#i might draw em one day if i find a way of make sense of my spaghetti of thoughts

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hello~!

So may I request a poly ghost face (from 1996) where they have an autistic trans!reader. Ik a lot (I'm projecting) the reader stims vocally by mimicking what they say, and they have a special interest (am like bugs, gore, sharks, dinosaurs, something around those lines yk? I feel like gore would fit) the reader rambles and rants Abt their special interest a lot! Just those kinds of things. I feel like you'd be able to capture this perfectly, thank you! Have a wonderful time zone :)

Poly Ghostface x autistic trans male reader

Headcanons

I always headcanon Stu as having something like ADHD, or just more hyperactive autism.

Been a while since I wrote about these two, huh? I’ve kinda missed em, ngl. Hope it’s alright I took some liberties with the hyperfixations :)

I can imagine that maybe you were friends with Stu when you were kids, because you were both “weird” in other people’s opinion. Stu because he was too hyperactive and could never sit still, and you because of your weird interests and how you were quite antisocial at times.

Time would pass, you guys would grow older. Stu would become someone popular, as his erratic and hyper personality becomes something others admire because he’s fun, whilst you stay being the weirdo with too much interest in medical texts, insects, and decomposition.

Neither of you meant to do it, but you would grow apart. Stu would get his new friends, specifically Billy, and you would stay by yourself burying yourself in your special interests. Its not strange to find you flipping through medical books or books about the horrors of war and medical malpractice. The more pictures the better.

When its not medical texts and war pictures with as much gorey detail as possible in the text and pictures, you can be found reading about death and the work of being a mortician, the way a body decays, and all that.

And when its neither of those things, you can be found looks at bugs, lifting rocks or moving trash to see what critters you can find. You have a sketchbook you like to draw in, three ones at that, one for each hyperfixation since you don’t wanna mix the information in them.

Its in the many niche medical books you learn about being transgender, and suddenly how uncomfortable you are in your own body makes sense. You don’t need any friends, or your families support to transition, that’s what you tell yourself at least.

You haven’t really had any real friends since you split form Stu when you were kids, and your creepy interests chase off anyone who might attempt to befriend you.

So, when you show up one day to school and openly tell people you are now a boy, no one really questions it, because why would they? You’re already weird, and compared to all your other quirks, being a boy is probably the most normal thing about you.

Through all these years you haven’t experienced as much bullying as you probably would have anywhere else, all thanks to Billy and Stu.

Stu because he still sees you as his friend in some way, and Billy because he’s fascinated by you. One day after you had come out, he walked behind you and saw you drawing detailed diagrams of top surgery in grotesque detail, and Billy has been hooked since.

At some point you and Billy would end up talking, one way or another. Maybe it was at the video store around Halloween one night, maybe the year Sidney’s mom died, and Billy would ask your opinion on the horror movie selection.

Youd grimace and say they sucked since the gore was so unrealistic, which Billy, the freak, would definitely ask into why you thought so. This would lead to you infodumping to him for a long time, going through multiple movies and explaining how its unrealistic and what would have made it better.

As infodumping goes, you don’t even realize how long you’ve been standing there talking to one of the hottest guy at your school about fictional gore, until Randy has to tell you guys that the store is closing soon.

You end up getting real embarrassed about wasting his time like that, which Billy is quick to tell you that nothing was wasted because he loved talking about it with you and hearing what you had to say. He would love to talk again some time.

You don’t really believe him, until he searches you out the next day in your shared free period when you are sitting outside drawing bugs and beetles, dragging Stu with him of all people. You haven’t actually interacted with Stu in a while, so you cringe and get jitters when he hugs you and gets into your personal space.

Its Billy who has to remind him of personal space, and before you know it, they’ve asked in about your special interests, and then they just sit back as you infodump and show them the pictures and drawings you have in all three of your sketchbooks, making the two Woodsboro killers fall for you harder and harder.

Time would pass and you three would start spending a lot of time together, Billy and Stu always hanging around you to listen to what you have to say, never growing tired no matter how much you infodump.

Stu would be the first to confess his feelings, as he feels fast and he feels strong, so one day when you two are laying on his bed and you’re talking about the difference between two beetles who look almost the exact same, whilst also talking about lungs and how they’re built, Stu just leans over and kisses you.

You would be so confused, until Stu tells you that he really likes you, he would even spill the beans that Billy feels the same way too. As if summoned, Billy would show up and Stu would be all like “right Billy? You like him too, right?” and Billy would facepalm cuz he planned on confessing in a much better way.

But hed agree and say he fell pretty damn hard for you, but neither rushes you in your decision as they know it’s a big step. I can imagine Stu also rambling about how hes always liked you since you were kids, even before you transitioned, and how he actually started liking you even more afterwards because you looked so much more comfortable with yourself and who you were.

At some point you would come to the conclusion that you felt the same way, and boom, now you got two boyfriends who like you for who you are, and would stab a bitch if they tried to disrespect you in any way, shape, or form.

When the ghostface killings happen, you wouldn’t be at the party since they are super overstimulating, but you would go to the hospital to check on Billy and Stu since they are the only “survivors”.

I thought it would be funny if you developed a special interest in the ghostface killers and started a fourth sketchbook filled with your notes and theories, but you would keep it hidden form Billy and Stu because you fear it would trigger their trauma, since you don’t know they are the killers.

The fourth sketchbook would also have rants you can’t put anywhere else, like how certain people have hatecrimed you because of your gender, or because you are “weird”, and how some dark sick part of your brain wants the ghostface killers to kill them.

At some point your boyfriends would find the sketchbook and go through it together, whistling as they see the detailed analysis made for each kill, and how you are so close to figuring it out. But when they read all the stuff you’ve written you never told them, it angers them that people have been hurting you without them knowing.

You wouldn’t have told them since you didn’t want to worry them, and it wasn’t their fight in your opinion. Billy and Stu decide that they have to pull out the masks once more, seems they have a couple of horrible people to get rid of for mistreating you.

Imagine your surprise when one night you walk into your room stimming with both your hands and repeating stuff that Billy and Stu said earlier that day, only to find not one, but two people wearing ghostface gear in your room.

It takes you a little too long to even spot them as you were scribbling in your death sketchbook, having gotten a sudden spark of inspiration on the way home from your apprenticeship as the local funeral home.

You almost get to scream before they pounce, never actually hurting you but clamping a hand over your mouth, their gloves wet with what you can smell is blood. After they make you promise to stay quiet, they unmask and reveal who they are.

You buffer like an old computer for a little too long, before smacking the shit out of both of them, wacking them in the chest for not telling you. Your opinion on death and murder are probably really twisted, and the people they’ve killed have either hurt you or you had no relationship with them.

It does light up every light in your hyperfixations though, and you might demand them to explain what killing someone is like, or what a freshly killed body looks like for your sketchbooks.

Billy would grin and try to kiss you, because how can you be so perfect? But you’d wave him off with a grimace and demand Stu explain once again what it was like stabbing someone so you can get it all down in your book.

I don’t know if youd join them as a third Ghostface, but they might take you along every now and then, letting you roam the place after they’ve done their thing if the chance is there. I could imagine them taking pictures of things for you too.

I’m imagining them both dressed up as ghostface, except no mask, both kissing at your cheeks and neck and being all lovey dovey and almost purring, whilst you are sketching down the different pictures and notes about them.

They love you so much, its insane. You’re gonna have them hanging on you for the rest of your life, sorry man, I don’t make the rules. Even if you move to another city and start studying to be a professor or like, investigator for the FBI, they would go with you. It would even help them in their Ghostface work as you are an expert in them not getting caught.

[chubs-deuce]

Haaard agree on anti-Chaggie post (so sorry Chaggie shippers. We love you)

Alastor is known to steal the attention of people whenever he is on screen. But when he is with Charlie it makes it more interesting! They bounce off of each other in an entertaining way. Even if you don't ship them they are funny. Alastor is getting a kick out of just talking to Charlie. He finds her amusing (probably in a mean way lol). And Charlie while thinks he is an asshole, (cus he is!) she sees he tries to help her even with an obvious hidden ulterior motive.

They don't see eye to eye in their goals but at least they are both real characters with their own motivations and that makes them very dynamic with each other. Also they are both goofs, love 'em

Chaggie has fans within people that just want cute and non-dramatic relationships. Or just a queer couple that is wholesome without any dramatics. Valid!

It's just awkward that Vaggie is all about Charlie. This one thing puts me off. Considering my previous experience with it was in Steven Universe (Rose and Pearl, anyone?). But it's just personal thing. Sometimes things like that are funny like "they are obsessed with this person lololo" or "they are... Uncomfortably obsessed with this person"

[I think it depends on if the other person is on the same level? Charlie seemed somehow dismissive of Vaggie but it can be explained that the plot was just more focused on hotel than them (ugh 8eps. waiting for S2 to have fillers).]

Shipping is all about preferences and that's okay! My friend is a Chaggie shipper and I am a Charlastor shipper. I asked her to explain to me the appeal and she explained it as "a cute couple that has no conflict whatsoever. People like that exist and it's more common than very dramatic or action-driven couples". And I just like a bit fucked up dynamics where I watch someone in that dynamic go through some emotional turmoil (mostly Alastor<3) and also co-workers/housemates dynamic (when I need something cute and simple)

Some people just prefer down to earth things, especially if their life is a rollercoaster. What's important is to respect each other!

Sorry for a lil essay. I just think sometimes it's important to say "these are prefrences. We don't hate you for not liking your thing and the same goes in vice versa"

All fandoms have a group of people that is.... A bit too devoted to something. Respect others even if they don't like the same thing you do. Instead ask them to explain to you why they like it in a non-hostile manner or don't interact at all.

We're all tired of shipping wars, especially when some companies add oil to this fire to monetize more. I just want to get back to old fandom days when you both would be shopping different things and then end up in a make out session /j

Sorry for an essay again. Love your art, especially when you draw unhinged or going insane Alastor because Charlie makes him "feel". Thanks for all the content<3

This!!! So much this!!!

I hardly even need to add anything to this tbh, you already said everything that needs to be said perfectly!

I often like to think of shipping as the more adult version of playing with dolls, and that different people will play with their dolls differently! Some may prefer to follow the instructions on the packaging, playing with the toys exactly as intended, whereas others might find that boring and instead prefer to mix things up and do their own thing!

How I play with my set of dolls should have absolutely no impact on how you play with your own.

Thank you so much for writing out this ask, I'm honestly really glad to see that common sense and critical thinking skills within fandoms haven't completely died out yet lmfao

[askthefivefallen]

“Okay, so the key to a good sand castle is a good sand to water ratio. If you have too much water, it’s mud, too much sand and it won’t stick. You want it to stand on its own but still be pliable. Like this,” *Emily squeezes a handful of sand and it keeps the shape of the space between her palm* “Once you have that, you can build it up and shave away what you don’t need. If you make a mistake, just add a little more and fix it.”

*She offers the sand castle building kit to Shamira* “Here, now you try!”

Alright, Sugar, here you go. Go ahead and summon your mask; it's your time to shine.

Shamira smiles, snapping her fingers to summon a periwinkle mask into place. It wasn't the same as her face guard, the fabric far more flexible and permitting her to speak, but it brought her a similar level of peace. She then took the kit Emily handed her, tilting her head as she puzzled through the various pieces. Aside from the bucket that carried the kit, there was a small hand shovel and several molds to build the actual castle. "It seems fairly straight forward."

She kneels down and familiarizes herself with the various components before taking the bucket to dig out a small pit, intending to use it to create a pool of water she could easily draw from and using the displaced sand to build her castle. Then, she went to gather water.

You know, now seems like a good enough time to ask- why sandcastle building?

I'm unsure what you mean with that question.

You're pretty invested in doing this and I'm just curious what about sandcastles has your attention. Not like either of us knew surfing was a bad idea until this morning.

Shamira gathers up water in the bucket and ferries it back to her pit, going back for a second trip as most of the water began seeping through the sand at the bottom.

I am intrigued by the concept and I hope to better understand our dynamic by experiencing the process myself.

Our dynamic?

Yes. We're very much like a sandcastle.

Sugar, I'm pretty good at reading you, but ya gotta explain this one.

Shamira continues bringing water, focused solely on creating her pool of water and conversing with Ass in her head.

Sandcastles combine two concepts that should not make sense together. Sand is malleable, always shifting, dynamic; a castle is not. The stone is immutable, worn away only after ages have passed. You are the sand- dynamic, changing, adapting, and yet you remain true. No matter how the ocean beats against you, you are still the same Ass, despite how much you've changed,l just like you may never walk on the exact same sand but the beach endures. I am the castle; I am set in my ways, virtually incapable of changing easily, and I fear I may be worn away entirely one day.

What makes you think you'll be worn away?

A few things. I'm not as strong as you- spiritually. It's as Emily said; you are a wild, blazing flame. I am not.

Just because you're not a flame doesn't mean you can't endure. Look at the Palace; that's a type of castle and it's been around ages.

... I suppose.

And, even if you're always going to be a castle, that doesn't mean you can't change. You were once a castle dedicated to Sera. Now you're dedicated to Emily.

I changed because you showed me how. In that way, we are a sandcastle- two things that, by all rights, should not be even remotely considered relevant to each other. Yet, we are.

Okay. Well. Couple things. First, whatever our 'dynamic' is, I promise it's gonna be stronger and hardier than any fucking sandcastle.

Noted.

Secondly, sandcastles, even well built ones, are still messy and imperfect. So, it's okay if we're a little messy and imperfect, too.

Reasonable.

Finally, trust Em's word. It's about finding the right ratio, the right balance. It might not be intuitive. But, if we keep working at it, we'll figure it out.

I believe that's a sound strategy.

Awesome. Now, you've been fucking silently filling up that hole with water for, like, ten minutes. Em's probably a little worried.

Shamira blinks and looks up, turning her head to meet Emily's gaze while holding up the bucket. "Preparations are almost complete. Then, construction can begin."

((@ask-emily-em-emmy))

[chaosbarelycontained]

I Don’t Care For Your Attitude

North Country Boy Chapter 7

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x AFAB!OC

TW: Swearing, fighting

Words: 3.1k

Synopsis: Jules and Ghost butt heads over an upcoming mission and young Jules fights for Simon’s honour.

Scribbling some notes down on her virtual notepad, Jules used a hand gesture to continue her flyover of the northern reaches of Dushikistan, a tiny country in the Pamir Mountains. The terrain was harsh and yet beautiful, with rolling steppes giving way to towering peaks crowned white with snow.

Sandy-coloured yurts and small brick buildings were well camouflaged against the rocky ground but, as Jules focussed in on one particular valley, more and more became visible. She hovered over the area for a few more minutes before her view changed and the camera panned between two cliff faces and across to an ancient fortress that, to the untrained eye, seemed ruined and abandoned. Jules double-tapped her thumb and middle finger together and the image enlarged. Staring at the ground around the fortress she finally saw the confirmation she needed in the subtle tyre marks that surrounded the structure.

“Gotcha,” she muttered, making a few screenshots and altering the contrast so that the tracks were more visible.

Checking the time in the bottom left of her viewscreen she was relieved to see she still had fifteen minutes until Price’s briefing so she pinged the information she’d collated across to her tablet and stashed her headset on its charger dock. Her emerald grey beret found its place back on her head and she tucked her tablet into her trouser pocket. She meticulously checked that every piece of equipment was logged off and shut down before exiting the room and locking the door.

On her way back over to the small barracks building she’d come to call home, Jules heard a whistle. She turned to find Roach jogging to catch up with her and she slowed her pace so that he could fall into step beside her.

“Alright, Tiger?” he asked genially, “whatcha been up to?”

“Just finalising some intel for the briefing. You?”

“Watching Ghost beast the rookies,” he snickered. “I would have helped but it was too entertaining. I think one of ‘em might have actually shit his pants.”

Jules gave a derisive snort. “The SAS selection process must be seriously lackin’ if they’re findin’ the Hallowe'en Drama Queen that terrifyin’.”

