AN: This is just a little one shot to answer a Tumblr prompt that an anonymous person sent me asking for something where Merle and Carol were friends.

I own nothing from The Walking Dead.

I hope that you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

Daryl and Merle were brothers and rural neighbors. Their trailers were close enough to each other, on a plot of land out where really nobody else had much desire to live so they'd been able to buy it pretty cheaply—all things considered, that they could walk to each other's place, but they were far enough apart that the government had listed their addresses as though four more people might someday live between them.

Four more people weren't ever going to live between the Dixon brothers, but Daryl had long ago accepted that the government was weirder than most people—which was saying a great deal.

Daryl and Merle kept up with the comings and goings of each other pretty well. It wasn't hard when not a damn other soul lived around them for miles and headlights either meant a visitor, someone snooping around to steal something they'd better think better about stealing, or some lost asshole that would need redirecting back toward the city limits.

At Merle's house, headlights often meant that he was about to nail some woman—someone he would likely never see again, not unless she was trying to get ahold of him for some kid she claimed was his, whether or not that was true.

Merle had always had a pretty strict love 'em and leave 'em philosophy. Daryl's brother was a first-class asshole, honestly. Fortunately or unfortunately, though, he was an honest asshole. He was upfront and direct. He didn't hide his faults, and he didn't sugarcoat them. He'd tell a woman at the table that he'd be the best damn lover she ever had—for a night—but he didn't do breakfast. He always figured it was up to her to make the best decision she could for herself, and he always respected her decision.

There was a pretty steady stream of traffic out to Merle's place, really, so Daryl assumed that the offer was up more women's alleys than he might have honestly expected—either that or they were already too drunk to make good decisions when the time came.

Daryl wasn't at all like his brother. What he wanted was something different entirely—and maybe what he wanted didn't even really exist. He preferred to ride out shit on his own rather than to end up tangled up in something he couldn't get out of or to waste his time with women who fell short of a dream.

Maybe he was a first-class asshole, himself, but he was just as honest as his brother. He'd rather just tell a woman he wasn't interested in her than to take her home and have to later admit to her that she didn't scratch the itch he couldn't quite identify.

The only woman that seemed to have broken Merle's streak was a woman that Daryl honestly wasn't sure he believed existed at this point.

Mouse. That's what Merle called her.

About three months ago, Merle met Mouse. He'd met her down at the Stoplight—a little bar on the edge of the highway and about ten or fifteen miles from the first actual stoplight anyone would see. He'd been drinking down there and shooting pool, as he was wont to do on almost all nights when he didn't have work the next morning, and he said this little woman had walked in. He told Daryl he'd pegged her ass as out of place immediately, but he'd been fascinated with her.

Mouse had damn near been called Chameleon, because Merle said he noticed her sitting in the corner and slowly sort of blending in with the environment, despite the fact she'd stood out when she'd first come in. Nobody else seemed to notice her. Nobody else seemed to notice how she didn't fit in when she'd come in or how she'd slowly started to fit in as she'd watched everyone around her.

Nobody saw the marks on her face, either, that had gotten Merle's attention.

Mouse had gone home with Merle, but not because she'd accepted his offer of a mind-blowing fuck and no morning-after. Mouse had gone home with Merle, apparently, because Merle had noticed that she closed down the bar with him, even though she wasn't drunk, and he'd noticed that she seemed content to sleep it off in her car, though there was nothing really to sleep off.

A quick glance into the back of the car, along with the recognition of the marks on her face, and Merle had put it together that Mouse was on the run from something—and he wasn't too fucking dumb to figure out what.

Mouse spent one night with Merle, and Merle helped her get a job at the diner in town. He'd also helped her negotiate decent rent on a not-so-decent place to stay—a camper out on the lake where they rented to people who came through for short-term work at the mill. Daryl's first thought that Mouse wasn't a real person came from all of Merle's declarations of helping her out. It wasn't impossible to think that Merle would help someone, but it was hard to believe he'd help a woman that had never thrown him a piece of pussy.

Of course, it was harder to believe that he'd have continued dealings with a woman—pussy or not. And Merle claimed to still be friends with Mouse and to hang out with her on a somewhat regular basis, even though Daryl had always happened to be working late or just not realizing when it was Mouse at Merle's place and not some quick fuck—something that made it harder to believe that the woman was actually a flesh and blood person.

Daryl didn't eat at the diner in town much, but the one time he'd been there to try to get a look at Mouse, he hadn't picked out anyone that was out of the ordinary—and that was just another indication that Merle had maybe made this woman up. What for, though, Daryl couldn't begin to imagine.

Merle had addressed that when he'd had breakfast at Daryl's house, and Daryl had come right out and asked him about what he believed might be his imaginary friend.

"The fuck would I make a woman up for, Daryl?" Merle had asked over scrambled eggs dripping with salsa and cheese. "I got so damn many women that I don't gotta make 'em up. Hell—I gotta get the damn broom after 'em and chase pussy off like stray cats."

Daryl had frowned at his brother and tried to shake the image out of his head.

