Chapter 61: you could hide beside me maybe for a while

He and Merle don't seem to have A Place. But they do seem to have A Type of Place, and they're there now. Open ground, not too close to the road but within sight of it, meadow full of scrubby grass, the hoots of owls in patches of woods in the distance. They have the tailgate down again, sitting there and drinking and getting gently, slowly wasted, and Daryl is staring up at that hazy half moon and thinking about Beth's legs tight around his waist, fucking her so hard his thighs still ache, how it felt like such a risk but everything feels like a risk now - which is kind of fucked up, because if anything they're doing less than they used to do. Seeing less of each other. Halfway back to town she called him, said she wanted to sneak out to see him tomorrow night - it's Friday and it'll be easier to come up with an excuse to be gone - and he told her not to.

Could be he's just seeing the full intensity of the risks they were always taking before. Could be it's fucking amazing they haven't been caught already.

They aren't going to be.

But he's very, very distantly aware that aside from DO NOT GET FUCKING CAUGHT, he has no endgame.

His endgame is to not lose her. That seems, for the moment, like enough.

He tips back the bottle of whiskey, wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve, hands it over to Merle. Merle is sitting beside him and letting a cigarette burn down to his fingers. He seems distracted. Contemplative. This entire week, he's seemed more and more like that - unlike Daryl has really ever seen him. Merle isn't stupid, he knows that - far from it - but Merle allows himself to become stupid a lot of the time, and thinking just isn't exactly Merle's Thing. Never has been. Merle is a creature of impulse, of instinct, and on balance it hasn't served him poorly.

Until recently.

But now he doesn't seem like that, and he takes a big swallow and exhales hard, lowers the bottle between his knees and gazes out into the night. His eyes aren't entirely focused, and Daryl doesn't think it's just the whiskey.

And Merle still isn't high. He can tell.

He follows the line of Merle's attention. They aren't where they were the last time they did this, but on the ridge far in the distance he can see the radio tower, the tiny red light blinking on and off and on again. Almost hypnotic.

No, it is hypnotic. He sits there and looks at it and he feels himself beginning to drift, the rest of the world bleeding away at the edges.

Guy said he'd pay up by Friday. Daryl knows people like that; he says by Friday, no way he means before Friday. Tomorrow they get the money. Or they'll have to break some heads. But he still doesn't think it'll come to that. He has no way of knowing, he's not any kind of prophet, he's no oracle, he doesn't have the powers of a certain little goddess, but he does have a feeling. A strong one. Could be wishful thinking, but he doesn't think so.

They'll get what they need.

And they'll get that place. And it might be rough going for a while, at least until they settle in, pick some stuff up, but they will. He's going to make that place for her. No more fucking in abandoned places, in the truck, in the cold. Unless they want to.

To be perfectly honest, he doesn't see that losing all of its charm.

He reaches over and takes the bottle. "You meetin' up with him tomorrow?"

Merle grunts, blinks at him. He looks... Not startled. But definitely like he's been pulled out of something, like he has to come back from somewhere in his head, and again Daryl doubts it's all the whiskey. "Who?"

"The guy." Daryl frowns slightly. Not worried, but Merle needs to be on top of this, and so close to zero-hour... "Guy owes you money. You remember? The money?" He knocks his knee against Merle's and the whiskey burns pleasantly in his throat. "We kinda need that, bro. Kinda important."

"Yeah, Jesus. I'm on top of it." Merle sounds annoyed, but only mildly. Mostly he still sounds thoughtful. There's a distant quality lingering in his voice, and he swipes a hand down his face. "Gonna see him at some honky-took, he'll bring it in cash. Like we said."

Like we said. And again, Daryl can't detect a lie. He tries: he picks the tone apart, the cadence, the choice of words, but the only odd thing he can see or hear is simply how quiet Merle is. The total lack of any deeper irritation, of any real belligerence.

Merle is just... talking.

