Shane's hands gripped the wooden railing. With a little more effort he could snap the thing into splinters.
A man's life. Maybe a good man, but that didn't matter, Shane guessed. It was a life, a whole life.
Shane still felt the crash of Rick's body against his own when he'd returned from the run. It had seemed less like an embrace and more like Shane was supporting Rick's full weight as the shell-shocked man fell against him. He held Shane close, but the embrace was weaker than Shane remembered it. And when Rick had pulled away, Shane saw that all the color in his face was concentrated to the red of his eyes and the blazing blue within them.
He handed over the medicine, and when he looked down at his empty hand he noticed something strange about them. They weren't shaking, but were still and steady.
When he'd looked up again, Rick had gone, stumbling back inside to deliver the boy the medicine. Lori was left, her own eyes damp with overflowing gratitude as they lingered on Shane a moment before she too went back inside the farm house.
Shane wondered if he should be shaking. Rick had been shaking— shaking badly. Shane had felt it later as he helped his friend up the stairs to the bathroom once the medicine had been administered and Lori had assured Rick that she would stay by Carl's side. Rick had been reluctant to leave the room at first, but his own obvious fatigue and Shane's firm assurances had at last won out.
Rick had been so trusting, so reliant on Shane as he let his friend help him, leaning most of his weight on him as Shane guided him. Shane didn't mind it. Rick was lighter than he remembered.
Shane had lingered in the bathroom until Rick had given the nod that he could take it from there.
There was something about seeing Rick there, swaying on his own legs, struggling it seemed to keep his own head up. Shane had never seen him that way, so helpless.
Now, on the banister outside the bathroom, Shane waited. He gripped the wood railing, not to steady himself, but to brace himself against the strange coursing sensation that had been growing steadily since he'd driven away from the medical compound with one less passenger than he'd arrived with. It was surged through him, causing a tingling sensation to spread in his hands and the muscles in his arms— in his very core. It was growing stronger by the second, threatening to burst from his skin. Earlier, as Shane lead Rick with an arm around around his waiste, he'd feared he might crushed the man from the sheer power that seemed to be consuming him. He'd managed to keep it contained though, focused. Somehow, Shane felt fully in control of it.
His hands twitted around the wood again and Shane remembered Rick in the bathroom. He hadn't heard anything from him in a while.
Releasing the railing, he turned and approached the bathroom, noting how solid his legs felt beneath him.
"Everything still goin' alright in there, Rick?"
When he leaned his head against the door, he heard shuffling and what sounded almost like a struggle inside.
In an instant, Shane burst into the bathroom, arriving just in time to catch Rick as the man was tottering forward. Rick's arms and head were tangled in his upturned shirt. He seemed to have gotten caught mid-way through pulling it off, then lost his balance. If Shane hadn't been there, the dazed man might have knocked his head against the counter and bled out on the tiled floor before anyone could get to him.
He hadn't called out for help as Shane had instructed him to do.
"Help me get this off," Rick mumbled from somewhere in the twisted fabric. The sight of him so helpless made Shane forget the scolding Rick had earned, as well as the odd heat that had risen in himself at the disobedience.
"Yeah, buddy. Hang on." While still supporting Rick, Shane stepped all the way into the bathroom and kicked the door closed behind them. "What are you tryna do, man?" he asked as he peeled the undershirt the rest of the way off of Rick's torso.
Shaking his head as if to clear a fog, Rick righted himself then moved to the tub, where he leaned over to turn on the faucet.
"Whao, whoa, Rick!" Shane followed his movements closely, hand's hovering nearby to catch the man if he slipped.
"S'alright, s'alright." Rick sighed.
"You think it's a good idea to be slippin' around in a tub, the way you are right now? Wanna fall over and knock your head in? Doc already told me if you lose consciousness like this, it's a good chance you might not wake up again. Don't be stupid now, Rick."
Rick's worn voice was so soft beneath the heavy stream of the running water that Shane only realized by the end of his rant that Rick was trying to calm him down.
"Not takin' a bath, Shane. Just…" Laboriously, Rick pushed himself off the rim of the tub to stand. As he swayed, Shane was there.
