Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Spoilers for 6x12 – This is a story that features Carol/Tobin and his directly based off of their scenes and kiss from the episode. Set during the scene and meant to reference to what could have happened after it faded to black. – Based on the premise that Tobin has a low-key superpower, extreme empathy. Empathy itself is a defined asthe experience of understanding another person's condition from their perspective. But in Tobin's case he feels people's emotions, sensing strong emotions and sometimes being affected by them.
Warnings: adult content, adult language, 6x13 spoilers, mild references to off screen sexual content, nudity, mild sexuality.
Heroogony
Chapter One
"Those things'll kill ya. You got another one?"
"Not for you?"
"Why's that?"
"'Cause, asshole."
"Okay. Couldn't sleep either?"
"I never could sleep."
"I'm worried about tomorrow."
"You going?"
"No. You are. You can do things that just terrify me."
"How? How do you think I do those things?"
"You're a mom."
"Was."
"You are. It's not- it's not the cookies or the smiles. It's just- it's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. It's how you can do it. Strength."
"You are a mom to most of the people here."
"To you too?"
"No. You're something else to me."
He'd been about to go back inside when he'd felt her coming.
Not heard.
Not seen.
Not sensed.
Felt.
Because that was what he did.
For as long as he could remember.
There wasn't no rhyme or reason behind it that he could figure.
He could just sense things and that was that.
From the time he was young he'd always been able to tell what people were thinking. If they were happy, sad, mad or worse. It was usually only strong emotions he could pick up, unless they were touching him. Things like the feral burn of rage or the giddy pleasure of true happiness and mirth. Love. Sadness. The whole package.
His parents had to have known. Known he was different. Because all things considered, being emotionally intuitive was a far cry from being able to do what he could. He sensed and felt things like the emotions were his own. Like he'd been born tuned into an additional signal. Something other people – normal people - didn't pick up on. But being god fearing Americans who'd been and born and raised in the deep south, it just wasn't something his folks talked much about.
It wasn't full on denial or revulsion, but there'd always been a silent rule in the household never to talk about it. He'd toed that line dutifully, not wanting to make waves. Never wanting to. After all, how could he? Not when he could feel the acrid tang of his mother's anxiety day in and day out as she puffed on those menthols of hers. Or worse- the spreading stain of his father's disapproval every minute of every day for having a freak for a son. A son that didn't like the things he did. That preferred to use words instead of his fists and shied away from the whip-crack of his old man's rifle every time his father dragged him out during deer season.
It didn't matter that'd he'd done everything they'd asked. He'd dragged himself through high school, even paid his way through a couple semesters of college. He'd been starting line on a semi-pro football team until a knee injury ended that dream before it'd really started. It was never enough though. And he supposed it'd never been the point either. Still, he'd gone on and done something worth doing with his life. Getting into construction and design before the years passed flicker-quick and the world came crashing down around them.
When he'd been younger he'd tried to ignore it.
Pretend like he was normal.
But it'd never worked.
It was too engrained in who he was.
Hardwired straight to his heart.
It made things easy in a way.
But also hard.
Complicated.
And he wasn't a man that particularly liked complicated.
He reckoned that was the whole definition of irony right there.
The uneasy warmth of her sitting beside him on the porch was familiar.
They'd done it more than once since the walls had come down.
Just talkin'.
He'd gotten used to her moods – what she kept back – between smart words and smiles and the back and forth of stale nicotine that still had the ghost of her taste flirtin' with the edges of the lip-damp paper.
It'd been difficult at first.
Strong feelings had always been a problem for him to navigate through.
It was a balancing act on the best of days and a crap shoot on the worst.
Things like someone else's fear could be too much sometimes. Especially if it was working its way through a crowd. Building itself up into a frenzy until his skin felt five sizes too small and he was a hair's breath away from a heart attack.
After the world ended he figured he'd just gotten used to it. But back in the construction yard, not long after Carol and the others had arrived, Francine's fear had overwhelmed him on a level that made him realize how wrong that assessment had been. He could use his ability as an excuse – cutting himself a bit of slack he figured in that respect he really didn't deserve. But at the end of the day, the truth was he wasn't that confident the difference between his fear and Francine's had been that far apart.
He tried to be better for it though, afterwards.
But Carol?
Well, she was something else altogether.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter, stay tuned.
Reference:
- The title, "heroogony" is a word meaning: "the birth of heroes as a result of a union between gods and mortal women."
- Big thank you to gunslingerdixon for the dialogue from the episode.
