The Sound and the Fury
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Walking Dead or any related title, character, plot, setting, etc. These rights are the sole property of Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, AMC, and various publishers and distributors. I own only the original elements in this story, the writing and publishing of which earn me no money.
Chapter Seven
Before she knew it, Collins had slipped into a routine: report to Negan in the morning, when he would make a note of what time she arrived. Collins wasn't required to start work before eight in the morning, but she rarely came to his office past 7:45. Punctuality was part of it, but the larger part was that Negan frequently added points to cover the extra time she spent working.
Not that she was truly desperate for extra points - it seemed that Negan was determined to give them to her on a near-daily basis. Once, he had awarded her an extra two points for scrubbing some long-lived grime from the wall. Another time, she received three points for wiping the mirror in the private bathroom attached to his bedroom. He had even given her a point once for making him laugh.
In her first month at the Sanctuary, Collins had earned eleven points after her expenses had been taken out and she had spent all of them on hygiene supplies. Her second month, she had earned eleven net points and saved most of them toward her toolkit. She had just received her new points total a few days prior and she had earned thirty-seven net points in her third month, and that was just from a week working on the upper levels.
She had gone to see the accountant and found that Negan had given her a pay raise. Collins now earned 170 points every month. She still lost most of them to food and rent, but Negan's bonuses helped her earn even more. He had also given her a frankly ridiculous number of points for 'discovering a safety issue in a lower-level closet'.
After doing some mental math, Collins soon figured that she was 102 points away from her toolkit. That was the equivalent of roughly three months of work, and even then, if Negan continued to award her bonuses…
If all went well, she could leave the Sanctuary in a few months, in the middle of summer when the days were longest. With a steady pace and the flashlight from the toolkit, she could be a good bit further south before winter hit. She may even have found a place to create her haven by then!
Leaving soon was key. Negan hadn't made any more references to Collins not being deaf, and it was a good thing - cleaning the upper levels meant that she occasionally overheard a meeting of Saviors discussing their business in the area. Apparently, not every group was brought to the Sanctuary. Some were left where they were and forced to produce goods for the Saviors.
Overhearing meetings was also how she discovered that not all of the Saviors liked or even respected Negan. A number of them verbally trashed him in groups - groups large enough that Collins began wondering if she should just flee the Sanctuary without her toolkit. The tools would come in handy, however, especially the flashlight. Besides, something in her didn't sit right at the idea of leaving Negan to head off a rebellion alone.
Maybe it was because of the extra points or some twisted form of Stockholm Syndrome, but Collins was beginning to enjoy Negan's company. When he wasn't trying to flirt with her, they had fairly good conversations. He was more educated than his bearing let on and, when he stopped being The Leader Of The Saviors and acted like a normal person, he was just as funny in a far less grating way.
She didn't even mind working around his wives anymore. They stayed out of her way and she stayed out of theirs, though she was starting to learn their quirks. Sherry was quiet and the most likely to try to interact with Collins, Frankie was down-to-earth and didn't let Negan get away with anything, Tanya was content to keep to herself while she read voraciously, and Amber - though petty and childish at times - could be cheerful and energetic when the mood struck.
It wasn't a bad job, and Collins found herself cleaning the penthouse apartment more than anywhere else. Negan and his wives weren't necessarily messy, but she was cleaning their living spaces (except for the wives' bedroom) compared to the hallways outside the top point-earner rooms.
Negan had requested that she pay close attention to his office. As he put it, "Sometimes, I have to bring in some moron or another who thought they could get away with something. I can't have my office looking like an abandoned hospital or some shit. That's scary in the wrong way."
It made an odd sort of sense, like most other things Negan did. For all that he pretended he was naturally cruel and boisterous and violent, there was a great deal of planning that went into his carefully-crafted intimidating persona.
