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“We should have a hard mode,” Eric suggested as they made their way back to Alexandria with only a crate of dishwashing soap in the backseat to show for their run. “One pile of license plates that we only collect in alphabetical order. That pile can be a game. Whoever collects the most letters wins.”
“You only want to do that because you found Alabama today,” Aaron accused, but he could have been swayed to go along with anything Eric wanted at the moment.
Seeing Spencer and Olivia killed right in front of him had shaken him up, and having a gun pulled on them - one flick of the trigger away from one or both of them adding to the body count - was keeping them both up. Aaron wasn’t sleeping much at all, but when he did manage to fall asleep, he was often woken up by Eric’s nightmares. After two weeks of restless nights and tense afternoons, Eric had insisted on coming out with Aaron. The only reason he agreed was because Eric’s nerves were starting to take a toll on his appetite too, and he was hoping that getting out of Alexandria for a few hours would give him the distance he needed to finish his dinners if not sleep through the night.
“There are forty-nine states left. Plenty of time for you to get competitive. Before, you know, you inevitably lose.” Eric spider-crawled his fingers up his shoulder in teasing, and Aaron felt a wonderful, almost foreign at this point, impulse to laugh, which was promptly squashed with his next words. “Guess I’ll have to start coming out more, so you don’t jump ahead.”
There went his hope to quietly make this a one-time deal.
“I don’t like you risking your life out here.”
Eric’s hand lingered on his shoulder, fingers trailing over his neck. “That’s so weird, because it’s fun for me. Every time you go out, I sneak into the community pantry to bake a celebratory cake.”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“What about my ass?”
Aaron glanced at him and couldn’t help a crooked smile despite the reservations building at the idea of Eric making a routine of leaving Alexandria’s walls and the inevitable confrontation when he tried to put his (admittedly, hypocritical) foot down on the issue. He couldn’t take it. When that gun had swung their way and aimed at Eric, the fear that gripped him had been primal. It was the flare going off all those months ago and rushing to find him with his ankle broken, thinking he was bitten or gone. It was wondering if their life - his life, if it came to it - was over.
Before he could argue more or Eric could weaken his resolve with the hand on his neck that had moved to his thigh, the car gave a rattling cough, stalled out, and died. Of course it did. He could go on runs for months with no automobile trouble, but obviously the one time he brought Eric back out with him, things would blow to hell. Sounded about right.
An inspection of the engine yielded a simple answer, “We’re walking.”
Eric raised an eyebrow as he stared at the dead car and gave him a sarcastic smile. “Want to carry me home bridal style?”
Aaron chuckled as he closed the hood. “Maybe over the fence’s threshold.”
He couldn’t remember the last time they went for a walk, which was sad since it was one of the only date options inside the walls. Eric must have been thinking the same thing as he thread their fingers together and smiled at him.
“Let’s not go home,” he proposed.
“Where should we go?” Aaron played along, because life was impossibly small now.
It was a tiny town and threats and death, both roaming and buried. Fantasies were as far as they could travel safely anymore. How many planes had they been on together? How many hotels had they stayed at or tourist spots had they seen when they were working for the NGO or traveling between missions? Now, they were lucky to drive down the road and make it home in one piece.
“A bowling alley. Or the mall. I want an Orange Julius.”
“The movies.” He couldn’t remember what was playing at the theaters when they started packing their clothes to evacuate, what movies they skipped out on seeing and now would never have a chance to watch.
They rarely went to the movies with as busy as their job kept them, and it made him wonder which celebrities were still alive, locked away in the Hollywood hills and giving other survivors star-struck apocalyptic shocks. Maybe one would turn up at Alexandria one day. He expressed the idea to Eric.
He grinned at the notion. “They’d become our leader. I mean, we can’t follow Rick when Brad Pitt is right there.”
“We’d have to exile Brad Pitt. Too many kids to feed.”
“You’re just intimidated by all the chemistry I’d have with him.”
Aaron snorted and let go of his hand to push him sideways. It should not have felt so good to be stranded with nothing but knives for protection, but seeing Eric smile, hearing him laugh, relieved a huge weight from his heart. They were afraid, and that fear was keeping them alive, but they needed this. This was why staying alive mattered.
He tucked away a smile and forced his gaze away from Eric before he saw how clouded it was and got ripped away from their fantasy oasis. “Do you think Brad Pitt is still alive?”
Eric watched Thelma & Louise so many times, it was permanently killed for Aaron. He was glad there wasn’t a copy in Alexandria.
“Oh God, he better be.”