Roach faced her with an expression of concerned bemusement. “What the fuck do they feed you in Manchester? You’re all fucking bonkers. Just make sure you don’t say that to his face.”

“I would if he’d ever show it, an’ if he tried somethin’ again I’d knock his fuckin’ block off,” she tutted, rolling her eyes.

The smile that had been brewing on Roach’s face rapidly vanished as he glanced behind Jules. He blanched, swallowing thickly, and cast his eyes to the ground. Jules’ stomach threatened to drop out of her arse as she sensed the hulking presence behind them draw ever closer but it was caught by the net of her fury and she managed to maintain her poise, raising her chin arrogantly as the Lieutenant stalked past them.

“Ya could try, Sergeant, but yer too short to reach,” he rumbled, without a backward glance.

“That was…tame,” Roach muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “Just make sure you don’t go anywhere alone for the next few days.”

Jules sucked in a breath, ready to respond, but then caught the teasing glint in Roach’s eye and the smirk that grew in the corner of his mouth.

“Dickhead,” she chuckled, nudging his shoulder.

They weren’t the last to reach the briefing room, Soap followed along close behind them, and the entirety of Bravo Company was seated before the briefing was due to start. Price gave a run down of what they already knew and then gestured to Jules with an upturned palm.

“Our resident recon specialist has been working on locations. What’ve you got for us, Tiger?”

Jules stood and pressed the remote that turned on the large screen fixed to one of the walls, making sure it mirrored her tablet. She projected the flyover of the valleys that she’d been searching earlier, and then made the video freeze on an image of the fortress.

“There’s an old fortress just outside this village. Looks abandoned but there’s vehicle marks around it. Too many for somethin’ so far away from tourist trails. That’s where they’re hidin’.”

“Sounds promising,” Price nodded his approval. “Ghost, what d’you reckon?”

The Lieutenant dragged his eyes away from the screen to face his Captain.

“Looks like a fairly simple op to me. In and out. Get Delta Company in to clean up.” He jerked his chin upward, already expecting everyone to concur.

“Agreed,” Price said. “Soap, you’re…sorry Sergeant Kelsall, you got something to add?” he raised his eyebrow at the sound of Jules clearing her throat.

“Yeah, it’s the locals, Sir,” she said, mentally steeling herself against the Captain’s laser-sharp scrutiny. “It’s too much of a risk to them if we go mob-handed an’ all guns blazin’.”

“Negative, Captain.” Ghost interjected as he planted his feet more firmly on the floor and folded his arms across his chest. “The intel we’d gain is worth the potential casualties.”

Jules planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. “I have to disagree. These people aren’t involved with this organisation. They need to be protected as much as possible.”

Ghost let out a derive scoff and rolled his eyes. “Just what we needed,” he tutted. “A bleedin’ heart sympathist. We’ve got a job to do.”

Jules turned her head slowly and glared at Ghost with thinly veiled contempt.

“If ye weren’t my Lieutenant I’d call you a cunt,” she snapped, ignoring the snorts of amused disbelief from the rest of the squad. “It’s nothin’ to do wi’ that. If I thought the juice was worth the squeeze I’d say go for it, but it's not.”

She tapped on her tablet a few times and the display on the large screen behind the Captain changed to a view of the settlement. “These villagers have been feeding us intel for months. They don’t trust easily. If we put them in harm’s way then they’ll never let us back in and we’ll have lost a valuable source.”

“You’ve got a fair point there Tiger,” Price admitted, ponderously. “What do you suggest?”

“We need to be subtle about it,” Jules pressed. “There’s an abandoned settlement in the next valley. I can contact our guys closest to the area, get a base set up, an’ then we can recce from there.” She went to tap on her tablet again but paused and looked at Price. “If you don’t mind, Sir, I took the liberty of writin’ up a plan.”

“Go for it,” he nodded.

Jules pinged the mission overview onto the large screen so that everyone could read the details. There were mutterings of agreement from the rest of Bravo Company, and even Ghost raised his eyebrow in surprise at the detail in Jules’ work.

“Alright Tiger, you’ve got me convinced,” Price said, stroking his hand across his beard. “Get in touch with your contact and get the ops base sorted. I’ll have a look over this in more detail and we’ll reconvene at 1600hrs to finalise. Johnny, Roach, you’re the kit men. Gaz, get onto transport. I want to be in the air by 0800 tomorrow.

There was a chorus of “affirmitive”, “aye, Sir,” and “on it,” from the squad.

With a nod from Price, the three teammates were dismissed to their various tasks, leaving the Captain with his Lieutenant and Jules, who had returned to her tablet and was tapping away distractedly.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any way of seeing inside that fortress, Kelsall? A floor plan or something?” Price asked.

“Just sent you over the schematics, Sir,” she said, the corner of her mouth twisting up into a smile as glanced up from her screen.

“Do I want to know how you managed to get your hands on those?”

“Prob’ly not,” she admitted, “but if y’get a call from the Dushiki Government archives just act natural.”

Price snickered and appraised the Sergeant with growing affection, the glow from her tablet picking out the frown of concentration on her face. He looked across at Ghost then, who had been characteristically silent since his earlier snarky comments to Jules, and was surprised to see an expression of outright admiration on the face of the usually stoic soldier.

Speaking aloud, as if he hadn’t seen a thing, Price walked around the table to his own tablet, picking it up and scanning the information displayed there.

“Gonna put Johnny and Roach on perimeter, Gaz can take the East side with me so that leaves you two on the West.”

Jules looked up sharply, barely managing to school her face into something resembling blandess.

“Is that gonna be a problem?” Price asked, looking at Jules but addressing both of them.

“Not fer me, Sir,” she gritted.

“Ghost?” Price tried, but his second in command was still lost in his reverie. “Hey…Lieutenant.”

Ghost almost jumped, his eyes flying to Price as his brain registered the question.

“Negative,” he finally replied. “No problems here.”

“Good, get on with it then,” Price dismissed them and turned his attention back to his tablet as he rubbed his fingers over his moustache and muttered under his breath.

Jules nodded her acknowledgement and made her way through the door, her pace slower than normal as she continued to read her screen, but she stiffened as she heard Ghost’s voice calling to her.

“Hold up Ju-Sergeant,” he corrected himself.

“What?” She said abruptly, barely sparing him a glance.

“Bit out of your pay grade, to come up with a deployment plan, innit? Then again, once a swot…” There was a teasing tone to his words that Jules immediately interpreted as mockery.

“Maybe in this squad,” she replied, her face growing flush, “but in the SRR we were expected to contribute.”

“We’re not the SRR.”

“That’s painfully obvious,” she snarked back, one hand resting on her hip as she pointedly looked him up and down.

Ghost huffed out a sigh and scratched at the back of his neck. “Look, do you need me to check-”

“Check my work?” Jules said incredulously. “Nice t’know y’ve got confidence in your team, Lieutenant. Would y’ve asked Gaz that? Or Soap? Didn’t think so.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” he tried.

“Yeah ye did. Is it because you think you know me? ‘Cause if it is then you thought wrong. I’ve been doin’ this shit for nearly ten years an’ I ain’t had any complaints about ma deployment prep so far.”

“No, just about yer ability to follow orders. Yer file said as much.” He couldn’t help but push her just that little bit further.

“Oh, ya can read? Clever lad. For a while there y’had me wonderin’. Now I know you just ignored ma letters an’ messages on purpose,” she seethed with her jaw set.

She was furious once more and the act of trying to keep it bottled up inside made her chin tremble and her eyes began to water even as they flashed with anger. Not wanting him to think he’d made her cry, Jules turned on her heel and stalked off down the corridor towards the mess.

“I read ‘em all,” he muttered quietly, but she’d already retreated too far away to hear him.

Slipping into the seemingly empty mess, Jules rested her back against the wall and sniffled loudly. Frustrated with herself for letting her emotions get the better of her, she wiped away an errant tear with the back of her hand and took a shaky breath. The door beside opened once more and Jules steeled herself for another confrontation with the Lieutenant but it was Gaz who entered. He started at the sight of her, clearly not expecting anyone to be there, but then his expression changed into one of concern as he noticed her red-rimmed eyes.

“What’s happened?” he asked gently, which only served to encourage another tear to slip down Jules’s cheek.

“Nothin’ really,” she shrugged, swiping away the evidence of her emotions. “I’m not upset, I’m-” She let out a dry chuckle at Gaz’s obvious disbelief. “I’m not! I’m actually fumin’. This is just anger leakin’ out of my eyes,” she gestured to her face.

“Let me guess…” Gaz began, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his now-frowning face cockily towards her in a passable impression of Ghost.

His tactic worked and Jules began to laugh in earnest.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Can’t ever let ‘em see you cry though. They might think you actually care.”

“Come here,” Gaz said, slinging his arm around her shoulder and squeezing tightly. “Chin up, you’ve got this. Just try not to deck him again, yeah?”

* * * * *

It was almost dark by the time Jules made it out of the computer rooms at college but Rachel still waited for her by the entrance. A cold wind whipped around her legs and she pulled her coat tighter across her chest, her head bowed down as she hooked her arm through Rachel’s and tugged her friend towards the bus stop.

“You comin’ to mine?” she asked but Rachel replied in the negative.

“Nah, I can’t tonight. I gotta pick our Gary up from the childminder’s.”

“Fair enough,” Jules said, pulling a face.

“Oi, Kelsall,” a harsh voice squawked and Jules turned to find a small gaggle of girls stalking towards them.

Squinting her eyes against the wind she realised all too soon who had called her name.

“Givin’ me dirties now too eh? Cheeky bitch,” Debbie snapped, coming to stand before Jules, her hip popped and her head tilted to the side as she crossed her arms under her chest.

“Alright Debbie? What’s up?” Jules tried warily.

“What’s up? I’ll tell yeh what’s up, yeh little slag…” Her head bobbed aggressively as she gesticulated wildly.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Jules interrupted, holding up her hands. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on but yer not talkin’ to me like that.”

“I’ll talk to yeh however I want seein’ as yeh think it’s ok to shag mi fella behind mi back.”

“Hang on a minute,” Rachel interjected. “What fella? You don’t mean Simon do yeh?”

“Who else would I mean? This little tart’s been ‘anging after ‘im fer ages. It’s pathetic,” Debbie sneered.

“You shagged Simon Riley?!” Rachel exclaimed, turning to Jules with a look of excitement and surprise.

“No, I didn’t,” Jules hissed, “we just…messed around a bit after the taxi dropped us off last week.”

“Get in,” Rachel grinned, giving Jules a high five.

“That’s not what I heard,” Debbie snapped, stepping closer to Jules. “You were all over ‘im like a rash. You need tuh find yer own fella an’ leave mine alone, fuckin’ slag.”

“Alright, that’s enough.’ Jules said, her voice low and even as she squared up to Debbie, staring her straight in the eye. “Number one, I’m not shaggin’ Simon bloody Riley, and number two, even if I were it wouldn’t matter coz he ain’t your fella anyway. He sacked you off coz you let Skinny Mike get in your knickers round the back of the chippy. Everyone knows so there’s no point in tryin’ to say it didn’t ‘appen. Just fuck off and leave me alone.”

With one last, angry glare, Jules turned her back to Debbie and, grabbing Rachel’s arm again, began to stride away.

“You know what?” Debbie called after her, her voice laced with malice. “Yer welcome to ‘im, he’s a scrubber anyway with his cheap shit clothes and fake trainers. He’s got that many bruises, I bet he’s a skag-head.”

Jules froze for a split second, just long enough for Rachel to tighten her hold on her elbow before she was turning once more. Ripping her arm out of her friend’s grip, Jules tore across the pavement and launched herself at the grinning girl, whose eyes widened in surprise at the ferocity of Jules’ attack.

“Say that again.” Jules screeched. “Say it again, I fuckin’ DARE you.”

The two girls scrabbled on the floor in a mess of flying fists and clawed fingers. Blood was smeared across both their faces by the time their mates managed to tear them apart and Debbie was dragged away surrounded by her gaggle. Jules tried to go after her but Rachel’s arm around her heaving shoulders was enough to cause her to halt. She spat after Debbie’s retreating back and then raised a hand to probe at a tender spot on her temple.

“She didn’t get any of mi hair, did she?” Jules asked sheepishly.

“Nah, mate,” but yer gonna have a few decent bruises tomorrow.”

“I’m not cryin’, you know,” Jules sniffled, wiping the back of her hand gingerly across her eyes.

“I know,” Rachel nodded.

“I’m just fumin’.”

“I know,” Rachel said again, a broad grin slowly creeping across her face. “You know what else though?”

“What?”

“You snogged Simon Riley.”

“Yeah I did,” Jules began to giggle, which turned into a laugh and, by the time the bus arrived the two girls were crying together, arms wrapped so tightly around their bellies they could barely put their clipper cards into the machine.

Rachel had been right. By the next morning Jules’ eye had developed a deep purple bruise beneath it and there were some angry-looking claw marks across the side of her jaw. Thankful that it was Saturday and she wouldn’t have to brave the questions at college, Jules had stuck around in her room until her Mum had left for work and then trudged downstairs to make herself some breakfast and a brew. Of course it was just her luck that there was a tap on the back door and it opened to reveal the one person she really didn’t want to see.

A faint blush crept its way up Simon’s neck when he realised Jules was standing in the kitchen. They hadn’t seen each other since that night out and neither of them really knew how to react around the other. As his eyes finally found their way to her face he hissed in a breath at the state of her.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell Jules, what happened?”

“Nothin’,” she mumbled, dipping her head.

“That don’t look like nothin’,” he pressed, closing the door behind him and moving further into the kitchen.

“She had a fight with that Debbie,” Rob said from the hallway. “Apparently Debbie took the worst of it. Dunno why she’d wanna cause trouble wi’ you tho, eh Jules?”

Jules’ eyes whipped up to meet Simon’s and they shared a look of panic but Rob remained oblivious.

“She’ll know better than to pick on a Kellsall, won’t she,” Rob said, slipping his arm around Jules’ shoulder and squeezing her tight.

“Yeah well,” Jules muttered, staring at Simon over the rim of her mug, “I ain’t havin’ anyone slaggin’ off me or mine.”

Taglist: @aykxz98 @spicyspicyliving

[mikansei]

from a doylist perspective i recognize why kisuke - like a lot of characters in visual media - doesn't get outfit changes often. 1: kubo and/or the animators would have to design & draw the new outfit, which would create more work for themselves for no narratively relevant reason, and 2: a single, consistent design gives a sense of continuity, helps with character recognition for the audience & helps with brand recognition for merch (hence: The Hat™).

BUT.

from a watsonian perspective i find it MUCH more fun to believe kisuke simply found one (1) outfit that he liked & bought a dozen identical copies of it b/c damn if that ain't relatable!!! when i have to replace something in my wardrobe i, too, simply wish to buy an identical version of that exact same thing forever! (which the fashion industry has decided is Fucking Illegal don't get me started lmao)

anyway i don't have a good segue but here's my (personal) headcanons:

💚 as per word of god, he's an incredibly picky eater whose favorite food is plain rice, so extrapolating a bit - maybe it's a texture thing. tight clothes BAD shirt collars BAD socks EVIL

🤍 after having his life upended by captaincy & his worldview upended by aizen's betrayal, he craves stability & is allergic to change - so he's chronically, stubbornly unadventurous in certain aspects of daily life. save the experimentation for the lab (and/or the bedroom)! stop trying to get him to wear socks!

💚 his hair covering his eyes, the hat & the fan are all ways to hide his face when he doesn't want to be Perceived - which is not the same as not being literally physically seen, so the hat & fan being so eye-catching isn't a contradiction (to him. he may or may not be aware how little sense this makes to anyone else)

🤍 he emphatically does not care to follow fashion trends - especially since they change so often in the human world. his outfit was perfectly fine & normal in the 1920s thank u very much! what do u mean that was 80 years ago? the '20s were like, last week!

