Catch all for frames.

[ofstarlight]

hit me with all your characters.
Fire away!! 🔥

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[questly]

[ text away. ]

[shadowly]

[ text away. ]

Rick;;

[postocular]

[ It's been happening for a while, now. At first, it was subtle- the way Negan looked at his dad and the way his dad scowled back. Carl can't exactly pinpoint when things shifted, but everything just felt different. Negan was less strict, came to Alexandria more 'just to visit' more than coming for their shit, though he still did take things. His men stopped showing up with him, mostly. Just Simon and the other one.. whatever her name was.

More secret meetings where the adults need to talk and he's pushed out of the house. It didn't make any goddamn sense as to why his dad was putting up with all of this. Not at first. The shit eating grin Negan always wore as he was leaving the house and the wink only served to rile Carl up and hate whenever he did show up. He would have let things lie as they were, if it weren't for walking in on the pair of them kissing.

Not just kissing, there was also too much grabbing going on. Mortified and a little angry didn't really cover what he was feeling. The fact that it didn't stop after that? Carl couldn't even pretend to hide his disdain for the Savior. The straw that broke the camel's back was the most recent. He walked into the house, where once again, his dad and Negan were a little too close for comfort. As Negan pulled away from his dad, he actually swatted him on the ass which only got an annoyed look. The door closes, and Carl immediately rounds on his dad. ]

How the fuck can you stand him, dad? After everything he's done..

[ringleadering]

[ Somewhere along the line, things shifted and Rick could not really say where specifically and could not in any way say why. It just happened and even if the loathing simmered underneath his skin, he could not seem to stop any of it. In fact, he only drifted closer when he should have been backing as far away as possible. Negan needed to remain the enemy, not someone he touched, not someone he tasted and wanted to be as close to as possible. He didn't do random hookups and always had feelings for those he opened up to.

But how could he have feelings for Negan?

Licking over his bottom lip when Negan finally left, Rick tried to keep busy with cleaning up the kitchen and preparing a snack for Judith. Carl's words while not a shock still made him still in his tracks. ]

Things have been better haven't they? Pick ups happen every two weeks and Negan doesn't take as much.

[ He started moving again, cutting up one of the apples Negan brought into small edible pieces. ]

It's not anything important, Carl. Nothing to worry about.

Rick;;

[upstandingguy]

[ It's been too goddamn long, the days have all blurred together. How fucking long ago was it that he got the call from Shane? How many weeks have passed, sitting in this hospital room next to his husband, waiting for him to open his goddamn eyes? Negan is past the stressed fretting of what if he never wakes up that so many people are trying to push on him.

Would Rick want this?

You have a daughter to consider.

Fuck 'em all. Rick will wake up when he's good and ready. He doesn't expect it to be soon, but he hopes. Sitting in one of those godawful hospital chairs and using the food tray connected to the bed to write on, he sits there with his school calendar and his personal planner, trying to coordinate everything. His job has been a little more straining lately, given the circumstances. He didn't want to take a leave of absence just yet- he'd much rather take it when Rick wakes the fuck up.

The steady beat of the monitors next to him are soothing, in a way. It shows that he's still fighting. The calendar is starting to blur, so he takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose to work away the tension building there when the monitor's noises change pitch. His head shoots up, and he looks at Rick hopefully. ]

Babe? [ His hands curl around Rick's, hoping that his presence there will help him get out of his head. ]

[ringleadering]

[ Pure terror tainted Rick's mind in his coma induced nightmare. Filling it to the brim with walkers, cannibals and more deaths than he ever wanted to properly count. They all did things to survive and Rick knew he had to be one of them to ensure the protection of his people. They depended on him and he couldn't let them down, especially not after what happened to Glenn and Abraham. The deaths he carried like scars across his heart, constantly pulsing and aching in a way he never knew possible. It all haunted him, vividly until it all started to dim.

An attack? Something unexpected and bloodied no doubt. The only way someone could manage the upper hand on him because not even Negan would fully manage it when he would do what needed to be done, finding a way to make things right.

With a pained groan, his eyes flashed open and he fought to sit up. Why were there - his eyes moved around to take stock of his current situation and he took in all the machines hooked up to him. How? There shouldn't have been anything to make them run and yet they were beeping wildly along with other things attached to him.

Yet worse of all happened when his eyes glanced beside him. Negan. What in the - he gasped without meaning to, things muffled from all the shifting to try and pull the iv out of his arm and unattach all the things from his chest and arms.

How could this be? Had Negan killed everyone and arrived to gloat about it? Tears stung his eyes as his nails scrapped along his arms to try and get free. Why did he feel so weak and tired? Had he even managed to sit up? ]

Rick;; the immunity au we all deserved

[postocular]

[ It wasn't supposed to happen like this. None of it was, really.. They were supposed to rebuild, start a new life in the ruins left over by the epidemic, not cater to and bow down to a tyrant. But, like life has shown him in three short years: shit happens. It wasn't anybody's fault, and blame can't really be put anywhere but on himself for not being more careful. Of getting into a situation where his blindside ended up being his undoing. Still, something good came out of it.

