Warning: NSFW.
Chapter 5
Rook's first stop was to the nearby auto shop to get back some of the gear she'd lost yet again, and a new radio. She would have steamed at the thought of her awesome pack being pilfered by some Peggie fuck down in that stupid bunker, but she was still cursing herself for having to leave Joey. Her escape was sloppy—necessary, but she should have made a better effort to hide the bodies, buy herself enough time to get the other woman out. It was the least she owed her after the inexplicable silence in the face of John's demands.
She thanked some guy with a buzz-cut who happily handed her a spare radio—"Free of charge, ma'am," he said with a grin and a subtle glance at her exposed cleavage. "As if I could charge the one and only Deputy!"—and as Rook commandeered a jeep to ride back to the normal insanity outside of the Holland Valley instead of the God-given kind, she switched the thing on and let Dutch know she was alive. His apologies for Hudson sank the heavy feeling in her stomach just a little bit further, but she almost ran herself off the road when John began to speak through it.
"What a daring escape that was, Deputy," he crooned, but his voice was raspy like he'd shouted himself absolutely hoarse for the last hour. "Hudson and I are both amazed at your… tenacity. And the trail of bodies you left in your wake."
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel, the sound making a squeaking noise. There he goes, Rook thought bitterly, always knowing just how to stab where it hurt.
"You know, I think I know your sin. It drives you. Every thought, every action. Your sin… is wrath." He breathed it into the radio, sounding like the word was delicious on his tongue, and Rook suppressed a shudder (of disgust… obviously). "So, I'll indulge you. Become wrath. Let it fill your body and consume your soul, because in the end, you'll still be empty. And I'll be waiting right here, to fill that empty hole…" Why did everything he say sound like a fucking euphemism? "And no matter where you go, I will have you. One way or another… Little Wrathling."
Cursing, Rook reached into the passenger's seat to fumble with the frequency switch and shut him up before he made another reference to 'having' or 'filling' her, then shouted out a louder curse and jerked back into her lane when she almost rammed into some poor civilian in a sedan. She risked pulling over for a second before she panicked herself into a crash, head thumping down onto the steering wheel with a screech of the horn as everything hit her at once.
She'd been so focused on hating herself for failing to get Joey out that she'd forgotten how close she came to John touching her skin. If Dreadlocks hadn't interrupted them, she'd probably be in chains in the deepest recesses of John's bunker, her soulmate in her face demanding she speak his mark, stripping her naked in search of hers. Speaking of naked, Rook needed a new shirt. And needed to get the image of his pretty blue eyes stroking up and down her tits just like he'd done with the sponge out of her mind.
She was careless to have been caught so easily, and now more than ever she'd earned his attention and then some. There was no way she could ever repeat the mistake of wandering into Holland Valley, because this time John was unlikely to let her go again. His threats and demands to have her back, like a child who had his toy taken away, still rang clear through her mind… but so did the sad, sad look in his eye when she refused to speak to him, the way he begged her to let him in, like her scorn broke his heart. Rook lifted her head off the steering wheel at the memory, wondering with a small pang if he somehow felt their soul bond, even if he didn't know it existed… or if he was playing to her so-called 'sensitive heart'. There was the real possibility that it was all an act, a crack in the walls of her 'altruism', as he'd professed, that he could weasel his way into.
Rook scowled and twisted the key in the ignition violently, shaking off the brief flicker of empathy. John Seed was a goddamn master manipulator—she knew that, she'd seen the letters and heard the stories of him smooth-talking his way into getting people to sell their land, homes and businesses to him, and she still let herself feel something for that psycho. She was an idiot.
"Never again," Rook promised to herself, before pulling back onto the main road straight for the Henbane.
"Never again?" Hurk exclaimed, pausing for a brief moment to bring his fist to his mouth in a poorly disguised belch. "Not even once?"
"Not until I've freed the Henbane and the Whitetail Mountains," Rook said, scowling as she hurled her empty beer can into the flaming barrel they were lounging by, under the makeshift roof boards of Sharky's trailer at the Moonflower Park.
"But what about—"
"Fall's End will be fine with Jerome and Mary May," she interrupted. "I can't risk going back to the Valley… not until I have no choice, anyway."
Hurk stared contemplatively at the flaming barrel, not noticing when Sharky leaned over in his camping chair and snagged one of his unopened beers. "What if we sneak you in, all secret-like, and then—"
"Hurk, I know it sucks," Rook half-snapped. "Joey's still down there with him, and so are fuck knows how many people they have locked up, and they're still kidnapping people and drowning them in the river, and Nick and Kim are in that house by themselves while the Peggies keep trying to bomb it. But I barely got out of that bunker this time, and if I get caught again I'm going straight back in there, and John's not gonna let me go this time."