💚 because he was punted out of soul society with nothing but the clothes on his back, some half-dead friends & a hougyoku, he's loath to throw anything away - so he's kept every gift he's ever been given, even if that gift is a really ugly hat. yes he WILL, in point of fact, wear it every single day for the rest of his life, yoruichi-san! (she & tessai have a betting pool. she is not winning)

🤍 the first black haori with white diamonds at the hem was a gift from shinji, hence why it looks like an inverted captain's haori - complete with insignia on the back. no kisuke does NOT realize that it looks like that, and he's bought eight more just like it since. (the visored have their own betting pool. kensei lost 40 years ago)

💚 (also he will not admit it on pain of death but he wears the haori b/c he got used to the dramatic Swoosh of the captain's haori & REALLY missed it. he can have a lil Swoosh. as a treat)

🤍 the fan was a gift from tessai which might make u think it's secretly an iron fan to be used as a backup weapon but it's not. it's literally just a mass-produced party favor made of cheap bamboo & paper. if everything's secretly a hidden weapon there's no mystique anymore! gotta keep 'em guessing sometimes~

[catboyklug]

sam & max hcs

title

this is specifically for sam & also max bc im most confident w my interpretations of them but once i play & finish tdp i'll make a post for every single other character .

quick disclaimer that this is for my sorta-AU thing where i make sense of the games and cartoon and comics by saying that each was an autobiographical (or just biographical) piece of media that they signed their rights away to. the comics were more or less exactly what happened, the cartoon was scripted half the time (with the bad day on the moon episode actively having been staged) and the games are more or less 1:1 to what happened except for the occassional references to them being. games.

also this isnt a totally exhaustive list

sammy

canon to get it outta the way: he's black, bisexual, autistic and might be trans & objectum (i hc him to definitely be the last two lmao) . i hc he has Narcissistic Traits tee em and also might have OCD

he started developing arthritis in his 20's, which was made only worse by his horrible posture due to his career path of Massive Fucking Nerd. though he fixed his back posture-wise by the time he formed the freelance police, he still is in a lot of pain near constantly.

even when he makes jokes, he wants to be taken seriously at all times. he wants you to laugh at his cleverness, not at the fact that you find him inherently funny. he tends to take this a bit far sometimes, which is part of one of the many reasons as to why he treated max so terribly in the early telltale games

since he was a pup he's tried to hide the fact he's bisexual, even if he's completely normal abt max being out as gay and doesn't see an issue with it in any sense of the term

he really wanted to be an engineer for years, but the intense sexism of the field, a desire to stick around with max, and the fact that other jobs would pay him better lead him to abandon the thought

though he wouldn't mind having children, he doesn't actively want them as much as max does. this doesn't mean he dislikes children at all, though - he actually likes them more than max does, at least conceptually

not too long after the cartoon's release, he lost contact with most of his family, excluding ruth. this was fully intentional on his part: max's refusal to talk to his family except at gatherings he stole food and drugs from inspired him to take more control of his life and contact with people he's related to

he sort of wants to grow his hair out again, but isn't sure what style to get... (i like drawing him w afros though)

completely opposite to max's feelings, sam feels a strictly familial or platonic attraction to lumpy. and platonic being based offa that plato fun fact is very very definitely relevant here i think (im sorry)

if he went with any other job, it'd have to be letterist, full stop. he has several styles of handwriting and they're all gorgeous

he's a super sweet, incredibly silly drunk, and lets himself relax and show more of his dog mannerisms when drunk enough (thank you celebrity poker 2 i love you)

maxamillion

canonically a narcissistic psychopath who might have schizophrenia. its ok i can reclaim him<333 (no i cant but my partner can) he also has a horrible family life but his family stuck together out of mutual hatred and a desire to reap society's rewards for the nuclear standard

this horrible shithead has prolly claimed to have every physical disability at some point but he's only been diagnosed w/ hypermobile joint disorder / ehler-dahlos

in the more modern time of 2024, he usually sticks to only mocking people for things that are a. traits he shares with them or b. actually disturbing, inhumane or generally Yucky

he's wanted kids for years, which is why he's constantly not-so-subtly mentioning it.

he's a deeply unprofessional drag queen AND drag king and loves playing around with both sides of the coin. he also does drag creature stuff but that's just how he normally looks so!

thanks to the autism and schizophrenia he's very touch averse. the only people he really wants touching him are sam (and sometimes, maybe, rarely, flint paper)

to say that he doesn't have any familial affection for lumpy is understating it. he uses lumpy as his personal (and fully consenting) stimtoy whenever he feels like it, regardless of where or who might see 'em.

he sometimes pretends he's still president to make people do stuff for him. this only works on sam though

though he's physically capable of handwriting so gorgeous it rivals sam, he saves that for the disgustingly cheesy, 'anonymous' love letters he sends him every year or seven

he's a mainer. a mainiac if ya will. grew up closer to the south and he's got some relatives from mass so he's got that masshole/bostoner accent. he's usually good at hiding his accent, but it's obvious when you ask him to say shit like "clam chowder" and "lobster" and "fish"

though he hates most country music, he still loves johnny cash

HES A SYSTEM BTW!!!!

botha them

they invented paralell play. sam w his computers and his papers and max with his drawing and stabbing the desk until it looks like a modern art piece

they're both extremely jealous of other people, but somehow have both missed that. sam's worried he's too jealous and overprotective, while max thinks he could stand to be a little more obsessive

one of their favorite things to do together is go to the comic book store and laugh at how horrible their childhood favorite comics have gotten (or always were)

every wedding shown is canon in some way, but around the telltale games sam started thinking they were just 'ironic' and 'a joke' and etc. despite the EXTREMELY high budget each had. he knows better now

max's whole "not making fun of anyone unless they're enough like him (or suck)" actually extends to sam as well. he's more than fine with making fun of someone bc they're fat or whatever despite the fact he clearly isn't. this is MOSTLY because he keeps forgetting he and sam don't share every single experience.

though sam is against drinking as a whole, the two sometimes go out to horribly shitty bars to get the worst in junk food & beer. every time they do, max happily proclaims that it was the best date EVER.

max almost likes sam's singing, sometimes, but this is usually only because he just really likes sam's voice

neither of them know how to use modern technology. when one finds out a single way a single program or feature works, they excitedly show the other like they just found the missing link between humans and neanderthals or whatever

sam helps with max's injections since max really seriously can't handle needles. it's the worst for the both of them, but the treats and snacks and ten-hour-long movie binges after help with the fear

generally speaking, max can get up and out of bed any time from around 6 to 13. sam gets up at 6:30 or 7:45 exactly every day, which means he usually makes breakfast if he feels up to cooking.

other than the aforementioned horrible bars, they have a lot of 'weird' date locations, like the dog park, the local sewer system, hell, etc.

yeay

[earthnashes]

do you have any advice on how to draw like muscular characters and like,,,make them feel big? one of the reason i love the way you draw your bowser/koopas is cuz they feel so like massive compared to the other characters around them. and i feel like whenever i try they still end up looking like any other character i draw except like their arms and legs aren’t sticks 😂

i’ve been doing a lot of practicing and checking out references but just wanted to see if you had any other tips/tricks that might be good to try out. appreciate any help and hope you’re having a great day!

To make the character massive you have to make their entirety massive, and not just their arms and legs! Big characters feel big because they are big in every sense of the word, and this also goes for IRL too. I'm no expert, but what I find is:

-Make the shoulders broad. A character with big arms doesn't really mean anything if their shoulders don't match. A broad set of shoulders helps give the character a wider feel.

-Wide/broad backs. There's the common misconception that the chest is what makes someone look big and strong. It doesn't hurt to have a strong chest, but do you know what makes a person look even bigger? A strong, big, wide back, especially the lats.

-Give the character some size/fat. You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but in reality, a person who is big and strong will more often than not have a higher body-fat percentage. So if you want your character to look realistically huge, they'll likely have some plush to them. Don't be afraid of drawing some skin flaps and wrinkles! Not only is this natural given it's skin, it also helps add weight to a character of any size, especially if they're big.

-Pay attention to proportions. You can, and should, play with this from a character design perspective, but it helps to know how to work with the character's proportions in comparison to a much smaller character. For example? In general terms, the size of your hand (from fingertip to base of palm) is the same size as your face (from chin to hairline). Using that lil bit of knowledge, you can play with the idea that the character is so big their hands are bigger than their face, or vice versa.

-Know the type of strong you want your character to be. Do you want a character who's cut and lean, or do you want a character that's big and strong? Are they better built for agility, or are they built for pure strength? Knowing how the body adapts to different varieties of strain helps know how a body might look for that said stimulus. Example: Runners are often lean and long-legged. Bodybuilders are usually cut with very little bodyfat. Weightlifters are often large with higher bodyfat; so on and so forth. In this case, I highly recommend looking and referencing several athletes of different professions.

--------

SO! TLDR:

-Wide back and broad shoulders make the world go 'round

-Give 'em a lil bit of cushion, especially the core. It helps add size and weight to a big character

-Play with proportions. Don't be afraid to break the rules of realism. Push that design.

-Study real-life athletes of a variety of professions. Note what that athlete's role is in the sport and why their body may look the way they do do best adapt to said sport/stimulus.

Hope this helps! uwu

[zipmode]

6,7,8,9,10 for the artist asks !!

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

UMMM im not super sure because I feel like if I subconsciously do something than I uh. Don't notice it. what I CAN tell you that CONSCIOUSLY inspires me atm is Ryoko Kui's art. Her use of expressions and seeming preference for marker-style brushes is something i have pretty deliberately studied a bit cause I like it so much. Another, older example is Yugo Limbo's art, which- when Smile For Me first came out- super inspired me to mess with textures, collage work, chromatic abberation, etc.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

Watercolor art.... that shit is wizardry to me. Actually now that I think about it? most forms of traditional art. I do a little bit of painting but most of my traditional art is in the form of sketches and pen work. Everything else I just admire from a distance.

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

I gave one answer in another ask, but don't worry there's probably like ten projects ideas I could give to answer this. It's not a lost cause or anything, but Maul Rats is definitely something I'm not planning on adding anything more to any time soon (aside from drawing the characters when I feel like it cause I love em a lot). I just kept trying to add more and more stuff to explain preexisting things that I sort of 'logic'ed my way into a hole, if that makes sense. Sometimes I tend to forget that worlds with magic don't always need to make sense in their entirety. Still think abt these goofballs from time to time, thoughVV

9. What are your file name conventions

SMILES SO SWEETLY. I'm awful. I'm the worst. these days I don't often bother saving my art to my computer. For bigger pieces that I HAVE to save that take a few days, I give them a short name that represents what they are well enough for me to find them out. some examples:

I also have a catchall file I use when i'm uploading jpegs to toyhou.se that's just. toyhousesavefile. I tend to be a little paranoid about saving my art JUST to my computer these days cause I've been burned by losing files from a laptop unexpectedly dying in the past. The real answer should be: get an external hard drive, but that costs moneyyyy and I'm brokeeeee <3

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

Style-wise, turtlenecks. I just like turtlenecks a lot so I give, like, most of my characters turtlenecks. feels-to-draw-wise, Flowy shirts, blouses, and pants :)

Thanks for the questions YAYYY ^_^

[madfantasy]

Dear blogging

So happy I finished one of my biggies, happeir it made other's day (or just hurt their feels, I'm sorry I know im depressing heh 8"c

Hugs to dears💛

I've been doing nothing but strictly drawing lately, thanks to the wave of bugs that is paralysing my normal focus and gives me constant nightmares that jolts me awake every time I'm desperately fallen asleep. They are not as intense anymore, thankfully, but my paranoia wouldn't let out.

On the bright side, I am drawing more than ever and those sticky notes taken down at last after a century of em up 8D ✨️✨️✨️

(Just wanted to show a sense of their volume at the beginning, these are just the ones who perished and I thought I came out to piles of dirt, at first x'c)

In the pauses between the signing muse in my brain, in complete immersion, i don't remember what got me to guardians discussing something, and it came about the subject of mental health and trauma. Some way or another, I managed to tell one of my truths, which is that I am fairly certain that I am on the spectrum. Of course, it started with the usual denial and unreasonable yelling. Yelling that automatically shuts me down, but I yelled back even though my voice wasn't helping. It keeps disappearing alongside the ability to find words as I try to explain it all. Finally, I felt it dawned on them, and only when they said they 'now know it is to find help with', I broke down. They were comforting me by keep saying we'll fix it. I wanted to say it's not something broken to be fixed, but I was deep in hyperventilation to be able to articulate it..

It has been a few weeks since then, and I didn't want to bring it up because my chest was hurting me too long after the ordeal.

In a way, I don't know why i bothered to tell them because realistically, they can't do anything. As everything dear or near to me, I can't tell them causally, and it never had real bearing on anything. They need tending cause they are ill and elderly, and i do my best until it comes to dealing with people, I become just as crippled and can't function without them. I never show them my art, or tell em i want surgery for my dysphoria or I'm none of society's conditioning of identities or whatever they are willfully ignorant in. But I make points to remind them that im not a mere gender and I still correct them when they wrong name me, my simplest wishes they can't comply with. Even by the religionlNthey uphold, not to call women a degrading word in arabic that means that she is a forbidden object, they kept using it it but not around me... I don't know why i try, but they are my world, my only world, and the only humans i know and depend on. I'm not able to do anything now but draw, everything else i tried to do i either have forgotten or have no further means to do more, I might as well have forgotten how to speak English if it wasn't in everything I communicate with, consume and own set to it, and every now nd then write these so called diaries, ive already forgotten how to write my precious poems in arabic, or write in arabic as swiftly as i used to. I wake up most days with complete apathy or regret that I'm still living and costing to take space in this world.. my guardian asked me, who in support or women driving and having independent lives, if I could right now a chance learn to drive, will I do it. I said no. Even tho for years I knew with upmost certainty that I could do it, I always wanted to do it and have endless dreams of me driving, I always studied the booklets with our car to learn the road signs and all. But now I can't. Things I did by force of necessity on my own, I can't do anymore. I know I'm not the good elder sibling either cause I'm not always there to argue for my siblings, and it adds more and more to the guilt I can't clear, but I try buy them toys or a meal every chance I get commissioned.

I don't know what can be set in motion, at least I know I can hold on till 36, and while still having my drawing list to go through. Even with the same old interests, or hyperfixations should i say, things I can't change and seemingly have no gain posting around, especially when it comes to fanart. Otherwise, will be doodling fantasy junk such as these on me own

I wish all of you the best 🍀

Crying with makeup on and then laughing cuz I forgot I tried to do art on my face and now we can add 'crying in makeup' to our first time experiences lo' 10 pm, 6.6.2023

[quillheel]

ALIAS / NAME: Captain! I used to be called Honey, Lovely, and Nyx in the past, though that was LONG before Tumblr. Twas my amino days, baby. ( I also semi-recently tried out 'King' but the vibes don't quite fit yknow! prefer the vibe of that as a term of referral - ex: my liege - rather than a name weirdly enough BHGKTRB )

BIRTHDAY: july 7th!

ZODIAC: cancer! i forgot my exact stuff, like rising sign or the like, but i do know that! i got into zodiacs when i was like 13 i think so I know at least MY sign by heart lol

HEIGHT: 5'6! something like that, I think :] which is also 167 centimeters

HOBBIES: drawing, writing ( I have an ao3 I've been neglecting for so long ), dungeons & dragons / general ttrpgs which take up SO much of my week <3, video games, content analysis ( kinda? ), baking, penpal, learning ukulele, learning to sew, learning crochet!

