Chapter 49: the stars are blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun

There have been full moons since he got here. There have. That's how physics works; also time. But he can't recall seeing any others, and maybe it's just because this one is bright enough to blot out almost everything else. Bright enough to obscure a lot of the stars. Halfway to the ruins - sure, it's not safe, but he hasn't seen another car in about two hours and he's feeling impulsive - he cuts off the headlights and they coast through the silvery dark. The engine is still running, obviously, but without the headlights the night flows in through the windows and wraps itself around them, and it muffles everything except the wind.

Not that they're making a lot of noise anyway. The radio is off. They aren't speaking. The silence is still comfortable, but there's a deeper quality to it that hasn't been there much before. Something like a held breath.

The fields blur past and the trees creep toward the edge of the road, and at last they reach the turnoff. And even here, bumping over the gravel, the sounds remain muffled. With less speed the wind has died down to a breeze, and now there seem to be mockingbirds everywhere, all around the car, maybe following them. Floating from branch to branch, running through their repertoire with wild enthusiasm. Trills and squeaks and low whistles, laughter, little sighs.

"I love mockingbirds," Beth says softly. She's gazing out the window and toward the last visible edge of the meadow on their right, her elbow up on the edge and her hand combed into her hair. Her face is pale in the moonlight, but it doesn't look bloodless.

She looks profoundly alive.

"How come?"

"They don't have one song. They're always singin' somethin' different." She shoots him a quick smile. "They do covers."

He doesn't respond, but he can feel her looking at him again, and after a minute or two, as they turn into the deeper woods, he feels her hand sliding across his thigh, squeezing lightly. Small and warm, and the heat she sends surging through him is about wanting her... and also not.

There's that wildness in him, same as the night before - and the kind it seems like he finds whenever he comes into these woods. Wildness coming into him not from anything outside but from somewhere buried deep that not even days upon days of hunting the animal back into himself has uncovered.

He wants to run with her. Grab her hand, run back with her into that silvery meadow, run and run under the moon until they fall down gasping.

But that's not where she said she wanted to go.

It seems like a long time later when they finally reach the top of the slope and park in the deep shadows.

Beth pushes the door open and hops out, taking the blankets with her. He follows her, standing for a moment and breathing in the cooler, moister air drifting up to them from the creek, listening to the mockingbirds hurl songs at each other, congratulate and heckle, returning the rustling of the leaves with the sounds of their own wings. He's lost enough in it that he doesn't realize Beth is close until she's right there at his side, touching his arm.

"You wanna go?"

"I." He pauses, clears his throat. It's been a while since he really felt awkward around her - or it feels like a while - but he does now. A little. "I guess. Yeah."

"Okay." She takes his hand and threads their fingers together, and the moonlight catches her smile just before she turns away and begins to lead him toward the slope's edge.

The mud has long since dried and the going isn't particularly tricky. She goes down first, handing him the blankets before she begins her slow, controlled slide, the scuffing of her boots and the rattle of the pebbles she's dislodging carrying into the trees. He goes down after her, skidding a bit when he reaches the bottom, and looks up at the broken stone walls and low towers - not so low now. The moon is still casting everything in silver, but somehow the stone appears almost crystalline, cloudy but semi-transparent around the edges. That can't be, but every time he's been here alone the same kind of rule-suspension has been in play.

He steps forward into the thick grass, carrying the blankets, and when he glances back at her she's watching him, small and delicate, strands of hair falling all around her face, and while she's motionless she looks like she might leap off into the trees at any time. Run into the dark like the deer he always thinks of when he looks at her.

Almost always. Because he's seen how she might hunt if she was inclined to do so.

"Where to?"

His voice is low, barely rising above the chuckling of the creek. He feels the need to speak quietly, like he did before. She smiles again and pushes up on her toes and kisses him, soft and quick.

"You know."

He supposes he does.

Across the remains of the old garden path and through the arched doorway, and inside the mill's wide open interior the moon pours itself across the grass and the walls sparkle gently with flecks of mica. He can still hear the mockingbirds but they're more distant now, and it's just the leaves, the creek, and their own almost silent movements as they walk. She's right, he already knows: he knows where she's going to stop and she does, halting in the center and tipping her head back.

The moon is almost directly overhead, and it smooths out every part of her except her cut, the only thing marring her, and it isn't even a fault. It's a single vein of darkness in white quartz. She looks unreal. Literally unreal. He stares at her, blankets forgotten in his arms, and everything else fades into total unimportance.

