AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I just wanted to throw this out for anyone who might need a reminder, but this is not going to go exactly with the story on television. There are going to be some similarities and story lines, but there are going to be a lot of differences, too.
I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!
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"The fuck you doin' out here, Merle?" Daryl asked.
It was almost immediately possible to figure out the come-down state of his brother. No matter what he was on, and no matter how he acted when he was high, Merle usually had two moods when he was coming down. As far as Daryl could tell, it was Russian roulette, essentially, when it came to Merle's coming down mood. He was either going to be extra combative and unruly until he just passed out somewhere—the absolute worst mood for any of them to deal with—or he was going to turn into an apologetic sack of sorrow that was simply remorseful for everything he'd ever done or failed to do in his whole sorry ass life.
Sitting on his ass, elbow on his knee, smoking a cigarette and lamenting to the grass, or God, or whoever he imagined was talking to him, about how "she" was absolutely going to leave him, and he deserved it for being a fuckup, Merle gave away, immediately, the mood that had overtaken him this time.
"I don't want her to leave me," Merle lamented when he noticed Daryl's approach. It hadn't been hard to track him this far. Besides that, it had always been one of Merle's favorite spots when they camped here.
Daryl dropped down beside his brother and lit a cigarette.
"She ain't gonna leave you, asshole," Daryl said. "Look around. Where the hell would she go?"
"When we go back, Daryl…" Merle said.
"You an' me know we ain't goin' back," Daryl mused. "Unless you too fucked up to know that. In which case you gonna remember it when you come down off this fuckin' mess you made for yourself."
"She's so fuckin' sad," Merle said.
"Her parents just died, Merle. Both of 'em," Daryl said. "In a bad fuckin' way, too. And we both know she's been holdin' out for years—sure they was gonna come out an' say they was proud of her. That she ain't fucked up her whole damn life. That she was just as good a kid as Amy. They never said none of that, though. Not to Andrea. Left her with a great big fuck you. I reckon she's gonna want to lick them wounds a couple days. Fuck—look at you an' me? Still lickin' wounds over an' old man that didn't never give a damn." Daryl took a long draw off his cigarette and blew the smoke out with a grunt. "Worse than that—if she weren't heartbroken enough, her fuckin' husband went and got blitzed when she needed him to do nice shit like just fuckin' hold her, instead."
"I promised her I was done," Merle complained.
"Yeah, that ain't the first time Andrea's heard that," Daryl said. "Still—might be a good thing to mean it one of these damn days, Merle. I don't wanna comfort her ass over becomin' some kinda widow because of some stupid, fuckin' drugs, Merle. And that's where your ass is headin'. You know that."
"I love her," Merle offered.
"Don't tell me that," Daryl said. "And don't tell her that. It's about fuckin' time you showed her, Merle. And you don't let up on showin' her, neither."
"I don't know why the hell I do the things I do, lil' brother," Merle lamented.
Daryl's chest ached. He nodded his head. He took quick, consecutive draws on his cigarette and finished the thing in record time. It was nice to be able, for a second, to blame his constricted breathing on something besides his brother.
"I know you don't," Daryl said, leaving off the fact that he often felt that he did know why Merle did what he did—and he knew that the main reason, perhaps, that Merle acted like he did was because he had taken the brunt of so much of the old man's anger and their mother's hurt. He'd taken the brunt of it for a long damn time, as long as he could stand, and then he'd been overwhelmed with grief when he'd realized that he'd run out, to save himself, and everything he'd worried would come to pass to Daryl had come to pass. Then he'd taken on being a parent to Daryl before he knew how to even really take care of himself.
On the outside, Merle presented himself as somebody who didn't give a damn about anything or anyone. On the inside, Daryl knew the problem was that Merle really cared too damn much and had never learned how to express that in a healthy and acceptable manner.
Daryl didn't say all of that, though. Instead, he simply sighed and scrubbed his spent cigarette butt out on the ground between them.
"I know you don't, brother," Daryl offered. "We found your stash. Got rid of it. It's gone, you hear me? Gone."
"Good," Merle said. "I hate it."
"I know you do," Daryl said.
"I really fucked up," Merle said.
"You were only gonna kill Ed, this time," Daryl said. "And in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen."
"I mean with Andrea," Merle said. "She's so damn sad. And I just—made her sadder." Daryl heard the slightly pained noise from his brother. "I don't want her to fuckin' leave me."
"She ain't gonna leave, Merle," Daryl assured him. "Not even if she had somewhere to go."
"I was gonna do right by her," Merle said. "Just like you with your Mouse. I was gonna fuckin'—I was gonna do right by her. Fuckin' hold down a job. Be a regular ass kisser to the man, Daryl. Nine to five every fuckin' day. Be a provider." Daryl didn't point out to Merle that Andrea hardly needed anyone to provide for her. He let Merle go. "Be a father. Two. Three little Dixons. I said all boys, but…fuck…I wouldn'ta hated no lil' thing like Sophia. Fuck, brother. I was gonna do it right."
"You still can, brother," Daryl said. "I don't know about holdin' down a job, but we could use your ass around here. Them people? They all able-bodied. Most of 'em seem willin' to work. They need direction, though. Don't know what the hell to do. Don't know how to survive if this don't go back to what it was—and we know it don't. You can give 'em that, brother. If you don't know shit else, you know what the fuck we need to do live out here forever. So maybe you don't kiss the man's ass and work nine to five, but you can provide for Andrea like you ain't never been able to before. Fuck—we'll build us a whole damn life out here. Whole nine yards. This is when the Dixons take over the world, right?"
Merle laughed to himself, and Daryl laughed too.
