here, take this fluff, please...
-comewithnattah
4:31 p.m. Day 2
Their car had gotten them to the Hilltop but gave out before they reached home. It was the timing belt just like Michonne had said. Though they walked along hand in hand, she was going at a much slower pace over the crunch of decaying leaves and roots of the woodlands skirting Alexandria. In the few waking hours they'd shared today, a short-lived game of 'catch-the-towel', had gone from silly horseplay to serious work. Rick had ended up catching handfuls of those molasses curves and Michonne was left clutching the carpet. After an unsuccessful meeting with Gregory, the pair had still won, when listening to the resounding voice of Aaliyah leveled them both with similarly deafening orgasms as Michonne draped her dripping sex over Rick's persistently demanding length ... and the sun hadn't even begun to set on them yet.
"You alright?" Rick looked back to Michonne, inquiring with that smug-ass smirk of his.
She raised her brow with untroubled poise to answer his question, "I'm fine."
"You sure?" He turned forward, eyes set to the towering trees ahead, but she could see his eyes still creasing from his mischievous expression. "You're kinda laggin' behind."
"I am not lagging. I'm just..." she enunciated, "taking my time."
With a playfully patronizing tone, Rick teased her, "Y'know, if I woulda known the car wouldn't make it back and we'd have to walk, I woulda gone easier on you... been a little bit more gentle with you in the car."
Michonne paused in her tracks and rolled her eyes with a sigh, "You know what?"
"What's that?" Rick perked his ears for her rebuttal...
"Nothing... just..." She shook her head at her loss for words and waved him forward, fighting the smile creeping to her lips.
Though she was never one to suffer a cocky man, she liked to see this side of Rick. Truth be told, she was starting to realize she loved to watch him grandstand after sex. Being teased for melting under his touch relieved her, somehow. It proved to her that she was still capable of being soft. The woman she was proud to be was still in there, under all the muck that life had thrown on her. Rick Grimes had found her, loved on her and made her shine from the inside out. Hearing him comment on his advantage over her only made her want to curl even tighter around his little finger.
"We can take a break right up here." He gestured to the trunk of a fallen tree a few yards away. "You can sit down... if your knees are still kinda weak." He laughed, barely getting out that last part.
"You really talk the most shit! I've never seen anything like it." Her laugh blended with his, loudly into the air.
The heat of the day was starting to cool. The sun filtering through the leaves projected light here and there and the silence around them made them feel like they were the only two people on the planet. Rick was happy to remind himself that they weren't- that, with the help of the blushing beauty beside him, his family was safe at home. He had managed to get things right, finally. He was happier than he'd ever been.
"Rick!" Michonne shrieked as the curly headed country boy ambushed her, grabbing her at the knees and hoisting her over his shoulder. "What are you doing?!"
"One good ride deserves another." He declared with one arm wrapped around her thighs as he smacked her bottom rhythmically and continued their ascent up the modest incline, heading west.
She raised her head over his, perching herself up on his shoulder and looking down into his electric blue eyes. "Do you have to carry me like a caveman with a hunk of meat?" She asked with a breathless giggle.
"Do you have to be so meaty?" He clutched both her chunky cheeks with his hungry hands, sinking his teeth into her backside pretending to gobble her up, before swinging her down into the cradle of his arms where she reclined with a satisfied smile. She crossed her hanging legs over the bend of his elbow, threw her arms around his neck and interlocked her fingers to ensure she stayed suspended there, resting against his body. "Much better." She basked in the sweetness of the scene and teased, "I'll have you trained in no time."
"Maybe. But not before I break you in. One day... maybe..." He tilted his head with an aura of doubt, "maybe you'll even be able to walk after we..." He trailed off, challenging her.
