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Parties were never really Ron’s thing, even before the apocalypse, and after, you know, the entire world ended he never expected he would ever have to be dragged to one again. Yet, here he was, standing slightly tipsy in one of Alexandria’s old churches they had — for the most part — restored.
He was leaned up against a slightly unsturdy wooden bar, eyes trained on only one person through the crowd of people, a single eyed brunette with a dirty sheriffs hat more specifically.
It was a shock no one had noticed yet, he might as well have been staring at the boy with cartoon heart eyes the entire time while Carl danced with some random girl who had blonde hair and hazel eyes, if Ron’s hair was a bit longer and he lost the slight bit of muscle he did have, he could have been mistaken for the girls brother, or even her twin . That fact in itself was unfortunately enough to give him some fucked up sense of hope.
But of course the ‘someone’ to finally notice Ron’s lovesick stare was none other than Enid. She had insisted earlier that it was bullshit to dress up for a party, so she wore slightly oversized blue jeans, converse, a navy blue tank top with a pladded flannel to match. He had thought something similar, wearing his regular brown flannel with a white tank top underneath and ripped, baggy jeans. His hair wasn’t much better, thrown into a simple half ponytail half bun half not up at all, just enough to keep it out of his face really.
“Well I never thought I’d see you of all people here Anderson, doesn’t seem like your scene.” she spoke, a knowing tone underlacing her voice as she looked over to Carl.
“‘s not yours either, Rhee.” he helplessly retorted, trying to salvage whatever dignity of his he had left, which was a very small amount already.
Something about Enid that Ron had picked up fairly quickly when they first met, is her ability to read people. It was uncanny. Maybe it was just Ron she was always one hundred percent spot on with, but all the other times he’s seen she’s usually creepily accurate.
For a while Ron was convinced it was some witchcraft cult shit.
“He sure puts on quite the show when he wants to, doesn’t he.” she worded it like a question but stated it so matter of factly Ron didn’t know if he was supposed to respond or not, so he simply gave an awkward, silent head nod, before deciding on changing the subject. A subject he needed to hear at that moment to hopefully bring his fleeting mind back to the present reality of his situation.
“I’m sure you two will be back together in two weeks, tops.” he emptily assured. It felt kind of weird to talk to your ex about their current ex, soon to be relationship once again, who also happened to be the guy you were in love with, and your best friend. It was the kind of weird that made him want to crawl into a hole and die. Given the fact he couldn’t really do that at this exact moment he settled for just awkwardly fidgeting with the ends of his flannel, trying to look anywhere in the room but Carl.
“Nah, not this time I don’t think.”
“Wh-“ before he could even finish his god damn word someone came running up to him, feeling an all to familiar hand on his shoulder the tension in his body relaxed and got worse somehow at the exact same time when he realized who it was.
“Ron! You finally made it dude. Come dance with me.” Carl said, looking happier, lighter than he usually did.
“What? Why? What am I, your girlfriend?” his tone sounded slightly harsher than he intended, or at least he thought it was, if Carl took notice then it wasn’t evident on his face.
Sometimes Ron forgot just how strong Carl was, needless to say he was caught off guard when the brunette managed to drag him all the way to the center of the ‘dance floor’ almost effortlessly.
The ‘DJ’ said something about a song switch up, but Ron honestly couldn’t give two shits about what they were saying, instead he was completely enthralled with how strangely cleaned up Carl looked. It’s not as if he was usually dirty or anything, but with what looked like freshly washed hair, not to mention a button up shirt and uncuffed pants with what looked like worn down dress shoes, the only part of the outfit that even resembled Carl was that damn sheriffs hat Ron didn’t think he ever took off.
He had grabbed Ron’s arms, hauling them up and draping them over his shoulders, resting his hands along Ron’s waist. It was similar to how he danced with that girl, and Ron didn’t know if he liked or hated that fact. It was definitely real fuckin confusing.
“Okay, I have a very serious question for you.” Carl said, interrupting the beat of silence. Ron almost tripped over his own feet in a spur of nervousness. “How bad do I smell?”
Ron leaned forward, and down a little bit — he had pretty much always been the taller of the two — and inhaled somewhere along the length of Carl’s neck.
“Like a hot, smoking pile of garage, Grimes.” he retorted, leaning back up with the ghost of a smirk.
“Yeah, okay.” Carl chuckled a bit on the last word and Ron almost died right then and there.
