I got a gal who's always late anytime we have a date,
But I love her, yes I love her,
He's gonna walk up to my gate, and see if he can get it straight
Cause he wants her, he's going to ask her:
Is you is or is you ain't my baby?
The way you're acting lately makes me doubt.
You's is still my baby, baby
Seems my flame in your heart's done gone out
A woman is a creature that has always been strange,
Just when you're sure of one you find,
She's gone and made a change.
- "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?", Bing Crosby
There is something to be said about one's first love, that infantile obsession which can never be squashed by human cynicism and past experience. Even the cleverest men and women have little defense against it, and no amount of smart scrutiny can rival its all-encompassing passion.
However, those men and women who are rendered weak at the knees for their first love, are usually not men and women, but adolescent. Eris is a woman, she concludes, a mostly grown woman, whom she reasons has never been in love before. Sometimes, she just knows she has experience with something before the Incident, either her muscle memory for it supports the intuition, or she truly just knows.
Whether she has taken a lover before or not, is a mystery – she seems to know the art of shallow seduction, but she does not know anything about love. Her predicament turns her into a pitiable excuse of the woman she thought she should be. Although, she could just as easily argue that she should never have been the way she was a year ago. Was this a good kind of progress, or the bad kind? Or was it simply neutral?
He was better at making those kinds of distinctions, and he was confident enough in this that she looks to him for moral guidance and direction. But it's not nearly as simple as presenting him with a new idea or critique. What if he is embarrassed by the line of questioning? What if he simply ignores her? Worse still, what if he tells her that she is pitiable as she is? That is, pitiable in her devotion. Eris encourages the blunt truth from he and everyone else, and finds it superior to any alternative, when it comes from others.
The moral of the story, is that everything's a cliché until it happens to her. She regularly teased and prodded people who confessed their unending devotion to others.
Tuesday, 8:00 PM.
Eris has spent the past two days in Freeside, doing little more than picking fights at the Wrangler, and swindling goods from honest traders. Mick and Ralph's were offering a used bracelet of tribal make for forty caps, and she'd managed to talk them down to fifteen. Fifteen. That had been fun, admittedly, but she was tired of sulking out here.
It was no well-guarded secret to anyone who knew her, that she was prone to directionless wandering when she had no external pressures hanging over her head. And though what little pride she had was wounded to admit so, she felt guilty about having lied to Arcade the other night, and downright lonely. There were no good brains to pick right now – she'd ran them all off.
Nonetheless, she made the familiar walk of shame back to the Strip, less clean than she'd been when she'd left it the other night, and with far fewer caps in her purse. However, she did have a shiny new bracelet that she'd practically committed daylight robbery to acquire. The beaded ivories reminded her of something, but she didn't know what exactly that something was. That familiar itch tickled at the back of her head, an itch she's been trying to scratch for a long time now.
Impatiently, she taps her foot on the cool, desert sediment while she waits in line behind ten or more tourists. There are thousands of more efficient ways to process visas, in fact, she thinks about four or five of them while she waits. Exhausted, and no tiny amount frustrated, Eris stubbornly refuses to speak with the others in line, and instead kicks the sand underneath her shoes like a spoiled child. Her shoes make an annoying, skidding sound that causes the others to look down and immediately avert their eyes.
When it's her turn to pass through the gate, she neglects to show her visa – their algorithm recognizes her immediately. And just as soon as she is past the gate and in the Strip, she takes a deep breath of the cold, night air, and burrows further into her sweater, now dirtied by wandering the darkest corners of Freeside. The weather is something she notices more nowadays, one of those normal, immovable elements that she'd like to be able to ignore, but can't, kind of like all of her responsibilities.
Inside of the 38, she's greeted by a warmer environment, stagnant and still as it always was. Clean, clinical, and eerie – the casino on the first floor is a familiar sight by now, but sometimes she imagines that spontaneously, a crowd of prewar stars and starlets might appear and resume the last party that they had here. She dumps her purse on one of the settees, and reflexively goes to the elevator and to the Presidential Suite, where she draws a bath and finds cleaner clothes.
Eris feels dreadfully empty, insecure, and lonely. 'Empty' is fine on its own, fine even when it's paired with insecurity. But a triad of them all working together is a recipe for disaster in her experience. But, humans did so love their triads – the natural compulsion to add another to two.
