Chapter 61
Built to Endure

I kept my eyes peeled for signs of Daryl over the next couple days. The Saviors continued to keep me corralled the best they could, distracting me so I wouldn't suspect anything. Though I had barely seen a trace of him the first few weeks I had been at the Sanctuary to begin with (not counting the few interactions that had been doubly traumatic thanks to Negan's doing), I assumed that if he was still there, I would have detected his presence in some way.

I didn't let on though, choosing to play ignorant and refusing to ask any questions. I knew they wouldn't be answered anyways so why bother really? Instead, I chose to spend the day rereading some of the books in the room and adding to my journals.

The days went by slowly but at least I was let out by the second. I didn't see Negan any time for all those two days, but on the third I was wandering through the halls near the detention level, absently wondering if I would catch them letting John out, assuming he was still here as well. If he were smart (which he was, but anyways) he would have returned to the cell discreetly while they were occupied with Daryl's noticeable vanishment. That is, if Daryl had gone missing like I hoped. If they were both gone, then I didn't worry. I had asked John this. He could leave me behind if he needed, but Daryl needed help now. I could wait.

My thoughts swirled together while I wandered down to the detention deck until I started to hear voices coming from around the corner near where I remembered John's cell had been. Carefully, I inched closer, pressing against the wall and straining my ears to listen to the conversation. I recognized Negan's voice instantly.

"Listen, Johnny. I saw the way you were fighting the other day. I'm not easily impressed, but that was fucking impressive. I watched your face turn into some kind of feral monster and there was nothing in that brain of yours but the instinct to kill. I need men like that. Men that can forget all thought at the drop of a hat and see nothing but blood. I need killing instinct and there is room for you to move up this totem pole if you'd like."

John's answer was simple enough. "No."

"You can have your first pick of shit that comes in. No more earning points. It's a pretty fucking sweet deal."

"No."

I could detect a note of frustration in Negan as he used a different tactic. "Look I don't make this offer to just anyone, but you are seriously pissing me off with this self-righteous bullshit of yours. You think you're better than us? Or maybe you've done some real fucked up shit you're feeling guilty about? Well whatever you've done, I don't give a shit about any of it. It's messed you up pretty bad it looks like. I'm not holding anything against you. It's a shit-eat world out there and people do what they have to do to survive. But in here, we can make things a little better for ourselves. We build a community we can rely on and we grow out of it. You can be part of that."

"I like where I'm at fine enough, right now."

There was a momentary pause as Negan considered something. "Funny. Well to each their own, I suppose. Though I gotta say, it's something of a convenience that you say that now. As it just so happens, we've recently lost a rather important whipping boy."

My heart sped. They were talking about Daryl. It was true then. He did make it out and John started that fire to act as a distraction for his escape.

"Any time you want to stop being a piece of self-righteous prick, you just say the word. Until then you're on a short leash."

With that declaration there was a loud BUZZ a CRACK and John's cry of alarm echoed out of the empty room. A loud thump immediately followed soon after, almost like a body had hit the ground hard. There was more crackling, almost like electricity and John's cries of alarm echoed more as the voices of multiple men instructed each other to "Hold him! Hold him down!" Then the clinks and clanks of what I feared might have been heavy chains.

I nearly jolted out of my skin, ready to spring into action to defend him, but at the last second, I was able to stop myself. Once again, I couldn't interfere with John's carefully laid-out plan. Rushing in to help him in any way would do more harm than good for us… even… even if he was being chained up at that moment. My racing heart hammered in my chest as I gripped the wall and listened further as John growled.

"This is not a community," his smooth voice answered simply with restrained fury. "Community implies a certain amount of cooperation and support among all neighbors. It's a fellowship between people as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals. This acts more as a pyramid. One group on top of another, all to support the figurehead."

Negan only scoffed. "Call it whatever you like. You could've had the good-life if you were smart enough. I offered the same thing to that wild dog that scampered off mysteriously and he turned his nose up to it just the same." There was a thoughtful note in the warlord's voice and I could practically see his dark eyes surveying John's form as the wheels in his head began to spin. I swallowed nervously but listened all the same. "Weird… you're nothing alike and yet it was strangely convenient that you stopped by when you did. To be honest I was getting bored of that beaten dog. Now I get a new tin-man to wind up. I'll enjoy seeing what makes you tick."

