Chapter Seven

Mallory had heard long ago that you knew someone was insane when they repeated the same actions over and over again, expecting different results each time. Insane people were all around in the beginning; their ridiculous ideas never panned out the way they thought they would. She'd seen mothers hand over their children to strangers, people running upstairs instead of downstairs to get away from Biters, she'd seen men who thought the end of the world made them more adept at shooting a damn machine gun into herds. Those were the truly crazy people, those who thought that they were right and were doing right. Mal saw how fear made you crazy, one day or another. Normal people were the ones who went off the deep end first, hurling headlong into a pit of irrationality. There were no miracles in the apocalypse.

Insanity just wasn't an option anymore. Crazy got you killed quickly, viciously, brutally – it got your guts ripped out from your abdomen and eaten while you died in agony. That's why the world was different now, Mal thought, the crazy had gotten people killed so the only living left were those who sounded increasingly, almost disturbingly, sane. They talked crazy and yet the plans made a sick sense: bars and locks that kept you from escaping also kept you safe, supply runs that might kill you would also keep you from dying of starvation, walking around the woods found hidden goldmines but drew herds towards your presence with little means of escape. Other people kept you safe but got you killed too; that was what she'd learnt above everything. Crazy infected as much as the virus had.

The fact that those safe hands keeping her from being torn apart by Biters, from desperate and dangerous groups of survivors belonged to her psychopathic ex-lover didn't shock her. He was, if nothing, a determined man leading an army of people who were seeking a saviour, someone to pray to now that God had deserted them. Negan had been determined before and was even more so now, pulling every trick in the book to get what he wanted out of the world and more on top. He knew he was crazy, he revelled in it but Negan brought out Mal's crazy too.

Sleep had never come easily, if at all. Her limbs and back burned from being tensed all night, her skin almost blue with the cold draft of concrete and brick around her, encapsulating her in their chill. The room he had left her locked inside was little more than a cell with a stack of untouched clothes and an uneaten meal she wasn't going anywhere near. Her crazy was stubborn.

Mallory had ripped the crusted red bandage off her head in the night, letting the soft throb of blood in her veins keep her awake and on edge enough to be alert, unable to relax, unable to stop her head from circling plans and ideas, enough to keep her away from sanity. While Negan's patented method of intimidation, reasonable negotiation and manic violence wouldn't work with her, he knew isolation would. He had to keep her away from other people, people who could taste her thirst to see his regime toppled and Negan on his knees. So, he would probably keep her locked away as long as he could until she was kissing his feet like the rest of them, kneeling in the dirt. Mal wondered how many he had murdered to gain the loyalty and faith of the rest.

Sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed, Mallory watched for the sun rising, wanting to hear people talking below her, maybe even see the shadow of footsteps outside her cell. He made her wait. It felt like hours after light did finally cast itself into the room that his obnoxious knocking came at the door, shaking her from her stupor where she imagined his throat cut and gushing red blood over her shiny boots. Living in fantasy.

"Shave and a haircut!" he sang through the wood, knocking with a thud at every word. She didn't call back and heard his fake sigh. "Come on, Princess. Let's try it again. Shave…and a hair…cut."

The childishness astounded her, setting her head back against the concrete wall. "If you want to come in," she called back, bristling. "Just fucking come in!"

"Not until you say it!" Negan effused. "Not unlocking the door 'til you play along. How about one last try, then you can wait another day." He threatened, knowing a full day locked inside would drive her even more crazy. The knocking was booming, echoing in her room in intimidation. "Shave and a haircut!"

"Two bits," she spat through her teeth, rolling her eyes at nothingness.

Like magic, the lock unclicked and there he was: clean, hair combed and a little slicked back, a tray in his hand with… oh God. He was pure evil. "Good morning starshine!" Negan beamed brightly, "The Earth says hello! Sleep well?"

"Is that bacon?" Mal asked, eyes wide as she strained to see what he had on the tray. Her mouth was watering already from the smell. "How do you have bacon?!"

"Oh, I am positively radiant this morning, Princess, thank you ever so much for asking." Negan stepped inside and shoved the tray on the desk, next to her last untouched meal, kicking the door closed behind him. "Hunger pain working out well for you? I thought to myself 'I bet she hasn't touched a goddamn thing' and look!" Negan gestured to his unclaimed offerings, the soup in the bowl cold and congealed, bread hard as a rock and twice as dry. "Am I fucking psychic or I just know you too fucking well?"

"I wasn't hungry," she replied quietly, eyes slipping between her breakfast and her jailor. "I'm not hungry."

