Still as hot as Georgia, still as humid as Georgia— so far, Virginia offers no tangible difference from six hundred miles ago, at least not to someone who hasn't showered in weeks. (Longer? When had they crossed that last stream? Does rain count?) How long were they out there— not a question Daryl can answer, despite his affinity for nature and finding his way without a roof. Somewhere between the last grave they dug and here, it began to blend, like a melted painting.
But because it's not so different from Georgia, he finds the foliage easy and familiar, no matter that he's still reeling from the shock of spending half a day inside a house, inside walls. An easy trail to follow, made by someone whose footsteps read skinny bulldozer. Tall, probably. Taller than Daryl, but not as heavy. No experience with trying not to scare away game, but probably thinks he's being quiet. They all do. He marks two undead walkers, swaying grey glimpses through the trees, but they're too far away to trouble him.
When he spots the guy, he pauses and raises his hands. Of course it's going to seem like he's sneaking up on him, that's just his luck. Mm. On second thought, he fishes the sandwich bag with batteries in it out of his pocket, so he doesn't have to do any dramatic reaching if he gets drawn on. Special Agent, the woman in charge had described him, proud. Which means fancy cop, which means could just blast me, so: maintaining a surrender pose with his peace offering, he gives a whistle, sharp and loud.
The cool thing about salicylic acid is that it's actually pretty easy to find in nature. The *bad* thing about salicylic acid is that it requires having to peel bark off the little copse of willow trees nearby, and Reid never was that handy with a knife. Eda, one of the community doctors, had offered to do it for him, but he'd felt like today was a day he needed to take a walk outside the walls. As much as he loves routine and familiarity, sometimes even he needs a change of pace.
So here he is. In nature. Scraping willow bark.
And getting jump scared.
The whistle has him jumping like a startled deer, but training kicks in a split-second later, and he turns sharply, gun drawn and pointed, knife still in the hand he's bracing against his pistol. Luckily for the guy who startled him, it's pretty immediately obvious that he's not a walker, so the pistol's muzzle swings down to point at the ground, but not put away.
"Yes, that's me?" he replies, voice rising at the end to make it a question, eyes narrowed in wariness. He wishes he cut more of an intimidating figure -- his bulletproof vest lays on top of an outfit that's in no way *outdoorsy* and is in fact exactly what he used to wear as an agent, slacks and sneakers and a white shirt and a sweatervest. He even has a grey and black striped tie, because it makes him feel better.
The point is, *this guy* looks way more intimidating than he does, much to his eternal chagrin. "Who are you? You're not from Forty-Eight." The community; so named for the highway it's near.
Ah, yep. Fancy cop alright. Quick, with the right posture— precise, reminiscent of Atlanta PD more than anything, and different from Rick's liquid ease, but Daryl supposes that's the difference between a rural county sheriff and whatever a federal agent is made of. He sizes the younger man up, absent of any tension or fear, as if being held briefly at gunpoint doesn't even bump his radar of things to be worried about. He certainly looks as though that could be true, wearing dirty jeans and a half dozen holsters. Knives, a revolver, and a crossbow slung over his back. His leather vest looks like the kutte of a motorcycle 'club' member, but it's absent of insignia.
"Daryl."
Flat, gravelly. Hi. He wiggles the bag he's holding just a bit, though he keeps his arms raised despite Reid lowering his firearm. Believe it or not, he's never actually been arrested, but thanks to his late brother he's been detained at the scene enough times to be intimately familiar with the drill.
"I'm with the group your people were monitoring. Got here early. They reckon the batteries on your walkie died."
Things are a little frazzled back at the commune. Shit had gone slightly pear-shaped, contact happening sooner than the scouts wanted, and it was a surprise for the sheltered residence when they appeared at the gates this morning. It was obvious both that Reid's absence was an issue, and that they didn't feel comfortable sending anyone out to look for him given the sudden addition of several practically feral, well-armed roamers. So Daryl had exchanged a few looks with his people, and quietly made himself useful.
Yeah, he's definitely not intimidating. Even the guy he's got a gun pointed at doesn't look even remotely concerned about it, but then again... this guy kind of looks like he might be used to having guns pointed at him. Is that a crossbow? He counts at least three knives, too.
Reid's honestly not sure whether to be kind of scared, or kind of fascinated. Maybe both?
"Oh. That group. Right. Sorry." Mollified, (and a little sheepish), Reid tucks his gun back into its holster at his hip, and the borrowed knife back into its sheath on his other hip. Forty-Eight had come to the conclusion a few months ago that they needed to start accepting new people inside their walls, and they'd gotten in touch via radio with a few different roaming groups. Some had already arrived, but only one was due, so Daryl must be with that group from Georgia.
He clicks the side button of his walkie a few times, and ah, yeah, it's dead. Whoops. He'd just assumed he'd gotten a few minutes of blissful silence.
"I'm Spencer Reid. Doctor. Although the colleges that gave me those doctorates are probably rotting right now," he muses wryly. "Welcome to the Forty-Eight. I hope your arrival was okay, the head of security can be a bit, uh. Stern."
Reid glances back at the tree he'd been halfway through stripping, down at the bag he'd been collecting the bark in, and grimaces apologetically. "Do you mind waiting? I've just got to finish this, and then we can head back, if that's okay." He takes a step closer, holding a hand out for the batteries, not wanting to just grab them off Daryl. "Thanks for the batteries."
He forks over the batteries, finally lowering his hands in the process. Thankfully it was just batteries— if this Reid guy had been dead, or just gone, Daryl imagines their integration period was about to get a lot more complicated. But now he can just shepherd Reid back, and...
And? He stares at the agent (doctor?), and can't actually imagine himself living at Forty-Eight. The others, sure. No matter how traumatized they are, they were all real people before the turn, living real lives, in real houses. Daryl wasn't. The idea of returning to nothingness and counting down the hours until he's expelled makes him feel sick, makes his head feel tight, like he's going to throw up.
Doesn't matter. He has to suck it up for now, so that his people can stay. He won't jeopardize it for them.
So: just a grunted noise that covers Nice to meet you, I'm fine waiting, no problem. He follows it up with a nod towards the walkers creeping in their direction, drawing by his whistle.
"I'll get those."
And he does. The closer one is old, little more than a desiccated skeleton, bony fingers reaching with slow desperation as he walks past it, luring its attention away from Spencer by clicking his tongue like he's guiding a horse. It trails after him as he meets the second walker, a fresher and stronger one that hisses louder and louder the closer Daryl gets. He leans away from a frantic swipe in his direction before quickly jamming the blade of a hunting knife into its skull via the jaw. It shudders and he shoves it off, turns, sticks the older one through its soft, mostly-decayed head. When the hissing doesn't stop, he looks down, curious, and spies the upper half of a once-was-human creature crawling feebly towards him. It's mostly trapped in overgrown weeds, so Daryl just brings the heel of his boot down onto its skull, crushing it with a sick noise.
All quiet, as he makes his way back to the willow tree and Reid. Must be a good water source nearby, he thinks, to be supporting it. Maybe underground. He shakes gore off his knife, and sheaths it.
Reid is quickly learning that Daryl's not a big talker -- but that's okay, because Reid can talk enough for five people.
His simple I'll get those has Reid's eyebrows furrowing, until he looks, and a jolt of horrified adrenaline has him unsheathing his gun again, watching down the sights as Daryl deals neatly with the walkers. He's become an okay shot over the years, but Daryl's too close for him to get a shot off without risking him, and... well, it turns out he doesn't need help anyway. With just a knife and the heel of his boot, he's quickly and efficiently deals with three walkers, and Reid is visibly struggling not to flinch from the squishy, cracking noises. He's not entirely successful.
There's a reason that his job in Forty-Eight means he almost always stays inside the walls. He's just not good at dealing with walkers. He can, if he needs to. He's killed his fair share of them. But he's best suited elsewhere; his brain is his far more effective weapon, and words have never been a good weapon against the walkers.
Blood and brain matter get flicked into the grass, and Reid breathes through his mouth. He does not want to smell walker corpses, thank you.
Daryl's question has him blinking, and then brightening. A lot of people have gotten a crash course in the basics of medicine over the past few years, especially once the pharmacies ran out of their stock, but it's oddly endearing that this rugged walker-killing machine knows that willow bark can be used in treating headaches.
"The salicylic acid from willow bark actually has a number of uses!" he beams, warming to the topic as he turns back, awkwardly scraping away the bark. "Used as a topical ointment it can be used to help treat a number of painful skin conditions, like acne, psoriasis, or seborrheic dermatitis of the skin and scalp. A salt of bismuth and salicylic acid can be used as an antacid, anti-inflammatory, and mild antibiotic. Methyl salicylate can be used for joint pain, choline salicylate is used for mouth ulcers. And yes, as you obviously know, it's a key ingredient in acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin!"
As he works, he pauses briefly, thoughtful, and asks, "I know we asked people to come, but what made you agree?" Because Daryl doesn't seem like, uh... the indoors type.
Daryl definitely smells worse than walker corpses at this stage. Sorry, buddy.
He's a little baffled, listening to the younger man talk. Yeah, it's a painkiller, doesn't seem to be something worth getting out— he wonders if the guy is a naturalist, or just a bookworm, though after getting a closer look at what he's doing to the tree, he knows it's more of a bookworm situation. He's trying to decide if it's worth it or not to correct his technique, one hand halfheartedly raised like he's going to say something, when the question comes.
A fair question from Reid, but it still makes Daryl look away. Already sticking out like someone who doesn't belong, and it's been five minutes. He still feels like he's reeling, in a way, the edges of his vision slightly glassy from exhaustion.
When he turns back, he keeps his gaze lowered. One shoulder shrugs.
"Didn't feel like dying."
He's good outside, but he's not a wild animal. He wasn't going to make it much longer than anyone else without shelter, food, and a break.
"...My people are good people. Just been rough, for a while."
Scraping off the last piece of willow bark, Reid tucks it into the bag he's using, tucks the knife away as well, and finally takes a proper look at Daryl with a profiler's eye.
He looks like he's just about dead on his feet, which isn't exactly surprising, if they've pushed themselves from all the way over in Georgia. He's proficient in multiple kinds of weapons, and doesn't seem disturbed about having to kill the walkers. His clothes are well worn; functional, but damaged in places, so he either hasn't had the time or the know-how to fix the obvious holes. He has a strong sense of responsibility toward the people he'd brought here, though he seems a little wary about actually being here.
Not used to large communities of people, Reid might guess. Or maybe he just spends most of his time outdoors, and the prospect of the Forty-Eight's way of life seems daunting. He wouldn't be the first to feel that way.
"Maslowe's Heirarchy of Needs," he agrees. "It's a little outdated, but the premise is still mostly true. Physical safety, shelter, steady food and water, it's our most basic, most fundamental need. With the world the way it is, a lot of people have to go without even that."
He's lucky, Reid knows. The Forty-Eight is one of the more secure communities in the country, as far as he knows. It's practically flourishing, compared to many others.
He hikes his bag over his shoulder, slots the new batteries into his walkie, and tilts his head back in the direction of the Forty-Eight. "Come on, we'll head back, and you can have food, a shower, and rest, in whatever order you need those the most. And then once you wake up, I can show you around. The rest of your group are probably getting settled as we speak."
Needs, sure. He thinks of the first winter after the farm burned, the hellish struggle to find somewhere secure, the way they lost it. The road, the cannibals, the losses. People have to go without a lot. It threatens to make him resentful, even though he knows it's not this guy's fault. So he just sets it aside, nods, and gestures for him to start walking. Daryl will keep an eye out for more of the dead.
He snips a draping willow tendril before they go, threading it through his fingers as they walk. Idly peeling away the blade-shaped leaves with rough fingers. Eventually,
"You ain't been outside the walls much, huh? Since the turn."
Daryl has his knife out again, casually peeling paper-thin brown bark away from the small tendril, revealing the new offwhite bark beneath. He's quick about it. Probably the kind of person who doesn't have any fear about slicing fingertips off when peeling potatoes.
Reid rubs the back of his neck, a nervous little gesture. "I get out a few times a year. Sometimes more, sometimes less. There's... people that I'm looking for, so I travel to whatever communities I can find."
And it's not exactly pleasant, to say the least. Cooped up in Forty-Eight's walls, it's easy to settle into the familiarity of them, the running water and steady food and a roof over his head. He lives with his head in the clouds a lot, dozens of different tracks of thought puzzling over water irrigation systems, or improving medication efficacy, or trying to track down who stole from the food stores. When he goes out, it's like he remembers all over again how hard it is out there.
He became a profiler in his early twenties; he'd been looking at bodies killed in the most horrific of ways and talking to the most psychotic of serial killers since then. He's used to grim and grisly. But what's happened to the world since then is a whole new level of awful, because it's everywhere.
"But mostly I'm better off being somewhere I can be useful, and that's here." Reid ducks under the branch of a tree as they walk. "Charlie," their leader, "she kind of roped me into being second in command." And because of his admittedly ridiculous sense of responsibility, he'd reluctantly accepted. "But I get away when I can. Not on my own, obviously. It's just tough to make time when something's always breaking or a new system needs to be implemented or someone's getting accused of theft."
