Surprise! Fanfic Part Four
Jul. 20th, 2014 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustTHIS OLD DEATH
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
Joined at the hip like they are, there's no way Rick isn't going to find out about it when Philip starts that little building project of his up, turning the second room of his apartments into some sort of weird man-cave, or when he goes out on survey alone, coming back after midnight, with something he doesn't want anybody to see in the back of his truck. Not to mention how he starts spending a whole lot of time in there of an evening with the door locked, to keep out prying eyes. He and Milton whisper together a lot, even more than usual—something to do with those experiments Milton's doing, though since they've known each other a whole lot longer than him and Morgan, Rick tends to let it slide.
But then there's the smell. That all-too-familiar smell on Philip's clothes, his hands. Rick expects it with Milton, given his interests; the Governor, not so much.
It's easy to jimmy the door, first-year deputy stuff, though he learned it far earlier, from Shane. And Philip's too distracted to hear him, he guesses, as Rick suddenly recognizes the girl he's with from that photo Philip keeps on his desk, almost down to the clothes—Penny Blake, or what's left of her. Philip's dead daughter, reduced to a sad little corpse hunched over a dog-bowl piled with carrion, both hands full, and chewing.
Philip's brushing her hair, humming to her under his breath—some nursery rhyme, a lullabye, like Lori used to do with Carl—but when Rick shifts he looks up, freezing. His gun's on the nightstand, too far away to get to without rising, or letting go of Penny's leash; that's probably all that keeps Rick alive, those first seconds, and they both know it.
“You can't tell anybody,” he blurts out, at last, like some giant kid caught stealing—first completely unguarded thing Rick's ever heard him say, possibly. And Rick just nods, thinking: Who would I tell?
Got to play this just right or it all goes south, like that guy in the camp. So—
“Penny, right?” He stoops to her eye-line, makes himself smile. “Hi, honey...my name's Rick, nice to meet you. I work with your Daddy.”
For a second, as her filmy eyes turn his way, he almost thinks she's going to answer. But instead she hisses, broken teeth bared, and the Governor raps her head, firmly. “Shush, baby,” he says. “Rick's our friend. He'd never—” A breath, guttering, while he collects himself. Then: “You wouldn't though, would you? I'm right about that. I mean, you just can't.”
“I know, Philip.”
“She's my little girl, Richard. She's all I have.”
“I know, Philip. I know.”
Because: on some level, he has to know that's not really her anymore, this starved thing with its sunken cheekbones, its gnawed lips and its milky, hollow-set eyes; for Christ's sweet sake, Rick can already see a section of her scalp starting to lift off under Philip's brush-strokes, and that's with him being careful. But...he's a father too, or was, and while Lori and he'd been in trouble right up 'til the very day he was shot—he still remembers telling Shane about it, just before, only for him to spout some half-assed Men's Rights bullshit in return—he mourns her every night, without being sure she's even dead. So who knows how it might've ended between them eventually, even if he hadn't...but this much he's sure of: if it was Carl on the other end of that chain, Rick would kill the first motherfucker came near him, no matter how well he understood in his gut how the part of his son he'd loved was functionally gone already. Shoot 'em if he could, stab 'em if he couldn't; tear their fucking throat out with his teeth, if that was all he had left to fight with.
“Milton know she's...like this?” he asks, out loud, and Philip nods, a bit too fast, too eager to be helpful. Replying: “Oh yes, from the start—he came knocking on our door when it all hit, so when we left the house he went with us to Atlanta, the camp. And then, when the fences fell, he helped me find that place we squatted in 'til Penny's fever...finished; helped me to lock her in, so she'd be safe 'til I could come back and get her, once we found someplace better. Didn't want her to hurt herself, so we made sure to take all the furniture out of her room beforehand, 'sides from some—meat—we left for her, to keep her strength up...” He trails off. “But she was okay, even all this time; she waited for me, just like I knew she would. Always been a good girl, my Penny. Not too smart, sad to say, though that might yet change, I guess—people do change, getting older. But a dear, sweet, good little girl.”
