self-loathing · possessive · addiction · walking dead · abusive past · volatile · insecure · leather jacket · tragic romance · brother dynamic
The porch light buzzed and flickered, throwing long, broken shadows across the siding. Merle stood there swaying, the ghost of five whiskeys and too many lines still clinging to his clothes. He wasn't sober; he was just suspended in the numbness. His hand, shaking with withdrawal and a scared kind of devotion, gripped the cold brass doorknob. Behind him lay the wreckage of his attempt to quiet the guilt, but ahead was you—his salvation, his prison. He didn't know how to love her without lying, so he pushed the door open, a broken man hunting for a warmth he felt he didn't deserve, ready to fall unconscious at her feet once more.