II

Deathclaw

They found Nyx ironically rummaging through the same thing that had preoccupied Hancock before he had arrived to help Sanford.

It was an old wooden endtable wedged in the soil and rocks, broken to high hell, and splintered, missing two of its ornate legs. How it had ended up out here was a mystery, but by far, it wasn't the craziest thing Sanford had seen out here. Those were a plethora of stories for another day, as always. Sometimes, Sanford wondered when that other day would actually come.

"Hey! Get out of my underwear drawer!" Hancock roared over the din of the night, his thruster screaming as he jetted past Sanford's flank. "Those underwear are for the war effort of Democratic Union!"

"As you say, usiner.' Nyx ignored the robot in a tiny thrum. Her tail slowly swept behind her as she pawed carefully through the human-sized undergarments inside the table's drawers. In a complete demonstration of her delicate nature despite what she was; somehow, Nyx had worked the tiny little handles with her fingers and pulled them ajar. It was a miracle to say the least, and also a tad disturbing in regards to what the drawers were filled with.

"Stupid, gecko!" Hancock snarled bobbing left and right behind the Deathclaw's large back, attempting to peer past her arms to see what she was doing. "-The ones with the hearts are mine!"

"Partez." She mumbled dismissively. The robot bounced in his flight path as her tail roughly batted him away with a metallic clap of scales to steel. "How often do I get to come across something so…. personnel out here? It is vaguely intriguing."

"Underwear?" Sanford chuckled as he trotted closer, putting his weapons on his hip plates.

"Oui." Nyx cast him a glance past her arm, her golden eyes brightening. "Is this not a world of mostly earth and ruin?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"And I believe it was you whom I heard the philosophy of simple pleasures from." The Deathclaw's toothy chops raised in a smile. "The usiner was right with one thing; whoever this individual was, they did have eccentric tastes."

"The heart-underwear are minnneeeee~!" Hancock wailed.

"Gah~! Prends-les et tais-toi!" Nyx pinched one of the articles inside the drawer and threw it at the robot with a dismissive swat. A second later, and a wide pair of white undergarments studded with red hearts flapped and adhered over Hancock's two ocu-lenses like a sheet.

"-I'm blind~!" Hancock hollered, zipping left, and then right in the air rapidly. "-Man down! Man down!"

"I think you made it worse." Sanford sighed, standing over her to peer into the drawer.

"Que la paixde Dieu nous soit accordee…" The reptile's nostrils flared tiredly. She noticed Sanford staring and smiled at him sweetly. "Do you not wish for this? Somewhere? Deep down?"

"That was awfully Catholic of you to say." Sanford chuckled. "I thought you were an atheist."

"I do not share entirely all of your beliefs." She stated without venom, but with honesty. Her long, horned head raised with intrigue. "Is that acceptable?"

"Of course it is."

"I heard gunfire." Nyx pinched another pair of underwear, raising it from the drawer as she stepped back on her cloven heels. "Molerats? Radroaches? Or some other form of rodent I assume?"

"No, actually, a fully armed, cloaked Assaultron assassin." Sanford smiled, as if he'd taken a sip of pleasantly minty tea. "It, uh, missed by the way."

"Excusez-moi?" The Deathclaw blinked, letting the clothing drape from her nails. It was pink, with ornate white laces forming vine-like décor up and down its girth. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious, like the guy it shot before me." Sanford patted his rucksack when she raised her brows at him. "One dead Raider, one murderous robot, check and check. Raider had an audio file on him, I was gonna' bring it back to the station and try to fix it."

"This sounds like a fine predicament." Nyx cocked her head at the pink underwear in her fingers, harrumphed and tossed it across her shoulder; obviously intending to bring it back with her. "At least you stumbled upon someone else suffering an assassination attempt for once, mon cher."

"…Uhm, w-what are you doing with those?" Sanford pointed at her.

"Are we concerned of any further threats?" She ignored him, raising an eye-ridge at Hancock, who had managed to peel the underwear from himself, and was holding them out triumphantly with his grabber-claw, laughing. "And are you injured?"

"I don't think so, and no." The scavenger cleared his throat. "Another one for the books, otherwise."

"Mm." Nyx hummed, and pointed down to one of her heels. "My contribution." She said, indicating a small pile of bits she'd scrounged up, glistening in the glare of Hancock's thruster.

"Good eyes." Sanford complimented with a laugh, stepping around the reptile's flank. "Is that a gun?"

"A… 11-millimeter ?" She tried, her tail following slowly behind her as she followed his movements.

"10," He corrected, stuffing the batteries, cells, and copper into his rucksack. He picked the little sidearm up, letting it rotate with the speed of a saw drill as he swung the trigger-ring over his index finger. "I haven't fired one of these in ages." Click~! –went the gun as he caught it in a firm grip. It looked comically small, like a little children's toy in the bulky fist of his suit. "I could use the parts."

