Daryl's Lullaby (A Daryl Dixon Fanfic)

Chapter 2: I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL

DARYL'S LULLABY

A WALKING DEAD Fanfiction

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Regarding Merle and Daryl's age: There's no exact information about the brothers' age when the series started, so I'm making my own here: Daryl 36 and Merle 52.

In this chapter, Estella is 19, Merle is 18 and Daryl is 3.

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Chapter 2: I LIKE FOR YOU TO BE STILL

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"I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,

distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.

One word then, one smile, is enough.

And I am happy, happy that it's not true."

— Excerpt from PabloNeruda's I Like for You to Be Still

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Merle looked around the front yard of the Perezes' house. It was Daryl's third birthday and about seven children, boys and girls a little older than him, had settled in the tables and chairs Merle and Estella set-up earlier.

"That Tommy boy ain't here," Merle told Estella when she reached their table after serving horchata to the children. The attractive Mexican took the chair beside Daryl who was already wolfing down his own mug of rice drink.

Estella rolled her deep-set, dark eyes. "I wouldn't blame the kid especially after Daryl broke his nose with the slingshot you gave him!"

"Oh, you should have seen him!" Merle said proudly and he reenacted the shot with his hands. "Fifteen feet away and the damned stone found its target right to that little boy's snoot!"

"Merle!" Estella warned as Merle laughed. She turned to little Daryl. "Did you ever say sorry to that poor kid?"

Three year old Daryl put down his empty mug on the table and looked up with a milky, foamy mustache. "I did," he nodded and licked his lips, not entirely removing the horchata's white mark. "I tol 'im sorry I hurt yar nose," he said slowly with squinted eyes. "I tol 'im it ain't my..." he looked at Merle as if asking for help.

"Target," Merle supplied, gritting his teeth as if stopping himself from laughing again.

Little Daryl nodded and looked back at Estella who was listening intently. "I tol 'im yar nose ain't my target. I wanna hit yar head and ye ran and I hit yar nose." The child saw Estella frowm so Daryl added immediately, "but I tol 'im I will practice more!"

It was then that Merle bursted into laughter. "Hear that?! Haha! Ye, little...!"

Daryl chuckled. But Estella shook her head in disapproval and the boy lost his smile and stared at the older girl; his glassy, blue eyes peeking through their tiny slits, his chubby cheeks pulled up and tensed. It was like a staring contest: Estella with a frown on her face and little Daryl with his pleading, I-am-terribly-sorry-please-love-me-again look.

Estella easily lost.

How could she stay mad at this charming, little rascal? Imposible. Estella actually had hidden the damned slingshot toy the very same day little Tom's nose bled unstoppably due to Daryl (the nose was not actually broken, thank God), but she gave it back to him only after a day because she couldn't stand seeing him sad. She scolded Merle for being irresponsible, but then little Daryl interfered and said, "Mm sorry, Estella. We ain't bad. Please dun hit Merle like daddy"—and it just broke her heart.