A/N: I wanted to write this piece for two reasons. The first is because I hate my bitch of an ex-girlfriend. And the second is because I wanted to show off my descriptive writing skills. I need to hone them for the next book in my Kazdin Willow series, which I will keep hush-hush for now because it is a seeeeecret. However, I need all the practice I can get, and also I hate my bitch of an ex-girlfriend. So that should just about explain it. So I hope you all will read this one-shot and laugh mostly at her. In an unrelated note, I am not as arrogant as I portray my character in this story. I just felt like making myself a Gary-Stu in this one, for reasons. Enjoy.
Fallout Guy didn't ever really, truly need her. Heck, he was a robust, dark haired man with a thick and masculine body and a storied past that was not always sunny. No, there were indeed many instances where his history was as dark as the dirt that often covered the uncovered regions of his face. The term uncovered described very little of Fallout's appearance due to the fact that only a small area of his face was ever bare to begin with; the region below his eyes yet only just above his upper lip.
That tiny amount of his outer person reflected only two things. The first being that his flesh showing was a brilliant amber color, a mixture of his Caucasian prologue and the undeniable damage that the Mojave wasteland's bright orange sun could do to a person's skin. The second that even the greatest, handsomest heroes of post apocalyptic America didn't always have the most flawless of skin. The ravages of wind and dust and time showed themselves upon his once-delicate twenty-nine year old epidermis in the form of slight pocks upon that oh so tiny area of visible flesh.
All else was covered, all the time, anywhere and everywhere. A tightly wrapped hood of dark burgundy enveloped the top of his head: hair color and length unknown except to the very closest people in his life. Dark colored goggles covered his eyes to keep the dust and sand at bay while he travelled. A dark brown scarf wrapped around his lips as well as his nose oft-times. The scarf continued downward covering his neck before disappearing from view beneath the dark onyx black colored trench coat. Leather armor lay just beneath that heavy coat out of sight from any and all who would cross paths with him. This high dark leather cowboy boots completed the mysterious ensemble and left his feet for the most part comfortable on those long, lonely walks through the desolate wasteland.
However, even the noblest of knights have made their mistakes in the past, and as they say war never changes. Wars and regrets and mistakes of the heart rarely change either.
Her name was Ash. At the time, albeit as fucking drunk as he was, again, as he remembered his father and their rough past in a rundown cantina somewhere in the Missouri Wasteland, he thought she was somewhat attractive. A personality which directed at him hit him like a soft downy pillow. The laughs and sexy times they shared were many and brilliant and left both of them feeling satisfied on the whole. However, the icy turn that her personality could take toward men and women who even slightly irritated her should have warned him. His ears would pop and the air would smell like ozone in the moments before she turned into a slightly larger version of the hydra of Greek lore.
It should have been a sign, but Fallout Guy was thinking with his battered and torn heart, looking for love in all the wrong places even as he was oblivious to the feeling of the real thing.
The night they met, through the hazy and weary eyes of the drunk, Fallout saw a heavyset woman with bright green eyes and flaming red hair. How he adored the freckles sprinkled across her fair nose. He even thought her glasses were cute and made her look smart and perhaps a bit sophisticated.
There were also her tits, which is a separate story entirely.
She wore a black coat too, this one made of wool and polyester with a large patch sewn around the rear of the coat. Her shirt was a pre-war blouse a blend of blue and white and silver. Low cut, which Fallout could appreciate. Her pants were black as well and made mostly of polyester. They appeared to be pre-war business slacks and they looked as comfortable on her as his boots were on him.
Fallout saw her smile, heard her voice, listened to her laugh and was enraptured.
It didn't matter to him at the time that she snapped at the barkeep for helping other customers before her whiskey arrived. He had seen people speaking rudely for… well, for twenty-nine years. He was used to the smaller items and felt that nothing other than a major offense could change his mind.
"My name is Ash. Looks to me like we're working together." She said with a crooked smile.
Fallout couldn't help but smile. His deep brown eyes as rich as chocolate were unhindered for the moment by those dark goggles. He squinted a little and silently wondered what she meant. She took the bait and answered the unasked question.
