Chapter 17 - Gentle hands

They trekked through the woods for what must have been at least a couple of hours, only coming across a few lone walkers here and there which they easily took down. Tahlia didn't question the direction they were going in, she trusted Daryl and his instinct, and figured that he would lead them to something. Progress was slow and he was starting to limp a little now, she could see that one knee was bothering him a bit.

"Hey, should we stop? You look like you're having a bit of trouble."

"I'm fine." came the terse reply.

"Ok, well you want me to..." She indicated that he could lean on her, but he shoved her roughly away.

"Naw!" he snapped.

"Ugh, you are such a martyr! It's not gonna kill you to accept some help every now and then! Anyway, you should be used to me hauling you around by now." she teased, but it wasn't received very well, and Daryl shot her a dark look and gave a grunt of displeasure.

He was pissed off about the crash, his body was aching, his head was thumping, and the last thing he felt like dealing with was Tahlia's breeziness.

"I'm fine!" His tone signaled that it was no longer up for discussion, and Tahlia shrugged, unconcerned by his mood, and followed along quietly behind him.

Eventually they spotted a hut up ahead.

"There." Daryl stopped. "Deer stalkers' hut or somethin'." He gazed up at the patches of sky he could see through the trees. "Best stop, spend the night, head off again in the mornin', try to find a car."

Tahlia nodded. "Ok. I'll go check the place out. Wait here." And she was off jogging towards the hut before he could protest.

The hut was easy to clear, it was only a simple one roomed space with a narrow bench on one side, and a rusty woodburner on the other. The floor area was mostly covered in rotting junk and upended boxes of stuff - someone had obviously camped out here for a while. The only real piece of furniture was an ancient looking 3-seater sofa in the middle of the room. No walkers were in there, just two long-dead bodies, which she dragged into the bush. She headed out to call Daryl up, and noticed that he'd managed to catch and skin a squirrel in that short amount of time.

"That's pretty impressive." she said as he approached with the animal.

He just inclined his head in brief acknowledgement as he walked right past her into the hut.

They got straight into securing the place, dragging bits and pieces of junk outside to rig up a rudimental alert system to warn them of anything approaching, gathered some wood for the fire, then headed back inside where they secured the door and single window.

Tahlia started rummaging around in a box, as Daryl started a fire in the woodburner, and set the squirrel up to roast.

"Ooh, miscellaneous food items!" She gleefully held up a couple of label-less cans and jars that she had found.

Daryl pulled another box open. "Damn and a couple of bottles of the good stuff." He brandished two big bottles of moonshine.

"Looks like a party to me!" she exclaimed.

Daryl limped to the sofa and collapsed down heavily with a big sigh.

"Ok, time to sort you out." declared Tahlia.

"Naw, I'm fine. Just need a second." He waved her away, but she ignored him, and, kneeling next to him on the sofa, set to wetting a strip of cloth, dabbing at his face and cleaning the dried blood as carefully as she could.

"Girl!" he protested, pushing at her, but she swatted his hands away, and kept cleaning.

"Shh. I'm a medical professional."

He gave an irritated huff but grudgingly let her clean him up. The gash on his forehead was still oozing, and she searched in her pack for her small first aid kit to patch him up. Wringing his hands in his lap, Daryl purposefully stared at the floor, the fire, anywhere but her. He wasn't used to anyone tending to him like this, and especially not someone like her, a girl that he wanted to caress and slap in equal measure.

She carefully moved down his body, checking his neck, chest and arms, cleaning away blood, and applying antiseptic cream to his cuts. Not bothering to ask first, she rolled up his pants leg to expose his injured knee, and applied arnica cream before wrapping it securely, then did the same for his ankle, just in case. Dragging an old crate over she indicated that he should elevate his leg, then shoved a couple of anti-inflammatories in his hand along with a bottle of water.

"Ok!" she said brightly, sitting back next to him. "You're good as new."

Daryl surveyed her critically. "You're still a damn mess."

