AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Carol valued, a great deal, being given permission to say "no."
She liked knowing that she had the power to say "I don't want…" or "I don't like…" She liked knowing that Daryl had given her full control of the reins. She could choose for them to gallop forward at an unprecedented speed in their relationship, or she could pull back and request that they proceed slowly—even hold still, if that's what she wanted.
Control over herself and the experiences of a relationship was something that Ed had never given Carol. Daryl soon learned that the man had essentially stripped her of every single bit of autonomy—and, therefore, certainly of all control—during their marriage. He liked to dictate what she wore, cooked, did with her time, and everything else.
The only way that Carol had ever really visibly bucked Ed had been with her hair. She'd explained it to Daryl, one night, while they'd been working on a puzzle that, with five-thousand pieces, had started to seem a bit more complex than either of them had really desired for an evening of quiet, relaxing entertainment.
"I used to wear my hair long," Carol said.
"I bet it was pretty," Daryl said.
The look she gave him told Daryl that she might think that was an inappropriate thing to say. He raised his eyebrows at her and lifted his hands in mock surrender.
"What?" He asked. "Shit—I don't mean nothin' by it. Just—I bet your hair was pretty long."
"So, you don't like it short?" Carol asked.
"Of course I like it short," Daryl said. "I mean—is this short? What it is now? Because—I've only known it like…you know…like it is now."
She relaxed a little and laughed to herself. She reached her hand up and combed her fingers through her hair, teasing tangles out of the curls that went in every direction and looped around each other in places.
"This is short, but it's not as short as it used to be," Carol said.
"How short did it used to be?" Daryl asked.
"Shaved," Carol said. She laughed to herself at Daryl's expression, and he did his best to try to wipe it away. "I did—I shaved it with clippers. There was barely enough to even tell that I had hair, and I kept it that way."
"You got any pictures?" Daryl asked, walking a piece of the puzzle around the whole of what they had put together to see if it might magically slip into one of the open spaces.
"I never took pictures after I shaved it," Carol said. "Not if I could help it."
"Because of Ed?" Daryl asked.
She hummed.
"Ed was pissed off about my hair," Carol said. "He liked it long, and he liked it red. He said that a woman with short hair didn't look like a woman. She looked like she wanted to be a man."
"That's stupid," Daryl said. "It's just hair. I mean—I'm sure your hair was pretty an' all, but it's just hair."
She smiled to herself at that comment, and Daryl's heard did a dance in his chest. He had genuinely pleased her, and he hadn't even meant to say something she'd necessarily approve of.
"He said I was—uglier than I'd ever been before. Masculine. He said it made me look old. Ugly. You name it. I wasn't taking any pictures after that. I have a few from—before. When it was long."
"I'd like to see 'em," Daryl said.
She tensed a little.
"Some other time," she said, somewhat dismissively.
"Fine," Daryl said, returning his eyes to the frustrating ass toucan on the puzzle. "I mean—if you don't want me to see your pictures, that's your call. I've never taken a bunch of pictures. All my like—baby pictures or whatever? They were all destroyed in the house fire, if there ever were any of 'em. But—I'll scrounge up what I can around the house. Bring 'em one day. Let you see what the hell Merle and me looked like back in the day. I think you'll be surprised at how skinny we both used to be. And how damn curly-headed Merle was before he kept his hair cut so short. Me? I was a complete toe-head. My hair didn't start to darken up, honestly, until I was damn near in my thirties."
When he looked at Carol, she was staring at him intently and smiling. He felt his cheeks run warm with the concentrated attention, and he laughed to himself to cover the sensation.
"What?"
"I bet you were—adorable," Carol said.
"Adorable?" Daryl said with a snort. "Really?"
"What? I bet you were. I think you're adorable now."
Daryl's stomach was doing something akin to what he thought of as the "Carol Mamba." It always had a tendency to overreact with Carol. He'd become accustomed to the feeling, though, and accepted that she simply had the ability to make him feel practically like his entire body was "jellied" at different times.
"Adorable ain't a real masculine word, Carol."
"Oh, I think you're plenty manly, too," Carol offered.
