**Reworked 12 Nov.

Servitude

Copyright© D. A. Bathory 2014

Walking Dead characters and universe are not mine, but the original characters, storyline and wording are mine.

Merle/OC pairing. Well hot damn, I only have one reviewer so far but they seem to be enjoying this story enough for twenty people :D Thanks for your reviews, Caffiend04, they are rocking my world and great encouragement to keep going. Feel free to check out the song mentioned in this chapter; it's sexy as fuck, just like Merle. ;)

Songs for this chapter:

KT Tunstall - Black horse

Oh Susanna - Back dirt road

Chapter 03

"That looks like a good spot up there. Can the rig handle the incline and the state of that track?" Merle sounded doubtful. There were potholes by the dozen along the winding dirt track but the top of the hill, part open grass, part woodland, would be perfect if they could get up there.

"Can she handle it?" Ada scoffed. "Don't listen to him, baby. He doesn't know you like I do." She patted the steering wheel.

"She? This big fucker is a female? Next thing you'll be telling me she's a thespian, too." Merle sneered, looking confused as Ada propped her face in her palms and groaned. Jeez, lady, I'm kidding.

"Doreen. She's Doreen. After the Old 97s song of the same name." She stroked the gears lovingly.

"Why?" Merle knew the song, but didn't think it boded well.

"Because she's a fuckhot lady and a ton of trouble." She said as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"Just like her owner, huh?" he said with a wink.

"You have no idea." Her smirk gave Merle the distinct impression that he may have bitten off more than he could chew and it made him squirm a little. He'd never spent so much time feeling uncomfortable in another person's presence before. It was pleasant, no doubt about that, but he couldn't get used to feeling like he was in the dark on a whole lot of subjects when it came to her.

The rig turned onto the dirt track, her big wheels punching through the potholes without complaint. The same couldn't be said for their noisy passenger in the trailer, who had quite a bit to say in a stream of demolition volume Morse Code. Merle remembered he had seen windows high in the sides of the trailer, propped slightly ajar. If whoever was in there needed air, that was a good thing as it cut out the likelihood of undead backseat drivers. Goddamn but they sound like one big sonofabitch. He hoped it wasn't a brother she hadn't mentioned, but didn't want to ask as the only brother she had mentioned was dead.

Ada's handled the hill well; it would have been easy to come unstuck on a road this badly surfaced and go careening off down the side of the hill. But every turn was masterfully taken, every dip adjusted for as they drove higher and higher up the slope. Ain't telling her that. Can't have a woman thinking she can drive like a man. The very last hump took a lot of concentration, he could tell by the beads of sweat that broke out on her forehead and trickled down her cheeks. The back of the trailer slewed just a little before making it over, but the flat, open space they found themselves in had been worth the effort.

Merle grinned at her and nodded, as close as he could get to complimenting her on her skill at the wheel for now. She rummaged around in an overhead compartment for a moment, bringing out two bottles of water, one of which she threw to him.

No, baby, stay up there a little longer, I'm enjoying the view.

"We need to rehydrate. I know we weren't up on the roof long, but the fight with the walkers will have taken it out of us." She gulped down her water in long swallows, and he almost forgot his as he watched her throat working.

What you'd look like with your mouth wrapped around me instead of that bottle, I could punish that long neck of yours.

He had to drag his mind out of the gutter in order just to be able to open his own bottle. A task made extremely difficult by the water trickling down her chin and creeping quickly downward to pool in the notch where her collarbones met. In his mind he could so easily reach out a thumb and smudge the moisture from that hollow while his fingers splayed to press into the pulse hammering nearby in the smooth column of her neck. I'll do that and more come tomorrow.

It occurred to him that it was a strange thing, a young woman like her choosing an old man like him, coarsened by life in body and spirit, for her last day of…he didn't even know what to call it.

Love? Humanity? How many men worse than me has she come across that she thinks I'm high enough up the food chain to be able to give it to her?

He shook the image out of his head and drank. It must have been a refrigerated compartment; the water was ice cold and he groaned in appreciation.

He didn't see her own eyes flicker over his chest and arms while he drank, missed the dilation of her pupils and the little pink tongue that licked along her lower lip and the quickened pulse beating at the base of her throat. All he saw when he lowered the bottle was a slight flush on her cheeks as she turned to look back out the window. She turned back to him a second later.

