The Sorrowful Deity not even sorry just really confused
yozza Thank you! I actually hadn't read the comics so it came as a huge shock to me. I am personally not mad or dissatisfied that Sencer died, but yeah it was gross.
RHatch89 You're awesome
BloodGutsandChocolatePudding I've missed you!
Asia Saunders That what honestly the sweetest thing I've ever read. I had to sit for a while after reading it to remember how to function again.
DampishPoet Thank you! But STOP WRITING CALIVER SMUT! STOP IT! IT'S NEGROPHILIC AND UNHOLY AND I'M LOSING SLEEP!
Very long chapter. There's just so much to get down — a whole different world at the Sanctuary.
On the way, the truck stops because of some diversion mess up — from what we overhear. In the distance, Jesus and I can hear walkers, but mostly the voices outside: "Still going. Looks like the end of them, though."
"All damn night. At least Negan's smart enough not to let that mess anywhere near us." They start talking about someone called Fat Joe and cake, and then about rigging headways and warfare and demo sticks and the RPGs from us last month. Until finally the walkers are gone and we get moving again.
Jesus and I emerge from our hiding spots. Jesus checks outside and watches the straggling walkers, then slices open the bottom of the liquor box. Jesus already told me that Maggie pulled through, that she and the baby are going to be okay, and that she and Sasha have a home at the Kingdom from now on, no matter how much Gregory disapproves.
He starts spilling a bottle of washing liquid out the back of the truck.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a trail. I think we're close. We should bail out, follow the rest of the way, see what we can see."
"I, uh..." His and my plans are somewhat incompatible. This whole way I've been trying to figure out how he can be useful to me, and if he won't be... then how to get rid of him. "How?"
"It isn't usually the fall that gets us," he says. "It's trying to fight it. Run with it or roll with it, the truck's going slow enough. We'll be in the blind spot. We can race behind one of the other cars."
No, I think. Not after how far I've gotten.
"I-if I screw up and we get caught—"
"It'll be fine. We just gotta go now."
"Okay," I say, jolting to the truck. "Show me first."
He does, leaping through the tarp and disappearing into thin air. I step to the back and watch him duck behind a car... and I wave.
"Sorry, man."
Several minutes later, I feel the truck slowing and turning. Through the tarp, flitters of this place, wherever it is, show a smoggy sky and part of a factory building, with big chimneys and a tall fire escape on one side, nothing green or alive in sight, but I hear walkers. See them. All over. Some are just severed heads strung up on poles, while others, whole writhing bodies, are tied to posts and chains, like guard dogs. As we drive through the courtyard, the truck leaves a thick dust cloud.
In a big case next to me, there's a machine gun half my size. I stuff it with a full magazine and the truck squeaks to a stop. We're parked in another courtyard, outside of the guard dog enclosure. I hide.
"Okay, boys..." Negan says. "Let's get this haul unloaded and inside. I want to get back in there and unload a little myself."
"Negan, need to talk to you about redirect."
"What about the redirect?"
"It got screwed up. We're on it now, but it's a mess out there."
"And whose job was that?"
Someone's tying the tarp back. I duck behind boxes with the machine gun poking through, my muscles turning stone.
"Aw, damn," one Savior complains. "I thought they packed this up tight."
"Ah, no worries," Negan says. "Plenty more where this came from."
They're laughing, climbing up. One guy picks up the box of liquor and every bottle smashes at his feet. "Son of a bitch!"
Someone else laughs. The guy bends down, turns, sees me. "What the—" Blood scatters across his chest and his body flies backwards. I see an outhouse, a fence, and another man running away.
"Stay back!" I shout, stood at the edge of the trunk now, machine gun up and swinging. "Drop your weapons! I only want Negan."
Men are glaring at me, their hands up, feet shuffling.
"He killed my friends! No one else needs to die."
Whistling — I spot him weaving through his men, making his way over. "Fuck! You are adorable!" He grabs a tall guy and uses him as a barrier. "Did you pick that gun 'cause it looks cool? You totally fucking did, right?"
Negan laughs.
"Kid, I ain't gonna lie, you scare the fucking shit outa me."
That's when someone runs at me and I shoot holes in their chest, but I'm not fast enough to stop someone else coming in at my side. I hit the dirt, Dwight weight on me. Dust in my eyes and mouth, I try to kick and shove, but he puts my machine gun to my forehead.
