Chapter 32: 'cause I don't shine if you don't shine

There's a storm.

There's something about Sundays. There really is. An electric quality to the air; not just the lightning itself but a kind of potential for more. He obviously can't drive up to the house; he parks by the side of the road a quarter mile away and walks. It's not raining yet but it will be, and it'll be bad: lightning is nearly constant on the horizon, jagged veins of it spidering down toward the ground, thunder cracking minutes after. It might come in the next few hours, if it's rolling fast enough. Probably is.

He watches it as he walks through the dark, half hypnotized. Something about Sundays. Rain. Something about rain and her. Water. There's a theme going on that he can't quite pinpoint the sense of.

He wants to dive into her.

The house is dark when he walks up the drive, boots crunching softly over the gravel. She didn't need to tell him where to go, and she didn't need to explain; he heads around the side of the house to where he knows her bedroom window is and surveys the trellis, or what he can see of it in the dark.

It clearly supports her weight, but she's small. Light. He imagines all of this coming out when he's discovered with a head injury and part of the Greene's house fallen on him, and he indulges in some silent laughter.

That unsteady feeling that he's been dipping into and out of has returned to him. The feeling that he'd like to do something very stupid.

He already is.

He takes hold of the trellis and begins to climb.

It creaks, protests, but it must be of extremely superior construction, because it holds his weight just fine. Moving deliberately, he makes his way up, and it hits him all over again, what an incredible cliché this all is. Creeping up to her bedroom window in the dead of night for...

You know, he's not sure. Anyone else would assume - and he would assume, with just about anyone else - that she's called him here because she's ready. But this is Beth Greene. Assumptions aren't such a wise thing when it comes to her. And if it's about being ready, he thinks the truck bed or the field or the swimming hole would do just fine. Sure, she wanted to wait, but she doesn't strike him as the kind of girl to have these romantic fairytale ideas of how her First Time might be. Rose petals and a big frilly fucking bed or whatever. She seems entirely too pragmatic. Too realistic about everything.

And in fact, he thinks under the stars is more her style.

So this is probably more complicated than it appears.

Well, okay. Sure. By this point he's almost used to complicated.

There's no light through her curtains but he raps softly on the glass and waits. And a few seconds of irrational panic where he's positive he's wrong about which window is hers are thankfully relieved when the curtains are drawn aside and the window opens, and she pokes her head out and smiles at him.

"Get in here. I don't gotta tell you to be quiet."

He climbs in. It's not that hard and he does manage to be pretty quiet, but all at once he feels very big and very clumsy, and very likely to do something to blow this whole thing wide open. It comes home fully, as he finds his feet and just stands there for a few seconds, how fucking dangerous this is. The barn is one thing, but if he's discovered here there's really no way he'll be able to explain it as anything other than exactly what it is.

And while he's mulling this over and wondering just how freaked out he should be, she turns her bedside lamp on and he sees her room. Looks around, and for the moment forgets everything else.

He's not sure what he expected. He supposes he didn't really expect anything. Certainly not a stereotypical teenage girl's room with lots of posters of pouty guys everywhere. Certainly nothing like those vaguely creepy overly juvenile versions of the same that he's seen once or twice in movies from that barely legal genre of porn Merle has gotten his hands on. No: this room is, like her, practical. Pretty. The are actually two large windows, and he can tell that when the daylight comes in it must be bright and airy. She has a sizable bookshelf piled with stuff; he scans the titles and sees novels, some books on music - a lot of books on music - a couple of other books on their sides which he can identify as poetry. Knickknacks on it and on the dresser opposite - little crystal items, a couple of snow globes, the kind of useless souvenir statuettes that he's aware people pick up on vacations.

Horses - a fair number of the things are horse-related. A couple of the pictures on the walls - in addition to family photos - are paintings of horses. In this respect she does seem to fit at least one stereotype. A gentle stereotype. She's a farm girl. Of course she would.

A wooden tree on her dresser, branches hung with bracelets, bangles, wrist cuffs. A bewildering number and variety.

Her bed.

He saves this for last and he stares at it for what might be sort of a creepy length of time, but he's just trying to process it. That he's here. That she sleeps in it - it's not even about sex, he realizes. He looks at it and he feels no particular heat, at least not right now. It's simple, bedspread covered with something blue and green and white that has the look of being either knitted as a gift or some kind of passed-through-the-family thing.

