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Stale M&M's

30 Days Without an Accident

Oliver's POV

There's rustling.
Roused, I open my eyes and frown into my pillow.
The mysterious rustling ensues.
“Pat?”
“What?”
More rustling. He grunts.
“You better not be doing what it sounds like you’re doing.”
“What – no I'm not... Dude, I'm getting dressed.
I sit up, scoffing, more relieved than I let on.
“Why're you getting dressed in bed.”
“It's cold,” Patrick mews. A pause, and he grunts again, this time with a gasp.
“Are you sure you're not jerking off?”
There's an annoyed laugh, and then he's throwing his pyjama top down at me. I grunt.
“Get dressed, too, if you're gonna help with chores,” my brother tells me. “Carol just came in to ask us to get coriander from the garden for her.”
“Okay.”
It’s around the second week of December, and Pat's right, it's colder, but due to the Georgian weather by breakfast it's warm enough to eat outside. Which is nice. Daryl brought back venison yesterday and Carol and I are going to make more jerky with the coriander. The stuff we made before turned out great, evident from the fact that Hershel tried to bribe me with carrots for extras.
I hear Daryl's fan base before I see the man himself; people greeting him good morning and thanking him for the venison. It's not new, his followers. But he still looks surprised by it. Patrick is amongst Daryl's fanbase, given how star-struck he looks when the man talks quietly to Carol. I guess I am, too, because Daryl Dixon is just about one of the coolest people alive, but I'm just not as obvious about it.
“Patrick, you wanna take over?” Carol asks, holding out the prongs.
“Yes, ma'am...” He takes them. Patrick hesitates, though, and he's still staring hopelessly at Daryl. “Uh... Mr. Dixon?”
Daryl turns to him.
“I just wanted to thank you, for bringing that deer back yesterday. It was a real treat, sir, and I'd be honoured to shake your hand.”
I swear to Gandalf the Grey, my brother's more confused than I am sometimes.
Daryl considers Patrick's offer, glancing at Carol, then me. Try as I might to stop myself I can't help the smug smirk on my face, pulling at my beanie and turning back to the jerky. Daryl looks back at my brother, licks the grease off his fingers one at a time because it doesn't occur to him that doing that is kind of gross, and then he's shaking Patrick's hand. Pat does well not to grimace and collapse to his knees all at the same time, his inner fanboy squealing at the top of its lungs, and I'm snickering, serving a bowl of oatmeal to Caleb. Carol chuckles, heading towards the courtyard, and Daryl nods to Patrick and I, following her.
Patrick goes back to cooking, shaking his head like he isn't exactly sure if he's more impressed or more grossed out by that whole interaction, and when he looks at me I laugh out loud, goading him with a short, “Brown nose,” and he scoffs and elbows me in the shoulder.
It's not long later that Carl arrives from his own chores. He's got his own fanbase, too. Only, I'm it's only activist. Well, as far as I know. I’m also the only person who knows of this fanbase, too. I note that he's got some dirt smudged on his cheek. I note then that he's got dirt smudged just about everywhere. It probably takes me longer than it should to notice that he's holding a soccer ball, too.
“You almost done?”
I nod, ignoring the butterflies like always, and he helps himself to some breakfast, not waiting for either Patrick or I to serve him like we're supposed to.
“Michonne's back,” Carl says, chewing on the jerky. “She bought us back more comics. Said she wants to read some after us.”
He’s been waiting for new ones for ages. We both have.
“Looks like we've finally got her into them,” he says, “well, I have. You don’t really say much to her.” I’m more like moral support. He leans against the counter inside the kitchen booth. A part of his flannel shirt is untucked. For a second I remind myself not to reach out and tuck it for him. “She didn't find any more X-Men volumes, though.”
I shrug, even though this news actually kind of colossally sucks. I've managed to impressively collect volumes one through seven since arriving here, and not being able to read more is like needing my inhaler. Okay, it’s not, but it still sucks. Michonne said she'd try to look for more. “Just Hulk, Wonder Woman, Thor, two Batman comics. Oh, and Science Dog.”
I’m preparing a plate and without looking at him I quickly pat my hand down on the counter top in front of him.
“Hey, no!” he complains. “I called dibbs on it months ago.”
I glare at him.
“I have a T-shirt,” Carl shoots back, grinning, only not on the outside. On the outside all anybody would see is an unimpressed frown, but I can still see the grin. It beams. “Well, I used to,” he relents. I roll my eyes. I know the one he's talking about.
Patrick starts a conversation with him, and I realise Molly's waiting for her breakfast, so I serve it, then another plate for Luke. They both thank me and go.
“Dad's gone out to check the snares,” Carl says a little while later, finished eating. Patrick's serving now. I'm eating my own breakfast, sat beside him, and I look over to him, noticing the quiet and reserve in his tone. Carl pulls his lips into his mouth, hesitating, so I turn to him fully, leaning closer, listening. “He wouldn't take his gun again.”