Something in Daryl goes soft with sympathy, hearing that Reid has people he's looking for. He understands that, despite having no ties to anyone from his life before the turn. The people he's with now are the only family he's ever cared about, the first people who've ever cared about him, and he's done all kinds of things to get them out of danger. (Or avenge wrongs. Sometimes, there's nothing else to be done besides even the scales.)
"Mm."
Silence for another while, except for footsteps and the last of his stripping of the thin willow branch. Accused of theft is kind of funny, though. Such ordinary crimes. Not long ago, Daryl shot a woman in the head because she was running a dictatorship with abducted survivors as slaves.
Hopefully Reid's friends are alright, or dead. The in between shit is all misery.
"Were you a tax fraud FBI agent, or like a .. Jodi Foster FBI agent?"
FBI agent sounds fake, honestly. It seems like something people made up for television. He's seen DEA agents before, stuck up pricks in windbreakers and blue shirts with their hands on their hips sneering at the state of the trailer he lived in with his brother, but they, too, seemed like imaginary people with no sense of how the people they policed actually lived. Strange.
Again, Daryl proves that he's not the biggest of talkers, and they settle into a silence as they continue walking back. The route that Reid usually takes to these trees takes him ten and a half minutes, assuming he doesn't stop to look at some new piece of nature that's sprung up.
"A Jodie Fos-- oh, Silence of the Lambs. I liked the book better." Neither movie nor book were particularly to Reid's taste, actually, but his team had sat him down one day and made him watch it -- a tradition they'd started when they'd found out Reid hadn't watched most classic movies.
Oh, right, he didn't answer the question.
"More like Jodie Foster," he admits. "I was in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We were called in when crime turned serial and the perpetrator needed to be found. Our job was to profile them; the way people commit crime can be incredibly revealing as to their demographics, personality, history, and so on, and we used that predicted information to find and catch them. We dealt mostly with serial killers, but also serial arsonists, bombers, poisoners, rapists, any kind of crime you can commit at least twice. Which is most of them!"
By the end of it, his hands are gesticulating wildly, revealing his passion for the topic. "We all had our own specialties in the team, but mine was, um-- being the resident nerd, I guess."
There'd been a tone in Daryl's voice, something that Reid had been very familiar with when the world hadn't been crawling with walkers. It's the I don't trust law enforcement because I've had bad experiences with them tone. Honestly, he's probably heard that tone more now. Too many cops and military people let their authority go to their heads when the world started breaking down.
Reid's hands link together, wringing worriedly. "You sound like you're not a fan," he says tentatively. "That's okay, you don't have to be."
Classic movies are basically all Daryl has seen. Daytime specials on pre-digital network TV. Ask him about his rolodex of Katharine Hepburn jokes. Books, well. Mostly repair manuals. Not a big reader, surprise surprise.
In any event, he does a lot of listening to all that, in the mean time finishing with his willow piece, which by now looks like a funny pale switch. He silently offers it to Reid; maybe eventually he'll get the motivation to explain the knack about harvesting it, but he doesn't see the point, right now.
"Ain't about that."
And it's not. He's had bad experiences with law enforcement, yes, but he's had bad experiences with most people. Reid will learn sooner or later that the leader of their wandering group was a cop, before, and that he and Daryl are perfectly fine (close, family now). He's just aware, both of what people might be prone to, and how people might see him.
His inquiry wasn't about sizing him up, though. Mostly plain curiosity, but also—
"You just know, then. That people are the worse than the dead, out here."
Serial killers, rapists, and all the normal people who had been waiting for the opportunity to become. They thrive in the fall.
Reid accepts the willow switch with all the gravitas of being handed a precious treasure, marveling at Daryl's skill in stripping it. He gets the feeling that Daryl has a lot of skills he'll be uncovering in due time.
"Yes. The civil breakdown has led to more people feeling comfortable to give into their darkest urges. People that might have otherwise never murdered or raped because they were too afraid of death or jail or the social consequences, now don't have to fear those things as much. Some people that felt powerless in their ordinary lives have now gone overboard to compensate, or people that had authority have been desperate to reclaim it, or..."
Reid trails off, shooting Daryl a wry, sad little smile.
"Without country-wide communication, I couldn't begin to estimate the numbers of people. We can estimate the number of walkers due to transmission rates and calculated spread, but-- despite the fact that they're the cause of the fall of large society, they seem less scary than some regular old humans out there. All the walkers can do is kill you and turn you."
He'd seen the worst of the worst at the FBI, but the scale and ambition of crime has grown. Mob mentality is a hell of a thing.
From here, the walls of the Forty-Eight have just become visible through the trees. Reid can see a lookout on the top of one of them, watching their path, and he gives an awkward wave.
"I can't say for certain you won't have to worry about people like that in the Forty-Eight," Reid apologizes, hands twisting together. "We've had to eject a few people. But... the threat of losing shelter, steady food, and running water, seems to keep people's behavior in check. For the most part." He grimaces. "It's barbaric to exile people, but it's more efficient than the alternatives according to Charlie."
A mild inquiry. Daryl isn't sure where he stands— it's barbaric because the world is the way it is, it's merciful because the alternative is prolonged captivity or execution, it's incredibly dangerous because they're cutting loose people who are armed with information about them who now might want revenge for being expelled. Interesting, and not a moral or strategic question he's in a hurry to have to decide. For a little while in their last home, he'd been voted on the council that made decisions for the community, but they hadn't ever come up on an issue like that. If it hadn't been lost, he figures they would have eventually, though he still doesn't know what he might do.
However Reid answers, Daryl won't have much input. He listens, he observes him, but there's not much he's going to contribute to the topic. Doing his own kind of investigation, not at all like a profiler. Just poking him with a stick and then walling himself off against any return pokes.
Returning to the gates is funny for a second, when he feels like a wild animal dragging a wayward cub back in, and then everything after that second is uncomfortable. He murmurs a 'see you around' to Reid before he oils away to post up with his group in their temporary housing, dodging any attempts to thank him for running a fest quest. He keeps to himself for the next few days, resisting integration, and the data from his arrival interview marks him as a bit of a mystery. No clear answer about what he did before, and possessing skills that do not lend himself to easy living in synthesized suburbia.
A rare public sighting puts him on the porch of their assigned townhome, smoking a cigarette and sharpening a hunting knife, technically babysitting. He makes sure to exhale away from the infant girl, who is otherwise happy to be crawling around in her new soft playpen.
Spencer's answer goes on at length, like most of Spencer Reid's answers usually do. First, he does a brief rundown on the history of exile in some major cultures around the world (did you know that ancient Greeks practiced exile for homicide, and also ostracism as a form of exile imposed for political reasons), then he touches on a couple of the people that Charlie had exiled (the first person exiled from the Forty-Eight had a psychosexual addiction to strangulation and they simply didn't have the means to jail him so they exiled him for the safety of the vulnerable women he was targeting), and then after a good long while, finally admits his own answer:
No, he doesn't agree with exile. He thinks criminals, even the worst of them, deserve basic human rights like shelter and safety. But the world's a different place now, and they don't have the manpower to spare for keeping watch over a jail at all hours. Spencer's about to get ramped up into a talk about the difficulty of deciding which laws applied to this place, when they reach the Forty-Eight, and he awkwardly stops mid-ramble, farewelling Daryl.
Over the next few days, he reads over the admission interviews. Charlie's put him in charge of feeling out the new arrivals -- in her words, he needed to put his 'big profiler brain' into action and scope out if any of them were a danger.
But Spencer's kind of more excited about something else: genetic sequencing. Which is why when he goes to see Daryl, he's practically vibrating with energy, eyes bright and his tie fluttering in the breeze.
"Daryl, hi!" He beams, and then stops short, directing a baffled stare at the baby. "And hello, unknown child? Oh, no, I know who you are, you were accounted for in the interviews but you didn't give one of your own. That'll have to be rectified later."
To Daryl, he presents a somewhat battered sheaf of papers with tiny text on them. "This is a consent form. I have a personal project related to genetic research, and while I've studied most of the people in the Forty-Eight, you as a new arrival present an exciting opportunity for additional data. All I need is a DNA sample." He pauses. "You don't have to say yes, obviously. You'd be within your rights to refuse."
The steady scraping of knife against stone doesn't stop when Reid approaches, or even when he starts explaining himself. Daryl stays where he is, elbows on his knees, slowly sharpening his blade. He looks at the younger man, expression unreadable — Spencer really does talk so much — before he finally relents and sits up so that he can put the knife away, and accept the papers.
Potentially agonizing silence goes on for a bit, unless Reid decides to fill it.
Daryl sets the papers down on the porch railing, whetstone atop them as a weight. He takes a drag of his cigarette, turns his head so he exhales away from Reid and the baby, reaches aside to tap ash off the end of it. He's not being especially considerate of the nicely painted porch, but it's not out of disrespect; he just doesn't think of it.
At last:
"Can you explain it to me?"
He does actually more or less understand the paperwork, having been through a serious medical incident in the past. (Unmentioned in his interview, but if Reid happens to be familiar with motorcycle gang insignia, he's free to have noticed that while Daryl doesn't actually have colors anywhere on his kutte, but he does have large angel wing patches on the back, which usually symbolize survival of a bad crash in MC subculture.) But he's curious, and this guy doesn't seem like he's got any reservations about going on about things at length. There's another chair on the porch if he'd like.
Meanwhile, Daryl finishes off his cigarette, and then picks the baby up. He mutters that her name's Judith, and then quietly informs her that they're talking to Jodi Foster.
As far as nicknames go, he guesses Jodi Foster isn't too bad.
"Of course!" he says cheerfully. "Do you know what the greatest recorded evolutionary advantage in humans is? A gene called ERAP2. In the 1300's, the Black Death killed somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of the European population, and aside from the horror it caused it did something really interesting: it didn't just cause social upheaval, it also caused a rapid micro-evolution in our genetics.
There were four genetic mutations found in many survivors of the Plague, but one, ERAP2, provided a 40% increased chance of survival. And these mutations occurred over the course of decades, which is incredibly fast compared to all previously known genetic mutation occurrences. The fastest one we knew of previously was the slow change toward lactose tolerance, and that took thousands of years!"
In full lecture mode, he barely stops for breath.
"I've been studying the genetics of every sample I can find to see if there's a chance the same might occur today. We know it's a virus that causes people to turn, but we barely got the chance to study it before the outbreak began. There might be people out there that already have a genetic variation that nullifies the virus, or it might be arising today -- either way, if I can find someone that has a greater chance of survival... well, gene therapy would be exceedingly difficult on a mass scale, but it would be a chance. A chance to turn the world around."
Finally, Reid sits, perched awkwardly on the edge of the chair like a stork coming in to roost, all gangly limbs. He doesn't know if he needs to explain any of what he just said, but he prefers to not treat people like they're idiots, and Daryl hadn't squinted at the consent form like it was gibberish.
Daryl pays attention, and so he follows, more or less. He's clever though uneducated (one of those "missed opportunity" intellects), and his biggest pitfall in this impromptu lecture is a failure to care about the topic. Which would sound heartless if he said so, given everything, and so he keeps it to himself.
Above his paygrade, is all. Above all of theirs, he thinks. That Reid cares says a lot about him, a lot of good about him, but Daryl can't put his faith in things like broad turnaround chances. Just himself, and sometimes, other people. He looks at the younger man, and pats Judith's back as she reaches a chubby hand out to paw at the edge of his vest and its chunky seam. Not for the first time, he's stricken with the intrusive thought of what she might look like, resurrected by the sickness. If something happened to her, or if it was just nothing, the crushing but completely human curse of crib death. Maybe the world will right itself before she's old enough to form memories of the way it is right now, or maybe they just have to make this new world livable for the next generation on their own.
"Dunno if it's a virus," he says after a while. "They didn't at the CDC, anyway. We were there in Atlanta before it blew. The last doc in there showed us the work he had left."
Been ages since he thought about it. The memories are glassy, hyper-real, distorted from the trauma sandwich of it all and the fact that he'd had way too much to drink the entire duration of that stay, but they're still there. Even the bits he doesn't understand.
"Can't hurt to keel looking, though. I guess. That one of your degrees? You a doctor doctor, too?"
Reid blinks, looking stumped. It's an abrupt, though interesting reminder that he knows very little about the man sitting across from him. Daryl is easy to read emotionally: he's withdrawn and comes off as distant, says little because he prefers to observe rather than babble, though he's honest and upfront with what he chooses to say. He's obviously devoted to his people, and is willing to put himself through a lot of hardship to ensure their safety. Despite his gruff-set expression and ragged looks, he's gentle, too, his hand careful on Judith's back.
Reid just has no idea what he used to do. He's usually really good at guessing that, but since broader civilization fell, it's hard to tell with a lot of people. Reid's seen former lab geeks dressed like the Terminator, and former serial killers dressed like they're at the office. He'd assume that Daryl was maybe part of a motorcycle gang, given the kutte and the symbolic insignia even without a specific gang marker, but beyond that, he's stumped. Why was Daryl at the CDC? Was he a doctor? A researcher? A diplomat?