Toward the end of one afternoon, Collins found herself thoroughly dusting Negan's office. She had cleaned his bookshelves and assorted surfaces carefully, removing all items and dusting before placing the cleaned object back. She had left his desk until last, hoping he would leave so she could avoid disturbing the piles of paperwork scattered across the surface. However, she had finished the last of the shelves and he still sat frowning at a document.
As she approached, Negan looked up over the top of his reading glasses. "Don't worry about my desk, Collins. Dust can't even reach it under all of this. Just clean some of the decorative bullshit and we'll call it good."
Collins nodded and began picking up and wiping off some of the items on his desk. A baseball signed by a bunch of people she had never heard of, a smooth river rock she would bet he used as a paperweight, and an ornately-wrought dagger that looked as though it should have been locked up in a museum somewhere. She was tempted to ask where the dagger had come from, but Negan was frowning fiercely at the paper now and she didn't want to interrupt whatever staring contest he was in.
There were only a handful of framed photographs on the desk. The first was of a small house, with a cheerful-looking flower bed and a well-tended yard. The second was of a motorcycle. Collins didn't have the slightest knowledge of motorcycles, but it looked polished enough to be the pride of some sort of collector.
The last frame held a different sort of picture. In it, a couple stood in front of the small house and the motorcycle was parked in the driveway. A pretty, red-haired woman stood with her arms wrapped around Negan. Both were laughing, though the woman's eyes were on the camera while Negan watched her with love in his eyes. Collins was far from an expert on human behavior, but she was willing to bet that the woman was Lucille.
If Collins was correct, and he had loved Lucille so deeply, it would explain his collection of wives. If you couldn't have quality, quantity would suffice, right?
Suddenly aware that she had been holding the picture frame for far too long, Collins wiped it a final time and set it back on Negan's desk. He glanced at her, curious from the length of time that had passed, but understanding dawned on his face as he looked at the picture.
Negan cleared his throat. "You about done for the day?" Collins nodded and he opened his mouth to say something else when the sounds of a screaming argument echoed from the living room.
His dark gaze met Collins's as the sound of shattering glass reached them. He rolled his eyes. "Big fight going on out there," he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the living room. "Sounds like somebody, probably Amber, broke something glass. Normally, I'd make them clean it, but they're all in dresses and heels. What'd'ya say? Clean it up and I'll let you get outta here a little early?"
Collins gave a small salute and Negan laughed, waiting until she had reached the door and glanced back before he remarked, "Hot."
She rolled her eyes at him even as she smiled and went to clean the mess. Negan had been right, Amber had thrown a glass. Not one of the wives' delicate-stemmed wine glasses, either, but one of Negan's scotch tumblers. It had hit the wall beside the rickety couch; Collins could see the dent in the drywall where the heavy glass had made contact.
As Collins balanced on the balls of her feet to pick up the larger shards, Amber - having made her point - flounced to the couch and hurled herself down onto it. The much-abused replacement leg of the couch, having had a long, weary life already, simply collapsed and set the couch tilting at a dangerous angle.
Amber screamed at the motion and Collins had to fight back an urge to do the same. The couch, stuttering forward slightly, had knocked the elbow of the hand holding the glass shards. She had tightened her hand reflexively and one large shard had bitten deeply into her palm.
Amber continued her rant as though she had never stopped, bemoaning the poor quality of the items Negan provided for them. She didn't stop even when the other wives checked that she was okay. To add to the chaos, Negan threw open the door to his office and began shouting questions about what was going on.
During it all, Collins attempted to breathe deeply even as she uncurled her hand and pulled the broken chunks of scotch tumbler out of her palm. The sight of the wound nearly made her sick; she would most definitely need stitches.
She cradled the hand to her chest, careful to not let anything touch the cut, but the motion itself made black spots dance around the corners of her vision.
"Wait. Settle down! Shut the fuck up!" Negan roared, finally bringing to room to quiet once more. "Where is Collins? Is she still here?"
"Who?" Amber asked petulantly, though she definitely knew who Collins was. "I almost died because of your crappy sofa and you're worried about some deaf janitor?"
