Warnings: language, violence, drugs, male/male smut, show spoilers/deviations from original show plot, and an original male character.

A/N: When I started watching the show, I wondered how queer survivors, myself included, would deal with the new world: obviously can't be easy, seeing as the heterosexual relationships are a tangled mess, so I wanted to take a shot with a proclaimed gay character, so I had to create an original character. More than likely this story will contain Glenn/OMC/Daryl because this is fanfiction and I can and I want a challenge.

Oh, and quite a bit of character bashing across the board. You don't have to agree with me.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything/anyone except Jude and his charisma ;)

Part 1 rated 18+ for sexual activity between males, drug use, and potty mouths.

Smokes and Skittles

Part 1.

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."

–Chuck Palahniuk

To be honest, the last place Glenn ever expected to find a fellow survivor during a zombie apocalypse was in the storage room of a sex shop.

Glenn had been slowly working his way through the small-town strip plaza for almost three days now just for something to do, not that he had found much, but it was still better than sitting back at the farm avoiding Maggie's goo-goo eyes. Miss Kitty's Lingerie was the last store in the dilapidated plaza and, unsurprisingly, had looked relatively untouched, the glass in the front window still intact, the garish pink door still secure.

Glenn couldn't help but smirk: when the world went to hell in a hand-basket, people had scrambled for food and weapons, not candy bras and strap-ons. Thinking about it, it was probably one of the safest buildings in the United States unless the zombies got desperate and started craving plastic, latex, and strawberry flavored lube.

He'd jimmied the lock. Why not? It brought back memories of growing up in Atlanta and getting into trouble. It reminded him of why he'd never made it to medical school like his cliché Asian parents had wanted, why he'd ended up a pizza delivery boy.

The group relied on Glenn as a tactician and provider, but they'd never asked him much about the before life. He didn't mind: there really wasn't much to tell.

He'd gotten in quickly, closing the door quietly behind him, armed with nothing but a nearly empty backpack and his trusted baseball bat.

Just because the store seemed untouched didn't mean it was clean of Walkers. For all he knew there was an unsecure back door that led out into the alley.

He picked his way through the narrow store silently, eyes running over the untouched racks of lacey bras, panties, and slutty uniforms. When he reached the edible panties and ice cream shop assortment of lube sitting on plastic shelves, Glenn couldn't help but blush.

He'd had a total of two girlfriends in his whole life, one of which he'd never gotten a chance to sleep with because, well, she'd turned into a zombie, and Glenn was adventurous but not that adventurous. No thank you.

So he'd bashed her brains in with her little brother's bat instead.

He tried not to think about that one time in high school where he'd drunkenly made out with one of his best friends. Joey was dead too, or if he wasn't, he was struggling to survive out there somewhere.

Or maybe fucking his brains out. Glenn kinda wished he could, too. He hadn't gotten laid since that one-day mistake with Maggie at the pharmacy, and that had been over so quickly he'd been embarrassed for days. She hadn't seemed to mind, though, so he'd quickly forgotten about it.

But Maggie wasn't taking the hint. She was badgering him every second he was anywhere near the farm house, trying to get all touchy-feely with him, like they were soul mates just because they were about the same age.

He'd wanted to tell her that she wasn't his only option, but had decided not to, just because, well, it WAS a bit rude, but for her to just assume they were going to play house-with-a-white-picket-fence just because of some hormonal rutting at the end of the world…

"The Coke-flavored one is the best."

Glenn had nearly jumped out of his skin, his bat swinging and hitting one of the shelves. It clattered apart noisily with plastic tubes of lube falling to the tiled ground with a bang. The loud noise made Glenn flinch then go still, his eyes wide as he focused in on grey eyes rimmed in black kohl.

He raised his bat, immediately on the defensive.

If there was anything the apocalypse had taught him over these crazy months it was that surviving humans were a lot scarier than flesh-eating zombies.

Glenn continued to stare at the stranger, his muscles tense and ready for an attack, his brain already supplying him with the quickest and cleanest escape route. He wasn't too far from the front door, but leaving an unpredictable human to his back…he didn't like that disadvantage at all.

