It doesn't surprise him that she bolts, eventually. He figured she'd stick around a while in spite of all her protests, and in spite of how loudly he refuses to give a shit about whether she does, he's glad the Governor lets her. Merle's full of shit about nine and a half times outta ten, but he wasn't lying when he said this was a good place, probably the best she could find. Woodbury-- well, it ain't perfect, but it's hard to do better. Hard to get by alone, now.
But he's not surprised she leaves. Even makes it a little longer than he'd have guessed.
Lucky for her-- or unlucky, depending how you look at it-- Merle's a goddamn fantastic tracker. And because he's also a son of a bitch he loops around ahead of her, finds a fallen log to sit on and wait a spell til she shows up.
Joan stays a month, mostly spent making plans. Merle put enough effort into getting her here that it'd be a bad move to just bolt. And this place is a shitshow, all the bad memories of her childhood shoved into a little town high on its own fumes, but the food is free and regular if she pulls her weight. Joan doesn't know how to not pull her weight, Dad saw to that, so she does her part.
That doesn't mean she gets on with the locals. She gets shoved into the building the orphans are stuck with, and while she doesn't have to go to their little 'school', she still has to sleep and wake up there. Even without her shithead brothers looming over her reputation, she gets along with the Woodbury kids just as well as she did the kids in fucking Shivley. She gets into a few fights, spends two weeks with a black eye, and knocks out a kid's teeth. She decides to leave when she narrowly avoids getting her arm broken, and she's genuinely surprised when they just let her walk. She was planning on having to make a break for it. But they let her right out the door, and it doesn't feel earned. Puts her on edge, not feeling like she deserves the victory. Fighting for it's so much more... comfortable.
It's still a surprise when she sees someone in the clearing ahead of her, and if she squints, she can recognize the shape of his thick skull through the trees.
She should run. She doesn't. She should shoot him. She doesn't do that either.
She's a fucking idiot, and a hypocrite too. She's killed people she knew better, cared for more, than fucking Merle Dixon. Still, something stays her hand, and she doesn't examine the impulse, not wanting to find whatever the truth really is.
She does draw her pistol, keeping it up and pointed at him before she enters the clearing. "I'm not going back."
Like he said once, Merle doesn't take it terribly personally, having a gun pointed at him. He wouldn't expect any less from her, particularly under the circumstances. It'd be just as easy and probably smarter to let her be, but Merle likes getting a rise out of people and he's not passing up this chance. Besides... she's useful, and it's dumb as shit to leave over pride. Which is what it seems like to him, anyway.
"Sure you ain't," he answers mildly, shrugging. For all the world like he's out here by chance, though he's not trying to sell that story. She's not that stupid, it's not worth the effort. But coming on strong obviously doesn't convince her, even if, when pressed, she's more or less obedient. Merle doesn't really do delicate or persuasive. When it comes down to it he doesn't really have a good reason to be out here doing this.
"You drag me back, I'll fight you." He doesn't know what a threat that is. "Not like last time." Joan knows it doesn't sound like much; he's never seen her fight. And there's no guarantee she'll win. She doesn't care. A fight, for her, isn't about hurting or winning or striking down the enemy. It's about making everyone involved pay. He'll win, but it won't be fun for either of them.
She won't try to kill him, she knows. It's not about killing, for him. Go for what hurts, she thinks. Shoot off his other hand.
The thought sits uncomfortably in her mind, but more comfortably than killing him. For some reason, she can't let herself do that. She can't. If she does, maybe she can't come back. You kill too many old men, you become something else. You take on whatever they were. You inherit the sin like debt.
If it comes to it he's pretty sure he'll win a fight. He's not sure he'd manage it without her doing some damage-- he's seen enough to guess at that. Heard about what she did and had a good laugh at it-- deep and ugly, long enough to get the side-eye from the green shit who told him, but fuck that, it ain't his business and it's been a long goddamn time since anyone did something so fucked-up that it reminded him of himself when he was young.
Maybe that's why he kinda likes her, and why he kinda wants to throw her off a cliff.
"So let's quit talkin'," he ventures, slow and easy. She's had that gun on him too long, he thinks; it's not quite losing her nerve but she's not gonna shoot him unless he works for it, and that's not why he's out here.
"Maybe I just wanna stretch my legs." He grins to make sure she knows that's total bullshit, and also perfectly serious: if she's going for a walk, they're going for a walk.