That didn't sound good. A nervous sweat began to bead down my neck with his words as what sounded like shuffling suddenly came from the room. I stole a quick glance around the corner to see Negan accompanied by six or seven men filing out of the cell and all holding what looked to be tasers and cattle prods.

Oh no. How did they find out?

John told me once that he was susceptible to electricity. The very thing that gave him life, also weakened him. He had mechanical organs—his clock-work heart specifically—that shorted-out and got hot when he had contact with electricity. It tended to bring him down very well… or so he had told me.

Negan looked back into the cell, his eyes glinting in the light of the adjacent window down the hall. "I'll give you a few more weeks in here to think about my proposal. If after that time you've wised up a bit, I'll give you certain luxuries. You'll have to work your way up from there, though."

Seeing the Saviors and their leader slam the door loudly to John's cell made me panic and I dodged quickly back around the corner before they had caught me. My way back to the room gave me more than enough time to sweat over this harrowing turn of events.

God what have I done? I prioritized Daryl's safety over John's and now he's chained up by those monsters. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. How could Negan have suspected anything? Did he know that John and I were in league together? Was that why he reinforced John's prison with chains? Was John strong enough to break them if he needed to? I didn't see the size of them but from the sound I imagined they were pretty heavy.

I didn't have the answers to a lot of my questions. I didn't know how much Negan knew, whether he knew exactly what John was or that he and I were friends at all. We'd been so careful, so I couldn't imagine how he could have caught on. Maybe… a spy? Could someone have spied on us and ran back to tell him? Or could it have been an accident? Was this just coincidence due to his fight in the messhall? Negan was, admittedly, smart when he decided to be. He could have figured out that John was fairly powerful.

I decided to believe that last theory for the moment. I wasn't going to worry about possibilities that caused more stress than contingency measures, and I wasn't sure what contingency measures I could have even taken if it were the opposite. As far as I knew, John and my connection was still a secret and I would continue to operate as if it were.

At the moment John wasn't in immediate danger. Negan was interested in him, so he definitely wasn't about to kill him just yet, not that he can kill and living-dead man to begin with. Sadly, Negan wasn't the worst person John had known. He really wasn't. I needed to believe that the small bit of humanity inside that despicable beast wasn't likely to kill or phase my John.

He would endure. Like always, my John was built to endure.


Flashback

"Whoa! So that's it? That's your heart?"

John hadn't known I was in the room. I had been quiet, thinking I would sneak up on him again. He seemed fond of my surprises so I tried to catch him off-guard from time to time. This time though, I'd caught him in a somewhat exposed position. His shirt was removed, revealing his pale white torso. It wasn't like my father's and brother's, whom both had muscled and toned bodies that were worked-out and battle-scarred. His was… strange. It had muscles too but they looked so… sinewy. Not like a human's but more like an animal's—like a gorilla's.

They were toned, but wrinkled as well, with various deep lines running across his limbs and joints, which I at first thought were scars or tattoos, yet they looked far too deep, almost like they were detachable in a way. But the thing that held my attention over everything else was the opening in his chest where a large metal organ, built with winding gears and springs pumped the organ with a rhythmic and loud TICK, TICK, TICK.

It was fascinating and beautiful in a way. I wanted to get a closer look at it, but as I stepped closer John shut the swinging door in his chest.

"Get out!" He shouted. I paused, stunned by his raised voice.

"John?"

"I said get out!" He repeated, his voice shaky over his terror. "Please."

The pain in his voice was so frightened, that I took a shaky step back to the door. In that moment I realized I had just walked in on something extremely private to him. "I—I'm sorry."

I averted my eyes and dodged out quickly, allowing him his autonomy once more.

About fifteen minutes later he found me sitting outside on one of the wicker chairs. I looked up at him and saw his eyes were diverted. I realized then that he was ashamed. My mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to find the right thing to say to him. When I finally settled on something I took a deep breath and proceeded carefully.

"So… what was all that?"

He sighed but came closer, settling into the twin chair.

"It's exactly what it looked like. It's my heart."

My eyes grew big as I realized he was allowing questions. "Why is there a door to it?"

He touched the spot on his chest. "Sometimes it requires a bit of… maintenance."

"Like a clock does?"

"Precisely."

"Does it hurt to fix it?"

"It always feels a bit… exposed and I'm uncomfortable when other people see it, but it doesn't cause me pain."

"That's good." I swallowed a little bit, thinking back to his reaction when I had walked in on him. "I'm sorry about spying on you. I didn't think you would be working on your heart or something."

