Chapter 71: I want to breathe that fire again
It would be wonderful to say he was zen after that. He would love to be able to make that claim. It would be so great to say that he wasn't nervous, that he didn't turn in circles around the room, brain turning in circles of its own as it tried to figure out what the fuck he needed to do to make this presentable to her. Would be great to say that he wasn't panicking just a little, knowing that it was stupid to panic and panicking all the same. She wasn't coming until the night after; he had a whole day, and it would be great to be able to say that he used that time to be calm, ease himself into the idea of opening this place up to someone else, to simply think about how amazing it's going to be to see her again in any context at all.
It would be great to say that.
Daryl Dixon is still not very good at lying. So that's not happening.
Sort of sunny. Cool. He didn't sleep well the night before - not fitfully, but his dreams were surreal, overly colorful, crammed with more sensory input than he's used to. He thrashed around. Got tangled in the sheets even more than he has. Woke up and thought he could hear things, voices - not threatening or creepy, at least not very much of the last, but he couldn't escape the conviction that what they were saying was important and he had to pick it out. He knows that he was still half dreaming, in that liminal space between consciousness and something deeper, but at the time it seemed so intensely real.
And it feels like so long since he saw her. So much longer than it's been. Speaking of liminal, it also feels like he's passed through a larger version of that space and now he's looking back across it at something very different from where he is now. He knows that's not true - you don't change that much in a week - but to some degree it is.
He's not entirely who he was.
He's not sure what she's going to make of the place, the room, not sure what she's going to make of what he's doing with it - which, in fairness, isn't terribly much - but most of all he's not sure what she's going to make of him.
And he didn't expect to feel that way.
He leans against the railing outside and smokes his last cigarette, and looks at things. Nothing in particular. The leaves drifting into piles under the oak tree. The occasional car passing out on the street. The high, unruly hedge that mostly obscures the next yard over. Starlings in it, popping in and out and arguing shrilly.
Beth is coming over between eight and nine. He doesn't know what excuse she's invented to be able to do so, but she hadn't seemed worried, so he's not going to.
He's going to try.
He washes the sheets. They come out softer. He remakes the bed, sits on it and stares down at the floor, his hands. He picks up the wolf and holds it, once again explores every well-known centimeter of it with his fingertips. It's centering, like her hand in his, and he calls the farm and tells them he'll be back tomorrow. He does this almost absentmindedly; it doesn't require the screwing-up of any courage. If he's ready to see Beth, he's ready to go back to work. That simple.
He finds, after he cuts the call, that he's looking forward to it. It's been good, being in here. Being quiet, being still. Being. But that's not really what he is, even if it was what he needed. Something the farm has taught him is that he likes working. He likes feeling useful. He doesn't completely feel like himself if he's not doing that.
Understanding what feeling like himself even means.
He's going to go back and he's going to keep getting better.
So after that he's a bit calmer.
And he's calm that night when there's a knock on the door, and he's calm when he goes to answer it, and somehow he manages to be calm when he opens it and Beth is standing there in a jacket and a striped yellow and black tutu with a pack on her back and little yellow-ball antennae bobbing on her head.
But he does stare at her for a bit.
Her hair is spilling over her shoulders, she's slightly flushed, her eyes wide and subtly lined and her lips parted and subtly glossy pink, and she's showing a lot of black-tight leg, and the whole effect is confusing in a whole bunch of different ways.
"Hi."
Breathless. Excited. She's excited to be here. That makes him happy, but he still doesn't get the whole tutu thing.
He stands aside and watches her as she walks in - ignores the packaging for the moment and observes how she slows down, how she's really looking at the room, taking it in. There still isn't much to take in; he hasn't bought anything additional, hasn't done anything special. Considered it briefly, then decided against it.
He wants her to see this space the way it's been, while he's been in it. What he's been seeing these past seven days. For some reason that seems important.
He shuts the door. "Why are you dressed like a fuckin' bee?"
She turns, one hand on the strap of her backpack, brow arched - looking at him like he's the one being weird. "It's Halloween? I was at a party."
"Oh." He had no idea. He knew it was coming, but he still hasn't really been out of the house in days, has been - he supposes - enclosed in his own personal tangent universe, and the neighborhood is quiet. As far as he's been able to tell, there aren't many kids around here. Aren't many people who were even recently kids.
He gives her half a shrug, the barest edge of a smile. "I don't really celebrate."
"Yeah, got that. Unless your costume is Daryl Dixon with no shoes on."
She's no longer looking at him. She's returned the majority of her focus to the room, and she slings her pack down on the floor and moves into the center of the space, scanning up and around and all over with her little antennae nodding on their springy stalks. The lamp by the bed is the only illumination, and it does what it always does from this angle - which he likes - and throws strange shadows against the walls and ceiling. Catches her, her arms and legs, and stretches them out, lengthens and broadens, and with the way they move as she moves, he's once again put in mind of trees.
