Johann's my fallout oc. But everything else belongs to Bethesda and Obsidian.
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An earsplitting screen rang out from the direction of Salida del Sol. More echoed soon after. Dean and Christine, the only two of the group still left at the fountain, exchanged worried glances, knowing all too well the culprits.
The ghost people. Their call was unmistakable. At least a dozen from the sound of it, and they were approaching.
Christine's eyes darted towards the alleyway, scanning in a frantic panic for any sign of their other companion. She'd left to drop off Dog at his station nearly half an hour before, enough to worry her even before the screaming started, now coming from within the Plaza itself. Nothing stirred that she could see, not even the mist. Barely making a sound, she slowly brought her foot forward and her fists to the level of her eyes, bracing herself for a fight, eyes alert for any sign of movement.
A sudden crash came from down the boulevard. From the painful grunt that followed, they knew she'd made it back. Whether or not she'd made it back alone was another question entirely. The pound of footsteps, hard and fast on the cobblestone, and she came skittering into view dashing from around the corner. Christine met her eyes for a split second – terror, but, more importantly, determination shown in her expression, before she jerked back to glimpse her pursuers.
Another crash and one of the ghost people burst through the rafters above her, colliding hard with the pavement. It barely even faze him. He lunged towards her, taking out her legs with his weight. A loud "Oomph..." forced out when her head slammed to the ground. She scrambled forward, trying to get back to her feet, but the creature had already begun to climb on top of her. She watched, terrified, frantically fighting against him as he circled his fingers around her neck...
BANG - A single gunshot cracked the air. The monster's head flew back, blood splattering the air, until he lay lifeless and heavy on her torso. Shocked, Christine's eyes darted to Dean, and noticed the still smoking pistol aimed in his hand. His mouth opened in a shout - "God blast it, RUN!"
Johann rushed to kick off the lifeless weight, tearing a quick glance down the alleyway. More hunching forms had appeared, already rushing towards her. With a jolt, she jumped to her feet, and tripped over them in her mad dash to the fountain, barely managing to keep up right. Dean covered her with shot after shot so that the alleyway resounded with the sounds of gunfire. Less than half their numbers went down, and many that did got right back up, but, regardless, they all came to a sudden halt when caught in the glow of the fountain's hologram.
Johann stumbled into its safety, and, grasping the concrete rim of the fountain for support, turned to face her assailants. They stood mesmerized, creepily still and unmoving not half a dozen feet down the alley.
The three companions held their breath, not daring to tear their eyes away from the ghost people, waiting. Slowly, Christine edged her foot forward, getting ready to pounce.
In the tense silence, Johann's pants, breathless and quick, were all that echoed in the courtyard.
And yet the ghost people stayed their distance.
Before Christine had time to attack, they turned in collective and clambered back down the alley, disappearing around the corner to Puesta del Soul without a sound. Their exit was so sudden it was almost as if they'd never been there. The silence remained behind them, stifling and thick, until Johann collapsed to the ground with a sigh, white knuckles still gripping the fountain.
"Fuck'n hell..." she murmured against the cool concrete at her cheek, pressing her face against it.
Dean and Christine turned towards her simultaneously, the same question on both their lips, though only one could voice it.
"What on earth happened back there?" Dean cried. Johann tilted her head lazily in his direction, her breath still coming out in labored pants.
"Damn...damn things...am-ambushed...me..a-after...after Dog..." she took a break to catch her breath, and threw a hand in the air, motioning towards Salida del Sol.
"...After I set up Dog at the switching station," she finished, taking in a big gulp of air and letting her head fall back against the fountain. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them Christine was leaning over her, concern apparent in her face. She reached and out grabbed hold of her chin. Johann allowed her head to be moved to the side. The woman was staring intently at something in the corner of her forehead, just beyond her range of sight.
"What is it?" she brushed her fingers over the area, and found it was wet and sticky. Blood. She knew it even before she saw the red on her fingers. She cursed quietly and reached back up to try to find the source, her fingers unconsciously drawn to her scar. The one Benny gave her. It seared with a raw, jarring pain when she touched her.
Christine noticed her sharp intake of breath and ripped her hand away, shaking her head.
