Chapter Text
The late night, post-sex shower they’d taken had been a good idea, because when Rick wakes up, he’s running late for an early shift and doesn’t have much time for anything but getting dressed and a quick cup of coffee. He’s in the middle of buttoning up his uniform shirt (gathered from the living room floor along with his pants) when Daryl stirs in the bed behind him, stretching out across the space, eyes opening when his hand hits the empty spot where Rick was. Rick regrets not being able to really wake up with him, to just lie there and enjoy the morning.
“Aw, shit,” Daryl mutters. “You gotta work, don’t you?”
Rick turns around, offering an apologetic and somewhat sheepish look. “I’m sorry, I really wish I didn’t have to.”
Rick moves back toward the bed for his watch on the bedside table, and Daryl, more at ease and comfortable now than last night, reaches out, hooks a finger through one of his belt loops, and yanks him down onto the bed. Despite his impending lateness, Rick grins, crawls over so he’s sitting on Daryl’s thighs, leans down for a kiss.
“You’re gonna make me late,” Rick says and Daryl shrugs.
“Tell ‘em you were out kickin’ criminal ass… or is it licking criminal ass? Get those confused.”
Rick laughs, pressing kisses along Daryl’s jaw. “You’re not a criminal,” he says, “but I’ll still lick your ass if you want.”
Daryl’s fingers slide between them, tug at Rick’s belt. “Do want it,” he says, but Rick pulls his hands away reluctantly.
“Gonna have to wait, angel. Sorry.”
“Angel?” Daryl murmurs, raising an eyebrow.
Rick shrugs. “What I been calling you in my head since yesterday.”
Daryl smirks. “Angelic ain’t gonna last long with you lookin’ like that. I might be developin’ a thing for that uniform.”
Rick feigns offence. “Only the uniform?”
“Mm,” Daryl says, “guess the man inside it is pretty damn good, too.”
“You guess?” Rick sighs, enjoying the banter. “See how it is, Dixon. I take you home, give you my best bourbon -”
“Shove your dick up me,” Daryl interjects.
“Was getting to that.” He leans in close, nose to nose with Daryl. “Shove my dick so deep in you, you were telling the whole block my name…”
“Oh, now you’re just exaggeratin’ things.”
Rick presses a soft, warm kiss against Daryl’s lips. “Not how I remember it,” he whispers with a chuckle. Another kiss, and Rick has sacrificed all his coffee time for Daryl, doesn’t mind a bit. “You can stay if you want until you have to go to work. Make yourself at home. But I know that shop you work at is only three blocks away so you better have that gorgeous face and ass of yours back here tonight.”
Daryl cringes. “I don’t wanna come back here covered in grease,” he says. “I’ll go home first and change and then come back. If you want.”
Rick is just starting to get up when he hears those words and leans back down over Daryl, looks him straight in the eye so he can’t miss what he’s about to say. “Of course I want you to. Daryl, this was never just gonna be a one night thing for me. It doesn’t seem like you want it to be either, and I really don’t, so of course I want you back. Hell, if I could just stay here with you right now and not move the rest of the week, I’d be happy. So please, please come back.”
#
Daryl feels Rick’s absence like a punch to the gut the second he leaves. He doesn’t know what gave him the courage to pull Rick back into the bed this morning, to play around with him like they’ve known each other years, like they’ve been doing this for years. But he feels good here, curled up in Rick’s sheets, face buried against his pillows that smell like sex and Rick’s cologne. Here, the life he dreamed up yesterday before he made his decision to tell the truth about Merle and the others, seems actually possible.
Being here makes him not want to go home to the dirty, tiny house he shares with Merle. It’s still his home, has been four walls and a roof when he needed it most, but with Merle gone, he doesn’t feel the same need to stay. There have been times when Merle would leave for more than a week at a time, come back too high and too angry for Daryl to deal with reasonably. And now that he’s going back to jail, for the millionth time, and likely for a much longer period than ever before… Daryl imagines this could be his home.