Roughly, he snatched her cloth, and swiped at the dried blood on her face, nearly toppling her off the couch. She laughed and grabbed it back from him, moving to sit on the floor.

"Get off, ham-hands! You'd make a terrible nurse. I'll do it myself." As she gave herself the same treatment of cleaning up blood and applying cream to any deeper scratches that she could see on her body, her fingers traced over the criss cross of cuts just above her left collarbone. "Ow." she muttered to herself, flinching.

"What's up?"

"Think I still got some glass in there." she said distractedly as she tipped her head back, focusing on searching with her fingertips for embedded glass.

"C'mere. Ya can't even see what you're lookin' at. Lemme see."

Tahlia narrowed her eyes at him in mistrust. "No. You're too rough."

Daryl rolled his eyes and leaned forward, catching her wrist and dragging her closer to him. "Don't be a baby." he said gruffly. "Kneel down here."

She eyed him warily, but followed his instruction and moved to kneel on the floor between his knees, while Daryl rummaged in her first aid kit and found a pair of tweezers and some cloth to blot her oozing wounds. Leaning forward he held her gaze for a long second, before gently tilting her chin up and to the side. That hand then traced down her neck to her shoulder, brushing stray strands of hair out of the way.

"Uh, I just gotta..." he trailed off awkwardly, then tucked a thumb under the strap of her tank top and bra, slowly sliding it off her shoulder to move the clothing clear of the wound. Tahlia didn't have enough wits about her to make a smart comment, instead she was reeling from the warmth of his hands on her skin and his incredibly gentle touch, the opposite to what she had been expecting, and had to rest her forearms on his knees to steady herself as he clenched his thighs around her waist to do the same.

Raising the tweezers in his right hand, he laid his left across the top of her chest to catch any blood with the cloth and hold the skin taut. He was acutely aware of the swell of her breast and the thrum of her heart under his forearm and was doing all he could to concentrate on the task at hand.

"Oh yeah, ya got a few shards still in there."

Slowly and deliberately, the tip of his tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration, his hair hanging in his eyes, he worked his way across the wound, pinching out a couple of tiny pieces of glass with the tweezers. As he leaned in closer to her, Tahlia could feel his raw, masculine energy engulfing her and it was making her legs tremble. Gritting her teeth to bring herself back to her senses, she wondered how a simple task could have turned so sensual.

Mistaking the clench of her jaw for pain, Daryl pulled back a little, stroking the tips of his fingers down her neck, making her gasp.

"Sorry!" he breathed, his blue eyes wide and concerned. "I hurt ya?"

"No." said Tahlia, almost confused. "Not at all."

Their eyes locked, their faces so close that they shared a breath, then something crackled between them in that instant, and Daryl quickly averted his gaze.

He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Uh, there's one more." He tipped her chin away from him again, firmer this time.

"Check it out!" he sounded impressed as he held a long thin shard of glass in front of her face. "S'a good one."

Brusquely, he cleaned the area and slapped a bandage over top, quickly sitting back against the sofa as soon as he was finished, as if the distance would dispel the heat between them.

"All done." he told her gruffly, not happy about the confusing situation he had found himself in.

"Thanks. So you can be gentle when you want to be." Tahlia noted with amusement, trying to level things out again and bring them back from whatever that was.

She then smacked his knee and gave him a quick horsebite, causing him to growl at her as his leg jerked, and she bit back her smile as she exclaimed, "We are so lucky to have just walked away from that crash back there. Damned lucky!"

Grateful that she didn't let awkwardness dwell, he thought about her comment. She was right, they were lucky to escape that with only minor injuries. That could've been a hell of a lot worse.

"Might as well have a drink to celebrate then." he shrugged. "Got nothin' else to do tonight but wait." He popped open one of the bottles of moonshine and took a long swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before offering the bottle to Tahlia.

She had a drink and crinkled her nose. "Ooh! Now that's the shit that puts hairs on your chest." She jumped up and started sorting out some dinner. Daryl just kept drinking, hoping the alcohol would burn away some of these feelings that were slicing at him.

