[fic] Empty Handed [1/5]
Title: Empty Handed [1/5]
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl POV; Daryl/Beth.
Word Count: ~1000 (this is mostly a prologue)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Spoilers through all of season four.
Summary:
Author's notes: The premise of this fic is that after Daryl goes through some pretty heavy shit, he gets reunited with Beth. It won't be so much the action of what he goes through as the mental anguish. It picks up with that all-night run at the end of "Alone." Title and opening verses lifted from Lea Michele's song "Empty Handed."
I will be your compass, I will only let you bend
He knows he was an idiot to relax for even one second. To let her convince him of something that only exists (existed?) in her slight body, the one he hefted around their sanctuary without breaking a sweat, even if he teased her about being dead weight just so she'd punch his shoulder and roll her eyes.
(Just so he could put his hands on her.)
He'd lived with her for nearly two years, but it's the not-quite-a-week of them being on their own together that transforms his life into two parts.
Before Beth mattered like air.
And after.
He runs for miles, pushing his body beyond any level of endurance he's ever had. His gut clenches, pigs' feet and peanut butter wanting to make its way back up his throat, but he burns it all off before it can.
He also relives every moment they spent together in the flashes of daylight peeking up over the horizon, her voice echoing in the vacuum of his mind.
I need a drink.
I'm not staying in this suck-ass camp!
It does matter.
All I wanted to do all day was lay down and cry, but we don't get to do that.
If we're gonna be trapped again, we might as well make the best of it. Unless you're too busy chaperoning, Mr. Dixon.
He sees her face, the ridiculousness of her middle finger, dainty but aggressive somehow, so not Beth, at least in his mind up to that point.
He quickly realized just how much he'd underestimated her.
He only hopes now that his stupidity will shock them both. That her ability to survive will reach back to wherever he is, that her gift of hope extends limitlessly.
She will turn up again, shocking him, surprising him, filling him with something he didn't even know he could feel.
By the time he can't run any more, her words seem to be chasing each other through his mind.
I know you look at me and just see another dead girl!
You don't get to treat me like crap just because you're...afraid!
Screw you, you don't get it!
(His name.)
She said, Daryl! Daryl. Daryl. She hugged him, wrapping him up tight, holding on to him, keeping him from falling all apart.
(Making it possible to fall apart.)
He'd been an ass, saying things he didn't even really think, just to hurt her, just to push her away, but she grabbed a hold of him, and wouldn't let go. She held him while he cried.
She made it okay to lose his shit, and then gather it back up again.
He sits on the cold hard ground, his legs like dead rubber beneath him, but feels the wood plank behind his back, supporting him, keeping him looking into her face as she talked.
Some people can be real jerks when they drink.
You got away from it.
You're gonna be the last man standing.
You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.
He's not sure if it's worse not knowing where she is. If he'd watched a Walker rip her to pieces, he'd have had the moment to kill something to avenge her, and then set her free from the pain.
The enormous pressure in his chest can't be relieved, not now. There's no one left to hold him up, to remind him.
You gotta stay who you are, not who you were.
She woulda never even looked twice at him in the old world (and maybe even in the new world if he weren't the only one to look at). She sure as hell wouldn't have pep-talked him; she wouldn't have gazed at him with her old-soul eyes one minute, and turned on a dime, a crazy little gleam coming into them.
We should burn it down.
He chokes on a sob. It's only the sound of approaching footsteps that drags his thoughts away for a while. A life-threatening distraction, one he's not sure he wants to avoid.
(Beth would so kick his ass for that thought.)
There's still good people, Daryl.
He trails behind Joe and his merry band of thugs. If she were here now, he might say, They were all at the prison with us. Now, they're all gone. There's just you and...
There's just you.
Sleep is elusive, but he's good at faking it, especially when him and Joe's guys find an old warehouse. Soon, there are snores echoing off the walls around him, but he hears a symphony of other sounds.
Don't you think that's beautiful?
I thought my singing annoyed you?
I'm gonna leave a thank you note.
Laying there, wishing for moonshine to take away the pain of it all, he tries to come up with responses. Things he shoulda said to her.
It all sounds like bullshit, even in his head, and it all boils down to the final conversation they had. The one where he uttered the words you know (except she hadn't; she didn't get it, because she didn't know what a rare creature she was), then he mumbled something like idunno that she made fun of, kinda, and then he hadn't been able to say a word, and she'd figured it out anyway.
Which was really the truth of it all; she understood a fuckton of stuff about him without him ever having to say a word.
He probably never would say all the things, even if he had the chance. What he really figures out, though, laying on the hard concrete floor, is that he wishes he had it, anyway. He doesn't deserve it, but he longs for it, in the pit of his stomach.
An opportunity. A way to find his voice. A way to express everything she gave him in such a short amount of time, without even trying.
Oh.
Yeah, that.
