Author's Notes: Takes place pre-series, before Shane and Lori arrive at the camp. Slightly AU, meaning that Merle isn't around.

Much of a Daryl/Glenn shipper as I am, we do have to admit that Daryl is just a little tad racist in the first season. This came out of that thought. Now I'm going to go write fluff or something to make up for this. R&R is always welcome. xo.

Warnings: Language (I cannot stress that enough) of both the cursing and racist variety and violence.

Snap.

Glenn was about to snap.

When the apocalypse had swallowed the world, he'd assumed that people would have been willing to put their prejudices aside, to forget their misguided beliefs for the sake of humanity. He'd thought that things like skin color and ethnicity would no longer matter, that the only categories people would care about were alive and dead.

Then, he'd met Daryl Dixon. Glenn tried not to deal in stereotypes, but with Daryl, it was nearly impossible; the man was the quintessential redneck. He was an efficient hunter and skinner, not caring when his hands were soaked in blood. He smoked like a freight train whenever cigarettes were around, consuming a pack in less than a day and he spat seemingly every ten seconds.

Worst of all, however, he was undoubtedly a racist, bigoted son of a bitch. He was almost certain that Daryl hadn't yet learned any of their names; after all, why would he want to, when he had titles that seemed to fit them all perfectly? All he had to do was say old man or nigger or taco eater and they all knew which one of them he was referring to.

But he seemed to have reserved most of his attention on Glenn. While he was completely comfortable calling the others by just one name, with Glenn, he had a seemingly endless repertoire of slurs that he utilized any time he had to talk to him.

Chinaman. Rice person. Slant eyed. Chink. It wasn't like Glenn hadn't heard all of them (and more) before; he hadn't exactly grown up in a very diverse neighborhood. But there was something about hearing it day in and day out, over and over again that was starting to gnaw away at the thick skin he'd necessarily developed over the years.

Really, it was just getting to be plain ridiculous. He knew he wasn't the only one who had a problem with Daryl's remarks; more than once, he'd heard T-Dog and Dale discussing it between them in hurried whispers, shutting up the instant their resident hunter appeared out of nowhere. But not once had he seen any of them stand up for themselves or the rest of the group. Not once had anyone told Daryl to stop or even to shut his fucking mouth. They were all too whipped, essentially, pampered by the fresh meat Daryl brought them in return for the camp putting up with his bullshit.

Glenn wasn't going to lie and say that he missed the days when they'd been living off of canned food. Indeed, he was quite thankful for the squirrels and rabbits Daryl shared with them but he wasn't going to just sit back and let the man run wild, spouting his mouth off like a broken faucet. As much as he hated confrontation, it was obvious that no one else was going to talk back, too scared that the man would take off and take his crossbow with him.

So Glenn supposed that the duty fell to him.

Despite the fact that he resigned himself to this duty, Glenn couldn't help but give the man a few days to change. After all, he'd read somewhere that men went through a bit of time each month that was a little similar to PMS; maybe Daryl was just stuck like that for a little while. But after four days, the man hadn't changed. Indeed, if anything, his mouth had gotten worse, throwing out insults at everybody.

"Jesus Christ, can't you do anything right?"

"I don't want your hands on my shit, probably gonna give me a disease or somethin'. I don't know what you people carry."

"Hey Chinaman, watch where the fuck you're going!"

That last remark had been the last straw. Although Glenn had been planning out a speech in his head for days, plotting it out to the last word, all of his work flew out the window when Daryl purposefully bumped into him and then insulted him. Glenn was fed up with it. None of the others were going to do anything about it so it was time for drastic measures.

"Hey Daryl?"

"What the hell do you want?"

The first punch obviously took Daryl by surprise, colliding with his cheek hard enough to send him staggering backwards. His feet hit one of the logs they'd been using as makeshift benches around the fire and he went stumbling onto his ass, still holding his cheek in shock. Glenn took advantage of that, leaping on top of the older man and swinging blindly, his fists connecting over and over again. Daryl was starting to fight back, catching Glenn right in the nose hard enough to draw blood, but Glenn refused to quit, even as Daryl attempted to shove him off. One of his punches split Daryl's eyebrow open, covering both Daryl's face and Glenn's fist in crimson.

"What do you have to say now?" Glenn was barely aware that he was saying the words, mindlessly continuing to swing. "Stupid fucking asshole." Somewhere along the line, the delicate skin over his knuckles had cracked open but the pain wasn't registering in his brain. All he was aware of was the rage coursing through his body, pushing him to keep pummelling the man that lay underneath him.

It wasn't until rock-hard arms pulled him away from Daryl that he realized just what he'd done. Daryl wasn't moving, obviously hadn't been for a few moments. His face and chest were covered in blood and he looked like he was hardly breathing, gasps rattling out of his lungs. His eyes were open, but just barely.

"Glenn, what the hell did you do?" Glenn turned to face T-Dog, the one who had dragged him off of Daryl.

"I stood up for myself," he hissed, mouth filled with the taste of iron. "I stood up for all of us." With that, he strode off towards the path to the quarry, intent on washing the blood off of his face and knuckles. By the time he was done, the water around him had turned a murky red. He had a feeling that his nose was broken but he decided to leave it be; he sure as hell wasn't a doctor, after all.

By the time he made it back up to the camp, the sun was beginning to go down and Daryl's truck was gone. The others were looking at him with thinly veiled disappointment and disgust but he didn't care. He knew that they were just cowards.

Daryl didn't come back that night, or the next, or the five days after that. Two weeks after he'd left, their camp had grown to a respectable size and the others had welcomed Glenn back into the fold, moving over to let him sit at the campfire. There were still times, when they were eating a dinner comprised of various canned foods, where he'd see a flicker of resentment in someone's eyes; or maybe it was a memory. A memory of what it was like to have fresh meat on a near daily basis. These looks always made Glenn smile a little.

After all, he may have missed having fresh meat too, but he sure as hell didn't miss Daryl Dixon.