#(the assignment was more than just that but for simplicity's sake i'll leave it there)

[honeydots]

I would like some teasers about that Xander - Soleil father-daughter support fic please 💖

HEHEHE that'd be my pleasure~~!! i'll put a couple things under the cut c:

the fanart nattie drew for me is from their c-support!! the gist of it is that xander's employing a similar punishment to soleil as he did to laslow for excessive flirting :3 but as they're working in xander's office, they both end up falling asleep, hence the little scene in the art <3

the rest of the support is about soleil lying through her teeth about how she totally isn't flirting anymore so she doesn't get in trouble again, and xander completely seeing through her lie and doing a dad-thing of trying to make her come clean herself instead of directly calling her out !!

[tartrazeen]

Tartra's Head Canon (HC) for Why Nick Missed the Evac + Why Nick Got the Witch in Tartra's Other HC (Part 1)

Here's my disclaimer right at the start:

I hate when other people do this.

Angst is fine, drama is fine, but 99% of the time, I don't like people defaulting to this kind of extreme over and over again. It's cliché in an unfun way, and as much as I love saddling Nick with as much baggage as I can fit onto him (and then I build a little bridge for him to get over it and then I pile more baggage onto that bridge lol get wreckt), I never wanted to be the person that was like, "uwu this is sad, i'll toss this in for quick sad-points lol what canon."

So I understand if everyone's first reaction is, "Tartra, that's stupid. He would've said something during the game. You don't just casually put things like that in there. That's dark."

To which I say, "i know i know but hear me out - what if he does kinda allude to it in a way that is fake 'cause i just made it up for him, and we really lean into the part where he's the only character to be like 'I am intentionally not telling you a goddamn thing about me beyond my first name. Not for the sake of time or simplicity, but because eat my butt.' does that work for you?"

If it does, awesome - let's sad-party with Nick with a bit of a descriptive fic, and Part 2 will be here for where I get into some Nellis-related commentary.

If it doesn't, then no harm, no foul, and please note that I'm very much overhyping the whole thing anyway (probably) because uwu it's my HC and I want people to give me an A+ please if I'm gonna throw it onto the internet. Like Nick and the Hindenburg, my ego is a giant balloon that could burst into flames at the faintest whiff of, "This isn't my thing but you seem to like it so I hope it makes you happy <3" I need you on board or I can't have you on my theory-blimp.

If you're genuinely like, "Is it really so bad that you need all of this preamble in front of it?"

Well - valid point! Totally valid. I don't know everyone's limits, so I'm just trying to be a careful neighbour for you folks. It might turn out to be a done-to-death idea - who knows? I'll leave it up to everyone to judge.

But anyway tw: kid death

SETTING THE STAGE

From my last HC about which survivors got what Special Infected mutation, I said Nick was a Witch.

Let's put aside all the wonderfully self-indulgent magical zombie powers that that gives him and focus on the sad, angsty parts:

Special Infected get that mutation by being infected with the Green Flu and having the right kind of physiological conditions for it to change into that

The 'right conditions' for a Witch is - as I called it - the shock of grief

I didn't describe it very well because I wanted it to work as a little teaser for this, but essentially, it's that stomach-dropping, paralyzed-in-your-own-body fugue state a person can have after getting some disastrously terrible news.

Let me compare that against someone like Zoey: in the comics, she has the almost objectively most depressing backstory in the squad. Her mother turns and kills her father, and then she has to finish her father off.

I do not count that as the same reaction as this. What I counted it as was 'nausea' (I kept it simple; it's obviously more than that) so I could assign her the Spitter, because she grits her teeth and pulls the trigger. No fugue state.

However!

Later in the comics, Zoey finds out from a scientist that if she was immune or asymptomatic, she got that from her father (i.e. her father wouldn't have turned). She immediately reacts to that in what I would consider the shock-of-grief reaction I'm describing here: horror, guilt, extreme regret, and betrayal - by herself, maybe, by the world, by the zombies, I don't know. A lot of irrational and uncontrollable feelings rising up all at once to knock her down in that moment.

If that had been her 'point of infection' that I talked about it my last HC, then she would've been a Witch too. It didn't work out that way but it's what I'm going for here with Nick.

