He's doing something wrong.
He's been at it all fucking night and the old bitch still hasn't given him anything, she keeps spouting some fucking nonsense about a storm, over and over again, she says its coming, but never gives him any details, no matter how many times he slaps her, threatens her, she's completely out of it, loopy as fuck, and he hasn't even hit her with the good shit yet... he's given her plenty of time to decide to cooperate, and now he's running out of patience. He was damn close to hurting her way more than he meant to, her voice got into his head, and it was all around him. After all this time, he thought it would be different, but he was wrong.
Look to the sky, kid. Can you see it? The storm. It's there. It's there and its coming right this way. The clouds are dark with that glow, you remember? The way they shoot out that light and break the sky? Like glass, kid. And the sound... oh god, the sound is horrible, like a hundred screams all at once, more. Like all the people came back, from before the world...
He had to go. He had to get topside and clear his head before he shut her up for good. This isn't new, he knows how this song and dance works, he just needs to keep going, wear her down before he starts getting answers, just a little more, he's so close now.
Christ what the fuck was she talking about?
He's had to put everything on hold for this, and if his fucking second-in-command hadn't decided to fuck off right in the middle of it things might be running a little more smoothly. He can't run any forage because he doesn't trust any of them not to fuck off by themselves, so everyone is stuck here, and they're all going to get pissed off real fucking soon if shit doesn't get moving.
...there has to be something he's missing.
"Jared."
Corvega's head honcho perks up to the sound of his name, and turns from the rail overlooking the front of the factory, where he'd been absentmindedly watching a few lingering ferals dig through trash and swipe at each other down in the streets of Lexington.
A thin ginger kid named Charr stands at the base of a set of metal stairs with something in his hands, what looks like a rusted metal box. He's one of Gristles boys, the youngest if he remembers right. He looks like you could snap him in half like a twig, but the kid is smart, he's the one who rigged up the turrets, he's good with machines, but he doesn't talk much. Kind of creep's him out actually, because he's got these eyes that kind of bore right into you when he makes eye contact, and he doesn't really seem to blink much outside of that.
Gristle seems to trust him, so, whatever.
"What the fuck do you want?" Jared snaps.
Charr holds the box out to him without an expression, and Jared stares at it for a moment. It doesn't look like anything but a glorified chem box. He sighs, pushing himself away from the rails, and approaches with a slow disinterested saunter. It's just like these young raider kids to gift him with all kinds of shit, trying to get his favour, make him like them. Jared humours it because he gets free shit, and sometimes it's actually worth humoring.
When he's close enough, he snatches the box from his hands, giving it a light shake next to his ear. Whatever it is, it isn't caps, drugs, or ammo. It's in several pieces, soft, but solid enough to make a sound as they roll and tap against the sides.
Jared studies the kid for a second, and realizes that the contents sound awfully fucking familiar to him, in that way only someone like him would know, people like them, "What the fuck is this?"
"It was on the road." The kid's voice is calm, monotone, and he isn't looking directly at him, he seems to be following the patterns of the stains lining his shirt.
When Jared pries it open, he's greeted by the sharp metallic stench of blood, seeing what he already knew was going to be inside. It's something he used to do himself, actually, in his earlier years as a raider before he had any authority to his name, and needed to do what had to be done in order to get it. He just wasn't expecting to receive one, especially not since setting up shop in the factory. No one would send him something like this as a threat; no one would be that stupid.
But, here he is, staring down at the package.
The inside is lined with a torn piece of canvas, stained with blood, and on it, there's a severed ear, three bloodied fingers, a handful of teeth balled up in a wad of fabric, and a lock of hair. It's not the macabre visual that makes his stomach curl however, it's the colour of the hair, and the tarnished silver earring still hanging from the ear, it's that he knows exactly who this belongs to the moment he sees it.
It suddenly makes sense why Gristle hasn't come back yet.
"Where did you find this?" Jared's voice comes out low and robotic.
"East side," Charr responds.