Except not really. Her and how she is and how she changes this place just by being in it... What he sees on the walls isn't like trees at all. There's no word for what it's like.
That keeps happening.
Yes, even with her dressed as a bee.
She stays in roughly the center of the room for a moment or two, then crosses to the other door - the one that leads to the interior stairs - and touches the old wood. She runs her hand over it, her fingers trailing, and he knows what she's feeling - the gentle roughness, the scratches and dents and dings that no longer feel anything like damage, the coolness of it and the way it gets smoother near the crystal knob. And she moves on from there, walking along the wall and toward the space reserved for the kitchen, her gaze somehow everywhere and nowhere at once. There's nothing over there yet - no furniture, not even any of his stuff, because he's keeping it all confined to his little area by the central windows - but she still takes her time, reaching the cul-de-sac of the kitchen and sliding her palm along the countertop. She's abandoned her old boots for the present and put on newer ones, black and buckled, the kind of vague approximation to biker boots that seems currently fashionable, and the heels clack pleasantly on the bare floor. And slowly. Steady and well-spaced noises, marking her progress.
He knows what he's seeing. She's done it with him. She's doing to this room, this space - his space - what she's done with his body.
Exploring it. Giving it her full attention.
He's not entirely sure why watching her do this now should make him want her with sudden burning ferocity, but it does.
She makes the full circuit - passing by the entranceway that leads to the hall that in turn leads to the bathroom and the two bedrooms - and comes around to the wide windows and at last to what he thinks of as his camp, to his bed and his light, his pack, his clothes, the crossbow leaning against the wall, the book and the crystal wolf.
She stops and looks down at these things for a little while, and then she looks up at him.
"Don't got a lotta stuff yet."
He shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. Not very, not even all that uncomfortable about it, but. "Don't need a lotta stuff."
"Will you? Get more?"
He shrugs again. He would say yes, is beginning to think yes, but the truth is that he still doesn't really know. He thought about those things that first day - Day Zero - and they seemed so fundamentally unnecessary, and they still do.
He's happy here. He's happy with what he has. He has a bed and food, and light, and he's warm and he has something to read, time and space in which to think about things, work to do tomorrow... And he really doesn't want anything else.
And her. She's standing right in front of him. Almost close enough to touch.
"I like it," she says softly, looking around at it again. Her face is as soft as her voice, her eyes bright, and his heart is a warm, sweet knot under his breastbone. "I like it a lot. It feels good."
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Yeah, it... It does."
She returns her gaze to the bed, his other things - and stops, and he knows what she sees. She moves to the side of the bed, crouches - the yellow balls at the end of her antennae nodding like little flowers in a breeze - and picks up the book. Slowly, and with care. As if it's delicate.
She doesn't look particularly surprised.
"You bought it?"
He shakes his head. "It was here."
"When you moved in?"
"Mmhm."
She glances up at him, simply looks at him for a moment. He meets her eyes with no hesitation and no difficulty, though he's not sure how to understand what he sees there.
He isn't even really noticing the bee thing anymore.
She puts the book down again - just as careful - and picks up the wolf, lifts it so the light catches it, and turns it over and over, following the shifting flow of its shape. She appears half entranced by it. Hypnotized. He lets her go, lets her be; he needed his time to be in this place, to fit into it; he doesn't think she'll need nearly as much time as he did, but he can't rush her. Can't even nudge.
Then he realizes what he was thinking. That she'll fit into it. That she'll be here. With him. Not a question, not a desire. He just knows it.
When he was nine years old a revivalist preacher came through and set up shop, got people together, made noise. No one in Daryl's experience of childhood was especially devout, but it was something new and it was a hot, droning summer, and he and Merle were both deeply bored, so they went to see what they could see. And it was a bunch of half incoherent bullshit as far as Daryl could make out - a lot of yelling and wild gesticulation and hellfire and sin and the anointed meeting Christ Jesus in the air while the damned suffered through the years of Tribulation - but there was one thing, one single thing like a beam of light breaking through thick cloud, a phrase that never left him. Never seemed like much good, either, but for some reason he never forgot it. The red-faced preacher with his white halo of wild hair, his bulging eyes, accusingly pointing finger, and then these words - like they didn't have anything to do with anything the man was saying. Like they didn't have anything to do with him at all.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
He gets it now.
"That was here too."
She's still looking at the wolf, still fascinated. Turning and turning. "People before you left 'em?"
