Daryl pats his own shoulder, tells her to do the same if she needs him to stop or slow, and they drive for hours on abandoned road, weaving between corroded cars. It's peaceful for Daryl, to feel the wind in his hair, to have open road in front of him. He's got a bandanna up under his eyes, to keep bugs from flying in his nose, and he considers whether he should get one for Abby, too. He'll ask her when they stop.
Which comes sooner than he thought. A clicker wanders on the road, and Daryl pulls a long pike from a holster on the side of his bike, holding it like some goddamn medieval charioteer. With the benefit of speed, metal edge goes right into the monster's skull, and Daryl stops the bike to retrieve the pike.
"Keep watch," he says to Abby, voice a low whisper. He hasn't taken the bandanna off.
Riding on a motorcycle is a lot louder than Abby thought it would be, more chaotic, but she can shield herself behind the bulk of Daryl's body as he drives them on and on and on. If she cries a little, just at the start, there's no way he would know. Right? She's thinking about Owen finding the note that she left him, folded on his bed. And then she breathes in deep and lets it go, and falls into the rhythm of shifting her body on the bike to help him with the corners. Her arms inch around his waist, and then tighten there once they start to pick up speed.
It's a strange way to travel. She's very aware that she isn't wearing a helmet of any kind, that if they crashed she'd probably die, but the thought doesn't scare her. She's more interested in the journey, soothed by their consistent movement, that she can feel them getting closer and closer to Wyoming.
Hours pass. She's not in her head but not out of it either, she's just- there. Existing. Listening to the wind whistling and feeling the bike rumble, and smelling whatever's on the air, cow shit, sometimes the familiar, fungal smell of infected lingering on everything, the metallic scent of rusting cars that gets in her mouth somehow, sits on her tongue.
When he moves suddenly to pull the pike out she jolts alert. She wasn't sleeping but her mind was definitely wandering, and she grabs him suddenly when he pierces the head of the clicker on the way by. When he trawls the bike back and stops, the silence rings in her head.
Abby sets her feet down. The bike is tall, her feet are just able to be flat on the road. She sits up straight and squints into the middle distance but she barely has to- there's more, coming in from the west. She pats his arm, points them out soundlessly. A little group, moving steadily toward them.
She's heard they migrate.
Where's the pike? Is it stuck? She looks at him, and takes out her gun, attention flickering nervously back to the advancing hoard. Whispers, "I'll keep you safe."
"Goddammit," Daryl says, noticing the oncoming group as Abby does. They must have been attracted by the sound. There are some pretty fucking clear downsides to traveling by bike, and the biggest one is the noise. With a grunt, he gets the pike out of the clicker's skull, and shoves it into the motorcycle's holster.
He sees it up ahead: the reason infected have converged here. Ahead, a bridge is out. Rain always keeps the rivers high in this part of the country. They can move their shit across the river, but it'll take time, and that means this needs to be dealt with.
"Careful," he asks. "Don't panic."
They can't afford to get sloppy, but he's travelling with a kid; that's just how they are. Don't panic, just concentrate was his own personal mantra at her age; he hopes it'll do her some good.
He pulls his crossbow from his pack. His aim is well-practiced, rarely missing, near silent, but slow to reload. He'd like to get all the infected before they get close enough to be dangerous, but he doubts they'll be so lucky.
Does she seem panicked to him? Abby's settled into an eerie calm, her eyes fixed on the approaching group. She knows exactly how many bullets she has to spare, she thinks about that number over and over again in her mind, and watches Daryl collect his pike, and his crossbow, waiting for his say-so.
"I can keep them off if you want to back up," she murmurs, eyeing his weapon. Her heart is beating like it always does whenever she has to contend with the infected, but she knows it's just the start of an adrenaline kick. Once everything gets going she's good... it's the waiting around for everything to go sideways that fucks with her.
She slips from the bike.
There's five of them. No, six- one shorter one, dragging itself along in the middle of the back. If she shoots one now, the rest will come sprinting... Daryl will get a second, and while he reloads, she'll pick off as many as she can. She lifts her gun, looks to him. Waits for him to tell her when.
