Russian Roulette. Part 1. The wheel is the battlefield.
A Revolution fic (Blackout AU): Sebastian (Bass) Monroe/Charlotte (Charlie) Matheson, Charloe. Rating M…
New Vegas. Gould was on his way to see Jimmy after the fight when he spotted the girl aiming a crossbow at his prize prizefighter. That really pissed him off. It was obvious that Jimmy and the crazy blonde had some history because he went postal trying to stop Gould's guys nab her even after she'd tried to put a hole in him. Anyway, no one messed with Ely Gould, and now he had Jimmy and the hellion tied up and waiting to learn just who was in charge…
AN: A very late entry in the OA 60 moods of summer fic fest! I'll just wish everyone a happy Autumn lol! There are two parts and the next will be up very soon. Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoy.
Russian Roulette.
The wheel is the battlefield. It is the court that decides the outcome, without possibility of appeal, (Roulette30).
Russian roulette. Noun: an activity that is potentially very dangerous (Internet search)
Gould was so pissed he couldn't keep still, so he paced up and down in the big trailer going through toothpicks by the boxful and ignoring the long suffering looks that Buck sent his way from where he sat cleaning his guns at the fold down kitchen table.
He backtracked and poured himself a shot from the bottle of whiskey on the table, tossing it back. The little blonde hellion currently tied up in a nearby tent had nearly put an arrow shaped hole through one of his biggest money earners and then to top it off a couple of fucking bounty hunters had turned up trying to bag Jimmy too for fuck's sake, although at least they seemed to want him alive. Why he didn't know, didn't care. Jimmy made him more in a night than any bounty he'd ever heard of. Although it was something to keep in mind if the punters started losing interest, maybe he'd send Buck to find out…
Anyway, as soon as the hunters saw Buck and the other guys they'd run off, but then Jimmy had got a good look at the girl and gone ballistic attacking Gould's guys trying to stop them from taking her even though she'd just tried to kill him. There was obviously some kind of history there, she was an ex maybe? Jimmy always seemed to have a few of them hanging round, hoping… But Jimmy needed to learn where he stood in the Gould scheme of things, when he woke up that is. Buck and Vernon had to knock him on the head pretty hard to get him to stop fighting and he was tied up next to the hellion just in case he started again. Gould couldn't have his fighters fighting the wrong people, it made a bad impression, gave his competitors the idea that he couldn't manage his people properly, made him look weak.
What the fuck was going on lately? If he hadn't gone over with Buck and a few of his bodyguards to have a little quiet chat to Jimmy about making his fights look just a little bit less like a fucking walk in the park he'd have been none the wiser and down one fighter worth a hell of a lot of diamonds.
And it was her fault.
To Gould's way of thinking, there were only two probable reasons why a beautiful woman would want to shoot a man, jealousy or revenge. And knowing Jimmy it could be either one. But she'd made a fucking big mistake trying to do it in his town, and now he was going to make her regret it.
He stopped pacing, a smile spreading slowly over his face and an idea blooming like a flower in his head. 'I'll make her play fucking Russian roulette with him watching. That'll teach him to mess with me, deal her and give us a live show like that'll bring the punters in like flies to a honey pot.'
Buck looked up, his hands still working, 'sounds good, boss.'
'What do you mean good? It's fucking brilliant.'
Buck shrugged, an eyebrow quirking as he checked the sights, 'ok, so it's fucking brilliant.'
Gould frowned, 'I know that face… what's wrong with Russian roulette? The state he's in Jimmy won't be able to fight tonight and I gotta have something for the main show. This way they'll pay for what they did and make me some diamonds at the same time.'
'You want to keep Jimmy fighting for you though, don't you, boss?' Buck spat on a bit of clean rag and rubbed at the barrel, 'you saw what happened when he spotted her? If she's that special to him then he might not like it if she gets wasted, he might not want to fight for you anymore...' He inspected his work.
