The five are clustered haphazardly around the cooking fire, having pulled up blankets or bits of rubble to make comfortable on. The bones left from the shared feast blacken among the embers and the comfortably lazy feeling that follows a big meal permeates. Scar is plaiting and unplaiting Bonnie's hair and the brunette looks half-asleep. Twig is a good storyteller, and his three companions have been happy to let him relate their tale, throwing in additions or corrections as needed. Larry has been uncharacteristically quiet, even-or perhaps especially-when Twig revealed the ghoul's shady not-so-distant past dealings. His eyes darted to Alex, nervously remembering the hatch marks in the stock of her rifle. Much to his relief, the possibly heat-crazy smoothskin seemed to take it in stride.
"So that's how we ended up all traveling together. I guess it was kind of a long story," Twig says with a glance around.
"I share your sorrow for Ben," Alex says, unsure of what else to say. She imagines it must be the hardest for Larry; she can't imagine having known someone for over a century. She lifts her battered canteen of precious water.
"To friends not present," she announces, pouring a small libation on the ground. "And to those who are." She drinks from the vessel and passes the canteen left to Scar, who repeats the ritual and passes to Bonnie. The canteen makes its way around the circle until reaching Larry, who pours a few drops but does not drink, and holds the canteen out to Alex.
"Aren't you going to drink to your friend?" Alex asks, making no move to take the canteen. Larry glares at her.
"You wouldn't drink after me."
"Why wouldn't-oh." A crease between Alex's eyebrows deepens. "Oh, honey, I'm not that kind of smoothskin. Drink up."
The blonde's comment catches Larry off-guard. Smoothskins don't refer to themselves as such-ghouls do. Somehow it's aggravating to have the word appropriated. Fine, she'd drink after him-whatever. He sips from the canteen just so she'll take it back and he won't have to keep holding the damn thing.
"How about you? What's your story?" asks Bonnie, looking at Alex curiously.
The older woman stands to take the canteen from Larry, her callused fingertips purposely grazing his ragged fingers, and glances around all the faces ringing the fire.
"Isn't as interesting as y'all's story, but I'll tell it if you want me to."
"Go ahead."
Alex stretches her legs and hunkers again.
"Well, my folks were-I guess as close to farmers as you can get these days. We worked our fingers to the bone gettin' a few things to grow in this Wasteland dust. Hunted and trapped, too, ate what we killed and sold what skins we couldn't use." Alex pokes the embers with a leg of the disassembled spit.
"I kept doin' it after they died, took in a handful of people to help out around the place. We built it up, even dug a well. That's when it really took off, when we got clean groundwater for irrigation. We started getting somethin' that you might actually call crops."
"So what happened? Why aren't you still farming?" Bonnie asks softly.
"Well, the closest town was about three days out. I came back from trading one day and somebody had burned the place to the ground. Killed everybody there, too."
Scar, Twig, and Bonnie all make unconscious gestures of concern or anger. Larry remains impassive. Nobody gets to have a good thing, not for long, anyway. It's not out of a sense of cruelty on his part, it's simply that Larry knows that's how it is. It's been that way for the last two hundred years and since man crawled out of the ooze.
Alex clears her throat, spits into the fire.
"That's been ten years ago. Got my theories as to who might have done it, but that's probably all they'll ever be. Theories. And that's really all there is to it. I'm still hunting, trapping and trading 'cause it's what I know how to do." She glances around at everyone's expressions. "Shit. Sorry to end on such a downer."
"We've all known loss," offers Bonnie.
"Hey. It's the apocalypse," Scar adds.
Larry continues to sit a little ways back from the dying fire, arms crossed.
"I don't get it," says Twig, and the group gapes at him. "No, I mean I don't get why someone would do such a thing. I mean, I understand why someone might kill somebody and take their stuff. But burning the place down? That's just mean."
Alex meets his gaze, a sharp glint in her eye.
"I'm pretty sure it was a hate crime, Twig. Let's please just leave it at that. It doesn't do to go opening up old wounds." Twig nods, albeit uncertainly, and Alex takes a moment to center herself. Scar stifles a yawn; Bonnie is dead weight against her.
"Anyway. How about we get some shut-eye? I'll take first watch, since I'm nothing if not rested."
"Sounds good. Larry, you're on second watch," Scar instructs.
