Unattainable (A Daryl Dixon love story)

27

Before Pepper entered she stood by the door way of his cell, and thought about what to say. She couldn’t just free ball it this time. It was all too obvious to her that she had over reacted and she was the wrong one and she had to be on her very best behavior.

He sat in silence. Pepper couldn’t even hear him breath. “Now is a good a time as any other” she thought to herself and walked into his room.

He was laying on his back staring at the ceiling. “Hey” she said with a pleasant smile.

“Hey” he said back, not looking up at her.

“I came to apologize” she said, stepping a little closer to him. “About time” he said, still looking at the ceiling.  

His comment angered her a tad, but didn’t deter her from the objective. She quickly pushed the annoying comment into the back of her head and began again “I spoke to Tyler… I didn’t know, and I completely overreacted and I’m so sorry for yelling at you.”

“What did he tell you?”

Again, his unwillingness to accept her apology pissed her off, but she continued to try to be calm. “He told me he just wanted to make himself useful and you decided to help and I told him you two can continue hunting together” she told him.

He sat up slowly. He looked so tired.

“Is that it?” he asked finally.

“Yes, that was it” Pepper said, losing her smile and letting her face give way to an irritated frown and a furrowed brow.

He ignored her eyes but began to speak “Tyler just… he just… hurts me. He came to me, desperate for approval, desperate to make himself useful, like I was the only one qualified to help, and I did and… I, I just don’t know what I’m feeling for him but it just…”

“You love him” she said, causing him to look up quickly.

“That’s sick! I don’t love him!” he said in disgust. “Not like that Daryl! I mean he’s like the brother you never had… or, uh, I don’t know, I’m sorry if you did, I don’t know, we haven’t talked about it so sorry if I just made things worse, but I see how soft you are with him. He idolizes you, you know?” she said, still a good distance away from Daryl.

Pressure applied itself to his chest when he heard her words. He did have a brother, but their relationship wasn’t anything like his and Tyler’s, and this thought confused him to no end but he knew he still loved his brother and still wanted to find him above everything else, but all of this baggage…

“I don’t see why” was all he could muster up.

“Because he thinks your badass” Pepper said as she sat beside him on his bed. He smiled a little bit after she said that which made her smile.

“Are we okay?” she said after a while of silence.

What was okay? He honestly had no idea what to say. He knew their relationship wasn’t a traditional one, by all means, but what was traditional really?