Chapter Text
The word lucky and Carl didn’t exactly fit in the same sentence usually, but he had been lucky in this one small part of his life up til now. He'd even managed to avoid that absolute bubonic plague that had swept through the prison. So although he hadn’t exactly been as blessed on the gunshot front, he hadn’t been sick in ages. Not since he was 10, and at home in his bed with his mom with a popsicle and cartoons.
It starts as a cough, and by the end of the day he feels like he can barely stand up. At first he thought he was just being dramatic- that was until he had tried to get off the floor from his makeshift bed (damn Negan for taking their friggin’ mattresses, it was a straight dick move) and he fell back down in an uncoordinated heap because his head felt like a weighted balloon. So he dragged himself back into the comfort of his pillows and blankets with way more effort than it should have taken a normal, average person. Curled up in his absolute mess of blankets is where Rick found him an hour later after he didn’t come down for dinner, a disaster of shakes, chills and aches.
“He’s burnin’ up.” He heard his dad mumble to Michonne, but it sounded like Rick was in another room even though he could feel his hand on his forehead. His brain felt foggy and all he really wanted was to be left alone.
Carl swatted Rick away as best as he could. “I am not, ’m cold’.” Because he really was. He was quite sure someone had turned on the non-existent air conditioner in his room full blast.
“He hasn’t been…?” Michonne doesn't finish her sentence, but Rick understands. Carl understands.
“No!” Carl yells out and finally peeks his eye open. “I’m sick, not bit. Think I’d be layin’ here in bed if I was bit ?” He grumbles out as best as he can.
“We can’t take any chances with this Carl, it could turn into something else quick. Gotta get that fever down. And we have no medicine here, of course....” Rick says lowly, and Carl wants to roll his eye but he can’t even muster that. He knows why they don’t have medicine. Knows that the reason they don't have medicine is none other than the man who he’s been sneaking out to have sex with every few nights.
What’s happening between Negan and him is nothing serious. Just, the man may or may not have taken his virginity and all, but again- nothing serious. Random fucking and pillow talk. He finds Negan fascinating, and he has no idea why. Maybe this is why Carl has suddenly been struck down by the plague. Maybe he deserves this.
Rick moves to take off one of the 5 blankets that Carl has cocooned himself in and Carl lets out a hiss when the air touches him and grabs it back from him.
“I’m fine dad, just go, okay?”
It’s warm in the room, and Carl’s burning up, but to him any outside air feels like Antarctica. He doesn’t know when he starts shaking, only that he is now, and he can’t stop.
He feels his dad's hands on his shoulder.
“C’mon. At least let us take your temperature.”
He reaches out a hand again begrudgingly, because damn it’s cold outside of his blanket cocoon- and puts the thermometer in his mouth with a glare.
“Fuck.” He hears his dad mumble out after the thermometer beeps again. “One-oh-five.” Rick says tepidly, and Carls shocked because he’s not hot, he’s not feverish, he’s fucking freezing.
There’s a pause.
“Rick, I really think we need to get this fever down.” He knows Michonnes standing there, her arms crossed, in typical mom-Michonne mode but he doesn’t want to open his eye long enough to see if he’s right.
“Yeah, thanks, I can see that.” His dad snaps back at her. Carl wants to open his mouth to protest, to tell him that he’s being a straight up dick to her, but he can’t even find the strength to do that suddenly.
“Carl, honey.” He peeks his eye open again and finds Michonne on the floor next to him. “Can you at least drink some water for me?”
He really isn’t trying to be difficult- he’s not- so he nods slowly and Michonne takes the glass and lets him drink a little. But it burns, feels like there’s glass in his throat, and he can only take 2 sips before he’s pushing it away and retreating back into his cocoon of blankets.
“How long have you been feeling like this, sweetie?” Michonne puts a hand on his forehead, and he's onto her game- knows he can't be mad at her or push or away when she’s being this nice to him.
He shrugs a little, but even that little movement of his shoulders causes him to wince.
“Not long.” He says hoarsely. “Really. This- this came on fast. I wouldn't wanna get anyone else sick - not like I’d be runnin’ ‘round with Judith if I knew how sick I was. ‘M sorry.” he looks to his dad. “Just really cold, ‘n everything kinda hurts.”
“I know, I know.” His dad says quietly, putting a hand on him. “Just the flu probably. But you have a pretty high temperature- we have to get this down. I’m gonna have to call...him...for medicine.”
Carl knows what that means and he groans inwardly. If he had to be honest with himself, brutally honest with himself, he wouldn’t mind Negan- the holder of said medicine- showing up like some knight in shining cough syrup, whisking him away in his arms and off to the Sanctuary. That would absolutely never happen, it was a dream, because Negan would probably not even send medicine at all, let alone come himself - even if it is Carl that is sick. Carl knows he's expendable, he doesn’t mean anything to the man. But, he could dream, right?
He hears Rick walk away, but he’s not with it anymore because he’s shaking again. He can’t fathom how they could be telling him that he has that high of a fever and yet he’s so cold.
