A/N: Any Negan chapter should be a warning unto itself, and his POV is the dominant one.
June 21, 2017
- Negan -
Negan sprawls in a chair on the balcony to his own private room. The supply runners returned two hours ago, with everything promised as the Kingdom always delivers. In perhaps the ultimate test, both Honey and her pet also returned, and they've got extra equipment that makes more sense to them and Fat Joey than anyone else. The quasi-engineer is like a damned puppy following the other two around.
"They might make a real engineer out of him yet."
He rolls his head enough to lay eyeballs on Laura. She's leaning against the wall, that quiet patience of hers as cool as ice like always. "It's about fucking time. He sure as hell spends enough time dogging at their heels."
Not that he can really bitch about it, because making already useful people extra useful is one less damned headache for him to deal with. Eying where the trio now has the welding machine broken out for their project, he drops his feet from the patio table and rotates to level his stare on Laura. "How did the visit go today? Anything alarming come up?"
"I got a tour inside the walls."
"No shit. How far in?"
"All the way to the center. Went with Honey and her brother as far as their infirmary, then took up the brother-in-law's offer to have a look around. That little shit talks more than Eugene." Laura sounds half impressed, half frustrated.
"What's the fucking place actually like? All pigs and sheep and crops?" Considering how much fresh produce they hand over like it's nothing, not to mention the freshly slaughtered mutton and pork.
Laura shakes her head, looking thoughtful. "It's interesting, comparing here and there. She's laying the foundations, so now I see more of what her vision will be." She walks forward, watching as Honey calls one of the hovering drudge kids over and drops a welding shield over the kid's head. "It's a fortress, like something out of those old books they'd shove in front of me as a kid about the middle ages."
Negan thinks over those fucking massive reinforced walls he's seen, concrete and metal, meant to last like little else will. "You abso-fucking-lutely sure of that?"
"Absolutely. If she hadn't allied with us…" Laura swallows hard, and she looks afraid in a way he's never quite inspired. "They aren't soft people like up north. I suspect they could have slaughtered us all before we even knew they were out there. Derek's group got lucky because Honey tried to negotiate first. He doesn't even realize he's a dead man walking."
"And why is that?" Negan isn't fucking stupid. He's seen the ice cold looks Honey levels at the barely competent fuckwit who will never amount to more than what he is, fit to lead scouting parties but nothing larger. Although he knows Derek didn't offer parlay to Honey's team, he's been letting the little shitstain sweat.
"One of the men killed when she was taken was her brother, an older one according to what I overheard. Man was a Marine. Probably explains what Gavin sees in her fighting style."
"Interesting." It probably is a miracle the damned man is still alive, but being one of Simon's underlings is probably making Honey take her time. Negan doubts that it'll protect the bastard in the long run. He could probably hurry it along, and enjoy the fucking show. She's never taken down a living man in front of him before.
It's a thought that arouses him like few others. He shifts in his chair, looking back to the welding crew. They seem to be assembling a mobile version of one of Fat Joey's trick bombs. "Ah hell. What the fuck are they planning on blowing up?"
Laura shrugs, shifting away from the wall at last. "Nothing yet. They were debating the potential for a mobile bomb on the way back. Sort of the reverse of a bomb diffusing robot, I think. You'd have to ask them the specifics."
Negan just laughs his ass off. "Nah. Last time I fucking did that, Eugene didn't stop explaining the physics of his project for ten goddamned minutes." He could have shut the asshole up, but Honey had her pondering face on, and it ended up spawning an idea on how to secure the bridge spanning the river without sacrificing structural integrity.
The Sanctuary is going to be a fortress in its own right. Negan thinks he's looking forward to it for fucking once, having solid plans for the future beyond finding the next set of idiot farmers to serve his soldiers. "They got a decent infirmary there?" he asks, changing the subject.
"Yeah. All the bells and whistles still useful now. Had its own generator." Laura seems to mull something over. "Something went down there, between this week and last. The King's security threw their doctor in holdup for disagreeing with the alliance."