He's about to say yes- and stops. Seems like a no-brainer; he saw those things there, saw them on their bookshelf. They were possessions of those unseen now-former tenants. Of course they must have left them here.
But he's not so sure. He's not sure assumptions like that are so safe, in this place.
So he merely shrugs.
She raises her head and gives him a slightly quizzical look, but she seems content to let it go. She puts the wolf down again - exactly where it was - and straightens up, absently brushing off her bushy yellow tulle skirt, though there wouldn't be any dust on it.
"There's more?"
"Yeah. Two other rooms. But I ain't... Not gonna do nothin' with 'em yet." Little smile. "I figure I should deal with this one first."
"One was gonna be Merle's," she says, soft again, and though it's like the memory of a punch in the gut he feels no resentment for it.
He nods.
"Can I see 'em?"
He shows them to her. He hasn't really been in them since he moved in - has had no reason to be so - and they feel even bigger than he remembers. So white and blank and empty, smaller than the main room but somehow seeming to echo far more. He doesn't dislike them, but as he stands there and watches her look around in the shadowless overhead light he doesn't feel at all comfortable in them. Not yet.
He'll figure out the main room. Finish settling into it. Then, when he's ready, he'll expand his territory. But there's no reason to push himself too soon.
He's ready, he called her, she's here. Day Seven was the last day. But this isn't over, and there's still no set timeline. Things will happen when they're ready to happen.
They end up out in the hallway - longer than the stubby rectangle of space in the old place but still not much room - and she moves closer to him, tips her head back and gazes up at him, places her hands against his chest. And that's... He might be a little better with words than he used to be, at least when it comes to her, but there's no way in hell he would ever be able to describe what that touch does to him. Like her hands sink into him, like they melt his shirt and press through his skin and flesh and ribs as if he's made of warm clay. She's all heat, searing him; he knows that's not true - knows that, if anything, her hands are still cool from outside - but it feels truer than anything he knows could gainsay.
The first time she's touched him - really touched him - since he came here. Since everything started.
The first time.
He's getting way more of those than he ever thought would be possible.
He must have done something, must have shown some of it on his face, because he focuses on her and she's frowning a bit, studying him. She hasn't moved her hands.
"Are you alright?"
He nods. Releases a long breath. Ducks his head and - somehow - lifts his own hands and closes them over her wrists, not trying to pull her away from him but just holding on.
"I wanna touch you," she murmurs. God, her eyes. He has no idea what to do with her eyes. It's dim here - no light but what's coming from the main room, and that's not much of anything - but her eyes are fucking glowing, a clear and brilliant blue.
Crystalline.
He shudders. He had no expectations. He was smart enough to keep those well away. But if he did have any, she would be confounding the fuck out of them all.
Which she does. He should expect that much, at least.
"Daryl..." She gently frees one of her wrists - her left one, simple black leather cuff that he's not sure he's ever seen before - and lays her cool palm against his cheek. "I didn't come here to... We don't have to do anythin', that's not what I'm sayin'. Not if you don't want, if you don't feel ready, or... I just wanted to see you. I just wanna touch you. Doesn't matter how."
It's difficult to look at her. Not because it's too much, not because he feels far too stripped and laid bare - once that would have been why, but he thinks that might be over now. It's difficult to look at her because it literally hurts him, how long it feels like he's been without her, how close she is, how he can smell her, all those wonderful intermingling scents that combine and commingle into Beth Greene: her shampoo, soap, sweat, the faint closet-smell of the fabric of her jacket, and beneath it all a deep, rich current of arousal.
She didn't come here to fuck him. But she wants to. She wants to, and she's holding back. She's letting him move, letting him decide. Letting him lead.
Waiting until he's ready.
"You can touch me," he breathes, and reaches up, settles his hands on either side of her jaw, thumbs against her cheeks. And he pauses there, feeling her, and maybe her hands are cool but her body is a furnace, her neck, like her heart is pumping fire up through her veins. Her hand has fallen away from his face and found his chest again, splayed over his heart.
She's still waiting. Staring up at him, tongue passing over her lips, little flash of her teeth. Her eyes still glowing with that stained-crystal light.
She can touch him, Jesus, let her touch him. Let her touch him anywhere she wants to. Let her touch him everywhere. He doesn't even care whether or not he fucks her. He wants her hands on him, all that burning skin, all that tightly contained sunfire.
In a bee costume.
He breaks at that, seeing it again very suddenly and finding it impossible to ignore this time. All at once he's laughing - quiet, small - and she's arching a brow at him, her fingers curling into his shirt.
"What?"
"You look fuckin' ridiculous is what." He reaches up and plucks the antennae hairband off her head, tosses it onto the floor with a soft clatter. "Why a bee?"
"I like bees." She doesn't sound defensive. She also hasn't released him. "Bees are cute. You don't like bees?"
