Chapter 72: I'm not sure if I'm singing for the love of it or for the love of you

There's a moth flying around the lamp.

His attention keeps straying to it, following it as it bobs and flutters, tosses itself at the shade, rises over the top and falls again. It's fascinated by the light in a way he thinks he understands - but the bulb is hot, and if it doesn't watch itself it's going to burn its wings.

He shifts a little on his back so he can see it better, one arm slung behind his head, his other combing absently through the slightly snarled waves of Beth's hair.

Beth isn't watching the moth. Beth doesn't appear to have noticed that it's there, or if she has she doesn't care. She's lying half draped across him, one leg stretched across his and her body flush with his side, her chin resting on her hand - which is in turn resting on his chest. She has the wolf in the other; she placed over his breastbone and now she's looking at it again, stroking its back with her fingertip.

Just like he has. Over and over, this past week. Over and over until time melts into that smooth, lovely curve.

He has no idea how late it is. He very much wants it to not matter.

"It's so pretty," she murmurs, and he flicks his gaze away from the moth at the same instant she looks up at him, her eyes large and liquid. Pools rather than polished, faceted crystal. "Honestly, I... I didn't know you'd like somethin' like this."

He tugs gently at a strand of her hair. He could tell her about this, what he really suspects, but he's still not sure how. Though he doesn't think she would necessarily find it ridiculous. She wouldn't laugh at him, anyway. Never that. "Reminds me of somethin' I used to have."

"When?"

"Long time ago. Merle was still locked up."

"You were livin' on your own then." Not a question. He didn't tell her details here, the night he told her everything, but he told her enough. She knows the rough timeline of events.

"Mmhm."

"What happened to you?" She's laid her head down again - a bit to the side - and her expression has gone thoughtful. "While you were here? I mean..." She lowers her head a little more, nuzzles at him. "I know you were... I get it. I told you. I get why. But what were you doin'?"

At first he doesn't answer her - he simply looks at her, studying her in silence - and a look of mild concern crosses her features. Not directed at him. "You don't have to answer that, I'm just-"

"It's alright." He lifts his head enough for him to press his lips against her brow, lingering, and she sighs and slides her leg further over his. It's so easy to lie with her like this, naked and half sprawled and still glowing with the last ripples of coming, and he realized as soon as they collapsed together in a panting, slippery heap that this is the first time they've done this at all since... Since the first time.

Since the ruins.

He lays his head down and is quiet for another moment, stroking her temple, tucking her hair behind her ear. Then he lets out a slow breath and stares up at the shadows on the ceiling, which flutter and shiver with the determined movements of the moth.

"I was... I dunno. Sleepin'. Readin'. Just sittin'. There's this woman downstairs, talked to her some. Just... Nothin'. Not really anythin' at all."

Which he knows isn't even remotely true.

"You just were," she whispers.

She angles her head so she can kiss his chest, high, near his collarbone, and his eyes slip shut. She's pressed all along him and he can feel her, all her smooth skin, the curves of her breasts, her belly, her cunt against where his thigh and hip join. The tickle of her hair spilling over his arm. The smell of her - still clean, soap, but thicker. A little sharper. Not just sweat. Fucking, the two of them mingled. Familiar - but it, like everything else now, is subtly different.

Or he is.

He can feel all these things, smell them, see her eyes and the slope of her shoulder and the glitter-shine of the crystal resting on him. And they're filling him up. Furniture, electronics, expensive toys, things - he doesn't want anything else. Everything in the world he could want is right here.

He doesn't want Merle anymore. Misses him, yes. Misses him so much, misses him like a bone-bruise that he knows will never entirely heal. Misses him like a scar.

But he doesn't want him.

"Yeah. I just was."

"What about now?"

"I dunno." His attention drifts back to the shadows on the ceiling, vision slightly unfocused. "I'm not... I don't think I'm gonna worry about it."

Not anything. Not at the moment. Given who he is - who he remains, no matter what else happens - he doesn't think he'll have any trouble carving out some time in his busy schedule for worrying. He'll work it in. Later.

He can procrastinate too.

"You comin' back? To the farm?"

"Tomorrow. Called your dad." Which snaps something back into the forefront of his mind - not worry, exactly, but he does feel like he can't ignore it anymore - and he lowers his gaze and turns his head, looks at her. "When you gotta be back?"

