too sweet || Carl Grimes

0.

Rowan never knew his mom. When he was only young she gave him up, no words exchanged, just dropped him off with his dad and left.
He'd only ever seen her once too, in a picture his dad had found. Rowan never commented on how similar she and Lori looked, the only difference being she was Filipino, so he took to learning it. Maybe his mom didn't want him, but he still wanted some sort of connection to that side of his family.

As he grew up there was always a gap between him and his dad, like an invisible wall just to tall for him to climb over to reach Shane. One that Carl Grimes could somehow practically walk over it.

He tried, he tried so hard.

Taking on hobbies he was never interested in but his dad was, mentioned becoming a cop too, took a headstart on seeing what qualifications he'd need, but everything was just brushed off. It was like he was a roommate to Shane instead of his son.

It was the opposite when they were around the Grimes family. It was like he was a totally different man around them, like he could forget he even had a son. Rick tried to include him, encouraged him and Carl to hang out together but Rowan couldn't help but just despise seeing him. Despise that the only attachment he had with his own father was the scars lining his back.

So he eventually gave up, Rowan couldn't get any attention from his dad when trying to suck up to him, so instead he'd rebel, start doing things Shane didn't like. He dropped all his hobbies he picked up for his dad, hung out with people deemed 'bad influences', stayed out late, and skipped school occasionally.

He did get attention, even though it was bad it was more than before.
So he continued, and it was so much more freeing than trying to live to please Shane.

His personality changed, and so did his style, and it clearly embarrassed Shane when he had to go anywhere with him. It was made worse when he got piercings. They weren't the safest, had to be taken out when he got into fights, eventually leaving them out in general.

That was when they had their first bad fight. Shane was fed up with the "tantrums", anger fueled by the stress of Rick getting shot, and all the resentment Rowan had been harbouring was let out.

It didn't end well. They left off worse than they started, Rowan walked out. He stayed at a friend's that night before going to school the next day like normal.

Then the world ended.

|~~~~~~|

Shane didn't go to his school to pick him up. Rowan got home by himself, but all his dad's stuff was gone; the car, clothes, most food, and of course his gun.

His dad had left. He was left behind.

He knew they didn't have the best relationship but who would expect their own dad to abandon them at the end of the world?

But there wasn't anytime to think about it now, the world had ended, he was alone, there was nothing he could do but move on and try not to think about it.

So he did, he grabbed everything he could. Any food left over was stuffed in the biggest bag he could reasonably carry, spare clothes, little bits of medical supplies. There wasn't much, Shane really took most of it, but stuff was still left behind in the rush. He also grabbed his walkman, it wasn't necessary by any means but he would need some sort of distraction.

The only problem was he never was given a gun, all he had was his own pocket knife and spare knives from the kitchen.

"I really shouldn't have stopped archery, would've been helpful now."

He still grabbed it, it was useless for now but he could practice shooting again, he couldn't have forgotten everything right?

Then he was ready to leave.

Rowan wandered. There was no other way to describe it. He had no destination yet, but he'd find something eventually.

|~~~~~~|

He didn't.

There were some safe-ish places to stop along the way but nowhere he could make a "base".

Well that was true until he wandered across a farm. It was in a field after a forest, that's where he was originally. It was a good place to hunt for food but he went too far out and accidentally left the forest, and then Rowan couldn't help but need to look at the house that was standing there.

It didn't look very abandoned, but it also didn't look like the end of the world before the dead bodies were littered everywhere, so it wasn't exactly easy to judge everything by looks.

But he really should've, because next thing he knew, a woman on a horse had charged at him, pointing her gun.

Shit.

|~~~~~~|

Rowan told the woman how he'd found the farm, he was just looking for somewhere to set up camp and thought it might've been abandoned, but when he was about to leave she took him to her father.

Before he knew it he was staying, the woman insisted he stayed because he was "just a kid", and apparently the man agreed, as long as he followed the rules.

He was never usually that good at that but circumstances can change, and they seemed kind enough. They all introduced themselves to him before sending someone to set up a room for him.

Hershel
Maggie
Beth
Patricia
Otis
Jimmy

They all settled into a routine, he helped out mainly by hunting, sometimes with Otis, sometimes alone, joined Maggie on runs if she let him, or just helped out with chores. The horses are his favourite to work with despite only learning how to care for them recently.

It gave him something to do around the farm and help them while waiting for Maggie to give in to him and teach him how to shoot.
And before any of them realised he was practically a part of the family, especially when they caught Rowan slipping up and calling them sister or dad, but nobody mentioned it to him if he didn't realise

And before he knew it more than months had passed. It was like everything was back to normal.

Rowan Greene was just a member of the family that was missing for a while until they found eachother.