(no subject)
Title: Broken
Author: tobermoryspeaks
Summary: Prompt 71 on the fanfic100 table: 'broken'. I set out to respond to sparkledark's prompt: Here's a recent Norman quote on the subject of Daryl and romance: "I don’t want to play it like I have any game at all. I wanna play it like I don’t know what I’m doing. You know, I wanna premature ejaculate in my pants in 30 seconds. I wanna sweat, I wanna cry, I wanna freak out, you know what I mean?" and then Merle got all involved in Daryl's head and sad!fic happened, so that is this.
Rating: R .
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for up until the end of Season 2.
Disclaimer: None of The Walking Dead characters/situations/places are mine and never will be, they belong to AMC and Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.
It's past midnight when Daryl finally snaps.
He's not sure what it is that breaks him. It could be the combination of an empty stomach, nerves too shot to eat; or the fact that he hasn't slept in over a day, despite feeling beyond exhausted in mind and body. It could be the ache in his side of a wound not-yet healed, or the itch of stitches that pull and worry, and still have to be left in for another week. His encounter with Andrea certainly isn't helping at all, it's been over a day since he last spoke to her and his knee still burns where she rested her hand on it. His cheeks still burn, more to the point, when he thinks about the stupid, reckless risk he took in spitting out the words that had been on his tongue since the day he first spoke to her. And her - leaning up towards him, asking him to kiss her - he didn't expect that. Almost didn't want it. Because he had no idea what to do with that, how to respond. So he'd said nothing, done nothing, only pushed her away and left her there; left her alone to hopefully decide that Daryl Dixon was an asshole who she would never speak to again.
He tries to think of Shane now, whenever he thinks of her. He tries to imagine how Shane would have fucked her (for some reason, it makes him sick to his stomach to imagine that Shane looked her in the eyes when he did it, so he imagines that he took her from behind) and tries to imagine how Andrea's name would sound on Shane's lips. But try as he might, the anger he feels when he imagines them together never quite eclipses what he feels when he thinks back to Andrea beside the campfire. Kiss me, she had said. Had she wanted it as much as he had? What would that even mean, if she did?
Daryl growls and rolls over in his sleeping bag, throwing an arm over the side of his head. What's playing on his mind more than anything is that he can hear her - Carol - in the RV. Crying. Sobbing, to be precise. She's been weeping for longer than he cares to measure, and not once has he heard the door of the RV open, not once has he heard anyone's footsteps crossing the camp to go and check on her.
And that's what breaks him.
He sits up quickly, pushing his sleeping bag off him. His pillow tumbles out to the side and he turns around, grabs it, and drives his fist in to its thin, downy middle. He pummels it, again and again, rage coarsing through his veins - Sophia. Merle. Andrea. Carol. No good ever came from caring about someone. Only worry and anger, heartbreak and lonliness. He digs his fingers in to the cotton and rips, sending gasps of feathers tumbling across the floor of his tent. Still he continues; ripping and tearing until there's almost nothing left but a pathetic pile of white cotton.
And when he catches his breath, and the blood stops pounding in his ears, he can still hear Carol's weak cries.
A rush of cold air enters behind him as he steps in to the RV, and he shuts the door quickly to prevent any more heat escaping. When his eyes adjust to the darkness, he makes out her thin form curled up on the bed, with her arms around a pillow. He can't see her face. And just for a second, he thinks he doesn't want to - doesn't want to see greif writ raw across her features. Hearing it, hearing it in her cries, is hard enough.
"Carol," he whispers, once he gets his voice working.
She hiccups, moving slightly so she can see him. "Daryl?"
"Yeah."
She pushes the pillow away slightly and sits up, propping herself up on one arm. Her face is streaked with tears, the skin on her cheeks fire-red and blotchy. Her eyes are bloodshot and her lashes drenched; and on her collarbones he makes out trails of tears that have trickled all the way down from her eyes to the edge of her cardigan. She hiccups again and reaches out for him, her small hand extending in the darkness.
He's not sure what makes him do it - the concept of comfort couldn't be more foreign to him - but he steps towards the bed, reaches out for her in turn; and sits down next to her, bundling her in to his arms when she crawls helplessly towards him across the thin sheets. Her head finds a space to rest on his chest, between his chin and shoulder, and her tangle themselves in his shirt front.
