A/N: FIRST NOTE OF THE STORY! This piece can be found on Ao3 under "TheFaerieChild" (me~!) and also "CheapGrotesqueries" on DA (also me!). If any other name/any other site has this posted and I haven't said so on here, Ao3 or DA, THAN IT'S NOT ME! Someone has stolen my work and I'd like to be told immediately! Hello, all! Here's an updated revision of "The Woes of a Madman's Soul" with a very short alternate ending, for your viewing pleasure!
Summary: A few days have passed since Benny had his first encounter with the Courier in Goodsprings, and his conscience has decided to rear it's ugly (and bathed-in-sin) head. The inner workings of the mind of the Chairman of the Tops casino is a dangerous place to be—so dangerous that he wishes he wasn't the one that had to be trapped in there.
So I hope you all enjoy this little one-shot I wrote about Benny wrestling with his inner war with himself and the conscience that he's trying so hard to beat down! Tell me what you think of it as a review or even a private message, because I'd like to hear about what some of you think of the themes or meaning under the piece!
Happy reading, happy writing (once again!)
~TheKonfessionist
Benny cradled the poker chip in his palm, and his fingers toyed with the oversized piece of platinum. He held it up in the waning moonlight of the Mojave desert through his hotel room window, and he had a sudden thought—a sudden pang of conscience.
"The game was rigged from the start."
Yeah, why didn't you just up-chuck your guts and tell that poor bastard everything? 'Ya shot him in the head, so why not confess your sins upon a desert corpse?
He turned away from the window and loosened his tie with his free hand, tugging it from around his neck and let it drop to the floor. Next off was his checkered coat—and once he had shucked it off, he plopped down at one of the stools at his personal bar. His hands snaked to the buttons of his suit shirt and nipped at them, letting the piece of cloth trail down his arms and flitter to the floor behind him, and looking to the chip in his possession, did he see his tired and buffed exterior in a warped reflection. The wasteland certainly was not kind to this New Vegas boy.
But we weren't always a New Vegas poster child to the Tops casino, were we, Benny-boy? He smirked lightly to himself in the glint of the chip and placed it down on the bar's wooden top. Reaching over, he picked up his whiskey, uncapped it, and drank straight from the bottle. 'Ya used to be a Boot Rider. Remember those days? Out in the sun, wandering with the boys, and somethin' felt so incomplete inside of you. You didn't have any purpose… but now? You're a big-wig hotshot with your own damn hotel and casino, and you've got the workings to make an independent New Vegas. You're on the rise, my boy. You're on the up and up... that suave S.O.B. House had Vegas riding on a piece of platinum. I wonder how it feels to be in his shoes— he probably knows he got no cards left to deal when he's got a snake wriggling in his tailpipe.
Once the bottle was detached from his lips and back on the counter in front of him, he began writing a mental letter to his future self. It was something that he did often, to the point that it was almost ceremonial; it was done in a place in his brain he called the 'Quiet Room', where the walls were painted a soothing wine red color and the only things of note in this room were an exit door, a roll top desk with matching chair, and a filing cabinet. When his mental self hunched over the desk, fountain pen in hand, paper blank before him, and nothing but time—it was what he did when he needed to think. When the letter was done being written, his mental self would turn to the file cabinet at his side, open one of the drawers, fold up the letter (sometimes he'd make it look interesting—once he folded it up to make it look like a dog), and drop it in before walking back out of the Quiet Room to come back to reality.
Dear future Ben-man, the Chairman addressed to himself in a formal tone that made him sound like an arrogant business man. His mental self chewed on the nib of his fountain pen—trying to think of what to write down to his 'future self' next. Keep on trucking with that "I ain't a fink" attitude you got rolling on. Maybe one day you'll believe it.
On the roll top desk, next to his hand holding his utensil of inward destruction, did the platinum poker chip appear. He frowned slightly at it in thought, plucked it up, and fingered it carefully—as if he were afraid it would break from his touch. He shook his head slightly and put it back down as he tried turning his attention back to his letter.
The kid should've known he was being watched. We saw him down the road, taking a path around Goodsprings, and we watched him on the last walk he'd ever take. McMurphy went down the hill, all silent-like, came up behind the poor bastard and rapped him on the back of his head with the butt of his pistol. The sorry son of a bitch passed out before he even hit the sand. The next time I looked at the poor sap—reallylooked at him, in the eyes like we were both men in a square deal, and he wasn't kneeling in front of Maria like a sorry beggar and pleading for solace and guidance and answers—I popped two rounds to his brain box. He was out before he even hit the sand, then, too... but this time, he wasn't waking back up.
Benny's mental self took a moment to read over the last couple of sentences he had written.
men in a square deal
kneeling in front of Maria
sorry beggar pleading
solace
guidance
answers
two rounds to the brain box
hit the sand
wasn't waking back up
Maria was holstered. There was a sly smirk on the Chairmen's face. The poker chip was replaced in his inner jacket pocket—and scene. No need for an award for this performance, as it was for your viewing pleasure.
Benny began to write again.
