19
"…my momma told me the Prophetess has called me cuz' she ain't feeling the best and I can help to get her better, is that right?"
Stanislav closed his eyes and stifled a groan as he led the way through the empty, dark wood-paneled halls of his employers keep- the woman insisted on calling it a mansion, but it was a tall, narrow windowed and thick-walled building, and as a European, Stanislav felt more than qualified to point out that it was bloody well a castle keep and not simply an overly large house.
Not that anyone listened. Not that it mattered.
He glared back over his shoulder at the girl following in his wake; she was young, pretty and light skinned, almost pale, somewhere in her twenties.
Just to her taste.
He tried to not think about how many girls, women and boys, when none of the first two were available- no men, for whatever reason the witch had -had gone into the construction of this building.
He had been here since the beginning, since just after the shamblers had first appeared, their numbers growing steadily as they tore down the wall of steel and firepower the masters of the United States had thrown up around their capital until the walls had eventually crumbled, spilling chaos and despair ahead of their limitless wave of rotten bodies, the tide easily engulfing the Russian Embassy where Stanislav had been a security officer.
He had been a soldier, an officer, trained spetsnaz of the great Motherland and at the end he had been a simple guard, an ocean away from the country and the family that had needed him as the world was consumed.
He had stood by his duty to guard the ambassador and his family to the last, quite literally; as the few men he had under his command who had stood by their posts to the end had been dragged down one by one in the desperate flight from the collapsing heart of the American empire, so had the family in their charge, until at last there stood only himself and the ambassadors daughter a a haughty girl of twenty, broken and almost maddened by the apocalypse around her, wondering the roads of what had once been the state of Virginia, until they had stumbled upon the walls and towers of the witch's capital, deep in the mountains.
The witch, his employer, had been happy to accept another trained soldier into her ranks- for an initiation fee, of course.
Stanislav had seen the ambassador's daughter twice after he had given her over to the witch, and at neither time was she still herself.
The former Russian soldier looked around the hallways; he had been there since the beginning, and thus he knew the true material for this construction was not the piles of transmuted wood, steel, copper, stone and glass that gone into it, but an endless stream of fresh blood and young flesh; like the Egyptians pyramids, the true cost of this construction was in blood, not treasure.
After asking her question, the girl had fallen silent, which suited him just fine. She had been taken form the refuges camps around the walls of the witches fortress, where the woman's criers and preachers plied their trade, building the cult of personality that kept is employer charged with new recruits and fresh bodies.
The ex-soldier shook his head, don't think just survive he commanded his mind, repeating the mantra of his instructors at basic training, so long, long ago, in world that had passed.
But it was so, so hard not to think about how many he had taken on this journey- they had mostly been refugees and prisoners seized by the other mercenaries, almost all brought to their fate by his hands- kicking and screaming some cases, but none had ever had the strength to overcome e the brawny commando.
The American S.E.A.L.'s the witch had recruited from the naval bases on the coast, just after the collapse. had been charged with thus duty at first, but they had a habit of delivering their charges bruised, bloodied and violated, much to the witches complaint- what use where already broken bodies to her, she had asked before taking the naval specials forces commanders wife as her next tribute.
After that it had been his exclusive honor to feed the beast with her next body. He never hit them. He never took liberties with the admittedly attractive women and girls in his ever so brief charge; he other just led them to the inner sanctum of the witch or dragged them, kicking and screaming or sobbing and wailing, but either way he brought them to the witch and her archaic circles and he dark, ever pressing hunger.
"Sir… the prophetess is going to take care of my little brother, now, right? Like the preacher said?"
Stanislav nodded, without looking back.
Anything to keep the fool moving.
"Good, that's good. It's hard out there, even with the food deliveries from inside, here. But he can be safe behind the wall. Daddy told me to keep him and momma safe, before he…before they…anyways, momma will be safe with Ted, her new man, but Buddy, I want him to get behind the wall. That stupid little boy just can't stay safe out there. He need's a safe place, you know?"
Stanislav considered turning around and knocking the girl out cold, but, as mentioned, the witch took exception when her bodies arrived with pre-existing damages.
And, in any case, they were here.
Stanislav took a heavy, engraved golden key from his pocket; the stupid thing had been the witches preference, like this entire ridiculous building, but no one has asked him about practicality so he kept his face straight as he unlocked the door and motioned the girl inside.
