Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: I was re-watching "Fever" (1x04) and was inspired to do a little ficlet that got into Daryl's head space a bit, especially during the moments on the roof where he turned his crossbow on T-Dog. I wanted to explore the Dixon brother's familial relationship, especially after the events of 2x05 and figured that scene in 1x04 was the perfect place to stage it. *Rated for: adult language, violence, and adult situations.

Allegiance

He'd grown up knowing that he had the best big brother in the whole wide world. Their old man had never stuck around long enough than to breeze and in out of town, torturing their Mama with his wandering eyes and lecherous moods. As such, it went without saying that Merle had been the most stable male influence in his life right from day one.

He knew how it sounded, impossible, laughable, hell, even down right pathetic, especially considering how Merle had turned out. But that didn't change the fact that it was also true. - But then again, those had been different times. Times before Merle's first run in with the law and then Juvy to boot. Because the truth was that while Merle had always been an asshole, he hadn't always been a hopeless one.

Back then Merle had been larger then life. His big brother had been cool, strong and absolutely unstoppable. He'd seen Merle take down two year old calf with just a coil of rope and his bare hands when he was no more then fourteen years old. – Merle had put up with him and had taught him things, useful things, things that ended up saving his life more times than he could rightly count in the years that followed.

Merle taught him that there was never a situation you couldn't win. Defeat was just the result of pussy footing around and a failure of imagination. He taught him how to feed himself when there was no food in the fridge or money in their Mama's purse. Merle taught him to always keep a knife in his belt buckle and a spare clip in his back pocket. He taught him that trust wasn't something brokered or even earned, but formed through blood and bred in the bone. He taught him that Dixon's didn't do trust, at least not to other people at any rate.

It wasn't hard to figure out why he'd grown up idolizing Merle. His big brother didn't take shit from nobody, not even from their Pa. - Nothing seemed to phase Merle. Nothing.

So naturally, he'd spent the majority of his formative years desperate to be just like him. He'd dressed like him, acted like him; hell he'd even tried his best to think just like him as well. - But like all idols, it is only a matter of time before they fall. Before they let you down and disappoint you. And he'd beaten the shit out of the first kid that'd been unfortunate enough to prove that to him. To show him in no uncertain terms that Merle was simply Merle. …Cruel, crude, unstable, and certainly nobody to look up too at any rate.

The truth, as they put it, hurt. …It hurt like a real sonofabitch.

And as the years had passed them by, he'd come to realize that Merle was a lot like an empty belly. Given time you could learn to live with that dull, throbbing ache, but at the same time you could never quite forget that it was there either. Simmering, in the back of your mind, as bile favored flash blacks accompanied each and every acrid hiccup. Reminding you all the while of everything you could never have.

He wasn't one to sugar coat reality. Not by any means. Merle was an asshole. He'd been born an asshole. Hell, before the doctor had reached in and straightened him out, the fat little bastard had been bound and determined to come out ass first. It was typical really. There wasn't any way to get around it. But in the end, what his brother was and what he wasn't, wasn't really the point.

Because deserved or not, all that mattered right here and right now was the injustice that had been done to him. And standing here on this god forsaken rooftop, smack dab in the middle of a dying city, the worn tar paper and crumbling blacktop grit at his feet still splattered with his brother's blood, things were looking pretty god damned black and white.

…Things like vengeance and retribution… Like what was wrong and what was right… And his brother had been wronged. That much he knew for sure. So, in a way it didn't matter what Merle had done, no one deserved this. To be left chained up like some a back alley stray, forced to gnaw off it's own paw just to escape from the dog catchers clutches…

So despite the fact that the barrel of Grimes' gun was all but pressing into his skull; near as he could figure it, retribution wasn't just par for the course, it was his right to boot. …His right as Merle's kit and kin.

Merle wasn't the world's best brother anymore than he was the world's best man. Hell, Merle probably wasn't even a good man, least not by most people's standards. - But in the end that wasn't what mattered. - He didn't give a shit if Merle had turned his shot gun on each and everyone of them, or threatened them within an inch of their miserable, city slicker lives. What mattered was what they'd done. …And now what they'd made Merle do to himself in order to survive.

Because in spite of everything, all the bullshit and betrayal that made up their past, Merle was still his brother. He always would be. – No matter what the symphony of urban retards opinions were on the matter. Merle was his own god damned flesh and blood and they were responsible for this, for him having lost perhaps the only family he had left in this god forsaken world.

It wasn't even so much about Merle was it was about collectin' his dues, because a Dixon knew a thing or two about loyalty…

So that was why he'd turned his crossbow on T-dog up there on that roof. All too conscious of the way his blood was rushing through his veins. Heart beating so fast that he swore it might burst from his chest as sweat rolled down from his hair line. Anger, grief, and adrenaline all warring for his attention as his finger ghosted across the trigger.

Not for Merle or himself. Not even for who Merle had once been, or what he'd let life shape him into. …But for loyalty. Through the circumstances of his birth he'd sworn allegiance to that bond through blood and love. It was the simplest lesson there was to learn in life, yet it was one of the least treasured, the least understood and honored. Even by Merle himself.

And yet… Even as his vision tunneled down the sight, caressing the length of the smooth metal trigger with his callous hardened thumb. Letting the seconds tick past unhindered as his gaze dipped down to take in the stuttered bob of the man's Adams apple. He knew he'd never pull the trigger.

Only it wasn't for the reasons the others might have guessed…

Because the truth was that he didn't give two shits about the cold chill of Grimes' gun pressing into his temple. Nor did he really care about the muted hiss of air that left the kid's lips somewhere behind him, caught between action and inaction as the Chinaman hovered on the ramp above them like some sort of god damned horse fly.

It was because deep down, despite blood, love and loyalty, he wasn't his brother. And while he reckoned he wasn't exactly a good man, he knew deep down, that unlike Merle, he wasn't exactly a bad one either.

A/N: Please let me know what you think. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

"In thy face I see the map of honour, truth, and loyalty." - William Shakespeare