Chapter 80 Branded
Will Daryl finally snap and kill Will or will he and Merle drag it out and make him pay first? If they don't kill him, what will they do with him? I'm not sure the youngerDixon has it into him to torture Dad even if he did do it to him for yearsbut we know that Merle has a sadistic streak in him. Please leave a review if you like this story or even if you don't. Thanks!
Daryl
As I glanced down at the luminous, green numbers of my watch my brother had bought me the previous Christmas, I noticed I'd been there with him for almost 10 minutes. I'd gone to give the asshole water and some food and empty his bucket while he talked dirty at me the whole time. Apparently undeterred by what had happened the day before.
Sitting there, smug as a bug in a rug, leering at me with his only good eye – the other was still swollen shut from the thrashing I'd meted out to him, he was letting me know all the things he wanted to do to me. Both with by his lecherous looks and his words. I tried to block him out and ignore him but it was impossible. Worse - his lust for me was clear in his erection and I still didn't gag him or punch his fucking lights out. Did I really hate myself so much that I thought I deserved that? Let him carry on dripping his poison in my ear?
Suddenly, I'd had enough when he still wouldn't shut up even after I'd shoved the food scraps into his sneering cake-hole.
'Shut up, shut up! Otherwise I'll do it again!' But I was the one backing away. I stopped myself in embarrassment as soon as I realised.
But it was too late.
He sniggered. 'Ya think I'm scared of a few bruises? From you, little boy?' He mocked me. 'Merle could do better but he's even more of a pussy than you are. Would never lay hands on his Ole Man.' He laughed ugilily.
'I ain't gonna be 16 forever!' I clenched my fists and got all in his face. 'And when I'm grown, I'll lay ya out cold, Dad.'
It was true. I'd grown a little taller and put on a little muscle. Merle had commented on it last time we fucked, running the tips of his fingers reverently over my biceps before he began to lightly trace the beginnings of my six-pack...And I didn't even work out! He told me l was looking even hotter if that was possible and he couldn't wait to see how gorgeous I was going to be when I was full-grown...
I snapped out of happy thoughts of me and my brother together, they made me smile. Not a good idea in front of that monster who'd seize upon any clue I gave him.
Instead, I put on a stern expression and turned back to him.
He dropped his voice then confidentially and his tone turned cosseting. 'Hey what about lettin' me go?'
I looked at him sharply.
'It's OK, baby, I promise if ya untie me, I'll never do it to ya ever again.' He purred at me. 'Never touch ya like that. Unless ya want me to'. His mouth twisted knowingly. 'How's that?...Hey, say, let's put all this behind us and be a family again. Ole Pa Dixon with his two boys by his side.'
I sighed and am ashamed to say I might have even considered it.
For a split-second, that was.
But his roving and ravenous eyes betrayed him and I knew he could never stick to his promise. Besides, I just wanted to get out of that damn house and all the bad memories there.
I wanted to live, not merely survive.
'Only jokin'.' He laughed as if he read my thoughts. Probably had. 'Ya know that would never work, Daddy could never keep his hands off you. You boys better jus' kill me.'
That made me mad and I forgot my almost constant fear of my father as I lunged and spat at him. 'Maybe we will but we ain't gonna make it easy on you. Gonna punish ya first and you're gonna regret all the sick things ya did to me. By the time we're finished with ya sorry hide, you're gonna be beggin' for sweet death.'
I was deadly serious. Did I detect a flicker of a flinch before he hid it? Was the sick bastard finally frightened?
Frightened of me?
'I doubt that. But anyway, it's all been worth it. I already planted the seeds in Merle's head – now all he wants – is ever gonna want - is ya, sweet boy. Nobody, not even a woman or a man will ever come close to ya. Not that I'm sayin' he's wired that way 'cos he ain't. Ain't no pansy, is my boy, Merle unlike you, you little fag.'
'Yeah? Well, maybe ya made me that way!' I yelled at him.
'Now, don't ya go blamin' me for ya own perversion, BOY! Ain't me who turned ya. Probably ya 'Uncle Mikey', may he burn in hell. I curse the day I ever set eyes on him. Should'a killed him as soon as he slapped ya upside ya face but it was too late. Damage was already done. Pervert didn't get what he wanted, though. Not everythin'.' He chuckled. 'I did.'
I faltered when he mentioned my 'Uncle' but he only laughed like he won. Something about what he just said just wasn't quite right. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
'Like I keep tellin' ya, ya mine now, ya always gonna be mine because I was ya first and but nobody forgets their first time. Better it was me, 'cos who best to break ya into sex but ya own father? Was pretty obvious someone needed to get ya started. And even if ya torture me to death, won't change nothin'. Even if I'm dead, you'll never forget what we did.'
