Way Back Home: Without a Dream in My Heart
Notes: Things are going to get a little surreal here. Give it a shot.
Just get upstairs, Honey thought to herself. The elevator, fast by current standards, must have been remarkably slow in the old world. It creaked up the shaft slowly, what felt like inches at a time. She tried to take stock of her injuries - her right eye, the one inside her damaged temple, was fading in and out and her opposite arm might well be broken. How did that happen?
Oh yeah - Jane. She'd gone flying over the couch to avoid the missile the securitron had aimed at her, and had just barely made it out of the way in time.
Perhaps upgrading the securitrons had been a mistake, she thought, dazedly, leaning against the tarnished mirrored wall of the elevator and swaying, trying to stay upright. Everything in the Penthouse had gone fine until she'd tried to get into the back room, plinking away at the terminal. Suddenly all the things she'd run to Zion to escape had happened at once; all the securitrons had turned hostile, with Mr. House's voice hollering at them to "finish" her. She'd dropped to the floor, tossing grenades blindly around the stairwell, and - when they thought they'd cornered her - kept moving, kept ducking behind and under and around things.
By the time she'd made it through the door she'd been one giant bruise on her left side, with the probably-broken arm and a substantial burn on her side, under her armor, and cursing John for all his talk about "when people need helping we help 'em."
"Fuck you, John," she mumbled now, barely able to hear her own voice over the creaking of the elevator. Her head rolled loosely on her neck, as if it was held on with nothing but a pin and a hope.
Inside the next room had been two more of the monsters, and it had taken her three mines, two grenades, and more ammo than she cared to consider to take them down. She'd thought about fleeing then - she was in no shape to fight any more robots, with the angry pain in the side of her head weeping blood into her eye and her vision blinking in and out - but that had been it.
Mr. House - the elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors swung open smoothly.
"That you, Honey?" Cass called from the kitchen, her voice a little irritated. A happy yip from Rex and the sound of feet headed her way, and then the plush carpet rising to meet her. She landed with a hard thump that made her left side cry out, though she couldn't tell if she made any other noise as she sank into the soft dark fibers.
Side bets are for losers, baby. I'm playing to win.
"You're a fucking chingón, Benny." Had she spoken out loud? Did she mean to?
"What the fuck happened to you?" Cass's annoyance was last thing she heard before blackness overtook her.
John had no idea how long he'd been asleep when he awoke to discover Honey was gone. At first he didn't think much of it - the bed was warm and he was truly exhausted after so many days of non-stop travel, so he rolled over, buried his face in a pillow that smelled of sex and whiskey and cigarette smoke and fell asleep again for an hour or maybe a day.
He woke again to a rumbling stomach that would not be calmed. He needed to eat and soon, so he sat up, looking about the room for his discarded clothes. On the dresser by the door sat a mostly-empty bottle of whiskey and a pack of smokes, so he fired one up as he pulled on his pants. The socks were too disgusting - something had spilled on them and he wasn't sure what - so he shoved them into the wastebasket and fumbled through his pack for a clean pair. He shoved his feet first into the socks, then the boots, as he closed one eye against the smoke that drifted up from the cigarette jammed in his lips.
The room was a mess - blankets all over the place, sheets ripped half off the mattress, a bottle knocked onto the floor, one ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. He grinned a little to himself as he popped a couple Mentats in his mouth - the regular kind, thank you - and began buttoning his shirt.
That Honey...she was a hell of a good time. He hadn't been fucked like that in a while. The memory of her ass in his hands, her mouth on his chest - he shivered.
Where was she, anyway?
It was then that he realized all her stuff was gone - her pack, her tattered book of poems in some language he'd never heard of before - everything but a crumbled pair of pink panties with a hole near the elastic, which he balled up and stuffed into his own pack. The scent of her drifted up as he did so and he paused for a moment, sniffing the air, before he pushed them to the bottom.
He looked around the room again, trying to see if there was a clue left about where she'd gone, and that was when he noticed a note scrawled on the bedside table.
With a last drag of his cigarette, he picked up the ripped scrap of paper and read:
John -
There's some things I need to take care of on the Strip. Without a passport or 2000 caps, I can't get you in, so I've gone alone.
I should be back later tonight, or maybe tomorrow. The room is paid for, so hang around if you want, or maybe see if the Garretts have any side jobs you're interested in.
Check the drawer below for your share of our winnings.
Don't worry - I'll be back for you.
Honey.
