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In a panic situation, reactions could essentially be broken down into two categories: practical and impractical. When the dead started wiggling their toes, the practical people did practical things. They looked for safety; they gathered food and supplies; they allied with trustworthy and useful people. At the same time, the impractical people did impractical things. They rifled register drawers in abandoned convenience stores; they looted for now-useless televisions; they built stockpiles of drugs and alcohol and Snickers bars.
The house the group had stumbled on after finally packing up and leaving the church behind had once been home to very impractical people.
“Good Lord.”
Rick found Daryl standing in front of the kitchen pantry. Inside, it was wall-to-wall liquor and SpaghettiOs.
“Hey Daryl,” Glenn called from across the kitchen. “Don't you smoke?”
Daryl turned away from the pantry to find Glenn holding a handful of cigarette packages.
“Two drawers full of them,” he said, tossing one across the room.
“Fuckin' menthols.” But Daryl put one in his mouth anyway, digging around in his pants for a lighter he'd found a few days before. It was bright pink and encrusted with tiny fake jewels, but as they were all practical people these days, no one said a word about it. It lit fires, and fires cooked food and boiled drinking water. That was all that mattered.
“You know those things'll kill you,” Carl said, reaching for a can of SpaghettiOs.
“Reckon I'll be dead long 'fore that matters.” He sucked in a generous amount of nicotine, practically sighing on the exhale.
Rick pretended not to notice the way Daryl's eyes fluttered closed for a second when he did it. He reached into the pantry.
“Guess we'll all be having SpaghettiOs for dinner,” Rick said.
“Or gummy worms,” Maggie said, holding up a few bags pulled from another drawer.
“Menthol smokin' dumbshits,” Daryl said.
“I'll have gummy worms for dinner,” Carl said, already through scarfing down a cold can of O's. He rinsed out the tin and set it next to the sink in case they needed it for something else. Practical.
“Doesn't count if you've already eaten,” Rick said. “But you can have some.” He nodded at Maggie.
“Plain or sour?”
Carl fell asleep early. With his body no longer used to sugar, the crash hit him hard. They left him and Judith in an upstairs room filled with stacks of cash bound with rubber-bands. Daryl took one down and lit it on fire in the sink just because he could.
Sometimes even practical people got a little impractical.
“I'm havin' a drink. Anyone else?”
They were all shitfaced within the hour, all of them except Father Gabriel who sat in the other room staring out the window while he turned his machete over and over in his hands. He claimed he was keeping watch, but they all knew better. He was an impractical man slowly learning how to be the opposite, and that took its toll.
“Truth or dare?” Maggie asked, already slumping over the table a little. She and Glenn kept sideways glancing at each other, which meant they'd likely end up waking the baby later. Daryl let out a “pfft” at her game suggestion.
“Who you askin?” Abraham said.
“Hmmm.” She looked around the table. Her eyes settled on Tara.
“Uh, truth, I guess.”
“What'd you do before all this?”
“Police academy,” Tara said, glancing at Rick. “And a pretty shit bartender.” To demonstrate, she tried to spin one of the empty whiskey bottles and dropped it, catching it just before it hit the floor. Everyone laughed for way too long, probably because they couldn't remember the last time they had. When it finally quieted down, Maggie reminded everyone they were playing.
“Your turn,” Maggie said, finishing off another shot. Her hand eased a little higher up Glenn's thigh.
They went around the table. Some people already knew some of the truths that came out. Some were completely new to everyone. Glenn had delivered pizza. Tyreese had played football. Rosita had once stolen a boy's underwear and duct taped them to the front door of her high school. Carol had read cheesy romance novels about a housewife and a handsome stranger named Rolando, hiding them in an air vent lest her husband find them.
The dares were a mix of tame and typical for a game usually meant to be played at juvenile parties. Glenn had to dip a sour gummy worm in SpaghettiO sauce and scarf it down. Maggie had to do a shot out of Tara's cleavage, something Tara seemed more than okay with. Abraham had to do his best chipmunk impression, which took a little (lot of) coaxing from Rosita, but turned out to be spot-on. Around and around they went.
