Cabin Pressure
A/N Just because we need more Rick/Beth stories.
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Rick gripped the stock of his rifle and ran as hard as possible over snapping twigs, thick branches and dead leaves. The steady crunch crunch crunch sound at every footfall beat a cadence as he listened intently to the Walker snarls and groans behind him. To his right, Beth Greene kept pace. A bird flew overhead, swiftly fleeing the same scene that Rick and Beth had escaped. A hoard of Walkers, at least thirty strong chased them through the forest, their undead grunts echoing through the trees.
"Come on!" he shouted to Beth, taking a sudden left. He reached out and grabbed her hand, yanking her along.
He was out of breath, lungs burning heavily as he tried to gulp down any available air. The Georgia humidity had already plastered Rick's hair to his forehead, brown tendrils curling over his eyebrows. He swiped at them with his forearm, successfully removing the drops of sweat that had threatened to blind him.
They'd been running for a good fifteen minutes before Rick sensed the absence of Walker noise. He dared not look back; the last time he looked back while being chased, he almost ran into a low hanging branch. They reached a clearing and he snuck a quick glance at Beth. She looked at him, then behind her. She nodded.
Ok, then, he thought. We might not die tonight after all.
"There!" Beth said hoarsely and pointed.
The faint figure of a building lay up ahead just across the open area, at the edge of the next set of trees. All things being equal, Rick had no choice but to try and take cover there. It might be chock full of Walkers, but he couldn't keep running. It was their only chance. He gestured to Beth and they spent the last of their energy making it to the door. Rick stood to one side, Beth to the other. He cocked the rifle and kicked the door in. Beth held her machete at the ready and they entered the cabin, looking this way and that to make certain it was clear of the undead.
The cabin consisted of only two rooms and two closets, so there wasn't anywhere for a Walker to hide. The place was a ramshackle mess and had obviously been looted many times before. Almost every item of use had been taken or abused and left behind. Trash littered the floor. Rick grabbed a chair and secured the door as best as he could. There were two bolt locks still working and he engaged them along with the locks on the windows. Light streamed in through the ripped curtains, creating lines on the wooden floor. He pulled the curtains this way and that, trying to shut out the Walkers that may be lurking about, then went into the second room and surveyed the back door. It was locked and bolted with an empty bookcase in front of it for good measure.
Satisfied that the cabin was secure, Rick threw himself onto the floor and focused on his own breathing. A coughing fit overtook him, his dry lungs rejecting the musty air of the cabin. Beth sat down in the corner and leaned her head forward into her hands. It took Rick a few minutes to realize she was crying.
"Hey," he croaked. "Hey."
Beth looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
"We're gonna make it out of this. We've been through worse."
"You really think so?"
Rick didn't answer; he wasn't sure at all. He watched the shadows on the floor and tried to suppress his coughing.
"I've never run that hard for that long before," said Beth. "I thought we were goners. Do you think they followed us here?"
Rick picked himself up and went to the window. Peering out, he saw no sign of Walkers. "Looks clear," he confirmed.
"But tonight—" Beth said. The Walkers could come at any time, especially when they knew fresh meat was somewhere nearby.
"Yeah," said Rick.
"And food?"
"This place looks picked clean," he said. "We're gonna have to stick it out til morning, then go looking for some water, maybe hunt squirrel or a rabbit if there're any left out there."
Beth picked at the floorboards near where she was sitting and pointed one out. "This looks strange, doesn't it?" Rick crawled over to it and saw that the one board didn't seem to fit properly.
"Hold on," he said. He searched the room until he found a fork and used the handle to pry the board loose. It popped up, revealing a space beneath.
"What's in there?"
"Too dark to see," said Rick. He reached in and pulled out a rusty round tin.
"Please let there be stale cookies in it," said Beth.
Rick smiled. "I don't think we'll be that lucky."
He pulled the top off and a wadded stash of bills popped out.
"Great," he said.
Beth laughed out loud. "I don't believe it. Pretty much the last thing we need these days."
Rick tossed the tin aside and reached back into the hole in the floorboards.
