Billy Bogan was a convict. No such thing as an ex-convict when you never finished your sentence in the first place. Only compounded by the fact that he was on death row to begin with. The only way he was going to become an ex-con in the first place was after his date with the hooped end of a rope. The fact that he had escaped with the powder gangers during their overthrow of the NCR correctional facility only added the epithet of escapee.
He'd more than earned his spot on the row after murdering a ranger, a feat both impressive and condemnable. And the reason the NCR was willing to shell out caps to send some random schmuck after him.
Said schmuck tracked him to the Northern Passage, found him and a gang of misfits arming themselves. Presumably to start making raids. Couldn't say for certain, Schmuck got his head blown off.
I was Schmuck Junior, in this case.
The Northern Passage was one of the few ways out of the Mojave that didn't involve a blockade or checkpoint. Not many people used it though, it was a tight fit at the best of times. Wouldn't be surprised if traders used it, but it's too small to fit a Brahmin through. Would probably all depend on who was using it.
For Bogan and his misfits, it was more than enough if they were planning to skip town.
By the time I got there, that appeared to have been what happened. The shack they'd been hanging around in was abandoned, belongings gathered, and campfire pissed out.
I had to guess schmuck senior had done a good job of warning them what was coming next. But it could've been cazadors too, there was a nest less than a hundred yards away that looked fairly fresh. Even if it hadn't been either, Bounty hunters were on the trail. Stay long enough in one place, someone was bound to find you eventually.
I approached the campfire at a slow, methodical pace. Ensuring I disturbed as little of the campsite as possible. I needed to know what I was up against and where they were going. If there was a chance they were close by still, last thing I needed was to alert them to my being here.
Around the campfire it was hard to tell how many people Bogan had with him. Their footprints ran into one another, no one really being distinct from the other. But judging from the prints that snaked away from the fire pit, I'd put Bogan in the company of at least four others. I couldn't tell apart anything crazy about them, at most that one of them might've had a limp from the way his foot dragged. But I did detect something… different about some of them. Patterning was different, smoother than your typical boot print.
There were, perhaps, another four of sets of them as well.
Meaning I was going against a total of nine people, rather than the five or so that Steve may have assumed.
That was going to be trouble. But I could come up with something as long as I kept the element of surprise on my side.
As I knelt in the dirt though, a shadow fell over me. Long from the angle of the sun, and made more massive by their size. Undulating in large motions, rising and shrinking. A pair of heavy footsteps stopped behind me, almost like the distant thump of mortar fire, if not for the soft grind of grit it carried. The sound of breathing came with it, Strong enough to be mistaken for a light breeze.
I turned and looked over my shoulder.
A giant loomed over me, skin the color of deep waters and clad in patchwork overalls. A rough canvas mantle was draped over their shoulders, a porcelain daisy affixed to the corner of it. A brace ran through their upper lip, curling it into a toothy snarl beneath a pair of red tinted goggles. A well-worn, leather sun hat rested on their head, holes and tears present throughout the brim and cap.
"HELLO DEARIE." Lily growled, the braces on her lips shifting into as close a smile as she could make.
"Lily." I answered evenly, rising from my crouch "What are you doing here?"
"LEO AND I CAME TO HELP." Lily growled, her voice carrying no malice. Her growl was only a result of her status as a Supermutant.
"I told Boone I wanted to be left alone." I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, but felt something dark welling in my chest.
"WE KNOW YOU DID, DEARIE" Lily growled, sympathetic "BUT WE'RE ALL STARTING TO WORRY ABOUT YOU. YOU'VE BEEN SPENDING A LOT OF TIME ALONE."
"It's the nature of the work." I answered "It's better done this way. That's why I asked to be left alone."
"WE KNOW DEARIE, BUT-" Lily started.
I cut her off. This wasn't a discussion.
"Lily." I said, cutting her off "You've come at a bad time, I need to find these guys before they have any more time to prepare. Please, just go."
It was weird, I'd seen Lily shrug off bullets and explosions.
She took what I said like I'd hit her harder than that.
"BUT… LEO AND I ARE HERE TO HELP." Lily growled, her voice deflating.
"And I'm trying to figure out where these assholes went." I answered "The last thing I-"
I got interrupted by something.
It was a spear, landing point first into my chest.
The Spear flew in from an angle. The typical throwing spear you see used by the legion and the odd tribal. Wooden haft and a jagged, six-inch piece of scrap metal for a spearhead. Its tip easily pierced the leather of my duster, and bit deep into my chest.
My breath left me in a sudden, sharp bark. The spears weight pushing me as it came to a halt.
"DEARIE!" Lily barked, whipping in the direction the spear had come from.
