this was a birthday gift for my dearest rixonne co-captain, who didn't mind that i wanted to write a rockstar AU for him. he's the bestest mineral ever.

Tara swoops in like a vivid tropical bird exploding through a staid Midwest park, yelling your name loud enough that you can hear her through your headphones so you're not startled. You have to bring up your forearm so she doesn't brain you with her tablet from flailing, and once again you wish you hadn't lost to Glenn in that coin toss on who gets top bunk.

"Yeah, runt?" you sigh after you push her off and sit up so she can show you whatever cute animal video she's stumbled on now.

She shoves her tablet at you, and you see what's got her so worked up.

(picture 1)

You're about to smirk, recalling how Rosita and the other photographers had insisted on dirtying you guys up for the studio portraits, Michonne laughing after every serious take. But then you see the smaller headline, compounded with Shane Walsh's insolent face. "Shit."

Tara's fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, and asks, "You think Rick already knows? Hell, he probably does, they're the ones who were bandmates for five years." She's seen how bad it gets when Rick's prodded about the project he'd cobbled together in his speculated high school sweetheart's garage. Speculated high school sweetheart not being his ex-wife, as it were.

You try on a reassuring smile, not that you know how one's supposed to look like. "It ain't your problem, runt, don't worry 'bout it." Rick, overtly considerate asswipe that he is, would try not to take his issues out on all creation, but at the nearest gun range instead.

You tell her as much, and she nods, partially settled. "Wish you'd stop calling me 'runt' already," she huffs, but she's grinning. "It's okay. Long as nobody else calls me that, though."

The term had been meant as an insult, the sting of Beth departing for the Nashville music scene still fresh on your mind, but not anymore. Tara's in no way a sloppy bassist, and not a bad kid. You will never get why sometimes she takes on the more rabid fans during meet and greets so your anxiety doesn't get too bad, but it's moments like these that remind you she sees you as family.

She pats your arm, scrape of calluses at her fingertips and the scar on her palm from where a guitar string lashed her, and leaves you in a bunk that still smells too new for you to be comfortable, with only malformed memories for company.

The drive back from Vancouver to Atlanta is uneventful, everyone's verve exhausted up from the month on the road. You bug Tyreese by tossing him Canadian change for him to pay into tollgates, insisting that the damn machines only read the metal content and not the actual currency, whatever. "It just ain't right, anyway," he sighs, even after he's flipped the coin in and revved up the bus.

"Are you teasing the poor man again?" Michonne asks as she comes up to them, barefoot with her locks in a bun on her head, shower-soft. You're having trouble remembering if you've ever wanted anyone more.

"Jus' gettin rid of the alien money," you mutter, and she laughs, kisses your cheek.

In a lower tone she says, "My parents are gonna meet me with Andre," happiness like stage lights liquefied and poured into her veins. "We should all head out for lunch, after."

"You should be askin Rick bout that," you answer, your ears turning an incriminating red.

Michonne smiles, and what she tells you is downright mortifying, "You have a better claim on him than I do, babe. Now scooch, I want shotgun."

You can't get out of your seat fast enough.

There's nowhere to turn. Maggie and Glenn are probably in your bunk (again), or Tara and Rosita, or hell, both lovebird pairs are abusing the sleeping quarters, who the fuck knows. Noah and Eugene are still blacked out on the floor from the jaegerbombs last night, and Carol is talking to Sophia on the phone. She can only offer a passing 'hey pookie' before departing with a Snickers from the mini-fridge.

Merle doesn't call you, not anymore, and you don't want him to. Even after losing his hand on that SS insignia-emblazoned bike of his, there's not much driving you to your brother other than a shared set of childhood traumas, a desire to retreat into the woods with only your hunting bow and the stars for company. Christ, right now you badly miss when life was quiet.

"Daryl?"

You realize you've been glaring at your bottled water in the middle of the kitchenette, and Rick is standing here with you, looking like he's not sure if he should frown or smile. And shit, you've always made sure to not be alone in a room with him since. Well.