"He didn't hurt ya too bad, did he?" Sharky asked quietly.
"Didn't even touch me. Just screamed a lot and threatened to tattoo me," Rook mumbled, sinking deeper into her chair. "Then he got all quiet…"
"Why won't you talk to me? …What is it about me, Deputy? Tell me and I'll fix it, if only to save you…"
She pushed aside the memory of John's forlorn eyes and wistful pleading, muttering, "But I definitely got his attention this time, and that's why I can't go back yet. I got myself caught like a fucking idiot and I'm not gonna let it happen again. I'd rather have Faith haunt me or Jacob throw me in a cage and talk about eating people than have that overdramatic man-child figure out his shitty god made us soulmates."
Hurk snorted, but Sharky frowned and nudged another beer at her with his foot, his flamethrower clattering in his lap. "What if… now hear me out on this… instead of you doin' all the work in the Valley, what if me, Hurky 'n' some o' those other folks you got on speed dial can hang around there? And if you need us you just give us a call like normal, and we'll head over to wherever you're at! Not like you gotta fight a whole war by yourself, right?"
Rook glanced over in slight surprise, smiling fondly at his earnest look. "That's not a bad idea, Shark. You secretly a genius or somethin'?"
"'Bout time someone noticed," her friend joked, but his cheeks were flushed in the firelight and he ducked his head to hide a huge grin. Clearing his throat, he added, "We can handle ol' Johnny Walker in the south for ya Dep, no problem. Scary sonofabitch in person, but his lackeys can't even figure out not to put important shit in explosive silos."
He looked proud as fuck of Rook when he said it, and although she grinned she felt a twinge of wistfulness. "Why couldn't God've made you my soulmate?"
"Well that's—what, me?" Sharky squeaked, and if his grin was big before it now threatened to crack his face. "Shucks, Dep, that's awful flattering of ya to say."
Rook blushed a little at the unintended implications, but shrugged and answered, "Well you are my ride-or-die buddy. And you supply the booze," she added with a shake of her beer.
Sharky looked so goddamn pleased with himself that Hurk grinned and added, "If we weren't cousins I'd wife ya up too, Shark."
"And I'd take your launcher in the fuckin' divorce," Sharky shot back, his grin giving way to a scowl as Rook laughed so raucously she almost tilted her chair over. As if out of nowhere, Sharky barely hesitated before positing matter-of-factly, "Seriously though, po-po, that John really does have a hard-on for you, so I'm thinking you two should just fuck and… uh… get it over with," he finished hesitantly as Rook's smile also fell away.
"What the fuck kind of a solution is that?"
"Listen man, if I knew one thing about my gender, it'd be that gettin' a man laid will solve just about any problems he's got," said Sharky, nodding his head at his cousin. "Ain't that right, Hurky?"
"He does got a point, Broba Fett," said Hurk, already reaching for what had to be his seventh beer. "Mama used to shut Daddy up whenever he was in one of his moods like that. Think half my childhood was spent hearin' them go at it."
"Ugh, fucking Christ Hurk," Rook cringed, hiding her face in her hands and trying to erase the image of Addie riding on top of that Canadian-hating southern stereotype. "I am not gonna fuck John Seed. Unfortunately for him, I don't share his kinks for pain and severed human skin."
"What're you gonna do then?" Hurk asked.
Rook sighed and pulled her hands from her face. "Gotta kill him, don't I?"
The words tasted like sand in her mouth and made her stomach clench a little with nausea at the thought of putting a bullet in John's head, watching his twisted mind spray out of the back of his skull, the blue of his eyes dulling with his death. It had starred in some of her nightmares more than once, which only made things all the more frustrating. She should want to put this fucker in the ground, for more reasons than Rook could count—he was a sadist, a torturer, a murderer, and all sorts of other fucked-up things—but some deep-rooted part of her found that fundamentally wrong, for which she could come up with no reasons to justify.
"D'you really think you got that in you, Dep?" Hurk said quietly, while Sharky watched with eyes that almost looked pitying. "Killin' your own soulmate?"
"Don't really have a choice," Rook mumbled, tossing back her beer as an excuse to swallow down the lump in her throat. "We can't arrest him—we'd have every Peggie in the county throwing themselves at us to get him back. Same with the other two, and Joseph… well, he's untouchable 'til we take down his fucking heralds. So that's the way it's gotta be."