He looks at her, and he sees a fighter. The WLF did this to her, honed her for soldiering, but he still can't help but feel pride. She's a tough kid. She'll make it through this.
He gets ready to go, loading his bow, and puts his hand on the rusty door of a car.
"Things get bad," he says, "you get in here. Bottleneck 'em. Okay?" And then he aims. "Go."
He wrenches the door open with an ugly creak, timed to match when she fires her gun.
Abby nods, and then she raises her gun, aims, and exhales smoothly as she pulls the trigger. A clean headshot. The body crumples into the street, muffled underneath a cacophony of screams, and the rest of the infected start to zag drunkenly toward them, and she notices, barely, in her peripheral that Daryl's pried that car door open. That he's given her solid plan b.
She breathes out, and fires again. And again- damnit, shoulder and chest, useless-
Daryl's aim is better, but he's been doing this for decades. Her shots are good, and he'll tell her later. They help. Every little bit helps.
The bodies drop, and one gets closer. He body checks it with the bulk of his side, watches as it bites deep into his shoulder. The leather saves his life, but there's no way to be sure Abby knows that.
Doesn't matter now. Just don't get ripped apart. He pulls a cruel knife from the holster at his side. "In the car. Now." His voice is a snarl.
The adrenaline is good, helps, but it still makes her hands shake on the grip, no matter how much she steadies up and remembers to breathe and tells herself it's fine- another body drops to the ground. Daryl's, shot through with a thick shafted arrow, and then the second one she sunk two rounds into already.
Three to go.
She's focusing on one trying to break away from the other two cuz it's faster, and one edges up on Daryl, lunges into him.
Abby trusts that he's fine, has to. Then, she catches sight of the open maw, teeth flashing, and her attention wavers by seconds, enough to send a pulse of dread from her head to her toes. She doesn't hear him snarl, it's like she's underwater. She gulps down a breath and swings her attention back around wildly to fire again. She's got four bullets left in her gun.
Fuck. Kid froze up. He wants more than anything to calm her down, but now isn't the time. He's gotta get through this, or it won't matter how she feels.
She's firing too fast, she isn't aiming. "Stop!" He knows he's a quiet man, has been around her. Hopefully the shock of him shouting will cut through whatever shit she's dealing with.
He stands in front of her. Last resort-- he shouldn't have waited so goddamn long, he's stuck in his habits, idiot, idiot-- he pulls out his gun, a colt python that fits oddly in his hand. One shot, one down. The next he rushes toward, getting between it and the girl, the knife going straight into its face.
If she can shoot the final one, they'll be in the clear.
Works perfect. The sudden shout makes Abby's hands clench so tight on the gun and somehow she doesn't fire it. She stops, like he said, blinking hard through the roaring in her ears, swallowing thickly.
The car. She lunges for it, flying across the distance and she scoots in through the door onto the seat as he puts his body firmly between the car and the infected. It gives her enough time to catch her breath and level the gun up through the broken window, waiting for a chance.
She fires. It catches the last flailing runner in the throat and it gargle-screams around the rush of blood, slipping, falling-
She did as good as can be expected, and he wants to tell her that, but there's no time. Too much sound, all at once; every infected in the area will be crawling toward them. "C'mon," he says, his voice a thick hiss, "we gotta go."
They'll circle round, try and find another way over the bridge, or a safer place to cross. It doesn't matter. They just have to get out of here, and in a hurry.
He starts the engine just as the sound of clicking begins to echo through the trees.
"Right behind you." The shock makes her croaky, and she has to wonder if he knows she just saw him get bit. Or maybe he didn't feel it and he'll realise once they hit safety and have time to catch their breath. Either way he's right, they gotta go. He doesn't wear a helmet on the bike. She could press the muzzle of her gun against the back of his neck and be done with it in seconds if she had to, even though the thought makes her fucking sick to her stomach with dread and grief.
He's got time, before he turns. Time to get them out of here.
