Worth the Risk

SUMMARY: After Rick and Daryl leave Paul "Jesus" Monroe along the side of the road, Jesus encounters a group who he has wronged in the past, looking for revenge. Jesus has to struggle to escape the vengeance of a group who outnumber him, as Rick and Daryl contemplate whether or not help him. All the while, Rick and Daryl wonder whether Jesus is worthy of their trust, as Jesus contemplates the same about them. Set during episode 6x10 - The Next World.

**In this story, I'm attempting to make Paul Monroe (Jesus) a little more believable in his abilities. That means no untying bound hands and ankles and climbing on top of a massive truck all within five seconds... But he is still a strong, quick, capable person - just not unbelievably so. Even our precious, lovely Jesus is only human, and I think he's more interesting if he has realistic human limitations.

(I guess maybe his name is Paul "Rovia" on the show? But it's going to be Monroe here, because that's his name... Why change it? - I'll also be referring to him by both Paul and Jesus, depending on what comes naturally. Probably more often Jesus though. That's what I always call him when I talk about him to anyone in real life.)

NOTE: This story has nothing to do with Negan or the Saviors, though they may or may not be mentioned or vaguely alluded to, as they do exist in this story still - they just aren't entirely relevant to the plot and won't appear as characters here. The main characters in this story are Jesus, Rick, Daryl, and the "bad guys" who are entirely my own creation and are not related to any groups from the show or books. And my story begins within episode 6x10, after Rick and Daryl catch up with Jesus and leave him tied up along the road. In my version, however, everything changes there. Jesus doesn't manage to get himself untied or climb on top of the truck. There's not enough time for that.

ANOTHER NOTE: As I begin writing this story, I will have only seen Jesus's first episode on the show, though I have read every comic issue published up until this point. My story is mostly based off the interactions between Jesus and Rick/Daryl seen in episode 6x10 with small details from what I know about Jesus from the comics. If the show ends up different from the comics and you read this thinking, "What the hell? Jesus is weird in this story," it's because I've only seen him in about four scenes on the show so far. I will still, however, steer clear of spoilers to the best of my ability. I'll keep things vague in some circumstances in case I publish this before certain things are revealed in the show.

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Chapter 1

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Jesus couldn't help but to practically pout as he looked over at the back of the white truck making its way down the road and away from him. He'd done his best to retrieve it from the two strangers, who had introduced themselves as Daryl and Rick, but the two men had proven they were a lot more persistent and capable than Jesus had hoped they'd be.

He had almost been successful in stealing the truck, which really never rightfully belonged to Rick and Daryl to begin with. Even when the two strangers somehow caught up to him after an issue with the truck forced Jesus to stop driving for a few minutes, the younger man had still been able to fight the two off... for a moment at least.

Though Jesus was more than capable of defending himself, doing so against two opponents wasn't so easy - especially not when said opponents were both armed with guns. If there were no guns involved, Jesus would have kept fighting, and probably would have been able to incapacitate the two long enough to escape, but when they pointed their guns down at him, they looked awfully angry, and Jesus was no longer confident they wouldn't shoot him, even if the whole deal was over a mere little truck the other two men probably didn't desperately need as much as Jesus did.

Even though his instincts told him Rick and Daryl wouldn't kill him over a truck full of hoarded goods, he really didn't know for sure, and didn't want to risk it. So he stopped fighting, allowed Rick to tie up his ankles and wrists with knots the other man claimed 'weren't too tight,' and let his shoulders slump as he watched his goldmine drive off.

Shaking his head slightly in frustration, Jesus took his eyes off the truck and focused on the ropes wrapped around his arms and legs. He struggled a bit, moving his limbs in an attempt to loosen the knots and finding that Rick had most definitely underestimated his own knot-tying abilities. Jesus was pretty good at escaping various situations, but this one might take a while.

"Hey, Scott, get over here!" Jesus froze as he heard a somewhat familiar voice as well as what was certainly the sound of leaves and twigs crunching and snapping under several pairs of feet. "Look what we have here," The voice continued with a smug, sarcastic tone.

Jesus swallowed a lump in his throat, but did not make any effort to turn around. Instead, he kept working on loosening the ropes around his wrists and ankles. He didn't want to appear frantic as he did so, but needed to get the job done soon, as he knew who was behind him, and he knew they weren't exactly fans of his.

