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The sun is up and streaming through the trees, bathing the land in a crisp and clear golden-green that reminds Daryl of things like the expensive aisle of cameras in Walmart and shit like filters and angles and RGB. It’s midday and they haven’t seen any signs of moving things, alive or otherwise, so Daryl squats in the shade and fishes in his pocket for the crumpled box of cigarettes. He offers one to Aaron and watches the anticipated shaking of the head. “Used to,” Aaron says and then smiles as if the world hasn’t gone to shit. “Eric would hate it.”
Daryl grunts at that and lights up, takes a long puff of the cigarette, hollowing his cheeks out and blowing the smoke out into the direction of the field. “Quit before the shit hit the fan,” he says and shrugs. “Didn’t take.”
Aaron sits down beside him, back against the tree closest to Daryl’s. He sighs and if Daryl hasn’t completely misread him, it’s a happy sigh and not a sad one. Daryl wants to say he doesn’t understand how something as dangerous as Walker territory is better than picket fences and whitewashed siding, but he gets it. Hell, he’s happy, too. “You think I’m crazy?” Aaron asks, tilting his head in Daryl’s direction. “For wanting to be out here?”
Daryl shrugs and doesn’t say anything. Aaron nods, taking the shrug for the complete lack of judgment that it is. “Sometimes it’s so rough,” Aaron says, letting his breath out in a sigh that’s worried this time. “Not the world shit. The Walkers and losing people and forgetting ourselves. That’s hard for everyone and that’s what makes this even harder. As if I don’t have enough crap to worry about, I have to be gay on top of it, too. You would think it wouldn’t be a crime anymore. You know, when the whole Earth went to hell, I remember thinking that at least I wouldn’t have to look my mom in the eye anymore and have her keep judging me. I remember thinking…” He trails off and looks up at the branches above them. “...thinking that I didn’t have to be the outcast anymore. The weird one. That I didn’t have to explain myself anymore and hell, maybe that I could stop thinking about it and just live. Sometimes I hate Alexandria.”
He stops and spends a long time staring at the sky between the branches. Daryl grunts when it seems like he should be saying something. The small noise seems to break Aaron out of his own thoughts. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. Look...don’t tell Eric I said any of that, okay? He’d just worry about it and I don’t want him stressing out. I shouldn’t be complaining anyway. What do I have to bitch about?” Aaron laughs but the sound has no mirth. “Can’t imagine what you think of me.”
Daryl rolls his cigarette between his fingers and shrugs again. “Think you got some shit going on is all.”
Aaron nods. “Yeah. I keep hoping we’ll run into someone who will just understand, you know? Will get it. Everyone tells me that they do. That they understand what it’s like to be different, but being gay...that’s one particular experience. And there’s no one but Eric for me to relate to. And I can’t talk to him about everything. You need friends, you know?” Daryl nods, slowly. “You’re different, too. I understand that. I don’t mean to downplay your experiences. It’s just hard for me to explain how this is every fiber of my being, 24/7.” He shrugs. “And there’s no way you can get it, huh?”
Aaron falls into silence and Daryl continues to stare at the cigarette now burning low in his hand. He glances around them at the swaying grass and the tall trees circling around him, the field just beyond. He swallows and thinks about just how very, very far from Georgia he’s gone.
Daryl lifts the cigarette to his lips, takes in a deep breath of it and lets it fill him from the inside out. He hollows his cheeks and sucks for a second. “Uncle was gay,” he says into the forest. Aaron blinks at him and Daryl lets his breath out, lets the smoke curl in tendrils. “Mom’s brother. My daddy beat the shit out of him once and after that, he never came back.” He stares at a spot in the grass where ants are building a hill. “First time I smoked a dick, I hoped that would happen to me. That he’d tear me up a bit and then I could just leave and be done with it all. Stupid, right? Could’a just skipped the whole damn middle man and went straight to the leavin’ part.”
Aaron stills his entire body and Daryl can see it, the movement of a man trying not to break the mood. Daryl doesn’t say anything else and after a moment, Aaron talks. “First time…” he laughs. “First time for me it was a dare. My high school was a basketball school and our star player dared me to. Said he’d give me twenty bucks so I did. Too young to think about things like prostitution and repression and shit. The next day, he pretended like it didn’t happen. And the day after that, I did. And then when I was twenty-two...I stopped pretending.” He shrugs. “And it’s been me ever since.”
Daryl grunts and Aaron studies him. “Do the others know?” he asks Daryl.
Daryl shakes his head slowly. “Nope. At first...well, at first I wasn’t part of the group. Then I was, but I didn’t think I was. And then we had this guy, real Christian type. Don’t get me wrong, he was my friend. He was family. But I never knew how he’d take it and after him...well, it got to be habit.” Daryl stubs out the cigarette on the tree trunk and watches the last of the embers die.
“Are you going to tell them?”
“Nah,” Daryl says and shrugs. “They don’t need to know. Wouldn’t matter to ‘em, I guess. But there’s bigger shit to throw about than who I like to dick around with at night. So don’t tell them.”
Aaron nods and lifts his eyebrows. “I’m not going to open your closet.”
“Good. And...especially not Rick.”
Aaron pauses and looks at Daryl, gives him an up and down. “Why?”
Daryl shrugs. “Would change things.”
“Is there...should I be worried? Would he do something? Is he…”
Daryl shakes his head and looks at Aaron, holds his gaze. “Nah. Nothing like that. Meant it would change us. Me and Rick. It would change us.”
“Oh,” Aaron says and then pauses. “Oh.”
“He don’t need that shit,” Daryl presses. “He’s got enough.”
Aaron nods slowly. “Okay. I...I won’t say anything.”
Daryl nods and stands slowly, shakes the kinks from his muscles. He offers his hand to Aaron and helps him stand. Aaron holds there for a minute, staring at Daryl before he clears his throat. “You think he knows what he’s missing?” Aaron asks Daryl.
Daryl narrows his eyes and gives Aaron’s body a sweep. “You think Eric knows he should watch you better?”
Aaron laughs at that and shakes his head. “Pretty fucked up, huh?”
Daryl shrugs. “The world is. Come on. We got recruiting to do.” Daryl heads off into the field and Aaron follows him at a distance.