Authors Note: Alright Y'all, this chapter is a flippin' doozy. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I do have a special request though for all the wonderful people who have stuck with this story, favoriting, following, reading, and reviewing from the start. I want to ask you all for constructive criticism. I always love the wonderful compliments you guys provide, but I'm a nursing major, not a writer by any means, and while I've had a blast writing this story I know for a fact there's areas I can grow in, and I want to encourage anyone that may have notes on things you notice, or ideas that you'd like to share to please share them with me! In the beginning a guest reviewer kindly called me out on some wonky past-present tense mix ups with verbs, and since then I've read over every chapter to double check on that area. Her criticism helped make the story better! Anyway, I love you all, and I appreciate your overwhelming support, this is by far the biggest, most favorably received story I've ever written, and I wouldn't be nearly as motivated to work on it without y'all's wonderful support! Happy Thanksgiving!
The Sun is peaking over the horizon and the frost from my breath hangs in the morning air as our group makes its way through the gates of The Sanctuary and into the forest. There are nine trainees in total, outfitted in our newly assigned weapons, freezing our asses off as we follow Mr. Congeniality himself, Simon, out to our first day of group training. We trod our path through the forest for about fifteen minutes.
As we walk, a sound gets louder and louder over the sound of crunching leaves. At first I only hear the rhythmic pulse of high pitched tones here and there, but as we get closer to the source, I realize it's some kind of terrible techno music blaring through the forest. We break through the tree line of a clearing, and come face to face with a wooden enclosure. As we round the walls of the structure I realize it's a walker trap; there's a wooden wall on three sides of the clearing, with a funnel shaped gate on the side. The pounding music inside lures the dead in, and the shape of the entrance prevents them from leaving. In the breaks of the music I can hear their mindless snarling and it makes my stomach clench.
Simon takes up a place near the gate, signaling for all nine of us recruits to gather around him. "Alright you sorry bitches," he begins with a smile, "we're gonna start off today with the most basic skill of survival, putting down the dead bastards. If you can't kill something that's already dead, you're way too damn stupid to call yourself a Savior. But, seeing as you're all still breathing my air and eating my food, I'm expecting this to be a review.
"There's basically three ways you end one of these fucks, you can stab 'em, shoot 'em, or beat the shit out of 'em. How much fun you wanna have with it, well that's up to you." He gestures at three of the men standing off to far left, "you three, are a team." He motions to another pair, "you three," he points at Dwight, the pudgy man next to him, and me, "and you three. Each team is going to take a turn bagging and grabbing three biters out of the kennel, alright? That's step one and we'll go from there. You three go first," he says gesturing at my group.
I'm nervous as hell as we step forward, Dwight reaches out to grab three burlap sacks from Simon. "I'm Ben," says the pudgy guy standing next to me. His curly brown hair is shiny with sweat before we've even done anything, his round face curved into a dopey smile. While he seems friendly, I wish he was in a different group; his cherubic disposition gives me the impression that I'm not going to be the weakest link on our team. I swallow back my thoughts.
"Rori," I introduce myself, "how do we want to do this?" I ask both men, hoping at least Dwight has experience in catching the monsters. I'm relieved when Dwight speaks up.
"You and me" – he points at Ben as he speaks – "we'll go on the sides of the gate, push back the biters and make a bottle neck so only one gets through at a time." He continues, directing his words towards me, "You stand outside the entrance and throw the bags over as we send them your way. Sound good?"
"Works for me," I say. He hands me the bags, and we walk to the gate. Adrenaline is racing through me as I listen to the sounds of a butt load of walkers moaning around inside the structure. With no further preamble, the men take up positions on either side of the gates. They push them open slightly; I only catch a glimpse of the giant horde of walkers before one starts to stumble towards us, I ready a burlap bag in my sweat slickened hands. The men pull the gate closed as he walks through. Before he catches either of their scent, I shout, "Hey! Over here!" The walker zeroes in on me. Just when he gets close enough, I slip the burlap sack over his head and upper body, effectively disarming him as the bag pins his arms to the side. I push the still struggling dead body over to the side, and ready another bag.
