His dad was yelling again.

He was stomping all over the house, and the house wasn't all that big – just a living room that dad never left, a kitchen that didn't have a table and overflowed with dirty dishes, his parents' bedroom at the end of the hall, and his. The outhouse was out back; Merle had to climb out his window to get to it at night sometimes when his dad was still up in front of the TV.

He didn't know what the old man was saying anymore; he never really listened. Probably just the same old stuff – "ya good for nothin' boy, never done nothin' worth a damn for this family." Merle snorted. Family. As if his parents hadn't gotten hitched two weeks before he was born, and as if his mother wasn't screwing the guy who worked the counter at the grocery store door the street. It was probably his baby. He'd told his old man that once just after mom told them the news; he'd been going on about Merle doing his fair share around the house, now that there was a baby on the way, and Merle told him to get a job. Said that maybe the kid's real dad could provide for him if Will Dixon couldn't. Merle ran a finger along the raised skin of his forearm, along the cigarette burn he'd gotten for that comment. The phone rang.

Then he doubled over, clutching his head as a searing pain came down on his skull. For half a second, everything went white, and he wondered whether he might black out. He shook that thought away real quick, though. Nothing his dad hated worse than a weak kid; for all else he was, Merle wasn't weak.

He raised a hand gingerly to the back of his hair, and when he pulled it back it was sticky with blood. The plate his dad had chucked at him was broken on the floor at his side, a few pieces of glass caught in the hoodie of his sweatshirt. He went to shake them out but his dad grabbed him first. Will Dixon hauled his thirteen-year-old son to his feet by the arm and drew his face real close. Merle was only an inch or two shorter than his dad at that point, and where Will Dixon had developed a steady paunch from all his years of drinking and sitting, Merle's hours in the woods, hiking and climbing and hunting, had given him muscles some seventeen or eighteen-year-olds in the neighborhood were jealous of. As he glared into his father's blue eyes, (just like his own, dammit,) Merle couldn't wait till the day when his father had to look up at him. When he's on the ground, and it's my foot in his stomach.

"Are you hearin' me, boy?" His father hissed. His breath stank of alcohol and tobacco, and Merle's lips curled. "I said, what'd you do instead a' goin' to school today, huh?" He shoved Merle away hard, sending him crashing into the wall, but Merle didn't fall. "If you ain't gonna go to class, yer gonna work."

Merle scoffed. He didn't have time to go to class, waste time reading books he'd forget about next week or measure circles for a job he'd never have. Preparing you for your future, all the teachers said. Merle knew better. All his future consisted of was finding his next meal. So that's what he did. He knew his old man had blown his disability check in a poker game, and mom hadn't left her bed for a month till today, saying her back hurt and her feet didn't fit in her shoes and goddamn when was this baby going to come. So Merle ditched school for the third time in four days and went to the woods. And wouldn't you know it, the old man hadn't complained when he'd eaten the rabbit Merle caught. But then the teacher called and asked if something was wrong at home, because they hadn't seen Merle in a while, and any time anyone dared question Will Dixon's parenting skills, well… He'd remind his son what a good parent he was.

The old man's hand came out of nowhere and knocked Merle's head into the wall. Then he turned and plopped himself into his chair – that nasty, faded green-turned-brown chair with stains from who-knows-what that smelled like the back end of a wet dog. He popped the cap of a bottle of beer and took a swig, and turned the volume up on the game. Merle didn't move. The phone rang again.

"Yer ma went out lookin' for you when you didn't turn up," his dad grumbled. "Pregnant lady, walkin' around the neighborhood." He fixed Merle with a hard stare, his nose wrinkled in disgust. "You oughta be ashamed."

Merle could picture her, big belly hanging out of her too-tight shirt, still wearing the heels she refused to take off even when she struggled walking barefoot. Her blonde hair would have been piled high, and she'd have smeared make-up on before daring to leave the house. She didn't know the way to the local middle school; more than likely, she'd gone to Mrs. Dylan's house to get away from Will for a few hours. Have a smoke, screw the doctor's warning that it could hurt the baby, cause it hadn't hurt Merle, and gush over Mrs. Dylan's son, Billy. He was gonna graduate high school that year. "My son won't ever graduate," she'd say, as if she were doing everything in her power to make that happen and Merle was fighting her every step of the way.

