Daryl smiles, a sheepish thing soon hidden by Dog's excitement, licking at Maggie's hand and whuffing quietly. Daryl tells it off again, and throws a bone across the room, before settling back down on the bed, his leg up. He takes a sip of his wine.
Maggie gives into temptation this time, scritching Dog's ears once before the poor critter's sent to the other side of the room. For all Daryl's grousing, she doubts he gets a night's sleep without Dog curled up with him - and it's hard to imagine he really minds.
"Kid stuff." Daryl's probably more familiar than he used to be, considering how much time he spends with Judith and RJ. Ticking off a few of Hershel's questions - "Did you meet him before we left, how long'd I know you before, where'd you get the dog. If we live here, maybe I'll get lucky, and he won't beg me for a puppy."
Daryl lets the question of the dog float over him like a summer breeze. His eyes wander, one of his obvious tells. "He'll like the company," Daryl says, and it becomes obvious who he's talking about when he has to throw the bone again. "Won't you, boy, yeah, you will."
To Maggie, he says, "all he's gotta know, sounds like he already does." That Daryl will take care of him however he can, whenever he can.
Out of his dresser drawer, Daryl procures a key, handing it to Maggie.
Maggie looks at it, and at him, and something in her chest feels like it's breaking. She doesn't know why.
Once she's tucked the key in her pocket, she hugs him close, her face tucking into the crook of his neck for a moment.
"If you regret it, you gotta tell me," she says, as she pulls away, but there's only a bright bit of teasing in her eyes. No doubt to speak of - not on her end.
He's not sure why his heart's in his throat all the sudden, and when she pulls away, it's still there. He's careful not to look her in the eye, terrified he'll give something away. He's sitting in his bed for chrissakes. But the smell of her-- sweat and tallow soap and wine-- lingers in his periphery.
If he regrets this, it's going to be for different reasons than she thinks. And yet, he still can't imagine it. He doesn't feel like he's lying when he says- "Won't regret it. Promise."
He holds out one hand, pinky extended. It's stupid, but he feels pretty damn dumb right then.
"Jude's rubbing off on you." Or maybe Beth did, sometime long ago. She hardly lets herself think it, let alone say it. But she links pinkies with him, giving them a single shake. It's a deal.
Maggie leaves soon after, most of her wine left undrunk in Daryl's cups, and they move in the next day. There's not much to bring over; they've spent so much time traveling light that it takes longer to scrub the place up than to bring their stuff over. Not that it was in need of much cleaning - but the upstairs has gone unused long enough that there's floors to sweep and furniture to dust.
By lunchtime, they live there, and by dinner - featuring the promised backstrap - Hershel's probably already made a nuisance of himself, but Daryl doesn't seem to mind. They fall into new routines, and as he'd warned, Daryl's only there part of the time anyhow. But he's there enough that his return's always something to look forward to. And sometimes, when he's around, they sit up after Hershel's been sent to bed and talk about whatever comes to mind.
It's comfortable. Domestic. A little dangerous. Maggie doesn't bring out the wine again.
After breakfast one morning, she catches Daryl before he can escape out the back door. "You doing anything today?"
It reminds him of the prison, which he still privately considers one of the best years of his life. In close quarters with people he trusts, but never too close, surrounded by allies-- this time, he thinks, he can truly appreciate it.
And Maggie and Hershel are so excited when he comes home. They notice, and smile, and he's never quite had that before. It makes his chest hurt; it makes him sleep easier.
But it doesn't stop Daryl from leaving, regularly going out to get whatever supplies he can. Alexandria's low on everything, after the Whisperers-- their crops are ruined, their stores are spoiled. Carol has them on a diet of amaranth weeds, and Daryl is sure he's going to sneeze magenta soon. Yesterday, he caught Lydia eating a worm.
So when Aaron says he saw a boar in the woods, Daryl is more than ready to go. Maggie catches him off guard, pulling him back to the world of houses and walls, when he was all ready to disappear into copse and glade.
"Boar," he says dumbly. Dog barks at his heels, excited to recognize a command, but unsure what to do with it indoors. "Aaron saw a boar. Bacon for dinner."
Maybe, he should say, but it's hard not to feel confident with Maggie around.