So Glenn inspected the stranger, hoping his face wasn't showing too much surprise considering he couldn't have been much older than him. Glenn didn't like to judge but the boy looked like a Black Veil Brides groupie with his black skinny jeans, black v-neck tee, all black Converse, and black hair. Oh, look at that: even a black lip ring and nose stud. Black and grey tattoos spread out on his forearms and Glenn could see words peaking out on his chest but it was obscured by the tee. His black hair was just past his shoulders, his bangs pushed back off his face to reveal storm gray eyes and a smirk.

"Nice bat," the stranger said, using his arms to lift himself onto the cash register counter to sit and stare at Glenn. At least he wasn't one of those emaciated, underfed punks, "Lost mine a few weeks ago when I got ambushed in a mall. Found a machete in a Home Depot though. Got really lucky. Want some Skittles?"

Glenn refused to relax even as the punk boy pulled out a package of Skittles from a small wire basket on the counter and opened it with black fingernails. He noticed the rack of nail polish on the side of the counter. To each their own, he supposed. Glenn was sure if he got bored enough –

But back to the candy.

His mouth watered. Candy had always been a secret vice, something to hunt for when scouting in the city.

He'd never shared with the group, except the few pieces he'd slipped to Carl and Sophia back in the early days before she'd gone and got herself killed.

Glenn watched the punk put some Skittles in his mouth, chewing slowly.

"Dude, you need to relax. It's just me. Unless you think I can assassinate you with some Skittles, I'm harmless."

"Yeah, well, excuse the hell out of me if I don't trust you," Glenn shot back.

The kid smirked, "You're the first living thing I've talked to in months: it's just a bonus that you're cute and careful."

Glenn felt his face flush. He'd never been told he was cute before: not even by a girl.

"What's your name?" Glenn said, hoping his voice sounded hard and badass: he was the one with the bat, after all, "Where you from?"

"Name's Jude. Scavenged my way up here from Tampa, Florida. You'd be surprised how far you can get on your own with a commandeered golf cart and some random dumb luck."

Glenn lowered his bat slightly and held in a smile: he didn't want to admit it, but he felt like he could trust this kid, like in an alternate universe, they might've skipped a college calculus class and smoked weed together on the common lawn.

Glenn watched Jude pull a cigarette case out of his front pocket. He clicked it open, revealing four tight blunts, "So, K-Pop, wanna hit the peace pipe with me? This is the last of my stash. It really will be the end of the world."

"My name's Glenn," Glenn shot back, but hoped it wasn't too hard edged that he wouldn't get a chance to hit one of those blunts. It was something so simple from his old life that he missed, "but kudos for guessing Korean. Daryl calls me Chinaman and it drives me insane."

"Who's Daryl?"

Glenn cursed his rampant mouth. Good job, Glenn. Someone dangles weed in front of you and you divulge group secrets.

Jude shrugged, "I don't blame you for not trusting me: kinda comes with the territory of being strangers in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by Robs."

"Robs?"

He laughed. That laugh went straight to Glenn's dick. Strange.

"It's what I call the zombies. You know, like Rob Zombie? I dunno. I thought it was funny and I didn't know what else to call them."

"Walkers."

"To each their own. Now get over here so I can light this bitch up."

About an hour later, Glenn was full-out, aching belly laughing in the back storeroom of the sex shop.

He hadn't laughed like this in years, much less laughed like this since Armageddon started.

Jude had been hunkered down here for nearly a month, so he'd converted the space to be a bit more homey with sleeping bags, sheets, and pillows he'd commandeered from the furniture store on the other side of the plaza. There were an assortment of books and tattered music magazines, even a pile of Sudoku and word game books and a solved keychain Rubik's cube. Jude also had three cartons of Marlboro Reds and two unopened bottles of Jack Daniels, a freaking gold mine in Glenn's opinion considering all Jude had taken with him when he'd abandoned his apartment in Tampa was a Jansport backpack stuffed with his favorite pair of jeans, some socks, a black-and-white band t-shirt, a handful of sacred cds, an insane amount of weed, and a cd player that had run out of battery over a month ago.

The rest, the books, the puzzles, and markers had been his only form of entertainment since he'd hunkered down here. It was nice to have a bookshop in the plaza according to Jude: comic books and novels were littered across the floor like it was his bedroom.

One of the walls of the storeroom was covered in writing and drawings. Glenn was really impressed: the kid could draw, that was for damn sure. One part of the mural looked like a comic book of zombies being decapitated and burned, but the rest of the wall digressed into random song lyrics and diary-like thoughts and a tallied calendar.

