Yeah-hh, I don't own the stories or the prime mover characters, and I'm not a paid advertiser for the products mentioned. I've chosen to give you the events here like a flashback, because Pete is not what you'd call a good storyteller. Thank you for the encouragement, guys. Enjoy.

NEGAN AND HOUSE START A SMALL WAR

Negan came riding up the driveway onto a wooded hill with five other bikers, turned, and parked. The flattish top of the driveway, as well as the cracked blacktop leading up to it, was surrounded and crowded on all sides with pikes to prevent ambush. The pikes, really just sharpened fence posts, broomsticks, and random lumber, stuck out into the driveway so far the motorcycles couldn't have passed each other or turned around till reaching the top. The camp looked rather badly put together. It was a slapped-together place, essentially two houses connected and boarded up with pallets, tables, and mismatched wood of all kinds. A high fence stretched to one side into the woods from the house on the left. A rock wall stretched from the house on the right, ending in a retaining wall. The only thing visible past the combined barricade was a water tower four stories up. Everyone but Negan and a large black man pulled out small machine guns. Negan pulled out Lucille and the large black man pulled two Molotov cocktails, unlit. Negan strode over to the front door of the left house and knocked. "Little pig, little pig, let me in!"

Silence greeted him. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, but louder. After a moment he frowned. "I'm gonna count to three. If nobody's home, I'm gonna have Dozer here light up your front wall. Then I'm gonna have him toss one over the wall. ONE! . . . TWO! . . ."

A hidden panel opened, swinging outward, nearly bashing Negan in the face as he leaned back at the knees. House's breathless face stuck out. "Do you MIND?! I'm trying to settle an argument here. Can you hold the countdown?"

Negan blinked. "Not for long. We've got things to do." He smiled.

House nodded, looking harried, and held a child's walkie up to his mouth. "I don't CARE if you can drop them all, Vic. We talked about this. There are more of them downhill. We saw them." He listened to the garbled static for a moment, apparently understanding at least some of it. "Thirty or so taking care of that horde of undead you called this way with your target practice. I've been telling you the sound echoes." He listened to a bit more. "Right." He rolled his eyes and looked back at Negan. "Do you actually need to come in? We don't have any more comfortable places to sleep, we haven't got much in the way to trade, and I doubt you're here just to give us gifts. We don't want you to go to the trouble you're going to, because our driveway thins herds down to where we can handle them. We haven't laid any particular claims to anything downhill, though we need a lot more stuff, and we generally keep to ourselves. Can I just say 'nice meeting you' and 'we don't want any' and part as unlikely friends?" He gave his best wheedling expression.

Negan smiled widely. "I DO appreciate you asking nicely. I even more appreciate you callin' off your sniper. You are correct in assuming that we would kill all of you if you started something now. A small forest fire at the base of this hill would be easy enough to do." He pulled out a full-sized walkie and put it to his lips. "No need to shoot the sniper. He's been called off. I've begun introductions."

"Right boss, standing down." The walkie crackled a bit.

Negan pocketed it with a big smile. "The short answer is 'no.' Five of us will come inside. If all six of us leave, the fire won't start today. We've been looking for your camp for a while. I only just now found the hidden entrance to your driveway." He reached for the knob expectantly.

House grimaced. "This door doesn't open anymore. The other house door opens, but it's gonna take a minute or two for Mary to get there. And duck as you come in. There's a fake surprise rigged to the floor." He slammed the panel shut and, audibly to everyone outside, shouted. "Mary! Let 'em in!"

Dozer grumbled, stomping up to the other door. Negan and three others walked up behind him, leaving one guarding the bikes, only one of two bikers wearing a helmet. A little over a minute later, the bikers could hear multiple chains coming off the door. Then Mary, a small, wiry, sixty-something black woman in a badly faded flower print, opened the door to the shotgun house. She stepped back to reveal a scuffed, frayed, and stained clutch purse hanging from a walker. (The aluminum kind with tennis balls for feet, not a moving corpse.) She had a stern, disapproving look on her face. Dozer stepped in and jerked to the right as a plastic mannequin arm wearing rags swung down at his left shoulder. He fumbled both bottles, trapping one against the wall to the right. Mary caught the other between the wall and her walker. House came limping into view, slightly out of breath, wearing holey jeans and a t-shirt. "I'm sorry, my good sir, but our on-licenses for bad listening and moronic behavior are not up to date. I'll have to ask you to take your cocktails outside. Might I suggest a seat on the grassy patch between the pile of decaying skulls and the panhead side of your group's convoy?" Negan raised his eyebrows in surprise and amusement as he continued with, "On a clear day, you can JUST make out the steeple at the other end of this JOYful hamlet. The Church Of The Blessed Resurrection! I highly recommend the view for its piquant irony."

