Chapter Text
Paul’s amused voice went on. “I’m really grateful for the steaminess of the sex, it was more than I had hoped for! Very entertaining, if y’know what I mean…?”
Rick snickered. Daryl still mostly felt like punching Paul in the face, but the last half an hour had mellowed his feelings considerably, so maybe he’d just slap him. Once. And not that hard, either. He was feeling pretty generous right now.
Paul still had more to say. “Considering it was thanks to me you finally stopped being idiots, why not let me go as a thank you? What about it, guys? I mean, just think about it: without me, you’d’ve never gotten a decent day’s exercise running around after the van, you’d’ve never gotten your heads outta your asses about each other, you’d’ve never had loud sex on the roof of a van… Me snatching your van, it was like a public service, y’know? Come on, guys, what say you?”
Rick didn’t answer. He looked at Daryl and jerked his chin towards the ladder. Daryl nodded. They checked their zippers and their belt buckles, descended, and opened the van’s rear door. Paul was where they’d left him: leaning on the side wall, all tied up. They watched him for a moment; Paul watched right back. His pale gaze was fearless, determined, perceptive. Now that Daryl had gained some of his zen back and Paul wasn’t actively trying to taunt them, Daryl paid special attention to the way the guy was…measuring them up. And not in a flirty way. Not in a taunting way. No, it was like the guy was filling up a questionnaire about Rick and Daryl in his head.
Daryl didn’t know what to make of him. Paul didn’t feel malicious, like the Governor or the Terminus people. Daryl cocked his head to the side and frowned. No, the feeling he got was more like…
…like Aaron.
What?
“Who are you?” Daryl asked slowly.
The assessing look in Paul’s eyes turned even sharper. It was obvious he understood the tone of the question. Daryl wasn’t asking his name.
“Someone you’d like to know.” Not an ounce of flirtation in Paul’s voice; the man was dead serious. “You’re from some community, am I right?” He didn’t wait for confirmation – he didn’t need to, he wasn’t stupid. The way Rick and Daryl had acted the whole time, the way they were dressed, Rick’s beard trimmed, all that – it spoke loud and clear that they weren’t just the two of them, on the road, wild and unorganized.
Paul shuffled, he sat up straighter. “Look, I don’t get bad vibes from you. So, either let me go right now, and no hard feelings, or–”
“Or what?” Rick asked with a mild voice. “Doesn’t look like you’re in a great bargaining position.”
“Oh, but I am.” Paul smiled, a serene, confident small smile. “I already performed a frickin’ miracle for you two.” He winked. “I could use my divine powers to perform another one.”
“And what might that be?” Rick asked, curious almost in spite of himself.
“I could widen your world.”
Daryl frowned again. That guy made no sense. Or…
“You’re from another community,” he said, and his frown deepened.
A flicker of surprise brushed over Paul’s face; he’d probably not expected such a surly reaction.
Rick jumped on the back of the van and leaned on the wall, his gaze unwavery on Paul.
“We’ve met other communities,” Rick explained. “One attacked our home and killed a whole bunch of good people. Another one simply tried to eat us…”
That got Paul’s attention for sure, but Rick didn’t stop there. “...so whatever you’re offering, you really got to sell it well. We’ve no reason to trust people just like that. We’ve learned the hard way.”
Something dark flickered in Paul’s eyes, and his small smile was tight. “Oh, we’ve had our share of tough lessons. I’m not asking you to just take my word.” He looked at them for a moment, eyes on Rick, then on Daryl, back to Rick. The next moment, there it was again, the mischief in his gaze, the bold smile, the winks. “I bet you anything my…world’s…bigger than yours. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Rick’s voice was serious. “I’d say it’s the other way around. You show us yours, we might show you ours.”
Nobody said anything for a second or two.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” Paul cut into the silence.
Rick turned to look at Daryl. Daryl chewed on his lip. This guy had been nothin’ but trouble. Truth was, though, that Daryl didn’t have a bad feeling about him. An annoyed feeling for sure, but bad…not so much. Could it be worth the risk?
Aaron had been worth the risk. Alexandria had been worth the effort.
Daryl peered at Rick under his bangs. Rick’s gaze was steady and it held a question. Daryl jerked his head and hoped to God he wouldn’t regret it. But his muscles were still relaxed and his heart was warm and his brain just couldn’t generate the normal amount of suspicious sharpness.
Rick nodded. “Fine.”
******
About an hour later, they dropped Paul off where they’d found him. The guy rubbed his wrists and stared at his weapons. Daryl had set them down on the ground a dozen yards from him.