"I'm sorry," he says, weakly, and she nods against him. He can feel fresh tears on her cheeks, wetting the worn collar of his shirt, but he doesn't care. His hand clumsily finds her temple and he holds her to his chest, stroking the hair there. "I'm so sorry."
"She's gone," Carol whispers breathlessly, voice thin. "My little girl. My daughter. She's gone."
"Wasn't your fault," Daryl says, almost instantly; and Carol begins to cry harder against him, but soundlessly - her mouth open in a silent scream, trembling in his arms. "Wasn't your fault, I promise," he says, again, wrapping his arms tighter around her; rocking her gently from side to side as she weeps.
The sun's peering over the horizon when she finally falls asleep in his arms; and it's shining low but strong by the time he figures out how to lie her down in the bed without waking her.
He steps out of the RV, squinting in to the light; and in the back of his mind somewhere there is a dim realisation that this is the second sunrise he's seen without having slept the night before. He turns around to shut the door, inching it closed against the doorframe quietly; and as he stifles a yawn, he turns back towards the yard only to discover the person he's been trying to avoid the most.
"Daryl," Andrea begins. Her hair hangs loose around her face and she wears a thin, long-sleeved top over her normal tank-top-and-khaki attire. "I'm glad I found you. I was going to check on Carol."
Daryl nods once, swallows; and then realises she's probably expecting a response. "She's sleeping," he says, brusquely; and Andrea nods.
"Good," she says. "That's good. Can I...talk to you?"
"Don't have nothin' much to say," he says.
Andrea crosses her arms in front of her. She looks about as uncomfortable as he feels, which gives him some small relief. "Then let me say something?" She takes a deep breath. "I wanted to...apologise to you. For what happened the other night. I've obviously misinterpreted something, and thought there may have been something there when there wasn't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just thought - look, it doesn't matter. The point is, we'd both had something to drink, and we were both tired; and I'd hate for one drunken mistake to get in the way of us being friends. Or, at least, co-operative members of this camp. So let's...forget it all ever happened?"
She looks hopeful as she makes her offering, eyebrows raised and lips pressed together.
"So it means nothin', right?"
"Right," she says, but her eyes don't meet his when she speaks. "We'll forget all about it. Move on. Be just friends."
"Like how you'n Shane are friends?" Daryl says, low. "That kinda friends?"
"Daryl..." Andrea sighs. She frowns and uncrosses her arms, placing her hands on her hips. "I didn't come here for you to make judgements on who -"
"You think of me the same way you think of Shane?" Daryl interrupts, stepping in closer to her. She's shorter than him but not by much; her head comes up level with his shoulder. And it's that she looks at, avoiding his eyes as he speaks. "You think of me like that?"
"Not...exactly like that," she says. "Different."
"How?"
Her voice is breathy when she responds. "For starters, Shane was a once-off in the front seat of the car. That's not how I imagined it with you."
Daryl suddenly has a vision of the girls he and Merle used to see in bars back home. Merle was a completely different kind of drunk to Daryl - after one too many, Daryl found himself getting sleepy and introspective, but Merle was the total opposite. Merle would harrass the women to breaking point, snapping their cheap pull-up stockings and cat-calling them until he wound up with a patent stiletto to the groin.
"How did you imagine it?" Daryl says, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Merle is wiping down his face after having a wine spritzer thrown in to it, and laughing: all these bitches're the same, little brother. Nun in public, whore in the bedroom. You'll see.
"Just different," Andrea says, and she doesn't step back when Daryl steps in. Her eyes meet his as she speaks. "I'd never thought about being with Shane before it happened. It was just adrenaline; I needed a release. But...I had thought about you. I'd thought about you."
