Chapter 19: we'll find the door if you care to anymore

But he can hold his shit together. Still. And he does.

Somehow.

That night, after Merle comes home, they get in the truck with a couple of sixpacks and drive out of town, out near where Daryl went with the bow. Daryl pulls the truck off onto a bumpy dirt thing that can barely be called a road and they head up a small hill and stop, nothing but low grassy meadow all around. Probably the land belongs to someone. Probably they're trespassing. But except for a couple of lights miles away - houses, he assumes - and the occasional light of a car gliding past on the road behind them, there's no one that he can see. Just night birds, night insects - a few bats flutter around, and in the moonlight he sees a black shape that has to be an owl fall out of a nearby tree. There's a small shriek which cuts off abruptly, and then the black shape swooping upward again.

Distant scream. Fox, sounds like.

They get out of the truck. Sit on the tailgate, legs swinging, drinking. Sort of talking but not about anything that matters. Daryl will never let Merle know how much he loves moments like this, how much he clings to them - rare as they are these days and getting rarer. Moments when he really does almost have what he thought he was going to have when his big brother got out of prison, where he supposedly got clean and got his head right. It's not that he exactly thought they'd turn honest, solid citizens - Merle would never in a million years have stood for that - but maybe it would be all right. Maybe it could be something better.

Family.

He was actually fool enough to believe that.

But now, times like this, it almost happens. Merle talks shit and cracks stupid fucking jokes, and Daryl loves him so much it's like a fist reaching into his chest and squeezing. And he realizes - and somehow it hurts even worse - that if he knew he could have this, have it all the time, get back the Merle before the crystal meth and the OxyContin he knows is starting to work its way in there too, and the truly destructive levels of drunk, the blackout levels of drunk, and the general out of control mess he knows his only family left in the entire goddamn world is becoming...

If he could have that, it would still be nearly impossible to leave this fucking town, but he could do it. He could do it.

He's pretty sure.

The moon is incredibly bright. Waxing - a week or so out from full. Still low and yellow in the sky. Daryl slumps onto his back, metal ribs of the truck bed not entirely comfortable against his shoulders and spine but not uncomfortable enough to make him move. He's not extremely drunk but he is definitely drunk - a loose, warm thing that sands down all his edges and makes the world at least sort of more bearable.

He feels like a slightly less terrible person for being so completely fixated on the sheen of Beth Greene's wet skin. The fixation itself is even letting up just a touch.

"Wassup, li'l brother?" Merle's words are slurred even more than usual, but Daryl can tell that he's also not nearly as drunk as he usually gets - not mean drunk, not looking-for-a-fight drunk. Not looking-to-torment-his-baby-brother-because-he-fucking-can drunk. "Somethin' eatin' atcha?"

Daryl mutters something ambiguous. He doesn't want to talk about all the many, many things that are gnawing on him like tiny little rabid possums. Some of them - most of them - would just be handing Merle ammunition, and even if Merle isn't mean drunk right now, that doesn't mean that state of affairs won't change.

And Merle tends to remember details. Like Daryl. Notice, note, file away. Use later, if it seems like a good time, or use when it's not a good time at all, use when you want to hurt someone and you want to give them a sharp jab to the gut rather than a punch in the face.

"C'mon. You can tell me. Let it all out, you'll feel better." Merle kicks at Daryl's still-dangling lower leg and glances back at him. "Never been good at hidin' shit like that, man. Been atcha for days, don't think I ain't noticed."

Of course he has. It was stupid to think he wouldn't, but that's exactly what - on some level - Daryl has been hoping. Supposing might be the case. Merle has seemed out of it a lot of the time, or he's been gone, or he's been unconscious. But no. Naturally, he noticed.

Because the universe refuses to cut Daryl Dixon a fucking break.

He can't lie. He can't lie to Beth, and he also can't lie to his brother. Ever, at all. But he can do what he always does in these situations, what he's been doing in one form or another since he was small, and dodge.

"Wasn't sure about this fuckin' job."

"One at the farm?" Merle takes an enormous swallow of beer and lets out a commensurately large belch. "The fuck's not to be sure about? You seemed pretty fuckin' sure before." The look he shoots Daryl is visible in the moonlight - narrow-eyed, suspicious. Great. "Kept us here for it and everythin'. Kept us in this shitty little burg 'cause you was so fuckin' sure."

