There are three soft, barely-visible scars across Shane's throat and Lori is pregnant.
The sun is high in the late afternoon and Maggie is feeding the chickens and Lori is pregnant.
Tall grass tickles Glenn's fingers as he moves through the fields and Lori is pregnant.
He closes his eyes, falls to his knees so he's hidden in the weeds, and he think of when it was simpler. When it was just gather wood, tell stories around the fire, get to know each other. Before Rick and before a dead man's guts had been spread over his face and skin and clothes. Further back, when it was get stoned and deliver pizza and watch old Dragonball reruns until four am. Simpler. No one had scars and no one fed chickens and no one was pregnant.
There's a noise behind Glenn and his shoulders tense, jaw tightens. It's Shane, stomping through to their meeting place in the weeds, not careful or inconspicuous. The way he moves is like an elephant through glass, where Glenn is like a snake through water.
"There you are," Shane grunts and Glenn's hair is pulled up in a fistful and he's brought to his feet. Their kisses are rough. Glenn can't remember how it started, when it started, if it was before Rick when things were simpler or if he was some second-rate Lori. A relationship born in guilt and shame and desperation? That feels right.
Shane digs into Glenn's mouth with his tongue. His lips are dry and coarse and with no hair there is nothing to grab onto, nothing to hold. Glenn doesn't believe he could hold Shane in any capacity. Before long Glenn is on his stomach, a big hand pinning him into the dirt at the base of his spine, another dragging clothes off.
They don't have conversations. Sometimes Shane, when he's fucking into Glenn with sharp snaps of his hips and thick cock pulsing, will whisper racist nothings. My pretty china doll, he'll hiss and Glenn buries his face into the grit of the field and his face is red like when he's drunk. He cries.
Shane likes when he cries. He smacks his face when he turns him over, limbs flailing until the big hands are pinning him again. Shane's smile is a horror show of pleasure and power. He leaves deep purple bruises on Glenn's thighs and pretty pink patches on his face. Glenn thinks maybe he only fucks him because he can't get pregnant, because he's small and pale like Lori, with pretty dark hair and a tentative, contemplative face like Lori. And he can't get pregnant. Like Lori.
When Shane cums he likes to choke Glenn, and that's when Glenn likes it. Hot, thick pumping of cum into his ass and big, big hands around his throat until his vision starts to blur and the red of his face turns purple and he thinks he might die die die. The simplest, easiest task is dying and he wishes for it as Shane bellows his roar of conquer.
They don't talk. Shane dresses Glenn again, even when he's leaking and messy, and he goes back through the field to the camp. Sometimes to the house, sometimes to take a drive. Stomps through the tall grass and the grass does not tickle Shane - only bothers him.
Glenn stares up at the high afternoon sun. The wind pushes the weeds over him, clouding his view of the sky with the tips of grass and straw? He doesn't know if it's straw.
"I'm sorry," he whispers to no one, and he gets to his feet and moves through the tall grass as it whispers back to him against his thighs and his arms and his fingertips.
The sun is going down and it's getting cold and Glenn wishes he were dead.
I came alive the first time my eyes laid rest on his face. A man who would not have me. A man of such grace who looked upon me, Mary of Magdala with kindness. In a world of sickness and of sin – chaos everywhere – a man looked upon me with serenity in his heart. And he laid his hands on me and he healed me of the sin in me and the sickness in me and put my chaos to rest. He brought me peace.
I found myself at his side on the day of his death. It was a memory I would hold forever. His hands and his feet covered in red and his face looking upon us. I could see nor hear no one else, only his eyes and his quiet, slow breath. My time with him had gone so quickly, it was hard to believe and to accept that he was leaving us – that he was leaving me. But to believe and to accept was something his followers found themselves learning quickly.
I stayed as he withered, while others with weak stomachs and cold hearts turned away. The fear in my heart was as strong as ever – or was it loneliness? There were only a few of us left waiting for some miracle to bring him down from the cross and back to our arms. I prayed and listened for God, tears falling and hands shaking. He said nothing to me, as he often chose to do, but I still whispered my pleading thoughts to him. Let him live. Let a miracle strike down as I had seen happen so many times before. Bring him to life and make the Romans believe as I believe. Please, God, please let this be.
And in the typical fashion of God the Almighty, a moment I can not scrub from my memories passed. The Roman guard on watch brought up his spear to ensure the death of Jesus Christ, my dear friend and saver of my life. With a cry from my lips the only thing to cause him doubt he dove the blade into Christ’s side and he was dead in a sickening instant. I was mad, my heart crushed and my faith shaking. Why had I assumed God would listen and spare me this pain when it was only his son that had done that for me?
The prayer did not end. I stayed there through the night, and I spoke to Joseph of Arimathea and told him to bring the body down. The body was removed, for I am Mary of Magdala and I have drank the blood and eaten the body of Christ and as I say to the Apostles of Christ, they do. I lead the Jews to the burial of Christ and I spoke there with many others, prayed to God for two nights and three days. I wept at the stone door and cursed myself for not keeping my savior close. My only friend, taken from me when there was so much the people could learn from him.
And on the third day, as I lay on the ground at the foot of the tomb in my misery and in my sorrow, he rose. He rose and he came to me and I reached for him and the happiness inside of me spilled over as I cried onto his feet.
And he said to me, do you know what that bastard said to me? He said, “get off me, Mary, you’re getting my robe dirty.”
