Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2309306.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Walking_Dead_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Daryl_Dixon/Merle_Dixon
  Character:
      Daryl_Dixon, Merle_Dixon
  Additional Tags:
      Incest, Sibling_Incest, Underage_-_Freeform, Rape/Non-con_Elements, Drug
      Use, bad_language, Canon-Typical_Violence, and_on_top_of_all_that, Racial
      slurs, Pre-Canon, Canon-Compliant, the_underage_scene_is_not_graphic, and
      the_dub-con/non-con_scene_is_when_they're_adults, Angst, Drama,
      discussion_of_killing_animals/hunting, Hunting, Child_Abuse
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-09-15 Words: 12589
****** Come What Will, Come What May ******
by baku_midnight
Summary
     A timeline of the Dixons' miserable lives pre-apocalypse, delivered
     in short episodes taking place over the course of their lives. Merle
     Dixon didn't stand a chance up against the life he was given, but in
     all the suffering, there was one bright light, if only he could see
     it.
Notes
     Heed the warnings and tags! In addition to the incest/dub-con
     elements there is some pretty nasty language up ahead. Merle Dixon is
     racist and I didn't want to overlook that aspect of his character,
     even in a story which explores him in a rather sympathetic light.
     There is an underage scene (Daryl is about 12 when Merle is in his
     twenties) that isn't graphic or forced, but there is one dub-con/non-
     con scene later on that is graphic.
     I utterly love these two characters and I am fascinated by the lives,
     however miserable and dark and unfortunate they must have lived. This
     story is my imagining of the lives they had, as brothers and kindred
     spirits, before the apocalypse.
Somewhere high in the Georgia mountains, in a cabin, a woman lies in bed,
clutching her newborn baby to her chest, letting him rest calmly in the crook
of her arm. She’d cobbled together enough blankets to make a bed: great-
grandma’s quilt, mama’s starched sheets, and a whole mess of hand-knit
washcloths to make a nest to deliver in. Unlike them spoiled ladies in the
city, she’s not afraid to get dirty, and her mama and grandma gave birth on
their own terms, in their own homes, so by God, she can too. Could, too, she
realizes with sudden clarity, looking at the baby in her arms, her second son,
she could and shedid.
 
The air outside is cool and clean, wind whispering as it whisks through the
birches and poplars outside, and there isn’t a sound outside save for the ones
that come from nature. It’s a mighty fine day to bring a baby into the world,
she decides, and nothing her husband has to say will change the pride she feels
having brought forth her second son today.
 
“Whaddya’ll want me to say?” her husband huffs out when he finally comes inside
the cabin, plenty of hours and drinks later, “jus’ another mouth to feed.”
 
He doesn’t even look at the baby, keeping his eyes carefully averted to the
dark corners of the room, face angled down to the floor, scratching at the back
of his neck like a dog with fleas. She shakes her head, knowing there’s no
arguing with him. If he’s decided he’s only going to be able to see his
children as burdens rather than treasures, there’s not much she can do to
change his mind. He’ll have to clue in to the fact that the babies are as much
his as they are hers, someday.
 
“Probably be another screw-up, too,” her husband says crudely, casting a
pointed look back over his shoulder at the boy standing just behind him. The
boy’s face and ears go red but he doesn’t react otherwise, used to the put-
downs, as if being called worthless is as familiar to him as his own name.
“Ain’t never gonna be a proper man. Spend all his time getting in fights and
gettin’ his ass dragged home by the cops.”
 
“Merle’s barely11, he’s a boy, he ain’t no man,” his wife corrects coolly, too
tired to argue.
 
“Yeah, and he ain’t ever gonnabe one!” the husband answers with a huff and
storms out of the cabin without so much as a glance at his new baby.
 
“Merle,” the mother calls to her older son, who is standing off to one side,
out of reach of the length of his daddy’s arm. He’s got his hands pressed hard
against his sides, looking more like an army recruit than a little boy, fierce
blue eyes leaving the floor to look cautiously over at his mother when he hears
her, “come on over here, darlin’.”
 
The boy moves hesitantly, like the newborn on the bed is some alien creature
come to eat him up. His mother chuckles, “he won’t bite, come on,” and Merle
comes up to the side of the bed, eyes trained on the bundle in his mother’s
arms.
 
“This is your little brother, Daryl,” she explains, handing the swaddled baby
over to her older son, who takes him without hesitation. Not that she gives him
any time to think about it, carefully and quickly transferring the bundle in
her arms over to his, making sure that he’s holding the baby’s head higher than
the rest of his body, then dropping her tired arms to rest on the blanket over
her lap. “It’s your job to take care a’ him, alright?”
 
The way she says it it’s like a tease, after all, she’s going be the one doing
the caring and Merle’s going to be the one fucking up, that’s just how it goes,
he knows it – but Merle takes the message to heart, anything his mama asks,
he’ll do it, and looking down at his baby brother, sleeping, helpless, in his
arms, he figures he’s up to the challenge.
 
*
 
His brother’s five years old when Merle manages to make him cry. Purposefully,
that is. Every single thing he does seems to set the little brat off, anyhow.
It’s gettin’ so he can’t even have anything of his own without being expected
to share half of it with his baby brother. When mama gets tired it’s up to
Merle to babysit, when his little brother needs new shoes or clothes or a ride
to school, hell that responsibility falls on Merle, too. No one else is gonna
do it, after all, so he’d might as well.
 
“Santa Claus ain’t real!” Merle shouts at Daryl, who’s standing his ground,
hands twisted into fists at his sides, lips pressed into a firm white line as
he glares up at his older brother. “You see any presents under the tree?! Huh?
You think some greasy old man gonna come on by and give you a new bike?”
 
“On TV, it said—” Daryl begins, but his voice cracks miserably, and he clamps
his mouth shut again. His blue eyes are welling with tell-tale tears, a tantrum
is on its way, and right on time – and good. Merle could use the excuse to get
some of his yellin’ out.
 
“I don’t care what you seen on TV! Ain’t no such thing!” Merle argues, heart
pounding frantically in his chest. He squeezes forward, corralling his brother
into the doorway of the kitchen, fencing him in like a cornered foal, frozen
solid in place. Daryl’s brilliant blue eyes – bright as the day he was born –
are swimming with tears he refuses to shed, holdin’ ’em back like a man oughta.
 
“Ain’t no one out there gonna bring you presents, just for bein’ you. Ain’t no
prize for bein’ you!” Merle shouts, and hears the echoing of his father’s voice
at the other end of the cabin, warning him to pipe down. He runs a hand through
his short brown hair, feeling the tips slick with sweat – a nervous trigger at
the sound of his dad’s voice that just spurs him on. He leans forward so he’s
looming over Daryl, from whom tears are now freely flowing, wetting his
freckled face.
 
“Anything you want, you gotta go out and get ityourself,” Merle imparts,
pointing at his own chest, “ain’t no one else gonna get it for ya.”
 
Daryl is teary-eyed but he doesn’t make a sound, and turns, wordlessly, and
dashes off to his room down the hall. It’s more of a closet than a real
bedroom, but it’s enough room for the boy to curl up and hide under the covers
like a wood-bug stuffs himself under a rotting log. Merle just rolls his eyes
as he hears the door at the far end of the hall shut, and turns on his heel to
get to the front door.
 
He ain’t ashamed of what he did; makin’ his brother cry was way less than what
he had comin’ to him, what Merle coulda given him. He stomps up and down the
hill outside, going no particular direction, until dinnertime.
 
That night, Daryl creeps up into Merle’s room, all skinny limbs and rosy
cheeks, the light coming in through the door from dad watching TV down the hall
parts around him like the Red Sea, leaving a halo of silvery-white around him.
He walks forward, steps quick and firm, and stops in front of where Merle is
propped up on one arm, staring at him.
 
“Well, go on then,” Merle says without moving, and Daryl opens the covers and
climbs inside, moving in so he’s pressed with his back to Merle’s front snug as
a bedbug.
 
