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[weaponwithoutpurpose]

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[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"No, we aren't safe here. And I don't give a fuck about the Admiral. It's the people. It's the system. The Admiral just enables it."

He sighs, reaching down for the blanket to put over her feet. Even with socks on, he's not willing to risk cold toes.

[handleyourshit]

It makes her smile, and makes her feel tired all at once; it's exhausting, being on alert all the time. It's exhausting, not knowing who or what to trust, vacillating back and forth.

"I think, too - the things I was afraid of in the breach, and the things I'm afraid of as myself. They're two different threats. She's not used to... bodies hanging on the side of the road. It was more of a shock because of that, too. More like early days, when that was still new." Still half in her breach mindset, half in the real world.

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Hard to imagine people doing that to each other," he mutters. "Until it happens. And then it keeps happening and keeps happening and shit gets worse and worse until you can't remember what it was like to think of bodies on hooks as horrifying." He knows that he's not talking just about her.

[handleyourshit]

"Civilized people don't do that."

She's clearly quoting someone, the way she pitches her voice, the expression she pulls after.

But she shakes her head, and tries her best to listen at least as much as she talks.

"I saw things like that a few times, out on the road. You don't sound surprised either."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"No," he sighs. "We'd string up heretics like that sometimes. John, especially. People tied to stakes and used for target practice. People hanging from trees. Didn't just pass it, I lived in it."

Like most times he has to talk about home, he wars between shame and pride.

[handleyourshit]

And like most times he talks about home, she is reminded again that she's seen men like that before.

She's been threatened, terrorized, and tortured by men like that. So she has to sit with it a moment before she can ask, "Heretics? How does one qualify as a heretic?"

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He knows. He knows so he doesn't say anything for a moment, letting his arm dangle over her shoulder. "Fancy word for people who piss off Joseph," he answers and it's more of an honest response than he thought himself capable of before. Maybe it's still the breach. Maybe it's just - time.

[handleyourshit]

It's not lost on her that this is the first time she's heard him talk about Eden's Gate and not mention something from the cult there - some title, some scripture, some teaching. Some role.

She reaches up to hold onto his arm around her, breathing out. This is the difference between Jacob Seed and Negan Smith.

"That's what happens when one person has too much power. Has too many people around them willing to kiss ass, and not enough willing to call them out."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He simultaneously relaxes under her touch and breathes into his tense chest. "Yeah, maybe," he mutters, but he's not up for defending Joseph today. Not after everything that's happening outside.

"Just - shit that shouldn't remind me of home, you know?"

[handleyourshit]

"I wish it were the same for me."

That she could think of home and not think of everything it is now. All the horrible things it is now.

She's not great at being an optimist. She's not great at looking past what is, at whatever's in front of her. But she tries.

She smiles, small and brittle but she tries.

"D'you know she had a wedding scrapbook? She'd been building it since she was fifteen."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He smiles a little, glad for the distraction. He doesn't want to think of home. He doesn't want to think of Joseph and John right now because he has to.

"Yeah? Is that why she shot down his suggestion of lemon cake so quickly? And already had some color scheme picked out?"

[handleyourshit]

"Oh, he never stood a chance. She'd dreamed of it for a decade."

She brushes her thumb over his hand, over his knuckles, where a ring should be. At least a tan line, if not the band itself.

"I started mine at twelve."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"He really wanted lemon," he remarks and leans his head back.

"What were your colors?"

He hates how much that surprises him. That she had those dreams. She's talked about how different she was before it all happened.

[handleyourshit]

"She'd've folded, if he'd've pushed." But he wouldn't. She was normally better at recognizing that, but she'd been too much of a bulldozer for that one event, she knew then and knows now.

She shakes her head.

"What weren't my colors?" She sighs. "Red and gold and blue. Or pink and champagne and charcoal. Or coral and turquoise and sand. Or wine and silver and coffee. I had a section for each season."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Oh you were organized!" he remarks, glancing to where the ring should be. Like her, he keeps glancing to it, feeling its absence heavily.

"What color is wine? Is that just red?"

[handleyourshit]

"Blasphemy," she snorts, faking offense.

"More purple. Not quite maroon. Like when you spill merlot on cloth."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Jacob hides a smirk. "What's merlot?"

He doesn't actually know, but he can guess. He just likes seeing that look on her face.

[handleyourshit]

This time she scoffs openly.

"Heathen," she hisses, but it's closer to something with laughter in it this time. "It's a kind of red wine."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"If it doesn't come in a box or a bag, it's too fancy for me," he says and this time the laugh is more like a cackle than anything else.

"Never pay more than 10 bucks for wine."

[handleyourshit]

"Franzia makes a merlot, you know - bag in a box."

In truth, she's not a wine snob by any stretch of the imagination. She is in fact a hard liquor kind of girl, and always has been.

Not that it matters at the end of the world.

"I had a cake for every season, too. Lemon was for spring."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He's thoughtful. "Eh, can't have a spring wedding," he tells her. "Allergies. Everyone's going to be sneezing. Ruins the whole thing. What about fall? What's the cake for fall?"

[handleyourshit]

"I don't have allergies, so who cares?"

Part of her balks at talking about this, at thinking about this - it doesn't matter anymore, does it? There are no weddings, there are no cakes.

"Apple spice."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He brushes his fingers against her arm. "Yeah, well, I do," he grumbles, as if that matters. "And apple spice cake. God, that sounds good."

[handleyourshit]

"Then you shouldn't have a spring wedding. And it would have been amazing, because that's what cake tastings are for."

She hears how it could matter. How he might be thinking, why now - maybe.

Maybe.

She looks up at him, and says softly, "What is this, Jacob?"

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Talking," he says, evasive and a little distant. He doesn't know. He doesn't want to examine it. It's too Big and too Scary.