Rick, for all the ways Daryl thinks he is superior, does not act it. He seems to really want Daryl to be there. He seems to be the key to Daryl’s new start. And it does feel like one. Last night feels like the beginning of something better. And so until he goes to work, Daryl tries it on for size, walking through Rick’s apartment naked, snagging some of the coffee Rick had made but hadn’t had time to drink. Looking at Rick’s books on the shelf in the livingroom, drinking out of one of his mugs, making himself at home just like Rick told him to… it feels right. And Daryl hasn’t known right in way too long.
#
Rick has been driving around aimlessly half his shift under the pretense of patrolling. He doesn’t think he can or should be faulted for it because there’s probably nobody in the universe who could focus on anything after spending a night with the likes of Daryl Dixon. Not that there is the likes of Daryl Dixon… there’s only Daryl, one of a kind and something distinct, and he’s Rick’s. Well, sort of. Rick isn’t sure he’s allowed to lay any kind of claim to Daryl’s heart yet, even if Daryl is already putting his fingerprints all over Rick’s.
In any case, today the dirty streets look clean. The grey skies that are promising rain still look blue to Rick. He lets a couple of traffic stops go with warnings because he’s feeling so fantastic, and when he rolls through the drive-thru of the best coffee shop in town, he pays for the person behind him, too. Something about Daryl, about spending time with him, about being with him, having a kind of connection he never shared with Lori… it improves his mood, makes him feel generous and happy.
Truthfully, Daryl is most of the things on his mind today, so it doesn’t totally surprise him when instead of going to lunch, he finds himself pulling up outside the auto repair shop Daryl works at without intending to go there. Daryl isn’t in the system, has kept his nose clean as a whistle in comparison to his brother throughout the years. But when Rick looked at Merle’s file yesterday, Daryl was listed as his emergency contact, complete with the name of his workplace and cell phone number. The information has clearly been burning a hole in his proverbial pocket.
Daryl is the only one around when Rick arrives. The sign on the door to the lobby and waiting area of the shop says gone to lunch, be back soon, but Daryl is still in the garage, working. He only turns around when he hears Rick’s car door slam.
Daryl lifts one grease covered hand in greeting as Rick approaches and stops a few feet away. “Rick. What you doin’ here?”
Rick shifts a little awkwardly from one foot to the other, rubs a hand across the back of his head and tries for casual.
“Well, I patrol this area,” he says, flashing Daryl what he hopes is a winning smile. “Just thought I’d stop and say hi.”
Daryl makes a small hmph noise and raises an eyebrow at Rick. “Really? Never see cops around here.”
Rick thinks fast. “Community improvement. Is a thing we’re trying for. Starting today.”
The corners of Daryl’s mouth twitch and Rick knows he’s not buying his excuse for just showing up.
“Mm,” Daryl says, amusement lighting up his eyes. “Wanna try that again with a little more conviction?”
Rick takes a cursory look around the garage, confirming nobody else is there. “Fuck it.”
He closes the distance between himself and Daryl, and pulls him in for a kiss, all passion and heat. The hungry thing in Rick isn’t sated yet; fucking Daryl was hours and hours ago, and now, like after every high that wears off, Rick is desperate for more. The wrench in Daryl’s hand clatters to the cement floor as Rick grabs for his fingers, sparing no thought for the grease on them, lacing their hands together. The other hand pushes into Daryl’s hair, sweeping it away from his face while Rick greedily, urgently steals kiss after kiss and all of Daryl’s breath. Rick doesn’t actually remember the last time mere kissing could get him hard, but then again, Daryl is giving far more to him now than he’s ever gotten out of a kiss.
Daryl pulls back suddenly, panting, hand tightening around Rick’s. He drags him toward the door of the lobby and pulls him through it. Behind the lobby is a small, cramped office apparently belonging to Daryl’s boss, and that’s where he directs Rick. Daryl slams the door behind them, lets go of Rick’s hand, pushes him over toward the desk. Wiping his hands across his jeans, he steps behind it, starts rifling through one of the drawers, comes up with a handful of condoms and a bottle of lube.
Rick knows the surprise must show on his face, because Daryl grins. “He thinks none of us know what he does in here when his wife comes by. And his mistress.” Then he steps back toward Rick, and with a look in his eyes Rick hasn’t yet seen in them, he says, “Bend over the desk. Now.”