'Yeah, I WILL! Once we're out of here, me and Merle won't think twice about ya! You'll just be one, bad faded memory - no more than a bad dream and it will be like ya never even existed!'
He looked at me condescendly and raised his eyebrow. 'Ya think? No, ya boys are fucked forever. You and Merle... It was all me! Even even though he's straight as they come! And all it took was one night with a few beers and meth to loosen him up – to make him take what he's always wanted. 'Cos Daddy'll let ya in on a little secret.'
He lowered his voice to a whisper but I as hell wasn't going to creep nearer and put my ear closer to that disgusting mouth. I'd learned a hard lesson last time. So, I strained myself to listen. And despite myself, I was fascinated like the snake under the lull of the charmer's spell.
'Ya big brother's been lustin' after ya sweet little ass since ya were jus' a little boy.' He announced mournfully.
He continued dripping his poison into my ear but it wasn't anything I didn't realise by now.
'Jus' like me!' He crowed. 'We both held back because we knew that it was wrong. Dixons may be a lot of things but we ain't no kiddie-fuckers after all. We never spoke about it but I could see it in his eyes – just like he saw it in mine.'
'Liar! Stop fuckin' with me. Ya still gonna pay for everythin' you did to us.' Yet I shivered then because I remembered the way my Dad would look at me but I couldn't identify the emotion back then but I remember I hadn't liked it.
Not one bit.
'And I think ya ain't so disgusted about the thought of fuckin' when it comes to your big brother.' The sleazeball pressed.
I drew in a deep puff of my cigarette before I ground the butt into the ground (I decided at the last minute against putting it out on his flesh like he used to do to us)instead of answering him while I chuckled deep inside. We'd done it right in front of him unconscious the day before. And several times before that. He really didn't know!
'Sides, even if ya boys kill me, ya think you've won?'
That got me. Without fail as usual, the asshole had zeroed in on what I was thinking.
Still, I lit another smoke and leaned back casually against the shed wall when all I wanted was to either storm out of there or knock the sick bastard out just to make him stop talking. But at the same time, I also longed to hear more of these Dixon family secrets even though they were making me feel sick to my stomach.
I shouldn't have let him lure me in. But I wasn't sure if I had accused Merle of the same thing the other day because I really believed it or I was just angry with him. And the pervert honed into my doubts and what he said rang true now deep inside me. Even though my brother had never done or said one thing to suggest that he saw me as anything else than his little brother.
Until lately that was but was my fault.
Merle used to call me a nuisance or a little pain in the ass sometimes when he had to protect me from Dad or the neighborhood bullies who were a lot older and bigger than me. Who really shouldn't have picked on a Dixon – Merle had made them think twice about it next time. He had tried to teach me how to fight – to toughen myself up.
And so I had. I'd shown Shane who was boss.
On the other hand, I recalled my older brother's extreme possessiveness – he'd chase my friends away if he was there and grab me. I thought it was affection but now with the benefit of hindsight, I saw it as something else.
Something perhaps more sinister.
Merle thought he owned me. And very occassionally he'd had the same look in his eye when he thought I wasn't looking – similar but less sleazy and proprietary, less debaunched than the one Dad wore had but still. I'd just been too young to identify it at the time.
It had been approval bordering adoration and desire. No wonder he'd fucked everything near and far in a skirt to distract himself from his kid brother. Now it made sense why he'd never cared about any of those girls.
Fuck! It was all true, then. In defiance, therefore, I walked into what used to be the danger zone – that was being simply within arm's reach of my father - and blew the smoke directly into his face. He didn't cringe back but breathed it right in, deeply, even closed his eyes to savour it.
I was forced to hide my disgust.
'Ya think you and your brother have won, boy?' He barked at me. I knew if he could have reached down and touched himself, he would have. There was a strand of drool dripping obscenely down from the corner of his mouth. I found myself almost hypnotised by it, watching it drip down onto his chest.
I shook my head to clear it. 'It ain't a question about who's won. It's about what's fuckin' right and fair, you bastard!' I told him. Pity I didn't break your jaw, I muttered angrily under my breath as I glowered back at him.
'Sorry to be the one breaking it to ya, but there will always be bastards like me around. Only difference is, they're gonna be able to sniff ya out now. You're branded after this. But now of course, you're ya big brother's too. Ooh, they'll be all over ya after this.' He shivered with anticipation at these images. When I didn't respond he winked lasciviously at me!
