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Chapter 2: True brotherhood

Dragging his feet behind him, Daryl approached the back door; a simple wooden frame with translucent mesh for windows which bent under his touch as he applied enough pressure to open it only a crack. Just enough for his tiny ten year old frame to squeeze through – a fine art it was opening the door enough to get through but without it squeaking. He crept through the kitchen and into the cramped hall of the small wooden house he shared with his father, Merle, and his father's wife. He refused to call her mom, or even his step-mom. She was neither of that to him. She was his father's wife. He tried his best to only walk on the rug, avoiding the wooden floor that would alert anyone in the house to his presence. He was very very good at being quiet when he came home. He clutched his knife as tightly as he could, not to use it, but because if he didn't hold on to something that tightly he was worried he would lose his grip on the reality of the moment. Fear was holding his hand tight shut around the small handle of the knife. Through more mesh on the front door he could see that it was finally dark outside. That meant that when Merle came home he would be expecting a fight. It was going to be a rough night.

He reached the foot of the stairs, from where he could see clearly into the only other room downstairs. His father's chair had it's back to the doorway as usual, facing the fire which was blazing behind the grate. A head and shoulders were clearly visible through a cloud of smoke at the top of the chair – a sight which sent alarm bells ringing in Daryl's terrified mind. His father was home. He stood very still at the bottom of the stairs, eyes clamped tightly closed for a moment, taking deep steadying breaths. Then he lifted his right foot, two steps up and over to the right as far up to the banister as he could to prevent squeaking. He slowly applied pressure with one hand on the rail and the other on the wall, and lifted his weight onto the second step. He then had to skip to the fifth step with his left foot to skip the third and fourth which were even louder than the first. One rule under the roof of Will Dixon – do not disturb me. Once both his feet were safely on the fifth step he managed the rest of the way by fitting his feet into the gaps in the banister – something he would only be able to do for a little while longer until his feet got too big, and something Merle had taught him when he was only three years old.

Once on the landing things became easier. His room was just opposite him and Daryl had just started to relax his grip on the knife a little when a bang made him jump. Someone had slammed the front door, hard. Daryl whirled around to see his brother standing right at the bottom of the stairs, staring straight ahead into the living room. He had a bit of a smirk on his face, almost like a challenge. There was silence for a moment, then came the explosion.
"DA FUCK YOU DOING LAD!?"
"You know what old man, come have a go then!" Merle answered. His eyes flicked up to the top of the stairs where he saw his little brother, rooted to the spot. Suddenly he looked guilty, his face flushed a little and his eyes widened a little in horror. He hadn't realised Daryl was in the house or he would never have even tried to start something. Daryl shook his head. Merle looked away from him, back his dad. Daryl saw a shadow in the doorway and bolted. He didn't want to watch what was going to happen next. He ran into his bedroom and shut the door firmly behind him, dropping his knife onto the table in the corner and pressing his hands over his ears tight he screwed his eyes closed. In his head he repeated the same words over and over again, but he could still hear his father pounding his brother. As much as he always said he hated Merle, he loved him really. And on top of that he knew that once Merle walked out, he'd get the full brunt of Will's violent attitude. Shouting echoed through the floor. Will was swearing loudly at Merle between blows, and from the depth and resonance of the thumps it was clear that Merle was now on the floor, and was being beaten down into it. It was an under-fed eighteen year-old boy against a fattening forty year-old man who fights at the pub every night. Daryl tried harder to block it out. He didn't know why Merle found the need to start a fight knowing the outcome, but it was the same nearly every week. Then he would be gone for days and it would fall to Daryl to be the perfect son. The words swam round in his head as he tried to block out the grunts from the bottom of the stairs. His mother's voice. Tears formed fast behind his closed eyes like billowing pools and rushed to freedom down his face. His hair fell in front of his eyes, hiding him from the world.

I love you Daryl, never let that go. I love you. You're worth something, you mean something, and violence is not the only way to live. I love you. Don't let your father take that from you, don't let him take away your happiness. I love you Daryl, never let that go.

It was only ten minutes later that someone knocked on Daryl's door. He was sitting on the floor with his legs right up, head between his knees, pressure on his ears to try and block out the world he didn't want to live in anymore. The knock was soft, but that didn't fool Daryl, not even for a moment. He kept his eyes shut and breathed deeply, waiting for them to go away. Will hadn't seen Daryl yet. It was possible he'd believe the silence and think he was out. There was an intense silence for a few moments and Daryl's deep breathing slowed until he barely dared to breathe at all. He waited. They knocked again, this time a little harder, but still quite weak and soft. It didn't seem a loving soft though, it was more like they couldn't put more into it if they tried. Then Daryl heard his voice.
"Lil, bro, help me please…"

Daryl jumped up as fast as he could and wrenched the door open. Merle was sitting against the wall beside the door, his hand still in the air from where he had been knocking. He was bloodied and his right eye was massively swollen, he even had a cut on his head that was clearly visible through his short hair. This was much much worse than normal. On a normal night, if Merle picked a fight with their father, he would refrain from doing too much visible damage. This time he hadn't held back. This time Merle was an adult as well and he was as entitled to a full beating as anyone down at the pub who tried to fight with Will Dixon. Daryl walked carefully out into the hall, eyes wildly searching every corner for the man he hoped never to see.
"He's gone out man," Merle said, the hand that was in the air now falling to grip Daryl's elbow. "I need you to get me some vodka or something to clean these cuts, and bandages, we'll probably need some bandages. Hey, you asked me to teach you medical stuff didn't you? This'll help you out'n the woods boy, go do it."

There was a plentiful supply of Vodka in the house, but if Daryl took any it would be hell to pay, so he played it safe and went out to the shed where Will brewed his own spirits with yeast and potato. He managed to get some out without destroying the distillation, and poured it into a cloth, then he rummaged around for some clean looking socks, and headed back inside. He ran up the stairs, this time not bothering about the third and fourth step, but missing the first out of habit.
"I found these…" he said to Merle, holding them out.
"You got socks in the shed?" Merle asked, one eyebrow raised. "For real? You know he puts them there to clean out spider webs and shit…"
"These are clean, he made me clean them all two days ago and leave them out there to dry." Daryl said, pressing them into Merle's reluctant hands. "And I used the home stuff cause I thought it'd be stronger…" he lied. He had used the home stuff for alcohol, but not due to strength. In reality he just didn't want to have to go back to school in September looking like Merle did now. The scars on his back from his father's belt were enough.

They spent around an hour sitting at the top of the stairs by Daryl's room, helping each other clean all of Merle's new cuts and bruises. He had a nasty swelling on his wrist that looked a lot like he could have broken it, but Merle refused to make a trip to the hospital.
"Don't give the fucker the satisfaction" he growled to himself with that developing low drawl he was developing. "Thanks for your help bud. You're still not in my gang, but you can hang out at the tree house if we're not there. And if you buy us shit to put up there. Agreed?"

Daryl smiled widely, both to himself and his brother. This was as 'in' as he was going to get today. "Agreed." He said, holding his hand out for Merle to shake. Merle looked down at it and huffed, then crawled to his feet, and vanished into his room, shutting the door behind him. Daryl heard a click and knew he had locked it to save his life that night. Bowing his head, Daryl went into his own room and, once he had shut the door, moved the heavy table in front of the door, just below the handle, enough to stop someone unwanted getting in. He shuddered at the thought. Then he took one last look at his tarantula, now lying on the table having fallen off the knife, and got into bed.