It occurred to him, some time ago, that he's never going to have these moments again. These are the things you know in an ambient, background kind of way: you move through life in a linear fashion, you get older every year, at some point you die, and if you're lucky you carry some good memories around with you but memories are all you have in the end. You never get back the things you live through. As soon as you have them you lose them forever.

He never really knew what it was to feel old until he met her.

It's not actually so bad.

She lowers her head and turns, extends a hand to him, and he goes to her.

Together they spread the blankets out in the grass - old blankets, thin but very soft, and the grass is soft too so the thinness doesn't matter anyway - and lie down. He's on his back, one arm slung behind his head, and she turns toward him and lays her cheek against his shoulder, her hand on his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. Her hair is tickling his nose and he combs it back, but not because it's exactly bothering him. The moon is almost - almost - bright enough to make him close his eyes.

"Wish we could see stars better," she murmurs. "Always thought that was kinda unfair, that we can't have both. Moon this bright and stars."

"Life ain't fair, girl."

"Seriously? Hadn't noticed." She laughs quietly. "I never got that. Why shouldn't it be fair?"

"Didn't say it shouldn't be. Just said it ain't."

"Then we could try to make it fairer."

She sounds very reasonable, very practical, very her, and he smiles. "You gonna pull the moon outta the sky?"

"Witches can," she says softly. "I..." She hesitates and laughs again, and now she sounds the slightest bit rueful. "If Daddy knew he'd be so mad. Witchcraft and everythin'. But Becca - the girl I told you about, broke up with her boyfriend? Her daddy is the pastor over at First Presbyterian and she says he's a pain in the ass, so she's always doin' stuff he would hate. She looked at these websites on witches and once when I was at one of her slumber parties she wanted to get us together and try this ritual."

His smile widens just a little. There's something so perfect about this, so quintessential, something he recognizes regardless of how alien it is; when he was younger, teenage girls were even more of a vast uncharted territory than he imagines they are for most boys.

Which makes what he's doing now a touch ironic.

"Did you do it?"

"Yeah," she whispers, as if she's imparting some big secret. Her fingers are moving across his chest, tracing abstract designs. Runes, he thinks suddenly. Sigils - somehow he knows that specific word. She's enchanting him. "I knew I shouldn't, but it was... It was excitin'. Y'know? I dunno if I really thought anythin' would happen, but I wanted to see. Thought for a few minutes maybe I would go to Hell... It was just this stupid thing. I know what they say at church, but I don't think God would send me to Hell for somethin' like that." She pauses. "Do you?"

"I dunno." He's quiet for a moment, unsure if he should say this. Unsure if he should tell her, if it might upset her somehow.

But nothing else he's said has. And he's told her some pretty awful stuff.

"I dunno if I believe in God." He traces his tongue over his healing lip. "I don't think I do."

She lifts her head slightly, looks up at him. Her eyes are clear and curious, and of course he can't see any sign that she's judging him. None at all. "Why not?"

Usually he has to search for the words. Usually with something this deep and raw he would shrug, maybe look away. I'unno. But he does know. He knows it in a way that pierces him. And she's enchanting him, and he thinks he could tell her just about anything. The words... He could find them. He does.

"If God was real, he woulda helped me."

He half expects her to argue with him. He knows this is the kind of thing about which religious people argue. But of course she's different, because she's different in every important respect, and after a few seconds more she nods and lays her head down again. Not necessarily agreeing with him - but granting his logic.

Trusting him to understand himself.

Everything in him knots up and he pulls in a long, slow breath, nose full of the clean scent of her hair.

"So did anythin' happen?"

"The ritual?" She laughs again, a rolling little sound. "No. She said she was gonna draw down the moon, and we all got in a circle in the grass, held hands, chanted somethin'. She took it real seriously, but I think she made that part up. The chant. I think she made most of it up. She talked funny for a while, said she was filled with a goddess, but it was... Well. It was kinda bullshit." She's silent for a short while, then adds, "But it made her happy."

"People believe a lotta shit 'cause it makes 'em happy."

"Yeah, they do. I used to."

His fingers haven't left her hair and now they're working under where the strands are drawn tight against her head by her ponytail, rubbing gently against her scalp. "Like what?"

"Like I'd have this perfect life. Graduate, meet this perfect guy, have this perfect weddin', have this perfect house, these perfect kids... Everythin' would be great. Perfect. Especially the weddin'."

