Sitting up at midnight watching Family Feud and eating frozen berries...I needed to do something constructive so I decided it's time to write this next chapter!
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By the time Daryl returned from his hunt for the "missing" Carol he was covered in dirt, his pants were wet up to the thigh, boots covered in mud. Curious eyes followed him as he stormed into camp and straight toward Carol who was hanging up clothes to dry on the line. She turned around just when he got to her and she jumped in surprise when he cleared his throat loudly.
"Good grief, you scared me!" she chided, picking up the next shirt from the pile.
"I could say the same," was his ice cold reply. Carol looked at him with confusion.
"What?" she asked, clearly lost.
"I come back from hunting and you're missing," he stated simply, "Where the hell were you this whole time?"
Carol just stared at him for so long that he seriously thought maybe she was confused by the simple question. Didn't she KNOW where she had been?
"I was in the barn..." her answer was hesitant, "Andrea and I were...doing chores..."
Daryl wasn't sure why it was so hard for her to answer but he chalked it up to his sudden inquisition and shrugged.
"Just let someone know so I don't waste my time lookin for you all fuckin' day!" he growled, thinking of the river he had had to ford in his search causing him ot get soaked up tp the thigh and the time he had lost that could have been used for more useful endeavors. "I got things to do besides look for your ass when you ain't even lost."
Turning on his heel, Daryl stalked off to his campsite to work on making some more arrows for his crossbow like he had planned to do earlier in the day.
Carol watched Daryl walked off and let out a sigh of relief. When he had asked her where she had been she had been so close to admitting what had happened to ease that steely look in his eyes, but she had avoided it. But...he had been looking for her all day? That sweet, kind, sexy...
"Cool off there, Carol," Lori's voice interrupted her thoughts.
Carol felt her cheeks flair with heat and she quickly turned back to hanging up laundry. Lori was standing next to her, clipping a pair of tattered jeans on the line that Carol recognized at once as Daryl's.
"It's not so hot out today," Carol tried to blow off the comment her friend had just made.
Lori rolled her eyes.
"Carol, hon, honestly," she said with a sigh, "We all see how you look at that man. Just now you were eyeing him like a prized stallion at an auction."
Carol was really getting tired of denying it.
"Well...he IS a stud," she stated, grinning wickedly.
Lori started to laugh like crazy and had to lean over to calm down. When she looked back up Carol put on a look of fake innocence.
"Oh, Carol, I'm so glad you owned up to it finally!" Lori said, wiping away a laughter tear from her eye. "So...you two get together yet? If you get my drift?"
Carol didn't answer straight out, but she gave Lori a wink before walking off towards her tent to retrieve her bow, leaving Lori happy but wishing for more details.
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It was just starting to get dark when she returned from the traget range and Carol decided now would be a perfect time to practice her "stalker walk" as Daryl called it when he had taken her out hunting once, so she carefully snuck along and walked as softly as possible, crouching down as she got closer to the lone tent under the tree.
Daryl had his back to her when she came around the tent, he was leaned over a stick he was rubbing with the egde of his knife to removed the bark and he was humming quietly as he worked, oblivious to her approach. She smiled and continued toward him in silence. When she got closer she hesitated to see how long it would take him to notice her presence and she almost giggled when he began to sing instead of hum.
"Stick your right hand out, give a frim handshake..." Daryl's soft voice barely reached her ears and she smiled at the soft sound. She had forgotten how nice his singing voice was.
He stopped singing for a moment to raise the stick and examine it, then leaned back over to continue scraping and singing.
"Stroke me, stroke me," his voice was only a little louder this time, but his head and shoulders bobbed to a silent beat in his mind. "Could be a winner boy, you move mighty well. Stroke me, stroke me..."
Carol couldn't resist, it was too ideal a moment to pass up. She covered the small amount of space left between them and slipped her arm around him from behind, her hand slid unhesitantly between his legs and grabbed him firmly.
"With pleasure," she whispered in his ear as he tensed up in surprise, hinting at the lyrics he had just sung.
Daryl's chest vibrated with the deep chuckle he released at her words and Carol slid her hand slowly against the warm, slightly twitching lump beneath it.
"Are you still angry with me for wandering off?" Carol asked, honestly. She flicked her tongue out and ran it along the edge of his ear, loving the shiver that resulted under her touch.
"I'm pissed," Daryl's voice was slightly strained and Carol wondered if he was going to tell her to leave. "And don't think I don't know exactly what you and Andrea were doing in that barn."
Carol was a bit surprised by that and she immediately withdrew her hand and moved to kneel next to him, looking up at him in embarressment.
