Daryl liked his solitude. He didn't love it, but he did like it.
It was a constant - one of the only constants in his life. It was always there, and it seemed he had made a friend with solitude in the strangest ways.
When he needed it, it was most likely there.
So something that would come between him and his lone wolf status wouldn't be met with the kindest eyes or the most welcoming arms. It would take a while for it to be accepted in his relationship with solitude.
Solitude was always going to be there, no matter what. Daryl would rather choose solitude than cold kisses; if it wasn't love, it was poison.
A bottle of bloody liquor wasn't very tempting when one couldn't tell if it was the blood of the heart or blood of the mind. One tasting vibrant and warm, feeling like stars were being born in your stomach and brain, lighting up every nerve you could think of.
But the blood of the mind was cold, it was ashy. It was built from smoke and dark crystals mixed with dragon fire and fallen snow.
The mind was a cold dark place and it was freezing in there, by yourself. It was nothing but mechanisms unless paired with a soul, thus making a heart.
And it seemed that Marley was all mind at the moment.
Daryl really didn't know if Marley had a heart anymore. But he understood. You can't just come out the other side and always have a heart. You can't keep it when you want to do what she wants to do.
Daryl knew Marley better than anyone else at the farm, maybe even anyone else ever, and he knew that she wanted to kill Randall. And he was going to let her do it, after everything she's being through he was going to let her have that "win". She hadn't won a lot, but he was going to give her it.
But giving her that would have had disastrous consequences that could possibly get her exiled.
He didn't want her to get exiled.
So after all the times he had protected her from walkers and people, he decided it was time that she maybe needed to be protected from herself.
He knew her, so he knew what she was capable of.
And he knew that people should be scared.
Dare Daryl think that he wasn't scared of her?
Maybe it was because he knew her too well. But in reality, Daryl didn't know her at all. There were things he didn't know about her. Things she's done. Things that have happened to her.
He knew enough to know that what Marley was doing, it was all plausible. Everyone thought she had done a "one-eighty" and her actions came out of nowhere.
They didn't.
Her mind and body were sick of being the victim, and Marley was sick of looking at her hands and seeing none other than her own blood. She wanted control, she never had it, and now she did.
Daryl fiddled with the arrows that lay across the log in front of him, hearing approaching footsteps and sighing when his eyes caught Dale coming towards him.
"The whole point of me coming up here's to get away from you people," he kept his gaze on the work in front of, working faster so he wouldn't have to speak to the old man. He would give it to Dale, that he was determined.
"Gonna take a lot more than that," Dale replied, throwing a stray thin branch to the side.
Daryl racked his brain, remembering the way Carol suddenly had become quite invested in seeing Daryl. "Carol send you?"
Dale lifted a foot to place it on higher ground. He didn't speak much to Daryl, so he didn't have a pre-assessed way to converse with the lone wolf. "Carol's not the only one concerned about you, an-- you're new role in the group." He spoke calmly, watching Daryl place arrows in a tiny holster attached to his crossbow.
Daryl had lost most of his arrows down that ravine, and he would much rather spend a few hours making new ones out of old wood and feathers than try to climb up that hill again, with Merle at his ear and Marley in his eyes.
Daryl sighed heavily again. "Man, I don't need my head shrunk," finally, he had finished with his arrows and could stop talking when he didn't want to talk. "This group's broken. I'm better off fendin' for myself."
Of course, Daryl was never fending for just himself. He hadn't just been fending for himself for a long while now - it seemed it was gonna stay that way.
Dale lifted his eyebrows. "You act like you don't care."
"Yeah, it's cause I don't," Daryl brushed off Dale's attempt to try and, as he said, shrink his head. He reached over to his jacket hung on the old brick furnace, swinging it onto his arms.
"So, live or die, you don't care what happens to Randall?"
"Nope."
"Then why not stand with me, try to save the kid's life?" Dale tried his best to sink his words into Daryl somehow but he really didn't have the power to. He wasn't one of the people who could, unfortunately for him.
"Didn't peg you for a desperate son o' bitch," Daryl straightened out his clothes.
Dale paused for a moment. "Your opinion makes a difference."
"Man, ain' nobody be looking to me for nothin'," Daryl finally swung his crossbow over his shoulder, carrying himself away from Dale and towards anywhere he could be alone and be left to his thoughts. To plan; figure out what the hell he was doing for Marley.
