Work Text:
When Ron meets Glenn, he thinks that he's a pretty cool guy.
They only meet because Glenn is at the same dog park as the one Ron frequents, even though he doesn't actually have a dog and just likes meeting other people's dogs.
Glenn does have a dog though, a decently-sized one that's a soft chocolatey colour.
He and his kid- Rich or Dick or something with only one syllable- are playing with the dog, although Glenn is mainly leaning against a tree, watching the kid and the dog play with a nice smile on his face.
Initially, he doesn't connect the man in front of him to the Glenn Close that he'd heard Darryl complaining about, because that had sounded like a rude sort of person, and, in Ron's experience, people like that don't smile at their kids and dogs, because people like that don't like kids and dogs.
And, while Glenn was wearing clothes that would be best described as punk, and he has the eyepatch that Darryl had mentioned as weird, Ron isn't very good at noticing things like that. So, first he notices the new dog, then the new people, and he doesn't connect the faces to names for several visits, even though they seem to come regularly, being there at the same time as Ron about half the times he goes to the dog park over a month-long period.
They don't really talk- Glenn’s kid or Glenn himself, if the kid isn't there, usually plays with the dog, and Ron plays with other dogs.
So they don't really meet each other meet each other for a long time, because Ron doesn't have any reason to talk to a stranger and neither does Glenn, but, eventually, it's Glenn who approaches him.
“Hey,” He greets in a voice that Ron could best describe as calming, not discomforting at all, even if there's a hint of a rasp to it, similar to the way Darryl and Henry had described it.
“Hi,” Ron says back, still bent over to pet a cute black and white dog.
“You mind watching my bag while I step away for a minute?”
Ron glances around, spots the bag, a bigger one that looks a bit like Terry Jr.’s, the kind that students usually have, and the dog sitting next to it, and nods.
Glenn- who he doesn't realise is Glenn- smiles at him, thanks him quickly, and then leaves. Ron goes over to the bag and the dog and sits down with them, scratching the dog's ears while he waits, and then Glenn comes back and thanks him and he leaves to go back to the other dog from before.
That's not really a start to their friendship, because all Ron had done was watch the guy's bag and dog one time, but it starts off the conversation well enough that Ron starts to actually recognise the man specifically, and they say hi on occasion, when their paths cross at the park.
Once, Glenn asks which of the dogs is Ron's, but, when Ron tells him he doesn't own any of them; he just likes dogs a lot, but he doesn't actually have one yet, Glenn's lips twitch into a smile.
“You know what? I think you've got the right idea, man. Good way to meet new dogs while you wait. New people too, maybe.”
Ron doesn't know if that's meant to be a question, but, when Glenn doesn't try to nervously clarify anything, Ron decides that it's fine to leave it as it is and leaves to greet some other dogs.
They don't usually talk past a greeting when Glenn's son- Nick, he clarifies, he's a good kid- is around, but, on a cloudy day when he isn't, they talk a bit more.
“I never introduced myself, did I?” Glenn asks, leaning against a tree casually.
Ron shakes his head no, but Glenn seems to already know that, given that he continues without even looking to see the headshake.
“Glenn Close. I'm at college, at the moment.”
“Oh,” Ron responds simply, “I thought you couldn't go to college this old?” He squints at Glenn, who has hair that's beginning to grey and lots of scars. “Or are you younger- I dont want to assume?”
Henry had a lot of say about assuming, and Ron figured that this would be a situation where assuming might be rude.
Glenn waves him off with a warm laugh that reminded him of Darryl. It occurred to him that Darryl might not like that comparison, because he doesn't like Glenn Close-
“Nah, man, it's fine. I'm a bit old for it, but, you know.” He shrugged. Ron did not know. “After the whole incident that left me with-” He waved a hand at himself offhandedly. “This, I figure that I have to get a real job one of these days.”
“Oh,” Ron said again, stupidly. “Well, I'm Ron Stampler, and I'm a businessman and stepfather.”