"Yeah, yeah I think I know what it is. Damn scar opened up when I fell.." she watched as Christine tore off a piece of one of their spare jumpsuits and pressed it to her forehead. Johann jerked away at the sudden pressure, but quickly settled back and allowed her to dab at the blood. She looked up towards Dean, who seemed to be marveling quietly from a distance at her battle scar.
"Why'd all the ghost people come after me like that? How'd they know to wait till I was alone?
Dean shrugged and reached into the pocket of his lapel, flicking open his lighter as he brought it out.
"Your guess is as good as mine, partner, " he plucked a cigarette from the pack, held it between his lips, and let the small flame flicker over the top. "While I wouldn't call the local her intelligent in any traditional sense of the word, I have to admit, they certainly know how to hunt. And they're quite clever in how they go about it..."
He inhaled slowly and blew a cloud off to the side.
"Seen 'em drag tourists into the cloud when they're knife spears break, hone in on the stragglers, tip-toe around to the back of the pack...they have the sobriety of a true predator, no doubt about it. And they're not too picky about how the bodies come to be, either - just as long as they're definitely not moving." The subject seemed to ruffle him, making his tone acerbic, and Johann could understand why.
As she opened her mouth to voice her shared sentiment, she felt Christine return the cloth to her head, the fabric somehow much wetter than before, and a searing pain cut through her when it rubbed against her scar.
"Fffff-" she ripped her head away violently. "What the HELL was-oh..." She noticed the open bottle of whiskey now sitting next to her on the fountain. She was disinfecting the wound, or attempting to at least with their scarce supplies. Christine was eying her warily, waving her with an air of impatience to come back over.
"Alright, alright – sorry about that. Just...just give me a warning next time, ey? That shit burns..." She scooted back beside her. Christine held her chin between her index finger and thumb, gingerly tilting it so she could get at the wound. Before bringing the rag to her forehead, she shot Johann a jokingly incredulous look - "Well?" - her eyes seemed to say.
"Yeah yeah, go on ahead. No need to get an attitude about it." She chidded, and was happy to see Christine smile for once. Though her good mood quickly dissipated when the rag touched her forehead again. She twitched and gritted her teeth, but didn't move away this time, managing to stay still if she clenched her eyes hard enough.
"How'd you get that little birthmark anyway?" She heard Dean ask. Peeking an eye open, she saw he was now standing much closer, practically right above her, curiously studying Christine go about her work.
"W-what, the scar?" Her breath caught when Christine brushed over it. "Some asshole dead guy shot me in the head while I was doing a job. Wasn't dead at the time, 'course, but..uh...yeah, you get what I mean."
She noticed a smile curl around Dean's cigarette from the corner of her eye.
"Am I to assume you got even for the, er, lovely parting gift he gave you?"
She grinned back up at him. "Damn straight!" she laughed. "Bastard left me for dead once he did the deed. Even buried me in the ground 'n everthin'. Well, I got right on back up, dusted myself off, and tracked his ass down to return the favor."
Christine quirked a tired brow. Johann might have sworn she caught sight of mild disbelief in her eyes, but she knew better – Christine seemed to have a habit of carrying doubt around with her like a shawl. Getting up, having finished cleaning the wound, Christine left the others and headed towards one of the vending machines for more supplies.
Dean remained beside her, a grin wide on his face. "Hmmph, guess I was right to get you on my side after all." His smile grew. "You seem to have something of a vengeful streak hiding behind all those smiles and good feelings."
"Strictly reserved for people who deserve it," she corrected him. "I don't take kindly to being mistreated is all."
He looked her up and down, slowly, deliberately, so much so that it made her skin itch. He murmured low into his cigarette, almost below her hearing, "...Remind me not to mistreat you then..." before he turned towards Christine, returning, arms full of stimpaks.
Johann watched his back for a moment longer, a hesitant suspicion creeping over her, but she waved it away when Christine offered her a stimpak, and happily accepted it from her outstretched hands.
"Much obliged, ma'am," she smiled, and injected herself with a practiced motion.
While the numbing burn of the medicine started to wash away any lingering remnants of her confrontation with the ghost people, Christine waved her hand in front of her face to get her attention, and motioned towards the switching station. She raised an eyebrow as if in question.
Johann nodded somewhat languidly. "Yeah, yeah I'll take you next. Let me just...let me just get the wind back in me."