Aaron shook his head at his alarm as he pulled him in for a kiss. That was something else they needed. Eric’s arms went around his neck, and he deepened the kiss there on the side of the road surrounded by trees on either side and who knew what else.
For that moment, it was just the two of them—nothing else. He held on to those moments like a vice. They needed food and water and weapons to survive. They needed each other to live. It was a distinction he learned when the flare shot up and the gun pointed to Eric’s head. He would live as long as he could. Survival was secondary.
As he pulled back, those priorities clashed as movement behind Eric dragged his attention down the road where two big trucks were driving directly towards them. The one in front had a horse trailer attached to the back. His heart sank the closer they got and he was able to identify them. It was the Saviors. Of course it was.
Eric’s hands were on his jacket, and Aaron wanted to run. He wanted to get him out of there, but they were in full view. There was nowhere to hide, and he didn’t think Negan would have been impressed with them tearing off through the trees. Sounded like a good way to catch a couple of bullets in their backs.
“Should we stick our thumbs out?” Eric tried for levity but only ended up exposing the sinking feeling that was hitting Aaron too.
“We’ll be okay,” he said, knowing no such thing but willing it to be true. “We’ll ride this out and go home.”
Eric was staring at his face, and he knew he was looking at the bruises that were still fading.
“No matter what,” Aaron insisted, “we ride it out, and we both go home. Okay?”
He would take another beating. He would take a hundred beatings if that was the price of keeping his family together, small as it was.
The trucks slowed and came to a stop beside them. The passenger side window lowered, and Negan himself leaned over to talk to them from behind the wheel.
“Well, hello! Did you boys have car trouble? I hate when that happens.” He grinned, big and toothy, and Aaron hated him for it. “Want a ride?”
“It’s a nice day for a walk,” he replied.
Negan threw his head back, grin broadening. He waved them over.
“You want a ride,” he decided.
The person riding up front with him hopped out and stood beside it with his gun at his side, waiting for them to comply and forfeit their weapons before walking to the other truck.
“Be polite,” Eric whispered as they walked over, which was the quickest way to remind him that snarking off would get their heads bashed in with a barbed wire bat as quickly as it would make Negan laugh; there was no way to tell.
Aaron tried to get in first so Eric wouldn’t have to sit next to Negan, but he shook his head and held a hand up, pointing to Eric and crooking his finger for him to come up instead.
“He’s skinnier,” he said. “A man needs his space. He’ll eat up less.”
Sure. Aaron was pretty certain the only reason he cared was because he could tell that he did. That was something else Negan did that he hated. He dug into people and found the best way to scratch until the person he was antagonizing felt like they were covered in fire ants, right before he killed them.
He shared a look with Eric, whispered it’s okay even though it wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as okay, and gave him a hand up. Eric kept his eyes on his own lap as Aaron got up next and closed the door, which was probably for the best even if seeing him close off in fear sent red waves of anger through him.
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I am Negan," he said as they started driving. "It is my pleasure to taxi you around today.”
“I’m Eric. This is Aaron.”
“You guys shopping for me, or do you always drive out to the middle of nowhere to make out on the road? Don’t tell me Alexandria doesn’t have a Pride parade yet. Build a float. Be the change.”
“We were scavenging,” Aaron said tightly.
“Oh yeah. My boys already relieved your car of its loot. I am going to have such clean dishes here on out. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Eric said, and even knowing what he was doing, Aaron wished he’d give Negan the silent treatment. The less said, the less he could take issue with.
“I’m welcome?” Negan repeated in surprise. “Thank you, Eric. Now that’s the kind of courtesy I’ve been looking for out of your boy, Rick. Your other boy.”
He winked over at Aaron, and his stomach turned. The strained, not entirely convincing, look of passivity on his face sparked interest in Negan, and if it got the attention off of Eric, he was fine with that.
“So!” Negan hit the steering wheel, and Eric flinched hard. Aaron moved his hand to his leg with a subtle squeeze. “Were you boys always into dick, or did the apocalypse make you prison gay? Taking what you can get. Desperate times and all that. I have a harem if you miss women. Come by. Take a load off. Forget about other dudes’ balls for a while. What do you say?”
Aaron had to stare straight out the windshield and clench his fist to keep from speaking.
Eric cleared his throat softly. “I say, I’ll have to decline the offer. My preference for stubble, and Aaron in particular, dates back to a pre-apocalypse era.”
“Alright.”
Negan reached out suddenly, and Aaron turned in his seat without thinking, reactionary and unsure what he was going to do but knowing he had to do something if he was moving on Eric, but Negan - watching him with entertained eyes that knew exactly what he was doing, setting him off - simply flipped the CD player on. It was Eric’s turn to lay a calming hand on Aaron’s leg.
