Halloween dreams …till dawn, part 3.
A Revolution fic (Blackout AU): Sebastian (Bass) Monroe/Charlotte (Charlie) Matheson, Charloe. Rating M…
The war against the Patriots was still going months after Texas put Davis on trial as a traitor then somehow let him escape and there'd been reports of a Patriot remnant, a small group of cadets and a handler, hiding out in a little one cantina town in the hills near the Mexican border. Bass and Charlie had gone to investigate, leaving their unit in the next town over cleaning up another little mess. It was the last day of October, Halloween, almost the day of the dead…
AN: Thank you so much for reading, and for your lovely comments. I hope you enjoy this bit. I'd like to also send a big thankyou hug to LoveForTheStory for her wonderful insights and excellent advice, you are awesome Love xx Magpie
Halloween dreams…till dawn. Part three.
The moon hung high above the cantina covering everything in a red veil. The sign on the roof glowed like an obscene dream and the cartoon eyes seemed to follow them as they took cover behind a big pile of tall rocks, still a little out of breath from the run.
The torch lit doors of the Titty Teaser were about a hundred yards away, past the wagons, horses and carcases of old rusted trucks and bikes. The wolves, if they were wolves, hadn't shown up, nor had the flying thing and there hadn't been any more vampires either. In fact it was eerily quiet except for the wind and the faintest sound of rock music from inside the building.
Bass was keeping a watchful eye behind them though, just in case.
Charlie had the binoculars scoping out the cantina, but couldn't see anything through the filthy windows except that there were lights on inside and vague shadows moving around.
'It's weird, but the horses are ok,' Bass was frowning, 'If there were wolves around or anything else strange you'd think they'd be spooked.'
She looked. The animals were munching away in their nosebags, looking totally relaxed. 'Maybe they didn't hear them?'
He frowned again, looking around. 'Maybe, but something doesn't feel right.'
She dropped the glasses and gave him a look, 'what, because there're no wolves or vampires, or huge flapping things, it doesn't feel right to you?'
He shrugged, moving closer, taking the opportunity to slide a hand over her ass, squeezing the full, sweetly rounded cheek in his long fingers, his lips close to her ear, 'I know what does feel right.'
She twisted and looked up at him, not quite laughing because she'd known him too long. If she gave him an inch more now when this job still needed doing it'd never get done. Her knife appeared fast as magic and just as sharp against his throat. Only a warning though, she wasn't planning to actually use it. 'I let you kiss me before, Bass Monroe, but if you think you can fondle my ass whenever you like, you're delusional.'
He grinned at the reference to New Vegas, it'd become a kind of running joke between them and he leaned in closer, completely ignoring the knife. His tall body was hard against her side, tongue flicking out over his lips and his hand slipping further between her legs. His eyes held hers as a tiny bead of blood trickled down the sharp blade towards her hand. 'I seem to remember you kissing me first, Charlotte.' His hand spread out, lifting her up, hot and hard through the worn fabric.
She narrowed her eyes, squeezing her thighs tight around his fingers, her breath coming hard and heavy. 'Yeah, ok… but damn it Bass, we're just about to bust into a pile of patriots. This isn't a good time to play around.' She pulled the knife down and away because he just wasn't stopping. Then she sucked in a breath as he reached her clit, a long finger hitting just the right spot and sending sizzling sparks rippling through her belly. Damn he had magic fingers…
He laughed against her ear. 'There's never a bad time to play around.'
It was hard to concentrate on anything else but him and the hard ridge of his cock pressed against her hip, but she did it, twisting round to face him, finding him so fucking close and so, so tempting. Her whole body ached with the need to wrap itself around him and just forget about everything else.
But the image of that woman still walking around alive when she so needed to be dead was wafting across her mind like a cold, cold wind, totally spoiling her mood. And they were so close.
Her face set into lines of regret mixed with a dose of Matheson ruthlessness. 'Bass. Stop...' Then she swallowed, softening a little because his eyes were right there, and as well as a healthy measure of lust they were full of something she couldn't even think about right now because if she did, she wouldn't be able to fight with a clear head.
She focused, sucking in enough breath to talk. 'I'm sorry, even though I really want to, I can't do this right now, I need us to go kill that woman first.'
He went very still, just looking at her, his laughter fading away. Then he nodded, his hand withdrawing from her, slowly, reluctantly, fingers trailing up over her hip. 'Ok… I understand. It's because of Jason Neville isn't it?' He stepped back. 'I saw your face after you had to shoot him in Austin.' His eyes shuttered and he looked away, face set. 'I know you loved him.'