The drawer was indeed full of chips, more than he probably deserved. Sweet of her. He smiled as he shoved the note in his pocket. May as well head downstairs and see what the Garretts were serving up for breakfast.
Breakfast was an omelet of dubious origin, but it was tasty and hot and came with a watery beer that John drank gratefully. Coming off the Med-X was easier with a cool drink, and what he'd realized coming down the stairs was that he did have a hangover, no matter what he'd thought at first.
Francine Garrett was gone, but a man who looked enough like her to be her twin stood behind the counter in her place. John peered at the man over the top of the sunglasses he'd put on in self-defense, and - when the omelet finally promised to cooperate and stay down - decided to ask.
"So my, uh, boss, Honey, said you might have some work for me," he said, taking another sip of his beer.
Garrett raised a brow at that. "She's a fine piece," he replied, wiping the inside of a spotted glass with a worryingly grimy rag. "You're a lucky guy, gettin' to follow her around."
John smiled a little. "No doubt." He pushed away his plate and watched as Garrett took it back to the kitchen. Fired up another smoke; the Mentats were hitting him now and he felt calm, smart even. Nice feeling. Smooth.
"Heard you might have some work you need done," he began again when Garrett came back. The smile Garrett gave him had an edge to it that he liked. Yep, the guy did. Might be dangerous, too. John felt his heart beat just a little faster. He wouldn't mind shooting something; it had been a while.
"We've got the basics covered," Garrett started, wiping a new glass with a slightly less-disturbingly dirty rag. "But now that you mention it...we have had unusual requests from some of our wealthier customers."
So he was going to be a pimp now?
"I assume this is all on a voluntary basis," John replied, taking another drag off his cigarette. "I won't do it if this is a grab and trap job."
Garrett had grace enough to look horrified by the suggestion. "Of course not. We pay all our escorts well, and you'll get a finder's fee if you can match the customers' proclivities."
They spent the next few minutes hashing out the details - a cowboy ghoul, which didn't seem like it'd be too hard to find, a smooth-talker for the "boyfriend experience," and a sexbot that was clearly for Garrett himself, given how much time the man wasted talking about how "disgusting" robot fetishists were (the length of two more cigarettes and half of another beer). They'd settled on no less than a hundred caps per prostitute, then John paid his bill and walked out into the city.
Freeside by day was only slightly less disturbing than Freeside by night. It reminded him a little of the Fens, with half-collapsed buildings everywhere and blind alleys that screamed "ambush waiting." He could hear voices, and the sound of glass breaking and footsteps, but the streets were curiously empty.
Worse - it felt like the buildings had eyes. As if something or someone was watching him.
But the gates promised a modicum of safety - no ferals, no vermin, no deathclaws, no super mutants. It'd be hard for any of those things to make it over the wall surrounding the city, and so he walked with his shotgun holstered and knife stuffed in his boot - only to discover how stupid that was when turned a corner and a pistol turned up under his nose.
The guy who held it was even smaller than him, a wiry man in a grimy t-shirt and no shoes, and if he hadn't been trying to rob him, John would've felt bad for him.
"Gimme all your caps," string bean said, and John laughed. He didn't mean to, but it was funny, this guy thinkin' he could come in and take what didn't belong to him. He put his hands up with a chuckle, reached into the chestpiece of his armor as if going for the bag of caps stashed there, and then his backup knife was buried in the boy's throat before he could react.
Coulda felt bad for him, but didn't. Kid didn't have to resort to robbery.
"Not gonna lie, this one don't seem quite above board," Nash said, holding out the clipboard for her to sign. Mercedes scratched under her braid; whatever was tangled up in her hair was gonna give her a rash if she wasn't careful. Maybe when she hit the Strip she could look up Benny, get a shower and a hot meal and a tumble. Wouldn't be the first time. The thought made her smile.
"What's so weird about it?" The clipboard was in her hands, and she scrawled her name where Nash had shown her. Reading and writing had come late, at the little schoolhouse in New Canaan. Mama had said that's where her Pa came from, but no one there knew anyone named Malpais and so she'd lived with whoever had a little extra week-by-week. Scrappin' came natural to her after so many years of scrounging.
"Couldn't rightly say," Nash told her, taking a puff of a cigarette and handing her the package. It was small, no larger than a pack of cigarettes, a heavy circle wrapped in dirty brown cloth and twine. Fairly unremarkable. "Maybe it was the robot, or maybe the fact that there're seven of ya goin' out there."
