Hey everyone, quick announcement- I'm working on a new Walking dead fic with a Rick/OC/Daryl pairing where the guys are part of a subspecies and are ranked as Alpha's of their group and the OC is a very, very rare- normal human girl that they intend to claim.
Not going to lie, I'm excited about it and scared too.
Mostly because of the whole Alpha mentality and how they will handle the OC will be considered dark and abusive when they have no understanding of those concepts.
I hope to have it up soon so keep an eye out.
Rick, Dale, Glen and Daryl all walked away form the little meeting an hour or so later feeling almost as if they had been physically and emotionally put through the ringer. Whereas Shane maintained an oddly detached and level head the whole time.
Probably because he was still mentally in his happy place or something. Rick wasn't sure, he just knew that Shane was weird sometimes.
Granted that none of them had been aware of just how bad things had gotten for the slight group of foreigners, but they had never expected the youngest of them to have suffered so much at the hands of strangers akin to themselves. In fact, Rick was still somewhat surprised that the kid had even allowed them to come and fetch Sophia after she and her friends had saved her and brought her here.
He would have half expected someone who had gone through such a traumatic experience as the one that she had suffered- to look upon everyone with a dick between their legs as a literal enemy and treat them with as much malice and hostility as they could muster.
Yet Ali didn't. Or hadn't rather.
True she hadn't really been alone with any of them without someone well within sight or hearing distance, and yeah, the kid barely said two damned words to anyone unless it couldn't be avoided, but aside from that- she was exactly as Sin had described personality wise.
He innocence and childhood had been ripped from her in one of the most agonizing ways that any of them could imagine, and she was damaged. But not destroyed. In fact she was as far from destroyed as any young girl who had suffered the same experiences could be.
And letting the giant, Hina do what he had to her earlier just proved that she was a far braver and stronger person than even they could ever realize.
Rick himself wasn't totally sure what she must have been thinking when she allowed Hina to have sex with her. But he knew that from the way Sin spoke before, there was a deeper reasoning behind this particular incident than they were all aware of.
He knew one thing for sure though, he and the others would have to help keep an eye on the kid over the next few weeks. At least until something in her changed. If it did anyways.
They could keep an eye on her and make sure that she didn't get overly stressed or something. And they could even take shifts to go patrol around the property if she decided to take a walk like she seemed to do quite often. He'd have to talk to Lori, and Carol about helping out too. And he was pretty sure that Dale was going to speak with Andrea.
Glen was already making a beeline toward where T-dog was sitting, ready to fill him in on todays events while Rick and Dale and Daryl were still sort of in the process of- well, processing.
All Rick could really do was try to help and keep things calm around the property and the foreigners otherwise someone would probably suggest that they try to take the place form their new friends, and if that happened... There would be blood shed, and that was simply something that he wanted to avoid no matter the cost.
Not long after the talk with the foreigners, someone came outside to tell them all that they could come inside and take some rooms upstairs that were free. They were even told that almost every room had a nice small bathroom with a fully functioning shower or bath that they could use.
And even mentioned in passing that there were some clean clothing in the dressers that they could use if they decided to bathe.
Frankly none of them needed to be told twice, everyone was practically itching for a good bath/shower, and some nice clean clothing to wear. Not to mention a soft bed to lay their heads upon and get some rest without having to worry about someone waking them up in the middle of the night because a walker/walkers had attacked them.
That night, Rick and the rest of his group stayed indoors and for once in a very long time- since before the end of everything, they all began to feel like they were people again.
They bathed, changed their clothing and slept like they were dead.
There were no creaking noises that comes from the house settling, no horrifying growling or snarling deafening them. Just peace and quiet and the occasional chirping of crickets and soft snoring coming from various other bedrooms. Morning came faster than any of them really wanted it too, and with it- the early morning crowing of a few roosters that even Rick would begrudgingly admit, he wanted to strangle for waking him up so suddenly.
But it was among one of the better wake up calls he'd had in a good long while, so he didn't bother complaining much except when he was outside after he and his group all had eaten a nice big breakfast, where he spent several minutes glaring at the rooster and picturing it being cooked in the oven sometime soon.
Several days since the incident with the kid Ali passed in this fashion, and before he knew it five days had passed. And he woke up one morning and after going about his routine of showering, shaving and dressing, left Lori to sleep in for a little while before breakfast and then went down stairs tot he kitchen to grab something to drink.
Most people in the house tended to drink juice that they had squeezed themselves from various fruits in the morning when they first got up. And while it wasn't his first choice in beverages since he was used to functioning on caffeine and sometimes tended to miss it an awful lot- he didn't complain overly much for worry that he would seem ungrateful to the foreigners for everything that they had done so far.