Daryl sighs. Sometimes dodging works. Sometimes it works but it doesn't work completely. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. Hopefully this is not one of those times.

I can't stop thinking about that specific farmer's specific eighteen year old daughter and that's the part I'm not sure about except for the part where I appear to want to do incredibly inappropriate things to her is the kind of thing he would really rather not say right now. Or indeed at any time.

And in fact? He still has only a vague idea of what those specific things are. This afternoon he barely got as far as taking her top off. At this point he can't really get past imagining his hands and his mouth on her breasts. There's a lot of territory left to cover. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

His own goddamn sexual fantasies and apparently he can't even get past second base.

He doesn't even usually have sexual fantasies, so it's entirely possible that he's just a little out of practice.

"Just wasn't sure it was gonna work out. It is, though," he adds, and blearily he hits on something else to which he can deflect this which isn't actually a lie at all and which will - though it might not go well - take Merle's attention for the rest of the evening. "In fact... They want me to stay on another few weeks."

"They want you to stay on," Merle repeats slowly. He's turned completely around now, a dim, blurry shape looming in the corner of Daryl's vision. "Stay on and... On what? Where?"

Daryl almost laughs. Doesn't. It would be a bad move and he doesn't have many moves at all. "Workin' for 'em. Guy says he could use a hand for the fall."

Merle just stares at him for a moment. Then Daryl can feel the realization sweeping gradually over him, and Merle groans hollowly.

"Tell me you didn't fuckin' say yes."

Daryl pushes himself up on his elbows. He knew this was coming, he turned off onto this road, but that doesn't mean he's all that pleased about it, and it doesn't mean he's pleased about the shit he has to deal with now. And he's getting angry again, because he didn't even want to be in this position, ever, with any of it - he didn't want Merle to break parole, he didn't want Merle to get back into sucking horrible substances into his body, he didn't want to go on the run with him, he didn't want to come here, initially he didn't want to stay here, and he sure as fuck didn't want to end up in this pit he can't even imagine wanting to climb out of, trying desperately to think of anything he can do to simultaneously be near Beth Greene every waking minute of the rest of his life and in fact all of the sleeping ones too, and never go near her again because he is the biggest fucking creep in the universe and he will ruin everything.

All he does is ruin things.

He's angry and tired and he's so confused, and all he wanted was a nice thing. One nice thing.

"Yeah, bro, actually I did."

Merle snorts, scorn and contempt condensed into ugly laughter. "Well, tell ya whatcha gonna do, baby brother. You're gonna go out there tomorrow and you're gonna unsay it, and then we're gettin' our asses outta here just as soon as you're done doin' whatever the fuck it is they gotcha doin' over there."

And here it is.

There are certain things he has never been able to say to Merle. Not really. At least, not in any way that sticks. Don't is a big one. Various versions of do are actually pretty big too. Verbs in general. Imperatives. He's not good at asking for things and he's even worse at demanding them, especially when those things are anything whatsoever to do with himself, because it doesn't matter, what he wants. He can whine and nag and make feeble attempts at pushing, and he can feel like a weak piece of shit for it, like he never got past being ten years old and scared in the dark and trying to convince someone, anyone, to let his life suck just a little bit less.

But the one thing he just absolutely cannot say to Merle is what he finally manages to say now.

"No."

It does matter.

Merle's eyes narrow even more. This time the laugh he huffs out is disbelieving. "Whatcha sayin' to me?"

"You heard me." Daryl pushes himself up to sit. "No. I ain't unsayin' it. He's payin' good, I like the guy, and I'm gonna stay on if he wants me."

"You fuckin' kiddin' me right now?" For the moment all the gathering anger seems to have been entirely drowned in that rising tide of disbelief. "You just... You just made that fuckin' decision? After last time? After I told you not to fuckin' do that again?"

"Oh, like that was really gonna be some kinda conversation?" Now he's on a roll. Like... No brakes. Someone cut the lines. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was Beth. Maybe it's a healthy dose of both. She's so powerful, she can fuck with his life from twenty miles away. "You been makin' the decisions for us since we started this fuckin' road trip."