“Sure that's so, Philip, but...you gotta see how it's just not a good idea, keepin' her here, so close to other people. How she could be...dangerous.”
“Nobody else has to know, though! Nobody ever has to. I take care of her, just me—she's fine, look at her. Got her rigged with the chain, that jacket, and I never leave her out, I put her right back in the cupboard when she needs to sleep. Keep the key on a chain around my neck, where no one but me can get to it...”
“Yeah, okay, and that's all well and good, but what if you get infected, handling her all the time? What'll we do then? You're important, Philip, to everybody in town. Woodbury...that's all you, right? That's your baby.”
Philip shakes his head. “No, no, she's my baby, goddamnit. Only one we ever had. My wife, she died eighteen months before all this kicked off, I ever tell you that? Car accident, and it hit us both so hard—I mean, I swore I'd take care of Penny, but she was the one takin' care of me. And then...”
Leash drawn short as Philip's shoulders start to shake, uncontrollably, Penny gives a choked groan in return; it's like the pure hurt in his voice hurts her, a call-and-response circuit so painful that frankly, it kind of makes Rick want to do the same. But he presses on instead, regardless. This is the clinch, he can somehow tell—if he can get through to Philip at all, it'll be now.
So: “Listen, Philip,” he starts, building his argument slowly, “it's okay. You're grievin'...hell, we all are, and all in our own ways. People want strange things when they're grieving, but this ain't even so strange, you know? I'm kinda surprised more people never thought of it.”
Philip raises his head, then, cheeks wet—looks at Rick straight on, in frank surprise, for all the world as though he's never seen him before. “You are?” he asks.
“Uh huh, absolutely. It's just...human, to want to keep the ones we've lost as close as we possibly can. But the important part is, you're a good person, Philip, no matter what. You have to believe that.”
“I am?”
“Hell yeah, you are! You saved us, didn't you? Saved me, by keepin' me out of Atlanta; went back for Morgan. Got us here. Seventy people and change, more almost every week, by helping us save ourselves.”
“That's right, yeah, I did; I am. That is right. Isn't it?”
“Sure it is. Which is why you gotta just keep telling yourself how any one of us might've done the same as you—I know I would've. Nobody's ever gonna fault you for that.”
“They won't?”
“Nope. Not when I explain how it was to them...how it is.”
Philip looks down at his daughter, worrying now at the straitjacket's straps with her teeth, and sighs, gustily.
“Milton thinks they can come back, maybe,” he explains, at last. “That somewhere, way deep inside, there's still something left to be woken, you only try hard enough. Memories. Find a way to start those up, and they'd be—them again, eventually.”
Same as before, only stinkier, Rick thinks, but doesn't say.
“That's just a fairytale he tells himself so's he can keep on getting up in the morning, though,” he points out, gently. “We both know that, right? It's wrong.”
“Doesn't have to be,” Philip maintains, hollowly. But now it's Rick's turn to shakes his head.
“I'd say she's suffered enough,” he says, carefully, “but the thing is, she can't really suffer. Not like we can. So, when you think about it, the only one suffering here...is you, Philip.”
Little girl-shaped hole, skin-wrapped, intent on forward motion and food. Cut her, she doesn't bleed; wrong her, she doesn't hate. Love her, it's like throwing it down some open maw. She can't give anything back, aside from infection.
“Which is why you gotta give it up, let go. Let her go. 'Cause both deserve so much better.”
“I failed her,” Philip says, head still down and drooping further, like he's telling some penitential rosary. To which Rick replies, fast as he can: “No, no, I don't think you did. Kept on lovin' her, didn't you? Just like you love your wife, still. Just like you always will. But...you sure don't need her like this, for that.”
Philip sits there a long moment more, heavy as some fallen tree. Gives this further weary, creaking sigh that lasts twice as long as the first and covers both eyes with one hand, the other tight on the leash.
“You do it, then,” he says, at last. “If it means that much to you.”
“Not my place,” Rick replies, even quicker. “She's your kid, Philip, like you said—your choice, what you do, or don't. And besides...”
