[ 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. ]
[ Compared to his long life he's known House a fraction of an instant. But the trauma bonding in this place is off the charts. ]
Spent every day together since. He reminds me of life before everything went bad.
[ In the days before the world ended. When doctors worked in hospitals, when magic only happened on tv. ]
I don't want this place to break him.
[ He can't save everyone this time, but he can pick one person, one awful fragile human who plays guitar and makes John laugh, and shield him from as much of it as he can. ]
[ Shit. It's so similar that it twists and keeps him silent for longer than he means to be. For a long time, he debates not saying anything. The Duchess doesn't need to know he has a weakness here. Nobody does, not her, not Leah, not this strange man he's talking to now.
But John has shared something that seems terribly fucking personal and Daryl knows the value and honour in vulnerability. ]
I got one of those here, too.
[ That's as much as he can do. It's a lot. But there's another offer he can make that comes much easier. ]
You let me know if you ever need help keeping that from happening. I owe you.
[ He'll keep chatting a little for the next hour or so, mostly idle questions about infrastructure, if walkers ever rotted away to nothing, what kind of food Daryl ate during the apocalypse - maybe asking for camping tips, getting him talking about hunting and knives rather than anything personal. Interested in Daryl's passions as much as someone else's world, so different to his other despite all the ways it was the same. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[ Compared to his long life he's known House a fraction of an instant. But the trauma bonding in this place is off the charts. ]
Spent every day together since. He reminds me of life before everything went bad.
[ In the days before the world ended. When doctors worked in hospitals, when magic only happened on tv. ]
I don't want this place to break him.
[ He can't save everyone this time, but he can pick one person, one awful fragile human who plays guitar and makes John laugh, and shield him from as much of it as he can. ]
no subject
But John has shared something that seems terribly fucking personal and Daryl knows the value and honour in vulnerability. ]
I got one of those here, too.
[ That's as much as he can do. It's a lot. But there's another offer he can make that comes much easier. ]
You let me know if you ever need help keeping that from happening. I owe you.
no subject
[ He'll keep chatting a little for the next hour or so, mostly idle questions about infrastructure, if walkers ever rotted away to nothing, what kind of food Daryl ate during the apocalypse - maybe asking for camping tips, getting him talking about hunting and knives rather than anything personal. Interested in Daryl's passions as much as someone else's world, so different to his other despite all the ways it was the same. ]