Warning: Do not eat or drink while reading this chapter. There I warned you, my lovelies, (that is your name now) - Delta9

Chapter 3: Pre-op & Sloths

"Never trust a man that wants to put his finger in your butt."

Daryl was in definite agreement with that excellent redneck logic, slightly pressing himself into Merle sat beside him on the table as the pretty, blonde Dr. Kaycee wiped the inner part of his arm with a alcohol swab.

Thinking of that line made the whole thing funny again. Merle bit down on his bottom lip to keep from cracking up. But being restrained was never his forte and he ended sniggering. Daryl shot him a quick dirty look accompanied by hard elbow to his stomach.

"Whatcha gettin' all butt hurt 'bout?" Merle asked unintentionally, last he checked Daryl couldn't read minds, as he so often said when he screwed up something because he hadn't been listening.

He then realized his absolute brilliance of his word choice. Unfortunately his ingenious went unappreciated by the others. The doctors were too professionally stuck-up to laugh and when it came to Daryl, if looks could kill, Merle would've gone in full cardiac arrest so fast the doctors wouldn't have enough time to do anything for him.

So he made a mental note of that exact quotation for when he retold this adventure, and it would be retold many a times at the bar.

Don't get him wrong, Merle did feel sorry for Daryl. Hell, he even wished it was him instead. Merle wasn't big on hospital either but he would handle it a whole lot better than the baby on his right.

Daryl had snapped at Merle more than few times that he couldn't call him baby brother anymore, as he was very much full-grown. But no matter how old Daryl got, to Merle he would always be the tot wearing the funny head guard due to him falling out of a second storey window while their mother had gone for her afternoon pass out.

Come to think of it, that horrific incident was probably why hospitals freaked Daryl out so bad to this day.

His hand came down on Daryl's back. Daryl looked over at him, confused. He couldn't read minds so he didn't know what Merle had been thinking about. It wasn't like he would remember it if Merle told him, being so young Daryl didn't have a memory of it (besides the subconscious trauma). Merle would never forget it as it was one of the worst days of his life.

Daryl had loved the outside from day he was born. Anytime there was an open window, he would be looking out it and pushing against the screen like he was trying to get out. He got his wish when pushing against the upstairs window screen, it was loose and he slipped through. Merle hadn't been home, their neighbors had found the unconscious, adventurous toddler lying on the ground and called 9/11. So Daryl, just having learn to walk, (nearly never doing so again), with only a handful of words in his vocabulary; ham, no, yes, moo, ma, ouch, nose, and 'ruck which meant truck, was taken to a strange place with no idea what was going on, only that he was all alone and in a lot of pain.

"There's a bathroom across the hall, do you think you can make it alright?" asked Dr. Kaycee pulling the syringe from Daryl's arm and gave a small plastic sample cup.

"Got this far," Daryl growled. He was way cuter and better with chicks when he only knew eight words.

Merle could see past the bravado and doubted Daryl could walk far. But he did manage to get down off the table by himself and held back any winces making his way over to the door. Still Merle wondered if he should go with him, then remembered he was a guy and they didn't go to the bathroom together.

"How much is this gonna cost?" Merle got down to business as soon as the door shut behind him. He could handle at least do something about that for Daryl.

"Well it all depends - um – if he even needs surgery – but there is no flat cost on that," Dr. Kaycee was stammering.

"Can ya give me a ballpark?" asked Merle.

"It's hard to say –"

"On average?" Merle pressed, becoming as snippy as Daryl.

"What Dr. Hayes is trying to say is there are a lot of variables that we don't know at this point. If it is appendicitis, which I'm almost certain it is, given his symptoms, you're looking at around fifteen thousand dollars."

That hit Merle hard.

"Does your brother have any health insurance?" asked Dr. Kaycee concerned.

"I dunno."

Daryl had a job, Merle didn't know what that was at the moment, just that he'd been away for two weeks recently working and then he went out hunting trip. That'd been a great two weeks. Since the brothers were reaching the point where they were getting on each other's nerves and things were going to start to get bloody.

