Chapter Text
He might not have very many pleasures left in his life, but at least there are a few simple ones he can still enjoy.
Lounging on his cot, a crocked smile flickers across his face as he plays around with the piece of crystal in his hand, his fingers toying with the whitish lump as he twirls it around. A gift from Judith, a treasure she had accidentally unearthed on one of her little excursions outside of Alexandria.
Every now and then, she brings him trinkets like this, small tokens to remind him of the outside. It’s a pale intimation of the real thing—the outside world he’s no longer allowed to partake in—but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing. Not to mention infinitely more preferable to staring at the dark, dreary surroundings of his cell, devoid of even a single object of aesthetic appeal or beauty. A total absence of things to stimulate the senses or bring forth the will to go on for another day.
Which makes him appreciate these little treasures all the more.
He gazes into the pale crystal, holds it up against the sparse light trickling in from his barred window. It gleams softly as a flash of sun illuminates every ridge, contour, and edge, along with the spiderweb fractures in its composition. Depending on how he angles it, it goes from matte to glossy, from milky white to almost translucent. He plays with it for a while, lets the light reflect off it, and studies the effects, fascinated by how such a solid piece of rock can have such a fluid nature.
His ears prick up in alarm at the well-known squeal of rusty hinges. Lightning-fast, he shoves the piece of crystal under his pillow. The sound heralds the imminent arrival of Rick, and if his jailor were to spot Negan fiddling around with his newest treasure, some very uncomfortable questions would be bound to follow. Questions that Negan would have no answer to.
Because Rick can’t know about Judith’s visits; such a thing will have to remain their closely guarded secret, shared between only the two of them.
But since lunch time is just around the corner, if his inner clock is still functioning correctly, it’s not surprising to see Rick descend those stairs. What does surprise him is that the man doesn’t carry a tray of food with him. Well, he must be here on some other errand, then. Maybe he’s about to inform Negan that Father Gabriel is sick and can’t make it for today’s therapy session; the priest did seem a bit sniffly the last time he’d been down here, and the cold, dank environment surely did nothing to improve on his condition.
With an air of nonchalance, Negan sprawls against the cinderblocks, a leg pulled up and head slightly tipped back, as if he’s busy doing nothing in particular and slightly annoyed that Rick dares to interrupt. He doesn’t let his gaze stray toward the head of the bed with its hidden secret, in case Rick might notice and wonder why the seemingly innocent pillow has suddenly turned into the focus of Negan’s attention. Because even after all these years that have passed without incident, Rick is laughably suspicious, as if he honestly believes that Negan is plotting world domination from the high quarters of his cell and rallying his secret troops from behind a cinderblock wall.
“To what do I owe the great pleasure?” he drawls as Rick comes to a halt outside the bars. “Or did you just drop by to say hi and chat about the weather?”
Rick responds by unfastening the pair of handcuffs clipped to his belt, obviously not in a mood for small talk.
He gestures toward the bars. “Get over here. Back against the wall,” he orders.
Negan furrows his brow in confusion. What now?
“I don’t have all day,” Rick urges him on, a note of impatience in his voice.
Hesitantly, he pushes himself up from his cot and shuffles over toward the only wall in his cell that isn’t made out of cinderblocks. The bars press into his back as he sticks his hands out between them. A moment later, the cuffs snap shut around his wrists, securely chaining him to the spot.
Obviously, Rick is about to enter his cell. It’s not something he does very often—and never before Negan has been handcuffed to the bars—unless it’s to change his bedding, but that particular chore isn’t due until tomorrow. He knows the timetable for the everyday minutia by heart—bathing day, cell cleaning day, sheet changing day, therapy day; whatever it is, he’s internalized the schedule up to the point where he doesn’t even have to stop and think about these things. And today is only therapy day; it doesn’t coincide with any of the other occasions.
“What’s going on?” he asks, not liking an unplanned, unknown event like this. Despite how he normally loathes the fixed schedule with its rigid apportioning of his existence, despite how he never stops hoping for something different to happen for once in a damn while, it doesn’t mean he likes for unexpected things to be sprung on him like this. Especially not when it’s Rick doing the springing.
“Change of schedule,” Rick says with a shrug as he digs out his key from his jeans. A moment later, he’s entered Negan’s cell and is heading right for his cot. “We’re planning to do a supply run to Everton after lunch, and we’ll probably be gone overnight. So I’m having your bedsheets changed now instead of tomorrow.”
Negan goes cold. Fuck. He left Judith’s gift beneath the pillow.
He watches helplessly as Rick peels the cover off the duvet and throws it to the floor. His brain has locked up in panic as Rick reaches for the pillow next. In desperation, he tries to think of something, anything, that will stop the man from lifting that pillow from the bed and expose what lies beneath.
A seizure? Maybe he could fake one to make Rick forget about the bedding? But the thought has barely materialized in his head before Rick is picking up the pillow from the mattress and starts pulling the case off.
And it’s impossible not to see it, the moment when Rick spots the little object lying on the bed.
Rick freezes, the pillow half-way out of its case, like he’s a movie scene stuck in the projector. Forehead creasing into a frown, he throws the disheveled pillow to the side, then reaches out for the lump of crystal.
The scene freezes again in some kind of weird stop-motion, as Rick just stands there, holding the crystal up against the light just like Negan had done a moment ago. His fingers are turning it around and around, as if he’s trying to figure out what the hell it is he’s seeing. How and why such a thing could possibly end up beneath Negan’s pillow.
Then Rick turns sharply to fix Negan with a steely gaze. His face has gone tighter than a gnat’s ass, and his eyes have narrowed into two tiny slits from which only darkness seems to emanate.