Everything's so much more simple when you shoot when you're expected to. It's better when you don't question it afterward. Whoever said 'shoot now, ask questions later' was a dumb son of a gun. That kind of talk doesn't work for me, because I don't like to think about shit I shouldn't have to think about because it makes me question my hand in everything. Future Ben-man, make a mental note to only think of the caps raining in at the end in a congratulatory parade, and not think about the blood on any of them. It'll just get on your hands.
His mental self rubbed a hand down his face, dropping his fountain pen so it clattered against the chip, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the unnamed courier's weather-beaten face looking up at him. Benny read in stories about the times way before the bombs dropped—he read about men being executed for small crimes, where their head would be lopped off with an axe from a man dressed in black, the executor, like a chef with a bloatfly and a cooking knife. The executor would ask the criminal; "Do you forgive me?", and the criminal would say yes or no. Most of the time it was yes, so the guy had something good left to give back to the world before he died.
"I (insert crime here)and I will forgive the man who kills me so I may repent for my sins and enter heaven, and he can repent in his own for murdering me."
Benny couldn't help but think about his 'light' reading, because it had reminded him of the courier. Upon that hilltop of the Goodsprings cemetery, with the courier knelt down before him, hands bound together in front of him, and he looked up to his executor with unsurprised eyes. Benny began to watch everything through the eyes of a third person; he wasn't wearing his checkered suit anymore but was dressed in a black robe, and instead of Maria in his hands he gripped a worn axe.
"From where you're kneeling it might seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck…" His mouth worded, but in his own eyes he saw other words lingering there; "Do you forgive me?"
The criminal courier narrowed his eyes to heated pinpoints and clenched his jaw. His mouth didn't open, but his eyes spoke back; "I carried a package laced with bloody caps through the Mojave. That is my crime—"
"But the truth is—" There was a pause, and Benny was speaking with his eyes again; "Please, forgive me."
"And I do not forgive the man who kills me, because I can see the blood that has slicked his hands and he is much more of a sinner than I."
"…The game was rigged from the start…" And the axe swung down upon the criminal courier's neck, sending him sprawling into his shallow grave.
Benny slowly opened his eyes and picked up his fountain pen again, continuing to write the last paragraph of his letter.
I'm going to write down a special set of words for you, because I want you to remember them just as clearly as I do right now. You'll never forget that night—courtesy of your hooligan, strapping young self.
The hand of his mental-self began to tremble like a junkie without a fix, and his writing slowly turned into scribbles as his head knew the words but his eyes couldn't read the intelligible lines.
I ain't a fink—dig?
Even more scribbling and jagged lines of letters.
You've made your last delivery, kid. Sorry to get you twisted up in this scene.
But he wasn't sorry at all—and the lack of emotion when he was wielding that axe (Maria) as the poor criminal's executioner made Benny's hand tremble as he wrote. The letters slowly became lines and shapes instead of letters.
From where you're kneeling it might seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck.
The shapes were beginning to take on a face.
But the truth is…
It looked like the man he had executed.
The game was rigged from the start.
The courier stared back at him with gaping mouth, eyes rolled partially back into his head, and dark blood letting out of his temple where Maria's bullet struck him.
With love,
Benny-boy.
Benny's mental self shakily dropped the fountain pen and breathed deeply, smiling in relief as the letter was done. He took the paper and began to fold it up so the courier no longer stared back at him—fold after fold after fold after fold, in his palm was his letter in the shape of a crow. Momentarily admiring his work, he turned to the cabinet at his side, opened the very top drawer, and dropped the crow-looking letter into it before closing it gently. He usually slammed it shut.
The Chairman had gotten all his thoughts out onto paper—let him bleed out through the nib of his pen, but somewhere inside him, he had that unfulfilled feeling again. It was like he was swaying off the path of what his purpose was… but what was it again?
"Gettin' New Vegas!" He reminded himself aloud with a hearty chuckle. "Get your head out of your Chairman ass. We got lots of work to do, Benny-boy!"
Benny turned to his roll top desk to retrieve the platinum poker chip that had mysteriously materialized at his side and blinked in surprise when he found it to be gone from the top of the desk.
"What the—?" He spoke aloud, getting up from the desk to look around the top carefully to find it. He then got down on his knees, patting his hand around on the floor of the Quiet Room under the roll top to see if he maybe dropped it during the aneurism he was having, when he was scribbling out the courier's cadaver expression.
The file cabinet suddenly jolted at his side with an alarming noise, and he hit the back of his head on the underside of the desk when he lurched in surprise. Bringing his head back out and getting to his feet, he frowned at the cabinet as it continued to buck and tremble with alarming noises. With a cautious hand, he reached out and took hold of the handle of the top-most drawer.
The cabinet suddenly stopped moving.
Frowning more to himself in thought with fear threading up and down his spine, he gripped the handle and pulled the drawer slowly open.
A fat, black crow flew out and squawked in his face—causing him to stumble back and collide with his chair so they both toppled over onto the ground. He looked up in horror as the crow settled on top of the cabinet and began to strut around as if it were a peacock and not a mangy bird, pecking and nuzzling under its wing as it cleaned itself.
