A/N: This chapter rated M for strong (possibly offensive) language and M/M sexuality. Also, prostitution (?). I do not own Daryl or Merle Dixon.

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At first Daryl had needed the illusion of femininity, the trappings. The girls on Stewart Ave., where Merle had dragged his little brother a dozen times before his twenty-first birthday, fascinated him. Particularly the ones that weren't girls. Merle had hooted and hollered at the "trannies", but, years later, Daryl would find himself riding into Hotlanta in the wee hours of a Saturday morning to cruise the particular part of the strip where the trade was a little bit rougher.

The pretty boys were not the ones who interested him, the runaways with dead eyes and pouting lips. Of course he had seen them and felt a surge of desire, as he sometimes did with certain men he met, but the idea of actually fucking a dude, a dude wearing dude clothes...work-shirts and chinos and cowboy boots, wristwatches and buzzcuts and socks...

That was some crazy-ass faggoty shit.

No, Daryl preferred broad shoulders and trim hips swaying above high heels, tight asses shoved into skirts and club dresses and hotpants. He would stop and talk to them sometimes, the ladyboys, the cocks in frocks. They would lean merrily into the open window of his truck, teasing him about his backcountry twang and the grease under his fingernails. He spoke gruffly to them, trying to sound as masculine as possible; only later did he realize that his demeanor set their little rainbow-colored hearts fluttering.

"These bitches 'round here love nothin' more than a butch white boy," Rose would later purr. "Your cracker ass is like manna from heaven."

The first time Daryl caught sight of Tokyo Rose, he almost rear-ended the john cruising in front of him. Rose seemed to move in slow-motion, just a slip of a thing standing next to a parked car; she cocked her hip at the passing traffic and brushed the chin-length hair (which would prove to be not a wig but her own thick black locks) back from her high cheekbones. Daryl knew that some of the girls padded, but even from this distance he could tell that Rose was all natural. The scarlet club dress that clung to her figure draped fascinatingly down her chest in a silhouette that mitigated the need for breasts. She had just enough muscle, just enough curve. A dozen gold bangles on her wrists. Long-fingered hands that ended in a French manicure with gold tips instead of white.

The other girls stared and tittered to see Rose step into his truck, the first of their kind to do so. Rose's own smile broadened when the dome-light revealed his nervous face and tanned, muscular arms.

"Hey, baby," she drawled in a sultry, alto voice. "Whatchu lookin' for tonight? Pussy? I give great pussy."

Daryl had to laugh as he put the truck into gear. The other girls had told him about the trick some of the pros did, tucking themselves into tight folds between their thighs so that their dates could not tell it was not a real woman they were fucking. "If I wanted pussy, I'd be a couple blocks over, sweetheart."

Rose tossed her hair and smiled, pointing with one of her delicate, gold-tipped fingers to indicate where he should turn. "Tell Tokyo Rose what you like, boo." She cuddled next to him and grabbed his thigh. From this distance even Daryl could see that she was not Japanese, but south-east Asian: Vietnamese or Cambodian, maybe, one of those fucking jungle countries the US had napalmed back into the stone age. He could also see her adam's apple. He made another turn per her instructions and whispered through the fragrant waterfall of her hair what he wanted. She chuckled knowingly through painted lips. "That's extra," she informed him. Daryl's eyebrows jumped when she gave him a number, but she snuggled even closer and stroked the back of his neck, toying with his short-cropped hair. "But I think you wanted a real Asian girl tonight, am I right? You wanted a little Tokyo Rose." She hummed enticingly, her nails and the sound of her voice raising the tiny hairs on his nape. "'Cause there's plenty a' girls out there with the body-ody-ody, hm? But I've seen that look before," she explained, tapping his nose lightly. "You got a case of yellow fever."

Without answering, Daryl parked in the alley to which Rose directed him. He switched off the engine and killed the headlights. He turned his face to meet her dark eyes. Her hand traveled up his ribs and smoothed his broad chest. "You're just a big ol' rice queen, aren't you?" she purred.

A roiling swell of rage and lust filled his belly. He tensed and made a face. "My momma didn't raise me to hit girls," he warned, gripping the steering wheel hard.

Rose just laughed and peeled one of his hands from the wheel to guide it under her skirt. Five minutes later, he was sucking her dick.

It was the first of many times that Daryl would leave the garage with his Friday paycheck, go home to shower, and head for that honkytonk off 85 into the city, where he knew not a soul and could drink himself brave. Only then would he be able to face his own gray-blue eyes in the rearview as he headed for Stewart, for Tokyo Rose, nerves and lust and booze thrumming through him in an electric cocktail. He could almost smell her scent while he drove, hear her Jack-and-Coke voice, taste the lube from the brand of condoms she used in the back of his throat. It always ended the same way: her lips wrapped around his erection, putting to shame his own unskilled and fumbling attempts at fellatio moments before. One time he had beaten the piss out of a john who was giving her trouble, and the other girls had cheered and whooped when Rose kissed him on the lips, kicking up one heel like an old-time movie starlet.

"You should try comin' to see me without drinking first, boo," she had suggested afterward, in a moment of perspicacity. "I hate making out with Johnnie Walker."

"What, do this sober?" he had mumbled. "Fuck that noise."

Daryl Dixon knew he was not a man of restraint. But this was one beast he wanted to keep caged.

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A/N: None of my tv boo Glenn in this one, obviously, but he will make an appearance in Ch 2. Hope you enjoyed some quality time with Daryl (Norman Reedus being the only guy I know who can pull off both Prada and Dickies so well...)