Chapter 27.

What We Live For.

Negan took a swing, laughing when his bat sheared half the face off a walker. It staggered, now a skull with a clicking jaw, standing there like he had knocked the sense out of it.

"Well, if you insist," Negan said, swinging again, the force taking the head off this time. "Listen, guy, nothing personal." He rifled through its belongings, pocketing a packet of cigarettes and a flask. "Nasty habits, both of them. Did you a favor. How 'bout you put in a good word for me with the man upstairs, huh?"

He stepped away from the corpse, now surrounded by the dead. He must have killed more than twenty, pulverizing a big group that had been following him for hours. Black blood rolled onto the pavement, painting the parking lot. It was a damn shame to see them go. Negan had no one else to talk to out here, and long silences made him uncomfortable. Lucille used to say God forgot to put an off switch on his mouth.

He was alone again.

Negan meandered, glancing in cars, finding nothing worth stopping for. He found himself looking past food, past water, subconsciously at first. But as he got hungrier, thirstier, more exhausted, he thought, maybe it was better this way. Lucille was the reason he was still alive when all this started, and she was what kept him going when the shit hit the fan. Without her it seemed… monotonous.

Six days.

He had been wandering for six days, covering a lot of ground. He stopped by that old school they took shelter in, finding it empty and abandoned, a few corpses strewn about. He went to the cancer treatment center, found it gutted, all the meds gone – and the people, too. Maybe they were dead, or maybe they moved on after he came and took their shit. Seemed like the smart thing to do.

It was almost dark, time to find some place to hunker down for the night, when Negan saw a living person down the road. He stopped, staring for a while to convince himself it wasn't a walker. When he got close enough, he recognized him.

"Well, I'll be damned."

The kid turned around, startled, dropping the spool of barbed wire he had in his arms. He had wide, wild eyes, a gaunt face, ashen skin – half the person that he'd been the last time Negan saw him. His curly black hair was all over the place, one half matted with mud, some strands stuck to his face. His clothes were a mess, his shirt torn, his sneakers crusty.

And he was alone. No train of sad cancer patients.

"It was Jeffery, right?" Negan said, strolling up, delighted to see another living face after almost a week of isolation. "Remember me?"

Jeffrey was looking at the bat, trembling. "You hit me with that."

Negan laid the weapon down, putting his hands up. "Yeah, sorry about that. Desperate times, amiright?" He smiled, trying to put the kid at ease, but Jeffrey looked like a coyote in a trap. "How's the shoulder? I hope I didn't do any permanent damage."

He had a small voice, a scared voice. "It still hurts… but I'm fine."

"I am sorry," Negan repeated, a little more genuine this time. "You get it, though, right? I did what I had to do. Not that it meant shit in the end."

Jeffrey stared at his feet. "Yeah. I get it."

"Your sister?" Negan said. "What was her name, again?"

"Fred." Jeffrey pressed a smile, like the name brought a small shot of joy, but the expression melted away. "She's dead."

He had to ask. "Was it because I took those meds?"

Jeffrey shook his head.

He looked defeated. Negan had seen this kind of hopelessness when he took Lucille to get her chemo. A lot of the patients were pretty much dead already, corpses shuffling around before the walkers even showed up, but the families were worse. Brave faces with nothing behind them. Negan always thought he was immune, but really, it just never sank in. Lucille seemed invincible.

Negan picked up the spool of barbed wire the kid had dropped, careful not to jab himself. It was sharp shit, and there was a lot of it. "What are you up to, anyway? You building a prison or something? Makin' yourself a little obstacle course? 'Cause I hate to break it to you, but the dead don't give a shit if they cut their ankles."

"I was gonna use it to protect myself, I guess," Jeffrey said, shrugging.

"You guess?"

"I don't know."

Negan felt the same way about finding shelter, staying safe. Ambivalent.

He said, "You holed up anywhere near here?"

Jeffrey gestured down the road, "Hardware store."

"And you were gonna, what, string the whole place up like Christmas?"

"Yeah."

