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"What?" Daryl says, immediately defensive. He ducks his head and refuses to look Rick in the eye.
"I didn't say anything," Rick says, frowning.
"Didn't have to," Daryl mutters. He tears a sliver of skin off of his thumb, and bites his bottom lip. "Could feel you thinking it."
Rick runs a hand through his hair, reaches for Daryl, thinks better of it, and lets his hand fall to his side. Trying to deny whatever it was that Daryl thought he was thinking would be useless, even if what he'd been thinking was probably not what Daryl had assumed he was thinking.
In fact, Rick was thinking about how nice it would be to lie down on the bed that Daryl had just made and fuck, or lie together and do nothing other than talk, or sleep.
He's bone weary, and isn't looking forward to hearing whatever it is that he'd apparently been thinking loud enough for Daryl to hear in his head, or to 'feel' when he'd walked into the room that they shared.
ESP is not all that it's cracked up to be. If it was, then Rick would not be in this situation, and he’d be in bed, with Daryl.
"Wasn't thinking," Rick says, desperate, hoping that Daryl will hear the truth of his words, especially since the man's 'feeling' thoughts Rick doesn't even have.
"I am an adult," Daryl says, voice hard, hands fisted at his sides.
Rick says nothing. Doesn't know what to say, because, yeah, Daryl's an adult, has been one since the first time they met.
There's fire in Daryl's eyes when he looks at Rick. It makes them look like ice on a lake. His nostrils are flaring.
Rick definitely wants to fuck now. Daryl looks ready to fight, and it's a turn on. Rick knows it shouldn't be, but he's tired, and it's been a hell of a day, a week, a month, a year, a damn lifetime, and he can't help it if his dick finds Daryl's anger exciting.
Nodding, Rick swallows. His mouth's gone dry, and the air's grown thick, and his skin's started to itch.
"That you are," he agrees, hoping that it's the right thing to say, because Daryl's muscles are flexing, and his skin's flushed, and Rick's thoughts, what little of those he has left, are slowly pooling, as one, into his groin.
"I am an adult, and I can sleep on Avengers sheets if I want to," Daryl says, the words whoosh out of him in one long, breathless stream.
Rick blinks at his lover, and then looks down at the freshly made bed, takes a good, hard look at it, because he has no idea what the fuck Daryl is talking about. When he'd walked into the room, there was only one thing on his mind, and truth was, he'd not even noticed that Daryl had made the bed up with sheets that contained comic book characters. He hadn’t cared about sheets at all.
"Is that the Hulk?" Rick asks, pointing at a greenish figure. "And is that...Captain America?"
He has to lean closer to get a better view of the characters, and brushes against a very stiff Daryl as he does so. The man's strung tauter than the bow that one of the characters is carrying, and Rick really can't wait to get down and dirty with Daryl no matter what kind of sheets are on the damn bed.
"Yes," Daryl says, and he steps closer to Rick, his body heat promising all sorts of naughtiness, provided that Rick can get Daryl to forgive him for thoughts he never had in the first place.
"And that one with the bow's Hawkeye, and the one dressed all in black's Black Widow, and that one over there..." Daryl's leaning so close now that Rick can almost hear the man's heartbeat.
As Daryl reaches across the bed and points to a gold and red figure, his fingers brush Rick's arm, and Rick takes a deep breath to keep himself under control. He's never seen Daryl this excited about anything like this before. It's a novelty, and a turn on, and Rick doesn't know how much more of this he can take, because it's torture to have Daryl so close, and excited about something not related to survival, or weapons, and not be able to throw him down on the bed and make him beg and come like a horny teenage.
"That's Iron Man, and..." Daryl reaches further, and his shirt rides up, and Rick holds his breath, "this one here is Thor. The Avengers."
Daryl turns to him, and his smile is blinding and breathtaking, and Rick isn't sure if he should kiss the man, or fall on his knees and let him know just how much he loves him like this. Unguarded, and geeky, and smiling like Rick's never seen him smile before.
It's intoxicating, and numbing, and Rick wants to take a picture, but settles for committing this look -- Daryl smiling like a kid in a candy store -- to memory.
"Huh, I hadn't really noticed," he admits, and wishes that he could take his words back, because Daryl's face falls and his shoulders dip, and Rick fears he's lost that secret geeky side which is more of a turn on than an angry Daryl could ever be.
Now that Rick has gotten a glimpse of this other side of his lover, he wants to get it back, and keep it all to himself. Hell, he'll search high and low for every Avengers themed item that he can get his hands on, if he has to, just to make Daryl smile like that again.
"Then why were you glaring at the sheets when you walked in?" Daryl asks.
"Wasn't really glaring at the sheets, just wasn't happy that you weren't already in them," Rick says, scratching his head, and looking away.
Words had always failed him when he'd messed up with Lori like this. Much as she insisted that he 'communicate' with her, it seemed that his brand of communication wasn't the right one, and he often made things worse when he opened his mouth. Rick has little reason to hope that his mouth will get him out of trouble now, even if Daryl isn't Lori. Rick's still Rick, and his mouth is still his mouth.
"Really?" Daryl asks, and he doesn't sound mad, so Rick chances a look at him.
Daryl's blushing, and his lips are curled up in a kind of half smile that Rick has come to associate with satisfaction, and smugness. Daryl knows that Rick wants him, and he's not afraid to show it.
"So, when you walked in here --"
"It wasn't the sheets I was looking at, or interested in," Rick says, and he lets his hands fall on Daryl's hips, smiles when Daryl shivers at his touch, and the blue of his eyes is swallowed up in an inky black.
Rick lets Daryl push him down on the bed, and when he next opens his mouth, it isn't to put his foot in it.