#creating a little bump. it’s disgusting. and also starting to bruise?? don’t get what’s happening

[321sluggie]

Gross shit in tags

[fallenqueen2]

Paul’s Plan 1 [TWD-Bad Things Happen Bingo]

Paul’s Plan

It has been a month since Paul went missing; he then reappears as Negan’s negotiator. Whose side is Paul really on?

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Rating: T

Square Filled: Betrayal [Chapter 1], bedside vigil [Chapter 2]

Tags: badthingshappenbingo, Betrayal, AU, Glenn and Abraham live, who is Paul really betraying, Daryl has feelings for Paul, badass Paul, Negan is his own warning, character death, whump

Created for @badthingshappenbingo

Ao3 Link

Chapter 1 - Betrayal

Daryl flicked the cigarette butt off of the wall as he squinted at the tree line, seeing nothing and disappointment settled in his gut had been doing for a solid month.

"Rick said you were up here," Maggie commented as she carefully made her way up onto the walls of Alexandria, her hand settling on the small swell of her growing stomach and accepted a bottle of water from the man as she sat in the chair next to Daryl.

"How ya feeling?" Daryl asked seeing sadness hidden in her eyes.

"Not great... It's been a whole month Daryl and I know I should accept it that he's gone but I just..." Maggie trailed off to gulp down some water, rubbing her stomach tenderly.

"It's Paul," Daryl fought the urge to light up again, but even that reminded him of the Scout. The Scout who had tossed Daryl this pack of cigarettes with a cocky smile on his lips.

"He always comes back," Maggie sighed as she stretched out her legs.

"Yeah," Daryl knew what the woman was saying; he felt his unexplained absent like a damn missing limb. They all knew what it was like out there with the Walkers and with the Saviors but Paul always came back alive.

"Ah, shit!" Daryl swore when three trucks burst from the tree line and he snatched up the binoculars to confirm.

"It's the Saviors, shit. Tell Rick and the others!" Daryl swore as he grabbed his crossbow as he leapt to his feet.

"On it!" Maggie sounded pissed as she hurried back down the steps to gather the others.

Daryl was on her heels, anger coursing through his veins as he and Rick stepped out of the gate of Alexandria where the three trucks were waiting.

"Well, ain't this a cute little place you got here," a man called out as he stepped out one of the trucks wearing jeans, a leather jacket and a barbed baseball bat resting on his shoulder.

Daryl knew this was Negan himself and his fingers tightened on his crossbow as he kept it aimed at Negan while the others spread out around him and Rick to keep the other armed Saviors in their sights.

"Now, now I know this is a surprise and all but I'm here to negotiate peaceful like." Negan raised his hands mockingly.

"I don't buy it," Rick said simply as he rested his hand on the handle of his gun as he stared Negan down.

"It's the truth, usually I would waltz up in here and demand half of everything you have and maybe kill one or two people to really drive my point in. However recently I've been... Persuaded to try ahem a less bloody way. I even brought a negotiator!" Negan smiled a bit deranged when he told them that he had been persuaded. Daryl got a sick feeling in his stomach as Negan whistled and the door of the truck behind him opened up.

Combat boots his hit the ground before Paul came into sight. Daryl let his crossbow lower in pure shock while Maggie lurched toward with a cry of Paul's name but Glenn held her back. Paul's hair was loose around his shoulders; he was wearing tight black jeans with a plunging black sheer V-neck shirt. His throat was covered in fresh and healing hickeys but what was obvious was the handprint that spanned his throat. What terrified Daryl was the blank and empty look that filled Paul's usually so expressive eyes as he looked at them.

“You seem to know my husband," Negan commented as he sauntered over to Paul and Daryl felt his blood run cold at the term. They all had been told about Negan’s harem of wives and how got them. Daryl felt sick as the marks on Paul's skin made sense now, but Daryl had to wonder how the hell Negan had gotten his hands on the ninja-like scout and what the man threatened him with to keep him in line.

"You didn't tell me you know these people and you know I don't like being lied to boy." Negan snarled as he curled his fingers around Paul's throat, matching up with the bruises that were already there.

