Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Learn anything new?”

There’s cursing and the thud of a limb hitting something solid. Jesus, with growing amusement, has been watching Daryl rifling through the contents under his bed for several minutes. And Daryl hasn’t noticed him standing in the doorway, if him nearly jumping out of his skin at the sound of Jesus’ voice is any indication. He’s got his right hand on the handle of the knife fastened to his belt and in his left is the copy of Dirty Dancing Jesus hid under his bed after he found it at a video rental months ago.

“Fuckin’ ninja,” Daryl mutters under his breath and squints at Jesus through the ruffled dark strands of hair, but he lets his hand fall from the handle.

“What exactly were you hoping to find?” Jesus asks, flopping down onto his mattress. He crosses his feet at the ankles and regards Daryl who is still crouching on the floor with Dirty Dancing in his hand.

“Makin’ sure you folks ain’t up to somethin’ fishy,” Daryl huffs. Immediately defensive, the guy. Jesus already knows he’ll have fun riling him in the future.

“And finding a DVD under my bed has told you what?”

“That you got a shit taste in movies,” Daryl says and lets the case fall onto the bed.

“Hey, it’s a classic,” Jesus says and laughs. Daryl rolls his eyes and stands up from his crouching position now that he got over his initial surprise. Shame. Jesus rather liked the close-up of those toned arms.

“Classic shit is still shit,” Daryl mutters and goes on to pushing the stacks of papers on the little table Jesus uses as a desk. It’s mostly maps of the area: places he’s canvassed, stores he’s ransacked, buildings where he’s found other survivors, locations of petrol stations that haven’t run out of fuel yet. Daryl picks through them with the tip of his knife.

“Have you even watched it?” Jesus snorts, happy to let Daryl flick through his papers. He’s always been right in judging the characters of other survivors he encounters. Rick’s people are rough around the edges, but they’re trustworthy. Daryl is a little volatile, granted – Jesus has the bruise under his beard to testify to that – but he had after all stolen their truck and nicked Daryl’s gun.

“Hell no,” Daryl says, inspecting one of the maps more closely. “It’s a chick flick.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge chick flicks,” Jesus sing-songs. “They too can be good.”

“My brother had a copy of it,” Daryl says. “Used to say I should watch it with girls t’get laid.”

“So, since you never watched it, does that mean you never got laid by a girl?” Jesus teases, expecting Daryl to get huffy at the insinuation that he never got laid. The rednecks usually are attached to their sexual prowess. Though Daryl doesn’t strike him as a classic redneck – raised by one perhaps. He’s got the accent, the looks and some of the attitude, but he hasn’t got the vibe.

All that Daryl offers him is stony silence and a set jaw. Jesus at least expected to be told to shut the hell up.

Well shit, did he just hit the jackpot?

Most of Rick’s groups are in some way attached, as far as Jesus can see. Much like the majority of Hilltop and other communities he is aware of. But all of them have lone wolves who remain alone by choice and by necessity. Jesus hasn’t had someone steady since his boyfriend died early into the mess that the world had come to. There are other gay people in Hilltop and Jesus has been involved with some of them, but even in the apocalypse some are so far in their closet it’s ridiculous. Not that Jesus really blames them. He hasn’t experienced open hostility in the community and the vast majority genuinely don’t care but there are some who treat him differently, even if it’s not conscious action. Gregory being the prime example.

Prodding at Daryl’s lone wolf persona has the overwhelming potential to turn out to be a giant hornet’s nest. However, Jesus has always had an unhealthy attraction to danger. And to the rugged types. He can’t not prod.

“We should do a movie night and fill your cultural gaps while there’s still working DVD players and TVs,” he suggests and gets up from the bed, approaching Daryl whose face is somewhere between skeptical and apprehensive. Jesus encroaches on Daryl’s personal space until their boots are almost touching. He can make out the streaks of dirt on Daryl’s face, can smell the leather and grease, the smoke from fires and tobacco. Jesus wants to lick the vee of skin visible above the leather vest to find out if he can taste it too.

“Maybe Dirty Dancing will get you laid by a boy,” Jesus says and grins. Direct attack, just to see if he actually has a chance.

“I ain’t gay,” Daryl growls but doesn’t push him away. Jesus knows that kind of defensive. Has seen it countless times before and after the world ended. And he got them all in the end.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Jesus can’t resist stroking his thumbs over Daryl’s biceps. There’s a fifty percent chance he’ll get punched in the face again. Daryl is wound as tightly as a spring, but still hasn’t violently removed Jesus from his personal space. Though Jesus also senses fear – as you do from a feral dog backed into a corner. Maybe Daryl needs something more delicate than the crowbar method that tends to be Jesus style of flirtation.

But by god, how he would love to be slammed into a wall by Daryl and pinned by those arms right now. He wants to sink to his knees in front of Daryl and worship while the other man bunches Jesus’ hair in his fists.

Why is he always into the tall, dark and mysterious ones with the defensive attitude and overwhelming baggage? Saviour complex, right. Next question.

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Jesus says, gaze fixated on Daryl’s blue eyes.

He lingers for a moment longer, then steps back to leave the room. Let Daryl stew in that for a bit. Jesus is patient. He can wait.

Not too long though, if the bulge in his jeans is any indication.

Chapter Text

“So, movie night,” Jesus says and swings down from the high branch of a beech tree to a lower one just in time to see Daryl go rigid. Got him again.

“Hidin’ in trees now?” Daryl growls without much heat behind it. He’s visibly pissed he didn’t notice Jesus up in the thick of the branches and now Jesus got to surprise him. Again. It’s becoming a pattern.

“Occasionally,” Jesus admits with a grin. “Good vantage points.” His legs dangle at Daryl’s eye level, playfully swinging back and forth.

“That’s what the watchtowers are for.”

“Boring.” Jesus shrugs. “Anyway, seeing as we still haven’t closed that movie history gap you got…”

He’s been trying to nudge Daryl about it, but the man has the mental constitution of a mule. Stubborn as hell, even if it’s just out of principle.

“You still goin’ on ‘bout that?” Daryl grumbles and scans the floor, probably for tracks of rabbits or something similar. He almost never returns from the outside without a couple of small animals tied to his belt. They haven’t got a hunter this good at Hilltop. Funny enough, Jesus used to be a vegetarian before the world went to hell. These days, the sight of dead rabbits dangling from Daryl makes his mouth water. Which isn’t only due to the rabbits, admittedly.

“Come on,” Jesus challenged. “It’s a communal movie night thing; everybody cosies up and we watch a DVD together. Dirty Dancing this time. Turn up and I’ll show you how to get free from nearly any type of restraints. Useful skill, like when two guys leave you on the side of the road with a can of soda.”

Daryl narrows his eyes at him. “Why’d ya think I don’ already know that?”

“If you did, you’d have tied me up differently,” Jesus grins.

If possible, Daryl’s eyes morph into even thinner slits.

“I even volunteer to be your guinea pig,” Jesus says and dangles his feet above the ground. “I like getting tied up.”

The latter he says with a leer. Daryl huffs and swipes his rifle under Jesus’ calves, making him lose his balance and fall off the branch. He lands on his tailbone with a heavy thud and a groan. It hurts like hell and his rear will be sore for days, but it was worth it.

“Prick,” Daryl mutters and stalks away.

Well, he doesn’t get punched anymore. That’s progress in Jesus’ books. At this point, the word prick has almost become a pet name.

Three days later they’ve set up the TV in the former banquet room. The movie nights are a rare indulgence in power resources. Gregory thinks it’s a waste, but Jesus actually thinks it helps keep morale up, even with the limited choice of movies they have. They have a total of eleven movies, three of which from the oeuvre of Adam Sandler. Of course, of all movies his would survive an apocalypse. Too bad 50 First Dates doesn’t become better with repetition. Thank God it’s Dirty Dancing tonight. A favourite particularly among the women. And Jesus, though he doesn’t publicly admit it. He has a reputation to uphold.

Some of Alexandria’s residents have joined them, sprawled on the floor and lounging in chairs. Jesus sits cross-legged on a table at the far back, wearing his worn out grey henley and the treasured pair of tracksuit bottoms he calls his own, wishing he had popcorn and a beer. Steven, who’s on the farming crew, once said he used to brew his own at home and in case they manage a surplus of hops and malt he’ll try his hand at it, if Gregory lets him. Without Negan, they’d have achieved that surplus long ago.

Daryl hasn’t turned up so far, but Jesus is nothing if not optimistic. Curiosity might just drag Daryl in.

Jesus likes being proven right. Twenty minutes into the movie, a lone figure in a plaid shirt and leather vest shuffles in quietly. Nobody except Jesus notices him. Daryl lingers in the doorway, leans against the frame, an open jar in his hand.

Jesus can’t conceal the grin that’s breaking out on his face. He chews on his tongue to stop himself from making any and all comments on Daryl showing up because the man is already scowling and Jesus doesn’t want to cause him to walk off.

“Glad you could join us,” Jesus says in a low voice so as to not draw attention to them.

Daryl’s only response is a stiff nod. It’s plainly obvious he hasn’t decided yet whether he’s on board with his decision to come here.

“What’s that?” Jesus asks and jerks his head towards the mason jar in Daryl’s hand. There’s a telltale smell emanating from it. “Liquor?”

“Moonshine,” Daryl says and takes a swig. “No way I can sit through this an’ not drink.”

“Made that yourself?” Jesus asks and raises an eyebrow. He holds out his hand and after hesitating for a moment, Daryl passes him the jar.

The smell is strong enough to nearly make him cough, but Jesus takes a swig anyway. Now he does cough.

“Hell,” he rasps and stifles his cough in his sleeve. “Did you make that with lighter fluid?”

Daryl looks decidedly too smug. “Corn,” he says with a smirk and takes back the jar. “Lightweight.”

“It’s like drinking rubbing alcohol,” Jesus grumbles and grimaces. “Was that full when you got here earlier?”

Daryl shrugs.

“You’ve already had half of that, how are you still standing up?” Jesus asks, baffled. He’s only had one mouthful and he already feels it going to his head. A jar of that and he wouldn’t be getting up for three days. And Jesus used to drink quite a bit in his twenties. Jackie-Coke has nothing on that stuff though.

“I can actually hold my liquor,” Daryl mutters.

“Ha bloody ha,” Jesus snorts. “Now shush and watch the movie. And give me some more of that.”

Daryl makes no move to sit down, choosing to lean against the wall next to the table instead. Ready to bolt in a second, Jesus supposes. Suits him. He does have to pry the mason jar from Daryl though, but he lets go of it in the end.

“You owe me some rope tricks now, ninja boy,” Daryl drawls and takes back his jar.

Jesus face nearly splits in half with a leery grin and it takes every ounce of self-control to not use it as a gateway for half a dozen lewd jokes. Naturally, Daryl notices anyway and glares at him.

“You wanna land on your ass again?” he threatens.

“I’m good for now,” Jesus snorts and takes another sip from the jar Daryl passes him. He’ll have a headache tomorrow, that much is certain. The stuff is potent. Does drinking from the same container mean they’ve shared an indirect kiss now? Jesus may be grasping at straws here.

“I’ll show you tomorrow,” he offers.

Daryl grunts in accordance and settles more comfortably against the wall. Jesus got his movie date after all. With less making out than he would have hoped for, but you can’t have everything.

He should barter for tracking next.

Chapter Text

The night is quiet, too quiet for Jesus’ liking. A light wind to cover up low noises would have been nice. Stillness makes it easier to hear the walkers, but it’s not useful for Jesus’ current objective: don’t be heard or seen.

He’s weaving through the trees and undergrowth outside Hilltop bundled in his leather coat, woolen hat drawn deep into his face and the black bandana covering his mouth and nose. His steps are light, chosen with care. Jesus pauses when there’s a rustling overhead, relaxing when it turns out to be a squirrel. He’s had to take down a walker half a mile back and that had produced far more noise than he would have liked.

So far though, it looks like he’s in the clear. If he doubles back now, following that small stream to the east he should–

A bolt hits into the tree bark next to him with a thud, barely an inch from his face. He can still feel the sharp breeze of it slicing through the air on his cheek. Crap.

“Gotcha,” he hears in that gruff voice that’s been haunting his sleep for the last few weeks, and from behind a tree steps Daryl. Jesus must’ve walked right past him.

Even Daryl went through the trouble of camouflage: a black long-sleeved shirt under his vest and just like Jesus, he’s covered the lower half of his face with a bandana. Without being able to see his mouth Jesus can still tell Daryl is smirking. It’s in the crinkle around his eyes.

“Son of a bitch,” Jesus grumbles. “You nearly shot me in the face.”

“If I’d wanted to, I would’ve,” Daryl states in a matter-of-fact tone and nocks a new bolt. “Not that light on ya feet after all, huh?”

“Come on, I evaded you for at least an hour.”

“Been on your trail for over a mile.”

Jesus groans and pulls his bandana down. He’d imagined tracking with Daryl to be less frustrating but the man is decidedly too good at this.

After Daryl resisted Jesus’ requests to teach him about tracking, thinking Jesus was only trying to take the piss, Jesus took it up with Rick. He genuinely wanted to get better at it, it was a useful skill to have and one Jesus had never cultivated before the end of the world. The only trails to follow in D.C. had been tyre tracks. That it was now Daryl who could teach him was an added bonus.

So he went to Rick and made a case for exchanging skill sets. Hilltop had a number of good craftsmen who were willing to share their knowledge and Alexandria had a number of good fighters and hunters who were needed for Hilltop’s security. Rick consulted Maggie and Michonne who were on board with the idea. Which only meant Jesus had to talk Gregory into accepting it as well, but since their leader was still nobly suffering from his stab wound, he was eager for protection.

Rick assigned Daryl to teach Jesus tracking as Jesus had little need for weapons or combat training. Daryl grumbled about it for a few days, but ultimately he hauled Jesus into the surrounding woods to teach him grudging lessons about tracking animals and people, threatening to knock him out and fling him up a tree if he tried anything shady.

Jesus has tried to be a good student and Daryl has turned out to be a brooding and unconventional teacher, but a good one nonetheless. Daryl wants to help people, even if he’d probably deny it until his dying day. It’s evident in the effort he puts into teaching Jesus about broken twigs, chafed tree barks and disturbed leaves. The patience he displays perhaps surprises Jesus most. Daryl doesn’t appear to be a patient man in general, but he is when he’s teaching, even when Jesus misses deer tracks that may as well have been painted in fluorescent colours. Jesus can’t escape a few sharp barbs, but given that Jesus himself uses every opportunity to fluster Daryl, it’s only fair. Daryl is playing along with the game – Jesus lands on his rear regularly for mouthing off, but Daryl has long since stopped being hostile.

As for unconventional teaching, this little stunt at night is Daryl’s version of a test. See if Jesus has learnt enough about tracks to obscure his own and evade Daryl. Before that bolt hit the tree Jesus was reasonably confident he could at least make it difficult.

“What gave me away?” Jesus asks and leans against the tree, watching Daryl tug his bandana down around his neck.

“For a guy who moves that quiet you disturb the ground more than a damn boar,” Daryl snorts and digs through the pocket of his vest to fish out a cigarette. He holds it out to Jesus who shakes his head.

“I can’t have been that bad,” Jesus complains. “I was careful.”

Daryl puts the cigarette between his lips and lights it with a battered zippo, pointedly not commenting on Jesus’ statement.

“So I didn’t get any better?” Jesus says, disgruntled.

“Boar’s an improvement for ya,” Daryl says and shrugs.

“So what was I before? Deer?” Jesus quirks an eyebrow and grins.

“Try elephant,” Daryl deadpans and takes a drag from the cigarette, the ember illuminating his face in the dark. Before Daryl, Jesus has never been fascinated with smoking. These days he does nothing but stare whenever Daryl lights up.

Jesus snorts. “Asshole.”

“No my fault if ya suck,” Daryl says and strides over to pull the arrow from the bark. Mere inches separate them. Jesus suddenly finds it hard to swallow, but can’t let the opportunity for a joke go to waste. Not even a low-hanging fruit like that.

“I’m very good at sucking, I’ll have you know.” Jesus’ grin is wolfish. “If you care to try…”

Daryl’s answer is blowing smoke in Jesus’ face, making him cough and his eyes sting.

“Cheap move, Dixon,” Jesus rasps.

“Never said anythin’ ‘bout fightin’ fair.” Daryl sounds faintly amused. He’s much more relaxed when he’s got one up on Jesus. Or maybe he’s just spent enough time with him now and lets his guard down a little. Daryl hasn’t moved away yet even though he could have pulled out the arrow while Jesus was still coughing from the smoke.

Now that he’s managed to regain his breath, he stares back up at Daryl. Jesus doesn’t see much in the pitch black night, but Daryl stares right back at him – holding, challenging Jesus’ gaze.

The air is so thick with tension, Jesus thinks he could slice right through it with his hunting knife. Like that time back in Jesus’ room all those weeks ago, they are once more so close, Jesus is sure he feels Daryl’s body heat. And there’s the smell again – the leather, grease and cigarettes. Heavy on the cigarettes obviously with the one still dangling from his lips, but Jesus wants to lean in anyway and breathe it all in. This is worse than any schoolboy crush he’d had as a teenager.

Daryl’s fingers remain curled around the arrow, not pulling it out yet. Jesus wonders if Daryl feels that current too, the one that’s making Jesus’ fingertips tingle and the heat curl at the base of his spine when he holds Daryl’s gaze. If Daryl said he didn’t he’d have to be lying – there’s no denying that energy. Jesus can’t be imagining that all own his own.

