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Their descent was tentative, messy. Aaron led them through the gates of Alexandria like a parade of convicts through the prison gates – Daryl was still deciding whether they were going out, or in.
He sat upon the porch rail, cleaning the bits of brain from his crossbow, picking the rotted chunks from the flight groove, trying to reconcile the look of the congealed blood between his fingers with the neat white lines of the houses laid out in a row before him. The contrast was still too jarring, too sudden for him to settle in and enjoy the irony that these homes were so laughably beyond his ability to afford pre-societal collapse. The apocalypse had moved him up an entire socio-economic class.
“Well, here we are,” Rick said as he strode out on to the porch, newly groomed and looking quite pleased for it. For the first time in months, he was able to put his guard down for at least long enough to change his clothes and clean his hair. He was like a new father whose child had finally reached the stage of being able to sleep the whole night through. Daryl was unfortunately still figuratively – and literally, given his current posture – on the fence about the arrangement. In his mind, there were still images of the Claimers, who ransacked homes just like these, and raped and killed whoever was inside. And of Beth…being snatched right out of his arms down a driveway not unlike the one just over his shoulder.
“Here we are,” Daryl replied, tipping his brow in the leader’s direction, “you lost the beard,” he observed, and Rick smiled sheepishly.
“Yeah,” Rick admitted, stroking his smooth chin with a wide hand, “can’t say I miss it.”
Daryl shrugged. He liked the grizzly bear muffler just fine. It was more that he didn’t like change. And there’d been plenty of it these past few months.
“You had a shower yet?” Rick asked, and Daryl rolled his eyes. Carol had already been on him to take a shower, but picking through the guts strewn across his weapon of choice and drying under his nails really made him wonder what the point of getting clean just to get dirty again was.
“Naw, not interested,” Daryl answered shortly, and Rick raised his eyebrows at him.
“You really should. The water’s hot, there’s soap…” he trailed off, seeing he wasn’t changing any hearts. Daryl just shrugged again, looking Rick up and down. He looked comfortable on the porch, like he probably belonged here. Then again, Rick seemed to settle quite confidently into every mold into which he was pressed.
“Maybe later,” Daryl replied, returning to his crossbow. He only really bothered to clean out the flight groove and other relevant mechanisms – he could give a damn about the aesthetics of the thing. There was an army out there – scattered and messy, but huge as the day is long – set to rip his guts out and eat until there was nothing left. See enough people from the inside and you start to lose perspective about how pretty the outside ought to be.
“Alright, fine,” Rick chuckled a little at his friend’s persistence, waving a hand passively in the air before him. He stopped in the open doorway of the neat foyer, however, and turned a toothy smile in Daryl’s direction.
“Lemme show you something, then,” Rick offered, and waved Daryl into the house.
Now it was Daryl’s turn to raise his eyebrows, and he paused a moment before inevitably getting to his feet. “What?”
“Just come on.”
The two wandered into the house, Rick leaving the door open behind him in an unprecedented stroke of trust that jarred Daryl to the core. He tried to ignore the warring feelings of trepidation and intrigue in his gut, tailing Rick closely, close enough he could smell the scent of new cologne drifting from his neck, feel the heat coming off of him through his fresh white t-shirt.
“What is it?” Daryl tried again, as they turned off of the main hall and into the bathroom, where stood a clear-glass shower stall next to an alabaster working toilet.
“Just come, it’s right over here,” Rick insisted, a grin on his face that Daryl knew meant he was up to something, but he accepted the challenge anyway, dropping his crossbow on its stirrup at the door as they went inside. His boots felt heavy on the shiny new tile of the floor, and the space enveloped the pair of them like a thick, pastel-coloured blanket.
Suddenly Rick’s hand was on his bare arm for the first time in months and Daryl stopped being able to think just long enough for the man to manoeuvre him into the shower, stepping in after him and closing the door behind. Daryl barely had enough time to realize what was happening, and then shout something mangled and derogatory before Rick turned on the water full blast, letting it spray down on the two of them like a sudden biblical rain.
“You son of a bitch!” Daryl shouted, throwing up his hands in the spray as it immediately soaked his hair and started to drip off of his brow. He faced Rick, who was blocking his escape, smiling wickedly even as the shower dampened his freshly-cleaned clothes and hair.