Glenn had to hold onto Maggie tighter when she lunged forward again and Daryl's crossbow flew back up towards Negan, itching to out a bolt through his head. Daryl noticed that Rick had his gun out of his holster and eyes blazing as he took in Negan and Paul.

"You didn't ask," Paul said simply as if he didn't have a madman choking him.

"I didn't ask huh? Heh, still such a sassy thing you are. Looks like I’ll have to try harder to break you." Negan laughed as he squeezed Paul's throat once before stepping away and turning back to the Alexandrians who all had varying looks of horror and disgust on their faces as Negan’s words sank in. Daryl’s finger twitched on the trigger of his crossbow before he let out a curse when Negan wrapped his arm possessively around Paul’s waist and pulled the scout in front of him to act as a human shield.

Negan was pressed far to close to Paul’s back for Daryl’s comfort and his hand came back up around Paul’s throat once again. From the hiss that Maggie let out and the cocking of Rick’s gun the others felt the same as Daryl did, but there was no way to get a clean shot off with where Paul was standing.

“Negan wants half of everything you have in exchange for the Saviour’s protection.” Paul recited off; keeping those blank eyes locked on Rick whose jaw was clenched as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

“If we say no?” Rick asked slowly and Paul inhaled sharply when Negan’s hand tightened around his throat, forcing his head back as Negan lifted his bat to point at Rick.

“We start offing you one by one until you come to your senses, but also remember if you try anything pretty boy here may be my husband but that doesn’t mean I won’t mess him up a bit or let my men have their fun.” Negan gave a sick smile and Daryl snarled under his breath at what the man was implying and he heard Maggie shout out curse after curse as she struggled against her husband’s arms.

“You have one day to decide,” Paul said simply like Negan wasn’t openly telling them all what would happen to him if Rick didn’t give into Negan’s demands.

“Load up men! We’re having a party tonight!” Negan shouted out and his men let out a cheer while Paul’s face went a shade paler and his eyes flashed with something before he schooled his expression, but Daryl saw it nonetheless and it set a fire in his chest.

It may look like Paul had betrayed them and Hilltop to Negan but Daryl was a hunter and he knew Paul. There was more happening here than anyone knew and it made Daryl’s skin itch.

Daryl kept his crossbow trained on Negan who was walking Paul back to the truck, his hand obviously gripping the other man’s ass as they went and Daryl wanted nothing more than to chop that hand off and pull Paul into his arms.

The Alexandrian’s didn’t move or lower their guards until the three trucks were out of sight.

“Well shit,” Rick swore as he shoved his gun back into his holster.

“Something ain’t right, Jesus would never go to Negan let alone agree to be that bastard’s husband.” Maggie exploded, finally wiggling out of Glenn’s grip, holding her baby bump protectively as she spoke with fury burning in her eyes.

“We don’t know him that well, maybe this was his plan all along,” Abraham suggested and Daryl had to fight the urge to punch the man. Paul was a lot of things, prick included but he was no traitor.

“We don’t know much about what is going on and that makes our position difficult.” Rick ran his fingers through his hair as the group made their back into the safe-zone. Maggie being held back by Glenn once again, her fury directed at Abraham for even suggesting that Paul had been playing them.

“Even if we could attack, that puts Paul and whoever he’s protecting in danger.” Rick rumbled to Daryl, giving the man a side look and Daryl refused to read too much into that knowing look his brother was giving him.

“You see those bruises? He’s already in danger! We have no clue what else has been happening to him! They’ve had him for a MONTH!” Maggie fumed before she took a deep breath.

“I’m going to get food and maybe punch something,” Maggie said with a false calm before she stormed off, Glenn opting to stay back and he shrugged his shoulders when given questioning looks. He knew his wife and wasn’t about to get in the way of her anger.

“We have to make a plan, a good one that doesn’t leave anything to chance,” Michonne said simply and Daryl grunted his agreement, he had to make sure whatever their plan was that it involved Paul being safe from Negan and his men.

Daryl tried not to think too hard about the party that Negan mentioned that had Paul looking terrified for that brief moment. He knew if he thought too hard, horrible things would appear in his mind and he wasn’t sure he could handle that right now.