Michonne sucked her teeth as heat rose in her face. His words stirred her core as flashes of their earlier antics caused her inner walls to twitch with desire. "Put me down." She jerked out of his arms. "Enough, Smartass!" She kissed his lips as she pouted and he grinned. "Last one to that log wears the pants in this relationship!" She shouted the rules to her made-up contest, taking off before he even caught on to what she was saying.
"Cheater!" He broke into a run and tried to grab her but she was in the wind, her katana bouncing on her back, her locs swaying side to side. She lost momentum as she reached the log first, giving Rick the opportunity to catch her around the waist. "Cheaters never win." He rasped into her neck.
"I didn't cheat. You're just not as fast as I am, too much salt and pepper on that nugget." She laughed, mussing his hair.
Rick dropped his jaw and chuckled out, "Oh! Call'n me old, too? You're work'n your way to a serious spank'n."
"You can't spank me, Grimes. I wear the pants." She pushed her finger into his chest punctuating each word and sat on the fallen tree to catch her breath, looking up at him defiantly.
"We'll see about that. Won't w..." Rick stopped dead and reached for his hatchet. Michonne moved quickly to her feet, freeing her sword in a blink and standing strategically back to back with him. Both their faces contorted as they recognized the all too familiar smell of putrid flesh being carried on the wind.
"See anything?" Rick whispered, narrowing his eyes to survey their surroundings for the walkers he knew were close.
"Nothing... no, wait... on your nine." she briefed him when she caught sight of the first few approaching walkers, followed by, what looked to be, thirty or so converging stragglers. Their mindless groaning intensified when they became cognizant of the former sheriff and his samurai.
Instinctively, Rick flicked his wrist, ready to charge, weapon in hand. But he overrode that initial impulse and sought Michonne's counsel quickly. "How you wanna play this? Split up?" He asked, raising his voice over the oncoming frenzy just feet away.
"No. Let's take them head on. They're only skin and bones." she observed. The intruding ragged assortment of gaunt faces and staggering gaits made her confident this would be light work despite their numbers. Her sword gripped tightly in both hands, the blade horizontal over her head, Michonne advanced with speed and that intensely drawn, fearless expression that always set the man next to her on fire.
Rick joined her, bringing the edge of his hatchet flying into the temples, crowns and brows of the walking corpses reaching out to grab him. He marched over their slumped remains, glancing over to his woman every couple kills. She was leaving a trail of motionless shells in her wake.
He wished he could just sit and watch her dance with that steel- her slender muscular arms rising and falling with force and skill, her hair whirling around her face as she did a 360 spin, effectively slicing three walkers at once. Every time she raised her arms, the hem of her shirt gave him a little peek at her flat stomach and the dipping of her form from her spine to her toned behind. He smiled whenever he heard her aggressively grunt with a parry and a planting strike. His woman was a damn conqueror and she roared like a jungle cat over the loud crunch of skulls he was mowing through.
They moved further and further off their path, dropping body after body with ease 'til only three walkers remained. Michonne took a swipe at one, then another with her cutting edge, splitting through their foreheads and spinning their scalps into the air. She went for the neck of the last gruesome rotter, when the head of Rick's hatchet flew through the distance between them, sticking squarely in it's face, dead-center. The thing fell back with a thud, in front of her. She turned to look back at her swaggering soldier. Lowering her katana slowly, she threw Rick much attitude with a hand on her hip, pursing her luscious lips and ruing her stolen kill. "Showoff!"
"Not showing off, baby. Just wearing the pants." He slapped her butt as he walked by to retrieve the cleaver from it's mark.
Michonne took a few steps back to admire his adorable ass when she gasped, falling backwards on her own. Her ankle was being tugged at by the skeletal hand of a moaning walker, immobilized with a half-eaten body. Laying there for who knows how long, he was hidden under a layer of leaves.
"Chonne!" Rick shouted in a split-second of panic as he darted in her direction. She was making quick work of the ghoulish face with her free foot, kicking and driving her heel into it's skull until it's brains were falling out of it's face.