Oh, he's worried. I fumble with what to say, blowing out my cheeks.
Carl is smiling then.
“What?” I ask.
He laughs then, and points directly at my mouth.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said to me today,” he says.
Sometimes Carl has bets; how long can I go without talking. He’s counted two days before.
“Anyway,” I roll my eyes, changing subject, “your dad'll be okay. He never takes very long out there.”
Carl purses his lips, and I realise I answered wrong.
“Wanna play soccer?” I propose.
Soccer is usually a fail-safe bet to lift a mood.
Carl nods, so Pat and I finish our breakfast, and we all head down out to the fields. It's just the three of us today, so we kind of just mess about, shooting into goals made of buckets and jack-a-lanterns, goofing around. It's fun and I only have to sit out for a minute from my asthma. But trust me, that’s actually an improvement. Winter means less pollen and less pollen means better breathing and better breathing means holy fucking functioning lungs!
But anyway, the soccer. We aren't keeping count but Carl insists he's winning. Because Carl Grimes is an incorrigible competitive. But after a while he gets distracted, his attention shifting over to the courtyard. He frowns, then marches past us. Patrick and I look at each other at the same time, shrugging in sync. Patrick coughs. I glance back to Carl while he heads over to Lizzie, Mika, Molly and Luke, who are all stood by the fence. They're giggling. . .
“Hey, Nick!”
“Over here!”
“Nick!”
. . .at the walkers.
“You're naming them?”
They startle, turning to face Carl, who'd asked. Pat and me are close on his tail. Lizzie takes a few steps forward.
“Well,” Mika chirps, “one of them had a name tag, so, we thought all of'm should.”
Patrick's frowning. I know what this reminds him of. Our parents. I kept calling them by Mom and Dad even when they were dead and growling. . . even after what we did. . . how we lived. . . for weeks.
“They had names when they were alive,” Carl explains. “They're dead now.”
“No they're not,” Lizzie tells him, meaning it. I don't mean to grimace. She looks at me so I stop. “They're jus' different.”
Poked, Carl shifts his weight on his hips. I can’t see his face but I’d bet my comics he’s narrowing his eyes. Patrick and I know enough not to talk.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Carl orders. “Okay – they don't talk. They don't think. They eat people. They kill people.”
“People kill people,” Lizzie retorts quickly. “They still have names.”
“Have you seen what happens? Have you seen someone die like that?” Carl asks.
“Yeah. I have.”
It shouldn't be so intimidating watching this. But it is. The glares exchanged are of equal hostility between the pre-teen and the teen. It makes me wonder if Pat and I'll have to jump between them and pull them away from each other.
“They're not people and they're not pets,” Carl warns. “Don't name them.”
Lizzie looks hurt, like she's going to start crying, but she shakes it off and looks to the others.
“Let's jus' go read. C'mon.” They leave, except Mika, who watches them go, then turns to us.
“Comin' to story time tonight?”
Patrick, who she’d asked specifically, glances at me and Carl—Mika’s sort of gotten attached to him.
“Uh... Yeah.”
Mika cranes her neck, “Oliver?”—Mika’s sort of gotten attached to me, too.
Quickly, I nod yes, tugging on my beanie, aware of the way Carl cocks an eyebrow at me. Mika grins and rises on tiptoes for a moment.
“See ya then!”
Then she's gone. Despite his annoyance a moment ago, Carl smirks at Patrick, teasing him. I know I'm next.
“We go sometimes,” Patrick defends us. “We're immature.”
I glare at him. In truth, sure, I like the books we read, but I only keep going for Carol's survival lessons.
“You wouldn't dig it. It's for kids,” Pat says. Carl chuckles at the floor, nodding in a mockery. I glare at him, too. Then Patrick taps my arm. “We're gonna head up there, too. Catch you later, young sir.”
“Yep,” Carl sighs, looks at me slowly. Even when Patrick walks away and takes Lizzie's hand, Carl doesn't stop looking at me. Then again, I haven't stopped looking at him either. I wonder why, for a second. Then I watch him smile from the inside out and I feel like I've been shot. So I frown. Frowning is sometimes the only defence mechanism against him that I have. Everything else, he cuts through like it's made of butter. I crumple up in a corner of myself and force my brain to stop thinking about butter because it isn’t butter it’s something else and Carl isn’t cutting through it he’s bulldozing through it, through me. Well stop it, man, I tell at him inside of my head, careful not to move my mouth, it’s rude to bulldoze people! I turn away. . .
“Later, man.”
“Yep.”
God. GodGodGodGod.
“The children fastened their eye upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then...”
Carol stops reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, because Ryan Samuels' finally left the library. I look at Luke expectantly.
“Ma'am?” he says, on cue. “Should I take watch now?”
“Yes, Luke, you do that.”
He goes to the door. Carol takes out a large, heavy, rectangular box. Opens it.
“Today, we are talking about knives,” she says. I stretch my neck to get a better view of the array of sharp blades inside. “How to use them. How to be safe with them. And how they could save your life—”
