Title: Stories I'll Never Tell
Rating: K-M, depending
Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead
Summary: Daryl is selective about the stories he shares from his past. A series of one-shot tales from the life of a Dixon.
Hole in the Wall
The air was thick with suffocating humidity, to the point where just being outside made your clothes stick to your slick body. The sun was hidden behind an ominous dark cloud that hadn't seemed to budge for the entirety of the service.
It seemed almost pointless to have a service, what without a body to mourn over.
Daryl had never been to a funeral, but on TV, there was always a body. Folks would wander up to the front of the church and cry over an open casket. They would place roses and intimate objects inside to be sealed forever with their loved one. They would hold the cold, dead hand and whisper sweet words of love and devotion, and promise to never forget.
Maria Dixon had none of those things. She had a near-empty church, with just Daryl, Merle and his corrections officer, their Pop, and the minister. They didn't have a body, or even an urn. It was impossible to tell what ashes belonged to Ma and which ones belonged to the disintegrated mattress she'd been burned along with.
It was hard to take this all seriously, Daryl thought, as they sat in the front row of a church none of them had ever entered before. Nobody knew Maria. Nobody knew any of them, aside from a few of the kids Daryl went to school with. The Dixon's weren't what you would call a 'social' bunch.
But somewhere inside, he knew. He understood that Ma was gone, and Merle was leavin' again for juvi, and when all was said and done, and a box commemorating his mother was placed in a wall full of dead people, it'd just be him and Pop. Just the two of 'em, alone.
He shivered at the thought, as the most recent slash across his back stung from the beads of sweat dripping in.
Part of him hated Merle for getting in so much trouble, for constantly leaving him to fend off Pop himself. An even bigger part of him hated Ma for doin' the same. She was gone because of her own goin', and he couldn't even begin to feel sorry for her. Hell, at eleven, even he knew she was lookin' for a way out. It was only a matter of time.
"Does anyone have any words they'd like to say?" the Minister's words shook Daryl from his thoughts. He looked over at Pop and Merle, both shrugging their shoulders dismissively and turning to look at him. He shook his head infinitesimally and returned his gaze to the ground as his father said gruffly, "Ain't nuthin' 'a say."
The service ended a few minutes later, and after a few empty platitudes from the minister, Daryl was finally free of that suffocating church. The Dixon men made their way then to the cemetery out back and watched as the minister slid the box into its new home – Ma's new home, he thought. A hole in a wall.
That seemed strangely fitting to the youngest Dixon.
The men stood there for a few minutes, not saying anything. Merle gave a short nod after a while to the officer, indicating he was ready to head back to the clink. He passed by Pop without so much as a glance and headed for Daryl, clapping him on the back over the half-open wound and pulling him in for an awkward hug. He bent down to whisper in his ear.
"Steer clear 'a the old man when you can. He got no one else to beat on no more." Daryl frowned. He assumed Merle knew about the abuse he'd always gotten – that it was more than the odd spank or smack upside the head. He closed his eyes and nodded. No sense tellin' him now, not when he was headin' back to prison with no way of steppin' in.
"You ladies done?" Pop intruded. Merle caught Daryl's eyes once more, a silent support visible in the familiar blues.
"Yeah," he said, not breaking eye contact. Daryl nodded once more, an assurance, he wasn't sure who for. Merle clapped him on the back again, and Daryl refused to let his wince be the last thing his older brother saw before leaving. He put on a small, stiff grin and said his goodbyes.
Moments later, he was in the bed of Pop's old truck, layin' down as they headed for the old country road that would take them back to the trailer they'd called home ever since Ma burned down the real thing.
Nowhere to hide in a goddamn trailer.
I figure I'll write these until I run out of ideas, lol. I may sprinkle in some recent stuff to prompt the stories – particularly when there's something that could be used as a life lesson for a certain kid in a sheriff's hat.
Hope you liked it. Let me know!