"Sanford?" The Deathclaw intoned, a heavy hiss rattling through her chops.

"Where would I be if you weren't here to give me new toys?" Sanford chuckled. The man stood up, shoving the gun with the rest of their finds into the carry bag. He faced her, smiling under the snarl of his war-helm.

"Lost and seul?" The Deathclaw chortled.

"Hey," Sanford's arm swung out, aiming for behind and below her hip. A swift clap of metal fingers to scales saw Nyx hop forwards with a delighted hiss. "don't be so sure. I'm brave remember?"

"Foul petit homme…" Nyx grinned.

Bang~! –went a terrible report of metal in the night. Sanford and Nyx turned around and looked at Hancock.

"-Whoops! Burst a sprocket!" The robot tisked, his ocu-lenses struggling to perceive a faint, trickling stream of black liquid leaking onto the ground from some loose bolt on his chassis.

"Aw, Han', not again…" Sanford grumbled.

"Lookout! I can't control its directory!" Hancock laughed. He jolted forwards, causing Sanford to curse and dance back to avoid the flailing stream of loose oil droplets. "Talk about a piss-shit day, huh? Ha-haaa~!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Though the night air was touched and pregnant with familiarity to him, no amount of recognition could bestow into Sanford a feeling of utmost confidence.

He had learned in the hardest ways that the dark of the Commonwealth hid terrible things within its shadowy blankets, things that broiled with hatred, and most of all hunger.

Even with his knowledge of the land, his night-vision, and the mutually assured alliance between he and his friends, Sanford could still not bring himself to remove his own psyche from the jaws of stoic consensus.

"Are you well?" –Came a tiny murr from the man's flank, and a second later, a powerful, scaly claw brushed with a sensuous touch past his metal shoulder.

"Well as Spring Rain." Sanford snickered back, shielding his concrete features under a veil of expertly timed loftiness. He was thankful sometimes for the helmet; it acted as a buffer, and there were moments where it was perfect at hiding things.

But Nyx didn't seem so convinced either way, and that was usually the case with her. Normally, she rendered his usual tricks obsolete, and Sanford had always been forced to turn to more creative options to hide the waves of trauma.

He'd suck her into a casual conversation, or he'd attempt to playfully install a complex into her mood, saying things like:

"Gee', look at that scuff on your left horn."

Or:

"It doesn't look like you polished your coat today. I like it when you do that."

-That was usually enough to fluster her and send her off on her own grooming errands. When in doubt, resulting to her physique was a sure way to ward off her concerns. He realized that Nyx was just trying to help, but at the end of the day, the only way Sanford ever felt better during these episodes was when people left him alone.

Hancock knew that. He'd known that for almost a decade and a half. Whenever the horrors started to creep back into the recesses of his brain, Sanford would twist up, become silent and allow edges of rime and chill to block off his ears and eyes. Hancock never tried to assuage that. He always accepted it for what it was, like an average soldier was trained to do. To follow orders, to see the world as such; a division between them, and ones' self.

That was the buffer between Nyx and Hancock, and probably why their bullishly contrasting attitudes inevitably saw them butting heads all the time.

Hancock possessed experience that she didn't, and likewise. Sometimes, Sanford wondered just how the world had seen them all flung together.

But nights like this would come, and where Hancock would drift away from the ice crusting over his skin, Nyx would attempt to thaw it, and remind him of the home he'd been gifted.

"Sanford?" She asked again, touching him, brushing his suit, longing for the steel to peel away so she could indulge herself in the fleshy contents beneath it.

Trapped in this moment of sharp apprehension, as memories wound themselves crisply and with the intent to draw blood in his soul, Sanford trotted down the Bostonian road of dusk and glanced at his Deathclaw with a hazy, almost intoxicated eye.

A lot had changed since the age in the past, when it had just been two and not three. There were so many divisions between him and her that had existed for the longest of times, and only through long, and, sometimes grueling patterns of trial, error, and adaptation had they overcome them together.

Sanford had met Nyx on a whim of bad- or perhaps good –luck during a terrible firefight with the mysterious Enclave; the terrible military political power of the East Coast's darker side of things. They had tracked Nyx across the ruins of New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania after wiping out her tribe. Through sheer guile, endurance, and the sustaining of one of the toughest hearts he'd ever seen, had Nyx bested the impossible and survived long enough to find him and Hancock.

Though the two had initially greeted one another with attempts on each other's lives (which, some days Sanford still regretted) –much had changed, and their minds had been… bonded in a sense.

I'm not giving it enough credit, I suppose.

Sanford sighed through the vox grills of his helmet, and he let his eyes wander down the scaly, sleek and femininely highlighted form of the reptile.

The way Nyx's hips rolled with her casual, yet predatory trot was an enigma of intrigue and piqued curiosity for him. He had fond memories of those hips, ones that were like droplets of honey to discourage and disrupt the commonality of sour venom that was eating away at him.