She felt cold and empty without his hand on her, without his body close, and the space between them was getting wider and wider. She needed to stop it happening, stop him feeling like that. Because what he'd said wasn't true, not really. 'Hey…' She put a hand out to take his arm, her other hand going up to his face, trying to turn him back to her but it was like trying to turn a tree.
His eyes were distant, far away.
She put everything she could into telling him how it was. 'I thought I loved Jason, Bass, and in a way I did, but we never got the chance to find out either way because they made me kill him. So now I need to finish it. Finish her, for what they did to him.' She moved up closer. Wanting, needing him to understand how it was, because she was only just understanding it herself. Because the sight of that woman had helped make things clear and she knew that once this was done she could finally let Jason go, could let him rest. Could move on.
He didn't exactly come back, but he didn't move further away either.
She reached up, brushing a curl back from his forehead and it clung to her finger as her eyes searched for his. Because he was still avoiding her and in a really strange way that was reassuring, because she knew it wasn't a trick, that this was as real as it got.
Then he looked back at her and for a moment everything in her world hung in the balance.
God his eyes were blue, deep and clear, like the pools at the bottom of caves. She took a deep breath, her fingers stroking the scruff on his cheek. 'This thing we've got between us, Bass, it's different. It's bigger. Stronger. Real. I know that now.' She felt stupid tears well up and flicked them away, 'but I need to get this done, ok?'
The blue softened, relaxed, the tension leaving his mouth and he let out a huge, shuddering breath. Then he nodded, slowly. 'Ok. Then let's go get it done.' He looked down at her belt, rubbing the little cut on his throat, his lips twitching. Her knife was back in its sheath. 'You pulled your knife on me, Charlie…'
She reached up and kissed him, her lips lingering, tongue tasting, teasing. 'I had to show you that I meant it, you moron.'
He grinned against her mouth. 'If you'd meant it I'd be dead...'
…..
They were about half way to the wagons when Bass stopped, his arm shooting out in front of her.
Charlie stopped, wary, glancing up at him. 'What?'.
He held a finger up for quiet then pointed down at their feet.
She saw the faint, almost invisible line of green light, across the road just in front of them and about a foot above the ground. She frowned. Trip wire, maybe? Although it wasn't solid… It looked almost like the colour of the lights on the screens in the helicopter and the Tower, at least that was the closest she could think of. She kept her voice low. 'What the fuck is it?'
He was already following the light back to its source finding a small box hidden in the hollow of rock to their right. 'It's a perimeter warning system, electronic.' His voice was a whisper in the dark. He looked back at her, 'so either the power's back on or someone's got one of your mom's pendants.' He shrugged, 'or the Nano's won in Bradbury and we're all fucked.'
She stared at him, 'Hey, Miles won't let it win.' She refused to believe anything else.
He stared back at her, the same thought mirrored in his own eyes. Then he nodded, 'of course he won't, Charlie.'
She huffed out a breath, 'and I don't think the Nano need an early warning system either, Aaron said they just knew things.'
He nodded again, 'yeah, and if the power was back on there'd be something happening in town as well.'
They both glanced back down the road. The town was a sharp edged smudge against the hills. No lights except for the moon.
He swung back to the Titty Teaser, 'I can't see any lights on in the bar either.'
She checked the windows out. The lights flickered behind the blinds just like candles and lamps would, familiar, normal. 'Maybe he doesn't want to advertise?' She dropped to a crouch, inspecting the green line. It buzzed slightly, like tiny wasps. 'So we trip that and they know we're here?'
'Yeah, I think anyway.'
An eyebrow lifted and she stood back up, brushing the dust off her knees. 'So if we don't they'll think they're safe?'
He grinned, eyes hard, predatory. 'Probably, so long as we don't trip anything else.'
They heard the new sound at the same time, melting back almost without thinking about it into the cover of the stubby trees at the side of the road, the smooth snick of well oiled swords being drawn a tiny sound in the night air. Back to back, they covered each other with the ease of long practice.
The sound got closer. Charlie tilted her head towards it, 'Bass?'
She felt him nod. 'One rider coming,' Then he grinned, turning his head, teeth flashing, 'hopefully he's got a head.'
'What?' She was confused, 'why wouldn't he have a head?' She lifted her bow, ready to go.
He reached around and pulled her arm down, shaking his head. 'Bad idea.'
She frowned but nodded. She'd learned to trust his hunches, and him…
The hoof beats echoed along the road, coming fast and closer. The rider slowing to a trot as he got closer. Then as the horse went past them one of its hooves flashed green as it hit the trip line sending a rainbow ripple sparkling into the air a couple of yard ahead.