"Man, what a shitty deal God gave you," said Hurk as he leaned back in his seat. "'Specially since people say havin' a soulmate is a gift. John Seed wouldn't be no gift to nobody. 'Cept maybe Hitler, or someone else bad," he added thoughtfully.
"Do you have a soul mark, Hurk?" Rook asked with curiosity.
"Nah, but I think the Monkey King mighta given me one anyway, like on the inside? Always had a thing for girls named Gina. Geena Davis, Gina Gershon, Gina Carano…"
"Soul marks are people's first words to each other though, right?" said Sharky.
"Who says her first words to me won't be her name?"
"Y'know what, that is fair," Sharky conceded, crushing his empty can in his hand. "Hey Dep, wanna see who can light more beer cans on fire in fifteen seconds?"
Rook smirked and said, "Didn't we already prove—?"
"That was a rigged round," Sharky muttered as he scooped up the empty cans littering the grass and began setting them up on the railing of the rundown playground. "This time the sun's not gonna be in my eyes."
"You mean this time you're not gonna have an excuse," Rook grinned, and Hurk snickered and bumped his shoulder against hers. "All right, one round, but if you set the school bus on fire again I'm not helping you put it out."
They spent a few more hours drinking and chatting, buzzed on beer and oregano, as the moon moved to dip behind the treetops. And Rook had to admit it was really fucking nice, one of the few times she was able to just stop for a second and have a bit of fun with two good friends who in all honesty had more compassion than brains. Hurk passed out in his chair after the second joint and the third pack of beer, tipping dangerously towards the flaming barrel, but Sharky managed to stay awake long enough to usher her into his trailer and make up a bed for her on the ratty plaid couch before bidding her and his flamethrower goodnight (the latter got a fonder farewell than she did). Well into her sixth beer, Rook was drunk enough to wave his precious flamethrower goodnight too before passing out under the blankets.
She woke at the crack of dawn to some asshole's voice muttering nearby. Groaning when the light streaming through the window seared her retinas, Rook squeezed her eyes shut and stumbled off the couch, tripping slightly on the edge of the blanket.
"…my words, Deputy. I understand why you fight, why you resist us. Your belief in your cause is strong…"
Ugh, it was that owl-eyed fucker Joseph Seed, giving another stupid speech. She could almost picture him with his arms out, shirtless and declaiming like a wannabe messiah. Why the hell was he awake, and moreover, why the fuck was he calling her so goddamn early? Scowling, Rook pried her eyelids open and fumbled around in the pink-orange light for her radio, wincing when it slipped out of the blankets and fell with a clatter to the floor.
"But what I do not understand is your avoidance of my brother. Of John."
Rook froze in place as she was moving to pick it up, her heart jumping into her throat. Apparently it wasn't just John noticing her blatant evasion of him and his region. She scoffed at herself when she realized it never occurred to her that John and Joseph would be in contact with each other—John probably told his stupid 'Father' everything there was about her, maybe even showed him the recording of her in the chair. He'd probably even showed that one moment of her crying to his brothers, played it on loop like a sign of victory with that smug fucking smile, making the big bad Deputy cry from one petty insult. She imagined Jacob would've gotten the biggest kick out of that. Asshole.
"You hurt his heart with your actions, Deputy," Joseph said quietly, almost scolding her. "This I do not understand. Why do you flee him, fear him? Is it because you know he can help you most?"
Scowling, Rook's hungover, stupid self snatched up the radio and snarked into it, "The only help your psycho brother is capable of giving is the kind that involves removing my skin and stapling it to the wall. You're both seriously surprised that's a turn-off?"
There was a pause, and Rook got the vibe that Joseph was not expecting a reply. It made sense—Rook rarely did respond to their inane Peggie chatter, especially since Faith's was usually in her head, although she occasionally got a jab in at Jacob when he bothered to hit her up with more than just that stupid song. That guy was surprisingly easy to snark at.
"John… is not a perfect man," murmured Joseph, and Rook snorted—what a fucking understatement. "Sometimes, he is not even good. He has known no real love in his life, for a long time… until now." Rook's heart stopped for a second—did he know?—but Joseph continued, "He was just a child when our family was torn apart. He was loving, kind, full of joy. Our parents beat us, and when we were separated, John was placed with parents who beat him worse… simply for being. Our family, the Project, is what has introduced him to love, but he has only just begun to truly learn."
Another wayward stab of empathy found its way into Rook's stupid, naïve heart, just like in the bunker, as she watched him smile wistfully while he spoke of them beating his child self into numbness.
