Freedom's Just Another Word (Rick/Shane, The Walking Dead)
Pairing: Rick/Shane, mentions of Shane/OC, Carl/OC in future parts. The main pair is my Walking Dead OTP, though, and yes, it’s a love story because I’m a sucker for that.
Rating: NC-17 to be safe. I had no control over how much Rick and Shane wanted to sex each other up in this universe.
Summary: AU twist on canon: Six years after a zombie hoard overtakes Hershel’s farm, killing most of the group, Shane, Rick and Carl are still on the road.
Warnings/Spoilers/Important notes: This is intended to be a three part universe, but each part could be seen as a complete (although, it'll be necessary to read them in order or they probably won't make sense. I didn't want this to have a WIP feel in case Part 3, which is 40% done is never finished because aliens abduct me or something. Part 2 is complete aside from editing, so that'll be up when I get back from vacation next week.
I took a few story ideas/characters from the comics, but then did my own thing with them. Some mentions of Michonne's back-story are in this, so if you're all, "Oh no! I can't known any of the deets until it's in the show" GTFO. I mean, do not read part 2 of this story.
Also, in this universe, the zombie hoard came later, enough time for Lori to have the baby. And clearly Shane never died.
Word count: ~3,000 words for this part.
Disclaimer: I don’t own it, I’m not getting any money off it, and I thank everyone involved in the creation of the comics and show. And also special props to the people who cast Rick and Shane as hotties with chemistry.
A really special thank you to almadeamla who inspires me to keep writing. Who holds my hand through this process. Who totally enables my Rick/Shane love. And who makes me laugh out loud (not to be confused with lol) about 40 times per e-mail. Once you're done reading this fic, go read all of hers, and then get inspired to write your own. KTHANKS.
Freedom’s Just Another Word
Part 1
Six years later and it was still hard to think about them. Lori, baby Judy, Andrea, Hershel, everyone they'd lost along the way. When his mind did trek through the sludge, it was only long enough that he could still keep the insanity at bay. This world, it drove you mad. A paradox of paradoxes. If you stayed sane, that’s what got you killed. Insanity was the price you paid to keep on living in a world you were better off dead in. He’d been there, right at the edge of insanity once, like looking over a deep canyon. Without Shane to pull him out of it, he probably wouldn’t be here now, contemplating the future, their next move, the next hunt, cataloguing what supplies they need most and what could be considered luxuries.
Shane’s asleep on the other side of the room where they’re holed up for the night, an abandoned house in Missoula, Montana. You can find quiet places like these more often than you’d expect, where you don’t have to kill too many walkers to get a decent night’s rest. The house is set back by the mountains, outside what used to be the city limits. A ranch house only a few walkers had managed to find their way to. Rick, Shane and Carl had been efficient, quiet, no guns.
From where he’s sitting, Rick can see Shane’s black eye, yellowing now, but still noticeable. It makes Rick’s stomach churn with guilt. Shane’s angry enough with him to keep his distance tonight, not angry enough to find another room to sleep in. Rick figures that’s something. They’re in the master bedroom upstairs, but the place had already been raided. The bed's mattress is missing, but there were a few spare pillows still left in the hallway closet. They have a few of their own supplies anyhow, including their own sleeping bags.
Carl’s across the hall; Rick’s checked on him a few times, unable to settle down for the night, peering into the room to watch Carl sleep. Rick's pretty sure Shane’s not sleeping, his breathing’s not quite right, but Rick stays quiet when he comes in and out of the room anyway.
“I’m fine, dad, I can sleep in my own room. You don't have to ask every time.” Carl had told him earlier, carefully leveling him with a look when Rick had asked. Carl's seventeen now, almost eighteen- lean, hard, like he had never lived in a kind of world other than this one, but Rick still worries sometimes, even when Carl's just in the next room.
Carl looks a little like Shane sometimes with the hard set to his eyes, the look on his face when he made the tough choices look easy. He’d shot a man a month or so ago who’d pulled a gun on Shane outside a gas station. The man had come out from behind the building while Shane siphoned some gas, Rick and Carl were the lookouts, and Carl had lived up to his job. Blown half the man’s face off. Dirty, messy, effective. Rick ran over when he heard the shot, looked from the dying man to Carl’s blank face and felt his heart twist.
Carl’s not stupid, he knows what Rick and Shane do together at night, but he never directly comments on it. Rick’s not sure if his treatment of the matter is apathy, discomfort, or understanding-Carl confuses him like that sometimes. His face lost the openness it once possessed when he was a kid, closed off and blank now most of the time.
Rick used to brace himself for a question like, “What would mom think?” or “When did you realize you were a fag?” But those are just Rick’s own projections. Carl lost those years of his life where boys learn to be cruel about things like men loving other men. Despite Carl’s emotional disconnect, he’s still kind at heart, doesn’t judge, and sometimes the only way Rick knows he’s still alive is that his son can move him to tears with kind words or one of his genuine laughs. It’s usually Shane that gets him to laugh, but the kind words often belong to Rick.
