A/N – In wanting to pair season four badass Carol with season three Merle, I had to go a little AU. The method behind my madness is that:
1.Season one and two Carol wouldn't have been able to take Merle in ANY way.
2.Season three Carol is mired in Daryl.
3.Season four Carol though is like all bets are off.
So, sit back, relax and enjoy.
Setting – Merle never hooked up with the Governor. Carol has been thrown out on her own by Rick though and comes across Merle when he's out one day. And though Merle never had a scene with Carol in season one, I'm pretending he did and that he called her Mouse from the get go.
Kicking the ground as he walked Merle glanced around casually. He was close to home, but still felt like he was being watched. No fucking zombie was out this way, that he knew for sure. He'd set traps in a circle around where he was living now.
But a human? A wily one? That was another matter. So Merle affects casualness as he continues on, checking his traps, gathering the small game he'd gotten and then turning toward where he's made his home nowadays.
Dispatching the couple of zombies hung up on his traps he leaves them in place. He's found that their smell masks his, gives him more safety. He can work with that. Smell was the least of his worries now, now he was all about survival.
It wasn't like he had company anyway.
The sense of being watched leaves Merle as he walks back to where he has ensconced himself. He has traps for humans closer to home. It's a day later when he is having breakfast and drinking some of the coffee he hoards like a miser that he gets the shit shocked out of him by a knock on the door.
Fucking zombies wouldn't knock.
Grabbing up his shotgun, he chambers a round and then moves out the back door and around the side of the house before he ducks under it to come up from underneath the porch.
As his head and shoulders clear the opening he finds himself eye to eye with a pair of Vibram soled boots. Female boots.
Female boots encasing legs covered in shit-brown cargo pants with a small tear in one knee. A couple of knives are sheathed on the belt and the dirty and torn undershirt is tucked behind them allowing easy access.
A flannel shirt is pulled back as well and Merle sees small breasts poking almost impudently at him as his gaze moves up, shotgun still levelled over a hell of a fucking sexy collarbone and further up a long slender neck that looked like it should belong on a swan.
His composure cracks when his own blue eyes meet a pair of curiously amused blue ones in return. Eyes under dark brows and surrounded by the softest, palest alabaster skin he's ever seen on a woman.
All of it topped by closely and carelessly cropped salt and pepper hair.
Fuck a duck, it was Mouse.
"Mouse?" He asked as he let the shotgun drop.
"Merle, I wasn't sure yesterday it was you." She answered as she reached a hand out and he grasped it with his left, surprised as hell at the strength she displays to help him step up out of the hole he'd made in the porch specifically for the purpose he'd just used it for.
"Good move by the way, if I hadn't seen the step down there you'd have caught me with my back to you." Carol gestured down at the hole and Merle can see because of the early morning sun that you can indeed see the step he's set down on the ground to help himself get up to the porch in a hurry if he needed to after ambushing someone. He'd have to fix that.
Ignoring her gaze locked on his missing right hand Merle jerked his head at her couple of backpacks. "Planning to stay awhile then are you Mouse?" He asked her sarcastically.
He hasn't asked her about Daryl, he won't ask her about Daryl.
Though Daryl was the reason she was here, she'd recognised his human traps because Daryl would have shown them to her. Fuck it all.
"I grabbed some things from my vehicle I thought you might need, thought you could use the company since you're on your own."
Nodding Merle looked her up and down. He could see Daryl in her very stance. He'd taught her a lot, the small game strung on a piece of wire hanging from the porch rail only confirmed his thought.
But it wasn't just that, it was her, Carol. She'd found the steel in her spine he'd always thought was there buried under broken bones and bruises.
Pursing his lips Merle looks at her, really looks at her. She'd carry her weight and then some he thought. So, he jerked his head and moved around her to open the door.
He watched as Carol stepped inside. It was a small cottage he'd found. Living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. He gestured to the second bedroom. "All yours, I'm finishing breakfast." Merle turned away and walked to the kitchen, he stopped halfway there to look back at Carol. "Don't ask, don't offer any information either Mouse or you're out the door."
Not stopping to see Carol's nod of acknowledgement, Merle heads back to the kitchen and finishes his now cold coffee.
