Six's false submission melted away as soon as the front door shut. "What the hell was that?" she snarled. "You can't just give away my friends like they're fucking door prizes."
"I think I just did." Grrr. She searched the room for Cass's lost 10mm, only to realize that it had spun off far underneath the refrigerator. Not like that would really have worked, but I need some form of indiscriminate violence right now. Her eyes settled on an empty wine glass from earlier, and she snatched it up and threw it at Vulpes's head before he had time to stop her. He ducked to the side, and it smashed harmlessly into the wall.
"What would you have had me do instead?" he said. "Send her to Caesar for crucifixion? Break her arms and legs and leave her outside the door for the other legionaries to find? If I'd just let her go on her way, Alerio would have known something was wrong. And she came up with her own punishment. From what I've heard, she's fucked half of the NCR, and Freeside, too. I hardly think this will traumatize her greatly. Certainly better than losing a limb."
Everything he said was true, but she was still supremely pissed off. "If you hadn't acted like a sadistic jackass and let me think that you were going to murder her, I would be a lot happier right now. And you slapped me." In the grand scheme of things, that was pretty minor, but her face hurt, and she didn't want to think about anything else that had happened. The taunting voice in the back of her head had returned. So Cass came to save you. She walked back from freedom through the gates of hell to find you. And this is how it ends? With her taking the fall for everything? You didn't even try to fight, try to find a gun, try to stop anything.
"If I hadn't shown I would punish you if she disobeyed, she'd have come back to try to free you the moment she left. And then I'd have to kill her. You did a good job of acting like you were scared to death of me, by the way. Full marks."
"That wasn't acting." You fucking fucked-up wreck, you don't deserve a rescue. You deserve to die here. You should have been on the cross in Vegas, rather than Boone. You'd be nothing but bones in the desert. And your friends would be better off.
"We should go to bed. We've got a long day ahead of us if we're going to Vault 15." She scoffed, and he turned on her. "Are you thinking of reneging? I can have Alerio bring Miss Cassidy back if you're reconsidering. But I guarantee you're not going to get a deal with better terms than the one you've got. Now, since you've been so well-behaved today, you can choose what we do tonight." Good girl, Legion bitch. Have a treat. Woof. She wanted to rip his face off. Instead, she bit at her own wrist, where the shackle had been before.
Vulpes grabbed her hand and pulled it away from her face. "What do you think you're doing?"
"My brain is trying to kill me," Six said.
He gave her the look he'd given her before when she implied that her mental health was anything less than pristine, an expression that she would have called concern had it been worn by Arcade but that she knew to be simple possessiveness. "Well, we can't have that." Satisfied that she wasn't going to tear her wrist open, he pulled her towards the bedroom.
"If I really get to decide what to do tonight, can I just go to sleep?"
"No." Of course not. She sat on the bed while he began to undress. "I have a better idea. Tell me about your revenge."
"What kind of game is this?" she asked.
"Hopefully a fun one." He pushed her down on the bed, a hand on her stomach. "Tell me what you'd do to us, if you had the chance. If you were the one in control."
"Usually your traps aren't this obvious."
"Do it, or I will, and I'm sure you don't want to hear about any plans I might have for your little friends." White-hot anger surged through her. So you want to play at this?
"Well …" she said in a drawl, "I think I'd have to start with Lucius. He seems to really hate me, and I don't know why."
Fingers trailed up her ankle to behind her knee. "Jealousy, as I said before. He desires what I have."
"He's been the head of the Praetorians for a long time. So I'm guessing he was one of the ones who set Joshua Graham on fire." She was pleased to see him flinch at the taboo name. "I think I'd have to turn him over to Graham, then."
He pulled her leg up and kissed the back of her calf. "The Burned Man is a myth."
"Bullshit. You asked me about Utah earlier. You know that I know he's alive, and I know that you know I met him. Graham may have found religion again, but I'm sure he wouldn't pass up the opportunity for his own vengeance. Those burns looked like they hurt."
"It's funny how you claim the moral high ground and then pal around with that man," he said, giving up the pretense. "You do know the sort of things he's done, right? Does that all go away just because he claims he's sorry?"
"He doesn't just claim he's sorry, he is sorry."
"And he shows his repentance … how? By re-enacting wars with the local tribals? He's not going around bringing welcome baskets to the neighbors and singing hymns." He brushed his hand lower. "That is why I loathe Mormons. They're a pack of hypocrites. No one who really believes that the meek will inherit the earth could produce a person like that."
"You have a vendetta against Mormons? That's like hating … sugar, or something. They're the nicest people in the West." She tried not to gasp as he pulled further up her body, still moving his fingers.