“Where the hell did you get this?” The words sound like they’ve been wrapped in frost. And yet his voice is so deceptively calm, like an icy lake in winter, dark, dangerous currents moving underneath.
Negan just stares back at Rick, his mind revving uselessly as he tries to come up with a passable answer. But of course, there’s none to be had. The only explanation that would sound even the tiniest bit plausible is that Gabriel gave the crystal to him, but Rick could easily have the truth of that checked, and then they’d be back on square one, right where the two of them are standing now.
Think, Negan, his brain is yelling at him. Make something up. Isn’t this what you’re supposed to be good at, running your mouth and shooting your shit?
But maybe the years in his cell have taken the edge off, because no answer comes to him. What the hell is he supposed to say? Huh, never saw it before? I found it beneath my bed this morning? The tooth fairy delivered it? I made it myself? Each explanation as ridiculous as the next. There is nothing, save the unsayable truth, he can tell Rick that would be even remotely plausible.
And of course, the truth isn’t an option.
So he does the only thing he can. He meets Rick’s question with silence.
Rick takes a step closer, holding the crystal up to Negan’s face as damning evidence.
“Answer me. Where does this come from?” Rick’s fist is trembling, and Negan doesn’t think it’s primarily from clutching the rock so tightly, despite how his knuckles stand out like death-pale knobs.
“It’s just a piece of rock,” he tries in a futile attempt to defuse the situation. “Heck, I might have understood that you’d be upset if you’d found a semi-automatic or a grenade launcher or, heck, even a skin mag. But that tiny, harmless thing? Might kill a mosquito if you were to drop it on the fucker, but that’s about it.”
“I asked you where this comes from,” Rick’s voice repeats, cold and brittle like frozen iron.
Negan shrugs a shoulder, trying to infuse as much nonchalance into the gesture as he possibly can. Which, admittedly, isn’t much.
“Shit, Rick, it’s a damn piece of crystal. The same anyone can find out there on a nature spotting expedition with a bit of luck. No reason to get your panties in a twist over it.” He tries to play it lightly, act as if it’s a trivial thing, but of course it’s not the crystal in itself that is the issue. It could have been anything. Anything that doesn’t have the right to be in Negan’s cell. Anything that someone could have brought him from the outside. And he can see it in Rick’s face, how the crystal is nothing short of unquestionable proof of damning, dangerous activities, quite likely something that could threaten all of Alexandria. A grand conspiracy, surpassing even whatever dastardly schemes the grandmasters of the Freemasons and the Illuminati could have cooked up after a long wild night of smoking crack.
“Don’t give me that smartass bullshit,” Rick barks at him, raw anger in his eyes. Swallowing, Negan squirms against the bars, futilely trying to put some distance between himself and the other man. The combination isn’t one he likes one bit, being cuffed with hands behind him, while simultaneously having a fuming Rick right before him, looking like he’d be more than happy to rip Negan’s throat out. The air seems to shimmer with tension and pent-up anger, as if Rick is a sieve freely leaking his rage into the atmosphere.
Without warning, Rick’s hand shoots out to grab him by the jaw. Five fingers squeeze hard, bore into his skull, forcing Negan to look him in the eye. Even if Rick is the shorter of the two of them, he suddenly seems a giant towering over Negan, inches taller.
“So, let’s try this one more time.” The fingers keep digging into his face, like he’s stuck his head into a cruel vise. “Who. Gave. You. This?”
The Fairy Godmother, is on the tip of his tongue, but he holds it back. Something in Rick’s eyes and voice and harsh, painful grip is telling him that making light of this won’t do him any favors.
Even if Negan is an expert at needling his jailor, and often more than happy to show off his skills, Rick has usually managed to keep a lid on it. Responded to Negan’s provocations with lukewarm indifference or a pointed put-down of his own. Grinding Negan’s many failures into his face, if he was really upset. But he’d rarely lose his cool and get outright angry. Not like this.
But now, it’s as if Rick no longer sees that neutered dog locked up in a cell, but a growling and frothing rottweiler having escaped its leash, baring its dripping, bloodthirsty fangs to the world.
Rick watches him in silence for a long time, eyes two pieces of granite drilling into him, as if he could pull the answer out of Negan just by staring at him.
Finally, he pushes Negan away from him with a disdainful grunt. Negan stumbles, wincing at the painful yank of his shoulder as his trajectory is stopped short by the cuffs, his chained arms keeping him upright.
“Well, then,” Rick says. “Let’s see what else you’re hiding in here.”
With that, he marches right over to Negan’s meager possessions, most of which are gathered next to his bed. He starts with the books, grabbing each one by its cover and letting the pages flap in the air, watching for something to fall out. He goes through the procedure with every book, but without result. Nothing in them but printed paper.
Next, Rick makes short process with Negan’s cot, ripping the mattress and bedding off, squeezing and patting each item meticulously.
Fuck, it’s like he’s landed in a damn prison movie, with the guards ruthlessly shaking up the prisoners’ cells in their search for illegal goods. As Rick rips through Negan’s belongings like a fucking lawnmower, he throws everything on the floor, disheveled and messy, making it appear as if a small hurricane has moved through the basement.
Rick has never searched his cell before. There’d be no point. What would he search for? Very few people but Rick and Gabriel ever visit—well, that Ricks knows of anyway—and none of them would of course offer him any contraband. With his contact with the outside world having been reduced to these few sources, he would never be able to get his hands on something unauthorized. Rick has always remained in total control of what finds its way into or out of Negan’s cell.
Well, until Judith came along, that is.
He watches in quiet misery as Rick’s moves on to his bedside table, yanking the drawer out with such force that it detaches from the rest of the piece of furniture. Exhaling through his teeth, he lets his head fall back in resignation, unable to stop the pending shitfest from unfolding.