He understood her rather well, it seemed. The morning after Caesar had left he liberated her from the clinic tent and the uncomfortable presence of Arcade to practice sparring. He didn't mention her injuries and neither did she.
He had no such qualms about hitting her in her bruises, though.
"You need to move faster, Courier. Your skill with a machete is passable, but what if it is knocked from your hand?"
She breathed deeply. Everything ached. She was trying not to put weight on her ankle and his constant demands infuriated her.
"Or do you need to _rest_?" he asked mockingly.
She lunged at him, left palm colliding with his chin. It wasn't the best hit, but it knocked the smile off his face.
When he finally called a stop to it Six didn't know if exhaustion or pain would collapse her first. She sat heavily on a log next to a fire pit. Vulpes sat next to her, drinking from a canteen. She didn't think she'd ever seen him sit on the ground before. It was strange.
He passed her the canteen and she drank deeply. "You have decent form, most likely from wielding the machete. Learn that although you have no tangible weapon, your fists can be deadly. You can carry over many of the forms with minor alterations to compensate for your lack of reach."
"Yeah," she panted. "I know, I get it. I just need to practice more."
"Not only practice, although you do need plenty of that. You have to understand the style. Understand why certain things will work and why others will not. It's one half strength, one half training, and one half mind games."
"That's three halves, Vulpes."
"And to overcome your problems, Courier, you need to be twice a man."
She sighed.
"It is good to practice with injuries."
"Is it." Would he never shut up?
"Yes. You refused to hit with your right hand. You were not willing to injure it further. That is good for sparring. You are learning how to use your left hand. You had to shift your stances to make up for your ankle. Makes it easier when you find yourself fighting on rough terrain. And the torso, well. You're learning how to take pain and keep fighting."
"You have some metaphorical message for everything, don't you?" She took another drink and handed the canteen back to him. "I know how to take pain," she added.
"No, you do not. You know how to take Med-X. You know how to take Stimpaks."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a weak profligate, I get it."
He wiped some blood from her face with his thumb, then looked at it appraisingly. For a strange moment, she thought he was going to lick it. He simply ran it along his armor, the color blending into the dark red almost imperceptibly. "Not for long."
They stayed at the Fort for a month, training most every day. According to custom, Six moved into Vulpes' tents, but she brought her own bedroll. She waited to shoot down a proposition that never came. She was still unsure of Vulpes and his motives, but as days turned to weeks new movements turned to habits. She learned to fight with her left hand. She learned to do laundry, both her own and Vulpes' red garments. She learned to hold her balance on a boulder as a machete sliced close to her throat. She learned the strange cadences that most of the slaves spoke with. She learned what pain felt like.
She entered the clinical tent alone, and was happy to see Arcade was as well. She was quite sure he still hated her, but when they were alone they fell into rhythms similar to what they had during their travels together. Before she sold him out. Sometimes his acerbic wit cut a little close to home, but it was the price she paid for keeping Caesar alive, and she would pay it every time.
"Well, if it isn't my second most hated nemesis," he said, taking in her bloodied arm. "That Vulpes is a piece of work, isn't he? Stitches?"
"Yeah, probably. And he didn't mean to," she said. He gave her a look as he walked over. "We were sparring. Accidents happen."
"I'm sure he's immensely contrite." He rinsed the wound with water and took a closer look.
"I should have blocked it. It was obvious he was surprised when he made contact. And I'm shocked. I thought at least Lanius would be above me."
"He is." He went and fetched his doctor's bag, pulling out a surgical needle and thread. "It's Lanius, you, then Caesar. I tend to hate the betrayer a bit more than the one I was betrayed to."
He threaded the needle and set it aside. He pulled out a bottle of vodka and poured some on the instrument.
"All the things you hold Caesar responsible for and I still beat him out?"
He poured some alcohol on her wound and she hissed. "It's personal, not rational." He paused, needle poised. "Do you want some Med-X?"
Six was touched. His words might be rough, but he was truly a forgiver. "Thank you for the offer, but-"
"Good, because I wasn't going to give you any." He plunged the needle into the skin and she bit back a scream. Asshole. But it was the price she paid. "Although I've come to a conclusion."
