Stitches

LeighJ

Summary:

"Maybe I just wanna take without askin'," he mutters darkly, dipping his head into the crook of her neck, still not taking his eyes off her in the mirror. "Maybe I just wanna be the guy I know I am."

Beth's heart thunders in her ears. "Maybe I wanna be taken. Maybe I don't wanna be the good girl who stays quiet an' waits to die anymore."

Notes:

A little piece I worked on during Halloween. It took a minute to finish, and we slid on by, but I hope you still enjoy the slightly spooky, depraved aspects.

(See the end of the work formore notes.)

Work Text:

"I don't know what I'm doing here, Daryl."

"It's not fuckin' rocket science, Beth, just pull the damn thread through!"

"It's not gonna be pretty," she grouses, ignoring his snappy tone. She's used to him by now. Daryl growls and slams his hand into the counter he's braced against, causing her to jerk the needle through his skin harder than she intended. "You fuckin' idiot! S'like you want this to hurt!"

"What I want, Greene, is for you to stop fuckin' hesitatin'."

Beth scowls at his back, blood stained hands leaving smears against the tattooed and heavily scarred skin of his shoulder as she continues to pull the cut tight and stitch it up.

"'Scuse me if I don't wanna hurt you more than necessary."

"Don't need y'goddamn pity, Greene, can handle pain."

Beth's mouth pinches. She knows that. She can see that. This was different though. Those guys, all trying to get to her, and Daryl he...

Daryl took a knife in the shoulder to protect her.

"You did it for me," she finally whispers like a secret, pulling another stitch through. "You're always doin' it for me. Gettin' hurt."

There's a long bout of silence, so long she pulls three more threads through the nasty cut, already noting the jagged mess she's made of the stitches. He's taller than her and she's on her tiptoes trying to see his shoulder properly, not to mention she's doing this in crappy candlelight.

Braced against the counter in front of him, he tries to shrink his own height, but mostly when she's not looking at the needle she's pulling through his skin, Beth's looking at his hands. Like hers they're bloody from protecting her, leaving crimson stained handprints across the once white sink.

When he speaks, she startles and curses as she releases the cut she's pinching together. "You need protectin', so I protect you." The words though kind are bitten out, resentful.

Beth scoffs as she squeezes the cut together again. It's been like this a while now. Their combined agitation and tension has been growing, whipping up a storm between them. They're tired, hungry; stressed. It happens now and then. Time usually brings a good meal, a nice place to hunker down for a bit and restore their energies.

A lucky break.

They haven't had a lucky break in a long time.

"Done," Beth answers back with an equally biting tone.

She puts down the needle and rubs her forehead, headless of the imprint Daryl's blood leaves on it. He still hasn't turned to face her and so she stares at the awful stitches. She never claimed to be a professional, and one more scar she's sure isn't going to bother him.

Still. Looking at it pisses her off. She's quickly gone from grateful to angry and she's not quite sure why. Maybe because he keeps taking all his aggravations out on her. Maybe because she's tired too and even more tired of holding her tongue.

"Y'know I can take care of myself. I don't need y'protection all the damn time!"

Daryl's shoulders visibly tense and when he turns to face her, in the low candlelight at least, his eyes look black and blown open. "That right?"

She swallows, thrown by the calm question. Daryl is a shout and rant kind of guy. She knows how to accommodate his explosive anger. His quiet seething is not something she's met until now. She's determined not to back down regardless.

Pointing her chin defiantly, she presses her lips together and meets his stare, even if the black pits make her stomach churn in something that's not quite unpleasant. "You gotta stop treatin' me like a kid. What if you end up dead?"

His head cocks to the side, just a slight angle and something dark slithers down Beth's chest. "You think I ain't gonna die? You're more fuckin' stupid than I thought."

She sucks in a hurt breath, then releases in a vicious hiss, "fuck you."

He barks a laugh that makes her flinch despite herself. "That's what they were gonna do, Beth! They were gonna fuck you! They were gonna take y', an' pass y' round an' fuck you while you screamed an' cried! Do you fuckin' get that?!"

"Of course I fuckin' get that! But it's nothin' new, Daryl! It's not part of this new world, these sick men! They've always been here! Even laws ain't protected women before! I'm prepared. I woulda fought for my life, I woulda gone down swingin', I woulda-"

Daryl takes one step forward that eats the space between them, wraps his large hand around her throat and backs her up until she slams into the wall behind her. The breath billows out of Beth's lungs and her eyes pop in her skull, his hand not quite throttling but his grip tight enough to bruise, and wet.