The guys struggle more the second time to push against the growing force of walkers trying to get through the gate. When it opens again, there are several walkers at the entrance fighting to push through. Dwight and Ben kick at the walkers on the sides trying to squeak by, desperately trying to keep the bottle neck tight enough for only one to get through.
Suddenly, one of the walkers from the sides gets ahold of Ben's arm. He freaks out yanking his arm away from the snapping mouth. He pulls his arm free, and drops his position at the gate, scrambling backwards, walker following him through the gate. Dwight lets the force of the walker tide push his side of the gate in to close with Ben's side. The walker lunges at Ben. In his panic, not watching where he's going, Ben slams backwards into me, throwing me to the ground as he stumbles to the side. The ravenous walker lands on top of me.
Fear shoots through my body. A scream tears through my throat as the walker's jaws snap at me, inches from my face. The weight of the struggling walker is too much for me to push off, and my arms are barely strong enough to hold the growling face out of reach of my own. In a last ditch effort, I grab the walker by the neck with my left hand, using every ounce of strength to hold it back with one arm. It only takes a split second before my right hand clasps around the handle of the knife in my holster. There's a moment of struggle as my left arm falters. I only have one shot at this. An instant before the gnarled teeth sink into my face, I stab the walker directly through the eye. Rotting blood and gore rain down on my face, and dead weight goes limp on top of me.
Dwight and Ben rush over and roll the body off of me. Anger replaces the adrenaline running through my veins as I stand.
"What the FUCK was THAT?" Dwight beats me to the punch, yelling in Ben's face. "Your stupid ass almost got her fucking killed!"
"I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry! It just grabbed me and I freaked out – I'm so sorry!" Concern and guilt are etched into Ben's rounded features.
I want to go off on him for being so careless, but I can tell he genuinely is sorry. Pity overpowers my anger. "Just don't let it happen again," I spit at him, swiping the foul smelling blood from my face with my sleeve.
"Interesting as that little show was, you all still need two more biters. You can go all Jerry Springer on your own time," Simon says from his place on the side with the rest of the trainees.
"Same deal as last time," instructs Dwight," don't fuck it up." He glares at Ben as he tacks on the last bit.
I get a bag ready in my hands again as the men resume their spots on either side of the gate.
Thankfully, we bag our next two walkers without a hitch. We each hold onto one, struggling in their bags, as we move off to the side and wait for the other groups to gather their own sets.
"Alright, time for step two," says Simon stepping to the center of the clearing. "Each person in your group, is going to take a turn putting down one of your rotters. I want each person to use a different method of the three. I don't care who does what, just pick and get to it."
"I've already stabbed one today, so is it cool if I call dibs on the gun?" I ask my group. I'm relieved when they both agree.
"I'll take the knife," Ben says. I'm not surprised he chooses the easier method of the two left.
"Alright," Dwight doesn't argue.
It's a fairly rapid process at this point. Though it's not a great shot, I nail my walker through the side of his head with one try. Ben struggles for a moment before sliding his knife up through his walker's mouth, and Dwight sweeps out his walker's legs from beneath her before bringing down his boot on her skull. We stand to the side with the first group to finish, and wait for the last team to take down their walkers.
Simon steps forward once again as the last group finishes up. "Off to a good start! No one is dead, and we all got a bonus lesson on why you can't let yourself fuck up in the field," he smiles at our group. "We're gonna head over to the firing range and teach you people how to actually shoot a gun."
"Girl," he looks at me, "you can head back. Send the doc out our way this afternoon."
Simon's instructions earn me a few confused stares. "Thank you," I reply, ignoring the looks of my peers. "I'll see you guys later," I say to Dwight and Ben before I head back down the path to the Sanctuary. I'm shocked that four hours have passed so quickly. A few minutes later I walk into the infirmary, the Doctor is the only occupant.
I feel incredibly relieved to know that at least for the moment I'll have a moment to rest without having to tend to patients. "Slow morning?" I ask the doctor as I remove my bloodstained sweater, hanging it up on the rack by the door.
