Games We Play: Distracting

Notes: Everything belongs to Bethesda and Obsidian, I'm just playing with their toys.


distracting

verb

to draw away or divert, as the mind or attention

Randolph Safehouse is, as assumed, no longer fit to be a safehouse, instead reverting to the East Boston Preparatory School, the "ally" symbol near the door covered with a crude wooden sign welcoming traders. The sign turns Deacon's stomach, although he can't put his finger on why. Maybe it's actually the gin - he bought a flask when they went through Bunker Hill, a small steel bottle that fits just right into his pocket. The gin he fills it with is rotgut, the cheapest Savoldi had on hand, but it's numbing. He's going for aloof but worries he may be toeing the line of anesthetized, and in a distant way finds he doesn't care.

Glory goes into the school first to take a peek and comes out a few minutes later, a baffled look on her face. Deacon shoves the flask back into his pocket as she trots out, hoping she doesn't notice and grateful once again for his sunglasses; nothing like shades to hide bloodshot eyes.

It's clear from the frown she gives him that she knows something's up, but instead of calling him out, she gives him a once-over and says simply, "You need to see this."

Deacon follows her into the building, stifling a juniper-scented hiccup and praying Glory is far enough away to miss it. Inside is dark - darker still with his glasses on, but like hell is he taking them off. Glory leads him through a labyrinth of stairs, broken walls, and poorly-constructed wooden barriers. She has less trouble navigating the destruction than he does - walking seems to be an issue - and as they pass bodies, he wonders at her handiwork. Not much of a surprise, really, given her history as a courser -

"I didn't do any of this," she says, breaking into his train of thought.

"What?" He looks up at her, surprised. Her expression teeters between wary and annoyed before settling on frustrated schoolteacher.

"You said I must've cleared this so fast because I was trained as a courser," she says slowly, as if explaining the basics of tying his own shoes. He doesn't remember saying any of that, but if Glory says so -

"So you found it like this?"

"I haven't shown you the weirdest part yet," she says, turning away from him again and continuing up a set of stairs far to the back of the building.

They climb what feels like a hundred stairs and Glory leads him through a series of classrooms to one that appears to have been turned into a jail - cells built of junk wood and scrap metal line the room, each with their own piss bucket and locking gate. The bodies of two more raiders lie in the middle of the room, both with bullets in their heads and not a single other injury.

"This is the Institute," Glory says, and for the first time since he's known her, she looks nervous. "One shot in the head? That's a courser. Always go for the most efficient way to put down a threat and move on."

It rings a dim bell in the back of his mind, but Deacon doesn't want to think about it. He remembers writing that line of code himself.

If the goal is elimination, go for headshots first. If a headshot is unrealistic or has a low probability of success, a torso shot is the next option.

He nods, his mouth dry. His hand is on the flask in his pocket when Glory cocks her head towards the doorway cut into the wall at the other end of the room. He drops it and follows her lead through what must have once been a closet and into another room with another series of jail cells. His feet stick to the floor and he tries not to think about what he's walking through.

Glory points to a cell at the end. There's a figure in it, groaning pitifully and clutching its head. The barred door of the cell is locked and the man inside doesn't seem to be armed, so they approach cautiously. Glory pulls a small laser pistol out to cover him, and Deacon speaks.

"Hey there. What, uh, what happened here?"

"Oh Jesus, fuck, you gotta help me," the man says, turning suddenly and scrambling onto his feet. It's difficult to do given the state his body is in - Deacon can't count the number of wounds dripping slowly coagulating blood from the man. His eyes are haunted and Deacon wonders if maybe he's been here since before the raiders took over. If so, no wonder he looks so shell-shocked. His bobby pins and a screwdriver are in his hand and Deacon kneels to begin working at the lock. It's Glory's steady hand on his shoulder that stops him.

"Not 'til you tell us what happened here." Her voice is calm, commanding. Deacon sits back on his heels.

The man is babbling, almost insensate. His dark hair sticks up in blood-tinged spiked across the top of his head. "That woman and the man in the long black coat, they fuckin' slaughtered us, man. Everyone, they just came through and shot the shit out of everyone and locked me in here."

