Chapter Text
The last time you saw Ron he was being dramatic, calling you out of your house in the middle of the night by screaming at the top of his lungs from your porch steps because he knew you didn’t have any parents to stop him. It was dark, the streets of Alexandria silent other than the faint hum of crickets punctuating just how unacceptably late it was when he’d shown up causing a racket.
Despite this, and having been startled from your sleep, you slipped on some shorts and a pair of shoes —fully ready to start chewing him out for it, because you were sure you were going to kill him for waking you up that late— only for you to find that when you opened your front door he was giving you a mischievous, sly smile that just about melted your rage in seconds, pulling out a bag with two joints in it and starting to dramatically recite the words to an old 80s blues-rock song, emphasizing it by tapping his hands on the banister and swinging by his arm from it.
Then he stopped, still swinging, his eyes raking over the shape of what he knows your body looks like underneath your clothes.
“Well, aren’t you lookin’ sexy on this fine ass night.” He quips in a sing-song voice, before returning to half muttering lyrics.
It was meant to come across as sarcastic, you could tell, as he took in the sight of the oversized t-shirt sleeves clinging to the creases of your elbows and your messy bed hair.
You bit your lip where you knew he couldn’t see it.
He was stupidly charming, unfortunately, so you opened your door for him and let him sprawl himself across the couch with his shoes on, hands behind his head as he puffed on a joint he lit inside, despite you asking him not to.
You tried to feign annoyance with him acting like he owned the place, but you were about as convincing as someone who just got caught staring, your cheeks dusting over with a pink tint… And if you were being honest with yourself, you definitely were. He always had your attention without even trying to get it.
If only you had his.
“Are you going to talk to me, or just keep singing?” You eventually asked, shifting where you sat on the coffee table and snatching the joint away from him to take a hit.
It was still warm from where he had held it, so you paused, taking in the sensation, and in that moment he set his hand over yours with the joint in it, pushing it aside as he used his other hand to cup your chin and pull you closer to him.
His light humming turned to something of a sinister chuckle in the back of his throat, eyes gleaming with mischief as he brought you a few inches away from his lips.
Your mouth parted with a heavy gulp, “Ron, you—”
Before you could finish what you were saying he started to ghost the smoke into your mouth in place of what should have been your drag, the warm smoke curling in the air for an exhilarating moment where you forgot yourself, eagerly drinking it up as he gave it. —You were taking in his used air, yet it felt like he was ripping the oxygen straight out of your lungs.
Then he laughed, pulling back and taking another hit, flopping back on the couch with his legs spread.
It occurred to you then, going by the taste of his breath, that he was completely and utterly wasted, most likely on something from his deceased mother and father’s stash, although Jessie never touched the stuff after she saw what it did to her husband. —One thing was for certain though, if Ron was drinking, you were in for a long night all about Carl. fucking. Grimes.
“If that asshole hadn’t taken my gun, I could have done something. —I could have saved my mom,” He ruminated, staring up at the ceiling, then an angered expression crossed his face and he looked over at you, “Sam still needs parents. I can’t take care of him by myself and because of how old he is, everyone here is focused on that fuckin’ toddler instead. Sam isn’t like me. He still has a chance, and they’re taking it away.”
He’d told you the same story a million times, the way Carl had cornered him in a room in his own house after practicing shooting with Rick and taken away his gun, bullying him and smearing the memory of his father, rubbing salt in the wound by sneaking around with his girlfriend afterward, his dad sniffing around his mom until they let her die in the walker attack. —Which Rick had given him the gun back for, only for him to discover it had one bullet in it.
He takes another deep drag, “He’s lucky all he got after that was a missing eye. —I was just praying for some brain damage.”
You’d shaken your head and crossed your arms at that point, letting out a sigh you were sure he wouldn’t notice in his state, but he had, and after a moment he decided to address it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” You snapped your head up, eyes widening.
“Why are you sighin’ and shit like Enid?” A flicker of something akin to hurt and confusion entered his eyes. “Are you— Is this not fun?”
“No, it’s not that,” You took to gently stroking the coffee table to avoid eye contact with him, “It’s just… Do we have to talk about him?”
You’d had enough of your life within Alexandria revolving around the Grimes family, you just wanted to turn your brain off and have fun with him like you did before they’d arrived. The days where you, Ron, Enid, and Sam would wander around doing stupid shit together and getting into trouble like real teenagers. —It was a much needed distraction for you when you lost your parents, and the entire group knew it. They never spoke about it, but they knew it.