When she is once more clean, and her wet hair combed through, she makes her way to the library in an oversized shirt, one of her favorites. By now, it's worn and faded, and feels cozy against her skin. A pack of cigarettes lay on a trestle next to her favored chair, abandoned and half empty from a week ago. Rolling her eyes at her own carelessness, she searches for a lighter, digging through the cushions of another chair to find it. Minutes pass before she finds it, and it is instead in plain sight, lying on a shelf above the chair she usually sits in.
Her pleasure is eclipsed only by self-loathing as she lights a cigarette, but as soon as the clouds of spent nicotine roll through the air, she manages to forget about how much she hates herself, if only for a few minutes. Oddly enough, she thinks of Hsu, and how she should've taken him up on the vague plans he'd drawn up. Idly, she runs her toes across the ottoman and through the soft fabrics that catch the soft skin of her feet. If the casino downstairs was quiet, the library was like sensory deprivation.
With a heavy, dramatic sigh, she makes the first move.
"Are you mad at me?" She asks, and loathes the whine in her voice. Pathetic.
The resulting silence is something she can't define. She can only define his silences when there has been a somewhat steady flow of conversation. Right now, she can't tell if he is preoccupied, if he is annoyed, or if he is amused. The latter was highly unlikely, he was not an easily amused man. And moreover, he approached human insecurities with a tact she wouldn't have otherwise expected from someone who sought to be so far removed from them.
There is a phenomenon she's noticed before, a tendency to understand things better from afar than within. An NCR bureaucrat could never accurately explain the framework of the republic which he lives in, as compared to a Follower. It is one observation that makes her hesitant to wave any flag of conviction.
Perhaps what she fears the most, is that he thinks her too soft, that he does not return her depth of feeling. She fears that she is little more than a nuisance to him, or worse, simply a means to an end.
"Why would you ask that?" His question rings clear from the ceiling, wall, and every other surface, it is impossible to pin exactly where the sound comes from. Maybe the speakers are in her head, and he wired them in upon their first acquaintance.
Now that he asks, she's oddly stooped, and has to think carefully to articulate herself. Eris is no stranger to overcomplicating exceedingly simple things. Really, that is her thing, taking one single idea and designing a thousand other tangents from it.
"Because you haven't been talking to me as much as usual. You know, I've spent a year with your voice in my head, and when I have almost entirely just a voice to go off of, it should come as a surprise to no one that I pay close attention to its patterns, or, I try to. When suddenly, your end is quieter, I get somewhat nervous, see." She dashed the tip of her cigarette against the wide, antique ashtray, and took another inhale afterward.
That particular silence was contemplative, she predicts his next words will be carefully chosen. An undertone of snark here and there, and an overall tone of condescension.
"Have you managed to forget that we are in the midst of a climactic war between the east and west?" Bingo. There are some quirks and behavioral patterns of his that she's nearly completely confident in predicting. Even the notes of his voice are slightly high in pitch, raised as they are when he's frustrated. Although, his suggestiveness was also a close cousin of it.
"You've been in the midst of a climactic war between the east and west for almost a decade now, why would anything change in the span of two weeks? I'm trying to make sense of it, and admittedly, I'm a little hurt by it." Honesty is the best approach with him, he already knows every filthy sin she's committed. But like always, she is the first to bend, and she does so with amazing swiftness relative to the length of their conversation. "I promise I'll be okay if you just tell me."
What a miserable little promise. She may as well be on the stage of a theater, performing for the entertainment of the audience, with him in the front row. She may be unashamed of it, but her acceptance is enough to complete the circle.
A sigh on the other end, fatigued (if such a thing plagued him) and drawn out – it irked her.
"Don't sigh like you're tired of this, that's…" She scrambled for a word to describe how it made her feel. "Disrespectful."
"Disrespectful? You know well enough that my hands are full, Eris, damn it. But I applaud you, it takes confidence to enter my home and accuse me of disrespecting you."
"So this isn't my home anymore?" The downside to their budding not-quite-friends relationship, was that every disagreement between them was now more personal, far from the sphere of things that either of them were equipped to deal with.
In her mind's eye, she can imagine him grinding his teeth at this very moment. For once, her feelings compelled her to say this though, his earlier implication was right, but common sense forbade using that as a rhetorical weapon. He is so oriented toward the plan, however, that he wouldn't dare to risk alienating her. She is deep enough in her deceptions that she forgoes mentioning that there was very little he could do to get rid of her beyond telling her to go away. Eris suspects that there is something deeply wrong with both of them, but mostly with her. His self-preservation and overestimation of people's abilities, combined with her – the complete opposite – was bound to create lots of conflict.
