Title: Reading Lessons
Characters: Clementine, Nick, Luke
Summary: Nick realizes Clem barely knows how to read, so he takes it upon himself to teach her.
Author's Note: enjoy this tay-birthday fic from me to you!!
Requested By: simply_psychopath on Wattpad
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Nick hated his insomnia, but especially these days.
Knowing that Carver was out there, was looking for them, and was angry was already enough to freak him out, but on top of having a new, strange, possibly-bitten kid in the house? It made it even harder to try to relax.
The child, frankly, felt the safest knowing everyone’s schedule in the house. For at least the time being, they were strangers. She wasn’t sure if she fully trusted them yet. Further than that though, she also had sleep troubles. Knowing that she might not need to be alone during the loneliest hours of the night brought her a flicker of comfort.
As much comfort as she could have with a bitter stranger, of course.
So, that night, when she sneaked out of her room at 4:47am, she wasn’t surprised to see Nick there, in the living room, gaze cast mindlessly out one of the partially-opened windows. He would go from glancing out the blinds, to staring at the dim candle on the coffee tale, and back again. Finally, Clementine’s creeping down the stairs resulted in a squeaking staircase, and Nick turned her way.
“Clementine?” She said nothing at his call, trotting down the rest of the stairwell and eventually pausing beside his chair. He squinted, confused as to why the child was there. “Why are you up?”
“Can’t sleep.” She said plainly, shrugging, as though it wasn’t a big deal that the child was still awake just before sunrise. “Why are you up?”
“Hey, it’s more normal for someone like me to be at this hour than you.”
Clementine glared, saying nothing, merely furrowing her brows so deeply into each other it was as though they were embedded there. In a moment’s time, her gaze fluttered off around the living room, taking in how different everything looked when it wasn’t packed with stressed, tired people.
“Well, what are you standing there for?” Nick asked, shrugged her way, scratching at his beard mindlessly. “Pull up a seat. Crack a book. Relax a little.”
“There isn’t a lot I can do here to relax.”
Nick blinked, taking interest in how seemingly mature Clementine was for her age. Something about her felt so...stoic. Almost stone-cold. Nick shifted in his chair, chewing on her sentence. “What do you mean by that?”
Clem shrugged. “Normally if I can’t sleep, I just sit around.”
Nick raised a brow. “You don’t go do something?”
Clem shook her head, taking a seat against the windowsill.
“Read? Go on a walk? Nothing?” He scoffed. “Then why did you come down here?”
“To talk to you, since now I know that you can’t sleep either.” Clementine stated, furrowing her brows as though insulted. “Besides,” she looked away, “I can’t do anything else.”
Nick scoffed. He figured she wouldn’t have been able to go on a walk, she was an unsupervised child after all but regardless, the statement felt silly. “You can’t go on a walk or read?”
Clementine said nothing, folding her hands in front of her. She said nothing, merely looked ahead, silent and solemn. Immediately, Nick’s lips recoiled.
Right. She had been taken out of school when all of this had started.
She didn’t know how to read.
Suddenly, Nick felt a wave of guilt wash over him. There he was, essentially rubbing it in her face that reading could help her get to sleep, when she was unable to even do it.
God, he was an asshole.
“Hey,” he said lowly, gesturing his hand to a nearby bookshelf. “Go pick one up off there.”
Clementine cowered into herself even more. “Look, I don’t--”
“Trust me.” He said softly, his gaze gentle and tender; not the same bitter and irritated vibe Nick normally gave off, especially when it came to children. “Go find one that looks interesting.”
When Clementine turned around, the old tattered book pressed to her chest, Nick was making his way toward the couch, adjusting his hat and sitting down, gesturing to the open spot beside him. “Come here,” he said gently.
Clementine nervously slipped into the seat beside him, exposing the book she’d chosen. The moment the cover of To Kill A Mockingbird was cast toward him, Nick smiled. A classic. Of course.
