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At the crux of it, Daryl isn’t really sure why he left. It doesn't exactly make a lot of sense; he’s always been a country boy at heart, all tied up in Letterkenny as he is.
But then, he wasn’t actually born there. Not like most of the others. Maybe that’s why one day he’s struck with a strange sense of wanderlust, strong enough to make him pack up his entire trailer and just. Leave.
Leaving Letterkenny. Even the idea of it seems ludicrous, a contradiction. Letterkenny is home. It’s familiarity and sturdiness, it’s the tangled roots of a giant, ageless tree, holding the very earth in place underneath it.
Nobody just leaves Letterkenny. It simply doesn’t happen. Letterkenny holds, it protects, it draws wanderers into its open, leafy boughs, but it never discards anyone. Never throws anyone out.
And yet.
One of the first things Dary does is sell his trailer. He trades it for some petty cash and a beat up old Ford Ranger that’s seen some better years. But it’s small and it moves and he makes it on into the city with no issues. Then the next city, and the one after that too. He couldn’t tell you where he is truth be told, only that he feels anchorless. Adrift.
During the day he picks up odd jobs as a day laborer. Working the farm for so many years has put him in pretty good shape, even if the alcohol has left its touch in the form of a soft layer of fat around his middle. It’ll develop into a beer gut eventually, he’s sure, but he’s not particularly bothered by it. He can carry lumber and hammer nails and build shrines to the old gods all the same. When he’s done with work he checks into a motel, or stretches out in the bed of his little Ranger, and he sleeps. Rinse and repeat, nothing terribly interesting, nothing driving him forward except that aching aimlessness.
He learned early on not to mention Letterkenny to his daily work companions. When he’d been just a city over, or maybe two, mention of the town caused everyone around him to stop and stare. Like he’d grown three heads or had spoken in Latin (which, he’s done both, and nobody back home ever looked twice). By the time he was three cities away, nobody had ever heard of the tiny farming town, and nor did they care to.
He only realizes he’s starting to circle back to Letterkenny when he drops the name in casual conversation and subsequently said conversation drops. The names of the other day laborers around him won’t stick in his mind. Nor will their faces after he’s left for the day, but he remembers the clang of somebody’s wrench hitting the ground.
“Aye dios mio,” one woman murmurs, followed by her quickly making a cross over her chest. The man next to her glares at Daryl, lips pressed tightly together. The second man has no qualms with being vocal with his displeasure.
“Don’t bring up that fuckin’ freak town,” he hisses. “it’s bad luck, everyone knows that.”
Wisely, Dary doesn’t mention the fact that it’s home, even if he wasn’t born there. But he goes back to his roach motel of the week feeling simultaneously unsettled and excited. Unsettled because he always feels that way hearing the way outsiders speak of his home. But excited because if they even know of Letterkenny’s existence, that must mean he’s getting close again.
Collapsing onto the cheap twin bed in his room, he tugs one of his boots off with one hand and grabs the remote for the TV in the other. If he can find the news station maybe he can figure out where the hell he is.
“Welcome to Crack an Ag.” Daryl’s breath stops completely, mouth falling open on an empty sound. How long has it been since he’s seen his best bud? It feels like ages, like millenia, like stars have birthed and died in the span of time he’s been gone.
Wayne looks much the same as he always has, even behind the strange stretch and static of Glen’s ancient camera. He’s wearing a flannel button down tucked into Wranglers, tucked into solid work boots. His arms are crossed over his chest and there’s a beer bottle between his thighs. He’s looking straight out of the screen, like he can see Dary, really see him.
Wayne always has been able to see him better than anyone else.
“Bet nothin but the ancient ones can, so,” Wayne says, finishing his standard introduction to the show.
There are two empty chairs to the left of Wayne, Dary realizes. Seeing them makes his heart twist painfully, nostalgia and yearning rising up the back of his throat like he’s come down with another case of throat spiders. Where’s Dan? Where’s Daryl? They should both be sitting right there beside their best bud.
“We got Bonnie Mcmurray on the line,” Katy’s disembodied voice says, interrupting nearly a minute of static and Wayne’s stoic, square-jawed stare.
“Oh, is she really now?” Wayne says, not exactly perking up but cocking his head to the side in a faint show of interest.
“Yeah.”
“Can she hear me?”
“We go through this every single time,” comes Glen’s much quieter but equally disembodied voice, presumably from behind the camera. It makes Daryl smile, remembering in sudden clarity the way Glen rolls all of his eyes in annoyance, tossing a limp wrist and cocking his hip out like the Sally he is. Not in a bad way of course. He’s a good sort, that Glen.
