AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
This is our first Merle-centric chapter, but I'm sure we'll occasionally have some other character centric chapters thrown in here and there.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Merle couldn't say that there had been absolutely no point in his life where he had even contemplated the possibility that he might end up living in a prison cell somewhere but what he could say was that, nowhere in his imagination, had the life looked anything like the one he was potentially facing now.
Andrea had been up most of the night worrying about if they'd get back and, when they'd returned, she'd been up for a while to offer the best welcome back that she could to Merle. Despite the fact that he'd been awake too, Merle was up early ad Andrea was sleeping soundly.
Merle had stayed a moment in their fancy new bed in a prison cell they would now call home to watch Andrea sleep.
Everything had changed since the blonde had come back into his life—seeming to need something from him that he wasn't even sure that he was capable of giving.
He hadn't been this sober in longer than he could recall. He was still a killer, and the metallic scent of blood was still in his nostrils, but at least, this time, he felt like he'd killed with a genuine purpose that he could understand.
Andrea had given herself over to him in the most complete sense of the word. She'd given him everything he'd requested of her. She'd given him what he wanted from her in the basest sense of the word—and he wasn't a man that ever turned away a good piece of pussy—but she'd also given him things that he didn't know he'd been missing or wanting.
And she'd given him his baby brother back.
The morning was cool, and Merle wasn't wearing sleeves, but he didn't care. Every now and again—especially since Andrea had forced him into sobriety—he liked to let himself get hungry, cold, or thirsty. He liked to allow himself some sensations of discomfort. They made him feel alive every bit as much as the pleasure he indulged in did these days.
The prison was hardly awake.
The animals called out from their pens, likely because they wanted to be fed or milked or both, and chickens bawked and squawked as they ran around the prison yard, clearly having already been freed from their pen for the day.
The smell of wood smoke was almost crisp in the cool air, and Merle followed it quickly to the area where a small fire was burning.
Beyond the smell of the wood smoke, Merle could smell coffee and something more.
He stopped as soon as the small fire came into view.
Merle hadn't been noticed by anyone or anything. Not even the clucking chickens had noticed him. He backed against the wall of the prison and pressed himself somewhat flatly against the cold bricks. He wanted to remain out of sight and unnoticed for just a moment.
Andrea had given him his baby brother back, but his baby brother was not the man that Merle had once known. He wasn't the man that had left the trailer with Merle the morning that their neighbor had shown up clawing at their door and, when they'd opened to door to find him halfway to his feet from where he'd belly-crawled up their three front steps, they'd realized he was dead and shouldn't be seeking to get in their home at all.
Daryl was probably the sweetest Dixon that had ever drawn breath. He'd been that way since he was a kid. He was loving and affectionate. Early on he'd stuck to their mother like he was a possum and couldn't possibly exist without the support of the woman—even when she was hardly in the right frame of mind to offer him anything he needed. He would have loved their old man just as fiercely, too, if the old man had let him. There were times he'd nearly smothered Merle.
Merle wondered, if they'd all been a bit more used to so much affection and acceptance, how Daryl might have turned out in a world where he could boast that all his needs had been met.
But Merle knew that he needed to be harder than he was. They didn't live the kind of life that would let the boy be a pussy. He'd pay for it if he didn't conquer that part of himself sooner rather than later. Merle had fought him to become harder than he was for his own good. He'd needed that thicker skin when their mother had died, too. He'd needed it when he realized that life wasn't going to be fair to him—not as a Dixon and especially not as the son of John Dixon, known to half the damn county as Rooster Dixon, the biggest asshole that ever breathed air.
Daryl toughened up. He learned that people weren't worth shit and most of them weren't going to be there for you, so you couldn't depend on a soul. He learned, well, all the lessons that Merle felt he had to teach him.
Lessons that would stop him from feeling the hurt as deeply as Merle had felt it the first time around.
Daryl had learned to drink and to smoke. He'd learned to cuss and talk shit. He'd learned to bust his knuckles and to win fights because that was how the hell you got respect among the people they went around—people that sometimes didn't like giving respect. He learned to not give a damn and to not expect much out of life.
Daryl had learned his lessons well, but he'd never really been good at living them.
He'd been sore that they lived in a trailer that had holes in the walls that were big enough they could have thrown cats through them as evening entertainment. He'd hated when unpaid bills got amenities cut off, and he'd longed for some kind of comfort and security that both of them knew existed, even if neither of them had ever experienced it.
Daryl had been sorry that he'd never been able to land a decent job—because most people in the area didn't seem too keen on giving him a chance because of his reputation, which one was one he never really earned—and that he'd never had a chance to really make enough money to do more than scrape by.
Daryl had been pissed that the only women on offer to him were the kind of women that sometimes require penicillin and only wanted a night with you—they preferred not to even know your last name. Merle had learned to have a taste for those women, because that was just about all the hell he was ever going to have, but Daryl had chosen something else entirely. He'd chosen something that looked a whole lot like some kind of monk-supported celibacy.
Merle was pretty sure that his little brother, when they left that shitty trailer in Georgia with Daryl in his truck and Merle on his bike, had never so much as smelled a pussy before.