Dale's voice carried to his ears, stopping him in his tracks. "Carol is-- and I am, right now." Dale swallowed heavily. "You know Marley always has, and you've always answered."
Daryl chewed on the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes for a moment - like her name was a headache, and it just sent a wave of pain through his brain.
Dale knew his weakness, unfortunately for Daryl.
"And you obviously have Rick's ear."
Daryl turned on his heel, his beady eyes defensive and his posture guarded, intimidating. "Rick just looks to Shane. Let 'im."
Daryl tried to turn away again, only for the old man to keep at it, only annoying Daryl further. "You cared about what happened to Sophia." Dale waited until the man was facing him fully again, seeing Daryl's shoulders slump in exhaustion. "Cared what it meant to the group."
Daryl's face was full of anger and annoyance. He really didn't want to talk to Dale about his so-called "new role in the group". Daryl didn't want to hear it, people sucking up to him. He felt too vulnerable for it.
"Torturing people, that isn't you," Dale reasoned. "You're a decent man; so is Rick."
Daryl was now face-to-face and closer to Dale, a challenging glance set in his eyes, daring the old man to try and get under his skin, knowing that he couldn't succeed that well.
"Shane," he pointed a finger at the redneck. "Is different."
Daryl knew he would have said Marley's name too if he was brave enough.
"Why's that, cause he killed Otis," Daryl said oh-so-calmly. Daryl really wasn't as dumb of a redneck as everybody thought. He knew that Otis' death wasn't an accident, even before Marley sat beside him in the moonlight and trusted him enough to say the truth.
Dale's face dropped at the confession. "He tell you that?" Dale questioned. When he got no response from the younger, he questioned even further. "Did Marley tell you something?"
A sudden anger surged through Daryl's body, his limbs going stiff and tense. He looked at Dale through furrowed brows, growling his answer. "No," he answered. "Shane told some story, 'bout how Otis covered 'em. Saved their asses. Showed up with a dead guy's gun."
"Rick ain't stupid, the only reason he didn't figure that out is 'cause he didn't wanna."
Daryl swiftly turned around for the hundredth time that conversation. "Like I said, this group's broken."
Daryl nearly got away, but Dale wasn't going to leave him without having some sort of impact on Daryl. And Dale would try any means to do so.
"What about Marley?" Dale's voice wavered at the end of his question, just at the start of her name. Dale watched Daryl stop walking, placing his feet firmly into the ground, his left hand clenching tightly around the strap of his weapon.
"What about her?"
"You know she's changed. You know that Shane has messed with her ever since that night."
"What can I do about it? I can't do nothin'." Daryl shook his head somberly, disbelieving his own words. He was unable to meet Dale's expression which was piercing into the back of his skull.
"Daryl," he sighed dumbfoundedly. "It's Marley we're talking about here. It's a universal fact that it's always you and Marley. Where there's Marley there's Daryl - and where there's Daryl there's Marley."
"Of course, there's something you can do. I doubt anyone else can. She shouldn't be acting this way. It's not her. She's being brainwashed, Daryl."
Daryl finally had enough of it, turning and dropping his crossbow, pointing accusingly at Dale, getting in his face - Daryl was unable to conceal the protectiveness he had for the redhead, which had manifested every since he met her. "Y'all just don't understand."
"Then help me understand, Daryl."
Daryl swiped his tongue across his lip, hardening his stare on the person in front of him. "Marley's... Marley. She's complicated."
"How so?"
"Been through some shit."
"We've all been through that. She shouldn't be acting this way, she's acting dangerous."
Daryl leaned to the left, lifting an eyebrow and speaking mockingly in a gruff voice. "'We've all been through that', that's bullshit. Ain't nobody can go through what she's been through and act like a saint, old man."
Daryl kicked the dirt on his walk away, picking up his crossbow on the way, his jaw hurting from the yelling and the way he clenched it whenever Dale would mention her.
+
"Let's gather up," Rick called out to everyone gathered by the house.
The sky was turning a burnt orange, a sea of different colours painting itself over the horizon.
"Hey, Marley," a voice to my left said. I turned to see Shane looking down at me as I sat on the dry dirt, just at the edge of the stairs leading up to the porch. "Y'alrigh'?"
I fiddled with my fingers in my lap, keeping my hard stare on him. His eyes were soft and welcoming, genuinely concerned.
I felt like I couldn't believe any of that; I wouldn't allow myself.
"I'm not allowed in the house," I mocked, smiling up at him with my teeth.