Rick shivers, loving the demanding tone Daryl’s voice has suddenly taken on. He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t think Daryl had this in him. Not that he couldn’t actually be capable of it, but that he wouldn’t do it. Rick has never loved being wrong so much in his entire life.
#
Daryl has typically relied on the somewhat broken confidence of one who has known insecurities to get him by in the past, but today that kind of thing won’t do. Right now, he has a new brand of courage. It has to be new, because this is new; the command for Rick to bend over the desk was out of his mouth before he could stop it, only for him to realise that he didn’t want to stop it. This is what he wants, Rick, just like this, fast and needy, complete with the nagging worry of being caught. All of it is driving arousal through Daryl’s veins with all the swiftness of an anaesthetic, only with the opposite effect. He is no sedate thing now, but alive with the electricity in the room. God, does he want a lightning strike.
Rick is quick to obey, and his mind is clearly in the right place, because he’s unbuckling his belt, getting his pants open so fast that it’s almost a blur. And then he’s bent across Daryl’s boss’s desk, up on his elbows and glancing behind at Daryl, looking at him intently with those eyes as if to say, What you waiting for? The Holy Spirit to move you? Daryl steps close, pauses a moment to run one hand across Rick’s ass, to lift it and bring it down half-hard, half-gentle in a stinging imitation of a spank. Rick’s hips jerk forward and he gasps.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Been called worse things,” Daryl murmurs, pushing Rick’s shirt up further, not wanting to get lube on his uniform. A more devilish part of him almost wants to, wants to send Rick back to the station, clothes and hair a mess, so they can all know that Deputy Rick Grimes got his ass owned, got fucked so good that he made his whole body an advertisement for it.
Daryl knows he doesn’t have a lot of time, but so what if the guys know what he’s doing in here? The boss is gone for the day, and none of the others would say a word. Even if they did come back, the most Daryl would have to live down is the cop car parked next to the garage, Rick leaving… but it would be well worth it. Most things would be worth this. So he takes the time, even if he doesn’t have it. He steps forward and presses the bottle of lube into Rick’s hand. “C’mon, Deputy. Why don’t you open yourself up for me?”
Rick’s mouth opens, the surprise evident, but again, he’s quick to take Daryl up on the suggestion. Daryl knows that Rick is thinking he’s a changed man, but Daryl thinks maybe it’s only been buried, way down deep. And in that way, sure, he is changed, because Rick brings this out of him, amplifies his need to be wanted, to be asked after, to be chased. And not only that, but he brings out the animal in Daryl, too, because if there’s one thing Daryl’s learned in life, it’s that now and then, the prey can turn around and bite the predator, become the predator itself.
Maybe it was walking around Rick’s apartment this morning like it was his own. It felt like home, and so does this, this instant connection he’s forged with Rick. It’s happening so fast but it’s good that it’s like this, that it feels like he’s known Rick for years, like all of this is something they do all the time. Because when it feels that comfortable, then this feels comfortable. Daryl is stepping out of shadows he’s been hiding in for a damn long time, stepping into the fire that is Rick’s light, becoming warm, burning up for him. And fuck, if it isn’t the most profoundly perfect kind of consumption.
Rick’s gasping brings Daryl back to the present moment as he presses one finger into himself, then two, one hand gripping the edge of the desk like it’s his only lifeline. Daryl lets out a long, low whistle, so hard already and dying to be in Rick. “Fuck, that’s… fucking perfect, Rick, you have no idea…”
But Rick isn’t listening, eyes shut tight, lips parting on moan after moan. “Been a long time,” he says, voice shaking with his effort.
Daryl steps closer, reaches one hand around to stroke slowly over Rick’s cock. “Guess I best show you what you been missin’, then.”
Rick’s response to that is to remove his fingers, bend further over the desk, and moan out, “Please,” in a voice absolutely saturated in want.
Daryl works his jeans open with one hand, grabbing the condom with the other and tearing it open with his teeth. He doesn’t bother to push his jeans past his thighs, makes easy work of both the condom and the bottle of lube that Rick passes back to him. Somewhere in the middle of the hazy feeling in Daryl’s head, he’s in Rick so fast and so hard that Rick makes an almost inhuman noise. Daryl doesn’t even remember the moment it happens, just that he’s standing there one second, fucking Rick the next.