"Don't really give a shit one way or the other."
"So I don't need to keep it on, then." Teasing little smile, and she presses closer, right up against him, last of the space between them gone. He didn't have to tell her it was all right. She knew. She knew, and when she's this close to him, her hips and belly flush with him, she has to know something else.
"No." He takes her face in his hands again, angles her, moves her gently where he wants her and lowers himself to meet her. "Not if you don't wanna."
"I don't-" she breathes, and then his lips curve over hers and she doesn't say anything at all.
It's not like any kiss they've ever had. He's ever had.
When she kissed him that first time in the truck it was quick, fleeting, sudden with the fact that she dared and the daring excited her but maybe also scared her just a bit, deep down. Then in the rain, sudden again and hard, desperate, everything he wanted to say and couldn't, given to her in his body and his mouth and wracked with terror and shame and the certainty that she wasn't going to understand and wasn't going to want him even if she did. And the ruins, hard once more and deep - not desperate but strong, because she knew what she wanted and she wasn't going to deny herself. Deny him.
This is light. Careful. Delicate, like he's never done it before. With her.
With anyone.
It actually feels a little like that. It feels so new. How she's soft under his mouth, his hands, her pulse racing beneath his fingers, how her lips part and her tongue flicks against him, as teasing as her smile, inviting him in. How he does, he slips into her, and she tilts her head and sighs and uses the grip on his shirt to tug him closer - how she rocks her hips forward just a bit, just enough to put pressure on his hardening cock, and that rushes heat so fast and forceful through the core of him to his brain that it's dizzying.
And that doesn't even feel entirely connected to him. It's there - that thick, heavy pleasure, what it might become - but everything is her mouth, her taste, the faint vibration of the moan that slips out of her, her lips moving in the outlines of his name.
He's been waiting for that. For so long. For how she says it, what's behind it.
"I wanna touch you," she whispers again, sliding her lips away. His cheek, his jaw; it's his turn to moan, fingers toying with loose strands of her hair. "Daryl, I... I want you. So bad. We don't have to, but I do, I want you, please..."
He's already moving.
He saw her in her bikini top that day. He saw her and he felt the sickening wrench of the most fundamental want he had ever felt for anyone or anything, and then later in the shower he thought about sliding the ties down her shoulders, sliding it all off her, baring her breasts for his hands and his mouth, and he can do that now and he does. The jacket doesn't so much fall off her as vanish, and then she's sighing again and curving her neck and closing her hands over his hips, fingers hooking into his beltloops and pulling him harder against her as he tugs the black straps of the tutu slowly down her shoulders. Leaning back as he does. Watching her, watching what he's doing. It's dim in the hall but he can see enough: the graceful dips of her collarbones, swells of her breasts, still obscured and then not anymore.
She's not wearing a bra. Her nipples are standing out small and dark pink in the low light.
He feels the surge of a strange kind of wonder as he closes his hands over them. Cups them. Hard little nubs under his palms. She gasps, pushes herself into it.
He didn't dream about this. He couldn't have.
"Daryl." She swallows and stares up at him, eyes half-lidded. Moving, fingers under the hem of his shirt, gliding across his stomach. His muscles twitch and he pulls in another small, sharp gasp and almost laughs. "Every single night I've been thinkin' about makin' you come."
Oh my God.
His moan is closer to a ragged sob, and he shoves her backward, pins her against the wall.
It's very confusing. His hands are trying to be everywhere at once. Hers too. Dragging her tutu the rest of the way down, attempting to help her step out of it without her falling, tights and panties, her wrist cuff, and her abruptly naked in just her boots and fumbling at his fly. And kissing, the whole time kissing, kissing her so deep and so hard he might be trying to eat her alive. All that softness gone as he gets her legs spread and his hand between them, stroking her slick, wet lips and drawing a shiver out of her, but it's not like it has been. Not like it was. It's actually not desperate.
He has no reason to be desperate now.
This is so good. So fucking good. Her clever little hand on his cock, tugging him free and squeezing him around the base and him groaning against her cheek, yes, that's so fucking good and he already can't even think, can only lose himself in what she's doing to him. And he wants it. Wants it so bad he almost can't stand up.
But he doesn't need it. He could not have it, and he wouldn't die.
His shirt joins the rest of her things. She's kicking off her boots and they thump against the baseboard behind him and she laughs into his mouth. His pants and shorts and her helping him with that, and then he's as naked as she is and digging his fingers into her hips, rolling his cock against her belly, more firmly when she reaches between them and grasps him again.
He could do it right here. Lift her, forget about condoms and consequences and fuck her right here against the goddamn wall, fuck her until he has to swallow her screams. He could do that.
