AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl didn't know if he was most impressed by the fact that his brother gave a relatively good speech—as far as speeches went—about the progress that the community had made, the work and hope that they had ahead of them, and the importance of family and friends as they moved into the winter, or if he was impressed by the fact that the people of the Cedar Falls Community genuinely seemed to drink in Merle's words and to be thrilled by his presence.
Merle had made the comment to Daryl that, as time went on, he sometimes got to thinking that losing his hand on a rooftop in Atlanta might have been one of the best things that ever happened to him. Though he'd like to have his hand back—for mostly practical reasons—he wouldn't want to trade what he had now for an appendage that had done him relatively little good without the particular chain of events and hardships that had led him to this place.
At the end of Merle's speech, he'd added a little piece about the importance of growing their community from the inside, as much as from the outside, and he'd introduced Carol for anyone who may not know her or have seen her around. He hadn't said too much else on the subject, and Daryl assumed his strategy was to let people enjoy the day—there would be food, music and dancing, and games like at any good festival—and later to address things, again, when people were in a mood to maybe consider going home to work on creating a few little ones of their own.
Carol slipped off, immediately after Merle's speech, because she'd been beckoned by a few of the woman to join their conversation. Daryl watched her, for a few moments, from a distance.
Carol was beautiful. Her smile, as she talked to the women, was radiant. Her hair was growing some, now, and it was long enough that the sunlight easily caught the silver in her hair and practically shined. The women must have had some interest in the baby because Carol invited them all to rub her belly and to dote on the little one that would either be sleeping or reveling in attention by performing a series of high kicks for everyone's entertainment.
Even though Daryl knew that there was no such thing as perfection in humans—naturally flawed as they were—he believed that Carol came as close to perfection as any of them could. She may not believe it for herself, but Daryl believed it enough for the both of them.
And Carol had agreed to marry him—fully and officially.
Daryl wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve that but, like Merle, he thought he understood the sentiment—rare as it may be these days—that the virus that everyone saw as plunging the world into hell had actually delivered, to Daryl, more than he could ever have imagined having in the life he knew before.
Daryl's body reacted when he felt the hard hand close on his shoulder.
"Shit, brother!" Merle spat, backing up quickly and holding his hand, and his metal cuff covered arm, up in the air in a sign of surrender. "Don't ruin the festival with bloodshed."
Daryl panted. His body had responded, whirling him around to face his would-be attacker, without ever checking with his brain about the fact that they weren't in a situation where danger was likely at all.
"You scared the shit outta me," Daryl said.
"What's dangerous is I didn't do shit, brother," Merle said with a laugh. "You was just so damned focused on somethin'. You piss yourself?"
Merle thought the whole thing was funny. For Daryl, it didn't feel funny yet, though it may feel funny in the future. The truth of the matter was that he had been focused—entirely focused—and he had simply checked out from his current situation. The violent reaction of his body, functioning almost entirely without his brain, reminded him that they were safe in the community, and they were removed from the almost constant state of danger that they'd known out there, but the conditioning they'd been through still left them with reactions that would likely never fade.
Merle gave Daryl a quiet moment, evidently understanding, without saying anything, exactly what he was going through. Then he offered Daryl the box, from his pocket, that held some of the hand rolled cigarettes that one of their community members rolled from the dried tobacco they grew in some of the farther parts of the community.
Daryl accepted it, thanked Merle, and lit a cigarette for both of them before Merle returned the box and lighter to his pocket.
"Better?" Merle asked.
"Just surprised my ass, that's all," Daryl said. Merle laughed to himself.
"The hell were you so focused on?" Merle asked. He stood looking in the direction that Daryl had been looking, but Carol had moved and Daryl assumed that there was no evidence to give Merle any proof of what had held Daryl's profound interest. "You were lookin' at your lil' woman." Daryl's face ran hot, his stomach flipped, and Merle laughed to himself. "Still that damn infatuated? Wouldn't expect no different."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Daryl asked.
Merle shrugged his shoulders.
"Means ever since you was a baby, you get real stuck on what'cha like. Obsessed. Hell—prob'ly better that way. You ain't never needed too much variety. If you liked it, damn near had to fight you to get you to accept anything else." Merle laughed. "You prob'ly don't remember it, but you had this—this blue shirt. Weren't real special. Don't know where the hell you got it. Mama prob'ly picked it up at a yard sale or some shit. Had Mickey Mouse on the front of it. You wore that shit so damned much I had to wash it out in the sink at night and hang it over the side of the tub 'cause Mama weren't gonna wash the clothes that much an' you would cry every mornin' you had to put somethin' else on. Damn near tore my fuckin' nerves up when you outgrew the shit."
"I don't remember that," Daryl said, laughing to himself.
"You was small," Merle said, bending down to indicate a that Daryl must have been, at least in Merle's memory, quite young and very short. "I always figured if you got you a woman you liked good enough to keep, and one that wanted to keep you back? We could bury you in the same damn hole."
Daryl smiled to himself.
"Some truth to that," Daryl said. He didn't elaborate any further. He didn't need to. "Wanted to tell you anyway—and now's as good a time as any." Merle hummed in question. "We wanna get married. Nothin' big or nothin'. Just—maybe at our house? Say some vows or somethin' like that. Just you an' Andrea. T and—that woman, Michonne, if he wants her to come."
Merle grinned at him. He raised his eyebrows.
"You mean you got her lookin' like she's just about ready to drop that pup where she stands and you just now thought you might wanna lay claim to her?" Merle asked. Daryl could hear the teasing in his brother's tone.
"We ain't never married before," Daryl said. "Ain't been in the place to have no wedding and get married."
