Author's note: I have no real excuse for how this fic turned out, but as with everything I write, it turned into porn. And Vulpes is probably waaaay OOC, but y'know what? He wasn't in NV enough to have a character so Imma write him like Kabuto minus the mad scientist bits. This is probably going to be a series of interconnecting one-shots, because I really just want to write this pairing's relationship and not an actual plot-thing, so this story's gonna get pretty pointless.
August 2281, Nipton outskirts
Penny has always hated conducting business in Nipton. The town and its people just rubbed her the wrong way. Everyone was always trying to sell shit, be it food or drink, sex, or even slaves.
Hell, if she was being completely truthful, the entire former state of Nevada could just go and die in a fire, thanks. Once she conducted her revenge against the idiot that shot her in the head and stole her package, she would reclaim that package…deliver it to its correct owner and then never set foot in the Mojave Wasteland ever again. She'd head back east to the Commonwealth where things were less dusty, and the people were less…weird and tribal. Say what you will about the Commonwealth and their synth hysteria, at least they weren't trying to bring the Roman Empire back in the worst way possible or obsessively police their citizens like the NCR.
Both the NCR and the Legion could also go die in a fire.
Penny groans at the thought of having to lodge in Nipton for the night, but it was the only logical way she was going to get a decent night's sleep. She hadn't slept in a bed since Goodsprings and the fatigue from sleeping on the road was starting to wear down on her psyche.
It was late afternoon, and the Mojave sun was starting to set, and Penny was looking forward to her cheap motel bed.
Then she notices the smoke and her heart sinks.
"No…nonononono." Penny whimpers, running towards the smoke, readying her trusty katana, Mr. Pointy, for combat.
The smoke was coming from a bonfire of random junk that blockaded the road.
The town from what Penny could see, was relatively untouched and there was no one in sight.
Penny sighs in relief and sheathes Mr. Pointy, opting to switch to her 10mm pistol just in case.
Then, she hears a noise that sounded like a battle cry.
A man runs around the corner with a crazed look on his face.
Running right towards her.
Without a second thought, Penny aims her gun and shoots the man before he could reach her. His body falls with a heavy thump on the ground.
Then, she hears multiple footsteps rushing towards her position. She dives behind a house for cover and prepares to defend herself.
"He's dead, sir!" yells one of footstep owners. A man. Penny cranes her head to get a better look.
Legion. Shit. Shit. Shiiit. Of all the days to pass through Nipton, it just had to coincide with a Legion raid.
Penny lets out a silent sob. All she wanted to do was go to bed in an actual bed for the first time since she was shot in the head.
"I know you're still here, profligate. Show yourself! No harm will come to you." A different voice. Deep, smooth and laced with authority.
Penny lets out a ragged breath. If she ran, she was dead. She was most definitely outnumbered, so she couldn't fight her way out without suffering serious injury or dying a horrible death.
She decided to go out the honorable way, with a brave face. Closing her eyes, Penny forces her face into a neutral expression to face her captors, hands raised above her head.
There was a group of Legionnaires that met her as she made her way out of her hiding spot.
The leader, she assumes is the leader as he wasn't dressed like the others, wears a dog's head and dark goggles that shield half his face. As dumb as the ensemble looked, he commanded himself with a presence that stopped Penny from bursting out into laughter at his outfit.
"Now, that wasn't so bad was it?" he says, his mouth cracking into a slight smirk.
"That remains to be seen." mutters Penny.
"Well, since you've killed my messenger, I'm afraid you must take his place and to do that, you must be alive and free from bondage." says the dog hat man.
"Messenger for what, exactly?"
The dog hat man smirks evilly and walks towards Penny, taking her hand into his own and laces their fingers together. Penny's eyes widen in shock, yet she doesn't struggle. He has the upper hand here, and hand holding is probably the least awful thing she could think of doing as a Legion captive.
"Come with me, I'll show you."
Dog Hat Legion Boy lead Penny down the road from the town hall. The way was littered with crosses, with people on them, either dying or already dead and decomposing in the setting sun.
Penny observes the scene with a neutral expression, mindful of the dog hat man's eyes on her. He had let go of her hand and walked beside her as she takes in the horror before her.
Finally, Penny finds her voice.
"Why…?"
"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself - the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realize they were caught inside it, too."
Penny raises her eyebrows. True, she hated this town and the people in it, but still she wouldn't have murdered the entire town just because they would sell out people to the Legion to make a quick cap. Who the hell did this guy think he was?
"And you are…?"
