She knew it was Jericho's big fat mouth that got them into hot water.
If the fucking stupid bastard wouldn't shut up for two minutes, she was going to stab him in a very painful and very private place. She'd decided that five minutes after hiring him, hearing the constant stream of grumbling and the cursing and the hacking and spitting and coughing up blood. Started to wonder why she'd even asked him to come with her, but she'd paid him and she was not getting rid of him until he worked off the thousand caps hire-on bonus.
Jane was a savvy businesswoman. She was not going to get taken in. Jericho would work off that money, so help her, God.
She didn't open her eyes, right away, but considered the pain she felt. This―this was entirely too much pain. She was starting to think she ought to shoot the old man in the balls and leave his ass somewhere out on the wastes to bleed to death or be found by those raiders he was always so damn paranoid about. Would get her killed, he would.
She was lying on her stomach, in a pile of stinking guts and flesh, on a rocky cavern floor. She was hurting and disoriented. Wounds across her upper back, shoulders, across her hip and down her legs were sounding off like alarms. Not even her leather armor could have withstood such a heinous attack―
She blinked and tried to move her arms. Her left side was completely disabled. Couldn't move her arm. Well, fuck. Her right arm was weakened and trembling as she moved it an inch―and froze in fear.
Behind her, somewhere in the cavern, she heard Jericho's voice echoing. He was panicking, his tone high-pitched and terrified, and the words he spoke were nonsense. His pleading stirred some emotion in her head, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut nervously. It rose in a crescendo of pain and horror and then he screamed―
Jane went as still as she could, listening. Jericho didn't stop screaming until a sickeningly wet ripping sound met her ears. It was far too quiet, then. Jane's heart thudded dully in her chest. Fuck! Where were they, what was going on?!
The grumpy old ex-raider didn't make any further noise. Must be dead. She opened her eyes a little and felt pain in the side of her face. Coagulated blood in her ear and along her cheek had adhered her face to the pile of gore that she laid upon. Her head was pounding, and she could tell her cheek had been ripped open to the bone, the loose flap of skin shifting with her small movements. With a grimace, she stilled herself and cast her eyes around the cavern. Tried to figure out what was going on, where the hell she was. Tried to make her fingers move into a pocket, to find a stimpak and use it.
A strange breathy noise behind her made her go still. She pretended to be dead, closing her eyes and holding her breath. The wheezy sound moved closer and soft footfalls came from somewhere to her left. Little puffs of air from behind her moved the hair on her head. Dammit, why hadn't she kept that power armor? She could have used it, right now.
A nasty smell met her nose. Aside from the gore under her, which didn't smell very pleasant, she could make out some kind of musky smell. Like a large animal, a predator―
Fuck! Fuck, she was in the deathclaw sanctuary! FUCK!
She could feel the thing standing in front of her. It made a strange noise. Why wasn't it―why didn't it try to kill her? She clamped her mouth shut and willed herself not to make any noise.
Jane's eyes popped open as a large clawed hand wrapped around her head, using its finger pads to grip her skin. She was lifted from the ground; she let her left arm fall limp, but her right instinctively went up to the clawed hand and grabbed the wrist attached to it. Jane growled as the deathclaw held her up in the air and tried to strike out with her right side, but the creature shook her back and forth violently, making her nauseous. Pain screamed through her body, blood droplets flying off her as she was shaken.
Jesus Christ, she was going to die―
The deathclaw examined her for a moment. She wasn't going to beg, or plead, or scream like that pussy Jericho. It might be a ruthless and dumb beast but she wasn't going to let it have the fucking pleasure of hearing her crying. She managed a brief, tiny smile as she realized how dumb that sounded. But Jane was not scared of these things, she'd killed many of them in the past―
She swore she wasn't afraid. She was not afraid―
It lifted its hand and dragged a claw up her leg across the leather, slicing through it and the top layer of her skin. She could barely feel the pain, focusing instead on gritting her teeth and the blood that flooded her mouth from the wound on her cheek. The deathclaw made a weird little breathy noise, hot air puffing around her from the deformed nose.
It hadn't diced her into bits, yet, so―so it must be playing with its food―she grunted and hissed and spat at it, but did not whimper or cry. Whatever was going on, she was―she was going to get out of this. She promised herself.
The last shreds of her belt finally went and the lower half of her clothes fluttered to the ground in a heavy blood-covered pile. The deathclaw looked at the pants and swiveled its head back to her. Jesus Christ―she swore and spat at it again, finally feeling the pain in her leg, the blood seeping out and dripping from her knee.
It sniffed her leg and bit her, sharp teeth anchoring onto the skin around the wound. It held its mouth on her leg, not moving, and she felt a rough sensation across the flesh that was exposed. It was incredibly painful―the stubbled tongue grating across her exposed thigh muscle made her cry soundlessly, and she finally cried out.
Jane jammed her mouth together and muffled the cry, squeezing her eyes shut and trying her best not to react. Fuck! What the fuck―it was lapping up her blood―like a dog at a water bowl, it was drinking her blood―she thought back to Meresti Metro Station and a bubbling laugh started in her chest. She wondered what Vance would think of this! Her head began to feel light. She was probably going to bleed to death before the deathclaw killed her. There was so much blood...
Maybe that was a good thing, considering. She would just go to sleep, and never wake up.
After a moment, the deathclaw released her leg and moved its head to sniff at her jacket. She kept her eyes closed and panted in fear, feeling the sheer power of the creature as it held her, feeling the warmth coming off of its skin. No one got this close to a deathclaw without dying―she was close enough to notice it had one of those weird Enclave head collars on. Shit, it was smart enough to follow orders―so what was it fucking doing?!