It's... frustrating. He likes knowing everything. It makes him feel secure.
But. He does love a puzzle.
"Oh, no, I'm not a medical doctor, but I did study genetic disorders as a hobby," he admits. "And when the outbreak began-- I started reading every academic text I could get my hands on and thought might be useful. How-to guides for civil engineering. Medical texts. Geographical surveys. I read fast." Kind of an understatement. "And whenever I go out, I scavenge what books I can. There's a few other medical doctors and scientists here too, though we don't have a lot of time to work on studying genetics -- work in the Forty-Eight takes precedence."
He leans forward, eyes bright. "So, is it okay if I take a sample of your DNA? Like the consent form says, I won't share your data with anyone other than the medical staff here."
A strange time. He had mentioned it in his interview, but only briefly. That they'd tried to seek shelter there after realizing that the military base nearest them was a lost cause, but it didn't work out. Which is true. Quite a lot hasn't worked out. Of that first group from Atlanta, just about thirty people, only five remain. Patchworked out with others they've met over the years into their surreal family.
(If he knew what Reid was wondering, he'd laugh. There's no way Daryl seems like he had a job at the CDC, he knows damn well.)
"As a hobby," he echoes. Genetic disorders. Daryl's starting to figure out that the younger man is a total weirdo, not just smart. Makes Daryl like him more, though. Not that he should be thinking about liking or disliking anyone here. He wants it to work out, but he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He has to stay vigilant for his people, even while they decompress. They deserve the break, and given he has nothing else to offer, continuing to be a proverbial guard dog is the least he can do.
A shrug, then. "Sure." Why not. Daryl's DNA is already in a million databases due to the number of times he's voluntarily provided samples to get various cops off his back. There's nothing remarkable lurking in his genetics; he had chicken pox as a kid and he never did any of the intravenous drugs his brother trafficked. (Just the non-intravenous ones. He's not a saint.) Maybe he's developing lung cancer thanks to a lifetime of smoking, but at this stage, he figures if he ends up dying slowly and miserably in bed, he'll have lucked the fuck out.
"You need to draw blood, or just swab me?"
Edited (sorry for the edits apparently idk how 2 write ) 2023-11-02 07:33 (UTC)
For a night-- oh, right, his intake form mentioned it. So, he didn't work at the CDC in any capacity, it likely just seemed like a safe bet for shelter for a bit. But like everywhere else, it hadn't taken long for the CDC to fall. Secure buildings had never been built with zombies in mind.
"Neither, we do it by saliva samples," Reid says cheerfully, patting at his pockets until he finds the sample tubes he'd brought along, one of which he offers to Daryl. It's inelegant, but hey, it works.
He doesn't elaborate on Daryl's amused little note at his hobby, because it would inevitably involve why he's been studying genetic disorders for a long time, and that's not something he's very open about. He'd be more than happy to ramble on about the particularly interesting points of said hobby, but right now, he has something more important to get to.
"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" It's said accompanied with a bitten lip, somewhere between awkward and nervous and a profiler's familiarity with asking personal questions. "Your admission interview was a little bare, and I don't need the full details of your entire history, but-- well, in the spirit of honesty, I've been sent to determine if you or any of your group is a danger to the Forty-Eight." He grimaces. "Sorry."
It feels rude. It probably is rude, though Reid's never been the best judge of social mores. But they've got a jumpy, paranoid population who's gone a little soft due to being safer than most, and the last thing any of them want is to let in someone who might be dangerous. From the inside, it'd be all too easy to compromise the security of the Forty-Eight.
He makes a mental note to ask Rick to tall to Spencer about their CDC sidetrip. The other man had spent more time with the remaining scientist, spoke to him one-on-one. And beyond that, Daryl is certain that Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes will be able to more convincingly convey any details he recalls to an FBI agent, even if he doesn't actually understand genetic research any more or less than Daryl does.
Some shifting. Daryl props one leg up, ankle on his knee, so that Judith can sit cradled on his lap while he accepts the tube. He's seen one of these before, too.
No comment for a moment. He strokes a hand over the baby's head and her fine hair while she pats her hands at his knee, popping the sample tube open with his other. It might be rude, leveled at someone else. But Daryl is the anomaly and he knows it. He also knows Reid's nervous, and can tell the younger man feels bad about asking— doesn't take a profiler to have some experience with reading people.
"Don't have to apologize."
Saliva sample collected, he closes the tube and hands it over to Reid. Maybe one of them will even remember the release form. He jiggles Judy a little, and she babbles some nonsense, then grips his fingers. Daryl looks like he's going to say something else, but before he can get it out, the door to the townhouse opens and a young blonde woman with scars on her face appears, looking bleary-eyed and contrite.
A brief shuffle as she apologizes for having taken such a long nap, but Daryl tells her it's fine. He passes off baby Judith to her, who only fusses a little at being taken away. She likes Aunty Beth just as much as she likes Uncle Daryl, but only Daryl lets her chew on his clothes. Priorities in babyland. Beth (who survives in every au i write sry them's the rules) smiles at Spencer and politely says hello as she scoops Judith up, friendly and sweet, before she heads back inside and leaves the two men alone on the porch.
"If it makes you feel any better, I'll be asking all of your group the same questions." Because Daryl might be the most obviously dangerous looking of them, but Spencer learned long ago that the most dangerous of people can be the ones that look the most harmless. "Probably not the baby, though. I'll wait until she can form sentences."
He greets Beth with an awkward little wave and an awkward little smile -- at least heightened paranoia in the post-walker world means that very few people try to shake his hand, which is a big relief for a man who dies inside every time he thinks about bacteria transmission -- and then it's just the two of them.
Spencer silently hands over the medical consent form again, along with a pen that had previously been tucked behind his ear, mostly hidden in the curls of his hair. The last page is the one Daryl needs to sign, a handwritten form because the electricity they have is better used on lighting and heat, and not printing medical forms. The sample collection tube gets tucked into his pocket.
"Have you ever been arrested for a violent crime?" is the first question. And it's a loaded one, because a lot of people who have would deny it -- but to Spencer, it just adds to his knowledge of the person if they do try to lie.
He looks over the papers again, mostly out of curiosity. Checking out the other man's handwriting, maybe. Do non-medical doctors also write like shit? Not that he can talk. When he scrawls out Daryl Dixon, using the deck chair's armrest as a writing surface, it's clunky at best. He stares at it for a moment after, puzzled, trying to remember the last time he wrote something so normal out. Or wrote much of anything at all.
But it passes. He hands both the papers and the pen back. Question time, apparently.
"No," he answers, looking at him. A beat, then: "Couldn't I just lie?"
He isn't lying. He hasn't been arrested for a violent crime, or any crime. Which does not mean he hasn't committed any (he has), just that he's managed to avoid being caught. But he's not worried about that; he has no control over what Spencer believes. He's mostly just wondering as to what the methodology is here. Lie detectors are fake, he knows that much, but the younger man isn't doing anything but sitting across with him, eyeballs presumably peeled.
"You could lie," Spencer agrees, taking the papers back and setting them on his lap. The pen gets tucked behind his ear again. "But I'd probably be able to tell if you do."
He's not as good of a lie detector as Hotch or Gideon or Rossi were, but he does okay. There's a lot of subtle signs that people give off if they're telling the truth or if they're lying: eye contact, the steadiness of their voice, the openness of their body language, how much detail they put into things.
He can tell that Daryl's not lying about being arrested for a violent crime because his answer is simple. Someone that was lying might feel the need to pad that out with details: of course not, I've always been a good person, I've always been charitable to my community. Daryl's simple no is very telling. He doesn't feel the need to defend his answer.
"If I asked the rest of your group about what they think of you, what do you think their answers might be?" he asks, fidgeting with a corner of the consent form, compulsively smoothing out a dog-ear of the page.
Good that this conversation isn't happening months ago, while he was reeling from grief and drunk for the first time in years. He can still hear himself, Is that what you think of me?, cold and furious. Like an asshole. Ashamed of lashing out at someone who didn't deserve it, who just thought everyone had been in the drunk tank at least once.
Daryl is motivated to behave, now, no matter that he still seems standoffish. But he's had to be prepared to defend himself since he was a child, and he doesn't know how to turn it off. He may never; he may always seem like he could become hostile at any moment, even just sitting around.
His head tips. Observing Spencer. "That how you could tell?" Wry. "Gossip?"
Seems about as useful as lie detectors. But he shrugs, and answers anyway.
"Dunno. They've done alright by me, most of 'em. Like to think I've done the best I can in return."
He's underselling it, but he doesn't know that. Unaware of how much some people care about him, because he doesn't think he deserves it. Daryl's gaze falters and he looks away out at the street-turned-walkway. Plain, old-world insecurity. He doesn't care what broader society thinks of him, didn't then and doesn't now, but he cares about what his people think of him.
Asking Daryl what the others think about him tells him nothing about what the others actually think of him, and everything about how Daryl perceives them to think about him. If he'd asked Daryl to describe himself, the answer would likely be perfunctory. This method of question is much more useful.
That little glance away is telling, since Daryl's gaze has been steady up until now. He desperately wants what he said to be true, but he isn't sure that it is. He isn't sure that his people would actually say something so kind about him. He comes off as self-assured, but there's some insecurity there.
It's not unusual. Spencer would like to think he's useful to this community as well, but some nights he can't sleep because he worries he isn't doing enough, stricken with guilt over sleeping instead of doing.
"Most of them?" he repeats curiously. On Hotch or Morgan, that question would have been a narrow-eyed taunt; on Spencer, it's a wide-eyed innocent question. Two very different methods that work on different people, and it's partially because Spencer knows he can't really pull off the whole steely eyed, grim-jawed serious thing, but partially because he knows his non-threatening demeanor is good for helping people open up.
He takes the pen from behind his ear again, spinning it between his fingers.
"So there's some of them that haven't done alright by you," he continues. "Are there any continuing feuds that might pose a danger to you or anyone else?"
Daryl isn't difficult to read when someone knows what they're doing by looking, but he's effectively impossible to interrogate. Not a snitch. (Torture, physical and psychological, waterboarding. He doesn't crack. His hands don't shake.) The assumptions that the younger man is making, even if they were true, would never end up corroborated.
But. Daryl looks back at Reid, his gaze contemplative. Stormy blue eyes thinking about him and his eagerness to do things. Outside the walls scraping at willow bark despite clearly never having so much as gone camping before the turn, and now in here, doing these followup interviews while also soliciting participation in genetic research. Spinning plates. He wonders how much stale coffee Spencer drinks on the daily.
"Ain't what I meant."
He wishes he could ration another cigarette just to have something to do with his hands; he doesn't want to pull at his cuticles like a child. His fingers tap briefly on his knee, but he makes himself stop. Almost nervous. Communicating effectively past yes or no answers has never been his strong suit.
"Just don't know some of 'em well. The priest, the redhead, the chick with the busted arm. Folks we found on the road. I know Gabriel is fucking terrified of us, no matter we saved his life half a dozen times. Not his fault. He just wishes survival could be a kinder business, and being angry at the people doing the surviving is... easier than being mad at God, or whatever."
"It's not an uncommon rationalization, these days," Spencer hums in agreement. He thinks that might be the longest few sentences he's gotten out of Daryl since they met, which is a great success! "It's hard to justify why a loving god would allow something like this to happen, so being mad at your fellow man is much easier. Or they rationalize it as being a trial from god, and it's easy to think everybody else is just unnecessarily making it harder."
So, he can probably tick off the 'not religious' box for Daryl, then. Spencer wonders if he ever used to be, before. A lot of people have lost their faith. Then again, a lot of people found it, too. Drastic circumstances makes for drastic change.
Still, it's good to know that Daryl doesn't seem to have any big conflicts with any of the people in his group. He doesn't even take it personally when a member is continuously scared of them despite doing everything he can to help, which is extremely even-tempered of him.
"Are there any feuds in your group?" he follows up, tone a little lighter than before. This one's not so much an interview question as it is plain curiosity. "We obviously can't mandate in the Forty-Eight that nobody has any arguments, but it's useful to know where the sources of strife are. It sounds nosy, I know, but the leadership does its best to mediate arguments over resources, if that's what any feuds are over."
No comment about God. He wasn't ever especially concerned with the issue, and isn't now. Once a passive believer thanks to cultural habit, but these days, he finds it altogether unconvincing. In the face of what the world's become, he experienced a simple falling off without any psychological angst. It is what it is.
"Regular shit. Folks in close quarters get annoyed now and again."
He doesn't think anyone will confess anything dire. In fact, he'd be more inclined to anticipate his people closing ranks over even the most minor infractions. Barring, say, the aforementioned Gabriel, but even if the man decides to babble on about the violence he's witnessed, a few followup questions are bound to stump judgement. Yes, he's seen them murder other living humans brutally, he's seen executions and slaughters. Why? Oh, well, cannibals, slavers, rapists.