Jared looks at the underside of the lid where the sharp colour of paint catches his eye, suitably, its bright red, and it reads neatly in big bold letters;
ARE YOU A FAN OF
THE BARTERING SYSTEM?
CONCORD
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE
Jared exhales low from his nose, like a guarded hiss. Concord... of course.
He slaps the lid back onto the box and shoves it into the kid's arms, Charr scrambles to keep it in one piece while turning to follow Jared as he stalks back into the building through one of the roof entrances. Marching down the length of the grated walkway, he makes his way back through to the Floor where his outpost is, all of his equipment, and a rambling old woman he doesn't know what to do with.
"How the fuck did no one see this guy?" He demands.
Charr's voice is barely audible, "I don't know..."
"Who was on watch on the East side?"
"Dav."
"Dav doesn't know his ass from a sniper rifle, why the fuck was he on tower patrol?"
"I don't know..." Charr murmurs, "Is something coming?"
Jared stops halfway down the stairs, more like he freezes, and realizes that his blood is pounding in his ears, and his hands are shaking.
Is he afraid?
What in the hell could he be afraid about, he has the high ground here, even if someone is trying to blackmail him into bartering for his lieutenant, he has an entire army behind him, a fortress to operate from, nothing can touch him here, he's practically goddamn invincible.
...So why is he shaking so badly?
It has to be her, the old woman's voice still in his head, making him paranoid. It's the storm she keeps warning him about, it's this token, these pieces of his lieutenant that feel like an ill omen.
Except it's not, it's no fucking superstition, or supernatural force that did this, it was those fucking settlers. They must've gotten to him after he took her; he in all of his pride and glory probably went back to finish the job and gotten jumped. As far as they knew, the small group in Concord was all that was left of 'em, but they could've gotten help from somewhere, another settlement, maybe some stragglers, guns for hire.
Jared scoffs, it's just like Gristle to go and fuck up right when everything was going right. That's all this is, Gristles fuck up, not some fucking ghosts, not some fucking storm, just a fuck up, and one he's going to make sure he pays for.
"Alright, listen," Jared turns on the stairs to look at Charr, "You're going to grab half a dozen men, doesn't matter who, and you're going to send 'em up to me. Then you're going to double the rotation for the patrols around the outside of the factory, no one gets in, and after all that, you're going to tell everyone else to shut up and sit tight until I say so."
Hesitant, Charr blinks at him with those uneasy and unsettling pair of eyes, "Me?"
"Does it look like I'm fucking talking to someone else?"
He shrugs timidly, "...what if they don't want to?"
Jared scowls and steps up to jab a finger in the kids boney chest, "Then you tell 'em I said so, and if they want anything more than that, they can come up to the Floor so I can tell 'em myself, you got it?"
Charr nods briskly.
"Good. Now fuck off."
The kid skirts around and passes Jared on the stairs, taking off in a hurried jog towards the bowels of the factory. The Raider boss watches him leave, his gaze steadily adjusting to a torn up poster on the wall that's been drawn over a dozen times, makes up his mind about several things at once, and continues back towards the Floor.
In the upper floor of what used to be a bar, two hours after the parcels delivery, Don sits next to a window overlooking the main street of Concord, almost in direct line with the main drag towards the Museum of Freedom, situated just so that the shadows growing long and dark by the approaching sunset conceal him entirely.
According to his Pip-boy, he's been here for an hour already.
He hadn't set up a designated time, so the recipients of the package could show up whenever they deemed fit. It was a lot less efficient than setting up a trade formally, a date and time, an RSVP, but he literally had no way of knowing if people like them even kept track.
Must be nice to exist outside of the construct of time, but on that note, he's probably going to be sitting here for a while.
At least he's in good company.
He couldn't leave his raider friend in the garage while he waited, and he couldn't, in good conscience, ask Sturges to look after him while he was gone. No, he had to take him along, kicking and screaming, well, metaphorically. Don is pretty certain, after the mess they made in the garage, that a certain rowdy raider is done with all of that.