They settle into a routine as autumn heads toward winter. Merle was stocking up, like always these fucking days. Preparing for the worst, assuming it'll come to pass like it always did. Fucking zombie apocalypse didn't change that for him.
It takes him a while to get used to having another human around. Its not like Carol returns to her quiet mousey ways, but…she's not noisy, not voluble, not trouble. She's an asset.
When he realises this Merle frowns. He didn't want her to be an asset, he didn't want her to be useful, he didn't want her to be pleasant to be around. He didn't want to depend on her.
He didn't want to want her.
When he realised this he denied it with his very being. No, he didn't want her, they barely spoke, communicated mostly in grunts and whispers after they had their morning talk about what each of them would be doing for the day.
She wasn't someone he wanted, he liked women with curves, with hair as brassy as their personality. He ignored the way she filled out her trousers, the way her shirts gaped when she bent over in front of him. Didn't care to know if she was going it on purpose or not.
Things come to a head one bitter night. The windows are all blackened and they're sitting by the wood stove in the kitchen. Merle was reading and Carol was sharpening their knives.
She speaks out of the blue, startling Merle out of his dozing state, the book jerking in his hands. "I propositioned your brother a while ago." She said no more, didn't even look at Merle. She'd broken the second of his two rules by offering information.
But it wasn't something he was going to kick her out over, he was too used to her company now. Having come to that decision though, he doesn't take her bait.
Standing and stretching, he merely grunts a goodnight and moves off to bed.
More days pass, but there is an awareness of Carol now that Merle hadn't had before. Sure he'd looked, what red-blooded man wouldn't? Only woman around for fuck knows how many miles, of course he was going to fucking look.
And he'd caught her looking a time or two as well. They could be the last people on earth for all he knew. Snorting at his humour Merle thought if that was the case the human race was fucking doomed.
Remembering when that fucking slut had tried to make him out to be her baby's mother, Merle laughed quietly to himself and shook his head. This Dixon shot blanks. No way he was going to carry on the Dixon line.
The next time Carol speaks, they're in the back yard, butchering a pig they'd caught. Merle is filthy and covered in mud and a line of blood from where he'd grazed his arm on a briar.
"Get yourself cleaned up, don't want that to get infected, we don't have much in the way of medication." Merle grunted, but obeyed her nevertheless.
Carol checks it when he's clean and back in the kitchen. That night she tells him about Sophia and what had happened to her. She makes no mention of anyone else in the group from the quarry, just her daughter.
Merle doesn't even think of Ed and Carol doesn't mention him.
It takes him nearly all winter to figure she's courting him in a way. A weird fucking way. A Dixon way if he's being honest. She's showing she can support him, stand by his side, be the asset he already thinks her to be. A partner.
And Carol humbles Merle with the realisation. He'd never thought himself worthy of being courted. Sure he was a Dixon, he had worth, but not usually to women apart from a cock to get off on.
When it got around as of course it did that he was shooting blanks, he was a sure bet, a safe bet. Can't get pregnant with Merle, he don't shoot live ones.
He didn't mind admitting he'd gone a little overboard a time or two and had to end up visiting the doctor for some antibiotics. Shaking his head, Merle brings himself back to the present.
Carol is cooking some of the eggs they'd gathered. They've got a couple of hens. Roosters didn't last beyond their first cock-a-doodle-doo because of the noise.
There wasn't anything like a well roasted chicken.
"Been lucky with food." Merle finally speaks one day without prompting.
He watches Carol glance over at him with a smile. "We have, hopefully come spring the ground will soften take to some vegetables being planted too."
Roots, they're putting down roots together. "Still don't want to know anything Mouse." Merle said back to her, knowing she'd understand what he's saying.
Pursing her lips, Carol looks like she's about to speak, but eventually nods her head and returns her focus to the sewing in her lap.
As winter turns toward spring Merle slowly starts to talk to Carol. He'd never be the way he was before, didn't care to be if he was being honest with himself. He could admit privately he'd been an asshat at the best of times.
A fucking violent retard reminiscent of Carol's husband at the worst of times. How he was brought up, but that was an excuse. He might not be a nice man, but he wasn't stupid.
They're planting one day in the spring when it begins to rain. Merle stands and lets the water run down his body. They've been lucky in the house, still having running water, no heat, but running water.