“Come on over if you change your mind, feel experimental. I used to have this girlfriend back in the day that liked to bang chicks. She’d tell me sexuality is fluid. I don’t know what the shit that means. Maybe you’ll want a turn with my wives and I’ll be chasing cock one of these days, huh? Hell, maybe you’ll be in my harem, Eric.”
Negan locked eyes with Aaron in the rearview mirror, eyes lit up from weaponizing his bullshit the way he seemed to enjoy so much, pushing people to their limits, nudging them to act out on him so he could react in kind. He could have killed them at any time, sure, but he liked to position people on his board with the rules he would or wouldn’t follow depending on how homicidal he was feeling that day. It was a risky game to play, considering how high his normal homicidal baseline was. Aaron wasn’t playing, for his own sake and for Eric’s.
As much as he would have loved to be the guy, the one that took him out, took the head off the network and started the work of destroying the Saviors, he knew that fell to Rick. Making any kind of move now would just put them at more risk.
Negan elbowed Eric. “Your man over there keeps looking at me like he’s afraid we’re gonna hit it off, and I’ll sweep you off your feet. I think we should calm him right the hell down, don’t you? Let’s give him some peace of mind.”
The truck slowed down and came to a stop.
Aaron was filled with something worse than fear, helplessness. He could shoot them dead. He could pull off the road and take his bat to Eric’s head, and there was nothing he could do about any of it. Until Negan was gone, none of them had any control over anything. He was wrong before. It wasn’t enough that their hearts were still beating. He wanted a guarantee that they would keep beating. He wanted more than the uncertain promise of the next few seconds.
“Please,” Eric murmured, and there were too many things he could have been asking but the way his arm went up and out in front of Aaron instinctively made Aaron hurt, the need to protect him was so intense.
“‘You’re welcome’, ‘please’,” Negan parroted. “Somebody went to charm school. I like you. You’ve got good manners. Even more reason to appease your boyfriend, so you don’t end up in a lovers' quarrel. You guys can sit in the back with the rest of the cattle for the rest of the ride. Sound good, Curly?”
Panic seized him and went white hot as Negan hopped out of the truck, grabbed Eric by the collar and hauled him out onto the road so hard that he stumbled over and dropped to his knees.
“Hey!” Aaron scrambled over the seat after them, and Negan wagged a chastising finger in front of his face as soon as his shoes hit the street.
“Watch your manners,” he warned. “Driver gets to pick the music and where the hitchhikers sit. And I say there’s not enough room for three of us in the truck.”
Negan grabbed Eric by the back of the collar and yanked him to his feet, holding him there.
“Wait!” Aaron raised both arms, palms out and willed himself to stay calm, stay clear, but the stricken look on Eric’s face was sending sparks of panic throughout his whole body. “We just want to get back. We were getting stuff for you. We’ll keep doing that. You don’t—Please. Please, don’t.”
“‘Please!’ There it is!” Negan yelled enthusiastically. “People always get so damn polite when they think their friends are fixing to have their guts acquainted with pavement.”
“Oh, God,” Eric nearly whimpered, and Aaron squeezed his eyes shut a moment to keep himself there and now and not back in front of the pool table staring at Spencer lying disemboweled on the street. “Aaron…”
“It’s alright, Eric,” he placated him in soft tones with a small nod and nowhere near the conviction he needed to take the awful look of terror off his face. “There’s no room in the truck, that’s fine. Just leave us. We’ll walk home. It’s… no trouble.”
Negan scoffed and looked around at two of the men that had gotten out of the other truck and were standing guard nearby.
“Now how rude would that be?” he argued. “To just leave you here, two friends in need, on the side of the road—who knows what kind of nasty thing could creep up on you? I said I would give you a ride, and that’s what I’m gonna do. You go in the back. Lucille wants to stretch her legs anyway. You and the string bean are cramping up the front.”
Negan shoved Eric towards the trailer at the back, still holding him by the collar, and Aaron started forward. The guards raised their guns, and he stopped, realizing Negan had him by the collar without laying a hand on him. He followed them to the back, each step measured to be unthreatening.
“I’ll try to avoid any speed bumps.” After a moment, he gave Eric a rough shake, and Aaron almost lost his resolve and jumped on him. One second at a time. One millisecond. Negan leaned in close to Eric’s ear, furrowing his brow in disappointment. “Can I get a thank you? You’ve been such a sweetheart. Don’t let me down now.”
Eric’s eyes slid to Aaron, and he thought of Nigeria. Of bad men with guns on the river delta, and how good people seemed to outnumber men like that even with a gun in his face. He wasn’t sure of the ratio anymore.