She wasn't worried, though - she had her gun and her machete, and she'd spent enough time in the Mojave that she figured the shortcut up through Sloan would be a piece of cake. Mercedes shoved the package in her pocket and turned towards the door, pulling her sun hat on. Nash was still watching her as she tied the laces under her chin, so she shot him a wink and that smile men loved so much, the one that always made Benny shove her up against a wall, yanking on her braid and shoving his hand down her pants.
You're pretty, baby, I'll give you that, he'd told her last time she'd stopped by. But I think I like you better with your mouth busy. Then he's given her something to do with it. Her skin prickled at the thought of it, despite the sweltering heat inside the Express office.
Yeah, a stop at the Tops would be just the thing.
"I'll be fine, abuelo," she told her boss, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly at the nickname. "Ain't no desert going to eat me up." But she was already gone, determined to head up I-15 through Goodsprings and Sloan before hitting the Strip.
Outside, Honey waited, watched herself as Mercedes walked across the Primm bridge and up the road. She wanted to shout, to throw a rock at herself, to stop that pinche girl from doing what she was about to do, but the woman she'd been was already long-gone up the highway, half-running.
Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.
His first stop was the Old Mormon Fort. Thought he'd check in on Arcade, see if the folks there needed anything while he was out looking for something to do, but Arcade was gone.
"Apparently there was an emergency at the Lucky 38," the brusque young woman with the mohawk told him. Something about it pinged for him, but he couldn't connect the dots, and anyway, she had a request that he go visit some store up the road looking for stimpacks, Med-X, RadAway, and stuff like that. Medical chems, he thought to himself. Made sense here, with all the people convalescing.
He'd been ready to head to Mick and Ralph's when he stopped short at the gate. Turned around and couldn't believe his eyes - there before him, standing just behind him, was a ghoul in a cowboy hat.
Too fucking good to be true, he thought as he sauntered over.
It didn't take long for Beatrix, as she introduced herself, to admit that working for the Followers was dull as dogshit (but that was no surprise, he thought, glancing around the small fort. There might be some people willing to go up against a bunch of do-gooders like them, but not many).
"They won't let me kick back and slog a brew at the end of the day," Beatrix told him, wistfully, and at that moment John knew he could convince her. She had just the right note of wanting in her tone that told him her life was boring enough she'd do almost anything to get out.
Probably wouldn't hurt her to know someone'd be laying hands on her again, either. Daisy'd told him once how so many ghouls had a hard time finding anyone to fuck, what with the skin sloughing and bald heads. "We're not exactly a hot commodity, sweetheart," she'd told him, but he'd given her a kiss anyway, and found himself turned on by the tightness of her jaw.
Beatrix was probably close to the same age, he reflected as he watched her talk. Had the same way of carrying herself, like she'd been around before the bombs. Those pre-war ghouls - the ones that hadn't gone feral - all seemed to have it.
"I bet you've seen a lot over the years, huh?" She'd followed him over to the gate and the two of them slipped through it now to stand in the street outside. He offered her a cigarette and she took it with a happy sigh as the smoke hit her ruined lungs. The almost-empty bottle of whiskey came out next, and the look she gave him would be downright sultry if she still had the lashes to pull it off.
"I've been around long enough to observe patterns of human behavior," Beatrix told him, taking a long drag on her cigarette and eyeing him thoughtfully. "Physical and mental...anguish are especially exciting to explore."
Was she flirting with him?
The question wasn't one any longer when one long, weathered finger traced its way up his bicep, over the pauldron on his shoulder, to playfully tug at his collar. Despite himself, John felt his skin break out into a sweat - how fucking hot was it out here, anyway? - and discovered he was already at half-mast, the front of his pants tenting out just barely. He tilted his body to lean against the hot brick wall of the fort in an attempt to hide it and immediately regretted it; the brick was hot as shit and he bounced back away from it, ignoring a gravelly chuckle from Beatrix.
If this worked, he'd have to pay her a visit, he promised himself. He and Daisy had never quite made it work - she was a little too shy about her body, or maybe it was old-world values and hang-ups - and he'd never had a ghoul before. The idea was tempting.
"Sounds like you're a bit of a dom," he told her as she leaned away from him, a grin widening her already broad, nearly lip-less mouth.
"Hey, who doesn't enjoy a little pinch and squeal every once in awhile?" There was a coquettish shrug of her shoulders, as if she wasn't a withered radiation-soaked husk of a woman, as if they weren't talking about pain tainting pleasure, as if he wasn't about to ask her to start life as a prostitute, and John couldn't help himself - he felt himself rise up in his pants.