Benny had no time to react as he watched the bird suddenly lean forward and dip it's beak back into the open drawer of the cabinet where it sprang out from. It struggled to retrieve what it wanted from the drawer, and it caused the Chairmen to sit up curiously to watch. The crow, on it's lonesome, finally managed to pull out of the cabinet long, black fabric, and began to flap its wings. It flew away to the door of the Quiet Room, where to Benny's horror, he saw another figure standing there. He was no longer alone in the privacy of his own mind.
The fat crow circled the figure to drap around it the black fabric, where it curtained the figure's face and shoulders, almost seeming to completely envelop their form with a cowl and long tendrils of fabric. The crow then proudly perched itself on the figure's shoulder, and squawked loudly to the tune of a clock striking the final hour, as the figure raised a hand and slowly pushed back the hood to reveal a familiar weather-beaten face with blood pouring down from the right temple.
The man cloaked in black that stood before him was the courier he killed; Benny had played executor at this man's funeral, and now the tables were turned as from one of the pockets of the black cloak did the executor courier reveal to the criminal Chairman House's platinum poker chip.
"Do you forgive me?" The courier asked as he pocketed the chip, and suddenly pulled forth from the confines of his cloth was a gleaming axe.
Benny slowly closed his eyes as he knelt down before his executor—clasping his hands before him as if in prayer.
"…I forgive this man who kills me because my crime was killing him first." He responded. The game really was rigged from the start.
The executor courier smiled softly at Benny's words and slowly pulled the hood of his cloth back over his head, shrouding his bleeding face in darkness. Taking the axe, he poised it above his head to strike, and swung it down upon the criminal Chairman.
But that was when Benny opened his eyes, because he heard the bathroom door open and Yes Man wheeled out to look in upon him.
"Benny, sir! You have a visitor in the lobby!" He exclaimed in a chipper voice. "He told Swank that he has a gift for you! Oh, isn't that nice of him? You never get gifts!"
The Chairman exhaled deeply as he tried to recollect his thoughts and smirked lightly to his robotic helper. "Now how'd you know I had a visitor?"
"I occupied one of the securitrons down on the Strip! Just for an evening stroll, when I saw him enter the Tops lobby!" He explained merrily. "You best be getting something decent on to welcome your visitor, sir! Maybe he brought you a carton of those cigarettes you like so much? Or maybe a bottle of that expensive wine from the Ultra-Luxe!"
Benny looked to his hands on the bar and found his, now empty, whiskey bottle in one with the platinum chip clutched tightly in his other. He slowly relaxed his grip on both, dropping them to the counter, and got up from his bar stool with a slightly uneven step. Taking his cigarette pack from his pants pocket, he lit one up to calm his frayed nerves and to soothe his frazzled mind. He then went to his wardrobe to pull on a clean button down shirt before picking up his trademark checked jacket and tugged it on, buttoning it up to place a black tie over it.
The last thing he did as he walked to the door was look back to the poker chip he left on the bar, as Yes Man rolled back into the bathroom. Benny stared thoughtfully at the poker chip, and for a moment, thought of putting it in his pocket to take with him.
You ain't got an executioner, Benny-boy. He told himself, almost solemnly, as he forced himself to ignore the chip and exited his room, closing the door behind him as he straightened out his tie and began walking to the elevator. Much less in the likeness of that courier. A dead man can't be another man's executioner, now, can he?
He smiled a bit at the thought, for whatever reason, as he called up the elevator and stepped into it. After pressing the button for the bottom floor and watching the doors close, his smile widened and he muttered to himself in a sing song;
"Ring-a-ding-ding… I got New Vegas on a string."
Benny was greeted by his four bodyguards when he entered the downstairs lobby of the Tops. They greeted him silently, following him in a four square as he exited the elevator out to the lobby to greet this guest Yes Man mentioned.
Wonder who's come to visit little ole Benny-Boy? he mused as he check-marked a female patron sitting at one of the slot machines. With the click of his tongue and a charming wink, she coyly pretended not to notice him but he could see her smile, regardless.
Maybe House's come to play even... probably still sore 'bout me taking this sweet little chip of his. Benny snorted to himself in amusement of the thought. Yeah right. He's had this long to take it back—he'd do it nice and quiet like, how he always does.
Benny came to the lobby as he fingered one of the buttons on his checkered jacket to align it properly, and as he smoothed his palms back over his gelled hair—he stopped in place upon seeing the man standing square off with him. It was a weathered old face, more weathered than it was in his memories, with a thick brunet beard and somber, watery green eyes. The man stood with an alarming presence, carrying the countenance of a man with unfinished business, and the Chairman found his hand automatically coming to the inner pocket of his checked coat.
That's when he realized it was left on the bar counter upstairs—and his hands parted empty from his jacket as an axe of venegance, not of an executioner, filled the calloused grip of the alive courier—dressed in a long black duster and hat tipped low over his crow-like eyes.