I'll bake a cake with pink frosting. Would they like that?

[dealt_hand]

Comments

[poleaxe]

The guy with the knife for a hand was right, which is a fact Joan hates. No one with a knife for a hand should be right about anything. But if she's really honest, it's the shit-eating grin that sticks in her memory.

Which is to say, yes, she runs out of food. Being holed up in an abandoned house only works for so long. Eventually, even scavenging the local towns turns up nothing. She has to move on.

She travels the roads, aimlessly looking for a ride. There are plenty of broken down cars these days, she just has to find one with enough working parts to fix. Being a junior mechanic is a lot of fucking things, and before the turn, it was mostly the knowledge that she'd never paint her nails. Now it's life or death. The most valuable thing she has after bottled water is a toolbox stuffed with spare parts. Heavy as shit, but if she can find a car that works, who cares. She wants to get out of here.

Of course, the only car she thinks she can make work is on a long stretch of road in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Trees on both sides, no sight lines, and of fucking course she has to squirm under the fucking thing to fix it. Shit, shit, shit. Her luck isn't good enough for something easy, it never is.

She sets up some string around the car, tied to bits of junk she's managed to salvage. You have to kind of wonder how much your life is worth when a plastic bucket and Dora backpack might save it. She loops some loud shit on the string, bits of metal and tools she's not using, in the vain fucking hope that something might trip over the wire and alert her to its presence. It's the best she can do.

But the dumbest thing she does by far is offering up a little prayer before she crawls under that stupid sedan. It's pretty clear from the way things are going that nobody up there is listening.

[dealt_hand]

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.

[dealt_hand]

It's fucking absolutely perfect, ending up in prison. It figures. The world kept its fucked-up sense of humor after it went to shit, and here he is: in prison, because prison's got the only thing he cares about more than his own skin. And that's doubly fucking funny-- he'd never have thought he'd be glad to see Daryl behind bars. Behind walls, at least, because his brother won't settle in a cozied-up little cell like the rest of them, and that's probably his fucking fault, but whatever. If his baby brother's safe he can sleep on the fucking roof for all that Merle cares. This is the one thing in the whole goddamn world he's softhearted about. Not that he says it. They snipe at each other and mostly Merle keeps a distance, or he's kept at one. The people here have every reason not to trust him, and only one to tolerate him. It just so happens that Daryl's a big enough reason to outweigh all the rest, so they leave him be. His brother and the churchmouse talk to him some, the bitch with the sword watches him like a hawk, the sheriff won't meet his eye.

Which means mostly for company he's stuck with Princess Joan, who has the dubious honor of having more or less led them here. She can't seem to decide whether she hates him or this place more, far as he can tell. It works out well enough and honest to God, he doesn't give a shit. He really doesn't. Sure, he misses the creature comforts and friendly faces of Woodbury, but it's too late to go back.

And not worth the price.

It gets better, after the fighting comes. He does what he has to, he picks a side, and the folks they take in know him and trust him. The rest of Daryl's people can't exactly send him packing then. But it's not over. He knows what's coming, knows it's going to be big. Bad. Better than anyone, maybe, because he knows the Governor, knows that every inch of that generosity he rolls out has a matching depth of ruthlessness. If he's not dead, this ain't over.

But when it comes, the battle still takes him by surprise. Takes all of them, all their careful plans and preparations falling apart. And all too quick, it takes everything.

There are other bodies, shadows moving through the clouds of dust and ash-- people running. People falling. He can't keep track of who's dead and who's not dead yet, so he just runs and figures if there's anyone left he'll catch up to them eventually, when none of them can run any further.