Michonne took a deep breath, looking up at Rick as he rushed to her aid. But her heart seized within her again as she saw movement behind him coming from the trees. "Behind you!" she called out. He obeyed her warning and turned, ready to spring into action again- when suddenly his posture relaxed. Puzzled by his reaction, Michonne looked around him for a better view of who or what approached.
'What the hell are you two doing out here?" Rosita crushed her face with irritation.
She was accompanied by Sasha, who was complaining, "What the hell, man? Y'all killed all our walkers?"
"Our car broke down." Rick answered then questioned, "Your walkers?"
"Maggie spotted them from the tower and we came out here to get rid of them." Rosita explained as she put her knife back in the holster on the small of her back. Looking around at the carnage that could have been hers, she scoffed a sarcastic, "Thanks a lot."
"Well, fuck, you're welcome." Rick said with a cranky inflection as he caught his breath, wiped the sweat away from his eyes and turned his attention back to Michonne.
Sasha eyed the fallen warrior, "Hey, Michonne, you okay?
"Yeah I just fell on my butt." Michonne assured her. Rick walked back toward her extending his hand to help her up. But she winced in pain as he tried to lift her.
"Oh, honey." Her brave lover assessed her situation sympathetically. Michonne could see his eyes were focused behind her. A similar look was etched on the faces of Rosita and Sasha as they approached. Michonne turned her head and saw, to her disbelief, that of all the places she could have landed, she had fallen into a briar bush. Her backside was lousy with little horn-like thorns. The adrenaline coursing through her veins from making pudding of the walker at her feet and the tension she felt not knowing who was at her beloved's back had temporarily blocked her pain receptors. Not until three sets of wide eyes alerted her that something was wrong, did she feel the first wallop of pain.
"That sucks." Rosita commented dryly. "Shit's gotta hurt."
Rick did end up carrying her, very carefully, over his shoulder home. Michonne kept still, which lessened her pain, somewhat. As she floated home, her only options for scenery were the heels of Rick's boots in a steady beat or Rosita bringing up the rear with annoyed, yet watchful eyes. Which meant Sasha was ahead of Rick with her gun drawn in case they meet any other unfriendlies. Thankfully they weren't that far from Alexandria's gate.
They ended up in the infirmary, Michonne flat on her stomach resting her chin on top of her folded hands while her smirking hero sat in a chair right in front of her. Denise pushed her sliding spectacles up the bridge of her nose as she meticulously removed the pesky nettles from Michonne's backside, causing her to flinch from the pain. The human pin-cushion was happy to hear that the majority of thorns had only scratched her up, relatively few had actually punctured her skin. The ones that actually left holes in her, though, hurt like a son of a bitch.
Denise lost her patience as she fought with a particularly stubborn barb and blurted out "How'd this happen, anyway!" The skeptical look on her face overtly betrayed her belief that a randy 'roll in the hay' had probably rolled Michonne and Rick too far into some prickle bush in the woods.
Rick resented the question and it's tone. His answer came with bite, "We were kill'n shit, what else?"
Denise became suddenly sheepish when her eyes met his and she remembered who she was addressing. She cleared her throat and nodded, slowly at first and then a little more vigorously when Rick quirked his brow for emphasis. "No, I know... I'm sure. Of course... I just... meant..." She groped for words.
Michonne hid her face into the back of her hands, her lips beginning to quiver with laughter at the sound of Denise's stammering back-tracking. She scolded her man for his rough tone with a narrowing of her eyes and a nearly imperceptible half-shake of her head. He was reluctant to simmer down, though, and mouthed an innocent "What?" to her.
So shaken by Rick's reply, the medic poured iodine all over her patient's wounds without a warning. The stinging burn penetrating every puncture and laceration, Michonne quickly lost her smile and yelped through her teeth, "Dammit, Denise!"
The nervous doctor reacted quickly, crumpling her face with awkward acknowledgment of her mistake. "Oops! Sorry, Michonne. I should have warned you... this stuff burns."
