Enfant de putain

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: The Walking Dead
RATING: Teen and Up/Mature (Ymmv)
WORDCOUNT: 444
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Merle Dixon, the Atlanta group is referenced.
GENRE: Violent venting.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Racism, racist violence, self-hatred, self-destruction, toxic mindsets.
SUMMARY: A ficlet about what may have been going on in Merle’s head on that roof in Atlanta.
NOTE(S): So I've had a really shitty week and needed something to vent my pent up rage, and while Merle and I will forever disagree on what's an acceptable way to deal with feeling worthless, I can certainly emphasize with how he (may or may not have) got there...which makes him the perfect proxy to vent out violent feelings.
The title is borrowed from the song Enfant de Putain (Child of a whore) by Sexy Sushi. And if you've ever felt something similar to this, whether you've acted on it or not, I'm sending all the hugs to you.

 

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Rage writhes against your ribs, a thick hard stone pressing against the roof of your stomach—it presses your entire life into your throat until you’re ready to vomit it all on the first acceptable punching bag you can find.
Geeks are good for that. Nobody’s caring for ‘em anymore, and everyone looks the same under the gore—you might as well be shooting your old folks, the neighbors who kept fucking quiet, teacher after teacher after teacher who failed to see, to hear, to listen.

You might as well be shooting you. Maybe if you do it enough, you’ll finally find the fucking peace of mind every fucker you’ve ever met advocated for like it was some kind of fucking switch.

(Nothing you truly need to get rid of can be shot out of your life though. There’s no killing a dead man and you may be seeing two of you with how much drugs you’ve pumped into your system but there ain’t getting rid of yourself no matter what.)

Geeks fall to the ground one after the other and from the second you press the trigger until they hit the ground you’re worth something. You’re powerful. You’re useful. You make a difference.
When you shoot, for a couple of seconds, you might as well be the guy you keep pretending to be.

The others find you, and their screams do nothing but remind you you’d be lucky if they treated you like the dirt under their fucking shoes. You burn and burn and burn, and because you never did manage to become fireproof, you snap.
You don’t even have anything in particular against T-Dog. He’s n asshole, but no more than anyone else ever was, and maybe in another life you’d have tolerated him. But he’s black and you’re white and that, if nothing else, means there will always be people who’d pick you over him.

You punch and kick and snarl and it’s ugly and messy and exactly as fucking wrong as it was before the world went ass over tit but it still fucking works.

You stand over their terrified faces with the look of a very satisfied man ‘cause that’s what Merle is—satisfied. It tastes as sour as it ever has, but it’s that or allowing the acrid bile to fill your mouth and honestly, you’ve been there and done that. You ain’t going back, even if it means taking others down in the process.

(Officer Friendly knocks you down and, frankly, it’s just as well. The good bits were starting to ebb already, and at least now you know exactly who and where to hit next time.)