He doesn’t say anything else, just pulls him into a sort of awkward hug, leaning his head on Ron’s shoulder. Which by the way did absolutely nothing to help with the stupid and fond sickness churning in his stomach.
“Ew man, gross.” Ron says, Carl didn’t need to know just how happy it made him. “You’re so drunk, Grimes .”
“Fuckin’ nuh uh. I’m high, idiot. Smoked a bit to much.”
“Without me is crazy.”
“I would have invited you if you actually got here on time, Anderson. ”
Ron just rolled his eyes, not like Carl could even see it, but hey it’s the thought that counts. Though he was very grateful Carl couldn’t see his face, he was ninety-nine percent sure that his face was as red as the wine all the parents were drinking. God what he would give to be more than tipsy right now. Because apparently even after the world ends you still can’t be served alcohol when you’re 19, which was bullshit in Ron’s opinion, but he found ways to sneak it thankfully.
Carl takes his occupied state of mind as an opportunity to loop his arms further around Ron’s torso, linking his hands together and fully leaning his head on the blondes shoulder.
Ron freezes for probably more than a solid second, not sure of what to do. It feels like some type of fever dream. It probably was, he expected to wake up in a cold sweat any minute, having to hype himself up to see Carl again after having a dream so god damn queer. What would his father think? If he knew his oldest son turned out to be a filthy faggot. Probably beat him twice as hard, lock him in his room or some shit. Not like he even had to worry about that now, thanks to fucking Rick. God, why did his dad always have to crawl his way back into the depths of his thoughts? He had been dead for well over three years, maybe he was haunting Ron, making sure that he never got to live a happy life, even in this supposed dream.
Feeling fingers trace along his back definitely managed to succeed in bringing him out of his mind, cementing to him that he was infact awake, and Carl mother fuckin Grimes was basically bear hugging him at a party, a public — or as public as you could get in the apocalypse — party, with most of the other Alexandrians. Only then did he take notice to almost everybody in the damn room within a 20 foot radius staring right at them, especially the girls. Including that fucking blonde chick from earlier. Ron decided that he hated her and her stupid smugness.
Ron leans a bit closer, so fuckin nervously he can feel his lip twitching and waiting in anticipation to make him stutter over his words. Ron got closer than he knew he should have, just ever so slightly beyond the boundaries of ‘platonic’ and telling himself it was so Carl could make out what he was about to say over the music and people chatting. “Every girl in the room is staring at you right now.”
Ron feels Carl’s head shift, breath grazing along the side of his neck up to his ear, almost making him shiver, despite the lack of chill in the room and his long sleeve shirt and jeans, in fact it was unfathomably hot in that wide, open room. He wished that he was allowed to have a gun, because in that moment he wanted to shoot himself point blank in the head.
“Maybe they’re staring at you..”
And at that, Ron felt tipsy enough to laugh a bit.
“Trust me dude, they definetly aren’t.”
“Maybe…they’re jealous of you.”
“Nah, no reason to be, I’m certainly not a threat.”
Ron swore he must have said something wrong, done something wrong, because Carl pulled back off his shoulder, and Ron despised how cold he felt without the brunette resting there, and how much he wanted Carl to lay on him again.
Though he could definetly take this trade off. Within a second one of Carl’s hands was cupped around the side of his face, stroking his upper cheekbone with his thumb so gently Ron flinched away for a brief moment, feeling like a bruised and torn stray dog, grateful for the soft touch after being thrown and beat heartlessly, senselessly, a countless amount of times.
“Oh Ron, I think they should be terrified of you.”
He didn’t even get a chance to ask what in the ever-loving fuck that meant because less than 3 seconds later when his mind finally kicked back into gear it was shut off again.
Carl kissed him.
Carl Grimes fuckin kissed him.
The press of his lips were so light Ron didn’t register they were there, he probably wouldn’t have been able to even feel it if he shut his eyes. So he kept them open. Wanting to see every second of whatever the hell this was.
Carl on the other hand did close his eyes — or his eye — his empty socket still covered by bandages since Carl didn’t want to wear an eyepatch. He couldn’t help but notice the brunette looked even more like a cyclops from this angle, and in any other situation he probably would have had to refrain himself from starting to laugh. But if he laughed it would remove Carl’s lips from his, and that simple fact was the only thing that kept him quiet about it.
