Chapter Text
The bike purred perfectly as he sped down the open road. Daryl increased the speed, chasing the tail lights of a red and black bike. The figure on the bike began to grow as their speeds began to match. As he caught up, he began to recognize the features that only one person could have. Glenn turned his head to look at him, raven hair dancing with the wind.
His brown eyes and wide smile. He was older, with a small dusting of facial hair and a slightly wider face. Glenn reached out, somehow only driving the bike with one hand, and touched his cheek. Suddenly everything flashed, and he was laying in the grass. The first thing he saw was Zero, laying beside him, tail thumping against the ground.
There was movement on his right cheek,"Daryl."
He turned his head, finally seeing Glenn, laying right beside him. His brown eyes practically smiling with his young grin. The kid's hand moved down his neck and trailed it down his stomach. His eyes followed it. He noticed something, which gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Glenn's belly was large and swollen with a child, his black shirt pulled back a bit, exposing the baby soft skin. He felt pride swelling in his chest, knowing that this was his baby. He reached out to feel over it, smiling when Glenn's hand joined his. Smiling widely, he moved closer to kiss his soft lips.
"Daryl." His eyes flashed open.
Glenn was laying beside him, in the semi, back in the end of the world. It was dark, but he could see the look of fondness and curiosity written on his face.
"Dreaming about something?" Glenn asked, his hands running over Daryl's where it was sitting on his stomach.
"Uh.."
Glenn giggled and looked down to where their hands were laying on his stomach,"It's okay, I kind of have a pretty good idea about it."
Daryl felt his face go red at the way Glenn looked down and smiled at his belly. Glenn scooted over and snuggled closer, nose buried in his chest,"Just go back to sleep. It's like, midnight."
Daryl linked his arm around Glenn, now noticing that Zero was curled up by their feet. The dog looked about as awake as he was, eyes wide, furry head swiveling about. Glenn was definitely awake from the way he kept moving, nose tickling Daryl's chest.
"Did I wake you up?" He finally grumbled.
"No." Glenn rolled over, trying for a different position,"I couldn't really sleep, as you can tell."
Daryl pondered a thought for a moment. He had seen a small strip mall when he had wandered ahead and left the others behind. He also hadn't seen any walkers. What would it hurt if they just...snuck off for a little bit? Even though Rick and Shane had instructed everyone to not go within 200 feet of the Semi they were sleeping in. Who would find out, right?
"Wanna do somethin?"
"Like what?"
"Saw a strip mall down the road, no walkers either."
"But Rick said not to..."
"Fuck Rick, neither of us can sleep, so lets get out of here. They won't find out, they never do."
"Alright." Glenn got up and began throwing his clothes back on. Zero got up, his tail wagging wildly as he looked at his owners. Daryl took it upon himself to put a collar back on him and put him on a leash, grabbed his crossbow, and hopped out of the Semi.
Glenn was right behind him. Daryl took note of the fact that the kid wasn't wearing his hat.
"I didn't feel like wearing it." He explained, taking the leash from Daryl's hand and replacing it with his hand,"So where to?"
They snuck off by crouching and hiding behind cars. Shane was currently on watch, and even though it sounded like he was snoring, neither of them wanted to even so much as risk being spotted and possibly shot. Even if it was obvious it was them.
After weaving through the maze of cars, Daryl began to stand straight and quit crouching as much, which Glenn took as a sign to do the same. Zero padded along beside them in his usual fashion. Daryl smiled as he saw the kid look up at him with his glimmering eyes. He would never get used to this.
Glenn was always so damn eager to please and looked at him like he was the greatest person in the world. He was far from it, but that never stopped the young Korean.
They made it to the strip mall no problem. Daryl never had to drop Glenn's hand to aim his crossbow or anything. It was almost like taking a midnight stroll, no walkers, no end of the world, just them, the moon, and the stars.
