(( Author's Note: My apologies this one is rather quick, but I've been rather busy with school and a few family related items! By the next chapter there will be a bit more in regards to story development and action, but for now it's just a bit of character development and filler... ness.
Please enjoy!))
Not exactly the best person to help with the tech-person with tech issues, Shaundi soon went back to HQ, the purple glow of the penthouse a welcoming beacon light compared to doom and gloom of Kinzie's warehouse. She ended up spending a lot more time there than she'd anticipated: glancing to her phone, she saw it was already half past two pm by the time she was riding back up the elevator. Once she arrived to the top floor, she stepped out to see Pierce reading a Nyte Blade comic on one of the couches while Oleg and the Boss watched the news on tv.
"So the early bird returns." Oleg commented, and Shaundi gave him a slight wave as she headed to the kitchen.
"Hey, Oleg," she greeted casually, "hey Pierce."
"Yo," Pierce replied back easily, "where've you been? Never thought you were exactly the type to rise with the sun, Shaund."
"Unlike you, I had some shit to take care of." She quipped back, pulling a tightly saran-wrapped bowl of fruit salad out of the fridge with her name scrawled across the top in Sharpie. Grabbing a fork and ripping the wrapping off, she crumpled the saran wrap and left it on the counter and stepped out into the main room again, looking for a space to join the others. Oleg moved aside on the spacious couch for her to sit between him and the Boss, but the gang leader's quirked purple brow at her lack of an initial greeting made her divert to one of the oversized purple leather chairs. Even if it had a worse viewing angle than the couch, she wasn't exactly feeling like sitting between two super-overpowered guys, even if one was a man she rolled with for years.
Looking her up and down like her casual attire would tell him where she had gone, the Boss gave her a polite nod when she caught him staring.
"Hey, Boss."
"Shaundi."
Pierce looked from the Boss and Shaundi over to Oleg, who gave Pierce the lightest heave of his shoulders in a shrug. Pierce frowned and returned back to his comic book, but didn't seem too happy about it. Shaundi knew how much it pissed him off to be kept out of the loop, and if her weird behavior was any sign...
"Would you like to watch anything else, Shaundi?" Oleg asked the brunette, interrupting what was becoming a silent stare-off between her and the purple haired man.
"Nah, you're good." Shaundi replied, kicking off her heels and curling herself up onto the chair. Stabbing at a strawberry blindly, she watched as Jane Valderamma popped up on the screen. It looked like she was leading some sort of debate about if the iron fist of one gang was better than being in terror of three, and she caught the Boss grinning and reaching over to nudge Oleg at the sight of a purple fluer-de-lis on the news channel followed by some footage of a few of the Saints raising hell around town. There was something charming in the Boss's excitement of seeing his army of hellions on the news: she was sure if he were more technologically competent, he'd probably save recordings of all the times someone fucked up the city so greatly it made the news like a dad saving his kid's honor roll certificates or some tacky shit like that.
"All I'm saying, Jane, is that at least our homegrown gangs had been decent enough to drive on the street for the most part," a man with a toupee not meant for live tv said, "the Saints are some of the worst drivers I've ever seen! They cause more civilian casualties driving to the grocery store than any combo of Luchador or Morning Star or Decker fights!" The Boss snickered out loud at that, and Shaundi watched as he checked his phone, the little device in his hand giving a soft 'ding' when it announced that his funds were all transferred. Recalling what Kinzie had found on his phone and knowing where that money was probably going to go, Shaundi scowled down at her brightly colored salad. If she had growled something under her breath about her thoughts on her picture or his drugs, she hadn't noticed, but the others did.
"What was that, Shaundi?" Pierce asked.
"Nothing." Shaundi snapped.
"You have been seeming... unwell today," Oleg said, "is something troubling you?"
"I skipped breakfast this morning," Shaundi explain, "I'll be fine, Oleg. Thanks, though." Even if she wasn't lying about skipping breakfast, the burden of carrying a secret was filling her up more than the fruits were.