"No one other than morning meds patients so" – He cuts himself off as he turns around, apparently taken aback by my appearance – "so far. You look"—
– "Like my idiot team mate almost got me eaten?" I head to the bathroom wash the walker gunk off my face.
"Yeah that sounds about right," he says. "how about we take it a little easy today? I have a couple chapters on head wounds I'd like you to read."
"No complaints here!" Looking in the mirror I'm surprised someone hasn't puked at the sight of me. I've got dried blood sticking to the sides of my face, and pieces of gore stuck in my hair. It's almost comical how nasty I look. I let the water warm up a little before splashing it on myself, scrubbing at the skin with hand soap until all the blood runs down the drain. I take a few minutes and pick out the gooey pieces of flesh from my hair. I know I haven't gotten them all, but it's the best I can do without a shower, so I redo my ponytail and return to the front of the infirmary.
Carson hands me the book with little pieces of paper sticking out on the sides, marking a good hundred pages of text for me to read. I settle down on one of the convalescing beds and start reading about the ins and outs of traumatic head wounds.
I don't know how much time has passed before there's a commotion outside. Voices shouting, someone gasping and wheezing for breath, the door to the infirmary swings open.
I slam the book shut and hop up from the bed, readying myself for whatever is about to come. "Follow my lead," Carson shouts to me as a group of people pour into the room.
A couple of men carrying a man who is clutching at the right side of his chest, gasping desperately for each breath, set him down on the first bed. Another man, stumbling unassisted but bleeding profusely from a head wound, sits on the second bed. And the last man who is speaking erratically to no one in particular is lead to the third bed.
Carson shouts to me, pointing at each bed, "Patient one, two, and three, got it?"
"Got it!"
"Basic triage: who do we tackle first?" He asks me.
My mind flies into overdrive as I realize he's using this opportunity as a training exercise. I scan over the patients, and though I want to tend to the bleeding patient first, I know the one struggling to breathe is most likely to die soonest if we don't treat immediately. "Patient One," I declare, "stabilize and assess vitals."
The doctor agrees and we stand over the first bed. As he places the chestpiece of the stethoscope over the man's ribs, I ask the non-wounded men what happened.
The man closest to me answers, "They were in a car wreck just a little outside the walls. They were on the way to an outpost. I saw the wreck. I don't know what caused it but I know they nailed a tree. The fourth guy didn't make it."
The doctor, looks at me, still listening to the man's chest, "Pneumothorax. His right lung is collapsed entirely. Rori, prep a 14-gauge needle and syringe."
I obey the orders, slipping on a pair of gloves and quickly preparing the supplies for the doctor. When I return to the patient's bedside, I try to hand him the supplies. "You're doing it," he commands.
I don't have enough time to process before he's verbally guiding me through the procedure. He has me locate the second intercostal space, on the right side of his chest. "Alright, don't be afraid to use force. You're going to insert the needle in between the ribs on the midclavicular line. Push through both pulmonary pleurae, into the thoracic cavity. Stop when you no longer feel resistance."
I line up the needle, following the imaginary line dividing the patient's collar bone, down to the space below his second rib. Without allowing myself the chance to hesitate, ignoring the agonized sounds of my patient, I insert the needle, pushing past the resistance of the tissue lining his chest cavity until I feel the needle pierce through. "I'm in," I tell the doctor, looking for my next command.
"Alright, now pull up on the plunger of the needle."
I do as I'm told, pulling up on the plunger, allowing the air that had filled up the patient's chest cavity to be suctioned up into the syringe. I remove the needle, once all of the air is suctioned away. Patient one inhales sharply taking in a full breath. "You got it," says Dr. Carson, "the negative pressure is restored. The lung is inflating." He looks at one of the men standing back as they watch us work, "You, hold pressure right here," the doctor instructs him, placing a piece of gauze where the needle was removed.
The doctor stands and looks at me. "Next patient?"
Patient three who has not stopped slurring random sentences since the moment he arrived looks up at me with a dazed look. Immediately I recognize the symptoms of a concussion. "Three appears to be concussed, and the head lac on Two makes me think he may be as well. I suggest we each take one and assess neurological function."
