maskormenacelogs | I don't have dramatic lyrics for this

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I don't have dramatic lyrics for this

WHO: Carl and YOU
WHERE: In any store in Heropa and Nonah (particularly imPort-owned)
WHEN: The last week of November
WHAT: Carl hasn’t seen this much Christmas cheer since Christmas.
WARNINGS: Possible TWD fare involving discussions of of violence, zombies, ect.

He has seen Christmas seeping in the advertisements, twinkling in just before Halloween, with much scorn by the natives. But soon enough, it’s Christmas in November, and that scorn quickly disappears.

Carl usually begins his Christmas shopping around November, as most people do (or so he assumes). December is usually a busy time for him for the shelter and at school, so he rather goes off to do his own shopping. He likes Heropa for the small town crafts stuff that he knows people like Enid or Death the Kid might like, but he will also go Nonah for the bigger shopping malls.

So chances are good to find him in any imPort-owned store. He likes supporting imPort businesses. He also keeps to himself, although even though it has been nearly a year since he came back missing an eye, he still has his clumsy moments - bumping into your character or misplacing a product back on the shelf, causing a cascade of other products falling.

Good job, Carl, and it was on your day off too.

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Enid does indeed have a penchant for crafts, and Heropa is the best place in her opinion to find the materials she likes. She often shops in this district with her focus on the places she already knows by heart and not on the people, which is why she does not see Carl when she passes by him at first. Her mind is on future projects like creating jewellery to sell and a little more secretly for new years gifts. It feels right with how much she's gotten to know the group.

Her eyes only turn and lose focus on her goal because a crowd starts to form by a store behind her. Words being passed around about a clumsy boy, which she really doesn't think could be Carl until someone from the crowd actually cries out - with an obsessed "OH MY GAWD, IT'S CARL!" - and says it is. Her interest in them was purely curiosity to if it could have been some post-Black Friday sale thing she could take advantage before that, and nothing more. But now? She felt herself become a little worried for him.

Fans and attention in her experience were usually unwanted, after all.

So she sighs - more like takes breathe in to prepare herself for what she is about to do - and turns back around and pushes past one or two of the few people that have crowded around to see what happened. Offer him a helping hand. Whatever. What she sees - his clumsiness that knocked an entire rack over - and what she thought see - a bombardment of crazy fans - are two different pictures, though, and she can't help but look at him baffled for a minute before huffing with a note of honest laughter. "Carl! You... They had me worried for a second." She gestures her hand a little at him and them to explain herself. "Need help?"

God. It's events such as these that makes him seriously consider just permanently live in Daryl's house. After two years of staying here, he more or less got used to his fangirls. But when one yells out his name loudly, he jumps, and he collides to a rack and knocked some stuff over.

So Enid is a blessed sight, although the fangirls have to know about Enid's presence by now. He doesn't even want to know what they are thinking about her. "Oh, uh . . . yeah."

He might as well dragged her into this pit of sharks, so sorry Enid.

That would be her preference too. But they can't close themselves off completely to this world and she can't get the things she enjoys where it's secluded, so they just have to learn to adjust. Well, Enid can only speak for herself but that's how she feels.

She nods to him and doesn't hesitate to pick up the rack and move it a little ways a way from him to begin with. The fangirls feelings of dislike emanating from the crowd don't go unnoticed by her and she momentarily turns to them to say "Show's over," hoping they'd take the clue and to go back to whatever they were doing before.

Then turning back to him, she says a little more lightly, "You need to be more careful... or maybe you need a disguise." She lifts a brow in amusement as if to actually ask if he would wear a disguise. She's also silently considering that they run if the crowd doesn't listen to her.

"I LOVE YOU CARL!" One brazen girl shriek. Carl did his habitual head duck and a half-hearted wave, and makes a small show of picking up something. It wasn't even remotely close to what Carl was looking for, but he no longer wants to play the charade any longer. (It's some yarn in an ugly green color on a discount.)

But some of the girls doesn't seem to interested in listening Enid, unsurprising enough. "Hey girls!" He said, having a sudden (but probably not so great) idea. "Be sure to support your local - " he winds up his arm, like a baseball player ready to throw a pitch - "BUSINESS!"

- and with that he throws the yarn at the girls. As he suspected they might do, the girls immediately go into a frenzy to get whatever he touches and already fighting over some stupid yarn. Girls are crazy.

...most girls anyway. Which everyone was looking on a multi-way cat fight, Carl literally ran and grabbed Enid's hand and ran out of the store like Wil. E. Coyote.

Not a one listens to her. She shouldn't be surprised, but frowns just slightly because it is off putting to have someone shriek as if in response.

She has no idea what Carl is doing by suddenly addressing the crowd so she watches him curiously and quietly. His idea could be better, she'd give him that since these were his fans. And true to that thought, it is. What she isn't expecting is that he'd come up with the idea to run or grab her hand without warning.

She gives a last look at the fangirls fighting for the yarn and follows his lead, though.

Carl hadn't left a store this fast since home, where an abandoned and looted store often means there are a small group of walkers lurking inside. He didn't even slow down until they were midway down the parking lot. He looks behind his shoulder.