"Just what business were you up to so early you couldn't even get a bite to eat before leaving?" the Boss asked. Shaundi swallowed a grape down hard.
"One of our guys told me that the Morningstar may have started doing the bulk of what little operations they still got here in the early morning, considering some of us here seem to enjoy staying up late and sleeping in 'till noon," Pierce gave her a snort and loudly turned the page of his comic, though that was just the reaction Shaundi was hoping for, "I woke up early and spent the morning cruising around their old meeting places."
"Any luck seeing anything?" the Boss asked. Shaundi shrugged and poked around her fruit salad for a piece of watermelon.
"Nah, though I wasn't able to get everywhere I wanted either. Still, it wouldn't be surprising if they shifted their work schedules to be in opposites with ours, so I think it'd still be looking into."
"Good point," the blue-skinned man replied. Shaundi put down her watermelon chunk when she saw the Boss look down at his phone and slowly run his tongue over his fangs, her appetite all but shot. The Boss got up and stretched, adding, "Pierce, see about getting some of the other Saints to volunteer for some early morning cruising for the week. Shaundi said it was just Morningstar, but I want to know if the Deckers or the Luchadores had similar plans. Bring in some of Zimos's girls and have 'em serve pancakes and coffee if you gotta." the Boss added, heading to his bedroom and grabbing his jacket. Shaundi looked down at her fruit salad, and willed it to somehow encourage the other gangs in Steelport to want to conveniently do some early morning dealings this week.
"I'm heading over to Friendly Fire down in Loren Square, I know a guy there who said he could put the wrath of God in our arsenal," the Boss said, throwing on his jacket and zipping it up a little more than midway, "any of you want to come with?"
"No." Shaundi said a bit too quickly, a bit too harshly. The three men in the room looked at her, though while Pierce and Oleg merely looked confused, the Boss looked concerned. He frowned and narrowed his gold eyes at her, and Shaundi quickly forced another strawberry half into her mouth, giving her a few seconds to think of an excuse other than she was frankly sick of hearing about any of the Boss's "guys" after recent events.
"I think I'll just hang back and finish my lunch," she finally said, carefully evening out her tone, "I want to play with your new toys when you come back, though. Maybe we can go terrorize those protestors you hate so much."
"I don't hate them, Shaund," Shaundi felt a weight lift from her shoulders as her boss suddenly cracked a grin, "besides, I wouldn't waste bullets on 'em when there's still Syndicate bastards around I could use them on instead."
"Yeah, right," Pierce chimed in, "you don't hate them enough to use bullets, just to scratch up the hood of your car. I'll hang with Shaundi, I wanna finish my book."
"Fuck off Pierce, it was just a few times," which, considering the Boss's record for vehicular manslaughter, did make it seem protestors suffered at the hands of the Boss's rides a lot less than the population as a whole, "and fine. What about you, Oleg?"
"Sure," Oleg said, "would you mind if we stopped by the Planet Saints a few blocks from here first, Boss? I got a call a few of the suits I ordered came in today."
"No problem," the Boss said, and with that, waved goodbye to the two staying behind, heading towards the elevators, "see ya Pierce, see ya Shaundi, be back in a bit."
"Later." Shaundi replied, looking back at the news on tv at an ad for the Let's Pretend clothing store. Pierce waved farewell and went back to the pages of his comic book.
Pierce could wait until the elevator rang two levels down before tossing his comic book aside, getting up, and heading straight to Shaundi.
"Okay, so what the hell happened between you and the Boss?"
"Nothing." Shaundi lied. Pierce snorted and gestured to the elevators.
"Bullshit nothing happened! Oleg and I aren't blind, Shaund. Don't think I didn't notice you and the Boss eyeballing each other and giving off weird vibes since you got here." Shaundi met Pierce's frown with a scowl, the lieutenants locked in a staring contest until Pierce blinked in realization.
"Oh my god, he told you about his weird skin, didn't he?"