They slunk into the strip mall, thankfully the gates had been left unlocked, and Daryl flicked on his flashlight. He didn't see any walkers, but he wasn't going to take any chances by letting go of Glenn and letting his guard down. Even if they had Zero with them.
"Now what?" Glenn asked, tugging Zero's leash to pull the dog away from a dying plant.
Daryl shrugged and began to walk down the long strip. Glenn yawned and rested his head on Daryl's shoulder, finding it easy with the height difference.
Most of the stores had been ransacked and looted, especially the sporting goods, but they managed to find a clothing store with some clothes in it, and disappeared inside.
There was a dead walker by the desk, a bullet through its brain and splattered on the wall. Zero made sure to do a detour around it, not looking away from it until he was satisfied that they wouldn't get hurt. A red and black baseball cap hanging up in the back caught Glenn's eye. He reluctantly let go of Daryl's hand to go look at the hat. He tried to get it down to get a better look, but it was just out of his reach.
A larger hand surpassed his and got the hat down. He looked down into the mirror to see Daryl leaning over him. The hat was pulled down over his head before he could even utter a word.
"What's with you and hats anyways?" Daryl couldn't help but ask. He had probably only seen Glenn without a hat four times the entire time he had known him.
"I don't know really, I guess it was because back when I played high school baseball, I got used to wearing a hat and going without one felt weird. It still does in a way." He adjusted the hat so that he could see and looked at himself in the mirror.
"You played?"
"For a while." Glenn looked down at his feet,"I had to quit because the Pitcher kept beating me up every chance he got." He turned his neck to reveal a thin white scar,"He got me with his knife one day and I just never came back to practice."
Daryl lightly ran his finger over the scar. He hadn't noticed it before. It angered him to know somebody had done this to the kid. Before he knew what he was doing, he was leaning down and kissing the scar. Glenn's skin shivered under his touch.
"Aint nobody been messing with you lately?" He asked, putting his hand on Glenn's waist possessively.
"Nope." Glenn turned his hat around backwards and kissed his cheek.
They found some clothes that fit them and stuffed them into a plastic bag. Somehow Glenn ended up wearing Daryl's oversized shirt and Daryl ended up wearing a Navy blue dress shirt with actual sleeves. Which took some convincing from Glenn.
"You look so weird with sleeves." Glenn laughed, feeling Daryl's bicep through the shirt,"You look good."
"I feel like a -"
"Yeah yeah, you can take it off." He turned and wandered off to the other side of the store where Zero was laying,"You're not getting your shirt back."
There was a shelf for pet clothes off to the side. It sparked an idea in Glenn's head, and he scavenged through it until he found what he was looking for. A two-toned grey sweatshirt. Zero jumped up and came padding over and a simple hand signal, and Glenn put the sweatshirt on him.
"Go get Daryl." He whispered, pointing over to where Daryl was fiddling with his crossbow. Zero looked at Daryl, then back to Glenn, as if questioning what the was saying. Glenn pointed at Daryl again,"Go get him." Finally, Zero understood and went trotting over to Daryl.
Daryl chuckled at the sight of the dog and knelt down to pet him,"What did he do to you?"
Glenn walked over grinning from ear to ear,"I think he likes it."
Daryl rolled his eyes and walked over, meeting Glenn half way,"You ready?" Glenn nodded, holding up the bag of clothes.
Daryl grabbed Zero's leash from the floor and put his crossbow over his shoulder. Glenn turned to look at something shiny while he did so. Daryl looked at Zero, then back at Glenn. The kid was taking too damn long. He kicked his foot out and waited for the kid to take a step backwards. He did and went flailing backwards, squeaking as it happened.
Daryl caught him and scooped him off of the ground bridal style,"Your takin too long."
Glenn looked down at Zero, who was happily walking beside them. Daryl moved to push open the door, swinging Glenn about and startling him. Glenn linked his arms around Daryl's neck and pressed close to him, in fear of being dropped.
