Title: For The Love of God, DRIVE!
Word Count: 1865
Universe: Non-Zombie AU.
Rating: Teen (Mentions of violence/cannibalism)
Brief Summary: Beth finds out her boyfriend Gareth's group of friends is totally not just named the "Cannibals" for fun, and flees by jumping on the back of a random motorcycle.
Notes: Inspired by a prompt from justkirstenb! The prompt was: "What if Beth was running away from something and she jumped on the back of Daryl's motorcycle and yelled "Sorry but for the love of god DRIVE!"


Beth rounded the corner and very nearly skidded into the large blue mailbox situated there. It was only a last minute dodge that saved her but unfortunately, a quick dodge wasn't gonna save her from the far worse fate chasing after her on heavy boots and far sturdier legs. Frantic, her cowboy boots pounding on the pavement, Beth dashed down the sidewalk, all the while straining her ears for the sound of footsteps behind her.

Her yellow sundress had seemed like a good choice this afternoon when her plan had been to pay her new boyfriend Gareth a visit, but in retrospect she regretted both her choices; the dress, and the visit to the new boyfriend. The dress, because it was now whipping around her legs and making it way harder to run, and the boyfriend because, well—

"Beth! Beth you get back here right now! We have a few things to talk about, and you running isn't going to solve any of it."

Oh yes it is! Beth thought fiercely. Because running was gonna save her from ending up like the man she'd just seen at her now ex-boyfriend's mercy.

"Beth!" The voice was closer now and she could tell he wasn't alone. There were several footsteps pounding alone with him but Beth didn't dare look, didn't dare waste a second of precious time to glance over her shoulder and see if all the men she'd seen with him down in that basement were chasing her now. She needed a way out, needed an escape. But she'd taken the bus here and there were no cabs in sight and she had no goddamn clue how to hot-wire a car even if she'd had a time— she was a farmer's daughter, for goodness sake! She could herd cattle like an expert, but hot-wiring a car was far out of her list of abilities.

There was no way she could outrun them forever, despite the fact that she was quick and agile on her feet. They'd catch up to her, and then…

No. She refused to be caught, she refused to give up!

And then she saw it. Idling at the stop light up ahead; a rumbling black motorcycle. Beth had just enough time to catch sight of the man straddling it; no helmet, long and shaggy dark hair, and… two white angel wings, emblazoned across the back of his vest. Beth was a big believer in fate, and destiny, and signs.

And that right there? That was a sign, clear as day.

So she didn't think. She just ran, praying her luck would hold and the stoplight wouldn't turn green; and maybe it was just luck or maybe those wings really were a sign because suddenly she was there and hopping onto the back of the motorcycle without hesitating. "Drive, please drive!"

From in front of her came a rough, rumbling voice, "What the fuck?"

Beth slid her arms around his waist. "Sorry but for the love of god, drive!" She shouted the words over the rumble of the engine and saw the man she'd just hopped up behind turn to look at her, his face pulled into an intense, angry scowl…

…until their eyes met. Blue upon blue and something sizzling between them, sharp-bright like a firecracker sizzling through her veins and whatever it was he must have felt it too because she could see the shift in his eyes and the easing of that grimace. And then his eyes flicked past her to the street and the sidewalk beyond, and he tipped his chin forward in a nod as he asked, "Friends of yours?"

She didn't have to turn to know who he meant, but she did, and there he was. Gareth, with three of his buddies close behind; one of them trying and failing to conceal the bloody machete hanging low in the hand at his side. Beth's arms instinctively tightened around the man's waist and she looked right back into his eyes and breathed out as firmly as she could manage, "No. No they're really not. Please…."

One second. That was as long as she saw it for, but it was there; a flash of protectiveness in his eyes that was almost fierce in it's intensity. Then he just nodded, as if it were simple, and she felt the engine roar as he throttled it. "Hold on tight, girl."

She already was, but at his words Beth slid her arms even tighter around him and pressed her cheek to the warm leather of his vest just in time for him to race right through the light. It felt like the bike leaped forward and it was all Beth could do not to scream— and then they were flying. At least that was what it felt like to Beth; like they were soaring down the streets with the wind whipping through her hair and tugging at the skirt of her dress and god, if she hadn't just escaped what she was sure was near-death, she would have laughed at how good it felt.

