just staring at my itty bitty carl and immediately thinking of reader making a tiny plush carl out of scrap fabric and they keep it in their satchel 🥹 maybe they even make a mini version of themselves for carl to keep
𝓣𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝓜𝐄, carl grimes.
a/n: he's so fucking cute I'm going to make a scrap plush of him just so I can throw him around
The first time Carl noticed the little stuffed figure, he thought it was some kind of toy you’d found.
It was tucked into the side pocket of your satchel, barely visible beneath a folded cloth and a few pieces of scavenged supplies, and he only noticed it because you had left the bag open while the two of you sat outside of the prison.
Carl’s eyes lingered on it for a moment. It was small. Really small. Made from scraps of fabric that had clearly been stitched together by hand, with uneven little arms and legs and a head that was slightly too large for its body. One button eye was darker than the other, and there was a tiny strip of brown fabric sewn around its head like hair. Carl stared at it.
“What is that?”
You looked down.
“Oh.”
You immediately tried to hide it.
Carl frowned.
“Why’d you put it away?”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
You sighed and pulled it back out.
Carl took it carefully when you held it toward him.
He looked at the little thing. Then at you. Then back at it.
“…Is that supposed to be me?”
You smiled.
“Maybe.”
Carl’s face became completely serious.
“That’s me.”
You laughed. “I said maybe.”
“It’s me.”
“You have one eye.”
“So?”
You pointed at the button eyes. “One of them is brown.”
Carl looked offended. “You got my eye color wrong.”
“I didn’t have another button.”
He stared at the plush again.
The little thing had a crooked mouth stitched into its face, one arm slightly longer than the other, and what hardly seemed to be a tiny sheriff hat sewn onto its head.
Carl looked back at you.
“You made this?”
You nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
You shrugged.
“Because I wanted to.”
He didn’t say anything for a while.
Then he handed it back.
“Okay.”
You took it.
Carl looked away.
A few minutes passed.
Then he glanced at the satchel.
“You’re keeping it?”
You smiled. “Of course.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
But later that night, when you weren’t looking, Carl reached into your bag and carefully straightened the little plush so it wouldn’t get crushed beneath the other supplies.
You noticed.
You didn’t say anything.
A few days later, Carl woke up in his cell and found something tucked beneath his pillow.
He pulled it out.
It was another little figure. This one was smaller than the first.
The fabric was softer, the stitching slightly neater, and it had a tiny piece of cloth wrapped around its waist that looked suspiciously like the kind of clothes you usually wore.
Carl stared at it.
Then he looked toward the doorway.
You were standing there.
“That’s me,” you said.
Carl looked down again.
“…You made me one?”
You nodded.
“Now you have your own.”
He ran his thumb carefully over one of the tiny stitched hands.
“You made it?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
“Yeah.”
Carl was quiet.
You waited.
Finally, he looked up.
“Thanks.”
You smiled.
He immediately looked down again.
Then, after a moment, he carefully tucked the little plush into the inside pocket of his backpack.
You raised an eyebrow.
“You’re keeping it?”
Carl frowned.
“You said it was mine.”
“I did.”
“So I’m keeping it.”
You smiled. “Okay.”
Carl zipped the pocket shut.
Then he looked at you.
“…Don’t tell anybody.”
You laughed.
“I won’t.”
“Good,” He nodded.
He stood up and adjusted his backpack over his shoulder. The little plush disappeared beneath the fabric, but he kept touching the pocket every few minutes afterward, just to make sure it was still there.
On his seventeenth birthday, Regulus Black receives a soulmark with the baffling words: "Oh my God I have nothing appropriate to say." He imagines someone polished and articulate—until he quite literally collides with (Y/N) (L/N), a Hufflepuff whose beauty stuns him and whose nonstop chatter leaves him exasperated.
Word Count: 7k
Warnings: none
Here is the rewritten story with all instances of the character name placeholder changed to (Y/N) (L/N) (with the brackets as you requested). I’ve kept the rest of the text identical.
The first thing Regulus Black felt on the morning of his seventeenth birthday was a sharp, tingling burn on the inside of his left wrist. He sat up in his four-poster bed, the green silk sheets pooling at his waist, and pushed back the sleeve of his nightshirt with the careful precision of someone who had been waiting for this moment for years, though he would never admit it aloud.
Words were blooming across his skin in elegant, curling script, dark as ink and faintly shimmering. The soulmark. His soulmate’s first words to him, etched permanently into his flesh by magic far older than any pureblood lineage. He had seen his parents’ marks—his mother’s on her collarbone, his father’s on his ribs—and had been told since childhood that the bond was sacred, unbreakable, and utterly humiliating if one ended up with someone unworthy.
Regulus had spent the last year secretly cataloguing every person he met, measuring their first sentences against the blank canvas of his wrist. He had hoped for something dignified. A witty remark. A declaration of shared intellect. Something befitting the heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
The words finished forming, and he read them.
Oh my God I have nothing appropriate to say.
Regulus stared.
He blinked, once, slowly.
Then he pulled his sleeve down, smoothed the fabric, and walked to breakfast with the same cold, composed expression he wore every day. Inside, however, a tiny, carefully suppressed part of him was buzzing. His soulmate was out there. Somewhere. Someone who, apparently, panicked at the sight of him. That could mean anything. Perhaps they would be endearingly shy. Perhaps they would be overwhelmed by his presence—he had been told his gaze could be unnerving. Perhaps it was a sign of deep, profound attraction rendering them speechless.
He could work with that.
Three months passed, and Regulus Black did not meet his soulmate.
He attended classes. He patrolled corridors as a prefect. He endured family dinners where his parents dropped heavy, pointed remarks about suitable matches, all while the Dark Mark on his left forearm—new, still prickling with unease—lay hidden beneath his robes. And all the while, the words on his other wrist remained unanswered. He had taken to glancing at them before sleep, tracing the loops of the letters with a fingertip, wondering.
By late October, his anticipation had curdled into a tense, irritable sort of restlessness. He had stopped scanning crowds. The soulmate magic would happen when it happened, he told himself. It wasn’t as if he cared. It was simply a matter of curiosity.
Then, on a rain-lashed Thursday afternoon, he collided with (Y/N) (L/N) in the second-floor corridor outside the library.
Regulus had been walking fast, head bent, thinking about the increasingly impossible demands of his Transfiguration essay and the much darker task he was expected to complete for the Dark Lord before Christmas. He rounded the corner near the stairwell and crashed directly into a small, hurrying figure, sending an armful of books flying in every direction. Parchment scattered like startled doves. A pot of ink shattered spectacularly against the flagstones.
Regulus stumbled back, caught his balance, and bit out the first words that rose to his lips, crisp and sharp with annoyance: “Do you ever watch where you’re going?”
The girl—for it was a girl, bent over now and scrambling to gather her belongings—froze. Her head snapped up.
Regulus forgot how to breathe.
She was, without any possible exaggeration, the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Hair that caught the grey light from the high windows and spun it into something golden-soft, eyes wide and luminous and fixed on him with an expression of dawning, startled wonder. Her lips parted. The ruined books lay forgotten at her feet. She straightened slowly, clutching a soggy bit of parchment to her chest, and for one perfect, suspended moment, Regulus thought: Yes. Yes, this is acceptable. This is beyond acceptable. The universe has done well.
Then she opened her mouth.
“Oh my God,” she said, in a breathless rush, “I have nothing appropriate to say.”
The words landed in the air between them like a dropped egg.
Regulus’s brain, which had been busy composing a suitably smooth first address—something about fate, perhaps, or the inevitability of their meeting—stuttered to a halt. He knew those words. He had read them a hundred times, traced them in the dark, imagined them spoken a thousand ways. And now here they were, tumbling out of the mouth of a girl who had just informed him, with apparent sincerity, that she had nothing appropriate to say.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going impossibly wider. “Oh no. Oh no, that was it, wasn’t it? That was the thing. The thing I say.” She lowered her hand, revealing a grin that was equal parts horror and delight. “You’re my soulmate! You said the thing too! ‘Do you ever watch where you’re going’—that’s on my ankle, I’ve been wondering for ages, it seemed so cross, I thought maybe I was going to be soulmates with a very irritable hippogriff, but you’re not a hippogriff, you’re a person, and you’re—” She paused, tilted her head, and squinted at him. “You’re Regulus Black.”
“Yes,” Regulus said, because his ability to form full sentences appeared to have deserted him.
“I’m (Y/N) (L/N). Hufflepuff.” She beamed. “This is brilliant. I’ve been waiting all summer, you know. I had a whole speech prepared for when I met you, something really profound and moving, but then you were just standing there looking all—” she waved a hand vaguely at his face, “—and my brain went completely empty. Like a flobberworm. A very pretty flobberworm. Not that you’re a flobberworm. You’re more like a—a really elegant, sort of intimidating thestral.”
Regulus felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. She was still talking. She had compared him to a thestral. She was a Hufflepuff. His soulmate was a Hufflepuff airhead who had just called him a pretty flobberworm.
“You’re staring,” (Y/N) observed. “Is that a good stare or a bad stare? Because if it’s a bad stare, I can try saying something else, but the mark only counts the first thing, so I think we’re stuck with it. Oh! Unless you want me to say something else? I could say something else. I could say, ‘Hello, Regulus, I am deeply honoured to be your soulmate and I promise to be a credit to your noble house,’ but that feels a bit formal, doesn’t it? Also I’m not entirely sure what your house is noble for, exactly. No offence.”
Regulus opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“You,” he said, very precisely, “are going to be the death of me.”
(Y/N)’s face broke into a sun-bright smile. “That’s so romantic!”
It was not. It was not romantic. It was a statement of grim foreboding, and Regulus suspected, even then, that it would prove prophetic.
He walked away.
It was the only sensible response. He walked away, his robes snapping behind him, leaving (Y/N) (L/N) standing in a puddle of spilled ink with a stack of ruined books and a smile that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on her face. He did not look back. He did not acknowledge the curious stares of the students who had witnessed the collision. He simply retreated to the Slytherin common room, sat in his usual chair by the fire, and stared at the dancing flames while his mind replayed the last five minutes on a merciless loop.
A Hufflepuff.
An airhead.
A girl who had, within thirty seconds of meeting him, compared him to a flobberworm and a thestral and then informed him that his death would be romantic.
His soulmate.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small, mortified voice whispered that she had also been breathtakingly lovely and that her smile had done something deeply inconvenient to his chest. He crushed that voice with the efficiency of long practice.
He was Regulus Black. He did not get flustered. He did not fall for ridiculous girls who couldn’t string two coherent thoughts together. He had standards. He had dignity. He had a Dark Mark on his arm and a family that would dissect this situation with the cold precision of a potions master dissecting a flobberworm—and he had just compared her to a flobberworm again, Merlin’s sake, she was infecting his vocabulary.
He would ignore her. The soulmate bond, while magically significant, did not obligate him to anything. He could simply… not engage.
This plan lasted approximately fourteen hours.
The next morning, Regulus walked into the Great Hall for breakfast and found (Y/N) (L/N) sitting at the Slytherin table.
She had wedged herself between a very confused seventh-year boy and a glowering Pansy Parkinson, and she was chattering away as if she had been there her whole life. When she spotted Regulus, her face lit up like a lumos charm, and she waved enthusiastically, nearly knocking over a goblet of pumpkin juice.
“Regulus! Good morning! I saved you a seat!” She patted the sliver of bench next to her, which did not exist. “Well, I tried to save you a seat, but then I got here and there wasn’t one, so I made friends with your friends. This is Bartholomew—”
“Bartholomew is not my friend,” Regulus said coldly, sliding into his usual place at the far end of the table, as far from her as possible.
(Y/N) was undeterred. She simply gathered up her plate and her goblet and her very fluffy cat—where had the cat come from?—and migrated down the table to plop herself directly across from him. “Bartholomew said I could sit with you. He was very nice about it. A bit confused, I think, but nice. Do you want some toast? I’ve got extra toast. I always take extra toast in case I meet someone who’s hungry. Or a niffler. You’d be surprised how often nifflers turn up when you’ve got toast.”
Regulus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why,” he said, very calmly, “are you here?”
“Because you’re my soulmate,” (Y/N) said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “And soulmates are supposed to spend time together. Everyone knows that. My mum says when she met my dad, she followed him around for three days straight before he finally gave in and asked her to Hogsmeade. She said perseverance is the key to a successful soul-bond. Also pastries, but I think the pastries came later.”
“I am not going to give in,” Regulus informed her.
“That’s what my dad said.” She bit into a piece of toast, utterly unconcerned. “They were married twenty-three years. He still pretends he’s grumpy about it.”
Regulus opened his mouth to deliver a cutting retort, something about the impossibility of their situation and the vast chasm of intellect between them, but what came out was: “Is that a cat? At the breakfast table?”
The cat, a disreputable ginger creature with one crumpled ear, meowed at him.
“This is Marmalade,” (Y/N) said proudly. “He’s not technically allowed in the Great Hall, but he gets lonely, so I sneak him in under my robes. He’s very flat when he wants to be.”
As if to demonstrate, Marmalade flattened himself against the table, becoming a vaguely cat-shaped puddle of fur.
Regulus stared at the cat. The cat stared back. Something in its yellow gaze seemed to say, You are doomed, my friend.
He was.
Over the following weeks, (Y/N) (L/N) inserted herself into Regulus Black’s life with the gentle, unstoppable persistence of water wearing away stone. She appeared in the library while he was studying, sliding into the chair across from him with a stack of books she had no intention of reading. She waved at him in corridors, regardless of who was watching. She sent him little notes via the Hogwarts owl system—notes that contained such profound observations as “I saw a cloud that looked like your left eyebrow today” and “Do you think mermaids get seasick?”
He did not respond to the notes. He did, however, keep them, tucked into the back of his Potions textbook, for reasons he refused to examine.
She was, without question, the most baffling person he had ever met. She once spent twenty minutes explaining her theory that thestrals were just horses that had mastered the Disillusionment Charm and were really very shy about it. She mistook a suit of armour for a new transfer student and tried to help it find the Charms classroom. She brought a jar of live doxies to Herbology because she’d heard they were good for cross-pollination—they were not, and Professor Sprout had to evacuate Greenhouse Three.
And yet.
And yet, Regulus found himself looking for her in the Great Hall. Noting the empty space where her bright, chattering presence should have been during the one week she was in the hospital wing with a mild case of spattergroit. Feeling a strange, hollow ache in his chest when he walked past the library and didn’t see her bent over a book, hair falling across her face.
He hated it.
He hated that she made him feel anything at all, let alone this creeping, inconvenient warmth that had begun to seep through the carefully constructed walls around his heart.
The first crack in those walls came on a grey November afternoon, during a combined Potions lesson with the Gryffindors.
