Carl isn't big on conversation before school, so it doesn't strike Rick as odd that he's not talking the next morning. But there's a pointed teenage bitterness to his silence now, which Rick is also accustomed to. So maybe not that much will change if Rick pursues this relationship with Negan. At least Judith isn't being cranky and sullen about it.

Halfway through breakfast, there's a knock at the door. Rick gets up to answer it and is greeted with Carol's cheery face on the other side.

"Rick," she says with a mischievous smile, "who's the handsome gentleman with the loud car you had over last night?"

Oh, Carol. Negan is anything but a gentleman. "He's just a friend."

"Cut the crap," Carol says, still wearing that perky smile. "You had a date."

"Shouldn't you be too busy with Morgan to spy on me?"

"He was on your doorstep. Plain sight."

Rick is quickly regretting this conversation.

"Morgan said he saw you two talking at the diner a couple weeks ago. Said you seemed pretty friendly."

"'Cause we're friends," Rick says, stressing the word.

"Oh really? Since when do friends give you hickeys?" Carol points to the red spots that have bloomed on Rick's neck.

Rick exhales angrily and covers them with his palm. "They're not hickeys. They're... bites." Jesus, that sounds even worse. "From bedbugs. We have an infestation."

Carol's not buying it. She lifts an eyebrow at Rick. Rick scowls. "Look, I'm not judging. I think it's wonderful you're seeing someone. You look better. You have a glow."

Rick rubs his eyes. It's too early for this. "Carol..." He's trying to think of a polite way to say 'please leave me alone.'

"I know. Baby steps. But Judith will tell me later." Carol raises her voice, peering over Rick's shoulder at Judith. "Right, Judy?"

Judith looks up from her Cheerios and waves at Carol. "Hi, Aunt Carol!"

Carol grins. "She will." With that, Carol departs.

Rick closes the door and sighs.

"I can't believe Carol's on your side," Carl whines. "Why can't she see how twisted and wrong this is?"

"Wrong? Why? 'Cause Negan and I are both men?" Rick wonders, poking at the beehive of Carl's anger.

Carl gives Rick a bewildered look. "No, because he's Negan! He's gross and terrible and a total dick. How do you not see that?"

"Oh, I see it," Rick says as he sits at the table. "But I see somethin' else, too."

"Please don't try to convince me he has a great personality."

"He's your coach. I get it. It's hard to see teachers as actual people with lives outside of school."

Carl does not appear convinced.

"Negan lost his wife too," Rick says. He feels a little weird revealing that without permission, but it might help Carl comprehend the connection between them. "So he understands. He doesn't treat me like I'm broken."

"He's the total opposite of everything Mom was."

Rick nods, conceding. "In a lot of ways, yeah. But I think he wants the same things I do."

"What, to make me miserable?"

Rick's fighting a losing battle here. Carl will need time to adjust and realize this arrangement—if Negan isn't just screwing with Rick—won't be so bad. But as of this moment, not even the most perfectly crafted argument could sway Carl from being stubbornly opposed to a Rick-Negan partnership.

Rick puts his hands up in surrender. "Alright, you're entitled to your opinion." Even if it's a stupid-ass opinion.

Most days at the King County Sheriff's Department are boring as hell. Though Rick isn't sure he'd prefer the alternative. It's nice not worrying about being shot at every day. The gruesome intensity of the Eastman debacle is pretty much an outlier in the hemisphere of Rick's daily life as the sheriff. Mostly the job's just permits and traffic tickets.

On Monday afternoon, Rick's staring absently at the contents of the snack machine, trying to decide if he's in a sweet or salty mood, when Shane materializes beside him and leans against the side of the machine like he's Sinatra against a lamppost.

Rick makes a totally manly startled noise. "Jesus, we need to put a bell on you."

"Wouldn't make a difference," Shane gloats. "I'm stealthy as fuck. Speaking of, you ever get some with that Lucifer chick?"

It's at this moment Rick realizes his life post-Lori is a wobbly Jenga puzzle of bad decisions and misguided life choices, and anything he says will send the tower toppling down.

"Yeah, actually, I did," Rick says. "A couple times."

"That's what I'm talkin' about!" Shane claps Rick on the shoulder with his free hand. "So you guys a thing now?" Of course Shane knows how vanilla Rick is, so Rick's going to have to lie. At least a little bit.

