Ugh. What a nightmare. New job, Mass Effect 3 (WHAT THE FUCK), minimal original writing done. I actually kind of just stopped writing at all and wanted to die a bit. New strategy imminent (get out of my head, Verity).
..something weird is going on here. Re-uploading.
"You say that like it fixes everything," she said.
It was a moment before he answered. "It isn't meant to."
She couldn't accept it. She didn't have any words. The darkness around them seemed to be pressing in on her, filling her mouth and nose and eyes and ears, dulling and deafening at the same time.
Boone's hand on her shoulder made her jump. "We're almost home," he said, quietly. "Once we're back-"
"Once we're back I can be fixed?" her tone was sharper than she'd intended. "Everything'll be fine?"
He didn't reply.
She pushed away the blankets and struggled to her feet. "I don't think I can do this anymore."
He followed her as she pushed her way out of the tent. The sky was vast and cold overhead, blocked off by the mountains on one side rising sharply against the stars. She kept walking. The town's one street was eerie and deserted.
It was too much. "I just – I can't-" She bit her lip, hard. "I don't want any of this anymore. I'm not who everyone thinks I am. I'm not who you think I am. I shouldn't even be here, the only reason I'm alive is that I'm too fucking dumb to die."
"I don't know who you used to be," said Boone. "I just know who you are now."
"No, you don't," she snapped. "You can't just like, ignore a huge fucking thing like this. That's still me! That's something I chose to do. I can't even fucking figure out why or when or anything-"
"It's okay," he said. "You need to just calm down."
"Don't you fucking tell me to calm down!" Her voice echoed off the cliffs, and she stood for a moment in silence as it died away. "I need to go."
Boone's hand caught her arm as she turned away. "Go where?"
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Let me go."
Instead, he pulled her closer, and grabbed her other arm with his free hand. "Listen to me," he said, his voice low and harsh. "People here are relying on you to get them home. Understand? If you just go for a walk and never come back, what are they gonna do?"
She blinked at him, dumbstruck. She couldn't answer.
"Every single person here is here for you," he said. His grip tightened. "All of us who came, we all came out here for you. Get it?"
"Get what?" She struggled to get away, but couldn't escape. She bared her teeth. "Are you saying I fucking owe you something? Am I letting you down? I didn't ask anyone to fucking put themselves in danger for me!"
"Jesus." He let her go.
She stumbled back, nearly falling.
"No, that's not what I'm saying." She could see the tense line of his jaw in the starlight, his hands in loose fists by his sides. "Goddamn it, Verity, would you just listen?"
They faced each other like an old-world Western showdown. He seemed to pause, like he was waiting for a response. When he didn't get one, he continued, calmer. "I'm saying we came out here because we care about you. I'm not saying you – you owe anyone anything. Just – Christ. You know I'm no good at this. What I'm trying to say is that we can get through this. Even if it seems hard now."
Verity shivered in the cool night air. "I don't know what to do," she whispered.
He sighed. "I don't either." He took a step towards her. "We need to get you home. You haven't slept properly in – I don't even know."
"'Bout an hour," said Verity. "It sucked, though."
Boone's quiet laugh in the darkness almost sounded sad. "Least you don't have to keep running from it anymore."
She looked down at her feet, barely visible in the dim light. She remembered the dream; the sun on her arms, the shape of the smile on her face, the blood slowly drying on her skin. Why had her brain picked that memory in particular – and she had no doubt it had lined it up specifically – to remind her who she was? She'd done far worse, after all. Was it to make her think about what she'd lost? Remind her that she'd left her friends to die?
Boone put an arm around her. She let him lead her back to the tent. She brushed her fingers against the pocket of her bag where she kept her Med-X, just to remind herself it was there. But she felt differently, now. It wasn't an escape any more. It had trapped her in the dream; stopped her from escaping. It had betrayed her. She crawled back under the blankets, and stared up into the darkness.
The sight of the Lucky 38 towering above the Mojave landscape sent a surge of adrenaline rushing through her. She couldn't tell if it was positive or negative. Relief mixed with anxiousness, maybe.
She could hear the Chinese ghouls talking to each other, and took a look behind her. Everyone was dirty and dusty and exhausted, streaked with grime. They'd been running low on supplies the last few days, too, and had been rationing their food and water. And so it was a pitiful group that limped back into New Vegas. If she hadn't had an entourage of a huge crowd of terrified ghouls, she doubted anyone would have even known she was more than a Freeside drifter.
As she got closer to the Strip, members of the group began to peel away. Christine and Veronica were first; back to the Brotherhood bunker, Raul next, to check on the shop he'd just started in Westside. Gabe and Roxie she left at the now-empty Mole rat ranch, with promises she'd be back later. Arcade stopped at the Fort.