There was the slightest bit of throatiness in her words. There was a way she changed her voice—Daryl never could have explained it to anyone—but it called out to the most primal inner version of himself. Just the slight shift in her tone and he could feel his body responding. His dick practically woke from its slumber like it had the intention to raise its head, look around, and ask if it was needed.
Daryl was certain—positive, even—that things would eventually end in them making love—playing together, enjoying each other's bodies. It almost always did. But he could also tell that wasn't her interest at the moment. She might wish to tease him a little, all in the name of stoking the fire for later, but she wasn't ready—not right now.
He did his best to communicate that information to his dick and every other system in his body. Now they were only teasing each other. Talking.
"You think I'm manly?" Daryl teased, raising his eyebrows at Carol.
Carol smiled at him. It was a warm smile. It grew, and she crinkled her nose. She looked so damned happy that she practically glowed when she wore that smile—and she wore it often. It was one of Daryl's greatest life accomplishments that he'd somehow found the secret, entirely consciously unknown to him, to bring that smile about as often as he did.
She forced it back, trying to be serious for the sake of the game—the teasing that was passing between them—but she could only swallow back so much of it, and it didn't matter in the slightest. This was just a thing that they did. They both enjoyed it—the playful back and forth.
"I do," she practically cooed. "Adorable and manly and…virile."
"Virile," Daryl mused.
"Virile," she repeated.
Daryl raised his eyebrows.
"And I think you're—adorable…"
"That one's mine," Carol teased. "You're cheating."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I can't help it. It's true. Adorable, and irresistible, and…muliebral."
Carol furrowed her brows.
"Muliebral?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Muliebral," he repeated. "It's—the opposite of virile. Like if a man is virile, then a woman's muliebral."
"Feminine."
"Same family," Daryl said. "Masculine is to feminine as virile is to muliebral."
Carol nodded, not hiding her impressed expression or the smattering of amusement on her features.
"New words like…muliebral…and analogies," she mused.
"Almost like I'm an educated caveman," Daryl teased.
"I would never call you a caveman," Carol said quickly. "And—I'm sorry if you would ever think I would."
It was sincere. The sincerity of her apology made Daryl's stomach tighten in a different way than her normal effect on his internal organs.
"I'm just joshin' you," Daryl said. "I'm not offended."
"But I am impressed. I've never heard that word before."
"Merle loves crossword puzzles," Daryl said. "Loves words. Says words are the key to everything in the world."
"That just doesn't sound like Merle," Carol said.
"He's less of a caveman than he seems," Daryl offered with a shrug.
"I didn't mean that either," Carol said.
"It's OK," Daryl said. "Believe me. Still, he loves words. Fact remains. He's got a big ass dictionary and he's always searchin' shit out. Now he can find shit on his phone and, at first, he was kind of offended by it. Like he was doin' some kind of great huntin' when it was just him and the big ass book for hours at the kitchen table. He's made peace with the phone, though, and he does puzzles like four times as fast as he ever did 'em before. He teaches me words sometimes, and I pick them up either helping him look or just—you know—comin' across somethin' new in a book."
"You amaze me a little more each day," Carol said. A soft, warm smile had settled over her features again, and Daryl's stomach returned to the happy Mamba that it usually did in her presence. He smiled to himself.
"And every damn time I turn around, I find out there's somethin' else we got in common," he said. He let her sit, for a moment, smiling to herself with that happy little smile. He watched her trying to fit together pieces of the puzzle with her delicate little fingers. He took in every part of her, in that moment, and saved it away in his mind with the million other little details of her that he desperately stored up to keep with him forever. He was almost afraid to forget anything about her—everything, honestly, simply felt so precious to him that he couldn't imagine being without it now that he had it.
Daryl cleared his throat after a moment.
"So—do I get to see those pictures of you?"
Carol looked at him, this time without the earlier burning expression, and hummed.
"You can," she said. "Just—not right this minute. They're all put away in the bottom of the closet and I just don't feel like going to get them."