"Just a physical thing. It's not serious."

The words have a sour taste in Rick's mouth. He doesn't even know if that was true when he and Negan agreed upon it. And it's definitely not true now. They're way past the meaningless sex stage.

Shane's eyes widen. "Way to go, Rick! I didn't think you had it in you!"

Shane really doesn't want to know what Rick's had inside of him the last couple weeks.

"I've decided to try new things," Rick says, holding back a snicker.

"Well, whatever you're doin', keep it up, 'cause it's workin' for you."

"Really?" Rick's brow knits in skepticism. "Carol said I had a glow."

Shane laughs. "That's one way to put it."

Rick needs to steer this conversation away from his own dating life, so he turns the focus onto Shane's instead. Hey, every man for himself. "How are you doin'? Anybody special in your life?"

"You know my style," Shane says, sort of dismissively, almost like he's embarrassed about his inability to maintain a relationship with the opposite sex that lasts longer than the average pregnancy.

Rick does, of course, know Shane's style: one-night stands and friends with benefits. A life of seemingly permanent bachelorhood.

"Yeah, I do," Rick says with a sigh. He tried Shane's style and ended up with a boyfriend. Funny how things work. "Whatever makes you happy."

"Happy as a clam." There's a brief flicker of emotion on Shane's face that betrays his words, and Rick wants to dig deeper, but he knows Shane will push him away with surface-level jokes and bravado, because this isn't something men talk about with each other.

And right on cue, Shane thumps the side of the vending machine with his fist and says, "Get those biscuits and gravy chips. They're the shit," before walking away.

Negan shows up unannounced for dinner that evening. He grins when Rick opens the door, giving him a once-over that makes Rick feel stripped and bare.

"Well, look at you," Negan says, doing just that. "You know that uniform is just about the sexiest damn thing, don't you?" He tugs at Rick's beltloops, pulling him closer.

"S'why I use it to strip at bachelorette parties," Rick murmurs at Negan's ear.

Negan chuckles a dark, rumbly laugh. "Oh, don't you fuckin' tease me." His scruff brushes against Rick's cheek as he winds an arm around Rick's waist.

From the kitchen table, Carl groans a long, exasperated noise. "We're trying to eat!"

Negan looks up at Carl with a wide, shit-eating grin. "You are adorable, but, kid, your manners leave a whole lot to be desired."

Rick sighs; he's been doing a lot of that lately. "Carl, try to be civil, okay?"

Carl grumbles begrudgingly as Negan and Rick approach the dinner table. "I see you enough at school," he says. "Why do you have to come to our house and ruin everything?"

"Carl," Rick says, firmer now. He takes his seat and hopes tonight doesn't end in awkward, messy disaster.

"I tried! But he makes it so hard!"

"I make your dad pretty hard too," Negan says as he sits in the empty chair—Lori's chair.

Rick wonders if there's a way to politely die at the table.

"One of you has to behave yourselves," Rick says, ignoring how hot is face is getting.

Judith seems to like Negan, because she smiles at him and says, "Uncle Negan!"

Carl gasps in horror like he's just witnessed someone kicking a puppy.

Negan smiles at her. "You remember me? Well, I don't blame you. I make quite an impression." He looks to Rick. "Rick, I think your little girl likes me. She must take after her daddy."

From the noises Carl's making, either he has indigestion or he's going to leap across the table and stab Negan with his fork. "She's too young to know you're a human turdburger."

"Carl," Rick sighs. The kid didn't make this much of a fuss over dinner when he was Judith's age.

Negan laughs, unaffected by Carl's vitriol. "I think I see what's goin' on," he says, leaning forward. "You think if you get under my skin I'll kick you off the team, huh? But I'm not gonna do that, 'cause that's exactly what you want me to do."

"Then I'll just quit."

"Now you don't really mean that. 'Cause if I know you, and I think I do, you hate Ron Anderson more than you hate me. And the only way you can really hurt his pride is to show him up on the mound. And your mama didn't raise a quitter, did she?"

Carl's mouth scrunches up in frustration, like he knows he doesn't have a good argument for that but also doesn't want to let Negan get the last word. "You don't get to talk about her like you knew her," Carl snaps, his voice low and icy. "You can sit in her chair and act like you're part of our family, but you're not."