She leaves the car, running back toward the bike, and jumps onto the back behind him. The engine snarls in the same tone he did. "I'm good, go!"
They speed up the road, and take a pass Daryl knows but had ignored. The forest presses thick around them, and Daryl leans in, hoping Abby will too. Nothing worse than getting whacked with a branch, or some clicker's arm.
They keep going until they reach the high crest of a hill, bald of trees, and it's a good place to keep watch, catch their breath. He recalibrates the plan in his head. If the area's got this many infected in it, they'll have to sell the bike sooner than he thought. It was a good test, and he thinks they proved they can work as a team.
He gets off the bike, pulls some water out of the satchels, takes a drink.
"Did good, kid." He searches for more supplies in the satchels, squat on the ground.
She leans into him, following his direction, and ducks her head so she doesn't have to see. She presses her forehead against the middle of his back and closes her eyes tight, listening to the whistling of the air and the sounds of them passing things so fast, they could be anything, there's no point in looking. She thinks, with a strange, weightless feeling, that she's never been this far east before in her life. She has no idea where they're going.
Eventually, the bike starts to slow, a relief miniscule in comparison to when Daryl dismounts and turns to the satchels, unknowingly showing her the teeth marks imprinted in his leather shoulder. The bite didn't break through the jacket, she's safe. He's fine.
She feels a little weak at the knees suddenly.
She copies him, looks for her own canteen, and gulps some water down.
"Thanks."
What's he looking for? She watches him rifling around for a few seconds before she leaves the bike standing, stepping toward the lookout over the hill- and winces at the drop off, reeling backward. Her hand finds a tree to touch, something sturdy. That helps. "... Where are we?"
Does he know? Or is he pointing his bike in what he thinks is the right direction?
Daryl pulls a scrap of buckskin out of his pack, a little larger than the hole in his jacket, but nothing insurmountable. The bite missed the angel-winged vest on his back, which is what really matters. That thing's invaluable.
"Jacket saved my life," he says. "Gotta take care of it." He stuffs it in the inner pocket of his jacket for later. He's gotta explain to the kid, or she's gonna lose it. She's been through more, he thinks, than she was expecting, first day out.
"I call this bald head hill," he says, "dunno what it's really called, if it had a name. But you can see anything coming from a half-mile off, any direction."
A good place to stop, a good place to regroup. He pulls out the map, unfolds it on the bike's seat. There's a pencil-marked line charting their path; Daryl runs his thumb over it, smudging some of the road ahead. "That bridge's out. Be easier to switch to a horse, now. Gonna go south a little-- here."
He points to a spot on the map. "Issaquah Free Zone. They know me, we've traded. You up for that?"
"Bald head," Abby echoes under her breath, snorting, but then she shuts up and lets him explain the rest. Show her the map. It makes her feel better to know what's going on anyway, like she has a modicum of control over the situation. She hopes he doesn't notice her attention going straight to where Wyoming is marked out the moment he shows her where they are.
Her eyes flicker back and forth between the two points. They've barely moved any closer. Something frantic twists up on itself in Abby's chest at the thought of going south instead of east; they have to though, she gets that. Acknowledging that does hardly anything for her sudden and antsy impatience.
"Sure." What else can she say to that. They have to make a trade. Maybe she can surreptitiously ask around about Joel while she's there too, somebody might have more up to date information. Considering the possibility makes her feel a little less anxious, anyway. "How many of these places have you traded at?"
Daryl takes his jacket off, takes out a bone needle and begins sewing the buckskin onto the hole in his jacket. It'll be good to take a breather. Today hasn't gone how he wanted, but he wants to make sure Abby knows it ain't her fault. The rains must have brought out more infected than expected, on top of fucking over the bridge.
"A few places," he says. "Made myself known before I settled. Still get out there sometimes, when it gets too crowded."
Seattle, a largely abandoned wasteland of warring factions-- but sometimes too loud, and the knowledge of creeping fighters shakes his dreams. He remembers so much, from the first ten years, and then everything slowed. He can't countenance it. He has to run.
But that doesn't matter.