He probably had a bad dream and since knocking on mama’s door wouldn’t do any
good after she’s finished her bottle, and dad’s probably asleep on the couch,
drooling all over the armrest, Daryl turned to his big, strong brother for
comfort. Merle wonders if Daryl even tries the other two first, nowadays, or if
he’s given up. That night Merle learns what it means to be a family – family’s
the ones you come crying back to when you ain’t got nothing else.
 
*
 
When Daryl’s seven years old, they move out of the cabin and into a trailer,
closer to town, so that Daryl can get to school easier and be closer to other
kids his own age. At the time, he’s too young to understand that his mom’s real
motivation is the distance to the liquor store, and his dad’s is how close to
the welfare office their new abode is, so as Daryl sees it, he gets to be
around other kids that he knows from school, and he’s glad for it.
 
When he’s eight, the trailer burns down, taking mama with it. The trip from the
playground by the highway to the trailer park is a blur, Daryl doesn’t even
remember how he got there, only remembers it was on his own two feet. When he
arrives, there’re firemen in their heavy suits, sheriffs with wide-brimmed
hats, and cops milling about, picking at the ashes of his former home like
scavengers kicking up dust.
 
One of the cops pulls Daryl aside and asks him if he has anyone to care for
him. Daryl doesn’t answer right away, the smoldering coals of his family home
smudging his vision, the crackles of the plastic siding and the whirr of the
fire engines filling his ears. It’s tempting, really, to say he doesn’t have a
daddy, at all, and let the policeman take him where he will. But then, Daryl
knows, he’d be taken away from Merle, too, when he got outta juvie, and they’d
be put in separate homes, one for big brothers and one for small, and they
wouldn’t see each other anymore.
 
So Daryl tells them where his daddy spends his time during the day, and the
cops go fetch him and bring him around. Daddy hugs him, but it’s all for show,
because the second the crowd in front of their house clears, he slaps Daryl
right across the face. Daryl doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even cry all day,
figuring he can put if off for tomorrow. But when the next day comes, he
doesn’t cry, either. Or the next. After a few months, he’s not sure if he’ll
ever cry again.
 
*
 
When Merle runs away from home, he does it proper-like, by ‘emancipating’
himself from his father’s custody. It means he’s got the freedom to get a job
and support himself at 17, rather than waiting out the eight months until he
turned 18. It also means he becomes a ward of the state, and the state, if they
ain’t got anywhere else to keep him, can keep him in juvie ’til he’s 21. Daryl
doesn’t really get it, all he knows it that Merle chose juvie over staying with
his family, and staying with him.
 
One day, waking up after daddy took the belt to him the night before, Daryl
gets out of bed to find the cabin – which they moved back in after the fire –
empty. No sounds inside or out, no TV playin’, no one frying on the stove. He
walks around the cabin, kicking dirty clothes out of his path, then bolts right
out the front door.
 
He runs. Runs all day, until he can’t find his way back to the cabin, nor back
into town. He sleeps under trees at night and stomps around all day through the
understated underbrush, until he realizes he’s been away from home at least
three days.
 
Surely daddy’s lookin’ for him by now, if not the sheriffs. They were experts
at lookin’ for little boys lost in the woods, if the news that dad made ’em
watch was anything to go by. “That could be you, out there,” his dad would say,
less a warning than a threat, pointing to the portrait of the missing child on
the TV screen, “if y’ don’t smarten up.” Daryl sits curled up next to a tree,
dreadfully hungry, and waits to be found, for a whole other day and night.
 
When he realizes no one’s comin’ for him, he tries to remember everything Merle
had taught him about tracking. How the sun went from one side of the sky to the
other, so it was no good trying to follow it, but better to keep it on your
back. How to check if he’d stepped there before by looking if the leaves on the
ground were crumpled, and how to leave markers for himself by scratching the
trees with a knife. Didn’t have no knife so he ripped the bark off with his
nails, and kept walking.
 
“Don’t you let yourself die of thirst, y’hear?” Daryl remembers Merle’s voice
in his head, “keep the river next to ye’ so you don’t forget to drink.” Daryl
keeps the creek on his right and walks all day long, collapsing under tree
roots at night.
 
“Don’t you die like a dog, if you see danger, you run,” Merle told him, long
ago, “ain’t no shame in running when you’re out-matched.” The only danger Daryl
faced out there was hunger and thirst, so he ran from it, ran alongside the
creek all day long until the cabin came back into view and he stepped inside
the back door, went through the empty kitchen, and made himself a sandwich.
 
*
 
When Merle finally gets out of juvie, he has nowhere to go but back home. They
took his trailer and closed his bank account while he was behind bars, his old
job at the garage wouldn’t take him back, and he had no friends to speak of, so
his only refuge was the one place he never wanted to see again.
 
As he skids into what passes for a driveway on his bike, the cabin coming into
view in front of him, it looks a lot less oppressive and more…pathetic than he
remembers. What was his childhood prison, looming and fortified, looks small,
all tucked back in the trees, which had dripped their leaves all over its
crown, filled its gutters with layers and layers of yellow and green.
 
When he gets inside, empty-handed, bringing nothing with him but the clothes on
his back, it’s Daryl, not his dad, who comes out to greet him. The boy, now a
teen starting the deadly ascent into adulthood, leaps forward and wraps his
arms around Merle’s waist before Merle can stop him.
 
“How’s it hangin’, baby brother?” Merle asks, peeling his little brother off of
him, heart instantly softened just by his presence. Daryl looks straight at the
ground, attempting to compose himself, tears in his eyes almost as a force of
habit.
 
“Dad around?” Merle asks and Daryl instantly goes stiff. He was always the
sweetheart of the family, mama treated him like the sun shone out his ass and
dad hardly ever raised a hand to him, though he did raise his voice plenty.
 
Daryl shook his head. “No.”
 
That night, they eat pork and beans heated up on the stove, and sit around the
fire pit in the yard, just for the sake of being outdoors in the fresh air.
Merle breathes deep the smoky, sooty, cold air, feeling comfortable for the
first time in a long time.
 
“What’s juvie like?” Daryl asks cautiously, taking a swig of his orange soda,
the last bottle he was saving for a special occasion. His face is darkened by
the night sky and lit up by the embers of the fire, leaning forward in his lawn
chair to poke at the logs with a blackened poker.
 
“Oh, it’s wonderful. You get to read books all day and carve shivs out of
plastic spoons all night. Then, just when you’re feeling bored, some guy will
come on in to your room and start beating the shit out of you for no reason,”
Merle drawls, leaning back in his chair, the creaking of the rusty metal
meeting him as he slumps against it.
 
“Really?” Daryl asks slowly, and Merle huffs.
 
“Naw. He had a good reason. I’d been wipin’ my ass with his doo-rag the last
few weeks and he’d only just found out,” Merle jokes, casting a glance over at
Daryl. His brother looks utterly scandalized, like that’s the most horrific
thing he’s ever heard, and Merle laughs. He laughs, and laughs, so hard and
long he thinks he might have a heart attack and die, all stiff and rickety like
those old men, until he’s out of wind and tears are streaming down his cheeks.
 
Daryl is looking down at this thumbs, his soda barely touched, nursing along
every drop. He looks shy, suddenly, around this big stranger in his home, and
Merle sighs.
 
“Why don’tchu go get me another beer, huh?” Merle prompts with a tip of his
chin in Daryl’s direction. The boy gets up and hurries inside, coming back with
an ice-cold bottle, popping the top off on the edge of the barbeque as he
passes by it. He hands it to Merle, and Merle doesn’t extend his arm, forcing
Daryl to lean in close, close enough to grab.
 
Merle snatches his wrist and pulls Daryl in and kisses him, one hand around the
back of his head so he can’t jump away. Just kisses him, a firm press of lips
against his brother’s soft mouth, then pulls away with a smacking sound. He’s
not sure why he does it, only that it feels like the right thing to do, right
then.
 
They separate, just enough so that their noses still touch, and Merle roughs a
hand up through Daryl’s messy dirty-blond hair. Daryl hovers there a moment,
standing between his big brother’s legs, then, to Merle’s astonishment, leans
in again.
 
