Pairing/Rating: Daryl/Glenn. PG-13.
Spoilers: Season One only. A coda fic to Friction Match.
Summary: It's beginning to rain, and Glenn is nowhere to be seen.
Note: For readishmael.
It's beginning to rain, and Glenn is nowhere to be seen.
Daryl doesn't start to panic, but only because he's long ago come to terms with the constant, unrelenting presence of panic in his life. He reaches for his shotgun and looks out the window one last time. There's nothing moving on the horizon, or on the flat and wide grassland before it.
He picks up the tools spread out on the dining room table and puts them back into the toolbox—just in case Carl, who seems to be outgrowing his limbs, continues with his habit of bumping into things and knocks over the table again—and then heads over to the kitchen.
It's Carol's turn to cook, and T-Dog's helping. Carol's humming quietly to herself and dicing a carrot into little pieces, both with a gentle, slow rhythm which Daryl finds inexplicably soothing. T-Dog's stirring a pot full of beans over the gas stove they got to working a few days ago, and there is also some sort of soup stewing over at the corner, too. Unlike T-Dog's previous culinary miracles, neither smells particularly inedible, and Daryl thanks whoever's up there for that.
"Gonna take a look outside," he tells Carol, who looks up from the cutting board.
"The kid's not back yet?" T-Dog asks, though he doesn't sound worried.
And it is too soon for worrying, but it pays to be careful, just the same. "No," Daryl answers and adjusts his grip on the shotgun, "not yet."
"Go on, then," says T-Dog, wiping his hand on his grey apron, "I'll finish this up and take over your watch."
Daryl nods and steps through the creaking kitchen door that they haven't yet got around to fixing. Outside, the musky and humid air greets him. There's a low rumbling in the sky, hinting at an upcoming storm. Should've rolled in the hay before the rain, Daryl thinks to himself, until he remembers that the yellowing field unfolding in front of him isn't his to work on, and that they should soon be moving on, like they've always done, before the week is over.
He picks the direction where Glenn's disappeared to an hour ago for patrol and starts walking. It's only drizzling, so the ground is not yet muddy, and he can feel the strength of the solid earth he's treading on. The farm they're staying at used to grow several miles of corn, and it has smaller vegetable gardens surrounding the house. Given a year or two, the land may grow fertile again. It might not be such a bad thing, he thinks, to be around to see it happen. It's a pleasant daydream, if nothing else.
A large sycamore tree looms over the low hill up ahead, where the sky and the land meet. When he looks back, he can see the farmhouse set in the middle of the field, and if he squints hard enough, he can almost see Rick and Lori in the living room where they're trying to get the kids to learn math, apparently an ordeal for everyone involved. Dale and Andrea have been holed up in the garage all day, trying to fix the RV—more for sentimental reasons, Daryl suspects, than out of necessity—and it's slow-going, like everything else is now. Daryl isn't complaining. This pace of their every day moments provides some semblance of peace, which has been altogether lacking for a while.
This peace we've carved up for themselves, the Warden said once, with blood and sweat.
The Warden was correct on both counts, and the same words cling to Daryl, even now.
The reprieve from thoughts and memories, both persistent and gnawing, only comes when he spots Glenn under the sycamore tree. Seemingly half-asleep, Glenn is all loose-limbed carelessness, lying on his back with his arms as pillows. His rifle is just as carelessly abandoned, slanted against the tree trunk a couple of feet away.
The relief Daryl feels is immediate and familiar, but then he's also thoroughly irked, so when he reaches the tree, he nudges Glenn with his foot, harder than necessary.
"You in a hurry to die or somethin'?" he asks, begrudgingly.
There's a hint of smile on Glenn's face. He shrugs, eyes still closed. "I knew you'd come looking for me."
Daryl's tempted to give him an earful, but everything is quiet and nothing is heard or seen, except for the rustle of grass and the rain falling on the tree above them. They haven't come across a Walker for over two days now, and here, with nothing obstructing the view, it's easy to spot anyone or anything approaching them. It seems as safe a place as any.
Still, Daryl takes another sweeping look around them, just to be sure.
Beside him, Glenn heaves a small sigh. "Is it going to kill you to relax for one second?" Then he holds up a hand. "Wait, no, don't answer that."
