…
Hunter looked at the new person sitting at their dining room table that evening, eating the rabbit stew and fresh cornbread as if he hadn't eaten in days. He was about as old as his dad with dark hair buzzed close to his scalp and a scar running along the right line of his jaw. He was lean but muscular and if Hunter didn't know that dad didn't have another brother, he would have thought that this man was the third Dixon.
"What were you in prison for?" Hunter broke the silence, watching the way the man's spoon stopped in mid-air on the way to his mouth.
"Hunter," Beth said with a slight frown. "Be polite."
Hunter looked at her, confused. How was that not being polite?
If a person didn't like being asked that question, they shouldn't go to prison in the first place.
"It's alright," the man, Ray Dixon, said. He then looked to Hunter. "I didn' have any money, so I went and broke into a car lot and stole a bunch of tires." Unbeknownst to Hunter, there also had been possession of drugs involved with intent to sell, but the kids didn't need to know that.
"That was stupid," Hunter immediately replied, Luke smothering a snicker into his hand.
"Hunter," Daryl said this time.
"What?" Hunter looked at him, confused.
"Nah, it's alright," Ray said. "It was stupid," he agreed.
"Why didn't you just get a job?" Hunter continued with his line of questions.
Ray shrugged. "Dixons don't like workin' that much."
"Our dad works," Hunter pointed out to him. "He works a lot."
"I don't work that much," Daryl frowned a little.
"Your dad's always been different from the rest of the Dixons," Ray told Hunter.
"That does remind me though," Beth spoke up. She picked up the plate of cornbread when she saw Abby finish her first slice and knowing that the girl would want another one, she passed it to Luke so he could give her one. "You are expected to find a job now," she said to Ray.
"Wasn' under the assumption that people just give jobs to people like me," Ray commented.
"Well, you have our address down with your parole office so we're in charge of you and we are going to find you a job," Beth said firmly with little room for argument.
Ray, unsure of how to respond, looked to Daryl as if for help, but Daryl just smirked a little and got up to go into the kitchen to get the kids more milk. Ray had no idea how his cousin was able to stand any type of ground with this woman as his wife. He had only been here for a couple of hours, but he was quickly learning. Beth may have looked like a little thing, but there was no room to wonder who really ran this house. And Ray couldn't blame Daryl for seeming to be incapable of anything else. It'd be hard to have any semblance of balls with Beth Dixon around, smiling her sweet smiles.
Ray shifted in his chair and lowered his eyes to his plate of food, feeling like an asshole for thinking about his cousin's wife's smiles.
"How are you a Dixon?" Hunter was back to asking his questions.
Ray looked at the boy sitting across from him. He had the look of his mom to him. The lighter hair and the smile that seemed to engulf his entire face beam and made the corners of his eyes crinkle. But his eyes were Daryl's – that watery blue that sometimes looked green in a particular kind of light. And he had that mischievous spark to them that all Dixon men seemed to have.
"My dad and your dad's dad were brothers," Ray explained. "Me and your dad are cousins."
Hunter was quiet for a moment, shoving another forkful of rabbit stew into his mouth, and he thought that over as he chewed, his eyes never leaving Ray. Daryl returned with the carton of milk, filling the three kids' cups up again before heading back into the kitchen.
"Grandpa Will Dixon was a piece of shit," Hunter stated once he had swallowed.
Ray's eyes flicked over to Beth, expecting her to immediately admonish her son for saying that, but the woman – surprisingly – stayed quiet. Ray swallowed thickly and gave Hunter a nod.
"He was. My dad was, too," Ray informed him.
He felt eyes heavy on him and he turned his head to see both Luke and Abby looking at him. They were both quiet, unlike their brother – Abby because she didn't hear and Luke because, well, because Ray had only known the kid for a couple of hours now, but Ray recognized the look. He supposed it took one to know one.
Luke had had his own pieces of shit in his life before becoming a Dixon.
He lifted his eyes up when Daryl came back into the dining room from the kitchen and sat down once more in his seat. Ray knew that the man had heard everything. If Daryl had one thing, it was the sharp hearing of a bat. That was why he was always such a much better hunter than Merle or Ray could ever hope to be. That and Merle and Ray were usually too drunk or too high or just didn't care that much to be all that quiet while out in the woods. Not like Daryl.
And even though he had heard, Daryl didn't say anything about Hunter's language either.
"I know all about him," Hunter said and then paused to lift his cup with both hands and took a long gulp of milk.
"You do?" Ray couldn't help, but be surprised at that.
When they were growing up, more than one of his and Merle's friends had thought that Daryl was a mute for as little as he talked. And for him to talk about his old man? Daryl would have sooner actually gotten his tongue cut out than for Will Dixon's name to ever leave his mouth, let alone have that man on his brain.
"Dad told us," Luke was the one to answer.
Ray just looked to Daryl as if waiting for him to explain himself. Because the Daryl he knew? He never would have talked to anyone about anything.
But that was the whole point, wasn't it? Daryl wasn't the Daryl he knew anymore. He was a man with a beautiful wife and children and he had built this whole house, for god's sake, and it was the nicest house he had ever seen – especially for someone with the name Dixon to own.
He saw the way Daryl's hand lingered on Beth's back as he had helped her carry the dishes from the kitchen to the table when dinner was served or the way his lips ghosted across Beth's temple when he thought no one was looking and the way Beth just absolutely beamed up at him. Ray was a man in his forties and had actually never seen a relationship – a marriage – like the one in front of him. One that was good. One that was good and had produced these kids who were obviously healthy and happy and safe.
Daryl just looked to Ray and shrugged and didn't say anything.
"Are you a piece of shit, too?" Hunter asked.
"Hunter," Beth said this time with a slight frown that she didn't seem to actually mean.
"Nah, he's not," Daryl answered for him before Ray could. "He's the other kind of Dixon I was tellin' you kids about."
"Oh," Hunter said knowingly and then gave a nod, giving a wide grin to Ray.
Ray looked to everyone's face at the table and they were all smiling – or at least, trying to hide their smiles. Even little Abby was smiling at him as if this was the greatest inside joke to ever be had at someone's expense.
Beth was the one to finally take pity on his confusion. "You're a stupid piece of shit," she informed him and Daryl snorted from his chair next to Ray's, but he remained quiet.
…
Writing this couple constantly for the past couple of years, I have become a bit brain dead when it comes to them and I have really been struggling for any kind of inspiration. I'm not sure what that means, but I don't want to just leave everyone in a lurch without letting them know what was going on. Hopefully, Beth and Daryl have not left completely just yet. I love them and I don't want to be done.