"Issaquah's got good people." He murmurs while he sews his jacket together. "But... we get there, tell 'em you're my niece or something. Few years back, they had a problem with a guy kidnapping kids."
Abby raises an eyebrow. "But he doesn't kidnap nieces?" She's watching him methodically patch that hole in his jacket, silently judging the tension and length of his stitches: they're good. She understands that Daryl is falsely linking them together for her safety, but that doesn't mean she has to like it or anything. She's going to make one unruly niece.
She pauses, then decides to just ask him. "Where'd you come from?"
She's never bothered to wonder this about him before. For all Abby knows, Daryl just walked out of the woods one day fully formed, as he is now. Or maybe he was born inside of a flower like in Thumbelina, and grew a little every day.
"He-" Daryl grimaces, and his face colors briefly with an old anger. "He didn't go after families. Only orphans'n stragglers."
He sits, remembering that incident, the kid's bodies strewn up like dolls, and nobody noticed for so goddamn long because it wasn't their kids disappearing. In the years since, Issaquah's gotten extremely protective of people without people, but he'll never quite forgive them for having to learn. There's a reason he didn't settle there, for all the bug-out bags and blinds he's got scattered in the woods around their territory.
But Abby asks a question, and it's a fair one. He lets out a sigh, and tries to think on better things. The rare times Merle praised him. The days out and alone in the woods. Taking down his first kill, all by himself-- it was a squirrel, but it was his, and he ate it raw.
"Georgia," he says. "In the mountains. You're looking at genuine redneck trash."
Do people even say those things anymore? Will Abby know what they mean? He's curious to find out.
Abby doesn't say anything, but the line of her mouth gets thinner, and she clenches her jaw up tight. Creep. She wonders if they ever caught him, killed him, got justice for what he did to the kids. She hopes so.
She feels a little hot, sweaty in the crooks of her arms, but it's probably just the jacket.
"Georgia," she repeats, looking at him, trying to judge him by this new information. She's heard older survivors say things like of course you are, and could'a guessed that myself, and she still doesn't really understand what they mean by things like that, thinking they could tell where somebody came from just by looking at them. Daryl doesn't look like he's from Georgia. Abby privately thinks he looks like he came out of a hole in the ground, and wonders if that's why he just called himself trash.
Like... she might think it, but she wouldn't say it or anything. She's not that fucking rude. "What do you mean?"
Daryl smiles for that, though it's awkward, lop-sided. What a strange world they've built, on the back of the new, that the insult that haunted his childhood no longer have any meaning.
"White trash-- poor folk-- that work in the sun," Daryl says, and reaches toward the back of his neck, tilting his head forward, "gets certain tans."
Of course, he doesn't have that tan anymore. He's lived too long in cloudy Seattle, buttoned up against the cold, his hair long. He reckons he's lost his farmer's tan, but he hasn't looked at anything but his face in a dinky shaving mirror for years. "Back before, you could tell... my accent, my fuckin' name. Didn't come from nothing, probably an addict. Weren't raised right. Hick, hillbilly."
He shrugs. It's all ancient history now, covered over in thirty years of death and mud. It'd still hurt his soft underbelly, if someone said it with real intent, but Abby doesn't know any of this shit.
That's her first thought, how do you get a tan on your neck if your hair is that long?, and then she wonders why the fuck anybody would actually care about something so insignificant anyway, hair or not. It's not like there's a whole lot of sunscreen to go around any more. The stuff they have, expired like everything else, probably doesn't work like it's supposed to anymore, such is life in the apocalypse.
He was around before it all went to shit, though. Of course he was, he's- older. Abby had never considered this about him before. He blends so seamlessly into the world that it's hard to imagine him existing in any other capacity.
Suddenly, she's hungry for information.
"How old were you?"
When it happened.
Abby didn't exist. She wasn't even 'a twinkle in your daddy's eye', another fucking weird thing older survivors like to say when they're talking about the before times.
A brother, huh. Abby is having to reevaluate him entirely. Somehow she's only ever thought of him as a lone wolf, but the moment he cops to having siblings she can see it. Having a brother suits him. "Did you?"
