5. Too Close For Comfort
Be firm, be fair, be sure, beware
On your guard, take care
While there's such temptation
One thing leads to another
Too late to run for cover
He's much too close for comfort now
There were a lot of things that made it painfully obvious where B had grown up. The absurd cleanliness. The white teeth. The healthy hair even after weeks of living above ground. The Vault suit. The painfully sunburned skin that only now was starting to darken into a tan after blistering.
Nothing made it more obvious than the fact that she needed sound around her. When the Pip-boy on her arm wasn't picking up the GNR station and she didn't want to listen to President Eden, whoever the fuck he was, on the Enclave station, she hummed. Or she would quote things. Or she'd just talk to herself as she fiddled with whatever she fiddled with.
But the point was, she had to have noise around her and if she wasn't getting it, she was making it.
In fact, as she strolled into The Brass Lantern in her dusty boots and a pair of jeans that hugged her ass in a way that should be illegal, blue jumpsuit thrown over her arm as she carried it, she was humming. A couple of the settlers in the bar area glanced up, curious, but their heads went back down to their drinks at Leo's arched eyebrow.
"I think I'm annoying Moira." B sat down on a barstool with a wince, spreading the Vault suit over her lap and settling in like she owned the damned place. She had a bad habit of doing that, taking up a ton of space, making herself look bigger than she was. The dog she'd found, rescued, whatever, sat down next to her almost like he was her guard. Two days of her coming in and he still had to remind himself that she wasn't taking that ball cap off. Inside, outside, it didn't matter. Leo wasn't sure he liked it but didn't think she'd take kindly to having it pointed out. Even if he wanted to see what her hair looked like when she wasn't half-dead and bleeding out. "That or she thinks I should spend time with you. I can't tell with her."
Leo blinked, bringing himself back to the conversation. Moira. The damned woman had flashed him a bright, not at all subtle fucking grin yesterday when he'd stopped by to pick up the supplies from the caravan that had come through. "No one knows with her," he grunted, starting in on cleaning the bar.
She made some sort of noise, possibly in agreement and then fell silent as she began stitching up one of the holes in her Vault suit. It was quiet in the Lantern, almost peaceful, broken only by bottles being set down on the bar or forks on plates.
And then the humming started again. She had a decent voice even as soft as it was. But it was distracting. Leo quickly looked away when she glanced up, missing the smile that appeared on her face. One song became two and two became three before she paused in her work, stretching sore muscles and still healing wounds. The movement drew his eye before he could stop it.
"Do you know how hard it is to find thread out here?" She turned her head and he was struck by the wistful bite in her green eyes, "And I'm getting tired of having to repair my Vault suit."
"What, you don't like wearing jeans?" Because you look mighty good in them. Leo just barely kept that thought where it belonged: in his head. What the fuck was wrong with him?
B blinked at him slowly. Without looking at the Vault suit in her lap, she wove the needle into the fabric, turned to face him, and gestured to the faded blue jeans she wore. "Moira managed to find me jeans that are both comfortable and not completely threadbare. She has got to be a magician or something to accomplish that." Her fingers fluttered like she was ghost flipping her switchblade that he was sure was in her pocket. "But I've been living in Vault suits basically my entire life. That's what I'm most comfortable in, even if I have to stick out like a sore thumb because of them."
Leo shrugged, setting the glass he had been cleaning down and reaching for another. "You don't look half bad in them," he told her, feeling his heart begin to pound for some reason.
B gave a snort, returning her attention to the blue suit draped across her lap. "You don't need to try to flatter me, you know. And don't worry, I'll be gone before dawn."
"Gone?" Leo's head snapped up before he could stop it.
"Not gone, gone." Her eyes peered at him from under the brim of her ball cap. "I do have a house here, Leo." She turned her head, staring at the door. Her hands stilled. "But I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've had the sky and clouds and the moon and stars and freedom your entire life. I've lived in what amounts to a cave in the ground with an overbearing Overseer who for some reason has always hated me." She turned back to him, her head lifted so that she didn't the normal shadows on her face. The sunburn had finally started to fade, revealing a night sky's worth of freckles that she hadn't had the first time he'd seen her fresh out of the Vault. Then she returned her gaze to her jumpsuit, hands resuming their mission and her freckles vanished from sight. "When I got out here, I thought having so much space would be terrifying. But it isn't. There is so much out there to see and do and I can't sit around and wait for any of it."
"Even if it'll try to kill you." The thought distressed Leo more than it should have.
B shrugged. "Occupational hazard out here, I guess." She bit through the thread and tugged on her jumpsuit, testing the knots and the repair job. "There. Done." She hopped off the stool and one hand immediately went to her side as she hissed in a pained breath.
"Are you sure you're up to going back out there?" Leo asked.
"I'll be fine. Doc said that as long as I had almost full range back after the stimpack tonight, I was good to go. Besides, I convinced Jericho to take me out and properly teach me how to shoot something other than a BB gun. I'm not bad but I'd honestly prefer not dying out there."
His stomach sank. Jericho was bad news. Still, judging by the way she kept literally all of the men in town further than arm's length away, she wasn't dumb enough to let her guard down around the ex-raider. "How the hell did you manage that?"
"I told him that it would be the easiest way to keep me out of Megaton. If you and Moira think I'm annoying, imagine how much he wants me out of his hair. Or whatever. Since he... Besides, he's lived outside city walls his entire life if he's to be believed. Who better to teach me to survive?" B barely touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. Any more pressure and he would have called it patting. But it was barely there and then gone. She smiled brightly, eyes laughing underneath her ball cap, and walked out the door. One of his feet shifted with the urge to follow her.