FAV. COLOR: im terrible when it comes to this question because i love a lot of very specific colors because artist brain BUT... If I had to pick one. Probably a red-y brown-y color. I REALLY like warm and neutral colors ( though Quillheel's pallet probably wouldn't invoke that thought ) though i also like a lot of neutral and cooler colors. you can basically reference a rainbow for my preferred colors but even with blue at the bottom ( I'm a big purple-enjoyer ) i still enjoy what good usage of it can do <3

FAV. BOOK: the long walk by stephen king, inkheart by cornelia funke, or frankenstein by mary shelley <3 love different aspects of all of them, though inkheart was a big part of my childhood so i'm biased BHHGTR

LAST SONG: be nice to me by the front bottoms :] i've been listening to a lot of Hozier lately though

LAST MOVIE / SHOW: UHHH wolfwalkers! VERY good i really liked it <3 i wanna rewatch song of the sea eventually, too! that ones also a favorite. the last show would probably be season 3 of infinity train ( I still resist the temptation to add Simon sometimes. he is such a terrible yet interesting little man ) or finally finishing watching hisuian snow :]

RECENT READ: if fanfiction doesnt count ( if it Does then wander boy by poptod, which is surprising its not one of the HUGE amounts of disco elysium fanfiction i've been chewing on lately ) then probably i think frankenstein by mary shelley, which i picked up and began reading but didn't finish :( still the most recent though! I wanna actually finish that + reread the long walk + read a bunch of other books, like the song of achilles by madeline miller, circe by madeline miller, orange world and other stories by karen russle, memorial: a version of homers illiad by alice oswald, the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson, good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett, the city & the city by china mieville, etc etc etc! ( if you guys have any suggestions actually, feel free to send em my way! )

INSPIRATION: horror! especially slashers, psychological horror, and 'bloodbath' horror ( selectively! carrie's got the vibes, saw does NOT ), psychological writing in general, a bunch of the books i have or plan on reading, mythology & legends, fanfiction and composition, music ( especially the weakerthans, the narcissist cookbook, hozier, etc ), poetry, and just!! learning methods of how things Generally are made, ig! how people paint, how people make clothes and make fabric, how people grow plants. i take a lot of inspiration from unexpected places, but a lot of those places are the act of creation in of itself. my writing might only be writing, but i try to embody a sense of color to it, of an artstyle you can almost taste, yknow? the composition in shows where blues look almost green and its like the world is basked in paint and there's just a feeling, indescribable, contextual but potent in of itself, the feeling of small moments everywhere, all at once, all the time. THAT SOUNDS REALLY PRETENTIOUS BUT LIKE... its true, yknow!! i like to embody a feeling in my writing, and i go to a lot of places to find it.

STORY BEHIND URL: once, a long time ago, my oc multimuse @cassiopiia was named orphic-ruin, and quillheel came second in my blogs list. i wanted them to match! so i thought of storytelling, which went to writing, then to pens, then to quills! and the 'heel' part comes from achilles heel, or the achilles tendon! as well as having ties to hermes' winged feet. in a way, its kinda saying 'vulnerable storyteller' or 'half-divine legend' or even kinda like a title or epithet vibe wise like you might find on a mythological figure ( ex: quill-heeled ) or something like that, which i think still fits the vibe p well to this day! if i did change the URL, idk what I'd make it now! i might eventually, but yeah!

tagged: @disassnbler ty ender!!!! <333

tagging: uhhhhhhhhhhhhh @littlelonesomestars @slaughterlocked @underworldslibrary @rebellionhearted aaaand anyone wearing blue, green or red <3

[sansloii]

META + competition // for Mikah

Mikah is very competitive and takes that shit personally. a lot of their younger years were marked by them going "hmm....I don't like that this person is better than me so i think i will do something about that." and then proceeding to be just about the most frustratingly disruptive entity in existence for the person in question.

It's not always them jumping up to 10 when they wanna try to ruin someone's life or reputation. they're 100% focused on it, yes, but it makes zero sense to just throw every idea they have all at once when it's not a sure guarantee that it'll work. so if it isn't a split second decision, Mikah will think about it for days, weeks, and draw it out. they will dig so deeply to find things said person might've forgotten about or... someone they've known that's not too close to them but close enough to get what they want out of them. for them, just acting and causing someone distress or inconveniencing them temporarily is not enough because what does that get them? They get something out of it but it's fleeting. It's like... tripping them and then running away without really making sure they won't get back up, ya feel? Mikah is the type to tie the shoelaces together and ( if they're long enough ), make sure they're wrapped around the person's ankles as well. If they need glasses to see, Mikah will take them off and keep 'em and continue doing things to actively make their life harder and it gets progressively more vindictive with shit to make sure it's easier to stay down compared to trying to get back up. Then, while said person is preoccupied with undoing with whatever Mikah's done, the little shit then goes and reaps whatever rewards were on the table.

their M.O is essentially "distract and nab" in the most painfully disruptive, calculating way possible. they might not look it, especially given how carefree and careless they seem to be with just about....everything, but that's partly how they choose to be. when they wanted something and also wanted someone else out of the way, they got said person fully out of the way before they did anything else. it'd be effortlessly easy for them to kill someone that, to them, doesn't need to be there... but it's somewhat harder to work around, subvert, sabotage someone that's alive and possibly... just as good as you are--if not better. and Mikah wants that accomplishment, to know that this person was above them in some way but they still prevailed. which now makes them better.

on top of that, mikah is the type that wants that person to know deep down that this shitty little red head with a piece of shit smile are the one that fucked them over... so... yeah :) unsurprisingly, it's this type of competitiveness and selfishness that gets them killed that first time. it's what gets them killed more oft than not because mikah does not care about their life because death is not a consequence — it's just a condition that they are living by. And so, they treat it like any other condition ; by managing it while they focus their attention on fucking up your life so bad, you'll wonder what you did to them ( Answer: nothing ) Oh and lord help you if you back off and then fuck them over in turn after they've let their guard down. They'll admit you're justified in that.... but that won't stop them from turning around and picking up right where they left off.

@nezumivc103221 | send META + a word, name, or phrase for a headcanon

[austennerdita2533]

we generally overlap on a lot of ships. actually maybe all of them but one. phoebe x cole. they had chemistry but i always felt that there was inherent balance there. it was enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers... a real rollercoaster. what is it that speaks it you? what is it that you love about them? i am 100 open to changing my mind 😌

Hello there!

I might not be able to change your mind about Phole on the whole, nonnie, and that's okay if I can't! I am always good with a difference of opinion, especially when it comes to shipping because we all gravitate toward characters/couples for a variety of reasons based on our own subjective preferences and experiences. However, I can try to elucidate for you why it is I love them so much. Why I still root for them no matter how many times I re-watch.

The first, and most obvious, reason is their chemistry is electric. It draws me in, buzzing with an undercurrent anytime they share a scene together. I have no qualms admitting that I am a sucker for heady, intoxicating - hell, perhaps even a little dangerous - tension between two characters. That's the good stuff right there! Keeps me hooked and invested! Theirs' bursts forth in the first exchange they have and lingers like a delicious infection until the last.

That said, the bigger reason I ship Phoebe and Cole is because they fit tropes and archetypes I enjoy in characters as well as in relationship dynamics. They're an an amalgamation of so many good ones! Witch/demon, enemies to lovers, forbidden love, light vs. dark, good vs. evil, opposites attract, Hades and Persephone etc. But it’s the way that these tropes intersect and manifest, I think, that makes their dynamic sexy, spirited, and stirring to watch. 

I've always been a big fan of the enemies to lovers trope. I gravitate towards it in almost every medium, but am particularly fond of it in paranormal/supernatural settings because there's bound to be higher stakes and more skewed morality on all sides. Things cannot be as black and white as they are in real life when there's magic involved, or supernatural slaughter happening, or plots to overturn the so-called "natural" order of the world. I think that leaves more room for convoluted and problematic conflict. The gap widens for me between who/what is salvageable and who/what is not. It also makes the rollercoaster of emotions the characters experience - all those heavy ups-and-downs - all that life-crushing angst they're put through over and over again - more palatable, more believable, and even, in my opinion, more excusable in a lot of situations.

Phoebe and Cole have a pendulum-like complexity to their romance, to their internal makeup as people, that is heightened by their supernatural roles/status/perversions and I think that, as a consequence, it makes sense for them to have a broader moral ambiguity they must learn to traverse together as a couple. Because traverse it they do.

Both of them toe the line between good and evil, between light and dark, as they hover in this beautiful but labyrinthine in-between space, and I really resonate with that. I mean, who among us isn't a compilation of mismatched, contradictory parts? I know I have 'em in spades! 😂

I'm also a firm believer that love is more than just connection, or compatibility, or fate; it's a conscious choice that has to be made over and over again, every day. It's a decision you make to continue to work for the love you have or want with another person, to fight for it, to find a way to protect and preserve and endure through it, no matter how many obstacles life throws in your way. And Phoebe and Cole fight so hard for the love they have for each other! So. Damn. Hard. I can't help but root for them for that fact alone.

Not only do they fight foes, but they fight friends, they fight family, and they fight uncontrollable circumstances that rain down on them determined to cleave them apart. It's actually quite tragic to me how hard and how often the Charmed universe tries to yank them away from each other, but they're like magnets, they're like planets who cannot stop orbiting back toward each other because their love is that powerful, it's that important to them. They won't give it up to a black hole's gravity. They refuse to let it be erased or discarded or destroyed. It's embedded in the very fabric of who they are. It's is a part of their DNA, and they'll cary it with them always.

I also think it's important to note that Phoebe and Cole usually find a way to compromise. Their imbalances aren't unbreachable; in fact, they often find a middle ground that allows them to enhance their weaknesses without necessarily sacrificing their strengths. They believe in each other, too. Build each other up. Cole constantly reminds Phoebe how smart, powerful, and capable she is in the same way that Phoebe acknowledges and nurtures the good in Cole. She encourages him to lean into his humanity, to express it in a way he never could before he met her.

Overall, I think they make each other better, more rounded people. They complement each other like yin and yang and that's extremely satisfying for me to watch.

I know and acknowledge that there's a lot of Source!Cole drama later on in their relationship with him growing more possessive, controlling, and power hungry, but I give him kudos because he does push back against it as much as he's able. He battles against the darkness. Goes to war with it, really. As much as the "evil" overtakes him when he becomes The Source, it still cannot manage to expunge his love for Phoebe. She's his one weakness. The one remaining light the darkness of the Underworld cannot stamp out completely. The reason I say that is because, although it takes him time and many unsuccessful plots to get there, he does let Phoebe go. He surrenders. He doesn't make it all about him in the end, doesn't keep her from moving on.

He loves her enough to place her happiness above his own. Not only does he help her find love again, with someone else, might I add, but he sacrifices himself to protect Coop because he knows it'd devastate her if she lost him. His love for her supersedes everything else - even his own life - even his own freaking immortal power - and I think that says a lot about the virtuous depth of his feelings. Love of that magnitude can only come from a pure sliver of heartspace somewhere, you know what I'm saying?

Cole's unconditional love for Phoebe is the one glimmer of humanity he refused to surrender to the Source's total eclipse of evil. Nothing in the universe could or would take that away from him. And guess what? It didn't.

That takes a tremendous amount of courage and self-will from anybody, and I'm awed by it. Absolutely gobsmacked! It literally opens me up from neck-to-navel any time I try and imagine the profundity of that sort of love and devotion.

All of this, to me, is reason enough to ship them. And you know...to cry about them into my pillow for years to come. 😭

Anyway, I have no clue if I managed to sway you at all but I hope you had fun listening to me try and explain my reasoning!

xx

[legendary-alliance-stance]

That's totally fine! worked sucked today and I went to bed suuuper late lmao so like I'm only just decompressing now anyways

ALSO SCREAMING AND CRYING RN OMG thank you so much for the dialogue recording!! I literally spent a half hour doing the dishes today with my wireless headset on just camped in the wizard's tower listening out for their lines lmao

GOD put makeup on the man!! Give it to him!! AH it's so GOOD 👏DARK👏SKINNED👏ARCHEMORUS!👏 AND THAT HAIR ON THE YOUNG ONES GOD IT'S SO YESSS

GOD THEY'RE SO CUTE THEY LOOK SO GOOD!!

Also doing a bit of research it appears tattoos were a common occurrence among the Luxons??? so like. any tattoo headcanons u know like a sleeve, a tramp stamp, neck, thigh, ankle, full body etc like what are we thinking

and YEAH the clothes don't make sense to my brain I'm definitely not like a concept artist kinda person I literally have no idea where to even start with something like that lmao but maybe one day I'll. think about it... or maybe just. make it a modern au. or skip the clothes whateverr who needs em >.>

ALSO have this quick little post-it note doodle cause I can't GET THAT MAKEUP OUT OF MY HEAD NOW that's SO FREAKING UGH I couldn't go to sleep without a scribble i really really couldn't n it's only fair tbh u show me urs i should share mine ri ght (even if i hate it gotta do it for the vibezzz) IT'S BED TIME AND U GOT ME DRAWING BY PHONE LIGHT BRO also it's impossible to take pictures at night without natural lighting and sorry it's MASSIVE idk why phone photos be saving like that

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/947194586055446589/1145964630225723483/Vik_8_28_23.jpg

(if that link doesn't work i'll like. find some other way to show u lmao) I might like upload this one day somewhere if I ever bother to like. make an art blog or a gw2 blog or smthin' but if you like this and wanna save it u should cause idk if I'll leave it on discord forever so the link might break lmao

k goodnight

SOMEHOW I DIDNT SEE THIS ASK UNTIL RIGHT NOW??? THANKS TUMBLR MOBILE UR A WORKING APP

IM GLAD U ENJOYED THE DIALOGUE RECORDING!!! I love listening to them so so SO MUCH

AND IM!!!

SO HAPPY THAT U LIKE MY ART OF THEM!! THANK U SO MUCH!!!

and I haven’t actually figured out what I imagine archemorus’s tattoos look like yet!! he has some on his arms in the factions trailer but they’re also the exact same as the generic luxons there so lmao I don’t think anet put too much thought into that aspect of things FJSKFKSKS I’ll have to work on designing that for him at some point!!!

AND HONESTLY A MODERN AU IS SO VALID. that’s truly the easiest way to handle characters with complicated outfits lmao

AND!! IM ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED TO SEE UR DRAWING OF VIKKY!!! HE LOOKS LOVELY!! I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE U TO DRAW MORE!!!!

[SAVES IT SAVES IT SAVES IT]

AND I ALSO ENCOURAGE U TO MAKE A TUMBLR!! partly so u can post art and also it’s so much easier to communicate via reblog/messages/replies than via asks!!! join me in gw2 blog hell <333 EITHER THAT or if ur comfy with it u can add me on discord!!

[queer-enderdragon]

soo like, do you have favorite ships (what are they :3)? or do you multiship? just curious

well i do multiship a lot tbh, more with hermitcraft bc there's just. so many combinations and they are all so good in their own little ways

but i also have some favorites! like grumbo, convex, poly hermit gals, jleo, poly architechs, treebark and (rare pair alert) stress x grian/stress x etho/stress x grian x etho :D

[words-writ-in-starlight]

day 4: "do you trust me?"

(part one)

There are logistics to consider, when it comes to publicly executing a wizard. It’s a show of assurance from the Dynasty, to have him killed under the eyes of all Rosohna, to prove their strength, but also a risk. It looks unprofessional for a captured traitor to make a last stand within feet of the axe, even if all he achieves is going out in a blaze of glory rather than a quick drop of steel.

Steps have been taken to avoid this eventuality. Essek’s hands are shackled behind his back, forced into gloves with steel wires running through the fingers and palms to prevent even the smallest gesture. Between the cloth between his teeth and the metal muzzle holding his jaw tightly closed, he’s no closer to speaking a spell than he is to walking on the sun. Every fiber of his plain prisoner’s shirt and pants has been searched, twice, to ensure that he has nothing on him that might conceivably be used for casting.

Essek has seen this before, although rarely. It was not a surprise, when the appointed day arrived and his guards brought the restraints. Yet it feels unreal, as everything since his trial has felt unreal. As everything since Jester’s message has felt unreal. A dream, unspooling before him, outside his control.