He turns his face further toward her and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. Sillhouetted against the moon's glow, the trees are swaying, and as he watches them he feels himself lulled. Not sleepy but something deeper. That enchantment again, the spell she's weaving. He doesn't believe in God, and he doesn't really believe in any goddess, either, but he does believe in her, and he believes she can manipulate the universe.

"Tell me how it was gonna be."

"Oh." She sighs, and when she speaks next her voice has dropped, the words a little halting, a little shy. "I mean... It was gonna be in church, and there were gonna be flowers everywhere... I wanted roses. Of course I wanted roses, all pink. And I was gonna have this long dress with all this lace, and I-" She stops and lifts her head again, gazing up at him with an awkward half smile. "I gotta tell you?"

"You don't gotta do anythin'."

She doesn't immediately continue. But then she does, still looking at him. "I was gonna have this party at the farm, outside, with a tent and white tablecloths and crystal, and lanterns... and pretty much everyone was gonna be there, everyone was gonna be tellin' me how pretty I was, and I was gonna dance, and it was just..." She lets out another sigh and shakes her head. "It was just gonna be so perfect."

Another long pause.

"And I was gonna go back to this big perfect hotel room with my perfect husband, and I was gonna have my first time, and there were gonna be candles everywhere with this huge bed, and it was gonna be this thing out of a stupid movie. Perfect."

She almost sounds scornful now, and he's confused. He doesn't understand why she would sound that way. It's pretty much what he assumed most girls wanted.

But she's not most girls. He should stop assuming things. He should know better.

"Why don't you believe that no more?"

"'cause it ain't real." She lifts her hand from his chest and touches his face, her slender fingers so smooth and cool, stroking down his cheek. "Nothin' perfect like that is real. It's silly. Maybe you get it in the end, but even if you do, I don't think it's like that. I don't..." She bites her lip, her eyes so big and so bright. Little stars in their depths. "I don't want perfect, Daryl. I want somethin' better. I had that bad year, and I came back, and I..."

She lowers herself and tucks her face into the hollow of his throat, and he's sure he can feel her mouthing words. Saying them like prayers. He doesn't have to hear her to know what they are.

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do?

He doesn't say anything. He has nothing to say. Nothing to add, nothing he can offer to augment it. She says things sometimes, and they strike him as sharp enough and wise enough that they should stand on their own.

So then it's just the mockingbirds and their setlists of calls, the leaves above them, the water.

Until she leans up and kisses him, light at first and deepening, nudging his lips apart and gliding her tongue alongside his. He sighs, cups the back of her head, slips into her. Inside her.

And he isn't in the least surprised when she raises her head and herself and looks down at him with her hair a silver halo, licks her lips, and whispers, "I'm ready."

He just nods. He knew.

And it just comes, easy like it was always going to be, both his hands sliding into her hair and tugging it free so it falls all around her, and there's perfect and there's perfect and she is.

"I love you."

Her breath hitches as she pushes into his hands, something almost like pain flitting - moth-like - across her face, and a shudder runs through her.

He's not upset. He's not hurt. He put it out there between them, let it go, laid it down in front of her like a gift, and she can do what she wants with it. He expects nothing from her. He wanted nothing more than for her to know.

"You don't have to-"

"I love you," she breathes, lays a hand against his, turns her head and presses her lips to his palm. "I- I think I have for a while now. I think..." He feels her smile, her lips so warm. "Daryl..."

He pulls her close, lifts himself and takes her and lays her down beneath him.

It's not like before. Before, in the clearing, it was like tumbling: it was falling down into the grass, barely controlled, no need for control, wild and half mad and chaos like the beginning of everything. And this is wild too, no need for control here either, but it's soft when he puts his hands on her, drifts his lips from her mouth to her cheek to her brow, her jaw, kissing her everywhere, and she sighs and settles her hands against his shoulders, his arms, closing over his muscles. When he kisses her he can feel her smiling, can hear her murmuring something, but he can't make it out and he doesn't think he has to. He gets enough of the sense of it when she spreads her legs and hooks one over his hip, tugs him down against her and pushes up to meet him as soon as she feels the outline of his cock pressing into her hip, her belly.

This can't be fast. He knows that. It happened fast in the clearing, even if he tried to take his time, and he can't do that now. This is so different anyway, because they're in the grass but before it was all warmth and sun and now, when he raises himself slightly and looks down at her, everything is drenched in the moon.

