Chapter 36: the rain that was descending like railroad spikes and hammers

He decides he's going to give it twenty four hours. Twenty four hours - not sure how he arrives at that number, but it seems like it makes sense, or as much sense as anything else. Twenty four hours - if nothing happens in that time he'll give it another twenty four, and another twenty four after that. He's not going to ask anything directly. He knows that wouldn't get him anywhere.

He's just going to give it time, and he's going to watch.

And he has no idea what he's going to do about whatever he might see.

He wakes up Friday morning to a voicemail and the sound of someone hurling gravel at the windowpane.

He thinks it's gravel. It's not. He stumbles half naked to the window and the world outside is a single solid sheet of gray water. He stares at it, phone forgotten in his hand, the calm robot lady on the other end telling him that he has one new message and no saved messages, and wonders if somehow in the night something picked up the building and carried it out to sea.

But no. Of course it's the rain. It's the rain, or he thinks it is, it has to be - but he's never seen rain like this in his life.

Vaguely he wonders if there's some way in which he can make the truck's cab watertight.

Merle makes his yawning way up behind him as Daryl is listening to the message - basically telling him to take another day, everything indicates it'll let up over the weekend - and lets out a low whistle.

"Jesus, looks like we might wanna see about scrapin' an ark together or somethin'."

Daryk snaps the phone shut. "Comin' down this heavy, can't last that long." But though he's pretty sure that's true and he's trying to sound like he's sure, he's really not. Something about this whole thing - the way, especially with Beth, it's felt as though he's slipping into and out of a dream - is suggestive of a suspension of the rules.

He's not sure what he can count on anymore. Nothing he thought about the world is quite bearing itself out these days.

In any case, he's glad he made a food and beer run the day before, because there's not much else worth going outside in that weather for, and not a whole lot to do. Merle wanders off into the kitchen for a bag of breakfast Cheetos and Daryl wonders if it might in fact be worth braving the elements for some decent coffee.

In the end he decides against it. And he has other reasons besides the rain. Surveillance obviously isn't something he can manage every day, and there's no reason to assume Friday is special for any reason, that anything else is going to happen - and anyway his presence might very well nix any move anyone might be inclined to make - but he's here, so he might as well keep an eye on things.

As unobtrusively as he can manage.

And maybe this particular Friday actually isn't so mundane. Because as the day wears on - TV, beer before noon and Merle getting high and Daryl trying not to chain-smoke because it really doesn't make him feel good, and in fact he's been making a real effort to cut back lately - it becomes very, very clear that Something is Up with Merle.

Daryl is shit at lying to people in general. Merle is a lot better at lying to people in general, but when it comes to Daryl specifically, not so much. Even when he can pull off lying, it's a different matter when he's trying to pull off hiding something.

Merle is fidgety. Twitchy. Moving around just a little too much. Doing a lot of glancing at the window - outside of which the rain is continuing just as heavily as before. He's high, maybe even a little higher than usual, but this doesn't feel like his usual meth twitchiness. Daryl sits slumped in the threadbare recliner, trying to look drunker than he is - which is not very much at all - and watches him with narrowed eyes.

It's not like there's money missing. So really he shouldn't be angry about this. And in truth he's not, and he's not sure anger would have been exactly what he would have felt if money had been missing. He thinks he would probably have mostly felt deeply, bone-achingly weary.

But now he's not sure what he's feeling. No: he has no idea what he's feeling. He has no idea what to do, besides watch. Because this makes no sense. He knows Merle, knows Merle maybe better than he knows anyone, and this makes no sense. This isn't Merle. This isn't what Merle does. Not ever.

Has Merle finally lost it? Has Merle found Jesus?

Is Merle possessed?

Merle is wearing only his boxers and is tapping his fingers on his bare thigh. Over and over, taptaptap. Daryl wants to lunge at him and grab his hand and scream would you just fucking stop it, and also would you tell me what the fuck is going on with you.

And at some point in the early afternoon, just as it seems like the rain is slowly beginning to taper off, it comes to him: This might be what Merle has been feeling about him.

This might be what Merle has been feeling for weeks.