"And now it is your turn, Deputy. God has granted me a vision, of your salvation and of John's. You shall find it together. You need only hear his words, his love, and let them into your heart…" Rook once again froze, the talk of 'words' and 'love' too close to the truth for comfort… but Joseph's tone turned vaguely threatening, his Georgian drawl creeping back in as he continued, "Or my family will show you what we will do to keep him from harm."
Feeling like her bones were filling with ice, Rook scowled at the radio and simply answered, "Fuck you," before switching the frequency and throwing the radio back onto the couch. She rubbed at her swollen eyes, wishing she could get a few more blissful hours of dreamless sleep but feeling too keyed up to lay back down. She could faintly hear Sharky snoring from the other room, and a quick peek out the window found Hurk still conked out in the chair, probably damp with morning dew. Shaking her head, Rook slung her new pack onto her back and her holsters back onto her thighs before pushing open the door, ready to usher the big guy onto her spot on the couch before he woke up with a bird making a nest on him… again.
In the Henbane, Rook could pretend things were almost normal. Well, Hope County levels of normal, anyway. In between playing cards with Tracey, Virgil, Earl and the Doctor, Rook torched the Bliss fields, shot wayward Angels, blew up Faith's drug boats and trucks to Virgil's delight, destroyed the statue, helped that asshole Guy Marvel film his stupid movie (and almost shot him when she nearly died trying to get the perfect shot of Angels coming at her face) and took outposts with the stealth and silence of a vengeful ghost. Sure, Faith danced at the corner of her eye whenever she wandered too far, switching between cooing her understanding and scolding her for her continued defiance… and there were those creepy phone calls on rotaries that usually just had whoever was on the other end screaming bloody murder (or laughing bloody murder—O'Hara's was a fucking trip).
Rook had also learned by now not to hunt in Faith's woods, lest she provoke the ire of an angry bison or moose exploding into view in a shower of green fog.
But Rook was waging a one-woman war, a soldier on a mission completing task after task to reach the objective, and the bad trip that was the Henbane wasn't going to do more than slow her down for a moment. Here there was no time to think about soulmates, sadness or sins. There was work to be done, and a constant stream of it being diverted Rook's way meant that there was always something to distract her, keep her focused.
And this time, she always had someone with her. Poor Boomer was still with Mary May in Fall's End, waiting diligently for her to return—her heart seized harder than anything when thinking about having to leave him behind, unable to risk flitting back in to get him even for a second—but Peaches and Cheeseburger allowed for at least one furry companion to be within reach. In the meantime, Rook blew up boats, trucks and shrines with Sharky and Hurk, took outposts with Jess, rescued prisoner vans with Grace, and shot down Chosen in planes and helicopters with Nick and Addie. Her friends were a perfect plethora of usefulness, and so goddamn pleased to run to her side and help that it made Rook all but fall in love with them. She had good people—genuinely good people—on her side, in a way Joseph and his creepy family never could.
And when the never-ending list of tasks to be done left Rook dead tired by the end of the day, she could collapse into whatever safe harbor she found for the night and dream of them instead of John… Most of the time.
Rook tried not to be alone for longer than two or three hours, when sleeping or while awake. She had made a grave mistake the day she set off on her own in the woods, getting lost like a dumbass and stumbling straight into John's arms, and with someone there to keep her in check Rook ensured it would not happen again.
This time she had Grace and Jess with her, mainly for their propensity to stay quiet rather than force themselves into the small talk they both admitted to hating. That day Rook was not in the mood to talk, exhausted for having almost singlehandedly liberated most of the region. Faith had amped up her pseudo-ghost stalking after the statue, still humming but looking much more cross with her than before, and Rook was getting real tired of whirling around with her gun raised in search of a threat and finding nothing but trees and startled companions. But it was after their ninth job of the day, walking back from the water treatment plant with haggard steps and the blinding, fiery light of sunset that Rook paused to take a look at them. Jess had her face hidden by her hood, but her grip on her compound bow was slack, and Grace's face belied her exhaustion, though she was trying to frown to cover it up.
"Listen, why don't you guys head over to the 8-Bit and take a rest or something, huh?" Rook said with a sigh, propping her new LMG on her shoulder as they paused in the road.
"You ain't comin'?" Jess asked, and when she turned Rook could spot the deep circles under her eyes.
Her chest tightened with shame. Just because she was trying to run herself ragged didn't mean she should have done the same to her friends.
"I think I'm gonna bunk down in a nearby prepper stash and then take care of some shit at the jail," Rook said dismissively.
"You sure you're gonna be all right?" said Grace.
"I'll be fine with this absolute beast on my side," Rook replied, smirking as she waved the M60 around like a flag of victory.