“I did,” Maggie slurred out. “A few times in college. Just to see what the deal was.”
“What kind?” Eugene asked, the space between his words a little smaller than usual. “Traditional missionary? Girl on girl? Sadism and masochism?”
She wagged her finger back and forth, smiling and tutting. “That's more than one question.”
“Then I suppose it is your turn,” he said, grabbing a gummy worm and stuffing it into his mouth like he was afraid someone might see him.
Maggie looked around, her eyes a little watery. They fell on Daryl.
“Has anyone even called on you yet?”
She knew the answer. They all did. They were leaving Daryl firmly alone in all this.
“Ain't interested.”
“Truth or dare.”
“I said I ain't-”
“Truth. Or. Dare.”
“Dare,” he said, glaring at her and chewing on his bottom lip. His eyes were a dare in their own right, challenging her to piss him off and see what happened.
“No one did you either, did they?” she asked, eyes glancing to Rick.
“You can't pick on two people at once,” Rick said. “I'm pretty sure that's against the rules.”
“Oh, I'm not,” she said, smiling. She was quiet for a minute while Daryl kept right on glaring at her.
“Alright,” she said. “Daryl Dixon, I dare you to give Rick Grimes a lap dance.”
It was like one of those scenes in a movie where the entire room goes quiet at once. Tara stopped muttering low to Sasha and looked up. Abraham stopped drinking, a tequila bottle still pressed against his lips. Glenn even stopped rustling in the gummy worm bag to stare at his wife, wide-eyed. The only thing missing was the cheesy record scratch sound effect.
Rick was pretty sure his heart fell quiet too. It stopped in his chest for a second, like a runner poised on the starting line, and then it began hammering away wildly. He wondered if everyone else could hear it, because it was pulsing loud in his ears.
“What?” Daryl asked.
“If my hearing has not been damaged by recent events involving copious amounts of gunfire, I do believe she asked you to perform a lap dance on Mr. Grimes,” Eugene said. “Though now it occurs to me you may have been employing a rhetorical device.”
Daryl glared at him too. Eugene looked down at the table.
“Hell no,” Daryl said.
Rick could feel his cheeks getting warmer and warmer. Somehow, he didn't think it had anything to do with the bottle of Jameson he was nursing. A voice in the back of his head said, Please, if there's any god left listening, let him actually do this.
“You gotta do it. Those are the rules.” Maggie shrugged, bottle in her hand.
“I ain't that drunk.”
Rick had a brief daydream of him pouring the rest of Daryl's whiskey down his throat. He shook away the image of some of it dribbling from his chin.
“Oh, I think you are.” Maggie smiled like she knew something everyone else didn't. Or maybe like she just knew something period.
“Typical. Make the girls play together, but as soon as someone suggests something the other way around, you all go running with your dicks between your legs,” Rosita said.
“Hey, I didn't make nobody do nothin.”
“It's just a game, Daryl.” Maggie nudged his whiskey closer. Rick could almost imagine the chair tipping to the floor as Daryl got up and stormed off in a huff, effectively ending the festivities. Instead, the hunter plopped back into it. The wood creaked a little.
“Dude, you're being pretty silent considering she just asked him to grind on your crotch,” Tara said, biting the head off of a neon blue worm. It took Rick a second to realize she was looking right at him. He'd been pretending to stare at his bottle while actually watching Daryl out of the corner of his eye.
“I'm just wishing we had something besides SpaghettiOs and candy. A double cheeseburger would sit real nice about now.”
“Damn straight. With bacon and a pile of grilled onions,” Tyreese said, smiling, eyelids drooping a bit.
“Stop it, both of you,” Maggie said. “He'll think he's off the hook.”
Daryl crossed his arms.
“Ain't even any music.” He looked like a toddler pouting at his birthday party because his mom got the wrong kind of cake.
“I can fix that,” Tara said, reaching into her backpack.