Kind of a wash.
"Your people got problems? Anything we should avoid stepping into by accident?"
Reid's probably not here to give an interview of his own, but fair's fair, Daryl thinks. Besides, the younger man sort of seems like the kind of guy who got his ass kicked a lot at school, no matter that now he's an FBI agent and someone in a position of authority at 48. Meaning he should have a good sense of who the assholes are, profiler or not.
A suitably enigmatic person might evade that question, but Spencer just grimaces, giving the answer away before he even says anything. Yes, like any small society, the Forty-Eight has problems, and he sees no real need to keep them hidden. If Daryl's group are joining them, they're ultimately doing the Forty-Eight a big favor.
"The head of security, Roscoe? He's kind of judgemental," Spencer admits. "Charlie normally keeps him in line, but he'll be watching all of you pretty carefully for the next few months. Unless you bribe him with alcohol, then he'll be your best friend."
Hmm. Feuds within the Forty-Eight. There's a lot of small ones, obviously. The people three doors down from Spencer have just recently broken up and hate each other over it. There's arguments over workload, and people cheating on their relationships, and their resident imam is continually being harassed by a guy that's bitter over losing his faith. There's some people that have taken issue with Spencer, thinking he's not suitable to be second in command.
"There's a doomsday prepper in the red barn in the south that you'll probably want to avoid," he continues thoughtfully. "There's also some people who aren't happy with us letting in new people, so you might get some suspicious stares for a while -- nobody that's really gotten really mad about it, but just to be safe, I'd stick close to each other for now. This is a relatively safe community, but you can never tell what might set some people off."
- Head of security is a corrupt alcoholic who will need to be Dealt With - Someone with severe mental illness lives in the barn (doomsday is here, there's nothing left to prep for, get it together buddy) - Everyone else is an asshole who's never had to live outside the walls
Whether or not these turn out to be true is something only time can tell. But Daryl will remember this intel, and relay it to the rest of his group. Or at least Rick. Who Daryl could probably stand to be a little less deferential to, all things considered, but Daryl still views his own worth as a person based strictly on his own utility. Having a leader helps, when you are spiritually just a mean guard dog.
"Alright."
He appreciates Spencer's willingness to share all that. Even if it's a calculated offering as a way to try and win trust, it's not nothing, and trust has to start somewhere. Trying is better than sandbagging. Which he tells himself as he sits there, once again having to make himself stop fidgeting with his hands. Trying is better.
The question takes Spencer off-guard, and he leans back in his chair, shoulders hunched.
His instinct has always been to be intensely private -- or, more likely, he just formed that instinct as a twelve year old who couldn't tell anybody his home situation or else he'd risk getting put in the foster system. Even with his team, the people he'd viewed as family, he'd still only shared things when he'd absolutely needed to.
The fall of society certainly hasn't helped. He'd made the mistake of sharing what PhD's he had to a stranger, once, and he'd very nearly gotten kidnapped as a valuable resource.
Still. He's done with the questions, and fair's fair. He should answer some of Daryl's questions in return. And he gets the sense that he can trust Daryl.
"My team, the BAU," he admits, picking compulsively at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt sleeve. "When society started to collapse, the FBI sent its personnel all over the country to try to control the situation. We were all split up to serve as diplomats and psychological experts. I haven't seen any of them since."
He doesn't even know if any of them are still alive. He has faith that they are, but even the toughest of them couldn't survive a strong walker onslaught, or even worse, humans gone rogue in roving bands of slavers or cannibals. But he's been looking tirelessly for them, because he has to believe.
"I guess we've all got people from our lives before that we miss," Spencer finishes, with a rueful little smile. "Do you?"
It's been so long since Daryl thought of the fall itself, the collapse-in-progress, that for a moment he has to sit and wonder just how long it's been. Time seems to have become an accordion of itself, folding in and expanding at once; he can measure against the baby, knows it hasn't been a lifetime, but it feels that way. And yet every so often he wakes up and, just for a second, wonders why he isn't in a shitty trailer.
"That shit's crazy," he mutters, somewhat without his own say-so. Had people really been dispatched to try and help in that capacity? His most profound memory of everything finally giving way is he and his brother hustling it up to the roof of a motel to watch the military pour napalm down over the streets of Atlanta. Merle had laughed, cackling in his unhinged way, and Daryl had felt disconnected. Society, this overwhelming and intrinsic human thing he'd been shamed his whole life for not being a part of, went so bad so fast, like it was never real.
And Spencer and individual people like him were being flown around, trying to help. Surreal.
Daryl thinks to ask more. They've come across a lot of people, and not everyone in their group started out in Georgia. Maybe somebody's come across an FBI agent— they've found cops and ex-marines and politicians and one rock star. You never know. But that.
Something behind Daryl's eyes shutters, even though his expression doesn't change. Awkward silence before he finally answers,
"Nah." Abrupt. He shrugs dismissively. All dead, he nearly adds, but doesn't. You're supposed to miss dead people. (Merle, cackling in his unhinged way. Daryl still sees him sometimes, like a fucking poltergeist.) "I'm just. Present. Reckon I can keep an eye out for your folks, though."
Having always been prone to foot-in-mouth disease, Spencer immediately realizes when he's done it again.
"Sorry, that was thoughtless of me," he apologizes, wincing. Not everybody has people they miss. He's lucky, he knows; he'd found a family in his team, and not everybody gets something like that. Some people are just alone, or stuck with people they don't get on with, or in terrible situations.
If he hadn't had his team, he thinks the only person he'd be missing is his mother. He's been looking for her too, but unlike his faith in his team's ability to survive, he... privately doubts that his mom was as lucky, and it breaks his heart. Hospitals, mental hospitals, and nursing homes had been hit particularly hard with the outbreak. Vulnerable populations, enclosed spaces. He frequently has nightmares about finding her walking corpse.
"If you kept an eye out, that'd be really kind of you," he adds. "I'm done with the questions, by the way. I promise I won't be bothering your group for too long."
(He kind of wants to bother Daryl more, actually. He's interesting.)
"Can I get you anything, by the way? How are you settling in?"
Daryl isn't used to anyone actually noticing his barely-there tells, and for a moment he looks confused. Uncertain what Spencer could be apologizing for. So he just ... sits there, awkward, staring at the younger man, unable to puzzle out what happened, and not socially confident enough to feel able to ask.
He sits back in the chair, and this time doesn't manage to stop himself from bringing a hand to his mouth to worry at the side of one thumbnail with his teeth. A nervous tick. It's only when he remembers that the still-healing burns on his hands are there, obvious and pale in stark relief against ruddy skin, that he abruptly lowers his hand again. Oops.
With a rough sound, he clears his throat.
"M'fine." Yep. Entirely. Real normal. "Reckon you won't find a job for me, so I'm just resting up 'til I can get back out there. Go on runs, or whatever."
Note to self: Daryl isn't used to someone being able to pick up on his micro-expressions.
Spencer often forgets that most people aren't used to that, actually. He spent years around profilers every day, and even though they had a rule against profiling each other, it still happened. If he was thirty seconds too slow in turning a page, someone would notice. If he squinted a bit more than usual, someone would notice.
"Have you seen someone about those burns?" he asks, head tilted curiously. He wants to ask, but it doesn't take a genius to assume that the story probably isn't pretty. Walkers don't cause burns. People do. Unless Daryl tried to make a molotov cocktail and it backfired, or he rescued someone from a burning building. "They don't look extensive enough to cause muscular problems, but it's always good to double check if PT is indicated. Improperly healed, chronic pain can easily follow."
Given what he knows of Daryl's skills, having his job be external resource gathering is probably the best use of him, and Spencer's pretty confident Charlie will come to the same conclusion. That, or surveillance. So it'll be good for him to get some rest, after his long trek, and Spencer's already planning what he can bring to help with that. They even have working TVs thanks to their solar panels, and DVDs he can bring over!
Still awkward. They aren't bad, just superficial things. He forgets because everyone is so screwed up, out there, that minor injuries start to look normal. Feel normal. It becomes unremarkable. And for Daryl, even grievous injuries have been unremarkable— he feels disoriented, all of a sudden, even more than when they first arrived.
"Uh."
Hm. He looks away, and it doesn't take someone who can read microexpressions to tell he's embarrassed.
"... I'm gonna go get some rest, I think. I promise I'll get these looked after."
He doesn't know why he says I promise. It sounds corny. But it out of his mouth before he can think of anything else to say about it, and so he has to just leave it there. Sitting still only because he's sure getting up and bolting inside would look even weirder.
"Make sure you do, I'd hate to see you lose use of your hands! Did you know burn classifications actually go past third degree? It goes all the way up to sixth degree, which is when--"
It's probably a good thing that someone comes by at that moment and reminds Spencer he has a meeting with Charlie, because otherwise he would have rambled at Daryl about some seriously gory burn facts. He makes his apologies, almost trips when he goes down the stairs, and awkwardly says goodbye -- though it's awkward mostly just because that's who Reid is as a person, and not anything to do with his dynamic with Daryl.
Over the next few days, he's busy. There's malfunctioning solar panels to see to, genetic testing to be done, a new well being dug (not that he's useful enough to help with the actual digging), and other people of Daryl's group to interview. Also, one of their more adventurous members comes back with a whole wheelbarrow full of books, and some of them are pretty useful, even!
It's not until four days later that Spencer runs into Daryl again, and it's in the communal kitchens. The community is set up so that there's a communal meal three times a day, or people can request a biweekly food allotment so they can cook at home. Spencer's a decent cook when he wants to be, but he mostly just has the communal meals so he has more time to think about important stuff -- the thing is, though, lately some of his thoughts have been about Daryl. Like, a strange amount of thoughts.
He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know what it means when he feels excited about seeing him again. As best he can tell, he just thinks Daryl's really interesting?
Whatever it is, there's that weird little excited feeling in his belly when he catches sight of Daryl in the kitchens. But first, he apparently has to get lectured by one of the cooks, a big guy that Spencer knows only as Jones. "I know you've been skipping meals," Jones threatens, shaking a ladle at him, "look at you, you're a pipecleaner with a sweatervest on, you can't afford to skip meals. Do you know many calories the average human needs a day? You can't achieve that with coffee, Reid!"
"I know, I'm sorry," Spencer says quickly, already trying to sneak away, "I'll do better. Oh, look, it's Daryl! Hi, Daryl. I'll talk to you later, Jones!"
He leaves Jones grumbling and pouring out portions of soup, and does his best to hide behind Daryl instead. It doesn't work. Daryl's not quite tall enough.
"I'm using you as a human shield so he doesn't lecture me anymore," Spencer whispers. "I think he can only see me if I move. What are you doing in here, by the way?"
If Spencer folds the top half of himself to resemble a lollipop, he might be able to hide. Daryl has the shoulder real estate for it.
He also has... meat. Meat, wax paper, and a food scale. Portioning out sample selections of a few things, apparently. It doesn't look like a butcher's counter, no large cuts or masses of ground chuck, but small pieces in a variety of shades of inner flesh. Cleaned and snipped nicely. Slightly weird in with the cafeteria style setup and canned supplies. Daryl is slightly weird, as well, having finally been scrubbed clean and shoved into a new shirt (still under his ubiquitous vest). Navy blue plaid, buttoned up nearly all the way. Like he's a real person almost. He has a single bandaid around the ring finger of his right hand.
"Okay," he says, about being used as a human shield, because what else does a person say? He gives Jones a look, deliberately comical, but the man is back to his business. Ehhem. So. Daryl looks back over at Spencer.
"...Uh." He glances down at what he's doing, then back up. "Helping. I guess. Making shit last longer."
Proteins with shelf lives can be saved for emergencies when supplemented with fresh game. It's just a matter of convincing people that it's not unappetizing— something that Daryl struggles to understand. Food isn't a guarantee. Just eat it and be glad you don't have to dig for worms and chew on sticks. Speaking of. He eyes Agent Pipecleaner.
"You ain't eating right?"
Spencer is busy, he's noticed. Always busy, zipping around, proverbially juggling plates. Daryl's kept an eye on him from afar a little here and there, bookended around his hunting trip. The kind of person who seems like if he moves fast enough, he won't have to remember to look after himself.
The food side of Forty-Eight isn't something that Spencer's been involved with much -- they had people that had far more experience with preparation, preservation, and agriculture than he had, he mostly stuck to the engineering side of things. He'd be lost about what to do if the lettuce starts turning yellow, but he can rig up an automatic watering machine just fine.
It's a pleasant surprise to see Daryl helping out in the kitchens, though. He'd expected the man to stick to things like doing runs outside, but he looks downright domestic here, and it's--
Hmm. He's fairly certain he's experiencing physical attraction. That's not a common thing for him.
"I eat enough, I just... get caught up in things, and forget sometimes," he admits. A glance at Jones, who's now distracted by soup, and Spencer decides it's safe enough to stop hiding behind Daryl. He stays close, though, peering in interest at the pieces of meat Daryl's preparing. "You have a lot of different talents."
