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Sometimes, Glenn can’t help but wonder if he broke a ton of mirrors when he was younger. While this is something he’s pretty sure that he would remember, it’s the only thing that would explain his complete lack of luck when it comes to dating.
Every single date that he has ever gone on has been, at the least, mediocre. More often, they fall somewhere between merely bad and absolutely disastrous. The reasons vary; sometimes, it's obvious from the start that the other person isn’t into him. Sometimes, it's obvious that they're way too into him and he barely manages to get through dinner without filing a restraining order. Sometimes, the chemistry simply isn’t there and sometimes, the other person isn’t there.
Even on the few dates where Glenn did hit it off with someone, something had inevitably happened that absolutely ruined everything. Whether it was finding a fingernail in his soup or falling down a flight of stairs or getting puked on, there was always a caveat, something that made things go from ‘possibly good’ to ‘absolutely horrible’ in only a few seconds.
The only thing that Glenn has ever gotten out of these dates (aside from a few awkward hugs) is the realization that his friends, much as he loves them, are really, really terrible at setting him up.
It’s because of this realization that, when his best friend Maggie utters the words “so I know a guy,” Glenn immediately shuts her down.
“No,” he says, cutting her off before she can say another word. “Not happening.”
“Why not?” she snaps, glaring at him in a way that would be terrifying if it was coming from anyone else. “I thought you trusted me.”
“Maggie, I trust you with my life and my comic books,” Glenn replies, taking a bite of his sandwich. “But the last person you set me up with ended up ‘going to the bathroom’ halfway through and leaving me with the check.”
“Yeah, but the guy before that wasn’t too bad,” Maggie retorts, pointing at Glenn with her fork. “C’mon, he was cute!”
“He literally talked about nothing but his ex and tried to stick his tongue down my throat while crying,” Glenn says. Just thinking about the incident makes him shudder and nearly choke on his food. “And the one before that-”
“Alright, whatever,” Maggie interrupts, rolling her eyes and viciously stabbing her pasta. “But those were all just flukes. You’d like this guy, I know it.”
“Not happening,” Glenn repeats. “I am done with dating. And I mean it this time.”
Although this is the fourth time that Glenn has expressed this sentiment in the last year, he means it this time. He’s sick of his friends setting him up, he’s sick of going on bad dates and he’s sick of getting his hopes up and never hearing anything back. In all the time he spends not going on dates, he can do things that he actually enjoys, like sleeping or marathoning a television show or trying to find a job that pays a little more than the pharmacy that both him and Maggie are cashiers at.
He is done with dating. Seriously.
Maggie, on the other hand, apparently isn’t done with being stubborn. Not by a long shot. For the next two weeks, she continues to drop hints. She slips things into their conversations, little comments about how great the guy is, how he’s a hard worker, how he wouldn’t stiff Glenn on the check if they went on a date. The more she talks, the thinner Glenn’s resolve gets. Finally, one day, when they’re eating lunch on the loading dock out back of the pharmacy, Maggie’s sheer stubbornness wins out over his willpower.
“Fine,” he sighs resignedly, in the middle of Maggie’s latest testimonial about how great the guy (whose name is Daryl) is. “I’ll go on the damn date.”
“Really?” Maggie yells, jumping and dropping her can of Coke off the edge of the loading dock. “You’re not fucking with me, are you?”
“Yes, really,” Glenn says, wiping sweat off his forehead. “I’ll go. But do you at least have a picture of the guy?”
“He doesn’t like having his picture taken,” Maggie says with a shrug, snatching one of Glenn’s french fries and jumping to her feet. “But I swear, Glenn, you will not regret this. I’m gonna go call him now!”
Glenn groans and drops his head into his hands. He’s very thankful to have Maggie as a friend, but she has a way of making him regret decisions mere moments after he commits to them.
&.
He lets Maggie make the arrangements for the date, partly because it’s something she seems to like doing and partly because the last time he picked a restaurant for a date, he ended up in the hospital with salmonella poisoning. He expects her to pick some fancy upscale Italian or French place where you make reservations a month ahead of time but instead, the day after he agrees to the date, she presses a business card into his hand when they go on break. It’s for a diner downtown, one he’s quite familiar with. On the back of it, she’s written a date, a time and a phone number that Glenn doesn’t recognize.
