"Where'd this one come from?" Daryl heard Jesus mumble, tracing his fingers through Daryl's hair to find the scar that grazed his temple.
"Bullet graze," he answered, turning his head to allow Jesus the chance to flip his hair to the side.
The sun had yet to fully rise; it lit the horizon in varying shades of purple and amber, allowing dim light to glimmer through the trees and shine inside the bedroom window on the couple.
"When did it happen?"
Pausing, Daryl allowed himself to bask in the gentle grazing of worn nails on his scalp. "After," he relented. "One of our group thought I was a walker. Asskicker was barely in the womb."
He shut his eyes as cool fingers found a dimple on the side of his abdomen. "And this?" Jesus questioned, feeling for the matching wound on his back.
With a snort, Daryl nodded. "It's why she thought I was a walker. Maggie's horse threw me right into a ravine, an' I landed on my arrows. One of 'em went clean through me."
Jesus leaned against the pillows and continued to lace his fingers through Daryl's hair, his eyes darting over his bare skin. He had more questions - like when did he get the scars on his hands, the ones that looked alarmingly like cigarette burns? And where did the scars on his back come from, the ones that were too healed to have been from any point after the world fell apart? But he didn't ask. It was rare enough that Daryl was this willing to sit and answer his questions at all.
"Have you always been a hunter or is it a new skill?" Jesus asked, he felt Daryl hum in his lap.
"Always been," he answered. "M'brother was in the military before he punched a sergeant in the face, so the weapons training came before, too."
"I've heard them talk about him - your brother," Jesus murmured. "I'd have liked to meet him."
Daryl looked up and met his eyes seriously, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. "Nah, you wouldn't have."
Jesus shrugged. "He raised you, though. How bad could he have been?"
Daryl settled back into his lap and shook his head. "You just ask Glenn that question, since he tied him to a chair and threw a walker at him. Or Michonne - he hunted and shot her down like prey."
"But what about you?" he asked, confusing Daryl out of his darkening mood.
"Huh?"
Jesus continued pushing Daryl's hair out of his eyes. "You keep talking about how your group looked at him. What about you? How do you look at him?"
He sat in silence for a few minutes, his eyes stormy in the dim light. When he resituated himself, Jesus could see him chewing on the inside of him lip.
"He was a racist piece of shit who spent his life tryin'a 'make me a man', but he was still my brother," he finally admitted.
Jesus nodded. "Everyone says he got it right in the end," he mused.
"Gettin' himself killed don't make up for leavin' me with our dad the second he could," Daryl uttered.
Jesus felt him tense and began to pull away, but he grasped onto his broad shoulders, holding him in place. "I'm sorry," he apologized, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Please don't go - not yet."
Slowly, Daryl eased the strain on his limbs. He looked up and met Jesus's bright eyes with a scowl on his face, but he still leaned back down to rest his head on Jesus's lab.
The sun shined on the pair now, catching on Daryl's hair to emphasize the blonde strands that hid in his dark roots. He took a deep breath and released it slowly as he met his partner's gaze evenly.
"What about this one?" Jesus asked with a hint of a smile, tracing a faint scar just above Daryl's eyebrow.
"Before," he answered, shutting his eyes against the feeling. "Car crash. I got a titanium eye socket. It almost makes me a little happy to be out of Georgia."