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Rick Grimes decided that Tuesday morning was the end of the world.
It was 8.37am and the divorce papers had officially come through. And Shane, former best friend and now former police partner, was just watching him from across the room, as if he knew.
Smarmy bastard had the gall to look sorry about it too.
The rest of the room was chaotic. Parole offices usually were at this time in the morning. It was mostly young kids, likely going through a middle class rebellious stage, to teach their even more middle class parents a ‘lesson’ or two. Then there were those kids on the edges, that had hollow cheeks and hollower eyes, and Rick knew that they had seen some shit.
One guy...Rick couldn’t see his face, because he was too busy pummelling someone else’s face in, looked much older. There weren’t so many of those anymore. Usually dead before forty. That kind of thing.
“Rick? Are you listening?” said the voice on the other end of the receiver.
“Yeah,” Rick wasn’t really. “Listen, your boyfriend is staring at me. So can we talk about this later?”
“Rick, we can’t-”
And then he hung up on his former wife.
“Dixon...Dixon....” said the man at the desk, with a name that might’ve been Mark or Mike.
Rick could never remember. He didn’t come here very often. Actually not at all. He wasn't even sure why he’d volunteered to stem off into this line of work. Maybe to shift away from the glaring reminder that Shane still existed. And so long as Shane still existed, Rick was always going to be murderously angry.
Probably best to avoid that.
Parole Officer sounded okay. Law enforcement, but without all the mess. Clean up had happened, and there was something like a happy ending on the horizon. In theory.
“Dixon?” Rick heard himself repeat the word. And then his chest sunk.
No . Couldn’t be.
As if it could get much worse.
“Yeah, that's the one. Got him.”
The man called Mark or Mike nodded at his paperwork, and then he nodded again, behind Rick.
Rick turned around, ignoring Shane’s stare, and following Mark-Mike’s, to the guy still pummelling some other poor shithead into the floor.
“Dixon. Get your ass over here .”
And then Merle Dixon glanced up at Rick with a broad and terribly familiar bloodied grin.
Oh. But apparently it could get so much worse.
“Hey there, Officer Friendly. Long time no see.”
It hadn't been that long, actually. Last time Rick had looked at that grin was through some old-familiar prison bars, just a few short weeks ago. But Merle probably had very little to no concept of time. Not when his brain-fuel happened to be whatever drugs he could get his filthy hands on.
Rick turned back to Mike...Mark, whatever his name was. It didn’t matter now.
“You’re jokin’, right? This clown ain’t for me. He’s a lost cause.”
Mike-Mark pressed the paperwork forward some more, as if Rick was going to be persuaded by the tiny gesture.
“Figured you’d like a challenge.”
Rick’s jaw clenched, as it tended to when he received potentially soul-crushing news. Like being told he was supposed to be rehabilitating a junkie asshole named Merle Dixon. And on the day his wife had officially become his ex. And his best friend had transformed into his best traitor.
“I ain’t takin’ him. He’s been in my cuffs over twenty times this past year.”
“Yeah, pretty well acquainted, ain’t we?” Merle’s smile was spiteful, as he wiped a bloody lip and leaned over the desk. Perusing paperwork like the embodiment of obnoxious. “Don’t ‘member that one. Must’ve been real high.”
"You mean like every other time?” Rick rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
This couldn’t be happening. Anyone else would’ve been tolerable, at least.
Goddamn anyone but…
“-that one ain’t true. That were self-defence. Look-”
Rick snatched up the paperwork, stuffing it in his bag.
He looked at Mike-Mark with a pleading face.
“Sorry,” said Mark-Mike. And that was the end of it.
“Oh man. Tough shit, Friendly,” Merle laughed, and Rick grabbed him by the wrist, dragging him out of the building and into bright sunlight.
It should’ve been raining. That was how the end of the world was supposed to go; big storms, raging fires. Dramatic weather. Made sense.
Not a vibrant blue sky and the sun shining prettily down onto his specially chosen nightmare offender; Merle Dixon .
Merle squinted. “What’re we waitin’ for, Friendly?”
“Don’t call me that, Dixon,” Rick told him.
“Sure thing, Friendly.”
And then Merle’s grin stretched in the same way his southern drawl often did, and he looked at Rick as if he knew that it was the end of the world too. Only he didn’t care at all.
Nihilistic asshole.
Rick heard the phone ringing in his pocket. He wished he didn’t care so much either.