Lo and behold, those women always ended up in Merle's bed. No matter if they'd screamed him down and called him every name under the sun, or had been reduced to a mascara-sodden crying wreck from his taunts; he always managed to pull something out of his hat before last call and he'd stumble out of the bar with a girl on his arm; those cheap white-pleather skirts finding space on the back of his bike before they roared off in to the night. Daryl made the long way home, taking his bike down miles of highway, through forests and over rivers, before he finally parked next to Merle's machine and stepped inside. Ordinarily, the women would be gone; but occasionally they'd still be there, shoes by the door and items of clothing strewn throughout the house on the way to the bedroom. On one occasion, Daryl walked past Merle's room on the way to his own and found the door wide open, Merle buck-naked on top of whatever nameless honey he'd dragged home that night. The belt was still looped loosely around her bicep. Her skinny legs were wrapped around his hips, fishnet stockings torn in places over her tan skin; and Merle thrust in between those legs, producing moans and squeaks from the girl as he fucked her in to the mattress. She peeped over his shoulder at one point and her eyes met Daryl's, spider-like lashes winking down over her cheek as she called out an invitation for him to join in.
Daryl pulled the door shut immediately; but there was something about the image that always stuck with him. And Andrea, standing in front of him now, isn't so different to that woman, he supposes. She's not as bone-skinny, and her skin is naturally tan, rather than patchy with make-up; but her lips are just as full and he can make out the curve of her cleavage just as easily.
"C'mon, then," he says, and despite his sudden courage, even he is surprised when he hears her footsteps follow him back to his tent.
In the early-dawn light, Andrea's skin is dappled with blue from the tarpaulin walls. She pulls off her top as Daryl undoes the laces on his boots, and as she slides it over her head he takes in the curve of her body. This can't be so hard. He thinks of all the women Merle's had, countless numbers of them. The ease at which he would collect them. Their willingness to give themselves to him. The way they all scurried out the door at sunrise.
Andrea's skin is softer than he expected, when his fingers trace a path down her cheek. The girls who danced in the club downtown always had strange skin, almost scaly with tan, and the small creases on the older ones' faces seemed to fill up with bronze powder as the night went on.
"This what you expected?" Daryl says, suddenly; when he sees her eyes downcast. "This what you wanted?"
Andrea opens her mouth and then closes it again, shrugging. "I don't know yet," she says, softly. She reaches out to him and strokes her hand down his arm softly, feather-light touches dancing along his forearm and over the soft skin on the inside of his wrist. Her fingers stop when she reaches his hand, her index finger pressing lightly on the star at the base of his thumb. She smiles, and her eyes flicker up to meet his.
He reaches out and slides his hand on to the back of her neck, pulling her in close. He half-expected her to smell like Merle's women, all fake floral scents mixed with dope; but perfume is a thing of the past these days, he reminds himself. Andrea smells lightly of sweat mixed with laundry powder; a scent so light that Daryl barely picks up on it.
He grabs for the hair at the back of her head and tugs it down lightly, exposing her neck. This is what he had imagined - tracing his tongue over her soft throat and hearing her whisper his name. To hear his named moaned from her lips would almost be too much; but he leans in anyway, presses his lips to her collarbone, and traces upwards from there. He darts his tongue out and licks at the cords of her throat, making her shiver in his hands, but aside from a few breathy sighs, she remains silent. He brushes his lips over her ear and feels her hand curl around his bicep, pulling him in closer; and when he traces his nose along her cheekbone, that hand slips lower and winds up somewhere on his hip.
They wind up nose-to-nose and his eyes meet hers for a long moment. Her eyes are dark, and he can feel her light breath against his lips. She smiles at him, a small smile, and exhales shakily. That's the only difference between her and Merle's women, Daryl realises - they never smiled. They pouted, and flirted, and cooed; but never smiled. Daryl had taken pity on one of them, once. A younger girl. She'd been walking along the gravel road back to town, tottering from side to side in her ridiculous high-heeled shoes. So he pulled his bike over, handed her the helmet, and gave her a ride. They were going in the same direction, so it seemed only fair. But it was only after he pulled over to let her off, and she removed the helmet, that he saw she had cried the whole way home.
Andrea moves suddenly; lifting her hand to the graze on his temple. The graze she caused. She strokes the pad of her thumb softly against the reddened skin, then brushes her fingers through his hair lightly. When her hand reaches the back of his head, she pulls him towards her, leans in, and presses her lips to his. He struggles for a breath, suddenly aware of how hard his right hand is gripping her hair; how hard the nails on his left hand are digging in to his own thigh; and how soft her lips are, pressed against his. She moves slightly and captures his bottom lip between her teeth; then ever-so-slightly slides her tongue out and swipes it along his lip where her teeth were only seconds before. It makes him shiver.