Regulus was partnered with (Y/N)—not by choice, but because Professor Slughorn had beamed at them and said, “Soulmates! How delightful! I’m sure you’ll brew something marvellous together!” and Regulus had been too well-bred to argue.
The assignment was a complex Dreamless Sleep Potion. Regulus had brewed it successfully before, alone, in under an hour. With (Y/N) as his partner, they were forty-five minutes in and had achieved a cauldron full of something that was currently fizzing ominously and had turned a shade of purple not found in nature.
“I think,” (Y/N) said, peering into the cauldron, “that we might have added the moonstone a bit too early.”
“You added the moonstone while I was measuring the valerian,” Regulus said through gritted teeth. “I told you to wait.”
“You did, but then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s probably fine, potion ingredients are very forgiving,’ and I was wrong, they’re really not forgiving at all, are they? They’re quite grudge-holding, actually.” She prodded the fizzing liquid with the end of her stirring rod. The potion burped, emitting a small cloud of sparkly smoke that smelled strongly of burnt sugar and regret. “Oh dear. That’s not supposed to happen.”
“It is decidedly not supposed to happen,” Regulus agreed.
Before he could stop her, (Y/N) reached for a vial of powdered ashwinder egg—an ingredient so volatile that the textbook specifically warned against adding it to an unstable brew—and tipped the entire contents into the cauldron.
The potion erupted.
Regulus’s reflexes, honed by years of Quidditch and the constant vigilance required to survive a pureblood household, kicked in before his brain caught up. He grabbed (Y/N) by the waist, yanked her away from the cauldron, and spun them both behind the heavy oak worktable just as a fountain of violently purple foam shot into the air. The foam splattered across the table, the floor, and—judging by the startled shriek—the back of a nearby Ravenclaw.
(Y/N) was pressed against his chest, her hands gripping the front of his robes, her face tilted up to his. She was covered in a fine dusting of purple sparkles. There was a smudge of foam on her cheek. She was grinning.
“You saved me,” she breathed.
“I prevented you from being dissolved by a catastrophically misbrewed potion,” Regulus corrected, his voice slightly hoarse. His heart was pounding. He told himself it was adrenaline. “That is not the same as saving you.”
“It felt very heroic. Very soulmate-ish.” Her eyes were bright, warm, utterly unguarded. “You’ve got a bit of—” she reached up and brushed a sparkle from his cheek, her fingers lingering for a moment too long.
Regulus let go of her as if burned. He stepped back, straightened his robes, and fixed her with his coldest stare. “You are a menace,” he informed her. “A walking, talking, potion-related catastrophe.”
“Thank you!” (Y/N) beamed as if he had just paid her the highest compliment. “You say the sweetest things.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“It was for me.” She scooped up Marmalade—who had, inexplicably, appeared from somewhere and was now lapping at a puddle of purple foam—and tucked him into her bag. “I’d better take this to Professor Slughorn and explain. Don’t worry, I’ll say it was my fault. You were very valiant.”
She bounced off, leaving Regulus standing amid the wreckage of their workstation, sparkles settling in his hair, his carefully cultivated composure in tatters.
That night, he wrote the incident in his journal—purely for record-keeping purposes—and did not smile while doing so.
The second crack happened three days later, in the courtyard.
Regulus was walking to his Arithmancy lesson when he heard laughter—sharp, cruel laughter, the kind he recognized from Slytherin common room parties where the wine flowed too freely and the jokes turned mean. He rounded the corner and stopped dead.
(Y/N) was standing near the fountain, her books clutched to her chest, her face pale. Three Slytherin boys—Mulciber, Avery, and a seventh-year whose name Regulus didn’t bother to remember—had her backed against the stone edge. Mulciber was sneering, his wand dangling loosely in his hand.
“—and she actually thought the Giant Squid was a transfer student from Durmstrang,” Mulciber was saying, his voice thick with mockery. “Honestly, it’s embarrassing. The Blacks must be mortified. Imagine being soul-bound to the biggest idiot in Hogwarts.”
Avery snickered. “I heard she tried to knit a scarf for the Whomping Willow.”
“I was just being friendly,” (Y/N) said, her voice smaller than Regulus had ever heard it. “It looked cold.”
“It’s a tree, you moron,” Mulciber said. “Trees don’t get cold. They’re trees.”
Regulus didn’t remember drawing his wand. He didn’t remember crossing the courtyard. One moment he was standing at the archway, the next he was between (Y/N) and the three boys, his wand pressed to Mulciber’s throat, his voice a blade of ice.
“Say one more word to her,” Regulus said, very softly, “and I will hex you so thoroughly that St. Mungo’s will name a ward after you.”
Mulciber’s eyes went wide. “Black—we were just having a laugh—”
“You were being cruel to my soulmate.” The words came out before Regulus could stop them, possessive and fierce and terrifyingly true. “You will not do so again. Do you understand?”
The courtyard had gone very, very quiet. Students were staring. Avery had gone the colour of old parchment. Mulciber swallowed, the motion pressing his throat more firmly against Regulus’s wand tip, and nodded once, jerkily.
Regulus stepped back. “Leave.”
They left, practically tripping over each other in their haste. Regulus sheathed his wand, his hands trembling slightly—with rage, he told himself, only rage—and turned to face (Y/N).
She was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t quite name. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling, a small, wobbly thing that made his chest ache.
“You called me your soulmate,” she said. “Out loud. In front of people.”
“I was making a point.”
“You hexed Mulciber for me.”
“I did not hex him. I threatened to hex him. There is a significant difference.” He paused. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head, a single tear spilling down her cheek. “No. They were just mean. People are mean sometimes. It’s fine.”
“It is not fine.” Regulus’s voice was rougher than he intended. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a handkerchief—embroidered with the Black family crest, because some habits were impossible to break—and pressed it into her hands. “You are not an idiot. You are… unconventional. There is a difference.”
(Y/N) sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. “You really think so?”
“I would not have said it if I did not.”
She looked at him then, really looked, and something in her gaze softened. “You’re not as cold as you pretend to be, Regulus Black.”
He had no response to that. He stood there, stiff and uncomfortable, while she dried her tears with his handkerchief and Marmalade wound around her ankles, purring loudly. The courtyard was still staring. His reputation as an untouchable, emotionless heir had just taken a very public blow.
He found he didn’t care.
The third crack was not a crack at all. It was a full, catastrophic collapse.
It happened in the Astronomy Tower, in the small, sleepless hours of a December night.
Regulus had been dreaming again—the same dream that plagued him every few nights, of darkness and cold and a mark that burned like ice on his arm, of a voice that whispered terrible things in his ear. He had woken gasping, his sheets tangled around his legs, and had fled to the one place in the castle that always brought him a measure of peace.
The Astronomy Tower was empty—or so he thought, until he stepped onto the open parapet and found (Y/N) already there, wrapped in a patched quilt, Marmalade curled in her lap.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” she asked, without turning around.
Regulus hesitated. Every instinct told him to leave, to retreat behind his walls and deal with his demons alone, as he always had. But his feet carried him forward, and he leaned against the stone railing beside her, looking out at the star-scattered sky.
“Bad dream,” he said, because it was the truth, and he was too tired to lie.
“Me too.” She stroked Marmalade’s ears. “I dreamed I was trying to teach a herd of hippogriffs to tap-dance. It was very stressful. They have no rhythm whatsoever.”
Despite everything—the nightmare, the weight on his chest, the looming terror of the choices he had made and could not unmake—Regulus laughed. A real laugh, rusty and surprised, dragged out of him by the sheer absurdity of the image.
(Y/N) turned to look at him, her expression bright with delight. “You laughed! I made you laugh!”
“You are utterly ridiculous,” Regulus said, but there was no bite to it. There was, in fact, something that sounded perilously close to fondness.
“I know.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “That’s why you like me.”
He should have denied it. He should have pulled away, rebuilt his walls, reminded her—and himself—of all the reasons this could never work. The Dark Mark hidden beneath his sleeve. The family that would never accept her. The war creeping closer with every passing day.
Instead, he said, “I do. Like you. Against all logic and reason.”
The words hung in the cold night air, fragile as frost.
(Y/N) went very still. “You do?”
“I have tried very hard not to,” Regulus said, his voice low and strained. “You are a disaster. You have no sense of self-preservation. You befriend dangerous creatures and startle easily and say the most incomprehensible things I have ever heard. You once tried to send a howler to a suit of armour because you thought it was lonely. You are, without doubt, the most infuriating person I have ever met.”
“This is a very strange declaration of affection,” (Y/N) whispered, but her eyes were shining.
“And yet,” Regulus continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I cannot stop thinking about you. I look for you in every room. I keep your ridiculous notes in my textbook. I threatened my own housemates because they made you cry.” He turned to face her fully, his heart pounding so hard he was certain she could hear it. “I do not understand it. I do not understand you. But I have stopped trying to fight it.”
There was a long, suspended moment. Then (Y/N) set Marmalade gently on the stones—the cat gave an indignant meow—and stepped closer, so close that Regulus could feel the warmth radiating from her patchwork quilt.
“You know what I think?” she said, her voice soft.
“I am almost afraid to ask.”
“I think you’ve spent your whole life being told what you’re supposed to be. A perfect son. A proper pureblood. Someone cold and controlled and untouchable.” She reached up and touched his cheek, her fingers feather-light against his skin. “But that’s not who you are. Not really. You’re the boy who saved me from a potion explosion. The boy who threatened Mulciber with a hex because he was mean. The boy who gave me his handkerchief and didn’t even ask for it back.”
“I did want that handkerchief back,” Regulus muttered, but his voice cracked on the last word.
(Y/N) smiled, that sun-bright, impossible smile. “You can have it back. But only if you admit that you want to kiss me right now.”
Regulus’s breath caught. His hands, moving of their own accord, settled on her waist, drawing her closer. The quilt bunched between them. Marmalade, somewhere below, made a sound that might have been encouragement.
“I want to kiss you,” Regulus said, and it felt like surrender and victory all at once. “I have wanted to kiss you since the moment you called me a pretty flobberworm.”
“I called you a very pretty flobberworm,” (Y/N) corrected, her eyes dancing. “It’s an important distinction.”
He kissed her.
It was soft, at first—tentative, almost questioning, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was real. Then her arms wound around his neck, and her lips parted beneath his, and something inside him that had been frozen for years cracked open and flooded with warmth. She tasted like peppermint and starlight and all the ridiculous joy he had never let himself want.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, (Y/N) pressed her forehead to his and whispered, “I knew you’d give in eventually.”
“You are insufferable,” Regulus informed her, but he was smiling, a real smile, one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look years younger.
“And you’re my soulmate.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “The universe picked me for you. The universe thinks you need someone insufferable.”
“The universe,” Regulus said, pulling her closer, “has a truly terrible sense of humour.”
But he was laughing again, quiet and warm, and when Marmalade climbed up his robes and settled on his shoulder like a very flat, ginger parrot, he didn’t even complain.
Three weeks later, they went to Hogsmeade together.
It was the last weekend before the Christmas holidays, and the village was dusted with snow, the rooftops glittering under a pale winter sun. Regulus had never been one for Hogsmeade weekends—too much noise, too many people—but walking through the cobbled streets with (Y/N)’s hand tucked into the crook of his arm, he found he didn’t mind.
She was wearing a scarf that she had knitted herself—it was lumpy and uneven and at least four feet too long, trailing behind her like a banner—and she was talking, as she always did, a bright stream of commentary on everything they passed.
“—and I think Honeydukes should make a flavour called ‘Regret,’ for when you eat too many sweets and feel bad about it afterwards, but also it would taste really good, like toffee and poor decisions—”
“That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard,” Regulus said.
“You love it.”
He did. Merlin help him, he did.
They stopped at the Three Broomsticks for butterbeer, and (Y/N) insisted on ordering two extra mugs because “Marmalade might be thirsty, and also the barmaid looked like she needed a drink.” The barmaid, a tired-looking witch with ink stains on her apron, gave them a third mug for free and told (Y/N) she was “a rare sweetheart.”
Regulus watched his soulmate charm the entire pub without even trying, and something fierce and tender swelled in his chest.
When they walked back to the castle as dusk fell, the sky streaked with pink and gold, (Y/N) tugged him to a stop near the gates and turned to face him, her breath misting in the cold air.
“I have something for you,” she said, and dug into her bag, rummaging past what sounded like at least three different kinds of animal treats and possibly a live creature. She emerged with a small, neatly wrapped package. “It’s a Christmas present. Early. Because I’m impatient.”
Regulus unwrapped it carefully, the Black in him instinctively preserving the paper. Inside was a handkerchief—his handkerchief, the one he had given her in the courtyard, except now it had been embroidered with tiny, slightly crooked stars along the border. In one corner, in silver thread, were two sets of initials: R.A.B. and (Y/N) (L/N).
“I know it’s not much,” (Y/N) said, suddenly uncharacteristically shy. “But I wanted you to have it. So you’d remember. That you’re not just… that.” She gestured vaguely at his left arm, the arm where the Dark Mark lay hidden. “You’re also this. You’re starlight and handkerchiefs and someone who laughs at terrible hippogriff tap-dancing dreams.”
Regulus looked at the handkerchief. Looked at her. She was biting her lip, her eyes wide and anxious, and she was still wearing that ridiculous scarf, and Marmalade had poked his head out of her bag and was regarding him with that same knowing, yellow gaze.
“I am going to marry you,” Regulus said.
(Y/N) blinked. “What?”
“Not today,” he clarified, because even in the grip of overwhelming emotion he was still, at his core, a pragmatist. “There are logistics. My family will be insufferable, and I have… obligations… that will need to be untangled.” The Dark Lord, the Mark, the war—all of it loomed at the edges of his mind, but for the first time, he felt like there might be a way through. A way out. “But I am going to marry you. Eventually. If you’ll have me.”
(Y/N) stared at him for a long, breathless moment.
Then she launched herself into his arms, nearly sending them both tumbling into a snowdrift, and kissed him soundly.
“Yes,” she said against his lips, laughing and crying at the same time. “Yes, you ridiculous, wonderful, thestral-like man. Yes.”
Marmalade meowed, long-suffering and resigned.
And Regulus Black, heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, bearer of a Dark Mark he was beginning to think he might one day defy, stood in the snow outside Hogwarts with his soulmate in his arms and thought that perhaps, just perhaps, the universe’s sense of humour wasn’t so terrible after all.
She had been right, that first day. She had had nothing appropriate to say.
Hiii this is more of a question but I was wondering if you are going to do a part 2 of Dixon reader with Carl as her best friend?
