A/N: This is in response to a challenge from my favorite MUSE and I don't mind saying, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to write. It's really out of my comfort zone...

Surrender

He didn't know at what point things changed for him. It wasn't one of those ah-ha moments where the proverbial light bulb went on or the apple fell on his head, it was more of a slow-dance down a dark corridor. A gnawing in the pit of his stomach. A whisper in the back of his brain. Barely noticeable, not quite registering with his consciousness. There in the misty moments just before and after sleep, he was the shadowy figure roaming dimly-lit dreams. A ghost of a thought swimming just under the surface. The feeling that there was something wrong.

Wrong. That was the optimal word here. It was wrong. It was an aberration, an abomination. Morally corrupt. Perverse. Disgusting. A sin. The words bounced around in his head like billiard balls after the break. He tried to shake the feeling off time and time again and it would always come back. He would always come back, bringing the guilt. Shame. Longing. There. That one. That was the particular feeling that nailed him every time. The ache-y longing that caused the gnawing feeling deep inside...which brought the shame again and again. Circular thinking perfected.

Damn it! He hissed, punching the stale pillow in the dark. Enough. You're just...no, he couldn't put a solitary word to it. Confused. Lonely. Desperate. You wouldn't be thinking about this if it weren't the end of the world. Shut it down. Turn it off. Put it out of your mind and go to sleep, he told himself over and over again. Glenn turned to his side, crossing his feet and pulling them under him slightly, hoping the change in position would generate a change in his inner dialogue. He could hear the breeze rattle his tent slightly. As he drifted off to sleep, his mind settled in to a familiar routine. Letting his thoughts race to the forbidden and then his conscience would snap them back in like a pit-bull at the end of a log chain. The jerk at the end inevitably yanking him back to what he thought he should be thinking instead of what he now almost constantly found himself thinking. Who he found himself thinking about.

He tried to ignore it, to ignore him. It was futile. Since the first day that he and his behemoth of a brother joined their little group, he could not even pretend to ignore him. He was the quiet side of hatred. The scowl. A look of disgust. Sneering and cold. Merle and he were a matched set when it came to bigotry, misogyny, violent aggression. Like a pair of salt and pepper shakers. Merle was salt - more holes in the shaker, making it come tumbling out faster. Making a big impact from the get-go, able to find his way into your wounds and make you go blind from the pain. But Daryl, Daryl was pepper. Hot. Angry. Bitter. The shock to your senses, delayed a bit, but yet way more powerful than his brotherly counterpart. Jesus he was thinking about him again. Stop it! his brain screamed.

Glenn didn't WANT to go down this road. It wasn't a conscious decision. It wasn't even a decision at all. It was just, well, happenstance. It crept up on him like heat stroke. You know it's hot, you know it's damn dangerous but you can't tell it's happening until it's too late...and by then, the damage is done. Asking himself how he could have stopped it was futile, like trying to stop the spark on a line of gunpowder from twenty feet away. He could see exactly where it's going and exactly what's going to happen...and he was powerless to run to it to stop it or run from it to get away safely. Powerless. Another good word for his situation.

XXXXX

The door handle slipped and sliced across his thumb, taking off a chunk in a lightning-quick second. Blood in a little rivulet of red-brown, slickly dripping down a hand, on to clothing and the ground. A change in the direction of the wind, ever so slightly, could send the scent that would draw walkers right to him. To them all. Glenn knew he had to stop the bleeding and get it covered quick, but he had nothing, save a backpack full of bottled water and pill bottles scrounged from looted vehicles. He untucked his t-shirt from his jeans and tried to rip a piece off to bandage the wound, but he couldn't make a tear and with only one hand, he struggled, wrestling with himself.

Daryl walked up behind the car and stopped short, giving him a look of curiosity tinged with slight disgust. "What th' fuck 're ya' doin' leavin' a blood trail? Tryin' ta' get us all killed?"