Negan laughed, but it was not a happy sound. His voice, when he spoke, was menacing. "You watch that pretty little mouth, wife, or you'll be a divorced worker before I can find a new couch. Now, where is Collins?"
"Oh," Frankie said softly, just behind Collins's shoulder. "Oh, you poor thing. Negan… it's bad. Get Doctor Carson up here right now."
"What?" Negan snarled, voice sounding abruptly closer. Collins could tell when he spotted the problem because he swore violently. She heard the snap of a radio coming off of a belt and then, "I need Carson to the penthouse. Now." A momentary pause. "Calling Dee, Simon, whoever is available. Somebody give me a fucking copy."
There was an answering crackle of static that could have contained the word 'copy'. Collins couldn't confirm it, not with the roaring in her ears that she couldn't suppress. She couldn't tear her darkening gaze away from the blood pouring from her palm long enough to get someone to talk to her instead of about her. Vaguely, she wondered how much longer she had until she fell unconscious.
Without preamble, Collins was lifted up and carried to another section of the apartment. By the time she had mastered the dizziness and nausea brought on by the motion, Collins was being gently deposited onto a plush armchair and Negan had stepped toward a small cabinet against one wall. She knew from cleaning the apartment that every cabinet contained a sparse collection of alcohol.
For a moment, Collins thought she was in his office, but the light was wrong. The window in Negan's office looked out to the east and he could watch over the main gate. If Collins was to guess from the blazing light of the setting sun, she would say that the window in this room pointed west. Negan's bedroom
Negan returned to sit in the chair beside hers, holding two scotch tumblers in his hands. One was slightly overfilled, but still at an acceptable level while the other was full nearly to the brim. He handed her the full one.
"Drink up," he commanded grimly. "Alcohol is the only anaesthetic the Sanctuary has left and I'm out of everything but tequila."
Collins hated tequila, but if it was a choice between drinking it or letting someone sew her hand shut without anything to numb the experience, she could live with the taste. She swallowed a solid quarter of the drink before allowing herself a grimace at the flavor. Negan grinned at the reaction - the first expression she had seen him wear after the accident other than anger or concern. Ignoring him, Collins steadily drank until the glass was only as full as Negan's.
She wanted to drink more of it, despite the burning in her throat and stomach from such a large amount of alcohol, but set it aside before resting her head on the back of the chair and closing her eyes.
If she was lucky, the tequila had been enough to kill some of the pain without loosening her up to dangerous levels. Collins had always been a cheerful, chatty drunk. She couldn't afford to be even tipsy at the Sanctuary, as much as it would have made the situation more bearable.
A soft touch on her knee made Collins open her eyes. "What the hell were you thinking?" Negan asked, his tone more casual than his words.
She shrugged but gave no other answer. She could barely keep her eyes open.
"What was your plan? To keep quiet until you bled out from your palm? Or were you just going to leave and go wrap it with a sock or something?"
How was she supposed to answer him? He didn't know sign language and, while she had injured her non-dominant hand, she certainly wasn't going to write out what she wanted to say. Negan wasn't bothered by her silence. She scoffed internally, feeling uncharitable. He probably preferred when no one else spoke so there were no interruptions.
"I take care of my people, Collins. I know it was an accident, but why didn't you get someone's attention? If Frankie hadn't seen you, how long would it have taken you to let us know that you were hurt? I know I seem like a hard-ass, but I care about you." Collins was too relaxed not to tense up at the confession. Negan spoke quickly to dismiss it. "After all, where else would I find another janitor?"
Collins tapped the floor twice with the toe of her work shoe, quirking an eyebrow.
Negan shook his head, "None of them are what I need. They aren't hard-working or loyal, they don't make me laugh…"
Turning his words around in her alcohol-addled mind, Collins stared at Negan.
He was serious, more so than she had ever seen him. There was no hint of a smile on his expressive face and his dark eyes were earnest.
"Collins…"
"What happened?" Doctor Carson asked, bursting through the door.