For once, Daryl doesn’t appear to be frightened and tense the way he usually is when Jesus challenges his personal space. Maybe because he’s the one who chose to close that distance and who’s now also the one who doesn’t step away.

Taking the cigarette from Daryl’s lips isn’t an entirely conscious decision. Daryl lets him, isn’t snarling at Jesus to hand it back and get off him. Overhead the squirrel rustles the branches again, the only counterpoint to the deafening silence. Even their breathing seems to have gone still so as not to break the spell.

Daryl looks somewhat apprehensive (when doesn’t he?), but he’s standing his ground. Perhaps it’s a challenge, but Jesus is fool enough to take it.

Daryl isn’t much taller than him, so Jesus doesn’t have to strain up, merely leans forward to gap the distance and presses his lips so Daryl’s. He’s gentle, afraid to spook Daryl if he’s too forceful. Daryl’s lips are chapped, they taste of nicotine and salt and the licorice candy he found in the cash drawer of a optician’s a couple days ago. His spine has gone ramrod straight, but he hasn’t bolted. Neither has he responded though, so Jesus is just about to back off again when he feels a response from Daryl. It’s barely there, but it’s enough to light the fire in Jesus’ gut back up.

The response makes Jesus bold, makes him stupid, because he throws care into the wind and puts the hand that’s not holding the cigarette on Daryl’s back to pull him closer, to finally get that last bit of contact.

It takes him the fraction of a second to notice that he must have made a mistake. Daryl flinches and uncoils, ripping himself away from Jesus with the force of a wild animal. Daryl’s face is unreadable in the dark, but his breathing is heavy, and not in the fun way.

“Daryl,” Jesus says and reaches out, but Daryl won’t have it.

“Fuck off,” Daryl snarls and shoves Jesus’ chest hard. Jesus’ back and head hit the tree behind him, knocking the air right out of him.

Daryl turns around and stomps off, disappearing back into the darkness between the trees while Jesus’ tries to regain his breath, rubbing the spot where the back of his head hit the trunk.

“Shit,” Jesus groans. Something went spectacularly wrong, even if he has no idea what. It strikes him as more than Daryl balking, but there’s nothing for him to go on.

Right now he can’t do anything except walk back to Hilltop and hope he hasn’t stamped out the little spark of trust between them entirely. Jesus waits for another thirty seconds for the purple spots in his vision to recede, then grinds his heel into Daryl’s cigarette that fell from his fingers when Daryl shoved him. Daryl even left the damn arrow behind. He pulls it from the tree, seeing no use in letting perfectly fine ammo go to waste. Maybe he can give it back to Daryl and apologise.

Jesus tugs his bandana back up and sets off towards Hilltop, the impression of Daryl’s palm still burning on his sternum. Though not as much as the imprint of Daryl’s lips on his.

The arrow in his hand suddenly feels like the weight of the world.

Chapter Text

A long time ago, Carol used to be excellent at reading people if given the time to observe them for a while before making her deductions. Her observations protected Sophia from Ed – Carol would send her daughter to her room when it became clear that Ed was particularly on edge, itching to raise his hand to the first person who breathed wrong. Carol always made sure she was that person.

On the road she hasn’t had much time to exercise that skill. No need to, either. She relied on the people in her group and honed her survival instincts instead. The skill never quite disappeared, but it’s rested under the surface. It’s how she knew that under all the defensive, mistrusting attitude Daryl Dixon hid a fundamentally good man. Much like her he’s seen far too many bad things far too early in life, but the second he started looking for Sophia without a second thought to his own comfort or even safety, she knew that despite all the evil he’s witnessed, he wanted to be an optimist. Carol took a lesson from that.

Now in Alexandria, hidden under flowery blouses and pastel cardigans (she actually likes those, but they’re not practical on the road) she has time again to tune into the mood going around. Her family has taken great comfort in finding Hilltop and learning that there are actually still people out there who want to live in peace as much as Alexandria does. Carol doubts they’ve seen the last of The Saviors, but they’re keeping quiet at the moment, hopefully licking their wounds somewhere far away. She’s not enough of an optimist to expect them to have learnt their lesson.

Trading skills with Hilltop is going well so far. The people there have an impressive range of crafts on offer, but hardly any grasp on how to handle weapons. Even Carol has helped out training a few of their women her own age who seemed to be more comfortable learning from her than someone like Abraham. Now that so many of Alexandria’s old inhabitants are gone, keeping up the image of the unintimidating, cuddly housewife all the time is useless anyway. She does enjoy the baking though.

With all this observation time on her hands, Carol has noticed one thing in particular: Daryl and Jesus avoid each other. Before that, Carol noticed something entirely different – the two spent an unusual amount of time together. Since Jesus turned up in Alexandria, he seemed bent on worming his way into Daryl’s life. Carol’s kept an eye on it, but hasn’t had reasons to disapprove. Jesus seems so far incapable of ill will, and despite prodding at Daryl’s tough man act, has so far avoided getting punched in the face again. He’s a serious man, but there’s a lightness to his character that’s so contrary to Daryl’s doom and gloom that Carol can’t help but hope that Daryl spends some time around Jesus. Daryl lost his humour when they lost the prison and Beth, and all that’s happened since then hasn’t helped. He keeps blaming himself for every bad thing that happens to the group. Daryl can use a friend that hasn’t been through the same things, doesn’t carry the same grief. Perhaps more than a friend even, if Daryl will allow it.

Jesus still makes numerous trips between Alexandria and Hilltop, but he stays away from Daryl and Daryl seems to vanish whenever Jesus turns up. Given that not long ago they were pretty much joined at the hip studying tracks, ropes and leaves, this is odd. When it persists, Carol decides it’s a matter worth investigating.

Daryl is sitting on the front porch of the house he claimed as his after deciding Rick and Michonne could use some private family space. The house is smaller and simpler than a lot of the others in Alexandria, but Carol is aware that despite the apocalypse, Daryl feels uneasy in the grandeur of the colonial style three-storey houses with their ornamental columns and white picket fences. Carol used to look with longing at homes like these in glossy magazines while the roof of her old little house needed patching and the front porch railing was in desperate need of a new coat of paint.

“Still working on the bike?” Carol asks as she sits down next to Daryl who’s fiddling with one of the parts, fingers shining with oil and grease. A cigarette is stuck between his lips and Carol resists the urge to ask for one. She doesn’t even like smoking all that much, but it calms her flaring nerves.

Daryl grunts in the affirmative, eyes fixed on the part, turning it in his hands. Carol doesn’t know a thing about bikes, so she has no idea what keeps him so transfixed on the bit of metal, but Daryl keeps on muttering about what that “asshole” did to it.

“So what’s up with you and Jesus?” Carol asks and watches Daryl go stiff for a second. He throws her a puzzling glance, then turns his attention back to the bike.

“Nothin’s up,” he murmurs.

“I can see that,” Carol quips. “It looked like you two were becoming friends and now you’re avoiding each other.”

“‘m not friends with that hippie,” Daryl scoffs, but Carol knows a real scoff from a fake one. He can’t fool her so easily.

“Fine, you’re not friends with the other people from Hilltop either but you don’t run off when you see them.” Carol shrugs and Daryl narrows his eyes at her. “Last time I saw you two you were playing catch in the woods.”

“I was trainin’ the prick.” Daryl bristles at Carol calling tracking exercises a game, but she wants him to come out of his shell a little. Sometimes that requires raising his hackles.

“And now?”

“Trainin’s over.”

It’s always pulling teeth with him. At least she knows she’s onto something here or Daryl wouldn’t be this reticent.

“What happened?” Carol asks and steals a cigarette after all.

Daryl hands her his lighter. “Nothin’”

“I’m not an idiot, Daryl,” she says and looks at him expectantly. “He looks like a lost puppy when you run off.”

“Not my problem,” Daryl says and flicks the butt of his cigarette away. It lands on the gravel and thin ribbons of smoke keep curling up. Daryl stares at them with a wistful look on his face.

“Did he make a move on you?” Carol asks, deciding that the best way to get anything out of Daryl is asking head on. From what bits and pieces she’s snatched up about and from Jesus, he’s been flirting with Daryl openly enough that even Daryl must have gotten it.

Daryl doesn’t say anything, instead he grabs the torque spanner at his feet and walks around the bike, ducking behind it.

“Does it bother you that he did?” Carol blows smoke into the air, watching it fade against the glare of the sun. “Or does it bother you that you didn’t mind?”

The spanner stops its cranking, and Daryl’s face appears above the seat. “Can ya mind your own business?” He comes up from his crouch and slaps the tool onto the seat, leaning heavily on the cushioning while he glares at Carol. To others he may look intimidating, but Carol knows when Daryl is just puffing up to get others to back down.

“You know it’s okay if you like him, too?” Carol asks and stubs out the cigarette against the steps. Daryl is no child, but Carol knows how hard it is to unlearn what you’ve been brought up with. Even more so when the lessons were beaten into you with a belt.

“Don’t matter,” Daryl mutters and begins chewing on his thumb.

“Why not?”

“Can you just leave it?” Daryl snaps. “Ya ain’t Dr. Phil.”

“Daryl,” Carol says, holding his gaze. “It matters to me if you’re hurting. Did he do anything?” If Jesus has done something to betray Daryl’s trust, she’ll make his life miserable. Hilltop trade be damned.

“No, damnit,” Daryl sighs. “My own fuckin’ fault. Don’t ya have some cookies to bake?”

“What happened?” Carol asks again.

“I need a different socket.” Daryl evades her and stalks off towards Aaron’s and Eric’s house to loot the garage. Or possibly just hide there for ten minutes.

Carol looks after him, mulling the conversation over in her head. She isn’t going to get anything else out of Daryl today. By his standards, this was a fairly open heart-to-heart. Her results are inconclusive though, she thinks as she gets up and pats the dust off her blouse and trousers. Maybe she needs to turn her attention to Jesus.

Let’s see if saints like cookies.

This one does, tearing into Carol’s concoction of sesame, hazelnuts and raisins with more enthusiasm than she gets from most of Alexandria’s inhabitants.

“Man, I miss chocolate chip cookies,” Jesus sighs and wipes crumbs from his beard.

“We give Maggie what chocolate we find,” Carol says and smiles at the memory of Maggie’s face lighting up when Sasha dumped two Reese bars into her lap a couple days back.

“Fair enough,” Jesus says and grins, fitting the rest of his cookie into his mouth. “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Yes,” Carol says and leans against the railing of her porch, waving at Eugene as he passes by. He gives her a pompous nod in return. “Rick said you swiped the keys to that truck off him back when you met.”

Jesus looks a little sheepish. “I did.”

“So you can pickpocket?”

“Yeah,” Jesus agrees. “Why?”

“Can you show me?” Carol asks and Jesus’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“You want to pickpocket?” Jesus asks. “Wanna swipe some tourists?”

“That what you used to do with it?” Carol teases and Jesus awards her a crooked smile, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Saint, remember?” he chuckles. “A friend taught me back in high school ‘cause I thought it was cool. But I was too nice to ever steal anything more than gum or receipts.”

Carol has no real way of knowing if that’s true, but at least her instincts tell her that it might just be. He doesn’t quite strike her as former career criminal picking women’s purses. As if to prove that point, he’s peeled off his coat, padded vest and beanie in the midday heat, the items dangling from a nearby tree. In only his flowing white dress shirt and khakis, he looks even more the saint part.

“When Maggie and I were kidnapped, maybe we could have gotten out faster if one of us could have taken something off them,” Carol explains and Jesus pulls a face in sympathy. Carol may have been looking for a reason to speak to Jesus but that doesn’t mean she can’t make it worth her while and learn something.

“Right,” he says and nods. “Sorry to have gotten you into that.”

“Not your fault,” Carol says and lets her gaze wander across Alexandria. Her group has been all too eager to attack The Saviors, tempted into brashness by the promise of food. Which they’d gotten even though it seems more than likely they haven’t wiped out all of them. “But if it’ll make you feel better, show me a few of those tricks.”

Jesus smiles. “You got some small items we can use for practice?”

Removing small and larger objects from someone’s pockets without their notice is much harder than Carol imagined. With ease Jesus takes batteries, paperclips, pens and notepads from Carol’s pockets while Carol can’t take so much as a crumpled piece of paper off him.

“You’re doing okay so far,” Jesus assures her and twirls a knife between his fingers – the one Carol usually keeps in her belt. She didn’t even notice it was gone until he held it up. “With a bit of time you’ll get the hang of it.”

“You teach this to Daryl, too?” Carol asks, thinking that now’s a good time as any to get to the point. Bit by bit.

“Nah.” Jesus smiles and it’s a little sad. “He already knew how.”

“Unsurprising,” Carol says and shakes her head. Though Daryl probably didn’t just use that skill to steal gum. “That Houdini act was you though, right?”

Jesus nods and hands Carol back her knife.

“Learn that in high school too?”

“No, that was for summer camp, actually,” Jesus laughs. “I worked as a supervisor for a while and learnt some magic tricks to keep the kids entertained, including the ‘Houdini acts’. Turns out though that while slipping restraints is useful, there’s no crying need for card tricks in the apocalypse.”

“What did you do before, if you don’t mind me asking?” Some people don’t like to talk about what they were doing before the dead started walking and Carol is usually one of those people. But Jesus is an enigma she’d like to unravel. The past might be a start.

“I don’t mind,” Jesus says and shrugs. “A lot of things, actually. Last thing I did was herding tourists through D.C.. But I rarely kept any job longer than a couple months cause I’d get bored and restless. Dropped out of college at twenty and if you can name it I probably did it. Retail, Starbucks, gun range, busboy, home improvement, roadie, martial arts instructor,...”

“Ah, so you did the martial arts thing before it started,” Carol says and files the knowledge away. She suspected as much, having observed Jesus teach Glenn a few simple grapples and kicks. His stance and execution were too formally trained and coordinated to have picked it up on the go.

“My dad ran a dojo,” Jesus explains and takes a sip of water from a dented bottle he brought along. “I was kicking people before I could walk, or so he says. Only thing I never got tired of. My last boyfriend called me obsessed a couple of times before the world went to shit and aikido, taekwondo and kickboxing were actually useful.”

“What happened to him?”

“Got bit about two weeks in,” Jesus says and shrugs. “Tried to loot a bank, the idiot. He thought money could come in handy once stuff went back to normal. Bank was full of walkers and he didn’t wanna drop the bag so he could run faster. I managed to save myself in time, but nothin’ I could do for him once he got swarmed.”

“Sorry,” Carol says. “My daughter and husband got bit, too.”

“You miss ‘em?”

“I miss my daughter.” Every day. She’s had to push Sophia from her mind for days and weeks at a time when she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Lately she’s been thinking about Sophia more often. Alexandria could have been good for her. Ed however…Carol doesn’t even want to think about him anymore. Pete was an unpleasant reminder of a past she never desires to go back to.

Jesus raises his eyebrows, but he’s smart enough to understand the implications and not ask about it.

“If you’re from D.C., how did you end up at Hilltop?”

“I found a brochure about it at a diner somewhere between D.C. and Hilltop. D.C. was too dangerous after FEMA and the army had abandoned everybody. I figured I had a better chance in a rural area and trekked south for a while. Mostly alone, sometimes with groups, but most people wanted north to D.C.”

The same way Carol’s family did. Back when they still thought there might be any chance at all that there were still structures in place; agencies that worked on getting the state of the world back to normal. These days it seems silly they believed that. How eager they were to believe in the CDC, Fort Benning, Eugene’s tale of a secret cure. Now they believe in making the best of the world they have.

“I was clearing out a diner in a tiny town in Virginia and they had those flyers for family day trips and one of ‘em was Barrington House. An old museum on a hill in the middle of nowhere sounded good to me, so I took that flyer with the map and tried to find it. Which I did, obviously,” Jesus laughs. “There were a lot less people there at the time. Most had taken off after FEMA abandoned the place to find another safe-zone so they needed every hand to keep it running. Been there ever since.”

So Jesus spent some time outside before he arrived at Hilltop. That begs a different question:

“How many people have you killed?” Perhaps it’s a question Carol has no right to ask. Not with the amount of blood she has on her hands.

Jesus stills his hand on the pen he’s been fiddling with. Always in motion that one. “Is that part of your community job interview? Rick asked me how many walkers I’ve killed back when I ran into him.”

“It is,” Carol says, deciding not to reveal her motives just yet. Let him think it’s a question they ask in Alexandria.

“Three,” Jesus says and stares off into the distance where Maggie sits in a rocking chair with Judith in her lap, the toddler trying to grab at one of the maps Jesus had shared with Alexandria. Maggie has been studying the maps lately in an attempt to work out if The Saviors could be hiding close by without their notice.

“No, four now,” Jesus corrects. “Shot one aiming at Glenn and Heath during the raid.”

“And the others?”

Jesus sits down on the grass in the shade of the tree they’ve been practicing under. Carol slides down next to him and leans against the trunk, letting the bark press into her back. They haven’t picked any pockets in the last fifteen minutes anyway, might as well just talk. Jesus sighs and plucks a few blades of grass from the ground.

“One in self-defense. The guy attacked me with a machete when I was alone on the road. Tried to kill me and take my pack, but I managed to get the blade off him. He pulled a gun, but I got him first. I didn’t even think about it and suddenly the guy had a machete in his neck and I was covered in blood. Didn’t sleep for a week after that.

“Second was with a group I travelled with. Dave – he was losing it, acting crazier every day. He was starting to become volatile and dangerous, threatening the others in the group, putting us in bad situations. First couple of times I knocked him out when he had one of his sprees, but one night he held a gun to his daughter’s head because he was convinced she was a walker posing as a human. I broke his neck before he could shoot.

