𝚁𝚄𝙱𝙸 𝙸𝙽𝙱𝙾𝚇;

[dadyl]

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Daryl Dixon, 53

It's Daryl, say what you gotta say.

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[dadyl]

More times than I can count.

[ Killing is almost second nature to him. Countless enemies, friends that needed mercy. Leah, in the end, no matter how much he wished it could have gone differently.

But hurting someone for its own end has never been him. He had never felt those things before but now he knows how it feels to enjoy it. And he can't just unknow it. ]

Never like that.

[telepathy]

i should have stopped you

[ she could have, if she hadn't been worried about killing him in turn. if she hadn't held herself back from it. now he has to live with this, and it clearly haunts him in a way that it doesn't quite haunt her.

the coming back was far, far worse than the dying. it casts a shadow over all the rest. ]

[dadyl]

Can you?

[ He doesn't know what she's capable of. She's told him a little but most of what he thinks he knows is really just what Daryl has seen fit to imagine. ]

If it happens again.
I want you to kill me.

[ At least that way he won't be taking anyone else down with him. He won't get lost inside himself again. ]

[telepathy]

i can if i dont hold it back

[ hold her power back, squeeze it all inside herself because she can't bear to kill the only company she has. her people are gone, and the people she has now are therefore too precious to her.

she could not even bring herself to kill aristaeus.

she had suffered for daryl, thrown herself into the void and died for him, and she would do it again. but he did not want that. he wanted to not have to live with what he'd done to her. she thinks on it, knowing what they have both been through now, what they owe to the duchess and how different they may be. ]

i will
if you transform again
i will be the one to end it

[dadyl]

[ He still doesn't know what it is but she seems sure of herself, of her capabilities. He doesn't know how anything would be able to kill him in that state, he hadn't even been able to stop himself when the first of the urges took over, but he'll take any type of assurance now over nothing at all. ]

Good.
Thank you.

[ But somehow this isn't at all how he'd thought this conversation would go. ]

Why didn't you?
Stop me.

[telepathy]

if you died id be alone

[ she has tasted the alternative, now. in her mind, going back to the way she had been living, when she had no one—that's worse than death. ]

then it was too late
blood does that to me
when i transform

(cw: references to dubcon, murder)

[dadyl]

[ That hits him hard. She'd seemed alone, but then someone had taken her from his camp and she'd seemed... okay with it in a way Daryl couldn't understand, so he hadn't intervened. It hadn't been his business even if it had felt like it was. She'd all but told him so.

But what she sends him next shuts him up. It makes more sense than he wants it to. ]

You changed too?

[ He hadn't been lucid enough to tell. It just hadn't mattered to him in that state. Nothing but mounting, fucking, and then killing her had. ]

[telepathy]

not all the way

[ she hasn't, yet. she's fucked and scrapped her way through enough of this for that, it seems, and yet it keeps leaking through. stress, or something. she can't put her finger on it. ]

it was the same as when they took me
feverish
wet

[dadyl]

[ Some mysteries are slowly shaking themselves into place for Daryl. Things he hadn't realized he'd been wondering about, which he'd just written off as impossibly strange. ]

So that wasn't you either.

[ She was in the ways that matter to Daryl. But maybe it's more complicated than the way it makes him feel. ]

[telepathy]

i dont know what is me

[ she certainly doesn't feel like herself, now. but she could remember everything through the haze of heat and hunger anyway, and there is something primal about it that makes a kind of sense to her.

is that the kuruko? or is it the duchess? ]

do you feel like you

[dadyl]

No.

[ He answers very fast. Almost defensively. ]

My people made me who I am.
I dunno who I am alone.

[ He means without them but to Daryl, the feeling is the same. Without the people that made him worthy of his life, he is alone. ]

[telepathy]

i understand
you will see yours again

[ she won't, but she can insist that she remains committed to getting daryl back to his. the kuruko may be dead, but he doesn't have to hurt like she does. ]

[dadyl]

You don't know that.

But thanks.

[ Some people have disappeared and not come back, he's heard. So maybe she's right. He just doesn't have the space in his heart left for hope like that. Not right now. ]

You ok?

[ He knows it's a stupid question but neither does he want to ask: Can I see you again? ]

[telepathy]

i am here

[ still. again? and according to aristaeus, she is herself in all detectable ways, no matter how it feels. ]

i dont want to go back to the castle

[dadyl]

I ain't going back there either.