He's been quiet for a while, the shock must've hit him pretty hard, but it wasn't the kind that killed his fight, no, he probably hurt himself struggling, kicking and twisting against his binds, but thankfully Don knew his boy-scout knots, and the bastard must've figured that out as much.
With a sigh, he leans back, and looks over at the raider as he sits against the wall to his left. The blood is caking now, skewing his features, gathered in a wad around where his ear used to be, travelling down his face from around a fat lip, a dried stream hanging from his nostrils, a cut across his eyebrow, his socket swollen and beginning to bruise, his hands balled up together in a wad of bandages. He lost blood, not enough to put him out, but he's looking drained.
Don glances at the filth and grime on his knuckles, his own bruising beginning to show, it's a strange feeling of accomplishment, the overcoming of obstacles, bearing one's own skin to someone else, the nature of your limitations being brought out directly in front of you.
He's trying not to scream, but, hell, he's only a few short moments away from it. Don is smiling, but it isn't the visage of happiness, the feeling isn't foreign to him, because it's what he used to do, it's what he was trained to do, and did he get something out of it?
Maybe...
Perhaps, in some weird pseudo-afterlife way, this could be hell, and if god was real and decided this was punishment, then it would only be fitting to send with it, a punisher.
Could be, that what he simultaneously hated the most... and loved the most, about himself, would be released into an environment ripe for development, sowing the wrong seeds in the right earth, growing into the same twisted after-event figures as the vines consuming these abandoned ruins, taking it away piece by piece like the statue visage of pre-war Boston.
But he has a choice, doesn't he?
Raiders... are tougher than he thought. Growing up in this wasteland has to give anyone thick skin, they don't seem like the type to endure so much for something so trivial. Even if they did, everyone has a weakness, and Don's impression is that this particular raider's weakness isn't caps or drugs, otherwise he could bribe the information out of him. What could make a man like him take all this torture?
Loyalty, faith, family, or...?
Don breaks the silence that had erupted between him and his forced companion upon settling down for the long wait, "So, this boss of yours... You seem to really respect him."
The raider is caught off-guard; his voice is hoarse from screaming, weak from the blood loss, and his head shakes languidly as some vitriol apparently survived the entire ordeal, "...fuck'm."
"It's just that," Don chuckles a little, wiping a hand over his mouth, "It's funny... people don't generally hold willpower like that for something trivial. You said before, that you didn't want to cooperate because you didn't like me, if that was true, you would've buckled before I started cutting."
The raider's mouth curls into a barely hidden snarl, visibly stiffening in indignation, refusing to make any eye contact, "...we don't need to keep talkin'."
"Yeah, I know. This is just me being curious, because it's been a long time since I've seen someone with your kind of resolve," Don says, "Whatever your boss is doing must be important to him, so it's important to you that you protect him, it makes a lot more sense than, 'I don't want to'."
"Fuck off."
"So, I'm going to analyse this situation right here," Don ignores the statement, now invested, "because it's weird that someone with your rank, what I assume is pretty high in the raider hierarchy, would be out doing his own thing when there's a factory full of degenerates to boss around. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you don't want to be there, needless to say, that's going to piss off your boss, but you don't seem too worried about that, why? Either you quit and you don't give a shit, which would make sense until the whole withholding information bit, or you want to get a rise out of him because that's the only way he listens to you. It's the only way he'll pay attention, because otherwise, you're just like the rest, totally invisible."
The raider responds with silence, at first, and an expression dictating that he hadn't even been listening, off in his own little world where he's probably free, and with a few extra fingers to boot.
"Look, I get it," Don continues after a beat, "It has to suck the big one that you did all that, tried to stick it out to protect all his little secrets, even if you believe he doesn't give a damn, I have to say, it was a good effort on your part."
"Fuck you."
"You guys have a really limited vocabulary, you know that?" Don cocks his head with a hum, "So, knowing all of this, why do you give a damn about him?"