Daryl presses forward with a kiss of his own, climbing up onto the lawn chair
as he goes, one knee on either side of Merle’s lap, his hands on Merle’s thick
shoulders. He kisses softly, gently, but willingly, pink lips wet with spit
when Merle coaxes them open with his tongue, sliding sideways along the seam,
slipping just the tip inside. Merle shoves the beer bottle down in the dirt,
twisting it so it stands and then runs his hands up and down Daryl’s sides,
rough drag of calloused hands rucking up his t-shirt, smoothing down his skin.
He starts to pull Daryl down by the hips, bring them together, but when the
hard lump in his jeans grazes Daryl’s backside, the boy falters, and stops.
 
Merle lets Daryl climb out of his lap without a word and walk back across to
his chair. He palms his dick lazily with one hand and runs the other through
his freshly-shaved hair, the prickle of the bristles a nice counterpoint to the
soft give of his baby brother’s skin… What was he thinking? Merle pushes out a
sigh, breath shaky, and reaches down for his beer, finding he doesn’t even want
it anymore.
 
Daryl is looking back at him, sheepish, toes turned in and hands over his lap.
He’s probably too young to even know what’s happening to him down there, Merle
realizes with a sick feeling in his gut. Maybe he’s never even touched himself,
by God, what has he done?
 
The boy excuses himself wordlessly, brushing his hands up and down his arms
like the cold air is getting to him, and then disappears inside the house.
 
Merle sits outside for a long while, feeling a mix of sick and pathetic and
lonely and angry as he stews in what he did. He makes it a habit not to regret
anything, but that, what he just done? That’s the closest he’d come to
regretting something, ever in his whole life.
 
But kissing his little brother felt…good. It felt right, real, and good, even
when his mind was telling him no, his body was goading him on, pushing him
forward, with a feeling like an electric shock running all up and down his
spine as he touched his brother’s skin. Daryl had been the only person in his
life to ever look at him like he wasn’t all good-for-nothing, fuck-up trash,
and he’d probably gone and screwed that up now, too. He’d be lucky if Daryl
ever looked at him with admiration in his eyes again, if he looked at him at
all.
 
Hours later, so late the moon is sunk all the way down past the mountains,
Merle turns in, pulling himself up onto his bed, on top of the covers, letting
the cool night air comin’ in from the open screen doors and windows settle in
his bones, make him heavy like an iceberg. He lies back with an arm pillowing
his head and stares up through the skylight, at the star-freckled sky above
him.
 
He hears a shuffling in the hall outside and stares in shock as Daryl walks
into his room, crossing the floor and standing just in front of him, like he
always did when he was a kid. He stands, stock-still, until Merle lets out,
voice creaky and laced with something that might just be tears,
 
“Well, go on then,” and Daryl climbs into bed with him.
 
But they don’t sleep. Daryl didn’t have a nightmare, he isn’t a child no more,
he’s still a boy, but he’s got different needs. He leans against Merle’s chest,
the two of them on their sides, lifting his head, slowly, so slowly, an inch at
a time, every second making Merle’s heart slam harder against his ribs, and
kisses him, soft and sweet. Merle lets out a moan and pushes forward, he can’t
help it, and wraps a big hand around Daryl’s head, holding him in place while
he forces his tongue inside Daryl’s mouth. He laps at every little inch of his
mouth, rolling his tongue around Daryl’s, licking back at his molars, sucking
out his taste.
 
Daryl is pliant, oh-so willing to take what affection Merle offers, desperate
for the tender touch of another human being he’s been denied so long. He lets
out these tiny little whimpers and sighs, mouth open for Merle’s seeking
tongue, hands curling and uncurling in the front of his brother’s shirt.
 
Merle reaches down and presses the back of his knuckles into Daryl’s groin and
the boy goes stiff again, but doesn’t pull away. His breathing starts to pick
up, harder and faster, until Merle’s worried he’ll pass out or something and
pulls away, stroking his thumb gently down Daryl’s cheek.
 
“It’s alright, you just relax, let it go, I gotcha,” Merle mumbles, palming
frantically at Daryl’s clothed erection, feeling how hard and ready he is for
hisbrother through his jeans. He rubs in a circle, stroking up and down, then
shoots his other hand down between his own legs and pulls at himself, rubbing
them both off together until they spill in their pants, choking on air. Daryl
whimpers and hides his face in Merle’s shoulder while Merle pants and tries to
come down in a dignified fashion, given that he just rubbed off his little
brother and came so fast doing it himself that he almost passed out.
 
They spend the next few days like that, kissing, touching each other, but
mostly just making out. Daryl likes kissing the most, and seems to want to
improve on his technique, often initiating kisses, closing his lips over
Merle’s tongue and sucking, chuckling to himself at the desperate reaction that
brings. More often though, Merle initiates things, even in broad daylight, his
grip on the back of Daryl’s neck leading him into a kiss, smacking him right on
the lips even in the middle of the day.
 
Neither of them says a word about it, it’s just what they do now. Words would
make things complicated, and this…is about the easiest thing Merle has done in
a while. Easy now, at least. Merle doesn’t want to think about how things will
get on in the future, when they’re older, and hopes, honestly, that they’ll be
over this by then. They spend nearly two weeks like that, days bleeding into
nights where they explore one another’s bodies, until dad finally shows up and
throws a shit-fit over Merle being around, screaming and throwing trash,
threatening all sorts of bodily harm until his eldest son is gone again.
 
*
 
Daddy gets tired of teaching Daryl how to hunt about the time he’s nine years
old and mama dies. He gets tired of talking, really, spending more and more
time in his shack drinking with his asshole friends. Daryl doesn’t mind when
he’s out there, because he’s happy out there, and when he’s happy, he ain’t up
for hittin’.
 
What he did teach sticks hard in Daryl’s mind: how to spot animal tracks when
the ground is dried out and dusty, how to aim a rifle and how to shoot, how to
butcher a white-tail proper-like. He keeps studying for himself so he can show
Merle what he’s learned when he’s back around, spending his weekends and
summers out in the woods, traipsing through the underbrush with a rifle over
his shoulder. Out in the woods, no one bothers him, or asks him how much money
his daddy makes. No one badgers him about what he wants to be when he grows up.
 
When Merle’s home again – and daddy is out of town for sure, this time – Daryl
is ready to show off his skills. They go out in the woods, Merle with a bottle
of Jack Daniels in one hand and a rifle in the other, Daryl with his gun held
diligently in the crook of his arm, and track down a deer for dinner.
 
It’s a good-sized buck, at least 150 pounds, Daryl estimates proudly, following
the swath of crumpled underbrush the beast leaves in the woods. He casts the
occasional look over his shoulder to see Merle still following him,
disinterestedly looking around the woods, taking large gulps from his bottle.
 
When they get up on the deer, Daryl makes a hissing sound to indicate they
halt, and Merle does so with a huff. Daryl lines up his shot, the deer plain in
his sights, but not the rattlesnake crawling out of the brush beneath him.
 
Merle shoves him out of the way with a firm hand on his shoulder, and stomps
down hard on the rattlesnake’s head just before it’s about to strike. He stomps
down again for good measure, rearing up with a war cry, bottle dropped and
booze seeping into the forest floor. He kicks the crippled reptile across the
clearing, only ceasing his attack when it’s well out of sight.
 
“What the Hellwas that?!” Merle roars, storming over to where his little
brother is seated in the leaves, stunned still, resting heavily on his hands
behind him. He bends double and grabs Daryl’s chin, shaking his head back and
forth and screaming in his face, “you got some kinda death wish, boy?!”
 
Daryl is too shocked to move, so Merle takes away the option, kicking the boy
hard in the ribs, sending him tumbling sideways. He rolls out of the way just
as Merle’s readying another kick, knocking his rifle aside and getting up to
his knees, just in time for a blow to the face.
 
“You dumb fuck! You coulda got yourself killed! What you think you’redoing out
here? This ain’t no game!” Merle rambles between blows, landing a few good
socks to the side of Daryl’s head until the boy manages to leap out of the way.
The teen scrambles up to his feet and lunges at Merle’s waist, trying in vain
to push him over, sending him stumbling back a few steps while Daryl growls and
squeezes with all his might.
 
