AN: It feels great to finally get this chapter out for you guys!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead.
Open up, "Negan tells Sam, and for once he doesn't mean her legs. Sorry."
~O~
~Then~
Negan stood out on the platform overlooking the courtyard with one leg bent at the knee up on the yellow railing. The storm had died down to a fine mist that collected along his leather jacket and in his dark hair as he stared solemn over the men below him unloading supplies from the latest run.
"Got nothing in laundry or the dorms, sir."
He wiped away the water dripping into his eyes with the back of his hand before grabbing his radio.
"Alright, report to Dwight and then move on to the west wing."
He released the button as the doors to the main building opened behind him.
"Nothing in the workshops or garages, boss," Simon announced, stepping out into the miserable morning shower. "Still confident she didn't have any help? I can have the boys start searching through people's stuff."
"I had the marketplace go over their inventory again for the weeks that we were short and the numbers say she's been here at least three weeks, not counting supplies that didn't make it to the market to be counted. Dwight thinks a month. If she was being helped, someone would've ratted by now."
Simon didn't look entirely convinced but he didn't argue. "Well, I checked over the fence myself and I can say she definitely didn't get in through that way. It's secure all the way around and there hasn't been any reports of damage since that last time it was replaced."
"Then she came in through the front gate."
"Probably on a convoy or supply run," Simon agreed. "There's no way of knowing exactly which one, but I can assure you boss, I'm overseeing measures to make sure nobody has the chance to do it again - in or out."
Negan didn't reply as he continued to stare out over the courtyard. He churned his radio over in his hand absently as he watched each man, more suspicious than usual after having the rug pulled out from under him. He had already raged at the embarrassment of it and was taking every opportunity to reassert his alpha status by being more vulgar and quick-tempered. It was working, but there was more at stake than just his wounded pride. He was going to have to tread carefully the next couple of days with how he handled this situation. Their new guest was sleeping it off in the cells while his saviors were searching every inch of the compound for how in the hell she got in. Every now and again his radio would receive a transmission checking off another area that yielded nothing.
He was more than confident that there was no one else involved. Questioning the workers revealed that many had seen the woman around, and had even interacted with her on a near daily basis, but when asked where she worked or what dorm she stayed in, nobody seemed to know. And once they had started seeing her in a black dress, there was even less incentive to find out more about her.
There was no one that recalled ever seeing her in their group before coming to the Sanctuary and there was nobody who knew her personally. The closest thing his men could find was a worker who ran the parts station in the main workshop and he claimed that he didn't know where or what she got up to when she wasn't around. Each person who reported speaking to her was even given conflicting names. Negan himself couldn't be sure that the name given to him was real.
She was a little house mouse roaming the halls of the Sanctuary under everyone's nose, but even mice had nests, and Samantha's had to be somewhere.
Just as he thought that, a transmission from Dwight came through.
"This is D, found something in the west wing."
He smirked, running his tongue over his teeth as he answered: "Go ahead."
"There's an old hallway here that use to be used for storage, but its been sectioned off because the foundation is sinking in places and it causes flooding. The doors are boarded up and it doesn't look like anybody's tried to get inside, but it's the only place we haven't checked."
"Start taking down the boards, I'm on my way over now," he ordered, releasing the button, "this is it, I can feel it in my balls!"
Simon mirrored his excitement, laughing. "Alright, pay dirt!"
He gestured towards the double doors, moving aside to let Negan go first as the two men stepped back inside the main building, shaking the loose drops of rain from their clothes. The halls were empty. The lockdown had been lifted once Sam had been subdued and they were able to do a thorough sweep of the compound, but there was a strict time table in affect. The workers were ordered to their stations for work, the cafeteria for meals and then their rooms, so there was no meandering or socializing in the halls right now.
They found Dwight and a group of saviors outside the hall, prying at the wooden beams that barricaded the doors. Negan surveyed the area as he waited, looking for signs that someone had been there recently, but there wasn't even a break in the dust on the floor except for the ones made by him and his men. He began to feel his earlier anticipation waver and he gritted his teeth behind his closed mouth, working his jaw as he watched the last board rip loose from the wall.
The savior tossed the board aside and pushed both bars on the doors. They swung open to reveal an even darker, dustier hallway. It was like a scene from a horror movie with its cobwebs and foreboding appearance. The men stood there and stared, listening to a quiet breeze blow in through the empty corridor. They turned and looked at Negan.
"What the fuck are you pussies waiting for, a sign from God? Get in there and find me something good!"
The group turned back and stepped forward, pulling out their flashlights while Negan hung back with Simon and Dwight.
"How'd you hear about this place?" he asked the blonde.
"I didn't, I just found it."
"Doesn't look like anybody's been inside in a long time," Simon pointed out.
"Like I said, it's the only place we haven't checked. Just because the door is blocked, doesn't mean she didn't find another way in."
Simon grinned and opened his mouth to make a mocking rejoinder, but he was cut off when a flash of light and a loud bang sounded out, causing the three men to duck and cover their heads. The men in the hallway shouted and the beams from their flashlights moved rapidly along the walls.
"What the fuck was that? Did someone's gun go off?"
"We'd be deaf if it was a gunshot - it sounded like a firecracker."
Another flash and a bang went off.
"Where the fuck is that coming from!?"
"I think that was me. I opened the door - fuck!"
There was a crash as one of the saviors dropped his flashlight and let out a pained howl. His teammate closest to him came to his aide, catching him just as he fell back. He checked the screaming man for injury, coming to his boot where he was clutching at something. Another savior came with his flashlight, shining it on the man's foot and cursing when they saw a piece of ply wood with nails sticking out of it.
"Everyone watch your step, the place is rigged!" he shouted, shining the light back down the hall towards his leader.
Dwight and Simon pulled out their guns and moved cautiously into the hall while Negan stood back, rolling his eyes.
"Fucking morons."
It took twenty minutes for the traps to be cleared and the lights to be turned on. Negan stood by the entrance leaning against the wall as he stared down at his boots with his arms crossed, listening to his men scour the floor carefully for traps and becoming more frustrated each time he heard another go off.
Normally, he would've found the slapstick sight of his men being assaulted by firecrackers and Cub Scout level booby traps hilarious, but he wasn't in the mood for dicking around. He wanted something inside that hallway and each time they had to stop to disarm some kind of trip wire or check a loose tile, he lost more of his patience.
He stayed where he was, brooding, until Simon finally came out and announced that it was clear. He didn't have total confidence in that and showed as much when he stepped into the hall with his own healthy amount of caution.
Simon led him to one of the last rooms in the hall. It was an old maintenance room, repurposed into a little den built for one. The rain had caused the room to flood. When it had drained back out, everything was left strung out over the floor. Papers, garbage, clothing, a sleeping bag. The walls were covered in papers, notes and messy sketches he wasn't able to decipher at first glance. He smiled again, realizing that he had found what he had been looking for.
He wasted no time ordering his men to go through it. He wanted everything out of the room, everything that had been taken from the marketplace and all the little knickknacks that decorated the shelves. As his men began to pile everything into boxes, Negan stood in the center of the room, giving the papers on the wall an appraising look. His eyes swept over makeshifts gadgets and models with mounting excitement until they landed on a stack of composition books on the ceil of one of the windows.
He picked one up, shifting Lucille to rest in the crook of his elbow as he flipped through the moth-eaten pages. His smile grew bigger with each page and each sketch - dimensions for solar panels, windmills, transportation. He flipped through a couple more pages, his eyes dancing across the words scribbled across them.
Fucking jackpot.
"Negan."
He looked up at Dwight who was standing by the wall. He was pointing up at something.
"Check this out."