"When? Later?" More whiskey, more pleasant burn. The moon is floating in the sky, the clouds around it spinning slightly. "I'm gonna come with you."

"Nah. I got it."

Daryl shoots him another look, questioning - questioning in a way he can't recall with Merle. Merle is usually willing if not eager to drag him along wherever, and part of Daryl has always been aware that this is in part a sense of fraternal obligation and in part practicality but also in part - even lately, even now - that Merle really does like when he's there. Merle likes having him around. That like has found expression in some pretty unfortunate fucking ways, but it's still present.

He blinks. "You sure?"

"Yeah." Merle nods very decisively. "Middle of the day. You get your ass to work. I got it."

Yeah, but what if "What if he decides to be an asshole about it?"

"Man, he's like... four-foot-ten and one-forty or some shit. I'm tellin' you, brother, I got it."

Daryl shrugs. It doesn't feel like something he'll get much out of by pursuing. Merle has, in the past, overestimated his ability to handle certain situations - usually situations where muscle has been required - but he's not drunk and he's not high and Daryl suspects with unusual intensity that Merle wasn't drunk or high when he set this up, either. Or not very much of both.

"Alright."

He sits for another few seconds, and then sets the bottle down between them and allows himself to droop backward and down into the truckbed, lying there with his eyes open and his attention drifting across the sky. The haze that gives the moon its partial halo is also obscuring some of the stars, but the brighter ones pierce through it like the heads of pins through gauze, and his gaze slides over each one. Autumn constellations still, but his mind is turning toward the stars of winter. Canis Major, Gemini, Orion - dogs, twins, hunters. Before he was cured of his affection for books he learned a lot of these names, and he's glad in a vague kind of way that he hung onto them. They're useful things to know, in the way he regards anything useful that allows him to be out in the world and know what he's looking at.

When you sleep under the stars it's a good idea to know their names. Know your neighbors. Know them by sight so you can raise a hand and say hello.

He closes his eyes and imagines Beth Greene's mouth on his neck, kissing his chest, each bump of his ribs. Just lying on top of him, head on his shoulder and the smell of her hair occupying his full attention. Next week he'll make their bed, or the week after, when he can, when he has the money to do it right, and it'll make the agony of every second of not touching her worth even more than it already is.

He'll make a bed for them, and even if they can't share a whole night in it, they'll take what they can have, and it'll be enough.

His brain is doing some weird things.

"We was never supposed to have this."

Daryl lifts his head, squinting the starlight out of his eyes. Merle is still sitting, back to him, but his head is tilted up as well, and Daryl knows without having to see his face that Merle is also staring up at the stars.

"What d'you mean?"

Except he knows. He's been thinking it for weeks.

"This. Place. Job. C'mon, man. I told you, it ain't us."

"Yeah, and..." Daryl struggles to focus, stomach clenching. He didn't want to have this fight again. Doesn't want to. Thought it was done. Thought it was decided, or at the very least that Merle was willing to let it go, willing to try. "Bro, I asked if it could be. Maybe. Like... We could make it work."

"Ain't sayin' we can't." And Merle isn't fighting. Not at all. This isn't an argument. Daryl isn't sure what it is. Before he can formulate any kind of question about that, any query that would shed any light on this, Merle is talking again. "Just sayin' it ain't us. Not now. I figured... Look, man, we been through a lotta shit. Guys like us don't..."

Daryl is quiet now, pushed up on his elbows, watching the dark nothing-space of Merle's back and the few lines and angles he can see of his face. Hard lines, hard angles. His brother got old. He knows this, has known it for a long time, but sometimes he sees it this way and it locks his throat up and stings in his eyes like smoke. His brother got old and for such a long time he's looked at Merle and seen himself.

And what he never wanted to admit was that when he looked at Merle like that, saw himself - given enough time...

In those visions he was always alone.

"We don't what?"