Heedless of his anxious friend, Rick's hand's moved to his waistband to pry at his belt buckle.
"Rick," Shane said.
Once he'd unfastened the belt, the former deputy sheriff struggled with the buttons of his pants a moment, then froze, sighing deeply.
Shane who was already confused by Rick's determination to undress, was at a further loss by the sudden halt in the process.
He glanced up and saw on the downturned face of his oldest friend a look of such overwhelming defeat and loss that Shane suddenly couldn't move fast enough to help him. He was propelled bodily forward, his hands moving quickly to pick up where Rick's fumbling fingers had faltered. Right now, for whatever misguided reason Rick had formulated in his hazy and blood-depleted brain, he was set on getting his pants off. So Shane, his oldest friend who loved Rick more than any brother he had, was sure as shit going to help him get the goddamn pants off.
To his own surprise, Shane's hands were steady and sure, while Rick's quaked noticeably.
He tugged the zipper and knelt to pull Rick's pants the rest of the way down his legs. The long limbs looked pale and slim. Shane tried not to notice the way they too trembled as Rick carefully stepped out of the leggings, using Shane's shoulders for support.
When Shane's eyes glanced up, he was relived to see the awful anguish from earlier had gone. A distant look replaced it.
Still thinking that Rick meant to bathe, Shane reached up to remove his boxers next. Before he found the elastic waistband however, Rick was gently pushing him aside and kneeling next to the tub. He proceeded to place both the discarded shirt and pants into the steaming water.
Shane watched silently as swirls of pink spread outward from the submerged garments. Rick pressed them down until they were fully soaked and set to scrubbing away at what appeared to be blood. Carl's blood.
Shane could have been invisible then; Rick's attention was so fully trained to his task.
Slowly, Shane stood up and backed away to lean against the countertop. He couldn't help thinking that he too should be washing some blood away. Try as he might, however, he couldn't find a drop of Ottis's blood anywhere on himself. It was as if he'd absorbed the fallen man completely. Now, aside from the few scrapes he'd sustained here and there, Shane was clean. It was laughable how clean he was next to Rick, who was anemic and sweating and all but covered in the blood of his son, and who'd spent his night saving a life.
Shane's eyes traced Rick's back, where dehydration had made the skin cling to muscle. The back and shoulder muscles rippled as Rick vigorously scrubbed his son's blood from his clothes.
The man was working so hard, his breaths harsh and shaky. Some part of Shane thought he should stop him. Thought that maybe, in Rick's state, he shouldn't be exerting himself.
He didn't move though, but stood silently, becoming increasing aware of the quiet calm in his own body.
As Rick labored on the floor beneath him, wrecked inside and out, Shane, who had watched the slow death of a man— had actually made it happen— was completely at ease. Shane's shoulders were lax, breaths deep and full, hands steady, head clear.
It was unreal.
Shane would never forget the first time he killed a man on the force. He'd been a thief and had threatened Shane but it had still rattled him to the core and he'd needed counseling for half a year afterward. Shane remembered how he'd been projected from his body after it happened, how he'd felt like he was floating. He couldn't find his feet and for months felt like he was slipping away from reality. This was different. Ottis hadn't done anything to deserve what he'd got, but Shane felt nothing like regret. There was only this deep, reverberating sense of calm. It leveled and empowered him. Shane didn't think he'd every felt so firmly rooted in his skin.
And again there was Rick at his feet, a shell— less than a shell— a ghost, formless, malleable.
Shane imagined pressing Rick's head down into the shallow water. With the faucet running hard and Rick as consumed in his task as he was, the former deputy wouldn't see it coming. In his condition, he certainly couldn't fight it. If he had any voice left to scream, it would be drowned out. The others would believe that he'd tried to bathe and slipped. Rick had no idea how vulnerable he was there, how much raw power stood in check at his back.
As if sensing Shane's gaze, Rick turned then and those radiant blue eyes were suddenly fixed all on him. They were shimmering with moisture and seemed to glow brighter from within their bruised red lids. Rick's lips were parted and he looked more tired than Shane had ever seen him.