Nick carefully cracked open the cover, flipping to find the beginning of the first chapter. “I’ll read, and you can follow the words along with my finger, okay?”
Clementine nodded opposed to saying anything, amazed by how old the book looked and seemed.
Nick cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly, suddenly realizing just how awkward this encounter might become. But, as he began to read, it didn’t feel that way. It felt warm and cozy; actually relaxing. When was the last time he felt genuinely relaxed? Too long ago.
“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury…”
And when Luke was the first person up the next morning, spotting the two of them sleeping soundly, curled into one another against the couch, all he could do was smile and let them rest.
“He finally learned that reading was gonna help.” He hushed to himself, his heart warm and full, as he made his way into the kitchen to make coffee for all of them.
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If lee survived to the final season how do you think he’d react if he walked in on clem and violets date or Clem and Louis’ date?
I’d like to think that Lee would be supportive; happy that Clem had found someone that she liked. I think, deep down, Lee had a fear that she’d never be able to experience that given the state of their world. Seeing her able to go on an ‘old fashioned date’ he’d find charming.
He’d smile, planting a little kiss on her head, telling her to have a fun night. Whoever she was with, he’d cast them a stare. “Don’t try anything.” He’d warn. “And if you break her heart, you will regret it.”
After his threat, he’d give them both a warm smile. “But have a nice night.” Then he’d leave, leaving the couple to their thoughts.
Kenny is one of the characters I think I’m most fascinated by. I think it’s because, I’d argue, he has one of the most intriguing character arcs of the entire TWDG franchise.
Kenny is a prime example of a character who is molded by trauma. In seasons 1 and 2, it runs his life. He’s desperate to protect his loved ones and that’s all, and when he loses them anyway, he spirals. In season 2, we see him become even more passionate about it, resulting in an even bigger spiral.
I think that toward his death in season 2 or 3, he realizes he needs to move on and let go. He can’t keep a death grip on the people he loves in an attempt to keep them safe, because all it winds up doing is killing people; sometimes the very people he’s trying to save. I think that’s why he’s willing to let Clem and AJ go into Wellington, I think that’s why he’s calm when he’s dying, and I think that’s why he’s willing to get eaten alive to save Clem and AJ.
I think his character arc was completed; he realized he sometimes just needs to trust that people know how to look out for themselves. That he doesn’t always need to be in charge.
Basically, I admire him as a flawed character and found his arc enjoyable. I think this is only one of his many arcs, but those are just my thoughts :)
what did you think about a new frontier? most people think it’s the worst walking dead game. ps. ily tay
OOO okay I love this question because honestly? I love the third season.
I can totally see why people didn’t like the third season. After the second, it felt as though Telltale was taking a completely different direction and abandoning Clementine’s story altogether for these people we knew nothing about. But, other than the fact that the Garcias are so damn likeable, I think I love what it added to Clementine’s story.
In this context, we’re viewing her as an outsider. We’re seeing how cold she is, how closed off she is, how hostile and unwilling to trust she is. Because we’re viewing her from Javier’s perspective, I think it gives us a whole new view of Clementine that was essential to making the fourth season as great of a conclusion as it was.
We see just how much she loves AJ in comparison to literally everything else. Think about the first time we see Clem in season 3 vs. season 4; when she’s holding a gun to the back of Javier’s head vs. when she’s admiring AJ in the backseat of the car trying to entertain him while desperately to find him food. AJ is all she cares about.
Seeing her separated from him in season 3 not only gave us a lot of mystery leading into season 4, but showed us a side of Clementine that we’ve never seen before because she’s always been at the players side. In season 3, we genuinely got to see how much the world has shaped her. We had to earn her trust again, and I honestly really loved that.
I understand that from a story and decision making standpoint the third season is flawed, and I’m not about to argue that because I understand that 100%, but I really love it for what it was. People also seem to really love season 4 from what I’ve seen, and I think we have a lot of season 3 to thank for that.