A few weeks back, Jesus had run into a group of eight men. They had traveled in a red pickup truck, with three riding in front and the other five riding in the back. Jesus had spotted them when they pulled up in front of a small shop and seemed to be scavenging through the building. It had been his plan to check the truck quickly for anything useful and then run off with his prizes before any of them ever noticed, but it turned out they'd been watching the truck through the store's tinted windows. They saw him stroll up to it and had come out and confronted them.

Of course, Jesus had played it cool, claimed he thought the truck was abandoned, and promised to leave it be. He even had a friendly chat with the men. He learned their names, told them his, joked around with them a bit, and then acted as though he was going to go along on his way, but not before he took a quick glance at the contents of the back of the truck. There was a very valuable set of knives stashed there.

Jesus took into consideration which direction the men had driven in from, and hoped to predict their next move. He took a shortcut through the woods to the next building seemingly worth scavenging through, and to his great joy, the men indeed drove their truck there next, and Jesus was ready for them. Though he knew they'd likely be watching the truck just as they had before, he also knew he was faster than them, and would probably never see them again. Once they were all inside the store, he sprinted up to the truck, snatched the stash of knives, and dashed off into the woods before any of them could even make sense of what they were witnessing.

A few of them ran after him for a few minutes, but Jesus was right - he was faster than them. He lost them quickly and took his prize home. Those knives would protect his friends, in one way or another, and he felt good for having stolen them from a small group of eight, who couldn't possibly need them as much as Jesus did.

But Jesus was wrong in guessing he'd never see these guys again, and he was in no position to try to outrun them this time.

"Looks like somebody left us a little present," One of the men noted as he walked up next to Jesus, kicked his foot lightly, and smirked down at him. "All gift-wrapped and everything."

Jesus forced a smile, hoping he could play this off as a joke among friends. He looked up at the man who was speaking, a rough-looking fellow with shaggy, greying hair and a short stubble beard. Jesus remembered this man. He had seemed like the leader of the group the last time they'd met, "Hello, Jack," Jesus greeted the man, hoping he could turn what was seeming to be shaping up to be an unpleasant encounter around.

"Paul." Jack nodded down at him. "I notice you seem unarmed..."

With a forced laugh, Jesus shrugged.

"No knives on you or anything?" Jack wondered, squatting in front of Jesus and patting down the other man, perhaps a little more roughly than necessary.

Jesus held his breath for a moment as his eyes quickly darted down the road in the direction Rick and Daryl had gone. The truck was pretty far away by now, but still visible. It looked like they had stopped in the middle of the road, probably rerouting their course back to wherever they had come from. Jesus frowned. If he were still alone, maybe he could have gotten free in time to chase after the truck, since it was stopped now, practically just waiting for him. Now that these men had found him, however, he had to deal with them rather than continuing his attempts to reclaim the loot.

Jack shoved Jesus back slightly, not hard enough to make him feel like fighting back was necessary just yet, but hard enough to where Jesus could tell the other man wasn't going to just let this go. "You go through the trouble to steal my knives, and you're not even using them?" Jack wondered with a raised eyebrow as he gripped Jesus's upper-arms with painfully hard hands.

"Consider it a bit of a joke." Jesus tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice. "Perhaps ill-timed... I didn't mean anything by it..."

"You fuck over them guys too?" Another of the men, Scott spoke up as he made his way in front of Jesus, nodded slightly toward the truck, and then scowled down at him. Scott was a rather bulky man with tattoos all over his arms. Even in the apocalypse, Scott seemed to feel the need to show off his tattoos. He wore a sleeveless shirt, just like he had the last time Jesus saw him. "Pretty nice of 'em to just leave you here instead of kicking the shit out of you like you deserve."

"Sorry about before," Jesus lied. "I can show you where I took your knives." That was a lie too. He didn't have those knives anymore, and had no way of getting them back. "Maybe help me get these ropes off, and we'll take a stroll down the road a bit. It's only a couple miles south."

"Thomas died in that woods we followed you into," One of the men behind Jack growled as he glared in Jesus's direction.

"That's a shame." Jesus frowned, looking over Jack's shoulder and at the other man. "You have my condolences."

"Condolences aren't enough." Scott clenched his hands into fists, and for a moment Jesus flinched back slightly, wondering if he was about to get punched. But Scott controlled his anger, for the time being at least.