Negan's face shuttered abruptly, his expression covered by the mask of a smile he wore. "Ya ever heard of knocking, Doc? This is still my fucking bedroom after all."
"I apologize, sir," Doctor Carson said dryly. "Your men made it seem urgent, as did your wives."
"My wives," Negan repeated with a snort. "My wives are the reason this happened in the first place. Collins was picking up pieces of shattered glass when one of them knocked into her and she squeezed. There are a few cuts on her palm, but one of them is really deep. Pretty sure it's gonna need some stitches."
Carson had started examining Collins's hand before Negan had finished his explanation. He apologized a few times as he moved her wrist or fingers, but the tequila had numbed the sharper sensations and Collins didn't feel much pain from his examination.
"Any numbness?" She shook her head. "Can you still move all of your fingers?" A nod. "Is there any glass left in the wounds?" She shook her head, but wasn't entirely sure. "I'll check, just to be safe. You might be better off looking away."
It would have been really convenient to be able to explain that looking away would make it worse, but Collins was trapped by the nature of her disguise. If only she had claimed to be blind instead! Of course, she probably wouldn't have been here in that case. Negan had only promoted her so that he would have a janitor who couldn't overhear anything to use against the Saviors.
A sharp pain brought Collins back to awareness and she tensed, sitting upright to stare down at the doctor as he prodded each cut. He palpated every wound delicately to check for glass, and she could tell he was taking care not to cause undue pain, but it still hurt.
"No glass," he eventually announced. "Has the wound been cleaned?"
"Not yet," Negan answered. He lifted Collins's glass, asking, "Are you going to drink any more of this?"
When she shook her head, he dumped the remaining tequila over her palm. It took every bit of strength Collins possessed to fight both a scream and unconsciousness. As a result, she let out a hoarse whimper at the sting.
Carson tried to soothe her through the pain, but Negan held up his own glass to the light. Collins vaguely remembered him holding the half-filled tumbler under her palm to catch the tequila that had run over her wound.
"A damn shame to waste tequila that way…" he mused, a twisted light entering his eyes.
"I wouldn't drink that," Carson warned as he prepared the needle for stitches. Trying to focus on anything other than the doctor's needle, Collins shook her head at Negan, too.
"Do you have anything nasty in your blood? Anything that would hurt me?" Collins stared at him, knowing she was making a face, but unable to stop it.
Carson got close again and Collins tensed, knowing what was about to happen.
"Aren't ya listening to me, sweetheart? You got any diseases or anything like that?" Negan pressed.
Collins slowly shook her head, praying he wasn't about to do what she thought he was. Negan eyed the glass in his hand with speculation, then tossed back the contents. He smacked his lips contentedly while Collins's lip curled.
He caught her gaze. "What? Tequila is good and I can appreciate the finer things in life."
"Avoiding horrible, infectious diseases could be considered one of the finer things in life," Carson pointed out.
Negan only laughed. "Have you missed the dead people walking around outside, Doc? There's only so many things you can be afraid of before you run out of fear."
Collins missed the doctor's response, distracted by a tickling sensation on her palm. She glanced over at it to find that a small line of neat stitches already held part of the wound closed. Carson must have started stitching when Negan drank the tequila. It had been a distraction - disgusting, but effective.
Still, the sight of the little needle flashing in and out of her skin made the room lurch unsteadily as though the Sanctuary itself were collapsing.
"-ins. Collins, look at me. Look at me, doll."
Negan had probably been speaking for a while, but his voice was going in and out like an old radio. Collins was starting to wonder if she was really going deaf.
Abruptly, a hand touched her cheek, turning her gaze away from Carson's diligent stitching. Negan's face filled her vision, eyes filled with concern. He was still speaking, but she couldn't focus long enough to hear him.
His hand patted her cheek - it wasn't hard enough to be considered a slap, but it wasn't light, either. It brought Collins slightly back to herself, but she still felt a little woozy.
