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Will time illuminate the stains
And stop the pain
The night you held me under a spell
You know I cannot hide
You're the very thing unwinding me
- Rie Sinclair, "No Way Out"
Veronica's feet swung from the examination table as she regarded the people around her. Dr. Henry was his usual cantankerous self, grumbling orders to Calamity and answering Jordan's questions about Rex. Cass, who had been stiff and almost cagey during their evenings in the cottage, stood across the room, picking her nails.
Jordan and Fox, however, made for an interesting spectacle. All morning they had stolen glances at each other, stood closer than necessary, and spaced out when they thought no one else would notice. The scribe smiled to herself. It wouldn't be long before something broke loose between them.
"He can leave tomorrow. He needs more recovery time and I need to run some tests before he goes," Dr. Henry fussed, shuffling through papers on his desk. "In the meantime, I could use your assistance."
Veronica shook her head in amusement. She might not have known much about her friend, but she knew Jordan was a sucker for someone in need. Even if they were a jerk.
"How so?"
"As you well know, the nightkin have varying degrees of mental instability due their addiction to Stealth Boy use. I've been trying to come up with a cure," he said, straightening his back with pride. "I'm currently investigating the local nightstalker population since they seem to have developed a natural stealth field."
"I hear a 'but' coming," Cass said.
The doctor shot her a withering glare. "I strongly suspect that the source of the mutation is artificial, but the Super Mutants found nothing. Your fresh eyes may do better."
"Okay, sure." Jordan pushed off the table Rex was sleeping on, eyeing her companions. "Anyone want to go with?"
"Got nothin' better to do," Cass said. Vulpes simply nodded.
"Veronica?"
The scribe shook her head. "You guys go on without me. I'll stay with Rex. Maybe poke around the tech here." The warning expressed on Dr. Henry's face had her throwing up her hands. "I'm joking. A little."
/
"This place gives me the creeps."
"You say that about every cave we go into, Cass."
The merchant adjusted the grip on her rifle, bringing it in tighter to her shoulder. "With good reason. We almost die half the time."
"We also get some pretty great loot," Jordan said. "And you usually get laid afterward. Where's your sense of adventure today?"
Ignoring her friend's grumbled reply, Jordan dropped to her knee and set to work on the locked door in front of her. The trio had been working their way through the cave for the last forty-five minutes, taking it slow in an effort to avoid startling the entire nightstalker population all at once. Thus far they had only encountered corpses of the animals scattered along their path, prompting Jordan to insist they check out what the tucked away steel door was hiding. Just in case.
When the lock gave way, the door slid open to reveal a musty one room bunker. Ushering her friends into the space, Jordan shut the door behind her and flicked on her PipBoy light.
"Oh shit. Look at this," she said, crossing the handful of feet to the other side of the room. Ammunition, magazines, and medical supplies lined a row of shelves, untouched and unused. As she passed the goods off to Cass, Vulpes plucked a holotape from amongst the clutter and handed it to her. Popping it into her PipBoy, a man's voice from centuries ago began to fill the air.
"So the Reds finally hit us, just like I always said they would. Vegas is still there as far as I know, but that probably won't last long. Didn't get accepted into one of the Vaults, so I did the next best thing and had this place built. Got massive debts but who cares now? Ha! It's every man for himself now. Had to take care of the Paulson boy since he knew about this place - these supplies are for me and nobody else. There's a woman and her daughter up in one of the rooms in the lodge, might go pay 'em a visit tomorrow. A man's got needs."
Jordan's lip curled in disgust as Cass shook her head and said, "Fucking douche. I hope they shanked him."
"C'mon. Let's finish this and get out of here," Jordan said, passing the last two bottles of Rad-X to Vulpes.
Exiting the bunker, the group shuffled in silence through the flooded lower chamber before climbing a western path. The tunnel gave way to another opening, littered with the bones of bighorners and the stench of rotting flesh. Inching their way through, Vulpes called them to a halt.
"I think we have found the culprit," he stated.
Behind a decaying carcass, the body of a nightkin lay clutching the broken shell of a stealth boy. A hefty super sledge rusted nearby.
Jordan crouched, turning on the light of her PipBoy once more, and examined the pre-war tech. Twisting it about in her hand, she noticed small indentations around a crack in the casing. "Looks like it's been chewed on," she said. "Radiation probably leaked out."