Her body had been so alien and yet so endearing. In fact, over a decade of having nothing but a ranting, angry robot for company had effectively rendered Sanford addicted to her inner self after but a mere taste.

The taboo and sexual revolution had permanently impacted him in a way only poorer experiences in the past had done. It had taken some adjusting, but soon Sanford had come to live with it, and even be grateful for it.

Some of the clouds overhead were clearing up, and right on target with his coming intentions did Earth's mournful moon show its lonely face, as it stared down at the dying planet with gray idleness, and shined silver through the night.

The Deathclaw hummed at it. Sanford was made to smile. It was her artistic spirit, coming to life from such a source of inspiration.

Nyx was as gruff and tough as they came, and she sported the attitude of someone who had touched evil, and had been worsened for it, but all the wiser.

It was astounding how through all that suffering, she still spearheaded her life with this sense of almost playful curiosity. Her endurance was inspiring, and, to a certain degree; arousing.

Sanford made sure Hancock was too preoccupied with the new pair of heart-patterned bloomers he'd looted from the crater, before he inched closer and played with his Deathclaw.

"-Sanford~…." Nyx's vocals were unlike anything she offered outside of his company, as such, normally in much more private scenarios. It was a honeyed gasp, pure and virulent, and Sanford hadn't even tried that hard.

It's the suit, he smirked, wiggling his fingers, watching with satisfaction as the larger, powerful reptile squirmed, clenching her thighs, whipping her tail, teetering him in his path as she leaned into him. Adds just a tint of domination to the thing. I should wear it more often.

With an almost bestial grunt, the scavenger parted from her as quick as he had accosted her. His armored arm slipped with a hiss of steel and scale from between her legs, idling momentarily behind his hip as he glanced at Hancock.

"Sir, I must say, this is the greatest find I've made yet!" The Mr. Gutsy announced with pride, holding aloft his flapping, hearted prize in his claw. "I've got big plans for it!"

Oblivious. Good.

"-And those, I can't wait to see." Sanford chuckled, dusting his hand off with a few metallic swats against his greave. He glanced at Nyx, grinning boastfully under his helmet.

For her part, the Deathclaw looked drunk. She was still touching him, hanging all over him like an unsteady leg amputee.

"-How eager of you…" Nyx panted, her golden eyes widening with this snapping realization. All at once, the Deathclaw harrumphed, and with a snake's hiss; shoved off of him and reaffirmed her trot by his side. "Do not merely glance me like that."

"That's just for the road," Sanford shrugged with musing. "-haven't you ever seen a rabbit trap? You lay bits and tiny bits of carrots until they reach the box with the stick, and then…"

"You pull the stick, trap the rabbit le tenir pendant que tu le colles dans le cul?" Nyx purred.

"I-If the rabbit wants me to." The scavenger stammered, trying and failing to shield himself with a laugh.

"I don't know what just happened, but it's enough to make me puke! So it's a good thing I don't have a mouth!" Hancock snapped, letting the underwear flap in the breeze from his claw, like it was some makeshift flag. "Ya' know, I can smell these things-a-brewing! You two have no subtlety whatsoever!"

"Says the talking Easy-Bake-Oven who screams everywhere he goes." Sanford rolled his eyes, making Nyx chuckle deeply. "Maybe I will build you that doomsday robot just to shut you up."

"I don't care what your reasoning is, just so long as it makes you do the Democratically sound thing!" Hancock pressed. "Do you even understand how many Communists we could kill every day with some Big-Bertha-Bot running around and stepping on their mothers' gizzards? It'd be beast!"

"Dope?"

"Yes! Dope! Ha-haaa~! You've taught me yet another wonderous word, San-of-the-Ford! Or should I say: San-of-the-Word? Ha~!"

"Ugh," Nyx cupped a claw over her snout, as if she felt ill. "you're repulsive."

"Not as repulsive as your face, you overgrown skink!" The robot roared.

"There it is." Sanford grinned between them, his helm raising.

"What? The truth that I speak? Tell me about it! This thing next to you deserves to be turned into a purse, and you just can't see it!" Hancock ranted.

"One cannot see what only the sociopathic perceive." Nyx sighed.

"I want you- to grab a large rock, and shove it down your throat~!" The robot screamed.

"Han'!" Sanford snapped.

"What~!"

"We're home."

Like a sprawl of light in the sea of dark, rolling hills, there was an outpost that spawned itself presently at the head of the winding road, topped with fluorescent beams of illuminating, and the rotating glints of moving metal.

The barricades shielded most of the technological prowess that Sanford had demonstrated through years of scavenging and robotics toiling, but weren't dominating enough to entirely mask it.

Proudly, the Red-Rocket-Station may have once been a simple commercial outlet meant for the refueling of family sedans passing in and out of Sanford's old development, but now it was an armored, mean and automated powerhouse with which he had based himself in for almost fourteen years.

