Heyy. I'm just gonna copy and paste this message into all my fics, since I don't know who will read what. Previously I stopped updating on FF and strictly posted on A03, as I found it was easier to deal with tags/series there. However I have now retired and therefore decided to transfer it all over for you. Hope you like.

I was re-reading my old fic 'this is why' and then this happened. You don't have to read that to read this, it won't confuse you at all, but if you want Beth's POV of this scene, it's in TIW.

Exhausted.

It doesn't mean what it used to. Lot of words don't mean what they used to, don't quite fit anymore. Exhausted, it's not good enough. It suited the kind of tired Rick felt when Carl was born. Suited nineteen hour shifts. Worked for how his body felt after someone got rowdy being booked, and he was tossed around. Hell, he was a skinny thing back then, he muses to himself with a smile. Wasn't so long ago really, but time? That don't really mean much no more either. No, that word- exhausted, it isn't right for this new world. For hours of walking, for days of sweat and grit, for endless killing. There's something bone deep in him lately, something so, so tired.

Death weighing him down. Regrets, what-ifs. Killed his best friend. That weighs on a man. Weighs a lot. Drags him down, hurts him everyday. When Rick falls into his bunk, he barely has the energy to sigh. His eyelids slip closed before he even pulls his boots off. Then his brow squeezes into a frown when he hears a voice, quiet and rumbling. Rick strains to hear it, to understand. Coming from the wall next to him, a little muted but... yeah, Daryl. Dismissing it for the lull of sleep, he's yanked back out by a sudden thought. Next door is Beth's cell. Daryl is in Beth's cell. Which would mean nothing, if it wasn't so late. Something in his gut knows it's not innocent.

Keeping his eyes closed, he tunes his ears in. Just to make sure everything's above board. He trusts Daryl, he does, but strangers are strangers. Beth too. Young girl, sure, but Rick's dealt with plenty of nasty teenage girls making false allegations. He's looking out for both parties.

There's a bout of silence, until Daryl's voice sounds like it's coming closer; getting louder. "You playin' girl?"

Rick tries to puzzle the wording out, trying to find a conversation of which it fits into. He tries not to immediately jump to conclusions, but he's only thinking of bad one's so far. Edging closer to the wall, he strains his hearing some more, and keeps his eyes closed to focus. There's a long bout of silence, no reply that he can hear from Beth. Despite the signs, there's no twist in his gut that feels wrong, and Rick has always relied on his gut. So he keeps waiting. There's a squeak of the bunk, as if someone shifted. Maybe they're whispering and that's why Rick can't hear.

Then suddenly he's catching words, the tail end of something. "... ain't gotta be scared."

Beth's scared? Rick sits up quietly, alert enough to press his ear right against the wall separating them. Still, there's no kick in his gut telling him move but if she's scared, she might be scared silent. He decides two more minutes of listening in, and if he's still unsure, he'll go in.

That's when he hears the moan.

It's desperate, needy, and Beth's. Without question. It stirs something in Rick's groin he hasn't felt in a very long time. Something that feels ancient and primal, an urge he doesn't indulge in anymore. Lost in a time where exhausted was adequate. Now it's there, now it's free and right now he should be pulling away. He kept tabs, he did his duty and quite clearly Beth and Daryl are a thing. Doing... things.

Things he shouldn't be listening in on.

"Please, please." Beth's voice, full of lust.

Full of things Rick forgot how to feel. Heat sweeps him from his head to his toes, itching along his skin. Feeling guilty, he palms his dully aching cock through his pants. The erotic part doesn't lie strictly in the voice being Beth's, or that it's Beth and Daryl on the other side. Beth's a pretty girl, Daryl his friend but it's more than that. It's the raw need in her voice. It's a reminder of what he used to have, how he used to feel. It entrances him, leaves him listening for more as he presses the heel of his palm against his shaft through his pants. Panting shallowly beneath his breath, his back against the wall and his left ear turned towards it.

The next sound is pure fire in his balls, a strangled kind of pleasure in it. He recognises it as the sound of a woman welcoming his thrusts. His cock, or fingers. Sometimes his tongue. He used to devote hours to curling his fingers in Lori, just for that sound. Beth's bunk squeals, like she shifted and Rick closes his eyes again to listen harder. A gasp from her, and he can picture her mouth forming into an O of pleasure. More heat curdles in his stomach, imagining what Daryl's doing to create those noises. To force them from her lips when she's clearly trying to be silent.

A low, rumbling growl penetrates the wall, followed by Beth's breathy sob. A hungry mans sound. Sounds he remembers falling from his own lips, once. Rick swallows, pressing down harder on his straining cock, fighting back the arousal. He needs to stop. Right now. He needs to lie back down and go to sleep. Sitting forward, he pulls off his boots, then starts to draw his belt out of the loops. Just undressing for bed, that's all he's doing. He repeats it in his head like a conviction, over and over. Just undressing for bed. Settling back against the wall, he hears Beth's scream. Goosebumps race across his skin and sweat breaks across his forehead.

Before he's consciously aware of it, panting into the quiet of his cell, he's shoved his hand down his boxers to squeeze himself. Teeth gritted, he tips his head back against the wall and let's out a muted groan. He has to stop. Has to let go of his cock and go to sleep. Except Beth's sobbing, that kind of noise he knows, that resonates in his dick. Next thing he's aware of, he's clenching his cock and stroking. Popping his eyes open, he glances down to see his cock head poking from the waist band of his worn boxers. Fuck, this is wrong. It's wrong, but the sounds those two are making are burning him. With memory, and a simpler life. With hot arousal he hasn't felt in a good, long while.

