Unattainable (A Daryl Dixon love story)

10

The next morning, after breakfast, Rick announced he only needed people in the towers that day. There were no Walkers in sight for most of the morning, except the occasional lone one that Rick quickly took care of.

Pepper sat in the same spot, alone, for most of the day. She watched Daryl clean his arrows for hours, then watched him pace for awhile. His pacing made her laughed after awhile, causing him to look up. “What’s wrong with you?” he called. “Nothing” she smiled “come here.”

He slowly walked over, sporting his familiar frown.

“Are you nervous?” she asked. “Just bored, why do you care?” he spat. “You act like I’m heartless” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me, it was a valid question” he said sitting next to her, on top of the bench.

“Oh but I do know you, Daryl. I know your name, I know you eat your food in a specific order; side first, meat last. I also know you care very much for your group.”

After hearing that he froze, a little swayed by what she just said, then replied “That shit doesn’t matter.” “Then what does?” she said scooting closer to him. “Nothing matters besides securing this place, and I don’t feel very secure with you here” he said, eyeing her. “Is that the reason you hate me? Because I threaten you?” she asked in a hurt tone. “I don’t hate you and you don’t threaten me, you just confuse me, I never know when you’re happy or bitchy and it freaks me out!” his words were angry and frantic.

She leaned into him and whispered in his ear “Believe it or not I’m still a nice person, despite all of that.” A small smile broke on his face; he knew exactly what she meant. He recalled that day when she had told him that she knew he was a caring person. He knew she was implying that they were somewhat similar, or at least he hoped so because he couldn’t think of any other reason for why she’d say that.

Pepper broke the silence by asking Daryl if he wanted to play checkers. He really didn’t want to risk pissing her off again by winning so he said “Nah, how about we sit here and talk about our periods instead.”

In the short time they talked, they had somewhat bonded. That night Pepper didn’t show up for dinner, and the second Daryl noticed she wasn’t there he went looking for her.

He found her in her cell. “What’s wrong?” he asked, standing in the doorway. “I’m not really hungry” she replied, staring at the floor. “Well as long as you don’t mind company” Daryl said plopping down on her bed and laying down. She rolled her eyes and smiled at him. He looked at her then back at the ceiling then asked “But really, what’s wrong?”

“I just don’t want to be around a lot of people all the time, it makes me nervous” she said.

They sat in silence once again. Then Daryl sat up “wanna get drunk?” She smiled at his sudden subtle playfulness and nodded.

Shortly after leaving he came back with two medium bottles of vodka. Silence feel over them again as the both sipped on the bottles. A dumb idea popped into Pepper’s mind but she decided to do it anyway. “Get up, we’re going to dance” she said standing with her bottle still in her hand.

“Dance? I ain’t no ballerina” he said taking a few gulps of his drink. “Not like that! Just shake out your frustrations” she said wiggling her whole body, making weird faces at him. “Fine” he said getting up, but put his bottle down. He was slightly buzzed, which gave him the confidence to slightly “dance”. But Pepper was full on drunk, having downed half of her bottle in a short amount of time.

They had both stopped dancing for some time, and just stood there. Daryl watched as Pepper kept drinking. She felt her legs turn to jelly as she stumbled over to her bed. “You okay there, Brooze Hound?” Daryl laughed, sitting down next to her. “I think I’m going to puke” Pepper blurted. “That’s cute” he said getting the trashcan in the corner of the cell and watching her throw up into it.

She looked like she had passed out and Daryl got up to leave when she stopped him. “Daryl, please stay with me tonight, I don’t want to be alone.” He didn’t know if he felt bad about getting her drunk or if he actually wanted to, but he squeezed himself into her bed.

At first he faced her, completely stiff, watching her sleep, then he got up and took his vest and shirt off. His movement woke Pepper up, realizing so, he said sorry and got back into bed with her.

They were now staring at each other, but not touching. “Daryl, I’m cold” she whined. The covers were over them, so the only other thing he thought to do was grab and warm up her hands. Her hands were ice cold. He pulled her into his chest trying to warm her up. Soon enough she fell into a deep sleep, later so did Daryl.

In the morning when Daryl woke up he knew Pepper would need awhile to wake up. He also figured since things have been slow lately that neither of them would have anything to do. His plan was to discretely bring her back something to eat.