“Get some rest honey.” He hears Mihconne say to him, and he curls up again under the 83 blankets and tries to drift off despite his shaking.
***
He’s not able to sleep. He thought if he just laid there and stared into the darkness he could, but that’s not happening. The aches, and chills and fever is driving him to absolute madness. One minute he feels like someone has dumped an ice bucket on him, and the next he feels like if he doesn't get all these blankets off he’ll positively die of a heat stroke. But it’s no sooner that the blankets are off that the chills return, and he’s burrowing again.
He’s aware that he’s shaking, bad, but it’s the only thing that seems to alleviate the chills and the aches running through him. And the aches are the worst, and for some reason he finds himself thinking of strange ass, hole-digging Jim, all those years ago, who seemed to be pained at every time bump in the road after he’d been bit and he suddenly understands.
His hands clutch at his pillow and he suddenly wishes Negan was there- even Negan sans medicine- because whether he wanted to admit it or not the man was slowly becoming a comfort to him. He hated that thought, because the Negan had made it pretty clear that Carl wasn’t to catch feelings for him, ever, and that they were both just using each other. Things were much easier that way. Still, what the Savior never knew couldn’t hurt him, so Carl felt his mind continually drifting to thoughts of him.
"That can't be him already." He hears Ricks voice from what seems like far away. "We just radioed him."
Carl knows that he’s downright disoriented, and just hot and cold and confused and desperate for these shakes to stop, all at the same time. And when he thinks of Jim digging all those holes for hours suddenly he doesn’t think the man was so strange after all.
"No, Rick, let me see him."
Through his haze he thinks he hears…Negans voice? Great- now he can add hallucinations to his symptom list. He blearily opens his eye, or maybe he’s hallucinating that he’s doing so. Maybe he’d wished this so much that his brain had brought the man to him because he was dying or something. Negan is there, crouching next to him on the floor and he feels a hand in his hair. He knows it’s not real, and since it’s not real he allows himself to reach out for him because shit, it can’t hurt to indulge himself a little.
"Shit, kid. You are lookin' a lil worse for wear, huh?"
“‘m I dyin’?” Carl asks quietly to the air and he hears Negan chuckle- at least, he thinks he does, but he reminds himself that no, he isn't actually there, this is his feverish mind just filling in what he really, truly wants in his time of need.
“I don’t think so, but I’m no doctor. The doctor is here, though, and you’re pretty damn sick. You gotta take some of this, okay?” The man says and Carl swears it’s really him. But he knows better.
“It’ll bring your fever down. I promise this will make you feel better, baby.”
Carl shakes his head, because his throat hurts so bad, and he doesn’t want anything to make it feel worse.
“Carl, c’mon. You know how worried you had me? I know I didn’t rush here for nothin'.”
But Carl still remains still, because he's not about to move for someone who isn't even there. Suddenly he feels himself being picked up and pulled against someone, into a lap he can tell, and it's warm and smells vaguely like Negan, so he stops protesting and sinks deeper into what must be a very vivid hallucination.
"No." Negan is saying to him, firmly. "You don't get to make me care about you and then pull this, you stubborn little shit."
He feels a hand on his chin, and something going down his throat. Whatever he just took does burn, but he’s able to get it down.
“Not the first thing you’ve forced down my throat, dickhead.” He mumbles out, and he hears imaginary Negan laugh. It's nice and warm there, in his lap, with someones hand running through his hair. He finds the mans hand again, and curls up to it as much as he can so their clasped hands are next to his burning forehead. “I really wish you were here Neeg.” he whispers quietly, and he knows sleep is coming fast.
“I’m right here, kid. I’m right here. You're gonna be fine.” He hears the man say, and he’s happy that his brain is filling in something good for him during his delirious state.
“Let that kick in, check his temperature in a half hour, give him an IV. More than likely we just have to let it run it’s course, but if his temperature isn’t down to at least 102 soon, we’ll have to consider something else. Let me check his tonsils...” He hears an unrecognizable voice from above him.
There’s suddenly a hand on his neck, and he panics- his instincts kicking in.
“Whoa whoa. Hey, kid. He’s not gonna hurt you, okay?”
But he isn’t sure who’s talking anymore. His eye shoots open and he looks around, confused as to who is actually here and who isn’t. He only sees his dad above him and a man he doesn’t recognize.
“Carl it’s okay. It’s only the doctor and he’s just trying to help, alright?” His dad says quietly. He doesn’t see Negan, and thinks suddenly how strange and clear his hallucination of the man was. Suddenly is strength is totally sapped from him after panicking. It still smells like Negan, and he's still warm, and it lulls him to sleep faster than he thought possible.
***
He’s not sure when he wakes up, only that he does wake up and it’s pitch black in the room. And thank god, the shakes and chills and body aches seem gone. Just gone, like some goddamn miracle. He’s soaked in sweat, and knows his fever must have broke sometime in the night.