"Sure you are! Even I can't remember when you last ate. Caroline says you barely had a thing last time she saw you. Don't it just eat at you, Princess?" He sat on the corner of the desk, across from where Mallory was rooted to her spot on the bed. "Pun in-fucking-tended."

Her gut squirmed at his words. They twisted her around in more hunger, growling, her mouth still watering from the smell of the bacon alone. Mal really couldn't remember the last meal she'd had. That damn plate of bacon and eggs looked warm and inviting, looked real and fresh. "I'm fine."

Negan frowned and shrugged simultaneously, picking up a piece of bacon just to wave temptingly in her face. "You sure? I even got them to do it extra crispy, how you like it. Eggs over easy, nice and melty, toast with extra butter. I remember how you lick it off, the more butter the better it is. Used to drive me crazy watching you eat like that, sucking the grease off your fingers…" he licked his lips too. "I even brought you fucking coffee that don't taste like burned horse shit. Just eat it, Mallory. All salty and sweet crunch, that was you. Never doing anything by half."

She licked her lips and instantly regretted the action because he knew he'd won the first battle. Without a word and with a grin on his face, he turned and picked up the tray from the desk, depositing it beside her on the mattress, though he kept the stolen piece of crispy bacon for himself and took great satisfaction from eating it loudly in front of her.

"Thank you," Mallory replied stubbornly, taking a piece from the tray and eating. She could have cried all over again, tasting it. The meat a little salty, a little smoky, crisp at the edges and just the good side of greasy. Flavour exploded across her eager tongue: it was the best thing she'd tasted in her life, better than canned pudding, better than that time she had managed to hunt a small deer and shared it among her group. "It's fine," she said with a shrug, looking at him.

He laughed a rich laugh and ate his piece in one go, licking his fingertips clean. "I take that as a giant fucking compliment coming from your stubborn ass, Princess. You love it."

The way he watched her eat, with both hands on his thighs and his gaze never wavering from her lips? It was as if he was trying to taste it all again for the first time through her tongue, through the way that she really did lick the butter dripping from the toast. Negan looked at her, enraptured and hazy eyed.

"You didn't answer my question," she said after a mouthful, feeling less and less like this was about her being hungry and more like him watching her obey his command. "How do you have bacon?"

"There's a colony out west a few miles, they raise the pigs. I just get to mosey on down every once in a while, take a few and they keep the rest for themselves. I just lucked out that one of the cooks in the kitchen here actually knows his shit." Negan winked lasciviously. "Best damn thing you ate in months, right? You know, I don't go giving my meat to just anybody."

Mallory swallowed and a lump fell in her stomach, the hunger gone to be replaced by a sick sense of ownership. "Your meat," she parroted, disgusted. "Is everything a joke to you?"

He laughed again, slapping one of his palms across his thigh. "Jesus fucking Christ, I love it when you get prissy. Mallory, Mallory, it ain't my fucking dick. It's just bacon and eggs, Princess, don't get your panties in a wad about it. You're hungry so I fed you something. That is what civilised people do, right? Take 'em in, give 'em clothes and food and a fucking warm bed. You are the first one in history to throw all of it back at my face."

Her words to Peter echoed again; play along, play the game, bite your tongue and kiss his boots. She thought it was dumb fucking advice and easier said than done.

"It's a nice meal. Thank you," she enunciated each word deliberately, straining to hold in her sarcasm and ire. "Does this mean I can go back to the general population today, Your Highness?"

"Majesty," he answered, licking his bottom lip as she ate her toast. "Kings get called Majesty, not Highness."

"Excuse me, Your Majesty," she said, sitting up straighter at being corrected. The slow warmth of her body getting nourished blossomed as she ate her meal ravenously, completely forgetting his taunting. "Am I getting out of this room today, Your Majesty?"

Negan was still watching her eat as he stomach got fuller and fuller and she became satiated, she forgot to even care about his gaze. "I like you, Mallory, you are to-the-fucking-point. Alright, I'll lay it all out on the fucking table," he said, smacking his palm on the desk beneath him. "Cos I do, you know… like you. I got me a big raging hard-on for you, mmhmm, baby it was all I could do to fuck Amber into a coma last night. Don't think I didn't hear you through the wall too, whimpering like you're dying…" he chuckled and put up a hand of surrender when she glared dangerously. "Don't look at me like that, like I've done anything worse than you have. Why you think you're still alive? Cos you're so fucking useful to me here, in a fucking locked room doing shit all to help? You ain't even letting me screw you."

"I am not becoming your wife," she spat, full of revulsion. "I am not saying it again, Negan. You know that."

