driftfleet | a brand new stray

Who: Daryl Dixon + open
Broadcast: Not intentionally but maybe you'll get lucky channel surfing sometime?
Action: The Tourist, assorted planets thereafter
When: 5/5 and onward

1. tourist arrival

He doesn't get his bearings at all. Everything when he wakes up is shining and unfamiliar and the only comforting thing is it's definitely not the Sanctuary, as surely as it's not any of their familiar settlements. He gets his back up against the wall, and then he's somewhere else.

The burst of confetti and music just suffices to confuse the hell out of him, so he ignores the chocolate pudding and ducks back against the wall, dead silent and kind of panicked and doing his best not to show it.

Left to his own devices, eventually he'll slink off into the rest of the ship-- looking for anything he can use as a weapon and watching for threats.

2. planetside in the yadrolla system

It's been literally years since he saw a functioning city, and the first time he touches down on one of the more populous planets, it's totally overwhelming.

The upshot of this is he'll be a little friendlier to Fleeters, because at least if someone's vaguely familiar they're closer to being a known, safe quantity. Mostly he stays to the side-streets, watching like it's all new.

Eventually he manages to get a lift to one of the wilder worlds-- not because he wants to sight-see, though incidentally he might end up spectating some of the outdoor events-- but because it's better than being stuck on the ship. Feels too much like a trap-- nowhere to run.

Later in the month he'll take up fishing and hunting-- there may be food on the ship but he's not sure how far he trusts it. Besides, he's good at this, there's some comfort in grounding yourself.

3. choose your own adventure

[ want something different? We'll make it work! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It's impossible not to think of their last meeting-- which he'd thought, when they parted, would probably be their last, if she really was dead set on leaving. But his focus is on how goddamn relieved he is that she's here and all right-- that some of them are all right-- he doesn't stop to think, yet, about the lie he had to tell, about how that's going to fall apart if Maggie's here.

It's comforting, and for just a second he lets himself have that, hanging on to her until she shifts to pull away. ]

Came over from where?

From the ship they have me on. The Heron. We're all split up. Maggie's on the Goldstone and Carl's on the Red Fish.

[ She doesn't like it, being forcibly separated. Even after she had left of her own free will. It's different when it's her choice. She looks up and shrugs, feeling a little helpless. ]

What job did they give you? They put me on security.

I don't... [ He shakes his head, pauses a second and continues cautiously. ] Same thing. I think.

[ All this is still new and strange and he's not really processing it, not the assignment or the fact that he understands so much of this place implicitly. He's trying not to think about the thing in his head.

He certainly can't process how... normal, everyone makes it sound. Carol, too. ]

You just woke up here, too? On another spaceship?

[ Christ, he's glad, though. It feels wrong somehow, to be glad someone else got kidnapped, but he is. ]

[ She reaches and touches the spot behind his ear where her bump is. And then sighs a little. ]

They call it an augment. It's some kind of thing that gives you knowledge but I think also tracks us and records things. There's no way to get it out. It makes me feel like one of those birds they used to tag and to track migration patterns.

[ She nods. ]

The big one. Just there a day or two before getting transferred.

[ Even though it's selfish, she's grateful that he's here. Her brow creases as the guilt about that builds. ]

Maybe we'll be able to figure something out together.

[ It didn't take him long to notice the implant and try to claw it out-- and it didn't take long to realize that wasn't going to work, not when the idea of making an attempt leaves him feeling inexplicably horrified. He doesn't flinch from her touch, though he's got the inexplicable sense that whatever it is they stuck in their heads, she shouldn't touch it either.

Basically, all this is bullshit, in his opinion. ]

Yeah. [ He'd like to give her a smile but he can't quite muster it. Still, he's letting himself be swayed, if only for a moment, into feeling more optimistic about their chances. The more of them here, the better off they are, honestly. ]

They won't know what hit 'em.