Maggie's a little more intent about being cheerful, these days. This isn't the worst off she and Hershel have been - they aren't picking spiders out of their webs yet - but it's bad enough that she'll take any good news she can get. And Daryl coming home is always good news, whether it's with a little more food in hand or not.
Hershel's good about it, but she can see perfectly well he's tired of eating amaranth fried up like it's collard greens, or torn up in a salad with dandelion leaves. She's been sending him out to look for chickweed with Judith, but by this point, nearly everything near town has already ended up in someone's belly.
"Think the two of you can manage it?" Boars are dangerous, and she doubts she has to remind Daryl of that fact. It's written on her face, that thing's as likely to gore you as run off if you don't get it the first time.
Her concern doesn't make him feel weak. He's not sure what it makes him feel, some new, warm, ichorous thing in his heart, but it isn't weakness. Even as he squares his shoulders to boast of strength, he can tell she'd see right through it, and for that, he's unexpectedly grateful.
"Folks're busy," he murmurs instead. "Getting the walls back up."
"Half of them'd lay down whatever they're holding onto if it meant they got meat for dinner," she points out. For all he might bring up the thought of bacon, stewing it would probably make everything go further; there are a lot of mouths they need to feed here. "Doesn't have to be just two of you going after it, you know."
The thing is, he doesn't want to go out with Aaron or Alden or half the people who think they can hunt. Most can't, not really, and boars are delicate work. He'd rather not risk the fucker getting away.
Some stupid urging, some echo in the back of his mind, reminds him of a pertinent fact-- Maggie can hunt.
"If it means you don't come back with a tusk through your belly." The alternative is foraging, more likely than not. She doesn't know the plants around here quite as well as she'd known the ones in Georgia, but there's a lot of crossover. "Let me tell Hershel - I'll meet you at the gate."
How typical of Maggie-- she probably had her mind made up before the conversation got started. It would have annoyed him once, even back at the prison; he's spent too much time in his life scrabbling for any bit of solitude he can get. Yet, here he is. Six years seems to have been his fill of it.
He still feels like he should be out there, and sometimes he wishes he were. Maybe when Alexandria and Hilltop are back on their feet, he'll go. But for now, it just feels wrong.
And, he thinks, he likes it, just a little, knowing there's a family growing above his head. He can't touch it, can't harm it, but he can preserve it.
Maggie will find Daryl at the gates, fiddling with his bolts. The heads are larger than usual, sharp and ugly things. A quiver of arrows to his right have the same cruel heads, and he hands them off when Maggie arrives. "Ever gone after hogs before?"
Maggie arrives with her longbow slung over her shoulder along with a pack. It contains a few more medical supplies than usual, just in case. She sidles up next to him, taking a good look at the arrows he's brought.
"No." She might be a pesky tagalong on this particular adventure, but she's not about to lie about her skills here. "We didn't have an issue with them on the farm. Have you?"
Daryl lets out a croaking sort of hum, an almost entirely unvoiced affirmative. "They're a pain in the ass."
He hands her the quiver filled with broadhead arrows. To Daryl, they always looked like the kind of things you were supposed to shoot into whales a hundred years ago, except, you know, smaller. He hasn't shared this opinion since he was six and roundly mocked for the comparison-- he'd laughed along with them, unsure why it was funny. In truth, he still is.
They're ugly looking things, made to punch real holes into a creature. For a moment, she can't help wondering what kind of damage they'd do to a person - and then she puts the idea out of her mind, refusing to let herself dwell on it (or on why she wondered in the first place).
"Thanks." She can feel the difference in their weight, just holding them in a quiver. Under better circumstances, she'd rather take a few practice shots first, but there's no time to waste today. "We need anything else for these critters?"
As they walk through the gates, Daryl hands her a small glass vial of deer fat. "Gonna wanna oil the arrowheads. Makes 'em go in easier. Hogs got skin tough as shit."
In almost every hunting circle Daryl has ever been aware of, the term is lubing your arrows. Due to some particularly stark memories of Merle's sterling commentary, Daryl always says oil.
"Ain't like deer. This'll take all damn day. And we ain't got no feed..."
"Deer takes all damn day, too, sometimes." For now, she pockets the fat, mistrusting her ability to oil up anything sharp while walking. (It's only a little bit, not enough tallow to fry up anything in, and yet she can't help but think it could have better use than greasing an arrowhead. If they get this boar, then they'll be repaid several times over, of course - but until they get it, using up anything edible on anything besides eating is going to feel a little dangerous. A risk she might've discounted, before Hershel, and now finds herself weighing, even when it's unreasonable.) "You don't want to know how long I was out there before I killed the last one I got."