“Don't bother.” Daryl got up, already groping for the cigarettes in his pocket. “Gonna take a piss and go to bed. Rest of y'all can stay here and play slumber party all ya want.” He blew a stream of smoke over the table and turned toward the door.
“Wait,” Maggie said. Rick thought she was going to apologize. He waited for it, the hope in his chest at maybe finally getting to touch Daryl a little that way deflating quickly. “You have to,” she said. Rick perked up a little.
“I don't have to do jack crap,” he said.
“Yes, you do.”
“Why?”
“Because Rick wants you to.”
Rick inhaled so hard he choked on it. He coughed into his sleeve, willing away the tiny bit of saliva he'd sucked into his lungs. Someone reached over and patted him hard on the back.
“No he don't.”
“Yes he does,” she said. “Don't you?”
Everyone had their eyes on Rick, including Daryl. He wondered if they could see the liquid in his whiskey bottle shaking along with his hands.
“Before you answer,” Maggie said, “I'll remind you life's too short now for bullshit.”
“Hear, hear,” Tara said, raising her bottle and taking a long draw. She pulled out a tiny mp3 player and speaker and set them on the table. “Still has a little juice left. Found the car charger too.”
“The hell? I didn't say I'd do it just cause he said yes, which he still ain't said by the way. 'Specially not with all you assholes treating it like a damn circus sideshow.”
“Either way, I think it's best you and Rick stop pretending you don't want to fuck each other,” Rosita said. Rick started coughing again. “C'mon Abraham.” She gently pulled him up and led him out of the kitchen.
“Since when in the hell have I wanted to fuck Rick?”
“I have noticed certain behavioral cues between you and Mr. Grimes that suggest a desire to fornicate. I believe in Layman's terms they call-”
“Oh, shut the hell up, Mississippi Mudflap.” Daryl spat at the floor, like they were out in the woods instead of in the kitchen of a home. It should have been gross. But it made Rick want to shiver. He forced himself not to, still unsure if the whole wanting to fuck each other thing was one-sided or not.
“Bed, Eugene,” Tara said, practically marching him out of the room. “By the way, no judgment here if you do. Obviously.” She shrugged and nudged Eugene toward the stairs. Sasha and Tyreese followed, Sasha giving them a little knowing shrug on the way out.
And then there were five. Carol left without ceremony, giving Daryl a pained look that he didn't see.
“Glenn and I are going to go have sex now,” Maggie said, standing up. She wobbled a little, steadying herself on him. “Something you two should think about.”
And then there were two.
Rick stared into his bottle, swishing the liquid back and forth. He felt warm and a little weightless. Beside him, the chair creaked. Daryl had sat back down. Rick heard the sound of glass sliding across the table as Daryl pulled his bottle to him. Rick took that as a good enough sign as any that he should take another drink himself. He felt the warmth of it slide down his throat .
What happened to the idea of alcohol as liquid courage? Why couldn't he just say what he wanted to say? He eyed the little music player set up, reached out, pulled it closer.
“Well?” Daryl asked.
“Well what?” Most of the songs were things Rick had never heard of before. At least the apocalypse kept him from feeling old. Who the hell was Drake? Is? Was?
“Lot of accusations just then.”
Beyonce. There was a vaguely familiar name, at least.
“Mhm.” Imagine Dragons?
“Assholes seem to think they know us pretty well.”
There. There was a song Rick actually recognized. He let his finger slip to the play button. What was he doing?
The first few beats of “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails started. The speakers were a little tinny, and the sound quality was shit, but everything was recognizable. Rick turned it down, just loud enough to fill the kitchen without filtering up the stairs (or signaling any unwanted guests outside). He sat his bottle on the floor next to his chair and looked over at Daryl, finally meeting his eyes for the first time since Maggie had spat out her dare.
“So, about that lap dance.” For a moment there was silence besides the music.
“I can't dance,” Daryl said quietly.
“I don't actually give a shit.” Rick grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him. Daryl didn't resist, letting Rick yank him into his lap.
