Request - Hey Luna, I really enjoy your writing and I’m finally sending a request! Could you do a TWD oneshot for Rick Grimes where him & y/n find each other at the very begging of the apocalypse and start falling in love, but Rick pushes it away bc of Lori. When Rick finds out Lori cheated, y/n & him end up getting together. Thank you so much ☺️
Fluff
Warnings - Death, Zombies (the usual), Cursing?
Pairing - Rick Grimes X Reader ; Glenn X Reader (Platonic)
[ I love Glenn so I couldn’t not make y’all like best friends. Lemme know if you guys maybe want more parts ]
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“You’re sure you want romance advice from me? I’m hopelessly in love with a man who has a family.” You deadpan at Glenn, who leans against the wall opposite of you in the RV.
Glenn was the only person in the camp who knew of your little crush on their “leader”. While he was never officially labeled that, pretty much everyone preferred him over Shane Walsh of all people, who was in charge before you and Rick arrived weeks ago. You’d convinced yourself it was a little crush that would pass in no time and yet here you are, avoiding the man who you’d saved at the start of the apocalypse. You were held up with Morgan and his son when you’d met Rick and agreed to help him find his family, and you did. That didn’t stop you from falling hard for the fearless ex-sheriff.
The two of you were a good team, taking charge whenever it was needed, and bouncing ideas off of each other. You were the person who he trusted without a single doubt, who he talked to about everything and vice versa (along with Glenn for you). It just became harder to hide your crush when Lori was all over Rick, which you didn’t blame her for since it’d been a stressful last couple of days for everyone. You’d made it clear that you were there for him and his family no matter what, that you’d do anything for them. You’d even offered/given blood for Carl when Rick was barely able to stand.
One day, you and Rick went out searching for Sophia and you’d noticed the way he’d subtly distanced himself from you. You took it as a sign that you were intruding on their marriage when really Rick wasn’t sure what he was feeling for you and was struggling on how to act, or if he should act on it.
Glenn sighs, running his hand over his face. The poor kid was having crush troubles of his own with Maggie, whose home your people were currently camped outside of. You two had become close friends since he’d saved you and Rick. “I just don’t know women.”
You snort a laugh, “and you think I do?”
“Probably not, but you know people.” Glenn corrects, “and it was you or Dale and Dale will give old man advice.”
“I’m gonna tell him you said that.” You joke, turning in the booth to properly face him. It wasn’t a surprise that she was acting wonky around him since he’d found out about there being walkers in the barn (a secret you were going to keep since he’d accidentally vented it to you). “It’s not like I have a manual on ‘what to do when you find your friend with benefits has a barn full of walkers’ on hand Glenn.” You sigh, “You said she kissed you after you got back today?” You try to recall what he told you.
“Yeah, there was this walker in the pharmacy, she almost got bit.” He goes on, “And then she called me stupid but smart, and then called me walker bait. I’ve never been so confused before.”
“You and me both Glenn.” You stand up, stretching to crack your back. “Regardless of what you do it’s gonna get mucked up because either you’re going to tell the group or someone like Shane’s gonna wander too close to that barn and all Hell’s gonna break loose.” You insist, glancing out the window of the RV.
“Hell’s gonna break loose anyway.” He groans, putting his face in his hands. You walk closer to him and pat his shoulder.
“I know, but it’s gotta be done. After that, just stay persistent, you like her, she probably likes you if she’s sticking around right now. I think it’ll work out for you.”
“And what about you?” Glenn raises an eyebrow at you.
“What about me?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” He crosses his arms.
You step back from him. “Nothing’s going to happen because he has a wife and a child. He’s not gonna leave them for me, Hell, I wouldn’t leave them for me.” You point out, getting a sad look from Glenn. “It’s something that’ll pass. As for now, I’ll just have to reel back a bit.”
“You’re really sad, you know that?” Glenn points out, watching you lean on the table of the booth.
“Yeah, I know.” You give a sad smile, the two of you walking out of the RV. The sun was starting to set slowly, giving the whole farm a golden glow to it. “Anything else you wanna tell me before we go our separate ways?”
