KrisAnthemum221 - You're very welcome!
Surplus Imagination - Never thought of it like that, but I suppose he could be. Who knows what goes on inside Daryl's head. ^_^
Axelrocks - You wondered what Ol' Merle was doing, now you get a chapter telling you! Enjoy!
crystal2817 - Thanks! I'm glad you do!
MollyMayhem84 - Sometimes I worry that my stories drag because I enjoy more character centered pieces than plot centered. Good to know it's not.
MarionArnold - Haha! Herschel is the cutest old man! I loved him in CSI and I love him in TWD. He really does look like Santa Claus with that beard though...
Sira1 - You're welcome! Such polite reviewers I have...^_^
Warning, Merle is a bit of a racist and homophobic dick in this chapter, just a wee bit, but any hatred towards people sticks in my craw hard. So just know that his views and opinions are not my own. And that racism and homophobia are not cool. And that Merle is a dick.
Chapter Ten: Merde
**Merle**
He had sullenly sat his ass on the wall near one of the nuns for an entire day racking his brain. Trying, straining to recall which one was Carol.
If he hadn't been so fucked up on coke during the entirety of the quarry stay, he would have been able to put a face to the name.
His baby brother, the sweet one, didn't say in certain terms whether what that Cajun dick had said meant anything by that Carol comment, but somehow Merle knew his brother well enough to know when something was stuck in his craw.
Touching a stumped hand to his gunshot wound, he tried to rub it without scratching, but it didn't seem to satisfy the irritation.
"You there, on my wall," a posh voice called up to him.
Twisting in his spot, Merle glanced down at a woman in a habit, who stared up at him quietly.
He sneered. "What?"
"Are you ever going to come down so I can meet you properly? Or have you the manners of an alley cat?"
Merle angled his head. Who the hell did this woman think she was? He nearly ignored her and turned back, but something told him she wouldn't give up, so he waited a few more seconds just to be stubborn, before hopping off the wall and landing before her.
Straightening his spine from the fall, he swallowed the grimace of pain the jump had given his bruised ribs and peered down at the nun.
She looked like a doll, with fine boned features and a soft, pink mouth that was pulled into a strict line.
"That's much better, don't you think?" She greeted.
"Not much," he replied.
"My name is Mother Superior Philomena, you are?"
"Merle Dixon."
"And what, pray tell, are you doing sitting up on my wall, Mr. Dixon?" She demanded.
"Free country," he grunted, amusing himself with the thought that it was a lot freer now.
"You surely can't be healed one hundred percent so quickly," she said.
"What can I say, Sister? I guess God favours my sorry ass and gave me an early Christmas miracle." He lied.
She looked him up and down. "Good Heavens, you look like you slept with a bunch of wild hogs, when was the last time you had a bath?"
"Are you offering, Sister?" He inquired.
She blinked. "I am. Follow me."
Turning the little thing scurried off across the lawns.
Merle paused, confused. Was he about to get a bath from a nun? Did he even want a bath from a nun? He thought about it.
Maybe.
He followed her, catching up easily to stride alongside the tiny thing. "You bath men often, Sister?" He teased.
"Only the really dirty ones," she replied simply, hiking up the voluminous skirts of her habit to move swifter over the lawns. "Are you a good man at heart, Mr. Dixon?"
"You mean do I love Jesus? Don't know. Am I a bastard son of a bastard son? Probably. Not a lot of good to anyone," he said, holding up the stump of his hand. "Mean as a snake and probably just as good looking. But I don't much care."
She glanced at him. "In my experience snakes are only as mean as the way they were raised. You try to touch a wild snake, of course it's going to strike because it's been raised wild, but you try to touch a domesticated snake and they're just like kittens." Pulling open the door to the main building, she held it for him. "Of course, there are those who can charm snakes of all kinds. Wild or not."
Pausing, Merle eyed the woman. "Are you trying to tell me you're a snake charmer, Sister?"
Her face remained passive, but a smile jumped into her eyes. "My daddy was. A Southern Baptist snake handler, can you believe that?"
"Baptist, huh?" Merle demanded, eyeing her Roman Catholic habit.