He'd asked Daryl's group about him; their opinions had been mixed. Gabriel had talked about Daryl like he was a psychotic serial killer, but Rick had nothing but good things to say about him. Very few of them seemed to know much about him, and none of them had told Spencer anything about what he was like before the fall. He's a very enigmatic figure, but Spencer does love a good puzzle.
"Charlie gave the final approval last night, you and everyone in your group is welcome to stay however long you like," he announces. "You likely won't be the last, there's other groups we've been in contact with, so we'll probably have to expand to another city block to accommodate everyone."
Daryl looks away and back to what he's doing, not sure how to handle the— compliment? remark? Because he doesn't have a lot of different talents. All he knows how to do is survive on very little. He supposes it can look that way to people who haven't had to do it, but he still feels strange about having it pointed out.
At least Spencer doesn't actively make him feel like a freak when he says shit like that, though. He seems to mean everything earnestly. It goes a way to unwind some of the tension that threatens to pull a stitch between his shoulders. So he just makes a noncommittal sound, and continues wrapping up the last of his game assortments, one of which he decides at the last minute to keep separated from the rest going out. He's already separated and kept the grossest bits for himself, not wanting to give people anything to waste, but. An idea is forming.
"Yeah?" a glance at the younger man. A bit of relief. Despite the potential for conflict and growing pains, he expected it after seeing how short this place is on protection. But it's still nice to hear. "...Won't be too bad to clear out. Ain't got much activity in the area."
Momentary fidgeting. Daryl fusses with a folded edge of wax paper, uncertain. He's sure Reid won't be unkind to him if he shoots down the offer, but he still finds himself grappling for the fortitude to cough up a question.
"No," Spencer agrees, "the majority of the work involved will be making sure the buildings are livable, expanding the wall, and extending water and electricity lines out there. We will need more constant surveillance while there's a gap opened up in the wall, though."
Which means a lot of engineering work, which means he's going to busy. He kind of likes keeping busy, though -- it gives him less time to dwell on things he doesn't want to think about.
He's told having friends is good for that, too, but Spencer hasn't had a whole lot of success at that. Like, ever. He's friendly with some people here, and he meets Charlie for a game of chess every Saturday, but that's about it. Daryl's sufficiently interesting enough that it keeps him distracted, though, and maybe a potential friend!
"Have you had lunch yet?" he asks, oblivious for now to Daryl's impending question. "I don't normally eat with everyone-- all the chewing sounds make me want to die, honestly, so I take my food somewhere else." Reid fidgets briefly. This is how friends are made, he tells himself. "Would you like to join me?"
Daryl's group has done a lot of clearing out. So at least 48 has some extra muscle experienced in this sort of thing, now. They'll be happy to help— something that they all understand, that makes sense, that doesn't require them to try and seem normal during welcoming parties that make everybody feel smothered in shadowed PTSD.
More barely-there fidgeting, worrying at one thumb nail with the same hand's other fingers. He's just deciding not to ask — the answer will be no, anyway — when Spencer goes and beats him to it. For a moment Daryl just looks at him.
"Uh."
Come on, Dixon.
"Sure." A nod, and he quickly looks down at the little wrapped up thing. He slides it closer, intent on scooping it up along with whatever else. "If soup ain't your thing, I can fix these up. See if you can stomach any."
Soup is fine with Daryl, though, and so he's content to get a container of it to go with whatever else is offered. He dimly makes a note about the younger man not liking chewing sounds, and wonders if it's got to do with the whole... reanimated corpses devouring flesh thing. His own table manners are not great (as in, non-existent), but he chews with his mouth closed. Not much of a mouth breather, despite all the smoking no doubt shredding his airways.
SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY the holidays really got the best of me 😭
"I can stomach a lot of things these days," Spencer replies brightly. "I'd love to try your handiwork-- I bet Jones is happy to have some extra help. We can cook at my place."
Jones just grumbles in the background, still focusing on his soup. He's kind of a perfectionist about food, even in these trying times. No doubt Daryl will get a gruff thank you later for adding to the meat stores.
Spencer gives Daryl a moment to collect what he needs to, and then he leads the way out of the kitchen. "I never used to be able to cook," he confides to Darryl. "I could do sandwiches and some ready-made soup, but that was about it. I used to just order out a lot."
But the end of the world has made a lot of people learn skills they hadn't known before. He wonders if Daryl had known how to butcher before the world had turned upside down. There's something incredibly attractive about the-- not the butchering thing, specifically, but how capable Daryl is at so many things.
Hmmm. There goes that weird feeling in his chest again. That feeling he's come to associate with I am attracted to this person.
Outside of the community center kitchen, it's getting crowded with people waiting on lunch, and they make their way through the crowd to the street outside, where Spencer begins to take the path to the east. "My place isn't far." Then again, it's a five minute walk from east to west inside this closed community, so, everywhere isn't far.
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piscesnebula2023-10-24 05:47 pm
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But because it's not so different from Georgia, he finds the foliage easy and familiar, no matter that he's still reeling from the shock of spending half a day inside a house, inside walls. An easy trail to follow, made by someone whose footsteps read skinny bulldozer. Tall, probably. Taller than Daryl, but not as heavy. No experience with trying not to scare away game, but probably thinks he's being quiet. They all do. He marks two undead walkers, swaying grey glimpses through the trees, but they're too far away to trouble him.
When he spots the guy, he pauses and raises his hands. Of course it's going to seem like he's sneaking up on him, that's just his luck. Mm. On second thought, he fishes the sandwich bag with batteries in it out of his pocket, so he doesn't have to do any dramatic reaching if he gets drawn on. Special Agent, the woman in charge had described him, proud. Which means fancy cop, which means could just blast me, so: maintaining a surrender pose with his peace offering, he gives a whistle, sharp and loud.
"Hey. You're Reid?"
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So here he is. In nature. Scraping willow bark.
And getting jump scared.
The whistle has him jumping like a startled deer, but training kicks in a split-second later, and he turns sharply, gun drawn and pointed, knife still in the hand he's bracing against his pistol. Luckily for the guy who startled him, it's pretty immediately obvious that he's not a walker, so the pistol's muzzle swings down to point at the ground, but not put away.
"Yes, that's me?" he replies, voice rising at the end to make it a question, eyes narrowed in wariness. He wishes he cut more of an intimidating figure -- his bulletproof vest lays on top of an outfit that's in no way *outdoorsy* and is in fact exactly what he used to wear as an agent, slacks and sneakers and a white shirt and a sweatervest. He even has a grey and black striped tie, because it makes him feel better.
The point is, *this guy* looks way more intimidating than he does, much to his eternal chagrin. "Who are you? You're not from Forty-Eight." The community; so named for the highway it's near.
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"Daryl."
Flat, gravelly. Hi. He wiggles the bag he's holding just a bit, though he keeps his arms raised despite Reid lowering his firearm. Believe it or not, he's never actually been arrested, but thanks to his late brother he's been detained at the scene enough times to be intimately familiar with the drill.
"I'm with the group your people were monitoring. Got here early. They reckon the batteries on your walkie died."
Things are a little frazzled back at the commune. Shit had gone slightly pear-shaped, contact happening sooner than the scouts wanted, and it was a surprise for the sheltered residence when they appeared at the gates this morning. It was obvious both that Reid's absence was an issue, and that they didn't feel comfortable sending anyone out to look for him given the sudden addition of several practically feral, well-armed roamers. So Daryl had exchanged a few looks with his people, and quietly made himself useful.
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Reid's honestly not sure whether to be kind of scared, or kind of fascinated. Maybe both?
"Oh. That group. Right. Sorry." Mollified, (and a little sheepish), Reid tucks his gun back into its holster at his hip, and the borrowed knife back into its sheath on his other hip. Forty-Eight had come to the conclusion a few months ago that they needed to start accepting new people inside their walls, and they'd gotten in touch via radio with a few different roaming groups. Some had already arrived, but only one was due, so Daryl must be with that group from Georgia.
He clicks the side button of his walkie a few times, and ah, yeah, it's dead. Whoops. He'd just assumed he'd gotten a few minutes of blissful silence.
"I'm Spencer Reid. Doctor. Although the colleges that gave me those doctorates are probably rotting right now," he muses wryly. "Welcome to the Forty-Eight. I hope your arrival was okay, the head of security can be a bit, uh. Stern."
Reid glances back at the tree he'd been halfway through stripping, down at the bag he'd been collecting the bark in, and grimaces apologetically. "Do you mind waiting? I've just got to finish this, and then we can head back, if that's okay." He takes a step closer, holding a hand out for the batteries, not wanting to just grab them off Daryl. "Thanks for the batteries."
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And? He stares at the agent (doctor?), and can't actually imagine himself living at Forty-Eight. The others, sure. No matter how traumatized they are, they were all real people before the turn, living real lives, in real houses. Daryl wasn't. The idea of returning to nothingness and counting down the hours until he's expelled makes him feel sick, makes his head feel tight, like he's going to throw up.
Doesn't matter. He has to suck it up for now, so that his people can stay. He won't jeopardize it for them.
So: just a grunted noise that covers Nice to meet you, I'm fine waiting, no problem. He follows it up with a nod towards the walkers creeping in their direction, drawing by his whistle.
"I'll get those."
And he does. The closer one is old, little more than a desiccated skeleton, bony fingers reaching with slow desperation as he walks past it, luring its attention away from Spencer by clicking his tongue like he's guiding a horse. It trails after him as he meets the second walker, a fresher and stronger one that hisses louder and louder the closer Daryl gets. He leans away from a frantic swipe in his direction before quickly jamming the blade of a hunting knife into its skull via the jaw. It shudders and he shoves it off, turns, sticks the older one through its soft, mostly-decayed head. When the hissing doesn't stop, he looks down, curious, and spies the upper half of a once-was-human creature crawling feebly towards him. It's mostly trapped in overgrown weeds, so Daryl just brings the heel of his boot down onto its skull, crushing it with a sick noise.
All quiet, as he makes his way back to the willow tree and Reid. Must be a good water source nearby, he thinks, to be supporting it. Maybe underground. He shakes gore off his knife, and sheaths it.
"Got a headache?"
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His simple I'll get those has Reid's eyebrows furrowing, until he looks, and a jolt of horrified adrenaline has him unsheathing his gun again, watching down the sights as Daryl deals neatly with the walkers. He's become an okay shot over the years, but Daryl's too close for him to get a shot off without risking him, and... well, it turns out he doesn't need help anyway. With just a knife and the heel of his boot, he's quickly and efficiently deals with three walkers, and Reid is visibly struggling not to flinch from the squishy, cracking noises. He's not entirely successful.
There's a reason that his job in Forty-Eight means he almost always stays inside the walls. He's just not good at dealing with walkers. He can, if he needs to. He's killed his fair share of them. But he's best suited elsewhere; his brain is his far more effective weapon, and words have never been a good weapon against the walkers.
Blood and brain matter get flicked into the grass, and Reid breathes through his mouth. He does not want to smell walker corpses, thank you.
Daryl's question has him blinking, and then brightening. A lot of people have gotten a crash course in the basics of medicine over the past few years, especially once the pharmacies ran out of their stock, but it's oddly endearing that this rugged walker-killing machine knows that willow bark can be used in treating headaches.
"The salicylic acid from willow bark actually has a number of uses!" he beams, warming to the topic as he turns back, awkwardly scraping away the bark. "Used as a topical ointment it can be used to help treat a number of painful skin conditions, like acne, psoriasis, or seborrheic dermatitis of the skin and scalp. A salt of bismuth and salicylic acid can be used as an antacid, anti-inflammatory, and mild antibiotic. Methyl salicylate can be used for joint pain, choline salicylate is used for mouth ulcers. And yes, as you obviously know, it's a key ingredient in acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin!"
As he works, he pauses briefly, thoughtful, and asks, "I know we asked people to come, but what made you agree?" Because Daryl doesn't seem like, uh... the indoors type.
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He's a little baffled, listening to the younger man talk. Yeah, it's a painkiller, doesn't seem to be something worth getting out— he wonders if the guy is a naturalist, or just a bookworm, though after getting a closer look at what he's doing to the tree, he knows it's more of a bookworm situation. He's trying to decide if it's worth it or not to correct his technique, one hand halfheartedly raised like he's going to say something, when the question comes.
A fair question from Reid, but it still makes Daryl look away. Already sticking out like someone who doesn't belong, and it's been five minutes. He still feels like he's reeling, in a way, the edges of his vision slightly glassy from exhaustion.
When he turns back, he keeps his gaze lowered. One shoulder shrugs.
"Didn't feel like dying."
He's good outside, but he's not a wild animal. He wasn't going to make it much longer than anyone else without shelter, food, and a break.
"...My people are good people. Just been rough, for a while."
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He looks like he's just about dead on his feet, which isn't exactly surprising, if they've pushed themselves from all the way over in Georgia. He's proficient in multiple kinds of weapons, and doesn't seem disturbed about having to kill the walkers. His clothes are well worn; functional, but damaged in places, so he either hasn't had the time or the know-how to fix the obvious holes. He has a strong sense of responsibility toward the people he'd brought here, though he seems a little wary about actually being here.
