Chapter Text
“Hey bad enough I got this taco bender up my ass all day, now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so bro, that'll be the day.”
“Does that stand for me, Colonel?”
The British drawl straightened Dixon's spine in an instant, the gun dropping in his hands as if on instinct to parade rest as he turned to face the voice, as the entire rooftops inhabitants turned on the stranger, but he didn't have eyes for them no. He only had eyes for the familiar stranger he hadn't expected to find in a zombie apocalypse.
Merle had… changed since he had seen him last, his hair had greyed on the edges, which aged him past his years, and to see him in jeans and leather, unkempt and stained, no in those ways, this wasn’t the Merle he knew, his eyes dazed and clouded and yet, the instinct, the muscle memory, the utter skill that that body held was still visible even now. Shame about what that clouded gaze meant.
“I’d tell you to be at ease, soldier, but it seems you've been taking things a little too easy since when did my Colonel ever go into situ in this state?” Harry knew he had taken the wrong path as soon as he saw the man flinch, his eyes turning to ice quicker than the snow melting in the Sahara. But the others didn't notice of course they didn't, they hadn't had the years to study the enigma that was Merle Dixon.
The familiar slouch as he dropped his hand to the rifle, which seemed almost lazy to anyone else, yet Harry saw as a clear threat cemented that realisation.
“Well looky here, I hadn't thought to see the likes of you on this side of the pond, an' I ain't been your Colonel in years, dishonourable discharge ya remember correctly sir.” He slurred the honorific of course because Dixon had always known where to hit, funny, he had seemed to have forgotten that Harry knew exactly how he worked.
So he snorted in amusement, softening his posture as he always had around Merle, especially in their later years, “Don't try that shit with me, Dixon, you know as well as I that discharge was bullshit, and i would never have let it stand if you hadn't have asked it of me. Sergeant Berks was an arsehole of the highest order who was busted down to private on your departure and more than deserved that dishonourable discharge for ‘mutinous behaviour’ six months later. Never had I been more willing to stand as a witness and sign off on paperwork just to see the back of him.”
And just those words seemed to thaw the ice, if only a little, as a small genuine if still, a sarcastic smile crossed the man's lips, “Aww, ya miss me that much Bright eyes?”
He was expecting sarcasm, Harry should give it to him, but here at the end of the world, he couldn’t lie. Holding his gaze sure and serious he replied.
“Of course I did, how could I not?”
Merle froze once more at those words, of course he did, but Harry couldn't help himself but to walk forward and to grip his shoulders, “I missed you every goddamned day out there in that baking cesspit, and regret ever letting you out of my sight.'' The man seemed to choke on his words, and Harry was glad he still had a talent for it, for shocking Merle Dixon speechless. The man dropped his grey gaze his entire form relaxing in Harry's hold as the gun dropped well and truly to the ground allowing Harry to bring him into a full embrace, gently the man held back as if it had been a while since he had been held, and Harry remembered this too. How any affections were unexpected when directed at his Dixon. How they were utterly and truly unexpected yet deeply and completely desired. The shyness of Merle Dixon, just another part of the enigma he was. But they had things to do now, and an audience that merle would never allow to see such weakness if the words and the reactions of this group were what Harry feared they were.
So reluctantly Harry broke the moment speaking in a false whisper so the others could hear but only Merle would understand, “Besides you left me to contend with Hollins on my own, and you knew I could never stand that man.”
Merle snorted in responce as he pulled back a bright smirk hiding what Harry had unearthed behind a facade once more, both finding utter amusement from the truth of the statement and understanding the message beneath, careful, we have an audience .
“Now, Colonel, what were you trying and failing to shoot?”
***
The first time he saw him, Merle was… underwhelmed, they had been assigned to an international unit, his platoon were low on the pecking order and Merle could only assume they had been chosen at random or convenience. Nonetheless, they had been assigned to a British officer, rank classified, a fact that was fucking weird, but the brass weren't going ta budge, and ole Merle just had a job to do. After a copious number of NDA’s that had to be signed with a bleeding red fountain pen, that Merle was 90% sure was using their blood as ink if the tingling he got from the thing was any indication, they finally got a glimpse of their leader.
Now don't misunderstand him now, the black-haired green-eyed man was something to look at, tall, but not overly so, and well built just not the bodybuilder most alpha-types in such a position would attempt to display. No, the man was military perfection in almost every way, nondescript, proud and present in the moment. But at the end of it, he was just another military officer, the only odd thing about him was his age.
Now Merle and his boys, they had been doing this for a couple of tours now, all of them in their late twenties, they knew the drill, what they were facing. But this one, if Merle didn't know any better he would have thought him nothing more than a green behind the ears legacy officer, one of those that goes out for a tour before running home to daddy, mildly traumatised but ready to take on whatever cushty life of leisure and minimal effort that awaited them, yeah merle had met the type, had to pull more than one of those types out of the fire more than once. He would have categorised this one as the same if it hadn't been for that look in his eyes. The steel glint and hardened expression that Merle only saw in those who had been doing this for longer than he’d been alive.
This was their leader, a perfect Young military man, of unknown rank, with a file more classified than the nuclear blueprints, oh and his call sign?
Saviour
Yeah, this was gonna be an interesting tour.