He tries to think about Merle and his women, and what Merle would do next in this situation; but for some strange reason, he can't. Whenever he shuts his eyes, all he can think of is Sophia.
Sophia, staggering out of the barn, all rigor-mortis limbs and dead, quiet eyes. Sophia's freckled skin mottled with dried blood, and her soft, wavy hair tangled and matted. He tries to push her from his mind but he can't, it's as though the image is tattooed on the back of his eyelids. He wonders how far those knobbly child knees took her through the forest before she got bitten. He can't imagine that she was silent when she was chased - why didn't he hear her cry out? Why wasn't he there? He wonders where she got bitten, and how much it hurt. He wonders what she thought of in her final minutes, if she cried for her mother or if she simply prayed to a god that never listened. He wonders how long she'd been in that barn for, the only child amongst all of those walkers; before she was let out.
He'd never seen a dead child before.
And it's that last thought that breaks him, for the second time.
He gasps and pulls away from Andrea's lips suddenly, pushing her back with a hand to her shoulder.
"Daryl?" she squeaks, rocking backwards.
He covers his mouth with one hand, pressing hard against where her lips were not seconds ago. "Get out," he rasps, voice shaky, dropping his hand.
"What? I don't -"
"I said, get -" he barks, but his voice betrays him and breaks mid-way. "Get out." He tries again but it's too late, he can swallow around the lump in his throat but he can't pretend it's not there. He presses his hand to his eyes this time, swiping at the tears welling up there. "Get out!"
"Are you okay...?" Andrea leans in, reaching for his forearm, and he bats her away.
"Get out! Go," he says again, but he can feel himself crumbling in front of her. He drops his chin to his chest, desperate to be away from her gaze. She can't see this - can't be here to see him crying like a child, all over a lost little girl. "Please. Go -"
He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes and wills himself to calm down, to not lose his shit like this in front of a girl - or anyone, for that matter. Andrea reaches up to touch his wrist and her fingers wrap around it slowly, guiding it gently towards her. Her teeth find her bottom lip as she watches him. "Sophia," she says; not asking. Her fingers curl between his and she holds his hand loosely in her lap.
"Shane was probably right," Daryl says, eventually. He steadies himself, and sniffs, using his free hand to wipe at his eyes. "Maybe she did see me coming -" (he takes a short, unsteady, breath) "- maybe she did run."
"Don't say that," Andrea whispers, shifting forward on her knees. She reaches out to him and pulls him in to her arms, stroking her fingers through his hair. With his cheek pressed against the crook of her neck, she can't see him, can't see his sadness; so he lets his tears fall freely, breath hitching uncontrollably in his chest. "Shane couldn't have been more wrong. You looked so hard for her...you did all you could. She'd have come to you if she had the chance, Daryl. It wasn't your fault that we lost her. It wasn't your fault."
It's dark when he wakes, and for a moment he loses his bearings, forgetting where he is and what time it is. His arms are curled around something, and he shifts to rub the sleep from his eyes before he makes out the shape against him in the darkness.
Andrea: lying curled against him, her head resting on his arm. Her tank top is rucked up around her torso, and her lips are plump and bruised. He remembers stroking his hands over that skin, rocking her against him; tasting his own tears on her lips. They had fallen asleep eventually, drained of energy and emotion; and at some point the sun must've set and the day ended. Daryl briefly wonders about Rick, if he had come looking for either of them; but he puts the thought out of his mind. He lies back down, cautiously; and wraps his other arm around Andrea, fingertips coming to rest beneath her navel. She shifts slightly in his arms and moves back against him, burrowing her head against the crook of his elbow.
For once, his mind is blank - no Shane. No sound of Carol's weeping. No images of Sophia. Andrea stirs against him, murmuring in his sleep, and whispers his name softly - "Daryl" - just once. He presses his lips to the back of her neck softly, pulls her closer against him, and shuts his eyes.