Ya might as well hang a sign around your neck that reads 'Damaged Goods' or why not, 'Dad's Slut, Don't Touch.'
The thin thread of restraint I was hanging by snapped with a bang and I saw my fist suddenly start to pummel his already battered face as if detached from my body. He didn't make one sound just like before.
Instead, he only smiled gently at me and somehow, I knew that image of him would be burned forever into my memory. His grin, revealing his bloody teeth, before he spat one or two out onto the floor.
He laughed happily like I'd finally done something to make him proud of me and maybe I had as he continued: 'Ya got yourself a good right hook, boy. But that ain't gonna help ya none in the real world, son. They'll always find ya out, ya see. Not to mention the nice ones, they'll just go with ya out of pity but then that's gotta be almost worse, huh? You'll be just br—'
I knocked out two more of those bloody teeth of his for that.
'Keep goin', son. Won't make it any less true.' He grinned bloodily. 'You're marked as long as ya live.'
I snarled in rage and hit him again and again.
I simply couldn't stop myself.
Daryl
Merle grabbed me. 'Stop! He's dead!'
I looked around in surprise. I hadn't heard him come in. Then again, I had been oblivious to everything around me, purely focused on 'punishing' Dad. I had no idea how long I'd been at him.
Merle pulled me back. Still not quite sure where I was or who had me, I fought to get free despite my runaway breathing and galloping heart.
Then I noticed Dad's barely recognisable bloody pulp of a face except for one unseeing blue eye standing out. I'd quickly moved onto the rest of him after and my hands and clothes were covered in his blood.
'He's dead!' Merle repeated and shook me.'Fuck! What did ya do?'
I stopped struggling and looked up at him, unable to believe it. Dad had seemed so invincible.
'What?' I breathed.
'He's definitely a goner.' He rushed over and felt his pulse then looked at me with a new kind of awe.
'What'? I asked again shakily. Despite how long I thought I wished for it.
' 's OK.' He rubbed my back.'Nobody who really knew him would blame ya.'
'I didn't mean to...I just wanted to shut him up...He was sayin' ...I'm ...I'm...br...,' My chest was heaving as I stuggled to get my words out. He forced me to meet his eyes before I could.
'No need to say what he told ya. I can guess. Ya know it was all lies, right? Jus' sick and twisted lies.'
'Merle...'
'After everything he did to ya, I don't know why ya didn't off him earlier.' He replied callously glancing at Dad with his mouth turned up in a sneer like he was an unpleasant insect I'd just stamped on. 'Now let ya big brother make it all better.'
What? I just murdered Dad. Was he seriously thinking about sex now?
He grinned lopsided at me as he ran his hand through my hair. Before he tipped my chin up suggestively and lowered his mouth to mine. But I shoved him away! Couldn't believe that he wanted to have a repeat of our show from yesterday but now in front of dead Dad this time. I could also tell he was turned on by what I had done probably.
Merle was as sick as Dad in his own way!
In fact, he didn't seem sorry or concerned about what I'd just done and there were no signs of him being high or even drunk. He was as sober as a judge for once in his life.
Didn't he care that I'd terminated Dad? In some way, he seemed pleased with me.
'Well?' His teeth were the fangs of a predator even as he grabbed me again and pulled my hair back not so playfully but almost painfully.
'Merle...' I blushed. 'Not here. Please. Let's deal with him first.' I jerked my head in the direction of the corpse. 'I n...need to wash my hands.' I glanced down at them unbelievingly.
'We can leave him for one night. Ain't like he's goin' anywhere.' He laughed harshly.
'Merle...Don't ya feel anything? He's dead..' Something flickered in his eyes.
'All I feel...Come here.' He avoided my question.
I melted into his arms. 'That's it, baby brother. Let Ole Merle take care of ya. Make ya all forget. Make the smell of him, his touch and his words disappear. He will fade over time, I promise he will.'
How could he be saying Dad's words, almost word for word while he meant the opposite and be imitating a ghost?
There was only one explanation. Merle thought like dad, used his words because he was his son.
As I was. Didn't mean that whenever he did it, it didn't send an icy shiver down my spine.
'Come on.' He kissed my neck and started to lift up my shirt. I pushed his hands away.
'We have to deal with him first.' I jerked my head in the direction of the body. 'Can't just leave him like that.'
'Fuck him. Ain't like he's goin' nowhere.' He got busy trying to seduce me with our dead father looking on through his one glassy eye. It creeped the shit out of me, if I was honest. I even found myself wondering if he wasn't just playing dead and even fancied that I saw the right corner of his mouth twitch.
