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Saved by the bat

Negan opens the King's eyes

The King looked like Simon had decided to reshape the geography of his face with a sledgehammer. His nose was most definitely broken, probably a couple of times, his left eye looked swollen enough that he possibly needed a drainage and the way he held his mouth open chances were high he had a broken jaw. Emma couldn’t find it in her to feel pity, although it wasn’t him doing what Rick and Maggie were doing. Mostly Maggie by the looks of it. Negan looked at him with his chin up over the crook of his nose, the cold eyes assessing the man in front of him. The moans and hisses of a roamer in the box on the table was the only sound in the room for a while.

“That’s one of my guys. Or was,” Negan said. “Apparently he surrendered. He and 38 others,” the King slid around on his chair a bit. He wasn’t stupid, he knew where this was heading. “So your new allies, the Widow in particular, decided to send him to me in a fucking box with a fucking bow, although, since of yesterday she is well aware that we could return the favor 46 times with you being the big prize. But I am guessing you and your subjects are just fucking cannon fodder for her and Rick,” Ezekiel looked from Negan to the box and back to Negan. He didn’t have anything to say to that. Emma hoped that he remembered that this had been her words exactly, back in the Hilltop. The whole thing here was a well-staged play to get under the Kings skin, and maybe pull him back on their side. Unlike Gregory he was well liked among his people and chances were high that they would do what he said.

“Are you even aware with whom you went to bed? Yesterday your new best pal Rick and his pet redneck killed three of my guys although they also fucking surrendered and one was an injured woman. And I am afraid to tell you that the only price they paid was blood in form of three dead guys of yours,” Ezekiel found his hands really interesting.

“They were workers in the Outposts. I get you wanna kill me, Simon, Emma, hell Gavin. But my soldiers and my workers? They just do whatever the fuck we tell ‘em. You of all people with your little royal setup must understand that. I don’t say that most of them aren’t fucking assholes, but Jesus, what you guys are doing to them? That’s just fucking breathtaking,” he glanced over to Gabriel who sat there with bloodshot eyes and generally looked like he belonged into a bed. His short, inglorious escape had cost them the doc. Negan was not happy about that.

“Well now I understand that when we found you and took your little community more or less over or when Em cut off your resident asshole’s arm that was some sort of fucking tragedy for you, but the shit that went down on the Outposts? Wow. There was a little baby, just six months old. I wonder what happened to her. And a girl, barely 18, went through some shit that would break a man like me and just pulled herself out of the muck, never hurt anybody, pregnant, too. Emma had to put her down since your asshole plan from your asshole buddies killed her and not in the easy way. And then Emma had to do some really unspeakable shit to make sure the kid was dead as well. What part of the fucking bible is that, Gabe?” The man flinched a bit. He looked like a guy whose faith just got shaken down to the core.

“What is it that you want?” Ezekiel asked flatly and barely audible. Negan scoffed.

“What I want, your fucking royal highness, is you head on a spike on the fence and your 44 soldiers lined up next to you. But this isn’t about what I want. This is about what I need. What I need is you dropping that goddamn honor, valor, sacrifice act of yours and tell me who in the holy hell feeds you information. What I need is you telling the 70 something underlings of yours that are currently hauled up at the Hilltop to fucking surrender, and contrary to Rick and the Widow I know what that means and will act on it accordingly. What I need is you finally realizing that the way it was before, the way before Rick, was the better one. I ain’t gonna lie. It’ll never be like before. We will take you on a short rein, not you of course, you will be dead, but your people. Everybody else lives. That is more than you can hope for now,” like on cue Simon got up and started to open the box with a hammer. He gave the lit a little shove and it fell on the table with a loud thud.

“That’s Dean,” Simon stated. The dead tried to get up. Negan and Emma got up, too.

“I let that sink in a little,” Negan said and shouldered Lucille. With that he walked out, followed by Emma and Simon who let the hammer drop on the table. They stood outside the war room and listened for a while to the sounds of struggle. The odds were high the King and the priest would die now, they weren’t in the best of shapes and the priest could barely see. Emma leant against a wall and sighed. Negan looked her up and down.

“I would appreciate a little more fucking enthusiasm,” she kind of glared at him. Everyone was pissed and tense. The Alexandrians had gotten away. Emma hadn’t been on board with the idea of some of the Saviors forming roadblocks around the community in the first place, but Negan had insisted. They had been ambushed and overran. Exactly what Emma had predicted what would happen. The Militia was pretty strong with their guerilla bullshit, that outcome had been inevitable. Pinning them down on the Hilltop was maybe not the only, but the best plan, and now Emma got her way, but it had cost them 14 more people, Laura among them. The only one gotten away was Dwight. Of all people, Dwight.

“He doesn’t know who’s the mole,” Emma was sure of that. The assholes hadn’t even let the man in in all their plans. Maybe that was smart, so he couldn’t spill the beans if captured, like right now, but she wouldn’t trust people as far as she could shit them if they kept stuff like that from her, let alone follow them into war. “And your highness is just for princes and princesses, a king is addressed as your majesty,” Negan made a little weird head tilt and Simon had to smile a bit.

“Thanks for the fucking lesson,” he said after a while with an eyeroll.

“Anytime.”