The entrenchment was palpable. Atop the all-round ten foot wall of bolted scrap, wood and aluminum were slowly rotating, quivering and growling weapons. Auto-turrets, each one of them unique and different in their constructions. They boasted rifles, carbines, shotguns and auto-pistols, mounted in mechanically clasped trenches that were fed ammo drums, belts and boxes.

Little green lights blinked on top of each setup to symbolize their functionality, and inside Sanford's suit, as they neared the tiny outpost, his HUD gave off a positive little chime just beneath his chin as his portable beacon synchronized with the scanners inside the station. The turrets recognized them as friendly, rendering them safe from their wrath, which the scavenger knew was withering. Some enemies who had gotten too close to home- literally –had paid that price in the past.

"Ah, there's the Liberty-H.Q!" Hancock sighed, floating past and ahead of Sanford's flank, letting the white light from the station's many spot-lanterns gleam like silver off his chassis' rims. "The pit-stop for the convoys on their way to Normandy! We should rename this place from Red-Rocket to Red-Ball, eh?"

"Tell you what," Sanford grinned. "you find me the big light-up letters for the sign, and I'll build it for ya'."

"That's a deal not worth refusing!" The robot laughed. "Clarice, we're home!"

"I assume, that after what I call an invitation," Nyx's inhuman voice growled in Sanford's hearing. "-you do not have plans this evening otherwise?"

"I just have to do one thing first," Sanford tapped his rucksack. "the disc? Let me toy with it."

"Do it quickly." The Deathclaw huffed, steam practically blowing from her nostrils. "It has been too long, mon cher."

"I know." The scavenger sighed, trotting with his long time team that he had conquered the world with. "I know."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"-Greetings out there, Wasteland-Scummers, it is the late break, 12:36 A-M, the Witching Hour, in case you didn't know. You're listening to Black Diamond Radio, your nighttime broadcast station on the clock, with Sydney Bright, in the flesh."

The radio's ambiance was a charged air of static harmony that quietly resonated inside the garage workshop, and added just the flavor of ambiance he needed to work.

Sealed from the world and locked in his own personal haven of isolation; Sanford's first deal of business before anything else, was to enjoy a moment of silence.

Breath bled from him like poison from a wound, sluggish and promptly chilled upon the air that it touched. Though it had been diminished, the scavenger could still pry into his own mind and feel the grasping tendrils of what it was that was striking him.

He'd never known what to call it. He'd always used terms such as- 'The Trauma' –or- 'Bad Memories' –but he knew acutely its true identity, he merely worked towards shielding it in this pathetic veil of solitude.

Concentrate.

Sanford Tobs opened his eyes, finished breathing, and stared at his own face. Weakly, at first, was this link made in the gloom of the garage and in the murmur of the low-volume radio.

Sanford was glaring with his face of flesh, scrutinizing his face of metal, because he did possess them both, where one could be removed, and the other hidden.

Reinforced steel hooks snagged the mounting loops on the X-01's pauldrons. Composite bases studded with steadying plates and bands were clamped tightly over its mighty boots, and the exoskeletal frame of the mounting station barred access from the flanks readily with sweeping pylons of rusty yellow and reflective chrome.

Steadied, and suspended like a legged armored vehicle, the X-01- from the outside –could be perceived as positively massive. It stood nearly two heads taller than him, and was three times as wide. Its reinforced breast was laden with pipes, wires and bulkhead stabilizers that possessed an almost artistic curvaceousness to them. Looking at it from the outside, could Sanford's inner-mechanic appreciate the audacity of what the United States Military had accomplished. The X-01 was by definition the pinnacle of pre-war exoskeletal technology. It was almost ironic that such a potent national weapon was being used by some random guy to collect parcels of trash.

It's good for the soul, the scavenger mused, letting his eyes wander up and down the suit's sweeping, metal hide. Better than what I've been doing.

The suit itself was like reading a book, or perhaps a memoir document. The past and his own personal history were literally written upon the synthetic plating, not in words surely, but in the form of marks, damage and warps.

There, on the left arm; the light divet that he'd never been fully able to smooth out from where a rocket had literally glanced him, bounced off, and detonated at his flank.

On the knee pads, where a slight snow-flake like speckle was still prevalent to closely examining eyes. More damage his limited access to tools hadn't been able to fully mend. A grenade cluster had gone off while he'd been in a crouch. Even protected by the suit's helmet, Sanford had still been blinded for nearly an hour afterward.

Just thinking about the old times made his head hurt. Every bruise, knick, cut and bullet grazing was a memory waiting to be touched and relived. Sanford could glance at every bit of notable scarring and wince with each example.

He'd been through quite a lot, it was probably why the trauma episodes happened randomly and he'd lock up like a prison cell door.