Deacon perks up at the mention of a man in a black coat - it's the most apt description of a courser he's ever heard. This close to Libertalia, there's very little chance that he's not talking about Charmer and her new...companion.

"Charmer," he breathes, unaware he's doing it.

"Please, man, you gotta get me out of here, I gotta eat, I gotta run, I gotta get out of here before they come back," the man keeps going in this vein and Deacon's readying his lockpicking tools when Glory lets out an exasperated sigh.

"The people who were here before the raiders took over," she says evenly. "What happened to them?"

"People? What people? I don't know anything about any fucking people," the guy says. Something about his tone is wrong, and he waits too long to start talking. He knows something. Deacon pockets his bobby pins and screwdriver and stands.

"They left him locked in there. Must've been for a reason," Glory says to him, her voice soft. She keeps her gun trained on the man in the cage.

Deacon nods. He's never known Charmer to be cruel, but she does believe in justice.

The man knows something is up now. His frenzy intensifies; he becomes more frantic, more determined. Desperate. He reaches an arm between the bars of the cage and Deacon takes an involuntary step back, out of his reach. His fingers are black with grime and blood, clawing at the air between them, inches from Deacon's lapel, grasping.

"The people who were here before you moved in," Deacon tries again. "What happened to them?"

The hand stops, and the man lets out a vicious giggle. It's like watching a mask slide off his face, and suddenly Deacon thinks he sees what Charmer must have seen, knows why he's locked in this cage, alone at the top of this mausoleum.

"They signed the blood pact or they died," he hisses savagely at them through the bars. "Some of 'em died anyway."

Suddenly Deacon is dizzy. He needs a drink, or some air - something. He needs to not be here.

Charmer locked him in here to die. She did it because she knew what he did.

"Blood pact?" Glory prompts.

A nod. "You sign it, you fight for me, or you die. It's pretty effective." Another chuckle, another drop in Deacon's stomach at the sound of it. "You want me to tell you how they screamed?"

Deacon's heard enough. He turns without a word to Glory and starts walking. He walks, then runs, through the building before he can think differently, back out into the spring sunshine where he can sip his gin and try to forget.


There's a woman on the floor with her head caved in. His boots stick in the blood pooling under her body, the blood that works its way into every crack and seam in the wood floor. He drops the swatter he forgot he was holding; it lands with a thump and rolls away from him, under a couch where it'll be forgotten.

His hands are red. Paint? No.

He knows what he has to do: he has to burn everything to the ground. If the shack is gone, no one will come looking for him, not the Institute, not the militia. He'll go to ground, somehow. There's a doctor in Diamond City that can give him a new face. He's got the caps for it.

The caps that were supposed to protect them, to help them raise the baby they could never have.

Synths can't have babies.

It's enough to start over again. What'll he do then?

He killed his wife. He doesn't deserve to start over.

She was spying. The whole thing was a lie.

She was his wife.

The matches are in his pocket. There's gasoline by the door, and dousing the house with it is easy enough. He takes just the caps and the clothes on his back, nevermind if they're spattered with blood or not.

The swatter he leaves, but he takes the sniper rifle he's been working on. It seems foolish - if he left it, he could die in the ruins the way he deserves to, but some animal part of his brain insists he bring it. For protection.

As if he can protect himself against everything that's out there.

The shack lights easily, the old wood catching fast. He doesn't have long - people will be drawn by the blaze. He swings the rifle onto his back and turns, his feet carrying him down the road even as inside he's screaming.


When he wakes up, it's to a pounding headache and blinding sunlight. He doesn't recognize where he is - it's the ruins of someone's bedroom. He lies on a mattress that smells of mildew and has a large, suspicious dark stain across the center. There's only half a roof over him and a fascinating green fungus glows dully from the ceiling. He puts his hands over his eyes, rubs them hard, and searches about the floor for his sunglasses. His fingers finally connect with them - he can't see without squinting, and he puts them on.

As has become his habit, he reaches for his flask, but it's gone. The big bottle of gin from his pack is missing, too. Irritated with himself for letting his supply get so low, Deacon pulls a cigarette out of his pack and lights it, wincing at the flash of the lighter, then again as the gold plate glints in the sun. The first drag of smoke burns his throat, but, coughing, he takes another.