“Third was a kid I wanted to recruit for Hilltop. Found him on a supply run hiding in a 7-Eleven office. Name was Zach, he got separated from his group a week before and had been hiding in that office. He nearly cried with relief when I told him to come back to Hilltop with me. But we ran into a small group of dead ones on our way which I thought we could take easily with two people. Turns out Zach exaggerated how well he could fight and he got bit. He couldn’t bring himself to end it, but he was terrified he’d turn into a walker. So I ended it.”

He hasn’t looked at Carol while he spoke, but he does now. She sees pain in his eyes. Killing is nothing that comes natural to him. Not like it does to her. It’s oddly soothing that some still care about every life they’ve taken.

“Do you regret it?” she asks. She doesn’t want to offer empty words about people she’s never met and decisions that can’t be reversed. But she wants to know how others deal with the burden.

“No,” Jesus says and Carol can’t detect any doubt in his tone. “I wish it wouldn’t have been necessary, but sadly that’s how the world operates today. It’s disheartening when so many decisions you make these days vary between bad and worse. That’s why I want Hilltop and Alexandria to succeed: we all need something good in our lives and a safe home within a community – that is good.”

This brand of optimism, Carol misses. She doesn’t dare hope she can have it back. The impending fight with The Saviors, it hangs over her head like a cloud. Can she still take up a weapon and kill? At the moment it seems impossible.

“Hilltop is lucky to have you,” Carol says and means it. Jesus is the one who works relentlessly on establishing trust between the two communities. Something that should be their leader’s job, but the man seems reluctant to disturb the status quo. Maggie thinks Gregory is useless and Jesus appears to think the same, but at least he’s no maniac like the Governor. Useless they can handle.

“They’re good people,” Jesus hums and offers Carol his water bottle. “As are you folks.”

“You sure?” Carol takes a sip, the lukewarm water still refreshing in the midday heat. “You don’t know us that well yet.”

“Call me naive, but I still believe there are good people out there,” Jesus says. “Usually I can trust my instincts and they tell me I made the right choice with you. I haven’t been able to really get to know everybody yet, but so far, none of you have done anything to dissuade me.”

If that isn’t an in, Carol doesn’t know what is. “It looks like you and Daryl had a falling out.”

Jesus shifts uncomfortably. “I know you guys are close. Did he say anything?”

“Does Daryl look like the type to share?” Carol retorts.

“Not really,” Jesus chuckles.

“But I know Daryl,” Carol says and looks around if she can spot Daryl somewhere. She finds him perched on top of the wall, rifle in a loose grip at his side while he keeps watch. Glenn is with him, probably striking up a one-sided conversation. Glenn starts to talk a lot if he’s nervous – Maggie’s pregnancy, the fight with The Saviors, the unclear future lie all heavily on his mind. Daryl has been tense as well, but unlike Glenn, Daryl grows even quieter under pressure.

“You two spent a lot of time together lately and now you run in the other direction when you see each other,” Carol explains. “Daryl nearly bit my head off when I asked him about it, so I think I’m entitled to worry a little.”

“You think I did something?” Jesus asks in a hesitant tone.

“I didn’t say that,” Carol says and makes a bright smile appear on her face.

Jesus looks downright uncomfortable now. “Did anyone ever tell you that it’s hella scary when you smile like that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Carol’s smile doesn’t waver.

Jesus sighs. “Look, I don’t know if I did something. Maybe. If I did, it wasn’t on purpose, but I figured I should give him some space.”

“What happened?”

Instead of answering, Jesus fidgets.

“I don’t actually plan on poisoning you just yet,” Carol says in a dry tone. “Maybe I can help. Unless you really did something to hurt him – then I might change my mind about the poisoning.”

“That’s less reassuring than you think,” Jesus says.

“Jesus.” Carol’s tone brooks no argument.

“Fine,” Jesus relents.

Jesus pulls a face and stalls a little longer, plays with the end of his right shoelace before he looks at Carol for a moment. Then he looks back into the distance and takes a deep breath.

“I flirted with him a bit because he’s my type. It was fun and he was so easily flustered, but he didn’t seem to mind. He does all that posturing, but he could have just beat me into the ground and be done with it if he really minded. Then we spent so much time together…I wasn’t just flirting for fun anymore, I really liked him. And a while back in the woods, we had a moment where I thought that maybe, he feels the same. But I bungled it somehow. He got angry and walked off.”

Carol doesn’t press for what that ‘moment’ was exactly; it doesn’t matter. Intimacy, it isn’t something Daryl does well. Daryl finds purpose in having people to care for, yet he’s terrified when he’s confronted with the reality of actually caring for someone. He never realises it in small doses, it always smacks him right over the head. And then he runs. Because caring makes you vulnerable and Daryl hates his vulnerability. Carol knows that feeling – the desperate wish to never be victimised again so easily hardens you.

“It’s not my place to speak about Daryl’s past,” Carol begins, searching for the right words. How do you explain a life like Daryl had, like Carol herself had, without sharing too much? Without making it look like you’re asking for sympathy? “But he hasn’t had many good people in his life before. He was like a wild animal when we first met him and his brother. Daryl calmed down, became part of the family, but as you may have noticed, he’s not terribly good at dealing with emotions. We had some deaths in the group he took very hard and blames himself for.”

Dale. Merle. Beth. Sophia. Daryl never said as much, but Carol knows Daryl thinks he should have gotten to Dale faster, make more of an effort to get Merle to leave the Governor, that it’s his fault Beth got kidnapped and that he ought to have tracked Sophia sooner. No one else would think of blaming Daryl for these deaths and Carol is still grateful for the lengths Daryl went to trying to find Sophia. She couldn’t have asked for more.

“He’s got a good heart,” Jesus says after a few heartbeats of silence.

“Yes,” Carol agrees. “So be careful with it.”

“Or else you’ll poison me?”

“Oh, I can do much worse than that,” Carol says in that tone that doesn’t let on whether she’s joking or not. She hasn’t decided yet if she is.

Jesus snorts, but he looks just unsettled enough to keep on his toes. Good.

“Understood, ma’am.”

Chapter Text

Jesus has honest to god no idea how it happens that he now runs into Daryl at every turn. All of a sudden, Daryl’s become Maggie’s chauffeur-slash-bodyguard on her trips to Hilltop. Rick made the decision to send Daryl instead of Glenn, claiming that the bike needs less petrol and is faster and more agile in a sticky situation. Putting a pregnant woman on a bike doesn’t strike Jesus as a safe option, though in a world like this driving a bike without a helmet is probably farther down on the list of health hazards than it used to be. Maggie doesn’t seem to mind the switch and keeps Daryl close when she’s visiting, making him stay when she’s talking to Gregory and Jesus – she wants him to take more of an active role like he had in the prison, she says. Jesus has no idea what the prison thing is about and bites his tongue. Daryl doesn’t look happy to be stuck in a room with Jesus, but can’t refuse Maggie. Jesus understands that. He wouldn’t want to get on Maggie’s bad side either.

Daryl mostly ignores Jesus unless he has no other choice. He answers when Jesus directly addresses him, but remains otherwise stoic and brooding. Jesus doesn’t even dare attempt apologising for that night in the woods. His instincts tell him it wouldn’t be appreciated – particularly when he doesn’t even know yet what or if he did anything wrong. His conversation with Carol a while back gave him the idea that the situation was what got Daryl so wound up and not what Jesus had done in itself. Many are scared of intimacy these days; it makes you vulnerable and being vulnerable can get you killed. And that’s probably not the only demon Daryl is grappling with.

The arrow Jesus brought back from the woods still rests on his desk, distracting him every time he looks at it. Jesus is half-convinced it’s silently mocking him and casting judgement.

At a community meeting, after everyone has asserted that Alexandria’s and Hilltop’s joint efforts benefit both groups, Carol brings up the idea of joining forces on supply runs. So far, that’s largely been Alexandria’s specialty, Hilltop tending to graze within a radius of a couple miles. Jesus is the only one to hike past the twenty mile mark. It would be good for others to learn. There’s the very real possibility – despite Jesus’ skill and luck so far – that he could be pushing daisies within the blink of an eye on any given day. It’s stupid to rely on a single person like Hilltop does on him.

They propose a few teams of people, three to five to a group, adding even some of Hilltop’s older kids to the mix so they can learn from the ground up and be proficient in a few years.

“Daryl and Jesus should team up,” Carol suggests and adds their names to the list with a flourish.

Daryl looks murderous. If thunderclouds could spontaneously appear above a person’s head, there would be one rumbling right over Daryl. And he doesn’t give Carol the stink eye, but levels a glare at Jesus as if he’d been the one to speak. Jesus resists the urge to slink under the table and hide there for a bit.

“Why?” Daryl hisses, at Carol this time.

“You work well together and you work best in a small group,” Carol explains, not backing down from Daryl’s demeanor. “Both of you rely on stealth and you’re fast. You’d cover a lot of ground in a few days without hangers-on.”

Right now, Jesus worries less about the potential square footage of ground and more about being put into the ground by Daryl.

“She’s right,” Rick says and scratches his beard while he circles names on the list with brightly coloured crayons he must have pilfered from Judith’s toy box.

“Come on,” Daryl complains, almost whines.

“Name one good reason why not,” Michonne pipes in, polishing her katana at the other end of the table.

“‘Cause he’s a prick,” Daryl argues, but it must sound weak to his own ears because he crosses his arms before his chest and sinks deeper into his chair with all the sullen grace of a toddler.

“So are you,” Michonne teases with a quirk of her mouth.

“Asshole,” Daryl grumbles.

“Love you too,” she retorts and both smirk for a moment.

Rick shakes his head, deciding not to comment on it and turns his attention to Jesus. “What do you say?”

“I don’t mind,” Jesus says and shrugs. He can feel Daryl staring a hole into the side of his head and shifts in his chair. If he protested the others would get curious. Jesus can talk a mile a minute if he has to, but he’d rather not test it while in range of Daryl’s crossbow.

“That’s settled then,” Rick says and Daryl groans in protest in the background.

Well, that’s going to be fun.

Jesus wonders what he’s done to Carol to deserve her setting him up for his own funeral. Together with Maggie, she plots a three-day-roundtrip for Daryl and him after they made Jesus point out safe locations to spend a night at.

Now he has got an old map coloured with red marker pointing out places to scout for food, medical supplies and any other knickknacks they always seem to run out of: toothpaste, socks, shoelaces, nails and the like. One of the safe houses Jesus has used before lies in comfortable distance to all of the places and will allow them to scout during the day and lie low during the night. In addition to the map, Jesus receives a new handgun from Alexandria’s armoury and a travelling companion whose face continues to show an expression of having had a handful of sour grapes and lemons for breakfast.

Carol and Maggie help Jesus pack provisions onto the back of the battered red Ford F-250 they were assigned while Daryl fills the tank, still tense and just about ready to punch someone. Probably Jesus if he had free choice.

“If he shoots me while we’re out there, I’ll come back and haunt you,” Jesus threatens and points at Carol who radiates innocence.

“He’ll come ‘round,” Maggie chimes in and hands him two gallons of water.

“You too?” Jesus sighs and stashes the plastic containers in a corner. They still need some blankets, torches and batteries. Maybe some rope too. More plastic sheets to cover their haul, if they’ve got it.

“Word travels fast,” Carol hums as if she’s had nothing to do with that travelling.

“Lovely,” Jesus grumbles and just manages to catch one of the empty jerrycans that Daryl has carelessly thrown into his general direction and nearly hit him in the head with. Which was probably not unintended.

Good start.

In the end it isn’t quite as bad as Jesus has feared. The drive is terse silence on their part, only interrupted by Jesus announcing turns he’s reading off the map. Daryl has procured a Black Sabbath CD somewhere and plays it on repeat – which is fine by Jesus. Ozzy crooning ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ puts Daryl in a slightly less sour mood; he even taps the drum beat on the steering wheel. Jesus hums along under his breath, remembering his father’s prized collection of classic rock vinyls and how he’d introduced his favourite albums to Jesus on Sunday nights. That album was one of the very first his father had shown him.

“You’ve got better taste in music than Rick,” Jesus offers in an attempt at conversation, thinking back to the drivel that Rick played when Jesus was in the car with them for the first time, pretending to be knocked out.

“Everybody’s got better taste ’n Rick,” Daryl grunts in response.

“Not so sure about that,” Jesus pondered. “We have this one guy Frank, and he’s really into techno…”

Daryl looks downright offended by the very idea of techno and people liking it. “A’right, you win.”

“Huzzah,” Jesus chuckles, then adds, “take the next exit.”

The first town they hit is barely large enough to be called that. At its entrance a plaque covered in grime and rust announces its number of inhabitants at formerly 472. It’s been ransacked before – windows are smashed, vending machine glass lies broken and scattered, car doors gape wide open. Jesus hopes that the town was razed in the early days, when people didn’t yet think of toothpaste and socks as rare commodities to be hoarded.

Walkers are few and far between, so they decide to split up and grab whatever is useful, each of them armed with a canvas backpack and a machete. Jesus spends hours clambering through broken windows into the former homes of the inhabitants. He rifles through cupboards and wardrobes and takes anything that is remotely useful. Tools, pens, cutlery, glasses, packets of instant coffee, a few school books. In the fifth house, he takes a small torch from the breast pocket of the poor bastard who probably used to live in the place. Based on the shotgun at his feet and the reddish brown splatter against the floral wallpaper behind him, Jesus surmises he took care of himself. The body has rotten almost down to the bones and there’s a gaping hole where the back of his skull used to be. At least he’s been lucky or smart enough to shoot himself in the head. Jesus vehemently doesn’t look at the blood-stained family picture hanging behind the body while he rifles through the man’s other pockets. All he finds is half a pack of menthol cigarettes; not what Daryl usually smokes, but he might appreciate them either way. It’s not like you can just stroll down to the petrol station these days and pick and choose.

He meets Daryl who is packed with similar loot back at the truck, stashing the items under the cover of the bed and handing the cigarettes to Daryl. The man scoffs at the ‘menthol’ on the label, but lights one regardless.

The town being pretty much picked clean already, they decide to move on after siphoning petrol from a few vehicles. Daryl drives again, giving Jesus time to scribble down some notes about the town and its state and whether it would make sense to come back.

They rifle through the second town until the sun almost dips behind the horizon, casting the dilapidated buildings in a deep orange glow. Jesus has a feeling it might be raining later, the air hangs heavy and saturated over them and the clouds have been turning greyer as the afternoon went on. As has Daryl’s mood because the second town too hasn’t had many useful items left and more than once he’s muttered about the truck full of good stuff now sitting at the bottom of a lake. As if Jesus had done it on purpose and wasn’t just as upset about the loss. He bites his tongue though, not keen on upsetting their grudging equilibrium any more.

“Let’s scram before any more of them decomposing bastards turn up,” Daryl grumbles and wrenches the truck door open. With the sun setting, more and more walkers have turned up. Not yet enough to be dangerous, but the numbers are starting to ask for guns and they want to use them as little as possible.

“Agreed,” Jesus says and climbs into the passenger seat. “Back to the interstate and then south west. I reckon we’re about four hours from the safe house.”

In the end it’s four and a half hours, not counting the time they need to hide the truck in the thick of the woods so it won’t be visible from the road. You can’t drive all the way to the house and they’ll have to walk through the thicket for another mile or so.

If their relationship were in any better state, Jesus would consider being cooped up with Daryl for a whole night a chance. Before the debacle in the woods, Jesus had been hoping to get Daryl to himself in a small space for a few hours. Now he’s more worried about getting an arrow to the ass if he says anything to annoy Daryl.

“If we cut through the forest here,” Jesus says and points west, “we’ll get to a path to the house.”

“And no one else found that thing yet?” Daryl shoves two bottles of water and a box of ammo into his pack.

“Not the last couple times I used it,” Jesus says with a shrug and fishes for his torch. “Been a while since I was there, so that could have changed, but I put up a few precautions so we’ll be able to see if anyone got in.”

If the house is compromised they’ll have to sleep in the car after all. Jesus doesn’t relish going back through the forest in the night. It’s already dark and while the forest isn’t overrun, it’s not entirely safe either. Having a walker take a chunk out of your calf because you weren’t able to see them in the dark isn’t the way he wants to leave this world. He’d like it to have a little more panache than that. Go out with a bang.

“C’mon then, we ain’t got all night,” Daryl grumbles and pushes Jesus towards the forest with the impatience of an irritated parent.

Daryl doesn’t speak much during their walk through their forest, keeping his crossbow ready to shoot at a moment’s notice while Jesus lights their way with a torch, hand resting on the handle of his hunting knife. Jesus knows he should pay more attention to their surroundings than he does to Daryl, but today he’s aware of the faint movement of Daryl’s leather vest, every fall of his heavy boots and each drag he takes on a cigarette. It’s distracting as hell.

Jesus is so focused on Daryl next to him, shoving aside branches while they make their way to the little cabin, that a loud rustling from a bush nearby takes him by surprise. So much that he shrinks back, expecting a rotting hand to claw at his ankle. Jesus stumbles back, pulling his knife from its sheath. It won't come out smoothly, stuck at an angle in the leather. He tears at the handle, but there's a thick tree root protruding from the ground in a gnarly coil. The root hits his heels and Jesus goes down in a heap, crumpling to the forest floor with an undignified yelp.

He hears an arrow zipping through the air, hitting something soft.

“Fuck,” Jesus groans and clambers into an upright position. Another root hit him square in the back on his way down.

His muscles are throbbing from the impact and he rubs the spot gingerly.

