Violent Delights¹︎ | D.Dixon

1.08 ➸

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CHAPTER EIGHT
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THE TRUCK WAS UNBEARABLY HOT, but the air conditioning wasn't broken. Leona's cheeks were flushed, and her arms were warm to the touch, and she reached forward to turn the fan on the dashboard in her direction. The cool breeze was a shock initially, but she reveled in the feeling as it began to dry the perspiration from her skin.

"Y'all right?" The question came from Daryl. He was in the driver's seat, one hand resting on the top of the wheel to steer while he used the other to smoke a cigarette. She didn't mind the smoke or the smell that came with it but was glad he'd bothered to roll down the window before lighting one up. Merle hadn't shown the same decency, but Daryl wasn't just an addition to who his brother had been.

She forgot that sometimes.

After spending months with both brothers, seeing Daryl follow Merle around like an invisible tether connected them, she had to remind herself that one of them was gone now, that Daryl would never be the same man he'd been before. So far, she liked this version. There was a softness behind the anger in his eyes, visible only as the sun glinted off his ice blue irises, that hadn't resided there so comfortably before.

No teasing followed his question, and his tone wasn't as flat as it usually was, so she nodded. "Yeah, it's just hot."

"It's Georgia." He grumbled, and Leona chuckled. No shit. "Don't it get hot where you're from?"

Leona nodded, letting her eyes settle on him as he looked back out onto the road. "We get heat. The humidity is something we rarely get. At least, not to this extent."

The space between them went silent. The air blowing from the vents and their breathing were the only sounds to fill the void that seemed to gape open, swallowing any and every possible thing either one of them could say. But then Daryl let out a sigh, like that silence had released him from it's grasp.

"Why do ya wear those fuckin' things, anyhow?" Leona looked in his direction, her eyebrows pulling together as she tried to piece together what he'd meant. Noticing her expression he switched his hands so his right now held his cigarette and his left held the wheel, then used the end of the cigarette to motion towards her eyes. "Them things."

Reaching her hands up, she felt the plastic edges of her sunglasses, and laughed. Hot pink sunglasses sat on the bridge of her nose, and to her own delight, they were star shaped. She'd found them on her last run into the city with Glenn, but hadn't found a time to use them until now. She'd forgotten she'd even put them on, and her cheeks warmed as she quickly pulled them off.

"To keep the sun at bay, of course." She replied jokingly, before pointing to the star in mention outside the window. "She hates redheads."

He chuckled, and she smiled, liking the way it sounded coming from him. Leona didn't hear that noise often enough, in her own opinion.

Taking another puff of his cigarette, he blew the smoke out of the open window before motioning to the glasses. She'd set them down in her lap, folded and balanced on her thighs.

"Put them things back on." He told her, before pointing his thumb towards the back seat. "And check the black bag. Merle had some sunscreen. Might as well put it to use."

Unbuckling, she leaned over the center console and rotated her body so she could rifle through the bag in question. After pulling out a tube of sunscreen, she returned to her seat and buckled back in. After applying some to her face, she put her sunglasses back on before starting to work on her arms.