So, this is what happens to me when I'm feeling angsty, apparently. I told you guys it's something I'm struggling to kick so here we are. On the plus side, I am mid way through a second part to 'Adult' and I hope to have it done soon. It's just a little hard when you're in an angst, messed up kind of head set and you're trying to write flirty/sexy/smutty/fun times. So, hold out for me guys. Until then, there's this. Oh, and I have an Ao3 account now, for readers who prefer it over there. Pen name is: Leigh J.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead, nor it's characters. I make no profit from this piece.
She was a prophet.
She was a goddamn fucking prophet and he hates her.
You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.
Fuck you, Beth.
His head tips back against the bark of the tree he's slumped against but his eyes don't leave the thing before him. Don't leave it as he digs his thumbnail into the crater in his hand, caused by the cigarette he used to cook his flesh. He hisses as it screams in outrage, clear fluid and blood pooling down his wrist, all while his eyes stay locked on the thing before him.
Her grave.
Her goddamn grave with the freshly piled Earth and the stones Maggie picked out because they're pretty, an' she woulda liked 'em.
Fuck you too, Maggie.
He does miss her. He misses her like the ache of hunger in his gut, like the dry patches coating his tongue, the walls and roof of his mouth, misses her like a missing limb and he hates it. Daryl Dixon has never relied on anyone in his whole fucking life, never depended on anyone. Not even Merle, not even then. But he depended on her, he relied on her. To have his back, to share his camp, to keep watch, to collect wood, water, food, to kill walkers. He relied on her. He never believed he could do that, couldn't even manage it with his own goddamn brother, sure as shit wasn't going to happen with anyone else.
He believed in her, she made him do that and she let him down. She let him the fuck down and he hates her.
No, you don't. You loved her. You love her.
Fuck the voice in his head too, for that matter. Where's that ever got him? Where the fuck has that voice ever fucking got him? Alone. Last man standing, just like the goddamn prophet said. Bitch. Missing her so bad, now she's gone. Never got her love, never got her to touch him, never got to touch her neither. Never got her to lay beneath him so he could worship her. Never got him the balls to tell her how much he wanted her, how often he thought of making her cum with his fingers, his mouth, his cock. Never got him that. Not her heart, not even her body.
Never got him fucking nothing.
He hates Beth Greene. He fucking hates her, but he doesn't. He really fucking doesn't because it's all a goddamn lie and he's the best there is at lying to himself. Because he loves her; because he misses her. Because he's torn up and fucked up and destroyed over her. Because her blood is still on his lips and her skull is still cracked open, deep in that grave he dug her. The dirt of that grave is still packed under his fingernails. The cut from the rock he put there, serving as her headstone, is still red and raw and throbbing nearly as bad as his hand, right down his forearm.
She's still gone.
Whether he loves her or hates her, she's still gone and she's not coming back and he has to go. He has to go at some point. Walk back to them, join them on the journey they're planning for. But he can't look at them, not any of them. Not Rick: I know you lost somethin' back there.
Do you, Rick? Do you know?
No, he fucking doesn't. No, because Beth goddamn Greene was half his fucking age, was off limits. Because Beth wasn't some girl. Beth was a fucking goddess, a test put on this Earth, a fucking saviour in a world gone to shit, trying to restore light and life and everything the world should goddamn be.
Beth was something else.
He knew it then, and he knows it now. Don't matter that he seen her brain, don't matter that he seen her blood, that it was red and thick and hot, like every fucker else's, not golden or glowing, or silver and shining, like something not made for this world, from this world. Don't matter that he seen that shit. She told him to see the good in people and he saw it in her. Chose to have faith, to believe. Believe that they weren't forsaken, that they weren't the dead walking, that there was more than this shitty fucking life.
She made him, pushed him into it, crowded closer with her light and her life until he couldn't fucking take it. Then she ripped it all away again.
Do you know, Rick? Do you know what I lost?
Fuck you.
Fuck you, and her, and all of them.
Fuck Maggie's haunted face and Michonne's tight mouth. Fuck Carol's wobbling chin and Glenn's tight hold on his wife. Fuck them all. They don't fucking know. They don't know who she was. They never fucking did, not like him. They saw the Beth that lived at the farm. Little girl, protected. Slitting her wrists because she was scared. He seen so much more than that. Seen her fight walkers, seen her lose people, seen her hold on to her humanity. Seen her burn down that fucking shack. She was perfect. She was something else and he hates her. He hates her with the force of the bullet that tore through her fucking brain. He hates her so much because she's still fucking here, haunting him.
You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.
Fuck you, Beth.