'But she owes me a pile of diamonds for being such a pain in the ass and losing me Jimmy for the fight tonight…' Gould was pacing again, circling. 'I could have her dress up in something a little, you know… prettier? There'd be punters lining up at the door of the trailer for a bite of that cherry and if Jimmy wants a piece? Well he can pay like all the others.' Gould was grinning but his eyes were hard, 'he might be good, but he isn't the only fucking fighter in New Vegas and he needs to learn who's in fucking charge around here.'
Buck nodded 'true, but we got other options…' He aimed at the door of the trailer, pretending to fire. 'I mean it's all a show isn't it?'
Gould nodded, as a slow grin spread across his face, 'yeah, good thinking….' He poured himself another drink, tossed it back then slammed the glass down. 'Buck?'
Buck gently put the vintage .45 M1911 Colt that was the pride of his collection down on the table and looked up. 'Yes, boss?'
'Go get me Jerry the Spruiker?'
…..
Charlie opened her eyes and the glare from a beam of late afternoon sun coming in through a gap in a tent wall sent streaks of pain shooting all the way down to her toes. She shut them again, quick, and kept them closed while she did a quick inventory. She was tied to a chair, her ankles strapped to the chair legs, hands tied behind the back and what felt like dried blood on her scalp itching like crazy. That was nearly as bad as the headache, and the backache, her shoulders feeling wrenched out of their sockets and the fact that her butt was totally numb… Damn. At least she didn't need to pee, but she was stiff, her mouth felt like she'd been eating sand, her lips were sore and split and she was fighting down cold panic at not being able to move…
'Rise and shine.'
Her eyes flashed open again, then narrowed against the glare, meeting a pair of incredibly blue, bloodshot eyes set in a face that was bruised, bleeding, drawn tight with exhaustion and way, way too close for comfort.
Shit. It was him. Monroe. What the fuck?
But for some stupid reason she was feeling a weird kind of relief at finding him still alive. Those guys had laid into him pretty damn hard back there. He was the devil, the monster in her dreams and she'd wanted to kill him so fucking bad it ached. But she also had a vivid memory of the shocked recognition in those eyes when he saw her face and how they ignited to a furious, burning blue just before he attacked the guys who were trying to hold her still, while their boss watched from the sidelines... Then while two of them held her, the others had turned on him, four of them. But he'd just kept fighting until one of them hit him on the head with the butt of his rifle, dropping him like a stone, and just after that, the same guy hit her and things went black for her too…
Monroe had tried to stop them hurting her, tried to help her, getting himself beaten bloody and unconscious doing it. Why the hell would he have done that?
He was tied up too, the tall, muscular body slumped on another chair strapped against one of the big tent poles, hanging on the ropes with blood still trickling down the side of his face from a cut above his temple, his bottom lip split and bruises in dark patches all over him. He was still looking at her, his eyes steady, calm, waiting, almost sad?
She looked back at him for a long moment, trying not to give anything away, trying to work out what was going on here. Why the sadness? What was he thinking? She wasn't ready to talk to him yet, hadn't worked out what she wanted to say, or if she wanted to say anything at all...
Besides, she was too busy taking stock, testing the ropes holding her against the chair and her own pole. She winced when almost every part of her body complained at the movement and stretched as much as she could in the ropes, trying to ease the burning ache of sitting for so long, of having her arms pulled behind her. The bastard who took her down had had a heavy fist too, and the side of her head felt tender, tight, bruised. And then there were the blows the other guys had landed on her ribs, shoulders and legs where they'd wrestled her to a standstill before Monroe went postal on their asses. She'd gotten some of her own moves in though too, her knuckles were sore, fingers stiff...
She gasped as pain stabbed through a shoulder when she stretched it a bit too far…
Monroe frowned and looked away, almost as if he cared.
It made her wonder about him even more. Was he feeling guilty for everything he'd done to her family maybe? But he hadn't had to help her. No one knew him here, not as Sebastian Monroe anyway. He could have just let them have her and saved himself. In fact it was in his interests to have her dead, that way she couldn't tell them who he was. All they knew was that she'd been trying to kill him and they'd probably think it was just jealousy or revenge or something like that. She shrugged, they'd be right about one thing anyway.
