Hello!
This is a collection of one-shots dedicated to my mini-fic Where Men Can't Live Gods Fare No Better, which is loosely based in Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
In case you haven't read Where Men Can't Live, here's a (crappy) summary: An extinction event has turned the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is ruled by cannibals and natural disasters. After losing his wife, Rick Grimes teams up with his neighbour/long-term crush, Michonne, who quickly becomes a substitute mother to his son, Carl. Whilst heading south to survive the winter, the trio encounters fellow survivors and all kinds of monsters - that is, until they meet Aaron and Daryl, who offer them asylum and take them to a safe place.
Ugh. For what it's worth, (try to) enjoy.
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Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Title: The End
When: Pre-Where Men Can't Live.
Where: Lexington, KY.
What: Michonne contemplates the loss of a loved one and finds closure in the darkness.
It's their first night out in the open. The rain keeps humming in the corners like bland muzak and there's a massive hole in the ceiling, causing litter and peels of moonlight to tumble to the mouldy ground. Picking up random bits of dust and paper, a harsh breeze sweeps in to yank at the cords and wires that dangle above them.
They haven't met anyone on the road so far, and she can't say that she's disappointed. Considering what people are capable of doing these days, she's actually relieved, and the man right next to her must feel the same way. After all, he's seen it too. The madness that turned their neighbours into beasts. The twisted morals that came alive when the lights went out.
"It's gonna be a nightmare", he says, referring to the journey that lies ahead of them.
His teeth are clattering and his words are slurred, slowed down and strung together by the cold. They walked with the rain and the wind today, and their clothes are damp and slick with mud. She flicks her gaze in his direction and follows his Adam's apple as it jolts up and down in his throat.
Just like her, he's sitting with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest, but his eyes are closed and his breath is ragged. He's always been a bit lean, but now he's gaunt, the outline of his skull more prominent than ever. He's holding her hand and she can feel his bones move when their fingers entwine.
"You were right, though", he continues and there's no malice in his voice, only a deep rumble that makes her think of crashing billows and soothing summer storms, "It's all about slim chances now."
His twang was, without a doubt, the first thing about him that really caught her attention. As someone, who was born in a small-town in Iowa but grew up in Boston, New York, and Chicago, she was accustomed to a different kind of speech melody. She was used to speed and impatience, to syllables and spit drops darting around like bullets.
Naturally, the gentle up and down of his pitch and the way he'd draw out vowels for no apparent reason filled her head with all kinds of stereotypes: cowboys and hillbillies, hard-core Christians and blinkered gun enthusiasts. And even though they weren't that far south, she expected him to be one of those people, who say awduh instead of order and live on moonshine and deep-fried food.
In the end, he just stumbled through his introduction. His hands were sweaty and his face was flushed. He seemed friendly enough, but his gun, uniform, and nervous energy struck her with a vague sense of suspicion. Nonetheless, she was new in town and knew better than to alienate a white cop, so she smiled despite the awkwardness of their encounter until one of the moving guys saved her and yelled across the yard to ask her where he was supposed to put her box of multi-coloured scrub caps.
"I never thanked you", he says, his eyes on the brink of fluttering open again; his thumb trails the length of her pinkie and her heart begins to pound.
"For what?"
"For talking me into it."
He gives her a small, crooked grin. The skin around his eyes crinkles with a rare, gentle kind of mirth. He didn't look at her like that when he finally gave in and agreed to her plan. As a matter of fact, he didn't look at her at all then. He cried – a lot – and it nearly broke her.
She sucks in a breath and keeps it locked in her lungs. It's astounding, really. How losing your family feels like the end of the world, and how the actual end of the world creates new families by tearing old ones apart. It's kind of what happened to the two of them: she lost her boyfriend when the extinction of mankind was still nothing but a science-fiction trope, he lost his wife when it all became real, and now they're hiding in a run-down pharmacy with exhaustion noshing on their limbs and the boy – pale, freckled, and so terribly thin – spinning tales in his sleep.
He's a carbon copy of his father, but his mannerisms remind her of his mother. His tendency to hold a cup with both hands or the way he walks, fast and sure-footed as if he's got somewhere important to be. He's smart, goofy, and stubborn as hell. He's her favourite person in the world, and the man right next to her is a close second.
This man, she thinks.
His face, albeit shrouded by a thick, untamed beard, looks so soft that she wants to reach out and touch it. She doesn't, though, and exhales on a shuddering sigh. It's all there, the things she didn't want to see for so many years. The reverence and the astonishment, free and genuine and tinctured with copper salt blue.
There are times when she can't meet his eyes because she fears it might overwhelm her, and there are times when she can't look away. Times when Mike and Lori cling to her like dead weights, and times when being close to him makes her feel like she's wrapped up in cotton wool. Like there's a wall around her, not to keep him out but to shield her from the roaring chaos that is often so eager to come and snap at her until she's hollow from within.
"I know it wasn't easy for you. Leaving it all behind. Your home, her grave. But I didn't want to go without you or Carl", she pauses, frowns, and peers down at their hands; he stopped wearing his wedding band months ago and for a moment, she wonders if he threw it away or if he kept it somewhere in his room and took it with him when they abandoned his house this morning, "I guess I'm selfish like that."