He heard an elderly woman voice call a greeting form inside as the girl passed through the doors, welcoming her into the inner sanctum as the Russian shut the doors behind the girl.
A few minutes later, there was a short, sharp scream as an electric current pulsed through the air, making the hairs on his neck stand on end as he grit his teeth.
A moment later, he unlocked the doors and went inside.
The body of an old woman , decrepit with age, wizened fingers still clutched in arthritic claws even in death, lay sprawled in the middle of still smoking array of circular designs and inscriptions. The girl he had been escorting stood nude in front of a gilded, full length mirror, having shed the simple white shift she had bene wearing into the room.
The girl was examining her face, pulling the flesh tight and checking her teeth, before turning to look at the view from the back, then back around, disinterestedly lifting and squeezing her small breasts before leaning forward to gaze intently at her eyes in the reflection.
The ritual, one Stanislav had seen before, ranged somewhere between a sensual display and a cattle broker examining new stock and it was all he had not to gag.
"Deal with that." The girl ordered, waving vaguely behind her.
Stanislav didn't bother acknowledging the command, simply taking a plastic sheet covered in old blood and viscera, from behind the door, moving quickly to drag the corpse of the crone unto it before drawing a heavy, cut down sledge hammer from the back of the equipment vest he wore.
He brought it down with a weighty *crunch* unto the corpses head.
Sometimes the Wildfire virus turned the witches old husks into shamblers, sometimes it did not, but either way he wasn't taking chances. The very inconsistency of it was unnerving; it was one thing for the witch to he immune form the virus that had ravaged the earth it was neither for it to be seemingly random. But to any other mere mortal, death on this world was only a temporary affair, at least until the final blow to the head that ended ones violent, involuntary resurrection.
The witch ignored Stanislav actions as she sat down on a velvet cushioned seat in front of another tall mirror, picking up a pair of scissors as she carefully styled the hair of her new body into her customary pixie cut.
"What news?" she asked. She didn't use his name, He still wasn't sure she knew it.
"The exploration and infiltration teams are fanning out further, the commander says." Stanislav answered; he didn't add my lady or ma'm or any other honorifics; the witch didn't care for such things any more than she cared for his name.
In a way, that was more frightening than if he had been an arrogant, entitled bitch who insisted on abasement with every sentence.
"They have gotten into a few encampments to the northwest, just outside the far suburbs if D.C., but they lost contact with a team that had been infiltrating a group based in an old factory.
"Pity." The witch said, absentmindedly. She stood, ignoring her own nudity as she turned to look at him,
"Stanislav," She began, nearly giving the mercenary a heart attack. He really had been convinced the creature didn't know his name, "Have there been any reports of a strange…boy, I suppose, with a metal arm and blond hair?"
"Er…no…"
"Hmmf. Well, he is an old mistake of mine, form before I got to this world. Let Commander McReady know that is his men or his agents catch word of someone like that, he s to report to me immediately.
"Yes…I-I will."
"Good. You may go."
The ex-soldier turned to flee, but halted as the witch called,
"And Stanislav?"
"Yes, ma'm?" he returned, being as respectfully as possible; the vessel might be that of the naïve, scared young girl he had been talking to minutes ago, but the thing inhabiting that body now was far, far older and inconceivably more dangerous.
"My name is Dante. Please call me that from now on." The witch ordered, favoring him with a smile he knew she meant to be disarming.
It was all he could do not to flee.
20.
"…hey kid…"
"Edward…"
Ed slowly his eyes, his vison blurred; his body felt drained of every scrap of energy and everything ached.
"You alive?"
"Yes. But I'm not sure I want to be."
"That's the spirit. The good news is your big ass splatty trap splatted that herd, so I do stand corrected- you sure as shit can handle just about any amount stenches you want." Negan leaned over into Ed's field of vison, looking down at him.
"…and what's the bad news?"
"I'm not sure you can do it again. I mean, you look like shit Eddie."
"Just go away and let me die in peace, Negan."
The bandit leader chuckled,
"The real good news, really, is that Captain Burny Face didn't explode your fucking heart with that Epipen. While it as a cool as shit trick, it also fucking stupid as fuck, isn't it? Dwight?"