"I guess that's technically a plan."

Jeffrey took him to the hardware store. It was small, built with warm colors, an old wooden counter concealing a little cubby the kid had been sleeping in.

When they walked in, a little bell rang over the door. Negan looked up, "Are you kidding me?"

Jeffrey shrugged again.

"You're not even trying." Negan locked the door and pulled the bell down. "I mean, I don't blame you, trust me, but take some pride in your space. You wanna call this place yours, you should clean up all this shit on the floors, maybe plant some flowers, piss out front so the other dogs know."

Jeffrey went to his little bed, sitting with the spool of barbed wire in his lap. He had little pinpricks all over his arms, spots of blood. Either he didn't notice, or he just didn't care.

Negan was sympathetic. It was one of his weaknesses. "You got any food?"

Jeffrey shrugged.

"You're not being very helpful." Negan rummaged around, finding nothing to eat, nothing to drink. The kid was as hopeless as he was. "Okay, how about this? You sit there and stare off into space, and I'll go find us something to live on."

Jeffrey said, "Why?"

It was such a plain question, quiet, with a flat affect. The fear and uncertainty he'd shown when they reunited was gone – everything was gone. It was like his energy, his will to live, fell with the sun. He had encountered Jeffrey and his group something like ten days ago, maybe a little more. But time was dragging on. It felt like weeks, like months. So much had changed in such a small amount of time – he lost his sister, Negan lost Lucille.

Jeffrey seemed to have aged ten years. Is that what Negan looked like now?

"I don't know," Negan responded, "I'm just gonna do it. I'll figure the rest out later."

XxX

A couple of hours later, Negan was sitting on the counter of the hardware store, halfheartedly eating handfuls of cereal. Jeffrey was meticulously putting grape jam on crackers and then nibbling them like a squirrel. He was regaining his color, losing the concerning grayish tint.

"Where are you from?" Negan asked, hopping down to switch foods with him. He ate the jam on its own, taking spoonfuls and savoring the burst of sugar. "I mean, if I'm being an asshole, let me know, but your race is a little confusing to me. I saw your sister. She was white as a goddamn tissue, and here you are sort of… gray? Here, I'll start. I'm from Virginia. Not far from here. Didn't move much, you feel me?"

Jeffrey was slow to respond, like he was waking up. He ran his hand endlessly over his hair, trying to force it to lie flat. He had picked a lot of the mud out since they arrived, but it was really a testament to his state of mind. "Massachusetts, before Fred got sick."

"How long ago was that?"

"A while."

"You're not giving me much here."

Jeffrey gave a small, small smile, "We were half-siblings, different moms."

"Moms, huh? Usually the other way around."

He shrugged again.

Negan said. "How old are you?"

Another hesitation. "Twenty."

Negan ate in silence, filling his mouth to keep himself from talking. It was taking a toll on the kid, and neither of them was fully awake. Negan propped up under the window, leaning on a shelf, uncomfortable, but too tired to move.

"She killed herself," Jeffrey said, after a while.

Negan stirred. "Your sister?"

"She knew it was bad, and she knew what happened when… She knew what would happen."

"Shit," Negan murmured. "That's kinda badass." But even as he said it, he thought about Lucille. He wondered about her, about coming home to find a walker in their home. If she had been planning to off herself, would she have told him? Probably not. He was a selfish asshole. He would have stopped her, held onto her.

None of it mattered anymore.

"Did you go to the hospital?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yeah. Nobody there."

"I left after… I couldn't stand being there anymore."

"How long has it been since you've eaten something?"

"A while." Jeffrey looked sheepish, pale, drawing his knees up to hug them and make himself smaller. "When I see the dead people I just run. I just keep running."

"You got pretty far. I was on my way to Richmond. It's just east of here."

"What's in Richmond?"

Negan shrugged. "Nothing, probably. I don't have any other family. Lucille was it. Figured if there were people alive, they might be there. I didn't really think of what I'd do when I found them." Negan shifted, wincing. "Still got the bruises from the last time I ran into the living."