“I know you’re off Friday,” she says. “You don’t have to call or text him or anything like that, but if you get sick or something, at least you can let him know what happened.”
“Thanks,” Glenn says, absently tucking the card into the pocket of his jeans. That’s where it stays, crinkled and forgotten, until his phone rings Friday evening, right as he’s settling in for a marathon of shitty zombie films from the eighties.
“You ready for your date?” Maggie asks, skipping all formalities and greetings, per usual.
“What date?” Glenn asks, popping a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Are you serious?” Maggie hollers, so loud that the speaker on Glenn’s phone crackles. “Your date with Daryl? How did you forget that?”
“Shit!” Glenn yells, forgoing Maggie’s questions in favor of leaping to his feet, knocking his bowl of popcorn to the floor. “How long do I have to get ready?”
“An hour. I’ll be there in fifteen, try to find something to wear.” Before Glenn can reply, she hangs up. He tosses his phone onto the couch and books it into his bedroom, which looks like a tornado blew through it. He started spring cleaning four months ago and never got around to finishing; as a result, there are half-sorted piles of clothes drifted up against the walls, pyramids of ratty sneakers tucked into the corners and wobbly stacks of books on every other surface. He knows that, theoretically, he could show up to the diner in a t-shirt and jeans and completely fit in, but he has to put a little effort in. So he dives into the nearest pile of clothes, searching for something that isn’t dirty or musty or filled with holes and while he searches, he runs over what he knows about Daryl.
All he has to go on is what Maggie’s told him. He knows that the guy is at least fifteen years older than him (which still isn’t the biggest age gap Glenn has dealt with). He primarily works as a handyman for Maggie’s family, on their farm in the country just outside Atlanta. He spends the rest of his time hunting and fishing and, apparently, if he shaved a bit, he wouldn’t look out of place in a magazine centerfold.
So really, Glenn basically knows fuck all about the guy. Still, that in itself isn’t too much of a warning sign; one of the best nights of his life had been at a masquerade ball that his friend Rosita had dragged him to, where he’d hooked up with someone in a back room without knowing their name or seeing their face.
But that had been a hook-up, not a date. The more he mulls things over, the more he really wishes he at least had a picture of the guy.
By the time Maggie strides into his bedroom, he’s managed to find a pair of dark jeans that still have the tags hanging off them. But his hunt for a shirt has proved fruitless. Before he can even say anything, Maggie starts rifling through his closet.
“I can’t believe you forgot,” she says, yanking a shirt out, glancing at it, and throwing it back where it came from.
“Not now,” Glenn groans, tossing a belt onto the jeans he’s going to wear. “Not if you want me to be on time.”
“I do,” Maggie mutters, throwing another shirt back into Glenn’s closet. A moment later, she makes a triumphant noise and yanks a gray button-down off one of Glenn’s hangers. “Wear this. And where did you get those jeans?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Glenn says, yanking the tags off before he forgets. “Weren’t you supposed to help me go through all this stuff?”
“Probably,” Maggie says with a shrug. “We’ll deal with that later, hurry the hell up and get dressed.” She breezes out of the room, yanking the door shut behind her. Before Glenn can even tug a t-shirt over his head, he hears her yelling out in the living room.
“Why is there popcorn everywhere?”
“That’s your fault!” he yells back, words slightly muffled by his shirt. He dresses in record time, smooths his fingers through his hair and comes back into the living room to find Maggie sitting on the couch, remote in her hand.
“How do I-”
“You look great,” Maggie interrupts. “If you hurry up, you can still get there on time.”
“What are you gonna do?” Glenn asks, tugging on the nearest pair of shoes that have the fewest amount of holes in them.
“I’m not moving,” Maggie says, pressing play on the movie that Glenn intended on watching. “Your couch is comfier than mine and I want to hear every detail when you get back. Now get going!”
&.
While Glenn leaves with more than enough time to make it to the diner, he ends up running into the last dregs of rush hour traffic. As such, by the time he finally manages to turn down the right street, the clock on his dash has just ticked over to six o’clock. The narrow street is packed with vehicles on both sides and the nearest available spot turns out to be a block away, in front of a dented parking meter. He drops all the coins in his pocket into it, shoves his receipt into his window and takes off down the street at a jog, evening sun beating down on his neck.
“This guy better be worth it,” he mutters, earning himself a weird look from an older couple he brushes by.
