had silently agreed it would be better for them to search separately. They'd told themselves it was because they would cover more ground, but the truth was their mere presence had become too much of a distraction for the other, and walkers didn't mix well with being distracted. On a positive note, they had actually managed to move things along faster, even more so because they'd taken to increasing their hunting hours, so as to reduce the alone together time they had in the evenings.
Unfortunately, though, there was nothing to be done about watch, it was always going to be an opportunity for their minds to run wild. Daryl, who hadn't had a lot of experience with situations such as their current predicament, was having an especially hard time – so much so that he'd started to hope something would happen during his turns; not anything serious, just three or four walkers barging in to serve as a diversion.
Another week came and went and the whole separate-searching thing had stopped working. After her third undead close call of the day Michonne stopped, she'd had enough. They were both adults, for fuck's sake! And, from what she'd observed, it was a pretty safe bet they were also both consenting. Daryl's face had been bright red almost every time she'd looked at him, and he'd seemed to be in some physical discomfort on a few occasions. At this point, her throwing herself at him would be an act of kindness, really. She would do it that evening.
Daryl couldn't take it anymore. The situation had gone from awkward to downright dangerous, he'd had two near escapes from walkers just that morning. He couldn't believe he was acting that way, like some horny teenager, 'Chonne deserved better than to have some trailer trash ogling her all the damn time. As much as he didn't want to leave her alone, he was gonna have to come up with some excuse to go back to the prison. He would do it that evening.
A/N: Let me know what you think, comments always make my day :)