Chapter 35: I know there's something sacred and free reserved and received by me only

Daryl is beginning to measure his life in weeks.

He knows that's not so strange. Lots of people do that. People with regular jobs do that, and he supposes he's actually sort of one of those people at this point, which he's still dealing with in increments rather than all at once - because not everything is easy, even now. But he's pretty sure all those people aren't employing this form of measurement for the reasons he is. By this point he and Beth have established that there can stolen little moments, there can be late nights wrapped up in each other with the dark swirling all around them, but the weekends appear to be when they can really spread themselves out.

Saturday he comes to see her sing, but nothing else happens. An unspoken agreement passes between them when she meets his eyes at the beginning of her second song and he gives her a slight nod, and when she's done he leaves without speaking to her. Sunday he doesn't see her at all. Starting Monday he's thinking about Friday, and it continues like that for the entire week.

So does the rain. Monday morning it's back and harder than ever. People are starting to talk about it in musing tones; he hears them that afternoon when he passes them on the street, ducking from awning to awning and depending on the meager shelter of a newspaper, heading for the liquor store on a beer run - too close to really justify the truck, and anyway he wants to be outside, actually kind of likes the smell of all that wet. They're making low noise about flooding basements, drainage in other respects. The waterfalls into the storm drain gratings are constant.

It's a lot of rain. It's just... a lot.

Monday is another day off from the farm. That's good, even if it means he has no ready excuse to see Beth; Elmer is one of those people making grumbly noise about the rain but he's also making noise about wanting that space back because he has some stuff he can store up there, and Daryl figures it's a good day to look at some more housing possibilities. He hits another building on the opposite side of town, not much better but slightly cheaper, and in the truck he does some more math. With the purchase of the truck he's down a couple hundred dollars - no fucking way was Elmer going to get much more than that for it with the condition it's in - but this is really beginning to seem doable, and Merle has put up no more resistance, though he still appears to think the idea is stupid and unworthy of Daryl's time.

Daryl sits in the truck, listening to the rain pound on the windows and the roof and the radio's low music hum - Semisonic again, nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile and you use it only for me - and he thinks simultaneously of Beth Greene's sweet, clear voice and the sweet, hot slickness of her cunt, and there's no conflict between these two things. He wants her. He wants all of her.

He meant it: he still has no idea where this is going.

But it as well is beginning to seem like a possibility. Even if he's not sure exactly what it is that's possible.

I wanna keep goin'.

Me too.

Tuesday there's work in the barn for him to do, so he heads back out. Hershel joins him and they do whatever they do when they work together: talk a little here and there, about nothing in particular. Hershel does some outlining of the history of the farm and his family - goes back four generations including Hershel, though the house is relatively new. Off in the northwest corner of the cow pasture there's the foundation of the first house, though nothing else remains. A fire in 1895 took the rest, along with the lives of his grandfather's wife and youngest son. Three years old.

Suddenly the talk isn't so idle. Hershel seems to notice that Daryl is no longer making eye contact and gently changes the subject without asking why.

Beth comes home. She runs up the drive in the pouring rain, boots splashing through the puddles, calves and shins muddy, no umbrella, clothes clinging to her body and hair clinging in loose coils to her face and neck. She's grinning; she appears to be enjoying herself. Everything in him leaps into his throat and settles there, making breathing difficult; she still does this, she still fucking does this to him, and maybe he should get used to the possibility that it's never going to stop.

He's sitting on a bench under the shelter of the porch, smoking - she sees him and gives him the tiniest smile, only in passing, but he doesn't miss the flush that blooms in her cheeks and flows all the way to her ears and down her neck to her chest. It's wet and September is drawing to a close, but it's still warm enough that she can wear those loose, sleeveless tops she seems to like so much.

She sneaks her hand into his at dinner. Daryl doesn't blush, never has, but he feels warmth doing that same blooming thing deep inside him.

Later he's on the porch again, and Annette comes out, sits in a rocker, looks at the rain.

"You have a girlfriend, Daryl?"

