I was inspired by Poppy P who was sweet enough to leave me a review on my previous Merle and Daryl story, Expired Bounty. This story has tie-ins to Expired Bounty and also The Stone in My Bed chapter of my Team Caryl collection. I hope you will enjoy reading these.

Merle is washing dishes in the sink and Daryl is "folding laundry" in front of the TV. While General Hospital delivers it's over the top opinion on what romance is, Daryl is matching up socks. He smoothes them out and folds the pair in half. He smoothes the wrinkles out by hand on shirts and pants and then folds them this way and that in mimic of how he's seen Merle do it. Merle knows he'll have to refold everything behind him but at least he's helping and getting the wrinkles out. Mama is passed out in the chair in front of the television. Her cigarette had slipped from her limp fingers and Merle had stubbed out the smoldering carpet fire moments ago. Singe marks were becoming a part of the Dixon decor on the carpet and linoleum of the ramshackle house.

It ain't like Merle is doing the dishes out of the goodness of his heart. The house was getting rank and he'd followed his nose to the kitchen. Upon deducing that for once, the fridge was not the culprit, he happened upon the sink full of dirty dishes. He actually gagged when he found the half full Bugs Bunny cup filled with the soured milk and a few moldy Cheerios bobbing fuzzily about. And yet, he still wouldn't have made an effort, really, were it not for the fact that if he could smell it then Daddy would have smelled it when he got home. The last thing Merle needed was an excuse for an ass whoop'n. It was still a few years off before Daddy began doling them out without excuses anyway. It was still a few years yet before Merle would stop caring and blow this joint for good.

The tap was running and he was washing some putrid mess down then drain when all at once, everything fell. The lights went out. The faucet cut off. The television snapped to black and Daryl jumped. He whipped his head around to Merle with two socks held in mid-air and his eyes huge in askance of what the hell just happened. Merle furrowed his brow.

He dropped the sudsy sponge and wiped his hands on his pants. Plucking open the panel to the fuse box, he didn't see anything blown. "Transformer must'a blown'r sumthin." He leaned over to the window to peer at the nearby pole. One time a buzzard landed on the wiring and shorted out their electrical. Ol' bastard fried to a crisp and stank to high hell. Took forever for the power company to come out and fix it and they were out for about a week. But, everything looked okay. He walked past the little card table in their kitchenette to go to the door but stopped short. A yellow slip caught his eye under the pile of random crap that littered the little table. He tugged it out. It was a second notice past due bill from the electric company. Yeah, that would do it, he thought. A cold dread settled into his gut. When Daddy got home and found out, there was gonna be hell to pay and he didn't even want to think about that. A tertiary concern was the heat. For now it was fine but come sunset, it was going to get frigid. Not for the first time in his young mind, the question surfaced again as to why they owned a TV but not a wood stove. The two radiators in the tiny little shack never heated up past the temperature of a cold cup of piss and the electric heaters they scrounged from the dump didn't work much better. Merle felt like they couldn't win because he and Daryl sometimes huddled together to keep warm but then were punished for look'n like a couple'a faggots.

He felt a tug at his sleeve and he snapped out of his thoughts. Daryl looked up at him, "Merle what happened to tha 'lectricity?"

He tossed the notice on top of all the other junk on the table and shrugged. "We ain't got none, that's what."

Daryl got that scowl on his face that he does when Merle gives him a smart answer. Merle has to admit it's hard to resist getting Daryl's goat when that face is so entertaining. "Here, Imma help you finish them clothes and then we need to go to the creek to get more water cuz if I don't finish these dishes, Daddy's gonna beat both our asses."

They finished up the clothes and then headed out into the crisp autumn air. The colorful season of fall leaves seemed to have bypassed their area. Everything just turned brown and the tall grass faded to a light straw color. But the snap in the air made for a clear blue sky and the sun turned the bare gray tree trunks a dazzling silver color. Merle had a metal pail and they had found an old coffee can Daryl could carry. They picked their way past the rotting cab of an old 1930's pickup. The paint had long been rusted off and it was hard to tell where the Georgia clay began and the rusted cab body ended. Merle had seen Daddy hide his shine under its hood. Hornets liked to nest in it too so Merle didn't like to get too close. They hopped over a broken couch that had a car axel tossed through it. Daryl was slow going and Merle hollered back over his shoulder, "Watch out for copperheads. One's gonna jump right up and bite you in the talleywhacker."