Daryl ducks his head and chomps down on Merle’s thigh, crunching the flesh
through the stiff fabric of his jeans, making his big brother howl in pain. He
grabs Daryl by the hair, rambling and screaming as he throws the kid back.
 
“What’d you’ve done if I weren’t here, boy?” Merle shouts, “what’d you’ve done
if you were alone, huh? You’d be dead!” He gets close to the boy seated on the
forest floor, blood out of his nose and split lip, before Daryl kicks him hard
in the shins and knees, throwing his legs out from under him.
 
Merle crumples, falling hard on his ass with an angry yell, and Daryl climbs up
on top of him, getting in a swift punch to Merle’s jaw before Merle catches his
wrists and flings him across the forest carpet.
 
“Maybe if you were around more, I wouldn’t hafta worry about being alone!!”
Daryl screams, sweat dripping down his temples and face red with rage.
 
“I don’t need you!!” Daryl cries as he’s getting up, and scrambling out of the
clearing, stumbling on shaky legs, “You ain’t shit! I done just fine without
you!!”
 
“You ain’t shit without me!” Merle calls back, the trees swimming across his
eyes, the alcohol making him loopy and angry. “You ain’t nothin’without me!” he
cries to empty forest, his brother’s narrow back gone from view.
 
*
 
When he’s 26, Merle gets caught with 18 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of his
car driving down the interstate and the cops tell him he’s got three options:
join the army, become an informant for an even bigger bust they got planned, or
get locked away for a long time. He sure as Hell ain’t no squealer, and he
tells the cops as such as they get him fitted for his military uniform.
 
Before departing, he comes home to the cabin with a military-issue pack slung
over his back, boots heavy, but his heart light. The army’s about the safest
place for him he can think of, and while he’d rather have made the choice of
his own volition, he knows it would’ve come down to it sooner or later.
 
When he tells Daryl, the boy doesn’t take the news very well. A gangly 15 years
old, with dirty blond bangs covering his eyes, he stands in the doorway and
practically stomps his feet with anger.
 
“But you just got here!” Daryl moans, slamming the side of his fist into
Merle’s chest when his brother tries to embrace him one-handed.
 
“Whoa, whoa! Hold on now, Sylvester Stallone!” Merle laughs. The puffy black
eye his brother’s sporting makes the comparison all the more accurate. He
chuckles at the way his brother squirms and fights against him, all limbs and
fire, no bite. Daryl’s thin lips form a snarl as he shoves both hands against
Merle’s chest, easily overpowered by his brother’s crushing grip. “I’m here for
the night, don’t you worry.”
 
Daryl is unconvinced, and starts to sniffle. He always was such a whiny kid.
Won him plenty of sympathy from their dad, saved him from the beatings, that’s
for sure. Merle watches as tears form and spill over his brother’s high
cheekbones.
 
“What’re you, some army-wife, waiting for her big, strong, maverick husband to
come home? Worrying over her knitting, twiddling her little thumbs?” Merle
teases, stroking his thumb across under one eyelid, wiping the tears away.
 
“Ain’t no one’s wife,” Daryl huffs, voice creaky.
 
“Yeah, well, you sure cry like one,” Merle answers, arm around his brother’s
shoulders, and leads him in through the door.
 
“Don’t worry, I’ll stick around a little while,” Merle says quietly when
they’re inside, confidently, as if he’s telling a secret. Daryl sniffles and
rubs the heel of his hand into his eye.
 
Being in the cabin again is so surreal, Merle isn’t even sure he’s really
there. He spent so much time trying to forget everything about this place, but
his body still remembers every square inch. He avoids the creaky spots of the
floor as he walks, and turns automatically into his old room, to find the bed
piled up with boxes and bottles and every other kind of junk that oughta be in
proper storage. He shoves it all off onto the floor, and replaces it with his
duffle-bag.
 
Daryl is there in minutes, in his bed. They make love, for real, proper, that
night, Daryl sighing into his brother’s neck, content like there weren’t no
place he’d rather be. Merle’s always been partial to fucking, banging, knocking
boots, but making love is the only way to describe what they do that night.
It’s like a ceremony, the way they hold each other, a welcome as much as it is
a goodbye, and Merle makes the decision right then, that this’ll be the last
time.
 
*
 
Merle takes to army life like a pig in shit. Everything is organized, they get
three square meals a day and their own beds. Recruits do their own laundry and
take care of their own shit. No one asks him questions about who he is or where
he came from, and if someone does, he socks ’em good, and they call it “combat
training”. Really, if he’d known this is what the army’d be like, he’da
joinedyears ago.
 
In the army, everyone does what they’re told, which Merle appreciates, but
unfortunately, it means the man himself is no exception.
 
One of the colonels really starts getting under Merle’s skin, and on purpose,
too – calling him names and treating him way shittier than he does anyone else.
He calls Merle redneck,freak, roid-raging, junkie fuck, inbred, sister-humping
– the last one really makes Merle see red, despite himself – and gets away with
it, too. To make things worse, he’s some kinda kike or something, ain’t even
true blood, and Merle could forgive that, probably, if the man weren’t so weak.
He’s gotta be less than Merle’s height by about six inches, and 50 pounds
lighter, yet he’s Merle’s superior and that just don’t sit well with him. The
day Merle stopped listening to his daddy was the day he outgrew him; he ain’t
about to listen to this google-eyed, curl-haired bitch one more second, even if
he is his superior officer, Merle decides, and that’s when he strikes.
 
And that’s that. Merle’s military career is over, just like that. He barely
finished one tour in Afghanistan. He gets 16 months in prison, which ends up
overtaking the 4 years he spent in the army by a long shot, at least in how it
feels to him. The only compensation is the fact that he’s got a hefty sum
waiting for him when he gets out; even a dishonorable pension is more money
than his daddy’d ever seen in his sad little life.
 
Even the thirty years of shit Merle went through up to this point didn’t
prepare him for prison. Ex-military don’t get no love in jail; the only thing
keeping his ass safe is probably his size, which Merle is suddenly,
irrationally grateful for. He spends every day pumping his guns so he can get
even bigger and scarier, to deter folks from pissin’ him off best he can. He
joins the skinheads, because what else is he gonna do. He lies on his prison
cot and stares up at the bland cement ceiling, trying to remember to count on
that glorious pension waiting for him outside these barred windows.
 
*
 
Daryl doesn’t finish high school. The kids all know he’s poor and stupid, so to
prove ’em right, he flunks every class. The kids say he ain’t gonna show up, so
he doesn’t. He skips and skips class until one of his teachers finally asks him
what the matter is, and at that point, he doesn’t know where to begin. She
promises that she’ll find a way to let him pass, he only needs two credits in
senior year it’ll be a cakewalk, come on – but he can see the pity and doubt in
her eyes. She knows full well he ain’t coming back around for twelfth grade,
and she’ll be relieved to see him gone.
 
Dad whips the shit out of him when he finds out, despite never having finished
school himself, neither. Daryl doesn’t think he has the right to complain, but
he does have the right to punish. Merle told him so, told him it was a dad’s
right to discipline his young’uns if they’re outta line, don’t matter how he do
it, and it’s the kid’s duty to take it. Daryl thinks if Merle really believed
that, he’d be here, rather than off on his own.
 
Daryl’s seventeen years turn into 19, 21, 24… he doesn’t even know why he keeps
track, it’s all the same, just a different number on the calendar. He dates
girls but they leave when they realize he ain’t gonna fuck ’em, just likes
someone to have to drink with when nights get cold. His only friends are the
guys who will turn on him the second they get caught, and Daryl knows as much,
but sticks around just the same. It’s better than nothin’.
 
The only thing keeping him on his feet is the advice his brother gave him,
delivered in small sermons and dark lessons over his many years, during the
short periods when he was around. “Don’t let folks see you cry. Don’t be a
chicken-shit pussy-ass bitch. Don’t let the cops push you around, know your
rights and ask for an arrest warrant. Don’t associate with kikes or niggers or
queers, they don’t speak our language, they don’t know the world like we do.
Take care of yourself, ain’t no one else gonna do it for you.Survive,however
you can, little brother. There ain’t no shame in wanting to survive.”
 