"So who the hell did she see for whatever medical shit had her all squirrelly?" he demands, voice a growl. At least the self-styled king is taking decisive action, but the idea of the objection fucking rankles.
"Her brother is crosstrained as a physician."
Seeing her brother for a health concern she distinctly stated needed gynecological attention is almost creepier than her telling him she birthed her own nephew. Family is goddamned twisted, but as long as it's fucking resolved, he guesses it doesn't matter how. "Maybe we should expand the alliance to have the brother here, too."
It would give him more control over Honey staying, if she's got family here, and the little pet doesn't count, no matter how fond she is of him. Kidnapping the man probably won't work, because he's a goddamn fucking mountain in human form. Maybe he'll freak everyone the fuck out and just ask the man politely and see if that family devotion runs both ways.
"His husband could be useful. Runs supply teams, from what I can tell."
"What's the catch? Their fucking mini-me?" It's not like there aren't kids among the drudges. None of the female soldiers seem to want to spawn any little bastards, but the drudges breed like fucking rabbits. Hell, the damn toddler is probably his best bet on getting the parents to follow his lead. It can't be too bad, being almost big enough to stop pissing and shitting itself based on what's Honey's said.
Laura shakes her head. "We aren't exactly the sort of place that would welcome a pair of men married to each other."
"That is a goddamn wrinkle to be ironed out, ain't it?" Negan stands, bored with staying still for the moment. Inaction doesn't suit him, or he would sit his ass in the Sanctuary while his lieutenants did all the work. He'll decide later if the idea of a doctor closely related to Honey living her is worth the heads he'll have to bash together to set new rules in place.
One way or another, Honey stays with him.
Four hours later, the proverbial penny finally drops when he realizes that the woman who normally matches him drink for fucking drink no matter what the hard liquor is hasn't touched a single damned drop at supper. "Holy shit," he breathes, eyes locking on hers. "Holy fucking shit."
Years of bankrupting themselves for treatments, only for miscarriage after goddamn miscarriage until finally cancer put an end to one hell and started another for Lucille. After the dead started walking, he's sowed his oats with anyone willing and had three wives under thirty. Not a damn one has shown a sign of anything taking root made him figure fate just loves fucking him over like it's a competitive sport. He fucked around on Lucille when she was at her lowest, and fate was just gonna keep reaming him eternally for that.
A slight shuffle of movement from the couch where Eugene's been unusually quiet tonight reminds him the man's been working little and watching Honey a lot. The son of a bitch knows already, Negan thinks, and he remembers that he's abandoned her bed more than once, and it did not go unoccupied.
"Mine or his?" he asks, ignoring the possibility that he's never even asked if she left other lovers behind. Her lack of mooning around in distress indicated she hadn't. Her pet is the important one, because she keeps him close.
The other man actually makes a sound of distress, shaking his head vigorously. "Not mine. Never mine." He hugs himself, rubbing at his elbows.
"What the fuck is wrong with him?" Negan demands, turning his attention back to Honey.
"Eugene thinks his condition is genetic," Honey states calmly. "He requested to be sterilized rather than risk passing it on."
"Huh. Not something that would have been able to fly with all the fucked up medical ethics of the old world. You let the veterinarian neuter you? Give you the old snip?" Insulting Eugene is easier than facing Honey at the moment, the words flowing automatically, especially when the other man gives him the satisfaction of hiding his face in his hands and sobbing. "Maybe I should have had you inspected instead of assuming fucking is why you crawl into bed with her all the time."
"Leave him alone."
The steel in Honey's voice sends icy chills down his spine, but he stiffens rather than give in to them. He turns back to her, hazel eyes locking on pale blue. "Or what?"
There's an echo of that moment in the cell, when he pressed the bat against her bruised skin and wondered who would win if he swung the bat at her. It isn't just the potential for the darkened abyss he's looking at right now; it's the abyss itself. She doesn't need to reply, because he knows the answer the same as he knows what's coming when he raises his bat to make some cowardly group bow to his will.
The only difference is he might die faster than his targets do.