"Well..." She smiles, and he knows that smile. He's seen it before when her hand brushes his under the table, when she's telling him to meet her somewhere, when she says hello to him and they both know what she's thinking. When she told him to drive and to pull over and he fucked her in the truck. When she told him to bring towels to the swimming hole.

When she showed him the ruins.

When she asked him for that first ride after the First Ride.

She's up to something.

"Well what?"

"I mean, I gotta be in school tomorrow."

"Right." Of course she does; it's Thursday. Pretty much goes without saying. "So when do I gotta get you home, girl?"

"You don't gotta get me home." She picks up the wolf again, still smiling at him, and turns it over between her fingers. "You just gotta make sure I get to school, Mr. Dixon."

He stares at her. Uncomprehending. Or... Yes, technically, he understands what she's implying. He's not a total idiot. But what he comes up with when he does those calculations is even less comprehensible.

"Beth, what-?"

"You gotta promise you're not gonna freak out." Before he has time to point out that promise you're not gonna freak out is pretty much a sure-fire way to get someone to freak out, she takes a breath and pushes ahead. "You remember Becca? The girl who... I told you about her, she did the whole witchcraft thing? Her daddy's the pastor?"

Daryl nods. He's getting a dim sense of where this is going. He isn't sure whether or not freaking out is appropriate.

"I'm supposed to be sleepin' over at her house. She's... She's coverin' for me. I told her. About us."

For a few more seconds he simply stares at her. It's... He has no idea if this is even a big deal or not. No idea what it means. All at once he's lost. Too lost to even freak out.

He's still just unbelievably new at this.

"I didn't tell her details. I didn't tell her who you were." She pushes herself up a bit, leaning on one elbow and looking down at him, still holding the wolf. "I just told her I was seein' a boy, my parents would lose it if they knew, I needed a little..." She rolls a shoulder and her smile goes crooked. Through the mild shock he notes that it's adorable. "I needed a little help."

He swallows. The shock is starting to settle like dust. He supposes...

He supposes it kind of makes sense, actually. It does have a certain practical logic to it.

"You trust her?"

Beth nods. "She's not, like, my best friend or anythin'. But I trust her. She's..." She laughs and shakes her head. "She's a bad girl. And her daddy still thinks she's a good girl. She's good at lyin'. Quick on her feet."

And the two of them still aren't. Not very. He doesn't think so.

That's going to have to be something they work on.

"So you're out. All night."

"All night." She lays her head down, almost tucked into the hollow of his throat, and sighs. It's a happy sound. Content.

Content with him. In his bed. Not the grass, not the ruins, not the water or a clearing or a field. No sun, stars, moon... No trees, no birds, no whisper of wind in the leaves. No ancient stone. None of the things he loves, and loves about the time they've had, about what they've been blessed with. About what they've been able to take, to give to each other.

None of those things. But something he made. Something all him. He doesn't have much to give her but he made this, he has this, and she's here in it with him and she looks and sounds and feels just as happy as he is.

And for a few seconds he can't breathe. At all. He tries and there's nothing there.

"You're gonna stay with me," he whispers, because he knows but he wants to say it, and he wants to hear her say it. Wants it clear.

She raises her head and kisses the underside of his jaw, slow and warm and sweet. "I'm gonna stay with you. All night." She sets the wolf down on his chest and reaches up, combs a hand through his hair and leaves it there. He can just see her eyes, wide and serious, and there's something else behind them. Strong. Maybe almost fierce. "And I don't want this to be the last time."

No. No, not the last time. The first time. The first time, and he would walk on his knees for a hundred miles through the desert if it meant he could have this every goddamn night for the rest of forever.

But he'll take anything. Anything at all.

"I love you," he breathes. And she kisses him again, pushes further up his body and gently parts his lips with hers, and the wolf tumbles off his chest and into the sheets as he turns and pulls her closer with a hand curved into the small of her back and his other tangled in her hair.

So that goes on for a while.

But it's only kissing. For now. By the time it's over he's gasping - they both are - and he's hard, nudging her hip and her belly, but if they really do have all night there's no need to rush this either. At some point he turned them and slid mostly on top of her, and she snakes a hand down between them and takes his cock in a loose grip - but like she did in the bathroom, she's simply holding him. Feeling.