Stepping into the kitchen, he was about to make a beeline for the fridge when he caught sight of Ali standing over by the stove with a small scowl on her face, attempting to cook what looked oddly like an over buttered grilled cheese.
Rick would be lying if he said that he wasn't surprised to see her up and about after sleeping for five whole days straight, but seeing her try to cook for herself when Riha had stressed days before that she needed to rest and stay off of her feet until the tearing healed a bit more.
Which was only part of the reason why he decided to go and help her out. Another reason why he decided to go over and help her was that he finally noticed the small amount of black smoke starting to rise up and became vaguely alarmed that the kid was going to burn the house down.
However he didn't want to scare the kid, especially since he doubted that she would appreciate having someone slink up behind her. So he decided to clear his throat a little bit, and waited until she moved her head a little to show that she was aware of his presence before walking over and peeking over her shoulder at the rapidly burning mess that once upon a time resembled actual food and said, "Morning."
She looked at him for a moment before nodding her head in acknowledgement of his greeting, however awkward or strained it seemed. And waited for him to say or do something else when the frying pan finally caught on fire.
Looking away from him, he saw the somewhat comical look of disbelief on her pretty face as he quickly moved her aside and then grabbed the pan and removed it from the stove and then headed out the kitchen door.
And used the flaming remnants of the grilled cheese to finally get revenge on the damned rooster that had been crowing and waking him up since morning one.
Once that was done, and he absolutely made certain that he hadn't 'accidentally' burned down the chicken coop, he went back inside to find the girl sitting at the closest dining room table with her head in her hands. Looking to him as if she were upset by either the fact that she hadn't been able to cook the grilled cheese perfectly or she was stressing because she had wasted food.
Whatever the reason, he knew that it was likely that she had a lot on her mind, so he sought to sooth her a little bit by scraping what was left of the charred remains of the former sandwich from the pan, washing it, and then quickly and then after he had quietly dried it, set it back on the stove to heat at a lower temperature, found and over buttered two pieces of bread and grabbed a slice of cheese and quickly unwrapped it and slapped everything together and then put it in the pan after he found some spray to grease it.
The whole thing barely took him more than ten minutes, and the entire time he was cooking, he kept casting concerned glances towards the kid. Who oddly enough hadn't moved at all since sitting down.
That stillness of hers, under different circumstances would have been more than a little bit alarming. But under current circumstances, she probably had so much on her mind that she wasn't even aware of just how still she was being.
Upon finishing his task of cooking the grilled cheese, Rick took the pan off of the eye and set it on one of the others so that he could grab a plate to put it on and while he was at it grabbed Ali a glass for something to drink since she was probably thirsty too after sleeping for five days straight, and then began putting everything together.
Finally after fixing the food, and pouring the girl some milk that he had found in the fridge, he headed into the dinning room and quietly set the plate and milk down in front of her. And almost jumped out of his skin when her hand shot out and grabbed the food off of the plate and she quickly tore it in half and stuffed one part in her mouth and- he didn't even think that she bothered chewing it.
One second it was in her mouth and the next she had simply swallowed it whole!
"Hey, hey, hey, slow down- you'll choke!" Rick said in slight alarm as she repeated the same motion with what was left over before then grabbing the glass of milk, spilling a little bit as she quickly brought it to her mouth and chugged it until it was gone before setting the glass back down and slowly wiping any excess trace amount of it from her pale pink lips with a slightly shaky hand before looking at him and cringing a little bit at how he was looking at her.
He was looking at her as if she were an wild animal that was rabid or something.
It just wasn't really what she needed from another person at the moment. She already felt badly about what had happened with Hina and the others. She had known that maybe she should explain things first to smooth the way a bit, but she had been worried that if she had put the man off any in regards to his request- that she would chicken out and let him down.
Wiping her mouth again in nervous habit, she looked away from the man's gaze and fumbled around for something to say as he moved to pick up the plate and glass and suddenly asked, "Feel a little bit better now? Or are you still a bit hungry?"
She looked up at him for a second, her dark violet eyes studying his face for a moment before she rasped out. "S-Still a bit hungry..."
Rick nodded his head and gave her a kind smile and then said, "I would imagine so after sleeping for five days straight. So how about I fix you another and I'll keep em coming until you tell me to stop. Sound good?"
Aladdin didn't speak this time, she just nodded her head quietly and went back to sitting very still while he collected her dishes and walked back into the kitchen for round two.