Chapter Text
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Saturday night is the best night of the week to be in a biker bar. There’s plenty of action, it’s loud, a little boisterous, and it can be real entertaining.
Just like every other Saturday night, this particular Saturday night Daryl Dixon was working the bar, in fact he worked the bar six nights a week. That’s how it is when you own a business, it seems like you’re always working. He didn’t really mind though, it was better than taking orders from someone else.
He preferred working at night because nights were busier and that made the time go by quickly. Before you know what’s happened it’s closing time. But the best thing about working nights was having his days off. Day time was when he wanted to be out hunting and fishing, not inside a dark bar.
This Saturday night at the Hawg Trough, that’s the name of the joint, was just like most Saturday nights. There was a bar full of bikers and their old ladies, and there were plenty of women hanging around who were willing to do whatever they had to do to become a biker's old lady. Of course there were just as many bikers willing to let those women audition for the job.
That’s what the bartender's brother, Merle used to like to do. He'd let women audition for him on the regular. Right up until one of those women was a little too special for him to let go. Merle now spent his nights sitting on a stool just inside the door. He’s the muscle, the bouncer.
Most folks would consider the patrons at the Hawg Trough an unsavory bunch. That’s okay, Daryl doesn't really give a shit what those people think. He likes an unsavory crowd of patrons. They’re his people.
Besides, this group of unsavory folks spend plenty of dough on their booze, along with the pool table and the juke box. Sure, they may cause trouble from time to time, but they’re always quick to ante up for any damage they cause.
They’re also generous tippers and they keep his barmaid, Rosita real happy. When she’s happy the bar runs smoother and that makes Daryl happy. So as far as he’s concerned unsavory patrons are the best patrons.
It’s noisy and chaotic this Saturday, just like every Saturday, and just like every Saturday, without fail, Shane Walsh came walking in.
Walsh has had it in for Daryl since high school, that’s when Daryl took him down in a wrestling tournament. It was 15 years ago and the asshole still hasn’t been able to accept defeat and move on.
There was never a Saturday night Walsh didn't walk in the Hawg Trough like he owns the joint, stand there with his hands on his hips and survey the place like he’s going to haul every one of them off to jail.
Initially Daryl figured Walsh thought the regular police visits and harassment would ruin the business, that the law always coming around would keep the Bikers away. It didn't work out that way, all it did was cause Walsh to become the butt of a whole lot of very insulting jokes among the bar's unsavory, but quite clever patrons.
When Walsh comes strutting in this particular Saturday night he isn't alone and all eyes in the place immediately focus on his new partner. Daryl would never have imagined he'd ever say he saw a hot cop, or that there was a cop he’d like to get to know a whole lot better, but that was only because he'd never seen this small blond cop with the big blue eyes.
She seemed like kind of a tiny thing to be packing a pistol, handcuffs, radio, baton, pepper spray, ammunition, taser, flashlight, gloves, keys, and a Leatherman multi-tool on her duty belt. All that stuff probably weighed more than her. She was petite alright, and man was she good to look at.
The crazy thing was, she was all dressed up like a tough guy cop and standing in a pretty wild biker bar, and yet what Daryl noticed about her right away was an air of sweetness, maybe even innocence. That seemed strange for a cop. It was especially hard for him to imagine the small blond at some gory crime scene.
Anyway, if she was his new partner, Walsh's Saturday night visits were suddenly going to be far more tolerable. Welcomed in fact. Daryl smiled to himself as the thought crossed his mind, good cop, bad cop.
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Her whole family was baffled when she told them of her career decision. Her brother Shawn had been relentless, constantly giving her maximum grief about what made her decide on a career as a cop. He swore it was all about the murder mysteries she'd been reading ever since she was way too young to be reading that stuff. And even though there may have been something to what he said, the fact remained she wanted to give this a try.
She felt it was a very honorable profession and she welcomed the challenge of seeing if she could handle the physicality of training. If she could just do the physical part of the job she could prove to herself and lots of other people that she wasn't the weak little girl everyone seemed to assume she was. She'd prove to herself and everyone else that she was tough and she was strong, physically and mentally.
She made it and she felt so proud of herself, and to her happy surprise her family was proud too. They even threw a big party for her at the farm when she graduated from the academy. She finally felt like they were supportive of her career choice.
She was hired by the King County Sheriff's Department and partnered with a deputy named Shane Walsh. She took one look at him, and the way he was giving her that cheesy come-on grin, and she knew this was going to be rough duty.
Sure enough, her very first day on the job he hit on her. Her training partner turned out to be the poster boy for smarmy lady's man. Just what she needed, a senior officer putting the moves on her when all she really wanted was to learn the job out on the streets.
She kept quiet about his advances, she knew better than to make waves within the ranks. She felt confident she could handle him. She just had to keep him backed off until they assigned her a permanent partner in six months. She didn't even think he was completely beyond redemption, she couldn't deny he was a good cop and she was learning a lot about the job from him, but she’d been putting up with his double entendres and sexual innuendos all week and no matter how good a cop he is, he's an asshole as a man.
