It's true-- he doesn't notice. Partly because he's not the best at catching subtlety, partly because it never occurs to him there might be something to catch. What he thinks about her is-- well, he's still not doing any better at answering that, but it's not that. That's the danger of the easy camaraderie they've built since the still and the tattoo shop; it's been comfortable enough that he never noticed it changing at all. No reason to think she would flirt.
The insecurity implied by the question, that strikes him as peculiar, too. But, he reasons, everyone doubts now and then. For all his desire not to care what people think about him-- he just wouldn't ask. (Doesn't need to, he thinks, with most people, who wear reactions on their sleeves.) So he takes a moment, tries to settle the confusion, and come up with an answer that'll help. She's trying to make sense of who she is, somehow-- he gets that-- so he's gonna try to be honest, and figure out why the hell she's doing it after.
So he shrugs.
"You come pretty far since we met," he reasons, starting slow. It took him a long time to catch up to that; even at the prison he'd been thinking of her as the sad, sheltered girl she'd been at home, at least in the back of his mind. Not to say he didn't care-- Lord knows he cared-- but still, he hadn't known. "People here don't get it. You're smarter 'n braver than they know," he adds, because that's true. Because he admires that about her-- both that she's strong and that she doesn't have to show it. It takes a hell of a lot to stay gentle, in this world. (That would be a nice thing to say to her, probably, but he's got limits on how gentle he can get.)
It's about all he can think to put into words. Whether it'll satisfy her, that's another question entirely.
Her cheeks heat up as he speaks. Imagining a mumbled answer--the sound of it sticking fuzzily like a burr in her mind, the words never quite certain--wasn't anything like hearing his actual answer. It's simple, and it's not much, but it's the kind of serious, honest praise that Daryl rarely metes out to anyone. Come pretty far, smarter, braver...by his standards, it's generous.
"Sometimes I think you're the only person who understands it," Beth murmurs, except that by it, she means me. Most of the rest of their group knows she's brave, and the real Alexandrians don't really care about bravery. But Daryl's the only one who seems to see all of her at once. He's seen her at some of the worst moments in her life, and he can still sit here in a beat-up car and tell her that she's made herself strong.
(Okay, Maggie probably does, too. But Maggie doesn't count at moments like this one.)
"You and me," she starts again, gaze fixed on his face, because nothing he said made it sound like this was a bad idea, "we aren't who we used to be. We don't have to be, anymore. Right?"
Like most things Daryl manages to spit out, it's honest. Difficult, but only because he's not inclined to be effusive like that. He feels things deeply-- in that, he thinks, they're alike-- but admitting to it is a different challenge. A last vestige, maybe, of a life that made it clear that being too open wasn't safe; caring, a vulnerability that someone was bound to seize as soon as they saw it.
But she asked, and because he does care, he tries. At any rate it seems-- okay? Maybe? There's still a strange intensity he can't sort out to the moment, but she doesn't seem disappointed, so that's something.
He's halfway to asking what she means when she speaks again. She's thinking of the still, maybe-- that's where they talked about it, at least, but he hears the echo of Alexandria there. Trying to be a town the world missed, fitting them into the roles it wants them to play. Months in and they're making some progress redefining that, but it still chafes. So maybe that's what this is-- needing to know she's more than the child-minder, Maggie's sister, the blonde girl who sings.
So he just nods, the slightest movement, paired with a grunt of agreement.
"So maybe we can be something new." This is the pivot, the part where everything comes together. It's not exactly what she rehearsed, but predicting what Daryl's going to say isn't an easy task at the best of times. Imagining this conversation, she really wasn't sure what to expect. Her stomach flutters, nervousness and anticipation melding into one buzz of energy. Beth swallows. "Together."
That's enough talking, it has to be. She hates getting this close to coming out and saying it; it feels stupid in the way that silent flirtation with other guys never did. Daryl's not somebody who puts stock in words, anyway. The less she uses, the better, right?
Right. She leans across the armrest separating them, so she can lay a kiss on his mouth.
A great many people wouldn't get close enough to manage that. Beth's luck holds, in that his old impulse to flinch away from everyone is dulled; he trusts her, even if he's not following.
That's about as far as her luck does take her though.
She's probably counting on the half-moment of total stilled shock. She's probably not counting on the rest of the reaction-- the sharp jerk backwards, his shoulder slamming into the window.
