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Dating Daryl Dixon, Glenn thinks, is a lot like those Grab Bags Glenn used to rope his parents into buying every time they were in the general vicinity of a convenience store. You tear open the paper bag, first slowly, cautious because you want it to be a surprise, want to wait, then all at once because the excitement gets to be too much and you just have to know what the hell's in that thing. Then, after you finish ripping away the exterior, you get into the innards of it and realize holy crap, this is weird.
And boy, does Daryl have some weird stuff going on.
1) “I ever tell you about that time I hid in Mexico for a year? Merle was in some drug trouble and somethin, ‘nd…”
2) “I can whistle through my nose. Wanna hear?”
3) “Y’know. A goat pushed me in a well once. Was stuck in ‘er for two days ‘fore someone found me.”
So, really, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to Glenn when Daryl walks into their tent one day -- hips swaying with purpose -- and says in what has to be the most effeminate voice ever, “Girl, huntin’ is getting to be too much these days, let me tell you.” He punctuates it with a snap of his fingers and a feminine humph!
Glenn promptly proceeds to roll of the cot and die.
+
“Come on, do it again!”
“No.”
“You did it yesterday, though!”
“No.”
“But, Darrrryyyyyyllllll! Please? You’ll be, like, the best boyfriend ever!”
“Said no, kid.”
“But it was so funny!”
“If I do it again, will you shut the hell up and go back to bed?”
Glenn grins, half-heartedly scanning the tree line as he happily swings his legs from the edge of the RV. Technically, Daryl’s supposed to be on watch, and technically Glenn’s supposed to be asleep. But after an hour of tossing and turning and nothing staggering out from the woods trying to bite all their faces off, Glenn got bored.
And, obviously, the most entertaining thing in the entire camp was a sarcastically gay Daryl Dixon.
“Definitely,” Glenn assures, nodding fervently. He offhandedly wishes he had a phone again, if only to record Daryl’s accent. Maybe set it as his ringtone, too.
“Well, what do you want me to say, kid?” Daryl feigns annoyance, but Glenn can see the twitch of his lips and the gleam in his eye. He’s enjoying his more than he’s letting on.
Glenn thoughtfully taps his chin, mind soaring with ideas. “Oooh! Say something about guys!”
“Guys?”
“Yeah, you know -- men. Like you. And me. And, you know, just guys. Say something about men.”
Sucking in a breath, Daryl rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he snaps, clearing his throat. Glenn leans in closer, not wanting to miss a single syllable. “Well… hmmm…” Daryl starts in, voice all high and lispy. They both find it troubling to contain their laughter. Glenn’s hand is doing a piss-poor job at hiding his already too-loud giggling.
“Boys are okay, I guess…” Daryl continues, trying to bite back his grin, “I mean, they’re cute and all, but sometiiiimessss, you just end up with a total. Dick. Like, my boyfriend? He makes me do stupid impressions when he’s supposed to be asleep. Soooooo, yeah. Boys are okay.”
Ignoring Daryl’s obvious dig at him, Glenn shoves his face in his hands. Eventually, he just can’t not laugh, and his howls carry throughout the camp. He laughs so hard he starts choking on his own breath and nearly takes a head-first dive off the RV. Daryl grabs the back of his shirt to save him. His laughing doesn’t even begin to let up.
The mad cackling ends up waking Rick, who stumbles, eyes half-lidded and in just his boxers, out of the Grimes’ tent. “Daryl?” he hollers, voice scratchy and thick with sleep. Glenn almost feels bad for waking him with sleeping being such a scarcity these days. Almost. “Glenn? Is that you guys?”
Glenn’s still calming down, giggling and wheezing, so Daryl calls down to him. “Yeah, kid's running on no sleep; can’t seem to get a grip on himself.”
“Oh. Alright, just try and keep it down, okay? We’ve got folks tryin’ to sleep down here,” Rick says, rubbing a hand over his face. Glenn gets his laughter under control, managing to force back the straggling snorts that try to free themselves. He bites his lip, almost breaking skin.
Daryl nods and Rick’s soon gone back to bed.
As soon as Grimes is tucked away in his tent, Glenn’s started giggling again. “Boys are okay,” he mocks, pushing himself up from the RV’s roof. He stumbles a little, still out of it.
“Shuddup, kid,” Daryl grumbles.
Glenn leans down to kiss Daryl’s temple, laughing in his ear. “Goodnight, Daryl,” he whispers.
“Goodnight,” he mutters. “I’ll be down in a few hours. Soon as T gets up.”
Glenn climbs down the RV’s ladder, fighting the urge to start cackling once more. He tiptoes around the fire pit, reciting just loud enough for Daryl to hear, “But sometimes you end up with a total dick.”
Daryl smiles, not sure if he wants to gut the kid or kiss him. “Go to bed, dick,” he yells after him. Glenn flips him off as he disappears behind a nylon tent flap.
Kiss him, Daryl thinks. He definitely wants to kiss him.