Glenn took another hit off the nearly finished blunt, rolling it between his fingers as he studied the detail in the human forms drawn on the walls.

"That's crazy good," Glenn said, nodding his head towards the decorated wall, "You're like, really talented."

"Thanks, but it's a pretty useless talent for a zombie apocalypse," Jude retorted with a sigh, "but it passes the time."

Glenn nodded sagely, thinking about all the random activities he found himself doing in the hours when they weren't hunting down food or looking for a safe place to rest. Actually, being at the farm had made the group pretty docile.

Well, almost everyone. Daryl had kept himself busy searching for Sophia, but now that all the Walkers in the barn were dead, he'd taken off hunting almost every day, sometimes not coming back for a week.

Just drag himself back into camp, covered in mud and animal blood, a string of squirrels and maybe a deer, his eyes all forest feral...

"You play the guitar?" Glenn found himself asking. He had to get his mind off a certain sexy redneck: that kind of thinking was a dangerous road.

Jude nodded and lifted an eyebrow, "Yeah. Random question much?"

"I was just thinking about my guitar back at camp. I can't play it," Glenn said, passing the roach back to Jude.

"It'd be cool to play again. Haven't played since high school," Jude said, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. Glenn had always thought that was sexy for some reason, "too bad I didn't stumble on a music store, but a sex shop seemed pretty damn safe."

"It's pretty genius," Glenn admitted, laughing as he kicked a box full of glittery dildos that was by his outstretched foot.

Jude shrugged, "I just tried to think of the least-looted places possible. I slept in a liquor store for two weeks in Tennessee: that was probably the best place I've found so far besides this place. At least the liquor store had snacks and Gatorade and water: this place? Not so much, although now I have a lifetime supply of eyeliner."

"That's why all the other stores in this plaza were a bust," Glenn nodded, understanding how absolutely everything edible down to the chewing gum had been gone in the other stores, "How are you on water?"

Jude held up a half-empty bottle of Daniels, "This is it, G-man. Been almost three days with no water."

"Idiot. Stop drinking that then: you'll get even more dehydrated."

Jude shrugged. His shrugs were becoming infuriating, "I've survived this long. I'll move on in the morning. Was thinking of hotwiring that beat-up Mustang out there and there was a sign a ways back that said Atlanta's only another seventy miles."

Glenn touched Jude's shoulder, "No! You can't go there. It's totally infested. We barely got out of there."

Jude lifted an eyebrow, "We? So you're not alone?"

Glenn shook his head, taking a sip of Daniels himself, "Yeah, we're kinda small, but we've made it this far as a unit, so…I mean, there are some useless members, but it's not like we can just leave them to die out on their own…"

"So how long were you supposed to be gone? Won't they be worrying about you?"

Glenn snorted, "If Daryl can disappear on hunting trips for days on end, then I can go scavenge for a week. No big deal. I mean, it's actually nice: sometimes you need space. Like, it sucks not having any privacy. Like, I always have to worry about the kids or Rick or Carol or somebody coming into my tent when I'm trying to get off."

Jude laughed, "Dude, that sucks."

"I know, right? It's like, it's something we have to do, you know? It's not like there's many partners to choose from anymore."

Jude nodded and lit a cigarette, "You think you got it bad with partners? Try going into a zombie apocalypse gay. And I mean gay-gay, not we-might-not-be-alive-tomorrow-experimental gay."

Glenn rubbed his face, "Man, I'm sorry."

"It is what it is, although I was hoping you'd be."

Glenn laughed, pointing at himself, "Me?"

"Yeah, you. You're smart, funny, an obvious survivor. Plus, you're a hot Asian: never been with an Asian before. Was hoping to check that off my bucket list before I get eaten."

The honesty of the statement through Glenn off and for some reason it made him start thinking about Joey and their drunken make-out session years ago.

Well, he was pretty drunk now…

But no. No, that was a whole other level of recklessness he couldn't afford right now. No matter how cool or chill this Jude kid was it didn't mean he was safe with him.

But somehow his mouth still decided to blurt, "My first kiss was with a dude named Joey Gavin, but I've never had sex with a dude before."

Jude chuckled, stubbing out his cigarette on the Rubik's cube, "Glenn Whatever Your Last Name Is, are you telling me you're bi?"