WHY NICK WAS IN GEORGIA

Canonically, he was dickin' around. He's there to gamble and incidentally gets trapped right as the zombies hit. So here are the key canon points I'm sticking with:

Nick is not from Georgia

Nick doesn't say where he's from

Nick moves around a lot

What it doesn't say is "Nick has no home anywhere." AND BOY OH BOY, that's a treat for me.

Without drowning you in even more HCs, the short version is that he's in Georgia for work (the HCs get into what constitutes work but we don't need that right now ok it's crime stuff it's fine). He has to travel to various places for work so that's not unusual, and there are enough breaks in the work itself that he's got a lot of time to sit around.

That's it. You're all caught up with what you need to know there. :)

THE KID THING

hahahaha ok let's do this

Nick, like I said, doesn't talk. If he's got some sketchy stuff happening, I get why he'd be a private person. If it's organized and sketchy, I can see why he'd be on guard against anyone wanting to know about him. Tons of room for revenge in that line of work.

If it's organized, sketchy, and part of the 'family business' (ok now ur caught up), then I vividly see him refusing to give his potentially recognizable surname (but why give his real first name? he's sad and distracted, moving on), as well as having been raised in an environment where if you're not in the family, you don't get know anything about the family. It's a standard precaution to keep people from extrapolating way too much information from seemingly innocuous details (e.g. why military family aren't supposed to talk about buying summer clothes or something in case the 'enemy' pieces together that a big operation is coming up that requires these families to move overseas).

So Nick, out of habit, doesn't ever stumble across the topic of kids.

There aren't any kids here, anyway. And with a deflective answer like, "Oh, I just go from place to place," there's no reason to think he'd be settled down enough somewhere to raise anybody. Also, Nick is an asshole, and although he has a kick-ass number of Tired Dad lines (shoutout to "Ellis, why don't you tell us about this on the helicopter?"), he has ten times as many "Nobody can take a joke anymore >:(" ones. He's impatient, he's mean, he snaps at everybody, and that's nowhere near the attitude you'd expect from a Good Dad.

To be clear: Nick is sad. He is going through some shit. But even if I give him a pass on that for lines like, "That's great, sweetie - is there a man up there we can talk to," I am not gonna go 'uwu he's actually very nice when there aren't zombies' when there are casual banter lines for him like, "Rochelle, do you want me to tattoo your boyfriend's name on your arm? I'll just write 'Greasy Pig', we all know who we're talking about." Excellent we're-gonna-be-like-brother-and-sister-but-also-if-you're-ever-dtf-let-me-know energy, but more than that, pure and simple oh-so-you're-just-normally-like-this-huh.

But, but, but.

I HC that he's actually a great dad, and given that his definition of banter is, "No, see, I'm being an asshole with you," I think the only piece that'd still need to fall into place is that his kids are kind of assholes too. In a cute way, like how we all think Nick's pretend-assholery is cute. Like - I'm 90% sure he'd have some strict "We don't say things like that" lines when his kids are being rude, but it's just that his definition is so mixed with, ":3 i mean i thought i was funny" that those lines are in completely different places than they should be. (But then you remember that it's Nick and you're like "oh! got it.")

I have other HCs for the kids but they're disgustingly sweet and domestic. You don't need them. And to show you how flexible I am with tossing ideas around on the specifics, I have separate head canons for when it's an older kid and a younger kid, when they're twins, and when they're triplets (lmaooooo three mini-nicks). These are the only consistent facts you're gonna need to know:

They live with him

When he's travelling, someone else in the family stays over

They know to call him when they have a problem, because worst-case scenario, he'll call someone else to go sort it out

No big deal. This is their system and they're used to it. Cell phones exist.

For maximum angst, I'm gonna go through the version with the older kid and the younger kid. They're both boys, one's 11 and one's 6, and they're way more interested in chirping their dad over having to go to Georgia (derogatory) than they are about the stuff around the Green Flu. After all, dad hates germs. If it was anything serious, he wouldn't go, so that means everything is fine.

Which I think is Good Dad behaviour! Just because you're abandoning your kids right before the apocalypse starts, it doesn't mean you have to get them worried or anything. Nick's keeping an ear out for the news back home. He checks in, shares the new bullshit about this state, makes sure they're not stressed, gives a pop quiz on what to do in an emergency, and reminds them that all they have to do is call if they need him but he'll be home in like a week or whatever. They have a few nights like that. Simple.