A second spear came flying at her as well. It bounced off her skin harmlessly.
Tracing where the spear had come from, I found my gaze rising over the ridge leading to the Northwest Passage.
Just as a squad of Legion assassins came running over it. One of their harder hitting ones. A centurion leading the charge rather than the decanus beside him, followed closely by a veteran legionary and a Vexillarius.
I didn't know where they'd come from, but their presence meant Caesar was less happy with me than usual. A fact emphasized by the Decanus, Veteran, and Vexillarius leveling their firearms at us. A cowboy repeater, 9mm smg, and assault carbine, respectively.
I was too busy processing the knife in my chest to react.
Lily wasn't though.
Half a heartbeat after the first bullet let fly, she turned back to me. One of her massive, meaty hands clamping onto my shoulder as she came crashing down over me. We fell to the ground in a heap, Lily covering me like a massive blue wall.
The spear in my side twisted as we fell, digging into me and pushing leverage in the worst places.
The gunfire erupted in a cacophony; bullets collided with the ground around us. Not in some wild spray, but tight, controlled patterns. They were focusing on Lily, more accurately on me.
I could see some of them, bouncing off Lily and onto the dirt in deformed lumps. Others bit into her though, breaking the skin but going nowhere.
I could hear her whine in pain with each one. Voice rumbling like a worn-out diesel motor.
I tried to focus, figure out what to do as her weight pressed down on me. The only thing I could think about in those first few moments was the spear digging its way into my side. It hurt, and its jagged edges were tearing at me with every minute movement. It took precious moments for everything to register. The spear was in the left side of my chest, just below the muscle. I could feel it pushing my ribs apart, the tip digging into something else, making it hard to breathe. Felt like there was water in my chest, trying to fill my lungs.
I needed a stimpack.
I needed to get the spear out of my chest.
In the time it took for me to realize that, a bullet ripped into Lily's arm, right beside my head. Her whines erupted into a howl of pain as nearly-black-blood ebbed from the wound.
While I was busy ruminating on drowning in my own blood, Lily was being shot full of holes.
Just past her arm, I could see the assassins closing in, keeping even time as they walked.
Anger coursed through me, I reached my arms around to the spear lodged in my side and gripped it. It was at an odd angle, and I was on my back, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I pushed back on the haft of spear, trying to force it out of my chest.
It hurt like hell.
The rough metal ground against my ribs. It's jagged, barbed edge tore and scraped at me as I drew it out. Even the motion of removing it gave a burning sensation as it grated against me.
I grit my teeth, and pushed.
The spear clattered to the ground beside us, and a howl of pain escaped my lips. I could feel the blood well out after it, pouring into my lungs. Pain coursed through me like lightning as my arm snapped to my side. Unconsciously putting pressure to the wound.
Lily was watching me, her goggles reflecting my struggle, like a grim mirror.
Her mouth shifted, the permanent snarl of her mouth gained a vicious edge.
Then the gunfire stopped. The bullets stopped flying, and their only remains were the distant echoes of their firing and the blood slowly trailing down Lily's body.
I cocked my head, peering through the protection Lily provided.
The assassins were closing in. They'd been walking towards us while firing, and weren't more than a few yards away now. They'd only stopped firing because they'd run dry. They were in the midst of reloading now.
Except for the Centurion.
He was charging us with a Thermic Lance.
I struggled to draw That Gun from my hip, Lily wasn't giving me any room to move. She was just staying there, looking down at me.
"Lily, I need you to move." I grit out.
The Centurion was closing in.
Lily remained unmoving.
"Lily." I said, hand finally gripping the weapon but unable to move.
The Centurion was right over us, I could see the lance glowing as bright as the sun. The hiss of air and metallic sting of molten iron filled the air.
"Lily!" I shouted.
Lily moved.
With speed you'd never expect of someone her size, Lily launched up from the ground, a whirl of black and blue. With a backhanded motion she smacked the lance out of the centurion's hand, sending it flying a dozen feet away.
One of her hands shot out, grasping the centurion's throat. Her palm and fingers were more than enough to reach all the way around. But she only went half way, digging her fingers into the meat of his neck.
"KILL!" Lily roared "LEO KILL!"
Her other hand found the top of his head, and her two arms moved in a ripping motion.
She tore the lower half of the Centurion's face and neck off. Their blood spraying onto me in a red mist.
The centurion didn't die.
He collapsed to the ground beside me, grasping at where his face used to be. He might've been trying to scream, but the only thing to come out was a wet gurgling noise.
The three centurions froze completely, staring at their comrade in utter horror.
Lily's head snapped to them next. "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
With that same, impossible speed, she flew at the legionnaires. In that moment they realized their error as a mass of blue death bore down on them. Lily didn't even bother to draw her sword or carbine. She charged them with her bare hands.
