A/N: HELLO LOVELY READERS. IT IS I, KIWI, YOUR COSMIC LORD AND SAVIOUR. BOW DOWN TO ME, FOR I HAVE SEEN THE OTHER SIDE AND I HAVE RISEN.
Hey guys! Back at you with another chapter! It's only been like, what, two years? Pshh, nothing.
I do apologise though. I got a new job around the time I posted the last chapter and it's been a fucking rollercoaster since then. Also, 2020. That a good enough excuse?
Hope ya'll are doing alright out there. Holy shit, what a fucked-up world we live in. But on the bright side, only 57 more years until the bombs drop, so hold on guys, our post-apocalyptic dreams will come true. If they don't by the end of this year, which is highly possible.
Anyways, here's a chapter. I'm not entirely 100% satisfied by it (in fact, I kinda hate it's fucking guts) but it's necessary, I think, so whatever. I'll probably come back to it and tweak it later on. Not much action, mostly dialogue again. Don't worry though, we'll get to some more blood and gore soon. Muahahaha.
TRIGGER WARNING (I think?) FOR PTSD AND ANXIETY ATTACK.
Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Daye's Gone By
Part One: Quest For Cock, Final Act (Act III)
In Which Cait Has a Raging Hangover and Completes Her Quest For Cock (Although It's Kinda Lousy to be Honest) And Has a Vendetta Against the Past and Thinks Everyone Should Stop Being Pussies and Just Bone Already
Clang clang clang!
The repeated metallic clangs against the metal bedframe beneath her vibrated the entire world and violently ripped Cait right from the middle of a dead-ass sleep, slicing a shard of pain through her skull as sharp as Ronnie Shaw's rat-claws and piercing as her bat-shit crazy glare.
That's pretty fucking sharp, alright.
"Morning, Princess. Wakey wakey, mirelurk eggs and deathclaw bakey. No mistakey, time has come to rise and meet the day."
"Ugh… the fuck?" she slurred.
"No? Alright then – get your whore-ass out of bed, bitch. Time to go."
"I… eurgh, fuck me."
"Nah, I'm good. Seems like someone beat me to it."
The fuck?
Cait's eyes flew open and hot damn that was a terrible idea. The world was too fucking bright and it wavered dangerously in and out of focus, and made her reel and almost spew wet chunks over the side of the bed right onto Daye's ratty boots.
Ugh. Daye.
"Piss off, Daye, ya bloody wanker," she garbled. "I'm tryin' me mightiest not to either shit meself or puke all over the fuckin' place, and ye ain't helpin in me endeavour. Yer givin' me a bleedin' headache." She groaned at the effort of her little speech and shut her eyes again, collapsing back into the sheets of the board-stiff mattress beneath her.
Then a body shuffled in sleep next to her and she froze like hot shit on ice.
Who the fuck –?
She dared a peek to the side and saw the young, half-sleeping, tousle-haired and utterly butt-ass naked gate guard she'd tried to seduce upon entering The Castle.
Oh. Right. Yeah. That happened.
Cait shrugged. "Huh. Well, I fucked worse."
"Glad to get a sense of the threshold of your dignity. Now I know where I stand."
"Sure thing, Cap'n. Anytime. What I'm here for," she half-assedly saluted, swallowing to keep the hot puke down.
Clang clang clang!
"Fuck off, dick-face," she growled, throwing the pillow over her head, as if she could simply blot out Daye's incessant nagging. His boots clanging against the metal bedframe pierced right to her brain and rattled her bones. "I ain't dealin' with yer shit this early."
"No chance, Red. Hate to put a wedge between true romance here, I really do. But hey, that's what I'm here for. Get up, we're moving out."
"Fuck that, I ain't movin' for shit."
Cait heard him light a Lucky Strike and suck it in slowly. She lifted the pillow and squinted out at him. He was leaning against a wooden support post by the bed, dressed all in his asshole wastelander gear again, garbed to the tits and nines, and he rummaged around in that duster jacket she hated so much to pull out a roll of yellowed medical tape. The watery light through the windows was grey and weak, the sun not yet risen all the way, yet the pale sunlight through the grimy pane cut sharp shapes across his ruined face.
"Hm," he mused, cigarette dangling from his mouth as he looped the tape around his knuckles. "You know, I'd leave you here if I could. Let you fall in love with Officer Limp-Dick here, settle down, have a few crotch goblins. I can see you as the motherly type, I really can. You're just baggage, really," he said, and she would've thrown the pillow at him if she didn't need it to block out the light. "But the way it looks now, I can't. Seems you caused quite a scene last night."
Now that got her attention.
She sat up in the bed, pulling the sheets round her naked chest, and immediately regretted the movement.
"I what?" she moaned, clutching at her throbbing skull.
Fuck. She was getting too old to drink like this.
"Don't know the details myself, but to put it in layman's terms, you fucked some shit up and now the Minutemen are after your head. Can't leave you here or they might catch you, do something… horrible to you. Maybe even eat you. Alive."
"Piss off. Give me a pink spank on the arse, maybe. This bunch of pussies wouldn't hurt a feral radroach wanted for manslaughter."
"Good thing you're not a radroach then."
"Whatever. Fuck off."
"Your pillow talk is simply inspiring."
Clang clang clang!
"I swear to fuck, Daye –!"