Need something to take my mind off of it.

Up until now, that had been what he was doing. His rucksack looked like a deflated air-balloon on the workbench nearby, emptied, with all the bits he and his companions had scrounged up distributed among a vast array of storage drawers and slip-boxes.

Being outside the armor, these basic tasks were almost lofty to him. Everything felt lighter, and he didn't know how else to describe that. It was like he was walking on clouds, and he realized that he was so used to the heavy trod of his suit, that he was more familiar to daily action with it on and not off.

Was that normal?

Maybe for me, it is.

Sanford snickered as he stepped away from the suit, where it continued to hunch over in bulky, insectoid darkness, staring at him with this baseless glare.

I wonder how spiders feel when they shed their skin.

The man sifted the sack over, his mind weakly brushing against the proverbial fingertips of whatever Sydney Bright- Diamond's nighttime radio broadcaster –was saying from the little glowing box on the nearby table.

Now about this disc.

The thing looked like a chrome communion wafer, reflecting the white light shining through the garage space in the form of a slender dagger up and down its length. It was marred with a slight brushing of soil, and dust, and some scratches were present on the sides.

Probably just needs a cleaning.

-Though some of the older audio devices out here were much harder to work with, they were notoriously easier to fix. Discs were more modern, but they were also more fragile. Sometimes, all it took was an errant scrape or a misdirected smudge for the entirety of its contents to be blown to hell.

Sanford was keen on unlocking whatever secrets- if any –that existed in this specimen. He never took death lightly, as evidenced by the daily mental torture he suffered.

So what if it was a Raider? There was a mystery here, and he was curious about it.

After all, that Raider had to have done something pretty bad to warrant a fully armed, cloaked and customized Assaultron assassin tracking him down and liquidating him.

Bringing himself to think on the incident as he bustled around the garage, gathering a rag, a sterilization solution and a precision laser stylus; the whole thing was pretty screwed up.

He had an entire state to wander in. New England was- for a single man –pretty damn big. What were the odds that right as this murder had occurred he had blundered into its immediate aftermath? The whole thing seemed… staged, maybe even planned, which, given the madness that gripped the world, it just might have been.

What secrets had that man divulged into this disc before his death? If any? Was it even his? Or had it been planted?

And what of that symbol on the Assaultron's cranium? Sanford didn't recognize it. A white scrap-skull? It wasn't a Raider tribe, it wasn't Gunner, and it wasn't Brotherhood or Enclave. It was strange. It couldn't have been a lowly gang. What gang possessed the technology or resources to send out a designated hitman like that?

The precision laser stylus highlighted Sanford's face crimson at the rimes as he worked its glowing head down the silvery, faint scuffs on the disc's face. A quick, craftsman's puff from his lips cleared any seared debris, and he went to work dabbling some of the sterilization solution.

All just a pattern. First the stylus, clearing up the nastiest damage, then the solution, then the rag, and…

Sanford swiveled the cloth a few more times, and held aloft the disc into the glare of the ceiling fixtures of the garage. He smiled warmly as the wafer glinted back at him, almost winking in due with his success.

Like brand new.

"-and that's why the Downtown Metro-Tunnel is a no-go for you play-it-safers. Recent reports say its overwhelmed with those nasty Rad-scorpions. Eye-witnesses? None left! Diamond guard say all that was left was an arm! Believe that, Scummers? That's what you get for being Raider-bait."

People think that's funny? Sanford quirked his lips with distaste, his thumb now orbiting over the dial on the radio's chin.

"Now if that wasn't enough, get this, puppies; The Helios Shopping Center,"

Helios Shopping Center?

Sanford had just been preparing to turn the thing off so he could try his new disc, but Sydney Bright's piqued speech prevented him from so easily banishing her from the waves of his reception.

"That's right, that raggedy-ass old mall uptown from Diamond, I'm sure plenty of you know it. The place our great, great, great grandparents bought their crocs and hair-rollers."

Get on with it, lady.

"All kinds of weird reports flooding in from that place, you hear? Diamond guard are saying it too. There are lights, there's screaming, there's gunfire. Stay. Away. Kitties."

Helios…

Sanford thumbed the station off and popped the radio box's disc-chin, though he failed to utilize the mounting in the first few seconds as he doted on what had been said.

I remember Helios from when I was a kid.

Helios had been one of the biggest 'New-Tech' –shopping centers in Boston for a long time. His father had taken him there on multiple occasions, ironically, sometimes stopping for gas at this very station, the one that Sanford had turned into his headquarters and new home.

Some maniac's probably set up shop there, or several maniacs.

Sanford popped the disc into the tray and eased it shut. He glanced at his suit, standing there, like a titan of still shadow in the garage's flank. He watched it, listening to the radio box hum as it processed the disc.

Maybe I should go clear it out. Sanford shook his head. One problem at a time.