Negan smiled wider and handed Dozer the bottle Mary had caught, saying, "Set 'em down out there, Dozer, and come on back. There's a good boy." He looked back at Mary. "Good reflexes. I'm Negan. You must be Mary." She looked at him even more sternly and nodded, just once. Negan smiled. "Steph! I found you a chaperone!"

The third biker back, the other biker wearing a helmet, pulled off her helmet and shook out her dirty blonde hair. "Great, now I get someone to horrify." She had a pierced nose bridge and a Harley Davidson tat on her forehead.

Negan grinned at House. "We're gonna need you to hand us your guns. If you give us no trouble while we're here, we'll give 'em back. Bring 'em here." House rolled his eyes. "Vic has our only gun." House pointed through a high window at the water tower supports, where they could just see a scaffolded platform with Vic on it. Vic was fat, jowly, and wore bib overalls stretched to their limit. Negan shrugged. "How do you ward off the dead?"

"We wait till we can see they're far enough away and go downhill to try our luck. If they make it up our mile-long driveway we put them down by hand."

Negan pulled down his mouth corners in an impressed expression. "I'll need Vic's gun, and it's not that I don't trust you, but I'll need to see everyone here. You don't lie to us or hide from us, we can get done with all our business and leave you be on the quick side. Bring me everyone to the back porch here so I can speak to all of you at once."

House pulled out his child's walkie again. "Wilson? Bring the others out. I'll get Ann Gee." He subtly released the button partway. "She's having another episode." He released it the rest of the way. The walkie crackled some more. "Uh-huh. VIC? THEY WANT YOUR GUN. Slide it down the rope in the case!" He turned to Negan. "Would you help me with this tarp? Best to make her hide her eyes at first. Flip the whole thing this way." He pointed as he limped over to an oddly bulging tarp at the other end of the porch and picked up one end. Negan, a funny look on his face, took the other end. House counted down from three with his fingers, then the two of them flipped the tarp off of the porch.

A woman with a blood-soaked bandage around most of her head leapt at House screeching "Jacob! Jacob! Jacob!" while Negan stared. House grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. He deftly thumped her on the back of the neck with his cane. She fell limp in his arms. House lowered her to the porch, ballooning out her already shapeless dress. "She's having a bad day. I'll get her a doctor's note for the meeting if you want."

"You have a doctor?"

"Technically, he was an oncologist. But he's very sympathetic." He looked at Negan. "That means cancer doctor."

"No, I—I know that. I was wonderin' what happened to her."

"Mike. After he raped her, she had his kid. Then, he got drunk and left her kid to get eaten. She went to hit him, and he broke her face. Wilson stitched her up as best he could, but her mind isn't always 'open for business?' Let's leave it at that." House noted Negan's face changing with subtle interest.

"Where's Mike now?" His voice was only slightly different. Just a bit of an edge.

"Dead. I killed him."

Negan looked surprised. "That what happened to your leg?"

"No, I had that before. I handed Mike some spiked moonshine. I waited till half of it was gone and turned some shelves over on him. Then I nailed his right foot to the shelves . . ."

"Whoa!"

". . . and I limped to my bicycle. The pain sobered him up enough he remembered he had a small pistol I didn't know about. He shot at me, but only managed to ruin my bike. I got away as he was eaten."

Negan smiled then. "VICIOUS bastard! You and Ann Gee a thing now?"

House looked at Negan in apparent shock. "Her? She's not really sane yet. Her baby was all she had, and she hasn't forgiven me for killing Mike yet." He tossed the tarp over her and turned to limp back. "She'll come around someday maybe." Mary came shuffling with her walker out to the porch as Wilson, with a confused and worried look on his face, led Pete and Ann up to the porch. Ann was tall and built like a fullback, easily dwarfing Pete and Wilson. "Where's Ann Gee?" asked Wilson.

"She's in a time out. Negan knows."

"Where's Vic?" said Negan.

House looked up at Vic who wasn't visible. "Apparently he's not coming down."

"So order him down." As Negan shrugged and made the suggestion, Ann snorted, Pete laughed, Wilson made a face, and House rolled his eyes.

"Did you think I was the leader?" said House, "I might make a good one, but Vic's in charge of the home team."

THUMP!

