He stretched, tired, aching and worn out after maintaining the link for close to three hours.
She had proved to be a good teammate - not too submissive, not too assertive, neither of which was good, accepting of his guidance during the few minutes toward the end when he had attempted to direct her using her own sensory input to which he'd opened himself, and possessed of a burning curiosity about him to which, of course, he couldn't give in.
No attachment.
Which was all the more important in his case because of who he was related to.
Merle would be home in less than two hours and he had a shitton of stuff to do in here to make him believe he'd been busy the entire day while Merle had been gone. Living with Merle was both a burden and, ironically, a relief as it deflected a whole lot of suspicion away from him.
His older brother Merle, Daryl's only surviving relative, worked in the human police force established by the Feina so as to not scare everyone shitless as they would have been if the entire police force had been made up of aliens. It was due to this fact that Daryl knew that not everyone who had so wholeheartedly submitted to their rule of Earth was a complete and utter moron. In some cases it was enough to just be afraid of Earth's new lords and stupid enough to hope that serving them in any capacity could save you in the end for people to just roll over and pretend everything was well.
People like Merle.
People who liked having and exerting power over others, but completely lost their shit if someone else suddenly had power over them.
People who believed that if they were submissive enough, this entire occupation would blow over like a storm.
Daryl believed no such thing, but then he had always been observant. Nearly every action on the part of the humanoid aliens that had been occupying Earth for as long as he remembered screamed to him that they thought mankind was unworthy to survive. To them, humans were little more than the roaches and rats every town and city was infested with these days because their new overlords had outlawed any and all substances toxic for the environment or indiginous life forms.
Which was the reason why Daryl started his chores with the tiny window over the tin sink in their kitchenette, unable to stand the specks of fly shit that were highlighted during sunrise every morning. He hated starting his days with the shadows of fly shit dancing over the skin of his face while he downed his cup of synthcaf.
Their apartment was anything but luxurious. It didn't even rate in the "comfortable" range as far as Daryl was concerned, with the windows leaking water when it rained, and all the doors askew so there was always noise and always a draft. But then again, when had any apartment he'd lived in ever been comfortable? There was one bedroom, which Merle had given to him to use so he'd have some measure of privacy, while Merle himself slept on the couch in the glorified sitting area they both referred to as their living room.
Sectioned off the living room, but with only a partial wall and no door in between, was their kitchenette which featured one of their two windows to the outside world. These days, with the creature comforts of humanity ranking pretty low on the list of priorities, windows were a luxury. Their second one was in the living room, so he didn't have to carry Merle's smelly blankets very far to hang them over the window sill and air them out.
Merle had left that morning after waking Daryl and making synthcaf for the both of them. Because of their history, both common and individual, they were uncomfortable even being in the apartment together while one or the other was getting dressed or undressed, so they tended to avoid those situations whenever possible. By the time Daryl had finally been up, Merle had already left for work – and he would be fast asleep or out partying with his fellow turncoat cops by the time Daryl went to bed again. Daryl was careful to handle things the same way on the days he went to work first and Merle slept in because he had a late shift coming up.
Their relationship had always been tense, even as kids, but Merle hadn't hesitated for a second over taking Daryl in. Daryl was blood, and no matter how shitty Merle might have treated him in the past – and continued to sometimes treat him -, that did count for something. Daryl was grateful for getting a roof to sleep under and a room to himself where he could lay his head, and he reciprocated by helping Merle wherever he could.
His cover job with TE didn't pay much, but he made sure to contribute so Merle wouldn't feel exploited by his little brother – and Merle acknowledged this by not flipping his lid on him too often. When he was in his cups, however, or stressed out over taking in humans that he knew would be slated for execution for what they'd done to get arrested for, he tended to yell abusive shit at his brother that actually rivalled what they'd both been dealt by their dad as children.
Daryl wasn't stupid. He realized that this was his brother's default way of dealing with stress – just as it was his own. As they had both never had an adult in their lives who relieved stress in socially acceptable ways, they had both adopted their abusive father's methods of doing so, which sometimes resulted in shouting matches that had the neighbors banging on their walls or ceilings. And once, just once, four months ago, Merle had raised a hand against his younger brother and had kicked and beaten the shit out of him for daring to voice an opinion that just happened to be different from Merle's – but the next day, after sobering up, he'd regretted it bitterly.
During the entire week following that incident he had made sure to be far away from their apartment whenever Daryl was even remotely doing anything that showed off the aftereffects of that beating – bruises, a split lip and cheek, headaches, a nasty cough from his bruised ribs, the blood he'd pissed for three days. He had never apologized, but Daryl knew that the memory of that day was still killing Merle, and they were both careful to avoid bringing it back up in any way.
After cleaning their "bathroom" – a tiny cell of a room with another metal sink with a cold water tap and a chemical toilet – , their kitchenette and their living room window, and collecting their dirty laundry to take out to the laundromat, he went to check on Merle's blankets. Finding them too smelly even after airing, he added them to the laundry bag and replaced them with the spare set kept in the bedroom before making his own bed. His cheeks went hot when he saw he'd left his pills standing around, and he quickly stashed them away in his drawer so Merle wouldn't see them when he came in here to change after work. It wasn't as if he was deliberately trying to upset his older brother, after all.
