March 8, 2011
Merle doesn't mind admitting that the favorite part of his day is sitting in the sunny kitchen down the street from his own home. The company as a whole is nice enough, because the longer he's kept up this habit of visiting before whatever duties he's managing that day, the easier the ladies of the house other are around him. Lori has treated him with an abrupt sort of fondness ever since he gifted her with that cradle, but the other two women? They took longer to warm up, and he's a little disappointed that neither of them is around this morning.
Although since the real reason he visits is sitting in his lap, eying him with all the intentness a six-week-old baby is capable of. Tickling Judith's chin, Merle grins in response to the baby girl's automatic smile. "You look like you're about to grow right out of that onesie, Gummy Bear."
Lori laughs, but it's got a tired sound to it. "Growth spurt this week. She's over seven pounds now, so I'm about to switch her to the next size up."
"I remember that stage. Didn't have the newborn stuff for Jewel, but I remember it was like one day, she was just swimming in the 0-3 months size, and the next, she was trying to outgrow them." Assessing the brunette's obvious exhaustion, he fiddles with his mug of tea, which has some sort of apple cider tasting blend he really likes. "She forgot how to sleep more than two hours at a stretch, didn't she?"
"Yeah. Eat, poop, sleep. I'd forgotten how worn out I got when Carl was in that stage. This is the longest she's been awake and quiet in three days."
"You thought about letting her stay the night with Shane?" He keeps his tone as neutral as possible, because maybe the only experience he has with a postpartum woman is age-worn memories of how his mama was after Daryl was born, but he's smart enough to know it's a sensitive subject.
"I thought about it, but she'd still need to nurse, and I don't have a pump to send milk with her. I don't want to try formula if we don't have to."
"Easy enough to solve. Got a run going out today, so just write down what we need to look for and your best guess where we might find it."
Merle laughs softly at the exasperated look on Lori's face, knowing it's directed at herself. All these supplies they've laid in for the baby, including formula if for some reason Judith couldn't nurse, and they forgot the one thing a nursing mama really needs for the long-term. Considering how close the formula is to expiring, he can also understand Lori's wish to avoid using it.
She gets up and finds a notepad, scribbling down more notes than he expected. When she sees his curiosity, she smiles. "There's a variety you can look for, everything from little hand pumps to big hospital grade ones. I'm trying to remember all the brand names."
"Hospital grade?" Merle thinks that one over. "Would they have something like that at the old hospital?"
"Probably. I remember a woman in the PTA had twins a year or so before the virus, and she talked about renting one from the hospital. Might check the maternity ward again to see if you can reach it, but there was a lactation office on the ground floor down by some of the outpatient areas. Probably easier to reach than maternity."
"A'right. I'll have my team start there."
Judith yawns, squawks in protest, but settles against him as if she's content enough to go to sleep. He runs a soothing hand across her chest and belly but catches Lori's pensive look when he finally takes his attention off the baby.
"Daryl told me it was just you and him when Jewel was this size," she ventures when he arches a brow at her. She seems to want to continue, but the words aren't coming to her.
"And you're curious as to why a single man would take on a newborn instead of just letting her mama's family take her? Or is it why her mama would sneak out of the hospital like she was ditching a bad date instead of her own daughter?"
It's not the first time Merle's encountered either of those questions, and he knows damn well Daryl wouldn't have answered either to anyone short of Carol. The easiest answer is that Jewel was a Dixon, and he was damned if he was going to let blood kin be left in the festering hellhole Lisa grew up in. There was a reason he and the feisty blonde attracted and clashed at the same time. Thankfully, no one in Lisa's sorry clan objected to him taking custody of his daughter.
"It's nosy as hell, I know." Lori ducks her head, using her tea mug as a bit of a shield, so her next words are a bit muffled from looking down. "I guess I just wonder about you coming down here every day like you do."
"You wonder or other people wonder?" With the sly attempts at matchmaking, Merle's honestly surprised people haven't dug more into his past.
She laughs, looking up to smile at him. "Both."
"Lisa didn't want kids, and she wanted to be married even less than she wanted to be a mother. She stuck around long enough to fill out the paperwork that made it legal for me to take Jewel home once she was out of NICU, and that was the last time I saw her. Can't say I hold any grudge, cos I got my girl out of it. Might not have planned on being her daddy, but it's the best goddamn thing I've done in my sorry life."
