AN: This is just a sweet/fun little oneshot that someone on Tumblr requested. I'm doing a grab-bag option for prompts and requests these days, to help me get to some that get pushed to the back, and this one is finally getting some attention.
This is not canon, but it could be loosely set after "The Grove." Please note that I always play a little fast and loose with character ages, so please excuse that.
I own nothing from The Walking Dead. All I own are my original characters/plot points, etc.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
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Tyreese did his final rounds of the night.
The house was still. The yard was still. Faintly, and somewhat distantly—given that the fences were a great distance from the house, and were almost far enough away that, sometimes, they could easily forget that they lived within them and separate from the world beyond them—Tyreese could hear the gravelly hum of discontented Walkers growling out their frustration at having become trapped on the spikes surrounding their fences. Their suffering would be temporary. When the sun came up, before he'd even eaten breakfast, Tyreese would go out, put them down, and drag their bodies to the pit where they'd be burned. He told himself that he was, in reality, doing them a service, since they couldn't really rest until he stilled the mindless action of their fevered brains.
Tyreese locked the door. It was a habit leftover from a life that was so distant he might have convinced himself that he'd never lived it, if he were interested in trying such a thing. He added another piece of wood to the living room fireplace, put the grate carefully in place to keep everyone safe, and circled through to the kitchen. He tasted some of the food leftover from supper—and put to the side for his late-night snack—and he washed it down with a few long swallows of the sweet, fermented apple drink that they called cider.
Content that the house was in order for the night, Tyreese took the lamp from the living room so that the light followed him on his nocturnal journey.
In one room, he was met with the slow and steady breathing of two sleeping girls. He gently put the lamp down on the dresser just inside the door, careful not to make a noise, and eased inside—avoiding the creaking board three steps from the entrance. He pulled up blankets, restored stuffed animals to beds, and assured himself that the girls he now regarded as his daughters were safe and sleeping well. The board avoided again, and the lamp retrieved, Tyreese eased out of the bedroom, across the hall, and into the other room. There, he found a crib. Its occupant slept soundly for the time being. In much the same way as he had done with the other two girls, Tyreese checked the toddler's blanket, put her pacifier and stuffed animal where she could find it if she woke, and affectionately brushed her soft hair out of her eyes. Content that she was as well taken care of as she could be, he retreated from the room.
In the bathroom, Tyreese relieved himself in the slop bucket that he would carry out in the morning—only one of many dirty jobs that marked their days. He washed his hands and face, dumping the used water into the dirty water bucket that they would use for various things the next day. He brushed his teeth, repeating the action with the dirty water, and rinsed his mouth with some of the clean water, spitting it into the bucket. In the quiet privacy of the bathroom—some of the only privacy that anyone knew these days—he said his prayers.
He laughed to himself, quietly, about all the things he secretly hoped for, but didn't dare put into his prayers, since he doubted exactly how holy some of his thoughts might be—though he wasn't against some of the teachings he'd believed all of his life, even though the institutions they'd once known seemed gone now, along with almost everything else that had existed of some distant life.
When Tyreese was satisfied that the house was in order and he'd done everything he considered to be his nighttime chores—even if they were unofficial and self-assigned—he made his way down the hallway to the master bedroom.
The farmhouse, the farm with its large gardens, barns, smokehouses, wells, and orchards, and the small nearby lake fed by neighboring tributaries was their home. It was, in this world, practically a fairy kingdom. They had found it not long after Walkers had made their little grove house difficult to defend, and they'd thanked God for their good fortune as they'd spent their first months there putting up new fencing and reinforcing what was already in place. They had put time and effort into capturing and re-taming livestock that had escaped from nearby farms. And, Tyreese—a carpenter by trade and a bit of an electrician and Jack-of-all-Trades, as well—had put his blood, sweat, and tears into making sure that they had everything they needed and a little of what they only dared to dream of having.
In the middle of Hell, it seemed, they had found Heaven.
Tyreese lived in this little slice of heaven with the three girls he now called his daughters—Lizzie being, he assumed, somewhere around twelve or thirteen, Mika being around ten, and Judith being just old enough to start having loud opinions as she ran around their house and yelled at them in a language in which only she was fluent. All three girls were at least a little delayed, perhaps, thanks to their experiences in a world gone mad, but Tyreese thought that what they lacked in some skills, they more than made up in survival skills and the ability to appreciate what they had.
In addition to the three precious girls in his life, there was another woman in Tyreese's life—a woman that he could only dream about calling more than a friend.
The bedroom door was cracked. She could have closed it all the way—it hardly made a sound when it was opened or closed, thanks to the fact that Tyreese had oiled the hinges when he'd gone through the house and made minor repairs to the house and furniture—but she always left it cracked for him. From outside the door, he could see the faint glow of her lamp. She wasn't asleep. She would have blown it out, if she were, because she would know that he had his lamp. She was probably reading.