His little brother, his brother who was never so happy when they hooked up again, free from their ravaging sadist demon of a father, his little brother who looked up to him because maybe Merle was a loser like he was, called stupid and worthless all his life and never finished high school, never even made it halfway into his sophomore year, but Merle made it, Merle got away, Merle had the strength to leave and therefore became something almost mythical, the living embodiment of some kind of fucked up promised land. His little brother who just about worshiped him, at least at first - looked at him like some kind of hero who knew how to survive anything, clearly loved him so desperately, followed him everywhere like a puppy. His little brother who fought for him, defended him, went through the most stupid, idiotic shit for him, suffered for him. His little brother who made Merle his entire world, and when Merle got put away and then got out again he dropped everything else he had going on - not that there was a whole lot, working part time for minimum wage in a garage in what amounted to a shitty, dirt-poor extension of Atlanta - dropped it all to come pick his brother up and skip parole and wander the great state of Georgia in that slow, slow downward spiral. His little brother who was - increasingly tired, increasingly sad, increasingly scared, but loyal to the end - following him into a gray and hopeless Hell.

His little brother now talking about jobs and sticking around for a while, and not drinking as much, not going out as much, spending way less time with Merle in general, looking for apartments, and, when he gets pushed, pushing the fuck back.

How the fuck is Merle supposed to feel about that? Just how the fuck should he feel?

And all that shit Merle doesn't know about. Not the outside, but the inside, and everything associated with it. Beth's voice, the way her hair shines in the sun, the heart around her neck, the delicate scar on her wrist and the pretty things she covers it with. Her smile and how it makes everything in him burst open like a seed. How good it feels just to be around her, how it feels when she holds his hand, how well it fits, how well they fit, how she tastes and how his veins run liquid sunshine when she's in his arms, the sounds she makes and the way she shudders when she comes, the way she says his name.

How they went into the water together and came out and were changed. Her hand in his and the secret held between their palms.

Daryl doesn't know if Merle can know all of that. Not even that he shouldn't know, not even that Daryl needs to hide it; he watches Merle twitch on the sofa, black blown-pupil eyes darting everywhere, and he thinks about everything they had together and everything he has now, is trying to have, wants, and he feels a chasm opening up between them and he knows that even if he laid it all out, told Merle about it, tried to explain...

It wouldn't happen. It wouldn't work. There would be no meaningful exchange of information. Merle just wouldn't get it. At least Daryl really, really doesn't think so.

He loves his brother. He loves his brother more than he can stand.

But they aren't together anymore.

Finally around three the deluge slows to a shower, which then slows to a trickle. For the moment it appears to be over. Merle is still fidgeting, still twitching, but less so. He seems more focused. He goes to the kitchen and comes back with a jar of peanut butter and a knife, starts eating right out of the jar - it would frankly be weird if he didn't - and talking about nothing, about the fucking rain, about how he hasn't been laid in like a week, about how her Daryl has this day off and all they've done is sit around like Merle had some big plans to be somewhere, and Daryl keeps noticing how Merle's gaze keeps returning again and again...

To the recliner Daryl is sitting on.

Huh.

So Merle flops back down on the couch, getting peanut butter on his fingers and still rambling, and after another ten minutes Daryl gets up and announces that he's getting a shower.

And Merle's eyes widen just a touch, and it's not surprise. It's also not exactly nervousness. Daryl stands there and looks at Merle in the dirty brown-gray light, and what he sees... This word isn't right either, but the only one coming to him is anticipation.

Merle raises the peanut butter knife in a salute. You do that, man. Daryl heads into the bathroom, closes the door all but a crack, turns on the water, and waits.

After about half a minute he hears the creak of dying springs as Merle lurches to his feet. The unmistakable shuffle of a not-quite-sober man trying to walk quietly. And the squeaking of the chair's own springs, the sound of something like a cushion hitting the floor, and Daryl shoves the door open and is in the living room in two long strides, and there's Merle, crouched in front of the recliner, whipping his head around with eyes even wider, and in his hand is a thin plastic freezer bag two thirds full of cloudy grayish shards of something that looks like broken safety glass.

