[ John absolutely isn't counting, like maybe he can sneak past twenty without either of them realizing. ]
That implies a measure of sentience, or social cohesion. I have... a lot of questions about that, but you don't strike me as the scientific figures type. No offense, mate.
[ The question feels like a blade has made contact. For a long time, no answer comes through. It probably seems like Daryl has dropped the connection, gone to sleep, or any number of things. ]
Yeah. A lot.
Didn't think I'd be able to live without em.
[ But he doesn't have a choice here. That's the whole problem. ]
Her Grace agreed she would let House leave the castle if I took his punishment. So I'm still there. Mostly playing statue. Sometime finding out if there really is anything that can kill me.
Yeah. Though I've been severing the nerves in my spine so I don't feel any of it, that tends to last until I pass out.
[ Or die. Either way he comes back to agony. It's all messy-swimmy in his head, he couldn't really speak to what has been done to him today or a week ago or what was just whispered through that porcelain fucking mask. Mostly he stays sane through this telepathic connection, just closing his eyes and pretending he's somewhere else, chatting, away from it all. ]
Look, we probably could have both spent a little time in the art gallery and gone home with everyone else, but House doesn't handle paralysis well. I mean, not that anyone does. But he's got some hang-ups around being helpless like that.
[ John would rather be tortured to death repeatedly than have to stand by watching House live through being a free use statue, so he made the Duchess an offer she was more than happy to accept. ]
Then when I demonstrated I'm hard to poison she took an extra special interest. At this point it's past punishment and more like she's experimenting.
[ He doesn't know why it all spills out. Not like he told literally anybody else any of this, has hedged around why he's here, why he hasn't fought back. It's something about the intimacy of midnight confidences, combined with the sense of Daryl as somewhat stalwart, able to handle this information without getting all emotional on him. ]
[ Stalwart, yes. More than John has even assumed. But emotionless? No, not after he'd spent the night paralyzed like John had saved House from. Like John had been before whatever is happening to him now. The fact that he would do that for someone, that he would take on torture on top of that to save someone what Daryl had gone through, it tears at him a little.
John has him after this. ]
So she's probably listening, too. [ The bitch. It means they're limited in what they can really say. ] I didn't see you there. Must have been outta my eyeline.
[ Or he'd been put there after Jesse had fixed his tie around Daryl's eyes as a blindfold, the only way Daryl had been able to block out some of the horrors in the room. A bandaid when he'd needed an amputation. ]
[ A fact he is very slightly glad for - on the one hand, it did mean the staff who had been too busy working during the dinner had come to find he was one of their few remaining outlets. On the other hand, it meant not very many people he knows saw him like that, and he's not in a hurry to talk about it. Better to emphasize the torture and experimentation and the fucking spiders than... any of that.
Better to laugh it off and pretend he liked it. ]
I'm pretty sure she can hear everything, no matter what we do.
[ She's so powerful, in ways that he doesn't understand. It's like spending his life learning wine and being given a jug of vodka, he can tell there's stronger power there but all the complexities escape him. ]
But I don't have a lot of choice. So she can listen to twenty questions, and town gossip, and the Iron Bull thrashing me at chess.
[ That eavesdropping, it's exactly what Daryl has been worried about all this time, why he doesn't trust the psychic way of communication they'd been given as soon as they got here. No one just gives something like that without there being a catch. It would be the perfect way for her to keep an eye on her pets. ]
Alright, well.
You can ask more than twenty if you want.
[ There's a hint of dry, gallows humour that trickles through from him as well. It isn't the first time Daryl has had to find a way to make light of a hopeless situation to help out someone else. ]
You two gotta be close to take a fall like this.
You knew him before?
[ Usually Daryl wouldn't ask. Private lives are private and even when people share with him, he takes it as it is and doesn't ask for more. But obviously, the guy needs to talk tonight. ]
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Sure.
Group we met would cut their skins off and wear em, lead the walkers from the inside.
They were a pain in the fucking ass.
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Masks just work better.
They'd skin and tan em, then lace em up the backs.
So hell yeah, it works.
