I don't normally post warnings about my stories' content, but I feel I should this time. So, be warned, there are racist and homophobic comments (Merle, obviously) and lots of traumatic stuffs.

There are a few key things that you'd think would take priority at the end of the world. Food, water, shelter. But the end of the world really fucks you over, it changes your priorities. Two days after the dead walked, we lost the internet. Ten days after, we lost electricity. Fifteen days after, we lost any sense of government. Twenty-three days after, I lost my brother Merle.

When you go through enough shit like that, survival doesn't seem as important. What you need is someone to be there with you. So I guess that's why I fell for him - I needed someone like that.

All the people that have died, all the lives changed forever because of this apocalyptic nightmare... it seems worth it in the end, because I know that if it weren't for the end of the world coming, I never would've met Glenn Shin.

The first few days after the dead started walking were spent just raiding liquor stores, getting wasted. After Merle almost got eaten alive by a walker we decided to hit a specialty weapons store to be on the safe side.

It was there that I found my crossbow.

Merle said that I was 'such a fuckin' redneck', and then I said, 'look who's talking'. Merle hit me, hard. I ignored him like I always do and started practicing; it had been years since I'd used a crossbow for hunting.

Practice didn't last long before I had to put it to real use. After I shot a geek right through the back of his mouth, saving Merle's ass again, he stopped laughing at my choice of weapon.

We'd been on our way to Atlanta like everyone else to see if anyone was still alive there. I'd been driving, so when I saw a scrawny little Asian kid dragging himself out of a ditch covered in blood, I stopped.

I ignored Merle's racial slurs and careless bigotry as I got out and ran over to him.

"Shit, dude, are you okay?" I asked, indicating the blood he was drenched in. "What happened?"

Glenn looked kinda scared of me. I couldn't really blame him, though. I was a pretty big guy carrying a really big weapon.

"Don't worry, it's not my blood. Just a walker." I nodded, unsure of what to say next. "Where're you headed?" Glenn asked as Merle honked the horn for me to hurry up.

I said Atlanta. Glenn nodded. "Don't suppose I could catch a ride with you, could I? Ran out of gas." I noticed he sounded exhausted, and looked the part as well.

I half-shrugged and nodded, even though I knew full well that Merle wouldn't appreciate me picking up a random chink off the side of the road. "You look tired," I grunted out as we headed for the truck.

Glenn swallowed. "Haven't eaten in a while," he murmured. "Been walking for almost… twelve hours now…"

"Shit, man. Here, get in the back." Despite having just met this kid, I felt really bad for him. He probably wasn't much older than twenty-five, if that. He was really dirty, maybe even moreso than Merle and me, but probably not. He only had one small handgun and a knife. He told me about how he'd used the knife on the walker (in the eye, no less) in the ditch for the first time to avoid attracting more, but he didn't think he'd be able to do it again. He preferred the gun.

Merle didn't say anything at first when Glenn jumped into the back of the truck and fell asleep almost immediately. After about ten minutes, he started bitching about 'the slant-eyed taking up space'. I told him the kid had just stabbed a zombie in the eye, so he'd be good to keep around. Merle shut up for a little while.

So we got to Atlanta and barricaded ourselves in the mall. We found a lot of food and supplies, and we planned to look for survivors the next day. We slept in the Sears – at least, Merle and Glenn did. I haven't been able to sleep in years, and the apocalypse coming didn't really help.

I didn't really mind. Their beds were still comfortable as hell.

We met a small group of survivors and they took us to their camp. There were seven of us at that point – Lori Grimes, a cop's wife, her son Carl, her dead husband's friend Shane, a guy named Dale and us three.

I really don't know how it happened.

We were just hunting partners at first. I really don't know why he wanted to learn to hunt, but I didn't mind, so I taught him some basics.

After a fruitless hunt we started heading back to the camp, making small-talk like always. I'd learned so far that Glenn had been a psych student with a part-time job, but he'd been in a lot of debt. He was twenty-six and lived by himself, but he was pretty sure his parents were dead. He was an atheist like me and loved Woody Allen movies.