“Two days from now, me and Daryl come back. You really want to widen our world, you’ll be here too.”
“And if my leader won’t approve?” Paul asked.
“Then you won’t be here, ‘s that easy,” grumbled Daryl. “This wasn’t our idea, y’know. You suggested this. We ain’t tryin’ to beg.”
“What about your leader? Don’t you have to negotiate first?”
Rick gave him a lopsided smile. “Oh, the leader has already conducted extensive negotiations with his second.” He smirked at Daryl who frowned right back. They’d talked about this a lot on the drive back to the warehouse.
“Oh.” Paul lifted his eyebrows but didn’t look too surprised.
Daryl might have to admit the guy maybe wasn’t stupid. Just in case, however… “Don’t try anything funny. No settin’ us up or nothin’ like that. We’ve been there, done that, ain’t in the mood for reruns.”
Paul’s pale gaze grew serious in an instant. “Believe it or not, all I’m interested in is building something solid. And you can’t build solid unless you’ve got good materials. Strong people. Good people. People who apparently care a lot for their own people without feeling the need to gut every stranger who happens to cross their path.” His teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Or who happens to wheedle their wheels from under them.”
Rick listened to him with an impassive expression. “Pretty words are cheap, Paul. We’ve heard tons of them, from all kinds of people, and nine times out of ten, what those people actually end up doing is betray, exploit, torture, kill. But we haven’t lost all hope yet, we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt. Do not misuse it.”
All emotion had seeped out of Rick’s voice. It was icicle cold; it made the hair on Daryl’s arms stand up. Rick cast one last look at Paul, walked to the van, stopped with his hand on the handle, half-turned his head and said over his shoulder, still with the rock-hard, glacier-cold voice, “We’ve taken down groups that would make mobsters blanch. We protect our own, and we never give up. Don’t test us, you wouldn’t like the result. But treat us fair an’ square, an’ you got no problem with us.”
He opened the door, climbed onto the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. Daryl almost smiled. Rick was really–
“He’s really good with that,” Paul said, his face just a little bit paler than normal, but with a tiny twinkle in his eyes again. “He took drama in high school? Man, those lessons paid off.”
Daryl bristled. Nobody had the right to smirk at Rick but Daryl, least of all some annoying stranger. “He’s not just saying it,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I know,” Paul said calmly. “Neither of you seems like a puffed-up stage actor. Or a brawn-no-brain kind of a type. I believe you,” he said, stressing every word. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have suggested this in the first place. What, you think I offer my community on a silver platter to just any people I stumble into?”
Daryl grunted a grudging “okay”. He turned towards the van, turned his back to Paul, ears pricked in case the guy tried to dash for his guns and prove – once and for all – that he couldn’t be trusted. But all stayed silent. Even when Rick started the van and they drove away, Paul still hadn’t moved a muscle, standing with his arms crossed, his feet slightly apart, his eyes following the van.
“Ya trust him?” Daryl knew it was a futile question. Neither of them would really know until they had evidence either way. Up until then it would only be guesswork.
“I’d want to,” Rick said after a few miles of silence. “The guy says he’s Jesus–”
Daryl’s lips twitched. What a goddamned (hah!) nickname.
Rick went on. “–but he could just as easily be Lucifer. No way of knowing. I have a good feeling about this – and so do you, I know you. Remember, I’ve seen your face when you’re absolutely against my decisions, and since you’ve been right most of those times I watch you real careful these days…”
Daryl’s face felt warm. Not that this was the first time Rick had told Daryl he trusted his judgment. It still felt weird, that was all it was. The Dixon family hadn’t been much for positive reinforcement.
Rick was still talking. “...and just in case this ‘divine intervention’ turns out to be ungodly instead, we plan this through and through.”
The silence was sudden. Daryl threw a worried glance at Rick.
Rick sighed and met Daryl’s gaze, then looked back at the road. “I know we have to plan. I just… can’t help but… y’know, this has been a good day. Lots of miracles, if you want to use Paul’s words. We found the van. We found…each other.” Rick’s mouth curved into a smile. “I can’t help but hope that Paul’s for real. Another frickin’ miracle, y’know.”
Daryl didn’t say anything. Some day, he’d tell Rick just how miraculous the scene on the roof of the van had been for him. Could he possibly hope for more of those divine wonders?
Daryl had heard the saying “bad things come in threes” often enough – that had been Merle’s favorite saying for some inexplicable reason. But today, they’d found the van, and Rick loved Daryl – could good things also come in threes?
In a couple of days, they would know.
THE END