The radio box practically growled at him, causing the scavenger to raise a brow in concerned demeanor. There was a slight crackle of static, and a single loop of audio, nothing but a flickering sound.

"…God damn." Sanford whistled. That disc was more messed up than he'd taken it for, he supposed. He was just about to pop the tray again, but right as his thumb was over the sigil, the door brokering the garage from the station kiosk creaked open, and something large slipped into the room.

Sanford had been standing this whole time, but genuinely, even with the experience under his belt; he had to admit that he had been startled.

He wasn't armed, but his hand still whipped to his hip on instinct, fingers clenching like spider's limbs for a gun holster that wasn't there.

"Vous semblez avoir vu un fantome, Sanford." Nyx blinked, her golden eyes stabbing through the shadows, the white light of the garage playing like bands of platinum off her dark, scaly hide. "Are you well?"

"No ghost." Sanford shook his head quickly, shivering as he decapitated his pose, and leaned a hand tiredly on the workbench. "-No ghost, or… or anything like that, you just… startled me."

Nyx resembled a scene right out of a storybook of old, her draconic head, her big horns and her shoulders were poking through the human-sized doorframe, twisted in his direction. It was readily evident that the Deathclaw didn't know how to respond to him. She merely hummed at him plainly, offering this tentative little sound of disinterest.

She shoved through the archway a second later, her scales sliding loudly against the wood, and her spinal fins bending as she worked them through the arch's top.

Like a cartoon character, she practically popped out of the frame, wiggling her hide like a dog would fresh out of water.

"De tout beaute…" Nyx chuckled, her tail whipping and shutting the door behind her. "I can navigate this home of yours almost like a person these days, non?"

Sanford's breath to speak was stilled in a pause.

"-But… But you are a person, why would you-" He shook his head. "It's your home too, and you're just as much a person as me, and even Hancock, which I know is hard to process."

"The latter? Indeed." Nyx's talons were capable of rending solid steel, and yet they seemed no less fierce than a cat's set of paws as they kneaded them on a scratching board. The talons gave off a slight hiss as she scratched an itch on her scaly belly, her snake tongue slapped over her nose, and for just a second was Sanford re-educated about the contents of the reptile's mouth.

She yawned in a tiny, hissing entrance, her jaws splaying widely, revealing the rows of dinosaur teeth armoring down her mandible and upper jaw.

Clap~! –went her chops as the display of boredom terminated. She licked her nose again and stared at him, ignoring the Power Armor stacked right beside her.

"You have been in here for hours." She said.

"Yeah, I know." Sanford nodded, scratching the back of his head. "I just wanted to clean the disc off, and I'm having, well…"

"Mm?"

"-limited success?"

"Mm." Nyx's sigh was a sound that resembled an alligator blowing river-water from its nostrils. It was this ragged thing to be beheld in light of ambiance, something familiar to him and purely inhuman. Sanford's thoughts wandered to the road from earlier tonight. "Do you not suffer from loneliness in here?"

"Actually-" Sanford stopped himself. He almost delved into detail about how the garage was an escape for him, but decided against it. "-No. It's nice to have a moment of quiet every now and again. Like when you read all those books I scavenge for you?"

"That is true, but you dabble in metal," The reptile observed, now looking at the dormant beast that was his X-01 suit in its rack. "I dabble in the written word. …Hmph."

One of her golden eyes craned to him.

"Do you remember when I needed assistance in reading your language?" She asked him.

"…Yeah." Sanford bowed his head as he laughed, smiling warmly at the old memories when they had first met. "I could teach you to read English easy, but it was the French, and the German and…"

"We did not make do?"

"Of course we did! That's the brilliance of it, you know?" He nodded happily. "Not that a good problem with or without my help has ever stopped you."

"Mm."

"Yeah."

Nyx's chops curled into a cheeky- almost venomous –smile. With a girlish whisk of her wrist, the Deathclaw rotated her claw, and gestured to the air itself.

"Monsieur? Do you smell that?" She quizzed, her tail whipping behind her like an armored, thick serpent.

Sanford blinked, and he suddenly found himself more drawn to the slight crackle murmuring out from the speakers of his radio. To be honest, up until recently, he had forgotten about the road.

Should I tell her I just did that to take my mind off of things?

Not unless you want her to kill you.

She wouldn't do that! She… well….

-Now, he wasn't so certain. Nyx had that predatory glint in her eyes, that light that resembled burning reserves of radiation. The spicy aroma he knew all too well from her was so thick in the air right now that someone could've shit on the floor and the resultant smell still wouldn't have beaten through all of it.

"Is this work as pressing as you are making it out to be?" The Deathclaw rumbled, and Sanford could feel the heightening tension in the room as her bladed, raptor-like feet took her across the distance between them. Nyx's expression was odd. It was like she was trying to smile, but at the same time, she was fighting against a different kind of expression.

