They are getting closer to Fort Banning, but it is taking a long time. There was a unanimous decision after Atlanta and then the CDC, to avoid big cities. And so they putter through small towns and farmland and forest and some occasional marshland. The effort to avoid cities pays off, as they never have to deal with more than a small group of walkers at a time, and mostly they are individual, dazed and starved stragglers rather than the quick, vicious groups that populate the cities.
They fall into a pattern as they travel.
They siphon gas and cannibalise parts from the halted cars flowing out of every centre of population. Since they've started avoiding big cities they've yet to encounter the deadly tableau of gridlock like the one that surrounded Atlanta. The RV continues to break down regularly, and they're forced to repair it so often that Dale openly doubts that much of the original machinery remains under the hood anymore. Andrea actually smiles a little at that, and Dale seems inordinately pleased with himself for hours afterwards. Daryl hunts, and lately makes a concerted effort to bag at least one squirrel whenever he goes out. Rick's glares make it worth any extra effort it might take.
They halt for at least a day whenever they pass by a settlement large enough for a grocery store or a pharmacy to send Glenn in scavenging. They always wait a few miles out from town, as staying too close would rile up the geeks with the scent of food and make Glenn's work even harder.
And it works fine for a few weeks, until all of a sudden it doesn't.
They've set up camp in a mercifully deserted little cabin, a few miles out from a town so tiny it barely deserves the title. The first night, they gather together inside, maybe celebrating the fact that they're sleeping inside, maybe just relieved that they've made it this far at all.
Carol and Dale are in the kitchen together frying fish that Andrea caught at river nearby that very day, Dale having liberated some spices from god-knows-where and beginning to fancy himself a master chef. The fish, in his defense, is rather tastier than their usual gamey diet of fuzzy woodland creatures, and afterwards, Glenn produces a very large, very expensive-looking bottle of scotch with a sheepish grin.
They eat together, drink together, and sit up for hours afterwards, crowded into the main room of a building that is clearly not meant for more than maybe five or six people. The warmth, the closeness, the smell and noise and feel of being pressed in so close, all of it should have been uncomfortable, but somehow manages to be soothing, reassuring instead.
Daryl starts the night in the corner by a window, watching the road. An hour after the scotch appears he has somehow managed to end up wedged between an arm of the squishy, musty old couch and a drunk, drowsy Glenn, who has proved beyond a doubt (again) that he is incapable of handling alcohol. Daryl himself is just past tipsy, pleasantly warm, head buzzing and very, very aware of the line of heat along his side where he and Glenn are pressed together.
Rick and Dale have volunteered to abstain for the night, and Andrea is curled up in a chair in Daryl's old spot. Shane is in the middle of telling a story from his schooldays with Rick, probably exaggerating quite a lot, from Rick's exasperated grin. But maybe not, as Lori seems torn between smiling fondly at her husband and laughing helplessly at his obvious embarassment. Even Carol seems at ease. And Glenn keeps almost nodding off onto Daryl's shoulder, jerking awake at the last moment.
Daryl is oscillating between amusement and a sort of panicky need to get out of the room, the latter mainly because he keeps catching himself thinking the kid is sort of cute.
But the stories keep coming, cheerful and funny rather than melancholy and nostalgic for once, and the alcohol has yet to run out, and he's feeling pretty good right where he is. His shoulders start cramping up so he spreads his arms along the back of the couch, not tucking Glenn under his arm or anything, not even touching him really, but Glenn shifts thoughtlessly, obligingly, curling in towards Daryl just a bit and it's comfortable.
He tells them about the time he hid poison ivy in amongst his brother's underwear when he was younger, how Merle had been itching for weeks and convinced he had the clap, or crabs – then it turned out that he did, so he never cottoned on to Daryl's trick – and has a few people almost in tears with laughter with an alarmingly accurate impersonation, and manages not to hate any of them too much for what happened to his brother.
He knows how Merle can be. They're blood, no reason for hatred between them, and Merle was still cruel sometimes. These people, some of them soft-hearted or soft-headed, women and cops and chinks and niggers, they were just too different. It made Daryl uneasy, twitchy and suspicious and unpleasant, until he knew them better. Merle had just hated them all, even the ones he wanted to fuck, never bothered to know them at all.