He was speaking in a voice that sounded as broken as he looked, and pointing to something behind Shane.
Mechanically, Shane looked to where Rick was indicating and saw the small bar of soap on the rim of the sink. Distantly, he realized Rick was asking for it.
Shane handed it to him.
When Rick took it, he turned away again, leaving his bare back exposed once more and Shane watching him.
For a while, Rick kept working as if Shane wasn't even there. His tired fingers wore at the blood as if ridding his clothes of the stains would rid his boy of the injury— or more, undo the entire event so that Carl had never been shot in the first place. If Rick could someone reverse the last twenty-four hours, he would save two lives. In that event, Shane would not be standing there, would not be consciously aware of the not-unpleasant tingling in his knuckles where he'd punched Ottis with all of his strength to dislodge the man. He would not now be feeling this heady calm that extended from the top of his head down through his feet, rooting him were he stood and enforcing his presence.
Shane didn't want to undo any of it.
When Rick was done, the bathwater was nearly opaque with crimson.
Shane held Rick steady by the arm as the man rose to his feet.
Rick seemed to want to keep moving, proceed to the next thing, but Shane persuaded him to stay and rest there a while.
As Shane wrung out the clothes and hung them over the shower rod, he heard labored breaths behind him.
Rick was sobbing.
Instantly Shane rounded on him, enveloping Rick in his arms and shushing him gently. Rick was a depleted, shrunken thing in Shane's firm, shielding embrace. It wasn't difficult to imagine again how easily he could crush him, just snap his ribs with a little more pressure. Of course, Shane wouldn't do that. In that moment he felt an overwhelming responsibility to use his new power coursing through him to protect the man in his arms.
Shane held Rick solidly until his sobbing calmed, then pulled away to stand beside him again, their shoulders gently touching as a reminder to Rick that he was there with him.
For some time they both stared at the was a residual reddish ring around the inside of the porcelain, which Shane said Rick could come back and clean after he'd gotten some rest. Rick protested a little but gave in.
They remained there leaning against the counter, as if waiting for the clothes to dry. Shane didn't point out to Rick the missing logic in washing all of his clothes and leaving only his boxers to walk around in. He supposed he couldn't exactly claim to be the arbiter of logic himself at the moment and didn't bring it up.
"Thirsty. Fuck. So thirsty," Rick croaked, swaying beside him.
Shane was quick. He turned to the sink and ran the water. Making a bowl with his hands, he collected water from the tap in his palms and brought it to Rick's lips.
"Come on now, Rick. Drink up, brother."
Rick opened his mouth readily, trusting, reliant. As Shane tilted his hands up to allow Rick to sip from them, however, more water seemed to pour around Rick's mouth than in it. Shane tried again but the angle paired with Rick's apparent loss of basic swallowing functions, made it impossible. Finally, with a hand clasped gently behind Rick's neck, Shane guided his friend's head down to the faucet head.
As Rick settled in the bent position, Shane moved his other hand to cradle his head so he could rest there as he drank.
It was laughable how gently Shane was handling the other man, when he'd come from such brutality not so long ago. The same hands that clenched into fists and battered Ottis into submission and pried his pack from his hands, now slowly traced the ridges of delicate vertebra visible on the back of Rick's neck.
Did Rick know how easy it would be for Shane to wrap his fingers around his neck and squeeze until he couldn't breath? Did he know how little force it would take for Shane to just slam the butt of his gun against the tender crown of his head, washing the remainder of his life-blood down the drain, leaving his son fatherless and wife widowed once more. Rick didn't know. He was completely in Shane's hands and he didn't know how precarious a place that was to be.
"S- hot. It's hot— Shane," Rick gasped bellow him, his eyes scrunched tight as the splash hit his face.