Mom talked about Billy Dylan like he was running for president. Merle knew for a fact that he snorted more meth than anyone else in the neighborhood; hell, he was the town dealer. It's where he got the money for the answers to all those tests he aced so he could graduate.

"She should be back," Merle mumbled, heading into the kitchen and out of the line of fire. He wasn't a coward, but he wasn't stupid either. If his dad was sitting down, he'd have a beer and yell a bit more, but it was going to take an awful lot to get him back on his feet. He hadn't pulled out the belt that night, and Merle knew to stop when he was ahead. "She wasn't looking for me, anyway."

"Probably not," Will Dixon said gruffly. "Don't know why she would. Nobody cares what happens to you."

The police might, if I went missing. Some days Merle really believed the old man might kill, might snap and not know when to stop, and the only thing that comforted him when that happened was the knowledge that his dad would spend the rest of his life behind bars. And people in prison didn't take too kindly to child abusers.

Will Dixon fell asleep in his chair while his son cleaned his gun by the kitchen sink. When he got tired of that, he went back to the living room to make sure his father really was asleep, then pulled out the dartboard the old man had forbidden him to touch and hit the bulls-eye four times in a row. He missed on the fifth, but he got distracted. The door burst open and a woman's voice, angry and tired, yelled, "Anybody here know how to pick up a damn phone?!"

Merle looked up at the silhouette of his mother standing in the doorway, and blinked in surprise. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes rumpled; there were lines of sweat on her face and, perhaps most startling, she was skinny again. Well, not skinny, but the huge bump that had protruded from her belly the last two months was just…gone. Merle's eyes wandered to her hands; one was holding a cigarette loosely to her lips, but the other was gripping something else, something wrapped in a black kitchen towel. Merle edged a little closer.

His mother marched right past him, though, before he could get a good look, and she flung the cigarette to the ground and shook his dad by the shoulder. Will Dixon's arm shot out and his mom barely flinched. Her glare intensified, matched only by the old man's. "Where ya been, woman?"

His mom was seething, her lips pursed so tightly he didn't know if she even moved them to speak. "Where have I been?" She was whispering, she was so angry. His dad yelled; she got real quiet. "I was at Lily Dylan's house giving birth to your baby, Will Dixon!" She shook the arm clutching the towel – the baby – up and down a little. "I went into labor, Will, and we called you and no one here answered the phone!"

Will blinked, looking back and forth from his wife to the little thing lying in the crook of her elbow. "You had the baby?"

"On the Dylan's kitchen floor!"

The old man's face took on a strange expression. It twisted a little, his eyebrows going up and down a few times, his mouth opening but no words coming out. Finally, he settled for closing his eyes, leaning back in his chair, and shrugging. "Ya had it; makes no difference whether I'm there or not. It's gonna be around for a while anyway."

His mom's face turned bright red and she kicked his dad's legs. "Nice, Will. Real nice. I'll tell ya what – since you missed the birth, you can bond with your kid now. I'm going to sleep." And she plopped the towel on the sunken couch and left the room without looking back. Merle's eyes lingered on the little bundle she'd left behind. His father, he noticed, was looking at it too.

The old man stood, and something shot through Merle that he'd never felt before. His chest tightened, and he had the urge to run forward and push his father away, even if it ended with him lying face first on the tile floor. But his father just grabbed his jacket and walked out the door his mother had just walked in, slamming it shut behind him. The noise was loud, echoing through the little house, and it was followed by another, equally loud, sound. The towel on the couch was moving, the creature inside it howling up a storm. Merle looked down the hall at his mother's room, but it was clear that she wasn't getting up, so, cautiously, Merle moved closer.

The bundle was lying between two of the dark red cushions, and starting to slip in between them. As Merle knelt down next to it, he saw a small, whitish-pink fist waving in the air. The towel covered everything else. Slowly, Merle reached out and pulled the fabric back. The first thing he noticed was the hair – a lot of it, and dark, much darker than his, closer to his dad's color. The baby's eyes were squeezed shut tight, but there were no tears coming out. "Lil' faker," Merle mumbled, touching his finger lightly to the baby's smooth, red cheek. He dragged it down gently to the baby's chin, and then nearly retracted it. It was soft, kind of like one of the ducklings he'd scooped up out of a hole he'd dug earlier that week, and Merle was suddenly worried that he might press too hard and break it. He froze, but the baby's cries were getting quieter, and then the little fist had had been waving through the air was holding onto his finger, and Merle was stunned that the whole hand couldn't even go all the way around, that it couldn't even get a grip. It's gonna break, Merle thought, his face crumbling. It's too little. It's not gonna make it here.