This was ridiculous. It was too hot out here and he didn't have time for this right now; best to just see if she was interested and then pound pavement.
"You wanna get paid for it?" He tilted his sunglasses down to meet her eyes, and watched as the idea first shocked and the repulsed her. "The Garretts are looking for some new escorts," he said, taking a cautious step back in case she decided to deck him.
But she finally settled on a look of resignation that made every part of him wilt, it was so tragic.
"I'm all boot knives and leather, friend, and a ghoul besides," her laugh was the sound of gravel shaken over pavement, and sad. "What kind of weirdo wants what I've got?"
How long has it been for her? John wondered. But this wasn't the right time to ask. Maybe if she goes for it, maybe if we -
He raised one eyebrow at her over the top of his sunglasses, and gave her the crooked smile that always seemed to get women to stop what they were doing and pay attention to him. It certainly worked on Irma, and that dame had had more than her share of men in her time.
"There are...customers...looking for someone just like you. Don't sell yourself short, sister," he told her. Reached out and caressed what was left of her cheek with one hand, and found he rather liked it. Her skin was leathery, as promised, and rough, but the novelty of it found his flagging erection perking back up.
"Weirdos into bullwhips and necrosis, huh?" Beatrix leaned into his hand for a moment, then stepped back and took a last drag on her cigarette before tossing the butt to the pavement and grinding it under her boot. "Doesn't sound…" and her eyes flicked over him, top to bottom and back up again, and John was sure she could see what had happened in his pants when she began to smile. "Doesn't sound half bad."
"You'd be your own woman," John promised. "No one would own you." Or I wouldn't be doing this, he thought to himself. "You'd probably get a discount on booze, too."
That was the moment he realized he'd won her over. She grunted with pleasure and licked her lips at the thought of the bottles gleaming dimly behind the Wrangler's counter. "Alright...if I get everything you promised, it just might work. I'll swing by to work out my terms. Thanks, sugar."
She was gone before he knew it, boots echoing down the empty street as she headed for the Atomic Wrangler, and John shifted uncomfortably, waiting for his erection to go down and trying not to watch her hips sway as she went.
"Hold her down, I need her still so I can set this bone." Somewhere above her was a man's calm voice. She couldn't figure out where he was, or how she could both feel and not feel his cool fingers on her arm. There was a grinding sensation - not painful, but not pleasant either - and then a weird feeling of relief. Ice going down her left side, and she felt like she was pushing up through a heavy curtain.
"What about her head?" That was a woman, less calm. She sounded worried.
The man had gone quiet again, but the cool fingers moved to her temple. She tried to lean into them, into the soft pressure, but it didn't seem like she could move well. How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was giving Nash a wink over her shoulder and heading out into the sun, her thoughts focused on getting her ass to Vegas to drop off her package and get a good pounding and a brahmin dinner.
And who the fuck were these people, anyhow?
She tried to ask, but her mouth was full of marbles, or maybe she didn't have one anymore. All that came out was a muffled series of noises, as if she was trying to speak through a gag, and for a moment she panicked.
"She's waking up. She must be in a lotta fuckin' pain, doc." The woman again. And she was right - she was in a lot of pain, and wanted to know what these shitheads were doing to her.
"Here, let's see if this helps," the man said. She tried to speak up, to tell them to let her come out of it, but then she felt a jab in her arm and the head she wasn't sure she had lolled on its own over to one side, and she felt herself drifting.
"Is she going to be okay?"
But Mercedes didn't hear the answer because she was drifting down, deeper into the hole the Med-X made, to sit on the bottom of some endless lake and watch the bubbles make their way to the surface.
"How are you today? Santiago is fabulous!"
John wouldn't have said the man standing before him looked fabulous, exactly, but he was certainly easy on the eyes. He had a voice like Honey's, lightly accented with sun and heat, and he wore a rumpled tan suit, one lapel of which was frayed into silvery threads. Something about him made John wonder what his lips would taste like, even if he was glad his caps were stowed safely in his chestpiece.
"I guess I'm doing alright," John allowed, stepping past the dandy to perch on what remained of a bench in the quiet corner behind a building. He'd just been looking for a quiet place to take a hit of Jet but this asshole followed him over and sat next to him on the bench, just a little too close.