Wet from the blood of the men he killed for her, smearing all over the skin of her throat; her collarbones.

"Keep goin', Girl. Tell me what you woulda done. Show me. Right now.Fight. Get outta my grip. Go on. Do it an' I'll never fuckin' protect you 'gain."

The words are growls in her face, his chest pressed along hers, one of his knees between her legs. His thigh presses against her pussy through her jeans and she's equal parts terrified and aroused. Her pulse is hammering, surely he can feel it under his fingers around her throat.

Is he serious?

The shock of it makes her attempts weak. She gives a futile shove, fists balled up as they push at his chest. "Off!"

Daryl's hand squeezes tighter and she refuses to acknowledge how her nipples tighten with it.

Beth tries again, anger burning through her, fear rushing behind it and arousal sneakily hiding behind both. "Get off me!"

She beats her fists on his chest and tries to free her legs but all that does is rub her covered pussy against his knee. She stops immediately. Giving a keening scream of frustration, she attempts to head-butt but Daryl's head rears back, eyes sunken black.

"C'mon, Girl, thought you woulda gone down swingin'," he sneers, leaning in close to her face again.

With renewed vigour, Beth digs her nails into his stomach, still bare from when she gave him stitches. His stomach jumps and he hisses, but it barely registers. His stitches. A feral grin steals her mouth and Daryl's eyes yawn open with something she can't place. She wonders what it must look like with his hand around her throat.

Then she hooks her nails into his stitches.

"Motherfucker!" He seethes.

If she thought that would release his hold on her throat, she was wrong. The grip slacks a moment but when he tightens his fingers again it's so strong both of her hands instinctively fly to hang onto his wrist, her airways closing immediately.

Her own hands smear blood down his wrists, still so wet they immediately begin sliding down his forearms before they scrabble for purchase again. Her nails dig into his flesh, hoarding even more skin and blood under them.

Using his hold on her throat, he drags her closer, peeling her from the wall until the toes of her boots scuff the floor, and they stare at each other. They stare while Beth's vision pops and her pulse pounds, fluttering under his fingers, and her insides twist with terror and heat, and her pussy floods with wetness that scalds.

Then he slams her back into the wall and though her head doesn't really take a hit, his point is made. He doesn't let go. He does it again, dragging her close, Beth scrabbling on her tiptoes and when she thinks he's going to send her back into the wall, he pulls her the rest of the way and kisses her.

The kiss is mean and biting, his teeth cutting into her tender lower lip that's already dry and cracked from dehydration. Enough pressure and it splits further, releasing blood that coats both their lips. Beth tastes it between them but underneath that, she tastes Daryl and all his hot, seething frustration.

The hand around her neck slides down, wet and slick, over her collar bones and down her covered sides. Continuing to kiss in a brutal dance, his hand lifts the edge of her t-shirt, and presses against the skin of her stomach, leaving what she can only imagine is a crimson handprint against her flesh.

Beth moans softly at the heat of him, at the thought of a visual handprint on her flesh, a marking in the blood of the men he savagely tore apart to save her from their filthy hands and minds. Her hands tangle in his hair, tugging and yanking with eagerness and a touch of spite.

He did just throttle the fuck out of her.

The hand not pressed to the jumping skin of her lower stomach is in her hair, tugging and yanking to move her head as he wants her, opening her mouth and taking it, his tongue sweeping and eating her alive. The moans continue to seep out, the sound of them falling like little pebbles against her skin.

Daryl's hand continues to slide up her stomach, over her ribs, until he reaches a bare breast and hisses sharply into her mouth. Drawing away for breath, her chest heaves as they stare at each other and in the low lightning she can't really see him, can't really see what he's doing. The candles are grouped around the sink and on the counter for when she did his stitches and they're over the further side of the bathroom.

Licking her lips, she opens her mouth to speak but finds she can only pant. There's more dizziness than she thought, both from his hand around her neck and the breathless kissing. He continues to stare at her, maybe waiting for her to end this bizarre, wild thing that's happening between them. When she doesn't, he takes both her hips in his hands and turns them.