He rocks into her fist - just a little - and his eyes slip closed as a soft hum escapes him. But there's nothing else.

When he opens them she's looking up at him, her other hand still in his hair, and her gaze is close and searching. He doesn't think it's with any particular goal in mind; it's like how she's handling his cock. She's taking him in. Taking her time. Time they've hardly ever had before now.

He lets it go for a moment or two, then tips his head down and leans his forehead against hers. "What?"

"I like lookin' at you. You're interestin'." She flashes him a quick smile - which twists into a small wince when she shifts against the mattress. He's pushing himself back when she stops him, releases his cock and gropes at her side, and comes up with the wolf in her hand.

She giggles. "Diggin' its ears into my ribs."

"You were lyin' on it. I would too."

She rolls herself out from under him and stretches down to place the wolf by the bed - careful, like she's handled it every time before now. He turns onto his side and props his head on his hand and watches her do this, the curve and bend of her spine, the fall of her hair - watches like she was studying him, just because he can. And he hardly ever gets to. Not when he doesn't have to pretend he isn't.

Also not so much when she's naked.

When she returns to her back she's holding the book, and in much the same way she was holding the wolf - curious, thoughtful, as if she can get just as much out of it by touching it as she could by reading it. The moth throws itself against the lampshade with a soft pat-pat and scatters more of those odd shadows across her. It's like her whole body is moving, some essential part of it maneuvering through time and space even as she doesn't appear to move at all.

"You were readin' this?"

"You see any other books around here?"

"You should get some."

He huffs a laugh, reaches out and pinches her nipple - pinching harder when she swats at him. "The fuck am I gonna read?"

"I dunno. Whatever you want." She's thumbing idly through the book, not appearing to look for anything in particular, but for the first time he notices that the pages are deformed the smallest bit at the places he kept going back to. It's not a very long book, and it didn't take him long to get through it three, four times, even spending a careful amount of time on each thing that grabbed him.

This is a new kind of exposure. He didn't even know it existed.

It's not horrible. It doesn't really hurt.

She glances over at him. "Which ones did you like?"

He favors her with half a shrug. He's not sure how to answer that question. He kind of liked them all.

"You have to have liked somethin' more than the others." She's quiet for another moment, turning the pages, then she rolls back to face him and holds out the book. "Read me a part you liked."

Another first.

He's never read to anyone. Not like this. And the truth is that prior to her, no one really read to him. The idea of his mother doing it? Maybe once, long before he can even remember, but by the time he was probably old enough for it to matter it would have been a joke. His father? Also a joke, and a cruel one. Merle? Fuck no.

When it came to reading, there was school - such as it was - but at the end of the day he pretty much taught himself. And did so silently, as secretly as possible, in a usually useless attempt to avoid torment.

He's never read aloud, and when she holds the book out to him he balks. Doesn't want to, but he does.

"C'mon." She's smiling faintly when she sets the book down and pokes it at him, the corner against his chest, but that gently ruthless quality has come into it and into her eyes, and he knows at once that she's not going to back down. Which he knew already. "It's not a big deal. Can be anythin'. Anythin' at all."

He mutters a jumble of half-articulated protests as he picks up the book and flips through it one-handed. What the fuck is he supposed to pick? He knows that - yes - there were parts he liked more than others, but suddenly and for no apparent reason they're all blanks. It's all just words. He doesn't remember. He's not even sure what any of it means.

He honestly thought she had run out of ways to make him nervous.

But she's watching him quietly, patiently, fingering a fold of the sheet, and something about that steady gaze holds him and centers him rather than freaking him out even more. And then it's there, open under his hand - a part he now recalls coming back to more than once, mouthing the words to himself, their flow across his lips and tongue. The images they called up in him, the sensations. Exactly the thing it describes, every strange and frightening and exhilarating fragment of emotion. Deep whispers in the dark, everyone moving and unseen.

He glances up at her. "I'll read you somethin' if you sing."

She laughs softly, a musical little sound. He thinks of a stream running over stones. "Sing what?"

"Whatever. Anythin' you want." He leaves the book open and stretches out a hand, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, fingertips lingering against the warm, ridiculously smooth skin at side of her throat. "Just wanna hear you sing."

She presses into the touch and murmurs something he can't make out, her eyes falling closed. He can see a shiver trickling down from his touch and all through her, and abruptly he wants to fuck her again - so much - and he's going to. Soon.

