weareallnegan (weareallnegan) wrote in helladjacent, @ 2017-06-04 21:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !jumps: the good place, character: gretel, character: negan |
Who: Negan and Gretel
What: Apologizing and forgiving
When: Day 3
Where: The Library
Warnings: Mild (holy crap, right? profanity filters, man)
Status: Closed
On his list of screw-ups this week, Negan did not expect this to be one of them. Maybe he’d been stupid not to realize it would be a problem. He was so used to how he lived in his world, with his wives, it just seemed normal to him.
Clearly, that was wrong. That was stupid. He wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t used to it. And he wasn’t used to feeling so guilty about it, either. But he’d felt guilty about it with Lucille, once it became clear how much it bothered her, and he felt that same pang of guilt, now. Lucille had died before he made things right with her; he wouldn’t let that happen again. Not over something like this.
He was in the library and looking for Gretel a few minutes after her last message had sent. He wanted to call out for her, but couldn’t. While he’d been carrying Lucille everywhere with him, he’d left her behind, now. The only thing he carried was his marker, clutched firmly in one hand while he fidgeted with opening and closing the cap, over and over, scanning the rows of bookshelves as he looked for her.
For the whole heart wrenching conversation, Gretel had been planted in the back corner of the library; she hadn't gone back to her and Hansel’s room, knowing full well if her brother was there, she'd have to explain what happened. He would get angry and seek to take it out on Negan- and she understood well enough why, but that was the last thing she wanted. It would only screw the feeling of being unprepared and stupid with her heart deeper under her skin. She couldn't face that yet. She didn't know if she ever would.
Why she had told Negan where she was, she didn't fully understand either: half of her clenched and ached at the thought of looking at him, knowing she would inevitably picture him with… she couldn't even put the words through her mind. But the other part of her wanted so badly to believe him.
How he planned on making it right, she had no idea. She couldn't even put into words what exactly had gone so wrong, except that it hurt. And Michael's words echoed on repeat in her head, one in particular that hurt the worst, and was the reason why she ultimately hit send on the PDA letting him know where she was.
When she heard his bootsteps enter the library, she inhaled deep, and exhaled that she was there, hating the sound of her own voice.
In the silence shared between the two of them, Negan heard her sigh like a scream and followed the sound to her. He didn’t really know how much he could do without his voice. He could keep typing, or he could write, but he didn’t know how much that would even help. All he could do was try.
As soon as he saw her, he felt like even more of an asshole. She never cried - or at least, she rarely did - and he’d made her. His first instinct was to reach out and wrap his arms around her, wipe away her tears, and kiss her- but he didn’t. He stopped before he reached her, but he was practically itching to close the distance between them.
He reached for the first book he could find off of the shelf, flipping it open to the inside of the front cover so he could write on it.
I’M SORRY.
I’LL STOP.
Then he walked forward another step, turning the book towards her.
Just as she expected, seeing him twisted something hard in her chest, not too much different from the way it felt when they first saw each other here after the dreams. It was still powerful, and still undefined, but even though it was definitely painful, she saw something she didn't fully expect, though as soon as it clicked, Gretel felt a small, strange pang of relief.
It was honesty; raw and red, untempered honesty in his eyes- with as many walls as he'd put up over the years, she knew when she was seeing straight to the core.
Her eyes still burned when they flicked to the book and his now familiar handwriting. She read the words over and over, at least three times, before looking back at his face.
“I'm not angry with you,” she whispered, unable to put more volume to her voice. “I don't have any right to be… and I know you didn't mean to… hurt me.” The last words were harder to say than anything, because they were admitting that's exactly what happened.
Negan watched her face, searching her eyes as she stared at the words on the book in his hands. The longer he watched her, the harder it was to stand there and just watch her. When she finally looked at him, he could practically feel her eyes like knives.
Somehow, the fact that she wasn’t angry with him made it worse. Part of him wanted her to be angry; he could handle anger. He could handle it if she wanted to slap him, or yell at him, or ignore him for a few days. But the hurt in her eyes, and knowing he’d put it there, stung more than any slap from her would have.
