The day Jesus snapped at him was remarkably bright, a clear blue sky and a thoroughly pleasant day.
Gregory had just personally accounted for the amount of crops they had been able to produce and store, how well balanced the exchanges with the Kingdom and the agreement with the Saviors had become. He had walked around talking with everyone, short exchanges that renewed his sense of accomplishment and pride as the righteous leader of this great community, the community he had built. He was returning to the Barrington House, looking forward to a snack and some time reading when, after barely crossing the doors, Kal called after him.
"Gregory. Jesus's back."
"Oh, good," he replied. He had some catching up to do after the couple of days the small man had been out. "Tell him to come to my office."
"He's covered in blood."
Gregory halted, eyebrow raised. Well, then he certainly did not want him anywhere near his office. He doubled back and returned to the Barrington House's doors, and Kal hadn't lied. If anything, he had made an understatement.
Against the background of such a sunny, pleasant afternoon, the blood became completely offensive and abhorrent. The only other time Gregory had seen - or wished to see - this much blood had been when the Saviors first showed up, and it had been night time then. He still remembered it quite vividly though, how his hands had got filthy by the blood Jesus had on his, how the other man had smudges over his clothes and forearms from picking up and carrying the dead body. Gregory had fought those memories back so they could fade into an almost-nightmare the event had effectively been. Now, however, it was broad daylight, and the blood seemed completely fresh to his eyes, not knowing how to distinguish the one coming from the living and from the dead, or how much of it was Jesus's. Just that it was too much, and that it was terrifying.
His immediate reaction was to flinch back, but he ended up climbing down the steps and approach as a small group of people gathered as well.
"Sweet Mother of Jesus- God, or-" Gregory groaned and made a grimace. He gave up trying to swear; that blasted nickname made these sorts of things more complicated. "What happened?"
Jesus ignored the echo the question had on someone else's lips and just kept walking to his trailer, pulling the beanie off his head, smudging blood everywhere and making Gregory squirm harder at even imagining getting so dirty, but truth be told, it wasn't as if he was making much more of a mess.
"Jesus!" he called. "What-"
"Not now, Gregory," he shot back. He seemed about to carry on and just leave it there, or maybe Gregory had just grown used to expect it, but this time Jesus did continue: "I'm sorry I didn't have time to shower and look presentable before coming to you. It's not really easy, you know, to have time to do everything."
Gregory flinched at the aggressiveness, taken aback and looking at the people next to him, searching for support in their equally surprised expressions.
"Jesus, you're upset, I can see that," Gregory began, knowing it was his duty before the people. And he was clearly upset, so the best thing to do was to calm him down. "Just tell us, you've got us all worried. What the hell-"
"I won't get near you or your precious office, so you don't need to get worried," Jesus said instead, halting suddenly and turning back to Gregory. The older man cowered back at the look on his face. "Maybe some time outside would make you realize how things really are, how things are not so fucking superficial as you think they are and that people actually die while you sit back and hope for the best."
Gregory gaped, clearing his throat. He had realized before how some of his tactics didn't really work on Jesus, like his story of surviving walkers on his first way to the Hilltop. Nor other things he had said, possibly. But it wasn't as if he was about to have anything bad said outloud just because the midget man was angry about something.
"You need to calm down," he said. "We'll talk later-"
Jesus had already turned around and hopped into his trailer, banging the door behind him. A trail of red was left on the doorknob.
"He didn't mean to say that," someone said beside him. Gregory turned to see the black woman, Berenice, waving her head. "Something serious happened. Are there any of our people outside?"
"How do you want me to know?" Gregory replied, immediately realizing his mistake and clarifying: "We're all free people here. I mean, the usual group went to deliver our share to the Saviors, didn't they?"
Gregory looked around to try to confirm if he saw any of the faces he recalled. He did spot the big man with the beard and his brother. One of them was called Ethan, for sure.
"Well, they're back. So it's alright."
"It's clearly not," the woman insisted, but Gregory interrupted her and declared she knew where to find him when they had calmed Jesus down or understood what had happened.
He returned decidedly to where he originally intended to go, passing by Kal and waving his head at the perfectly nice afternoon spoiled by this little incident. He didn't meet much of a reply, but he didn't really expected to. Kal wasn't the brightest of people here.