"It's pressing for me." Sanford admitted, stepping away from the tool bench, and suddenly forgetting all about the humming radio and the mysterious disc inside of it. "…I mean, someone did shoot at me over it."

"Sanford," Nyx hissed. "Je ne viens pas de vous rejoindre sur un coup de tete; Je me suis donne a toi."

"I realize that." The scavenger nodded. Large fingers tightly gripped over his shoulders, and he could hear her flesh sliding as the talons adorning them slipped deeply into their sheaths and away from him.

"Can it not wait?" Her facial scales were smooth things, slimy and slippery, though they excreted no such offerings and were entirely dry. Touching her was like touching a snake, a tall, humanoid snake with big arms. Her horns shielded much of his flanks from his eyes, even the radio and the workbench he'd been positioned at earlier. It was purposefully done. Nyx wanted attention.

"I guess you could say I have the magic-touch, huh?" Sanford grinned, making the reptile hiss as his hands found purchase on her hips. He wound them down until the palms were grazing sections of more interior flesh, where things were softer and less armored. "Did I do this?" He joked.

"I want to." Nyx shivered, jamming her snout into his face. The quickest grace of her serpentine tongue wetly running across his chin and his lips sparked a fire in Sanford's hips. Though the flame had been tempered earlier, and certainly had been growing from ember to flicker throughout this encounter, now with the question of sensuous attire coming into play, the scavenger was rendered helpless.

"Slow down." He grunted, wrenching his lips free of a pursed lock from her chops. Nyx snorted at him, and his back arched painfully as a large palm shoved him into her chest, bending him and threatening to break him in half. "Don't you do it."

She didn't listen to him. Linen ripped, and his pants bundled in a mangled heap about his socked feet. The scavenger grumbled in agitation as he was accosted. He always felt too small for the exchanges in the opening stages as Nyx devolved into more animalistic urges of claim and submission.

"Damn it, girl." Sanford mumbled, his words muffled as he reached up and bit tenderly into the scales shielding her scaly carotid. "Is that all I am? Some plaything, huh?"

"You are a plaything when you're in that suit," Nyx whined. The floor of the garage thundered as she teetered back, and landed on her rump, taking him with her. "-outside of it; tu es mon male, Sanford~…"

"Male?" He pronounced, gripping the insides of the reptile's thighs as he knelt on the concrete. "-Male or homme?"

"Semantics." Nyx squeezed her eyes shut, her fangs glistening in the light of the fixtures around the chamber. Between Sanford's legs, as he yanked his boxers off, the tip of her inquisitive tail looped around, and flicked them out of his fingers, but not before brushing in a quick cop along his backside. "Get on with it."

"I am, I am, keep your ovaries on…" The scavenger chided. He slipped his wrists under her thorny hips, and with a grunt of effort did he lift her tailbone off the floor. "-God damn, you're heavy…"

"That had best not be a fat-joke." The Deathclaw snarled in delight, her talons removing themselves from their sheaths against her will, and leaving marks in the floor. "I am forced to deal with the usiner's comments too much to begin hearing them from you too…"

"I'd never call you fat." Sanford lowered himself more, until almost all of his arms were curling like hooks around the underside of her sumptuous, scale-rippled thighs. "I'd never call you anything, actually, you know, except… beautiful."

"Ugh~," Nyx rolled her eyes, craning her head back as she let him hike her wide hips in the air. "-how cheesy."

"Fine," Sanford craned his neck down, lining his lips up with the vertical symmetry of her tummy, until that invisible line culminated. There was a soft, wet report as he flexed his jaw. The Deathclaw's talons dragged noisily into the stone, and a pained trill bubbled up from her throat and towards the ceiling.

"-you're not beautiful," Sanford nudged his chin over one of her hip and spat on the floor. "you're fuckin' hot."

"Is it merely my misconception, or have you become creative with all of this?" The Deathclaw breathed, shyly looking at him over the sweep of her breast.

"Is that a complaint?"

"Non, jamais…" She moaned. "-you will never hear a complaint from me about this, Sanford."

"Well ain't that reassuring…" Sanford hooked onto her hips, and moments later, as his skin pressed into her hide, Nyx's following breath was dimmed under the scraping of her claws rending divets in the concrete. "-alright," Sanford grit his teeth, teetering on his knees. "-menu's up; what do you want, huh?"

"Rapide, this time…" Nyx quivered, struggling to hold a decent expression.

"-wait, shit, I don't know that one-"

"Fast. It means fast." She snarled.

"You got it."

"…Oui~…" Nyx moaned, rocking lightly into the floor, her legs wiggling under their own weights. The Deathclaw parted her jaws, hung her head back, and let her saliva drip between her teeth and her tongue. "…I have it~…" –She drooled.

"So," Sanford held onto her, trying to speak between the rhythm of his hips. "-that disc…"

"-O-Oh-Oh… t-the-d-disc… o-o-oui'…" She trailed drunkenly, her speech bucking with each one of his contacts.