It should piss him off, the open threat that she would kill him over someone who can barely be called a man, if that. Instead, it turns him on like he's been hit with a fucking freight train of arousal. He can tell the moment it registers with her, because she finishes the draw on the karambit, running her finger along the back of the blade. "He's mine."
"And what am I?"
"The man who is going to make this place safe for our child."
"How the hell do you know I even want to claim the spawn? It's just a fucking bite-sized snack for the dead."
Honey gives him a sly smile, still playing with that damned knife. "Because you wouldn't have asked about the paternity if you didn't want it."
Shoving his chair back, Negan gets to his feet. Reaching over to steal her tumbler, he downs the vodka and drops the glass onto the table. It breaks, but Honey never takes her eyes off his until he looks away first. Gathering up Lucille, he stalks away from the absolute fucking wrongness of any woman other than his wife, the real one, carrying his child.
- Honey -
As soon as the door slams shut, Honey's on her feet. Amber peeks timidly out of her room, and Honey waves her back inside. "It's okay. How's your mother doing?"
"Better, now that she has those new meds you brought her." Surprisingly, the other woman steps out into the living area. She's older than Honey by a couple of years, but you wouldn't know it by most of her behaviors. Then again, she's been one of Negan's wives since she was barely out of her teens. It arrested any maturity she might have attained, and every protective sense Honey has flares to identify her as 'girl' and not 'woman'. "Are you really pregnant?"
"I am." A glance toward Eugene shows he's dried his face. He's watching Amber with the sort of calm calculation that disturbs people who don't know him. Since he's fine, she concentrates on the girl instead.
"It's really Negan's? Not Eugene's?" Amber looks horrified by the idea.
"It really is." Honey reaches out to run a soothing hand down Amber's arm. Since she took Amber and her mother under her protection, it's set uneasily with the girl that Honey's taken her place in Negan's bed, to her view of it. There's no point in explaining the margin of error for the ultrasound in light of the gamble she's making with Negan.
"How can you stand it?" Wide eyes focus on Honey's midsection. "He's a monster. I prayed every month. Used those fertility calendars when the birth control got too old to be trusted."
For all Negan's purported high sex drive, Honey knows he stringently avoided those risky weeks. She's seen the wives' quarters. It's a creepy reverse version of what she used herself when MJ was conceived. Weirdly enough, Negan's never even questioned her on the subject, so she just assumed it was the women's doing and his warped sense of consent played along.
"What's wrong with him has nothing to do with the baby. My own grandfather was a murderous bastard who beat my grandmother to death with his own fists, but my father? You couldn't ask for a better man on this planet. We make our own destiny, remember?"
Amber searches her expression before nodding. The girl's never asked Honey what her actual intent is here, probably aiming for plausible deniability, but Honey thinks she suspects something. She startles Honey by hugging her, an embrace Honey returns willingly. "Mama's good at knitting. She'll love having a baby to make little outfits for."
As soon as Amber is back in her room with her mother, Honey turns back to Eugene, crossing the room to sit with him on the couch. "I envy you," she says softly, reaching up to wipe away moisture he missed in scrubbing his face on his shirt sleeve.
"How so?" he asks, leaning into the touch like he always does.
"I can never cry when I'm scared."
Eugene chuckles, covering her hand with his before kissing her palm. "No, you funnel it into fixing whatever makes you terrified. Are you absolutely certain this is the appropriate angle to play with this man? He does not strike me as the protective and paternal type."
"Call it an instinct. Everything about him says he wants to bind me to him irreversibly. Maybe he's not paternal, but he's possessive. What says permanent more than a child?"
"And removing all doubt makes certain of that. You're lucky he thinks so poorly of me that his mind easily accepts that I would have myself physically altered in a way a man like him would consider neutering."
"Underlay the lie with the truth," Honey says softly. Maybe she talked Eugene out of the risk of the surgery, but he had wanted it done. "Just like Scout taught me."
"The added benefit of potentially keeping me off the psychopath's radar seems to be one of your incentives, darlin'."
Honey just laughs and lets the last vestiges of the fear go when she realized she miscalculated and gave away the pregnancy before she could fully analyze what Negan's reaction might be. "Keeping you alive is always one of my top incentives."