“Bonnie,” Wayne says, more loudly this time. “How’re’ya now?”
“Good’n’you?” is Bonnie’s prim response. Daryl is hit by the mental image of her smile, sunny and slightly too big, this side of flirtatious everytime she looked at Wayne.
It occurs to Daryl while listening to Bonnie unsubtly ask about bedbugs that...he doesn’t actually remember that much about Letterkenny.
It’s still there in his mind, of course. The big stuff. The name of his best friends, where Daryl himself lived, the things he did. But the specifics, some of the people, it’s all...blurred. It doesn’t feel like the passage of time either, this isn’t the slow, inevitable creep of age upon his mind, greying out memories as it goes.
But if not that, then what?
Dary shakes his head and tunes back just in time for Wayne to say his goodbyes to Bonnie.
“Got time for one more, big bro,” Katy announces. “Got Dennis Wheeler from the Rosehaul township on the line for you.” Rosehaul ain’t far, Dary remembers. Not quite Letterkenny but pert close.
“Oh do ya?”
“Yeah.”
“And how’re’ya now, Dennis?”
“Listen,” comes a new voice over the line, deep and slightly guttural, “I’ve got-”
“Good’n’you?” Wayne says quickly, pointedly, as the stranger says, “a real fucking problem-”
“Oh, not s’bad,” is said much louder, slightly drowning out whatever Dennis is having a problem with. And all the while Wayne is glaring straight out of the screen, daring this man he’s never met to mess up such a customary greeting again.
Everyone knows you don’t fuck with tradition, ‘specially one as old and powerful as that, Dary thinks to himself, then pauses. Did he know that? it feels like an integral knowledge, something he was born with, something that was imparted to him long before he left the womb, and yet if you had asked him anything about it minutes ago. Well. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have had an answer.
“So’s you have a problem with the stars movin’ on ya then?” Wayne asks, drawing Daryl back into the present. At an affirmative noise from Dennis, Wayne continues. “Well that’s just the thing there, bud. They’re fuckin’ stars. They’re gonna move and there ain’t much ya can do about it.”
“Yes, I know that,” Dennis says, sounding snapish and annoyed now, “but they’re messin’ up how my crops are growin’! My damn potatoes are comin’ in topsy-turvy.”
“Fully upside down?” Wayne asks.
“Aye, fully fuckin’ topsy-turvy.”
Wayne sighs, the sound staticy and strange over the television, and adjusts his weight in his seat. “Try makin’ a sacrifice to the stars, bud. Might convince ‘em to stay still long enough for yer crops to finish comin’ in.”
The sigh Dennis gives in response is even further distorted and so loud Daryl blacks out for a few seconds. When he comes to the show is over and the studio appears empty, just static stretched over three vacant chairs, potted flowers, and several pairs of staring eyes in the background, only visible when they blink.
Daryl switches the TV off and realizes he’s smiling. Has been, judging by the ache in his cheeks.
oOo
The next morning, Daryl hits the highway. There’s music blaring from his radio, but with the window rolled down -and he had to physically roll it down with a hand crank, that’s how old the truck is- the wind whips away every other note of the song, until Dary is left with nothing but dissonant noise. It’s nice.
Again, he’s not sure where he’s going exactly. He doesn’t look at any of the road signs, doesn’t pay attention to the exit names or the pit-stops that crop up on the feeder. Just lets the gray of the concrete fly beneath his wheels, whistling along to what he can hear of the off-beat music.
When the growling of his stomach starts to get too loud to ignore, words almost distinguishable, he pulls off the highway to grab a bite. The place he chooses advertises itself as a bar and grill on the outside, but on the menu it says pub. Not that Dary cares one way or another, just plops himself at the bar and orders a Puppers.
Or tries to anyway.
“A fuckin’ what?” the bartender asks.
“A Puppers,” Daryl repeats.
The bartender squints at him then shakes his head. “Never heard of it.”
What? “Okay, how about some Gus’n’Bru then?” Couplea shots never hurt nobody.
“You from the states or something?”
“No?” Dary replies, thoroughly confused now. “You don’t have Gus’n’Bru?”
“I’m tellin ya kid, never heard of either of those,” the bartender insists. “What are they?”
“Well, a Puppers is a beer. And Gus is whiskey. You seriously never heard of them?”
The man shakes his head, looking exasperated. “Look, man, why don’t I just get you a Bud Weiser, you yanks like that piss.”
Daryl’s so offended he walks right out the damn door and goes to the McDonald’s across the street. They ain’t got any drink but just lunch’ll do him fine. He has a Coke and if he wishes it a Pupper well, nobody but him knows that.