Older, or younger? Only one? He's probably going to think that she's pestering him if she says that, and besides, it'll only give him ammo for asking about her dad later anyway.
"Get him out? Shit." Daryl pulls a hand-rolled cigarette from the inside of his jacket, lights it with an ancient match. It's story-time now, apparently. Hell, if it'll calm the girl down, he can talk about Merle. "Time I got there, he'd taken over the station, shootin' people on the roof. High as a fuckin' kite off the evidence locker."
He turns to her, conspiratorial, the way Jude used to like. "If you're my niece, you ain't his. Wouldn't wish that on anybody."
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Which comes sooner than he thought. A clicker wanders on the road, and Daryl pulls a long pike from a holster on the side of his bike, holding it like some goddamn medieval charioteer. With the benefit of speed, metal edge goes right into the monster's skull, and Daryl stops the bike to retrieve the pike.
"Keep watch," he says to Abby, voice a low whisper. He hasn't taken the bandanna off.
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It's a strange way to travel. She's very aware that she isn't wearing a helmet of any kind, that if they crashed she'd probably die, but the thought doesn't scare her. She's more interested in the journey, soothed by their consistent movement, that she can feel them getting closer and closer to Wyoming.
Hours pass. She's not in her head but not out of it either, she's just- there. Existing. Listening to the wind whistling and feeling the bike rumble, and smelling whatever's on the air, cow shit, sometimes the familiar, fungal smell of infected lingering on everything, the metallic scent of rusting cars that gets in her mouth somehow, sits on her tongue.
When he moves suddenly to pull the pike out she jolts alert. She wasn't sleeping but her mind was definitely wandering, and she grabs him suddenly when he pierces the head of the clicker on the way by. When he trawls the bike back and stops, the silence rings in her head.
Abby sets her feet down. The bike is tall, her feet are just able to be flat on the road. She sits up straight and squints into the middle distance but she barely has to- there's more, coming in from the west. She pats his arm, points them out soundlessly. A little group, moving steadily toward them.
She's heard they migrate.
Where's the pike? Is it stuck? She looks at him, and takes out her gun, attention flickering nervously back to the advancing hoard. Whispers, "I'll keep you safe."
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He sees it up ahead: the reason infected have converged here. Ahead, a bridge is out. Rain always keeps the rivers high in this part of the country. They can move their shit across the river, but it'll take time, and that means this needs to be dealt with.
"Careful," he asks. "Don't panic."
They can't afford to get sloppy, but he's travelling with a kid; that's just how they are. Don't panic, just concentrate was his own personal mantra at her age; he hopes it'll do her some good.
He pulls his crossbow from his pack. His aim is well-practiced, rarely missing, near silent, but slow to reload. He'd like to get all the infected before they get close enough to be dangerous, but he doubts they'll be so lucky.
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"I can keep them off if you want to back up," she murmurs, eyeing his weapon. Her heart is beating like it always does whenever she has to contend with the infected, but she knows it's just the start of an adrenaline kick. Once everything gets going she's good... it's the waiting around for everything to go sideways that fucks with her.
She slips from the bike.
There's five of them. No, six- one shorter one, dragging itself along in the middle of the back. If she shoots one now, the rest will come sprinting... Daryl will get a second, and while he reloads, she'll pick off as many as she can. She lifts her gun, looks to him. Waits for him to tell her when.
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He gets ready to go, loading his bow, and puts his hand on the rusty door of a car.
"Things get bad," he says, "you get in here. Bottleneck 'em. Okay?" And then he aims. "Go."
He wrenches the door open with an ugly creak, timed to match when she fires her gun.
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She breathes out, and fires again. And again- damnit, shoulder and chest, useless-
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The bodies drop, and one gets closer. He body checks it with the bulk of his side, watches as it bites deep into his shoulder. The leather saves his life, but there's no way to be sure Abby knows that.
Doesn't matter now. Just don't get ripped apart. He pulls a cruel knife from the holster at his side. "In the car. Now." His voice is a snarl.
