Chapter 80: make your love my hideaway

Something else he realizes as Sunday rolls into Monday and on Monday morning he rolls out to the farm: he's not counting his life in weeks anymore.

Used to. He used to pine for weekends, for Friday and Saturday nights - something that somehow struck him as such an essentially adolescent thing to do, not least because of his reasons. Like everything else in that strained, frequently agonizing before-time, there had been pleasure in that kind of constant forward-focus and the aching desire that came with it. Hours and days: he counted them faithfully, kept the time, regarded each one as a step toward her - and each one as a step toward the time when, one way or another, he would have to give her up.

Now it's just a week. He'll see her. He doesn't have to worry about that. The only question is when. He wants to, wants to so badly, and when he sees her coming up the drive on Monday afternoon - cool and gray with a bite in the air - he manages to keep from pausing on his way out toward the south pasture but his eyes follow her all the way up to the house, tracking that hip-sway he knows so damn well by now, the supple curve of her ass in her tight jeans and thinking even after she's gone from view about getting his hands on it, on her, using that supple curve to roll her closer to him with her legs spread delightfully wide.

He told her she got him hard all the time just by being there, just by seeing her, and it's completely fucking true. And it's something to enjoy for a little while, until he has to interact with people and it's time to make himself behave.

Not all that difficult.

Getting Tuesday afternoon to himself also isn't difficult; basically all he has to do is ask for it, which he does right before dinner. He's ready to offer a plausible explanation - Hershel knows he moved recently and he'll clearly have to buy things, finish getting things hooked up, everyone is keenly aware of what a pain in the ass that can be - but none is asked of him. Hershel simply nods, hand on the front screen door, and tells him to stick around as long as he can.

And it hits Daryl all over again that this man doesn't only like him; this man trusts him. Might very well trust him implicitly. Trusts him to be straightforward, to be honest. Daryl has come reliably to work every day except for the ones where he - allegedly - had very good reasons for not doing so, has worked hard and done what he's been told and hasn't been any trouble, has arguably saved the life of Hershel's youngest daughter and has refused to make any kind of Thing out of it.

Hershel doesn't know him, not really. Daryl has told the Greenes as little as possible in the way of details about himself. But there's another kind of knowing that derives its weight from sheer lengthy proximity, and he's worked beside Shawn and Hershel for months now. They probably do feel like they know him. There are probably things they wouldn't believe him capable of. Unless they knew otherwise.

Like, for instance, that Daryl is perfectly capable of lying to them about needing an afternoon off so he can fuck that youngest daughter whose life he saved.

That's not all of why he wants the time with her - maybe not even the biggest part of why - but he doubts they'd be very interested in making the distinction.

So, watching Hershel walk into the house and following a few seconds after, there's a period of about ten minutes where Daryl feels like kind of a piece of shit.

It fades when he sees her, when he spends all of dinner looking at her without looking at her, out of every corner of his vision available. This is better, this is best; this is working and it's working well. No one is getting hurt. No one is going to get hurt. It's yet another thing that isn't even all that difficult.

He's going to see her tomorrow, really see her with a lot more of him than just his eyes, and that's what matters.

They're still playing their I'm Not Paying Attention To You game, but just as he's getting in the truck to go home, she comes out of the house carrying what turns out to be a plastic-wrapped loaf of raisin bread. He stares down at it when she holds it out to him - the dark speckles of raisins clearly visible in the thin twilight, and looks back up at her.

"I know," she says, and she's almost grinning as she tosses her ponytail back over her shoulder. "Mama had a loaf extra. Or that's what she says. Take it or you'll hurt her feelings."

He takes the bread from her with deep seriousness. He would rather die than hurt Annette Greene's feelings.

He really would.

Monday night laundry. Thinking. He's always found that thinking and laundry make good companions, when he actually does any - more than he used to, because suddenly it seems to matter - and he was always the one doing it anyway. He sits on top of the rattling washer and smokes, watches his exhalations curl into the air in tiny, complex, ever-shifting patterns.

Patterns all the fuck over the place.

Back up in the apartment, he wanders. There's no clear goal behind it and he's content for there not to be. In fact it's been some time since he was really in the two other rooms, and for the most part the closets remain bare. He still has no idea what to do with them, but he's beginning to perceive the need to do something. He's largely confined himself to his camp for almost a month now, has done very little in the way of expansion, and while that's fine and he's had no interest in rushing himself, nests eventually get too small for their occupants and moths have to bust free from their cocoons.

