au college!carl grimes headcanons
Disaster zone. Crumpled clothes, half-made bed, bong on the nightstand, old TV with busted speakers, comic books and CDs everywhere. One wall is just taped-up everything—movie posters, Judith’s drawings, stolen traffic or street signs. A broken Walkman he swears he’s going to fix. The room definitely smells like sweat, smoke, cologne, and something unspeakably boyish.
He’s not spiralling, but he’s not squeaky clean either. He does shrooms with his philosophy major friend and microdoses before lectures. Sometimes he zones out during study groups, pupils blown wide, talking about Plato like he met him in a dream. He keeps his grades up effortlessly, which makes it more frustrating for his professors when he skips class and still aces the exams.
His Relationship with Rick & Michonne:
They love him but don’t get him. Rick’s tired but trying, and Michonne’s the only one who can cut through Carl’s stubborn moods. They’ve got this mutual respect thing—they share late-night snacks sometimes when Rick’s out, quietly watching old kung fu movies.
He’s her goddamn hero. He shows up in his beat-up shit-box car that barely starts (which Carl loves), covered in bumper stickers, glove compartment that's stuffed with receipts, old assessments and fast food wrappers. There’s a constant rattle he can’t find the source of, and honestly, he’s stopped looking. He keeps a booster seat in the back just for her. Take her to playgrounds, get ice cream, really anywhere she wants. She “picks” the music—he makes her mix CDs and labels them like “Judith’s Existential Road Trip Vol. 3” or “Driving Miss Judith”. Everyone assumes he’s her too-young dad, and he never corrects them.
White suburban nightmare. Lori is trying to rebuild a stable family, but Carl’s presence always makes things tense. Shane overcompensates with uncomfortable attempts at affection. When Carl does stay, he sleeps in the guest room that used to be his and leaves passive-aggressive post-its around the house; (“The blinds are crooked. Just like your moral compass.”). The visits always end in a fight, but he keeps coming back—for Judith, and those rare soft moments with his mum.
Carl got in some kind of accident at 16-ish—maybe a random accident or a car crash; when Shane was supposed to be watching him. Rick was furious. Lori spun it like Rick wasn’t there, and it became a whole turning point in the divorce. It left Carl partially blind in his right eye, and now he’s got this milky, unfocused pupil. He wears an eyepatch, or sunglasses, or just uses his hair to cover it. And maybe when he’s high, or really tired, he forgets to put the cover back on.
He doesn’t talk about it. If someone asks, he either changes the subject or deadpans. The only people he ever lets see it uncovered are Judith (who doesn’t even notice) and maybe Michonne, who once saw it when she came in without knocking and he didn’t have his cover on yet. She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him like she saw all of him and didn’t flinch. That meant something.
The Fighting Phase (age 15–17-ish):
Started with one fight he didn’t start but definitely finished. Maybe someone said something about his eye, or his mom, or Judith, and he blacked out for a minute. After that, it kind of… became a thing. Bloody knuckles hidden in flannel sleeves. Always walking out of the principal’s office with a warning slip. Rick was furious—kept grounding him, dragging him to therapy that Carl never said a word in. Michonne tried the calm talk. It wasn’t about winning the fights—it was about feeling real, feeling seen, feeling not numb.
Maybe he really hurt someone once. Not just bruises—hospital hurt. Or maybe Judith saw him come home looking bloodied/beaten and she bursted into tears. That stopped him cold. He never talked about it again. Just started channeling that rage into something else; music, his car, drugs.
he’s feral but he’s got heart. and a booster seat.
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