~~/~~

“Hurry up boy, the party is getting started!” Negan barked as he walked into the room Paul was staying in while in Sanctuary. Paul was still wearing the same clothes he had during the encounter with Alexandria, but his eyes were glinting dangerously.

“I don’t think so,” Paul said simply and Negan’s face twisted up in anger and he stalked towards Paul, swinging his bat at his side.

“You think you have a goddamn choice boy?” Negan snarled as he reached towards Paul before he stumbled. Paul’s lips turned up into a smirk as Negan staggered backwards, Lucille dropping onto the floor as he curled his arms around his stomach.

“You little shit, what did you do?” Negan rasped as he felt to his knees and Paul stepped forward so he was towering over the man.

“It took a month, but you and your most insane followers finally have enough built up in your systems to take you down,” Paul said as he wrapped his long hair up into a topknot as Negan swore.

“You poisoned me? ME?” Negan was cut off by a violent cough.

“I did originally plan on slitting your throat that first night, but I didn’t want a blood bath to follow when half of those here are only here because you forced them. So instead I talked with everyone here, I chose those who would turn on you and fed you and the rest small amounts of a tree root that Daryl showed me once. Harmless in small doses but if you kept ingesting those amounts day after day for a month, well.” Paul picked up Lucille as he spoke, swinging it through the air as Negan had been doing moments ago.

“You won’t get out of here alive boy,” Negan rasped out before he coughed up blood, doubling over in pain as his body began to shut down thanks to the poison in his system.

Negan fell onto the floor in a boneless heap when several explosions went off over Sanctuary and noise grew from outside and Paul just tapped Lucille against the floor by Negan’s head.

“You really think I didn’t have an escape plan in place? I have friends everywhere and those explosions came courtesy of King Ezekiel and the Kingdom. What’s left of your saviors will be taken care of, but you won’t be around to see it.” Paul promises as he lifted Lucille and took a steadying breath before he swung it down with all his strength with a sharp crack as barbed wire and solid wood connected with Negan’s head.

Paul winced as he pulled Lucille away from the now bloody mess that had been Negan’s head. Paul swallowed down bile at the sight of flesh and muscle attached to the barbed wire and the burst eyeballs in Negan’s caved in head. Negan was dead and no longer able to harm anyone and something akin to relief coursed through Paul’s body.

Paul’s head snapped up when the door was flung open, Shiva growling and fur on end as she leapt into the room, Ezekiel standing at the ready behind his tiger.

“Jesus my friend! The compound is ours!” Ezekiel announced in triumph and then his eyes fell on the bloodied bat and what was left of Negan.

“Come, my friend, let us leave this place of horrors.” Ezekiel held his hand out as Shiva purred in contentment from the place next to him.

“That is the best offer I’ve had in months.” Paul smiled as he stepped towards Ezekiel before his eyes widened and a strangled choke came from his mouth as blood dripped down his chin.

“PAUL!” Ezekiel roared as he lunged forward as Paul collapsed, his hands curling around the side of Paul’s neck where a bullet had just torn through.

“FIND THAT SHOOTER!” Ezekiel roared at some of his men who had been guarding the hall as Paul’s blood seeped between his fingers.

“Stay with me Jesus, come on you can’t give up after all of this.” Ezekiel encouraged Paul whose eyes were closed but his chest was still moving up and down as he breathed heavily even as he slipped unconscious.

“Fight Jesus, don’t give up!” Ezekiel kept repeating as more blood spilled from the wound on Paul’s neck.  

[24hs]

the bee’s guts

summary: She was back at her parents’ house, but it felt like she had left home.

or

A pathological liar and someone pathologically fixated on brutal honesty.

pairings: nicomaki

words: 2000+

warnings: a little bit of everything if were being honest but only mentions

also readable here

As the day shifts into night, her thoughts become more incoherent as the light fades.

As the day shifts into night, her thoughts become more incoherent as the light fades.

It has been like this… for how long, exactly? Hours or years, she couldn’t tell. She had to find out that vodka makes her sleepy, while whiskey leaves a comfortable burning sensation in her throat. An ambitious mixture of both works best to break out from the night and get to saving daylight quickly.

She doesn’t always fight them. Sometimes, the weakness is stronger.

(Nico would call it strength, maybe bravery. Nico used to be very hung up on being brave and being honest and being soft.)