He followed the path of the blonde's finger to see an open vent. He put the notebook back on the window ceil and walked over to where the grate was laying on the ground. He kicked it with his boot before looking back up at the vent.
"So that's how she got in," he said, almost to himself, reaching up to rub at his beard in thought before looking at Dwight. "Go to the old administrations office and find me the layout of the building. I want to see the ventilation system."
Dwight nodded, brushing past the older man as he left the maintenance room.
Negan couldn't help but smile at the exposed vent as he brought Lucille up to rest on his shoulder.
"I've got you figured out now, Mouse."
~O~
~Now~
"Did you hear what I said?"
Negan looked up from the notebook resting in his lap.
"Hm?"
Sherry gave him an exasperated look, crossing her arms under her chest.
"I said, I think someone stole my underwear from the laundry room. I'm short from the load Joey brought up this morning and I know I sent down more."
He looked back down at the notebook, apathetic to his wife's concern. "What the fuck do you want me to do about it, declare a state of emergency?"
From her spot on Negan's bed, Val let out a snort. She and Amber were lounging across the grey comforter in nothing but a matching set of lacy thongs where they had been for the better part of the day, entertaining Negan. Val laid on her stomach filing her nails while Amber leaned back against the headboard with a book in her lap. Sherry shot a glare over her shoulder which Val returned with a sneer.
"You're such an asshole," she snapped at Negan, leaving his bedroom and slamming the door behind her.
"Stop the fucking presses," he mumbled.
"Someone stole her dirty underwear?" Amber asked, looking up from her book. "That's gross."
"Shit gets lost all the time down there. You'd know that if you ever went in there."
"I knew that," Val boasted.
"Only because you used to work there," Amber pointed out.
"It was better than sweeping up hair for Sadie in her shop because you weren't qualified enough to do anything besides sucking cock."
Amber grabbed one of the decorative throw pillows and chucked it at Val's exposed back, making her drop her file. She turned on her side and gave the blonde a scathing look.
"Bitch!"
"Whore!"
"Knock it off!" Negan barked.
Val mumbled under her breath as she picked up her file and Amber went back to her book. Negan watched them with a mean stare before leaning back in his chair. He sat at his desk shirtless, his graying chest hair and tattoos exposed, a pair of pants hanging unbuckled and loose around his hips. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles and his feet bare as he read through one of Sam's journals.
He had read this entry before, but he always came back to re-read a select few, even when he still had four more notebooks to go through. It seemed like he was trying to find a window into Sam's mind, giving him a view of something rare beyond the usual scribbled, disjointed notes and unnavigable tangents that he usually found in her notes, but entry upon entry continued to yield nothing truly personal about the woman.
There were no entries depicting Sam's life before the outbreak, and it made him wonder why she never felt the need to write it down. Many did these days, to help them remember and get toxic thoughts out in the open before they ate them up inside. But not Sam. Nothing about her family, not her home life or her childhood. Was she happy to forget? Was it too painful to remember? He could only speculate.
As Negan sat at his desk picturing Samantha as a child and what that must've been like (stubby legs, flat as a board, cute as a button but with that same damn look of perpetual disdain), Amber marked her place in her book and closed it.
She straightened out her freshly shaved legs over the soft comforter and stared up at the ceiling, blowing air out between her lips in a sign of boredom. The sound went unacknowledged by the other occupants in the room and the blonde pouted. She listened to the sound of Val's nails scrapping against her file and the occasionally turning of a page before she turned her head to look at Negan, flexing her painted toes.
She watched him through half-lidded eyes painted a soft pink as he sat engrossed in the notebook he held in his hands. It seemed like he was always reading one of those; she wondered what was in them. She knew that he liked to collect classic books, which he read almost in one sitting every time he came across a new title, but he never seemed as engrossed in them as he was those raggedy notebooks. He looked sexy when he wore his glasses, though.
Amber wasn't really into older guys, but Negan had a lot going for him, very handsome, enough for her to overlook that he wasn't her usual type. She was young and her choice in men reflected that. She loved to party and have fun and that was sometimes hard to do with someone like Negan who had long since grown out of the spontaneity of youth.
Not having to work for points was also a powerful incentive, and Negan was a cool guy once you got him alone and he let down his leader persona. He was usually up for smoking a joint or two with her and shoot the shit every now and again, and she did dig his experience in the bedroom.
They never interacted much beyond sex when it was just the two of them. Negan didn't go to her when he wanted to talk existentialism or philosophy. He didn't really go to any of the wives for that. That was not why they were there. Sure, he treated them with as much respect as they warranted and they were able to have a pleasant conversation every now and again, but none of them were a companion to him. But Amber was fine with that. She liked the accommodations, the clothes, the food and the sex.
Thinking on that last point until she felt a strong enough stir between her legs to override her laziness, the young wife sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She mussed her pixie cut as she stood up, unabashed to be standing in a fully sunlit room with her heavy tits hanging out. She padded over to where Negan was and moved to stand behind him so she could look over his shoulder, purposely leaning down low enough for her breasts to brush against his bare back. His skin was hot to the touch.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked in cute, coy tone.
"Reading," he replied, not looking up.
"When are you going to be done? I wanna show ya something," she wrapped her arms around him from behind and buried her face into the prickly skin of his neck. She had never liked the scratchy feel of facial hair against her skin, beard burn and all that, but she had gotten used to it since being with Negan. She wished he'd shave more often, though.
When Negan didn't react to her nuzzling, she ran her hands down the front of his chest and tugged lightly on his chest hair, knowing that he liked that.
He didn't melt into her touch like she had expected. Instead, he gave a slight squirm to try to dislodge her.
He wasn't feeling frisky right now, especially since he had fucked both Amber and Val not that long ago. Unfortunately for the pawing blonde, he had his fill for the day.
If he had been twenty years younger, than just a sexy look would've been enough to get him going again. Sure, when he was up, he was fucking up, but when you're pushing fifty and you're not in the mood - you're not in the fucking mood. Your tent ain't pitching even if you were in the middle of a blizzard in the arctic circle and it was your only shelter against the cold and a fucking polar bear ripping you a new hole.
Maybe if she had caught him on a day that wasn't his first day of in weeks and he wasn't piss tired.
Not seeming to pick up on any of that, Amber continued to try to get him to respond to her. She rubbed his chest a few more times, making sure to let out small, breathy moans in his ear, before pulling away and stepping around his chair. Negan finally watched her as she slowly slunk to her knees while churning her hips and palming her large breasts in her hands.
He exhaled heavily through his nose as he closed the notebook and tossed it on to his desk.
Fine, fuck it, he thought, leaning back, treating the situation as if someone had just given him a chore rather than having a half-naked woman between his legs, eager to suck his cock. His head rested against the back of his chair as he waited for Amber to reach inside his pants. She tried to tease, running her hands up and down his clothed thighs, but he only turned his head to the side to stare out the window.
Amber faltered at the move, feeling her confidence falter at her husband's lack of enthusiasm, but instead of asking what was wrong, she doubled down her efforts and pulled him out of his pants. He wasn't erect yet but she could get him there. She felt a rush of arousal between her own legs at the feel of his girth, heavy in her hands. Her confidence returned and she settled in to bring back his loud and raunchy self with her mouth.
"What the fuck is she doing?"
Amber looked up. "What?"
Negan was looking out the window of his office, staring down at something, as if his wife didn't currently have his cock in her hands about to put it in her mouth.
He was looking down at the garden section of the courtyard, managing to make out the ant-sized shape of Sam doing something in the grass. He couldn't distinguish much from where he was, but Sam's black hair was an easy tell against the dying grass. He could pick her out of a crowd from those raven strands alone without having to see much else - she was a little speck of doom and gloom always floating in the corner of his eye.