Author: tobermoryspeaks
Summary: Prompt 71 on the fanfic100 table: 'broken'. I set out to respond to sparkledark's prompt: Here's a recent Norman quote on the subject of Daryl and romance: "I don’t want to play it like I have any game at all. I wanna play it like I don’t know what I’m doing. You know, I wanna premature ejaculate in my pants in 30 seconds. I wanna sweat, I wanna cry, I wanna freak out, you know what I mean?" and then Merle got all involved in Daryl's head and sad!fic happened, so that is this.
Rating: R .
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for up until the end of Season 2.
Disclaimer: None of The Walking Dead characters/situations/places are mine and never will be, they belong to AMC and Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.
It's past midnight when Daryl finally snaps.
He's not sure what it is that breaks him. It could be the combination of an empty stomach, nerves too shot to eat; or the fact that he hasn't slept in over a day, despite feeling beyond exhausted in mind and body. It could be the ache in his side of a wound not-yet healed, or the itch of stitches that pull and worry, and still have to be left in for another week. His encounter with Andrea certainly isn't helping at all, it's been over a day since he last spoke to her and his knee still burns where she rested her hand on it. His cheeks still burn, more to the point, when he thinks about the stupid, reckless risk he took in spitting out the words that had been on his tongue since the day he first spoke to her. And her - leaning up towards him, asking him to kiss her - he didn't expect that. Almost didn't want it. Because he had no idea what to do with that, how to respond. So he'd said nothing, done nothing, only pushed her away and left her there; left her alone to hopefully decide that Daryl Dixon was an asshole who she would never speak to again.
He tries to think of Shane now, whenever he thinks of her. He tries to imagine how Shane would have fucked her (for some reason, it makes him sick to his stomach to imagine that Shane looked her in the eyes when he did it, so he imagines that he took her from behind) and tries to imagine how Andrea's name would sound on Shane's lips. But try as he might, the anger he feels when he imagines them together never quite eclipses what he feels when he thinks back to Andrea beside the campfire. Kiss me, she had said. Had she wanted it as much as he had? What would that even mean, if she did?
Daryl growls and rolls over in his sleeping bag, throwing an arm over the side of his head. What's playing on his mind more than anything is that he can hear her - Carol - in the RV. Crying. Sobbing, to be precise. She's been weeping for longer than he cares to measure, and not once has he heard the door of the RV open, not once has he heard anyone's footsteps crossing the camp to go and check on her.
And that's what breaks him.
He sits up quickly, pushing his sleeping bag off him. His pillow tumbles out to the side and he turns around, grabs it, and drives his fist in to its thin, downy middle. He pummels it, again and again, rage coarsing through his veins - Sophia. Merle. Andrea. Carol. No good ever came from caring about someone. Only worry and anger, heartbreak and lonliness. He digs his fingers in to the cotton and rips, sending gasps of feathers tumbling across the floor of his tent. Still he continues; ripping and tearing until there's almost nothing left but a pathetic pile of white cotton.
And when he catches his breath, and the blood stops pounding in his ears, he can still hear Carol's weak cries.
A rush of cold air enters behind him as he steps in to the RV, and he shuts the door quickly to prevent any more heat escaping. When his eyes adjust to the darkness, he makes out her thin form curled up on the bed, with her arms around a pillow. He can't see her face. And just for a second, he thinks he doesn't want to - doesn't want to see greif writ raw across her features. Hearing it, hearing it in her cries, is hard enough.
"Carol," he whispers, once he gets his voice working.
She hiccups, moving slightly so she can see him. "Daryl?"
"Yeah."
She pushes the pillow away slightly and sits up, propping herself up on one arm. Her face is streaked with tears, the skin on her cheeks fire-red and blotchy. Her eyes are bloodshot and her lashes drenched; and on her collarbones he makes out trails of tears that have trickled all the way down from her eyes to the edge of her cardigan. She hiccups again and reaches out for him, her small hand extending in the darkness.
He's not sure what makes him do it - the concept of comfort couldn't be more foreign to him - but he steps towards the bed, reaches out for her in turn; and sits down next to her, bundling her in to his arms when she crawls helplessly towards him across the thin sheets. Her head finds a space to rest on his chest, between his chin and shoulder, and her tangle themselves in his shirt front.