"Once again, you confuse being nice with being good. If you truly understood the depths of that man's depravity, you would know that being set on fire every single day wouldn't come close to enough of a punishment for him, by your own standards. He was far more of a monster than any of us here today could ever hope to be. A brilliant man, though too prideful, which was what brought him down in the end. I'd have him back as Legate in a second, were it up to me. But evil to the core. You can't just say a magic word and wash away sins like that." He paused. "And I'm from Utah. I'm allowed to hate Mormons. What would you do about Caesar?"
"I'd shoot him in the head."
"That's disappointingly simple." He bit the inside of her thigh, gently.
"Exactly. No complex and drawn-out tortures. To prove that we're ..." her breath caught in her throat as he slid a finger inside of her. "That we're the better people. Mercy is a virtue."
"Mercy is for the weak." As if to prove it, he attacked her with his lips and tongue.
A few minutes later, she continued, raggedly, "I've only known Alerio for a day but I think I can come up with an appropriate punishment."
He pulled up to look her in the eye. "And what's that?"
"Toss him in the arena, against a bunch of slave women. Unarmed. For what you said he's done. Watch them tear out his eyes, rip his limbs off. Then set the mongrels on him."
"Hmm. How very diabolical of you. What happened to compassion?"
She snapped, "Mercy is for people who aren't fucking my friends against their will." Probably right now, he's got his hands on Cass, wrapped around her throat and – no, don't think about that. Cass is strong. She'll survive. We all have to survive. "Or people who arrange it." She tried to pull her legs to her, but he grabbed her knees and hauled himself up, settling his weight between her spread thighs.
"Am I to assume, then, that I wouldn't get the benefit of your fabled mercy?" he hissed at her, biting the shell of her ear. "You did try to shoot me in the head back in the Hub. Was that my one chance for a quick death at your hands?"
"Yes," she spat as he lined himself up to her, slowly pressing in, her hands scratching lightly across his back until he was deep inside her. She tried to encourage him to move by bucking her hips, but he just laid still against her, a slight smile on his lips. Then, in a graceful movement, he rolled them, so that she was balanced on top of his supine form. "Tell me what horrifying tortures you'd inflict on me, Miss Last, Best Hope of Humanity."
"I'd cut out your tongue," she said coldly, as he grabbed her, pulling her down. "Because I'm tired of listening to you run your goddamn mouth all the time. I'd cut off … any important body parts. Then I'd string you up on a cross and leave you to die alone in the desert. Slowly."
"Lies," Vulpes snarled as she twined his hands across his throat. He batted them away and grabbed her wrists, yanking her forward, lips against her jawline, sucking hard enough to bruise but not break skin. "I know you wouldn't go that far. You're too invested in pretending to be good to torture anyone. Not even me."
"You don't know anything about me, then." She writhed against him and broke free, pulling back to score her nails down his chest, until she raised red welts.
"I know everything about you." He thrust up, as if to emphasize his point. "I know how exquisite you feel wrapped around me. I know what you taste like. I know how you shudder and gasp when you come." He tilted her head, making sure she was focused on his words. "And I know your name."
"Congratulations, you and about everyone else in the universe." The rest was nothing she hadn't heard before. "I have my own propaganda posters. Do you want a cookie?"
"You are Rosalind Margaret Goodwin, born in 2261 in Klamath," he said, smoothly. "Your mother was in the military and died in Bullhead City, when you were nine, and your father drank himself to death a few years afterward. You had one older brother, an NCR ranger, who was killed during the First Battle of Hoover Dam." His eyes raked down her body, narrowing when he reached where they were joined. "And how proud he would be if he saw you right now."
Six froze. She didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it, but it all sounded so horribly familiar. The names lit up nerve endings that had been sheared away by Benny's bullet. And as a spy, he could access information that she couldn't even begin to touch. White lightning flashed behind her eyes. He'd known about this for ages, and had held onto it until he could use it to hurt her the most. What a pointlessly fucking cruel thing to do, to twist the knife like that. The word knife stuck in her mind, and she cast her gaze to the bedside table, where the straight razor from the night before still lay. In an instant, they both realized who was closer.
"Don't even think about it, or I'll call Alerio," he hissed, fingers digging into her hip. "You can watch as I slit your friend's pretty throat with that knife." In the heat of the moment, she'd forgotten about Cass.
"Bastard. Why would you do this?" She squirmed, still moving up and down on top of him.
"Because I wanted to. Because I can." Same as always, then.
"You want to know what I'll do to you?" she hissed. "I'll see you burn. I'll see you all fucking die, in front of me, and I don't care if I'll burn with you as long as I'm sure that you're dead."
In a sudden burst of anger, she leaned down and sank her teeth into his neck, drawing blood. She'd expected a violent reprisal, but instead, he moaned in what sounded very much like pleasure and pulled her head closer. It was enough to send her over, sharp and bright and brilliant all at once.
When he was finished, he smiled at her and stroked her hair. "My little whore," he whispered, and for the first time, she felt like one.