"No he d-" Shaundi didn't even get out her excuse before Pierce dramatically howled and slapped his knee.
"Oh my god! He so told you! What'd he say it was?"
"He told me not to tell anyone." The brunette snapped. Which was true: however, she felt rather bad about whipping out that excuse, considering part of her really did just want to grab Pierce by the shoulders and tell him what the Boss has really been up to. Pierce had a worse poker face she did, though, and she didn't want to risk the Boss cracking down on him and finding out she snitched against his direct orders.
"Shit, man," Pierce pouted, "if you can't tell me directly then, can you just tell me if it was like, super weird? Like moonlighting for that weird alien movie director guy, or he crashed his car into the nuclear plant or-"
"Well fuck Pierce, his skin is blue," Shaundi retorted, "I'm sure whatever's causing it is pretty damn strange."
"Wait, so you don't know the real reason?"
"I was trying to tell you," Shaundi chided, "but I think he gave me another bullshit excuse like he gave you." A half-truth, considering the Boss's first attempts to lie to her - it felt wholly bad lying, though. Pierce slumped his shoulders, and clicked his tongue in defeat.
"Shit, man," Pierce said, "I was hoping if he wouldn't tell me, at least he'd tell you. I don't like him leaving us outta the loop, it ain't right when he knows we're behind him all the way."
"You're telling me." Shaundi agreed with a sigh. Giving up on her lunch, Shaundi got back up and headed back to the kitchen, tossing the old crumpled ball of saran wrap away and digging in the cupboards for a new piece. Recalling that Pierce might have met up with the Boss last night, Shaundi glanced back at him as the well dressed man picked back up his comic and plopped onto one of the empty couches.
"Hey Pierce, you meet up with the Boss last night?"
"Hm? Oh yeah, we were heading back from the park and we spotted his ride outside the pub."
"He didn't seem... different to you, did he?"
"Not really, no," Pierce paused in thought, then added, "well... actually, he did do something pretty crazy. Like, he straight up bit this motherfucker during a bar fight! Ripped his neck straight open! It was nasty as shit, man. I told him unless he wanted me to have Kinzie legally change his name to Nyte Blayde that he shouldn't be tearin' out people's throats like that, at least not in front of me."
"Holy shit." Shaundi said quietly.
"'Holy shit' is right," Pierce replied, flipping through the pages of his comic book until he found the page he was on, "he nearly got us kicked outta the bar, too. Don't get me wrong, I love the Boss like a brother, but he better not be doing that again, at least near me."
"You know," Shaundi asked, "how the hell can you watch that damn vampire show, read the tacky comics, and then turn around and kill a motherfucker at the drop of the hat, but the Boss biting someone in a fight squicks you out?"
"Uh, 'cause vampires aren't real," Pierce answered plainly, "besides, it's different seeing someone do that on tv for drama with some fake blood squirtin' out, or killin' on the job when ya gotta. Just up and bitin' someone in the middle of a brawl... that ain't right, Shaund. There's gotta be something wrong with you to just up and wanna do that."
A little over an hour after Oleg and the Boss left, they returned, the Russian carrying several coat hangers with fresh-pressed suits on them and the blue-skinned boss touting two TEK Z-10s with a rather pleased grin on his face.
"Yo, we're back!" the Boss called, receiving several greetings back from the other Saints as the crib was slowly becoming more alive with the later it got into the afternoon. Seeing Pierce had only left to get his laptop and was now toggling between checking stocks and playing some card game online, the Boss went over to him and tapped his leg with his foot.
"Hey, you seen where Shaundi went?" He asked. Pierce looked up from his laptop and shrugged.
"Hell if I know, man. I saw her head back to her room about an hour ago, she's probably in there," He replied, going right back to his very important business. The Boss rolled his eyes, and headed off to where Shaundi usually crashed when staying at HQ. Heading right up the door, he knocked twice: well, kicked it with his foot, considering his hands were still full.
