Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: For onedayyoujustchange who asked for: "How about one where Tobin pursues Rick :)" – Naturally this is a Rick Grimes/Tobin story.

Disclaimer:adult language, canon appropriate violence, blood and gore, slow burn, mild sexual content, roughly follows canon season 5-6 events, au where Rick and Michonne don't hook up but instead- Tobin bags himself Rick Grimes with a lot of innocent low-key trying.

Eumoirous

Chapter Six

A week or so later he came out onto the porch to find Carl on the front steps, turning something over in his hands. Hair hanging down, covering a good portion his face as Carol and Daryl shared a cigarette across the street, talking quietly.

"Whatcha got there?" he asked, easing down beside him as he glanced over with idle interest. Not entirely expecting it when Carl merely handed it to him. A pistol in a brand new leather holster. His eyebrows rose when he eased it out, it was- it was a Colt Python. The same damn gun as the one on his hip right now. Only newer. Less jaded. Young.

"Tobin found it when he and Tara were out yesterday. He said it was only right that you and I have a matching set," he replied, thoughtful in that quietly resentful way that was inherent to teenagers everywhere.

He turned the stock. Angling the polished wood so that the engraved bottom glinted in the morning light – highlighted without apology or censure. Proud to still stand for something that had been lost a long time ago as he traced the words with the sharp of his nail.

For my son, with love.

His throat bobbed.

Thick.

Possible.

"Dad?"

He looked up. Staying nothing about the over exaggerated cock of his son's head that enabled him to see with his good eye. His only eye. Recognizing the look on his face just as quickly as he had that time at the prison when Carl vouched for Michonne. It was almost exactly the same, only-

"I like him. Tobin, I mean. And I think- I think mom would have liked him too."

For a brief half second he wasn't unsure if the gun hadn't accidentally gone off in his hands. Realizing his ears were ringing as the syllables of Lori's name intermingled with Tobin's. It felt...good. It sounded good. Like it could be a good thing if it happened right. It made him realize exactly where this all ended. What this had been leading up too. What it'd probably been leading up to this entire time - at least on his end. And he had absolutely no idea how to go about-

"Yeah," he answered eventually, more grateful than ever that his son knew him. Content to just sit there beside him. Directing his gaze elsewhere as he slowly pulled himself together. Handing back the python and the holster as the callouses on Carl's hands temporarily highlighted just how much had changed since Lori's warm brown eyes were the only ones he'd ever wanted to wake up to. "She probably would have."


The kiss he got seized up in not that long after was careful. Breakable like glass, but the kind that immediately made you want more. Feeling the give and take of it as something in his hind brain went sloppy on him. Content and excited all at once - like pleasure points wanting to keep moving. Burrowing deep as the press and fabric-catch of clothes against clothes and skin against skin reanimated a part of him that'd been dusty and unused for a long time.

He felt what he figured the forth of July must have looked like.

Back when there was such a thing.

He was gone on it. He wasn't going to deny it. He was off and gone on the frisson of heat that coursed through him every time their hips brushed. Cock firming up and taking an interest as Tobin's kisses turned just a titch more sure. Wanting. More. He arched up into him - one hand firm around the man's forearm – while the other wanting to migrate from his side to Tobin's shoulder, or maybe waist. Indecisive as Tobin's fingers ghosted the under of his chin. Like he wanted to pull him in, pull him close, but didn't quite dare.

He was so invested in it, he barely noticed when their relationship with gravity shifted.

Tobin pulled away slowly. Like a silent question. Lips parted and devastatingly swollen looking as he stood there, stunned and maybe a bit small as Tobin looked down at him. Barrel chest rising and falling just a bit too fast. Stuck between want to arc up and bring him back down – worrying his teeth into the plump red of the man's lips until he coaxed out that sound again - and letting Tobin say what he needed to.

"I'm sorry, I just-" Tobin rasped, voice strained and surprisingly upset for a man who'd just been macking on him like his life depended on it. Wavering and blinking huge like he expected him to take a swing at him. Injecting just enough reality into the moment that all the reasons he'd had in mind when he'd knocked on the man's door after his conversation with Carl completely escaped him as he stood in the front hall of Tobin's house. A mess of a thousand or more plush little signals that were already starting to ease into uncertainty.

"I was afraid, but suddenly I wasn't sure what I was afraid of," Tobin said earnestly, holding his eyes just like he always did before they darted away again. Rubbing the back of his head like an uneasy tell as he looked at the floor. His feet. The vase on the side table. Then back to him again.

"I thought I knew. But when I was standing there, backed into a corner with my last round- I realized I didn't know anymore."

He looked at Tobin then.

Really looked.

Once and for all, like what he saw was going to settle this somehow.

And sure enough-

"Oh," he said, dragging through the finishing lilt of the thing as he realized how deeply this whole thing ran. That it wasn't just him. Tobin felt it too. Wanted it. It might not be where he figured this'd all been going from the start, but it was what it was. Here. Now. And best of all, preciously possible.

Oh.

There should have been other words, meaningful ones. Things Tobin deserved to hear. Things both of them did. But he didn't have them. He'd never been the type of person the right words came easy to. Only, it seemed like Tobin didn't need them - or even care like Lori might have. Instead, a small, hopeful looking smile made tracks across his face. Like he'd given him the world instead of just an uneasy silence.

"I might be a little out of practice with this," Tobin admitted, knuckling at the back of his neck with an awkward, self-disparaging chuckle. Cheeks tinged ruddy as he looked down at him through a fan of long lashes. Blue-green sleeves rucked up to reveal strong forearms and sun-kissed freckles as the urge to touch grew almost impossible to resist.

"I don't even have any," he answered honestly, hardly recognizing his own voice as it edged its way through a sudden wash of dryness. Tongue wetting damningly across his lower lip - like he was really thinking about it - as Tobin's eyes followed the action like there was nowhere else they could possibly be. "Practice, I mean. At this. With-

"Men?" Tobin offered, quiet and just a little bit eager this time. Almost confident now as he shuffled a couple centimeters closer. Moving back into range with a deliberate sway. Until he was able to smell the solid scent of him. Waves of soap, wood dust and pine sap tickling at his sinuses in the best possible way. Reminding him by proxy that everything was connected as his cock twitched with interest in the firm of his jeans.

"Yeah."

Then, after a beat-

"Me either," Tobin admitted, one brow quirking up until the both of them were laughing. Bumping shoulders in the echoing space. Enjoying the moment for what it was. The start of something new – something good – in a world that seemed fresh out of both.

Apparently he wasn't the only one that was new at this.

Imagine that.

"I was thinking though," Tobin continued, head cocking slight to the side. Playful in a way that almost made him forget that they weren't younger, stupider and a complete mess of peach fuzz and hormones. "Thinking that we could maybe figure out that part later, together?"

It sounded like as good a plan as any. And apparently Tobin agreed. Letting go of a warm sounding groan that made him shiver – boots to brass – when he caught the plush of the man's lower lip between his teeth and tugged him down.

It was their time now.


A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This fic is now complete.