AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Blue or green, Merle?" Daryl asked. He surprised himself when he heard how he practically snarled the words at his older brother. Merle laughed to himself and helped himself to a cigarette from Daryl's bedside table.
"That green's a real nice color," Merle said. "But the blue brings out your eyes, I don't give a shit what nobody says."
"Asshole," Daryl snapped back. Merle laughed to himself.
"What the fuck you want me to say, brother?" Merle asked. "I ain't no fashion designer."
"I'ma wear the blue," Daryl said. Merle laughed again. "The fuck is your problem, Merle? You followed my ass in here just to hover around me and laugh at me? Go back out there an' do what you was doin' 'fore you got bored enough to come fuck with me."
"Easy brother," Merle offered. "I ain't come to fuck with you. I ain't fuckin' with you now. You just wound up tight as a snare drum monkey, and you determined that the damn breeze from the vents is fuckin' with you—which it ain't, 'fore you go gettin' any ideas."
Daryl willed himself to be mindful of the tension in his body. Merle might not be wrong. He could feel a good bit there, and he released some of it as it drew up his shoulder muscles. He slipped into the button-down shirt—one of about three that he could count as "nice" for anything that might arise that warranted wearing such a thing. He worked the buttons and willed his fingers not to be tight, shaky, or otherwise unpredictable. The jeans he was wearing were his newest pair, also designated his "nice" jeans, and they were saved for special occasions.
This was a special occasion, because Carol had agreed to dinner with him.
"You ain't told me shit about your woman," Merle said. "Been shut up like a clam. I ain't seen you go on a date in…Daryl when was the last damn time your ass went on a date?"
"Long damn time, Merle. Somewhere not too long after the fall of Rome, if I remember correctly," Daryl said. He went to the closet and stared at his belts. He had four of them: two black and two brown. One set was new, one set was old. When he had to rotate the new into the old, he'd replace them. He had already decided on wearing brown boots, so he pulled the brown belt down to match them.
"Well? Tell me about her," Merle pressed. "It ain't everyday I see my brother gettin' all dolled up for some woman."
"Her name's Carol," Daryl said. "I already told you that. And Tyreese says her last name's McAlister 'cause she went back to it after she divorced her asshole husband. Ty didn't tell me much else about her."
"She had an asshole husband?" Merle asked.
"Ain't that what I just said?" Daryl asked.
"Don't gotta be an asshole, yourself, Daryl," Merle offered. "What's she look like?"
"Pretty little thing," Daryl said.
"You said pretty about a dozen times, but you ain't said shit else. Little—like how little?" Merle asked.
"Like tiny little thing," Daryl said.
"Like things look like they in the right places an' padded up, brother? Or like she's some kinda skeleton woman all sharp edges an' shit?" Merle asked. "You don't wanna slip an' get cleaved in two by a fuckin' hipbone."
Daryl laughed to himself. It was the first moment he was happy to have Merle hovering around him like a high school girl. The laughter made him feel better, and the knots in his stomach found it hard to remain tangled while he laughed at his brother.
"She's filled out all right," Daryl said. "I just mean—you know—she's kinda delicate lookin'. But I guess I done been there once, and she didn't break."
"But you don't hardly remember shit about it," Merle offered.
"I remember enough to know I wouldn't mind some more," Daryl offered. He sat down on the edge of the bed, dragging his boots and socks with him, and went to work putting them on.
"What else you gonna tell me about her? What's she look like? Details, brother. Not just pretty an' leave that shit at that." Daryl smiled to himself. Merle snorted. "I see that shit eatin' grin from over here. That damn good?"
"She's pretty," Daryl said.
"So you been sayin'," Merle mused. "Long or short hair?"
"Short," Daryl said. "Natural. Gray. That's one thing about her. Everything about her's just kinda natural. She weren't all painted up. You know like some kinda rodeo clown."
"Better that way," Merle mused. "Get you a woman painted up like some of 'em come? It's like one of them plastic eggs in the supermarket. You don't know what the fuck you gonna get, but you got a good feelin' it ain't worth the quarter you gonna spend. Go your ass to bed with Goldilocks an' wake up with the Big Bad Wolf."
"I think you crossin' your stories there, Merle," Daryl offered.
"Don't matter, you know what the hell I'm sayin'," Merle said. Daryl hummed to confirm that he did understand his brother's mixed metaphor. "She got a nice ass? Good tits?"