Michonne raised her head, looking back at their resident healer, ready to unleash a few choice words. Her lips parted, but she heard Rick clear his throat with two deliberately cheeky grunts. She turned to see him shaking his head with a down-turned mouth, reprimanding her. She rolled her eyes and settled down.
For some reason, Denise thought this would be as good a time as any to explain some things to Rick and Michonne. "Um," She started tentatively. Her eyes were glued to the simple task she was performing, as though it were open heart surgery, to avoid meeting Rick's intense glare again. "I'm actually glad I have you both here. I've been meaning to talk to you." She paused as she cleaned up the rest of Michonne's injuries. "So... I want you guys to be responsible."
"Okay." Being the leader he was, Rick took control first and then ventured for more information. "Responsible, for what... in particular?"
As the one who saved Carl's life after he took a bullet to the eye and the one who everyone always came to every time anyone needed to be repaired in some way, she felt like it was her job to have this conversation with them. The doctor she always wanted to be and the psychiatrist she would've been had much to say on anatomy and relationships, respectively. She saw that Rick was not catching her meaning and that made her confidence plummet, seeing how green she must sound. "Oh... well... No, I mean, be careful..." She finished her work with Michonne, covered her bare, bandaged lower half completely and came to take a seat in front of them both. "Well I guess I should just ask: Are you using any birth control, condoms?" She blurted out.
Rick was dumbfounded, but he managed a "No." from his twisted face. Michonne simply jerked her head back and widened her eyes.
Denise nodded. His willingness to give an answer gave her the courage to plunge directly into a legitimate line of questioning, "Is that because you don't have any? I can give you some. If you..."
"No. Not exactly." Michonne now spoke up and sat up, very carefully, as she wrapped the thin sheet around her waist. She couldn't tell if she was cringing at the pain of her sore behind or the painfully awkward conversation she was baffled to be in. She felt like she was in an 80's sitcom trying to tackle teen pregnancy using a puppets.
"Well," Denise continued, "What you guys are doing, humping like rabbits all over Virginia... that's how you make babies. I would expect two adults to know this." She spoke with sudden authority.
Rick was stunned silent. He didn't know whether to laugh or scowl. Michonne had obviously chosen to laugh. But at least she was playing along through her giggles "Yes. Denise, We know how babies are made."
"So you're trying to get pregnant?" Denise nodded with mistaken understanding. "Well, we can talk about that too. When was your last period?" She pulled out a pen and paper, "We can work out an ovulation schedule. I can offer you advice on diet and positions for intercourse to aid..."
The mention of 'positions for intercourse' had broken the man. Rick could bear no more. "Stop. Denise! Please." He begged with an outstretched hand and more desperation in his voice than he'd ever had cause to use this far into the end of the world. Michone had brought her hands up to her mouth, by now, gasping at the horror of this infirmary visit. "We're not exactly try'n to get pregnant either."
Denise looked up at him, then Michonne, over her glasses. She seemed displeased and she began to analyze the couple's relationship for unhealthy behavioral traits. "Well, have you two discussed it at all?"
Michonne looked to Rick, who still eyed Denise with confusion. He seemed to be equally engrossed in analyzing her for unhealthy behavioral traits: this conversation was definitely at the top of the list. But, slowly, he turned to meet Michonne's eyes and she grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Uhhhh," Michonne wasn't sure what to say. No, they hadn't specifically addressed growing their family. But she'd figured that they were discussing it, in a way, every time Rick let go inside of her (which had been an awful lot of "discussion" since they decided to "converse").
Denise interrupted the heart-eyes they were making at each other. "Okay, you guys." her voice became somber, "A lot of people are looking to you to make this place work. What happens to all of that if this relationship implodes, as they're known to do? Babies don't make knew relationships easier. What happens when you have a teenager, a toddler and brand new baby hanging in the balance? Not to mention all the rest of us!" She gestured with wide arms figuratively encompassing their entire community. She and her brother had been through the divorce of their parents. It sucked- for everybody. That's what she saw when she thought about the two people in front of her calling it quits: an entire community scarred by their adoptive parents' divorce.
