Chapter Text
"We need to find shelter and settle down for the day" Negan calls out, reiterating the same sentence, yet again.
Maggie breathes out a deep sigh from the couple meters in front she was, shaking her head.
"We need to keep going." She's stubborn. "We're not stopping" Almost sounding amused at the fact that Negan would even attempt to convince her of doing otherwise.
Fine. They've still got a while before the sun actually starts to set but Negan would feel a little better if he could convince her sooner rather than later to find someplace. He understands wanting to move along as fast as possible to keep ahead. He doesn't understand putting yourself and others at risk to do so. It's counterproductive for one thing, for another, it's stupid. Negan thinks he could turn every decision Maggie has made recently into purely being a way to annoy him. She would never accept or admit it, but she absolutely is that petty.
He stops scowling in Maggie’s direction, just a bit further ahead of them and glances to the right where Alden is only a couple steps in front of him, walking right along the line where road becomes grass. He's clearly in a lot of pain, which is to be expected, but he's doing a good job of hiding it, or at least pretending he doesn't care about it. He was pretty harshly injured and especially considering the circumstances.
The circumstances being that Alden has started to involuntarily regress. So, you know, not the best, Negan had decided. Not when there are people who are definitely trying to find you and kill you. Who also happen to be pretty good at that sort of thing.
Yeah. Not fucking ideal.
It really isn't Alden’s fault though, Negan doesn't hold it against him, really. It is called involuntary for a reason. Hell, the kid's probably just as, if not way more, scared about what that means. In fact, if Negan had money, he'd bet a shit ton on that.
And hell, even if he meant to regress, Negan wouldn't hold that against him either, shit timing but Negan isn't going to be a dick to a little. If Alden were big and bitching about the world and actively trying to regress, then that would be a different story, but hell no is he ever telling a little to grow up.
Alden stops for a moment and struggles to bend down, picking something up from the ground. Negan almost holds his hands out incase Alden stumbles, but he holds back. He's a little unsure of where Alden is in his mind and he's kind of cautious in case something sets him off in such a vulnerable state. It's hard to tell how far he's slipped yet. Some signs point to him already being in little space and just being an older kid. Other signs suggest that Negan might get an unsteady fist thrown at him for mentioning it.
In his peripheral he can see Maggie standing ahead looking conflicted as to what to say, or if she even should, he thinks she's still desperately hoping Alden can pull himself together before something bad happens, or when they need to find shelter, or when they need him to be big. Negan seriously doubts it.
When Alden stands back up again, he's slightly hunched over, looking at his little collection in his hands.
Negan tilts his head as he walks closer, genuine smile coming to his face when he recognises what Alden must have thought to be important.
"How many you got there, kid?" He tries to keep his voice light, desperately trying (and failing) at not showing his excitement to be talking to a little again.
Alden looks up, a little surprised at being directly spoken to, and gently holds his hand away from him a bit, just enough that Negan can more clearly see the three dandelions Alden looks so pleased with.
Negan has a distinct feeling of fondness for the kid, genuinely forgetting for a second about any of the situations that were happening outside of this moment. He'd almost forgot how enveloping it felt to be with a little, like nothing else mattered.
Negan clicks his tongue, moving closer to Alden.
"That's pretty neat, bud, you like them?"
He can hear Maggie scoff in the distance but he doesn't pay much mind to it.
There's a pause where Negan doesn't think Alden's going to answer, but then;
"Pretty" Both his voice and body language are incredibly meek.
Negan takes note of how his voice sounds, not quite like a little kid but much too soft spoken for big Alden. Especially when it's directed at Negan.
"Yeah?" Negan lilts, matching his tone to the little's.
He gets a little hum in response, paired with Alden chewing on his lower lip and nodding his head up and down a couple times, making his distinct front curl of hair bounce too. It's cute.
"Do you have a favourite type-" Maggie cuts Negan off before he can talk to Alden more.