"Here, move," Negan commanded, stuffing himself back into his pants and moving to stand up. He shooed Amber way with his boot like one would a clingy cat and the look on Amber's face mirrored the analogy, put off by his rejection.
He ignored her as he walked past, fastening his belt and reaching to grab his shirt and jacket, leaving his half naked wives behind to exchange glances with each other.
"Ha, rejected!" Val laughed.
Amber glared as her arms came up to cover her breasts. "Shut up! It wasn't my fault."
"That's what they all say."
The blonde wife let out a huff and climbed to her feet, marching over to the window to see what had distracted Negan from his favorite thing in the whole world: blowjobs. She peered through the glass and looked down.
"Oh, it's her," she said, tipping her head to the side with curiosity. "Do you think they're having sex?"
Val snorted. "No, why?"
"I don't know, just wondering. He's been kinda strange ever since she showed up, I've never seen him act this way before."
"Act what way?" Val asked with an edge to her tone.
"You know, like he's trying to figure something out but can't."
"That's because she's fucking weird. Negan would flock around me too if I acted like a fucking carnival act all the time."
"Ohh, I miss carnivals, don't you? I loved riding on the merry-go-round when I was little."
"Never cared much for 'em," Val sniffed, still scraping away at her nails with her file, "I got food poisoning once - haven't been to one since."
Amber let out a sympathetic noise and the other wife scoffed at her.
~O~
Sam planted herself on a patch of dried grass, her clipboard laid forgotten next to her while she sat enthralled by the tiny insect crawling down the length of her pen. She had been tailing a wasp that she had caught hovering around the loading zone, hoping to find its nest so she could destroy it, and had come across the bee, instead.
The sight of the smaller creature had caused her to abandon her search of the wasp's nest. She kneeled in the grass, leaned down with her face nearly pressed against the ground and her backside sticking slightly in the air so that she could watch the bee crawl up a blade of grass at eye level. It must of been a fright for it, among nothing but green stalks one moment and then having a giant, pale blue orb appear seemingly out of nowhere the next, because it took flight before Sam could get a good look at it.
She sat back on her hunches as the bee flew up past her face. She stared up at it as it flew in circles. Carefully, she pulled her pen out from her sweater pocket and raised it out in front of her. With her other hand, she gently coaxed the bee in towards her pen until it eventually rested on the gnawed cap. Her legs shifted out from underneath her and she moved so she was sitting Indian style as she observed her catch.
She could see faint traces of pollen sticking to the fine hairs that covered its legs like gold tinsel while the sunlight shining through the clouds reflected off of its bald abdomen just below its yellow-furred thorax. A carpenter bee.
She looked towards the garden shed and the surrounding wooden fence that sequestered the garden from the grassy lot of the Sanctuary's courtyard. It must have a nest dug into one of the wooden structures, but it was much too late for it to be still out and about, and Sam said so as much to it. The carpenter bee gave no explanation for its late-season rendezvous, though, only flitted its wings and zipped off into the air.
Her eyes followed it, watching as it flew off in one direction, only to abruptly change course when another wasp cut it off. Sam frowned at the yellow-striped delinquent as she leaned back and braced her arms against the ground behind her, her legs still criss-crossed in front of her.
Negan had sent her on a mission to find the source of the rotting smell that plagued one of the hallways in the main building as punishment for coming in late this morning. After wandering the halls sniffing out the stench like a pig searching for a truffle, she had narrowed the smell down to one of the air vents. When she had a savior radio in her discovery to Negan, he told her to go in and get it or else she wouldn't get dinner. Having missed breakfast because she had overslept, and having missed lunch because she was off doing this ridiculous task, Sam knew she had no choice but to obey unless she wanted to go hungry.
Her return to the vents was uninspiring, especially after she came across the half-decomposed raccoon corpse that was her prize; the skin of its face sunken in against its skull and its belly burst open, filled with maggots.
Not only did she have nothing to put the corpse in, forcing her to touch the disgusting thing with her bare hands, she had no room to turn around. She had to crawl out of the vent backwards while dragging the dead raccoon by its tail.
But once the mangled creature was disposed of, it left Sam with a rare bit of spare time. Negan was held up in his penthouse with strict "Do Not Disturb" orders. He had given her nothing else to do before locking himself in his bedroom with two giggling wives. She would have spent it back in her room working on her projects, but a shortcut through the loading zone of the main building had her taking a detour to the garden, chasing bees.
There was so much she could be doing, she thought whimsically.
Between her time shadowing Negan, sketching, tinkering and apparently bee-chasing, Sam had, in those late hours of the night that found her thinking and not sleeping, experienced the stray desire to find a hobby more than once.
The Sanctuary offered opportunities to learn different trades for new residents who didn't have bankable skills to offer the community, things that could provide a distraction for idle hands and minds such as Sam's like cooking, sewing, textiles, and weaving. There was even an assortment of clubs for her to join like chess, sports, jewelry-making, cross stitching and a saucy book club that met every Thursday in the library. There was even talk about creating a weekly magazine about the events and ongoings of Sanctuary life with anybody welcome to submit something.
To an outsider, one wouldn't expect such sociability from the Sanctuary, but it was surprisingly kosher once you discovered the club circuit, all of which Negan encouraged and supported. He could even be seen participating in some of them every once in a while as a show of camaraderie, especially if the club was run by mostly kids or teenagers, like a parent trying to give their child some nice, normal childhood despite living next to a crack house with bodies buried in the crawlspace.
It all felt very ordinary.
The language club drew Sam's eye the most, which was run by a Scottish man who used to be a linguistics professor at the University of Virginia (who now taught the children at the Sanctuary their basic subjects with other former teachers). Sam's first language was English and Lakota contemporaneously, but she knew more than a few Alaskan and Dakota-based Native American languages just as well, though she hadn't spoken them in years. She knew some very basic Spanish that she had learned for a brief internship in Los Angeles (it seemed practical because of the population that congregated there), but that was about how far her language prowess went. She always wanted to learn some European languages like German or Czech so she could visit overseas one day, or Gaelic since she was half Irish.
Maybe now, with so much time, she could learn them and the many more languages of places she would never be able to visit, like Italian or Icelandic, if she could find some language books.
There was so much time now, more than she would ever know what to do with (take up an instrument, improve her shorthand, work on her bird whistles).
The thought should have excited her, but it left her more disheartened than anything. The clubs, the gatherings, the community building - it was all only distractions, really, and any semblance of genuine progress could be wiped away in a second if the fence and armed guards faltered in their defense long enough.
So much time.
Old habits, though, and instead of picking up something new, Sam couldn't help herself from being light-fingered.
She still found ways to get stuff and keep it hidden. There was a shoe box of spare parts hidden between the wooden shipping pallets under her twin mattress, but it wasn't tucked in there all that covertly so there was a likely chance that Dwight knew it was there. It wasn't a concern for him to take it or for Sam to worry about him taking it since there wasn't enough parts to do anything productive with. At most, it was a decoy to distract from the important things that she put actual effort into hiding, since it would be suspicious for Dwight not to come across anything of questionable nature among her things. The shoe box would be enough to placate him.
Upon exploring her room a few months ago, Sam had found a loose back inside one of the cabinets of her small kitchenette. It produced a hollow noise when knocked on and she pulled the wooden panel out and discovered a decent sized hole in the concrete. A previous owner of the room must've chiseled out a place to hide a secret cache of supplies. It was virtually undetectable unless someone was truly determined to tear the room apart, which Dwight had yet to reach that level of commitment.