MOM

It's maybe night three when the 11-year-old mentions that kids at school said other states are evacuating.

Which is true. This really did start taking a turn - but it's like wildfires. The country's big. Just because one corner of it's burning, it doesn't mean the whole place is gonna go up.

"But yeah, people are stupid, so flying back's gonna be hell. I'll try to catch something earlier so I beat the rush," Nick says, being a Good Dad. "You freaking out?"

No, of course not. This is Nick's kid and he's totally cool with it. People are stupid, so even if nothing's going on, it just makes sense to come back earlier so it doesn't turn into a whole thing. There's nothing to freak out about.

"Your wife is, though," the 11-year-old casually explains. "She wants us to go to her place. Y'know - in case we do have to evacuate."

Nick, very much allowing the words "Ex-wife" to cancel out with "haha fuck her she's not getting on the plane," thereby choosing to say nothing towards correcting this child either way, simply replies with, "Oh?"

"She keeps calling and asking. Do we go?"

Nick, being a very Good Dad, says, "I mean, it's up to you. You two are the ones that'll have to stay with her."

"Her apartment's small."

"HAHAHAHA IT IS! IT'S SO SMALL," Nick doesn't say. He goes with, "Yeah, but you're not going to be there for long. Just until I get you."

"So you do want us to go."

Fuck. He hates this kid.

He loves this kid but he hates this kid, and he's not going to let a child twist his words around like this is amateur hour.

"Well, kiddo, if you're calling me to ask about it," he says, twisting it right the hell back, "then I want you to do whatever makes you comfortable. She can pick you up or you can stay. It's your choice."

"... She's going to keep bothering us until we do it."

"Okay. Then it sounds the same thing that I'm dealing with for flights. If it keeps her quiet, just head over there and let me know when you get in."

Deal. The family-approved version of 'Hey Dad, shit's getting scary and I'm kinda scared, what do we do' and 'oh fuck that's bad, go to your mom's place and use her body as a shield lol' concludes with everyone staying deliberately calm.

EVAC DAY

Nick's not scared, but he isn't exactly relaxed.

Normally he'd never touch the word 'scared' to test out where he is, but this is a special occasion. His morning after a last, decently fun night before he flew home early got interrupted by a change of plans: the evacs had started.

It wasn't everywhere yet. Some states were hit hard, but some were only being cleared as a buffer between them and the places that were still safe. That'd make getting back interesting, but as he managed to explain to his kids (thank Christ the little one got his early-bird gene), the only one who had to scramble right now was him. Georgia had hit the fan. He was calling to let them know he'd be heading to one of the evac sites, but in short, they might not hear from him for a while. Don't panic. Everyone was on the phone with everybody - he was lucky to get through at all.

Don't call him unless someone was dead or dying or if orders came for them to move, too.

He's fine.

He's going to be fine.

The bigger evac sites are the ones he expressly avoids. They're too central and easy for every local yokel to get to. He's not planning on dying anytime soon, but especially not because a crowd of them found out that Mee-maw didn't count as carry-on. So he picks one of the smaller evac sites. Those might leave later, but the evac crew would already need to be there to set up. Since a schedule would go out the window if something started getting worse, it put him first in a very short line with ample time to spare.

Theoretically.

Because in reality, good God, the place became the designated hot spot for Cletus and Company to bitch about fascist government intervention. Everyone and their tractor had crowded the lobby to scream at the front desk. By the time he noticed his phone going off in his pocket, he was twelve hillbillies deep, and had to fight through another wall of fourteen before he reached one of the conference rooms off to the side.

Not that he wasn't grateful for the reprieve, but he'd expressly told them not to call unless it was an emergency. Someone had better be dead or dying right now. The thought of having to track them down was giving him a headache.

It was the little one calling. He'd figured out that much while he was knocking his way through the crowd to get here, trying to shout over the noise to tell his son to wait a second.

He assumed it'd be easier to hear now that he was somewhere quiet. Instead, he just hears blather over the other end of the line.

"I need you to slow down," he says, juggling a lot of frustrations and Good Dad techniques. "Take a breath, focus on the biggest thing, and start from there."

The 6-year-old takes a breath, then goes right back into blather. The spike of annoyance Nick gets is tempered by the thought that maybe there's some new report, and gets uncoiled entirely when he remembers the 6-year-old's probably scared too.