"What the hell about that asshole, Ed, brother?" Merle asked. He was clearly starting to level out a little more. He lit another cigarette for himself, and Daryl could see that his hands were shaking. Normally that might be a bad sign for most people, but it was typically a good sign for Merle. It meant that whatever the hell he'd taken was working its way out of his system.
"He's either gonna leave 'cause he hates bein' on the outside where don't nobody do what the hell he wants 'em to do, or he's gonna fuck up an' step the hell over that line," Daryl said. "When he puts a toe over that line—I don't care if it's to get the fuck away from a rattlesnake about to bite him in his sorry ass—I'ma put a a bolt through his head an' we gonna throw his sorry ass carcass out here to feed the fat ass buzzards."
"Time when the Dixons take over the world," Merle mused, latching onto what Daryl had said before.
"You an' me both know we don't come back from napalmin' or whatever the hell it was they done to Atlanta," Daryl said. "I don't know what the hell's goin' on here brother, but we know that we got fuckin' corpses strollin' around plain as day. Had people on the radio sayin' they were extremely dangerous. Killin' people. Amy an' me heard 'em say that gettin' bit or scratched or—any exchange like that? So that what they got gets into your body? Means you die. Fatal."
"That's fucked up shit, brother," Merle said. "That's what Andrea's parents was. Some of them."
"One of 'em musta gone out," Daryl said. "Got attacked. Brung it back to the house. Give it to the other one."
"I know this damned much," Merle said. "I get bit by one of them things, you shoot me. Don't you fuckin' hesitate, neither. I don't wanna take no chance I bite Andrea or…you or nothin'."
"Same," Daryl said.
"Promise, brother," Merle prompted.
"Dixon's honor," Daryl teased, remembering promises he'd made to Merle as a child. Neither of them had been boy scouts. Daryl didn't know how much it costed to join the scouts, but he knew that they didn't have that kind of money—or wouldn't have been given it. Still, Daryl had been obsessed with becoming a boy scout and learning everything that he dreamed they knew—almost as much as the Native Americans, he was sure. Merle had told him that being a Dixon was just a good, if not better, than being a boy scout, and he'd done his best to make sure that Daryl had little trinkets like a compass, a pocket knife, and a couple of books on wilderness survival.
Merle had taught Daryl everything he ever knew about surviving, and in his pocket right now, Daryl knew that his first little pocket knife rested in among the other things he always carried. It had been the only thing Daryl owned to survive the fire because it had been in his pocket the day that they'd lost their mother—and everything she'd represented.
"Dixon's honor," Merle said with a smile.
"You gotta lay off the shit, Merle," Daryl said. "I got rid of what we found in your saddle bags and pillow. You got anything else?"
"That was it," Merle said.
"Don't'cha fuckin' lie to me," Daryl said. "I ain't pissed now an' I done run interreference with Andrea. She understands it was everything that's goin' on. A genuine accident. You ain't meant it. But if you fuckin' lie to me now, Merle, I'ma be for real pissed."
"That's all the fuck I had, brother!" Merle snapped.
"I can't believe you fuckin' brought that," Daryl growled.
"Meant to get rid of it," Merle said. "Tried a thousand times. Was gonna just throw it away. But I couldn't."
"You packed that shit," Daryl said.
"I got no excuses, Daryl," Merle said. "What the hell you want me to say? I don't know why the hell I packed it."
"Because you're a stupid, fuckin' addict," Daryl said.
"I don't know why I'm the way I am," Merle lamented.
"Fuck it," Daryl said. "It don't matter. It's gone now. And you swear to me that's it. You don't got none stashed no damn where else."
"Dixon's honor," Merle said. "Fuck Daryl—I'd swear to you on my life, but that ain't worth shit. I swear to you on—on fuckin' Andrea's life. That's all the hell there was. It weren't even good stuff. You had to take a shit load to get anywhere."
"I ain't gonna be sorry for you that you got bad shit," Daryl said.
"I weren't askin' you to," Merle said. "Just sayin' it weren't worth a shit. But it's gone."
"I believe you," Daryl said. And he did, because Merle didn't swear on Andrea's life lightly. "You about got your shit together enough to go back to camp?"
"I hardly lost my shit," Merle mused.
"You was gonna beat Ed to death with a shovel," Daryl pointed out.
"Still would," Merle said. "Hell—I don't have to be fuckin' high to wanna do that."
"You got in a fist fight with Shane and you were a pretty big asshole to me, Merle," Daryl said.
Merle laughed to himself.
"I wouldn'ta fuckin' fought him if he hadn't jumped me first," Merle said. "All that police shit of make you do what the hell he thinks you should. Shoulda minded his own business. I was just gonna kill fuckin' Ed, bury his sorry ass out here, an' then brew some coffee. Shane's the fuckin' asshole that made it into some big fuckin' deal."
Daryl laughed.
"What the hell set your ass off? Just the crystal?" Daryl asked.
"Kept thinkin' of the first time I saw your lil' Mouse. So scared an'—an' fuckin' broken, Daryl. Her arm in that sling an' she just looked so damn tiny and fragile. Made me think of her, you know?"
"Mama?" Daryl asked.
"I just didn't want him around," Merle said. "I guess the crystal ain't helped."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"At least sometimes you know why you do what the hell you do, Merle," Daryl mused. "Don't matter. He's gonna step sideways one day. And when he does? It's gonna be open season on his sorry ass."
Daryl stood up and reached a hand out in Merle's direction to help him up.
"I'm sorry I was an asshole," Merle said. "To you. Not to Shane."
"You're always an asshole," Daryl said. "It don't bother me. An' Shane's gonna get used to it soon enough. Come on. If you got your head on half straight, I could use what the hell you got left of a brain. A bunch of people's down there just waitin' for some damn body to tell 'em what the hell they oughta be doin'. It might as well be us."