She'd pilfered it off of some dead fucker after ruining Joseph's statue. Compared to her battered old AR-C the thing was death incarnate, tearing apart more Peggies in a split second than Rook could count. She guarded the fucking treasure like an angry dragon—no way she was losing it to yet another kidnapping attempt. She was still steaming at having lost the SA50.
"Call if you need us, for anything," Grace half-ordered—her abrupt way of showing support—before they both headed down the road.
Her nerves started back up the second her friends disappeared past the curve of the tree line, and Rook immediately felt like she'd strolled right into an outpost full of Peggies. Clutching her M60 a little tighter, Rook slipped into the cover of the woods and headed east. She hadn't been lying about the bunker—Rook had found a decent stash of canned goods, cash, and a metric fuck-ton of ammo in a hidden bunker in the ass end of nowhere. The entrance was covered in tall grass and bushes that Rook never would have discovered if she hadn't already been hiding from a truck load of Peggies that had spotted her from the main road. Nobody she'd spoken to so far knew who it belonged to, but judging from the thick layer of dust that had coated all of the gear inside, it was long abandoned and therefore a decent safe haven.
Still, Rook wasn't stupid. She dropped down into the bunker with care and stealth, scouting every possible nook and cranny for hidden threats in case someone else had stumbled upon her stash and was waiting to strike. Once the bunker was cleared, Rook dropped her gear in a pile in the bathroom and flopped onto one of the bunk beds with an almighty groan of exhaustion, every limb suddenly aching from the day's exertion. They went almost nonstop today, and destroying the treatment plant (and dealing with the seemingly endless hordes of Peggies that followed) had just been the cherry on top of the bullshit cake. She felt another twinge of guilt for running her friends into the ground, deciding to swap out companions halfway from now on. No sense in everyone suffering like her, if it could be avoided.
Her stomach growled, but she ignored it in favor of the urge to grab her radio and check that Grace and Jess had made it to the 8-Bit. Not for the first time, she hesitated when switching frequencies, remembering Joseph's words from her night at Sharky's place… and the many times John had tuned in to spit invectives and speeches about sin.
They hadn't stopped when Rook fled to the Henbane. To her surprise, in the brief second Rook had switched to the Peggie frequency to listen in on what was going on at the wreck of the Misery, she heard John's voice in mid-sentence hissing demands that she return to his region so he could 'scrub her soul clean'. Rook abruptly turned it off before his angry shouting could alert the Peggies of her presence.
But she often kept the frequency tuned into John's, when she was alone and sufficiently safe (well, as safe as one could be being Hope County's Most Wanted in the middle of a holy war). She found out quickly that he liked talking to her, whether or not he thought she was listening. He didn't often shout anymore—which was a surprise, considering Rook once thought his only two modes were dramatic speeches and screaming—but she could still hear the frustration in his voice when he talked about the day she would come back to him, when he would get his hands on her and 'show her the Path'.
Most of the time, though, he spoke with that wistful, quiet tone he demonstrated in the bunker, and told her stories of his life.
"…seven years old when my parents first told me I was full of sin," she caught John saying almost casually once, while bunking down at the jail. Rook had to quickly shuffle out into the cell area, before anyone could hear the enemy hitting her up like they were old friends. "It wasn't news. What little memories I have of Old Man Seed are of him saying the same… mostly to Jacob. But this time it was about me. And I didn't understand. How could I have sinned after living in their household for just a few months, too scared to so much as close the curtains in case it wasn't my place? Hardly seems fair, does it, Little Wrathling?"
She wanted desperately to switch it off, certain this was the same manipulation tactic as before, trying to get her to empathize with his sad life to reel her in. But she didn't. Later she would justify it as getting to know the enemy, but in truth Rook wanted to hear him talk just for the sake of knowing her soulmate. Every piece of his life he gifted her was another clue to unlocking the mystery of John Seed, opening another crack in the shell of rage and mock smiles to see the truth of his soul. He never spoke such personal stories over the normal Peggie frequencies, instead choosing a more private one that Rook only just accidentally stumbled upon when she was jumping through random channels in search of calls for help and Peggie secrets being swapped. It was almost like he was hoping she wouldn't hear, switching so suddenly to a secret channel she'd have no way of knowing about… and yet it felt more like he wanted a space for just the two of them, so he could spill his soul to her and her alone, the Inquisitor now the Confessor, even if there was no guarantee she'd hear it.
She didn't catch all of his ramblings. Truth be told, Rook had no idea how many times John had spoken to a silent airwave, since most of the time her frequency was switched to the Resistance or more personal frequencies, like Dutch's. But what she did manage to catch broke her heart, just a little.