"Negan." It's sharp. "Stop it. The more you talk to him like that, the further he's going to slip" Accent coming out a tad more than usual. She's facing forward, like if she ignored the problem then they'd just keep walking. As if that would ever be a possibility.
Negan straightens up, the height difference between him and Alden growing a fair bit. He tries not to smile at Alden's look of confusion about this in his peripheral. Negan doesn't hide any part of his annoyance.
"Isn't that the point" it's not a question. He purposely says it in a way he knows will show his bewilderment and frustration, partly to get the message across, partly to piss Maggie off.
Maggie pinches the bridge of her nose, and leans into her stance, taking a breath and seemingly composing herself after a second.
"I don't know if you've noticed-" She starts, already getting on Negan's nerves exactly how she wants to. "-but this isn't the time or place for a little. He's involuntarily regressed. If you were ever trying to be helpful for once, you'd be helping him age up, we need big Alden right now".
Negan throws his arms out to the sides, glaring at Maggie.
"Yeah, exactly, it was involuntary, he didn't mean to slip Maggie, this isn't something you can just switch on and off, and you full well know that." Emphasizing some of his words more clearly than others. He points in the general direction of Alden, who's awkwardly shifting and shuffling, hoping nobody catches his eyes when he looks up at the unfolding anger every few seconds.
"It isn't a good time but none of that shit matters, he's slipping younger every passing minute, regardless of anything going on out here, so maybe" - Negan flails his arms a bit, ever the dramatic - "just maybe, we should not neglect the kid? It's too late for anything else".
Maggie must see at least some reason behind the words and huffs. Negan can tell that she only wants Alden big because she wants to be able to keep him safe, and that's a tad more difficult when instead of having an adult who knows how to hold his own in a fight, with both the dead and the living mind you, or have a higher pain tolerance, you're met with a wide eyed toddler.
He also doesn't really care. He understands, but he also lives by the rules that you always do everything you can for a kid, especially a vulnerable one.
And God if Alden doesn't just look like the most vulnerable kid right now.
He looks unsure of himself, fidgeting and eyes darting back and forth between the grown-ups.
They've all sort of come to a standstill for the second, but Maggie and Negan seem to be done with whatever fight they were having so Alden thinks it's safe to feel a little less overwhelmed now.
He can still see that Maggie looks tired and angry though, which makes him sad too because Maggie shouldn't feel like that. She hasn't even really looked at Alden in forever, he's sure. Maybe he did something bad? Alden's more than thankful for the arguing stopping, but Maggie might be mad at him, which has the possibility of being a worse situation than fighting.
Alden shuffles towards Maggie slowly, her watching him the whole time, curiously. She reaches her hand out in case she has to steady him but in the end he ignores it and keeps stumbling closer until he's stood directly in front of her, slight hunch making him have to look up at her.
He really, really, doesn't want Maggie to be mad at him but childish innocence and curiosity leads him to need to find out for sure.
It's hard to stay so annoyed when Alden is looking up at her through his lashes, looking so much smaller than he usually would.
Wide, childish eyes, slight pout, head tilted to the side, all of it. Maggie hates to feel like she's just lost her losing battle but she's looking down at Alden and she sees a kid. Just a little kid. She hates to feel angry about him being little, Alden doesn't deserve that.
They all, including Alden, deserve to make it home alive though. She doesn't know if she can do that if...
Alden whispers something but he's staring at the ground and Maggie can hardly make any of it out.
"Can you repeat that for me, kiddo?" she tries not to sound too awkward when adding the pet name at the end. She swallows thickly, hoping her voice doesn't convey how she feels.
"Mad?" the boy whispers with all the vulnerability of a little kid, like her answer determines his whole future and Maggie feels awful. This was a shit situation.
She lets out a slightly shaky sigh, trying to choose her words carefully. Looking over Alden's head, she meets Negan's eyes, who's keeping his distance, and feels a desperate type of frustration and helplessness.
"Not at you, bub, I promise." She slowly looks back down at the boy and shakes her head 'no', hoping to catch Alden's attention and look him in the eyes.