He whips his head around to stare at her, the cigarette almost tumbling from between his fingers. She doesn't seem to mind his smoking in the mild way Hershel does, and she's simply regarding him with placid interest, her hands resting loosely on the arms of the chair as she pushes herself with the tip of one foot.

He's not being cool. Not at all. She's not oblivious.

"Uh." He rolls a shoulder. She's just curious, she's not suspicious. Still, now he has to lie, and he's so bad at that. Especially when he's trying to lie to people he likes. "Nah. Not really."

That's actually not so much a lie. Beth isn't his girlfriend. That isn't at all the right word for what she is.

Annette smiles at him. "Maggie's coming home for Thanksgiving. We should try to set you up with her. We're starting to be concerned about that, be honest with you."

He blinks, cigarette burning down in his grip - because it is suddenly a grip. He's squeezing it with his knuckles, making a dent in the filter. He has no idea whether or not she's kidding.

Then she laughs. "Oh, relax. I'm just teasing. We're not worried. When she called last weekend she said she met a boy, actually. Someone she really likes. He's coming home with her. Y'know, it's something," she adds after a pause, quieter, "when your children start meeting people. Getting serious. When you really start thinking about these things. You still don't see them that way. Beth had Jimmy, Maggie's had boyfriends, Shawn's had girls, but it's..."

Daryl says nothing at all, and Annette shakes her head, her gaze a little distant. "Sorry. That was kind of a weird thing to bring up out of nowhere. I was just thinking about it." She abruptly refocuses on him, arches a brow, and he can tell she's kidding again, but. "Anyway, you're a little old for Maggie, aren't you?"

He shrugs again. He doesn't smile. He doesn't think it would go very well if he tried.

More rain on Wednesday, but lighter. Softer. Beth comes home soaked again, and no one is around; Annette is napping and Hershel and Shawn have gone into town. Daryl is out in the shed where they keep some of the smaller equipment and the tools to work on them, and she corners him, gets his back up against the wall, narrowly missing a shelf full of spare engine parts, and before he can deal with what she's doing she has a hand between his legs, cupping him, kneading slowly.

"I was thinkin' about this all day," she whispers against his neck - practically purrs - and he tangles a hand in her hair and rolls himself against her palm and her name slips out in a rough, hard breath.

Not the only thing that's hard.

"I wanna touch you." She's already fumbling with his belt. He bites back a whimper and tugs at her hair, pulls her head back and stares down at her, manages to focus on her face. That flush is back, the same dancing in her eyes he saw from Friday night, and he knows he's fucked. "Can I? I haven't yet, not really, can I?"

He thought about her, that first time he really thought about fucking her at all. Thought about her being new at it, being unsure but eager, and then he decided that wasn't realistic and she would already know what she was doing, she was eighteen and she had to already be experienced in at least some areas. But he was wrong about that, and also creepy, maybe, but when the reality of it comes home to him he can't keep the whimper back anymore and he nods.

"Beth... Fuck, yeah. You can."

Not that she needs his permission. She's tugging his zipper down, slipping in, and then, fuck, the world narrows to the sensation of her hot little hand on him, fingers tracing down his shaft to the base, grazing over his balls, back up again. The whole time she's looking up at him, and when she reaches his foreskin and pushes at it her eyes widen.

"It's so smooth," she whispers, sliding it over the head and tugging him free, getting a firmer grip, and his eyes roll up and his head drops back and hits the wall with a dull thunk. It doesn't hurt at all. She giggles, sounding delighted, and strokes him again.

She's clumsy, clearly unpracticed, clearly experimenting with what will make him moan louder, pant rougher and more shallowly, and he doesn't give a fuck. Let her experiment. Let her explore. She squeezes him, rotates her wrist a little, runs a thumb up the side and the underside, and she draws in a breath when she strokes him just right and he thrusts into her fist. She reaches in again and wriggles her fingers deeper, cups his balls and weighs them in her hand, and he thinks his knees might just fucking give out completely.