In theory, she should enjoy the conflict as she does all others, but she's found that there was some sensitivity there. There was a soft, vulnerable part of her beneath the absurdism and debating spirit, and it came to her attention around him. This vulnerability he'd exposed was what led her to her damning self-reflection, and fueled the fire of the perpetual existential crisis she finds herself in. Put simply, she'd likely be dead or worse without him.
"Is that what I said?" Damn, that sounds like something she would say, avoiding the point through plausible deniability.
"No, genius, but since you brought up your home when I brought up your disrespect, it sounds a bit like you're implying that me having a home here is contingent on your good graces. Something we both know, but, c'mon.. that's acerbic even for you, I can't believe I'm saying that there are some things that need to be left unsaid." She set her cigarette into the ashtray, and shook her head at how she sounded. "Look, I just want your attention. Is that too much to ask for? None of this would be happening if you just talked to me." She hoped levity would lighten the mood.
"My time is a more precious commodity than it has ever been. Our victory rests entirely on the conservative use of it." The way he defends his case leaves it open to being attacked, however, it's in this that Eris rediscovers her spine.
"If the NCR is preparing for immediate war, not only will we know it, but all of Las Vegas will know it. This doesn't demand ninety-nine percent of your attention. Don't tell me you've been watching Camp McCarran for the past two weeks." She imagines herself as a devil on everyone's shoulder, suggesting against the responsible thing to do. In reality, she probably appears as a schoolyard rebel. "Let yourself relax. Nothing's going to happen. Spare twenty percent, just for a little while, yeah? There's no need to take it so seriously, especially when you can simply look at surveillance for a minute and know what is happening outside."
Her fingers were crossed, figuratively speaking. It's the first time she's ever tried to talk him out of his single-minded focus, and she is reminded of gold-digging women who'd do the same.
"I promise I'm not a gold-digger trying to distract you."
A scoff comes from the other end, one that had several layers that she ought to dissect, such as humor, disbelief, and irritation. In other words, the winning combination to trigger a thousand words of devotion from her.
"I am broke, though, and it just so happens that you have a lot of money. All a coincidence, I assure you." She adds, but it is little more than a jest, intended to placate him.
"Come to the elevator." Was his high-handed command, like she was a child he was monitoring at recess. "And do try not to get lost on the way." His contempt was shallow, only a show of it without any real substance.
Brimming with satisfaction, Eris left the library behind without looking back, and spoke to the air, "Can't believe I was lucky enough to catch you."
Her stomach is empty save for the butterflies that had taken up residence, fluttering here and there like a schoolgirl's might.
Inside the elevator, she went on, words pouring out of her like a drain, "I like it when you pretend to be angry. We both know you secretly like to have your authority questioned."
"I've never had my authority questioned by you. Presently, you're doing exactly what I'd like you to be doing." His reply was smooth and cultured, and held an air reminiscent of the prewar films she's only heard about.
"Careful, babe – wouldn't want you to short circuit. Is that your equivalent of a nosebleed, by the way? I've always wondered."
Motion ceased in the elevator, and shook her only minutely before the doors opened to reveal the room where his virtual pod lay, an invention he envisioned would take the wasteland by storm. Further, by virtue of the luxury it promised, the ambitions of men would flourish just to get a taste of it, and all would benefit.
"Oh, I doubt that. Besides, it's such a specific thing to wonder about, wouldn't you agree?" House was coy now, suggestive where only a few minutes ago, he was an impenetrable force of condescension and self-importance.
His mood swings could be volatile, she imagines that centuries of solitude would do that to anyone. To the vast majority of people, it would do much, much worse. She ponders on how uncommonly rare it must be for someone to retain themselves and their sanity in such a circumstance. Perhaps she is merely giving him allowance, however – a special pardon, whereas for most others she would search for any reason not to excuse their behavior.
"In that case, I find myself contemplating highly specific things on the regular."
As the pod opens and the elevator closes behind her, she takes in the room that she's only ever seen in darkness. Behind the doors closest to her, there must be a whole wing of unexplored space, it begs the question of just how large this place was. A desire to explore every inch of it claws at her, and her curiosity manifests as a little demon suggesting that she request permission to do so.
Above, the distastefully clinical lights flicker and die down completely. As for herself, she can never resist using the dial for dimming lights in certain floors where they exist, they're vastly superior to switches. She's always been entranced by the liminal – the in between – and the journey more than the destination.
"Well?" His call was short and impatient.
"That's a pretty deep subject." She shoots back, twitching her brows up and down in a show of supremacy.