“Oh? You got a kid?”
Ron couldn't read Glenn’s tone, but it seemed positive enough. “Me and Samantha- that's my wife-” (Did Glenn tense up, or was he just imagining it?) “Have a kid- well, my stepso- kid, but it's her real kid, and their name’s Terry Jr., after their dad- not me, I'm Ron, after Terry Sr.”
“They nonbinary?”
“Oh! Yeah, that's the word, they, uh, told us recently, that they're a kid and not a son, heh.”
“My kid’s trans,” Glenn mused, “Maybe we should introduce them at some point. Might be nice for him to have someone he can relate to.”
“Your kid… Nick, right?”
Glenn’s teeth flashed as he smiled, and Ron had never heard him say more than a few sentences at a time, seeming to prefer silence to conversation most of the time, but, when he started talking about Nick, he spoke quickly and excitedly, though he didn't mention any wife- or husband, or anyone else. Just him, and a cousin he occasionally offhandedly mentioned.
Nick, Ron decided, had a good father. Every word he spoke sounded affectionate, and he seemed to genuinely love his son a lot. He didn't even mess up Nick's pronouns once, and Ron wondered if he had any extra tips for that, because he wasn't very good at it at all.
They walked almost the entire length of the park like that, until Glenn’s alarm went off, and he startled, cursing, before turning to Ron with a quick smile, even though he seemed upset.
“Sorry, I have class,” He apologised, before disappearing off towards the exit of the park.
Ron wondered if there were a lot of Glenn Close's in the world, and he'd met a different one from the one Hery and Darryl had met, one who was just a lot nicer and softer, even if he happened to have a lot of the same scars and the eyepatch.
Darryl had described someone who was irresponsible and didn't actually care about his son, and Henry someone who wasn't very nice and seemed to have some anger issues, but Glenn was… nice. A little absent-minded sometimes, and he did curse more than Henry would probably like, but he cared about his son and wasn't angry or irresponsible.
Ron, impulsively, asked for Glenn's phone number after the other left a notebook filled with notes on… something- something with too many technical terms for Ron to understand- and Ron only managed to get it to him after three days had already passed.
Glenn agreed, not so much as a beat of hesitation, and Ron's phone gained a new number.
Ron wasn't usually very good at making or keeping friends. His only real friends were Darryl and Henry, though he could maybe include their wives if he stretched, and, even then, they were the ones who did all the friendship initiation with him. Or- Samantha introduced him to Henry and Mercedes, who would initiate almost every interaction they had together, and, when Darryl and Carol moved in, it was still always Henry, Mercedes, or Darryl instigating the interactions.
Most people didn't bother with that whole ordeal, when they could just make friends who weren't as strange, which was understandable- Ron had had it explained to him many times throughout his life that he'd have more friends if he was even the slightest bit less strange. That wasn't anything against them.
But, with Glenn, he found that neither of them really did much to start conversations- most were short, as Glenn preferred calling (He looked sad about that, made a half-aborted gesture towards himself that even Ron could easily understand) and Ron had been told that he was very direct, even a bit too blunt in getting to the point, something that not everyone appreciated.
And yet, when they did talk, Ron felt calm the entire time, and was occasionally daring enough to invite Glenn to do something with him- when Henry had something come up on a day where he and Ron had already bought tickets to the newest aquarium exhibit, and, after thinking about it for a minute, since Samantha was busy and Darryl only really liked fish he could eat, Ron invited Glenn, and left with a plush whale and some new memories with Glenn, who he was tentatively calling his friend in his mind. And a understanding that, while Glenn enjoyed harsher spaces to an extent- apparently, he used to be part of a rock band, though they only did Christmas rock- he'd found that more chilled-out spaces were pretty cool too, and, if Ron ever needed a friend to go with to anywhere similar, Glenn was his man.