"-want you to focus on me, Collins," Negan was saying. "You keep those pretty eyes on me, understand? Nod if you understand me." Collins gave a dazed nod and he smiled. "That's my girl. We've got a little bit more to do here, so we're going to chat for a while."
With the hand that wasn't being worked on by a mad scientist (Carson was actually very nice, but Collins's wildly turning mind insisted on painting him as Doctor Frankenstein), she pointed at Negan.
"Aww, you're going to make me talk the whole time? Fine, I suppose I can deal with that burden." Collins snorted. Negan never got tired of hearing himself talk. Seeming to know what she was thinking, he grinned. "Anyway, in case I forgot to tell you, this place is fucking spotless. It's never been this clean, and the Saviors have said the same about their common areas. You've got a damn good work ethic, and you're pretty nice to look at, too. I wonder if it's time to promote you again. How does 'wife' sound for your new title?"
Collins rolled her eyes and shook her head, but the motion accidentally brought her gaze to her hand and she jerked back to Negan immediately.
"Fine, break my heart," he accused, dramatically pressing a hand to his chest. "Heartless woman! I guess I'll just have to entertain myself by watching you work. Those pants do great things for your ass, by the way."
Collins sighed through her nose and Negan's grin disappeared.
He leaned forward to fix her with an intent stare. "Listen, I want you to stay here tonight."
Before he had even finished the sentence, she was shaking her head. "Come on, Collins. The lower levels are full of bacteria. Your stitches could get infected. Right, Doc?"
Doctor Carson snorted as he set his needle aside. "Only if she goes around high-fiving people and letting them lick her palm."
It was an odd image, made stranger by the fact that he had started to smooth an antibacterial ointment around the stitches. Trying to ignore the sensation of the thick substance coating her palm, Collins shot Negan a triumphant grin.
"Shut up," he muttered. "Would you think it's best for her to stay up here for a few minutes at least, Doc? She did have a few shots worth of tequila."
Doctor Carson eyed Collins critically. "I never discourage hydration. I would prefer that Collins drink at least a glass or two of water before she goes to sleep. If she would rather do that here, I would not discourage it."
"Please, doll?" Negan asked, giving an exaggerated pout. "Throw a guy a bone, huh? Don't make me turn it into an order."
With the events of the night, she wanted nothing more than to collapse on her bed and sleep away the pain. She especially didn't want to spend any more time with Negan, who seemed to be in an even stranger mood than usual, but there didn't seem to be a good way around it. Besides, she had consumed more tequila than was wise, even for someone preparing to undergo a minor medical procedure. Collins gave a half-hearted nod.
"That's my girl," Negan effused warmly.
"I'll leave a few aspirin tablets here. Take two before you go to sleep and two when you wake up, Collins. They'll help keep the pain to a minimum."
Collins nodded at Carson's orders. The doctor packed his bag and left in a matter of minutes. It wasn't until the door closed behind him that Collins realized that she and Negan were alone in his bedroom.
"Want a drink?" Negan asked, voice making it clear that he wasn't talking about water. Collins shook her head, but he stood anyway. "I'm having one. It's been a stressful damn night."
And he hadn't even had his hand cut open.
Regardless, when Negan returned with a half-full tumbler of tequila, he drank deeply and sighed as if the alcohol had soothed his nerves. They sat in silence for a few moments until he remembered that she was supposed to be drinking water. Silently, he left and returned a moment later with a full glass of water in hand. Collins drained half the glass before he had even sat down.
"Shit, I guess you were parched, huh?" he asked rhetorically. Collins took another sip as her only answer. Negan finished his own glass and refilled it before getting more water for Collins, this time coming back with a full pitcher.
They sat in silence as Negan sipped steadily at the tequila in his glass. He was drinking almost as quickly as Collins was and she wondered idly why she was still sitting in his bedroom instead of going back to her room on the lower levels. Surely staying here to watch Negan slowly get drunk wasn't helping her hand.
