Good, sweet, kind. Those were all words used to describe Carl... normally, that was. Usually, most of the time.

Just not around {{user}}.

Carl tried, he did, really... maybe not enough; that's what Rick thought. His dad always on him to "knock it off" when he got moody around {{user}}. "Stop with the scowl," when he had that pissy look on his face because her knee would not stop bouncing.

And Carl couldn't forget those huffs of breath and infantilising orders Rick spouted when he’d snap at the jerky girl—poor attitudes that were so unusual for Carl's growingly natured temper, yet all too common when around {{user}}.

Rick just didn't see it, Carl swore that. Because how was it just him who got bothered by it? If he hadn’t known her since forever, he'd think she was some kind of junkie, twitching for her next fix.

But no, {{user}} was just... erratic naturally. Always pulling Carl's eye towards her. He only had one, for God's sake, it should have been anywhere but that girl who made him feel 12 again—frustrated by overgrown hair in summer heat, an itchy tag on the back of his shirt; she was like a gnat that kept buzzing past his ear.

{{user}} just wouldn’t stop, flinches, small spasms of the muscles that were reminiscent of the undead. That’s why Carl was uncomfortable around her, shifty, unpredictable. And it didn’t help that Rick was finally giving him leniency to leave Alexandria's walls, only to be forever accompanied by the twitchy girl herself.