"I, I cut myself." he answered, his dark eyes wide, rounded now with fright.

"Well, git it covered 'fore they smell ya'. Jee-zus."

"I can't. I don't have anything..."

"Christ." he spat. Daryl leaned the crossbow against the wheel-well and looked at the other man, Glenn's shirt stretch out and wrinkled from sweaty hands scrunching the fabric, trying to tear it. He slipped out his hunting knife, its steely blade gleaming, glinting in the sunlight, and grabbed the edge of the t-shirt. As he did, rough skin scraped against smooth, causing the younger man to suck in a breath as his mind pitched and he fought the feeling of electricity that came from the unexpected touch. Daryl drew the knife against the now-tightly-stretched fabric and pulled, ripping a line up. He moved removed the knife and replaced it in the worn sheath on his belt, his calloused hands returning to the hem of the t-shirt, touching the velvety skin again, causing Glenn to jerk slightly away. The brown-haired man ripped around the bottom of the shirt, his hands touching soft flesh, spinning Glenn around like a top, pulling material with both hands as he went, shortening the t-shirt by a good two-or-three inches.

"Gimme." Daryl commanded, his hands now on the younger man's wrist, holding it firmly, wrapping the dripping red gash with the strip of t-shirt, around and around. Daryl's hand was hot to the touch, leaving invisible burn-marks which seared the flesh, the feeling lasting for what would become hours. Rough skin against soft flesh. He looked up to Daryl's face, his mouth drawn in a grimace. Jesus, they were too close, the younger man thought. Glenn could feel breath on his skin, smell his scent. Musty dirt, b.o., leather, wood, spice, a heady scent that wound it's way up his nostrils and into his brain at the same time, settling into his lungs and snaking down to his stomach, causing havoc with his willpower. It was almost too much, this invasion of his personal space.

The younger man kept his head down, averting his eyes from the other's as if he would burst into flames if he caught one glimpse of their steely blue, his own personal gas pilot light. Glenn didn't dare look...because at this moment, spontaneous combustion was inevitable. Daryl was the match tossed into a discarded Christmas tree, dried brown and feathery on the side of a lonely country road, a tinderbox waiting desperately to be ignited. He knew that one look and he'd be the one to go up. A single spark from another touch of his rough hands and what was now smoldering would ignite, sending a fireball up towards the sky.

He pulled his hand back after the too-long minute and rubbed the spot above his wrist where Daryl had touched him. He could feel the reverberations under his skin. Nerve endings excited, jangling. He knew he had to say something, anything, but just not what he was thinking. "Uh, thanks." he stumbled. "I, ahh, thanks." Jesus.

Daryl didn't move. He just stood there, facing him, so close. He looked at Glenn and put his hand flat on the younger man's chest and backed him into the vehicle, pressing into him hip to hip, stomach to stomach. He could feel Daryl drawing breath against his own chest. "Fuckin' be more careful." Daryl hissed, leaning in. He could feel his breath in his face, hot against his cheeks. His hand was heavy, hard, a flat-iron pressing the air from his lungs. Their eyes met and Glenn quickly looked away for fear that the man rigid against him could read his thoughts, frightened of the reaction he might get.

Daryl pushed off, digging his hips into the younger man's as he moved slightly forward to step back. He turned and walked off as Glenn continued to lean on the car for support, his knees almost buckling. No, that did not just happen. I am imagining that, he tried to convince himself.

Glenn straightened and stood up, his mind now racing down a long dirt track that lead him somewhere he wasn't sure he wanted to go. The spot on his chest where Daryl's hand had been still felt like it had been trampled by race horses. He could still feel his breath, smell the sweat on his skin, see his narrowed blue eyes burning. He shuddered and returned to the suitcase in the trunk, rifling through it's contents, seeking any hidden treasure. He leaned his thighs against the bumper and closed his eyes, remembering the feel of Daryl pressing against him until his common sense bitch-slapped his subconscious into focusing again. Shit! he whispered.