(...besides which, I don't want you hating me afterwards, just 'cause I did what he thought you couldn't.)
Philip nods, then, and gets up—slowly, by degrees. He has snot running down his face, eyes tear-burnt, mouth compressed to one mean little line, like he's forgotten how to smile entirely; looks verge-of-sick, like he might have to feel his way around, and he opens his other hand, finally letting the leash go slack. Rick resists the urge to jump back out of range, but Penny doesn't seem to notice; she's got her face sunk deep in the bowl again, licking for the last of juice.
God, Rick can't stop himself from thinking, if that was Carl...I think I'd probably kill myself before I did him, just to let him eat my corpse. Thus taking the whole damn town down with me, probably.
He can only hope—pray, even—that no matter how upset he may be right now, practical, welll-organized, long-term planner supreme Philip Blake really does turn out to be stronger than he is, on that particular point.
Above her, her father gives a long, last sniff...then grabs a handful of t-shirt to briskly scrub his face clean with, as he reaches for his knife.
“It's all right, baby,” he says, voice already sealing up the middle, dipping right back on down to normal. “No need to fret. Just c'mon over here, one more time, and let Daddy make it better.”
***
When it's done with, Rick gives Penny's frail little shell over to Milton, wrapped up in the cartoon-patterned sheets Philip lined her cupboard “bed” with. When he sees her face the man's eyes get soft, even hidden beneath his glasses' blank little lenses, but overall, he seems less surprised than grateful.
“If anybody could get him to, I hoped it might be you,” he says, laying her down on an empty gurney.
And: “Jesus, Milton,” Rick replies, somewhat appalled. “So let me get this straight—you knew it was crazy, knew what it was doing to him, but you just went along with it, anyhow?”
Milton just glances back up at him, silent a long minute, face screwed up. Like he doesn't get the question in such an elemental way, he finds it all but impossible to process.
“I can't stop Philip from doing anything, Rick,” he answers, finally. “No one ever could.”
No one but me, apparently, Rick thinks, briefly wondering why. But there's no easy answer to that one without asking the man himself's opinion, and he's sure not about to do that.
Long goddamn day, he thinks, exhaustion creeping up on him all over; what he really wants is to turn for home, leaving Philip to his own devices. But if the Governor eats a bulleton his watch, what the hell is he going to tell everybody?
When he gets back to Philip's, however, he finds him pouring the second of two tall glasses of whisky with that secret inner room's door safely locked once more and the key draped over his family portrait, hanging down between Penny's face and his like a shadow. “Have a drink with me, Richard,” he orders, then throws back most of the first before filling it again, like a dare.
It's the very least he can do, Rick feels in his heart, and Christ knows that's little enough, given. So he sits down, sighing, and does.
***
They've been drinking together so long, sunk in mutual silence, that Rick's tongue's gone a little numb before Philip finally turns and starts kissing him, all of a sudden. Just does it, no questions asked, swift as a bite—thoroughly, and exploratorily, teeth and lips combined for a sting of woozy lust, one hot, wet breath passed back and forth between them like a shotgunned toke. And then Rick's up in his lap somehow, splay-straddled, riding those long legs like they're his horse's back; he's lost all track of his body's limits, both of them merged into a general tangle of roaming hands and squirming limbs, both above and below.
This started out as sympathy, and now—not like it's gone wrong, so much, as totally unexpected. He isn't queer, that he knows of; Philip either, going by the evidence. Or maybe old-style labels just don't matter all too much, now the world's flipped over and what used to be literally buried beneath's all dumped out back on top and roaming 'round with arms outstretched, ready to claw and chomp...
But: “Hey,” Rick says, drawing back just a bit, or far as Philip's embrace will allow for—catches a glimpse of himself in the vanity mirror as he does, color high and hair mussed, uncomfortably perched on top of something hard yet giving which he can only assume originates from inside the Govenor's pants. “Hold up, now. Maybe we need to think about this, least a little bit.”
“Don't wanna,” Philip says, into Rick's throat.
“No, guess not; me either, come to think. Which means—we really probably should.”
