Title: Hanging on Persimmon Trees
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the TWD Series
Content Warnings: Slash. AU. Racial slurs. Mature theme content.
Daryl/Glenn
A/N: I generally do not add a lot of author comments unless they will have to be there. First comment goes to thank you all to who are reading this. Characterizations are based on the TV series mainly season 1 and 2 (I've only watched up to two episodes of season 4 and completely flipping off the original story). I wanted to write a modern AU with a story based relationship development, so steady progression will occur. I will keep the dialect in text to a minimum as Thomas Jefferson would be appalled at my poor understanding of the Southern American dialect. I am sorry. All that in mind apologies for the long side note. Thanks for reading.
01
Waking up next to a toilet pipe indicates some specific things about you. Perhaps it suggests that you are unqualified to be twenty one.
On the other hand he was reeking of booze. God. He wanted to curl up and go back to sleep. He wanted to close his eyes again and not see anything. Not feel anything. Once you return to the world of the living however, the dead does not wish you back. Bright spots intruded into his head in an unnecessary hurry. A splitting headache forced his eyes to blink desperately open. The first pitiful sound that came out between his lips sounded something like a whimper of pain, a distinct recognition of regret on whatever happened yesterday. It bounced off the cold walls of his bathroom, echoing into a fractured scar on his clouded mind.
Glenn had no idea how anything happened. Glenn had not the slightest clue of what happened yesterday, except some panels of mindless recollections that showed him drowning in the men's bathroom. He vaguely remembers a hand that struck him, a pool of blood on the dirty floor, a lot of shouting, a lot of cursing, a lot of drinking and a lot of irresponsibility which added up to his sorry state. While he tried to put an effort into remembering the disastrous incident at Andrea's party, the only thing which popped clearly enough into his head was Dale's grave face warning him about the pathetic level of alcohol tolerance he had. Well it was too late to heed that advice now.
It is a discomforting feeling, losing your body. A struggle to stand up was frankly ridiculous and he had no one to blame but himself. Glenn slipped when his sore wrist gave up support, his weight tumbling down back on the floor and bumping into the porcelain hard enough to make him groan. His distorted expression looked down at the bathroom surface covered in his own dried splatters of blood and puke. The numb heat swelling in his insides was the only thing that kept him hurting from all the bruises he had woken up to feel. It was a while before Glenn was finally able to stand on his feet only to sniff miserably at his own dismal reflection in the mirror. His face was paler, his short dark hair in a complete mess locking around his face in cold sweat.
Thankfully his nose was not broken; washing the blood off his face was never a morning chore until today. It would've been less irritating if he knew what he did to deserve that punch in the face. He was generally accepted by most in Andrea's company, unless they had a strong racist hatred bulging inside their heads. Then again, it was big party. It was not just Andrea's guests that tagged along in the chaotic frenzy of what young people called fun. As Glenn finishes wiping up his arms he recalls the large group of older others in the club who ended up joining in as half the people inside were shit drunk by then.
He does not remember half of what happened after three bottles of cock tailed vodka went down his god forsaken throat. And if anyone had an explanation for his broken wrists, his missing jeans and the "why" to the fact that he was wearing a Mitt Romney T-shirt, he was willing to listen with all his sincerity.
"Glenn. Why are you wearing a Mitt Romney T-shirt?"
A most genuine question of wisdom and acute integrity, sir. Glenn wished he had an answer, he really did. As if wanting to portray that desire, the younger opened his lips only to hiss instantly when the pale cream touched his split lip corner. He was too tired and suffering severely from a hangover to take a shower. But his broken wrists and bleeding scabs weren't going to fix themselves. Dale's remedies kept his wrist bandaged and bones back into place, but despite the old man's disapproval Glenn rejected his idea of going to a hospital. Bones will heal, his bank account will not.
"I" Glenn starts his sentence, unsure of how to finish it. "Does this make me look political?" The answer came out more in a stutter than he intended. His only past interest in politics included a smug face of Rick Snyder.
Dale stared at him for a good few seconds before slowly turning his chin down again. The old man's fingers finished up bandaging the others wrist, who had nothing else much productive to say. His sunken lids were only half open, pupils blacker in his bloodshot eyes.