I wasted precious moments, watching as the sweet old lady I'd known disappeared beneath a cloud of murderous rage I had never seen before. Moments I should've spent trying to stick myself with a stimpack, or at least get off the ground.
Both mistakes I was going to pay dearly for.
My ears rang, but I could still hear.
I heard Billy Bogan make his presence known when he cocked back the hammer of his revolver.
My head whipped away from Lily and her frenzy, away from the direction the Legion had been bearing down on us from.
Billy and his crew were coming from the other direction. I'd been right, he had five people with him.
And I was bleeding out on the ground.
The six of them were dressed like field hands, wielding an assortment of revolvers and lever-action weapons. Billy currently had a .357 leveled at my body. He was a beady eyed fucker, wearing a rawhide cowboy hat.
He flashed me a crooked smile.
"Well ain't this a fine sit'ation?" He asked "Them Legion boiz wus right. Thar wus anoth'r hun'er comin' for us, eh boiz?"
His 'boys' didn't answer, frankly they looked bored.
"I'dda thot aft'r dome-in' that dum-fuck cap'n an' that dip-shit hun'er be-four yew, thangz'd be purty damn cleer-"
My arm whipped out from my side as VATs popped open. My heart beat once. The world slowed, then snapped back to speed. My arm snapped on point with practiced precision.
I pulled the trigger, once, thunder rang out from my pistol.
The top of Bogan's head blew off in a flourish of red.
My arm whipped to the guy next to him, and I tapped the trigger again.
Wasn't as on point that time. But a bullet to the neck is still fairly fatal.
Bogan and the outlaw hit the ground, the former dead and the latter soon to follow. The other three were prepared though. They spared less than half a thought for their boss and partner bleeding out next to them. At as close a range as they were, there was no chance they were going to miss.
My free arm left my wounded side. I reached for the legionnaire beside me, and dragged him over me. He didn't make a great shield, but his armor made him good enough.
The trio of outlaws got off a round of shots, two from repeaters and a third from a shotgun. The ex-legionnaire ate the two repeater shots, but the shotgunner got lucky. His shot went wide, and a few pellets tore through the upper part of my left arm.
I let my aim track to the next outlaw before they had a chance to start moving. I didn't try and go for the head this time. I pointed at their unarmored chest and pulled the trigger twice. A twin set of holes tore their way through the neighborhood of the ten ring.
Their actions cycled, but instead of immediately firing, the two remaining outlaws tried to close the distance.
I only had one bullet left in the chamber.
Before I had a chance to decide where to send it, the rifleman made the decision for me. He drew a bead on my head, and I drew on his. VATs was the only thing that saved me from getting my brain splattered across the Mojave sand in that moment.
I pulled the trigger, sending the round through his eye. The repeater in his hands went off, dirt and sand spattered out of a hole four inches away from my head.
The shotgunner soon took his place, putting me back into the same situation.
I pulled the centurion's corpse further over me just as the outlaw's shotgun went off. Buckshot lacks penetrating power, and the centurion's armor kept it from ripping through me. That didn't stop the force from carrying through to me though, a jolt of pain rocking up and down my arms.
The outlaw went to cycle his shotgun. I wasn't going to be able to reload fast enough.
I threw my pistol it his head.
An incredibly stupid move.
The fact that it worked made it even more so.
That Gun spun through the air, all five pounds of steel and wood tumbling through the air like a throwing axe. The butt of the gun cracked into the bridge of their nose, knocking their head back, causing them to freeze mid-cycle as their hand subconsciously flew up to their face.
Fighting through the pain in my arm and the blood pouring from my chest, I pushed the centurion off of me. I couldn't afford to waste my window. They were going to recover soon, my shotgun was on my back, but I wasn't going to out-draw them. I had to take advantage of the close range.
My arm throbbed as it gripped the spear lying beside me. I didn't have time to focus, didn't have time to choose where or how I hit.
I gripped the spear, twisting off the ground as I thrust it into the Outlaw.
It hit them spearhead first.
Right in the crotch.
A high pitched howl erupted from the outlaw as I used the thrust's momentum to pick myself up. Continued to push it forward into them.
The shotgun left the outlaw's hand, and they stumbled backwards, trying and failing to keep their footing. The moment they hit the ground, I wrenched the spear back out of them.
Then I stabbed them in the chest.
Then I wrenched it free and did it again.
And again.
And again.
Again.
Again.
I kept stabbing them until the spear head finally broke off in them.
Only after that did the pain start to catch up with me again, and I stood over them. Breathing was hard, felt like I couldn't get a lung full. Arm hurt, was getting hard to move it. Head was starting to feel fuzzy, lack of blood and oxygen.
