Sometimes You Just Need a..

by Lupienne

A/N: Comic-based after Issue #174. Fluffy drek. Unlikely to happen but I like it. Platonic Negan/Rick (Regan)

"Is this a good idea?"

Rick looked back at Annie as he tightened the strap on Silver's saddle. He'd loaded her saddlebags with supplies, and informed Heath where he was heading.

"I said I would." He patted the mare's nose. "And it's been three weeks."

"But alone?"

"I'll be fine. If I'm not back by morning, then you can worry."

"Sure thing, Mr Grimes." She stood by, ready to open the gate.

He struggled to pull himself atop the horse. She stood patiently as he adjusted himself in the saddle. He'd gained a new appreciation for the gentle old mare. She was slow and worn, just like him.

He urged her into a light trot, leaving Alexandria behind at a pleasant pace.

And what a pleasant day! The fringe of autumn, with just the slightest nip in the air. His chest tightened and he swallowed thickly. He tried not to think about it – how this was just the sort of day Andrea would have loved to go riding. He could imagine her beside him, her hat pulled low and her poncho fluttering in the wind.

Don't. She's gone.

He bowed his head. Lately, there seemed to be a bubble trapped in his trachea. Right between his voice box and his ribcage. Lately, there had been lots of pressure behind his eyes.

If he kept it down long enough, maybe it would just ebb away.

A few tears leaked and he wiped them, straightening up in the saddle. He nudged Silver back onto course. Dwight had given him rough directions: head east, look for this tree, look for that house. Dwight had also given him a thinly-disguised look of disgust, which Rick had chosen to ignore... for now.

He slowed Silver to a walk when he reached the neighborhood where Negan was staying. He didn't know if the ex-Savior was still here. If he wasn't – call it a wasted trip.

Maybe not a total waste. The ride had been relaxing, a nice get-away from the pitying gazes of his fellow citizens. Andrea would have approved. You need a little 'me' time, sometimes, she would say.

That fucking bubble reappeared. He swallowed hard, blinking away a stray tear. He had to gasp, raggedly, through his mouth. Sometimes the bubble hurt terribly. But no doctor could alleviate this pain.

He shook his head. He had to keep his eyes peeled. His hand near his gun. Undead could be lurking, and he had no clue how jumpy Negan would be. He knew the big fucker had a rifle.

As he approached the last house on the row, he smelled smoke. This house was set apart from the others and he paced around the side.

A small fire was stoked in a circle of stones, and a pot of water was heating above it. There was his ex-prisoner, kneeling down by a patch of greenery. He thought at first that Negan was planting a garden, but all he saw were a few ratty daisies and a half-dead sunflower.

He opened his mouth to call, but Negan must have heard him. He quickly turned on his heels, a trowel held out before him.

"You'd better back off, you dead fuck, or -" Negan jumped to his feet. His eyes squinted as his lips pushed upwards into a huge, stupid grin. "Well, Jesus Shittin' Christ! It's Rick Motherfuckin' Grimes!"

Rick slid from the horse with an embarrassing lack of grace. His bad knee buckled for a second before he forced it steady.

"What are you doing here? Change your mind about locking me up? Come out here to kill off your loose ends?"

Rick thought he detected a hint of hope in Negan's voice. He shook his head, both at the notion, and at the fact the big bastard was practically wiggling like a puppy at the sight of him. Maybe Annie was right about this being a bad idea.

"No. I'm doing what I said I would. Bringing you supplies," he said gruffly, gesturing towards the saddlebags. "Consider it your monthly tribute..."

"Cute." Negan scratched at his beard. It wasn't prison-level stages yet, but it was getting there. "And real fuckin' appreciated. Uh...how'd you find me?"

"Dwight told me where you headed. Took a chance you'd still be here."

"For now I am." Negan's eyes narrowed. "You still keeping that little cockroach around?"

Rick answered that glare with his own – the Motherfucking Rick Grimes death stare.