Her angel-winged stranger drove until the buildings disappeared behind them, until Beth didn't even recognize where they were anymore but she could only assume they'd gone far enough so that Gareth and his friends wouldn't catch her. Only then did the bike coast to a stop on the side of a gravel road lined with woods on either side. The city was far behind them now but Beth didn't feel afraid anymore. She felt like she'd left everything she needed to be afraid of back there, and here there was only safety and peace, and the silence of the country as the engine cut away. For now, anyway.

Breaking that peaceful silence was her saving angel, turning around on the bike and brushing back his wind-swept hair to raise an eyebrow at her. "Alright. Y' wanna tell me why I just drove a complete stranger away from what I'm pretty sure was a hipster carryin' a machete?"

Beth just blinked at him and replied, "That was my boyfriend. Not the one with the machete, the one leading them anyway."

The eyebrow stayed raised. "You got strange taste in men, girl."

"Well he's my ex-boyfriend, now," Beth said sharply, giving up at her attempt to make her windblown mess of blonde hair any neater.

"Now that you know he has a friend with a machete?"

She would have laughed at his dry tone, if it had been any other situation. Even still the corner of her lip turned up as Beth shook her head. "No. Now that I know that The Cannibals, as he calls them, is clearly not just a joking name for his group of friends."

Still on his bike with his fingers curled around the handlebars, the man gave her a once-over and shook his own head. "Think you lost me, girl. Try again."

"Okay, how's this? I put on a nice dress to go visit my boyfriend today, as a surprise. Only when I got there I heard noises down in the basement and went to check, figuring they were playing video games. But they weren't, nope. They were cutting up a man on a big steel table, and judging by what else I saw down in that basement, it was not the first time." She broke off for just a moment as the images flashed through her mind; a large metal tub, the edges of it coated in blood, walls covered in photographs and maps marked with colorful pins and routes, and a group of men clustered around a metal table, blood spraying across the plastic aprons they wore as they cut into a man's leg.

Beth shuddered, and her voice trembled as she went on, "So…. So, I'm pretty sure my boyfriend is in some kind of gang and I'm pretty sure the whole Cannibal nickname is not just a joke and I'm also pretty sure that if you hadn't driven off with me on your bike- thanks, by the way- they'd have caught me and brought me back and I would have definitely found out for sure if that whole Cannibal thing was a joke or not."

Beth drew in a deep breath, and flashed him a trembling hint of a smile. "So. How's that for an explanation?"

He studied her for a long, drawn-out moment, looking her over from head to toe and back again, and then he replied simply, "Huh." That was it. Just a 'huh' and a nod, and he was climbing off his bike and leaning over to unstrap his bag from the side of it.

As he slung the strap of it over his shoulder, Beth looked up at him in wide-eyed confusion and blurted out in a voice far higher-pitched than she'd intended, "Huh? What the heck does that mean?!"

To her surprise, he flashed her what she was pretty sure was close to a smirk as he said, "Means my place is right here, through this woods. Means we're gonna go inside, get y' somethin' to drink, and then give my friend a call."

Still caught up in a mix of adrenaline and bafflement, Beth followed along after him, rather like a lost puppy trailing after… well, Beth had no idea what this man was. A wild wolf of a man? An angel?

"Who's your friend? Who are you?"

He pushed through the brush carefully, revealing a house set back into the woods that Beth hadn't noticed from the road. She had only a second to take in the simplicity of what looked to be a wooden cabin built perhaps lovingly by hand, when her saving angel replied, "The name's Daryl Dixon. And my friend's name is Rick Grimes. Sheriff Grimes. I reckon he'll be very interested in what you just told me…" He glanced over his shoulder at her and raised his eyebrow. "…girl?"

It took her one moment and then with a rapid blink of her eyes and a swipe of her tongue across her suddenly dry lips she got out, "Beth. Beth Greene. And… and thank you."

"S'nothing," he said with a shrug. "Now c'mon, Greene. Let's get you somethin' to drink."

He said it so simply, but she knew it wasn't true. It wasn't just nothing. He'd saved her life back there, and she was so impossibly grateful. But there was something else, too. Something more that she was feeling, more than just relief and gratefulness. She felt it again, stirring within her in an echo of that electricity she'd felt when they first made eye contact only this time it came as he held open the door and paused to look back at her and add in a low, rough voice, "I ain't gonna let no one get you today, okay?"

Momentarily breathless, all Beth could do was nod and try not to stumble under the feeling of his gaze holding her own. When he finally turned and lead the way into his home, all Beth could think was that this day was turning out to be so far from what she'd expected.

And yet somehow, it wasn't all so bad.