Maki’s fingers act before her brain can think. At first hesitant – as if that was to undo her rotten intentions -, then quick, she can’t ever go back, she lights up match for match. Lets them fall onto the ground, carefully holds them onto curtains until she sees the chaos in her mind on her fingertips.

She doesn’t leave the room she spent most of her childhood until she’s forcefully dragged out of it. The noise outside finds a way into her head like a parasite, buzzing loudly and pressing violently against the inside of her skull. They’re yelling at her. For what she has done or for who she is, she doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. She only cares a little bit.

As she refuses to make any movement to save herself from the inferno she created, the people around her grab her arms and pull at her like a doll. Apparently, they do not care if she gets a few bruises as long as she gets out alive. She wonders, what’s the point? If they revive her with stitches and she turns out to be a sheer mask of her old self, patched up and heavily made-up in order to hide what she truly is.

Is that better than dying true to yourself?

They get her out of the room that was once, very briefly, home. As they pass the burning photos on melting walls ; photos of her on her birthdays, with her parents, on events and galas ; her ceramic smile becoming more and more fragile ; her lips turn into a snarl. She stills grins as they’re hauling her out of the burning, yet so cold, cold room.

 “The doctors said you’re fine”, her father spits. “Why are you acting up again? Don’t you ever think about your parents?”

Maki doesn’t answer. (She thinks her doctors are liars, possibly simple suck-ups, both intimidated and intrigued by her parents’ disgusting wealth. She also thinks her genuine thoughts wouldn’t be appreciated right now. Not that they once were.) Instead of giving in, she takes a bite of the steak the cooks have prepared for their dinner. It tastes bland.

“What happened to you?”, her mother cries out. “You used to be our perfect girl. Now, you’re- you’re-“

“We can’t go anywhere without people mocking us!” Her father now yells; she idly watches the vein on his throat throbbing as his voice becomes louder. “Laughing about us because our insane, fucked in the head daughter-“

Ironically enough, this is the trigger for her to think about Nico. Maybe because Nico had always protected her whenever someone called her that. Cussed at them, using names so obscene and rough it made Maki almost feel sane. They never bothered her again. Not with Nico next to her, anyway.

“But you do know that I am, right?”, Maki once told her. “Fucked in the head, I mean. they’re not wrong.” She had become cold at the phrase, had even started to believe it. Accepted it with a shrug. If everyone was like her, the world would be at a very different place.

Nico just glared at her. “I’ve seen crazy people, Nishikino. You’re certainly not one of them.” Then, a little bit quieter ; Maki to this day isn’t sure she was supposed to hear it, “you just need to be loved genuinely.”

She patiently waits for her parents to suffocate on their words as she chews on her just as dull salad. Eventually, they’re stopping themselves from shouting and there’s just the clock ticking as they silently take their meals. Her mother on the verge of tears, her father emotionless like a statue.

Maki has always felt much more adequate in her parents’ presence when they’re being themselves. She feels like she fits right in.

 Of course, they wanted her to talk about her family in the psychiatry. All issues one has with oneself root from one’s parents, they diligently told her, many times, as if they were reading the phrase from a book. Knowing her own parents, Maki can’t say she’s very surprised. She refused to talk about them, though.

Nico always wanted her to.

“Why should I talk?”, Maki complained one time. “It won’t make me feel better.”

“It really won’t”, Nico laughed. Maki scoffed at her.

“You won’t even lie to make me feel better?”

Nico glared at her. “Fuck you think I am? No, I won’t lie to you. Duh.”

Maki defensively put her arms in front of her chest. They hadn’t been roommates for too long at that point ; they still had to work their way around each other, see what makes the other person click. Maki sometimes wondered whether the administration or whoever does dorms in psychiatry stuck the two of them together for laughs. A pathological liar and someone pathologically fixated on brutal honesty.

“But”, Nico looked at her with a stern look that sent a shiver down Maki’s spine, “sometimes you have to hurt to heal. Burning everything to ashes and then rising from it. You know?”

Her heart still speeds up at the thought of literally burning down her own walls, making her both anxious and relieved. Oh, if Nico could’ve seen all the hurting she’d done today.