Not as long, though, as this boar of his, apparently. "Did Aaron go on ahead?"
"Hogs don't attack you," Daryl says, in an almost wearying tone of voice, before Maggie snaps him from further despair at a hunt not done perfectly. He snorts, almost a laugh, almost a smile. "Aaron can't hunt for shit."
"I know that." But he's the one who spotted the damned thing. Maggie squints at him, suddenly deeply unimpressed. "You were going to go out here for a boar alone?"
"You can hunt anything, I'm not doubting that." He's the best of all of them, when it comes to taking down game. "But I don't think I'm wrong when I say a boar could've gutted you out in the woods with none of us the wiser."
Don't do it again, is what she means. It's not something she's stupid enough to try and dictate, though - Alexandria isn't hers, and neither does she hold any sway over Daryl.
He should grouse. He can feel the place where he would. She's right, and some part of him finds that deeply annoying, the fact that he isn't given latitude to do whatever fool things he'd chastise others for.
The sunlight streams through her hair, picking out the golden strands among the brown; it reminds him of autumn, and her eyes, then? A pond, a stream of clear, cool water, not yet frozen over.
He shakes his head. "Went out alone and almost died on your daddy's farm," he says instead. "You remember that?"
"How could I forget?" It's a strangely fond memory at this point, nearly ten years gone. It's possible to forget the tensions and fears, her father's vet supplies disappearing into the bodies of near-strangers. (And, too, to set aside everything else going on. Passing notes back and forth with Glenn, Beth getting up to all kinds of trouble with Jimmy, that naive hope that they'd be find the right medicine to bring Shawn back, Mom, everyone. She doesn't want to think about those parts right now, and she doesn't.) "They thought you were a walker at first, you know."
Everything was different, and nothing was. They'll probably be filthy and exhausted by the time they get back, if they manage to net themselves a boar today. The boar'll be most of the reason no one tries to shoot them.
"You're hard to kill," she adds, smiling sidelong at him. "But I still like your chances better when you're not going one on one with a feral hog."
Daryl is almost surprised. It seems like the person he was back then would have been totally beneath her notice. The fact that she can recall the incident warms him, and the fact that she doesn't bring up the ear necklace leaves him with a cool relief.
"Have before," he says instead, "easier when you lure 'em, but we can't spare feed. Gonna have to find him and set a trap."
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"Won't mind," he promises. "What'd he ask?"
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"Kid stuff." Daryl's probably more familiar than he used to be, considering how much time he spends with Judith and RJ. Ticking off a few of Hershel's questions - "Did you meet him before we left, how long'd I know you before, where'd you get the dog. If we live here, maybe I'll get lucky, and he won't beg me for a puppy."
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To Maggie, he says, "all he's gotta know, sounds like he already does." That Daryl will take care of him however he can, whenever he can.
Out of his dresser drawer, Daryl procures a key, handing it to Maggie.
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Once she's tucked the key in her pocket, she hugs him close, her face tucking into the crook of his neck for a moment.
"If you regret it, you gotta tell me," she says, as she pulls away, but there's only a bright bit of teasing in her eyes. No doubt to speak of - not on her end.
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If he regrets this, it's going to be for different reasons than she thinks. And yet, he still can't imagine it. He doesn't feel like he's lying when he says- "Won't regret it. Promise."
He holds out one hand, pinky extended. It's stupid, but he feels pretty damn dumb right then.
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Maggie leaves soon after, most of her wine left undrunk in Daryl's cups, and they move in the next day. There's not much to bring over; they've spent so much time traveling light that it takes longer to scrub the place up than to bring their stuff over. Not that it was in need of much cleaning - but the upstairs has gone unused long enough that there's floors to sweep and furniture to dust.
By lunchtime, they live there, and by dinner - featuring the promised backstrap - Hershel's probably already made a nuisance of himself, but Daryl doesn't seem to mind. They fall into new routines, and as he'd warned, Daryl's only there part of the time anyhow. But he's there enough that his return's always something to look forward to. And sometimes, when he's around, they sit up after Hershel's been sent to bed and talk about whatever comes to mind.