"I'm sorry," he says, weakly, and she nods against him. He can feel fresh tears on her cheeks, wetting the worn collar of his shirt, but he doesn't care. His hand clumsily finds her temple and he holds her to his chest, stroking the hair there. "I'm so sorry."
"She's gone," Carol whispers breathlessly, voice thin. "My little girl. My daughter. She's gone."
"Wasn't your fault," Daryl says, almost instantly; and Carol begins to cry harder against him, but soundlessly - her mouth open in a silent scream, trembling in his arms. "Wasn't your fault, I promise," he says, again, wrapping his arms tighter around her; rocking her gently from side to side as she weeps.
The sun's peering over the horizon when she finally falls asleep in his arms; and it's shining low but strong by the time he figures out how to lie her down in the bed without waking her.
He steps out of the RV, squinting in to the light; and in the back of his mind somewhere there is a dim realisation that this is the second sunrise he's seen without having slept the night before. He turns around to shut the door, inching it closed against the doorframe quietly; and as he stifles a yawn, he turns back towards the yard only to discover the person he's been trying to avoid the most.
"Daryl," Andrea begins. Her hair hangs loose around her face and she wears a thin, long-sleeved top over her normal tank-top-and-khaki attire. "I'm glad I found you. I was going to check on Carol."
Daryl nods once, swallows; and then realises she's probably expecting a response. "She's sleeping," he says, brusquely; and Andrea nods.
"Good," she says. "That's good. Can I...talk to you?"
"Don't have nothin' much to say," he says.
Andrea crosses her arms in front of her. She looks about as uncomfortable as he feels, which gives him some small relief. "Then let me say something?" She takes a deep breath. "I wanted to...apologise to you. For what happened the other night. I've obviously misinterpreted something, and thought there may have been something there when there wasn't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just thought - look, it doesn't matter. The point is, we'd both had something to drink, and we were both tired; and I'd hate for one drunken mistake to get in the way of us being friends. Or, at least, co-operative members of this camp. So let's...forget it all ever happened?"
She looks hopeful as she makes her offering, eyebrows raised and lips pressed together.
"So it means nothin', right?"
"Right," she says, but her eyes don't meet his when she speaks. "We'll forget all about it. Move on. Be just friends."
"Like how you'n Shane are friends?" Daryl says, low. "That kinda friends?"
"Daryl..." Andrea sighs. She frowns and uncrosses her arms, placing her hands on her hips. "I didn't come here for you to make judgements on who -"
"You think of me the same way you think of Shane?" Daryl interrupts, stepping in closer to her. She's shorter than him but not by much; her head comes up level with his shoulder. And it's that she looks at, avoiding his eyes as he speaks. "You think of me like that?"
"Not...exactly like that," she says. "Different."
"How?"
Her voice is breathy when she responds. "For starters, Shane was a once-off in the front seat of the car. That's not how I imagined it with you."
Daryl suddenly has a vision of the girls he and Merle used to see in bars back home. Merle was a completely different kind of drunk to Daryl - after one too many, Daryl found himself getting sleepy and introspective, but Merle was the total opposite. Merle would harrass the women to breaking point, snapping their cheap pull-up stockings and cat-calling them until he wound up with a patent stiletto to the groin.
"How did you imagine it?" Daryl says, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Merle is wiping down his face after having a wine spritzer thrown in to it, and laughing: all these bitches're the same, little brother. Nun in public, whore in the bedroom. You'll see.
"Just different," Andrea says, and she doesn't step back when Daryl steps in. Her eyes meet his as she speaks. "I'd never thought about being with Shane before it happened. It was just adrenaline; I needed a release. But...I had thought about you. I'd thought about you."