Hearing the shameful way Rick's voice breaks at the end of that sentence, Philip finally raises his head to shoot him a look that's amused but predatory, same one he uses when letting some rube in council rabbit 'til his argument starts to cross back over on itself before saying just the exact right thing to pop it, like a balloon.
“Oh, Richard,” he says, with what almost sounds like affection. “For a full-grown man, you got some highly elementary ideas about sex.” And goes right on back to what he's already doing, as though that's any sort of answer, before Rick can even try to object further.
Hell, Rick thinks, woozily. Maybe he's right, at that. What's it matter? Rapture came, and nobody got saved; hell's empty, and the devil never showed up to work. All the Good Book talk on earth don't mean a fart in a high wind when you've got a biter on youtr back, so I might as well take it wherever and whenever, from whoever...
The next morning, Rick has a hangover roughly half the size of Planet Earth plus no clear memory of how he got back to his own bed, and his piss smells like bourbon. There's a hickey on one collarbone, but a fresh shirt'll hide that without much effort, and it certainly doesn't feel like they went much further than mutual hand-jobs, at the most. So he takes a long shower, hot then cold, and for the rest of the day he and Philip barely talk to each other, except to work out plays for the next supply run and discuss city planning issues.
When curfew falls and the office empties out, however, Philip pulls the blind and pushes Rick back up against the wall, one hand shoved up his shirt, the other popping his fly. Rick thinks about stopping him, but doesn't. They kiss 'til their lips are sore, stubble-burnt and throbbing, 'til they run out of breath, then sink to the floor and take a second to heave deep, building up stamina, before doing it some more.
“You want this, right?” Philip murmurs, in Rick's ear. “Tell me if you don't, or I'm just gonna keep goin'.”
“Think so, yeah. You?”
That same laugh again, flesh-muffled, echoing through Rick's chest. “Oh, I think 'need''s more the right word, I had to pick just one.”
We should stop, though, Rick thinks, one final time, feeling the same thing down deep inside, that fierce, hot pull which tugs from sternum to crotch: not want but need, and now, now, now. Which is why he already knows damn well that they won't.
End Part Four
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
Joined at the hip like they are, there's no way Rick isn't going to find out about it when Philip starts that little building project of his up, turning the second room of his apartments into some sort of weird man-cave, or when he goes out on survey alone, coming back after midnight, with something he doesn't want anybody to see in the back of his truck. Not to mention how he starts spending a whole lot of time in there of an evening with the door locked, to keep out prying eyes. He and Milton whisper together a lot, even more than usual—something to do with those experiments Milton's doing, though since they've known each other a whole lot longer than him and Morgan, Rick tends to let it slide.
But then there's the smell. That all-too-familiar smell on Philip's clothes, his hands. Rick expects it with Milton, given his interests; the Governor, not so much.
It's easy to jimmy the door, first-year deputy stuff, though he learned it far earlier, from Shane. And Philip's too distracted to hear him, he guesses, as Rick suddenly recognizes the girl he's with from that photo Philip keeps on his desk, almost down to the clothes—Penny Blake, or what's left of her. Philip's dead daughter, reduced to a sad little corpse hunched over a dog-bowl piled with carrion, both hands full, and chewing.
Philip's brushing her hair, humming to her under his breath—some nursery rhyme, a lullabye, like Lori used to do with Carl—but when Rick shifts he looks up, freezing. His gun's on the nightstand, too far away to get to without rising, or letting go of Penny's leash; that's probably all that keeps Rick alive, those first seconds, and they both know it.
“You can't tell anybody,” he blurts out, at last, like some giant kid caught stealing—first completely unguarded thing Rick's ever heard him say, possibly. And Rick just nods, thinking: Who would I tell?
Got to play this just right or it all goes south, like that guy in the camp. So—
“Penny, right?” He stoops to her eye-line, makes himself smile. “Hi, honey...my name's Rick, nice to meet you. I work with your Daddy.”
