Hey guys. I've had this idea in my head for a bit, and I thought that I would put my other story on hold while I got this one out. It is a Meth (Merle/Beth) fic, but there may be other pairings. I don't wanna give too much away! ;) It is obviously AU. And it is most definitely rated M for language, violence, and smut at some point in the future! Enjoy and please review if you liked it. Even if you didn't, I still would love to know what you thought could be improved upon. Thank you, my lovely readers.
Got a good setup here. Merle Dixon thought as he sat in his locked cell at the prison. Food, shelter. Some pretty women too. It was dark outside, and he could hear the group downstairs discussing what they were gonna do about the redneck asshole that Officer Friendly's bitch had dragged in. From what he could hear, they were getting nowhere fast, so he laid back on the torn up mattress. He chuckled and thought sarcastically, Only thing that could make this better is some coke and a nice tall bottle of Jack. Merle drifted off to sleep.
Beth sat on the steps of the cell block, cradling Judith and listening to the debate. She didn't know the man, but anyone that beat up Glenn that bad and scared Maggie half to death was not someone she wanted anything to do with. Hell, Maggie had almost killed Merle when he walked into the prison with Rick and Daryl. Maggie was yelling and cussing, waving her gun in his face. Glenn was right behind her, not wielding a gun, but not doing anything to stop her either. Maggie even got in a good right hook before Glenn and Rick pulled her off of him.
Truthfully, the man scared her too. He was taller than Daryl, older, and the quick look she got at his face revealed that he had lived the same hard life as Daryl, maybe harder. She didn't know anything about the man, but one thing was clear: she should stay far away from him.
Merle woke to the sound of a key turning in the metal lock of the cell door. Daryl was there with a bowl of breakfast oatmeal.
"So you and Officer Friendly come to a decision last night? Or were you up tellin' bedtime stories to each other instead?" Merle asked, a smirk on his face.
"Fuck you. Do ya good to learn to keep yer trap shut once in a while."
Something snapped inside Merle, and Daryl could see the anger flare up behind his brother's eyes. "Well what the hell they waitin' on, huh? The Governor's gonna hit'chu any day now, and ya'll are down there fightin' about what to do with me? I'll tell ya what to do with me." Merle got up and stomped out into the cell block. "Hell, I'll tell all ya'll! Ya'll need me! The Governor's about to go bustin' through the rest of them gates out there, and ya need me!"
"Merle, sit yer ass down!" Daryl called from inside the cell.
"No, you listen good! Ya'll left me fer dead! Now you got a good place, a damn nice place to settle yerselves down. Least you can do is spare me the fuckin' suspense and tell me if I'm stayin' or if little brother and I are gettin' the hell outta here!" The silence that followed was deafening, until Rick stepped up.
"He's right." The group turned to look at him. "I know we all aren't on the best terms, but we need a man from the inside if we wanna find out what this Governor is capable of." Merle leaned back on the railing, a smug look on her face. "Now that don't mean that we have to let you stay here. We could lock you up in that cell for all I care. But we're not gonna do that, because we're better than that."
Beth watched this ordeal from on of the cells almost directly under Merle. She watched the tall man yell, spit flying from his mouth. She had stories about him; he was racist, sexist, and basically an asshole to anyone he met. I guess the people giving him food and shelter were no exception. The group went on to discuss plans for the Governor, and Carol came to get Jude ready for the day.
The next day Rick announced that he was going to meet with the Governor. He, Daryl, and Hershel set out in the morning. Everyone was racked with worry, but Merle was especially anxious. Beth could hear him yelling about his brother, and Glenn and Maggie were trying to ignore him. She absently thought about how strong his bond to his brother was. Then there was a loud thud and the sound of fists hitting flesh. Are you kidding me?
She ran out and grabbed a handgun off of the table. She fired a shot into the ceiling, and the three of them immediately stopped and stared at her. She calmly put down the gun and walked out.
Merle yelled "Get off me!" and stared after the little girl. How come I never noticed her before?
That night Rick walked up to Merle, who was tearing apart another mattress. He sighed. "Nothin'. Some a the best dope I ever had was in a mattress. This place musta been no fun at all." Merle chuckled and sat back against the wall.
"Do you even know why you do the things you do? The choices you make?" Rick asked. Merle just stared up at him. Rick continued, "If we give the Governor Michonne, Woodbury stands down."
