AN: This little oneshot is between Merle Dixon and Sadie Morgan (one of my OCs). It's AU and just for entertainment value.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead. The only thing I own are situations and characters that are my creations.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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She'd been here any imaginable length of time from a half hour to three or four hours. She hadn't looked at a watch and she hadn't counted the time. If she'd been able to listen to the jukebox, maybe the number of songs that played would have let her know something about the time, but music meant very little to her. She understood that it was playing only because that seemed the most obvious time for some of the drunks around her to stagger about and do something that they seemed to regard as dancing.
It hadn't been an entirely awful experience. For the most part, Sadie was left alone in her corner booth. She'd interacted only with one or two people—one or two men—and both of them had quickly left her when she'd simply offered them the piece of information that she was deaf. That's all they needed to know. All they saw, the moment they knew, was a challenge—and it wasn't a challenge that they wanted to take up with a woman they were only interested in for a night.
Oddly enough, they hadn't stuck around long enough to realize that it wasn't really that much of a challenge. Not for a night. Not for what they had in mind. And certainly not for what they'd all come there for.
She was just letting them know because, sooner rather than later, they'd figure it out. And letting them know would stop them from asking her something stupid like who her favorite band was or letting her know that the song that was apparently being piped into the room was one that they'd chosen just for her—and now they needed to repeat the lyrics to her if they wanted her to get anything at all from the experience.
She'd still see it as a nice experience after all. She didn't expect them to understand everything about her. She didn't expect them to, within moments of learning that she couldn't hear, be entirely knowledgeable—or even thoughtful—about her life experiences. She could recognize, without any problem at all, that by dedicating a song to her, they were trying to do something nice. By asking her about her favorite music? They were trying to get to know her. They weren't trying to offend, and she didn't feel offended at all.
She could have, but that wasn't the mood that she was in. She was simply in the mood to find someone to talk with. She was in the mood to find someone to help her, for just a few hours maybe, forget.
The break up hadn't been easy on her and it never should have been this hard. She didn't love him. She wasn't even really fond of him. She couldn't count any significant way that her life had changed because he was gone and she couldn't indicate any great loss that had come about by his stepping out of her life entirely. The biggest blow, honestly, was just to her self-esteem. He was gone. She was alone. There was no telling how long that might last.
She was here, tonight, to find someone to end the alone for just a little while—to give her a chance to get over the hump and get back on her feet.
At least, even if the patrons of the bar were ignoring her, she had the attention of the waitress and she hadn't been without a drink either of the times that she'd needed one.
Sadie jumped when the man came right to the table and slid into the booth across from her in one fluid movement that hadn't really given her time to take in his presence. She stared at him and he stared back at her, a broad smile painted on his face. She missed, entirely, whatever it was that he said to her. She wasn't going to have long to miss it, though, because he leaned close to her across the table and repeated it.
"Sadie," she said, in response to his posed question. She missed his name, twirled her finger at him while she tasted her drink, in hopes that he'd repeat it. She knew, by now, that the true sign for asking him to repeat himself would get nothing but confusion, but the twirled finger usually worked. It worked this time too.
His name was Merle. And his smile wasn't fading. Sadie only somewhat tried to hide her own. She shifted around, getting comfortable, and squaring herself off with him to make conversation—perhaps one that would last longer than a moment or two—easier for the both of them.
"I'm deaf," she informed him, the same way she had the others.
He furrowed his brow, the smile fading, and leaned toward her.
"You're dead?" He asked.
Sadie quickly shook her head and laughed. Maybe he couldn't hear her any better than she could hear him.
"Deaf," she repeated. She pointed to her ear, assisting him in any way that she could. "I'm deaf. I can't hear."
He continued a second with the concerned look, then it faded and the smile slowly returned. He sat back. He was decidedly getting comfortable. He wasn't moving to leave her sitting at the table the way the other men had.