She let her head fall back, and spied Dean sitting next to her on the side of the fountain. Reaching up towards him, she threw a hand on his knee and gave a it a squeeze. He made an interested noise.
"That was some nice shootin' back there, Tex," she smiled up at him. "Where 'n hell are my manners – here I didn't even thank you yet after you went and saved my life."
Staring out towards the Plaza, he waved her comment off, his cigarette in hand.
"Oh, no need to bother with pleasantries, partner...but I do appreciate it. And, er, not to sound rude, but really it was my arse on the line as well. We're married, remember?" He tapped at his collar.
A frown sullied her face for a moment. "Ah – yeah..." her voice trailed, but perked back up, almost without missing a beat. "...Well, you know what, I couldn't care less as to why ya did it. I'm still kick'n either way. So thanks!"
Giving him a final nod, she broke his gaze, her eyes wandering towards the rooftops, sullied and blistering with disrepair. She found her thoughts drifting back to the fight, to the ghost people. "I'll have to get ya to teach me how to shoot like that one a' these days..." She murmured half-halfheartedly without looking up.
That earned her a quirked brow. "That's assuming we manage to get out of the Madre with our skin still attached to our skulls of course. Well, eh...your skin, that is - not so much mine"
Though her gaze fell at first, recalling all at once that their lives were very still much in danger, she managed a laugh at his joke. "True, true. Guess we'll just have to wait and see."
A comfortable silence settled between the three of them after that. Dean puffed at steadily at his cigarette, studying the gates of the Sierra Madre, while Christine continued searching through their supplies to prepare herself. She tossed Johann some water, one of their last purified bottles, unfortunately, but she needed all of her strength if she was going back into that thicket of monsters outside the Plaza. Before long, she'd calmed down a bit and caught her breath. Rubbing a hand-ful of water on the back of her neck, she finally rose from where she'd collapsed, and motioned towards Christine.
"Alright, Chrissy, guesss we oughtta get goin'..." The exhaustion trailed in her voice, earning her a concerned glare from her companion. "Naw, naw – I'm fine. Just...just a little tired is all..."
She cracked her back, stretching. "God DAMN I can not wait till I can sleep in my own bed again. None a this damn mist to poison me, no ghost people screeching all creepy-like, no old men threatening to blow my head off at every turn just 'cause they've gone screwy..."
She thrust her hands on her hips in a determined stance, nodding to herself. "Yep, yep – just gotta wait till then. Alright, Christine, lets get goin'! The sooner I get ya'll in your places, the sooner we can high-tail it out a this deathtrap."
Though she rolled her eyes, Christine smiled, tickled by her sudden exuberance, and hefted her bag onto her shoulders. Another bag was held out towards Johann, and she swiped it onto across her shoulder as well. Now suited up and packing, and with a quick nod towards Dean, the two set off for the switching station.
Suddenly left by his lonesome and with, he felt, far too much silence surrounding him, Dean filled the air with a hearty chuckle and shook his head. Self-preservation. Strictly self-preservation. That's what he'd been acting upon when he'd shot at those monsters earlier. It was how the business worked here, how the boss-man had set it all up – if one of them dies, they all die. So between the mist, the collars, and the damned locals all snapping at their throats, he had his hands full watching out for himself.
So, no, he chuckled again to himself, it hadn't been out of the goodness of his bleeding heart that he stuck his neck out for the girl. Every instinct left in his irradiated brain had screamed at him to go the other way when she brought those locals towards them. But he knew that was just as good as signing his own will. And she'd thanked him for it - she'd smiled and sincerely thanked him for it. For being the opportunist bastard he'd always been. But you know what, he murmured, tapping his cigarette to his lips, it didn't hurt to let her go on thinking otherwise. No, not at all...
He took in a breath and let it out slowly, watching the smoke swirl and plume; it rose, fighting against the fog until the two became intertwined. Wisps of red and gray scratched at his throat in a way that was all too familiar. The same air he'd been breathing, the same poisonous smog slowly killing him, day in and day out, for the last two hundred years.
And there was his Madre. He'd hadn't even noticed he'd been staring at it. It was sitting so close, so teasingly close, out there on the horizon. As if it were only a mere few feet away...
As if it were only that easy.