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No name was given to the hotel anymore.
The sign fell down years before, the letters cracked and twisted, like broken fingers. And yet the lobby still was holding the bones-there was the marble desk, velvet ropes, and bloodstain over the carpet where someone laid bleeding to death, and nobody cared to drag the body away.
Negan liked it here.
It was the kind of hotel the world just forgot about. And Maggie? Maggie came when forgetting wasn't enough.
He sat in an old armchair, groaning with his weight as he threw himself behind it. A bottle of whiskey hung limply from one hand, the other lay loose between his legs, fingers twitching as if they were waiting to get hold of something to strangle.
Footsteps.
No movement punctuated the sudden arrival. Instead, he had his eyes closed, absorbing the sounds that rippled through him.
At least she never knocked.
She'd just somehow get there. No clatter, no announcement, with her tautness like a wired steel ready to pop.
Negan still had his eyes closed, as if unbothered. "Lost again, sweetheart?"
Maggie said nothing—not aloud.
Negan felt her approach him. Her smell first. Sweat, gun oil, dust, something feminine, wrong, and beautiful. He heard the thud of her jacket as it hit the floor. Then came the quieter sounds of her boots dropping. Step after slow step creaking the ruined floorboards as she crossed the space between them.
"Do you always have to be drunk when I fuck you? She said."
Negan opened his eyes with a smile. "Before taking your pants off, don’t you always ask nicely?"
"I never ask nicely."
He gave a low, dark laugh. "Yeah. That's why I like you." Maggie mounted him as if she had the right to. As if her knees should straddle his hips and her hands, albeit reluctant, should grip his shoulders. But she still did sometimes dream of killing him some nights.
His hands went to her waist, steady in the pooling heat of his rising blood.
"I waited," he said, scanning her face with his eyes.
"For what?"
"For the guilt to wear off."
"It never does," she whispered.
He slid a hand into her hair and tugged her head back so he could look at her more clearly.
"Then why are you here?"
"I didn't come for any talk, Negan."
"No, you came to bleed."
She grabbed his face and kissed him hard—brutal, teeth and need. He groaned into her mouth, slipping one hand up her shirt; his fingers traced every scar, as if they were old songs.
She ground against him, still in her jeans; he could feel just how fucking hot she already was, just how wet she was, through the denim. She hated him-so much so that she was dripping because of it.
He pulled back just long enough to rasp, "You touch yourself when I’m not around?"
"Sometimes."
"Thinking about me?"
She looked at him without blinking. "Every time."
That snapped something inside him.
He grabbed her waist and flipped her onto the couch at his side. The cushions squealed under the weight, with dust rising up as if ghosts had been stirred. He tore down her jeans and roughly spread her thighs, never asking, never stopping.
She did not resist. Never did.
Placing his lips between her legs without warning, he tasted her anger, her shame, her fucking ruin. Her thighs bucked; her hands went between his fingers and caressed his hair. She gasped, cursed, and bit her own arm to stifle the noise.
"Let them hear it," he growled, "Let the whole goddamn city hear you fall apart on my mouth."
She did not scream; however, she came like she was dying-thighs trembling, back arching, breath stuttering out like it no longer wanted to stay in her body.
Negan laid onto of her wrecked body, his features shining with all that she hated about herself. He started to kiss her slow now, his tongue forcing her to taste all that she had made him taste.
Her hands groped frantically at his belt. Nervous. Shaking. He assisted by pushing his trousers down just enough.
And then he slid inside her like punishment. Like prayer.
Maggie clawed his back, his arms, her eyes wide and glassy. He felt the unsaid words burning on her breath.
"This ain't love," he whispered.
"I know."
"You'll leave after."
"I always do."
His face lowered into the crook of her neck, and in that last remaining truth left in the world, with force, he made love to her - deep, hard, and slow. She imagined him carving into her with the force of his thrusting until she would forget Glenn, forget everything that he did.
But she never did. And perhaps, that was the reason why.
