Fix You ! Cegan

XII

Things had been quiet the last few days at the Sanctuary. Eerily quiet and calm. Usually this would unnerve Negan but after the previous few days he reasoned they could use a break. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to keep Carl in their room recovering for as long as he could but it hadn't lasted long. Short of tying him to the bed again (and not in a fun way) there was nothing he could do to keep him in the room for longer than a few hours. If you ignored the obvious gash on his forehead Carl seemed pretty much back to normal to the outside world. After 2 days Negan had given up on keeping him locked away and gave him small, quite mundane tasks to do, like supervising inventory (which earned him a hug one-eyed glare but Negan told him he should be lucky he was allowing him to do anything).

Carl was back to normal, except, he wasn't. As much as he tried to hide it from Negan- and he really, really was trying- he wasn't sleeping. When he did sleep, which was rare, he would be awake in an hour or two in in a panicked haze. The first few seconds after he jolted awake, or Negan himself woke him up to draw him out whatever hell he was stuck in, were unbearable. In those few seconds Carl either tried to distance himself as far as he could from Negan, crawling across the bed in a haunted, terrorized daze, or he woke up with a look in eye like he would kill the first living thing he came across. Negan was pretty sure one day he'd wake up with the kid slitting his throat, but if that's how he went out then that's how he went out. He was also pretty sure he prefered killer Carl over terrified Carl, but he seemed to get the former most nights.

After a night or two it seemed like the kid did everything he could to avoid sleep without actually saying that's what he was doing. Negan had woken up in the middle of the night a few times over the last few days to find him reading- or maybe at this point of the night he was just staring at the page. Tonight was no different. Just as Negan was about to fall asleep in a wonderful post-sex sated sleep Carl quietly made his way out of bed and when questioned said casually that he was going for a walk. The kid had been pissy about Negan following his every move- "I'm not going to slit my wrist the second I'm out of sight, you know." - he had told him yesterday, so Negan just went along with it instead of picking his usual fight. He didn't like the kid going out at night, but he knew it was probably not worth the fight.

"Take this. And watch your pretty ass." Negan said tiredly, eyes still closed and pushing his gun towards him across the bed.

Carl leaned over him and brought their mouths together slowly. "Don't worry, I'm covered." Negan peeked his eyes open and saw Lucille in his hand.

"You're lucky I like you kid. Thinkin' you can just take Lucille like that. Put her back where she belongs." But Negan rolled back over and shut his eyes, drifting to sleep.

Carl had started his walks a few nights back but Negan apparently hadn't noticed until tonight. Night was the worst time for him, and he found that his incessant pacing around the Sanctuary was the only thing that kept his mind off things and exhausted him to where he could finally fall asleep for a little bit- well, that, and also an unhealthy amount of sex to try and unsuccessfully wear himself out, but even Negan had his limits.

After about an hour of aimless walking with his book in hand Carl made his way over to his newly found favorite spot in the bed of one of the trucks. He laid in the bed, hat as a makeshift pillow, and looked up at the sky realizing finally what a nice crisp evening it was. It was never quiet outside like it was inside the Sanctuary or Alexandria at night and he loved it. There was always some kind of noise to keep his mind distracted, whether it be walkers or crickets or some unknown animal.

He had never slept well in silence. When he was younger Rick and Lori had a terrible wall AC unit that could wake the whole neighborhood, but the static noise grew on him, and when it was replaced when he was 6 he realized he couldn't sleep without the noise. His past life seemed so far away now. He wondered briefly about the chances of him and Negan meeting had this all never happened. That was laughable though. He'd probably be a super polite, quiet kid who found some normal boring girl to take to prom. He'd hold her hand all nice like Enids and probably not feel a damn thing but he'd put up with it because that's what society would tell him to do. Or maybe- maybe he had always been fucked up and the darkness would have come out full force either way. Regardless, Negan was probably the last person he'd end up fucking.