He moves again, watching her face, and she gasps softly and her lips part. They're trembling. She's not afraid.

"Feel that?"

She nods. "Daryl..."

"Christ, girl, that's what you do to me." He ducks his head, teeth scraping her jaw and his hand running down her side, looking for the hem of her shirt. She moans, fingers in his hair and tangled and pulling just a bit. Just a perfect bit. "I wanna fuck you. I wanna fuck you so bad, Beth."

Talking simply isn't very hard around her. Not anymore.

"Then do it." She laughs, her neck arched against his mouth and her hips already rolling. "Daryl, I almost died, I don't wanna wait anymore."

His hand is halfway up her shirt, fingertips grazing the undersides of her breasts, when he stops and lifts his head again. "I don't got-"

"I do." She's breathing fast, suddenly grinning at him, reaching down and fumbling in her pocket. "Stole it from Shawn." A thoughtful look crosses her face. "I actually might've stolen more than one."

He just stares at her for a moment. She looks back, teeth at her lip again, affecting wide-eyed innocence. Those doe eyes.

She doesn't fool him for a minute. Then again, she's not really trying to.

"Girl-"

"He ain't gonna miss 'em. Trust me." She curves her hand around the back of his neck as she pulls her other free and he hears the soft crackle of packaging. She hasn't taken her eyes off his, and now the mischief is gone from her face. So is the innocence.

This is hunger. Still low, but it's there and it's hot, and all at once she's burning under him.

"Fuck me, Daryl."

He can't do this fast. But he doesn't have to be gentle. Not entirely. And when he lowers his head again, when she tugs him in, he bites at the juncture of her throat and shoulder and he does it hard enough to drag a soft cry out of her, flying up and colliding with the glittering stones.

This much is like before: there's no order to how they get out of their clothes. It's awkward and fumbling and clumsy, and as he gets his shirt off over his head and she drags at it with him, he swears he hears something tear. Her bra, their jeans, boots, everything, and she's naked under him and spreading herself open, rolling her whole body up in waves, and it feels like she's trying to wrap all of herself around him as she traps his cock against her stomach and grinds her cunt against his thigh.

And now that she's said it once she can't seem to stop. This girl from whose mouth he's hardly ever heard anything above a PG rating is pressing her lips against his brow, the corner of his mouth, under his jaw, and breathing Fuck me, Daryl, I need you. I need you, I'm ready, God, fuck me, please.

But he isn't going to do this fast. He doesn't want to. He wants her so bad it's setting him on fire, filling his veins with magma, the inside of his skull boiling, but out here it's all cool, all quiet, all whispers and birdsong and her gasping against his skin, her mouth open and wet on his, and what he wants her to understand, what he trusts she understands, is that this is his first. His only first.

He'll never have this again.

Neither of them will.

He pushes himself up on one elbow and slides half off her, one leg still tangled and spreading hers open, and reaches down, sliding over her belly and her bush - practically petting her - fingertips dancing around her clit. She gazes up at him with a delightful confusion of loose pleasure and frustration, and she closes one hand tight on his upper arm, nails digging into him.

"I told you to do it." Her whisper is coarse, almost hard, and though she's smiling and she sounds close to laughter, he's never heard her like this before. Not a goddess - a girl. He should have known everything that would mean.

"I'm gonna."

She gives in and laughs, a low giggle, bucking her hips and chasing his teasing fingers. "When?"

"When I want to."

"I thought I was decidin' that." She leans up and presses her parted lips against his throat, closes them over his adam's apple and sucks her way lightly downward, stopping when she's near his collarbones. "I thought... Daryl, come on."

"I will." He's laughing too, rumbling low in his chest, skipping her clit entirely and pressing a finger into her with a quiet, wet sound. Because she is wet, so fucking wet, more even than she was in the clearing, practically dripping down his knuckle - and it's like she's getting wetter every second he pushes deeper into her, arching her back and whispering his name. Cursing him occasionally, which he supposes he's more than earning.

Once she thought this would be romantic. Soft. Candles everywhere. Not being fucked in the moonlight and the grass in the ruins of a forgotten mill by a rough man twice her age. He wants to laugh again and he doesn't know if he would stop.

Doesn't think he would want to.

"What about this?" He's sliding himself down now, flicking his tongue beneath her throat and over the smooth, hot skin of her chest, fucking her in a slow, deep rhythm. "This ain't good?"