Edward was too tired to look around to see where the burned savior was standing, but he weakly held a hand up and waved at hi trying to let the man know that he was alright,
"Still better than being eaten alive by dead people." Ed quipped,
"There is that." Negan stood up, and Ed shakily sat up to find the other Saviors standing around them, the splattered remainder of the rogue mob of stenches scattered around them.
Arat was nearby, holding her pistol in one hand while examining its magazine with another,
"We used a lot of ammo on this," She pointed out, slamming the magazine back into her pistol while favoring Ed with one of calculating glares, which the Alchemist returned with one of his own; he was starting to figure out that the woman simply wanted to shoot everything around her at any given moment, like a sociopathic and slightly more humorous version of Hawkeye, and that he just had to stop worrying about it.
"We'll get more." Negan pointed out, "We always do." He sounded unconcerned,
"Until we don't." Arat pointed out.
"Well, when and if we have to cross that fucking bridge far off on the motherfuckin' distance, I, your glorious goddamn leader, will determine the best course of goddamn action. In the meantime, let's get loaded up. Dwight, get the kid in the back of the pickup, and Frank, I swear to god if you hit one fucking pothole on the way back, Lucille will be most motherfucking vociferous in her disapproval."
With a heave of effort, Edward got to his feet, rolling his head to work some of the stiffness out of his neck,
"Oh, look at you." Negan smirked, "Suddenly up and at 'em- surprised you can lift those steel balls of yours in this condition. Fuck, you may look like a dead fucking trout, but you did just waste a thousand plus stenches."
Ed actually felt himself smiling at the profane praise.
"Come on then, let's hit it." Negan called, turning to walk over to one of those trucks with the open cargo bay in the back- although this one seemed to equipped with unreasonably large tires and for some reason every other surface seemed like it was pated with chrome.
Negan climbed into the back and turned to offer his hand to Ed, who had been cautiously following him, but Ed attempted to ignore him and climb in on his own, trying to ignore his exhaustion, but the big man simply reached down and hauled the alchemist into the truck bed by the loose fabric of his shirt and hoodie.
"Don't be a dumbass, Ed. You ain't got a fucking thing to prove right now." Negan sat down, back against the truck's cab, facing backwards,
"Always did like riding like this."
Ed, with no particular idea where else might be vaguely safe to be in the open truck bed as the vehicle started moving, sat down next to him.
With air of street conjurer, Negan produced a pair of bright red cans from a box strapped to the side of the truck bed,
"Here, let me welcome you to planet Earth with one of our traditional beverages." Negan opened one the cans and handed it off to Edward; the young alchemist regarded the slightly fizzing liquid he could just make out through the small hole on the top of the can with caution a Negan took a sip and grimaced,
"It's little flat, but hey, the fucking world ended- what the fuck can we do about it?"
Edward read the label on the side of the can- Coca Cola -and took a cautious sip; this seemed like some kind of soft drink, like the ones back one Amestris…Ed's golden eyes widened as the caramel-colored liquid hit his taste buds with its syrupy sweet flavor, and his sip turned into gulp, which ended in a coughing fit that turned into a bout of almost manic laughter.
"Not bad!"
"Uh-huh…kid I think you might have problem with high fructose corn syrup…" Negan trailed off as Edward gulped down the rest of his drink, "Fuck, you probably need to raise your damn blood sugar right now, anyway." He growled, before handing off the rest of his own cola to Ed.
"So has that happened before?" Negan asked, growing serious,
"Has what happened before?"
"Your bout of…alchemical dysfunction. You went hard with that first wall and then you were down for the count until Dwighty jabbed you."
Ed shook his head and stopped gulping down Negan's soda.
"Not like that, no." he simply explained, and Negan nodded,
"Any idea why?"
"Not sure, might be this world, it has to be different, somehow, than Amestris. At least, that's my guess, I'd have to test my hypothesis…I shouldn't have gone unready like that, I…"
Negan sighed in annoyance,
"You didn't do shit, Eddie, I did."
"What?"
"You wouldn't have been in that damn roadway if I hadn't been pushing your buttons. You know that, right?"
"I'm the one who said I could handle it."
"And if I hadn't been handing you the goddamn rope to hang yourself with, you wouldn't have gone hard like that. You'd have found out some other way, hopefully without so much fucking ruckus, right?"