Just then the door guard beside her stirred from sleep, cracking his eyes open – and then quite literally jumped out of his goddamned skin, vaulting from the mattress to stand, somewhat unsteadily, quite shaken, and fucking nude as the day he crawled out of his mommy's cootch, at the foot of the bed, hand at his forehead in rapt attention.
"Oh – sorry," he fumbled, "– I mean, my apologies, Mr. Daye – General, sir – I mean I –"
"Good god, son, put some fucking clothes on, for Christ's sake," he growled, cigarette dangling, frowning down at the young man's naked body without even an ounce of shame. "And it's just Daye, you know that."
"I – yes sir, I mean, yes Daye –"
"Red, pass Officer Limp-Dick here his uniform, will you?"
Cait reached over to the bedside table and threw the guard his starched blue and tan uniform, of which he hastily and unceremoniously flung onto his pasty, sweaty body, maybe a little leery of the uncouth Irish drifter and the seedy Minuteman General inspecting him the entire time he did so.
"Um – General –"
"Don't worry, kid, I'm not going to tell anyone about your little frolic in the haystack. I was young and stupid once, too. Just – Jesus, just put your underwear back on after, please. And go somewhere a bit less – communal than the communal barracks next time."
"I – right, sir, yes sir," the guard sighed, relief clear as moonshine across his face. "Thank you sir."
"Right, sure, fine. Now get the fuck out of here."
"Yes sir."
And then the young guard beelined for the door, and it was just Daye and Cait. And the rest of the sleeping Minutemen.
Cait rubbed at her throbbing head and pulled the sheets round her naked body closer, a little more self-conscious now. The silence was substantial and stiff as fuck, and Daye just stood there, smoking his stupid cigarette, the unspoken awkwardness of it all hanging in the air like Officer Limp-Dick's limp dick had.
She wondered if he remembered last night – well, how couldn't he? – and she wanted to know what he was thinking, beneath that stupid mask of indifference. Wanted to know why he rejected her the way he did, turned her away, made her a fool and set things fucking awkward between them now. Wanted to know if he regretted that.
He flicked his cigarette, eyes flitting to her momentarily.
"Really, Red?"
"Better 'n you woulda been."
Cait could deal with rejection. She could handle being turned down. Wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last. Hell, in the last few days alone, Danse and Preston and half the population of the Castle had jilted her short. She'd just brushed it off like dust on her jacket, moved on to the next guy, the next prospective dick.
It shouldn't bother her. It didn't bother her. It would've only been a quick shag in the back alley, nothing more than a little fun, than a way to blow off steam, no strings, wouldn't have changed anything between them.
Yet looking at him now, standing there in the watery light, his eyes anywhere but here, she couldn't help but feel the dull ache rise in her chest again, build in her throat like bile, like a grey wave threatening to overwhelm her. And it wasn't just hangover stomach-juice clawing its way back up.
It shouldn't matter. He shouldn't matter.
So why did it… still hurt so much?
More than anything, Cait wondered why he still wanted her around, even after all that. She half expected him to drop her like a hot load, maybe even sneak out in the night and she'd never see him again. Couldn't blame him, really, not after the nasty shit she said and the bruises she left him. She thought his sad, sad eyes in the red light of the radio tower would be the last she ever saw of him. Wouldn't be the first time someone dipped on her like that. Wouldn't be the last.
"Daye…" she began gingerly. "About last night –"
He took one last long drag of his cigarette and flicked it on the cement, crushing it beneath his boot.
"Meet me by the gates in one hour, Red. If you don't, I'm leaving without you."
Then he turned on his heel and walked away, past the beds lining the walls, and out the door into the brightening sunlight.
Cait collapsed back in the dusty bed one last time, throwing an arm over her face.
Fuck. She wasn't ready for this shit yet.
Twenty minutes later Cait literally crawled out the bed and yanked her sweaty, grimy clothes back on her sweaty, grimy skin. She balled up the nasty bedsheets and threw them out the window, landing on the sheet metal roof of some stall or fucking whatever. Oops. The gate guard mustn't have been a very good shag, she reckoned, considering she could still walk straight. When Cait shagged, she liked to shag as if the world was ending again. Which it was, really, always in a constant state of a massive dumpster fire of fucked-uppery and getting worse every day, so you couldn't blame her, lads.
But no way was she gonna put anything even resembling food into her stomach, so she decided to skip the mess hall and head on up to the battlement pub to see if she could barter with the shaggy beggar who skulked around there to give her a tube of Psycho for half price with whatever was left of Preston's charity caps.
Nothing like beating a wicked hangover by giving yourself a wicked high.
The air was cool and crisp, and she breathed deep, filling her lungs, washing away the stench of sex and dirt and whatever that funky smell was that always lingered in the barracks, something like stale ass sweat and slimy garbage.
On her way through the mess of boardwalks and tarps and sheet metal shacks, she ducked into one of the stalls not yet open and violently heaved whatever the fuck was in her stomach out onto the poor sod's linoleum floor. On the down side, the owner just happened to walk around the corner that moment and chase her down the alley, screaming profanities and throwing bits of trash, but on the bright side she didn't feel like a complete and utter bag of sweaty dicks anymore, so it was worth it, really.
