Status Quo - The Walking Dead - Lori/Rick/Shane
Title: Status Quo
Pairing: Unrequited Lori/Rick/Shane
Word Count: 1839
Rating: R
Summary: The world has ended. Everything should be different now.
He wants to fuck Rick just as badly as he wants to kill him. And, yeah, ordinarily he wouldn't admit that, not even in the sanctity of his own mind - but it's the end of the goddamn world. This is far away from 'ordinarily' and its like.
Because the dead are walking, and just about everyone he knows is gone, so on the grand scale of things being in love with his best friend and his wife maybe isn't such a bad thing after all. He sits at a fair distance, watching the pair of them together. Lori's talking, and Rick is smiling - and, fuck, that sight is pretty damn beautiful. Shane's gaze lingers longer than it ought to, remembering when Lori's attention used to be focused on him, until he's not sure any more which of them he's jealous of.
It's driving him mad. He might already be half-way there.
He scratches at the back of his neck when Dale asks him if he's alright. He doesn't say a word, but he twitches a smile and rolls his shoulders and that seems to be enough.
Across the camp, Lori is still talking and Rick is still smiling and Shane feels the rage bottled inside him, hurting right in the centre of his chest.
*
They're dirty, all of them, all the damn time. The world stinks and they just add to it, with dirt on their skin no matter how much they wash.
"Remember the showers in the station?" Rick says as they are bathing in the lagoon together, the water sparkling in the sun while the girls fish in the centre. Shane glances towards him, but looks away quickly when the sight of pale skin and scar tissue greet him. The urge to touch is just about too much to handle. Given a chance, he would press his mouth against that scar, he would kiss and lick until Rick started to shake - he'd make Rick feel like a goddamn god if he could.
Instead he reins himself in, looks down at the water, and grunts. "Yeah," he says. "I remember."
"So warm on your skin." Rick disappears beneath the surface for a moment, but he comes up again with his hair dripping. "Sometimes it would just about scald you if you weren't careful."
"Are you complaining about our facilities?" Shane asks, flicking water towards Rick with a splash of his hands. "We're five-star, thank you very much."
Cold water floods over him as Rick splashes back. "Who the hell does your ratings?" he asks - and now it's Shane that's making him smile, and that makes the water feel damn warm all of a sudden.
"Times are pretty tight," Shane says. "We're stuck doing 'em ourselves."
Rick nods, his face straight and serious again, as if he's about to suggest wandering straight into a death trap: he's got a habit of doing that. "I'm starting to detect a bias in the system, Shane," he says. "Gotta admit that it's got me worrying."
"You're a dork, Rick," Shane tells him, shaking his head and trying not to let himself smile too wide - but then there is water splashing again, and the girls are wolf-whistling, and Shane thinks that the end of the world might be pretty damn fun if it's going to go down like this.
*
There is blood everywhere, slipping between their fingers like red sauce. "Were you bit?" Lori asks Rick, her voice scrambling in fear as she tries to help Shane stem the bleeding.
"Just a scratch," Rick pants.
"Your arm is slashed to hell," Shane mutters. "Daryl and his machete. You're not infected, but you're still down shit creek if we can't get you patched up soon."
Forget the walkers; blood loss will be all that it takes. Shane is having a hard time thinking straight; his best friend is bleeding out in his arms and he doesn't know what to do about it, doesn't know if he can fix it. Looking up, he meets Lori's eyes and finds them stained with tears, her face red and strained as she shakes under pressure. "Please," she's whispering. "Rick, please."
"I need something to stop the bleeding," he tells her. "Get me a towel or a shirt or something."
Lori leaves, and then it's just Rick and Shane and the endless, endless blood, and Shane can hear Daryl swearing and roaring in the background but he can't really take it in, not at all. Rick's face is pale, like he's already gone. "You'll take care of them for me," he grits out, clinging onto Shane's arm just as tightly as Shane has clamped down on him. "Promise me."
"Stick around and do it yourself," Shane says - even if there have been times, recently, when he's wished Rick was out of the picture. Times when he's wanted to do the deed himself.
Now it's happening and his heart is racing and he can't fucking deal with this, not with losing someone else.
He presses his mouth against Rick's forehead and allows his lips to linger there, eyes closed. Daryl swears in the background, but that's nothing new. It's easy to filter him out.