He told her about the first time they beat him, when he came home from private school with a friendship bracelet around his wrist from a girl in his class. He repeated his story from the bunker with more detail, clarifying that the night the Duncans woke him up from bed and beat him half-dead in the kitchen was the first night he learned how to truly hate… and how to make a splint for his own broken wrist out of the leg of his desk and his sash from Boy Scouts. He told her how his father would use his belt just like Old Man Seed, while his mother would paddle him on his legs, back and fingers with a wooden board for lack of strength, and how they demanded with each strike that he agree with a curt, resounding, "Yes," and a plethora of lies whenever they asked if and how he had sinned. He told her about how angry he was the day they died in a drunk driving accident, perishing in violence the same way they inflicted violence on him—together, and with much suffering—because he had not been the one to set their bodies on fire the way he'd always dreamed of.
Rook was ashamed to admit she cried at the last one, now fully aware of why John was such a monster. Joseph was right—it was all he knew. He took what he knew—sins, pain, confession, lies, 'yes'—and he warped it for the Project's purposes, for the promise of love and family.
"They beat me harder," he told her once, "for things I could not control. For God-given things, for the actions of others… There was no winning, so I gave them what they wanted… except for honesty."
Sometimes John told her about his time in Atlanta, mostly when talking about her habit of 'indulging in her sin', referencing days when he'd stumble home to a fancy apartment after a day at work only to spend the whole night through inhaling whatever he could up his nose and/or fucking whoever was willing to come home with him. He sounded so ashamed when he recounted the day Joseph found him years after their separation at his workplace, having just snorted a line off his own desk, too stoned by that dangerous edge of just enough and almost too much to recognize his own brother in the doorway of the reception room until Joseph spoke his name. Rook blushed crimson when John admitted there had once been a time where he couldn't fall asleep without first finding release in another person, addicted to that fleeting high as much as the others.
"But Lust is a sin, and the time for gorging on it is over, Little Wrathling," he crooned, somehow making it sound like a dirty promise despite his words. "If only you would come to me, and say 'yes'… I could show you how to set aside your sins, as I have, and fill yourself with my forgiveness, my love, instead of such destructive wrath."
Fucking Christ, the man didn't even know she was his soulmate and had already latched onto the idea of loving her… filling her. She had cursed like a goddamn sailor at the throb that started up in her cunt at the thought, angrily demanding to herself that she not fawn over John's pretty words like a sex-starved harlot, or dream of him sliding inside her and soothing the ache like she inevitably did later.
Now, Rook toyed with the little button and swallowed, wondering if every hit of John's voice she was taking was like the all the drugs he barely managed to kick, dragging her down into addiction a little deeper each time. At the very least, she should check in on her actual friends, instead of happily digging herself back into the John Seed-shaped hole.
"Hey Grace, it's Dep. You guys make it there okay?" Rook asked, reaching down to grip the handle of her gun in case she had to book it over there.
"All good here, Dep," Grace confirmed, and in the background was a loud whoop that sounded like it came from Hurk. "Drubman found a stash of Blue Label. Not gonna be a quiet night, that's for fuckin' sure."
Grace sounded so put out that Rook couldn't help but laugh. "Just make sure he doesn't pass out in another poison ivy bush."
After farewells were said, Rook's smile melted off her face again as her thumb travelled almost of its own accord back to the frequency button. Inhaling deeply and scolding herself, Rook flicked the switch.
"…athling? Do you keep your silence simply to torment me?"
Once more Rook managed to catch him mid-sentence, though this time he paused after his question in a silent plea for a response. But this time he sounded… weird. Sleepy, almost, and slurring his words every so often. It was a bit late, and if Joseph was hitting her up at dawn it made Rook wonder whether the Seed family kept up with the cliches of religious men and rose with the sun, so maybe it was past John's bedtime. Rook snorted at her own thought, like John was a child sneaking onto the phone (or radio in this case) after lights out to chat her up.
"How frustrating you are, Little Wrathling," he snarled when she didn't respond. "Dancing just out of my reach, flitting away where I cannot touch you… coaxing me to succumb to sin… Mmmm…"
He half-groaned half-sighed, a little bit like the satisfied sigh he gave her at the river after almost drowning her. Rook frowned, pulling the radio away to stare at it like a change of angle would give her the answers. Was he drunk? Is that what he meant by 'succumbing to sin'? Judging from the slur of every other syllable and his uninhibited noises, it seemed highly plausible.
