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Merle didn’t call him the sweet one because Daryl was any less of a bastard than the other Dixon men. No, to his brother’s amusement, he'd always been drawn to sweet women. The kind ones. The ones who'd show up at the edges of their lives and hover, giggling with the scent of leather in their pert little noses and accepting the ass pats and squeezes of rough men. They had homes to go back to, loving fathers and pastel bedrooms. They were never going to stay and scrape together a life with the club, or commit to the dirty bar flies Daryl kept company with.
But, when a sweet one would wander into the bar, shy and daring, looking for a bit of rough and a story to tell her girlfriends, Daryl would slide a little closer, pulled into her orbit. He wanted a taste of a life that wasn't his, too. Soft voices and sweet gasps, sensitive skin that wasn't scarred up and calloused. Eyes that still sparked with hope or anticipation or nervousness, instead of worn dull.
The regulars, the women Daryl avoided, knew what it was to be disappointed by life. Rode rough and put away wet, resigned to hanging around some dying town, and scrubbing the plastic floors of a trailer. Empty days spent waiting for their old men to come home and patch the hole punched through the bathroom door. They clung to the half-hearted, worthless gestures that their half-hearted, worthless men tossed them. A few dimestore gifts for the kids on their weekend, then crooning about how beautiful they were before a rough fuck and a lonely morning.
The tourists didn’t have any expectations of Daryl, except that he'd be with them tonight and not call them tomorrow. He was fairly sure that half the time, the name he moaned while he pumped and cursed wasn't even real. What respectable woman would give her actual name to Daryl Dixon?
So, a sweet woman would come into the bar, gliding past the club members at their pool tables a few times, chumming the water in her heels and short skirt. And Daryl would put himself in her way. Passing in the tight corridor to the johns. Holding the back door open to the alley for a smoke. Just a little younger, and just a little softer, than Merle and his friends. Dark hair this side of dirty falling into his eyes, a faded shirt open at the neck over dipping collarbones, stacked with firm muscle. He’d always roll his sleeves up to the elbow, turning and flexing his forearms while he brought a cigarette to his lips, twisting his wrist to toss away the filter. Women loved that shit; fuck if he knew why. But they'd creep closer, reaching out and tracing his sensitive inner arm from elbow to wrist, stroking him like a hound pup.
So, for them he'd be just a little less dangerous. Less forceful. Less obvious. Those women loved the catcalls and the dirty talk. They loved stopping a room by just walking through and feeling like the center of attention, like a princess in a parade. But, in the end, all of ‘em wanted to dig their manicured fingernails into a dingy biker. Drag one away from the group, hardly blushing at the howls and whistles, to have her way with him. Beg like she wasn't the one in control, then swan off, free to leave. She wasn’t out prowling for rent-to-own, just taking a test drive before going back to college, or church on Sunday. Sometimes a husband and a kid or two, waiting at home for her to fold the laundry and pack their lunches.
And the sweet women liked Daryl. Covered in grease and grime with a mean scowl and unshaved stubble, just like the rest of the fucking losers at the clubhouse. Only, he was a little more deferential: gently touching her elbow or the small of her back, instead of grasping and digging his fingertips into skin that shouldn't be bruised. Daryl never took one too drunk, never high. She needed to be loose enough to choose him, but he wanted her to be lucid enough to participate. The more he touched, the more she would touch back. He'd give her as much skin as she could stand and take the same in return.
It didn't matter what he could or couldn't say, her fantasies were already playing out behind her eyes and Daryl was just a warm body filling the part. If he grunted into her skin, she'd just fill in the script she preferred, feeling the rumble of his voice clawing up the throat she was kissing and licking.
And when his mouth was between her thighs, and her fingers wrapped in his uneven, too-long hair - Daryl knew she didn't picture his face. She just squeezed her legs around his broad shoulders and rode his tongue, imagining some dream lover who would actually care about getting her off before fucking her into the wall.
All the while, every time, he played the same movie behind his own eyelids. What it might be like to have a soft woman who wanted to kiss his cheek and hold his hand. Someone at home, waiting for him, collapsing onto the couch after a long day. Both of them trying for the dream of a nicer place, and filling those spare bedrooms with family and stability and safety. He dreamt that this woman trusted him and needed him to keep her safe. Wanted him to listen to her secrets and hurt and triumphs - instead of running away after shattering around him, hastily tugging on clothes over skin still damp with sweat. Off to go tell her best friends how she was such a slut, for just one night, and wasn't it fun? Daryl would pull himself together, and imagine that instead, she was coming home to him after a night out with the girls, saying how happy she was and climbing in next to him, curling under the warm blankets of their shared bed.
Yeah, Daryl was the sweet one, alright. And it hurt, every fuckin’ time.