Needed to focus.
Stimpack, needed a stimpack.
But I didn't reach for one. My brain was clouding over, fight wasn't over.
I turned back to where the legionnaires had been, muddied mind ready to go down swinging.
The only thing left of them was a ground-up pile of limbs and organs in an expanding pool of crimson.
Lily was nowhere near it.
She was charging straight for the cazador nest, and closing in quickly.
My mind cleared suddenly, and my feet where in motion. "Lily NO!"
I stumbled over myself and nearly planted my face into the dirt. I managed to keep my footing, barely, and took off towards Lily.
She was too damn fast for someone her size. I had no clue what had gotten into her. All the times we'd travel together, she'd never lost control like this before. She was vicious in a fight, but not suicidal. She'd never charge straight towards a nest full of Cazadors. If we ever had to deal with them, she was a good enough shot to do it on her own. She wasn't even using her verti-blade.
Something was wrong, and it wasn't just my blood loss.
I tried to drunkenly wobble after her, but I was having trouble focusing.
About halfway there, I finally had the presence of mind to pull out a stimpack and use it.
Which was the same time Lily reached the nest. Two cazadors immediately shot from the bulbous nest, both full grown adults. Their wings, the color of flames, nearly incandescent in the desert light.
"KILL!" Lily roared "KILL!"
The stimpack had barely begun to kick in before I forced myself to close the distance. I could feel its rejuvenating liquid coursing through me, ebbing and throbbing to my wounded arm and side. It wasn't going to do shit for the blood loss and my lack of oxygen. It just made sure they weren't going to kill me right then.
Having left my pistol behind me in my mad dash to catch up, I mantled my lever-action shotgun around me. Before the elder cazadors could quite reach Lily I took aim and fired, not bothering to break my wobbly stride.
A shotgun's advantage isn't its penetrative power. Compared, in the many ways that it is, to a rifle it falls short. Less range, less accuracy, less 'punch'. A shotgun can't take the head off a nail at twenty yards.
But it may stand a decent chance of completely wrecking whatever the nail's stuck to.
A shotgun's advantage isn't one powerful projectile hurled in a straight line. It's a dozen middling projectiles being launched in a fairly tight-knit group at whatever you point it at.
Terrifying as a cazador's midnight black chitin and flame-like wings may be, they had one major flaw.
They were easy targets for a shotgun.
I pulled the trigger, The gun jolted in my arms, and the wings of an adult cazador erupted into orange tatters.
Defying all common sense, Lily grabbed it and began trying to rip it apart limb by limb.
Which gave the other adult cazador and the younger one time to close in on her.
I cycled the action and cracked off another shot.
It didn't work this time.
My hands were too weak, and I was still running. The shot went wide. The only thing I accomplished was wasting a shell.
And drawing the attention of the third Adult cazador climbing out of the nest.
It leapt from the nest with fury and rocketed towards me, wings whipping through the air in a blazing torrent. Bearing down on me with death and fury on its mind.
Seeing death charging me, I changed targets, cycling the action and trying to put as much lead between me and it as possible.
I got two shots off on it before it reached me. It ignored the first one, even when it ripped through its chitin and shredded one of its wings. The second shot blew out its eye when I tried to hit its other wing, made it mad.
Very mad.
Then it was on me, death in cool gleaming black, eyes glowing like embers straight from the inferno.
Its stinger like a bolt of lightning, piercing into my abdomen as easily as a hot knife through tallow.
The venom followed immediately after it. Carrying the same pain as someone pumping irradiated reactor run-off straight into my chest. But such a description still doesn't do justice to the kind of pain that getting stung by a cazador feels like. It's a pain that, even in my unweakened state, would have left me hard pressed to do anything. Even the simple act of breathing would have become a horrific labor.
Weakened as I was, for the span of about five seconds, there is a massive blank space in my memory. The only thing I can remember was howling in pain and my intestines doing a dance.
When I came back, I found myself on the ground again, wresting with the beast. The hideous mass of chitin and death astride me, Stinger still lodged in my chest, in my diaphragm. Even as I struggled to breathe again, its pincer mouth gnashed at me, only failing to bite into my face because of my helmet. My arms weakly and futilely trying to push it back, using my shotgun as a bar between us.
I could hear my motorcycle helmet beginning to crack. The material creaking and crunching as the overgrown bug tried to get at me.
It hurt to move. It hurt so much.
I slowly began levering my shotgun, spinning its barrel in the direction of my head. Trying desperately to keep balance, keep the thing from killing me outright. I could feel my hand numbly begin to cycle the action. Barely hearing the mechanisms click as the pain and venom blotted out my senses.