It was only a natural reaction to an alpha male like Merle coming in suddenly to the territory of a solitary beta like Daryl. Their habits tended to clash. For instance, Daryl got up at the crack of dawn and apparently liked to shoot deer from the windows upstairs, Merle liked to sleep in…shit, the old doctor had been talking this whole time.

"…we're presented with two surgical options; open surgery which is the straightforward incision along his abdomen and the surgeon removing it or we could do it laparoscopically. That is making three smaller incision and using a small camera to see the inside and removing the appendix with small tools instead of cutting him right open, which usually leads to shorter recovery time. It is slightly pricey though."

Merle thought that jamming a camera and using little devices inside someone over the touch sensation of a surgeon's hands did not sound beneficial but the experience doctor sounded like he supported it and if it meant Daryl wouldn't have to stay in the hospital as long and would be back up on his feet quicker, he was all for that. On the other hand the medical expense was problematic, if the cost could be shaved down a little…

"With appendectomies because it's a simple procedure, not as intricate a heart valve replacement, I find there is little benefit. He might get out of here one day earlier but there is a greater chance with the laparoscopy of complications and then he'll need more surgery," the young doctor added her two cents. "If it were me or my family, I would go for open surgery."

"This has to be decided by Daryl, doesn't it?" Merle rubbed his forehead. He had his mind made up but he had a feeling it wasn't up to him.

Which was equivalent to asking a death row prisoner to choose his execution method.

Dr. Kaycee nodded. "Yeah. We'll walk him through it."

"Don't get into the cost with him. Best leave that all to me."

Before either doctor could say that was fine. Daryl, perhaps looking paler and more run down, came back into the room. The piss cup was three quarters full and Merle was surprised he managed that after how many times he went in the waiting room.

"Perfect. Thank you," Dr. Kaycee taking the cup from him.

"Your welcome?" Daryl said.

The young doctor lost her professional face and laughed along with Merle. Even Daryl smiled, the shy one that he use to do when he just a little thing and women would coo over him. Always the sweet one, his baby brother.

"I'll run these down to the lab," Dr. Scottman took the blood and urine samples and left.

"Alright, that's it for now. Do you have any further questions?"

Both of them shook their head.

"I have to go check on another patient but as soon as I get word from the lab, I will be right back up here. You two can just chill in here while we wait for the results. Just in case we don't see each other again, it was nice meeting you both," said Dr. Kaycee.

She shook their hands again, lingering a bit longer with Daryl to give him a reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder. Merle hoped they could continue with her as she was good with his baby brother. Being easy on the eyes was just a perk.

Daryl sat in the chair for a few minutes, then climbed back on to table and curled up in the fetal position. The table didn't look overly comfortable, Merle folded up Daryl's jacket on the chair beside him and gave to him to use as a pillow.

"Layin' like that help?" asked Merle.

"Don't make it worse," Daryl grumbled.

It was becoming painful to watch. Merle ventured out in to the hallway to see if he could track down Dr. Kaycee and see if she had perhaps forgot to give Daryl some drugs for the pain. The hospital hallways were eerily abandoned. He must to walked a whole ten feet without hearing anything. When he went another ten and didn't see the good doctor or anyone for that matter, he went back to the room.

Daryl's eyes were glossy and a little pink. Merle would bet the entire medical bill that he had been crying while he was alone. Which made the room feel awkward.

"What happened to your green truck?" asked Merle.

"Tranny went."

"Where did ya get that one?"

"Auction, remember, ya were there."

"Naw."

"Yeah ya were."

"Wait. Is that the six hundred dollar piece that you had to get towed home?"

"Yep," Daryl said somehow managing to get smug, "told ya I'd get it to run."

"How much help did you get from Jess?"

"He gave me some parts, that was it."

"Yeah sure," Merle said sarcastically. The only people worse at mechanics than Daryl were people who had never seen a car and Merle would know as he had tried to teach him, and failed as you can't teach an attention span. "You can't even hold the flashlight right."

However Daryl had a pretty good memory and they took turns bringing up the other's mistakes trying to fix things and other acts of stupidity.