Not used to large communities of people, Reid might guess. Or maybe he just spends most of his time outdoors, and the prospect of the Forty-Eight's way of life seems daunting. He wouldn't be the first to feel that way.
"Maslowe's Heirarchy of Needs," he agrees. "It's a little outdated, but the premise is still mostly true. Physical safety, shelter, steady food and water, it's our most basic, most fundamental need. With the world the way it is, a lot of people have to go without even that."
He's lucky, Reid knows. The Forty-Eight is one of the more secure communities in the country, as far as he knows. It's practically flourishing, compared to many others.
He hikes his bag over his shoulder, slots the new batteries into his walkie, and tilts his head back in the direction of the Forty-Eight. "Come on, we'll head back, and you can have food, a shower, and rest, in whatever order you need those the most. And then once you wake up, I can show you around. The rest of your group are probably getting settled as we speak."
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Needs, sure. He thinks of the first winter after the farm burned, the hellish struggle to find somewhere secure, the way they lost it. The road, the cannibals, the losses. People have to go without a lot. It threatens to make him resentful, even though he knows it's not this guy's fault. So he just sets it aside, nods, and gestures for him to start walking. Daryl will keep an eye out for more of the dead.
He snips a draping willow tendril before they go, threading it through his fingers as they walk. Idly peeling away the blade-shaped leaves with rough fingers. Eventually,
"You ain't been outside the walls much, huh? Since the turn."
Daryl has his knife out again, casually peeling paper-thin brown bark away from the small tendril, revealing the new offwhite bark beneath. He's quick about it. Probably the kind of person who doesn't have any fear about slicing fingertips off when peeling potatoes.
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And it's not exactly pleasant, to say the least. Cooped up in Forty-Eight's walls, it's easy to settle into the familiarity of them, the running water and steady food and a roof over his head. He lives with his head in the clouds a lot, dozens of different tracks of thought puzzling over water irrigation systems, or improving medication efficacy, or trying to track down who stole from the food stores. When he goes out, it's like he remembers all over again how hard it is out there.
He became a profiler in his early twenties; he'd been looking at bodies killed in the most horrific of ways and talking to the most psychotic of serial killers since then. He's used to grim and grisly. But what's happened to the world since then is a whole new level of awful, because it's everywhere.
"But mostly I'm better off being somewhere I can be useful, and that's here." Reid ducks under the branch of a tree as they walk. "Charlie," their leader, "she kind of roped me into being second in command." And because of his admittedly ridiculous sense of responsibility, he'd reluctantly accepted. "But I get away when I can. Not on my own, obviously. It's just tough to make time when something's always breaking or a new system needs to be implemented or someone's getting accused of theft."
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"Mm."
Silence for another while, except for footsteps and the last of his stripping of the thin willow branch. Accused of theft is kind of funny, though. Such ordinary crimes. Not long ago, Daryl shot a woman in the head because she was running a dictatorship with abducted survivors as slaves.
Hopefully Reid's friends are alright, or dead. The in between shit is all misery.
"Were you a tax fraud FBI agent, or like a .. Jodi Foster FBI agent?"
FBI agent sounds fake, honestly. It seems like something people made up for television. He's seen DEA agents before, stuck up pricks in windbreakers and blue shirts with their hands on their hips sneering at the state of the trailer he lived in with his brother, but they, too, seemed like imaginary people with no sense of how the people they policed actually lived. Strange.
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"A Jodie Fos-- oh, Silence of the Lambs. I liked the book better." Neither movie nor book were particularly to Reid's taste, actually, but his team had sat him down one day and made him watch it -- a tradition they'd started when they'd found out Reid hadn't watched most classic movies.
Oh, right, he didn't answer the question.
"More like Jodie Foster," he admits. "I was in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We were called in when crime turned serial and the perpetrator needed to be found. Our job was to profile them; the way people commit crime can be incredibly revealing as to their demographics, personality, history, and so on, and we used that predicted information to find and catch them. We dealt mostly with serial killers, but also serial arsonists, bombers, poisoners, rapists, any kind of crime you can commit at least twice. Which is most of them!"
By the end of it, his hands are gesticulating wildly, revealing his passion for the topic. "We all had our own specialties in the team, but mine was, um-- being the resident nerd, I guess."
There'd been a tone in Daryl's voice, something that Reid had been very familiar with when the world hadn't been crawling with walkers. It's the I don't trust law enforcement because I've had bad experiences with them tone. Honestly, he's probably heard that tone more now. Too many cops and military people let their authority go to their heads when the world started breaking down.
Reid's hands link together, wringing worriedly. "You sound like you're not a fan," he says tentatively. "That's okay, you don't have to be."
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In any event, he does a lot of listening to all that, in the mean time finishing with his willow piece, which by now looks like a funny pale switch. He silently offers it to Reid; maybe eventually he'll get the motivation to explain the knack about harvesting it, but he doesn't see the point, right now.
"Ain't about that."
And it's not. He's had bad experiences with law enforcement, yes, but he's had bad experiences with most people. Reid will learn sooner or later that the leader of their wandering group was a cop, before, and that he and Daryl are perfectly fine (close, family now). He's just aware, both of what people might be prone to, and how people might see him.
His inquiry wasn't about sizing him up, though. Mostly plain curiosity, but also—
"You just know, then. That people are the worse than the dead, out here."
Serial killers, rapists, and all the normal people who had been waiting for the opportunity to become. They thrive in the fall.
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"Yes. The civil breakdown has led to more people feeling comfortable to give into their darkest urges. People that might have otherwise never murdered or raped because they were too afraid of death or jail or the social consequences, now don't have to fear those things as much. Some people that felt powerless in their ordinary lives have now gone overboard to compensate, or people that had authority have been desperate to reclaim it, or..."
Reid trails off, shooting Daryl a wry, sad little smile.
"Without country-wide communication, I couldn't begin to estimate the numbers of people. We can estimate the number of walkers due to transmission rates and calculated spread, but-- despite the fact that they're the cause of the fall of large society, they seem less scary than some regular old humans out there. All the walkers can do is kill you and turn you."
He'd seen the worst of the worst at the FBI, but the scale and ambition of crime has grown. Mob mentality is a hell of a thing.
From here, the walls of the Forty-Eight have just become visible through the trees. Reid can see a lookout on the top of one of them, watching their path, and he gives an awkward wave.
"I can't say for certain you won't have to worry about people like that in the Forty-Eight," Reid apologizes, hands twisting together. "We've had to eject a few people. But... the threat of losing shelter, steady food, and running water, seems to keep people's behavior in check. For the most part." He grimaces. "It's barbaric to exile people, but it's more efficient than the alternatives according to Charlie."
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A mild inquiry. Daryl isn't sure where he stands— it's barbaric because the world is the way it is, it's merciful because the alternative is prolonged captivity or execution, it's incredibly dangerous because they're cutting loose people who are armed with information about them who now might want revenge for being expelled. Interesting, and not a moral or strategic question he's in a hurry to have to decide. For a little while in their last home, he'd been voted on the council that made decisions for the community, but they hadn't ever come up on an issue like that. If it hadn't been lost, he figures they would have eventually, though he still doesn't know what he might do.
However Reid answers, Daryl won't have much input. He listens, he observes him, but there's not much he's going to contribute to the topic. Doing his own kind of investigation, not at all like a profiler. Just poking him with a stick and then walling himself off against any return pokes.
Returning to the gates is funny for a second, when he feels like a wild animal dragging a wayward cub back in, and then everything after that second is uncomfortable. He murmurs a 'see you around' to Reid before he oils away to post up with his group in their temporary housing, dodging any attempts to thank him for running a fest quest. He keeps to himself for the next few days, resisting integration, and the data from his arrival interview marks him as a bit of a mystery. No clear answer about what he did before, and possessing skills that do not lend himself to easy living in synthesized suburbia.
A rare public sighting puts him on the porch of their assigned townhome, smoking a cigarette and sharpening a hunting knife, technically babysitting. He makes sure to exhale away from the infant girl, who is otherwise happy to be crawling around in her new soft playpen.
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No, he doesn't agree with exile. He thinks criminals, even the worst of them, deserve basic human rights like shelter and safety. But the world's a different place now, and they don't have the manpower to spare for keeping watch over a jail at all hours. Spencer's about to get ramped up into a talk about the difficulty of deciding which laws applied to this place, when they reach the Forty-Eight, and he awkwardly stops mid-ramble, farewelling Daryl.
Over the next few days, he reads over the admission interviews. Charlie's put him in charge of feeling out the new arrivals -- in her words, he needed to put his 'big profiler brain' into action and scope out if any of them were a danger.
But Spencer's kind of more excited about something else: genetic sequencing. Which is why when he goes to see Daryl, he's practically vibrating with energy, eyes bright and his tie fluttering in the breeze.
"Daryl, hi!" He beams, and then stops short, directing a baffled stare at the baby. "And hello, unknown child? Oh, no, I know who you are, you were accounted for in the interviews but you didn't give one of your own. That'll have to be rectified later."
To Daryl, he presents a somewhat battered sheaf of papers with tiny text on them. "This is a consent form. I have a personal project related to genetic research, and while I've studied most of the people in the Forty-Eight, you as a new arrival present an exciting opportunity for additional data. All I need is a DNA sample." He pauses. "You don't have to say yes, obviously. You'd be within your rights to refuse."
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Potentially agonizing silence goes on for a bit, unless Reid decides to fill it.
Daryl sets the papers down on the porch railing, whetstone atop them as a weight. He takes a drag of his cigarette, turns his head so he exhales away from Reid and the baby, reaches aside to tap ash off the end of it. He's not being especially considerate of the nicely painted porch, but it's not out of disrespect; he just doesn't think of it.
At last:
"Can you explain it to me?"
He does actually more or less understand the paperwork, having been through a serious medical incident in the past. (Unmentioned in his interview, but if Reid happens to be familiar with motorcycle gang insignia, he's free to have noticed that while Daryl doesn't actually have colors anywhere on his kutte, but he does have large angel wing patches on the back, which usually symbolize survival of a bad crash in MC subculture.) But he's curious, and this guy doesn't seem like he's got any reservations about going on about things at length. There's another chair on the porch if he'd like.
Meanwhile, Daryl finishes off his cigarette, and then picks the baby up. He mutters that her name's Judith, and then quietly informs her that they're talking to Jodi Foster.
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"Of course!" he says cheerfully. "Do you know what the greatest recorded evolutionary advantage in humans is? A gene called ERAP2. In the 1300's, the Black Death killed somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of the European population, and aside from the horror it caused it did something really interesting: it didn't just cause social upheaval, it also caused a rapid micro-evolution in our genetics.
There were four genetic mutations found in many survivors of the Plague, but one, ERAP2, provided a 40% increased chance of survival. And these mutations occurred over the course of decades, which is incredibly fast compared to all previously known genetic mutation occurrences. The fastest one we knew of previously was the slow change toward lactose tolerance, and that took thousands of years!"
In full lecture mode, he barely stops for breath.
"I've been studying the genetics of every sample I can find to see if there's a chance the same might occur today. We know it's a virus that causes people to turn, but we barely got the chance to study it before the outbreak began. There might be people out there that already have a genetic variation that nullifies the virus, or it might be arising today -- either way, if I can find someone that has a greater chance of survival... well, gene therapy would be exceedingly difficult on a mass scale, but it would be a chance. A chance to turn the world around."
Finally, Reid sits, perched awkwardly on the edge of the chair like a stork coming in to roost, all gangly limbs. He doesn't know if he needs to explain any of what he just said, but he prefers to not treat people like they're idiots, and Daryl hadn't squinted at the consent form like it was gibberish.
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Above his paygrade, is all. Above all of theirs, he thinks. That Reid cares says a lot about him, a lot of good about him, but Daryl can't put his faith in things like broad turnaround chances. Just himself, and sometimes, other people. He looks at the younger man, and pats Judith's back as she reaches a chubby hand out to paw at the edge of his vest and its chunky seam. Not for the first time, he's stricken with the intrusive thought of what she might look like, resurrected by the sickness. If something happened to her, or if it was just nothing, the crushing but completely human curse of crib death. Maybe the world will right itself before she's old enough to form memories of the way it is right now, or maybe they just have to make this new world livable for the next generation on their own.
"Dunno if it's a virus," he says after a while. "They didn't at the CDC, anyway. We were there in Atlanta before it blew. The last doc in there showed us the work he had left."
Been ages since he thought about it. The memories are glassy, hyper-real, distorted from the trauma sandwich of it all and the fact that he'd had way too much to drink the entire duration of that stay, but they're still there. Even the bits he doesn't understand.
"Can't hurt to keel looking, though. I guess. That one of your degrees? You a doctor doctor, too?"
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Reid blinks, looking stumped. It's an abrupt, though interesting reminder that he knows very little about the man sitting across from him. Daryl is easy to read emotionally: he's withdrawn and comes off as distant, says little because he prefers to observe rather than babble, though he's honest and upfront with what he chooses to say. He's obviously devoted to his people, and is willing to put himself through a lot of hardship to ensure their safety. Despite his gruff-set expression and ragged looks, he's gentle, too, his hand careful on Judith's back.
