Chapter Text
What does it mean to really love someone?
Is love only the feeling of caring for someone beyond yourself?
When do you consider it an act of lust or obsession or control? And where do you draw the line when they treat you in one of those ways? Is care enough to justify the rest?
If Carl knew, if he had ever been taught, if anyone ever thought to notice, maybe he wouldn’t have wound up like this.
The thing with Negan was that it didn’t matter whether you despised him or admired his rule (in the beginning, at least) — if he was dedicated enough, you would admire him regardless. You would do whatever he said because he cared enough. Enough to learn to know you, what you wanted, what you feared, enough to use it in his favor. Enough to learn what would get him loyalists individually, and what wouldn’t. If you have never met someone like that, maybe you’ll never understand. And I am not capable of explaining it to you, not in its emotional entirety. This is the best attempt.
There are certain people that, no matter how horrible, will burrow beneath your skin. Will sink below your veins. Will become everything that lurks beneath you. And by a certain point, they are you. You don’t even really realize, not until it’s happening, until you don’t care enough to stop or to slow it. Until it is far, far too late.
“I’m not done with you, Carl. Maybe I’ll never be done with you.”
That dreary day when he’d hopped on the truck and stormed the Sanctuary and Negan, the fucking bastard, eyes crazed and shriveled up in his mocking grin, pulled him up by his hand. Took him to see the wives. The people kneeling on the factory floor before him in waves and his stature leering, infinitely tall, taller than life, taller than death, his existence infinitely more grotesque than a walker’s could ever be, and the women drinking, the women crying, the women too afraid to say no.
He remembered it in a haze, a blurry film akin to what you’d recall from a dream. He didn’t know it would be the first day of the rest of his life. He didn’t know those feelings of hatred would slowly dissolve into something much worse. Something unexplainable. Something unrecognizable.
“It’s more productive to break you. More fun, too,” He had folded forward, a slight smile, hands adjusting to rest in his lap, everything about him almost drenched in a plethora of power and greed, “Because, you see, Carl, little serial killer, I like you. And I think you like me, too, you just don’t see it yet. Too stubborn. Too much like your damn dad.”
He didn’t know how very true those statements were. In the moment they were like some grand fucked up delusional rambling and he felt a rage ignite inside his chest at the man’s audacity to say such a thing. “I’m nothing like you.”
We’re different. We’re different. We’re different.
He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs. Prove the point. Make them listen. To who, himself? To him? Why would he expect Negan to believe it? After a certain point that whirling thought almost becomes an admission of guilt within itself. Carl did not have the moral high ground. He had done bad things. He had done too much.
(Whether or not that sentence was true at the time, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. The first seeds had been planted. If only he had known.)
“No?” Negan paused, and then added, “Take a look around. Think about it. I saw you with your hand on that rail, looking down at all my people, and there was something in your eyes–Well, eye,” He laughed to himself, “Some kind of spark. You ‘ see’ what I’m saying?”
Wow. Funny.
At the time, maybe he had, but just didn’t want to admit it. Maybe he had felt something standing up there, looking down upon a sea of people, looking down upon an army, and knowing that, with that kind of protection, with that kind of dedication, you could get them to do anything. You could keep your people fed and sheltered and overall safe.
If that many had been backing them at the prison, his mother would still be alive. They never would have lost that place, either. The Governor was nothing compared to a group of this scale, even with a stupid fucking tank. The Sanctuary had doctors and vendors and more food than they knew what to do with — overall, a system that, cruel as it may be, worked.
But then he, of course, remembered Glenn and Abraham and Maggie’s screams and her legs buckling beneath her, too weak with pain to hold herself together anymore, blood gushing down her collapsed legs, the thought or dawning realization that she may very well have lost her entire family in one day, Carl coming up to hug her, to comfort her, to do something about all of this misery even if his actions were unbearably miniscule, brain matter gushing down Glenn’s face, drowning into the rocks and black-crimson laced asphalt, all while he was still alive, while he used the last of his strength to hold himself upright and tell Maggie that, even in the afterlife, he was going to find her.