"Like I'd bother asking you," Negan muttered in reply. "No-pety, no-pety noooo. I'm saying that I like you and as much as it fucking pains me to keep you in here, and it fucking does because it's a goddamn waste, it is for your own fucking good."

"Putting me in a locked cell with a guard dog is for my own good?" Mallory chuckled. "You know, that's real good bullshit, Negan, one of your best efforts yet. I give it a nine out of ten for ingenuity."

He laughed along with her too, leaning back on his hands. "No, no, seriously. Look at all the shit you got yourself messed up in already. Getting kidnapped, conspiring with your boyfriend, killing a Biter with your boot, having fucking panic attacks at the sight of my bedroom and breaking down in front of a piano? You're a walking disaster zone, Princess, you always fucking have been. Spending your life stumbling from one chaos zone to the next. Hate to tell you the secret but you know what you are? A fucking liability. You're a pain in my ass."

"Liability?" she said, hurt deeper than she wanted to admit. "In case it's skipped your attention, dead people are eating living people. Chaos is kinda what we live in now, isn't it? It's hardly my fault that all this motherfucking shit keeps happening to me."

Negan shook his head. "No, no, no, no, no, Princess. There is chaos and there's chaos. You gotta get in line with me here or you're just gonna get someone killed, one way or another. For all I know," he looked at her pointedly. "Those pretty little hands have already squeezed the life out of some guy twice your size because he, I don't know, touched something you wanted."

Mallory's eyes flashed and she looked away, sipping up the taste of unburnt coffee. "No."

That refusal was enough for Negan to jump from the desk and slide onto his knees in front of her, his eyes manic and dark again, his face crinkled in mirth. She refused to move, refused to look again. "You did, didn't you? Holy-fucking-shit, I can't believe my little peach committed cold blooded murder!" He put his hands on her knees, squeezing them excitedly, like he wanted to pull them apart and sink back into her. "And here was me, thinking that piss-streak boyfriend of yours was talking a load of crap to try and scare me!" Mal looked back up at him sharply, shock funnelling through her fogged brain. "Ah, fuck, I owe him a free swing at me now. Maybe we won't tell him that, huh?"

Peter was a dead man, deader than a dead thing rotting in the dirt. "He told you?" Mallory said with a quiet fieriness, all of her anger and hate now directed at her friend. Former friend.

"Wouldn't stop bragging about you. Said some sick gropey little fucker stabbed his sister so you jumped the asshole, squeezed the life out of him with your bare hands. That's murder, baby girl, that is stone cold murder. Brings a tear to my eye." Negan smirked and stood up, his hands still on her knees. "You and me are gonna get along great, liability or not. I wanna hear the whole story."

Mallory could see it now. Peter had told Negan the story he knew, the version he knew. She had wrapped her hands around a man's throat and watched the light dim from his eyes before she'd put a knife through his eye socket. What Peter had missed out was the sick thrill she got from it; a vindication, a justice she'd felt surging through her spine when she pierced his eyeball and watched the vitreous goo flow out among the blood. She had loved it and hated it in equal measure and felt nothing but emptiness afterwards. The crunch of his bone would remain in her mind forever.

"So, what, I killed one man?" she said, her voice hollow. "Who here hasn't? It's how life works now, you take a life or you die."

"Exactly! Now you're getting it, Princess!" He grinned and clicked his fingers snapping wildly. "Arat!". Mallory was confused until her guard dog walked in, carrying Lucille in her gloved hand. Negan took the bat from his less-than-glamourous assistant and hauled it over his shoulder. "Now you're learning some fucking lessons about how shit works. You and I are going out on a field trip today, Princess. Just like I promised. We're gonna spread the gospel according to Negan."

Mallory wrapped her pale hands around her coffee cup, eyes slipping shut for a moment as the dull ache in her head turned full on into a deep-seated throb. He'd promised to show her his colonies, teach them a lesson because of her and her words. "What if I refuse?" She asked, looking back up at him, trying to be patient and penitent.

"I can't force you to come but uh…" Negan leaned over her and whispered beneath his breath. "I don't think Arat likes being your babysitter. So, if you don't want her to come in here and slit your throat and make a mess of my mattress, I'd come and join me for the day. I ain't half as pretty but at least I won't kill you, at least not without warning. Cos I like you too much."

Exhaustion settled into her bones, though it was marginally better than being starving and exhausted simultaneously. "I'm not exactly eager to get my throat slit by your right-hand girl," she muttered, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. "But why would I go with you just to watch you kill some poor bastard? You already made your point to me, I get it: give me half your shit or die."