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Three to go.
She's focusing on one trying to break away from the other two cuz it's faster, and one edges up on Daryl, lunges into him.
Abby trusts that he's fine, has to. Then, she catches sight of the open maw, teeth flashing, and her attention wavers by seconds, enough to send a pulse of dread from her head to her toes. She doesn't hear him snarl, it's like she's underwater. She gulps down a breath and swings her attention back around wildly to fire again. She's got four bullets left in her gun.
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She's firing too fast, she isn't aiming. "Stop!" He knows he's a quiet man, has been around her. Hopefully the shock of him shouting will cut through whatever shit she's dealing with.
He stands in front of her. Last resort-- he shouldn't have waited so goddamn long, he's stuck in his habits, idiot, idiot-- he pulls out his gun, a colt python that fits oddly in his hand. One shot, one down. The next he rushes toward, getting between it and the girl, the knife going straight into its face.
If she can shoot the final one, they'll be in the clear.
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The car. She lunges for it, flying across the distance and she scoots in through the door onto the seat as he puts his body firmly between the car and the infected. It gives her enough time to catch her breath and level the gun up through the broken window, waiting for a chance.
She fires. It catches the last flailing runner in the throat and it gargle-screams around the rush of blood, slipping, falling-
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They'll circle round, try and find another way over the bridge, or a safer place to cross. It doesn't matter. They just have to get out of here, and in a hurry.
He starts the engine just as the sound of clicking begins to echo through the trees.
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"Right behind you." The shock makes her croaky, and she has to wonder if he knows she just saw him get bit. Or maybe he didn't feel it and he'll realise once they hit safety and have time to catch their breath. Either way he's right, they gotta go. He doesn't wear a helmet on the bike. She could press the muzzle of her gun against the back of his neck and be done with it in seconds if she had to, even though the thought makes her fucking sick to her stomach with dread and grief.
He's got time, before he turns. Time to get them out of here.
She leaves the car, running back toward the bike, and jumps onto the back behind him. The engine snarls in the same tone he did. "I'm good, go!"
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They keep going until they reach the high crest of a hill, bald of trees, and it's a good place to keep watch, catch their breath. He recalibrates the plan in his head. If the area's got this many infected in it, they'll have to sell the bike sooner than he thought. It was a good test, and he thinks they proved they can work as a team.
He gets off the bike, pulls some water out of the satchels, takes a drink.
"Did good, kid." He searches for more supplies in the satchels, squat on the ground.
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Eventually, the bike starts to slow, a relief miniscule in comparison to when Daryl dismounts and turns to the satchels, unknowingly showing her the teeth marks imprinted in his leather shoulder. The bite didn't break through the jacket, she's safe. He's fine.
She feels a little weak at the knees suddenly.
She copies him, looks for her own canteen, and gulps some water down.
"Thanks."
What's he looking for? She watches him rifling around for a few seconds before she leaves the bike standing, stepping toward the lookout over the hill- and winces at the drop off, reeling backward. Her hand finds a tree to touch, something sturdy. That helps. "... Where are we?"
Does he know? Or is he pointing his bike in what he thinks is the right direction?
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"Jacket saved my life," he says. "Gotta take care of it." He stuffs it in the inner pocket of his jacket for later. He's gotta explain to the kid, or she's gonna lose it. She's been through more, he thinks, than she was expecting, first day out.
"I call this bald head hill," he says, "dunno what it's really called, if it had a name. But you can see anything coming from a half-mile off, any direction."
A good place to stop, a good place to regroup. He pulls out the map, unfolds it on the bike's seat. There's a pencil-marked line charting their path; Daryl runs his thumb over it, smudging some of the road ahead. "That bridge's out. Be easier to switch to a horse, now. Gonna go south a little-- here."
He points to a spot on the map. "Issaquah Free Zone. They know me, we've traded. You up for that?"
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Her eyes flicker back and forth between the two points. They've barely moved any closer. Something frantic twists up on itself in Abby's chest at the thought of going south instead of east; they have to though, she gets that. Acknowledging that does hardly anything for her sudden and antsy impatience.