It probably took about half an hour, although to Gregory it felt like only a handful of minutes, before a knock on his office door made him turn and straightened his pose. It wasn't Jesus, but the woman and one of the food exchanger brothers.
"Gregory. I think you should go talk with him."
"Me?" Gregory repeated. "I try my best here, but I cannot go on babysitting mode whenever Jesus has a fit."
The woman frowned. "Jesus doesn't have fits. He's covered in blood, and it isn't his. And most of that blood didn't look like walker's blood. He doesn't react like this out of nowhere. Something happened."
Oh good, patronizing. Gregory groaned loudly. "Well I tried to ask him, didn't I? All I got was a kick in the nuts and some swearing thrown around for good measure."
Bianca, or Berenice or B-something, didn't hide her distaste. "Please, that's not going to help."
"Why don't you go, then? He ignored you as much as he ignored me, otherwise you wouldn't be here. If I won't help, then I won't bother. I say leave him be until he lets off the steam and then he'll come by to apologize."
"Man, seriously," the big guy said, meeting Gregory's displeasured face. "It should be you."
Gregory shrugged, scowling. "Why?"
"I think it's pretty obvious why," the man said, leaving it at that.
Gregory didn't really see - or want to see - why he was the obvious choice to go talk with Jesus. If it was clear the man didn't want anyone nearby, then everyone should just leave him be, or go there by themselves. Little cowards. They had all just seen that Jesus was having a fit and didn't want to put up with it. So someone had to do it, and they wanted him to do it.
He was the leader. Sometimes it sucked.
He made sure he was seen by everyone so they could stop with their gossiping. It was starting to get darker already, and it irked Gregory that the day had come down to this, but here they were. Gregory readjusted his coat and cleared his voice, rubbing the bottle of scotch he thought to bring with him; he had decided he was going to face this as a complicated business meeting with a particularly bitchy client, and some nice scotch always worked its magic in those. And considering how Jesus was surely more than used to a shot of scotch, or ten, it might help him unwind. He then knocked, avoiding to look at the smudge he sincerely hoped Jesus would clean up when he'd calm down. He heard no reaction from inside. He turned his face, seeing some of the people's attention glued to him, the black woman (whatever her name was) eyeing him from columns of the Barrington House. He nodded at them by reflex, the corners of his smile twisting a bit when he cleared his throat again and knocked a second time.
"Paul," he called, changing to the man's real name to show how serious he was, how considerate he was enough to remember it after all this time. "I just want to talk. A-Are you alright? Did something happen? I mean, what did happen?"
He gave the man a minute. He was almost hitting the mark and letting himself off the hook when he heard a ruffled faint movement inside. He cursed his luck for a moment before putting on his game face and preparing to remind Jesus they had a hierarchy and that Gregory was the one whose words should be heard and respected, so if he said for the man to feel alright, it was his cue to starting working to that.
Gregory had forgotten that Jesus being stewing in his trailer meant that he had not washed any of the blood away. As soon as he opened the door, Gregory almost held back bile and grit his teeth, finding it suddenly hard to swallow.
"Jesus," he managed, not minding if it was a swear or the nickname. "May... may I come in?"
Jesus turned his eyes to the same people Gregory had smiled before, the look on his face anything but relieved or touched by Gregory's thoughtful gesture. Gregory showed him the bottle.
"I think you need this," he said light heartedly, before clearing his voice again. "People are worried. You never act like this. I just want to know what happened. May I come in?"
Jesus didn't say anything as he moved aside. Gregory smiled nervously and stepped inside, quickly surveying the trailer he had never stepped in before; it was surprisingly neat and clean, small and completely impersonal save for a pile of books and a bunch of clothes folded on a corner. He found the longcoat on the floor and was careful to circle around it while Jesus walked and stood by the bed.
"You shouldn't have done that, it'll smudge the whole thin-"
"What do you want, Gregory?" Gregory couldn't stop himself from speaking, but Jesus stopped him immediately after.
Gregory breathed sharply through his nose, straightening his pose once again.
"I want you to be alright, Jesus." This time he didn't let himself get interrupted or cut in. "These people, our people, need you. We cannot have moments of weakness. Not like this."