“The hell?” Daryl snorts and for a moment Jesus thinks he must have hit his head, because in the pale moonlight and the light from the torch that now lies next to Jesus on the floor, Daryl’s shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughter.

“Is the walker dead?” Jesus mumbles, attempting to divert the conversation. The heat in the tips of his ears makes him grateful that it's dark because his face will be beet red with embarrassment. Clumsiness isn’t usually in his repertoire. Go figure that he becomes an uncoordinated mess in front of the guy he desperately wants to look good for.

“Walker?” Jesus can practicality hear Daryl smirk as the man bends down to the ground to pick up the remains of what he just shot.

“...a badger?” Jesus groans when he recognises the silhouette with the arrow still stuck in it.

Can the ground please open up and swallow him whole? He just made a complete arse of himself.

“That's dinner sorted,” Daryl says and still sounds far too amused.

“Any chance you won't tell everybody I tripped over my own feet and screamed like a little girl?”

“Nope,” Daryl says and extends his hand to help him get up. The warmth of Daryl’s skin seeps through Jesus’s gloves and he has to do all he can to ignore the flexing of Daryl’s biceps. Thank god it’s dark and Daryl won’t see him staring. The things you could do with so much upper body strength…

“Figures,” Jesus sighs and reluctantly lets go of Daryl’s grip.

He pats down his clothes and picks up the torch and knife he dropped, shoving it back into his belt. The spot on his back where he hit the root is still protesting and Jesus figures he’ll have a nice black-and-blue bruise there tomorrow – if he doesn’t die of embarrassment first.

“You alright?” Daryl asks and flashes his torch at Jesus’ face.

“Only mortified by my clumsiness,” Jesus says and shows Daryl a lopsided smile. “Let’s get to the safe house.”

“Before we run into any more badgers?” Daryl teases and falls into step behind him.

“Shut up,” Jesus grumbles.

Something has shifted in the atmosphere, Jesus notices as they push aside more branches and weave along a path that has been long since overgrown. It’s like the cloud of tension that hung over their interactions has dissipated, or at least grown lighter. Daryl’s shoulders don’t seem as hunched and his face isn’t as pinched with apprehension.

They run into two actual walkers five minutes later – Daryl puts an arrow between their eyes before Jesus can so much as lift his knife.

“We don’ want ya to fall again, right?” Daryl says as he pulls the arrows from the heads and Jesus can hear the smugness.

“You’ll never let me live that down, will you?” Jesus snorts. He doesn’t mind though. He’d rather Daryl makes fun of him than not talk to him at all.

The trodden path ends at an old mobile home, long since abandoned by its previous owner. Nature has been doing its part in reclaiming it, woodbine and ivy crawling up the powder blue walls and the roof. Jesus lets it do its work because it makes the place harder to see from the distance. When he first came across it, on one of his first runs for Hilltop, it was still free of plants and dirt. The previous owner had built a rudimentary barrier against the dead, one that Jesus extended a bit whenever he stayed the night. It’s a good place to rest when the trip back to Hilltop would have been too dangerous in the dark. There’s a few canned goods stashed away in a cupboard, it’s clean inside and no one’s died in it. Jesus thinks the owner must have abandoned the place – or gone out and never made it back.

“You call that a safe house?”

“Safer than sleeping out in the open,” Jesus says with a shrug and holds the door open.

Daryl looks skeptical, but steps inside after a moment of hesitation. Jesus hears the dead badger land on the kitchenette with a heavy thud and he hopes Daryl won’t start gutting it inside the trailer. He’s got no real desire to have badger intestines assault his senses for the rest of the night.

“I’ll get a fire going,” Jesus says just as he hears the squelching sound of a knife slicing through flesh. Peachy.

“Keep it small.”

“Not my first rodeo, Daryl,” Jesus rebuffs him in a humorous tone and begins gathering firewood.

Badger isn’t the finest piece of meat but if you dump enough of the salt, pepper and dried mediterranean herb mix from the kitchen cupboard on it, it becomes palatable.

Somebody should have told Jesus five years ago that soon, he’ll be weighing the relative merits of squirrel meat as opposed to badger – he’d have found it hilarious. And gross, probably.

“Do you like badger?” Jesus can’t help but ask because Daryl is tearing into his piece like it’s prime rib.

“‘S food,” Daryl mumbles between bites, licking the juices off his fingers which makes Jesus momentarily lose his train of thought. If Daryl weren’t the least suave man he knew Jesus would think he’s doing it on purpose.

He clears his throat and tears his gaze away from Daryl sucking his fingers down to his badger steak. “Well, yes,” he says and pulls another piece from the bone. “Not great food, though.”

“Ain’t picky,” Daryl says and shrugs.

“Guess that helps,” Jesus sighs and shoves another piece into his mouth. His dad used to complain how hard it was to get him to try anything as a kid. Jesus grew out of that eventually, but in retrospect, he was pretty fussy as an adult, too.

He looked at the badger pelt thrown over one of the higher branches of a nearby fir. Daryl skinned the animal and washed off the blood. Gary back at Hilltop knows about tanning and pelts and asked they bring some back for him if they got their hands on any.

“We’re crossin’ that river tomorrow,” Daryl says and picks another piece of badger off the spit over the fire. “Maybe we can get ourselves a duck.”

“Mh, duck would be nice,” Jesus hums and goes back to his badger.

Just as the two of them finished off their meal, a drizzle starts to come down, dampening their clothes and hair. The awning of the trailer keeps most of it at bay until the drizzle grows into a downpour, pelting through the branches and leaves of the surrounding trees and forces them inside. Daryl kicks some dirt onto the dying embers of the campfire before he pulls the door closed and secures the latch. Jesus has already disappeared into the back, shrugging off his damp coat and hanging it onto one of the hooks next to the small bathroom. In the bedroom he steals a wool cardigan from the wardrobe to starve off the cold that’s starting to settle in his bones. The cardigan is at least two sizes too big and a horrible hunter green that his grandpa would have loved. A musty smell emanates from the piece, but it’s warm and most importantly, dry. From the bed, he grabs a blanket that he shoves into Daryl’s hands back in the kitchen.

“No use in you catching a cold,” Jesus says and puts on a stern tone.

Daryl’s eyes are narrowed as if he’s trying to decide whether he should argue, but appears to decide against it and takes the blanket to wrap it around his shoulders.

“Should’ve boiled some water,” Jesus grumbles and sits down at the creaking table. “There’s instant coffee in the cupboard.”

They’re sitting across from each other, each taking up one of the small benches with the horrible aquamarine velvet upholstery. The narrow table separates them by a hand’s width, their knees almost touching under the tabletop.

Daryl puts a cigarette between his lips and takes his lighter, flipping the lid open. The flame illuminates his face for a moment, casting shadows over Daryl’s tired face. He looks pensive, almost unsure for a moment before flicking the lid shut again with a sharp metallic click.

“You can smoke, it doesn’t bother me,” Jesus offers.

It might help get rid of the badger intestine stench. The plastic kitchen countertop is still smeared with blood and god knows what else. Most of the insides are in a plastic bag in the sink to avoid drawing walkers outside. They’ll get rid of them tomorrow, lose them somewhere along the way. Jesus would rather they lose them right now.

“‘s not that,” Daryl mumbles, cigarette still stuck between his lips.

“Raining cats and dogs outside – I wouldn’t recommend stepping out for a smoke break,” Jesus says and listens to the rain falling on the roof in a staccato pattern.

Daryl grunts and takes the cigarette from his mouth, rolling it between his fingers before tapping the filter on the PVC table between them.

“Don’t like smokin’ in trailers,” Daryl mutters, so quiet that Jesus isn’t sure Daryl actually meant for him to hear.

“Why’s that?”

Jesus has seen Daryl smoke inside buildings countless times. He didn’t care when Gregory bristled at Daryl smoking inside the Hilltop mansion, he smokes in the Alexandria buildings, on runs and on one memorable occasion inside the sewers of a small town while smelly water curled around his ankles.

“‘s stupid,” Daryl says and looks outside the window they’re both smushed against.

“Try me.” Jesus keeps his tone gentle, studying Daryl’s frown.

Daryl hesitates, throws Jesus a quick glance, then looks back out the window.

“My ma,” he begins and his frown grows deeper. “Fell asleep with a cig in our trailer. Whole thing went up in flames an’ killed her.”

“Shit,” Jesus breathes. “I’m sorry.”

Daryl shrugs. “Drunk off her ass probably.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jesus says and resists the urge to grab Daryl’s hand. “How old were you?”

“Six,” Daryl says, resolutely not looking at Jesus.

Jesus’ heart clenches in sympathy. He used to be close to both of his parents, up until the end. It’s his biggest regret that he never found out what happened to them. Their house was empty when Jesus made it there and he had to leave D.C. soon after.

“Told ya it’s stupid,” Daryl mutters, still tapping the filter onto the table.

“It’s not stupid,” Jesus retorts.

“My brother used ta laugh at me cause I wouldn’t smoke inside our place,” Daryl says and lies the cigarette down on the table where it rolls up against the water bottle Jesus put there a while back.

“Then your brother’s an ass,” Jesus says with finality and shrugs.

A gruff chuckle escapes Daryl, though it’s mostly humourless. “Yeah, he was.”

It’s a spontaneous reaction, but Jesus bridges the gap between their legs, pressing his right leg against the inside of Daryl’s left. After a few heartbeats, so light it’s barely there, Daryl presses back.

Outside, the rain is starting to let up.

Chapter Text

Day two of their round trip is thankfully more successful, even if they don’t hit the jackpot. They find a box full of canned carrots and half a box of canned beans gathering dust in the kitchen of a daycare. There’s even a few soothers and two cartons of formula which is a gift, considering there’s more than one baby on its way at Hilltop and Alexandria.

Daryl stuffs his vest pockets with a few brightly coloured candies he finds in a nearly empty jar on the fridge rather than throwing them in their backpacks. Jesus smiles at that and files the knowledge away – he can imagine this being one of the few things Daryl actually does for himself, taking a few measly sweets and squirreling them away for a rainy evening. After taking two stuffed teddy bears that don’t smell too much like mould they call it a day, Daryl still intent on having duck for dinner.

Hunting ducks takes ages. There’s a reason Jesus would have been terrible at hunting, other than the vegetarianism, and that’s having no patience for lying in grass for what seems like an eternity – just to maybe get lucky. Daryl however can wait motionless for the perfect opportunity. Just when Jesus is about to suggest they open one of those carrot and bean cans for dinner instead before it gets too dark, Daryl aims, shoots and hits. At least Jesus thinks he hit because there’s a squawk and a number of frenzied birds scattering in all directions.

“Hoisin sauce would be great for this,” Jesus says a few hours later when the duck hangs over the fire on a spit, already half eaten. Its juices slowly drip onto the small circle of stones around the logs, sizzling occasionally.

“Hoi-what?”

“It’s a Chinese sauce,” Jesus explains and thinks back to his favourite Chinese place back in D.C. They’d made a smashing Peking duck. “Pretty sweet, goes great with duck. Used to have a lot of duck with that sauce before I went vegetarian.”

“You were a vegetarian?” Daryl asks, eyebrows arched.

Jesus shrugs as he shoves another piece of duck into his mouth. “Yeah. ”

“Never seen the point.”

“I’d love to discuss the ethical, environmental and economical intricacies of vegetarianism with you,” Jesus snorts. “But seeing as it’s pretty redundant these days and I’m munching on a duck, I’ll not get into that.”

“College kids,” Daryl huffs. “Ethical my ass.”

“Excuse me,” Jesus laughs. “I became a vegetarian after college. Which I never finished, I’ll have you know, so don’t call me college kid.”

“Shut up an’ eat, college kid.”

The rest of the trip is mostly uneventful, which is good in terms of safety but bad in terms of loot. Jesus hoped they’d hit upon a figurative gold mine at one place or another, but it’s always small stuff. Which, granted, piles up to a decent loot in the back of their pick up, but it still would have been nice to make that one great find. The one that made all of this seem less like increasingly disheartening work, because one day they will run out of shelves to clear out and Jesus doesn’t like to be reminded of it.

“Ya wanna drive?” Daryl asks and dangles the keys in front of Jesus while Jesus tugs on the cover of the pick up to make sure it’s secure.

“Uhm,” Jesus says, mouth dry. He’s avoided driving so far, Daryl keen on doing it himself and letting Jesus read the map. But Daryl took the second watch during the night and hasn’t slept yet. “Not really, but if you want a nap…”

It’s not like he can’t drive, but he doesn’t do it unless he has to. Even if the years have passed now, it still makes him nervous to get behind the wheel.

Daryl looks surprised for a second, but then shrugs. “Fine, I’ll drive.” He walks over to the driver’s side and unlocks it. “Better that way, I seen ya drive that truck an’ you were zig-zaggin’ all over the place. Worse than Glenn.”

Jesus can’t help but burst into laughter. “Asshole.”

They’re making good time on their way back and even though Daryl has threatened to shoot Jesus if he makes him listen to Bye-Bye-Bye one more time, Jesus has no hole in his skull and the CD is still in the radio. He just had to grab the ‘Best of the 90s’ CD back at the last petrol station they’d stopped at, the promise of N Sync, Backstreet Boys and Fugees was too great to ignore. Daryl muttered something that suspiciously sounded like ‘are you fucking kidding me’ when Breakfast at Tiffany’s started blaring through the speakers (Jesus had to look up the band on the back of the case, it’s one of those one hit wonders no one remembers) but he hasn’t thrown it out the window yet. He even let Jesus sing along to Come As You Are with a minimum of glaring.

About thirty minutes out from Alexandria, they start seeing more walkers. Nothing worrisome, but some get close enough to the road that Jesus can feel his jaw lock up on instinct. Daryl doesn’t slow down, but the road is wide and not cluttered with debris, so he swerves around the few that made it onto the asphalt. Jesus unclenches the hand that has dug into the pocket of his coat.

“Be careful with the walkers,” Jesus implores. “I don’t wanna crash.”

“Huge ass truck like this can take it if we hit somethin’,” Daryl mumbles and unscrews a bottle of water, holding the car on course by jamming his knee under the steering wheel.

“I’d rather not,” Jesus shoots back, resisting the urge to reach out and grab the wheel while Daryl fiddles with the bottle and the radio, paying hardly any attention to the road. They miss a walker by a few inches.

It’s only walkers, Jesus tells himself. Not people. He knows that. Hell, if they got out of the car right now he’d punch through those ugly skulls without a second thought. But there’s no way he could explain this queasy feeling to Daryl, or why his ribcage tightens when they swerve around a pair of uglies, barely missing them. Just because he can’t get over his shitty trauma while there’s an apocalypse on.

“You saw that crash my friends had,” Jesus says, eyes darting to the next pair of walkers on the road. “I’ve no desire to repeat that.”

“They were drivin’ a shitty sedan, wouldn’t wanna hit nobody with that either.”

“Can you at least try and not go GTA on them?”

“Man, I loved rollin’ over those Hare Krishna folks,” Daryls snorts and throws the empty water bottle in the glove compartment.

“Everyone did.” Jesus smiles ruefully, remembering how he used to play the game with the neighbour’s kid – Lenny Cortez, renowned for his wild ginger hair and the gap between his front teeth. Lenny had all the new games, even if they hadn’t been age-appropriate. GTA definitely hadn’t been, but at thirteen playing GTA was the badass thing to do.

“Looks like this is goin’ GTA after all,” Daryl says and points ahead to where a fallen tree and two abandoned cars have created a bottleneck on the road, just wide enough for the truck to pass through. But there’s a set of walkers loitering around it, blocking the narrow passage.

Jesus feels himself going pale. “Let’s just stop and clear them out,” he suggests, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He croaks anyway.

“Ain’t wastin’ bullets or arrows on ‘em,” Daryl grunts. “This thing can take a cow easy, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“Daryl,” Jesus implores, gripping the machete stuffed into the middle console. It’s five, maybe six of them. Jesus could take them alone with the knife, maybe Daryl would actually stop if Jesus could grow a pair, speak up and explain why he’d rather get out of the car and put himself in danger when they have a less dangerous way to go about it. From anyone else’s perspective it’s a no-brainer: you have a big truck, you use that to clean up the obstacle that’s capable of killing you.

Stubborn son of a bitch that Daryl is, he ignores Jesus and all Jesus can do is close his eyes a fraction of a second before they hit the walker blocking the street head on.

Not seeing it doesn’t do shit to keep his ears from ringing with the sound.

The sickening ‘thud’ of a body hitting the bonnet and windshield.

It’s like time got sucked out of the car, everything seems to slow down and magnify tenfold. Daryl’s exclamation of ‘take that you ugly sumbitch’ creeps into his bones and Jesus makes the mistake of opening his eyes to witness Daryl turning on the wipers to remove the reddish-brown walker sludge from the windshield.

He can feel his stomach turning in slow motion.

“Hold on,” Jesus grinds out, fighting against the wave of nausea hitting him with the force of a brick wall.

Daryl looks at him, clearly confused about Jesus’ sudden mood swing.

“Stop the fucking car, Daryl,” Jesus snaps in a tone that doesn’t sound like his own voice. That seems to throw off Daryl enough that he finally pulls over at the side of the road.

Jesus pushes the door open and scrambles out, just in time before the sick feeling in his stomach overcomes him, bile rising in his throat. He expels last night’s dinner and the stale coffee from this morning into the curb, attempting to block the images that threaten to crack through the purple spots dancing behind his eyelids.

“Crap,” he hears Daryl say, but it sounds like it’s coming from a mile away and there’s the wet gurgling of a walker in the distance. Jesus tries to focus on listening to Daryl slamming the car door and driving the machete through a brittle walker skull. It’s a testament to the fuck up in his head that he needs to listen to Daryl taking a head off to ward himself against the images from that night years ago while he dry heaves, nothing left in his stomach.