"Fine, fine. Do what you want. Rick knows best." Negan huffed a breath. "You wanna tie her up over here?"

"She won't go far." Silver wasn't very adventurous. "Just help me carry this stuff."

Together, they unbuckled the bags and headed towards the rundown house Negan was apparently calling home.

"I brought you a razor too." Rick said. He'd felt a little foolish when he'd thrown the shaving implements in the bag. He considered it an unspoken thanks for Negan's positive actions in the past few months. Unspoken – because it still burned his throat to give Negan any sort of compliment.

"That is fucking awesome of you." Negan nudged the door open with his foot. "Even though I'm rocking the shit out of this hobo look."

Rick frowned as they entered. Speaking of hobo...

Negan appeared to have made his home in the large foyer, and it was a mess. His sleeping pallet was a disheveled heap of blankets, his leather coat folded up as a pillow. There was stacks of shit everywhere.

A stack of dirty pots and pans.

Canned food strewn along one wall. Most empty, and some not, one tipped over and spilling creamed corn on the floor.

Dead flies all over the windowsill. An array of half-melted candles (with dead flies embedded in the cooled wax.)

A messy stack of firewood and twigs.

Wood dust and dirt and dead leaves all over the floor, while a broom sat propped against the wall in mockery.

In the corner near the pallet, was a pile of tissues that Rick was sure hadn't been used to blow Negan's nose.

The smell wasn't exactly great either.

Negan shuffled his feet, knocking even more dirt onto the floor. "Sorry. Uh...it's a bit fucking disgusting. My wives used to be the housekeepers. Especially Sherry...she'd kill me if she saw this place."

Rick cringed at the name.

"But she was a psycho bitch, so... yeah." Negan went silent, setting down the saddlebag and crouching to open it.

Rick tried not to think about that, nor about how untidy his own house had become over the past few weeks. He wasn't quite at this level of not giving a shit. He looked for the one thing Negan wouldn't just toss around – the mangled remains of Lucille. He didn't see her – it – anywhere.

"Aww, Rick, you're fucking spoiling me." Negan extracted cans of food, a few bags of dried beans and rice, bullets, matches and a bag full of travel-sized toiletries. He should have packed a bottle of bleach for this pig-sty.

The room wasn't the only unkempt thing. As Negan set the supplies into yet another messy pile, strands of his black hair fell onto his forehead, another sticking upwardly awry. His t-shirt wasn't the impeccable white Rick was used to seeing. His former nemesis was practically shabby. Negan rose from his crouched position with a little groan.

"Think I said it before, but fuck. Crouching. Murder on the knees." An evil little smirk played the large man's lips. "Guess you know all about that."

"My knee would have been fine. If I'd let you bleed out on the ground."

"Maybe you should have. Doesn't seem like it was a great trade-off."

Rick narrowed his eyes. The smirk eased off Negan's mouth, and his dark eyes were unreadable. Rick was noticing things – how the dingy t-shirt hung looser off Negan's shoulders, how his collarbones seemed more prominent, and above the beard there was a subtle hollowness to his cheeks. His release from captivity didn't seem to be agreeing with him.

"Are you doing all right out here? Are you eating enough?" Now that no one is handing you shit on a silver platter?

"Oh, I'm doing fuckin' fantabulous!" The reply was so bright Rick was sure it was utterly sarcastic, but when Negan paired it with that cheerful grin, it was hard to tell.

"Uh-huh."

"You brought me more pork n' beans...I'm almost sporting the world's biggest woody right about now." The nearly-rabid look Negan shot the canned food said it all. The bastard was not doing well.

It couldn't be helped, though. Jailing him again was unacceptable. All Rick could do was supply the bare minimum and leave Negan to his own devices. He didn't even need to do that, but he felt obliged. He'd promised.

Here I am, willingly forking over shit to this guy now.

But the tables had turned. Negan wasn't taking from him as a greedy tyrant – Negan was a fucking beggar accepting meager charity.