Nevertheless, she does what he wants her to, because that's just what she does nowadays, and with such gusto that any complaint is for show, and both of them know it.
The pod is less foreboding than the first time she used it, and any queasiness she feels is out of an anticipation to see him and his creation once more. Once inside, she shuts her eyes, and stills her body, because she is feeling particularly obedient this evening.
A queer itch begins at the back of her head as the sophisticated device prepares to simulate a coma, and like the first time, a loss of consciousness is felt for a fraction of a second before she loses awareness of all instinctive body sensations, noticed only by their absence. When that sort of novelty is known once, one can never stop noticing the small itches, cramps, and discomforts of a functioning human body.
The transition from reality to unreality is seamless, and she can almost imagine that the armrests supporting her was the thick glass of the pod she was really inside of. Her curiosity was insatiable. She wonders how the hundreds of thinkers from bygone ages would react to a novelty heretofore deemed impossible.
"To dream while lucid, there is truly nothing quite like it." She says to the empty room.
Eris is seated at the end of a long, polished wooden table, in a chair that couldn't be uncomfortable. The setting is pristine and prewar, an office if she had to guess. It looks nothing like what she would design, but if she had designed it, it'd be a scavver's shanty town, scarcely resembling something habitable.
"How many Ponzi schemes took place in this very room, I wonder. You know, when I was under after being shot, I had the wildest, most lifelike dreams that seemed to last an eternity. I don't recall them clearly, but they remind me of this."
She's heard stories similar to hers, and read a few passages of Jung's where an unconscious hospital patient was able to see themselves and their hospital bed from a third person's perspective, even being able to relate the details of their surgery with suspicious accuracy.
The broad, wooden door opens and shuts, and her host enters the room, dressed as appropriately as any CEO should be, in the same handsome three-piece suit he seemed to favor. His thick, dark hair is styled neatly and she notes that, if he was anyone else, his age would be immediately apparent. As it is, his spirit is too virile, too focused, that it distracts one from his advanced years. It's something that can be seen even here.
As for her, she is still in her oversized shirt, something she might've done in this sort of room many years ago, if only for the shock factor it afforded her.
"I missed you." She says so jovially, in a way that is very unlike her, something she apparently reserves for him.
One of his dark, skeptical brows raises at her admission, and he looks above her head to stare at something before sitting opposite of her at the other end of the table. It is not insensitivity that evokes such a gesture from him, she likes to think she knows him well enough to determine it to be social ineptitude.
Displays like these are uncontrollable variables, for a mind such as his. So many traits that she once determined came from a place of hubris and self-interest in actuality came from his fear of an inability to fulfill his end of a 'bargain'. To him, every interaction, even the most unsubstantial one, was considered a bargain wherein services or power was exchanged. The glaring issue here, was that nothing tangible was being traded, and he retained power while she gained none. Naturally, it confused him.
"You don't have to say it back, I can say it back to myself. 'I missed you too-" He silenced her with a dark glare, striking against his ghostly pale skin.
"That won't be necessary." He put up a hand to cease whatever unnecessary drivel was about to leak out of her mouth, "It will suffice to say, I return the sentiment. While it would please me to spend more of my time with you.. there is a small window of opportunity that requires the utmost vigilance, meanwhile the window of time which we will spend together is limitless."
Eris wants to snicker at that, but he has obviously put many minutes of thought into it.
"That may be the most heartwarming rendition of telling someone they're less important." An indignant expression displaces that stoicism and gravitas that was his default, but Eris gestures whimsically, and continues. "I'm not complaining, I'm just critiquing your delivery. After all, I don't expect you to set aside your vision for me. All I can ask you for is one compromise, and that is your time. Again, when you can. You're probably, actually not probably,but the most important part of my life, I imagine that's hard to comprehend for someone who is wholly concerned with rebuilding the world."
Her greatest weakness may just be her ingrained focus on other people, as antithetical as it sounds with all things considered. A particularly clever person, like House, could easily exploit it if they wished. Not only did it make her feel vulnerable, but it was also concerning if he did wish to exploit it. Eris maintains that she is rather simple, even if everything she did and said suggested the opposite.
A contemplative look washes over him then, and his dark eyes wander over her like he was solving a most pressing equation. It is precisely this kind of interest of his that she suspects has flattered countless former employees. Where his social graces fall short, his single-minded focus was intense enough that it more than made up for their absence.