Merle contemplated that for a minute then asked, "Anybody else know?"
Rick talked to him about it for a while, but after they were done, he still wasn't sure whether Merle was in or out. Before he walked away, Merle said, "Don't know why I do the things I do. Never did. I'm a damn mystery to me." Rick just walked away.
A plan had formed in Merle's head while he was talking to Officer Friendly. He knew that it would never get done if Rick was in charge. He set out to find that black bitch.
An hour later, the man was driving down a back road with Michonne tied up in the passenger seat. Somewhere along the way, something had changed Merle's mind. Maybe it was the way he had protected Michonne, or the conversation that they had earlier. Suddenly, he stopped the car and cut Michonne's wire. "Go. I got somethin' I gotta do on my own."
Merle drove fast down the road and grabbed the sniper from behind his seat. He knew it was a suicide mission. He wasn't making it back to the prison. But that son of a bitch needed to die. When he got to the warehouses, he holed up in one of the buildings and began executing his plan. He picked off the Governor's men one by one. He had the bastard in his sights when a walker bit down on his metal arm. He cried out and flipped the thing off, stabbing it in the head.
Before he knew what was happening, the Governor's men were on him, kicking and punching mercilessly. He swore and tried to get a hold on one of them. The Governor took him in a chokehold and yelled, "Leave him to me!" Phillip dragged him back into the warehouse and threw him on the ground. He pulled him back up and beat him until his face was damn near unrecognizable. The Governor leveled his gun at him, and Merle stood still with his chin high. So this is where it ends. I'm sorry Daryl.
The Governor cocked back the hammer and cried out in pain as a bullet was lodged in his thigh. He went down, writhing in pain. Merle reacted fast, killing two of the men attacking him and heard, "Duck!" He did as he was told and ducked. Another round of gunfire flew past him, and the man coming at him with a crowbar dropped. His chest was riddled with bullet holes.
He saw the Governor crawl to his pistol and start firing randomly. He got the hell out of there; he knew the Governor was walker bait for-fucking-sure. When he rounded the corner of the building, he caught his breath and looked around for the man that had just saved his life.
"The hell were you thinking?! He was gonna fuckin' kill ya! What the hell was this, this suicide mission?!" He turned to the sound of his brother's voice and promptly got an elbow to the jaw. His head flew back, and his vision went red.
"I was doin' what Officer Friendly back at yer precious prison didn't have the balls to do!"
Daryl looked at him hard, and they both knew that wasn't the only reason he had done this. Daryl had seen Michonne on the way here. "Yeah well yer gonna get yer sorry ass back to that precious prison. I ain't losin' you too." Daryl grabbed Merle by the back of the collar, and Merle swayed slightly. Daryl moved to put an arm under his older brother's shoulders, but Merle shrugged him off violently. He stumbled into a tree, grasping it tightly to keep his balance.
"Come on, ya asshole. Lemme help you."
"Oh yeah yer all about helpin' people these days, huh little brother?" Merle rolled his eyes, but he knew he was fading fast. Blood dripped down into his eyes, and his arms were slick with it too. Daryl slipped his arm back under him, and they limped back to the prison. He whistled a signal when they were close, and Carol and Maggie distracted the walkers while Carl opened the inside gate for them. They ran through the yard full of walkers and into the cell block.
Merle was incoherent by then; his eyes rolled around unseeingly, and his body sagged. Someone yelled for Hershel, and Rick helped Daryl set him down in one of the cells. Hershel checked him out and determined that he had 3 broken ribs, a broken nose, and a cracked jaw, although that was probably from when Daryl had hit him. A bullet had also grazed his left shoulder, leaving a chunk of skin missing. He was bruised from head to toe. Hershel put an IV in his arm and have him pain medication strong enough to knock him out for at least a day to heal.
"Bethy, can you watch him for a while? We need to talk to Daryl," Hershel asked of his youngest daughter. "Carl will be here, and we'll be right down the hall in the library."
"Okay daddy," Beth answered. She sat down in the chair next to the bunk and looked briefly at Merle. He was pale, since he did lose a lot of blood. She hadn't been this close to him since he got here, and she took this time to study his features. He looked a lot like Daryl: the long nose, the sturdy jaw line. Even their body shapes were the same, albeit Merle's was a bit older. She wasn't sure how old he was, but she knew Daryl was in his 30s, and Merle had to be a few years older. He was greying, but she could see blonde in his buzz cut hair. His thick stubble was greying too.
