Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

Footloose

I looked from the CD in my hand to Glenn, my eyebrows somewhere in my hairline as T sputtered and choked next to me. Glenn just shrugged, and not too apologetically I might add.

"This is not what I signed up for."

Me either big guy.

"Oh come on, you wanted a surprise, this will be a surprise." Glenn was trying to convince himself just as much as us. He wasn't fooling me.

"Good surprise Glenn not..." I waved the CD around like it would explain everything I couldn't.

"I'm with boo-boo, this is not a good surprise. Good surprises are like...." His face scrunched up in thought as he tried to think of an example. When his face got bright and he snapped his fingers I should have known he'd bring the stupid. "Baby's. Baby's are great surprises!"

Glenn and I looked at each other for a beat before I cleared my throat. "Uh T, how is a baby even a surprise? If you have sex without a condom what are you expecting nine months later? An iPhone?"

"Hey, I'm trying to bring some positivity Mrs. Negative Nancy."

I scoffed, "Negative Nancy! I'm the one trying to pull off the miracle of the apocalypse. And did you just make me a Mrs.? What am I, an old spinster with 100 cats?"

"If the shoe fits."

I rounded on him, darting round his massive frame so fast he didn't have time to blink. In an instant my arm was wrapped around his throat squeezing. His knees buckled, his gigantic bear claws grabbing onto my arm trying to pull me off.

"Take it back!" I demanded, both of us sinking down to the ground, his body wiggling in my hold.

"No way." He was barely able to choke out the words as I kept him securely locked down. "Yy..ou...re an old ccc...at ll...ad...y."

Old cat lady my ass.

With my free hand I rubbed my knuckls hard against his bald skull, laughing when he swatted at me, profanity filling the empty hallway. My nuggie's were legendary.

"Knock it off!" Glenn roared. Reluctantly I released T. The two of us climbing to our feet, pushing and shoving each other the whole way. "I swear you two are like brother and sister."

I cocked my thumb at him, "Brother from another mother."

"Chokehold's illegal sis," he hissed, rubbing his throat, face promising revenge.

I waved him off with a roll of my eyes. He didn't scare me.

"Anyways, back to Glenn and his shitty taste in music," I joked.

"Are you really going to be picky given the circumstances?" he glared at me. "It's the best I could do. It was this or Lady Marmalade."

Lady Marmalade didn't sound so bad. I would kill it as Pink.

"OK, let's not panic," I told them. "We can make this work."

T scoffed and Glenn shifted uncomfortably. I looked back down at the CD and grimaced, this was going to be awful.

"Tell me again why we're doing this?" T asked, looking for any excuse to high-tail it out of here. I pinned him with a look that said if he moved there would be more nuggie's in his immediate future.

"Because, it's Carl's birthday and this is what he wants."

Technically, no one was exactly sure when his birthday was given our lack of calendars, but Lori confirmed it was "around now". Jesus, we were shitty human beings sometimes.