Summary: Revenge? Easy. Taking over New Vegas? Doable. Running it? Work in progress. Post Game, AU Timeline
WARNINGS: Language, Suicide, Depression, Self-Harm, Human Trafficking, Mentions of Rape/Non-Con, PTSD and Other Mental Disorders, Murder, Slavery, Prostitution, Forced Prostitution, Drug-Use and Addiction, Alcoholism, Violence, War Violence, Violence Against Children, Gun Violence, Gore, Mutilation, Torture, etc. Be aware that if it's concurrent with the Fallout Universe, then it's fair game.
A/N: This started as a quick little character study/romance fic, but, as usual, my brain insists on epic length plots, haha. We're going to be here awhile folks. Also, please don't let the excessive angst of this first bit turn you off. Boone isn't in a happy place right now, but I have no intention of writing a mopey story. Plot will happen, characters will evolve, just give them some time to do so.
He recognized the woman walking towards the rusted gates that made up part two of Novac's defense. (They'd never been used for that purpose though. Knock on wood, but, so far, nothing had ever made it past him or Vargas.)
It'd been several months since she'd last appeared in the small town. However, it was hard to forget someone who travelled around with a flying robot. Even harder for, someone like him, to forget someone as, armed to the teeth, as her. She'd been pegged as a possible threat last time, even more so now.
The decent weapons of her previous visit had been replaced with two superior rifles. One was colored with desert camouflage, semi-automatic, and packing a long barrel and scope impressive enough to make the sniper in him want to give the whole package a pretty serious test run. The other gun was darker, larger caliber, and probably lever action if he was seeing correctly. It was hardly anything to scoff at either, and even the weathered pistol at her hip looked a bit better than the average stock.
A freeside junkie could do some serious damage packing any of the three. Someone with actual skill would be positively lethal.
He just wasn't sure what part of the spectrum she fell on.
She'd be on his radar either way, for however long she chose to stay. If he remembered correctly, Manny and her had been best buds by the end of her last visit. But, he didn't necessarily trust his former partner's judgement nowadays. If anything, her chumminess with the other sniper only tagged her further in his mind.
Trust.
What a joke.
Legion had infiltrated the town before. If she wasn't female and overly flashy for a spy...but no. That was ridiculous. A healthy amount of suspicion versus outright paranoia were different things entirely-
-oh forget it. He'd be keeping an eye on her. It was impossible to trust anyone nowadays. Humanity had lost its right to the benefit of the doubt long ago in his eyes.
He, himself, was a prime example of why they didn't deserve it.
Carla-
He shook his head to dispel that thought. The sniper knew he couldn't let his mind wander that path while on duty. Later. He had a bottle of something strong in his room, and a couple syringes filled with something even stronger. He'd think about it, about her, later.
"Boone."
The ex-soldier whirled around and pointed his rifle at the voice. It was only a flash of clarity and, instant recognition of the other man, that prevented him from pulling the trigger.
Fuck.
Not okay.
Manny's eyes were darting back and forth between Boone's gun and his face. "Easy man. Point that somewhere else."
"Don't sneak up on me," Boone replied, lowering his weapon and turning back to watch the Mojave.
Vargas probably didn't deserve to get shot, but Boone wasn't inclined to think he deserved an apology either. (Beyond that, the twenty-six year old sniper wasn't the type to reveal just how shaken he was nowadays.)
"I didn't-" his former spotter shook his head and stood a little looser, adrenaline fading as a result of not having a gun pointed at him. "Whatever. It's my shift now."
"Is it?" Boone asked, looking at the sky.
The sun was coming up. He hadn't realized it was so late...early. Whatever.
"You alright, man?" Manny said, breaking his musings. "You seem a little out of it."
"Fine," Boone replied.
"Fine?" Manny said.
"Yeah."
"Boone-"
"Look, you gonna get out of my way or what?"
"Sure, yeah man. Go get some sleep, I guess," the other sniper said, making room for him to leave through the door.
Boone exited silently, and quickly made his way out of dinosaur. The woman was entering one of the hotel rooms across the courtyard. She, and her robot, slipped in and disappeared before he could really get a good look at her.
Still, lightly muscled, athletic, on guard. Moves with experience.
Probably not a junkie.
His internal threat meter went up just a bit.
Damn. Maybe alcohol wasn't the best choice tonight-day, whatever. (Fuck. He really was out of it.) He closed his eyes and allowed himself to lean up against the side of Dinky for just a seco-and back at attention. The man shook his head but stopped as soon as his vision started swaying.
The temptation of alcohol was winning. Couldn't sleep without it most nights. In that case, maybe it was more accurate to say the temptation of his springy mattress was pulling ahead.
He started walking towards his room as he considered his options. Realistically, he recognized that it wasn't healthy to only rest after drinking himself into a drunken stupor and passing out. Even more realistically, he recognized that he wasn't really in the mood for caring about his personal health.
There was always tomorrow, later. Maybe he'd get clean. Maybe he'd pick up another batch of chems. His stash was running a bit lower than he liked it to.
Maybe he'd just pull the trigger and disapea-
No.
He wasn't-couldn't-
He didn't have the fucking right to do that. All he could do was wait. Lately, there was a charge in the air, a feeling that it was all...going to be over soon.
Something had changed. Something was coming.
Or, maybe he just really needed a drink. Goddamn, he was starting to sound as crazy as No-Bark.
The sniper scoffed, then slammed his hand down on the door handle to his room. His vision swayed again as he fought to maintain his balance. The handle squeaked and his hands shook, one on the door, and the other in his pockets, searching for his key.
A few seconds of blind groping had the key inserted and the door opened. He fumbled for the lock and leaned against the door once it snapped into place.
His head was pounding.
He panted unsteadily and looked around the room, which was the same as ever. Bottles of liquor, old food, dusty sheets and blood stained floors, a carry over from that one time-
And his bed. Cheap, uncomfortable, blue sheets and flat pillows.
Alcohol won.
A/N: Alright, so just to get some housekeeping out of the way, for those of you who are interested - This story is POST the events of the Hoover Dam battle. However, all other questlines are following an AU timeline. They will be used and ignored as it's convenient to the plot. In general, I figure that the Courier would have been more concerned with stopping/winning the looming war, rather than finding talent for the Tops, helping out the King, stopping people's cattle from being stolen, recruiting random companions, etc., and have a drafted a world/plot/timeline that reflects that.
As far as updates go, as things stand, this is a 'stretching my abilities as a writer' side project. I'm not expecting a ton of traffic, especially considering how old New Vegas is getting. So, I'm writing this entirely for personal enjoyment and self-growth. Because of that, updates are on a purely, 'as I feel like it' schedule. However, 'The Weight of the World' is fully outlined/planned out, so I definitely intend to stick with it. In addition to that, if it ends up being more popular than I'm expecting it to be, I'm not at all opposed to moving it up on the priority list, haha.
Also, this chapter is really more of a prologue, rather than Chapter 1. Future chapters should be longer.
Anyways, thanks for reading! This writing style is quite a bit outside of my comfort zone, so I'm very interested in hearing what you think. Feel free to leave a review on your way out.