Daryl figured it wasn't a lie. They had neither been in the physical nor the emotional place to marry before. That was the truth. He simply left a few of the facts up to Merle's interpretation. Merle hummed at him.
"You think I'ma tell your ass you can't get married or you waitin' for my blessin' or what, brother?" Merle asked after a minute.
"Just wanted you to know," Daryl said. "Wanted you to come."
"You know I'll come," Merle said. "You just say when and where."
"You got someone around here that—does weddings?" Daryl asked. "Like can marry us?"
"We ain't got no law," Merle said. "If that's what you mean. Not like—not like the world used to. Hell—don't got no church people here. But we got an old man. Was a judge. He goes by the name of Jeremiah Portman. You prob'ly ain't seen him unless you had a reason to go to his cabin. He rolls these cigarettes. Does a lotta shellin' and things like that. Mostly he stays at his house 'cause he's got arthritis in his knees somethin' terrible. That's his son, over there. Near the fire. Turnin' that roastin' spit. We found Jeremiah a chair and all, but he just prefers to stay there an' work most the time. Don't bother people too much to bring him his meals. He married me an' Andrea. I'm sure he'd marry you an' your Mouse. For as legal as shit is these days, though, I reckon you could just—do whatever you want. If we say it's legal, it's legal. Who the hell's gonna say that shit ain't?"
Merle laughed to himself, presumably over the idea of someone disputing the legality of anything these days. Daryl figured he could discuss it with Carol. He could see what she wanted. Anything was fine with him as long as it was considered official and everybody knew it was.
"What about you, Merle?" Daryl asked after a moment of comfortable silence fell between his brother and him while both of them watched people coming, going, and interacting with each other in various ways.
"What about me, Daryl?" Merle asked. "I'm livin' the fuckin' dream, can't you see that?"
"You used to say that shit sarcastically," Daryl offered.
"I ain't bein' sarcastic, Daryl," Merle said, quite sincerely.
"What about—are you like me now? You used to like variety; you know? Like you said I didn't never like it, you used to like it. Couldn't stand the same thing over and over. You changed that much?"
"I don't hardly never eat the same thing day after day," Merle said. "Variations on a theme, maybe, but they shake shit up pretty regular."
"I weren't talkin' about food, Merle," Daryl said. "What about Andrea? It don't take perfect vision to see you're pretty popular around here. Reckon you could have you some variety, if that's what you were after."
Merle smiled to himself.
"I reckon—if I went off huntin' fresh pussy around here, Andrea would suffocate my ass while I was sleepin'," Merle offered.
"You want it, then? That's all that's keepin' you from goin' after it is—fear of Andrea murderin' you?" Daryl asked.
He saw the muscles in Merle's face twitch as he struggled with the truth of the question. Daryl wondered just how much his brother had changed—just how much he was willing to admit. Merle chewed on the question a moment. Then he looked at Daryl, jaw set, and held his eyes.
"I love her," Merle said. "Or I wouldn'ta married her ass." He shrugged his shoulders. "I coulda dropped her if I wanted. Found somebody else."
"But you didn't," Daryl said.
"She knows what the hell I am, Daryl. What the hell I was. All of it. And she still curls up next to me at night and fuckin' closes her eyes. Goes to sleep. Says—she can't sleep without me. Don't want to." He shook his head. "I never had nobody like that before."
"You mean some damn body that loves you, Merle, just 'cause they want to?" Daryl asked. Merle smiled to himself. "It's an amazin' damn thing, ain't it?" Merle hummed his affirmative answer, but Daryl understood it.
"Wish to hell I could understand her, sometimes, though," Merle said with a laugh. "She gets me turned around ass-backwards."
"What you mean?" Daryl asked.
"Not three damn days ago she was snottin' an' cryin' and wanderin' around the house havin' herself a fit because—if the kid keeps on growin' right, well, she's gonna be fat. You can't see it much—not with her clothes on. But she's got a lil' you know…things are startin' to fill out."
"The way they ought to," Daryl offered.
"Way they ought to," Merle echoed. "But she was havin' her a fit about it not three days ago."
He helped himself to another cigarette, and Daryl followed suit by taking one for himself and lighting the both of them.
"Hell, Merle, I don't guess that's too crazy. Women get touchy about that shit. Maybe she figured you weren't gonna like her no more."
"Told her I didn't give a shit," Merle said. "I mean, hell, everybody knows if the kid's gonna grow, she's gotta grow with it. But—craziest damn thing of it is she spent half this mornin' walkin' around the house all snottin' and teary eyed 'cause she ain't fat yet." Merle laughed. "I'm don't know what the hell to do with that."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I'll ask Carol about it," Daryl offered. "Other than that, all I can figure is you just—ride that shit out. That's all the hell you can do if the destination's worth the damn ride."
"I ain't too bothered by it," Merle said. "Hell—she cries about whatever it is, but it just makes her kinda…I don't know. Soft like. Comes curlin' up to me to feel better. I just wish to hell I knew how to make her feel better 'fore she got all soggy about shit I can't even begin to understand."
"Hell if I know," Daryl said. He found Carol in the crowd, many people taking advantage of the music to dance while others laughed and talked, and he watched her. He saw the moment when she made eye contact with him. He saw the renewed smile crawl across her lips until it looked like her face might break in half. He'd never had someone smile that way just to see him, and it made him smile in response. "I see Carol over there. I think—I'ma ask her if she wants to dance."
"Didn't know you danced, brother," Merle said.
Daryl laughed to himself, finished his cigarette, and ground it beneath his boot.
"Don't," he said. "But if she wants to? I'm about to learn."