Rick wouldn't lord it over him, though. He could appreciate Negan's humbleness. At least the man had admitted he was wrong – not that it changed the past...but it was something. And as obnoxious as Negan could be – Rick found his company to be... refreshing. Negan didn't view him in the same way others did. He knew the dark part of Rick, but he didn't judge it. He was too much a devil to judge the sins of others. He just simply saw Rick... for Rick.

It was nice, for a while, until he rode back through the gates of town – to be able to drop his pretenses.

He sighed. Maybe he'd break for lunch on the way back. Prolong his return just a bit. He began to hobble towards the door.

"What happened to your bad ass cane?" Negan asked, following with the empty saddlebag.

His new cane was plain wood and tailored for someone shorter than him. A woman, maybe.

"Lost it when the Walker herd broke in. Carl sent me a note, he's making some kind of quote-unquote badass one for me at the Hilltop. Should be done soon."

"He called it bad ass too?" Negan was wiggling all puppy-like again. "How's he doing?"

"Fine," Rick said shortly. That deflated Negan's stupid enthusiasm. The large man was silent again as they went outside.

"I'll be back in a few weeks with your shit." He paused, giving the flower garden a critical look. It was definitely a memorial of some sort. The ramshackle cross seemed to say 'Duh, Captain Obvious.'

"Thanks. I really do appreciate it. Hell, the pork n' beans and the razor alone deserve an epic, slobbery knob-job."

Rick never knew what to say to those weird come-ons, and he was never entirely sure if Negan was joking either. He ignored it as usual.

The memorial, if that's what it was, was a place Negan must linger. The grass in front of it was trampled flat and worn to the earth in spots.

"Um..." Negan rubbed the back of his neck. "That's uh... where I buried her."

"The bat?" Rick tried to keep the disdain from his voice. Negan and that stupid bat. Of course he would bury it.

"Well yeah...but it wasn't just for her." A soft cough escaped the large man, and he squinted his eyes. "For uh...for um...my real Lucille. Because I didn't get to bury her..."

The Captain Obvious brick knocked him right over the head. Lucille. Worst thing I ever did was leave my wife to rot. The rabid attachment to the baseball bat. The lunatic rages whenever 'she' was disrespected. She's the only bitch I ever truly loved.

He imagined how he might have been...back in his dark days...with Lori. The phone. The phantom voice. What he might have done if someone had tried to wrest that phone away from him.

No. I don't want to think about this!

Goddamn Negan! Why did he always manage to mindfuck him somehow?

Unwanted images flooded his head. Running up a hill, with Carl ahead of him. 'Don't look back. Don't look back.' Lori, gunned down behind them. Lori and Judith. Left behind.

Rotting.

She's a pile of dry bones rotting on a fucking floor...my wife. Because of me.

He wasn't sure what compelled the words to trip from his mouth. Negan was staring at the grave, his shoulders slumped, and something dead and lost clouding his eyes. Rick had seen that look in the mirror. He suddenly beheld the obnoxious smiles and the bright booming glimmer of Negan's voice in a new fashion. A cover-up, a shield. That's all they were.

"I never got to bury my wife, either, Negan."

The brown eyes snapped to his. Negan's eyebrows furrowed quizzically.

"Not..." Andrea. He couldn't say her name. The bubble swelled inside his chest and his eyes burned. "My first wife. Lori. C-C-Carl's... Carl's mother. We were running from a madman. We couldn't stop...we had to leave her." He took a ragged breath.

Negan nodded, staring down at Lucille's crude memorial.

A painful silence stretched between them. The bubble swelled like a water balloon. And it was moving upwards, like a surge of vomit. Panic gripped him. He swallowed hard, trying to force it down. He had to get out of here. Blinking hard and blurry-eyed, he looked around for Silver.

"Rick..." Negan's voice was so soft he barely recognized it. He jerked his head back towards the man in surprise, even more startled to see wetness pooling under the weary brown eyes. Negan bit his lip. "Do you need a hug?"