The shelf and the things on it. Carol advised him to go from there. Where else to go?

He usually sits on the bed or perches on the counter when he wants to sit somewhere. That might indicate a direction.

He'll think about it some more. The important thing, as always, is to keep moving.

The clock in him is broken
And as for ceremony,
Already the leaves have swirled
Over, the wind has spoken.

When she comes in late the next afternoon, when she knocks and he opens the door, she's definitely moving.

He coughs a surprised laugh as she shoves him backward toward the bed, kicking the door shut behind her and shrugging off her coat - laughing into her mouth, hands raking into her hair and tilting her face up and to the side so he can kiss her as deep as he wants to, tongue surging alongside hers and teeth bared against her lips. Her hands are busy with his belt and fly when his calves hit the edge of the mattress and he falls, bouncing and somehow keeping himself upright, and drags her with him. She comes down half straddling him, plunging a hand into his pants, breathing rough and hot into his ear.

God, I want you, Daryl, I want you so bad...

He manages to pull back enough to look up at her, framing her face and lifting her, and she's all the shades of honey in his wine in the evening sun, and he knows she's just as softly sweet. Her knees clamp against his hips and she catches his wrist with one hand, other skating her fingertips somewhat clumsily along his length; he jumps, shudders, whispers, "Oh my fuckin' Christ, Beth."

They're still pretty much dressed and he's not really okay with that.

It's not the easiest thing to get her clothes off when she's scrambling with his, yanking his shirt off over his head and interrupting him doing the same, his hands closing hard on her breasts as she drags his fly the rest of the way down and pulls him free, strokes him from base to precome-wet head with her torturous little fingers. He drops back, hands going loose, and laughs again because this is so hopeless, wanting her this much after what feels like months without her, her shirt off and bra strap drooping down her right shoulder, her maddeningly tight jeans still on as she grinds slowly against his thigh.

He's groping for her hips but basically all he can do is lie there, gasping, and let her have him.

"Fuck, I... Beth..." He should have expected words to stop working very well. He tries to lift his head, focus on her, and when he does he gets to watch her release him for a fraction of a second so she can shrug off her bra, her small breasts free and swinging slightly as she jerks her cunt back and forth over his thigh and jerks him in time.

"Beth what?" She tosses her hair back and laughs - a happy, careless sound - and he can tell by the strain under her voice that she's already near the edge, and he doesn't want it like that, like this, before they're even naked, except he so fucking does. He hasn't come in a while - has been saving it for this - and he's on a hair trigger. Might only have seconds.

"You're gonna make me come." He whimpers it, and at the same time he reaches up and cups her ass, grabs her nipple, pinches and tugs at it, and he grins when that gets a tight whine out of her. "You're gonna... Jesus fuck, girl, I'm so fuckin' close-" He's not warning her; he's just telling her, and she can do what she wants with the information.

She laughs again, drops it into a moan as her movements begin to stutter, her free hand slapping against his over her breast and her grip propelling him upward so fast he can't breathe. "So come. C'mon, Daryl, I've been waitin'... Oh my God..."

He wants to hold off, wants to wait for her - wants to see her. But she's telling him and he's never been able to say no to her, and he bucks up under her, leg firm against her cunt, keening through his teeth with his come spattering himself and her, dripping down her hand as she milks it out of him. And he's still convulsing with it when she follows him, back snapping into an arch and her own cry ripping out of her throat, hand clutching her breast and definitely audible downstairs, and all he can do is smile and moan and watch her glory.

And hold her when she collapses against him, panting with him and trembling in what feels like almost perfect sync.

Of course they would rhyme.

After a few seconds of nothing in particular he combs a hand into her hair - already damp - and presses his lips to her temple. "Holy shit, Beth." He's still laughing - soft, shaking through him with his aftershocks. "Holy shit."

She's still laughing too, he realizes after a few seconds, breathing it into the hollow of his throat and going loose as he strokes her. When she shifts on top of him he can feel his come sticky between their bellies and it's perfect. "Yeah." She pauses, pulls in a breath. "I haven't come in two days."

"No?"

"No. Was waitin' for you."

"Oh, shit." He gently tugs her head back, smiling up at her. "Me too."

"Oh." The answering smile that breaks over her face is wide and pleased. "Oh. Good."

She raises a hand slick with come and presses her fingertip to his chest, drawing idle, shining circles. He folds an arm behind his head and follows her movements, everything wonderfully fuzzy. He thought it might be slow, though they might really savor it, but they can have that too. This was amazing.