"I'm sure they wouldn't mind just this once," he lifted an eyebrow, hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his trousers. "I'm not even sure they'll notice, anyways."
He faced the palm of his hand towards me, inviting me to stand up. And I took it, letting him lift me off the ground so I could follow him into the Greene house. My legs wobbled alarmingly, my chest feeling tight.
"You're not fine, are you?" Shane asked me, casting a glance over his shoulder. "I can tell you don't agree with keeping Randall alive."
I shook my head from side to side, facing him as we stood on the porch together. I licked my lips before speaking darkly. "First: I've never been fine. Second: I agree wholeheartedly that Randall doesn't belong in this world, he belongs in hell - and six-feet under is close enough."
He nodded, agreeing, before walking away from me so he could stand on the other side of the room where the fireplace was. I took a few steps backward, staying away from most people's eyes. I had walked into someone's body, looking behind me and seeing Daryl.
He was leant against a small cabinet that had a round mirror hanging above it. I avoided the mirror, only for a moment, seeing the incredibly dark circles surrounding my eyes and my gaunt cheekbones. Malnourishment, dehydration, sickness, and insomnia had taken its toll on my body. My body was just tired and off balance.
My body was tired and I looked no better than the monster's we put down. I was a monster among monsters.
I crossed my arms over my chest, letting my shoulders slump and myself relax slightly despite my standing position. I stood to the left and behind Daryl, his left arm bumping my right shoulder.
The Grimes family was the last to enter the small room, Carl trying to sneak into the debate, only for us all the stare at him until he went upstairs. His father was the final pair of eyes set on him in a warning expression, as the young sir scurried up the stairs.
Out of everyone there, the Greene's were lazily off to the side whilst Dale was the one who appeared the most confident. He had one leg hitched on a stool, leaning forward towards Glenn whom I had guessed had agreed with Dale - him being Glenn and all, the pushover saint.
"So, how do we do this?" he asked. "Just take a vote?"
"Does it have to be unanimous?" Andrea spoke up.
'No', I thought.
I could tell that everyone else was avoiding the issue at hand, looking for small details to pick at before even considering the big question; "Was Randall destined to die?"
He was.
"How about majority rules," Lori added.
"Well, let's just see where everybody stands," Rick looked to all of us, shifting his weight. "Then we can talk through the options." He stood in the middle of everyone, but I caught Dale impatiently waiting to reveal his obvious argument.
There were words hanging in the air and on the tips of everyone's tongue, I was surprised I didn't interrupt the momentary silence. My throat felt too thick to do so.
I swallowed heavily, trying to wash down the taste of metal that had been lingering in my mouth all day.
Shane was the next to speak. "Well, the way I see it, there's only one way to move forward."
"Killing him?" Dale snapped, looking at Shane and then all of us, his eyes lingering on me for only a moment. "Right? I mean why even bother to take a vote, it's clear which way the wind's blowing."
"If people believe we should spare him, I wanna know," Rick's voice was authoritative and gruff.
It was pretty obvious what my opinion was, I didn't need to open my mouth. I tried not to. I was too tired, I felt weaker than this morning and it was starting to bug me.
"Well, I can tell you it's a small group," Dale said in dismay. He looked at all the faces he had spoken to that day, except me. I guess he knew my decision already and that it was rock solid. "Maybe just me and Glenn."
Glenn's expression must have changed at the sound of his name because the way Dale reacted to it showed that Glenn was no longer on his side.
"Look, I-- I think you're pretty much right about everything, all the time, but this..."
"They've got you scared!" Dale rose his voice, and also his hand gesturing towards the rest of the group.
"He's not one of us," Glenn was at the same volume of Dale, copying his movements and also gesturing to the group. "And we've... we've lost too many people already."
I could hear the cogs in Dale's head working, paired with the distant chirps of birds outside. He looked to Maggie across the room.
"What about you? Do you agree with this?"
My legs felt weak as I was standing in the same spot for a long time, I gently let myself lean on Daryl - he didn't react much, only moving his eyes to spot what I was doing for a split second before continuing to watch the debate unfold in front of us.
Maggie was silent for a moment before looking over to Rick. "Couldn't we continue keeping him, prisoner?"
"Just another mouth to feed," Daryl said his first input into the group. His voice vibrated through my hollow chest.
"It may be a lean winter," Hershel added.
There was no way I was going to let them keep Randall as a little pet in the shed all winter, using up supplies we could use ourselves. It didn't matter what outcome this argument was going to have. If they stupidly decided to keep him alive, he was still going to die - because I would make it happen.
