It is, really, not all that unusual. Daryl is no stranger to ghosts; real ghosts, well, maybe, but they live surrounded by the dead in more than one way. Now and then the rotted features resolve themselves into a face, and you wonder. Every goddamn day the people they've lost walk with them; a weight, an ache, a reminder to do better; the strength to keep fighting or the familiar dulled sting of loss. It's worse here, because he's alone, because they don't let him sleep, because he's going out of his fucking mind. Because he got one of his best friends killed.
When he shuts his eyes he can't help seeing it, the stuttering horror of that night on an endless loop. Abraham's defiance, the sick sound of Glenn hitting the ground. People don't leave, once they're gone.
It doesn't even really surprise him. He's been listening to Merle sneer at him on and off, distant sobs that make him think of Beth, of Carol's girls; he can't tell what's real and what isn't. Glenn being here to judge him a while-- why not?
He deserves it.
All he can do for the moment is stare, halfway waiting for everything to change-- for the shape to solidify and then melt into a gruesome parody of a face, all blood and bone and dangling eye. No use talking. He's got nothing to say in his own defense.
He does solidify, at least a bit more; the lines of his face become more defined, his eyes - both of them where they should be - focus more firmly into being, catching what illumination there is. Though there's a clear lack of substance to his presence, a somewhat wavering quality as if he might fade back away at any moment, he's here right now.
The good news - or not good, maybe - is that he isn't here to level accusations or to seem some kind of ethereal vengeance. He moves a little closer, almost like he's alive. He's not sure, really, if this is the best course of action or if manifesting like this is just going to make things worse, but he is in an unfortunately unique position, being able to reach Daryl here.
"Hey. You don't deserve this."
This statement, at least, bears no uncertainty. His tone is almost aggressively earnest, insistent.
And as such it gets, probably, the last thing Glenn expects-- a short, bitter bark of a laugh. Funny how such a thing can sound so much like a sob; but there's a certain sick humor to this, the irony of it.
Is he imagining Glenn's kindness because, from beginning to end, Glenn was extraordinarily, invariably, the best of people? Or-- and it's barely even a question, Daryl knows the likelier answer-- even now, he's being selfish, seeking some sort of absolution he doesn't deserve.
"Deserve a lot worse," he mutters-- or means to. Not much more than a cracked whisper escapes him. He's hardly sure he spoke aloud at all.
Truthfully, it's not quite the last thing he expected. He was certain that Daryl would be blaming himself, at least, that he'd decide he deserved whatever these people subjected him to. But it's true, you can't necessarily anticipate how people will respond to you when you're dead. There's a certain variance there, probably based around the fact that you shouldn't be there.
"It wasn't your fault. And I know you're not going to believe me, that you probably don't even think I'm really here, and that's okay. I know I wouldn't believe it either. But I know that it wasn't and I am me."
Can't be, because he's dead, he doesn't add. Doesn't have to, of course-- it wouldn't make a difference whether this is a ghost or an hallucination. Dead, and really dead-- at least that's cold comfort, knowing Glenn's not stumbling around out there, a shell of the man he used to be.
A good man, a man with every reason and every right to live, but here Daryl is still breathing and here Glenn is--
Isn't.
Guilt twists like poison through him; he draws his knees in closer without meaning to, feeling sick but too empty to do anything but tighten the white-knuckled fists he's made. Every inch of him that wants to believe this is real-- if only to give him the chance to apologize-- is countered by the voice of reason, tearing him down for having the audacityto imagine forgiveness.
"Shoulda been--"
With a choked off sound that might be a sob, might be a laugh, he doesn't finish the sentence. Shoulda been me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
worn_wings) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
what_wings_dare2014-02-14 08:31 pm
how dare
When he shuts his eyes he can't help seeing it, the stuttering horror of that night on an endless loop. Abraham's defiance, the sick sound of Glenn hitting the ground. People don't leave, once they're gone.
It doesn't even really surprise him. He's been listening to Merle sneer at him on and off, distant sobs that make him think of Beth, of Carol's girls; he can't tell what's real and what isn't. Glenn being here to judge him a while-- why not?
He deserves it.
All he can do for the moment is stare, halfway waiting for everything to change-- for the shape to solidify and then melt into a gruesome parody of a face, all blood and bone and dangling eye. No use talking. He's got nothing to say in his own defense.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The good news - or not good, maybe - is that he isn't here to level accusations or to seem some kind of ethereal vengeance. He moves a little closer, almost like he's alive. He's not sure, really, if this is the best course of action or if manifesting like this is just going to make things worse, but he is in an unfortunately unique position, being able to reach Daryl here.
"Hey. You don't deserve this."
This statement, at least, bears no uncertainty. His tone is almost aggressively earnest, insistent.
no subject
And as such it gets, probably, the last thing Glenn expects-- a short, bitter bark of a laugh. Funny how such a thing can sound so much like a sob; but there's a certain sick humor to this, the irony of it.
Is he imagining Glenn's kindness because, from beginning to end, Glenn was extraordinarily, invariably, the best of people? Or-- and it's barely even a question, Daryl knows the likelier answer-- even now, he's being selfish, seeking some sort of absolution he doesn't deserve.
"Deserve a lot worse," he mutters-- or means to. Not much more than a cracked whisper escapes him. He's hardly sure he spoke aloud at all.
no subject
Truthfully, it's not quite the last thing he expected. He was certain that Daryl would be blaming himself, at least, that he'd decide he deserved whatever these people subjected him to. But it's true, you can't necessarily anticipate how people will respond to you when you're dead. There's a certain variance there, probably based around the fact that you shouldn't be there.
"It wasn't your fault. And I know you're not going to believe me, that you probably don't even think I'm really here, and that's okay. I know I wouldn't believe it either. But I know that it wasn't and I am me."
no subject
Can't be, because he's dead, he doesn't add. Doesn't have to, of course-- it wouldn't make a difference whether this is a ghost or an hallucination. Dead, and really dead-- at least that's cold comfort, knowing Glenn's not stumbling around out there, a shell of the man he used to be.
A good man, a man with every reason and every right to live, but here Daryl is still breathing and here Glenn is--
Isn't.
Guilt twists like poison through him; he draws his knees in closer without meaning to, feeling sick but too empty to do anything but tighten the white-knuckled fists he's made. Every inch of him that wants to believe this is real-- if only to give him the chance to apologize-- is countered by the voice of reason, tearing him down for having the audacityto imagine forgiveness.
"Shoulda been--"
With a choked off sound that might be a sob, might be a laugh, he doesn't finish the sentence. Shoulda been me.