Her second orgasm was quieter, gentler, her fingers curling about his wrist involuntarily as her eyes fluttered shut. As if she could just rest for a little while, just pretend.
He came with a grunt and shudder as his body collapsed onto hers. The two of them remained like that, caught in something frantic and broken.
Minutes.
And still, no one made a move.
"Next time, don't wait so long," Maggie whispered.
He opened his eyes.
She was halfway dressed already.
He didn't try to stop her.
He didn't ask when next time was.
She didn't kiss him goodbye.
And he didn't watch her leave.
But her warmth stayed in the cushions, and her scent clung to his skin like regret.
The rain rendered all sounds of the city being destroyed into distant echoes.
The unspeakable scream she swallowed each time Glenn might have crossed her mind. The voice inside her said she was strong, righteous, pure.
She wasn't pure anymore.
Maggie was drenched and muddy up to her knees, gripping the rifle in both hands, staring at the rotting double doors of the old church. The stained glass was broken, and the crucifix outside had been defaced. One of the saints had the face smashed in a way that suggested God got tired of pretending He gave a rat's ass.
She knew he was inside.
He always went to places like this. Hollow things. Forgotten, ruined, guilty.
Just like her.
Maggie pushed open the doors without so much as a knock.
Negan looked upward from the altar where he'd been seated. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, knuckles stained with blood, bottle in hand. The jacket was flung across the shattered statue of Mary as if it had a legitimate claim to be there.
"Did not expect the preacher's daughter tonight," he had said. "Though, I guess I should have. It's raining. You only show up when it hurts."
She never said a word and just stared while she cried too fast.
He tilted his head and smirked. "What'd you lose this time?"
"I'm not here to talk."
"I figured." He put the bottle down. "So, how do you want it tonight, darlin'? Face down in the pews, or you gonna ride me on the altar like a goddamn heretic?"
That seemed to break something within her.
Maggie surged forward, seized him by the collar, and slammed her mouth on his as if casting a curse. It did not feel like a kiss: It was a thunderstorm, thunder in tongue, in teeth, and rage. His head had been flung back against the edge of the altar, and there was a grunt but he didn't stop her. Never did.
She crawled up his lap like a beast, clothes dripping wet, sticking to his thighs, grinding those thighs with not a hint of mercy.
"I fucking hate you," she spat into his mouth.
"Good," he breathed. "Makes it easier."
She tore through the front of his shirt, buttons flying into the air. Scratches blossomed all over his chest, her nails dragging red scars down his skin.
He grabbed her face in a fervent hold, making her look at him. "What the hell happened to you, Maggie?"
She bit down on his thumb.
Hard.
Then she whispered, “I don’t want to feel anything anymore.”
And down her jeans came.
Negan didn’t stop her. He just watched—silent now—knowing it wasn’t for pleasure, it was for destruction.
She pulled the jeans down just far enough again and sat on him, flesh to denim. Soaking wet. Desperate.
Negan was already hard; she never needed to check. Her fingers went just far enough down his jeans before she latched onto him with an ugly, choking breath.
No prep. No condom. No hesitation.
Just pain, stretching, and such dark satisfaction that it made her want to throw up.
Negan gritted his teeth and growled, “Jesus fucking Christ—”
"Shut up," she hissed, hips riding him with a rough, unsteady rhythm. "Shut up and let me fuck it out the hate."
She slammed down her hips, one blow after another, his breath hitching as his eyes glistened. Not from pleasure. Not yet.
He did not talk; he just took whatever she discarded upon him, refusing to be her weapon. He could only pitch his lips against her neck and suck down the bruises while his teeth dragged against her collarbone. His hands slid up her shirt to grab her breasts—rough and possessive.
"Do you want this?" she spit. "Do you want me like this?"
"No," he growled. "I want you honest."
She lost it and slapped his cheek hard with the palm of her hand.
He caught her by the wrist midway through her second swing and pulled it down, twisting her hard into the altar, her back against the cracked stones.