I actually felt kind of bad – I'd hardly told Glenn anything about myself. So I tried.

"What did you do before all this?" Glenn asked lightly, stepping over a dismembered log.

"Construction with Merle," I told him. "Mostly contract jobs, a few odd projects here and there. Until Merle went to jail."

Glenn snorted. "What did he do time for?"

I laughed. "Grand theft auto. He got drunk and tried to steal a cop car," I began, chuckling as I recalled his embarrassing phone call from prison. "The cop was still in the car. Classic Merle."

Glenn burst into laughter with me. After a moment of comfortable silence, he asked, "How old are you guys, anyways?"

"I'm thirty-two, he's forty-five." Glenn gave me a look. "What?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. You just look older than thirty-two."

I scoffed. "Well you look a lot younger than twenty-six."

"Touché."

We walked a little farther when a walker came from behind us. It grabbed me and pulled me down. I yelled and Glenn searched frantically for his knife on his person.

"Fuck!" I swore, clawing the fucker's head away from mine. A second later, Glenn's pocketknife was lodged in its neck and I was okay.

I tried to calm down my pounding heart as I thanked the kid. He closed his eyes as he removed the knife from the neck of the zombie. He looked like he wanted to vomit.

"Not much of a countryman, are yah?" I said with a smirk. Glenn just shook his head as I destroyed the zombie's brain with my foot.

It's so hard to pinpoint the one moment when you fall for someone. I figure it was somewhere just after Andrea and Amy joined up.

Merle gave me his 'creepy pervert' smile when they showed up, and I knew he was in for a lot of slaps in the face in his near future.

"I get Andrea," he told me right away. I said I didn't care, and that he'd most likely be getting laughed at by the woman. He socked me right in the eye.

One night, Merle had gone over to sit with the girls and Lori and Carl a ways off while Shane, Glenn and I were gathered around the fireplace.

"Cute girls, huh?" Shane remarked, but we weren't stupid, we knew all along about he and Lori. Glenn just shrugged. I said nothing.

But Shane didn't let it drop. "Looks like Merle knows what time it is," he said with a chuckle.

Glenn looked extremely uncomfortable, so I suggested we go and try to find some dinner for everyone. He gladly accepted.

"How come you're not over there trying to get some?" Glenn joked as he disembarked.

I snorted. "They're not my type."

Glenn grinned boyishly. "Not mine either." We walked for a few minutes more before he said, "Hey, did you have… a girlfriend? A wife?"

I laughed. "Me? A wife? I don't think so. What about you?"

Glenn bit his lip and shrugged. "Well, it wasn't really anything serious, but I was seeing this…uh, guy. He was bitten right away. Right after my parents."

I wasn't really surprised that Glenn was gay; I was more surprised that he'd had a boyfriend before all this - our lives before seemed so surreal now. "I'm sorry," I said solemnly. I could tell Glenn was surprised that I wasn't gonna call him a 'fag'.

It all seemed like a different world. A different dimension from now. None of those things like homophobia, racism or sexism and shit seemed to transfer over. (For me at least). God knows the same didn't hold true for my brother.

When we returned an hour later, Merle was sitting alone and looked bitchy so I knew he'd done something rude to someone. I glanced at the new girls and their distraught-looking faces. Yep, Merle's doing for sure.

As I studied my brother, I saw something I rarely see in his hateful face. It was almost as though he was crestfallen. What a retarded word, I know. But that's what he was, I could tell. It's hard to tell when he's just being sexist and perverted versus when he actually feels something for someone.

And then, for some reason, I realized it. I was falling for Glenn. I don't know how the two are related, but maybe it was the rare 'deep thought' state I'd entered.

I smiled, despite myself. It had been almost ten years since I'd felt something so honest for another person.

We started spending even more time together. Normally I eat with Merle a little ways away from the rest of the group, but as I realized my feelings for the Korean kid I started to merge with the others a bit more. They'd started to realize that I'm not like my brother.

I'd been heading into the forest one morning to take a leak when I heard something. Although it didn't sound like a walker to me, I froze in my tracks to listen.