"You still need the air and the exercise, cooped up in here all night long with nothing to do but yourself…" he said, pulling her chin upwards gently with two fingers. "And I need to show you. You need to see, to understand why I got no more places for chaos and liability here, Mallory. Falling in line is the only way to live with me. And you will fall into line…"

"I know you have a thing for breaking women," she dared to whisper back, her eyes hardening. "But you're never going to break me, Negan."

He just grinned at the challenge. "You might not wanna test me on that. I've done it before and I can do it just as easily again."


Nothing made sense anymore…

Epic elegies could be written about his body. She could map every strain in his arms as he pinned her wrists to the bed. Mallory tasted on the air when he was about to wrap his hands around her soft hips and tell her to meet him in a supply closet, because they were nothing if not a giant cliché. He could smile at her in a thousand different ways and she'd instantly know what he was thinking about, what he wanted, who he wanted. The answer was almost always her.

He could shift her mood from pissed off and exhausted to relaxed with a few kisses and lewd words whispered in her ear. He loved doing that; coming up to her when she thought she was alone, tilting her head and talking for five minutes non-stop about how he loved the curve of her ass while his hand was down the front of her pants, working to get her off.

He just seemed to love making her feel good. It didn't make sense.

Not that it mattered what he said. Whenever she had gone to return the sentiment in kind, he would instead kiss the air from her lungs and drag her away from trying. Mallory went to sleep every night – with or without him there – feeling like she could conquer vast worlds and have them kiss her feet. He was rough but sweet, kind but tough. She gave as good as she got but he didn't ever care much about his own pleasure when instead he could fuck her brains out in the back seat of her shitty little car and still make her come twice before he gave in.

Her naked body was entwined in his white cotton sheets, draped as she was over his chest, watching the soft tic of his throat. Not a day had gone by that the man hadn't been all over her since their argument; his eyes roamed over her body at work during the evening and his hands mapped the same paths at night with his lips and tongue following after.

Whatever she had expected from him, though, it wasn't this softness, this part of him she'd never thought she'd see in another million years. It was strange to think that he was the same man as the one she'd been told was a bully, was vicious and cruel who cared about nobody but himself. He had pulled a cruel trick or two on her when she had done the same to him first, but nothing more. It didn't make sense.

"Negan?" she asked quietly, looking up at his jaw.

"Whatever you're fucking thinking about, Mallory," he growled sleepily, his fingers lazily tracing that same soft curve of her ass. "Stop it."

"But-"

"Stop. Fucking Christ, woman, turn the damn brain off for a moment and enjoy the eye of the storm." She didn't know whether he meant her or himself.

Mallory sighed softly and resettled back on his chest, her arm on his stomach sprawled out. "You mean you're not done for the night?" she turned and teased, pressing a kiss to his sternum. "I thought you brought me out to your house because you just wanted to play scrabble and realised you were gonna lose so you fucked me instead."

Negan laughed tenderly in reply, placing his flat palm against her ass cheek. Her flesh was still warm from the smack of his hand against her a half hour earlier. "You don't wanna play me at scrabble. I'll beat your ass hands-down, Princess."

"You already beat my ass," Mallory grinned, placing another kiss on his collarbone. "Literally."

"Yeah, I fucking did, didn't I?" he said, palming her a little more roughly. "I thought the belt was nice but ain't nothing like watching your caboose jiggle for me. You just about ripped my dick off, you came that hard."

She still blushed from time to time at his crudeness; his brain without filter, instead letting all his thoughts trickle down to his mouth. She knew where she stood. "And whose fault was that?"

Negan groaned as Mallory kissed his neck with hot bee-sting kisses, teeth nipping. "All mine. Fucking proud of it too." He lifted his other hand to her ass and hauled her onto his lap, draping her aching body so she was lying along the length of him. "You trying to fucking start something again with that mouth of yours?"

Mallory said nothing but kissed and sucked along his neck as he kneaded her sore ass with wide palms, his fingers dipping under the white cotton sheets.

Part of her still couldn't believe she was in his house; it seemed mythical and imaginary but… it didn't make sense either. It was so much more domestic than she thought he'd like. Every wall was a tone of beige or cream, accents of girly stuff in random places, peppered with knick knacks and ceramic figures. Mal had ignored the wedding pictures on the mantelpiece and even more pictures on the walls, lest her guilt and curiosity drive him mad. His home was neater and tidier than she expected too; she hadn't expected perfection but this house was so far removed from her expectations that it made her pause.

Ever since he had hauled her into his car and driven them here, a million questions had been on her mind: where was his wife? Was this overstepping a boundary she wouldn't like? How long was it going to be before he kicked her out?