It's comfortable. Domestic. A little dangerous. Maggie doesn't bring out the wine again.
After breakfast one morning, she catches Daryl before he can escape out the back door. "You doing anything today?"
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And Maggie and Hershel are so excited when he comes home. They notice, and smile, and he's never quite had that before. It makes his chest hurt; it makes him sleep easier.
But it doesn't stop Daryl from leaving, regularly going out to get whatever supplies he can. Alexandria's low on everything, after the Whisperers-- their crops are ruined, their stores are spoiled. Carol has them on a diet of amaranth weeds, and Daryl is sure he's going to sneeze magenta soon. Yesterday, he caught Lydia eating a worm.
So when Aaron says he saw a boar in the woods, Daryl is more than ready to go. Maggie catches him off guard, pulling him back to the world of houses and walls, when he was all ready to disappear into copse and glade.
"Boar," he says dumbly. Dog barks at his heels, excited to recognize a command, but unsure what to do with it indoors. "Aaron saw a boar. Bacon for dinner."
Maybe, he should say, but it's hard not to feel confident with Maggie around.
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Hershel's good about it, but she can see perfectly well he's tired of eating amaranth fried up like it's collard greens, or torn up in a salad with dandelion leaves. She's been sending him out to look for chickweed with Judith, but by this point, nearly everything near town has already ended up in someone's belly.
"Think the two of you can manage it?" Boars are dangerous, and she doubts she has to remind Daryl of that fact. It's written on her face, that thing's as likely to gore you as run off if you don't get it the first time.
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"Folks're busy," he murmurs instead. "Getting the walls back up."
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Some stupid urging, some echo in the back of his mind, reminds him of a pertinent fact-- Maggie can hunt.
"You offerin'?"
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He still feels like he should be out there, and sometimes he wishes he were. Maybe when Alexandria and Hilltop are back on their feet, he'll go. But for now, it just feels wrong.
And, he thinks, he likes it, just a little, knowing there's a family growing above his head. He can't touch it, can't harm it, but he can preserve it.
Maggie will find Daryl at the gates, fiddling with his bolts. The heads are larger than usual, sharp and ugly things. A quiver of arrows to his right have the same cruel heads, and he hands them off when Maggie arrives. "Ever gone after hogs before?"
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"No." She might be a pesky tagalong on this particular adventure, but she's not about to lie about her skills here. "We didn't have an issue with them on the farm. Have you?"
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He hands her the quiver filled with broadhead arrows. To Daryl, they always looked like the kind of things you were supposed to shoot into whales a hundred years ago, except, you know, smaller. He hasn't shared this opinion since he was six and roundly mocked for the comparison-- he'd laughed along with them, unsure why it was funny. In truth, he still is.
"Heavier-- you're gonna wanna aim higher."
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"Thanks." She can feel the difference in their weight, just holding them in a quiver. Under better circumstances, she'd rather take a few practice shots first, but there's no time to waste today. "We need anything else for these critters?"
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In almost every hunting circle Daryl has ever been aware of, the term is lubing your arrows. Due to some particularly stark memories of Merle's sterling commentary, Daryl always says oil.
"Ain't like deer. This'll take all damn day. And we ain't got no feed..."
Now he's just complaining.
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Not as long, though, as this boar of his, apparently. "Did Aaron go on ahead?"
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Jesus Christ, Daryl.
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Don't do it again, is what she means. It's not something she's stupid enough to try and dictate, though - Alexandria isn't hers, and neither does she hold any sway over Daryl.
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The sunlight streams through her hair, picking out the golden strands among the brown; it reminds him of autumn, and her eyes, then? A pond, a stream of clear, cool water, not yet frozen over.
He shakes his head. "Went out alone and almost died on your daddy's farm," he says instead. "You remember that?"
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Everything was different, and nothing was. They'll probably be filthy and exhausted by the time they get back, if they manage to net themselves a boar today. The boar'll be most of the reason no one tries to shoot them.
"You're hard to kill," she adds, smiling sidelong at him. "But I still like your chances better when you're not going one on one with a feral hog."
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"Have before," he says instead, "easier when you lure 'em, but we can't spare feed. Gonna have to find him and set a trap."
He lets out a long sigh.
"And hope it ain't a him."
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