"Sorry," you say, and start chugging down water so you don't have to hold a conversation. Rick is staring a little too intensely at how your throat moves and goddamnit, he's not supposed to remember that he went down on you from the front seat of a crappy Honda, or that you returned the favor. You'd both sworn to never even think of it again.

You're about to extricate yourself from the situation when he asks, "Got any smokes?"

Rick hasn't smoked since his time with Kings, playing rhythm guitar to Shane's baritone drawl, a Lucky Strike tucked on his ear. But you humor him with a snort. "Is Abe's hair ginger like a leprechaun convention?" you say, trading obvious question for obvious question, and Rick's laugh lightens the mood. You push open the little window at the end of the bus and light up together, cursing at the Washington DC cold.

This doesn't seem too bad. You'd thought that the months-long Cold War had destroyed any chances of normality ever again. But Rick is showing you videos of Judith clinging to a drawer to get to her feet, Carl's baseball team collecting a win, living vicariously through pixels. None of them contain Shane, and you're grateful Lori's seen to that.

Then Rick sucks at his lip ring while glaring at his phone, a thoughtless motion that lasts all of two seconds but glues itself to your eyelids with a tiring, familiar vengeance.

There were clear warning signs tailing you, same as the homeless guy at the passing Greyhound station with a cardboard sign that read, 'Everybody needs a little help now and then.' It doesn't seem fair, that your subtext should become text, that messages should rain down from the sky and appear on the sidewalk before you, because you've always cultivated an air of mystery, even to yourself.

But this is the truth: In a rented car somewhere in Ocala, five months ago, you and Rick fucked around.

Five months ago, fucking around with Rick even though you both wanted Michonne kinda fucked you up.

The last thing Michonne needed to see was you on your third day without sleep, running on nothing but caffeine fumes and cancer sticks, power bars bought while wearing sunglasses and a Tigers cap at nine PM. You had stolen the car Rick rented to drive you to the gig, and those assholes really shouldn't have left the keys in the ignition. The outskirts of this city stank of scorched rubber and metal, and the road shimmered where it funneled into the horizon.

And somehow, Rick still found you, pinched face and shadowed eyes and michonne's been worried sick about you. you promised you'd at least text if you had to get away.

You wouldn't speak, or let him drive, and his agitation grew until he jerked the wheel from your hands to pull onto the shoulder, crunching through the dry brush. That's when you screamed, you ain't supposed to look for me, ain't supposed to care, voice cracking from disuse.

A punch would have been understandable; anticipated, really. Except when Rick jerks you forward, it's to whip open your belt, contort his whole body over the stick shift and bite your stomach, a rebuke in and of itself.

It spoke to your disconcerted frame of mind that all you could think of was, 'the rumors about him and shane aren't rumors after all.' Or maybe you were doing your best to protect yourself from the situation.

stupid, so stupid, why won't you see, he breathed out, muffled and somehow hotter than the world outside, and you'd ask him what it is you can't see except he's made sure he wouldn't be able to reply, and you wouldn't be able to think of asking at all.

Once it was over for you both and you were trying to swallow the strange taste left in your mouth, you were still mostly turned on and a lot confused, because Rick wanted Michonne and she wanted him back. Remembering this fact made something in your chest snap like cheap pencil lead, and you looked to Rick for an explanation but he kept staring somewhere to the left of you, expression closed off and strange.

You've never tried to mention it since, but somehow, you're sure Michonne knows.

You're about to record bonus tracks for Too Far Gone's rerelease sometime next year when Michonne asks, "Would you guys mind if I did a piano-only version of something I've been working on?"

"You've been working on a song without me?" Glenn squawks loud enough to fill the entire live room, affronted, and Tara chortles from where she's fiddling her bass on the floor beside you.

"She's got more talent in her big toe than all of you, dude," she says, busting up at the hangdog expression Glenn gets. You twirl your sticks around, pretending to whale on Glenn's prostrate body on the couch.

Maggie pats her husband's thigh, but her pinging phone diverts her attention. "Hey, Bethie sent me this piece," she says, waving the sickly bright screen around for you to read.

