Forgot to mention in the last AN that I did include every prompt for Bethyl smut week apart from Bittersweet! It was going to be my last chapter but I ended on Bite.
You'll see why!
Just us.
Maggie screaming as teeth rip into her throat and tear it out.
Just us.
Glenn's head exploding off the cement floor.
Just us.
Daddy's headless corpse dropping to its knees.
Just us.
Judith dead in her brother's arms.
Just us.
Carl's ribs broken and tearing through his skin.
Just us.
Rick's entrails hanging out of his belly.
Just us.
Blood pouring out of Daryl's mouth as he chokes.
Just me.
No.
Beth's eyes fly open and she stares at the canopy of trees overhead, her heart racing and her skin slick with sweat even as her mouth is clamped shut. No screaming nightmares. Even her subconscious knows that's too dangerous out here in… wherever they are. Doesn't matter, there's nowhere to be. She rolls stiffly on her hip and finds Daryl against the trunk of a tree, plucking at the strings of his crossbow, hair limp and eyes puffy; red rimmed. He's cried for them, grieved, let it all out while she slept like a stone and he kept watch. He's cried for them, so why hasn't she? When she used to read stories, she never understood why they didn't cry.
Was the 'numb haze' they referenced real? Did it really all feel like a 'nightmare' that they were waiting to wake up from? Did the author really capture what it was like to lose someone? Maybe it was a load of horseshit. Maybe they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about and never knew what it was like to really lose someone. Even still, they probably never lost their whole family in one go either. They probably never watched every single person they've ever loved or known or broken bread with die. Maybe they're all lying fucking cunts who were using dramatic shit to sell their stupid fucking books. Maybe they were all liars and maybe not because she can't feel a thing.
She can't cry, she can't hurt, she can't even think straight. She does feel like she's in a dream, like she's had a nightmare that's haunting her throughout the day. Like those dreams where someone dies and even when she wakes up and they're right there scoffing down their breakfast, she feel like she lost them and it hurts so bad she wants to scream. This isn't a dream. She didn't wake up and find Maggie laughing with Glenn. She didn't wake up and see Rick tickling Judith. She didn't wake up and watch Michonne practice with her Katana, the very blade that was shoved through her stomach. She didn't dream a bad dream. This is real. They're gone, every last one of them and still she can't cry.
Daryl moves amongst the fallen leaves and rough tree bark, clearing his throat. "You er… you al-"
"M'I alright?" She cuts him off harshly, her voice thick and broken. "Am I alright, that what you were gonna ask me?"
"Beth," he croaks and he sounds so close to tears she turns her head away sharply.
"Don't."
"I lost them too!" He says with fire he didn't have a moment ago. "I fuckin' watched them die."
"An' whose fault is that!?" She screams as she whips her head back around to face him. "Who wasn't there when we fuckin' needed him?"
"The Governor had me on my back, Beth! He was beatin' the shit outta me!"
She scoffs but he's not lying. His eyes are swollen and purple, his lip split and face swollen along his jaw. When she catches sight of his knuckles, they're torn and split.
"I got him," he adds darkly. "I killed the fucker. The hell did you do, huh? Wanna preach at me 'bout shit you don't understand," he grunts as he staggers to his feet.
Beth climbs to hers too, lurching unsteadily with the sudden movement, not wanting to be in a position lower than him. "I was holdin' my sister when we watched her husband splash across the floor like a fuckin' watermelon," she hisses. "An' she took that walker bite for me!" Her voice breaks on the last word and her insides break too. "She took it for me."
The sobs are ugly and thick, her knees giving under her as she collapses to the floor with a shudder of horror and grief, spittle and snot dangling from her nose and lips and chin like a child. She can't find the sense or the care to take a sleeve to her face and wipe up the mess, only enough reason to curl her arms around her ribs and scream into the air. She does it again, screams and screams and screams away her heartbreak, cursing and retching and sobbing in agony, praying for it to end. Daryl sinks to his knees with her in the mud and hugs her fiercely, dragging her weight into him as she screams into his shoulder. He shudders and squeezes and cries, rocking her until the world swims.
"S'just us, Beth."
Just us.