Her leg had stopped bleeding. That was... odd. Maybe there was something in their spit―the pain didn't feel as intense, either. Coagulation agents in the saliva, maybe. They were ungodly tough and she'd never seen one injured out in the wastes, but, then, she'd assumed that they ate each other when wounded.
Jesus, Jane, this isn't the time for speculation! It was moving its head again―the deathclaw put its nostrils to her skin just above her privates, breathing in and out. The feeling of the hot breath across her flesh made her break out in goosebumps.
"Hey now," she mumbled, her head light and limbs twitching from loss of blood. "No way to treat a lady."
Jane, what the fuck. Talking to the thing? She snorted weakly. God, she was so fucked! It wasn't even paying attention to her as she spoke, just breathing on her.
The deathclaw made a short burbling noise and pressed its nose into her privates, breathing hot air against her. Jane jerked backward, pushing herself away―Jesus Christ! What the fuck―
The same rough sensation that she'd felt on her exposed thigh muscles spread across her mound, rough like a studded leather glove, and her eyes popped open in surprise and fright. "Jesus Christ!" she shrieked, lifting her least-injured leg and kicking out. The deathclaw rumbled in its throat, grabbing her leg with its free hand and pulling it upward.
Jane didn't even know―what―what the fuck was it doing―
She was tossed to the ground, bouncing a few times, coming to a rest against the cavern wall. Even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't move. The pain was just too much.
She opened her eyes again―closed them when she landed―and saw it coming for her, and her voice caught in her throat like a cue ball lodged in a pipe. Jesus, she wanted to scream so fucking loud right now―screw her pride or whatever she'd felt before, she needed to give voice to her terror―
The deathclaw bobbed its head up and down a few times. Almost looked like it was dancing; she watched it through blurred eyes, wondering what the fuck it was doing. It was ridiculous! She blinked a few times, feeling the blood from her cheek dripping down her face. The fuck―
It opened its mouth, showing her those horrible teeth, then extended its arms―she jammed her eyes shut and curled herself up, trying not to imagine what it would be like to be ripped limb from limb. Too bad for her, she had an active imagination.
One of the clawed hands came out and pressed down on her chest, pinning her to the floor. The other pushed her legs aside, and that hot air was back on her privates.
WHAT THE FUCK―she couldn't scream, her throat had closed up in horror, Jesus Christ the fucking thing was―what―tasting her?!
Oh God and it felt good―
Jane whimpered and lifted a weak arm, striking out clumsily at the arm holding her chest. No reaction from the deathclaw, which seemed content to continue licking her roughly. She could barely breathe, she was close to panic―what the fuck was it doing―what the fuck!?
The tongue of the deathclaw moved lower and she jerked when it dipped inside of her, moving around her opening. Jesus Christ! Jane couldn't stop herself―a long, loud moan ripped from her throat; part fear, part pain, part―oh God, her body was betraying her now―part pleasure, because that tongue was scraping across her insides in the weirdest feeling she'd ever had. But it felt―Jesus, it felt good―her lower half jerked under the creature's head as it continued―fuck, maybe it was tasting her―it would probably bite her in half any second now―
She was weakened. Still disoriented from the pain and being unconscious. Had no idea what the fuck was going on and didn't know―how to react. The rumbling noise from the deathclaw's throat sent shivers across her thigh where it rested, that monstrous head pressed into the junction of her legs. Jesus Christ, it felt good―too good―and she was still screaming inside her head―
It was too much. She made a determined effort to stop herself from vocalizing her orgasm, but it was nearly impossible. Jane was always making too much noise like that―funny though, that was when Jericho did stop talking, usually―she laughed, headily, incredulously. This was just too fucking much.
The deathclaw stopped, turning a baleful eye onto her face, sniffing at her hair. She could smell herself on its face as it drew nearer to her, and it licked her cheek. That bumpy tongue slipped into the cut on her cheek, pushing itself through the muscle. Jane clenched her teeth in agony, willing herself not to panic, not to make any more noise. The tongue slipped down inside her cheek and around her teeth and she shuddered, feeling it moving across the inside of her mouth.
No words came to mind. She was already dead. Her brain gave up reasoning and played the ever-familiar Vault 101 intermission music through her head.
Eventually it withdrew its tongue and made the burbling noise again. The pain in her cheek abated and the throb of her heartbeat in her face grew faint. That―whatever, the healing factor they must have―why the fuck―
She could feel it moving its body to face hers, parallel to her. A strangled and weak laugh erupted from her throat. Stray thoughts in her head overpowered the music for a moment, wondering just what the Enclave was doing with deathclaws that they would need to train them to do tha―
And then there was pain, the kind of pain that she would never have been able to conceptualize in her own mind. Pain that rocketed through her and made her head explode and her stomach churn and she vomited all over the place. The deathclaw wasn't moving anymore, but making odd bobbing movements above her, that weird noise coming from it―like it was trying to soothe her. She cackled out a terrified laugh and spit and vomit and blood flew everywhere.
Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she found a logical line of thought and latched onto it. What was it―? Chameleon... right? Yeah, that―that sounded right. Sounded―okay, so―biology class. Chameleons were live bearers―males had―how did that work? Hemipenes. A vivid image in her mind―
Jesus Christ, Mary, and Fucking Joseph―she was already in enough pain to last a lifetime―and that thought made it worse―this pain lasted a long time, too long, she couldn't do it―
Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain―then more pain as it pulled away, gurgling and making weird rumbling noises in its throat. She was broken and couldn't do anything more than let her body take physical response to the pain.
She threw up again, stomach acid all over her chest and the deathclaw's arm that had her pinned to the ground. It moved away from her, sitting back on its hind legs and staring down at her. Then it was gone, and she was busted and broken, weeping into the stone under her head, curled up against the wall.
Jesus fucking Christ.