Title: Beginnings
Summary: Merle's not a bad brother, he's just not a good person.
Notes: Story set before the show starts and is just a bit about Daryl & Merle's life before all the shit went down.
It wasn't enough any more.
Somehow, over the last few months, something inside him started to change. Started to bore of the same things day after day. He started to want to do something else, move away from what he knew and the tired routines and start fresh somewhere. A place where everyone didn't know his business.
A place where they didn't know Merle.
They still lived in their family home together but he hated how Merle treated him at times. He wasn't a kid any more but Merle still treated him like he was a dumb kid.
For the most part he let him because he know that there was some deep part of him that hated himself for the time he was away when Daryl was growing up.
He knew their childhood story was one the made most people sympathise with them and when he realised that, he stopped telling people. If he didn't tell people, he didn't get the sympathy, but people jumped to their own conclusions too.
Their Mom split when Daryl was a baby and Merle was old enough to notice her gone. He was a handful early on, and by the time Daryl arrived and she had a 6 year old Merle around she ditched them and went back to her own freedom. Daryl remembered a time in his early life where things were pretty normal. No Mom, but Nana and Pop were good and did most of the raising of their Grandkids, while their Dad didn't do that much to help. he worked, paid bills, got food for them but he wasn't a natural father, that much was clear. But the system worked. He and Merle had a sense of a normal life and routine, even if it wasn't with the people it should have been with.
It wasn't until he was older that Daryl got a sense that despite his Mom's absence, her family was a little more decent than his Dad's. It was her family that were the ones who stepped up and raised the kids and when they passed away, months within one another and leaving the kids with their Dad to raise them that things got worse for him and Merle. Their Dad had learnt nothing about being a Father in the six years he'd had with someone else raising his kids and when it was left to him, he made an effort at first, mostly because they were sad and maybe a little easier to handle but when they got their spirits back, he started to do less. His own life was more important than his kids. He didn't cook well at all and Daryl often missed his Nan's food more than anything because it always tasted nice and he always had enough but he and Merle never had enough now, they were always hungry and Merle started stealing candy from the stores for them. Sometimes he didn't share it with him, but usually he did.
He might have been eight years old when his Father first left him and Merle alone.
They got no warning, he was just gone. He and Merle did their best to get something to eat and look after themselves. But after a few days, the food started to run out and despite tearing the place apart, Merle couldn't find enough to feed them for long. So, he turned back to what he knew he could do- stealing. But now it wasn't a case of a few bits from a candy store. Daryl thought Merle was going to go and steal some tins and stuff but apparently, Merle went for an unattended cash register. Of course he got caught and to make it worse, in his bid to get out, he hit back.
That was when Merle went to juvvie for the first time. They won't too hard on him, considering he'd never done anything like that before. At least, that they knew of.
Some relative that Daryl didn't even know had to come and take care of him while his Father was absent. Some Uncle from his Father's side of the family. That was when Daryl found out that his Dad's side was fucking evil as hell. His Dad didn't give a shit what happened to his kids, but he never hit them. His Mom never cared enough to stay, but fucking Uncle Jed was something else.
Merle wasn't the same when he came back from juvvie. he'd learnt to be tougher and the other kids, the kids that were doing worse shit than Merle was, they'd toughened him up. Given him ideas on what to do next, how to up the stakes. He was pissed off when he got out and when he eventually found out what Jed was like and what he'd done to Daryl when he was away, well that hadn't been good.
He was back in juvvie and this time, although his Dad had been around when Merle went in, it wasn't long before he took off.
Alone in the house, Daryl had done things out of boredom which included checking out that stuff in the cellar. Their Dad chucked a load of junk in there and had put a bunch of his Grandparents things down there. Stuff he wouldn't be able to sell for a decent profit.
But Daryl learnt to be reliant on no one but himself while Jed had been about. He didn't need looking after any more. Getting lost in the woods had awakened something in him. A love of the outdoors. Maybe it was just getting away from the life he knew inside the four walls but either way, he yearned to be out whenever he found himself stuck inside after that. The rest came naturally. And that was when he remembered the books his Grandpa had in the cellar. Stuff about hunting, gun dogs and game. Daryl had bought them out and read them, studied pictures and felt he'd found something exciting in those pages.