Vic's body landed on a pile of old firewood behind House, and House's eyes grew wide.

"Uh-oh," said House, not turning back.

Yeah—this is normally where House would look at the camera and go to commercial break . . . but we don't have those in fanfic, as we can't make any money, so . . .

Negan peered around House for a moment. "I guess you're the leader now. What's your name?"

"House."

"Well, I'll make this quick. We get half of what you have every time we come by. Just to let you know we're serious, we're going to kill one of your people right now. Steph?!" She lifted her machine gun.

"Wait! You already did that!" House pointed over his shoulder at Vic's body.

"We didn't kill him."

"What do you mean, you didn't kill him? You caused the heart attack! He was scared of YOU!" House looked indignant.

"I mean we didn't choose to kill him," said Negan, "And really you all helped kill him. You let him eat more than his share rather than puttin' his flabby ass on a diet—"

"He ransomed our water! He booby-trapped the whole water tower!"

"You didn't take over. That means you accepted it."

"Well, doesn't that mean we shouldn't accept you killing someone else?"

Negan pulled out a large Bowie knife and pointed it at House. "You want to fight about it?"

House blinked. "Not with weapons. And definitely not to the death. Aren't there too many dead people already? What about negotiation? Isn't there a way we can BUY you not killing anyone else today? You've only talked about your rules. What about ours?"

Negan sheathed the knife, scowling. "I NEVER negotiate on an empty stomach."

House whirled to Pete. "Is Vic's afternoon snack ready yet?"

Pete blanched. "Almost? Needs to be heated up."

House gestured with his head, and Pete went running to the other house, a biker following him. House turned to Wilson. "Bring those pork rinds I was hiding from Vic. Hand them out to our guests. Ann can't have those anyway, having been raised Jewish."

"Amish," said Ann.

"WhatEVERish! Hand those out while Pete's finishing the pasta."

Negan found two bags of pork rinds in his hands a moment later, a bag in the hands of each one of his present members, and a bag beside Steph for the member outside. He blinked, opened a bag and took a mouthful right away. House came limping up to him with two lawn chairs, set them up, and sat down across from him. Negan sat, chewing his second mouthful.

"Technically, you didn't just help kill Vic," began House, "You helped kill everyone here. Vic booby-trapped the water tower, so anyone who tries to get water will die, and we're not mobile enough to survive to find clean water." Negan's eyebrows went up again, and he began to open his mouth as House barreled on. "However! There's no sense in dwelling on that except as a negotiation point. We'd really like to die in peace, Wilson and I. He has cancer. I'm a cripple. We don't have that long. None of us will live but about four days on what we have already portioned out. So why don't I fight one of your other guys with no weapons?"

Negan blinked. "The hell you sayin'?"

"We could vote our newest member be the sacrifice, right? Our by-laws say that we can accept anyone who can beat one of us at an approved contest."

Negan blinked again, beginning to smile.

"I can take him!" Dozer stood from the porch, not really having listened.

House began to stand up.

"Hold up." Negan stood. He turned to Dozer. "You want to join his team?"

"What?" Dozer looked shell-shocked. "Hell, no! I want to fight him. He called me a moron."

Negan stepped up to Dozer and whispered, "Don't resist him or get too loud, or you'll be sorry." He went and sat down again. "He can't fight you for those stakes, because I own him. He's not allowed to fight you."

House frowned slightly. "You mean, you've specifically told him he can't fight back?"

Negan pointed at House's cane. "Four days for all of you to die? We never intended to help cause that. Four hits at my moron—" He glared at Dozer. "—with the cane." Negan and House shared a quiet look of sadistic glee. "Of course, he will have to ride his hog down the hill afterwards, so choose carefully where you hit him."

"I think first I should refresh my golf swing."

Negan smiled an ugly smile. "One! . . . Two! . . . Three!"

"FORE!" House made a perfect golf swing with his cane ending at Dozer's crotch. Dozer doubled over, grunting. "Hogs start with that pedal on the right, right?"

"Right!" Negan was beaming.

House used the cane's hook to pull Dozer's left foot up. House deftly loosened Dozer's boot, dropped it, waited for Dozer to put his foot down, and rammed the end of his cane down onto Dozer's left instep. Dozer shrieked and collapsed to one knee, holding his foot, clenching his teeth around his cursing.

"Oo-oooh. That's two!" Negan was smiling, relaxed.

"Wilson? One of the middle ribs, if it breaks, that's safe, right?"