Mick and Ralph's had been a grade-A bust so far as the Followers' requests went. Ralph had offered to sell him a passport to the Strip, but at five hundred caps the price was a little steep. On the other hand, the guy had told him about a program he could write to turn any unused robot into a primo sexbot, though the look he'd gotten about it made John a little uncomfortable, like Ralph thought he had something on him now.
Not that he'd say no to a robot on principle, John thought. He just wasn't sure he saw himself necessarily going for it.
With one eye slanted towards the man beside him, he ruffled in his pockets and came up with an inhaler of Jet. He took a cautious puff, and just like that, the earthy flavor filled his nose and sent him soaring.
Next to him, Santiago's knee was warm, pressed up insistently against his own. He drifted - only to be brought back to earth by the sound of the man next to him speaking, again. He couldn't make out the words, but just stared blankly, his first hit of Jet in weeks slowing Santiago's voice down to a meandering crawl, his lips moving perversely in unheard words.
Time slowed, seconds creeping into years - and then, just like that, someone hit the throttle and everything sped back up. It felt like things were going faster than ever, but he knew, that was just the way Jet did him.
"I could help you out with that," Santiago said, and he finally understood when he felt the man's hand on his thigh, his thumb dangerously close to his zipper, and realized his erection had returned, hard and pulsing with the aftershocks of the Jet high.
His eyes were lazy as he looked Santiago over, lingering a moment on the other man's mouth.
"How much?" John reached out one hand, letting his fingertip brush against Santiago's lips, and the lounge lizard stuck his tongue out, allowing it to wetly graze his finger. A shiver charged down John's spine, and he raised an eyebrow at Santiago, who grinned.
"Twenty-five?"
"Done."
"Up front," Santiago said, taking John's finger into his mouth with a crude slurping sound that made all the blood rush out of his head.
"After," he grunted, spreading his legs. No way was he going to show this little perv where his caps were and watch him run off with the whole sack while he chased after with blue balls. He knew better - bad enough it looked like they were going to do this out here, in the open - John wasn't going to get fucked like that.
No - he'd be doing the fucking.
Through the stupid fog Jet always left him with, he grinned at the thought of it.
"For you…" Santiago sighed and pulled down John's zipper with nimble fingers. "This one time."
There was an obscene gulping sound, and John leaned his head against the back of the bench, brought the inhaler of Jet back to his mouth, and took a long puff.
Honey watched Mercedes sprint into Goodsprings. She remembered being able to run like that, when her legs were strong and her head didn't threaten to topple every time she turned it. She'd been so fast then, stopping only occasionally to take breaks for water, and the girl she'd been had been so certain she could run straight up through Sloan.
She could outrun deathclaws, could outrun the sunset that even now turned the mountains purple and the sky yellow. Fat, puffy clouds foretold a monsoon coming, all gold and pink edges. There was a breeze that had been stiff and hot earlier but now, with the lengthening shadows, would make her shiver as her sweat cooled.
After her drink she'd be gone, Mercedes promised herself as she stepped up to the Saloon. She could be in the Strip by the wee hours of the morning if nothing tried to kill her, and be fucking Benny an hour later. Maybe she'd wait to make her delivery till morning and go straight to him, still stinking of sweat and sand and - what the fuck was he doing here?
"Hey pussycat," he said, standing improbably on the porch in front of the saloon. An older man sat there, whittling and watching with a prospector's narrowed eyes, a pile of wood shavings at his feet. Benny's voice seemed a little tight, but then he coughed, and she thought maybe he'd just swallowed wrong.
"What're you doin' here, amor?" He wrapped an arm around her, his hand landing on the small of her back, and she thought she heard a snort from the old man. He smelled of Abraxo and smoke and something different, something sour. She wrinkled her nose; across the road, Honey watched it all and wanted to scream.
"Can't just miss my best girl?" Benny nuzzled his nose into her hair, and Mercedes let out a laugh and swatted him, moving away with a suspicious look gleam in her eye. This time the snort from the old man - Easy Pete, Honey supplied - carried all the way across the road.
She missed the rest - watched as Mercedes made her way with Benny up the hill to the cemetery, heard the pebbles and dirt skitter down the path as she tried to run, then the sharp report of the first gunshot. An hour passed, maybe two, and Honey thought about climbing that hill to see it all again, even though she knew how it ended.
It ended in an eighteen carat run of bad luck, in a gunshot and a shallow grave and the inability to talk or feed herself for weeks. In a lifetime forgotten, in the blink of an eye.
Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.
Honey opened her eyes.