[He used to be a talker, is the thing. He wasn't good at it. He never actually communicated. Nothing he said was of any value. But he knew how to lay down a good insult, to make someone squirm, to rile them up to punching.]
[That knowledge hasn't gone away, either.]
[He could explain himself, point out all the ways Quentin is wrong, is chasing at ghosts, clearly has a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking mountain. He doesn't. He just says the thing he thinks will hurt Quentin the worst, because it would pain Daryl like an infected wound.]
[ Daryl might as well have hit him for how hard his heart skips. His lips sew tight together, the upper twisting hard, same as his nose, eyes wide and watering--boiling, probably, if his flush is anything to judge by. He bares his teeth in what is surely a poisonous fuck you, but his throat wavers at the very last second. The sound crashes gracelessly against his soft palette and dies there.
[ The finger at Daryl's chest turns into an open palm and a petulant shove. Hard enough to give Quentin an inch or two head start when he turns on his heel to march the other way. ]
[Yeah. That's the reaction he used to dig out of people. He didn't feel anything then, because it that wasn't what men were supposed to do. Out of Merle's shadow with a decade of self-reflection under his belt, though? Daryl only feels disgust. He's trying to make kids cry, now? Really? What the fuck is wrong with him?]
[He lets Quentin go. He'll lie down in the forest, wicked trees curling around him, and stare into the sunless sky.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[That knowledge hasn't gone away, either.]
[He could explain himself, point out all the ways Quentin is wrong, is chasing at ghosts, clearly has a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking mountain. He doesn't. He just says the thing he thinks will hurt Quentin the worst, because it would pain Daryl like an infected wound.]
You ain't earned it.
no subject
[ The finger at Daryl's chest turns into an open palm and a petulant shove. Hard enough to give Quentin an inch or two head start when he turns on his heel to march the other way. ]
no subject
[He lets Quentin go. He'll lie down in the forest, wicked trees curling around him, and stare into the sunless sky.]