HEYYY, thanks for asking. I really want to upload part two soon, but I don't speak English and I don't want to have to use AI for translation, so I want to be better prepared when I upload it! I'll probably use Google Translate and tweak some words so it's not so technical 😭 That's all, and I haven't had much time to finish it. Sorry for the delay, I probably won't upload it anytime soon!
remus is always needy for psychical touch, though he’s not big on public affection, he’s always touching you subtly. hand laced with your under the table, quick kisses pressed to your face, needing to be near you whenever possible. in private he’s clingier than ever, resting his head on your lap as you study, arms wrapped around your waist, bare back pressed against yourswhile you read or listen to the record player.
he doesn’t really brag about you to his friends, like james did with lily, but he replays every reaction in his head, big or small. he’s always following you everywhere like a dog, walking you to classes, carrying your books.
NSFW!
he replays your interactions and conversations while he’s in the shower, stroking himself lazily, forehead pressed against the cool tile. thinking about the way your lips move when you smile, how they wrap about every word, the way your eyes watched him as he passed you earlier in the day.
overall he’s a giver, taking his time in making you feel pleasure before he does, that doesn’t mean he won’t needily grind his hips into your thigh while his mouth works on your nipples, fingers pumping in and out of you, curling just right to hit your sweet spot and feel you arch against him.
when it’s closer to the full moon he gets rough, biting your skin as he slams in and out of you — the sting coupled with the overstimulating pleasure of his cock bullying your insides with every deep thrust making for an overwhelming climax, which he’d starved you of for rounds before.
a/n : Hi to anyone who’s reading this!! i’ve never written anything before and i’m just trying to start! PLEASE give me tips and criticism, i really have no clue what i’m doing! i can do a part 2! also, send me anons pls!!!!
When you‘re trying to read harry potter x reader fanfics but this mfs name is literally the name of the franchise so you just see the entire cast instead of him
i love love LOVE your writing so be prepared for random spams of ideas for our sweet boy carl..
imagine carl with a reader who sleeps like a mf. i’m talking, will sleep a whole day if not woken up (ehem me too) and besides their insane hours of sleep, they absolutely will NOT stay still when sleeping. they’re always laying on top of him even when it’s irritatingly hot outside.
-🐰🐇
𝓒𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃, carl grimes.
a/n: HEHE this is so cutie and tysm I'm glad u like it!!! I hope this meets your expectations as much as possible 🎀
cw: none! fluffy fic
By the time Carl realized you had no intention of waking up, the sun had already climbed high enough over Alexandria’s walls to turn the bedroom unbearably warm.
He had been awake for nearly two hours, which wasn’t unusual for him. Carl rarely slept deeply anymore, and even when he managed to stay asleep through the night, his body seemed to have developed an irritating habit of waking him at the slightest unfamiliar sound. A branch scraping against the house, footsteps outside the window, someone closing a door too hard down the street—any of it could pull him out of sleep almost instantly.
This morning had been no different. He’d opened his eyes sometime shortly after sunrise, stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, and then realized why he couldn’t move. You were lying directly on top of him. Not beside him. Not curled against his side. Not even partially on him in the way that might have been considered reasonable. You had somehow migrated during the night until your head was tucked against his shoulder, one arm was draped across his stomach, one leg was thrown over both of his, and most of your weight was resting directly across his chest.
Carl had stared at you for several seconds in complete silence, trying to work out how you’d managed it because he’d gone to sleep with you on your side of the bed. He remembered that much. You had been facing him, wrapped in the blanket, and you’d fallen asleep halfway through telling him a story. Now you were practically horizontal across him, your hair scattered over his shirt, breathing slowly and peacefully as though you hadn’t just turned him into a human mattress.
He’d tried moving his arm first. That had gone badly. The moment his fingers shifted against the sheets, you made a quiet, sleepy noise and tightened your arm around him without waking up.
Carl had frozen immediately. He waited. Nothing happened. You stayed asleep. He tried again, this time more carefully, attempting to pull his arm out from beneath your shoulder. You responded by shifting closer, your face pressing against the side of his neck. Carl stared at the ceiling again.
“Seriously?” he whispered.
You didn’t answer, obviously.
“You know you’re crushing me, right?”
Nothing.
Carl exhaled slowly through his nose, glancing down at you with the expression of someone who had just realized he had been defeated by an opponent who wasn’t even conscious.
“You’re unbelievable,” Still nothing.
The room was quiet except for the faint sounds of Alexandria waking outside, and Carl could hear someone moving around in the house next door, followed by the distant sound of Judith laughing.
He knew he should get up. He had things to do. Rick had mentioned a patrol later that morning, and Carl wanted to check one of the sections of the wall before then because there had been a few tracks outside the previous evening. He also hadn’t eaten anything, and if he stayed there much longer, someone was eventually going to come looking for him.
None of that seemed to matter to you. You slept on, completely undisturbed.
Carl looked toward the window, where sunlight was beginning to spill across the floor, then back down at you.
“It’s morning.” Your breathing remained slow and even. “It’s been morning for a while.” Nothing. “You have to wake up eventually.” You shifted slightly, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
Carl stopped talking. His expression softened despite himself. He hated how easily you could do that to him. Not the sleeping part, that was ridiculous. But the way you trusted him without even thinking about it. The way your entire body relaxed around him when you were asleep, as though somewhere in the back of your mind you had decided there was nowhere safer to be. Carl didn’t take that lightly. He knew what it meant to feel unsafe, to sleep with a weapon close enough to reach without opening his eyes, to wake up already listening for danger.
So when you slept this deeply against him, completely unaware of the world outside, some small part of him didn’t want to disturb it. Even if his arm was numb. Even if his back hurt. Even if the room was becoming hot enough to make breathing uncomfortable. He could wait.
For another ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.
Then you moved again.
Carl’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
You stretched in your sleep, apparently deciding that the perfectly reasonable position you had occupied for the past several minutes was no longer comfortable. Your knee slid farther across his legs, your head shifted downward until your cheek was resting against his chest, and your arm somehow ended up tucked beneath his other elbow.
Carl stared down at you in disbelief. “How are you doing that?” he whispered.
You made another sleepy noise. He sighed. “I’m serious.”
He tried to move his leg. Your knee immediately followed the movement. Carl stopped. He looked at the ceiling, then toward the door, as though someone might walk in and provide him with an explanation. Nobody did.
“You sleep like a walker,” he muttered. “You just keep moving.”
That earned no response. He couldn’t even tell whether you had heard him. Probably not. You could sleep through practically anything. He’d learned that during the months you’d been together. You could sleep through storms. You could sleep through people talking outside. You once slept through someone dropping a metal bucket in the hallway hard enough that Carl had been on his feet with his gun in his hand before he’d even realized he’d moved. You had opened your eyes several minutes later, looked around, asked what happened, and then gone straight back to sleep. Carl had been convinced there was something medically wrong with you. You had told him that you were simply tired. He had stared at you for a long time before saying, “That’s not normal.” You had shrugged and gone to bed. He’d eventually stopped trying to understand it.
What he had not stopped trying to understand was how you managed to sleep for such absurd lengths of time. There had been mornings when he’d woken before sunrise and found you still sleeping. He would eat breakfast, check the perimeter, return to the house, and find you in exactly the same position. Sometimes you’d sleep until midday. Once, after an especially exhausting supply run, you had slept nearly an entire day, waking only long enough to drink some water before collapsing back onto the mattress. Carl had been concerned at first, hovering around you and checking whether you were breathing because he’d learned never to assume anything was fine. Eventually he’d realized that you were simply a person who apparently required approximately sixteen hours of sleep to function. He’d complained about it endlessly, but he’d also become accustomed to it.
More than that, he had quietly adapted to it. He knew when you were going to fall asleep based on the way you started rubbing your eyes. He knew that if you said, “I’m not tired,” while already yawning, you were going to be unconscious within twenty minutes. He knew you would kick the blanket off at least twice during the night and then complain about being cold later. He knew that if you fell asleep against him, there was almost no chance you would move unless he moved first. And he knew that if he woke before you, there was a very specific kind of peace that came from simply staying there and listening to you breathe.
Unfortunately, that peace did not make his body any less hot.
The weather had turned warmer over the past few days, and the small room felt like an oven now that the sunlight had been shining through the window for hours. Carl was sweating beneath his shirt. You were still lying on top of him like you had personally decided that he was the ideal temperature-regulated mattress.
He shifted his head against the pillow and stared down at you. “You’re hot.” You didn’t move. “I’m hot.” Nothing. “It’s actually really hot.” You sighed softly in your sleep. Carl frowned. “You’re not listening.” You shifted closer. He closed his eyes. “Of course.”
He considered waking you. He really did. He could picture it clearly: gently touching your shoulder, saying your name, waiting for you to blink awake, and then explaining that he’d like to have feeling in his arms again. It was reasonable. It was practical. It was probably what any normal person would do.
Instead, Carl reached up and carefully moved a strand of hair away from your face. He let his hand rest there for a moment, his thumb brushing lightly against your temple. Your expression didn’t change. You were completely gone. “You’re lucky I like you,” he murmured.
A knock came at the door.
Carl’s head snapped toward it.
You didn’t move.
Another knock.
“Carl?”
It was Rick.
Carl glanced down at you, then at the door.
“Dad.”
“You awake?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause. “Why aren’t you outside?”
Carl looked down again.
“Busy.”
Another silence.
Rick sounded suspicious. “Busy doing what?”
Carl hesitated. “…Nothing.”
The door opened slightly before Carl could stop him, and Rick looked inside. His eyes moved immediately to the bed, where his son was lying completely still with you sprawled across him. Rick stared. Carl stared back. Neither of them said anything for several seconds.
Then Rick’s mouth twitched.
Carl narrowed his eye.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
Rick looked away, clearly fighting a smile. “You coming to breakfast?”
“Eventually.”
“How long?”
Carl looked down at you. “…I don’t know.”
Rick nodded slowly, the amusement becoming impossible to hide.
“Right.”
“Dad.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Good.”
Rick closed the door.
Carl waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then he looked at you.
“You embarrassed me.”
You remained completely unconscious.
“Thanks.”
You woke sometime after noon.
Carl knew because by then he’d already given up on trying to leave.
He’d managed to free one arm eventually, though he’d had to do it with the patience of someone dismantling a bomb. He’d reached for the comic on the bedside table, read for a while, and eventually found himself staring at the same page for ten minutes because he was too distracted by the weight of you against him. At some point, he’d fallen into a light doze himself, only to wake when you shifted again.
Now, finally, you stirred. Your fingers moved first. Then your head shifted against his chest.
Carl immediately looked down.
Your eyes opened slowly. And when you stared at him, he stared at you back.
Neither of you spoke.
You blinked.
“…Morning.”
Carl looked toward the window.
“It’s twelve-thirty.”
You frowned sleepily.
“…Morning.”
“It’s past noon.”
You closed your eyes again. “No.”
Carl’s eyebrow lifted.
“No?”
“Too early.”
“Too early?” He almost laughed.
You nodded against him.
“You’re unbelievable,” he shook his head. “I couldn’t move.”
“You could’ve woken me.”
Carl went quiet.
You smiled knowingly.
“You didn’t want to.”
He looked away.
“I didn’t say that either.”
You laughed softly and shifted, finally lifting yourself enough to sit beside him. Carl immediately stretched his arm, wincing as the blood returned to his fingers.
“Ow...”
You looked at him. “Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“I am.”
“You did it again.”
“What?”
“You put your entire body on me.”
“I was asleep!”
“That’s your excuse every time.”
“Because it’s true.”
Carl looked at you, then shook his head.
“You sleep like you’re fighting someone.”
You smiled. “I do not.”
“You move all over the place.”
“I can’t control it.”
“Exactly.”
You stretched, yawning so deeply that Carl couldn’t help smiling. Then you looked at him. “What time did you wake up?”
“...Seven.”
Your eyes widened.
“Seven?”
“Yeah.”
“And you stayed here?”
Carl shrugged.
“You were sleeping.”
You stared at him for a moment.
He immediately looked away.
“Don’t make it weird.”
You smiled.
“It’s cute.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s really not.”
You leaned against his shoulder.
Carl sighed, but he didn’t move away.
“You know,” you murmured, “I could’ve slept longer.”
“I know.”
“How long would you have let me sleep?”
Carl thought about it.
“Probably until you woke up.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Even if it was all day?” You looked at him.
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
Carl looked down at your face.
“Because you need it.”
The world outside continued moving without you. People walked through the streets. Someone shouted near the gates. A hammer struck wood somewhere nearby.
Eventually, you glanced toward the clock.
“Do we have patrol?”
Carl nodded. “Later.”
“You were supposed to go this morning.”
“I know.”
“You stayed because of me.”
He gave you a sideways look.
“Don’t get too excited.”
You smiled.
“Too late.”
He rolled his eye.
But there was a smile hiding at the corner of his mouth.
That night, the heat was even worse.
The windows were open, but the air barely moved. Everyone in Alexandria had been complaining about it all day, and by the time night arrived, most people had abandoned blankets entirely. Carl had already removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. He was lying on his side, staring at the ceiling, wondering why he had agreed to sleep with you in the first place when you suddenly rolled toward him.
He knew what was coming.
“No.”
You ignored him.
“You have to stay on your side.”
You kept moving.
“It’s too hot.”
You curled against him.
Carl closed his eye.
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
You mumbled something incoherent.
“What?”
No answer.
You had already fallen asleep.
Carl stared at the ceiling. Then down at you. Then back at the ceiling.
“You know what?”
Silence.
“I’m done fighting it.”
He shifted carefully, pulling the sheet away from both of you because it was far too warm for it anyway. Your head settled against his shoulder almost immediately, and one of your arms slipped around his waist. Carl rested his hand lightly against your back.
He still couldn’t understand how someone could sleep so much. How someone could move so much while unconscious. How you could be completely oblivious to the world when he had spent years learning to hear danger in every little sound.
But maybe that was part of why he liked it.
You reminded him that there were still people in the world who could sleep without fear. People who could close their eyes and trust that when they opened them again, someone would still be there.
And Carl wanted to be that someone.
Even if being that someone meant losing circulation in his arm every morning. Even if it meant sweating through the hottest nights of summer. Even if it meant waking up to find you somehow occupying ninety percent of the mattress.
He looked down at you one last time. “You better know I don’t do this for everybody.”
You didn’t answer.
Carl smiled faintly, letting out a mix of a defeated and frustrated sigh.
Pairing: Poly!Wolfstar x Reader
Summary: The two men across the hall keep inventing reasons to knock — a corkscrew, some sugar, a plate of something warm — and it takes you a fortnight to work out you keep handing them an excuse to try again.
Tags: neighbours AU, getting together, fluff, slow burn
You've lived in the flat for three weeks now, and you've learned two things about the one across the hall. The music is always good and slightly too loud. And its occupants invent the most astonishing reasons to knock.