"…I think I'm close, you know?"

"-Y-You bett-er- not –be – al-ready…!"

"No. Not like that, I mean to fixing the thing."

"-O-Oh-Oh… I-I se-e…."

"I just wonder what it has on it. Like, what did that guy have to say?" Sanford shook his head, his face turning crimson as he worked. "-Shit."

"…per-haps it has... n-nothing… on it…"

"Hancock seems to think so. But I don't know." He grunted. "There was this symbol on the Assaultron I've never seen before. It has me worried, what if-"

"M-Mon-s-sieur-?"

"Yep?"

"F-Faster."

"Yeah."

The room echoed with a heavier whisper of hips in their impactful meeting. Nyx craned her head forwards, hung over her belly, and hissed at him, letting her mouth drip freely, and her tongue lap.

"-what if there's another threat?" Sanford was almost oblivious even as he labored inside her, his eyes lowered, and they focused on the rather messy linkage between their bodies. "-I-I just…"

"Sanford~." Nyx cried, and a heavy, leathery palm clapped behind and between his shoulder blades. "-Shut up, and come here, you dumb ape~…"

Nyx snapped the tip of her snout over his mouth, letting him flex his lower mandible as to gain access to the insides of her oral cavity. Her larger tongue dominated his in a terribly vulgar display of laps and twists and bends.

Sanford breathed until his heaves became touched by vocal volume, devolving into periodic grunts, all the more deafened by her droning, muffled cries.

There was a concoction brewing just south, something that could be perceived as foul to outside parties but pleasantly stewing to those participating. Needless to say, did this detritus empty both of them and onto the other. It affected Nyx much more plainly, seeing as her body by gender's definition was on the receiving end.

The reptile rumbled and hissed as the ending sways terminated their strange and taboo union. A physical sensation flowed like a river of molasses down the base of her tail, its initial heat cooled and defeated by exposure to the air.

"Bordel de merde…" Nyx rasped after a moment of pause. Like a predatory cat would cast its paws to the ground, she let her palms slap heavily back to the floor, they angled her arms and daggered her collar, letting her lean back and breathe at the ceiling. "J'aime ce qu'on ressent quand tu me baises…"

He understood enough of that last bit to blush.

"Nyx." He chuckled.

"…Oh, so much better…" The Deathclaw licked him on the lips. "You will be pleased to know that I am placated."

"Don't get my worries up or anything."

"Oui. You may un-mount me now." Sanford laughed as she shoved him roughly off of her belly. Her tail curled beneath her hips, and the reptile flexed her bladed toes into the floor as she stewed in a brief twilight of her scratched libido. "I hope I have not distracted you too much…" She giggled sarcastically.

"Not enough, I guess." Sanford sat on the floor across from her, putting his chin on his knee. "I needed that."

"How fortunate of this wasteland to bring us together then." Nyx's arms shivered as she stretched them outwards, her talons wiggling in and out of their sheathes as her fingers splayed. "I take it that you wish to pursue this matter further?"

"What matter?" Sanford raised a brow as she placed one of her bladed feet in his lap. The Deathclaw licked her nose and nodded to the radio on the other side of the room. Sanford massaged her foot's bridge with his thumbs and followed her gaze. "Oh yeah."

"Describe this incident to me once more." Nyx blinked, sighing as she rode down the final waves of euphoric aftermath. "You discovered a corpse and were attacked."

"There was some dead scumbag on the ground, a Raider," Sanford nodded, switching his attentions to the upper ball of her extremity. "he'd been shot by this cloaking Assaultron, that summarily tried to shoot me. I took it out, found that symbol on its head, and the audio disc on the guy."

"Is there anything else?"

"People are talking about Helios Shopping Center, one of the old malls in the city." Sanford said. "I remember it because my father used to take me there on outings when I was little."

"How fairs your father, mon cher?" She asked lowly, and with caution.

"Don't know." He shrugged, melding the leathery, plush flesh of her toes in his fingers. "Don't care either. You need a manicure, girl."

"A what?"

"A manicure, it's like a beautifying of one's feet, particularly women." The scavenger ran his thumb down the hook claw sticking out from her inner big toe. It was almost as big as his head. "Though, I don't know, envisioning someone trying to paint these bad-boys…"

"Paint?" Nyx's toes twitched in his grip, she peered at him curiously. "I do not think that is a productive idea."

"You never know, right?" Sanford chuckled. "…Helios Shopping Center… There's something wrong happening."

"As always in this forsaken place." The Deathclaw sighed. "When do we start pursuing the matter and how?"

"You know me like the back of your claw, don't you?"

"Oui." She took her foot from his hands and slipped the other one into its place. "The other one too."

"Yes ma'am." The scavenger grinned, shielding the sudden touch of uncertainty stabbing into his breast.

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