He felt like she was being honest. She wasn't trying to put him off. She sincerely didn't want to get up, from this moment in the present, to go digging through the closet in search of the past. Daryl accepted that.
"Fine," Daryl said. "Just—want you to know that, it don't matter what the hell Ed said, OK? You're beautiful and muliebral no damn matter what your hair looks like. Long or short, red or silver."
Carol looked at him again, and he winked at her. She smiled and her cheeks blushed pink.
"My hair was red when I shaved it," she said. "I didn't let it grow again—not even this much—until after I divorced Ed. It came back in entirely gray. My parents both went very prematurely gray, though, so…I wasn't too surprised. I considered coloring it, but…"
"I like it," Daryl offered quickly, picking up that she needed him to say something.
"You might like it better red when you see the pictures," Carol challenged.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders.
"And you might like it better when I was super thin and toe-headed," Daryl said. "But that was then. This is now."
"I could dye my hair," Carol said.
"So could I, I guess," Daryl challenged. "But—I don't want to. You want to dye your hair?"
"Not really."
"So—there it is. Besides, I mean, I'd like to see your pictures just to…see your pictures. But I love you just the way you are right now. You know that. I fell in love with you. You like…like you are. It's not like I'ma fall in love with a picture. Hell—if you don't want me to see 'em, that's fine, too. I was fine not seein' 'em before I even knew they existed."
"You had to know I looked different in my teens and twenties—even in my thirties."
Daryl shrugged.
"Sure, I knew it. I'm not stupid. I bet you looked a hell of a lot different the day you were born. My point was that it don't matter. Doesn't change how I feel about you right now."
When he looked at her again, she was doing that thing—that thing that practically unnerved him. That thing where she looked at him so intently that he was almost certain she could see through him. There was a calm happiness on her face.
"I love you," she said.
The way she said it was always so simple. She didn't go in for elaborate speeches or long, drawn out declarations of love. She said it simply. Concisely. Just three words. I love you.
And yet, she put so much feeling behind the way that she said it, that those three words always crashed over Daryl like a tidal wave of warm water when she said them. There was so much force behind them—so much sincere meaning—that it felt like it could take him off his feet.
"I love you, too," he echoed back, feeling slightly short of breath from her words. She was pleased, and she turned back to the puzzle. After a moment, she cheered and wiggled in her chair with a victory dance over having found all the pieces to the flower that she could fit into the image they were creating together.
Daryl struggled with the toucan and let some comfortable silence pass between them before he returned to what they'd been discussing earlier.
"I still gotta ask," he said, as a way of drawing her back. She looked at him in question. "Ed controlled everything you did. Everything about you." She nodded. "And you did what he wanted."
"I had to," Carol said. "It was survival."
"I ain't scoldin'," Daryl said quickly. She nodded her understanding. He was only working through his thoughts, not scolding her for her past. "I guess what I'm wondering is—Ed liked your hair long, and you tried to do what Ed wanted you to do because it was, like you say, survival. I guess—I'm wonderin' why you shaved it and kept it that way for the rest of your marriage. That had to make him more of an asshole."
"I don't know if anything could make Ed more of an asshole," Carol said.
"I agree he was just a fuckin' asshole, full stop. I guess, what I'm tryin' to say is he had to…react."
"Oh, he did," Carol said. She smiled at Daryl. "You want to know why."
"If you don't want to tell me," Daryl responded.
"No," Carol said. "I do want to tell you. Remember? I want—to know everything about you. And I want you to—know everything about me."
They wanted to know each other's true selves. That was what they had decided almost immediately after they'd declared that they loved each other. If they were going to love each other, then they wanted to love the whole of each other—warts and all. That would mean, of course, peeling back a lot of layers and even pulling back some protection that they'd both put in place, and come to rely on, over the years.
It would require a great deal of trust and sensitivity from the both of them. And, more than likely, it would require a great deal of time.
They were revealing themselves to each other as they felt comfortable offering up bits and pieces. The idea wasn't to shame each other, force each other, or rush each other.
And it was one of the greatest feelings that Daryl had ever felt. He was going to know this incredible woman, entirely, in time. She was going to give that to him. And, in return, he was going to be completely known to her. It was a little scary, honestly, and he knew she felt the same, but it was invigorating as well.