Glenn reminded him of Henry in that way, actually. Henry had always liked aquariums and zoos and museums- both for the nature in the first two, and the information about the amazing world around him, so not for the same reasons as Glenn- and he was always open for trying new things, a lot like Glenn was.
With the idea firmly cemented in his mind that Glenn was his friend, he ended up getting the idea in his mind to invite him to the weekly dinnertime he and Samantha and Terry Jr. went to with the Oak-Garcia's and the Wilsons, so, after a while, he asked.
Glenn didn't respond for an hour, but that was okay, because Ron had asked several days in advance.
Dinner with your friends on Friday?
I'd be hill with thar, along as you're chill with me showing up late.
It was followed by a brief pause, before Glenn added:
Do you want me to bring Nick, or should I see if so.ene else can watch him?
Ron informed him that it was both fine to arrive late and fine to bring Nick; Lark, Sparrow, Terry Jr., and Grant would all be there anyway, so it did make sense to bring Nick too.
He informed everyone that he was bringing a guest- Samantha had briefly met Glenn once, and said he was nice enough, not having had long enough of a conversation to really know anything about him past the fact that he had a dog and he and Ron had met at a dog park.
(Later, when Genn had asked how he and Samantha met, Ron had recounted the whole thing with Petfinder and Glenn had laughed hard enough that Ron was nearly concerned.)
He didn't tell Darryl or Henry that his name was Glenn Close, though, because he didn't want them to think that his Glenn was like their Glenn, when they acted like entirely different people; immature, irresponsible, and someone who seemed like a bad parent compared to Glenn confessing that, for a long time, he really didn’t have his shit together, but, when Nick came around, a mix of outside factors, his cousin, and the accident had led to him realising that he was being a shitty dad, not so good of a person for his kid or himself, and he needed to clean his act up- they couldn’t be the same person; it didn't make sense.
So, when Friday rolled around, he wasn't all that concerned about the whole thing- in his mind, Glenn had firmly cemented himself as different from that other Glenn, and he was sure Henry and Darryl would also like him, and, though Samantha reported that Mercedes and Carol were a bit disappointed to hear there wouldn't be any more women, he thought that Mercedes, at least, would like Glenn.
Carol was a bit more intense, and preferred people who could match her in that intensity, so he didn't know how well she and Glenn would like one another, but he figured that, at the very least, she wouldn't hate him.
He'd pre-warned Glenn that many members of the group were vegan, and Glenn had replied with a picture of a recipe for a pretty simple dish that looked good and also vegan, so that also didn't seem to be a problem, and, all the way up until Friday, it seemed like things would end up going well- Henry and Darryl sounded curious, as, though they'd both invited a friend or two at some point or another, Ron never had, and Glenn seemed equally curious as to what sort of people Ron called friends, speculating that someone as strange as Ron must have some pretty interesting friends.
(Coming from most people, ‘weird’ sounded like an insult. Coming from Glenn, it just felt… almost nice, like a recognition of a fact, but one that Glenn was fond of. Not a compliment, exactly, but he didn't mind it.)
And then it was Friday, and the dinner was being hosted at the Oak-Garcia's, and all the adults (the kids immediately disappeared out into the woods area behind the Oak-Garcia's house, and he heard Lark mutter something about preparation that may not have boded all that well for Nick) were waiting inside, Henry finishing stirring the soup he and Mercedes had decided to make, while the rest of them just sat around and talked, and things still looked good right up until Glenn walked in.
His hair had been redyed to a red colour that was especially bold against the grey parts of his hair, and he was wearing nice clothes, entire outfit clearly speaking of more work than Ron had usually seen him put into his appearance, and, along with his usual two rings- the thin gold ring and the slightly larger black one on his right hand- he was wearing a necklace that Ron thought looked nice.
He glanced expectantly at the others, waiting for the usual, somewhat-awkward, series of greetings.