But he doesn't want to. Not here, not really. Because this feels so new, this feels like the first time, her body and everything he knows he can do with it, and there's a way and a place in which he fell into that. Once. Twice. Even if she wasn't there with him.
She is now.
All at once he pulls free and steps back, and she wobbles, catches herself on the wall behind her, and blinks up at him in slightly disappointed surprise. "Daryl, what-?"
But he grins. Lightly slaps the side of her thigh.
"Bathroom. C'mon."
And then she gets it, and she's grinning too.
Apparently they can't do anything with any significant degree of coordination, so they're stumbling when they make it there, still trying to arch their mouths together, tongues and teeth, but it's not that far, and he pulls away long enough to cut the shower on.
He actually thought he understood what people mean by can't keep their hands off each other.
He's bending in with a hand under the spray, making sure it won't burn or freeze them, when he hears her soft breath and he remembers.
He had really almost forgotten. Completely forgotten, in fact. He hasn't felt it in a while.
All he's been able to feel is her.
He doesn't move, doesn't turn. He can feel her looking. He wants her to look. Somewhere, at some point, every ugly shard of fear he used to feel about this melted away and now it's easy - mostly - to give it to her. To show her.
And now he wants to show her. Because he did something important. That he didn't do it for her makes no difference.
He feels her fingers then, tracing its edge. It's rough, peeling. He takes his own soft breath, still doesn't turn.
"Does it hurt?"
"No. No, it's fine." He swallows, smiles faintly. "It's healin'."
Her fingers keep moving. Like they did with his scars that night he revealed them to her - careful. Exploring. Not wanting to push him, but relentless in her merciful way. Sure he's strong enough to take it. Sure he's strong enough to know that he doesn't have to be afraid.
She loves him. It's so simple - and when he can make himself accept it, it's everything,
"When did you get it?"
"Day after I got here." He hesitates, thinking over the words. "I just... It felt... I needed to."
She'll understand.
"It's so beautiful," she whispers, and something aching turns over inside him and his breath catches in his throat.
"Ain't done yet."
"When?"
"Couple weeks. Maybe. Has to heal some more first."
She doesn't say anything else. She simply keeps touching it, touching him, keeps drawing her fingers over its outer edge, and he keeps still, his eyes half closed, the sound of the water washing away everything but that touch.
Then there's her warmth, so much closer, the puff of her breath, and he knows it's coming just as she does it - her lips, feather-light, hardly on him at all.
But it pulses in him, bright. It flashes behind his eyes, and he makes a sound that's more a quiet murmur than a moan, a hint of her name. He reaches back for her just as she reaches forward, around him, his hand settling on her thigh and hers wrapping around his cock, mouth still against his wing.
Not stroking him. Simply holding him. Feeling him.
She told him it was beautiful, the wing. She told him he was too. Not what people normally mean when they say things like that. All of him. His scars. His cock. He wanted her to stop. Didn't believe her. Couldn't.
He still doesn't. Not himself. But he's beginning to believe that someday he might.
"Beth." He lays his hand over hers. "Come with me."
He's not just talking about the shower.
He's not completely sure what he's talking about.
He steps in, takes her wrist and tugs her in after him, and the world dissolves into nothing but the drops of water clinging to his lashes making a bokeh of light, her skin, the steam, her in the circle of his arms and trailing her lips down his neck, collarbones, chest. For a few seconds she's pressing him back against the tile - he jumps with how cold it still is and she giggles and nips him - and then he has her by the shoulders and turns her, her back to him, ass curved so perfectly against his cock and even better when she arches and gives him a little shimmy.
He curls his arms around her and simply holds her, feeling her panting breaths slow. For the moment - sudden, technically, but it feels like the most natural transition in the world - he's not touching her anywhere but there. Not her breasts, not her cunt. He's pausing. Hanging them above this, suspended.
"Calm down, girl." He smiles against the shell of her ear and she shudders, breathes a tiny laugh. "Just... We got time. Be calm."
Be.
She does. The pace of her breathing continues to ease and she gradually relaxes against him, pleasure-tight muscles going lax. Her heart was pounding through her ribs; it's still deep, still heavy, but it's also slow. And him with her, sliding into the same place, his cheek against the crown of her head as he slips a little into the trance of the warm, steady spray. The truth is that he's not sure how much time they have, and maybe he should be worrying about that, but this week has felt like a month, longer, and now that he has her he wants to be with her.
Whatever time they have, he wants to take it.
"This is nice," she murmurs after a few moments, and he hears the smile. He lifts a hand and traces a single fingertip along the seam of her lips, and there it is.
"Yeah."
"Never done this either."