[ The Atroma better be ready. ]

[ He's trying, for her benefit. It's harder for him, she knows. He never mastered the mask the way she did. Too honest to hide his true feelings behind anything but silence and withdrawal. It's not good for him. Daryl is a person who thrives on love and approval, being trusted with important things, having his opinion heard and respected. He won't get any of that if he stays hidden in this alcove. ]

You know I've been talking to some of the other people here. They're all in the same situation.

[ She hasn't met everybody, of course. But even the ones she finds irritating or useless are all benign. None of the other passengers were involved in them being captured. ]

They say so.

[ It's a pretty weak protest, maybe just to be contrary. He doesn't really want to argue the point-- for one there's no way to know, not til it's too late, but besides that he thinks she's right. It seems like they're in the same boat, based on the little conversation he's had so far, just... kidnapped from wherever, stuck here.

Maybe it's no different from ending up in Alexandria. Well, it's different, obviously. But maybe it doesn't mean they've been dropped into a pit of new enemies. ]

They're not from-- home, [ he adds, sort of a compromise, a grudging admission that she's maybe right. Also, it's a fact he finds immensely disturbing-- doubly impossible, and he wants to know her take on it. ]

I haven't met everybody in the fleet. [ She concedes. ] But at some point you have to just accept that most of these people don't have reason to lie about everything, or you'll just drive yourself crazy.

[ That's the decision she had to make. Some of it has to be real. Or if it is a lie, it's not an important one. ]

No, they're not. Most of them don't know anything about walkers, as far as I can tell. At least one is from a place about as bad as home, though. Furiosa. She's a good one to talk to.

[ She looks up at him, trying to coax him out of his self-imposed solitude. ]

There's a lot of good ones around, actually.

[ He hums, a soft assent-- more than that; yielding to her point. Carol has to be as suspicious, as unwilling to trust new people as he is. If she's more or less satisfied that they're on the same side here...

Well, he'll try, anyway.

He doesn't quite manage a smile, but he's visibly relaxed, just a bit. ]

Glad it ain't just me.

[ What he means, really, is he's glad she's here-- but it seems kind of an asshole move to say that. Still, asshole or not, he really is glad to see her. ]

[ She's glad, too. She wasn't alone before, of course. Not when Carl and Maggie were there already. But Carl and Maggie aren't Daryl. It's silly, and unfair to all of them. But she can be herself with Daryl more than she can be with anybody else she knows. Having him there is more of a relief than she even imagined it would be.

She just nods, agreeing with the sentiment because she'd hate for Daryl to be stuck here alone. ]

So are you gonna shower or will I have to hose you down? [ She grins a little. ]

[ it feels greedy and unfair to be so glad to see her, all the more because he'd resigned himself to the loss. She was all right; or close enough; and that's what mattered. It's why he lied and how he lived with it.

Now, he ducks his head a bit. ]

Ain't that bad.

[ He'd scrubbed himself pretty damn thoroughly after the Sanctuary, that still shows. But she doesn't know all that and he doesn't plan to say a word. ]

It's not that bad at home. Everybody is a lot cleaner here. Because it's a lot easier to keep clean.

[ She bumps his shoulder with hers. And then leans her head on his shoulder. Just letting herself feel happy for a moment, and try not to get too mad at herself for feeling that way. ]

[ All he can do in response to that is grunt, because he can't exactly disagree... But the notion of fitting in with everyone else is never particularly compelling, and honestly feeling out of place like this, he's likeliest to lean on being stubborn and refusing to go along with what's normal on principle. It's a stupid reaction, and he knows it. Feels like showing up in Alexandria again, only a lot stranger.

But he's disinclined to argue, because it is so much stranger here. And as much as he's glad to see her, he's more glad that she's glad. Back home-- not that she wasn't glad to see him, he thinks, but he can't be a comfort when he's a reminder of what she's left behind. ]

No promises.

[ You can scrub the zombie apocalypse off hum, but really, there's only so much he can be cleaned up, he figures. But he'll try-- or at least try to try. ]

a brand new stray

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