Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere along the way love got tangled up in the pain and gore of the after . After the end of the world, after the death of his blood brother, after the collapse of the prison he called home, and after the family unit, the wolf pack, he was loyal to fell and scattered across the moist red dirt of the south. Somewhere the tenebrosity slit in two.

It was Beth’s light, unassumingly thin as a wire, as her slender frame, that slipped through his feral shadow and cut open a tender space in his wry heart.

Built from anger dangerous, fertilized with fear, mended with scars and iron, he was a man of the wild wood, but she was made of sunlight and grew rose thorns and could move on soft feet watching his leather-clad back. It was sort of like she built for him—if he dare think such a thing. The way she balanced on the edge of hope and pragmatism, fingertips dancing towards his like magnets and setting his course on the way she swung his internal compass. Beth led him along and he followed, and once he began following it became clear to him he could never stop.

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His hands—

Jesus.

His thick hands, rough and trembling like the boughs of a tree, grip her thighs through her blue jeans.

“Beth—fuck,” Daryl groans and it scalds like hot sin against the tops of her breasts making her breath hitch and toes curl inside her boots.

Mind scattered like a dive bar pinball machine, Beth doesn’t know where to place her oh-so-overwhelmed concentration because she’s straddling this man made of cords of muscle and goodness, drawing her hips against him without conscious reflection except—I need. Her hands trail down his back, slipping over leather, dried blood, and embroidered wings, yearning like a mad woman for his skin on hers and she feels filthy. Wanton and rank. Needy.

His mouth is too far from hers, all the way down at the v of her half-way unbuttoned flannel, so she grabs him by the muzzle, whiskers setting off sparks against her palm like she’s made of fire. She laughs in pure bliss at his being so close and Daryl’s sweet answering expression is equal parts lust and hesitance. He cocks his head like a pup and she decides there’s only the option of licking into his lips with all the relish and finesse of a horny virgin, and he gives back to her with equal enthusiasm, his groan into her mouth the most unholy thing she’s ever swallowed. It’s almost as if there isn’t enough of Daryl for her to take and take and take. Heart in her throat, he nips at her lips as his hands move up to palm her ass and her body sings louder than any melody she ever made in church.

“I want you,” whispers Beth against his mouth, voice uneven. He grunts, her beast of a man, and his blue eyes settle gazing at hers with a reverent weight. “I need you.” 

“Shit,” he murmurs and a look of almost pain flashes across his face. “Shit, shit, shit. Ya gotta stop saying that shit.” 

Cheeks flushing red, she realizes how far Daryl’s gone, how hard she’s pushed him, the feel of his swollen cock pressing against her making her body weep. Something primal takes over the sentimental and her cravings blur into one throbbing pull of her heart and her core. “How bad you want me, Daryl Dixon?”

He drops his head to her shoulder and shakes it.

“You can show me? Show me how bad you need me.”

She thrusts and smiles through the surge of stars and spine-steeling pleasure.

“Daryl. Please.”

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he growls with something like anger and wonder, and his breath is coming in short, uneven bursts against her neck, blistering her skin with desire, and her blood feels as warm as kerosene set alit. Fingers back to their bruising grip at the meat of her thighs, he keens obscenely like a wounded animal, yanking her throbbing center tightly down and harsh against his the inseam of his jeans, his hips jerking spasmodically as he cums rough and most beautiful, the most beautiful thing sweet, innocent Beth Greene’s ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

A flush of satisfaction and power rolls through Beth’s body to pool wetly at her already sopping jean-clad cunt. She runs the tips of fingers through his sweat soaked mess of hair, tickling past his ears, and Daryl shudders, wrecked beneath her delicate touch.

Her heart aches. Her heart hums. Oh, her heart—

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She stalks him with her gaze in undiluted interest. The sun is hot and bright, light flaring over his broad shoulders, glinting off the sweat slipping from tendrils of his lengthy bangs as he eyes his tacked up target. With his back to her, she’s only able to view the rugged profile of his face, lined, weathered, and so goddamn dirty. His penchant for living like a mangy dog makes a giggle bubble up inside her, tickling her belly in toothsome joy, but she understands her presence is only tolerated because of her stealth—

—and also because he might like her, just for being Beth…just a little bit.

He keeps the heavy crossbow raised with ease, the musculature of his chest, back, and arms carved and pronounced for her to trace with her stare. He peers over at her, curious and slightly unsettled when he notices her focus. She knows there’s nothing to feel embarrassed about, nothing to be ashamed about in admiring, but feels the hot flush in her cheeks anyway and it quickly becomes mirrored on his own face, so childishly open for once and clear beneath the layers of grime. They’re two blushing fools beneath a blue Georgia sky.

Makes her warm. Like fresh honey on one of her Mama’s buttermilk biscuits on a Sunday morning after church. Like Shawn gifting her with a canvas tote full of new records and tapes with liner notes for her to pore over. Like Judith’s first word being ‘da’ and seeing Rick’s eyes grow red with tears of elation, tugging at his beard like he can’t figure out if it’s all real. Like Carol’s cool hands in hers while they watch a sunrise. Like Carl and Michonne starting their own comic together. Like Glenn’s face when he catches a fish with his bare hands in a stream. Like the way her daddy hummed her name before he kissed her. Like Maggie’s rank morning breath. Like family and love and love and hope and faith and blood and love.

“You ain’t even payin’ any attention,” he grumbles.

A lethargic grin eases across her lips. “I got it.”

He stares at her for a moment longer before turning back to his practice shot. He chuffs, “Getting’ cocky, Greene.”

She doesn’t say anything to that. Too much happiness rushing through her.

At her silence, he lowers the crossbow slightly, and says, “Stop starin’.”

“Does it make you nervous?”