"You gotta stay with us," he whispers, allowing his lips to skim across sweaty skin with each word. "Don't flunk out on us now, Rick. We just got you back."
It's not fair it's not fair it's not fair, his heart pounds, until he doesn't even know how to think any more.
*
Rick survives. He's good at that.
They get the bleeding to stop and Dale makes himself handy with a needle and thread, piecing him together like a broken toy. "It's messy, but it'll do the job," Dale declares. "Try to be more careful in future."
Shane nods, while thinking that they ought to hide Rick away somewhere from now on; somewhere that he can't try to be a hero, and where the walkers can't get near him. He's a liability of the worst kind.
Shane stays out of the way, because he doesn't think that he can stand to see the dirty bandages snaking around Rick's arm any more than he has to. The thought of it makes him feel sick.
Lori tracks him down. She always does.
"So," she says, taking a seat on a tree stump. She watches him, her eyes too smart, and just the sight of her makes him ache. "Rick thinks you're mad at him."
His jaw clenches. "It's not like that."
"He thinks that you wish he died back there." Her eyes are hard and unforgiving; he still remembers what they look like, dark with want. "Is he right?"
"What? No. Fuck, no." Except his own mind betrays him, doesn't it? It tries to imagine what life would be like without Rick in the picture, tries to imagine having his family all to himself, tries to imagine being him. He doesn't understand his own thoughts any more. "I won't want him dead, Lori. Don't be stupid."
"What is it, then?" Her voice is still cold; she doesn't believe him. He doesn't blame her. "Because we need an explanation. You're supposed to be his friend."
Shane bows his head and places his hands at the nape of his neck, wishing that he could block it out: all of it. Wishing that he could take a step back, several of them, to a simple world where the worst thing he had to face was waking up to go to work in the morning. Lori needs an answer, and nothing he says is going to be enough. He doesn't think even the truth will cover it.
"I think I'm in love with him," he says, and the sound of it makes him want to start laughing. It doesn't sound real, not for a second. "Both of you, actually."
Lori is quiet and he doesn't dare to look up, doesn't want to see what expression is hanging from her face. His heart races, telling him that he's ruined everything, that he should have held his tongue. Lori can't even handle his feelings for her; adding Rick to the mix makes things worse, not better, but he can't help it. He wants what he wants.
It's the end of civilisation, despite the hope that Rick still nurtures. Shane thinks he ought to give up being ashamed.
"Stay away from us," Lori warns, getting to her feet. Her voice is like ice now, and Shane keeps his head down: he nods, thinking that maybe it's for the best, that maybe his eyes are too damn big for his stomach.
She leaves and he holds his tongue, wondering how the hell they got to this.
*
He keeps his word - keeps his distance. Doesn't interact with 'em more than he has to, but in a camp this small that's a lot easier said than done. He's trying, so damn hard, but it's as if that doesn't matter. He still has to work with Rick, the pair of them investigating threats together, and he still finds himself watching Lori and Carl from across their camp more often than not - it's an addiction that he can't seem to overcome.
Rick lets it go on for a couple more days before he intervenes, and Shane reckons that he is supposed to feel thankful for being given that time at all. Rick ambles towards him, hat on his head as if that's going to give him added authority. Works, in a way: it reminds Shane of how life used to be.
"You and me," Rick says, "Do we need to have a conversation?"
Shane holds his tongue for a moment, wondering exactly how much Lori has told her husband about what's going on; Rick lives in his own world, where black and white morality can still run true and where the hero always gets the girl. There's no room for people like Shane in his world view; there's no room for these feelings.
Looking down, Shane cracks a smile that is all for Rick's benefit and shakes his head. "No," he says. "We're good."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." He wants to say to hell with it and confess all; he wants to tell Rick everything that he imagines doing with him and his wife, all of the dirty nude images that play in his mind, but he knows what lies down that path. Blood and black eyes. He's too much of a coward. "How's your arm?"
Rick pauses for a moment, stuck between pursuit and acceptance, before he nods. "Like brand new," he says. There is going to be an ugly scar there once it has healed for good, but he's alive. Shane thinks that maybe that's all that any of them can ask. "I'm going out to pick up firewood. Want to come?"
Shane nods and he doesn't flinch when Rick claps a hand on his shoulder; friendly, close, as if nothing is different. The world has ended, but nothing changes. Nothing ever can. Here they are, on a spinning globe, stuck with the status quo.