I turned away in a hurry.
'No! Not here. I mean it, Merle!' I twisted myself free of his arms.
'Fine.' He shrugged but I saw sparks flash in his eyes. I knew that determined look of his.
He followed me out of the door but the second we got outside, he picked me up without warning and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman's lift! Laughing crazily like a loon and still carrying me like this, he locked the shed door behind us.
I finally got over my surprise and reacted. 'Jesus, bro, what ya doin'? I can walk ya know.' I hissed angrily in his ear.
He only chuckled at this, sounding disturbingly like Dad. 'Jus' carryin' ya over the threshold, my little, sweet Darlena.' He mocked. 'Ain't like I need his permission no more, is it?' He motioned back with his head towards the shed.
This only made me even more angry! I growled and pounded his back with my fists and kicked, trying to make him to put me down. 'Fuck you. Don't call me that. I ain't a girl.'
He only smirked and ignored this while running up the stairs with me – how could he run so fast with me on his shoulder?
'Calm down, Daryl. Only messin' with ya.' To prove his point, he threw me down on his bed and pounced on me. He kissed me deeply while covering me with his body and touching me.
Partly wanting to please him and desperately wanting him to make his promises come true, I half-heartedly went through all the motions. Kissed him back. Let him pull my clothes off. Still, it didn't feel right with Dad's blood on my hands.
Literally. Making the bed covers all dirty too. But it didn't look like my brother was going to give me a chance to wash it off.
What he wanted to do seemed disrespectful somehow. Dad had given us life, after all.
And I desperately needed the oblivion but when he prepared me and started to slide carefully inside, I completely freaked out. I heard my dead father's filthy mutterings in my ear 'It don't matter who ya with, man or woman...'. (I used to wonder if doing it with a girl would be different, maybe better but I had no experience)instead of Merle's whispered reassurances. I got confused between the past and the present and my big brother's soft caresses seemed to be exaggerated into Dad's desperate, careless groping.
'No! Stop! Get out of me!' I could hardly believe it when my assailant did what I told him to! Right away!
I could tell he was hurt more than disappointed when he looked at me. 'What's the fuck wrong with ya? Thought ya wanted it. Needed it - me after...'
'I did but then...'
'Ya thought for a minute there I was him, right?'
'Yes, Merle.' I looked down with hunched shoulders, unable to meet his eyes. Feeling ashamed because I wasn't tough enough to fight my dead father in my head.
He pulled me to him. 'Aw...Come here. He ain't gonna do it to ya again, ya know that, right? He ain't ever gonna hurt ya. Not any more.' He looked at me expectantly, with his eyes gleaming. 'Now, can we get back to...' He pointedly turned me over and started to try again.
'No! No!' I pushed him off me frantically, practially in tears.'Don't. I can't - not after...not after...'
'What the fuck, Darlena?'
I don't know why when I'd never had a problem with it before - well, maybe that wasn't completely true - I fucking hated that part when he pushed himself inside me.
When anyone did.
It was only because it was my brother and he would always comfort me while he did it. Do his best to distract me. In that way, Merle was similar to my teacher but neither of them could stop me dreading that stage.
'I can't, OK!' I was suddenly curled up against the wall, hyperventilating and hugging my knees without remembering how I go there.
Instead of getting angry like I was expecting, Merle crouched down bare naked on my level and looked at me curiously with concern. But he didn't say anything. Then an idea came to me. I wanted to know what it felt like. To be Dad, Carl or Merle. Have all the power and control. Was it even better for the last two than for me? Probably.
'Can't we do it the other way round, for once? Me doing you?'
He recoiled in repulsion and finally lost his temper. 'What the fuck ya suggestin', bro? I ain't no fuckin' fairy! I ain't gonna let ya fuck me like I'm a fag. 'Sides, I'm the older one!'
'But Merle...'
'Sorry, we do it my way or we don't do it at all.' He coldly laid the law down of how it was going to be from then on.
'Merle...' I guess I couldn't blame him.
'I ain't takin' it up the ass from any guy, not even you, Darlena!' He got up with rage in his eyes. 'Get the fuck dressed!' He hissed at me before he got up to stride out of the room.
I put a timid hand on his arm before he could. 'Is this what it's always gonna be like though, forever, like he said? Always gonna hear him whisperin' in my ear? Me freakin' out, thinkin' you're him when...when... ya go inside? Even though he's gone?'
His eyes softened when he thought about what I'd already been through with Dad. He brushed a stray bang out of my face.