"Alright."

"Alright," he echoes, and transfers his attention back to the page.

He did come back to this one. One among very many, but he did. Came back to it because it was him, him for years, lying in poor excuses for beds in forests and cities, brain churning and whirling in useless circles. He was aching for something else, then. He knew it was there. Sensing a kind of sharp simplicity forever just out of his reach.

Forgive me.
For hours I had tried to sleep
and failed;
restless and wild,

I could settle on nothing
and fell, in envy
of the things of darkness
following their sleepy course-

the root and branch, the bloodied beak-
even the screams from the cold leaves
were as red songs that rose and fell
in their accustomed place.

He falls silent and she's silent too, and the words drift back and forth between them. There's no need to do anything with them. They're not for anything.

They just are.

The moth makes another few determined attempts to force its delicate body through the stiff fabric of the shade, then finally gives up and flutters away into the shadows. Its destination is entirely its own business. This house is more than big enough for mysteries of all kinds. The mysteries of a moth should be no trouble to keep.

With no preamble whatsoever, she starts to sing.

He doesn't know the song. That's not rare or odd; he doesn't know most of the songs she sings before she sings them. But there's something about the quality of this unfamiliarity that pulls at him, reaches its smooth, knowing little fingers through the gaps of his ribs and strokes over his heart. He remembers when she was on the porch playing her guitar, singing something that sounded so deeply and wonderfully incomplete, and he realized it wasn't a mockingbird cover but something all her own.

Not made by the world. Made by her.

shoots and ladders, game of chess
connect the dots upon my neck
climb the stairs and take a chance
pretend we're at some high school dance
the night will last and last and last

and kiss me like you're not sure
leave my answers, baby
I've never done this before

forget the day you've had, forget the loves you've lived
you and I are famous for pretending to be kids
wash off all your grass stains, I'll pull off my shoes
let's love like we are kids, all shiny and new

He's already putting the book aside when she stops, already pushing himself forward when the song dies away, and he seals his mouth over hers in perfect time with the press of his hand between her thighs. She moans, still musical, perfectly echoing the notes that just slipped free from her throat and cups the back of his head as her legs open for him - and she's louder, lifting her hips as he nudges a finger between her slick folds and into her.

She sang to him and he wants to make her sing again.

It's easy and very slow, fucking her in smooth, unhurried slides of his hand and giving her clit the slightly clumsy pressure of his thumb, and he remembers the clearing, the sun soaking them in liquid warmth instead of lamplight - warm too, but not the same. He remembers what he did, what it did to her, and he lowers his head and circles her nipple with his tongue, flicks at it, sucks it until she's twisting under him and clutching at his hair, his hand - and throwing her head back against the pillows and sobbing his name as she comes in a shaking rush.

Her lips part immediately for his finger, and she cleans her juices off him with the same exquisite slowness he used to fuck her. Her tongue, her soft wet mouth - he pulls her more firmly against him and rolls himself, his entire body, his cock trapped between them so hard and hot and throbbing with the force of how much he wants her.

"You always do this to me." He smiles against her jaw, nips lightly at her ear. "Fuck, girl, you get me so hard just lookin' at you."

She shivers, hooks a leg over his hip, and he feels her cunt gliding up the top of his thigh. "At the farm?"

"All the fuckin' time."

"I like that." She hums and tilts her head back, a wicked little smile curving beneath her dancing and equally wicked eyes. Doe-eyes - no innocence there. She's honest and true, no artifice or pretense, but she's never once been innocent since he first met her. "I like how I can do that to you."

"What about me, though?"

"What, you..." A sigh trembles deep in her chest and all through her and she grinds herself down harder, rocking, almost finding a rhythm. Teasing herself, maybe. She just came but he's well aware that sure as hell doesn't mean she's subsided. Doesn't mean she's not interested. "You make me wet, you know that. You can feel it."

"What about when I can't?"

"Then too. So wet, Daryl- Ah- You... Sometimes you get me soaked, all through my clothes. Swear you... You do."

He grins, wracked by a sudden pulsing shudder, and he practically luxuriates in it, everything feeling abruptly almost decadent - this soft, sweet girl against him, slick and ready for him, an equally soft bed beneath them, all night together and as much of this as they can stand.

He supposes eventually they might have to sleep. But in the meantime.