Wilson blinked. "Um? One of the ribs in the back right middle with a bat swing would be pretty safe, yes." He cringed a little.

House swung and hit. Dozer fell to a crawl, moaning. House stepped a bit closer. "Only one more. This is a difficult choice. Gotta be safe, and I don't like repeating myself . . ." He made a golf swing right between Dozer's legs into his crotch again, causing him to convulse a bit. "But when you repeat yourself, you should always go with the classics!" He twirled the cane.

Negan was laughing as House limped back to his lawn chair. Dozer passed out and hit the deck. Wilson quietly crept up, took Dozer's pulse, and retreated.

"Is there anyone else you've forbidden to fight back?"

Negan shook his head, smiling and holding his stomach.

"Now back to business," said House, "There is a special case in that same set of rules. If I, as ad hoc leader, were to lose a no-weapons fight to YOU, being your group's leader, our group would dissolve. Everyone who wants could go to your place, and maybe you could see your way clear to leave us here to die in peace? You're not headed MAINLY west, are you? Mary? If the Pharaoh Negan here is headed near Kentucky, you'd like to go, wouldn't you?" Mary visibly stiffened as Negan squinted at House. Ann motioned to one of the bikers to accompany her and led him into an outbuilding.

"Not headed to Kentucky, House. Sorry, Mary." Negan smiled.

Mary tightened her grip on her walker. "Wilson? Would you get my gray scarf for me? It's drying on the line out back." She turned to Negan. "My walker folds up. I'll start out now." She began inching toward the door.

House turned back to Negan. "She can get blood and, well, anything out of clothes! She sews well, too. She said she can patch leather if she has a drill to make the stitch-holes with. We don't have a drill. All we need are four days' rations each. You could take ALL the rest of it! I would ask that you leave us some GOOD last meals."

Negan smiled. "Steph? Go take a look in their kitchen. They haven't had time to hide anything, really. Go take a look." He looked at Pete, leading his escort forward with a plate of spaghetti. "Tell me how much we can haul off leaving them sittin' pretty for four days."

"How many would stay?" Steph said to House.

House spoke quietly and rapidly. "Wilson and I and Ann Gee. I promised her once I'd put her down if the situation warranted it. Wilson?! What would dehydration do to her current state?"

Wilson, looking confused as ever, said, "Her STATE? House? Are you asking ME—"

"Is there anyone ELSE named Wilson here? Of course I'm asking you. Last I checked, you were a doctor! What would dehydration do to someone psychotic with PTSD?"

Wilson, looking completely flabbergasted, said, "Well, there's a small chance it would bring them around before it killed them, but . . ." Pete, looking preoccupied, handed Negan a plateful of spaghetti.

House, noticing the extra fork, grabbed it and tasted the spaghetti, nodding. "Good enough; thank you, Pete. I'm on the hook for killing her for being crazy or saving her sanity in time for her imminent demise." He turned to Negan. "This sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Eat up while you consider my proposal."

Negan pointed at one of the more muscular bikers and waved at him to help Mary. "This spaghetti looks pretty good. Pete the cook?" Negan took a bite.

"Yes. Pete? Would you rather go be part of Pharaoh Negan's biker gang or stay here and die with us?"

Pete gaped. "I'll get my go-bag." He scurried off, biker following him.

Negan smiled, chewing. Steph grinned and started toward the kitchen.

"He's no good in a fight, but that's possum spaghetti, if you can believe that."

Negan looked down at the spaghetti in obvious disbelief. "Really?! Impressive." He took another large bite.

Ann, now wearing a backpack, came walking out of the outbuilding, leading her escort out. Ann continued out to the motorcycles. Negan waved at her escort to follow Steph.

House grimaced, "and it looks like Ann made her decision as well. She's our butcher. Three with you. Technically, you're taking half our group. It looks like all I have to do now is fight you. What would I get if I win?"

"You think you could kill me with your bare hands?"

"Oh, GOD; we're not fighting to the DEATH! Just till one of us gives up! You should NEVER kill people you don't know—that just practically invites revenge." Negan slightly startled. "Besides," House barreled on, "That would undo all our arrangements."

Negan stood, spaghetti eaten. "Okay, I'm ready. If you win, what say I round up ten gallons of water and a kid's scooter and have it dropped off within two days. That's fair, isn't it?"

"Can you leave the contents of the smokehouse?" House pointed.

"What you got in there?"

"I think Ann said it was beaver. They were small, though. Could be rat. She doesn't like me much."

"Done. Put up your dukes."