The raider finally turns his head to look at him, his gaze incredulous, "You don't fucking get it," He growls, "You think you're so damn smart, like you got it all figured out, but you don't. Guys like me are cheap, you don't get loyal, you get worth. I got caught, now I'm worthless and Jared isn't going to pawn the old bitch off for someone like me. I don't give a damn about him, and he doesn't give a damn about me, that's just how it works, that's how it's always worked, we're classless assholes who like to hurt people and we don't got anyone out there but each other. You wanna know why I didn't want to tell you shit? I said it before, I'll say it again. I don't fucking like-"
CRACK!
The two men perk up simultaneously, interrupted and pulled from the moment, as a single gunshot rings in the air, its close, judging from the volume and reverberation, the Museum. Don checks his Pip-boy for the time, three and a half hours after the drop off, not too shabby.
With a smirk, Don stands up and motions to the staircase at the end of the room as the raider adorns a hesitantly genuine look of astonishment. It's accompanied by something that looks like fear, and possibly... a little bit of hope?
There's no real way to know how many they brought with them, Don takes most of it on faith that the reason they came at all was because they wanted their friend alive, so, accompanied by some anxious flashbacks of the last time he attempted hostage negotiations, Don leads the raider out into the open, using him as a shield, his 10mm welded to the back of his grimy, blood stained, skull. The main drag towards the museum reeks with human rot, the last rainfall washed most of the gore away, and it looks as though the remains of the battle a few days prior have been picked at by the local wildlife, but the shapes are still distinguishable, and the smell isn't anything to ignore. It seems fitting; given this was the prelude to Don's emergence that this should be the place the swap would take place.
However, much to the raider's ignorance... there isn't going to be a swap.
A lone woman is standing next to a rusted car brandishing a rifle, her brown matted hair is hanging in clumps of what could be braids if you squinted hard enough, she's wearing belts across her chest, and her breasts are bound in an old grey shirt ripped up to the ribs, her pants look like they're being held together by prayer and duct tape. Even if Don wasn't sure, it was pretty easy at a glance to assume she's a raider.
"Wow, they weren't kiddin'," She grins, nodding towards her friend as they stop a good twenty feet away, "You look like shit, Gristle."
Don snorts, Gristle? Pft.
"Hey, Benni" The raider murmurs in return.
The woman leans over to get a better look at Don, "So... this the fucker who sent us your bits and pieces, huh?"
Don also leans over and smiles at her in lieu of not being about to wave, "Howdy."
"Don't look like much," She wrinkles her nose, nodding at him inquisitively, "You alone?"
Perplexed, Don cocks his head at her, "Why would I tell you that?"
Before she has a chance to answer, the raider formerly known as 'the bastard' and is now known hilariously as 'Gristle', speaks up with a voice that Don wasn't too sure he had anymore, "Where's Jared?"
Benni, the lady raider, shakes her head, "Sorry Boss, he ain't comin'."
"What, he couldn't fucking bother?"
She nods lightly, as if sympathetic, "Yeah... somethin' like that."
It takes him a moment, though from what Don has come to know about him, he's a little slow, the torture probably didn't help, but unlike him, Don is fully aware that his boss, whoever he may be, is not stupid enough to actually go through with the swap. No, this is more of a dick measuring context for him, and for Gristle? Gardening.
"...you didn't bring the old bitch, did you?"
Ding, ding, ding.
"We don't fucking barter, Gristle," She snaps, "'Specially not for someone stupid enough to get themselves caught, you know that."
"Did he say that?"
"We're not Gunners, Gris, fucksake, what did you think he was gonna say?"
Gristle doesn't respond for a moment, and then asks with a defeated sigh, "Why the fuck did he send you, Benni?"
"He wants to know if you're still alive," She says, "And he wants to know what you told 'em."
"Well, isn't that fuckin' cute."
Don leans over, chiming in once more, "Adorable, I know. But just so we're on the same page, I have a gun on him, so if he tells you anything, I'll shoot him, 'kay?"