"You ain't never been like this with no woman before," Daryl had pointed out. Merle had been snickering at his phone earlier, sending messages back and forth with this Mouse, he said.

"Maybe I ain't known a woman like Mouse before," Merle responded with a shrug.

"I think you got somethin' for her," Daryl said. "If her ass is real, I think you got somethin' for her."

"I got nothin' for her but some fuckin' respect, maybe."

"Respect? You?" Daryl asked.

"She's done a lot of shit, you know? Left her old man—asshole that was beatin' her. Bought a car off someone she found in town, behind the asshole's back—knowin' what the hell he'd do to her if he got his hands on her and got wind of what the hell she was doing. She took off. Come here with nothin' but a couple hundred bucks to her name. Startin' over and unloadin' his ass with the help of a lawyer. She got out, Daryl. Lotta damn people don't get out. They just stay stuck."

Daryl's stomach tightened. He heard what wasn't said.

"Like Mama, you mean?" He said. He saw it on Merle's face. He knew when he hit on something that resonated with Merle. Merle hummed.

"Hard to do shit with two damn kids to look after," Merle said.

They didn't talk about her much. They didn't talk about their father, either. There were things that they had between them—things they shared—but they tried not to talk about them. Merle would say that talking about them wasn't necessary, anyway. It didn't change things.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "It is. Still sounds to me, though, like you might like this woman, Merle."

"I do like her," Merle said. "But—I ain't gonna fuck her. That's the difference. I ain't what the hell she needs. I ain't what the hell she wants. She deserves somethin' better'n my ass. What the hell I would want from her, I wouldn't take from her 'cause she don't need that shit. She's a mousy ass little thing, don't'cha make no mistake about that, but she's gonna come out of it. You can just see it in her eyes—the longer she's away from him, the more she's already comin' out of it. She's gonna come all the way outta that hole, and when she does? She'll find what the hell she needs, but it ain't some one night stand with an asshole like me."

"Still sounds to me like you like her, Merle," Daryl said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Yeah—I like her alright, but…not like that, brother," Merle said. "It really ain't like that. You oughta come meet her, you know? She's comin' by tonight. Just havin' a beer or two. You oughta come by. See that I ain't makin' her ass up."

That was how it came to be that Daryl walked across the lawn from his place carrying a suitcase of cheap beer he'd picked up at the grocery store. He didn't figure that they'd drink the whole damn thing, but he usually owed Merle some beers for all the ones he stole out of his refrigerator, so he figured he could replenish some of what he'd taken with what he left behind tonight.

As soon as Daryl came into his brother's front door, he realized that Mouse—whoever she might be—wasn't there alone. There were two women. There was a woman with short gray hair and striking blue eyes that was sitting on Merle's couch. There was another woman with long blonde hair in a ponytail and green eyes that was coming from the kitchen with a beer. And, then, there was Merle—sitting in his recliner with a beer, harassing the dial on the stacked stereo he'd had for as long as Daryl could remember.

"Make yourself at home, little Brother!" Merle announced. "Grab a beer. Grab a smoke—we're listenin' to some music, if you got any requests."

"None of that tears in your beer bullshit," Daryl offered, making room in Merle's refrigerator for the beer. It wasn't too hard, given that Merle hardly had any food. Merle tended to eat at Daryl's, and Daryl tended to drink at Merle's—that was just the way it went.

Daryl cracked open a beer and let his eyes slide over the two women in the trailer. It didn't take him long to figure out who Mouse was—not because she was mousy, at all, but because Merle pulled the blonde down to sit on his lap in a move that might have been something along the lines of marking territory.

Daryl felt himself tense up. From across the room, Mouse looked at him. She did more than look at him—she locked eyes with him. Even from across the smoky ass room, because Merle and the women had been smoking cigarettes in the living room, Daryl could tell that her eyes were really quite striking. He found that he couldn't really look away.

Mouse smiled at him and patted the seat next to her on the couch.

"You must be Daryl," she said. "I've heard so much about you."

Daryl made his way over, feeling rather anxious about the prospect of sitting down next to the woman. When he reached her, and sat down next to her, he busied his hands with lighting a cigarette for himself to keep from feeling so damned awkward. He offered her one, and she accepted, so he lit it for her. She held his eyes while he lit it, and Daryl didn't think she was mousy at all.

He cleared his throat, especially since it felt like it was closing up a bit.

"You must be Mouse," he said. "Merle's talked a lot about you, too."

She smiled.

"My real name's Carol," she offered. "But—you can call me Mouse if you prefer it."

"Carol," Daryl said, confirming that he'd use her actual name. She renewed her smile. Clearly she was pleased with the idea that he would call her by her actual name. He glanced in the direction of the blonde that was sitting on his brother's lap.

"Andrea," Carol offered. "My roommate. My new roommate. She moved in yesterday, but we've been working together for a couple of weeks."

"Y'all livin' together in them roach motel apartments?" Daryl asked. Carol snorted. "Sorry," he said. "That was rude—especially if you're living there."

"The description isn't wrong," Carol said. "But—the rent is still pretty high for what we get paid at the Pancake House."

"I hear that," Daryl said. "Can—we start over? This time I try not to be an asshole right out the gate?"