House raised his fists—and threw himself down on the porch. He melodramatically yelled as he kept his face deadpan. "Owww! Owww! I give up! You win! You're the man! He hit me so fast I didn't even SEE it!" He opened his mouth in mock amazement.

Negan dropped his fists, laughing. "You're really funny. In awful good spirits for someone gonna die soon."

House nodded. "Chronic pain will do that. My leg's been aching for too many years."

"Make you welcome death or be funny?"

"Both." House reached up. Negan hauled him to his feet and shook his hand.

Steph came trotting back. "Smokehouse's got small stuff in it. Eighteen meals, maybe. Hundred meals or so in the pantry. Some chocolate. There's a still, too, but it's too big to take today."

Negan nodded. "Leave the still and the smokehouse and—thirty big meals. Take half the chocolate. Pack it up." He strode over to Dozer and kicked him. "Get up! You're leadin' us down the hill. AND you're carryin' as much as we can tie to you and your hog. Go to Steph and start carryin' it out."

It took longer for Mary to walker herself to the bikes than it did for them to tie Dozer to his bike and tie rough parcels of food to him and his filled compartments. Mary folded up her walker, slung it over the shoulder opposite her purse, and was positioned behind a huge biker feeling up his bicep in seconds. Snickering at her obvious enjoyment, he drove off fourth, right after Ann shouldered her backpack and got on behind Steph to ride off on the third bike. Negan waved as the fifth biker started down. "We'll probably be comin' back here soon after you're dead for your still. You understand." He pulled Pete onto the bike behind himself.

"Feel free to put us down if you find us here dead," called House, waving.

Wilson, beside him in the front door, whispered, "We're really going to be okay?"

House turned away to limp out the back. "No, of course not." He waved one hand melodramatically and spoke flatly in the doorway, "We're all gonna die."

"What?! We just got away with that! And somehow you kept him from salivating all over Ann Gee." Wilson shrieked as he saw Ann Gee's bloody bandages through the window.

House took a set of binoculars from Ann Gee and tossed them to Wilson. "It's fake! Just watch them leave?! Tell me how it goes wrong." He turned to Ann Gee. "JACOB?!" He shook his head at her.

"Sorry, House. You adapted fine, though. We good?"

"No, we're not good. We're all gonna die, unless maybe you shoot Negan and they all decide to leave without taking revenge. Stay in cover. Last bike of six. Climb for it."

Ann Gee leapt for a nearby ladder, and House stared after her for a moment before limping hurriedly to the still.

A third of a mile down the hill, right after a bend in the road, suddenly Ann drew a knife with her left hand and jabbed it up under Steph's ribs. Ann gave the knife a twist, and then, reaching up and taking the handlebars, revved the engine as Steph crumpled and fell off the bike. Ann rammed the bike in front of her, sending the second biker to be skewered by pikes and the bike sliding sideways down the hill off the road.

Uphill, Wilson's eyes bugged out. "HOU—SE!?" House started banging on something out of his view. "Stay there! Was that Ann or Mary getting killed?" As they spoke, Ann rammed into the belabored Dozer, causing both his bike and hers to slam into the bank with a sickening crunch. "That—was Ann," called Wilson, "What are you doing?"

"Keep watching!"

Ann Gee hollered down. "House? Not many bullets here."

"Make 'em count."

Negan screeched his bike to a halt. He watched the biker in front of him catch up to the biker with Mary, who had stopped at Steph's body. He noted them dismounting. Mary scowled at the wreckage downhill and shook her head. "Count on a butcher to be violent." The fifth biker said, "Knifed Steph. You holding any?"

Mary looked at him funny. "I would NEVER have a knife!" She handed him her purse and unfolded her walker as the biker she'd been riding with began to pat her down. "I prefer bombs." Mary twisted her brooch. Her purse blew up. It blew the biker holding it in half, the other biker out of his boots, and Mary into the pikes.

Uphill, Wilson called out, "House?! Mary's dead too. What'd you say to them?"

"Just keep watching! Anj, fire!"

Ann Gee fired. The shot went so wide, Negan didn't even notice it. House was the only one to have known that sound was dampened downhill but magnified uphill by the odd acoustics of this particular wooded hillside. Negan carefully reached into the sharp pikes to his left and gripped one. Twisting it with all his strength, he pulled it loose. "Pete?"

Pete swallowed noisily. "Yes?"

"If you do anything to me, you'll burn with your friends uphill. But if you ride down with me, I'll probably kill you with my knife. What do you want to do?"