She passed the smelly brahmin pen and the shaggy cows mooing their displeasure at the world, and up the creaky wooden stairs, and crossed a few rows of razorcorn and mutfruit to stand at the pub doors.
On which a 'closed' sign hung.
Great. Just great. Fucking perfect, actually.
Cait sighed, smacking her forehead against the wood defeatedly. "Fuck."
"Good morning, Cait –"
"Jesus fuck!" she screeched, twisting round, eyes wide, little rat-claws ready to tear out the throat of whoever the fuck had snuck up on her.
It was Preston. Preston Garvey. Garvey on his hands and knees in between the rows of silt beans and tatos in his dirty jean overalls, pulling weeds at, like, five in the morning or whatever ungodly hour this was.
Of fucking course he was.
"Lord Jesus, Garvey, you really got a way with scarin' the fuck outta people, ya know," Cait seethed, hand over her hammering heart. "That's the second time ya gave me a bloody heart attack in half as long. Nearly tore ye a new asshole."
Preston chuckled, rising to his feet. "My apologies, Cait," he said, wiping the dirt from his hands onto his pants. "I didn't mean to scare you. I thought you saw me when you came up the stairs."
"Yeah, well, I didn't," she mumbled, maybe a bit embarrassed about the fact that yeah, she probably would've seen him if she wasn't so fucking hungover and bent on getting absolutely wrecked with hardcore drugs.
He smiled at her kind-heartedly. "The pub is closed until noon. The one down by the gates opens in an hour or so, if you're looking for some breakfast. Or was there something specific you needed?"
Cait frowned. Well, she couldn't very well tell him about wanting to fry her brains with Psycho now, could she?
"Uh, no, not really. Just – needed some air, I guess."
"Well, this is as good a place as any."
"Right."
"The breeze off the sea comes in from the north, down from Canada this time of year. Less irradiated up there, or so I've heard."
"Yeah."
Garvey looked at her a moment, head tilted in thought. "You seem… distracted, Cait. Is something wrong?"
"No."
"Hm. Well, I could use some air, too. Walk with me?"
No. No. Fuck no. She did not feel like conversing with anyone.
But… she still had an hour before she had to meet Daye by the gates, so why the fuck not. Plus, maybe she could pry some more charity caps from him. Worth a shot.
Cait shrugged. "Sure."
He stepped out of the field and onto the creaky wooden boardwalk, one that ran the entire perimeter of the battlements, all the way from the back here by the pub and gardens, off to the sides where even more ramshackle sheds and outbuildings converged, and out to the front, way beyond, where the massive outline of the barracks could be seen looming over the gates, an intimidating front for anyone stupid enough to even consider attacking the place.
The Castle was beginning to wake up. She could hear staticky music playing behind some tarped-up shack, could smell something frying over a fire. Bells dinged down below, signalling the opening of stalls and shops, and the first creaks of slippery boardwalk beneath old boots crescendoed to a comforting, constant din as the city rose from sleep.
Well, comforting for anyone born of this, deserving of safety and citizenship and kin. Not so for her. Cait deserved nothing more that what she'd always got: pain and fear and discomfort. She liked the silence, because it meant no one was on the other side of the door waiting to hurt her.
The Castle was… too much. Too normal. Too loud. Too many people. She didn't trust the smiles and attempts at conversation, half expected a knife to gut her like a fucking fish in the street. She walked the boardwalks with suspicion, eyes always looking for danger in the dark corners, waiting for it to jump out, like it always did, because that's the way the world worked. Cait couldn't wait to get out of here, really, back in the wild, where she knew her enemy, knew that everything out there, everybody else, was trying to kill her.
Cait remembered something a raider told her once, back at the Combat Zone – a strange dude, a guy with one eye, who drifted from raider band to raider band, never staying in one place long.
Deathclaws are easy, he'd said, playing his shitty poker hand. They try to kill you and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.
Cait almost felt bad when she smashed his head in with a wrench in the pit.
She followed the Minuteman, rubbing at her eyes in a mix of exhaustion and weakness and mounting withdrawal as Garvey rambled on about some mundane shit or something else stupid.
"… and see, the Castle is your typical star fort, or bastion fort: a pentagon, to be exact. The angular bastions there prevent dead zones, areas where the enemy can hide safely and avoid gunfire from above and cannons from the side…"
She liked the guy, really, she did, but sometimes he was so… boring. Well alright, not boring, just… yeah, okay, boring.
She wondered if it was possible to fall asleep while walking. And whether she could try it without him noticing.
She wondered if Daye found him boring, too. If he really liked the guy, after all they'd been through, or if he was simply the biggest, greasiest piece of shit con artist to ever grace this fucked-up bunghole of a city, and he really had used them for the weapons beneath their feet. Garvey didn't seem like the kind of guy Daye hung around for shits and giggles. But then, the Castle didn't seem like a place he'd hang around either. Yet here they were. And here's the kicker, kids – he'd built this fucking place. So she was told.
Why?
There was a whole lot Cait didn't know about him, she figured.
And she figured she was getting reeaal tired of it.
"… and we have artillery guns on each of the five bastions. They're mortars that can consecutively fire up to five shells with a high level of precision and accuracy, and it has a five sector radius, give or take. Incredible, if you think about it. This technology was nearly lost when –"
"Garvey," she interjected, placing a shivering, Psycho-withdrawal hand on his arm. "Listen bud: I like you, really I do, but I don't understand a fuckin' thing yer sayin'."
