Author's Note: My third WD story; this takes place sometime in season two. This is dedicated to a) everyone who reviewed Scraping and Firsts and who asked for more and b) for The Readers Muse, who encouraged me to write this. This story just kind of flowed out and I ended up staying up until two in the morning to write it. It does feature mild smut, so you've been warned now; R&R would be absolutely amazing. xo.
Daryl Dixon had forgotten how nice it felt to be clean. Even though the water sliding down his aching back was freezing cold (and was made even colder by the quickly cooling dusk air), it still felt absolutely heavenly to have layers upon layers of dirt and grime peel off his skin. His shirt lay off to the side on the ground awaiting its turn at a decent scrub. His jeans were absolutely encrusted with blood and filth but he knew that he would have to put up with them for another day or so; he didn't really feel like stripping down to his skivvies in the Greene's back yard, not when the sun was still partially up at least.
As he splashed his face with water, feeling as if an entire layer of skin had fallen off of him, Daryl couldn't help but wonder if this was how all them hoity-toity starlets in Hollywood had felt after they'd gotten one of those facelifts or whatever the hell they did with unlimited cash. Of course, he almost instantly realized that those starlets didn't exist anymore. There were no longer such things as rich or poor; there were only survivors, people living by the skin of their teeth, no longer defined by their jobs or material possessions. He was sure that most of those people, the Brads and Angelinas were dead now, mouldering away in their supermansions or wandering the streets of Los Angeles with their mouths gaping open like every other Walker on the goddamn planet.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It was all the same in the end, wasn't it?
The back door of the old farmhouse banged open and Daryl turned around, leaning against the lip of the Greene's well. The sun was already starting to slide below the horizon, throwing shadows across the white siding of the house, but Daryl could tell that it was Glenn approaching because of the damned baseball cap that he insisted on jamming on his head every morning. Daryl didn't understand why, to be honest; he thought that Glenn looked better, older even when his hair was all mussed up and just natural.
But old habits died hard, he supposed. It was much like the way that, every time he found a pack, he insisted upon sticking a cigarette into his mouth, inhaling the stale nicotine like it was the only thing keeping him alive. In a way, maybe it was.
Well, maybe not the only thing.
"You as desperate to get out of there as I was?" he muttered, turning back to the bucket of water that was sitting on the edge of the well. He busied himself with splashing his face again, trying to distract himself from the way his body was tensing as Glenn's sneaker-clad feet approached.
"You could say that," Glenn admitted, stepping up beside Daryl. The tension inside was practically overwhelming; no one was talking but their eyes revealed everything. One wrong move and someone was going to get their throat torn out, and not by a Walker.
"But maybe I just wanted to see you." Glenn's hand was soft on his shoulder, almost feather light. Daryl froze in position, the wet rag he'd been using on his chest still dripping in his hands. He sighed, reluctantly letting his eyes drift shut as Glenn's thumb skated over his collarbone. He hated this; he hated the fact that he could face a Walker and not even feel his heartbeat go up but the very instant Glenn touched him...
It made him weak. Quite frankly, he thought that it was dangerous. This wasn't a world to make attachments in, not when any one of them could be gone in the blink of an eye; this wasn't a place to be human. But no matter how hard he tried to resist, how hard he tried to tell himself that a few hours of happiness just wasn't worth the inevitable torture, he couldn't stay away. If Merle was still around, he would have blown his brains out, no question about it.
"Glenn, this isn't the time or the place," he muttered weakly, feeling his control of the situation continue to slip away, just as it had the other times at their old camp, when Glenn had asked him to go swimming late at night, when they weren't on watch. One glimpse of the man without his shirt on had been enough to make Daryl's self control fly out of the window and soon enough, swimming had become nothing but a keyword.
Those were definitely the wrong thoughts to be thinking.
"It never is," Glenn sighed, taking the rag from Daryl's hand. Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, he gently ran it down Daryl's broad back, letting his fingers glide over the layers of scars that he had only ever felt in the dark. He knew the stories of some of them, had managed to get Daryl to whisper them to him late at night, when everyone else was sleeping and they had snuck away to the quarry. But there were still so many, so many that were nothing but secrets to him. He wanted to know the story of each and every last one, find out why Daryl Dixon was who he was.
