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no-mercy-bby · 18 hours

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i'm willin' if you are

— pairing: shane walsh x fem!reader

— type: ficlet

— summary: you confide an end-of-the-world wish to shane & he makes you an offer.

— tags: just the two of you conversing during an evening at the farm

— tw: mention of past suicidal tendencies

— word count: 2,048

— a/n: i've had an idea for a little scene like this for a very long time & finally decided to bring it to life. i plan to write more for shane in the future & build up more of a relationship between him & the reader. it's why i've indicated the reader as being fem for this post, despite there not being anything in this particular ficlet to indicate a gender; the other posts i hope to eventually write for shane will involve the reader as clearly having more feminine features.

Shane comes up onto the porch, his boots thumping against each step. He stops, standing in front of you, watching you for a moment as you sew a button onto one of Dale’s shirts.

The button was near-silver in color, whereas the shirt was white, but it’d been the closest match you could find in the collection of them Maggie had let you sift through a little while ago. So, silver it was.

You look up to him, his hands on his hips, a small smirk on his lips as he watches you with mild interest.

You raise a brow slightly.

“This seat taken?” He asks, nodding to the rocking chair beside you.

You shake your head and he sits.

He leans back. “You the camp seamstress now?”

“There’s always work to be done. Even if it’s just fixing a shirt.”

“Dale can’t do that himself?” He asks, his tone not betraying the mild dislike it seemed he’d recently developed toward the man. You couldn’t understand what had occurred between the two to cause such a sudden rift, but you didn’t bother asking, either. None of your business and not your problem.

That was the issue with near-everyone in this camp: dealing with walkers and supplies constantly dwindling, then needing to be replenished—if not the occasional injury or loss of life—wasn’t enough. No, they needed to further their problems by causing more with others by sticking their noses where they didn’t belong, nor where they were wanted. And that included Shane.

More than included him, perhaps. At least at times.

But he’d always been kind to you. Helpful. Not that you didn’t know why: you pulled your weight. You hardly ever stopped working, really. Because when you did take a break, that allowed your mind to wander. Not that it didn’t anyway, but at least this way you were always exhausted at bedtime, so there was no opportunity for you to dwell on troublesome thoughts when it was quiet and dark and you had nothing else to think about than the horrors you’d endured. The losses you’d suffered.

Finally, you shrug, continuing to sew. “I don’t mind.”

Shane leans back. “Somethin’s on your mind.”

You look at him and he continues. “I can tell. Not very good at hiding it. At least not from me.”

You pull through the last bit of thread, then snip, setting the shirt and sewing materials on the small table settled between both your seats.

“I’m fine.”

He sits back, rocking in his chair. “Heard that before. And it was a load of bullshit then just like it is right now. So, you want to give me the truth, or am I going to have to break out Officer Shane to get it out of you?”

You glance to him and he has a playful smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, but you don’t laugh.

“Just thinking about my bucket list.”

His smile disappears. “That somethin’ I need to be worried about: that you’re thinkin’ like that?”

You settle back in your seat, bringing your left leg up, bending it at the knee, resting your foot on the seat as your other continues to push against the floorboards of the porch, gently rocking the chair. You face him, back turned toward the front door behind you. “No.”

He sighs, shaking his head. “You have to give me more than that.”

You’d expressed a loss of will to live to him weeks ago at the quarry, but had stated the only reason you bothered to keep breathing was due to the unknown of what death—caused particularly by suicide—would hold. And then you had considered staying at the CDC with Jackie and Jenner, but he’d talked you out of it, pulling you along beside him—his hand holding so firmly to yours you were sure he’d dislocate your shoulder as he pulled you along—out of that building. Then he’d covered your body with his as the building exploding, sending debris in every direction.

After, as you traveled the highway, he’d—every now and again—rest his palm over your knee. A reassuring touch that you weren’t alone was all it had been; you had no doubt about that. Just innocent bodily contact.

Once the group was stranded at the highway, though, that sense of fear you’d felt watching the CDC burn had calmed. Your will to live dissipating once more. As you scavenged abandoned vehicles for supplies, you didn’t even think to use any of it to keep yourself on your feet.

And then you’d collapsed from dehydration. You’d woken up in Dale’s RV, Shane holding a bottle of water to your lips…begging you to wake up, cursing you for being just one more person to try and leave him. That he wouldn’t let you.

He may’ve been understanding of your behavior, but he’d not been pleased that you’d nearly died…again. He’d made as much clear. Had made you promise to be smarter in the future. To think before doing. To take better care of yourself going forward, or he would do it for you. And he assured you that you did not want Shane Walsh as your designated baby-sitter.

Neither of you had discussed the things he’d whispered to you in the RV that day when he’d thought you unconscious. You knew that he knew you’d heard some of it, but neither of you were going to acknowledge the soft, desperate words he’d uttered while pressing a cool cloth to your forehead, his hands shaking out of fear that you'd slip away.