My hands come up.
"Dwight," Negan says. "Back off..." He does, taking my knife. Two dead bodies lay next to me. Negan steps over, grinning down at me. "Is that any way to treat our new guest?"
He holds out a gloved hand.
"Come on, kid. I'll show you around."
My heart skips beats, but I keep my face still.
"You know, you do the same damn stink-eye as your dad..." Negan points. "Except it's only half as good 'cause, well, you know, you're missing an eye... Really? You're really not gonna take my hand? 'Cause you're lucky you even still have a hand. Same as your boy Daryl over here..."
I see him behind the fence, spear in hand, watching us; the help.
"Now that I think about it. How's the job going, Daryl? Hot enough for you? Yeah, it'd be tough with one arm..." Negan laughs and turns back to me, hand out — and I take it. "Ah, smart kid. Now, come with me."
I grab my hat from the dust.
"Dwighty-boy, why don't you grab Daryl, take him to the kitchen, do a little grub prep."
Dwight's tight, scarred-up face nods.
"New plan, boys!" Negan adds to the rest. "Let's burn the dead, unload the truck later. Damn, I am not gonna have time to fuck any of my wives today." He turns to Dwight and puts up a finger. "I mean, maybe one."
Dwight pulls Daryl along.
Negan grins at me, making a circle around me. "Come on," he says over the growling — I hear a door shut heavily while the others go through. Negan walks away.
"What're you gonna do to me?" I ask, not turning to him. But he turns to me, slowly, and when I see his face it's all twisted up.
"Number one," he says, "do not shatter my image of you." I don't understand what this means until he says, "You're a fucking badass. You're not scared of shit. Don't be scared of me. It's a disappointment."
I hate that this hurts a bit.
"Number two," he goes on, "you really want me to ruin the surprise? Fuck you, kid." He winks at me. "Seriously. Fuck you."
He takes my shoulder and pulls me towards the building. Inside is a large warehouse, a balcony as we go on overlooking an open, underground floor. It's cold. My fingers are numb and mist leaves my nose. The windows cover most outside walls, but they're all so dirty they make the whole factory look old and colourless. I can hear a lot of people talking, and see them, crowded in what looks like a large market-type area, going about their morning.
"Check this out," Negan says in my ear, then steps to the banister.
Immediately, everybody falls silent and kneels.
"The Saviors have gone out into the world and fought the dead and come back with some really good stuff," Negan calls out to them. "Some of that stuff can be yours, if you work hard and play by the rules. Today, everybody gets fresh vegetables at dinner. No. Points. Needed."
They all clap and cheer. Negan turns to me and leans back against the railing; I imagine it snapping and him plunging to his death — doesn't happen.
"You see that?" He speaks through his teeth, biting every syllable. "Respect. Cool, huh?" Leaning close, he whispers, "They still on their knees?" They are. He tips back and shouts, "Asyouwere!" and they bustle to life again, standing and chatting. Negan walks around me.
I step towards the railing, touch it, carefully, like it might snap now just to spite me.
Respect, I think, cool...
"Come on, kid." Negan grins. "Wanna show you something."
I'm taken deep into the factory. The further we go the cleaner and brighter it becomes, like this place is some backwards paradox. We come to an open double door and I follow Negan through.
"Ladies..."
I see tight black dresses and lacey high heels, and all six women either frowning, staring, or ignoring us as we enter. I look somewhere else desperately. Couches. Lots of those, too; the small ones made for only one or two people at a time. Plants. Lamps. Over in the corner is a big liquor cabinet. The windows are still that same dull filth colour — my eye draws back to skin again.
"Don't mind the kid," Negan says.
I look at the ground.
"I know..." He groans. "Every woman where you're from dresses like they do the books at an auto shop. You're gonna wanna look at their titties."
The worst thing is, it's true — I catch myself again and aim my face at the floor vehemently.
"It's cool," Negan says. I look at him. He grins. "I won't mind. They won't mind. Knock yourself out."
I don't. He moves away to two women sitting on a couch, one blonde and small and the other brunette and tall. The brunette woman is consoling the blonde woman, by the looks.