"I hope there's no critters hiding down there," said Beth.
He withdrew his arm and this time pulled out the last of the hidden treasure: a dirty magazine.
"Ew," said Beth, scrunching her nose.
"We can always burn it if we need to."
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind burning it, that's for sure."
Rick shoved the magazine back into the floor and replaced the board. It had been so long since he'd seen an adult magazine, he wasn't so sure the first thing he wanted to do with it was destroy it. No, he had other things in mind, but he had to wait until Beth retired for the night.
An uncomfortable silence fell between them, though Rick knew Beth was not a sainted angel as her outward appearance suggested. She'd had a relationship with Jimmy before Rick and his group had even met her, and Herschel had complained about having to watch out for the pair who were often caught "fooling around". She'd dated Zach at the prison, but since then she'd been alone. Rick often wondered if perhaps Daryl had his eye on her, but there was no evidence of Beth being interested.
So why did Rick suddenly feel like a teenager again? Beth was almost twenty, and Rick had already seen his best years. The heady sensation of youthful interest sparked inside him and he recalled a time when he had been caught with a men's magazine by a young girlfriend. He's stolen it from his father's stash and forgot she was coming for a visit and there it was, the offending tome, sitting right on his nightstand in plain view. He learned fairly quickly after that how girls generally felt about those kinds of periodicals. Many women he'd dated seemed to assume he had a subscription but they didn't appreciate having to come face to face with the evidence. Whoever had hidden this magazine had the right idea – Rick wished he'd come up with the floorboard solution when he was a youth.
"What are you thinkin' about?" asked Beth, her voice suddenly sounding in the room and jolting Rick from his memories.
"Oh, nothin'," he said. "Just the past."
"Me too," she said. "I spend a lot of time there in my head."
"I don't blame you." Rick lay back on the floor, watching the ceiling. Beth slid over and lay next to him, her arm barely grazing his. He raised his head an inch in question, but Beth just stared upward.
"Not exactly the stars," she said, pointing to the rotting roof.
"We better watch out for spiders," he said. There were a lot of cobwebs lurking above, and Rick was not in favor of waking up with a spider hovering over his face.
Beth shivered.
"Cold?"
"No, just a bit freaked out."
"Over spiders? They're the least of our troubles."
"Doesn't mean I still can't be afraid of 'em."
"Just don't scream if you see one; we don't need company."
The sun had begun to set in earnest and there was precious little light in the room, so Rick hurriedly looked for candles or anything they could burn (besides the reading material). He still had a lighter he'd lifted from a home the week before, but they'd used the last of their candles.
"We need some light in here. Help me find a candle or some wood or something," he said. Beth got up and rummaged through the drawers and cabinets and finding nothing, went into the second room to continue her search.
Rick pried the floorboard up again and picked it apart with the tine end of the fork until he had a bit of kindling to lay the rest of the board in. He grabbed the magazine and pulled out the subscription cards (thank goodness there were always so many subscription cards stapled into magazines) and prepped the cast iron stove. Remnants of charred wood sat inside the belly of the stove, and Rick added the new pieces, then lit it.
Beth returned with a paperback book and some cardboard. "Will these help?"
"Thanks," he said and took the items. They might have enough for an hour or two, depending on how tightly he rolled the paper from the book.
"Is that an oil lamp?" Beth asked. She pointed to a shelf where a fat blue lamp sat nestled against some knick-knacks.
"Good eye," Rick said and reached out to her to pat her on the shoulder but thought better of it with his hand halfway to its goal. He pulled back awkwardly and busied himself looking for an extra chair. Beth didn't seem to notice his gesture or was mercifully hiding the fact that she had. She stood silently watching Rick climb up to retrieve the lamp.
"This thing must have been up there for years, look at all the dust," he said. A thick grey coating of dust covered the lamp and Beth reached up and drew a "B" in it with her index finger.
"Gross," she said, holding up her finger which now sported a giant wad of fluff. She rubbed it off on her jeans. "I better find something to clean it with. Is there any oil left in it?"
