Who: Christine + Six. What: Shop talk. Maybe a little sparring. Where: The Sanctuary gym. When: Tuesday morning. Rating: R for the systematic delivery of profanities. Because, Six.
It was raining outside.
Which is where it usually rains, granted, but in a world where you regularly encountered corpses doing morning calisthenics, one could never be too clear about these things.
Point was, it was raining. Or trying to rain, as if the clouds themselves had rolled out of bed feeling as tired and sluggish as Six; only difference, of course, being she doubted those big puffy clouds had tongues that tasted like the bottom of a parakeet cage, or felt like their eyeballs had been taken out in the middle of the night and put back in wrong ways ‘round. See, after her little chinwag with Harley, Six never quite hopped along to Negan to offer up the rest of that bourbon whiskey as sacrifice for his smile, and so, for the past couple of days, she’d whittled it down and whittled it down ‘til there was nothing in the bottom but fumes and contrition.
Today ain’t so bad. Yesterday was worse. Yesterday, she’d been laid to the bone. And it didn’t help she felt about as full of piss and vinegar as a dead man’s jockey shorts.
Because the Sanctuary was just that: Safe.
Sanctuary. From the old French sanctuaire and those dastardly Frogs had nicked it from, of fucking course, the Romans.
Some folks, they needed this. A place apart, a haven where somebody else kept things smooth, and somebody else swung the bat, and somebody else vexed themselves over demographics, food rations and the like, a safe place to hide, where past scars didn’t matter, didn’t exist. And hey, if your bag is a sack of woe so spacious you need that kind of thing, Six wasn’t about to go setting it ablaze just for the shits and giggles of watching it burn.
(Well…. Probably not. Maybe.)
But the kale Negan’s Sanctuary gave Six could be tallied on the fingers of half a hand: 1) silence; and 2) Harley Quinn’s ass. And all due respect to the fine Mister Quinn, while silence was a hot commodity, she’d been privy to top-notch asses aplenty before everything went to shit. Sweet as they are, they can only keep your attention for so long. Otherwise? It was rotten kvetchers and regular folks looking to polish Negan’s apples, far as the eye could see.
Six was bored. Which was the trouble with trying to stitch together ersatz Edens, wasn’t it? You get so effin’ bored, eating those apples start to look like a swell idea.
She needed something to keep her busy, or else shit was gonna start getting messy too quick. She needed a lot more booze. She needed some shaver she could swindle. She needed a new shirt. She needed to do a run for cat food. What she had was a headful of schemes, a coat, and a gun. She put them on and left her room.
The clouds were already starting to splinter. The rain had stopped, leaving behind wet sidewalks and a saccharine smell so fragile you could bust it with a breath, and the sun was shining again like a regular son of a bitch. She made her way out into the bottom levels, and was about to saunter out into the sunshine when she heard the sound.
Heavy. Thumping. Quick.
The sound came from the back of the Sanctuary’s bottom floors. A big room, with big ceilings that had been set up as a gymnasium some time ago, and Six sidled on back there, flatfooted, just to see what was up.
Strike that. The Sanctuary offered Six three things worth hanging her hat over. One, silence. Two, the fine Mister Quinn’s ass. Three, Christine Royce.
No sense trying to pick on one facet of the intriguing Miss Royce. She had a smile as sharp as a razor blade, and that dark, raspy voice that sounded as if every word was dragged up from the bottom of a cognac well. Her history was a sad sequence of gut punches that ought to’ve laid her down and yet, there she was, beating the holy living hell out of a heavy bag, and looking like a fucking primordial Goddess of the Punch while she did it.
Six felt her breath hiss unbidden through her teeth.
She stood there for a minute or so, snuffing out the need for a cigarette and watching Christine slug the crap out of that bag. Back and forth, around and around, every jab smooth, quick, and sure, with nothing but tape on her wrists and on her hands. Then Royce paused for a moment, catching the bag with one hand, and Six, being Six, decided that was an invitation.
“I ain’t always a voyeur, I promise.” Six held up her right hand. Scout’s honor. “I don’t suppose you need tellin' you’re just too damn good not to watch.”