“Only Nervous Nelly ‘round here is Eugene. Fucker nearly set me on fire yesterday when I spooked him comin’ from takin’ a piss—” he pauses and smirks, eyes lighting up at the memory, “—was accident, of course. Didn’t mean to scare the shit outta him.”

“Course.”

The heat makes the world seemed like it’s tinged pink and she sighs.

He mutters, “I just don’t get why you’re starin’. Stop it.”

Even his ornery nature makes her smile and she strides over to him, boots rustling across the forest floor. She stops mere inches from his embroidered leather. “Daryl Dixon, I’m starin’ because you’re cute.”

“Cute?” he stutters and repeats like he’s gone stupid.

“Yep,” she replies. Her fingers dance up to his back and slip beneath his vest, lightly rubbing against the sweat-soaked shirt of his lower-back. He doesn’t let go of the damn crossbow, but his arms begin to shake almost imperceptibly.

“You blind, girl?”

Another step forward has her pressed against him and he smells something awful, but really the whole camp does. She rests her forehead against his shoulder and their sweat slicks together.

Her voice is serene when she says, “Honestly. You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Idly, she wonders if she’s making him angry by describing him with a word so soft, but he doesn’t say nothing for a minute or two, and she takes the pause in conversation to run her knuckles up and down his spine, her other hand stretch around and lying flat against his belly.

When he finally speaks, she listens. “You’ve never lied to me before.”

“Nope,” she answers tenderly, popping the p.

“So…” he draws in a large breath, “must be true then. I must be the damn cutest sonuvabitch in this here apocalypse—“

She’s laughing so hard she might cry, saying, “—shut up!”

“—cuter than Judy. Cuter than that ugly ass kitten you were fussin’ over yesterday. Cuter than—“

“You may be cute, Dixon, but you’re goddamn filthy. I’m afraid if I try to kiss you, I’m just going to end up with a mouthful of mud.”

The tips of ears, peeking through his greasy dark curtain of hair, tinge bright red, but when he finally fully turns around, he’s got a composed face, slightly keen and curious. He squints down at her like he’s puzzling something out.  

“Now, you wanna kiss me? Jesus, girl, you ain’t blind; you’re crazy.”

But he’s saying it as if he’s filled up with that warmth too, like he’s got some kind of frenetic energy twitching through his nerves, like he’s tangled up in something she’s cast out.

And Beth beams.

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“One day…I’ll be okay. And then the day after that I’ll be okay some more,” Beth murmured into the soft pink shell of his ear.

The oppressive blackness of the night curled around their supine bodies as if the two were submerged in an Aphotic zone. Out of their depth. Sinking and swimming and sinking.

Moments ago, when she’d spilled her guts to him about the hospital, Daryl wanted to kneel on the floor to slip his hands into her mess and doctor her up, but the way she spoke, the way her fingers made cages with his—he understood that the scars that adorned her face were more than markers of days gone bad, but declarations of a survival.

Girl was survivor. Beth. Beth was makin’ it everyday, each breath, all the flutters of her lashes like beating moth wings declaring a woman alive.

“You make me feel very protected,” she whispered to him, her breath warm against the scruff of his jaw. The words prompted him to tighten his grip along her ribs, tug her closer, and sink into the sweetness of her being and flesh all wrapped up in his arms. “You make me feel very loved.”

He felt as if all the scar tissue on his body ripped back open again, body singing, body becoming. Daryl huffed in a choked up sort of way, voice lost. Would never have used his words even if he was able.

Beth, lovely in her all her wisdom and want, spoke again, “Don’t you think that’s beautiful?”

Chapter Text

“Why?”

“To survive.”

Rick studied each of the five faces on his town’s doorstep and considered them carefully, every twitch of the eye, flutter of fingers, or scar a possible clue of threat.

They looked harmless enough.

“We were 17 strong once upon a time. Down in Georgia. But. That number started to grow smaller and smaller until it was just six of us.”

“Met a couple in a big old house. Old funeral home, actually, with a cemetery on the property and e’rything. Place seemed haunted or some shit, you know, but the closer we got the more secure we realized the place was. Couldn’t get more than a coupl’a feet before stumbling over some booby-trap and finally we just had to quit it. Enough is enough, you know? Don’t want to get yourself killed. ‘Cept…my kid…she was dyin’. And the others…they was hungry. Fuck man. You’d do anything for the ones you love, right? Even something stupid?

Well, that was us ‘cause we didn’t leave the property. There was just a feel about the place. The haunted thing, but also there were gardens, you know, and animals, and a pitcher of flowers on the front porch.

Figured the people living there would discover us and if they was friendlies, they was friendlies, and if they the enemy then…we’d kill what we could and try to take the house. I tell you, man, when your kid’s life is on the line there ain’t no telling what you’ll try to do.”

“What happened?”

“Next mornin’, we hear singing.”

“Singin’?”

“Yeah, man, I know how it sounds. Who fucking sings anymore? But…we heard it clear as day, like it was coming out of a radio, it was so pure. Intoxicating. Made me let down my guard for just a second…just a goddamn second, but it was enough.”

Next thing I know, I’ve got a crossbow pointed at my back. This S.O.B. comes out of nowhere, I swear it. Melts right outta the trees. Then just like that,” the man snaps his fingers, “singing stops, and I hear my kid gasp. I straight head to see a pretty slip of a woman posing with a shotgun and a junkyard hound, you know, one of those janky pitt-mutts, just a mean ole’ dog. That’s wh—“

The man’s interrupted by a boy who’s probably his son.

“She smelled like rosemary and lemons…she…they were…”

“They were ghosts,” Maggie says, calm, wiping her hunting knife with the bottom hem of her t-shirt until it shone. “They were just ghosts and that’s all there is to it.”

She stalks off to start the laundry and never think about this group’s story again.