Ed shrugged and looked around,
"Ohhh strong and moody type all of sudden, huh? Stop acting your physical age and go back to trying to be all grown up, will you? It's adorable, brightens my day." Negan opened another sod he took form the box, not the least bit concerned at going through three never to be found again rarities in less than five minutes, "Anyways, enough living with the past- moving on. When we get back, you're gonna crash, right? I'll have someone bring you a bite to eat up in your room, after that, get some rest…" Negan trailed off as the truck slowed while the driver wound through the wreckage choked main street of a small town they were passing through to get back to the Sanctuary.
A particularly pitiful reanimated shuffled towards the truck from the front as the driver slowly edged between to wrecks; when they got closer, Negan stood up, bracing himself on two legs as he brought Lucille down on the things head, crushing its rot-softened skull.
"Ugh, fuck me that is ripe…" Negan griped, grabbing ahold of the trucks rollbar and flicking the slimy viscera of the undead creature off and unto the cracked asphalt below.
"Let me ask you something, Eddie," Negan prompted as he sat down next to Ed, "Those things freak you out? You are fairly new to all this shit…"
Edward shrugged,
"At first. Not anymore. When I first saw them, I could tell they were undead, zombies…"
"Zombies? The fuck is a zombie?" Negan didn't recognize the phrase- he guessed it was something from Eds world that didn't exist here or the kid hadn't translated yet.
"An alchemist can use certain techniques to temporarily bring a corpse to life…I had a run in with someone who it seemed had done it, but he was actually using alchemy to bind human souls to dolls, bringing them to life…"
"Wait, wait hold the fuck on, kiddo, your blue sparky Jedi bullshit can do shit like that?" Negan demanded,
Ed nodded,
"Yes. It's just…taboo? No, sinful, or immoral. It's not something I would ever do" again, Ed thought, "And it takes a terrible price to use alchemy like that. And to use that much power on this world…" Ed shook his head, "I don't want to know what the cost would be."
Negan snorted in dark amusement,
"Here I was, thinking you were all fucking sheltered and shit…you've seen some fuckery, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
Negan used Lucille to point at something in the fenced in yard of a house they were passing; it took Edward moment, but then he spotted a reanimated child chained to a tree near the house's porch. He couldn't tell if the wasted, maggot eaten creature had once been a boy or a girl, but it followed the trucks progress with empty eyes sockets as it vainly struggled against the rusted chains that bound it in place as it reached its rotting hands out in a vain attempt to reach them, mouth open in soundless snarl; judging by the ruin of the things mouth, it's tongue had been eaten, by the creature that turned it or by carrion birds.
"Worse than that?"
Ed remembered a monstrous dog with a crest of long, brown hair,
"Play with me, big brother,"
"Yeah."
"Fuck me…" Negan breathed, seeing the dead seriousness in Edwards eyes,
"No. Pervert."
"What the fu…" Negan began to snarl, enraged that Ed thought; the alchemist was smiling, tiredly,
"Oh, you got fucking jokes. We'll make an emotionally dead apocalypse survivor outta you yet, Eddie."
Ed finished his soda and tossed the can to the side of the bed,
"Yayyy…"
When they got back to the Saviors fortress, Ed had enough of an energy buzz left from the sugar filled soda he'd downed that he was able to stagger off to his room, where he was fully ready to collapsed on the bed in exhaustion (again), but a knock on the door kept him from the sweet release of slumber.
He had opened the door to find three of the "normal" survivors that dwelt on the factory floor, which Ed was starting to understand were general laborer's and craftspeople, while ethe armed Saviors were the militia and Negan's muscle, along with Dwight.
The workers had arms full of strange equipment; one carried a slim, rectangular box with what looked like a pane of glass on one side, while the other two carried strange boxes that trailed wires out the back and a battered card board box piled with small, slim cases.
"Gifts from the boss," Dwight explained, "He had them getting it ready for when we got back from the highway. I threw in the DVD's, though."
"The what?"
"You'll see."
Four hours later and Ed was alone in his room after Dwight had the workers set up the "flat screen" and "Xbox 360", although he still had no idea why the machines were called that.
He did, however, know what they did.