"It's good." She's weakening. Needy, even needier now, but softer, panting, both hands in his hair and trying to hold on like he's all that's keeping her here. "It's so good, but... Daryl... Oh..." Trailing off as he circles her nipple with the point of his tongue, swipes at it with the broad flat-

And that's when he knows what he wants to do with her.

"Just hold on," he murmurs, and he's not even sure if he's speaking in terms of time or her hands in his hair, and it doesn't matter. Suddenly all he cares about is shifting on top of her again, practically pinning her with his hands on her hips as he settles between her legs and moves more rapidly downward, kissing each bump of her ribs as he passes them.

Right around then is - he's pretty sure - when she realizes what he's doing, and she almost squeaks, a high, desperate little sound, and she actually sounds nervous. "Daryl, you're-"

He lifts his head. He's so close to her cunt already. God, he can smell her, and he knows how good she tastes and he knows how wet she is, and he wanted to fuck her before and he still wants that more than he could ever say, but this...

"You want me to stop?"

She releases him with one hand and pushes up on her elbow, staring down at him. She looks stunned. She looks like she might be about to attack him. Silently, she shakes her head.

"Good girl," he breathes, and spreads her legs wide.

He actually wishes there was better light. The moon is bright but it's not the sun, and she got to see him like this. She got to watch herself explore, watch herself touch and stroke and play. He's been here, he's done those things, but not this close, not with his lips and his tongue, and for what feels like a long while he just looks at her and at what he can see, her soft folds and her clit swollen beyond its hood, all of it glistening in the pale light. Ready for him. He could just fuck her now. Get that fucking condom on, drag himself back up her, hitch her thighs high on his hips and bury himself in her.

No.

He spreads her with his fingers and she shudders, whimpers, and does both louder when he leans in and kisses her.

He licks his lips and thinks he might quite simply be unable to go any further anyway. He's not sure he can survive this. Surely dying in the middle of this would be fine. That has to be the best he could ever hope to do.

No, he already knows he never wants to stop doing this.

He raises his head and she's still looking at him, mouth fallen open and her small breasts heaving. "God, Daryl..."

"I never done this before."

Just for a second or two she stills. "Oh."

He's not even sure why he told her. Not that he's surprised he did, but the reasons... Not that he's afraid he won't be good at it. If he was worried about being able to satisfy her, that stopped being the case weeks ago. That's not it at all.

This is his first. His first. She is. She has to know that.

"I love you, Beth."

He swipes his tongue long and firm up her lips to her clit, flicks experimentally at it, and she drowns out his thick moan with her thicker sob.

He's exploring. He's exploring just like she did. He falls into it, utterly focused, and even her sighs and whimpers and hard groans fade into the background. It's just her cunt, shining so wet in the moonlight, the way she trembles when he gently pulls her further open and licks at her entrance, carefully tongues her labia past his lips and sucks, swirls around her clit slow and then fast and then slow again. She would be writhing if he wasn't holding her down, and he's barely sparing any attention for even that. This is all he wants, playing with her like this, teasing her and teasing her while she flows so sweet into his mouth.

He wishes he could talk to her as he does it, wishes he could tell her - Christ, Beth, how you taste, oh my fucking God, my God, there's nothing like this, nothing, I want to drink you, I want to fucking drink you, just let me have this forever.

He can hear her, less faint now as she rises in volume. Her hand is tightening in his hair, he's suddenly aware of that too - yanking hard enough to cascade little sparks of pain across his scalp. "Daryl... Oh my God oh my God, oh my God, oh... oh, Jesus, you... Your mouth, your- mouth- Daryl, oh, please-"

She's speaking in tongues. Glossolalia. Appropriate. He laughs against her cunt and licks her harder.

Apparently he's doing okay.

He could do it for hours, assuming a superhuman jaw, but it's only another minute or two before she's clutching at him with both hands, her little ah-ah-ahs rising in a crescendo and her heels digging into his back, and he clamps his lips over her and sucks at her clit as she bucks up hard against his mouth and wails at the sky, a flood of her juices onto his tongue and down his moaning throat as he laps her in and swallows her.

Then she's shoving at him, pushing his face away, hissing God it's too much Daryl Daryl it's too much and he lets her go, collapsing with her, hands loose on her hips and his head pillowed on her thigh.

Both of them gasping. Wind and mockingbird song and her wet cooling on his face, licked off his lips.

