A/N: I've had this half-formed plot bunny in my head for years. There are a handful of songs that contributed to said plot and I said to myself, "I want to write something that feels like that song sounds." So here's my attempt at that, because I can no longer hold off. I have to try and get it out of my head!
First up: "Heartbeat" by Childish Gambino.

heartbeat I

The bar was packed for a Saturday night. It didn't matter, though, because he could spot her in a crowd from a mile away. Over the countless heads of patrons, squeezed between nameless bodies, he spotted her sitting at the bar. She was perched on a stool, overwhelmed with the numerous strangers crowding around her and invading her personal space.

She was alone.

He squeezed his way through the crowd, not bothering to mutter pointless "excuse me"s or "sorry"s as he made his way toward the bar. The music blared around him, muffling most of the conversations. There was still a chorus of drunken voices rising above the sounds of the speakers, calling for friends and laughing and talking loudly. It was all background noise anymore.

She didn't raise her head when he approached, let alone acknowledge his presence right beside her. He hadn't expected her to.

In the split second before she noticed that he was there, he glanced over the surface before her and spotted the familiar sight of her bright yellow phone case sitting beside a half-empty glass of amber liquid. Her phone was turned face down, silent and still. Her whiskey was nearly gone. And when her eyes met his, he could see that she was in dire need of another drink.

Those cornflower blues setting their sights directly on him spurred an emotion in him that felt a lot like spotting a familiar face in a foreign country. Not that he would know what that felt like – but he could imagine.

"You're only around when I don't want you ta be, huh?"

Ouch. Those words seared his skin, hitting his ears like hot metal. But he quickly brushed them off. His stomach turned and quickly settled, reflexively forming steel around itself.

"Ain't that part a the definition of a 'ghost'?" He quipped.

He returned her gaze with a steely blue stare of his own, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a hard line. She shrunk in her seat, quickly looking away and down at her glass. Then she lifted it to her lips and poured the remaining liquid down her throat, swallowing, blinking, and setting the glass back down decisively in one swift motion. The taste didn't make her wince anymore. She didn't even scrunch up her nose like she used to.

"Yer not drivin', are you?" She asked.

He shook his head, watching the side of her face as she continued to avoid his gaze. "Nah. Walked."

A few seconds of silence – and the anxiety that usually accompanied silence. She was trying to wave down the bartender, empty glass in hand.

When the bartender finally made his way down to her, she pushed the empty glass into his hands and eyed the wall of liquor behind him.

"Two shots of Jaeger – and two whiskey-an'-Cokes. Please."

The music seemed to fade away behind them, even though it hadn't grown any quieter. One stupid hip-hop song after the next, he almost couldn't stand it. And, if anything, the noisy crowd inside the bar had grown larger and rowdier. The night was getting later and people were getting drunker, more obnoxious.

Fucking college kids, he thought. Why do I come to this stupid college bar?

That was a dumb question to ask himself. He knew exactly why. She was the only reason he did a lot of things.

Yet her voice was loud in his ears. She was the only person or sound that he was able to focus on amongst the ever-shifting, reckless crowd surrounding them.

"So, what – you come here ta rub it all in my face? You wanna taunt me an' give me more reasons to wanna throw in the fuckin' towel?" He could already detect the aggravated slur in her words and he certainly didn't miss the way she turned her wrist upwards, meaningfully flashing the thick scar on her wrist in his direction.

But his stomach was made of steel. And so was his spine. His entire body was hardened and shielded in strong, impenetrable armor. Her spiteful remark bounced off his skin, taking only a brief moment to seep into his brain.

"'Course not. That was… I never intended fer that. Nothin' like that." He wanted to be angry at first – how dare she use her own life against him in such a manner.

But it was a lot harder than he'd thought. He couldn't bring himself to hurl back the hurtful words, not when his core felt so soft and vulnerable in her presence. His armor might have been rigid and unyielding, but beneath that was a wounded carcass, constantly bleeding with the need for something more. Something he'd never been able to identify and still couldn't. Something that constantly grazed his fingertips whenever he was in her proximity, yet always fluttered just out of his grasp.

Even over the background noise, he could hear the knot in her throat as she scoffed. And he recognized the way she kept her eyes focused on the glass in front of her, refusing to glance over and meet his gaze. "Then why're you here? Why would you waste yer time on… me? You got a lot better things ta do."