XXXXX

He rounded the tent and jogged behind the vehicle, turning sharply to head to the woods to piss, and ran straight into Daryl, the glow of the hidden cigarette now laying on the well-worn path, it's glow fading quickly in the damp dirt.

"Easy there, Sushi Boy." the voice said, raspy and low from the half-pint of whiskey he had consumed that evening.

"Oh, sorry. I..."

"You what?"

"I didn't mean to run into you."

"You sure 'bout that Chow Yun Fag?" Daryl took a step closer and the younger man once again inhaling the familiar scent, this time tinged sweet with the honeyed alcohol. "Seems like we been bumpin' into each oth'r a lot t'day." his voice sliding into Glenn's brain like oil on top of water. Slick. Fluid. A skim of uncontained motion, undulating and rolling without boundaries.

"I...yeah. I'm sorry. Thanks again for the..." he held his still-bandaged hand up. "For the, uh..."

"The hand-job." Daryl said, his voice low, quiet, suggestively.

No, he did not just say that, he told himself. He stood there for a second, reeling while his brain screamed "Do it! DO IT!" It all fell away now. The guilt. The shame. It didn't matter any more, he didn't care, he told himself. He was thisclose. Daryl was this fucking close and he wasn't going to let the opportunity slip without knowing. Without trying.

Glenn took a step forward, their bodies all but touching now, a hair's breadth away. He slowly looked up, his eyes trailing past the muscular chest, the strong neck, the stubbled chin hiding the solid jaw, the pursed lips he was so desperate to taste, the mole on the outer corner, up the rough skin of the angular cheekbones to the deep-set eyes. Clear, vivid blue boring holes through to his soul. He started to say something and a calloused hand covered his mouth as another went to the flat of his stomach, sending him careening back against the fender of the jeep as Daryl moved one leg between Glenn's, pinning him there.

"Ya' got sumpthin' ya' wanna' say ta' me, Chinaman?" Daryl growled in his ear.

"N-n-no." he said, his eyes closed, feeling himself stiffen against Daryl's thigh.

"I think ya' do. Sure feels like ya' do." Daryl's lips were on his ear now, his breath hot, sticky as he moved his leg slightly, pressing into Glenn.

"I...I...oh, fuck it." he said. Daryl turned his head as the younger man moved his hands to Daryl's waist and stretched slightly to meet his mouth, covering it in a shy kiss. Hesitant. Glenn pulled back slightly and moved in again, this time with more urgency, spurred on by the fact that Daryl hadn't used his own now-roaming hands to strangle him by the neck. Glenn could taste the cigarette smoke on Daryl's tongue, the acrid, bitter tobacco-flavor mixing with the lingering sweetness of Daryl's last shot of whiskey. His mouth was hot against Daryl's neck as his hands worked their way up his stomach, feeling each ripple of the man's flesh, tight, solid under the his fingertips as it stroked them over the thin woven material of Daryl's shirt.

Daryl broke the kiss and stepped back, his hands moving away from Glenn, his head cocking slightly to the side in a sly grin. "Well, what's got in ta' you t'night? Ya' finally grow a pair?" he said, his voice dripping, syrupy sweet.

Glenn was all but panting now, his breaths coming in short bursts, the heat of the moment made his head spin. The sheer excitement of the forbidden, the slight panic at the realization of what had just happened, the giddy feeling of anticipation of what might just happen next. It was all too, too much. His next move surprised even himself. He grabbed his hand and slammed it into his crotch. 'You tell ME." he said breathlessly, rubbing Daryl's hand over the fabric of his stretched-tight jeans.

Daryl's eyes lit up and he squeezed Glenn's balls hard through the material. "Whe-hel now." he said, licking his lips slowly, lasciviously, glancing down at his hand tracing the outline of Glenn's swollen member, "Looks like with two I get eggroll." he grinned.