"Sure." What else can she say to that. They have to make a trade. Maybe she can surreptitiously ask around about Joel while she's there too, somebody might have more up to date information. Considering the possibility makes her feel a little less anxious, anyway. "How many of these places have you traded at?"
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"A few places," he says. "Made myself known before I settled. Still get out there sometimes, when it gets too crowded."
Seattle, a largely abandoned wasteland of warring factions-- but sometimes too loud, and the knowledge of creeping fighters shakes his dreams. He remembers so much, from the first ten years, and then everything slowed. He can't countenance it. He has to run.
But that doesn't matter.
"Issaquah's got good people." He murmurs while he sews his jacket together. "But... we get there, tell 'em you're my niece or something. Few years back, they had a problem with a guy kidnapping kids."
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She pauses, then decides to just ask him. "Where'd you come from?"
She's never bothered to wonder this about him before. For all Abby knows, Daryl just walked out of the woods one day fully formed, as he is now. Or maybe he was born inside of a flower like in Thumbelina, and grew a little every day.
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He sits, remembering that incident, the kid's bodies strewn up like dolls, and nobody noticed for so goddamn long because it wasn't their kids disappearing. In the years since, Issaquah's gotten extremely protective of people without people, but he'll never quite forgive them for having to learn. There's a reason he didn't settle there, for all the bug-out bags and blinds he's got scattered in the woods around their territory.
But Abby asks a question, and it's a fair one. He lets out a sigh, and tries to think on better things. The rare times Merle praised him. The days out and alone in the woods. Taking down his first kill, all by himself-- it was a squirrel, but it was his, and he ate it raw.
"Georgia," he says. "In the mountains. You're looking at genuine redneck trash."
Do people even say those things anymore? Will Abby know what they mean? He's curious to find out.
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She feels a little hot, sweaty in the crooks of her arms, but it's probably just the jacket.
"Georgia," she repeats, looking at him, trying to judge him by this new information. She's heard older survivors say things like of course you are, and could'a guessed that myself, and she still doesn't really understand what they mean by things like that, thinking they could tell where somebody came from just by looking at them. Daryl doesn't look like he's from Georgia. Abby privately thinks he looks like he came out of a hole in the ground, and wonders if that's why he just called himself trash.
Like... she might think it, but she wouldn't say it or anything. She's not that fucking rude. "What do you mean?"
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"White trash-- poor folk-- that work in the sun," Daryl says, and reaches toward the back of his neck, tilting his head forward, "gets certain tans."
Of course, he doesn't have that tan anymore. He's lived too long in cloudy Seattle, buttoned up against the cold, his hair long. He reckons he's lost his farmer's tan, but he hasn't looked at anything but his face in a dinky shaving mirror for years. "Back before, you could tell... my accent, my fuckin' name. Didn't come from nothing, probably an addict. Weren't raised right. Hick, hillbilly."
He shrugs. It's all ancient history now, covered over in thirty years of death and mud. It'd still hurt his soft underbelly, if someone said it with real intent, but Abby doesn't know any of this shit.
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He was around before it all went to shit, though. Of course he was, he's- older. Abby had never considered this about him before. He blends so seamlessly into the world that it's hard to imagine him existing in any other capacity.
Suddenly, she's hungry for information.
"How old were you?"
When it happened.
Abby didn't exist. She wasn't even 'a twinkle in your daddy's eye', another fucking weird thing older survivors like to say when they're talking about the before times.
furiously mangles timelines.
He gestures to the wide expanse of forest around the hill, the animals hiding from them even now, the wide-open sky.
"It was always like this. Spent more time outdoors than in. Just how it was."
you're so brave for this
Older, or younger? Only one? He's probably going to think that she's pestering him if she says that, and besides, it'll only give him ammo for asking about her dad later anyway.
thanks i feel valid now
He turns to her, conspiratorial, the way Jude used to like. "If you're my niece, you ain't his. Wouldn't wish that on anybody."
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returns from the grave sorry i was dealing with the agonies.
i understand completely
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