"Fuck," he gasps, immediately feeling like an idiot and an asshole at the same time. He wasn't expecting-- did she think he was expecting that? That he wants--
All he can do is gape at her, because no matter what-- this is going to be fucking awful, and probably worse for her than for him.
There's a fraction of a second where it's perfect. She's kissing him, and he's--
--scrambling back, or as back as you get in a four-door sedan. As soon as she feels it, she's doing the same, all instinct. Like burning her hand on a hot stove, pulling away before she even realizes it, biting her lip hard in the process. He's looking at her like she just tried to punch him.
Beth never planned for this reaction. She doesn't know what to do; her mind's awash in oh God, oh Gods, her face burning with shame. In most of her fantasies, he kissed her back, or at least let her down without acting like a skittish horse.
"Daryl--" she starts, her mouth dry, but for once, she doesn't know what to say to him.
It's vaguely possible that his reaction isn't the worst possible reaction someone could come up with, but honestly you'd have to try pretty hard to beat it. He doesn't know what to do, how to answer that--
Dimly, he thinks, she might bolt. It's an instant thought, because he's prone to bolting when he doesn't know what else to do, and so he reacts-- stupidly-- by slamming the door locks, putting the car back in gear and peeling the fuck out of their spot on the side of the road. He's not-- well, okay, he's probably speeding more than he should be, but it's not unreasonably dangerous. He just wants to be fast enough that she won't do some goddamn fool thing like run.
It's a long moment-- at least it feels long-- before he tries to say something.
When he kicks them back onto the road, it's its own kind of jolt--she's jerked against her seat belt, but there's something else, too, that knocks the breath out of her.
"What the hell are you doing?" She's looking out the window, peering into the woods for signs of walkers. They're going to hear this, they're going to come to the road...
Part of her expects him to do a U-turn back to Alexandria, tell her to sit down and shut up, but he doesn't. He just crashes down the highway and gets out half a sentence. It's twisting the knife, or feels like it, and she already feels like a complete idiot, and there's a hard lump balling up in her throat. Without a thought to what she's saying, she snaps, "Yeah. I figured that out."
Okay, she's got a point. He slows down, maybe not as much as he oughta, but enough. There'll be other cars stuck in the road soon enough, you never know when a herd will wander through-- it's dangerous. He doesn't mean to put them in danger, he's just--
"Shit."
Look, she took him off guard.
"Sorry."
And he means that-- he sounds it. What part, he doesn't say. He's sorry about all of it.
Beth can't bring herself to look over at him. If she does, she's afraid she's going to do something really regrettable, like yell or cry or...crying's probably the worst option right now. Her arms fold in around herself, her forehead resting against the passenger window.
That was stupid. That was so, so stupid. What she did, how he reacted, the fact that she never thought about the fact that she's still stuck on the road with them until they finish this stupid, stupid run. All of it's just going to sit like a stone inside of her until God knows when.
Somehow, she's still got things she wants to say, but getting them out is going to take time. The best she can do right now is, "Why not?"
Crying's the option that would make it worst on him. Which, maybe, he thinks he deserves-- for whatever reason. For making her think this was a good idea, somehow, or for not returning whatever feelings she's feeling, or for being dumb enough to have missed whatever was building to this.
He slows a little more, eyes on the road. Figures she's still asking questions-- hard fucking questions.
"You think there's a good answer for that?"
It sounds mean, once he says it aloud. But really-- whatever he says, it's not what she wants to hear, it's gonna hurt.
"No." Everything's coming out sharper, more brittle--it's either that or break down, or maybe just ask to be taken back to Alexandria so she can hide up in the attic and wait for everything to stop.
She takes a breath through her nose and ends up silently mad at herself when it sounds like a sniffle. (Maybe it is a sniffle, but she doesn't want to let it be.) Her fingernails dig into her side. "But that doesn't mean I don't wanna know."
Unless she demands it, he's not turning around. He'd still-- even at this point-- do near anything asked of him, because awkwardness aside that's who he is. But having a task in mind, it's good-- it's giving him something to focus on and keep his balance while trying not to make this worse. Making this worse, that's his specialty, when it comes to emotional shit.
"Christ," he sighs, not looking at her. (No sniffling. He is going to just aggressively not notice, if she did.) There's no good answer. There's any number of things he could say, and they'd be true things-- that she's too young, that for all the ugliness she's seen there's more he doesn't want to show her, that she's not his type, if he even has a type anymore, it's been so goddamn long. But it all just sounds like bullshit.