"Oh – right, yes, sorry, I tend to get a bit carried away when I'm talking about the Castle. She's my baby," he smiled fondly. "We've been through thick and thin together. I know her like I know the back of my hand."
"Like you know Daye?"
Preston paused, pursing his lips. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then shut it again. Frowned.
Maybe it was the hangover. Maybe it was the headache. Maybe it was her burning curiosity that she hated and always knew would get her killed one day. Maybe it was the fact that yeah, alright, she was a piece of shit human being as well and had the personality of a wet Boston Bugle, but damn, she had nice tits and ass. She once got a flaming gay raider tart to stick his willy inside her, for free, and he wasn't even drunk. Only for a second, but damn, she was proud of that.
"I'm done, Garvey," Cait launched at him. "Done foolin' around about Daye, about his past, about all his shitty little secrets that, alright, yeah, maybe I do give a shit about after all, y'know. So spill. Go on. I'm waitin'. What's his fuckin' problem?"
That didn't come out exactly as she'd meant it, to be sure, but it got the point across enough.
"His problem? I'm not sure what you want me to say here, Cait."
"Does he – I mean, we had a little chit-chat last night, yeah? Real schoolgirl prattle, top notch. Is somethin' wrong with him? Does he – have someone?" she said lamely. "I mean, not that it matters, and there's a million and one other things wrong about the dinkus before that, but… is he bonin' that Piper bitch? The one in Diamond City, that reporter. Or his buddy Mac or whatever? Says he ain't bent but I ain't convinced o' that."
Preston frowned again, leery of her odd questions. "No, I don't believe he 'has' anyone right now, Cait. Not that I know of. Not since – well, since the last one. Why do you ask? Did he… mention anything about that?"
Cait seethed. Anger oozed out of her pores like bloatfly larva on a brahmin. Anger, mostly, yet there was something else there, too. Something hovering a little too close to hurt.
Fuck him. Fuck that prick, honestly. She didn't need him, didn't need him to want her or anything like that. But… still, it was never nice to be unwanted, despite never being wanted or loved her entire life. It just… added to the callouses growing across her skin, over her heart.
Understanding cut across Preston's face. "Did he – oh. Oh. I'm so sorry, Cait."
Cait bristled. "Fer what?"
"Look, he's… well," he sighed, "I'm not going to defend him, but anything he said or did last night, just know – it's not his fault. He has some… severe trauma, to put it mildly. He's not… ready to move on."
"From what?"
"His past."
Cait rolled her eyes. "Pshh. 'Move on'. Yeah right. 'His past'. He ain't the only one with a past. Fuckin' pussy, is what he is. We all got our 'trauma', Garvey, got our ghosts followin' us around like dogs. That's the way of the world, and fuck Daye if he thinks he's the only one who's got problems. But fuck it. Fuck the past. It's over, it's gone. Know who holds onto the past? Dead people, that's who. You either let it kill you or you get over it and keep livin'. Don't mean we can't indulge in a good shag or two while we watch it all burn down."
Preston's frown deepened. Not quite as absolutely fuckable as Danse's signature frown, but still, the seriousness looked good on him.
He hesitated a moment longer, decision wavering in his eyes.
"You see that, out over there?" he finally said, pointing back to the northwest across the channel before them, choppy and cold and peppered with the ghosts of ships, to beyond, the crumbling concrete of the docks, the splintered wood rotting in the sloshy foam that angrily licked against the shore, forever in the shadow of skeletal skyscrapers. "Back towards the city. Past the airship, the airport, there's the harbour, to the north. Do you see it?"
Cait squinted. "Uh, yeah, I guess."
"That's the Charlestown Navy Yard. Constitution Wharf. The Irish Golden Door, it was called. The potato famine during the 1840's killed a million Irish people, and two million more left Ireland for America. Most of them landed here, in Boston, at the navy yard. Looking for a better life, a chance for something more. But it wasn't better here," he frowned. "Not at all. They were feared and hated and shunned, and crammed into tenement slums, and hunger killed them, cholera killed them, violence killed them. But you know what? By the time the bombs fell, thirty percent of Boston had Irish descent. The highest out of any American city. And every single one of them came through that wharf."
Something inside Cait stirred, watching the cold water gnaw at the rotting posts. Not anger, not kinship. Something closer to… pity, maybe? For them, for her, she wasn't too sure.
Cait hated pity.
"How d'ya know all that?"
"The General told me."
"How does he know? And why're you tellin' me this?"
Preston sighed, still looking out toward the wharf with glazed eyes. "I don't know, really. Because it's interesting? Because you're Irish? Because it's history? I think we all need to know where we come from, don't you?"
"And Daye? Where's he from?"
"That part of history isn't mine to tell," he said, turning his gaze onto her, sensing her mounting ire. "But it might be yours to ask. And whatever you say, whatever you think, your past – it does matter."
Cait frowned hard.
No, it didn't. It didn't matter. What good did wallowing in the past do for anyone? Cait never thought about her parents anymore, about her slavers and the horrid, horrid things they did to her, about all the people she'd killed and bad shit she'd done. What was the point?
"Be careful, Cait," Preston said. "Falling in with Daye like you are, it… well, it isn't safe, to be frank. Take care of yourself. Take care of him. He needs it, more than he thinks."