With your words, the entire mood shifted to something uncomfortable you couldn’t quite place. He suddenly put the joint out and sat up, holding his face in his hands for a moment, mumbling to himself with furrowed brows.
Shit, was he mad?
“I-I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, you can talk as much as you want.” You quickly corrected yourself, seeing the way his posture crumpled.
“No, no, we can talk about you this time,” He insisted, bloodshot, deep blue eyes meeting yours with a smirk, “You’ve listened to enough of my shit without ever dumping anything back on me in return… Yeah, let’s… talk about you.”
You felt your face start heating up, waving your hands to dispel the idea. “No way! I’m serious, we can keep—”
He abruptly slammed his hands down on the coffee table on either side of you, scaring you until you saw the look in his eyes. —A quiet contentness, half-lidded with impairment, while he looked up at you from stomach level where he leaned over to trap you from the couch.
“If you don’t want to talk, then I will,” He said with a huff, hands slowly dragging across the wood to rest a few centimeters from your hips. “…You want to know why I like you?”
Your heart nearly stopped, breath ceasing in an instant, but it didn’t matter because he continued on without waiting for an answer.
“You listen to me and put up with all my crap even though you certainly don’t have to,” His wandering hands finally made contact, sending a visible jolt through you as he rounded the curve to the top of your hips, “You have better options all around you, but you pick to stick with me, no matter what I do…” His hands came to your waist and stopped, squeezing, “You don’t go around consorting with murderers, and when I tell you something, you just listen and believe me. You aren’t like Enid.” The name came out like venom, yet it sounded so sweet to your ears.
You couldn’t take it anymore, the repressed emotions you felt sending a surge of bravery through you as you dipped down to plant a kiss on him.
He brushed your hair back and took a shaky breath, pulling away before you could touch. “Not…” He started, his voice unusually unsure of himself. “Not right now. –Like this.”
The next morning Ron would not remember this conversation, or the way his hands wandered you like you were the only thing that mattered anymore, his promises of not right now, turning back into an unspoken, not ever.
But you remembered. The feeling of his hands on your body, and the familiar sight of him in your house giving you the cruelest twinge of hope, staining your existence even within your own home.
***
Watching them kiss and pretend like everything’s okay is like volunteering to get stabbed. —Especially when it’s Ron desperately trying to get Enid’s attention and not the other way around.
At least if it were her, you might be able to convince yourself to get angry.
You try to stay sitting with them, the board game left discarded on the floor along with you when they moved to the bed ‘to relax’ a few moments ago, but the more unrequited advances he makes, the more into it Enid seems to get.
He moves a hand to her inner thigh and she starts climbing into his lap and tugging at his clothes, forcing you to leave the room without saying anything to tell you, or bothering to even just look in your direction.
It’s like you’re a ghost, coming and going at other people’s whims. —Just another object on his bedroom floor.
Whatever. Maybe it’s about time you go home, you were tired from Ron waking you up in the middle of the night every night for the past week anyway. There’s no point in forcing yourself to stay awake for two people who don’t want you around.
You start putting on your shoes when you feel a small tug on your sleeve behind you and turn to see Sam, empty plate in hand.
“I thought you were staying to make grilled cheese and play games?” He asks in a quiet plea, the same disappointment and confusion you see radiating off of Ron when he’s drunk and can’t hide it present in his demeanor.
You feel your shoulders fall, eyes rolling back as you swallow your frustration.
Could never say no to the Andersons, could you?
Your anger with his brother shouldn’t affect the way you treat this one, especially when he’s only just lost his parents. You know how it feels to be alone in a room full of people when there’s no one left that knows you, even if they claim to.
“No, I was just…” You shake your head softly, putting a smile on your face for him. “I’ll stay, okay? Get the ingredients out and I’ll be there in a sec,” You untie the shoe you got on and kick it off, calling after him when he takes off towards the kitchen, “And don’t touch the stove without me!”
He’s still trying to get the bread off of the top of the fridge when you come into the kitchen, but you don’t mind, you have as much time as he needs.
You wash your hands off in the sink and find a pan, setting it on the stove, cranking the heat, and scooping a dollop of butter into it, watching it melt with a sizzle.
“I got it!” He cheers, presenting the bread box to you like a trophy. “I got it! See, I got it!”
“Good job,” You praise with a laugh, taking a few slices of bread out and laying them down in the pan, putting quickly melting cheese on them. The scent of home-made bread crisping enters your nostrils and you take a deep breath. “This isn’t so bad…” You mutter to yourself, licking a smear of butter from the back of your hand.