"Can I talk to you for a minute, dear wife?" Negan asks the brunette woman.
She crosses the room to the liquor cabinet, without looking at him. Negan joins her, jostling me and telling me, "Make yourself comfortable, kid," as he passes.
Again, I don't — this room is a centrefold come to life. A ginger woman in front of me stares at me, with a faraway look on her face. Two other women, one with long hair and the other short, sit quietly on another couch playing cards together. There's a curvy-type woman staring down at her lap, wavy black hair and dark brown skin and a neck-line low enough I hold my breath and have to keep not looking. The blonde woman is still crying.
Negan and the brunette woman drink and whisper about someone named Mark and something else about rules, and then Negan touches her chin and asks her, "I ever hit one of you?"
"No. But I know you. There's worse."
He laughs silently. The ginger woman is still watching me and I think I burst into flames, and then Negan is coming over, pushing a warm beer bottle into my hand and closing my fingers around it. He steps over to the blond woman. Her face crinkles up, and she starts shaking.
"Amber, baby," he says, sitting on a chair in front of her. He takes her hands and this tiny high-pitched squeak comes out of her throat. Negan smiles. "You know I don't want anyone here that doesn't want to be here, right?"
"M-hm..."
"Oh..." he coos, "so if you want to leave and go back to Mark, you can. But what can't you do?"
"Cheat... on you—"
"That is exactly fucking right." He gets in her face, slowly, talking through his teeth again only now he sounds poisonous. "You. Can't. Fucking. Cheat on me. There's plenty of other gals who would love to take your place, and there's a few job openings that I can think of. You want to go back to Mark and your mom? Hell, I'll put you all on the same job—"
"No." She's crying. "I'll stay. I'm — I'm sorry."
He touches her chin. "You know what that means, right?" She's nodding. Negan says it again.
"Ye—yes. I love you, Negan."
"Oh, of course you do, darlin'. I don't know why you're crying. It's all gonna work out aces for you." He strokes her cheek and I think of last month with Enid and Davey, and a year ago, when the Claimers got us — I feel sick.
Negan looks at me and grins. I don't know what I look like anymore. I've never seen something like this before. I've never seen someone treat someone like this. He kisses Amber's forehead, then gets up.
"Sherry, will you get Carson for me?"
"Yeah," the brunette, Sherry, says.
"Did you see that?" Negan asks her. "Wasn't hard on her, even though I am very hard in general."
She ignores the way he thrusts his hips in her direction. "You're an asshole."
"I know," he growls, winding around her back like a snake. "But the fucked up thing is, you like me anyway. You know the truth, just like me..."
And then they kiss — the kind you do in private. The kind of secret kiss I've never seen from an outsider's point of view, except this isn't like the kisses I know about at all.
I look away.
Negan points at the door, still kissing, and I look and startle at Dwight and Daryl standing there. Daryl watches at me, saying nothing. He's holding a tray of food — cheeses and grapes and other things with cocktail sticks through them.
Finally, when Negan and his wife stop kissing, his wife turns away and stands very still. Negan chuckles and meets us. He looks Daryl in the eye and eats an olive off the platter.
"Carl, will you grab this tray for me?"
I put down the beer and take it, whispering, "Jesus," as quietly as I can, and Daryl just stares at me, then he looks at Negan.
"Why d'you got him here?"
"Whoa!" Negan barks. "What we talk about when you're not here is none of your business. Do not make me put this toothpick through the only eye he has."
Daryl looks away. I feel disoriented, standing back while 'Dwighty boy' says he'll get him a mop and fire up the furnace:—"Time for a little déjà vu..." Negan says. "I'll be down in a minute."
He smiles at me.
"Come on, kid."
As I'm taken away, Daryl whispers, "Get away," into my ear.
Inside Negan's room, everything is that same grey colour, only strangely sharp and vibrant. There's a four-poster bed and a sitting area with a couch facing two armchairs, a coffee table in between. The shelves and curtains match and the windows are clean, and on the wall behind the armchairs is a taxidermized animal head — I don't know what animal it is though; some African antelope, I think – Oliver would know. He liked African wildlife.
I cringe at myself, hating that about me now. How he's so etched in my head. I don't go ten minutes without him popping up somewhere. I reek of Oliver, so I think of Negan's wives instead.
