Writing this story puts me in a happy mood and I definitely need that right now. Writing Merle still makes me so nervous though.
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Chapter Four. Uncle.
Merle still didn't get it and he didn't know if he ever would. They had the same parents. The same drunk, neglectful mom and the same asshole, abusive dad and they grew up with the same childhood, each having the scars to prove it. But instead of following the path that all Dixon men seemed to take for themselves, Daryl, somehow veered in the complete opposite direction. While every other man before him turned left, Daryl managed to turn right.
He always knew his baby brother was the sweet one.
Daryl went and got himself married to a pretty, sweet girl and started having kids and bought a house, working hard and fixing it up until it looked like something found in a magazine; like a place Dixons would never be allowed to step foot in, let alone live in.
He had been in Alabama for a while, pursuing a few business opportunities, and when he got back to town again, the news hit him almost immediately. He had been in his usual preferred bar in town owned by his friend, Joe, and as Joe poured him a shot of whiskey, the man asked with a grin if he had heard what his little brother had gone and done.
"What the hell you talkin' about?" Merle frowned, staring at him and for a moment, he wondered if Daryl had gone and gotten himself arrested over something but that didn't make any sense. Daryl was practically a hermit up in that house he lived in in the woods.
"Your brother went and got himself married," Joe said, all the while still grinning.
Merle's frown deepened even more. That made about as much sense as Daryl getting in arrested. Daryl getting married? He almost snorted into his glass. Stupid rumors. That's all it was. It had to be. Daryl wouldn't get married. Boy had never expressed any interest in anything like that. Neither of them had. Merle had his fair share of female partners but he was never going to be tied down and Daryl always seemed to hate most people and if he could, he would live the rest of his life without talking to another human being.
"To who?" Merle couldn't help but ask.
"You know Hershel Greene?" Joe asked and Merle nodded. It was a small town and everyone knew Hershel Greene. Joe started chuckling and he shook his head as if far too amused himself with what he was about to say. "His daughter. His youngest daughter."
"What?" Merle felt like his head was spinning and he had hardly drank anything yet.
He had only been gone for a few months and now, he came back to find his brother married to a farmer's daughter? How the hell did Daryl even know Hershel Greene's daughter?
The next morning, after having crashed on a buddy's couch, too drunk to do anything else, Merle pulled himself up and with a pounding headache, he drove himself to Daryl's house. He noted immediately that there was an extra car parked out front – some Subaru little SUV thing – and the front porch was cleared of all of the extra parts Daryl always had laying around. His head only ached more as he pounded on the door with a heavy fist.
He heard shuffling inside and then the door opened, revealing Daryl and the smell of breakfast cooking wafting into his nose. Without a word, Daryl unlatched the screen door and pushed it open and Merle stepped into the house. The clean house. The walls had been painted with a fresh coat and there was some soft looking red blanket hanging over the back of the couch and the air smelled sweet. He heard the sizzling of bacon and looking into the kitchen, he saw a tiny blonde standing at the stove wearing one of Daryl's flannel shirts and nothing else.
He stood there, blinking at her, and she looked at him, smiling a little hesitantly.
"This is Beth, my wife," Daryl grunted as if this was all perfectly normal, and then he went to go pour a cup of coffee from the small machine on the counter.
Beth stood there, still smiling but still looking unsure, and Merle just kept staring at her. She was a pretty little thing – all blonde hair and big blue eyes and pale, soft-looking skin. Merle got why Daryl would pick this one but still, why had Daryl gone and got himself married to a girl like this? This was definitely the kind of a girl a guy married but some other guy. Not a Dixon.
"How old are you, girl?" Merle asked, ignoring Daryl frowning at him. "Just want to make sure my brother ain't gonna get in trouble for havin' you up here."
"I'm twenty-two," she answered him, still studying him as he studied her. "How old are you? I'm wondering if you're my brother-in-law or father-in-law," she then said and he looked at her for a moment before breaking into a slow smile. She smiled a little, too, and then went back to the stove and the frying pan of the sizzling bacon. "I'm making bacon and sunny-side up eggs," she informed him. "Would you like to stay for breakfast?"
Without a word, Daryl handed him the cup of coffee he had poured. Merle stared at him and made sure he knew there was still plenty they had to talk about. When breakfast was ready and they all sat down at the table like some happy family, Beth bowed her head and said a quick quiet prayer to herself and though Daryl didn't say it along with her, he waited until she was done before he began eating.
And as Merle shoveled the eggs and bacon in his mouth, he knew it wasn't just the liquor still sloshing around in his brain that made this the best breakfast he ever had.