Apparently, Daryl wasn't done there. He went towards the gate, and then took a right, and walked up the stairs on the side, and walked right onto the roof. It was clear that it was used for some kind of party, lounge chairs were strewn this way and that and a grill off to the side. Glenn looked up at Daryl and smiled when he saw the man looking back down at him.
Daryl sat down in one of the lounge chairs that hadn't been destroyed and placed Glenn in his lap, lounging back and looking towards the road. Glenn moved with him, shifting a bit so that he wouldn't crush any...delicate pieces. He found himself looking at three small scars on Daryl's left arm. It was thin and almost looked like an upside down triangle, but he could tell that they were three individual scars.
Daryl took Glenn's smaller hand and guided it to the scar on top,"Locker room door," To the scar on the far left,"Knife," Then to the one on the far right,"Same knife."
"Oh." Glenn ran his fingers over the triangle scar and kissed it like Daryl had done with the scar on the side of his neck.
"Why do ya do this?"
"Huh?"
"You always act like I'm gold or somethin'. I'm far from it kid, but you still do it. Why?" Daryl had to tear his eyes away from those gorgeous eyes to look up at the stars instead,"You could have anyone but you picked me."
Glenn thought for a minute. The man's words had shocked him, he wasn't expecting to hear them, especially from Daryl, of all people,"You're...special." He hoped Daryl wouldn't tune him out for his choice of words,"I could tell from the start you were. You're strong and have a thick outer shell, but...once I got to know you, you turned out to have a heart of gold. I've seen you face hard situations, one's that I would crumple under, and you come out stronger than you were before. You're different from the others, I've known a ton of people in my short excuse of a lifetime and none of them come close to you."
Glenn stopped his rambling and looked over to make sure Daryl hadn't fallen asleep. He found that the man was intently looking at him,"You're kind of like...a badass teddy bear." Daryl smiled a little at the comparison.
They stayed curled up like that for maybe 10 minutes before Glenn started getting sleepy, and passed out on Daryl. Daryl too felt himself getting tired, wanting nothing more than to just stay like that forever.
"Glenn." He patted the kid's cheek and found the ticklish spot along Glenn's collar bone.
Glenn squeaked and squirmed, smaller hands fighting to stop him. Daryl stopped once he deemed the kid to be awake,"C'mon."
Glenn got up to his tired feet and walked over to where Zero was looking through the metal bars at the highway. It was so weird to see it so empty, no matter how much he tried to adjust to the whole end of the world thing.
"Do you think we would have met if the world didn't end?" Glenn thought aloud, as he followed Daryl down the stairs.
Daryl shrugged,"Maybe."
Glenn sleepily followed alongside Daryl the rest if the way back. Zero himself seemed tired, tail low and yawning. They made it to the semi, only killing two walkers in the process. Zero was the first to jump in and bounded to the bed, followed by Glenn and Daryl. Glenn once again shed his clothes and curled up in his former spot. By the time Daryl got in, the Korean was nearly asleep.
Bam_
Zero's head shot up at the sound of the gunshot. Glenn and Daryl looked at each other as if one of them would know what it had been about. They continued walking, it wasn't like a single gunshot was a big deal, until Lori stopped behind them, practically forcing them to stop as well. Zero walked ahead a few steps, looked at Glenn, then returned and set between him and Daryl.
"You still worrying about it?" Andrea asked.
"That was a gunshot." No shit. Daryl wanted to reply, he was getting sick of the constant worrying the woman was doing.
"We all heard it." He said instead.
Lori turned around and looked at him as if he had just slapped her in the face,"Why one? Why just one gunshot?"
He looked at Glenn, then shrugged,"Maybe he took down a walker."
"Please patronize me, you know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly." Daryl had a list of replies running through his brain within a split second, all ranging from rated M to R, if it hadn't been for Glenn's pleading look and Carol speaking up, he would have used at least one of them.
"Shouldn't they have been caught up by now?" Carol asked, unsurely.
"There's nothing we can do about it anyway." He finally said, taking a look around,"We'd be running around these woods chasing echoes."