It's not until he settles in at the conference table that an awkward pit builds in his stomach. If this was really the 6-year-old being scared, he figured the older one would be calling him demanding that he deal with it. That was how it worked: the 6-year-old liked answering the phone, but the 11-year-old was his 'Let's just call dad to figure it out' kid.

Blather, hiccups, crying - before he went any further, he paused and listened for more details. He did it for a living, so he might as well reap the benefits of it for himself.

The 6-year-old was slowing down, which was excellent. Slowing down meant shock and panic, not immediate danger. Something had happened, but the kid was just trying to wrap his head around putting it into words.

Weirdly quiet.

Not whispering - which was excellent for the same reasons - but notably hushed.

Nick's on the verge of piecing that together when the 6-year-old hiccups something about someone being dead.

Okay. Progress. Definitely validated the choice to call, but he's -

"... Okay." The 11-year-old. According to the 6-year-old, at least. Which - was odd, basically, because he was calling from inside - a bed, that's what it was. The 6-year-old sounded like he was under a bed. Stomach down probably, which would make him sound a little quieter, and being in a smaller space would dampen the acoustics and all of that. "So what do you mean 'he's dead'? What does 'dead' mean - 'hurt'?"

The 6-year-old very helpfully said he doesn't know.

"Well - did you see him? Hear him? I'm not there," Nick says. "If you ran, that's okay, but I need more than that."

The 11-year-old jumped out the window. From the fourth floor. Apparently.

"Where's your mom?" He's trying not to be mad. His voice is steady, but he knows this isn't a prank. Something has happened, and it's pretty bullshit that this is his source of information. "Is she inside?"

Yes, their mom was inside.

"Is she okay?"

She was crying. Of course.

"Great - that's as close to okay as she gets. I need you to put her on the phone."

The 6-year-old was scared. And hiccupping. And the only responsible person over there.

"I get it, buddy," Nick has to coax. "I know it's scary. It sounds bad. But we need an adult, and right now, the only one around is your mom. So I'm going to need you to be very brave and get the phone to her, okay?"

The kid's 6. It doesn't take much more than that to get him to agree. Nick hears the shuffling of him getting out from under the bed, opening the door, and heading over to what's probably the kitchen. It's a little more echo-y.

"Listen," Nick says when the kid stops and decides he doesn't want to do it anymore, "I'm gonna throw you the biggest party in the world when I'm back, but you've gotta make this happen first."

The 6-year-old doesn't want to. Nick's aggravation is rising.

"Is she there? Is she conscious? Is it just the two of you?"

Yesses for all of them - Nick's not sure he should've asked about that last one.

"Then you've got everything you need," he says. "Unless she's waving a knife around - is she doing that?"

No. Just crying.

"Okay." Fine. "Give her the phone."

"But -"

"I'm not asking. I'm telling you." Good Dad out. Tired Dad in. Something was wrong and he would very much like to get an answer now, please. "I'm not telling you again."

So the 6-year-old goes to give his mom the phone.

It's not that it happens fast. It's just that compared to how long Nick sits listening to the screams, the amount of time he listens to everything else is a lot longer. The crying, for one, takes its own eternity. It's loud. It's odd. He hasn't heard it before.

He assumes the silence from after his phone - or the phone at home, he's not sure which - has finally died takes the longest. He's not completely sure when that starts.

But he knows when it ends.

It ends because of the yelling outside, which just came out of fucking nowhere and very violently pissed him the fuck off.

Nick gets to the door and rips it open -

"Thank God," some girl says. "Someone else. Was there an evac here?"

The lobby's empty.

"Yeah. On the roof," Nick can hear himself say.

The lobby wasn't empty a second ago.

"We didn't miss it," the only hick left in sight chimes in, delighted. "C'mon - I told you we didn't miss it!"

"Son, we're not up there yet," the last one says. "There a reason you're not?"

... Oh! Him -

"Took the scenic route," Nick tells the guy. Black dude. Big, but already out of breath. "See you up there." Maybe. "Move."

The kid in his way jumps out of it - but then all three of them are immediately on his ass as he goes for the stairs.

He doesn't hate the cardio. At least it gives him something to focus on. He might get sweaty under his suit, though, and that'd be annoying.

He liked this suit.

God - there were a lot of stairs.