Noticing the rising steam, Shane realized his mistake, shut off the hot water valve and turned on the cold one instead. Rick's mouth went slack then as he collected more than sucked from the cool stream. He looked more relaxed and peaceful than Shane had seen him in weeks. When the eager bobs of his Adam's Apple slowed, Shane carefully lifted Rick to a standing position and began drying his face. Despite how lightly Shane pressed the cloth to his skin, Rick rocked backward from the impact and would have likely toppled over without Shane's sturdy hold on the back of his head.
The water had splashed onto Rick's hair and eyes, and now clung to his already sweat-logged curls and lashes. Shane wiped his face like a mother wiping smears from the face of a messy eater. Rick didn't seem bothered by the thoroughness, though his cheeks and lips blossomed with color as the course material passed over them. In fact, Rick seemed hardly present, staring through his friend as the larger man tended to him. Whatever occupied his mind while he'd been scrubbing at his uniform earlier had evidently taken him again.
Shane swore he'd wiped Rick's eyes at least three times now but water continued to bead and leak from the clumping lashes.
"Hey, it's alright. It's alright now," He soothed. "Got the medicine. Everything's gonna be just fine." Shane wiped at the new streams on Rick's face. His eyes trailed down past trembling lips to the damp neck and chest, where water had dripped down.
Rick was curling inward, his head sinking down onto Shane's shoulder as if seeking shelter. The act made him seem even smaller to Shane who was still fully clothed and in his boots. He didn't know if it was just in his mind, but he felt larger now than when he'd left for the supplies, like he'd absorbed the life of the fallen Ottis and now both physically and spiritually loomed larger.
Rick's shoulder's were rising and falling rapidly as his breath hitched and quaked. Shane patted him and told him everything was fine. Idly, his eyes followed a trail of water pooling in Rick's collar bone, then dripping down his bare chest.
Rick was babbling.
"Was either— was either him or— him or me." Rick was saying between painful hikes in his breath. "Was gonna give him— all I— all I had left. Even then it might not have…If you hadn't— If you hadn't come when you did…Jesus, Shane. My-my…my boy. I almost l-lost…"
Shane felt moisture seep through the fabric of his shirt where Rick's face was nuzzling against him. Something tugged at his side and he realized one of Rick's hands had come up to grasp his shirt in a kind of weak embrace.
Shane still patted at Rick with the towel, seeking to perform a function of some normalcy while his mind soared with thoughts that were anything but that.
"Shane," Rick said again, lifting his head with some apparent difficulty to look his best friend in the eye. The streams beneath his eyes had returned.
Again, Shane looked into the blazing blues and saw that naked trust. Rick wanted so desperately to thank him, but he couldn't organize his words. Shane hushed him softly.
He continued pressing the towel to the excess water dribbling in rivulets down Rick's torso. When the rough linen caught on a nipple, the tender nub snapped back and flushed a deeper maroon. Shane lamented how abrasive the towel must have felt against the sensitive skin, which looked alarmingly tender and vulnerable to Shane. Skin like that should only be handled with care.
"Sh-Shane," came a soft rasp.
Shane's attention was drawn to the weakened fingers that had left his shirt and now wrapped ghost-like around his wrist, tugging almost imperceptibly at his hand. Shane didn't know how long he'd been rolling Rick's nipple beneath the pad of his thumb.
The subtle contact seemed to have a disorienting effect on Rick, whose heavy-lidded eyes watched Shane with faint concern. The trust remained though, as if Shane, his dear friend and brother in arms, would have a good reason for touching him this way.
The skin was so soft— too soft. It reminded Shane of women's skin. He felt the sudden urge to feel the pert nipple against his tongue. With a last glance at Rick's dazed face, he leaned down and took the stiffened nub in his mouth.
Rick gasped and looked down at Shane as if he was seeing a ghost.
It didn't take much to get Rick completely naked.
Shane held Rick's gaze as he did it. The blue eyes fluttered only slightly as if struggling to focus. Rick's hands stuttered between grasping the counter top for balance and trying to keep Shane at bay. The pose held as much conviction as Rick's stumbling pleas.
"Shane. Shane. What are you-what are you…?" There was that Grimes rationality. He couldn't accept that Shane would do something like this without a good reason. He was still committed to trusting his friend.