An irrational stab of panic shot through her like a lightning bolt when she wondered if he'd gotten his hands on something harder than alcohol, fallen off the wagon again, and Rook surprised herself with how upset that made her. If John spiraled into an addictive mess it would only benefit the Resistance, and yet the thought made her so sick she briefly thought of trying to get Joseph on the line to check in on his little brother, but quickly discarded the idea—if not for the risk of showing Joseph she cared, then because the fucker might think murdering John would be the way to fix him, like the heartbreaking story of his daughter. The clink of a bottle being slammed onto some kind of surface, followed by a satisfied sigh from John, assuaged those worries somewhat—hopefully it was all he was imbibing in tonight.
"I do not understand why you fear me so," John crooned, pausing again for another little crackly sigh. "Things could be worse, you know. Here, you just have to confess. In the east, well... Let's just say too much Bliss can go to one's head. Faith created her Angels, but she never did treat them all that well..."
Rook sure as fuck couldn't argue with the last bit, but it also sounded like John was intensely jealous. A bizarre image popped into her mind of Faith teasing John about the one and only Deputy wanting to stay with her more than him, like a little sister trying to get a rise out of her brother, and it was so shockingly domestic for a family of murderers that Rook hastily pushed it aside.
"And yet you never ran from her," John snapped—yep, definitely jealous. "You risk losing your mind to her false promises, but you've lingered there for weeks, while you flee from my simple offers of salvation in a matter of hours. Joseph says it is because you know I can most help you—" Well, there was Rook's confirmation that he'd been complaining to big brother Joseph, "—but how can I when you refuse to stay with me? Ahh," he breathed, and the sound did things to her insides, "but Joseph has never been wrong before. Yet he also says you will be my salvation, and here I am… slipping steadily back into sin, undone by nothing more than your scorn, your eyes, your beauty…"
"Um," Rook said to herself, feeling her face blush scarlet, and was immediately glad she was alone.
"…never spoke a word, and yet you undo me. You are an anchor of wickedness on an already sinking ship, Little Wrathling," John continued, his poetic words starting to blend together even more despite the quiet frustration in his voice. "I will never get through the Gates of Eden with you dragging me down to your depths… spreading your virulent sin, poisoning my mind, infecting my dreams… Oh yes, oh… fuck—"
Wait, was he—?
A shocked squeak flew from Rook's lips before she could stop it, her gloved hand clapping over her mouth. Her whole face caught fire at the thought of John Seed holed up in his fancy ranch, one hand cradling the radio while the other desperately worked his cock. She squirmed when her cunt immediately started pounding like her heart had dropped between her thighs, and the sudden urge to shove her hand down her jeans and take care of the ache was so strong her arm jerked down of its own accord, as she listened to John Seed unabashedly broadcast himself getting off to the thought of her.
"My Wrathling, my silent siren," John slurred with barely concealed desperation, while Rook squeezed her eyes shut and fought against the urgent want ratcheting higher with every poorly concealed moan and coo of endearment. "So dangerous, yet so—oh—so alluring… like honey on a dagger's blade, a vision in the fog that puts Faith to shame… Never have I wanted anything more than I've wanted you…"
She whimpered, thighs squeezing tightly shut again, before she cursed her own weakness and yanked her glove off with her teeth. Wiggling her hips like an eager harlot, she maneuvered her hand into her jeans, too impatient to bother pushing them off, and made another muffled noise when her fingers slid into already present wetness pooling between her folds. John was a gracious help with his plethora of uncontained little cries in between half-coherent words of praise, evidently a very loud man in bed on a normal day. Rook thrilled at the unusual noises he gifted to her, nothing like the heavy breathing or quiet grunts of her past lovers—this man moaned, as though the mere touch of his own hand was an almost unbearable pleasure, an indulgence he hadn't felt in so long he'd forgotten what it was like.
"Better than any drug I've ever tried… and I have tried them all, my dear," he crooned, while Rook clung onto each word and circled her clit with clumsy fingers and quiet noises of pleasure so as not to drown him out. "And more addicting than any of them, without even a fleeting touch, a spoken word, even in ire… How do you do it, you deadly little temptress?"
"John," Rook stuttered without pressing the button, pretending in her fevered mind that he could hear her anyway.