"Collins, I want you to move to an upper level room." Collins stared at him with her eyebrows raised. Was he really going to make her explain that she couldn't afford the extravagance? She set her nearly-empty glass on the desk and raised her right hand to try when he snarled at her. "If you tell me you can't afford it, I'll lose my damn mind."
She dropped her hand quickly, uncertain of how to proceed. Negan sighed and filled her glass from the water pitcher.
"What I meant was… Just... If you want it, I'll get it for you. It wouldn't be charity. You're the only janitor for the upper levels. It would make sense if you got a room up here as part of the job." He smiled weakly. "I have to keep you close in case something happens and I need you in the middle of the night."
Slowly, Collins signed a thank you, but still shook her head.
"Are ya sure you don't want to marry me? You could still tell me 'no', but it wouldn't sting the same way." Collins shook her head again, smiling despite her confusion at Negan's second mention of marriage in the same evening.
Negan laughed, but it was more a sound of self-deprecation than the savage joy he usually showed. "Fuck, I'm losing my touch. I can't even get you to do what I want."
Maybe it was meant to be a joke, but Collins couldn't take it lightly. She had heard the Saviors' whispers and softly-voiced opinions that Negan was falling from power. She just hadn't known that Negan realized it as well.
Negan tossed back the rest of the glass of tequila as if it were a shot and slumped back in his chair, leaning his head against the backrest. "I'm losing control of this place, Collins. I know it looks like I'm the big, badass guy in charge, but I'm not shit if the people turn against me. If my Saviors turn against me." He snorted. "And that's only a matter of time."
"They don't scare the way they used to. They don't follow my orders. Hell, I know they talk about me when I leave the room. Any day now, I'm going to wake up to a mutiny and everything in this damn factory'll burn." Abruptly, Negan picked up his head, eyes sharpening. "But not you, Collins. I won't let them do a damn thing to you. As long as I'm alive, sweetheart, you're safe."
What was happening? Negan was tipsy at the least, but she had never heard his natural confidence fade to this extent. And he certainly had never claimed to have much of a soft spot where Collins was concerned. A few days ago, he had threatened to beat her if she broke one of the random pieces of decoration around his office. Of course, he had said he would take her over his knee…
Collins leaned forward and patted him gently on the forearm. She finished her glass of water, filled it once more, and handed it to Negan, switching it for the tequila tumbler before he could order her not to. As he stared dumbfounded at the water, Collins took the empty glass back to the small bar cupboard in his room and set it inside. On the way back, she scooped up the aspirin Doctor Carson had left on the desk and walked carefully to the door back into the living room area.
Her hand hurt worse now that she was standing. The slight increase of blood pressure meant that the throbbing was beginning in earnest and Collins was getting more and more excited to take the aspirin and go to sleep.
"Collins…" Negan said softly before she could turn the doorknob, and she barely stopped herself from turning at the sound - one she wasn't supposed to be able to hear. Instead, she opened the door and looked back to find Negan watching her. "I'm sorry you got hurt. I would do anything to keep it from happening again."
In answer, Collins pretended to raise a cup to her lips, then pointed at Negan with a smile. He obediently drank from the glass of water, but did not return the smile. His dark eyes watched her until the door closed between them.
Author's Note - Okay, here's the really important disclaimer: Never ingest someone's blood. Seriously. Not only is that gross, it has the potential to spread so many diseases that I rewrote this chapter FOUR times because I was utterly grossed out by the idea of leaving that scene in here. I grimaced the entire time I was writing it. Also, never mix alcohol and painkillers. I hope no one is out here getting medical advice from fanfiction, but I just need to advise you that most of the things in them are a terrible idea. There are many great medical resources on the internet, but this is not one of them.
BlueBird, I completely missed that you left a wonderful review on Chapter Five! You are my new favorite person and I appreciate you so deeply! Sorry for the late response!
Thank you for reading! Consider following BlueBird's example and leaving a review (or PM me if you'd rather). Have an awesome day and I'll see you next week!