"So what do we do?" Lori inquired as if Daryl were to have an answer.
"Same as we've been." He nudged Zero's side and made a small motion for him to stand up,"Beat the bush for Sophia and work our way back to the highway."
He quit listening to whatever was being talked about and began to walk again. He whistled and jutted his thumb over to his left, where Glenn was obediently trudging along. Obediently, the wolfdog trotted over to Glenn and followed his side. When they realized that Andrea and Carol weren't following, they stopped again.
"We're all hoping and praying for you." Andrea said,"For what it's worth."
Glenn could practically see the annoyance turning Daryl's head red and blowing it off like he was a cartoon character. Daryl walked back once again,"I'll tell you what its worth." He said,"Not a damn thing. It's a waste of time all this hopin' and prayin'. We're gonna locate that little girl, and she's gonna be just fine."
Glenn turned and began to walk with Zero, trying to hide his giggle when he heard Daryl say,"Am I the only one Zen around here? Good lord."
They began walking again, in a comfortable silence, except for Daryl radiating his anger for the next five minutes. Zero casually walked along, dropping back sometimes to walk beside Lori and letting her pet him, and then running back up to join Daryl, then going back to Glenn. But never straying ahead.
Glenn assumed it was something Daryl had taught him. He remembered the one Dog Whisperer guy on TV saying something about teaching dogs-er...wolfdogs that you're the alpha and that you lead them, they don't lead you. Or maybe it was just something that Zero did, he didn't know.
"Why can't you just have Zero track her down?" Andrea finally asked, making a careless gesture towards Zero.
"We ain't got nothin' for him to track." Daryl said coldly,"Sides, even if he could pick up her trail we would be runnin' through these woods for hours until we could catch up to her. God knows how long she's been runnin around."
Glenn sensed Andrea wanting to have some kind of comeback. Maybe ask if Daryl has even trained Zero to track scents at all, or something to both insult and provoke him. However, they managed to keep walking, Glenn finally caught up to Daryl and playfully nudged him every now and then. Sometimes picking up a stick and throwing it for Zero to go tumbling off and catch.
They stopped for a quick debate, which was quickly ended by Daryl whistling and turning back, with Glenn and Zero following at his heels, all too familiar with the wordless, 'come on'. There was a small bit of griping from Andrea and a few muttered words from Lori, luckily not enough that would cause Daryl to reply.
Glenn gave up on trying to keep Daryl's mood light and instead focused on petting Zero as they walked and playing little games with him. Though that mood was practically enslaved when Andrea started screaming. They all turned and sprinted in the direction she had gone, with Zero barking and whining out of pure confusion. The next thing Glenn knew a girl went riding by on a horse and hit the walker with a baseball bat.
"Lori? Lori Grimes?" The girl asked, a thick Georgian accent like honey on her voice.
"I'm Lori."
Glenn already had the sneaking suspicion before the girl could speak,"There's been an accident, Carl's been shot." Glenn felt so bad for Lori right that moment it almost made him sick,"He's still alive, but you gotta come now."
There was silence. Disbelief washing over their fragment of the group.
The girl grew a little more frantic,"Rick needs you, just come!"
Bickering ensued, Daryl being the most down to Earth and realistic about this and bringing up the fact that they didn't know this girl. Glenn wanted to bash his head into a tree at how fast the girl threw directions at him and then took off without a second thought on the matter.
Great, now Carl was shot, Lori was gone, he had another backpack to carry, Andrea was scared shitless, Carol was more frightened than she previously had been, and Daryl was pissed off. Great, just great. At least Zero was alright.
"Carl's been shot." Andrea blurted, as soon as they got back.
"Shot? What do you mean, shot?" Dale came rushing up to them, leaving a breathless Glenn to explain.
"I don't know, Dale." He panted,"Listen, all I know is this chick rode in out of nowhere like Zora on a horse and took Lori."
"You let her?"