It was sobbing.

I followed the sound until I could see Glenn, leaned back against a tree, neck craned upward with his hat over his face.

After deciding to approach him instead of walking away, I wondered what was the matter. I felt I knew the kid pretty well, and random bouts of self-pity didn't seem to be in his nature.

"Hey," I said as softly as my rough tendencies would allow. "What's wrong, man?"

Glenn raised his hat and gazed at me in horror. "Nothing, nothing," he said, whipping the tears from his face hurriedly.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not fucking stupid," I informed him.

He chuckled once. "Right. Sorry." We sat down against the tree. "I... this always happens, every fall... I start shutting down like this."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's a psychological thing," he informed me. For a psych student, that didn't sound very medical. "My mind associates the leaves changing and the nights getting longer with what happened. It's a normal response." That sounded too medical.

Naturally, I said: "A 'normal response' to what?"

Glenn gave me the most innocent smile as he said the most horrible thing. He'd been raped four years ago.

I didn't know what to say. I just opened my mouth and the next thing I new, Glenn's lips were on mine, and I wondered why, but I didn't stop it.

And that night I laid awake like I always do in the tent Merle and I share and wondered and thought and dreamed and felt godly.

We never spoke of Glenn's rape ever again. Either because he didn't want to talk about it or because I didn't know how to bring it up.

Glenn and I would disappear into the woods for hours at a time and just make out and talk about our old lives, which seemed like some made-up story.

I told him I'd never been with a man before and Glenn said the same about women. I guess opposites do attract, because neither of us seemed to mind that much. It felt different, but not nearly as gay as I'd thought it would. The irony, I know. My whole life I'd been fed Christian bullshit about how fucking guys would land you in hell, but when I kissed Glenn, I knew it couldn't be true.

Some stupid part of me told my idiotic, fag-hating brother that I was in love with him. It'd happened like this: Merle had been bitching about Andrea as he had been for the last few weeks, and I'd been listening half-heartedly. Merle wondered why I wasn't angry at Andrea with him, which, now that I think of it, is a weird thing to wonder. Because he's angry it makes sense that I'd be angry too, just by association?

So I told him I was happy.

"Bullshit," he said. "You haven't been happy since you were ten."

"I'm in love."

Merle thought this was just hilarious, and immediately asked 'who?'.

So I told him. After he made sure I wasn't kidding, he beat me to a pulp until I bled. I considered myself lucky when that, and refusing to speak to me, was all he did.

A woman named Carol, her husband Ed and their daughter Sophia had just joined up, and we needed more supplies. So Glenn and I took the opportunity to get away for a while and headed down to Atlanta.

"What's with your nose?" he asked me on the ride up. "It looks broken."

I shrugged and tried to ignore his observations.

"And your arm is all bruised… did you get attacked?" Glenn asked worriedly.

I laughed. "Not by a walker. Just stupid Merle." I tried to play it off as nothing, but Glenn wasn't having any of that.

"Shit, Daryl, why would you let him do that to you?" Glenn asked softly. I stopped the truck.

"I didn't fucking let him," I told him angrily. "It's not a big deal, just fuck off, okay?"

Glenn just rolled his eyes and looked away from me. I sighed and turned to face him. "Glenn," I said softly. He just sighed and leaned over to kiss me delicately, placing a hand on my bruised arm. We just sat there in a truck in the middle of an abandoned highway and kissed.

The entire drive up I told him about my childhood. I'm not sure why, but after Glenn had told me so much personal stuff, I felt like paying him back.

"It wasn't horrible growing up in a redneck house, yah know," I informed him. "Everyone assumes my dad was a deadbeat alcoholic and my mom was a hooker or some shit, but they were good people."

"And Merle?" he'd asked.

I smiled. "You know how he is now? That was him when he was ten. When he was fifteen. When he was twenty. Merle's always been a fucking asshole." It wasn't something to laugh about, but we did.

An hour later we were in the Atlanta mall and I remembered the night we'd spent there all those months ago, and just for shits we went back to the Sears where we'd spent the night.

