Chapter Text
Beth knows Daryl’s a little rough round the edges. And to her shame, she’d had some… biased ideas, about Deidre when they’d first rolled up to the Farm. She’s grown up on a cattle farm, she’d seen first hand how dangerous a wolf can be and Deidre was a very large, very muscular wolf.
Daryl had been a cussin’, angry, wild, slightly feral man with a crossbow. His Dæmon, his soul , had been a big black wolf with gleaming fangs and eyes like shards of ice who took down Walkers alone. She’d been terrified of them.
But Daryl was also the kind, thoughtful man who brought a grieving mother a Cherokee Rose. Who worked his fingers to the bone to provide for his group and risked life and limb to get a motherless baby formula. His Deidre was a big, scary wolf, but she was also playful. She rolled around the garden with Rhiannon, she nipped and wagged her tail at Jae and Padraig. Her eyes were warm despite their color when she smiled at Beth and Beni. They were rough and tumble Rednecks, but God, they were so much more than that.
Which is why even when his arm is clamping around her like a steel band and the Walker is pinned to a tree by a crossbow bolt in its shoulder, she knows that there’s something more than anger going on.
Beni squealed, that bad scream sound that he makes when he’s nervous. Ears pinned, and lips peeled back, he paces. He does not like this at all. He head-buts Deidre’s foreleg, pleading silently for her to do something. Deidre’s tongue rasps over his forehead, eyes sad and soft. “Stay beside me, little one” she whispered, “let him…let him get it out. He needs to”. Beni turns back to where Beth is twisting in Daryl’s grip, refusing the crossbow. “He’s being a jerk” Beni says, muzzle titling up to look at Deidre. The she-wolf sighs, nodding. “He can be, when his heart hurts” she agreed. Beni chirped, studying Daryl as he and Beth scream at each other. The way his shoulders are up by his ears, the tensing of his jaw. The way he’s blinking rapidly.
Oh, he thinks.
Beni’s heart breaks a little, and from the way Beth is chewing her lip, his girl feels the same pain as they watched Daryl finally crack.
“Whaddya want from me girl?!” Daryl snarled. Beth swears she’s never been this angry in her life, “ I want you to stop acting like you don’t give a crap about anything!” Beth shouted. Her hands were shaking, and she was breathing hard as she had when they run from the prison. “I want you to stop pretending like nothing we went through meant anything, like none of it matters!” Beth pleaded, “like none of the people we lost meant anything to you”. Her own heart was aching in her chest like poking an open cut, and she’d seen how Daryl was at the prison. The way he’d fought to build its walls, feed its people, protect what they’d built. She’d seen how much it had mattered, how proud he’d been to be a part of building their home up. He can’t pretend that he’s fine now, like it’s not killing him.
She’s so angry and so sad and tired and maybe a little drunk when she snarls “it’s bullshit!” at him. She hates how he flinched back, how Deidre’s ears folded back. She hates the ghost of Daryl’s father that haunts this moonshiners shack.
But never let it be said Daryl Dixon will take anything lying down.
He rounds on her, shoving a finger in her face and snarling as wildly as Deidre or Padraig. His steely eyes are blazing with fire, but she can see the hairline cracks forming in him, hear the quiver of his voice. More than that, she sees Deidre. Beth sees how no matter Daryl blusters, Deidre is quiet and withdrawn. How he gets loud, and she turns inward, a ghost haunting them. The way she watches her and Beni with grief and regret written across her face.
So when Daryl asks, “is that what you think?” in an awful mimic of where this conversation all went off the rails, she nods. “That’s what I know” she almost sobs.
“You don’t know nothing” Daryl grunts, moving back from her. Beth feels a little hysterical, and is tired of this chasm between them. Beni twists around her boots, tail twitching in anxiety while Deidre sits like a statue beside Daryl, with him, but not joining him. “I know you look at me and Beni and just see another dead girl” she says. He does, he must, because that’s all she sees when she catches a glimpse of her reflection, when she sees Beni, so small and white in this mucky, ugly world.
But she also sees Beni’s clever eyes when he tracks Walkers she can’t see, finds critters she can’t hear and catches mice and squirrels for breakfast when Daryl has to sleep more than two hours a night. “We’re not Michonne and Chenziri” she starts, those beautiful and fierce creatures who survived alone where most died. “Not Carol and Jericho, not Maggie and Padraig”. Not them with their big, deadly daemons who can fight Walkers and people alike. “I survived and they didn’t and you don’t get it because I’m not like you or them” she snaps, wiping her tangled hair out of her face as Daryl flinched back again, looking at her like he doesn’t quite know what to do. Deidre lets out a whimper, head bowing and tail tucking under her.
She hates it, she hates it but she’s so fucking mad right now. “I made it” she says, because that’s what matters, that’s what should matter. “And you don’t get to treat me like crap because-“ she searches for the word, one that would finally break down that brick wall in him, one that would get him angry and sad, anything other than this forced acceptance of their circumstances. It’s Beni who delivers the final blow to Daryl, voice soft and kind, but no less emotive.
“Afraid” the little fox says.
“I ain’t afraid a’ nothing” Daryl growls, but one look at Deidre tells them what a joke that is.