"Time to meet the gang. Try not to feel too emasculated." She winked and slid out of the now open door. He followed, dropping from his side of the truck with a bend of his knees as his feet hit the ground. Joining her at the back of the trailer, huffing under his breath about the likelihood of there being a fella on the planet who could make him feel unmanned, he watched as she fiddled with the large lock that held the double doors closed.

"Stand to the side; there's a drop down panel and I'm not feeling the urge to flatten your ass right this minute." She waved him aside and he moved, still keeping his eyes on the darkness behind the opening doors.

Ada flicked a latch and a large slatted metal panel fell down, forming a shallow slope from the back of the trailer to the ground. A familiar smell hit Merle's nostrils and he took a deep breath with a smile. The smile fell off his face the second the first footfall hit the panel.

"What in the name of fuck is that?" He couldn't close his hanging jaw right now if he tried.

"This in Thunderchild." She smirked, obviously enjoying the effect of her surprise.

"Well I gathered that, thank you very much. What in hell is he?" He moved forward unconsciously, enthralled by the creature that stood before him, blocking the entire entrance to the trailer with his shadow.

"A horse." She really was a master at that deadpan tone. Sarcastic bitch.

"I've seen horses. I like horses. That ain't a horse. That is an anti aircraft tank with legs. What the hell did you do, squash three normal horses together to make one good one?" The leg that had moved forward to plant its hoof on the walkway was the size of a tree trunk, so thickly feathered with flowing hair that the hoof itself was all but invisible. He did notice that the front of the shoe was drawn out to form a large point, though, and he had an idea what it might be for. Personal note: try not to piss this thing off.

"He's a Shire Horse." She answered, not taking her eyes off the animal in the truck.

"He escape from Lord of the Rings?" Merle asked with apparent gravity. Yeah, I read. Try not to fall over.

"Merle!" she laughed until her eyes started to water. Satan's mount just looked calmly between the two of them with an expression of great tolerance.

"Jesus, I was just asking." He scrubbed his hand over his head with a laugh.

"No, not from Lord of the Rings. Much as I would like some magic horses from Middle Earth, these are English, bred to pull ploughs to work the fields. Biggest horses on the planet, and the strongest."

"You like doing things big dontcha? Big rig, big horse. It's no wonder you're keeping me around." He winked at her and enjoyed the fact that her cool dropped long enough for her face to flush prettily. Oh, honey, I'm gonna make you do that all over. It was gone quickly and replaced by that crooked smile that he liked so much.

"Merle, you're being a little fucker again." She reached past him to untie a knot fixed to the trailer wall.

"Well the fucker part is right," he shot back with a lascivious grin.

Ada pulled gently on the rope she held and the behemoth moved forward into the light, intelligent eyes giving Merle a once over and deciding quickly that he was no threat. No shit, there's elephants that'd run away from this bastard. Its coat was midnight black, dappled with whirlpools of pitch, and a long, black mane flowed down a neck that was shiny with sweat and thickly muscled.

Looking at the stallion, he understood Ada's crack about feeling emasculated. Doesn't mean I like it any. And I ain't so little of a man that you overlooked me now am I? The incredible musculature continued along huge flanks and hind quarters that looked like they should have been pulling the rig, not riding in it. Merle was fairly certain that one kick from the hooves, the size of dinner plates, would kill a man if he took it to the head.

He thought that the spikes were designed for exactly that, just not for the living, although any of the living that tried anything would find it the last bad idea they ever had. As its hooves hit the grass beyond the walkway it half reared in excitement and Merle felt his colour drain slightly.

Fuck me sideways. This thing has to be only an asshair shy of three metres tall at the head. Maybe weighs in at three and a half to four thousand pounds.

"He's named after the battleship in War of the Worlds." She stroked the thick neck and Merle watched as the stallion dipped his huge head to nuzzle the woman with obvious affection.

"I should think that's about the only damn thing you could name him after." He stepped toward the horse-tank, holding out a hand for it to sniff, which it did with avid curiosity and a steady gaze that made Merle feel a little…little.

"I know, buddy, I ain't got no misconceptions about who's the main man here." The horse shook its head, which made him laugh. "You either, huh?" He smoothed a firm hand under its jaw and cheek, moving down the thick neck. "We'll get on just fine." He nodded to Ada, giving the horse's neck a last pat. She smiled and flung the rope over its neck and gave it a swat on the hind quarters.