But she couldn't ask. He'd made those rules, drawn his lines and stuck them out resolutely. She only had the answer to the first question after she took ten whacks of his hand to her bare ass on his couch. Mal had been told that his wife was 'away at her parents' and that had been that. 'End of discussion, now grab the headboard and scream for me when you come.'

She thought it was natural to wonder what the Hell his deal was with his wife; Negan had said that she knew about his affair but for all he'd told her, that was bullshit with more crap on top of it. A lie upon a lie upon another lie.

Instead, she'd garnished details inside his bedroom in their post-sex haze. It was a damn expensive house, as far as she could tell of it. There was real cornicing, and a cherry wood bed frame that couldn't have been cheap either so the house oozed a kind of class and warmth that just wasn't… Negan. He was the thing that didn't make sense, he was the thing that stuck out as odd. It was like he'd maxed out his credit card buying a life. His happy face adorned the walls, his watches were in the nightstand, but it was an otherness. She wouldn't have picked this place for him.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft gasp from her lips, his fingers having found her warm, wet centre and begun probing interestedly. "Negan…" she moaned, writhing on his hand as he sunk two thick fingers into her. "God, Negan..."

"That's it, Princess," he said, the sleepiness gone to be replaced with want and need and desire. "Hot as fuck when you say my name. You're fucking wet again, making my dick all hard. All your fault."

Suddenly and all at once, the soft stretch of his fingers was gone. His arms wrapped around her instead and he hauled himself up to lie back against the head board. "You always hard?" she asked hazy eyed as he tugged part of the white sheet away from her shoulder to replace it with his lips. "Is it like a permanent state?"

"You wish. I'd be brain dead by now from lack of blood flow north. Takes a lot of fucking blood for my huge dick, Princess. S'why I get so fucking stupid around you. Taking risks because you wear those tight fucking jeans to work…" he growled. "How's a man meant to do anything but think about fucking you from behind when you wear shit like that."

Without preamble, he went back to kiss and suck hard on her shoulder, drawing all thought out of her head. Mallory moaned and writhed in his lap, running her fingers through his hair as he divested her of the sheets. "We already went twice. You can't be hard again already…" she said breathily as his lips found her breasts.

"I could always stick it inside you and you could tell me if it's hard or not," he groaned in frustration, voice on the edge of annoyance. "You fucking complaining about you making my dick hard?"

"No, no!" she said, anchoring his head to her chest again to get his mouth where she wanted it. "It's just… I'd understand if I had to leave. I don't know… fuck… I don't know the rules here and it's driving me crazy."

He wrenched his head away from her chest and gave her a confused look. "You think I'm waiting to kick you out at an appropriate time? Like three fucks and you're out?"

Mal struggled for the right words and Negan gripped her brutally hard. "I… well… I don't know! This is your place, not mine."

She could feel his roar of frustration through his chest as he pulled her back from him, his hands grabbing her ass to pull her harder onto his lap. "Just fucking stop thinking, Mallory! It ain't rocket science. Turn off the fucking motormouth brain and let me touch you." He mashed his lips to hers in a kiss, his arms tugging her back until she was pressed hard against him. Her hands scrabbled for purchase as Negan rucked his hips up. "Let me make you feel good."

Panting for breath, she helped him tug off the sheets in a haze of crumpled fabric. "Yes," she moaned more audibly, free of the cage. His hands were everywhere, becoming more tender and gentle the more he got to touch her. She felt him sigh into her neck as he held her naked body to his tightly, his fingertips sliding along her spine from top to bottom. Mallory's skin broke into fevered shivers from the motion and she cried out as he suddenly entered her without warning.

Her nails sank into his arms as Negan let the weight of her settle into his lap, his own breathing as laboured and ragged as hers. His hands splayed out across her shoulder blades, fingertips twitching to hold her tighter. "Okay?" he asked brokenly, finally looking up at her.

Negan's eyes were softer and sweeter, the way he'd been after he'd thrashed his belt over her backside in his classroom. Her mind fell free of the noise and wonder about his house, about his wife, and was fixed on the feeling of him filling her cunt and stretching her wonderfully to the breaking point. "Yeah, yeah…" she said, letting herself relax as he relaxed, breathing as he breathed. "Feels so good. Deep." Mallory's hands came up to encapsulate his face, stroking the stubble around his once-smooth chin.

He smiled dirtily and kissed her in a slow burn. "You could say that," he said, the smile never leaving his lips as he lifted her up effortlessly and brought her back down on his cock again in a smooth motion. Both moaned in time as he did it again and again, until Mallory took over and was riding him lazily. Both were too exhausted to do more than ruck slowly into one another, eyes resting on each other in a burning need that built layer upon layer. Mal had tasted his sparks, she'd felt the burn of his passion but this lazy fucking, this need for human contact that made her mind blank was different. It was new. It was frightening.