There is a kind of ease to it, that Essek has never experienced before. There is nothing left for him to do. He made his attempt to run, and he failed. He said his words of defense at his trial, and they were not enough. And now, they will use the same techniques that he helped to perfect to drag him to the block and kill him for his treason, his callous disregard for all the lives lost in the war. All neat and tidy, and all he has to do is let the current carry him forward to the inevitable end.

He tells himself, as the gloves are locked onto his hands, that this is one of the better possible outcomes, and he even believes it. His friends, his family—they are not here. Jester has done as she agreed, giving him time to resolve the situation, and hasn’t messaged him since his trial. The Nein are well outside the possible radius of destruction that Essek has caused, in his arrogance and carelessness. He knows his actions will reflect poorly on Den Thelyss, but he hopes that Verin might escape with a mere demotion, as unscathed as anyone could hope to be, protected by Essek’s full, willing confession.

It’s worth it, to pay for their lives with his own.

Essek believes this. He believes it with his whole heart.

The gloves keep his hands from shaking.

Two guards, a goliath with her arms tattooed so densely she looks scaled and a burly half-orc with skin nearly as grey as the stone walls, haul him to his feet in his cell and push him forward. They hold him up by main force when he stumbles and he would otherwise take a head-first fall into the stone. Nonetheless, his pride prickles and burns when the half-orc yanks him upright after his latest near-fall, grip hard on the collar of Essek’s shirt, and snorts a laugh.

“Can’t believe he’s the fucking traitor,” the half-orc says over Essek’s head, drawling the words in a tone full of vindictive amusement that Essek has become regrettably familiar with, lately. “Fucker can’t even walk in a straight line. Can you, Shadowhand?” He gives Essek a sharp cuff on the shoulder to punctuate the insult, and it’s only because Essek has a sense of how this goes by now that he manages to anticipate the blow and stay on his feet.

The goliath laughs, a rolling rumble of thunder as she checks Essek hard with her hip, sending Essek into the corner of the next corridor hard enough that he’d have a bruise, if he lived long enough for it to show up.

“You’re telling me,” the goliath says. “Goddamn, wizards are useless once you get ‘em quiet, huh? Up this way next, what is this, your first time down here?”

“You’ve got to do a pretty good job, but yeah, pretty much just decorative once you shut ‘em up.” The half-orc grabs the cuff holding Essek’s hands together and tugs to indicate the next corridor, ignoring the way it forces Essek up onto his toes against the pain in his shoulders. “I just got in from Jigow,” he continues, as if Essek isn’t even there. “Y’know how it is, they were looking to cover y’all’s staffing problems since this bastard’s confession did a real number on things. Anywhere good to get a drink around here?”

“Thought you looked new,” the goliath said. “You trying to get lucky, new guy?”

“Hey, miss every shot you don’t take,” the half-orc said, sly, angling a glance up at her. “How’s my progress?”

“Depends on how much you spend on those drinks. Hold him, I’ll get the gate.”

The half-orc’s hands close firmly around the tops of Essek’s arms, holding him in place as the goliath strides ahead. In front of her—in front of Essek—is the great gate to the courtyard, and beyond it he can hear the roar of a crowd, bloodthirsty and victorious.

He can picture it. He’s put people here himself, attended executions for treason. The flagstones, smooth and dark beneath the crowd of witnesses. The stone dias with the Bright Queen’s throne, the chairs beside her for close advisors and other nobility. His mother might have been there, if he hadn’t so recently destroyed the reputation of Den Thelyss. And at the center, where all could see, the stairs, and the platform, and the block, and the axe.

The goliath is at the door, and the lock clatters, metal-on-metal.

Under cover of the noise, the half-orc lowers his head and speaks into Essek’s ear, no longer the careless drawl, but quick, clipped words in a familiar accent.

“I don’t have time to explain,” the half-orc murmurs in Fjord’s voice, so quiet that Essek would think it was a hallucination if he couldn’t feel the air move against his skin. “We have a plan. Do you trust me?”

Essek’s first response isn’t relief. It’s not even shock. It is pure, undiluted, blazing rage, that, after all this, these fucking morons are here. It hits him so hard that his skin burns with it, his vision spotting black at the edges, lips twisting against his gag. All at once, for the first time in a week, Essek is awake, jarred back to the present by the fury pounding through his veins. He can feel the air rushing into his throat, the hammering of his heart against his ribs, every fiber of his coarse prisoner’s clothing and every imperfection of the stone under his bare feet.

Fortunately, Essek has been a traitor in the heart of the Dynasty for too long to let it slow him down, and he nods, once, minutely.

“Okay,” Fjord breathes. “She’s going to open that door. When I yell, make a run for it.”

Once upon a time, Essek would have spent valuable time thinking about how astronomically terrible that plan is, but prolonged exposure to the Mighty Nein teaches a person to accept the reality of a plan being terrible right away and move on to thinking about managing the terrible plan quickly. And—

Even if it was the worst conceivable plan, even if it was—well, make a run for it, when there’s a sword-wielding goliath between him and the outside, which is entirely populated by guards, magic users, and a crowd that wants him dead—even then, Essek can’t imagine turning down the offer. It’s not exactly a port in a storm, but it’s something.

Essek is twenty paces from his own death, and even if this plan just ends with him having a friend at his side while he dies, it’s already better than dying alone. He never claimed to have entirely cured himself of selfishness.

And besides, Essek reassures himself as the goliath shoulders open the door. If this gets Fjord killed too, Essek will just have to find a way to drag himself back from death and throttle the entire Nein on principle. Stranger things have happened.

The door creaks open, and Fjord’s hands loosen, just slightly, and Essek runs.

“Fucker!” Fjord roars behind him, sounding breathless—pained? It buys Essek a bare moment to close the distance to the gate, and then dart around the goliath’s side as she starts to turn. “He’s using magic! Stop him!”

The goliath snarls, and Essek puts on a reckless burst of speed. Her hand shoots out and grabs his shirt, but Essek is moving too quickly. The fabric cuts into him as it rips, and then he’s stumbling into the courtyard.

He doesn’t get any further. His luck doesn’t hold up to a second blow from the goliath, and she slams a fist into his chest so hard he hears ribs crack. He’s shoved backward, toward the door, with a helpless, strangled shout of pain that draws every eye.

He’s caught from behind, a fist in his tangled white hair, and he hears a whisper of “Trust me.”

And then Fjord’s hand, unremarkable guard’s sword in his grip, comes down, and cuts Essek’s throat.

[havin-fun-imagining-twd]

A fu---n’ great Christmas

Daryl picked the title ^

When - Hell of a day is the story published directly before this, but it’s not taking place right after that one ended. That’s right, we’re making a time jump!  And it’s Christmas! This one takes place during that long swathe of months in between the Greene’s farm and the Prison. In the series, it’s about a month and a half after Slowpoke.  Here’s the Masterlist for more background.

Perspective - 2nd person, then one teeny part in 3rd person Daryl POV

Relationships - slow burn Daryl x Reader, but don’t admit it to (yourself,) Glenn, Maggie, Beth, or Carol, they’ll be too satisfied. And as always, you and the gang!

Genre - Christmas! Specifically, you and the gang are trying to make sure Carl has some kind of normalcy for it. He’s just a kid. Also Daryl shares his poncho.

Pronouns - decided to avoid specifics again, so used they/them at one point.

TWs - some language including Daryl using the f-bomb thrice, and our aforementioned redneck unlearning some causal racism.

Word Count - settle yourself comfortably.

(Apologies for missing all 12 days of Western Christmas plus Orthodox Christmas on Jan 7th, but we can technically say it’s still Christmas all the way until this thing called the Presentation at the Temple. So we got until Feb 2nd to keep the part going, y’all.)

______________________________________________________

Dec 15th

Glenn rubs his hands together. “So, we can risk a fire in the fireplace and a party, right?”

“Yes,” Maggie agrees. “A smokestack from a chimney won’t draw them to us and we won't be that loud.”

“The big group of 'em passed by days ago,” you echo. “Plus we blacked out the bottom floor windows.” 

“I’ll talk it over with Rick, but here’s hoping, man.”

The herd had passed, but it was a close call. When there were too many walkers, you avoided making big fires, even for cooking or sanitizing. There’s been a lot of avoiding fires the past three days.

The thought right now is that there’s a bigger hoard someplace relatively close from which those smaller groups are straying.

T-Dog holds out his hands. “Friends, we’re gonna have a fire, a’ight?” Then he straightens his posture, stating “We’re gonna have a fire, presents, and I’m gonna sing Christmas hymns, come hell or high water. That kid is gonna have a good holiday this year. We all are.”

A kind smile warms Maggie’s face. “Beth and Daddy will be singin’ right there with you.”

“So, might should we find you that Santa suit you wanted, Teddy?” you giggle. “Oh, and make sure to sing the Hanukkah song in Dale and Jim’s honor, and we can do the candles if we can find a proper menorah!”

“Well now, I’ll sing that song and I’ll accept just a hat if that’s all y’all can find,” he winks. “But I do got the belly for the full suit, is all I’m saying.”

“Beard ain’t really workin’ out, though,” Daryl teases under his breath.

“Oh-ho, bold words coming outta you, brother,” T-Dog dishes right back.

They have a little running gag between them about shaving (or the lack thereof). Neither of them can grow much facial hair, likewise Glenn. The same cannot be said of Rick and Hershel, however. It’s as if someone is putting Miracle Grow on their faces at night, you swear. 

Everyone’s been looking a little, um, let’s call it ‘unkempt.’ And don’t even start on hair elsewhere such as underarms or legs.

“Daddy used to do Santa at the church’s Christmas bazaar,” Beth softly tells you. She always sounds so shy and sweet when she pipes in. But why is she frowning? “Hey, guys?”

“What’s on your mind, little sister?” T-Dog asks.

She glances over her shoulder down the stairs and speaks very, very quietly. “I ain’t sure that Carl still, um…you know. Santa. I-I mentioned him the other day to Carl and he looked annoyed.”

Oh man. Your little Carl. 

Right as you’re fixing to inwardly mope about him growing up (and doing so too fast due to the new nature of the world), all eyes turn towards you. 

Sighing heavily, you grumble “Makes sense. Back at the quarry, the kids got to talking about holidays, and Luis – Maggie and Beth, Luis and Eliza were the other two kids at the camp outside Atlanta,” you remind them. “Luis was chattin’ to him about Santa and los Reyes, and Carl just sorta gave me this look.” 

“Isn't that the worst, guys? Like,” Glenn considers sadly, rubbing his neck and sighing just like you had. “For kids, the world ended and their friends and families died or were killed because monsters are real. Yet Santa Claus isn’t.”

“H-he technically was real, and he technically is in that we act as Santa for each other. Get with it, man,” you sniff, lower lip already wobbling. Thinking about the kids sometimes leads to you welling up a bit.

Leaning closer to you and putting a comforting hand on your arm, Maggie asks “How about last year?”

You shrug. “Carl was on the fence. I gave him my little ditty about historical St. Nick and everythin’.” You can’t possibly slouch in defeat any further as you bite your lip and consider that “He did, um, well, he’s 12 now, anyways. Lori said they was gonna…”

But you trail off and lose the urge to cry when you see that Daryl is ever so slightly smirking at you. 

So…it’s possible that on the run the other day, T-Dog had mentioned how he wanted so badly for everyone to have a good holiday season this year that he’d wear a red suit for a month if that’s what it would take to cheer you all up. Or at least the red hat. (“If y’all just so happen to find one, of course.”)

After which, Daryl might’ve commented something along the lines of: “How does a Black Santa make sense?” 

To which you then, um, possibly sort of potentially got *just a little* huffy with him and snipped about how, “The actual St. Nikolas was Mediterranean, so a blue-eyed, pasty Santa ain’t suddenly accurate, come on now!”…and such…

“Was that the same ‘little ditty’ you gave me the other day?” Daryl directs at you, arms crossed as he turns his body to face you. 

There is something about the way he looks when he’s got his arms crossed and does that squinting thing that makes your pulse speed up and gives you great difficulty in keeping a straight face. Such as right now.

Holy Moses, this little crush that’s been building really gets on your nerves sometimes. And Glenn really needs to stop smiling all ‘knowingly’ at T-Dog-- you’d told Daryl “I could kiss you!” after he found the lollipops because you were excited. It was just an expression!

Mirroring him, you cross your arms and face him head-on. “Similar, but,” you clear your throat, “I was a tad less huffy with him, Daryl.”

He’s hiding a smile as he murmurs in reply, “Mm, let’s hope.” 

After holding a stare for a beat longer than is usual between you two, you snap out of when Carol or Lori squeal out from downstairs. 

Shouts follow. Dread surges.

Shit. No, no, no, no, no –- in an instant, you’re all scrambling from the upstairs lookout, prepared for the worst.

“Beth, keep behind us!” Glenn yells.

But the rush of dread and adrenaline is quickly ebbed when you next hear…laughter?

As your group finishes rushing down the steps – knives, screwdriver, hammer, bolt cutters, and crossbow at the ready – you’re met with a scene of Carol, Lori, Hershel, Carl, and Rick doubled over and laughing their asses off.

Glenn is stonefaced. “Guys. Almost peed my pants and had a heart attack.”

Through his belly laughs and simultaneous coughing, Hershel attempts to apologize to him while Rick explains something about a mouse (?), Carol finishes with something about a dust bunny (?). Carl and Lori seem to have their own little joke going before Lori finally gets up, kisses Carl and Rick on the forehead, and does a little potty dance as she jogs away, citing the desperate need to use the toilet (which is actually clean in this house). 

The rules y’all have in terms of the toilet, by the way, are basically “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.” But for #2s: outside only, unless you have a good water supply, in which case you can go in a toilet and pour some down there to force the flushing mechanism. And maybe light a candle if there’s one in there.

Anyways, you haven’t seen Rick laugh this hard since…shoot, maybe all the way back during supper at the CDC. He’s smiled since then, of course – but genuine, full-on, it’s-hard-to-breathe laughter? Not for months. Things haven’t been very, um, easy. After what happened to the farm. To Shane.

Shit, you’ve been trying to avoid thinking about your big brother. What he did, what happened to him. Then what Rick did.

Focusing your attention back on the group, you don’t notice at first that you’ve reached into your sweatshirt and pulled out Shane’s necklace. 

It’s only when you see Rick staring at your neck while his happy expression fades that you realize you’re fiddling with it. So you meet his stare, share a ghost of a smile with him, and continue on as you were.

Sometimes, you think that you hate him. Hershel and T-Dog remind you that you don’t.

You’ve forgiven him, and still love him like a brother. He is your brother. Fully letting go of the anger, doubts, and confusion is simply something you’re still working through.  

Speaking of T-Dog, he is looking mighty relaxed and happy as he calls out “Carol, would you join me upstairs?” 

“Sounds like he’s got candles and a bottle of wine up there,” you whisper to Maggie. He even said it in a huskier tone of voice!

It was Glenn who first noticed how T-Dog was all smiles around her. Later, there was less room for interpretation after the two of them parted from a friendly conversation and he looked you straight in the eyes and shook his head, declaring, “If I ain’t careful, I’m gonna fall hard for that woman.” 

“Join us! Meant ‘us,’” T-Dog quickly corrects himself, complete with a cough and an awkward grin. “Just some things we’re going over, it’d be best if you were on the same page.”

“What’s goin’ on, T-Dog?”

“That thing about the perimeter we discussed, Rick.”

“The perimeter? I – I’m sorry, I don’t even remember whatever it was,” he says, brows low as he struggles to recall it. He looks ashamed.

“Come on up, too, man, we’ll refresh your memory.”

  Dec 19th, afternoon

The Greenes and T-Dog headed out to grab some firewood and pine boughs a good half-hour ago, according to Dale’s watch. You’re all determined to give Carl a good Christmas, he’s just a kid. Heck, you all want a good Christmas. So, dressing up the living room is a step towards that.

And as it happens, this house had an artificial tree (there’s nothing quite like plastic to say ‘holidays!’, you reckon) in the attic, but pine boughs will make it look and smell better. And you can technically boil the boughs later, if necessary, pine is full of vitamin C. 