But Alden's a smart boy and he knows that she's still mad or sad or something not happy, even if he's very glad it isn't because of him.
Maggie tries to figure out what the kid is thinking, based on his admittedly very cute pout. She can't say she expected what he did next but then again that was the way of kids.
He picks one of his precisely chosen and delicately held dandelions and holds it out to her, expectantly. He sways from side to side a little bit.
"For Maggie" he very sweetly murmurs and gazes up, blinking his wide eyes up at her.
The 'for' is only slightly slurred but her name is said in two very distinct syllables, almost like two words instead of one. Which is adorable, but also just shows that there really isn't any turning back now.
Maggie directs a small smile to him and as gently as she can, takes the dandelion from Alden's outstretched hand.
"Thankyou, sweetheart, it’s very pretty"
Alden beams, bouncing on his feet (as best as he can with his bad leg) and rotating back to face Negan, to share both the successful reaction, as well as the use of the same word he had used to describe the dandelions earlier. Meaning that must be right.
Negan smiles back at him, glad that Maggie is, at least, not ignoring the boy anymore.
They start walking again. Negan subtly glances at Maggie but he's a lot more confident that they've changed course and are now looking for whatever next stable building can serve as a resting point. They surely couldn't keep moving on their original course, not with how bad Alden's leg was and certainly not now that he was little.
He refocuses his attention onto Alden, the boy humming lightly and chewing on his lip again as he stumbles forward. The boy seems much calmer than even ten minutes ago, which must really say a lot about how much he cares and craves the praise of grown-ups.
They all walk in relatively comfortable silence for a few minutes, only broken by the occasional disjointed hum from Alden.
That is, until Negan sees Alden bring one of his hands up to his mouth, no doubt fully intending to put his thumb, or another unlucky digit in his mouth.
"Hey kid, nuh uh" He moves toward Alden, slowing the kid down to a stop.
Negan closes the distance between them, gently resting his hand on Alden's arm and bringing the hand away from the kid's face, much to Alden's disappointment.
"Ah ah, no kiddo, that is definitely not sanitary" he chuckles lightly, hopeful to keep things light and away from a tantrum or meltdown. The last thing he needs is to embarrass himself with immediately and instinctively going into protective caregiver mode, as well as having a little throw a tantrum. Especially when they're outside with walkers and reapers. Though he really hopes Alden's oblivious to those last ones.
Unfortunately, the act of pushing his hand away is enough to have Alden's chin tremble and his eyes grow shiny. The poor kid's looking up at Negan like he's just destroyed the boy's life. Negan doesn't doubt the kid's about to let out a long whine and start stomping his foot if he doesn't somehow make things better.
"Sounding awfully soft there, Negan" he can hear the snarky smirk in Maggie's voice and has half a mind to flip her off while he comforts the upset boy.
It's obvious that one of the two adults here has taken care of small kids and littles often enough in the past however many years that they aren't panicking about something awfully common happening.
Okay, whatever, it isn't Negan, who even cares anyway. When you're stuck in a small cell, you don't typically get to look after kids. So maybe Negan is a little bit panicked over the threat of a small child's tantrum.
It's been a long time since he's been around a really small kid, and even longer since he's seen Alden little.
No matter how common tantrums and upsets come when you're dealing with a toddler, Negan still panics a little at the sight of the big tears welling up in Alden's eyes.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay. It's all okay sweet boy, there's no need for tears." Negan tries to de-escalate the situation. Alden whines and his big shaky breaths threaten to lead to a much more upset little.
"Take some big breaths in for me bud"
Alden almost looks as if he himself doesn't even want to throw a tantrum. The poor boy's just so tired and overwhelmed that it's happening anyway.
Negan can see Maggie standing in his peripheral, likely waiting for him to make even the smallest mistake so that she can take over completely.
Alden whines again in response and shakes his head from side to side, sniffling. Negan crouches in front of the little, hoping to keep Alden a little more grounded and so that he can't hide away.