She was able to get a military maintenance tool from Ian by threatening to report the life-sized Terminator sculpture that he was building from scrap metal in the back room of the parts shop. She had snuck out sheers from the garden shed and safety pins from laundry. Soup cans and tuna tins from the garbage inside the kitchen. Wire hangers from the wives' wardrobes. And a broken cellphone in a desk inside the old administration office of the factory. Nothing that could yield something truly useful, but at least she could craft nifty gadgets to entertain herself for an evening.
It was almost an impulse at this point, she didn't know why she felt compelled to keep secrets. Perhaps out of fear of being "figured out", as Negan seemed adamant on doing. Being odd had always been Sam's shield, but it only seemed to make him more interested in her. And he wasn't the only one.
Since the world had fallen, everybody was now a little odd in some way or another, and the fear of ending up alone was strong enough for people to ignore even the most repugnant aspects of Sam's personality and seek to befriend her. What had made Sam unconventional and undesirable in the old world, made her interesting and valuable in the new world. The only reason she knew so much about the club circuit was because people had told her about it. In the past few weeks, several people had come to Sam of their on volition and had invited her to join their clubs.
The other day, the former UVA professor had approached her while she was eating lunch, and the day before that, a girl with a septum piercing had shown Sam a bracelet she had made in the jewelry club with polished rocks that she had collected around the courtyard. Neither of them seemed to be deterred from their club pitches by Sam staring at them blankly and not saying anything.
She was used to being written off and ignored. This sudden interest from people made her uncertain, and she hated being uncertain.
The image of Negan playing soccer with a group of preteens last week didn't do much for that uncertainty, either.
It had been too human of a scene to witness Negan in. They had been kicking the ball around in a game of about ten boys versus one Savior leader. It was obvious that Negan could've won despite being outnumbered, but he only played at about half his potential to give the boys a chance, laughing good-naturedly and shouting empty threats whenever one of them managed to steal the ball from him.
'Get back here you little fuckers! I'm gonna Lucille every last one of you shits if you don't give me that fucking ball back!'
The way he had scooped one of the boys up underneath his arms and swung him around in the air just as he had been about to make a goal, and the boy letting out a squeal of laughter, made it difficult to watch. The others swarmed the much taller man in an attempt to dog pile on him for cheating. Sam wasn't much for kids, but even her cold heart couldn't handle the wholesomeness of the sight when she came out into the courtyard to remind Negan of his meeting with the outpost lieutenants. He was enjoying himself and the boys seemed genuinely putout when he ended their game with a forfeit.
He picked up the ball from the ground and tossed it back towards the boys, motioning with a nod from them to keep going and watching for a moment as they scampered off. He made his way off the grass in Sam's direction. He had stripped down to his grey undershirt. Grass stains decorated the knees of his trousers and the front of his shirt while sweat glistened on his forehead. He breathed through his mouth as he fought to catch his breath back, but his eyes were dancing from the exertion while his shoulders were loose and his strides even.
Sam watched him approach in the unusually sunny afternoon light, choosing not to think about how much younger the man looked just then, instead holding out his signature leather jacket and baseball bat and scowling when he said "What? No towel?".
She decided she didn't care for his carefree smile with dimples and mussed up hair and the damp patch of perspiration on the center of his chest, so she dropped his jacket to the ground out of spite just as he reached to grab it.
She hadn't seen any of that, she had decided, stomping up the main building stairs.
"You look like a fucking pumpkin."
The bee on her pen took flight once more, flying off faster than her eyes could follow. She let it go, her pen absently slipping between her fingers and into her palm. She didn't even look down at her turtleneck sweater, the one she had chosen more for its soft fabric and bagginess than its color. She rolled her pen between her fingers as she stared off beyond the gate surrounding the Sanctuary before eventually standing up.
"If you say so," she replied in her usual dour manner as she brushed off the front of her black capri slacks.
"Fuck you, I know you know what color a fucking pumpkin is."
"If you say so."
She chanced a glance over her shoulder despite her better judgement. He stood with his leather jacket hanging open and Lucille on his shoulder, looking like he was in no mood in particular, just a little bit bored and looking for something to do, like her. Perhaps if they had been friends, she would've asked him to help her find the wasps' nest, but they weren't and he would probably laugh at her, so she turned her head back forward instead.
"Whatever. You're the cutest fucking pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, though."
"Was there something you needed?"
"Did you find the dead rat in the vents?"
"It was a raccoon."
"Did you get rid of it?"
"No, I've hidden it again so you can have a turn finding it."
"We've been having problems with those fuckers long before you showed up. I thought wielding 'em shut would keep the pests out - you included- but I guess not."
"I guess not."
"What's your fucking problem today?"
"Nothing. I just don't know what you want from me."
"Can't I just be out here for the hell of it?"
"Are you?"
He stared at her for a long moment, something coming over his face that she couldn't identify. Once again in his mind's eye, he pictured her as a child, unable to help himself.
She looked just as lonely then as she did now, he thought.
"What?" she snapped, pulling him from his reverie as she crossed her arms defensively under her chest.
"Nothing," he shook his head, "just thinking about something I was doing earlier."
Sam's nose curled up, knowing that he had been with his wives most of the day and smelling their perfume from where she stood. Negan realized what she must've been thinking and threw back his head and laughed.
"Not about that. You would be seeing a whole different reaction from me if I was thinking about that."
"Okay."
"Meaning, my dick would be sticking straight up like a fucking-"
"I got it," she cut him off, making him chuckle again.
He was about to say something else, but he pulled a face.
"You gotta little-" he pointed to his upper lip just as Sam felt something wet touch hers.
She pressed her fingertips under her nose, mimicking Negan, and pulled back to see blood covering them.
It seemed nosebleed season was upon her finally, and at a rather inopportune moment. She had been getting them like clockwork once the weather turned cold ever since she was young. They would happen frequently for about a month before eventually tampering off once her sinuses adjusted to the worst of the weather change. The inside of her nose already felt like she had snorted sawdust.
"You're just a hot mess today, aren't you, mouse?" Negan chuckled.
Sam reached up to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her sweater, but he stopped her with a hand on her forearm. She tensed at the contact and looked up at him.
"Don't wipe your nose on your sleeve like a fucking five year old," he said, rolling his eyes at her snotty expression as he reached into his back pocket. "My men risk their lives so you can have nice clothes to wear."
Sam felt the blood trickle down on to her top lip line, and since Negan wouldn't let her use her usual method for dealing with nose bleeds, she tilted her head back to keep it from dripping off her face and on to her shirt.
"Here," Negan spoke up, pulling whatever it was from his pocket. She turned her head to see that he was holding an old, but clean, shop rag. "Don't hang your head back like that, either, the blood will go down your throat."
For once she did what he said without a word of protest, looking forward. The blood flowed a new and she reached out to grab the rag, but just as her fingertips brushed the coarse material, he pulled it back. She glared at him and finally plugged her nose with her fingers. She opened her mouth to snap at him, but closed it again when he held his hands out and gestured for her to come closer with a soft "c'mere".
He waited for her to come to him, but when he only got a dodgy glare for his troubles, he rolled his eyes again with a sigh and took a step forward.
Sam took a step back, staring at him like a spooked deer, forcing him to come even closer so he could grab her. Her whole body jerked as his hands came up to frame her cheeks and she was pulling away from him again. He let out a frustrated noise before trying again, this time gripping her chin between his thumb and pointer finger as he wrapped his arm around her middle and planted it firmly against the small of her back, encasing her with his torso.
"Hold fucking still," he said gruffly when she started to jerk in his hold again, tightening his grip a bit in warning. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping even worse at her. Everything had to be a fucking uphill battle with her. He was trying to help, Goddammit.