(picture 2)

"It's pretty good for something Abe took," Tara decides, and Michonne laughs, agrees that Rick looks quite the silver fox in that photo. You patter out a Dream Theater trill on the wall's soundproofed paneling, not wanting part in this discussion at all.

Maggie's still quotes parts of the article she finds riveting when Michonne sits beside you. "Is Rick coming?" she asks, and you shrug. She answers her own question anyways. "Probably out with the kids. He hasn't seen Carl and Judith for a while."

You nod, moving on to the Beach Boys, twirling a stick every now and then, and add cautiously, "How's Andre?"

Michonne smiles like you knew she would, a line easing out of her forehead. "He's awesome. Never stops talking now that he's learned how to."

There something very wrong with you, using a toddler as bait to make Michonne smile, the kind of smile that makes you forget all over again that the two of you are not alone in the world.

"You'll tell me if the song sucks, 'kay?" she prompts you, nudging your sprawled leg with a knee, and you huff.

"It can't suck, you wrote it."

Michonne's smile goes fond, something disconcerting and warm spreading out in your chest. "You're too sweet. But you definitely have to tell me what you think of it."

You frown. There's a strange undercurrent of urgency to her voice that doesn't compute, but then Carol pops her head in and says, "Shall we start?"

Everyone crowds into the control room, but it's spacious enough for you to goof off. You tap out a beat on Carol's shoulder while she's fiddling with the mixing consoles, ducking away when she tries to pinch your ribs.

In the sound booth, Michonne has seated herself at the grand piano. You don't often lug that instrument on tours, so you don't get to see her play much, save for now. You only become aware that Rick has entered the room when he stands beside you, tips of his ears and nose still red from the cold, and you're about to ask him how he is when Michonne starts singing.

would you bleed for me? she croons into the mic, fingers gliding over the black and white keys. lick it off my lips like you needed me? would you sit me on a couch with your fingers in my mouth? you look so cool when you're reading me.

Something like crushed glass in your throat, your heart doing a double take. Half the topics of your songs are about love when they're not about end-of-the-world scenarios, this is nothing new. But the melancholy of the hammers hitting the piano's strings, the look on Michonne's face, the fact that what she's singing is giving you complete déjà vu— you can be excused. A quick glance at Rick shows that he must be remembering the same night, mouth half-open and curled up.

And then she hooks on the second refrain: and i've got my mind made up this time. Michonne's eyes drift open and land on yours, and she continues, go on and light a cigarette, set a fire in my head, set a fire in my head tonight.

You can feel yourself burn up like a kid caught with dirty mags, and you snap your head around to find Rick giving you the same stare and all you can think is 'huh.'

You turn away so it won't get any worse, Michonne's voice ringing clear as a bell, as lovely as anything tangible in the world.

This is years ago, before Andrea suggested the name for the band, when Beth still loved the music you made together, when you were burning demos on Dale's laptop to send to local radio stations, when Rick was still trying to salvage what was left of Kings with Shane.

Glenn knew Rick from college, and had stayed friends with him throughout his sudden rise to stardom, which would explain why such a high-profile guitarist was hanging out in Glenn's backyard for the Fourth of July. You remember that he and Michonne had a vehement argument on who exactly began rock n' roll, and that Rick smiled, disarming and more relaxed than you'd ever seen him, when Michonne started playing Rosetta Tharpe on Beth's guitar.

The three of you shared beers and s'mores, discussing nothing and everything. Michonne cackled when one of Glenn's sisters took a look at Rick and deadpanned, "The White Stripes are a better duo than yours," Rick shrugging it off as a true gentleman. Everyone standing with their backs to you as you reclined in a lawn chair, and you were left with silhouettes that only colored when fireworks hooked across the black sky.

'so this is what family's supposed to feel like,' you thought, watching Glenn flirt with Maggie in such a stilted, endearing manner, Carol coming towards you for a hug that didn't ratchet up your anxiety like you feared it would. This was yours, for as long as you had until entropy tears it apart, because nothing good you've ever had has survived.