Reid just has no idea what he used to do. He's usually really good at guessing that, but since broader civilization fell, it's hard to tell with a lot of people. Reid's seen former lab geeks dressed like the Terminator, and former serial killers dressed like they're at the office. He'd assume that Daryl was maybe part of a motorcycle gang, given the kutte and the symbolic insignia even without a specific gang marker, but beyond that, he's stumped. Why was Daryl at the CDC? Was he a doctor? A researcher? A diplomat?
It's... frustrating. He likes knowing everything. It makes him feel secure.
But. He does love a puzzle.
"Oh, no, I'm not a medical doctor, but I did study genetic disorders as a hobby," he admits. "And when the outbreak began-- I started reading every academic text I could get my hands on and thought might be useful. How-to guides for civil engineering. Medical texts. Geographical surveys. I read fast." Kind of an understatement. "And whenever I go out, I scavenge what books I can. There's a few other medical doctors and scientists here too, though we don't have a lot of time to work on studying genetics -- work in the Forty-Eight takes precedence."
He leans forward, eyes bright. "So, is it okay if I take a sample of your DNA? Like the consent form says, I won't share your data with anyone other than the medical staff here."
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A strange time. He had mentioned it in his interview, but only briefly. That they'd tried to seek shelter there after realizing that the military base nearest them was a lost cause, but it didn't work out. Which is true. Quite a lot hasn't worked out. Of that first group from Atlanta, just about thirty people, only five remain. Patchworked out with others they've met over the years into their surreal family.
(If he knew what Reid was wondering, he'd laugh. There's no way Daryl seems like he had a job at the CDC, he knows damn well.)
"As a hobby," he echoes. Genetic disorders. Daryl's starting to figure out that the younger man is a total weirdo, not just smart. Makes Daryl like him more, though. Not that he should be thinking about liking or disliking anyone here. He wants it to work out, but he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He has to stay vigilant for his people, even while they decompress. They deserve the break, and given he has nothing else to offer, continuing to be a proverbial guard dog is the least he can do.
A shrug, then. "Sure." Why not. Daryl's DNA is already in a million databases due to the number of times he's voluntarily provided samples to get various cops off his back. There's nothing remarkable lurking in his genetics; he had chicken pox as a kid and he never did any of the intravenous drugs his brother trafficked. (Just the non-intravenous ones. He's not a saint.) Maybe he's developing lung cancer thanks to a lifetime of smoking, but at this stage, he figures if he ends up dying slowly and miserably in bed, he'll have lucked the fuck out.
"You need to draw blood, or just swab me?"
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"Neither, we do it by saliva samples," Reid says cheerfully, patting at his pockets until he finds the sample tubes he'd brought along, one of which he offers to Daryl. It's inelegant, but hey, it works.
He doesn't elaborate on Daryl's amused little note at his hobby, because it would inevitably involve why he's been studying genetic disorders for a long time, and that's not something he's very open about. He'd be more than happy to ramble on about the particularly interesting points of said hobby, but right now, he has something more important to get to.
"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" It's said accompanied with a bitten lip, somewhere between awkward and nervous and a profiler's familiarity with asking personal questions. "Your admission interview was a little bare, and I don't need the full details of your entire history, but-- well, in the spirit of honesty, I've been sent to determine if you or any of your group is a danger to the Forty-Eight." He grimaces. "Sorry."
It feels rude. It probably is rude, though Reid's never been the best judge of social mores. But they've got a jumpy, paranoid population who's gone a little soft due to being safer than most, and the last thing any of them want is to let in someone who might be dangerous. From the inside, it'd be all too easy to compromise the security of the Forty-Eight.
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Some shifting. Daryl props one leg up, ankle on his knee, so that Judith can sit cradled on his lap while he accepts the tube. He's seen one of these before, too.
No comment for a moment. He strokes a hand over the baby's head and her fine hair while she pats her hands at his knee, popping the sample tube open with his other. It might be rude, leveled at someone else. But Daryl is the anomaly and he knows it. He also knows Reid's nervous, and can tell the younger man feels bad about asking— doesn't take a profiler to have some experience with reading people.
"Don't have to apologize."
Saliva sample collected, he closes the tube and hands it over to Reid. Maybe one of them will even remember the release form. He jiggles Judy a little, and she babbles some nonsense, then grips his fingers. Daryl looks like he's going to say something else, but before he can get it out, the door to the townhouse opens and a young blonde woman with scars on her face appears, looking bleary-eyed and contrite.
A brief shuffle as she apologizes for having taken such a long nap, but Daryl tells her it's fine. He passes off baby Judith to her, who only fusses a little at being taken away. She likes Aunty Beth just as much as she likes Uncle Daryl, but only Daryl lets her chew on his clothes. Priorities in babyland. Beth (who survives in every au i write sry them's the rules) smiles at Spencer and politely says hello as she scoops Judith up, friendly and sweet, before she heads back inside and leaves the two men alone on the porch.
Quiet, then. Daryl stares at him, waiting.
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He greets Beth with an awkward little wave and an awkward little smile -- at least heightened paranoia in the post-walker world means that very few people try to shake his hand, which is a big relief for a man who dies inside every time he thinks about bacteria transmission -- and then it's just the two of them.
Spencer silently hands over the medical consent form again, along with a pen that had previously been tucked behind his ear, mostly hidden in the curls of his hair. The last page is the one Daryl needs to sign, a handwritten form because the electricity they have is better used on lighting and heat, and not printing medical forms. The sample collection tube gets tucked into his pocket.
"Have you ever been arrested for a violent crime?" is the first question. And it's a loaded one, because a lot of people who have would deny it -- but to Spencer, it just adds to his knowledge of the person if they do try to lie.
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But it passes. He hands both the papers and the pen back. Question time, apparently.
"No," he answers, looking at him. A beat, then: "Couldn't I just lie?"
He isn't lying. He hasn't been arrested for a violent crime, or any crime. Which does not mean he hasn't committed any (he has), just that he's managed to avoid being caught. But he's not worried about that; he has no control over what Spencer believes. He's mostly just wondering as to what the methodology is here. Lie detectors are fake, he knows that much, but the younger man isn't doing anything but sitting across with him, eyeballs presumably peeled.
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He's not as good of a lie detector as Hotch or Gideon or Rossi were, but he does okay. There's a lot of subtle signs that people give off if they're telling the truth or if they're lying: eye contact, the steadiness of their voice, the openness of their body language, how much detail they put into things.
He can tell that Daryl's not lying about being arrested for a violent crime because his answer is simple. Someone that was lying might feel the need to pad that out with details: of course not, I've always been a good person, I've always been charitable to my community. Daryl's simple no is very telling. He doesn't feel the need to defend his answer.
"If I asked the rest of your group about what they think of you, what do you think their answers might be?" he asks, fidgeting with a corner of the consent form, compulsively smoothing out a dog-ear of the page.
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Daryl is motivated to behave, now, no matter that he still seems standoffish. But he's had to be prepared to defend himself since he was a child, and he doesn't know how to turn it off. He may never; he may always seem like he could become hostile at any moment, even just sitting around.
His head tips. Observing Spencer. "That how you could tell?" Wry. "Gossip?"
Seems about as useful as lie detectors. But he shrugs, and answers anyway.
"Dunno. They've done alright by me, most of 'em. Like to think I've done the best I can in return."
He's underselling it, but he doesn't know that. Unaware of how much some people care about him, because he doesn't think he deserves it. Daryl's gaze falters and he looks away out at the street-turned-walkway. Plain, old-world insecurity. He doesn't care what broader society thinks of him, didn't then and doesn't now, but he cares about what his people think of him.
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That little glance away is telling, since Daryl's gaze has been steady up until now. He desperately wants what he said to be true, but he isn't sure that it is. He isn't sure that his people would actually say something so kind about him. He comes off as self-assured, but there's some insecurity there.
It's not unusual. Spencer would like to think he's useful to this community as well, but some nights he can't sleep because he worries he isn't doing enough, stricken with guilt over sleeping instead of doing.
"Most of them?" he repeats curiously. On Hotch or Morgan, that question would have been a narrow-eyed taunt; on Spencer, it's a wide-eyed innocent question. Two very different methods that work on different people, and it's partially because Spencer knows he can't really pull off the whole steely eyed, grim-jawed serious thing, but partially because he knows his non-threatening demeanor is good for helping people open up.
He takes the pen from behind his ear again, spinning it between his fingers.
"So there's some of them that haven't done alright by you," he continues. "Are there any continuing feuds that might pose a danger to you or anyone else?"
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But. Daryl looks back at Reid, his gaze contemplative. Stormy blue eyes thinking about him and his eagerness to do things. Outside the walls scraping at willow bark despite clearly never having so much as gone camping before the turn, and now in here, doing these followup interviews while also soliciting participation in genetic research. Spinning plates. He wonders how much stale coffee Spencer drinks on the daily.
"Ain't what I meant."
He wishes he could ration another cigarette just to have something to do with his hands; he doesn't want to pull at his cuticles like a child. His fingers tap briefly on his knee, but he makes himself stop. Almost nervous. Communicating effectively past yes or no answers has never been his strong suit.
"Just don't know some of 'em well. The priest, the redhead, the chick with the busted arm. Folks we found on the road. I know Gabriel is fucking terrified of us, no matter we saved his life half a dozen times. Not his fault. He just wishes survival could be a kinder business, and being angry at the people doing the surviving is... easier than being mad at God, or whatever."
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So, he can probably tick off the 'not religious' box for Daryl, then. Spencer wonders if he ever used to be, before. A lot of people have lost their faith. Then again, a lot of people found it, too. Drastic circumstances makes for drastic change.
Still, it's good to know that Daryl doesn't seem to have any big conflicts with any of the people in his group. He doesn't even take it personally when a member is continuously scared of them despite doing everything he can to help, which is extremely even-tempered of him.
"Are there any feuds in your group?" he follows up, tone a little lighter than before. This one's not so much an interview question as it is plain curiosity. "We obviously can't mandate in the Forty-Eight that nobody has any arguments, but it's useful to know where the sources of strife are. It sounds nosy, I know, but the leadership does its best to mediate arguments over resources, if that's what any feuds are over."
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"Regular shit. Folks in close quarters get annoyed now and again."
He doesn't think anyone will confess anything dire. In fact, he'd be more inclined to anticipate his people closing ranks over even the most minor infractions. Barring, say, the aforementioned Gabriel, but even if the man decides to babble on about the violence he's witnessed, a few followup questions are bound to stump judgement. Yes, he's seen them murder other living humans brutally, he's seen executions and slaughters. Why? Oh, well, cannibals, slavers, rapists.
Kind of a wash.
"Your people got problems? Anything we should avoid stepping into by accident?"
Reid's probably not here to give an interview of his own, but fair's fair, Daryl thinks. Besides, the younger man sort of seems like the kind of guy who got his ass kicked a lot at school, no matter that now he's an FBI agent and someone in a position of authority at 48. Meaning he should have a good sense of who the assholes are, profiler or not.
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"The head of security, Roscoe? He's kind of judgemental," Spencer admits. "Charlie normally keeps him in line, but he'll be watching all of you pretty carefully for the next few months. Unless you bribe him with alcohol, then he'll be your best friend."
Hmm. Feuds within the Forty-Eight. There's a lot of small ones, obviously. The people three doors down from Spencer have just recently broken up and hate each other over it. There's arguments over workload, and people cheating on their relationships, and their resident imam is continually being harassed by a guy that's bitter over losing his faith. There's some people that have taken issue with Spencer, thinking he's not suitable to be second in command.
"There's a doomsday prepper in the red barn in the south that you'll probably want to avoid," he continues thoughtfully. "There's also some people who aren't happy with us letting in new people, so you might get some suspicious stares for a while -- nobody that's really gotten really mad about it, but just to be safe, I'd stick close to each other for now. This is a relatively safe community, but you can never tell what might set some people off."
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- Head of security is a corrupt alcoholic who will need to be Dealt With
- Someone with severe mental illness lives in the barn (doomsday is here, there's nothing left to prep for, get it together buddy)
- Everyone else is an asshole who's never had to live outside the walls
Whether or not these turn out to be true is something only time can tell. But Daryl will remember this intel, and relay it to the rest of his group. Or at least Rick. Who Daryl could probably stand to be a little less deferential to, all things considered, but Daryl still views his own worth as a person based strictly on his own utility. Having a leader helps, when you are spiritually just a mean guard dog.
"Alright."
He appreciates Spencer's willingness to share all that. Even if it's a calculated offering as a way to try and win trust, it's not nothing, and trust has to start somewhere. Trying is better than sandbagging. Which he tells himself as he sits there, once again having to make himself stop fidgeting with his hands. Trying is better.
"Who are you looking for, when you go out?"