He readjusted his grip on Sam's chin and very slightly tilted her head back. She watched his every move, her body stiff as stone underneath his hands. As a show of good faith, he telegraphed his intentions and slowly brought up the rag towards her face, gently dabbing at her upper lip and wiping the blood away with slow swipes.
His eyes danced appraisingly across the sharp features of her face as he worked. He always likened her to a mouse but she in no way resembled what a typical mousy girl looked like; light hair, softer features, gentle curve of the eyes, quiet and shy. Everything about her was sharp, just like her tongue. The shape of her eyes and mouth, the edge of her cheekbones and the way she had her eyebrows styled, all made her look more cat-like than anything. He liked that, found it sexy as hell. Paired with her pitch black hair and svelte frame, she was a sultry sight to behold, but only in appearance. She was a fucking troll in the personality department. Intelligent, no fucking doubt, but completely devoid of charm and charisma.
Still, though, she held his attention more effectively than anyone has had in a long fucking time, and he had a feeling she wasn't truly all that bad underneath it all. She wasn't like him who was rotten to his very core.
Sam kept her gaze locked on the bridge of his nose as she willed herself not to move. Her heart thumped in her chest hard enough to where Negan could probably feel it if he put his hand against her sternum. She exercised just enough control to stay still and stop her chest from heaving.
She pulled out of his hold as soon as he wiped away the last of the blood, creating a sizable gap between them as he balled up the rag in his hand. She wiped her lip with her sleeve out of habit and looked down to see it clean of blood. There was a lapse into silence that a more courteous person would've filled with a Thank You, but since the face cleaning hadn't been consensual, Sam wasn't feeling grateful.
She rubbed at her chin as a less than subtle gesture of her displeasure, trying to wipe away the feel of the man's fingers on her skin just as he had done to the blood on her face. Negan didn't seem to mind. He stuffed the soiled rag back into his pocket and gave her a dismissive nod back towards the main building.
"Go take a shower, you fucking stink."
She did as she was told and made her way back inside, making a beeline for the locker room after stopping by her quarters for a fresh change of clothes with a desire to wash the day away.
The shower room was scarcely occupied, allowing her to zero in on a free stall without having to wait. After turning the shower on to let it warm up, she stripped out of her soiled sweater and slacks and stuffed them into her dirty laundry bag. She hung her towel on the hook next to the stall and stepped in under the scolding spray.
She hung her head back and allowed the water to soak her hair and face as she tried not to think about the rough pads of Negan's fingers against the skin of her face. Her immediate reaction had been to pull away. Not necessarily because it had been Negan, but because she wasn't used to being touched. It surprised her that, despite her initial annoyance, the sensation of another touching her hadn't been unpleasant. Negan had cleaned her face. No one had done that for her since her parents and she had forgotten the rush of endorphins she would get at the tender display of affection and care.
They had never wrapped their arms around her while doing it, though. Maybe a little hug afterwards, but not a show of force to keep her physically in place, moving her around like a ragdoll being handled by a clearly more dominant being. She was able to pick his scent through the fruity perfume of his wives without thinking about it, even when the artificial fragrance clung directly to his skin.
It must all be second nature to him, the casual and not-so casual touching, she thought bitterly. Her skin had tingled, and she hadn't fought very hard to pull away from him. Uncertainty flooded her once again and she glared in frustration at the tiles of the shower stall as if the black grout between them was the cause of it.
Growing pains, she concluded, deciding that she hadn't seen any of today, either. She shut off the shower and toweled off.
She picked up her clean pile of clothes and rifled through them, looking for...damn.
Someone stole her underwear.
~O~
Once she had finished dressing into a pair of black jeans and a heather grey sweater, Sam left her room to meet up with Joey in the marketplace storage room to refill the wives' amenities for the week. She had a clipboard with a list of special requests from the women, held underneath her arm as she gathered up her black hair into a messy bun. Pulling the hair tie around her fingers taut to loop around her dark locks, she ignored the trio of saviors that were loitering at the top of the small staircase leading towards the storage room.
They were talking in low voices while sharing a cigarette, but when they saw Sam coming, they went quiet and watched her climb the small set of steps. She walked past them without noticing, smoothing back the loose hair that curled around her ears before taking her clipboard out from underneath her arm and pushing open the door to the market.
Joey was loading a box when she walked up.
"Hey," he greeted, smiling, "I wasn't sure if you were coming so I went ahead and started."
Sam placed the clipboard down on the table next to other empty box that Joey had brought. "I'm sorry for being late, I got held up."
He waved away her apology. "It's no biggie. I'm sure Negan's got you doing all sorts of important stuff."
"Not really."
"Oh, okay."
"What do you have so far?"
"The usual stuff; shampoo, conditioner, nail polish. Do you have the list?"
She nodded, releasing the list from her clipboard and handing it over. To save time, they divided the items up. Sam agreed to get the toiletries and clothing while Joey handled entertainment. They broke off to search different areas but remained close enough to still hear each other. Joey liked to fill the silence with idle chit-chat, talking about how his day was going and his hobbies. Sam never participated much in the conversation, making it more one-sided, but he didn't seem to mind. She didn't particularly mind it, either. She didn't mind listening to others talk about themselves so long as they didn't expect her to reciprocate.
"You know, I used to have a girlfriend," Joey told her from where he was in the book aisle, looking down at a beat up manga novel with a cover too worn to even be able to tell what it was.
"Is that so," she replied absently a couple rows down, scanning the deodorant stock for the gel kind that Frankie preferred.
"Negan laughed when I told him."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure he did."
"He said she wasn't a real girlfriend because we only ever talked online and never met in person."
"You shouldn't answer personal questions like that. He's only going to use it to humiliate you."
"Yeah, but he'll get mad if I don't. I know the only reason I was considered to be a savior was because Negan likes to make fun of me."
She grabbed a random stick of deodorant and tossed it into her box before picking it up and walking down to Joey's aisle so that he could lower his voice. He faced enough ridicule from his leader and peers, he didn't need someone walking in and overhearing him berate himself. She stepped into the opening of the aisle and saw him sitting on the floor, his legs crisscrossed as best as they could.
"I know you think I should've just lied and said I didn't," he looked up at her with a sad smile, "but I like talking about her, even if people don't think she's 'real'. We met in an online chatroom and we liked a lot of the same movies and shows. We never met in person but we messaged each other for almost two year. I wanted to buy a plane ticket and surprise her, but then all this happened."
She watched him trace the barely recognizable face of the character on the manga cover.
"She's probably dead now."
"...I'm sorry."
Joey let out a sigh as he put the book back and moved to stand up, using the shelf to help hoist himself back onto his feet.
"It's for the best, I guess. Negan said she was probably really a fat old man."
"Negan isn't in any position to mock anybody about 'fake' relationships," Sam snapped.
Joey blinked up at her, surprised at her outburst. It had been mild, her tone just barely containing a bite to it, but for someone who he only ever saw as emotionally one-note, she might as well have screamed it. He didn't respond and she didn't expect him to. There were only a few people in the Sanctuary who could get away with openly criticizing Negan and Joey wasn't one of them. Even if they were completely alone in the market, he wasn't going to speak his mind on the matter out of fear that someone like Simon or Dwight or even Negan himself would materialize out of nowhere to bust him.
Sam wasn't so worried.
She moved on to the next aisle to gather the rest of her half of the list. It took them about another fifteen minutes to get everything and load it up into their boxes. They each took one as they moved to leave the market storage.
"How are your projects going," he asked, holding the door open for her.
"They're going fine. I keep running out of paper."
"Hey, you know what you should do? You should get some of that chalkboard paint from like Home Depot and paint one of the walls in your room - you know, if Negan says you can. There should still be some in hardware stores since it isn't something people need."
Sam faltered a step.
"That...is actually a good idea."