“Ma'am, may I be dismissed?”
It’s Pat. He never interrupts anyone. I look at him, frowning, shocked to see that he's pale and sweaty. I sort of stare at him, looking him up and down. Same for Carol, too.
“What is it?” Carol takes the question out of my mouth. Patrick shakes his head, looking tired. He gulps.
“I'm not feeling very well.”
“Sometimes you're gonna have to fight through it,” she says. I'm still staring. “What if you wind up out there alone?” All he manages is a stiff nod. Like it might've hurt. “Will you just give up 'cause you're feeling bad?”
“No, it's just. I-I don't want to yack on somebody.”
A few kids shuffle away, but I don't take my eyes off of him. Bad feeling. I know my brother, and he doesn’t complain about anything. Him needing to leave is him needing to leave.
“Go,” Carol allows.
“Pat...” I whisper, missing his wrist when I reach out to it. Because he's rushing, barely managing a quick murmur over his shoulder before he's out of the library. I say, “Later, man,” even though he's gone, and I watch the door swing shut. Carol begins teaching again, and I start to turn to her but something shuffles behind the bookshelf and I double take.
Well fuck.
Well fuck.
Well fuck.
It's him.
It's Carl —well fuck fucking— Grimes.
His eyes meet mine – it’s like getting electrocuted, jostling me back in my seat. I stare at him desperately and my heart yacks inside itself, choking over beats. With a sigh, Carl emerges from his hiding spot, his soul-sound smashing and crashing in waves across the whole room. Carol hears him too, and she falls silent.
He glares. Glares and glares and glares. My throat goes dry. A horrible wave of guilt stabs me in the gut. Inside of me is lies and dulling rainbows and lost machetes, and they spill out of me all over the place.
“Please...” Carol says, “don't tell your father.”
His eyes don’t leave me for a second. His hands bawl up into fists. He’s mad. Madder than I've ever seen him. So mad I can see the steam puffing from his nose and ears. I can see the embers sparkle and crackle away from the ends of his hair and fingertips, flittering across the floor. It singes me.
When I stay silent, the hurt in Carl's expression is so heart-breaking it's almost unbearable to look at him. His blue stings. Then he spins on his heel and rushes out of the library, leaving so much tension behind that you could cut it with one of Carol's knives. I look at the floor because the floor doesn't hurt to look at right now. But I know I should talk to him, and when my gaze lifts to Carol she seems to think the same thing, gesturing I go, so I get up and leave the library.
I'm sprinting when I get into the hallway, hearing his angry footsteps heading back to C-Block.
Talktalktalk.
“Carl!”
His shadow turns the corner at the end of the corridor. I run faster, ignoring my lung's protest, and I don't see him stood around the corner waiting for me, his back leant against the wall and his eyes narrowed and hurt and still too blue – so I run right into him.
He wraps his arms around me and I wrap mine around him and hold on, and we bobble up through the ceiling through the roof and through the sky and through the atmosphere into outer space, and we aren’t mad at each other we’re just okay and far away from everything ever, only that doesn’t happen. He jerks back, and I skid to a stop, out of breath and wheezing. He crosses his arms. I wince.
Talktalktalk.
“I... I'm sorry,” I apologise breathlessly. More narrowed blue eyes and gritted teeth that make me want to shrivel up and hide inside the walls. “Look, I'm sorry. Please. We gotta learn—”
Suddenly, Carl removes himself from the wall and walks away.
“Shit,” I say, rushing after him and almost reaching out to grab his sleeve but stopping myself. “We couldn't tell you!”
“Of course they couldn't!” he hisses, spinning around. I almost stagger back when he marches towards me, but instead I grow. Grow and grow and grow. Filling up the whole corridor like a plug. Carl stops, points, furious. “But you! You're meant to be my best friend!”
I blink.
He’s never called me that before.
“And you've been lying to me this whole time!?”
“I didn't lie,” I mutter, feeling like an insect. “I didn't tell you. I-I couldn't tell you.”
Carl's jaw clenches, disgusted. “I'm glad to hear our friendship means so much to you.”
“It does!” I blurt out, meaning it. “But I made a promise, Carl. Sometimes you keep secrets to protect people. You know that.” I stop, because this is what we don’t talk about and Carl knows this. So, after a second that looks like he’s either going to shout or cry—I don’t know which, it is the smallest nod, and then he’s let it go.
My shoulders come down, and I shrink to normal size again.
Carl leans back against the wall, tugging my sleeve, so I go ahead and lean back against the wall beside him, shoulder to shoulder. He hasn’t let go, of my sleeve, and for a few minutes we stay like this and let the world feel like it’s falling back into place again. There’s a mine field between us. There always is. And I never risk death by attempting to step through it, except sometimes, when the mines are switched off, somehow, like when we’re distracted or worked up after soccer or ticked off by something or we’re just tired so we don’t notice, and we’ll brush arms or link fingers or grab around each other’s middles and not say anything of it, and all of that just because it feels like getting swept up in a hurricane, like now, because my little finger touches his in the small gap hidden between us, and he coils them together and squeezes, and there isn’t an explosion and he doesn’t pull away only there is an explosion and we both die.