He takes a second to collect himself, leaning back against the side of the truck, slowly breathing against the receding nausea. Jesus feels more than he sees Daryl hovering nearby, machete at the ready and certainly wondering what the hell is wrong with him. Fair question, just one Jesus isn’t touching with a ten-foot-pole right now.

“Are you..?” Daryl asks, letting the question hang in the air.

Okay? Sick? Crazy? All of the above?

“Let’s just go,” Jesus fends him off and climbs back into the car with unsteady feet and shaking hands. He avoids looking at the windshield dotted with bits of rotten blood and guts and concentrates on the cigarette burn on the dashboard where the grey plastic has melted into a lopsided circle.

“The fuck,” Jesus hears Daryl mutter under his breath as he slides into the driver’s seat again and at the moment, Jesus is grateful for Daryl’s reticence to talk about or prod at somebody’s emotions.

Sinking back into the seat, Jesus tries to focus on his breathing, concentrate on his limbs and how his lungs expand with each intake of breath. Simple meditation technique; one his dad had often used with students. The ball of anxiety is still firmly wedged in his throat, but he keeps a lid on it before it can become a full blown attack. He’s never really learned how to deal with them back when he could have, didn’t think he deserved to. Now he can’t afford to lose his mind.

Daryl doesn’t turn the radio back on, but the heavy silence, punctuated by the rustle of Daryl’s clothes and the hum of the engine, is just as grating.

Chapter Text

Since their return, Jesus has been monosyllabic at best. He provides only a cursory overview over their loot and leaves the bulk of explaining to Daryl. He knows he’s white as a sheet and Aaron looks so concerned while he hauls one of the baskets containing shoes down to the ground, asking if he should fetch Denise to check him over, it makes Jesus feel ill all over again. He claims bad sleep, motion sickness from the long drive or maybe a spot of flu, but that he’ll alright with a full night’s sleep. Daryl doesn’t call him on the obvious bullshit of his excuse and Jesus all but flees from the frown creasing Daryl’s eyebrows and the thin line of his mouth.

It’s not like Jesus will be able to sleep even if he wanted to. He tries showering to help him relax and he lets the hot water pelt on his head so that all he can hear is the murmur of water sluicing down his hair and over his back. For those ten minutes he can drown out what threatens to break to the front, but the nausea comes back as soon as he turns the knob to shut off the water.

This is not a good time for a breakdown, he attempts to chide himself as he sinks onto the couch with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, hair still damp from his shower. Not that there’s ever a good time for a breakdown, particularly in the bloody apocalypse.

Breathing. His father’s recipe for every stressful situation. Conscious breathing, pure and simple. Jesus considers meditation a good thing, but it’s never helped with this situation. The house he’s been granted as a temporary-possibly-long-term-accommodation must have belonged to an avid collector of modern art; originals are mounted on every wall, intended to be eyecatchers and not a mere decorative element. Jesus flicked through the stack of exhibition catalogues the first time he stayed at the place, some of the artists’ names vaguely familiar to him.

From his curled position on the couch he looks straight at a picture of ouroboros, stylised in a simple circle of black ink. A single, broad brushstroke on off-white canvas. Jesus’ father kept a similar print at home in the dining room. Jesus tries to focus on the picture, breathing consciously and slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. A dull thud and a sickening crunch when the head connects with the bonnet and the windshield. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The spiderweb of cracks in the glass and the eerie crumple on the street. In through the nose, out through the mouth. His shaking hands smeared with blood. In through the nose–

“Fuck,” Jesus curses under his breath and sits back up, rubbing a hand across his face. He needs to get a grip. And medication, but the latter is hard to come by these days.

There’s a knock on the door, but before Jesus can tell whoever it is to go away, it opens and Daryl strides in. Of all the times Daryl could take the initiative it has to be today.

“I’m fine,” Jesus says without prompting and resists the urge to hide under the woolen blanket at the end of the sofa.

“Sure,” Daryl snorts, evidently not believing a word of it. “Motion sickness.” Jesus pretty much hears the air quotes and doesn’t try to argue.

“The hell was that out there?” Daryl asks and wanders over to Jesus’ kitchen, rifling through the cabinets until he picks out two glasses.

“Nothing,” Jesus mutters and lets his head fall against the backrest.

“Yeah, right,” Daryl deadpans. “Nothin’ my ass. Killed dozens of dead bastards with your bare hands an’ you freak out when one of ‘em hits the car.”

He comes back over to Jesus, glasses in hand and tells him to budge up. Jesus scoots just enough for Daryl to squeeze in next to him, placing the glasses on the table and reaching into the inside of his vest, producing a sizeable flask of Jägermeister.

“At least drink if ya won’t talk,” Daryl commands and fills their glasses.

“Old wisdom?” Jesus snorts, even though it’s weak.

“Worked for my family,” Daryl says, shrugs and pushes a glass into Jesus’ hands.

“How fitting for you to bring Jägermeister.” Jesus smirks and takes a sip, wishing they had ice to get the stuff really cold. At room temperature it tastes like medicine. Given that it’s acting as medicine for him right now, it’s probably appropriate.

“Huh?”

“It’s German,” Jesus explains, “translates to hunting master.”

“Ya speak German?”

“Nah,” Jesus snorts. “It’s the kind of crap you ask a bartender you’ve seduced in college. Pillow talk is a lot less deep than movies lead us to believe.”

Daryl’s cheeks turn a dusty pink which improves Jesus’ mood in an instant. Flustering Daryl never fails to put him in high spirits. And the way he tries to hide behind his glass is a sight to behold.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Jesus then says, “for behaving so...strange.”

Daryl attempts to shrug it off and swirls the sloshy brown liquor in his glass. “Seen worse.”

They sit in silence for a few moments. It stretches uncomfortably, hanging in the space between them. Half a week spent in a trailer squashed into a tiny booth for most of the nights, the two of them have become used to the close quarters – there’s barely an inch of space between their elbows and if Jesus moved his knee just a bit, he’d bump right into Daryl’s.

“I had a road accident...Before,” Jesus says and he doesn’t have to clarify ‘before’. Everyone says it with a capital B these days.

No one in the apocalypse knows about this, he’s kept it tight under a lid and tries to forget. Limited success. Perhaps he should have taken that damn therapy when there was still therapy to be had.

“You don’t smoke in trailers, I don’t drive if I don’t have to,” Jesus sighs.

“Why?”

Daryl shoots straight, there’s no two ways about it. No delicate reassurances that he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t feel like he can. He’s like a dog with a bone.

“I lied to Carol,” Jesus says with a rueful smile and confusion creeps onto Daryl’s face, not quite understanding where Carol factors into their conversation. And whether he should be offended on her behalf. “A while back, she asked me how many people I’ve killed. I said four.”

The screeching of the brakes, the rubber of the tyres grinding along the asphalt in an attempt to come to a halt. The seatbelt biting into the juncture between neck and chest, pulling tight enough to stop his breath for a second.

“It’s five.”

Daryl remains silent. Jesus wishes his glass had a label he could peel off now. Rubbing labels off beer bottles used to be one of his nervous habits. It gives him a reason not to look at people.

“I made a broad interpretation assuming she was asking about how many I’ve killed since the dead started walking.” Christ, he’s babbling like the idiot that he is. “And that’s four, technically.” Yes, that makes it better. Jesus risks a glance at Daryl whose eyebrows are steadily crawling upwards to disappear behind his fringe.

“Shit, don’t listen to me,” Jesus sighs. “I’m rambling.”

“Nu-uh,” Daryl grunts. “Spit it out.”

Jesus still feels like there’s a seatbelt wrapped around his chest, squeezing his ribcage until he can’t breathe anymore. Crap. Now he’s opened the can, he might as well tip it over and spill.

“Must be about six years now,” he sighs. “Worked at a diner at the time. Late shift whenever they’d give it to me for the extra cash. It really fucked with my sleeping rhythm, but rent and college debt don’t tend to care about that.”

Jesus used to pop sleeping pills at the time to be able to get some shut-eye. Irregular patterns have become his routine now, but back then he really couldn’t handle the fluctuating shifts.

“I was always exhausted as hell after work and still had to drive thirty minutes to get home. Had to keep myself occupied so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. Pitch-black outside that night, couple of busted street lamps and no moon. Blistering idiot that I am, I’m fiddling with the radio, trying to find some decent music and then…”

Slamming the brake, thinking for a hysterical second that he really should have gotten around to renewing them ages ago.

“Stepped onto the street out of nowhere, and I wasn’t fast enough because I wasn’t paying attention.”

The words are bitter on his tongue, and he hears the sickening thud and crunch of something pliant hitting the bonnet of his beat up Ford sedan, crashing into the windshield and the spiderweb of cracks appearing in the glass. Like it happened yesterday, Jesus can recall his brakes screeching with the effort and a dead weight hitting the asphalt. The acrid, burnt smell of the clutch. He doesn’t have the words. Even six years later. Not that Daryl needs all the details to work it out, he’s smart enough.

“Shit,” Daryl mutters and the discomfort flicks over his face, connecting the dots between Jesus’ story and his behaviour that afternoon.

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Jesus snorts despite himself and knocks back the liquor.

Jesus tormented himself with the man he’d hit – James E. Stevenson, 52, a divorced electrician who spent more time at bars than at home because home had been empty since his wife had moved out. Not an alcoholic, but partial to a drink or two. That night, he’d had a few extra, bad day at work. Ernie, the barkeeper and friend had taken Stevenson’s car keys, so he thought he’d walk. Probably hadn’t noticed the car approaching when he’d stumbled onto the street. Jesus pulled information about him where he could and his best friend Jamie had always tried to make him stop hurting himself by finding out more and more about him. Avid collector of toy fire engines, Washington Nationals enthusiast, used to have an old cocker spaniel called Frank who’d died six months before the accident. Jamie tried to console him that at least no children depended on the guy, but that never helped. Jesus still destroyed a life. It doesn’t matter whether that life was lived at its fullest.

“Didn’t get charged with a crime because there wasn’t any gross negligence on my part, but his family tried to sue me in civil court,” Jesus mutters. “Thank god I had insurance and they agreed to settle. Before that I used to make so much fun of my parents for insuring me against every little thing.”

Not that it’d matter now if he’d had to pay the settlement all by himself.

“Now you know the darkest secret of Paul Rovia,” Jesus says and raises his glass. “Congratulations. I’ve never told anyone since the world hit the reset button.”

Daryl looks contemplative, but he doesn’t actually say anything in return. He doesn’t run either even though Jesus dumped the majority of his emotional baggage on him. People tend to get uncomfortable if you do that, it’s why Jesus stopped talking about the accident entirely. The hand-wringing and evasive glances set his teeth on edge.

“And I need at least two more glasses of the stuff to feel less shitty,” Jesus says and nudges Daryl’s thigh with his knee, gesturing with his glass. “So hit me up.”

“If I was any good with this shit I’d tell ya that drinkin’ ain’t the answer,” Daryl mutters and unscrews the Jäger bottle.

“But?”

“I suck at this and drinkin’ was always good enough of an answer for me.”

“At least someone here gets me,” Jesus jokes and takes his refill from Daryl’s hands, draining near half of it in one gulp. “Matching set of screwed up guys.”

“Everybody’s screwed up these days,” Daryl snorts. “You still ain’t half as fucked up as I am.”

Jesus can’t help but laugh at that. “You’re the least fucked up person in this apocalypse. I haven’t met anyone as adapted as you are who hasn’t gone off the deep end.” He’s met his share of survivalists, those who at first glance seem to fit right into the new world with their skill sets but most have become so ruthless and violent that it turns Jesus’ stomach. Daryl certainly has his share of issues, but he’s such a good man and can’t even see it. Jesus wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

“Bullshit,” Daryl mutters and dips his head forward, hiding behind his fringe, but Jesus sees the tips of his ears flush crimson.

“You still blush when I compliment you,” Jesus grins. “I stand by my assessment.”

“Piss off,” Daryl grunts, but it’s playful and he pokes the point of his elbow into Jesus’ ribs.

Jesus swats Daryl’s hand away before he can do something dreadfully unmanly like shrieking. His ribs are ticklish as hell – that secret he’s not giving away yet.

“I’m glad you’re talking to me again,” he says as he settles back against the cushions, draining the rest of his Jägermeister. He’s been wanting to say it since the first night of their trip. The terse silence between them wasn’t right.

“You didn’t talk to me either,” Daryl points out and settles back himself, pressing into Jesus’ side from shoulder to thigh. He feels the warmth of Daryl’s bare arm seep through the sleeve of Jesus’ shirt and for once curses his penchant for long sleeves.

“After that time in the woods I thought you might punch my lights out if I talked to you,” Jesus admits and manages a crooked smile.

“Might’ve,” Daryl mutters under his breath and drums his fingers on the rim of his glass.

“I’m sorry,” Jesus says.

“For what?”

“Making you uncomfortable?” Jesus tries. He still hasn’t quite worked out what tilted the axis so badly that night. He gets that putting the moves on Daryl was at least part of the problem. “I didn’t want to be a pushy asshole.”

“I’m just not good with…” Daryl trails off and waggles his hand in an abortive gesture between them, “relationships an’ all that shit.”

“Look, I know I’m about as delicate as a tank when I flirt with a guy,” Jesus says. “I know I might’ve overwhelmed you a bit. I won’t do it again if you’re not interested. I’d rather be your friend than constantly make you grind your teeth because I keep a running commentary on your shapely ass.”

Daryl snorts into his Jäger despite himself. “My what?”

“Come on, it’s a travesty you hide it under those baggy cargos,” Jesus tuts. “It should be on display, like your biceps. I’d be pawing at that the livelong day if I had half a chance.”

Christ, the Jäger must have finally caught up with his higher brain functions. He has a tendency to overshare when he’s tipsy – it’s why his friends used to take his phone when he was drunk. The drunk-dialling antics got out of hand.

In the meantime, Daryl’s face has gone beet-red again. “Shut up. Ain’t nothing to fawn over.”

“Have you met yourself?” Jesus gasps in mock outrage. Maybe a bit of real outrage.

“You into old, beat-up rednecks?” Daryl scoffs, but his cheeks are still tinged pink.

“Just the one,” Jesus says, a smile tugging at his lips.

“That truck door must’ve hit you harder in the head than I thought,” Daryl grumbles and shakes the glass upside down over his open mouth to gather the last drops.

Jesus gives a short bark of laughter and pushes his own glass onto the coffee table, turning to Daryl and placing a hand carefully next to the open collar of Daryl’s shirt. The fabric is coarse with the kind of wash that came in a bucket with a bar of curd soap. Daryl tenses up, his spine going straight, but it’s not the impression of a coiled spring he gave in the woods. He’s, focussed, assessing the situation.

“No punching, okay?” Jesus asks with a smile. “Tell me to stop if you don’t like it.”

Daryl’s gaze is attentive, curious even. Perhaps a little tense, but not afraid. Jesus leaves him every chance to pull away, scoot off or tell him to quit it.

When Jesus presses his lips to Daryl’s it’s hardly more than a peck and Jesus hears a sharp intake of breath from Daryl, but it’s more surprise than fear and Jesus hasn’t gotten socked in the jaw yet. He counts that as a step forward.

Once he senses Daryl isn’t going to buck him off, Jesus angles his head and moves his lips, deepening the kiss. His pulse thunders in his ears, hoping –praying– for Daryl to respond. To do anything that indicates he’s okay with this.

Jesus feels like fifty pounds drop from his shoulders when Daryl actually responds, or tries to, because he’s hesitant and it’s obvious he hasn’t got much experience kissing people or any knowledge where to put his hands. One awkwardly settles on Jesus’ thigh and really, is that all it takes these days for Jesus to short-circuit? Because he actively has to stop himself from shoving his tongue down Daryl’s throat, straddle him and then have his wicked way with the man. Not that he’d get that far. If he tried, Daryl would definitely punch him.

Jesus withdraws slowly, keeping his fingers curled into the lapel of Daryl’s shirt. There’s a blush tinting Daryl’s face and he’s looking a little dazed – in the good, even if somewhat confused, way.

“That okay?” Jesus asks carefully, prepared to let Daryl go if he decides Jesus has pushed too far again.

Daryl is quiet for a long moment, long enough to make Jesus squirm on the inside. He’s ready to let go of Daryl’s shirt when the man’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. Then, hesitantly, he nods.

“Yeah,” he rasps just above a whisper.

“Can I do it again?” Jesus heart quickens in his throat. This is the tipping point – either Daryl is willing to take the plunge and starts to reconsider some ideas about himself or he’ll slam that door shut and Jesus won’t get another in. Once burnt, twice shy.

Daryl’s jaw tightens, but then he releases a breath and relaxes, just that crucial bit.

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

How do you woo a guy in the apocalypse?

Jesus likes to think romance isn’t as dead as most of the world’s population, but it’s hardly the same as it used to be. It’s not like he can take Daryl for dinner and a drink and bring some flowers. Granted, he has a hard time picturing giving Daryl flowers at all, apocalypse or not. Dead rodents seem more his style.

Privacy is the main issue. In their small, gated communities, it’s noticeable when you start visiting other places more than is strictly necessary. People notice if you start shacking up and if there’s one thing that never changes about humanity is its penchant for gossip. Daryl isn’t ready to be the centre of gossip about the nature of their relationship. He’s barely ready for a relationship.