He turns to Carol and the spit dries in his mouth. She is bent over, facing away from him and undoing her boots. He watches as she stands, balancing like a gazelle and pulls them off with her socks. Then she sets them aside and strips off her two t-shirts letting them drop onto the muddy ground as well.
Merle finally gets his tongue to work. "The fuck you think you're doin'?" He asks raspily.
"Getting naked in the rain." Carol answers him as she looks over her shoulder at him with a smile before she unhooks her belt and undoes her trousers and lets them fall. Her panties soon follow leaving her gloriously naked in the rain.
Feeling the rain soak his own clothes, making them cling to him, Merle just watches as Carol spreads her arms out and raises her palms to the sky, cupping the rain as it settles gently on her palms. Her head tilts back and she opens her mouth, letting the drops settle on her tongue.
And like that his cock is a hardened rod in his pants. Thick, erect and pulsing for the woman standing in front of him. A strong, sexy, confident woman who has propositioned his brother.
"Did Daryl say yes?" Merle questioned as he fought with every fiber of his being not to reach out and touch Carol.
"To what?" Carol asked him as she turned toward him, letting him see her naked from the front. Like him, her body is covered with scars and burns. From the shoulders down she is not a pretty sight, but then neither is he.
"To you." Clenching his fists, digging his fingers into his palms, Merle feels his knuckles crack.
"Oh, no. Of course not." Carol answered. And she moved, toward Merle.
And the dam that was Merle Dixon's restraint broke with those five words.
Growling, he leapt at Carol, sliding into her on the wet ground, his boots nearly going out from under him, he grasps her tightly to him, fingers fisting in her slightly longer hair and pulling her head back harshly.
"You ready for me darlin'?" Mouth hovering Merle didn't kiss her, waiting for her affirmative before he began to feed.
"Yes Merle, I'm ready." Carol answered him. Slow and clear, making sure he knew she was telling the truth.
Blue locked on blue and Merle lowered his lips, keeping his eyes open so he could see Carol's expression. He hadn't forgotten what that fuck-up husband had been like, even if she gave no sign she'd ever been abused these days.
He knew it had happened, he'd seen it with his own eyes.
Everything in Merle screamed to fuck Carol hard and fast, get it over and done with. But a more subversive part of him, a part almost buried under hypocrisy, attitude and upbringing came to the forefront and told him in no uncertain terms to take his time, be gentle.
Make it last, it might be your last. It might be her last and you only get one first with her. If you want a tomorrow, make it last. Make it count. The words whispered in the back of his brain, sounding awfully like his Mama.
"Smart woman." Merle muttered as he pulled away. Carol frowned up at him, though not too far up at him, she was Daryl's height which meant close to his own.
"One more time, you sure?" He asked again, just once, just checking. Because as much as he wanted to obey the softer part inside him, it was weighed down by everything else, fighting against it, he didn't know if he could keep going that way. "Ain't gonna be gentle woman, but I can't say I want to remind you of your fuckin' husband either." He finished with.
"You won't, nothing about the man you are now reminds me of Ed. Nothing Merle." Carol pushed back into his arms, harder, tighter than before and God help him, Merle let her, even pulled her in more.
And Merle's walls crumbled, the fortress he'd built brick by brick against the world after he'd cut off his own hand to escape death on a rooftop in Atlanta a few years ago crumbled under the onslaught of alabaster skin and blue eyes like his own.
A smile as gentle as the rain still splattering down and at the same time strong enough to batter and reshape the world around them if given enough time crossed Carol's face.
Cruising his lips over Carol's, Merle feels them soften and open under his. His tongue pushes inside hesitantly almost, unsure. It's been so long and kissing hadn't exactly been something most of the women he'd hooked up with before in life had been into.
Carol's tongue sweeps over his and Merle opens his mouth wider, encourages hers in, lets her tongue control the kiss, even as his hands glide over her skin, scarred and burned and still soft, despite the world they lived in now.
A world without deodorant and moisturizer, cologne and sunscreen Somehow though, Carol's skin that was usually covered by clothing had remained soft. Pliable to the touch. Rubbing his rough nails into the skin of her hips, Merle let a little roughness escape, he needed to.
And Carol moaned. So he did it again, keeping his eyes open, making sure he wasn't causing a bad memory. When she pushed her hips insistently against his cock he knew the moans were good.
