A/N: For those of you following call it what you want, here you can see just how Cindy got her weird mindset, because Eileen is a terrible influence. Both of them are kinda shitty people, hooray!
Everyone knew that the only way to keep on was to move forward and not look back, and Cindy was given that very same bit of advice somewhere along the road. She couldn't remember who she had heard it from, but she had taken it to heart so much that she didn't remember many of the people she had come across. There had been a group at first, and then there was less and less until they eventually came across a bigger group that they were brought into.
The Saviors were picky about who they took in, but there were tough people in her group and so they passed the test, even though Cindy herself was weak. Had her group lost any more, she would have been one of them, and she was sure that there were some that had been lost protecting her, but she did as she was told and kept moving forward, always trying to find what she could do.
There hadn't been much of anything that she was good at, and she knew that she was dead weight more often than not. She knew that the only reason her group did not abandon her was because her family had been a part of it once, and they probably felt bad that they had been lost. Cindy was the worst of them, but she had been a part of that family, so they protected her. It was too bad she could hardly remember her family now that they were gone.
But that was in the past and she wasn't supposed to look back, so now that she was part of a larger community and now that she and her group were in one place, she could spend more time settling in and trying to figure out what it was that she could do, what she was best at. Fighting was out, but it always had been, and it wasn't long before she was given more domestic work. A community of fighters still needed their laundry done, after all, and that was something that she could not mess up.
Still, she wished she could be more useful in some way, though she did not know what that way was. Before everything went wrong, she had been a teacher, but that life did not even feel like hers anymore, and she was doing all she could to forget everything but where she was now. But she didn't know if where she was was what she was best at, and she did not have any chance to find something else she might be best at.
It was not until she was approached by one of the men who was a bit higher up in the group that things changed for her. He came to her while she and the others who shared her job were hard at work washing clothes. "What's your name?" he asked.
"I'm Cindy," she replied, wondering what he wanted with her.
"Well, Cindy, looks like it's your lucky day. Negan wants to see you," he said, smirking at her.
Negan. She'd heard that name so many times since arriving here, had even seen the man quite a few times, but only from a distance since formally being accepted into the Saviors. He had met with her group when they first arrived, but there had been no interaction with her, and from that point on, she'd only seen him in passing. But she'd heard so much about their leader, the fearsome man who had single-handedly brought the Saviors to where they were now. He was like a mythical figure to someone as low as her, and now, for whatever reason, he wanted to see her.
~X~
On her way into the room where she was told he waited for her, she passed a woman who watched her pass. She didn't know the woman's name, but she knew all about the women that Negan had married. He was said to have three wives now, and Cindy assumed that this girl must be one of them. She watched Cindy all the way to the door, and she could feel the woman's eyes on her when the door closed behind her.
Waiting for her inside was Negan, looking a bit more imposing than she remembered, but that might have something to do with the fact that she was completely alone with him. He had such broad shoulders that she was sure he could crush her without much effort, but there was an easy smile on his face that suggested that that was not part of the plan.
"Cindy, right?" he asked, and she nodded. "Well, Cindy, I'd like to offer you the chance of a fucking lifetime. I'm sure you're aware of all the drop dead fucking gorgeous women I have living here. You do know about my wives, don't you?" Again, she nodded. "Great, then you're not completely fucking blind. As you know, there are three right now. Sherry, Nina, and Eileen. They're great, don't get me wrong, but even three has turned out to be nowhere near enough for me.
"So, with that in mind, I think it's about fucking time I start looking for lucky number four." He smirked, giving her a once-over and nodding to himself. "You're pretty fucking gorgeous yourself, you know that? I've had my eye on you since your little group showed up and, if you're willing, I think you'd make a good addition to the family. From what I've heard, you mind your own damn business, you do your job, and you don't cause trouble."
She was stunned that he would actually consider extending such an invitation to her. It was, admittedly, something she had thought about before, but she had never really considered it a possibility. To serve her leader directly in any way would have been wonderful, but becoming one of his wives was the absolute best way to do that, and she would have jumped at the chance, had she not had one concern on her mind.
"I just don't know if I'd be good at that," she said. "It's such an honor to even be considered, but I wouldn't want to disappoint you."
He gave her a confused look. "What is there to be bad at? We fuck when both of us want to, and you don't fuck or otherwise have any sort of relationship with any other guy, and in exchange, you get to live the easy life up here. It's pretty fucking easy, unless you think you can't be loyal or something, and in that case, you need to just leave right now because that is one thing I do not tolerate."
"That's not it at all! No, no, I wouldn't, I'm just afraid...I don't know if I'll be good at the other stuff." She blushed, finding it suddenly very hard to make eye contact. How long had it even been since the last time she'd been with a man? It had to have been before all of this, which meant she would be more than a little rusty.
He snorted, shaking his head. "As long as you're willing to learn, I'm willing to fucking teach. Or, should I say, teach fucking?" He had a good laugh at that. "But seriously, Eileen was a virgin before I got my hands on her, and that turned out A-okay. Better than okay, actually." Negan flashed her a lewd grin before leaning back and saying, "So, if it's experience you're worried about, don't. At least fucking consider it, alright?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "I do...I do want to try, I just don't want to disappoint you."