When he kisses her, she considers amping up the heat and taking him to bed, but Negan's too revved up tonight. A return isn't out of the question, so instead, she simply takes him to bed, curling into his warmth like a giant teddy bear and breathing in the native scent of him that always tells her she's home.
- Eugene -
Eugene isn't surprised that Honey falls asleep quickly. It's a particular skill of hers, honed by coming to adulthood in a world turned more warzone than anything she ever expected to see. Like any good soldier, she sleeps when and where she can. At least with him here, it's a restful sleep. He's still her Q, but after seven years, he's skilled enough to protect her, too.
When he hears the outer door open, and dull, careful steps coming toward the bedroom, he slides his hand under the pillow to retrieve Honey's Glock from between the mattress and the headboard. Moving it to an angle that keeps it hidden under the bed sheet is easy enough. No one else would enter their quarters after dark, not even Simon, so he knows who the intruder is. Honey doesn't stir, a combination of the day's emotional upheaval and the absolute exhaustion early pregnancy always puts her through.
The barb wire bat doesn't make a sound as Negan gently lays it across the top of the dresser. Eugene has never seen Negan drunk, no matter how much the man's imbibed, but something about his movements when he grips the footboard tells him the man's probably so far gone it's a miracle he's upright. He looks haunted in a way Eugene didn't think the man was capable of being.
"Why did she keep it?"
That's not the question he expects from the man. "What?"
"I'm not a moron. World may be gone to complete hell, but women ended pregnancies without all the fucking fancy technology that fell by the wayside." Negan's eyes glitter in the moonlit room. "And for all the stupid ass renaissance fair playacting, her people still have that tech, don't they?"
"They do," Eugene acknowledges. Letting Laura have the tour was a deliberate risk, tipping their hand a little, because sustaining the medieval farm community image forever is unlikely. The military vehicles captured when Honey was and the convoy Eugene himself had been taken from gave away too much.
"So why would she keep it?" Negan repeats. "She doesn't want children."
It's funny how too many see Honey's lack of rush into her own motherhood as a lack of wanting to be a mother at all. Even this man is susceptible to it. He opts for the truth to cushion the lie, just like Honey did. "There is a difference between avoiding motherhood and actively ending it."
"Huh." Negan's fists twist against the rail at the foot of the bed. He's staring at Honey, who is tucked into Eugene's left shoulder like it's a pillow. "It's mine, and she kept it anyway."
"She did." Honey envies him his ability to shed fear and stress into crying. He prays for her ability to feed it into anger, just this once, anything to keep him calm.
"I don't fucking understand anything about how her goddamn mind works."
Eugene thinks of the manic speeches he's heard Negan give about building the future. "She asked me what point is securing the world if there's no one to inherit it."
"An heir. Fucking hell. She was goddamn serious."
"I have never known her to be anything but serious on such a subject as this one."
"And what is your fucking place in this world she foresees?" Drunk or not, Eugene gets the bone chilling feeling that the days of Negan ignoring him out of some misguided idea that he's defective may be over.
"Making sure that she and anyone she chooses doesn't just survive, but thrives."
"And if that includes me?"
Eugene risks a smile, a true one, because for whatever time the man has left before Honey sends him to his fate, it actually does. "Haven't you already figured out that it does?"
Negan stares at him for a long moment before he eases away from the bed, making his way to the couch and slumping down onto it. "Get some sleep, Eugene. I got shit to think about tonight, and you got a fucking concrete pouring system to finish rigging in the morning."
Nodding, Eugene slips the Glock back into its spot, rolling so that his back is to Negan, and Honey more comfortable against his chest. Either their gamble will pay off or it won't, and tonight at least, he doesn't think the man will make a move that endangers Honey. Like he said, Negan's got shit to think about.
A/N: I know some readers are missing the rest of the Dixons, but they will turn up once the coup happens and the primary action moves back to Georgia.
Next chapter will be more Negan, with the apex of the coup storyline in 2-3 chapters.