"Give me a chance to cook for you, Negan. I don't fight good. You get me off this hill alive, and I'll be the best cook you've got. Just need time to learn how you like stuff."

Negan stood the pike against the handlebars and twisted loose a second one. He placed it about parallel to the ground between his left thigh and the bike, point sticking a full two feet in front of the bike. He put the other on his right shoulder and said, "Hold this right here. Don't let go." A bullet ricocheted off the driveway in front of them. Negan drove down the hill slowly, right over the first two bikes, spearing one of the dead bikers' heads as it lifted with the left pike. Mary's undead body was still trying to use the walker, impaled by three pikes. Negan seized the pike on his shoulder and twisted it slightly, catching Steph's body right through the neck as they rolled past, causing her head to tilt down at an odd angle. As Negan and Pete drove up to Ann's body, a head shot from Ann Gee put Ann's body down. Negan drove right over Ann's body without pause.

Uphill, Ann Gee cursed a blue streak. "House! Negan's getting away! I missed!"

"Shoot him!"

"That was the last bullet!"

"Bring me Vic's remote!"

"You don't know the code!"

"Just bring it! Wilson! Come join us at the still!"

Ann Gee picked up a leather glove, shouldered Vic's backpack, and put the glove on. She grabbed a hanging rope with the gloved hand, wrapped her other hand around it, and slid down the rope to land with her right boot partly on Vic's head, as his upper half was beginning to climb the woodpile. She dashed away, not noticing that the blow didn't end Vic's corpse. She unshouldered the backpack and handed it down to House, who was half in one of seven plastic chemical barrels in a shallow pit in the ground. "What now?"

House took the remote out of Vic's backpack. "You have two minutes." He heaved two empty backpacks at her. "Fill these with food and get back here. Go!" He started pushing buttons on the remote as she ran for the kitchen.

Wilson reappeared, having pulled a tarp over with some homemade armor on it. "It should take them longer than three minutes to turn and drive back up to kill us, House. Why two minutes?"

"We're not waiting. Get in that barrel."

"The still's not—"

"GET IN THE BARREL! I need you to put this backpack against the red 'x' in the bottom."

"The red—? Okay?!" He stepped in and bent down into the barrel. "House? There's no 'x,' nothing in here but gray padding, an oxygen tank, and a tubing pack with a mask? HEY!" Wilson cried out as House closed the lid of the barrel and fastened it shut. Wilson shook the barrel, struggling against the lid for a moment.

House pulled out two plastic barrel lids, some rope, a pulley, and a small pry bar. He stuffed the pry bar into the padding of one barrel. He thumped on Wilson's lid. "Turn on the oh-two, Wilson! Put your mask on." He listened for a moment, nodding. "You can thank me later!" Ann Gee came running up with two backpacks. House took the smaller one. "Get in there, quick!" Ann Gee froze.

"I . . . can't do that."

"You'll die if you stay out here. Vic's bombs will go off, and the water will kill everything in its direct path."

Ann Gee ripped off the fake bandage headpiece, revealing an absolutely beautiful, unscarred Chinese face. "You KNOW it took me two WEEKS to be able to wear this under that tarp!"

"You're right," said House, sighing, "Help me out of here."

Ann Gee tossed aside her shapeless dress and lumpy rags to reveal a too-tight dress barely covering a fantastic figure. She braced herself and hauled House out—and then jerked as if stung. "What—?" She collapsed into House's arms. With a wry smile, he tossed away the syringe he'd just stuck her with and pushed her down into the barrel. He turned on the tank, fitted the mask on over her face, tightened the strap, added a food backpack and padding, and cinched down the lid with a small fastener. He quickly used the pulley and the rest of the rope to tie the barrels together as tightly as he could manage, reinforcing the joins already in place. He recoiled as he heard the charges go off overhead. He rolled to his barrel, yanked everything in, and closed the modified lid, muttering—"Niagara Falls, eat your heart out."

Ha! How could House NOT pick out Negan's feelings about rape when conning him to believe Ann Gee's disguise and use them to decide how to fight Negan's takeover? How could he NOT enjoy a bit of doing definite harm in flagrant violation of his old oath? How could he NOT bond a bit, sharing a moment with his new frienemy? How could he NOT have developed an escape plan using all of the resource he'd been kept from his whole time living there? And, of course, how could he possibly not have antagonized the angriest enforcer Negan had with him and outsmarted him all at the same time? (All while making generally derogatory declarations about religion and culture, too.) Where absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute snarkiness absolutely cheeses off corrupt power. Or something like that.)