* A small, quick one-shot for people on Tumblr. I do not own Fallout: New Vegas or any characters involved.*
It was the acrid stench of smoke that filled his lungs that always seemed to make him focus. The hefty weight of it polluting his innards until they were as black as everyone thought they were.
Vulpes Inculta loved his job. Almost sinfully so. Nothing else could ever offer him the constant change and challenge his work offered. None could ever come close, it was stimulation he wanted and he found it in the click of metal against metal. The heat, pressure, weight of something beautiful and dangerous gripped between his black, leather clad fingers.
The waning heat of midday shuffled about him in lazy, twisting waves. It licked his pale skin, forcing a slick sheen of perspiration to condense just under the collar of his shirt. He ignored it, so focused were the icy grey eyes that bore casually through the meticulously cleaned scope of the slender Mosin-Nagant rifle between his skilled hands. He held it like a lover. Gloves fingering the heated metal lightly as he re-adjusted his posture for the fifth time that hour.
How long had it been? Six hours? Eleven? It didn't much matter; he'd keep waiting even if the heat scorching through him forced a sort of reluctant panic to clench at his chest. Vulpes Inculta was not prone to flights of recklessness, he was patience incarnate. Cold. Efficient. Caesar wanted someone dead and he was there to answer that call as subtly as he was dictated too. The Legion Mob had been the ruling faction of the New Vegas strip for the last twenty years; he was there to ensure that continued as one of its Enforcers.
The roof top had become almost unbearably stifling. The heat seemed to draw into the dark fabric of his clothing, as if his slight frame was built for removing all sense of warmth from the world. Though sweat soaked through his shirt; his vest already discarded to prevent heat stroke, it didn't seem enough. Hastily he released the slender neck of the Ex-Dragoon to dig a digit between the knot of his tie and his Adams apple, tugging it down roughly before letting out a relieved sigh. He might have been one of the most fidgety assassins of the Legion but no one seemed to mention it. Partially because anyone who bothered mentioning it found themselves short a finger. Or two.
It was fastidiousness that dictated this, not any real affinity for long ranged weaponry. Inculta mused on the feel of something much more substantial and personal between his fingers. A flicker of guilt rippled through his gut, as if the sniper rifle he held was the other woman. It was squashed easily, even in solitude Vulpes did not linger on emotion. His coveted ripper did not have the subtlety that he required. That Caesar required.
A brief flicker of tan caught his gaze, pulling him out of his musings as he noticed the well-dressed figure of a man step out of one of the many Strip Casinos. Vulpes noticed the drunken stagger, the sappy grin. It would make things easier. These tribal heathens, how he loathed to admit he had once been one of them. He had been changed, but these savages merely put on whatever dandy pre-war suit they could find in hopes of seeming far more sophisticated than they were.
Degenerates. Profligate scum.
A curl of satisfaction broke free on the normally taciturn features of the Legion assassin. The scope at once aimed towards the slobbering target as a slender finger moved back to caress the polished trigger. A very real rush of anticipation crawled down the pale man's spine, pooling in his stomach before ebbing outwards into a dull ache. The nose of the rifle shifted to follow the sloppy movements of the drunken Tribal. Back and forth, down and up. Vulpes might have been annoyed with how much motion his target insisted on making, but it was of little consequence.
Inhale.
One. Two. Three. Bang!
Exhale.
The head of the suit clad man snapped back, blood and grey matter spattering the concrete and the back of his calves before his body crumpled to the ground in a heap of quivering dead meat. A scream, one of the other casino patriots. A woman. Horror and panic gripped the people down below, no one thought to follow the trajectory with their eyes, none of the strip frequenters were educated enough to even consider it.
The rifle lowered; Vulpes was successfully hidden by the large, flickering neon sign that overlooked the chaos below. A hand idly reached down to pick up the damp blue vest from the gravelly roof top; pulling it back over his shoulders, Vulpes smoothed out his hair and tucked the rifle under his armpit before opening to access door down into the building below.
The rush of cold within the building interior was enough to chill his flushed state, silence followed him as he plucked a match and a bent cigarette from the right pocket of his pants. He moved through the casino casually, placing the papery vice between his lips as he passed by alerted bystanders. Vulpes didn't need to hide the weapon from view as he exited the casino doors, even as people continued to wail and crowed the chilling body of his once target. No one heeded his presence, even as he calmly struck the match against the silver buckle of his belt.
The pale man lit the cigarette as he eyed the discord through the thick shades of his glasses, taking a long, slow drag of it and cocking his head back to exhale it all into the air above his head. It filled his senses, took him away from his handy work and the warm ache of satisfaction at another success. It made him focus. He had once worried about his usefulness to Caesar once they had taken control of the Strip.
Fortunately for him, he could always count on there being a profligate who needed a bullet in the head.