He turned the book towards himself again, scrawling more words onto its pages.
YOU CAN BE ANGRY.
I SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU.
Even if he didn’t mean to hurt her, he could admit that much. She had no idea. He’d blind-sided her- no, it was worse than that. Michael blind-sided her.
She read his next words, feeling them reverberate in her chest as if it were hollow and made of tin. Maybe she had been angry for a split second, the instant after Michael told her, but it didn't last longer than the blink of an eye. Her real reaction to the whole situation- Michael telling her, the specifics of the 'affair’, the fact that it came out of nowhere to her… that she hadn't expected it at all, was humiliation. That's what lingered in her gaze when it returned to his face, no matter how much she wanted to forget all of it, chalk it up to the hotel antics, and move on.
She sighed unevenly, and faintly shook her head, then let it rest back against the wall. The back of her hand caught a tear before it made it halfway down her face.
“I don't think I would've reacted differently if you had,” she admitted quietly.
Negan sighed, trying to shove down the frustration from not being able to speak. Of all of the times he’d avoided talking about things, this was the one time he actually wanted to be able to, and he couldn’t. There was a terrible sense of irony in it.
He stepped closer, and got down to kneel in front of her on the ground. Part of him was tempted to give up on trying to find the right words to write down, but that wouldn’t actually help anything. Kissing and holding her wouldn’t actually help, they would just be easier.
IT WASN’T LIKE US.
I CARE ABOUT YOU.
He turned the book towards her, opening it on her knees, and watching her face again.
It was difficult to take her eyes off him as he got closer: again, she felt a pang of something sharp and bittersweet- pain and longing. She read the words and immediately breathed out slow and shallow, sitting up from the wall as she answered.
“I know you care about me,” she wavered in her voice. “If you didn't, I wouldn't be so…” her throat closed and her words failed for a second. “-humiliated...”
That word felt like a stab in the gut. Humiliated. Negan’s expression tightened, his brow furrowed as he shook his head and looked down, pulling the book off of her legs and rubbing his free hand over his face.
After a few moments, the first thing he wrote to her was, I’M SORRY. He was having a hard time looking at her, unwilling to let himself crack much more than he had. This wasn’t about his pain, it was about hers. He’d get over the pain of his own stupidity.
It was a few more moments before he wrote more.
I’M STOPPING IT.
I’M FIXING THIS.
I’LL BE BETTER.
It felt like history repeating itself. Why did he just assume she wouldn’t care? He was so used to his world, and doing things the way he wanted, it hadn’t even occurred to him it wouldn’t be what Gretel wanted. He was an idiot, and self-absorbed, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve the woman he’d so easily humiliated without even trying; she certainly deserved better than him.
Though he couldn't speak, as Gretel read his words she could hear his voice; put together with the scraped hollow look in his eyes, she felt them, deep and raw.
A few moments passed, feeling suspended in time, but the longer she looked at him, the more she remembered why she'd gone to Michael again in the first place. He wasn't always a good man- maybe he was never one, by many standards, but she didn't seem to be able to see it that way. Maybe that was her failing, but it was no more deniable than her own nature.
Before she thought too hard about it, her hand slipped off her lap and started to reach for his- it paused, hesitant for only half a second, but when she curled her fingers under his palm, they squeezed, and gently pulled him toward her.
As soon as she reached out for him, Negan dropped the book and his marker on the ground. He twisted his hand so he could lace his fingers through hers, and then shifted in closer to her, close enough so he could wrap his arm around her and pull her in tight against his chest. He kissed the top of her head first, then her forehead, and desperately wished he could speak.
Since he couldn’t, he let go of her temporarily and reached out to grab his marker off of the floor. Taking one of her hands again, he drew a heart on the back of it.
It felt silly, but being without words, and only being able to try to express himself through anything written, was making it difficult to put things the way he wanted to. He couldn’t say anything sweet. He couldn’t whisper in her ear, or sing to her. He couldn’t keep promising her things would be different. All he could do was kiss her, and hold her tightly, and draw a stupid little heart on her hand.