"There isn't time for anything anymore." Taking his fingers away from the stories he would undoubtedly never hear, he brought the rag up to Daryl's neck, letting it scratch over the stubble that had been accumulating since they'd left the CDC. Before he could even grasp what had happened however, Daryl had spun around, catching Glenn's wrist in his hand. Underneath his fingers, he could feel fragile bone, bone that he could snap with one quick gesture. He squeezed harder, waiting for Glenn to wince but he only stared, defiantly locking eyes with him.
"You're not going to hurt me, Daryl," he said softly. "I know that you want to and that it would be easier, good God I know that but why can't you just accept that the easy thing isn't always the right thing?"
"Because things are different now," Daryl growled, teeth sinking into his lip. "Everything is different now! There ain't no guarantee 'bout anything anymore." As much as he tried to shut out Glenn's words, his argument made sense to the part of his brain that was still rooted in the past, that still remembered what it was like to go behind someone's back to do what he thought was right. But this was an entire new world, hell, it was the goddamn apocalypse; doing what his body and mind and, although he would never admit this, what his heart told him was right could quite possibly lead to someone getting killed. It was selfish but he didn't want to live with that.
"That's all the more reason to just live." Ignoring the throb in his wrist, Glenn leaned forward so that the brim of his hat was touching Daryl's shoulder. That movement made Daryl's last defence slip away; groaning quietly, he took the chance to rip the accursed thing off of Glenn's head, tossing it across the yard. The survivalist part of his brain was telling him that he was being completely foolish, that if anyone even looked out the back door, the volcano of tension would just blow, and wouldn't that just be fucking lovely? But he knew that this was the point of no return, the spot where that part of his brain just kind of shut off and, for awhile, he was merely Daryl, merely a man who happened to care very deeply for the person standing in front of him, staring at him through long eyelashes.
"Daryl, do we have to have this conversation every single time?" Glenn asked, sliding his wrist out of Daryl's now loose grasp and placing it on his chest. "Why can't you just please let me in instead?"
Daryl didn't want to answer that question quite yet. He just wanted to feel. Seizing Glenn's face in his palms, he kissed him, rough chapped lips clashing together. In return, Glenn surged forward, his body desperately colliding with Daryl's still damp skin. He hated rushing; he hoped to God that someday, if things ever died down, he'd be able to do this right, be able to take his time and map out Daryl's body properly. Until then, however, he would take whatever he could get, no matter how brief. His shirt was already soaked through and, after only a moment's hesitation, he pulled it off, dropping it close by so that he could grab it quickly in case someone else decided to come outside. The skin to skin contact always exhilarated him; it was like a breath of air to a drowning man.
He guessed, really, that's what he was; he was drowning under the stress and chaos and sheer ridiculousness of this new world, of a world he had only thought could exist in the comic books and movies he cherished. But this world was real, so real and, as much as Glenn hated to admit it, the only reason he was staying afloat was because of Daryl; because of this mysterious, enigmatic man that was everything he should have hated.
Speaking of Daryl, he was lowering Glenn to the ground, still kissing him with everything he had. Their hands were insistent, greedy, roaming over ribs and hips, imprinting the feel of the other's skin in their mind, to be remembered for nights to come. Glenn's fingernails scratched and clawed, determined to leave their own mark on Daryl's scarred skin; he wanted to be able to leave a story of his own. He wanted something to be remembered by when all was said and done. For his part, Daryl didn't mind; when he was sure that Glenn wasn't going to make too much noise and therefore ruin their moment, he let his mouth wander south, biting down on the delicate skin covering Glenn's collarbone. He couldn't help but smirk when Glenn bit down on his own lip to stop a groan from escaping; he still had the skills, that was for sure.
"Daryl, not meaning to rush you, but..." Glenn didn't have to finish his sentence; besides the obvious risk of someone else coming out to use the well, the sun was now well below the horizon, quickly plunging them into darkness. Neither of them wanted to die just because they were too distracted to hear a Walker trudging towards them. Sliding back up to return his attentions to Glenn's lips, Daryl started tearing at his belt, fumbling in his haste before he got the damned buckle open. When that was done, his fingers worked at Glenn's; the sudden touch made the younger man's hips jolt up of their own accord and neither of them could stop the noises that spilled from their throats.