"Are... all of those women... actually your..."
"Wives?" Negan asks, throwing his scarf on the bed and shutting the door behind us. "Yeah! Always wanted to fuck a whole bunch of different women — I mean, why settle for just one? Why follow the same old rules? Why not make life better?"
I don't answer because I don't know if the question is really for me.
"Speaking of... sit."
I set the tray down on the coffee table and I sit opposite him in the armchair.
"Let's get started," he says.
"Started on what?"
Negan chuckles. "I want to get to know you better, Carl."
"Why?"
"Work it out... You're smart. In fact, I'm gonna tell you just how smart you are, in case you don't already know. See, I'd expect a kid your age to be moping around, not doing a damn thing, except crying about missing the prom. But you? You go on a mission. You find me, you kill two of my men, and you're smart enough to know, that I'm ... not ... gonna ... let ... this ... slide."
I steel my face.
Negan giggles into his fingers. "Ah, I can't — I can't do it," he says. "It's like talking to a birthday present. You gotta take that crap off your face." His hands bawl to fists, eyes wide. "I wanna see what Grandma got me!"
"No—"
"TWO MEN!"
Like a flash of lightning, Negan's voice turns from playful pink to flashing red — I flinch inside, this thought coming into my head on how colours have their own wavelength; red light is the hardest to scatter by air molecules, which is why people use it in danger signs. That's Negan, now — a bright red danger sign.
"Two men," he repeats. "Punishment. Do you really want to piss me off?" His red voice has turned to black — an absence of light altogether, as if he's sucking it out of the air.
I take a steep breath, so I don't suffocate.
Negan is giggling while I remove my hat and unwrap my head, telling me, "Almost there," in a croaky excited voice. I haven't shown it to anyone, unless I count Michonne changing it. Not Dad. Not Oliver. Not even Judith. As I slip the bandage away, it's so damp with sweat and dirt it makes a squelching sound — "Get that hair out of your face. Let me see."
I brush my fringe behind my ear and look at the floor, feeling ill.
"Fucking Christ!" Negan cries. "That is disgusting. No wonder you cover that up. Have you seen it? I mean, have you looked in the mirror? That is gross as fuck. I can see your socket... I wanna touch it. Oh, come on, can I touch it?"
I'm crying.
"Damn. Holy fuck, kid..." Negan sits back suddenly, like he doesn't know what to do. He sighs. "Look... I just — It's easy to forget that you're just a kid. And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything. I was just fucking around—"
"Just forget it..." I sniff, sinking through the couch.
Someone knocks on the door.
"Come in."
Careful not to show my face, I see through my fringe a man enter the room. He's big and nervous looking, carrying the baseball bat.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but uh, you left Lucille out by the truck."
"Seriously? I never do that, I guess a kid firing a machine gun is a little bit of a distraction." He smiles at me. "All jokes aside, you look rad as hell. I wouldn't cover that shit up. It may not be a hit with the ladies, but I swear to you, no one is gonna fuck with you looking like that. No, sir."
I don't want this to make me feel better, but it does.
"Fat Joseph, did you carry her all the way up here for me?"
"Yes, sir."
He takes Lucille back. "Were you gentle? Were you kind?"
"Uh..."
"Did you treat her like a lady?"
"Y— es. Yes, sir."
"Did you pet her little pussy like a lady?"
Joseph says nothing.
"I'm just fucking around, man," Negan caws. "A baseball bat doesn't have a pussy!"
Awkwardly, Joseph laughs — he's got Dad's gun.
"Get the hell out," Negan snaps, and Joseph leaves immediately. The door shuts. Negan grins at me. "Now, you see? That's what I'm talking about. Men breaking each other's balls. This is the shit your dad's supposed to be teaching you."
He sighs, leaning on his knees now.
"What do you like to do for fun? You like music?"
Even though I don't answer, Negan smiles.
"I want you to sing me a song..."
I look at him. "What?"
"Yeah. You mowed down two of my men with a machine gun. I want something in return for that. Sing me a song."
"I — I can't think of any."
"Bullshit! What'd your mom used to sing you? What'd your dad play in the car?" He stands over me and aims Lucille at my skull. "Start. Fucking. Singing."