This is a place that's fully hers, just hers, and the bed is the center of that. Since he met her what now feels like years ago, he's gotten close to her in more ways than he knew was possible, but he feels like this is actually the closest he's ever gotten.

Except for that night. The night when they went into the water, when he kissed the scar on her wrist and she held him.

"Daryl?"

He almost jumps. He had nearly forgotten she was there at all. She's standing beside and behind him in an oversized and worn pink Disney World t-shirt and pajama pants made of something fuzzy, and she's smiling this odd little smile - and after a second or two he figures out what's up with it.

She's nervous. She's nervous for the same reason he stared for so long at her bed. This is her place. She's let him in. Different from the ruins and the swimming hole; she was sure he would like those, absolutely confident. But this... This is just different. He doesn't know how to fully explain it even to himself.

"Hey."

"I just wanted to see you," she says softly. "And you've never been here. So."

He nods. Both true things. The latter he can speak to directly; the former he trusts.

"It's." He clears his throat. "'s nice."

"Nice," she echoes, still soft, and now the smile pulling at her lips is less nervous and more amused. "Alright."

Somehow the ease with her he had almost begun to take for granted has half lifted, and he feels awkward again. Devoid of any guidance regarding what he should do, he turns to the bookshelf and moves over to it, examines its contents more closely. A lot of the stuff there frankly looks cheap, doesn't even look like she cares all that much about it, the way it's scattered around, but there's a carved wooden bear that catches his eye. It's on all fours and its head is turned as if it heard something, as if it's about to rear - not so much a vicious or a dangerous or even an alarmed stance so much as a merely curious one.

The wood is dark and glossy, and on impulse he picks it up.

"Got that at Yellowstone," she says at his elbow. He isn't startled, though he hadn't realized she had closed in on him again. "Last year, actually."

He glances at her. "You been to Yellowstone?"

"Ain't that what I just said?" Her tone is gently teasing. "Yeah, just for a week. You ever been there?"

He shakes his head, looking down at the bear again. It feels good in his hand. Real, somehow. "I never been outta Georgia."

"Oh," she says quietly.

He's suddenly worried that he's made this even weirder than it was, and he's going to put the bear back in its place when his hand unbalances one of the snowglobes. It doesn't fall - thank Christ - but it dislodges one of the more precariously placed books, which does. But reflex takes over and he half crouches, catches it in one hand. When he straightens up her smile is wide and pleased.

"Nice."

He rolls a shoulder, gives her a tiny half smile, looks down at the book.

House of Light.

"That's one of my favorites," she says, and takes it from him. "You like poetry?"

He shrugs again. He's not sure where this conversation is going. Then again, he's not sure where it came from. It's just sort of there. "Don't really know any."

"There's this one in here." She has the book open, thumbing through the pages. "It's just... Here."

Her voice drops even further as she starts to read, and it hits him out of nowhere how it's almost like hearing her sing - smooth and clear and musical. It grabs him the same way, holds him in place. He's not clear on what's happening, but he can't not listen.

So he listens.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Her voice lets the last word go and then except for the thunder rolling outside it's simply quiet, hanging in the air, and he has no idea what to do with it. He has no idea what it's made him feel.

Only that it's like her singing.

"I read it after I..." She glances down at her wrist, and he realizes suddenly that she's not wearing anything there. It's bare. Naked. "After. That last part. It was like." She closes the book and lets out a breath, looks up at him. "It meant a lot. It means a lot."

He nods slowly. He can see it. It's very, very clear.

"Anyway." She reaches past him and quickly slides the book onto what seems like a random shelf, and a bit of a flush has come into her face. Her eyes aren't quite meeting his. She's embarrassed, at least a little, and he doesn't understand why, until abruptly he does.

Another piece of herself. This one maybe a little harder to share, because it's here. It's not out there. It's not growing wild.

Even if the words are.

He catches her wrist - her bare wrist - and holds it gently, his thumb against its inside. He can feel the soft flutter of her pulse. "I like it."

It's almost a whisper, and he means it.

She looks down at her wrist and his hand and his fingers for a little bit. She doesn't try to pull away. She looks like she's thinking, thinking hard.

Finally she gives him another smile - not so much with her mouth as with her eyes. Her expression is saying something very much like thank you.

And she gives him a tug with that grip, leads him toward her bed.