Lo and behold, those women always ended up in Merle's bed. No matter if they'd screamed him down and called him every name under the sun, or had been reduced to a mascara-sodden crying wreck from his taunts; he always managed to pull something out of his hat before last call and he'd stumble out of the bar with a girl on his arm; those cheap white-pleather skirts finding space on the back of his bike before they roared off in to the night. Daryl made the long way home, taking his bike down miles of highway, through forests and over rivers, before he finally parked next to Merle's machine and stepped inside. Ordinarily, the women would be gone; but occasionally they'd still be there, shoes by the door and items of clothing strewn throughout the house on the way to the bedroom. On one occasion, Daryl walked past Merle's room on the way to his own and found the door wide open, Merle buck-naked on top of whatever nameless honey he'd dragged home that night. The belt was still looped loosely around her bicep. Her skinny legs were wrapped around his hips, fishnet stockings torn in places over her tan skin; and Merle thrust in between those legs, producing moans and squeaks from the girl as he fucked her in to the mattress. She peeped over his shoulder at one point and her eyes met Daryl's, spider-like lashes winking down over her cheek as she called out an invitation for him to join in.
Daryl pulled the door shut immediately; but there was something about the image that always stuck with him. And Andrea, standing in front of him now, isn't so different to that woman, he supposes. She's not as bone-skinny, and her skin is naturally tan, rather than patchy with make-up; but her lips are just as full and he can make out the curve of her cleavage just as easily.
"C'mon, then," he says, and despite his sudden courage, even he is surprised when he hears her footsteps follow him back to his tent.
In the early-dawn light, Andrea's skin is dappled with blue from the tarpaulin walls. She pulls off her top as Daryl undoes the laces on his boots, and as she slides it over her head he takes in the curve of her body. This can't be so hard. He thinks of all the women Merle's had, countless numbers of them. The ease at which he would collect them. Their willingness to give themselves to him. The way they all scurried out the door at sunrise.
Andrea's skin is softer than he expected, when his fingers trace a path down her cheek. The girls who danced in the club downtown always had strange skin, almost scaly with tan, and the small creases on the older ones' faces seemed to fill up with bronze powder as the night went on.
"This what you expected?" Daryl says, suddenly; when he sees her eyes downcast. "This what you wanted?"
Andrea opens her mouth and then closes it again, shrugging. "I don't know yet," she says, softly. She reaches out to him and strokes her hand down his arm softly, feather-light touches dancing along his forearm and over the soft skin on the inside of his wrist. Her fingers stop when she reaches his hand, her index finger pressing lightly on the star at the base of his thumb. She smiles, and her eyes flicker up to meet his.
He reaches out and slides his hand on to the back of her neck, pulling her in close. He half-expected her to smell like Merle's women, all fake floral scents mixed with dope; but perfume is a thing of the past these days, he reminds himself. Andrea smells lightly of sweat mixed with laundry powder; a scent so light that Daryl barely picks up on it.
He grabs for the hair at the back of her head and tugs it down lightly, exposing her neck. This is what he had imagined - tracing his tongue over her soft throat and hearing her whisper his name. To hear his named moaned from her lips would almost be too much; but he leans in anyway, presses his lips to her collarbone, and traces upwards from there. He darts his tongue out and licks at the cords of her throat, making her shiver in his hands, but aside from a few breathy sighs, she remains silent. He brushes his lips over her ear and feels her hand curl around his bicep, pulling him in closer; and when he traces his nose along her cheekbone, that hand slips lower and winds up somewhere on his hip.
They wind up nose-to-nose and his eyes meet hers for a long moment. Her eyes are dark, and he can feel her light breath against his lips. She smiles at him, a small smile, and exhales shakily. That's the only difference between her and Merle's women, Daryl realises - they never smiled. They pouted, and flirted, and cooed; but never smiled. Daryl had taken pity on one of them, once. A younger girl. She'd been walking along the gravel road back to town, tottering from side to side in her ridiculous high-heeled shoes. So he pulled his bike over, handed her the helmet, and gave her a ride. They were going in the same direction, so it seemed only fair. But it was only after he pulled over to let her off, and she removed the helmet, that he saw she had cried the whole way home.
Andrea moves suddenly; lifting her hand to the graze on his temple. The graze she caused. She strokes the pad of her thumb softly against the reddened skin, then brushes her fingers through his hair lightly. When her hand reaches the back of his head, she pulls him towards her, leans in, and presses her lips to his. He struggles for a breath, suddenly aware of how hard his right hand is gripping her hair; how hard the nails on his left hand are digging in to his own thigh; and how soft her lips are, pressed against his. She moves slightly and captures his bottom lip between her teeth; then ever-so-slightly slides her tongue out and swipes it along his lip where her teeth were only seconds before. It makes him shiver.