"Sure. Needs a boot up his arse, more like it."
"Ha! Can't argue there," he laughed. His head tilted in thought. "Well, whatever he needs, I think you can help him find it."
Cait swallowed.
Preston placed a soft hand on her forearm, and it made her jump. "And you're always welcome back, you know," he said. "The Castle doors are always open to you. You have friends here, even if you think you don't."
Preston smiled again, wide and warm, and Cait's frown smoothed out. A little.
"I… thanks, Garvey."
"Of course, Cait."
Preston Garvey really was a handsome man. Dark skin, tall, well-built. She could see his muscles more defined in the overalls, and his arms nearly bulged right out of his plaid undershirt. He wasn't wearing a hat and the rising sun slanted across his face at just the right angle to illuminate the very beginnings of a five-o-clock shadow. He was probably one of the most genuine, well-built, handsome men she'd ever met.
Well, after Big-Dick Danse, of course. Fuck.
And Daye, the asshat. Probably. No, not really.
Fuck. That reminded her.
"Hey, I gotta ask ye, bud."
"Of course."
"Right. Did I, uh… did I get up to any… smarmy shenanigans last night?"
Preston held back a smile. "Shenanigans? No, of course not."
"Fuckin' eh."
"Hijinks though? Yes, quite a few."
"Bloody Hell."
He laughed. "Only a few broken windows and upended stalls, nothing out of the ordinary for a riled-up recruit. We did find a jukebox in the water, though, that someone had thrown over the walls. The entire Castle's rations of Fancy Lad snack cakes have mysteriously disappeared, and one of the gate guards went missing from his post as well – do you know anything about that?"
"How the fuck am I supposed ta keep tabs on everyone in this shitehole?" she barked, maybe a little too quickly.
Preston gave her a thin smile that suggested he knew otherwise. "Alright. Other than a few unhappy shopkeepers and a couple of noise complaints, I don't believe you caused any serious damage. Nothing that I couldn't smooth out."
"Good. Daye might've said y'all were out for me blood or somethin'."
"No, of course not. We only drink the blood of super mutants, Cait, not other humans," he smirked. "Although, I believe you did call Ronnie Shaw a – huh, what was it again? – a "crusty old bat hellbent on spookin' the virginity out of a bawd," whatever that means."
"Yeah, well, crispy cunt deserves it."
He laughed again, a flash of white teeth on his dark skin, the thing jubilant and irritatingly contagious. "While I don't appreciate the poor choice of words, I will say I am… not inclined to disagree."
Cait caught his smile. "You know what, Garvey? You ain't bad. Ain't bad at all."
Part Two: In Which Daye Continues To Be A Raging Asshole of Epic Proportions But Are We Really Surprised? And Also in Which Cait Learns That Maybe Daye Isn't As Infallible As He Pretends To Be
Cait knew Daye wasn't the talkative type of asshole, and that part of his philosophy was to only speak when vital information was needed, like during a firefight or when a stash of caps or weapons was found (although she'd like to argue and say he did say stupid shit all the time, and Cait had indeed found a cap stash once already but fuck him, she wasn't sharing with the prick).
But this silence – this prickly almost-silence of curt words and pussy-footing – was… almost unbearable.
Cait trailed a good few feet behind the guy, double-barrel at the ready, staring at the back of his stupid duster while dirt licked at the bottom of it and his boots crunched in the gravel of the broken streets. The sun had almost reached it's highest, making the shadows small, and the sand clung to the sweat on her skin and the inside of her lungs, like shit stuck to the asshairs of a brahmin. They were heading north, she thought, north along the interstate. A long, wide road lay before them, a hot, full sun above them.
He had said something earlier about heading north, out of the city, laying low while they skirted Chuckles' friends or whatever. Well, they were heading north alright, but north was back into the city. Where Chuckles' friends were.
"Daye. Hey, Daye."
Nothing.
"Didn't ya say somethin' about avoidin' downtown?"
Still nothing.
Asshole.
Cait scowled and fiddled with the cuff of her armour. Oh right – Preston had gifted Cait a new set of leather armour before she left the Castle. Fina-fucking-lly. Well, new to her, of course, but still. It was smooth on the top and worn-in where it should be and a beautiful dark brown colour, almost the shade of Salisbury Steak – or what the shade of Salisbury Steak should have been, before the boxes faded and peeled with sun and time. Belonged to a fallen soldier, he said, and didn't' fit any of the other women in their ranks.
"Daye. Daye."
"Hm."
"Shouldn't we walk along the shore? I mean, less raiders n' shit?"
"No. I hate the ocean."
Whatever.
Most importantly, the leather armour was hers. Cait had never owned a set of real leather armour before. Tommy had made her wear this fake trussed-up set a while back that kinda looked like leather but showed way too much skin because that's what it was meant to do: make the raiders want to watch her longer, hop in the ring, stare at her tits, and get their heads smashed in while they were distracted. Worked a charm, till a couple of them jumped her and tried to stick their nasty raider dicks inside her. Didn't offer much protection then, but they didn't get very far, not before Cait broke their wrists and their skulls.
Anyways.
"Daye."
"What?"
"You got any water?"
"No."