"'Cause you'd make shitty ones. Like keepin' us in this shithole another... Weeks? Seriously, man?" Back to the disbelief. Daryl likes the disbelief. It's potentially way less violent. And in fairness, weeks is sort of a long time. "You just... I can't believe you. I honestly fuckin' can't."

"Try." The word is cold and flat and tired. "Make an effort. Look, bro." A little less cold. He has to ask, now. He has to make an appeal. He thought, when Shawn was talking about it, that thinking about the future in any serious way was a frightening thing, but suddenly he's lunging in that direction. Thinking about something else. Something more. "Ain't you just a little tired of runnin'? Would it be so fuckin' bad to stop? Just a while?"

"Stop an' do what?"

You could actually shock us both and get a fucking job. Daryl shrugs. "Just... I dunno, just be here. Ain't such a bad town. If I'm gettin' paid more, maybe we... Maybe we look for a better place than that dump back there. Just... Somethin'. Like I said, just for a while." He's not going to beg. He is absolutely not going to beg. "Change of pace, bro. Whaddaya say?"

Merle doesn't say anything. Daryl waits. He's not sure what to expect. This is frankly uncharted territory and he's deep in it with no map.

But he thinks he might feel something like Beth's hand. Her hand in his. Holding.

Guiding.

"We ain't stayin'," Merle says - slowly, as if talking to an intensely stupid child. "We ain't stayin', so you do whatever you gotta do, baby brother, to get us the fuck outta here."

Daryl looks at him for a long moment. Craggy face, older than his years account for. Worn. Tired as Daryl feels. All the life is getting sucked out of Merle, drained from him like he's beset by an invisible vampire. A parasite nestled inside him, feeding on him. This man he loves, this man he's always loved, loved this much and for this long because there wasn't anyone else for him to love and he needed to love someone.

But now everything is changing. And he looks at Merle and he sees what he's only suspected might be the case, only sensed and hasn't fully articulated: Merle has a vampire, Merle has a parasite, but while before he thought Merle might just grab him and pull him down too, into that hell toward which he's inexorably headed...

Merle is his vampire. Merle is his parasite. Draining everything strong and real and alive out of him.

He can only see that now because just for a few days, Beth dragged Merle off him and showed him an existence without that constant drain. He can see what this is because he's been given a glimpse of a world where everything is different.

Suddenly he wants to cry.

You can love him, Beth murmurs in his head. In his ear. Capricious little life-fucking-with goddess, her mercy is boundless and unmatched. It's okay. You can love him. Lovin' him doesn't mean you have to let him do this to you.

Not anymore.

Slowly, Daryl shakes his head. "You don't wanna stay here," he says, very soft, "you can go."

Nothing at all. He can't see Merle's eyes now, but he can feel the pressure of that hard gaze. He bears up under it. There's something solid at his back now, something for him to lean on.

"You can go," he says again, a little louder. "I ain't keepin' you, bro. You don't gotta wait for me. You wanna go, you just go."

"What the fuck happened to you, man?"

Merle honestly sounds scared. Just a bit, just for a second. It's a strange sound, a bizarre sound; he doesn't know if he's ever seen or heard Merle scared. But it occurs to him now that maybe - just maybe - Merle is like him. Merle is scared all the time. Merle is scared and lost and has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

He thinks he might cry again. He's not drunk anymore, or if he is it's no longer helping. This is horrible. Maybe it was better not to see this clearly at all.

"You can go," he says again, soft once more. Hardly a breath. He pushes himself off the tailgate and steps away, turns, stares at Merle in what light there is. He doesn't want this. He never wanted this. But here it is, and what's behind it...

He does want that. He wants it more than he's ever wanted anything. Not the perfect little swells of Beth Greene's breasts, not her smooth skin, not the slim line of her waist, her strong arms, her beautiful tangled gold waterfall of hair, her bright doe eyes. The fresh, clean way she smells. Her mouth and the way it tastes. All of that is amazing. It would be great to have it. But that's not what he really wants.

What he wants, all he wants, is what's been the best thing right from the start.

All he wants is to occupy roughly the same space.

What happened to me?

"Think about it," he says, and he walks away into the moonlight.