"Okay, okay," I gasp, swallowing, racking my brain, and I have a song, I do, but I don't want to sing it. Not to Negan. I only sang it once before, that night Pete and Deanna's husband died, that night I listened to Oliver play his ukulele and we danced together and I sang to him. I can't think of anything else. "Okay, uh... You... You, uh, are my sunshine..."
"Go on."
"...my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are grey."
Lucille swings through the air behind me — I flinch.
"Do not let me distract you, young man," Negan orders.
I swallow, blink away tears, sing, "You'll never know..."
He swings again. I shudder.
"...dear, how much – I love you.
So — please don't take my sunshine away."
I'm crying again, reeking with him even worse than before. Oliver is all over me. He's wound through my hair and weaved between my fingers, fitting under my clothes, hiding inside my socket, and my chest is breaking all over again.
"That's pretty fucking good," Negan tells me. "Lucille loves being sung to. It's about the only thing she loves more than bashing in brains. Weird, huh?"
He sits on the coffee table, our knees knocking, his voice all soft and gentle now.
"Did your mother sing that to you? Where is she now?"
I just shake my head and sniff.
"Damn. Dead, huh? You see it happen?"
"I shot her..." I sniff. "Before it could..."
"Damn, no wonder you're a little serial killer in the making." Again, that hurts. Everything does right now. It hurts to breathe and it hurts to think, and then it hurts even worse because Negan leans close and says, "That was an example of breaking balls, by the way."
I don't look at him. Can't.
"Come on, kid. Get up. It should be ready."
"What should be ready?" I whisper.
Negan gives me a very serious look. "The iron."
He has me hold Lucille.
"You know the deal," he tells everybody, on the catwalk overlooking a large cement furnace. Saviors crown around it, waiting; Daryl among them, watching me. "What's about to happen is gonna be hard to watch. I don't want to do it. I wish I could just ignore the rules and let it slide, but I can't. Why?"
Every Savior yells back: "The rules keep us alive."
Negan leads me down a spiral staircase.
"That. Is. Right," he says. "We survive. We provide security to others. We bring civilization back to this world. We are the Saviors. But we can't do that without rules. Rules are what make it all work. I know it's not easy. But there's always work. There is always a cost. Here, if you try to skirt it, if you try to cut that corner!"
He chuckles.
"Then it is the iron for you."
They're all brought to their feet again. Negan walks through the crowd to the furnace. I feel like every pair of eyes in the room is on my socket. He didn't let me wrap it up. I keep my head down. There's a man, who has even more attention than I do, however. He sits slumped in a chair in front of the flames, shaking, while Dwight mans the glowing iron inside with a long pipe.
Negan pats his shoulder. "Mark, I'm sorry..." He puts on protective gloves and takes the iron. "But it is what it is."
Amber wails, standing to the side with the other wives, and as the iron comes down on Mark's face, I get memories of Oliver screaming ... his arm melting ... blood and skin and smoke ... and then I snap back to Mark screaming. Smoke fills the whole building. I want to look away but I don't and then, finally, Mark blacks out. The air smells of pork and train stations and I'm shaking, furious.
Negan squeals. "Ah, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?"
Skin oozes down Mark's cheek.
Negan grimaces. "Jesus. He pissed himself." He steps over to Daryl, whispering, "Clean that up," into his ear. He turns to the crowd. "Doc, I'm all done. Do your thing!"
Mark is taken away, face still smoking and dripping.
"Well, pussy passed out," Negan speaks to everyone. "But it's settled, we're square. Everything is cool. Let Mark's face be a daily reminder to him and to everyone else that the rules matter. I hope that we all learned something today, because I don't ever want to have to do that again."
He stands next to me.
"Pretty fucking crazy shit, huh?" he mutters. "You probably think I'm a lunatic."
I glare at him, thinking of Glenn and Abraham.
"Come on." He takes my shoulder. "Let's go figure out what to do with you."
Back in Negan's room, we sit opposite each other while he writes things in a notebook.
"Can I wrap up my face now?"
"No, you absolutely fucking cannot."
"Why the fuck not?!"
The word feels good out of my mouth, especially when I aim it at his face.
"Whoa. Ho, ho... Look at this bad mother fucker." His face turns hard, suddenly. "You can't because I'm not done with you. And I like looking at your disgusting, rad-ass, badass eye, so it's staying out."