It was, quite honestly, the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her (which wasn't sayin' fucking much at all, honestly). Cait was certain she owed him now, whether through money or favours or sex, just like everyone else wanted, just like everything else in her life. But he'd said no. It was a gift, it was hers, and all she had to do was not die.
Ha. Easy enough.
She didn't… get it. Why Garvey was so nice to her. Her, the stinky, drunk Irish weeble who shagged his soldiers and threw jukeboxes into the ocean. Why he spent all his life pulling other people out of the shit, and helping them along, even if they were utterly unfixable, like her. Why he believed Daye was anything other than an asshole, through and through, right to his rotten core.
"Hey. Hey, Daye. Daye."
"What?" Daye snapped, the sound cracking across the pavement like bullet fire, and he twisted round, face contorted in a livid snarl.
Cait ground her teeth. "The fuck's yer problem?"
You. You're my fucking problem.
Your face, that's what.
Your annoying, incessant nagging in my fucking ear.
No. None of that. Instead, his snarl sharpened, and he twisted back around, continuing on his way.
Fuckwad.
Cait hated this new, quiet Daye. She wanted him to yell at her, to scream and swear and fight, to punch her like she'd punched him, to say hurtful things that only made her smile wickedly, and she wanted to do the same. That's what she was best at, after all.
"Daye. About last night –"
"Look, Red, let's just drop it."
"I was drunk and horny and lost and –"
"I get it. Fuck. Just let it go."
"Why?"
She might've been asking why he wanted to drop it – indeed, she had – but it hung there in the air between them.
Why not me?
Daye sighed and lit himself another Lucky Strike. To her utter surprise, he slowed his pace to fall in step beside her and offered her a cig.
She took it, lit it up.
"I told you. 'Cause I'm not into redheads, you fiery Irish bitch."
Cait laughed, a real laugh, and nearly choked on the cigarette smoke.
"I don't believe that for a second. I think yer dick is kinked or somethin'."
"Oh no, you caught me."
It wasn't an apology. Wasn't an admittance. Fuck, Cait wasn't sure what the Hell it was. Wasn't even sure it changed anything.
But hey, at least he was talking now.
Oh wait. That's not what she wanted. Fuck.
"So. Where we headed, Cap'n?"
"It's Daye. Going north."
"Right. Lay low, out of the city. Dodge Chuckle's cronies."
"Ten points to Gryffindor."
"Gryffin – the fuck?"
"Never mind."
"Yer weird as fuck, Daye."
"Thanks, toots."
"What about Marowski? Any leads on that twinkle-dick? Ye only spent two fuckin' days locked up in yer hidey-hole lookin' for him."
"No, nothing yet. Fucking asshole is off the map. Figure we hole up, find some leads maybe. Got the Minutemen on standby for any new reports."
"Oh great, more time layin' low. Well, as long as wherever we're goin' has some good drugs and better fucks, I'm all for it."
"Ha. Maybe we'll swing by Goodneighbour on our way, visit Mac."
"Fuckin' eh, bub. Righto. Good plan."
The sun was beginning to slink behind the groaning skyscrapers now, cutting long shadows across the broken glass and rubble, and it wouldn't be long before they made it downtown.
They decided to cut across an old suburb, boarded up triple-decker brownstowns lining the historic cobbled street, an old copper statue here and there, so weathered and worn that no one took the time anymore to even remember or care about why it was there in the first place.
Cait wondered what it was like here two hundred years ago. She marvelled at the neat, fenced-in front gardens, the tidy front stoop, the porch chairs still in place after so long. The neighbourhood was remarkably untouched, really, as if the people who lived here had merely stepped away for a moment. It was… beautifully eerie.
But they hadn't. They'd all died centuries ago. It was long past. So it didn't matter. She didn't care.
Cait thought about what Preston had told her, atop the windy battlements. How the Castle was a pre-war fort, hiding centuries-old weapons beneath. How her ancestors sailed from across the sea to find passage in this city, to make something of themselves. How Daye couldn't move beyond his past, whatever it was, couldn't see the now for all the what was still clouding his eyes. How, for such a smart man (okay, don't tell him she said this, ya wanker), he let the past weigh him down like a slave collar, let it follow him like a wolf, let it influence all he said and did, and yet he was still alive. It didn't make sense.
"Why'd ya go an' hide all yer drugs in the Castle?" Cait asked, mind still back at the fort with Preston. "Right under the nose of all those Minutemen pricks? Seems fuckin' dumb to me."
"Best place to hide a bunch of drugs, right under the cops," he grunted. "Always has been."
"Has it?"
"Sixty percent of the Boston Police Department was corrupt in the 60's, you know. The 1960's, not 2060's. Though it was probably more than that, near the end."
Cait stepped over the rotting corpse of a feral or something. She pursed her lips.
"Why do you know so much about Old World shit?" she poked. "It's weird."
"No it's not."
"Yeah it is."
"So? You're not Little Miss Normal there, Red, just so you know."
"Preston told me about the Irish gate."
Cait couldn't see his face, but she liked to imagine he was angry.
"So?"
"So, no one I've ever met has even heard of coffee, or whatever the fuck you called it, let alone tasted it, and yet here ya are, with all yer weird fuckin' trivia about stupid shit that no one cares about."
"I – people care."
"No they don't. They don't give a shit about any of it Daye, 'specially the Old World stuff. Why care about it?"