"It looks like you need a partner and a friend. You arrived alone and it seems to me that you plan on leaving alone. Am I right?" Ash raised her eyebrows even as Fallout answered.
"The thought had occurred to me." He mysteriously answered, mysteriously.
"Well, I'm alone too since my last paycheck died in a fire. So why don't we agree to hook up?" Ash suggested.
Fallout sighed and thought about it.
He had been wandering alone and lonely too long ever since his ex-girlfriend, not the bitch just described in this story not long ago, but another. The good one, the angel, the lovely and effervescent woman he had loved and who had left his side with tears in her beautiful dark eyes as he carelessly pushed her aside on the whim and the word of a man he used to call a best friend, a close brother.
After two years and many a bottle of beer Fallout fed the lying sack of shit to a deathclaw, pissed on the remaining pieces the deathclaw eventually shit out, pulled his hat down low over his forehead and headed off into the sunset intent on travelling alone as he left the Missouri wasteland for good.
It had now been so many years since he had travelled with good company that he could not have said no to this beautiful… well, okay, almost cute, red haired stranger who never had anything on the One Who Got Away.
However, she was gone. She had started a new family in the Sovereign Nation of Springfield, Missouri. He was in Camdenton drunk and missing her for far too long. How could he say no?
As previously described, it is not only war which never changes. It is also romantic mistakes of the past.
Ash, the kind of almost pretty traveler with a heart of gold turned out to be Ash the raider.
If Fallout had to admit it, he would say that the sex was incredible. In fact after all the bullshit he had been fed by her religious parents in the form of "Jehovah's Witness talks" and all of the freaking holotapes in the Missouri wasteland, he would have left Ash only a short time into their adventures together. The sex was simply too good, however, and Fallout put up with all that shit and the annoying pandering to those who created her because quite frankly, the girl could suck a dick.
However, he could put up with only so much of her constant torture of small animals and weekend gang bangs while Fallout was out making a buck in the name of mercenary work and so he let Ash the raider go.
That was Fallout's biggest mistake in a chain of mistakes. Mistake one, enjoying a bitch of a woman for her pussy and oral skills alone. Mistake two, breaking up with her for being a lying, cheating whore. A raider, if you will.
Fallout would never hear the end of it.
She followed him everywhere from wasteland to wasteland all across the U.S.A. From job to job, from settlement to settlement, from wasteland to wasteland. Big wastelands and small wastelands. Wastelands with zero water and ninety-nine percent radiation to wastelands with zero radiation and tons of water.
She even followed Fallout to a tiny island in the middle of what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts called the Glowing Sea.
It was almost worth it because of the time he got to spend with a brilliant ex-Institute scientist, but Ash the raider even put that friendship to an end by claiming to the scientist that Fallout beat babies and ate kittens whenever he was drunk. She God-damned near turned into a ghoul because she was stupid enough not to bring a hazmat suit and rad-Away, but she took the opportunity to cause Fallout no end of grief whenever she could at great expense to herself.
Fallout finally moved on out west. He had heard there was a great opportunity to do something that mattered for people. A chance to "break the settlement" if you will. Fallout tried to do as much as he could for every settler and local settlement that he could when he was not busy rescuing old women from stampeding Brahmin or tirelessly starting up the Fallout Guy non-profit orphanage in Branson, Missouri. But he had to admit that he had never become so fully accepted by a place of refuge that they would be a lesser dwelling if he had not been at the center of their community.
It wasn't that Fallout was arrogant, that truly was not the reason at all. He just felt like he wanted to do that one thing that made an everlasting impression on everybody involved.
Everyone had heard of New California Republic President Tandi. Everyone knew The Lone Wanderer of the Capitol wasteland. The courier was known all throughout the West. The Sole Survivor was infamous for trading the safety of the Commonwealth for the life of his precious son.
Nobody knew Fallout Guy McGuiness.