"Are you...mad?" she asked hesitantly.
Daryl sighed and turned to face her, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning down till his chest pressed against the back of his crossed arms, his eyes locked with hers.
"Why do ya think I'm always mad at ya?" he asked quietly.
Carol didn't really know what to say. She hadn't really though about it. Maybe it was just that he always did seem angry or annoyed or bothered and she felt responsible for a lot of it.
"Well, you have that...vibe," she admitted. It was all she could think to say.
Daryl leaned back again, rubbing his hand down his face. His eyes closed tight and he didn't say anything else for a long time.
"I'm sorry," he finally whispered, so soft that Carol barely heard it.
Carol's heart squeezed with sympathy and she immediately got up onto her knees and got between his, placing her hands on his forearms as she leaned into him, pressing her head into his chest. She rubbed her nose into his shirt and pressed kisses into his chest as she gazed up him, eyes soft.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," she said, "I wouldn't want you any other way that your grouchy, harsh, brooding self. I'm sure you have your reasons."
He didn't look convinced so she went back to her original tactic and ran her hand slowly up his thigh, but he grabbed her wrist and stopped her advance.
"Come 'ere," he said quietly, pulling her to her feet as he stood. Carol followed without resistance as he led her to the tent and crouched down to go inside. Once in, Carol realized how dark it had gotten in the short time she had been back and she went to light the lamp but Daryl's arm slipped around her waist and she felt herself being pulled down. She relaxed into the pull and laid down quietly and she felt Daryl lay down behind her, his arm still around her middle.
Then she heard a click and the glow of a battery run lanter softly lit up the darkness of the tent. She wiggled a little and turned over to face the man beside her.
"What's on your mind, Daryl?" she asked with some concern, seeing the look on his face. He seemed...conflicted.
"Do you really want to know about these?" Daryl stretched the collar of his shirt down, revealing the thick line fo scar tissue under his collarbone. "Because I'll tell you...but you might not want to hear these stories. They ain't pretty."
Carol took in the serious feeling of this moment. Daryl's protective walls were crashing down right before her eyes, something she never dreamed he would do for her. He was risking a lot with this and she felt a surge of admiration flood her heart. He was more brave than she had thought before.
"I want to know everything there is to know about you, Daryl Dixon," she replied softly, her eyes locked with his. "The good, the bad...the ugly."
Daryl nodded and sat up, peeling the shirt off of his torso and tossing it to the side. Carol's eyes once again scanned the farmer tanned skin of the man she had somehow had the great fortune to attract. Every twitching muscle, every pink or silvery line, every inch was perfect in her eyes, perfect in his imperfection. And when he kicked off his cargo pants, revealing scars she hadn't noticed before, she had to force herself not to jump him.
"Where do you want me to start?" he asked quietly, shifting nervously. He looked terrified.
Carol eyed the scar beneath his collarbone that always popped out at her. She reached out and ran her fingertips along the short length of it. It was an angry pink color, not faded silver like many of the others...it was more recent.
"Merle," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, "Just before the group found us in the quarry. He was all hopped up on some drug or other, something hallucinogenic I suppose. Well...we got into an argument and he grabbed my buck knife off me and...stuck it in."
Carol gasped.
"How deep?" she asked.
Daryl didn't say anything in reply, just turned around and reached over his shoulder to run his fingers along a similar, yet smaller scar just next to his armpit. Carol felt her stomach turn at the image of Daryl kneeling in the dirt, buck knife sticking through his shoulder and out the other side and dripping red.
"Oh my God," she whispered. Daryl turned back around and Carol saw that he'd rather not dwell on it, nor did he want her sympathy, just her understanding. So Carol moved her fingers down to the particularly jagged and long scar above his hip she had seen the other night. "What about this one?"
Daryl took a deep breath and didn't answer right away, he seemed to be thinking.
"I was eight," he finally said, his voice was trimmed with bitterness. "Something you should know is...my pa was a worthless bastard. Always drinking, probably on a lot of the stuff Merle is...I mean was. He beat my ass more times than I can remember for things like making too much noise or leaving my jacket hung on a chair or coming back from hunting after dark, shit like that."
Carol nodded, knowing exactly how it was to be beat for nothing.