In truth, you couldn’t understand it: why he cared so damn much what happened to you. He so often implied that he had no patience, nor need for the weak. And that’s what you were, weren’t you? Then again, he’d told you more than once how he admired how much of a hard-worker you were, even if it’d gotten you in trouble with him more than once now, because perhaps you’d been working too hard… Just a few times, though.

And now you were here, working yourself to the bone again, just like you’d done at the previous camp. You clearly never learn your lesson.

Finally, you sigh. “If I do, you have to promise to keep it to yourself. And that…that you won’t laugh or mock me.”

“I give you my word,” he states, eyes not leaving you.

You nervously wrap your hands around your bent knee, not looking at him. You felt so stupid even thinking it. The fact you were about to say it out loud? Even worse.

“Given the current state of things—not just the world, but right here with all of us—I want you to know that I know just how stupid and selfish I’m about to sound.” You look up to him. “It’s why I planned to keep it to myself. It’s not the sort of thing you share with others.”

He doesn’t speak, just continues to listen, waiting for you to give him the answer to the mystery of what had seemed to be on your mind all day.

“I’m also about to sound incredibly cliché.” You internally cringe before finally speaking it aloud. “I don’t want to die a virgin.”

You don’t look at him when you admit it. “I don’t mean that in some ignorant I-just-want-to-finally-get-laid kind of way. I just…I just wanted to know what it felt like to have that with someone; that experience.”

You look at him, tears shimmering in your eyes. “I thought I’d have more time. I wanted to do things ‘the right way’. I wanted to fall in love, get married—and, yes, I know how old-fashioned that sounds—but I thought I’d one day get that opportunity. Now? Now I just wish I’d done it. Gone to a bar, gone home with some stranger, and gotten it over with. But it still wouldn’t have been the way I wanted it to be. Now I just wish it could be, at the very least, with someone I care about. And if I’m lucky, they’ll care about me, too. If not?” You shrug.

You expect him to at least give you a look which insinuates that you were being ridiculous to be thinking about such things. Such frivolous and literally useless things. Sex. That was what you were thinking about lately. Not food, or water, or ammunition, or literally anything that would help to keep you all alive.

You were thinking about something that just…didn’t matter. Not anymore.

But he doesn’t give you such a look. Instead, you find understanding in his eyes. “I don’t think it’s any of those things you said at all: stupid or cliché or selfish. Hell I…I get it, y’know. It’s one of those things—life experiences. Somethin’ most of us want to have at some point. Not everybody cares whether it’s with a stranger or the love of their life, but some do. Nothin’ wrong with that. I’m not judging you for wantin’ that.”

A tear slips down your cheek at his understanding, which you quickly wipe away. In truth, it wasn’t just about being intimate with someone. It all came down to just how utterly lonely you were. How desperately you wished to have someone of your own.

But that wasn’t going to happen now. Not in this new world.

You couldn’t just bump into someone in the grocery store or meet someone online now.

Now… This was your life now. And you needed to live with that.

You’re both quiet for a moment, the only sound the crackling of the campfire a few feet away, clanging of dishes being washed after the last of the camp finishes up their supper, some idle chatter coming from inside the farmhouse, and crickets and frogs singing as a choir of the forest.

Until Shane speaks. And what he says next takes you completely by surprise. “I’ll have sex with you.”

Your head shoots up and in his direction. Your eyes widen, but he quickly holds his hands up in a gesture which says ‘let me explain first’.

“I don’t mean it in that kind of way, as in ‘you’re wanting to get screwed, and I think I’m the man for the job’, which really translates to me just wantin’ to get lucky. You want more than that—something deeper and…and actually meaningful, I mean. Like I said: I get it. You want someone who cares about you, and…hell, you know I do. Saved your life more than once, as I recall, at that,” he says with a smile. “I just…it’s somethin’ for you to think about, I guess. That I’m willin’ if you are.”

You’re left speechless for a moment. He’d offered himself up so easily that it made you wonder if he’d thought about this before. Being with you in that way, that is.

You glance over to the campsite, Lori and Rick talking amongst themselves, Carl having already gone to bed. You then look back to him and speak lowly. “Lori wouldn’t get jealous?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you-”

You cut him off. “Please, Shane, spare me. I may be quiet and keep to myself, but I’m not blind. I’m nothing if not observant. I’m not judging you, either. Either of you. You both thought Rick was dead; you were grieving and scared. And you were all the other had. You were already practically family to one another.” He remains quiet. “I get it, Shane. I just…I’m not willing to give myself to a man who’s in love with someone else. I’m sorry, but thank you for the offer.”

He nods, refusing to meet your eyes now, perhaps out of shame.

You pick up Dale’s shirt, ready to give it back to him now that it’d been tended to, but Shane speaks again. “Anybody else know?”

You shake your head. “I don’t think so. Or, if they do, they haven’t shared as much with me. Not that I talk much to everyone here to begin with, I suppose,” you say with a small laugh, fairly devoid of humor. “And you don’t need to worry about me telling anyone, either.”

“I know that,” he says, reaching over to rest his hand on your thigh.

You stand, then, heading over to the RV.

Meanwhile, Shane’s eyes never leave you.

#op this was scrumptious #shane walsh x reader #fic rec

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