"Fair enough," the doctor says, selecting Patient Three as his to assess. I walk over to the side of Patient Two's bed.
"Hi, I'm Rori. Can you sit up for me?" I ask him.
"Sure, I can do anything for a pretty girl like you," he slurs at me, ignoring the blood dripping into his glazed eyes.
I ignore the comment from him and help him sit up in the bed for me. I look over to the man holding pressure on Patient One's chest. "What's this guy's name?" I ask him.
Before he has a chance to answer me, Patient Two interjects, "My name is DAMIEN. What's your name, Gorgeous?" His voice sounds as if his tongue is sewn to the sides of his mouth, sluggish and thick as he shouts at me.
"I'm Rori, Damien; do you not remember me telling you just a second ago?"
He rolls his eyes dramatically and his head lolls slightly as he looks at me like I'm an idiot. "I would REMEMBER someone that looks like YOU giving me their name." He emphasizes certain words by yelling them. "HEY. What happened to your face?" He says trying to grab at the scar on my left cheek.
As he throws himself at me I get a whiff of his breath. It reeks like a liquor store. I start to piece it together a little more, he's not concussed, he's drunk. I grab his hand a little firmer than I normally might, today has been a trying day, and pull it away from my face. "How many drinks have you had?" I ask him.
"Just a couple," he slurs at me, weakly trying to squirm his arm out of my grasp. "I've still got room for a few if you wanna join me for one!"
"I'll pass."
"Ohhh, baby don't be like that! I'm a nice guy. I'll treat you real good!"
"I'm sure. But I'll pass, Damien. Now can I get you to lay back down for me?" I help him lay back down, not appreciating the way he leers at my chest as I guide him. I look at the doctor. "Number two is drunk as hell, but I don't think he's concussed. How's three?"
Carson looks up as he's putting a brace around Patient Three's neck, "Definitely concussed over here. Grade 3 I believe, he says he lost consciousness after the accident. Nothing much we can really do for him except observe. Go ahead and stitch up Two and see if we can get him back to the bunks, we don't want a bed taken up if it doesn't have to be."
"Okay," I reply, not exactly relishing the idea of spending more time with my drunk patient. I grab a suture kit and some local anesthetic. A few minutes later I have him stitched and with the help of his friend, on his way out of the infirmary.
I look at the clock, it's ten till two. Carson leaves me his stethoscope, instructions to monitor both patients every half hour, and to finish my reading assignment; he heads out to join afternoon training at the shooting range.
I just finish turning the page when the door to the infirmary swings open again. Dear Lord, here we go again, I think closing the book. Looking up I smile as I see Negan enter the infirmary, momentarily forgetting the embarrassment of our last interaction. The happiness at seeing him fades instantly though, when I see the expression on his face. I have only ever seen Negan this furious once before, the night he rescued me from the forest.
"What in the motherfucking, cocksucking, God damned hell happened to my fucking car?" Negan doesn't even look at me as he storms past, directing his question at Patient Three, the awake one of the two patients.
Patient Three, who appears very disoriented still, just stares at Negan mouth agape.
"Answer me when I fucking talk to you," growls Negan.
"Sir, I'm not sure why, but my head hurts A-LOT." Patient three looks at Negan expectantly as if he holds the key to why his head hurts.
Negan swings Lucille up between him and Three, holding the bat inches in front of his face. "You're fucking head can hurt a shit ton worse if you don't give me a straight answer." His voice has dropped to a deadly whisper.
"Um… Negan – Sir," I grab his attention. His eyes are dark and annoyed when they meet mine. "He has a pretty bad concussion. He genuinely doesn't know what you're talking about."
"Shit," he says getting out of Three's face, "He wasn't exactly fucking Einstein to begin with. You"—He points Lucille at the dazed but awakening Patient One – "What the fuck happened to my motherfucking car?"
The patient sits up, clearly sore, but fairly well recovered from his collapsed lung earlier. "We crashed on the way to the outpost. Swerved too sharply trying to avoid a dead one, ended up hitting a tree."
