RHatch89 thank you :)

FriendlyNeighborhoodHufflepuff ohboy that's not even the start


First bit is Carl, rest is Oliver.


"No way. No fucking way. This is him? The Oliver? Wow. Shit. God fucking damn."

"Simon, put your gun down. And tell me how you know this kid?"

"Kingdom. He's one of Ezekiel's."

"Hmm. He alive? Take his glasses off. Put them under his nose and see if there's fog..."

"Yeah. Kid's still breathing."

"Alright, Simon, let's finish up here before lunch. Seems we need to pay our deer Kingdom friends a visit — talk, about why they know this Oliver, and why these guys know this Oliver, too. Goddamn. This? This is the punk that doesn't like your moustache?"

"He is..."

"Ahh. I fucking like him. Looks like you've got some competition, Carl. Alright, save your bullets for now. Kid's gonna be useful to me. Wake him up, would you, Simon? Give him a splash of ol' Gregory's liquor."

"On it. I'm not much of a scotch man, anyway."

"Ah, this is hilarious, Carl. I mean, I've heard the expression an eye for an eye, but never an eye for a fucking hand. How fucking creative!"

"Smart-mouth, you in there?"

"Go on, Sigh. Splash him again!"

"Stop! Don't touch him!"

"Hush... Oh, Oliver! It's nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you. Oh, yes, siree. This is gonna be fun."


The smell of scotch made me sick. Someone picked me up. My leg. My fucking leg. Carl was saying my name. Simon was cursing. He talked to Negan for a second. They were saying things like, "Shit, it's broken; the shot's pretty bad too," and, "Alright, let's make this quick. Carson'll take care of it at home, give us some time to plan how to confront good ol' Ezekiel, too," and I couldn't do anything except hold my leg at the knee and bite back screams.

Negan had Carl under his arm. He'd struggle and look at me and then I was being pulled to move by Simon and the big guy with the beanie. My legs tripped and scuffed and I cried out until my tongue bled. My arm was bleeding too; already soaked down past my bandage, leaving drip-trails. I didn't want to go with them. And as much as I didn't want to die, I knew I'd still rather it over whatever Negan meant by "Carson'll take care of it at home".

Carl muttered, "Dad..." and I looked, too: Rick was laid in the grass by the gate. Jadis was standing over him. She nudged him with her foot and Rick stirred. He was shot, too.

"He's fine," Jadis said.

Negan nodded, then took us across the community. They knelt Carl and I beside each other across from the lake. The scotch was stinging my eyes and inside my nose and I kept gagging. I couldn't keep on my knees. I had to slump on my butt and keep myself steady with my hand. My leg was thrumming. Dwight just watched.

"Oliver," Carl whispered.

I couldn't lift my head. I just whispered back, "Shh," but Negan had already noticed us and Lucille turned and stopped in front of my nose. I felt a barb against my forehead, brushing my hair out of my eyes and I told him to get fucked except the words didn't leave me because I had to clutch my arm.

"Ohh," Negan said, grinning. "Right, right. Almost forgot." He bent down and looked at me, then my bullet wound — no, my amputation. He tilted his head. My bandage had started unravelling.

Negan took two fingers and began to pull it off.

I swatted his hand away.

Negan chuckled. "So, Prick chopped it off you instead as a peace offering for me? Sweet. Sweetest Goddamn thing I've heard all fucking day."

I gritted my teeth, hoping I looked more angry than in pain.

"Guess what, kids?" Negan said, and leant down between us and whispered, "It's not enough."

I just stared at him. Not at his face or his bat. Just his scarf. I was thinking about the colour red and why it was my favourite when I'd seen all the places and people in my life that had spilled it. I could see Negan's face and I could see his bat but I couldn't see him. It was like I was in a nightmare. No face. Just a dark scribble.

"Jesus," he said to me. "Your stink-eye's almost as bad as his."

I saw more red and smelt and tasted it too, heard its sirens in my ears and leg and felt the wet of it running down my arm, like the colour was infecting me.

Negan's eyebrows hopped. He examined my face. My arm. All my scars.

"Bet there are some neato stories behind those, huh, kiddo?" he asked. I bit my tongue. Negan stopped smiling. He looked at Simon, like he was disappointed. "Did I or did I not just hear you call him, in your words, a 'smart-mouth little shit'?"

Simon shrugged.

Negan shrugged back.

"Kid doesn't speak," he complained. "What the hell you doin' calling him 'smart-mouth' when he won't even open his mouth?"

"Trust me, this one's full of surprises," Simon assured.