“Well, now, since you’re already in here,” Rick teased, planting his hands on Daryl’s shoulders and pushing his vest down his arms, Daryl complying mostly from shock and half-hearted defeat, “might as well finish the job, right?”
Daryl glared as an unaffected Rick peeled off his t-shirt as well, which was nearly stuck to his skin with grime and dried blood, tossing it and the vest over the top of the stall. The glass fogged nearly instantly with the heat of the water, and Daryl was making desperate effort in his own head not to admit how amazingly good it felt against his bare skin after practically ages without.
He let Rick continue to strip him, unashamed before the other man, reminded of showering with his brother when times were tough and the hot water only lasted a few minutes a day. Rick was like family, only…not quite. Something unknown was in his eyes that certainly was not familiar, as he pulled Daryl quickly out of his jeans and briefs, tossing them arbitrarily away as well. The boots were a team effort: Daryl stepped out of them, watching the mud and gristle seep from the grip and down the drain; Rick turned and placed them neatly outside the stall door.
“See? Isn’t that better?” Rick offered, sounding suddenly like a daddy in a patronizing way Daryl didn’t like. He glared and turned away, refusing to budge into a more efficient position under the spray until Rick bodily moved him into it, reaching up and tilting the showerhead until the spray was landing directly between Daryl’s shoulder blades.
Rick’s hands went up and down his sides, scrubbing at the grime with the palms of both hands, watching patches of dirt and dried blood break up and dribble down his toned stomach and narrow hips. Daryl let himself be cleaned, declining to make any effort in the process, thinking about how the group would look at him with smug appraisal when he appeared to them with hair combed and in a button-up shirt. He shuddered to think about it, when Rick pulled a bottle from the shelf and uncapped it, pouring a pearly snake into his open palm.
“What the Hell is that?” Daryl frowned, ducking as Rick tried to bring the hand to his head. The thick liquid looked like condensed milk and smelled like lemon-lime.
“Shampoo,” Rick laughed, succeeding a second time in applying the cool gel to Daryl’s scalp, only because he was busy ducking for fear that the involuntary baptism might burn him.
“Can’t y’all just use normal soap?” Daryl winced as a drop of the cold liquid dripped down to the top of his ear, before Rick caught it deftly, smooshing the whole mess of it against his head. He lifted both hands to Daryl’s head, starting to rub the soap into his scalp, the man slowly uncurling when it turned into a pleasant froth. The lather sank between the greasy strands of Daryl’s thin hair and against his scalp, refreshing the hot skin. Daryl couldn’t help but deflate a little under the attention, Rick working his fingers in circles against his head, sweeping his gentle hands across every part of his skin.
When he was apparently satisfied with his work, Rick pushed Daryl wordlessly back into the spray, tipping his head up with one finger under his chin. Daryl complied wordlessly, closing his eyes as the water rushed through the lather and reached his scalp again, washing the soap and dirt away.
“There you go,” Rick cooed softly, and something in Daryl’s stomach twisted into a heaping knot. He flushed, hoping it would be disguised by the heat. At this point Daryl couldn’t help but notice that he was naked while Rick was clothed, seemingly willfully ignoring the way the shower soaked his clothes, making his shirt cling at his tan skin, and his jeans sag heavily under the weight of the water.
“That’s enough,” Daryl mumbled, looking away, this time sheepishly rather than uncooperatively, “I’m good now.”
“Nonsense,” Rick answered, his voice sweet in a lilting, soft way that flattened out his normally sharp accent and made him sound suddenly closer than this already intimate settling insinuated. It didn’t take a genius to tell where this was heading, but Daryl wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle what came next. After…after losing their home, losing so many people, this sudden display of kindness and affection was just…way too much.
Rick picked a bar of soap from the shelf this time instead, gliding the candy-smooth alabaster across Daryl’s pecs and shoulders, leaving a foamy trail across his skin. He sunk the bar into the groove of his sternum, up under his armpits, scrubbing him clean with practiced ease. Daryl dared to look at Rick’s face, to see him looking intently at every part of his body, like a painter observes his canvas, rubbing his palm across the roughest parts until the smooth peach underneath was revealed.