Silence again. Rick's body froze, except his damnable knee. It buckled and he forced it straight.

"Do you need a hug?" Now Negan's voice had a noticeable waver. "Because I could really fucking use one."

Rick gripped his cane hard.

Negan's face fell into that stupid look - parted lips and wide eyes – that childish visage he took on whenever Rick chastised him for his idiotic ways. Rick opened his mouth to again reprimand him, to say – 'Of course not, of course I don't want a fucking hug!'

But something in his aching heart propelled him forward into the opening embrace - or maybe it was just his knee caving again. Negan scooped him up against his broad chest. Rick blanched for one second, before sinking as if into the warmest of pillows, with the thud-thud of a pounding heart singing a lullaby.

He tentatively wrapped his arms around the other – more to support his bad leg than anything – his hand sliding over hard muscle and a ladder of prominent ribs.

Maybe he was the foolish fly submitting to the spider's trap, but the moment Negan's hand dropped to his back and rubbed softly – just the lightest human...humane... touch – he didn't care.

He pressed his head against this warm breathing body, this body who understood . The tidal wave of grief spilled over the breakers of his eyes, and that swelled bubble exploded into sobs. He tried to stifle them with teeth sunk into his lip, but his body shook from the force of it.

"I know," Negan rasped. "It hurts. It hurts so fucking goddamn bad."

Damn the big fucker for instigating the flood of tears! And a flood it was. Levies broke. The sounds that came from him were horrible, poison – and he felt ashamed. Again, he tried to stifle this weakness, but then over his own sobs he heard grief in anther's voice, just as wounded, just as drowned in long-simmering pain. Negan was crying too.

The shame melted away, and he gave into the racking sobs, the tears that burnt like fire.

Negan had said they would never share a meal, nor their deepest darkest secrets...but this was closer. This was a true passing of knowledge.

His knee began to quake under the weight of standing thus. He forced it straight, ignoring the pain. His arms tightened. Just hold on. Just let go.

Finally, his sobs ebbed to a few hoarse gasps, and died into fine quivers echoing through his body. Negan gave one last choked hiccup, and a shaky sigh. Still, Rick was afraid to let go, to see where this left them.

Negan's arms began to loosen, and his voice rumbled through his chest to Rick's, sounding thick as honey. "You might want to let go now. I'm starting to get an erection."

Oh for fuck's -

Rick let go, tottering so abruptly he nearly toppled into Lucille's cross. Negan pulled him upright and Rick steadied his cane under his palm.

They caught sight of the mess of each other's faces. Twins of red, swollen eyes and scarlet cheeks, beards wet with tears and snot.

Starting to get an erection -

Rick bent double – and began to laugh. Huge laughter that killed his ribs and cleansed the toxins from his chest. Negan joined in, and his laugh was the sort that added gasoline on the fire of hilarity. Infectious. Rick wound up on the ground when his knee gave, gasping for air under the sunflower. Now he was really sore, his leg aching and his eyes raw and his ribs throbbing...but... it felt good.

"Are you...fucking..." Negan was still chuckling as he caught his breath, "...ok...old man?"

"Shut up..." Rick grimaced, rubbing at his ribs. "You're older than me, Grandpa."

Negan reached a hand down, but Rick waved it away, climbing painfully to his feet. He accepted his cane as Negan shoved it into his hand.

"Shit, I never thought I'd see the fucking day. Rick Grimes...laughing."

"Oh, I laugh. I've just never found you amusing."

"And how was your first time with me?"

Rick decided to ignore that one. He cleared his throat, wiping his coat sleeve over his wet cheeks. Negan pulled up his dingy shirt, getting it dirtier still as he scrubbed at his own face.

Rick squinted at the sun. He still had plenty of daylight left. And Silver was happily grazing on the house's patchy lawn. He approached her, opening the smallest saddlebag, one they hadn't touched. "I brought a sandwich for my lunch. I don't think I'll finish it all. You hungry?"