"Nuh-uh!" Daryl yelled and hopped off the busted couch to catch up with Merle. The variety of junk in the Dixon back yard harbored a tight thick undergrowth of brush and bramble that the boys had squirreled a worn path through and popped out in to the woods. Once they reached the woods, the trek was easier going. It sloped down hill, soft saplings sprinkled around under the canopy of older trees, to a creek that meandered for a ways.

Daryl piped up,"Merle, I'm hungry." Merle frowned to himself. There wasn't too much in the house. He remembered seeing a half a bag of ham and swiss Nabisco Flings. He also recalled how that it tasted like it had expired maybe like a decade ago? He couldn't recall if they even had a can of SpaghettiO's. "Suck on your big toe, Daryl."

Apparently, hungry also came with cranky because Daryl had had enough of Merle's smart answers. He chucked a rock at Merle's head and screamed, "Kiss my ass, Merle! Why you such an asshole!"

Merle had easily dodged the rock. "Alright, alright, Darlina! Keep yer panties on! We'll figure something out."

"I DON'T WEAR PANTIES!" roared Daryl, his little face turning three shades of purple. Merle had to turn his back to Daryl because he couldn't suppress a laugh. Daryl saw his shoulders shake and that made him madder. "STOP LAUGH'N AT ME!" He threw his coffee can at Merle and charged him, knocking them both down to slide down the rocky slope of the creek embankment. "Goddammit, Daryl." Merle tried to stop laughing and be more irritated. "You gonna knock us into the creek and then we're gonna get wet and then we're gonna be up shit creek."

"YOU STOP LAUGH'N AT ME THEN!" Daryl screamed.

"Okay! Okay!" Merle put his hands up in defense. "I'm sorry! Geez! You ain't gotta be on your period and shit."

The apology must have registered because Daryl stopped trying to pummel Merle but he was a little too young to get the menstruation jab.

"See, now? You lost yer temper and ya put a dent in the coffee can."

Daryl just wiped the back of his muddy hand across his runny nose.

"Come on. Go wash yer hands in the creek. Don't wipe that shit on your face. Cockroach eggs will get up your nose and hatch in your brain."

Daryl just scowled at Merle again, unable to decide if he was messing with him or not. But he moved his little knees off Merle's chest and they approached the edge of the creek together to wash the mud off their hands, fill their vessels, and put the minor scuffle behind them. At the edge of the creek, the water is icy and brisk on their hands but it runs clear. The rocks in the creek bed pick up where the leaves failed; a multicolored collection of little stone lozenges dusted with slippery black algal growth.

"Let's find some frogs and have some frog legs." says Daryl.

"Too cold for frogs. They hibernat'n." replies Merle.

Daryl thinks for a while. "I don't see no fish."

"You ain't gonna." replies Merle. "Too cold. Besides, this creek's too small to have anything worth eat'n anyways."

Daryl starts turning over some of the bigger stones in the creek bed.

"What are you doing?" asked Merle.

"Look'n for crawdads."

"They hibernat'n too. You gonna wake up a water moccasin."

"Well, if it's too cold for frogs and crawdads then it's too cold for snakes, butt head." Daryl snaps. Merle grins to himself. His little brother is catching on and getting a thicker skin. After a while, Daryl says, ""Maybe we go walk down to Mrs. Louisa and see if she got more that expired-ed candy?"

"Maybe tomorrow" says Merle, "Maybe."

"Maybe she gots boloney stumps too." he says.

Merle laughs bitterly, "Yeah, that would be good right about now." and he tosses a muddy stick over his shoulder. Mrs. Louisa always got these gigantic tubes of German bologna that she kept in the refrigerated unit to sell sandwiches with and she would cut the ends off and save them for Merle and Daryl.

Daryl is still hopefully turning rocks over trying to scare out a crawdad but Merle gets up to see if he can see any rabbit or coon tracks in the soft mud around the creek bed. A snatch of color catches his eye. A lovely deep orange stone is nestled amongst the others further down the creek. He hikes over to retrieve it. It's more brilliant than the others. When he reaches the lovely stone and grasps it, it's soft and pliable and at the realization he looks up. He sees low hanging boughs cloaked in browned and withered leaves with deep orange globes peeping from behind them to the be discover by the clever eye. A wild persimmon is burgeoning just up the embankment. Grinning at their fortune, he turns to see the rambling vine of a muscadine scrambling over a dead log, heavy with fruit.

