Joan doesn't like most of them. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody with half a brain and a quarter of an ability to read people. Joan's never been miss popularity, she only had one friend before the turn, and he's long fucking dead. She killed the man that killed him, and as far as she's concerned, that makes her even with luck and fate. God is another matter, but He's not the concern.
Joan's always had a lot of wordless, voiceless opinions about how power should be used. She could never put to sense what bothered her so much about Woodbury, bad enough to want to escape, risk her life just to wander. And she can't explain the same about why the prison sets her more at ease. Yeah, she's not on friendly terms with any of these fucks, she doesn't go to their parties or listen to them sing around the campfire, but she's the first to do her chores, and she makes it fucking clear she can be relied on. She's got skills. She's a fine mechanic, and not a terrible shot. She clears out the dead around the fences. She keeps Merle company.
Somehow, she ends up thinking about that as one of her chores.
He's like some kind of feral animal, sometimes; he needs to be distracted, or he'll scratch and scratch until the whole place comes down. Loathe as she is to admit it to himself, she likes him better, now. It's not a whole lot. She can still barely stand him. But she knows, now, for sure, that he's not liable to try and rape her. That just isn't in the cards. He might kill her, might leave her on the side of the road if he felt it benefited him, but so far, it hasn't. And so far, she thinks she deserves the company.
And he knows his bible. It's a point in his favor. He's probably seen her crossing herself over her food, praying before bed. Joan is strangely comforted in having finally found the devil that quotes scripture.
(Satan, her father once told her, isn't in hell. He's behind other people's eyes. Watch closely, and you can see Him.)
She sees the devil in Merle's eyes far less than she did in her father's. In a way, she can trust him. He's simple. Don't fuck with his brother-- a quiet man whom Joan gives the widest of berth-- and don't fuck with him, and he doesn't give a shit. Sure, he likes roiling people, but he's not softening you up for something worse. He's just picking at the scab that he sees other people as. Can't leave well enough alone.
It's a peaceful life, one she doesn't deserve. She avoids people, does her chores, hunts, scavenges, goes on runs, fixes cars, and quotes scripture with the worst man in prison. It's... fitting. She's a bad person. She's a sinner. She deserves to be around other sinners, since she can't find it within herself to regret her sins.
It all comes crashing down eventually. It always does. That asshole shows up with a fucking tank, where do you get a fucking tank in the middle of all this shit? But there he is, with his fucking tank, and he chops off Hershel's head-- a good man with the wrong ideas about God, but a good man-- and shoots into the fences. Everything is smoke and panic and death.
One thing in the Prison's favor: they let her carry weapons on her at all times, so long as they're not loaded. Joan keeps an ax at her belt at all times, one of those break in case of emergency deals she found in the bowels of this place. Her gun is kept in the armory, and when she hears the Governor roll up, she grabs it, a shotgun and a revolver. Call her old fashioned, the revolver used to be her dad's. She really ought to get some automatics, but that's a worry for another day. So she has six bullets and a few slugs and an ax, and outside she finds complete chaos, screaming madness, dead and living mingled in a horrible swath.
Instinct takes over. She runs. This place is dead. She was never loyal to one person here, except possibly Merle, out of a strange mix of guilt and self loathing. Everyone else, she was just loyal to the idea of the place, and that idea's dead. It's time to go.
She steals a car, which isn't really even stealing, because she repaired the fucking thing and optimized it for off road driving and all that fancy shit Rick used to smile over. It's her fucking car. She hotwires it (someone else had the keys, and they're probably dead anyway) and tears through the crowd as best she can. Thank Christ it's a fucking Jeep.
She doesn't believe it at first, when she thinks she sees Merle slogging through the death and the chaos. Fuck. Is she really going to- yes. She can already feel herself slowing down.
no subject
Joan's always had a lot of wordless, voiceless opinions about how power should be used. She could never put to sense what bothered her so much about Woodbury, bad enough to want to escape, risk her life just to wander. And she can't explain the same about why the prison sets her more at ease. Yeah, she's not on friendly terms with any of these fucks, she doesn't go to their parties or listen to them sing around the campfire, but she's the first to do her chores, and she makes it fucking clear she can be relied on. She's got skills. She's a fine mechanic, and not a terrible shot. She clears out the dead around the fences. She keeps Merle company.
Somehow, she ends up thinking about that as one of her chores.
He's like some kind of feral animal, sometimes; he needs to be distracted, or he'll scratch and scratch until the whole place comes down. Loathe as she is to admit it to himself, she likes him better, now. It's not a whole lot. She can still barely stand him. But she knows, now, for sure, that he's not liable to try and rape her. That just isn't in the cards. He might kill her, might leave her on the side of the road if he felt it benefited him, but so far, it hasn't. And so far, she thinks she deserves the company.
And he knows his bible. It's a point in his favor. He's probably seen her crossing herself over her food, praying before bed. Joan is strangely comforted in having finally found the devil that quotes scripture.
(Satan, her father once told her, isn't in hell. He's behind other people's eyes. Watch closely, and you can see Him.)
She sees the devil in Merle's eyes far less than she did in her father's. In a way, she can trust him. He's simple. Don't fuck with his brother-- a quiet man whom Joan gives the widest of berth-- and don't fuck with him, and he doesn't give a shit. Sure, he likes roiling people, but he's not softening you up for something worse. He's just picking at the scab that he sees other people as. Can't leave well enough alone.
It's a peaceful life, one she doesn't deserve. She avoids people, does her chores, hunts, scavenges, goes on runs, fixes cars, and quotes scripture with the worst man in prison. It's... fitting. She's a bad person. She's a sinner. She deserves to be around other sinners, since she can't find it within herself to regret her sins.
It all comes crashing down eventually. It always does. That asshole shows up with a fucking tank, where do you get a fucking tank in the middle of all this shit? But there he is, with his fucking tank, and he chops off Hershel's head-- a good man with the wrong ideas about God, but a good man-- and shoots into the fences. Everything is smoke and panic and death.
One thing in the Prison's favor: they let her carry weapons on her at all times, so long as they're not loaded. Joan keeps an ax at her belt at all times, one of those break in case of emergency deals she found in the bowels of this place. Her gun is kept in the armory, and when she hears the Governor roll up, she grabs it, a shotgun and a revolver. Call her old fashioned, the revolver used to be her dad's. She really ought to get some automatics, but that's a worry for another day. So she has six bullets and a few slugs and an ax, and outside she finds complete chaos, screaming madness, dead and living mingled in a horrible swath.
Instinct takes over. She runs. This place is dead. She was never loyal to one person here, except possibly Merle, out of a strange mix of guilt and self loathing. Everyone else, she was just loyal to the idea of the place, and that idea's dead. It's time to go.
She steals a car, which isn't really even stealing, because she repaired the fucking thing and optimized it for off road driving and all that fancy shit Rick used to smile over. It's her fucking car. She hotwires it (someone else had the keys, and they're probably dead anyway) and tears through the crowd as best she can. Thank Christ it's a fucking Jeep.
She doesn't believe it at first, when she thinks she sees Merle slogging through the death and the chaos. Fuck. Is she really going to- yes. She can already feel herself slowing down.
Idiot.
"Get the fuck in!"