The first time, it's a corkscrew. You open the door and there's a tall bloke already talking before you've got it half open, dark hair loose, grinning like the two of you are mid-conversation and always have been, "you don't happen to have a corkscrew, do you? Because we've got a bottle and absolutely no way in, and it's a tragedy, honestly. Sirius, by the way, in case you need a name for whoever you're cursing," and behind him another man hovers a step back with one shoulder against the doorframe, arms folded, not quite hiding a smile, watching the whole performance like he's seen it before and isn't going to be the one to stop it. You don't have a corkscrew. You tell him so. He looks wounded, personally let down, like you've broken some unspoken agreement between neighbours, and then he's off again just as fast, "right, tragic, we'll manage," and the quieter one gives you a small, apologetic sort of nod on his way out, as if to say, sorry, he's like this.
The second time it's sugar. You don't bake. You say so. Sirius — you've got the other one's name too, by now, Remus, said quieter, like it costs him something to introduce himself at all — takes the sugar business just as personally, "no sugar, devastating," and vanishes again, all momentum, no follow-through. Remus lingers a beat longer this time. "Sorry," he says, "he does this. Might as well ask if we need anything, save you two trips?"
"We don't," you tell him, which isn't strictly an answer, and he looks like he expected that, and retreats anyway, easy, unbothered, like losing costs him nothing at all.
The third time it's a plate. Something with cinnamon on it, still warm, Remus holding it like it's an apology for something rather than a gift, "we made too much," he says, which is obviously a lie, nobody has ever made too much of anything by accident, and behind him Sirius is doing an appalling job of looking innocent. You take the plate anyway, because it's rude not to, and because it smells like actual heaven, and because Remus looks so ready to be told no that you can't quite bring yourself to do it.
Every time, you beg off before too long — busy, tired, mid-something — and every time they retreat with that same grace, unhurried, cheerful, as if it costs them nothing. You almost feel you've won something. It takes you a fortnight to work out you've only ever handed them a reason to try again tomorrow.
Then the building loses power, on the coldest night of the year, obviously, because the universe has a sense of humour and no mercy whatsoever. You're stood in your black hallway swearing at a light switch that does nothing when their door opens without you knocking on it at all, candlelight spilling out gold across the carpet, the smell of something warm on a stove, and Sirius filling the doorway like he's been waiting for exactly this excuse, "well, come on then, no point freezing on principle, is there?"
There's no polite way to refuse a stranded neighbour a seat by the only working stove on the floor. You know that. You go in anyway, telling yourself it's just the once.
Their sofa is deep and a bit too small for three, and you end up wedged in the middle of it, Sirius sprawled along one end like he owns the furniture, arm slung along the back of it behind your shoulders, all easy confidence, while Remus takes longer to sit, hovering near the arm of it first like he's still deciding whether he's allowed, before a blanket appears from somewhere and he shakes it out over the three of you, brisk, businesslike, as if that settles the matter of where he's sitting too. It's a good blanket. It is, you'll notice later, not nearly big enough for three people, a fact that seems to trouble neither of them at all.
"Cold night," Remus says, by way of explanation, tucking the corner in against your hip without quite meeting your eye, "can't have you catching your death, can we, just for being neighbourly?"
You don't say what you're thinking, which is that the whole flat smells of cinnamon and woodsmoke and something you don't have a word for yet, warm in a way that's got nothing to do with the stove.
Time slides by in that stretched, unmarked way it does with no telly and no clock in sight, just candles and low talk, Sirius mid-flow about a dog he definitely used to have, or definitely was, depending which version you're getting, gesturing so wildly he nearly has the candle over, and Remus correcting the details with the weary patience of a man who's heard this story forty times and expects to hear it forty more, "don't let him tell you he tamed it, it was the other way round entirely."
You laugh properly at one point, and Sirius looks entirely too pleased with himself about it, delighted, like he's won something, and you catch Remus watching that too, something soft crossing his face before he seems to remember himself and looks back at the candle instead.
Somewhere in there the blanket shrinks. You'd swear it does. You keep having to shift closer to keep any of it on you at all, until there's no cold air left between the three of you, and nobody suggests fetching a bigger one, and you don't ask for it either.
"Your foot's gone dead," Remus says at some point, hand closing loosely round your ankle to shift it, gentle, careful, like he's asking permission with his hands rather than his mouth, "better?"
"Better," you say, and don't mention that better isn't really about your foot.
Sirius's thumb moves once against your shoulder, absent, like he's not thinking about it at all, except you catch him thinking about it, in the reflection off the dark window, watching you rather than the candle he's meant to be minding, and for just a second the noise in him goes quiet, and something more careful comes through instead.
You could get up. You could say you should check on your own flat, your own cold, your own dark. Somewhere in the last hour you've stopped believing that's a reason at all.
"Warm enough?" Sirius asks, and Remus answers before you can, "just about, I'd say" — and there's a look that passes between the two of them over the top of your head, easy, unhidden, the look of two people who've been perfectly content to let a power cut do the work they'd been failing to do with corkscrews and sugar and too much cinnamon for three weeks running.
You feel it land on you a second late, the way you always seem to be a step behind them. Something in your chest turns over, slow, warm, entirely undignified.
"I don't have a corkscrew," you say, apropos of nothing, and Sirius laughs like it's the best joke he's heard all year, "I know, love, we've established that, haven't we?"
Hours on, the lights flicker, stutter, and come back down the corridor, you can see it under the door, and nobody moves. Nobody so much as glances at the switch.
"Should probably check on my flat," you say, not moving either.
"Should you?" Remus asks, and his arm doesn't loosen an inch.
You don't get up. Sirius's hand finds yours under the blanket like it's been waiting its turn, bold about it, unbothered by asking outright, and Remus is quieter getting there, slower, like he's still checking it's allowed even as he does it, his mouth close enough to your ear that you feel the words before you hear them properly, "no pretending it's about sugar, is it?"
Later — much later, candles burnt to nothing and the stove gone cold and none of you minding a bit — the blanket's given up being a blanket at all, just a heap on the floor where it fell, and nobody's cold anyway. You'll think back, after, on three weeks of knocking, and realise it was never about corkscrews. It was two people finding every possible reason to end up on your side of a door — one of them loud about it, one of them quiet, both of them patient in their own way — when all along the easiest way in was to leave theirs open and wait for the lights to go out.
Nobody knocks, after that. Why would they? The door across the hall just... stays open.
CUZ HEAR ME OUT 🙌 makeshift wedding with carl.. maybe even makeshift “honeymoon” at a small, secluded cabin by a lake
- 🐰🐇
𝓜𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝓨𝐎𝐔, carl grimes.
a/n: FIRST REQUEST YIPPEE MOMENT I loved this idea!! sososo cute 🤎 I couldn't think of a good honeymoon scene so I hope you like my imagine of the first part!!
cw: none! I kinda changed the writing style in the end JUST a little and now I'm too lazy to change it but the storyline's the same, also this is quite lengthy too.
The first thing you noticed after every fight was always the silence.
Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind people talked about when they imagined quiet mornings or empty fields or nights spent watching the stars. This silence was heavier than that. It was the silence that came after gunshots stopped echoing, after people finally stopped shouting names into the chaos, after everyone had counted the living and the dead and silently thanked whatever was left of the world that the number of survivors hadn’t changed.
Alexandria had gone quiet again. Not completely. It never really was anymore. There were always things happening; the scrape of boots against dirt as people moved supplies, the distant hammering of someone repairing a damaged wall, the murmur of voices as everyone checked on each other. But compared to what it had been only hours before, compared to the noise and panic and fear that had filled the streets, it felt almost unnatural.
You stood near one of the houses, watching people move around with the same exhausted expressions they always wore after surviving something that should have killed them.
It was becoming a pattern. A horrible, exhausting pattern.
Someone would threaten them. Someone would take something from them. Someone would convince them they were stronger than they really were. And every single time, somehow, they survived.
But surviving never meant walking away untouched. That was the part nobody talked about. Everyone made it back, but everyone carried something home.
A new scar. A new memory. A new reason to wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling, wondering how much longer they could keep doing this.
Carl was no different. Maybe that was what scared you most.
Because when you first met him, when he was still just Rick Grimes’ son running around with a hat too big for his head and too much curiosity for his own good, there had still been something openly young about him. Even after everything—the farm, the prison, the road—there had always been moments where you could see the kid underneath it all.
Season after season, loss after loss, the world had slowly taken pieces of that kid away.
But it had never taken all of him.
People looked at him and saw everything he’d lost. They saw the eye patch, the scars, the way he watched every doorway and every person who walked too close. They saw someone who had grown up too fast.
But you saw the things that remained. The way he still checked on Judith when he thought nobody was paying attention, the way he still tried to believe people could be better, even after meeting some of the worst humanity had to offer, the way he still looked at the world like there was something worth saving.
Even when he was tired, when he was angry, when he was scared. Especially then.
You found him exactly where you expected. Not inside, or resting. Carl had never been good at resting. He was sitting on the steps outside one of the houses, elbows resting on his knees, staring out at Alexandria’s walls. His hat was missing, his curls falling messily around his face, and the bandage over his missing eye was slightly stained from the dirt and smoke of the day.
For a moment, you didn’t say anything. You just stood there. Because you knew that sometimes Carl didn’t need someone asking if he was okay. Sometimes he needed someone to sit beside him and let him decide when he was ready to speak.
After a few seconds, his voice broke the silence.
“You should be inside.”
You almost smiled.
“That’s funny. I was going to say the same thing.”
He glanced at you, and for the smallest moment, there was the hint of a smile. Not a big one. Carl rarely did big ones anymore. But enough that you knew he was still there.
“You got hurt," he muttered slowly.
“So did you.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Carl.”
He stopped.
That was another thing about him. He could argue with almost anyone. Negan. Rick. Daryl. Anyone. But with you, not as easily.
You sat beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
The sun was beginning to set behind the walls, painting everything in soft orange light. It almost looked normal. Almost.
Carl watched the horizon.
“I thought I was gonna die today.”
The honesty of it made your chest tighten. He didn’t say things like that often. Not because he didn’t think about death. Everyone thought about death now. But Carl had always been careful about admitting when something scared him.
You looked at him.
“Yeah.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“I mean… I knew we could lose. I knew it was possible," He paused. “But I kept thinking about what would happen if we did.”
The wind moved through the trees beyond the walls.
“I kept thinking about Judith. I kept thinking about Dad. About Michonne. About everyone.”
His fingers curled slightly against his knees.
“And then I thought about you.”
Carl looked down. “I don’t know...” He shook his head quietly. “I just…”
He stopped, frustrated with himself. That was Carl too. He always knew what he felt. He just didn’t always know how to put it into words.
“I don’t want to keep waiting.”
You turned toward him.
“What do you mean?”
For once, Carl looked nervous. Actually nervous.
You had seen him face walkers without hesitation. You had seen him stand in front of people who wanted to hurt him. You had seen him challenge people much older and more powerful than him.
Right now, sitting beside you on the steps of a damaged house, he looked like he had no idea what he was doing.
“I had this whole thing planned.”
Your eyebrows lifted. ”You did?”
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“It was better in my head.”
You couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. His expression softened slightly.
“I figured.” You still reassured him, even if you were oblivious to what he was even talking about.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked away, rubbing his thumb against his palm. “I was gonna say something good.”
“Something good?”
“Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” He exhaled. “That’s the problem.”
Another silence.
Then, quietly:
“I just know that every time something happens, every time I think we might not make it, you’re the person I look for.”
Your expression softened.
“Carl…”
“I know it’s not exactly…” He gestured vaguely, clearly annoyed that the words weren’t coming out the way he wanted. “It’s not some big thing. I don’t have a ring. I don’t have anything.”
He looked at his hands.
“But I don’t think any of that matters.”
And then he looked at you. Really looked at you. At your beautiful hair, tangled and a mess from all the trouble they'd been through for days, at your eyes that still remained as bright as diamonds as if you had no worries hidden underneath, at your soft hands that held one to many weapons in this life, at those lips he felt he could kiss every second of the day and never get bored.
“I want to marry you.”
For a second, the world seemed to stop. Not because there were fireworks, not because it was dramatic, because it was him. And because you knew exactly how much it must have taken for him to say it.
His face immediately changed when you didn’t answer. Not an expression of regret, but of worry.
“You don’t have to say yes.”
You blinked. “What?”
“I mean it,” His voice became quieter. “I know this is sudden. And I know we’re young, and I know everything is…” He looked around at the broken world surrounding you. “Like this.” His expression softened. “But I meant it.”
A small smile touched your face. “Carl.”
He waited.
“I wasn’t going to say no.”
For the first time all evening, you saw him completely relax. Not entirely, though. Carl didn’t really do that anymore. But his shoulders dropped. He let out a breath he had probably been holding since the moment he asked.
“Okay.”
You laughed softly. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all you have?”
He looked almost embarrassed. “I had a better response.”
“You lost it?”
“Yeah.”
“You planned this for how long?”
“A while.”
“And you lost the words immediately?”
He looked down. “Yeah.”
You smiled. “Very romantic.”
“I know.”
A pause.
Then, almost shyly: “I’ll do better.”
For the first few days after Carl asked, almost nothing changed. Somehow that was what made it feel so strange. There was no sudden transformation where the world became brighter or easier, no magical moment where the walls of Alexandria stopped looking damaged and the scars everyone carried suddenly disappeared. Walkers still wandered beyond the gates. People still woke up every morning wondering what new problem would find them before sunset. There were still repairs to make, supplies to count, patrols to organize, and a thousand small responsibilities that never seemed to end.
But underneath all of that, something had shifted.
Not loudly. Carl would never allow anything involving him to become loud if he could help it.
He wasn’t the kind of person who would walk through Alexandria announcing the news with a grin on his face, accepting congratulations from everyone who passed by. That would have been almost impossible to imagine. Carl Grimes, who had spent years learning how to disappear into the background, suddenly becoming the center of attention? It would have felt terrifying.
Instead, he carried the knowledge quietly. The same way he carried almost everything. You noticed it in the little things.
The way his hand would occasionally find yours when nobody was looking, almost like he needed the reminder that the conversation on those steps had actually happened. The way he would sometimes look at you for a second longer than usual, like he was still trying to understand how someone could hear everything he had to say, the fear, the uncertainty, the fact that he didn’t know what the future looked like, and still choose him anyway.
Carl had spent so much of his life preparing himself for people to leave. It was something you understood about him better than most.
He didn’t expect happiness, he hoped for it. Hope was something Carl had always held onto. Even after the prison, even after losing people he loved, even after seeing what humans could become when they were desperate enough, there was still a part of him that believed things could be better.
But expecting happiness? That was harder. Because expectations were dangerous. Expecting something meant giving the world another thing it could take away.