“Jesus I forgot how filthy this song is,” Daryl said, as the line about desecrating and penetrating filtered out of the small speaker. He looked down at Rick. “So what do I...”
“This kind of thing is just like sex with your clothes on.” Rick said. He took Daryl's hips, guiding them in a small circle.
“I've nev—I feel like a shithead,” Daryl said. Rick pulled him closer, burying his face in Daryl's neck. He smelled like sweat and menthol.
“You feel perfect.” Rick moaned quietly at the contact between them, and Daryl shuddered. Rick could feel him breathing on his neck, rocking in his lap a little out of time with the song. Trent Reznor told them both he wanted to fuck them like an animal.
“This song,” Daryl said.
“What?”
“Make it happen.”
Rick bit into his neck, roughly nipping a trail up it and across his jaw. He paused before he kissed him, waiting to catch his breath and taking a moment truly appreciate the gravity of the situation. But Daryl brought his lips crashing down onto Rick's before he could properly make the move.
“They were right. Assholes.”
“Hmm?” Rick asked, his lips grazing the skin of Daryl's cheek, brushing against the coarse hair there.
“I want you.”
The kitchen filled with the sound of scraping chairs and glass shattering as Rick stood up, taking Daryl with him and shoving him onto the table, knocking everything askew. The smell of every imaginable kind of liquor instantly permeated the air, burning Rick's nose a little. An empty SpaghettiOs tin rolled across the floor, coming to rest against the fridge with a small clang.
Rick stumbled slightly, steadying himself on the table, looking down at Daryl laid out before him like a buffet. He surveyed the damage. The only thing that had survived was the music player. Rick moved it over to an empty chair.
“Do I.. Should I do somethin?” Daryl craned his neck to look up at Rick.
“Do you want to do somethin?” Rick asked.
“I wanna kiss you again,” he said, so quietly the soft music almost drowned him out. Rick nodded and climbed onto the table, straddling Daryl's hips. He leaned forward and Daryl's hands crawled up his sides and chest, finding his sun-tanned neck and pulling him closer. He heard the hunter say his name in a low voice, a tone barely above a whisper, and then he covered the source the sound with his lips.
The song ended, leaving them alone with the quiet sounds of lips against lips and tongues against tongues. It started again. Thank God the repeat feature was on. He didn't think he could fuck Daryl to Beyonce.
Rick found the other man's belt and tugged at the buckle, whipping the worn strip of leather out of threadbare loops. He threw it, direction unimportant. The buckle thwacked against the fridge.
He had to scoot himself down Daryl's legs to get to the zipper and work his pants down past his hips. He moved the underwear down slowly, revealing dark, unruly hair. He glanced up at Daryl, looking for any sign that he wanted him to stop. But he found Daryl staring down, watching, his bottom lip between his teeth. Rick tugged his underwear down a little more, letting Daryl's cock slide past the top band.
It was hard, listing toward Daryl's stomach, and oozing precum. Rick rubbed it with his thumb, working it slowly around the tip. The hunter's head tilted back, resting on the table, mop of hair fanning out around it. Rick barely heard him groan.
“Lick it. Nice and wet.” Rick held his hand in front of Daryl's face. Daryl gathered spit on his tongue and ran it across the calloused peaks and valleys of Rick's palm, eyes locked on his. A little string of spit hung in the air between his mouth and the former officer's hand for a moment, and then Rick reached down and gripped him firmly, running his slicked up hand up and down Daryl's shaft.
“Shit.” Daryl bit his lip and leaned up slightly to watch. Rick tugged a little faster, increasing speed until the hunter's head fell back on the table.
“Yeah. You like that,” Rick said. It wasn't a question. Daryl moaned low. “Only getting started.” Rick scooted off the table and pulled Daryl's pants the rest of the way off, dropping them and his underwear in an empty chair. He took the hunter by the thighs and yanked him to the edge of the table, the wooden legs scraping a little on the tile as the furniture tried to move with him.