He does that smile that starts the I know you know I know game, except it means he knows she's not going to shoot him in the head. She lowers the gun, but she's still holding it. Her finger is still on the trigger.
If she shoots off his hand, he'll kill her. It's be a good ending. Come full circle.
It's a very dramatic thing to think, and that appeals to the part of her that's seventeen and angry with blood on her hands. The only thing that doesn't work is the very real knowledge that it won't be fast. How could it be? He won't have any hands.
"We both know that's not why you're here." She rolls her eyes and doesn't look him in the face. Shit. She doesn't want to kill him, but if she's going to die, she wants to be taken seriously. With that same stupid dramatic interest from before, a plan forms in her mind. "Come on," she says, "I'll show you something."
She turns her back on him, and starts walking down a hill to their left.
Knowing that's not why he's here doesn't go very far toward figuring out why he is. It's a damn stupid move; this is time wasted, but fortunately, Merle Dixon has reached the point of postapocalyptic bullshit power where he's got time to waste, if he wants it.
(Sometimes. If she didn't have a knack for tuning up junkers chances are they'd all be waving from behind the walls, no question. The Governor's patience has limits, and Merle knows he's on a short leash. Resents being on one at all, but he knows the debt he owes, still, knows he's not gonna find anything better than this, knows if he crosses the wrong person he's fucked six ways from Sunday, so he'll keep in line. More or less.
"Sure thing, Princess," he answers coolly, standing and stretching theatrically like he is just here for the exercise, trailing after with the kind of easy gait that comes from years of practice walking in the woods. "Let's see what you found."
He doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her, but fortunately, he wouldn't have to throw her very far to get rid of her, if it came to that.
She's never showed anybody this, but by the time it was there, there was nobody to show. She thought she'd stick by the area, haunt the place or something grandiose like that, sleeping in the house and biding her time until she ran out of food. Once she decided to move on, this fucker stopped her.
Maybe it's a sign. God is trying to tell her something. She did a terrible thing, and when she tried to leave it, something keeps stopping her. Maybe it's meaningful.
Maybe it's not, and she'll die stupid in the woods. That works, too.
The little shack they were staying in is up ahead. It's a beaten up thing, and there are still a few cars sitting in front of it, all missing tires and engines and spare parts. The shack still has their sleeping bags in it. Most importantly, it still has the little twin mounds at the back of it.
Joan gives it a wide berth, standing on the outskirts. "You're not a complete idiot," she says. "We were staying here." She was going back to it, she realizes, going back out of blind habit before this asshole stopped her. Stopped her again. God, she's a fucking idiot sometimes.
Any other circumstances he'd tease, croon out that she'd never said anything sweeter to him than that. Not a complete idiot. But he's not, either. He'd know what this was-- the broad strokes of it-- if he came by, he just wouldn't know who.
Merle, for all his bravado and his bullshit, he pays attention. She told him she was with family before and she ain't now, it's not rocket science figuring out what she means. The guesses he makes are the usual ones, but he's not ruling out something weirder.
He's seen plenty.
But he's not teasing her. This is about the closest he comes to unequivocal kindness. Family, that's maybe the one thing that means anything to Merle. He gets that. He's sorry to see anyone lose it if they had it.
"That's all of 'em?"
Okay, maybe too blunt and businesslike to be kind, but he wants to know, genuinely. If she's got more folks still out there-- well, that, he understands. And something of it shows in his tone, a little gentler, none of the mocking that's pretty much hardwired into his words.
It's almost a disappointment that he's not being rough on her now. She doesn't want his pity. She definitely doesn't want his gentleness. It feels wrong, so she ignores it.
"The only ones that matter," she says, and points to the larger mound. "I killed him for killing my brother." Her tone is hard. She's never admitted this to anyone, but... well, it's true.
"My father. He was bigger than you." She looks over him with disdain. "So don't give me shit about taking it easy."
She means that as a threat, he figures. It sounds like a threat. Probably she doesn't mean for him to try to make any more of it than just that: I've killed before, I'll do it again.
(And he believes her, though for one reason or another he's not sure he buys that she'll kill him.)
It'd be one thing if she said what he figured happened: they got bit, she took care of it. And it's maybe like that, still, but what she says is what he's got to go by. It don't matter much, if one of 'em was bit, if both of 'em were. What she's saying is simpler, and it's something he understands too goddamn well.