"Gee, thanks," the ghoul snorts.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Alex sits cross-legged in the sparse grass, rifle across her lap, rolling a culm between her chapped lips. It's been a quiet three hours, as expected, but she feels protective of these young folk. It's good to have something to protect besides herself on this warm, moonlit night. She's been considering whether she wants to wake Larry in the next hour or not. The man has a right to be ten times as tired as any of them, all things considered, and Alex wouldn't mind being alone with her thoughts. The tall ghoul whom she finds so handsome didn't seem to dig her in the slightest aside from a quick leer at her tits, and it'd just be painful for both of them if she were to offer that back rub a third time. It's good reason for her to consider just standing watch all night and avoid having to talk to him altogether.
Someone is stirring within the structure but Alex remains motionless. No reason to bestir herself only to intercept someone on their way to hit the head. She watches the haze around the stars, breathes deeply of the thinner nighttime air. Footsteps are coming up behind her, angling off to her right. Somebody with long legs and a stiff gait-Larry. She pivots at the waist, unable to help herself from choosing the words she now speaks-because the last couple of years have been goddamn lonesome.
"Hey, sugar."
"Fuck! Christ!" Larry almost trips over his own gangly legs jumping back as Alex rolls the culm around with her tongue to hide a smile.
"Figured I'd let you know where I was if you came out to take a leak, just in case you're shy."
A dozen clever ripostes instantly come to Larry's agile mind, and he bites back every single one of them. Truth is, he's just too tired of it all to get caught up in her little game.
"Not on either count. Damn, you blend right in with the grass."
"That's the idea."
Larry scuffs his shoe against a clump of said grass. Alex doesn't offer more-weird for a smoothskin, weirder for a female. With her buff-colored leather outfit and that hayseed in her mouth, she looks like an old-time cowgirl...except for that damn sniper rifle that's making him nervous.
"Couldn't sleep. Figured it was about time for my watch. Fat lotta good it's gonna do anyone, as you probably just noticed my night vision's shit."
"I know. I was gonna stay up anyway." Alex glances up at him, admiring how the buckle of his aviator cap catches glints of moonlight as it dangles. "Care to pull up some dirt and sit a while?"
Larry weighs his options. It's true he can't sleep-part of why the aches and pains have been so bad lately. And he's got to admit to himself that he's a little drawn to her, despite the teasing-maybe because of it-he's always been a sucker for blondes, even faded ones, and admittedly, a glutton for punishment.
"Yeah, why not." Larry folds himself up within conversational distance of her, facing the same way she is. Another deceptively pretty night in the Wastelands. Alex doesn't offer any words, just sets her rifle off to the other side, leaning back on her hands, and rolls the culm around on her lips.
"You've got kind of a cowgirl vibe going on," he remarks, despite himself.
"Yeah," she chuckles. "It's a shame there aren't horses anymore."
All that power between your legs? thinks Larry, but making comments like that to a woman who'll dish them right back doesn't hold the same appeal, holds a good chance of turning into a banter that'll end in frustration.
"How do you know about horses, smoothskin?" he asks her instead, choosing irritation over flirtation.
"Ghoul friends," she answers simply. "Always good stories, a ton of 'em. I bet you've got great stories."
"Eh. A few."
Larry doesn't offer specifics and Alex doesn't pry. He's chewing on something she said earlier relating to what she said just now.
"Look, uh. I probably wouldn't be asking you this if you still had that rifle in your lap. You said you didn't want to talk about it, and I get it." He hazards a glance at her. She's looking at him with a quirked eyebrow-good sign. "The hate crime. Have anything to do with the ghoul friends?"
"Yup." Alex removes the culm from her mouth, considers crumpling it bit by bit, and elects to just toss it away. She sighs. "Lookin' back on it, we should have kept more to ourselves. There aren't a lot of places friendly to free mixing of ghouls and smoothskins."
"Well, there's New Reno. And The Hub."
"No, honey, I'm talking about. Free. Mixing." The blonde gives him a pointed look and Larry's world comes crashing down around what used to be his ears.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. He facepalms, gritting his half-ruined teeth.
"And as usual, Larry comes off looking like an ass," he croaks.
"'S okay, sugar. Besides, it sounds like you just can't catch a break, so I'll give you a pass."
"Ha," he snorts. "That's why they call me Lucky Larry."
"That the only reason?" she asks, the hint of a smile on her chapped lips as she rolls up onto her near elbow.
"Pretty much." Larry clears his throat and looks down at her, notices how her ample jugs strain against her tight leather top in that position, wonders if she knows it and is doing it on purpose. "Maybe," he adds, his mouth feeling dry.
Alex actually giggles, a contrast to her usual low chuckle. So he is interested.