“Come here,” the leader said, grabbing Daryl by the shirt and pulling him upright. He kissed him furiously while he fumbled with the buttons, his intoxicated fingers struggling to get them undone.
“Just leave it.” Daryl pushed his hands away, reaching for the button of Rick's pants instead. He tore it and the zipper open and then froze, unsure of what to do next. He looked at Rick and found blue eyes staring back at him with unparalleled intensity.
“Jesus, Rick, can you eyefuck me any harder?”
“You want me to try?” Rick asked, the corner of his mouth twitching a little. Daryl's eyes flicked to his lips.
“No.”
“You touch yourself, right?” Rick asked. “When you're alone? In bed at night? In the shower? If there is one.”
Daryl nodded. “Yeah.”
“When you think about me?”
Daryl looked down at the floor. His head jerked up and down once.
“Not much different doin it to someone else.”
“Maybe we should skip that part,” Daryl said softly, eyes still down.
“Anything you want.” Rick worked his own pants and underwear down over his hips. “Now kiss me and turn around.”
Daryl obeyed, covering Rick's mouth with his own and burying his fingers in the other man's hair. When he finally pulled away, he slid off the table and turned around slowly, looking back at Rick over his shoulder as he bent across the table.
Rick hooked a finger into Daryl's mouth. The hunter didn't need to be told what to do this time. Rick drew it out shiny with saliva. He added some of his own into the mix and then worked it around Daryl's entrance, massaging gently. The hunter tensed.
“Relax,” Rick said. He reached around with his other hand and gave Daryl a few slow strokes. Daryl rewarded him with a soft sigh, and Rick managed to slide a finger inside of him. The hunter huffed a little, but he stayed still.
Rick worked him nice and slow, enjoying the way Daryl's body slowly opened up to him. He ghosted his finger over Daryl's prostate with just the slightest pressure and enjoyed the little hiss of air he heard coming from the other man.
“The hell was that?” Daryl asked softly.
“Feels good, huh?” Rick did it again with a little more pressure.
“Jesus.”
Rick laughed softly and added another digit, and then another, working Daryl open little by little, gently massaging that spot until Daryl's little sighs turned into almost-whimpers.
“Rick.” Daryl was already white-knuckling the sides of the table.
“Yeah?”
“Please. More.”
“You think you're ready?”
Daryl went quiet, realizing what Rick was asking, what it would mean. It took Rick a minute to realize the music player had died too. He had no idea when that had happened, but he was suddenly aware of how quiet it was in the kitchen.
“It's okay if you're not, Daryl.” Rick needed him to know that. This was his choice. Even this far into it, he wouldn't be mad if he asked him to stop.
“I am.”
Rick nodded even though Daryl couldn't see him. He slicked up with as much spit as he possibly could and then he slowly eased into Daryl. He groaned softly on the way in. Daryl was so tight. So hot. He rested a minute, let Daryl's body get used to the feeling of him, and then he pulled out, working a bit more spit onto himself before moving back inside of the other man.
“You feel so damn good,” Rick said. “Can't tell you how many times I've thought about this.”
Daryl looked back at him. Rick didn't need him to talk to know how he felt. Rosita and Maggie and the others were right. They should stop pretending they didn't want to fuck each other. But they should also admit they wanted a lot more from one another than sex.
Rick leaned forward and ran his fingers through Daryl's mop of hair. He wondered if he'd let him do something with it. He had a bit of a thing for how it had been back at the prison right when it had just started getting longer. Though he had to admit this would be easier to grab.
But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was Daryl. What mattered was that he was finally getting to do this. They both were. And as Daryl's body relaxed more and more, Rick started to work himself in and out of him, reveling in all the warmth and pressure that was Daryl surrounding him.
Rick gently shifted one of Daryl's knees onto to the table, changing the angles slightly. It must have been a good move, because Daryl moaned long, low, and deep on his next thrust.
“Right there, huh?” Ricked asked, smiling and starting on another slow thrust.
“Ple-fuuck.”
