Poker Face

Chapter 76 - Silver Lining *

*Smut*

"Dwight gave them some guns but not many. I don't fucking understand how they always end up armed," Negan huffed after listening to Aven's account of what she'd seen behind the walls of Hilltop. With Dwight's screams of pain now either subsided or just too far away to hear, the two marched down the hallway towards Negan's office, Aven's arms wrapped around his waist and his arm draped over her shoulder. The rising and persistent tensions of war clouded every inch of the empty hallways but the two clung together like they wouldn't have it any other way.

Their conversation stayed focused on planning the next and hopefully final attack on Hilltop, but there was a lot racing through both of their thoughts, too much. Aven kept her usual straight face but there was an entirely separate war going on in her mind. There usually was. Her short life with Negan so far had been a rollercoaster, completely unlike anything she could have possibly imagined herself being a part of only a few years earlier. Not only had she never been so attached to someone, but she never thought she'd feel that way about someone with so much power in a world with so much violence, someone with so many dangerous flaws. While she was completely enamoured with him, she could still see things from the outside, see his mistakes and abhor the way he ran things sometimes.

She was overwhelmed but not fully processing her own anxiety. She had been close to death only two weeks earlier and still didn't feel as steady on her feet as she'd like. She'd already been weighed down by memories of her past when she was taken by Rick and Maggie and although they treated her humanely, being held against her will made it even harder to fight away the demons and stay focused on the present. But despite the looming darkness she felt and the problems she saw in Negan's leadership, she was overjoyed to be back in his arms. She'd only been away for a few days but any time away from him seemed like an eternity, especially when they'd spent so little time together in the first place after she'd kept herself secluded from people for so long.

Negan's mindset was similar to hers: dark and turbulent, but also amorous and devoted. He'd had a gut feeling that she wouldn't be hurt at Hilltop once they took her alive but he worried anyway. He couldn't possibly not worry under the circumstances; Rick had brutally killed so many people, men and women. Every day that went by where Rick had support in his sad attempt at a coup was a day Aven was in danger, as well as any of his other people. Negan knew even after Rick's massacres the Saviors had the power to beat him, but as Aven had warned from the beginning, the price for Rick's arrogance and stupidity was the lives of Saviors along the way, more lives than Negan could have ever predicted.

He was torn between avenging the lives lost by eliminating every last person opposing him, and letting people live to continue to supply the Sanctuary. The latter opened the risk of further uprisings from the people he let off the hook, but the former meant worse quality of life for his people for the time being. He didn't necessarily care when people silently opposed his methods, but he knew it would be harder to keep them satisfied once the war was over.

And then there was the part, or parts, of him that was still seething, his adrenaline not yet worn off from the morning's events. Rick continued to take lives, while Simon and Dwight managed to do the same right under Negan's nose. He was furious and either needed to either rip another man to shreds with his bare hands or find another way to vent his aggression.

"Jadis probably helped arm them," Aven pointed out as they ascended a set of stairs, their footsteps synced with each other, echoing in the stairwell.

"Maybe," he grunted. "Good thing you iced her." There was a vague hint of something bitter in his voice but Aven ignored it to stay focused on the tasks at hand.