He pulled her down onto him harder and deeper. Negan's normally incessant motor-mouth wasn't running, her usual rampant mind quiet and fixated. Both were simply two people seeking the comfort of an unspoken bond, not talking, not thinking. Negan's lips bit and kissed at her jaw as she rode him with her hands and fingers tugging at his hair.

Outside, the winds stormed, rain pelted the window like bullets when humidity broke in the lush warmth of Virginia. He snaked a thumb onto her clit and rubbed her teasingly, making her body keen for more, drawing her hips faster and deeper still onto him. Negan groaned and fucked up hard into her, Mal crying out sharply when he went too hard.

"Shh…" he panted into her ear, seeking forgiveness as her body relaxed again from the sharpness of his thrust. "It's alright, Mallory. You can take it, just look at me."

His tongue licked a hot stripe up her neck as her sweat rolled down, like he wanted to taste the pleasure he was giving her. The thumb on her clit worked in soft, torturous circles, never changing its rhythm until Mallory broke apart around him fast and hard, seizing in pleasure. "Negan!"

He didn't stop thrusting gently up into her, hand gripping her thigh as he did. His hands. God, she really could write operas about his hands. She could sing their praises and cry out at their desires. She could do anything she wanted to, now that she had him as much as he had her.

Negan drew her out from her orgasm, biting her shoulder as he did. Mal could tell he was closer to coming than he wanted to be, through that tension in his back. She didn't know much of his life beyond his bed but she knew the way his muscles contracted, how his voice broke when she got him just right. There was a world unexplored but what she knew, at least she knew was real. He couldn't lie to her about the desperate way he thrust his hips up into her body, about how he bit her skin and marked her as his every damn time. Her shoulders were relief maps of their affair.

"Come for me," she said as her body felt the burn, over-sensitized. "Come inside me."

He roared his released as he thrust up into her one more time, his body shuddering harder. She could feel him come inside her, sticky and hot as he panted and hips stuttered before his body gave out and hit the headboard again. Both were wrecked beyond measure.

Mallory slumped on top of him, her muscles still twitching around his softening cock. She heard nothing but the raging beat of her heart and the sting of rain outside hitting the glass. It was nearing midnight, maybe even later, and she was exhausted.

"Mallory," he said after a while, her head on his shoulder. "I know you got a lot of questions you want to know answers to. It's just not what you're thinking, Princess…" Negan muttered and pressed a kiss to her crown. "I promise you that."

Nodding softly, she turned her head and stared at an overturned wedding photo on his nightstand. "I just keep thinking about when you walked into my classroom that day. I already had this picture of you in my mind and nothing you've ever done has really fitted with what people told me you'd be," she admitted softly, not looking at him. "They said 'Negan's an asshole, honey'. Told me to keep my distance."

She felt his chuckle this time, rather than heard it. "Whoever they are, you should have listened to them. I'll ruin your life, and take pleasure doing it."

"Maybe I should have listened," Mallory swept her hair back, worrying at her lip. "But they didn't know me; you were right, you know? I'm not the good girl, I don't think I've ever been good enough. The whole piano prodigy thing? Makes everyone think I was good in school, that I had rich parents and a good upbringing but I was just as messed up as the next kid on the block. I wanted a BB gun for my seventh birthday, did you know that?" Mal chuckled hollowly, tapping her fingertips on his chest. "They got me an American Girl doll and I'd never been so angry in all my life."

"Sounds like you," he agreed, curling the ends of her hair around his fingers wistfully. "Stubborn as fuck with a sneaky streak in you to match it. Making trouble, causing chaos. You and me? We just fit."

Humming in agreement, she let her hips slide away from him. "I was mean, sometimes. Got into a lot of scraps with other girls, started stealing to get attention. I never stopped playing the piano though. It was the only place anyone was proud of me, when I played. Mom wants me to go do it for real, teach real classes, get paid gigs but I don't know if that's who I am."

He grumbled and ran his fingertips over her head, stroking and rubbing softly. "Ain't my place to say what you should do, Princess, but if I were you? I'd tell her to fuck off and go play keyboards in a rock band. You're young. You should be getting messy, making mistakes, taking pills and drinking til you can't remember the night before. Do shit you're passionate about doing, no matter who says you can't."

"Why'd you think I agreed to this whole mess in the first place?" she teased, feeling a sting as he slapped her backside again.