“Beautiful.”
“Rick, you can, you can do that, um..” Daryl trailed off. Rick could see the red tinging the edge of his cheeks, and he knew not all of that was from the alcohol.
“Ain't gonna judge you, Daryl. Tell me what you want.”
“Want it harder.” Daryl turned his face toward the table, forehead to the wood. Cute and embarrassed. Rick wanted to kiss him until the world had given up on this half-apocalypse and properly ended. But fuck was that request a not a problem.
He started working himself into Daryl more, picking up the pace, squeezing Daryl's hips. Harder. Damn, did Daryl have a great ass under those baggy jeans. Harder. The table scooted forward a couple of inches and Rick stumbled a little.
“Shit.” He caught himself on the edge next to Daryl's hips and laughed. “Alright, well, that ain't gonna work.”
Daryl eased his leg down and turned around, eyes darting between the floor and Rick's own. He reached forward and caught his fingers in Rick's beard, uncertain. Rick took his hand.
“Don't gotta do it like you're afraid,” Rick said. “You can touch me however you want, Daryl.”
Daryl nodded and grabbed his face, pulling him into a kiss, long and slow and desperate.
“How we finishing this?”
Rick looked around the kitchen a minute, thinking, and then he turned back to Daryl with a little smile.
“Same way we started.” He sat down in the chair and worked more spit onto himself, motioning Daryl toward him with his other hand.
Daryl looked a little nervous, but he stepped forward anyway and started easing down onto Rick's lap, thigh muscles flexing. Rick wanted to bite them, but he could always do that another time. Or at least he hoped he could.
Daryl's face tensed a little as he eased himself onto Rick, taking him back in with a little sigh. Yeah, this was much better. He could see Daryl's face now, every eye flutter, every time his mouth fell open, every time he bit his lip to keep from yelling.
It was more of a rock than a ride, Daryl moving back and forth in Rick's lap, gripping his shoulders. But it worked for both of them. Rick worked his hips up a little, just enough to get the friction he needed, and he let Daryl do the rest.
And he did, his movements becoming more and more frenzied with each unheard tick of Rick's watch. Rick could feel Daryl's grip tightening on his shoulders. He could see the way Daryl's eyes went white in the little slits left open when his closed eyelids fluttered. He could feel every whiskey-and-menthol-scented breath floating by his face.
“See, you could've handled that lap dance just fine.”
Daryl didn't answer, but Rick gathered that was mostly because he was too lost to even speak. If he could even hear him in whatever little world of pleasure he'd given himself over to. It was highly arousing, Daryl letting himself go, Daryl losing himself to the feeling of Rick inside of him.
Suddenly the hunter's eyes snapped open, meeting Rick's with deep blue need. Daryl glanced over at the counter-top that spanned wall to wall around the sink and then back to Rick. He didn't need to ask. Rick nodded.
Daryl pulled himself off of Rick and walked over there, pushing aside the miscellaneous crap next to the sink. He leaned over the counter and waited.
Rick quickly slipped his pants off the rest of the way and crossed the kitchen. More spit and he was back inside of Daryl for the third time. He decided the feeling of sliding into Daryl would never get old. He decided he'd have it anytime he possibly could. Because Maggie was right. Life was too damn short.
“You want it hard, don't you? Why you wanted it like this.”
“Please.”
And he couldn't have denied him then even if he'd wanted to. Daryl picked his own leg up, wedging his knee on top of a drawer pull. Rick picked up the pace, slamming his and Daryl's bodies into the counter until the dishes in the cabinets were rattling quietly.
“That what you want?”
Daryl's answer came with a low groan that seemed to go on forever.
“I think I...”
But Daryl was already cumming all over the wooden cabinets, whimpering in pleasure as he did.
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry. I.. I didn't mean to.”
Rick wanted to laugh, because it was damn cute how embarrassed he was at cumming before the thought he should. But Rick knew that would completely destroy him. So instead he ran his hand up his back, stroking it lightly while he continued to pump in and out of Daryl.