And yet here he was. Planning a wedding. The thought still seemed to surprise him.
You caught him staring at the small piece of wire he had managed to shape into something resembling a ring one evening while everyone else was finishing dinner. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t smooth like the rings people used to buy before the world ended. It had small imperfections from where he had carefully worked it into shape, and if someone else had found it lying around, they probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
But Carl had made it. So that was all that mattered.
“You know you’re staring at it, right?”
Carl immediately closed his hand around it. “No, I’m not.”
You looked at him.
He sighed.
“I just think I could touch it up a little.”
A small smile tugged at your lips. “You’ve been doing that for ten minutes.”
“I have not.”
“Carl.”
He glanced down.
“…Maybe five.”
You laughed quietly.
For a second, he looked younger. Not like the child everyone remembered, like the boy with the sheriff’s hat. Like someone who had finally been given permission to want something.
“I don’t know if it’s good enough.”
The change in his voice made you look at him more carefully.
There it was. The part he didn’t say. The fear underneath. Not fear that you would say no. You had already answered him. This was something else.
Carl Grimes could fight for survival. He could make impossible choices. He could put himself between danger and the people he loved without hesitation.
But making something beautiful was harder. Because beautiful things were fragile. And Carl knew better than anyone what happened to fragile things in their world.
You reached for his hand.
“It’s not supposed to be perfect.”
His fingers relaxed slightly.
“I know.”
“But?”
He looked at the ring again. “I just wanted to give you something.”
The simplicity of the sentence hurt more than anything dramatic could have.
After everything he had lost, after living in a world where people took and took and took until there was nothing left, he still wanted to give.
You squeezed his hand. “You did.”
Telling Rick was probably the hardest part.
Not since Carl thought his father would be angry.
He knew Rick wouldn’t.
That almost made it worse.
Rick’s opinion mattered more than Carl liked admitting. No matter how much he had grown, no matter how many times he had disagreed with him, no matter how often he insisted he could handle himself, there was still a part of Carl that wanted his father to look at him and say he was doing okay. That he was becoming someone good. That he hadn’t lost himself.
The conversation happened outside, near the edge of Alexandria, where Rick was checking one of the damaged sections of the wall.
Carl stood there for almost a full minute before speaking.
Rick noticed. Of course he noticed.
“You got something to say?”
Carl looked away. “Yeah.”
A pause.
Then another.
Rick raised an eyebrow.
“So?”
“I’m getting married.”
The silence afterward was painfully awkward. Carl immediately looked like he regretted how he said it. Not the decision, just the delivery.
Rick stared. Then he blinked.
“You’re what?”
Carl rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”
“You know?”
“I know it’s sudden.”
Rick looked at him for a long moment. And then the shock softened. Not completely. His son had just told him he was getting married during the apocalypse, after all.
But underneath the surprise was something else. Something almost impossible to hide.
Pride.
“You sure?”
Carl nodded.
“Yeah.”
Rick studied him.
“You’ve thought about this?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“A while,” Carl hesitated.
Rick let out a quiet breath. He looked older in that moment. He wasn't unhappy. He was remembering.
Remembering the little boy who used to follow him everywhere, the little boy who once needed help tying his shoes, who had somehow grown into someone standing in front of him talking about building a future.
“I just didn’t think…” Rick started.
He stopped.
Carl waited.
Rick smiled faintly.
“I guess I didn’t think we’d get here.”
Carl’s expression softened. Rick stepped forward and pulled his son into a hug.
He wasn’t used to being hugged anymore. Life had trained him to expect everything else first.
Then, slowly, he hugged him back.
“You better take care of them.”
Carl almost smiled.
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“And if you don’t—”
“Dad.”
Rick laughed quietly. “I’m serious.”
Carl shook his head. “I know.”
But he was smiling.
The wedding plans began quietly.
Just like everything else.
Nobody made announcements. Nobody treated it like some huge event. There was no reason to.
Michonne helped gather flowers from areas they knew were safe, choosing ones that would survive being moved and arranged without much difficulty. She never said much about it, but you could tell the moment meant something to her. She had always understood Carl’s need for something more than survival. She had seen him grow from a child into someone who carried too much responsibility.
Daryl contributed in the only way Daryl knew how: by making sure the location was safe before anyone else arrived.
When you thanked him, he simply shrugged.
“Wasn’t gonna let some dead guy ruin it.”
You smiled.
“That’s your version of being sentimental?”
“Shut up.”
Carol helped with the small details nobody else thought about. She found fabric that could be cleaned and used as decoration. She fixed things that didn’t need fixing because that was how she showed she cared.
Maggie smiled when she heard. A smile from someone who knew exactly what it meant to choose love when the world kept trying to convince you there was no point.
Carl was overwhelmed not only by the wedding itself, but by everyone caring. He understood fighting together. He understood surviving together. But celebrating? Letting people be happy for him? That was harder.
The morning of the wedding arrived without announcing itself.
There was no dramatic sunrise, no sudden change in the weather, no indication from the world around Alexandria that anything particularly important was about to happen. The sun simply came up the way it always did, pale light gradually finding its way through the trees and across the rooftops, illuminating the damage that still hadn’t been repaired and the dirt that had been tracked through the streets the night before. Somewhere beyond the walls, birds had started calling to one another, and for a few minutes, before people began moving around and voices carried through the settlement, the entire place seemed almost peaceful.
You woke to that quiet and stayed still for a little while, staring at the ceiling and trying to comprehend the fact that today, somehow, was the day. You were getting married. The sentence still felt strange when you thought it, almost too ordinary for the world you lived in and simultaneously too enormous to fit inside your head. There had been a time when the idea of a wedding belonged to a completely different life, one involving churches, dresses bought specifically for the occasion, invitations sent through the mail, family members traveling from different states, music chosen months in advance, and some expensive venue decorated with flowers that would only be used once.
That life was gone. Everyone knew it. Nobody pretended otherwise anymore. And yet, standing there in the quiet of Alexandria with sunlight slowly creeping across the floor, you didn’t feel like you were missing anything. Not really. Maybe because the things you had now mattered more than the things you used to imagine having. Maybe because when you pictured the ceremony, you didn’t picture a church or a crowd or a perfectly decorated room. You pictured trees. You pictured the people who had survived beside you. You pictured Carl, probably looking more nervous than he’d ever admit, standing beneath the branches with that familiar expression he wore whenever he was trying very hard to pretend something didn’t matter as much as it did. And that thought alone made you smile.
Carl, meanwhile, was handling the morning exactly as you might have expected him to: by pretending it wasn’t a big deal.
He had been awake for hours. He’d gone on a short walk before breakfast, checked the perimeter even though Daryl had already done it twice, helped Rick move some supplies that didn’t actually need moving, and spent an unnecessary amount of time making sure Judith had eaten. She was already a preteen, but he'd grown too deep into the habit of staying at the table until she'd finished her food.
When Michonne eventually found him standing outside with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, she took one look at him and knew immediately. “You’re nervous,” she said, and Carl’s first response was an immediate, flat, “No, I’m not.”
Michonne didn’t argue. She simply stood beside him and looked toward the trees. After a few moments, Carl sighed. “Maybe a little.” She smiled faintly, and there was something almost maternal in the way she looked at him, something that made Carl glance away because he still wasn’t entirely comfortable being looked at like someone worth being proud of.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” she told him. Carl’s brow furrowed slightly. “I know.” “Then why do you look like you’re preparing for a fight?” He looked down at his boots, nudging a small stone with the toe. “Because fights are easier now.” Michonne laughed quietly, and Carl finally smiled too. It was a small moment, almost insignificant compared to everything else happening around them, but it stayed with him. Because she was right. He didn’t need to be perfect. He didn’t need to know what came next. He only needed to stand there and tell the truth. That was harder than fighting, but he could do hard things.
By the time everyone began making their way toward the clearing, the forest looked almost unfamiliar in the early afternoon light. The place had been visited before, of course, but never like this. Usually, the woods meant patrols, searching for supplies, tracking walkers, finding shelter, looking for threats. Today there were no weapons raised, no one moving cautiously with their backs against trees, no one scanning the horizon every few seconds.
Daryl had insisted that everyone remain alert anyway, because Daryl would probably remain alert during the apocalypse even if the apocalypse ended, but even he seemed to understand that this was different.
The clearing itself wasn’t large. That was part of why you had chosen it. A collection of tall trees surrounded it on nearly every side, their branches stretching overhead and allowing pieces of sunlight to filter through in shifting patches. Someone had gathered wildflowers from the surrounding area and placed them along the fallen log where people would sit, and pieces of fabric had been tied loosely around a few nearby branches. Nothing matched. Nothing was symmetrical. Some of the flowers were already beginning to wilt, and one of the pieces of fabric had come loose and was hanging sideways. It was beautiful precisely because it wasn’t trying to be. It was something made by people who had almost nothing and had decided that what they had was enough.
Carl arrived before you did.
He stood near the center of the clearing, hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders slightly tense. He had cleaned up as much as he could without making himself look like someone he wasn’t. His clothes were simple, but clean, and his hair had been brushed back more carefully than usual even though several curls had already fallen loose again. The handmade ring sat safely in his pocket. He had checked it at least three times that morning to make sure it was still there. When Rick approached him, Carl immediately looked over, and his father gave him a small nod.
“You ready?”
Carl looked toward the trees. “Yeah.”
Rick studied him for a second. “You don’t have to be.”
Carl frowned. “I know.”
“Just saying.”
Carl looked back toward the clearing. “I’m ready.”
Rick smiled, reached over, and gave his son’s shoulder a brief squeeze before walking away. Carl watched him go, then took a slow breath. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his hands. He wasn’t sure where to look. He wasn’t sure whether he should smile. Every few seconds he glanced toward the path, waiting for you to appear, and each time you weren’t there yet, he looked away again as though he hadn’t been waiting at all.
Daryl noticed. Of course he did.
“You’re gonna wear a hole through the trees,” he muttered.
Carl looked at him.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Sure.”
Daryl leaned against one of the trees, arms crossed. “Relax.”
Carl almost laughed. “You’re telling me to relax?” Daryl shrugged. “Yeah.”
“That’s probably the worst advice I’ve ever heard.”
“Didn’t say I was good at it.”
Carl shook his head, but the tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
Then you appeared.
For a second, Carl forgot what everyone else was doing.
It wasn’t because you looked dramatically different. You hadn’t been transformed into someone unrecognizable. There was no elaborate dress, no expensive jewelry, no perfect hair. Everything about you was simple, practical, and unmistakably yours. That was what made his chest tighten. You looked like yourself. The person he’d walked beside through ruined streets and dark forests. The person he’d shared food with when there wasn’t enough. The person whose hand he’d reached for without thinking during nightmares and gunfire and quiet mornings. The person he’d chosen in all the little ways long before he’d ever asked the question.
Carl’s expression softened before he could stop it, and for once he didn’t seem concerned about anyone noticing.
You smiled when you saw him, and he smiled back, small and almost shy. As you walked closer, he stepped forward to meet you, and for a moment neither of you said anything. His eyes moved over you once, not in a way that made you self-conscious, but in the way someone looks at something they are trying to memorize. “You look…” He stopped.
You raised an eyebrow. “I look what?”
Carl swallowed.
“Good.”
You smiled. “Just good?”
He glanced down, embarrassed. “Really good.”
That earned him a quiet laugh. He reached for your hand, his fingers slipping naturally between yours.
“You look good too,” you told him. “really good.“
“I know.”
You stared at him.
Carl’s mouth twitched. “I’m kidding.”
“That was almost confident.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
And there he was again, the Carl you knew. Quiet. Dry. A little awkward. Still capable of teasing you when he felt safe enough.
The ceremony itself was almost embarrassingly simple.
There were no chairs except the fallen log and a few crates someone had brought from Alexandria. There was no music because nobody had thought to find an instrument. Judith had scattered several flowers around the clearing, Rick stood near the front with Michonne beside him, Daryl remained slightly to the side, arms folded, pretending that he was only there because somebody had asked him to be. Maggie and Carol sat together, and a few others stood behind them. It wasn’t a crowd. It wasn’t supposed to be. It was simply the people who mattered. The people who had made it through enough together that nobody needed an invitation to understand why being there mattered.
When you and Carl finally stood facing one another beneath the trees, the forest seemed to quiet around you. Carl’s thumb moved nervously against the side of your hand. You could feel the slight tension in his fingers. He was trying to keep his expression neutral, but you knew him too well. He was terrified.
Rick looked between the two of you and cleared his throat. “I don’t really know how this is supposed to work.” A quiet laugh moved through the group. Rick smiled faintly. “Guess none of us do anymore.”
He looked at Carl. Then at you. “But I think that’s okay.” Carl’s eyes lowered for a moment. Rick continued, his voice softer now. “You don’t need a church. You don’t need a big ceremony. You don’t need any of the things people used to think made something official. You just need to choose each other.” He paused. “And keep choosing each other.”
Carl looked at you. His expression changed slightly. The words seemed to settle somewhere deep inside him. Rick nodded once. “So… that’s what we’re here for.”
Carl was supposed to speak next. He had prepared. He had thought about it for days. He had even practiced once, alone, quietly enough that nobody could hear him.
None of that helped.
He stared at you, then looked down, then laughed under his breath. “I forgot everything.” A few people smiled, and you squeezed his hand.
“It’s okay.”
Carl shook his head.
“No, I had something.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, visibly frustrated. “It sounded better before.”
You smiled. “Then don’t say what sounded better.”
He looked at you. “What?”
“Just say what you mean.”
For a moment, Carl was quiet. Then he nodded.
“I don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna look like.”
His voice was low, almost hesitant, but everyone in the clearing could hear him.
“I don’t know where we’re gonna be. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to us. I don’t know if things are ever gonna be normal again.”
He paused.
“And I don’t think they will.”
There was no sadness in the statement, just honesty.
“But I know that every time something happens, you’re the person I look for.”
Your eyes stung.
Carl’s thumb brushed against your hand.
“I know I don’t always say stuff. I know I’m not…” He hesitated, searching for the word. “Good at it.”
You smiled faintly.
“But I love you,” He looked directly at you. “And I want you with me. Whatever happens.”
Then he reached into his pocket. His fingers shook slightly as he pulled out the small handmade ring.
You looked down at it.
“It’s not really…”
He stopped, clearly unsure how to explain it.
“It’s not perfect.”
You smiled.
“I like it.”
Carl’s shoulders relaxed.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He carefully slipped it onto your finger.
It obviously wasn’t polished nor expensive. It wasn’t anything that would have impressed someone from the old world. But Carl had made it with his own hands, so that made it priceless.