Beth nearly stumbles but he steadies her, her back now to the mirror, until he turns her once more, so that she faces it. She gasps at the site of them. They look feral. Even in the scarce lighting she can see the blood all over them. It coats her throat, her lower stomach where her t-shirt is still raised.

Behind her, she can see it all over Daryl's shoulders, his arms, his wrists and hands. She can't tell who coats who anymore. It's even smeared across her mouth, down her chin. Lost in the twisted image, her stomach fluttering, she lifts her t-shirt to her ribs and looks at the handprint marked there.

She thinks that if she had enough light she would be able to see every swirl and imprint of Daryl's fingertips. The exact press of it to her flesh. She's not sure why this makes her pussy throb but then she's not sure why any of this makes her pussy throb. She doesn't really want to examine it, she doesn't want it to stop.

When her eyes glance up from her study, she makes contact with Daryl's. She can see him even less than when he was right in front of her. Tucked against her back and so far towards the darkness of the room, he's like a looming, terrifying shadow.

She wants him to scare her. To play with her. To take her.

That's the truth of it.

Trembling, she lifts her t-shirt and pulls it over her head, revealing her small breasts. The blood on his hands is probably dry now and even so, its not those men she wants to mark her tits with. It's him. So while she holds his eye contact, she lifts her own hands and cups her breasts, squeezing enough that when she let's go, there's two crimson handprints on each one.

"Fuck." He reaches forward and yanks her by the hips until her ass meets his cock. "You're a twisted little bitch."

"You started it," she defends without heat.

"Maybe we been in this too long."

"Maybe," she agrees breathlessly as she circles her hips into his cock; feeling it nudging her.

He wants it too.

"Maybe I just wanna take without askin'," he mutters darkly, dipping his head into the crook of her neck, still not taking his eyes off her in the mirror. "Maybe I just wanna be the guy I know I am."

Beth's heart thunders in her ears. "Maybe I wanna be taken. Maybe I don't wanna be the good girl who stays quiet an' waits to die anymore."

Their eye contact holds in the mirror and Daryl steps back, standing to his full height. Covered in blood, he looks deadly.

"You have five seconds."

Beth swallows and then she bolts.

Her hand scrabbles at the bathroom door knob and then it twists, flying open and impacting with the wall behind it with a deafening boom.

"Four."

She tears out of the room, chest heaving, eyes scanning the home they're locked in for the night. They're on a residential block, they shouldn't be making noise. They're being reckless. She's being reckless. Feet pounding on the landing.

"Three," Daryl's whisper slithers like dark fog out of the bathroom behind her.

The house is pitch black. She can't see. Her heart is in her throat. She bolts down the stairs, slamming into them. It's cold out here, without the candles. Her nipples tighten, goose bumps sweeping her body.

"Two."

She skips the last three steps and nearly buckles, her wrist looping around the banister and sending her into a landslide. She scrabbles on the dusty floor and as she takes the fall on her hip, she's ripping her boots off.

"One."

She drops the second boot and is on her feet when she hears him. Beth's not sure why she thought he would tread quietly behind her, full of stealth and grace. The way he hunts. Perhaps that's why her heart stops dead in her chest at his feet slamming down on the stair case.

The floorboards scream and so does Beth. She immediately clamps her lips together and rounds the corner into the dining room. Daryl's not far behind her, the vibrations of his eager run riding the floor and up into her bones. Her ribs feel liquid, her heart hot and angry in her chest.

There's no time to properly assess the dining room. All she has is the table or the cupboard. In the split second she's deciding, she realises how deathly quiet it is. She stills and whips around, positive he's standing behind her but there's only darkness. A crawling sensation runs across her flesh and she knows he's got eyes on her.

It would be pointless to hide now. This part is the hunt. The knowing. The wondering. Her mind is running through a thousand possible scenarios. The uncertainty is killing her. She quickly licks her dry lips. Her eyes are bouncing across the darkness, trying to forcibly adjust.

There's a creak above her and she stifles a gasp, her eyes flying to the ceiling as if Daryl's going to be perched there. She suddenly remembers the world they live in outside this game, and half worries there's a walker they didn't deal with.

A hand clamps over her mouth.

Beth screams bloody murder into it.

Daryl's fingers tighten over her face and she stops, panting against his palm.

"Shh," he murmurs, his chest pressing to her bare back and causing her to shiver. "I win. I want my prize."