"…Remember the hornet nest. I wanted to get a bug bomb and you just decided to spray that shit with the hose," said Daryl.

"I got the nest down."

"Yeah but pissed the fuck outta the bees."

"What are ya bitching about, you got stung – what - once. I got stung eight times."

Merle could hardly eat for the next thirty-six hours after that because three of the eight stingers had gone in his bottom lip and it had swollen up to twice its normal size.

"Tell me, does beer taste good sucking it out of a straw or does it taste like being a fucking moron," Daryl remembered that part of the story too.

"Tastes like being a man."

Even though Daryl didn't want to laugh, him and Merle did so for two minutes. He knew he was overtired and Daryl was probably worse off being up at four. Daryl immediately stopped when the door opened.

"Good news, we don't have to run anymore any tests," Dr. Kaycee said brightly.

Daryl looked so relieved that you'd think just hearing that there was going to be no rectal exam (For the record, still funny) in his near future had instantly cured him.

"All signs are pointing to appendicitis so we want to get you into the operating room. However all of our on call surgeons are tied up with a car accident but you will be a-okay to wait for a bit. We got some things to talk about anyway."

Dr. Kaycee sat back on the rolly stool. She went through the diagnosis. In laymen's terms, the appendix was a useless little sac and the only thing it ever did was what Daryl's was up to, explode, and if that happened a bunch of nasty stuff would spell out into his other useful organs, which would kill Daryl if left unchecked. So before that happened they would remove the time bomb. That lead them in to the part Merle and the doctor's talked about; his surgical options. Daryl, as expected, was very apprehensive about the whole thing. He looked over to Merle with this what-do-I-do look a few times.

Merle was getting more out of this consultation, as it was the second time he heard it and was actually listening. He kept quiet whenever Daryl looked at him and he didn't want to persuade Daryl in to open surgery if he would feel more comfortable with crazy robot arm surgery. But it looked like he too made up his mind when she mentioned the risk of complications.

"No need to get fancy, just hack the damn thing out," was his final decision.

"Alright, open it is." Dr. Kaycee understood what he meant. "Let's get ya checked in."

She took them down the ghost town hallway to a perfectly square corridor with a hospital bed in each corner. The one on in the first corner on the left was occupied with an ambiguous lump. Dr. Kaycee showed them to the bed on the right in the fartherest corner and gave Daryl a polka dotted gown. While he changed out of his clothes behind the light yellow curtain, Dr. Kaycee excused herself.

There was an odd squall from behind the curtain.

"Ya ok, baby brother?" asked Merle.

"Yeah, just twisted too much."

"You need some help?" Merle tugged at the curtains edge a bit.

"No." Daryl snapped, pulling the curtain back.

"Y'know I use to change yer diapers back in the day."

Merle heard a little giggle; Dr. Kaycee came up behind him an IV bag in hand.

"I've changed since then. A lot." Daryl retorted.

The pair on the other side exchanged amused expressions. Merle wasn't sure if Daryl meant for any sort of double entendre in reference to dick size because it was Daryl who said it but then again he was a Dixon.

"How 'bout if I help you," Dr. Kaycee offered.

" 'm fine."

It took a little long but Daryl not only managed to get dressed by himself, he'd also tied up the back on his own as well. He sat on the bed, kicking a naked leg back and forth. It took an incredible amount of restraint for Merle not to start teasing him.

"I got you this very stylish id bracelet as well," as she put one of those plasticy hospital bracelets that read DIXON, DARYL in blue letters and some other things.

She hooked him up with the IV next. Merle couldn't watch her stick Daryl again so he focused on the doctor. She was the best looking doctor he'd ever seen and he couldn't help but make up a story in his head that she had been a stripper to put herself through med school.

"This is going to help with the pain and it'll make you sleepy," she said.

Her blonde eyebrows scrunched up, and her full lips turned down suddenly.

"You're feelin' a little warm, it's normal." Dr Kaycee pressed a hand against Daryl's forehead.

Now that she mentioned it, Daryl did look like his cheeks were flushed. How had Merle missed that, he prided himself in being quite intuitive.

