Nothing Left to Burn [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 15 - Cosmic Pull

Aven and Negan drove for the rest of the day. They were able to speed down the highway for a while but eventually they ran into a long-abandoned traffic jam, hundreds of cars left clogging up the road. They siphoned some gas before backtracking and pulling off the highway into a small town. They spent the rest of the day alternating between backroads and the highway, until the sun began to set and they settled down in an old mechanic's garage in South Carolina.

It was clear the garage had been fortified to some extent and lived in, but any inhabitants were either dead or long-gone. There were a few cots, as well as an electric generator and some small appliances including a space heater. After killing the few walkers in the building, Aven and Negan sat down with the heater between them and ate a dinner of nuts and freeze dried vegetables that they'd rehydrated over a fire outside. Their day had been uneventful but still strange, both of them still adjusting to their escape. They spent a lot of the car ride in silence, though part of it was spent arguing and a much smaller part was spent making pleasant conversation. Aven still wouldn't give him any real answers about her drinking, but after badgering her for a while it became clear she at least didn't have anymore alcohol that she was hiding, so she couldn't get drunk again anyway.

"Negan, for the millionth time, I'm not going to sleep," Aven insisted. When she volunteered to take first watch, Negan, ever the protector, protested. He wasn't taking 'I can't sleep' as an excuse, though Aven felt it was a perfectly reasonable one.

"Why do you only fucking sleep when you're drunk or high?" he demanded. "Is it the nightmares?"

"No, I just don't sleep. I can't usually," she replied, taking a deep breath to keep from getting too agitated with him. The nightmares were the reason she didn't want to sleep, but she also just physically couldn't close her eyes and fall asleep at night. It had been that way almost as long as she'd been at the Kingdom.

"You slept pretty well when we were together. But the nightmares bothered you a lot."

"Yeah..." She chewed at her lip nervously. She didn't want to think about her dreams.

"Are you still dreaming about him? The fucker who took you?" Negan asked.

"I, uh, dream about a few people. He's one of them," she replied.

"And I'm another," he said, clarifying what she told him while she was wasted the night before. She nodded. "Who else?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled.

"Why not?"

"He's..." She trailed off with a huff. "I don't know."

"Is it another man?" he asked, trying to keep his tone casual but betraying jealousy and rage at just the thought of Aven being with another man. She noticed the discretion and couldn't help but feel a little excited by his possessiveness, which of course was countered by fear at her own reaction. "Someone from the Kingdom? Were you seeing someone?"

"No! Nothing like that," she replied a little too quickly for her taste, like she was too eager to prove she was available.

"Then what?"

"I don't know. I don't know who he is."

"What do you mean?"

"The man in my dreams," she said, trying to find the right words to explain without having to go into too much detail. Why she was even answering Negan's questions after saying she didn't want to talk about it, she didn't know. He asked, and she felt the need to answer. "At first I thought you were the same person, that the dreams about you and him were the same person that I wasn't remembering. When I dreamt about you I couldn't see your face, but I can see his if he shows up. But he didn't move the way you do so I knew it couldn't be the same person." Negan raised an eyebrow, interested to hear how exactly she made that distinction, but she was staring at her lap and didn't elaborate.