Glenn's already healed, Daryl knows. He's whole now, and there's no more telltale limp, no more wincing in pain. There hasn't been any, for some time.
So, when Daryl sees or hears an echo of hurt behind Glenn's every move, every gesture, it's all in his head.
"You're thinking way too loud," says Glenn, and thin, familiar fingers find Daryl's wrist. "Seriously, relax for a moment."
There's strength in Glenn's hand, his grip steady and solid, so Daryl lets himself be dragged down until he feels the soft grass under him and the sturdy tree behind him—and then he lets himself breathe.
To Daryl's side runs a small steam of water, next to the bed of sweet clovers. There's a tickling sensation of an ant or two crawling on his skin, oddly enough not unpleasant. He suddenly wants to chew on a blade of grass, like he used to when he was a boy.
They watch the rain fall.
"You think we can stay at the farm for a little while?" Glenn asks, a moment later.
Daryl doesn't answer, though he's also been wondering along the same line. His own fondness for the place aside, the farmhouse is strategically a decent place to be holed up for a while. The area is situated to afford them a good vantage point for all their surroundings, and it's far enough from large cities but not far enough from small towns. Their supplies would last at least a month, maybe two, before there's any need to drift like nomads once more.
Glenn pushes himself up on his elbows. "It's not half bad here. It'd be nice to stay for a bit and catch our breath again, don't you think?"
There are times when Daryl's certain that the kid's reading his mind, that his heart has always been laid out in front of him, open and bare.
Glenn turns to him, head tilted to one side. "What?"
There's a sprig of dried thistle in Glenn's hair. The kid's been letting his hair grow out to hide the fading scar at his temple, so now his dark, too-long hair falls into his face that still looks paler than Daryl wants it to be.
Daryl stretches out his hand, just outside the cover that the tree provides, and feels raindrops on his palm. Then he flicks the droplets of rain at Glenn's face.
"Hey," Glenn sputters.
Glenn's furiously wiping at his face, and laughter bubbles up from somewhere inside Daryl, as if he's entirely made up of soap lather. It's such a foreign, heady feeling, but he doesn't want to fight it.
So he doesn't. He rolls over and plants his arms at Glenn's each side.
Glenn looks up, startled and wide-eyed. His breath hitches. For a moment, neither of them moves.
And then Glenn shifts, yielding so that Daryl can share his space. His eyes on Daryl don't waver, though there's a sudden flush to his skin that's already slick with rain.
That's all the permission Daryl needs. He presses in with an urgent kiss, one hand in Glenn's hair that's now curled into a dark, tangled mess by sweat and rain, and the other hand around the nape of Glenn's neck.
He's never known that it's possible for someone to be utterly familiar and yet still hold endless mysteries. Daryl doesn't remember ever learning that before, ever knowing that. He does, now.
"I want," Daryl says and traces the line of Glenn's jaw with his lips.
"Yeah?" says Glenn, breathless.
"You," Daryl finishes.
There are times when he thinks Glenn can read his mind better than Daryl can himself, and then there are times when Glenn looks at Daryl wonderingly, like he's never been sure why Daryl chose him over the only family he's ever really known—as if there's ever been a choice to be made. "You already got me," Glenn says, with that same wondering look in his eyes.
Daryl wants that look in his eyes gone, wiped, until there's nothing but certainty left, so he licks along the taut line of Glenn's throat until Glenn shudders against him. Daryl wants more. Or he's afraid for more. He's not sure which.
"And I'm not going anywhere," Glenn adds, breathing again.
"Good," says Daryl. He doesn't add, Because I won't let you.
But Glenn hears it anyway. "And I won't let go anywhere, either."
For a moment, Daryl watches Glenn's chest rise and fall. Still breathing.
Still alive.
Daryl rests his head on Glenn's chest and turns toward the shifting sky. A sliver of the blue sky is peaking through the clouds.
That ever-present darkness, which has been clinging to him all along, recedes with his each breath.
"Should we be heading back home soon?" Glenn asks, almost wistfully, and runs his fingers through Daryl's hair.
Home, thinks Daryl. Another word that no longer feels as foreign as it used to be. Home, where the heart is.
"Soon," agrees Daryl, "but we still got time."
Daryl watches Glenn swallow a faint smile, and leans in with another kiss.
END