For a second, as her filmy eyes turn his way, he almost thinks she's going to answer. But instead she hisses, broken teeth bared, and the Governor raps her head, firmly. “Shush, baby,” he says. “Rick's our friend. He'd never—” A breath, guttering, while he collects himself. Then: “You wouldn't though, would you? I'm right about that. I mean, you just can't.”
“I know, Philip.”
“She's my little girl, Richard. She's all I have.”
“I know, Philip. I know.”
Because: on some level, he has to know that's not really her anymore, this starved thing with its sunken cheekbones, its gnawed lips and its milky, hollow-set eyes; for Christ's sweet sake, Rick can already see a section of her scalp starting to lift off under Philip's brush-strokes, and that's with him being careful. But...he's a father too, or was, and while Lori and he'd been in trouble right up 'til the very day he was shot—he still remembers telling Shane about it, just before, only for him to spout some half-assed Men's Rights bullshit in return—he mourns her every night, without being sure she's even dead. So who knows how it might've ended between them eventually, even if he hadn't...but this much he's sure of: if it was Carl on the other end of that chain, Rick would kill the first motherfucker came near him, no matter how well he understood in his gut how the part of his son he'd loved was functionally gone already. Shoot 'em if he could, stab 'em if he couldn't; tear their fucking throat out with his teeth, if that was all he had left to fight with.
“Milton know she's...like this?” he asks, out loud, and Philip nods, a bit too fast, too eager to be helpful. Replying: “Oh yes, from the start—he came knocking on our door when it all hit, so when we left the house he went with us to Atlanta, the camp. And then, when the fences fell, he helped me find that place we squatted in 'til Penny's fever...finished; helped me to lock her in, so she'd be safe 'til I could come back and get her, once we found someplace better. Didn't want her to hurt herself, so we made sure to take all the furniture out of her room beforehand, 'sides from some—meat—we left for her, to keep her strength up...” He trails off. “But she was okay, even all this time; she waited for me, just like I knew she would. Always been a good girl, my Penny. Not too smart, sad to say, though that might yet change, I guess—people do change, getting older. But a dear, sweet, good little girl.”
“Sure that's so, Philip, but...you gotta see how it's just not a good idea, keepin' her here, so close to other people. How she could be...dangerous.”
“Nobody else has to know, though! Nobody ever has to. I take care of her, just me—she's fine, look at her. Got her rigged with the chain, that jacket, and I never leave her out, I put her right back in the cupboard when she needs to sleep. Keep the key on a chain around my neck, where no one but me can get to it...”
“Yeah, okay, and that's all well and good, but what if you get infected, handling her all the time? What'll we do then? You're important, Philip, to everybody in town. Woodbury...that's all you, right? That's your baby.”
Philip shakes his head. “No, no, she's my baby, goddamnit. Only one we ever had. My wife, she died eighteen months before all this kicked off, I ever tell you that? Car accident, and it hit us both so hard—I mean, I swore I'd take care of Penny, but she was the one takin' care of me. And then...”
Leash drawn short as Philip's shoulders start to shake, uncontrollably, Penny gives a choked groan in return; it's like the pure hurt in his voice hurts her, a call-and-response circuit so painful that frankly, it kind of makes Rick want to do the same. But he presses on instead, regardless. This is the clinch, he can somehow tell—if he can get through to Philip at all, it'll be now.
So: “Listen, Philip,” he starts, building his argument slowly, “it's okay. You're grievin'...hell, we all are, and all in our own ways. People want strange things when they're grieving, but this ain't even so strange, you know? I'm kinda surprised more people never thought of it.”
Philip raises his head, then, cheeks wet—looks at Rick straight on, in frank surprise, for all the world as though he's never seen him before. “You are?” he asks.
“Uh huh, absolutely. It's just...human, to want to keep the ones we've lost as close as we possibly can. But the important part is, you're a good person, Philip, no matter what. You have to believe that.”
“I am?”
“Hell yeah, you are! You saved us, didn't you? Saved me, by keepin' me out of Atlanta; went back for Morgan. Got us here. Seventy people and change, more almost every week, by helping us save ourselves.”
“That's right, yeah, I did; I am. That is right. Isn't it?”
