Chapter Text
Sometimes, Rick thinks, it’s like the war with the Saviors never happened.
Once the dust had settled and their wounds healed, life surprisingly quickly returned to normal, or at least to whatever counts as normal these days. Naively, he had thought that without a war to lead, he’d finally be able to sit back and relax, but even now, two years later, that has yet to happen. The prior all-consuming fighting and strategizing, the worrying and the preparing, have instead been replaced by going on endless supply runs, resolving budding conflicts, building and strengthening infrastructure, negotiating new trade agreements.
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum.
But he shouldn’t complain—after all, they won the war. Realizing they had been outsmarted and outgunned, the Saviors surrendered, and the people of Alexandria could finally rebuild their lives and start over, creating the society that Carl had hoped for. They have peace now, even a nascent friendship with the Saviors who decided to stick around, to be part of the new world.
So he should be pleased. And, he supposes that he is.
There’s just this one thing that still irks him, that keeps him awake at night—that Negan slipped from his fingers on the day of the final battle. Rick had chased him through the brutal melee and the blood and the screams of dying men, firing shot after shot, only to be shoved to the ground by a burly Savior who bumped into him as he grappled with an Alexandrian, teeth bared like a werewolf. When Rick got to his feet again, having only barely avoided being trampled by two-hundred-fifty pounds of man-meet, Negan was gone.
And he stayed gone, despite the search parties that had been sent out. Escaping payback, escaping retribution.
No, Rick mentally corrects himself as he clenches his hand into a fist, letting the nails dig crescent shapes into his palms. Escaping justice.
A bump in the road brings him out of his reverie, jolting him back to reality.
“Hey, Aaron, watch where you’re going. I’d like to keep today’s lunch where it is,” he says, going for levity to assuage the discomfort growing in his gut as the rocky outgrowth jutting out on his right-hand side tells him that they’re approaching their destination. The air inside the truck feels stuffy, like it’s been regurgitated a million times, but with the road nothing but a stretch of dry and dusty dirt, he lets the window remain closed.
“Sorry,” Aaron grins, not looking sorry in the least. “Thought you guys were made of sterner stuff, but guess I thought wrong.”
He’s about to fire off a witty comeback, but the words die on his tongue as a gathering of people silhouetted against the horizon come into view, looking like toy soldiers in the far distance. Instinctively, his hand goes to the gun at his belt, an affirmation that it’s there should he need it. He doesn’t plan to—doesn’t hope to—use it today, but Brad is a nasty fellow, and Rick doesn’t trust him as far as he can throw him, which, given the man’s sizeable frame, isn’t very far.
Their convoy of trucks come to a halt a couple of minutes later, in the middle of nowhere, empty land stretching out in every direction. Brad and his men are already there to meet them—they always are—looking relaxed and comfortable as they mill about, like they’re on a camping holiday. But they’re all armed to the teeth. They always are.
“Ah, Mr. Grimes,” Brad, the leader of the pack, ebulliently greets him as Rick steps out of the truck, even though no one really addresses others with titles or last names anymore. Except for Brad, who doesn’t seem to have a last name himself, at least not one that Rick knows of. “Always a pleasure to trade with one of my favorite customers.”
“Hello, Brad,” Rick says, nodding in acknowledgement. “So, what have you got for me today?”
There’s no small talk, no how-do-you-do’s. There never is. This is business, no more, no less.
Brad grins at him, a gold tooth glinting as he crosses his heavily tattooed arms over his leather vest. The vest creaks, straining beneath both fat and muscle. Rick gets the nagging suspicion that the man is sizing him up during these trades, trying to estimate from their purchases how many people Rick has back home. Maybe he’s just being paranoid, maybe not. For now, though, for whatever it’s worth, they’re on peaceful terms.
“Oh, we got some mighty fine stuff this time around, I bet my ass you’ll be fucking impressed.”
He turns toward one of his men hovering in the background, leaning against the scratched hood of a truck while polishing his nails with a knife. From the tension in his stance and the way his eyes keep shifting, though, Rick can tell it’s just an act and he’s following the proceedings with laser-like attention.
“Show them the goods, Terry,” Brad says, snapping his fingers for good measure.