Carol laughed and hummed. She took a drink from the can of beer she was holding.

"If this is you being an asshole," she offered, "then…at least I know that I can rest easy around you."

"Rest easy?" Daryl asked.

"It's just—this level of asshole? I can handle," Carol said.

"Yeah, but…you ought not to have to put up with any level of asshole," Daryl said.

As soon as he said it, he practically felt his blood run cold. He wasn't sure why he'd said it at all, but he thought that it probably sounded far too forward. It sounded entirely unlike him. It sounded like something he'd never say to a woman—and, yet, he'd felt compelled to say it to this woman.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I don't know why the hell I said that."

"It's OK," Carol offered. "I liked the sentiment…and…I don't mind putting up with a low level of asshole. Not for a good cause."

Daryl felt something warm in his stomach that he couldn't quite explain, and he drank down a long swig of beer to try to ground himself—because the woman sitting next to him, somehow, had the ability to make him feel entirely unnerved in a strangely pleasant manner.

111

Daryl had felt sure that Merle would try to sleep with the blonde. He would have staked nearly anything he owned on it. She was the kind that got Merle's motor running, and she'd seemed pretty much willing to go for it, despite the fact that she'd been sober when she'd left.

Daryl figured the only reason that Merle didn't go for it, probably, was that the blonde had only had one beer, and she'd encouraged Carol to drink whatever she wanted with the promise that she'd drive her home in the car that they came in together.

Maybe Merle's concern about Mouse went beyond his need to bed and release the blonde—Andrea.

Daryl stood out on Merle's porch and smoked a cigarette in the darkness with him, both of them nursing what would be their final beers of the night, after they'd seen the women off toward the apartment they called home.

"Why you ain't fucked that Andrea woman?" Daryl asked.

"Mouse's roommate," Merle said as an answer.

"And?"

"And—don't want shit to get messy," Merle said. "Fuck her an' turn her loose don't work if I gotta keep runnin' into her."

Daryl hummed.

"You seemed pretty damn fond of her," Daryl said.

"I got eyes, don't I?" Merle said with a laugh. "Hell—she's got everything that damn near any red-blooded man would want."

"What if—you didn't turn her loose? What if seein' her again was just that?" Daryl asked.

"I ain't the kind," Merle said.

"But'cha could be," Daryl said.

"But I ain't," Merle said. "Never done shit like that."

"Nobody ever has until they have, Merle," Daryl said.

"Says a real damn love-guru, I tell you what…" Merle mused. Daryl laughed to himself. He deserved that, so he didn't argue about Merle calling him out on what they both knew was the truth.

"You ain't wrong," he offered.

"Speakin' of which—here, brother," Merle said. He messed around on his phone for a moment and then Daryl's phone buzzed in his pocket.

"The hell is that, Merle?" Daryl asked, making it clear that he wasn't about to go through the effort of pulling his phone out and looking at it.

"Mouse's number," Merle said. "I saw the way you were lookin' at her. Saw how she was lookin' at you. I ain't what the hell she deserves. Won't never be. She deserves a nice one, Daryl. A sweet one that don't even think twice about what seein' her the next time means."

Daryl's stomach fluttered.

"She won't even be interested in me," Daryl said.

"Figured you might say that," Merle said with a laugh. "She asked me to give it to you if I thought you wanted it. Said—she could take thinkin' I just didn't give it to you, but…she's a little too sensitive, you know, after everything and bein' newly single, to just have you say you ain't wanted it flat out. Call her, Daryl. Hell, send her a text. She's a chameleon. You can watch her—fits in with what she thinks people want her to be. Tonight, though, she weren't doin' that with you. She was just—bein' herself. More'n that, you was doin' the same thing. You both liked each other. It's a rare damn thing to find someone you like, and someone who likes you, just the way you are. Don't fuck this up because you're a chickenshit."

"What about you?" Daryl asked. "You get Andrea's number?"

Merle smirked at him.

"I ain't the repeatin' kinda guy," he said.

"I've seen you eat peanut butter'n jelly every day for a year without bein' the slightest bit put off," Daryl said.

"So?" Merle challenged.

"Maybe Andrea's your peanut butter'n jelly," Daryl offered. "Don't fuck this up because you're a chickenshit, Merle."

Merle laughed.

"I'll send the text if you will," Merle said.

Daryl smiled. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket. He saved the contact information that Merle sent him, and he thumbed in the text, ignoring the fact that his hand was shaking badly enough that he could hardly hit the right letters. When he was satisfied, he sent it. He smiled at Merle.

"Ball's in your court, brother."

Merle made a face at him, but he sent a text.

"Fine," he said, draining his beer.

"What'd you say?" Daryl asked.

"The hell you mean?"

"What'd you say? In the text?"

"Said—had fun. Asked if she'd wanna have a beer again, some other night."

Daryl smiled.

"I said I liked meetin' her," Daryl said. "That—I wouldn't mind dinner or somethin', if she was up for that."

"Good damn deal," Merle said.

"I also told her that my brother would like to have dinner with her friend, you know, just in case your text didn't go through out here."