It’s a good thing Jesus is at least half ninja so he can slip in and out of Daryl’s place without being seen. You’d think he’d be off to clandestine meetings with the amount of cloak-and-dagger he’s doing. They haven’t gone beyond kissing and even those have stayed tame. The kissing still seems to surprise Daryl every time, like he expects Jesus to stop doing it at any given point. It’s not always welcome either – sometimes Daryl will tense up and radiate discomfort enough for Jesus to make a hasty retreat that isn’t supposed to look hasty because Daryl gets irritated when he notices Jesus tiptoeing around him.

Well, it’s not like Jesus expected this to be a walk in the park. He’s pretty much playing hit-the-pot in a minefield hoping not to get blown up.

It’s a minefield alright.

Jesus knows he needs to be careful with touching Daryl out of the blue. He had the bruise on his jaw to attest to that. As they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty and yet he didn’t see a thing. If he had, he wouldn’t have sidled up to Daryl while the man was engrossed in fletching arrows in his kitchen. Knocking isn’t as overrated as Jesus thinks. Creeping up on your hopefully-boyfriend is.

This is how Jesus is now pressing a damp cloth against his face in a valiant attempt to staunch the bleeding while hoping his nose isn’t broken. An elbow to the face hurts like a motherfucker. An impressive amount of blood has dripped onto the light hardwood floor in Daryl’s living room and even if his nose isn’t broken he’ll look like he went a few rounds with a heavyweight boxer. The black eyes will be quite the feature.

Daryl stands behind the kitchen island, hands braced on the counter and glowering at Jesus like he’s trying to light him on fire.

“What?” he asks Daryl, sounding like he’s got a bad cold but there’s only so much to articulate when your nose is clogged with blood.

Daryl wrenches the faucet open as if it’s personally offended him, jerking another piece of cloth under the stream of water, mist gently curling up from the sink. Jesus half-expects to have the balled up wad thrown at his head, but Daryl only pulls the blood stained cloth away from his nose and out of his hand and replaces it with the fresh one. He hesitates for a second while he hovers over Jesus, squints, then puts his fingers on Jesus’ face, gently pressing along the cheekbones and length of his nose. It smarts but there’s no sharp pain of cracked bones shifting in ways they are not supposed to.

“Ain’t broken,” he huffs and leaves the kitchen without another word, leaving Jesus to bleed into the damp bandana.

Jesus still hasn’t quite worked out who Daryl is mad at.

“What happened to your face?” Maggie asks, assessing the damage to his face. Both of his eyes have blue-black rings under them, the colour bleeding into the bridge of his nose (which really isn’t broken, Denise checked).

“Accident,” Jesus says through a mouthful of watery coffee. It’s not even real coffee, just grain coffee they’ve found a whole box of in a garage. Tasting the way it does Jesus can’t say he’s surprised people left it behind.

“Daryl?”

Jesus just glares at her and shoves a few more lists of Hilltop stocks at her over the table. They were trying to figure out how much Hilltop could share with Alexandria without skimming on Negan’s take. He wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of the black eye; Daryl didn’t punch him on purpose.

“What did you do to piss him off?” Maggie asks, injecting some levity into her tone. “Drop your pants?”

“Wish I’d gotten that far,” Jesus mumbles and rolls his eyes.

Maggie is doing the squinting again. “Are you two…?”

“I have no idea,” Jesus snorts. “But I’d like to. Chances are good, I think. Maybe. Daryl has a few things to figure out.”

Maggie releases a low whistle, half surprise, half admiration. “Good for you.”

“The way you’re looking at my face, I’m not sure if you’re serious or mocking me,” Jesus hums and starts doodling nonsense into the margins of the sheet in front of him. If Gregory has a problem with his lists being adorned by flowers and hearts, he should work them out himself.

“Well, I know how Daryl can be,” Maggie says with a lopsided smile. “Bit of both.”

Jesus snorts. “I can accept that. Is this part of my shovel talk?”

“If you want it to be.”

“Carol already made herself very clear on that topic,” Jesus says.

“I’m sure she said all that needs to be said,” Maggie beams. Yes, that is actually as terrifying as Carol beaming. Did they take a seminar for that? “And don’t let Daryl push you around either.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It’s not easy following Maggie’s advice. Jesus’ answer to the mounting tension — since Daryl always looks vaguely ill when he looks at the black eye — is being more careful. If he doesn’t sneak around Daryl, they won’t have this problem, or so he thinks. His problem solving skills aren’t always elegant. Maybe he should have asked Aaron for diplomatic help. Wrangling Daryl seemed about the equivalent of brokering a peace deal in a civil-war torn country. Some of those skills were certainly transferable.

Infiltrating hostile territory without being seen he could do, so maybe constantly banging into doorframes, finding the squeakiest stair and clearing his throat like he has a bad case of bronchitis isn’t, in hindsight, a subtle approach.

“Stop that shit,” Daryl snarls at him when Jesus enters the kitchen with the grace of a stampeding hippo.

“What?”

“Quit playin’ dumb,” Daryl throws back. He should’ve guessed that wouldn't work on Daryl. The man basically has ‘confrontational’ tattooed on his forehead.

It’s funny how you see the argument coming like an impending crash in slow motion and you still don’t step aside. Being the fool that he is, Jesus attempts to stand his ground and ends up surprised he’s run over.

“Stop treatin’ me like I’m made of fuckin’ glass,” Daryl plows on and nearly gets into Jesus’ face. Jesus feels his spine straighten automatically, muscles tensing and his feet shifting for more balance.

He takes a deep breath to disperse some of the tension in his body. “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Jesus says, opting for calm instead of snapping back.

“Like hell you ain’t.”

Somehow, Jesus is not surprised that de-escalation is not Daryl’s style. He puts up a hand, palm outstretched to stop Daryl from advancing any more. “No need to get into my face about how unbreakable you are,” he says.

“Yeah, you don’t seem to be gettin’ the message,” Daryl grunts, his chest just close enough for Jesus’ hand to feel Daryl’s body heat. Daryl’s face is thunderous, he’s wired for a fight -- Jesus has been in enough of them to recognise the body language. Jesus knows he shouldn’t take the bait, but it’s getting ridiculous.

“What message?” Jesus snaps back. “The whole damn problem is that’s there’s no message, Daryl. You stonewall me and then you get pissed I can’t read your mind and do shit wrong. You pitch a fit when I ask about touching you, and then I nearly get my nose broken when I don’t ask first. So excuse me for being careful.”

Jesus hates this feeling, when it creeps from his lizard brain to the fore – the feeling when you tiptoe around the hallways of the group home so one of the older bullies wouldn’t notice you and shake you down for no other reason than boredom. He hasn’t had to creep around like that since he got adopted, and he hadn’t been one of the kids who got picked on all the time, but he’s never quite forgotten the occasions that it happened.

“I ain’t some time bomb,” Daryl hisses and his body language shifts, just a touch. He looks less like he’s itching for a fist fight and more like he’s resigned. “Just stop that bullshit.”

“Or what? You’re gonna sock me in the jaw?” The taunt rolls off his tongue before he even processes what he’s saying. Before he consciously realises that Daryl is pulling himself together. And now he’s the one pushing it. “Been there, done that. It’s not my favourite form of foreplay.”

Good job, Rovia, he thinks as he watches the door rattle in the hinges when Daryl throws it shut behind him, leaving a notable silence behind. Cracking wiseass jokes in a fight is what he does – great tool to put the other on the defensive and derail the argument. But quite possibly not best used around someone with crippling self-esteem issues.

“Idiot,” he groans softly to himself and places his forehead against the kitchen counter where two steaming, abandoned cups loom in an accusatory fashion.

Attempting to find a Daryl that doesn’t want to be found puts the needle and its haystack to shame. Alexandria isn’t that big, but evidently big enough. Tara keeps guard at the entrance and says he hasn’t left, but that only means that he hasn’t left through the gate. Or that Daryl asked her not to tell him – Tara is certainly more loyal to Daryl than to a guy she met just a few weeks ago.

But Daryl stays out of sight and Jesus has no desire to alert the cavalry over this, so he looks for half an hour as inconspicuously as he can and then decides to camp out on his roof where he has a perfect view of Daryl’s place. Thankfully, the sun today isn’t hot enough to roast him on the tiles like a strip of bacon, but it gets pretty toasty. Jesus has been in the habit of camping out on roofs since he was a kid; first in the group home, foster homes and later at his parents’ place. Gave his dads nearly a heart attack more than once. There’s no sign of Daryl until Jesus’ guard shift starts at eight pm and even then, he keeps more of an eye on the movement inside the walls than outside. If Michonne next to him notices, she doesn’t say anything.

There’s only one word to describe the night shift, and that’s ‘boring’. They can’t even use the walkers for shooting practise – ammo conservation and noise levels and all that. Not enough light to read by either. It leaves him with too much time to think because while Michonne is a steady presence, she isn’t exactly one for small talk. Jesus doesn’t want to chew her ear off and there’s every chance she might just toss him off the watch tower to have peace and quiet. Not that he can’t enjoy comfortable silence, but Jesus doesn’t do brooding well. He likes to talk over it, and would be willing to imagine the walker getting sliced up by the barrier down at the wall as a conversation partner, but that might be too far into weirdo territory.

Daryl isn’t to be seen, but it’s not like he could just jump off the watchtower to talk to him even if he were. He doesn’t know what it says that he really wants to talk to Daryl and set things right – with most others he’d think by now that it isn’t worth the headache and move on. He used to do that a lot in the past, never wanting anything to do with relationships that would take effort or investment. Downstairs, Morgan passes by a couple of times on his rounds through the place and stops for a few minutes, but that’s about the most exciting thing to happen all night. Lamps turn on in a few houses throughout the hours, more do as the dark blue of the night sky turns to indigo and bleeds into purple twilight. His eyes itch with the lack of sleep, but relief turns up in the form of Sasha and Abraham who look far too bright-eyed for the time of the day.

There’s some pats on the back, parting words from Michonne and an inappropriate joke courtesy of Abraham before Jesus can finally crawl back towards his place. Halfway through, he changes his mind and walks over to Daryl’s, finding the door unlocked. Not that Daryl ever locks it, but Jesus chooses to interpret this gesture as an invitation.

Daryl’s couch is too comfortable because Jesus must have been out like a light the second his head hit the throw pillows – the fact that he only wakes up when the sun hangs low on the horizon, painting the living room in the orange and red shades of approaching sundown, clues him in that he’s slept forever. And there’s a headless chicken sitting on the coffee table in front of him, and not a metaphorical one. A pile of downs and feathers sits next to it, followed by an ashtray filled halfway with crumpled cigarette butts, one still emitting thin curls of smoke. Jesus hears the door to the back porch click softly, a set of steps that’s not to be mistaken and in wanders Daryl, streaked with dirt and grime and—

“Is that blood?” Jesus thinks he does a good job of not screeching, even as he springs up and grabs Daryl’s blood-soaked forearm for inspection.

“Chicken, you dumbass,” Daryl grouses and pulls his hand away.

Makes sense, considering the dead chicken he woke up to. “Sorry,” Jesus mutters, embarrassed, before he sobers up. “Can we talk?”

Daryl just looks on as if he’s smelling something unpleasant. And it’s not the chicken. “Do I have a choice?”

“Yes,” Jesus sighs, rubbing a hand against his temple. “I’m not going to put a gun to your head, but I think we should.”

Daryl squints at him and Jesus feels weighed and measured. Or Daryl is just looking for the best spot to stick his mean-looking hunting knife. Chances are fifty-fifty on the best of days.

“Start talking then,” he finally grunts and fetches his chicken, wandering over to the kitchen island and gutting the animal without much fanfare. Jesus is secretly grateful they’re not doing the sitting-down type of polite discussion. They’d both just squirm and Jesus would fiddle awkwardly with a strand of his hair while Daryl tried to hide behind his own.

“Look, I get flippant when I’m irritated and I guess that didn’t help when you were already annoyed,” Jesus says and picks up one of the feathers strewn across the coffee table, idly wondering what they could be used for. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”

Daryl makes a sound that has an air of affirmation, which is good, Jesus supposes.

“I don’t want to antagonise you when I do or say annoying shit,” Jesus clarifies. “It’s one of my less endearing qualities. Just tell me when I’m being an asshole or we’re going to be stomping away from each other a lot.”

“Sorry ‘bout the,” Daryl starts and gestures in Jesus’ direction, blade still in hand.”…face.”

“It’s fine, honestly,” Jesus repeats. “Nothing’s broken. I’m gonna look like a raccoon for a week and that’s it.”

“Ain’t fine.”

“That’s my call to make, isn’t it?”

Daryl twirls the tip of his knife in the cutting board and chews on his lower lip, searching for words. “You don’t do that to your…”

“Boyfriend?” Jesus suggests and Daryl makes a bit of a face for a second, then nods. Jesus can’t help but feel giddy about it for a split second.

“Yeah.”

“It’d be great if we could avoid it in the future, but I don’t want you to beat yourself up over it. It was an accident.”

“My old man, he…” Daryl’s chest heaves and his jaw clenches and Daryl has maybe said five sentences total about his family, but Jesus already knows he’d love to roundhouse kick Daddy Dixon’s ass.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Jesus says gently. “Not now. If you want to tell me at some point, I’ll listen.”

“He was an asshole,” Daryl says and it sounds like an assessment he had to carve from inside himself with a rusty spoon. An admission he probably didn’t say out loud often. Or at all. Jesus resented growing up in the system, but some of the kids he’d seen over the years, taken from homes infinitely more miserable, he can only begin to grasp what it would have been like growing up to the mounting realisation that neither your family nor the system gave a shit.

“Doesn’t mean you’re primed to be one, too,” Jesus says, gently.

“Seen ‘im push my ma around,” Daryl mutters, driving the tip of the knife deeper into the wood. “‘N others after her. Tell ‘em he didn’t mean it.”

“You’re not your father.”

“You don’t even know him,” Daryl throws back.

“Fine, I didn’t, but I’ve seen countless kids from shitty homes like yours,” Jesus replies. “And yeah, some of them grew up to inflict what they’ve been through on someone else. That’s not you. You didn’t put an elbow to my face because you needed a power trip.”

Daryl draws a breath, ready to contradict, but Jesus raises a hand to cut off the tirade.

“I’m not saying you don’t have a temper, because hell knows you do,” he continues. “Believe me, if I got the impression you hit me to make yourself feel manly and superior, I’d have snapped your arm in three places before you even finished.”

The silence that follows is heavy, but not oppressive.

“So just trust me when I tell you that you’re not an abusive asshole, because you can rely on me kicking your ass if it ever came to it.”

That one, he can promise. Jesus has no problem standing up to someone, no matter who they are.

“Paul,” Daryl says after some more pregnant silence and Jesus looks up. “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Jesus smiles, relieved. “You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you use my name.”

Daryl scoffs. “Jesus is fucking ridiculous.”

“So hurtful, Dixon,” Jesus chides and can’t stop a grin from forming on his face. “Does that mean I lose loving nicknames such as ‘hippie freak’, ‘ninja boy’ and ‘prick’, too?”

“Fuck off.” An endearment, basically.

“Ray of sunshine, is what you are,” Jesus says and shakes his head. “I’m just ribbing you, I don’t care whether people call me Jesus or Paul.” He pauses for a moment, before he decides to share: “I used to hate my name, you know?”

“What’s so bad about Paul?”

“Nothing, really. It’s the name I got at the orphanage and I was bitter for a long time that my birth mother dumped me there without a name or birthdate. Catholic orphanage, so everybody who didn’t have a name got one from a saint. Doctor carbondated me, the nuns added a generic last name and so I became Paul Monroe, born on August 25th 1983, probably.

“Monroe?”

“Changed to Rovia after the adoption.” Jesus shrugs. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re damn young.” Daryl is studying him like he’s only just now realised Jesus is younger than him and is now searching for giveaways. Jesus has always looked young. Before the end of the world, he still got carded on the regular.

“Oh, come on, you can’t be that much older. Spill.”

“‘72.”

Jesus almost has to laugh. “Eleven years isn’t robbing the cradle.”

“If ya say so,” Daryl says but doesn’t sound convinced.

“When I was sixteen, I tried to go out with a thirty-seven year old guy -- that was robbing the cradle. And my idea of teenage rebellion. Needless to say, my parents didn’t appreciate it.”

“At least they cared.”

Jesus has no idea what to say to that. It’s another one of those awkward moments where they both pretend they don’t know what Daryl is talking about. He hopes one day Daryl won’t feel the need to hide it from him anymore. And that a biter chewed the old man’s face off. “They did,” he finally agrees. “I got lucky with them.”

“When were you adopted?”

Jesus knows a diversion tactic when he sees one, but he doesn’t want to call Daryl on this one.

“At twelve,” he answers. “Goddamn miracle. Most don’t get adopted anymore at that age; you just wait to get handed from foster family to group home to foster family until you’re eighteen and can finally get the hell out.”

“That bad?”

“No, it was okay, for the most part,” Jesus says and shrugs. “Some places were better than others. Helped that I never knew any different until the adoption. I got lucky, considering how crappy the system was. And then I suddenly had my own room and no bullies trying to push me down the stairs. But that’s also when I started with Jiu Jitsu and Taekwondo, so they’d have been out of luck anyway. ”

At the mention of bullies, Daryl looks guilty again, chewing on his thumb.

“Look, whatever it is you’re worried about, we can work it out -- try to, at the very least,” Jesus implores. “Just please don’t run off again and vanish off the face of the earth.”

Daryl watches him from his space behind the kitchen counter, exchanging his thumb for his lower lip. Jesus feels as dissected as the chicken carcass lying before Daryl. It’s near imperceptible, but Daryl nods.