“Sure it is. Which is why you gotta just keep telling yourself how any one of us might've done the same as you—I know I would've. Nobody's ever gonna fault you for that.”
“They won't?”
“Nope. Not when I explain how it was to them...how it is.”
Philip looks down at his daughter, worrying now at the straitjacket's straps with her teeth, and sighs, gustily.
“Milton thinks they can come back, maybe,” he explains, at last. “That somewhere, way deep inside, there's still something left to be woken, you only try hard enough. Memories. Find a way to start those up, and they'd be—them again, eventually.”
Same as before, only stinkier, Rick thinks, but doesn't say.
“That's just a fairytale he tells himself so's he can keep on getting up in the morning, though,” he points out, gently. “We both know that, right? It's wrong.”
“Doesn't have to be,” Philip maintains, hollowly. But now it's Rick's turn to shakes his head.
“I'd say she's suffered enough,” he says, carefully, “but the thing is, she can't really suffer. Not like we can. So, when you think about it, the only one suffering here...is you, Philip.”
Little girl-shaped hole, skin-wrapped, intent on forward motion and food. Cut her, she doesn't bleed; wrong her, she doesn't hate. Love her, it's like throwing it down some open maw. She can't give anything back, aside from infection.
“Which is why you gotta give it up, let go. Let her go. 'Cause both deserve so much better.”
“I failed her,” Philip says, head still down and drooping further, like he's telling some penitential rosary. To which Rick replies, fast as he can: “No, no, I don't think you did. Kept on lovin' her, didn't you? Just like you love your wife, still. Just like you always will. But...you sure don't need her like this, for that.”
Philip sits there a long moment more, heavy as some fallen tree. Gives this further weary, creaking sigh that lasts twice as long as the first and covers both eyes with one hand, the other tight on the leash.
“You do it, then,” he says, at last. “If it means that much to you.”
“Not my place,” Rick replies, even quicker. “She's your kid, Philip, like you said—your choice, what you do, or don't. And besides...”
(...besides which, I don't want you hating me afterwards, just 'cause I did what he thought you couldn't.)
Philip nods, then, and gets up—slowly, by degrees. He has snot running down his face, eyes tear-burnt, mouth compressed to one mean little line, like he's forgotten how to smile entirely; looks verge-of-sick, like he might have to feel his way around, and he opens his other hand, finally letting the leash go slack. Rick resists the urge to jump back out of range, but Penny doesn't seem to notice; she's got her face sunk deep in the bowl again, licking for the last of juice.
God, Rick can't stop himself from thinking, if that was Carl...I think I'd probably kill myself before I did him, just to let him eat my corpse. Thus taking the whole damn town down with me, probably.
He can only hope—pray, even—that no matter how upset he may be right now, practical, welll-organized, long-term planner supreme Philip Blake really does turn out to be stronger than he is, on that particular point.
Above her, her father gives a long, last sniff...then grabs a handful of t-shirt to briskly scrub his face clean with, as he reaches for his knife.
“It's all right, baby,” he says, voice already sealing up the middle, dipping right back on down to normal. “No need to fret. Just c'mon over here, one more time, and let Daddy make it better.”
***
When it's done with, Rick gives Penny's frail little shell over to Milton, wrapped up in the cartoon-patterned sheets Philip lined her cupboard “bed” with. When he sees her face the man's eyes get soft, even hidden beneath his glasses' blank little lenses, but overall, he seems less surprised than grateful.
“If anybody could get him to, I hoped it might be you,” he says, laying her down on an empty gurney.
And: “Jesus, Milton,” Rick replies, somewhat appalled. “So let me get this straight—you knew it was crazy, knew what it was doing to him, but you just went along with it, anyhow?”
Milton just glances back up at him, silent a long minute, face screwed up. Like he doesn't get the question in such an elemental way, he finds it all but impossible to process.
“I can't stop Philip from doing anything, Rick,” he answers, finally. “No one ever could.”
No one but me, apparently, Rick thinks, briefly wondering why. But there's no easy answer to that one without asking the man himself's opinion, and he's sure not about to do that.