The boy is not his child, obviously. He is not related by any means to the old man than the fact that he was his young neighbor who moved in next door a few years ago. It was harder to not get attached to the youth with such a remarkable grin though, ever since the day Glenn, who looked barely the plausible age to be living by himself when he knocked on his apartment door to say hellos, Dale noticed how effortless he found the boy to be so weirdly pleasant. At first it was the disturbing accusation that Dale had on Glenn being underage. He frequently checked in on the room next door to find younger man stoned on beer and burning imaginary laser holes into his bills, the bare minimum indication which pointed out his legal age. It was beyond Dale to reason with Glenn's habit of getting drunk when his body really had no progress in building up a macho alcohol tolerance.
"You ain't being much of a responsible adult, are you?"
Having no children of his own, Dale felt much obliged to say these things to the younger one who he was now rather fond of. The state he was in when he came for help just an hour ago frankly alarmed him. Glenn had no immediate replies to offer.
"Vodka wasn't my idea."
"I keep telling you about knowing your limits."
"I can't tell the difference between cold Vodka and water, they're both liquid and clear."
Dale met his eyes again. Glenn averted that gaze.
"What even happened?" the inquisitive voice makes Glenn cringe, he was glad that there were no memories existent; otherwise he would've been sitting there feeling guilty at the man's undeserved empathy.
Half of what was intercepting his memories was the headache. A fuzzy blur replaced most of what actually did happen in the long night, now that he was awake however some things were coming back in pieces of jumbled up jig saws. It was a Saturday night, he was getting a Sunday off, and he had an abysmal conversation with his father by phone just a few hours before Andrea suggested he blew some steam off in her party that night. Glenn was only feeling a bit insane, his father was amazingly talented at being a fucked up jerk, all the stress finally won over his head in that one instant where he was offered the bottle of alcohol. The next string of memories was a bit harder to define as drunken Rhee was not exactly the definition of a sensible being.
A lot of violence. Someone pressed him against the wall, and not so pleasantly. They were probably picking a fight, a pack of hyenas. Lots of aggressive words directed at anything. A man with a tattoo on his cheeks violently grabbed his bloodied chin up before biting down on his lips. Now that was a disturbing memory, Glenn furrowed his brows. Someone held his arm back and ended up breaking his wrists, the pain caused a surge of adrenaline rush which drove his fist to fly at the offender's face. After that, there was a lot of blood on the floor. A sickening scent, the stink as putrid as the smell of dead fish, a voice was laughing madly in the midst before the owner of the laugh was kicked hard in the ribs. A twinge of sharp pain raked at his side, Glenn flinched as he lifted up his shirt and felt the bruising between his cage bones. A frown lingered on Dale's face before he left the couch with his medicine box, leaving the younger one to sadly slouch between the cushions.
Glenn supposed club fights in Atlanta were quite common. It could have been worse. At the least he did not have to wake up staring at the ceiling of another house, or worse, in the slammer. Which reminded him, how in the world did he manage to get himself home in that mess?
"Glenn." Dale calls, making him turn his head around. The old man was holding close by to the intercom, a question ridden between his lips. "Jim needs you to move your…" Dale slightly cocks his head to one side. "Truck."
"My what?" He replies, a little bit confused.
"M' truck!"
The man had a capability to win a shouting match against a yodel singer.
"M' truck Merle! Have ya seen a chink wearing a baseball cap yesterday?"
Occasionally Daryl would assume that one day his brother would be able to contribute something helpful into his life. Sure, Merle's not useless but what he offers in his life mostly consists of abhorrent results. So when he wants some answers looking for whomever it was that damn fucking stole his truck right out of his parking lot, he for a moment expected Merle would have been paying better attention to who was stealing his vehicle than some tits and skirts, what with his brother's stuff still in the back and all. But then again, he remembered who he was talking to. The Dixons were not really acknowledged in the field of paying attention to minor details when they were half drunk in a club. Another realization came hard slashing into his head, the day Merle actually recognizes that not all Asians look alike will be the day when the elder Dixon hands out pink frosted cup cakes with unicorn decorations in the hood.