And Rick? Rick is loving it, knuckles white while he grips the desk, arches his back, rolls his hips. Daryl can feel his eyes practically crossing with the intensity of the movement, the muscles in his stomach already contracting with the heavy, warm, soporific feeling he typically associates with orgasm. But he’s not there yet, not even close, and he drapes himself across Rick’s back, teeth catching against his shoulder until Rick cries out.
“Gonna take you apart, Rick,” Daryl tells him, and Rick, already tight as hell, is clenching around him, an intoxicating sensation that is sure as shit gonna make Daryl lose his damn mind.
“You already are,” Rick manages to say, between wicked little sounds that could make even the most heartless person start to fall for him. It’s pretty clear now that Daryl doesn’t even stand a chance, that he’s already filled with a certain affection for Rick that he can’t stop from building up in him even if he wanted to.
#
Rick is losing himself in the sweet sting of Daryl’s teeth along his shoulder, the feeling of his hips slamming forward, Daryl lying across him and making him feverishly hot. Daryl’s got one hand on one of his hips, the other coming underneath him to roam his chest, pinch a nipple, slide down his stomach, stopping just above his cock. Rick makes an absolutely pitiful whining sound, one he’d be embarrassed about if this wasn’t so fucking good, if he cared at all how desperate he looks when Daryl is doing what he promised, tearing him to pieces.
It has been a long time since this, but it’s better now than Rick ever remembers it being. He thinks perhaps being married, especially to someone who wouldn’t have touched Rick’s ass (or any part of him by the end) with a ten foot pole even if he’d asked has been pretty limiting. He never did ask; that would have been a divorce-causing argument all on its own. But Rick has always liked this, always wanted it. And yet this is something different, being taken by Daryl like this. Daryl, who is not living in the shell Rick thought he was, merely hiding there on occasion until Rick asks him to step out. Rick intends to ask all the time now. His whole fucking life could be based around moments like these and he’d die happy.
Even last night, Rick could see the appreciation in Daryl’s eyes for the things he said and did, for just wanting him. He doesn’t know if Daryl hasn’t been wanted, or if it’s just that he thought Rick wouldn’t want him, but either way, the value to Daryl is apparent. And Rick might not want to admit it, has spent a long while not admitting it to himself, but before now, he had fears about not being wanted again, too. Even long before the divorce, it was clear as day that Lori didn’t want or need him anymore. Rick’s gone a while wondering if he’d find it again. And then there was Daryl.
With Daryl’s hand wandering along his chest again, Rick wonders if he can feel the heavy pounding of his heart, wonders if Daryl will really consider the fact that it’s him doing this to Rick. That Rick is going to pieces and Daryl is responsible. He pushes back against Daryl, reaches one hand back to close around Daryl’s hip, trying to pull him deeper because good god, he needs it.
“Fucking harder, Daryl!”
Daryl doesn’t disappoint, slams forward into Rick so hard the desk moves with them, and Rick nearly loses it right then when Daryl’s hand finally curls around his dick and he’s hitting the right spot all at the same time.
“Hard enough for you?” Daryl asks, and there’s a touch of the devil in his voice.
Rick can’t find his voice to answer; every time he opens his mouth to try, all he can do is moan. He grinds backwards against Daryl, and Daryl is a man possessed, takes cues from Rick, starts talking, and his voice is deep, quiet, dirty in Rick’s ear.
“Could do this for hours,” he says on a gasp. “Just fuck you like this over and over. You gonna let me do that, Rick?” Rick can only nod; he’s gonna let Daryl do whatever the fuck he wants to. There’s nothing Daryl could want that Rick wouldn’t. “Gonna send you back to work after this smelling like me. Let ‘em all know you’re mine from now on.”
Rick drops his head down to the desk at that, back arching, Daryl’s body bowed over his. “Yours,” is all he gets out before he’s coming, sudden and hard, all over Daryl’s hand with a broken moan of intense satisfaction and relief. His chest feels tight and Daryl’s hand is still around him, still making Rick’s legs shake with the effort of standing up when all he wants to do is lie down and ride it out.