You’ve taken care of Sam before, usually with Ron, but when he asks you to babysit you always do it…
What can you say? He’s a good kid. Just lonely without anyone his age around, and teenagers that are constantly ditching him for each other the older they get. —Which is yet another reason you relate to him.
“I wish we had ham,” He says abruptly, leaning against the counter and thumping his heel against the floor. “My dad always used to make grilled cheese with ham. —My mom hated it, but it was good… I think,” He pauses, nodding his head, “He and Ron always said it was.”
Pete.
You can’t deny there was some kind of twisted satisfaction that grew within you when Rick finally killed him.
He deserved it after all the times Jessie and Ron would walk out of the house with unexplained bruises, limping or having to stay seated while other people frolicked and enjoyed the suburban utopia this place used to be, overlooking all the signs of abuse because no one was bold enough to do anything about it and risk rocking that fairytale.
He never touched Sam, but you know that was only because he wasn’t old enough to fight back yet. —Sam was too young to even have his own opinions, he hadn’t hit puberty like Ron, and therefore Pete thought he wasn’t a threat.
Something about Sam’s demeanor tells you that’s not all he has to say, the mention of his parents heavy on your mind after all your conversations with Ron.
“Do you like… ‘ham’?” You ask.
He averts his eyes from yours. “Sometimes I think I miss it, but I know it’s bad for you…” He shrugs, “Everyone keeps telling me that.”
You walk away from the stove and lean up against the kitchen island opposite him. “It’s okay to miss him, Sam, he was your dad.”
His head turns up, eyes darting away just as fast. “I was talking about ham, I wasn’t…” He pauses for a moment then looks back at you, “I just thought you’d get it because you—” He cuts himself off, letting the conversation die this time. “Sorry.”
That’s somehow the closest you’ve come to talking about your family with any of your supposed friends, despite him being the youngest one in Alexandria at twelve years old, aside from Judith of course, the toddler.
“It’s fine,” You excuse, walking back over to the stove. “I’m making some extra, can you make sure your doofus brother eats, too? He’s busy.”
As if to punctuate your sentence, a loud, dramaticized feminine moan comes from just upstairs.
Sam looks at the stairs, then at you for guidance, who’s frozen solid by the stove, hands clenched at your sides.
“Ew, are they kissing?” He makes a gagging face, “No wonder you wanted to run away, that’s gross.”
“Yeah,” You agree with a sigh, motioning to the stereo sitting on the dining room table, “Turn some music on, we don’t need to hear that. —You especially.”
He walks over to the table and kneels on a chair, quickly finding the nearest tape and shoving it in, which of course just so happens to be one of Ron’s favorite songs— one he showed you close to when you first met.
“Oh god,” You grimace. This house must be hell.
You try to quickly rush through cooking so that you can make up an excuse and leave, burning yourself a few times in the process, but as you're finishing up Enid bounds her way down the stairs and flips off a quickly following Ron, her shirt clutched in her hands.
“Enid,” He calls out in a soft, vulnerable tone he reserves for her, trying to get her to come back, “Enid, please stop. It’s okay—” He stops at the end of the stairs, lips parted as the door slams behind her.
You hate to say it, but even now, lips bitten raw by the other girl, shirt off and dirty blonde hair tussled by what they’d been doing, he still looks good.
He glances over at you and his eyes widen with surprise. “You stayed?” Then he quickly covers with a cocky smirk, repeating himself, “You stayed.”
The way he says it, like he was so sure you were going to stick around when they pushed you out of the room, twists the knife they lodged in your chest when they acted like you were never even there.
“Sam was hungry. I’m leaving now, actually.” You excuse, looking at where your socks meet the kitchen tile, yet not making a single effort to move from where you’re planted.
You try really hard not to look at the state he’s in anymore, keeping your eyes lowered to the floor as Sam starts to eat, but then Ron cracks his knuckles, something you know he only does when he’s about to do something uncomfortable, despite him not noticing the habit himself. —No one watches him as closely as you do.
“Sam,” He says bluntly, the other boy picking up his plate. “Go upstairs.”
That’s new… He’s never used that kind of tone in front of you before, especially not on his little brother. It makes you wonder what’s about to happen, and not in a good way. It hits you the same way someone saying ‘we need to talk’ would. Whatever he’s going to say, it’s something he doesn’t want said in front of—
“Stop overthinking it,” He says, suddenly right beside you, hand shooting out to grip your upper arm when you jolt away with surprise. “Careful, the stove’s still hot.”