"Great. Can we go now?" Cass asked.
Jordan rolled her eyes. "As you wish." While Vulpes hoisted the super sledge onto his back, she scanned her map of the cave. "This way should take us back out."
Another tunnel on the northern end of the room sent them on a steep and winding ascent. As she was beginning to question her decision to not go back the way they had come, the path opened into an immense and sprawling chamber. They stood in guarded silence, taking in what little they could see, when Jordan felt something brush against her leg.
"What the hell was that?" Cass whispered as Vulpes moved his hand to rest on the handle of his Ripper.
Squinting, Jordan could detect the faint and warped outline of nightstalkers trotting among them, heading for the lower rooms. "That can't be good," she said. "They're running from something."
"Press on or fall back?" Vulpes asked.
Jordan considered their options. If they carried on, they would undoubtedly meet whatever had scared the canine mutants and she wasn't sure if that was something she wanted face time with. If they retreated, they would eventually find themselves in the company of nightstalkers. Despite the pack's current disregard of them, she knew it would not last and it was difficult to face more than a few at once. Deciding to go with the unknown rather than the certain, she led them forward, keeping to a low and sneaking walk in the shadows.
Nearing the midpoint of the cavern, a tremor in the floor brought them to a frightened stop. The unmistakable sound of air being pushed out through mammoth nostrils filled the space around them, sending Cass diving to the right for cover while Jordan shoved Vulpes left into a darkened alcove. Holding him in place, she saw the confusion rush through his chiseled face. With a careful raise of her toes that had her sliding along his body, she brought her lips to his ear.
"Behemoth," she explained in a voice so soft he almost missed it. Still he was lost, having never encountered whatever it was that had her and the other woman shaking in their boots.
Turning so that she could see Cass across the room, Jordan's eyes landed on the exit. They were so close to freedom, her friend even more so, having hidden along the same sidewall as the tunnel's opening. Vulpes observed as the two women began communicating, throwing hand signs back and forth in a heated, rapid succession. He concluded that Jordan had won when Cass threw up her middle finger and made for the passage out.
As she disappeared into the tunnel, the behemoth lurched forward, shaking the air around them and coming into view for the first time. Vulpes felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest at the sight. It had been years since he had felt genuine fear, and the twenty foot super mutant towering in front of him did the trick. They had only had light weapons and a scavenged super sledge. What the hell were they supposed to do if that thing saw them?
Sensing his unease, Jordan slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers and leaning in close. The alarm was evident in every line and pore of his face and when she breathed instructions into his ear, he could give no more than a slight nod in acceptance.
Waiting until the giant had lumbered by, Jordan leaned out of the alcove. When it had reached the far end of the room, she squeezed Vulpes's hand and surged forward. Caution thrown to the wind in favor of a hasty exit, their boots bounded along the cave floor and caught the behemoth's attention. It turned, giving chase and convincing Jordan that it was going to bring the cave down around them.
Entering the tunnel, she didn't allow them to slow until they had made it through the first turn, large fingers scraping the floor behind them as they went. The walls around them shook in protest and behind them they could hear chunks of rock break free and scatter along the path. Scrambling onward, Jordan found herself unwilling to let go of Vulpes's hand until they had caught up to Cass to at the mouth of the cave.
Outside, she hit her knees, lungs burning for fresh air.
"What the fuck was that?" Vulpes spat.
Cass was fuming, marching back and forth in the midday sun. "That is why I'm never going into a fucking cave with you again."
/
"Are you okay, Rett?" Vulpes asked, squatting in front of her. "I've been trying to speak with you for the last five minutes."
Jordan had planted herself at the end of the bed, deep in thoughts and drawn brows. Marcus had promised at dinner to send some mutants to take care of the guest in the cave, but what did that mean? "Hmm?" she intoned as a warm hand came to rest on her knee. She stared at it, her expression rendered blank. "Sorry. I'm fine. Just…thinking."
The way in which her tongue brushed against her lip in thought made him ache and he tightened his grip on her knee without realizing it. "Anything you want to share?" he asked.
Vulpes had begun to worry that he had lost her to her thoughts again when she finally met his eyes. "I'm sorry – about today. I've never seen a behemoth this far east and I have no idea how it got in that cave. I should have turned us back as soon as we got the Stealth Boy. It was foolish and-"
"Stop," he cut her off. "There was no way for you to know what lay ahead."