"I am Vulpes Inculta, of Caesar's Legion. I serve my master as the greatest of his Frumentarii. We Frumentarii are soldiers of a different stripe, capable in battle, but skilled as infiltrators and agents as well."
"Penny Miles. I'm just a simple courier, passing through on my way to Novac."
"Hmm. A courier. The perfect occupation for spreading the news of our deeds to the NCR…"
Penny blinks in confusion. "Is…that all you want me to do? Go to the nearest NCR ranger station and tell them that you people slaughtered an entire town because they were terrible?"
Vulpes nods. "So, you agree that this was a wretched settlement?"
"I hated this town, but I also hate the entire Mojave Wasteland for the same reason, doesn't mean I want to slaughter the entire region just because of a handful of terrible people."
"We in the Legion wish to change the Mojave Wasteland for the better, hence this spectacle stands as the perfect object lesson."
"Surely the entire town didn't need to be slaughtered?"
"None of these people showed concern for anyone except themselves. If just one person had shown concern for a loved one, then the entire town would have been spared. But the people of this town failed to reach even my lowest expectations."
Penny looks at Vulpes in disbelief, speechless.
Vulpes stares back at her with a blank expression, before continuing. "There really was nothing redeemable about this town, so I had it wiped off the map. Such an eyesore shouldn't exist."
"That's…that's insane." Penny mutters under her breath.
"Is it? I find it quite logically sound." Penny inwardly shivers. Despite the man's obvious insanity, his voice sent pleasurable shivers down her spine. For a split second, she wonders what he looks like under that stupid hat and goggles. From what she could see, the man had well defined arms, a strong jawline and…. she made herself stop. As attractive as she found his voice, she would not let her hormones take over. Vulpes Inculta was a bad, bad man who crucified an entire town. She was not going to start swooning over such an evil man, no matter how sexy his voice was.
"You and I must have different interpretations of the phrase 'logically sound'. Slaughtering an entire town isn't logical it's crazy."
Vulpes smirks at her and moves closer to her. "Is that so?"
Too close. He was too close. "Y-yeah. W-what are you doing?"
He had placed his hand on her cheek and stroked it gently with his thumb. "I am touching you."
"W-why?"
"Because I want to. Obviously." Vulpes lowers his lips to Penny's neck, tracing light kisses along the side.
Penny tenses up. On one hand, his touch felt really, really good. On the other hand, why the hell was she letting him do this to her? This was wrong on so many levels.
But…she didn't hate it. Quite the opposite. She leans into his ministrations and wraps her arms around his torso, which makes him smirk against her skin.
"Come…let us continue this in a more…private setting."
Penny lets Vulpes lead her inside the town hall against her better judgement, up the stairs and to an office that lead to another room with a queen-sized bed. He slams the door and plasters her against the frame, sealing his lips to hers with vigor and she responds with equal enthusiasm, which elicits a sexy growl of approval from him.
Her hands immediately fly to his hat, throwing it off and running her fingers through his hair. It was black, and short, but soft and silky to touch.
Vulpes lets out a chuckle and breaks the kiss to rid himself of the goggles covering his face revealing the handsome face of a man roughly her age perhaps even younger, with piercing blue eyes.
"Was my headdress offensive to you?" he asks, an amused expression gracing his handsome features.
"It was repulsive and stupid looking."
He leans his head against Penny's neck and lets out a chuckle next to her ear before pressing heated kisses against her neck.
Penny gasps at the sensation. The man was very good with his mouth.
"You're surprisingly willing to engage in intimacy with me, despite what you've witnessed." growls Vulpes against her neck. He grinds his hips into hers.
"Yeah, well. It's been a rough week. I think I deserve some fun after getting shot in the head, robbed, left for dead, and on top of all that, witness to the mass execution of an entire town."
Penny brushes the hair from her temple to show off the fresh scar from where the bullet entered her skull. Vulpes studies the wound with interest, caressing her hair as his lips move from her neck to near her temple.
"So, you're the courier in my reports. Very impressive." he murmurs softly into her hair.
"I assume you're going to account this dalliance as a result of brain damage?"
Penny rolls her eyes. "I still don't condone what you've done here."
Vulpes smirks and kisses the scar on her temple as he unbuckles his belt, throwing it aside as Penny unbuckles her armored jacket and tosses it next to the growing pile of garments.
"Yet here you are, undressing yourself in front of the man who orchestrated it."
Penny glares at him. "Brain damage."
