Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This story is meant to fit into the canon events of the episode, and to explore what might have happened when the storm died down some and they nodded off to sleep before Daryl took his turn on watch where Maggie relieving him come dawn near the end of the episode.
Warnings: Spoilers for 5x10. *Contains: self-harm, reference to self-harm as a coping mechanism in both past and present tenses, adult language, adult content, deals with vague aspects of past abuse (childhood and adult), references to drug use, violence and the usual emotional baggage.
Scorch Marks (help me feel it)
"You have to let yourself feel it."
The kiss she'd gifted was like a balm. Like warm covering warm as the feel of it swept across his dirty skin. He fought the urge to twitch. To reach out and press her close. To sock her in. To make sure she was so stuck to him she'd never be able to leave as the delicate wuff of her breath prickled like gooseflesh right down the center of him.
He suppressed a shiver. Marveling distantly on how it seemed to radiate heat – like a sunburn slapped on top of a blush – lingering even when she pitched off her tippy-toes and planted her feet back onto the dirt.
You wouldn't know it, but he'd nearly lost it then. The temptation was there. Knowing she'd catch him. Knowing no matter how far things had gone to shit that she'd always be there. But he forced himself to stick it out, taking the comfort but not responding back.
He had enough sense to keep his expression blank. Using the growing, looped-out sort of dizziness that was probably masking the middle stages of heat-stroke like emotional self-preservation. Shutting it all down before it could even so much as start. Knowing that if he did. If he broke now. In front of her. All the time in the world wasn't going to be able to put him back together.
He had to do it his way.
The Dixon way.
Only, even then he managed to fuck it up somehow.
The burn of the cigarette sinking into his skin was supposed to help.
It always used to help.
He had the scars to prove it. Maybe two dozen half-moons puckers, smudge-smeared like red-littered garbage across the delicate inners of his thighs. Merle had dealt with it different. Preferring to take it out on some unsuspecting asshole at some Podunk bar in the middle of god knows where, usually with his fists and the roar of back-alley rot-gut tearing through his veins. He'd always preferred to limit the damage. Hurting the only person he'd figured truly deserved it as he littered his sorry hide with mark after mark.
But this time it didn't.
This time he broke.
It wasn't until they'd bedded down for the night - letting Rick and Abraham take the first watch as the storm started tapering off - shivering and shuddering in his skin, that he hunched his shoulders and joined her in a secluded corner.
He didn't say anything when he noticed his things had been moved, placed neatly beside hers as the shadowed-dark seemed to illuminate the pale curve of her as she stirred. Blinking tiredly up at him like she was waiting for him to say something.
But he just shook his head.
He didn't have any words. Not for this. Maybe not ever. He'd never been much good at them anyway. His thoughts had a way of getting tangled up. Always coming out lesser than he'd intended. Unable to express what he wasn't able to admit to himself, even on a good day as he eyed her through the dark of his fringe.
There was an odd humidity to the sodden chill as he stood awkwardly above her, just out of reach. Close enough to be practically gagging for it, but just far enough way to remember all the reasons why he preferred the sting of fire and the curdling heat of his own flesh giving way.
Christ. He swayed on his feet. Looming and tired, feeling the strain of just keeping himself upright now that the danger had passed as he pebbled rainwater and sweat across the musty, hard packed earth. Barely aware of the way her long legs were scissoring under the blankets, levering herself up to meet him as-
"Daryl?"
He didn't know he'd been waiting for it until it happened. Until she dipped her head and reached for him, blue eyes flashing in the dark. Tapered fingers spread, wide and eager, like somehow she could defy physics and meet his all the faster.
So instead of words, he just crowded her close, pulling her into his chest as he shuddered through it. Feeling her hands carding through his wet hair as she crooned wordlessly against his skin. Giving up on words in favor of the feeling of it as he tried to stop the bitter-salt from trickling down his cheeks.
He buried his face into the dip where her shoulder tapered into her collarbone. Flooding it with wet and probably a whole host of other things he had no business sullying her with, but she held him fast regardless. Heart beating an ill-regular tempo in the delicate cage of her ribs as a smattering of lines he'd highlighted in that stupid book he'd carted all the way from Atlanta, rose thick to the surface.
Don't hide from it.
Face it.
Control it.
Don't let it fester.
Don't let it take you back.
He was ripped from the darkening rot of his own thoughts when she squirmed out from underneath him. Nursing the sudden private hurt of it until she nudged him further into the corner. Settling herself so that it was her curling around him – protective and close – and Christ alive, he wasn't prepared for this, he didn't-
"I know you," she whispered again, echoing what she'd said before. Stroking at the curve of his cheek and scritch-scratching through the stubble with her thumb as the distant roll of thunder muted its crash across an unwatched sky. "I'll always know you."
She didn't say anything when he finally let himself go.
She didn't have to.
He fell asleep to the taste of exhausted tears and the memory of her lips on his skin. Letting her fuss over him as she rubbed some ointment he knew he didn't need across the throbbing sore that now decorated the filthy streak of his hand. Humming softly as she adjusted the blankets around them and settled in beside him. A single, thin little arm wrapped light but fierce around his middle, like by sheer force of will she could keep her promise.
He had a feeling that the wound on his hand was going to heal slowly.
But still heal all the same.
The metaphor seemed right, considering.
A/N #1: Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.