"Go find a spot while I get your family out." She disappeared into the trailer for a moment, reappearing with two more ropes in hand. She didn't seem to mind that Thunderchild moved off at a quick clip across the grass. He tested a few of the patches of grasses for taste and then moved back to one and rolled ecstatically on it. That was apparently the right spot, as he stood, shook himself all over like a dog, then made a soft noise and simply stood and waited with an expectant air about him.

Merle turned to see Ada leading two more horses from the trailer, one a mare close in size to her mate and looking uncomfortably pregnant, the other a colt about half the size of its mother. The mare was a silver colour with dappled clouds covering her hide all over and the feathers around her hooves were pure white. The colt, though, that was something else. It was a sport, a genetic anomaly, split length ways one half was its father's black, the other half its mother's hoarefrost colour. The dark half had a brown eye, the light half a bright blue one.

"Mama's name is Boudicca, her son is Mammon." She clipped the ropes of their halters to a hook on the back of the trailer and pulled some bits of straw and hay out of their manes, absently fingering the snarls and tangles back into smoothness.

"You named him after one of the crown princes of Hell?"

"Well it was going to be Mammoth but that spooky blue eye of his just cried out for something a little more fitting. He's a sweetheart, though." She ruffled his forelock and he pressed his head into her side, loving the attention. Merle fleetingly considered growing a forelock.

"How far along is she?" He ran a hand down the side of the mare, barely able to reach her back due to her height and increased girth.

"She'll drop the foal some time in the next three weeks. I'm hoping for another boy. I couldn't bear to part with Mammon, but if I come across any good people, a stallion to trade in full or in stud could give them a fighting chance. These guys can pull a plough all day, and you're pretty much invincible while riding them, whether it's walkers or people who try to take a bite out of you." He didn't like the sound of that and took a step so he was close enough to be able to tip her chin up with one finger. He wanted to be able to look down into her eyes and search for the truth, or not, in them.

Is that why you thought I'd hurt you, because someone already did?

"Anyone ever try that? People, I mean, not the walkers." She didn't try to pull away, but her eyes shifted sideways as she remembered something she hadn't wanted to.

"Some did. There was a group made up only of men, about nine or so. That was bad news in the world before; now it's just a one way ticket. They saw me as a thing to be collected. I didn't like that idea."

"What happened?" Without thinking, he slipped the fingers of his other hand into hers.

"I was on the ground, not riding. I was vulnerable. I keep these guys inside electric fencing hooked up to the rig's engine while there's grazing, not to keep them in but to keep the walkers out; the voltage fries the part of the brain stem that activates them. Thunderchild saw one of them throw me to the ground and…he tore the fence apart and went straight for those men. Have you ever seen a horse angry, have you seen one hate?" Merle shook his head.

"I've seen them feisty, and irritable, and fed up with the heat enough that they'll kick out just to make someone else as fed up as them." She shifted and he felt her fingers twitch against his. "I've seen stallions trying to fight each other to the death running on nothing but hormones. But in thirty years of riding them and working with them I'd never once seen one angry. You think a horse's face is expressionless. It isn't. They saw him coming for them and they didn't even try to run." She shivered and Merle's body did the same a second later.

He almost went to hug her but instead he took the intensity out of the moment by swinging her round to his side and slinging an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, he's a mama's boy. Only did what any good son would have done. The end result was probably just a lot…hmm…flatter." She outright laughed at that, the tension flitting away as they stood with the two horses. She pulled his hand and led him up the ramp into the trailer. It was strewn with straw and hay and sunbeams crisscrossing through the windows. It smelled heavenly and had a warmth to it completely unlike the humidity of the countryside they were travelling through.

Smells like home. Not that I remember, but if home had a smell this'd be it.

"We need to untangle these wires so I can fence them in. Thunder's already chosen the spot he wants. Once they're settled with food and water we can relax." She pulled the snarled wires off the floor and passed one end to Merle. They leaned back against opposite sides of the trailer and started to slowly untangle the knots.

"I can fetch some water from the river for them. Do you have food or should I go hunt something?" She smiled at him then, pure and warm. He must have said something right.

"That would be great. I have food for us, though. I even have…bacon."