He knew what Negan was really hungry for. No, not that. It was so obvious, even as the man's eyes lit up, grasping onto the delay of his lonely solitude.

"I am fucking famished. It was a lot of hard work planting those fuckin' flowers today. Those white ones there."

"They're called daisies."

"Yeah, those things."

"How about we eat by the fire?" Rick didn't really want to go back into Negan's pig-sty. The big man nodded, and headed into the dump, returning with two mesh chairs.

"Need a tissue?" A handful of white was extended to him.

Rick shuddered. "No fucking way."

Negan shrugged, blew his nose, and threw it into the fire. They sat, and Rick split the large sub down the middle.

While they ate, Rick offered a grudging tidbit or two. How Alexandria was starting to come back together. How Carl was doing at the Hilltop, helping to rebuild and planning his future as a master blacksmith. He didn't give much, but he knew Negan appreciated it all the same.

Negan told him how he'd eaten a dog and still felt bad about it, how he'd gotten the shits from a motherfucking piece of shit can of Dinty motherfuckin' Moore and how he'd found another baseball bat but hadn't kept it. Rick raised an eyebrow to that.

"It wasn't the same. Didn't feel right." Negan shrugged.

"I guess not."

It also didn't feel quite right...but Rick believed him. He sighed inwardly. Negan was getting his way, after all. The wily mind-fucking fucker. The trust was building between them.

He threw the parchment paper wrapping his sandwich into the fire, brushing crumbs off his hands. Negan did the same, letting out a satisfied belch.

"Thanks, Rick. Fuck, it's been a while since I've had something fresh like that. You know... I'm starting to miss prison. That fresh bread you brought me every now and then? Fucking awesome. Also, you cleaning my shit bucket."

"I don't miss your shit bucket." Rick gave a half-smile.

"Yeah, me neither. I have a shit hole now." Negan chuckled. "And I don't mean the house."

"Maybe I'll bring a maid next time." Rick rolled his eyes, pushing to his feet. "It's time I head off. You should be good for the next few weeks."

"You can't hang out a while longer? I promise, that's not a sexual proposition, although at this point, your bony ass is looking mighty tempting."

"No, now I think it's definitelymy cue to leave. If I head back now, even if I hit a delay, I'll make it home before dark."

"You want me to come along? In case you run into trouble?"

"Now you're insulting me. This 'papaw cripple' still has some fight left in him." If Negan was thinking of his ass now, he didn't want to imagine the sordid thoughts the big bastard would have riding horseback with him. "Besides, you aren't to go near Alexandria, Negan... I mean it."

Negan bowed his head, muttering. "Yeah. I know." He snorted. "The rules keep me alive."

Whatever that meant. As long as he understood. Rick clambered atop Silver with a stifled grunt. It looked like an afternoon rain was gathering on the horizon. He almost wanted to stay, here in this commiserating bubble outside his empty, wifeless home. Here, where he had laughed until his ribs hurt, for the first time in a long time. Here, where he was understood.

He looked down at Negan's hopeful eyes. No, he'd better not. Negan would start to think he actually liked him, and that wouldn't do.

"You let me know if you need me to take care of your cockroach problem, huh?" There was that insufferable Negan-grin, and then the bastard gave Silver a smack on the rump. Rick yelped as she startled forward.

"Asshole. That just pushed your supplies back another week. Better make that food last!"

"Sure, sure. See ya, Prick." Negan gave an overly animated wave goodbye.

"See you, Negan." And Rick made his way back home, already pushing Negan's next supply drop ahead of schedule in his mind.

After all, there was no way those pork n' beans were going to last Negan a whole three weeks. He'd have to come back much sooner.

Maybe two weeks.

Maybe one at the most.

If you enjoyed or found this fic even the least bit entertaining...please leave a comment. I don't get much feedback and it's quite discouraging. Your comment would mean a lot to me, however brief. I also don't mind (constructive) criticism. :)