"Carl," Rick says with an edge of shut the fuck up.

Carl keeps going, rising from his seat. "Whatever Dad's getting out of being with you, he'll get over it. He doesn't love you."

"Carl!"

"I'm going!" Carl takes his plate and stomps up the stairs like they've personally offended him. He slams the door when he gets into his bedroom.

"Not even a 'you're not my real dad'?" Negan shakes his head in disappointment. "Kids these days."

Rick sighs again, sinking into his chair. "I'm sorry he's like this."

"He's a teenager. On his best days his life is a shit-storm." Negan blinks as though realizing something, looks at Judith. "Damn, I'm gonna have to clean up my language around you, huh?"

Judith giggles.

Negan smiles, soft and serene, before glancing up at Rick. "Do you want me to go?"

Rick's oddly endeared that Negan offered. "No, it's probably best if you stay. I don't want Carl thinking he can get whatever he wants by acting out. But... maybe he's right, and this is a bad idea."

"If I may speak in my own interest, Carl would probably hate whoever you brought home. At least the little one"—Negan points his thumb at Judith—"is a clean slate."

Rick considers that. A female companion would likely earn scorn from Carl for not being enough like Lori. Or for being too much like Lori. For being too young or too old for Rick. For dressing like a prostitute or like a PTA mom. The deck would be stacked against her before she ever set foot in the Grimes' house.

So maybe the problem does indeed lie with Carl.

"If you want me gone," Negan says, "I'm gone."

Rick shakes his head. "It's up to you."

"Not my house, cowboy."

Rick blushes involuntarily at the nickname. He turns his attention to Judith. "What do you think, Judy? You want Uncle Negan to stay for dinner?"

Judith looks at Negan, presses her hand to her mouth like she's seriously considering the pros and cons of this decision. "Yeah! Stay!" she chirps.

"Smart kid," Negan says.

So he stays.

After dinner, Rick goes upstairs to check on Carl. He knocks twice, earning a grouchy teenage, "What?" before Carl opens the door.

"It's your turn to clean up the kitchen," Rick says.

Carl shoots a suspicious glance toward the stairs. "Is he gone?"

"No."

"So I'm being punished?"

"Absolutely. You don't get to behave like that, no matter how much you don't like somebody."

Carl scowls.

"You're gettin' off easy," Rick says. "I could make you apologize to him." He could, but Rick knows Carl wouldn't mean it.

Carl looks horrified by this possibility. He grabs his empty plate and heads downstairs, avoiding eye-contact with Negan, who's sitting on the couch with Judith on his knee. Carl does, however, make a growly sound in his throat as he passes by.

Negan chuckles. "Oh, it's gonna be fun making your brother like me," he says cheerily to Judith, who laughs and gives him a wide smile.

Rick joins Negan on the couch. "Go easy on him," he murmurs. "He's got dish duty."

Negan smirks, looking around the living room. His gaze settles on the framed photograph on the wall of Rick, Carl, and Lori. "That your wife?" he asks, tipping his chin in the direction of the picture.

Rick nods. He isn't sure how to feel about both Negan and Lori coexisting in his heart, one acknowledging the existence of the other. It feels riddled with danger, like going back in time to visit your past self.

"Not bad, Rick. Not bad at all," Negan says, appraising.

From behind them, Carl starts angrily clanging dishes together in the sink over the gush of the faucet.

Negan rifles through his jacket pockets for his phone. He clicks it on, toggles through a few screens. "This is Lucille." He hands Rick the phone, and Rick's a little stunned by the beautiful woman onscreen.

For starters, Lucille looks to be in her mid-to-late twenties. Way younger than Rick was expecting, especially considering Negan's age. Her brown eyes are lined in a way that makes them pop yet also seem sultry and smoky. Her dark hair—Rick can't tell if it's black or brown—is cut in a short bob that hangs just past her chin. She smiles like she knows your deepest secrets and finds them infinitely amusing.

"Wow," Rick hears himself say.

"She didn't like to smile for pictures, so I had to be sneaky. Or make her laugh. Which wasn't hard." Negan shows Rick a few more photos before pocketing his phone, like he too feels the strange sensation that comes with crossing the streams of your past and present lives.

"Lori wasn't a big fan of pictures either," Rick says. "Except family portraits. God, she loved those."