Well it's all fucked now. Fucking piece of dick, a bloody gook ran off with his truck. Daryl was downright pissed and it was a Sunday morning. The man was up since five looking for his missing truck, and by sunrise his face was already an infuriated shade of red. Merle was trying to prove that he was going to be unhelpful; his drunken brother was shutting him out with a sleepy snarl on the couch upstairs. One more shout and the man was going to start shooting his gun at the roof, telling him to get his ass off his hair. It sent Daryl off, annoyed. Stomping into the kitchen, the redneck made sure he could spit out as many profanities as he can all the way down to the porch.
How in the world did that little piece of shit hot wire it anyway? Last when he left the truck to pick up Merle was only an interval of twenty minutes or so, by the time Daryl returned to the parking lot beside the night club the truck was gone. Gone without a speckle of dust, leaving only a stupid little baseball hat squashed flat under the tire. The man briefly wondered if it was just his paranoia, but he was convinced by now that the hat definitely belonged to the truck thief. May god click his tongue down at him, but Daryl Dixon was determined to find him and incinerate him along with the damn cap.
By thrashing in blind rage for a good hour all over the entrance of the club, some young prick in leather loafers testified that he saw an Asian kid drive off with the truck. The only detail he managed to fish out around the parking lot was that he was skinny. And god forbids Daryl Dixon from going nuts, because he needed to find a skinny Asian. Oh yes this was going to work out fantastically, he will have found him in less than a day, how hard would it be to find a skinny Asian guy who owns a ridiculous baseball cap in Atlanta.
"Fuck!"
Daryl snapped, throwing the hat into a random corner out of unfiltered irritation. It was not even his idea to go to the dumb party. Sure the bar was closed and Merle was annoyed that they have run out of beer in the house, it seemed ridiculous for him to be mixing with some young reckless fools who seems to think that drinking themselves to death at three am in the morning at a shady night club was a fun idea. If it wasn't for that idiot with the eye patch and Merle, he would have enjoyed a merry time with his new truck into somewhere else where he could do something productive- god knows hell what, but certainly more productive than losing his truck – instead of…
An indignant sigh rustles softly between his lips. Gathering his hands in a crossed knot, the man rests his neck on his palms, tilting the head backwards. Those damn loud music, that shouting, rumbling of the floor, all the things that pumped the blood inside his head. Grinding, several couples at the corner in heat, drugged women, and the scenes passed in a flurry of haste underneath his closed eyes. He wasn't drunk that night. Had a couple of cans, watched some drinking game with a lot of vodka being passed around. Then he remembers something else, thin strands of laughter.
Daryl wasn't good with a lot of faces. The bulb was out on the entrance way outside the bathroom, and the back corridors were completely dark save for the flickering lights in few second intervals. The man did not have any plans to get nosy into fist business, that kind of shit was just bothersome. In normal days he would have walked the right off, ignoring that trickle of blood seeping through the tiled ceramic floor. Take a piss that he needed to take, get his head out of the freaky business the 'other' people get into. But he did not walk out. He did not, could not ignore that chilling laughter that sent shivers down his spine. It wasn't creepy, not like a sinister sound. But he could not bring himself to ignore it for a reason unknown.
Nothing made much sense after that. Daryl had no idea what he was expecting when he stepped into that fight, dragging a broken bloody mess of a kid who would have otherwise been in a lot more mess, out of the bathroom by the hem of his torn dress shirt missing a couple of buttons. It was too dark to figure what the kid actually looked like, he had black hair and that was all he pretty much recalls besides the fact he was Asian, the face all too excessively swollen and blood ridden to distinguish anything else in particular except… except that laugh and a grin. The first giggled out comment he received in a series of blinks in that dark corridor clearly pointed out the kid was drunk to a point of a long way home: "Is it Christmas yet?"
Northern accent.
Daryl blinks, shaking his head slightly in a defined frown as he opened his eyes again. That certainly was a weird night. And a night which turned out to become the biggest mistake of his life, the man swears out another piece of profanity before finally getting off the armchair to find that damned hat. Whatever happened happened. He was feeling rather frustrated; now there was another Asian to add to his dose of misery. No use moping over it in the long term, he needed to find that little shit who drove off with his truck and he meant now.