Was that really any worse than murdering people in their sleep? Sticking knives into their temples while they lay in bed with their families in the next room, their families who would never wake up, who would never share a meal together again, who would never kiss their children goodnight, who would never get a chance to say goodbye. Shooting a kid only a few years older than him when he had long since surrendered outside the prison. When he didn’t pose a threat. Carl having so little shame in this action that he had done it in front of others.
Letting a man they very well could have helped be torn apart by walkers, driving past him time and time again as he screamed and begged for mercy, until the last instance in which he had become nothing but a slop of viscera and still-warm matter beside his highlighter orange backpack. And that was when they’d stopped. To take his things.
He couldn’t accuse Negan of such unbelievable cruelty. At least, not without the finger whirling back to point at himself.
He was like a doll. Hollow. Empty. Porcelain skin laced with deep cracks and paint smudges, one beady dead eye, muscles stretched taut and tight over bones. Scars white and purple and pink and pillowy laced and woven into skin, just a tell of what he had seen, the impossibility of the road and all it could bring with it, how young and vulnerable he had been when everything began.
He could tell that his father did not recognize him anymore. That he may not consider him something he was able to salvage. Every action and every conversation laced with guilt and memories neither of them wanted to share.
After he had returned home, the days began to drag by, slow as a crawl. The nights even longer. Waiting for the sun to rise was like watching paint dry. There was nothing he could do but stay in his mind, torturing himself.
Carl spent his nights staring up at the sky through his window, his knife under his pillow if he ever managed to get some sleep, but most of the time, it never left his holster. His gun on the bedside table, always within reach. It was why he was so easily able to find Jesus that day he’d broken into the house, intercept him before he ever reached the top of the stairs. He was always listening. Watching. Waiting.
And he wondered, absently, maybe guiltily, if Negan slept like that, up on the third floor of the Sanctuary. With one eye open, a weapon always within reach. No, probably not. He probably slept like a rock. He probably had pleasant dreams and breakfast in bed, for fuck’s sake. What did he have to fear in a community like that? Thousands and thousands of people, always ready to come to its defense. To keep it running the way it had.
He wanted to kick himself for such a thought. Because, while, sure, they lived like that — what about the fact none of them wanted to be there in the first place? What about the fact that none of them were given a choice? Some, or maybe even most, had gotten their families killed for their position. Or, like the wives, had to do it to keep them alive.
None of them were given a choice.
His father’s words rang heavy in his head.
‘All we’re asking for is a chance.’
What good had that chance done? All the way back at the CDC, and baby-faced Rick, his mother still alive, the timer red and beeping, Dale and Andrea cowering behind the block as the explosion erupted like cotton candy amber and whirling into the sky. What good had getting out of there done for them? Was Jenner evil for wanting to keep them from all of this? For trying to force them? Wouldn’t it have just been better if he had never opened those doors? If Dale had never asked what the countdown was for?
When he finally slept, it was only for a few hours, and he found himself within a tormented landscape, heaps and heaps of dead people, the stench overwhelming, none of them walkers but many he knew. Beth, her pale hair stained a grotesque and sapping red within caves from the exit wound, her mouth that would never open to sing again, to tell her sister she loved her, to hum Judith to sleep at night, her arms that would never hug another, her hands that would never grasp a thing. His mother, her stomach spilled open, contents ravaged, and the image flashed in his mind again, he and Maggie rifling through his mothers’ organs, connective tissue, they did not know exactly where the baby would be, where the womb was, and it was revoltingly warm, revoltingly alive even as she slipped away, no medical training so what they had managed to pull off was more like a miracle, a horrible fucked up miracle, their hands violating, their hands prodding, their hands coated in red until they pulled Judith out and she escaped a screaming sob, and his mother was gone. Lori’s face, her striking green eyes, he could recognize it anywhere, no matter how changed or clipped, her arms that would never hold him again, that would never cut his hair, that would never be anything now but cold dead ligaments.