Merle considered tracking his ex down when Jewel first got sick, and again when the cancer was deemed terminal, but as long as his daughter didn't see a need for her mother to be there, he had more important things to concentrate on. Jewel had him and Daryl like she always had. He wasn't exactly the marrying kind either, so there'd been no one else that lasted longer than casual dating.
"I suppose that's reason enough not to be upset at her. Is that part of why you've never had anything to say about everything surrounding Judy?"
"More of a glass house thing. I sure as hell can't be throwing any stones. Lisa and I never dated, just screwed around now and then when the mood hit." Merle shrugs before easing to his feet and going to settle Judith into her cradle.
"It wasn't quite like that with Shane."
Lori's voice is pitched so low that he almost doesn't hear her, so he returns to the table and takes a seat again. She's trying to hide behind that tea mug again, so he reaches out and takes the damn thing away. It gains him her attention, but that shivery look of expecting someone to pass judgment on her brings up a flash of an old memory of his mama he doesn't care to think about.
Pushing the memory firmly away, he sighs. "Didn't think it was. I remember enough of the quarry to know you two had some potential brewing. You're not a goddamn scarlet woman, Lori, hellbent on fucking whoever catches your eye. Get that shit out of your head."
It's as gruff as he's allowed himself to be with any of the women who live here, but it doesn't make her flinch like he expects. Instead, her shoulders square up, and he sees a spark of that fire he remembers from Atlanta enter her gaze. Before she can respond, he grins broadly and her burgeoning outrage flickers into laughter instead.
"You've got a filthy mouth on you, Merle," she says, but what's done is done, because she's smiling when she takes a drink of her tea now.
"No shit, Sherlock."
That makes her laugh again, a bright sound he remembers from times Shane teased her or Carl back at the quarry. Goal accomplished of jarring her out of the self-deprecating spiral he's seen her get stuck in regularly, he finishes his own tea, turning the conversation to her joining his hunting classes once she can leave Judith with her extended family for a couple of hours.
All this emphasis on the dynamics between Rick and Shane is overlooking Lori didn't come out of the drama unscathed either. He'll just have to keep reminding her of where the path forward is in his unique and crude ways until she's back in the light herself.
After a week of her carefully avoiding him, Merle supposes he shouldn't be surprised to find Amanda Shepherd in his room - again. No invitation this time either, so he arches a brow even as he crosses the room to take a bottle of cream soda out of the fridge. Shit tastes almost like drinking cotton candy, but it's one of his ways of reminding himself he's sober.
Pausing with the fridge door open, he eyes his visitor. She's at least sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchenette table, not on his bed, but she looks far too relaxed in his personal space. "You here long enough to need something to drink? Got this, root beer, and something lime that ain't half bad."
He honestly has no idea why the ex-cop would be back. It's much easier to find him at a half dozen other places on the property that don't require breaking into his bedroom. The thing that does come to mind after the admiration last week is something he brushes off. If the woman's got an itch to scratch, there are less problematic men to seduce than him.
Those green eyes take in the bottle of clear soda in his right hand before nodding. "Sounds good, actually. Root beer, please."
The 'please' is interesting enough, Merle supposes, and he snags a bottle of the root beer and passes it to her before taking the other chair. Twisting off the cap, he takes a drink while eying her as she toys with her bottle. "You checking in on Leslie again?"
The question seems to startle her, and Amanda looks up before shaking her head. "Nah. I suspect I'll be short a roommate before too long at the rate she and Tanaka are going."
"Good for them." Merle gives her a few more minutes before venturing another question. "You do realize most people who visit me come in via one of the upstairs doors, don't you?"
Hell, even Glenn, who visits primarily for the workshop here in the basement, always comes in through the main house, even if he leaves via the basement access door.
"Yeah," Amanda mutters, finally opening her bottle and drinking some of the soda. "I didn't want to cause any gossip"
"Gossip. Huh." Merle narrows his eyes, letting that word settle in his mind. It isn't hard to recall that intense scrutiny of hers from her last visit when he'd conversed with her in nothing but his skivvies. "Gossip implies you're here for something more than making accusations."
The noise she makes is somewhere between pissed and frustrated, and she thumps the bottle down on the table, making the glass clink against the wooden surface. "I'm not half your age."
Merle chuckles softly, a little more settled now that he thinks he knows where this is headed. "Then how old are you?"