Pulling back a little, taking a deep breath, Merle looks at Carol blinking back at him, rain had soaked her good as it had him, though it looked a hell of a lot better on her, running down her body in rivulets.
Taking a muddy step forward, Merle backed Carol up, keeping on moving as his eyes roved over her, taking his time, learning her body without clothes.
When Carol's back touched the back porch, Merle pulled her forward, into another deep kiss. This time he took, plundering Carol's mouth, making it his own. And she let him. Her own hands roaming over his back, short nails scraping him though his thin t-shirt.
Reaching his hand over his head, Merle yanked on the t-shirt and pulled it over his head, mouth leaving Carol's for the bare minimum amount of time.
He freezes though when Carol's fingers graze his prosthetic. He'd never spoken about what he'd done and she'd never asked. She had looked surprised when she'd seen him so he knew Daryl had never mentioned it, or at least not to Carol.
"Can I take it off?" Carol asked him softly, her eyelashes spiked with water as she looked at him. There was no sorrow, no pity, no embarrassment, no curiosity in her gaze. Just need. Need for him, for Merle Dixon. He wasn't so far gone he didn't know general need from specific need. And Carol, wanted, needed him to be with her, to fuck her.
Nodding once, short and jerky, Merle watches Carol's head bend as her teeth catch her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. His eyes move to her fingers as they tentatively unbuckle his straps that hold his prosthetic to his upper arm.
When they're loose, she holds the prosthetic in one hand as her other slowly slides it off his forearm. All of their time together, he'd never let her see his stump. Without the prosthetic he'd kept it covered though it was as healed as it was ever going to be.
But it wasn't pretty.
Turning slowly with it, Carol set it carefully behind her on the porch and turned back to Merle. He slid his stump around her waist and pulled her to him as he pushed his fingers back through her hair, tilted her head back.
And then with a smile that made Carol smile in return, he moved his lips down to her neck, kissing and licking voraciously at her all the way. He grinned to himself as he felt Carol writhe against him.
Slim limbs covered in marred skin sliding over his own now, her legs pushing between his as she ground her hips on his cock. "Merle, don't tease, not this time." She whispered as he moved back again to look at her.
Flushed skin, glimmering sapphire eyes and reddened lips and a raw neck from his stubble. Pausing, Merle considered her request. Decided to be honest.
"'M barely holdin' on darlin' you sayin' that is gonna make me be nothin' but rough." He cursed his accent thickening, knowing it was a dead giveaway of how aroused he was.
Fisting her hands in his grey chest hair, Carol looked up at him as she tightened them, making him flinch at the pain and his cock jerk.
"My name is Carol, not darlin' and for the record, what the hell makes you think I'm not barely holding on too? I have needs too." Finger's unclenching in his chest hair, Carol stroked them down Merle's stomach, making his muscles quiver as she did so.
"Hmm, someone like's that." She muttered as she stopped at his belt buckle. Then she looked back at him as her fingers unfastened it nimbly. Pushing his pants and briefs down his legs, she watches as he toes out of his boots and steps out of the rest of his clothes.
Now as naked and vulnerable outside as Carol is, Merle let her pull him in. Her hand clasping his cock to do so. "Think you're gonna' lead my around by my cock woman? I gotta tell you…that might work." He said with a raised brow.
Stopping for a few seconds, Carol looked at him then she threw back her head and laughed, long and loud making Merle's lips twitch lazily in response as well.
"How about I just go down on you instead?" She asked as she kneeled to take Merle's cock in her mouth.
Slow and steady, hot wet heat engulfed him, made him close his eyes, tilt his head back and moan at the still-raining sky. "Fuuccckkkk." Drawing the word out, Merle let Carol suck him down. He felt pre-come release and opened his eyes to look down and see her draw back as she swallowed it, head tilted as if she was considering his taste like a fucking wine drinker.
"Satisfied?" He asked her drolly.
"More than, surprisingly sweet."
Rolling his eyes Merle pushed his cock back at her mouth. "Then suck it. Get it wet for your pussy." He said frankly, as his left hand held it at the base, keeping it steady for Carol.
"And if I said I'd rather take you in the ass?" Carol ignored his cock to look up at him and ask.