"Well when I was eight, I came inside after playing in the woods and I was filthy as hell, covered in dirt. When Pa saw me he went particularly crazy. Looking back, he was stinkin' drunk and high to boot...every time I take a drink of whiskey, the smell reminds me of his breath. Well, he grabbed me by the arm and literally dragged me into the bathroom and apparently I couldn't get out of my dirty clothes fast enough for him because he grabbed his hunting knife and started getting them off that way. Of course I was freaking out, trying to keep away from the blade so I tried to step back from him...which was the worst mistake I could have made. He hollered something about being a stubborn little bitch and decided to save two seconds by cutting off the leg of my jeans I hadn't stepped out of yet. He just dug the knife into my hip, just under my belt and managed to make it around and nearly into my crotch before Merle came in and pulled him off."
Carol then noticed for the first time how dangerously close the scar was to Daryl's manhood and she shook her head as she traced her fingers to the very end of it, merely inches lay between the two.
But she got no reaction and she wasn't surprised, Daryl's mind wasn't on her hands at the moment.
"This one?" she asked again, her hand moved to a circular scar on the inside of his thigh.
"Bite mark." Daryl replied, blushing slightly when Carol looked at him with her eyebrows cocked. "One of Merle's bright ideas. Merle hired her but I freaked out before she could even get started and Merle said we wouldn't pay her if she hadn't done nothin'...so she tried again and I told her I didn't want her to and she freaking bit me. I'm just glad she didn't bite somewhere else...ya know?"
Carol giggled at that story, it was lighthearted and amusing unlike the others had been. But then she had him turn and she eyed the multipe criss crossed lines on the entire expanse of his back.
"Are these from a...?" she didn't want to believe her eyes.
"Yes." Daryl's simple reply made her heart break and she felt tears well up in her eyes already.
"Who?"
"My pa and Merle weren't the only messed up fucks in the Dixon family," Daryl said bitterly, "My ma had some serious mental problem she had been diagnosed with when she was young. She worked hard as she grew up to conquer it but my pa's drinking and abuse made her fall back worse than she had ever been. She would be fine and happy one second and then..."
Carol waited in silence for him to continue.
"She had this...one particular fallback fetish. When she had a particularly bad episode she would go down to the basement and pull out this homemade, thin leather strapped whip pa had originally used on our goats when we had them. It started out as a self-inflicted pain thing, like how kids cut their wrists nowdays, but one afternoon I was stupid enough to go down there looking for her because pa wanted her to start cooking dinner."
Carol knew where this was headed and she almost wanted to stop him...but she knew he needed to confide in her so she let him continue, even though it was breaking her heart.
"When I told her pa had sent me to get her, she looked at me like I was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen and grabbed me by the wrist and kicked me until I curled up on the floor...then she decided she'd rather take out her emotional pain on someone else and whipped me raw. Then she straightened her dress, pulled her hair back into a pony tail and walked back up the stairs to start dinner like nothing had just happened. And that wasn't the last time I found myself dragged down into that basement."
Daryl's stories continued for quite awhile, Carol wanted to know every scar by experience. Some were normal, like the ones he got from hunting (Carol's favorite was the four jagged lines across his left scapula from a bobcat that attacked him and the bright, new scar where the arrow had pierced his side on his hunt for Sophia) but others were connected to childhood stories of abuse. Carol's tears were falling freely when he finally told the last story.
"Hey now," Daryl whispered, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. "Don't do that."
"It's...it's not fair," Carol whispered, "Parents are suppose to protect their kids and love them no matter what."
"I know," Daryl agreed, "And, no, my parents didn't...but it doesn't matter anymore."
"Because I love you, right?" Carol ventured to ask. Immediately she shut her mouth and looked down in shame. Damn it, she had just thrown out that taboo word that had the ability to scare the shit out of grown men. But she felt Daryl's finger under her chin and her tipped her face up, making her meet his eyes.
"You do?" he asked quietly, his cobalt eyes were boring into hers searching for the hint of deception he must have always seen before.
Carol met his stare without flinching or blinking, wanting to convey how seriously she meant it. Daryl's gaze finally changed as a small half-smile graced his hard features.
"Then, yes...because you love me."
And Carol could have melted into a puddle when he pulled her into a kiss so full of passion and relief that he took her breath away. He didn't move the kiss to anything else, but simply held onto her when he broke it. Gently, he laid her down and spooned up behind her as close as physics allowed, his breath tickled the back of her neck as he breathed and she savored the feel of his chest moving against her back, his fingers twisting in her hair with one hand while the others intertwined with hers.
Carol felt peace spread over her like she hadn't felt in years and sleep began to creep into her body, making her brain fuzzy and her eyes heavy. But just before she faded into the hands of sleep, Daryl's voice cut through the haze.
"I love you too, ya know."
Aaaaaaannnnnddd, it's 3 A.M. now. Time for bed! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Let me know :D
More to come soon!