Author's Note: So this is my second post of the night but when I saw this prompt on the kinkmeme, I couldn't help but fill it. The prompt was merely Daryl/Merle and four words: smoke, earth, taut and slow. That prompt turned into this. This version is prettied up from the LJ one. This is not an incestual relationship, it is just four random vignettes about the brother's relationship. I hope you lovely readers enjoy. xo.

Silence.

1. Smoke.

Merle was the only reason that Daryl had started smoking at twelve years old. They'd both been sitting on the front porch together, the sun dipping below the horizon, extending their shadows halfway across the front yard. Other than the chirping of the crickets and the rustling of the wind, everything had been silent. Merle was never silent; he was always making commentary about something, as if he was afraid that shutting his mouth would make him explode or something. After five minutes, it actually started to bother Daryl and he'd glanced over, about to ask his brother why he wasn't going on about tits or hunting.

Instead, he was met with an image what would remain imprinted in his mind for the rest of his life.

Merle had been leaning against the railing, long legs stretched down the steps, culminating in a worn pair of heavy black boots. He'd been staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused, cigarette between his fingers. When he took a drag, smoke curling out of his mouth, Daryl felt like he was looking at his real brother, at who Merle was truly capable of being. He felt like he should have taken a picture or drawn the moment, so startling was it.

When Merle had noticed him staring, that unfocused glaze over his eyes had disappeared and he'd turned back into an asshole, snapping something about Daryl needing to keep his eyes in his head. Nonetheless, only a few moments later, he'd offered Daryl a drag of his smoke, merely smirking when Daryl had burst into a pained fit of coughing. But, once his chest had stopped screaming in agony, he'd kept smoking. There wasn't anything pleasant about the action; the taste was awful and his throat felt like it'd been mauled on the inside but he had to do it. He had to be like Merle.

And besides, his brother had looked so damn peaceful when he was smoking. Daryl couldn't help but feel a little envious of that.

2. Earth.

There were times where Daryl felt like the only person on Earth who gave a shit about him was Merle. He certainly couldn't include his parents in there; Ma was long out of the picture, running off with some salesman when he'd been eight and Pa was drunk more often than not. His brother may have been a little (okay, more than a little) rough around the edges but at least he made sure that Daryl had eaten something before he went out with his friends for the night. At least he'd taught Daryl how to hunt in between juvie stints, showing him how to shoot and skin and gut.

But then, just before Daryl had turned sixteen, Merle had gone to prison. Not juvie, prison, leaving Daryl alone with their drunken, useless father who often forgot he even had a son still living with him. After Merle got out two years later, he tried to slip back into that role, picking Daryl up and getting an apartment for them to share. He'd made sure that Daryl had finished his high school and gotten a job and, for awhile, Daryl almost believed that his brother actually cared about him.

They'd given Merle a choice the next time he was caught with drugs: prison for five years or the army. He'd picked the latter but in the end, it didn't matter. He still left Daryl alone with an apartment and a shitty job and a father who, now that he was dying of liver disease, was trying to mooch off his son's money.

Daryl never forgave Merle for that.

3. Taut

When Daryl went to pick up his brother from the army recruiting center, he didn't recognize him until he's climbing into the passenger seat of the truck, cigarette already stuck in his mouth. His brother looked different, more broken down, eroded. His skin was taut on his skull and his cheekbones looked like they wanted to break free from his skin. The tendons in his neck were tense, visible even when Merle wasn't doing anything more strenuous than swallowing. He looked kind of like a skeleton, if Daryl was going to be honest with himself.

"Fuck Merle, you look like hell," he muttered, shifting the truck into gear and trying very hard not to look at his brother. He didn't know what it was but there was something wrong, something making his stomach churn.

"Screw off, little bro," Merle responded but all of his previous cattiness, all that energy he used to carry in his remarks, it was all gone. He merely went back to staring out the window, his fingers tapping out rhythms on the edge of the truck. Daryl didn't know what happened in the two years Merle was in the army and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

To be truthful, Daryl was almost thankful when the outbreak started the next month because it brought Merle back to life. As soon as the radio started flooding with the news, mentioning precautions and procedures, Merle's eyes lit back up. His skin seemed to pull away from his bones and with his face no longer taut, he looked ten years younger. Words started flowing past his lips again, a constant chatter punctuated by racist spewings and the insults Daryl used to hate him for but now, Daryl didn't care what his brother said.

He was just happy that his brother still existed.

4. Slow.

With the world flipped ass over head, life started to really speed up. They always seemed to be running, running and shooting, sweat flowing down their necks like a goddamn river. There was no time to just sit and talk or, as usually happened around Merle, to just sit and listen to the bullshit coming out of his mouth. To be honest, Daryl kind of missed it, missed what it feel like to not have adrenaline running through his veins, missed just sitting down at the kitchen table and shooting the shit.

Even once they made it to the camp at the quarry, life still seemed to fly by a breakneck pace. Even without the Walkers swarming them, there was so much shit to do; so much stuff to repair and clean and supplies to be found and animals to be killed for dinner. When one task got done, something else fell apart and Daryl was back in the fray, working from the time he got up to the time he passed out in the front seat of their truck.

Then one night, life finally slowed down. Him and Merle were sitting on the truck bed, passing a precious cigarette back and forth between them. The others were all gathered around the fire, talking quietly but Daryl didn't really feel the need to go sit with them. He didn't see the need in talking about pointless shit, like missing the Internet or whatever.

It was only ten minutes, ten minutes of peace and quiet where him and Merle sat silently, sweaty and exhausted from a day of tracking squirrels and rabbits through the thick forest. Nonetheless, ten minutes was long enough for Daryl to go back to the day he'd started smoking, to the last day he remembered where at least some part of his life wasn't chaotic. He wasn't sure but he thought that Merle might have been remembering the same thing; when he glanced over at his older brother, he was staring somewhere beyond the forest, somewhere into the past.

Daryl didn't say anything, no matter how much he wanted to ask what Merle was staring at, to ask what brought his brother momentary peace. He didn't talk because he knew that moment was probably the last time that he'd be able to languorously appreciate life and it could very well be the last time Merle's walls were down, exposing who he was underneath the veil of sexism and drugs.

So they smoked the cigarette until it burnt their fingers and the entire time, Daryl didn't say a word.