"What's that?" she asked, teeth gritted.
"You're just as much of a slave as I am. I mean, you chose it for yourself, unlike _my situation_-" he pushed slowly through the next one, drawing it out, "-but now that you're here, you have no ability to chose your own fate, either."
The slow, burning pain was worse than the stabbing quickness of the first thread. "I could leave," she bit out.
Arcade laughed hollowly. "Try it. I think Fox Boy would have something to say about that."
"He's not really my husband. Just in name. It's just what I had to do to stay here."
"_A caelo usque ad centrum_." He paused. "_Et nominibus._"
"I'm a little distracted for Latin right now, Arcade."
"For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to the sky and down to the depths. In name as well as truth."
"Is that an exact translation?"
Arcade shrugged, pulling on the thread. "Artistic license."
"Right. I'm surprised Caesar's left behind this charming personality."
Arcade tied off the thread and cut it, then dumped the rest of the vodka onto a cloth and handed it to her. "I know. Never thought I'd miss the bastard but Lanius is in charge of me now that he's gone. As you can imagine that isn't my preferred situation. Although my preferred situation-"
"Enough already," Six said, lightly shoving his shoulder. He hissed in pain. Six retracted her hand immediately and stared at him.
"He wasn't happy I didn't have a way to fix his _herpes simplex_. Or when I suggested amputation."
Six giggled. She couldn't help it. "You told Lanius to cut his dick off?"
Arcade shrugged, but a small smile played at his lips. "What can I say? Caesar might be an evil scourge on the Earth, but I got used to him laughing at my jokes. And honestly, if Lanius did cut his dick off I'd have a lot of happy girls in this camp, and a lot less herpes. He just punched me. I cringed quickly enough that I just got it in the shoulder. Hell of a punch, though."
Vulpes pulled back the tent flap. He was wearing his dog-head helmet. "Come. Quickly." He glanced at Arcade. "And you might as well start packing up. You're leaving, too."
"Leaving?" Arcade asked.
"For New Vegas, Profligate. Caesar has summoned us. So silence yourself and begin preparations."
He exited the tent and Arcade looked at Six. "Quite the charmer you've found yourself."
"He's not that bad, actually," Six said, standing and flexing her arm slightly. "Good stitches."
"Thanks. And remember, I can only deal with physical wounds. The psychological scars from your Stockholm Syndrome are beyond my expertise."
Six hurried to catch up with Vulpes. "He's summoned us?" she asked, a bit breathless. Hopefully he would attribute it to the light jog.
He glanced at her. "Don't excite yourself unduly." Apparently not. "He has summoned all of us. A small standing force will be left at the Dam, but Vegas is ready for full occupation."
He slowed down, and put his mouth to her ear. "Did that profligate physician say that the Legate has a genital disease?"
Six burst out laughing, but Vulpes didn't look amused. "Wait, why?" She sobered quickly. "Did you guys bang slaves together or something?" she asked. "Are you worried, you know, for yourself?"
Vulpes raised an eyebrow. "I don't see why you would have a vested interest in the answer to that."
"I don't, I just..." Six was at a loss. "I guess I don't."
They continued walking in what Six felt was a very uncomfortable silence. Vulpes didn't seem to notice. The bastard.
New Vegas was not ready for full occupation, and to Six's eyes it looked as though it never would be. There were tents everywhere. Legion members were only allowed to stay in the buildings of outer Vegas, and there weren't enough. The strip's lodging was off-limits. Caesar had pitched a tent outside the Lucky 38 as a show of solidarity. Even Lord Caesar resisted the temptation of the splendor of sinners.
Vulpes and Six were assigned quarters in the Casa Madrid apartment building. The door said Jimmy on the front. Apparently Caesar had originally intended this building for himself, and while the Praetorians had been clearing it one of them found the body of a young man and went postal, attacking other Praetorians for no discernable reason. The man had been crucified, of course, but not before his tongue had been cut out by Caesar himself.
Six suspected that was the main reason they had all been called back. There was a vacancy in the Praetorians and all of the Legion was able to try for the position instead of the usual protocol.