A while later after they'd eaten, Daryl finished off the first bottle of moonshine, feeling the heat spreading in his belly and the fuzziness in his head from the alcohol, not helping his already pounding headache. He'd already drank too much, he knew that, but couldn't stop himself. That familiar feeling of irritability swirled in his chest. He was an irascible drunk, just like his dad. A fact that he hated, and maddened him even more. He glared at Tahlia, who was sifting around through the junk in the hut, seeing if there was anything useful. She was banging bits and pieces around, making comments and interested noises to herself as she held up items and inspected them.

Fuck, she was annoying.

But also, annoyingly likeable.

And hot. Really fucking hot, and that lusty throb that he hadn't felt for a long time would start to pulsate deep in his belly if he let himself think about her like that for too long.

But his attraction to her wasn't the issue. That was something that he could easily push aside, compartmentalise.

The real issue was that he didn't want to care about her, to like her, to be her friend. Didn't want her to take up residence at the forefront of his mind like it was where she belonged. Hell, he didn't want anyone to do that, ever. Didn't want anyone to open up a secret cavern inside him like an Aladdin's cave with glittering emotions, each one bigger and brighter and harder to ignore than the last.

Least of all HER.

A girl who would have spun worlds above him before; a girl who had money and status and not a care in the world or a fucking clue about what life was really like. How hard it could be. What it could throw up to drag you down.

He had been actively trying not to let any of those things happen, yet they were happening, and he didn't know how to stop it. And even more perplexing – there was a part of him that thought maybe he didn't want to stop it. When he was around her (and that seemed to be a hell of a lot lately, like he gravitated to her) it was getting harder and harder to maintain any kind of dislike for her, to keep the smile from his face at her stupid jokes and general cuteness. He found himself being gentle and caring and interested and actually enjoying her pain-in-the-ass company.

Not to mention the fiercely protective feeling that flared for her. That desire to keep her safe. Which she didn't even fucking need from him because she'd proven that she could easily handle life on her own.

And as if all that wasn't enough for him to get his head around, there was that buzzing, wired way he felt when he held her. Like he was all turned inside out. Like magma was running through his veins bubbling and melting him into a twisted mess. He had never felt all of this for anyone before, this whole, huge spectrum of emotions. Didn't know he was even capable of it.

But the really fucking grating bit was that this was so new and different and consuming for him, but for her, this was just another friendship.

This is what she did – befriended people, forged connections, shone her fucking light. She was this way with everyone. Everyone got this beautiful, funny, caring side of her. He wasn't special, different. Just another piece in her extensive collection of relationships to place on her mantelpiece, gathering dust. Just an idiot for letting himself believe for a second that she might feel something more with him that she didn't have with everyone else - not desire or love or anything like that, of course, he wasn't stupid enough to think that a girl like her could ever feel anything like that for a guy like him - even though she'd spouted all that crap about how she thought he was better, more, than what he knew he really was; that she could see all this good in him which he fucking well knew was not really there.

And although those things she said weren't true, couldn't be true - because never in his nearly four decades had he ever heard anything like that from anyone before - beneath all the strangling discomfort and disbelief at her words, something resonated, rang out.

Like a single ding of a bell in an empty cathedral in the dead of night, a sound clear and pure and small at first that rings and echoes and burgeons to fill the whole space all the way to the roof through the darkness.

Fucksake she had him in fucking knots and she didn't even have a clue. He was so sick of her shit, he just wanted to blow his fucking fuse and pick a fight with her and find a way to hurt her with something, anything. Knock her feet out from under her and bring her down, down into the dirt where he'd lived his whole life.

And had he not been so drunk he probably would have just held his tongue and kept all the anger inside until he sobered up and it drained away, but his ability to do that had disappeared along with the last mouthful of moonshine in that bottle.

A/N: Sorry, I know this set up is similar to Beth and Daryl's moonshine/cabin scene, but I needed Daryl and Tahlia to be somewhere isolated where neither of them could leave, and I needed Daryl to get drunk enough to get angry, and this was the only way that fitted into this part of the story.