When it was your turn to speak, you found yourself struggling too. Maybe that was the strange thing about the world you lived in. You could talk about surviving. You could talk about walkers and food and weapons and patrols without hesitation. But standing beneath the trees with Carl looking at you like you were the one thing in the world he trusted completely made every carefully prepared sentence disappear.
So you did what he had done.
You told him the truth.
You told him that you didn’t know what tomorrow would bring either. You told him that you couldn’t promise everything would be easy, because neither of you were foolish enough to believe that. But you could promise that when things became difficult, you wouldn’t run simply because they were difficult. You promised to keep finding him, just as he had promised to keep looking for you. You promised to choose him in the small ways, the ordinary ways, the ways that mattered more than words.
Carl listened without looking away.
When you finished, his eyes were wet. He blinked quickly.
You smiled.
“You okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
He looked down for a second. Then back at you.
“Yeah.”
And when Rick finally told you that you were married, there was no applause loud enough to feel strange in the quiet forest. There were smiles, a few quiet laughs, Judith immediately asking whether that meant there was going to be cake, and Daryl muttering something about how there wasn’t any cake. But Carl didn’t seem to hear much of it.
He was looking at you.
His hand was still holding yours.
Then he let go of it, his palms lifting up to cup your cheeks, bringing your faces together in a way that defied every little bit of nervousness and romantic cowardice he stored.
Blush - Jegulus - @jeggyverses-jegulus-microfic - word count: 356
Whenever Regulus did something even remotely affectionate, James looked at him like he hung the stars and the moon and everything else in between. A hug, a kiss, a flirty word whispered here and there—anything.
But he never blushed.
Regulus found that infuriating.
Every drop of the blood in his body seemed to flush to his cheeks every time James did anything. It was mortifying. Even more so when his nightmare of a brother was there to witness it. Even more so when it happened at the dinner table with James's parents present as well.
“He's incapable of it,” Regulus complained, then shut his book and threw it at Sirius's head. “Stop laughing, you mutt!”
Sirius dodged the book easily, snickering. He was lounging on the sofa opposite of Regulus's armchair. The Potters were out for a few hours, so it was just the two brothers in the house. “An impossible task, I'm afraid. This is hilarious.”
Regulus tossed a cushion at him. Just as infuriatingly as James's incapability to blush—no wonder the two were friends—Sirius dodged yet again.
As Regulus picked up a second cushion, Sirius raised his hands in surrender. “Before you decide to murder me with your weapons,” he said, “I'd like to offer advice.”
Regulus's ears perked at that. “Do tell.”
“Not for free.” Sirius smirked. “Ten galleons.”
“Seven,” Regulus said. “And your life.”
“Done.”
It was dinnertime. Sirius kept raising his eyebrow pointedly at Regulus throughout the main dish, and, by pudding, Regulus gave into the urge.
He leaned closer to James, then placed a subtle hand on his thigh. “Pass me the tarts?”
Before James could oblige, Regulus added in a whisper, “Jamie?”
Immediately, James's face flushed red, the colour deeper than his maroon jumper.
His brain and body seemed to malfunction for a moment, freezing in place for a moment. Then he shot to his feet, his limbs stiff and awkward.
“I have to—” His voice was a helpless whimper. “Go.”
With that, he hurried out of the room.
His exit was immediately followed by Sirius's roaring laughter and Regulus's indignant splutter: “That's all it takes?”
'Now you're pullin me close in the backseat, think I'm fallin in love if you're askin'
------
Summary: Mattheo can't help falling for you despite knowing you're too cool for him
Content: Loser!Mattheo, popular!reader, non-Hogwarts au, romance, set sometime in the 90s
Warnings: Swearing, kissing, smoking
Note: This was inspired by 'Want me' by Stephen Dawes, the rest of the lyrics I didn't include describe the story and dynamics as well tehe. Also I'm unfortunately American so my knowledge on the school system in england is limited.
W/c:2861
.・゜゜・❁・゜゜・．
It started when you moved into the house two doors down from him right before year 11.
You had climbed out of your mum's car as he was taking the rubbish out to the bin, his black headphones pulled over his ears. He had felt anxious right then- horrified he'd have such a pretty neighbor. Because how the hell was he supposed to be comfortable at home knowing someone who looked like you lived so close?
It had been that same week his own parents decided to introduce the family, and the three of them set off to your house much to Mattheo's horror.
You'd smiled at him when you answered the front door, wearing a pretty lip gloss that gave him tunnel vision.
The next week at school was when it became apparent that you were too cool for him. Your parents had agreed it would be better if you and Mattheo were to walk to school together, saying a group of two was better than walking alone. On the way home you had talked about your classes, looking gorgeous in the school uniform, blazer unbuttoned.
"It was fun," you had gushed, smiling and skirting around a puddle. "I couldn't find you at lunch but some people invited me to sit with them so it wasn't too bad."
He didn't bother explaining you couldn't find him because he often ate outside behind the school. That was where the loners ate, which included him and a few of his mates. And he definitely didn't want to look like a loser in front of you.
And it became a routine.
He'd eat breakfast then wait outside your door to walk to school. You would talk - you more than him - about everything. Then, at school, you'd split and go you're separate ways with separate friends. It wasn't like you avoided each other - you'd smile at him and say hi in class - but you weren't closely associated.
On the walks home he grew accustomed to people tagging along. At first, your friends were a little surprised to see you walking home with Mattheo Riddle, the quiet guy who spent too much time writing in his journal and smoking cheap cigarettes behind the bleachers. He even kept his jealousy down when Noah Abney joined you two almost every day for nearly three months.
------
Your extended family lived far away, and Mattheo's parents weren't very close with their own siblings, so both your families decided to spend Christmas Eve dinner together. When you're parents had told you the news, you'd been excited, realizing you should get Mattheo a gift.
On Christmas Eve, you'd handed him the small present, accepting the one he'd gotten for you. Neither of you had coordinated it - and he'd been shocked to see you'd bought something for him.
You'd opened your gift first, shocked to find a new set of watercolor brushes. You had completely forgot about complaining that your brushes were worn, that the bristles wouldn't hold their shape anymore. And here was a pretty new set with pristine bristles.
"Oh my goodness." Your eyes had widened slightly, admiring the assortment of brushes. They were nicer than the last ones you'd had. "Thank you so much, Mattheo."
He'd smiled, the gratitude making him feel so shy it was painful. "Happy Christmas."
"Open mine."
Awkwardly, he'd reached for the wrapped gift, ripping the golden wrapping paper. Within, he'd found Hatful and Hollow.
It was for his walkman, the one he always had with him. One day he'd mentioned his favorite song was 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' by the Smiths and you'd noticed he didn't have the whole album, just the one song on a mixtape his parents made for his birthday.
That night, you two had sat in the living room. You knelt in front of the coffee table, painting a flower vase while he lied on the couch, headphones on.
It had been peaceful, one of the few times you two had hung out outside of walking to and from school. The Christmas tree lights had warmed the room, the wireless playing soft music for your sake.
Mattheo never told you about the letter he wrote for you, the one he chickened out of including in his gift.
------
In may, he'd been sitting on the stone wall in his small backgarden, headphones on. The stars were out above him. He had been kicking around a football before he got bored.
He'd turned his head when your back porch light flicked on, someone walking outside before the light went off again. Through the dim moonlight, he'd watched you cross your grass to lie on your family's trampoline. Raking a hand through his curls and fixing the white long sleeve he had under his tee, he'd walked across the stone wall to your lawn, whispering in the darkness.
"y/n?"
Your head had shot up, whipping towards the sound. "Who's there?"
His breathing had been quiet, his brain screaming at him. It was a mistake - talking to you outside of walking to and from school. But he'd answered back, approaching the trampoline. "Mattheo."
"Oh." A pause. "Come up here."
He'd boosted himself onto the trampoline, crawling over to where your silhouette lay. Tentatively, scared you were going to tell his lame ass to go away, he lied down next to you.
The silence had been awkward for a bit, the stars your only company outside on the trampoline.
"Where's your name from?" You'd asked him, tilting your head to look at him beside you. It was a random question, but one you were curious on.
"It's Italian." His hands had rested on his stomach, tapping a rhythm to distract himself from the scent of your perfume. At your quizzical hum, he'd said, "my mum's parents are Italian."
The silence fell upon you too again, the only sounds filling the night being the occasional car driving by.
He had surprised himself with his next question. "Why did you break up with Abney?" It was barely a whisper, the darkness emboldening him to finally ask the question he'd been wondering since February when you two broke up.
You hadn't responded for a while, and he could hear your breathing slow, like you were considering it.
"He wanted to get married," you'd answered, voice just as quiet. And then you'd let out a soft, yet bitter laugh. "Which I sound awful for ending it over that. But I'm sixteen, I don't want to commit to marrying someone at sixteen."
But Mattheo hadn't thought you were awful - it'd made sense. "So you don't want to tie yourself down?"
"Bloody hell - no!" You'd laughed, shaking your head. "At least not yet. I don't want to be stuck. Sixteen is way too young for that."
"You're right."
And he'd suddenly felt silly for liking you so much, dreaming about being yours and you being his for a long while.
------
And then, once you both started Sixth Form, you stopped walking to school together.
Mattheo had a free period at the beginning of the day, leaving you to walk on your own at 8:20 every morning. And even though he had been dreaming and wishing of it, it was you who made the effort to keep walking home together. You forced him to wake up early one morning so you could coordinate a meeting place.
And it continued. You'd smile at him in the hall or pair with him in classes where neither of you really had friends.
He was still a loser, spending his time wandering around town instead of doing homework. And you kept your reputation from year 11. You were well known, too cool for someone like him.
But the worst thing was that he didn't stop wanting you. Even when he started dating Eleanor Grabham.
When his mum had asked why he split up with her, he'd said it was because they'd both been too busy and not that he couldn't stop thinking about you.
On his seventeenth birthday, he finally got his drivers license after going through the process for months. His parents didn't get him a car until a bit later considering how expensive it already was for him to get his license. But once he did get a car, it only made it easier for him to waste time.
He drove around doing jackshit, but what pretty good at avoiding punishment when he broke curfew or driving laws.
But the best times were when you agreed to tag along.
Some nights you had to climb from your window. But that made it all the more fun. You would laugh louder, enjoy the drives more.
------
That Christmas your family had done the same thing, and so had you two.
You'd bought him another gift, this time a handsome watch you had seen him eyeing once at second-hand store when you two walked there after school. His eyes had lit up, and he'd thanked you with a hug. Which unfortunately turned awkward quick.
On the other hand, he'd wrapped your present in a paper patterned with snowmen. Inside, you'd found a silver camera, one where you could take as many photos as you pleased as long as you saved them.
That same night, like the one before, you both sat together in the living room. Though this time you talked.
"What's your biggest wish?" You'd asked, clicking through things on your camera, holding it up to your eye to look at him through.
"Not telling you," he'd responded simply, earning an eye roll from you.
"Why not?" You'd challenged.
"Because it's personal." He had just finished setting his watch to the right time. "Besides, would you tell me yours."
You had considered him for a long moment before grinning. "I suppose I wouldn't."
------
Tonight, you were an hour from home, avoiding the fact it was far too late and you both had school tomorrow.
"Matt, that shirt is horrifying," you laugh, one hand out the window, the air bitingly cold, but neither of you minded to much.
"It isn't that bad," he argues, a grin on his lips as he takes a corner far too sharply. "You have too many problems with my clothes."
"It's not my fault your mum stopped helping you shop," you continue to tease, reaching for the soda you had bought twenty minutes ago. "Honestly, you really do need help."
He gave you an unimpressed look, his eyes sleepy and dreadfully sexy.
"I'm parking," he announces, managing to find a playground with free parking and turning into the lot. "Need a break." He grabs his own soda, the one you got for him as payment for letting you come along. Even though he insisted he liked when you came with.
You open the car door without explanation, and clamber into the backseat instead, sighing in relish and stretching your legs out. Grinning, he unbuckles as well.
"Oi, move over."
"I was here first!"
"It's my car."
Rolling your eyes, but laughing, you sit up slightly so he can slide in beside you. "What time is it?" You wonder, looking out the window.
He glances at his watch - the one you bought for him at Christmas. "12:48. We're so fucked for classes tomorrow."
"At least you get to sleep in," you sigh, resting your head back against the cool window. "Your car reeks of smoke, Matt."
You watch him shrug, a faint smile playing on his lips. The same smile you've admired for nearly two years. "You too cool for smoking now?"
"Yeah," you answer without pause, nudging his knee with you foot.
He watches you for a moment, his eyes sobering noticeably. "Damnit," he sighs, and you watch him with raised eyebrows.
"What?"
"You've always been too cool for me."
You scoff, surprised and a bit confused at the words. "Bullshit."
"Bullshit that that's bullshit," he counters, shaking his head and dragging a hand through his dark curls. "You're too good, popular, and brilliant for me, y/n."
"Where's this coming from?" You ask, sitting up straighter.
"I'm exhausted, all right?" He sighs, eyes fluttering shut. You watch his dark lashes kiss the tops of his cheeks. "Don't have the energy to filter myself right now."
You remain quiet for a long moment, refusing to let your eyes leave him.
"I'm not too cool for you."
"Yes, you are"
"No, I'm not."
It's childish, an argument similar to the bickering you two have enjoyed after walking together for so long.
"You are so out of my league." Now he's bumping your knee with his foot.
Huffing, you shift closer to him, his eyes still shut. Each of his retorts coming from him with his head tipped back. And because you've been dreaming of this since you saw him in his driveway with his black headphones and that worn jumper he threw out ages ago, you tentatively wrap your hand in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer to you.
His eyes flutter open, looking so sleepy and perfect.
"What're you doing?" His voice is suddenly breathless. You watch his throat bob as he swallows.
Without answering, you arm slides around his neck, and his mouth is on yours. For a terrifying moment, you think you misread the situation, because he's not kissing you back. Maybe he meant you were too cool to be his friend.
But then he groans, one hand going to your hip, the other reaching to cup you jaw. He tilts your head, deepening the kiss as he presses you against the backseat cushions. His thumb brushes your cheek, his tongue tasting of Lilt soda.
You dig a hand into his hair, fingers tangling in the curls, eliciting another sound from his mouth.
"Fucking hell," he murmurs against your lips, eyes still closed. "I've wanted to do that for ages."
You let out a breathless laugh, fingers curling into his hair. "But I was 'too cool for you'?"
"Far too cool for me," he says lowly, dipping his head to nip at your jaw. "Couldn't let you go around kissing losers like me." His hair tickles your skin as he kisses your neck gently, hand running up and down your waist.
"Wish you'd known I couldn't give two shits," you answer, cupping his jaw, pulling his mouth back to yours.
I'm so in love with this girl
Is all he can think as you kiss him, arms around his neck, tasting so sweet and kissing him so good. You press a kiss to his throat, feeling it bob beneath your lips.