Daryl stares at it. At Merle. Because naturally it's crystal meth, but it's more than Merle could reasonably hope to smoke unless he intended to kill himself, and it's more than Merle would ever carry around for personal use.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Daryl breathes, and Merle actually cringes, looks like he's expecting a kick, and somehow that's the worst part of any of it.

Because Daryl knows that look, and that affect. He knows it very, very well.

"Look, brother," Merle says, still crouching and still clutching the bag - drawing it closer to his chest like Daryl is going to snatch it away. "You ain't-"

Daryl doesn't give him a chance. It boils up in him all at once, everything, bubbling poison, because he thinks he gets it now, or he sort of does, he's beginning to, and it's horrible, it's making him feel literally ill. It would be so much better if Merle had just been taking the fucking money, converting it into that shit, sucking it down like he always does. It would have been simpler. Daryl would know how to feel.

He thought he would just be tired if it was something bad in the normal sense of bad. He was wrong.

He takes a slow step forward, fists clenched, feeling his face screwing up into something like a grimace. "The fuck're you doin'?"

"Man, you gotta-"

"The fuck're you doin'?"

He's never heard himself sound that way before. It's not exactly a roar, but it's closer to that than not. He's complained to Merle, he's nagged, he's been irritated, and yes, he's been angry, but he's never been like this. He's never been enraged. And he is: it's tearing into him and wrenching at his intestines, hammering at his stomach, cracking open his chest and squeezing his heart. It isn't even just rage. He looks at that bag, at an amount of crystal that can only be there for the purpose of sale - selling a lot, selling in volume Merle never has before - and he thinks he might double over and vomit all over the shitty fucking rug.

"The fuck you think I'm doin'?" Merle is clearly trying to regain control of the situation, trying to summon up his own anger - because Daryl has so often given way under that anger - but it's not working very well. That shocked, cringing look is still twisting his features. "You ain't seen this before? Don't act stupid, man, you ain't-"

"You're sayin' I'm bein' stupid?" This is not Merle's day for getting to finish sentences. Daryl is still standing there, rigid, just about shaking, and he doesn't even think it's about the meth. It feels immense. It feels like his skull is blowing open.

This is about everything.

"You really sayin' that? You really sayin' I'm the one bein' fuckin' stupid? You simple-minded piece of shit, fuckin' look at that thing!" Merle does. Daryl doesn't give a fuck. "How the fuck did you get that much? You owe anyone? You get yourself into that?"

Merle swings his gaze back up. "I ain't owe no one nothin'," he says quietly. And Daryl doesn't give a fuck.

"You... How the fuck you gonna sell that much? Huh? You got some kinda big plan for that?"

"Maybe I do. The fuck you know 'bout it?" Merle is definitely recovering, and his eyes are narrowing into sharp little slits, mouth thinned into an equally sharp line. Daryl knows this look. Once he would have done a lot to avoid it. Now he's doing that thing where he doesn't give a fuck. "The fuck business is it of yours?"

"Business of mine..." Daryl gapes at him, and just for a second he's literally speechless. "How the hell do you..."

Merle shoves himself to his feet, still holding the bag. "Yeah. Ain't your fuckin' business. Tryin' to do all that flyin' straight, thinkin' you're better, it never was. Not this shit. Ain't your business."

"It's all my fuckin' business!"

It's not almost a roar. It is a roar, loud enough and hard enough that Merle literally reels backward, nearly stumbling, finally dropping the bag. Daryl lurches a step forward, another, and he doesn't even feel like himself anymore. He feels like some stranger, or like he's watching some stranger wearing his face explode in slow motion. It's dizzying. Again, he thinks he might just be sick.

Can't get out of it. There was no going back with Beth, and there's no going back now.

"It's all my fuckin business, you useless fuckin' idiot. It's all my business. Who was there when you got out? Who let you drag his ass all over this fuckin' state for two fuckin' years? Who got the cops off you like fifty fuckin' times? Who put up with your shit, over'n over'n fuckin' over? Who's been your punchin' bag ever since I found your sorry ass? Who fuckin' left me? Who left me? I'm SICK OF THIS SHIT."