He wants her any and every way he can have her.

"Love you," he breathes, and she sighs, leans up and kisses his jaw.

"Love you too."

More nothing, except the sound of her licking her fingers clean. Part of him wants to get up, finish stripping, finishing stripping her, pull her into bed and Do Things to her, but- "This is so nice," she murmurs, an almost sleepy hum. Though he's not worried about her actually falling asleep, and even if she did, that would be nice too. "I really love this."

"Love what?"

"Just... Just bein' with you. Your own place. Don't have to do anythin'." She lifts her head and rests her chin on her hand, gazing thoughtfully at him. "I wanted you, but I would've been fine with just this. Just touchin' you." She does, stroking her fingertips down his cheek. "I want you even more now, but it's like... It hurts less." She cocks her head. "That make any sense?"

He nods. It completely does.

"But." She hesitates, then giggles and it's too adorable to deal with. "How long before you think you can go again?"

"Oh Jesus." He feigns exhaustion - not entirely feigned - head falling back against the mattress. "Gimme like... Fifteen minutes."

She rolls her eyes, scoffing silently, and then rolls off him and onto her back beside him, arching herself up into a feline stretch with a moan that would make his cock twitch if it was capable. He turns a little way onto his side and watches her, head still pillowed on his arm, as she pulls off her boots and tosses them away with paired clomps on the hardwood and wriggles out of her jeans and panties, using the latter to wipe the last streaks of come off her stomach.

"Fifteen minutes? I'm gonna get bored." She shoots him a grin, curve of her mouth all wickedness, and pushes to her feet, padding naked across the floor toward the shelf. He's still watching her and it's impossible to drag his eyes away from the roll of her ass with every step, the swivel of her hips and the way the muscles in her thighs flex beneath skin that makes his fingertips ache just to look at.

"Still ain't got no curtains, girl."

"The tree covers most of those windows." And she's right; it does. Not enough to keep out any light, but it does provide something of a screen between the windows and the street. In any case, she clearly doesn't care, and before he can argue that maybe she should, she stops in front of the shelf and reaches up, running a finger along the spines of the books.

"You did get more."

"You said I should."

"You said you didn't know what you were gonna read." She lifts down Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - which a fair degree of care, he notices, fresh, sweet warmth flooding his chest - and turns to him, opens it. "I didn't think you'd get somethin' like this, somehow."

He sends her a tiny smile. "Maybe there's a lotta shit you don't know about me."

"I know what I need to know," she says softly, and the smile she sends back when she looks up completely takes him apart, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with what's going to happen in about fifteen minutes. "Y'know..." Her expression shifts back to thoughtful. "Maybe I'm not actually so surprised."

"No?"

She shakes her head, looking back down at the book. "No. This isn't just a kids book. We did some classes on it last semester. You know a lot of what's in here is stuff about math? Math and jokes and riddles. It's really complicated. You'd never catch it unless you know what you're lookin' for."

She pauses, turning the pages, then smiles again - a secret smile, one he senses he's being allowed to see but which isn't meant for him. "The signs are all there. You just gotta know how to read 'em."

"Yeah, well." He lifts his hips, shoving down his own pants and shorts and kicking them away. "Never got above a C in math. Sucked at it in school." Sucked at school.

But not, he now believes, because he was stupid.

"Maybe." She turns the page again, still not looking up. "But I think you're good at riddles."

That doesn't seem to follow. He rolls onto his stomach, facing her. "How's that?"

"Because you do know how to read 'em." She's coming back toward him now, still carrying the book, still not looking up. "The signs. You see everythin'. You see more than anyone else I know." She stops in front of him and crouches down, bringing her face level with his, and lowers the book so she can weave her fingers into his hair and kiss him for a moment that stretches out and out, becomes formless.

"There's a hell of a lot I don't see," he whispers when she releases him, leaning her forehead against his. And she smiles and lifts her head, kisses his brow.

"You see stuff when you need to. Sometimes it just takes a while." She pulls back enough to look at him, enough for him to look at her in the last deep light of a sun on its way out, and he hardly feels self-conscious at all as she studies his face with strange intensity, as if she's trying to memorize every centimeter of every feature.

She said he was beautiful. When she looks at him like this now, there's almost no part of him left that wants to tell her to stop.

"You're amazing," she breathes.

And even if he closes his eyes, he still doesn't tell her. Still doesn't want to.

They stay like that for another long, semi-formless moment, her forehead once more against his and his hand curled around the nape of her neck. At last she lays the book down on the bed and takes him by the shoulders, pressing him up, and her smile has gone loose and lazy.