"It's alright. I should have saved it for when I knew you wouldn't be around."

"Does it need work often?"

"Not often. Once every few months."

"Does it ever stop?"

"It has a backup energy source."

"Why is it like that? How did you get it?"

A flash of sadness crossed his face with the question and his eyes once more drifted away to some distant scene from his past. "I am the product of many decades of experiments."

"Are there other parts of you that are like that?"

"Several others."

"Can you feel them?"

"Sometimes I can hear them when it's very quiet. But their design is very good so thankfully I feel them about as much as you feel your own organs when one of them isn't working right."

"Were they all done by the same person?"

"Various people."

"Is that why you're stronger than others? Do they give you your super strength?"

"No. That was a product of my reanimation by my father, Frankenstein."

"Do they do anything extra for you? Expand your memory or make you jump taller?"

"There are certain things I'm able to do that is impossible for the average human, but I believe that is simply a product of my existence. The modifications to my organs are meant only to keep them functioning as organs are supposed to."

"So, they don't make you indestructible—like you could get hit by a car and you'll be totally fine or something like that?"

"No. They just keep everything ticking like it's all supposed to. Pun intended."

I was a little disappointed for their lack of gadgets. "Do things ever get stuck in them, or do they get clogged up?"

"That's what maintenance is for."

"Well do you get struck by lightning a lot because you have more metal inside you than other people?"

He actually laughed a bit by that one. "No. Although, I have been struck by lighting before, more than once, but it has nothing to do with the metal in me. Many people live with metal inside of them and they're not constantly struck by lightning."

"Does it hurt a lot when lightning does strike you?"

"I'm afraid it does. I'm unfortunately susceptible to electricity. It makes the metal burn up and the gears short out."

"Whoa, that sucks."

He didn't appreciate my wording. "Language, young lady."

"It's not like I said it's effed-up."

We kept talking long throughout the day. He let me know he was opened to more questions if I had them for him, but thankfully nothing important came up. There would be more later if I came up with them, but the best thing was knowing that nothing much had changed. I always knew he was different and he knew that I wasn't afraid of him, so that's what mattered most.


Present day

I stood alone in the room, contemplating the memory. I hadn't expected Negan to catch on to his weaknesses so quickly. Apparently, there was more going on that I didn't see. Probably an incident or two out in the yard while John was working. Maybe he got shocked or something with some loose cable. It was my best bet for the time being. His strength on the other hand was more difficult to measure. John had to be held by some pretty industrial strength chains and I remembered they did sound pretty heavy. He was crazy strong, so it sometimes wasn't easy to decide how much he could really lift.

I wish I knew just how much Negan knew. And it wasn't like I could openly pick his brain about it. He'd get suspicious and that might steer him towards John's and my friendship and that was the last thing I needed.

What the hell could I do?

I was coming to an unpleasant realization. In order to find out more I may have had to be a bit more… pleasant in his company.

I disliked the idea but I didn't see any other way around it. Sooner or later, Negan would want to have dinner again. I'd use that time to prepare my resolve for it. I'd need to be pleasant, but not suspiciously so. Friendly and chatty would do no good for me. He'd catch on to that in a heartbeat. Maybe seeming defeated would be best. Like I was tired of this constant powerplay and I was settling more into my role here. A slow burn might have been best.

But I needed answers now! I didn't have time to be patient.

The one advantage I had was knowing Negan liked to talk. If I got him going, I might have been able to get answers out of him in one night.

It seemed like the best plan.

"Alright," I decided with a nod, knowing how I was going to attack. I never thought the day would come when I would ever be eager for a dinner with my warden.


Author's notes:

It.

Has.

Been.

So.

Long.

I'm sorry you guys. I was struck with a really bad case of writer's block and I kinda got swept up in a different fanfiction that consumed me for a while there. I want you all to know that I have no plans of abandoning this story any time soon and I really wanted to post this new chapter for you guys before the New Year but, hey, second day isn't so bad... right?

Anyways it has been pretty crazy on my end. I got a new job and I moved out of my sucky apartment and in with my sister and niece which is really nice. Plus with Covid and everything else that 2020 threw at us, I think we can all agree that it has been an insane year. I know we're all really looking forward to 2021 and I hope you all are safe and healthy.

I'm sorry again that it took me so long to post but I wish you all the best and hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.

Stay safe and Happy New Year!