He's taken the last watch before morning, walking along the perimeter of the campsite as the sun is just beginning to rise. Winter is coming, he can feel the chill in the air and Daryl doesn't really stop moving much these days. Daryl is not a huge fan of the cold but of course you can't get away from it, not even in goddamn Georgia.
He likes the quiet mornings, before the rest of the group is awake, before they start filling the air with their babble, demands and insults and small kindnesses that leave him bemused and uncomfortable. He also likes watching the sun rise, but wild goddamn dogs couldn't drag an admission of that from him. It isn't for some bullshit pussy reason, anyways, he isn't thinking that it's romantic, or pretty or anything. It's just that the sun rise looks just the same now, after the world's just gone completely to shit, as it did before. It's sort of grounding, helps him remember that not everything about the world has changed, that there are still things out there that aren't absolutely fucked up.
…To be fair, things were kind of fucked up before the end of the world, too.
And then the fucking Chinaman (and Daryl knows he's Korean, and just neveryoumind) decides to fucking sneak up on him, and Daryl almost puts a bolt through his stupid skull before he realizes the geeks don't exactly try to walk quietly.
"Fuckin' dumbass, don't sneak up on me. Fuck's sake," he snarls disgustedly, slinging the crossbow along his back. And Glenn just keeps standing there, looking so damned uncomfortable that Daryl is starting to feel antsy and weird himself. "So what d'you want?"
"I thought. I mean, you're always," he stops for a minute and his eyes flicker to Daryl's sides and his mouth twists in a strange sort of grimace-smile, and Daryl is getting confused and not feeling very goddamn patient with this nonsense. "I… brought this for you," Glenn finally mutters, an awkwardly out-flung arm bridging most of the distance between them.
Daryl hadn't even noticed anything in the kid's hands but there's something, practically being shoved into his chest. Eyes narrowed, he takes the offered bundle – lumpy olive green khaki, heavier than it looks – and unfolds it. "A coat?" he says, honestly confused and instinctively mistrustful.
"Um. It's starting to get cold is all, and I don't think I've ever," another abortive glance, "seen you wear something with sleeves. There was an army surplus place on the way out of town, mostly emptied out, but there was that," hand rubbing ferociously at the back of his neck, Glenn can't seem to stop talking. "There was more useful stuff there, maybe better tents at least, but I didn't want to be there after dark and that would have been too heavy to bring on my own anyways and-"
"Right. Thanks, ch-" Just this once, Daryl catches himself before the epithet can slip out. "Uh, thanks." The big, cheerful grin he gets in answer might just be worth it. And it's kind of not an awful jacket.
The next night, in the privacy of his tent, Daryl takes a moment to think about the fact that Glenn clearly is a bit of a freak.
Not only is it not an awful jacket – perfect for blending into the brush, pretty warm, and it looks like something he'd wear of his own accord, rather than something that we was resorting to because he was a big whiny bitch about the cold – not only that, but there is all sorts of shit in the pockets. A fire starter and a pair of really nice knives and a compass, so far. Fingerless gloves and a hat.
The two minutes that the kid spent picking them up is probably more time spent giving a shit about Daryl's warmth than anyone else has spent for years, maybe ever. It's weird.
The kid must be out of his goddamn mind. Nobody is that sweet, that thoughtful for nothing. And yeah, there's a bunch of new little things littered around the latest temporary campsite that are probably from the surplus store that aren't just for Daryl, so it isn't like he's the only one who Glenn brought things for, but still. It's strange, and it seems like a lot of thought and effort to put into giving things to the dumb-as-bricks racist redneck, and he doesn't really think any of those fucks really think of him as anything else. So, it's weird.
He drops his hand into the last of the uninvestigated pockets and he'll be damned if there isn't a pack of smokes in there. Not his brand, but who gives a shit? He doesn't even remember asking for smokes on any of the kid's errand-boy outings. So Glenn is clearly a bit of a freak, but really perceptive, and maybe an okay guy.
Notes: Inspired by k!meme, didn't quite fit the prompt. AU after season one, but things (like Daryl's backstory with Merle) have been appropriated from season 2. Slow, not all that smutty, often awkward Daryl/Glenn.