So he steeled all of his resolved and packed his bags and set out on the lonely trail once more, but he was not without company as horrendously evil and annoying as it was.
Ash followed him every. Step. Of. The. Way. Every inch, every foot, every yard, every god-damned mile of his journey to the Mojave wasteland.
"I'm better than you! Remember that scientist? Yeah! He hates you! And I'm the one who did it!"
"Hey, remember that sexy blond chick who had the hots for you and who is exactly everything that I will never be? Yeah, I was so jealous that I told her that you breathe fire and have gonorrhea and she left your ass!"
"Remember how I told that cute bartender babe who wanted to settle down with you in Colorado? Well I told her you fuck children and you had to shoot your way out of her bar! How fucking badass am I?!"
Every. Fucking. Mile.
Just before he entered the NCR's Eastern checkpoint which led into the Mojave Desert in Nevada, Fallout stopped. So did Ash the raider. He let a huge, long sigh out from his lips and turned around to face the woman who had been tormenting him every minute of every day of the journey which took him from Camdenton, Missouri to the outskirts of Primm, Nevada (or at least the checkpoint leading into that region, I'm not sure what to call the area where the NCR's checkpoint is in-game).
Nothing but lying diarrhea spewed from her mouth since he left his hometown, the vile words pursuing him like a dirty flood chasing him between the walls of a several-thousand mile long canyon, killing several would-be new relationships and friendships that had barely left the ground before she shot them all down to earth.
"Ash, why the hell are you always trying to hurt me?"
He let the sentence hang in the air. It was a question she couldn't answer.
"Is it because you are so jealous? Did you love me that much that you wanted my security and that one guy's dick?"
"Jason." She corrected him, narrowing her eyes.
"Why would I give a fuck about that?"
Ash didn't answer.
"Although you just said his name, I'll forget it in about 5 minutes because it isn't important enough to remember."
More silence.
"I left the Missouri wasteland for a reason, because I wanted to help in a place that really mattered. I also wanted to get as far away from you as humanly possible. If you wanted to fuck a god-damn monkey, that's up to you, I no longer give a fuck!"
Fallout breathed deep to keep his anger in check.
"I left the Missouri wasteland to get away from you and do something that matters. So why did you follow me? Why won't you leave me the fuck alone? I'm happy, you're happy, but that's not good enough? Are you that much of an evil, sick, insane, lying cunt that you just can't be happy that I'm happy and leave it at that?"
"How dare you call me an insane cunt?"
"Because you are."
Ash swung, her fist which was honestly softer than butter in an oven, collided with Fallout's right cheek. He fought back the urge to punch her back, knowing full well that his much harder fist could put her on her ass and make her think twice about ever pursuing him again.
Fallout knew that the lie vomit that left her mouth so often would make her the most well-deserved of a man-on-woman beating. But he choked the anger and the urge down as much as he wanted to choke her and turned away, lifting a middle finger in her direction as he walked toward the checkpoint gate.
"I've never said this before in my life. But I hope you die." He called back over his shoulder as he made it through the metal fence of the checkpoint.
Ash the raider turned slowly and blank faced and began the long trek back to the Missouri wasteland.
A/N: Not much of this story is true; most is embellished such as the things she said in this story to other people. Don't worry, she has said a hell of a lot more heinous things about me to people I care about and people I've wanted to start relationships with, even ending a couple that I really wanted to pursue.
I admit this because I am human, but the very end conversation is something I've thought about doing. Confronting her, and I've thought about beating the fuck out of her. I never have, choosing instead to write this story about her and about our entire relationshit and hoping to laugh at and have you all laugh at something dark about my life. I chose to turn a very frustrating event in my life that has seriously pissed me off more times than I can count into something positive. I will say that nothing has ever made me want to beat the shit out of a woman, except for Ash trying to get my nieces taken away from their parents and consequently, me. The jail time is not remotely worth it, however, so instead I bring you something creatively written to enjoy with me. Now I'm gonna stop rambling before I start to ramble. I love all my readers and I hope you keep enjoying what I do for you. Take care.
-FalloutGuy