(After all, he'd left because he figured it'd be easier on Daryl, not having the two of them at each other's throats every other night, but if his old man had hurt his brother-- well, he can't swear he'd do the same, but only 'cause time was there were consequences for killing a man. Even then. His temper then was maybe worse than it is now.)
"All right," he drawls evenly. He's guessing that's not quite the reaction she wants: a sort of grudging respect, but not a lick of fear. If she's hoping to send him off, tail between his legs, she'll have to work a lot harder.
"You plannin' to hang around here til you see 'em again?"
He's wrong; it's the reaction she wants, and it's not the one she expects. Winning hurts worse, in a way. The respect means, what, exactly? It means she's a part of this. That she's fallen into the world, his world, the world of petty violence and treachery. No, no, she never fell. She walked, and maybe she was always there. And he's, what, acknowledging it?
She doesn't like it, but it's what she asked for, so she'll just have to suck it up, huh?
"I ain't staying anywhere," she says, and then turns to him. There's still something they haven't finished, here. "You gonna let me go, or you wanna do something dumb?"
The world now ain't so different than it's always been, he thinks. Biters're new but they're not what's dangerous, not really. The dead don't scare him. She doesn't, either, but he'd be a fool if he didn't think she was more dangerous.
People who know that, they're the ones who survive, mostly.
"Ain't nobody stoppin' you, Princess. Told you. Thought I'd take me a nice ol' vacation, go walkin'."
That shit-eating grin is gonna outlive him, honest to God.
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what_wings_dare2014-10-20 06:48 pm
no subject
But he's not surprised she leaves. Even makes it a little longer than he'd have guessed.
Lucky for her-- or unlucky, depending how you look at it-- Merle's a goddamn fantastic tracker. And because he's also a son of a bitch he loops around ahead of her, finds a fallen log to sit on and wait a spell til she shows up.
no subject
That doesn't mean she gets on with the locals. She gets shoved into the building the orphans are stuck with, and while she doesn't have to go to their little 'school', she still has to sleep and wake up there. Even without her shithead brothers looming over her reputation, she gets along with the Woodbury kids just as well as she did the kids in fucking Shivley. She gets into a few fights, spends two weeks with a black eye, and knocks out a kid's teeth. She decides to leave when she narrowly avoids getting her arm broken, and she's genuinely surprised when they just let her walk. She was planning on having to make a break for it. But they let her right out the door, and it doesn't feel earned. Puts her on edge, not feeling like she deserves the victory. Fighting for it's so much more... comfortable.
It's still a surprise when she sees someone in the clearing ahead of her, and if she squints, she can recognize the shape of his thick skull through the trees.
She should run. She doesn't. She should shoot him. She doesn't do that either.
She's a fucking idiot, and a hypocrite too. She's killed people she knew better, cared for more, than fucking Merle Dixon. Still, something stays her hand, and she doesn't examine the impulse, not wanting to find whatever the truth really is.
She does draw her pistol, keeping it up and pointed at him before she enters the clearing. "I'm not going back."
no subject
"Sure you ain't," he answers mildly, shrugging. For all the world like he's out here by chance, though he's not trying to sell that story. She's not that stupid, it's not worth the effort. But coming on strong obviously doesn't convince her, even if, when pressed, she's more or less obedient. Merle doesn't really do delicate or persuasive. When it comes down to it he doesn't really have a good reason to be out here doing this.
"So, where are you goin?"
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She won't try to kill him, she knows. It's not about killing, for him. Go for what hurts, she thinks. Shoot off his other hand.
The thought sits uncomfortably in her mind, but more comfortably than killing him. For some reason, she can't let herself do that. She can't. If she does, maybe she can't come back. You kill too many old men, you become something else. You take on whatever they were. You inherit the sin like debt.
"Away. We already talked about this."
no subject
Maybe that's why he kinda likes her, and why he kinda wants to throw her off a cliff.
"So let's quit talkin'," he ventures, slow and easy. She's had that gun on him too long, he thinks; it's not quite losing her nerve but she's not gonna shoot him unless he works for it, and that's not why he's out here.
"Maybe I just wanna stretch my legs." He grins to make sure she knows that's total bullshit, and also perfectly serious: if she's going for a walk, they're going for a walk.
no subject
If she shoots off his hand, he'll kill her. It's be a good ending. Come full circle.
It's a very dramatic thing to think, and that appeals to the part of her that's seventeen and angry with blood on her hands. The only thing that doesn't work is the very real knowledge that it won't be fast. How could it be? He won't have any hands.