You were looking for the bathroom, Glenn's house turned into a minotaur's maze while you were drunk, and on the liv-ing room couch Michonne and Rick were necking like teenagers, messy hard deep.

Mike had dropped off the radar, and Rick's band was falling apart at the same time and pace as his marriage, which was more than an unhappy coincidence. Rick and Michonne were well within their rights to want each other, the life rock stars led, music and overhead lights and smoky rooms, sex like a reckless mistake. It shouldn't have phased you, except you felt like you were fighting off a vicious fever, not sure if it was your temperature or the weather that was a hundred degrees that night.

Ever since then, you have been shadowed, stuck on the picture of Rick thumbing Michonne's lips open with his face tipped up, Michonne's hand disappearing by inches into Rick's curls, stuck on your two friends, who are stuck on each other.

Your Atlanta apartment is nine flights away from the rest of humanity, just as you should be. Right now you're on the fire escape even if it's a colder winter than usual, counting lit windows in the office buildings, which is only slightly less futile than counting stars.

T-Dog had once told you, right before he quit, "Our whole situation is so fucked up. All we ever see is each other. It's all very pathological and codependent and I don't wanna be that way for the rest of my life." Like the concurrent disintegration of those around you because it was no fun going joyfully crazy alone was wrong. Like having people that would walk into traffic for you, kick your ass for landing yourself in the hospital over one little strip light so you'll never do that again, sharing Skittles for dinner at one a.m. was so wrong.

You've defined yourself by what you do, who you surround yourself with, so much so that you're no good between shows, waiting for the next songwriting sessions, the next year-long tour. You've never had anything else worth this much, and you're not letting this go anytime soon. Never mind that you're a right mess without music, because what you are away from your band isn't worth writing down.

The phone rings and you have to fumble in your depthless jacket pocket before finding it, hitting accept without checking who it is. "Yeah?" you mumble around your cigarette.

"You never told me what you thought of the song."

It's Michonne, an unrestrained mirth in her tone that closes up your airway. Dangerously confused, marooned in memories that aren't yours to keep, but you can hear her steady breaths, and it strikes you as something very important to remember.

"You said the title's 'Trouble,' right?" you ask, and try to steady yourself when she confirms it. You're thinking about Rick's tongue in the cut where your leg meets your body, Michonne's weight on your chest when you were just starting out and crowding together in a crummy old van for sleep. You think about the song, and both their eyes weighing on you, waiting for you to catch up.

Michonne says your name, hesitant like she never is, and you admit, fingers crossed and braced for impact, "I think I'm in trouble too."

It's quiet for a long moment, Michonne heedless of your head splitting, your mouth bone-dry. "Good," she finally says, and there's a burbling little-kid laugh from her end, Andre trying to get his mama's attention. "We'll see you at Tara's for Christmas, okay?"

You know that 'we' means 'her and Rick,' and in a way it's a revelation that should bewilder you, like you've woken up into a mirror image of the world where your demon tattoos are on your other shoulder blade, and you sign autographs with your left hand instead of your right. But instead you stand up on the gridded metal, balancing precariously as you stretch, not that it matters because there's not a thing that could bring you down right now.

"I'll be there," you promise her, if only to tell yourself that this is happening, this is real.

A still dusk on a clear sea. The whitewater crests resting at low tide, the sand clams spouting on Tara's private Long Beach abode. Ocean waves have always fascinated you, and when you glance at Rick's eyes narrowed in concentration while he's skipping stones, you're reminded of why that is.

"New Year's is tomorrow. Your birthday a few days after that."

You grunt at Rick's words, still not quite able to look at him fully. He's lost the curls, and the beard, so he's reverted to how he was when you first met him and Shane: pretty enough to murder.

Beside you, Carl hurls one last pebble, then straightens to grin at you. "Dad says we've gotta stay here longer, which is awesome."

Rolling your eyes, you kick a wide arc of sand at him, nearly losing your smoke when he steps out of the way to jostle you instead. Good reflexes on the kid must come from all that baseball. "You got a present for me, then?"