"From what the hell I can tell and remember," Daryl said. "Memory's fuzzy, but I don't remember nothin' just knockin' me back as not right. At the coffee shop she weren't hardly standin' up none, and my mind was buzzin' about a mile a minute with everything so—I just didn't really notice that much. She's got some pretty ass eyes, though. Real blue. And I liked her smile—her nose. Hell, I was fond of her face, to tell you the truth."
Merle snorted.
"You ought not to lead with that, brother," Merle offered. "Ever. You go pick this woman up an' you just like 'I like your face,' an' she's gonna turn around and go right back in her house. There's like a ninety percent chance it don't work later neither. She's askin' you to talk dirty to her ass or somethin' and your dumb ass blurts out some shit like—'Sugar, I just love your face,' an' there's a real good chance she don't fuck you."
"Shut up, asshole," Daryl said, laughing to himself.
"You really liked her, didn't you?" Merle asked.
"Yeah," Daryl said. He got up and went into his little bathroom he ran the sink water to let it reach the temperature he preferred it to be at when he cleaned up the hair on his face. He didn't want to look too scraggly for his date, and he figured that Carol might be the kind of woman who noticed things like the fact that he hadn't done anything to shape his facial hair up in a while.
"Hell—you got to," Merle offered. "What time you said you was pickin' her up?"
"Her house at seven," Daryl said. "She ain't wanted to be rushed 'cause she was closin' up her coffee shop an' all."
"You can calm down, brother," Merle offered. "If she don't live in Atlanta, you gonna make on time. You got plenty of time."
Daryl didn't know why he was so nervous, really. Maybe it was simply owing to the fact that he did genuinely like the woman. His memory of the time at the bar was fuzzy, but flashes of it kept coming back to him. Mostly what he remembered was that he smiled a lot—he smiled more than he could remember smiling in a long damn time. And she smiled a lot. Maybe that was why he'd smiled so much. Maybe it was contagious.
Flashes of that night came rolling back to him, too. Snatches, here and there, like putting together a Picasso painting, burned through his mind. Some of it made his cheeks burn hot, and he wouldn't dare to share it with his brother. He could remember a perfect nipple, and the way it felt under his tongue. He could remember that she'd had the silkiest feeling pussy he'd ever encountered—not that he'd really had a great deal to compare it to, and not that he hadn't been out of commission so long that he very well might have simply forgotten what a pussy felt like. In his mind, he could hear her sweet little sounds of satisfaction. They were terrible memories to have, maybe, of a woman who clearly wanted him to forget the night entirely, but they were pretty good memories to Daryl.
Seeing Carol at the coffee shop had jolted Daryl's memories into drawing up more from wherever his drunk mind had locked them.
Carol had been prettier, in the coffee shop, than he'd remembered, though. She'd been shyer, and a great deal more nervous, but he was also a great deal more nervous than he'd been after quite a few drinks, so he was willing to forgive her for that.
More than her looks, though, there had been something else—something he didn't want to mention to Merle because he wasn't in the mood to have his brother rag his ass until he had to leave to go and pick Carol up. There had been something about her that had almost seemed soothing. Being in her presence, even though he'd been nervous, had had a strange calming effect on him, like looking at water. He'd been nervous that she'd ask him to leave. He'd been nervous that she'd tell him she didn't want him to call again. He'd been nervous that she'd say she didn't want to have dinner. All of those things, though, meant that he was nervous to be banished from her presence. He was nervous to never see her again.
Carol, herself, hadn't made him nervous at all. Quite the opposite.
"Where you takin' her?" Merle asked.
"Huh?" Daryl asked.
"Dinner," Merle said. "Where you takin' her?"
"She said she ain't wanted to pick," Daryl said. He wiped his face, after finishing his shaving, and patted it dry with a towel before he dabbed on some aftershave that wouldn't clash with the nice cologne that he saved for things like weddings and funerals. "I've been textin' with her since Wednesday, at the café? She won't say what, but she just says it's a thing for her. She don't like to pick. Won't pick. Hell—she said if I tried to make her pick, I could forget the whole damned thing." Daryl laughed to himself. "So, I figured it was the first time out and all, so I'd take her somewhere she could have about any damned thing she wants, and then I'd know a bit better what she likes by the time we leave."
"You already plannin' a lotta dates, there, brother," Merle said.