He made a final quick tour of the entire apartment, making sure he'd done everything except cleaning the floors, before he left for the laundromat.
.-.
Merle closed the door to their apartment with a deep sigh. It wasn't only the absence of sounds that told him Daryl wasn't home. On some subconscious level, he and his brother seemed to sense each other's presence, which was creepy and reassuring at the same time. Knowing that his brother was around, that he was safe and well, felt really good, but at the same time he was always afraid there might be something wrong with him. He had no idea if it was normal to have such a close connection with a sibling, and he had nobody to ask – he hadn't even asked Daryl yet if he experienced the same thing.
He looked around appreciatively, taking in the two spotless windows and the stack of fresh blankets on the sofa that told him how Daryl had spent his free day. While he boasted about doing Daryl a favor by taking him in, he obviously realized that Daryl wasn't the only one to get something out of this deal. Not only did he contribute to their rent, but he took care of their apartment almost exclusively, with Merle always claiming he was too tired after work to do much in the way of house work – as if Daryl didn't work four days a week himself. Whenever he started feeling bad about letting his younger brother do all the work in here he took great care to get shitfaced so as to not have to think about his brother, about the day he'd showed up at his door, and about life in general.
Merle hated facing facts.
As Daryl wasn't home yet and he didn't fancy eating alone, he put the two frozen dinners he'd picked up on his way home into the fridge before making his way to the one truly closed-off room they had to get changed out of his fancy uniform and into something comfortable for an evening on the couch spent in the company of a few cans of beer. Unlike Daryl, Merle was old enough to remember the taste of real beer and know that what they were sold by that name these days didn't even come close – just like synthcaf couldn't hold a candle to coffee -, but it was no use complainin'.
The bedroom was as neat as the rest of the apartment, but Merle looked about apprehensively as he entered, wary of spotting any of Daryl's personal items. However, Daryl had remembered to put everything away and the room looked as faceless as a motel room. A weight seemed to lift off Merle's chest as he got his sweatpants and an old, ratty Tee out of their old, beat up wardrobe which only had one working door left – he had to manhandle the other one out of his way to get to his things.
The good side was Daryl's.
The closed good door caught his eye for just a second and he almost flinched away from the wardrobe. A look of anguish came over his face as he kept looking at the door before tenderly placing his palm against it for a moment. Heaving in a deep breath, he grabbed his things from the board they were lying on, thrust in the clotheshanger with his uniform and almost threw the door closed, fleeing the room with his clothes still clutched in his hand. Being in Daryl's room, being reminded of his brother, of why he was living with him, always had him freak out.
He passed the fridge on his way to the couch and snatched up two cans of "beer", dropping them next to his fresh blankets as he reached the couch, before getting dressed. The blankets had his mind on overdrive again right away, and he grabbed and spread them over the couch before hitting the switch of their battered old LED TV and pulling up the ring of one of his beer cans. He meant to be well on his way to oblivion by the time Daryl returned.
.-.
The dirty bootprint on their scuffed gray door told Daryl that Merle was in as he returned with a bag stuffed full of warm, dry laundry. It didn't smell as good as he remembered from the days when their mom was still doing it, nor was it as soft because all he had to use on it was detergent, but it was clean again and Merle's blankets didn't smell of booze, sweat and cigs any longer, which was definitely a plus.
Shouldering the door open, he heard the TV in the living room blaring what the stations considered news these days, mixed with the buzzsaw sound of Merle snoring. Passing the living room, Daryl switched off the TV, then went straight to the bedroom to put away their clean stuff before toeing off his boots with a relieved sigh and turning to their bathroom. He got his cleaning utensils out one final time for the day as he regarded the dirt they had both tracked in since he'd left, congratulating himself on not doing the floor earlier.
Once he was all done, he checked the fridge for food and was pleased to find that Merle had remembered to bring two convenience meals on his way home. Removing the plastic lids, he switched on their stove and put them in side by side before setting the timer.
And then, with all his chores done, on top of his first link-up with his new agent, the events of the day and of his life caught up with him. His shoulders slumped as he rubbed his eyes with his left hand while splaying his right on the narrow, scratched-up plastic countertop to steady himself.
Waiting for their meals to be done, listening to Merle's snoring, his whole body aching, he once again felt deeply ashamed for practically living a double life behind Merle's back. His brother had joined the go-between police force in hopes of saving both of them if push came to shove. He was doing his best to please his alien superiors while not aggravating the human population in his precinct too much.
Merle was afraid, and here he was, risking all that Merle might have achieved, in the vague hope of overthrowing the oppressive government set up by the Feina ever since they'd conquered Earth without a single shot fired. The three massive ships with which they had showed up from the depths of space, moving in from behind Jupiter which had hidden them for the last decade of their trip toward Earth, had made it all too clear that any kind of resistance was utterly futile and bound to result not only in failure but retaliatory strikes that would have devastated the entire planet, rendering most of it uninhabitable.
Himself, he could have risked without a second thought.
But even though Merle had behaved less than stellar as a brother for most of their lives, he still felt he owed him a lot for being there for his younger brother while they were kids and for taking him in after his disastrous last mission as an agent three years before.
Risking Merle weighed heavy on his conscience, and he was finding it harder to reconcile with every day.
Something was bound to give.