Tyreese secretly enjoyed these nights when they were both still awake. They would lounge in the bed they shared—like best friends—and she would read her books while he read through the books that interested him. They would share pieces of conversation. They would talk about the day, the girls, and things they hoped for in the future. He liked spending those easy times with her when there was nothing else to consume their thoughts.
He liked spending any time with her that he could.
Tyreese eased the door open, stepped in, and immediately closed it with the knob already turned so that it wouldn't make any noise at all that, somehow, might be loud enough to disturb a single one of their sleeping wards. When Tyreese turned to look at Carol, she was smiling at him. She was in bed, reclined against her pillow like she might be if she intended to get lost in a novel, but there was no book. Her shoulders were out and bare.
His stomach did an inexplicable flip-flop, and he covered it over with a smile as best he could. He had been attracted to Carol for a long time, and sometimes that didn't make sharing the master bedroom—and bed, consequently—easy to do.
Tyreese couldn't imagine which of her pajamas she was wearing under the blanket. He couldn't recall having ever seen her shoulders entirely bare—without even the straps of something showing.
"I thought you might be asleep," he said.
"I was waiting up for you," Carol said.
"Everything alright?" He asked. He walked over to the nightstand. He put down his lamp.
Years of living together had given them an ease and comfort with one another. It was, honestly, one of the reasons that he'd never pushed for more. Carol had been married in that life that existed so long ago, and the man she'd been married to had abused her mind and her body. The fact that she'd found such an easy trust with Tyreese made him determined never to take advantage of that or to do anything to damage the peace that she'd found.
Tyreese's own pajamas, for the night, consisted of a matching shirt and pants. As usual, though, he unbuttoned the shirt and tossed it at the chair in the corner. He hated sleeping in it and, some time ago, Carol had assured him that it didn't bother her if he chose to sleep in only pants. When he looked back at her from having tossed the shirt, she'd rolled over on her side to face him. One elbow was bent, propping her head up, and the other arm crossed across her—looking very much like it was holding the blanket on so that it wouldn't slip and reveal her breasts.
Tyreese tried to think of the most horrific, disgusting thing that he'd seen all day. His mind had the best of intentions, but that didn't mean that his penis always shared the thought that he should behave like a gentleman. Carol was graciously willing to overlook the morning problems and occasional "risings" that he couldn't help, but it would be impossible to cover his attraction, at the moment, in the well-worn cotton pants.
She was smiling at him all the way to her eyes. Her expression, alone, made him shiver.
"How long have we been here, Ty?" Carol asked.
"A year—two?"
She nodded at him. With a quick motion of her hand, she flicked the cover back. For a moment, Tyreese had to mentally shake himself to make sure that this wasn't some kind of hallucination caused by too little sleep, contaminated water, or some kind of poorly-chosen, foraged food.
It wasn't. Carol wasn't wearing even a stitch of clothing. Tyreese's heart very nearly gave out on him right then and there, and there was absolutely no reasoning with his penis—it immediately announced its interest in being part of whatever the hell it was that was taking place here.
Still, something inside of him feared letting his imagination run away with him—though how far could it really run, he thought—and he stood by the bed a moment and worked on some kind of response. The best he managed was not what he'd really wanted to say.
"Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?" He asked, his voice catching. He'd done his best to make it sound like a joke, but it hadn't come out quite like he'd planned. Still, Carol laughed quietly.
"If I read things wrong, Ty…" Carol said, "then—I'll be happy to put my clothes on and we'll do our best to pretend that this never happened."
"Do you want to tell me what you had in mind?" Tyreese asked. "Just to make sure we're on the same page?"
Carol's eyes drifted down to Tyreese's pajama pants. He didn't have to pretend that he had no idea what she was looking at. The thin cotton hid nothing, and his erection was raging enough that he almost winced at the sensitivity and the feeling of the cotton against his too-sensitive skin.
"It's been almost two years," Carol said. "And—we really don't have any reason to believe that this doesn't go on forever, at least in some form or fashion. If you find something you like better, later—I'd understand, really."
Any hesitation or inability to act that Tyreese might have felt melted at those words—at the sincerity of them. Immediately, he joined her on the bed. For the first time, he dared to touch her like he dreamed of touching her. He dared to let his imagination run wild. She was, and would be, more than just a friend with whom he would walk through this world and this new life they shared.
"Let's get one thing straight," he said, touching her face. "If this is going to happen—there won't be any finding something different later. Not for either one of us."
She smiled at him.
"If that's what you want," she said, her eyes dancing quickly back and forth as she focused on his. He touched her lips with his finger, contemplating them a moment—contemplating the fact that he had permission to kiss them—before he finally leaned and kissed her.
"That's what I want," he said when the kiss broke. "Besides—there's no finding something better once you've found the best."