Jeffrey suddenly looked away, tucking his head against his arms. "Me, too."

It was quiet for a while. Negan drifted, but scattered nightmares kept him from resting. He picked his way through the hardware store, hovered in the windows, poked his head out back. It was a tiny town off the highway, bypassed, like a lot of old places. Luke's Parish. While the kid slept, Negan broke into nearby buildings, finding it mostly untouched. Food in the cabinets, batteries in the drawers, water in the garage. How long had Jeffrey been sitting in that hardware store, not eating? He was in the middle of a goldmine.

He returned in the wee hours, finding the kid awake, alert.

"I thought you left," Jeffrey said, a little uncertainty creeping into his otherwise blank face.

"I did, technically." Negan held his hand out, waiting, "Come on. There's a bed waiting."

Jeffrey took his hand, uncertain, and then swayed when he was on his feet. "What?"

"Kid, you got a lot to learn about staying alive. Last night, you asked me why. Well, here's your answer. You either do or you don't. If you don't wanna, that's fine. I'll give you my gun and you can take yourself out of it, be with your sister, all that sentimental shit. But if you wanna stay in, you gotta get your shit together. Because this is just sad."

Jeffrey followed him outside, looking petrified of the darkness. "Why do you care?"

Negan shrugged. "It's just down the road here. Get your ass in gear."

XxXxX

Home was a one-story house with a backdoor. Negan boarded up the windows, giving up on teaching the kid to do anything useful. Jeffrey put a nail through his finger, and then got a hell of a splinter in his palm. He tried his hand at scavenging, but just ended up running for his life when a walker showed up. Negan had to go out and take care of it, sighing as his bat came down on its head. It turned out Jeffrey was only good for talking and listening.

He talked about his life, his old school, the kids who picked on him. Negan listened, commented, laid down another Uno reverse card. Days were long and boring, and all there was to do was talk. It seemed pointless, as the weeks ground on, but it was less pointless than being alone.

Almost two weeks into their cohabitation, Jeffrey asked, "Why are you helping me?"

Negan was on the couch, halfway through a book about a forbidden romance. "That's a stupid question. You can ask 'why' about anything. Why's the sky blue? Why's the grass green? You can ask all day and you'll never run out."

"That's not an answer."

Negan went on reading.

"You talk so much all the time, but now you don't have anything to say?" Jeffrey was a lot stronger these days, if only in his voice. Now that he was eating more, resting, and mostly avoiding walkers, he had shaken the worst of his fear.

Negan put his book down, sighing. "I don't want to be alone. I need someone to look impressed when I do cool shit."

"Is that all?"

"Does there have to be more? What do you want from me?" Negan put his hand up, cutting the kid's response off. "Okay, I can see you're being all broody and serious right now. I helped you because we're in the same shit. We might as well book a table for two at the pity party. I'm being real with you, kid. I don't lie, I don't bullshit. I hate being alone. I hate quiet."

Jeffrey settled into the recliner, staring at the blank TV. "Do you think…? Do you think this will end? I mean, will the police come, or something?"

"I like you, Jeff, I really do, but you gotta grow up." Negan gestured to the window. "You gotta grow up fast. Ain't shit out there. It's been over a month, maybe two. You've seen what's happening. Empty streets, abandoned cars. Dead people up and walking, living people running around like animals. Even if there were still cops, or military, or whatever, they're trying to keep themselves alive – they don't give a shit about us."

Jeffrey sighed deeply, pressing back his fluffy black hair, trying in vain to make it lie flat. He did that when he was anxious. "That sucks."

"Yeah, it does." Negan nudged a book toward him. "Don't think about it."

"Is that why you're so peppy all the time?"

"Don't call me peppy, and yes. I've decided not to give a shit. You should try it."

Jeffrey picked up the book, studied it, set it back down. "What did you do, before this? What was your job?"

"Did you make a list of questions to go through the moment I got into the good part of this book?"

"I'm just curious."

"Maybe I'll tell you someday. But right now, please, for the love of all that is holy, please shut up."