5 – Dear Friend
I am delighted.
(Timeline: Some three years after chapter four; during the events of the second game, after Roland's death but before Jack's death.)
Night was well and truly falling, and the bar was deserted. Moxxi sank down into a chair, exhausted, and closed her eyes. It had been a very long day.
It was a long time since the destruction of the Underdome, and the pain in Moxxi's stomach had dulled somewhat. The Circles of Slaughter that she owned in several places on Pandora were a passable substitute, but for Moxxi, paying others to host events for her was simply not going to cut it forever. And it was boring in Sanctuary – safe, yes, but boring. Moxxi knew better than to try her luck away from the city, but there was still a part of her that yearned for the cheers of the crowd, the crack of the bullets.
And now Roland was gone, Roland, the most gentlemanly of them all, the face of the resistance, and some of the Sanctuarians were starting to lose hope. The atmosphere in the city had been subdued since his death, and it was not getting any brighter.
Moxxi heard soft footsteps, and someone sat down at the next table. She did not look up for several seconds, expecting it to be one of the Vault Hunters, back from a late-night mission. Eventually, she opened her eyes. Mordecai was sitting across from her, not looking at her, but looking instead at the table top.
"What do you want?" said Moxxi bluntly.
"To apologise," replied Mordecai after a pause. "I shouldn't have lost my temper at you the other day."
Moxxi seriously considered snapping at him, but something about his unusually subdued demeanour and the generally depressed atmosphere of the city made her stop.
"I understand," she replied eventually.
"Do you?" Mordecai said heavily.
"I think so. This war's hit us all hard. We've all had our turn to… lose something. And right now, it's your turn." On a regular day, speaking with anyone else, Moxxi would have given this last sentence a sultry inflection.
Mordecai nodded. "You were the first."
Moxxi also nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She, too, was looking at the table in front of her. The silence stretched for several more seconds.
"I'm… sorry about Bloodwing," Moxxi said eventually. For the first time, Mordecai raised his head and looked at her.
"Thank you."
They sank into silence again, before Moxxi sighed and let out a bitter laugh.
"Do you remember what you said to me the day we broke up? When I said… that you'd been replaced?"
"I remember," said Mordecai dully. The anger of this day had long since faded from his mind, but the memory was still fresh. "I told you it would end in tears."
"And how could we have known just how right you'd be?"
Mordecai chuckled. "Well, I wasn't going to say anything…"
Moxxi smiled – the first genuine smile she'd had in three years. They lapsed back into silence. Outside, the slow rumble of the city's engines held back the silence.
"This whole… 'sexy bartender' thing," said Mordecai after a while, forming the quotation marks with his hands half-heartedly. "Is it hard for you?"
Moxxi looked sideways at him. "Was that supposed to be innuendo?"
Mordecai chuckled again and shook his head. Moxxi sighed.
"Yes, it's hard. Not just because it's boring, but because it's not me. I want to be out there above the arena, listening to the fighting… the crowd… I had all that. It's hard to cover up the pain of the loss." She paused. "When all this is over, I want to go back to that. Rebuild my life."
"I think we all need to rebuild our lives when this is over," sighed Mordecai. Once again, they fell into silence, but it was becoming less awkward by the minute.
"What are you doing here, Mordecai?" asked Moxxi eventually.
"I told you. I came to -"
"Not here in the bar," interrupted Moxxi. "Here on this godforsaken planet. I mean, I was born here, I didn't have a choice. But you didn't have to ever set foot here. What made you?"
"Well… I guess it was the fact that ever since I was seventeen I've been searching for everything the universe owes me," replied Mordecai. "I guess I thought, maybe I'd find it here. The temptation of the Vault was… hard to resist."
"Lots of people said it wasn't real."
"Real or not, it was a big prize. Dangerous, and a lure for fools. And yeah, sometimes I wish I'd never set foot in Fyrestone. Then, maybe I'd have nothing to do with Hyperion, with Jack. Maybe Bloodwing'd still be here. And maybe I wouldn't be stuck here trying to defend a tiny craphole of a city from a psychopathic dictator and his massive space station. But… I am. And I suppose I have to make the most of it." He paused. "What about you? Never thought about leaving?"
Moxxi laughed bitterly again. "If you're born on Pandora, you gotta get damn lucky to leave. That costs money. Anyway, while I had the Underdome, I was happy here. And after… well, maybe I would have had the money to leave. But Hyperion controls all access to this planet; no way Jack was gonna let me quietly leave and rebuild somewhere else."
"No, I guess not. But what about when this is all over?"
Moxxi considered this for a second. "Well… I think Pandora'll always be my home. But maybe I'll try and travel a bit. Establish myself on some other planets. I hear that little planet over in the lower arm is kinda nice."
"Yeah, I've been there once. Might not be your kinda place; I don't think they like fighting rings much."
"They like alcohol and gambling, though, I bet. I'm sure I could get in with a local business. Besides, they don't have much to do with the rest of the galaxy, do they? I could do with a few weeks of peace and quiet, not hearing about Hyperion every few minutes."
"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya…" Mordecai sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. Moxxi glanced at him. She had seen very little of him since he returned to the city semi-permanently almost a week ago, in the wake of Bloodwing's death. Close up, she noticed, his usually (admittedly) handsome face was gaunt and lined, and there were bags under his eyes. It was clear that the loss of Bloodwing and Roland within days of each other, as well as suddenly finding himself acting as commander of the Crimson Raiders, had all taken its toll on the hunter.
"Want a drink?" she said suddenly. She wasn't entirely sure why she said it, but guessed it was probably something to do with the vague feeling of sympathy she felt towards him. After all, he did seem to be enduring more than many of the others.
Mordecai looked sideways at her, and their eyes met briefly. "Sure."
Moxxi went over to the bar and poured two glasses of rakk ale, setting one down on Mordecai's table and one on her own. At first, they spoke very little, and just drank; Mordecai took long draughts with equally long delays between them, while Moxxi sipped slowly but consistently. The reasonably small amount of alcohol had a slow but noticeable effect on both of them; as they drank, they became more relaxed, and once the glasses were about half empty the conversation began to flow freely. They talked about all manner of things, telling stories, asking questions, until the glasses were empty.
The bar clock chimed eleven, and Mordecai sat forward with a groan. "Damn, I didn't realise it was that late… the Vault Hunters'll be coming up on the Nexus soon. I'd better get back to it."
"Alright," said Moxxi, yawning slightly. She drummed her fingers on the table as Mordecai stood up and stretched, making his way over to the door.
"Mordecai?"
"Hm?" The hunter paused in the doorway and turned.
"Are you sure you only came here to apologise to me?"
"Not really," replied Mordecai. "I think, with everything going on at the moment, I realised that we're all going to need all the help we can get. And I know we'll never be able to date again… there's too much pain there… but I think I just hoped we could be on good terms again."
Moxxi looked at him for a few seconds, then smiled. "I hope so."
A/N: I think the point of this chapter in my mind was that while I don't think Mordecai and Moxxi would ever get back together, I can imagine them putting their grudge aside in the wake of Roland's death and becoming friends. Anyway, that's all for this story. I have one or two Zer0/Gaige one-shots lined up, and I've also got a longer Maya/Krieg story in development.