The nun smiled a little then. "Mr. Dixon, we are all God's children," her eyes drifted over him, "though some of us are wilder than others." She followed him into the building, taking the lead again. "Did you know that the snake is a creature that exists throughout many myths across many religions? Often it's depicted as evil, but the voodoo religion actually believes a child touched by a snake is charmed and destined to live life as a priest or a priestess?"
"We talking baths or snakes, because you've lost me, Sister." Merle growled.
She yanked open a door once they twisted through a few halls and motioned him inside, where a tub sat, beside it a young nun was adding the last of a large kettle of boiling water to it.
"Feel free to clean up properly," the nun at his side said. "And let's hope there's a human being under all that dirt and scruff."
Gaping after the two nuns as they scurried out, Merle scowled and touched a hand to his jaw. He was sure he wasn't that offensive to the eye, but then again what did he know, he never cared much to preen like some men.
..-~-..
..-~-..
Sitting outside on the church step later that evening, fresh and clean as a newborn, he rubbed a hand over his smooth jaw.
There was a disposable razor and shaving cream placed on top of a pile of clean towels and he was sure the nuns put them there to be used.
Eyeing the priest who had barely let him out of his sight, save for space enough to allow him a bath in peace, Merle scowled. He wasn't sure if he wanted to punch the man in the puss or just let him leer at him for the remainder of his hellish time behind the convent walls.
He decided in the long run it wasn't worth punching the man. Merle could easily ignore the fucker.
Leaning his elbows on his knees, he allowed his hands to dangle between his legs as he plotted his escape from the convent. He'd need to steal a weapon of some kind, then he'd be golden.
He'd just go. Daryl didn't need him around, the little son of a bitch had his group, seemed like he wasn't going to leave anyways. Merle was fine on his own. He did good from Atlanta on his own with one hand and a nasty infection setting in the stump, he'd do fine anywhere but here.
Eyeing the nun on the wall, he noticed she paused in pacing back and forth, eyeing the other side, before raising the rifle in her hands, peering down the scope.
Merle pushed to his feet and approached, the priest doing the same once he noticed Merle getting excited. Dashing the last few yards to the wall, Merle grit his teeth, ignoring the pain that seemed to rattle through his entire body as he launched himself at the tall wall, grappling himself up beside the nun.
He spied a handful of walkers heading towards the convent up the dirt road.
"I've never seen this many before," the nun remarked.
Leaping onto the wall on the other side of her, having a harder time than Merle in getting up top, the priest eyed the herd as well. "The Lieutenant said to never fire on a group that size. We'll have to duck inside and hope they pass in peace."
Merle glared at the man. His baby bro was out there, could be heading up that road any minute, he wasn't about to just let those ugly bastards down there fall upon Daryl. Merle may have been a cold-hearted son of a whore, but he wasn't going to let his baby brother just walk into a walker trap.
"You got a knife on you, Pops?" He demanded.
The priest seemed to hesitate, narrowing his eyes at Merle suspiciously.
The nun at his side pushed aside a fold of her habit and pulled a mean looking buck knife out of her belt, handing it to him.
Merle looked the tall, gangly woman up and down for a moment. "I like you," he pointed out gruffly, before leaping off the wall, moving towards the walkers.
There were enough that he was sure he'd probably be feasted on, but all he really thought of was Daryl and that dumb asses 'hope'.
Sensing fresh food, the walkers seemed to wake from their sluggish march and the five or six of them began to pound the ground, lumbering clumsily towards him.
Merle kicked the first one who came near in the chest, sending them back, two others fell upon him, but he swiftly danced backwards, just out of reach.
A black blur tackled one to the ground and the priest landed hard in the dirt with a walker, shoving a little pocket knife through the dead thing's eye socket.
Merle, meanwhile sliced the buck knife into the top of a short one's skull, shoving it forcefully at another.
Feeling something tugging him backwards, he spun around, only to find that nun from the wall bashing the walker who had got a hold of him with the butt of her rifle, knocking it down, where she proceeded to bash the hell out of its brains.
The three of them managed to take out the small herd, without a single shot fired and at the end of it all, Merle glanced around to find the priest kneeling at the side of the bodies, muttering some kind of foreign language over them.
He glanced over at the nun, who was quietly eyeing the blood and gore that coated the hem of her habit.
Flipping up the knife, he caught it by the blade carefully and held it out to her handle first. "Thanks, Sister."