He sees Maggie crouch down beside him, likely despising the close proximity to him but that really doesn't matter.
"C'mon honey, you can do it" she says, voice softer and sweeter than Negan has ever heard it. She takes Alden's hands in her own (careful to grab Alden's remaining dandelions and place them in her bag).
Alden starts somewhat rambling as best as a toddler can ramble without it sounding like babbling. So only about half ends up sounding like real words and none of it can actually be made out into cohesive sentences.
"Slow down" Maggie brushes her thumbs over Alden's hands, trying to keep her presence grounding for the little. Both adults can see that Alden's only working himself up even more.
Negan makes sure to check every few moments for danger, hopefully discreet enough that the little boy doesn't start to worry about that too though.
Alden takes a big, shaky, sniffly breath in and then begins to talk to them in classic upset toddler speak.
"Was scary an-and hurt lots an don' wanna walk anymo'e" he's shaking his head as he speaks. "An' Maggie’s mad at me-" ah the two grown-ups recognise the added upset that had previously been fixed, and if it weren't for how sad the little was right now, they both would have only felt fondness for the way toddlers think.
"An' now Negan won' let me, he say not to" the end trails off into a half sob, big round tears rolling down the toddlers face.
Some of it doesn't make any sense but both adults make sure to take everything Alden had said very seriously, as to not upset him even further than he already was.
"Alden, sweetie, you need to take some deep breaths and calm down." Maggie's trying to meet the kid's eyes.
Negan hopes her frustration isn't evident to Alden.
Alden tries his very best to do as he's asked but he's still upset and so far none of his listed problems have been fixed, so he isn't exactly happy to calm down yet.
Maggie tries again to coerce the boy into calming down, which works a little bit but not enough to keep travelling and that's what they're aiming for.
When Negan is sure that Maggie is about to implode with frustration, he thinks it's safe to bring himself back into the conversation.
"Do you want a hug, kiddo?"
Wouldn't you believe it, an upset toddler would really enjoy some close physical contact.
The little boy takes a big sniffle in and rubs his nose on his sleeve, giving Negan a big nod while some more tears escape.
Negan pulls himself up from the ground, guiding Alden by his shoulders into a hug.
"There you go, it's okay, it's alright" Negan sways the both of them from side to side.
After a second of getting used to the feeling, Alden fists a bit of Negan's shirt in one hand and tightens his grip of the hug in the other. Touch starved then, well he can't say he's surprised.
Negan sways back and forth like that for a little bit before he decides Alden is composed enough to keep moving forward. When he pulls Alden back from him and tells him as such though, Alden looks up at Negan with his puffy, red eyes and reaches both arms above his head and out at Negan, making grabby hands and pouting.
Now in the height of being a very distressed, very little boy, Negan can understand the readiness to cling to him when he's offering a warm hug and some praise.
This he definitely does not expect though.
He's completely caught off guard and so he just stares for a moment, unsure what else to do, until he sees the hope fall from Alden's eyes and the kid slowly and sadly brings his arms back down again. The boy turns to Maggie and goes to her side as fast as an injured little can go.
He thankfully doesn't burst into full waterworks again but he must be trying to hold back a couple tears because Maggie rubs his back and glares at Negan from over her shoulder.
Shaking himself out of his frozen state he rushes to catch up to the other two.
"Oh sweetheart, I didn’t-" Negan sighs, heavy. "No, I didn't mean I didn't want to carry you hun, I was just surprised is all, I didn't think you'd want me to" he unfortunately speaks a little too honestly in his race to apologize to the boy.
"I can carry you, if you want"
Alden seems conflicted, looking Negan up and down before turning and facing Maggie, who he's latched hands with at some point.
Maggie obviously isn't fond of Negan, nor having little Alden that close to him, but she must see how desperate this tired boy is to be held and nods to him, smiling encouragely.