He’s most of the way through his Big Mac when he realizes, abruptly, that this has been the first time he’s tried to order a Puppers or a Gus since he left Letterkenny in the first place.
Strange, that, considering they’re his favorites. They’re everybody in Letterkenny’s favorites. It’s mandatory.
He finds himself another rundown motel after eating and pays for a room in cash. The first thing he does is turn on the TV, but to his dismay the only thing to greet him is static. He tries to flip to a different station but that one is static too. Every station he tries, in fact, is completely blank, filled only with white noise with a deep, guttural voice hidden beneath it, and dancing black and white dots.
Daryl thinks about calling up the office and telling them about it, but decides not to. Instead, he grabs his phone and flips through his contacts. A lot of the names are indecipherable, in a language he can’t quite focus on much less read. But some of them are still legible, or maybe he just recognizes the foreign characters that make them up. Regardless, he has the number for the show programmed.
If he can’t watch, maybe he can call in.
The phone rings and rings and Daryl flops back against the bed with it held to his face. He starfishes out, getting comfortable, toes curling in the boots he hasn’t bothered to take off yet.
Finally, he hears the click of the line being picked up.
“Thanks for calling the Crack an Ag hotline,” Katy’s voice says pleasantly. “Who’s callin?”
“Hey Katy-Kat,” Daryl greets, “it’s me.”
A pause, then breathless, “Dary?”
“Yeah, Katy. Figured I’d call in and say hi.”
Another pause, and Daryl is suddenly struck by the memory of her bright eyes, the sway in her step, the way her teeth are almost scarily sharp, just this side of dangerous. Every time she smiles it’s a warning and when she laughs it’s almost a threat.
“Gotta put you in the queue, Dary,” she says. “Can’t play favorites. How ya been though? Everyone misses you.”
“Miss ya too,” Daryl responds, wriggling against the uncomfortable mattress. “I’m alright. Been drivin’ a lot.”
Katy hums, then tells him she’s placing him in the queue. There’s a click, then music filters through the line. Something the skids probably picked out he figures.
For twenty minutes he sits there, listening to the music that slowly changes from acoustic melodies to rhythmic chanting. He hangs up not long after that, because everyone knows that once the chanting starts it means the show didn’t have enough time to take your call.
With a sigh, Daryl drops his phone on the bed and lets his arm flop back to the mattress. The TV continues to blare static, the guttural voice underneath it sounding quite similar to the chanting from the phone line. Maybe next time.
oOo
For a whole week Dary tries and fails to get in contact with his buds on Crack an Ag. Every television he tries at every motel, and every phone call he makes, fails to make contact. He can’t even get through to Katy anymore, the only sound coming through the line being more chanting. Can’t find a place to serve him a Gus or a Puppers either.
Every day that goes by makes Dary a little more anxious. He drives faster and further, never sure where he’s headed but knowing he needs to go. Cities and farmland alike whirl by his windows but nothing is right, nothing feels like home. Because none of it is Letterkenny.
At the heart of it all though, Daryl finds himself missing specific parts of Letterkenny more than anything else. The parts with Wayne, that is. Dary’s always known he’s been a bit soft on his best bud, but the more frantic he gets to return home, the longer he’s away, the softer he realizes he really is.
He misses working under the summer sun with Wayne. He misses the sound of contentment Wayne makes when he takes his first swallow of Puppers after a long day of chorin’. He especially misses the brief, pointed touches Wayne gives. Everything about Wayne is calculated, measured, from the exact motion it takes to pick up and put down a bottle, to the distance apart his feet need to be for a fight. And especially for touching someone else, which he doesn’t do often. Daryl’s pretty sure he can count the number of times Wayne has voluntarily touched him (while not three sheets to the fuckin’ wind) on one hand.
All he knows is that he wants more of those touches. He wants to see his best bud again. Wants to watch the way his mouth closes over the opening of his bottle. Wants to see the tight, sure grip he uses when he’s baling hay, or the coil of muscles that are visible in his arms and legs when they’re throwin’ a ball around like bored kids. He just wants to be home.
Dary’s about to give up and admit for good that his home, and therefore Wayne, have forsaken him when he flips on the television with a tired sigh and then immediately stills. The familiar stage is there and so’s Wayne but…
Well, he can’t quite pick out exactly how many people are on the screen right now. Ten, fifteen, twenty. People he knows and loves and recognizes. Wayne, Dan, Katy, Glen, Gail, fuck even the skids are there in the background looking as skeevy as ever as they oooze black smoke from their skin.