Afterwards, he asked Daryl why the hell he had gone and gotten himself married and Daryl just shrugged his shoulders and didn't explain anything and Merle knew he wasn't really expecting him to. So as he spent more time with them, he took it upon himself to watch them. Beth was always smiling and beaming with happiness every time she looked at Daryl and Daryl seemed to be smiling a little bit more, too – or as much as he was able to smile. Merle didn't really think he had seen it before so he couldn't be too sure but he was pretty certain that his little brother was happy. And not only happy but he seemed to be in love with his wife, too. Of course, that was all assumption since Merle wouldn't know what love looked like if it came and kicked him in the ass.
He still didn't understand just how those two had met and fallen in love and gotten married but Merle grew to not really care that much. Beth was a good woman and she made Daryl happy and every time Merle came over, she fed him so she was alright in his book.
Within a few years, they had adopted one kid – Luke – and had had two of their own. Hunter and Abby. And he drifted in and out of jail even though he wanted to stay clean for his family and it only ever pissed Daryl off something fierce but Merle liked to remind him. Merle wasn't like Daryl. He had never had too many skills that could give him legitimate opportunities in this world. He didn't have the patience that Daryl seemed to have in limitless supply and had never showed the interest in the things that Daryl excelled at.
He came and went – either locked up or just drifting around - but anytime he was back, Beth always made up the couch for him and made sure he had enough blankets and the kids would clamber all over him because despite everything, he was still Uncle Merle and they loved when he was there. He had no idea how to be an uncle to these kids because these were going to be good kids. Beth and Daryl were raising them, making sure of it. He couldn't be like his and Daryl's uncles who gave them beers and cigarettes and nude magazines and taught them in the fine ways of fighting and cursing. Beth gave him a look anytime he let even "hell" slip out around the kids.
So, he would watch Daryl with his kids in an attempt to figure out how to be an uncle but watching his brother just made him even more confused. His little brother was a good dad. A hell of a dad. The sort of dad that the kids ran to when he came home because they wanted to greet him and tell him all about their days and Daryl just smiled a little and listened closely to everything they said even as the words all overlapped each other and he ushered them back towards the house. The sort of dad who built his sons a tree house and his daughter a dollhouse and taught them all about hunting and engines and who never even thought of raising a hand to any of them.
Hunter went through this phase when he was a baby where he didn't want Beth to put him down, always wanting to be in his mama's arms, and it seemed as if Abby was going through the same phase but this time, with Daryl. The little girl whimpered if Daryl even made the motion of bending down to put her on her feet so Daryl became used to holding her in his left arm and doing most things with his right.
He had never had a birthday celebration of any kind until Beth became a Dixon and on his fiftieth birthday, Beth baked him a cake and cooked dinner and he came over to their white farmhouse for a family celebration. He even wore the pointed party hat that Hunter snapped on his head. Afterwards, they went outside and he sat beside Daryl in two lawn chairs in the yard as mosquitos buzzed in their ears and lightning bugs slowly lit the sky as the sun nearly disappeared behind the horizon line. The boys were laughing, chasing one another, Hunter with his marshmallow gun as the boy seemed to have with him all of the time now, and Abby sat in her daddy's lap, her fingers stretching out for a lightning bug anytime one flew near her.
Beth was inside, cleaning up and she had shooed Daryl outside when he had tried to help, and they could hear her through the open windows, singing along with a song on the radio.
Merle sipped his beer and kept looking at Daryl from the corner of his eye. Daryl was drinking his own bottle of beer but they both knew he would only drink one before he cut himself off. He didn't like drinking around the kids and Merle still had no idea where he learned all of this stuff. How to be a husband. How to be a dad. There was a part of him that might have been jealous of this whole life Daryl had made for himself but Merle wasn't the kind to be jealous about something like this. It wasn't as if he wanted it for himself.
"Egg!" Abby exclaimed, pointing to a lightning bug.
"Bug," Daryl told her but she just turned her head and smiled at him.
Merle chuckled a little. "Still callin' everythin' an egg, I see."
Daryl nodded and sighed a little. "Beth's gettin' worried. 'parently, she should be talking more for her age."
Merle shrugged at that. "You were a late talker."
"Yeah?" Daryl looked at him.
"Yeah," Merle nodded and took a swig of beer. "Course when you did learn to talk, still didn' do too much of it. Talkin' was never somethin' you seemed interested in."
"How old you think I was?" Daryl asked.
Merle knew that even if their parents were alive, Daryl would never ask them any of this. Not their mom and definitely not their old man. Merle had always been Daryl's prime caregiver when they were kids; when Merle was around.