 She sits in front of a blank piece of paper. It used to a notebook, but that was far too ambitious. Small steps, Maki tells herself, even though she doesn’t put much trust in her own capabilities in forming words.

Clicking the ballpoint pen rapidly she struggles to get her thoughts on paper.

She tries, I’m sorry. Crosses that, then decides it was a good starter to begin with - it’s simple and it’s honest and Nico would appreciate that - and writes it down again.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry

I’m s

I

I’m so

S

Maki’s hand shakes so much she has to put down her pen. Fuck.

She takes her phone. Its old, probably doesn’t even have access to the internet (a desperate yet unfortunately successful attempt by her parents to cut her off from the world), but it suffices for an apology.

“Hi”, she speaks into her phone, “this is Maki. Um, I don’t know how this works, really. I’ve never done this.”

But you deserve this so much.

“So… I’m sorry. For hurting you, and for lying. Knowing you, you probably care about the lie more than your feelings-“

I care about you more than anything else.

“But, um… I’m sorry. Really sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “Bye, Nico.”

Long after the phone has stopped recording, she mumbles three words. They may be the most honest thing she’s ever said.

 Therapy sucked. It was never spoken out-loud, but everyone knew she was the girl her parents sent to the psychiatry to fix her up. To make her shut up, to twist her into something she truly, genuinely is not. A doll, a puppet, with a never-ending smile and a dead heart.

Even in fucking psychiatry she was an outsider.

The other girls didn’t like her, either. Even though Nico and she shared a room, there had been dorm activities, group therapy, and the game Sundays. They liked to talk about her in a volume Maki could overhear just well, bumped into her when they crossed paths. Threw her clothes into a ditch. Called her brat, spoiled. Again, fucked in the head. (This one became a favorite as soon as they noticed it shook her up the most.)

Nico got mad whenever she notices someone going against Maki. Maki didn’t need the protection, not really, she didn’t care if she got hurt. Not until Nico cared. Nico took care of her in such a soft way Maki started to look after herself, too.

It was horrifying to wake up and to suddenly care whether you survive the day or not.

 Maybe – just maybe – she pushed Nico away in order to preserve herself, the only version she had ever known.

Maybe – and this one is far more likely, if she’s being honest – she’s afraid of change out of all things?

 The day she eventually put the puzzle pieces together was the day her thoughts became irreversibly tangled, much more than before. Drowning in white noise, suffocated by her own heavy thoughts, she made the decision to finally take Nico’s advice.

She was so sure she would get sent back to the psychiatry and get to see her again, now that her parents had an actual reason to. Setting her house on fire, almost killing herself in the process, for fuck’s sake, would surely get her to see Nico again, right?

She waits and waits and gets more and more anxious, because – the longer she waits, the higher the chance Nico has been discharged. She feels slightly selfish for wanting Nico to stay there; but she wouldn’t know where else to find her.

Maki still has an apology to make.

She still has to undo her worst mistake.

 Sometimes, the nightmares seem to overwhelm her. It’s always the same one (as if her own mind wanted to mock her terribly, and, knowing herself, that is probably the main reason). Maki always ends up waking up, face grotesquely distorted in an empty scream, a helpless attempt in trying to save herself from the fire that seems so real. It’s always eating her alive, leaving the rest of the room untouched.

When she’s awake, the fire can’t hurt her; all the pain in the world couldn’t compare to what happens behind her eye sockets when she thinks about turning her life around.

Her situation is unfortunate (it sucks so fucking much), but it’s a constant. Its steadily painful. Who knows where she would end up if she dared to leave?

Nico had wanted her to run away. The both of them to run away, actually. She had started to state these plans around the same time they began to be closer. Maki enjoyed Nico’s touches, her warm lips on her hands, her neck, her collarbones.

 Maki isn’t dumb. Neither is she emotionally unintelligent. She noticed the way Nico’s eyes lit up when she entered a room. She could tell by the way Nico became more gently towards her and hold her hand until she fell asleep.

But Maki isn’t kind, either.

When Nico eventually confessed her feelings to her – in just the way Nico is, fuck, Maki’s heart still clenches whenever she thinks about it – in just a simple sentence, “I think I fell in love with you”… well, she surely didn’t expect Maki to laugh in her face.