Also I miss the Garcias and am pissed we saw none of them in season 4 okay bye
Who in the Ericsson group is most likely to get pregnant/get a girl pregnant during highschool?
Oh it’d be fuckin Mitch or Marlon. Mitch would think he was all slick, not using protection, thinking he was so damn cool until his sexual partner approached him with ~the news~. Then, he would feel horrified and terrified. “I am not equipped to be a Dad. Have you met me? I almost killed our class hamster a year ago.”
Marlon would be smiling, cheeky and fun, until his sexual partner came up to him with the news. “We should’ve used protection.” They’d say. Marlon would go straight-faced. “Wait, what? There’s protection?” So that was why he shouldn’t have skipped all those Health classes.
See, from a nostalgic standpoint, Kenny. But I also know that Kenny is the least healthy out of the two of them, despite the fact that Jane isn’t all that healthy either.
Kenny is damaged. Which isn’t inherently unhealthy, but it means that he has a lot of toxic and violent traits because he was never able to properly get support for it (because apocalypse). You can see it clear as day in his fight with Jane at the end of season 2. He has anger issues, and trust issues, and bursts into violent fits over loyalty rather than thinking logically about how to handle a situation. He’d been so damaged by the world that to him, loyalty and trust of his loved ones is all he has. That’s why he snapped as hard as he did at Jane: because loyalty was more important to him than anything she was suggesting, and because he didn’t trust that she knew what she was doing.
On the the other hand, Jane arguably isn’t trustworthy. She has a tendency to throw other people under the bus so she’s able to be selfish, prove a point, or get what she wants. She lied to Kenny about AJ’s whereabouts, she abandoned everyone to bone Luke, and was straight up about to run away and abandon everyone without saying goodbye. So, while Kenny’s rage may have been understandable, it doesn’t mean it was justified. Frankly, his anger at Jane was a glimpse into his psyche, and it wasn’t good.
Personally, in my game play, I chose to kill Kenny and save Jane (no matter how painful both his and Jane’s inevitable death scenes were). It felt like Kenny was becoming a threat to everyone around him; Jane was just a representation of how dangerous he’d become when he didn’t get his way.
how would Clem react to a situation where either her partner or one of the ericson kids got trapped under ice similar to Luke in season 2?
I think Clem would freak out, but she’d immediately leap into action. She’s experienced this once before and wasn’t about to lose someone else to something like that. She wave for everyone else to get out of the way, wanting the least amount of people in the surrounding area of the ice as possible.
She’d wave for them to head back to the opening they’d fall through. The ice was going to be two thin to get them back up, but they needed to breathe. That was a start. She’d coordinate everyone, given them supplies and tossing them tools, finding the lightest person to head onto the ice and coordinate a rescue plan.
“We’re not letting this happen,” she’d say, her breathing heavy and her hands shaking. “Not again. No. We’re fixing this.” Her trauma shaped the way she views a crisis, but she wasn’t about to let it deter her from doing something.
If Brody did survive the flashlight, how would you think she be like and what problems do you think she would have?
I think she would be absolutely traumatized. I think she would have a really hard time trusting other Ericson kids. Her trust in Marlon would be gone and would never be able to be fixed.
I think she would be terrified of dark places, and would refuse to go anywhere where she’d need a flashlight. She would get so panicked that she would need to go be alone so she could calm herself down. She always needed some form of light on. When night time came, she either isolated herself and locked herself in her room, or would demand that she have a light (a candle) on her at all times. The dark was too traumatizing.
I think she’d be able to slowly build up trust for Clementine (since she stood up for her) but I think she’d struggle a little with everyone else, especially since they would forgive/keep Marlon around. That she would struggle with a lot; still seeing him everywhere after almost killing her.
She’d be terrified of yelling, arguing, and confrontation. She would need to leave the room whenever it happened. She would be to paranoid that something bad and dangerous was going to happen.