He regrets it immediately when his cough turns into a retch and he's vomiting on the floor, sour yellow bile that turns his stomach even more as it comes up.

When it's finally over, he sits back on the mattress, his arms shaking. There's a sound, and when he turns, Glory stands at the top of the stairs, smirking with her arms crossed.

"What the fuck're you looking at?" He knows it's rude. He doesn't care.

Glory, credit where it's due, doesn't look the least bit perturbed.

"Good morning to you, too, sunshine," she cracks, picking something up off the dresser next to her. "Water?"

What he really wants is gin, or rum, or anything that'll dull this headache, but he takes the can gratefully all the same, peeling back the lid and downing half of it in one go. His stomach turns again, threatening to force the liquid back up, but he swallows and counts to twenty. By the time he gets to fifteen, it's subsided and he takes another tentative sip.

"Thanks," he finally says. His lips are dry.

Glory ignores this and instead hands him a bowl. Cold mac and cheese. The golden cheese is congealed around the noodles, but he knows better to complain. He takes a bite, chews it for a long time, and finally swallows. When it stays down, he tries another, then another.

He's about halfway through the bowl before he's ready to ask the question he already knows the answer to.

"Glory?"

"Yeah?" She's made her way across the room now, to the mattress opposite his, and is sorting things in her pack. Her minigun lies on the floor between them as if standing guard.

"Why does my eye hurt?" Because it does. A lot. His vision on that side is blurry, and it's swollen, bumping up against the lens of his glasses. He doesn't need a mirror to tell him when he's got a shiner.

She chuckles, a low rumble that tells him all he needs to know. "You got…fresh last night. I had to put you on your ass."

Oh shit, it's worse than he thought. Holding out hope, he asks, "Fresh? How -"

"You kissed me. With tongue. And then you tried to cop a feel when I told you to stop it." The look on her face, thank goodness, is one of amusement and contempt, not anger or resentment. Apparently it's funny to her - not the reaction any man wants when he goes after a woman, but then again, he's not interested in Glory.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Something tells me you're not going to try it again." Well, that's definitely true. Even if he did want to get with her, there's no way he'd think about going after her now, not with the way his eye smarts in the daylight.

"I'm still sorry. I shouldn't have tried...anything like that."

"I told you it's fine. You're not my type." They both chuckle at that. No, he'd be more likely to lose a girl to Glory.

Except, apparently, for last night.

The smile on Glory's face fades. The problem with reading people the way he does is he knows what they're going to do and say before they do. And she's going to give it to him again, only this time with her words.

"You can't keep doing this." He sighs, gestures for her to go on. "It's not all about last night. You've been drunk off your ass since you got back to HQ and it's not a good look for you. You're going to get yourself killed."

All probably true. Also probably true is the part where Deacon isn't sure he cares.

"She left me, Glory."

"So, some girl left you. Boo-fucking-hoo. Get your shit together, man. Whether you want to try to get her back or not, you're sure as shit not going to do it by drinking your scrawny ass into a coma."

He blinks at her and slowly - despite himself - a small smile creeps across his face.

"You're absolutely terrible at this, d'ya know that?"

Glory takes out a cigarette and lights it with a flourish. "It's called tough love, man."

Tough love. He swallows a retort and instead exhales heavily, setting the bowl of noodles aside.

"So what's the game plan?"

"Well, I can't take you back to HQ like this. I figure we stay here a few days, lie low while you dry out," she exhales smoke into three perfect rings.

A pang hits him in the chest as he thinks again of Charmer, of the way her mouth looked when she would do that. He wonders if he'll see her again, and then he wants some gin desperately. Instead he sits there, waiting, his hands fidgeting in his lap.

"When I can trust you," she continues. "Then we go report in."

"Is it safe for us to be gone so long?"

A snort from Glory. "Hell of a lot safer than you getting me killed heading back through Boston."

Finally, he nods. He needs this, whether he wants to admit it or not.

"Ok." She stands, dusting herself off. "Hey Glory?"

She looks back at him.

"Thanks."

As she heads downstairs, he swears he can see the ghost of a real smile on her lips.