Saturday night he tells her they need to check on a biker bar just outside the city limits, a place called the Hawg Trough. He says it’s populated by a sleazy group of bikers who are always up to no good. He says they could get lucky and make a big bust if they happen to walk in in the middle of some kind of illegal shenanigans.
He’s clutching his duty belt and putting on his best badass face when he adds, "I keep a real close eye on the joint. It's full of just the type of perp no one likes to think about a sweet young cop like you having to be around. They’re nothing but a bunch of filthy, redneck bikers with criminal records as long as your arm, a rough, nasty bunch. Be ready to draw your service weapon if needed. Don't hesitate to shoot. And another word of warning, the owner / bartender is the worst, a real lowlife scumbag named Daryl Dixon."
Oh great, she’s about to enter some biker den of inequity with a male chauvinist womanizing jerk, this is going to be a real special Saturday night for sure.
When they walk in the first person she spots is the big bouncer at the door. He’s perfect. Perfect for where they are, exactly what a person would imagine the bouncer in a biker bar would look like. He puts a whole new meaning to the phrase “rough-looking.” Rough isn’t a strong enough word.
The guy has a smirk on his face, he’s wearing a wife beater shirt, leather vest, and he has the eyes of a man who’s seen plenty of trouble. More than likely he was the cause of the trouble. His smile is broad and totally insincere when he says to Walsh, "Well if it ain't Deputy Do-right come ta make his regular Saturday night call on us, an what's this? Ya got ya a sidekick now? This tiny woman here is your protection? Well I'll be damned Do-right, ya scored! She looks a whole lot tougher'n you and she’s a whole lot prettier too."
What strikes Beth as funny is that coming from this big rough man those words don't seem nearly as demeaning as when Shane Walsh spews his b.s. The biker man seems downright good natured about his teasing. And she admits to herself just how much she enjoys hearing the big ornery looking bouncer give Shane some shit.
She scans the crowd and it’s tough to say who looks more badass, the men or the women. She decides it’s pretty much a draw. Then her eyes land on the bartender and holy cow, he really does look tough as nails.
She notices how the bartender's eyes are fixed on Walsh and they’re the hardest, most intense eyes she's ever seen. His hair is long and messy and she finds herself wondering if he ever combs it. He has on a shirt but it’s not doing him much good. It looks like he ripped the sleeves off with his bear hands, not carefully cut them off. He’s polished off his look with a black leather vest.
What’s really something to behold, what you couldn't possibly miss no matter how professional you are, and well the way he stood there straight as a rod and with his arms folded across his chest just added to it, yeah, no one could help but notice those well-defined muscular arms. Holy mole.
He may be the roughest and the toughest of the rough and tough, but damn, he’s also the hottest thing this side of the equator. Or maybe the sun. All she can do about that is hope her look has remained professional.
She walks to the bar with her partner trying very hard not to look nervous, as if she walks in places like this every day of the week.
The bartender has kept his eyes hard on Walsh, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been checking her out. He knows how to keep it covert. Damn though, the closer she gets the prettier he can see she is, and surprisingly sexy looking for a cop. He wouldn’t mind at all if she wanted to frisk him.
As she listens to the way Shane talks to the bartender and the questions he asks it’s obvious to her what this stop is all about. It’s harassment plain and simple. The only reason they’re in this place is to give this man a hard time. And although Dixon doesn’t seem completely unfazed by the questioning, she can see that his lack of reaction to Shane's clear attempts to provoke him are really pissing her partner off. As for her, she’s quite impressed with the tough appearing and oh so sexy Mister Dixon.
Although the patrons are definitely a rough sort they don't seem to be up to anything more than having a good time Saturday night. Then Shane barks, "I better not hear about any trouble in this joint or I swear I'll do everything in my power to get you shutdown Dixon."
That's when the bartender finally speaks, "Fuck you Walsh."
Then Daryl Dixon turns to her, nods and says, "Sorry ma'am," and it’s all she can do to squelch a laugh.
Now Deputy Walsh is really cranked up and cranky. He rants on for an hour after their trip to the bar. She isn't paying much attention to his mood though. She’s keeping her eyes on the streets and her mind on Daryl Dixon.
She keeps reminding herself how ridiculous it is for her to be crushing on the big biker, she can think of at least 50 good reasons why she shouldn’t be. They’re really good reasons too, darn it. Like for one, he’s older. Maybe 10 years older. And he probably has some kind of criminal record, and he probably has a wife and a couple of girlfriends and several children. There's also the fact she's always been a good girl, and he definitely looks like a real bad boy.
All those reasons are just the tip of the reasons iceberg. Then there’s reality. Reasons and sound reasoning have zero to do with crushing and that man is just too delicious.
For the first time the bartender is wishing that asshole Walsh would have hung around longer, only because he hated to see that sweet little cop go. On the other hand, it was real pleasant watching that shapely butt of Deputy Greene's as she strolled out.
As soon as the cops left several of the patrons began making real, real suggestive remarks about the pretty little cop, but Daryl Dixon shut that shit down in a hurry. The unsavory bunch knew right away what was going on and they all started grinning and joking about how Big, Bad Daryl Dixon was feeling the love for law enforcement.
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