Despite all the cars parked on the street, the diner itself seems to be fairly empty, based on what Glenn can see through the windows. He stops at the bottom of the concrete steps leading into the place and takes a second to get his breath back and wipe the sweat off his forehead. He can smell cigarette smoke nearby, drifting over from a man leaning against the side of the building, but Glenn hardly notices it. Once he’s smoothed his hair down again, he heads inside.
As he hovers just inside the doors, he realizes that not knowing what Daryl looks like is really inconvenient. He glances at the occupied booths that he can see, but most of them already contain at least two people. He doesn’t see anyone who looks like they’re waiting for someone and he sighs, reaching for his phone so that he can text Maggie.
If this Daryl guy that she’s been hyping up has blown him off, he’s never trusting her opinion again.
“‘scuse me.” The words, accompanied by someone clearing their throat, come from behind him and Glenn whips around, realizing that he’s completely blocking the entrance.
“Sorry,” he mutters, stepping off to the side. “I’m just waiting for someone.”
“Yeah, I know.” It’s a weird response and Glenn looks up from the floor, a question sitting on his lips. But that question dies as soon as he gets a good look at the man standing behind him.
“You’re Glenn, right?” the man asks, voice more of a drawl than anything. Glenn nods rapidly, trying to keep his cool and hoping to God that the warmth flooding his face is due to the temperature and not the man standing in front of him.
“Yeah,” he says, reining in his nodding before it gets ridiculous. “You’re Daryl?” The man nods and, before Glenn can stop himself, a smile spreads across his face.
Maggie wasn’t wrong; the guy is gorgeous, if a little rough around the edges. He has dark eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a nose that crooks slightly, like it was broken once. His dark brown hair brushes over his eyebrows in the front and just reaches his collar in the back. There are a few strands of gray mixed into his light beard, but that definitely doesn’t detract from the picture. Quite the opposite, actually.
It’s only when Daryl clears his throat again that Glenn realizes he’s been staring for what is, frankly, an absurdly long time. His face grows even warmer and he plasters on another smile, mentally kicking himself.
“Sorry. It’s nice to meet you. Want to sit down?”
They end up in one of the booths that line the front of the diner, looking out onto the sidewalk below. Once they’re sitting down, Daryl shrugs off his leather jacket and pushes the sleeves of his plaid shirt up to his elbows. Glenn’s fingers drop to the cuffs of his own shirt, but he manages to stop himself from copying the action. It is way too early in the date to mimicking behaviour.
It is also way too early for Glenn to be fumbling for something to say. Usually, he has no problem getting small talk started but every starting phrase that he comes up with is answered by Daryl in a few quick words, spoken low and quiet. His dark eyes also seem to looking everywhere but at Glenn; they dance across the table, they stare down into the inky black pool of his coffee, they glance out the window. Based on prior experiences, Glenn is pretty sure this means one of two things: either Daryl is just very nervous or he’s trying to think of a way to get out of the date.
“You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to,” he says, after fifteen minutes have passed with no change in Daryl's demeanor.
“What?” Daryl asks, looking up from his coffee, although his fingers keep drumming against the side of the mug.
“It’s totally fine if you wanna leave,” Glenn repeats, trying to muster up his best reassuring smile. Sure, he’s a little disappointed that things have fizzled out so early, but there’s no point in making things any more awkward than they have to be. “Honestly, I think it’s awesome that you showed up. Some people don’t even do that.”
“What are you talking about?” Daryl tilts his head and, for the first time, their eyes actually meet. Some of the nervous energy has left Daryl's face and the corner of his mouth is quirked up slightly in what might be the beginning of a smile.
“Wait, so you don’t want to leave?” Glenn asks, both thoroughly confused and hopeful. After a second, Daryl actually smiles and laughs. It’s a quiet sound, more of a huff than anything, but it immediately makes Glenn feel more at ease.
“I ain’t here just to make Maggie quit buggin’ me,” Daryl says. “I wanted to meet you. Just isn’t something I do very often, that’s all.”
“Well, nice to know I wasn’t the only one she was bugging,” Glenn replies, rolling his eyes slightly. “She’s definitely persistent.”
“I usually call her stubborn. Gets it from her old man.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that for a second,” Glenn says, crossing his arms on the table and leaning forward slightly. “So what all do you help Hershel with?”