Vulpes was unconvinced. He had been too busy in meetings that week to be at the Casa often. With a lack of anything better to do, she made her way most days to the clinic. She didn't expect Arcade was ever pleased to see her, as such, but he was now responsible for setting up a clinic and dealing with centurions and others who had been injured in booby-traps left by the previous inhabitants. It was fun, if stressful work. Arcade was becoming less vitriolic towards her and she wondered if it was because he was now truly convinced she was as much of a slave as he was. She wondered if she was starting to become convinced herself. But it helped the time pass, and in the rare moments when there wasn't anyone to sew up there was good conversation. She smiled. Arcade never could resist good conversation, no matter who the partner was. That was probably why Caesar kept him around. He tried to convince her regularly that she was insane, but once that was out of the way they would speak on other subjects. She asked him about Spartans and their female warriors and she wondered why that couldn't be something the Legion adopted.
The door to the room slammed open. Vulpes was back from a meeting with Lord Caesar. "He wants us to raze this city to the ground. Literally," Vulpes said. "All the casinos must be turned to rubble and rebuilt to be "less grand"." He spat on the ground. "What was the point of us taking this city at all, then? I had contingency plans that would have allowed for the whole thing to go up in nuclear fire, but no. This was to be his Rome. But now we must knock it down with pickaxes and dynamite."
Six had seen Vulpes unimpressed with Caesar's decisions before, but not like this. He slumped down on the bed and put his face in his hands. "Clearly he didn't want it to be radioactive," she said. "He still wants this to be his capitol. He just doesn't want the sins of the old infecting the new. I think it's judicious and even estimable."
Vulpes' eyes narrowed at her between his fingers. "You've been spending time with the Profligate again. The quality of your vocabulary is down right elucidatory."
"He runs a clinic. I help set it up. There are legionaries with injuries who need his help."
"People notice, you know. How much time you spend with him. It does not help your case."
"My case?"
"Your desire to be seen as a legionary, my slow Dissolute whore." He caught her hand before she could slap him. "And that's another thing people have noticed. You are not nearly deferential enough in your actions, nor your words. That, coupled with your Profligate boyfriend-"
Six laughed. "I get it. You're upset that people think I'm cheating on you! How rich. You know this marriage is a sham."
Vulpes' lips twisted, in anger or a sneer Six couldn't see. The next thing she knew she was on her back on the mattress and Vulpes was looming over her. How long had it been since she'd been scared of this man? Since Nipton? She was wrong to forget who he was.
"Stupid girl. Do you want to ruin all our plans? Yes, it is very bad if people think you are committing adultery on your husband, the leader of the Frumentarii, with a dirty Profligate slave," he said, as if to a child.
Six wrenched her hand out of his grasp. "Fine, alright? I get it. I'm not sleeping with him. As if I could!"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Six paused. "He still hates me for giving him to Caesar in the first place, is what I mean. The only reason he lets me down there is because there are too many injured legionaries to handle himself."
Vulpes didn't look convinced, but as revolutionary as he seemed to be when he was teaching her to fight against Legion custom, she didn't know if she could trust him with the knowledge that Arcade was gay. It wasn't something she had thought about before, but it made her feel guiltier about giving him to Caesar. She certainly didn't have the right to spill that secret now.
"Anyone can see us! We're only together in the clinic building. I'm here every night, as you well know."
Vulpes considered her from his position on her hips. The longer he looked at her, the more nervous she became. He wasn't going to attempt to prove anything, was he? The surprising warm tingling that thought sent down her spine was ignored. Because if he tried anything, she would fight him. She would not submit.
He leaned down and put his mouth next to her ear. She barely controlled a gasp as his breath ghosted on her cheek. "I have been much too lenient with you. There is more than one way to fight, and have been lacking in my instruction. Things that have been tolerated in the past, both by Caesar and by myself, will be tolerated no longer. You must learn your place in the Legion before you can break out of it." He moved away and off of the bed. "Unless you've decided you no longer wish to pursue this course of action. If you want to run away, I'm sure I could invent a believable excuse so they would not come looking for you." With that he sat down at the desk in the corner of the room, looking through papers and making notes. Clearly their conversation was over. She felt cold with the lack of his body heat, but her cheeks burned hot with shame and confusion.