He arches a brow as he lifts himself onto his knees. "What?"

"Lie on your back."

He doesn't have to ask for any additional explanation. Her smile is all he needs. He drops onto the bed and he's barely still before she swings a leg over him and straddles him, pushes back on his thighs with the book in her hand.

"Turn on the light." He reaches over his head and pulls a pillow down far enough for him to make use of it, settling himself. "Sun's goin' down, you ain't gonna be able to see the words."

She leans over and switches it on, and when she rights herself with her free hand on his stomach she's bathed in a whole new warm glow. He didn't buy this light or this bulb with any thought for how she might look in it, but of course it's perfect. Of course it makes her beautiful.

Not that she needs any help in that regard.

"Wouldn't be able to see you, either," she says softly, glides her fingers over his lower belly and takes hold of him. "And that'd be a shame."

He's still not hard, not yet, but it feels so good to have her touching him like this, playing with him, stroking him with slow, almost absent-minded movements. Like she's not even really paying attention. Something about that is so perfect, something about how it doesn't feel like it matters with all the weight of the world it used to carry, like this is just something they can do, like anything else - and yet it means everything, everything in the world - and he lies there and luxuriates in the warm softness of her fingers, the lovely, strong lines of her as she sits back on him, perfectly relaxed, naked and caring absolutely nothing about it, his cock in one hand and the open book in the other, and it should be bizarre when she starts reading to him and it completely isn't.

He returns his arm behind his head, lays his other hand on her thigh, and listens.

So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to the tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs.

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

At some point he nearly stops noticing her hand at all and his vision blurs pleasantly as he drifts into her voice, the music that always waits inside it even when she isn't singing and isn't about to. How she's touching him is just part of the whole, part of everything quietly incredible wrapping itself around him right now, and if he paid too much attention to it he'd miss everything else.

But then she stops reading, sets the book aside, and he notices it.

He notices it very much.

It doesn't hit him, doesn't crash in on him; it washes, sweeps across his perception, and where before there was a distant pulse of heat under her palm, now it's a throbbing ache, needy, and he doesn't know how long he's been hard for her but all at once it feels like hours.

She's still sliding her hand up and down his shaft in those gradual, unhurried strokes, but now there's purpose in it, and she smiles as she leans back further, tilting her hips so he can see the deep pink glisten of her cunt - just as wet as he is hard. Wanting him just as much.

There are times when that still seems barely possible.

"Beth," he sighs, and she laughs, opens her hand, swings herself to the side so she can reach the condoms by the bed.

"You keep 'em out like this?"

He pushes up on one elbow, lifts a hand and cups her breast. "Ain't no one been in here but you."

"Yeah, well." She shoots him a look as she tears open the packet. "At least it's on the side of the bed away from the door."

"Want me to clean up next time you- ohjesus, Beth." His head falls back as she rolls it onto him, his words dissolving into a quiet groan. It shouldn't feel so good, merely this shouldn't feel so good, but it does, it always does, and his hand tightens on her breast as if it's the only anchor he can find.

"I think you should keep 'em handy," she says, and though she's trying to sound meditative the tightness has slipped back into her voice, a potential whimper stretched across the top of her throat, and it escapes her when she lifts and lowers herself, sinking onto him and bending forward as a shudder runs through her.

But it's still lazy. It's still slow. When she moves it's a steady, even rocking of her hips, leaning back with her hands on his thighs - something he gathers she likes anyway but which he also suspects she does because that way he can really look at her, see everything, every tensing muscle and flexing joint, every expression that touches her face. How she forgets herself completely, mouth fallen open with her breathless little moans and her head rolling back and tipping forward, how her lids flutter over the whites of her eyes when he hits something inside her just right.

He loses himself in watching her get lost. He feels so fucking good, and - like before - it doesn't really seem to matter.

"Look at you," he whispers. Not to her. Not really to anyone. "Just look at you, fuckin' hell." His hand is operating on its own recognizance and it drags down from her breast to her belly, lower, fingers petting over her bush as his thumb nestles beneath it and finds her slick clit, circles in time with her rhythm.

"Oh-" She gasps, shivers, laughs at the ceiling. "Daryl, like that... God, yeah, that's perfect..." So both her hands are free to steady herself and she can move faster, harder - not much but enough to winch his spine inward, twisting it into a sparking coil, and enough to pull her face into a grimace that's all pleasure.