It didn't come, not in the way it normally did. Henry didn't awkwardly greet him, Darryl didn't reach out a hand for a handshake… they both just sat and stared, which Ron thought was rather rude, but he didn't say anything, because their wives had gone to talk to Glenn and maybe Darryl and Henry were just waiting their turns.
“I'm Samantha, Ron's wife,” Samantha greeted, glancing back at Ron to give him the kind of smile that still made him feel all bubbly and good inside, even if he'd gotten it a lot over the years. “It's nice to properly meet you; I've heard a lot about you.”
Glenn glanced at Ron uncertainly, as if wondering what he'd said, or maybe if he'd been nice about it. He gave him a thumbs-up.
Glenn placed one hand in his pocket once Mercedes pulled the dish out of his hands and placed it on the counter with the others, mostly looking awkward and unconfident in a way that felt very at odds with how he normally acted.
“I'm, uh, glad to hear that, ‘cause I've heard a lot about you. I'd hate to miss out on him telling everyone he likes about me.”
Samantha smiled at him and then at Ron, and Glenn seemed to relax.
“I'm Mercedes Oak-Garcia, Henry over there is my husband,” Mercedes greeted, Glenn's expression changing rapidly over the course of just a few seconds before settling on a vaguely uncomfortable smile.
“Carol Wilson,” Carol added.
“Glenn Close.”
Ron felt like something in the air had changed after Mercedes spoke, but sometimes that was just a feeling that meant nothing important at all, so he figured that he'd be fine ignoring it. So far, this wasn't too dissimilar to how other guests had been treated- Mercedes gently herded him towards the table in a attempt to introduce him to Henry, and Carol seemed to be in the process of asking what Glenn's job was (as well as clarifying that Nick was already with the other kids), so Ron figured that, with time, Glenn might become their first new permanent member since the Wilsons moved in, but.
“We've already met,” Henry said, a noticably hostile note to his voice.
Ron realised, suddenly, that he'd never heard Glenn angry before.
Sad, once or twice- he'd called Ron, once, after a week of not being around, and explained quietly that the anniversary of a person he'd lover's death had been during that week.
He'd never really seen him scared- startled, when Ron came up too fast and quiet, once getting quieter and more jumpy in a way that made Ron think it might have been a bit deeper than just being startled, but not properly afraid, either.
Usually, he was calm, maybe happy, a bit stressed, concerned, but not angry.
That was the other thing- Henry had said that Glenn Close was angry, but Glenn wasn't.
Glenn’s hands tightened at the sound of Henry's voice, though, and something about it felt dangerous. He wasn't radiating anger so much as danger.
“So have we,” Darryl added, “You didn't say Glenn Close was coming, Ron.”
Ron was quiet for probably a beat longer than he should have been.
Glenn breathed in deeply and audibly, before stating, quietly, “It appears that we got off on the wrong foot. I, uh, how about we try this again?”
Neither Darryl nor Henry put any more effort into ‘trying this again’ than performing impressions of brick walls.
Glancing at their wives, Carol was frowning slightly, Samantha looked pensive, and Mercedes just looked troubled.
The timer for the stew beeped, breaking the tense silence, and Henry stood to turn it off, stirring it for a last time before pronouncing dinner ready.
That was enough to further calm everyone- enough that everyone sat down (Samantha gently guided Glenn towards the seat between her and Ron), save for Henry, who was still fussing with the soup, though, after the second stirring of the already-stirred soup, Ron began to suspect that he just didn't want one sit down with Glenn; and Darryl, who had run outside to get the kids, but may have had similar motivations.
Honestly, Ron was kind of grateful that they were both keeping away, because, while Mercedes was talking to Henry in hushed tones, that left the 4 people at the table much calmer.
Although, Ron would have preferred it if two of his friends didn't hate his other friend.
“Didn't a Nick join the soccer team recently?” Carol's question made Ron glance up.
Glenn's calm smile softened around the edges at the mention of his kid.
