EMPYREAN SKIES I DARYL DIXON

Your Love Stings Like Blood

Author's Note: Empyrean Skies is an AU fic diverging from my main story Goodnight Love. This fic can be read as a stand-alone and is primarily Daryl/OC. It follows the basic premise of Daryl Dixon but with various changes. Videos for characters canon and original, can be found on my YouTube channel via the link on my profile.

CONTEXT:

My OC, Imogen Alford, was Negan's mistress before the world ended and they had a daughter, Tess. Imogen has an older brother called Kit whom she and Tess lived with at this time. They were close friends and neighbors of Carol Peletier, only to end up becoming separated during the evacuation. Later, they found Carol again, becoming part of her group led by Rick Grimes, whom Imogen eventually married and they had a daughter, Daisy.

At this current point of time in Empyrean Skies, Rick is now dead after blowing up the bridge, as is Carl who died several years before during the war with Negan. Following Rick's death, Imogen gave birth to their second daughter, Cassidy, and raised Tess, Judith, Daisy and Cassidy with the help of her family.

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'Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Hell out of their places'...

W.B. Yeats

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...'(and I think silently: love is a bow-string pulled back to the point of breaking)'...

Marina Tsvetaeva

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Your Love Stings Like Blood

Daryl gnawed on his thumbnail as he awkwardly took a seat, feeling like a fish out of water. Glancing around him, the sight of the brightly colored balloons and huge hand-painted banner hanging over the door only served to make Daryl slump down even further, earnestly wishing for invisibility. Birthdays had meant damn all growing up, only marking yet another year of hell at the hands of his father. Even now, after all this time, it sat ill on him that this fancy get-up was meant to be celebrating him. He'd even taken an extra shower and attempted to brush his hair, as well as making the effort to put on a clean shirt for this farce, donning a designer denim number Imogen had given him last Christmas. It had taken him this long to wear it, not just because not only wasn't it to his taste, but how it reminded him too much of Rick. He could still remember the alarm he'd experienced upon unwrapping it, thinking Imogen had given him one of Rick's old shirts as some kind of memento mori, until he'd seen the larger sizing, Daryl being broader across the back and shoulders than Rick had been.

The party had all been Carol's idea, his best friend coming over from the Commonwealth with the boot of her car packed with presents, crates of carefully prepared food, and the piece de résistance, several cases of expensive vintage wine unearthed from some rich bastard's cellar. As the guests started to arrive and circulate, hugging and greeting one another, Daryl deliberately avoided catching anyone's eye. Goddamn, he felt like a fool, he thought ruefully, dropping his worn hand to his side. Carol swept past, elegant in a grey shift dress and pearl earrings, her short hair freshly trimmed in feathered layers. She shot Daryl a pointed glance, raising her eyebrows at his show of surliness, Daryl scowling in return. But she just laughed, merely moving on to air kiss yet another proffered cheek, accepting compliments with easy grace.

Imogen Grimes then came into the lounge, three of her four daughters trailing at her high heels, their faces ranging from bored to excited. The girls wore matching kneelength party dresses in deep blue, with frilled collars and silk sashes tied around their waists, the style incongruously old fashioned. The second eldest, Daisy, was tugging on the lace of her dress, looking like she could cheerfully tear it off. She was the child who resembled Imogen the most, but with the coloring of her maternal grandparents who lay buried beyond the ocean. Daisy was as fair as Imogen was dark, with slanting brows and violet eyes, her grandmother's eyes, that tilted upwards at the corners in the same way as Imogen's did. Beside her, Judith stood with folded arms, looking self-conscious in the skirts she so rarely wore, golden brown hair pushed off her small face by a blue velvet hairband. Meanwhile, Cassidy absentmindedly chewed on her thumb, whilst clinging to her mother's hand, watching everything with wide blue eyes.