"C'mon, you can't tell me you don't get lucky...from time to time." She reaches out and trails a finger across the back of his hand, and Larry shuts his eyes. It'd be so fucking good, yeah, it would, but he's been worked up by so many goddamn smoothskin bitches over the decades and the centuries only to be ridiculed, he can't play this game anymore, just can't.
"You got a thing for rotten meat, smoothskin?" he growls, rising to his knees so that he looms over her. He knows he might get kicked in the groin for it, but goddammit, he'd prefer it to not knowing.
Alex moistens her lips and reaches up to play with the dangling strap of Larry's aviator cap. Just like a cat, though she'd never have seen one, wouldn't have any idea what he was talking about if he mentioned it.
"Well, that's not quite the wording I'd of used, but yeah, I do. Y'know, if a little roll in the hay is something you'd-"
She gives up on the sentence as Larry pushes her over onto her back, lowering himself on top of her, and kisses her roughly. Fuck yeah. Alex throws a leg over one of his and grabs his ass, yanking his hips firmly up against her own. The ghoul's mouth leaves hers as he gasps in surprise, only to feel her hot lips at his neck, sucking his ragged skin, nipping his exposed muscle. His deep growl vibrates his chest against her breasts and she wants him, wants him right fucking now, needs him. With help from the leg she's got hooked over his, she rolls them both over so she's on top.
"Oh, you do like it rough," Larry smirks as she straddles him, rocking her hips, her fingers nimbly unlacing the sides of her leather vest.
"I just plain like it," she grins.
The ghoul can barely think straight what with her heat pouring through her leather leggings and his pants, pooling against his cock. It's all happened so suddenly, he's not even fully hard yet, but he's working on it. Oh yes, he's working on it. Larry manages to shuck off his jacket as Alex yanks the laces of her vest loose.
"Help me with this thing?" she asks, clamping a hand down over her bandaged shoulder. Larry reaches up and helps her squirm out of her top, watching her big, gorgeous melons come free from their tight leather prison, which he flings aside without a second look. The cooler night air instantly hardens her nipples as she rocks against him, gazing into his clouded eyes through her own eyelashes.
"Holy shit," he croaks, momentarily unsure if he wants to stay like he is, with her crotch grinding against his now throbbing cock, or flip her over and suck on everything inside her suntan lines. His rough hands reach up to her smooth, pale orbs, flicking a thumb against each nipple, and she moans his name. Larry splits the difference and pushes himself up into a sitting position, lowering his mouth to her left nipple, sucks and nips and tugs and squeezes.
Alex's fingers work their way down the front of his shirt, frantically undoing buttons-fuck, another shirt underneath, why must ghouls wear so many goddamn layers, it's not fair. She moves on to his belt buckle.
"Dirty smoothskin," he mutters, switching his attention to the other breast; she whimpers when he says it. Fuck, that's rich. He feels her hand at the back of his neck just as his ruined lips brush her nipple, and he pauses to fix a filmy eye on the woman's face. Alex trembles at the gorgeous colorlessness of his gaze, her lips parting and pouting with desire. "Filthy," he corrects, and falls to.
"If it's wrong, I don't want to be right." Alex undoes his pants in record time, slipping her hand inside to grasp his shaft, deliriously curious as to what it's going to be like. Larry groans roughly when her warm smooth hand finds it, wraps around it, strokes its ragged length as she gasps like she's just found the goddamn Holy Grail.
"Oh, hell yeah, baby," she breathes, exploring every ragged contour of the tall ghoul's rod as his lips, tongue, and teeth send little electric shocks through her body-she can't stand much more of this, her need is urgent. She shimmies back, tugging at Larry's waistband, kicking off her boots in the process. The ghoul lifts himself up a bit, allowing the frenzied blonde to yank his pants down to his knees. It's a little intimidating, actually. He's known a few smoothskins with a secret lust for ghouls over the years, sure-but she's shameless, her eyes fastened on his cock like it's the most important thing in the goddamn Wastes, crawling forward, what the fuck is-
"Fuck, oh fuck, Alex, goddamn," rasps Larry as Alex's lips wrap around his shaft, her tongue caressing its uneven texture. The ghoul feels the strength leave his arms and legs as she sucks him, his own mouth running a steady stream of grunts, profanity, and praise as his hips buck and twitch. Alex is shimmying out of her pants, ass in the air as she works the leather leggings off, and Larry lays a hand on the back of her head, exercising a great act of willpower not to just grab on and shove himself down her hot little throat. Her saliva is running down, pooling at the base, cooling as it drips down his balls, making him squirm. Alex manages to kick the leggings off, gives him one last long, loving lick, and gets to her knees.