"I'll be thirty-four in August." Amanda says it with that little stubborn chin tilt he is used to seeing women give when they're insisting they're equal to some task they think the other person is going to deny them. Usually, it's them saying they're as badass as a man, not that he tends to argue these days. He thinks this may be the first time he's seen a woman using it when she emphasizes she's over thirty.
"You realize I'm still twenty years older than you are." Although why the hell he's arguing, he doesn't know at this point. He'd wondered on her last visit about breaking his age rule, after all.
"And you aren't saying no. I'm not asking you to date me, dammit. Just sex, no strings."
He isn't saying no, and part of him wants to ask her why him, but he's logical enough to know to ferret out why without being told. She's decided a man of his age and background is unlikely to get any ideas beyond exactly what she's asking, and he supposes he's good with that. Setting his drink on the table, he flexes the fingers of his prosthetic, tapping them on the table. She looks at it, but then her gaze moves back to his face without any sign that its presence bothers her.
"I guess I'm not saying no. C'mere."
The invitation gets Merle long legs astride his lap in the chair, with Amanda leaning in to roughly grip his jawline as she leans in for a kiss. It's rough and clumsy as if she's as rusty at this process as he is, but he doesn't mind. Just the open want in the wet and messy kiss is enough to remind him it's been over two damned years since he kissed a woman, and the last time wasn't anything worth bragging about later.
Gripping her hips, he drags her forward, settling her over the part of him taking a very alert interest in her closeness. She obliges by rocking down against him, drawing out a groan. Sliding his left hand up under her shirt as she moves from kissing him to nipping along the skin exposed by the collar of his button-up shirt, he flicks the clasp of her bra open.
The movement startles her a little, and she raises up to look at him. He just waits, palm flat against her back between her shoulder blades, letting her decide if she's going to change her mind and flee - or stay and take this wherever it's headed. Her answer is to tug her shirt and undershirt over her head, with the bra following them to land in a heap near the foot of his bed.
-Edited Scene-
Amanda is still stretched out on her belly, her eyes closed as she lays with her head on her folded arms. Her breathing has evened out to the point Merle thinks she might be falling asleep, but he's fine with that. She twitches when he sinks back onto the bed beside her, her eyes open a sliver as she watches him.
He arches his brow and drawls, "You about to level a critique my way?"
It makes her laugh. "Mmm. Better than masturbation," she manages, rolling to her back. The change in positions draws his attention back to her breasts. He laughs, too, even as he lazily skims his gaze down her naked form.
"At least you don't need batteries," he muses, which makes her giggle sleepily.
Technically, he does, but he also doesn't have to keep the damn prosthetic on for sex. That thought reminds him of the fact he's never used the false hand to grip a person in any way, and he flinches. "Didn't hurt you, did I? At the end?"
She frowns, a furrow appearing between her brows. "I'm not made of glass, Merle."
Sighing, he raises the hand between them, watching as her gaze falls on the still-gloved mechanical fingers. "Wasn't sure if it gripped too hard. Forgot in the heat of the moment."
The frown fades as understanding dawns. Shaking her head, she runs her hand across her right hip. "Nah, not that I noticed."
"Good." It's a relief because he'd forgotten about the damned thing, to be honest, once sex was underway. "You staying the night?"
"Maybe. I did bring three condoms."
Merle snorts, reaching down to release the prosthetic as he rolls to sit up. Drowsy as he is from the frankly fantastic orgasm, he knows better than to fall asleep without tending his wrist, and his showers are nighttime ones for a reason. "If you're aiming for three in a night, you might want to mosey along to one of the younger fellas."
It surprises him when he feels a hand run along his lower spine as he runs a baby wipe inside the socket of the prosthetic. Glancing back, he notices that she's watching what he's doing, even as he plugs the damn hand in to recharge the battery. She doesn't ask any questions, so he doesn't volunteer anything, either. Leaning into the gentle petting for a moment, he yawns before standing. "Gonna shower, if you want to join me."
She makes a non-committal sound, so he heads for the bathroom alone.
Somehow, he's not surprised when the curtain is pulled back halfway through his shower. If she wants to stay even after he took more sex off the table, maybe there will be a reward in the morning for her patience. Sex without any commitment has been good enough for him all his life, so no point in trying to change that.
A/N: The second scene is heavily edited for FFN, but the idea should come across fine.
Not the endgame lady for Merle, alas.
Next chapter is planned more for "Uncle Merle", so he got a nice little interlude before shifting back more to his family life, especially in regards to Sophia as his niece.