Ron expected to wake up at any second, maybe he couldn’t really feel Carl’s lips on his because it was nothing more than a shitty dream. But he once again found himself perfectly awake and conscious when Carl’s hand moved on his face again, nails ever so slightly digging into his waist as Carl fidgeted and messed with the hem of his shirt. One of his tell tale nervous habits Ron had picked up on.
His heart was practically beating straight out of his chest, shattering his damaged ribcage further with every strong thump to the point it was all he could hear, he prayed to whatever ‘divine being’ or ‘god’ there was out there that Carl hadn’t heard or felt his racing heart. But considering they brought upon the end of humanity in such a gruesome way that embarrassing him was most likely definitely not above their asses.
But none of that mattered right now, the walkers didn’t matter, the people in the room didn’t matter, nothing did, nothing except Carl. The same Carl that had willingly kissed him just moments before.
Ron knew he wasn’t full on drunk yet, maybe not even over halfway, but in that moment he felt more drunk than he ever had in his life. The moment of confidence was enough to shove him forward, to crash his lips back into Carl’s, adrenhaline flowing through his veins like a river released from the confines of a dam.
He could pretty much taste the weed in Carl’s breath, the only reminder he had in that moment that Carl was high. So high he probably wouldn’t even remember this the next day. Fuck. Of course that’s why he kissed him. Why did he even bother to get his hopes up in the first place, he should know better by now.
Right as he was about to shove Carl away, tell him that he was making a drug induced mistake — if the brunette would even remember it at all tomorrow — when of course something else just had to fuckin happen.
“This is a church for chrissake!” some random drunk off his ass old man yelled at them from about a good five or six feet away.
“Sorry.” Carl said with a shrug, the empty yet sarcastic tone in his voice that seemed to make the man all the angrier, because his dumbass just stood there, seething, his breathing so rampant and harsh Ron could every intake and exhale from where he stood like it was directly in his ear.
“Sorry! I said sorry!” Carl yelled a bit louder, smugly going into kiss Ron again before he was so rudely interrupted, not like Ron could handle being kissed again anyway, as much as he wanted to, god did he want to.
“Fuckin’ faggots.” the old man muttered in a thick slummy southern accent as he began to walk away.
At that, a very tipsy and already heartaching Ron couldn’t restrain himself from losing his shit. He practically had to force himself away from Carl, but when he did he walked about two, maybe three feet closer to the old man, teeth clenched and pupils zeroed in on the guy, eyes wide with pure rage as he stared.
“What the fuck did you just say to us?” Only until after he said it did he realize he just referred to both him and Carl together, and obviously he had to take a silent second to collect himself and scold himself.
“You heard me, fa—“ as if on cue the man was punched square in the face, knocked to the ground on impact.
Of mother fuckin’ course, standing above the groaning man was none other than Richard D. Grimes. Because anytime violence happens Officer Rick is always at the god damn center of it isn’t he.
“Are you guys okay?” Rick asked them, mainly Carl, he and Ron never really managed to get along to well.
“I could have dealt with him myself.” Ron spoke gruffly, interrupting whatever bullshit response Carl was about to give.
Now everyone was definitely staring at them.
“I — what?” that stereotypical confused and fatherly expression settled on Rick’s face, making Ron want to punch him almost as bad as he did the random douchebag on the floor. Oh, of course, Rick expected a thank you for his ‘brave’ act.
“We didn’t need your help, Rick. ” his name was spat with pure venom “ No one needs your fucking help.”
It was all to much for him to handle, he felt like a helpless sixteen year old again when Rick said he was helping his family by killing his dad. Helping him and his mother and his brother by making them all go through the hoard of rotters that night. He wasn’t defenseless anymore, he could take care of himself, had just fine for the last 3 years since this douchebag got what was left of his family killed, and he didn’t want any of Rick’s supposed ‘help’, he didn’t want it before that, after that, and surely didn’t need it now.
Without warning he turned around, facing the floor and staring at the ground with such hatred the other partygoers probably assumed he was trying to light it on fire.
Ron walked out the back door of the church, shoving his hands into his jean pockets and storming off into the night, wishing he was able to ask Carl for a joint before all that happened. He didn’t know where he was even planning to go, the last place he wanted to be was in that god damn house, so Ron settled on just wandering around until he felt less shitty then he did at that moment.
It’s not like anyone would come looking for Ron Anderson anymore anyway.