"Take me, Larry," she pants, caressing his ruined face with one hand and her crotch with the other. "Give it to me, please, I can't stand it!"
Larry is throbbing already, and the sight of this smoothskin literally begging him to fuck her is the best damn thing he's seen in the last fifty years. With a feral-sounding growl, he obliges by grabbing her waist and pushing her firmly to the ground. His pants are still around his ankles but he hasn't got time to bother, not with her heat so close to him, not with her legs spread wide and her hands clawing his back.
"You want this, smoothskin?" he asks in a rasping pant, grabbing the base of his shaft and rubbing the tip against her entrance. Jesus Christ, she's wet.
"I need it, Larry," she moans, thrusting and grinding her hips up toward him. "I need every inch of your big, twisted, beautiful, irradiated cock inside of me."
And she means it, she goddamn means it. She hasn't had a chance with a ghoul in so long, and she's one of the few women who know how much better it is, how the uneven flesh and sometimes unexpected shapes can pleasure a woman in ways a so-called normal cock could never hope to. And Larry's is sizable as well.
Larry thrusts into her, hard, with a deep guttural groan that melds with the cry that issues from Alex's throat. He remains motionless for just a moment, trying to savor the feeling of her hot slick tightness around him, but the woman won't stop moving, grinding into him, and when she wraps her legs around his back, he couldn't hold still if he wanted to.
He draws back and gives another strong thrust, her tightness quickening around him, her slick coating his rough and slightly curving shaft, and she whimpers in shameless depravity, buries her face into his neck, licking and kissing and sucking, pressing her big lovely tits into his chest, and he can't hold back anymore. He growls deeply and begins to pump her steadily.
"Oh God! Oh, that's it, Larry, fuck me! Fuck me!" Alex's slick runs heavy, dripping down, spotting the dry dust underneath their bodies as he rams into her hard enough to scoot them both back with each thrust, venting every frustration ever bestowed upon him by some insincere, teasing smoothskin bitch. Alex's cries grow louder, her clutches frantic.
"Fuck! Call me smoothskin, Larry!"
The ghoul is almost ready to explode inside of her, panting from the exertion of pounding her, but manages to oblige between gasping breaths.
"You-like it-smoothskin-don't you? One pet-cowgirl-I'd like to-keep-fuck, I-" the need to come is urgent, he can't hold it in much longer, the smoothskin's flesh quickening and tightening all around him.
"Yes! Yes!" Alex hikes her legs up higher on his back, digging her nails into his shoulder blade, pulsing with the beginnings of an orgasm, and Larry can't hold it in any longer. He manages three thrusts as he feels himself pour into her, hot and now twice as wet, as her hips buck and shudder against his-fuck, she's still moving and he's coming, Christ, he's coming hard.
"Larry!" she cries, clamping herself around him arms and legs and throbbing sex, managing to come just as he starts to slacken. The effort of just holding himself up is too great for his spent body, and he collapses on her as she rides out the last waves of her orgasm.
Alex floats in the depths for a long moment, enjoying his dead weight on top of her as her toes slowly uncurl. It doesn't matter that her hair is full of dead grass or that her back and ass are chafed from the hard dirt. That was the good, hard sex she'd been longing for. She feels the edge of Larry's cute little nose hole push into her hair, not nuzzling, just resting there, and she smiles.
Larry savors the extremely rare feeling of having most of the kinks worked out of his back, neck, shoulders-hell, everywhere. That's why he's so damn reluctant to move, his whole body hasn't been this relaxed since-well, probably '71, but that's another story. He finally gathers the strength to roll over and off of the crazy cowgirl-her breathing was labored under his weight-and flops onto his back, taking several deep breaths himself. The smoothskin hasn't said a word since she screamed his name-nice touch there, it did him proud-and he turns his head to check on her and finds her doing the same. Rather than a sheepish 'what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do' look, she shoots him a positively shit-eating grin.
"Damn, sugar, if you keep looking at me like that with those eyes of yours, you're gonna get me so worked up we'll have to do it all over again."
Larry scoots right up to her, planting his forehead against hers with a soft growl and staring pointedly into her faded blue eyes-not nearly as faded as his, more like a pair of worn bluejeans. Alex's eyes search his, a range of expressions fleetingly crossing her face before settling on curiosity.
"What?"
"I'm pretty sure we woke those kids up."
Alex chuckles, stroking the ghoul's face before giving the strap of his aviator cap a playful tug.
"Tell 'em I was giving you a back rub."