But it didn't explain why he'd tried to help her, and landed up here. Although that didn't change anything really, did it? Maybe she could bargain her way out of this…
She spotted her pack, it was dumped in a careless pile against the far wall of the tent. She looked for her bow but it was missing of course, which fitted with the way her luck was going at the moment. If she didn't have bad luck yada yada... She turned as far as she could to check the door, because there had to be someone…
'Two of them, just outside the door.' His voice was a hoarse whisper, thin and dry.
He was right. She could see the shadow of one of them on the ground outside and the silhouette of the other through the fabric of the tent.
Monroe spat out a bloody ball of spit, then leaned forward as much as he could, keeping his voice low… 'Charlotte, you know that if you tell Gould about me, we're both likely to end up on a waterboard in a patriot interrogation room, don't you?' He sucked in a breath and let it out again. 'Because they'll want you to tell them how you know me, and then they'll want to know everything else.' His eyes flicked over her, unreadable. 'And you might not believe me, but I don't want that to happen.'
Charlie had been staring at the door, thinking, but she jerked when she heard him say that, and knew he saw it, because she'd just been thinking of possible ways out of this, and giving him up had definitely been one of them. She didn't feel that good about it but she didn't feel that bad either, because she was pretty sure he'd be able to escape anyway and the patriots would end up with squat. He'd escaped from everything else hadn't he?
She was also sure that he was right about the waterboard thing too, and there were a hell of a lot of things in her head, things about her mom, Miles… Things she definitely didn't want the Patriots to know.
He was trying to get her to look at him. 'And even if the Patriots don't want you, which is unlikely, and you're thinking that Gould's going to let you go because you told on me, you're dead wrong. He's a snake, a mean fucking son of a bitch, and he really doesn't like women. He'll be pissed that you lost him one of his biggest earners and he'll want to take it out of your hide.'
She felt his eyes leave a burning trail over her skin…
'And because you happen to be young and… reasonably attractive.'
She flashed a look at him, 'thank you, I don't think…'
A dirty blond eyebrow lifted just a little, 'because of that, and if you can't find some way to get away from here, he'll put you in a trailer, chain you to the bed and set his own guys on you first, just to break you in. Then he'll put you on the market and before you know it you'll be hooked on heroin or some other shit, and taking on all comers for scraps of silver and a snort of powder off the floor.' His mouth was tight and eyes hard now, 'and if you fight them, which of course you will, they'll just drug you up, and then if you're still fighting after that they'll make you wish they'd killed you instead.'
She did look at him then, long and hard, 'I'd kill myself before I'd let them do that, Monroe, and take as many of them as I could with me.'
He matched her stare, 'couldn't blame you for that, but killing yourself is harder than you think, I know about that, believe me.' It sounded like the truth, from his perspective anyway, but then he seemed to be able to turn that on at will. This was Sebastian Monroe after all. The guy who'd managed to have a whole Republic named after him.
The thought of what he said could happen to her did give her the screaming chills though, but the feel of his eyes on her and the fact that he thought she was reasonably attractive had sent entirely different sensations rocketing southwards, although she'd never, ever tell him that. 'So he's that bad then? Gould?'
Monroe sat back again, stretching his neck and shoulders as much as he could. 'How do you think he got to be the one running this place? We're in deep, deep shit, Charlie, and our only hope is to work together and get out of here.' He shrugged, the eyebrow twitching… 'Then you can try to kill me again if you want, that is why you're here, isn't it?'
She shrugged, feeling her lips tighten into a feral grin, 'I almost did it too, Monroe…'
'Almost doesn't pay, Charlie.' He straightened up, eyes flashing to the door then back to hers, the mixture of warning, challenge, resignation and scorching rage in them holding her tighter than the ropes for a long, long moment because she couldn't, wouldn't believe that he could feel anything that much, that deeply. Not him...
She turned…
'Hello, you two, I hope you had a good rest because you'll need your energy for the show tonight.' The guy from last night walked into the tent, followed by the one who'd hit her…
Monroe sat up a little straighter, 'Gould.'
….
AN: Thanks again, I'll have part two up very soon (it's almost done), cheers, Magpie