It’s insane the things you’re all eating and drinking without a second thought these days. (Christmas tree tea, yummy).

“Are they in view yet, Glenn?” you worry.

“It’s okay, them and T-Dog are maybe a block away. I don’t even need the binoculars anymore,” he answers with a sigh of relief. “No geeks following them back by the looks of it, either.”

“Thank God.” You turn back to Daryl and your stack of pillows. “Our people are gonna love this. Snow for Christmas!”

“Kinda messy when it’s made of pillow fluff, though,” he comments. “But um, keep an eye out for bedbugs,” he then cautions, ripping open the pillows with his (recently cleaned) knife. “There…might could be some in these.”

“Ah, smart. Good idea,” and you cheerfully begin to sift through the fluff with your screwdriver (also recently cleaned). No one has gotten bites in this house yet, so here’s hoping. “Wait a minute, Daryl.” He just used a ‘might could.’

His eyes don’t leave the floor where he’s casually examining the filling for any crawlies. “Hm?”

As innocently as you can, you gather a few tufts of pillow fluff in your left hand. Your lips are pursed when you dryly ask him “Might could somebody be poking fun?”

But Daryl stays quiet and proceeds to rip open the next pillow as if he doesn’t know what you’re talking about – except for that little twitch of his mouth that just gave him away!

“Might could Y/N be about to throw a snowball in your face?” Glenn muses nonchalantly from his spot at the window.

In an instant, you’re almost cackling as you yelp “Might could be!” and immediately toss a ball of pillow fluff and watch it bounce off Daryl’s forehead. You aren’t sure what kind of expression you have on but it’s most likely the dumbest little self-satisfied grin you’ve ever worn.

After a pause, he suddenly springs into action with a delightfully wicked look on his face as he grabs two giant wads of the stuff and scoots back before taking aim. “Oh, I’m gonna whup your ass, troublemaker,” he taunts.

But the second as you begin to snicker back “Oh, bring it on, redneck!” Glenn, bless his heart, decides to pipe in, “Geez, Daryl, at least buy ’em dinner first.”

You and Daryl freeze. Turn your heads towards Glenn. And quickly glancing at each other, you shout “Get him!” before letting loose your ‘snowballs’ right at him.

  Dec 19th, evening

Folding up the stethoscope, you can confidently agree, “I only heard wheezes earlier, but yeah, nothing now, Mags. Most important, no crackles for the fifth day in a row! Let’s keep it up with the NSAIDS and the smacky-smacks and the positioning.”

“Okay,” she says, exhaling the breath she was holding and giggling at the phrase you used to make yourselves feel better about the respiratory percussion thing you’d begun implementing the other week.

Hershel hasn’t been able to shake his cough for a good three weeks now. Half the problem was that he dislocated a rib when it was really bad, so couldn’t cough deeply without pain for a solid two weeks. Carol did what she could to help, but PT and pain management were al y’all could really do for it. As for the percussion (that's the 'smacky-smacks'), postural positioning, and breathing exercises, they were keeping him from getting worse, but...

You’d already given him a full round of antibiotics, but there was still fluid in his lungs, simple as. If only you could find a peak-flow meter and some guafenesin. No drug store or pharmacy seemed to have one of those handy meters thus far. But hospitals were no-go zones, and unfortunately, that’s where most of them were kept. 

“Wanna jump into the deep breathing exercises now or later, Mr. Greene?”

With a warm smile, he assures you and his daughter "Later, I’m exhausted at the moment.”

“It stops your condition from gettin’ worse,” Maggie reminds him, saving you from doing it. “Doing it now while everything’s loosened is best, you told us that to make sure we’d insist.”

He rests his head back against the bed frame and sighs, grinning. “I suppose I was dragging my feet, as it were. I’ve got no intention of getting pneumonia for Christmas this year, Margaret, I can promise you that, sweetheart.” 

“Good,” she announces. “Now take another spoonful of honey and no complainin’.”

“A cough is a sight easier to cure than diabetes,” he tries to protest, even if half-serious. He isn’t the fondest of being babied and just about everybody’s been babying him.

Winking, you remark “Doctors do make the worst patients,” which elicits a smile from them both.

“Well now, troublemaker,” he begins. “I am a veterinarian specialized in livestock, not a proper medical doctor. So there.” And with that, he accepts the spoon from his daughter and puts it in his mouth, complete with a slight grimace at the burst of sweetness.

Letting Maggie handle the rest, you excuse yourself. “Glenn’s probably ready with the tea, most likely he’s on his way up, I’ll go check.”

“Alright Daddy, I’m gonna do the exercises with you today. Inhale deeply for 10 seconds to start…”

  Dec 20th, early afternoon

After clearing the new crop of walkers from the street, the group can finally bring in everything from the run. 

Carl runs outside first to help bring the haul in (“Hope you like pintos and lima beans, punk, we got 6 cans of each.”). It’s getting harder and harder to find food in the area. Nothing too dire yet, but most of what isn’t canned has already gotten either infested with vermin or gone moldy or rancid from the humidity. Your vote is to keep moving further North. But then winters won’t be as mild, and that could be worse.

Beth is thrilled to see that Maggie found a clean pack of women’s underwear and two packs of socks, and that Glenn found some clean boxers for the men.

And thankfully, Daryl located a bulk pack of batteries for the walkies and backup for the emergency crank radio. True, no radio stations are airing anything at the moment, but it’s got a flashlight and some charging docks on it. That’s how you’ve been charging your mp3 player, and the whole group is thankful to listen to music from time to time. 

Hershel and Carol take in what medical supplies you were all able to pilfer, among them, potassium iodide, thank the Lord. Hershel’s cough is finally going to get a move on. You still haven’t found any guaifenesin, though, which is way more effective. Or a damn peak-flow meter. 

Lori is just happy to see you all come back safe. Maggie and you found some vitamins and folic acid supplements for her. And orthopedic shoe inserts, but those were being saved for Christmas. 

But that isn’t all. Rick had almost broken down in relief when Glenn found a clean baby carrier. They were going to set it up in the Hyundai later as a surprise. Even though it was months ahead of need, it would be there as a reminder and a comfort.

It’s gonna work out. This baby is gonna be kept safe and well and very loved.

  Dec 21st, morning

“It’s so neat that a watch can work without batteries.”

“Swim-proof, too. Dale knew how to choose a good one,” you say to Beth as you wind it up.

Looks like she’s taking a break from decorating the wreath to choose a new song on the mp3. It’s a pity that the earbuds are only working in one ear, now. And you haven’t found any spare pairs in this house, search as you did. 

“Just wait until Carl opens up those pudding cups,” she giggles.

“He’ll inhale two in less than a minute while he zones out in that comic book.”

Her first run and she’d found that little gold mine (“Mama always used to put the sweet snacks she didn’t want us hoggin’ wrapped with the blankets in her closet, so that’s where I looked.”). She’d also found an unopened glass bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Your head is all better now, right Y/N?”

She must be concerned because you’ve begun massaging your neck. A migraine hit you a little while after getting back from the supply run yesterday. All gone now though, you simply have regular pain at the moment. “I just can’t believe I slept that long, Beth. Any longer and you’d all have to start chargin’ me rent.”

Having crashed so early yesterday, you’ve been up since 4:26 a.m. precisely, upon which you took over guard duty for a very grateful Rick.

“It’s too bad Daryl’s on watch, now. He could rub your neck awhile.”

“Child, you’re as bad as Glenn sometimes. And may I remind you that Lori was the one who massaged my neck last night?”

“Mmhm.” Oh, is that girl is being sassy right now. “He gave you that shoulder rub two weeks ago. Did it for a long time.”

Yeah, but that was normal. After he’d come back half-dead after searching for Sophia, you’d massaged his shoulders and feet. So now, he helped you out, too. It’s what people who care about each other do. You’re family!

“My shoulder was actin’ up again,” you explain. “Actin’ up like somebody I know.”

“No need to get all embarrassed,” she quietly sing songs back.

You hear the creak of floorboards and the sound of light footsteps ascending the stairs.

“Maggie’s rubbed my neck when I’ve had migraines before, and I’m fairly positive it ain’t because she’s sweet on me,” you respond to Beth. “And your daddy helped Teddy with that charley-horse that time, but they haven’t announced no engagement.”

“Fine, I see your point,” Beth relents, giggling again. “But I enjoy watchin’ the two of you. Makes me feel happy, like when I see Glenn and my sister.”

“Ah, you enjoy watching us bicker? Anyway, you should be rootin’ for him with Carol, she actually flirts with him and doesn’t annoy his butt off.”

The footsteps reach the top of the stairs, and you turn to see Maggie.

Beth huffs. “One day, y’all are gonna be hitched, and I will require a proper thank you. There,” she says, attention now toward her creation as she triumphantly holds up a very nicely shaped and decorated wreath to you and her big sister. “See? All it takes is a wire hanger to keep the branches in! Used to sell a whole bunch at the Christmas bazaar.”

“Oh, Beth!” Maggie sighs. “I’m gettin’ all nostalgic.” She then crouches. “Ready for the birthday party? Glenn just woke up and he still has no idea we found marshmallows for him.”

“The birthday boy is finally awake? Let’s go!”

  Dec 22nd, afternoon

“Okay. How many at the stream?”

Rick is pacing back and forth. “After 10, I stopped countin’. It has to be that they’re coming from some bigger hoard someplace nearby, I-I have no other way to explain why we keep gettin’ so many big clusters of them roaming around.”

“Are we still safe in this house?”

He presses his thumb and forefinger to his brow as he angrily mutters “We’re not safe anywhere.”

“Rick, don’t. Please.” Willing your voice to soften, you ask again, “Are we safe to stay here, or is it time to pack?”

“Let’s…” and he shakes his head. “Let’s get our people packed, but we’ll go out and take care of what walkers we see, maybe we can still…” Rick then exhales, and eases himself down onto the bottom step and places his head in his hands. “I know there are more important things, but…havin’ a happy, relatively normal Christmas was somethin’ I hoped we could give them. Give Carl.”

You sit down next to him and lean your elbows on your knees. “We will.”

“Might will, you mean?”

“No. No mights about it.” You then chuckle quietly to yourself. “Lori told you how we decided to insist Santa and the Wise Men brought the presents?”

“She mentioned Santa, but I don’t remember the…” Stress will do that. His memory hasn’t been the greatest and the man knows it. “We’re doin’ the, uh, the Three Kings, too?” 

“It’s three times the fun, and that means if Christmas day doesn’t end up workin’, we have until the 6th. Figured it would entertain him in the least, to see us so insistent.” You stop your nervous babbling and frown upon seeing Rick subtly pressing his temples. “You got a headache?”

“Nothing compared to the ones you get.”

“Hush, that don’t make yours not painful. C’mere,” you order, repositioning yourself so that you can massage his head.

Even as he relaxes at the sensation, he protests, “Y-you don’t have to –”

“ – Ricky, you’re my brother,” is all you reply as you continue to gently knead your fingers into his scalp.

If you knew Beth could see you now, you’d stick your tongue out at her. There is nothing romantic here in the slightest, it’s just something you’re doing because he’s in discomfort and you care about him. He's your brother.

Nothing further is said between you, but that’s okay. 

A few months back, a day or so after Rick and Shane had, um…after what happened between them happened, Rick told you with no small amount of emotion that he was still your brother.

Now, you didn’t throw it back in his face but you also hadn’t been in the best place when he said that. And he’s still holding onto a lot of guilt. A lot. 

Confirming with him that you are still family is something that the both of you need to repeat.

After a few minutes, you hear the side door open. “Dad?”

“Carl, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just, I saw you guys out here. What are you doing outside? It’s cold.”

“Would be warmer if you didn’t walk outside in only a sweatshirt,” you tease.

Rick turns his head to look at him. “You need a hat, scarf, and gloves. Maybe a big old snowsuit and some boots.”

Carl has a shy little grin on his face. He knows what his dad is getting at. They adore that movie, they know it top to bottom. “But with all that on…‘I can’t put my arms down!’”

Except growls interrupt the light moment. You all whip your heads towards the trees to see from where the walker is going to shuffle out.

There are two – no, three of them.

Rude-ass walkers.

“Carl, inside now,” his father quickly directs.

“Honey, go inside.”

To you, he says, “Y/N, I’m takin’ out the two the right, you take the one on the left.”

One more shuffles through while you’re dispatching the others, at which Rick angrily storms over and hits several more times than is necessary to put it down.

Once he finally stops, Rick kneels there in silence. Then he stands up, puts his hands on his hips, and closes his eyes. You wipe your weapons on the grass first before quietly leading him to the outside water barrel to rinse and wash.

One more walker joins the party, so you deal it with while Rick dries off. Still quiet, he then wraps an arm around your shoulder and you both head inside together. 

Lori is right at the door, opening it once you’re close. “Hey,” she murmurs. 

He clasps his hand in hers for a moment before letting go. “Lore. It’s not a definite yet,” he tells her, “But you, Hershel, and Carl should start packin’ up. Just to be ready.” He then turns his gaze to you. “Please tell the gang to get ready to head to the creek, see if we can’t nip that problem in the bud. Maybe we can do a sweep of the surrounding streets, too, and if we run into that hoard, we’ll vacate. Carol, you get the rifle, you can be on watch here while we’re gone.”

“Only if I get to use the pink walkie,” she says, easing the tension somewhat and handing you the yellow one. Rick has the third one, your green one, already.

“And Beth, you can use the binoculars to keep watch on the opposite side, okay?”

“Alright, Rick.”

“Dad, why can’t I help?”

“You are helping. In the most important way, son,” Hershel cuts in. “Assisting your mother and listening to your father. Carl, let’s make sure the medical supplies are all packed.”

  Dec 23rd, nighttime

Daryl’s down to seven cigarettes per week. You’re so proud of him. 

And yes, it’s still shockingly easy to find intact packs these days. Not too many smokers left alive to share them with, you suppose.

He sees you’ve joined him out on the second-floor deck and moves downwind so the smoke doesn’t blow on you.

“Tomorrow’s the big day, Daryl. You excited?”

“Ain’t it Christmas Eve tomorrow, not actual Christmas?”

“I always liked the Eve better, personally. You?”

“Never really thought about it much, I guess.”

Yeah, with his unhappy, unwholesome childhood and equally unhealthy adult life thus far, you can understand where he’s coming from. You do pray this year will somehow warm him up, lift his spirits a little. The collapse of civilization notwithstanding.

“The day has become awful stripped down from its purpose, anyways,” you concede. 

“Got annoyed with all the damn music, too.”

Chuckling, you nod and acknowledge, “It’s terrible commercialized, too.”

He takes a slow, long drag, savoring it before he puts it out. He’s taken to smoking in short increments to keep the nicotine high consistent, even if small. He also extinguishes it in between drags to not waste any of the tobacco. “This your favorite holiday?”

“I enjoy it a whole lot, yeah. But my favorite is Easter.”

“Mine’s the Fourth.”

“May the Fourth?” you deadpan, raising your eyebrows. “Never knew you were a Star Wars fan. Have you told Glenn?”

He coughs a little as he snorts, “Such a damned weirdo.”

Cracking up at your own dumb excuse for a joke, you extend it just a touch to add, “What, you’re the one whose favorite holiday is May the Fourth.”

One more cough. “4th of July.”

Still smiling, you shake your head and assure him, “I know, I know,” then you cough a little yourself (from the chill, not secondhand smoke). “Gonna take a wild guess and suggest that you totally would bring a illegal fireworks over state lines, you lived so close to Tennessee.”

“Hell yeah. Fireworks, hotdogs, a shit ton of beer. Best damn holiday.”

“Ooh, what’d you put on your hotdogs? I’m hungry, man.”

With a hum, he admits, “I could guzzle those things plain out the fridge. Sometimes I did, straight from the package.”

“Mangy hick.”