"Oh my God." A breath, hardly there, he has no idea how much later. Her hands are still in his hair and they're combing, stroking, shaking almost imperceptibly. "Daryl, you..." She giggles softly and he smiles, helpless and a little giddy, kissing the damp curls just above her clit.

And on impulse, almost lazily, he slips a finger back into her. She stiffens and he expects her to push his hand away, but instead she covers it with hers and moves him, pushes him in deeper and withdraws him, using him.

Fucking herself with him.

He groans, and suddenly he's aware of his own cock with such intensity that it almost hurts, stabbing fire into him. He presses his hips down into the blanket, looking for pressure, friction, anything, and somehow she knows because she laughs - not a giggle but a full-throated, happy sound - and tightens her grip on his hand, starting to roll with it. "You actually gonna do it now?" He doesn't look up but he can hear her grin in her voice, and it's wicked. "You want to yet?"

"Fuck, Beth." He tries to push himself up, still licking her off his lips, but he meets the resistance of her hand - her hands, holding his wrist and tugging him back down by his hair. "What-"

"You want to?" She laughs again, and he looks up and sees her arching her back and - yes - grinning at the moon, her breasts perfect little proud curves, her legs fallen wide open and her cunt so wet, and she's a girl, she's like the first girl in existence, glorious and wild and fucking herself on his hand and laughing at him. "Tell me how much you want to, Daryl."

"Beth, please... God, please lemme fuck you." He has no shame about this at all. Whatever she wants him to do, to give, he'll do it and say it and mean it, because he wants to be inside her so bad it's agony even though he could live between her legs if she would let him. Just fucking pitch a tent down here. And he could also take her hands and pin them to the ground, lift himself over her and kiss her until she's the one begging, but he doesn't want to. Can't even imagine it.

She has him.

"I don't believe you." She's moving his hand faster, thrusting him into her cunt, and he's wet to the wrist with her and just about losing his mind. "Make me believe you, Daryl." Half asking him now, not holding on as strong, but he'll still give it to her. Give her anything.

He doesn't have very much to give her, but she can have it all.

"Beth." Clenching his teeth and grinding himself against the blanket, and that's doing fuck-all. "Beth, I need." He hauls in a shaking breath, churns it in his lungs, throws some words in front of it and kicks it out again. "I need to fuck you, Beth, I- Christ, I've been waitin' so fuckin' long, please."

"You love me?"

He freezes. Except it's not freezing. He's a blast furnace. He's sure he must literally be glowing like a coal. He's fallen into a kind of animal brain, completely locked into the present, but suddenly he sees everything from the beginning, meeting her in the rain and that first kiss and all that teenage daring, and coffee and rides and singing, sun and rain and so much water, drowning in her, she's his fire and his baptism and he's been waiting for her his entire goddamn life, and it's something he would have laughed at before now, something out of a stupid movie, but swear to the God he doesn't believe in, he would die happy if he could die in her arms.

He looks up at her and she's staring down at him, moonlit and perfect. Waiting.

Girl.

He feels like everything in him is bleeding. Pouring out of him into the night, red into black, leaving emptiness for her to fill with herself.

"I love you so much, Beth."

"Daryl." She releases him and falls, goes loose, sprawled and open for him.

I'm ready.

He slowly pushes himself up and braces himself over her, cock hanging throbbing and heavy between his legs, and her smile makes him want to sob. She frames his face with her hands, and no one has ever looked at him like that before and he knows no one else ever will.

"I love you." And she grins again, teeth closing on her lower lip as she arches herself up and against him. "Now fuck me."

Another blurry period. He told himself he had to go slow, but suddenly he's going so fast he can't stop his hands from shaking, fumbling for the packet and tearing it open, pushing back on his knees so he can get the thing on, and she's watching him, watching his cock, her lips parted and wet, and he feels like an animal again. Like they both are. Here in the woods - maybe the world ended. Maybe that's what these ruins are. Maybe she's not the first girl but the last, she's the last girl and he's the last man, and all they have and all they need is each other.

That world out there can go to hell.

She's hooked her legs around his again and she's pulling at him, practically kicking him, breathing Daryl, God, c'mon, I need you but like before something else occurs to him, and he wraps his arms around her waist and rolls them, brings her up on top of him. She lets out a soft, surprised oof, her eyes wide, and she straddles him simply in the process of trying to keep herself upright-

And she stares down at him, hands braced on his chest, his cock nudging her ass and his hands finding her thighs and resting there, gentle, waiting to see what she does.