He's thunder. The remains of the rain outside is dripping off the building's eaves, and down in the street he hears the rumble of traffic, but in here it's all storm, and he's crashing through the air, pounding it all open, and for this moment - this horrible, monstrous moment - he feels his own power and he revels in it, like he's been aching to do this for years. Decades.

Because he has.

"What the fuck you think happens if you get picked up with that shit on you? That'n they find out you broke parole? The fuck you think they're gonna do to you? Hell, the fuck you think they're gonna do to me? I been with you this whole time! How many fuckin' accessories you think I'm gonna be? You been fuckin' yourself, now you're fuckin' me, and I am so. Fucking. SICK."

Merle is cowering. Actually cowering. Without realizing it Daryl has started advancing on him, stalking forward and taking on every indication that he's about to do damage, and it all comes surging back like bile - doing his own cowering, trying to cover his head and belly from what he knows is coming, wrenched to his feet and hurled against a wall. A broken dish and fumbling and his hands sliced open, blood all over the floor, dripping off his fingertips like rain. Now Merle's eyes eating up his face and his lips trembling, and the man who did it to them felt this same power. Daryl knows it now, knows it like he never did.

And everything in him collapses. He almost collapses, his knees buckling like they're full of ragged tinfoil, compressing with his own heaviness. With the weight of this horror. Merle backed against the wall, small, trying to cover his head, trying to cover his brother's head, putting himself in the way of the oncoming blows, whimpering Stop, stop, he didn't do nothin', just stop it.

Daryl could reach for him. Pull him in, pull him close. It's all right, it didn't kill them. They're alive and they have each other, and it's all right.

But Merle knows him. Merle knows him so well. Merle has always seen his weaknesses, always knows how to hit him where it hurts most, where his cracks will widen and the darkness will seep out. Merle sees it now; Daryl can tell because a sneer - so familiar - twists his mouth into something ugly, and he pushes forward into Daryl's face, teeth bared.

"Yeah, and who fuckin' took care of you? When no one else did? When you had nothin', who the fuck had you? When it was just Dad an' no one else, who was there for you, you little shit? Who was always there? Who else coulda helped you, when he was there?"

Daryl's turn to reel back. These are words as kicks and punches. Lightning cracks through him and rain pours in, washes out his blood. Everything he can't say, every last thing caught in his throat. Not rage now but all his scars and everywhere they came from.

You left me. You cut out and you left me, and then it was just me and him and he made me pay double. He made me pay your share. I took the hurt for both of us. Me.

Me alone.

He shakes his head, slow, and the words come out of his flooded mouth and he can't stop them.

"Wish he was here now. You fuckin' deserve each other."

Merle lunges at him and when the fist connects with his jaw the world blows itself into a thousand electric spikes.

He swings back without thinking about it, snarling, clumsy and unbalanced. He's never been a graceful fighter, never been skilled in any sense of the word, but he can get the job done. He can aim and throw a punch and put someone on their ass. He's hurling punches now but he's not aiming at all, and neither is Merle, half the blows spinning wide - raining down on his shoulders, his upper arm, glancing off his cheekbone. One solid one connects with his mouth and he grunts pain as he feels his lip split open, blood waterfalling into his throat like a storm drain. It's not even punching then, just grappling, a perverse, wretched parody of a hug, and Merle kicks his legs out from under him and they go down together, rolling, throwing fists and knees and anything they can. And the whole time it's possible that he's hissing things, spitting them bloody through his torn lips. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

I hate you.

Everything hurts and Daryl doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't think either of them do.

He tumbles away suddenly, gets free, groping for any possible weapon, and as his fingers close around plastic he sees - in a single burst of clarity - Merle's face, blood pouring from his nose, sudden fear, mouthing something like don't-

This time his aim is true and the bag hits Merle's face with a crack that slices through the air and breaks, and dully glittering shards fly like hail.

And everything stops.

"Daryl?"

Soft voice. Clear, musical. But shaking slightly. Just a little. Shaking like it might shatter.

He jerks his gaze toward the door. Merle does the same. It's open, open wide, and a girl is standing there, blond hair darkened by wet, her gray t-shirt hugging her body, hands loose at her sides and her blue doe eyes huge, her pretty lips parted. She's shock embodied. She's been struck by lightning.