Half of the advice Merle gave he didn’t even follow himself, and Daryl decides
he’s gonna kick his teeth in when he sees the guy again.
 
He practices with his crossbow on the tin cans hung out back of the cabin. He
takes his father’s blows until he’s 21 and the old man leaves home for good. He
catches food for himself and keeps collecting his dad’s welfare check to buy
beer with. He fucks his hand with two fingers shoved up his ass, and imagines
it’s his brother’s fingers, his brother’s hard, warm body pressed up against
his in the dark, his gentle cooing voice whispering in his ear, “it’s alright,
just relax, let it go, I gotcha. I gotcha.”
 
*
 
When Merle gets out of prison, he takes his pension and buys a house and a
whole lot of booze. It’s wonderfully easy to get a hold of painkillers and
psychedelic drugs – he just says he’s got PTSD, anxiety, OCD, trauma he just
can’t handle from his years in the army, and the doctor writes him all the
prescriptions he wants. He’s got enough cash to supplement the lot with meth.
The house is old, maybe a hundred years plus, basically falling to pieces right
before his eyes, an apt metaphor for the life he’s lived. But the drugs,
they’re quality, and with enough of them, he gets thinking the house is
alright. Better than alright. It’sdamn fine.
 
Next thing he does is come by and scoop up his little brother, and his
motorcycle. They move into the house but it doesn’t sit right, looking up at
the same ceiling every night, and after a couple days they board up the door,
take their cash, and go on a hunting trip that never really ends.
 
Daryl’s camping gear and survival stuff becomes theirs, and Merle’s money and
truck and motorcycle belong to both of them, now. Everything Merle ever owned
was half his brother’s anyway: maybe the husband and wife metaphor really does
ring true. When he thinks about it, Merle can’t think of someone else he’d be
able to spend his whole life with, anyhow. He tries not to think on it too
hard.
 
They get the tent up and build camp not two miles outside of town, in a copse
of thin, white-barked trees and stringy vines. The leaves shudder above them as
they work, wordless, tireless, to set up the tent, set the fire, and camp like
it’s not the first time they’ve done it in twelve years.
 
They sit up in fold-out chairs, drinking amicably by the fire. Daryl wants to
hear about Merle’s time in the army but he doesn’t want to talk about it,
instead grousing dramatically about how everyone else wronged him and brought
him down for no reason. Daryl knows the truth is Merle probably deserved all
the lumps he got, but doesn’t say anything, he’s just happy to have his brother
around.
 
His big brother has changed. He was never sweet and fluffy before, but now he’s
even harder than he was as a young man. His muscles are bigger, Daryl notices,
looking up and down his brother’s thick body. The muscles concealed under his
ratty shirt are clearly defined, pecs bulging out the sides of the straps,
abdomen stretching the fabric as his breath swells the muscles of his stomach.
But his arms – his arms are massive, years of doing push-ups at boot-camp and
plenty of time in the prison yard are the things responsible, Daryl imagines.
He wonders if his own arms will ever be that toned, if he’ll ever be as strong
as his brother.
 
And his face… Merle’s face holds a darkness that never seems to disappear in
the light. The lines in his face are deeper, harsher, they make him look like
he’s cracking apart, but the darkness that surrounds him sticks on, like gooey
crude oil, thick smog. Daryl has always been intimidated, not scared, of his
brother, especially now, while he sits staring at the fire with a dark,
unblinking look in his eyes, Daryl feels a chill run all the way up his spine
and settle somewhere at the base of his neck.
 
He remembers how Merle’s hand used to feel at the base of his neck. Warm,
solid, firm, when they used to kiss and rub each other off. How Merle’s hands
used to lead him, guide him through the pleasure he sought, make him feel more
alive than anything else ever did.
 
Merle slumps back in his chair, looking disinterestedly at the fire, and Daryl
gets to his feet. He ain’t gonna talk, fine. They don’t need t’ talk.
 
Daryl shuffles over and climbs right up in Merle’s lap, planting a knee on
either side of Merle’s thighs, and his arms around Merle’s shoulders. He grins
a wicked little grin, pressing down gently against Merle’s legs, grinding his
ass against Merle’s lap.
 
“What the Hell is this?” Merle annunciates, enraged, gripping the sides of the
fold-out chair so hard the fabric screeches under his fingernails. “Whatchu
playin’ at, boy?”
 
Daryl circles his hips playfully, grinding himself against Merle’s lap, hoping
to make it clear how hard he is. “What’s it look like?”
 
“You ain’t a kid no more,” Merle answers immediately, turning his head away in
disgust. Daryl simply leans harder into him.
 
“What? So it’s okay for me to want it when I’m little, but I can’t now that I’m
grown?” Daryl asks, “I ain’t cute no more?”
 
Merle grits his teeth so hard he swears he feels them crack. No, this ain’t
right. Playing around as kids was one thing, but it’s serious now, they’re big,
now, they’re adults. It’s not playtime anymore.
 
“Nothing cute about this,” Merle grits out, and pushes Daryl unceremoniously
from his lap and gets up to leave. Daryl stumbles to his feet, narrowly
avoiding the campfire, and brushes himself off, rightly embarrassed. He doesn’t
know what happened. All he knows is the only man he’s ever loved just tossed
him away like a used condom.
 
“So, what?!” Daryl shouts at his brother’s retreating back, “it’s okay to make
me want it when I was a little kid and didn’t know no better, but now, now that
I’m making the choice myself, it’s no good?!”
 
The younger brother puffs out an astonished breath as Merle doesn’t even stop
to make a smart-ass remark. Call him queer, call him a pussy, whatever – Daryl
would take anything over abstinence right now.
 
“D’you only want me when I was a kid? Am I no good to you now?” Daryl asks
softly, “too big for you now? Not cute no more?”
 
Merle tightens his hands into fists, the only evidence that he’s even
listening. Daryl expects a fight, and he’ll take it – he’d rather Merle whoop
his ass than carry on with his wretched silence.
 
“Or did you never want me at all? You were just foolin’ me,” Daryl comprehends
sadly, lifting his hands and dropping them against his sides in defeat. There’s
nothing more to it. It was all another trick, just like Merle’s promise that
he’d stick around. He doesn’t know why he even came on his trip in the first
place.
 
Suddenly, Merle lets out a growl like a wild animal, planting his heel in the
dirt and turning, charging Daryl with a strangled war-cry. He grabs Daryl’s arm
and twists it behind his back, shoving him down into the dirt on his knees,
face-first.
 
“You want me to show you how grown-ups do it?!” Merle barks out, slamming
Daryl’s head into the ground with his free hand, twisting his wrist behind his
back with the other. He drops to his knees behind Daryl and grinds up against
his backside.
 
“Down on the ground, fucked like a dog, that what you want?! Huh?!” Merle
shouts in Daryl’s ear and grinds up hard against his prone ass, raised at just
the right angle to drive up hardagainst him. Daryl groans and jerks forward in
the dirt, using his free arm to try to push himself up, his entire body giving
a twitch when Merle rams up against him again, shoving him down into the
ground.
 
“This is how adults do it,” Merle hisses out, desperately tryingnot to think
about all the guys he fucked in prison that looked like his baby brother – the
one that had the same shoulders, the one who had the same mouth, the kid with
the same messy hair – he grinds in deep, planting his knees in the dirt and
pushing hard, moving Daryl’s whole body with the force of his thrusts. “You
want it like this, huh?”
 
Merle reaches a hand under the hem of Daryl’s shirt and he scrambles his hand
back in a panic, leaning on his shoulders and reaching out for Merle’s wrist to
stop him. “No, no…” he pants, sweat dribbling off of his hair and into his
eyes, flinching as Merle slams into him again for good measure. “I do! I
do…want it, just…Merle…I can’t—” he struggles for words, squeezing his eyes
shut as every pantomime thrust rocks his body. He lifts his hips, helplessly,
up towards Merle’s, hoping for some sort of relief, horrified when Merle pulls
away entirely.
 