"You want to break something sweetheart?” His tone went snarly. “Break with me, then.”
He grabbed her from under her thighs, forcing them apart with his awful grip, and entered her so deep that she gasped and almost choked.
She never said stop.
He pummeled her as if in closing vengeance while his hands gripped her thighs, teeth scraping over her neck, her chest, her mouth. Her shirt was up around her ribs by now, her breasts shimmied and shaked back and forth with the aggressive thrusting of the goddamn beast. His lips found one—biting, licking, and sucking very hard—then the other.
Maggie arched, legs trembling, and cried out, "Harder," she gasped, "Fucking harder—"
"You don't get to ask," he hissed, but he granted her request.
Harder. Meaner. Faster.
Until the altar groaned, her voice broke and her body spasmed around him as if to cling onto him forever.
"Look at me," he growled with a hand around her neck. Not choking. Just holding.
She did. Red eyes rimmed. Raw lips. Her body wrecked, soaked.
"Say it," he hissed.
"Don’t."
"Say it."
"I can’t."
She orgasmed all over again—shaking, crying, violently—and pulled him off the edge with her, clenching so tightly around him as if her body didn't know how to let go.
Wet skin. Bruised lips. No prayers left in either of them.
The rain from outside grew louder, as though trying to cleanse them.
It wouldn't.
Never did.
Maggie finally shoved him off and sat up, pulling her shirt back down. Her legs were shaking. Her face was blank.
"Was that what you needed?" he asked.
She nodded.
Then whispered, "I wish I could kill you."
Negan stood. Pulled his jeans up. "You still might."
She grabbed her rifle, walked toward the door, and stopped.
She didn't look back.
"Thanks," she said hoarsely, "for... letting me."
He did not reply.
He simply watched her fade into the rain.
And when silence returned, it was louder than before.
Before she said anything, Negan knew what was in her eyes.
Nothing lust like tonight.
It was an all-out war! The door slammed behind Maggie, keeping the howl of the storm with her. Cold and rain soaking through her hair, her hands were steady; heavy thuds of her boots hit the floor as she shouted:
"Don't fucking move."
He leaned back on the couch, putting his hands over his head, with a slow-moving grin spread across his face. “You gonna kill me this time, sweetheart? Thought we were past the part where you pull guns on me."
"We're not past anything," she hissed. "We're just pretending.
His jaw hardened as he heard that, but he didn't flinch.
"Alright. Let's pretend less."
"I see him every time I look at you."
Negan's smile extinguished instantly. "Yeah."
"I hear the crack of that bat. I see his blood in your beard."
He did not stop her; instead, he stood and watched.
Maggie dropped the rifle. She came up to him, as if she were unsure whether to sob or slit his throat.
Then she threw a punch.
A fist into cheekbone: knuckles cracked into his jaw.
He tasted blood.
She hit him again. And again. And again. Until he was on the floor, laughing through the pain, his mind spinning.
"You want to kill me, Maggie?" he rasped, spitting blood onto the dusty floor. "Then do it. But don't come to me at night with your legs shaking and your pussy dripping just so you can pretend you don't want it."
Her foot shot into his ribs.
He gasped and rolled.
"You don't get to talk about him," she spat as she crawled over him. "You're not allowed to say his name. You're a monster."
"I know," he rasped.
Her hands gripped at his jacket, trembling with rage. She straddled his chest and pounded her fists into him until she collapsed, panting, face-to-face with him.
Her eyes were filled with tears. With rage. With need.
"I hate you," she whispered. "I really, really fucking hate you."
"I know."
Then she kissed him.
It was an angry and desperate kind of kiss-clashing with teeth, to torment others. He tasted salt. Blood. Her sorrow.
Negan flipped her in the very same motion, rolling beneath him while his hands pinning hers to the floor, his knees in between her thighs.
She bucked under him, fighting, trying to fuck, not exactly sure which.
He leaned forward until their noses nearly brushed.
"You want to fuck me like I'm him?"