"What? No, I dunno, I'm just saying – you know what? I don't even know. I'm pretty high right now, and that liquor –"

Jude leaned over and placed his hand over Glenn's crotch, making his leg jolt. Jude rubbed slightly. There was no hiding an erection and if Glenn wasn't interested, wouldn't he be limp as a soggy Ramen noodle? It wasn't even like he could blame it on testosterone and adrenaline: he'd only killed one Walker today and it had been in the early morning crossing from the highway.

"Dude, you want me to suck it?"

Glenn's throat went dry as his eyes went wide, "What?"

"You heard me, man. You don't have to reciprocate. Besides, I'm really good at it," Jude said, smiling as he stuck out his tongue to show off two silver studs, "and I'm tired of sucking on dildos."

Glenn squirmed as he felt himself get hot. Jesus, he'd always wondered about tongue piercings feeling good but he'd only been sucked off three times in his entire life and those girls had been kind of prissy, "Are you serious right now?"

Jude dropped Glenn's zipper without breaking eye contact. Glenn tried not to think about how hot that stupid simple action was, "Serious as a heart attack."

Well, it was the end of the world, and there were no witnesses, and it wasn't like Jude expected anything out of him. They'd probably never even see each other again.

And Glenn was already half hard, and honestly, what dude turned down a free blowjob?

So Glenn finally nodded once and Jude smirked, getting on his knees and spreading Glenn's thighs more for better access. He pulled Glenn's dick out through his boxers, squeezing it and stroking it to full hardness. Glenn put a fist to his mouth, hoping he wasn't squealing like a fornicating pig.

"Go ahead and scream: haven't seen a Rob in almost a week," Jude said before dipping his head down and spreading his lips around Glenn's stiff cock.

"Holy mother of – shit, that's amazing," Glenn said, throwing his head back, his fingers immediately tangling in Jude's hair. Glenn could feel the studs running along the underside of his cock and it was sending tremors through him almost instantly. He bucked his hips, but Jude didn't seem to mind, pulling off only long enough to lick around the head once and suck him back in, taking him to the back of his throat.

Glenn lost it, yelling to God in Korean as he came.

Jude swallowed, his throat muscles constricting once, twice, before he released Glenn's dick with a pop to sit up and smirk.

Glenn could feel how red his face was as he averted his eyes, "Um, I've never – shit, that's never happened before."

That'd been like, what, a minute and a half tops?

Jude just smiled, "It's cool. You must be pent-up. Nobody in your camp good?"

"Wouldn't know. I wouldn't sleep with any of them. That'd – that'd just be weird."

Glenn winced as a mental image of Daryl Dixon all hot and sweaty coming out of the woods covered in mud and dirt and leaves in his hair…

"You're starting to get hard again."

"Oh."

"I can help with that."

Glenn slammed his head back into the wall as Jude gripped him hard and groaned, "Dude, don't rip it off!"

Jude laughed, "Sorry, it just feels good. It's been months, man. I've had a boner since you walked in here."

Glenn blinked several times, trying not to think about the heat and blood in his belly, "Well, um, I could, you know, like, try, or something."

Jude's smile in combination with his messy hair and eyes had Glenn closing his eyes again. No way was he going to cum from staring at a hot dude.

Just, like, no.

"So what are you offering, exactly?" Jude said, his thumb hooking on the tip of Glenn's cock and making him suck in a breath.

"I…dunno…what. Wait, what?" Glenn said, trying to refocus, but the attention being paid to his naughty bits was just so freaking distracting.

"I'd love to fuck you, or you could fuck me."

Glenn groaned as Jude's wrist started pumping him at an alarmingly fast rate, his balls beginning to tighten, "Ah, wait Jude-"

Jude stopped, his fingers tightening at the base of his cock, making him almost cry.

Jude leaned into him, nipping his earlobe, an erogenous zone that Glenn hadn't even known existed, "I'd let you fuck me. I'd even let you cum inside."

Glenn was panting at this point, his dick absolutely pounding, but this was scary and different and he wouldn't admit how much he liked the sound of what this stranger was saying.

"I'd be tighter than any girl you've ever fucked," he continued, his voice a low purr.

Jude licked Glenn's bottom lip, making Glenn open his mouth wide, his breathing getting wheezy from the harsh flicks of Jude's wrist.

Jude slipped his tongue in and that was all it took. Glenn moaned into Jude's mouth as he came, Jude sighing in satisfaction.