“Come on!” Merle stomps to his feet and grabs Daryl’s arm, squeezing hard
enough to leave bruises, and Daryl stumbles hopelessly towards the tent.
 
“Wait! Merle!” he cries, yelping in pain as Merle swings him around and slams
him down on the sleeping bag that makes his bed. Daryl moans and rolls over to
his side, cradling his aching arm, gasping as Merle grabs his hand and flings
it aside, shoving Daryl over onto his back.
 
Merle snatches Daryl’s belt and pulls hard, getting it lose and ripping his
pants down his legs. He wrenches them all the way off while Daryl cries and
reaches helplessly for his hands, Merle’s huge palm on his chest pushing him
back down into the floor. Daryl whines, unable to turn away from the sight of
his own hard cock revealed in front of him, smacking against his belly like an
insult.
 
“Please,pleaseMerle,” Daryl moans, staring imploringly at Merle’s dark, rage-
filled eyes. He wants it, God, he truly does, but it’s too much, too fast,
waytoo fast…he’s regretting spurring his brother on as he watches the man grit
his teeth and wrench his naked legs open, lifting them up onto his lap, hooking
an ankle around either side of his hips.
 
Merle grips Daryl’s cock, just this side of too tight, pumping the shaft a few
times while Daryl hollers and squeezes his eyes shut. “This what you want, huh?
Show you how grown-ups do it,” he rambles, spits on his fingers, and shoves two
inside Daryl’s body.
 
Daryl moans and throws back his head, giving a sorrowful cry as Merle jabs the
two fingers inside him, fucking them in and out, scissoring them apart. The
pressure of the thick digits inside him makes him go stiff, the pain wilting
his erection while his body jerks away from the touch.
 
Merle withdraws, grumbling to himself and reaching across his bed to the night
bag in the corner, rifling through it one handed with the other one on the
inside of Daryl’s thigh, holding him open. The cold air filtering through the
open tent door tickles sensitive exposed skin and Daryl flinches, hearing the
rustling of Merle’s hand beside his head.
 
Merle finds the lotion he was looking for and squirts a dollop into his hand,
working the cream around with delirious intent before plunging his fingers back
in. Daryl screams as they probe deep, the lotion slicking the way and
eliminating any resistance his body might’ve put up. It feels totally different
with the lube, the fingers inside him squelch back and forth easily and Daryl
moans, twisting his arm up over his head and gripping the pillow, his back
arched, all white skin and lean muscle in a pale arc, as the fingers fuck in
and out of his body.
 
Suddenly, the fingers hit something that has Daryl seeing stars and throwing
his head back so hard he’s sure he fainted. When the light comes back to his
eyes he whines, pleading, begging his brother, as his fingers jab relentlessly
at that one spot.
 
“Stop—’s too much,” Daryl groans, and in response Merle adds a third finger.
The added stretch is exhausting but with the slick easing the way, there’s no
escape from the brutal assault of the thick fingers. He pants, voice going high
and panicky as Merle scrapes away at his insides, finger-fucking him
relentlessly.
 
Daryl moans, his limp dick trying desperately to rise again but the pain is too
much, until Merle pulls away entirely, wiping his fingers on the blanket beside
him and watching Daryl appraisingly. His chest is heaving, still covered by his
ever-present vest, a look of pleasure and terror on his face. Sweat dribbles
down the tips of his messy hair, coating his flushed face with a sheen of gold.
He startles and his voice jumps up an octave, moans and pants turning high and
reedy as Merle grips his cock and works it lazily to hardness, thumbing the tip
and pushing Daryl just right to the edge of relaxed/panicked.
 
Daryl hears Merle’s jeans unzip and looks down to see the monster of a cock he
pulls out of his briefs, backing away in horror as it looms over him. “Merle,
no—” Daryl shakes his head as Merle lines up his cock with Daryl’s and strokes
the two of them together, rough, hard strokes, mostly for show. Since when was
he so big? There’s no way that’s going to fit inside him, Daryl thinks
miserably, trying to pull his hips away. But Merle holds him fast against his
lap.
 
“You want this, don’tcha, sweetheart?” Merle groans, “drive this right up your
asshole ’til it comes out your mouth.” His mouth is filthier than usual, and
the dark look on his shadowed brow doesn’t help make him look any less
frightening. Daryl doesn’t know what happened to his big brother; the person
looming over him is like a stranger.
 
“No… yes! I want it! But ’mnot ready,” Daryl moans, panting, pressing his hands
down into the covers to keep them from flying up to his hips.
 
Merle leads the head of his cock down, drawing a streak of precum down the
length of Daryl’s shaft, then lines up with his hole. Daryl screams and flails
his arms downward, landing on Merle’s stomach to try and push him off, as he
shoves the whole of his hard shaft relentlessly inside him.
 
Daryl goes still, hands pressed to Merle’s abdomen and face turned into the
pillow. He pants helplessly against the intrusion, trying to get his body to
accommodate the massive shaft inside him, relaxing his legs and letting them
fall wider apart. The pressure is unlike anything he’s ever felt, so big,
sofull… there’s no escaping the thing inside him, all he can do is lie still
and try to accept it.
 
“Oh God,” Daryl breathes out, “hoo…” he can barely handle what’s happening,
being so intimately connected to his brother, like they’re sharing the same
body. He groans and shifts his hips a little to try and gage how deep inside
Merle is, and he feels the brush of curly hair against his ass. Merle circles
his fingers around Daryl’s ankles and pushes them up, getting him at just the
right angle, then fucks in deep.
 
Daryl’s screams echo about the woods, heard only by squirrels and owls, as his
brother fucks him mercilessly. He wants to enjoy it, wants to feel his
brother’s affection like he did when they were young, and Merle’s strong hands
and patient voice coaxed pleasure from him, made him feel wanted, and
protected. He pants out hard and tries to relax his muscles against the
intrusion inside his body, letting his legs fall limp in Merle’s grip.
 
Merle hooks one of Daryl’s ankles over his shoulder, using his free hand to
grab Daryl’s half-limp dick and coax it back to hardness with brutal, timed
strokes to match his thrusting inside. Daryl flinches and reaches blindly down,
landing on Merle’s fist and feeling his own cock pump in and out of the circle
of his brother’s hand, slicked by his juices. The feeling is just too real, too
much, slick and wet and unimaginablyhard, he fondles the head helplessly,
mindlessly, his palm connecting with Merle’s fingers on every upstroke and
then, suddenly, Merle pegs that sensitive, shooting-star spot inside him and
Daryl screams.
 
“Ah, ah, aaah!” Daryl groans out, words failing him, shoving his head back into
the pillow, neck arched and mouth wide open around his cries of pleasure and
pain. It still hurts, hurts like nothing he’s ever felt, the cock plugging away
inside of him stretching him well beyond what he can take, but it the searing,
blinding pleasure sluices a bit of the burn, and for a moment all he can focus
on is the incredible, scorching ecstasy of their bodies aligning just right.
 
Daryl’s panting goes high and coarse and awkward as he approaches his peak and
Merle drives in harder, hips slamming relentlessly against Daryl’s ass,
slapping sounds echoing across the camp. He tilts his hips to just the right
angle and pounds in, faster and wilder and doesn’t stop until Daryl’s coming
with a wild cry, twisting his head back and forth against the pillow, fisting
great handfuls of fabric at his sides, fingers digging in so hard the fibres
tear.
 
Daryl’s muscles clench down tight around him and Merle flinches but doesn’t
stop fucking him through it, his brother’s legs dropping limply around him
while he pounds in hard, harder still, not stopping when Daryl’s nails scrape
at his thighs and he cries, over-sensitized and over-fucked, screaming once
more as Merle presses in deep and stills inside him, spilling his hot load all
over Daryl’s insides.
 
Merle grunts and pulls away, wiping himself on the edge of the blanket, Daryl’s
hands reaching out towards him, trying to get and grip and failing, collapsing
back, exhausted, on the bed. Merle stomps out of the tent without a word.
 