"Hey," he said, affronted. "This isn't the mistake, Mallory, it's just sex. We're doing something because we're fucking magic together, you know it, you feel it. Neither of us can give it up, not yet. I'm not giving you up just yet."

Something inside her skipped over then, a flash of pain that was as familiar as it was unwanted. She had often wondered what kind of woman could make this man fall in love.

Whoever his wife was, whether he indeed loved her still, she had no doubt that he had loved her once. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have turned over the photo to begin with. Mallory didn't want to admit to herself that he was as good to her as she had been to him. They hadn't negotiated this thing well but he was right – they were fucking magic together. She couldn't just drain him from her blood and scrub his touch from her skin.

Mallory sat up after a few moments of silence, trying to stop that feeling in her mind from swirling out of control. "Can I use your shower?" She asked quietly.

"Knock yourself out," Negan muttered sleepily, waving his hand in the general direction of the bathroom. "Towel's hanging up. Don't make a fucking mess cos I won't fucking clean it up."

She took one more look at him, his eyes already closed as she walked naked into his bathroom.


"I'll come," Mal had relented eventually, tired of trying to fight him. What lessons he was trying to teach her were ones that she wasn't willing to learn anyway. He could show off, brag until his heart was contented and let him think he had scared her, let him think he could get to her. It was easy to play his little game and make him happy. "Where are we going?"

"You are gonna love it, it's where your precious piano came from. Let's get you something decent to wear," he said, turning and going through the pile of clean clothes he had left on the old desk, flinging the garments one by one with his spare hand. "Ah ha, now this is gonna make those baby blues pop," he stressed, holding up a deep, royal blue plaid shirt to Mal's body, thrusting it at her until she took it from him. "With uh…" Negan sorted through her clothes again, producing a pair of black skinny jeans with worn patches at the knees and thighs. "Yeah, those will look fucking badass on you, Princess. We're gonna wow them all today."

Mallory took the jeans as he threw them to her, looking over his choice of outfit laying in her arms. He was dressing her like his own personal Barbie doll, parading her in front of his people? To what purpose would it serve? "Yeah, thanks," she replied sarcastically. "Let me just go scrub the blood from my skin and then we can go…"

"Bathroom's over there," he gestured, swinging Lucille around the place like he was practising for the PGA tour. "I got all day, Mallory, take your fucking time. I just want my baby to have pretty things."

The door slammed behind her, Mallory storming into the washroom before she told him to go screw himself. Scrubbing old soap across her skin didn't feel cleansing; it stung her cuts and scrapes, made her bruises ache like they were all fresh. The more she cleaned, the dirtier she felt; washing herself pretty, just how Negan wanted so he could play ping pong with someone's beaten, pulpy head. She felt the odd sinking familiarity that someone was going to die because of her, because she simply existed for him to show off to. Guilt had long gnawed at her until there was nothing left and she just pitied whoever was going to die today.

When she looked back at the road that had carried her back to Negan, she remembered each death she'd seen had felt less and less like losses. Losing people was a par for the course, another hit she was willing to take to save the rest. It hadn't panned out; one loss begat another, a broken heart and broken body led to more mistakes being made. Desperation drove them until it was her and Peter left alone, not seeing any single living soul for weeks on end until she was driven to the brink.

Mallory rinsed her skin and dried herself off with a worn-out hand towel, patting at the cut on her head before she changed into her new clothes. The clean fabrics glided over her skin, feeling softer than silk even though they were only denim and cotton. The shirt was loose around her body and made her look smaller and skinnier, the jeans fitting snug enough but not quite like they should. She had lost so much weight since he'd seen her naked last, she realised, that he had got her sizes wrong. It wasn't enough to matter but made her pause, looking down at herself as she slid her boots back on sore feet. Despite losing what curves she had, Mallory looked for all intents and purposes the same as she did when she was tutoring.

He was still standing there as she came out with her dirty clothes in her arms, depositing them on the bed. Negan whistled low, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "Who'd have thought you cleaned up so good! Well?" he asked, twirling his finger in circles in mid-air. "Give me a spin, Cinderella. Your fairy godmother wants to see the whole package."

Reluctantly, Mal complied and turned around once for him, his gaze like hands all over. When her eyes caught his again, though, he was frowning deeply, fixated on her head. "What's wrong?"

"Hair," he said, standing up and drawing a pocket knife from one of his belts. "I don't like it like that."

Negan sauntered over and grabbed the half-fallen ponytail she'd made of her thick hair, slicing off the only rubber band she had left. Her hair felt in messy waves as he used his fingers to spread her locks down her back, her hair leaning on the heavy side from the humidity. "Negan that was my last tie…" she protested weakly, fussing with his work.