He tries to think about Merle and his women, and what Merle would do next in this situation; but for some strange reason, he can't. Whenever he shuts his eyes, all he can think of is Sophia.
Sophia, staggering out of the barn, all rigor-mortis limbs and dead, quiet eyes. Sophia's freckled skin mottled with dried blood, and her soft, wavy hair tangled and matted. He tries to push her from his mind but he can't, it's as though the image is tattooed on the back of his eyelids. He wonders how far those knobbly child knees took her through the forest before she got bitten. He can't imagine that she was silent when she was chased - why didn't he hear her cry out? Why wasn't he there? He wonders where she got bitten, and how much it hurt. He wonders what she thought of in her final minutes, if she cried for her mother or if she simply prayed to a god that never listened. He wonders how long she'd been in that barn for, the only child amongst all of those walkers; before she was let out.
He'd never seen a dead child before.
And it's that last thought that breaks him, for the second time.
He gasps and pulls away from Andrea's lips suddenly, pushing her back with a hand to her shoulder.
"Daryl?" she squeaks, rocking backwards.
He covers his mouth with one hand, pressing hard against where her lips were not seconds ago. "Get out," he rasps, voice shaky, dropping his hand.
"What? I don't -"
"I said, get -" he barks, but his voice betrays him and breaks mid-way. "Get out." He tries again but it's too late, he can swallow around the lump in his throat but he can't pretend it's not there. He presses his hand to his eyes this time, swiping at the tears welling up there. "Get out!"
"Are you okay...?" Andrea leans in, reaching for his forearm, and he bats her away.
"Get out! Go," he says again, but he can feel himself crumbling in front of her. He drops his chin to his chest, desperate to be away from her gaze. She can't see this - can't be here to see him crying like a child, all over a lost little girl. "Please. Go -"
He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes and wills himself to calm down, to not lose his shit like this in front of a girl - or anyone, for that matter. Andrea reaches up to touch his wrist and her fingers wrap around it slowly, guiding it gently towards her. Her teeth find her bottom lip as she watches him. "Sophia," she says; not asking. Her fingers curl between his and she holds his hand loosely in her lap.
"Shane was probably right," Daryl says, eventually. He steadies himself, and sniffs, using his free hand to wipe at his eyes. "Maybe she did see me coming -" (he takes a short, unsteady, breath) "- maybe she did run."
"Don't say that," Andrea whispers, shifting forward on her knees. She reaches out to him and pulls him in to her arms, stroking her fingers through his hair. With his cheek pressed against the crook of her neck, she can't see him, can't see his sadness; so he lets his tears fall freely, breath hitching uncontrollably in his chest. "Shane couldn't have been more wrong. You looked so hard for her...you did all you could. She'd have come to you if she had the chance, Daryl. It wasn't your fault that we lost her. It wasn't your fault."
It's dark when he wakes, and for a moment he loses his bearings, forgetting where he is and what time it is. His arms are curled around something, and he shifts to rub the sleep from his eyes before he makes out the shape against him in the darkness.
Andrea: lying curled against him, her head resting on his arm. Her tank top is rucked up around her torso, and her lips are plump and bruised. He remembers stroking his hands over that skin, rocking her against him; tasting his own tears on her lips. They had fallen asleep eventually, drained of energy and emotion; and at some point the sun must've set and the day ended. Daryl briefly wonders about Rick, if he had come looking for either of them; but he puts the thought out of his mind. He lies back down, cautiously; and wraps his other arm around Andrea, fingertips coming to rest beneath her navel. She shifts slightly in his arms and moves back against him, burrowing her head against the crook of his elbow.
For once, his mind is blank - no Shane. No sound of Carol's weeping. No images of Sophia. Andrea stirs against him, murmuring in his sleep, and whispers his name softly - "Daryl" - just once. He presses his lips to the back of her neck softly, pulls her closer against him, and shuts his eyes.