“S'alright. My fault for teasing you so long,” Rick said. “I ain't far behind.”
“You want me to.. to touch you?”
“Do you want to or you just feel like you got something to make up for? 'Cause you don't.”
“I want to. I want to make...” Daryl took a deep breath. “I want to make you cum.”
Rick pulled out and wiped himself on a hideous floral dish towel hanging from the cabinet by the sink.
Daryl turned around and looked him in the eyes.
“Here,” Rick said, taking the hunter's wrist and spitting into his palm. “ I'd like it better if you did too.”
Daryl nodded and spit in his hand too. He reached down slowly like he was afraid he'd scare something or provoke a snake, and then he wrapped his calloused hand around Rick.
Rick closed his eyes, and exhaled unsteadily through his nose. Daryl gave him a long stroke, base to tip, lightly twisting his hand a little at the end. Rick's eyebrows shot up and he thought he saw the corner of Daryl's mouth twitch.
“Fuck.”
That seemed to break down any remaining barriers Daryl had, at least as far as jerking Rick off in the kitchen was concerned. He shifted so he'd be more steady on his feet and then he started working Rick over good and proper, hand flying up and down his shaft.
“Daryl, I'm...”
“Mhm.” Daryl found Rick's balls with his other hand, gently kneading them.
“Fuck.” The noise in the back of Rick's throat was somewhere between a growl and a groan, and then he was cumming. Daryl pumped most of it into his other hand, keeping it off his clothes. Some of it dripped between fingers onto the floor between them.
Rick stood there, panting a little. He watched as Daryl brought his hand to his mouth and licked it clean, tonguing his palm and popping every finger into his mouth one by one, never breaking eye contact. Rick would've fucked him again right there if he was physically able. Instead he simply stared.
As many times as he'd thought about this, he'd expected most of the rest of what happened. The uncertainty. The enjoyment. But that little act had truly surprised him and lit his blood on fire. It would probably be one of the last damn things he thought of if this world ever succeeded at killing him.
“So,” Daryl said, already popping a cigarette into his mouth. “Guess we're supposed to cuddle now or somethin?”
Rick's head tilted to the side. He nodded and shook his head. Two of his deepest desires on the same night. What god had he accidentally pleased and how could he do it again?
“Couch is clear, right?” he finally said when he realized Daryl might actually want a real answer. Daryl had claimed the couch right when they got through the front door.
“Stay for a while and then go upstairs before the kid's awake?” Daryl found his pants and pulled them back on, digging out the pink lighter.
“I'll stay,” he said, finding his boxer-briefs and pulling them on. “No use hiding it from Carl. He's more of an adult than most actual adults were before all this.”
Daryl nodded, exhaling smoke. Everyone else knew already, it seemed. Fuck 'em if they had a problem with it now. He took a couple drags and snuffed the cigarette out in the sink, putting the rest of it on the counter.
He followed Rick to the living room, letting the former officer lay down first. And then he squeezed on next to him, secure with Rick's arms around him. They covered up with a little throw covered in Batman symbols and Rick buried his face in Daryl's hair, enjoying being close enough to memorize his smell and the exact way he took every breath.
“Daryl,” he said softly, tufts of brown tickling his lips.
“Mhm?”
“I love you.”
The room was quiet for a bit. Daryl moved his hand to Rick's wrist, thumbing over his skin. It was enough of an answer for him that Daryl didn't move, that Daryl was letting him be this close, that Daryl was touching him.
But it wasn't enough for Daryl. The hunter's grip tightened a little on his wrist, his thumb pressing down a little harder. He let go, allowed his hand to fall and dangle back off the couch.
Barely audible, mumbled quietly into the darkness came the reply, "I love you too." But he'd said it. And Rick had heard it. And God, that was more than enough. Rick kissed the back of the hunter's head through all that hair.
And then he let himself slowly drift off to the gentle sound of Daryl's breathing, quietly pondering all the ways in which sharing a bed from now on would be an extremely practical thing to do.