There’s no static this time, the picture as clear as if he could reach out and touch each one of them. They stand perfectly still, perfectly silent, every single one of them staring out at him. If he looks closely he swears he can see a faint blue glow around each person. It’s strongest around Wayne and seems to soak through his eyes as well. When his mouth opens, so does everyone else’s, each person moving in perfect tandem.
“Time to come home, Daryl,” a litany of voices say at once. “Come home.”
Tears spring immediately to Daryl’s eyes. He fumbles with his boots, then his keys, the entire time being watched by hundreds of eyes from the TV screen.
“I’m comin’’,” he says. “I’m comin’ home right now.”
The drive is a blind blur of giddiness and excitement. It’s strange, honestly, because Daryl has no fuckin’ clue where he is. Like, literally none. He couldn’t tell you the name of the motel he checked into, the town he’s in, or if he’s even still in Canada for chrissake. But when he hops in his truck none of that matters. He pulls out onto the road like he’s lived in this town his entire life and knows every single street and backroad. Not even ten minutes later and he’s flying down the highway, no clue which highway or what direction he’s going, just knowing that he’s finally going home.
The trip takes three days total, and they seem to drag and stretch in that odd way time does when you want something boring to be done already. He stops regularly for gas and food and quick power naps. The naps are taken right there in the cab of the truck, pulled off the highway with his seat leaned as far back as it’ll go. Exhaustion forces him to it, then a few hours later he’s awake and anxious to get moving again. Rinse and repeat.
He knows he’s hit Letterkenny the moment his tires pass over the invisible boundary. There’s nothing along the highway still except miles of empty farmland, but he knows regardless. In his bones, outside his bones, within the broken, milky white marrow of his bones. Or whatever the expression is.
A dozen miles later he finds the town proper, and is so overjoyed to see everything as he left it that he almost tears up. The Ag hall. McMurray’s place. The apothecary. The elementary and middle school, right next to each other, then the highschool just a few streets over. And of course, Modeans 3.
He pulls up outside the bar and cuts the engine. All sound dies in that moment, leaving the world far too quiet as he sits there staring up at the familiar building. Everything in him aches to see it again and he can’t help the goofy grin he feels on his face, or the way he trips over his own feet when he hops out of the truck. He hadn’t been paying attention before, but looking now he can see that the parking lot is full to the brim. The spot he’d nabbed had been the only empty one anywhere close to the building.
He sees why the moment he opens the door and every fucking person from Letterkenny is right there to greet him. A huge, raucous “Welcome home!” rattles the entire building to its foundation and then Dary is being passed from person to person, repeating the familiar greeting that he missed so much. Saying the words over and over again, “How’re you now?” “Good’n’you?” “Oh, not s’bad,” eases an ache in his chest until he feels full to bursting. Like he hadn’t been whole until he came back.
He fetches up against the bar at last, giggling and high in spirits, when he finally finds those he missed the most. Dan and Katy both go so far as to give him quick squeezes, Dan also slapping his back so hard it makes Daryl hiccup through his laughter. Neither of them have ever been huggers and he basks in their embraces, quick as they are.
Gail slips him a shot of Gus that he knocks back quick as anything, the sound of his shot glass hitting the bar twice like music to his ears.
“Lemme know if you want a proper homecoming,” she says, emphasizing each word with a thrust of her hips.
“Alright Gailer, take about twenty percent of’em there.” The voice is so achingly familiar, so missed that Daryl almost tears up all over again.
His best bud. His best friend. The man he’s in love with.
The realization hits him like a fist to his gut, like Wayne’s fist to his gut, which Dary has unfortunately felt the brute force of before. But there’s no time for him to do anything with that knowledge before he’s, once again, being pulled into a hug.
Wayne is only an inch taller than him but pressed up against that broad chest he feels enormous. Like Daryl could curl up into his arms and never emerge again. Dary falters for a second before hugging him back, trying not to make it too weird. Doesn’t mean that the rest of the bar doesn’t fall to the wayside when they each pull back a little and make eye contact. Daryl swears everything else ceases to exist, that the universe stops and everyone fades into static and rhythmic chanting.
Wayne’s not much of a smiler, never really has been. His blue eyes are narrow and his jaw is set. But his lips tick up, just a little, and like Katy the teeth that flash just behind his lips are too sharp. But where Katy flaunts hers, is a visible threat and a tease all in one, Wayne is more subtle. The toughest guy in Letterkenny, eager to fight, but a gentleman who fights clean and, if you impress him, will offer you a clap on the back and a Pupper afterwards. Never bares his teeth or snarls.
“Think I know why you left,” Wayne says, and it’s fairly quiet between them. Daryl blinks, thrown.