We stare at the wall ahead of us like it’s a movie, and then a group of fence cleaners cross the hallway down from us and Carl lets go quickly.
“I should go,” he says, stepping away.
A mine goes off, only this time it’s not a good one.
“Will you tell your Dad?” I ask. For a second I’m not sure what I’m talking about, so, quickly, I add, “about Story Time.”
Carl swallows, shakes his head, then suddenly nods like he’d only just heard me. . . “I have to.”
I look at the floor, nodding, and Carl's eyes study me. I can feel it but I don’t look. I want to. I want to look up and look back and keep on looking, but he’s still looking at me and looking back would be as hard as killing a walker with no hands or feet.
“I’m gonna go find him,” he says finally, “you should go check on your brother. He didn’t look so good.”
I watch him leave, and even though he’s long gone I say, “Okay, Carl.”
Back in my cell, I’m wondering around tidying up.
You need your inhaler.
“I'll wait,” I tell myself. “I don't need it yet.”
“Dude,” Patrick complains. “Shush.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Patrick’s in my bunk. He couldn't make it up to his own. He was asleep, but, I guess talking to myself woke him.
“Pat...” I take off my beanie and drop it on my bedside table, sighing. “Feeling any better?”
He opens one eye, frowning, sweating. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“No, man, you look terrible,” I protest. “You’re sweating through my sheets. I’m gonna go get Dr. S.”
“No! I’m fine.”
“No, come here—” I reach out to his forehead, but he waves me away.
“It’s just a stomach bug. I don’t need a doctor.”
I sigh. Patrick's a very proud (cabbage) person. He's always hated asking people for help. So, despite feeling terrible, he'll only refuse Dr. Subramanian’s help. So I relent: “Fine. But I’m gonna get you a rag or something – cool you down.”
I'm given acceptance with a pair of rolling eyes. So I grab a rag from the sink, wet it under the tap, ring it out... then throw it at him.
What? Just because I offered doesn't mean I'm gonna do it for him.
He grunts, laughs weakly, but presses it over his forehead.
“Thanks, jerk.”
I take a seat on the floor next to him, crossing my legs, dipping my head and tapping my fingers against my knees.
“Carl saw us at story time,” I find myself saying. “He was watching just as you left.”
Patrick’s eyebrows raise weakly.
“He’s mad,” I sigh, “at me mostly. Will be for a while if I know him at all.” Which, I do. By the way. “He’s telling Rick.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Pat says, not in a gossip way though, which takes me a moment to realise. “Carl’s got this thing about telling his Dad everything.” He sounds so tired.
“Wait, hasn't he always?” I ask. Patrick shifts his eyes to me, shakes his head, gulps.
“When I got here he still had his gun, and he didn't even talk to me. Or the others. We'd hang out in C-Block sometimes but we didn't do anything together. I'd sit and mess with Lego and he'd be cleaning his gun.”
I scoff. “Weren't kidding about the immature thing, huh?”
Patrick smirks, rolling his eyes, taking a breath until he coughs on it. I watch, worried, but he keeps talking: “When Rick took his gun –took my knife, too, few days before you were found, Carl started doing more normal stuff, like his Dad wanted. Soccer and hanging out with the kids, you know?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Guess. Just, didn't know he wanted to impress his dad that much.”
I stop talking when I realise that my brother is crying.
“Pat?”
“. . . I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
“For everything, what happened, at the store. I left you.”
I’m glaring at him, my voice sucked out of me like a vacuum.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, wiping his face, “you were out there alone, for months. I didn’t tell anyone about you. I just, couldn’t. When Mom and Dad—”
“Come on, Pat—”
“When they died, we lost everyone. It was just us. And then I lost you. It was my fault. You were alone and it was my fault. And you can hate me for it if you want to.”
“Pat,” I say, curt, aware of the swell in my chest and the welling in my eyes. “Stop. I forgive you.” It only occurs to me now that I've never said this to him. But it’s true. I've never blamed Patrick for our separation. Not even when I attacked him the day I arrived. I was just in shock then. I only hated the circumstance, not my brother. “So shut the fuck up and go to sleep, alright?”
“Love you, bro,” he says, but it sounds like, “Toilet-licker.”
“You, too, man,” I say back, only, he actually hears, “Ugh, bite me.”
Our eyes meet and we crack up like we’re made of the same brain, and I get that feeling like I have all my life, only I’ve been missing it lately, a little, because the feeling I get is the feeling like I’ve got a big brother because I do. He’s right here in front of me, with the same blood and the same air and the same surname.
Patrick simmers out into quiet, sighs, and then he is asleep.

