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carl had nightmares a lot but never of walkers or his mother─ carl had nightmares about the void. he had nightmares about floating away, upwards and onward, because there was no ceiling and there was no roof and there were no stars where he was going, only black. he didn’t hear the voices of the void and he didn’t feel any warmer or colder. he felt nothing.
he woke up from one of those nightmares, hair matted to his forehead and his pulse in his ears. the room was dark but it wasn’t the void because there was blue light everywhere like there only ever was in the morning when the sky grew heavy and the earth smelled like the wind and not rotting flesh. it was going to rain and rain hard in five minutes, carl was certain. the wind whistled outside and kissed the curtains, making them blush and billow while a draft settled around the room. carl’s skin goose-bumped where the wind whispered against it and he had a strange feeling in chest.
like he was meant to wake up at six in the morning because this was the moment he would remember when the void swallowed the world.
carl looked beside him to see that ron was still there and he hadn’t sneaked out while carl was asleep like he usually did. he was sleeping on his stomach facing carl, hair mussed up and smatterings of freckles on his back, on his shoulders, on his face, like the universe blew stardust across his skin in his creation. sleep was the only time he looked relaxed.
carl stroked ron’s hair, pushing the blond strands out of his face and shivering when their skin touched; carl’s fingers were freezing and ron’s skin was a georgian summer.
ron stirred, eyebrows twitching together as his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. carl held his breath until ron’s eyes opened. ron’s hazel eyes looked black in the dimness as he blinked up at carl, his eyes still glazed with sleep.
“hey,” carl whispered, watching as ron stretched, sitting up beside carl with the blanket around his shoulders. his face was still puffy from sleep.
“what time is it?” ron asked, disoriented and groggy, curling the blanket tighter around himself. his eyes traveled across carl and carl assumed he had noticed that carl was shivering because ron opened his arms, inviting carl to join him.
carl got up instead, moving towards the window with the billowing curtain just as the sky opened up and rain started to fall. “early.” he replied, hugging himself.
the blue light was in the streets as well, reflecting the stormy sky and he watched as someone who looked like abraham held a sheet over his and someone who looked like sasha’s heads from the guard tower. if they were talking, he couldn’t hear them. if walkers were snarling, it was lost to the wind that ran through the streets and flew through the trees. the world was still asleep. the world was still quiet. the void wasn’t real.
behind him, carl heard his bed squeak and the soft pads of ron walking towards him. he still had the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and he didn’t give carl a choice this time and pulled carl straight into his blanket cloak as the two stood near the window watching the rain.
“we look like a two headed monster.” carl commented. his knuckles brushed ron’s where they each held their half of the blanket closed together and for a moment his veins burned.
“shut the fuck up.” ron replied. mornings weren’t his specialty.
carl grinned, lazy and slow, the world disappearing around him as he stared at ron’s profile. he felt his heart catch in his throat, his skin breaking out in a rush of heat like the savannah sun was beating down on it and kissing freckles across his arms in constellations, like ron once mumbled about. because carl had the big dipper on his elbow and orion’s belt on his wrist, according to ron who had subsequently shouldered carl out of his way like it would’ve negated comparing carl’s skin to a galaxy. carl never forgot that, even when ron was moody and irritable, snapping insults at him and pushing him away.
so carl shut the fuck up.
he stared at ron.
ron looked back at him.
ron’s eyes looked black and they looked like the void except the void wasn’t real and ron was. carl could feel his skin burning where their knuckles touched and he could see ron’s nose twitch in annoyance because carl was staring at him but carl couldn’t stop, couldn’t force himself to look away.
billions of years ago the universe came to be and the cosmos erupted across its vastness, breathing magic unto the abyss and billions of years later remained an epicenter of the explosion and it took so long for someone to notice that ron anderson was the void.
it took carl grimes to exist to realize that the universe grew tired of its immensity and compacted the salt of the sea and the north star and the melody of waterfalls crashing on distant planets into a single form so that all could gaze and marvel at the big bang itself.
“why are you staring at me like that?” the universe asked, hazel eyes narrowing and hair sticking up in all directions.
“i’m encountering the void.” carl replied, closing the distance between them.
he felt waves crashing and saw trees growing upside down with their roots in the air and heard siren songs from deep space.
carl’s lips burned whenever they kissed.
his skin tingled when they touched.
he’d woken up with ron dozens of times before in this life and thousands of times in others. lives across the galaxy and between time where they found each other again and again and again.
the rain stopped and the wind silenced while carl led ron back to his bed.
sunlight streamed through disappearing clouds and ron sucked hickeys on carl’s neck.
birds sang melodies and carl pushed his sweatpants down.
the blue light turned yellow and orange and they fucked.
carl was right, in hindsight. he thinks about encountering the void when he sees michonne plunge her sword through ron’s chest right before he blacks out.