Wrinkles ceased his face, but whether that was from age, stress, or years of smoking she couldn't tell. She leaned closer to him, and she could hear his steady breathing. She watched his eyes move under the lids and wondered if he was dreaming. What does a man like Merle Dixon dream about? She sat back in her chair and opened her copy of Looking For Alaska. It was one of the many books she has salvaged from the houses they had stayed in over the last year, but it was her favorite.
It was dark when Merle opened his eyes. Pitch black. He wasn't lying on the cot anymore; he was propped up in a chair. He went to wipe the sleep from his eyes but found that his hands and feet were tired to the chair. He struggled against the wire restraints until he heard a familiar voice say "Oh good. You're awake." His head whipped to the side with the force of the punch that hit him in the next second.
He spit out a mouthful of blood and tried to cuss at the motherfucker that dared to hit him. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.
"What's the matter? Governor got your tongue?" Phillip stepped out of the shadow and laughed menacingly.
Merle strained against his ties, but everything was in slow motion. Suddenly the Governor's face melted into a decaying, lifeless corpse, and it lurched toward Merle. He tried to get away, but it was like swimming through sludge. Frantically, Merle pulled at the restraints, pulled until his wrists were dripping with blood. The Governor-turned-walker grabbed him by the shoulders and chomped into his neck. Merle let out a cry of pain and terror.
He shot out of the bed, thrashing. It was dark, but he could see the faint moonlight shining in from the windows. The young girl from before was flattened against the wall opposite the bed, and Daryl had his gun pointed at Merle. He looked around wildly. His breath came in short gasps, and he tried to suck down as much as he could. When Daryl saw that he hadn't turned into one of them, he lowered his weapon.
The IV was sticking painfully out of his arm, having came unhooked when he woke up and started flailing. Merle was about to pull it out when the girl - Beth? - moved toward him. He flinched, still on edge from the nightmare. She put her hands up and inched closer to a hand on his forearm and the other in his shoulder, she pressed lightly and he laid back down warily. Her touch soothed him, and though he tried not to, he still hissed in pain when the needle was pulled from his arm.
"Sorry," Beth muttered. Merle shifted in the bed; something was uncomfortable about his trousers. He propped himself up on his good arm. Well shit. He had pissed himself because of that fucking dream. He looked up menacingly at Beth, who had no doubt noticed it. She scrambled up and leaned close to Daryl, facing away from Merle. Daryl nodded and walked over to his brother, grabbing a new pair of shorts from his bag.
"Don't you fuckin' tell anyone, ya hear?" Beth heard Merle threaten Daryl before she slipped out to give them the privacy she was sure Merle wanted.
The next morning Hershel determined that Merle was okay to sit up and eat, but he wasn't allowed to leave that cell. By now everyone had heard about what he had done for them. Of course to Merle, he had done it for himself and for Daryl, but the others didn't know that. They all stopped by to thank him or ask if he needed anything. He hated the attention, except when the little girl came to sit with him. He knew she was just doing it to give her daddy a break, but he still liked her company.
In two more days he was able to walk and work again, and immediately they started preparing for the day that the governor would attack. And that day came. The Governor attacked from all sides with grenades and ambushes. Merle shot at the attackers mercilessly but always kept the young girl in his sight. The prison group fought them off until the men and women retreated. Rick led a party to Woodbury to gather the remaining citizens and bring them to the prison.
Merle watched from the guard tower as they all filed off the bus and into cell block D. Carl looked on in disgust, and Merle could see the specs of anger and resentment in the kid's eyes. He saw himself in the boy; he saw the angry little kid he had been, and he hadn't even had to grow up in a world gone to shit like this boy did.
In the season that followed Merle helped out with what he could, working on cars, fixing fences, and taking watch most nights. He could tell people still didn't like him, let alone even begin to trust him. The Woodbury people cowered in fear and pulled their children behind them when he walked into the room.
But he noticed Beth had been around him more and more in the past few months. She was a little thing, with long blonde hair and fair skin. Her voice was quiet and she didn't talk much, but when she did, people listened. Merle definitely listened. Something had happened to him that night, when he woke from the nightmare. Her light touch on his arm and the soft care in her eyes changed something in him. And Merle knew there was no going back.