"Were you the fucking driver?" Negan walks over to One, Lucille swinging menacingly by his side.
"N-no, sir, Damien was. He was acting kind of weird before we left. He grabbed the keys, insisted he wanted to drive."
"Oh no," I mutter under my breath, realizing what happened.
"What's that, Doll?" Negan turns my way.
"Damien. I stitched him up. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. He told me he had had a couple to drink this morning…" I leave out the part where he kept trying to grope me as I had patched him up.
Negan's jaw clenches viciously, and his eyes narrow. He doesn't say another word before he throws Lucille back over his shoulder, and strides menacingly out the door of the infirmary. I don't know why but my stomach clenches, sweat slicking across my palms for the umpteenth time today. I bite my lip and try to swallow the feeling of dread that's creeped into my body as I busy myself checking patient One's vitals.
I have just settled down to read again, when the door swings open for the third time today. I stand up immediately, steeling myself for whatever bizarre occurrence is certainly impending. Dr. Carson rushes into the room, a look of deep concern and stress across his face. He runs straight over to the supply closet and pulls out the folded up wheelchair Negan had pushed me around in my first week here. He opens it up, pushing the seat down as a final touch and pushes it over to me.
"Rori, I need you to go to the main yard and stand near the front of the crowd, take the chair with you. Just wait there okay?"
"Sure, Doc. But what about the patients?" I am so confused.
"Don't worry about them, just go. No more questions."
This day has been absolutely ridiculous from the start. I grab the chair and push it in front of me heading towards the large yard in front of the Big House. There have to be at least a hundred people already gathered by the time I get there. I have no clue what's going on. All the people seem to be gathered in front of a large makeshift platform constructed out of pallets. I assume that's supposed to be the front, so I stand off to the side, in front of the crowd, right next to the pallets.
There's a loud murmur of chatter and an air of excitement, nervousness, in the air as the crowd grows bigger, until more people than I even knew lived at the Sanctuary are gathered in the yard.
I watch Negan exit the Big House, Lucille thrown over his shoulder as usual. I take a knee along with everyone in the crowd as he approaches the pallet stage. He walks right past me and up to the center of the stage. "You can stand," he shouts over the now silent crowd; in unison we rise at his permission. Rushing, covered in sweat, Dr. Carson runs over to the other side of the platform.
The doctor is holding a large cast iron pot, with pot holders that look like they came from my grandmother's kitchen. He sets down the pot on the front of the stage. Two men emerge from the side of the crowd, dragging a struggling Damien to the side of the pallets, pinning him down after forcing him to his knees.
"Good Fucking Afternoon!" Negan calls to the crowd in a booming voice, all eyes cement on him. "Today, has been an eventful damn day. MOST of you have spent all day putting in some fan-fucking-tastic work to keep this place the fucking paradise in a shit world that it is! That's something to fucking celebrate! However," he looks down at Damien on the side of his stage, "SOME people, cooked up in their Goddamn, shit for brains head, that it would be a good fucking idea to celebrate before the fucking day even began! Now, I'm all for throwing back a couple here and there. You work, you blow off steam. You give, You take. Balance.
"But,"Negan points Lucille at a quivering Damien, "today, you took a whole lot motherfucking more than you gave. A fuck ton more than I'm comfortable with. Your fucking choice to get shit faced before a long drive out to the west outpost, cost me a fucking nice car, medical supplies, my Goddamn time, and a good fucking man's life. For that, you're gonna fucking pay."
Negan nods at his Saviors holding down Damien, who begins to cry as they pull him to his feet. He thrashes around, desperately trying to pull himself from their grip, but they are too strong. His whimpering becomes incoherent screams of blubbering pleas as they drag him in front of Negan, forcing him to his knees once more, this time facing the audience.
I look around at the people around me, some of whom have turned away, others who stare on with pained expressions and bated breath. I have no idea what is about to happen, but I know without a doubt it's something terrible.