"It ain't you. Ain't me either, it's just..." He shrugs a shoulder, awkward, risks a quick glance her way. There's something soft in it-- not apologetic, but gentle.
"'S just not how we are." At least not how he thought, but she thinks different. He feels like shit.
"We could be." Beth says it to the window, pretty much--there's no way she can put that out there while looking at him. Which means she misses the moment his gaze darts her way and sees none of the weariness it holds.
She wants to close her eyes, maybe curl up with her knees at her chest and fall asleep until all of this is over. That's not how it works, though. They're out here, and they both need to be alert. Until they get back to Alexandria, she has to be present, painfully aware of the truth. He doesn't like you, not that way, and now you put it all out there for nothing.
"No." She doesn't flinch, but answering like that feels like she did. But what's worse than getting turned down? Getting talked down to like a twelve-year-old who's been mentally testing out her math teacher's last name and doodling hearts in the margins of a notebook.
That what you wanna hear? Of course not. What she wanted to hear lives in a different universe from the conversation they're having right now, somewhere on tree-lined, walker-free Never occurred to me, but I feel the same way Avenue. Her hands ball up, because the alternative is crying for real--out of embarrassment and disappointment and just a little resentment that he's going to be like this--and there's no way she's crying about this in front of him.
Her lungs feel like they're grating against her ribcage, or maybe her throat's sandpapering against itself. Getting anything out at the moment is hard, and it doesn't sound quite right. "It doesn't matter. Never mind."
"What?" She's thrown forward a little, just enough to startle her into turning back toward Daryl. "No."
Get pissed off, he says, like she isn't already. Pissed off doesn't always look like hollering drunk in the middle of the woods. This afternoon, it's something gut-churning and internal, about the only thing left she can keep to herself.
Sure, she's already mad. Just, she's turned it all... quiet.
Stubbornly, he sits right where he is and stares at her. It's the Daryl Dixon special. Christ, she could at least call him an asshole who doesn't know what he's missing, or punch him. That'd work much better.
They've got work to do. She can't just stop everything and give him what-for. And right now, she doesn't even want to. Yelling won't make her stop wishing she could crawl into a hole and wait for him to forget she ever said anything. She'll just look stupider. More childish.
So Beth waits it, out, watching him with the same sullen gaze she's been giving the trees outside since she kissed him.
It's something he respects about her, how goddamn stubborn she can be. Right now it's kind of infuriating. Jesus.
He looks away first, staring at nothing in particular-- out the windshield, barely seeing the cracked pavement and faded lines.
"You wanna just..."
Not talk. Like, maybe ever, but at least for a while. He conveys this imperfectly-- with a tight half-shrug and, well, not talking. Sure as shit it'd be easier.
"Just?" Get angry, get drunk, start crying, open the car door and start walking home? Drop it, she decides, after a moment of watching him make that face. He wants you to drop it. And lucky for him, she's pretty sure that's all that's left to do.
So she says the magic words, turning back toward the window. All she wants right now is to fold herself up so small that the entire conversation stops existing. "Just forget it."
He can't help feeling if she yelled at him some it'd make them both feel better, but maybe that's not how she deals with shit. At least it's not crying, though maybe that'd make her feel better-- and he'd feel better about that, at least.
Dropping it is what he wants, mostly. Except it doesn't actually feel like it helps-- the silence is oppressive rather than contemplative, and as surely as he doesn't want to talk about what happened he'd rather not have them never talk again. She's like a little sister in his mind-- he wants to do right by that, and even if he can't be what she wants him to be right now he wants to be a friend, because it's hard enough to come by that these days and-- hell, they've been through a lot.
After a few long moments he decides on changing the subject.
"You remember I was tellin' you about the ink on my wrist?"
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The insecurity implied by the question, that strikes him as peculiar, too. But, he reasons, everyone doubts now and then. For all his desire not to care what people think about him-- he just wouldn't ask. (Doesn't need to, he thinks, with most people, who wear reactions on their sleeves.) So he takes a moment, tries to settle the confusion, and come up with an answer that'll help. She's trying to make sense of who she is, somehow-- he gets that-- so he's gonna try to be honest, and figure out why the hell she's doing it after.
So he shrugs.