"Merle," Dr. Kaycee said quietly, beckoning him back with her as she went to leave.

They walked to the edge of the corridor.

"I didn't want to freak him out but a high fever is a warning sign that the appendix is about to burst. Daryl's got a moderate fever. I'll come back and check in in a bit or leave word with someone too. But if he starts to get really hot, there is a nurse's station right down this hall. Tell them what's going on," Dr. Kaycee explained.

Merle thought back to everything he'd learnt a short while ago about how bad things went if that stupid little sac burst.

"Oh hey, Daryl is going to be fine. I'm just telling you as a precaution because I know that you're gonna keep a good eye on him." She gave him gave him that same reassuring smile that she had Daryl.

Merle wondered if Kaycee ever got a break from being Dr. Kaycee because he sure would like to take her out for a beer.

"Thanks, doc." Was all Merle said as his mind was swarmed with too many other things to think of a good pick up line, a first for him.

They parted ways. Merle went back over to his little brother who had crawled in between the sheets. He looked at the IV, wondering what drugs they were giving Daryl.

"You could go home if ya want," said Daryl, twirling his id bracelet around his wrist restlessly.

Sorely tempting, but he needed to be monitored. Even if it weren't for that fever, Merle couldn't leave him with those scared puppy eyes that glanced up at him. He pulled a chair up to Daryl's bedside and sat down.

I'm not going anywhere. The action stated. To which Daryl looked extremely grateful but thankfully didn't start being a pussy about it.

Merle was well aware that removing an appendix wasn't a dangerous procedure but seeing Daryl in that official hospital gown hooked up to an IV chewed at his nerves. At least Daryl began to look less pained and way less stressed once the drugs kicked in. He lazily brushed at the sleeve of his coat hanging off the corner of the chair, then clumsily pulled it over to him to inspect it.

"That's the problem with camo, can't tell when its dirty," Daryl sniffed his forest patterned jacket. "It smells clean. Kinda. Smell it."

He held out the jacket to Merle.

"I ain't gonna smell yer dirty jacket. It'll smell like you."

Daryl put the gown up over his nose.

"I smell fine."

The gown didn't make it back to it's proper place as Daryl began chewing on the collar afterward.

"Those drugs kicking in hard, huh?" asked Merle.

"Huh?" the collar fell out of his mouth.

Merle unseated himself and felt Daryl's forehead. He was a warm but not burning his hand. If he was going to keep a good eye on Daryl, he was in dire need of caffeine. There had been a coffee machine back along the hallway they walked down, Merle recalled.

"I'm gonna grab some coffee, I'll be right back."

"From where?"

"Just down the hall."

Merle turned around to go once Daryl looked like he got it. There was a clatter behind him. The IV stand had fallen over as Daryl had sat up and probably tried to use it with support.

"I'll come with," Daryl explained

"No, you have to stay here 'cause yer tied to a pole."

"It's got wheels on it,"

Merle forced Daryl into lying back down and then power walked down the hall. The problem with the hospital was that the hallways was identical and it wasn't as easy to find the vending machine. But he did come across a coffee machine.

He'd never gotten a cup of coffee from a vending machine before, he was curious to see how this was going to work. Merle inserted a bill and hit the dark roast button. The machine sensed he was in a hurry and kept spitting his dollar bill out at him, and even more frustratingly sucking it back up in the next second. He whipped out the bill and flattened it out on the corner of the machine and reinserted it. After some clicks and the sound of coffee being poured, a little light by the buttons blinked green and he was allowed to open the little translucent door in the middle to a small Styrofoam cup of joe. It wasn't half bad.

Having kept meticulously track of how he got there, Merle had a much easier time getting back.

Apparently being by himself for all over eleven odd minutes was too much as when Merle came back Daryl was hiding under his jacket.

"Hey baby brother," Merle greeted the forest camoflage lump that was conspicuous as hell on the white sheeted bed.

Quack, quack, quack, quack.

Leave it to Daryl to carry a duck call in his pocket.

Quack, quack.

"Don't." Merle warned.

Quack.

"Stop it."

Quack, quack, quack.