The woman smiles curiously and crosses her arms, letting the rifle dangle across her hips, "And if you shoot him, there's nothing holding me and my boys back from gunnin' you down."
"Well, that is cute," Don nods, "Except, if you try to pull your guns on me, my boys are going to come out of the woodwork before you can say 'oops fuck'. Wanna take a guess as to how many?"
Benni glares and her eyes begin surveying the buildings along the Main Street.
"Tell you what, you tell your boss, Ja-ared, that he has twelve hours to bring Mama Murphy, or I'm sending his ole' pal Gristle in another box, a bigger box, or maybe several smaller boxes, I'll decide on the way back."
Her gaze goes back to him, then to Gristle. Her head shakes lightly, steadily, "No," She murmurs, as if responding to her companion instead of him, an apology, "Sorry, but that ain't gonna fuckin' happen."
Don shrugs, "Well then, I guess we're done here."
"Yeah," She sighs, "Looks like it."
Her eye lingers on Gristle for a moment, the two seem to share some kind of silent farewell that Don can't see, and then she turns to stalk back up the road. Passing the t-intersection in front of the museum, she lets out a sharp whistle, and in moments is joined by five other leather clad hooligans. Don is suddenly glad that the human heartbeat doesn't make a sound; otherwise he'd be ticking like the last few moments of a time bomb.
He had no real way of knowing, but at the very least, he can lie out of his ass.
After a big haul, it's pretty damn customary to take a long night off, especially since Gristle and his crew had taken one hell of a hit from a group of settlers that decided standing up to the men with the guns is a lot smarter than kneeling down and letting them take what they want. After a swift bloodbath, Gristle walked away with more than he planned on getting, and maybe a dozen less men, but that means more for the rest of them.
Lonnie took lead in passing out the good shit; Gristle swiped a couple bottles of vodka and a few hits of jet before the vultures claimed everything else, and then head up to the assembly floor. Jared hadn't been anywhere near the shipment when it arrived and Gristle hadn't seen him since he left, even then he seemed real fucking distracted. Keeps asking if he's seen any weird shit when he takes jet, weirder than usual like the walls melting or the skin of his arm twisting and breathing, keeps asking a lot of people that, even Lonnie, and she wasn't too fucking impressed. Bitch snapped at him the last he asked and that landed her a black eye and the shit job of ordering around the strung out junkies on watch instead of joining Gristle's raid. She wasn't going to forget that anytime soon.
"Hey, Jared," Gristle calls out as he crosses the factory floor, turning one of the bottles in his hand, "If you're done playing over-boss, I reaped some of the spoils in your honour, you gonna help me drink it, or what?"
From one of the offices overlooking the assembly, Jared saunters out looking like he just woke up from a cat nap, wearing a stained white t-shirt and jeans, all of his war paint cleared away from his face and carelessly smeared against his neck. He glowers down at Gristle, squinting into the glare of the spot light, "You look like shit."
"Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing, sweet talker," Gristle calls back, "You hung over, or did you get your ass kicked by the psycho again? Either way, I got a cure for both."
Jared, with his face halfway scrunched up from post-nap haze, only blinks at him in response. Gristle waves the jet and vodka in the air, walking down near the base of the platform to egg a somewhat decent response out of him. Jared just groans, and turns back towards the office, "Yeah, fuck it."
Gristle smirks and then begins his assent up the stair case on the left end of the room, calling out as he crosses the extending bridge into the larger office room littered with paper and an old dusty chem bench mostly cleared off for use, "Some people never learn, you know? I point a gun and ask nicely for some corn and all the sudden these settlers think they can pull one over and fight back."
"How many?" Jared asks.
"About eight, zero now, I lost maybe eleven men during the raid, they were real fucking dug in," Gristle sets both bottles on the table and then two jet cartridges, "Got a lot of shit when we finished looting the place though, worth a hell of a lot more than the bodies."