"Carson." Negan uses the doctor's name as a command. The doctor's anxiety is tangible as he picks up the giant pot and carries it to the center of the stage, sets it down at Negan's feet, and removes the lid. Negan, reaches into the pot with his leather gloved hand, and raises up an old fashioned iron, the kind that had to be heated manually. I can't look away.
The realization of what is about to happen hits me a moment before the iron kisses Damien's face. Negan's face is dark and greedy as he places one hand on the left side of Damien's head, and slowly brings the searing iron against the right side of his head. Pushing it tight against the burning flesh, Negan holds the iron to the man's skin for what seems like an eternity.
My stomach roils and almost spills over at the sight of the man's bubbling flesh and his horrific screams, the likes of which I have never heard. When Negan pulls the iron away, I lose the battle with my stomach as Damien's melted flesh clings to the metal and drips off in charred pieces onto the stage.
I'm doubled over, still retching up the last of the quick snack I'd eaten earlier, when Damien's screams go silent. I look up to see him laying limp, unconscious from the pain, at Negan's feet.
Negan pushes him off of his boot with a nudge, and calls out once more over the audience, "I really, really fucking hate having to do this shit. So let's try to not fuck over ourselves, and make it so I never have to do this again." With that, he drops the still steaming iron into the pot. In one smooth motion he picks up Lucille, throwing the bat casually over his shoulder, and walks off the stage. As he passes by me his eyes meet mine for a split second, an unreadable expression passing through them.
The Saviors that had held down Damien, now under the direction of Dr. Carson, carry the unconscious man over to the wheelchair in front of me. The acrid smell of burned flesh stings my nose with its heavy, sweet, poison. They get him settled and strapped in loosely around the waist. His body props up against the back of the seat, lifeless.
I feel numb as I wheel him back to the infirmary, a small head laceration now the least of his problems. Once we get him inside and laying on a bed, I allow myself to look fully at the carnage on his face. The skin is charred and blistered, in some places it's burned so deeply through that I can see the muscles and bone, raw and exposed.
The movement is non-stop around the infirmary, a perpetual dance as Carson and I tag team in on Damien and the other two patients whose names I really don't ever care to learn. I spend hours picking away at dead flesh, trying to figure out which pieces of skin, or muscle, or sinew are salvageable.
At Six o'clock on the dot, the door to the infirmary is opened. I feel sick, knowing exactly whose shadow is casting across the floor of the building. I look up, shocked to see how normal Negan appears, how nonchalant he is leaning against the door frame, absent mindedly letting Lucille swing free. My stomach is in knots at the sight of him.
"You can go ahead and go, Rori," The doctor says, "I'll make a note on your timesheet. Don't worry about cleaning up, I'll take care of it later."
I wish he had told me I would have to stay all night.
Dread pools in my feet, weighing them down as I walk forward, through the open door Negan is holding for me. He doesn't say a word to me as we walk down the steps. He reaches out his hand and places it on the small of my back; I flinch at his touch, my body for some reason expecting pain to follow. He pulls his hand away. I feel him looking at me, and when I raise my eyes, I see a mixture of hurt and anger in his. Neither of us says a word the entire walk to the Big House.
When we reach the top of the stairs, he turns at the top of the landing, heading to his room. I know he's expecting me to follow, and even though at the moment I really don't want to, I do anyway.
Entering through the double doors of the bedroom, I see there are two plates of meatloaf on the table in the corner. The sight and smell of the slightly charred meat removes the last traces of any appetite I may have had, but I still follow Negan to the table and sit at my spot. He eats his food in measured bites, deliberately following through with every action. I pick at the food, try and fail to take a bite, and move the food around on my plate.
Finishing his meal, his eyes remaining cold throughout, Negan raises his glass of water to his lips and drinks the entire thing in one long chug. The force with which he slams the cup down on the table makes me flinch back so sharply I almost fall out of my chair. He looks furious at my reaction.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Rori?" he yells at me.
"I'm sorry…" I whisper.
"What the fuck did I do to you? Huh?" I remain silent. "Have I ever hurt you? Layed a hand on you? Beat you?" I still don't answer, though I can feel the tears welling up behind my eyes.