Daye's knuckles tightened beneath the medical tape. "Why not?"
"Because it's dead and gone and it ain't never comin' back."
Daye flinched as if the words snapped out and cut him.
"I –" he paused, then swallowed, jaw hardening. "That… doesn't matter."
"Exactly. It don't matter. So why d'ya care?"
"I – I don't know, Red. Because it's history."
"So? People back then didn't give a fuck about anythin' other than money and guns and tech, or whatever was so fuckin' important that they went and blew it all up for. They fucked it up and ended the world 'cause they were stupid, selfish cunts, and this is what we get for it. How is that fair?"
"That's not – you know what, fuck off, Red. That's enough about this."
"No. Fuck that, I ain't done."
"Yeah you are. Can it."
"No I ain't. Selfish motherfuckers, they didn't give a molerat's sweaty asscheeks about history or -"
"Cait, shut up."
"- Or the future or any of it. If'n they did, we wouldn't be here right now."
"I said shut up."
"So obsessed with themselves, they were, so fuckin' infatuated with the past they couldn't see the future."
"Enough!"
"Let 'em rot in Hell. I say fuck the Old World and everyone who lived in it."
For someone so big and burdened by unnecessary amounts of clothing and weapons, Daye swept back remarkably fast, striking Cait across the chest with his arm in a fantastic devastating blow, slamming her back into the crumbling brick of a browstown veranda.
"Fuck you," he seethed, livid face not an inch from Cait's own, breath sickly hot against her flesh. "Fuck you. Fuck you! You don't know a fucking thing about the Old World."
Cait wheezed, air dashed from her lungs, swallowing against Daye's crushing arm.
"I know enough."
Daye fumed, green eyes the colour and ferocity of a malicious radstorm scouring across her defiant face, bloodshot, the right one scarred and pinched almost shut. Searching, looking for something, seeing but not really seeing. Or seeing too much, maybe. His mouth curled into a tight snarl, a flash of white teeth bared and ready to tear her fucking throat out.
It was terrifying.
Cait was certain this was the end. After everything she'd been through, everything she'd ever seen and done, it all came down to this. He was gonna clout her, beat her to a fucking pulp, or wrap his fingers round her throat, maybe, and squeeze until the light left her eyes. Or simply shoot her in the face and be done with it. His eyes were absolutely wild, mad like a howling animal caught in a trap, fiercely searching for a way out, prepared to gnaw off its own foot, but they were… sad, too, almost, around the edges and fading in, the way they often were. The way they were last night.
But then, suddenly as he caught her, he simply let her go.
Cait gasped for air, her chest heaving in pain. Her throat hurt, her head hurt, her stomach hurt. Everything hurt.
Daye backed off, stumbled brokenly, and when Cait looked up, her heart sank.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
His hands shook violently, almost uncontrollably, as if the air around him were freezing, turning him to ice. His breath had dipped shallow, thin and reedy, going in and out in short, sharp gulps and gasps, as if his lungs were filling with water instead of air. He swallowed once, twice, his face a petrifying blank slate of static nothingness, and once his back hit the brick terrace, his legs seemed to give out and he simply slumped away into himself, wilted against the wall, pale as the midnight moon.
"Daye?" Cait groped, face twisted in white shock and bewilderment. "Daye? What the fuck?"
Fuck. Was he dying? Was this a heart attack? She often joked about killing him, but now – shit. Shit shit shit-fuck. Fucking bloody Hell.
Daye squeezed his eyes shut tight and pressed his trembling palms flat against them.
"I just – I can't – I'm fine – it's nothing, Cait, it's just –" he inhaled staggeredly, some deep-buried heartache rippling through his muscles and stealing his words from his throat, replacing them with a deep, heavy, tearless sob.
Oh.
Cait had seen this before, back in the Combat Zone. More than a few times. Old raiders, and sometimes young ones. Those who had seen too much death and blood and violence in their lives – they often cracked like this.
You can only bend a stick so far, Tommy had told her. Before long it'll snap.
Cait swallowed and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"Hey," she said, crouching down to his level, looking him straight on. "Hey, Daye."
His breath rattled out thinly through his nose. He trembled like a child, like Cait used to tremble when she hid from her parents.
"Daye," she said, slower this time. She grabbed his quivering hands and gently pried them away from his face, and he let her. "Daye. Look at me."
He didn't, not for a long moment. Then, his eyes cracked open a bit, and they found her face.
His eyes… his face, twisted with old pain, a hurt so deep and yawning she could not fathom it. Her heart ached for him, despite how much she fucking hated his guts.
"Good. Listen. Now, what should I do, Daye? Tell me what ya need."
He swallowed again, against something threatening to claw its way up his throat, maybe, or simply cleave through his chest.
"Jet," he gasped. "In my bag."
"Okay."
Cait rummaged through his travelling pack and pulled out a puffer, flipped the cap off, and handed it to him.
He took it with frail, shaking hands and huffed it, deep and fully, and cast it aside, throwing his hands over his face again.
There was nothing to be done, then, Cait supposed, except wait it out. He was too heavy to move, and she knew from experience that nothing but time could get him up now anyways.
Ha. What was that old saying? Time heals all wounds?
That was a lie. What people really meant is that eventually you get used to the pain. You forget who you were without it. You forget what you look like without your scars.