For some- for most- such a gesture would've been trivial: done without thought and barely any more meaning. Gretel still hurt, but the sheer earnest and emotion in the way he kissed and held onto her- like she was his lifeline in a blinding storm- it felt familiar. It took her back to the house in the snow, when she was racked by fever; he held her the same way now, and the heart was an extension of it all. She knew it for exactly what it was, and it dulled her pain to a low ache.
Her hands curled in his T-shirt at the back as she laid her head on his chest and listened to his heart- it was beating fast. Fast as her own.
With a still uneven, but slightly less tense sigh, Gretel slipped back enough to gently take the marker from him. She turned his hand around with her fingers, and drew the same heart on the inside of his palm.
Negan let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, but it felt like he’d been holding it since her second message to him. He still had one arm wrapped around her, and he squeezed her tightly. Even now, they didn’t need words between them. He felt everything the scrawl of marker on his palm was supposed to tell him without her saying it.
Bringing his hand to the side of her face, he gently tilted her head up, and leaned down to kiss her, slow and gentle, but deep just the same. He remembered the first time they kissed in the hotel, under the mistletoe, and the first time in the dream, when she’d been doing as much as she could to ease his pain. Now, he was trying to do everything he could to ease hers, but he didn’t know where to start. Kissing her would have to be enough, and holding onto her like he was afraid to let her go.
They could have been there for hours, or twenty minutes, neither knew for sure; nothing felt more therapeutic or necessary than simply allowing the emotional dust to settle, sharing the meaningful silence. Gretel concentrated on listening to the sound of his heart against her ear, the only sound he could make, and feeling the random strokes and caresses of his hand on her hair, or her face. She went as long as she could keeping herself from thinking about everything that happened that day before suggesting quietly they retreat to the privacy of his room. As raw as she still felt, the thought of anyone seeing her like this felt dizzying.
The walk through the hotel halls had a sobering effect; it helped push the static to the back of her mind and reminded her of the very real and very pressing problem everyone had, waiting in his office like a spider in a web. Once inside, she gave his hand a quick squeeze before slipping into the bathroom to splash her face with a little cold water to sooth the tingle and burn beneath her eyelids.
Negan almost would have rather stayed in the library. Almost. The longer he stayed in his room that week, despite wanting to avoid people during his silence, the more restless he became. With Gretel there, it was far more tolerable. He could ignore everything else when she was with him.
He let her go when they got to his room, giving her a moment of privacy while he toed off his boots and removed his PDA, wallet, and marker from his pockets and set them on the nightstand. There were random scrawls of black marker on some of the furniture and the walls, places where he’d written Gretel messages or drawn pictures in his boredom and forced quiet.
He came to stand in the bathroom doorway, watching Gretel for a moment, before he walked up behind her, wrapping his hands gently around her hips. Leaning down, he pressed his face in against the side of her hair, inhaling for a moment before his lips found the shell of her ear and kissed it lightly. Even now, he wished he had his words, so he could whisper into her ear and make her forget about everything else for a little while; he’d settle for his breath over her skin, sighing quietly while he slowly wrapped his arms around her middle.
Like their unexpected reunion last week, after the dream, his touch felt both complicated and right; in that moment with his chest moving in breath against her back, with the weight of his arms keeping her close, keeping her centered, she was never more aware. It had always been that way, only with increasing strength throughout the months, but it was the sudden intrusion of thought- what it would be like to be without him- that triggered how tightly she wrapped her arms around his right back. Gretel’s eyes closed; she already knew what it was like to lose him; she would do everything in her power to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“Promise me one more thing,” she turned her head into his breath’s caress, leaning towards it like she were starved for touch. “-don’t go see Michael again. I’d bet my soul he’s something even worse than we thought.”
Negan squeezed her tightly after the first part of her request, to let her know he was listening, and pressed a kiss to her temple. Her actual request made him pause, his lips resting on her skin. It was simple enough, but it was where he’d been planning on going again next, even if, in the back of his mind, he knew there was nothing he could do.
