Chapter Text
For once in his life Rick feels helpless. He’d give anything not to, but it doesn’t seem like he has much of a choice. He can’t stop his hands from shaking no matter what he tries, holding them out in front of him, turning them over slowly. But not just them. He can’t stop his whole body from shaking, either. And the worst part is he knows why.
He knows and he hates it.
He hates how his chest’s rising like he’s fighting for air. How his legs are acting like they’re jelly. How his vision’s going hazy at the corners, and how his senses are heightened and making him aware of every scent drifting under the door and into the bathroom where he’s isolated himself. Better yet, how his gut’s twisting uncomfortably inside him like clove-hitches and how his thighs are starting to feel damp at the fork of his jeans.
Reason is, it means he’s excited. Rather, a part of him’s excited – that part, the part he’s tried so hard to spurn for a good portion of the last few months, ever since miserably scraping the bottom of his pill bottle.
His suppressants.
Rick hasn’t been off his in years. He can’t remember the exact number, he lost count after twelve, after the world was signed to the dead and he woke up from a coma. The only thing he can remember is how to read his body, which’s telling him that his heat’s just started and that the long-term effects of withholding his urges are gonna be no less than cruel.
Maybe even murderous.
A sudden surge of desire reinforces Rick’s beliefs, and he rolls his hands tightly into fists to keep them from hugging around his waist. He’s not in any pain right now, but his insides feel like they’re on the ride of their life, toning one minute then spinning outta control the next. It’s making him restless, not in a crazy sorta way just yet, but he knows to give it time.
How much, though, is up for debate.
During what Rick recalls of his last cycle, it was week. But when he considers how long he’s kept his true nature under lock and key he’s almost expecting the craze to hit earlier than that. Three days… two? Christ, he’s hoping it’s not two. His hands unfurl at the thought and his right moves to hover awkwardly over the joint of his hip, where it eventually gropes, as if to stunt any lower exploration…
Any fondling.
The idea of self-pleasure’s crossed Rick’s mind more than once, but he knows better than to tease himself. Touching would only strengthen the craving he has to be mated, to present himself to the first Alpha he bumps into in the hall. Michonne, Carol… Daryl? Another wave of pining has Rick’s stomach squeezing and immediately he hangs his head, feeling the skin around the nape of his neck tighten like a noose.
The others… they don’t know.
He hasn’t told them yet. He figures he can’t. Not when he’s so far into his own lie that he doesn’t know how they’ll take it, and definitely not when it can jeopardize his position as their leader. They just escaped the fall of the prison with their lives and found each other by chance on the roadside, the last thing they need right now is to find out that he isn’t what he lets on to be.
That he isn’t an Alpha.
Rick wishes he was, and not a day crawls by that he curses his biology for constantly pressuring him to be subservient when he’s never really seen his nature as something rare or to be sought after like a prize. Mentally, he’s always envisioned himself as someone more self-assured, which’s why he’s kept quiet, which’s why he’s allowed the group to reach their own conclusions about him.
Being a natural leader helped, of course. But overthrowing Merle in Atlanta was how most of the conjecture started. Taking down Shane at the farm later was only a fringe benefit. Securing the prison was what really did the rest, and after that the shoe just fit. Rick made it fit.
Dammit. If they saw him now, he’d be a sight.
Rick looks up, straight into the mirror and into his mean eyes. They stare back, glazed and almost challengingly, as if he’s trying to induce himself into believing that everything’s gonna be fine – provoke himself – when his body’s telling him it isn’t.
But Rick’s not about to listen to reason, even if he knows it’s what he should do.
Instead, he watches through his reflection as he strips himself of his jacket, going through the motions one arm at a time. He starts with his left shoulder, rolling it back and down, fighting the stiffness of another day’s end as he pulls the cloth over and from his skin. His right takes a bit more effort than that, but the minute it’s free he moans between his teeth at how everything suddenly feels two-times lighter.
Not drier, though.
Rick turns his jacket over in his hands once it’s completely off, thumbing the fur collar and dark fabric almost in fascination. It’s soaking wet, waterlogged with sweat – as is his once-white undershirt. With his arms rid of cover, he can see the long-formed streaks of perspiration more clearly, those darkening his pits, sopping the arc of his clavicle and outlining the curve of his chest bone.
It looks like he’s been sweating for a while, not just ten minutes, which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering his situation and how all his glands’re working overtime… But it is.
Rick makes it a surprise when realizing how lucky he is to have bolted upstairs when he did.
In retrospect, it wasn’t the smartest idea to wait out dinner. He should’ve left the very minute he felt his stomach flip like it was gonna be sick and his leg adapt to a nervous jitter in place of his fingers against the table, the moment the room started to feel like a day in June instead of November and the food in his mouth started to taste like ash instead of cooking.
Yeah, Rick thinks.
When looking back, he should’ve done a lot of things differently, some of which would’ve given him more time to think things through. Thoroughly. But truth was, if fate rewound he would’ve done it all the same. Not because of his pride but because they were celebrating… celebrating something worthwhile.
They’d found a place to call their temporary home, a house, among a neighborhood of nine.
They came across it by pure chance when detouring off one of the main roads and frankly, it didn’t look all that promising at first glance, only like the world’s to-date definition of an address down the block.
Four walls and a roof.
No one expected more than that, accessibility was their new seal of approval and they took it as they saw it. It wasn’t until Carl tripped over a coiled hose on the front lawn and pulled the tubing clean from the side of the house, releasing a torrent of water and spraying anybody within ten feet, that changed their minds.
Running water meant working pipelines and working pipelines meant plumbing, heating and sanitation. They couldn’t have asked for more.
Rick knows that, just like he knows he should be smiling dizzily like everybody downstairs. But he can’t bring his lips to cooperate or shake the feeling that he’s already surrounded by a cage with invisible bars. Obviously though, that’s the heat in him talking, his paranoia and reaction to sussing that he’s walking a sharp line, that he’s the only one of his kind smack-dab in a house jam-packed of Alphas and Betas.
Potential partners.
The reminder has Rick’s features softening into an expression he’d normally consider defeat and he stares at his reflection dolefully, scrutinizing every bit of how there’s a lot more gray in his beard and long, curling hair than last week and how his light brows push up and ripple his forehead with a series of profound grooves. He’s not even sure if he can afford to make such a face without either breaking down or going mad, but without much effort it stays anyways.
More so, after he hears a knock outside the bathroom door and a graveled voice he’s come to love.
“Yo, Rick. Ya fall in or somethin’?”