"I want you again," he murmurs, nuzzles at her jaw, and clutches at his own breath when she wraps her hand around his shaft and strokes him. She doesn't respond and it's completely unnecessary; this is her response, her open-mouthed kisses against his cheekbones and under his chin, the excruciatingly slow movements of her hand, her whole body undulating against him in gentle waves.

He wants her, so much. He can't imagine he'll ever stop. He sees no indication that it might be a problem.

Once more she puts the condom on him - taking her time, tracing his length with her fingertips and drawing shallow gasps out of him - and then she lies back, spread out under him, her arms loose over her head and her hair a cascade of spun gold over blue-black night. The light is both softening the terrain of her body and throwing it into sharper relief - her curves and planes, all the places he knows so well by now, but he looks at them and at her and again everything feels so new.

"C'mon." Soft whisper, a little breathless, and she leans up and hooks a leg around him, takes his cock in her hand and leads him in.

It's not like before. He sinks into her with a quiet whimper and lowers himself, lying against her, braced up on his elbows and weaving his fingers into her hair. He's inside her, her cunt tensing and loosening around him, but her whole body feels so open, welcoming him, her arms curling around his shoulders and her knees tight against his hips as she tugs him closer and licks into his mouth.

He isn't fucking her. He's resting here with her. He dreamed this, only it was her. She was on top of him, taking him in, holding him there. Taking all she wanted from him, the morning sun playing over her and toying with her hair. She made a bed of him.

And it felt real. It felt true.

"We fit," she whispers, and her head drops back as she circles her hips. Her lips are lifted in a small, almost dreamy smile, but she's not looking at him; her eyes are half closed, unfocused - drifting. He pulls in a breath, trembling slightly as he moves with her. They do. They fit. He still finds the idea that anyone is made for each other deeply silly, but he can see why people think it.

It's not so silly to think that for him, there might only be one person. For him, this might be it. And somehow he found her.

"You feel so good, Daryl." Her focus locks back onto him and she lays her hands against the side of his face, and her eyes are shining more than they have before, bright as moonlit water when the light catches them. It takes him a moment to realize why, and something in him simultaneously clenches and blooms outward, because he understands. He gets it. That simple fact, that they feel so good like this, that they can... And how many times now has he almost lost her? How close has he come to never having this again?

How close has she?

There are things he wants to say, countless things. Innumerable, even if he tried. They're beating against the inside of his head, his throat and chest, a dizzying tumult of words, but they've never been good enough before and they aren't good enough now. He's not a poet and he never will be, and there aren't any songs in his bones. All he's ever been able to do, really, is show her, and he does that now, finally pushing fully into her, rocking back, in again with a ragged groan. And what escapes her isn't a moan and isn't laughter but both mingling perfectly, so sweet, and he echoes it as he moves a little faster - easy, gradual, because he doesn't want this to ever be over, but he wants her so bad and he's been waiting for so long, and nothing is ever really going to be enough.

Except it is. This, with her, slowly fucking her deeper and deeper into his bed - their bed, theirs - whispering her name as he rains kisses over her face and her neck, just as slow as his hips. It's enough. It can be. He's in the world, he can live here with her, and it's enough.

"Daryl." Laughing, really laughing, her heels digging into the small of his back, a wild edge in her voice. Something bright, something with wings, tumbling through the air overhead. "You're so good. You are. Look- Look at me." His face is in her hands again, her thumbs passing over his cheekbones, and when he does as she says and looks at her everything in him seizes up. She is crying, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes - not hard, not many, but she's crying and he's not afraid of it or what it means.

"I love you. I love you so much, Daryl. Look at me, I love you, I-"

It's not an impact: it doesn't slam into him. He doesn't cry out or groan, doesn't tighten or hurl himself into convulsions against her. Warm water closes over his head and receives him. He kisses the words out of her and trembles gently over and into her, and releases everything with a sigh that empties out his lungs and blurs the world into a soft mist.

When it slips back to him, he's still on top of her, still inside her - though he understands with dim disappointment that he can't stay - and he's carefully licking her tears away, her salt on his lips, and the night beneath them cradling them both like he dreamed it would.

His dreams do keep coming true. It's uncanny.

He really believes it might be her.

Note: Poem is Mary Oliver's "Nature", song is Emily Kinney's "Kids".