"Remember Christmas?" He asks, voice breathless. You pull away to see his eyes shut, his hand holding your hips.
"Mhm," you answered, and he buried his face in your shoulder, nose nudging your throat.
"When you asked me my biggest wish."
You nod, fingers tracing shapes over his back, surrounded by his warmth and smell, processing that this was happening. "I remember."
"All I wanted, was for you to want me." You feel him draw a breath against your skin.
"I want you a lot," you say, feeling so comfortable and happy pressed between him and the backseat.
He lets out a small sound, and wraps his arms around your waist, holding you tighter and closer. "I didn't think you would. Not just because you're out of my league, but because you said you didn't want to be tied down and stuck."
You pause, tapping his back slightly.
"It's different when it's you." You kiss the top of his head. "Besides, you don't make me feel weighed or tied down, Matt."
He feels something akin to butterflies explode in his stomach and suddenly he's kissing you again, and between the heat of your breaths and your bodies pushed together, his car windows fog. But he pays it no attention, focused on kissing you, feeling your swollen lips against his and relishing the fact that this is really happening.
It's ages later that you both part completely, and you watch with you own sleepy eyes as he writes on the fogged up windows, a heart with your initials.
"That's sappy," you tease, though it makes your chest warm.
"Leave me alone," he huffs, giving you a side long glance. He sighs, his eyes fluttering shut. He looks so perfect, a hickey marked beneath his ear, his lips red and swollen from kissing, his hair messy. But he breaks the perfect moment. "We should probably go back."
He's not wrong. It's nearly two in the morning, but you don't want to risk losing what just happened between you two. And he seems to sense it.
"We'll go back. And we'll go to school." He pauses. "And we won't avoid each other, or only give each other smiles. As long as you're willing to hang out with a loser like me... may I be your boyfriend, y/n?"
You're unable to stop yourself from grinning, chest warming further. "I'd love for you to be my boyfriend, Matt."
He sits back against the backseat and pulls you into his lap, kissing your temple. "Perfect. We'll pick this up tomorrow after school. Now go to sleep, I'll wake you up when we're home."
------
a/n: STOP I WRITE CRINGY ASS ENDINGS. Anyways, thank you for reading!!
↝warning: usual TWD stuff, not proofread, angst, worry about Sophia, feeling hopeless, flashback to Daryl's childhood, Merle, young selfish Merle, feeling excluded, embarrassment, mention of drugs, mention of abuse, mention of yelling/verbal abuse, mention of alcohol, death, mention of suicide (not detailed at all)
↝⎙ 8.6.26
|| Disclaimer: I do not own Daryl Dixon, or any character from The Walking Dead. I only own y/n and any characters I create with my own brain. ||
Series Masterlist | Character Masterlist
Tension was high after Daryl and Rick came back, no Sophia in sight. Carol was miserable. Her daughter was out there, somewhere. With no one to help her, to protect her. She was alone.
Some people in the group looked at Rick like he was a monster– for leaving her all alone. They thought of how they would have done it differently– better. Others looked at him with pity. The guilt was eating at him, that much was apparent. Throughout the night, he whispered under his breath; “I told her to stay put– I told her”.
Night fell and everyone let sleep consume them. Everyone except Carol, who laid down in Dale's RV, the small mattress dipping under her fragile state, the covers pulled up to her chin. She never seemed to run out of tears. Dale, who stayed on the roof of his RV, cemented to the lawn chair, binoculars set on the trees. Daryl, who kept an eye on the tree lines too, tracking each and every movement. You, who kept hearing the scream Sophia had omitted before she ran.
Even when your eyes felt heavy, bones fatigued, you stayed awake, right by his side.
“Get some sleep.” Daryl had muttered for the umpteenth time. HIs eyes never left the trees. You turned your head to him, resting back on the truck hood. Your legs swung from under you.
The moon was kind enough to offer its brightness for the night, permitting you the ability to see each other even in the deepest hours of the night.
The tension was back in between his brows. Your touch couldn't wipe this worry away. No this time.
“No.”
He shook his head, huffing out frustration.
“She’s fine.” That made him turn to you, face blank.
“Ya think?”
His question was sincere, if not desperate.
You studied his face.
“Yeah. I mean…she has to be, right? She just got spooked.” You nodded your head, as if convincing yourself just as much as him.
She had to be fine.
He didn’t seem to be convinced. His voice lowered, “If she aint?”
Your volume matched his, “She has to be.”
Carol was depending on her to be fine. To be alive.
He shook his head, jumping off of the hood of his truck, grabbing his bow. Your hand grabbed his bicep before he could take another step. “What’re you doing?” “Findin’ ‘er.” “In the middle of the night? C’mon.” Your hand ran down his arm, setting in the roughness of his palm. “A search party is going first thing in the morning.” “What if it’s too late?”
You stared up at him, at his frown.
“You’ll find her. When there’s actually light to see.”
After a second, he faltered, “She’s scared.”
-
It was a dark night in June. Bugs buzzed and birds chirped. Lightning bugs blinked. The air was humid, even at night. Daryl trudged through the woods, all of the trees looking the same to the 9 year-old. His heartbeat was in his ears, eyes filled with tears.
He didn’t mean to. Really.
Merle trudged through the woods and Daryl was his little brother, wanting to feel included. How was he supposed to know Merle was meeting up with friends who didn’t want the company of a 9 year-old? How was he supposed to know Merle didn't want him anywhere near the rugged group and the drugs they reeked of? He didn’t know Merle would get so mad.
Daryl had followed the biggered footsteps until a highpitched laugh rang through the trees. He looked past the tree, seeing a group of teenagers clinging to one another. Merle stood in the middle, holding out a baggie as it swung in front of the group. A blonde jumped up from her seat, yanking the bag, “Got a light?” She raised a thick brow at Merle, who smirked. “Got anything you could possibly want.” He ran his hand over his buzzed hair. Another girl, redheaded, arched her back, pushing her bikini-top clad chest out.
“Whose the kid?”
Merle turned to the guy sitting beside the redhead, who looked way too old to be hanging out with a group of teenagers. He pointed at the tree where Daryl stood.
Merle turned, face falling. “What’re ya doin’? Did ya follow me?” Then fury was immediate.
Daryl opened his mouth to speak, but he could only stand there, wide-eyed. Caught.
“I told ya to stop followin’ me like a lost puppy, damnit.” He trudged to Daryl, fire behind his eyes. If you looked close enough, you would be able to see the fear. If their dad found out about this…
Daryl would squeak, that much Merle knew. To avoid a beating, the kid would rat out Merle on everything. The girls and sneaking out would cost him a rough beating on its own. The weed he brought was another story. He didn’t want to think about that. Not right now. Not when his reputation was on the line.
He reached Daryl, pushing him back.
“Get lost.”
Daryl stepped back with the impact, but stared up at his older brother.
“I want to hangout-” “You’re a kid.” Merle laughed a scoff.
His face fell, his hand coming out again. “Go.”
“Merle-” “Go! Get lost.” Merle repeated.
His anger was growing by the second. The group was silent behind him, which only made it worse. He was embarrassed at this point.
“Dad’s home.” Daryl muttered, eyes wide.
“That’s not my problem.” Merle’s voice raised. He pointed in the direction of the house.
Still, Daryl stayed standing there, eyes wide.
“Goddamn it!” Frustrated, Merle pushed Daryl again, causing him to stumble back. “Go.”
Daryl regained his footing, just as Merle raised his hand, connecting it to the tree Daryl had been hiding behind. At the sudden movement, Daryl flinched, stepping back. A tree limb rolled from under his foot, sending him tumbling backwards to the hard ground.
Tears welled up in Daryl’s eyes as he stared up at Merle. He had reached out to catch himself halfway to the ground, causing his wrist to take the weight. It ached as he pulled it to his chest.
Merle’s frustration vanished for a second, staring down at his little brother, “Daryl-”
Daryl’s lip wobbled as he quickly stood, turned on his feet, and ran away.
He didn’t worry about where he was going, as long as it was away from Merle, and away from the others who were probably laughing at his expense.
The green and brown blended together in his watery gaze.
He stifled, slowing his pace.
A twig snapping alerted him. He swung around, blinking frantically. He came face to face with a huge Buck. The thick antlers were lined with velvet, eyes glassy. The fur was a light brown, with a white stomach and a white stripe down the middle of his face. Ears were twitching on the top of his head as he stilled.
Daryl sniffled again, causing the deer to whip his head around. His head tilted and he blinked, seemingly staring at Daryl.
The young boy stared wide-eyed. He slowly stepped forward, his hand itching to feel the fur. With another sniff, he reached his hand out fully, an inch or so away from the snout of the animal. Seeming spooked, the deer turned, jumping away from Deryl and sprinting away.
Staring after the animal, Daryl looked around, turning on his heels.
The trees all looked the same.
The sun had set, moon light filtering through the trees. Where he stood, the light showed just enough for him to see the leaf-covered ground under his feet. He stared up at the moon, backing up into the bark of a nearby tree.
He didn’t know where to go, which way was home. He didn’t know if he even wanted to go back home. With his dad home, surely drinking his 5th beer, slumped in the recliner, and Merle sneaking into the backdoor, maybe the quiet woods were better.
Safer, in a way.
The trees wouldn’t yell at him. The animals wouldn’t throw beer bottles at his head when he stepped through the door. The insects wouldn’t push him and exclude him. The dirt wouldn’t spit in his face. The moon wouldn’t make him feel weak for the tears he shed.
-
You inhaled deeply as sleep wore off, your brain becoming alert. You weren’t on the hood of the truck anymore. The dingy fabric cushioned your body as much as they could in the old, creaky truck. Daryl sat behind you, back to the door as his body angled toward you, letting you lean on him and half his chest. At the inhale, he slowly dragged his hooded eyes to you, watching you stretch.
“You let me fall asleep.” You accused, wiping sleep from your eyes. The sound of your hoarse voice alerted the dog, who had slept in the passenger seat all night, seemingly having no complaints on the dingy fabric seats, unlike your joints. They were stiff and your neck muscles felt tight. But, it’s better than how you would feel given that Daryl hadn’t put you in the truck when you fell asleep. You probably would’ve turned and tossed your way off of the hood and onto the concrete below. The cricks were welcomed at the alternative.
“Needed it.”
“So did you.” By the dark circles under his eyes and slow blink, you could tell he didn’t attempt to fall asleep even for a second. He rested his head back on the window, staring forward. It was quiet, no movement from anyone else. Dale had seemed to have grown tired himself. No one was on the top of the RV. Others were spewn across the seats of their cars, chests evenly rising and lowering.
Daryl leaned forward, letting his forehead rest on the back of your head, his arms rounded your waist, keeping you close.
Finally, he let his eyes close for longer than a blink.
His hands slowly trailed down your arm, pausing at the bracelet on your wrist. Eyes still closed, he rubbed the thickly woven fabric, rough thumb catching every so often.
Just for a few moments, he let the world fall away. It was only the two of you. Your soft skin, his even breathing. The cool morning air.
Feeling the warmth all around you, your own eyes fluttered shut, body relaxing back into the thick, muscled front of him.
A low whine broke the comfortable silence. Daryl huffed, hands falling limp from your wrist.
His accent was thick, layered with sleep, “Damn dog.”
-
Your hold on the hatchet was firm as you walked through the woods, green evading your sight from all directions. Almost everyone followed Dayl in a line through the trees, yielding a weapon of some kind, most from the kit Carl had found, your hatchet included. It was easy to swing, quiet.
The ache in your ankle had eased up, but would probably flare up again with the weight. You tried not putting all of your weight on it, tried to seem like walking was effortless, wanting to find Sophia. She was the issue at hand. She was worth the ache of your ankle. Carol’s relief would be worth any pain you were to feel while searching.
Falling in step with Rick, who followed Daryl closely, you came to a halt when Daryl raised his hand, motioning to stop. The group looked over each other's shoulders to see what he was pointing at. A bright green tent was covered by a thin line of trees.
Daryl ducked, waiting for any movement within the tent.
“She could be in there.” Shane offered.
“Could be a whole bunch of things in there.” He whispered, rising from the swatting position, inching toward the tent. Rick motioned for everyone else to stay back as they tiptoed forward. Rick and Shane stopped, letting Daryl yield his knife as he stepped forward, readying himself for whatever would be in the tent. The flap was half unzipped. He walked around, looking through any hole the tent provided. With no sign of movement, he shrugged.
Rick whispered Carol’s name, beckoning her closer. She ran, hand over her mouth in anticipation. “Call out softly. If she’s in there, yours is the first voice she should hear.”
“Sophia…sweetie. Are you in there?” You held your breath, watching Daryl as he held his own breath, waiting for any movement.
“Sophia, it’s mommy. Sophia, we’re all here, baby.” Carol was becoming desperate each moment there was no reply. “It’s mommy.” Rick stepped forward and Daryl began unzipping the rest of the flap. The sound seemed to echo within the forest full of hope that each of you had. He slowly lifted the flap.
He immediately turned his head, coughing at the rank smell he was met with. Rick and Shane doubled over, coughing and gagging. Daryl stepped over the tent, inspecting what was in there, the flap falling down behind him.
“Daryl?”
No response.
“Daryl?” Carol tried again.
The flap flung open and Daryl stepped out.
“It ain’t her.”
Carol turned around, sighing in a mix of frustration and relief.
“What’s in there?” “Some guy. Did what Jenner said- opted out. Ain’t that what he called it?” He swung the cross bow to his back, stepping away from the tent, shaking his head.
A sound akin to a church bell alerted everyone. At the point in the direction of the sound, everyone ran, thumping across the mossy ground.
You came to a small clearing of dead, fallen trees. The running had lulled to a cautious walk. “What direction?” Shane huffed.
Rick pointed, “I think that way– I’m pretty sure.”
“Damn, it’s hard to tell out here.” Shane cursed.
“If we hear them,” Carol wheezed, “Maybe Sophia does too.”
Glenn stepped over a log, “Someone’s ringing those bells, maybe calling others.” “Or signaling that they found her.” Andrea countered.
“She could be ringing them herself.” Rick sped up, falling back into a run.
Next part: TBA
•2021-2026 by xoxo-sarah on Tumblr•
•My work is not to be translated, copied, modified, and/or reposted on any other site without my permission. [I do NOT give permission!]
↝a/n: I was unaware of how long it had been since I last updated this series. Wdym it's been 7 months? I am so sorry! I tried making the wait worth it, but I seem to be a little rusty. I HATE the flow of this and I hate how it turned out. Hopefully y'all don't! 🩷
↝pairing: season1!Daryl Dixon x wife!reader
↝warning: usual TWD stuff, not proofread, timeline does not completely add up with the show, blood, gore, etc. Maybe the characters are slightly ooc but it's okay- trust!
