I don’t want to over-speculate, but I’m pretty sure there’s a political message in “Weapons” based on how each of the chapters turned out. I just need more time to articulate my thoughts. This is mainly because:
1) The teacher, who we’re supposed to trust with our children’s safety and well-being, is an alcoholic and an overall shitty person.
2) The cop, who we’re supposed to trust with finding the missing children, is immoral and incredibly incompetent at his job.
3) The principal, who is usually portrayed in movies as the “villain” for trying to keep down the teacher who is just looking out for the kids, is actually correct in his assessment of the teacher.
4) The person who actually manages to pinpoint the location of the children is the construction worker (just a regular civilian).
5) The person who takes the kidnapper down is a little boy.
6) The person who actually FINDS the kids is the homeless drug addict, and he wasn’t even trying to find them.
SYNOPSIS. in which carl grimes sneaks out to visit his best friend and finally works up the courage to do something about his feelings.
WC. 1890
! standing alexandria au
! loser carl
! CITRUS SCALE - lime.
AT THE END of every day, regardless of how joyful it had been, Carl Grimes found himself alone.
For a while, he laid in bed, blinking his eye deliriously up at the ceiling, one hand absentmindedly curling around his bedsheets like a clutch. He waited for sleep to overcome his hot body, beads of sweat from a days worth of work sliding down his back and soaking the mattress underneath him. A clock ticked once, twice, three times in the corner of the room.
Carl’s face twisted into something resembling a scowl, rolling onto his left side and ripping his shirt off as if it had personally offended him.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Thirty, and the noise of cicadas cooing in the near distance made it impossible to rest easily. Carl ran two shaky hands over his face, feeling the creases of disgruntlement on his fingertips, and sat upright to fuel the lamp on his nightstand. He shifted, sheets rustling as he crossed his legs at the ankle, his bare back resting heavily against the headboard behind him. Carl let out a huff of displeasure, head lolling backwards. His wound itched beneath the gauze around his head. The simple throb of it, the gush of unknown substance underneath the medical tape, sent a jolt of alarm through his body. Carl took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He couldn’t let himself care when he knew he was too exhausted to do anything about it.
9:00 P.M. flashed before his eyes. Carl had dozed off, stirring amidst restless sleep. He had dreamt of something strange and unusual, but he couldn’t remember what exactly it was.
His sweat was cold now. It stuck his legs to the fitted blue sheet as he slid off the bed, sock’d feet touching irritatingly warm floors. His wound ached as it had before. Carl’s eye flickered to the clock on the wall and read 1:12 A.M. in a sleepy haze. From there, his body moved on its own accord.
Carl tied his boots and threw on one of Rick’s old shirts without thinking. He packed his bag, yawning, clouding his good eye with reflex tears. He stuffed snacks, a pack of cigarettes, a spare flannel, and two Invincible comics that Michonne had gifted him.
Carl’s hands worked diligently, fingers curling around the soft paper of the comic as he peered around his bedroom. The clock droned on, still ticking periodically, adding a dramatic flare to the moment as Carl’s gaze locked in on rubber wrapped in foil. A square object – no, the square object – of modern manhood. Protection in a pretty silver package. A Trojan brand condom.
The story behind it was stupid. In a rushed moment of adolescence, Carl had dug through Glenn’s stash, tossed it onto his nightstand, and never touched it again (though, he thought about it often. Very often). He peered upon it now, swallowing thickly, before tossing his arm towards it and shoving it into his pocket. He moved shamefully, as if there was someone there to judge him.
The walk to Y/N’s house was brief but tumultuous (not really, but it feels that way when you’re running on four hours of shitty sleep and a half can of beer from dinner). He didn’t knock when he arrived. Instead, he did the second-worst thing he could have done — he stood there dumbly, feet shuffling on the front porch.
After discussing it with himself in his head, Carl’s hand curled around the doorknob. He turned it and lightly pushed, moonshine spilling serenely into the preexisting calm of Y/N’s kitchen. The door barely shut behind him as his boots thumped heartily against her flooring, carrying him into the hallway just past the living room. He navigated the space as if he owned it. The only signifier that he was breaking-and-entering was the tinge of guilt sprawled between the creases of boredom running along his cheeks.
Carl swung Y/N’s door open with much more gusto than moments before.
Luckily for him, she sat perched on her bed, eyes wide awake and alert.
“Carl?” She spoke, amusement seeping into her stern tone.
“Hi.” He spoke dumbly.
Y/N rolled her eyes and rested back against her bed. “What are you doing here?” Carl stiffened and creeped further into the room. He silently shunned himself, internally questioning his every move.
“Need you to clean my eye.”
Y/N softened a fraction and pointed towards her bathroom. Carl blinked and stuttered before hauling his bag onto her bed and carrying himself into her bathroom. He felt slightly more tense than before. This wasn’t Y/N’s family bathroom, no – this was her personal space. This was a bathroom with a small bathtub and a toilet with a sink, cluttered with her personal belongings. The mirror had corny messages written in Sharpie — he recognized Enid’s handwriting and almost grinned — and polaroids of her and her girlfriends held onto it with gaff tape. It felt invasive for any man to be in there, let alone himself. He sighed as she followed him in, turning and resting his lower back against the sink countertop.