I felt the stinger shift in my guts, felt it begin to draw back out of me. Leaving behind the burning, blinding pain.
The cazador tensed, I saw its abdomen begin to rise up, stinger retracting into itself. A hissing, clicking, chittering noise escaped the bug's mouth.
I closed the action.
Its stinger raced down to me again.
There was a thunderous crash of churchbells, and the flashing light of a new dawn as fire and lead spewed out, inches away from my face. The head of the cazador erupted into a spray of goo and fibrous exoskeleton. Chunks of slick pulp and sinew spattered against my helmet, spraying into the hole meant for my eyes.
The overgrown fell onto my limply, its stinger scratching at my coat, but going no deeper. I numbly pushed it off me as the venom and pain continued coursing through my system. Each heartbeat spreading it through me further and faster than the last. I craned my head down at the hole in my gut, saw blood and thick ichor oozing from it.
My hands shook as I drew another stimpack out, haphazardly sticking it into myself. I didn't have the concentration or knowledge in that moment to do things properly. I was in enough pain that the only thing on my mind amounted to 'Don't die.'. Something the poison slowly working through my system wasn't going to help. But Cazador venom was less lethal than many believe. It hurt like hell, and would paralyze almost anyone, but it took a large, continuous dose to kill outright. The venom's main purpose was just to paralyze you, so they could drag you back to the nest for later.
The stimpack would hopefully ward off any potentially nastier side effects until I was in a better situation to cope with them.
My wounds began to close, but the pain continued to roll through me. My jaw was locked tight with my skull. If there was a sound escaping me, it was muted to a hiss of air between my teeth. Several precious seconds passed before I found it in me to try and get up again. I rolled to my side, planted the barrel of my shotgun in the sand, and used it as a crutch to push to my knees. I put my weight onto it, used it to try and keep my balance as I was ready to get back to my feet.
Then the thought of Lily invaded my mind, and I snapped my attention to where I'd last seen her.
She was alive.
The two cazadors were not.
Lily was standing ramrod straight, feet spread, arms at either side of her as she glowered to the ground. Her back was to me. But I could see her entire body was riddled with wounds that I, even at the distance I was, could tell were already closing. Black blood stained her skin and clothes, what was left of her clothes. The sheer gunfire had torn much of her overalls to shreds. By some miracle, her goggles had remained intact. In either hand she clasped a cazador's wing and chitinous legs. The two cazadors were little more than greenish-yellow smears of snot and chitin now. Chunks of them were recognizable, but there was no piecing them back together now. Or discerning whose parts belonged to who.
Moments passed, neither of us moving.
As soon as I felt stable enough to try and rise, I pushed off of my knees, just barely coming to my feet. But I could feel my strength returning.
Then my chest was turned concave by a runaway blue pickup truck shaped like a fist.
I was sent sprawling, skidding across the ground like a kicked can. The air left my lungs so hard it felt like they'd been collapsed. I felt bile try to force its way out, but it was too busy competing for space to get anywhere.
I tumbled and rolled across the ground for a moment, coming to rest face first in the dirt. For a moment, I couldn't get my body to react, the shock of the impact had forced a hard reset over my entire body. My lungs spasm-ed, refused to take in air as my body refused to take any commands. Instead twitching and writhing while I tried to wrestle back control.
I heard footsteps approach.
The slow crunch of dirt under heel a dreadful choir, and the dull thud of the earth their tolling bell.
I forced myself to push over, lie on my back and elbows.
Lily was looming over me.
Dark blue lips peeled back over crooked ivory-yellow teeth, larger and harder than any human's. Body caked in black and blue. The braces on her face visibly straining to keep in place.
"KIILLL." Lily seethed.
My lungs burned, couldn't pull any air in. My body shook as I tried to take control. But I couldn't move. My body wouldn't listen.
For one long, long, moment she loomed over me. A monolithic shadow of muscle and incoherent rage. A wave of death ready to come crashing down on me.
Then her demeanor changed. Her muscles relaxed, losing the girth and size that said she was ready to pounce. Her lips uncurled, not covering her teeth, but returning to the same look she always had. The braces no longer looking ready to snap. Her body eased back, no longer looming over me.
She no longer looked ready to kill me.
Thinking back on it, she looked… lost.
I didn't recognize that in the moment.
"…DEARIE?" Lily asked, looking down at me.
A moment passed, my mind recognizing I wasn't about to die anymore.
With a shake, my lungs re-inflated and I found myself coughing and greedily gulping down air. I didn't even care how badly everything hurt, I was alive.
Lily turned at the waist, surveying the area around us. The red stain that used to be the legionnaires. The lines of corpses that use to be Billy and his boys. The smears of snot that had tried to sting us to death. She looked at herself, and all the damage she'd taken.