It was clear that a few groups of people had come through the mall, scavenging whatever they could. Fortunately, no one had the means nor the desperation required to move entire furniture sets out of the mall, so we slept in a bed for the first time in months.

Glenn had left to find food while I collapsed on the comforter. I must've passed out because when I woke up, Glenn was laying next to me. I sat up and reached for the kid's ever-present backpack to get something to eat.

He'd found an assortment of useful items: shaving cream, soap, bandages… I rummaged around to find food. (He'd probably hidden it because he knows I'm a pig)

I pulled out what I thought was a bottle of water. It was a bottle of lube. I laughed, unintentionally waking the sleeping man next to me.

"Huh?" he groaned. He sat up, realizing what I was holding. I grinned as he blushed furiously.

"Not sure if I should be flattered or scared," I said teasingly. Glenn's face grew impossibly redder. I socked him playfully in the shoulder and asked if he wanted to 'test it out'.

Glenn just smiled awkwardly and I kissed him forcefully against the bed. He braced his arms against my shoulders, and I snaked my hand up his shirt, feeling myself getting hard.

The Korean broke away to peel his shirt off and re-latched his mouth to mine. I pulled him close and ran my calloused hands over his modest muscles as our tongues collided.

I managed to remove my own shirt and pants, despite being far too hazed to even think, and then set to work on Glenn's.

Glenn got impatient with my fiddling around with his belt and hurriedly forced the pants off himself. After a few more moments of desperate face sucking I shoved my hand down Glenn's boxers.

"I guess we finally get to see," I whispered to him, "if all Asians really are 'small'."

Glenn just smirked and squirmed out of his underwear.

I smiled knowingly at Glenn's slightly above-average size and stroked him slowly.

"Now, I'm not gay, so…" I said, almost feeling bad about my lack of experience. "Don't expect too much," I warned him.

The Korean scoffed. "Here, I'll teach you." And before I knew it, Glenn's mouth was around my dick, and my fist was in my mouth to keep myself from screaming.

Fuck, this kid knew his shit. Not that I was surprised, of course. Glenn was inept in many respects, but giving head was not one of them.

"Shit. Glenn… I'm gonna…"

Right on cue (just in time!), Glenn sat up and I tried to catch my breath after the hands-down best blow of my life.

I kissed him deeply, so turned on it was almost painful. Glenn rested his forehead against mine. "Your turn," he said, his voice going straight to my cock.

"Okay," I said. "But like I said, don't be surprised if I'm horrible." Glenn rolled his eyes and straddled my chest and I took him into my mouth.

I seemed to be doing okay, Glenn moaning softly as my tongue swirled around him. I placed one hand at the base of his shaft and the other on his thigh.

I tried to think of what made me turned on, and I lightly tongued the underside of his head.

"Ah, ah!" he groaned suddenly. I was surprised at the sudden increase in volume, so I repeated my previous action.

"Ngh, fuck!"

I grinned inwardly and stopped. "Passable?" I asked.

Glenn scoffed. "You sure you've never done this before?"

"I'll take that as a compliment," I decided. I reached over for the bottle of lube and kissed the Asian still above me.

I coated my fingers in lube and carefully fingered him. "Again. No experience," I reminded him. When I finished, I sat up and Glenn laid down. He looked embarrassed.

"Don't worry about, uh, hurting me or anything,"

I smirked. "What, you like it rough?"

Glenn blushed and shrugged. I laughed and nodded, lining myself up. I pushed in slowly, despite Glenn's apparent masochism fetish. He closed his eyes and groaned, whether in pain or pleasure I couldn't tell.

I went slow at first until Glenn let out a low growl and begged me to go faster. I obliged and leaned up to kiss him.

I panted heavily as I thrust into him. Suddenly, Glenn arched his back and screamed, "AH, DARYL!" I raised an eyebrow. "Right there…"

With a confused frown, I hit the same spot. Same reaction. As I would confirm later, it was apparent that guys had a g-spot too.