"Figured." His tone is gently teasing. Went without saying, but he thinks he might understand why she wanted to say it. They're listing things when they do this. Taking inventories of Nevers, of Firsts. He takes a breath. "Neither have I."
"Everythin's softer." She doesn't explain exactly what she means by that and she doesn't have to; he couldn't agree more.
Soft and so right, like everything else - like how it feels to take the hand at her mouth and glide it down her throat and lower, to her breast, pausing there to stroke her nipple before it moves on to points beyond. She could have tensed up but instead she's relaxing even more, leaning back with a deep sigh, head tipped against his shoulder.
"Been thinkin' about you too." He stops at her bush, pets his fingers over it; her hair is somehow both slightly coarse, and soft along with everything else. "Been thinkin' about this."
"All week?"
"Yeah." Maybe not in the center of his attention, but it's always been there on the periphery: her cunt, her cunt as her and not some disconnected part of her anatomy, how she gives it to him. Gives herself like a gift. Touching her, knowing how good he can make her feel. How close to her he can be.
"You can have it." Like she can read his mind. Maybe she can. She spreads her legs, her hands resting on his forearm where he's holding her against him. "Daryl, you can have anythin' you want."
Oh, girl, so can you. My girl, you can have everything.
He goes where he can tell she wants him, his fingers closing the last fraction of distance, and she gasps and lets out another one of those moaning laughs as he finds her clit. "Daryl..." She had picked her head up; now she drops it back again, her neck arched and her mouth falling open. "Oh... Oh, that feels so good..."
"Yeah?" Yes, it does. Everything about her says it does, canting her hips against his hand, chasing him but not with any real intensity. Everything has gone loose and lazy, idle, and she's going to take it as it comes.
"I...I. Ah- please. More."
He gives her more. It's nice when she pretty much begs him, but it's not necessary right now. She rolls again, seeking the teasing, circling pressure of his fingers, and he kisses her ear. Grazes her with his teeth. Bites.
"Did this to yourself?"
"I...oh God. Yeah, I did."
"Made like it was me?"
She nods, words briefly gone. "Mm."
"You know I love doin' this." A little faster. Just a little, pressing harder. Lower just for a few seconds, nudging between her lips, inhaling sharply when he feels how soaked she is. Not the water, so smooth and slick, using it to make his own rapid movements even better for her. Those low moans, ragged-edged - that's what he wants more of. "Beth, I love doin' this so fuckin' much."
"It's." She rolls her head, her hips, and he glimpses a wide smile curving her mouth, something like happiness but somehow deeper. "It's perfect, Daryl, it's so... I love it... Make me come, please, I wanna come, I wanna come so bad, I'm so close..."
In her again, a single finger, and the angle is awkward but he makes it work and fucks slowly into her, thumb on her clit. And he already knew the awkwardness wouldn't matter; she sucks in a breath, stiffens, twists in his arms and releases a low cry as it takes her and ripples through her, more and more of it, clutching at his arm and craning her neck to press her hot, open mouth to his jaw.
Daryl Daryl oh my God yes yes that's so good oh God yes.
Yes.
And she slips back down.
He's still moving in her, letting her clit be, and she goes loose again, eyes closed and her breathing deep and even easier than before. Like always, he forgot himself for those few moments, but now he feels it again, how fucking hard he is, and he's burned for her all this week but he wants real fire.
The flames roaring in her.
He kisses the patch of skin under her ear, the side of her throat, and reaches around her to cut off the water.
She murmurs, sounding almost sleepy, when he helps her out and wraps a towel around her. She barely moves, and he's perfectly content to dry her, rubbing the terrycloth gently over her skin, her hair, bending his head and kissing her now and then. And after a few minutes she murmurs again, almost words, smiles dreamily and finally takes the towel and blinks up at him.
He's still dripping, making puddles all over the floor. Provided it doesn't start leaking through the downstairs ceiling, he doesn't care at all.
"I love you."
He frames her face with his wet hands, kisses her brow. Licks at a stray drop of water trickling down from her hairline. The taste shouldn't be remarkable in any way but it's indescribable. "Love you so much, girl."
"Are you gonna fuck me?"
He nods. He is. He always meant to.
She hums and leans against him, towel wrapped around her shoulders, her head on his chest. "C'mon, then."
He doesn't think. He did this once before, with the flood, and it was awful. He's going to take that, seize it, overwrite it. Make it something else. Make it better. Make it well.
He scoops her up in his arms and carries her to the bed.
The trip back to the main room can't be more than fifteen feet and not a whole lot more than that to his camp, but it feels like forever. It feels trackless, and it's not that she's heavy but that he feels once more like he's waiting, making this journey so it'll be even sweeter when he's inside her. The lamplight is even stranger now, and the shadows it casts are stranger as well, half forms all seeming to move, and as he reaches the bed and crouches and lays her down he realizes what it all reminds him of.
