bakerstreet | SHUT UP, THIS IS MY JAM.

Somehow the idea doesn't seem like the worst one. Call the awkward pony a backup plan.

He doesn't look up as he answers, just stares at the little doodle of a whale.

"Cherokee roses."

"Oh." Those are easy is her first thought, but that's not exactly true. It's really Cherokee roses are simple flowers. "Let me try."

She settles the pen against the paper and then realizes it's been a long time since she's had to think of a Cherokee rose in any detail. Closing her eyes for a second, she pictures one, counting the petals and hoping it's about right. And then she starts to draw. Nott so cute this time, as close as she can get to a real flower.

While she does, she says, "Back when I was a kid, they made us do a report on Georgia. State bird, state flag, state fish...state flower. I think that's the last time I tried to draw one of these."

It's a sentimental choice, for any number of reasons, and a part of him is half waiting for her to laugh-- though she wouldn't. Doesn't matter, either, that there's a certain amount of meaning to it that he's not gonna talk about under any circumstances-- it's still a good choice.

The dead and the lost, they got too many of those. It's for all of them, he thinks.

Looking over her sketch, he nods. It'll work.

"That."

It turns out better than she expects it to. Fiveish petals, a little spray of dots in the center to suggest the yellow parts. They're simple flowers, and that's part of their beauty.

She figures, for him, it's for Georgia, or a Georgia that was or could be. Maybe for the story about them, but if so, in a general way. Or maybe he just likes the look of them. Some parts of Daryl can be hard to fathom.

"Okay." There's something final in the way he decides on it, though she doesn't quite understand it, and she hears it in her answer. After a moment, she grins at him. "But we have to finish mine first."

The story is everything. The history, maybe a little. (He tells himself, it's not just about her. It's not just about that moment with Carol. It's not not about it. It's a lot of things. The best choice.)

He meets her eyes for moment, then nods, letting the corner of his mouth curl into a soft smile. Doesn't matter, in the end, what it's for; it'll work.

"Settle in." There's not much more to go, and then she'll get to see it.

"All right." She pushes a wayward strand of hair back behind one ear and settles into the chair. "Let's do this."

Then they can switch places, and--the world might not change around them, but she thinks maybe it'll change something about them. If I die--when I die, I guess--something will still exist. Souls go, songs fade, and diaries burn away; skin lasts a while, might last longer than memory. Who can know?

She doesn't want to hope too hard in any direction. But it's nice to think of. And maybe it means that when she's gone, she won't be quite as far away from him. (And maybe it's insurance against dying, in that way. Make things easier for anyone around her, give fate less reason to take her out.)

"Hell yeah."

If they ever find the others, it'll be a story she won't even have to tell-- not with the evidence writ right there below her collarbone. She's not who she used to be. Or maybe she is; just sharper, harder, pared down to the essential strength she always had waiting.

He dips the needle and leans back over her for the last stretch of it, the bottoms of the letters, spreading a few dots further up to try to make the colors fade into each other. It's not a total disaster.

(It's probably not a tattoo you'd pay for, the way things used to be, maybe the kind they'd fix on one of those shit T.V. shows, but for here and now, it ain't bad.)

If she's got nothing to say, neither does he; it's easier to get into the rhythm of it this time, and there's not that much more to go, either.

After a point, there's nothing else to say. He works, she watches, the sun rises higher in the sky outside. Eventually, they're going to be hungry--they'll need to find shelter or fortify this cubicle--but right now? It's impossible for her to give a damn.

Eventually, when he sets down the needle, it seems like he means it. She watches him for a moment, cocking her head, before asking, "Is that it?"

It's a moment before he answers; the ink set aside, he reaches for the paper towels to wipe the skin down once more. Might as well look as good as it's gonna when she first sees it.

"That's it," he affirms, stepping back and nodding toward the mirror. He's more eager than he'd have expected to see her reaction, but he stays where he is to give her room to pass, reaching again for the alcohol. Might as well get ready; he starts scrubbing at his right arm.

She gets up and walks over to the mirror, staring at the letters. Dozens--hundreds?--of little dots form her name, scrawled a awkwardly along her collarbone. The fact that it looks homemade is half the appeal; she can take in the letters and know the work that went into them.

"It's perfect." The smile that spreads across her face is as genuine as it gets, and with some effort, she turns her attention back to Daryl. "Thanks."

It's weirdly tempting just to stand there and stare at herself. But there's too much left to do, mostly Daryl's tattoo. So instead, she grabs her clothes and slips past him so she can get dressed again in the darkness of the corridor to the back of the store. Only half the tattoo is visible when she puts the polo shirt back on, but that doesn't matter. She knows it's there.

When she comes back, she reaches out to push lightly at his shoulder. "Other chair's all yours."

Pleased that she approves, he's half-smiling as she inspects it. By Daryl standards that's practically beaming. It doesn't take long to clean his arm-- as clean as it's gonna get, anyway, and this isn't gonna be perfectly safe no matter how they do it-- but he waits til she comes back to sit.