"You must think I'm incredibly stupid," she sighed, eyes drifting to the worn hardwood of the floor. That anyone's opinion of her would weigh on her was a great frustration.
"Stupid? No," he said. A rough palm came to rest on Jordan's cheek, startling her out of her pity party. "Recklessly curious? Perhaps," he smirked.
Feeling his thumb ghost the edge of her lower lip, Jordan found herself unable to tear her eyes from him. She could feel a fount of emotion bubbling up inside of her, lust and a loneliness his absence had caused her at the forefront of it all. She knew she should shut it down – he was, after all, a spy. Though she didn't want to believe it, she knew it was possible his flirtations were nothing more than Caesar's orders and that his feelings for her were long since dead. Yet it was those cerulean orbs watching, focused so acutely on all of her subtleties, that broke her resolve.
Pushing his hand away, Jordan tugged him to her, crashing her lips against his. Surprised, but needing no time to recover, he rose with her and prowled over her, forcing her to shuffle back onto the bed. One arm flexed into a rigid beam, Vulpes held himself over her, caressing her face and kissing her fervently. She tasted of whiskey and something else uniquely her own. He couldn't get enough.
Jordan was convinced that she was both drowning and soaring all at once. Vulpes seemed to be all around her, filling every breath she took. As she began to explore the silky expanse of his tongue, she knotted her hand into the side of his black t-shirt, willing it to be her anchor to reality.
Every skim of Jordan's fingers felt as though it left a trail of electricity crackling in its wake. Despite ten years of Legion culture, Vulpes was making a desperate effort to be respectful of her and let her lead, but he was certain he was failing at it. He wanted to go adrift in her and never come back, to spend a lifetime showing her who he was now and what he could make her feel. When her hand trailed down his torso and dauntlessly cupped him through the fabric of his pants, he hissed in shock.
As he ripped her hand away and pressed it to the bed, Jordan was terrified that she had crossed an unspoken boundary. Yet when he laced his fingers with hers and lowered his weight onto her, pinning her to the mattress, her worry melted into the background. A hand in her hair and his erection grinding her against her, Jordan let herself go.
When his lips abandoned hers and left a blazing path down the column of her throat, she whispered, "Please."
A groan escaped Vulpes. So much for restraint. "Please what?"
"Take-"
The door to the bungalow ripped open, slamming into the wall behind it. "Hey! Keene is – holy shit!" Cass averted her eyes and made a clumsy attempt to draw the door back to her. "Uh, sorry."
Vulpes froze, keeping his face buried in the shadows of Jordan's body. He could all but feel the disappointment and frustration seeping into her. If he spared the other woman one look, he might not be able to restrain the murderous contempt that her sudden presence had ignited in him. He would find a way to repay Cass for the interruption.
"Keene is what?" Jordan's tone was curt, but she did not bother to squirm away from him.
"He's gone off the deep end. Wants our heads on pikes. Dr. Henry said for you to haul ass to the lodge."
"Motherfucker. Let me get my stuff."
Cass nodded and shut the door behind her, leaving the pair to untangle themselves.
"I am going to crucify that woman," Vulpes muttered.
"I'm sorry," Jordan giggled, giving him a soft kiss and biting his lip.
Again he groaned and pulled himself away from her. "Don't or I will let that godforsaken nightkin kill everyone in the lodge."
Another laugh and she shuffled off the bed. Grabbing her guns and checking her rounds, she waited for him by the door as he readjusted his pants. Swiping his Ripper from the nightstand, he followed her out into the cool evening air.
"Fill me in," Jordan said as Cass hurried beside her.
"Keene and one of the other nightkin came back from slaughtering some bighorners while Doc was finishing up testing the Mark II on Lily. Word got out that he had taken that route and now Keene is raising hell."
"Let me do the talking then," Jordan said, climbing the stairs to the front door. "Keep your weapons ready, but don't make it obvious."
Walking into the lobby of the lodge, Keene's raspy voice could be heard from the medical lab.
"I knew you were hiding something from me!" he bellowed. "My request is perfectly reasonable. Give us the Stealth Boy specs and there will be no need for us to splatter the room with your insides."
Drawing herself up to her most commanding posture, Jordan stopped in front of the mutant. "Keene-"
"Bother someone else. I don't want anything to do with you," he snapped.