It took Glenn almost five minutes to realize how sticky his crotch felt.

Jude was zipping up his own pants, offering Glenn a lopsided smirk and a pillowcase to wipe himself down, the extra mess now making way more sense, "Sorry, man. Couldn't help myself."

"I'm so sick of eating squirrel."

Andrea sat on a log, staring at a plate with a few scraps of greasy squirrel meat and a tiny portion of canned beans. Most of the group had spread out but Lori sat close to her on a log, her only company for the time being.

"Are you an idiot? If Daryl hears you…"

"Too fuckin' late."

Andrea and Lori whipped their heads to the side to stare at the stoic redneck, his classic 'don't fuck with me' face plastered on for the world to see, his crossbow hefted onto his shoulder.

"She didn't mean it, Daryl," Lori said, using her soothing, patronizing tone, "We never thank you enough for all the meat you provide the group."

"No ya don't, but'cha don't gotta worry 'bout that no more, do ya?" Daryl said, spitting on the ground and walking away, "Ungrateful bitches."

Lori sighed and stared hard at the flabbergasted Andrea, "I hope he still offers meat to the others."

"I thought with Merle gone he'd loosen up a bit," Andrea said, shrugging her shoulders as she took a bite of beans, "but I'm serious: I don't think I could eat another squirrel. I'll steal one of Hershel's chickens if I have to."

Lori stared off towards the retreating form of Daryl. Of course he was heading for the forest. She was beginning to wonder if the man was even human: he seemed more forest monster than man.

"Give him a break. We're all stressed and trying to deal."

Andrea snorted, "Daryl doesn't get stressed, he gets violent."

"That was only once, and he was upset about Merle. He hasn't harmed a hair on anybody's head that isn't a Walker."

"He looks at me like I'm target practice."

"Well maybe you shouldn't have shot him."

"I thought he was a Walker!"

Instead of arguing with the stubborn blonde, she simply sighed and said, "You gonna finish that?"

Daryl crashed through the forest, not giving a damn that anything worth shooting at was now alert to his hunter presence. Good thing his stomach was full and he'd smoked some extra squirrel meat for himself for tomorrow or maybe he'd be treading a little more softly.

Fuck Andrea. Fuck Lori. Fuck all the useless bitches that Daryl had been having to deal with since this whole mess started.

He hadn't asked for the end of the world and he sure as hell hadn't asked to be burdened with badgering females who couldn't provide for themselves even if a Thanksgiving dinner walked up to 'em and bit 'em on the ass.

They all would'a starved to death months ago if it hadn't been for him and Merle. Yeah, the blonde bitches could fish, but so what? Wouldn't have been enough to keep them alive.

If it wasn't for the Chinaman's scouting and scavenging skills, they definitely would've never made it as far as they had, Daryl included. Even he couldn't live on meat alone.

It stopped Daryl with a jolt, the thought just now crossing his mind.

Besides himself, Glenn was the main provider and contributor to the group.

The old man, Dale or whatever, knew a bit about cars, but other then that, he acted like some kind of fucking moral compass. Daryl didn't really have beef with the old man, but his self-righteousness got annoying sometimes. And the nigger was quiet and made himself useful, but Daryl still wouldn't forgive him for dropping that motherfucking key. The black man stayed the hell away from Daryl at all costs, so he didn't think about him too much. And sure, that Shane ass hole and Rick Sherriff were some much-needed muscle, but they were too caught up in their female drama to think straight most of the time. Jesus, Daryl was so fucking sick of the constant displays of male dominance between the two he was more than tempted to put arrows through both their heads.

In his opinion, they should just fight it out or fuck it out.

"Fuckin' idiots," Daryl mumbled, continuing to crash through the forest.

Honestly. Maybe what Daryl needed more than for the females to drop dead was to get laid.

He hadn't been laid since the end of the world began, but Jesus Mary and Joseph, just the thought of touching one of the women he'd been forced to camp with for these past few months gave him hives.

And if Carol didn't stop giving him big mama doe eyes, he was gonna throw up.

Yeah, he'd helped look for Sophia. It'd been the right thing to do, the only thing to do, really, when your only other choice is to be cooped up on a farm where you're not even wanted. The old man had made that clear the day they'd showed up, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed thinking they'd finally have somewhere they could be safe.

Fuckin' idiots.

It didn't take a zombie apocalypse to figure out that safety was always temporary.