Carl's grin gains unbelievable smugness. "You'll see." He spots someone behind you, and waves. You turn to see Michonne carrying Judith, Andre bounding behind her.

"It's getting dark out, boys, and your lady's been looking for you," Michonne says, holding out Judith for Rick to cradle, and once again you're viscerally struck by how complete they look, a proper family. It keeps happening, and each time feel like a fifth wheel ready to wobble off a perfectly sound carriage, or something. You're not one for lyrical metaphors.

Then Michonne lifts her head and calls out to you, "Coming home anytime soon, baby?"

It's more than you thought you'd ever get, Andre hanging off your shoulders, fascinated by your angel wing vest, Michonne gently knocking her hip against yours because you're walking so close together. Rick's sea-tempered eyes staring at the both of you like he's trying to etch this moment permanently in his mind, and you snuff out your cigarette on the sand by stomping on it, grinning hard when Andre scolds you for littering, sounding exactly how his mother would.

Lori flies home ahead with Judith after New Year's, though she does hug you and whisper at a conspiratorial volume, "Enjoy the present," leaving you even more intrigued as to what it is.

The present turns out to be a bike, for fuck's sake, a customized Yamaha that Carl unveils with a flourish in Tara's drive-way. It hits something in you like rain on tin, sunrise from a rooftop, everything momentary and irreplaceable and carved out of sound and space, rendering you incapable of speech.

Everyone's cheering, raising their beers as you stroke the handlebars, still not quite sure of what to do until Michonne presses the keys into your palm. "Guys," you finally manage, "why—"

"So you can drive off if you need to," Rick supplies, patting the upholstered seat with a hesitant smile and you're dizzy from the sudden need to bend him over it right this minute, jesus. "And you'll always come back to us."

Michonne puts an arm around your waist neck and pulls you close for a minute. You grab at her shirt without meaning to when she presses her lips under your ear, hidden from the room. You shiver hard, feeling the muscles in Michonne's stomach hum under your knuckles when she says, "There are a few more gifts on the way, you'd better hang tight."

You're pretty much useless for the rest of the night, awash in sense-memory and imagination of all the things Michonne and Rick would let you do, until Rick drags you away from whatever mixed drink concoction Dr. S has conceived. "This is me being smart," he tells you, a laugh in his voice, "because if Tara or Glenn tweet about whatever idiocy you'll get up to alongside their own, you'll never hear the end of it."

"My hero," you snicker, and wave at what little of Andrea is visible through the kitchen doorway, sitting on one of the beer coolers, demanding dances and knock-knock jokes from anybody who wants a fresh one. She gives a sly wink and thumbs-up in reply that both mollifies and excites you, which is ridiculous, this is all so ridiculous.

You find Rick's belt and hook your fingers there to steady yourself, tucked against his hip, and only when he covers them with his hand, squeezing while he leads you to the room you know he shares with Michonne, that the gravity of the situation really hits you.

Michonne is wearing exactly nothing on the guest bed, and blood fattens your cock almost painfully, the sound of Rick locking the door behind you like a gunshot in your ears. She's sitting up against the headboard, not posing or hiding, just there, waiting, and so beautiful even in the faint orange glow of the bedside lamp that you just want to stare forever. This must be how she and Glenn feel when they get inspired for their lyrics, like everything can be condensed into some-thing that'll live for centuries.

"Rick was supposed to be the one waiting here, tied up with some nice ribbons" — Rick squeaks and covers his face, which makes you laugh at the same time you're turned on beyond belief by the mental image — "but he got shy about it." Michonne laughs, and inches to the side of the bed, motioning you forward. "Instead here's me. This alright?"

"More'n alright." You voice has hit a register lower than you thought possible, and you pull Rick with you when you walk over to Michonne, badly needing to kiss her, bury your head between her thighs, have her sigh your name.

You're about to ask her permission, when she tuts, "You and Rick haven't kissed and made up yet."

