Hot Cocoa

18

You were at the Dixon's kitchen, cooking, when Daryl walked in, frowning as he looked at the soup that you were blending.

"What's that?"

"Lettuce soup."

"...that ain't a thin'," Daryl said and you chuckled.

"I didn't know it was, but it is...we have so much lettuce, I don't want it to go bad, but even myself I'm a bit tired of eating salad every day" The Dixon's weren't too fans of salad themselves. "So I looked on some cookbooks what else can you do with lettuce, and it says that you can make lettuce soup!"

"Lettuce soup..." Daryl muttered, looking at it as if it were going to attack him.

"I know, it's weird...but I thought it was worth a try. It also has potato and onion," you explained. Once you finished blending and seasoning the soup, you took a spoonful to try it, and your eyes widened at it. "This is...this is actually really good..." You said and Daryl gave you a questioning look. "It is, I'm not joking! I like it maybe even more than salad...it's good!"

You seemed to pick Daryl's curiosity, because he took the spoon and tried the soup too, and he too seemed confused. "Yeah...yeah, ain't bad." He looked at the pot, seeming surprised, and you couldn't blame him. "Better than salad."

"I'm glad you think that because with all that lettuce, we'll be eating that for the whole week," you chuckled, now that you had tested it and it was good, you planned on making a big pot of it.

"Okay..." Daryl chuckled too, leaning against the counter to watch you as you began cooking again. "Hey, I was thinkin'...I have next week free, so I was thinkin', if maybe ya want us to go campin' to the woods for a few days."

You grinned at that. "Sure, I'd love to!"

"Okay." Daryl gave you a soft smile. "I'm gonna tell Sam."

"He's going to be so happy about it!"

"Yeah, yeah, he will."

*

You camped in the same spot that you had done during spring break, but this time, you stayed for almost a week and not only a couple of days. During those days, you hiked a lot with the Dixon's, enjoying it no matter your legs always ended up sore, and also every day you'd go to the river, more to play in the water with Sam than to swim.

They taught you how to get oriented in the woods like they did, and also some basics about tracking. You knew Daryl wasn't planning on hunting with you there, but still, the couple of times that they spot a trail while you hiked, they showed you how to follow it, what to look for tracking, and you couldn't be more delighted when, one of those times, you followed the Dixon's until you spotted a cute deer ahead that you could watch for a bit before it ran away.

*

Back home, one morning you woke up in Daryl's bed. The sun was raising but for once, he hadn't waken up before you, and he was still curled up next to you, your arms wrapped around him as you held him, and his back pressed against your chest.

You smiled sleepily, he was so cute when he slept...you didn't want to move, but you had to go to the bathroom, and so you kissed Daryl's shoulder and got up. Once you went back to the room, Daryl had moved to lie on his belly, holding the pillow to him...he was just so damn cute.

You sat down next to him and began brushing your fingers over the bare skin of his back. After a while, you heard him humming sleepily, and when you began placing soft kisses over his back, his lips curled up into a smile as he began to wake up. You didn't stop caressing his back, though, and Daryl didn't seem in a rush to move either. Eventually, your fingers began to absentmindedly trace one of the scars of his back, the deepest one.