"We're not gonna implode." Rick drawled out his personal assurance like he was trying to convince a little kid that there were no monsters under the bed.
"Well, you can't be reckless!" Denise was coming down hard on them both, she realized. She didn't mean to be so "Denise". This was exactly why she never wanted this job in the first place.
"It's not reckless." Michonne defended with a heavy sigh. They weren't being reckless, of that she was certain. She saw it as... being organic, letting things happen naturally. That's how she found herself clutching those mints and that curly mane. After months and months of no specific conversation, one night had made them husband and wife for all intents and purposes. That was their dynamic. Maybe it was scary for others on the outside looking in, especially for the Alexandrians who were still getting used to how their whole group operated. But Michonne was not afraid, for the first time since the world went haywire. She was not afraid of anything. The world could implode but she and the man holding hand never would. 'Look, Denise, we are being responsible. I promise you. Don't worry."
Rick concurred, "We're together. It's gonna stay that way... because it's never her way or my way, it's always our way. That's how we get thangs done." He shrugged as though it was the most obvious truth on the world.
After putting Judith to bed and sharing a nice soothing shower together, Michonne threw on some Nina Simone, determined to relax. Rick hired himself to apply the ointment Denise had given Michonne to prevent any lasting blemishes. He gently massaged the unscented cream into her dark honeysuckled skin, neither of them wearing a stitch. Michonne laid on her stomach, her head at the foot of their bed and hummed contentedly as his strong hands worked for what seemed like a suspiciously long time for a dime-sized amount of balm.
"Aren't you done yet?" She looked back at him with judging, hooded eyes.
"Not yet." He lied. "This is a thick cream."
She smirked at the obvious improbability of his fib, but turned back around. She rested her cheek on her hands, enjoying his ministrations. "So..." she decided to tease him by quoting his words to Denise, "It's always our way, huh? Doesn't sound like there's a designated pants-wearer in this relationship at all."
"There definitely isn't at the moment." He commented on their unclad state, leaned over and kissed the welts and scrapes on her bottom and back. "With this gorgeous view in front of me, I'm think'n pants-wear'n is the most reckless thing we do."
"And Denise said we can't be reckless!" She pointed her finger above her head, mocking their young doctor.
"Anyway," Rick pointed out, "I see more maternity dresses in your future, than pants."
"There are maternity pants out there too, don't forget." She reminded him a sleepy sing-song-y tone.
"Mnh-mnh." Rick disagreed. "I want to see you waddle around in big ugly dresses, like my Aunt Debbie. She was always pregnant. I'm pretty sure she was directly responsible for 90% of my cousins." Michonne giggled at his description. "Her house was the most fun though, always a birthday party going on..."
The tired woman closed her eyes and imagined, "I can't wait for birthdays here."
Rick finally stopped with the ointment, crawled over her and plopped down on his back, beside her, finally resting his tired muscles from a long day. He looked up at the spinning ceiling fan and yawned as he welcomed her into a peaceful cuddle under his arm. "Birthday parties mean running kids, screaming kids, crying kids, the inevitable puddle of puke and a massive mess to clean up."
"I know." She smiled at the thought of all that life and love and chaos under their roof. "I can't wait."
"Well, you just keep your sword ready. Maybe, we'll need it one day once little people outnumber us." Rick playfully suggested. "Y'know, just to make our threats more believable."
"Nope. You're on your own." Michonne declined. "I won't be doing anything, except sitting somewhere in a big ugly dress, cooking another bun in the oven like your aunt."
"Oh, that's cold. What happened to our way?" He reintroduced the concept.
"Think I'll let you wear the pants when it's time for birthdays."