"We followed you out into the woods," Jack explained. "Thomas didn't have a knife... because you took it. So when one of the undead snuck up on him, there was nothing he could do. We weren't fast enough to defend him."

"No offense," Jesus raised his bound hands slightly in defense, "but that could have happened to anyone, at any time. I won't take responsibility for that. I've traveled without a weapon lots of times, and no one made you follow me. You all knew the knives were gone before you ran out into the woods-" He was interrupted when Scott kicked him hard in his shins. After a pained hiss, Jesus chose to drop that subject.

"Maybe you didn't intend on Thomas dying when he chased after you, but he did. We wouldn't have chased you if you hadn't stolen from us, so it's still on you," Jack spoke. "That can't be undone, but we can still make things right between us."

Jesus took a moment to survey his surroundings. Jack squatted next to him while Scott stood in front of him, still scowling. He counted that indeed only five other men in addition to those two were among the group, two standing somewhat behind him and three a few feet behind Jack. Thomas was indeed no longer among this group. Jesus glanced down the road to see the white truck was still there, but was now moving, although slowly. It kept going until it reached a crossroad, then turned right and drove on until Jesus couldn't see it any longer.

"I can hook you up with some canned food and old M&Ms," Jesus added onto his fake offer.

"This guy's all talk," One of the men behind Jack noted. "I don't trust him for a damn second."

"We're not looking to negotiate with you, Paul... Or Jesus. Whatever the fuck you wanna call yourself. You stole from us, and your thievery got one of my guys killed," Jack explained. "That day, I told my men... I made a promise to them... Hmm. Now, what was it that I said?" He smiled down at Jesus as though he wasn't mad, but judging by the tight grip he had on the younger man's arms, he was in fact pretty pissed. "What did I say? You remember, Marcus?"

One of the men behind Jesus answered his leader, "You said if we ever find this prick again, we're gonna make him pay."

Jack nodded, "Yeah, that was it. So what do you think is a good repayment for you stealing my knives?" He raised his eyebrows toward Jesus. "And for getting Thomas killed?"

"Well, I could get the knives back for you," Jesus offered again. "Along with those M&Ms I promised. I don't have much else to offer... other than maybe a hat and gloves? And I'm sorry about your friend. I didn't get him killed. The dead are responsible for that. It's the world we live in now. It's no one's fault. But I am sorry it happened. I'm sorry he died."

For a moment, Jack simply narrowed his eyes and stared at Jesus as though thinking about what he'd offered. Maybe he was seriously considering accepting the offered exchange, not that Jesus could really deliver on his promises, but if they untied him and let him walk alongside them, he'd have a chance to run. He already knew he was quicker than they were. That theory had already been tested and proven.

Jesus stared back at Jack, waiting for any indication of what the guy might be thinking. Out of nowhere, Jack punched Jesus across his face, hitting him right on his cheek and effectively knocking him back against the hard ground.

Within seconds, some of Jack's men were on him, pulling him up by his arms, but Jesus wasn't going down (or rather up) without a fight. He swung his feet out as best as he could with them still being bound together, slamming his boots into Jack's shins and knocking him to the ground. When he felt breath on his neck as another man was pulling him up off the ground, Jesus slammed his head backward, hard, hitting the man in the nose.

Jesus must have hit him pretty hard, because the guy let go of him quickly and was groaning in pain. Jesus was now on his hands and knees, but he couldn't exactly crawl away with his limbs bound. So he settled on ducking away from grabbing hands and pretty much rolling away from his aggressors, until Jack was back on him.

Jack seemed like he was pretty much fed up with Jesus by this point, and perfectly willing to finish this fight himself. He attacked back with a vengeance, punching Jesus right in the ribs hard enough to take his breath away for a few long seconds. While the younger man was trying to force air back into his lungs, Jack climbed on top of him, gripping the front of his shirt tightly in one fist and slamming the other repeatedly into Jesus's already sore ribs before proceeding to hit him across the face a few times.

Having no other choice but to fight back, Jesus ignored the pain his his ribs and jaw and slammed both of his fists up against Jack's temple right before he felt a sharp kick to his side. Jack's friends were defending their leader, and since Jesus was literally tied up, there wasn't much he could do to fight them all off at once.

While Jesus was distracted by the harsh pain in his side, Jack grabbed his arm and pulled him harshly down against the asphalt road. He proceeded to step on the limb, hard, while tugging Jesus up by his other arm at the same time.