"Shaundi, it's me, open up!" He called. He could hear her swear quietly and close something before she scrambled to the door, opening it up for him. Looking down at her, the Boss glanced her over again, noting the change in clothes - she was wearing black skinny jeans and a purple tank top covered in white fleurs-de-lis, and had a white denim jacket in hand - and how hurried she looked.
"Yeah Boss, what's up?" She asked. The Boss offered her one of the guns, which she took and started to inspect thoroughly.
"I came to collect on that offer to try out the new toys," the leader said, "you're not busy now, are you?" He tried to glance into her room, but saw nothing really out of the ordinary other than the fact she left her laptop on her bed.
"Nah, I'm good," Shaundi replied, heading back into her room and putting the submachine gun onto her bed. Pulling out the drawer underneath the queen sized bed and revealing a plethora of shoes all neatly organized, she looked over all of them before plucking a pair of glossy purple heels out. Slipping them on, she asked, "you got anything in mind, or we just gonna go out and look for trouble?"
"Knowing us, trouble will finally find its way to us, not the other way around." the Boss replied with a grin. Shaundi smiled her agreement and grabbed the TEK Z-10 off the bed as she got up. Even walking casually, the way her hips moved gave off a level of sexiness and confidence that was more than enough to make the male viewers of her show start sweating. Turning away from her and heading back to the elevators, he ran his tongue over his teeth again. Unused to the sensation of four sharper teeth and incredibly thankful he maxed out his regenerative abilities with how much more often he'd be likely to bite his tongue by mistake for the next few days.
"Fair enough," Shaundi replied, "we rolling with anyone else, or are we just going solo?"
"Eh, if we need anyone we'll call 'em," the Boss replied, "I don't mind just cruisin' and letting what happens happen. Maybe we'll go by and see if Zimos needs some help distributing any of his mags or has any news on where to grab some new employees."
"We could always ask Angel if he has a few training routine for you yet." Shaundi suggested, chuckling when the Boss punched the elevator button, then punched her shoulder gently.
"Very funny," the Boss replied, "I'd like to see you survive half the shit he puts me through."
Then again, the Boss thought, maybe, she could...
Pulling up his list of apps, the Boss went to Upgrades, and tapped "Gang Abilities". It was of the only items on the list he hadn't bought much from other than weapon upgrades, though he couldn't help but just... skim it every now and then. It was wrong, he shouldn't even think of bringing his crew into the shit he was doing: he had no problems playing a fucked up martyr (he was sort of the Patron Saint of the Saints, right? ... Right?) and just giving himself the upgrades, but...
"Boss?"
The Boss looked up, and saw Shaundi was already in the elevator, frowning and him and holding the submachine gun at her side.
"Coming," he said, and hurriedly stepped inside. Punching the button for the garage, he added, "any preferences on cars?"
"Eh, I think the Peacemaker would be fun."
The Boss grinned.
"Good choice, love."
It was one of the first models of cars that the Boss had made sure to hijack once he woke from his coma, and the second he got once he got to Steelport.
"One of the real keys to getting the law to understand you're top dog," the Boss once explained to Shaundi as he was getting his newest ride freshly painted with Saints purple candy paint, "and the people to know you're above the law to take something of theirs and make it so thoroughly yours they can't touch it again." It was one of his favorite rides to take around town - if the fact he dropped several grand on it from the custom tires to the jet black interior to the purple sirens didn't show it - and Shaundi knew it. Watching him easily slide into the driver's side, she took shotgun, buckling up as the Boss started the car and almost immediately made sure it was on his playlist before zipping out of the garage.
"So, just what'd you have done to these puppies?" Shaundi asked they turn on to one of the main streets, running her hands over the submachine gun and looking over at the one that the Boss nestled in the spot between them in his car.
"Oh, not much," he replied, giving her a playful grin, "just got my hands on a few boxes of incendiary bullets s'all."
"Shut the fuck up," Shaundi said, immediately going to inspect the clip as the Boss laughed, "you did not!"