“Good,” Jesus says. He feels about a ton lighter now. “Now I demand to get half of whatever dinner you were going to cook up with that chicken.”

“Start helpin’ then,” Daryl shoots back and Jesus is willing to bet there’s something approaching a smile playing on Daryl’s features.

“You going out again?” Jesus asks as Daryl straddles his bike, fumbling with the ignition.

“Problem?” Daryl throws back and Jesus wrestles with the urge to become defensive. No use and only playing into Daryl’s mindset that Jesus is regretting the whole thing already, nevermind what he’s said last night about making things work.

Jesus sighs. “Worried,” he says. “There’s still Saviors out there and I’m sure they’d love a chance at taking you down.”

“Let ‘em try,” Daryl grumbles and secures a gun to his belt.

“I’d rather not,” Jesus says and pulls a face.

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know that,” Jesus sighs and puts a hand on Daryl’s forearm, grasping lightly. “It doesn’t make you invincible and I don’t want anything happening to you. Don’t make me go to Pasta Night alone.”

Aaron came up to Jesus this morning while he basked in the early sun with some peppermint tea, inviting him and Daryl over for Pasta Night. Which is a thing Aaron and Eric do, apparently. Jesus made a feeble attempt at fencing it off, why the two of us?, but Aaron had only smirked and said oh please. Jesus at least had the decency to flush, but said nothing further to incriminate himself.

Daryl can’t seem to help snorting at Jesus’ plea. “Fine,” he concedes. He seems to be okay with Aaron and Eric knowing, maybe guesses they’ve come to some conclusions already. Jesus knows Daryl trusts them, and sort-of-coming-out to a gay couple is a good way to test the waters. See how he feels about making that statement.

Jesus glances around, checking if anyone’s in their line of sight. Gabriel stands guard up on the wall but his back is turned. In one of the houses down the street somebody’s sitting on the porch - Rosita, maybe, but far enough away that you’d need binoculars to really see them up here.

He presses his lips to Daryl’s --just a quick peck-- and gets a garbled squawk in return.

“Thank you,” Jesus chuckles and watches Daryl flush. “Be safe.”

“Fuck off,” Daryl grumbles without any heat behind it and starts the bike.

There is a little bit of swagger in his step after he’s seen Daryl off. Went better than he expected, though if he had to guess, Jesus would say Daryl tried to be on his best behaviour after yesterday. He even offers to help with chopping wood, a task he usually avoids at all costs and splits, carries and stacks logs for a few hours, taking his mind off Daryl wandering outside by his lonesome. Clucking like a mother hen already, Jesus thinks. Daryl can take care of himself, has done so long before they met.

It doesn’t quite stop the mini-heart attack he gets when Gabriel starts calling for him from the top of the wall, motioning in a wide arc for him to come over. As he climbs the ladder he wonders what the hell is so important to see.

“They say they’re here to see you,” Gabriel says and Jesus notices Gabriel’s grip on the rifle, prepared to shoot on a second’s notice.

“Who?” Jesus asks, breathless from climbing at breakneck speed and peeks over the top of the metal sheets that make up Alexandria’s border.

“Hi Jesus,” a voice rises up to the top. “Sorry, but we need you to come with us.”

Chapter Text

He should have seen it coming, because a catching a break would have been too good to be true. And really, he shouldn’t be mad at Alante and Gavin, standing there in his kitchen with equally pinched expressions, but he has to repeat don’t shoot the messenger a few times in his head before he can quell the impulse.

“What exactly is it that Gregory needs?” he asks and shoves a bottle of water in their direction. The two of them look sweaty and windswept. “I was supposed to go back with Maggie and Rosita next week anyway.”

“He didn’t say,” Alante explains between gulps of water. “Rambled something about duties and neglect, can’t say I listened.”

“Can’t blame you there.” Jesus sighs.

“Not like he’ll keep you forever,” Gavin interjects. He rakes his fingers through his thinning brown hair, trying to establish a semblance of order. “He knows you never stay inside the walls long.”

Jesus is willing to bet ten worthless bucks that this is some sort of pissing contest – ordering Jesus back to assert himself as the boss. There’s a million things that need doing and don’t need it done from Hilltop, like negotiating trade with Alexandria and when that’s stable he wants to introduce Rick to Ezekiel and get some sort of trade going there too. And hope like hell they’ve decimated Negan enough that they’ll lick their wounds a while longer. Jesus has been doing what should be Gregory’s job because Jesus believes in this: creating a network, trade, support, a future. Gregory believes in isolationist tactics, he trades with the Kingdom because he has to and leaves it to Jesus to keep up friendly relations. The man’s been to the Kingdom once, nearly ran off at the sight of Shiva and called Ezekiel a ‘pompous schmuck’ on the way back.

“Maybe,” Jesus says. “Still a bad time.”

And not just because he has so many things to do. He’s loathe to go back to Hilltop without prior notice for an indeterminate amount of time when things between Daryl and him are as delicate as they are. It’s not that Daryl needs looking after, but some stability would certainly help curb Daryl’s expectations that Jesus is going to get sick of him any minute. It’s not like Jesus really knows what he’s doing. He’s hardly some sort of relationship guru and his exes would probably double over with laughter at the idea of Jesus being the sensible, responsible half of it and struggling with somebody else’s trust issues. Jesus was usually the one who had trust issues, the one who ran if it got dicey.

“He said…” Alante stars and pulls a face “and I’m sorry, but I’m just usin’ the man’s own words, that if we’re not back with you tonight, he’s gonna consider it Rick tryin’ to ‘poach’ you and stop trade.”

“What the fuck am I, a pet lion?” Jesus spits even as Alante raises her hands in an apologetic gesture.

“He just knows how important you are, Jesus,” Gavin tries to explain and Jesus rolls his eyes. Gavin is one of the people who can’t see the smarmy ball of incompetence behind the vague old-timey-nice-guy exterior Gregory props up for the masses.

For a moment, Jesus considers sending them back with a few choice words for Gregory and his ideas about how much loyalty he is actually owed, but then he decides against it. Gregory is exactly the kind of small-minded, petty man who’d end trade and relations just because his ego was bruised. And Alexandria relied on the trade with Hilltop until the gardens produced anything of significance. Hilltop could get through the winter without advanced fighting and hunting skills, but Alexandria couldn’t get through the winter on hunting alone. Jesus can’t do that to them, even if he’s positive that Ezekiel could be persuaded to trade with Alexandria if Jesus vouched for them.

“Spare me,” Jesus says and rubs his temples. If he had a predisposition for headaches, he’d be getting one right now. “If we want to be there before nightfall, we need to leave soon. Did you bring a car?”

Alante and Gavin look at each other and Jesus already knows he’s not going to like the answer.

“Scooters,” Alante finally says.

“Come again?”

“We’re low on gas,” Gavin says, sheepish. “Cars are limited to hauling stuff and making runs until we find more.”

“You’re telling me you took the trashy scooters we’ve been keeping in the shed?” Jesus remembers them. Two of their runners brought them in a couple months ago. Small things, and old to boot. Looked like an ugly cousin of a Vespa and had an engine that might as well have come from a lawnmower.

Gavin nods.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Sometimes, it feels good to invoke your own nickname as a curse.

Jesus talks Alante and Gavin into letting him drive one of the rickety things by himself. He doesn’t have the same associations with bikes and scooters that he does with cars, but he still gets itchy when he has to ride with someone he doesn’t know well. The backpack he pilfered from Daryl’s place holds most of his possessions – he only had the bare minimum of stuff in Alexandria anyway. Spoke to Rick and Maggie, asking the latter to let Daryl know he had to go back on short notice. Jesus would have felt weird asking Rick; he’s pretty sure the man has no clue what’s going on between him and Daryl. Not that he thinks Rick would mind, but Maggie already knows.

Abraham accompanies the three of them outside the gates where Gavin and Alante hid the scooters in the shrubbery.

“Not,” Jesus huffs in Abraham’s direction as he hauls the ugly baby blue scooter from the ditch up to the road, “a word.”

Abraham’s bushy moustache twitches with barely suppressed laughter and Jesus glowers at him.

“Nice ride,” Abraham giggles and Jesus contemplates walking just to escape the humiliation.

Jesus flips him off as he turns the keys in the ignition. The engine comes to life, if you can call the pathetic sputtering life, and Jesus climbs onto the seat.

“Good luck,” Abraham says with a grin that’s all teeth.

“I’ll need it,” Jesus sighs and mentally makes three crosses before driving off a few yards behind Alante, Gavin awkwardly riding bitch behind her.

He’s going to roundhouse kick Gregory in the face.

Twice. At least.

“What the everloving fuck was so important that it couldn’t wait another week?” Jesus barges into Gregory’s office without preamble. Nobody had dared stopping him on his way, apparently his facial expression clearly communicated the first person to get in his way would be summarily run over.

“Jesus, please, come in,” Gregory says in an attempt at drollness and takes his feet off the old oak desk he occupies. “I wasn’t sure you still knew where to find me.”

“Hilarious,” Jesus retorts and crosses his arms over his chest. “Let me ask again, what the fuck?”

“You seemed to have forgotten where you belong,” Gregory asserts and sits up straighter in his chair. “I felt I had to remind you.”

“I wasn’t aware I had subscribed to indentured servitude.” Jesus tone is waspish.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Gregory says. “But you have obligations to this community.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Jesus throws back. “Working with Alexandria helps this community. I haven’t been lying around, sipping cocktails at poolside. We’ve been doing runs for both communities. I was coming back here next week with Maggie and Rosita to bring our share. So don’t tell me I’m not doing my job.”

“Well, how would I know?” Gregory huffs in the manner that he does when his arguments are weak.

“I told you I was going to stay there for a bit and work out a plan on how we all work together best.” Jesus fumes. For this bullshit, he’s been summoned back.

“You’ve been gone for a while,” Gregory says. “Rick might have started to think you were one of his.”

“I’m not a pet,” Jesus snaps. “And there is no ‘his’ and ‘ours’. We all need to work together.”

Gregory mutters something under his breath that sounds like ‘hippie nonsense’ and Jesus needs to leave before he breaks something.

“Just so we’re clear,” Jesus says and leans forward with his hands flat on Gregory’s desk. Gregory eyes him warily, like he just now remembers that Jesus has the skill to break him in two. “I’m not yours, I make my own damn decisions. I follow your lead because Hilltop wants you as leader, and I respect the community’s decision, but I’m not your lackey. And if you threaten to undo all my work again because you want to engage in a pissing contest with Rick, then I will move to Alexandria permanently. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be anywhere but here.”

He doesn’t bang the door because that would be childish, but it’s a near thing.

“Hey, you’re back,” comes a cheerful voice from the end of the hall and Jesus turns around, prepared to bite somebody else’s head off, but he sees a familiar tall, broad-shouldered figure strolling towards him. “Wow, somebody’s cheerful,” the new arrival remarks as he comes closer.

Jesus sighs and tries to lose the scowl. “Hi, Alex.”

“Gregory giving you grief again?” Alex asks, a reddish beard now framing his face. Last time Jesus saw Alex, he was only sporting stubble.

“What do you think?” Jesus asks in a dry tone and Alex laughs, knowing too well how much Gregory’s attitude grates on Jesus.

“Yeah, he’s been prissy lately,” Alex says and shrugs.

“He was about ten seconds away from a boot to his face,” Jesus says darkly and makes towards the stairs alongside Alex who’s carrying a box half-filled with wires and a set of screwdrivers. Alex used to be some sort of electrician before and is now tinkering around the house and trailers when he isn’t being part-time nurse. Before the electrician thing, Alex was an EMT and now helps Harlan as best as he can.

“Please don’t,” Alex chuckles. “He’s a horrible patient. You going upstairs?”

“Yeah, I need a shower and some sleep,” Jesus sighs and then has to look over his shoulder because Alex has stopped walking.

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” Alex trails off. “I guess Gregory didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Jesus asks and contemplates just curling up into a ball at the end of the stairs. He’s just about had it with Gregory tonight.

“You’re not in your old room anymore,” Alex says and shrugs.

“Oh come on, I wasn’t gone that long,” Jesus snaps.

“Cool your jets,” Alex retorts and raises an eyebrow. The guy was always unflappable. Truly unflappable, not like Jesus who could remain perfectly zen on a good day and had a hair trigger on a bad one. “It wasn’t about that. We pulled your stuff three weeks ago. Harlan wanted to move Mrs Ang to the house. Her health isn’t what it was before and the doc thinks she’s better off here than in the trailer by her lonesome. You got one of the few single rooms and we figured you wouldn’t mind moving into her trailer.”

Mrs Ang had been living alone in one of the small trailers since her husband died of a heart attack a couple months back. Last time Jesus had seen her, she had been fine on her own, but at the age of 86, that could change fast. They had moved a number of old folks to the house once their health declined. Alex wasn’t wrong; had Jesus been here, he probably would have offered to move. The house is warmer in winter and cooler in summer, but the trailers have more privacy.

“Look, I know you don’t like folks all up in your business,” Alex continues and shifts his box from one arm to the other, “so I packed up your stuff by myself. Figured you wouldn’t mind it as much if it was me, since I used to spend some time there.”

“Yeah,” Jesus sighs, but remains otherwise sour-faced. He doesn’t like it when people shove their noses into his stuff without asking. Funny, considering that Daryl had rifled through his room as soon as stepped foot into the building. Jesus was ready to put a boot to Daryl’s ass, but he’d been a little distracted by the same. And by silently laughing at Daryl’s face when confronted with the Dirty Dancing DVD. Seeing what all of it led to, Jesus is happy he chose to be amused that day. “Thanks for thinking of that. Sorry you had to do it all by yourself.”

It’s not like Alex was in his room that often, he only spent a couple nights total, but it’s still better than having a contingent of Hilltop people rummaging through his things.

“It’s fine,” Alex says and waves him off. “Not like you have a ton of stuff. The worst was that small army of empty sketchbooks. I put the boxes in the trailer, Earl has the keys. You got the place to yourself for now. Nothing’s made up though and the water heater isn’t working right. I can take a look at it tomorrow, if you want.”

“Great,” Jesus pulls a face. He was looking forward to a hot shower and then falling into bed. “Today keeps getting better and better.”

“Wanna stay with me?” Alex offers and Jesus blinks at him. “What? Not like we haven’t done that before.”

“Aren’t you with Wes?” Jesus asks back.

Alex blushes a little, which looks always out of place on a guy as tall and broad as he is. “Not yet,” he mutters.

“Christ, you still haven’t asked him?” Jesus groans. Alex has had a crush on Wes for months now. And Jesus is pretty damn sure Wes is interested. Nobody needs this many band-aids. They need to get it on before Wes mutilates himself in an effort to spend more time with Alex.

“We can’t all just walk up to a guy and talk them out of their pants in five minutes like you,” Alex huffs.

“If only,” Jesus sighs. Daryl’s pants have been very adamant about staying on. “Thanks for offering, but no.”

“You seeing someone?”

“Maybe,” Jesus evades. “No gossiping, you hear me?”

“I’m gay, I can’t help it,” Alex grins.

“Oh, fuck off,” Jesus laughs. “It’s new, so I don’t want to spread it around just yet. And I’m not telling you who it is, so spare your breath.”

“Someone from Alexandria?” Alex asks, grin only growing wider. “That why you spend so much time there?”

“Don’t you have some fuse box to harass instead of me?” Jesus pokes Alex’ box of cables and pointedly stares at the man holding it.

“The fuse box can wait. I, however, ...”

“Will wait, too,” Jesus finishes for him and turns around to make for the front door. If Alex keeps poking, Jesus might end up telling him, because he really wants to gush about Daryl a little.

“At least take a shower at my place,” Alex calls after him. “Phil and Carrie are out for the day. Your virtue will be intact.”

Jesus flips him off, but intends to take him up on the offer. He has no desire to take a cold shower and if the couple Alex shares his trailer with isn’t there, he won’t have to make any awkward excuses. The last thing he needs is people thinking he’s shacking up with Alex again and word of it getting to Alexandria somehow.

Later, after he’s dug sheets and pillow from one of Alex’ neatly packed boxes, Jesus flops down on the bed, bone tired and done with absolutely everything. The trailer is sparsely furnished, the bedroom only has a double bed and a shelf. There’s two single beds in the other tiny bedroom, a worn down sofa in the living room-slash-kitchen and a table with four wooden chairs to complete his furniture ensemble. He’ll need to bribe someone for a bookshelf or a cupboard tomorrow.

As tired as he is, he can’t sleep. Jesus stares at the ceiling where the shadows and light falling in through the blinds paint an abstract landscape. Today has been absolute garbage. He wonders if Daryl has come back to Alexandria yet. Usually, Daryl tries to be back before nightfall, but Rick told Jesus Daryl has a tendency to stay out all day and night if he’s on a trail. He can only hope Daryl won’t be mad, or worse. If he thinks Jesus bailed on him, that’s all their progress undone. Maybe he should have left a note instead of using only Maggie as the messenger. He isn’t sure if that would have changed anything. Daryl is a face-to-face guy, but face-to-face isn’t in the cards right now. People at Hilltop have already settled Jesus with a bunch of errands, he can’t just run back tomorrow. All he can do is hope that Daryl might accompany Maggie and Rosita on their trip here next week. Or that Jesus can travel back with them.

God, this sucks.

Jesus throws back the covers, untangling from his nest and pads back out to the living room where his boxes sit stacked against a wall. One of them is filled with sketchbooks, most of them empty pages. He grabbed them on a whim at an art supply shop ages ago, a whole box of Moleskin sketchbooks, the nice, big kind he never could have afforded before. They were impractical to haul around, but he’d dragged them back to Hilltop, together with a bunch of nice pencils and stashed them in his room. These days, he doesn’t even do a lot of drawing anymore. Not for a long time. He felt like a failure back when he dropped out of art school and then never managed to get a foot in the door with publishers. Just another wannabe illustrator. The starving artist thing only looks romantic in movies, in real life there comes a point where you hate instant ramen with every fibre of your being.