"Can't hear a damn thing either," he said. "Too loud."
Sadie laughed. She let herself laugh. She didn't try to hold it back. There was no need to play hard to get. She didn't want to be hard to get. He was trying to be funny and she wanted to laugh. He would probably try to be charming and she wanted to be charmed. There wasn't any need pretending that they didn't want the same thing out of this.
He was overcompensating. He was drawing out his words. He was stressing them, slowly and carefully, like it might make it easier for her. It was harder to read his lips that way, but he would mistakenly think that she could somehow hear him better for it. It was cute, actually, because he was making an effort—even if it was a misguided one.
"You don't have to talk like that," she informed him.
He raised his eyebrows in question.
"Like what?" He asked, this time normally. It was easier to follow. It was more natural.
Sadie renewed her smile and nodded at him.
"That's fine," she said. "That's—good. You're—cute."
She felt her cheeks grow warm as soon as she said it. That probably wasn't the kind of thing that she was supposed to say to a man like him. A man like him? From the looks of him he worked outside a good deal. His face was slightly sunburned. Maybe it was wind chapped. The tank top he was wearing was wrinkled. The black leather jacket he'd thrown into the booth next to him was roughed up and had immediately visible damage. She hadn't looked at his pants but she could imagine the state of them. He didn't have someone taking care of him and he wasn't too used to taking care of himself.
He was nothing like the last man in her life—a man who was every bit as educated as she was and from all the right rungs of society—but who had spent more time getting ready in the morning than she had. He was, also, a man who had felt that he had a right to point out the shortcomings of every single person he met, Sadie included, because he found himself to be so remarkably superior.
This night was about getting away from that kind of man entirely. That was precisely why she'd chosen to go to the hole in the wall bar, a place she'd never been before. This man? Merle? He might be exactly what she was looking for.
But he was, more than likely, not at all accustomed to being referred to as "cute".
He didn't miss a beat, though. He laughed at her. He relaxed more. His shoulders rolled back and he sunk into the back of the booth. He drained the beer that he was drinking and waved a hand in the air to get the attention of the waitress. He moved the same hand over, tapped the table just in front of Sadie's almost empty glass, and raised his eyebrows at her.
She smiled and nodded at him. It was all the communication that was needed. She didn't feel the need to order for herself, either, or to assert that she was capable of doing so. She understood that he knew that—this was his way of being polite. So when the waitress came, she watched the exchange between them as Merle ordered another drink for himself and one for Sadie.
And then he settled in to talk to her—to really talk to her.
Through the time that followed, while they nursed their drinks, Merle asked Sadie more than once if she knew that she was beautiful. And even though she'd doubted it a few times since the breakup, she was starting to believe it again. He asked her twice if she like the music—but the second time he corrected himself and he laughed at his own faux pas and she waved him off and laughed with him. She asked him if he came there often and he said far too often. He asked her why he'd never seen around and she said it was her first time there.
And they skirted absolutely everything about work and they didn't talk about their expectations for the future, and it was absolutely everything that Sadie might have wanted it to be. So she'd had not a single moment of hesitation when he'd asked her if she wanted to get out of there. She wanted, at that moment, nothing more than to get out of there—and to go with him. Wherever that might be.
He'd paid and she'd thanked him for the drinks. He'd told her he'd wait while she went to the bathroom to freshen up and she'd tried not to act too anxious that it might all be some kind of ruse and he might be gone when she came out. When she exited the bathroom, for a moment her heart had sunk and her stomach flipped. He wasn't there. She scanned the bar over and found him nowhere. Someone was already sitting at their table. He was nowhere to be seen.
Sadie got herself under control quickly, though. After all, she'd had a nice evening. She'd had good company. He'd given her that. He'd made her laugh and he'd let her laugh. He'd taken her ribbing and he'd laughed at himself. He'd told her that she was beautiful. More than that? He'd reminded her that she was beautiful, and he'd made her feel desirable. She couldn't expect more than that from him. After all, he'd given her everything she'd come for.