"It's not me, there's a duck 'round here," laughed Daryl under the jacket.

Merle pulled the coat off his head. But Daryl managed to hide the duck call he obviously had on his other side.

"Give it," Merle held out his hand.

Brazenly Daryl put the duck call back in his mouth and blew it.

"That's fuck you in duck," he said

Anyone whose ever had to take something away from a small child knows that the best way to do that is to pretend you don't care. That's what Merle chose to do, sitting back in the chair.

"Where ya working these days, little brother?" asked Merle casually.

"I ain't 'cause the roads are squishy."

"Where do ya work when they aren't? A trucking company."

"Nu-uh."

Daryl's head lolled over to his left shoulder, then to his right, then back to his left.

Merle snapped his fingers by Daryl's face until he got his attention.

"Daryl, where do ya work?" Merle was hoping he would get an answer so he could find out if Daryl had any health benefits.

"I'll tell ya where I don't work. I don't work at the grocery store."

Merle was unsure if he was supposed to understand that or if that was the drugs talking. Either way he began to feel hopeless about finding out where he did work. Especially when Daryl started laughing almost uncontrollably.

"What's so funny?"

"I was –" Daryl burst into laughter again, "I was thinking – ha - about sloths."

He pulled a cell phone out of his jacket and gave it to Merle. "Put a picture of a sloth on my phone. It would make me very happy."

"I don't know how to do that."

"Figure it out, yer a smart man."

The current background on Daryl's phone was Daryl in bed it looked like with Mo the cat laying on top of his head.

"Cute." Merle mocked him.

"That's how Mo wakes me up," explained Daryl.

Daryl did a completely one-eighty, he stopped giggling , face frozen took the cell back and hit some buttons on it and then put it up to his ear. Merle wondered if he should stop Daryl from waking up who ever he was calling a three thirty in the morning.

"Hey. Hi Simone. It's Daryl…I know it's late. I didn't want to forget. Could ya let my dogs out in a couple of hours and feed Mo...yeah…I'm at the hospital. I have to get my appendix out…Thanks so much, I'll cut yer grass…Naw my brother's with me."

Daryl hung up.

"Whose Simone?"

"Tha neighbor, she's taken care of the pets a few times, when I go hunting and working"

"Where's that again?"

"Sloth," ordered Daryl, tossing the phone over to him.

Merle couldn't get a picture of a sloth without a internet connection so he got the camera on the thing going and took a picture of Daryl.

"That's not me – I mean that's not a sloth. That's me. I'm not a sloth but I feel like one, feel so sllloooww." Daryl waved his arms around, tucking his thumbs into his palms and curling his fingers like sloth claws.

Naturally Merle took a video of that. He'd send that to himself later.

They mucked around with the phone, having a high score snake competition that Merle won as Daryl could barely hold on to the phone because he kept trying to get the snake to move by physically moving the phone. One time he ended up accidently throwing it. The phone went on to live for another ten minute before the battery died.

"Hey Merle, when I'm done, can we go to Wendy's, like for real?" asked Daryl.

"Yep."

"Ya promise?"

"Yes."

"Can you promise one more thing?"

"What?"

"You have to say yes,"

"What is it?"

"I was watchin' this show tha other night and it was 'bout this guy whose name was Jeff and he was addicted to heroin and he had declared legally dead twice an' if he ever overdosed again, he'd die. And I kept thinkin' of you an' all the shit ya get up too when you go off" Daryl wiped his eyes that were tearing up. "Ya gotta quit, Merle. You have to promise you will."

"That's TV, son. They always play it up."

"No it's all real. I got déjà vu from watching it 'cause I've seen ya get as fucked up as Jeff was and I can't take it anymore."

"I'm not on heroin."

"Don't matter, it's all the same shit that'll kill ya. You have to quit." Daryl began getting snarly under the tears.

It was far too late, or early depending on how you look at it, and Merle was much too tired to be getting into what he did with his life with Daryl.

He's in a hospital bed. Don't hit him. Merle had to tell himself.

"Look, Darlina-"

"No, I'mma boy," Daryl interrupted.

"Yer wearing a dress right now."

