I love this piece of fanart so much <33
SOTC: Jungle by X Ambassadors
• too cold to live, too young to die •
Carl didn't even flinch when the RV door flung against the wall with a resonant boom. He focused on his breath, keeping it in a steady rhythm with his heartbeat.
He felt Negan's presence scrape against his periphery. Two pairs of heavy footsteps echoed against the walls, sending chills up his arms.
Stay steeled, he told himself, then turned to face the strangest sight: his father.
The fiery glare in his eyes and sweaty threads of hair seemed to create a torturous lining to his features. He sat down next to Carl, eyes still locked with his, and parted his chapped lips in search of words.
"He killed Abraham." He rasped softly, each syllable humming with pain. "And then... Glenn."
Carl didn't break his stare, but he felt his chest deflate. For a moment, he was glad the girl didn't make him watch. But then he felt a sense of unjustification slink under his skin.
The RV floor rumbled as the engine started, and Carl's gaze ticked up to the driver's seat. His fingers tensed into a fist when he saw Negan's gloved hand resting on the wheel, foot propped against the gas pedal.
"Wow." Negan's voice pounded like a drum on Carl's skull. "What piece of shit."
It felt like an invasion, which it was, but also an invasion of the seat where his father had sat, Dale and Abraham and so many others. His mind flickered to a time several years ago when he himself had put his elbows on the armrests. He gripped the steering wheel and twirled it around, and even though the RV never moved, it felt as if he was flying down the road.
Carl squeezed his eye shut. It had been too long since then.
"I don't believe I've mentioned my name," the girl started, her wicked smile burning holes in Carl's fantasies. "I'm April, daughter of the big man up there. Do you mind introducing me to your dad, Carl-y?"
A cunning, ice-cold gleam dripped into her eyes. He straightened, the picture of calm, save for his tightly clenched fists.
"I—" he started, then quickly regained his visage. Taking a deep breath, he exchanged a quick, understanding glance with his father.
"Not talkative, I see." Her smirk tilted upwards with sick fascination. "We'll work on that."
The RV sped down the stretch of road, kicking up the carpet of dead leaves that had settled there, untouched, over the months. The silence toyed with Carl's nerves, slid under his skin like freezing water. A shiver pricked down his back as he ran over his choices, debating whether to try to speak with his father, or even to the girl, in order to glean information.
With a jarring surge of remembrance, Carl pictured Abraham and Glenn with their guts spilling in fountains, their blood seeping into the cold winter ground. The minutes melted away as he imagined every grotesque detail.
The RV came to a sudden, lurching stop at the edge of the road. Carl fidgeted at his fingers, scraping at the dirt from under his nails, but his focus was trained on the dark shadow in the corner of his vision. He felt his heart skip a beat with every movement of Negan's. And when he rose out of the driver's seat, Carl seemed to feel a heavy weight curl around his throat.
"I'm gonna kill you." Carl didn't have to turn to recognize his father's hard-set gaze and the cold grit of his teeth. He felt a swelling surge of dread well up in his chest.
Negan gave a dark, twisted chuckle. "Are you kiddin' me?" Carl heard footsteps send pulses of nerves up his spine. He fidgeted with his fingertips, telling himself that his father could handle it, that he wouldn't do try anything stupid. Carl knew his father was much more steeled than he could ever attempt to be.
"Did you see what just happened, what I just did? You just..." Negan huffed out a disbelieving scoff, that sickened smile still hooked on his face. "Your best chance is to stand up, grab that axe—" He pointed at it, buried point-blank into the table. "—and drive it through the back of my head."
Carl's father's eyes flicked down to the axe, then back up again. Please don't do it, Carl chanted to himself.
As if on cue, his father sprang to his feet and whirled the axe around, the blade slicing through the air, the handle caught in Negan's cold clenched fist.
Anger makes you stupid. Stupid gets you killed.
Carl felt his insides crawl with fear. Negan's face skewed into a mask of oddity, his smile dropped into a frown that tore apart the faux cheerfulness of his means. With a stiff jerk, he wrenched the axe out of Rick's hands, leaving the man with nothing but grim panic flooding out of him.
With no words, Negan flung the RV door open, revealing a sea of growling beasts, raising their heads at the sudden burst of noise. Inside of himself, Carl could feel a yawning pit of dread plunging miles into his chest. His sense of rationality threatened to ebb away. It was less that he wanted to escape and more that he wanted to thrust Negan and his damn daughter out, let them be clawed apart by things just as monstrous as themselves.
Carl stayed frozen within himself, his heartbeats smattering at the tips of his fingers. Negan tossed the axe into the smoggy haze, and it landed with a dull clang on the roof. After a stiff, silent moment, Negan stepped forward, leering over Rick like a fang-toothed shadow.
"Get my axe," he spat, words raspy.
His father gave one final glance at Carl, an wordless thread of promise between them.
Then, as quick as a flame being snuffed, Rick vanished.
Carl felt everything grind to a halt inside of him. Something was lodged in his throat. Maybe it was his common sense, for Carl suddenly felt himself stand up, straighten his spine and his hat, taking a deep, thoughtful breath.
Two pairs of matching eyes on him now. Both steely in their hidden disbelief as Carl marched forward, silent, blood tasting like rotten grapes in his mouth.
And maybe it was because of an obligation that he felt to his father. Less to help and more to die, fists up and fighting. He flung himself into the night, nothing in his veins but the sensation of flying.
Stupid gets you killed.
But maybe Carl Grimes wasn't steeled against this numb-skinned suicide.
x x x x x x x x x x
A/N: As my marvelous writing teacher once said, when things are hard to write, there's a good chance they're hard to read. Hope this one wasn't that boring.
Music that's keeping me from punching the wall and tearing out my hair:
•Worlds by Porter Robinson (I've mentioned this album before, but recently I listened to the Spotify commentary and now I have even more respect for it)
•Shape of You by Ed Sheeran
•The Sound by The 1975 🖤🙌
•Hollow Tune by Brick + Mortar
QOTD: How many middle fingers have you done in public over the last 24 hours?
AOTD: Idk like five or six probably
Oh, and happy 2017, everyone :)
x x x x x x x x x x
Word Count: 1253
Created 1-13-17
Edited 4-22-17
Edited 6-28-17
Edited 8-17-17
YOU ARE READING
DEVILS ♛ C. G. 〖 #wattys2018 〗
Fanfiction[ c o m p l e t e d ] "She looked like a goddess. The kind that sends cities to their knees in fear. The kind that is never in picture books. The kind that twists people." - - - - - April is a devil. A demon. And above all, she is a...