"You come pretty far since we met," he reasons, starting slow. It took him a long time to catch up to that; even at the prison he'd been thinking of her as the sad, sheltered girl she'd been at home, at least in the back of his mind. Not to say he didn't care-- Lord knows he cared-- but still, he hadn't known. "People here don't get it. You're smarter 'n braver than they know," he adds, because that's true. Because he admires that about her-- both that she's strong and that she doesn't have to show it. It takes a hell of a lot to stay gentle, in this world. (That would be a nice thing to say to her, probably, but he's got limits on how gentle he can get.)
It's about all he can think to put into words. Whether it'll satisfy her, that's another question entirely.
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"Sometimes I think you're the only person who understands it," Beth murmurs, except that by it, she means me. Most of the rest of their group knows she's brave, and the real Alexandrians don't really care about bravery. But Daryl's the only one who seems to see all of her at once. He's seen her at some of the worst moments in her life, and he can still sit here in a beat-up car and tell her that she's made herself strong.
(Okay, Maggie probably does, too. But Maggie doesn't count at moments like this one.)
"You and me," she starts again, gaze fixed on his face, because nothing he said made it sound like this was a bad idea, "we aren't who we used to be. We don't have to be, anymore. Right?"
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But she asked, and because he does care, he tries. At any rate it seems-- okay? Maybe? There's still a strange intensity he can't sort out to the moment, but she doesn't seem disappointed, so that's something.
He's halfway to asking what she means when she speaks again. She's thinking of the still, maybe-- that's where they talked about it, at least, but he hears the echo of Alexandria there. Trying to be a town the world missed, fitting them into the roles it wants them to play. Months in and they're making some progress redefining that, but it still chafes. So maybe that's what this is-- needing to know she's more than the child-minder, Maggie's sister, the blonde girl who sings.
So he just nods, the slightest movement, paired with a grunt of agreement.
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That's enough talking, it has to be. She hates getting this close to coming out and saying it; it feels stupid in the way that silent flirtation with other guys never did. Daryl's not somebody who puts stock in words, anyway. The less she uses, the better, right?
Right. She leans across the armrest separating them, so she can lay a kiss on his mouth.
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That's about as far as her luck does take her though.
She's probably counting on the half-moment of total stilled shock. She's probably not counting on the rest of the reaction-- the sharp jerk backwards, his shoulder slamming into the window.
"Fuck," he gasps, immediately feeling like an idiot and an asshole at the same time. He wasn't expecting-- did she think he was expecting that? That he wants--
All he can do is gape at her, because no matter what-- this is going to be fucking awful, and probably worse for her than for him.
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--scrambling back, or as back as you get in a four-door sedan. As soon as she feels it, she's doing the same, all instinct. Like burning her hand on a hot stove, pulling away before she even realizes it, biting her lip hard in the process. He's looking at her like she just tried to punch him.
Beth never planned for this reaction. She doesn't know what to do; her mind's awash in oh God, oh Gods, her face burning with shame. In most of her fantasies, he kissed her back, or at least let her down without acting like a skittish horse.
"Daryl--" she starts, her mouth dry, but for once, she doesn't know what to say to him.
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Dimly, he thinks, she might bolt. It's an instant thought, because he's prone to bolting when he doesn't know what else to do, and so he reacts-- stupidly-- by slamming the door locks, putting the car back in gear and peeling the fuck out of their spot on the side of the road. He's not-- well, okay, he's probably speeding more than he should be, but it's not unreasonably dangerous. He just wants to be fast enough that she won't do some goddamn fool thing like run.
It's a long moment-- at least it feels long-- before he tries to say something.
"Didn't know you meant--"
He hasn't got a clue how to talk about this.
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"What the hell are you doing?" She's looking out the window, peering into the woods for signs of walkers. They're going to hear this, they're going to come to the road...
Part of her expects him to do a U-turn back to Alexandria, tell her to sit down and shut up, but he doesn't. He just crashes down the highway and gets out half a sentence. It's twisting the knife, or feels like it, and she already feels like a complete idiot, and there's a hard lump balling up in her throat. Without a thought to what she's saying, she snaps, "Yeah. I figured that out."
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"Shit."
Look, she took him off guard.
"Sorry."
And he means that-- he sounds it. What part, he doesn't say. He's sorry about all of it.