Glenn thinks for a moment, looking at you over his shoulder. You can tell there’s something there that he wants to get out. “Lori’s.” He stops, keeping his eyes locked with yours and it’d not too hard to piece together what he was talking about. He and Maggie went on a run to the pharmacy for a second time, per Lori’s request. A rather urgent, sudden request, that had him ditching you for the day.
“Pregnant?” He nods and your eyes widen a bit, not wanting to be right with your guess. That was going to change everything. “I’ll talk to you later yeah?”
Glenn nods and heads off, leaving you alone in front of the RV. You bite the inside of your cheek, taking a glance around the camp out of habit. When you’d caught sight of Rick, coming back to camp, you nearly turned to go the opposite way. Far away, by the gate, was Lori. You couldn’t tell what happened but you had a feeling that it wasn’t good.
“Evening Sheriff.” You greet him when he approaches, now finding that there was no avoiding him when it seemed that he was actually going to talk to you. “Everything alright? You don’t look so good.” You voice your concern, following him into the RV when he beckoned you.
You watched him pace the RV for a few moments after you closed the RV door. He didn’t look at you right away and you let him collect his thoughts as you found yourself sitting in the booth as you were a few minutes ago with Glenn.
Suddenly, Rick stops and looks at you, you can’t quite make out the look on his face. “I’m sorry.” He suddenly says, only adding to your confusion and concern. Maybe he was finally losing his mind. “I’ve been pushing you away these last couple of days when all you’ve done is stuck by me. It’s not fair to you.” He goes on.
“It’s okay Rick, shit happens-”
“No, it’s not.” He cuts you off, running his hand through his hair. “Because I wanted Lori and me to work like nothing was wrong. I wanted to just ignore what I was feeling towards you for her sake, for Carl’s but it was stupid.” He admits to you, looking like a weight had just been yanked off of his shoulders. “She cheated on me, with Shane.” You look at him in shock, watching him turn away to look towards the window. “She’s…”
“Pregnant?” You finish so he doesn’t have to and when he looks at you in confusion you move to the inside of the booth, patting the spot next to you. “It wasn’t hard to figure it out when she started getting sick during breakfast.” You admit, covering for Glenn when clearly he didn’t know that the Korean was involved.
“I’m sorry.” He says again, sitting down beside you and putting his head in his hands, elbows on the tabletop.
“It’s okay.” You reach up and gently rub his back.
“I think I like you.” He admits.
The two of you are silent for a moment, the two of you sitting there in the aftermath of what he had said. “I’ve liked you for a while.” You tell him, smiling when his head shoots up and he looks at you. “I didn’t want to come between you two and mess things up between us.”
Rick shakes his head. “You could never mess things up between us.” He insists, offering you his hand. You take it and he just runs his thumb over the back of it. “I like you.” He tells you, now certain and confident in his words. He couldn’t explain the way that you alone made him feel like he was back in high school, with some stupid crush.
“Are you gonna be okay?”
“I am now that I know what I’m feeling.” He leans over and presses a kiss to your cheek. Your face heats up. “I wanna try this.”
I just finished The Walking Dead season 9 and I have to say…. the last episode was a little underwhelming. I saw spoilers with Judith and Negan in the snow and how he “saved her life” and expected something big, like Alpha attacking Alexandria and everyone had to flee…
Maybe I expected too much but I’m very excited for season 10!
I really hope we get Rick and Maggie back. It isn’t the same without them.