[ Never, not if he can help it. ]

You safe?

[telepathy]

at the boarding house
with felipe
i can come see you though

[dadyl]

[ At first he doesn't know what to say. Then he does. ]

I'd like that.

[ He's just too tired and fucking sad about it all to lie. It's good that she's with Felipe, that they're safe together. But he wants to see her again. ]

I'm in Jesse's room. Second floor.

[telepathy]

[ she knows the one. it had almost been her room, but she had been too soft, and had instead given jesse her rock to defend the room with. to keep it for himself. he didn't want to fight, he said.

it's good that he hadn't come out to the woods with them.

she climbs the stairs, finds her way to the room, and enters without knocking. there is no knocking at a campsite, and she hasn't bothered to stop and learn niceties in the past couple months.

she surveys the room, trying to make sense of what little changes he had made since she last saw it. ]

action;

[dadyl]

[ He's sitting on the bed when she comes in but he stands up quickly when she does. He isn't surprised that she didn't knock, as social niceties seem out of place on her. Jesse had left the door unlocked on his way out earlier because with Daryl inside, their collection of furs and pelts and tack, not to mention cached stores of dried food, are safe. In fact, it looks nearly like a spare but rustic cabin that Mavis enters, minus the fire damage.

But Daryl himself is still in the fine clothes they'd dressed him in before releasing him on their long walk back to the town. ]

You're alive.

[ He's alive too, and yet he still hadn't quite been able to believe it of her. Not even after walking back from the castle with her, nearly catatonic. He needed to see her again to be sure. He's a little breathless now that he has. ]

Y'look... like you.

[telepathy]

You expected someone else?

[ her head tilts a little. she doesn't move towards him quite yet. doesn't feel like she is allowed to, by that greeting. instead, she cautiously shuts the door, earns them a little bit of privacy. it's the one advantage she can see to permanent structures like these. no ability to move where they'll find resources in a given season, but at least they can close themselves off more easily. ]

[dadyl]

No.

[ That's not what he'd meant, even if he's not sure what he did mean. The awkwardness of the moment shows on his face clearly. ]

Just... not used to mistakes takin' themselves back.

[ Except for Leah. He's done this before, in a way. This exact cycle. Kill her, then come face to face with her again. Only it's different with Mavis. It has to be. ]

I'm sorry. An' I gotta say it to your face.

[telepathy]

[ mavis sits with that apology for a long, uncomfortable silence. she can feel his grief, his sincerity, as surely as she had felt his hunger. both had felt like him.

she draws nearer to him, studying his face. close enough to touch but never closing the distance entirely.

then she reaches into the back of her waistband and produces a kitchen knife. she holds it by the blade, offers it to him. her good knife was lost to the void, but this one will serve for now. ]

Take it. Hurt me.

[dadyl]

[ Daryl is an old hand at long, awkward silences, so it's easier on him than it would be on most, but when she approaches him he stands a little straighter. His shoulders square a little more despite how much he trusts her.

But when the knife comes out, nothing could have surprised him more. He blinks at her, lost. ]

Why... why would I do that?

[ He'd hurt her once already. The last thing he wants to do is do it again and the gesture has baffled him. ]

[telepathy]

[ she shrugs. why indeed. he wouldn't hurt her. she knows this, and it was why she'd offered it in the first place. not for the sake of it, not for revenge.

it reassures her anyway. that the seed hadn't taken root in his mind, that she was to blame for all that death. her crimes are different, less personal to him, but she is familiar with the sense of responsibility.

she puts the knife away. ]

Exactly. [ she nods. ] Words mean nothing. This is what matters. You owe me nothing.

[dadyl]

[ He's relieved when the blade disappears and he exhales, glad the moment isn't any more difficult to navigate than it appears on the surface. He understands what she meant by it. Perhaps even why she felt she had to do it.

But it means they're okay, there's something still friendly and salvageable here, and Daryl finds himself wishing he could do what he always does when he's reunited with a friend - he wishes he could hug her.

He doesn't. Not after what happened, he doesn't want to touch her in that way, doesn't want her to get the wrong idea. But no words of apology seem like enough. She's right, they mean nothing, so instead of trying he just reaches with one hand out to touch her shoulder, then her face. Her hair. Almost as if confirming she's there. ]

You're convincin', you know that?