“He’ll get over it, Dad,” Carl had said after Rick and Shane fought, “You know Shane, just give him time. Think, don’t talk.” The side of his mouth had twisted up into a smile then, maybe a smirk. He thumped Rick on the shoulder and had gone off to check on Shane. Rick could see the gun tucked into the back of Carl’s jeans, Shane’s gait as he moved. If Rick didn’t know any better, he’d say he was Shane’s by blood. There was a bond between them that Rick sometimes felt left out of, resentful over the fact that Shane wouldn’t tell Carl to leave him alone while he cleaned his bloody nose, licked his wounds, no matter how angry he was.
Rick and Shane don’t usually fight like this anymore, with fists, black eyes and bloody noses. It’s usually heated words or roughness in the bedroom, but not this in a long time. This fight was stupid, but pent up tension, days on the road, wore them down sometimes. Shane wanted to head West, Rick wanted to head East, simple as that. Stupid threats about going their separate ways, Shane mouthing off about Rick always calling the shots even though there wasn’t anyone left to lead but him and Carl, Rick’s fist suddenly colliding with Shane’s face.
He can’t sleep tonight. He keeps hearing Shane say, “Man, when the hell are you going to let me decide something for once? Who else has to die before you fucking listen to me?”
*
It wasn’t easier or harder when Maggie, Glenn, Daryl and T-Dog were still travelling with them, just different. They drifted apart, eventually, joined with different people or went off on their own. Maggie and Glenn with Dale’s old RV, and Daryl and T-Dog warmed up to a group they’d spent some time hunting with in Minnesota. The women in that group had been pretty, few, but pretty. At that point Rick had Shane in his bed every night, fighting to be the one on top, hissing Rick’s name as he came no matter who was doing the fucking, so he wasn’t dazzled by Jane’s hand on his arm or the way she pressed against him sometimes when they spoke.
“You want to set up camp with Kevin and Jane's crew?” Shane had asked. He and Rick were away from where the group had set up camp, overhead the stars were just starting to glitter, the moon full and heavy.
“I say we keep moving, set out on our own.” Rick would have added something about not being ready to settle down again even though at this point it had been a year and a half since Atlanta. It was too hard to explain his motivations, he wasn’t even really sure why this felt wrong, but in the end he didn’t need to say any of that.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. Kevin runs his mouth too fucking much. Too much of a dumbass to be a good leader. We’d go crazy here,” Shane said, bringing his hand up to cup the back of Rick’s neck. They kissed, slow and easy, like honey. Rick remembered a time when they were younger, a couple lifetimes ago, sitting by a stream with Shane and having this moment where all he could think about were Shane’s lips. The feeling had startled him, but he’d let that moment slide away, get carried away with the stream.
That moment had gotten lost, so far away that Rick would have never thought to look for it, but somehow it had found its way back to him after all this time. The kiss deepened, Rick felt hot everywhere even though the night air was cool. If memory serves, though, nothing more happened until later that night, maybe not even until after they’d split off from everyone else. That kiss is seared into Rick’s brain. Branded for life he feels like sometimes, even when Shane drives him crazier than anyone else in this world could.
They'd camped out in the mountains.for a couple nights before they cleared out enough walkers and found the ranch house nestled in the green grass a mile or so away from their camp. There, under the stars, unable to sleep, Rick had tried to apologize to Shane about their fight.
“It’s done, Rick.” Shane said dismissively, “Go to sleep.” There was finality in his voice that stopped Rick from pushing even though he knew Shane was being evasive. He wasn’t lying exactly, the incident was technically over, but done wasn’t the same as forgiven.
Rick isn’t sure how long they’ll be in Missoula for, could be days, weeks, maybe even months. He likes it here, though. There’s a decent fishing spot nearby, all clean crisp water and massive trout. They could eat well, even better if they can scope out the city and see what kind of work they have cut out for them with walkers.
After the hoard in Atlanta, they never settle down in one place for too long. It’s not really about looking for a relatively safe place to stay, they’ve had chances like that, found people that actually could be trusted, places they could have inhabited. They talk about it sometimes, in the abstract, maybe one day choosing a place to stay, returning to one they’d left behind, but seeing the world and hunting walker after walker doesn’t always seem like the worst way to live anymore. At first it was just a way to numb the past, but somewhere along the way it became a choice they just kept making, a way of life they liked to live.
*
On the road, they don’t like to split up for too long. Which means Carl's usually close by, even though an adult now. It doesn’t give Rick and Shane much time alone, so when they do get a chance to fuck, it’s often wild, raw, fast. Rick likes it best when Shane fucks him chest to back, against a wall or hands down in the dirt. He could lose himself in the feel of Shane’s hips pumping quick, groaning Rick’s name while he's hot inside him.
Rick knew that this happened to men sometimes in prison, he’d made enough jokes about it in his lifetime, but he wondered if all it really took was isolation, desperation to make you rewire things about yourself that seemed impossible to change, or if this had really been there for him all along. He thinks of that time by the stream a lot. Hot Kentucky summer, Shane shirtless and wet from splashing water on himself to combat the heat, laughing at something Rick said. Shane turns to smile at him, and Rick can’t remember if his heart sped up like that at the time or if his memory is just taking a cue from his current position on the matter of Shane and himself.