+
Lori passes the basket of laundry to Glenn to divvy out among the survivors, a frown firm on her face. “Daryl? No. I don’t believe that. He’s too… manly.”
“I swear to you. He does it a little too good,” Glenn insists, relishing in the smell of Tide he’d brought back on his last run into the city. “I’ll get him to show you.”
“Yeah right,” Carol butts in, distractedly folding a pair of Carl’s jeans. She places them in the basket, unbelieving eyes flitting up to Glenn. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Glenn humphs and turns on his heel.
It becomes something, right then and there. A challenge or a dare of some sort. Daryl Dixon will do his highly-offensive gay lisp in front of the group.
Even if Glenn ends up getting an arrow in to the neck in the process.
+
Glenn’s latest run into town has proven useful.
Carl has a new shirt, Sophia possesses a new pair of sneakers, and the whole camp has deodorant and socks. Daryl has new bolts, Rick has new bullets (just a few of each; most stores had already been looted all to hell, but Glenn managed to scrounge up a couple shells and arrows from discarded baskets and underneath overturned shelves). Hell, there’s even a couple candy bars and sodas to go around.
Glenn presents Daryl with a slightly-expired Milky Way, a definitely flat Coke, and a handful of bolts when he gets back from his hunting trip.
Daryl’s on to him immediately.
Setting down his string of kills, the hunter raises an eyebrow and takes the soda and candy bar. Not breaking his eye contact with Glenn, he manages to tear a strip off the shiny Milky Way wrapper, letting the trash fall to the ground. (Any other day, Glenn would’ve glared the hell out of his boyfriend until he leaned down and picked it up to discard it where the rest of their trash was, but today’s a special day, so he lets it slide.) The man takes a bite of the candy in a way Glenn would almost describe as violent.
Through a mouthful of chocolate and caramel, Daryl asks, “Alright, kid. Whaddaya want?”
Glenn fakes innocence. “What do you mean? I don’t want anything. Can a man not give his boyfriend a candy bar without ulterior motives?”
“No,” Daryl is quick to respond, “no, he can’t.”
Glenn resists the urge to pout. “Oh, come on! I was just gonna ask for a favor.”
Sighing and popping the tab of his Coke, Daryl rolls his eyes and grumbles, “This better be the best damn soda I ever had if it’s gon’ cost me.”
"Oh, please. It’s nothing! I just… wanted to know if you could do your… uh, your voice in front of everyone? Please?” Glenn knows what comes next, but still vainly crosses his fingers.
“Hell no.”
“Aw, but Daryl! Lori and Carol think I’m making it up! And… and please?” he begs, pulling out the puppy dog eyes. As per usual, Daryl’s not affected.
“No.”
“But-”
“No.”
It seems to be the final word on the subject, so Glenn sighs and snatches the candy bar away just short of Daryl’s teeth. He pretends not to hear Daryl’s shout of “Hey! That’s mine!” as he moves to join the others at the fire pit.
+
Glenn shares a tent with Carl that night because the boy wants “a sleepover” with Sophia, but their parents said they had to have an adult with them. Carl had asked him with wide, hopeful eyes, and how was he supposed to say no to that?
And, as an added bonus, it was a total cock-block to Daryl. (Glenn’s been working on training Daryl to do what he wants by withholding sex.) (It’s quite effective.)
“Whaddaya mean a sleepover?” Daryl groans as Glenn climbs off his lap (and, yeah, he’d purposefully gotten Daryl all riled up) to collect their spare sleeping bag from his pack. Daryl looks like an angry, neglected puppy, and Glenn wonders how long it’ll take for the man to forgive him.
“I mean, Carl and Sophia are having a sleepover in the Peletier tent, and they need an adult. So Carl asked me to stay with them,” Glenn explains, stuffing his feet into sneakers that are a step away from falling apart.
Daryl’s nose crinkles. “And you couldn’t’a said ‘no?’”
“No, Daryl. I couldn’t have. Besides, it’s just for the night. You’ll manage without me,” Glenn insists, collecting his shirt from beside where Daryl sits, on the verge of pouting.
“Do you gotta leave now?” Daryl whines, grasping at the kid’s wrist in an attempt to pull him back to the ground.
“Daryl. Carl and Sophia are probably getting impatient already. I’ll be back here tomorrow night,” Glenn says.
The statement makes Daryl cringe because that statement could very well be turned into a lie within a matter of seconds from a number of things (walker, disease, accident, attack, fall, a bullet). Glenn notices and regrets even saying it. He lands a kiss to Daryl’s mouth as an apology before making his way out of the tent. He’s about halfway to the Peletier tent when he hears,
“This is about the accent, isn’t it?”
Cursing (because, damn, he’d done a pretty good job at not blurting that part out), Glenn turns around. “Accent? Pfft. Please. Your accent is nothing. Just, what? A lisp?”
"Glenn.” Daryl looks at him like a scolding mother does her toddler. “You’re a terrible liar.”
He caves. “Why won’t you do it?”