Long goddamn day, he thinks, exhaustion creeping up on him all over; what he really wants is to turn for home, leaving Philip to his own devices. But if the Governor eats a bulleton his watch, what the hell is he going to tell everybody?
When he gets back to Philip's, however, he finds him pouring the second of two tall glasses of whisky with that secret inner room's door safely locked once more and the key draped over his family portrait, hanging down between Penny's face and his like a shadow. “Have a drink with me, Richard,” he orders, then throws back most of the first before filling it again, like a dare.
It's the very least he can do, Rick feels in his heart, and Christ knows that's little enough, given. So he sits down, sighing, and does.
***
They've been drinking together so long, sunk in mutual silence, that Rick's tongue's gone a little numb before Philip finally turns and starts kissing him, all of a sudden. Just does it, no questions asked, swift as a bite—thoroughly, and exploratorily, teeth and lips combined for a sting of woozy lust, one hot, wet breath passed back and forth between them like a shotgunned toke. And then Rick's up in his lap somehow, splay-straddled, riding those long legs like they're his horse's back; he's lost all track of his body's limits, both of them merged into a general tangle of roaming hands and squirming limbs, both above and below.
This started out as sympathy, and now—not like it's gone wrong, so much, as totally unexpected. He isn't queer, that he knows of; Philip either, going by the evidence. Or maybe old-style labels just don't matter all too much, now the world's flipped over and what used to be literally buried beneath's all dumped out back on top and roaming 'round with arms outstretched, ready to claw and chomp...
But: “Hey,” Rick says, drawing back just a bit, or far as Philip's embrace will allow for—catches a glimpse of himself in the vanity mirror as he does, color high and hair mussed, uncomfortably perched on top of something hard yet giving which he can only assume originates from inside the Govenor's pants. “Hold up, now. Maybe we need to think about this, least a little bit.”
“Don't wanna,” Philip says, into Rick's throat.
“No, guess not; me either, come to think. Which means—we really probably should.”
Hearing the shameful way Rick's voice breaks at the end of that sentence, Philip finally raises his head to shoot him a look that's amused but predatory, same one he uses when letting some rube in council rabbit 'til his argument starts to cross back over on itself before saying just the exact right thing to pop it, like a balloon.
“Oh, Richard,” he says, with what almost sounds like affection. “For a full-grown man, you got some highly elementary ideas about sex.” And goes right on back to what he's already doing, as though that's any sort of answer, before Rick can even try to object further.
Hell, Rick thinks, woozily. Maybe he's right, at that. What's it matter? Rapture came, and nobody got saved; hell's empty, and the devil never showed up to work. All the Good Book talk on earth don't mean a fart in a high wind when you've got a biter on youtr back, so I might as well take it wherever and whenever, from whoever...
The next morning, Rick has a hangover roughly half the size of Planet Earth plus no clear memory of how he got back to his own bed, and his piss smells like bourbon. There's a hickey on one collarbone, but a fresh shirt'll hide that without much effort, and it certainly doesn't feel like they went much further than mutual hand-jobs, at the most. So he takes a long shower, hot then cold, and for the rest of the day he and Philip barely talk to each other, except to work out plays for the next supply run and discuss city planning issues.
When curfew falls and the office empties out, however, Philip pulls the blind and pushes Rick back up against the wall, one hand shoved up his shirt, the other popping his fly. Rick thinks about stopping him, but doesn't. They kiss 'til their lips are sore, stubble-burnt and throbbing, 'til they run out of breath, then sink to the floor and take a second to heave deep, building up stamina, before doing it some more.
“You want this, right?” Philip murmurs, in Rick's ear. “Tell me if you don't, or I'm just gonna keep goin'.”
“Think so, yeah. You?”
That same laugh again, flesh-muffled, echoing through Rick's chest. “Oh, I think 'need''s more the right word, I had to pick just one.”
We should stop, though, Rick thinks, one final time, feeling the same thing down deep inside, that fierce, hot pull which tugs from sternum to crotch: not want but need, and now, now, now. Which is why he already knows damn well that they won't.
End Part Four