Through uneven, shaky breaths, he managed to murmur, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
Negan opened the back of the trailer and threw Eric up inside of it as Aaron’s eyes were still widening at the pile of dead bodies in the back. There were two. They looked fresh but didn’t smell that way.
“Don’t mind the company,” Negan said as he pushed Aaron towards the back. “I’m bringing ‘em home for my wall. I’m a bit of a collector. Make sure you don’t damage my property.”
Aaron got in, and the door was locked behind them. Negan whistled all the way back to the driver’s seat. Sun slid through the holes in the trailer, but many of the rusted slats had been sealed shut from the outside. Even in the middle of the afternoon, the trailer was mostly darkness and shadows.
Aaron hurried to Eric as the truck started to move, and they hugged, kneeling there on the floor - relieved, fraught, and miserable - until a low moan at the other end of the trailer caught their attention. They pulled back to look. One of the dead bodies was coming around. Like the moans were an alarm, the second body began to stir back to unlife.
He wanted to go over and stomp their heads in before they could get up, but Negan had specifically said not to damage them. He was afraid a consequence of bashing their skulls in might have meant having a heart-to-heart with Lucille.
“What would Brad Pitt do?” Eric asked wryly as the walkers struggled to their feet as he and Aaron got up across from them.
“Adopt them?”
“Aw, our own little family. We’ll name them Thelma and Louise.” Brave effort sounding nonchalant, but he could hear the unease in his voice.
He took a step forward as the walkers came.
“Stay behind me.”
Eric stepped up to his side and gave him the look he used to in Nigeria when he would tell him the same thing.
“Okay,” he said since there was no time to argue but spent as much time on the ride home shoving the newly transformed walkers back as he did forcibly blocking Eric with his body, pushing him into corners and throwing a walker away from him before dealing with the one closing in on himself. Eric had to live, or he couldn’t. Surviving wasn’t enough.
Negan kept his word. It was smooth all the way home. No speed bumps.
By the time Negan opened the trailer door, he was exhausted from constantly dodging, pushing, beating the walkers back, and keeping constant track of Eric.
“They’re awake! Good morning, sunshines!” Negan greeted the dead as Eric and Aaron jumped down panting and put as much quick distance between them and the walkers that fell after them as possible.
They were outside the wall of Alexandria at the gate. He could hardly believe it. In the back of his mind while each of Eric’s cries of distress had sharpened his senses and given him the energy to keep aggressively defending him, he wondered if it was for nothing, if Negan was driving them back to his compound to kill. Rick and the group would never have known the difference. They would have disappeared without a trace.
“Where you going?” Negan called after the walkers that made determined lines for them. He rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for this, girls. This was only a pit stop. Daddy never said to get out of the car.”
Instead of taking the time to order someone to wrangle them back into the truck, he raised his gun and fired two shots into each of their heads. They were close enough that the blood splattered over their clothes. Aaron flinched against the spray and watched the bodies drop as his muscles still ached from having to fight them off for the last half hour, for nothing. The flash of humor in Negan’s eyes told him that was the point.
“Don’t you hate it when kids don’t listen.” Negan shook his head and turned with a wave. “Bye, Eric. Good luck with the float.” He grinned at Aaron. “I’d keep my eye on that one.” He stage-whispered, “He wants an application for my harem. Not my type, but Lucille, on the other hand, is always chasing ass. She’s a real intellectual type, more interested in a person’s brain. No gender bias. Who knows? Could be a good match.”
One second. One millisecond.
Aaron stepped in front of Eric, who went pale at the unsubtle threat, as the fence was pulled back and opened. It was exactly the reaction he wanted. Negan laughed as he got back in the truck, and he hoped it was one of his last. Someone like that had to be running out.
He watched the truck disappear down the road with the other one and felt sure they were closing in on the end. Their situation wasn’t sustainable. Taking a beating hadn’t driven that point home, but watching his people killed right in front of him, knowing Eric was on the Saviors’ radar, seeing Negan’s smile shine through all the cruelty—it couldn’t hold. And when it broke, he would make sure he and Eric were on the right side of the wreckage.
“He’s going to die.”
They would figure it out. They had to.
“Yeah,” Eric said behind him, looking down at the dead walkers. “We have to avenge Thelma and Louise.”
Aaron did a double-take on him and had to suppress the airy laugh of surprise that rose up since he didn’t have the energy for it. With a hand at the back of Eric’s neck, he pulled him close and kissed his temple. One way or another. Whatever it took.
Negan would die.
They would live.