"Fuck, Glenn," I grunted, sounding weaker than I'd have liked. I closed my eyes and realized that this may very well be the best sex I'd ever had. I loved the feel of Glenn's nails digging into my back, his legs intertwined with mine.

I could only grin as I opened my eyes to the sight of the skinny kid's head forced against the bed, his face contoured in absolute pleasure.

I threw my head back as I came hard, with a semi-manly groan. Glenn followed afterward with a yell that would've drawn walkers from miles around had we been back at camp.

We just laid there for a moment trying to catch our breaths.

"You ready?" Glenn asked after a minute or so.

"Uh, for what?"

He grinned. "'Nother round?"

The kid knew me all to well.

When we returned to camp, there were even more people there. Now I'm all for the sentiments 'safety in numbers' and 'the more the merrier' but this meant we'd need yet another trip into the city.

Everyone forced Merle to go to get him away from the girls for a while, and that meant I'd have to stay at camp to protect these wimps. Glenn was brought along as well, as he was the main 'run in to town' guy.

So we said a goodbye, waiting for Merle's back to be turned and we kissed briefly. I felt like a wimp myself as the group drove away and I missed him already.

I was worried when they came back without Merle. When I learned that the stupid black guy had left him on a roof somewhere, I wanted to strangle him.

Then, I thought about it. I'd been desperate for a break from my brother for months, and here it was. I guess this was a 'be careful what you wish for' scenario. As much as I loved Merle, I knew that whatever made that cop tie him to a rooftop, he probably deserved it.

This didn't stop me from being pissed off. After all, it's not like I wanted him to die.

Glenn was pretty surprised that I didn't hate him for being a part of Merle being chained to a pipe. "I know it was an accident," I told him. Glenn pointed out that I was still mad at everyone else regardless of the 'accident'.

I smirked at his logic. "Yeah, but I love you."

Glenn just smiled at this confession. "I love you too, Daryl."

It was at around this point that we realized that other people knew we were together.

Most people didn't even say anything, until this little girl asked us if we were 'confused'. I tried not to freak out on the kid and her fag-hating, God-loving parents, and just told her to fuck off. (Which her mom didn't like very much.) For some reason, though, it really bothered me. Maybe because that was how I was brought up - to hate other races and shit. Some part of me felt bad for her; while I never really took to heart all the shit the bible says, Merle did. What if that little girl turned into another Merle?

But there was nothing I could do, so I told myself to stop thinking so much.

After we left the CDC and we still hadn't found Merle, I'd started to worry.

"Merle's tough. If he was tough enough to saw off his own hand and cauterize it too, I'm sure he's out there somewhere," I just held Glenn as we tried to fall asleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, Glenn asked what was wrong.

"I haven't slept for more than a few hours in a long time," I told him.

I had chronic insomnia, he said. Ever since I'd learned he was a psych student, I was sure he'd been trying to 'analyse' me. Maybe I should let him.

"When did you stop being able to sleep?" he asked. I said about ten years ago. Apparently this was bad, and he put sleeping pills on the list for the next trip to the city.

I told him not to worry about me. He laughed. "Like that could ever happen," he joked.

That little Christian girl went missing, and I felt kinda bad for her mom, despite everything. She'd just lost her husband, too (who was admittedly kind of a dick, but still).

I'd been out in the woods with Andrea, looking for the girl, when Andrea asked if I missed Merle.

"I guess," I said uncomfortably. I'd never been good with small-talk. "He can be an asshole, but he's still my brother."

She nodded. "What about Glenn? What if it'd been him?" This girl was really starting to irritate me.

"I-I don't know. I love Glenn, too, if that's what you're asking."

Andrea laughed and said that it was. "You're a pretty smart guy," she mused. I snorted at this display of idiocy.

"I'm actually not."

Andrea rolled her eyes as we kept walking. "You're smart enough to know that being in love isn't a bad thing. I thought, what with Merle being related to you, you'd be more… stupid."

I chuckled at this. "Just because I'm not as stupid as Merle doesn't make me smart." She laughed. "Besides, Merle's not as big a fuckhead as everyone thinks, he has his moments. He really liked you."