His hand slips loose from her hair. He can't. He can't do anything with his hands anymore. Except brace himself against the wall, fumble at the shelf as heavy groans push themselves out of his chest, and then he can, and he gropes for her hand, guides her, moves her faster as he thrusts again and whines through his clenched teeth, tries to warn her and wonders if he should pull away and then he can't, he's spilling all over her fingers and down her hand, her wrist, shuddering and clutching at her and frantically biting the insides of his cheeks to make himself be quiet, because fuck, fuck, is that a car?

Oh my God. Oh my God, Beth. Girl, Jesus fuckin' Christ.

He looks down at her, gasping. She's released him and she's gazing at her hand, at his come coating it, sticky lines of it stretched between her fingers when she parts them.

And then she lifts her hand to her mouth and her pink tongue slips out between her lips, curiosity in her wide blue doe eyes, and she licks at one glistening fingertip. At her knuckle.

He dies.

Or he should. He should just die. It makes absolutely no sense for him to continue living after this. His heart should just stop and he should tumble to the floor, and he would be happy when he did it.

"I dunno," she says, looking speculatively at him. He stares back at her, breath harsh and jagged in his chest, utterly incoherent. "I dunno if I like it." She tilts her head and a faint smile curls her lips. "Gonna have to try it again, I guess."

He's still gaping at her, his cock hanging out of his pants, when she turns on her heel and walks out of the shed, snatching up a loose rag on her way past a pile of them and wiping off her hand.

He has no idea how long he stays there. He can't make his eyes focus. He switches from the assorted shapes of a hanging rack of tools on one wall, the faint sheen of a rusty toolbox on a dusty clamp table. Fishing rods leaning in a corner. A shop vac, bulbous with a tangle of hose like some kind of long-snouted alien. Great; now he feels like it's staring at him. It's judgmental.

Okay, that's a car. Those are car doors. Those are voices. Hershel's, and Beth - very cheerful.

Girl.

He heaves in a deep breath and shoves his cock back into his jeans, zips up, squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists and yes, he's going to be normal about this. As far as right now is concerned, what just happened did not happen. He didn't just serve as the subject for Beth Greene's first fucking handjob.

Yes, he did, and it was amazing. Later he can bask in that fact. Now he needs to go talk to her goddamn father.

She holds his hand under the table at dinner, that hot little hand in his, and it takes everything he has to not bust out laughing, and he can tell she's going through the same exact thing.

This is not only the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. He's as certain as certain can be that it's the most wonderful thing that ever will.

Thursday evening he wants to run down to the Kroger for some chips, hot dogs, more beer, and also some actual fruit, because ever since he started eating regular suppers at the farm he's been increasingly lusting after fresher things. But he's short of spare cash and he gives in, waits until Merle is sprawled out on the bed with a skin mag, kneels down and pulls the sock out and fishes out a twenty.

Then he pauses, and - just because he has it out - he thumbs through the bills, totals it all up.

And just kneels there and stares at it for a moment.

He counts it again. He counts it a third time. Stares at it some more.

He's very careful with his mental financial records. He has to be. He's hiding this thing as well as he can, but he's smart enough and realistic enough to admit to himself the very real possibility that Merle will find it and either take the entire thing or start using it as his own personal bank account, like Daryl wouldn't notice. Because he won't care. What's Daryl's is his. That's just how it works, since they were kids, until Merle took himself away and left everything terrible behind to be Daryl's completely.

That's how it works, and they both know it.

So he keeps very careful mental financial records. Every dollar in that sock is accounted for. Every fucking one. He knows where every single one went, and he knows where every single one came from.

Just to be sure - just to make absolutely fucking certain - he counts it all one more time, and he runs through his withdrawals and deposits. There aren't that many. It's not complicated. He knows he hasn't made any mistakes. He's sure.

There's a bookkeeping discrepancy of a hundred and fifty dollars.

There are a hundred and fifty dollars more than there should be.

Then the rain on Friday, harder than it's ever been. Torrential. Biblical. Fucking alarming.

As it turns out, there's a lot to be alarmed about.