It's not moonlight. There's no grass or water, no mockingbirds, no glittering mica embedded in old stone. But the essential strangeness is the same.
It makes sense. This is another First.
He unwraps her, unfolds the towel on either side of her like cloth wings and stares down at her. She looks small there, even smaller than she normally does, her hands loose at her sides and her knees bent upward, her legs slightly spread. She's looking up at him with bright eyes, and she gives him a lazy smile as she arches her back and fits her hands against the outer curves of her breasts, pushing them inward the smallest bit, making them rise. Her thumbs pass over her nipples, surrounding them with abstract designs, and her legs spread wider. She might be mostly dry, only her hair a damp tangle, but her cunt is glistening, and there's only one thing he wants to do.
She's basically presenting herself. It's entirely her fault.
The boxspring and mattress put her at just the right height for this, and he tugs at the towel until she scrambles back and lets him take it, pushed up on her elbows with a questioning expression visible through the odd shadows playing over her face. "Daryl, what-"
He doesn't answer. He bunches the towel and lowers his knees onto it, reaches out and takes her by the hips and yanks her to the bed's edge. She squeaks and giggles, hands fumbling at his arms.
She knows what this is.
"Daryl, you said you'd-"
Just like before.
"I will. Lemme have this first." He doesn't wait for her permission; he pushes her legs up with his hands fitted under her knees, spreads her wide, leans in and closes his mouth over her soft, wet, sweet cunt.
Again, she could tense up. Again, she doesn't. She whimpers and collapses under his hands and his lips, rests her feet on his shoulders, and her legs fall open as he tongues her lips apart and dances up to her clit. It's been plenty long enough; he knows she'll come again and it'll probably be quick, but not too quick, please, because he's so hungry for this. Still not desperate, not starving, but hungry, lapping up her juices as he makes them flow, sucking, biting so gently and licking her in long, broad cat-swipes. And she thrusts herself up, keening, her hands tangling in his wet hair and tugging him in harder, the rocking against his face sharpening into a grind.
He can't say no to her. He just can't.
And he's beginning to understand that - in a way he would rather die than abuse - he can make it so she doesn't want to say no to him.
"You bastard," he hears her whispering, the word almost lost in the sheer depth of her smile. "Jesus, you bastard, you- Oh, oh, you just... Oh God, yeah..."
He's not going to tease her. Not least because he's not sure he can stand it. When she jerks his hair he launches a full assault on her, swirling almost rough over her clit, rapid little flicks with the tip of his tongue, and for a few seconds he can't breathe as she bucks upward, spine in a deep bow, head thrown back and his name tearing out of her as she smothers him with herself.
And this time when she releases him and goes limp, panting, he doesn't give her any time. He pushes up with his hands on her thighs and crawls up her body, and when he braces himself over her and she stares wide-eyed up at him in that dreamlike light, it comes crashing slowly into him.
You're an animal. We forget that, but y'are.
That day, that wonderful day - really long before then - she reminded him.
Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
He leans in and kisses her, gentle. Unhurried. But he closes his teeth over her bottom lip and bites carefully, bites a little harder, and she whines and clutches at his shoulders.
"Stay here," he whispers, pushes off her and reaches down by the side of the bed into his pack.
When he went shopping that first day, he figured it might be good to plan ahead.
She sighs as he tears open the packet, returns to her, but just as he's about to roll the condom on she pushes up on one elbow and lays a hand over his, stops him.
He blinks down at her.
She meets his stare, licks her lips and gives his hand a squeeze. "Let me."
Oh. Yes.
He has no idea why it should mean anything. But he watches her, absolutely entranced, as she takes it from him and does it - does it like she has a hundred times, smooth and easy. She's watched him, and maybe she's actually wanted to do this for a while.
Wanted to prepare him for herself.
He shivers, sudden and violent, and she pauses, her eyes widening a little more. But he shakes his head.
"It's..."
He doesn't even know.
"Alright."
She lets him go, lowers herself back, reaches for him. Open, she's all open, her whole body asking for him, and looking at her now is almost too much. He dreamed about her, this, dreamed over and over, told himself he would make them a bed and it would be right, it would be everything it needed to be, everything they lost when the summer died, and now she's here, she's in it, cradled in the night sky he laid out for her.
Pale and slender and full. So bright she outshines the stars.
She gives him another one of those sweet, slow smiles. "What?"
"You're perfect."
She shakes her head, apparently unsurprised but abruptly solemn. "I'm not."
No, she's not. Neither of them are.