This time, her words didn't sear his skin. No, they burned right through and impaled his chest. Sharp and bitter, bringing to life the heavy guilt in his gut. But he bit back the pain and tightened his grip on the glass in front of him.

Two empty shot glasses sat on the bar between them. He found himself wishing for eternal moments like the one they'd shared a few minutes ago: both of them raising a shot glass and making a cheer to 'leaving assholes where assholes belong,' tapping their glasses together and downing doses of tart Jaegermeister until their throats burned and their eyes reflexively squeezed shut.

But that moment had passed all too quickly, and now they were sitting side-by-side at the bar with half-empty Jack-and-Cokes in hand while drunken college kids buzzed around them and two overworked bartenders struggled to keep up with the ruckus and demand.

"You know I still care about you. I jus' – ain't never been good at showin' it… the right way."

The same pathetic excuse he'd been using for the last several months? Well, it had worked this long. So why not? Not like he had a better way to explain it. Not like there was another way to justify any of it.

"Coulda fooled me," she said simply. Her eyes finally lifted and met his.

And when they did, he wished they hadn't. He found himself stuck to the barstool where he sat, frozen in place, all of his muscles going rigid. A feeling like cold water began to rush through his veins, starting at the back of his neck and ending at the bottoms of his feet. His heart skipped and hovered inside his chest. He couldn't bring himself to look away from her, not even at the glass of whiskey that he was raising to his lips.

"There's no wrong way ta show it, you just…" She paused, then sighed. Her eyelids fluttered down and back up in a slow and thoughtful blink before she finished, "You gotta care about… more than that. You gotta try. Just once in a while, you really gotta put effort in. Ya know?"

The look she gave him was one of both expectance and indignation. His mouth was still set in a hard line and he nodded, then raised his glass and poured the last drops down his throat. He reveled in the weightlessness that surged through his veins and lifted his skull – the alcohol was doing its job of making him even more indestructible than he usually was. Especially in the current circumstances.

"Right – all that effort," he mumbled, not even bothering to stifle the resentful tone that echoed in his voice. He knew she could hear it over the noisy crowd around them, too. "Like I ain't never done shit for ya. Or fer us. Like I never showed ya I care. Yeah, I oughta go back an' get myself a job on a farm, that it? Oughta start carin' more about my mama an' my – "

"Stop it," she interjected sharply, blue eyes turning icy. "You know that's not what I meant. Stop – stop usin' all that against me. You always do this… How many times do I gotta tell you that he's not better than you? That it isn't always about you?"

He chewed on the tip of his thumb and swallowed back the argument that wanted to burst from his mouth. The anger and resentment was coming to life in the pit of his stomach and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it contained.

"As many times as it takes ta convince me, I guess," he said begrudgingly. "Which you can never do… How you gonna tell me it ain't about me when you willingly chose him – "

"I'm not gonna listen to this," she let out a humorless laugh, shaking her head. "I didn't do the choosing, you did. And if you wanna sit here and drink with me, then sit here an' drink with me. Otherwise – well, honestly, you can leave… I don't give a fuck anymore."

He narrowed his eyes and looked away from her fingers tightening around the glass in her hand, her knuckles turning white.

"I know you don't… 's why I'm here."

And he did. He knew full good and well that she did not give a fuck, and that if he pushed her far enough, she'd pay her tab and leave without another word. And he wasn't sure he could handle watching her hips sway as they always did while her slender legs carried her away from him. He wasn't sure his rusty armor could stand the force of her rejection one more time, the bottomless feeling that he was always left with as he was forced to watch her wade through a crowd and leave him, like a parade of his own loss slowly receding in his vision. Every time felt like watching all the good he'd ever been allowed to have in his life walking away and leaving him forever.

"I ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl reiterated in a low grumble.

Beth scoffed and flashed him a side-eyed glance, spitting her retort like venom: "Not this time, anyway."

He bit down hard on his lip and told himself that he deserved that one. She'd more than earned it.

Whatever sour-tasting words he had to swallow back, he would. As long as it meant she wouldn't walk away from him. As long as it meant she wouldn't make him spend the entire night alone.

Her phone didn't vibrate the entire time they sat together at the bar. He saw her checking it every now and then, usually while she was waiting for another drink, but she never seemed happier afterward. He wanted to ask, wanted to pry and be nosey and overstep those lines once more just because he knew he could. But he didn't. Instead, he looked away and downed his whiskey drinks, one after the other.