"God, get the fuck in here," Daryl's voice whispers through the wall, full of heat Rick feels in his gut.

Another stroke now, slower, pretending like he's planning to stop. There's no lying to himself though, he knows he can't. Beth gasps, and Rick's eyelids play him a scene, of Daryl hauling her close to his body. Are they naked? He pictures Beth's little tits from pure imagination and strokes a little harder. Pre-cum soaks his tip, and he swipes his thumb over it with a rattling gasp.

"Please," Beth begs softly.

Rick presses his ear harder to the wall, straining to hear with his eyes closing again, near desperate for Daryl's reply. What are they doing? Were they fucking? Was he fucking her with his fingers? A loose scenario is playing in Rick's head, but if he can construct a better one, then the hell he's going to for this might be worth it.

"Please what, girl? What'du want?" Daryl's voice grates back just as quietly as Beth's.

Rick squeezes the base of his cock, starving off the rush of excitement burning in his balls. His heart is thumping against his rib cage, so loud in his own ears, he has to crush his ear against the wall.

"Fuck me," Beth's next words hit him low in the gut, forcing a whine through his mouth. "Please, Daryl, please."

Rick thinks about the desperation in her voice, the times he's made women sound like that. His wife, for a long while, before it stopped. He never really noticed it at the time. It made sense later. It all did. The thought of Lori makes his hand still, even as Daryl responds with words Rick can't hear. This is too far. This needs to end now. He counts down in his head, telling himself he'll let go of his throbbing cock.

3... 2... 1... now. He doesn't move. Eyes screwed shut, chest heaving, he doesn't move.

"C-choke me." Beth's voice stutters wildly, scorching Rick's flesh. Oh, hell. "Oh God, please. I like it so much."

There's a mumble from Daryl, one Rick can't catch and he wonders what the other man said. What would Rick say, to that? He already knows, though. He's always known. Beth mewls at whatever was said, and the scene is there now, playing in his mind. He thinks from the groaning of the bunk that Daryl's on the bed with her. Maybe hovering over her, where he played his fingers through her cunt. Rick swallows, picturing her soft lower lips, a peaked clit. Heat itches his flesh, his scalp, his balls. With his hand clenching tighter, he strokes his throbbing dick from root to tip, gritting his teeth through the sweet agony.

It's been so long since he's done this, so long since he's wanted to. A wet slap and a grunt pierces him next, and the film in his head switches out with the new information. Daryl's got his cock in Beth now, balls deep in her. Rick reaches down for his own balls, fondling them as he strokes himself. God, the heat. Burning through his knee caps, the soles of his feet, his face and chest. Such a welcome feeling, such a raw feeling that makes his balls draw up. Rick doesn't want it to be over yet, so he backs down, goes slow. He's come this far in his depravity, he might as well hang on for as long as he can. Then the slap comes. Ringing through the wall, vibrating into Rick's teeth.

Loud as a gunshot.

A punch to his cock.

His orgasm squeezes his balls so hard he stops both working hands with a rattling gasp. Fuck. Panting, Rick turns to look at the wall in the darkness, peeling his eyes open. It was a hand. His, or hers, Rick doesn't know. What he does know is Beth's head is either by the wall, Daryl on top of her, or she's bent over, hands taking her weight. Swallowing, he presses his cum covered fingers to the place the sound came from, trying to pick a scene. Beth decides for him, her grunt coming with another hallow smack. She's fucking her hips back. Taking Daryl's cock, swallowing him into her cunt. Rick's hand desperately returns to his dick, squeezing hard as he strokes himself fast.

"So fuckin' tight," Daryl growls, so loud it's like he's forgotten they're meant to be being quiet.

All three of them.

Rick bites on his lip, burning alive, sweat soaking him as he fucks into his clenched fist.

"Oh my God," Beth squeaks before cutting off into pure silence.

Rick stops, gasping, his balls so tight his eyes water. Daryl groans into the silence, and Rick imagines Beth coming around the cock buried inside her, coming around his cock. He seizes himself desperately again, pumping hard and fast, breath rattling into the cell. Beth's next moan comes, so close Rick jumps as it unwinds right down his ear. Shit, here it is. Like burning lava, his cum streams from his cock head in rivers against his t-shirt, his cock twitching mercilessly. Grinding his head back against the wall, he bites so hard on his tongue he tastes blood, his hand squeezing his cock as his hips suspend off the bed. Feelings he hasn't felt in so long, pleasure he almost forgot wracking his body in a fiery blaze.

The aftershocks running through him like electric wires attached to his veins, his muscles jumping like tics. In his own silence, he frets about the noises he was making. Until he hears the wet slap of flesh next door, a man at his peak. Rick's dick gives one last painful twitch, a shudder running through him. When he can breathe properly again, there's only the sound of the bed squealing through the wall, and then silence. There's whispering that Rick can't hear. Pillow talk. He remembers that too. Feeling glassy eyed, he pulls off his t-shirt and tucks his cock away. Under his blankets, in his bunk, he fights the guilt until tomorrow. Right now he just wants the buzz in his veins to send him to sleep.

The last thing he hears from next door is, "night, Daryl."

Followed by, "night, girl."

Rick's mouth curls. He hasn't a clue how he'll deal with this, how he'll interact with them now, how he'll look at them without remembering this. Right now, he officially doesn't care.

"Night," he whispers to the silence, his own bed companion. Then just for personal kicks, he adds with a smirk, "let's do it 'gain sometime."