*
 
The thing is, Merle wanted to be sweet, and kind, and gentle with his brother,
but he knows he ain’t got none of that left in him. Whatever sweetness he had
died with his mother, and then the remainder was whipped out of him by his
father, then the army, then prison… there wasn’t any left.
 
And besides, he was angry. Where did Daryl get off thinkin’ it’s alright to
treat a man like that? Like you know a damn thing about him? And Daryl, sweet,
naïve baby brother, he didn’t know how harsh real life was. He was mama’s
favorite, he didn’t get smacked around by their daddy. Hedidn’t have people
staring at him everywhere he go, thinking he was a fuck-up, a junkie, a loser,
a freak.He didn’t go to prison. He didn’t know. He didn’t know a damn thing.
 
*
 
The first time Daryl Dixon sees a dead body, his first thoughts are, in order:
1. where did it come from? 2. how long has it been here? and 3. will I go to
jail for this?
 
The third of his thoughts overrides the first two immediately, and he scrambles
to look around for somewhere to hide the thing, rather than calling the
sheriff, or getting help, or anything a reasonable person would do because he’s
not in the habit of giving the cops any more reason to beat the shit out of
him. His family has a permanent red mark in their file thanks to Merle’s
antics, so the cops are all too eager to take in the little brother and the dad
any time they see fit, and their reputation sees fit there will be no questions
asked.
 
Last time the sheriff came around, when Daryl was about 18, the cops were
trying to hit up his father with accusations of – of all things – growing pot.
Daryl didn’t know how to break it to them that his daddy was too stupid to
operate a garden hose, and when he was sober, but he kept his mouth shut except
to ask the cops if they had a warrant to be there, just like Merle taught him,
and shoved the bag of weed his big brother’d been keeping in the kitchen drawer
into the hole in the underside of his mattress.
 
Needless to say, Daryl does not call the cops after that first encounter. He
looked around the area for any sort of weapon, too scared-shitless to look and
see what the poor fool died from, and too afraid to touch the body besides,
much less examine it for wounds like he would an animal carcass – and then left
the body, and didn’t tell anyone about it. As far as he knows, it was never
discovered out there, and it faded from his mind like just another
insignificant memory.
 
The second time he sees a dead body, that sort of sheer panic over being caught
and thrown in jail is still there, still with a feeling of dread in the pit of
his stomach, bile coming to the back of his throat; but those worries vanish
quickly to be replaced with a sheer, inhuman terror as the body comes back to
life.
 
The body looks like it’s a man around his brother’s age, probably dead in a
hunting accident, or chased out into the woods is more likely, given the fact
he’s got no gear. Daryl scans the area to make sure no one’s looking and then
sticks his hands in the pockets of the man’s utility vest, coming away empty-
handed.
 
Then, the body reaches out and snatches his arm. Daryl shrieks and falls
backward before he can even think, as the body, half-rotten and yellow eyes
glowing, sits up and starts to crawl over to him. Panicking, Daryl scrambles in
his pocket for his knife and stabs it into the man’s wrist. The man-corpse-
whatever it is growls and splutters in pain, the sound inhuman, airy and
grating, like the stutter of a rusty engine.
 
The corpse reaches out with its other arm, still trying to attack and Daryl
gasps and lunges forward, both hands on the hilt of the knife, and plunges it
straight into his chest. The knife disappears between the ribs with a wet sound
but the body keeps moving, hands waving wildly, trying to grab at Daryl’s
shirt, his hair, teeth gnashing, spitting, fingers clawing at Daryl’s
shoulders. He wrenches the knife out of its chest and slams it down hard in the
man’s forehead, heart hammering as it finally, blessedly goes still.
 
Daryl’s wrists ache from the force and his breath is coming out in harsh,
panting gasps as he pulls the knife loose, falling back on his haunches. The
body doesn’t give so much as a twitch, and Daryl kicks it in the ribs just to
make sure. It’s really dead, then, Daryl thinks, but isn’t willing to wait
around to be proven wrong.
 
He gets to his feet, scrambling to get his crossbow over his shoulder and then
runs, runs non-stop until he’s back at camp, screaming out his brother’s name.
 
There’s no sign of his brother when he gets there, but in his place are about a
dozen walking corpses. He runs before they see him, down the road dirt road
towards where they turned off the freeway, and finds Merle, out of breath,
running in the opposite direction.
 
“Merle!” Daryl calls out and dashes forward, “our camp—!”
 
“You seen them too?” Merle asks, out of breath. He’s gripping a small hatchet
and there’s blood splattered all up his arm. “Shit. I was hopin’ I was tripping
serious balls out here.”
 
“What are they?!” Daryl’s voice cracks and he wipes the sweat from his brow,
looking frightfully around. The one back there clearly wanted to kill him, no
doubt about it. If the others were like that too, then, he didn’t want to
imagine what it would be like to face a whole dozen blood-thirsty, nearly
unkillable freaks following them down the road.
 
“I dunno, brother, but we gotta get outta here,” Merle says, immediately
turning army-sergeant, issuing orders with each chop of his hand, “I’m gonna go
back to camp and try to rush the truck, you stay a few yards behind and cover
my ass with that crossbow of yours,” he commands, nodding his head, looking at
Daryl severely.
 
Daryl nods in answer, then jumps forward to kiss his brother, knowing well this
may be the last time they ever see each other alive, but Merle shoves him off
with an arm on his chest.
 
“Lemme make this clear, we’re going together, but this shit—” Merle growls,
gesturing broadly between the two of them, “has got to stop.”
 
“What’s gotta stop?” Daryl asks, panting.
 
“Youknow what!” Merle shouts, “the kissing, the fucking! I ain’t gonna have you
trailing after me like some pussy-ass schoolgirl, it ain’t right!”
 
Daryl shakes his head, “I don’t care what other people think! They’re sheep,
they’re pussies don’t got no thoughts of their own, they can call me queer all
they want, I don’t care ’bout it! And I know youdon’t care what other people
think, neither, so what’s the problem?!”
 
“It’s no good!” Merle clenches his fists. His arms are shaking all the way up,
he looks like a tortured bull, trembling to get at its tormentor.
 
“What’s ‘no good’?!” Daryl shouts back, stomping the heel of his boot into the
ground, tearing up the peat.
 
“Me!!” Merle screams, finally, voice cracking on the single, strained syllable.
 
Daryl goes quiet, and Merle rears up his head like an angered lion, taking two
long strides into Daryl’s space. “You get it? I ain’t no good for you. Ain’t
got no education, tried school, they didn’t want me, I left! Couldn’t do it!”
 
Daryl’s mouth is a thin line, an unbroken seam. He keeps Merle’s gaze, locked
steadfast, blue eyes glinting with something heavy.
 
“Couldn’t get no job, fucked up everything I tried,” Merle continues, waving
his arms emphatically, splashing blood off the hatchet onto Daryl’s shirt,
“then I joined the army, they didn’t want me neither!!
 
“Do you know how hard that—and I tried, man, the first time I ever tried
an’thing in my whole life and they…”
Merle bites down on his bottom lip, an unreadable mix of shame and rage and
sadness on his sallow face, slowly lifting his gaze back to Daryl’s.
 
“This!” Merle gestures at the hatchet, waving it around, his bloody knuckles
white around the handle, “this is what I’m good for. Hackin’ and slashin’ and
bruisin’. This is what I can do.” Ain’t no tenderness in me. “I ain’t no good
to anyone, not like that, Daryl. Ain’t no good.”
 
Daryl bites down on his lip, force of habit, tears welling up in his eyes.
“You’re good for me.”
 
Merle doesn’t answer, for once, miserably speechless.  He raised Daryl up good,
made him strong, taught him to think and talk for himself, say what he means
and don’t care where it gets him. His baby brother is smart, resourceful, and
ain’t nothin’ he got he ain’t earned through hard work. But somewhere along the
line, Merle screwed up. He screwed up royally, and torn a hole that ain’t never
gonna be repaired or covered. He can see it in the web strung delicately
between them, tangled and messy, thin and strangling.
 