"Hafta scare up some bandages," he murmurs, almost absently. This place is so intact-- relatively, anyway-- he feels pretty hopeful about the care supplies being intact. They ought to take whatever they can-- antiseptic, analgesics, if there's anything-- but then again who knows if someone else will come through and decide to bring back DIY tattooing?

He stretches out his left arm and points, a spot halfway down the upper arm, about even with the demon on the right.

"Yeah," she agrees, but it's sort of in one ear and out the other. You're supposed to keep tattoos clean, and maybe put plastic wrap over them. That's all she really knows about the process, but Daryl's probably familiar with the rest.

Taking one more quick look at herself, she sits down again with another needle pack and some of the ink cups. They'll need yellow, obviously, and for the outline...black, she guesses. She can't exactly do it in white.

So she pours the inks and pulls a fresh needle and frowns at his skin for a moment, her lips pursed. Now that she actually has to draw it on him, permanently, the possibility of screwing up seems a lot more likely.

It's just one dot at a time, she tells herself. One dot's not gonna ruin anything. And, taking a breath, she pushes the needle against his skin, trying to judge just how hard she's going to have to press to get the ink under his skin.

Chances are she's got more nerves about this than he does; Daryl's got enough ink to know the drill. Never from anyone quite so inexperienced, but he trusts her. And even if it goes terribly-- so fucking what? He's not gonna worry about it, not a thing.

Watching her pour the inks with some interest-- he's never really gone with colors before, so this is a first in its way for him, too-- he shifts a little, getting comfortable, aware this is apt to take a while.

When she finally makes that first point, he doesn't flinch-- just huffs a little, as encouragingly as he can.

"You got it." No call to be too delicate. After all, he's had much worse.

It seems like a delicate balance between "too soft, no ink under the skin" and "way, way too hard." Probably because of the world around them, more than anything--usually, when she's jabbing metal into skin, she's aiming to kill. When she pulls the needle away, looking at the pinprick of ink in his skin, though, it looks like he's right. She has it, this tiny little black spot that looks like it'll stick.

Beth glances up, beaming at him, and answers, "Hell yeah, I do."

It's still a little more confidence than she feels, but one dot really isn't going to make the difference. It's going to take a whole crowd of needle sticks, and she's going to make all of them. Her attention shifts back to his arm, abs the next poke of the needle is less tentative.

It's different enough to be noticeable-- doesn't hurt worse, exactly, but he can't help being more aware of it like this. One point at a time, each drop of ink a discrete action. Slow, sure, but it's not bad. (Really, though, maybe his perspective's skewed; after the one arching across his shoulder he can't imagine any tattoo taking too long, being too uncomfortable.)

"You ever think about it before?"

Before is a dangerous word. He tries not to use it, in general. All that matters is going forward, he thinks, but maybe that's cause he's got nothing behind him but shit. Maybe it's the wrong choice here but whoever Beth used to be, she's strong enough to tell him to fuck off now if she doesn't want to answer.

But he's curious. Maybe she had that rebellious streak, then. Besides, ain't like there's much to talk about in the other direction. Who the fuck knows what's ahead.

"A tattoo?" She's pensive a moment, letting her attention sit squarely on him while she considers the question. Another dot, another, and she says, "Maybe I would've gotten one. Probably wouldn't've drawn any."

What would she even have gotten? A treble clef or something? A little cross, a verse from a song she liked? Nothing she can think of seems likely; none of it seems unlikely, either. It's like trying to decide for a stranger.

"I don't really know," she adds, when she can hide some of her expression--all quiet uncertainty--in turning to tap the needle in some more ink. Beth wants to say it, to try and get across how different things are now, but she's not sure she wants Daryl to see it in her face. "Before the turn, all I thought about was...school, and my friends, and who I was dating. Only thing I wanted in the future was a baby."

He can't imagine her taking up doing them-- though she could, obviously. She's got steady enough hands. Once upon a time she might've been too shy for it. Certainly he can't picture her finding her way to a place like this from Hershel's farm; maybe if she'd tagged along somewhere with her sister--

Without really meaning to he shakes his head, just a little. Better off talking about the past than bringing up Maggie right now.

But what the fuck else can he say? There's not much safe way to respond to that. She used to imagine a future, no matter how nebulous; and now all she gets is this. So he falls back on the old standard: he just grunts vaguely and feels like an asshole.

She figures you probably need to draw a little better to be an actual tattoo artist, rather than the only option for miles around. But there's something fun about this, as she goes along. Better, probably, than working with the electric guns they used to use--if you screwed up with one of those, you left more than a single dot to show for it. Whereas her lines, while slow and still wobbly, mostly make sense when she pauses to look at the petal she's inking on him.

He's silent, and she can't leave the quiet between them alone. It's not comfortable for her; everything she doesn't say to other people is stirred up now, begging to be voiced.

"Sometimes it seems like it was all a dream," she continues, keeping her eyes on the little trail of ink. "Or like I spent all that time sleepwalking."

For a moment he takes that wrong-- thinks she means maybe their time at the prison, or life now in general, before he catches up. It makes him look at her-- that sharp, intense way he does, his eyes still half-lidded. (This is, truthfully, oddly comfortable; the progress of the needle isn't enough to really register as pain, and the rhythm is relaxing.)