That off hand thought about this technologically advanced world still holding some wonder even in its fallen state had rung very true as Dwight and one of the workers showed him how to use power on the devices, how to use the controllers navigate the on screen menus- Edward had had so many questions that had been demanding answers about how this wonder worked, up until Dwight had fed a disk from one of the cases and pressed "play" on a new screen that had displayed, bringing forth a flood of triumphant orchestral music, and a slowly crawling title for the movie; Star Wars- A New Hope.
There were films on Amestris, of course, with cinema just taking form.
But as he watched the images of a tiny, moving object pursued by a triangular behemoth play o the screen Edward knew that this was leaps and bounds beyond that.
He was busy watching a lightsaber battle in a city in the clouds when the door opened again; no knock this time. He barely looked up to find Ash standing there, holding a tray with too steaming bowls on it and raising an eyebrow as she saw what he was watching,
"Oh you fucking nerd…" she gripped, sitting next to him on the floor- there hadn't been any place else set up, but Ed wasn't complaining; he had been sitting on the floor since Dwight had left, moving only to switch disks out of the Xbox that was playing the DVD's- it had some other purpose as well, but Ed had forgotten at this point, to enthralled in the stacks of movies Dwight had brought.
Wordlessly, she handed Ed a bowl and spoon; the alchemist barely took his eyes off the screen.
"How are you, Ash?" he asked, mechanically.
"Good."
He glanced at her as the action on the screen wound down for a moment;
Ash was covered in dried blood, her knuckles bruised and her face freshly bandaged,
"Ash, what the hell? Are you ok?"
"Oh. Yeah. It's not my blood. Now shut up, you're gonna miss the part where Luke finds out Darth Vader is his dad…"
"WHAT?"
21.
God have mercy on him, he liked it here.
The rather sudden, unpleasant realization hit Edward while he sat at his transmuted desk, idly playing with the dagger Ash had given him the night before; she had been vague about just how she had come by it, but had passed off this blade and another just like it complete with sheaths and belts to hang them from. All Ed could really discern about them, from a lifetime spent around a metalworker, was that they were hand forged by a smith and not foundry made.
Thanks, Winry.
He'd had one of the blades balanced upright, holding it in place with his auto-mail and spinning the point in circles across the desk top when it had hit him.
He wasn't tense. He wasn't angry. He wasn't exhausted and holding unto sanity with his fingertips while eldritch creatures plotted his demise from the shadows, sending him looking over his shoulder and wondering which friendly face had a blade clutched behind their back, all while being filled with the sense he was a piece on someone else's chess board.
For the first night since that nightmare in the basement of his mother's house, Edward Elric simply…was.
He'd been forcefully adopted by violent raiders in a hellscape built on the shell of a fallen civilization populated by an endless population of walking, murderously hungry corpses, and for the first time in nearly a decade he felt relaxed.
In mortal danger, sure, but he couldn't recall the last time he hadn't been.
He'd spent last night sitting up watching mindless entertainment delivered by a technological wonder, and then fallen asleep on a full stomach, after telling his…friend…goodnight.
It said something about his life that this was the most normal evening he'd had in recent memory.
On Amestris in quiet moments he'd been haunted by memories of what he'd seen, what he'd done, and there was no safety in slumber, with his dreams always turning to nightmares, bringing him to wake with a start if not a scream, and nothing to look forward to but the same darkness lurking after his return to his subconscious.
Fighting and running, chaos and mortal danger? Those had been a relief. At least the nightmare they brought would be new.
But here?
With the constant, pressing threat of the reanimated, the distant specters of starvation, of who knew what danger?
This was peace to him.
His mind stayed focused. His wits sharp.
Those moments of calm he gained felt like actual respite, earned with strength of his arms and the sweat of his brow, not just interludes in the grand game.
On Earth, after this Wildfire virus had brought society crashing to the ground, the next breath you took was a victory and survival was the only game to be played.
And he loved it.
And it made him feel safe.
He'd lost all prospect of a normal life a long, long time ago, but he'd passed it, like a train going by in the night, just close enough that he could make out the shape of it, and know his own course was twisted beyond recognition to someone who had been riding the "normal" rails.
He had spent all day scratching in his notebook, writing notes in the shorthand, travel log code he used back on Amestris; he was trying to recall every transmutation circle and formula he could remember- even four years of transmutation circle free alchemy hadn't completely eroded his memory of the "old" way of alchemy.