He thinks she might fall and he wonders if he can get to her in time.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but she still doesn't move.

He can't look away. But he can get to his feet. Somehow. Beside him Merle is as motionless as she is, and in the periphery of his vision he sees utter disbelief on his brother's wrecked, bloody face.

Stop, he whispers to himself, but it's too late and he's heading for the door, that same awful stalking he did with Merle, because the rage couldn't be beaten out of him and all he tastes is blood, and she shouldn't be here, he didn't tell her she could be here, how fucking dare she see him like this.

She's backing away from the door. He moves through it, staring down at her, huge to her smallness, and she keeps backing down the stairs, fumbling for the railing.

Don't hurt her. For the love of God, love of everything, love of her, don't fucking hurt her, you piece of shit.

That baptism didn't heal him. He didn't get changed. God, he's just so full of poison. He's so ruined. He had no idea. Because she might actually be scared of him.

Except he looks into her eyes and some remaining sane part of him thinks no, no, she's not. She's backing away, but she's not scared.

"The fuck you doin' here?"

"Daryl, I-"

At some point they left the stairs and now there's blacktop under their feet. The side parking lot. After-storm sunlight in his eyes, harsh and white. She's so bright and she's all he can see, and he thinks she could burn him if he got too close.

"The fuck you doin' here?" Because she hasn't come here before. She's never asked him if she could, never tried. Why hasn't she tried? Does it matter? She's here now. She saw what she saw. She's not stupid. She'll understand what it was. She'll understand enough.

She's not backing away anymore. He's looming over her, but she's not budging, and she reaches into her pocket, her jaw set, and pulls out a neat roll of bills and holds it out.

"Daddy wanted you to get paid for the week. Even if you didn't come by. I was comin' outta school. Seemed convenient. Then I heard you, I thought maybe you were in trouble."

Her voice is cirrus cloud, wispy and light but full of high cold. He stares at the bills, at her, at her eyes - no longer doe eyes but chips of blue ice - and all at once he feels small. Small and stupid and pointless. She's not a goddess, she's a girl, but she had mercy and he thinks there's a better than average chance that he just exhausted the last of it.

She gives the bills a little jerk with her hand, indicating that he should take them from her. He doesn't move. He can't.

So she drops them onto the wet blacktop at his feet, and she doesn't break her hold on his gaze for one fucking second.

Somehow he finds his voice. A voice. He's not sure it's his. It's nothing more than a rough whisper, and he doesn't recognize it, and when he speaks it sounds far less like a command than a plea.

"Get out. Don't come back here again."

She spins away from him and starts to walk, and she tosses the words over her shoulder without looking back.

"Don't worry. I won't."

He watches her until she rounds the corner back onto the sidewalk and he can't see her anymore.

Even walking away she's so fucking beautiful.

After what feels like half a day he bends and picks up the damp roll of bills with numb fingers, curls it into his equally numb palm, turns and makes his slow way back to the creaking stairs and up them, and into the room where the storm has died. Merle is sitting in the wreckage, meth scattered all around him, leaning against the couch with his head tipped back and a dirty shirt pressed to his nose. He glances over when Daryl comes in, and though Daryl can't see a good portion of his face, he can read Merle's expression perfectly well in his eyes. It's also in the slump of his shoulders, the way his legs are sprawled on the rug in front of him.

Like Daryl thought he would feel before the sky broke open. Not angry. Not anymore. Just very tired.

Maybe a little sad.

Daryl is freshly aware of his split lip, which is still bleeding freely, and he heads to the kitchen and gets a wad of paper towels, comes back out and sinks down beside Merle. He wonders vaguely how long it'll take the bleeding to stop.

The room gets dimmer. The door is still swung wide, and outside the rain is starting back up, steady drumming. There's none of that good rain scent he likes. The air smells like wet garbage. And when Merle finally speaks his voice is muffled, nasal, but Daryl understands him.

"Who the fuck was that?"

Daryl lifts the paper towels away from his face and stares down at them, at all that blood. He's not full of poison. He's just full of water, and he's going to wash away and be gone, and none of this will matter anymore.

"That was Beth."

That was Beth.

Was.