"Prob'ly 'round the age that lil' one is now," Merle shrugged. "She'll talk when she's ready."
Daryl nodded again. "Beth just looks at other kids her age at the daycare and Hunter started talkin' 'round two. Still haven't gotten him to shut up."
Merle grinned at that and swigged some more beer. He slinked a little lower in his chair and listened to the mixture of cicadas and crickets hiding themselves in the tall field grass. Daryl didn't say anything else either and instead, seemed to be in deep thought, his face with that pensive look and slight pull between his eyebrows. Merle didn't ask though, figuring her was probably just thinking about his kid. That almost made Merle snort. Daryl didn't seem to think about much these days that weren't about Beth or the kids. Merle knew he didn't think much about anything if it didn't concern himself.
"Uncle Merle!" Hunter suddenly exclaimed and came running to him. "Show me and Luke how to do an Army crawl!"
Merle almost groaned. He was too damn comfortable to move. "I'm too old for that, boy," he protested.
"No, you ain't," Hunter grabbed his hand and began tugging. "Come on."
"Ask your daddy to show you," he said and then looked back to Daryl.
Daryl just shrugged though. "They want their uncle to show 'em."
"Come on, Uncle Merle!" Luke shouted from further in the yard.
This time, Merle did groan but he handed Daryl his beer bottle before sliding from the chair onto his knees in the soft grass. Hunter was immediately beside him, mirroring his actions. He didn't know how long he and the boys crawled around the yard on their stomachs but eventually, Beth stepped onto the porch.
"Boys! Time for bed!" She called out to them.
Merle wasn't going to pretend that he wasn't relieved about that. He didn't know how Daryl and Beth did this. He loved the kids. They were his family; his blood. But every time he came over here, he left completely exhausted.
The boys jumped up and ran into the house and Merle stood up with his knees cracking and his back sore and screaming at him. He really was getting too old for this kind of shit. He turned and saw Beth still standing on the porch, smiling at him. He saw that Daryl was gone, having already taken Abby inside.
"You're such a cool uncle," Beth joked with him as he approached.
Merle snorted. "Your brother's younger than me. He should be the one doin' this with them." He put a hand on his back and bent it backwards slightly, cracking it.
Beth just smiled. "They adore you," she said in that gentle voice of hers that made it no secret to him as to why his brother married her.
She would have been too sweet for any other Dixon but she got the Dixon who was the least like all of the others who came before him.
"You want some cake to take with you?" She asked. "You can take the rest for your friends," she said and they both pretended that his friends wouldn't it all while in the midst of a high.
Merle followed her into the house and in the kitchen, she had already packed up the rest of the cake in a plastic container and in another container, she had given him some dinner leftovers. Upstairs, he could hear the boys running around and Daryl telling Hunter to stop wasting the toothpaste like that.
"Thanks, darlin'," Merle smiled at Beth and kissed her on the cheek. "Best birthday yet."
She smiled because he said that to her every year but she didn't point it out to him. "You know you can always stay the night, Merle," she told him.
"Got other birthday plans tonight," he shook his head but didn't tell her what those plans were because some things weren't just meant to be heard by a girl like his sister-in-law.
Beth nodded with understanding and she stood up on her toes, kissing his cheek. "Happy birthday, Merle," she said with a small, warm smile and she left the kitchen. He heard the stairs creaking as she went upstairs and a minute later, Daryl came down, meeting him out on the front porch where he was waiting for him.
"Headin' out?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah," Merle nodded. "Got some people waitin' for me."
Daryl nodded but didn't ask and Merle didn't tell him. Daryl wasn't an idiot and knew what Merle still got himself up to but he never asked and Merle never told because even though for a long time, Daryl used to follow him around and do a lot of the same things, that wasn't how it was anymore. Daryl wasn't a part of that particular part of his life anymore and Merle knew he was a selfish asshole most of the time but he wasn't going to drag Daryl back into it with him either. Daryl had a good life here with his wife and kids in this farmhouse he built them and he couldn't think of someone who deserved this life more.
"Happy birthday," Daryl said.
"Thanks," Merle nodded and gave a smile before heading down the porch steps towards where he parked his truck.
As he drove down the dirt drive towards the road, he looked into the side mirror and saw Daryl going into the house, shutting off lights behind him, probably heading to bed himself.
Merle headed down the road in the direction of Joe's bar and he reached to the seat beside him, managing to take out a piece of cake from the container, only swerving a little, and he ate it with his hand as he drove. He wasn't going to lie and say that he didn't love the dinners he went to at his brother's house but he wasn't going to lie either and say he wasn't more excited about seeing his friends at the bar.
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