But, while his memory was good, it was not eidetic. There were some gaps in his recollection, and what he wrote down wasn't complete, he knew. But still. Better than nothing.
Better then these primitives with no alchemy to speak of.
The sudden, jarring thought hit hard- Ed paused in spinning the dagger, before slowing resuming, spinning it the opposite way as he analyzed that uncharacteristic thought as clinically as he could.
A god amongst savages? He smirked, Yeah, right.
He'd clearly had an unhealthy exposure to Dante and her minions these last few years.
And yet…he had already been making concession after moral concession. Negan and his Saviors were absolutely raiders, bandits and extortionists and most likely much worse. If they hadn't been the first humans to find him on this undead world, he'd probably have been morally shocked by just everything he had seen at Sanctuary.
But now…well. He liked Negan. He liked Ash. He liked Dwight. He had gotten to know them, even if just a little, and these rough people spoke to some wild, brutish piece of him that liked the profane, savage way they were fighting to survive. Not investigating, not worrying, just attack, attack, take and move with an eye to the main chance as they built a semi-comfortable bubble of life, and even a ragged sort of society, even if it was seemingly at the expense of others.
He supposed it helped that he didn't know who others were in this case.
Ed snapped up the knife and looked at it again- clearly Ash hadn't picked it up down at the corner shop.
Someone had made this.
And she had taken it from them, or at least someone who had known the maker, and if the crusted blood on her hands and clothes were anything to judge by, they hadn't parted with it happily.
He decided his concessions stopped here and now. Clearly, he could be useful here, and just as clearly Negan wanted him around. The big man hadn't made any demands, yet, but Ed decided to beat him to it and start using his alchemy to do some good around this ad hoc autocracy- but to do that, he had to figure out just what these new limits on his ability to do alchemy really were, and like the beast she was, the lurking form of Dante still waited for him, and possibly the Saviors as well.
He had been trying to explain to Negan and his band just who, and what, the immortal alchemist was the day before, and he had been full of fight and fire to deal with her, then, but after everything else that had happened yesterday and the sudden discovery that using his alchemy took a real, physical toll…he was suddenly happy to have some breathing room.
Hopefully, at least…
That, was, if Negan didn't decide that quick and bloody vengeance was required for the attack of Dante's minions- although bringing the assassins who had been bent on ending Ed's life, and catching Negan's harem of "wives" in the crossfire to a bloody, and, he guessed, in the case of the surviving would be killer who he hadn't seen since the attack, painful, end seemed to have kept the man from being consumed with a need for revenge.
Or he was just smart enough to know revenge was an idiot's game and bide his time and plan instead.
Thus ran the chaotic swirl of Edwards thoughts- until suddenly, he stood.
Grabbing the red, hooded jacket the Saviors had given him off the back of his chair, he threw it on and made for the door.
He needed to find out what he could do.
Negan leaned in a dark corner of the observation platform above the bustling main floor of the Sanctuary. There was no flattery of his ego by lording his presence over his people today; no bows, no cult of personality.
If anyone had said he was brooding, they would have made a quick acquittance of the barbed-wire wrapped end of Lucille.
The only person who could accuse him of such un-badass behavior was him, and, yes, he was brooding.
But fuck off, he'd earned it, and the only other place he had to be alone was still bullet-riddled and blood-stained.
Silently, he slipped out the door behind him and out unto one of the stair ways leading out unto the fenced in courtyard of the old factory he and his raiders had made their lair in- the leather jacket clad tyrant snorted in grim amusement, realizing that he was thinking of himself and his people like the villains in some shitty super hero movie; but, in the end, he guessed that was about where he was in this new world.
With a grunt, he sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the stairwell's platform, entwining his arms as he leaned on the railing and bringing the gore caked end of Lucille to rest near his head, Negan glanced left to right- but besides a few pacing sentries and the restless dead chained to his fence line, no one was near, much less in earshot.
"Hey, babe…" He spoke, his voice a near whisper- he didn't glance at the bat, his mind filling in the presence not of the weapon, but of its long-passed namesake, "So you would not fucking believe the fucking crazy ass fucking shit that's been kicking off,"
One of the stenches on the fence must have heard his quiet whisper, as it turned its moldering body as much as it could on the pipes and chains that held in place, and snapped its jaws at the distant noise in mindless hunger.