Daryl frowned.

"I will show you that I'm a boy." Daryl made a move to expose himself and his condition it was no bluff.

"No, no no." Merle stopped him.

"Say I'm a boy."

"Aight, yer a boy," Merle said, "on the outside."

"And inside. I like girls. Once I watched Asian porn. Actually it was more than once, it was like every time I had the house to myself when I was fourteen. And fifteen," Daryl confessed looking very guilty. "Don't be mad."

"I'm so mad at you" Merle said jokingly.

His little brother looked like he just had his heart broken until Merle started laughing, Daryl laughed with him.

Daryl babbled on about anything that his drug addled mind thought of;

"…my fingers are too short for my body. I got ripped off in the finger department. Lookit how stubby they are…"

"…what if my name had a click in the middle like a Africa name, how would they spell it on this thingie…"

"…and the plants got so mad at mankind for polluting the planet, they released a crazy poison in the air that made everyone kill themselves…"

Merle's coffee wasn't doing the trick and he was beginning to nod off again.

"…I can't lift my head," Daryl's voice got high with panic that jolted him awake.

Merle moved his chair closer to Daryl's bedside and stroked his brother's hair, hoping that old calm down trick was still valid.

"Daryl, ssssshhhh. 'kay?" said Merle. "Yer just too tired to raise your head right now."

As long as there was physical contact, Daryl lay complacently. He had run out of things to say and now just slowly. He felt a little warmer than he did a while ago. Merle thought about going to the nurse's station but before he could, Dr. Kaycee came striding up. (She must have had a Red Bull)

"Alright, Mr. Dixon, your reservation in the O.R just opened up."

Dr. Kaycee's attempt at humor didn't land with Daryl. It wasn't that he was too doped up to get it. It was that he understood it perfectly.

She pulled the side rails on the bed, locking them into place with a click. When she started to roll the bed, Daryl started getting upset.

"I don't want to do this," Daryl pleaded, "Merle, I don't want to do this. Don't make me do this."

"It'll be alright. Be over and done before ya know it." Merle said.

Daryl bit down on his lip and shook his head. He had the same pre-cry face he had when he was little.

Merle was allowed to walk down with them, helping Dr. Kaycee maneuver the bed, which kept Daryl calmed down.

They stopped outside grey double doors with small rectangle windows. Dr. Kaycee knelt down by Daryl.

"Merle has to wait out here, ok? And you and me are gonna go in there and you're going to go to sleep, and when you wake up it'll all be over. You're almost done." Dr. Kaycee said gently.

Subconsciously traumatized Daryl didn't look horrified at the idea, which was the equivalent to an I'm-ok-with-this look from non-traumatized people.

Before he was pulled away, Daryl was reached out to Merle for a hug. It was weird, not just because Daryl was laying down but because they were Dixons but he thought before Daryl had always been the sweet one, the softer of the two so Merle obliged, letting hugging Daryl around him the neck and returned it.

Merle felt his heartstrings tugged at in way they hadn't been for years as the hug broke off and Daryl disappeared behind the double doors.

A/N: First line was from one of my favorite sitcoms My Name is Earl.

Thanks soo much for the reviews, I made this chapter extra long just for you (and wrote you a poem and that's hard for me): Peachuzoid, Mei Ju, JackAndHoney, JustAGirlWithALoveForFiction, Brazen Hussy, zombieslayer5, ChooWoo, fishtalia13 (and thanks for the recommendation) h8erade, Chemical Ghost, irishartemis, Guest, Rebecca taylor, crazstiz, Pontythings, I luv ewansmile, SoulMore, Effigy, TheKid'sKid, Hi the Guest, BanannaFlvdSnow, kryi0sity, Rat, and Guest (2x)

I also want to give a shoutout to my good tumblr buddy, awkward-idgit, without out you my feed would just be full of bugs because that's what I like apparently.

If you have a tumblr and need some friends, you should hit me up because I love following peeps who share common fandoms with myself because they post the best stuff. I'm at delta4 . tumblr . com

There is a sloth on my tumblr, I'm just saying.

More updates to come.