"If you say so." Vulpes pulls her into a heated kiss and grabs her hips and grinding them against his arousal. He grabs Penny's ass, taking her off her feet and depositing her on the bed. He removes his tunic and boots, revealing a well-built physique.
Penny tugs at the zipper of her Vault suit, but Vulpes holds up a hand before she could unzip it.
"I want to undress you myself." says Vulpes, already removing her boots.
He kisses her slowly and deliberately, probing his tongue against her lips before tangling it with her own tongue in a gentle caress. For a guy who had just crucified an entire town, he was being a surprisingly gentle and attentive lover. The man was a walking contradiction.
Breaking the kiss, he returned to her neck, this time trailing lower to her throat, pausing to pull at the zipper down to her stomach, before moving his lips to her collarbone, pausing at a particularly sensitive area that made Penny gasp.
Penny tangles her legs with his and presses herself against his arousal in retaliation. Vulpes growls and kisses her fiercely, pressing himself hard against her.
"Careful" he says between heated kisses, "If you tease me too much, I'll take you right now."
"Maybe that was the intent." Penny purrs. "Foreplay can wait til round 2. We do have all night after all."
"Planning to stay the night, are we? How presumptuous." drawls Vulpes. He shrugs Penny's vault suit off her shoulders and begins work on unhooking her bra.
"It's the least you could do after making me witness such atrocities." Penny inwardly slaps herself. People died, she shouldn't make light of it. The fact that she's currently so numb to such things could definitely be attributed to brain damage.
Vulpes discards her bra and starts kissing down her chest, taking a breast into his hand and latching his mouth on the other. After that, Penny discards all thoughts of how wrong all of this was and focused only on what Vulpes was doing to her body.
After switching breasts, Vulpes removed her suit and panties, leaving her completely nude.
He then stops to remove his own underwear, revealing a very impressively sized penis.
Lining himself up with her core, he pushes himself inside her inch by inch, both of them exchanging sighs of pleasure. He felt amazing, she decided, and she pulled him down for a kiss, which he reciprocated with equal passion as he began to move himself inside of her.
"You know, for a guy who murders an entire town, you're quite gentle." comments Penny, breathless as she snaps her hips against Vulpes' in time with his own thrusts.
Vulpes scoffs. "It's not as if I enjoyed it. A… necessary evil that contributed towards the greater good."
"That…makes no sense."
"I don't expect a profligate woman such as yourself to understand. Must we discuss this now? I'm a little…busy." Vulpes hits a certain spot inside Penny that causes her to scream. Taking the cue, he hit that spot over and over again, causing the pressure inside of her to build to a blinding level.
"Come for me." Vulpes whispers, and she does and it's glorious. He groans and spills himself inside her after a dozen more thrusts.
Afterwards they lay together under the covers. Like a normal couple.
"Is Vulpes Inculta your real name?" asks Penny.
"No…It is the name I was given when my tribe in Utah was consumed by the Legion twenty years ago." Vulpes answers, idly stroking Penny's hair.
"How old were you when that happened?"
"Eight or nine"
Penny makes a noise of surprise. He was only four or five years older than her. Vulpes lifts Penny's head and engages her in a soft and lazy kiss.
"How about yourself? Is Penny your real name?" asks Vulpes after he breaks the kiss and lounges on his side, his hand falling to her waist as he strokes the skin there
Penny does the same, leaning into his embrace, enjoying the heat of his skin on her own and his idle caressing of her waist. "As far as I know it is."
"You don't sound like you're from the Mojave." He kisses her cheek and the hand on her waist strokes the skin on her lower back.
"I'm not. I'm from Diamond City. Born and raised." She pulls him into another kiss.
"You're far from home. What possessed you to travel all the way across the continent?"
Penny shrugs. "Felt trapped, wanted to get out. Simple as that."
"Leave anyone behind?"
"Yeah…I have a younger brother, Travis. He's a bit of a mess, but he's doing well for himself running the radio station. He found his niche in Diamond City…I never did. So, I left. Found a job as a courier. Pay was lousy, but I got to travel, and the job was flexible and I'm probably boring you with my dull life story, aren't I?"
Vulpes laughs and shakes his head. "Information is never dull to me, carissima."
Penny shivers. "I bet that's what you call all the girls that you lure into bed with you."
"Not as many as you're thinking, I assure you." Vulpes says with a chuckle, leaning down to kiss Penny again, this time with more heat.
They had sex several more times during the evening before passing out in a mess of tangled limbs.
The next morning, Penny awoke alone to a note on the dresser.
Vale, carissima; until we meet again.
Isaac Fox