Poker Face

Chapter 80 - Just Another Morning

Aven stayed in the distance across the room from Negan, taking notes on the items being loaded onto the trucks. One thing she noticed was the guns were only being loaded with Eugene's ammo, even though they still had some boxes stockpiled.

"Wade, why don't we load up the rest of the ammo?" Aven asked as one of Negan's higher-ups hurried past her to bring a crate outside to the trucks.

"Uhh, not sure," Wade replied, glancing at Eugene who, from his facial expression and posture, seemed to have transformed from a meek prisoner to a confident warlord since being involuntarily recruited by Negan. "I'm staying to watch things here with you but I was at the outpost with Eugene yesterday and he was real serious about only using the new ammo and saving it for battle just in case. I think they're taking a few boxes of whatever we have left but he wants the guns loaded with his shit."

"Huh," Aven breathed with a shrug. She couldn't think of a reason the new ammo would be any more or less useful than the old stuff, but she knew history, not engineering. Plus, Eugene came across as the type of person who might be a tad obsessive about his work. But the feeling that it was odd remained and she did the worst thing she could possibly do: she ignored her intuition. Ignoring her intuition had never turned out well before.

And then she saw Dwight and her blood boiled. It was somewhat satisfying to see him in his current state, bruised, cut, and bloody, his hands and feet chained, hunched over in defeat wearing the same set of dirty, baggy sweats Daryl had been forced to wear. Negan was in his face taunting him, and Aven couldn't help but wish he'd have just killed him. If Negan was really serious about the Saviors having two leaders after today, she was definitely reforming the justice system. 

Soon enough, Negan was ordering the men into their trucks. Aven moved outside with everyone and watched from across the dusty yard as Eugene handed Negan a pistol, which he tested with a huge grin, his eyes sparkling with glee. He was in his ready to kill a motherfucker mode, and Aven nibbled at her bottom lip, pushing away the hint of arousal she felt. Afterall, she was still mad, hurt, disappointed. But Negan was right when he said she loved the power he held over people. She never denied that, and she looked forward to getting to share said power with him some more. If he would really let her, which she wasn't sure he would.

Negan took great pride in grabbing Dwight by the collar and the back of his shirt and throwing him into one of the trucks, before motioning Laura, Eugene, and an entirely defeated Father Gabriel into an SUV at the front of the line of cars. Gabriel and Dwight would be the first two deaths of the day, but there were plenty more to come. Aven hadn't seen Negan acknowledge her even once, but he turned to look directly at her, his eyes knowing exactly where to find her as though he'd been monitoring her every step. His giddy expression sobered and he looked at the ground regretfully before nodding her over. She let out a sigh and steeled herself to stay calm, her eyes darting around for the easiest car to stow away in.

"Everything will be different after today," Negan said, grabbing her shoulders affectionately as she stopped in front of him. He pulled her into a hug, kissing her chastely on the forehead.

"What we talked about," she reminded him of part of the conversation they'd had the night before. "Kill the right people, take out the mansion and the trailers, and make sure the rest know to stay down from now on." After admitting to himself that his style of leadership wasn't entirely working, Negan had begrudgingly decided to disconnect entirely from the other communities. He didn't promise that there would never be new ones to take from, but he knew there was no hope for the Hilltop, the Kingdom, and Alexandria. He tried to save them; now they were on their own.

"It's gonna be a glorious fuckin' day, baby," he breathed.

"Just don't come back too beat up."

"I can promise that," he began mischievously, "but since we're equal fuckin' partners now, how 'bout you do something for me too?" His arms were still around her and one hand slid down her back to grab her ass. She didn't pull away, but she wasn't entirely responsive. Equal fuckin' partners, she thought. If that were true, he wouldn't be trying to keep her home like a dutiful hosuewife. "Be waiting in bed for me. I'm gonna want a celebratory piece of ass."

"We'll see," Aven whispered, just managing to hide the disdain in her voice. Negan slid into the passenger seat of the SUV Laura was driving. The trunk was open and one of the workers was loading one last crate. Aven glanced at Negan and saw him staring straight ahead towards the gate, speaking emphatically, no doubt bragging about his victory to-be.

"Here, I got it," Aven said, reaching out to take the crate from the worker. He'd clearly been lifting heavy boxes all morning and handed it off to her gladly, wiping his brow and turning to go back inside. Aven tentatively placed the box in the truck, staring at the backs of Eugene's and Gabriel's heads, worried they'd turn and see her (Eugene would rat her out, and Gabriel didn't seem like he'd be able to act casual enough to keep her secret). Miraculously, not even Negan noticed and she thanked whatever god might be out there for another wave of dumb luck on her part. She slid into the trunk and pulled the door closed behind her. She lay flat right behind the seats just to be sure she couldn't be seen, and moments later the car was moving through the gates.

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A/N - A few notes on the story from here and in general:

-My writing in this story has been very moment by moment, day by day. It feels more natural to me that way but I've been having so much writer's block with how to get to the end, I think I'm overthinking it. I'm gonna speed things along a little with less detail than I usually use (for example, they're definitely disagreeing over Aven going to Hilltop but I don't know how to write them arguing about it for twelve hours without it being boring and repetative. They've argued about her safety before, you know the drill). I know the basics of how I want this to end and I'm having so much trouble getting there by trying to flesh out every minute before the end. I hope the last few chapters don't feel too cheap, but I have a lot of ideas for the sequel and I'm kind of itching to get to it.

-This story strays from Negan's backstory somewhat. I haven't actually read the Here's Negan comics but for example, I know he seems to only have one mistress with Lucille. I have him as having cheated on her with multiple women, mostly to show the difference between the old Negan and Negan with Aven (the fact that instead of cheating on her with multiple women, he gave up multiple women). I thought about editing to make things parallel his backstory more but I think I'm going to just keep things as is. Doesn't actually matter that much but it's been on my mind.