Negan finds the numerous pictures on the walls. "You don't say."

Rick nudges him with a playful elbow. He settles deeper into the couch, finds himself sort of leaning against Negan. "She used to collect those fancy dinner plates, y'know, that you're not s'posed to eat off of. She'd go to garage sales and estate sales and find all sorts of 'em. But just plates. She didn't collect anything else or hoard shoes. Nothin' like that. Which was the weird part, 'cause I couldn't understand why she collected this one thing with no practical use."

"She ever tell you why?"

"'I just think they're neat.'" Rick shrugs, still completely baffled. The memory makes him chuckle.

Carl shuts off the kitchen faucet, shuts the dishwasher door. "Don't tell him about her."

God damn it, Carl.

It's Rick's fault for expecting his son to be civil here.

Carl leaves the kitchen and approaches the couch, glaring at Rick. "He doesn't get to know," he says, keeping his anger in check for Judith's sake; she can soak up the emotions in a room like a sponge. "I can't believe you're letting him hold her."

"She likes me," Negan says, like he can't understand why Carl might have a problem with this. "And so does your dad. So, kid, I think you're outvoted."

Carl rolls his eyes and turns back to Rick. "So you're just gonna invite him over whenever?"

"He invited himself," Rick says, because he thinks that ought to be acknowledged.

Carl scoffs and moves for the stairs. "I'm getting a job."

"You're fifteen," Rick reminds him. "And you can't drive."

"I can mow lawns," Carl says before shutting himself in his room.

Rick sighs, rubs his face with his hands and drops his head back against the couch. "God, Lori, if you could see your son now..."

"She'd be laughing her ass off," Negan says.

"Yeah, probably."

It doesn't take long for Judith to drift off, so Rick gently extricates her from Negan's arms and carries her upstairs. He gets her changed into pajamas—a much easier task when she's half-asleep—and tucks her into bed. He reads to her until she's fast asleep.

Downstairs, Negan is still on the couch, looking at something on his phone. Rick smiles and rejoins him. "You got a side piece I don't know about?"

Negan smirks and pockets the phone. "Nah, Rick, you're about all I can handle. You realize I've been here about two hours and we still haven't screwed?"

Never change, Negan.

"No reason we can't." Rick tugs at the front of Negan's jacket, bringing his mouth in for a kiss. It's rough and bristly and sweet, and Rick wants to drown in it. He climbs into Negan's lap, knees on either side of his hips, and Negan rumbles a satisfied noise as his hands pluck open the buttons of Rick's shirt.

"Oh, tell me I get to fuck you in this uniform," Negan says, one hand traveling up Rick's abdomen while the other handles the buttons. Rick shivers at his touch, at the way Negan rakes his fingernails down his chest.

"You can do whatever you want," Rick huffs out, grinding his hips into Negan's own. Negan works open Rick's belt and jeans, shoving them over his hips and down his thighs. He palms Rick's erection through his shorts, and Rick twists and squirms against his hand. He's unbearably hard, and he's tempted to reach down and jerk himself off, but it's better when Negan does it.

"Mmm, look at you," Negan purrs, still teasing Rick through the thin fabric. "You just can't wait, huh?" He traces a finger along the swollen line of Rick's cock. Rick bites down on a groan and pushes into Negan's touch, but Negan pulls his hand away. "Ah, ah, ah, Rick, what's the magic word?"

"Please," Rick huffs out, desperate now. As though reading his mind, Negan takes hold of Rick's wrists so he can't touch himself.

"That's a good start. You're already on your knees, and I want you to beg for it."

"Negan..." His name in Rick's mouth is a dirty scrape of wrong and right at once, and Negan hears it too, because he squeezes Rick's wrists before sliding his hands up his forearms. "Fuck me..." Rick shifts, rising up a bit to settle against the bulge in Negan's jeans. "I need it."

Negan grins, rewarding him with a squeeze at his cock. "Oh, I can certainly see that." His other hand digs through his jacket pockets for a bottle of lube, which Rick is only momentarily surprised by. Of course Negan would come prepared for this. It's not like their relationship didn't start off with frantic boning.

"Since you're such a goddamn pro at handling cocks, why don't you do the honors?" Negan hands him the bottle, and he's already hard when Rick gets his fingers around him. Rick feels the low thump of his heartbeat, and all he can think about now is having that steady pulse of lust inside of him.

