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She’s got an armory laid out on the fancy granite countertop--handguns and knives and pepper spray and even a couple of sketchy-looking grenades and an assault rifle--and when Daryl trudges in she’s meticulously going through each one, cleaning and checking magazines, safety switches, sharpness of edges and when he sees what she’s doing, Daryl almost turns around and leaves without saying a word.
He’d been counting on her doing something like folding laundry or baking a casserole, something soft and non-threatening that would make her different. Something that would scream “I’m weak, I’m frightened, I’m not like you.” But instead he walks in on a steel-eyed warrior, blonde hair clean and tied back in a tight ponytail, flannel sleeves rolled up to her elbows as she picks up a Glock and ejects the magazine like she’s been doing it all her life.
She’s perfect. He hates her a little bit for that.
“Good morning, Daryl,” she says, pushing the magazine back into the Glock and laying it down carefully next to an evil-looking pair of scissors. “Looking for Rick?”
“Nah,” he says, ignoring the coil of bile in his stomach at the idea that he might have to start coming here to find Rick from now on. “Lookin’ for you, actually.”
Jessie raises an eyebrow and turns to face him, leaning her hip against the counter and crossing her arms loosely. “Are you finally giving in and letting me give you a haircut?”
No, Daryl thinks forcefully, reaching up to run a hand through his long locks, still wet from the shower he’d reluctantly taken that morning. No way in hell was he letting this chick cut his hair--apparently that was all it took to fall head-over-dumbfuck-heels for her, and Daryl doesn’t want any part of that. But then, despite his best efforts, he hears himself speak. “Yeah. Guess I could use a trim. Maybe then Carol’ll get off my ass about it.”
“Great,” she chirps, smiling brightly at him. “Sit down and I’ll take good care of you.” She waves at the dining room chairs and Daryl stomps over to them, flopping down in one and watching as Jessie picks up the pair of scissors from the counter.
He hopes she’d washed the guts off of them first. But then again, it’s not like he’s not covered in guts 90% of the time anyway. Animal, walker, human, it’s all the same in the end. So he just takes a deep breath through his nose and tries to relax as she walks around behind him and starts combing his hair in preparation for his big makeover.
Which worries him a bit. “Don’t want much,” he warns her. “Just a trim. Get it out of my eyes a little. That’s all.”
“Gotcha,” she says, and he only winces slightly as he hears the first snip and the feather-light sound of his hair hitting the floor.
Daryl’s never been much of a talker and he values silence, even prefers it most of the time. But something about having one’s hair cut makes even the most taciturn of men into chatterboxes, and Daryl is no exception. Especially since he actually does have something to talk about. “So,” he says after a moment. “You and Rick, huh?”
“Me and Rick,” Jessie agrees, and Daryl can’t quite get a read on her tone of voice, whether it’s happy or regretful or cautious or indifferent. He can’t read her at all, actually, which is unnerving because he’s spent most of his life carefully cultivating the skill to see inside peoples’ public fronts. He gets it, though. Gets what it’s like to have to put on a mask and leave it up for so long that you can’t even remember what you look like without it. Gets how it feels to say “he’s a good man” even as you twist your body so your scars are showing, hoping that someone will see them and call you out on your bullshit. Hoping that someone will help. And he wonders himself, if some bloodstained vigilante had come along and put a hole in his father’s skull back before the nightmare was over...
Well. He can’t blame her for falling for someone like that. Rick had ridden in on a white fuckin’ horse and taken away her tormentor, and maybe he’d handled it pretty poorly in regards to her kids, but Daryl totally understands what it’s like to look at Rick and see Jesus Christ coming down from heaven to save you.
The analogy breaks down there, because Daryl doesn’t particularly want to fuck Jesus and he hopes neither does Jessie. Fucking Rick, on the other hand…
Daryl huffs out a hard breath. “You love him?”
Jessie pauses with her hand around a lock of Daryl’s hair. “I barely know him,” she says, her words careful and measured. She lifts the scissors again and resumes trimming. “I guess I could. Eventually.”
“But you don’t now,” he presses, lifting his hand to his mouth and tearing at a cuticle with his teeth. “Not yet.”
“Not yet,” she agrees. The scissors swish together rhythmically, softly. “Why do you ask?”
Daryl stares out the window across the dining table, watching a mockingbird hop along the lawn outside. “Look, just… don’t take him away from us. He’s my brother. I don’t want to lose him just because you…” He sighs, lets his mouth flatten into a hard line, doesn’t continue.
There’s silence except for the silver clink of metal for several seconds, then: “I didn’t know.”
Daryl grunts. “Nothin’ to know. Ain’t like we’re together or anything. Just… you smell pretty good an’ you got… stuff I don’t have. I can’t compete with that.”
Jessie laughs, a surprisingly pleasant lilt to the sound like nothing Daryl’s ever heard before. But then again, he’s never been around a woman who was happy enough to laugh. She pats him on the shoulder. “You have plenty of things that are worthwhile, Daryl.”
“Don’t know about that,” Daryl grumbles. “It’s just that if you ask him to, he’ll stay with you an’... I don’t know. I’m just… I’m beggin’ you. Don’t… take him.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out hard and fast through his nose. “From me.”
There’s one last snick of the scissors and then Jessie pats his shoulder again. “All done. Doesn’t that feel better?”
Daryl stands up slowly, running a hand through his hair. She’s taken off an inch or so, a little more than a ‘trim’ but not enough to bitch about, and at least he’ll be able to see past his long bangs now. He nods slowly, then forces more words out. “It’s just… I think he’s it for me. The only one. An’ you… there’s all these men an’ you could have any of them so just… not him. Please.”
Jessie raises an eyebrow. A perfect, beautiful eyebrow. A much better eyebrow than either of Daryl’s, and he scowls at it. “You should tell him.”
“Tell him what?” Daryl snaps. “Tell him that he’s got a pretty blonde with, you know… curves and shit who smells good and can take care of his baby but that I think he should throw that away for a dirty drifter with ripped jeans and squinty eyes who’s got possum guts all over him all the time?”
“Yes.” Jessie folds her arms over her chest, the corner of her mouth twitching like she’s holding off a smile. “Tell him that. You might be surprised which way he’ll choose.”
Daryl crosses his own arms, shoving his fingertips in to the space between his chest and his biceps, and stares at the floor. He counts his breaths, measures them carefully as the air flows in and out of his lungs, and then, finally, he nods.