I would take it into my own hands, and that was another reason I didn't speak up. No point in trying to argue your point when you had already made the decision for them.
"We could ration better," Lori stated. That statement coming from a skinny pregnant woman.
"He could be an asset," Dale's voice was always loud and it was starting to really annoy me. "Give him a chance to prove himself."
"Put him to work?" Glenn said.
Rick shook his head. "We're not letting walk around." His voice was stern. That was the end of that.
But Maggie tried further. "Put an escort on him," she suggested.
"Who wants to volunteer for that duty," Shane scoffed.
Of course, Dale volunteered. "I will." He straightened his back, tightening his grip on his hat.
"I don't think any of us should be walking around this guy," Rick ordered, holding a hand in the air.
"He's right, I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up," Lori muttered, still leaning on the wall with her hand at her mouth.
"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles and sentence him to hard labour," Andrea snapped. It was a ludicrous idea. It just seemed ridiculous for the situation.
Again, I didn't say anything - I knew what was going to happen, no matter what.
My eyes fluttered for a second, I seemed to be leaning heavier on Daryl as the moments went on. My body was tired.
"Look," Shane spoke up from across the room, eyeing Rick. "Let's say we let him join us, right? Maybe-Maybe he's helpful. Maybe he's nice." His thumbs were once again hooked in the belt loops of his trousers, his arms moving as he spoke. "We let our guard down, maybe he runs off, brings back his thirty men."
Daryl moved beside me, shifting on his feet at the sound of "thirty men". We both knew what Randall said, but my legs wouldn't cooperate to display the anger I felt towards these people I hadn't even met.
I did not want those thirty men to come into contact with our group. The women, Carl, anyone-- Daryl. I would kill them all before I let them touch me or anyone.
And Randall was the possibility of that happening; another reason he needed to go.
"So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime he may never even attempt?" Dale threw his hands at us all, insinuated his point as far as he could. "If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead, there is no civilisation!" His voice spat angrily, and disappointedly.
"Oh, my god," I whispered to myself, finally saying something because Dale's voice rung through me badly and annoyed me to hell and back. I trailed my eyes to the carpet, contemplating whether to knock some words into the old man - so he could finally shut up and stop beating a dead horse.
"Could you drive him further out? Leave him like you planned?" Hershel tried at the situation again.
It was all getting too annoying for my liking.
Lori's voice spoke slowly to her husband. "You barely came back last time. There are walkers, you could break down, you-- you could get lost."
Lori really wasn't a positive person sometimes. I had a flashback to when she said that a highway was a graveyard.
"Could get ambushed," Daryl added.
"They're right," Glenn spoke up. "We should not put our own people at risk."
"If you would go through with it," Patricia's demeanor was small. Her presence reminded me that I had helped kill her partner; just for a moment. "How would you do it?"
Rick's head turned to his friend who shrugged, his arm leaning on the fireplace. "We could hang him, right? Snap his neck."
"Ah, I thought about that. He didn't meet anyone's gaze, obviously uncomfortable talking about such things. "Apparently," he paused, casting a glance over his left shoulder discreetly. "It doesn't work that well. But, shooting may be more humane."
T-Dog shuffled, bringing his arms to rest on his front. He spoke quietly. "What about the body? Do we bury hi--"
"Hold on, Hold on!" Dale waved his arms, interrupting T-Dog. "You're talking about this like it's already decided."
"You've been talkin' all day," Daryl grunted, motioning his hand in a circle. "Going round in circles. You just wanna go around in circles again?"
"This is a young man's life!" Dale snapped. "And it is worth more than a five-minute conversation."
I tilted my neck, cracking it.
"Is this what it's come to?" He shook his head, disbelieving how cruel we could be but Dale had no idea what cruel really was. "You save him. And now look at us." His hands blurred in the air in front of my eyes, shaking in my vision and I didn't understand why. "He's been tortured. He's gonna be executed."
There was a pause as everyone's cheeks reddened with the sudden rise in tension, including mine.
"How are we any better than those people we're so afraid of?"
"Have you even talked to the kid about those people?" I couldn't hold it in. I tilted my head, squinted my eyes at Dale who was now staring wide-eyed at me. "You haven't, have you?"
No one said anything.
"Even without all of us knowing what type of people those men are-- what type of person Randall is, we all know what needs to be done," my skull felt like it was shaking in the skin around it as I hissed the last part of my sentence.