A sick cracking sound echoed in Jesus's ears as white hot pain shot through his arm. He couldn't help the pained cry that tore through his throat. Jack had most definitely broken the limb. Jesus's attacker let him collapse onto the ground, where he lay wincing in pain and trying to will himself to focus on breathing instead of on the excruciating pain in his forearm. Though Jesus was pretty much still by now, Jack's men didn't seem satisfied just yet.

"This is what you deserve, you son of a bitch," One of the men growled as he kicked out violently.

Jesus tried to curl in on himself to prevent the men from doing more damage to his already aching body. As he focused on himself, on controlling his ragged breathing and trying to protect himself in any small way he could, the world around him began to become more and more hazy. He could hear Jack's men were shouting various things, likely insults or threats, but he was no longer listening to their words.

While it would have been easy to let his world fade into darkness at this point, Jesus knew he had to keep fighting to escape. He didn't want to die like this, and at this rate, it seemed like the men attacking him might not stop before actually killing him. The pain in Jesus's arm was not yet diminishing at all and his attackers didn't seem to be laying off even though their victim was no longer even moving.

When it seemed like the violent kicking had stopped for a moment, Jesus took it as an opportunity to attempt to drag himself up off the ground. Putting any pressure on his broken limb caused pained tears to spring to Jesus's eyes. He groaned in frustration as he attempted to pull himself up only to find the sharp stinging in his arm prevented him from doing so. Inhaling a panicked, pained breath, Jesus pulled his arm protectively against his chest and tried to focus on just breathing as another of Jack's men reached for him.

He wasn't even sure who was grabbing at him, as focusing on breathing was hard enough. Whoever it was pulled him up off the ground only long enough to punch him so that he was back on the ground again. He landed with a pained wince.

While Jesus blinked through unshed tears and hissed at the pain in his arm and radiating through his entire body as he lay panting on the ground, someone he couldn't see dragged him up to his knees only to punch him hard in the stomach so that he fell back against the road. He coughed and curled himself up in a ball, doing his best to protect his already broken arm as more feet kicked him. Fighting back no longer seemed to be an option. He was too far outnumbered and too injured already.

"Get him on his knees," One of the men spoke. "He don't have anything to give us, but I got somethin' I could give him," the man offered with a sickening laugh. "Can't pay us back what he stole, but he can be entertaining at least."

Jesus didn't like the sound of that, but he was too physically drained and in too much pain to struggle as he was pulled to his knees. He needed a few seconds to regain his bearings before he could lash out again.

Looking down at his broken arm, Jesus inhaled and exhaled shaking breaths. He couldn't see the limb under his jacket, but he could certainly feel it, and it throbbed horribly. He blinked his eyes, trying to get the grey spots in front of his vision to go away. He felt several pairs of hands on him, dragging him up and holding him in place, not that he was even struggling at this point. As he breathed in and out painful, uneven breaths, Jesus swayed slightly on his knees, certain he'd fall to the ground if the men gripping his arms let go.

At this point, he felt like he could pass out at any moment. He could no longer keep track of which man was which. He didn't know which two were tightly gripping his upper arms, or which one stood behind him with his thick hands on Jesus's shoulders and his crotch way too close to the back of Jesus's head. Someone stood in front of him, laughing, but Jesus only saw this person's shoes. He felt entirely sick. His arm was shaking, his ribs hurt, and he'd been hit across the face a few too many times. He felt like hell.

"You bite me and I'll break your other arm. Understand?" The man in front of him growled as he grabbed Jesus's face in a harsh grip and forced him to look up at his attacker.

Jesus breathed quick, short breaths as he stared up at the man for a few seconds. His vision was still clouded and his body felt a frightening combination of pain, fear, and numbness all at once. Ignoring the threats, Jesus turned his head away and tried to think of how he was going to get out of this. When he heard the sound of the man unzipping his pants, Jesus figured he'd better think of something quickly.

"We got company, guys," Someone spoke up from behind him.

Jesus tiredly looked up in time to see Rick and Daryl, on foot and emerging from the woods. Both men held a gun, but not necessarily in a threatening way. Whether they were playing it cool because they knew they were outnumbered or because they honestly didn't care what these guys did to Jesus remained to be seen.

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Hope you like it so far. Please review. :)