As shaky and wavering as Rick was on his feet, Shane was steady and solid as stone as he sank to a knee, his sure grip taking Rick's boxers down with him in a slow gradual movement that seemed to take the last of Rick's resolve.
Shane needed Rick naked, exposed and defenseless like this, while Shane himself was fully clothed, firm and unwavering like an anchor in a quaking ocean. He was everything Rick wasn't in this moment: Large, steady, powerful. Rick would be dead without Shane, he'd said it himself. Rick needed Shane's strength, his raw power, always had. Shane knew that too. Did Rick?
Now, Rick was bared completely to him. Shane might have seen Rick naked before but not like this. Shane hadn't been seeing with the same eyes. Now, Shane was awake, alive.
Rick was inevitably soft. Bloodless and horrified as he was, his manhood was flaccid and shrunken. Still, Shane found something delicate about it. So exposed and vulnerable there between his pale thighs, Rick's manhood was breathtaking.
Shane wanted to feel it in his mouth and very soon did.
Rick made a broken sound and hunched forward as if he'd been punched in the gut.
Rick didn't have much blood to lend to the appendage. In fact, it was likely dangerous to attempt it. Shane didn't try to stir him but just held him there in his mouth, rolling him on his tongue and enjoying the soft warmth of him. On Rick, it seemed to make sense that his most masculine feature would also be his most fragile.
Although Shane was enjoying how silky smooth and pliable Rick felt in his mouth, almost melting against his tongue, he didn't mind as he felt the appendage begin to thicken.
Rick's hands pressed feebly at Shane's head. He tried shaking his head but stopped as if the act was dizzying for him. His vocal protests were even more measured. Rick swallowed repeatedly between clipped phrases, the extreme dehydration likely turning his tongue and throat to sandpaper.
It would be dangerous to go further, Shane knew and let him slip from his mouth.
Rising smoothly to his feet, Shane dragged his lips over Rick's trembling belly, planting chaste kisses here and there on the clammy skin. His tongue flicked across a nipple in passing, seizing a breathless sound from Rick.
Now at eye level, Rick looked even more vulnerable and fragile. He continued to plead dumbly and with as much force as his depleted state would allow him. Like this, he was so reliant on Shane, so completely at his mercy. The man couldn't even go to the bathroom on his own. His nakedness only heightened the illusion of helplessness.
Distantly, Shane was reminded of Carl, who also trusted him. But that wasn't right. No, it was Carl who reminded him of Rick. That innocence…that fragility, it was a trait passed down to him from his father.
Taking Rick by the hips, Shane turned him around so they both faced the mirror.
Shane wanted to see how powerful he'd become. More than that though, he wanted Rick to see it.
In the reflection, they watched Shane smooth the flat of his hand over Rick's bare and heaving chest, spreading his fingers to catch Rick's erect nipples between them. Then his hand dipped downward to do the same to Rick's softened cock.
Rick began struggling in earnest then, with energy Shane didn't know he still possessed. It was likely taking a lot out of him. It wouldn't matter; Shane was too powerful, more powerful than Rick knew. Shane could do anything he wanted, take anything. He could take his cock in hand right now, bend Rick over the counter and fuck him dry if he wanted.
He didn't want that though.
He wanted to take his time with Rick, be gentle with him, show him how much more strength it took to contain this kind of power. Rick had no damn idea.
After tiring himself out, Rick tried appealing to Shane's compassion. He caught Shane's eyes in the mirror, pleading with him, imploring him, trying to find something he felt Shane had lost in their short time there. He didn't realize that Shane hadn't lost anything but pretense. He was more himself now than he'd ever been before and it was now Rick's turn to see who he was.
Shane didn't hide from Rick's eyes at all, but bore himself to Rick, showed him exactly who he was. Meanwhile, his fingers worked.
Rick was too exhausted to keep Shane out and so Shane's fingers breached the weakened ring of muscle with little resistance.
Rick was close to sobbing again, but Shane could see he was too exhausted, too shocked.
When Shane began pumping into him deeply, Rick avoided his eyes. Shane wouldn't have that. He grabbed the stubbled jaw and directed it forward, gentle but firm. Shane understood the breadth of his power and how to rein it in.