It’s not but half a moment and Daryl is coming too, his whole body going rigid and his hips thrusting one more time, hard into Rick before he stills and lets out a hoarse cry, the hand on Rick’s hip digging in fiercely enough to bruise, and Rick hopes it does. The only sound in the room then is breathing, fast and heavy like they’ve just run a marathon. Daryl pulls out of Rick slow and unsteady, and Rick feels the loss immediately, feels suddenly way too empty.
It’s a long, long minute before Rick can stand up straight and turn around to look at Daryl. And his knees almost give out the second he does, because Daryl is standing there, licking and sucking his fingers clean of Rick and the sight does something to him that feels a little bit like death and life all at once.
Rick can’t even think, just stands there watching until Daryl is done and smiles at him in a (literal) cat-that-got-the-cream way that makes Rick shiver. Daryl glances around the office, spots a roll of paper towels lying atop a file cabinet and cleans himself up first before he hands it to Rick to do the same. “Sorry,” he says with a small grin, “s’all we got.”
Rick smirks, accepting them, doing his best to make himself look half presentable, but he knows, just like Daryl said, that he’s still gonna smell like him, go back to work looking like he’s still got Daryl wrapped around him. “It’s okay. Just have to have a shower later. With you. So don’t go home after work, okay?”
Daryl nods once, then closes the space between them for another lingering kiss. Rick loves the taste of himself in Daryl’s mouth, goes damn near dizzy with it, and pulls back slow, wanting only to stay.
“I have to go.”
“I know,” Daryl says, “I’ll walk you out before I clean up in here.”
Rick laughs, buckling his belt. “Yeah, we kinda made a mess, didn’t we?”
Daryl shrugs. “This is mild compared to the ones we’ll be makin’ in the future.”
“Got no doubt of that, angel.” Rick steals another kiss before Daryl pulls the office door open and leads him back through the lobby, into the garage. He stops short the second he steps down into the garage, and Rick collides with his back. Three guys, Daryl’s co-workers, stop working, look up at Daryl and Rick with looks of surprise, amusement.
“Damn, Dixon,” the nearest one says with a wicked grin. “I was wonderin’ what that cop car was here for. Thought you were doin’ somethin’ with it. Now I see you were doin’ the cop.”
“Shut up,” Daryl grunts, grabbing Rick by his arm and pulling him toward the garage door.
“Bye guys,” Rick says cheerily, waving, and Daryl smacks his arm.
“You shut up, too,” Daryl tells him, but there’s no heat behind it. He leaves Rick with another quick kiss by the car. “I’m off at five,” he says. “Not much to do around here today.”
“I’m off at five, too,” Rick says. “So you better get to my place by 5:15. Don’t be late.”
“Got a lotta reasons not to be.”
He steps back as Rick gets in the car, gives him a small wave, and then walks back toward the garage. Rick shamelessly watches his ass as he goes, smiling to himself, before he pulls out of the lot and heads back toward the station. All he can think as he drives is that he’s lucky - lucky to have Daryl, and frankly, lucky the car seat is so comfortable. The chair at his desk is not gonna be so kind for the next four hours.
#
Daryl is lying on Rick’s kitchen floor with him, sometime after seven o’clock, musing over the fact that they haven’t yet made it back to bed since the first time. He doesn’t mind so much. It seems like this is gonna be whenever and wherever the mood takes them, and if that’s during a post-shower evening snack, then so be it. In the past, when it’s been all frantic, dirty sex like this, it hasn’t lasted long. But this will. Daryl is confident in that. They have something else that goes into this, and something else behind the sex that is heavier, worth more. And at the end of the day, this is where Daryl wants to be now.
Rick curls against his side, twists their legs up together, and kisses at Daryl’s neck, sighing. “You kinda got my heart, Daryl Dixon.”
Daryl wraps one arm around Rick, turns his head and noses into Rick’s hair, places a kiss there. His Rick. His new life. All right here. “Good,” he murmurs. “‘Cause you kinda got mine and I think that’s a pretty fair trade.”
Daryl’s not sure how he got so damn lucky, but he thinks he owes the universe, or maybe even Merle, a cosmically large thank you card. Because nothing has ever felt so right as Rick, and he’s finally convinced that he deserves this. He hasn’t been home in almost two days, but then again… he has.