He lowers himself to her, takes her wrist. Thumb against the scar there, lips against the sharp line across her cheek - almost healed now. But it'll always be there, and it'll always be beautiful - both of those marks will, because of what they mean.
You're so alive.
"You're not," he whispers. "You're better."
"Daryl."
And again he doesn't think. He's lost in it; there's no reason he can see why it should feel so good, so right, why it should send warmth bleeding all through him like bathing in sun. He doesn't need to know why, doesn't need to understand; he takes her by the waist, so gentle, and turns her onto her stomach, slides his grip down to her hips and - just as gentle - pulls her up, her knees shifting under her.
She jerks, surprised, pushes up on her elbows and twists her head back to look at him. But she's not alarmed. Confused, maybe, but she's not fighting.
"Daryl, I-?"
He bends over her, smooths his hands up her back, rocks himself against her. "This alright? You alright?"
She doesn't answer right away, and he knows why. He's not worried. She's feeling it, feeling through it. Learning it, what it is. What her body is doing. What it might do.
How it might be, to take him this way.
"Yeah," she sighs at last, and another delicate shiver races through her as she presses back to meet him, shoulders dipping. Raising herself. Raising for him. "Yeah, I am."
"Beth." Just her name. That's all he can find. He bends lower and kisses the knob at the top of her spine, kisses further down, tongue tracing into the dip of her spinal column. She presses up again, sighs, and he knows it's all right.
It really is.
He pushes up and steadies her with one hand, takes himself in the other, and slides into her so easily that it's like he never left her.
She gasps with him, moans thickly, and her head drops between her shoulders at the same time his does - in perfect time. Perfect sync. He stops, both hands on her hips now, eyes squeezed shut as it surges through him. Her tight wet heat, all around him, holding him and pulling him in, and maybe it was never better than this and maybe it was never worse, but it's never been this way. Not when she rode him that first time, not when he held her down after and pounded into her, not when he fucked her in the truck, up against the wall. Grasping her, the way she's arching beneath him, it's power and it's not in just him or her but flowing between them like a twisting, brilliant arc of lightning.
"God, Beth." His teeth close on his lip, biting for no reason other than to bite. "Jesus Christ, you're so fuckin' good."
She doesn't answer. The sound she makes - choked, nearly a sob - it's everything he needs to know.
He makes himself look down at her. The lovely slopes of her back and her shoulders, heaving as she breathes, her hair spilling all over in damp knotted strands. How he fits her, how she fits him, how they're soaking in light that doesn't look like it's coming from any source ever made by human hands. Drenched in shadow. Both together, him and her, like it's always been.
"Oh, my girl," he breathes, and starts to move.
Like everything else, it's slow. Slow but hard, long thrusts as deep into her as he can go, and she pushes herself up on shaking arms, moving with him, those sobs working themselves into an unsteady rhythm. He started upright on his knees and for a while he manages to stay that way, but with every plunge his own heart is beating him down, and bit by bit he curves himself above her, one hand releasing her hip and braced on the bed beside hers, then on hers, large and rough over her small, cool fingers, threading with her, curled tight. And he's pushing her down too as he finds some speed, the arch of her back more and more extreme, until her cheek is against the mattress and her arms are flat and bent at the elbows, her free hand fisting in the sheets as he fucks the breath out of her.
Because he is. Still not much faster, but even harder, solid pounding that shakes him like the tremors of a distant earthquake, makes the blood sing in his ears, drags her groans toward a crescendo. Under them he's vaguely aware of the squeak of springs, but nothing is real except her, the brightness and the heat all around him, the home she's making inside herself for him.
She's so full of light.
"Beth." Panting. Wrenched, grating, and it's an effort, but he has to say her name. That prayer, the only one he needs to offer here. "Oh, fuck, Beth, oh Jesus, girl, I love you. I love you, I-"
"I was thinkin'."
He almost stutters to a halt.
It seems like a total non sequitur. It doesn't fit, not the words or the way she's saying them. Muffled, breathless - but musing, and amused. He's low enough to see her face clearly when she turns her head, and when she does it hits him like a fist clamping around his heart.
Her absolutely radiant smile.
"I was thinkin'. About makin' you come." She laughs then, low and clear and tuneful, and it flows through his head like a song. "I wanna make you come, Daryl. I want that." She lifts enough to catch his eye with hers, and she's sparkling, all blue broken diamonds. "Come for me."
He can't say no to her.
He doesn't sing. It's just not something he ever does. But she squeezes his hand so tight it's almost painful - maybe is - and compresses the air from his lungs, and what fills him in and out as his burning pleasure slams into him and consumes him is that song: her ringing laughter, him crying her name, and to him it feels like they're singing together in an imperfectly beautiful harmony. A duet of everything.
Songs in the house of light.