"Well fer Christ's sake why didn't you say so before? I'd have torn the handcuffs off the rail myself if I'd known you had bacon." She laughed so hard at that she had to brace herself on her knees for a while until her breathing was back to normal. He watched with interest as she pressed her fingers against her cheeks, trying to get rid of the colour that had risen in them while she laughed. She puffed a strand of hair out of her face and smiled at him. It was the closest thing to content he had felt in a long, long time.

He finished the last of the knots in his end of the wire and hooked a hand into the bar that ran behind him the length of the trailer wall, still watching her, but remembering something else.

"This reminds me of the hayloft in my neighbour's farm when we were kids. His daughter and I would go up there together. It was innocent, we were only nine, but it was something all the same. I could make her laugh like no-one else could, and that made me feel about ten feet tall. And she made me feel needed. It was the only time in my life I ever felt…sweet. She had hair like yours, curls the colour of hay, wore it in pigtails. I spent an entire summer working up the courage to pull one of them."

"Like this?" She'd run her fingers quickly through her hair, separating out the two halves, and made a loose braid of each one, leaving the ends open and curling together.

You're too quick on the uptake for your own good, darlin'.

He nodded, reaching out an arm to its full stretch to twirl a finger in the ends as she took a couple steps forward. He could see tiny beads of sweat on her upper lip, and a fine halo of hairs sticking out all around her. Her eyes shifted to his and lowered as she moved closer.

"You know," Some of the colour returned to her cheeks again. "that's one of the ways we'd figure out if a boy liked us when we were young. Put your hair in pigtails, if the boy pulled them, it meant he liked you. It was dumb…"

"No. No it wasn't. It's true sure enough." He reached out and tugged gently on her hair, pulling her closer to him.

"Kinda unfair, though. You boys didn't wear any. How were we supposed to tell you we liked you back?" She took a step closer as he wrapped the silky yarn of her hair around his clenched fist.

"You let us." He answered huskily, pulling her flat against him and claiming her mouth in a deep kiss. She hummed into his mouth and brought gentle hands around his neck to keep him close. He wrapped both arms around her, mumbling something about practice for the next day, and turned to press her against the wall of the trailer. Her little hands weren't so gentle now, fisted tightly into his shirt, and she made little squeaks and moans as her body enjoyed the sensation of his muscles moving against it.

He was lost enough in her that he hadn't felt the floor dip. Didn't notice anything but the soft of her mouth and the silk of her skin until he went to move a hand underneath her shirt and suddenly found very large teeth closed around it. Big, black eyes regarded him accusingly from under the curling mane. A flex of the muscular neck and Merle was being led gently, but very firmly, out of the trailer. Ada giggled delightedly and followed them out. She tried to stand beside him but Thunderchild was having none of it, and put his head down and between them every time she moved.

Merle tried the same and was met with the thump of a hoof on the ground. He wisely kept his feet in place after that. Reaching a hand across to her didn't work either. Every time he did, it would be grasped purposefully in the cavernous mouth and pulled away from her. Ada reached her arm out and he didn't stop her. She was allowed to touch Merle, to take his hand in her own. Only then did he permit her to step closer to him. The large head wove between them, taking in both their scents, eyes heedful of how close their bodies were getting. She reached her hand out to stroke the horse as she leaned back against Merle's chest, taking his arm and wrapping it around her middle. She drew the other forward so that he could pet the huge nose at the same time as her.

"It's OK, buddy, I ain't gonna hurt your momma." Thunderchild snorted and moved away, apparently not impressed with this new turn of events, but willing to accept it if Ada was OK. She felt Merle chuckle behind her, his arm tightening around her midriff.

"Just as well he and I reach an understanding now, I figure. I want to get some more practice in before tomorrow, get a feel for what you like. I aim to hold up my side of the bargain." And then some.

"You'd better. I don't want to end up regretting sharing my bacon." She strode away with a sway to her hips.

Goddamnit this woman is gonna be the death of me.

Merle grabbed a pair of buckets and headed on down to the river. When he reached the water's edge he simply dumped the buckets and kept walking right onto into the river until the water was up to his chest before sinking his head underneath for a few seconds. He came up spluttering and waded back to the river bank, where he flung himself down on his back. Moments later a bi-colour head appeared, mismatched eyes peering into his own.

"Oh what now?!" The colt snorted and nodded it's head up and down. It seemed confused as to what in actual fuck Merle was doing. "You and me both, buddy, you and me both."