“Oliver.”
It’s not long later when I'm on my way back from the supply closet that I find Carl sat on the common room bench. I smile and sit next to him when he pats the table-top beside me.
“Oh, hey.” I realise that he's probably still mad at me, so I stop smiling. “Uh. Did you tell him?”
Carl shakes his head, “No,” he answers, soft, “couldn’t. He ran into trouble outside—some lady.”
“He okay?”
A nod. “He’s talking to Hershel about it.” There's this thing Carl does with his mouth when he's worried. His lips will twitch. “Wanna read?”
“Pat still feels like shit. I don’t think he’d appreciate it if anyone saw him right now. I wanna keep an eye on him though, so, I'm gonna stay with him.”
Carl nods, “Tell him get better soon.” It seems he hasn't held a grudge, which is good, but I know enough not to take advantage of this even though I want to grin madly and push my hands under his and dance a waltz around the common room with him. So, instead, I begin to slip off of the bench to leave, but still, Carl is lingering, shifting his eyes between my face and his hands. . . “Oliver, can I talk to you, about something?”
I nod, waiting mid-slip and holding onto the bench with my hands. . .
He swallows, looking at my position (probably because I must look rather strange) and then he says, “We should kiss,” or, wait, no, no he doesn’t say that. That was just in my head. Outside of my head Carl still hasn’t said anything. His mouth opens like he will, but no voice comes out, and then I start wondering if he is going to say what I was thinking because he’s fidgeting and closer than he needs to be and he’s looking at my mouth but sometimes he does this because I have a pimple or something. Why doesn’t Carl ever get pimples? That’s so unfair. I thought all boys get pimples, so why has he got skin smoother than—
“Hey,” Allison crosses the common room and goes to her own cell, and suddenly Carl has stood up, and he still hasn’t said anything, and then I startle out of my skin because he slaps my shoulder and walks away.
“Erm...” I say, walking after him. “Aren’t you going to talk to me about something?”
He stops, looks at me, and then half throws his sentence in my face. . .
“I just think you’re cool and I don’t hate you. At all.”
There is a frown and it grows inside out of me only when it comes out it is a grin.
“Okay...” I reply, elongating the word because, ooooookaaaay...
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Cool...”
I laugh.
He does, too, a little.
And then I get a ball of energy in my chest like electricity and I am going to say it. Because I know what he really wants to say. Because he tugs my sleeve and lets me kiss his forehead and cheek and we sit and read comics with our legs pressed and sometimes we hold hands, and sometimes, too, we wake up in the same bed without remembering how we got there. So I am going to say it. I am going to say, “We should kiss,” but —dammit— who am I kidding? I’m not going to say that. I’m going to say nothing because I am stupid and dumb and Oliver who is good at saying nothing. I won’t overthink it. Because Carl tugs my sleeve to get me to move faster, and he doesn’t let me kiss his forehead or cheek or hold his hand, he just doesn’t ever know it will happen and is too polite to tell me to fuck off, and we sit and we read comics because we are guy friends who do guy things together, like build and read and say dude and bro and man at the right points during conversation, like guy friends do.
GUY
FRIENDS