“Yeah. Apparently, he tried out and the coach said he was pretty damn good at it. Nice to see him having all these… passions again, you know? He's… had a rough few years. Any of your kids on it?”
Carol smiled. “Darryl's one of the coaches, and Grant's on it, yes. So's Terry, Lark, and Sparrow.”
“Lark and Sparrow are Henry and Mercedes’ kids?”
Glenn whistled, but quietly enough that it wasn't uncomfortable in the smaller space. “Sounds like half the street's on the soccer team.”
“A decent amount of us, yes.”
“I guess that'd mean I'd start seeing you all around at soccer games anyways,” Glenn mused, before amending, “Not that I mind, but I think your husband does.”
Carol sighed. “He has a habit of judging too quickly. You seem like a decent person.”
The kids streaming inside eases some of the tension, Lark and Sparrow cheerfully proclaiming that they bested the new kid, Grant and Terry Jr. entering, talking about a video game none of the adults know much about, Nick trailing in last, scuffs and minor scratches visible across his skin that definitely weren't there before.
Ron isn't watching Glenn as the kids come in, but, when he glances at him to see how he feels about his kid being scraped up, the man's already out of his seat.
“You good, man? Looks like you got bested pretty f- pretty well out there.”
Henry's muttered language sounded more reflexive than anything.
Nick glanced at Henry annoyedly, rolling his eyes visibly. Glenn winced.
“Lark and Sparrow are chill. We're on the same soccer team, apparently.”
“The, uh, Dudes or whatever, right?”
“Doodlers.”
Glenn snapped his fingers sharply. “That's it, sounds way better anyways.”
Nick laughed, and then there was a beat of silence, before Glenn added, more seriously, “You are good, though, right? No deflecting.”
“Eh. Hurts like a bitch, but nothing I can't handle.”
Glenn cleared his throat, gesturing towards Lark and Sparrow.
Nick gave him a sheepish smile in response, before turning towards the stew.
The dinner after that was… quiet, mostly. Lark and Sparrow were animated, but everyone else seemed to, in one way or another, absorb the tenseness of the room.
Terry Jr. and Grant continued their hushed conversations until Darryl asked what they were talking about and Grant snapped at him that it didn't matter, as if he were Terry Jr. instead. Darryl warned him to watch his tone, and he and Terry Jr. ate entirely in silence. Nick would jump into the conversation with Lark, Sparrow, and whichever adults were willing to talk (mainly Samantha, Mercedes, or Ron himself, though the glares and the hostility in the room made it even harder to talk- let alone make sense to everyone else while talking- than normal), but he went stonily silent too after Darryl and Glenn tried to discuss the same thing and Glenn cut himself off immediately at Darryl's glare, and, all-in-all, it was miserable. It was the opposite of what Ron had wanted it to be. Maybe he should have known- they didn't like Glenn Close, even if they didn't really know enough about him for that to be fair. Maybe this was always going to be a bad time, he thought miserably.
And then it was over, the Wilsons leaving first after Carol rubbed her forehead, declared she had a headache, and Grant and Darryl followed her outside; Glenn and Nick leaving next with a goodbye from everyone except Henry, who still looked annoyed, if a little less… pissed off, so to speak.
Then Ron, Samantha, and Terry Jr.
The walk home wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as it could have been, quiet, but, when asked about Nick and Glenn, Terry Jr. just shrugged and said that Nick seemed like a cool guy and his dad seemed decent too, and Samantha wasn't getting all quiet and mad towards Ron like Darryl and Carol did when they were angry, so Ron decided that… it could have been worse, but it wasn't good.
He felt a familiar churning in his stomach, the taste of guilt something that he'd likely never get used to and something he'd certainly never like.
He’d never seen Glenn Close angry before this, and, honestly? He was pretty sure Glenn hadn’t even been angry here. Just upset, a bit defensive at most. But he got the feeling that he didn’t want to see Glenn angry, either.