You stop pulling back, regaining your footing as he loosens his grip to gently stroke your arm where he grabbed it, thumb swiping over the red mark he made.
Memories of the night when you nearly kissed come flooding back at the soft contact, but now it feels so wrong. His girlfriend, who was once your best friend, was just here and it seemed like they were doing well until she left. —You can’t be the one to ruin that for them.
If only that thought could stop your racing pulse.
His touch turns firm again as he moves his hand from your upper arm to your forearm and abruptly yanks you toward him, triggering your fight or flight for a fraction of a second until the feeling of his warm lips on your cheek hits your senses.
“R-Ron, what the fuck?” You try to sound upset about it, but it’s clear you’re flustered, your hands coming up to his bare chest to push him away only to stop, afraid to actually make contact.
He hums out a laugh against your cheek, sucking on the skin before parting with a wet popping sound.
“Thanks for that,” He says with a mischievous shrug, then jokingly adds, “—I had no idea what I was gonna feed him.”
“W-What?”
Until he made the joke about his brother you felt like your heart was going to explode, because finally, finally it was happening for real, but now you’re back to being silently frustrated, biting the inside of your cheek to prevent the shame you’re bottling up from spilling over.
You shouldn't want him, but you do, and you can’t stop yourself from feeling this way no matter how hard you try. —And you have tried. So hard.
It’s not fair.
The smirk on his face slowly fades as he sees your eyes fill with tears of humiliation, a small whine making its way out of you.
“O-Oh.” He starts, then stops, backing away to give you room to leave.
You shove past him and practically run out of the house once you have your shoes on, tugging the hood of your sweatshirt over your head and trying to walk behind houses to avoid the people you know are walking the main streets, another small cry escaping you.
Enid is lurking nearby, you try remind yourself, angrily growling as you tug harder at the drawstrings of your hood, it would be worse if she found out that your feelings for her boyfriend weren’t going completely ignored.
How could something you’ve craved for so long turn into such a nightmare?
You fall against the back of the next house you pass and slide down to the ground, drawing your knees up to your chest to pull yourself together.
You’re supposed to be the strong one of the group! The person that when they need a crutch to lean on, you’re more than happy to let them use you, blame you, take from you. —Your ‘silly little crush’ on Ron, is the one thing off-limits…
Or so you thought until he mocked you for it.
You hear footsteps and wipe your eyes on your sleeve, pulling your hood down and stretching your legs out to look at least somewhat normal despite anxiety tearing your stomach apart. You can’t be seen like this.
“Don’t be such a dick! You aren’t even allowed to be mad,” You hear a girl who you recognize as Sophia say nearby, then she rounds the corner, Carl Grimes brooding at her side.
As if this day couldn’t get any worse.
“I’m serious, stop pouting.” She repeats.
He says something in a grumble under his breath and she responds by slapping him in the back of the neck, not playful, but stern, the slap connecting with an audible crack.
You nearly smile at her abuse of him.
If there was one good thing about the Grimes’ arrival to Alexandria it was the people they brought with them, because a few of them are actually tolerable additions to the community, like her. You aren’t able to hang around her much because of the… company she keeps, but she seems like a good person and you’ve got similar tastes.
Sophia spots you and quickly puts down the hand used to punish him, lowering her tone to one she’d use for an acquaintance rather than the boy she’s known for most of her life.
“Hey, Noa, are you busy la— Oh, wow,” She remarks, eyebrows raising as she points to her cheek, “What’s that from?”
You glance over at the boy beside her, narrowing your eyes to rake them over his appearance as he does the same to you. —He never speaks to you because of how much time you spend with the guy who tried to kill him, but that also means he hasn’t had time to decide what he thinks of you yet.
On the other hand, you know exactly what you think of him.
“What’s, what from?” You ask, bringing your attention back to her when the question actually reaches you.
She points again, looking around to make sure no one’s nearby to overhear, “The hickey.”
The… what?
You quickly slap a hand over the spot she’d been pointing to on her own cheek, rubbing at it as if you could get the mark off by doing so, shame completely overtaking you. “It’s not a— It’s not a hickey.” You deny, “I didn’t…”
You didn’t want it. —Like Ron told you that night, not like this. You could never do that to Enid.
The Grimes kid leans over to talk to her, he has to, considering the difference in their height, “Look at her arm,” He whispers, pointing to the mark Ron left when he pulled you away from the stove.