Jesus had his arms crossed in front of him, holding the sides of his body and protecting himself, looking down at Gregory's feet. The older man noted trails of tears amongst the sprays of blood on his face. Jesus had removed his gloves, and the dried blood hadn't quite smudged his hands as much, even if his shirt was still sickly red. Gregory quickly searched and found a single cup. So be it. Jesus needed it more than he did anyway. He picked it up and served him, making it double.
"You need this right now. Drink."
The other man eyed Gregory for a moment before whatever inner battle he had was lost, picking the cup and throwing the scotch down his throat. He didn't exactly flinch much at the taste; Gregory was slightly and inappropriately impressed.
"Care to sit down and talk now?" he asked, ready to pour a second and last round; he didn't want Jesus pouring down the whole thing. "Let's cut to the chase. Our people are all accounted for. So did you get a scare? Did the dead nearly bite you?" Oh God, had he been bit?
"The world isn't as simple as you think it is," Jesus replied instead, somewhat resting the horrible thought that had crossed Gregory's mind.
"So either you killed someone, or someone die-"
"I killed them," Jesus cut in. His body bunked from under him and he sunk in the bed, pressing his fingers to his eyelids. "I couldn't save them, so I killed them. They died because of me."
"Nonsense," Gregory said immediately, even without knowing any other details. He guessed the man had tried to bring someone to the Hilltop, some two or three survivors, who met a dreadful end to those nasty things. "It's not your fault dead people are walking and eating the living. That's just how the world is now."
"You have no idea what the world is like now, Gregory," the man said, the accusation clear as he looked up to meet Gregory's eyes. The older man had to flinch back somewhat.
"I get that this was huge for you. Important, I know," he added, feeling the change in the way the man was looking at him, his eyes red and glossy. "But you're here. You're alive. You have to move on from there. You have to overcome it and continue doing what you do, which is help all of us survive."
"I can't. I can't do this, I can't. I just want to help, but I can't... they had a kid, and I couldn't- I can't..."
Gregory grit his teeth again, suddenly realizing he was in waters too deep and not getting his bearings as soon as he saw the man starting to shake and his breathing hindering to the point of physical struggle. He managed to push the refilled cup into Jesus's hands and guided it to his mouth before the man had a full freaking panic attack. He wanted to tell him to stop putting a damn tantrum, but by some divine intervention, he didn't.
He was firmly convinced of his skills in this, but he also knew how Jesus wasn't as persuadable as Gregory would hope. However, in this current situation, he had all the reasons to be convincing if he played his cards right and push the man back to his tracks.
"Listen. I need you here." It was the truth, as annoying as it might be, and one he knew the man needed to hear. "These people like you, Jesus. They want you to be alright. We all count on you to be here for us because you are important to us. To our community. And you have to accept that."
"No. No, I can't-"
"Yes. You're gonna come with me and take a goddamn shower. I'll ask Berenice to do something about the mess you've made in here."
"...Bertie."
Gregory ignored him. "And you're gonna sleep. You need to sleep and tomorrow we'll talk more. You hear me? Now."
Jesus didn't move. So Gregory stepped and opened the door, calling for the eavesdroppers to come help.
The man's misfortune was actually a blessing. If not for anything else, it helped unite the Hilltop even more. Gregory was proud of his work.
.
to be continued
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Author's Note: Another chapter fueled by bad stuff. My sundays seem to be fucking going sour and I'm not liking it. Thankfully this fic won't last until the next one. But that's a bit of a detour to my usual author notes and I've been refraining myself from doing it in almost in all of them, so let's return back to the chapter.
There's no bloody Jesus in the entirety of his time in TWD. Which is a shame. Since they killed him off, I at least hoped to see him as a zombie, but we didn't get that either. So I endulge myself further and write a very bloody and fragile Jesus.
This chapter is quite long, and although I was particularly looking forward to write it when I planned it, I'm not too confident now. I wanted to show that there was also a bit of a positive side to Gregory and Jesus's relunctant partnership, a poor excuse for a friendship in some moments, and have Jesus snap a bit at Gregory's general bullshit before Alexandria and Maggie ever came to the picture. I think I should have handled the panic attack better, but I didn't want to get one myself lol. Maybe I'll change it in the future who knows.
I forgot to thank the kudos left by gayliensav and by the two anonymous people.