"Got a reason you don't want me in your pussy?" Merle asked, ignoring her asking about whether he wanted in her ass, no man would turn that down, just like they'd never turn down a blow job.
"No, just curious." Carol opened her mouth as she asked that question and sucked Merle down, taking him deep, until her lips touched his fingers at the base of his cock.
"Fuck yeah." Merle said as he felt her tongue laving the underside of his cock. "You're a natural."
He both felt and heard Carol snort at him, but she is moving already, making his toes curl in the mud witih pleasure so he lets it go. Propping his right arm behind him so she can't see it, Merle lets his left rest on Carol's shoulder.
He can see her breasts, pink nipples pebbled from the rain and he hopes, from arousal as well. He watches as she strokes one of her own hands down her body, pinches her nipple and then moves down to her pussy.
"Uh uh, leave that for me." He says as he watches her begin to play with herself.
Pulling back a little, Carol stands, Merle hears a knee crack as she does so and he smiles, knowing his would do the same. Before she can say anything or move further, he boosts her up onto the porch, now her pussy is level with his chest making him grin.
"Spread those sexy legs woman." He ordered her as he stepped forward. She did have sexy legs, mile long ones to boot. Most of the time he was a tits man, but sometimes a woman's legs would draw him in, like Carol's had since she'd arrived on his doorstep in the autumn.
Back at the quarry, she'd been carrying a little extra pudge and it had shown in her thighs and calves. That wasn't in existence anymore, now she was long, lean and streamlined. Like a greyhound.
Honed by fear and loss, grief and sorrow. Surviving on nothing but guts until that backbone he saw in every glance and look now had up and taken over he'd bet.
He could use some himself he knew. Not that he'd admit that. But he figured she knew.
He'd never asked about Daryl, he'd never asked about the fucking cop or the nigger that had left him to die either. Wasn't sure he wanted to know. If they were alive, he'd feel like he had to leave and look for them, for a fucking Dixon family reunion and for vengeance over his lost hand.
Not even his left fucking hand, but his right one.
Shaking his head clear of anything except the weeping pussy in front of him, Merle leans down and inhales. Sharp, tangy and overwhelmingly female. Carol, it was Carol.
When she flinched back, Merle's arms bracketed her hips and he growled at her. "Sorry, I just…" He's puzzled by the flush that works over her skin, mottling her face and chest and upper arms in red splotches. Not a pretty look but one that doesn't bother him.
"Don't think you're changin' your mind now do you…Carol?" He paused before saying her name in a flat and deliberate tone.
"No, I just," She stopped again and her hips jerked. Merle growled again and she huffed at him. Then she shook her head and he was sure he heard her mutter something about him being a mule-stubborn jackass before continuing. "I didn't shower yesterday as you know, haven't showered yet today either."
Merle got it, they bathed every few days, not every day since they'd found that the water for the house came from a well and they didn't know how deep it was yet.
"'S fine, you sucked me, turnabout is fair play." He leans down and licks a fat wet strip up her pussy before she can try to jerk away or dissuade him again.
Her tasted exploded on his tongue and Merle moaned now as he went back for more. "Hold yourself open for me, can't fuckin' do it myself." He grunted as his forearms pushed on her thighs and he spread her wide open for him.
"Pretty." He continued on as Carol obeyed his order. Her long fingers came to her lips and she pulled them back, exposing her pussy and clit to his burning gaze. "Very pretty." He amended.
She was pink and luscious, her outer lips holding her inner ones and her clit a beautiful, glistening secret. Merle could see her weeping for him, juice running down into the crack of her ass where her hole was flexing as well.
"Into ass play?" He questioned her.
"Yes." Carol answered him evenly and he flashed a grin at her making her roll her eyes at him. "Men." She said and he laughed before he got down to business.
Forearms bracing her thighs again, Merle inhaled once more before dropping his head and licking Carol all over. His tongue slurping obscenely at her as he bit and sucked at her skin.
"Ohhh…" Carol said as her back arched off the floorboards.
Merle smiled to himself. Oh was right, she was just fine, just fucking fine. He was still as hard as stone and wanted to bury himself inside Carol's pussy, but he needed to taste her some more first.
She felt like nectar of the Gods, the more he licked, sucked and swallowed, the more nectar Carol released, he was going to be swimming in her juices when he finally fucked her.