Negan makes some of the hottest fucking sounds Rick's ever heard when he's being touched and squeezed. Rick almost wants to just stroke him off right here, but Negan stops him when his cock is sufficiently slickened, grabbing Rick's hips and lifting him just enough to line himself up. Rick takes the slippery plunge like a champ, gasping a little as Negan fills him up.

Then they're moving together, Negan's fingers tight around Rick's hips, his mouth swallowing Rick's moans as Rick rises and falls and takes whatever Negan gives, and Jesus Christ, Rick realizes with heady exhilarated terror, they're fucking on his couch, and it's the dirtiest thing Rick's ever done, or at least in the top five. But pretty much every sexual encounter with Negan puts another notch in that belt.

Rick doesn't last very long, but neither does Negan. Rick gnarls his fingers in the back of Negan's jacket as he falls apart, smothering a groan against Negan's mouth. He'd feel embarrassed about his apparent lack of stamina, but then Negan's digging his fingers into Rick's skin and biting at his chin and filling him up hot and wet inside.

In a deep, dark place Rick won't admit to anyone, he loves when Negan comes in him, when they're finished and he's shaking and trying to remember how to breathe and slick trails of lube and jizz trickle down his thighs. Rick rests his forehead against Negan's shoulder as his heart thunders in his chest and his lungs feel shriveled like empty Capri-Suns. Negan rubs his hands over Rick's lower back, occasionally kneading his ass.

"Gold star performance as always," Negan sighs into Rick's neck, his hot breath making Rick shiver. "You're a natural."

Rick breathes in the familiar, comforting smell of him. "You should stay. Tonight, I mean." The idea of inviting someone into his bed as more than just a sexual partner should terrify him, because that's one more step further from Lori, tangible proof that the wound is healing. It scares him because it doesn't.

"Carl is gonna lose his shit," Negan says with a chuckle. "Or is that part of the fun?"

"You got a strange idea of fun." Rick lifts his head to Negan's mouth, kissing his impeccable lips, and arousal curls tightly in Rick's belly.

They head upstairs and take turns in the shower. Negan wears a t-shirt and shorts borrowed from Rick's wooden dresser, and Rick tries not to stare at the long lines of his body. It's not often he gets to see Negan in this partial state of undress; Negan's usually fully clothed or nude, with the inbetween stages lasting mere seconds. Tattoos on each arm peek out from underneath his sleeves, and Rick ponders the story behind them.

When they settle into bed, Rick's immediately pulled into Negan's arms, tucked against his chest, and, hello, Negan is hard again, his cock insistent and firm against the curve of Rick's ass. "Again?" Rick sputters, sort of jumping at the scratch of Negan's scruff against the back of his neck.

"Don't worry, Rick. I'm not gonna pound your ass unless you want it," Negan says, his voice sluggish with sleep. He pushes a hand underneath Rick's t-shirt, his warm palm skimming over his stomach.

"How considerate."

"I'm a goddamn gentleman. Don't you forget it."

Rick smiles to himself, listens to Negan's soft sighs as he settles in behind him.

With Lori, there was an exact moment where Rick noted he'd fallen in love with her. They were at an ice cream shop—one of their first dates—and Lori was eating a hot fudge sundae and going on about how frozen yogurt was imposter ice cream, and at some point in her speech she reached out with her spoon and snagged a bite of Rick's sundae, like it wasn't even a thing, and Rick was overwhelmed by her opinionated nature—Lori had opinions on pockets, for God's sake—and how freely she spoke her mind and how unburdened she was by anxieties, and Rick found himself thinking, "I love this woman."

But with Negan, all of these feelings sneaked up on him and caught him entirely by surprise. It's like Rick boarded a train bound for Atlanta, took a short nap, and woke up in Seattle with no idea how he got there, because he didn't think he'd been asleep that long. He thought that moment might have happened when Negan bared his soul about Lucille and Dwight, but Rick didn't need to realize anything because he already knew it. Any thoughts of, "God, I love him," would be met with a resounding, "Fucking duh, Rick."

But tonight, in his own bed with Negan wrapped around him and breathing soft and slow against the back of his neck, Rick is in love with him, and it doesn't scare him at all.