"Oh yes I fucking did," he gave his answer between snickers, "I figure it'll much easier to take out those fucking choppers from the ground with 'em, or at least a Brute or two."
"Well shit Boss, let's hope so," admiring the clip and the gleaming bullets within, Shaundi loaded her gun back up, "just where'd you get this, anyways? How many cases you got?"
"As many as we need, love," he replied easily, "I switched us over to incendiary only if these ones work out. A bit more pricey, but with how good we're doing, I doubt it'll be much of an issue with how business has been." Shaundi gave a soft whistle, impressed.
"And here I thought you left most of the business to Pierce, Boss."
"I can use my nice words and shake hands when I need to."
"Mhm. I feel like seeing that would be just as impressive as seeing what these can do to those Syndicate bastards."
"What? You really doubt my people skills that much?" He asked, his voice playfully offended.
"I'm just saying I think I've seen you kill more people than I've heard you say please, is all." Shaundi teased back. The Boss laughed, and Shaundi started to giggle as well, but catching sight of the Boss's fangs made her laughter die in her throat. The gang leader noticed, and cut his own laughter short. He lowered the music in the car, and Shaundi felt her stomach clench at what it meant.
"You okay, Shaundi?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
"Bullshit you're good," the Boss snorted, "you've been acting off since you came back to HQ this morning. If you've got a beef with me, just say it."
Oh, because that would go over well, Shaundi thought bitterly, 'yeah Boss, I'm worried sick over all the crap you're doing to yourself even if I know you're gonna do it even if I'm worried, and I'm pissed I have to lie to the others about it for you', that'll go over great. Still, she heaved a sigh, shifting through her thoughts and trying to figure out one that she wouldn't have to reference having been to Kinzie's with, Shaundi looked out the window.
"I don't got a beef with you," no, she basically had an entire herd of damn steer with him by now, "but... Pierce told me you bit someone's throat out at the bar."
"Oh, that?"
"Yeah," Shaundi said. And, venturing a bit further, added, "I... I didn't tell him about that Vampire thing you took-"
"Just call it an 'upgrade', Shaund."
"I don't want to 'just' call it anything," Shaundi snapped back at him quickly. The Boss didn't say anything back yet, but she certainly got his attention with that: she felt the car hit the curb and sideswipe a pedestrian that didn't move out of the way in time, then felt the Boss jerk the car back onto the road. While he swore and adjusted his driving, she continued, "Boss, we got the remnants of the Syndicate and STAG on our asses and you're just- you're drinking and using these weird drugs, and I understand you think you need a break now and then, but you can't just be doing that sort of shit!"
"What, drinking and upgrades, or taking breaks?"
"From tearing out throats in public, dumbass."
The Boss faltered. He bit his lower lip, and Shaundi was fairly certain if he clamped down a bit too hard he'd probably start bleeding.
"All right, I'll give you that. I guess I just drank a little too much and focused more on the fight than on the fact I was still in a bar." The way he gripped the wheel made Shaundi mildly concerned about how Pierce would fair when the Boss saw him again.
"That's great, but I doubt that excuse is gonna save your ass when a bunch of Nyte Blayde cultists start trying to get you to turn them into vampires at best if the press gets any good pics of you feasting on the blood of your victims."
"Well, it'd certainly be a good way to get new recruits." He retorted. Shaundi reached over to punch him in the arm.
"I'm being serious here, Boss." Shaundi scolded.
"Yeah, I can tell," the Boss grumbled back, rubbing the spot where she hit him, "I got it, and you're right. I should be more careful."
"Thank you." Shaundi knew it was a lot to get him to admit anyone other than himself was right (stubborn bastard), so even if it wasn't exactly a triumph, she'd take it as a win anyhow. Reaching over after a silent minute, she gently rubbed his arm where she hit him once the Boss had returned his left hand to his left thigh. The Boss looked over at her and cracked a smile, and Shaundi smiled back.
"You're a psycho, you know that?"
"Yet you're still working for me."