Mouth working, Merle flicked his tongue over Carol's clit, tapping on it before sliding down to her hole where he fucked it into her. Then he moved back to her clit, wanting her to come before he fucked her.
"Come for me woman, come on my tongue and I'll fuck you through to another orgasm, better than you've been fucked in your life." He vowed as his tongue circled her clit. Settling down, Merle gave himself over to the musky smells and wanton desire emanating from Carol.
Flattening his tongue he rubbed it over Carol's clit and then flicked it again making her jump. He saw her fingers pull her lips back even more harshly and he buried his chin in her pussy, letting his stubble rasp over her inner folds harshly.
And even as Carol flinches away from such direct stimulation, Merle's tongue slips under the hood of her clit and he flicks directly on her bundle of nerves and pushes Carol over into a blinding orgasm.
"Ohhh…" She moaned long and loud but said no words. Continuing to flick and tongue at her, though not directly on her clit, just skating over the hood, Merle keeps her on the edge and just as she flinches away from him he pulls back and then drags her across the porch, heedless of splinters as he pulls her down and onto his cock, his arms banding around her waist to support her.
Stepping back carefully he lets her sink onto his cock as he lowers himself to the steps. Carol's arms move around him to brace on the steps behind him as her legs spread and her feet rest on the bottom step, her head falls back and Merle takes advantage by leaning in to lick along her jugular.
"Fuck." He muttered. She was hot and tight and wet and her internal muscles clenched down on him, holding his cock in a clinging vice of pleasure.
"Yes." Carol said to him as her hips began to move, her thighs flexing madly as she began to work herself off on him. Merle gave no thought to her fucking him, just leaned back and let her have at him.
Eyes hooded, Merle watched Carol concentrate on her movements, his elbows were resting on the step above him, Carols' arms grasping the edge of the stairs beside them.
Letting Carol fuck him was a turn on to watch. She was full of pleasure, her body trembling with it and it was a beautiful thing to see, rain still dropped down on them, her nipples were still pebbled, they drew Merle in so he reached for Carol before silently cursing that he'd reached out with his right hand, he wound it around her instead, pulled her in close.
Then he dipped his head and took a nipple in his mouth, sucked on it strongly. Carol's resulting moan was music to his ears, he flexed his hips and pushed up into her, went as deep as he could. Another hissed yes from Carol told him he'd succeeded.
Leaning back, Merle kept hold of Carol's nipple and pulled it with him, stretching it painfully. Giving the beast something to feed off, trying to leash himself before he hurt her.
"More." With that one word however, the rest of Merle's fortress crumbles, like rocks into the ocean. And his arm winding around her pulls her to him, imprisons her as he pushes up and twists around, swearing a little as he feels a splinter dig into his hip.
Shoving Carol down, he pushes his cock inside her, hard and fast and deep again. Grunting when he feels Carol clench down on him, he ignores her need and pushes for his own. Leaning his right forearm across Carol's collarbone, Merle pushes his left hand on her hip and pulls back.
And then he moves, fucking her madly as his mind shifts, becomes a blank canvas, wanting, needing only to come, to mark, to own.
All of his pain and suffering. The trauma he'd endured cutting off his own hand, the missing months where he couldn't remember anything about where he'd been or what he'd done to survive. His resulting unsteady calm facade that was interrupted by dreams, his slow realisation that he had survived and that wasn't a bad thing.
That it was okay to survive, more it was okay to live. All of it came crashing through his soul. It had been getting closer and closer to the surface, the more he'd been in Carol's company. The more he'd seen how she'd changed, adapted, grown to fit the world around them now.
She'd both made him feel like a man because he'd done the same and less like a man because while he had done the same physically, mentally he was the same damaged Dixon he'd been before the infection hit. And if Daryl walked up to him tomorrow, he'd go back to being the same asshat he'd been when they'd last been together.
Brought back to the present by the press of two cool palms against his cheeks, Merle stops moving. He looks down at the woman underneath him.
"Fuck." He said as he pulled himself off her.
Stepping back, feeling his feet sink into the muddy ground, Merle moved back and gathered up his clothes and Carol's. He walked up the stairs, leaving her splayed on the steps, legs open and body still quivering. Dropping Carol's clothes on the steps beside her, he grabbed his prosthetic and went inside. In his bedroom, he dumped his clothes and then grabbed a dry set before moving to the bathroom and turning on the shower.