She moves backward until the backs of her knees hit its edge and she sits, almost falls, staring up at him with that wide-eyed gaze. As has been the case since he got in here, he's not sure what exactly is going on here, what exactly she wants, but she clearly wants something, and he slides a hand into her hair, both hands, and she tips her head back, her eyes fluttering closed and her lips parted.

They stay like that for a moment. Hot need is coiling low in his belly, smoldering deep red. Glowing, but it's with her light. Whatever she wants. Anything she wants.

"I don't wanna do this here," she whispers, and he's not in the least surprised. Already sensed this wasn't quite right. She leans in, her forehead almost against him. "Just... Just come kiss me."

Everything in him flexes. Jumps. How she says that, it's like she's saying Fuck me, I need you, I need you so bad.

Hands still in her hair, he pushes her back and down, knee on the bed and lifting himself over her, angling his head down to catch her mouth with his. This is so fucking dangerous.

And he loves that.

Her bed is just big enough for the two of them and he crawls fully on top of her, kissing her slow and deep and hard, and her hands slide up his back as a soft little moan shivers out of her - makes him shiver too, and he's sure she can feel that, his shaky breath at the corner of her mouth, her cheek as he drags a kiss across her face. Her gorgeous face, God - no, she's not a goddess, but he thinks about worshipping her, hands on her waist, moving her how he wants her. Finding her hips and turning her, straightening them both and laying her against the pillows.

Like that for a while. Drawing those amazing sounds out of her, those moans, needy sighs, groans she's desperately trying to suppress but which he can tell might turn into low cries given the right context and the right things being done to her. Someday, he thinks a little hectically. Sometime, fuck, he's going to make her cry out that way. He's going to give her that. Here in her bed, in this new kind of secret, he wants to, wants to so bad.

And he's so hard. Like always, making her feel it. Rocking against her, biting back his own moans. Wanting her to know it, what she's done to him. What she does. How hot she makes him. How he burns.

"Daryl," she breathes against his mouth. He echoes something that might be her name. Always her name. Always comes back to that. And her bed, fuck, doing this in her bed. Soft, giving under their weight. Just the quietest squeak of springs. He couldn't fuck her here anyway. No way they could be quiet enough. Someone would hear.

Doesn't matter. As usual this is totally melting his brain. Her hands pushing up under his shirt, fingertips trailing against his sides, sending jumping little shivers into his muscles.

"Fuck, Beth." Trying so hard to be quiet. So hard.

And she takes his hand before he realizes what she's doing, lays it over her breast. Cupping herself with his palm.

He freezes, pulls back, stares down at her. Wondering if it was an accident, if she didn't mean to. She's ground herself against him until she's almost come, until he almost has, but this is something they haven't yet done, and all at once it feels like so much. That first fantasy, stroking her nipples with his thumbs. Getting them hard. Trailing his mouth down, closing his lips over one, sucking gently.

She's gazing up at him with a mischievous smile pulling at her mouth.

She's not wearing a bra.

"It's okay," she whispers, leaning up and kissing his throat. Up to the skin beneath his ear. "You can. I want you to."

He's still staring at her, still having trouble processing, when he presses his hand harder against her. Squeezes.

She's small. Something else he's certain Merle would scoff at. He knew that, could see it - her breasts little swells, and some people - some assholes - might call her flat-chested and find her wanting for it. But she's so good under his hand, so fucking good, and he gasps slightly as he feels it, how she fits so perfectly into his palm.

He squeezes again, careful, and when he shifts his fingers there's her nipple, already hard, a little nub under that soft fabric.

And he has to. He just does.

He moves his hand down to her waist, to the hem of her shirt, trying to ask a question without actually asking as he slips his hand under it, fingertips against her skin - so hot, hot like a goddamn fever, and she draws in a shallow breath and nods.

She feels even better like this.

It's not like his fantasies. But it is. He outlines her with his hand, his fingers, gentle and slow, making circles, and she arches under him a little, her head back, gasping. Again. He makes his way to her nipple and strokes his thumb across it, just like he wanted, and her gasps twist into his name as she shivers, almost violent - he shivers with her, rocking his hips down again. Undulating, rolling. He feels her nipple hardening even more under his touch. Feels it as it happens.

"Daryl. Oh- God."

She rocks her hips up to meet his rhythm and it's nearly unbearable.