She grit her teeth. Telling the Nightkin where to shove it would be so much more satisfying than the responsible approach she was trying to take. "That's no way to be, Keene," she said, her eyes glinting with defiance. "What do you plan on doing with those specs?"
"There are caches of Stealth Boys out there. With the Mark II in hand, it shouldn't be difficult to upgrade every one of them."
"Even though they are more dangerous to your health than regular Stealth Boys?"
"Our lives, our decision to make. We're tired of sitting around in Jacobstown waiting for a cure."
"What you do out there affects every mutant here. Every mistake will bring more mercenaries looking to cash in on the lives of your friends. But you didn't think about that, did you?"
Keene shifted his weight. "No, I didn't. Not until now, anyway," he said. "Very well, human. You've made your point, and I withdraw my…request."
He turned, not wishing to see her face any longer, and stormed out in defeat. Jordan exhaled through her nose, eyes fluttering shut, as the tension dissipated from the room. She had not expected the confrontation to go in her favor.
A pat on her back brought her back to reality. "Nice work. I've never seen anyone be able to talk the nightkin out of anything once they had their mind set to it," Dr. Henry said, offering a rare smile.
"Thanks," Jordan said. "I think I'm going to head back to the cottage. Long hike tomorrow."
/
Vulpes ambled into the humble bungalow, feeling weary and weighed down. Seizing the opportunity of a private conversation with Dr. Henry, he had spent the last half hour going over his "uncle's" symptoms – the increasing headaches, his tendency to drift off in his sentences, and the occasional memory loss. Though he had expected the diagnosis, it still took the wind out of his sails to hear it.
According to the former Enclave scientist, Caesar had a brain tumor. "Straight-forward case of intracranial blastoma fibrolosis, I wager," he had said. The only way to save the man was through an operation and Dr. Henry had insisted that neurosurgery on a regular human was currently out of his league. "Much more complex than nightstalkers and cyberdogs, I assure you. I'd be just as likely to kill your uncle as I would save him," he'd said.
He had given Vulpes the advice of either using a fully-functional Auto-Doc or finding someone else to perform the surgery. Where the hell he would find either of those things was beyond him. There was also another piece of the puzzle that complicated his feelings on the matter.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, Vulpes dropped his head into his hands. The knowledge that Lanius would gain control of the Legion in the event of Caesar's death was suffocating at best. The Legate had made it clear on numerous occasions that he would disband the Frumentarii - dispersing the lower ranking spies and executing those at the top. He believed their tactics to be dishonorable and cowardly, and he would not tolerate such a stain on his Legion.
Still, if Dr. Henry was right, Caesar had months to go. In that time Vulpes was confident he could persuade his commander to select someone else as his successor. The man had, after all, expressed doubts about Lanius's ability to lead the entirety of the society he had spent so many years building. It was clear to the Vulpes that the Legate was loyal only to Caesar, following along solely because he had been given free rein to kill who and when he wanted.
A delicate movement from across the room caught his attention and the Legion's problems were promptly forgotten. Jordan lay sleeping on her side by the fireplace, her hand resting in the curve of her waist. He did not know when he would be able to see her again after they left Jacobstown and the notion unsettled him.
Crossing the room, Vulpes lifted her slumbering figure into his arms and carried her to the bed. He returned with her pillow a second later before stripping down to his own sleeping attire and crawling in beside her. Without hesitation Jordan curled into his side, fingers clutching the t-shirt stretched across his chest, and his thoughts returned to their heated moment earlier in the evening. The girl he knew from before the Legion had been doe-eyed and demure in the bedroom, always allowing him to lead. She would never have fondled him through his clothes or been the one to escalate the moment at all. Who was this woman?
Brushing his lips against her hair, Vulpes realized he was already on his to way to being well and truly fucked.
A/N: Damn Cass and her timing! And damn Keene! Lol
When I started to write this chapter, I wondered about what kind of tumor Caesar would actually have since "intracranial blastoma fibrolosis" didn't sound like an actual thing to me. Turns out, it isn't. From what I could find through research, he would most likely have astroblastoma - a rare type of tumor that includes symptoms such as intracranial pressure (headaches), enhanced drowsiness, seizures, and cognitive dysregulation (memory loss, aggression, inattentiveness, etc.), among others. But I'm no doctor. Just someone who is relentlessly curious and also probably wrong about that tumor XD
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