It…It… "Ma!" He yelled, and the baby twitched. He yelled again, a little softer. "Ma! It a boy or a girl?" Nothing. Reluctantly, Merle pulled his finger away and ran down the hall. He pushed the door to his parents' room open a crack. "Ma? Boy or girl?"

"Huh? Boy, hon. He's your baby brother," was the sleepy response.

I gotta brother. Merle's face broke out into a wide smile. "He got a name?"

"Wasn't born at a hospital, Merle. No name yet. Nothing official. We'll take care of it tomorrow. Let me sleep."

Merle didn't know what official stuff she was talking about; the baby was his now and no hospital was taking him away. He laughed in relief to see the baby still on the couch, right where he'd left him. He knelt down but its - his - side again. His brother's eyes were open now, and Merle reached out to him. "Well, look at that, little brother - we got the same color eyes!" He scooped his brother up like he sometimes carried the animals he found in the woods – not the ones he shot, he flung those ones over his shoulder or threw them in a sack, and he'd never do that to his brother. The baby grabbed his finger again, and pulled it to his mouth. Merle wrenched it away in a hurry; he didn't know the last time he'd washed his hands. "You hungry?" He looked around wildly, and headed to the refrigerator.

Merle wasn't religious – his gram was, and she made him go to church with her before his father said she couldn't visit anymore, and Merle had actually kinda liked the church – but he tried to remember a prayer as he nervously pulled the door open. All he came up with was: For the love of God, please have some unspoiled milk. And God answered.

With a victorious whoop, Merle grabbed the half-empty carton and poured it into a bowl. He'd seen his uncle feed a cat this way once, and he found a dishrag, rolled it up, and dipped it into the bowl before offering it to his baby brother. The baby latched onto it, and Merle did it again and again until he was sure the baby wasn't hungry anymore. He opened and shut his mouth, making a sort of slurping sound, and shut his eyes. Within seconds, the baby was asleep.

Merle's arm was falling asleep. He looked up at the clock – half past two in the morning. His father would be gone for hours still, if he'd gone to the bar, like Merle suspected, but he didn't want to take any chances of being caught in the living room with the baby when the old man returned so he took his baby brother into his room and closed the door.

It wasn't much – a bed with a blanket that didn't cover his feet, a closet where he kept the hunting stuff his parents didn't know he had, and a dresser for the two pairs of pants, three shirts, four pairs of underwear, and eight socks that he owned. Gently, he set the baby down on his bed. He took a few steps towards the dresser without taking his eyes off his brother, afraid he might roll right off even though Merle had set him in the dead center of the bed and even though the baby was so still that Merle actually came back and made sure he was still breathing. He was; Merle could see his tiny chest moving up and down, and felt his little breath when he held his hand next to his mouth.

Satisfied that the baby was safe, he quickly emptied the bottom shelf of the wooden dresser. Then he ran back into the living room and found the cleanest blanket he could find, folded it, and padded the drawer. Then he lined his socks around the edge, completely covering the wood, so if his brother rolled, he would touch something soft. Standing back, he decided to just pull the drawer out of the dresser completely; he didn't want the other drawers to fall on it in the middle of the night. It was a crap dresser.

He moved the drawer next to his bed and picked up his sleeping brother. He opened his eyes and blinked. Merle smiled at him and he was damn sure that baby smiled back. "Hey, lil' faker," he said softly. "That was a real smile, wasn't it? Just for me." The baby was still looking at him. "I'm Merle, by the way. I'm your big brother. And you're...Daryl." The baby cooed, and Merle took that as a sign of approval. "Yeah. Daryl."

The baby yawned again, and was asleep within minutes, but Merle wasn't sleeping. He didn't feel tired at all. He sat next to the drawer with his brother in it, watching him, making sure he was comfy, ready to get more milk if he was hungry, or pick him up again if he cried. He wanted to pick him up. He liked holding the baby, liked having the baby look back at him like he mattered, like he needed Merle, like Merle was the only thing he had in the world.

Daryl was the only thing Merle had in the world. That morning he'd had nothing; now he had a brother.

"I care what happens to you," Merle told the sleeping newborn. "I'll keep you safe. 'Cause you're mine. My baby brother."

My first Walking Dead story! And I still own nothing.