"I want to know everything about you, Deputy," John sighed, and if Rook strained she could trick herself into hearing the slick slide of him fisting his own cock. "I want to know how you drive me to the edge so easily, why our short-lived meetings leave me so desperate for the wrath of your stare… I want to know what you would sound like if I—mmm yes—if I could get my hands on you…" Rook swallowed, mouth dry, but before the anxious weight of the prospect could ruin the moment John added impossibly softly, "I want to be so gentle with you, Little Wrathling, like with no one else… I want to look at your skin and run my fingers over it, lick the sin off it, swallow it." Rook pictured swallowing him, listening to him moan and feel him twitch on her tongue, and she cried out his name again at the heady thought, momentarily drowning out his voice. "… to be on my knees before you while I do it, and I want you to feel so good you pull at my hair and scream out your confession so I can… oh, so I can drink it down… t-take your pleasure inside me and keep it forever, no one else can have it, it'll be all mine…"
He paused in his spiel to curse again, the pitch of his moans rising up a note for every heave of his breath, the sound hissing through the radio like his mouth was pressed right up against it as he fucked his own hand to thoughts of her. Rook gripped her own radio so hard the plastic creaked, her wrist aching from the strain of pushing up her jeans and tracing feverish loops over her pulsing clit all at once, turning her head to muffle her cries into the sleeve of her jacket in case anyone heard her and came to investigate. The brief mental image of one of those dirty, Bliss-smelling Peggies catching the Deputy touching herself in an abandoned bunker briefly caused the fiery ache in her cunt to sizzle out…
…right up until John started outright whining, which quickly turned into ratcheting cries of, "Oh-yes-oh-yes-oh-fuck-please-Deputy-please-please-please," and then a single loud, shivery cry when he came, and that was more than enough to shove Rook right over the edge with him. While John moaned through his orgasm, Rook dropped the radio and slammed her hand back over her mouth to silence the sound of her own cries, hips jerking violently against her hand with every stroke. It'd been fucking months since she'd so much as touched herself—war-torn regions made for poor places to get off—so it hit hard and fast, and definitely had nothing to do with John's ridiculously sexy, audacious moans and unabashed begging.
The two panted in chorus in the aftermath, Rook fumbling for the radio again with one hand while pulling the other guiltily out of her pants. Jesus Christ, what the hell had she been thinking? Even with the pleasant hum of her orgasm still buzzing in her blood and the satisfied sighs coming from John, blissfully unaware of anything but his own pleasure, Rook silently scolded herself for giving in to such a moment of weakness… of sin. If there was a reason lust was a sin, this was it.
"I promise you, my Little Wrathling," John murmured in her ear once he caught his breath, a low, rumbly sound that had her shivering despite herself. "I will get my hands on you again, even if I have to go into my siblings' regions and get you myself… I will have you again … I will, I will…"
He trailed off into a mumble, either because he was falling asleep or because he was getting lost in his own head at the promise of stealing her back, before the signal cut out completely. This was all it took for Rook to bolt straight up in a panic, head colliding none too gently with the metal beams of the upper bunk. She cursed and ducked back down, cradling her throbbing forehead, before scrambling off the bed to snatch her gear back up. She had to get the fuck out of Faith's region before he decided to fulfill his promise and come fetch her… assuming he would even remember his drunken ramblings come morning. Still, it wasn't like Rook was going to wait around to find out… even if the prospect of being stolen away for whatever pleasures John had planned for her now thrilled her just a little less than it spooked her.
Grabbing a few cans of soup for the road, Rook slowly climbed out of the bunker and did a quick perimeter check for any nearby threats before setting off for the north, pointedly ignoring the way her legs still trembled. It was too late into the night to beeline back into work, and Rook wasn't sure she had the energy left in her to do so, but since it was also too late to make it to the Wolf's Den before sunrise, Rook pulled her radio back out (and definitely did not blush scarlet while doing so) and switched the frequency to hit up Addie and see if she couldn't hunker down at the marina until dawn. She could brave the sounds of Addie and Xander coming through the walls for one night if it meant she could easily escape in the morning.
To her surprise, she already found Xander trying to contact her with a whispered, "—eputy, if you can hear this, it's a bit of an emergency. Sorta? Not really. But it's definitely important."
"I hear you Xander, what's up?" Rook said, already starting to jog down the west road as she mentally mapped her way back to the marina. "You and Addie okay?"
"Addie's sleeping, but all good here," Xander responded, in explanation for his volume. "Listen, I tracked down another Peggie workstation that'll tell us where the new Bliss shipments will be sent to the other regions. It's scheduled for tomorrow at noon. We gotta stop them before they start dumping that poison into their drinking water too."
Rook sighed and rubbed at her tired eyes while Xander prattled on about the details. She'd be able to get three, maybe four decent hours of sleep before having to deal with that… and it would require lingering in the Henbane too long for comfort. But what choice did she have?
"All right," she muttered. "But you owe me a bed for the night."
A/N: So if I quietly drop a tiny cracky soulmate AU oneshot of Rook and Sharky sometime in the future, is anyone gonna fault me? I'm fond of him 3
Recognisable dialogue belongs to Ubisoft.