"We don't win," Merle says softly. "We just don't get to do that, little brother. We fight for everythin' we get, we fight like fuckin' junkyard dogs, but in the end we're just gonna get kicked back into the shit. Junkyard dogs stay in the junkyard. Ain't no one gonna take 'em home, give 'em kibble. Give 'em a bed. Ain't no one wants a junkyard dog near their kids."

The clench in Daryl's gut has long since loosened, but it's slid into a low and faintly sickening roll. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like the way Merle is talking. Because Merle sounds sad, and sad is something Daryl has no fucking idea what to do with.

His big brother doesn't get sad. His big brother gets angry, gets mean, gets cruel and spiteful, gets stupid and cocky and boorish and generally horrible. But not sad. Never sad.

"We ain't dogs, man."

"You don't think?" Merle glances back, and the half of his face turned toward Daryl is lost in shadow. "You think we been livin' like people, last two years? You think this is how people live?"

"I think..." God, what the fuck? What's happening? Daryl shakes his head, pushes himself up, leans over, but Merle's face is turned away from him now. "Man, we been doin' our best. We been okay."

He can just see the edge of Merle's mouth twist. "You always was a shitty liar, brother."

"Well, we're..." He's fumbling. Groping for something. This isn't how it's supposed to be, with Merle. This isn't how things are supposed to go, this deep aching sadness and this deeper and growing desire to reach out, to do something, anything, to make it stop.

This isn't how it was supposed to be, because before Merle left, before things went to hell and were still merely bad, there was a little boy curled in the corner of his room with a black eye and snot and tears all over his face, and a bigger boy who didn't make fun of him or call him a pussy or a faggot but merely sat down next to him, reached for him and hugged him and didn't say anything at all.

And this bigger boy couldn't protect him, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how hard the little boy wanted him to. They couldn't protect each other.

But he dared to hope that his big brother might be there beside him like that again, when things got so bad and there wasn't anyone else. And he dared to hope they might be saved.

He was never supposed to be the one reaching out. He was never supposed to be the one holding. He was never supposed to be the one who had to be strong.

"We're alright," Daryl says, softly. And it's easy to say, because he believes it. They are. "We're... We're tryin'. It's gonna be alright. We got it. You said."

You said it would be all right.

Maybe he did. Once, in the dark, in that corner. Maybe he said it would be.

"It's gettin' better." It's a little hesitant, because he's not completely sure what will happen, and Merle doesn't like being touched any more than he does - or did - but he lays a hand on his brother's shoulder and Merle doesn't flinch. Just looks at him, finally, half moonlit and half shadow, in the half light of the half moon, old crags and sharpness, twisted mouth, and a nose that's still crooked, not healing well.

Eyes shining.

Daryl doesn't actually remember ever seeing his big brother cry.

Merle looks at him for a long moment. His face is unreadable. Then he ducks his head, nods, and Daryl really does see himself there, mirror fucking image, and it's not...

Maybe it's not so bad.

"Yeah, man," Merle whispers. "Yeah, it is."

He doesn't say anything else. Not then. He falls silent and Daryl doesn't break that silence - doesn't feel like he can. He sits there, hand on Merle's shoulder, and after a little while he lowers it and lays it down in his lap, facing up, looking at it. The deep lines, roughly calloused fingers, thick and powerful. A scar on the heel of his palm where he cut it on a broken bottle. An almost imperceptible crookedness in his little finger where his father broke it while twisting his hand.

They've worked so hard to get to this point - even Merle, he thinks, after his fashion. For Merle, getting to the point where he can try at all might be a victory. And they're here, together, and of course it was always going to hurt. What matters is that they're here.

And things are getting better.

He's fallen partway back into a reverie when Merle speaks again, and it's like a fist to his breastbone. The tone, low and still a little sad, but also the words themselves.

"You really do love her. Don't you?"

He has no idea how to answer that. Not out of a lack of an answer - of course he knows - but because once again the full force and breadth and depth of that answer is flinging itself howling against the top of his throat and admitting the passage of nothing that could become any kind of useful assemblage of words. Love... He says it to her, over and over aloud and also in his head, desperately meaning it, so desperately needing her to understand, but never feeling like it's enough. And also - and he doesn't like this at all, so badly wishes he could shed it - a part of him is still entangled in the habit of trying to think of and say what Merle wants to hear. And right now he has no idea what that is.