That, and so much more.
...chapter two...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl POV; Daryl/Beth.
Word Count: ~1000 (this is mostly a prologue)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Spoilers through all of season four.
Summary:
Author's notes: The premise of this fic is that after Daryl goes through some pretty heavy shit, he gets reunited with Beth. It won't be so much the action of what he goes through as the mental anguish. It picks up with that all-night run at the end of "Alone." Title and opening verses lifted from Lea Michele's song "Empty Handed."
I will be your compass, I will only let you bend
He knows he was an idiot to relax for even one second. To let her convince him of something that only exists (existed?) in her slight body, the one he hefted around their sanctuary without breaking a sweat, even if he teased her about being dead weight just so she'd punch his shoulder and roll her eyes.
(Just so he could put his hands on her.)
He'd lived with her for nearly two years, but it's the not-quite-a-week of them being on their own together that transforms his life into two parts.
Before Beth mattered like air.
And after.
He runs for miles, pushing his body beyond any level of endurance he's ever had. His gut clenches, pigs' feet and peanut butter wanting to make its way back up his throat, but he burns it all off before it can.
He also relives every moment they spent together in the flashes of daylight peeking up over the horizon, her voice echoing in the vacuum of his mind.
I need a drink.
I'm not staying in this suck-ass camp!
It does matter.
All I wanted to do all day was lay down and cry, but we don't get to do that.
If we're gonna be trapped again, we might as well make the best of it. Unless you're too busy chaperoning, Mr. Dixon.
He sees her face, the ridiculousness of her middle finger, dainty but aggressive somehow, so not Beth, at least in his mind up to that point.
He quickly realized just how much he'd underestimated her.
He only hopes now that his stupidity will shock them both. That her ability to survive will reach back to wherever he is, that her gift of hope extends limitlessly.
She will turn up again, shocking him, surprising him, filling him with something he didn't even know he could feel.
By the time he can't run any more, her words seem to be chasing each other through his mind.
I know you look at me and just see another dead girl!
You don't get to treat me like crap just because you're...afraid!
Screw you, you don't get it!
(His name.)
She said, Daryl! Daryl. Daryl. She hugged him, wrapping him up tight, holding on to him, keeping him from falling all apart.
(Making it possible to fall apart.)
He'd been an ass, saying things he didn't even really think, just to hurt her, just to push her away, but she grabbed a hold of him, and wouldn't let go. She held him while he cried.
She made it okay to lose his shit, and then gather it back up again.
He sits on the cold hard ground, his legs like dead rubber beneath him, but feels the wood plank behind his back, supporting him, keeping him looking into her face as she talked.
Some people can be real jerks when they drink.
You got away from it.
You're gonna be the last man standing.
You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.
He's not sure if it's worse not knowing where she is. If he'd watched a Walker rip her to pieces, he'd have had the moment to kill something to avenge her, and then set her free from the pain.
The enormous pressure in his chest can't be relieved, not now. There's no one left to hold him up, to remind him.
You gotta stay who you are, not who you were.
She woulda never even looked twice at him in the old world (and maybe even in the new world if he weren't the only one to look at). She sure as hell wouldn't have pep-talked him; she wouldn't have gazed at him with her old-soul eyes one minute, and turned on a dime, a crazy little gleam coming into them.
We should burn it down.
He chokes on a sob. It's only the sound of approaching footsteps that drags his thoughts away for a while. A life-threatening distraction, one he's not sure he wants to avoid.
(Beth would so kick his ass for that thought.)
There's still good people, Daryl.
He trails behind Joe and his merry band of thugs. If she were here now, he might say, They were all at the prison with us. Now, they're all gone. There's just you and...
There's just you.
Sleep is elusive, but he's good at faking it, especially when him and Joe's guys find an old warehouse. Soon, there are snores echoing off the walls around him, but he hears a symphony of other sounds.
Don't you think that's beautiful?
I thought my singing annoyed you?
I'm gonna leave a thank you note.
Laying there, wishing for moonshine to take away the pain of it all, he tries to come up with responses. Things he shoulda said to her.
It all sounds like bullshit, even in his head, and it all boils down to the final conversation they had. The one where he uttered the words you know (except she hadn't; she didn't get it, because she didn't know what a rare creature she was), then he mumbled something like idunno that she made fun of, kinda, and then he hadn't been able to say a word, and she'd figured it out anyway.
Which was really the truth of it all; she understood a fuckton of stuff about him without him ever having to say a word.
He probably never would say all the things, even if he had the chance. What he really figures out, though, laying on the hard concrete floor, is that he wishes he had it, anyway. He doesn't deserve it, but he longs for it, in the pit of his stomach.
An opportunity. A way to find his voice. A way to express everything she gave him in such a short amount of time, without even trying.
Oh.
Yeah, that.
That, and so much more.
...chapter two...