Of course, Merle's always had a lot of hate to go around, and maybe it doesn't all make sense. If Daryl believed all the things Merle said, he would be out somewhere alone with his brother or joined up with more like him, rather than in here with these strange people. And he's starting to think that maybe he prefers it here.
A quiet snore from under his arm (where it had apparently decided to drape around Glenn's shoulders without letting Daryl know) tells him the kid has finally given in. He glances down and smirks at the picture Glenn makes, head propped against Daryl's shoulder and mouth hanging just slightly open. Dale is staring at him, eyebrows raised questioningly, but Daryl ignores him. Old fart can mind his own business, and this isn't it.
Then he hears giggling and a quickly stifled 'aw.'
"I thought Glenn told us to never ever let him drink again," Lori comments slyly when Daryl looks up. His eyes narrow and he tenses, but he doesn't know how to react, doesn't know if he's being accused, or made a fool of, if this is malicious mockery or just friendly teasing. Isn't exactly sure what they'd be teasing him about but. Even the thought that they might be teasing him about being…that way with Glenn is enough to get his hackles up, because he's no fag. He's just...
Just.
He's just sitting here with a man tucked neatly under his arm, whom he often forgets to dislike and occasionally finds attractive.
Daryl stands abruptly, stalks off to his room without a glance for any one of them, and slams the door shut behind him. Hears voices from behind the door, and ignores that too.
He paces, restless. Makes two full circuits of the room, punches a wall and immediately regrets it when he splits his knuckles on the unforgiving wood. Wants to yell, but Carl and Sophia are sleeping nearby. He sinks to the floor instead, drops his head, buries both in his hair and pulls until it hurts, and he focusses on the pain from clenching his fist and from yanking his hair until the angry, panicked haze around his thoughts recedes.
He thinks about the things his brother used to say, the words he used. About how scared he had been the first time he had looked at a boy instead of a girl and felt the same flavour of interest, and how not wrong it had felt. It felt natural, and it would have been so, so easy to slip up.
It used to terrify him when his brother would jokingly call him a pansy, or a bitch, because that was only a step away from fag, and if Merle said that to Daryl, somehow he would just know and that would be it. Daryl was afraid, more than anything that his brother might do in a moment of anger, that Merle would never call him little brother again, because then Daryl would have no one left. And that thought scared him so much that he embraced 'faggot,' and 'queer,' until they barely bothered him more than any of the other words. So much that he didn't look at anyone, the boys or the girls, until all of a sudden they'd become men and women and he was an awkward, wary, cantankerous man rather than a sullen, confused teen, until sex and courtship and everything else happened according to rules Daryl only knew second-hand. Even when Merle was gone Daryl didn't look, because he was afraid he didn't know how.
The way Glenn smiles at him, big and honest and cheerful. How he genuinely cares for people, for Daryl even, without seeming to expect anything in return. He thinks about the charming, devious look in his eyes before he does those stupidly, thoughtlessly selfless things that he does that make Daryl's temples throb just to think of them.
He thinks about how his brother would look, if he ever thought Daryl was… What his brother would say, what he would do.
He thinks about how Glenn makes him feel, lately. Interesting, worthwhile, likeable. Attractive. Like there's someone who wants him around, who would miss him if he were gone, come for him if he needed them.
He hasn't had that since Merle, knowing there's someone who's got his back and trusts him to have theirs. Honestly, hasn't had that since before Merle started acquiring habits and shitty friends like a mutt gathering fleas. He misses his brother, but he isn't really sure he misses the person his brother had been turning into in this brave new world. No matter how absolutely, unshakeably certain he is that his brother'd be looking out for him (and every once in a while, treacherously, he has his doubts), he's not sure that Merle is the kind of guy he'd want around, in a world without rules.
Daryl sits there, only a little bit drunk, hands still curled into loose fists in his hair, and he thinks until he's so tired of it that he crawls into bed and passes out fully clothed. It is not an ideal experience, considering it is the first bed he's slept in since the CDC. Introspection is all just horseshit.
Notes: This story's falling down pretty hard on the zombie front, huh? Three chapters and minimal gore. But hey, more introspection. Hooray!