Lastly, she looked at me, battered and bruised on the ground.
She leaned down, extending a hand towards me.
I promptly scrambled backwards, the motion causing me utter agony.
I was also scared completely shitless.
"G-get the fuck away from me!" I shouted, voice rough and weak.
Lily froze, save for the slight twitch of her fingers.
W-what the fuck Lily!?" I continued shouting, trying to get to my feet, even as my legs buckled underneath me again. "First you don't listen to me when I say I want to be alone, then you try to fucking kill me, what the fuck!?"
"BUT…" Lily growled "DEARIE, THAT- THAT WASN'T-"
"I don't give a flying fuck if it was you or Leo!" I shouted, getting to my feet "The fuck was any of that!? One second you're trying to help me, the next you turn into some kind of demented fucking meat grinder!"
Lily didn't say anything this time.
"This is why I told you to leave me alone!" I shouted "Everytime! Everytime one of you is around, things turn into a fucking bloodbath! I told you to leave me alone, you should have just fucking listened!" I staggered a little as one of my legs went numb, but I kept myself upright. "All you had to do was listen, and you couldn't even do that!"
Lily shrank away from me.
That one little action brought me back to my senses. Like ice water down my back.
Silence passed between me and Lily, the only sound I could hear was my own hoarse, labored breathing. Lily didn't try to say anything. No excuses, no reasoning or justifications. I'd made it clear I didn't want to hear them.
"… Go home, Lily." I said, voice like ice "Leave me alone."
"… AS YOU WISH, DEARIE." Lily rumbled.
Then she turned, and began walking back out into the Mojave sands. Leaving me alone, to lick my wounds in solace and solitude.
After a few minutes, my body was healed enough to return to work. I collected my shotgun, still sticking out of the dirt, then hobbled back to Bogan and his band, where I'd left my pistol. I picked it up and reloaded it, putting it back in its holster. It felt heavier than I remembered. I took a moment to scrounge what ammo I could from them, along with what I could from what was left of the legionnaires. The longer I went, the heavier everything got, and the less I felt like moving.
Then finally, it was time to go for Bogan's finger.
I reached around my back for my axe, hefted it around front of me.
The weight of it dragged me to my knees, and I was forced to use it for support.
I leaned my head against the wood handle, as a wave of anger and loathing crept over me.
"…dammit."
…
I pulled myself together and headed back to Steve. Got back in time to see him still sitting at his typewriter. His head rose up to look at me as I shut the door.
"You're back already." He noted looking me over "Still alone… an' lookin' like death warmed over."
"Mm." I grunted, approaching his desk. I set the finger down on it, wrapped in a piece of cloth. "Here's your finger."
"… Thanks." Steve said giving me a leery look.
I stepped over to the chair opposite Steve's and sank into it. I didn't have anything more to say, and frankly, I didn't really feel like talking regardless.
So we sat there for a few moments in silence. The only noise in the air being the wind against the building's walls and the clack of Steve's typewriter. Steve looked up from the keys for a moment, then went back to typing.
Then he did it again.
Then a third time.
Then finally, he slapped the carriage to reset it, looked back to me again, and settled his hands onto his desk. "Alright, what happened this time?" He asked.
"Nothing." I answered.
"Oh, stop actin' like a pissy teenager, would'ya?" Steve asked "Clearly somethin's eatin' ya, and I'd rather ya get it out than have ya stare at my desk so hard you burn a hole into it."
I shot Steve an annoyed look, which he returned in equal measure. Funny how we both knew what the other was doing through our coverings. "I'm fine."
"If you're fine, then I have a face." Steve said "Don't bullshit me man, you've expected honesty out of me, so you know damn well I expect it out of you. So out with it."
"…" I stayed quiet for a bit longer. Not really because I wanted to at that point, but because I wasn't really sure where to start.
I rested my arms on my knees, then rested my face into my hands. The more I tried to figure out where to start, the worse it got. Like layers of a rotten onion, I was trying to peel back to something edible. Try to find a place to start from.
After a silence that went on too long for my own liking, I had… something.
"Do you remember that job you sent me on a while back?" I asked "The one with the Ghoul?"
"The one with the kids?" Steve asked, gravely.
"Yeah. That one." I answered solemnly "I think… I think it started there."
"That's a might long time to be buildin' an issue." Steve said "So, what about it?"
"… I tried to save those kids." I said, softly "You believe that, right?"
"Why the hell wouldn't I?" Steve asked "Shit, I know I'd've done the same."
"Right… Except I couldn't." I said "The best I could do was save the last of them. I don't even know if she'll ever recover from what happened to her. The other two…" I picked my head up out of my hands, leaning back into my seat. I shook my head "They were just kids man. Who the fuck could do something like that?"
