I think I liked you better when you didn't have a knife in your hand, Peaches

Candlelight and confessions

"You want to dish up?" asked Blake after a long ten minutes had passed, the spaghetti now perfectly done and the sauce smelling mouth-wateringly good.

She was still in the kitchen, and glanced over at Negan who was setting the table in the adjoining long dining room just over her shoulder.

If she hadn't known him, she would have presumed that the tall dark-haired man, resembled almost a perfect husband. Setting the table for dinner, now having shrugged off his leather jacket, standing there in just a t-shirt, cocking an eye in her direction.

Negan, who was currently pouring out the remainder of Steve's red wine into two clean glasses, gave a playful huff.

"Jesus, sweetheart," he said standing up straight and walking slowly back into the kitchen towards her. "What the fuck do I look like? A goddamn bus-boy?"

But Blake just smiled, shoving a clean dishcloth into his middle as she swished easily by him, glancing back at him teasingly over her shoulder as she went.

But she didn't say another word.

Shit.

Negan was truly and utterly besotted with her, watching she disappeared, now, through the doorway and out of sight.

She was everything he fucking wanted.

With a hot body, quick wit, and a dirty, dirty mouth to rival his own.

Every little part of them seemed to fit together so perfectly...as if she was exactly what Negan had been missing this whole time.

She was his weakness...and he knew that for a fact. But although, after the spectacle of her killing her own fiancé, he knew that his fellow Saviours were unlikely to ever try anything or use her as leverage , as lucky for her, she was indeed as formidable as he was.

She was a queen back there, at the Sanctuary. Just like Negan had always intended her to be.

But here....

Well, he hated every moment of her being back here.

That spark of hers not being able to shine so bright, stuck here like this...with these people.

Negan detested them, feeling bitter that in all the months Blake had been here with them, they had not spotted what David had been doing to her. Letting it go on unnoticed, while she sunk into herself.

And there was no way he wanted that to ever happen to her again.

This place, there people...they weren't her fucking people. But he was.

Negan knew exactly how he felt about her. And yet as arrogant and as cocky as he could be, he was far too cowardly to tell her.

Because fuck, the last person in his life he had felt this way about, had been Lucille...

And that....well, that, had destroyed him.

Negan ran a hand down his bearded face now, giving a short sigh, before turning back to the kitchen counter.

It took him just a few minutes to plate up the spaghetti, and use his pocket lighter to light a long candlestick, placing it neatly in the centre of the table. As he heard soft footsteps coming back down the stairs.

And Negan glanced up, only to see Blake stood in the doorway now, in that pretty little summer dress he had seen her in less than a week ago now.

"Do I look ok?" she asked lightly, tilting her head to the side and letting her caramel hair trickle down her side gently.