Daryl rolls his eyes, taking one, long stride forward. He and Glenn are almost nose-to-nose, and Glenn can smell the woods on Daryl; the dirt, mud, grime. It kind of makes him want to throw up.
“Because it’s our thing.” Glenn barely catches it -- the effeminate accent on ‘our,’ the high lisp in ‘because.’ He cracks a grin when he notices, bites his lip hard to make his teeth catch the laughter that wants to come out. “Don’t wanna ruin it. Right?”
Glenn manages to nod, but ends up squeaking when he opens his mouth to speak. His head falls forward against his own will, into Daryl’s neck, where he buries his giggles. He tries to get a hold on his breathing, as Daryl contemplates shoving him. Just for spite.
The older man shakes his head, muttering, “Ain’t you got a sleepover ta get to?”
“Asshole,” Glenn gripes, but it’s breathy from laughter and he’s smiling wide enough to break his face. The kid stands on tiptoe to kiss Daryl’s jaw (okay, it’s more of a bite that leaves teeth marks on his skin that actually sting if he touches them) before turning towards the Peletier tent.
“Have fun with your pillow fights and gossip! Don’t talk about me too much!” Daryl’s voice is back to it’s usual, low-pitched self.
Glenn chucks an empty soda can that’s been discarded near Andrea’s tent in Daryl’s general direction. He knows he misses when Daryl starts laughing at him. He doesn’t even look back when he feels the can hit the back of his neck as Daryl’s petty revenge.
+
The inside joke lasts for half a year, give or take.
While they’re all gathered around the fire, Daryl will lean close to Glenn and give a running commentary of his opinions on the stories being swapped over dinner.
When they manage to get a moment alone -- usually just before the crack of dawn or just after the sun has set -- he and Daryl will carry an entire conversation with Daryl and his stupidly high-pitched voice.
He shows Glenn how to clean and gut a squirrel using that voice, with his arms wrapped tightly around Glenn waist, guiding his hands as the younger man sits between Daryl’s legs. The hunter actually ends up cleaning and gutting the damn thing himself because Glenn’s shaking so hard from laughter he’d probably cut his finger off if he even held the knife.
Glenn still sneaks out to sit with Daryl on top of the RV during those restless nights. He does the voice then too, with Glenn’s head on his lap, joking about how pretty his boyfriend is as he twirls rough, calloused fingers through jet black hair.
For awhile, the joke is theirs and only theirs. They can giggle about it behind their hands, under the guise of watch duty or education, and it’s fun.
(Glenn still wishes he’d show the group.) (Lori and Carol still like to shake their heads and shoot the couple weird looks, still doubting him.)
+
Summer bleeds into autumn, which slips into early winter, shorts being traded in for jeans, tank tops for sweaters. Daryl’s been getting less and less out of his hunting trips and they’ve all been running on empty for longer than anyone would prefer. Growling stomachs have become the norm and, as the hunger sets in, so does a communal depression.
They’re huddled around their meager fire one day, wrapped in cloths that used to be blankets but are more comparable to rags now. Families huddle together for warmth, and Glenn silently curses them. Daryl’s out attempting to hunt, trying for the millionth time this week to bring back enough to fill their stomachs, leaving Glenn with no one to cling to.
The bushes behind Glenn begin to rustle, and Glenn sees the entire group deflate. They know they are defenseless against whatever’s out there, can’t handle a full-blown attack (probably wouldn’t be able to handle a small-scaled one, either) with their frail bones and trembling fingers.
But, just as Rick is rising from beside Lori and Carl -- always the hero -- Daryl emerges form the foliage, bearing a grin.
His game bag is full, bulging and swinging happily at his hip. Daryl’s fists are clenched around turkey legs -- there are four birds in all, and Glenn can practically hear them softly calling out eat me, eat me -- as the creatures sway back and forth, upside down and ready to be made into dinner.
He walks around the gaping survivors, avoiding the fire pit, straight up to Rick. He hands him the turkeys, leaving the bag sitting at his feet. Daryl winks, grin widening as he see’s Rick’s eyes light up. He turns around and maneuvers over to Glenn, settling down beside him with a content sigh.
No one moves. No one speaks.
Glenn can’t figure out if Daryl is high off the good hunt or just aching for someone to say something because, next thing he knows, Daryl’s saying, “So, the hunt was fab-u-lous,” in his damned gay lisp, still smiling like a damned moron, adding that damned wink of his.
It’s damned funny, too, because Daryl’s own bordering-hysterical laughter sets T-Dog off, which cracks up Rick and Lori, followed by the kid’s, and soon everyone’s howling and cackling and snorting and Glenn’s just staring at Daryl, incredulous.
It doesn’t take long, though, for him to dissolve into choked laughs, leaning his forehead onto Daryl’s shoulder. The cold air burns his lungs as he gasps for air, but he doesn’t really mind the pain.
+
The next time he sees Lori and Carol doing laundry, he sticks out his tongue and cheers, “Told you so!”
They just roll their eyes and toss socks at him, letting him gloat.
And gloat he does.
the end.