“It’s, like, super girly in here.” Carl commented, regretting the words as soon as they left his throat.
“Perfect place for you, then.” Y/N mused. Carl felt a pang of something sour in his heart before laughter bubbled out of his chest. “Hey! I’m very manly.”
Y/N rolled her eyes as she retracted an assortment of medical supplies from her cabinet. “In what sense?”
Carl stammered a response. He was sure she wasn’t listening.
She ignored the way his breath hitched as she removed his eyepatch, wincing at the angry red that lie underneath.
“Fuck…” She sounded somewhat disgusted. Carl’s heart dropped to his stomach like ice into a glass of water, bobbing way down for a second before settling icily on top.
“What?”
“Just… pus. Lots of it.”
Suddenly, Carl understood. She wasn’t disgusted with him, but rather, with the healing process of the wound. It all made sense, and the ice in the glass melted, a lukewarm sense of neutralization tucking his heart right back into his chest.
“Oh.” He said, half-relieved and half-worried. “Is pus okay?”
“It’s normal for a wound like this. Still gross though.”
“Mm.”
His good eye looked everywhere but her as she dabbed at his socket. Without warning, she pressed a cotton ball against the rim of it, the searing pain of hydrogen peroxide triggering his fight or flight.
“Shit, Y/N/N–”
“Chill.”
And then, he looked.
Suddenly, he felt the swell of her breasts brush against his clavicle. Her free hand rested on the edge of the countertop beside his hip, effectively caging him in. Her lips parted slightly as she worked, and the hair at the crown of her head flowed gently with the rush of the AC.
Carl hadn’t realized how beautiful she was until this moment, blue eyes peering into her [e.c] ones. He blinked as she placed a fresh pad over the wound, fastening it with tape before wrapping new gauze around it.
“Good job. You barely even flinched.”
Good job. Good job, she said.
The words went straight to Carl’s crotch. He sucked in a harsh breath and pushed his way out of the bathroom, adjusting his jeans with pink hued cheeks. He heard her scoff behind him and scolded himself for liking it.
“Ibroughtcomics.” He blurted, tossing them onto the bed before sitting on the edge of it, his hands (conveniently) settling on his lap to cover his… situation. Y/N shut off her bathroom light and walked lightly to sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “Sweet.”
She picked up a copy of Invincible and began reading, her eyes drifting over the pages with ease and comfort. Carl sucked in a breath as a strand of her hair fell serenely over her face.
It hit him all at once.
Y/N, sat on her own bed, reading a comic that Carl had brought to her. Here, in her own space, she had let him in. She had peered at the ugliest part of him, watched him humiliate himself with a pathetic hard-on, and still chose to sit and enjoy his hobbies with him.
Carl Grimes was fucking besotted.
Eventually, he had rolled onto his stomach, opening the second comic he’d brought and getting immersed in the story to distract from the clutter of his mind. Y/N’s soft, steady breathing beside him served as an anchor, helping him keep his heart rate at an acceptable pace.
“Ew,” Y/N whispered. Carl’s head turned to look at her. “What?” He asked comfortably.
“You didn’t tell me there was romance.”
“So? It’s just kissing.” Carl laughed at her.
“This is a superhero series. I’m not here to watch them eyefuck and make out.”
Carl blushed, but chuckled at her nonetheless. He shook his head as she shut her comic. “You’re not even gonna finish it?”
Y/N didn’t respond, settling beside him. She rested her cheek on her palm, elbow nestled into the pillow. Her legs curled towards Carl’s, her knee brushing the apex of his thigh teasingly. Carl swallowed before shutting his own comic and laying on his back, head turned towards her.
That alone was a brave thing for Carl Grimes to do.
“Are you crashing here?” She asked, her free hand resting over her hip. Fuck, she looked good like that.
“Can I?” Carl asked, cocking a brow.
“Sure.”
Carl nodded and folded his hands over his chest. His eye never left her face.
They stayed like that, staring at one another, for a solid few minutes. Carl’s fingers would occasionally twitch, as if aching to reach out to her, but refraining to do so.
He didn’t look away from her, gaze lowering to her lips, as the soft brushing of fabric echoed through the room. Carl’s breath hitched as Y/N rested a hand on the cusp of his chest and stomach. He could no longer control the beating of his heart. He let out the shakiest of breaths, lovesick oxygen flowing from his nose and intoxicating him like one of cupid’s arrows. Y/N laughed to herself and slid a fingertip down his stomach, stopping at his belly button.
“Are you gonna kiss me, or do I have to do it?” She said, her voice somewhere in between a husky whisper and a soft demand.
“You- you want me to kiss you?” He stammered, mouth going dry.
“Yeah. And who said I want you to stop there?”
The condom in Carl’s pocket held a new weight.
“You said you were strong and manly,” She teased, fingers trailing lower on his gut. “When I called you girly in the bathroom.” When he was convinced she wasn’t listening to him.
“You told me that you can take charge, but I don’t believe you.” She was seducing him now. As dirty as it felt, it was working.
“Y-you don’t?” Carl squeaked.
“No. So, why don’t you prove it to me?”
Carl froze, Y/N’s hand barely an inch away from the growing tent in his pants. Suddenly, as if Eros himself had overtaken the boy’s body, Carl lunged forward.
Their lips met fiercely, and Invincible lay forgotten beside them.