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His instinct has always been to be intensely private -- or, more likely, he just formed that instinct as a twelve year old who couldn't tell anybody his home situation or else he'd risk getting put in the foster system. Even with his team, the people he'd viewed as family, he'd still only shared things when he'd absolutely needed to.
The fall of society certainly hasn't helped. He'd made the mistake of sharing what PhD's he had to a stranger, once, and he'd very nearly gotten kidnapped as a valuable resource.
Still. He's done with the questions, and fair's fair. He should answer some of Daryl's questions in return. And he gets the sense that he can trust Daryl.
"My team, the BAU," he admits, picking compulsively at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt sleeve. "When society started to collapse, the FBI sent its personnel all over the country to try to control the situation. We were all split up to serve as diplomats and psychological experts. I haven't seen any of them since."
He doesn't even know if any of them are still alive. He has faith that they are, but even the toughest of them couldn't survive a strong walker onslaught, or even worse, humans gone rogue in roving bands of slavers or cannibals. But he's been looking tirelessly for them, because he has to believe.
"I guess we've all got people from our lives before that we miss," Spencer finishes, with a rueful little smile. "Do you?"
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"That shit's crazy," he mutters, somewhat without his own say-so. Had people really been dispatched to try and help in that capacity? His most profound memory of everything finally giving way is he and his brother hustling it up to the roof of a motel to watch the military pour napalm down over the streets of Atlanta. Merle had laughed, cackling in his unhinged way, and Daryl had felt disconnected. Society, this overwhelming and intrinsic human thing he'd been shamed his whole life for not being a part of, went so bad so fast, like it was never real.
And Spencer and individual people like him were being flown around, trying to help. Surreal.
Daryl thinks to ask more. They've come across a lot of people, and not everyone in their group started out in Georgia. Maybe somebody's come across an FBI agent— they've found cops and ex-marines and politicians and one rock star. You never know. But that.
Something behind Daryl's eyes shutters, even though his expression doesn't change. Awkward silence before he finally answers,
"Nah." Abrupt. He shrugs dismissively. All dead, he nearly adds, but doesn't. You're supposed to miss dead people. (Merle, cackling in his unhinged way. Daryl still sees him sometimes, like a fucking poltergeist.) "I'm just. Present. Reckon I can keep an eye out for your folks, though."
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"Sorry, that was thoughtless of me," he apologizes, wincing. Not everybody has people they miss. He's lucky, he knows; he'd found a family in his team, and not everybody gets something like that. Some people are just alone, or stuck with people they don't get on with, or in terrible situations.
If he hadn't had his team, he thinks the only person he'd be missing is his mother. He's been looking for her too, but unlike his faith in his team's ability to survive, he... privately doubts that his mom was as lucky, and it breaks his heart. Hospitals, mental hospitals, and nursing homes had been hit particularly hard with the outbreak. Vulnerable populations, enclosed spaces. He frequently has nightmares about finding her walking corpse.
"If you kept an eye out, that'd be really kind of you," he adds. "I'm done with the questions, by the way. I promise I won't be bothering your group for too long."
(He kind of wants to bother Daryl more, actually. He's interesting.)
"Can I get you anything, by the way? How are you settling in?"
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He sits back in the chair, and this time doesn't manage to stop himself from bringing a hand to his mouth to worry at the side of one thumbnail with his teeth. A nervous tick. It's only when he remembers that the still-healing burns on his hands are there, obvious and pale in stark relief against ruddy skin, that he abruptly lowers his hand again. Oops.
With a rough sound, he clears his throat.
"M'fine." Yep. Entirely. Real normal. "Reckon you won't find a job for me, so I'm just resting up 'til I can get back out there. Go on runs, or whatever."
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Spencer often forgets that most people aren't used to that, actually. He spent years around profilers every day, and even though they had a rule against profiling each other, it still happened. If he was thirty seconds too slow in turning a page, someone would notice. If he squinted a bit more than usual, someone would notice.
"Have you seen someone about those burns?" he asks, head tilted curiously. He wants to ask, but it doesn't take a genius to assume that the story probably isn't pretty. Walkers don't cause burns. People do. Unless Daryl tried to make a molotov cocktail and it backfired, or he rescued someone from a burning building. "They don't look extensive enough to cause muscular problems, but it's always good to double check if PT is indicated. Improperly healed, chronic pain can easily follow."
Given what he knows of Daryl's skills, having his job be external resource gathering is probably the best use of him, and Spencer's pretty confident Charlie will come to the same conclusion. That, or surveillance. So it'll be good for him to get some rest, after his long trek, and Spencer's already planning what he can bring to help with that. They even have working TVs thanks to their solar panels, and DVDs he can bring over!
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Still awkward. They aren't bad, just superficial things. He forgets because everyone is so screwed up, out there, that minor injuries start to look normal. Feel normal. It becomes unremarkable. And for Daryl, even grievous injuries have been unremarkable— he feels disoriented, all of a sudden, even more than when they first arrived.
"Uh."
Hm. He looks away, and it doesn't take someone who can read microexpressions to tell he's embarrassed.
"... I'm gonna go get some rest, I think. I promise I'll get these looked after."
He doesn't know why he says I promise. It sounds corny. But it out of his mouth before he can think of anything else to say about it, and so he has to just leave it there. Sitting still only because he's sure getting up and bolting inside would look even weirder.
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It's probably a good thing that someone comes by at that moment and reminds Spencer he has a meeting with Charlie, because otherwise he would have rambled at Daryl about some seriously gory burn facts. He makes his apologies, almost trips when he goes down the stairs, and awkwardly says goodbye -- though it's awkward mostly just because that's who Reid is as a person, and not anything to do with his dynamic with Daryl.
Over the next few days, he's busy. There's malfunctioning solar panels to see to, genetic testing to be done, a new well being dug (not that he's useful enough to help with the actual digging), and other people of Daryl's group to interview. Also, one of their more adventurous members comes back with a whole wheelbarrow full of books, and some of them are pretty useful, even!
It's not until four days later that Spencer runs into Daryl again, and it's in the communal kitchens. The community is set up so that there's a communal meal three times a day, or people can request a biweekly food allotment so they can cook at home. Spencer's a decent cook when he wants to be, but he mostly just has the communal meals so he has more time to think about important stuff -- the thing is, though, lately some of his thoughts have been about Daryl. Like, a strange amount of thoughts.
He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know what it means when he feels excited about seeing him again. As best he can tell, he just thinks Daryl's really interesting?
Whatever it is, there's that weird little excited feeling in his belly when he catches sight of Daryl in the kitchens. But first, he apparently has to get lectured by one of the cooks, a big guy that Spencer knows only as Jones. "I know you've been skipping meals," Jones threatens, shaking a ladle at him, "look at you, you're a pipecleaner with a sweatervest on, you can't afford to skip meals. Do you know many calories the average human needs a day? You can't achieve that with coffee, Reid!"
"I know, I'm sorry," Spencer says quickly, already trying to sneak away, "I'll do better. Oh, look, it's Daryl! Hi, Daryl. I'll talk to you later, Jones!"
He leaves Jones grumbling and pouring out portions of soup, and does his best to hide behind Daryl instead. It doesn't work. Daryl's not quite tall enough.
"I'm using you as a human shield so he doesn't lecture me anymore," Spencer whispers. "I think he can only see me if I move. What are you doing in here, by the way?"
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He also has... meat. Meat, wax paper, and a food scale. Portioning out sample selections of a few things, apparently. It doesn't look like a butcher's counter, no large cuts or masses of ground chuck, but small pieces in a variety of shades of inner flesh. Cleaned and snipped nicely. Slightly weird in with the cafeteria style setup and canned supplies. Daryl is slightly weird, as well, having finally been scrubbed clean and shoved into a new shirt (still under his ubiquitous vest). Navy blue plaid, buttoned up nearly all the way. Like he's a real person almost. He has a single bandaid around the ring finger of his right hand.
"Okay," he says, about being used as a human shield, because what else does a person say? He gives Jones a look, deliberately comical, but the man is back to his business. Ehhem. So. Daryl looks back over at Spencer.
"...Uh." He glances down at what he's doing, then back up. "Helping. I guess. Making shit last longer."
Proteins with shelf lives can be saved for emergencies when supplemented with fresh game. It's just a matter of convincing people that it's not unappetizing— something that Daryl struggles to understand. Food isn't a guarantee. Just eat it and be glad you don't have to dig for worms and chew on sticks. Speaking of. He eyes Agent Pipecleaner.
"You ain't eating right?"
Spencer is busy, he's noticed. Always busy, zipping around, proverbially juggling plates. Daryl's kept an eye on him from afar a little here and there, bookended around his hunting trip. The kind of person who seems like if he moves fast enough, he won't have to remember to look after himself.
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It's a pleasant surprise to see Daryl helping out in the kitchens, though. He'd expected the man to stick to things like doing runs outside, but he looks downright domestic here, and it's--
Hmm. He's fairly certain he's experiencing physical attraction. That's not a common thing for him.
"I eat enough, I just... get caught up in things, and forget sometimes," he admits. A glance at Jones, who's now distracted by soup, and Spencer decides it's safe enough to stop hiding behind Daryl. He stays close, though, peering in interest at the pieces of meat Daryl's preparing. "You have a lot of different talents."
He'd asked Daryl's group about him; their opinions had been mixed. Gabriel had talked about Daryl like he was a psychotic serial killer, but Rick had nothing but good things to say about him. Very few of them seemed to know much about him, and none of them had told Spencer anything about what he was like before the fall. He's a very enigmatic figure, but Spencer does love a good puzzle.
"Charlie gave the final approval last night, you and everyone in your group is welcome to stay however long you like," he announces. "You likely won't be the last, there's other groups we've been in contact with, so we'll probably have to expand to another city block to accommodate everyone."
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At least Spencer doesn't actively make him feel like a freak when he says shit like that, though. He seems to mean everything earnestly. It goes a way to unwind some of the tension that threatens to pull a stitch between his shoulders. So he just makes a noncommittal sound, and continues wrapping up the last of his game assortments, one of which he decides at the last minute to keep separated from the rest going out. He's already separated and kept the grossest bits for himself, not wanting to give people anything to waste, but. An idea is forming.
"Yeah?" a glance at the younger man. A bit of relief. Despite the potential for conflict and growing pains, he expected it after seeing how short this place is on protection. But it's still nice to hear. "...Won't be too bad to clear out. Ain't got much activity in the area."
Momentary fidgeting. Daryl fusses with a folded edge of wax paper, uncertain. He's sure Reid won't be unkind to him if he shoots down the offer, but he still finds himself grappling for the fortitude to cough up a question.
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Which means a lot of engineering work, which means he's going to busy. He kind of likes keeping busy, though -- it gives him less time to dwell on things he doesn't want to think about.
He's told having friends is good for that, too, but Spencer hasn't had a whole lot of success at that. Like, ever. He's friendly with some people here, and he meets Charlie for a game of chess every Saturday, but that's about it. Daryl's sufficiently interesting enough that it keeps him distracted, though, and maybe a potential friend!
"Have you had lunch yet?" he asks, oblivious for now to Daryl's impending question. "I don't normally eat with everyone-- all the chewing sounds make me want to die, honestly, so I take my food somewhere else." Reid fidgets briefly. This is how friends are made, he tells himself. "Would you like to join me?"
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More barely-there fidgeting, worrying at one thumb nail with the same hand's other fingers. He's just deciding not to ask — the answer will be no, anyway — when Spencer goes and beats him to it. For a moment Daryl just looks at him.
"Uh."
Come on, Dixon.
"Sure." A nod, and he quickly looks down at the little wrapped up thing. He slides it closer, intent on scooping it up along with whatever else. "If soup ain't your thing, I can fix these up. See if you can stomach any."
Soup is fine with Daryl, though, and so he's content to get a container of it to go with whatever else is offered. He dimly makes a note about the younger man not liking chewing sounds, and wonders if it's got to do with the whole... reanimated corpses devouring flesh thing. His own table manners are not great (as in, non-existent), but he chews with his mouth closed. Not much of a mouth breather, despite all the smoking no doubt shredding his airways.
SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY the holidays really got the best of me 😭
Jones just grumbles in the background, still focusing on his soup. He's kind of a perfectionist about food, even in these trying times. No doubt Daryl will get a gruff thank you later for adding to the meat stores.
Spencer gives Daryl a moment to collect what he needs to, and then he leads the way out of the kitchen. "I never used to be able to cook," he confides to Darryl. "I could do sandwiches and some ready-made soup, but that was about it. I used to just order out a lot."
But the end of the world has made a lot of people learn skills they hadn't known before. He wonders if Daryl had known how to butcher before the world had turned upside down. There's something incredibly attractive about the-- not the butchering thing, specifically, but how capable Daryl is at so many things.
Hmmm. There goes that weird feeling in his chest again. That feeling he's come to associate with I am attracted to this person.
Outside of the community center kitchen, it's getting crowded with people waiting on lunch, and they make their way through the crowd to the street outside, where Spencer begins to take the path to the east. "My place isn't far." Then again, it's a five minute walk from east to west inside this closed community, so, everywhere isn't far.