'No, 'course not. He was just fuckin' with ya before you put him finally down.' His voice was more gentle now. 'Creep knew the game was up ...knew he was toast sooner or later. Jus' tryin' to get at ya one more time before we ended him.'
'He called me his, Merle! He did the whole time whenever he...we... (I swear he flinched a little when I said that and a shadow flitted across his eyes)...Said I'd always be no matter what, even if we killed him...until the day I die because he was my first!'
I didn't want to burden him with this shit but I had to speak my fears out loud. He sighed. The very last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him with my words.
'You ain't his. Never were. Ya mine 'cos most importantly ya want to be, right?'
When I nodded, he beamed. 'Ya mine forever, little bro.' He kissed my forehead chastely. 'You were never his...You've always been mine.'
I looked up at him with a shred of hope. 'Ya really think so?'
'Since the day ya were born and I'm not talking about the fuckin' that came after.' He laughed dirtily and let his fingers graze down my arm, slowly, lingeringly.
Seductively. A glow spread out in my chest and elsewhere.
'Ya know some people would say we're sick, evil for we do?' I trod carefully, skirting around egg shells. 'Some even wouldn't see a difference between us and what Dad did.'
He tore his lingering hand away from my bare skin like it burned him.'Who gives a fuck about other people and what they think?' He snapped. 'Ain't no-one ever helped us, only looked down their noses like we weren't even shit worth scrapin' off their shoe. We're Dixons and we do the fuck we like.'
He slung a casual arm around me and hugged me to his chest. I liked it when he did that, it made me feel safe.
'You wanna..?' He never gave up where his dick was concerned.
'Not now.' I didn't add that with Dad dead in the toolshed, it didn't seem right. Merle seemed to have no compunction.
To his credit, Merle seemed to accept that nothing was going to happen, at least not for a while. After I went to have a hot shower and change my clothes - I don't know how but we got to talking about the good times with Dad before he turned into a monster. Remembering the good times, Dad hadn't always been evil. He'd been a good father to us once and I guess that's what had kept me, us going.
I knew he was grieving for Dad, despite how he acted like he didn't care and that once, he had loved him. That's why he had trouble taking him out even after he saw the sick things he was doing to me and even after what he made us do to each other. He would probably never admit that though.
There were good memories. For example, our Dad holding me when I was small, stroking my hair and reading me the stories about the Red Indians on his lap which became very vivid all of a sudden. One fond memory in particular came to mind that I hadn't given much thought to was when he would do the cowboys and Indian Chief's voices – making them come alive for me.
Sometimes Merle joined even if he were getting a bit too old for it and if I was really lucky, he even pitched in with the characters that were left, changing his voice to imitate them just like Dad.
It was true what people said that the small stuff meant the most in the end – like remembering running barefoot over the grass with your big brother chasing you. Until he caught you and you both fall down, laughing and with your legs entangled with each another's. The same with Dad and his Indian stories which I'd long forgotten but somehow his death brought them up for me again. Those good times were long gone and gone forever but I hoped that didn't mean we couldn't make new ones.
It was unbelievable when you compared him with how he acted when I got older. Probably Mama's death had something to do with it not that I wanted to give him any excuse for what he did.
That led to the memory of what he'd tried to do to Merle which made me wince. Worse - I could see it all happening right before my eyes like a movie. Him on top of my brother, feeling him up all over, preparing to do what he usually did to me!
Of course, my brother never mentioned it again or seemed to be affected after his bad dream about it. I sensed he probably never would. But I guessed that it must be still playing on his mind, at least on a subconsious level and I was just glad that he'd been nearly out of his mind on the drugs.
'I miss him too.' We'd gone through three packs of beers (Merle still drinking faster and more than me) and I guess the spliff was helping to mellow me out too. Merle had offered me stronger shit but I'd declined.
He looked up at me in shock (he was picking out a big slice of takeaway pizza. I wasn't hungry). 'What? Are you serious?' He asked me sharply. Looking at me as if he thought I had finally lost it.
'I know it's pretty fucked up. But we can try to remember the father he used to be, 'cos he weren't always bad. Remember the Red Indian stories he used to tell us? You two telling them to me together were always the best ones.'
Merle's face softened, taking years off his face. Now he looked less jaded and his expression gradually became sunnier as we recalled the good times with Dad until we were laughing so hard our bellies hurt.
'Remember that tree-house he built for us out in the woods?', he said.
In that moment of time, we were just brothers – nothing more and nothing less.
But it didn't last of course.
Nothing ever did.