Rinsing himself off, he's dressed and standing in front of the basin when the door opens and Carol stands there looking at him. Ignoring her Merle stands there, gripping the sink and just breathing.
Carol steps into the bathtub and turns on the shower to rinse off as well. When Merle hears the water, he gathers the remnants of his being and leaves her be.
Days pass without them speaking, now they've been together after a fashion though, Merle finds himself more attuned to Carol, he senses her moods, he hears her of an evening when he's been in bed for hours as she touches herself.
Once he was even sure he heard his name.
It takes the passing of spring into summer before he comes to the realisation that if he's going to have a chance with her, he needs to man up in more than one way.
And so, one evening when they're sitting on the porch after a day of checking their traps, Merle hawks a globule of spit over the railing, takes a deep breath and speaks.
"Was Daryl alive last you knew?" He asks the one question he's wanted to know since the first time his eyes had reconnected with Carol and he'd recognised her.
"Yes." Carol doesn't expand her answer and Merle is grateful, he didn't think he could stand that. Yes he was taking the initiative and asking questions, but he couldn't deal with finding out something he hadn't asked the question to.
"Did you leave or get separated?" He watched Carol take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
"Rick cast me out." She didn't say anything more.
"Fucker is still alive?" Merle asked now.
"He was last I saw." Carol says.
"Why did he cast you out? Where the fuck was Daryl?"
"He was on a run. We found a prison and cleaned it out. We had a nice thing going and this infection hit, a weird type of bug. He was off getting medical supplies when Rick and I went in the opposite direction for food. He told me not to come back when I admitted to killing the first two infected people to try and stop it from spreading."
"Were they already sick?" Carol nodded, "Fucker should have gotten rid of them himself." She nodded again.
"Most times he was a good leader. When he wasn't though," Carol shook her head, "Things went bad in the worst kind of way. Like when he told us we were all infected."
Merle gaped at her. "What the fuck did you just say?"
"We're all infected, we went to the CDC after the camp was over run. There was one doctor left and he told Rick that we all carried the infection, that when we died, unless we died of a brain injury, we'd all come back as one of the walking dead." Carol ran down and took another deep breath.
"He didn't tell us that for nearly an entire year. And when he did it was only because he'd killed Shane and Carl had to shoot him after he'd turned."
"That freckled kid?" Merle tried to focus, Shane he remembered no problem.
"Yes, turns out Rick was Lori's husband and Carl's father."
Head spinning Merle gaped at Carol. He could feel his old fury rising to the surface and he yanked furiously on the reins to hold himself in check. He had to sort through everything Carol had just told him and work out what he needed to know, not just what he wanted to know.
"What happened to your old man?" He went back even further in time, to the quarry now.
"He was bitten one night at the quarry when it was over run."
"And your daughter?" Merle barely remembered the girl, she'd been a shadow always in the presence of her mother unless she'd run off with the other main brat he remembered, the boy belonging to the skinny-assed widow he now knew to be Rick Grime's wife.
"There was a herd on the highway we were travelling. We hid but a straggler chased her off into the woods where she was bitten because it took us too long to find her. Rick found her and then he lost her trying to lead the dead away." Rancor is in Carol's tone and Merle understands that. He rubs his stump without being aware of it.
"So he stayed with the others from Atlanta, the cop, Rick Grimes then? He tool over?" Merle asked finally.
"Yes, he's the leader and like I said, for the most part he's a good one. But for a while we had a council. I was on it, with some others from the quarry, because we're the ones who gathered the others when a town they were living in was overrun."
Shaking his head, Merle decides to let it rest for now.
"So, the fucker banished you when you were away from the group? Fucking typical." He muttered. He had a good memory of his small amount of time with Rick. A not so good memory of his time from when heat stroke had nearly killed him and caused him to hallucinate. But from before? Fuck yes he had a good memory. He hadn't been that high.
Leaving it all for now, Merle stands and stretches, heads inside as the sun finally sinks below the trees. In bed sometime later he's looking up at the dark ceiling when his door opens. Carol is standing there, she walks in, silent and steady and Merle watches as she pulls up her baggy t-shirt and drops it on the floor before she climbs onto the bed with him.