I’m shrinking into myself and taking notes with my Guy-pen, all my Guy-barriers of Guy-powers up to make me more Guy, and again, Guy-Master-Carl slaps my shoulder so I grunt Guy-ly, and then he’s turned on his heel and is marching out of the cell block.
I don’t notice when I begin to fall asleep, or when my flash light —which is still turned on— falls from my mouth, or when my book is left on my torso. But after what feels like moments, which I soon realise is around three AM, I jolt awake.
Someone is coughing.
Hard.
Coughing up their lungs.
“Huh?”
It’s coming from the bottom bunk.
“Pat?”
More coughing, only he's out of bed now.
“Pat.”
He tells me to go back to bed through his coughs, and I groan into my (his) pillow.
“W-what's wrong with you?”
“I’m fine. Go–” It's a violent cough this time. “—go b-back to bed, I just gotta...” More coughing. “...cool down.”
I frown, but do as he says, tired and dazed and lazy, rubbing my eyes. So he stumbles out of the cell, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor all the way through the cell block. I listen for as long as I can, which is only a few seconds, and then my fatigue gets the better of me and I fall asleep again.
He’ll be okay.
Yeah, he always is.

Notes

Oh dear. Looks like Oliver is very wrong about this one, huh?
Poor boys :(

Thanks to the 4 votes, very much appreciated :) xx

As always,
Happy reading xx :)

Comments

I have loved this story for a really long time, but I actually just made an account for the first time. I simply wanted to pop in on the story a last time before we move into the sequel to say that I adore this entire thing. Thank you for creating such a quality fic (and inspiring me more than you realize). Xx :)

Biter two Biter two
4/20/15

@I'm Just A Monster
Thank you xx Hope you enjoy, tell me what you think of it over there xxx

thewalkerinme thewalkerinme
4/19/15

OMG, this was an awesome chapter! I'm going to check out the sequel now. :) :D :D

@Blood on my Machete
Thank you x I think? :)

thewalkerinme thewalkerinme
4/18/15

Sweet. That pretty much sums up this chapter in one word: sweet.
I could go on but I think I'm just going to leave it there. Just sweet.