Pairing: Unrequited Lori/Rick/Shane
Word Count: 1839
Rating: R
Summary: The world has ended. Everything should be different now.
He wants to fuck Rick just as badly as he wants to kill him. And, yeah, ordinarily he wouldn't admit that, not even in the sanctity of his own mind - but it's the end of the goddamn world. This is far away from 'ordinarily' and its like.
Because the dead are walking, and just about everyone he knows is gone, so on the grand scale of things being in love with his best friend and his wife maybe isn't such a bad thing after all. He sits at a fair distance, watching the pair of them together. Lori's talking, and Rick is smiling - and, fuck, that sight is pretty damn beautiful. Shane's gaze lingers longer than it ought to, remembering when Lori's attention used to be focused on him, until he's not sure any more which of them he's jealous of.
It's driving him mad. He might already be half-way there.
He scratches at the back of his neck when Dale asks him if he's alright. He doesn't say a word, but he twitches a smile and rolls his shoulders and that seems to be enough.
Across the camp, Lori is still talking and Rick is still smiling and Shane feels the rage bottled inside him, hurting right in the centre of his chest.
*
They're dirty, all of them, all the damn time. The world stinks and they just add to it, with dirt on their skin no matter how much they wash.
"Remember the showers in the station?" Rick says as they are bathing in the lagoon together, the water sparkling in the sun while the girls fish in the centre. Shane glances towards him, but looks away quickly when the sight of pale skin and scar tissue greet him. The urge to touch is just about too much to handle. Given a chance, he would press his mouth against that scar, he would kiss and lick until Rick started to shake - he'd make Rick feel like a goddamn god if he could.
Instead he reins himself in, looks down at the water, and grunts. "Yeah," he says. "I remember."
"So warm on your skin." Rick disappears beneath the surface for a moment, but he comes up again with his hair dripping. "Sometimes it would just about scald you if you weren't careful."
"Are you complaining about our facilities?" Shane asks, flicking water towards Rick with a splash of his hands. "We're five-star, thank you very much."
Cold water floods over him as Rick splashes back. "Who the hell does your ratings?" he asks - and now it's Shane that's making him smile, and that makes the water feel damn warm all of a sudden.
"Times are pretty tight," Shane says. "We're stuck doing 'em ourselves."
Rick nods, his face straight and serious again, as if he's about to suggest wandering straight into a death trap: he's got a habit of doing that. "I'm starting to detect a bias in the system, Shane," he says. "Gotta admit that it's got me worrying."
"You're a dork, Rick," Shane tells him, shaking his head and trying not to let himself smile too wide - but then there is water splashing again, and the girls are wolf-whistling, and Shane thinks that the end of the world might be pretty damn fun if it's going to go down like this.
*
There is blood everywhere, slipping between their fingers like red sauce. "Were you bit?" Lori asks Rick, her voice scrambling in fear as she tries to help Shane stem the bleeding.
"Just a scratch," Rick pants.
"Your arm is slashed to hell," Shane mutters. "Daryl and his machete. You're not infected, but you're still down shit creek if we can't get you patched up soon."
Forget the walkers; blood loss will be all that it takes. Shane is having a hard time thinking straight; his best friend is bleeding out in his arms and he doesn't know what to do about it, doesn't know if he can fix it. Looking up, he meets Lori's eyes and finds them stained with tears, her face red and strained as she shakes under pressure. "Please," she's whispering. "Rick, please."
"I need something to stop the bleeding," he tells her. "Get me a towel or a shirt or something."
Lori leaves, and then it's just Rick and Shane and the endless, endless blood, and Shane can hear Daryl swearing and roaring in the background but he can't really take it in, not at all. Rick's face is pale, like he's already gone. "You'll take care of them for me," he grits out, clinging onto Shane's arm just as tightly as Shane has clamped down on him. "Promise me."
"Stick around and do it yourself," Shane says - even if there have been times, recently, when he's wished Rick was out of the picture. Times when he's wanted to do the deed himself.
Now it's happening and his heart is racing and he can't fucking deal with this, not with losing someone else.
He presses his mouth against Rick's forehead and allows his lips to linger there, eyes closed. Daryl swears in the background, but that's nothing new. It's easy to filter him out.