"Climb down out of my ass old man, Rick sent her. She knew Lori's name and Carl's." Daryl went storming off to the Semi they had spent the night in, probably to go get some of the water Glenn had brought back to wake him up with. The guy sleeps like the dead.
When the next debate came up and Dale suggested they send Glenn off to find the people that may or may not be their first arch enemy, and leave behind Zero, Daryl saved his ass with his brother's stash.
"Okay, we need some new rules about what you guys send me off on," Glenn said, kicking his legs back and forth from where he sat on the roof of a car. Thanks to Daryl helping him up there.
"Glenn you're just doing simple runs." Andrea started to say.
"Simple runs? I've almost died on those 'simple runs' way too may time to count, I volunteered for those, I get that, but some things I just don't wanna do. Especially going somewhere all alone to meet with people that could be out to kill me, and leaving Zero, just because Dale told me to!" Glenn flung his arms out as he spoke, nearly causing himself to fall off the car.
"Glenn has a point." Carol said, breaking her silence,"We can't just go ordering him around against his will."
"Well, we need someone to go find the other half of the group." Dale pressed.
"They'll come back." Glenn said,"They're not gonna just leave us. Shane will probably come find us tomorrow." Dale wordlessly went into the RV, followed by Carol. Leaving Glenn and Zero on their own. Daryl came about a few minutes later, carrying a few wet rags and a bottle of water.
"Havin' fun with your debates?" The redneck asked, carefully stepping over Zero, who lay a few feet ahead of Glenn.
"A blast." Glenn planted both hands beside himself to keep himself steady and let his legs fit around the man. He lightly ran his fingers over Daryl's dirty neck,"It's been what? Two, three days since you last had a shower? You're worse than a toddler."
"I was gonna wash it off..." Daryl looked down at the water and rags in his hands,
Glenn laughed and took the items from Daryl's hands and went to work cleaning the man up. Daryl shut his eyes and let Glenn do his thing. The kid could switch from goofy, socially awkward pizza delivery boy that was overly cuddly, and knew no boundaries, to an over worrying mother within a split second.
"You gonna bake cookies and give me a bubble bath too?" He chuckled, turning his neck so Glenn could see better.
"I wish." It would be nice to eat fresh baked cookies and have a bubble bath, even though .he was more of a shower person, he had always loved bubble baths. Especially as a child, it was better than candy or a new action figure, in his eyes.
He finished cleaning Daryl's upper chest and went to work on his hands and arms, which was a little bit easier. Then he moved on to Daryl's face, being a little gentler and taking his time to caress his jaw and give him a bit of a hard time. Once he deemed Daryl to be clean, he kissed his forehead and locked his legs around him.
"What?" Daryl looked at him curiously.
"Get me down from here." He playfully demanded, smacking him on the shoulder with one of the dirty rags.
Daryl scoffed and rolled his eyes, and firmly planted his hands on Glenn's waist. Glenn wrapped his arms around his shoulders and let himself be picked up and placed back on the ground. Daryl began to grab the left over water and the rags.
"C'mon Zero." Glenn knelt beside his sleepy pet and began to rub his belly,"Let's get moving."
Zero obviously didn't want to get up, but he did anyways and followed his owners to the Semi. Daryl, being the gentleman that he had never been, let Zero and Glenn clamber in first. Glenn rolled his eyes at the gesture and bounded inside, opting for rooting through his bag and finding some of the fresh clothes while Daryl removed Zero's vest.
Glenn began to remove his clothes and shoved them into his bag, not caring about whether or not they would get wrinkled. Now in nothing but his yellow briefs, he decided to tuck the messy sheets over his midsection.
He didn't want to explain his-
"Neon yellow?"
Glenn's cheeks flushed red as he scrambled under the sheets,"Don't judge!"
Daryl chuckled and continued to fumble about for a bit, until he finally joined Glenn in the bed, his legs intertwining with Glenn's baby soft ones.
"If anything, I'm judging you because your legs 're like a girls."
"I uh..." Glenn hid his face under the pillow,"It was a dare alright?"