I stare at him.
"What? You got something to say?"
"Why haven't you killed me? Or my dad, or Daryl?"
"Daryl is gonna make a good soldier for me. You see, he thinks he's holding it together but you saw it. Your dad? He's already getting me great stuff. You, on the other hand... well, we shall see... It's more productive to break you. More fun, too. You thinking that's stupid?"
"I'm thinking we're different."
"Mm. You're a smart kid. What do you think I should do? You know I can't let you go. So, do I kill you? Iron your face? Chop off your arm? Tell me... What do you think?"
Suddenly, I'm on my feet, stood over him with the coffee table between us.
"I think you should jump out the window to save me the trouble of killing you."
"Oh!" Negan claps. "Now, there is the kid that impressed the hell out of me—"
"I think you're not saying what you're gonna do to me because you're not going to do anything. If you knew us, if you knew anything, you would kill us... but you can't."
"Hoo..."
He's looking at me like he's never seen a boy before.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe I can't." He claps his hands together and stands up to grab Lucille. "Let's go for a ride, kid."
A few minutes later, we're sitting in a truck and other Saviors are getting ready to join us in other trucks, walker growls close by. I wonder where Jesus is, and then Negan shouts, "Daryl!" out the window.
Daryl comes to the door, his face pinched up.
"You seem worried," Negan tells him, "so I'm taking the kid home."
"If you do anything to him—"
"Dwight! Daryl needs a time-out. Put him back in his box for a while."
He's dragged back towards the factory. Negan follows the other vehicles out the compound. The drive is long and anxious on my side, but Negan grins. A small thought in my head wonders if we're even going back to Alexandria. He's brought others with him. We could be going anywhere. And even if we do go home, they could dangle me in front of my dad's nose, get him to beg like a dog again. They could tie me to a tree and light it on fire. They could cut me into pieces and pass me around for dinner, or worse, not cut me up at all, pass me around anyway...
Negan's getting what he wants, I remind myself. He already has me in here with him and taking me back in one piece is just another upper hand he's going to have over Dad's head. Something else Dad will 'owe him' for. I should never have come here. I've made everything worse.
At some point, Negan looks over and asks me to sing another song, but tells me he's joking right before I'm about to scream at him. I think I'm sulking, watching the dashboard, but I think there has to be a different word for it when you're this furious, this ashamed.
"You didn't get much of an eyeful of my wives earlier," Negan adds, scoffing. "I know you only got one eye and all but that doesn't make you fucking blind. What, my ladies not good enough for you?"
"It's not that." I shake my head and shut up.
"What, you got something better to go home to?"
I shut my eye.
"Oh..." Negan coos. "It's that little home-slice Davey was talking to before, huh?"
"No," I mumble. "Somebody else."
Negan frowns curiously. "Well, this lucky gal got a name?"
Shrugging, I say, "Oliver..." and for a moment, Negan's eyebrows get flung through the roof. I look out the window, getting this feeling I haven't felt before, like I have to explain myself — I never even had to tell my dad.
The floor's getting torn out along the road and Negan laughs.
I glare at him. "What?"
"Damn... I did not expect that. You mo?"
"Am I what?"
"Mo?" he repeats. "Homo?"
Grimacing, I just turn away and stare at the dashboard.
"So much for shattering my image of you," Negan says.
"Screw your image of me."
"Fucking right, kid!" he cheers, which I wasn't expecting. "You..." He makes a fist with his hand and shakes it in front of him. "...beat those stereotypes. All that equality shit."
I can't tell if he's serious or not so I ignore him.
"Oh, you gotta introduce us. I wanna meet him!"
I don't say anything. I'm not really sure what's happening.
"Aw, now don't be nervous," he complains. "I won't judge. Hey, no shaming here. You're into what you're into. No changing that. Unless it's kids or animals, or rape, then we got a problem."
"He's gone," I explain. "You — you can't meet him, he's..."
"Oh..." Negan has the same look on his face as when he made me cry. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You put him down, too? Like your mom?"
Gritting teeth, I say, "No. Oliver's just gone."
There are a few seconds' silence.
