𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 ➪ «𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛»

ch. XXVII pt. II

oOo

Rick and T-Dog didn't look very impressed. Glenn, who knew her best, just raised an annoyed eyebrow and told her to hurry the lecture up.

She pulled Daryl back into the stockroom. The impatience on his face was almost enough to make her curl in on herself, but he didn't act on it.

He looked about to crawl out of his skin with agitation and she knew there was nothing she could do to ease it, other than finding his brother, so she tried to make it quick. "Okay, so first, I want you to promise you're not just gonna abandon us and go off on your own to find Merle. That's not what we came here for, this is not a white-folk let's-split-up-gang kinda thing. We stick together." She grabbed his hand and gripped it tight, her eyes searching his.

"That all? You can lecture me all you want af-"

"Second," she interrupted and grabbed his face by the jaw just as he was about to leave. She turned it to her, his skin warm and slick with sweat, which she didn't mind. She met his blue eyes, hers wide and emphatic. "We're gonna find your brother," she said earnestly and rested her hands on his shoulders, her fingertips digging gently into his flesh, grounding him.

"He might've said some really unsavory things to me over the time that've made me dislike the guts outta him, but I don't wish him dead. I don't, 'cause I know how much that would hurt you and I don't want that. I don't want you to get hurt." After the words had been said, she realized how unhelpful her empty promises were.

But even though she felt like she'd put her foot in her mouth, like she so often did, judging by the look of him, it seemed like she'd actually said something right. That was a first for her today.

Daryl could be a loud and brazen person, there was no doubt of that. But after getting to know him and gaining a bit of his trust, Diana found that he allowed himself to be himself with her. Which, she wasn't going to lie, made her stupidly happy.

He'd have moments of quiet contemplation, where a look conveyed a thousand different things and she could only begin to pick up on about a ten of them.

She'd gotten better at reading him, it came with much trial and error, but then he'd spring up something new on her and she'd be left completely clueless.

This was one of those moments, as had been earlier that day when she'd been tending to the marks on his neck after Shane's chokehold. His eyes were glued to her, so patient and serene that it was baffling.

Diana's hands slid down his arms subconsciously, her brow furrowing like she'd just seen a snowfall in July. Okay, maybe a little less extreme than that. She felt her throat work as she swallowed dry. She cleared it and unglued her lips with a quick sweep of her tongue to ask about it, but the words died in her throat.

"Hey uh- guys, sorry," Glenn interrupted, clearing his throat, "but if we wanna hurry, you two better leave your soul sharing for another time and come along." He caught Diana's widened eyes from over Daryl's shoulder and gave her a sly smirk.

Diana snatched her hands back to her sides. "Let's go," she murmured. The bow was trembling at her back with a rhapsodic energy, making her chest vibrate along to the hard thumping going on inside.

They followed Glenn into a room with computer desks and archives on either side, all of which were grey on top from thick layers of settled dust.

Great, she could feel the tickle in her throat resurface. She put the collar of her shirt back over her mouth and nose. At the strange looks, Glenn answered for her, "Allergies, it's the dust."

Rick and T-Dog nodded in understanding and Diana gave him a thumbs up. Daryl startled her by pulling the shirt back down and reaching around her to tie a piece of red fabric loosely over her nose and mouth.