Steve said nothing, he sat there, listening.
"If Raul hadn't been there-" I continued "I… I don't think I would have even saved the one I did. I almost crossed a line that day there ain't no coming back from. Because he was there, a young girl's life was saved… But he got hurt bad in the process. Took a hit that I should have."
Steve nodded, but remained silent.
"After that happened, I wanted to try and handle things alone. That job with the cannibal, I came back alone, but someone showed up while I was working. Another of my companions, Veronica. She's a sweet girl, eyes like Vegas neon and a heart like the noon sun…" I began wringing my hands "She watched me murder a man in cold blood. He had it coming, but she didn't need to be a part of that."
Steve was reticent.
"Then there was Boone. You got to meet him, you saw how efficiently we handled Jack and Katil… But on the job with Katil, we split up."
Steve shook his head. He knew our mistake immediately.
"Katil got the drop on Boone." I continued "Before I could intervene, Katil'd started torturing him. Broke his ribs, planned to do worse with him… after I killed Katil, I told Boone to go home. Told him not to send anyone else to find me. That I wanted to be alone."
Steve continued to listen impassively. Maybe there just wasn't anything he could say at this point, or just felt it was better to listen.
"I got what I wanted at first. I took care of Bowdrie on my own, went smooth as glass… But then, this time, everything went sour." My hands clasped together "Another of my little group, Lily, came looking for me. She's… well, she's a nightkin, but she's got the mind of a sweet old lady to her. She and Veronica are contenders for most peaceful in our little group… But when she came to find me, she got hurt. Bogan had been waiting for me with Legionnaires. But when they hurt her… She hurt them back. I got to see a side of Lily I didn't even realize was there… it nearly killed me."
Steve nodded, working well as a listener.
"By the time Lily came back around, The fighting was over, and she was looming over me, looking for blood. I… I reacted the only way most people would react in that situation."
"You lost your shit and threatened to kill her, didn't you?" Steve asked.
"… No." I clarified "I… did lose my shit, but I didn't threaten her. She came around to help, and if I'm being completely truthful, she saved my life. If I had been alone, I don't know how I would've survived. The number of times they shot her, if I'd taken even half the abuse she had, I'd be dead twice over… And the only thing I could think to do is push her away. Treat her like some monster…" A thought occurred to me, and before I even realized it, I was contradicting my earlier statements. "Before all of this even started, I parted ways with Cass because of that job with Eileen." I said, shaking my head "We found that note from the Judge on a Fiend that tried to kill us both. It mentioned her by name, and I sent her away to keep her safe."
Something about Steve changed, something… softened.
"I'm pushing them all away." I said "Because I know that if they stay around me, they're going to get hurt. That someone will continue to get the drop on us, or hound us, or warn others that we're coming for them, and my friends- my family is going to get hurt." I said, trying to keep calm, but each word came out tasting bitter. "… Because that's what they are to me. They're my family… and in a fit of fear, and anger, I said some shit I can't take back now. I'm pushing them away, because it's the only thing I can do…" I focused on Steve, I wasn't sure what more to say "You worked alone for a long time before I came to work for you. So you've got to know better than me, I'm doing the right thing, right?"
"…" Steve shook his head "Workin' alone ain't the same as bein' alone."
I said nothing, it was my turn to listen.
"I told you about James." Steve said "-about everything that went down with that Fuckin' Zombie, Phillips… But I'm not alone because of it. I'm alone because I made the same mistakes you're makin' now."
"… What?" I asked.
Steve paused for a moment, then opened a drawer on his desk. From it, he drew out a file, setting it on the desk for me to see.
On the label was written 'Judge Richter'.
"Once upon a time, I was an inexperienced bounty hunter." Steve explained "I'd just split off from Marshal Cooper, and was ready to start huntin' down Marko. But I was green, and had no way of fundin' my hopeless chase. The only option I had was to take whatever contracts came my way until I had the money to make my own way. This was before I'd met James, but I'd learned from Cooper that you could make more money if you could find yourself a partner you could trust. Take down more bounties, faster."
Steve slipped a finger under the flap of the folder and flipped it open. The Folder was full of documents. Notes, receipts, transcripts, formal contracts and more. I could easily spy the ones I'd collected personally.
"I met Judge Richter before I knew better." Steve said "It remains one of the biggest regrets of my life."
I looked down at the papers collected in the folder. So much information about a dark cloud that was hanging over me and my companions. "… What happened?" I asked.
"We took a job that went on for too long." Steve said "We only needed to take in one guy. But it devolved into a mess you'd find in some trashy horror book. Bein' completely frank with you, Six, I despise killin'. Revenge and Marko aside, I recognize it as a dirty part of the job we do, but I don't condone it. The Judge though? He reveled in it." Steve shook his head, audibly disgusted "He's a seven foot tall, pederass-butcher. Strong enough that I saw him rip a man's jawbone off and beat him to death with it."
"You can do that?" I asked
"The Judge did." Randal said "We'd been sent to capture an NCR fugitive, alive. Bring him back so he could properly face trial. We had to go down a list of informants and back-alley exchanges to find the guy. The whole way through, the judge murdered everyone who wasn't useful anymore. Claimin' that if we let them run they'd warn the guy we were goin' after. Each time, I let it slide, promisin' myself I'd part ways with the Judge when it was over… Eventually, we cornered the man in a building outside Fall-On. I took guard outside while the Judge charged in. I don't know what I'd been thinkin' at the time. Either hopin' the Judge would wind up dead or that he'd actually try to take the man alive…" Steve picked up one of the notes from the folder. "I knew better once I heard his shotgun go off."
"… what happened?" I asked.
"… The Judge killed the target." Steve explained "Shot him in the gut, then scalped him. I caught up to them in time to see him performing the latter. He smiled like he was havin' the time of his life while doin' it."
"Holy Fuck." I said.
"It gets worse." Steve said "The target had his son with him."
I felt my heart lurch back into the second home it was making in my stomach.
Steve paused for a moment. Whatever he was about to say was clearly hard for him, but he was muscling through. "After scalpin' the boy's father in front of him, The Judge turned on the boy. I don't know what he had in mind for him, but I know in that moment I'd made up my mind. Before he had a chance to see it comin' I drew iron on The Judge and put a bullet in his chest. While he was dealin' with that, I took the kid and ran. Got him to safety…" Steve paused again, when he spoke next, his tone was dead serious "Because I didn't stop him, that boy got to watch his father die horribly in front of him. Because of me, a lotta folks who might've kept on livin' met cruel and painful ends…" Steve looked down to his desk "For a long time now, I've considered myself a monster for not stoppin' it. Any of it."
Silence hung between us for a moment. Then, when Steve continued, his tone was more wistful, lighter.
"I spent a long time alone after that." Steve said "Didn't think I could trust anyone. Of the two people I'd trusted in the field, one had saved my life, the other had made a monster of me… But I did eventually find a partner I could trust, in James. It took years of bein' alone before I finally figured out that pushin' everyone away doesn't change anythin'. End of the day, There's always goin' to be more Richter's out there, More Phillips… More Marko's. You can either push the world away tryin' to keep it safe, only for trouble to go findin' it anyway… or you can keep it close. Knowin' that even if you can't guarantee nothin' at least bein' there increases the odds of survival." Steve leaned closer to me, over his desk. "You got a good heart. Havin' met the kinda company you keep, ain't no way they'd stick if you didn't. So take it from the guy who's been on the road you're walkin': it's a dead end. If you're gonna walk it anyway, you might as well have some company."
"… Yeah." I said "I guess that makes sense… I'm such an idiot."
"There's a club for that, we have a dinner every other Friday." Steve said.
I barked a laugh. Steve's bandana twisted in a way that said he was smiling.
"… What happened to the Judge?" I asked "You shot him… but he's not dead, the notes…"
Steve nodded "Hoped when I shot him he'd have the decency to die. Figures a cruel bastard like him would've sold his soul for somethin' a bit tougher… Judgin' from everythin' I've dredged up, he's makin' moves into the Mojave. Settin' up his own firm: Richter and Associates."
"Fuckin' copycat." I groused.
Steve nodded "He knows I'm here somewhere, and I've no doubt he'll come callin' sometime soon. Trouble's brewin' and if Richter's makin' the coffee, there's goin' to be a lot of it."
"… Then we'll face it together." I said "I've got your back."
"… Hmph, good heart, alright." Steve chuckled "We'll burn that bridge when we get there. For now, there's somethin' else I want you to do, it'll put me at ease."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Take a couple nights off." Steve said "Go make right with the people you should've stayed right with in the first place." He reached back into his desk, drawing out a sack of caps, my payment for Bogan. I reached out to take it, and he clasped it into my hand. When he next spoke, there was something pleading in his voice. "Don't wind up alone in a shack."
"… You ain't gotta be alone either." I offered "You could come join the fun."
Steve shook his head. "Someone's got to finish the paperwork… But, maybe next time. Partner."
"Sounds good." I nodded, rising, feeling stronger than I had when I'd walked in "Then I guess I've got to go make right."
"You know how to do that?" Steve asked.
I shrugged, bouncing the bag of caps in my hand. "… I've got a few ideas."