She leaned her double-barrel against the brownstone and sat down beside him, a hand on his arm to let him know she was there.
Cait wasn't sure how long they sat there.
The sun sunk low enough that it cut exactly between the buildings of the cobbled street, the hot, hazy air illuminating all the dust motes floating between the rays of light, falling softly onto the dusty world below, onto the quiet, sleeping neighbourhood. Boys would be riding their bicycles and girls would be playing hopscotch in a different time, Cait thought.
It sunk lower, and the dust faded away, the shadows turned long and slanted. The streetlights would have turned on two hundred years in the past. Mothers would be calling their children inside for dinner.
Lower still, right on the edge of dusk, that moment between the ending of day and the coming of night, when the darkness played at the edges of concrete blockades and crumbled buildings. Dogs would be barking at moving shadows and police would be cruising the streets. In another time, in another life.
Daye opened his eyes again.
Cait swallowed, her throat parched, her legs kinda crampy.
"Mornin', princess," she joshed, because she didn't know what else to say. "Wakey wakey, mirelurk eggs and deathclaw bakey. Err... I forget the rest. Enjoy yer beauty sleep? Ya look like shit, by the way."
Daye swallowed too, and smiled a tiny little smile.
"Fuck you."
Well, she was glad he didn't want to throttle her any more, so that was good enough, she supposed.
"Fuck you too, ye smarmy arsehole," she chuckled. "Fuck, me legs are crampin' like I'm on me rag. Uh…how –" she began, pausing to reword it. "How are ye?"
"Fine," he grimaced. "I'm fine. It's – it was nothing, Cait, I'll be fine."
"It didn't look fine –"
"I'm fine, Red," he snapped, rolling his aching shoulders a bit. "Fine. Fucking peachy."
"Daye –"
"Leave it."
Cait frowned, yanking her hand away from him. "Fine, then, next time ye start blabberin' like a fuckin' pussified gentry lad I'll just leave ya to the feral dogs, alright?"
Daye sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He seemed so… small, now, despite his height and bulk. Like he'd shrunken into himself, withered away a little.
"I – alright. I get these… things, sometimes, these… attacks. These paroxysms. I… don't want to talk about it."
"Fine," Cait huffed. "It ain't somethin' I gotta worry about, is it? You ain't gonna go all blubbery in the middle of a firefight?"
"No."
"Good. Got enough of ye to deal with, let alone this."
Cait made to get up, but he latched onto her arm with surprising ferocity.
"Wait," he said.
Cait waited.
"…yeah?"
He hesitated, clearly torn in two.
"Can you… I mean, might as well stay here now," he shrugged, a poor attempt at nonchalance. "It's getting dark. No point in breaking cover."
Cait could have laughed at him then, laughed at him and got up anyway, and left him there on his own – it's what he would've done – but some part of her, some long-buried, deeply hidden, calloused-over, stupid fucking part of her told her no.
"Yeah," she mumbled, a poor attempt at concession. "Yeah, yer right."
She slid back down next to him, and they watched the sun go down in the city, felt the cool air chill their lungs and the tips of their noses, and Cait felt him slip into an uneasy sleep beside her, his hand still gripping her arm like she was mooring him to the world.
Cait got it. She really did. This world was full of fucked-up people and places and monsters. Not only the ones who tried to tear you apart from the outside, but the ones who did the same from the inside, too. Sometimes they were one and the same. Sometimes the hidden ones were worse.
Cait had a monster inside her, she knew. It was a deathclaw, a sleeping beast of monstrous proportions, and it always made her sick and torrid. It trembled inside her when it craved Psycho. It sucked all the air from her lungs when it dreamed of her parents. It tore her from the inside out if she thought too much about it.
Cait had her fair share of fucked-uppery, no doubt about it. She knew Daye did, too.
Still, it was… humbling, to see him so human. Made her think that maybe, whatever he'd seen, whatever horrors the wasteland had inflicted upon him, had cut him deep enough for this. That maybe his past meant more to him than she cared to admit.
She thought about what Preston had said to her.
I think we all need to know where we come from, don't you?
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it didn't matter where people came from, not anymore. Maybe that way of thinking died along with the rest of the world two hundred years ago. Maybe yesterday didn't matter. Maybe it only mattered where people were going.
But, she thought. But you can't get there without learning to walk.
And you learned to walk yesterday.
THE END
WRITTEN BY ME
DIRECTED BY ME
PRODUCED BY ME
STUNTS BY ME
OH WAIT
POST-CREDIT SCENE
"Red. Hey, Red. Wake up."
Cait rubbed at her eyes and groaned – this was the second time she'd been rudely roused from her beauty sleep by this asshole in less than 24 hours.
"What?" she growled, back sore from the brownstone, ass sore from the cobbles. Her eyes squinted out at the man's face illuminated by the Pip-boy in the dark.
"Fuck sakes, it ain't even mornin' yet. The fuck you want, Nate?"
"It's Daye. Daye."
"Whatever."
"You won't fucking believe this, Cait."
"What?"
He smiled wickedly in the dark.
"I know where Marowski is."
A/N: I refuse to believe that Harry Potter never existed in the Fallout timeline, okay?
Also, I just want to say I have no experience with PTSD and panic attacks, so I hope I don't offend anyone, and if anything's wrong or incorrect, please let me know.
