wildest dreams ━ rick grimes × male!oc

chapter eight:

Rick ignores Merle and climbs into the van. He starts the ignition and drives off, circling around the block and having to go the long way around. He hears the challenger's alarm blaring somewhere off in the distance and deems it safe enough to go back onto the main street. He pauses in front of the roll up doors of the store and waits, five seconds, ten seconds, looking out of the van and onto the street. Any and all walkers that had been here earlier are gone; the silence in their wake is eery. 

Rick's fingers twitch around the steering wheel as he hears the doors suddenly rolling up. Andrea along with the humans pour out of the store, frightened and sweaty. They throw their gear and loot into the back of the van, hastily climbing in. 

Morales and T-dog close the doors just as the walkers flow out of the store like an angry tsunami. 

"Go!" Andrea yells frantically. "Go!" 

Rick shifts the gear and presses down on the accelerator, speeding off. He glances into the rear view mirror, seeing the tsunami of walkers steadily disappear behind him the more he drives out of the city. 

"We good?" He asks, turning his attention back to the road. 

"Just dandy," Replies Morales, out of breath. 

Other than Merle giving Rick the occasional directions to the quarry, where their camp is based, the van is quiet, the humans and wolves in disbelief over their survival. 

They're halfway to the quarry when T-dog's walkie buzzes to life. The human starts to fiddle with it, twisting the dial for a better signal. "Hello?" He asks. "Anybody reads?" 

"Hey," Ren says from the other side, "mind telling my Alpha I'm taking a little detour? Gotta pick up some things." 

"Er," T-dog says intelligently, shuffling to the front of the van. He holds out the walkie for Rick to take. "Think it's that omega of yours.''

Obviously, Rick wants to say. Instead, he grabs a hold of the walkie and switches to driving the van with one hand. Once T-dog is settled in his original place at the back of the van, Rick turns the walkie on. "Ren, what detour?" He asks, voice low, tilted with sourness. 

"Aw," Ren coos, "you worried? That's cute. Don't worry Ricky, me and Glenn will be right behind you." 

"You little shit," the alpha says, more annoyed than sour now. His omega is going on a little side quest and making his chest do that weird constricting thing again. There's no way Rick is going to survive the sudden prolonged separation now, not when his blood is rushing through his ears and his stomach is dropping, tying itself in proverbial knots. 

Merle shoots Rick a look, it's something between amused, incredulous and a little disgusted. 

Rick ignores him. He licks over his lips and takes a moment before he says, "come back to me safe." He knows how he sounds; attached and wounded, like a child being denied their favourite toy, but he doesn't care. He wants Ren beside him, underneath him, on his lap, safe, content and comfortable, preferably dressed in nothing but one of Rick's shirts, smelling absolutely divine and purring up a storm. 

Merle's right, Ren does have him wrapped tight around his pinky finger. Rick's known Ren for what? A little over two, maybe three days? It's unnatural how quick the two of them have gotten attached, calling each other my omega and my alpha, throwing around the titles like they have absolutely no consequences when, in fact, they do. 

"I will," Ren says, sounding soft. 

Rick turns off the walkie then and drops it into the console, feeling off kilter. Ren will be back with him soon, there's no reason to feel this needy and obsessive.