"Not plannin' 'em," Daryl offered. "Just—not closin' the door on the possibility."
His stomach practically quivered at his own words. It felt like his internal organs were suddenly made of Jell-O. It was, at the moment, like his thoughts had really hit his brain for the first time. His whole body realized, all at once, that he was doing this—maybe without fully consulting even himself. He wasn't planning all these dates—not down to the hour—but he was thinking ahead. Daryl had often thought ahead about some kind of fantasy life he planned on leading, that much was true, but he'd never thought ahead when it came to his actual life. The life in his fantasies, after all, didn't much match the life he was living. And, even when he'd been out with some woman in the past, he'd never found her to be one that he was planning on seeing a second time or a third.
There was something different about a woman that had his stomach going nuts and had him thinking about how he could find out what she might want to eat the best if she refused to tell him.
Merle said something that Daryl missed, and Daryl hummed to himself, coming back into the conversation.
"What'cha say?" Daryl asked, dampening his hair from where it had dried too much from the shower. He brushed it, choosing for himself which way it ought to lay down.
"You didn't say where you was goin', though," Merle said. "Lotta damn places give you choices."
"Charlie's," Daryl said. "Good food, and a hell of a lot of choices."
"That's easy a twenty-minute drive," Merle offered. "What if you find out you don't got shit to say to each other?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I like silence as much as I like conversation," Daryl offered. "I'll survive. Still—the drive was part of the appeal to Charlie's."
"Just let me give you a word to the wise, brother," Merle offered.
Daryl rolled his eyes. He shoved his toothbrush into his mouth and started scrubbing at his teeth. Merle couldn't see his eye roll, and it didn't matter anyway, so he simply hummed to let his brother know that he could spout his supposed wisdom as much as he liked—at least until Daryl had to walk out the door. Daryl leaned against the bathroom doorjamb and watched his brother while he brushed his teeth.
"You watch how she eats," Merle said. "I'm serious. I ain't yankin' your ass around. You'll be able to tell a lot about her ass by how the hell she eats. She's too damn fussy eatin'? Got some long ass laundry list of what she will an' won't eat an' how it's gotta be? She's gonna be too damn fussy everywhere else. And you don't want you no—eat a piece of lettuce an' done rabbit woman, neither. First of all, it's bullshit that'cha pay for the gas an' the meal an' she don't eat it. Second—you mark my word, brother. A woman that don't like to eat good, don't like to fuck good."
Daryl laughed to himself. He finished brushing his teeth, and he rinsed his mouth with mouthwash before he washed out the sink.
"Yeah, well, she was alright with fuckin' last week," Daryl said.
"Drunk," Merle said. "But if you talkin' about some chain of dates, brother, you gonna wanna see what she's got when she ain't drunk. I'm tellin' you. Watch how she eats."
Daryl stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. He raked his loose change, pocket knife, and keys off the dresser where he'd deposited them earlier and, catching them in his palm, he shoved them into his pocket. He pointed toward Merle, as he approached him, and Merle read his mind enough to offer the cigarettes and lighter from the bedside table.
"I gotta go," Daryl said.
Merle smiled at him and stood up. It was a sincere smile, this time. Not the shit eating grin from before. Merle walked over and smoothed Daryl's collar. He hummed at him before he patted his shoulder roughly and squeezed his shoulder.
"You gonna be a half hour early, boy," Merle offered.
"Rather be late than early," Daryl said. "I'll smoke a cigarette in the truck—block from her house."
Merle laughed to himself. He nodded his head.
"What you gonna do?" Daryl asked, realizing he ought to at least show some concern for his brother's evening.
"Don't'cha worry about me," Merle said. "Might order pizza an' watch the television. Might—get dressed an' go down to Salty's. See if I can't get my dick wet." Merle smirked at him and winked. "You don't worry about me, brother. I know how to keep my own ass busy. Listen, Daryl—I hope your woman's a good eater. Healthy appetite. Not too damned fussy. An' you can find some shit to talk about for a forty-minute, round-trip drive an' a meal to boot." Daryl smiled to himself and nodded, his stomach tangling around itself again. "Hope your date goes right, brother," Merle added. "Just the damn way you wantin' it too."
Daryl smiled to himself. It was seldom that Merle was entirely sincere, but he appreciated it when he was.
"Me too, brother," Daryl offered. "Me, too."