"Carry?" Alden asks in his small voice (much more toddler speak than soft whispers now). Tilting his head to gaze longingly up at Negan.
"God, don't you just have the most adorable voice" Negan says without much thought, bracing himself and lifting Alden into his arms, and to sit on Negan’s hip.
He bounces the boy slightly as he gets adjusted, making the toddler giggle and kick his feet a little.
"You like that, huh? Silly boy" Negan indulges Alden and bounces him once more, to the boys pleasure.
"All comfortable now, no more walking?" Alden shakes his head with big, exaggerated movements.
Negan doesn't think he's felt this content for a long, long time. Even while being in fairly extreme danger, he's at ease right now. God he's missed taking care of little's.
Alden subconsciously goes to suck his thumb again but Negan grabs his wrist before it can get close enough.
"Thought we talked about this before bud, you can't put it in your mouth, it's all icky"
He'd really love to not think about Maggie hearing Negan genuinely refer to something as 'icky' but he's far more concerned with keeping the little happy and distracted.
"How old are you anyway, kiddo?"
He lets Alden think for a moment, the kid replying with a soft, shy, "Three", accompanied by three of his fingers. Which definitely didn't sound like an f sound instead of a ‘th’ sound. If the toddler's frantic eyes darting to look everywhere except for at Negan was anything to go by, maybe not quite three. He'd humour the boy.
Negan's not sure how much he believes the kid's answer, and judging by the smirk he can only just see on Maggie’s face, she must not either. Like he said, he'd humour the kid.
"Three huh, that sounds pretty big to me."
Alden hums like that's true, but he's looking much more interested in staring at Negan's shoulder, and he's squirming around a lot.
While very amusing, the lie isn't a great one on Alden's part. Negan uses the hand supporting Alden's legs to lightly tap his thigh and holds the kid a bit tighter in his arms, in hopes to get the toddler to stop squirming so much.
"You know... If someone happened to be younger than that I wouldn't blame them."
Alden squirms again, only stopping when Negan bounces him once.
"Baby" he whispers. Like Negan should know that not only was it a bad thing to be a baby, but also truly awful to insinuate that Alden could possibly be one, like it was some crime.
"Younger than three doesn't have to mean baby." Negan replied smoothly. "And even if someone was a baby..." Negan leans in close to Alden, the boy's eyes widening like he could anticipate the big secret coming his way. Negan whispers "I think that that would be okay too"
Alden gasps. The toddler's eyes dart to meet Negan's and then back down again. He repeats this a couple more times as he processes the information.
He of course wasn't a baby but he feels a little more comfortable.
Alden leans in close, like Negan had done just before, cupping his hands and whispering as well as a toddler knows how to whisper (being they don't) "T'ink 'm two"
Now Negan gasps playfully. (though he isn't sure just how well Alden can differentiate between genuine and playful).
"Well how lucky we must be" he says,
"because I happen to love two year olds". He boops Alden's nose, watching as the kid scrunches it up and giggles.
Alden looks starstruck.
"Maggie," Negan calls out "Did you know we have a very cool two year old right here with us?"
Maybe he is only involving her in the conversation because he knows she hates him, and that she'd have to be somewhat nice now that Alden was listening in. Maybe he was just doing that for his own enjoyment. Still, there's no real harm done, and besides, maybe he also did it because he's missed getting to have these types of playful conversations around littles.
She isn't sure how happy she is that he's trying to talk to her like that knowing how much she hates spending any time with him, but she reminds herself that this is for Alden and starts playing along.
"Oh really? I had no idea. Must be very lucky indeed." There's only a slight amount of sarcasm amongst the fondness for Alden.
Alden hums happily and claps his hands together a couple times, before settling down a bit more comfortably. He rests his head on Negan’s shoulder and does his best to nuzzle into his collarbone.
Negan senses the shift in atmosphere and maneuvers the toddler so he's resting more in the middle of Negan, chest to chest.
Alden buries his face in Negan’s neck, continuing to make happy little hums, as the three head off the road and towards an old church.