But he's done with that shit. He's done with it. It's about the truth now. It has to be. Or as close to the truth as he can get.

Still looking down at his hand, he murmurs, "Yeah, bro. I really do."

"Fuck," Merle breathes softly, swipes a hand over his short, bristling mat of hair, and tilts his head back once more. Then, "Why?"

Another question he has no idea how to answer, never expected to be asked. Why anyone would love her is so evident to him, so obvious, in no words he could employ to articulate it but powerful like waves slamming into the shore of his brain. He has no idea why the whole world isn't hopelessly in love with Beth Greene. How anyone could look at her and not happily lie down in front of a train for her. It's almost inconceivable.

But Merle asked. And he should try.

"I dunno." He shifts, hands moving over each other, almost dry-washing. Not exactly agitated, but expressive of effort. Because he's trying. "I mean... Started just feelin' good bein' around her. She's smart. She's funny. She's got this way of lookin' at things... Like everythin's new. Everythin' is worth somethin'.

Merle lowers his head, huffs a laugh and reaches for the bottle. "The fuck's that got to do with bein' in love with her?"

He didn't expect this to go well, at least not in the beginning. At least it's not a surprise. In fact, he feels like he's doing better than he might have done. "I dunno," he says again. "I just wanted to be around it. Around her. She was... She was sweet to me, didn't have no reason to be. Just got more and more like that. And she's beautiful, and..." He trails off, shrugging. That's all he has. He doesn't know how to say the rest - how they went into the water, how she touched him, let him touch her, what she told him, how she makes him want to be so present and alive. How she's making it possible for him to look around at the world and fall into awed love with it as well.

Because that last is so true. And he didn't really understand it until now. He feels that.

He's in awe. Of her. Of the simple, brilliant fact of his own existence.

Your one wild and precious life.

"You think she loves you?"

Another fist to the chest, harder, deeper. Punching through and taking hold of his heart. If it hurts it's not a bad pain. Thinking about all the times he's truly believed. How she whispers that she does, kisses it into his mouth and skin, and it feels like truth so bright and burning that it marks him permanently. Tattoos him with invisible ink.

Mine.

"She says so." He takes a breath. The truth. "Yeah. I do. She does."

Merle just looks at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nods, and Daryl sees nothing dismissive in him, in his expression or the set of his mouth or his eyes. Nothing scornful. No contempt. Not even any real disbelief.

"Still ain't goin' nowhere good." He sighs and looks back out at the night, at the minuscule winking red star of the radio tower. Or Daryl is reasonably sure he's focusing on that. He can feel it, or feel something, like a tickling hair at the edge of his temple.

He can feel something else. Movement. A step. A stretch. Something new.

His brother.

"Ain't goin' nowhere good," Merle repeats, lowers his head, and Daryl can just make out a smile twisting at his mouth - strange. Not like any smile he's ever seen Merle wear. "But alright, little brother." His hand now, lifted and settling against Daryl's back, just beneath the nape of his neck. "Alright, man. You love her. You're outta your fuckin' mind, but you do that."

Everything in him wavers. Trembles. Threatens to break. He can't do this, he can't let himself crumble, can't cry in front of Merle like this no matter what was just happening, can't let the words flood out. He can't say what he really wants to say, which is thank you, because he knows what that'll probably earn him, and he doesn't know if he can take even a gentle version of that right now. But this is the last piece of what he wanted, hoped for, needed - his brother, trying, willing, with him and looking ahead and looking at a straight road with signs and destinations instead of an endless looping spiral.

So he leans into Merle's hand, just a bit, and there was this little boy who dared to hope he and his brother might be saved, and maybe it took almost twenty-five years but it happened.

They happened. Are happening. The good days.

Not again. But for the first time.