Joey beamed. She gave him a small smile back before he turned to look up the storage room. As she waited for him with her box in her arms, she looked down the metal walkway to see the trio of saviors from earlier still there.
They were staring at them, or rather, at her. She met their gazes dead on and they looked away, going back to their conversation. Joey turned with his keys back on his belt and bent over to pick up his box. Sam began to make her way down the walkway while he followed. There was an awkward silence as they passed the saviors, but she kept her eyes forward as she walked. They just about cleared them when the one closest to the stairs stuck out his boot.
Sam gasped as her foot caught on his and she suddenly pitched forward. The box in her arms kept her from being able to grab the railing to stop her fall. She found herself airborne for a split second over the drop of the stairs before crashing violently at the base of them. The wind was knocked out of her. She sucked in a breath and coughed as she inhaled dirt from the ground. The box had flown from her arms and hit the floor just after she had, scattering the supplies across the ground with a loud clatter.
She could hear the saviors laughing behind her. Pain radiated up her wrist and she rolled on to her side, cradling it to her chest as she fought against crying out.
"Hey! You can't do that!" Joey yelled, dropping his own box.
He tried to run past them to get to Sam, but a savior blocked his way, getting right in his face. There was a distinctive click as he held up a pocket knife and released the blade. It stopped barely an inch from Joey's nose.
"Who says, butterball?" he sneered, smirking when Joey's face turned pale. "You?"
The savior kept the knife up in a challenge until Joey stepped back and stared at the ground. He laughed, closing the knife and slipping it back into his pocket as he motioned for the other two to follow him. Joey stayed where he was while the saviors descended the stairs. They laughed and jeered at Sam who was still curled up on the floor, calling her names as they kicked the items from her box out of their way.
Once they were gone, Joey ran down the stairs and dropped down on to his knees next to Sam.
"Are you okay?" he asked, reaching out to help her sit up.
Sam stifled a whimper and shook her head. She pulled her injured hand from her chest and looked down at it. The skin was already blossoming red and throbbing. Joey's brow furrowed in concern. He stood back up and reached down to help her stand.
"Come on, let's go to Carson."
~O~
It was just a little past dinner time when Sam slipped inside the parlor. It was empty and the lack of light from beneath the door of Negan's office showed that the man wasn't in. The wives were taking dinner together in the makeshift dining room down the hall and he was probably with them.
She stepped behind her desk and sat down, reaching over to click on her desk lamp. She looked down at her right hand that was now encased in a medical brace that she had gotten from Doctor Carson. Without the ability to x-ray, the man was only able to examine her injury by poking and prodding it with his fingers, but since it had already been noticeably swollen, he was able to tell that it was at least badly sprung. She could still move it to some degree, so it wasn't broken. He had given her the brace and a couple ibuprofen for the swelling.
She looked at her left hand with a huff.
Well, she always meant to practice writing ambidextrous. She was quite handy with her left already (no pun intended). Working on heavy machinery often involved shoving limbs into uncomfortable cervices at odd angles, so it required Sam to be somewhat dexterous with her opposite hand in case her dominant one was wedged underneath her or she couldn't get where she needed to be on her right side.
She had been hesitant about going to Carson for a brace since she knew he would report whatever was discussed. Apparently there was no room for doctor-patient confidentiality when you were Negan. She always held an indifference towards the doctor, but after her last visit, her indifference rightfully turned into distrust.
Sam has always had inconsistent periods due to the fact that she would often fall under weight rather quickly whenever she didn't have a steady food supply. It was something that would happen even before the world fell and she had always suspected that perhaps she had a medical problem that effected her metabolism, marking her life with sporadic periods of unexplained weight loss and inability to gain it back.
However, it never effected her much beyond the usual health afflictions related to being underweight, and she was able to gain the weight back eventually, to the point where she never felt the need to seek out a formal diagnosis. And since the world had fallen, whatever it was that she had obviously wasn't severe enough to impact her chances of survival other than the threat of dying of starvation quicker than others, so it seemed to matter even less knowing what it was specifically.
But the weeks following her capture, Sam had fallen underweight again and it had effected her menstrual cycle, stopping it completely (which wasn't uncommon, either). She wasn't particularly worried and had answered Carson's questions on the matter without reading too much into it, receiving regular checkups during her time in captivity. It wasn't until just after becoming Negan's assistant that she realized that whatever the doctor jotted down on his clipboard, inevitably found its way into Negan's hands.
The man had reprimanded her half-eaten lunch sitting on her desk in passing one day as he walked by her desk to get to his office, remarking: "Make sure you clean your plate, Mouse, gotta get the red sea flowing again."
It had taken her a moment to figure out what he had meant, but when she had, she broke the lead of her pencil with how hard she pressed it into the piece of paperwork she was working on. Negan disappeared into his office and didn't see the way her face turned a true Indian red, but that didn't stop her from feeling mortified and angry at the shameless breach in privacy. She wasn't one to get defensive about her female bodily functions, but she did not need, nor see the need for Negan knowing about her periods.
She had stopped going to her checkups after that, which she would've probably done regardless since she did eventually gain the weight back and her cycle had started again, but irrevocable damage had been done.
Sam heard heavy footfalls coming down the hall. She sifted through her pile of paperwork to find the ones she had set aside for Negan before grabbing a sticky note. Her handwriting with her left was atrocious as she jotted down a note for Negan, but still legible.
Good enough, she thought, slapping it on the top page just as the doors of the parlor were thrown open.
"S'up, Daria," Negan greeted, smiling with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth as he swaggered in. "Damn, you've really gotta try Tanya's stuffed peppers sometime. They'll absolutely blow your fucking mind."
He moved to walk past her desk, grabbing the stack of papers she held out for him and flipping through them. As he walked towards his office, he stopped short when he read the note on the front.
"Why does this look like you wrote it with your foot?" he asked, turning back with the note between his fingers.
She could feel his eyes look at her left hand and then trail down to her right. She had it resting in her lap, out of view, but he craned his neck to look over the side of her desk.
"What the fuck happened to your hand?"
She looked down at her brace, mulling over her answer.
"I fell."
"When?"
"Before dinner."
Negan was looking at her as if she was speaking in tongues. He had just seen her that afternoon, she was fine.
"When you were picking up supplies with Fat Joey?"
"Yes."
"And you just fell? Hard enough to fuck up your wrist?"
"Yes."
He gave her a look, his eyes narrowing despite her blank expression not moving an inch.
"How?" he asked.
"Gravity," she replied.
"Mouse," he growled in warning, his expression turning mean in that way that it did.
"I tripped."
He was quiet for a moment, his face relaxing again as he worked his toothpick between his teeth thoughtfully. "Didn't realize you were so clumsy."
She let out a noncommittal hum. Silence fell over them then and she expected him to go back into his office, but instead she saw him lean back against the side of her desk from the corner of her eye. He wasn't going to press her on what happened to her wrist, was he? Because she'd rather forget it happened and she couldn't do that if he got involved. She wasn't in the mood to be laughed at.
"You should get laid," he said suddenly.
Or for that.
He pulled the toothpick from his mouth and flicked it on to the floor.
"What for?"
"Maybe you'll be in a good mood for once in your life."
"I'm not in a bad mood."
"Yeah, but you're never in a good mood either, are you? C'mon, it's a basic need for living."
"No it's not. Water, food, and shelter are basic needs. People live without sex all the time."
"If you call that living," he muttered, looking absently around the room. He prodded the inside of his cheek with his tongue before letting out a dramatic sigh. "Well, you're clearly not going to take my bait and that's no fun, so I guess I'm done here."
"Why are you trying to bait me?"
"You need to open up more to people."
"What people?"