After that, it becomes much easier to keep the conversation going. Sure, there are still momentary pauses, lapses where Glenn can’t think of anything to say (or where he’s a little too distracted by Daryl’s looks) but most of the awkwardness and stilted responses melt away. Daryl talks quietly, sometimes so quietly that Glenn has to strain to hear him over the noise of the diner. He doesn’t rush, either. Each of his words is slow, measured and weighed carefully before they slip out of his mouth, each of them tinged slightly with a drawl. It’s different from what Glenn is used to but actually, it’s refreshing. The fact that Daryl obviously cares so much about what he says gives Glenn far more of an incentive to actually listen to him. It’s also something that rubs off on him; normally, he has a tendency to fall back on sarcasm and smart-aleck responses but now, he finds it easier to rein in those impulses.
But he can’t get rid of either completely; the only way for that to happen would be for him to lose his voice, and he’s pretty sure that he’d still find a way to do it in sign language. For the most part, Daryl doesn’t seem to mind; most of Glenn’s remarks are met with another one of those strange, huffing laughs, or a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
No matter what happens when they part ways, Glenn knows that smirk is going to stick around in his mind for at least a few days.
Somewhere around the time that their food arrives, they fall onto the topic of movies and it’s around that point that the spark of hope in Glenn’s chest really ignites. Daryl talks about the Westerns he watched as a kid and while Glenn hasn’t seen (or even heard of) most of them, he still understands the way Daryl talks about them, the way he stares at a point over Glenn’s shoulder while he talks, like he’s replaying memories in his head. It’s the way Glenn feels about the shitty horror films him and Maggie watch, the way he feels about the Korean dramas he used to watch with his parents. It’s nostalgia, pure and simple, and for some reason, seeing it on Daryl’s face just makes him feel more drawn to the guy.
From movies, they move back to more concrete facts about their lives, stuff like what Glenn took in school, what Daryl does when he isn’t at the Greene family farm. Glenn isn’t surprised when Daryl mentions hunting; Maggie had said, once or twice, before Glenn finally agreed to the date, that Daryl was a ‘little bit’ of a redneck. While Glenn has never gone hunting, the way Daryl talks about it almost makes him understand the appeal of sitting in the cold woods, alone, for hours on end.
Now that’s an accomplishment.
The date never winds down. They just keep talking, right up to the moment their waitress appears beside their table, laying down their bills even though they didn’t ask for them. It’s only then that Glenn realizes that it's fully dark out and the diner is closing for the night. The staff have already started cleaning off tables and stacking chairs, but he’d been so distracted by Daryl that he’d never noticed. His phone has buzzed a number of times in his pocket, but he hasn’t checked it once since he sat down with Daryl. He thinks that might be a new record.
As they step outside, the open sign on the diner window switches off. There’s hardly anyone else in sight. That’s exactly how Glenn wants it; sure, the date has gone phenomenal so far, but just in case he manages to screw things up, he wants as few witnesses around as possible. Before they move further down the stairs, Daryl pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and sticks it between his lips. He gets his lighter halfway to his mouth before he looks up, raising an eyebrow.
“Go for it,” Glenn shrugs. “Where are you parked?”
“That way,” Daryl says, exhaling a stream of smoke and pointing down the street.
“Me too. Mind if I walk with you?” Daryl glances over at him and this time, it isn’t a smirk he’s flashing. It’s an honest to goodness smile.
“Was kinda hoping you’d ask that,” he says quietly. “C’mon.”
Truthfully, Glenn isn’t really sure what they talk about as they walk down the block. But he wants it to last for as long as possible, even if that’s right through the night and into the next morning. He deliberately scuffs his heels a few times, waits for the lights to change before he crosses the road, even when there’s absolutely no cars in sight. But, even with those delays, it’s still sooner rather than later when they reach his car.
“This is me,” he says with a sigh, gesturing towards his beat-up car. He hadn’t noticed his surroundings earlier but now, he sees the shallow fountain beside the sidewalk, set into the ground in front of a towering office building. He steps close enough to it to feel the spray brushing against his hands. Mainly it’s so that he isn’t in the way of anyone walking by but, on some level, it’s another attempt to keep things going for as long as possible.
“I’m actually back there a bit,” Daryl says, waving his hand back the way they came. “Right outside the diner, actually.”