It shocks him, though maybe it shouldn't, that anything she could say about her life before would resonate so strongly. Maybe he's been wrong, and they don't have it rougher because they know what they missed. When it comes to it-- maybe she hasn't missed out on so much at all.

"Hard to remember, sometimes," he agrees at length, low enough that it barely carries-- probably wouldn't be audible if she weren't so close. It's not his favorite subject, but hell, he started it. "Shit that used to seem so important."

Often, he thinks, it's not so different; but things now are simpler. The fights are straightforward. They're wide awake; they've gotta be.

"I wanted to be famous." She smothers a little laugh--what a great way to screw up the next dot, laughing. "It was stupid--I knew it was, but I used to watch talent shows, and..."

A shrug, a little shake of her head. She dips the needle back in the ink again. "I knew it wasn't gonna happen, but I thought it was because everybody likes to sing, and nobody's as good as they want to think they are."

That she was wrong--that maybe it could've been that, but it wasn't--doesn't need saying. She doesn't bother.

"Everything we do now," she adds, judging the curve of the petal before she sticks him with the needle once more, "it's all real. Even when we don't want it to be--feels like it means more, sometimes. "

Half of him wants to say maybe it would've worked out. That seems like the thing to do, right? And he'd mean it. She's got a sweet voice, but what the shit does he know. And it's nothing now. Luck, talent-- doesn't make a difference.

"Never wanted much," he murmurs in return, musing a little. It's funny-- he wants more now than he ever did. The kinds of things he'd have scoffed at before. Security. People. Sleepwalking-- it sounds about right. The shit he did, the way he used to live-- like he was waiting without knowing what for. Killing time.

Waiting for the world to end, he guesses.

Tipping his head to the side, he tries to lighten up a little.

"I miss little shit, sometimes. Drive-thrus. Dumb T.V." Creature comforts. Hot showers. The kind of thing you can think about and just miss it, without it wrecking you.

"Walking around by yourself," she says, by way of agreement. Daryl can still do that, but Beth's pretty sure everyone else in their group would skin her alive if she wavered around the woods alone the way she did as a kid. "You know what'd be good? French fries."

She lifts her eyes but not her head, looking up at him through eyelashes and frizzy little waves of hair, and smiles. They took everything for granted, all those factories and fast food joints and everything else.

"I was thinking once," she continues, "how one of these days, we'll run out of chocolate. Not that we had any, anyway, but there's gotta be some out there. But when it's gone, or it's moldy...there won't be any more. Not unless we figure out how to get to the rainforest and make it ourselves."

What she was really thinking was I don't know what's gonna be left when you're old enough to care, Judith. But Judith's name catches in her throat. She can't bring herself to talk about the baby, or any of the children from the prison. Any of them, really. Remembering that they aren't supposed to be two people against the world threatens the bulwark she's built against despair.

"Jesus," he mutters, at the mention of french fries, a groan that's just short of unseemly. Makes him think of being a kid, young enough that fast food was a rare treat when they had a few extra bucks and not enough time for something more sensible. The stability for shitty restaurants, what a thing to miss. He can almost see his eighteen-year-old self laughing at him for the state he's in, lately. The shit he mourns, the shit he longs for.

"I dunno. Think it lasts pretty long." Saying that feels like an excuse. Saying what really crosses his mind-- that he's pretty sure the supply of chocolate left in Georgia, wherever it is, will outlast them and everyone they knew-- well, he;s not drunk anymore. He's not gonna be a prick.

He cranes his neck a little, trying to watch her work.

"That next on your list?"

Booze, tattoos, chocolate. Sensible enough.

"Yeah." Next place we live should have a deep fryer. When she stops and thinks about it, she knows there's no reason they shouldn't have french fries again. There are so many things they should still be able to do, even in the midst of all this danger. Hell, she just got a tattoo, didn't she? But fried food and soft beds feel so far away from the life they've been leading since the prison fell. And even at the prison, with the Governor breathing down their necks...

Plenty of stuff stops seeming possible after a while, but it doesn't have to be. Next time--next place, it has to be better. She can't afford to let herself think otherwise.

Beth shifts, moving her head and her steadying hand so he can see the lines taking shape in his skin a little better. She's not sure how long chocolate lasts--no one ever let it sit around in the Greene household--but it seems unlikely to her that it'd last years without getting weird. But that's not the point.

"I know what chocolate tastes like," she answers, a smile in her voice. Besides, it's not a list--but maybe it could be, even if only to amuse him here and now. After casting around for a moment for more never have I evers, she glances up at him, clearly teasing. "Never tried smoking, though."

Maybe he should've seen that coming. It makes him huff a laugh, which is something, at least. Careful not to move more than he has to he shakes his head, just the slightest bit.

"Ain't worth it." Yeah, hypocrite, he knows. She doesn't even have to say it. Probably he oughta quit-- but he figures he's not gonna live long enough for that to be what kills him. Sooner or later he'll stop being able to find a pack here and there. No reason to hurry that inevitability. No reason for her to start, though.

"Ruins your voice," he croaks, exaggerated and ridiculous.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject