The skies are black with lead-filled rain,
A morbid painting on display,
This is the night the young love died,
Buried at each other's side,
You never took us alive
We swore that death would do us part
Wandering through the piss soaked smell of the streets, Cecilia coughed softly trying to clear her throat of the dust. Brushing the bangs from out of her right eye, she was blinded for a moment by the neon lights above the Memory Den. She passed a drifter who laughed softly and told her, "Smell that sister? That's the smell of freedom!" they then took the deepest breath possible, at least for a jet user. Freedom smells like piss and drugs, wonderful she thought sarcastically. Sighing softly, she pulled out her 10 mm and posted herself to the wall of the Memory Den, the first place her dad will look for her.
Messing around with the mechanics of the gun she had in her hands, she was wondering just how in hell the bullets that were shot out of this thing blew up on contact. She has a knack for finding weird but pretty awesome guns like. Sticking her finger down the barrel of the gun, she was feeling around, trying to see if there was some kind of sparking mechanism in the barrel itself. Taking her digit out of the barrel, she pointed it at the ground, a soft smile on her face as she was waving at her dad. "Dad!"
Running over to his daughter, Nate's first reaction was to squeeze her face between his hands as he checked her for any kind of new things. Mostly like drugs sticking out of her pockets or some random new gun. Rolling her eyes, she let her dad do as he pleased, she wasn't in the mood for complaining, the stench of piss was getting to her. Quickly glancing at him, she noticed that he was wearing the road leathers again, shit. She thought she threw that away. Leather does not look good on anyone past 30. Seeing the glint of black leather, she saw the shadow leather armor she placed in his backpack instead of the heavy metal armor he loved. She smiled happily, he listened to her, at least in that armor sense, now to get rid of the leather... "Good, nothing new on you."
Smacking his hands from her face, she rolled her eyes and shook her head, placing her hands on her hips. "Who do you think I am? Some petty thief that steals Jet from random drifters?" She scoffed softly, looking away from her father who just looked annoyed at her reaction. "What?" she was a bit confused on why he was tapping his foot, he only did that when he found something on her, that wasn't there before.
"Cecilia, did you steal something that isn't drugs from a drifter?" he had a stern tone in his voice, his hand outstretched to get the item that she took from a random drifter. "I know you took something, I saw your inventory on your pip-boy. You hate pipe pistols, and you only have them on you when you find them or steal them. Now give it up before I have to pin you down and take it from you." Groaning out her frustrations, she clicked on the item on her pip-boy and out of the little wrist watch, a weapon materializes by scanning the space in Nate's hands and plopping out a very rusty pipe pistol. "There, I'm going to hold onto this until we get home."
"But first! Let's go see Whitechapel Charlie, I heard he has a mission for someone who buys a drink from him!" Pushing herself from the wall, she was about to pass her father when he grabbed her collar and kept her from moving farther from him. "What? Oh, right. Under aged right? Don't worry! You can keep the beer, I'll profit on the mission." She grinned happily, knowing her father can't deny that logic, Charlie doesn't give out missions that leave Goodneighbor and if it seems dangerous, he'll do it himself.
Heading into The Third Rail, Ham nodded to the two entering the establishment. Cecilia sighed softly, the place smelt like bad beer and sweat, almost like a drunken sex night. At least, that's what piper said once before. Heading down the stairs, she was about to head over to Charlie when a random drifter, with an annoyed tone, grumbled, "What? Another one of you mercs looking for Mccready? He's in the backroom." Nate wondered if that's what he was looking for, so snatching Cecilia before she went and somehow bought a bottle of beer, he dragged her over to the backroom. The door was closed and before he was about to open, Cecilia stopped him from opening it. "Hush," she whispered softly to her father, she heard talking, but she couldn't hear it clearly.
Her father rolled his light blue eyes before opening the door that opened silently, the voices becoming clearly in their ears. "Can't say I'm surprised to see you in a dump like this, Mccready." a deep and coarse voice spoke to this Mccready, Cecilia already has her 10 mm out, in case something decides to go down. Going inside the room, the father and daughter pair sat down in the corner of the room, he was pretending to read a book. Cecilia, on the other hand, was watching the three males carefully.
The one with the green hat spoke, that must be Mccready, "I was wondering how long it would take your bloodhounds to track me down, Winlock." Mccready seemed rather, annoyed, with this whole situation that he was in. Narrowing her eyes, she was wondering who the hell these people were. The had the look of Gunners, a nasty merc group, she met them a few times before. Well, she shot them a few times before, they did have some pretty great gear on them, so that was a plus. "It's been almost three months... Don't tell me you're getting rusty." He seemed to be almost teasing him now, that wasn't going to end very well... "Should we take this outside?" he asked them, almost like he was trying to tempt them into a firefight.
The man who Cecilia assumed was Winlock, what a strange name, finally spoke to Mccready. His deep voice causing Cecilia to feel annoyed, it was just too damn deep and scratchy, almost like an itch under your skin. "It ain't like that. I'm just here to deliver a message." She shuddered visibly at the grammar he was spewing everywhere.
As he was getting up from his chair, Mccready told them, "In case you forgot, I left the Gunners for good." When he stood up completely, he didn't seem much taller than Cecilia, or the two guys in front of him.
"Yeah, I heard." Mccready took a step towards them, "But you're still taking jobs in the Commonwealth. That isn't going to work for us." he told the ex-gunner, almost growling his words.
Mccready glared at Winlock, it seemed he finally had enough of the two guys pestering him. "I don't take orders from you." he took a second of a breath, "not anymore. So, why don't you take your girlfriend and walk out of here while you still can." Cecilia grinned softly, that was a threat, and she loved making threats promises. She was about to get up and intervene when the man with the horrible hairdo, and clothing that matches her own, finally spoke.
"What?! Winlock, tell me we don't have to listen to this shit." He looked like he was about to grab his gun, Cecilia couldn't tell what it was, but knowing their types, had to be some kind of combat rifle.
Winlock stopped the other guy, spitting out his next words to Mccready, "Listen up, Mccready. The only reason we haven't filled your body full of bullets is that we don't want a war with Goodneighbor. See, we respect other people's boundaries... We know how to play the game. It's something you never learned." Mccready grinned softly at their words responding with, "Glad to have disappointed you." All Winlock did was chuckle at his remark, adding some comments of his own. "You can play the tough guy all you want. But if we hear that you're still operating inside Gunner territory, all bets are off. You got that?" Mccready shook his head and sighed heavily, "You finished?" Winlock nodded, "Yeah... we're finished. Come on, Barnes." that's his name! Ugly do sounds better for him, though... The two men walked out of the room as Mccready sat back down in his chair, Nate was waiting till the other two were long gone before getting up.
"Cecilia, come with me," Nate told his daughter before getting up and heading over to Mccready, who looked up at him from his chair. "Look, man. If you're preaching about the Atom," Cecilia knew about that ground of people, ugly things they were, "Or looking for a friend, you've got the wrong guy." He breathed in some air before continuing, "If you need a hired gun... Then maybe we can talk."
Getting curious those two guys, Nate wasn't just going to let some guy with bad people hanging around him get near his daughter. "Maybe." he looked at his daughter before continuing what he was saying, "Why don't you tell me who those two guys were first." Cecilia seemed very uninterested with this whole conversation, so she just walked away and zoned out, and thought about finding another Deathclaw to play with again. She zoned back in when she heard Mccready asking her father a question.
"Now, what about you? How do I know I won't end up with a bullet in my back?" Cecilia grinned softly and appeared back next to her dad. She added her own comment in before her dad had a chance to speak to him, "You don't. That's part of the risk, right?" Nate cupped his large hands over his daughter's mouth, hoping she didn't ruin this chance for him. "Can't argue with that." He agreed with Cecilia's comment, Nate was rather surprised at that. "I'll tell you what. Price is 250 caps... Up front. No room for bargaining. What do you say?"
Cecilia was a bit shocked at that price, she could enough bullets to fill up a Radscorpion, and then some with that amount. Well, she wasn't strapped for cash, she had... plenty from doing jobs, and getting more caps for them. Licking her father's hand, he let go of her mouth, wiping his hand on his clothes, saying something that that was extremely nasty to do. Cecilia had this HUGE smile on her face, as she was looking at Mccready, "Everything's negotiable. Would you take 200?"
Mccready raised an eyebrow but just said, "You drive a hard bargain, but you just bought yourself an extra gun." he said rather proudly, almost like he was worth the caps that her father was going to be paying. She wanted to help sweeten the deal for him, is all. He should keep him busy enough to let her do her own thing. "Alright, boss... Let's get out of here." He was getting his gun that he kept to the side of his chair when Nate stopped him, the caps in his hands. "What?"
"Not for me, Mccready. For her." he pushed Cecilia out in front of him, an equally confused look on the both of their faces. "What, Cila? Thought I needed someone else with me? I have Piper." he grinned happily at the thought of going with his girlfriend and traveling the Commonwealth, and getting trapped indoors during a radiation storm for a few days. Leaving nothing but their clothes on the floor and their mo-
"DAD! Gross, no sex daydreams around me, please. Ugh." she shuddered in disgust at her dad's thoughts about her best friend. She looked at Mccready who seemed okay with the whole thing, while she was looking him over, her dad slipped away. Turning back to her dad, he was missing. "Oh, okay. Leave me here with him... Good parenting." Shaking her head a bit before sighing underneath her breath to see her new "friend" looking at her. "What? Got a problem?" she had her pistol in her hand causally, not thinking much of it since it was a part of her pretty much.
"Far from it boss. As long as i got paid, i'm perfectly fine with this." he said with a slight chuckle, his gun over his shoulder, it looks rather roughed up, to say the least. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at the sight of the gun he was holding. "What? Got a problem with me?"
"None what so ever, at least you. Your so called gun, on the other hand. Yes. Hold out your hands." He did as he told and she went through her pip-boy till she found what she wanted, the pip-boy scanned his hands and plopped down a scoped .50 cal hunting rifle. It was completely modified out, to bring the best out of the once horrible gun.
"Look, I don't want you spending money on me. I can handle that much myself." he was going to give the gun back to her when he noticed her smile on her face. "You didn't buy this, did you?" She shook her head and started to walk off towards Whitechapel Charlie. "Ohohoho, I knew I was going to like you." he chuckled to himself as he went after the black haired girl. This was the start of her story with an ex-gunner, his story with a girl from the past, and most importantly... THEIR story together.