Rick, spiders

Rick has never liked insects, and he's always been afraid of spiders (not afraid of them like Shane is afraid of bees, though; at least Shane has a reason to break into a sweat and whimper if he sees a stinger with wings, and Rick doesn't have that as an excuse). Lori thought it was a joke when they were dating and he sheepishly asked her if she could swat the spider on the windowsill of his apartment when she'd come over for movie night. When she realized it wasn't a joke, she calmly grabbed a piece of paper and a glass, caught the spider and let it out in the bushes outside of Rick's apartment. He'd known she was the one since then.

He'd tried not to freak out about spiders in front of Carl, and for the most part succeeded. There had been the incident where some mistletoe that had been stored in the basement had hidden a small spider that had fallen and landed in Rick's hair that one Christmastime and Carl had been six and witnessed Rick faint dead away, but other than that, Rick was pretty sure he'd kept a lid on his phobia.

The day before they got to the base, they hit the last small town and in it, a community college that was deserted (no dorms meant no walkers, save for the occasional staff member that thought they'd be safer here than at home). So when they went to clear it, and see if they could rustle up any supplies to make a good-faith offering to the base in case they needed a trump card to be let it, Rick went with Carl to see what they could scavenge. The community college was more of a small university, with multiple two, three and four story buildings. Rick and Carl had gone to the natural science building, hoping to find a store room of supplies.

The fourth room they walked into was the arachnid laboratory, and whoever had been in there last had decided to let the little eight-legged prisoners free. There were webs everywhere, and Rick had pulled Carl out of there and shut the door before finding the nearest trash can and puking.

"Dad?!" Carl looked at him, alarmed.

"Sorry, wasn't prepared to see that," Rick said quietly. He went to a nearby drinking fountain, and finding it still working, rinsed his mouth out.

"But it's just spiderwebs. I didn't see any actual spiders."

"They've probably infested the building, we need to get out of here."

"But Dad, what about the supplies?"

"Safety first, we're getting out of here," Rick's tone said the matter was closed. "Let's go."

"Yes sir," Carl dragged his heels but followed his dad. "You know, I was reading in a book last week that fear of spiders is in the top five greatest fears of all time."

"Is that right," Rick stated.

"It's nothin' to be embarrassed or ashamed of, Dad."

"I'M NOT -" Rick started to yell, then calmed himself. He wasn't going to yell at his son over this, and ushered him outside. "I'm not ashamed, Carl; I just don't like spiders all that much."

"You don't like spiders so much that you'll puke from seein' a room full of spiderwebs," Carl pointed out. "It's okay, Dad; do you want me and you to take another building, and we'll have Shane and T-Dog look in Natural Sciences?"

"No, let's have Glenn and Daryl do this building; they do better with nature than most of us," Rick looked over at the building next to them. "How about we check out the student union, see if there's food in there we can take?"

"Okay," Carl nodded. "And if you see a spider, just say so and I'll squish if for you."

"Okay, deal," Rick gave his son a one-armed hug and they walked into building together.