Still, even lying there he feels like his head weighs a thousand pounds, and his throat still feels like there’s glass in it. But those damn shakes have left, and he feels like maybe he has firing, working neurons again in his brain.
Someone's curled up in a heap a few feet away. Even though it’s dark he knows it’s his dad, who’s taken up his (by now) very familiar spot.
His next thought, logically, is that he’s really gotta piss, and if he doesn’t make it there soon he’ll actually die. He clambers up as smoothly as he can, which isn’t smoothly at all, and it’s not until he’s up that he realizes how unsure his footing still is. No, this has nothing to do with his feet, and everything to do with his head feeling like he’s underwater. So he falls, right into his dad, except-
“Jesus fucking Christ kid!” The sleeping man yells out, and it’s not his dad, but- Negan?
“Negan?!” Carl whispers out hoarsely, and he suddenly wonders if he’s still fucking hallucinating.
“Who else do I look like? And whattya doin’ up? You’re sick as fuck.” The man growls out, and forcibly pulls him into his lap, and he kisses Carls forehead. "You had us worried, baby. Don't pull that shit again, okay?"
Carl ignores his sentiment, because he isn't about to play into the mans games. He knows his place in Negans life, and that's that he's expendable, just like the wives.
“I gotta piss.” He says stubbornly. “How - what are you doing just sitting here you idiot? My dad can’t know you’re here!” He whisper-yells out.
“Oh he knows I’m here, Carl.”
“I- what? And- why exactly does he think you’re sitting by my bed in the middle of the night? Couldn’t one of your lackeys have brought medicine instead of you? Make it a little less obvious?” Carl asked nervously. Had Negan said something?
“Oh shit kid, we’re well past that. You went and made it pretty damn clear to him why I’m sitting by your bed.” And Negans grinning wider than Carls ever seen and he feels his stomach drop.
“What? What are you talking about?” Carl shakes his head as if to clear it because none of this was making sense.
“Dear ol’ Rick called me and said you were pretty much on your way out. You were sick as fuck when I got here. Thought you might actually be dyin’, but it was just the flu that knocked you on your ass. Doc said you had to sweat it out, get you some fever meds. We just took your IV out about an hour ago, you slept through most of it. You were fuckin’ miserable. So, I’m glad I did come ‘cause you needed me. You were shakin’ like a leaf but wouldn’t stop reachin’ out for me. Calling for me.”
“No. No I didn’t.” Oh no no no. Carl shakes his head, knowing he’s in deep shit.
“Oh, but you did. ” The man says triumphantly. “You weren’t even coherent, but as soon as you saw I was there you fucking melted. It was downright glorious.” Negan looks like he’s won the lottery.
“I- I was delirious!” Carl yells out, panicking.
Negan shrugs lightly. “Maybe. But, you know what they sayyy…” He sings out. “Drunk minds speak sober thoughts.” He grins again at him.
“What the fuck does that even mean ?”
“Means you dragged your feverish head out of your pretty ass long enough to show your dear old dad that you like me.”
“I don’t like you.” Carl retorts back. “I actually- really don’t like you, at all.”
“Sure Carl. Well. I like you. So all those professions of your undying love for me were, what, bullshit?”
“What the fuck did I say- how sick was I?!”
Negan chuckles. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You didn’t say shit, really. You just kinda curled up to me all sweet and grabbed my hand, said you were just so glad I was there. Fell asleep in my arms like a baby. It was a-fuckin’-dorable. And then I’m pretty sure Rick left to throw up. It was friggin’ fantastic!”
“Oh my god.” Carl felt like he really was going to be sick now, and not flu sick but more I'm -going-to-vomit-up-all-my-feelings-sick.
"I'm so glad you're okay, baby. I wasn't expecting to walk in here and see you like that." Negan says to him, quite sincerely. Carl opens his mouth to say something but-there was a shuffle at the door, and he very slowly looks over because he knows who is standing there.
“I think we have to talk, Carl.” Rick looked to Negan. “You. Go.” He hissed at the man.
Negan looked over at Carl a little sheepishly. “Good luck kid.” He said, and winked at him as he headed out the door. As the two men passed each other Carl said a silent prayer that neither of them would try to murder each other on the way out.
As he was about to leave Negan turned around and stood in the doorway, and Carl felt his heart stop. He sensed the man was about to say something, and shook his head, silently pleading with him for the love of everything that was holy in the world to not speak and make this situation even worse than it already was. Because usually anytime Negan opened his damn mouth things just went straight to shit.
“Can I help you?” Rick turned around to face Negan, hand on his hips, eyebrows raised, glaring at him.
“Oh, just sayin’ Rick. Go easy on Carl. It’s not his fault he wanted his daddy to take care of him when he was sick.”
Carl threw up. Negan laughed manically. Rick just wanted to run in front of a moving train.
"You owe me my fucking mattress back for this, asshole!" Was all Negan heard from Carl as he waltzed out of the Grimes residence.