A/N: Bethyl Smut Week day 2! YAY! Inspired by Lana Del Rey's Ride. The ten minute short film version. Enjoy. xx
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He was rough.
They all were. Perhaps that was the appeal, when they walked into the small bar she was performing at. All denim and leather, they were a smoky haze that she could imagine getting lost in. Imagine getting trapped in and never finding her way out.
It was terrifying. It was exciting.
But she's Beth Greene. And she gets what she wants.
And she thinks that rough isn't enough. Maybe she wants wild.
Maybe she wants him.
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Her life was one of buses and small towns and borrowed guitars. It hadn't always been that way, but tragedy changes people. Tragedy tests people. Tragedy forces you from the route you long ago memorised to the one less travelled.
She likes to think her tragedy led her to him. He likes to think it was some kind of miracle.
It doesn't matter.
This road they're on, this life lived off the map. She hasn't had a cell phone in a year. She has forty dollars to her name and her mother's antique locket. She has nothing of worth, but she has him.
Us against the world, baby girl, he whispered to her once, we're unstoppable.
It's a truth she feels in her bones.
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He gets rough, he gets possessive. He told her once he never had nice things, never had something that he didn't have to fight tooth and nail for. Strokes her hair and tells her that he's sorry, that he forgets that he can be gentle.
It's okay. I'm not going to break.
Their first time was behind the bar, the night they met. Her white dress rucked up above her hips, his cock slamming into her and she's moaning, panting, whimpering, please, please, please, please, please, like he's the only man alive that can save her.
Afterwards, she sits in the alley, on the hem of her pretty white dress, watching him smoke. And when he's done, she murmurs the second most important three words she ever uttered in her life.
Take me away.
This man, this man she doesn't even know, this man who only minutes ago was fucking her like some kind of animal, looks at her, with soft, gentle eyes.
He doesn't say a word, but he extends her his hand.
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His brother is a wildcard, his friends even more so. There's something about men with one-syllable names that sets her on edge, that make her nervous.
Her brother, for example. And look how he ended up.
Daryl is a contradiction of danger and safety. How she never feels more at ease than on the back of his bike, in his arms. Wrapped up in him, she feels like time doesn't matter, the world doesn't matter. Who she was and where he came from doesn't matter.
You make me crazy, baby girl.
He whispers all his secrets in motel rooms, in the dark, when their bodies are spent and slick with sweat, when she's still trying to catch her breath.
Sometimes I think you might kill me.
And she laughs, breathless and melodic. Her red painted nails trailing up his chest, lingering on the scars and ink that mark his skin. Presses kisses to his neck, traces her tongue along the hollow of his throat. Meets his lips in a slow, lazy, sensuous kiss.
But what a way to go.
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Some days, she is unrecognisable.
The girl in the mirror is not her. She doesn't even know what she is.
She is not better, not worse. She is changed. And change, is progress. Change is good.
He has changed. Changed from the cautious wild thing she first met in an alley. Changed from the man who was so quick to anger, so quick to put up his walls. In ways, he still is that man. But when he puts up his defences, they automatically shield her.
She can calm him with a touch, placate him with a kiss. He is still wild, still untamed. But he has a purpose. He has something to fight for.
You are amazing, she whispers to him, on her knees, looking up into his eyes, you are strong and brave and amazing.
He fights against instinct, lets her take him into her mouth on his own accord. So different from the days when he'd fist his hand into her hair, watch her gag around his cock. He has learnt what he wants, learnt what she'll give. Learnt that he doesn't need to exert his dominance to be in control, that he is in control. That soft isn't weak and slow isn't for pussies and that she'll swallow every last drop of him even without holding her in place.
I love you.
He looks at her like he doesn't believe her and she vows to keep saying it until he does.
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Merle jokes and Joe leers, but the others, grudgingly, know their place.
They know she's Daryl's girl.
She still has to placate him. Still has to reassure him and remind him that he's the one she's with every night, that he's the one that knows her body better than she does. The only one, because while she technically wasn't a virgin, he was still her first, in all the ways that matter.
Her first lover, the first man she ever desired.
It's on the road, in the Californian desert, that Merle stops calling her Daryl's 'back warmer', and starts calling her his 'old lady'. Makes the others stop momentarily to acknowledge the label, to recognise what this means.
She's a part of them. She's to be respected, to be protected. She's not Daryl's plaything, not a toy he picked up to be soon thrown away. This is it. This is them.
Two days later he makes it official; not with a ring, but her name on his skin.
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She doesn't think about the future.
It's not that she doesn't see one, because she does. She gets what she wants and she wants him. But the future is tangible, the scenarios ever changing. And one minute she sees stretching highways and the next she sees a dead end.
Time moves forward and people move with it. Objects in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
She thinks she was once his unbalanced force. She wonders what will be hers.
Beth spends her days with her arms wrapped around him and her nights with his name on her lips. She cries when his tongue strokes her clit and his hands grip her thighs so hard they bruise. He drags the flat of his tongue over and over her sensitive bundle of nerves, lighting her up from the inside, sparking within her a tidal wave of lust. This is what she lives for now, this unbridled feeling of ecstasy, this pure rush of emotion. It is falling apart and piecing yourself together and finding that you fit better than you ever did.
You gonna come, baby girl?
And it's a challenge, it's an offer, it's an encouragement. It's a rhetorical question.
She comes and she comes hard. Whimpering and spasming and writhing around on the scratchy motel room sheets. Panting, thighs holding his head in place, because if he moves anymore, she thinks she might black out and if he moves away, she thinks she might scream in frustration.
Double edged swords and the like.
Yeah, you like that?
Of course she does. Likes a lot of things about him, she decides, tracing his new ink with her nails, peppering it with kisses.
I like you, she breathes, but it catches, and she utters another three words as well.
I love you.
He doesn't say it back. Just strokes her hair back from her eyes, tilts her chin up to meet his gaze.
He doesn't say it back, but his eyes say it loud and clear.
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It's in his actions. It's on his skin. This love he has for her.
They're reaching the pinnacle. Of what, she doesn't know. But she feels it in her bones, in the bike's vibrations. Feels it in his gaze and his touch and Merle's wary distance. Feels it when the sun rises and sets and every time she leans her head against his back.
They are approaching the fork in the road.
It's not a hotel, but a field in Georgia. Back to their roots, she thinks, this place that is a part of their make up. And he kisses her, gently, surely, because he knows she likes to savour the quiet, knows that she doesn't always like to be screaming. Sometimes a sigh and a whimper is enough. Sometimes it's enough to convey to him everything she's feeling.
He thrusts into her, long, slow strokes, that reach her core, making her moan with want. His fingers entwine with hers, his grip tight, but so is hers. She never wants to let go. Never wants to lose this feeling of falling and soaring at the same time.
Baby girl, he breathes and her body sings, his pace quickening, reaching that beautiful crescendo.
I love you.
She wants to cry. And maybe she is crying. Because she knows that he's never said those words aloud, never said them to another soul, and here he is, looking at her almost reverently, fingers trailing over her breasts, her ribcage, a nonsense pattern she'll never be able to decipher. Perhaps it's that way because he doesn't know either.
He's twice her age, and he doesn't know what he wants in this life. But he wants her.
And he can have her. For the rest of their lives.
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