"Very well." But it is unsure and uncharacteristically hesitant. "That is a very unusual request of yours, and because you are not thoughtless, you understand that it's suspicious. In my world, material gain is the only factor that is both consistent and reliable enough to be counted on. Moreover, it is usually the only currency that is exchanged. Greed and self-interest are two attributes that can always be relied on in any given scenario."
She notices that he says 'not thoughtless' rather than thoughtful, and wonders if it's because he's feeling shier than usual, or if he's fortifying the defenses in anticipation of an attack. If she were him, she certainly would – she does not sell herself as someone who is especially charitable or acquiescent.
"Do you distrust me?" She found herself asking, giving into the strange empathy she had for him.
Despite his success, he'd implied several times that he spent most of his life friendless, distrustful, and without help from other humans. A small part of it could be blamed on him, on the presentation of self-reliance and stability. However capable he was, there was an inner instability in nearly every frustration he expressed, indicating an inner world that was far from orderly and pristine.
On others' weaknesses, Eris has never despaired nor laughed. Aside from her usual exploits and general mischief, she likes to think she accepts the human condition with far greater ease than him, predictable given than he longs to transcend from said condition into a higher esoteric state.
To watch him struggle to answer is shocking, but she is surprised she doesn't wish to capitalize on it and take his discomfort to the next level. That was her usual protocol, the kind of protocol she used to interrogate people into answering her never-ending stream of questions.
He watches the table and cocks his head to the side, a habitual gesture of his, she reckons. His striking mustache twitches as he purses his lips and returns to their staring contest, a contest either one of them could win. She's never been one to shy from staring at someone, she suspects it's a residual symptom of head trauma.
"I don't distrust you, indeed I trust you more than you could know, but you understand, I believe, when I relate to you that complete trust is nigh impossible. If my trust were so easy to gain, I'd not be in the position I am – the only industry giant to have endured all the ages of radioactive ash." He narrowly avoids telling her that she is untrustworthy, and she wonders over whether that had been on the tip of his tongue, or in the back of his mind as he thought of an answer.
Eris' face scrunches then, in a shadow of a curious child's, a child's she's never been able to recall.
"That makes sense, and I'm not so dense that I don't know how I must look. My trade has been conning people for as long as I can remember, so I shouldn't be surprised that you have some.. reservations. Even with that in mind, the thought of ever trying to betray or harm you is blasphemous, irreverent, in the one way I've sworn to myself I will never be. Everything else is free to peruse and screw over, I've accepted my purpose as an agent of disorder and mayhem, but if I ever hurt you, I may as well off myself, as pathetic as that sounds." She winces at her own words, and tries to bandage whatever cut her verbal barrage caused. "And now I fear that I've betrayed you through pretending to be something I'm not.
"I've learned that I'm softer than I originally thought, and I fear that you will want nothing to do with me upon learning this. Trying, and failing, to not be insecure about it. None of this is helpful to you, not with everything that's on your mind. I recognize it's unfair to you to burden you with my stupid, girlish whims. I'd nearly forgotten I was a girl until I fell in love with you."
Since instincts were removed from this world entirely, a blush formed on neither of their faces, but there are tells for when they'd otherwise be there. While her cheeks weren't warm, her lashes fluttered wildly over the tops of her cheekbones. It was amazing – the interface between mind and body, something she'd not considered until her first time in this virtual world.
"And now I feel like I'm pressuring you to indulge me." It wasn't enough for one single domino to fall, the rest of them had to follow. However, that was the nature of dominoes, wasn't it?
"You would need to try harder than that to pressure me into doing anything, but especially indulging you. Have you not considered that it is what I want?"
"Of course not, I feel like I'm an annoying pest that is constantly buzzing at your side."
That gave cause for a small, enigmatic smile to pull at either corner of his lips, shy and secretive.
"Oh, you are, but if I'd wanted to rid myself of you, then I would've certainly swatted you away long ago. There were several opportunities, but I took none of them. For someone so absorbed in the affairs of others, you have absolutely no awareness of your impact on them." He clucked his tongue then, and fixed his determined, dark eyes on hers. "But, you know this already, I'm afraid. Nonetheless, it is charming to me, and it disillusions any pretense of malevolence. You are so very unlike the ladies I've known, or the men, for that matter. I value your presence, and I'll not readily relinquish it."
He was not finished, however. "There is a profoundly childlike quality in you that is all but extinguished upon adulthood in most. It.. makes me feel safe."
That admission would've caused her jaw to drop if she was willing to ruin what homeostasis she'd achieved between them. As it was, that should've been considered an unofficial declaration of love, it was uncommonly rare for him to speak like that.