"Don't you dare—"
"Or do you want to fuck me because I took him from you?"
She slapped him.
He kissed her even harder.
Her clothes came off as if ripping off scabs-Painful, violent, and fast. Her shirt was ripped from the middle. His belt snapped open. Her jeans were being peeled off like a second skin.
Then he was inside her, rough and raw, shoving his feelings into hers, as if he really needed to prove something.
Maggie was moaning like she was being exorcised.
Her hands clawed at his back. Her mouth was right next to his ear, whispering filthy words filled with rage.
"I should kill you," she gasped as her legs wrapped around him.
"Do it," he groaned, thrusting even harder, "Fucking kill me while I'm inside you."
She bit into his shoulder.
He grabbed her throat, not choking but anchoring.
“You think I forget about what I did?” he snarled. “I see it every time I fuck you. You’re the ghost I will never stop fucking.”
She arched under him, her nails scraping down.
"Harder," she whispered, "Make it hurt."
He gave her hard love, harder than that cracked the floor below them, made her breath hitch, and roll her eyes back.
The man reached between them, rubbed her clit in unforgiving circles with rough fingers until she shattered and screamed in his neck, her legs shaking and pulsing everywhere.
Negan came with a growl, deep inside her, his hands gripping her in case she would vanish.
They lay there afterward.
Sweaty. Silent. Destroyed.
She touched his face gently, one thumb tracing the bruise she gave him.
He let her.
She didn't say his name.
She didn't need to.
It went right in without struggle.
He made no sound at first. A grunted echo deep in his chest—half of surprise, half of a painful acknowledgment; before his knees buckled, dropping him onto cold, broken concrete like a man praying.
Maggie did not breathe. Not when her fingers slipped from the hilt. Not when his blood, black-red, blossomed down his shirt. Not when he looked up at her, knowing already she had done it.
Almost as if he was waiting for it.
"You bitch," he growled, coughing violently enough to spray his blood on his lips. "Finally grew a spine."
"You were going to kill him." Her voice dropped low. Detached. Shaking.
"I was gonna stop him," spat Negan. "Ain't the same thing."
She should’ve walked away. Should’ve let the others come, let Armstrong deal with the fallout, let the war roll over both of them like it always did.
But her knees buckled instead. She sank to the floor beside him, eyes locked to the gash just below his ribs. It wasn’t deep. She hadn’t angled it right. She’d never meant to—
“You hesitated,” he rasped. His voice was smoke and gravel. “You always fucking hesitate.”
Her palm hit his chest before she meant it to — not a shove, but something harder. “You don’t get to talk to me like that. Not after everything.”
“You stabbed me, sweetheart,” he chuckled, though it hurt him to laugh. “I think I’ve earned a little sass.”
Maggie looked at the blood soaking his shirt. At his hand pressed tight over it, muscles clenched like claws of an expiring man clutching his own guts. But he wasn't dying. Not just yet.
“Gonna finish it?” he muttered. “Or just leave me here bleedin'?”
Her jaw clenched. “No.”
"Then what?" he barked. "Gonna go on and patch me up like your little redemption project again? Save the monster? Pretend we're not always two seconds from—"
She didn't let him finish.
Her hand snapped around his throat, pushing him back with so much force his head struck the ground. He gasped, more from the outright shock than from the pressure. Her body straddled his with her thighs pinning his hips, her palm crushing against the pulse in his neck.
"I should hate you."
"You do."
"I want to."
"You do," he said, smiling with blood-stained teeth, looking wolfish. "And you want me too. That's the fucking problem."
Her mouth was suddenly pressed onto his before any thought could stop her.
The groan came from his throat — low, gutteral — more of pain, more of hunger — and there was blood smeared between them when she grabbed his face as if she wanted to rip it into two.
Their kiss was furious. Teeth. Tongue. Rage.
He bucked into her with hands clamping onto her hips even as he winced at the stabbing pain in his side.
Rolling her hips in return, they were fucking cruel and harsh against the grinding.