Daryl spit into the underbrush as he continued to cleave a trail, not really caring where he was going. His natural instinct was to scout the surrounding foliage and maybe try and hunt whatever small critter had crashed through in trying to get away from his loud footfalls, but he was still too pissed to really go through with it.

He stopped again, trying to calm himself. Dixons were bad at that: staying calm. Daryl was simple, way more simple than Merle, but even he couldn't avoid the Dixon temper.

He didn't hide his emotions: he just let them loose when they struck, which, so far, had kept him alive. His instincts were all he needed, but apparently right now he needed something ancient in his blood to calm the fuck down, and the first thing he thought of was sex.

He hadn't even touched himself in weeks. Usually a good hunt was better than an orgasm anyway. Usually.

But now he was thinking about skin, something to rut against, something to get into, and again he almost gagged thinking about any of the girls back at camp.

He wouldn't fuck Lori if she were the last pussy on earth, not with all her condescending holier-than-thou-mother-of-all self-righteousness and constant soap opera drama. Andrea? He'd sooner shoot her in the skull than touch her, and her little sister was dead, so no thank you.

And Carol. Jesus, help a lady look for her kid and suddenly he was supposed to play step daddy? She teased him, tried to get close to him, but he'd continue to shove her away. She was too old for him and he wasn't attracted to her at all, especially with all the crying. Daryl barely tolerated women, but emotional women were even worse.

So that left the farm girls, and Daryl barely ever saw them much less had an inclination to fuck them. Not that he would: he was pretty sure the blonde one was Carl's age and if Daryl had any gut instincts at all, the Maggie girl was after Chinaman's dick.

Some people were so blind. They'd at least fucked once, maybe twice. Daryl was a natural observer so maybe he was just good at deduction, but seriously the members of the group could be so fucking retarded sometimes.

Daryl shook his head: Rick had just figured out the whole Lori and Shane thing? Christ. Even the Walkers weren't that fucking dense.

And he was pretty sure Lori was pregnant. Call it his animal instincts, but he'd bet his left nut that she had Shane's bun in the oven.

Daryl ran a hand over his sweaty face, deciding heading for the river for a nice bath was the best course of action. If he couldn't fuck, he needed to relax, and soaking in some cold water sounded pretty damn good to his heated and smelly skin.

He used the setting sun as his compass and eventually came to the rocky riverbank, scanning the area carefully with his bow several times before he was convinced he was in relative safety.

Even he, Daryl Dixon, couldn't be dirty one hundred percent of the time. He'd need to drop his pants sooner or later.

So he disrobed quickly, pulling off jeans so filthy he knew he'd need to wash them in the river and walk back in squishy wet denim.

His balls were aching already.

Then a sleeveless flannel shirt. That was it, then he was wading into the river, naked as the day he was born.

Daryl had always been a minimalist with his clothing. The apocalypse hadn't changed that.

He dunked his head under quickly, reemerging to scrub at his chest and arms. The water was cold, colder then it had been a week before. Winter was coming.

He couldn't forget that. There were plenty of woods to hunt, but he had maybe six weeks to hunt and prep smoked meat before his major food sources were hunkered down for the winter months. Game would get scarce and eventually be nonexistent.

Didn't help that he had so many other people mooching off his supply. He didn't much mind: he'd had nothing better to do in the beginning and feeding them had kept them from killing Merle.

Not that any of them could probably kill Merle. The man was a tank. A strung-out, bipolar, sadistic tank, but a tank nonetheless. All Dixons were.

They were survivors, so that's what Daryl would do until he saw his brother again, the rest of the group be damned.

To be honest, he didn't know why he stuck with these hopeless idiots. When he boiled it down, there really was no reason to stay other then for the sake of psychological community. Whether he liked it or not, human beings were social creatures. He needed some kind of social interaction, at least some of the time.

Like the Chinaman. He was pretty damn funny when he was making a fool of himself, or telling some long, exaggerated story about horrific pizza delivery scenarios.

Daryl dunked his head again before going back to shore to grab his jeans and scrub them with his hands in the water.

The Chinaman wasn't so bad. He kept to himself, too, although he was always friendly. Never a bad word about anybody, which Daryl appreciated. Gossip was something he had never understood and didn't much tolerate, but as far as he knew, Glenn was a horrible liar and a genuinely honest and good guy.