He heard her greet Jenny before the door closed between them. "You were staring at her ass." Leo jerked his head around at Andy's comment, feeling his cheeks heat.
"Wouldn't you?" he shot back. His brother just laughed and shook his head in exasperation.
B settled into the chair beside her bed. Alone, with only Wadsworth around to hear, she let herself whimper as she lowered herself. The muscles in her belly burned where her gunshot wounds were healing and gouge where the bullet had gotten lodged between her ribs and subsequently taken out stung every time she breathed.
She lifted up her shirt, exposing the still red wounds. She slid the needle of the stimpack she'd picked up from Doc Church between them. Her teeth clamped down on her lower lip to focus on pain elsewhere. The hot tingle that erupted at her gunshot wounds brought tears to her eyes but she refused to cry out. It took less than a minute for the agony to fade but still, echoes pulsed across her nerves. At her side, Dogmeat whined, pressing his head against her thigh. Trembling fingers patted him on the head, letting the dog know she was okay.
"Ma'am? Your cloth has been prepared," Wadsworth called up from the main floor.
"Thank you, Wadsworth," she responded, voice higher than usual. She took a moment to clear her throat, closing her eyes, and breathing noisily through her nose.
"And a Mr. Leo Stahl is here to see you."
Panic flared through her and she jerked in the chair. Her torso, not quite ready for the movement, throbbed and she couldn't quite stop the yelp. "B? You okay?" Leo's voice drifted up.
"I'm fine. I'll be right down." She stood, fingers wrapped around the back of the chair tight enough her knuckles turned white. Yanking her tanktop down, she took a moment to steady herself before she went downstairs. Dogmeat beat her down the stairs, a couple quiet yips before he sat, tail dusting the floor. I have to sweep again? Ugh. Leo waited for her at the bottom, a can of cram in one hand and a Nuka Cola in the other.
"You didn't come by to grab dinner so I figured I'd come by, make sure you eat."
B blinked at him. "You didn't have to come by. I was going to roast some molerat so I had something to munch on while I'm out tomorrow." Dogmeat barked. She smiled, looking down at the dog. "And so Dogmeat has something to eat too."
"Oh. I'll put them in the kitchen then for you." Leo went to go through the space left between her body and Wadsworth but brushed up against her ribs. Still tender but not in pain, she grimaced. The expression caught Leo's attention and he turned to her. "I know you're not fine."
"Stimpacks just hurt. I won't even notice in a few minutes."
Leo's brow furrowed and he started to smile. "Stimpacks don't hurt."
B rolled her eyes, reaching out to gently poke him in the shoulder, hand withdrawing quickly. "Maybe for people used to them. I never stimpacked in the Vault. Look." She took the Nuka Cola from him and slid her hand into his.
It was the calluses that caught his attention, rough under his touch. He had assumed that as a Vaultie, she'd be soft but when he lifted her hand, it was covered in burns and scars and calluses. He gently rubbed his thumb over some of them. At his confused look, she lifted her other hand and showed him the fingers wrapped around the bottle. Several of those were crooked but carried the same story. Her hands knew work.
"There weren't a lot of kids in the Vault so I sort of worked as a Jack of all trades in maintenance." The confused look deepened. She sighed, nibbling on part of her bottom lip. The admission still hurt years later, like she was a failure even if she knew she was exponentially better suited to working with anything but people. He didn't know her past though. Didn't make it any easier. The gentleness in his eyes though… "I worked with electronics and plumbing. I did repairs and I had new projects that I did. I worked with the Mr. Handy and he broke down a lot." Wadsworth whirred worriedly. She smiled at the floating robot, trying to force the sudden blackness of her mood away. "Don't worry, Wadsworth. If anything happens to you, I know what to do to fix you."
Leo stared at her, still baffled, still gentle. "So why wouldn't you use stimpacks then?"
She gave a short laugh. "I broke my arm when I was seven. Fortunately, my dad was the Vault doctor but it was my first time getting a stimpack for anything and it hurt a lot. After that, I didn't want to get any stimpacks for anything. Even after I fractured my hand a couple of years ago, I healed the slow way. The overseer flipped his lid because my productivity dropped."
Her gaze dropped to her hand still held in his and when she lifted it, she suddenly realized how close they were standing. Leo seemed to realize it too by the way his eyes flicked down to her lips.
She immediately jerked back, the back of her knees hitting the stairs and she landed on her ass. Too close, too close, too close. Fear lurched into her throat, threatening to close off her breathing. "B, are-"
"I'm fine!" She scrambled backwards, feeling the twinge in her side but it wasn't enough to override the flood of adrenaline. Throwing herself to her feet, she took in his confusion and the flicker of hurt before she was launching herself up the stairs. "I'll see you tomorrow, Leo. Just leave the cram in the kitchen."
Her door slammed shut.
Leo stared at the door for a few moments before setting the cram down on the steps and walking out her front door, shoulders hunched a little.
Wadsworth turned his eyes up to her door and then to the front door. "Oh, dear." He picked up the can of cram and floated into the kitchen to put it away. Dogmeat pawed at her door, whining.
AN: Yay, another chapter and more ingrained trauma for me to delve into. I'd almost feel bad for her but I know what's in her future and she'll be fine. Fineish. It depends on your definition.
I swear this will have a happy ending.
In other news, I have FINALLY finished my first screenplay. And have hopped into my second so go me! This is super exciting. Letting the first one rest before I start tearing into it. 60 pages, y'all. 60 pages. So psyched.
Anywho, let me know what y'all think. Please?