"You gotta stay with us," he whispers, allowing his lips to skim across sweaty skin with each word. "Don't flunk out on us now, Rick. We just got you back."
It's not fair it's not fair it's not fair, his heart pounds, until he doesn't even know how to think any more.
*
Rick survives. He's good at that.
They get the bleeding to stop and Dale makes himself handy with a needle and thread, piecing him together like a broken toy. "It's messy, but it'll do the job," Dale declares. "Try to be more careful in future."
Shane nods, while thinking that they ought to hide Rick away somewhere from now on; somewhere that he can't try to be a hero, and where the walkers can't get near him. He's a liability of the worst kind.
Shane stays out of the way, because he doesn't think that he can stand to see the dirty bandages snaking around Rick's arm any more than he has to. The thought of it makes him feel sick.
Lori tracks him down. She always does.
"So," she says, taking a seat on a tree stump. She watches him, her eyes too smart, and just the sight of her makes him ache. "Rick thinks you're mad at him."
His jaw clenches. "It's not like that."
"He thinks that you wish he died back there." Her eyes are hard and unforgiving; he still remembers what they look like, dark with want. "Is he right?"
"What? No. Fuck, no." Except his own mind betrays him, doesn't it? It tries to imagine what life would be like without Rick in the picture, tries to imagine having his family all to himself, tries to imagine being him. He doesn't understand his own thoughts any more. "I won't want him dead, Lori. Don't be stupid."
"What is it, then?" Her voice is still cold; she doesn't believe him. He doesn't blame her. "Because we need an explanation. You're supposed to be his friend."
Shane bows his head and places his hands at the nape of his neck, wishing that he could block it out: all of it. Wishing that he could take a step back, several of them, to a simple world where the worst thing he had to face was waking up to go to work in the morning. Lori needs an answer, and nothing he says is going to be enough. He doesn't think even the truth will cover it.
"I think I'm in love with him," he says, and the sound of it makes him want to start laughing. It doesn't sound real, not for a second. "Both of you, actually."
Lori is quiet and he doesn't dare to look up, doesn't want to see what expression is hanging from her face. His heart races, telling him that he's ruined everything, that he should have held his tongue. Lori can't even handle his feelings for her; adding Rick to the mix makes things worse, not better, but he can't help it. He wants what he wants.
It's the end of civilisation, despite the hope that Rick still nurtures. Shane thinks he ought to give up being ashamed.
"Stay away from us," Lori warns, getting to her feet. Her voice is like ice now, and Shane keeps his head down: he nods, thinking that maybe it's for the best, that maybe his eyes are too damn big for his stomach.
She leaves and he holds his tongue, wondering how the hell they got to this.
*
He keeps his word - keeps his distance. Doesn't interact with 'em more than he has to, but in a camp this small that's a lot easier said than done. He's trying, so damn hard, but it's as if that doesn't matter. He still has to work with Rick, the pair of them investigating threats together, and he still finds himself watching Lori and Carl from across their camp more often than not - it's an addiction that he can't seem to overcome.
Rick lets it go on for a couple more days before he intervenes, and Shane reckons that he is supposed to feel thankful for being given that time at all. Rick ambles towards him, hat on his head as if that's going to give him added authority. Works, in a way: it reminds Shane of how life used to be.
"You and me," Rick says, "Do we need to have a conversation?"
Shane holds his tongue for a moment, wondering exactly how much Lori has told her husband about what's going on; Rick lives in his own world, where black and white morality can still run true and where the hero always gets the girl. There's no room for people like Shane in his world view; there's no room for these feelings.
Looking down, Shane cracks a smile that is all for Rick's benefit and shakes his head. "No," he says. "We're good."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." He wants to say to hell with it and confess all; he wants to tell Rick everything that he imagines doing with him and his wife, all of the dirty nude images that play in his mind, but he knows what lies down that path. Blood and black eyes. He's too much of a coward. "How's your arm?"
Rick pauses for a moment, stuck between pursuit and acceptance, before he nods. "Like brand new," he says. There is going to be an ugly scar there once it has healed for good, but he's alive. Shane thinks that maybe that's all that any of them can ask. "I'm going out to pick up firewood. Want to come?"
Shane nods and he doesn't flinch when Rick claps a hand on his shoulder; friendly, close, as if nothing is different. The world has ended, but nothing changes. Nothing ever can. Here they are, on a spinning globe, stuck with the status quo.