He led the soap bar across Daryl’s pressed stomach, watching the way the muscles convulsed with breath under his touch, gliding the slippery edge down the center line of his abdominals and into his navel, sinking lower before Daryl caught him with a touch on the wrist.
Daryl flinched as Rick met his eyes, seeing a sudden reluctance and casting his gaze down at the source of his trepidation. It was only to be expected: anyone would react that way to such an intimate touch.
“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Rick whispered, and as a final nail in the coffin, added, “I got you.”
Daryl moaned hopelessly and tipped back his head into the welcoming spray. He was helpless, as always, to being led by the nose by Rick. Was it his fate to simply follow the whims of the first strong-willed man who came along and pushed him into things, be they makeshift militias or showers? But even as he internally floundered with mortification, he couldn’t help but sink into Rick’s accepting touch, the warmth of a palm lathering his skin.
The block of soap travelled down further, down the light trail of hair and into the dark, thick thatch just below, neatly avoiding the area and seeking the skin around it while Daryl gasped and held his fists clenched at his sides. Rick cleaned his legs instead, sliding the slippery slab down the front and outsides of his thighs, before plunging the bar between his legs. The soap smelled caramel-sweet, and like some fancy herb Daryl didn’t remember, and he gasped as the bar – and Rick’s hand – slid up the inside of each thigh, alighting nerves that twinkled to life there.
Rick sunk to his knees in the flowing water, taking the bar with him as he massaged each of Daryl’s calves, rubbing the soap into the hair and making it lather richly, like whipped cream. He reached his foot and Daryl lifted it automatically, forced to reach for Rick’s shoulders as support as he balanced carefully in the stall. Hot mist swirled around them and Daryl was glad that his raggedy breathing was skewed by the noise of the shower as Rick rubbed the smooth bar into the bottom of his foot, massaging the taut arch and cleansing the calloused heal and rough pads. He let the flowing water rinse his foot clean, then continued with the other one, Daryl’s hands trembling on his shoulders as he cared for every inch of him.
The bathroom echoed with a low cry as Rick sunk the soap bar in between two toes, tickling the never-touched and shockingly sensitive webbing of Daryl’s foot and making him flinch away. His cock twitched to full hardness when Rick looked right up at him, then, relishing in the effort of his breathing, the way his belly rippled with it, and Daryl tore his gaze away.
Rick returned carefully to his feet, supporting himself against the porcelain wall of the shower, gently nudging Daryl back under the spray with a hand on his shoulder. The man sunk under the hot rain, long hair plastered to his forehead, dripping into his warm blue eyes.
“Turn around,” Rick swallowed, gesturing with his chin. “I gotta do the back.”
Daryl shook his head, reluctance welling up in his chest, settling in his ribcage like silt. He didn’t know what he would do if he got Rick behind him – but the sheriff insisted, pressing on Daryl’s shoulder until he turned, placing his hands on the wall of the stall, ducking his neck beneath the deluge.
Rick’s hands on him were even more visceral, closer than before because he couldn’t see where they were going to land next, and his body jerked with surprise with every new touch. Rick smoothed across his shoulders, running his hand up the back of his neck in a way that made electricity shoot up Daryl’s spine, lighting up circuits all along the narrow column. He pressed his fingers hard into Daryl’s back muscles, the gentle hesitancy from before dissipating, evaporating with the searing warm of the water. His palms gripped muscles at the small of Daryl’s back and squeezed before sinking down, cupping his hard buttocks.
Daryl flinched as Rick’s breath was suddenly just over his shoulder, the man having stepped up near enough to nearly press their bodies flush. Rick, still clothed, squeezed Daryl’s asscheeks and spread them, gliding the bar of soap up and down the crack and against his twitching, furled hole. Daryl gasped and rolled his hips forward away from the touch but it persisted, Rick’s fingers nudging his hole, putting just enough pressure to remind Daryl of the realness of their position. He yelped as Rick squeezed his ass once more, forcing him to lift up onto the balls of his feet and raise his hips to Rick’s clothed erection.