Siddiq. Who was out by himself, putting walkers down because his mother thought it would release their souls. Honoring parents was a noble thing to do, right? Carl had wanted to help. Still wanted to help Siddiq not be alone anymore. He could do more help in a group, and he would die by himself, sooner or later. Carl doesn't have any regrets about bringing him into the folds of their group, even though it was a secret at the time.

Even trapped as they are in the sewers, waiting for the fires to die down and Negan and his men to abandon Alexandria, fever burning through him and making him delirious. He was dying, and he could feel it. Through the cramping in his gut to his limbs refusing to work, he says his last goodbyes to his sister, to his parents, putting the final nail in the coffin. Medicine is passed through his lips at some point to help with the fever, though Michonne had to help him drink. It probably won't do anything but delay the inevitable. His dad and Michonne should sleep.. they're tired, and there's not really much that they can do. They're both already at his side.

He passes out at some point, and it's difficult to breathe. Carl is certain that he's going to draw his last breath and then someone will have to put him down. This is it. He wonders what dying will really feel like. If he'll see his mom or if he's going to the other place..

Somehow, Carl wakes up, though his vision is too blurry to see. He can't even move his head, he's so weak, but it still smells like sewer. It hurts to draw breath and it rattles in his chest, but it doesn't.. it feels different. He doesn't know how. Something wet and cool presses to his forehead and Carl can't suppress a wince. Feels good, but it chills him. Wait.. Chills. Those are supposed to help fight fever. He'd stopped having those before things got bad. A tattered, dusty blanket is pulled up to his chest. Someone is still holding tightly onto one of his hands and he tries to squeeze weakly in reassurance, though only his fingers only manage to brush against a work-rough palm.

The next time he wakes up, he can see properly- the ceiling of the sewer still looks the same, but light filters in from the grating above them. It's daylight. The sun must be overhead. He survived the night somehow. He should be dead. The fever is still there, but the cramping in his gut has ebbed... God, he wonders what that means? It at least means nobody has put him down yet. The most he can get out when he opens his mouth to speak is a raspy groan. Everything hurts.. Consciousness doesn't stay with him for long.

When he wakes up again, it's not to the dark, dank stone ceiling of the sewer, but the dark oak of somewhere familiar. There's something soft under him, and he's aware enough to know that he's in a bed at least. Carl feels more aware, and he moves his head so he can look around.

Hilltop? How did he even get there? And when? How long was he out? ]

..Dad?

!!!!!!!

[ringleadering]

[ throughout the past few years, rick had only learned one main fact - nothing would ever make sense again. just when he finally believed he grasped onto some kind of truth, something shifted and turned it all upside down. he never knew what to do with that but he kept pressing forward, regardless. determined to maintain some sense of security for his people but even there he failed.

he failed so violently as he watched his son struggle against the confines of the fever which would take him away from them. the agony of it threatened to finally undo him once and for all but the care he wanted to give carl in his last moments kept him together enough. just barely enough to keep functioning.

michonne and her insistence may have helped as well and he tried to hold onto the strands of her strength to keep them all a float. what had they done before her?

time passed and rather than needing to - pull the final trigger - the change never took place. in fact, carl started to heal, the bite fading little by little in a way it never had before.

what did it mean? what could it mean?

rick stayed by carl's side, not sleeping a wink even when they managed to move to hilltop and into a bedroom. carl needed a bed and somehwere safe but still away from others just in case. a precaution they claimed but they knew what would happen if carl did turn after all.

clutching onto carl's hand, rick downright sobbed when he finally heard his voice.

dad.

the sweetest sound he ever experienced in his life. ]

Carl? How're you feelin'? You remember at all what happened?

[postocular]

[ He squeezes his dad's hand weakly, trying to will the energy to do more than that. It still feels like he was hit by a truck, body sore and unresponsive, but he's still breathing. His lungs don't feel like they're full of glass anymore, which is good.. Carl takes a moment to really catalog how he feels and lets out a breath. ]

Not great..

[ He's alive, at least. A crazy, unheard of thing after what happened, but alive. He wonders what that means for him, now. For all of them. The only person to have survived being bitten.. It still seems surreal. Carl had been ready, he thought. Now he doesn't really know. ]

I-- yeah, I think so? How did we get here?

[ringleadering]

[ tremors worked up and down his body from the stress and depth of the emotions the entire ordeal caused but none of it mattered any longer. carl had woken up against all the odds and he would protect him with every ounce he had left in him.

clutching onto carl's hand, he let out a soft breath. ]

Michonne and I - you're in Hilltop right now. You're safe - we're safe. We've got the time to figure out and you to get your strength back up.

[ before everything started happening again but how many would know about carl? ]