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Shane lies back back on an unfamiliar couch, an unfamiliar ceiling overhead. He hadn’t expected to return here, and Hershel Greene’s house looks like a different place than it did in the light of day, like someone rearranged the order of all the rooms while he was gone.
Everyone else settled in a long time ago. The pendulum of a grandfather clock ticks beside a tidy fireplace, but otherwise the only noise is the little snaps and whines of the house settling, cooling wood. Even Patricia’s sobbing has died down to silence.
Shane shifts around, trying to find some way to ease the dull throbbing in his ankle. He doesn’t want to prop his feet up on some stranger’s throw pillows, but maybe the armrest…? He isn’t sure it helps. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore it. Tries to breathe deeply around a sense of ringing sickness in his chest. Tries to forget the scream stuck in his head, like he might try to forget a catchy tune.
He doesn’t succeed.
When he opens his eyes, the door to the little guest bedroom is standing open, the dusty yellow light of a lamp spilling out, and Rick is there.
He’s no more than a narrow shadow in the dark. Shane can see the ridge at the collar of his t-shirt, and his hand clutching tight at the door frame for support. What little of Rick’s face is visible looks dangerously pale, and there are new, sharp shadows around his eyes. He might be about to fall over—he might be sleepwalking—but the clock has not ticked for long when he mutters, “I wasn’t sure you’d still be awake.”
Shane sits up straighter against the pillows at his back. He starts to ask after Carl, but he’s asked a dozen times since he got back, and he says instead, “How’s Lori?”
He’s too exhausted to know whether it comes off as casual.
“She’s sleeping.” Rick draws the old wood door shut, holding the knob and releasing it slowly so the latch catches without a sound. He crosses the room, holding up a hand to stop Shane from rising to help him, and comes to sit on the barnwood coffee table, his knees brushing the couch cushions. He begins, “How’s—” but then stops, and says instead, “You cut your hair.”
It isn’t a question, so Shane doesn’t answer it. Rick seems thrown—Shane can see him blinking slowly in a line of moonlight through the curtains—and it takes him a moment to rally and ask, “How’s your leg?”
“Had worse.”
“You might see if Hershel’d be willing to take a look at—”
“He offered.”
“You should let him.”
“Come morning, maybe, if it ain’t better.”
What the hell is this? Rick is certainly picking one hell of a time to take up the practice of small talk. Shane wishes he would get around to saying what he’s here to say, or leave. He wants to be alone, away from everyone, even Rick—even himself.
He tries to speed things along. “You oughtta get some rest, man.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Not until—” Rick breaks off, folding his hands together, a shallow pulse ticking beneath the shadow of his jaw. After a while he begins again, “I needed to thank you—”
“It ain’t like I got you a Christmas present, Rick. Don’t thank me for that.”
His voice comes out harsh, a notch too loud. Too guilty. Why shouldn’t he want to be thanked, what possible reason could he give, if Rick asks—
But Rick doesn’t ask, doesn’t react at all, except to raise his head and sit half-turned towards the bedroom. Listening. The light beneath the door remains steady, an unbroken bar of light across the floorboards.
“I guess that’s not what I’m here for, anyway,” Rick says at last, hushed. “I couldn’t sleep, not with you out here alone. Not after… Come sleep in the other room with us. There’s space. Carl would want you there. We’ll set up another chair, find some way to prop up that ankle of yours…”
“Nah.” The thought of being in the room with them—of being with anyone, of being any way but alone—twists in his chest like a piece of glass ground into a wound. He tries to sound cheerful. “I’m pretty well settled out here. Hershel brought an extra pillow.”
“Shane…”
“Seriously, man. It’s alright. You go on.”
Rick lets out a long breath, and for a moment he seems to be bracing himself to stand—but instead he says something, so quietly that even as close as they are all Shane can catch is, “I’m glad.”
“What?”
“When that truck pulled up… I only saw one person inside.” His voice fractures. “For just a second, I thought—”
Shane starts to sit up, saying quietly, “Hey—”
“But then you parked like a jackass.”
He lets out a harsh breath—a laugh. And Shane laughs, too, in spite of himself, in spite of everything.
“I knew it had to be you,” Rick’s saying, still laughing, but his voice is tightening up. “Way you always slam on the brake. Seems the only time you ever remember it’s there is when you’re parking—I know this can’t be what you want to hear right now. But I’m glad, Shane. I was so—”
“Hey,” Shane says again. It’s like the sound of Rick fighting off tears lights up some deadened circuit in his brain, shuts off his own hurt for a split second, and all he can think about is fixing it, getting his best friend to smile again.
He reaches out in the dark, starts to say something soothing—It’s alright, man, you need to get some sleep—but he misjudges the distance between them, and his hand falls upon Rick’s cheek sooner than he expected. He realizes their faces are close. They’re almost nose-to-nose in the dark, and if he wanted to all he would need to do is—
He turns his head and their lips meet.
It’s been a long time since they did this, and it didn’t mean much then, and Shane isn’t sure it means much now. What he knows is: in the morning, Rick will be warm and grateful, and only a little distant. He’ll lay his hand on Shane’s shoulder and give a quick, companionable squeeze, to say they’re alright, they’re friends, nothing has changed, no lines crossed that can’t be uncrossed. In the morning, Shane will be grateful for that. He’ll be right back to missing Lori more than he misses whatever the hell this is. In the morning, he’ll have worse to deal with: there’ll be no thin, plasticky layer of unreality between him and the horror inside his head. He won’t be able to shut it out.
But for now he can. For now, he lets Rick kiss him. Gently, with one hand on his cheek, the other flat against Shane’s chest. Rick’s fingertips are cold, and his mouth is barely warmer. He draws back briefly to say, “Think I’m still a little dizzy from all the…” but when he moves, he moves closer.
For now, Shane kisses back, and it goes on for a long while.
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