CONQUEST • Negan

The Good Guys

"Fuck," I groaned, lifting my unscathed arm to touch the aching, blazing spot near my shoulder. The tips of my fingers came back wet and crimson.

All of the breath in my lungs rushed out of me and as it did, after what felt like a long yet delicate beat of silence following the initial burst of the pistol—a brief calm before the storm—the quiet shattered violently, a commotion of voices raising up and overwhelming my already fragile senses.

"Shit!" Negan bellowed, righting himself after being so violently displaced by me pushing him out of the firing line. Sometimes I forgot my own strength. "What the shit?!" His head whipped around, eyes blazing as they landed on me. "Why the fuck—"
Negan stilled, eyes snapping onto the the blood seeping through my fingers in thick rivulets as I tried and failed to stifle the bleeding.

Confusion replaced his anger, emotions flashing in his eyes so fast that the whirlwind tossing behind his gaze almost made me dizzier than the blood loss.

And it was at that same moment, when Negan's brain finally clicked, catching up with the events of the last few mili-seconds, that Rosita also pulled herself together and screamed at me, "What the fuck, Dice? Why the hell would you do that? Why did you—" Her yelling was interrupted by the grunting of a well-fought struggle as Arat tackled her to the ground, pinning her down by the shoulders on her back.

And then she began again, "You fucking traitor. I can't believe you just saved him. That was my only fucking bullet and you wasted it! You fucked it all up, you stupid bitch!" She screeched.

With Rosita's harsh words, clarity, ever the unwelcome visitor, came knocking with a hammering fist, shoving itself past the blur of adrenaline numbing my rationality, and waking me the fuck up.

I wasn't smiling anymore.

"I—I don't—"

Large, rough hands grazed my cheeks. My gaze snapped onto Negan as he held my face with a tenderness that almost made me feel like something delicate. His head ducked down to meet my stare directly, eyes wide and glistening and flicking between mine.

Still held tight within the grips of shock, residual adrenaline blurring my pain, I stared back at him numbly.

Why the fuck did I do that?

"Sweetheart." I could hear only Negan's voice over all the noise, like a strand of light, reaching out to me through the darkness; a rope amongst all of the static threatening to drag me under. "Dice, speak to me. Are you okay? Fuck, you should've let me take it, why would you—?"

"God, you prick." I sighed. "Would some goddamn gratitude kill you?" I mumbled, my words biting and harsh. Negan huffed out a relieved chuckle, his hands smoothing back to hold me by the nape of the neck. And then those hands were moving down, and his arms were sliding under mine and around me and I grunted as he tugged me into the solid warmth of his body, holding my head against his chest.

I fought against the strong urge to relax into his hold, only allowing myself one second, and then another, and finally a third before stumbling back so fast so would'nt have to fight the desire to reel him back into me. I winced as the movement jostled my arm.

"Thank you, Dice," he rumbled, and I closed my eyes to the vibrations of his low voice. "But don't you ever do something as dumb as that again, you hear me, baby? Not for me. And not for these stupid fucking shitheads either, for that matter."