"Christ, you're so fucking..." In her ear, lips brushing its edge as he circles her, circles her. He wonders if she can come from this alone, if that's even possible. The words are just falling out of him, no thought behind them. "You're so hot, Beth. You're burnin' up, God, just feel you. Feel that." The movement of his hips twists into more of a thrust, and fuck, he really might come. Might, and there's a stab of anxiety in the back of his mind, because how the hell would she feel about that? She grabs him when he's grinding against her, encourages him - but this would be different. She might-

But then she pushes a hand between them and closes it over him, tracing his length - or what she can feel through his jeans - and as his breath and body stutter, she shoves her face into the crook of his neck and her moan is louder than it has been. Louder than maybe it's ever been.

Her lips move. He can't hear her. But somehow he can feel the shape of the words.

You feel so good. Oh my God, you feel so good, so good.

This really isn't just kissing.

He presses his mouth against her jaw, smiling. He feels completely, delightfully insane, jittery all over. More energy than his body can contain and aching for any kind of release. Any fucking thing.

You too.

When he's finally inside her it might just kill him. Literally fucking kill him.

That would be okay.

Then something really almost does.

She shifts her hand away from his cock, withdraws a little; then he feels her pressing in again - clumsy, the angle not quite working for her, him pinning her just a bit too much. But eager. Needy.

Moving.

And he figures it out. His hand freezes on her breast.

He pulls back sharply, gasping, just enough to look down; her hand is deep beneath the waistband of her pajama pants, and he doesn't have to actually see it to know where her fingers are, what they're doing.

His eyes flick back up to her face. He's aware that he's gaping at her. Her smile is lazy. Teasing. Completely unafraid.

"Beth," he whispers, and she rolls her hips up, making a quiet noise lost somewhere between a gasp and a moan.

"I need-" A whisper even lower than his, tight. Caught in the top of her throat. "Daryl..."

He doesn't think. He practically falls toward her, fumbles at her, grabs her hips and rolls her roughly onto her side, lining himself up behind her, chest to back, arm curled around her with every muscle tense. Gripping her. He thrusts his hand back under her shirt and she whimpers, twists the sound when he pinches her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

"Keep goin'," he breathes, then: "Fuck, Beth, don't you dare fuckin' stop."

He's not the one giving this to her.

Then again, he sort of is.

She keeps going. He feels her moving, her hand falling into a rhythm, her hips rolling and her neck arched so the back of her head is pushing against his shoulder. And without meaning to, his fingers still working her nipple - both of them, slipping back and forth from one to the other - he's meeting that rhythm, cock thick and throbbing against the curve of her ass, panting against her cheek. Words raining from his lips.

Beth, Beth, ah, Beth.

He's not thinking at all. Can't. He's all impulse, some kind of completely unbound imagination. He leaves her breast and flies downward, shoves under her waistband, covers her hand, and he clenches his teeth, bites down on his lip to keep back the noise.

How she's moving. Circling her clit. So fast now.

He bites his lip again, hears a harsh little sound locked in her throat, knows she's doing the same. Blast of heat through his head, almost too much; he can't, he just can't, thrusting against her and making the bed springs squeak anyway, and oh my God, please let everyone be sound sleepers.

Please, because she's twisting her hand from under his, gripping it, pushing it in, and there's so much wet. So fucking much. So much.

He's never made a sound like this before in his fucking life.

"Daryl." Strained whisper; he can hardly hear her. "Please, I want you to-" It bleeds off into a moan. He wants to. He's stunned. He moves his fingers, feels the swollen nub of her clit, and she shivers so hard.

He's never done this. Not this. Not with anyone.

He actually doesn't think it's probably that complicated.

She had a rhythm, fast and tightly focused; he can find it. He does. Uses her own wet to slick her, circles and presses, slips into the folds low on either side, slides over her lips, and for the moment he forgets what his own body is doing, awkwardly matching this rhythm. Fast as he's going with her. Just a little desperate.

He's not even fucking her and he's never felt anything like this.

"Oh, please, Daryl." She's trying to whisper. She's clearly almost failing. He sees a flash of her teeth, sees her biting down so hard, and her lip popping free. "Please, oh my God, please, please don't stop, please-"

He doesn't stop. He shoves his other hand under her side and back under her shirt, finds her nipple and twists, and just as he does she goes rigid, forces out a sound that's almost a strangled squeak, reaches back and clutches at his hip as she starts to shudder.