"Don't stop," he growled.
"I wasn't going to."
Her hands tore at his belt. She ripped it open, blood and sweat slick on her fingers. He groaned as she pushed his pants down just far enough to set him free-among and already erect and aching.
As if stabbing him made him want her more.
It made her sick. It made her wet.
"Get on with it," he bit.
"Shut up."
With trembling fingers, she peeled off his pants, not caring about the concrete scraping her knees or his blood streaking their clothes.
The man clasped her hips again as she hovered over him. His eyes, black with ravenous hunger, bore into her, pain and pleasure intermingled into something wild.
"Ride me, Maggie. Make it worth the hole you put in me," he rasped.
She came down with a choked moan—not a warning, not any teasing; just pure pleasure.
He filled her too fast. Too deep.
Her nails clawed his shoulders as she rocked, a harsh gasp snatched from his lips at the pain in his wound, but he never stopped her, he did not want her to. His blood warmed between them, slicking their skin, sticky and wrong and perfect.
"Fucking hell," he groaned.
Panting, her brow furrowed as if with fury. "This doesn't mean anything."
"No," he gasped, thrusting into her once more. "It never fucking did."
Rough and desperate, they slammed together. Her fingers curled in his hair, yanking hard as she dragged his mouth to hers again. He bit her lip. She bit back. The coppery taste passed between them.
"I hate you," she whispered.
His laugh was ragged, broken. "You hate yourself more."
Faster and harder she rode him.
Each thrust was met by a hiss or roar. He'd toss his head back in wild abandon or bare his teeth.
"It's what I dream of," he rasped, "Your hate. Your cunt. Wrapped around me like you wanna kill me and keep me all to yourself."
She slapped him hard.
His head snapped to the side with a loud smack, leaving a bright red handprint on his cheek.
He turned to her once again, grinning. "There she is."
She kissed him with the intent of hurting him, stabbing her tongue in his mouth.
His hands grabbed her ass tightly, forcing the rhythm of the grind, groaning all through. Blood soaked his shirt and dripped from the corner of his lips - and she loved that. Ruined. Wrecked. Not a man but a thing she'd created.
Her orgasm felt like a scream trapped inside of her ribs. She didn't cry out. She clenched around him, nails going down his skin. Forehead against his, eyes ablaze.
Seconds later, Negan was thrust up in her, releasing a guttural noise of his agony. His whole body shook under her, crashing waves of pain and climax. His breath was coming in gasps. She could feel tremors in his thighs and the sting of the wound reopening.
Time went on.
They just lay there panting, sweat drying on their skin, and blood from their wounds dried.
Eventually, Negan gave a distant bark of laughter.
"What the hell is wrong with us?"
Her silence was an answer all in itself. She fixed him with a stare, lips swollen pink, face blotched red from rage and release.
"You stabbed me," he said as if it were a joke.
"You deserved it."
He weakly brushed a curl of her hair from her cheek. "Yeah. I probably did."
She rose slowly, wincing with the movement. There was blood smeared down her thighs. His. The floor too.
Maggie grabbed a cloth to press it into his wound; he hissed, but she didn't see him pull away.
"You'll live," she muttered.
"You always make sure I do," he said.
She looked down at the man-down under her—ruined and raw.
"I should kill you."
His eyes locked with hers. "Then why don't you?"
Silence.
The kind that stretches across graves.
She tied the cloth tight. His blood seeped through almost instantly, but the pressure helped.
"I stay," she whispered. "Because I don't know what I am without this."
He nodded. "Neither do I."
"You hurt me."
"So do you."
Their eyes locked.
"I'm tired," she said.
"Then lay with me," he replied.
She did.
On the cold ground. Beside his wounded body. Wrapped in his warmth, his scent, the sharp sting of regret.
She curled against his chest, even as in pain it caused him to flinch. He didn't stop her.
Just for a moment, though, the war ceased to exist. So did Hershel, Dama, and the past.
There was only blood. And breath. And ruin.
And want.