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Beth can't bring herself to look over at him. If she does, she's afraid she's going to do something really regrettable, like yell or cry or...crying's probably the worst option right now. Her arms fold in around herself, her forehead resting against the passenger window.
That was stupid. That was so, so stupid. What she did, how he reacted, the fact that she never thought about the fact that she's still stuck on the road with them until they finish this stupid, stupid run. All of it's just going to sit like a stone inside of her until God knows when.
Somehow, she's still got things she wants to say, but getting them out is going to take time. The best she can do right now is, "Why not?"
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He slows a little more, eyes on the road. Figures she's still asking questions-- hard fucking questions.
"You think there's a good answer for that?"
It sounds mean, once he says it aloud. But really-- whatever he says, it's not what she wants to hear, it's gonna hurt.
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She takes a breath through her nose and ends up silently mad at herself when it sounds like a sniffle. (Maybe it is a sniffle, but she doesn't want to let it be.) Her fingernails dig into her side. "But that doesn't mean I don't wanna know."
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"Christ," he sighs, not looking at her. (No sniffling. He is going to just aggressively not notice, if she did.) There's no good answer. There's any number of things he could say, and they'd be true things-- that she's too young, that for all the ugliness she's seen there's more he doesn't want to show her, that she's not his type, if he even has a type anymore, it's been so goddamn long. But it all just sounds like bullshit.
"It ain't you. Ain't me either, it's just..." He shrugs a shoulder, awkward, risks a quick glance her way. There's something soft in it-- not apologetic, but gentle.
"'S just not how we are." At least not how he thought, but she thinks different. He feels like shit.
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She wants to close her eyes, maybe curl up with her knees at her chest and fall asleep until all of this is over. That's not how it works, though. They're out here, and they both need to be alert. Until they get back to Alexandria, she has to be present, painfully aware of the truth. He doesn't like you, not that way, and now you put it all out there for nothing.
Her voice drops low. "Things change. People do."
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"That what you wanna hear? Gonna make you feel better?"
It'd be a lie, and he doesn't lie, if he can help it. It's sharper than he means, but this-- it's not something he can fix.
"What'm I supposed to say?"
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That what you wanna hear? Of course not. What she wanted to hear lives in a different universe from the conversation they're having right now, somewhere on tree-lined, walker-free Never occurred to me, but I feel the same way Avenue. Her hands ball up, because the alternative is crying for real--out of embarrassment and disappointment and just a little resentment that he's going to be like this--and there's no way she's crying about this in front of him.
Her lungs feel like they're grating against her ribcage, or maybe her throat's sandpapering against itself. Getting anything out at the moment is hard, and it doesn't sound quite right. "It doesn't matter. Never mind."
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"I mean--"
Huffing, he brakes again-- not so sharp as to jar them but too sharp all the same.
"Look." They've gotta get-- somehow or other, they need to get through this. He can't leave things with her sulking.
"Just... get pissed off, or somethin."
That's usually how he copes with his feelings. Turning them into anger and burning it out quick.
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Get pissed off, he says, like she isn't already. Pissed off doesn't always look like hollering drunk in the middle of the woods. This afternoon, it's something gut-churning and internal, about the only thing left she can keep to herself.
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Stubbornly, he sits right where he is and stares at her. It's the Daryl Dixon special. Christ, she could at least call him an asshole who doesn't know what he's missing, or punch him. That'd work much better.
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So Beth waits it, out, watching him with the same sullen gaze she's been giving the trees outside since she kissed him.
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He looks away first, staring at nothing in particular-- out the windshield, barely seeing the cracked pavement and faded lines.
"You wanna just..."
Not talk. Like, maybe ever, but at least for a while. He conveys this imperfectly-- with a tight half-shrug and, well, not talking. Sure as shit it'd be easier.
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So she says the magic words, turning back toward the window. All she wants right now is to fold herself up so small that the entire conversation stops existing. "Just forget it."
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Dropping it is what he wants, mostly. Except it doesn't actually feel like it helps-- the silence is oppressive rather than contemplative, and as surely as he doesn't want to talk about what happened he'd rather not have them never talk again. She's like a little sister in his mind-- he wants to do right by that, and even if he can't be what she wants him to be right now he wants to be a friend, because it's hard enough to come by that these days and-- hell, they've been through a lot.
After a few long moments he decides on changing the subject.
"You remember I was tellin' you about the ink on my wrist?"