"No," Rick stood straight. "Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here, we have a responsibility."
"So what's the other solution?" Andrea demanded, gesturing to the air in frustration.
Lori snapped at the blonde. "Let Rick finish!"
Andrea kept talking despite the brunette becoming aggravated towards her. "We haven't come up with a single viable option yet."
"Are you deaf, or something?" I crossed my arms, sighing loudly.
More people tried to talk over each other, throwing their arguments blindly. It was all a mess when in my head I still had the same thought - I was going to take care of it, in the end.
"Stop it," Carol had finally said a word on the matter, only for it to put out a growing fire. "I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this." I was surprised to see Carol of all people, throw in her towel when the stress became too much. But she did have a point - none of us were previously a high court judge, we were just people.
We learnt how to shoot guns to survive, not because it was our job.
"Please decide, either of you, both of you," she directed her words to Dale and Rick. "But leave me out of it."
"Not speaking out," Dale accused. "Or killing him yourself, there's no difference." I get that Dale wanted people to be on his side, but that was a little low considering the death penalty has always been around; I doubt Dale was rioting against it outside prisons.
I could see in Carol's eyes she didn't take what Dale said lightly, she leaned against the door with a distraught expression.
"All right, that's enough," Rick ordered. He reverted back to his authority figure and spoke to the whole room. "Anybody who wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance."
I watched everyone. Patricia and Maggie sat down, giving up on saying more words. No one's eyes met anybody else as there was an awkward silence that swept the room.
I just kept thinking, as my hands shook at my sides and my ribs burnt, that I was going to take care of it for them.
Rick looked around as well, the people in front of him and then to his wife, and me and Daryl.
"You once said," Dale pointedly turned to Rick. "We don't kill the living."
"Well, that was before the living tried to kill us," Rick growled, taking half a step towards the man.
"But don't you see? If we do this, the people that we were, the-- the world that we knew is dead," his face held utter despair. "And this new world is-- it's... harsh! It's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't want to live in."
"It was always survival of the fittest, Dale," I couldn't stop myself again, bringing my hands up to pinch the bridge of my nose. "Maybe not for you, since you're a white dude."
I stood up by myself, bringing myself away from Daryl to my own to feet. "You think this world is so horrible? You believe that this world brings out the bad?" My breathing was heavy and ragged. I was so, so angry. People just didn't understand.
"How dare you say the world was so good," I hissed, my words like poison. A dart meant to strike Dale right in his spirits. "How dare you say the world was so good, Dale."
"People like Randall, and his men, ruin lives," tears sprung to my eyes as my voice rose in volume and pitch, and I found myself being that scared sixteen-year-old girl at the dirty hands of Jimmy Blake again. "Nobody is getting what they don't deserve here."
"You think people like Randall deserve a second chance?" I asked, my ankles growing off-balance. I felt like I was going to fall any minute and begin puking my guts out. "How fucking dare you think that shit hasn't been happening before all this. It's always been there."
I was surprised to not have been interrupted by anyone. But Dale did answer.
"Let's just do what's right," he looked like he was about to burst into tears, his eyes white and shiny. He looked around the room in disgust at how everyone seemed to be against saving Randall's life.
No one said anything. All I could hear was people's uncomfortable shuffling of their feet and not much of anything. I couldn't focus on anything as I stepped back again to lean against Daryl, almost missing his arm.
"He's right," some said... it sounded like Andrea. "We should try to find another way."
I didn't-- didn't care. It was too warm in the house.
I need-- something.
Rick said something else, but I-- what? I couldn't remember. Or was it, hear?
I didn't know.
"Are you all gonna watch too?" Was the next thing said. But I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt a cold drop of sweat drip down my neck and down my spine.
I swallowed down that annoying taste of metal again.
"No, you're all gonna hide in your tents and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being."
"I'll--" I breathed in, my lungs feeling clogged. "I'll watch if you fucking want."
I couldn't see anymore.
And I don't remember what happened after I spoke those words.
+
this chapter is trash kmp
BUT OMG GUYS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 900 FOLLOWERS
i'll keep this short bc honestly i have nothing to say lol
ty for votes and comments ily guys
(except the marley haters)
(looks like i'm never letting that go)
also who here has seen civil war because #teamironman ftw
i just wanna give tony stark a long hug and some tea.
also:
y'all
- sylar
[may the 4th be with you]