"If you're not ready," Daryl offered.
Carol sat back in her chair. She sucked in a breath.
"Ed used to—grab my hair. All the time. He'd do this…" she demonstrated a winding motion with her hand and fingers, her face taking on an angry expression that he was sure was simply a memory of what Ed had looked like to her when he raged against her. "He'd use it to snatch me around. Hold me. Control me. He used to rip it out sometimes, he'd hold it so hard."
"Jesus…I'm…sorry," Daryl stammered. The words meant nothing, and they certainly did nothing for the feeling of nausea that rose up within him. Carol knew, though, like he did, that there simply weren't words that could do anything they wanted them to do. He told her things, too, that she couldn't respond to in any meaningful way—at least not to take it away. There was no undoing the past.
The only meaningful response, from either of them about any piece of themselves that they shared, would always come "later." It would always come in the time when they soothed each other and appreciated each other. It would always come when they consciously made an effort not to repeat things that had hurt each of them.
Carol smiled to herself and nodded.
"It's OK," she said. "Really. Ummm—so one day, he hurt me. He really, really hurt me. Worse than—he ever hurt me before. Honestly? Worse than he ever hurt me the whole time we were married. And it was like something inside of me just…broke. So, when he went to work, I decided that he would still hurt me, because I knew that he would, but he wouldn't ever use my hair to grab me. He wouldn't ever use it to keep me from getting away. So, I took the clippers he had for keeping his hair trimmed, and I cut it all off. Shaved it all off. Every bit of it. He was pissed off. But he'd already hurt me—and he couldn't ever hurt me that badly again."
Daryl's breath felt shallow and labored. His throat felt tight. His stomach was knotted, and had abandoned the happy Mamba dance that it did. The air in the room felt heavy.
"I wish I could—go back," Daryl said, "and undo all the hurt he ever did to you."
Carol gave him a tight-lipped smile that told him that she was dealing with her own pain, at the moment—the fresh sting of reliving old trauma.
"I think—you are," Carol said, her words coming out breathy. "At least…as much as you can."
Daryl nodded his understanding.
"Then I'll keep going," he offered. "'Til it's all done."
She smiled at him a little more sincerely.
"I believe you," she breathed out.
She offered him a hand to hold, for just a moment, across the puzzle. It was a quiet request for a physical connection. It was a silent searching out of positive touch to counteract the painful touch she was remembering. Daryl caught her hand, squeezed it affectionately, and received her return squeeze. He leaned, raised her hand to his lips, and kissed her fingers. She squeezed his hand again before she drew hers back.
"You are staying the night?" Carol suddenly asked, brow furrowed, like she'd just been struck with the possibility that Daryl might be leaving—and like she'd just been struck with the realization that, maybe, she wanted the comfort of having him there.
Daryl smiled to himself.
Carol valued, a great deal, being given the permission to say "no." She valued, immensely, the feeling of holding the reins and having the ability, at any moment, to pull back on them and say that things were going too quickly. She savored the control that Daryl had happily and freely given her over how quickly they galloped along, trying out the new experience—for both of them—of simply being peacefully and happily in love with one another.
Carol liked feeling that control was within in her grasp, but Daryl had found that she hadn't really exercised it in the weeks since they'd first exchanged their declarations of love. She hadn't said anything when he'd brought the small suitcase. There had been no grand discussion the day that she'd shown him his "drawer" and the corner she'd cleaned out of the closet. There'd been nothing more than a given "thanks" the day that she'd replicated his toiletries, lining up "Carol's house" versions of his favorite things along the bathroom counter and putting his body wash in the shower.
Carol liked knowing that she had the right to say "no," any time she pleased and without explanation, but Daryl had noticed that she hardly ever practiced that right. Of course, maybe he just didn't present her with too many things to which she sharply objected.
He was learning, and he valued the knowledge, that his presence was absolutely not something to which she objected—seemingly ever. And he was more grateful for that than he could ever truly express.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm stayin' the night."