“Really? Why’s that, cause I sure as fuck don’t know.”
But Wayne shakes his head and finally releases him, stepping back. The world slips back into place, noisy and disorienting, pushing a little too close at Daryl’s senses now. But he lets himself fall back into the crowd, passed around again as he drinks and celebrates and tries not to think too hard about blue eyes and a dangerous, squared jaw.
Daryl may not have been born here. He may not have Glen’s vision, with his many blinking eyes, he might not be this side of animal the way Katy and Wayne are, have Gail’s hypnotizing voice, the speed and unnatural agility of the hockey players, or be connected with the dark and the fog and cloudiness of a mind corrupted like the skids. But he’s one of them, regardless, in his own way. He feels it within himself now that he’s back. It’s the way his heart beats slow and heavy and how connected he feels here. Letterkenny binds them all together. It’s home and shelter and caretaker and weird and theirs. Their freak town.
Hours later, when Wayne steps outside for a smoke, Daryl drifts after him. The night is starting to stretch out, maybe a little longer than it should be, maybe not. But Dary’s energy is starting to fade and he can’t think of anything better than pressing his shoulder against Wayne’s as they enjoy the quiet of the night.
There’s a light in the sky. It’s not the moon, but it hovers over their town. Sometimes over McMurray’s place, sometimes over Wayne’s, but never over the schools or the hockey rink. Tonight it’s hanging over Modean’s, their own personal star. It pulses and wavers casting stark light across the parking lot just beyond where Wayne is hunched in the shadow of the building. His cigarette burns orange at the end, the only point of light, and smoke drifts lazily out of the darkness
Daryl joins him, back against the stone and his shoulder brushing Wayne’s just like he’d imagined. Wayne doesn’t say anything at first, but he passes Dary the smoke, something he’s never done before. The end of it is faintly damp from Wayne’s mouth and a shiver travels down Daryl’s mouth as he puts it against his lips. An indirect kiss. The smoke rushes into his lungs, warm and familiar, and he holds it there as he passes the cig back to Wayne before finally exhaling slowly.
“Letterkenny takes care of us,” Wayne says when they’ve worn the smoke down to near nothing. “It knows what we need.”
Daryl nods and doesn’t object when Wayne lights up another cigarette.
“It sent you away.”
“It did,” Daryl agrees, though his chest pangs a little to think of it. “Can’t quite figure out why, but ‘suppose it doesn’t matter since I’m back now.”
“Doesn’t it though?” Wayne turns towards him in that sharp, sudden way he tends to move. Like he has to consider and then perform each flex of muscle individually.
“Does it?” is all Dary can think to say, shrugging his shoulders dumbly. They drag against the rough stone at his back, catching and pulling at the fabric of his shirt.
“I’ve got a theory.”
“Okay, good buddy, let’s here it then,” Daryl says, gesturing with the smoke still held between two fingers. For a long moment Wayne just stares silently at him, as unreadable as ever, and Daryl raises an eyebrow. “Pitter patter.”
Wayne reaches out and snags the smoke from Daryl, but instead of taking his own drag he puts it out against the wall and lets it drop to the dirty concrete below. Gail will certainly have something to say about that later.
“Hey,” Darl protests, because he hadn’t been done with that yet thank you very fuckin’ much. But Wayne moves in close before the words will form and all of Daryl’s thoughts come slamming to a halt.
“Missed you,” is what Wayne says, so close Dary can see the faint ghost of his breath in the cool night air between them.
“Missed you too,” Daryl replies breathlessly.
“I’m thinkin’ that was the point.” And with that Wayne leans in to kiss him. Dary should maybe be more surprised, but honestly the whole night feels like it’s led up to this moment. He can’t fault Wayne’s logic either; how long would they have gone not recognizing or acknowledging these feelings in themselves? Letterkenny had sent Dary away to make damn well sure he knew exactly what he was losing, so that he could love it all the more fiercely.
Daryl kisses him back, because of course he does. His hands find Wayne’s face, feel the stubble there and the iron strength of bone beneath the skin, feels one of Wayne’s hands on his bicep gripping tight. Inside music is blaring and people are laughing. The light above Modeans shines cooly down on the parking lot, and they stand embraced in the shadows.
“You sold yer trailer,” is the first thing Wayne says when they break apart. Still spinning a little, Daryl just blinks at him, not putting two and two together. “So’s you should stay with me. Move in, I mean,” Wayne pushes.
“Oh,” Daryl says, then softer, “Oh. Yeah, of course, Wayne.” Then he kisses Wayne again, because why the fuck not?