"Well," Negan said slowly, turning to me, "I am waiting, young man."

I glared at him, eyes welling and gripping my arm and Negan wouldn't stop looking.

"You gotta be kidding me." He tutted, scoffed, then threw his hands up. "Here I go again, making another kid cry. Jesus...fucking...Chri—"

And I spit right at his face.

Negan reeled back, grunting and cursing and I knew I'd done the same thing as what I'd done in the slaughterhouse to Molly, only this time I knew I was about to die for it. Carl knew, too, because he was already muttering: "Please, please."

"Wow, you are full of surprises," Negan growled. "Guess what, you little fucker, so am I!"

And with a roar he raised Lucille above his head and then he brought her down on me. I shut my eyes. There was a scream. I waited for impact. But seconds passed and I was heaving and still alive and waiting. I peeked. Lucille was staring at me, bearing her silver teeth. I looked past her. At Negan. His eyes looked strange, like something was suddenly freaking him out and he looked next to me, to Carl, who was sobbing.

"What the fuck?" Negan said.

"Please don't! Please!"

Very slowly, Negan put his head back and groaned. Over the fog in my brain, I got this terrible feeling like he was having the time of his life. "Ah! Well, that's just precious," he said. "My little heart is breaking!"

The guy holding Carl let go and he collapsed to his hands and knees. Negan knelt in front of him, crouching to look him in the eye.

"I do believe I have found your Achille's fucking heel, Carl."

Carl was dribbling and had to wipe his face. I wanted to shove him and tell him to quit it, only I was crying too. We watched Negan stroll away, and then Rick was coming over. He stopped and just watched us. Carl sat up and Rick said his name and Jadis jabbed him in the side and made him kneel beside us. Negan stepped through the crowd of Saviors and Heapsters, Lucille perched on his shoulder.

"Hello again."

Saviors were yelling at people around Alexandria. Some of us were dead and laying along the streets, and others were barely holding on. I wondered if I was. I wondered if I was dying. I felt tired and cold and I couldn't feel my arm or leg anymore past the pain. I didn't see Michonne but I knew she was up on the brownstone roof. She could shoot down at Negan right now. Why hadn't she?

"Well, shit, Rick," Negan said. "You just couldn't stick with us, huh? You had to go with these... filthy garbage people? No offense."

I didn't look at Jadis but I knew she was indifferent, standing there watching in her smug, succinct way with her long, bagged face. My arm and leg were throbbing.

"Deal is for twelve, yes?" she asked.

"Ten," Negan said. "People are a resource."

There was gunfire somewhere on the west side.

"Ten," Jadis relented.

Negan chuckled, then sighed.

"Rick. This is just gonna make you sad. Broken. You're gonna wish you were dead." He chuckled. "I like having fun, I do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your friends... wasn't me, like that was some sort of a put-on, like I'm not the guy with the bat — I'm just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti. I'm the guy who takes a fucking loogie in the face from four-eyes here and lets him keep his heartbeat."

More gunfire.

"Oh." Negan grinned. "Oh, fuck. Maybe this is on me. Maybe this is all on me. I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start all over again. I gotta tell you, Rick, if I had a kid, I'd want him to be just like your kid, which makes this so much harder."

"You're not gonna win," Carl said.

"Carl," Negan told him. "It is over. Now, listen, don't take it personally. I don't wanna replace you, but your daddy here's given me no choice, see? So why don't you point your one ball up the street there, and take everything in?"

He did. Carl looked up the street and then he looked at me. He looked at me and then — and then there was this scream in the distance and a dark figure falling from the brownstone roof.

"Ohh..." Negan laughed. He knelt in front of Rick. "Oh. Wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now — like, just now. Fuck. That. Is. Timing. Well, Rick, you chose this. I truly don't know what more I could've done to warn you. And this isn't a warning. This is punishment.

I'm gonna kill Carl now.

I'm gonna make it one, nice, hard swing; try to do it in one because I like him.

I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute."

It was in my brain, rolling around — blitzing it.

"I'm gonna kill Carl, and then Lucille here, she's gonna take your hands," Negan went on, "and then your boy's achey-breaky, handicap, little, boyfriend Oliver is gonna come with me. I'll even let you keep Daryl as fair trade. One of mine for one of yours. How about that?"

"You can do it right in front of me," Rick said. "You can take my hands. I told you already — I'm gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but nothing is gonna change that — nothing."

And then Rick was whispering.

"You're all already dead."

Negan looked mad, like a human grenade. He'd lost his pin... only then, somehow, he just put it back in again and he giggled.