Swears to the old man high above that he'll bloody murder him.
"Oh, god. No."
Glenn was not in the mood to fool around and be dramatic, but he really had no other reaction than to cover his mouth with the back of his hand. Staring at the pitch black glare of the truck built a funny sensation in his stomach, the kind you get when you know you have done something really wrong.
"Glenn."
"Nope, don't say anything. Please."
Dale looks down from his balcony, leaving Glenn turning around in a droplet of panic. Drunken Rhee, what the hell have you done? He questioned himself three times now, unable to hear an answer from the said drunken Rhee who picked a convenient time to disappear without answers. Glenn rushed inside back to his flat, searched everywhere that he might have thrown a set of car keys into. Not finding anything was a bad sign, the youth returned back to the side of the truck biting down on his tongue. And yes, he received the answer when he grasped open the doors. He fucking hot-wired it.
Judging by the way the boy was pulling at his own hair, Dale assumed the car wasn't an honest asset. It was only a couple of months ago back; quite recent really, when the old man found out about Glenn's certain talents with cars. He was not outwardly proud of it, seemed more sorry than pleased when Dale caught him with siphoned oil but refused to acknowledge it as a crime. More like deluding himself, but with two final notices on his table, Dale couldn't say much anything else on the matter. Not when the boy was looking like he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. Besides. Glenn used to retort, they probably deserve it. Meaning, as Dale worriedly assumed, the cars were from the unfriendly bunch downtown.
"I'll," Glenn blinks furiously, he'll what? Give it back? Casually ride it back to the club asking for the guy who owns the truck he hot-wired? Tell him he was sorry that he stole his truck and ripped apart the front panel beside the wheel?
Then again, he was having second thoughts. There was a stash of drugs inside the duffel bag in the corner, revolver ammunition and a mock KKK poster sprawled across the back seat. If Glenn didn't know any better, he would've concluded that the minute he goes back to find the owner of the truck, he would be lucky if they didn't shoot him on the spot. Things really didn't help out with the fact the truck was new and labeled Land Rover.
Explains the Mitt Romney T-shirt. Though, Glenn did not know what happened to his black button up and would have liked to know, it was his favorite shirt.
"Why did I take this truck?"
"You're asking me?"
Dale's reply made him feel a little retarded. Glenn wasn't proud of it, but the money was worth it sometimes when he received commissions to snick tuned sports cars or just vehicles that some shady people needed. He was good at it, and he didn't offer his talents for free. Wanted, needed the cash when his life support depended on a pizza delivery job which may or may have not sucked on different perspectives. He didn't want to make a habit out of it, but apparently in his drunken frenzy it seemed he has successfully nicked someone's goddamn truck.
"Wake me up when that truck decides that she had enough of my company and flies back to its owner."
Dale rolled his eyes. There was no denial, Glenn was screwed.
Shit.
Finding the owner of the truck would have been easier if Glenn had a slightest damn idea of what he looked like. But the truck part was one of the memories that absolutely refused to resurface back into his mind, a fish too slippery for his hook. Hell, he was from Michigan; he was supposed to be good at fishing.
Glenn took his time squirming back onto his feet when he crashed into the bedroom door, his steps faster than his messed up co-ordination was able to catch up. His bruises didn't help much, an arm was wrapped around to ease the pain as he dragged himself up, supported by his bed. The youth whipped off his T-shirt and folded it carelessly into a shriveled ball, quickly fumbling for his jeans under the desk. Pulling on the pants needed more effort than he cared for and ended up just being dragged half way up below his hip bones. Out of what was clearly sheer panic, he didn't have a decent judgment on his now shirtless torso. Well the world would have to just deal with his skin being shown, grabbing a cardigan into his arms the young man was already out on the stairs with his door keys hanging between his lips. Without a word of a single explanation to a frowning Dale, he opened the door of the black truck and was out on the street in mere seconds, shifting gears and his feet stamped against the accelerator.
He never was a religious person.
First time he prayed about anything and it was about a truck.
His Sunday couldn't get any better.