"I'll get you some real fucking hair ties, Princess, but today I want it like that," he slid the knife back and admired his creation. "I always thought you were a dye job, you know. Never realised how real that fucking red hair was until you stopped waxing your pussy."

Mal cringed away from him as he played with the ends of her hair, putting the curls back after she had fiddled with them. Strands at the front grazed the bottom of her bust, his fingers hovering a path that his eyes followed suit with.

"Let's just get this over with before you go force me to put on make-up and high heels," she retorted, leaning away from him.

He walked a few steps, letting her follow him until he stopped dead and back-tracked abruptly, making her stumble over her own feet. "Fuck me, where are my manners?" Negan said, throwing Lucille up enough so he could hold the handle in front of her face. "You got sweet, gentle hands, Mallory. Why don't you do me a solid and hold on to Lucille for a little while? I know you, you'll treat her right…" she felt a shiver as he looked at her. "Because if you don't, I'll be sure to follow through on my little threat and make you lick your boyfriend's blood from her beautiful barbed wire."

Her pale hand wrapped delicately around the warm handle as she took Lucille's weight from him, struggling with the urge to swing it into his temple and put everyone out of their misery. Mal didn't think she stood much of a chance with that guard, Arat, outside. She'd have a bullet through her skull before she could try for a second blow. In reality, it was a bad idea that she wasn't going to indulge in.

Negan led her through a small crowd downstairs, every person kneeling to them as they walked through with wide strides. Watery, pallid eyes watched her carrying Lucille, Mal hearing the whispers as she passed through the building from top to bottom. She understood it better, now, how he made them kneel to him without saying asking, without ordering. They had seen the brutality of his nature and knew Negan could save their skins or bash their skulls in before they could beg him for mercy. They knew pleading did nothing except rile him further. Penitent, obedient people got a pass because they were white noise.

Mallory bet with herself that she could take Lucille, bash any of those supplicant heads into pulp and Negan would just look at her with that same lust as he had upstairs. Maybe he wanted her to do it, saw that spark inside her from what Peter had told him and wanted to turn the burner up. He'd been so fixated on her, on what had happened to change her that she never realised how much he liked it.

Insanity, she supposed, made bad ideas sound like good ones. Everything went in circles, people repeating mistakes and patterns, catching up to their crazy. Once upon a time, she'd fallen into the warm bed of a man with a hard-on for danger and breaking people, and allowed him to break her until she was dangerous.

Negan, in the driver's seat, started the truck up, the sound rusty. He peered across at Lucille lying coquettishly across Mallory's lap, locking eyes with her and smiling as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.


Mallory couldn't think. She washed the touch of his hands from her skin, let his marks rinse away with the soap and heat until she was nothing but herself again. Negan was probably asleep by now, she thought as she washed her long hair. He was probably dead to the world. The storm outside had faded into a sweet drop every now and then, the air outside lifting and fresh once more.

Inside the bathroom, she wrapped her wet body in a towel and squeezed the water out of her hair, letting it drip down her arms. There was still a curiosity she couldn't sate, the way he'd spoken was too deliberate. What had happened that made him change his mind about letting her come here?

She wiped her hand across the fogged mirror and searched for a tissue to wipe the remnants of melted mascara from her face. Her eyes were tired and red, sore from the late night and the sex. He didn't just fuck her, he ate her whole until he'd wrung out every part of her and made her mind stop dead.

Mallory rubbed her eyes delicately with the tissue, wiping away the last vestiges of her day. The tissue crumpled in her hand, she ducked and found a small trash can beneath his sink, half empty with something at the bottom of the can.

Her body froze.

There were, inside, empty pill bottles. Ten of them all told, various instructions dated the same day, medications she didn't know the names of or what they were for. She saw one name, though, one that stood out to her, calling and coming to her in a crystallising moment of sick realisation – Lucille. His wife. Empty pill bottles that belonged to Negan's wife, far too many dated too close together. She was sick, gravely ill by the sheer number of pills. She was away. He was… different. It added up to a number she didn't want to see, and she threw them all back into the trash.

Mallory couldn't stop thinking. Her own reflection looked back at her, its eyes empty and pale as she hunched over the sink. Her hair dripped into the porcelain.

How could she live with herself, knowing she'd screwed the husband of a sick, maybe even dying woman? Mal splashed cold water on her eyes to stop the piercing realisations from hitting her, the things she hadn't picked up on before all coming together. She was in love with a man who was cheating on his sick wife. It was all she could do not to scream.


A/N: Thank you for reading. A review or comment is much appreciated (x-posted on AO3)