"I really don't understand why people have to be that way." So much ass-kissing. He'd be pretty sure the girls would bow to their knees in reverence to Carl if he asked them to do it.

Don't think she has run this fast since home either. But there's a kind of thrill to it the longer they run and she's smiling a little and enjoying it before long. She said once it's how it's supposed to be and her mind has changed drastically there, but the fact remains running always clears her head.

When they finally stop, and she feels that rush start to leave her instantly, she clings to the momentum they have and she keeps her eyes forward on Carl when he turns to her. "I do," she says simply. She won't mention his name here but the comparison she draw is one with Ron. Like Carl's fangirls, he had that same nature of admiration with often no way to express it other than in a sweet, but frantic or clingy nature. That didn't mean she thought he or the girls were bad, just too much at times. "They really like you." She finally finishes her thought. "So, what now? What were you doing before they saw you?"

Because now that she can't go back there to do what she was doing, perhaps she can help. Her hand idly gives his a squeeze as if to prompt him to decide something.

Carl doesn't get reference, but only because he's still busy being bewildered at the absurd situation of it all. He feels the squeeze and squeezes right back, an automatic response more than anything.

"I was getting some craft supplies for Death the Kid. He really likes that kind of stuff, even though he really likes symmetry for some reason." His likening is so much that it is a case of neurosis, which is the main reason why Carl never try to really tease Kid about it. "And you?"

It's okay. Enid knows he is a little oblivious to his fans' feelings or other, anyway. To be honest, she'd rather move past the talk about them, anyway... Which is not hard when his hand squeezes hers in turn and she notices just how they were holding hands for (a bit too long) and lets go. "Um, thanks for helping me get out of there." She's happy he thought of her and didn't just expect her to know what he was thinking and run.

"I was too." She admits. "For the jewelry I'm making." Carl may have noticed how much she's been staying in her dorm room lately and it was because of that. She was practically working on a line up set to sell to stores in December.

It feels like it's been more than a decade since she did this, Christmas shopping. It's such a normal thing, but they've been so far removed from anything normal for so long that she almost feels out of place browsing the shelves, listening to Christmas music play around them. She's missed this, too, missed everything that was part of her old life.

She's not expecting to bump into Carl as she turns a corner, though it's a pleasant surprise. Reaching a hand out to his shoulder to steady him a little, she smiles at him. "Guess we were both thinking the same thing."

"Hey," he said, steadying himself and picking up some boxes he accidentally knocked over. "Yeah . . . the crowds here are actually worse than the walker herds back home. You should've seen Dad when he was working as a mall cop on Black Friday."

Terrible.

"Still feels weird that we can actually go shopping to get stuff?"

That draws a little smirk from her, because she can picture Rick trying to wrangle a large, chaotic crowd of shoppers focused on nothing but the best bargain for gifts. At least with walkers, they were predictable. Crowds like this aren't predictable in any way.

Nodding a little, she folds her arms over her chest. "Doesn't seem real sometimes." But she has to know. "How did your dad handle being a mall cop?"

"...about as well as you expect," Carl admits, which is just another way of saying, Not well at all. "But it took time and a little effort to get him used it all. I think he was a little annoyed that the government gave him that type of a job in the first place because . . . you know. He used to be an actual cop, back home." It felt like a mockery of sorts, even if he doubts the government really knew the details of Dad's life outside the medical history. But it must have stung for Dad.

While Sophie isn't one to complain about working (mostly because it gives her money and she hates asking for money), she's not exactly sure of how she's helping in the clothing store she's stuck at. A Stitch in Time is nice and all, but last time she worked on a bookstore and that was a million times more interesting. Someone more interested in pretty things like Biana would love it here. Sophie though? All she could think is how the fancy dresses would make her look silly at best.

Still, by the time someone wanders in, Sophie manages to not be dozing off in the counter; she's reading from the computer, because if there are no books, she'll find some online, dammit. The first thing she notices is that the customer is rather short, which becomes obvious once she realizes he's pretty young.

"Oh, hey!" Sophie slides away from the computer, trying to look professional and helpful, although she looks a bit confused and intimidated already. At least she's not hiding under the counter?

Carl doesn't know much about clothes, except how to get warm and which type of colors are good for camouflage. But he figured a store like this is good for someone like Andrea.

"Yeah, um. Hi. I'm kinda shopping for a friend of mine. I'm looking for . . . " What would Andrea like? He's not sure. He knows of the necklace she tried to give to her sister, long ago in the Atlanta camp. But that seems a little on the nose. "Some nice shirts. Women's."

Nailed it.

Sophie knows even less, because her sense of fashion is atrocious. Still, she's going to do her damnenest because that's what they pay her for, kinda.

"Can you describe her for me? Most of these things are very... shape specific. And not all have different sizes even." She sounds pretty annoyed by it, because fancy dressing shouldn't be so limiting, even if she prefers shirts and jeans always and forever.

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I don't have dramatic lyrics for this

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wow i suck so much