"What did I say about worrying? Fucking relax, alright? You can spend a couple days here if you want, see how you like it, and then we can make it official or you can take a hike. What do you say?"
It was, as he said, the chance of a lifetime. There was no reason for her to to turn him down; at least, not for a trial run, and for all she knew, this was her place. If she could be of use to him here, then she wouldn't need to keep wondering if she was doing what she was supposed to do. She had to at least give it a chance and see how it worked out for her.
"I'll try," she said, smiling. "I really appreciate you inviting me here. I hope I can meet your expectations."
"You and me both," he replied, before calling out, "Eileen!"
After a few seconds, a voice at the door responded, "Yeah?"
"Come in here!"
The door opened and the young woman Cindy had seen on the way in entered. She kept her eyes on Negan the entire time, with a look of absolute adoration that Cindy hoped she would someday be able to emulate. Eileen seemed to be filling the role of a wife perfectly, right down to the way she politely asked him, "Do you need something?"
"Cindy here has taken my offer into consideration," he said. "Would you be so fucking kind as to show her around a little bit? She'll be our guest for a few days, see how she fits in, so I thought you might be the one to give her the grand tour."
"Sure thing!" she replied, before turning her attention to Cindy. "I'm Eileen. And if you end up marrying him, then I won't be the new girl anymore." She laughed and then gestured for the door. "Come on, let me show you everything."
Cindy followed her out of the room, saying, "Thank you for helping me."
"Well, if Negan wants me to do it, I do it," she replied, once the door had closed behind them. "I want to be the best wife I can to him, and I'd do just about anything he asked of me. 'Course, he doesn't like to do anything he knows we don't like, so he doesn't ask anything difficult of me."
"But if he did, you would?"
"Well, duh. I love him," she said with a shrug. "That's how it's supposed to be when you're married. Yeah, things are a little bit unconventional here, but he's still my husband, and I would do anything for that man."
"That's good," said Cindy. "I think that's really good. You're really good at being his wife."
"Huh. Well, thanks," Eileen said with a grin. "You know, truth be told, I'm not big on the whole sharing thing. If I could have it my way, it'd just be the two of us, but that was never an option. When he brought me in, he already had Sherry and Nina, and I sure as fuck was not going to try to rock the boat. I wasn't exactly thrilled to hear that he wanted another one, but you're pretty alright."
"You think so?"
"I do. I'm not supposed to be so jealous all the time and I try not to be, but it's hard. I just keep trying to be the best one here, because if I can't be his only, I can always shoot for favorite." She smirked. "I'm glad you think I'm good at it, so if you do decide to stay here, I wouldn't mind showing you the ropes."
Cindy could already tell that she admired Eileen quite a bit. The way the girl talked about things, she seemed to be incredibly devoted to Negan, and seemed to be very good at what she did. She claimed she would do anything for him, and she looked at him like he hung the mood; if Cindy were to stay here, she hoped that she would one day be as dedicated as Eileen. Even if the girl was jealous, she at least admitted it and tried not to be.
"So, if I'm going to be good at this, I should be willing to do anything he asks," she observed. "And I shouldn't be jealous of you or the others."
"That's right," she replied. "You want to know anything else, you can ask me for advice. I'll help you figure out anything you need to do for Negan."
~X~
The rest of the tour, Eileen went on about different things that she had done with him, going into a lot more detail than Cindy would have expected. By the end of their discussion, she knew a lot more about what went on between the two of them than she ever would have wanted to, but she still appreciated how friendly she was being. And she appreciated all the advice she was getting, because her purpose was becoming all the more clear to her.
If Negan liked her, if she didn't disappoint him and he wanted to keep her around, she hoped that being his wife would be what she was best at. She hoped that she would be able to be as useful as Eileen was someday and find what sort of special things she could do for him that made her particularly useful to him. Everything made a lot more sense here; she was introduced to Sherry and Nina, and both of them seemed to know where they fit in just as Eileen did. They were all good at this job, and if Cindy could be good at this job too, then she knew that she could be happy here.
That night, she was invited to Negan's bedroom, where he asked her what she thought so far and she told him that she really liked it there. "That's good," he said. "That's fucking great, I'm glad you like the place. Since you're going to be spending the night here, I was wondering if you were interested in a little test run." He gave her a grin, the meaning behind his words more than clear.
"If you really don't mind that I don't know what I'm doing," she replied. "I might need a lot of improvement."
"Like I said. Teach fucking. If you want me to do it, I'll do it." He gestured for her to come closer and she did.
"I just want to make sure that this is something I'm good at before I decide to stay," she continued. "I want to find whatever I'm best at."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you'll be just fucking fine," he said, "but we won't know for sure unless we get down to it."
As it turned out, she wasn't so bad, or at least he didn't say that she was, and though it had been a long time for her, she remembered more as she went along, easily getting back into the swing of things. By the end of it, he was mumbling, "Yeah, you're good, you're a fucking natural," and she was glad to know that she had finally found her ideal job.