You instinctively cover it, but she’s already seen, her brows furrowing.
He looks back up to your cheek, continuing to whisper to her, “That’s not a hickey, that’s a bruise from psycho Pete junior.”
You feel something angry spike within your chest at the nickname he gives Ron, a reference to the man who abused and terrorized his family for years before he showed up.
“Don’t you dare call him that!” You shout, springing to your feet and pointing a finger at him. “He isn’t anything like his dad, he would never hurt anyone!”
He only huffs in response, lowering his chin so that his fringe falls further in front of his face as he rolls his eye.
It’s almost like he’s trying to provoke you.
“Carl,” Sophia warns, giving him a glare, “Stop it.”
He ignores her, taking a step forward to look down at you. —It’s the first time you’ve gotten close enough to see the hardened glint in his eye, his breathing uneven like he could snap on a dime, just like Ron told you he had on multiple occasions.
If anyone is a dangerous copy of their father between the two, it’s definitely this guy.
It also doesn’t help your confidence in defending yourself that the majority of the weight on his otherwise thin physical frame is on his upper body and arms from years of whatever the hell he and Rick were doing out in the wilderness before they took over Alexandria.
He knows how to wield it too. You’ve seen him kill walkers from afar, teasing them, letting them get in close before he ends the fight.
“Oh, really?” He laughs in your face, the sound soft and breathy like he’s forcing it, fingers threatening to pull his eyepatch off and show you just how wrong you are, when Sophia physically intervenes.
“Enough.” She snaps, pushing both of you closer together until you’re only a few feet apart. “I’m sick of having to avoid certain people when I’m with one of you because of this feud. —The people here are really nice, and I think they could teach us a thing or two. They already opened their homes to us, we should return the favor by doing the same for them and teaching them what we learned on the road.”
Return the favor? Let them into our homes? That’s laughable. You let them in, promising them shelter in exchange for manpower, sure, but then they broke the whole metaphorical door in and tracked shit all over the place. —You’ve learned it’s inevitable with the Grimes’. They ruin everything they touch and make small problems so much bigger, like with the radio station and the Saviors.
Negan definitely would have found Alexandria eventually, but you could have been on good terms with him like Hilltop and The Kingdom, instead of being made their bitch.
“It’s not just a stupid feud, Sophia,” You scowl, nostrils flaring, “People were killed, families torn apart, all because…” with a glance over at the boy you return your gaze to her, “Because of them.”
“Them,” She repeats bitterly, rolling her neck and looking to the clouds as if they could assist her in some way by telling her the right thing to say to you. —But it's never that easy, is it?— She turns her attention back to you. “I’m one of them, and you like me, right?” She points out, raising an eyebrow as if she's waiting for you to deny it.
You don’t deny it, giving her a small nod.
“...Look, Carl needs someone to go on a run with him tomorrow, and what do you know? Something just came up for me. So Noa, you’re going with him instead,” She says, not asking, but telling you both what you’re going to do. “Consider it, like, an exercise in teamwork. –We have to work together to survive, right?”
“I’m not going anywhere alone with her,” He quickly denies, trying to pry himself out of the hold she has on him, “I don’t know her, she probably—”
To ‘assist’ him in getting out of Sophia’s grip, you give him a firm shove to the chest like Ron told you he’d done to him, his hat falling to the ground from the force of it, his entire body stumbling back a step.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Noa!” Sophia shouts, then when the Grimes kid takes a particularly harsh step forward and you one backward, she turns her attention back to him. “You deserved that one, so leave it be, Carl. You need to get your shit together. —Go on this run and really think things over, otherwise I’m gonna have to tell…” She pauses, averting her gaze with disappointment, “You’re not leaving me very much of a choice.”
He turns back to her at that, eyebrow raising as she walks away after her vague threat, then bending down to pick up his hat.
Tell what? He hadn’t been the one to shove you, and she doesn’t exactly strike you as the tattle-tailing type, so you don’t think it’s about the name he called Ron— Not that any of the new assholes in this place would give a shit about him being bullied, because the sad truth is that everyone looks down on him because of what his dad did.
You look back over at the Grimes kid only to find he’s already staring at you appraisingly and working his jaw, patience wearing thin after your physical aggression.
“I’ll be by later with some supplies, so leave the door unlocked and be ready…” He pauses with a long sigh, “Not that you won’t already be awake.” He adds like he’s in on a secret you aren’t aware of.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” You seethe, but he waves you off and starts walking away. “Grimes! You better not come near my fuckin’ house!”