On the other side of the door was nothing but silence now. Simon shrugged and opened it, his hand ready on his gun. The priest cowered in a corner with his knees up his chest while the King sat against a wall, breathing heavily, the bloody hammer in his hands. What was left of Dean laid spread out over the table. He had bashed his head in. Negan strolled over to the King and crouched down. He just stared into the man’s broken face.

“I don’t know,” Emma gave Simon a look. “I swear,” Negan palmed his beard and sighed disappointed.

“And the other thing?” The King sighed.

“I can try,” he said softly.

“That’s all I’m asking for,” Negan made a gesture with his finger and Simon pulled the King up. Emma followed both to the infirmary. Now with the doc gone she with her field first aid training was the closest they had to a medic right now. The King endured the examination of his face with stoic serenity. Emma reduced his nose without any warning and he groaned.

“You couldn’t have been, I don’t know, a little less thorough?” she asked Simon over her shoulder when she cleaned the little gash on Ezekiel’s brow. Simon shrugged.

“Well, Pumpkin, turns out the King has a very fragile bone structure. I barely touched him,” Simon said dead serious. Emma turned to him with a frown.

“That’s not a no, but you can do better,” she turned back. “I don’t think the jaw is broken after all,” she said mostly to herself when she let her fingers run over his jaw joints and the bone. They needed to make him look halfway presentable when they wanted to droop him in front of the Hilltop. “How many teeth did you lose,” the King looked her in the eyes. There was no defiance, no proud, just sad resignation

“Three,” he said, and Emma shot Simon another look.

“Barely touched him, huh?” she said without heat in her voice. “Make yourself useful, get me the ice spray,” for a couple of second Simon just silently observed the medicine cabinet and then he lazily pushed himself away from the doorframe and fetched the requested item.

“Here you go. How do you feel about Peach?” He resumed his loitering position in the doorframe.

“You’re going through the produce department? Open your mouth,” she sprayed his gum with the ice spray and leant back.

“So I figure Cherry is a no as well. Freckles then?” the King was obviously irritated by the absurd conversation since his eyes flicked between her and Simon, and a little frown had taken residence between his brow.

“I don’t even have Freckles,” she opened the fridge and took an icepack out of it.

“Not in your face,” Simon grinned smugly, and Emma smacked her lips when she let herself drop back on the little chair in front of the King.

“Anyway,” the King took the offered icepack hesitantly and put it on his eye. “One time offer for some killer pain meds? When you find it in you to trust me enough to take two plain white pills?” she shook a little bottle. “It’s actually just Advil, but the strong kind,” the King nodded tersely, and Emma shook two pills in his hand. Simon and she watched him struggle to swallow one dry until he rolled his eyes annoyed.

“I’m gonna get you some water. Nobody can watch that. Don’t try anything, Your Majesty, Hot Stuff over there is well versed in self-defense, too,” he said with a chuckle and left the room. The King let the hand with the icepack sink and Emma pushed it gently back.

“Keep ‘em coming, Zeke,” she encouraged him.

“Why are you even doing this? Negan will kill me anyway,” he said softly. Emma sighed.

“No need to let you suffer unnecessarily until then,” he scoffed a bit and pressed the ice pack on his eye again.

“Why beating me up then in the first place?” she looked at him with pursed lips.

“Does it occur to you that maybe you kind of deserved it?” he tried to glare at her and she stayed unimpressed. ”What were your intentions at the Chem Plant? What exactly did you and your people plan on doing there?” his eyes dropped onto his lap. “That’s what I thought,” they sat opposite from each other awkwardly and Emma wondered from where Simon got the water, the nearest lake?

“I think I misjudged you,” he said without looking at her. “I thought you were crazy, a lunatic, a sadist,” nice.

“What gave you that idea?” the dismemberment? The elaborate threat to kill all his soldiers and let them eat his people? Her careless audacity in the face of nearly certain death? All of the above?

“But I see now that there is method to the madness. A ploy, nothing else. A good one. Probably even Negan can’t see past it,” he looked her in the eyes. “Is it hard to be that way all the time? You must be tired of it by now,” Emma looked taken aback a little and was about to say something when Simon came back with a bottle of water. By the looks of it he was well aware that he just interrupted something, but he didn’t say anything.

“Come one then. You’re in luck. You can go horizontal for a while in one of our nicer cells. You even got a window. You could use some rest before you speak to your people this afternoon,” he said and tugged a bit on Ezekiel’s sleeve. After fucking him up once Simon obviously had decided that he had suffered enough, no need to bully him around even more. That was a bit out of character for the man. Arat had been right with her observation that he was overall calmer and more adjusted in comparison to a couple of months ago. The beating had been an order, and to be honest, Emma had seen guys coming out of one of Simon’s patented whippings in a way worse shape than Ezekiel. Broken nose and teeth aside, Simon had gone easy on him. The King got up and shot her one last look before he walked out of the infirmary. Emma palmed her face. What the actual fuck. She had to get a fucking grip onto herself since obviously everyone could see her façade crumble. Simon already had caught on, she could see the little doubtful frowns that flashed over his face every time she suggested something in the vicinity of total annihilation, followed by contemplating looks and 100-yard stares. Arat knew, obviously, probably Gary, too and who knew who else since her people were apparently close to conspiring behind the big wigs’ backs. Carl had seen it, and now the King. The last thing she fucking needed was Negan going all suspicious on her right now.

Notes

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