"God Dammit, look at me!" I meet his eyes, seeing the hurt and frustration within them. "Have I ever been anything but good to you?"
I answer him this time. "No," I say weakly.
"Then please, for the love of fucking God, enlighten me. Enlighten me as to why you are looking at me the same damn way you looked at that bastard in the forest, Rori? What the fuck have I done to you to earn that?"
"I'm sorry, Negan. I-I… Last night that was -"
- "I know what last night fucking was. I'm talking about right now. Tonight. This fucking moment. You're looking at me like I'm a motherfucking monster."
"I don't think you're a monster," I whisper, though I'm not sure if I know that's true. I was shocked and horrified by what I'd seen this afternoon, by the scars I saw on Dwight this morning. "What I saw this afternoon. What you did to Damien…"
"What I did to Damien was balance, Rori. The kind of fucking balance that keeps this place standing." Negan's eyes are softening, but still very stern as he speaks. "Damien got a man killed today, put two others in the infirmary using up resources on a situation that was entirely fucking avoidable. He did it because he was fucking stupid and fucking selfish, and we don't have the luxury of fines and jail sentences in this world. I should have killed him. But I didn't. I taught him, and everyone at the compound, a valuable fucking lesson in decision making."
His words make sense, but I still can't shake the fear and discomfort I feel about everything I saw. I stand up from the table, wrapping my arms protectively around my chest. I walk over to the foot of Negan's bed and sit, not caring how incredibly disgusting I am at the moment. He lets me sit there quietly for a few minutes. I can't escape that he's right. He has never done anything to me to earn my fear. Quite the opposite actually, from the moment I met Negan he's been gentle, and good, and kind. The man across the room is both the man who I've watched brutally kill and mame and the one who has held me while I cried and soothed away the demons of the past.
He walks over and stands in front of me, close enough he could reach out and touch me, but not so close as to freak me out. He looks at me tenderly, his bluster having dissipated. I look up at him, feeling the overwhelming exhaustion of this very long day sink in. "A walker almost bit me this morning. I saved a man this afternoon by sucking the air out of his chest with a needle. This evening I watched a man's face melt and tried to put it back together. I almost died today."
Silence sits with us for a moment.
"You look like it," he says quietly. His face breaks into a small cocky smile that makes me want to punch and kiss his stupid perfect lips at the same time.
A small laugh escapes me. I shake my head gently, my fear and frustration drifting away despite myself. "Fuck you," I whisper through the tiny upturn of my own lips.
"I thought you'd never ask." I hear the challenge underneath the tease.
I feel like I'm about to cross the freeway on foot. Sherry's words, Dwight's scars, Damien's burnt flesh, and my own gut feelings, are all warning signs screaming at me to stay away, to turn back while I still can. But on the other side of that freeway is a man, a man who saved my life, a man who's never been anything but good to me, a man that is incredibly handsome and brutal and so fucking alluring it kills me. I take a deep breath. I let it out slowly. I walk out into oncoming traffic.
I drop my arms from around my body and reach up, taking Negan's face in my hands. I look him dead in the eyes. "I'm not asking. I'm begging."
Shock crosses his face momentarily, and I know I've won the challenge. Before I have a chance to even realize what's happening, Negan's arms are wrapped around my body, one around my waist and the other reaching up to rest his palm across the top of my back. His lips are firm but incredibly gentle against mine, robbing me of my strength as I succumb to the intoxication of his kiss. My lips are soft as they meld with his. The dance of our lips together lights every nerve ending in my body on fire. His lips part mine gently and his tongue teases against mine; I push it further and I take his lip between my teeth, nipping gently at it as he growls softly in response. I break away for a moment, trying to catch my breath from the most amazing kiss I've had in my life. I can see the passion, the lust, and the restraint in his eyes. Even in the throes of this magic, I know that at any moment I can stop it if I need to, but truly I'm too far gone. There's no going back for me now.
I place a gentle kiss on his lips, and get on my tippy toes pulling him down gently, putting my lips up to his ear and whisper, "I think I need a shower."