After a moment, he sighed, and then nodded against her head. He pulled her in even closer, and kissed her cheek, then her jaw, hit with the sudden relief that Michael hadn’t done anything to her… aside from tell her about Charlotte. He didn’t think he could blame that on Michael, either. She would have found out about Charlotte at some point.
Reaching up with one hand, he gently turned her head so he could kiss her, stroking his thumb over her cheek. After a moment he pulled back so he could look at her, looking at her eyes as he stroked her hair back away from her face. He could still see the hurt in them, the sting of humiliation, even though it was dulled- but she still stood there, leaning into his touch, letting him hold onto her. He didn’t deserve her, and she deserved so much more. When he kissed her again, it was more insistent, slightly more pressing, like he could talk through pressed of his lips rather than using words.
By the exhale alone, she could tell he’d been planning it, she couldn’t blame him for the desire, either; having his voice stolen was the reason she’d gone back after all, but now that she’d gotten a much clearer glimpse of the intent behind the seemingly benign-acting Thing in the office, feeling Negan agree with a nod gave her some much needed relief. She hated that he was hobbled like this, but as he said earlier, he would live. And in the small possibility that this was the last few days they had together, Gretel couldn’t stand the thought of making them worse.
She turned into him, feeling the potent emotion behind his heavy eyes as tangibly as the brush of his thumb, and the telling kiss. Her instinct to return the kiss was interrupted only by a short breath before her lips softly, thankfully, closed to his. There, she lingered, her hand firm but gentle on the side of his beard, tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. Whatever message he had, she felt it was received.
Negan turned her gently in his arms until she was facing him, so he could kiss her more easily, sliding one hand up into the back of her hair. For a moment when he’d seen her in the library, he’d been terrified he already lost her. There wasn’t much he could do to fix it now except try, and he didn’t know exactly how to do that, either.
There was something desperate in his kisses and the way he held her. He was savoring it more, what her lips felt like against his; her hands, though they were softer than his, still with a roughness of their own. Mostly, he savored her, and how good she was, how overwhelmingly good she always was, despite the Hell that was living in the hotel, and despite how badly he’d treated her on more than one occasion.
Even now, with her gut still heavy, and Michael's words haunting the very back of her thoughts like ghosts refusing to leave their dark attic, he still had the ability to stop her breath with nothing more than a slow kiss. Gretel noticed the change, though it was subtle, she recognized the extra press in his fingers and shortness of his breath as need. He needed her.
She let the kiss break, but stayed pulled tightly into his chest, supporting his brow with her own, chin tilted up to accommodate for their difference in height. Her hands slipped down to curl in his shirt, still warm with a heartbeat just a little faster than normal. Right the void left by his missing voice seemed gaping and painful, but she kept her eyes closed and listened to him breathe, sharing the same air.
“I forgive you,” she whispered after what felt like a lifetime, but she meant it completely. It still hurt, it would linger like a cracked rib for a while, but he needed her, and she needed him. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Negan drew a deep breath in through his nose, letting it out slowly, her words sending warmth down his spine, easing some of the tension in his shoulders and filling him with relief. He hadn’t expected her forgiveness, and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she didn’t, but it was just another example of how good she was. She was too good. He wanted to tell her as much, and warn her again of how much an asshole he was, and that if he messed up once, he’d probably do it again, because he just wasn’t a good person- but he couldn’t.
Maybe it was better that he couldn’t. For once, the silence might have played in his favor, because she didn’t need to hear any of it. She knew it all, he knew she did, and she was still forgiving him.
That just made him cling to her harder, his head coming down to rest on her shoulder, his arms tight around her middle and her back with the fear of letting go for too long. He turned his head to kiss her neck, still clinging to her before he nuzzled his face into her skin, in the back of his mind trying to memorize how she felt, and how she smelled, on the slightest chance they only had a few days left together. The way she made him feel was enough to make him refuse to believe it.