Lord, how are you to survive this night unscathed. Flames are fanning up your stomach already, and you've hardly done anything yet. Rick' still a bit pink from Michonne's statement earlier, when he turns to grasp your arms and his nose is pressed against yours. "I'm sorry I used sex to manipulate you, then froze you out," he says, earnest and sincere, hurt by what you'd done to each other.

And since you don't need to think of that anymore, you say, "Sorry I didn't suck your dick as good as you did mine," taking advantage of his surprised laugh by kissing him. It is, unsurprisingly, the very best first kiss from him you have ever received, Rick's lip ring between your teeth, his breath hitching as he claws at your collar.

Michonne undoes your fly, squeezes you through your boxers so your legs nearly buckle. "God, come here," she says, the first crack in her composure, and you push Rick so he lands beside her, and kiss her just as gracelessly, pure instinct, licking into her mouth. She slides her leg up your side, trapping your bodies fast together so she can ask you, "Wanna watch me fuck him?"

Arousal rollicks through you, a landslide that crashes into your buildings and buries all else that exists. You nod fast and slide to the foot of the bed, Rick already shedding his clothes fast as he can. You watch dumbly as Michonne fits the double-ended dildo first inside herself, then through her harness; Rick stretching himself open with his head buried on the pillows, gasping. You grasp his wrist and force your fingers in alongside his, grinning in triumph when he moans, high and desperate, your own cock twitching in sympathy.

Michonne kisses you. "Good boys," she whispers, and it's not the words that do it for you so much as the tenderness there, and how Rick spasms around the fingers inside him, curses and pleas ripped from his chest. Big, tough Rick Grimes having a praise kink a mile wide is a turn-on beyond belief.

After Michonne directs you to lean against the headboard, Rick's head resting against your thigh, she sinks into Rick without preamble, gazing down at you both with scarcely fettered riots behind her eyes. Her hips move deliberate, measured and so slow Rick is digging his nails into your thigh as he begs, "please, harder," whimpering in relief when she picks up the pace at last.

You move your own fist faster around your erection, wanting to kiss him quiet, wanting to fuck him, wanting to get flipped over on your belly and fucked by Michonne so deep you'll know what Rick's begging for, wanting everything. But Michonne flashes a hungry grin and suggests, "He's getting a little too noisy. Wanna shut him up for me?"

Rick's upside-down red face beams up at you. "Get over here, Dixon," he pants, and you're still not sure of what's going to happen until Michonne gets you on your knees and the head of your cock brushes Rick's lips. You stare down the line of your body with rapt attention at how Rick opens his eager mouth to let you in.

You fuck his face in quick shallow thrusts, the metal line of Rick's lip ring catching on the underside of your cock, gasps snatched out of you. Michonne grabs your jaw and kisses you as she speeds up her hips, Rick gripping your thighs hard enough to bruise as he groans, muffled. You lose breath, lose track of time, lose every foul thought you've ever had that wasn't about this, them, being yours.

Rick comes first, untouched, all over his belly and the white sheets. Michonne fucks him through it until she finishes too, her teeth latching onto your collarbone as she curses. You withdraw from Rick's mouth in little jerks, rubbing at yourself once, twice before spilling on Rick's chest, thunderstruck. This mess of lube and spunk is gonna be really annoying by the time morning knocks, but right now none of you care.

Afterwards, you lay in a sprawl, sticky-handed, mouth-printed, Rick already sleeping the syrup-thick sleep of the besot-ted on your chest. You're about to drift away too, when Michonne comments from your other side, "If we're gonna keep doing this, I'm gonna need a haircut. It bothering me."

You laugh and help her untangle her locks, and half-jest, "We'll get one together, then? All three of us sportin brand new 'dos."

She giggles. "I'll hold you to that." Outside, a truck rumbles by, the moon on the rise, getting ready for spring. Michonne's quiet enough that you think she's dozed off when she starts singing, soft and strong, i think i'm falling asleep but then all that it means is i'll always be dreaming of you.

You greet sleep with a smile, and dream of winding open highways that all lead you home.

(picture 3)