The farther they move away from Hershel’s farm, the easier it is for Rick to forget who he once was. It’s easy to wave to yourself in the rear-view mirror when the love of your apocalyptic life is riding shotgun and your son is sleeping in the backseat. It’s a game of luck and smarts out here, and somehow they’ve managed to make it work all this time. There have been an assortment of minor injuries, illnesses, and bouts of depression, but for the most part they've done just fine and found their way.
Six years after the zombie outbreak and there are some safe zones where travelers have gone in and cleared out massive zombie populations. There's a distinct pride in wasting each and every walker that comes into your path, like maybe one day you really could exterminate them all, like ants or mice from a house.
They meet people along the way, hunt with them from time to time, but never stay for too long. Rick and Shane hadn’t been much for trust in the past and that's a condition that's only worsened with time. Horrible things and people have always existed in the world, but now instead of a small cut, they’ve turned into an inflamed wound, puss and blood poisoning, festering flesh. Mostly it's easier to steer clear and keep to themselves with the occasional exception, the occasional allies they find to help wipe out a larger zombie population and acquire valuable supplies.
Part of Rick likes it better this way, no one but Carl and Shane to look towards him for guidance, Shane to lean on and now Carl too. They’re a unit, a well-oiled machine. His deepest regret is Lori and the baby being left out of this equation. But you move on, you keep fighting, you don’t let yourself sink into the tar pit of your mind. You keep going.
*
Shane bitches about home cooked meals sometimes, or their lack thereof. His favorite pastime during those rare times when they find long stretches of empty, never-ending road is reminiscing about the past. Shane seems to be filled with a bottomless well worth of tales from his old life, most of which Rick had been there for. At first, Rick thought these stories were mostly for Carl’s benefit, but now he thinks they're mostly for Shane’s. He can live with it either way.
They’re driving to the city today to see what they’re dealing with, maneuvering around abandoned cars, stopping to kill stray walkers (the shitty post-apocalyptic slogan: a walker dead today could be a life saved tomorrow, seems fitting. Carl told him once that he still sometimes thinks about the walker that got Dale, the one he’d almost killed.) Rick’s wearing his aviators, slim protection against the glare of the sun, listening to Shane talk about the dinners his mom used to prepare for the family. She baked her own bread sometimes, made them pot roasts and the best damn mac ‘n’ cheese he’s ever had.
“Shane,” Carl groans from the back seat, “You gotta stop, man, I’m starving already as it is.”
Rick and Shane both laugh, share one of the looks that’s been coming to them second nature for years. Something flickers behind Shane’s eyes, but Rick thinks he’s been mostly forgiven. He thinks briefly about reaching over, taking Shane’s hand even for just a second, but his body rejects that thought like it would a virus. Invasive, incorrect. The look will do for now.
When Shane starts talking about their days on the force, their time at the academy, that’s when Rick really starts to relax.
They spend the day hacking away at walkers, clearing out the stragglers first, quietly, steadily, the way they always do. No guns unless it’s an emergency. There’s a small convenience store on the edge of town, not too many walkers around it. The windows are smashed, shelves overturned, and it’s been mostly looted. They do manage to find some canned goods, toothbrushes, protein bars, and a few other usable things, though. It’s nightfall by the time they finish taking what they need, and they decide not to drive back to the house. Carl sleeps stretched out in the back seat while Rick and Shane take their sleeping bags outside, Shane offering to take first watch.
“Nah, I owe you one.” Rick says.
Shane eyes him, “For what?”
Rick laughs, but there’s not really any humor behind it, “For a lot of things.”
“Man, I already told you it was fine.”
Rick leans over and kisses him, after a second Shane cups Rick’s chin and kisses him back. He lets Rick take first watch after all.
*
Despite his tendency to reminisce, there are things Shane never mentions, gaping holes in his oral history. He never talks about Lori, the baby that might have been his, Rick’s past promises and threats.
They talked about it once, poorly articulated, vaguely apologetic, and awkward as hell. Moving on seems the appropriate answer in the end. The obvious choice for two men like Rick and Shane.
Out on the road, sometimes it feels like the world just belongs to them. They stop to kill walkers when they see them, spell of tranquility and peaceful solitude broken, because it might spare some poor sap in the future. It doesn’t take too long to hop out of the car and bash a few zombie brains-wastes no bullets or man-power, and it keeps them strong.
Usually they move through this world like a hurricane, fast and destructive, leaving bodies in their wake. The bodies may have already been dead, but the sentiment still rings true.
Sometimes, with Shane and Carl by his side, things don’t seem so bad anymore. After they do what they can in Montana, they could go anywhere in this wide open world. Maybe they’ll come back here one day, knowing they could make it safe, maybe they won’t. Who knew living lawlessly would suit two cops so well. He looks at Shane and Carl, day in and day out, knowing they wear this life like a perfectly tailored suit, and he’s starting to believe that maybe he does too.