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lupienne · 4 years

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Thought I’d post part of a Negan fic I started back after #174 (Negan’s second-to-last issue) This is about half of it. Like a few of my one shots, it’s just been sitting around waiting for me to get off my ass (or maybe on my ass in front of the keyboard!) and finish it.

Anyway, it takes place after #174...Negan is still living in the dumpy house all by his lonesome.

Living out here was purgatory. It wasn't like I was physically trapped in the rundown house or tied to this patch of earth. Not physically, no. But something kept me here nonetheless. Maybe the pieces of Lucille had cast hooks into me, and to move beyond their range was unthinkable.

Either way, I felt as stuck as a fly in honey. My mind wasn't numb like back in the days after Lucille died. I had all sorts of thoughts and feelings pressing on me but I tried to keep them out. A futile struggle to hold up an avalanche. I didn't want to feel that shit. Feeling stuff hurt.

But my ability to go numb had been lost. My mind-freezing machine was broken. Some days I damned Rick Grimes or Maggie or Dwight... I fucking cursed them for ripping away the shields of my mind and leaving it exposed and bleeding.

Most days I placed blame where blame was due. I damned myself.

Summer came to a close. Soon the leaves would start changing color. I dreaded it. Lucille had loved autumn. Maybe I'd bring the colored leaves to decorate her grave. Make some kind of wreath to hang on her cross. But when autumn ended, winter would come. I wasn't sure I'd survive it.

Here and then, Rick would swing by and drop off a crate of supplies. He never stayed long. Sometimes he just dropped the fucker at my door and left, not bothering to wait for me to come home from foraging. I'd return and there it would be. Not even a goddamn love letter. I wasn't too proud to beg him to stay and chat, but he never did.

Fucking Prick.

I guess I should be grateful that he gave me supplies at all. Just like old times. Paying me my dues. That was a laugh. Before, I'd been rolling in excess and I didn't really need the Alexandrian's tributes. Yeah, they eased the life of my Saviors and myself, of course. But we didn't need it.

Now, it's just a reminder of how inadequate I am out here on my own. There's weeks when I've only survived because of the food Rick brought. When I can't find or snare game, when the cans I scavenge end up being foul and causing me hours of shitty distress. Maybe Rick brings me things for the same reason he kept me alive: to rub my face in my failure.

Whatever. Food is fucking food. Just eat it and don't think of the fucking reasons behind it.

I try not to think at all anymore. I wish I could lose my mind along with my numbness. Maybe I'd be happier if I broke entirely, if I just fractured into pieces and put them back into a new person. If I just wasn't... me... anymore.

It's hard living with a person you hate.

A couple of weeks into fall, I gathered a bunch of acorns. In my youth, I remember reading some book where a guy ground acorns into flour and made bread or pancakes or some shit. I have no idea if that's even feasible, or whether I'll just end up poisoning myself. At this point, it's something to do. I've been distracting myself with projects.

I cleaned up my living space in the house and boarded up most of the windows except one. I got myself a proper bed instead of a pile of blankets on the floor. I made that wreath for Lucille. Spent hours boiling and storing water for the winter from the river two miles from here. Been trying to make venison and rabbit jerky. And when I can't block my thoughts any more, I sit before Lucille and blubber like a fucking baby. Just for one minute...one fucking second...I wish I could hear her voice, or feel her hand smoothing through my hair. I'd fucking slaughter a village to feel that again.

Fuck me, here I am, smashing acorns with a hammer and crying...again.

I wiped my eyes and proceeded. From the nearby woods, I thought I saw a flash of movement. I took my eyes off my work for a split second, while the hammer descended – and smashed right on top of my fucking thumb.

I jumped up, screaming swears as the pain shot through like a lightning bolt. Bending double, tucking the injured hand into my belly.

“Goddamn it! Fuck!” Let's do the sensible thing. Whip down the hammer. Kick over the rock and the acorns and scatter all the hard work, sending the acorn flour all over the fucking ground.

I almost didn't care if the walkers came. Let them come. Maybe I'll throw my head back and let them have my throat. Fuck it. Fuck it.

I whirled around, staring at my dumpy-ass house, and the woods of colored leaves, Lucille's grave that wasn't even her in there because I left the real her to rot a lifetime away – I looked at my stupid fucking house and just fucking screamed.

No walkers came. There was nothing here. I was alone. I was the loneliest fucking thing on this planet.

My vision was blurry. I kicked that fucking cross over. “Why the fuck did you have to die?!”

That goddamn weak woman. She had to give in and leave me, she had to give up on me, she had to just let the sickness take over and-

“I'm sorry...” I scrabbled for the cross, righting it again. One of the sticks had splintered. I'd have to make a new one. The sight of it put me on my knees, and I huddled there, crying like a goddamn baby. Every shuddered breath made my thumb throb in time.

If she'd just stayed... I wouldn't have turned into this.

A monster.

Alone.

A fucking wreck.

I had to get some sticks to make a new cross. I stood, numb as fuck. Better take the shotgun with me. Might need it. For whatever was moving in the woods. I heard rustling but saw nothing. I didn't really care, as I moved into the dense green growth.

I wasn't really taking that shotgun with me for defense.

I wasn't really gathering sticks.

I was just... ready.

Maggie had given me a second chance. I mean, that's not how she saw it, but that's what it was in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that's not what it was at all. It was just a fucking epiphany. The fuck-you-up-the-ass realization. I had spoken it out loud in my pathetic voice, as I groveled at her feet. The undeniable truth that I wanted to die.

That I was over and fucking done. Before she came, I was slogging through in denial, thinking it here and there, flirting with it. Grazing my fingers over it like a teenager afraid to touch a chick for the first time. A breath held in the lungs in anticipation.

Maggie made it all crystal clear. When I burnt the second bat, I knew there was no way to hold onto Lucille anymore. She was gone. I couldn't imbue her into anything...not a bat, not a grave, not into the night stars. She just wasn't there anymore.

And so...I didn't want to be here either.

(And that’s it for now. ‘Intriguing’, I know. Maybe I do plan on giving Negan a happy ending. Though his idea of a happy ending might be just... ending it. XD)

#negan #comic negan #fanfic #TW: suicidal thoughts #Walking dead fanfic

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