Merle lifts his arms, Daryl walks into them. He presses himself against Merle’s
chest and cries into his shoulder, wet, sloppy tears down his nose and into the
fabric of Merle’s shirt. His big brother pats him on the back, wrapping an arm
around his shoulder, securing him.
 
“Ain’t got no mama, no daddy,” Daryl mumbles into his brother’s skin, breath
scouring tattoos that will never fade, “ain’t got no one but you. That’s all I
want. That’s good enough for me.”
 
Naw, Merle thinks sadly, little brother don’t know a damn thing. Nothing
willever be good enough for Merle’s little brother.
 
*
 
They wander, they scramble, they fight, they fuck. Daryl rides his brother’s
cock in their tent, always insisting on keeping his shirt on, or if he takes it
off, he has to be lying on his back. Merle doesn’t think much of it, just
suspects he’s not willing to put his back to anyone, just like Merle taught
him. ’Sides, Merle hardly takes his pants off, so he figures it’s a fair deal.
They fuck quick and rough, or slow and dangerous. Daryl’s noisy as Hell,
screamin’ and moanin’ for everyone to hear, loud enough to draw walkers, Merle
worries sometimes, and plants his hand over Daryl’s mouth, muffling his cries
as he bucks and groans and comes.
 
After they finish, Merle always leaves the bed, goes to wash up somewhere else,
trying to stave off the feeling of regret for as long as possible after orgasm.
Daryl takes a cigarette, lying on his back with an arm behind his head,
watching the smoke swirl around above him in the tent.
 
They wander, and run, and race towards the city when the broadcasts start.
Atlanta feels like a mistake, and the fire-bombings make it a clear choice.
They stay outside the city, moving towards the old quarry, and come up hard
against a group of people who wanna set up camp there.
 
Merle’s ready to fight them all off if he has to, or jump them all when they’re
sleeping and run, but their leader doesn’t put up a fight about letting them
join the group. Shane, the wild-eyed son’bitch doesn’t even make a fuss about
who the brothers are or where they’re from, just tells ’em to pull their weight
and don’t start no trouble. It reminds Merle of the army, and Shane even
reminds him of that colonel bastard whose teeth he knocked out all them years
ago. But the man doesn’t tell him or his brother what to do, so Merle keeps his
patience.
 
He and Daryl make their camp a good distance away from the rest of ’em, far
enough away they don’t gotta play “house” with a bunch of old ladies and
niggers and beaners. Far enough away they can make like they’re still on their
never-ending hunting trip. Far enough away no one can hear the cries and whines
and moans he coaxes out of his baby brother in the thick of night.
 
One night, he and his brother hatch a plan to rob the camp and hightail it
outta there. Daryl’s getting too complacent with these people, too quick to
help out with their petty shit and too quick to share his food with ’em. It’s
not safe to rely on other people,especially with the way the world is these
days.
 
The next day, Merle volunteers to head with a small group into the city for
supplies, which Merle hopes to take his fair share of. He can handle a gun and
he’s more well-suited to surviving in a warzone than any of the other miserable
sons’a’bitches around, so no one complains – at least out loud.
 
*
 
The Merle and Daryl who find each other again are strangers to each other.
Merle barely recognizes his brother, all reserved and stoic, voice quiet and
low – barely even puts up a fight when Merle makes jabs at him. He’s lost his
fire, ain’t no one else can see it but Merle, they might think he’s chilled out
and lost his bite, but it’s a lot more than that. There ain’t no spark left in
him, or what is left is covered by layers and layers of guilt and loss and
sadness Merle don’t even wanna think about. He knew letting his brother get
attached would bring him nothing but pain.
 
Seeing the scars on his back was like being doused with cold water. It was like
he’d been seeing everything through funhouse goggles, and just now seeing
things in their true light. It was like being hit in the face. In fact, he’d
wished Daryl hit him in the face. It woulda hurt a lot less.
 
To Daryl, Merle looks like a pumped-up version of his former self, a tiny,
weak, broken man bigging himself up, like a performer on stilts. He spits
insults at everyone and then acts like they’re all against him for no good
reason, when he’s the one made himself the enemy.
 
They dance around each other for the first few days, neither one wanting to
make the first move, ain’t even ’til the prison Daryl is willing to let his
guard down enough totalk to his brother.
 
Being in the prison brings up all sorts of sick feelings; Merle feels like he’s
walking on embers all the damn time, he can’t sit still, can’t sleep. He’s
surrounded by people but he’s totally alone, no one will talk to him or
evenlisten to what he has to say, no one but Officer Rick, who treats him like
he’s his perpetually-disappointed daddy. He might as well be a ghost, floating
in his cell, hovering over the blood and puke and piss-stained cement floor,
the spirit of stories all passed.
 
Daryl shuffles up to the bars late at night, crossbow catching the light but
lowered flaccidly at the ground.
 
“Ain’t you got anything to say for yourself?” Daryl asks, coldly. His eyes are
silver in the moonlight, narrow and pointed like blades.
 
“Whatcha want me t’ say? Merle raises his hands – well, one of them forms the
gesture he intended – as if to say he’s got no answers left.
 
“Maybe an apology, for one? What you did to Glenn and Maggie, it wa’nt right,”
Daryl says with an admonishing shake of his head. His brother never did waste
words, leaving plenty of room for Merle to do the opposite.
 
“I did what I had to tosurvive, brother,” Merle hisses, “I ain’t apologizing
for that.” He knew The Governor’d sooner kill him than look at him if he showed
even a hint of mercy, even if he’d been so inclined to not beat the Hell outta
one of the folks who was oh-so-complacent on leaving him up on that roof.
 
Daryl shakes his head, his eyes going to the floor, crossbow limp in his hands.
“The Merle I knew wouldn’t done that. He woulda told that Governor where he can
stick his littlejob, ’stead of living in luxury as an old man’s bitch. And you
were callin’ me out for bein’ an errand boy?” He sighs.
 
Merle reaches for the bars of the cell with one calloused, scarred-up hand,
clenching his fingers around the cold steel. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with doin’
what you need to to survive. Whaddyou want me t’ tell you, huh? That I spent
every night tossin’ an’ turnin’, wracked with guilt over what I done?” Merle
implores, his face an inch away from the bars, “’Cause that ain’t what I was
thinkin’ ’bout at night.”
 
Daryl looks up, and his expression is neutral and dark. He looks more like an
army scout than a survivor.
 
“I was thinkin’ about findin’ my way back to you,” Merle admits, “every day I
thought about it. I had no idea if you were alive, or dead, or bit, but you
were out there, and so far away from me I couldn’t stand it, y’hear?” he hisses
into the space between the bars. “I ain’t gonna sweet-talk you and I ain’t
gonna lie, and I sure as Hell ain’t suckin’ up to Rick, but I wanna stay here;
every minute I’m locked up here with you, is a hunderd’ times better than the
time I spent away from you.”
 
Daryl looks at Merle like he hasn’t for years, like the sun shines out of his
eyes and the world revolves around his axis. Merle almost regrets being so
open, cursing and ducking his head, rubbing a hand across the back of his
skull. He mumbles something, too low for Daryl to hear, and he leans in closer
with a confused look.
 
“Still good enough for ya?” Merle says softly, rolling his eyes off to the side
as if he doesn’t want to see the answer. Maybe he doesn’t.
 
“Yeah,” Daryl whispers, leaning his head into the bars so that he and his
brother can put their foreheads together.
 
They stay like that for a long time, long enough that Merle can just watch and
see the expressions that go across Daryl’s face: first a smile, small and
significant, then the tears he spills out onto the floor, hoping no one will
see, then a frown, and a smile again, gentle and beaming, lips quirked up
sideways in that crooked, adorable way that makes Merle grin just a little
himself.
 
Daryl pulls away after a long minute, looks around to make sure no one is
watching, then takes the keys off of his belt and sticks one into the lock on
the cell door. The tumblers click into place and Daryl takes the key very
gingerly, quietly, desperate not to make a sound.
 
Merle pulls open the door with his good hand enough to let his brother through.
 
“Well, go on then,” Merle says, and the smile that lights up his brother’s face
is worth all the suffering in the world. Daryl walks inside.
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