"We both know that's not why you're here." She rolls her eyes and doesn't look him in the face. Shit. She doesn't want to kill him, but if she's going to die, she wants to be taken seriously. With that same stupid dramatic interest from before, a plan forms in her mind. "Come on," she says, "I'll show you something."
She turns her back on him, and starts walking down a hill to their left.
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(Sometimes. If she didn't have a knack for tuning up junkers chances are they'd all be waving from behind the walls, no question. The Governor's patience has limits, and Merle knows he's on a short leash. Resents being on one at all, but he knows the debt he owes, still, knows he's not gonna find anything better than this, knows if he crosses the wrong person he's fucked six ways from Sunday, so he'll keep in line. More or less.
"Sure thing, Princess," he answers coolly, standing and stretching theatrically like he is just here for the exercise, trailing after with the kind of easy gait that comes from years of practice walking in the woods. "Let's see what you found."
He doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her, but fortunately, he wouldn't have to throw her very far to get rid of her, if it came to that.
no subject
She's never showed anybody this, but by the time it was there, there was nobody to show. She thought she'd stick by the area, haunt the place or something grandiose like that, sleeping in the house and biding her time until she ran out of food. Once she decided to move on, this fucker stopped her.
Maybe it's a sign. God is trying to tell her something. She did a terrible thing, and when she tried to leave it, something keeps stopping her. Maybe it's meaningful.
Maybe it's not, and she'll die stupid in the woods. That works, too.
The little shack they were staying in is up ahead. It's a beaten up thing, and there are still a few cars sitting in front of it, all missing tires and engines and spare parts. The shack still has their sleeping bags in it. Most importantly, it still has the little twin mounds at the back of it.
Joan gives it a wide berth, standing on the outskirts. "You're not a complete idiot," she says. "We were staying here." She was going back to it, she realizes, going back out of blind habit before this asshole stopped her. Stopped her again. God, she's a fucking idiot sometimes.
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Merle, for all his bravado and his bullshit, he pays attention. She told him she was with family before and she ain't now, it's not rocket science figuring out what she means. The guesses he makes are the usual ones, but he's not ruling out something weirder.
He's seen plenty.
But he's not teasing her. This is about the closest he comes to unequivocal kindness. Family, that's maybe the one thing that means anything to Merle. He gets that. He's sorry to see anyone lose it if they had it.
"That's all of 'em?"
Okay, maybe too blunt and businesslike to be kind, but he wants to know, genuinely. If she's got more folks still out there-- well, that, he understands. And something of it shows in his tone, a little gentler, none of the mocking that's pretty much hardwired into his words.
no subject
"The only ones that matter," she says, and points to the larger mound. "I killed him for killing my brother." Her tone is hard. She's never admitted this to anyone, but... well, it's true.
"My father. He was bigger than you." She looks over him with disdain. "So don't give me shit about taking it easy."
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(And he believes her, though for one reason or another he's not sure he buys that she'll kill him.)
It'd be one thing if she said what he figured happened: they got bit, she took care of it. And it's maybe like that, still, but what she says is what he's got to go by. It don't matter much, if one of 'em was bit, if both of 'em were. What she's saying is simpler, and it's something he understands too goddamn well.
(After all, he'd left because he figured it'd be easier on Daryl, not having the two of them at each other's throats every other night, but if his old man had hurt his brother-- well, he can't swear he'd do the same, but only 'cause time was there were consequences for killing a man. Even then. His temper then was maybe worse than it is now.)
"All right," he drawls evenly. He's guessing that's not quite the reaction she wants: a sort of grudging respect, but not a lick of fear. If she's hoping to send him off, tail between his legs, she'll have to work a lot harder.
"You plannin' to hang around here til you see 'em again?"
a billion years later........
She doesn't like it, but it's what she asked for, so she'll just have to suck it up, huh?
"I ain't staying anywhere," she says, and then turns to him. There's still something they haven't finished, here. "You gonna let me go, or you wanna do something dumb?"
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People who know that, they're the ones who survive, mostly.
"Ain't nobody stoppin' you, Princess. Told you. Thought I'd take me a nice ol' vacation, go walkin'."
That shit-eating grin is gonna outlive him, honest to God.
"So, where we goin?"
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"I'm going to get a damn car," she grumbles. "You can go back to Pleasantville with your tail between your legs."
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Standing his ground, he stuffs his hand in his pocket, glances idly around them like they are just out for a pleasant stroll. Might as well be.
"Maybe I wanna see what you find."