Jared leans against the desk with his arms crossed, but says nothing, and that makes Gristle a little nervous for a lot of fucking reasons, "We can get more fucking people, Jared."
"I don't give a shit about more people," Jared leans forward and grabs one of the bottles, un-screws the cap, and takes a generous swig, "They're all expendable, worthless sacks of shit."
Gristle watches him for a second in startled awe, "Christ, the fuck's wrong with you?"
Jared looks at him and hesitates, his coal black eyes boring right into him for a moment before he brushes off whatever he was going to say and murmurs into another drink, "Nothing..."
Gristle doesn't know quite how to respond to it, so he ignores it, "Whatever, look, we gonna share that, or break out some glasses, or what? 'Cause whether you're up for it or not, I need some fucking R&R."
"Yeah, yeah," Jared swipes one of the jet chems and motions him over across the platform to office space, Gristle follows suit with the rest of the spoils just in case they get too high or drunk to get them later. Jared kicks a few tin cans and empty soda bottles out of the way and shoves the two old stained mattresses together. One of which has Jared's balled up jacket sitting on it as a pillow.
"Lonnie in the basement?" Jared plops down onto one mattress, propping himself against the wall, Gristle joins him with a sigh of comfort, because any old mattress is a hell of a lot better than the ground. The wall is cool against his back, he's sure there's sunburn patches over his shoulders where his armour usually sits.
"Yeah, passing out the spoils," He reaches over and grabs the bottle from Jared as he offers, "You can be sure the lot of 'em are gonna be puking over the rails tomorrow."
"Fucker's on base watch are gonna get rained on." Jared snickers.
Gristle laughs, swallowing a mouthful of alcohol and relaxing at the sensation of its warmth in his throat. Maybe at one point in his early life, he actually felt the burn of it, but at this point, he's surprised he still gets drunk at all. Even after the bottle is halfway gone between the two of them, he knows he's still got room for more, and that other bottle is within arm's reach.
It's become a kind of custom to combine alcohol and chems, at least to guarantee getting fucked up without draining all the booze in the joint, besides, the hangover isn't as killer. The best combo he knows of to make the night one to totally forget is moonshine and psycho. However, you'd only combine them in a case of severe forgets, that would make sure you forgot the entire week beforehand, can't do it too much, either, 'cause that shits bound to kill you.
At some point during the night, right about when Jared got on this story about a settler down south in the Commons that he had to cut up for swapping his caps for some low quality chems, Gristle had slid over from the wall and pressed his shoulder to Jared's, both too caught up in the story to notice until they both turned their heads to speak at once.
Something must have happened, between the booze and the story, where Gristle thought it would be a good idea to start letting his fucking dick get the best of him, because the minute they lock eyes, he leans in and kisses him. Not a bashful kiss of any kind, the kind of kiss that steals the fucking words right out of his mouth, and it does a good fucking job of it to. It's been a long damn time since his asshole of an ex decided bending over for half of Corvega was better than fucking him exclusively, at least, that's what the hard-on in his cargo's was telling him. What Gristle seemed to forget with the impulse is that it's not just some assholes throat swallowing his tongue, it's Jared.
Jared is probably the closest thing to a friend that Gristles ever had and he tastes fucking good, better than he imagined, and he doesn't feel nearly drunk enough to blame it on the booze-
BANG!
Gristle jerks up, back in the garage, sitting in the dark, the smell lingering in the air is familiar only in the way that it belongs to him, the smell of blood, the smell of singed hair and flesh, it didn't clear while they were in Corvega... or maybe it was just the recent memory of it that made it smell this way.
And here he is, coping, using another memory, one that he couldn't forget no matter what he did, because it happened, and it was stupid, and it fucked everything up... maybe. Jared seemed short with him when he brought in that vault dweller, he didn't even see him when he took the old woman over, and the two of them were just pretending like it didn't happen.
He's still fucking pissed about it, pissed at Jared for acting so different, and for leaving him without knowing how to respond.