“That would be funny, wouldn’t it? The failure and her lover. God, I can already see my parents’ faces.”

Nico’s face turns into a grimace. “You don’t have to be a failure, Maki. You know that.”

“We don’t have a choice!”, Maki suddenly snaps, angry all of a sudden, she doesn’t know why ; the thought of Nico liking her out of all people, Nico choosing a miserable ending makes her so endlessly mad, “We can’t just leave!”

“Why not?”, Nico yells back, now standing up. She doesn’t reach Maki’s eye level, but the burning frustration seems to make her taller. “Why not, Maki?”

“Do you really think any of us could make it?”, Maki spits, “Leave this behind us?”

Nico stares at her in disbelief as if she never saw her before. The sight leaves Maki devastated, but she can’t stop.

“That’s it, then?”, Nico calmly says, eyes cold but hands shaking so slightly Maki doesn’t catch it.

“Its never been something to begin with”, Maki hears herself sneer.

Liar.

Look at what you’ve done to yourself.

She doesn’t know how Nico managed to do it, but she was paired up with another girl the following day. It was the same room, but it felt a lot less like home without Nico greeting her when she came from sessions, Nico making her hot chocolate when she couldn’t sleep, Nico crawling under her sheets when Maki was shaking from nightmares.

At some point, her parents decided to discharge her. She remembers eavesdropping a conversation her therapist had with her parents, heatedly trying to tell them that Maki was nowhere near being healthy. Unsurprisingly, her parents didn’t want to hear that. An important event was coming up and they needed their only daughter as an accessory.

She was back at her parents’ house, but it felt like she had left home.

 And then, eventually – the cleansing. The fire.

The determination to see Nico again, paired with fear that ate her alive.

The nightmares.

 One day – could it be any different? Feels like destiny spit in her face -, she sees Nico. She rubs her eyes, tells herself it’s a hallucination, because, Nico can’t just be walking down the street.

But there she is. Her hair in those pigtails Maki likes so much (she would never admit that to her), a black eye embellishing her face (whomever did that to her, Maki wants to fight), staring at her phone. She must have gotten lost; in fact, its so weird seeing her Nico in the stuck-up, snobby neighborhood full of empty mansions, Maki can’t help but stare at her until her heart gets teary from the exposure.

Maki runs from her room, escapes the stairs and finally reaches the doorknob. Her heartbeat beats in her fingertips and she runs and runs and runs and –

She stops when Nico turns around.

“Nishikino”, Nico says, with a loop-sided smile, and Maki needed to hear her voice so badly she can actually feel her knees getting weak. “You left, huh?”

“My parents took me back”, Maki answers, a bit out of breath. She realizes she said the wrong thing when Nico snorts.

“Figured”, Nico lifts her hand in a casual wave, “bye, then.”

“Wait!”

Nico stops in her motions and raises one eyebrow, the one above her black eye. Maki scolds herself for not taking her phone with her ; then again, Nico would think of her as a coward if she just played the record instead of just saying it.

“I’m sorry”, she eventually says. Poison through her veins. There’s a flash of hurt in Nico’s eyes.

“Here I thought you couldn’t get any worse, now you want to make fun of me, too?”, Nico quietly asks, anger shaking in her voice. Usually, when one of them gets angry, it sparks a fire in the other one, too ; they always used to burn each other up ; but now, all Maki feels is numbness.

“I’m sorry”, Maki says through gritted teeth. Wants it to keep repeating like a broken record, wants it to beat into Nico’s head to make her realize she needs the guilt to be gone.

“That doesn’t make it better”, Nico tells her, almost regretfully.

Maki has too many thoughts she wants to get out, out, out, but as hard as she tries, she can’t.

Don’t leave, she desperately needs to say. Don’t leave me alone with my thoughts, don’t go-

Instead, she stays silent with the demons in her head.

“You won”, Nico plainly says. Maki’s guts turn themselves inside out at the sight of the empty grin Nico gives her. “You lost it, but you won, right?”

Did she really win?

Patched up heart on her sleeve and crocodile tears on her cheeks, burning more than ever.

 At last, we cannot escape from who we really are.