"Daryl! You still hungry?" he hollers. Daryl comes running and they eat until they're sick on hearty frost-softened persimmon and juicy rich muscadine.

They gambol at the creek for a while longer but when the light starts to wane, Merle decides they better head on back before it gets dark. They fill their pockets with as much fruit as they can carry and tote a pail and a dented coffee can back up the hill.

When they get back, Mama is still passed out. Merle makes sure she's still breathing with the back of his hand.

They put the water in the kitchen and stash the fruit on top of the refrigerator and Merle finishes rinsing off the dishes. As the sun falls behind the trees, Merle decides they need to get the dirt off their faces before they start to see their breath. He soaps up a wash rag and they wash behind their ears and neck with the cold rag and then dump everything out in the back yard, where most everything gets thrown out. They don't have any candles to speak of but cigarette lighters are as common as the carpet singe marks and can be found all over the house. Merle grabs one as they pick through the clothes on the floor in the dark of their little closet sized shared room. Through playing with the numerous lighters that litter the house, he's figured out the little lever on the side that makes the flame leap high enough to singe eyebrows. Usually, it's just entertaining to see Daddy accidentally light his eyebrows on fire while he's drunk . . . or at least it was until he figured out the kids were playing with his lighters. Now, it's just helpful in creating the torch they need to navigate the darkening house.

Merle has an old ratty wafer mattress with a sheet on it and a paper thin blanket that was probably actually just a table cloth. Daryl is still small enough that he uses a cushion off an old sofa they spotted abandoned on the side of the road a few years ago. They took the one that wasn't so stained up so Daddy said it worked just fine. It wasn't going to hold him for long though, growing the way he was. They found a Snoopy bedsheets to put over it at a white elephant sale. Merle put him to bed in his only sweatshirt and two pairs of socks over his pants. Merle threw his jean jacket over himself and the blanket. The one thing about a cold house is that it wasn't too hard to drift off to sleep. As it was still and quiet, the chill in the air seemed to congeal even time and Merle felt his body begin to slow down with the temperature. But, he was awakened with a start when he was nudged insistently. He opened his eyes to see a runny nosed trembling Daryl tugging on his shoulder in the moonlight. "Merle!" he sobbed, "I can't feel my fingers!"

"They're right there in front of you." Merle said groggily.

"I know but I can't feel'm!" Daryl whispered frantically.

Merle threw the covers back. "Awright, awright. Hang on." and as he got up, Daryl dove onto his bed into the warm impression, runny nose and all. Merle just groaned in disgust and headed to the bathroom. With his Bic lantern, he found as many towels as he could and went to check on his mother. She was breathing but still out cold. Her head was back and her mouth was hanging open. He carefully pushed her head to the side. He remembered when Silas' mama died up the street in her own vomit. Everybody was talk'n bout it and say'n if her head was turned she wouldn't have choked. He turned to head back to his room but then reconsidered and put the bundle of towels down. The basket of laundry in front of the dead television held a few house coats and Merle carefully draped these over her to help her retain a little warmth.

He returned to his room to find a small shivering bundle still rooting around on his mattress trying to get some dregs of warmth. He fussed at Daryl to stop bunching up the blanket and tossed the Snoopy sheet over it. Next, he layered on the towels and threw his jean jacket and a few pairs of pants on top for good measure. He carefully crept under the pile and threaded his arms around his shivering brother. Daryl wiped his nose on one of the towels. "Ugh, Jesus, Daryl. Why you gotta be so gross?" Merle fussed but took the end of the Snoopy sheet and gently wiped Daryl's eyes, then his nose, and smoothed back his hair. His brother's nose was a little icy cube and Merle pulled one of the towels up to drape a loose cowl. He pulled the front of his own shirt up under the covers and then tugged up the back of Daryl's sweatshirt. Daryl began to complain but Merle told him to hang on, this would help. He pulled Daryl's cold back against his warm belly and once Daryl realized what was going on he rooted in like a tick.

"Why you so warm?" he whispered.

"I dunno." Merle whispered back into his hair. "I been up moving around. I'm bigger too. Now shut up and go to sleep."

Daryl snuffled a tired sigh and squeezed Merle's hands. "G'night, butt head."

Merle nuzzled Daryl's hair. "G'night Darlina."