"Fuck," he sighed. "Wow, Rick... Okay." Negan got up. "You said I could do it."

Carl's hat was knocked off his head and I felt it bump my chest as it fell. I saw his face, Carl's, all twisted up and then and then and then I died. And died. And I died. I died for all the times I was going to have to think about this moment. All the million, billion, trillion times for the rest of my life — all the ten seconds I would have left of it because I knew I wasn't going to make this. Not this. I was going to die and keep on dying forever and always and I would never come back from it. And then there was a scream. It lived inside my chest. Alive and escaping and I was going to die die die for it, and I did. I really did. It split me into shards and leapt out of my chest in a roar, landing hard and heavy and orange and black against a Saviors' chest. Teeth sunk into skull and crushed it like an egg. And I was in one piece, not a living roar; the roar hadn't even come from me.

It was Shiva.

She tore into a Savior's chest and pulled out his ribcage. Somebody screamed. A lot of people did. Carl staggered against me. It hurt. I thought I was holding him but it was him who was holding me. My arms weren't working. My leg felt like a hurricane inside skin and bone and sinew. Carl gripped around my chest and held me and we saw soldiers on horseback galloping and shooting and slashing and more soldiers running alongside them. I saw their flags, the tiger symbol sewn into red and gold and then I saw the King, gun raised and the whole universe alive and electric inside his face and dreadlocks.

"END THESE SAVIORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES! ALEXANDRIA WILL NOT FALL, NOT ON THIS DAY!"

Gunfire split the air apart. People were screaming and running. And then Maggie and Enid and the rest of Hilltop were sprinting through Alexandria.

"Phalanx out, third group, now!" Maggie ordered.

"Move up!" Daryl too. "Now, we got your backs!"

Rick grabbed mine and Carl's collars and pulled us up. The pain was everywhere. I couldn't hold my gun when Rick shoved it into my hand. I couldn't walk. And then Shiva flew past me and Carl, and Rick yelled for us. They were shooting. Carl and Rick. And they were grabbing under my arms to keep me standing and I kept making these noises, "No, no, no," begging them to stop the hurting. I saw something purple streak through the day-sky and then the streets filled with smoke and the Heapsters were running away. The Saviors too. Gunshots were still cracking the air open and then I was dragged to the RV. Maggie was there. Jesus and Enid and Bertie, too. Shit, I could hardly stay conscious. Rick and Carl were clutching around my middle so hard I couldn't breathe. My head felt like rock in water, sinking.

"They're falling back!" Rick yelled.

"Oliver..." Enid said. "Oliver — you're..."

I tried to say I was fine but I threw up right there on the hood. Carl yelped for his Dad who was checking around the side of the RV. Rick rushed over and took under my arm again and I threw up all down his shirt.

"M'sorry," I murmured.

Rick just held me.

"Dad," Carl said. "Dad, we gotta get him to the clinic."

He was talking fast and Rick was talking back faster and my brain was pounding so it was hard to understand much else, and Maggie was yelling things and then she and the others were gone again. The King was shouting somewhere in the distance. "Now! We finish this!" And then there was more shooting. God, I wished they would let go of me. I wished they would just leave me there. I didn't have it in me to go any further. But I felt Rick and Carl's hands grabbing and pulling and even though I would cry out and try to give up, they wouldn't let me. I heard Rick talking about Michonne, and then we were at the brownstone apartments. There was a body splattered across the sidewalk and horror woke me up for a second. It wasn't Michonne. It was a Heapster.

We went inside. I couldn't make it up the staircase so I sat on the steps while Rick and Carl hurried up to find her. I heard Rick's voice, all quiet and shaken: "Michonne," he said, "Michonne. Oh, you're alive." And her voice back: "We—W-We're... We're..." "I know. I know. I know. We are. We will."

I knew I was dying then.

I just knew it.

Carl came downstairs first. I don't remember a lot of what he said or a lot of what happened after but I know I felt heavy and stiff. I remember that he was saying my name and that it was hard to say his name back. I was sweating and shaking and bleeding. I remember Michonne's face, at some point. It was bloody and bruised and her left eye was swollen shut. Rick was holding her, and he was also trying to hold me too, and then I fell and the whole world was falling away from me as well, and I was becoming lost all over again.

I didn't like that feeling.

I didn't like it and I couldn't stop it.

So, I lost.

❂:❂:❂:❂
'Cause it's a long life
and then it isn't.

❂:❂:❂:❂


Notes

Happy reading.