He holds on. Feels like he's riding her. Every fragment of conscious thought is gone and there's just this, how she's shaking, gasping raggedly, gasping his name.

Nothing like his fantasies.

This is better.

Her shudders finally fade into trembling, her breath still coming rough, and he's still so focused on her that it sneaks up on him and grabs him, cracks his hips and his spine, and he thrusts against her one more time and frantically muffles a dangerously loud groan against her shoulder. Coming in his pants, coming like a fucking teenager, totally out of control, oh my God.

"Daryl." She sounds almost panicked, gripping his hip even tighter. Digging her fingers in. But she's pushing her hips back, rolling her ass, and he can't find it in him to be worried.

It's so good. It's so fucking good.

He comes down slow, panting like he's been running. Out of the haze that's fallen over him he realizes she is too.

"Oh my God." Woven in with her gasps, and she sounds just as stunned as he is. Trying, with whatever is left of her mind, to process. "Oh my God, my God. Oh, Daryl."

Her hair is a golden blur before his eyes, all lit warm by her lamp. His fingers are still circling her nipple, slow. Mindless.

She loosens against him. Goes limp.

After a while she turns in his arms, and he withdraws his hand. It's slick from her, sticky, and he stares at it, wondering a little. His focus is pretty narrow, but beyond it, still blurry, he sees her eyes eating up her face.

Never done this. Never.

He brings his fingers to his mouth and without a second's hesitation he takes them in and sucks at them, and he has no idea how to describe the way it tastes.

Well, he doesn't need to.

He cleans them with his lips, his tongue. She watches him, silent, and when he's done, when he's licking the last of it away - eyes closed, he wants to give this his full attention - he feels her mouth on his. Soft. Hardly even there.

"That was..." And she doesn't finish that sentence.

He curls his arms around her and tugs her in against his chest and holds her for a long time, and she lies there, boneless, her breath becoming deep and slow.

Until it's over. Too soon.

"You should go." She whispers it against his neck, her lips tickling, still burning. "It's-"

"Yeah."

But it's so hard to pull away, so hard to disentangle himself. His mouth drifts over hers, her cheeks; he kisses her brow and everything in his chest clenches and lets go, like an aftershock. A warm ripple, washing over and through him.

"You're so fuckin' amazing," he breathes, and finally gets loose from her.

But it hurts.

It hurts even more to leave her. Once he gets to his feet, going to her window, looking at the night outside - the thunder is more distant but he doesn't trust it as any kind of ending. The wind is picking up. There's still lightning. They're going to get hit. It's just a question of when.

She comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. "You're gonna get rained on."

"Maybe." He turns and combs his hands into her hair and tilts her head to meet him, speaks against her mouth. He can't stop kissing her. This might be a problem. "Worth it."

She smiles. "Definitely."

He climbs down. He's not looking up but he can feel her watching him, knows the wind is grabbing her loose hair and making it dance. He feels her eyes on him as he walks into the dark, feels them all the way down the drive. The lightning is moving in. He knows, to anyone's sight, it must look as if it's flickering him in and out of existence.

He's almost to the truck when the first fat drops fall.

He drives back, still in that haze. There's a storm and it has a rhythm, shaking through him. Rattling his core, meeting the other tremble lingering there. He got it, the satisfaction of that obsession, only it's not satisfied. He's not sure it ever will be.

All he wants is to give her that. More and more of it.

Except no. What he really wants is so much more simple. Still.

Briefly, he pulls over and gets out and stands in the rain and lets it soak him and thinks about her wet skin that Sunday morning. How terrible, how absolutely fucking right. He was completely lost then. There was never anything else he could have done. He leans his head back and opens his mouth, and even the fucking rain tastes like her.

What should he have done? What else?

All the way back, the only music is the thunder, and in his head her voice - speaking, but it's like her song. It's all like her song. It's so deep in her, he can't imagine it ever leaving her.

She brought him into it. For a time. He's sure she'll bring him back. All these secret places of hers, revealed to him bit by bit. Around her. Inside her.

These are good days.

Back in the rain he made a decision. It wasn't even about making it; he realized he already had. Hadn't been a complicated one. He's been making it over and over since she kissed him in the ruins and this all actually started seeming possible.

He's going to fight for this. That big scary future, he's going to run at it and wrestle it into submission, or he's going to let it devour him, and either way. Either way he's not letting go.

Either way it's fine, if she's waiting at the center.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Note: poem is "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver