What the Shadows Hide

What the shadows hide are the secrets of the mind and the body. What the shadows protect are the things that would otherwise die in the light.

That's why, Rick thought, watching some of the young ones run and play around the old basketball court as they prepared for the harvest, people waited until the night, usually, to do their wrongs, to perpetrate crimes. It wasn't just a matter of being more difficult to see. It was easier to act when you thought you couldn't be seen.

It was dawn that brought quiet and a sense of safety, even if that sense was false. It was dawn that made even the bad feel safe. It was the light of day that bred feelings of guilt for the deeds done in the dark. For a while, at least. Then there inevitably came a time when certain sins didn't need inky shadows to cover those who committed them because their consciences had become inured to whatever sin they sought to cover.

There was no intention, on Rick's part, of making the same mistake twice when he prepared for a night of guard duty. Then again mistakes weren't made twice. The second time was a choice, so when he saw Maggie leaving the tower and he stopped in front of her, he wanted to reach out, to make the wrong choice to pull her against him. When she looked at him, saw the lust in his eyes, she shook her head and he knew she was determined to make the right choice because she loved her husband. He respected that despite the disappointment in is gut.

"I can't stop thinking about it," he confessed softly.

She looked down, then back up, her gaze meeting his. She wanted him again. A man knew, Rick knew, especially when she leaned close enough for her hardened nipples to graze against him.

"No," she said. "I'm sorry, Rick. Once is forgivable. It's a mistake and we can overcome it. More than that and it's…it's just wrong. I can't do that to Glenn. I've had time to think about it and I love him too much to risk it. Tell me you could look him in the eye if he found out."

Rick wanted to open his mouth. He'd say anything for Maggie to let him touch her, lay with her skin to skin, be inside of her where he was as close to heaven as he imagined a killer like him was ever gonna get. He didn't, though. He kept his mouth shut and nodded, going along with her because she was right, and he didn't want bad blood between them.

So he let her leave without another word, determined he'd never broach the subject again, determined to treat what happened between them as nothing more than a vivid dream. It hadn't actually happened. Never would happen.

He'd stand guard because he just wanted to help out, feel like he was doing his part. No matter how many hours of back breaking hours he put into his crops Rick still felt like he needed to keep the prison safe. So he did what he could by standing guard like a protective father.

At ten o'clock darkness had fallen a couple of hours previously. Maggie walked away and he used his flashlight to navigate to the inside of the tower since it was black as pitch outside and inside. The good thing about that was how if any living attackers wanted to make a move on the prison they'd surely have to use some kind of light to see well enough to make their way up. He wouldn't use a light to make himself a target so he knew he'd have four hours of peaceful solitude to listen to the wind rustle the trees.

Rick decided he'd think about Maggie Greene while he beat off. He'd remember the feel of her legs around him, the smell of her pussy, the feel of moving inside of her. He'd remember her taste, the sounds she made, the heat of her skin, and it would just have to suffice.

Sometimes, like now after running into her and hearing Glenn's name, shame wasn't an adequate word to describe what he felt but it was the only one that came to mind. Still, it wasn't enough to stop the lust he felt. It wasn't enough to keep him from feeling the beginning of yet another bothersome erection. He needed to forget Maggie Greene and get his own woman. So he kept telling himself.

"What are you doing here?" came the voice from the inside of the tower.

The last person he expected was Michonne. She was in the tower, sitting with her legs stretched before her. A single candle filled the room with weak golden light, it's flame protected from gusty winds by glass.

"I could ask you the same," he replied, shutting the trap behind him. He took a seat and dusted off his hands, and gazed at her.

"I took a full night shift," Michonne said.

He nodded and leaned his head back and wondered if Michonne had heard any of his talk with Maggie. Judging by her face she probably hadn't, since they'd spoken in soft voices. "You're free to go. Rest of the night off."

"To do what?"

Rick shrugged. "Read a book. Make plans to search Blake out. Sleep."

"I'm a night owl."

"So I've noticed," Rick answered.

"I sleep because I have to. I haven't been sleepy at night since the turn started."

Michonne seemed to never sleep and Rick didn't know how she did it. She took shifts in the tower, almost always at night. He'd sometimes see her wandering the grounds like a ghost in search of something important that she'd lost. Then she'd be up all day, moving about, still that same searching ghost. It was exhausting for Rick to think about.

"You ever sleep?" he asked.

"Not really."

He opened his mouth to ask another question. She held up a hand. "Please."

"We've gotten closer since Andrea died," he reminded her. "You gonna start shutting me out now?"

"Because you're such a talker?"

Her eyebrows raised, one cocked slightly higher than the other, mocking in a harmless, amused way. Michonne had a way of taking the sting out of anything, at least when she wanted.

"I can share," he said.

"Okay. Share," she challenged.

"You first."

"I shared last time we talked. I shared how I killed a kid out on the road last month."

Rick nodded. "He was trying to kill you. You didn't have a choice."

"He was thirteen and scared."

"He was a threat and you couldn't avoid it. You'd be dead right now if you hadn't taken him out. I'd rather you kill than be killed."

Maybe he sounded too harsh in his response. Maybe he spoke with too much passion but it was the truth. He'd see her kill an eight-year-old before he saw her let anybody do her harm. Hell…he'd kill an eight-year-old if it meant saving her. There was no better warrior than Michonne. She was also more than that. She wasn't just a sword she was a friend. She was a woman.

She was one of them.

"Share. Your turn."

"I fucked another man's woman."

Now that he'd said it he felt like someone had lifted a couple of tons of weight from his shoulders. Normally he could let things like that go. Not this time. Not when it was Glenn and Maggie. Rick wasn't sure what kind of a response he expected from Michonne but it wasn't a roll of the eyes.

"What?" he challenged.

"I murder a child and you share that you boned some dude's girlfriend?"

Rick knew he couldn't very well say wife because Glenn was the only married man there and that would be as good as saying he'd been with Maggie. He didn't ever want it to get out, even if just to Michonne, who he'd been with. He didn't doubt Michonne would keep it secret but he wanted nobody, not even her, to know exactly who he'd been with.

"Hang on. I'll go kill Lizzie Samuels and we'll be even," he joked. Only Michonne didn't smile. Not this time. "I'm sorry," he said. "Shitty joke."

She nodded once in agreement. "I get it, though, what you're saying. You feeling guilty?"

"I did, at first. Enough time's passed that I don't feel as guilty now. Not really. I just…"

"Let's cut the shit. I heard your talk with Maggie," Michonne said, watching Rick's eyes widen. "I won't say anything."

"I didn't think you would," he said honestly. "What you must think of me now, of her."

She shook her head. "I think we're all doing the best people can under the worst circumstances imaginable. I sometimes like to think about our lives and wonder how we'd judge ourselves, the things we do, if we were all fictional characters in a book, or on a TV show."

"And?"

Michonne closed her eyes. "I'd like to think I'd always make the right choices. I'd like to think I'd live by the ways of what was Before, keep my morality in line with the life from Before. I think that every time I do something I know I wouldn't have done if walkers didn't exist and the world hadn't ended."

"Letting me off the hook for stabbing a friend in the back is nice but it's wrong."

"I'd probably fuck Glenn if the opportunity arose. He's handsome, young, and I'm lonely," she said. "I like Maggie but I'd be tempted to betray her just to feel something nice. What's that say about me?"

Rick couldn't exactly call her a shitty human being considering she was saying what she would do, and considering he'd actually done it.

"I think it makes you sound human. Flawed."

"You'd fuck her again," Michonne said.

"If she'd let me? Probably."

"Was it good?"

The question was stated in such a nonchalant way but Rick sensed a kind of greedy lust behind the words and now, for the first time, he was starting to wonder just where her line of questioning was going to go, what territory they'd wander into.

"You want the dirty details?" he asked on a grin.

She lifted a shoulder and looked at him. "If you wanna share," she said.

Rick swallowed and felt a stirring in his dick just thinking about Maggie with her young perky titties and soft skin. Michonne had perky titties too. He was willing to bet her skin was also soft. She was a woman, after all. She wasn't covered in coarse hair and the kind of skin that grew it and weathered and leathery from the sun. Michonne was a few years younger than him. She was youthful and beautiful. She was very much a sexual being, same as him. She was also single. Same as him.

"Well," he said, feeling his mouth dry a little. "It started out as just us sharing a drink."

"That moonshine Daryl brought back, I'll bet," Michonne said.

Rick nodded.

"I have a thermos of tea. Not the same as moonshine but it's wet," Michonne said.

"Wet…"

His eyes slid between her legs of their own accord. Michonne smiled and gazed at him with hooded eyes as she reached for her bag, knowing exactly where he was looking.

"You were drinking," she prompted, when he seemed more interested in staring at her crotch than actually talking to her.

"Uh…how graphic you want this to get?"

"Very. Something for me to think about next time I slip into bed," she told him.

Rick felt his mouth go dry. He sipped the tea, tried to play it cool, to pretend he wasn't affected by her words, that he wasn't imagining Michonne's beautiful brown skin beading with sweat as she lay in bed and pushed her hand between her legs and worked herself to orgasm in the privacy of her bunk.

"Unless you're uncomfortable," she said, watching him like she always was: very closely.

"No, not at all. We were drinking, talking about our lives, and she leaned her head on my shoulder. Then she started kissing me, on the cheek at first, then on the corner of my mouth. Next thing I knew…"

"You were kissing her back. You tongued her?"

Rick nodded, licked his lips. His mouth was moistening nicely now. "I tongued her, yeah. You know, this is like phone sex without the phone."

Michonne laughed and suddenly the whole thing felt silly. Silly was good. So was laughing. It was something she almost never did anymore. Now that she was here, in the dimly lit guard tower on a dark and windy night, with a man who'd become a good friend to her, she felt kind of stupid talking about his brief moment of weakness with a married woman at the end of the world.

"I can't get over how much I wanted to devour her," he said, the smile fading from his lips as he remembered that night. "How good she tasted with moonshine and cigarettes on her breath. The taste of a woman…God, there's nothing like it. Pussy is like a drug. Once you experience it there's no going back, ever."

He took another sip and set the thermos lid that acted as a cup down beside him. He allowed his eyes to focus on Michonne, on her chest. It was a cool night but it wasn't really cold. Still, her nipples poked at her shirt.

"You're not wearing a bra," he observed.

"You can tell?"

"A man can always tell." He couldn't help but bite his lower lip. He imagined taking the time to tweak those hardened buds between his fingers, then between his lips. To lick them, taste her skin, the salt left behind by a day of sweating in the sun.

"We didn't want to do wrong but by then we were so worked up. She came to me and we started yanking our clothes off and kissing and I put her down on these old mattresses on the floor of the office. Maggie…she wanted me in her mouth."

He saw movement. His eyes were out of focus, remembering that night, but now they focused on Michonne.

She was unzipping her jeans and sliding her hand down her panties.

"Fuck," Rick breathed, when he saw Michonne's bold and unexpected move. She'd just advanced the whole situation into territory they couldn't come back from without some touch happening between them.

"Don't stop. Keep talking."

This wasn't phone sex without the phone, not anymore, Rick knew. This was about to get very real in just a matter of seconds, because there was no way he was gonna watch Michonne's hand moving in her jeans and not get in on that action.

"Talk is cheap," Rick said. "It's time for me to show you."

Michonne smiled. "You wanna put your dick where my mouth is?"

She was only half joking. Truth was she wanted his dick. She wanted it in her mouth, in her hand, in her pussy. She'd spent more time than she should undressing Rick Grimes with her eyes. When she'd pass him while he tended his crop, in the corridors, to and from guard duty. She'd think of him, how he'd taste, how he'd feel, on those warm nights when he'd sit close and they'd waste time talking, managing to talk about literally everything in the human experience without using many words.

It was like that with them, how they could communicate so much in simple glances, or a few words. They could read one another like they'd known each other since the moment of her birth. Now, here they were, taking action, doing more talking than they ever had. They could go half an hour without a word and be comfortable with that. Not tonight. Tonight they'd talked one another into giving in to basic lust.

"I wanna put my dick in a lot of places," he said gruffly, getting to his knees while her fingers increased their pace on her clit. She moaned and that elicited a single lust-choked word from Rick: "Fuck."

"Do it," she said.

…

"I fucked her mouth," Rick said, "like this."

He was pushing Michonne's braids from her face. He wanted to look down, see that sumptuous mouth of hers wrapped around is dick. She opened wide for him, took him in, and relaxed her throat so he could slide in deep, almost to his balls, before she gagged ever so slightly. He felt her tongue on the sensitive underside of his dick, felt her cup him, draw back as he pulled out. She didn't just take it, she was a very active participant, her jaws stretched wide to keep her teeth from grazing him. She was all moist, soft tongue and wet lips.

"Michonne, fuck," he grunted. His hips were hard to control, they wanted to thrust, on instinct.

She started moaning, deep from within, her eyes gazing up at him, smoky with lust. The vibrations were almost enough to make him come down her throat right then and there. He pulled out while she gagged at the sudden movement. She needed to catch her breath, so did he. He enjoyed a moment of toying with her, stroking the head of his dick around her lips before she licked them and then flicked her tongue over the head.

A grunt escaped Rick when Michonne sucked the head between her lips. "Oh, Michonne, fuck yeah…"

She was giving him head, eagerly sucking, licking, sucking some more. He had to pull back. His balls were so tight he was seconds from losing it. Rick backed off, gripped her jeans and pulled them down to her knees. It was too chilly to undress her, too windy, but he'd find a way to keep her warm.

"Let me see them," he said.

Michonne knew exactly what he was talking about. She lifted her shirt, exposing her tits, her nipples hard as pebbles that tingled in need of attention, which Rick was all too happy to supply. There was a very light taste of salt on her skin, but it was soon gone, and the smell of sweat on her warm skin was quickly replaced with the musky scent of her arousal.

"Your pussy smells so good," he whispered. He trailed kisses from her neck, lower, and she allowed her legs to straighten out before her. "I'll bet it tastes better."

It had been a long time since a man had said such filth to her. It was as arousing as the feel of his lips, and the brush of his beard, against the skin of her quivering belly. She gripped his hair and didn't resist when he pulled her flat from her sitting position and turned her legs to the side. She still had her jeans on, constricting the movement of her legs, like cuffs would if she'd been shackled. He simply pushed one leg up, exposing her glistening folds. He sighed, looking almost drunk with lust, before he licked her clean of every drop of honey. She was moist again soon enough, though, when his tongue found her clit.

Michonne had a feeling they were done with talk about Maggie. He was diverging from that experience into new territory with her. This would be their own unique experience, especially when Rick worked his head between her thighs and reached for her tits to thumb her nipples. She looked down, feeling pressure building in her core. He was going to get her off with his tongue alone.

"Rick," she moaned, lying on her side, her leg up, her friend's head between her leg, licking her clit and toying with her tits. It was surreal but it felt so goddamned good. "Fuck me," she sighed. "I want you inside me."

God, did she ever want him inside. As much as Rick wanted to be there. He needed to be surrounded by her giving flesh but he didn't want to leave his place between her thighs. He took a few last laps, took a little more of her juices, and hoped she'd let him return at a later date. For now, he lay behind her, pulled her to him, and kissed her, long and deep, while that firm, round ass of hers ground eagerly, desperately against him.

"Wait," he said, speaking low in her ear, holding her, putting his arms around her and lifting her shirt.

"For what?"

"I just want a minute. I don't wanna rush it. I wanna enjoy this. Enjoy you. So hold still."

Michonne wanted to turn and look at him. She didn't turn. She didn't look at him. She just held still, her body screaming for penetration, friction. She felt him settle, felt him push inside her, but he didn't move. He sighed and pulled her close, filling her, breathing in her scent, nuzzling her. What had started off as a fuck was turning into something Michonne hadn't counted on.

"Rick, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I just want to enjoy this."

It wasn't easy to simply be inside her, holding still. It wasn't easy to feel her wet, warm body wrapped around him. He wanted to move. He wanted to thrust, pump, fucking pound her into the floor until he had her coming and screaming his name, and he would. He'd move, he'd fuck her, once he had complete control of himself and he'd taken a few minutes to just lie in heaven.

That's what was for Rick, too. Absolute heaven. It was paradise, lying behind her, feeling her tits in one hand, looking at the flare of her hip under the other. He looked at how her ass, her absolutely sublime ass, nestled against him. He slipped his hand around and between her legs, finding her clit buried in that wild snatch between her thighs. He used to hate it when Lori didn't keep herself trimmed. Now he couldn’t think of anything more beautiful than a natural woman, wild snatch and all.

"Let me kiss you."

She turned to face him as much as she could, offering her lips for the kiss Rick wanted so much. Somehow this had gone from screwing to making love. There was no other way around it. He was making love to her. He was being tender and sweet, slipping his tongue into her mouth where she could taste herself on him. When that taste was gone there was only Rick, kissing her softly, gently, before he pulled away and looked her in the eye, cupping her chin in his hand.

Then he moved, pulling easily from her slick heat to push back in. It was the most erotic moment she'd probably ever had in her life. This friend, this man she cared for more than she wanted to, holding her, kissing her, recuperating from the passion that had flared up between them so quickly, before, so he could enjoy being close to her, inside her, so he could get her off before he got off himself. That kind of care, that kind of desire for her to have as much pleasure as he did, made every thrust feel ten times better than it would have been if she was just lying there and getting fucked on a spur of the moment indulgence in sex between buddies.

When Michonne's orgasm came it was the most spectacular of her life. It hit her not with sudden impact but in a slow loosening of the pressure in her core as she came, and her pussy clenched him in an almost lazy way. It was deep inside, that orgasm, the most pleasurable sensation she'd ever known, until each wave of languid pleasure faded to flutters of aftershocks. A single sigh escaped from her lips as Rick thrust deep and emptied himself as deep inside her as he could on a loud moan that came as much from his soul as it did from his lips.

…

They didn't have a lot of use for words. They never had. Now dressed and sipping tea, Rick and Michonne sat across from one another in the tower, visible to each other's gaze in the soft golden light of the candle that Michonne had brought.

"What is Maggie to you?" Michonne asked.

"She's just a friend."

Michonne nodded. "Am I the same kind of friend?"

Rick's lips cocked in a smile. "Michonne, there's nobody like you."

She kicked his foot. She couldn't get their exchange out of her mind. More importantly she was still waiting on the panic to hit, but somehow she didn't think it would, and that baffled her.

"This a one-time thing?" he asked.

"Doesn't have to be," she said.

She offered him the thermos. He held up his cup and accepted a bit more to drink.

"I don't want it to be a one-time thing."

"Then it's not."

She took a sip of her tea and looked out into the night and felt her eyes grow heavy. "Wow. I'm sleepy at night for the first time in a long time."

"Then let's break the rules and go to sleep," he said. "Something tells me we'll be okay."

Rick motioned for her to come to him. She moved over, nestled herself between his legs, leaned against his chest, and he threw his jacket over them, feeling her take his hands into hers. He would take watch until it was time for someone to relieve them in the morning. Until then he remained up, enjoying the rightness of holding Michonne in his arms.

He'd told himself he needed to get his own woman. Now he had.