But he's even more pissed at himself for not just saying something to him, anything. Anything would have been better than letting him have his fucking way. He could have gone off and told him there's no such thing as ghosts, or of old women and prophecies, that he's paranoid and fucking delusional, he could've just fucking fought him on it, because they both know that Gristle is stronger out of the two.
He'd left, but he could have gone back. He could've kicked his ass for acting like a fucking asshole, but all he could see was that look on his face he gave him... he looked hurt, angry, desperate, defeated... scared.
Gristle didn't have words; this shit isn't what he's used to. Jared is a fucking asshole but he's never acted like this before. It's like he's lost and Gristle doesn't know what to do, only that he doesn't want it that way. He wants it to be like it is when he forgets about all that bullshit, when it's just them, shooting shit, having a good time.
But he doesn't know how to do that, so he just does was he always does, what he's fucking told.
He had to deliver that old bitch to his front door, and hope all his fucking mirth doesn't end up killing him...
The door to the garage, the source of the sound that had brought him down from the clouds, begins to rise, much like it had before when he woke up here in the first place, except the man standing in the opening isn't holding an axe, he's holding a broad machete.
Well... guess this is it.
Still don't know his name, he might've mentioned it before all the electrocution and... Amputation, but that's all long gone now.
He doesn't say anything in his approach, for once, trying to make this as painless as possible; these settler types are all so fucking self-righteous, and Gristle decides he doesn't want the last thing he sees before he dies to be his smug face, so he closes his eyes and he waits for oblivion.
After a moment, the dead man yanks hard on his restraints, and suddenly they come loose, Gristle opens his eyes again, watching as the ropes spill on the floor at his feet, so fucking dumbfounded that he doesn't move at all until the man over him steps back and Gristle is totally free.
"Right," He sighs, nodding towards the open exit, "Off you go."
Gristle frowns, holding his arms out like they were still tied together, and he looks up at the man. First thing he considers is false hope, maybe he'll shoot him once he steps outside, when he's on the road to avoid mucking up his garage any more than it is.
"Is there a problem?" He asks after a beat.
Suspicious, Gristle glares at him, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Well, clearly, letting you go."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yeah, it fucking matters."
He shrugs, "I don't need you anymore."
"That fuckin' easy, huh?"
"It wasn't," He shakes his head, bewildered, "That fucking easy, actually. Do you like, recall? Did I zap you one too many times?"
Gristle relents, still confused, and slowly gets himself to his feet. Vertical, he realizes then how much taller he is than the man, how much stronger he is, and this little bastard still got the jump on him. Thing is, he doesn't really feel the urge to launch himself at him, as easily as he could right now. All of the animosity he felt towards him earlier is gone, in fact, he doesn't really know what to think of him, other than he's fucking nuts.
"What's to stop me from killing you right now?" Gristle asks, glaring down at him.
The man reaches back and pulls out his 10mm pistol, "I still have a gun; also... you didn't call out my bluff."
"...what?"
"When I told your friend Benni that I had more men hidden away," Don taps the end of the gun against his shoulder, "You didn't say anything."
Gristle thinks about it for a moment, that's right, he didn't... because of what Benni said? Or was it because of that jack-off Jared?
"Well, this was nice, I think we bonded," He smiles, "I'd shake your hand, but..."
Gristle looks down to the bloodstained canvas cloth wrapped around his dominant hand, where his fuck-you finger and index finger had been chopped off, and he feels his rage resurfacing, "Fuck you."
As if he sensed it, the man raises his pistol, as a warning not to try anything, "I'll miss you too, buddy."
Like some strange misted dream, one that Gristle didn't think he'd ever have, he walks out of the garage instead of dying in it, he doesn't get shot in the back once he hits the road like he half-way expects, and he actually makes it past Concord before he realises that he might not be able to go back to Corvega considering he'll have to explain what happened, what he ended up telling him, what he might have to do to get his rank back.
It's not until he reaches the outskirts, when he sees the large bulbous tower, that he decides he doesn't want to; in fact, he doesn't want any of it anymore.