It was important that Rick understood. Rick needed to know what kind of power had been sitting dormant beneath his nose all this time. Rick had to know how much power was Shane held in his hands, that Shane had killed a man and looked him in the eye. Heard his screams as he was torn to pieces.
Shane shut his eyes to the reflection then, feeling them burn beneath his lids.
He withdrew his fingers and flipped Rick over, pushing him back onto the counter face-up. the position was awkward, forcing Rick's neck to bend to accommodate his upper body on the shallow counter space.
Shane lifted Rick's legs up and slid his own hips between them.
Again, Rick was shaking his head, but the position made it difficult. His hand gripped the edges of the counter as Shane manipulated his body.
Shane hadn't taken out his cock but pressed the clothed girth of it against Rick, thrusting so the course denim rubbed abrasively against the naked man's tender opening. He held Rick's eyes firmly as he did it, letting the very real threat linger. The effect was a visible crumbling of Rick's already dissolved composure.
Rick's wet, expressive eyes stared wide at him, stricken with horror and bald delirium. Another thrust and Rick whined.
Shane almost moaned then. He didn't. He had more control than that. He was strong and steady and sure. Of course he could take Rick right there, curled up on the counter, slide his cock into his slack hole and make him watch as a more powerful man took complete mastery of him. It would have been easy for him. But Shane saw something click in Rick's eyes as he stared up at him, naked and completely undone, and Shane understood that he didn't need to.
Instead, he dropped Rick's legs, took his arm and helped the shell-shocked man to his feet. As he pulled up Rick's boxers, Rick grasped for words. They were clipped beginnings of questions, half pleas, and wisps of his friend's name, but nothing whole or substantial. It seemed Rick's mind was as shaken and traumatized as his body.
With a hand around his waist, Shane lead Rick to the guest bedroom Hershel had offered.
By the time they were alone in the dim room, Rick was silent and hadn't met Shane's eyes.
As Shane pulled the cover up Rick's body, he leaned in to press his lips to his friend's head. When he pulled away, he found Rick's eyes on him.
There were no words, but Shane understood. Rick had finally seen him, seen who Shane was, what Shane could do. More than that, Rick saw who he was next to Shane, how utterly powerless the other man could make him.
Shane held Rick's gaze for a some time longer, during which he felt like Rick was reading through his eyes everything that had happened during the run with Ottis. Rick watched the two men scrambling as the walkers approached, saw Shane strike Ottis down and leave him behind, saw Ottis, as Shane had seen him, being torn apart.
It was Rick who blinked first. Even in the dim light pooling in from the hallway, Shane could see the gleam in the other man's eyes.
Without a word, Shane turned and left him.
The next few days, Shane found the feeling hadn't left him, though he'd expected it might ware off over time. It was as present and heady as the night he'd returned. It was as if the life energy of Ottis would be with him always.
As Rick recovered, he became active in the group once more. It wasn't lost on Shane that Rick didn't interact with him the way he used to, nor did he seek out his old partner. It was usually Shane who addressed Rick and when he did, there was a noticeable shrinking and tightening in the other man's stance. Each time Shane caught it, he felt that familiar swelling in himself, like he was much larger than before.
Nobody brought up Shane's hair, and Rick certainly didn't talk about what had happened that night in the bathroom. Somehow, Shane knew he wouldn't.
He did catch Rick alone sometimes. On those occasions, Rick would visibly stiffen and go pale as a sheet.
The older man would begin sweating and Shane could see his chest rise and fall rapidly as his breathing quickened.
As Shane drew near, Rick would fight to stand his ground, never fleeing, never hiding. Shane usually reached out to touch him then, because he knew Rick would let him. On his shoulder, or his arm, or sometimes his neck. It would be with an intentional care, an exaggerated softness, as if he was testing the waters. Really, it was to remind Rick of how much more Shane could do, of how much more power laid dormant beneath the surface, carefully contained and mastered.
He found he never needed to do more.
Rick saw him now.