↝⎙ 6.9.26
|| Disclaimer: I do not own Daryl Dixon, or any character from The Walking Dead. I only own y/n and any characters I create with my own brain. ||
Series Masterlist | Character Masterlist
Your fingers ran over white fur, dragging out any knots in the long, thick fur. Small snores emitted from the puppy in your lap. She had instantly snuggled up to you.
It was silent in the truck, with only the two of you. Daryl focused on the road and the others cars leading the way, and you tried to not think about what you were driving away from.
The train of cars had stopped shortly after you had left what was left of the C.D.C. The goal was to move on to Fort Benning.
Coming to the highway, cars were piled up, an 18-wheeler flipped on its side, the smell of death and leaking gas palpable. Glass littered the road, blood seeped into the cracks of the road, dried in the concrete.
Everyone had been maneuvering through the abandoned cars, until the R.V’s radiator had blown. Daryl insisted on you staying in the car, saying it would only be a minute. You watched as he looked through cars, looking for anything of use, before moving to the next car. He lifted the hood of a car, his arms flexing as one hand kept the hood up, and the other messed around.
Glancing to the side, you caught movement in the side mirror. Squinting, you noticed a walker. Behind it was another. Then, another. They slowly made their way over to where everyone was. You turned, looking out the back glass. Turning back around, you saw Rick turning to where you had been looking. He squinted, before raising his gun.
Looking back again, a herd of walkers had gathered around the turned-over car. Panic hammered in your chest. Luckily, everyone had become aware and were trying to hide. Most of them rolled under the cars. You ducked in the seat, away from the window. The puppy in your lap moved a little, but fell back asleep. Holding your breath, you watched as they by, stumbling and snarling and staggering after the other. They weaved around the cars. The herd seemed to never end. A bang on the window had you jumping out of your skin, the dog’s head jerking up, alert. Her head tilted, ears back.
A walker had stumbled right into the side of the truck, but was looking forward. Still, the dog stared, a growl coming from her chest. “Shh.” You tried, moving further into the floor board. She looked at you, then back to the window. The walker was gone, but now the dog was alert, watching as the last few of them walked past. After a moment, you glanced up, into the side mirror, checking if the coast was clear.
Finally being able to breath, you pulled yourself up into the seat, looking for the others. Your heart was loud in your ears. Your eyes instantly found Daryl, who was pushing a body off of himself, before helping T-Dog do the same. Your eyes frantically swept over his body, looking for any injury. He dusted himself off. No sign of any harm. T-Dog, however, held his arms with a pained expression. Blood gushed through his fingers. Daryl tore the bottom of his shirt, wrapping it around his arms tightly and quickly.
A scream alerted you and the dog. When you looked up, you saw a head of strawberry blonde hair half stumbling and half running into the woods, a few walkers in tow. Rick jumped over the railing, following after them quickly after. Everyone ran out from their hiding spots, keeping a hysterical Carol from following. “There’s two walkers after my baby!” She wailed, legs giving out in the process. Lori shushed her, trying to keep her from alerting any more walkers.
A bark released from the puppy, watching the scene just as you were. Daryl ran toward the truck, opening up the door and reaching under his seat. His favorite hiding spot it seemed. He kept most of his hunting gear under the seats. ‘Easy to grab on the go', he had told you before. Now, they weren’t just useful when he decided to hunt or needed to protect himself. Now, it was useful to keep himself and you alive in a world full of monsters that would claw your face off and peel the skin off of your bones with their teeth.
He pulled out a box with arrows, and a hand gun with a small box of bullets. “Sophia ran off. We’re gonna search for ‘er.”
You sat up, “I’ll help.” You weren't about to sit in the truck and do nothing.
He looked up, squinting at you, before deciding it wasn’t worth the fight. Sophia was out there, scared out of her mind if she wasn't already a walkers lunch. Plus, you could help keep Carol from sprinting into the woods. You were good with a bow yourself. You could help keep everyone safe from a distance, while he helps Rick look for Sophia. It’s not like he was willing to let you go into the woods with the state of your ankle anyway.
He dug deeper under his seat, pulling out his old bow, the one he had used in his childhood, before you came along and bought him another for his birthday. It was old, but could still shoot an arrow into the eye of whatever you chose.
“‘Member how to use it?” You nodded. He had taught you early on in the relationship. Thankfully. If it weren’t for him teaching you how to wield weapons, you probably wouldn’t have lived in the abandoned city as long as you did. “Alright.”
You jumped out of the truck, dog in your arms, as Daryl handed you the old bow. He led you to the group, and Dale offered for you to sit on the top of the rv, being a lookout, especially since your foot was still throbbing with every step.
That didn’t matter to you. What did matter was being of use. You weren’t about to sit in the truck and be useless for the rest of the time you all were on the road. Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Shane were in the woods now, searching for Sophia. You weren’t about to sit on your ass and do nothing to contribute.
Not many walkers have stumbled upon the group, but if they were any in your sight, you shot them before you could hear their snarl. You sat in the lawn chair Dale had on the roof of the old R.V, looking through the small scope of the crossbow.
An arrow flew through the air, plunging into a walker's skull, right as the ladder on the side of the rv creaked. “You might be a better shot than Daryl.”
You smiled at T-Dog, glancing at his bandaged arm. “What is the saying- The student has become the teacher- or something like that?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that.” He looked at his arm for a moment, before looking back up at you. “I feel like a burden. Getting cut up by a car? C’mon, that’s some stupid shit, man. How am I supposed to help out around here?”
“It would be harder to help out if you were dead. You’ll be fine. We’re all gonna be fine.” Your eyes found the trees, searching for any sign on Daryl. Or Sophia.
He squatted, petting the dog with his good hand, watching as her tail wagged. “Got a name?”
“Haven’t really had time to think about it.” Your mind had been preoccupied as of late.
“'T-Dog' is fittin'.” He left out a huff of amusement. You shook your head, aiming for another walker that was yet to be seen by the others of the group.
They paced, trying to keep Carol from darting to the woods, and trying to rummage through the abandoned cars. Hoping to find anything useful.
“Probably need to change that before it gets infected.” You glanced at his arm, where a shirt was wrapped around his arm with his blood soaking through it. He shrugged you off, and let silence fall over you.
The day drew on, sunlight retreated behind the horizon, bugs came alive and chirped every other second.
Before long you were with Carol, who shook in her shoes. You tried reassuring her, “Daryl- he can track just about anything. He’ll find her.”
She didn’t give you a response, or any indication that she heard you.
If Daryl was anything, it was determined. He was determined to find Sophia. He had always had a soft spot for kids. When your family visited, very rarely, the kids flocked to him every time. He tried to act nonchalant about it all, but he enjoyed it. He’d help them find ‘good’ sticks so the kids could run around and play fight, acting as if they were wielding swords and guarding some type of treasure (Daryl’s toolbox). After his own rough childhood, it was nice to not feel like kids were as scared of him as he was of his own father. Maybe that is part of why he was so set on finding Sophia. He was out there looking for her like how he wished someone would have looked for him when he ran away from home. Away from the hitting and yelling. He would get lost in the woods, but the trees, bugs, and wild animals offered more than his broken home ever did.
The conversation of kids was brought up a time or two in your relationship, but Daryl had this fear of turning out like his father. He never told you, but you knew. You could tell. He did everything in his power to not end up like his dead-beat father. He was softer, always had been and always would be. Especially with people he cared about. With you. With what you could bring into this world.
Now?
The world had practically ended. The people that surrounded you were your family now. You cared for the kids as if they were your own. The adults like they were your siblings. You all cared about each other enough to protect the other. Who knew that an apocalypse- the world falling apart- could bring some people the comfort they had seeked when the world was ‘normal’.
—
Daryl knelt down in the water, looking at where Rick had said he had left Sophia. “You sure this is the spot?” It was harder to track the darker the night got.
Rick stepped toward, “I left her right here.” He turned, pointing forward, “I drew the walkers way off in that direction up the creek.”
“Without a paddle-seems where we’ve landed.”
Daryl trudged through the creek, ignoring the water submerging the bottoms of his legs and pants-boots soaked.
“She was gone by the time I got back here. I figured she just took off and ran back to the group. I told her to go that way and keep the sun on her left shoulder.”
Daryl glanced from Rick to where he pointed, tracking eyes searching for any sign in the mud, broken twigs. He stepped closer, finding a pair of sneakers in the path. He stared up at what was attached to the shoes, “Hey, short round, why don’t you step off to one side? You’re mucking up the trail.” Glenn looked down, before shuffling off to the right, looking back down at the ‘trail’ he was ‘mucking up’.
“Assuming she knows her left from her right.” Shane muttered. Daryl huffed slightly under his breath, tired of hearing Shane’s voice. Daryl wasn’t dumb, despite what many people think. He could pick up on stuff, such as the tension between Shane and Lori. Before Rick had turned up, they were close. Then, Lori glared at Shane every chance she got. Shane stared at her, at her family, with his jaw clenched. He wasn’t oblivious to the times where they would both disappear from the group when they were at the quarry. That’s mostly why he and Merle would try to stay gone. Hunting kept them busy, away from the drama brewing.
“Shane. She understood me fine.”
Shane signed, hands on his hips, “Kid’s tired and scared, man.” And probably already dead, he probably thought. “She had her a close call with two walkers.Got to wonder how much of what you said stuck.” Rick looked away, jaw and shoulders tense.
Got clear prints right here.” Daryl pointed out, “She did like you said, headed back to the highway.” He stepped up, out of the water. Raising his hand for Shane to help him out of the creek. “Let’s spread out, make our way back.”
Daryl followed the Sohpia’s tracks, ducking under trees and around shrubs. He stopped, eyebrows furrowing, and knelt down on the muddy, leaf covered ground. “She was doin’ just fine ‘til right here.” He pointed at where her shoes had halted and turned. The indention was deeper than before, where she had used more force to move away from whatever it was she was running from, or toward whatever she had seen. “All she had to do was keep goin’. She veered off that way.” He pointed to the side, where her footprints lead.
“Why would she do that?” Glenn asked.
Shane shrugged, “Maybe she saw something that spooked her, made her run off.”
“A walker?”
Daryl shook his head, “I don’t see any other footprints. Just hers.”
“So what do we do? All of us press on?”
“No,” Rick answered Shane, “Better if you and Glenn get back up to the highway. People are gonna start panicking. Let them know we’re on her trail, doing everything we can. But most of all, keep everybody calm.”
“I’ll keep ‘em bust scavenging cars. Think up a few other chores. I’ll keep ‘em occupied.”
Daryl didn’t listen to the others as he continued to follow the tracks, pushing leaves aside to find the small foodprints. He pushed through the brush, only turning to motion for Rick to follow him as Shane and Glenn made their way back to the road.
They walked further into the woods, until Daryl came to a halt.
“The tracks are gone.” Rick said in an exhale.
“No,” Daryl ducked, getting a closer look, “They’re faint, but they ain’t gone. She came through here.”
“How can you tell?” Rick looked around, “I don’t see anything. Dirt, grass.”
“You want a lesson in tracking or you want to find that girl and get our ass off that interstate?”
Rick stared at the back of Daryl’s head, wondering how a woman like you dealt like the attitude of your husband. You two seemed so…different.
What he didn’t see was how you two anchored the other. You weren’t really that different.
—
You followed the puppy, watching as she stopped to sniff the tired every now and then. Her ears perked when a struggling of shoes against concrete alerted her. Carl trudged past, holding a leather binding of some kind. His head was hung low, frown etched across his face. “What's that you got there?"
He looked up and stopped walking, holding the leather like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Knives and hatchets. An arsenal." He mumbled out.
Your face twisted, “That's pretty cool. Where'd you find it?"
He looked behind him, before turning back to you, stepping closer and talking quietly. “This guy in a truck was holding it. He nearly fell on me when I grabbed it."
“What? Did you get hurt? Did you get bit-" your worries were cut short.
“No- it wasn't a walker. He was already dead. Smelled really bad." The puppy ran over to him, sniffing at him, tail wagging vigorously. Carl leaned down, holding the leather on his side as he began petting the dog.
“Oh." Your eyes searched him, making sure he wasn't actually hurt. Your eyes fell on the leather again. “Can I see them?"
“They're pretty cool," his lips quirked in a small smile, but only for a second. He looked over his shoulder again. " Shane said for me to take them to Dale.” He looked back at you, a mischievous glint in his eye. " But I can show you, I guess.” He put the binding on the ground, unrolling it to reveal a lineup of different hatchets, knives, and machetes. They glinted in the sunset.
Carl continued petting the dog, who let out a happy sound.
You gawked, a little exaggerated to match his excitement. “These are pretty cool! I bet Dale is going to be so surprised." He nodded frantically, rolling the leather back up. Giving the dog one last pet before he walked away, his mood a little better.
Looking back down at the puppy, she was watching him leave, before she turned and ran toward a van. Walking (limping) after her, you heard talking. Slowing down, you stayed on the other side of the vehicle, not being able to help eavesdropping. It wasn't really eavesdropping if they were loud enough for others to hear, you tried justifying yourself. Voices carry when the rest of the world is dead.
Television wasn't easy to come by, after all. Entertainment was limited.
"I don’t believe you- You’re giving me the cold shoulder?” You heard Lori.
“Isnt that what you want?" Shane's voice came next. Your brow rose, ears sharp. “Weren’t you the one who said stay the hell away from him and you?”
“You forget what happened at the C.D.C? Your little meltdown in the rec room slip your mind?" She shuffled closer, voice lowering. “When you tried to-”
“When I tried to what?" Shane’s voice was low, testing. “What do you think that was?” He stepped closer, hands flexing at his side, eyes glaring, daring her in a way.
She seethed, “I think it is pretty plain what that was.”
“A mistake. One that I admit to. I have a few mistakes under my belt, Lori. So do you.” You heard feet shuffling away. Lori sighed, before following after him.
“No debate there. But, Shane, we need to stop this.”
“Why do you think I'm prepping my new ride?” He motioned to the van, looking over. You ducked. “I’m leavin’.”
“Leaving?” Her voice held confliction. She didn’t hide it well.
“As in, gone for good. Gonna quietly slip away the first chance I get.” He whispered, watching her for any reaction. Anything that said to not leave.
Hollering broke you from your daze. Daryl stumbled out of the woods, a bitter look on his face and blood splattered over his shirt and forearms. Rick had his head bowed, until he heard Carol, her voice and spirits broken, “You didn’t find her?”
Shane stormed away from Lori, who slowly walked around the car, hands on her hips, mind in the clouds.
Her gaze found you.
You ducked your eyes, snapping your fingers at the puppy, “C’mon, girl.”
Next part: TBA
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