Pressing in from behind, Rick let his hands slip to the front, seeking Daryl’s erection and finding it solid in his grip. He swiped the soap bar up and down the sensitive underside, making Daryl’s knees tremble with the sensation. Sparks were firing throughout his system, a hot sunburst growing inside his belly as Rick continued his attentions, leaving no inch of him untouched. He sunk the soap bar down past Daryl’s balls, lifting each one and then sliding back along his taint with the smooth slab, rubbing the sensitive spot clean before pulling away.
Daryl’s knees felt weak. He had to grip the wall of the shower for support, leaning closer to the tiles as Rick crowded him in from behind, grinding his clothed erection into Daryl’s ass, making him grunt and groan with the attentions. His body clung with white lather here and there, slipping off of his shoulders in foamy waves, lingering in his wet pubic hair. Daryl knew that the noise of the shower wouldn’t muffle all of his sounds, groaning as Rick gripped his hips and pulled him wordlessly back against the bulge of his cock.
Rick replaced the soap and reached for another bottle from the shelf, squeezing until a coil of buttery conditioner filled his palm. He smoothed the dollop into Daryl’s hair, pulling it back from his scalp and letting it coat every thin strand. His fingers trailed the breadth of Daryl’s scalp, settling in the loose strands at the back of his head and he yanked, pulling Daryl’s head back, forcing his back to arch and tense against Rick’s front. He massaged the strands while Daryl cried, jaw tugged open by Rick’s hand pulling his head back, the slickness of the conditioner making sloppy sounds under the sheriff’s fingers.
Rick made a grunt of effort that sounded close to “fuck” and it was enough to send Daryl’s vision sailing into the stars. His touch was so visceral, so close, Daryl swooned as Rick fucked his hips against his backside again, pressing him insistently nearer to the shower wall. Boxing him in – but Daryl was keen to be cornered.
Daryl cried and arched his back as a hand found his cock again, lashing his hips into the unexpected touch. Rick used one hand to hold Daryl’s head back while another coated his shaft with more of the conditioner, the slippery, buttery texture allowing his hand to glide over the surface and making Daryl nearly faint with desire. Rick worked his shaft until Daryl was so stiff he felt indistinct, like he was melting into the hot mist, pumping his hips meekly into the pulls of Rick’s hand.
Suddenly, Rick’s grip was gone from his hair and Daryl had long enough to turn over his shoulder to see him pump another dollop of conditioner into his hand and reach down. Next he felt were two slick finger tips gliding down the cleft of his ass, pressing insistently into the hole until it gave. Daryl gasped soundlessly, lifting his face to the ceiling, eyes darkening with lust. His wrists trembled before him while Rick’s fingers sunk deeper, prodding him open one at a time.
The twin fingers sunk in to the third knuckle, moving in tandem, in- and out-of-sync to stretch Daryl open, making him pant to try and accept the pressure, while Rick’s grip relaxed on his dick, gently smoothing up and down the shaft. Daryl moaned, dropping his head between his broad, heaving shoulders, chin nearly to chest as he tried to regain his breath, but any progress he made was rebuffed when two seeking fingertips found his prostate.
“W-wait—!” Daryl whined as his cock surged again, engorged and hyper-sensitised by the attention from behind. The fingers kneaded the small bud, urging more fluid forth and making Daryl seize with the attention. “Oh God,” he groaned, finding himself rising higher and higher towards his climax, crawling towards it, his fingers curling and gripping the tiles of the shower, knuckles going as white as the grout between until suddenly, it stopped.
“Rick,” Daryl moaned, rolling his hips back towards the man’s receding touch but Rick pulled his hand away. Daryl could feel the heat of Rick’s breath on his neck, panting nearly as frantic as his own.
Rick reached past him and to the knobs of the shower, turning it off, the flow of water against Daryl’s shoulders stopping immediately. Suddenly, he felt more naked without the steam and the spray, holding his arms around himself and turning to face the other man.
“I need you. Now,” Rick grunted, and it was so like an order Daryl couldn’t help the way his heart pulsated in the face of that raw insistence. Before he could react Rick was pulling him out of the shower, reaching for a towel and balling it roughly at him before dragging him away with a hand around his bicep.