She sucked in a breath, let it out, and walked out of the bar. She was halfway across the parking lot, concentrating on not slipping on the loose gravel that rolled underneath her shoes, when she nearly leapt out of her skin from the feeling of being grabbed. She turned, nearly losing her footing on the gravel that might have thrown her any way, and found him standing there, both hands up in sign of surrender and eyes wide in the light flooding the parking lot.
"Sorry," he said.
He held up his hand in front of her face. A cigarette was caught between his fingers, burning. He had come out to smoke. He was smoking while she'd been in the bathroom.
She didn't try to hide the smile this time, either.
She gestured to it and he held the other hand up to her, one finger. Wait. She waited and he produced a pack from his pocket with the hand that had asked her to wait. He put his own cigarette between his lips and shook out one to offer her—a fresh one. He lit it when she placed it between her own lips. She hadn't smoked since she was a teenager, but she thanked him for the light with a quick sign and explained it to him when he asked her what it was. He repeated the gesture, amused and somewhat pleased with his quick study of American Sign Language.
Thank you, he signed again and again. Then once more and he added his words to it.
Thank you. "For a good night," he said.
Sadie shook her head and then thanked him. He smiled at her and she looked around the parking lot before bringing her eyes back to him. She was taking her time with the cigarette.
"What did you drive?" She asked.
He raised his eyebrows at her and smirked.
"What you think?" He asked. "I bet you're—that li'il blue car right there."
She followed where he was pointing, clarifying the words in her head since he had a habit of cutting them off something awful while he was speaking. She smiled and shook her head at him.
"The Jeep," she said.
"Me?" He asked.
She shook her head.
"Me," she said, clarifying. "You're..." She looked around again. "The truck?" She asked.
He almost looked offended.
"The damn bike!" He said, his features showing that he was playfully offended by her suggestion that he would have arrived in any other manner. He gestured toward it. It was close to them, parked beside a few others, and Sadie walked over to the row of bikes and pointed to each of them until he nodded to indicate his. She rubbed her hand over the seat and he walked over, catching her wrist and drawing her attention once more. "Don't touch a man's bike without permission," he said. "Like touching his dick."
"Can I touch it?" Sadie asked, raising her eyebrows and smirking at him.
He smiled in response.
"The bike or the dick?" He asked.
Sadie shrugged and held her smirk as her only response. Merle finished his cigarette and tossed the discarded butt to the ground with the others that patrons of the bar had left behind. Though she wouldn't normally do it, Sadie took a last drag off her own and let it join his.
"You can touch whatevah you want, sugah," he said. Sadie ran the words back through her mind. She smiled at him.
"I always wanted—to ride," she said.
He raised his eyebrows and she lowered hers, teasingly scolding him because she could tell exactly where his mind had gone back to—which one?
"You'll take me?" Sadie asked, pointing back to his bike.
Merle looked at the bike and then back at her.
"Yeah," he said. "Hell—yeah. Where the hell you wanna go?"
Sadie sucked in a breath and held it. That was a loaded question. With the way that she was feeling? Right now? With the way that life had seemed to be going lately and the way that she'd been desiring to escape herself entirely and everything that she knew to be "normal"? That was a very loaded question. She let the breath out, took in the nice, cool, stillness of the night, and smiled at Merle. This time it was genuine. This time it wasn't laced with the attempt to charm him. It was just a smile that went with a mood—a mood she hadn't felt in a long time.
"Away," Sadie said. "As far as you'll take me."
Merle stared at her a moment. His smile faded, but it renewed itself. This time it was softer too. It was different than the one he'd worn in the bar. He reached and put a hand on her upper arm and squeezed.
"Then get on, sugah," he said. "And hold on—we gettin' the hell outta here? We doin' it right."
Sadie smiled and nodded.
It sounded, after all, perfect to her.