Also, I hate when actors leave a show before it’s finished (looking at you Nina Dobrev) because then their character has this unsatisfying ending (or apparently none at all like Maggie)
I know there is a chance for them coming back but still…
They couldn’t look at you, they refused. Maybe if they didn’t look it wasn’t really happening, maybe you wouldn’t be in Alexandria on the bed, a large gash over your torso. You should be dead was the words Denise spoke to them when they came back from the run. “What did we do wrong? How did this happen?” Rick murmured under his breath, rocking in his chair as he held your cold hand. You were dying, or you could be. You lost so much blood they don’t know if you’ll make it through the night. Daryl stared out the window, or looked at the bandages that wrapped around your whole body, they didn’t want to lose you. They had already gone through so much. “She’ll be alright, she’s a fighter” Rick tried to comfort the both of them. Daryl breathed deeply shaking his head, “dunno, might have been too late” he whispered, his voice struggling to even get the words out. Rick sighed deeply, refusing to think like that, refusing to accept that his love, his heart was dying in front of him. “Maybe if I-” Daryl spoke quietly, “we could’ve saved her sooner”
“She’s not gone-”
“Ya see this cut”
“Yeah I see it Daryl- I can’t not see how we failed her. We shouldn’t have let her out of our sight, one of us should have been there. Hell! She shouldn’t have even gone!” Rick cried, tears beginning to pool in his eyes. Your screams of pain are still haunting him, like an alarm bell ringing his ears.
They ended up taking it in turns as you laid motionless on the bed, one slept in the bed surrounded by your scent as the other sat watching your chest rise and fall. The two avoided each other, Rick throwing himself into work and helping the community as Daryl lingered in the background hunting and providing for everyone in another way. Weeks had past and you had shown no sign of improvement. To get the boys some rest/ actually talk to each other Maggie and Glenn took to watching you tonight promising the boys they would get them if anything changed. Daryl shifted through your pack, the bag still filled and covered with blood. It sat on the porch waiting to be sorted so Carol could clean it, neither of them having the gut to sort through it. His fingers brushed against a notebook, the one he gave you at the prison. One that he would often see you leaving against Rick writing in. The cover tattered and folded. The pages were wrinkled and dirty, just an example of how much you had gone through them. He saw charcoal drawings of him and Rick, small poems or thoughts. Sketches of the prison, Merle’s bike. The sketchbook was full of things you had learnt, the pain or happy moments you felt the need to write down. The sun was setting as Rick left the house, he spotted Daryl sat on the swing seat. He sat next to him. Daryl didn’t say anything to him, but passed him the notebook, looking at the man.
Rick flicked through amazed at how you documented your life’s small notes about your love between the two men. He finished the book, his eyes staring at the last page.
‘It’s all part of the journey, including the end
Love Y/n’
Rick let out a choked sob the days of worrying catching up to him. Daryl was already silently crying. The two men sat wanting their half the person that made him whole finally. “I’m sorry- for not talking to you. Not being there for you”
“Me too”
The two men smiled, surprised their greatest weekends not only pulled them apart but held them together. Gave them purpose to wake up, to get up and try harder when they failed.
“RICK, DARYL. SHES AWAKE”
The boys stood up, running instantly with their shoes thudding on the streets of Alexandria. The book still clutched in Rick’s hand as he sprinted. They were met with your laughter, weak but still there as you spoke to Maggie. “Shit- the guy cut me badly didn’t he” you laughed lightly. “You almost died, you should have seen Rick and Daryl. Like lost puppies”
“I wish I did, god I could hear them and I wished I could just help them”
Maggie smiled, the group was confused when you fell in love with both of them. But it became normal, special. Watching a family form so closely warmed them, helped them continue on. “Hey boys” you smiled as they entered the room. They didn’t speak, just stared at you like you were the last thing on earth. “What do I have on my face”
Maggie stood and left, leaving the three of you alone. Once she left they slowly approached, smiling as they got closer. Their eyes are still raw and red from moments ago. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay”
“We found ya book”
You smiled, nodding. “It was so I had a memory of everything, so if I lost you or anyone I could still see their faces. Hoping one day we had a place like this so we could decorate the house with them.” you said. The boys nodded, you scooted to the middle of the bed, allowing them to lay with you as you flicked through the book.
“We thought you were gonna die” Rick said, his lips kissing the top of your head.
“I might have, but you would still have this”
“I’d prefer to keep you” Daryl muttered, a kiss falling on your temple. The two of them finally resting, holding you close. When Maggie came by to check on you she found you looking through your book with a small smile on your face as you looked at all the memories you captured. She watched as the two boys held you close, protectively as you sat there. A sight comforting for many.