"I don't fucking know - just people. It doesn't have to be me, but you should open up to somebody. Maybe then you won't be so miserable."
"I'm not miserable," she snapped, "and if that vulgar comment was your attempt at encouraging me to be more sociable, it didn't work. It makes me want to bury my head further into the sand just to spite you."
"So you admit that you avoid people."
Sam's hand tightened around her pen. "Where is this coming from?"
Negan leaned back. Where was this coming from, he thought.
"You're confusing me," she said, quietly enough that he had almost missed it. This, paired with the Sanctuary's inhabitants new interest in her, was making her feel unnerved. On top of what happened earlier, she just wanted to shy from Negan's unrelenting scrutiny and do her work.
He looked down at her from his greater height and saw how small she looked with her head bowed and her injured wrist cradled in her lap. Her other hand was still poised over her paperwork with a pen still in her grip, but she had stopped writing.
"Sorry," he found himself saying.
She looked up at him, surprised that he had apologized so easily. He shrugged his shoulders at her, not quite understanding it himself, and after a few moments, she nodded. It was the closest thing he would get to her accepting his apology.
Clearing his throat, he pushed off from her desk. "Alright, get out of here, I got shit to do," he told her, "go take a nap or something, you're tired."
She nodded again, stacking her papers together and setting them aside for tomorrow. Negan moved to stand in the entrance of his office. He leaned against the doorframe, scratching at his chin, and watched her put all her pens back into their labeled cups and switch off her little desk lamp. She left without another word, her wrist tucked close to her middle as she closed the door to the parlor behind her.
He waited until he heard her footsteps disappear down the hall before reaching for his radio on his belt.
"Fat Joseph, get your ass up here, I want to talk to you."
~O~
The three saviors were easy enough to find. A look in his operations binder told him that Ben, Mackey, and Gibb were still on duty.
The head of the trio was an older man, Mackey, somewhere in his forties while the other two were in their twenties. They stood just as they had been, grouped together as they guarded the marketplace storage room. The cigarette they had been sharing earlier was replaced by hash. Negan could smell the rank skunk weed from yards away.
"I've got a good one. When is it okay to beat up a dwarf?" Mackey offered. "When he's standing next to your girlfriend and telling her that her hair smells nice."
Gibb laughed while Ben pulled a face.
"That's gross, man," he said. He pushed up the pair of cracked eyeglasses that slipped down his face before holding out his hand for Mackey to pass the joint.
The older savior smirked around the hand-rolled filter before taking another hit and passing it. "Which part? The dwarf or the pubes?"
He inhaled and passed it. "Both."
"Hey, what do a nearsighted gynecologist and a puppy have in common?" Gibb, youngest of the three asked. "A wet nose."
"I've heard that one already, last week from Gerry."
"Who do you think told it to him, shithead?"
"Did you hear this one yet? What do the Mafia and a pussy have in common?"
"What?"
"One slip of the tongue, and you're in deep shit."
That one pulled a laugh from all three of them and distracted them long enough for Negan to stroll up to the walkway and not be noticed until he was practically on top of them.
"Ha! That was a fucking good one," he thundered, scaring the living crap out of the saviors. Ben choked on his smoke, almost dropping the joint, while the other two cursed. They stared at their leader who seemed to appear out of nowhere with Dwight following close behind. As they approached, the blonde hung back, leaning against the railing of the walkway and pulling a cigarette from his pocket. Negan had Lucille with him, propped up on his shoulder. "I never realized you were so fucking funny, Mackey!"
The older savior was struck by Negan's use of his name, but quickly snapped out of it as he smacked both Gibb and Ben on the arms and started lowering himself to the ground. The two followed his lead and moved to kneel, but Negan shook his head and waved a hand at them.
"No, no, don't let me stop comedy hour. You know nobody appreciates a good filthy joke more than me!" he grinned. "Now, stop me if you heard this one before."
He lowered Lucille and turned around to hand her off to Dwight before turning back.
"So, a sailor drops anchor in a port one day and heads into the nearest pub. When he gets there, everyone in the pub starts whispering and pointing at him because of his oddly shaped body; dude has a very muscular body, but a fucking tiny ass head on his shoulders. As he orders his drink, he tells the bartender, 'I'll explain. I get this in every port I visit. I was out at sea one day, you know, fishing and shit, and I caught a mermaid with the hugest rack I have ever seen. She told me that she would grant me three wishes if I would release her back into the sea. To be honest, I was just gonna fuck the scaly bitch and throw her back into the ocean anyways, but fuck, three wishes? No way I was going to pass that up! So I told her I wanted a yacht and, sure enough, a yacht magically appeared in the water next to my boat. Next, I asked for a million bucks and again it came true and huge pile of cash appeared before me. Lastly, I asked her if I could fuck her and her response was, 'I'm half-fish, you stupid motherfucker, you can't fuck me like a normal woman.' So I said, 'fine you dumb whore, how about a little head, instead?'"
The three saviors smiled and laughed at the joke, but it came off as forced. They were still on edge at their leader's sudden and unexplained appearance. None of them have ever actually spoken to him in person and even as he shared his joke, talking animatedly and gesturing crudely with his hands, he still cut an intimidating figure.
Negan, however, laughed at his own joke like it was the funniest fucking thing he heard in years. They stood and waited for the man to sober up. The youngest of the group jumped when he reached out a hand towards him.
"Here, let me get some of that," he said, motioning for the joint still burning between the boy's fingers.
"Oh, uh sure thing," he flicked the excess ash that had built up before handing it over. "Y-you can have it, sir."
"Thanks," he hummed, taking it and bringing it up to his lips and inhaling deep, causing the glowing tip to flare brightly. "Jokes about pussy and satin handshakes aside, there was something that I wanted to ask you three."
"Yes sir?"
"Were y'all the ones on duty earlier?"
"Yes sir," the head of the trio answered. "We've been on guard duty since this afternoon."
"Nice," he breathed, exhaling the smoke through his nose, "I heard you got a little physical with my mouse."
Mackey and Ben exchanged glances, but Gibb, who happened to be the one who had tripped Sam, didn't seem to put two and two together and wasn't slowly shrinking back from his leader like the other two were.
"Oh, her?" he said without an ounce of shame. "Aw hell, we were just having fun with her, figured she deserved it after stealing from the Sanctuary. We didn't get physical with her, though. Not sure who told you that, sir."
"Is that so?" Negan mused, taking one last hit before tossing the joint on to the floor and crushing it with his boot.
The savior didn't respond, not sure what to say. His leader's body language seemed off and the grin on his face had disappeared. He swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.
Negan exhaled through his nose again, reaching up to rub at his chin as he turned slightly in the opposite direction. It looked like he was about to walk away, but then he whipped back around and delivered a brutal punch to the man's face.
The two saviors jumped out of the way as the third flew back off the top of the stairs and hit the ground. He gripped at his face that was now gushing blood as the Sanctuary leader slowly descended the stairs after him. He stepped over top of him and reached down to grab the collar of his shit to hoist him back up.
"You lying little shit, you think you can fucking push around anybody you want? You think you can get away with putting your fucking hands on someone who works directly under me and I would never find out, that I wouldn't be able to tell when someone is lying straight to my fucking face? Who the fuck do you think you are! I'm running this show, shitbird, if I gave a flying fuck about what you think my mouse deserves, I'd fucking ask!"
He hit the kid again, and again, and again. Blood splattered across the floor and he felt the skin of his knuckles split open from the force behind each hit.
"He's going to need to be able to work tomorrow," Dwight called out around his cigarette in a bland reminder, bringing Negan back into himself just enough for him to regain some self-control, at least enough not to curb-stomp the motherfucker on the same set of stairs that he had pushed Sam down.