Rick turned it around in his hands. "A little – maybe enough to last a couple of hours at most."
"Better than nothing," she said.
"Good thing you spotted this; we can save the other stuff in case we need to stay another night." He put out the fire in the stove and instead lit the lap. A warm glow bathed the room.
"It's almost romantic," Beth said.
Rick looked at her questioningly.
"The light, I mean." She fidgeted.
"It would be if this place weren't so –"
"Fucked up?"
He raised his eyebrows at her choice of words. "Exactly. Fucked up."
She smiled.
Rick rubbed the back of his neck, and Beth moved over to him and replaced his hand with hers.
"What are you doing?" he asked, a bit more huskily than he expected.
"It's time you relaxed a bit, Officer Grimes. You've done enough for one night. Just sit back and relax."
Beth guided Rick over to a chair and proceeded to massage his neck and shoulders. Rick felt guilty for allowing it, but it felt so good he just didn't want it to ever end. It wasn't so much thrilling to have her soft hands on him, but he had not been touched by a female in over a year and realized how much he missed it. Human contact these days was few and far between and best kept that way considering most "people" wanting to touch anyone also wanted to rip out their throats. Rick kept to himself and the only embraces he'd had in months were from Carl.
He didn't know if Beth was simply wanting to be kind or if she had an ulterior motive. She'd mentioned the romantic look of the lamplight but that didn't have to mean anything. Surely she wouldn't be trying to send him a message? Rick felt vulnerable and uneasy with Beth's attentions as her hands ghosted along his neck and into the front of his shirt. He was sure she could feel his chest hair and wondered if she was pushing the boundaries on purpose.
"You better take this off," she said, and reached around to open his top button.
"My shirt?" he asked lamely.
"Yes, your shirt. I can't properly ply my trade here with all this fabric in the way."
"Your trade."
"Right."
"You're a masseuse now?"
"Well, I could be one. What do you have to know, really?" She kneaded his muscles expertly. "A little of this, a little of that…"
"You're very good, I admit," Rick said, leaning back into the chair and her hands.
"It gets better," she said and Rick thought her voice had a flirty lilt to it that time.
"Yeah?" he asked, making himself more comfortable in the chair as his jeans grew a bit tighter. He imagined her hands on another part of his anatomy, her long fingers working their magic.
"Mmm hmm," she said and undid another button. She slid her hands inside his shirt and this time there was no doubt that she'd meant to, and wholeheartedly so. Her fingers tangled in his hair, rubbing and slightly scratching his skin.
"What are you doing to me, Beth?" he asked, his voice betraying his lustful thoughts. Eyes closed, he focused only on her hands and tuned out the rest of the world. He didn't try to think of Lori, he didn't fantasize, he didn't worry about their age difference or any guilt feelings that tried to ruin this moment. Beth wanted to do this, she was the one in control. He wasn't forcing her, he was a passive participant and decided to simply allow her to touch him. She was no longer Herschel's daughter, she was Beth, a woman in her own right. A woman with wants and needs, a woman who knew and trusted Rick with her life.
"Do you like that?" she whispered just behind his right ear, her warm breath tickling the skin.
"God, yes," he said with more passion than intended. He thought he may have gone too far allowing her to see him this way. He'd never been sexual with anyone aside from Lori since he got married. Now there was no one to be faithful to, and Beth was so close, so tempting. Rick gripped the seat of the chair with both hands in order to stay in control. He desperately wanted to grab Beth and kiss her, touch her as she was touching him, but he forced himself to endure the delicious torture of her hands which now roamed freely over his back and shoulders, down his arms and up again. She leaned against his back and brought her lips to his neck, sending a flood of sensation through his body. Her tongue snaked out to lave his skin and he was lost. He released a groan in his throat and gave up on trying to control his hands.
Beth continued her attentions, Rick threading his fingers in her hair and pulling her closer to him.
"Is there anything I can…do for you?"
"As a matter of fact, there is," she said. "You might want to get that dirty magazine first, though. Hopefully the lamp oil will last, I have a few things to show you."
Rick had no doubt Beth Greene would be true to her word.
FIN