wildest dreams ━ rick grimes × male!oc

chapter twenty:

heeeeeeeeeey....

so, I'm alive 🥲

and this chapter is shorter than the others, but hey, at least I finally updated, right? 🫠

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Chapter Twenty: "the affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more."

Rick leaves a terribly sick Jim left on the side of the road with a gun and single bullet, underneath the shade of a tree, surrounded by nothing but a dust ridden road and nature. He lets Jacqui exchange a few teary words with him and then they're back on the road, driving towards the CDC. 

Remorse about Jim's stupidity is quite literally the furthest, most nonexistent thing in Rick's mind. He really couldn't care less about the human's death. 

Instead, his mind is clouded with other thoughts. 

The stolen van smells like… comfort and Rick struggles with it, the beast beneath his skin finding it hard to find its footing. Carl is sleepy eyed and soft, yawning while he reads one of his comic books. Beside him, Glenn is snoring quietly, layed on the ground. Merle is awake, lazily watching Daryl fiddle with one of the many bolts from his precious crossbow. 

And when Rick steals a glance at the passenger seat, he finds Ren curled up and leaning against the side of the car door, looking soft and warm and utterly inviting. Ren tilts his head, gazing out of the open window and golden sunlight spills all over his face as the breeze ruffles his messy black hair. 

Rick has to physically force his gaze back to the road, lest he does something stupid, like crash the van because his omega is simply too pretty to gaze at. He curls his fingers tightly around the steering wheel, trying to curb the insistent pool of want that sits in his empty stomach. Rick's fangs ache to mark soft, tanned skin and he clenches his jaw to try and calm himself down. 

They're on the road for the next two hours — a total of six all together  ━  and Rick finally slows the van to a stop, peering out of the window with narrowed eyes and a suspicious downward tilt to his mouth. The CDC is a tall, large building with an intricate glass structure, hidden behind a set of steel embedded doors. 

The area around the building is littered with dead bodies, all mutilated beyond recognition. Misplaced limbs and parts of cotton candy coloured brains line the cobbled ground, decorated with glistening, wet guts. 

Rick's nose twitches. The air smells putrid and acid-like, heavily blanketed with a force of protective rage, a sick, twisted hatred and a thick coating of violence. Everything smells like steel and iron and blood ━ smells like an angry, territorial alpha.

The hairs on the back of Rick's neck rise with trepidation. He carefully and quietly steps out of the stolen van, hovering his hand over his colt python. The monster beneath his skin stirs to wakefulness, immediately on the prowl. Cautions. Teeth bared. Awfully aware of being in another alpha's territory. 

Rick's ears flick. 

It's silent. 

Gazing around, straining his ears for sounds and his nose for extra scents, Rick doesn't catch anything but a message on the far wall, written out in blood across the wide glass window. 

It reads, '9NE10.' 

Confusion settles across his features, plain and evident. Rick's fingers rest atop the handle of his colt python. Even though there's nothing but silence and the stench of death and violent alpha around him , he feels like he might fall under attack any moment, any second, now.