Negan almost got up and bashed its brains in for intruding, but held his temper as he kept up the one-sided conversation.
"We found a kid in Eerie Country, and it turns out he can…can…" Negan rolled his eyes as he realized he didn't want to sound crazy as he spoke to the damned baseball bat he'd named after his dead wife. Even in this world, that sounded insane- but a part of him somehow clung to the hope that Lucille was some where, someplace, that she could hear him.
And that part kept talking to the baseball bat. Maybe it hoped that she would finally find something in him she could be proud of.
"Anyway, we went out and saved him. Sort of. I think he might have made it, for a while, at least, even alone. He's smart, tough. Been through a lot of fucked up shit if his crazy-assed stories are to be believed."
He sighed; one of the roving guards turned, went white as a sheet in the paling light of the early autumn day when she spotted Negan, and hurried off.
"He can do ma- alchemy," Negan corrected himself, "Which may as fucking well be magic in my book but if I could tell the fucking difference and if it mattered, we'd be riding out the end of the world in fucking Hogwarts fucking each other's brains out, safe and fucking sound, instead of…" Negan trailed off, shaking his head; he had never shared Lucille's interest in the Harry Potter books, but he knew of them at least. She'd dragged him to every movie that came out before the world had gone to shit and even made him read some godawful fanfiction she wrote.
Fucking nerd.
He grinned as he leaned back. The grin fell away as he continued,
"Some fucking psyhcos do not approve of our boy and his badassery, however. They took a shot at him at my place upstairs…they…"
They'd killed his wives. His mockery of the word, his failure, again and again, three more dead wives for Negan Smith he couldn't protect even in his bashed together walled off world of bravado and violence, he'd failed, again.
Failure, failure, fucking failure. A voice that sounded entirely to much like his own hissed in his mind.
Hush, you dumb bastard. A woman's voice answered, as clear as if it had come from right beside him.
Negan shot to his feet, stumbling a bit as he leaned back from the railing.
He recognized that voice.
He'd dropped Lucille unto the eroded concrete of the stair case, and he looked down at the cast off weapon as if it were a poisonous viper getting ready to strike.
That had been Lucille's voice. And he swore he had felt breath on his ear it had sounded in the darkness, could almost smell that dumbassed children's Crest toothpaste she still brushed with. He sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Apparently, he was going crazy.
Ash carefully regarded the alien- and that was what he was, in point of fact, and in point of fact that was pretty cool -as he looked both ways after opening the door to his room and storming into the hallway.
He'd somehow managed to not spot her as she lounged by the door- again. The young Savior let Ed get a bit further down the hall, carefully and quietly setting down the Lone Wolf book she'd been reading as he slipped a mostly empty, reused bottle of water from the cup holder of her camp chair.
He was almost too far away when she let fly.
Almost.
The bottle spun end over end as she threw it, impacting Ed right between the shoulder blades.
The blonde boy yelled in surprise as he spun, falling into a low crouch and fighting stance; he barely relaxed when he spotted Ash- and she in turn barely had time to start to cackling before the alchemist leapt forward, and before she knew he had swept the legs of her metal and canvass chair out from under her, and he would have landed flat on her ass if he hadn't caught her by the strap of the battered assault vest she wore with his metal arm and hauled her to her feet.
She found herself inches away from that intense stare of his, made all the worse by the liquid gold of his pupils.
She smirked,
"Still gotcha. Now get that Twilight looking glare out of my face. Edward." She cracked up at her own joke.
Ed sighed in confused exasperation,
"Please knock that shit off, Ash." He sighed setting her down and picking up her fallen chair, "And what are you talking about, anyway?"
"It will be your profound misfortune to find out, one day." She answered, imperiously.
"Oh for…what do you want?"
"Simon seems to be mollified, for the moment, at least, so I get to go back to watching you all day."
"Oh yeah? Where were you yesterday?"
"Not almost getting eaten by stenches, which is where I hear you were."
Edward shook his head.
"You heard right."
Silence for a moment.
"Glad you're ok, Ed."
And she was; it may have been an unhealthy coping mechanism stemming from getting her face torched with own knife by her nominal leader, but she looked forward to being around Edward- the boy from another world and the quiet sense of wonder at discovering new things.
"So, want to get out of here and loot a town?"