She eyed it quietly.
Glancing at the blood covered knife, Merle quickly flipped it again to grab hold of the handle, wiping the blood off on his pants, before repeating the motion, offering her a clean knife.
She took it.
"Which one are you again?" He demanded as they watched over the priest who continued to pray or whatever it was he was doing over the corpses.
"Sister Joan," she said.
Merle nodded. "Your knife is duller than a crack whore's sense of humour." He pointed out.
She tucked it back where it came from, brown eyes darting across the landscape, her other hand dropping the blood soaked hem.
"Better drag them carcasses off, before they begin to stink up the place," he pointed out.
She nodded.
Eyeing the woman, Merle laughed mockingly. "Never got dirty before, huh?" He inquired. "First timers always get the shakes."
"I'm not scared," she said. "I'm disgusted."
"Well, that's a first, like the kill, huh?"
She bowed her head. "Of course not, these were once God's creation."
"They still are," Merle pointed out, turning to face the priest. "You almost done, Pops? I have to take a piss."
..-~-..
..-~-..
Sitting in the infirmary the next morning, Merle pondered the whole situation.
He knew talking about just up and leaving Daryl was easier said than done, he never would really do it. The little princess needed him to watch his ass. Who else could better watch it than Merle?
Carol? He mulled the name over in his head, struggling through a hazy memory for a face.
She wasn't that black woman, was she? Naw, Merle raised Daryl better than to go for black cooch.
Couldn't have been blondie, that woman was trouble and every one with half a brain knew it. She seemed like the type who'd suck the spirit out of a man just to keep her own ass safe and secure. In spite of knowing she was trouble, it didn't stop Merle at all from having blonde visions while he yanked it at night. The woman was created just for riding.
Carol…the name was oddly irritating. Like Merle should know who she…
Suddenly a memory came through the fog, a tubby bastard who smoked away kicking a bucket of water over onto a pile of blankets and coolly telling a woman with short hair to get another from the quarry lake, down the steep incline.
He couldn't recall anything else about the memory, but that woman…Carol.
Merle scoffed. His baby brother was a fucked up little asshole, wasn't he? Chasing after married women. Or maybe he already had her? Hell if any woman could resist a Dixon once the charm was turned on high.
Of course, Daryl never had the sort of smooth charm Merle could be known to possess. Daryl always seemed…well to be honest, Merle often thought the man was queer as a squid in Arizona. Good to know his baby brother wasn't a homo.
Eyeing his boots, knowing he'd have to get them on and secure enough that he wasn't tripping over the laces every time he took a step, Merle sighed.
Fucking Officer Friendly and his fucking idea of 'restraint'. Fuck him and that pansy assed group. The assholes could suck his nutsack without ketchup for all he cared.
The door open cautiously and that tall, homely nun from the wall the other night peeked in.
"May I have a word?" She asked.
He sneered at her. "Why?"
Stepping into the infirmary, she approached his cot. "You said my knife was dull, I thought you could show me how to sharpen it."
Merle slid his feet into his boots and placed them on the bed neatly. "I'll do you a favour if you do me one, Sister." He stated, motioning to his boots.
She eyed them for a moment, before looking at Merle.
He smiled and held up his stump. "Kind of at an inconvenient moment in my life, Sister."
Easing onto the bed at the foot, she quietly tied the boots up.
Merle eyed her. She wasn't so homely that he wouldn't brush her aside, but she really wasn't much to look at. Beak-like nose, thin lips, pale cheeks, a small dimple to her sharply pointed chin.
Still, her tits looked like a handful under that black dress of hers and since she was tall, he liked to think her legs went all the way up.
Realizing that a fucking ugly assed nun was getting him hard, Merle shifted on the bed and sighed.
Finishing with his laces, the woman stood up again, clasping her hands before her.
He stared at her as she gazed back quietly.
"Well?" He snapped.
"The knife?" She reminded him calmly.
"Do you have anything to sharpen it with?"
"Such as?"
Merle sighed again. "Find me a fucking rock," he stated. "Make sure it's flat and rough."
The woman nodded.
"And find me something to gnaw on while you're out and about, hot lips." He commanded. "I'm getting hungry and it's pissing me off a little."
The Cajun Dialect
Merde - (Do I really need to translate this one?) Shit...it means shit.