"Christ Glenn," Daryl muttered, wiggling his jeans down his hips so that there was a bit less extra fabric between them. Glenn made a content noise in the back of his throat, his fingers sliding down Daryl's toned back; there was just something about the way Daryl said his name that practically made his eyes roll back in his head. That content noise was replaced by a swallowed moan when Daryl deliberately pressed his hips downwards, resulting in the most amazing friction. Glenn arched his back, his fingers curling around Daryl's biceps, leaving bruises that wouldn't fade for days.
Admittedly, it was a rather crude way of achieving release; Daryl couldn't help but feel as if he was a teenager again, going as far as he was allowed in the back seat of his truck at the drive-in. Nonetheless, it was definitely effective; within minutes (they both blamed the time gap between their last encounter), they were clutching each other, nails drawing blood, sweat slicked skin swallowing final groans. Although the moon was already ascending, neither of them could move for another few minutes. They stayed holding each other, listening as their respective heartbeats returned to a more manageable pace. When Daryl was sure that his legs would be able to support him again, he used the rag to clean both of them off before pulling his still dirty shirt back over his head. Cleaning it would have to wait for some other time.
"You ready to brave the storm?" he asked, nodding his head back towards the house and chuckling slightly. Although Glenn returned the chuckle and managed to get himself to his feet, he still felt... incomplete. Nonetheless, he followed Daryl back to the house where, although Lori and Andrea had excused themselves to bed, the tension was still running sky high. Slowly, one by one, all the members of their camp and the Greene household excused themselves, retreating to the bedrooms until it was only Glenn and Daryl in the living room, with Shane doing the first watch duty on the front porch. When he felt like it was safe to do so, Glenn closed the space between them, laying his head on Daryl's shoulder and inhaling deeply. With one hand resting on the pistol that lay beside him on the floor, Daryl let his other hand entangle itself with Glenn's.
"We should go to sleep soon," he said quietly, revelling in the warmth of Glenn's body pressed so close against his. "I'll probably have to take the dawn shift."
"I know." Glenn still didn't make any attempt to move. As much as he loved the feeling of Daryl's body against him, pressing at all the right spots, there truly was something to be said for the aftermath, for those few precious hours before all the walls went back up and he had to start over again, to penetrate through those defences until he'd found the man he was in love with again.
Not that he'd ever tell Daryl that last fact. If he did that, he was almost certain that the older man would close himself off permanently, run away from the attachment. He couldn't risk that. So he settled for the time he got, where he could sit in the dark, fingers idly stroking the back of Daryl's hand, both of them able to just be for a few minutes.
"Can you tell me about the scar on your ribs?" he asked quietly, his free hand reaching over to trace the approximate location of the mark. Sighing at the unexpected touch, Daryl nodded and launched into the story, which involved a wayward pitchfork and an extremely drunken Merle. Glenn listened intently, picturing the scene in his head, snickering quietly when Daryl described his mom's reaction to the whole incident.
Daryl wasn't even really thinking of the words as they passed from his mouth; he had recounted the story so many times, to work buddies and to girls he'd been trying to impress that it was practically automatic. Instead, he was just thinking about the details of the moment, taking in everything from the way Glenn's hair still smelled amazing despite the lack of shampoo to the way his skinny fingers somehow fit like a jigsaw puzzle between his own. He'd never thought about these little things. Hell, he'd been too scared to think about the little things because the more he thought about Glenn, the more it became obvious to him just how much he cared.
But as Daryl wrapped up his story and realized that Glenn had already fallen asleep on his shoulder, he thought that maybe it was time to revaluate his priorities. Maybe he should have been more scared of the Walkers than of the young man whose hand he was still holding. Maybe he really needed to think about what was worth living for, now that he no longer had any flesh and blood to care about.
Maybe, he thought as he rested his head on top of Glenn's and closed his eyes, if running away was the right thing to do, it was time to be wrong.