"Daryl," she whispers. "I..." She glances around as if she's trying to get her bearings, and there's something so cute about it that he laughs. Can't help it. He laughs and her gaze snaps back to his, still a bit stunned. "Like this?"

He nods. "Like this."

"I didn't..." She pushes her hair back from her face and ducks her head, smiling - not to him. To herself. "I didn't think..."

He smooths his hands down her thighs to her knees. She looks okay, just surprised, but he's... "This alright?"

Now her smile is for him, and it's wide and bright and flowing warm over every part of him. "Yeah. Yeah, it's good." She lifts herself a little and reaches back, wraps her hand around the base of his cock, and before he has time to take a breath she guides him to her cunt and slowly lowers herself onto him.

He hasn't. He hasn't ever done this.

And it is different.

All he can see is her. He hardly even feels himself, though he knows he's tense and hot with sharp pleasure, gritting his teeth with the effort of not thrusting up into her. It's just her, her head fallen back and her mouth wide, her hair tumbling down her back and shoulders like streams of silver rain, her hands curling and her nails digging into his chest.

He can't tell if she's in pain. For a second that draws out and out, she doesn't even look human anymore.

Somehow he finds her name and that's a place to start from. "Beth- Beth, are you-"

"OhmyGod." Soft, strained little breath. She gulps air, moves her hips, bares her teeth and whines. "Oh my God, you feel so big. I just- Daryl-"

He's not, not like that, but she's tight, he can feel it, and it feels so fucking good, his fingertips tingling, but he's worried. Worried enough to jerk himself loose from this, drag his forebrain out of the background, and find her hand with his.

"Beth, y'alright?"

"I." She turns her hand under his and presses in, threads their fingers, and breaks into a smile that's at once familiar and unlike anything he's ever seen before. "Yeah. Yeah, I just need-" She moves again, a careful roll of her hips, and a moan falls from her that sounds nothing like pain. "Oh Jesus, it feels good. Oh. I-" She bites her lips, another roll, and she gropes for his other hand as she sits up straighter, slipping into a slow, slightly unsteady rhythm. "It feels so good, Daryl."

It does. He can't say it, can't say anything, but it does. He's never actually fucked anyone. Never. None of those times counted, because none of those times was real. This is the first, the only, and he's crashing back to when he understood that it was all right, that he could dream about this, let himself want it: he sent them to the ruins and laid them down in the grass, and she rode him, wild and free and taking everything she wanted. Like she is now, fucking herself on him, fucking him, still slow but picking up speed and sighing his name.

He'll never be able to tell her how much he loves her. Never.

But he can try to show her. He can do that. He's been trying pretty much from the first day, trying before he even knew he did. She moves and he moves with her, clasping her hands and matching her rhythm and moaning like she's playing him. Her name, other words, things that aren't words at all. She can do this, all her; she can go faster, deeper, harder, pulling her hands free and leaning back and bracing herself on his thighs. She's bent, curved, hipbones standing out and her waist stretched and long, breasts and shoulders and throat soaked in unreal light, her gold heart pendant gone silver and bouncing against her chest, and she's laughing again, laughing and sobbing and dropping a hand between her legs and giving herself her frantically working fingers.

Daryl. Maybe she isn't even speaking, but he can hear her. Right in the center of his fucking head, over the sharp thrum of his blood. I love you. Fuck me, I love you, fuck me, fuck me, fuck-

She goes rigid, every muscle straining and the tendons standing out in her neck, all ivory and silver, and she bursts upward and outward, impaling herself on him, and mockingbirds explode out of the trees as she howls at the moon, seizes it, draws it down.

He doesn't realize he's joining her until he's already there, and by the end she's tumbling onto him, her hips still moving, and he wraps his arms around her and shudders and releases.

Gives her everything.

I can take you home. It's gotta be a couple miles still, c'mon.

What do you want?

You look cold.

Yeah, 'cause I am.

I ain't a creep or nothin'.

No, huh?

I don't think so.

I kinda think that's the sorta thing a creep might say.

I'm just sayin' I can drop you off. I'm headed that way.

I can't get any wetter.

You could get dryer.

Sure you ain't a creep?

Pretty sure.

Alright.

I love you, he whispers into her hair, against her brow, tasting the sweat on her skin. She's still trembling, still burning. Burning into him, glowing with moonshine. If it rained now she would steam. I love you, Beth.

I love you so much, girl. I love you.

I do.