Terry hops down from the truck, knife magically gone in an instant, and disappears behind one of the vans. A minute later he returns with a couple of other guys in tow, all equally sour-faced and arms loaded with cardboard boxes.
They set them down in front of Rick and Brad, who gestures toward the boxes with a flourish belying his truck-like frame, chest puffed out like a peacock. “Have a look, Mr. Grimes. See what strikes your fancy.”
Rick turns, nods toward Siddiq who’s waiting a few steps away with the others.
Together, they rummage through the boxes, Rick mostly for show, because other than Paracetamol and a few other brand names, he doesn’t know what half of the stuff in there is for, other than that it’s medicine.
And medicine is one of the most sought-after goods nowadays. As repugnant as Rick finds trading with Brad, he can’t afford not to. His people can’t afford not to.
Siddiq’s experienced hands quickly sift through the contents, pulling out item after item, placing the desired ones on the ground in a neat pile. Rick half-heartedly adds a bottle of antiseptics, some bandages, and whatever Paracetamol he can find. He knows that Siddiq is always on the hunt for those things.
Some of this stuff is well past its expiry date. He has no idea how well medicine keeps, but so far, no one at Alexandria has died or gotten worse from it. He remembers consulting the Internet once, while clearing out his bathroom cabinet in what now feels like an eternity ago. One site claimed that medicine was fine to use years past the expiry date, another warned that the active substances could break down and turn toxic. Back then, he had tossed it all in the bin just to be safe.
Now, they can’t afford to.
They haggle over the price for a few minutes before settling, Brad combing his fingers through his long, greasy ponytail like he usually does when striking a bargain. Rick has no idea if he’s paying through his nose or what other communities are paying for the same things, but as long as his people have the means to trade for it, he won’t complain.
As the turn comes to fulfil their part of the deal. Rick helps his men bring out the produce from the trucks—apples, carrots, potatoes, rye bread. A deer that Daryl shot with his crossbow. A few rabbits. Brad probably thinks he’s a real chump for not leaving the physical work to his men, but he couldn’t care less what Brad thinks of him. Probably, the man used to be a small-time crook in his past life, someone who went in and out of jail like it was fitted with a revolving door. Rick saw a lot of guys like him when he was a cop, knows the type.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Brad booms as he slaps Rick’s back, eyeing the foodstuff. “I like a man who knows how to deliver.”
He reigns in his revulsion at the physical contact, swallows down the foul taste in his mouth. Because medicine isn’t the only thing that Brad and his men sell. He found out about that a year ago when Brad took him aside, asked if he were interested in buying other goods too.
What goods? Rick had been naïve enough to ask. Oh, you know, men for labor, for doing whatever dirty, dreary, or dangerous work you don’t want to. And women for, well, whatever you’d like, Brad had answered with a lecherous grin. Rick had wanted to punch him right then and there, but that would have meant no more medicine for his people, so he had curtly replied that he never wanted another offer like that again.
It was only after that incident that he started to take notice of the men and women among Brad’s group hanging back in the background, their eyes downcast, their postures hunched. When a couple of them discreetly approached to load the traded produce into their trucks, they did so silently, not meeting his eyes, like drawing attention to themselves was a thing best avoided. Several of them sported bruises, none of them looked like they’d ever had a day of happiness in their lives.
Later, he heard it confirmed by other groups who also had dealings with Brad—he and his men keep slaves. Rumor has it there are communities further in the outback who are buying, but Rick hopes it is just a rumor, because that’s just sick and twisted.
Maybe all this means they will have to go to war again someday, against Brad’s group. Not right now, no, but someday… He sighs, feeling that tightness in his chest from bottling up his anger. As if Negan and his Saviors weren’t enough. Assholes seem to sprout from the woodworks whichever way he turns.
“Real fucking swell doing business with you,” Brad says, giving Rick a sly look that he doesn’t like one bit. The man smiles, the sun catching on his gold tooth again. “Only this time around, I got something else for sale too. Some very… special goods. Think you might be interested?”
His shoulders stiffen. “If it’s the same kind of offer as last time, then no. I’m not interested.”