"Well," Negan grunts, "if you won't sing for me again, and if you're gonna keep being so fucking vague, I'll just make my own entertainment..." He starts pressing buttons on the radio. "It's the start of a whole new world, kid!" Nothing but static and he turns it up full blast, so loud I grunt and cover my ears — Negan pulls my hands down. "No. Listen. This is it..."
He grins.
"...the Big Bang, itself!"
At home, Negan uses Lucille to knock five times on the front door. Olivia answers. He marches right past her, whistling that whistle. Lucille isn't a vampire, I decide. If she was she would need an invitation.
Olivia looks horrified. "Carl, where's—"
"Enid's fine," I say, and I'm about to ask if Michonne's home yet, but Negan speaks over me.
"Great, great, great, great, great, great!" He circles the living room. "Where's Rick?"
"Uh, I — I'm just—" Olivia stutters.
"Don't care. Where's Rick?"
"Um, out scavenging for you..."
"Cool!" He grins at her. "I'll wait."
"Um... he went out pretty far. They might not be back today. We're running really low on everything. We're practically starving here."
Negan looks at her and leans back on his hips. "Starving? You? By 'practically'—" Negan uses air quotes. "—you mean 'not really'."
Olivia bursts into tears.
Negan laughs and turns around to me. "Really?"
I glare at him.
Still, he walks over. "You people seriously don't have a sense of humour." He sighs at my silence, then walks back over to her. "Excuse me. What's your name again?"
"Olivia."
"Right. Olivia." He touches her arm and she turns to him slowly. "I am sorry for having been so rude to you just now. And it looks like I'm gonna be here for a while, awaiting your fearless leader's return. And if you'd like, I think it would be enjoyable to fuck your brains out. I mean, if, you know, you're agreeable to—"
She slaps him.
Negan jostles, then shakes his head like he's not sure that really happened. Then he takes a step closer to her. "I am about fifty percent more into you now. Just sayin'..."
Olivia's shaking.
He backs off.
"Alright, well, I'm just gonna put my feet up and wait for my stuff to get here. Olivia, would you be a lamb and make us a little lemonade? Now, I know I left you all some of that good powdered stuff."
"I'm supposed to be with—"
"Make it! Make it. Take your time. Make it good."
She staggers to the door and leaves.
"Alright, kid!" Negan cheers. "Take me on the grand tour."
Negan finds the music player first, puts on a Janis Martin album.
"And you told me you didn't know songs, kid."
"They aren't mine."
'I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,
I'll give you all my kisses to boot.
I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,
I'll give you all my kisses to boot.
If you feel you'd like to make a deal,
cock your pistol and rooty-toot-toot.
Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang-bang.
Bang-bang-bang.
Bang-bangedy-bang...'
He likes our carpets, since there are none where he comes from. He takes off his shoes and wiggles his toes into wool and nylon. He likes my dart board, too, and he hits bull's eye every time. Our taps are "fascinating" and our coffee maker is "inspiring."
"How about this room?"
"Oh — it's just a water heater."
"Are you serious, kid? Come on."
He opens the door and Judith is standing at the edge of her cot, looking up at us. Negan hands Lucille to me and I watch carefully as he picks Judith up, Patty Catty squashed between their chests. She doesn't know him, so she pouts at me.
"Oh-ho, my..." Negan coos. "Look at this little angel. Oh-ho-ho..."
I use up all my energy trying to think Negan out of existence while he carries my baby sister downstairs and out onto the porch, but he's still here. He sits in the rocking chair with Judith in his lap, asking me to sit next to him. He hums the Bang Bang song, and after long, Judith curls up to his chest and begins to fall asleep.
"Oh, this little girl is precious," he says. Tobin walks past and double takes. Negan grins at him. "Hey, neighbour! Why don't you come by later? We might grill out. Oh, I like it here. M-hm. I might just have to stay here. You know, I was thinking about what you said earlier, Carl. Maybe it is stupid keeping you and your dad alive. I mean, why am I trying so hard? Maybe I should just bury you both down in one of those flower beds. Huh? And then I could just settle into the suburbs.
What do you think about that?"
Notes
Song was Bang Bang by Janis Martin.
Two years. Two years, I've been waiting to write this chapter.
In the next chapter I answer the question: How far can an author morally go about writing nswf without it actually being smut?
Oh dear.
As always,
Happy reading.