And Dale was alright: he was just an old man trying to be helpful. And Rick kept people from unleashing too much stupid, but other then that, Daryl honestly couldn't stand anybody else.

It made Daryl wonder why him and the Chinaman didn't team up for scavenges. After all, with Daryl at Glenn's back, they'd be pretty much unstoppable. A small, efficient unit like that would be way more successful then the half-assed runs the chink made with that farmer's daughter.

Or maybe he was just jealous.

"The fuck?" Daryl growled to himself, getting out of the water and slipping into his clean-as-they-were-going-to-get jeans. Why'd he give one shit about who Glenn spent his time with? If he wanted to fuck, let him fuck. If he wanted to convince himself that love existed in the world, then Daryl wasn't gonna preach to him any different.

Daryl doubted the kid was stupid enough to believe in love in this new hellhole called a world, but if he needed that physical flicker of hope, so be it.

Daryl pulled his shirt on over his head and picked up his crossbow, heading back in the direction of camp when he heard some heavy twigs snapping.

He instantly ducked and crouched, his eyes scanning the ground around him. The light was fading quickly now: maybe ten minutes 'til he wouldn't be able to see a hand in front of his face without the scope light he kept mounted on his cross bow, but that was back in his tent, and he didn't particularly feel like drawing any unnecessary attention to himself at the moment.

He relaxed slightly when he heard a voice.

Correction. Voices.

The fuck? He didn't recognize one of them, but the other was the Asian, and was he…laughing?

Daryl anchored his crossbow, seeing the Korean emerge less than two hundred yards away, a slightly taller dark-haired stranger trailing right behind him. He sported all black, Johnny Cash style. Daryl could dig that, but he was more than confused and his gut reaction was to shoot somebody that had the potential to destroy their hard-earned camp.

Daryl stepped to the side, crouched slightly, "You pickin up strays now, Chinaman?"

Glenn looked like he'd been about to scream, a hand over his heart as he took in Daryl's wet/clean appearance, "Holy crap, Daryl, what the hell?"

Daryl still kept his crossbow trained on the stranger, surprised that the kid's facial expression was borderline-smirk.

Daryl bristled, "Who the fuck're you?"

"This is Jude. I found him in town. He's been on his own for months –"

"So he says," Daryl grunted, his trigger finger itching, "Thought you Asians was supposed to be smart."

"So this is Daryl," the punk kid annunciated, smiling, "You had me thinking he was some kind of ogre, Glenn. Naughty."

Daryl squinted his eyes at the stranger, not quite sure how to take the words.

"Why the fuck would you bring him here?"

"He has nowhere else to go," Glenn whined, "and he's all the way from Florida; he's the only other survivor we've met that's from out of state. He's traveled way more ground then we have: he's probably the best information network we've got right now."

Despite himself, Daryl was intrigued. So far Daryl had been convinced every state, every city, had to fight for themselves. To say that this pale punk had managed to cross so much land on his own during a zombie apocalypse with no government spoke volumes for his survival skills.

Maybe the kid was as good a scavenger as Glenn, a definite asset.

But that didn't mean he could trust the kid. Honestly he didn't know what had possessed Glenn to trust him so readily either: he could be lying. He could have a gang of other survivors just waiting for an opportunity to spring on another group's supplies.

Daryl looked the kid in the eyes: they were intelligent eyes, maybe even dangerous eyes.

And he was holding a bloody machete.

"Gimme one reason why I shouldn't put an arrow through this kid's skull, Chinaman. You're a fucking idiot for bringing him back this far."

Daryl was about to say something else when the Jude kid said, "I've got liquor and cigarettes. You interested?"

Fuck yes he was interested. He hadn't had a smoke since the world went to hell and hadn't had a drink since the disaster at the CDC.

Daryl lowered his crossbow, staring at the boy like he was sizing him up.

What could it hurt? 'Sides, he could always kill him in the morning.

"S'pose there's room for one more."

/End Part 1.

Next time:

Daryl tried to ignore the fierce erection in his jeans at seeing Jude covered in zombie sludge and blood, machete in one hand while his other held a cigarette.

"Ya got some smooth moves for a skinny dude."

Jude just grinned, tonguing his lip ring as he held out his half-finished cigarette towards Daryl, "You got no idea, Hawk Eye."

He couldn't look away. Oh shit.

So that's what Merle meant by eye fuckin'.