Settling herself across his thighs, her hands scratch lightly at his abdomen, slide through his pubic hair and pick up his cock. She holds it as he hardens in her hands. When he's erect, she rises up on her knees and moves forward until she hovers over him.
Then she sinks down slowly, Merle groans when he feels how wet she is. "Been playing with yourself Mouse?" He asked her as his left hand grips her hip and his right rests on her thigh.
"No, I've been like this since we talked this evening." She answered. Merle shook his head and pushed his hips up into her.
Carol clasped him, both inside and outside her body, arms winding around him, even as she clenched down on his cock.
Groaning, Merle pushed up into her again. "Fuck." He said softly as he felt Carol begin to move.
Her head fell back as she took her pleasure on his body. Merle just lay there and let her take him. But before she comes, she stops moving and rests her palms on his chest, fingers twining through his hair, tugging a little before she begins to brush them over his nipples.
They pebble immediately and Merle feels his cock jerk inside Carol's warmth. She smiles at him and he shakes his head. Let's her have her way with him. Feels like it's the least he can do.
His inner beast for once is in accordance, purring in pleasure as Carol leans down and kisses him, tongue sliding over his, before she kisses her way down his neck and chest, licks and sucks on his nipples too.
All the while she is milking him though her pussy makes no other movement. Merle finds his butt cheeks flexing, pushing his cock into Carol's haven infinitesimally. His eyes roll as Carol begins to fuck herself up and down on his cock, slow and steady.
"Mouse." He groaned her name, drawing it out as his neck arched. Carol took the invitation and kissed and sucked him there again, Merle's right arm banded around her, pulling her down as his hips began to piston, working for his orgasm.
"Mouse." He said again, this time an endearment. Carol pulled back a little and smiled at him. A smile as old as time, knowing, and erotic as fuck. Merle gave it up for her, gave himself up for her without a fight.
His body reached boiling point and his balls drew up, orgasm oozing from him and into Carol's heated depths as Merle literally whined in pleasure. He jerked again when Carol clenched down and spasmed around his aching cock as his own orgasm drew to a close.
"Merle." She whispered as she leaned down, forehead resting on his.
They breathed each other's air for some minutes as they came down, the humid air of the still bedroom wrapping around them like a blanket. Pulling back a little Carol reached for her t-shirt over the side of the bed.
Merle stayed her with his left hand splayed over her lean thigh. God he wanted to kiss and lick every inch of her gorgeous legs. Carol looked back at him.
"Stay."
One word that carried a wealth of meaning.
Carol looked at him so long Merle nearly found himself squirming, then she nodded and dropped the t-shirt again as she leaned back down, settling beside him on the bed, not on his shoulder or anything, neither of them were the cuddling type he thought, but beside him. With him.
A new routine develops as days pass again. Her things slowly matriculate into Merle's room, the dresser from the spare bedroom soon follows.
And their days and evenings aren't silent any longer. There is laughter. And arguments. And debates and chess and other games they manage to find on their foraging trips.
And on a couple of memorable nights even a game of truth or dare.
Autumn is making itself known one day when Merle realises Carol has been with him for a year or so as best he can calculate. The longest he'd ever been with a woman in his life except his mother.
Remembering that first time in the spring rain, his mother's words in his head. Make it last.
"I did Mama, I did." He murmured quietly. Carol glances over at him and he smiles.
That night as they sit eating their evening meal and talk about their next foraging run and how it should be the last before winter sets in Merle begins to talk.
About himself, about how he'd cut off his own hand, cauterised it and taken the van that he knew someone had left possibly his own brother on the way back to hopefully check on him. How he'd left Atlanta and his own brother behind in the dust.
Why he didn't know, couldn't remember. "Don't matter none, I survived, found this place, was doing okay." He stopped talking, the fireplace crackling the only sound he could hear apart from the blood pounding in his ears.
Looking up, his blue eyes find the matching pair he sees in his sleep now instead of nightmares of blood and guts and death and decay. "Been doin' better since you came along again."
And there, that smile, he sees that in his dreams now too. And wakes to it every morning. She was worth losing a hand for, because it meant he'd found himself and in finding himself, he'd found his Mouse.