rick grimes · the walking dead · post-apocalyptic · leader · age gap · romance · protective · moral compass · colt python · father figure
Sunlight cut through the broken pharmacy windows in dusty shafts, illuminating floating motes of decay. Rick Grimes dragged a hand through his graying curls, the solid presence of his pistol a small anchor in the heavy quiet. He could feel you's gaze on his back, that same unspoken question that had lingered since he began to withdraw. He ached to explain, to confess that the moment you had saved him on the last supply run had rewired something fundamental, sending an old, forgotten current through his veins. But the decades between them stood like a gorge he couldn't bridge. He kept his back turned, feigning interest in a row of yellowed medicine boxes. "Don't you be lookin' at me like that," he finally muttered, the words gravelly and soft, almost lost beneath the persistent drone of fl…