As it were, his stomach growls. His eyes glaze over and he hums again, then describes what he’d eat in a low voice. He sounded almost reverent as he detailed, “Chili, spicy pickles, and a shit ton of raw onions, if I was doin’ ’em fancy. Maybe some sweet relish with mustard, too...”

The way he just slipped into a food fantasy struck you as hot, so you do your dumb thing where you make a dumb joke, ughhh. “Raw onion, that must’ve been a hit with the ladies.”

He then coughs again, but a little over-forcefully, as if...nervous? 

You hadn’t meant to cause him embarrassment, just to joke around as friends do. He usually just brushes that sort of thing off or gets a little quiet. You do love it when he blushes, though, oh my gosh it’s nice.

It’s one of the reasons you feel so comfortable around him, to be honest, he seems safe that way. Sometimes you wonder if he’s asexual, or if it’s simply that there’s no one in the group he finds attractive in that way. Either way, he feels so darn safe.

Oops, and now you’re staring at his lips. Again.

Crushes are so irritating. You’d meant it as a simple joke about onions and smelly breath, that was all.

“How ‘bout you?”

(You’d want pickle relish and raw onions, too, everything sounds good right now when you’re hungry, but no way are you owning up to that after your little razz about kissing.) “Corndog,” you reply simply.

He actually groans and closes his eyes at that one, tilting his neck ever so slightly. And you’re definitely not swatting away deliciously adult thoughts when he does so. Why is his neck so sexy?

“Aw shit, I miss corndogs,” he breathes. 

“A hotdog in a hushpuppy, ain’t nothin’ better.” Now your deliciously adult thoughts are being chased away by purely delicious thoughts of eating a giant corndog. Until you turn your head in the corndog fantasy and see Daryl strolling next to you at the fair, eating his onion-laden hotdog. Good Moses, you can be weird. Thank God no one else is in your head.

“Hey, I forgot to tell you what I found for T – wait a sec.” He looks around and asks “T-Dog is off duty right now, right, he ain’t up here?”

“Yeah, he and Hershel are downstairs doin’ something, um, Bible study maybe?”

“Good,” and he wraps up his ¾ finished cigarette in the little bit of tinfoil he keeps in his pocket just for that. “Come with me,” and he lightly cups your arm to lead you inside.

Ignoring Glenn who looks at you with eyebrows raised and a smug little grin at his hand guiding you along, you watch Daryl rummage through his bag to fish out a…crumpled red t-shirt? 

But then he holds it open so you can see the logo.

You clap your hands in glee, but remember to whisper when you ask, “Is that a Dawgs shirt?”

He holds up a finger to his lips (Come on, man, give me a break. I’m trying to not stare at your mouth!) to remind you “Shh!” 

“That’s where he played college ball!” you excitedly whisper.

He’s got the cutest damned smile when he murmurs shyly “S’where he got his nickname, too.” He even appears proud of himself, for once. 

It takes a whole lot of effort for you to not repeat,“Oh Daryl, I could kiss you!”

So, you praise and talk up his find instead, feeling a warm, radiant sort of joy settle within you. That man has come so far and grown so much.

Which, apparently, makes now the perfect time for Glenn to toss a snowball of pillow fluff in your face. Both him and Daryl snicker like schoolboys.

“Ha! Payback!”

“Carl! Beth!” you screech. “Grab some of the pillow fluff and come upstairs, it’s war! Rhee’s the target, Dixon, too!”

  Dec 24th, morning

You’ve been humming carols and Christmas songs all day. 

Maggie took to singing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer under her breath to tease Glenn, who h-a-t-e-s that song. He retaliated by singing Dominic the Donkey, at which point you obviously had to join in. Except now, the song is in everyone’s heads and most of you have been unwittingly mumbling the lyrics. 

Snowball fights (fluff fights) have been going off and on a lot more today. People are excited! Carl especially looks excited, and that’s as much as you could wish for.

Presents are ready and wrapped. There was only birthday and baby shower wrapping paper in the attic, but that was fine, both of those are technically appropriate for Christmas. T-Dog and Beth are hard at work writing “Jesus” on the birthday paper.

And the food is…well, there’s not much to prep, per se. It’s rice and beans flavored with onion grass, one can of potatoes that Carol plans to spice up and drizzle with non-rancid oil that she found in the kitchen cabinet, cattail and watercress foraged by the stream the other day, with two squirrels and a rabbit that Daryl snagged last night/earlier this morning.

Then for toasting, there’s a mostly full bottle of bourbon, plus some canned peaches and pineapple for dessert. And a massive jar of peanut butter, just please keep it away from Daryl, he hates that stuff.

But see? Christmas dinner just like mama used to make. Almost.

This is gonna be an almost-normal holiday!

  Dec 24th, afternoon

“Carl’s too young!”

“He’s with Rick and Daryl; he’s in safe hands,” Lori calmly tells you. Yet something about the way she said it suggests that she may have been repeating that for her own sake as much as yours.

“He has a radio and a walkie. We’ll know if anything goes wrong,” Carol reminds the two of you. She also appears to be saying it more for her own benefit.

“’Going wrong’ means getting bit these days!” you angrily throw back at her and immediately regret it. 

Before you spat that out, you’d been thinking about how little Sophia had the pink walkie when she went missing. It hadn’t done her much good when she was running from walkers and it fell out of her pocket.

But Carol, of all people, knew that. 

What you said was unkind and rude. And on Christmas Eve, of all days! Damn your temper.

Tucking your tail between your legs, you apologize straight away. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry, Carol, I g-got a touch rude and dramatic, there. And I’m sorry, Lori. Carl’s in safe hands, you’re right.”

“You were honest, Y/N,” Lori mutters to herself as Glenn jogs over from down the hall. 

“Hey, you seen Hershel?” he asks the three of you.

Your brow furrows even more. “He ain’t with Mags or Beth?”

He shakes his head. “Not with T-Dog, either.”

From behind you, you hear Lori tap her finger over the radio speaker and the walkie a few times. That was the way you contacted somebody if they were out. If little taps answer back, that means they are trying to stay quiet. If a voice answers back, all is well. Carol puts her arm around you in a silent gesture that she isn’t upset with you.

“Homebase, this is Rick,” crackles back over the police radio.

“Y/N, is that you?” Carl asks over the little walkie, which means they are within a three-mile radius.

 “It’s me, my loves,” Lori answers into both. “Rick, Carl, is Hershel with you?”

“I-I thought I told you he was – wait, Lori, is everything alright? Is something going wrong, are you in pain, or –”

While she calms Rick’s nerves, Glenn rants under his breath to you how: “They took Hershel out? What the hell, man? Maggie isn’t gonna be happy. Hell, I’m not happy. And why didn’t they tell me – I could’ve gone to keep him safe!”

  … later that afternoon

Hershel just cracked up when he got home to see how much he was being fussed over. To everybody, he reminded that he was a grown man, but that he was sorry he didn’t tell anyone that he was going out. In his words, “We had some errands to run, so went out at a time we thought no one would miss us.” 

Carl, on the other hand, was quietly indignant at people thinking of him as a little kid. As for Rick, he tried to find a balance between being authoritative, authoritarian, and apologetic.

And as for Daryl, well, he was just Daryl. He didn’t listen to the commotion for a minute before heading off to another room for some quiet.

  Dec 24th, late evening

You, T-Dog, and Daryl are currently on watch while the festivities are going on. But it’s all good, three bowls with dinner set aside are awaiting downstairs and you can hear the fun, at least. You’re eager to see that pillow fluff snowman you heard them say they were making.

The shifts tonight are shorter and more staffed to allow everybody to enjoy some time together, and Hershel gets the evening off from his breathing treatment.

And according to Dale trusty old mechanical timepiece, your shift is over in 9 minutes and forty-one…forty…thirty-nine seconds…

You’re so hungry that you’ve been watching the seconds time down since there was a half-hour left to your shift. You can’t wait to go downstairs, eat, and hug Carl as tightly as you can until he complains!

All is clear in your area where you’re looking, thankfully. Not one straggler in sight. There is a rabbit you’ve had your eye on, though, nibbling on something. Wait! – oh darn it, it just scurried away.

That means something spooked it. You focus and try to pinpoint any observable movement in your eye view, but there’s...no, there’s nothing…

Then you notice that T-Dog has stopped singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful. 

The adrenaline starts to trickle. “Teddy, how many of ’em do you see?”

“Radio Daryl, a’ight? I got eyes on four, five…eight…no, there’s…shit.” He licks his lips and shakes his head. “I got eleven coming from the front right of the house, but there are more outside of my view.”

As you press the button to ask Daryl what he can see, he rushes over from down the hall. “Shit, people, we got a herd.”

  8 minutes later

“Leave the fire, it’ll burn out on its own.”

“Shh, quiet now.”

“Have we got everythin’?”

“Everybody ready?”

The herd is big enough that T-Dog threw the egg timer as far as he could from the top window in the back of the house. That gave you all five minutes to get ready to run out the door and get to the cars until the timer went off and would draw the walkers towards that direction.

After the timer starts ringing, he’ll throw a Molotov (Daryl’s idea) in the same direction, and then you’d wait 30 more seconds before opening the front door and rushing for the cars.

“Remember: after that, Daryl, T-Dog, and myself will clear enough of the dead away so that Glenn and Y/N can sprint ahead and open the cars. Hershel, Maggie, Glenn, and Beth in the Chevy. Carol, Y/N, Daryl, and T-Dog in the Dodge. Lori, Carl, and myself in the Hyundai,” Rick instructs you all, voice commanding and firm.

He continues, “Follow the Dodge, it’s got the best suspension. They’ll be leading us to that small Water Department reservoir, the one near Chattahoochee-Oconee State Forest. That’s the one we marked on the map we went over together last week. Keep seatbelts, walkies, and radios on.”

  Dec 24th, near midnight

The little building at the reservoir is clear, with two cots in the closet, one bench, and some folding chairs. It’s quiet here. Best of all, it’s removed from the town. 

Tomorrow the group would see about setting up in there, meanwhile, you’d all stay in the vehicles for the night. Just in case.

Looking out the back view of the truck (the only window not fully covered), you worry. It’s dark so you can’t see much, but there is a plume of smoke out there. “Is that the smoke from the Molotov, you think?”

Carol squints as she gazes out the window and frowns. “Hope we didn’t start a brush fire.”

“Ain’t gonna spread far if we did,” Daryl states.

“Too much moisture in the area, in the ground,” T-Dog agrees, nodding. 

The truck is warm enough, at least. Chilly night. The food is cold, too, but thankfully Carol saved your meal(s) in a sauce pot, so now you, Daryl, and T-Dog are trying to finally dull the ache in your stomachs since you three hadn’t eaten supper. That herd had very inconsiderate timing. And on Christmas, of all days, how rude.

Oh, that reminds you to check the time. Is it midnight yet?…

“Hey y’all, Merry Christmas!”

Carol raises her eyebrows, chuckles, and shakes her head as she politely returns, “Merry Christmas, everyone.” 

But T-Dog, no, his reaction is joyful as he booms, “Oh-ho, Merry Christmas people!” while his mouth is still full, then takes the radio and wishes the other two cars the same joy-filled wish. 

Daryl grunts something incoherent before whipping out two nips of brandy from his pocket.

“Aw, see? I knew he’d get into the Christmas spirit,” you giggle, snuggling further into your coat. Moses, it’s chilly tonight.

He tuts but smiles when you say that, handing the other nipper to T-Dog to share with Carol. After cracking open his, he glugs half before mumbling “Merry Christmas” and giving you the rest.

Drinking it down in one go (you’re cold and want that warming sensation brandy gives ASAP), you listen as T-Dog again cheers, “Merry Christmas, everybody! God bless!” over the radio.

After this, a barrage of similar cheers all compete for air time until the noise dies down just as quickly. Which is fair. There’s not too much ability to celebrate now.

Might as well get some rest, right?

“Anyone even able to fall asleep yet?” Carol asks wryly.

“Beat as all-get-out, but too wired,” T-Dog answers, urging everyone to help finish up the food in the pot.

“Least we have accommodations with meals right in our rooms,” you joke. If only there was space to stretch out in the truck bed, but there’s no cover for it even if there was room. It’s too cold, anyway.

“Daryl, you gonna be warm enough in that?” you softly check. You suppose he does have a leather jacket underneath the poncho, but...

“M’good. It’s warmer than it looks,” he assures you. 

“Not to mention he got that cozy little crossbow for a blanket,” T-Dog cracks. “At least rest it on the dash, brother.”

You huddle closer to Carol for warmth in the backseat and try to get comfortable. Daryl and T-Dog settle themselves into their seats in the front. Carol and you end up sharing one coat and using the other as a blanket to more effectively transfer body heat.

And, eventually, you all fall asleep.

  Dec 25th, early morning

The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the horizon has a faint glow to it. According to your watch, it’s 6:41 a.m.

And you. Gotta. Potty. NOW.

Un-tucking yourself from the shared coat, Carol wakes briefly to put it back on properly and zip it back up before relaxing back to catch at least a few more minutes of shut-eye.

Oh, Daryl’s awake, good. He catches your eye and gestures with his thumb to silently ask if you were heading outside. Nodding, you softly apologize to a mostly-asleep Carol and T-Dog that it would get cold(er) for a moment. Then, quietly and slowly, you both open up your doors and peek around for any uninvited guests.

After deeming it safe, you can hop out and shut the doors as quietly as can be done with a car door before you bundle yourself back into your coat.

Okay, time to find a shrub so you can pee in peace.

Before you can say anything, Daryl unexpectedly groans “Gimme a sec, m’bout to piss myself,” before hurrying off to one of the thicker trees.

But not before stopping, turning, and telling you “Oh right, um, Merry Christmas!”

  … 4 minutes later

The little building didn’t have much of a mouse problem, if any mice problems. No broken windows, roof looks great. You hadn’t noticed last night, but there’s a little wood stove, too. You cannot believe your luck!

You and he are starting a fire in it now. There’s an old pile of mini logs already in here, plus a bunch of papers in and on the desk. 

And a whole bunch of differently sized boxes and shipping envelopes under it, oddly enough. But those, you can open up later to see if there’s anything useful. 

“Hey. You’re shivering.”

“How are you not? We just slept in a car and had to expose our giblets to the cold so we could pee, Daryl.”

Why did he just crack up? “‘Giblets,’ Y/N?”

“It’s what Gramma Jean called--well, also it’s Christmas, turkey’s on my mind,” you say, lips pursed but still smiling. “But really, how ain’t you shivering, too?”

“This thing is really damn warm, I’m tellin’ ya,” he insists, nodding towards his poncho.

“Maybe you just run hot. You do have very prominent veins, so good circulation.” If only you’d blushed enough to warm yourself after commenting about his ‘running hot,’ but alas. 

“Huh. I forgot all about that day,” he mumbles, taking off his poncho – wait, why is he doing that?

“What are you doin’, baby? You’ll freeze!”

“C’mon, switch coats with me, it’ll warm you up. Take off the hoodie underneath, too.”

Begrudgingly unbuttoning the coat, you have to question, “Why the hoodie, too?”

“Trust me.”

“Won’t you get cold?”

“Nah, I’ll only get cold if you leave me hangin’ like this, now come on, off with it, slowpoke.”

Huffing, “I ain’t no slowpoke,” you unzip it and quickly shrug it off, upon which Daryl swiftly wraps his the poncho around you, helps you zip-up your hoodie next, then puts his leather jacket on you, too.

“Holy Moses, it is warm!”

With a little hum, he razzes, “Mmhm,” then puts your coat on himself and buttons it up. Suits Daryl nicely. That old barn coat had been your dad’s actually, then Shane’s. It fits you oversized and boxy, not very flattering, but you don’t mind.

“Thank you,” you tell him, feeling your shivers ease and your smile widen. “So, we doing this Santa thing or what?” 

  20 minutes later

Beth grabbed two of the wreaths she put together during the mad dash to the cars last night, can you believe it? 

