Irresistible Danger

Dinner or Dessert?

It had been almost a week since your encounter with Negan in the woods. In fact, it had been almost a week since you had seen Negan at all. You had gathered tidbits of information from Dwight and Maria, who both stated that Negan had been busy planning retaliation on Rick's group. His planning must've paid off, because Dwight had told you yesterday that the retaliation had been carried out successfully. He refused to give you the gory details, but apparently one of Rick's main followers had met a gruesome demise at the hands of Lucille.

Part of you wasn't surprised to hear about Negan's special brand of revenge, but the other part still shuddered at the thought that he could be so violent when provoked. And yet...you had provoked him in your own way, both by leaving the compound and by talking back to him, and had yet to be punished for doing so. Not that you were complaining, but you had expected to at least be given extra work to do around the compound or had your current responsibilities and work status taken away from you.

Instead, you continued with your usual duty of preparing the daily meals. When you had first arrived here you had been annoyed at being assigned the obviously feminine duty of cooking, but you had to admit that you had quickly grown to love working in the kitchen. In fact, due to positive reviews from multiple individuals you had been given more and more responsibility over the weeks, to the point that if this were a pre-apocalyptic world you would've been walking around with a name tag that read "head chef." Sure, it was difficult as hell to make appetizing dishes with the limited variety of foods, but you were able to get creative when needed. Not to mention once in a while one of the men would bring in some squirrels or rabbits for you to make a stew out of, which was always met with a positive response by the community.

You mourned the basket of hawthorn berries, which was still lying out in the woods where it had dropped six days ago. Your mind had conjured up multiple dishes you could've attempted if given enough of the little red fruit, but you didn't dare try to go back out and collect more. At least not yet. You might be what some people would call bold or audacious, but you definitely weren't stupid.

You were currently helping serve up the last round of dinner plates for the evening, your eyes scanning over the cafeteria-type area for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. Much as you hated to admit it, you found yourself a tad disappointed to find that Negan was once again nowhere to be found. He didn't usually attend dinner; in fact more often than not one of his wives would ask you to make up an extra plate for them to take to his quarters. That had been the case every night since you had last seen him in the woods, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't frustrated that he had been MIA for so long. Your frustration only served to then piss you off, since you repeatedly told yourself that the last thing you should care about was why he hadn't shown up to dinner this week.

You refocused your attention on the task at hand, setting down the last plate in front of a hungry young man and turning back to the kitchen. Now you just had to make sure all extra food got packed and stored away properly before you were done for the night, the task of cleaning up and washing dishes thankfully given to a couple of newer members in the community.

You were just finishing up and getting ready to leave when you saw Dwight enter the kitchen and make a beeline towards you. Expecting him to ask for an extra serving of food, since that was part of your deal in exchange for him letting you out of the compound in the past, you held out one of the last leftover plates sitting on the counter. He shook his head, looking around nervously before saying, "that's not why I'm here...I was told to collect you for Negan."

You stared at him in surprise for a few seconds before replying, "Collect me?"

"He wants me to escort you to his private quarters as soon as you're done serving dinner."

You hardly noticed as the plate of food you were holding slid out of your hand, spilled down your shirt, and splattered on the floor. Your head started to feel a little fuzzy and you realized it was because you had been standing there holding your breath and staring at Dwight without responding for way longer than was necessary. Exhaling, you looked down at your now stained shirt and the food at your feet, trying to get your thoughts together enough to form a coherent response. All you wanted to do at the moment was run back to your own quarters and hide until you could better process the idea that Negan not only wanted to meet with you, but that he wanted to do so immediately and in his private quarters.

"Uh, okay. But I need to go back to my room first."

Dwight fidgeted, obviously displeased with your response, "But he said to bring you straight to his..."

"I don't care what he said. I'm not going there looking like this," you said while gesturing to your now sauce-covered shirt. You could tell Dwight wanted to argue, but instead he gritted his teeth and begrudgingly nodded in agreement. You went and asked one of the designated busboys to clean up the spilled plate of food before you turned and left the kitchen, Dwight trailing quietly behind you.

Fifteen minutes later and you now found yourself trailing quietly behind Dwight, the two of you moving down a hall you'd never seen before. You curiously gazed at the multiple closed doors you were walking past, wondering what lay behind them. "Probably the rooms of his many wives" you thought, a lump of anxiety forming in your throat as you wiped your sweaty palms on your clean shirt.

Once back in your room you had not only changed your shirt, but your pants as well. You had told yourself it was because a couple drops of sauce had fallen on them, but you knew it was really because you had been stalling for time. You had also taken down your hair and brushed it out before feeling stupid and proceeding to re-secure it up the tight bun you typically wore. Once again stalling. It wasn't until Dwight had softly knocked on your door that you had allowed yourself to acknowledge that the time for stalling was over and that you had to face the music, so to speak.

Dwight finally stopped in front of a door near the end of the hall and turned to you. He gestured at the closed door silently and stepped back, obviously expecting you to go in without him. Hoping you didn't look as scared shitless as you felt, you took a deep breath and nodded in response. Your hand was slightly shaking as you walked up to the door, turned the knob, and stepped across the threshold.