When Merle came home again, he told him about being outside. He's started tracking things and staying dead still and observing animals and Merle had given him some sort of look and called him a dumbass but he'd gone out and bought Daryl back a pellet gun. He'd loved it more than anything he'd ever had before and he used to spend hours in the woods with it.
Maybe he spent too long out there because he started to lose Merle. He'd come back to a house full of beer cans or bottles and a drunk brother. Sometimes Merle would have some of his friends round and they were just as bad as Merle, wanting to drink all night. And eventually, Daryl realised they weren't just drinking any more.
His Father never came back any more and the place felt less like home. He and Merle had both dropped out of school. All they had was the old house they lived in. Merle sold anything their Dad left behind and split the money with Daryl. It kept them going for a while.
When he got old enough, Daryl wanted things. He still loved the outdoor life and a pellet gun hadn't been enough for a long time. He got a job to get some cash and bought himself a tent and a hunting knife. It was a start and he'd work and save as much as he could to buy more.
He didn't see much of Merle. They lived in the same building but their lives were totally different.
Merle got banged up again, but this time in jail. Was old enough now to do some real time.
He was out inside a year but it wasn't until he came out that Daryl realised how far they'd grown apart in that time. Drugs had put Merle inside and when he first came out, he swore he'd stay away from them now. He was good to his word for a couple of weeks and in that time, he was a great brother. the kind that Daryl always remembered him as being. He even did a few odd jobs and got some money together and got Daryl a crossbow. He'd loved it from the get go. Merle encouraged him to get away for a few days. Go hunt and track and use the crossbow and not come back until he had killed something worthy of a man and Daryl went and did that. And then he came back to Merle's reality of drugs and alcohol and cheap women. And he hated it.
He put up with it for a long time. Longer than he needed too. He'd sometimes smoke a joint with Merle. He didn't mind him when he was in his calmer moods but other times he could be fucking unbearable and he just wished himself away from it all. But eventually he knew their time together was running out.
He was getting older and while he wasn't thinking of settling down and raising a family, anything but that, it didn't mean he wanted to take a girl back to his place and Merle.
There was a trailer park not far away and he knew he could afford a place there. Wasn't fancy, wasn't even very nice but it was space. His space away from Merle. So he started saving. Worked odd jobs where he could and he had a pretty regular stretch of work for a local guy who used him as manual labour. Anything he could get, he'd do. He didn't care what, digging, repairing stuff, anything he could get. the guy who employed him, Scotty, he knew how to do everything it seemed and he was happy teaching Daryl how to do it. he had plenty of jobs to do and teaching Daryl the stuff he didn't want to do any more, because he wasn't that young any more, meant he could spend more time doing the things he enjoyed. It gave Daryl more knowledge and life skills. And regular wages.
A chance to get out.
He'd been working on new fences for a family that day. When he got back, Scotty told him his brother had been by looking for him. He hadn't told Merle where he was, so Merle had said he'd wait for him at home. There was a certain tone Scotty used that made Daryl nervous and when he got home, Merle was gone.
He panicked at first, worried he'd got himself into trouble again and would be locked up. But then he'd gone to his bedroom and found it wrecked and quickly realised his savings were gone.
He knew what had happened before Merle even got back. He'd found the money and blown it all on drugs. Daryl had never felt rage like it.
He didn't consider himself angry but in those moments, everything came out. His fucking mother, his deadbeat dad and fucking Jed. He hated all of them and he hated Merle and all of those things became Merle that night. He was the monster, he was all of Daryl's problems, sat there, happy as ever.
He didn't really remember the fight.
But it was bad enough that someone called the police and he wasn't really aware of anything until he woke up in a cell the next morning.
Nothing happened of course. Merle didn't make a complaint , just gave Daryl wry smiles after that and every now and then, he'd try and bait Daryl into losing it again.
Sometimes he succeeded but Daryl tried to control it as much as he could. It wasn't always easy though.
That's where he was now.
The trailer park wasn't far enough away any more. He wanted a life free of Merle. A life where he could do what he wanted because everyone didn't already know he's damn business.
He just couldn't live with Merle any more. He loved him. He was his brother, he had to love him, but he wanted more.
He needed a life of his own.
One way or another, he'd break free of his brother.