As the liquor flowed and the crowd continued moving around them, he asked her how her daddy was doing and if she'd heard from her sister at all. He asked how work was going and if she was still enjoying school. He asked about her friends - the ones whose names he could remember, anyway - and inquired on the boyfriends and girlfriends and fiances that he might've met once or twice in a distant memory. He didn't really care about any of that, though. Maybe about her daddy - he'd always respected that old man. But all the other shit was nothing more than fodder. He was simply doing everything he could to avoid asking about the stuff he actually wanted to know about.

Then the tension ebbed away as alcohol coursed through their veins and their conversation reached that peak, that familiar and comfortable place where he felt like they were the only two people in the world. And he hung on her every word, feeling his mouth curve into smiles without reluctance for a change. And he uttered every word, asked every question, mumbled every statement that might make her soft, pink lips turn upward, until she was smiling and looking at him - only him and nothing else. Until he could feel the heaviness in his chest slowly becoming lighter, and the anger that he'd held so close mere hours before was no longer anything more than an absurd overreaction that he couldn't remember the reasoning for. It didn't even seem to matter anymore.

Not when she was sitting so close and she smelled so good and her clothes were so tight in all the right places and her hair was so perfect, as usual, and begging to have his fingers running through it. Not when her hand was touching his atop the surface of the bar, milky white skin even softer than he remembered. Not when her girlish giggles were sending bolts of electricity up and down his arms and legs, making his breath hitch in his chest every time the sound hit his ears.

He could've listened to her talk for hours, sitting and sharing quiet inside jokes with each other, reminiscing on fond memories and laughing about people they hadn't spoken to in years. A shot here, a few more drinks there, another shot. The bartender announced Last Call but most of the crowd had already dissipated. There was only a handful of patrons left. Not that either of them had noticed except for brief bathroom breaks.

She ordered them beers to finish the night and he slid his debit card to the bartender before she could pick up the tab. She objected at first, but then she shrugged it off and rolled her eyes. They downed their beers together, all the while he was internally praying that he could follow her home or take her with him. His heart rabbited with dread at the thought that it wouldn't happen. That their night would end outside the door of this stupid college bar. That he would have to go home and lie alone in bed with a head full of unspoken words and unanswered questions. The very idea made his stomach turn and ache with a hollow need.

His arms were suddenly itching to be wrapped around her small frame. But he resisted. He stole light touches of her pale hands and her dainty wrists and told himself it was enough. For now.

Before the bartender could tell them to hit the bricks, they slipped out the front, zipping up their coats and letting out a collective sigh as the cold air hit their faces and the stench of booze and body odor was replaced with the stench of the city. He didn't get a chance to ask her how she was getting home. As he placed a cigarette between his lips and fumbled around in his pocket for a lighter, she stepped in closer until they were arm-to-arm, waiting for him to light the cigarette. Once he'd exhaled the first small puff of smoke and glanced over at her, she began walking away. For a second, he froze and watched her, about to call out her name.

Then she paused and turned her head to flash him an expectant smile and a slight nod of the head. He took the cue and stepped up to walk beside her. And then they were striding down the sidewalk, away from the bar, arms brushing every couple of steps. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of her coat, and he was fighting the urge to reach over and pull one out, to clasp it tightly in his. It was like a habit, or muscle memory. It felt wrong to be walking with her and not holding hands.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, her head on a swivel as she observed the city nightlife buzzing around them while he nervously smoked the cigarette that was pinched between his fingers and watched her from the corner of his eye. Then she smiled, whiskey glowing bright in her red cheeks, and started talking about some funny story from a while back. Something that he remembered but didn't really want to remember. At least not right now.

Suddenly, her hand was held out before him, fingers pointing toward his cigarette, and he looked over to meet her gaze. "Lemme get a couple hits off that."

Without hesitating, he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and carefully passed the half-burned cigarette into her waiting fingers. Her smile grew wider with satisfaction and he watched as she placed the butt up to her lips and took a careful puff.