"C'mon, Beth." He barely has to move his thumb at all anymore; she's grinding herself onto it, grinding down, rotating her hips in a way that's very casually driving him insane. "I wanna see it, I wanna see you come, c'mon..."

And she does, and it's not the explosion from before. It seems to begin in her goddamn knees and swell upward and all through her, shuddering that burns up from her marrow to her skin. She arches in a slow wave, her long sob trembling into laughter and back again, mouth curved into a delighted smile and every inch of her glowing.

It's everything he wants.

She folds inward, still shivering and panting, still moving with her hands pressed flat against his chest. "Lemme see you, then." Her hair is falling all around her face, tickling his neck, his cheeks, and he tangles his hands in it and pulls her down, and she says it again with her lips against his. "Lemme see you. Lemme feel it, Daryl, you come, you come in me now-"

He snaps himself up as it takes him, unsprings him in a hot, wonderful jolt that bounces through his veins, and he muffles his cry with her mouth, her tongue and her teeth, as what feels like years of wanting her flows out of him in a single rush.

Going limp, arms around her and gathering her to him, he knows it's going to feel like years more until he has her again. No matter how soon it is.

But that's all right. Especially if it ends up being like this.

More moments - a string of them like pearls, but fluid as they were before, warping and expanding like water pooling on the floor. Without thinking much about it he slips out of her and takes care of the condom, returns to her and curls himself around her, one leg hooked over hers and a hand cupping her breast, his face buried in her hair and breathing her in.

This can't last. It's almost fully dark, and even though it's not really that late because the darkness comes so much earlier now, it won't be all that long before they start wondering where she is. She can only spend so much time at the library. There's only so much studying she can do.

But he'll hold onto this. Not with any real desperation, but it's precious. Every second of it. He can know that and feel it, and not let the knowledge burn cigarette holes in him.

She's half asleep - he can feel it in her total lack of muscle tension, the way she doesn't resist or assist him when he tugs her even closer. She stirs, murmurs, relaxes again as her hand once more covers his over her breast. He remembers doing this the night after she came home from the hospital, the night he told her basically everything - how he laid his hand here and she pressed into it, and he wanted her but it wasn't really about that. He just wanted to feel her. Feel it, that she trusted him enough to let him. It was comfortable. Comforting. He could have stayed all night like that.

Could now.

They have a little time. So he lets her be, holds her, closes his eyes and drowses. He drifts into the kinds of weird semi-dreams that bubble up when you don't totally sleep and don't intend to - not worrying, lurching things like he often has, or had, but bright and gentle, closing over and around him, indistinct and making no sense he can pull together but not needing to. He feels good in them. He feels safe.

And when she finally stirs again and stretches, rolls away from him and stretches again and sits up, rubbing sleepily at her face and already looking around for her clothes, those feelings linger.

"I don't wanna go," she says as she tips onto her back and lifts her legs to shimmy her jeans on. There's regret in it, but nothing hard or sharp, nothing with a bite. She just doesn't want to. Fair enough; he doesn't want her to either.

He turns onto his stomach again and pushes up on his elbows, watching her. "You'll come back."

"Yeah." She turns her head, smiles faintly and touches his jaw. "I will."

He goes with her to the door - naked, and now not caring about it any more than she did - and when she reaches up and slides a hand into his hair, pulls him down to kiss her, she lowers her other and presses between his legs, curves her palm over him, and there's something almost possessive in it that makes him shiver. "See you tomorrow," she whispers against his mouth, smiles again and nips lightly at his bottom lip.

He doesn't keep the door open - this side of the house is slightly more visible, at least to the house next door - but he goes to the windows, cuts the light off and watches her dim shadowy outline as she heads down the front walk to the street and out of sight.

He closes his eyes and sighs. Happy. A little wistful, sure. But happy.

He sinks down onto the bed. Like before, her smell is clinging to it - their smell, sweat and come and her hair, the soap she last used on her hands. The indescribable scent that is her skin. Something that he now recognizes as his own, mingling with hers. Together it's sweet, and he falls, turns onto his side, burrows his face into the rumpled sheets.

When he lifts his head he sees that the book is still there, down by the end - facedown and open. He stretches, reaches down, picks it up and is about to close it when - in the barely-there glow of the streetlight outside - something catches his eye.

I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!

He looks at it for a long moment.

I think you're good at riddles.

"Hope so," he murmurs, sets the book down and picks up the phone and orders some mediocre Chinese food.

Note: poem snippet is "Encounter" by Mary Oliver.