Daryl caught the towel to his chest, following Rick out of the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom, dripping water which was rapidly cooling on his skin as he went. He shivered as he stumbled, hard and trembling into the next room, cock pointing up, red and wanting as Rick led him to the bed.
The bed. The shower was one thing, but the bed was so unbelievably…domestic Daryl almost felt the need to run. He was skittish around these sort of homely comforts; they were so much more frightening to him than the ambling dead outside their walls of steel.
“Naw,” Daryl tried to protest, shaking his head as Rick turned and began to back him into the queen-sized bed, “naw, Rick, I don’t do this kinda thing, it ain’t for me,” he step backwards out of Rick’s grip only to have the man follow him.
“Relax,” Rick persisted, grabbing the huge towel and wrapping it around Daryl’s shoulders, drying him off in the most precursory, frantic way he could handle. His own body dripped even more offensively, his clothing half-soaked and sticking to his every inch.
“You’re alright. You belong here,” he rubbed Daryl’s shoulders, his back and chest dry before gripping the edges of the towel and using it like a sling to pull the man into his waiting kiss.
Daryl let out a little grunt of surprise at the kiss, melting into the warmth of his lips and joining the pressure of his jaw with pressure of his own. He opened his mouth and let his tongue come forward to meet Rick’s, which surged forward to meet his with a desperate lust. He tasted hot, clean – but with a prevailing masculinity that was impossible to wash off. Daryl felt his knees getting weak when Rick suddenly shoved him backward and he fell, his body hitting the bed with a whoomph and a violent bounce.
Daryl stared up at Rick, the towel spread beneath the still moist skin of his back, his knees bent over the end of the bed, face flushed equally from the heat and the unbroken arousal of Rick’s pervasiveness. God, he wanted to be lead, to be taken charge of – Daryl had to admit it as his cock strained for Rick’s attention and his knees moved automatically apart. In this position they were like man and husband, and Daryl’s chest clenched tightly as he swallowed down a sense of a horrible longing for something he could never have.
“Rick,” Daryl protested again, half-hearted as Rick climbed over him and dropped his head to Daryl’s chest, latching his lips over a nipple, “this ain’t…I ain’t right for all this.”
“Yes, you are,” Rick replied, looking up at Daryl through eyes that were filled with lust and a pervading authority that had Daryl’s heart rocketing up into his mouth, “we earned this. You earned this.”
With that, he sat up on his knees over Daryl, unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down to his knees. His erection sprung free, the rod thick and waiting, nestled beneath a cluster of dark hair that had Daryl swooning in the mid-afternoon light. Rick gripped his knees and encouraged Daryl up and back up the bed, where he went willingly, crawling backwards on his elbows towards the headboard, getting just far enough for Rick to kneel between his thighs before the man shoved him back down.
Daryl moaned when lips met his collarbone, painting the hard ridge with a swath of blistering tongue, rising up his neck and throat and to the dip of his chin. He tipped back his head as stars swirled before his eyes, a galaxy forming from the intensity of their connection, Rick’s mouth pressed to his fresh skin. The soap hadn’t only stripped away the dirt and old skin, it had left him bare and more naked than before, allowing him to be touched more closely than he ever had been. Rick’s tongue circled his fattening nipple and Daryl groaned, pressing the crown of his head into the pillow behind him.
Almost semi-consciously Daryl felt his knees being lifted up, and he let himself be spread, positioned to be fucked missionary like an actual married couple would. His head spun, like the whole universe was off-kilter as he thought about just how far away this all was for him a few months ago – a shower, a house, a bed – and a lover. He let Rick edge up in between his legs, stick a hand down between and open him again.
Two fingers became three, Rick spreading his furled hole until it was pulled taut around his invading digits, digging deep and finding his prostate and pushing up. Daryl’s entire body lifted with it, stimulation flooding his senses, his jaw falling open around a wordless sound of ecstasy. But of course it wasn’t enough – his body surged with anticipation, hips rocking into the fingers gently fucking him open, knees parting and rising around Rick’s narrow hips.
The fingers withdrew and Daryl let out a deep breath, steeling himself for what was to come. His fingers gripped the towel, crumpled and damp beneath him, wet hair slicked back and gradually falling back into his eyes when he tossed his head into the give of the lush pillow. His body, rough and massive quaked with the contrast against the white bedsheets and puff of the cottony comforter, dark hair splayed across the pillows.