He huffs out a quiet laugh, picks up her hand, turns it, and kisses her palm. It's his boldest move yet and she needs a second to try and figure out what that means, but the tenderness of his smile disintegrates her thoughts.
"You're the least selfish person I know", he says, "Remember when you saved that asshole with the leather jacket? He was drugged out of his mind, called you names, and you still made sure he was gonna live."
She inclines her head. Unbeknownst to him, she doesn't remember much about that particular patient. What she does remember is the other guy, who'd burned half of his face in the car crash and screamed until he passed out. What she does remember are the cops and firefighters, the flocks of paramedics and rubbernecks.
What she does remember is him, standing a couple of feet further down the street. Blinking at her, his cheeks and forehead a canvas for the blazing fire and chopped-up emergency lights. Staring at her, slack-jawed and motionless as if someone had slapped him across the face.
"I took an oath", she mutters eventually, pushing the memory back into the furthest corner of her mind.
"Yeah, but you could've asked one of your colleagues to take over", his smile broadens and his brows twitch upwards, "You didn't."
He rubs her pinkie again and her spine shakes with a slight tremor. She's used to a pat on the shoulder, the occasional fist-bumps and low-fives. To helpless stuttering and shy glances – not this. She pulls her hand away while the shadows – the graves and the bones that sleep there – press down on her until her shoulders slump in defeat.
It's too much, always has been, and it turns out that she still doesn't know how to deal with him and his gigantic heart. She feels crowded all of a sudden, and fiddles with the left drawstring of her parka to distract herself, but the man right next to her is anything but easy to ignore.
His stare is unyielding, tickling the side of her face like a friendly itch. He's relentless in his fascination with her, and so good. So protective of his son, so determined to keep him alive no matter what it takes. She thinks about Mike and how he fought and fell and drowned.
"I was selfish when my boyfriend died", she croaks, "Too obsessed with my career. I thought he was just going through a rough patch, but then – "
She stops, almost irritated by the quiver in her voice. She ends up flinching when his thumb comes up to rest against her cheek. That's when she realises that she's crying. And even though she's keenly aware of the fact that this is not the right time, she allows herself to have this and cries a bit harder when he starts to stroke her face.
"What was he like?" he asks.
There's beauty in his fierceness, his sunken cheeks and the streaks of dirt that cover his face. He catches her tears and she can't help herself when she leans into his touch, causing his fingertips to brush and settle at her jaw. She sniffles and bows down to a sad smile.
"The nurses were crazy about him because he respected the hell out of them, and the kids loved him because he was funny. They used to call him Super-Doc. Our fridge was plastered with drawings of him wearing a bright red cape."
She looks at the marred ceiling and swallows against the lump in her throat. In some way, this is exactly what Mike's death did to her. In some way, it punched a hole into her chest and left her bleeding all over the place. She shifts her attention to the boy and the incoherent nonsense that unspools in his mouth.
"He was kind and sensitive", she says, "He would've been a great father."
She doesn't tell him more than that. She doesn't have to because he gets it, and she doesn't squirm out of his grip when he topples forward. She doesn't shrink back when his lips, chapped but warm, bump against hers. She keeps him in place with her hand at his nape, grasping at his matted curls.
A gasp explodes out of him and dies on her tongue. There's no need for either of them to take control. No need for him to dominate her and no need for her to show him who's boss. They're equals. They weave their roots together and sway in unison.
He pulls her in and she can taste the tea and dried berries they had earlier. She can feel his heart ramp and rage in his chest. She can feel his hands on her neck and waist, and the cotton wool as it winds itself around their bodies. The pressure of his mouth and tongue turn her brain into butter, and she starts to claw at him because she's scared and desperate and because there's no guarantee that they'll ever have the chance to see this through. She breaks it off with a kiss to his forehead.
Choking out a sob, he lets his face slump down into the crook of her neck. He loves her, she knows that. She's known it for a while, felt it crash through her whenever he looked at her and burn her alive whenever they touched. She felt it grow behind her ribs whenever he called her by her name.
His lashes graze her skin and his breath evens out. She looks at the ceiling again, at the raindrops that spill from it like gleaming sparks. Around dawn, the wool will come loose and the road will return to cloud their minds and lap up their hopes and dreams. Around dawn, the road will –
"Fuck the road", she whispers into his hair, not quite sure if he's still conscious enough to hear her.
He's warm and heavy in her arms, and she squeezes him lightly. He's more – more than her dead boyfriend, more than anything she ever expected. He's hers. He's everything. He makes her feel safe. He's been right next to her even before the world collapsed and crumbled to dust. She smiles, buries her nose in his hair, and listens to the rain.
The next one-shot should be up soon-ish. Jealous!Rick is coming and I can already tell you that it's going to be a lot less gloomy than this depressing pile of nonsense.
Anyhoo, thanks for reading!
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Quotes/References
1) I'm low-key obsessed with English accents and dialects, which is why I wasted about two paragraphs on Rick's twang.
2) In this universe, Michonne was born in Grinnell, which is a city in Iowa.