[ He's done it enough to know. But that would be an answer to a question not yet asked and they're counting, after all. ]
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That implies a measure of sentience, or social cohesion. I have... a lot of questions about that, but you don't strike me as the scientific figures type. No offense, mate.
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Nah, what gave me away.
[ Not a real question. ]
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Wow. Getting into the weeds, though, I'd rather know... more about your experiences. Have you fought them?
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Sure.
I know there are some left, little packs of em that got away. But they scattered when we killed their leaders.
Got some friends who're real good at pulling off their same tricks, though.
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Did you leave a lot of friends behind when you came here?
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Yeah. A lot.
Didn't think I'd be able to live without em.
[ But he doesn't have a choice here. That's the whole problem. ]
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Yes, it's hard to go on after leaving people behind. How are you managing?
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[ He hasn't been fine a single day he's been here. ]
That's still one of your questions.
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I got nothing but time here.
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[ Still a bit salty about his own time spent as a statue, clearly. ]
You're being tortured, aren't you?
[ And that all but confirms Daryl's idling wondering about whether John's healing powers work on himself... and just how well. ]
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[ Or die. Either way he comes back to agony. It's all messy-swimmy in his head, he couldn't really speak to what has been done to him today or a week ago or what was just whispered through that porcelain fucking mask. Mostly he stays sane through this telepathic connection, just closing his eyes and pretending he's somewhere else, chatting, away from it all. ]
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[ What else is he supposed to say to that? He also hates how it's going to sound, but he has to know: ]
The fuck did the doc do up there that you jumped in front of?
[ He already knows it couldn't have been anything deserving of what John is talking around. ]
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Look, we probably could have both spent a little time in the art gallery and gone home with everyone else, but House doesn't handle paralysis well. I mean, not that anyone does. But he's got some hang-ups around being helpless like that.
[ John would rather be tortured to death repeatedly than have to stand by watching House live through being a free use statue, so he made the Duchess an offer she was more than happy to accept. ]
Then when I demonstrated I'm hard to poison she took an extra special interest. At this point it's past punishment and more like she's experimenting.
[ He doesn't know why it all spills out. Not like he told literally anybody else any of this, has hedged around why he's here, why he hasn't fought back. It's something about the intimacy of midnight confidences, combined with the sense of Daryl as somewhat stalwart, able to handle this information without getting all emotional on him. ]
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[ Stalwart, yes. More than John has even assumed. But emotionless? No, not after he'd spent the night paralyzed like John had saved House from. Like John had been before whatever is happening to him now. The fact that he would do that for someone, that he would take on torture on top of that to save someone what Daryl had gone through, it tears at him a little.
John has him after this. ]
So she's probably listening, too. [ The bitch. It means they're limited in what they can really say. ] I didn't see you there. Must have been outta my eyeline.
[ Or he'd been put there after Jesse had fixed his tie around Daryl's eyes as a blindfold, the only way Daryl had been able to block out some of the horrors in the room. A bandaid when he'd needed an amputation. ]
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[ A fact he is very slightly glad for - on the one hand, it did mean the staff who had been too busy working during the dinner had come to find he was one of their few remaining outlets. On the other hand, it meant not very many people he knows saw him like that, and he's not in a hurry to talk about it. Better to emphasize the torture and experimentation and the fucking spiders than... any of that.
Better to laugh it off and pretend he liked it. ]
I'm pretty sure she can hear everything, no matter what we do.
[ She's so powerful, in ways that he doesn't understand. It's like spending his life learning wine and being given a jug of vodka, he can tell there's stronger power there but all the complexities escape him. ]
But I don't have a lot of choice. So she can listen to twenty questions, and town gossip, and the Iron Bull thrashing me at chess.
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Alright, well.
You can ask more than twenty if you want.
[ There's a hint of dry, gallows humour that trickles through from him as well. It isn't the first time Daryl has had to find a way to make light of a hopeless situation to help out someone else. ]
You two gotta be close to take a fall like this.
You knew him before?
[ Usually Daryl wouldn't ask. Private lives are private and even when people share with him, he takes it as it is and doesn't ask for more. But obviously, the guy needs to talk tonight. ]
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