Now it seemed that Daryl was at least a little bit experienced. Whether or not he'd meant to, and whether or not it had been his first piece, it seemed that he'd gone and knocked the Mouse up.
Daryl had been sniffing around that Mouse from the first moment he'd seen her, though. She wasn't bad to look at, but her face was often somewhat bruised up. She had a husband who had no respect for her, and she wasn't exactly asking anyone to help her get rid of him. They'd all left well enough alone because they didn't want to cause shit in the camp. After all, what was there to do but kill the man for his sins? If they just beat his ass, he wasn't smart enough to stop. His dumb ass would just come back worse than before and it would've been the quiet and frail little woman—and the baby she kept close to her—that would've caught the brunt of him. They'd left him alone because killing him was all that would stop him—and nobody was willing to admit they were at a point where they could openly kill people without fear of repercussion. Once that started, after all, there was no telling who would be next or where they would draw the line for things that earned you the death penalty.
Daryl had watched her night and day, though. Merle had seen him, even though he'd thought he was hiding it. It seemed that fate had thrown his brother some kind of bone, and it had rid the world of the quiet woman's husband so that Daryl could hop in there and try to snatch her up before someone else got around to it.
Someone else would have gotten around to it. She wasn't bad to look at, after all, and Merle remembered her being a good cook. On top of that, the pickings were somewhat slim at the end of the world. There was hardly somebody for everybody these days.
Of course, he probably would have had some time to still drag his feet. For what Merle could recall, it seemed like everyone had been after just the one piece in the camp—a piece that he wouldn't have wanted if she'd offered it to him on a silver platter.
But then, that was just his opinion, and he knew it didn't count for much.
Merle didn't have a damn thing against a woman who gave of her pussy freely, and he wasn't about to call a woman out for enjoying a good fuck as much as he did and, therefore, searching it out wherever it might be offered, but he did have a problem with who played higher than thou when everyone knew she was passing that thing around to anyone that wanted a taste.
With his back pressed against the cold wall, Merle dared to light himself a cigarette. He was unnoticed. Nobody gave a shit what he was doing and most of the world was still asleep. His own darling baby brother was the keeper of the small fire. He sat near it—but not too close—drinking a cup of what Merle could smell to be coffee.
On his lap there was a plate, and he was eating something off the plate with his fingers.
That wasn't what interested Merle, though. What interested Merle was the fact that, sitting in the dirt next to Daryl, almost mirroring his position exactly and somewhat leaning against him, was the little girl. Sophia. She sat with her own plate in her lap, and her sippy cup beside her.
She was smiling. She was happy. She was chattering away. Snatches of her conversation with Daryl carried over to Merle as he watched them. He couldn't make out every word that the girl said. He didn't speak her language entirely fluently, but he could make out parts of it.
"They is big...they is big because...um...fat worms," Sophia said.
"They eat big worms so they big?" Daryl asked.
He looked so damn happy that Merle swallowed back the laughter that it stirred up within him.
"Yes, Daddy," Sophia agreed. "Big worms. Fat worms. So they sooo big."
"Do you eat worms?" Daryl asked. "That why you so big?"
The little girl laughed. She didn't giggle. She didn't snicker. She threw her tiny head back and she laughed—mouth wide open—with total abandon. She laughed like she'd heard the best joke of her entire life. Daryl laughed along with her and Merle swallowed back his own laughter so it didn't give him away as he watched them. When she was done laughing, she wiggled—dancing back and forth from side to side—on the ground and brushed her cheek against Daryl's arm as though she were a cat.
"You silly, Daddy!" She declared loudly. "You silly!"
Daryl shushed her. Told her she'd scare the chickens. She apologized and he immediately told her it was nothing to worry about, but they wanted to let the others sleep a bit more.
"You need more Daddycakes?" Daryl asked.
"Mmmmm hmmm, please," she slurred out at him.
The food on Daryl's plate immediately changed to the little girl's plate and Daryl served her something from a jar. She stuck her finger in it and licked her finger clean before she laughed again and thanked Daryl for his efforts. She filled her mouth with food before she pointed out toward the clucking chickens and started to say something else—garbled by her age and her full mouth—that Merle couldn't understand. Nonetheless, it seemed that Daryl was more than capable of understanding it. He responded with great interest, never allowing the little girl to feel ignored.
Andrea had given Merle his little brother back.
And maybe she'd given Daryl the older brother that he missed—the one that he said he hadn't seen in a long time since Merle had turned to drugs for the comfort and happiness that life wasn't giving him.
Maybe Andrea had given Merle something that made him realize he really didn't need that artificial comfort and happiness. Maybe she'd given him something that was better and didn't come with all the side effects. He'd never tell her that, though. Not exactly. He wasn't sure he could.
But she'd also given Merle his little brother back.
And just like she'd returned Merle a bit different to Daryl, the Daryl that Merle found was a different man than the one he'd known before.
Merle wasn't used to seeing his brother look happy, but it looked good on him.
Merle finished his cigarette and snubbed it out before he gave up his hiding spot and started in Daryl's direction.
"That coffee I smell, lil' brother?" Merle called out before he approached, not wanting to startle anyone except the chickens with his presence.