“What?” Glenn says. “You didn’t have to-”
“Wanted to.” Daryl’s hands are pushed deep in the pockets of his jeans and his eyes seem to be fixed on Glenn’s shoulder, but he’s also standing close, way closer than Glenn thinks purely platonic people stand. The whole situation just spells good vibes and although Glenn is sure that he could get a second date just by asking, he’s also never been one for following the unwritten rules about dating. There’s something else he wants to get from Daryl before they go their separate ways. At the very least, he wants to ask.
“Daryl,” he starts, trying to form his next words in his head. He can hear a woman walking nearby, yelling in a way that screams drunkenness, but he tries to ignore her the best he can. There are far more important things to focus on, like the fact that Daryl is looking at him now, that they’re nearly the same height, that Glenn is so close to being able to kiss an absolutely fantastic man.
The drunk woman, however, does not seem to recognize any of that.
Before Glenn can step out of her way, both her and her equally drunk friend crash into his side. They stumble away in a cloud of giggles but it’s too late for Glenn. His shins smack hard into the lip of the fountain and in his struggle to stay upright, he reaches out for something to grab onto. By the time his fingers seize something, he’s already falling. It’s only as he hits the water that he realizes what (or rather, who) he grabbed.
There’s only a foot or so of water in the fountain and Glenn is pretty sure that he’s going to have a bruised tailbone and a broken cellphone. But for the moment, neither of those things are important. His bruised pride is the main issue at hand.
Daryl is in the fountain beside him, water sliding off his leather jacket. His hair and face are soaked, his mouth is set in a line and his fingers are splayed on the bottom of the fountain. He looks beyond pissed and if there was any chance that he could get away with it, Glenn would sink to the bottom of the water and hide.
It’s official. He is never going on a date again.
“Jesus, I am so fucking sorry,” he stammers, running a hand through his damp hair. “I didn’t do that on purpose!” He looks around for the drunk girls, hoping to send them a vicious glare, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
Neither is the grim look on Daryl’s face. When Glenn turns back to him, Daryl is smiling again. After a few moments, he even laughs, loud and from his stomach. He falls backwards until he’s resting on his elbows, which sends more water flying through the air. Some of it hits Glenn right in the face, which is all it takes for him to start laughing as well.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for him yet.
By the time their laughter trails off, Glenn’s ribs (and tailbone) are really starting to hurt. He’s sure that, to anyone looking out from the office buildings, him and Daryl look like a bunch of weirdos. He tilts his head up, looking to see if there’s anyone standing in the windows but before he spots anyone, he feels something brush against his cheek, feather light and slightly wet.
It’s a kiss. An actual kiss, from Daryl. By the time Glenn manages to return to his senses, Daryl is staring down between his knees, but he’s definitely flushing a bit underneath his stubble. Glenn doesn’t think twice; before his nerve leaves him, he splashes forward and presses a kiss to the corner of Daryl’s mouth. Before he can pull away, Daryl turns his head, just enough for their lips to properly brush together. It’s just brief but Glenn feels a flush of warmth spread through him, from his head to his toes.
“So, this was a good date,” he says, noticing that his fingers are wrapped in the collar of Daryl’s jacket. “Like, the best one I’ve had in… in a really long time.”
“Me too,” Daryl says simply. His fingers idly brush against Glenn’s cheek and Glenn has to suppress a shiver. “But do you think we could get out of this thing sometime soon?”
“Absolutely,” Glenn says, clambering to his feet. In his haste, he slips, but Daryl manages to catch him, throwing an arm around his waist before Glenn’s feet completely go out from underneath him. He doesn’t drop his arm until they’re both safely out of the fountain and even after he steps away, Glenn swears that he can feel the line of Daryl’s arm burned like a brand into his back.
When he steps over to his car, Glenn groans, running a hand through his damp hair. There’s a parking ticket secured underneath his windshield wiper and he plucks it away with disdain, groaning again when he reads how much money he owes.
He should have figured that things were going too well.
“Shit,” he sighs, jamming the ticket into his pocket. “I’m not parking down here again.”
“Maybe I could just pick you up next time,” Daryl says quietly. Glenn doesn’t bother trying to express his emotions through words; he simply pulls Daryl into another kiss, their third of what he hopes will be many.
Next time. Now that’s something he can definitely get behind.