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The shower whispered at Rick through the bathroom door. He leaned his ear against it, wood taking most of his weight, and he rocked with dizziness. The strength was flittering in and out of him in waves. What little blood he had left pulsed sharply in his head.
The weakness faded, though the weariness didn’t. He felt hollow, worn down by the terror of the day. His son—his boy—and Sophia, two children that had almost lost their lives in the woods. He had faith, however, a kind he couldn’t explain to anyone. Carl had made it, brought back from the brink by Shane and Hershel, and he knew, with an intensity that grounded him, that the same would happen for Sophia too.
He pushed the bathroom door open, blinking through the thick fog of steam. Shane was already under the water, his clothes strewn across the toilet and the floor. His Glock sat, unblemished, cradled in a nest of Shane’s t-shirt and pants.
“Carl’s blood pressure is coming up,” Rick said. He waited for Shane’s reaction, for anything. He just wanted Shane to speak and share this celebration with him, meager as it might be.
No answer.
Shane’s hair filled the sink like a shadow.
He’d teased Shane about all the time he spent on his hair in another life—that first one—when they were kids. Younger and smoother, before they’d been hardened by the world and its pieces.
Rick picked up a curl. It was soft, more than it should be, and faintly warm. He held it to his palm, his hand closed tightly in a fist. Then he let it fall. It fluttered, moving like those leaves he and Shane used to spend autumns chasing—helicopter blades and sparrow wings.
Shane didn’t move when the shower curtain rustled as Rick brushed it aside. His eyes were closed, mouth open. His body curved forward, one hand flat against the shower wall. His shaved head seemed almost alien, the short crop of dark hair across it was so thin, and Rick could see the path the water took: five streams that split apart like rivers escaping the sea, two running across Shane’s forehead, another over his ear, and two down the back of his neck. Shane’s wet body caught the shine of the florescent light.
Rick looked Shane over. There was a bruise on his shoulder, angry and dark. His ankle was starting to discolor but otherwise he was intact, as whole as he had ever been, more so maybe, strengthened and toned. He was holding up better than Rick himself, it felt like. Filling out wider while Rick whittled down to bone.
Shane met his eyes, finally, face carefully blank. That startled him, deeper than when Shane had first left for the school earlier and, just for a moment; he’d wondered if Shane was coming back. There was nothing in Shane’s expression that he recognized. He’d seen Shane at his worst of everything. This was something new.
Rick moved on instinct. The water at the bottom of the tub soaked hot into the cuffs of his jeans, mist from the spray dampening the rest of him but his only thought was on Shane, more wrecked by something that Rick had ever seen him be. He wanted to ask, but the images in his own head weren’t pretty—gore and blood and sinew, Otis’ screams vibrating like a gunshot in the air. And Shane had kept going, kept moving, toward Rick and Lori and Carl. Toward the only things Shane had ever known.
Shane’s bare skin burned him. Shane jumped at the first touch, Rick’s arm sliding firm around him, Rick’s chest settling solid against Shane’s back. He wrapped his arm around Shane’s ribs, wet in an instant from his fingertips to his sleeve.
“Rick,” Shane said as his shoulder stiffened, tensing, and his voice was faint beneath the drum of the water on the porcelain floor.
“We’re gonna get through this,” Rick whispered, tipping his cheek to rest against Shane’s back. He felt Shane relax little by little, water trickling over the curve of Shane’s skull and into his hair. He felt himself flush hot, the heat of the water and Shane’s body getting to him even as he was soaked to the bone.
They were silent, swaying together. Rick moved them, gently, shifting from the balls to the heels of his feet. His shirt clung to him and his jeans were heavy, the added weight trying to drag him down. It should have been awkward, the intimacy, Rick’s clothes the only thing between them, but he wasn’t thinking about Shane now—naked and quiet. He was thinking of the man Shane had always been, more than this thing of anger and strength that vibrated power.
Shane shrugged Rick’s arms from him, rolling a shoulder to urge Rick’s chin up and off. He turned, slowly. Rick could see the water trembling in his eyelashes this close. Shane’s face was vulnerable, eyes open wide. He looked the same as he had when he’d first handed the bags over, when Hershel had first said Otis’ name, when Rick had seen the pain so clear in him, as if Shane were made of glass. Shane didn’t say a word, just moved took his wet shirt by the bottom, tugged it up and over with his thumbs. It peeled off sickly, dropping to the bottom of the tub like a layer of skin. Rick could breathe easier, not so restricted, and Shane pressed into him, face tucked into his shoulder. He could feel the rise and fall of Shane’s chest against him as Shane squeezed him, latching on tight. It was different from earlier, how Shane had gripped him loosely and let Rick be the one to control the hold.
Shane needed him now, in a way he hadn’t since they were boys. Rick brought his arms up, one around Shane’s broad shoulders, hand cupping Shane, again, by the back of his overheated neck.