Rick dove inside him, hips plunging forward as he gripped Daryl’s ankles and held them high around his waist. His cock, thick and hard sunk in inch by inch, spreading Daryl wide around its shape, filling him to the brink. Daryl gasped, throwing back his head as his chest arched to the ceiling, pecs thrust into the air and stomach heaving with breath as Rick’s cock sunk deeper in, until he was nearly seated.
“This…” Rick breathed, steely concentration making his voice jagged and rough, “is us. We…” he shifted his hips, letting himself slide out just a fraction before plunging back in, making Daryl gasp, “are here. Right here, right now.”
Daryl groaned when Rick began to thrust, gripping the sheets with desperate, clenching fingers as Rick fucked him. The cock slipped out and then pushed in slowly, so Daryl could feel every ridge and curve as they breeched his hole over and over again. His own hardness responded in kind, twitching between his thighs, arcing towards his belly. Rick pumped into him hard and firm, the gentle intimacy of the shower evolved into something primal and adamant. He pushed Daryl’s ankles back, bending his knees and letting himself sink deeper, until he was hilted each time, his thighs smacking Daryl’s ass with each thrust.
“Fuck, Daryl,” Rick whispered, subconscious, undulating his hips forward and up and faster, harder until Daryl couldn’t think straight. The anxiety of the domestic setting melted into something more firm, more solid – a place, a belonging, beneath Rick, beneath the steadiness of his beating chest. Daryl felt a red-hot heat boiling in his stomach, roiling up through his ribs as lust overcame him. He couldn’t think, could hardly move save for the pumping of his hips as they moved to meet Rick’s steady thrusts. The driving, pumping of his hips, like the beating of a heart grew faster, more frantic as Rick began to ascend to completion.
“Daryl, oh God,” Rick groaned, voice rare and delicate all of the sudden as he squeezed his eyes shut, hips pistoning forward, driving Daryl up the bed with each push, driving him delirious. For a glorious second, Daryl saw himself happy here, at peace, in domestic bliss with a real partner, who bedded him every night and greeted him every morning. The dream dissolved into a galaxy of burning white stars as Rick’s pace grew frantic and Daryl could hold it no longer. His hardness strained, untouched between his legs, but as he reached down to attend it, he realized with shock that he didn’t need to as a thick cockhead rammed into his prostate.
Rick’s thrusts hit the sensitive gland over and over, frantic and way too fast, too much stimulation all at once and Daryl gasped as he felt his cock fill and strain towards his chin. He couldn’t help the cry that escaped him when Rick started hitting him deep, pushing Daryl’s feet back until his knees were nearly to his shoulders, filling him to the absolute brim with every thrust upwards. Daryl screamed as Rick’s cock met his prostate with frantic, pointed thrusts and then he was coming, spilling untouched onto his chest, spitting cum all the way up to his chin.
Rick didn’t stop, plunging in and out and gasping as his orgasm approached, fucking the over-stimulated Daryl into utter oblivion. Daryl’s stomach clenched and he reached down between his legs to feel where Rick was pounding against the backs of his thighs with every thrust, feeling where the cock slid in and out of his ass with his thumb, and the tentative touch pushed Rick over the edge, and he came with a cracked shout, throwing his head to the ceiling and coming buried deep inside Daryl.
Cum pooled inside him and on his belly as Daryl tried to regain his breath and his cognizance. He felt Rick’s cock slip free through his thumb and forefinger, it trailing a dribble of spend across the sheets as Rick withdrew. Daryl felt his legs being lowered, automatically letting them drop down around Rick’s waist. His long body heaved with breath, stomach rising and falling with each deep, satisfied sigh.
After orgasm, the bed was suddenly damp and unappealing, and exhausted as he was Daryl started to fret, shifting his hips uncomfortably on the towel and finding little relief. Rick tried and struggled to pull his wet t-shirt over his head, finally succeeding after it had thoroughly ruffled his hair and chafed his chin.
“You’re all dirty again,” Rick noted, with a gesture of his chin, while Daryl licked cum from his own, “we’ll have to get you clean.”