She’s tired of this macho attitude bullshit, even though she knows it must have saved his life in childhood. “I remember” she said. “When that little girl came outta the barn after mom and Shaun” she says, voice wavering under the memories of Mom’s teeth and grasping hands, of the soft puff of gold Dust where Shaun’s sweet faced border collie, Emer, used to be. She remembers how it felt to see that gaping hole where a vibrant soul used to be, and she saw it reflected in Daryl’s eyes that day.
“You were just like us” she impressed, her own blue eyes boring into his as the cracks in him widened. Beni had slid away from her side, tentatively approaching Deidre. He’s been sad and lost and every bit as afraid as she was now. “And now God forbid you let anyone get too close!” she finished, breathing rough as her throat aches and her vision blurred. It feels like a weights been taken off her chest now that it’s out in the open, but Daryl isn’t quite finished. He puffs up, like Rick’s Clíodna when the wind is blustery, and bared his teeth in what could be a terrifying imitation of Deidre or Rhiannon if not for how certain she was that he wouldn’t hurt her.
“You’d know all about that” he hissed. “You lost two boyfriends, and you can’t even shed a tear! Your whole family’s gone and all you can go do is go lookin’ for hooch like some dumb college bitch” he roared. “Screw you, you don’t get it” she hissed. She takes the insults, the blow about Jimmy and Zach, seeing them coming a mile off. But he doesn’t get that she needed this. She needed to do something that any normal teenager would have done Before. Needed to take back a bit of power to live instead of survive. Beni chitters, but allows Deidre to soothe him again, the warmth and apology from Deidre filtering over Beth and taking the fire out of her. If Deidre doesn’t believe that crap, then Daryl’s just bullshitting to hide his vulnerability. Like that scarred up old tomcat she used to look after.
“No, you don’t get it!” he screamed, finally, finally, she could see the walls crumbling down as Deidre keened and pressed into his thigh.
“Everyone we know is dead” he howled, and her fire was back. “You don’t know that!” she argued, but it didn’t matter to him as he shoved Deidre away. “you ain’t never gonna see ‘em again!”
And for a second, Beth doesn’t care that Daryl is bullshitting and being a jackass. It hits her like a punch to the gut, all her breathe stolen away. In a flash, she had Beni in her arms, cold little nose pressed under her jawbone. Daryl swallows hard, eyes turning pink. “Rick and Clí…” he stops short at the name, and Beth can almost see the memories in his face as he sways in his feet. Deidre creeps forwards, nosing at his hand for a moment. His shoulders are tense, jaw working and Beth know she didn’t mean to lead with that. “You ain’t never gonna see Maggie and her damn mutt again!” he spit, finger jabbing in her face as he breathes harshly. “You don’t know that!” she and Beni cry, knowing that if anyone could have made it, it was Maggie and Rick.
“Daryl, just stop” she said, reaching out to touch and fix his pain now fully exposed to her. Deidre warbles, ears back and curling into herself. Beth aches for them both, but knows she can’t help the wolf so she focuses on Daryl, leaving the wolf to Beni. Her friend won’t look at her, brushing off her attempt to comfort as he looses himself in memory and guilt. “Nah, the Governor rolled right up to our gates..” he said, voice shattered. Beth can only listen as he finally lets it out.
“Maybe if I… if I wouldn’ta stopped looking” he says, barring at the branches brushing his arm. Deidre sighs, hollow and exhausted, “Daryl…” she murmurs, but he ignores her.
“Maybe because I gave up, and that’s on me” he says, still not looking at her. Her heart breaks for this man who puts the weight of the world on his shoulders when no one asks him to. The one who thinks if something goes wrong, it must be because he failed. She can’t imagine the weight of living like that.
“Your dad…” he says, barely glancing over his shoulder at her. Beth wheezes, Daddy’s smile, his laugh rattling around her skull like a clanging bell. The way he stroked her hair, the way he tickled under Beni’s chin. Maire’s gentle reassurance, her warm, soft fur.
Daddy’s shirt stained red. Maire’s slow dissolve into gold and Dust. Her own scream, Maggie’s cry.
Ashes to ashes, dust to Dust.
She’s pulled back to the present by Daryl’s voice cracking and his shoulders trembling. “Hey maybe I coulda done something” he confessed. Beth chokes back a sob as she lunges forwards, knees knocking into Deidre and Beni, who scramble out of her way. She wraps her arms around this shaking man, even when he tenses and flinches in her arms, she holds tight. Tries to show him that she’s here, that he’s not alone and doesn’t have to carry it all. A glance to Beni tells her that maybe Daryl doesn’t want to be alone either. His massive she-wolf is curled into a ball, muzzle tucked against Beni, who hums and licks over her face.
Daryl whimpers, a broken sound that makes Beth want to dig up Daryl’s father and strangle him, wants to cuff Merle Dixon around the ears and scream at them for taking his heart and chewing it up and spitting it out like it was nothing.
She holds him tight until she feels him go limp and lets out an awful keening sound as he fights his sobs. He sounds like Deidre when she got her paw caught in one of the snare lines by accident. It’s an awful sound for a human to make, and she keeps on holding him. Beth rests her forehead on his spine, smelling leather and sweat and blood. She watches him finally fall apart and it looks cleansing. She can only hope it feels like that too.
Beni sighs, tired and feeling old beyond his years as he watches Beth try to keep Daryl upright. He preoccupied with Deidre, who whimpers and whines against him, his whole body shaking with her grief. He can’t do much other than sing under his breath for her, but for now that seems to be enough for her.
He hopes it’s enough for them both.