He was immediately reminded of how it used to annoy him when she'd ask for a hit off his cigarettes. He would always tell her, "No, you can have a cigarette, but this one's mine." And she'd whine a little and say, "But I don't want a whole cigarette, I just want a couple puffs of yours." And he'd grunt in frustration and say, "Well, I want a whole cigarette." But those days were long gone. He didn't feel an ounce of annoyance this time. Just a deep longing for something that was well and over with. And right now, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't mind if she wanted to smoke half of every single cigarette he ever smoked for the rest of his life. He'd gladly share.

"You heard from yer brother lately?" She half-slurred before inhaling her third hearty puff of nicotine. Bloodshot blue eyes flicked over and met his.

His fingers were fidgeting against his leg, antsy to get the cigarette back. He wanted to light another one. Didn't even care what she might say about his 'chain-smoking.' "Yeah. A little."

"Is he doin' okay? How much more time's he got left?" She inquired, and he couldn't tell if she was genuinely curious or if she was just trying to be polite and act like she gave a shit after they basically sat and talked about her for the last few hours.

He shrugged. "Nine years. Five if he's real good. We'll see if he can make it that long, though - he's gettin' old an' cranky."

"He's always been cranky," she chuckled.

He smirked, unable to disagree. But not old. And I ain't far behind him...

She handed back the cigarette, though it was practically burned down to the butt. He took a quick hit off of it, a small part of him hoping he could still taste a hint of her lips, then tossed it to the ground and reached into his pocket to pull out the crumpled pack and extract another cigarette. He saw her watching him in his peripherals, and her lips pursed like she might be holding back a comment, but she didn't say anything.

Something about leaving the bar had changed the atmosphere between them. Maybe it was the fact that it was really just them now. No bar, no stools, no wall of liquor to consult for advice or healing. They were out in the world, on the sidewalk at nearly three in the morning, walking through the cold and darkened neighborhoods side-by-side. Their voices sounded louder out here, and they echoed off buildings and threatened to wake hardworking people from their much-deserved sleep.

He was halfway through his second cigarette when he glanced up at the street sign they were passing and realized he hadn't been paying much attention to the direction they were walking in. Admittedly, he'd been following her. She seemed to know where she was going. Subconsciously, he'd thought it was her silent way of inviting him back to her place. Where else would she lead him to? If nothing else, he could drop her off. Maybe she'd let him inside, just for one more drink…

"Don't you live the other way?" He asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the direction they'd come from.

She looked over at him, but only briefly, before turning her head and staring down at her boots padding against the sidewalk. "No, I moved. I'm stayin' with my daddy again."

Oh. Shit. What's that mean? But he didn't have the balls to ask.

"How was you gonna get all the way home this late?" He asked.

She shrugged and responded, "I'm stayin' the weekend with Brittany. We were s'posed ta go to a party, but she got in a fight with her boyfriend an' left me at the bar."

Oh. Shit. It was no wonder she looked so good - she'd been all ready for a party only to spend her night sitting alone at some stupid college bar.

He knew he should've felt guilty for the selfish surge of hopefulness that burst to life in his chest at that moment, but it was hard to do with so much whiskey still swirling around inside his head. All he could think was how he really hated that he couldn't remember which direction Brittany lived in. Even with all the liquid courage in his veins, he still wasn't brave enough to ask if he was walking her back to her friend's house right now or… not.

He decided to wait and see. And hope. And as soon as his second cigarette was burned down to the butt, he pulled out a third and lit it between his lips.

Her arm brushed against his again. He couldn't pay attention to the streets or focus on where they were because all he could see was her hand, dangling at her side. Begging to be held, begging for his fingers to interlace with hers.

But there were so many calluses on his palms.

to be continued...

A/N: I would highly recommend reading this on AO3 just because it's so much better. You can actually see my story image and an accurate summary and tags, etc. Also, the title is supposed to read "picking (at sign) scabs" and yeah, it's kind of important, yet here we are.
Beth is 22/23 in this and Daryl is in his 40s. The extent of their history will be gradually revealed as we move forward.

Anyway, no I'm not abandoning MW. It's still going strong. This is a side piece that I couldn't ignore for any longer. There's gonna be a lot of angst and smut and toxic relationship obstacles and things like that. I'm thinking it will end up maybe 20-30 chapters.
As always, you can find links to the Pinterest board and Spotify playlist for this fic on my tumblr (im-immortal) or at the AO3 post. I also posted this on AO3 first before bringing it here, and my penname is the same over there.