Charlie watched, her jaw dropping as a woman with long dark hair, beautiful, curvy and wearing nothing but a big white snake, a few pasties and feathers appeared right in the middle of the road, startling the horse into a rearing panic.
The rider swore, circled, got the animal back under control and just kept going, leaving the woman undulating behind him, snake hissing above her shoulder and the sound of drums and slow, sexy music rising with an elegant, naked arm. She looked very real, even with the 'Welcome to the Titty Teaser' banner unfurling slowly over her head.
Bass chuckled, 'Hologram. So that's it…'
'Hollow what?' Charlie was busy watching the snake gliding over the woman's sweetly rounded tits hourglass hips and shaven pussy, her own clit pulsing as the snake's head appeared in the gap between the top of the woman's slim thighs. Looking uncannily like a cock, the wedge shaped head and smooth, long body slid through the rosy, fleshy lips, curving in sinuous arcs up the flat belly and between the full breasts to rest on a rounded shoulder.
The woman's face turned, the big dark eyes inviting, warm, a slim arm was reaching out towards her, the jewelled hand beckoning…
Charlie tried to swallow over a suddenly dry throat. 'It's like she's really there.'
He moved closer, his lips close to her ear, breaking the spell. 'It's just a moving photo, Charlie.'
His breath stirred the tiny hairs on her cheek and she shivered at the sensation, 'So she's real, but not really here?' Charlie stared at the perfect face, the perfect body, fighting the urge to go closer. 'She's so beautiful.'
'Yeah, if you like that kind of thing.' His voice was low, his tall strength close behind her.
She turned, smirking, finding his eyes right there waiting. 'It's the snake isn't it? You hate snakes. Otherwise you'd be salivating.'
He laughed, 'she's pretty, but I bet she couldn't use a bow or follow a trail, Charlie, or fight like you.' His lips got closer, 'and believe me you look just as good as her naked, if not better, especially wet.'
'You spied on me?' Her hand automatically went for her knife but this time he was there first, his fingers twining through hers, his thumb stroking down between her legs. Shit, she wanted to climb him like a tree and the thought of him watching her bare was roaring through her like whisky on a fire.
But it was his turn to smirk, 'like you haven't spied on me too?'
She shrugged, leaning onto his hand, circling her hips a little, her clit purring and her full lips curving into a sly smile. 'Maybe… ok, once or twice.'
He sucked in a breath, 'Shit. Lets just go kill this bitch and her friends, Charlie,' He pulled her against him, his cock a rock hard ridge against her hip, heart thumping so loud she could hear it, 'because I don't think I can wait much longer.'
She licked her lips, eyes hot, her heart pounding just as hard as his. 'Neither can I.'
Just then the woman vanished in a spray of rainbow sparks that flew up like fireworks.
They turned together, swords and guns out and ready in a reflexive action they didn't even have to think about but the road was empty again, except for the thin green line.
Then there was a distant burst of shrieking, bubbling laughter from inside the rail in front of the Titty Teaser as the rider arrived. And as they watched, a huge, blood covered vampire almost like the one they'd run into earlier just appeared out of nowhere, a couple of bats circling its head holding another welcome banner.
The man ignored both vampire and bats just as he'd ignored the snake woman, swinging down out of the saddle, flinging the reins of his snorting horse over the rail and running to the door. He disappeared inside, leaving the vampire hologram capering on it's own.
Charlie snorted. 'Why the hell would anyone give Titty Teaser guy a pendant? He should have a tent in New Vegas.'
Bass put his gun away with a snick of metal on leather. 'I don't know, but I've got a feeling there's more to all this than Halloween party decorations. That technology was only just getting started before the blackout and it was nowhere near as good as these things.' He glanced over at her. 'We gotta be smart about this, Charlie. Fanged and horny back there must have been one of their perimeter alarms so chances are they know we're coming. We could be walking in to anything.' He shifted his still hopeful dick to a better angle in his pants and finished checking his weapons.
She slung her pack and bow over her shoulder and stared as the vampire over at the bar disappeared in a flare of sparks. 'At least we know what some of his tricks are now.' She grinned, an eyebrow twitching. 'Ok, I'm ready. So, Juarez or Fort Stockton?'
He grinned back and brushed past her, his hand catching her ass on the way, fingers lingering. 'Juarez, we're in a hurry.'
….
AN: Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this one. There's still a couple of chapters to go… should be done by Halloween though lol! cheers, Magpie