Further and further he walked, and the more he saw, the more he wished he didn’t, the more he felt hopeless and lost, the only left alive. It was a landscape of dead grass and empty gray foliage and dirt rotten laced with bone and matter and god only knew what else. Bob without legs. Herschel without his body. Without any words. Their words were stolen from them. Nobody had any words anymore. Or even lives or thoughts or hope. What was there to say? Nothing. There was nothing.
This was nothing.
Wind billowed through the open window, throwing the curtains up in the air. Carl made no move to close it. He sat at the kitchen counter and reloaded his pistol, watching Judy sleep on the baby monitor in front of him, setting up extra clips to leave in the drawers for quick access.. If they turned out to need them.
Well, with the coming war, it was more of a when.
His sister (who was really more like a daughter, with him being the only one consistently looking after her, even since the start, when his father was lost beneath the prison, when his father didn’t really exist anymore, not in his entirety – and after that his father was always too busy to dedicate much time beyond maybe one feeding, maybe one night he’d put her down to sleep, in which she’d scream and scream and scream until Carl came by to redo the entire process, reading her a story so she could calm, tucking her in so she could feel secure, humming you are my sunshine so she could rest), she was asleep, had been for an hour or so. The older she grew the longer she slept. Even through louder noises, through rising fears, through harrowing tension, she was growing. She was developing. She was learning.
He dearly hoped that the world would show mercy on her, even if it was wishful thinking, even if it surely hadn’t for anyone else.
When a knock sounded on the door, he hurried over – assuming maybe it was Eugene or Michonne or even his dad back from his run to gather supplies for the Saviors – instead coming face to face with Negan when he turned the lock and swung it open. The bat swung over his shoulder carelessly resting, an awful grin on his face at the sight of the boy, a slightly-torn leather jacket, that one he never took off. It smelled like shit.
“Hey, Carl,” He said, quickly, as if he were the only one the man was expecting.
“My dad’s not here,” Carl replied, trying to keep his voice level despite the tremble that echoed through his syllables, “But I’m sure you know that. So why are you here?”
As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he replied with a certain haste, a certain feigned obliviousness, like he was just a caring neighbor, just an earthly citizen the same as everyone else, not something wildly different, something wildly terrifying, “I came to see you.”
Carl took a sharp breath in. Just breathe. It’s fine. All he does is try to get under your skin. You don’t have to let him. “Why?”
“Let’s just have a chat, alright?”
Carl suspiciously furrowed a brow. He glanced behind him, but nobody was watching, nobody was out on the street making sure he wasn’t up to no good, as he always was, even if they had let him inside the gates… But for that matter, in the absence of other Alexandrians, there were also no soldiers at his wake, no big trucks in sight, no people rushing out to gather supplies. He wasn’t here for a meeting or a collection, even if it was early. He must have come alone.
“What, don’t tell me we can’t sit and have a chat,” He proposed, “It’s such a nice day. Too nice not to have some damn company.”
“Whatever. Fine.”
Carl turned on his heel, leaving the door wide open. He speed-walked over to the kitchen table, nearly tripping as he rounded the corner – don’t show him how afraid you are, don’t show him how you feel, don’t show him a goddamned thing because he isn’t fucking worth it – and shut the baby monitor off, shoved it into a drawer, the one with their utensils. Hoping Negan wouldn’t want to see Judith again. The last time had made him anxious enough. He’d watched the two of them like a hawk that time on the porch after he’d stormed the Sanctuary, as the man bounced his baby sister on the ball of his knee. ‘ Why am I trying so hard? Maybe I should kill all of you. Come down to live in the suburbs.’
Fuck, he was not dealing with that again.
The man came down a few moments later, evidently hadn’t having seen what he had done, “Goddamn, this place is nice as hell. I’m surprised every time I come down here. It’s almost like before.”
Carl took a shuddering breath, lowered his pistol back into his holster. He probably would have aimed it right at his face, if he thought he had a shot, but the amount of power this man had over him, he’d probably miss at the slightest movement.