Well, yes, you can, actually. It’s Beth. She’s sweetness and innocence itself. Maggie found them in the trunk of the Chevy while grabbing the supplies from the two trucks with you and Daryl. 

Carol is outside heating up food with T-Dog, you are inside the little building with Maggie trying to get things moderately comfy, and trying to get some coffee boiled on the hot part of the wood stove.

Daryl lightly taps your forearm. “Y/N, can I borrow your bowie knife? It’s bigger than mine.”

“Yeah, knock yourself out. Need some help with somethin’?”

“Nah, other than a giant cup of that coffee when I get back.”

As soon as he’s gone, Maggie turns to you, swallows her smirk, and teases, “Wearin’ each other’s clothes now, are we?”

“We switched coats, Mags. I tell you, you’re as bad as your man, sometimes.”

As if awaiting the perfect cue, Carol opens up the door and walks in with T-Dog. He merely comments, “Ooh, nice and toasty in here!” 

She, on the other hand, lilts, “And what a nice poncho and cool leather jacket, Y/N.” 

All they get out of you is a little huff and a groan. And a pout.

“Simmer down, friends. Now, what are all those boxes under the desk? Office supplies?”

“Dunno, Teddy, but they sure look fun,” you answer.

Hershel strolls in next, at which point you forget everything else in order to check how he’s feeling before running to the car to grab the stethoscope and med bag.

  5 minutes later

Hershel opens the door up and in comes Daryl, who’s got a pile of thin branches in one arm while using the other to drag in a – a tree?

He actually went out to whack down a Christmas tree? 

Granted, it’s one of those thin, scraggly fir trees that someone could bend with their pinky as opposed to a nice, thick pine, but regardless…you again have to quell the urge to exclaim that you could kiss him.

“It’s like that Charlie Brown one,” is all he says. “Thanks for the knife.”

  6 minutes later

“It’s first light y’all. Ready to wake that kid up?”

“Wake his butt up!”

“I can’t wait to see his smile.”

  Mid-morning

Everybody is warm and happy. 

T-Dog and Beth have been singing or at least humming carols together all morning (plus the Hanukkah song in Jim and Dale’s memory, even though Hanukkah was over two weeks ago, so says the calendar in here. Still, you and Carl lined up and lit eight of the little mismatched candles from the group’s fire and flashlight bag).

Hershel read the Christmas passages from his Bible, then read more from the missal you’d picked up before you even left your home for the Atlanta safe-zone.

Carol revealed a sealed, unopened can of cocoa powder with which she made everyone mocha coffee or plain hot chocolate.

And for every gift given, you all made sure to state (very obnoxiously) in Carl’s direction that Santa or one of the Wise Men was responsible. Your sweet boy turned so red and rolled his eyes initially, but eventually was grabbing his stomach from cracking up too hard at how silly you all sounded.

Among other things (like fresh undies and socks!), your gift was a pair of earbuds and a camouflage scarf. Glenn and Carol found them for you.“Santa Claus knows you well.” They must remember all the dumb jokes you made about your camo tent and walkie. Naturally, the first thing you said when you were given it was: “...There’s nothing in here.”

T-Dog burst out in excitement when Daryl handed over the Dawgs t-shirt (no, he genuinely just flopped it over to him. “Obviously my main man Balthazar found me this one, right Daryl? Aw yes--and a Santa hat? Brother, you found a damn Santa hat!” In an instant, the shirt and hat were on him and he was playing it up very well.

Beth loved her Tom Waits cassette so much she started to cry. “Shawn used to play this at home. Santa found the same one, and, and he knows I can play this in the Chevy, it has a tape deck!”

Lori was in tears, too, after being given the shoe inserts as well as the baby carrier the night before. Like T-Dog, she immediately began to use them, and Maggie attributed the craftsmanship of the insoles she found to “Santa’s elves, I hear they’re very good shoemakers.”

For Carol, you and Rick gifted her with two really nice knives from a bait and tackle shop, of all places. “So she’ll feel safe and never forget that she can fight back, Ricky. Will she like that, you think? Is, is that an okay gift for her?” In response, he’d gone and chosen for her this really expensive switchblade that military and law enforcement used. You’d chosen her this cool (even if smaller) knife that came with four holes for her fingers to go through. 

Upon receiving them and her eyes going wide, she seemed distracted at how fancy (and sharp) they were when she ad-libbed, “This must’ve been Malachi – sorry, what’s the Wise Man’s name, T-Dog? Melchior, that’s it! Melchior must’ve found these little guys for me, he’s a...knife man, as we all know.” 

Maggie had enlisted you to break into a GameStop a few weeks ago for the sole purpose of finding one of the Portal games for Glenn. Useless without electricity and a matching console, yes, but she also nabbed the player’s guide so he could reminisce. He loved it. “Gaston nailed it!” 

“Glenn, I love you, the third King’s name is Gaspar.”

And true to the predictions, Carl immediately inhaled one, then two of the pudding cups, and was working on a third by the time Rick held out a hand and advised, “Maybe wait a few minutes, kiddo. Mrs. Claus worked hard on them.”

“Dad, come on, it says ‘Kozy Shack’’ right on it.”

“She and Santa have a ‘cozy shack’ in the North Pole, my love,” Lori insisted with a self-aware grin at her son.

After gifts were all opened and appreciated, everybody was marveling at how you’d all managed to pull off a relatively familiar Christmas. 

And Carl’s cheeks hadn’t stopped being red since it all started, and he’d been back and forth making faces, pretending right along with you, and cracking up every time you all declared which of the figures was responsible for the gifts.

It was a good morning.

Actually, no, it was (is!) a great one – overnight, Hershel’s cough got really productive!

  1 minute later

Glenn rubs his hands together and says, “Okay guys let’s check out those boxes.”

“Ooo, yeah!”

“And yes, I know it’s just gonna be like pens or something, but what if it’s a Christmas miracle and Santa actually came?” he adds.

A few voices of assent pop up, but strangely enough, Carl yelps “Wait!”

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Lori asks, concerned.

“It’s just, um…here, I’ll hand them out. Everybody can open one of them.”

“A mite scrawny to be St. Nick,” you tease.

Somehow reddening even further, he shyly walks over and grabs each box, sometimes shaking them a little before looking around and handing them out in a very deliberate manner.

“Don’t open them until everybody has theirs.”

“Theirs?”

Confused but intrigued, you all wait in anticipation until all of the boxes…exactly 11, one for each of you…are distributed.

Cheeks still flaming, he goes back to his seat by his parents and says “Okay, go ahead.”

“Tell me mine is a cool water department logo baseball hat!” Glenn jokes.

But the room falls silent when you see that these are presents. Personal ones. 

Lori sobs out in pride as she reveals a stack of old soap opera magazines and one homemade soap opera comic that Carl put together with Beth and Maggie’s drawing help.

Rick grows quiet and has tears in his own eyes because Carl gave him a picture of him, Shane, you, and Carl together. It had been in Shane’s Jeep over the dash before the car was abandoned and you’d packed it up. It’d been in under the backseat of the Hyundai ever since.

So that’s why Carl asked you for it, to give to Rick. 

Lori had snapped that photo at city hall after Rick got an award for valor years ago. You’d been holding a very young Carl in your arms, and photobombed it together. That was right after you’d gotten your braces off, in fact. 

When you open your present...you cannot believe your eyes. You blink over and over, and turn it around in your hands.

“Carl, baby, I-I...where did you find a peak-flow meter? How did…oh my g – and guaifenesin?” you choke out in relief. It’s perfect. You cannot have imagined a gift more perfect, and it’s all you can do to not blubber like a baby. “Mr. Greene, here, t-take two –”

“ – I already took my morning dose.”

“What?”

“Carl enlisted me a while ago to help him find gifts for you all. He worded it, I believe, as ‘wanting to be Santa’ for all of us. We snuck the boxes in here last night.” Hershel smiles. “Yesterday afternoon, when Rick got a tongue lashing from you all, that was the only time we’ve been caught. Carl found the expectorant yesterday, along with the meter.”

“Th-that’s why your cough and lung sounds improved last night.” Not a question.

With a pat on Carl’s head and a sip of his hot drink, he concedes, “I imagine so.”

  40 minutes later…or an hour? Maybe an hour and a half. Possibly two hours, but who cares? It’s Christmas!

You’re on the far right side of the reservoir with Daryl, warm in your new scarf (“And invisible, Daryl. It’s camouflage.”).

Carl gave him three different types of hunting calls and a baggie of quarters. “You swear under your breath a lot, so here’s an advance,” were the boy’s exact words.

It’s been months since you’d done that, charged a quarter per swear or lewd/rude comment.

Yet without missing a beat, Daryl grunted under his breath “Shit, little man, you can hear me when I do that?” and immediately paid up.

Right now, you’re both awaiting those turkeys by the rocks way over there to smell the canned corn you’d left as bait and waddle closer. 

Earlier, he’d explained “The deer call might work this time of year if I use it to imitate a baby deer. Could send a doe runnin’ to help it, but…” then he’d glanced at you and mumbled “But I ain’t doin’ that today. It’s Christmas.”

If that hadn’t been enough to send the butterflies in your stomach into a frenzy, the fact that now he was pressed up next to you behind a big rock while silently guiding you to use the turkey box caller appropriately would do it.

“Three short calls is what they do when they’re lost,” he whispers into your ear. “Be gentle.”

Your mind doesn’t intentionally go anywhere untoward when he says that, you swear. You forget to scrape the thingy, too.

He clears his throat, bless his oblivious heart, and makes your flustering get a bit worse. “Gentle, now, Y/N, I’ll show you…”

  Within 5 minutes

“Holy Moses, Dary-bear, you got the fat one!”

“Damn it,” he curses. “Got it in the gut. Was aimin’ for the head.”

“That’s Christmas dinner and a half right there!” you cheer, then just as excitedly tell everyone over the walkie to “Look out the window on the right side of the water to get a look at this bird Daryl just bagged! It’s massive! He got the big old tom!” To him, you urge, “Dare, go on now, hold it up, they’ll flip!”

“I ain’t holdin’ it up.”

“Aw, is my mangy hick is too shy?” you coo, then play-pout into the walkie, “He’s too shy to pose with it, everybody.”

“Stop,” he snorts. “C’mon now, help me clean it.”

  One plucked and cleaned bird later

“Hey, I found you somethin’ I thought you’d like.”

“Hm?”

He’s holding out a…he got you a Christmas present. 

The thing is, you got him one, too, it’s in the truck, you were just...nervous. Silly, right? 

Which is, of course, why you waste no time making a silly joke at what he’s holding in his hand for you. “I don’t see nothin’ there,” you say with as serious a face as you can. 

Inside, ohhh, your heart is racing.

“Such a weirdo,” he grunts before placing it on your head. 

It’s a camo baseball cap. Vintage military cap, actually, by the looks of it, complete with ear flaps for wearing under a helmet. Inside it, a bag of (partially melted) gummy sharks.

“Carol showed me the scarf they found,” is his simple explanation, and he starts to walk back toward the group’s campfire with the turkey.

“This is fantastic. I’ll never lose at hide-and-seek again!” Will you never stop making really stupid, lame jokes about camouflage? “And the, the gummy sharks, how’d you--how’d you know I love these?”

“You mentioned them a while back.”

You listen to the crunch on the near-frozen ground as you step in time with him. “I did?”

“Yeah. That day with the tootsie pops. You might not remember, it was awhile back.”

Of course you remember that day. That’s when you’d first fallen victim to this damned crush. And it was the day he’d christened you ‘slowpoke’ for the first time.

“This is fantastic,” is all you are able to repeat, and you will yourself to not stare into his eyes for longer than normal. “Look at this giant blob of gummy shark! C’mon, let’s have some right now!”

“My hands are all nasty.”

“It’s okay, I scrubbed off good. If you’re cool with it, I’ll feed you, it’s the least I can do,” you say, tearing open the little package of candy and peeling back the plastic that’s stuck to it.

“Just save room for this guy,” he gestures to the bird. “Should be loads better than the Canada goose was.”

  Daryl

He’s chewing on a mouthful of melted gummy shark (pretty tasty, he has to say) and is leaning against the Dodge while Y/N rummages through their messenger bag. Jacqui’s originally.

Y/N got him something for Christmas, too. Made his belly feel all funny, when they told him.

“Here’s it is,” they mutter to themselves, then turn to him, eyes bright while holding a brown paper lunch bag. “Merry Christmas, Daryl.”

He hopes he doesn’t look as nervous as the schoolboy he feels like when he reaches inside to pull out a – “Oh, fuck yes.” Nicotine patches?

“Don’t go too hard with them, hear. Use ’em sparingly, maybe cut them smaller? But it’s a darn sight better than them death sticks, I-I really hate seein’ you smoke – I mean, sorry,” they apologize, “I mean: I’m so glad you’ve whittled it down to once per day. That’s amazin’, dude.”

Y/N tended to nag voice their concerns about his smoking habit, but not in a, y’know, bitch way. They seemed genuinely worried about it.

“Here, I’ll open up the box, Daryl, you just go ahead and grab the other little thing out of the bag.”

Okay. He peeks into the bag to find a – “You serious? I’m eatin’ this shit right now, fuck yes,” he exclaims as he rips the bag open with his teeth, narrowly avoiding getting vinegar all over. Been too damn long since he’s had a pickle-in-a-bag!

“Found one in the cupboard our first day in the fancy house we just vacated,” they told him, still smiling big, almost like they were being bashful.

He had that tugging feeling in his chest again when he looked back at them. That kept happening. Wasn’t no big thing, just annoying sometimes. 

For some reason, it happened real hard the other day when Y/N was talking to Lori’s stomach. The was reading the little guy in there a story. His own stomach did flip flops when h saw it and he imagined the two of them having a ki – never mind, he was gonna quit while he was ahead and not think about those tugging strings in Y/N’s direction. Or about how it was especially hard if he got distracted looking at their mouth. 

That kept happening, too. Real damned annoying. Felt weird, too.

Shit – speaking of staring at their lips, he was doing it right now. 

Quick, say somethin’ to cover your ass!

“You got some gummy shark on your lip there.”

Which was the incorrect thing to do, because now they’re licking their lips and rubbing a finger over them to try and get rid of it.

“It’s gone now, Y/N, you’re good.” It would be easier if they hadn’t just called him ‘my mangy hick.’ They did say, that, right? Maybe he heard wrong.

“It’s gone? Cool. Let’s head over to the fire, man,” Y/N contentedly chirps.

As soon as they get close, Y/N takes a spot next to Carl, per usual. They love that kid like nothing else. “Hey, punk. Enjoying your new Invincible comics?”

“Yeah, I haven’t even read this one yet! Check out what’s happening with the…”

As bull as Daryl initially thought this whole thing would be, today and yesterday ended up being really…he isn’t sure how to describe it. The word ‘nice’ sucks, so that one’s out.

But seeing how everybody banded together to give each other and especially that boy a good Christmas? How excited he felt when he found that army hat for Y/N, the shirt for T-Dog? And the Santa hat, too, by way of apology to both. And T-Dog made a good-ass Santa, he had to admit.

And then after Rick brought him along to help Carl, he didn’t know it was because he was trying to “be Santa this year” for everyone else. But Rick trusted him to protect his kid right alongside him. And that kid did something real damn sweet for everyone.

It made it easy to feel…not so hopeless, and lonely, about the future. Like maybe this really can be a family.

“Right, Daryl?” Y/N interrupts.

Huh, what? “Uh, yeah.”

Smiling, they check “Do you need me to repeat it?”

“…Yeah.”

“We was saying this was an almost-normal Christmas, considerin’.”

Aw, hell yeah. Better than one he’s had in…maybe ever.

So he reaches into his (oh right, it’s Y/N’s) coat pocket to fish out a quarter. Holds it out to Carl. “Today’s been a fuckin’ great Christmas.”

congrats on making it all the way through! A moment of silence for IronE Singleton (T-Dog) and Laurie Holden (Andrea) staring at nothing in this pic.