This is a little short.
"Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to be with someone new? Like physically?" It was Michonne's chance to be more intimate with the dialogue.
Over the past few weeks they had been able to set a time limit for when to go to sleep. The workload of the semester increasing alongside their social activities – Michonne in spoken word and Rick in a painting class every Wednesday – meant that they didn't have enough energy to roam the night with each other.
The alarming look on Rick's face made Michonne laugh. "No, I'm not thinking of cheating… or maybe I am if I think that way, but… do you?" She placed her feet up to hand on the edge of the kitchen table and looked at a moth fluttering near the lights. It made her shudder. "It's only been Negan with me and I wonder how different people… love."
Like did people love softer than Negan did? All the love bites he left on her skin whenever he was close to the end - that she didn't mind, like bruised kisses that made her tingle whenever she saw them late just before the shower. They had made it a game to hide them.
Rick looked at her then, the plump of her lips. And wondered how it would feel against his thinner ones. He bet she tasted sweet, like plums or strawberries. That she was soft too.
He was ashamed to say that despite the changes Lori had made to begin pleasing him – sending him more pictures of herself, more messages, forever encouraging him to be free.
Rick almost felt bad when he got annoyed – this had been what he wanted, hadn't it?
"Same here, with Lori." He confessed, playing with his thumbs, afraid of the next confession. "Are you… satisfied with him?" It came out more high pitched than he wanted. Michonne raised her eyebrow. "It's only because… sometimes I'm not with Lori. And I just wanted to know what that meant… if anything."
She pitied the rocks weighing his lungs down. It had never been something she admitted before, not even to Maggie – who still frequented her line, updating her about the boy she had met who worked at a pizza place and always gave her extra toppings. He had never been her type, she mentioned, her ideal always being the tall dark and mysteriously handsome boy from next door. But there he – Glenn – was, smiling and goofy and just for her heart.
"You're not alone." It sounded more like a 'thank you' than anything. "And you feel bad because you're meant to like it, but then you get mad because they seem so selfish."
"Yeah! And then they don't even listen to you when you say it nicely." Rick tapped his fist on the table, adamant about his contribution to the discussion.
"And whatever you tell them, they forget by the next time." Michonne scowled, remembering the countless amount of times that she had told Negan to put his tongue here and not there, at what speed, in what direction.
"And then you feel like such an asshole, that you don't ever mention it again." Rick dimmed, a certain unfortunate feeling crowding both of them.
They were silent for a minute or two. "Maybe we have to work on our communication."
Rick nodded. "It used to work so easily, Lori and I. Whatever she liked, I liked. How she moved, how we kissed. But coming here… it was so glaring, there's a whole world out there and it amplified everything wrong that I already knew was there." He planted his head on the table and sighed, allowing Michonne to have access to the back of his head, right on his curls, so he could receive a soft massage.
Rick smiled into the table, the feeling of her hands mimicked the miracles of biblical times. His mind became dirty, imagining the feel of her hands in other places. It wasn't his fault, he hadn't had action for a month once again and would have to wait until this weekend for Lori to find him again.
He couldn't help but imagine taking her on the table, tasting his ways from her collar bone down towards her centre. Lori often squirmed about that, became insecure and angry at him for 'being too dirty' whenever he mentioned doing such a thing and it made him ashamed at times. But Michonne… when they joked with dirty banter late at night, he could sense that she was the type of girl that would allow her significant other to do that to her… with no shame or guilt.
"Rick was that a moan?" Michonne tried to play it off as a joke, the awkward laughter escaping her. It wasn't awkward because he had moaned haphazardly in the moment – everyone did it whenever she extended a quick massage – but the fact that it made her stomach curl in on itself and peaked her imagination.
How his face may look if she rode him to climax, or how he must sound whenever the first initial raw contact is made. She felt like a burglar who had been struck in the middle of the night by a porch light – caught.
Trying to save himself from the redness that dared to take over his face, Rick playfully pulled her hand from the back of his neck. "Well duh, that was the best massage I've ever had."
The atmosphere felt tense for a second, as he licked his lips thinking of other things to say. She watched, fantasised about the pink tip of his tongue and how it would be different to the feeling of Negan's wider one. How it may be more accurate and skilled.
She wondered why Lori wouldn't try to satisfy someone so handsome, why she wouldn't take charge and give him what he needed with confidence that Rick would always be hers. And likewise for Rick, who looked and Michonne and wandered how the fantasy of eating her wasn't enough to probably keep Negan down there.
He wanted her.
His fingertips burning to just feel her skin against his.
And it was a crush for both of them.
An intense one.
Amplified by the fact that it was the middle of the night and silence stretched before them.
With nothing to interrupt the moment, like Sasha or Andrea or Shane.
Or maybe there was because they jumped when the kitchen door opened and a boy in boxers walked in, rubbing his eyes and grabbing a carton labelled 'Andrea' from the fridge.
He drunk majority of the orange juice before making eye contact with them, winking, then leaving with it.
Their held breaths were released as they started to giggle.
"And with that, I think it's time to go to bed." Michonne clapped her hands together as she jumped up from her chair, watching as Rick's hands pressed firmly against the table for him to follow her lead. She loved the veins in them, loved the strength in them.
"You know," Rick said as her hand hovered on the door. "You deserved to be loved right." He detected the softness in his voice, the subtle give away of what was lurking underneath like a lovesick child in the sixth grade. "We both do." Rick readjusted himself.
That night Rick got off to mixed images of himself with Lori and then Michonne.
That night Michonne got off to mixed images of herself with Negan and then Rick.
Both fell asleep satisfied, ashamed and shallow.