(He had no idea how wildly different he was going to feel in the coming months. So quickly, and yet so slowly, his perception of him had changed. Like a frog in boiling water. You have to cook them slowly, so that they don’t notice the temperature change. It will be boiling their skin alive and they won’t notice a thing, maybe not until layers of flesh had been removed, probed, burnt away. And even then, maybe they’ll never notice.)
“What do you want?”
“A beer would be nice. Get yourself one, too.”
And so, Carl did. He wasn’t going to act like he was a good teenager, a perfect one, one that had never stolen from his parents’ fridge, took half a case of alcohol in the middle of the night. Michonne and Rick didn’t check up on him enough to even notice, so what did it matter? Surely Negan wasn’t going to be talking war strategies with a fifteen year old. So. He did what he was told. He sat before him, slid a beer across the counter as they sat on stools on opposite ends, and opened one himself.
“What do you want?” Negan said as he pulled the tab open, took a huge swig.
Carl paused, tracing his finger around the rim of his beer. What did he want? The annunciation of the words suggested a greater purpose. Over anything else at this point.. Maybe he wanted his mother. He was tired. He was so tired of fighting and pushing and begging. Yes, he’d give everything else away just to see her again, just to be held by her, just to speak to her, to feel that semblance of comfort. Her presence was the centerpiece of his very being. It had been forever.. When she left, it was pulled away, and he collapsed upon himself. He wanted to feel her security once more. To feel whole again. Even if for a few minutes or moments or even milliseconds. He would have given anything.
But that was a stupid answer, and it wasn’t what Negan was asking him. What he needed was not physically possible. “I just want.. I just want my family to be safe,” Carl shrugged, “My people. Our people. They all deserve that.”
“And they can have it,” Negan retorted, almost sardonically, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “That’s what I’m trying to give them. That’s what I’m trying to give you. People need rules, they need structure, they need a system. That’s what I’ve done. That’s what I’ve built,” He leaned forward, a leg brushing Carl’s knee. The boy shifted back like it was an electric shock, before the man added, “We save people.”
“But you know we can’t trust you. Look at what you’ve done,” The whistles still rang in his ears. He could feel the cold twinge of the night air as his breaths quickened, as his fathers’ eyes grew distant and cold, as blood splattered, “What you did.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m some kind of all-knowing saint. Jesus Christ running around performing miracles. Shit, kid, nobody is. Nothing like that exists,” Negan’s gaze was fixed, boring through him. He threw his hands up, “You think your group hasn’t done some horrible, awful, unspeakable shit? And yet you all still sit up on your high horse and act like you’re any better. Well, they may have managed to convince you, but I’ll tell you a little secret – they’re not perfect. Hell, not even good. Good people don’t exist anymore. But there can be ways of life that work despite that . Despite the world being eaten up and shat back out. That’s what we give.”
Some people are of the belief that you may come back from anything, no matter how heinous. People like Morgan, or the older version of Gabriel, long before he locked out his congregation, at least. They cling to rosaries and cells and books about forgiveness, inspirational bullshit quotes and fantastical scripture, metal bars and hope and either innocence or foolish belief but overall either a mind too damaged or maybe too sheltered to be able to tell the difference.
But Carl knows better. He has seen far more than most, the depths of depravity the mind can conjure, that nature can harvest. Bloodied noses and bones peeking out of oddly twisted limbs, men with their breaths fogging up a car window in the night, flesh torn and ripped by rotted teeth, a stomach splitting into pieces to welcome a baby in the brutality of a life nobody wanted, that some had tried their hardest to escape from, crimson branching on a hospital floor, a mother wailing for her dead child, her voice of the splitting agony only those who truly knew could understand. He has done more than the majority in Alexandria could ever imagine themselves harboring, and after all — all of the things he had once feared so dearly, that he had mentally separated himself from so, in order to protect his brain from collapsing upon itself, of which that he was convinced his family were separate from, that they were still human, that they were protectors and defenders and nothing more — it seemed all of them had blinked and in an instant become entirely indiscernible from it. Carl especially.
And so, as unforeseen as it may be, Carl thought Negan might be right.
No, he knew, in some sense, some deluded fucked up sense, he was.