She elbowed her way through the crowds, staring bitterly ahead. She left the ghouls in a confused huddle in front of the Strip gates, took a step through, and stopped. None of the lights were on. The ribbon of neon that ran along the entrance of the Tops was dull; the walkway lights drawing people into the 38 were dark.
"I gotta check in with the embassy," said Boone. She didn't watch him leave.
And she was alone, finally. She had an unpleasant nagging feeling the door to the 38 was going to be locked, but it opened when she pressed her hand gently against it.
Inside it was almost deserted, as dim as she'd ever seen it back in the days before the war. There was no one on reception.
She found Benny sitting alone at the bar upstairs, a bottle of whiskey next to him and the bartender nowhere in sight.
He didn't look surprised to see her. "Can I offer you anything, angel?" he asked.
"What's going on?"
Benny looked at her, not smiling. "Shoulda let me know you were coming back," he said, lazily. "I'd have laid out the welcome mat."
The sense of dread she'd been feeling started to grow. "Not really in the mood, Benny," she said.
"You look like hell."
"Fuck you."
"I'm serious, angel, you really don't look good." He lifted her chin with a finger. "Tough trip?
She turned her head away, feeling almost sick. "Something like that."
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, you took your sweet time coming back, angel."
"I've got a group of Chinese ghouls sitting out in Freeside," she said. She had to force the words out of her mouth. What the hell had she thought she was doing? She couldn't look after them. She couldn't look after anyone.
"Whatever you're into ain't none of my business," he shrugged.
She pressed her lips together. "Can you- can you just do one thing for me?" she asked.
"And what would that be?" Smoke drifted upwards from his cigarette.
"Get the ghouls settled? I need a building, and some food, I guess."
His brow creased faintly. "Why you shuffling this off onto me?"
"Jesus." She stood up. "Because I can't fucking handle it, okay? Please?"
He watched her levelly. "Christ. Something happened, didn't it?"
She looked down into the drink that he'd poured her. "Tell you about it later."
He shrugged. "So why'd you bring this lot home? Just decided you hadn't had enough of picking up waifs and strays lately?"
"They needed somewhere to go," she said. That was it, really. The only reason she'd brought them all the way back here. She hadn't even really thought about what they could do once back in civilisation.
"They any good at anything?" he asked.
"I don't know." Verity shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. "A lot of them don't speak English, or very well."
Benny folded his arms. "We don't have available resources to-"
"I'll pay for it," she interrupted. "Out of my funds. Everything."
"That's sure swell of you, angel, but I mean it when I say we don't have the resources. NCR's stripped back our power privileges until we re-negotiate our arrangement." His eyes narrowed a fraction.
She froze. "That's – not what I was hoping would happen," she said.
"Hope don't get you much at all in this town," he said, crushing his cigarette out against the table. "Listen." He leaned forward. "We need the Dam. And now. We can't hold out any more, this is crippling us. We're haemorrhaging caps every minute that goes by."
"How long do we have?" she asked quietly.
He laughed humourlessly. "How long do we have until what, sister? Until everyone leaves and we run these places into the ground? Until the families have abandoned their casinos and the NCR swing in and take everything? We're hurting now. This is long past the time when maybe we coulda done anything else about it."
"Fuck," she whispered. "Okay. What do we do?"
Benny leaned back against the wall. "Way I see it," he said, "we got two ways of doing things. Easy way or hard way."
"What's the easy way?"
"The easy way is you and me head down there with a bunch of securitrons and tell them to get the fuck out or we start shooting."
She frowned. "How is that the easy way?"
Benny smiled, a shadow of his old grin. "It's only easy compared to the hard way, angel. The hard way is we do things diplomatic style. Make a 'formal complaint' to the embassy." He sneered. "Inform California that we're 'very displeased with the situation'."
"I still don't get why that's the hard way," she said.
"Because it's going to take six fucking months before we get a fucking acknowledgement, that's why," he snapped. "We don't have that kinda time."
She rubbed a hand over her face. "Okay. Okay, we can sort this out."
"Christ." Benny lit another cigarette. "This is a fucking mess. Should have done something sooner." He pushed himself away from the wall and began to pace.
"Sorry," she said.
He turned to her with a half-smile. "Bit late for that, isn't it, angel?" He blew out a cloud of smoke. "You know what? Why don't you put your ghouls up in the hotel here for a while? It's not like we don't have the space."
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Yeah," she said. "Okay. I'll sort this."
For the first time his smile seemed real. "You always do."