He released the kid, letting him drop to the ground like a sack of bricks. His nostrils flared and his chest heaved at the rush of aggression and adrenaline and the denial of a bloody payoff. He collected himself, running a hand through his hair before looking at the terrified lackeys staring at him like a bunch of slack-jawed faggots waiting from him to shove his dick into their mouths.
"Get this piece of shit out of my sight," he barked, "and if I catch any of you so much as breathing in her direction again, I'll rip off your baby cocks and feed them to you!"
They stammered out a "yes sir" as they gathered their friend from the floor.
"And I was the one who told Motherfucking Gerry that motherfucking joke! Nobody likes a joke stealer!"
Dwight watched the whole exchange with a severe lack of interest. Watching Negan get angry and rage on people wasn't anything new. Goading Negan into a physical altercation wasn't as easy as some would assume, but it certainly wasn't impossible. The blonde did find it interesting, though, how he was going about it this time.
Not only was there not as much showboating on his part, but he hadn't threatened them with Lucille, either.
Negan always dolled out threats using Lucille. Lucille is going to do this, Lucille is going to enjoy that, Lucille is going to stick herself so far up your ass, you're mouth will be dispensing toothpicks. For Negan to threaten that he was going to do something himself, without any input from his beloved bat, was so unusual and out of character, Dwight couldn't recall ever hearing him do it before. It made him wonder what exactly got the man's ire so up, but he didn't really care enough to ask.
When the group of men picked up their beaten and bloodied friend off the floor and took off, Negan turned around and moved to return the way he came. He was still boiling mad despite the cathartic release of pounding someone's face in with his bare fists. When Dwight stood to trail after him, he reared on him.
"Don't fucking follow me, you foreskinned face-looking fuck trumpet!"
Dwight didn't so much as blink at the insult before shrugging his shoulders and leaning back against the wall to finish his cigarette, while Negan stomped off.
He slammed his office door shut behind him, causing the stupid, ugly wallhanging next to it to rattle and fall off its hook. He was keyed up in that way where he didn't know whether he wanted to fight more, or fuck the shit out of something, but couldn't bring himself to seek out someone to do either/or with. It took a couple of minutes of angry pacing around his office, but he eventually calmed the fuck down enough to sit down and not dig his fingers into the leather arms of his chair.
God, he wanted to do so much more to that fucking kid, to all three of them. In the morning he would be glad that Dwight had stopped him, but for right now he would fume at the denied opportunity. He could admit that maybe he had overracted, but then that would make him a half-measure-taking pussy and he would have none of that.
Having to deal with him and his bullshit was a consequence of Sam's actions, stealing from him and his people. It was her punishment. But he had a responsibility to protect his people and that included Sam. He was the leader of this place, meaning it was on him and him only to dull out punishments, not those fucktwats. And even if it wasn't, what they had done to Sam was just nasty and mean-spirited. He couldn't let that go. It might make him sound like a raging hypocrite considering everything he had personally put the woman through, but he wasn't going to let a perpetual cycle of abuse continue under his roof.
Negan couldn't exactly pinpoint when he had started to suspect that Samantha had experienced child abuse, but the more he thought about it over the past few months, the more it unfortunately made sense.
There wasn't an "aha!" moment where she did or said something that finally explained everything. There wasn't a moment where she had let something slip.
It was just-
a vibe.
A certain aura that she gave off.
Maybe it was her lack of a past in the pages of her notebooks, or her extremely reserved nature, her failure to make any connections save for one in the Sanctuary despite having several opportunities to do so, but there was definitely something about her that suggested that her issues went deeper than just being a little socially inept. There was a vibe there, and Negan was good at picking up on things like that.
Certain people gave off certain vibes, and when you were as good at reading others as he was, it usually only took one look to figure out what a person was all about. You come across a woman who doesn't have to say or do a thing, and you think: 'Oh yeah, this chick was definitely diddled by her uncle.' Or that young quarterback with all the girls chasing his dick and yet you think: 'He is the biggest fruitcake hiding in the smallest closet I have ever seen.'
Sam gave off a vibe. Not a fruitcake vibe, or (thank God) a molested by a male role model vibe, but a vibe that was disquieting, nevertheless.
He had been a teacher. He had gone to college and had gotten a degree for this shit. He had to regularly attend classes, workshops and seminars throughout his career on how to spot signs of childhood abuse in students, and he had been able to spot more than a few red flags in Sam. Her inability and disinterest in forming relationships, closed off and defensive behavior, self-detrimental habits, aversion to physical contact. He didn't know what kind of abuse it was or how long it went on for, or who had inflicted it, but there was enough there for him to gather that she possibly had some unresolved trauma because of it.
Whenever Negan would raise his voice or throw shit across the room in anger, Sam wouldn't flinch, but she would get this vacant look in her eyes. Not her usual 'I deflect as a defense mechanism so I'm just going to stare at you until you get uncomfortable and go away', but in a real thousand-yard-stare. The kind you would expect to see on war veterans with no arms and legs because they had stepped on a landmine while looking for a dry place to take a shit - not on twenty-something-year old girls. A stare that showed that it didn't matter if you punched her right in the face, her mind was far away somewhere else and she had seen (or experienced) worse, so swing away.
He had a dream about Sam once. Not the sexy kind, which was kinda rude; if she was going to invade his dreams, stealing one of the last few reprieves he had left from her nonsense, than she could at least have her tits out.
Well, he supposed her tits had been out, almost. She had been standing in front of him, bare naked with her dark hair down covering her glorious peaks. The pale toffee skin of her flat stomach came so close that his hands ached to reach out and explore, but before he could get too excited, she opened her mouth and screeched like a cat from one of those goddamn Japanese horror movies. She screeched loud and long until he was forced to cover his ears, and then she doubled over and vomited a black tar-like substance and a big, hairy spider for good measure. It was a fucking disturbing dream (and it worried him that he had still woken up with a chubby, but that neither here nor there).
What kind of fucked up shit was that? His view of her was so fucking dark because she was so fucking dark, it concerned him, at least the part of him that was still a high school gym teacher.
Why was she the way she was and how far back did her gloom go? Why has he never seen so much of an ounce of joy in her expression? It really wasn't good to be so closed off. Everybody needed at least one person to help them get through it all. Even Negan had Lucille (or rather the memory of her). Sam had nobody.
He felt like his concern from earlier came from a good place, an old place that he often forgot existed. But was he really doing it for Sam's sake, or did he just want more material on her that he could pick apart when he was bored? Was he actually starting to care for the little shit, or was he just being his usual selfish self?
He would've gone with the latter hands down if it wasn't for the split skin of his knuckles. Now, he wasn't so confident.
Sure, he didn't like bullies (despite being one himself) and he didn't like men knocking around women, but it wasn't like him to suddenly jump up and play hero. He had plenty of young, disillusioned saviors willing to do backflips at the chance to be a pretty lady's knight in shining armor to do that shit for him. And it certainly was not like him not to immediately go back to Sam and gloat about how good of guy he had just been, defending her honor or some shit in hopes it would impress her enough to give him a blowjob.
His response to those men pushing Sam was almost innate, like there wasn't any other choice for him to handle the situation except to introduce their faces to the ground, grindhouse style.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, Negan leaned back in his chair, feeling the rest of his anger slip away. Now he was just fucking tired.
His eyes drifted to the composition book still sitting on his desk where he had left it. He really had to stop reading these fucking things, he thought, even though his hand still reached out for it.
As his fingertips grazed the cover, several floors down, laying atop her bed on her stomach with a book open in front of her, Sam's nose itched.
AN: Hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter! Let me know your thoughts in a review.
~Scorpiofreak~