Andrea made a face. "Well, he had a funny way of showing it." I agreed. "You're a good guy, Daryl. I didn't think you were, but you are."

I considered this as I nailed a walker in the neck with an arrow.

Glenn was crying into my neck.

"W-was I really that bad?" I wondered in shock, still trying to catch my breath from what I thought was a rather good screw.

Glenn laughed once. "It's not that. I…" Glenn sighed and laid down next to me in the cramped tent. "I have to tell you something."

I wasn't totally experienced at relationships, but even I knew what that meant.

"What is it?" I asked, bracing for the worst.

Glenn laughed again. "I… I saw Maggie naked today."

I sat up. "What…?"

The Korean sighed. "It's… okay, so we went to the pharmacy, right?" I nodded. "I grabbed lube and condoms, and she thought I was coming onto her, and she just kinda…"

I scowled. "Fucking slut," I swore angrily. Glenn looked at me. "I mean her, not you."

"I figured."

I laid back down next to the Asian and breathed in deeply. I was used to other guysstealing mygirls. Not the other way around. It wasn't like I could just beat Maggie up.

I thought of something. "Did you… do anything?" I asked awkwardly. Glenn blushed and looked away.

"We just kissed, that's all," he told me quietly. I could tell he felt bad about it, so I tried not to overreact. "I'm really sorry, Daryl."

I just nodded and laced my hand into Glenn's. "I love you," he added. I returned the sentiment, still willing myself not to say anything I'd regret later.

I realized that feeling this way was rather new for me. Usually I'd just slap the slut I'd been dating and never speak to her again or beat the other guy to shit, depending on the circumstances. When the latter happened, the girl usually dumped my ass anyways for being a violent prick. (Not that I really blame them).

The fact that I was trying to preserve our relationship by not flipping shit over a measly kiss seemed… foreign. I'd surprised myself.

Then I told myself to stop thinking so much.

"Fuck, Daryl," Glenn said as he woke up, waking me up in the process. "Get your elbow out of my ribcage."

I just chuckled and shifted positions so my face was an inch from his. We kissed.

It had been a year since the CDC.

I'd pretty much accepted that Merle was dead by now. Carol had far from accepted the same fate of her daughter, but I'd moved on. It was hard, but it was easier with everyone around - I really started to get to know these freaks and came to the conclusion that they weren't all that bad. They said the same about me.

We're like some fucked-up family. Rick and Lori are our parents, Shane's our hot-headed uncle, Dale's our naive granddad, Andrea's our well-meaning sister, T-dog's our brother and Carl's our little boy.

Like I said; fucked up.

I'd started sleeping again; sleeping pills really worked wonders. As a result, I've been told that I'm not as much of an asshole as I once was. Glenn said jokingly that I'm a lot more bearable around others, but misses my anger in the sack. ("Masochist", I'd said with a smirk. Glenn had blushed and told me to fuck off, but he'd been smiling so I knew he didn't mean it.)

Maggie got bitten. It sounds horrible, but it really didn't bother me that much - she really was a slut, always trying to get Glenn to fuck her even though he kept telling her he wasn't interested. Pathetic.

We left the farm and moved a little bit more south of Atlanta. We met up with a couple more survivors and we've been there ever since, safe and sound. (Except, you know, the walking dead everywhere.)

We got married yesterday.

One of the guys we met up with at our new camping place happens to be a judge, so why not?

If I'd found out two years ago that someday, I'd be marrying an Asian guy after the zombie apocalypse, I would've laughed, and now it's my reality.

We didn't have a ceremony or anything, we just got the judge to make it legit. We found rings in Atlanta and put them on, kissed, and went on our way.

When we ate later that night, T-dog congratulated us.

"To the least-gay married dudes I've ever heard of," he'd said. I laughed and raised my canteen with the others.

That's the story of how I fell for Glen Shin. When my brother disappeared and surviving was too hard, he was there.

But that sounds really sappy, so let's just say that he's a good fuck and leave it at that.

(But God, do I love him.)

...So that was a lot longer than I expected. Review?