Brad chuckles as if Rick has told him a particularly amusing joke. “You tell me again you’re not interested once you’ve seen what’s on offer.”
He waves a hand in the air, signaling his men. “Bring him.”
Him?
Rick takes a step forward, anger and repulsion boiling inside of him in equal measures, at how this repugnant man thinks it’s perfectly alright to sell human beings like cattle. To actually keep fucking slaves like this is the goddamn Middle Ages. And to assume that he, Rick, would actually want one for himself.
“Hey, I thought I made it perfectly clear that we Alexandrians don’t—”
His words come to a halt, wilting into nothing. Because there’s something weirdly familiar about the figure that’s being dragged out from a nearby truck by two of Brad’s men. A primal memory is rearing up inside of him, making his body automatically tense up before his conscious mind has even registered what’s so eerily familiar.
And even when his mind finally does recognize who that figure is, once he’s roughly thrown to his knees before Rick, he refuses to believe it.
No, it can’t be. This is a trick of the mind, maybe he’s dreaming, even hallucinating.
Because right there, kneeling on the ground before him, close enough for Rick to reach out and wrap his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze, is Negan.
The world grinds to a halt. All sound fades away until there is nothing but the beating of his own speeding heart in his ears. Brad, his men, Rick’s men, seem to have frozen in time, a collection of statues lined up around him, none of them of the slightest importance.
Because the only thing of any significance is the man before him, the man who escaped from his clutches. The man who once made Rick’s life a living hell, who laughed as he threatened, mocked, ridiculed, humiliated him.
Rage flares up inside of him. It’s all he can do not to punch a fist into that face and then keep punching until his arms are too tired to even lift.
And that’s when Negan chances a quick, darting glance upward. There are dark bruises on his uncharacteristically pale face, a scab on his forehead. He looks thinner too, skin stretched tight over bones. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments before Negan averts his gaze, but he’s not quick enough. Because Rick saw it, recognized that glint in his eyes.
Fear.
And that makes something well up inside of him, a breathless headrush he hasn’t felt the likes of since he took his first drag on that spliff passed around behind the bicycle shed in high school.
Negan is afraid. Of him.
“I know all about your war,” Brad says, bringing Rick out of his semi-trance, back to planet Earth. “Heck, some of the former Saviors joined up with us afterward. So yeah, I know all about him. About you and him. Truth be told, we’ve kept him around for a couple of years, but since you’re such a loyal customer, I thought, well crap, why not offer him to you. Granted, he’s been more trouble than any slave is really worth, but I figured you might not care overly much about that. Might even enjoy the chance of getting to break him yourself, huh?”
An ugly thing stirs inside of him at Brad’s words, but so what? ‘Ugly’ is just a word, and there’s been so much ugliness after the war broke out anyway, so what’s a little more?
“I know you say your people don’t trade in slaves,” Brad prods, “but something tells me you might be willing to make an exception. Am I right?”
“How much do you want for him?” His voice doesn’t sound quite like its normal self. He can see Negan flinch, and he relishes that flinch. Delights in it. In being the one with all the power, their old roles flipped one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.
Brad guffaws. “Always hella funny how people pretend to be so squeamish about these things, but once you offer them the right goods, everyone’s a taker.”
Brad can laugh and mock all he wants. Rick doesn’t care.
“How much?” he repeats.
Brad cocks his head. “Well, you still have some food in the back of that truck, don’t you? You give me that remaining stuff, and he’s all yours.” A pregnant pause, then Brad lowers his voice so that no one but him and Negan can hear him. “All yours, Rick. Your slave, to do with exactly as you please. How about that?”
And he knows full well that the produce left in that truck isn’t meant for this, whatever doesn’t have to be given up for medicine should be brought back to the community. A voice is whispering in his head that he’s their leader, and their well-being should be his top priority, not slaking his thirst for whatever retribution he’s still aching to dish out.
Then he looks at Negan, still kneeling at his feet, hands chained behind his back, and remembers the heady feeling of seeing Negan afraid. Afraid of him.
And that settles it.
“I’ll buy him.”
And the way Negan, head bowed, sags forward like all air has gone out of him, makes it all worth it.