Chapter Text
Stupid Cupid
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They went their separate ways after breakfast, and that was a good thing. While Daryl slipped away to catch up on some sleep after his late-night watch shift, Carol sought out a little solitude of her own to get her reawakened hormones and her conflicting emotions under control. All too soon, she realized there was no such thing in the halls of their growing community, and when she found herself cornered in their makeshift laundry station by a giddy Beth and a smugly smiling Maggie, she resigned herself to her fate without much of a fight. Best to get it over with, after all. “Okay.”
That single word was all the permission Beth needed. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, the teen flung her arms around Carol’s neck and squealed, her blue eyes happy and her smile wide.
Maggie was more reserved but only marginally. “What was that out there?”
Carol feigned innocence. “What was what?”
Maggie rolled her eyes and pulled Carol’s hand away when she tried to use it to hide her hint of a smile. “Don’t play dumb. You. Daryl. That little show you put on for Karen. He was holding your hand. You two were vertically spooning.”
Carol sputtered with helpless laughter. “Vertically spooning? You make it sound so…obscene.”
“Well, you might as well have been naked.” Maggie’s grin was wholly unapologetic.
Beth giggled and chastised her older sister. “Maggie!”
Maggie shrugged. “With that man, handholding is tantamount to having sex in public. We all know it.”
This time, Carol did the reprimanding, with a teasing twinkle in her eyes, “Daryl’s a very private person. I’m sure you and Glenn wouldn’t understand that.”
Far from being offended, Maggie’s amusement merely multiplied tenfold, and she gave Carol’s hand a warm squeeze. “Seriously. I’m happy for you two.”
“Me, too,” Beth beamed, offering up another happy hug.
Overwhelmed in that moment, Carol felt her eyes grow warm with tears both of gratitude and guilt, and she smiled to downplay the show of emotion. “Thank you. Now. What does one wear to a party at the end of world?”
Maggie grinned. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m sure we’ll find you something just perfect.”
<3<3<3
That evening, Carol was in the library packing up the books and the art supplies the children had left behind when a shadow darkened the doorway. Without looking up, she knew it was him. She always knew. She figured she had the distinct sound of his footsteps memorized by now. She waited for him to speak before she turned around with a small smile.
“Hey.”
“Miss me, Pookie?”
He answered her with the Daryl version of a laugh and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Oh, you’re good.”
“The hell you going on ‘bout?”
Scooping up a stack of construction paper hearts in her hands, Carol regarded him curiously for a second. “You really don’t know?”
The flush that slowly crept across his neck was a dead giveaway, nevertheless Daryl persisted in playing dumb. “Don’t know what?”
The flustered attempt at denial was Daryl in a nutshell, and Carol was torn between the equal urges to shake him and squeeze him to her in a breath-stealing embrace. “We’re the Prison’s new it couple. Of course, we’d want a little bit of privacy.”
“Stop.”
He was damned cute when he blushed like a little boy, and for that reason alone, Carol decided to take her teasing up another notch or two. “According to Maggie and Beth, we’re official now. No point anymore in hiding our love.” His muffled Fuck had her laughing outright. “Relax. Public sex isn’t one of my conditions. Although…”
“Don’t have to enjoy this so much, Woman.”
Carol grinned, nudged his arm with her own as she slipped past him and walked toward the front of the room. She traded the paper hearts for the small hurricane lantern stationed on a table there and waited for him to approach her. “Ready to hear the rest of my conditions?”
“Don’t know if I’ll ever be fuckin’ ready. But go ahead.”
Oh, Pookie, Carol thought. I have you right where I want you. “Well, you already know number one.”