He flips through one of the few books that contain more than blank space. The characters he thought of so long ago feel alien now. A goat as a doctor, an elephant as a farmer, a monkey as a firefighter – all done in the whimsical style he’d developed over the years. Children’s books. It seems so frivolous, looking from where he is now. The last thing he tried, months and months ago, a realistic rendition of Barrington House isn’t even half finished. He scrutinises the lines, sees how much his ability declined from when he sketched nearly every day. It would look even worse now.

With a frustrated sigh, he slaps the notebook shut and tosses it back in the box before grabbing another. What he’s looking for, he isn’t sure, but he needs something to occupy his hands that isn’t beating his knuckles bloody on a sandbag. Said sandbag leans against a corner, waiting to be strung up. It was already well used when Jesus found it at the closest local gym, but he’s added a lot of damage since then; the exterior has been sewn up a couple times and patched with duct tape to salvage smaller nicks.

Yoga then. There’s enough ways to bend yourself to utter exhaustion, and his mat has to be in there somewhere. When Jesus finds it and pulls it out, he drags other stuff with it, a ball of string, nail clippers, a couple shirts out of which pokes the fletched end of an arrow. Daryl’s arrow, Jesus thinks as the pulls it from the roll of shirts Alex seems to have wrapped it in. The arrow from that night Jesus got an inkling there might be something more between him and Daryl – before he got punched in the mouth.

Jesus snorts at the memory and twirls the arrow between his fingers. He never gave it back. It’s one that Daryl made himself, but the material is smooth and expertly crafted with the knowledge that imperfections impacted the velocity and direction.

Jesus feels stupid, but he already misses Daryl. Even more so knowing it’ll be at least a week until he sees him again. Since when is he the type to pine like this? Any desire for yoga forgotten, Jesus drags himself back to bed, arrow firmly in hand. It takes some force, but with the trailer walls not being the firmest, he manages to embed it into the wall above his bed at eye level, high up enough so he won’t hit his head against it. It’s going to be the first thing he sees in the morning – and as little as it is, it makes him feel better when he turns off the lamp at his bedside.

The presence of Daryl’s arrow is comforting as Jesus finally sinks into heavy, boneless sleep, ready to forget the world for a few precious hours.

Chapter Text

Sulking and moody isn‘t a look that suits him, Jesus knows that and Alex doesn‘t fail to point it out when he crawls under Jesus‘ bathroom sink the next day to fix up the boiler. He no doubt has about a million other things to take care of, but he remembers that Jesus hates cold showers and seems to think he deserves a hot one. Or a moderately warm one at least.

However, Alex is not afraid to point out when he’s being impossible: “Man, get up to that house and bat your eyelashes at Jess to charm some coffee out of her, you‘re a menace when you‘re cranky.“

“Fuck off.“

Succinct and to the point. Definitely proving Alex right, though.

“I‘m serious,“ Alex says, words muffled around the screwdriver he’s jammed between his teeth while he’s pulling apart the wires with his fingers.

“I don‘t think the butch lesbian is going to fall for the gay guy batting his eyelashes at her,“ Jesus volleys back and continues throwing a tennis ball against the far wall. He‘s found it under the sofa and has been tormenting Alex with the sound of the ball thumping against the trailer wall for the entire time he‘s been there. It’s unlikely to get a rise out of Alex – the guy grew up with five younger siblings.

“Please,“ Alex scoffs. “With those doe eyes, just about anybody does.“

“Did I say fuck off already?“

Jesus is lucky Alex is so good-natured that he doesn‘t take offence to Jesus behaving like an ass. He appreciates that about him. If he’s being honest, he’s not sure he could stand making another person angry right now, never mind that he’s not exactly doing his best to avoid it.

Coffee does sound heavenly through, so he caves and makes his way to the kitchen where Jess guards her beverages like a hawk. Still, he manages to get a full cup of coffee out of her. In exchange, she asks him to look out for a new cap for her when he goes out next time.

“None of that beanie crap you like,“ she warns him and hands him a big, steaming mug that smells so good, Jesus wants to cry a little. He never got used to the complete lack of coffee at the end of the world.

“Only because you don‘t understand fashion,“ Jesus needles back. Jess is one of the good ones. They‘re not close friends, but they‘re two of the few queer people in this shitshow of an apocalypse – solidarity is not even a question. So despite their lack of close friendship, Jess doesn‘t treat him like a travelling salesman. He needs that today more than most other days.

“Pff,“ Jess scoffs. “You callin‘ yourself fashionable?“

Jesus vaguely gestures at his clothes: washed out black cargos and an old Slayer t-shirt proclaiming ‘God hates us all‘ on the front. Jesus’ first college roommate Dev would be proud. Not that Jesus has ever been a Thrash Metal fan in particular, but he appreciates the irony of the print when he’s the one wearing it.

“Oh yeah, I‘ve seen the light now,“ she drawls, but can‘t quite hide the quirk of her lips.

“Knew you would.“

“Now get out,“ she says and shoos him away with a towel.

Jesus has learnt a long time ago to obey those who make your food, so he clears out with a final thanks and finds himself a more or less secluded corner in the old library to worship his coffee in peace.

With the first tendrils of cold reaching the Hilltop, they‘ve taken to lighting a fire in the morning and evening in the old grate. They‘re at that tipping point between summer and autumn and Jesus isn‘t looking forward to winter. The last one had been pretty rough. On the upside, the dead were slow, sometimes almost immobile or even frozen, which made picking them off that much easier. The cold still was a bitch to live through.

Word that he’s back has made it around Hilltop fast – by midday he already has a shopping list as long as his whole arm. It‘s flattering, yet frustrating. He wonders what the other runners have been doing.

Some things on the list are in the haul at Alexandria: clothes mainly, two sewing machines, a bunch of medical supplies that’ll make Harlan’s eyes water, pots and pans, a couple solar-powered battery packs, propane, a stack of board games and other assorted knick knacks. They’ll be arriving soon enough that he won’t have to pick up any of those items on a run to tide them over. It shortens the list considerably, but people still want things that he hasn’t seen in a long time. Jesus doesn’t think they’ve had any glasses in the pile and Fran has asked for a new pair after her current ones cracked. He only hopes he can find some that at least approach her lenses. His mental map draws up a few optometrists in the area, threatened by various degrees of ransacking, and is silently grateful for his full eyesight.

Riding isn’t his forte, but with the cars still on rationing, it’s either a horse or a scooter and Jesus would rather crawl than ever get on that thing again.

Shelley is an undemanding, laid-back mare with a soft brown coat who’d follow you around for the entire day if you gave her an apple. Jesus promises her two when they leave the Hilltop’s gates and Shelley flickers her ears. He likes to think she agrees with him when she does that. For a while, the urge to just turn the old girl towards Alexandria is strong – part of him wants to spite Gregory, another yearns for a break from picking through the belongings of dead people, and yet another misses Daryl already – but the list burning a hole in his breast pocket makes him turn left instead of right to Alexandria.

These people rely on him. He can wait another week.

He can, but just about barely.

Gregory manages to trample every last one of his nerves. Jesus grits his teeth because he knows he’s doing everything to draw Gregory’s ire and maybe it’s childish, but Gregory started it with his implications that Jesus hasn’t been doing his job.

So Jesus does his job.

And nothing more. All the slack he’s picked up for Gregory over the last few years, everything he’s done to compensate for the all-encompassing incompetence in leadership, Jesus just stops. And when Gregory commandeers him into his little throne room to ask him what the hell he’s playing at, Jesus gives his best impression of exaggerated, wide-eyed innocence that he’s fully concentrating on doing his job as a runner and negotiator since Gregory was so unsatisfied with his performance before.The man takes it as well as expected, but can’t officially do shit about it. Not without sowing dissent in the community and Gregory is enough of a snake oil salesman to know not to do that.

The trick of innocence, however, loses much of its punch when you fuck up the busy work you’ve been assigned.

Jesus hates inventory and bookkeeping, which is precisely why Gregory hands it off to him as his monthly volunteer duty.

At Hilltop, they have specialised skills and jobs, but then there’s ‘volunteer duty’ where you work one week in a job that’s not your specialty so everyone knows a little bit about the workings of everything and learns to appreciate what everyone puts into the community. Gregory would usually let him go do his volunteering wherever he wanted to, but it seems that this week is not the week.

Rob and Bill are Hilltop‘s main bookkeepers and Jesus can feel it‘s going to be a long seven days as soon as he shows up in their little office trailer. They never got along and it‘s mainly because they‘re both assholes. Or more precisely, Rob is and Bill is along for the ride. Jesus reckons he can take about five of their gay jokes before he will do something drastic. In the end, he makes it to ten before he flays Bill, who thinks he‘s hilarious because he informs Jesus that he‘s just bending over to pick up his dropped pen, nothing else. You can hear a pin drop by the time Jesus has finished informing him that he‘ll put a boot up Bill‘s ass before he’d insert anything else.

Jesus should take five and go outside, clear his head. But that feels like admitting defeat, so he hunkers down in his corner going through the ledgers and working out what to feed the livestock for the next week, quietly simmering on the inside and thinking back to sitting on Daryl’s back porch, kicking back the cold beer Daryl had procured from somewhere.

What he wouldn’t pay to be there right now.

Apparently, he’s willing to pay hell, because that’s what rains down on him a few days later when it turns out that as per his calculations, the farming crews have been feeding the animals with the leafy greens and legumes meant for the human population and the Kingdom trade ration went out fifteen percent bigger than usual. This is, mildly put, a problem. And if it hadn’t already been obvious from the this time deserved chewing out from Gregory, Bill and Rob make sure everyone is aware that it’s Jesus’ fault that Hilltop has gone on half-rations for the week. Some people raise the question of why the head bookkeepers didn’t check over the numbers before sending them out, but Jesus himself agrees that this is on him. Most don’t seem to want to give him shit, but he can sense in many a demeanor that on some level, they do.

If Jesus hasn’t felt like crap before, he certainly does now. He’s better than this.

Most of the time, he hides outside the walls, combing for food to make up for what he lost them. They’re not going to starve, but he feels horrible regardless. If Negan comes back demanding more food, they’re fucked. Bringing back a can of chickpeas here and a bag of flour there doesn’t change that, but it feels better than bringing back nothing.

Jesus’ mood oscillates between sadness and anger, either at himself or the situation. And he may have finally strung up that sandbag in his trailer, but punching it isn’t helping all that much. It doesn’t fight back and won’t tell him he’s being ridiculous.

Daryl probably would, but that also means it’s a good thing he’s not here right now. Jesus is fairly certain he’d be putting his foot in his mouth left and right. And that’s not even considering how he just up and left Alexandria without notice. At the very least, he should have left a short note, he chastises himself for the millionth time this week, but Jesus isn’t used to anyone caring about his comings and goings, so he didn’t even think of it until it was much too late. Daryl might very well be pissed off at the moment.

Which is not to say that he doesn’t miss Daryl, though. He still wishes Daryl were here.

His heart sinks a little anyway when Kal hollers, “Yo Jesus, your Alexandria pals are here” a week later, not knowing whether to meet them at the gate or not. Is it just Maggie and Rosita? Has Daryl come? He doesn’t know what it would mean if Daryl weren’t there.

When the hell did he get this attached in the first place?

Turns out Rosita and Maggie brought Sasha along – and Jesus can sense the awkwardness between her and Rosita from where he’s standing on the Barrington House porch. They don’t even really look at each other. What’s far more interesting though is the bike that brings up the rear.

Daryl has actually come.

If he’s pissed at Jesus, this might become an uncomfortable trip for both of them. So save for Maggie, they were all a bunch of awkward idiots. He watches Daryl kick his bike on the stand and climb onto the truck bed to help with unloading. So far, Daryl hasn’t really looked in his direction and some part of Jesus wants to wait it out. Which isn’t an option, so he grows a spine and marches up to the truck.

“Hey…” he says, putting a hand to the side of the truck bed.

Daryl grunts at him, heaving a box of medical supplies into Carson’s arms who sags a little under the weight, but looks nonetheless pleased as punch. Seeing a face under all that fringe is never easy, but Daryl doesn’t look majorly pissed off at the sight of him. Could be a good sign.

“Didn‘t know you‘d be on this run, too,“ Jesus continues.

“Been cooped up too long,“ Daryl says and hands a wicker basket filled with assorted hardware to Mike from the farming crew.

“I‘m glad you came,“ Jesus says because he is, despite being nervous. Seeing him is the best thing since Jesus wound up back at Hilltop. Gregory hasn‘t failed to mention his blunders at least once per conversation and it‘s wearing him thin. Yes, he fucked that one up, but Gregory is pushing it.

Daryl doesn‘t smile at him exactly, but Jesus likes to think he looks pleased.

It takes ages for them to get some alone time. Luckily, Maggie and the others will stay overnight, so once Jesus has shaken enough hands, talked to enough people, made all of his rounds with a now much more appeased community, he finds Daryl in a corner in one of the drawing rooms, away from the small clusters of people grouped around different activities: Some are playing card games, others are knitting for the upcoming winter, several lounge scattered around the room reading, and others are making use of the dark by repairing equipment. Daryl has a small block of wood and a knife in his hands, scattering shavings all around his chair like snowflakes. He seems to work aimlessly, like he’s primarily doing it to give his hands something to do.

Jesus watches Daryl’s hands move for a few moments, just long enough until Daryl notices him lurking in the doorway and looks up. God, he’s missed him. Wordlessly, Jesus jerks his head, indicating the front door and Daryl unfolds from his chair, slinging his satchel over his shoulder to follow Jesus.

“Not in the house anymore?” he asks as Jesus pulls open the door to the trailer.

“Nah, they gave my room to one of the older ladies,” Jesus explains and fumbles with one of the petroleum lamps until he manages to light it. “She’s been sick a lot and it’s easier to monitor the old folks in the house. Trailer’s too big and isolated.”

He lights a second and then thinks he shouldn’t have because it only illuminates how empty and very much not-lived in the place is. The boxes are still stacked at the wall, only two of them opened. There’s a book on the dinner table and an assortment of knives on the coffee table. His coat lies thrown across the sofa, but that’s all to indicate someone uses the trailer for some form of inhabitation.

Daryl slides into a chair without waiting for an invitation, which is fine by Jesus because he’s already on a hunt for tea. Which is just a fancy way of referring to the dried peppermint leaves he keeps in a tin, but he likes to drink it before turning in. And if he’s honest, he too wants something to occupy his hands and a mug has always been one of his favourite tools in that regard. With all the tension of a shitty week running through him, he’s afraid he’ll say the wrong thing.

“Coulda told me you were leavin,” Daryl mutters when Jesus places the two mugs on the table, shoving aside the worn copy of Bleak House he’s been reading for the last few nights.

“You were out,” Jesus defends himself. “They needed me to come right away, and there was no telling how long you’d be.”

“Yeah an’ came back to the place with your stuff gone an’ Maggie only told me a couple hours later you got collected,” Daryl continues, fiddling with the handle of his mug. He pauses for a few moments and looks at Jesus as if he’s not quite sure whether he should continue. “Note or somethin’. Thought you skipped town.”

Yes, he could have left a note. It’s embarrassing it didn’t even occur to him until he was halfway back to Hilltop. But it’s the last sentence that rankles. After he stuck around for Daryl for so much longer than he would have with any other guy. And maybe it isn’t fair of him to think that way because it’s not about keeping score or being owed, but first Gregory accuses him of being disloyal and skipping town, now he’s hearing the same thing from Daryl.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he says and sounds more venomous than he planned.

“Man, what crawled up your ass an’ died?”

Jesus can see Daryl’s face go from surprised to hackles rising, and he knows he should just take a breath, get his head on straight, and then kick the shit out of his sandbag for an hour before attempting conversation again. In that case, he might have understood that Daryl’s words had been less of an accusation and more of an admission of insecurity, that he’d feared Jesus had had enough after all, but he doesn’t take a breath or kick a sandbag, and watches himself being stupid in real-time, rising to the bait.

“Maybe it’s the accusation that I skip town that people love to keep throwing around.”

“I didn’t accuse you of shit, I said it was what I thought till Maggie told me,” Daryl snaps back.

“Great, so you only thought I was a disloyal dick for a few hours.” There’s a syrupy note to his tone that he hates, because it’s the one that he uses to agitate his conversation partners when he’s feeling vindictive.

The sane part of his brain is throwing its hands up, because he’s being childish, and he knows it. They’ve been here before, goddammit. He’s arguing about a misunderstanding instead of solving it.

“Came here to see ya, not to fight,” Daryl says with sudden finality and pushes his chair away from the table, abandoning his mug. “But if you wanna keep your panties in a twist, guess I’ll be staying up in the mansion.”

Daryl pulling out of the fight is unexpected, because the man usually never steps down out of principle. But the sheer unwillingness to let it escalate so that Jesus can take out his frustration on something in lieu of a punching bag is sobering. The anger leaves him like air from a punctured balloon as Daryl snatches his bag and makes his way to the door. Daryl doesn’t even look angry – his mouth is pinched with the taste of disappointment.

“Daryl…” Jesus tries, meekly, but only gets the click of the door in return.

Here he goes again, dismantling anything that threatens to get too close. It’s the only thing Jesus has been consistently good at all his life.

Instead of the sandbag, Jesus punches the wall.