Regardless, she felt special not because of any particular quality of hers that stood out, but because she has peeled a layer of the proverbial onion that was him. There was something so rewarding in having gained his trust and security, that no amount of prewar knowledge or debates could amount to.
Although she thinks she knows the answer, she asks the question anyways, because she tries never to assume in any of his cases. He is predictably unpredictable like that.
"Why does it make you feel safe?" It's always a risk asking questions like this from him – he is the stripe of intellectual that finds excessive explanation disenchanting. It is a quality that normally resides in poets not scientists, though it makes him rather exceptional.
"Does this need so thorough an explanation? You're singular in that you pose no threat. Your admiration of me," there is a dip in his voice then, and she realizes it's because he cannot say love. "Which you claim isn't rooted in lust of the things I could give you, is pure, if I daresay the word. Ample evidence has been provided to support this claim, and I do believe you when you make it."
How astounding is the power dynamic between them. Eris is entirely confident that anyone else would stoke her sedition and rebelliousness if they attempted to assert dominance over her. Except, it felt so very natural between them. He maintained a leadership between them that was difficult for her to find fault in, and managed to nurture her need for a father figure.
"If you need more evidence, then you only need to ask for it." His use of the word evidence in this context is so characteristic of his verbose, elite speech patterns, combined with the ineptitude of an upper league egghead. Eris leaves her seat, and feels the bland carpet between her toes as she makes her way over to him. "I'll give you evidence, we can do lots of in vivo experiments together if it pleases you."
One of his brows is rising higher the closer she gets, and the resulting amusement on his handsome, smug face is priceless, one of those moments she'd like to capture on a quality, prewar camera.
Finally she stood over him, though both knew who was really in control here. She leaned down on the long table, her elbows resting on it whilst she inched nearer to him. If her eggs were not scrambled so thoroughly by that gunshot, she imagined she might've been intimidated by the intensity of his focus. Or, maybe not. She's been punished enough by now, that experience tells her that she was nigh impossible to intimidate.
"What would you have done if I'd shown up like this to work?" She teases, laughing quietly to herself.
Bemused, he scanned her up and down in a farce of a true examination, and splayed his long, pale fingers under his chin, stroking it in thought.
"It was unusual for me to undertake those tasks that otherwise would've been done by management. My interactions with lower-ranking employees were few, but, considering you would not be a normal employee of mine, I may have handled it myself. If you had already been so emboldened as to come to work in your sleepwear, it's likely that you would've already broken some other atrocious guideline previously. I will assume it's tardiness, or perhaps disobedience. In that case, I may congratulate you for exposing the weak links in my business. Your attitude would've proven useful to reveal incompetence in my employees."
"Why do you say so?" Her head turned at the curious statement.
"Any employee of mine who allowed themselves to be incensed by you clearly deserves to have their position reconsidered. Your disobedience could be utilized to find and correct complications within the chain of command. I find that you're rarely disobedient by sheer coincidence."
"That's implying they wouldn't be overwhelmingly charmed by me. Are you suggesting that I'm unpalatable to most?" Her fingers drum on the wooden table, the sound was slightly different from real wood, but if she was asked, she wouldn't be able to tell how.
"That's exactly what I'm implying, I'll say it plainly if that's what it takes to get through to you." His fingers caught hers as they inched closer to his tie. She's always had this comical image of pulling around a businessman by his tie.
Compared to when she first met him, he is far more comfortable with plain speak around her. She theorizes that his hesitancy to use plain speak is a cleverly constructed barrier between himself and the people, though it could just as easily be due to his very real inability to get on the level of other people.
"Can you say it plainly then? Because I have a thick skull." Her grin was coy, and her request playful. A perennial opportunist, Eris took hold of his tie while he was distracted by forming what was probably an overly eloquent answer.
"You are insufferable and unpalatable to most, but especially to me." There is a sparkle of mirth in his otherwise unreadable expression, though last time she noticed that his eyes expressed what even his voice could not.
His passion has always been quiet, but he was perhaps the most passionate and convicted personality she's yet known. Much like his confidence, it is bold in an understated manner.
Eris is the first to let her laughter bubble over and spill, rolling in the surreal air between them and eliciting a dignified scoff from him. Feeling especially daring, she figures he'll let her sneak onto his lap, and moves to do just that, for he is still a man after all, even if he'd like to be beyond such profanity.
There is no illusion that he isn't allowing this, nearly every interaction between them is him allowing her or giving her silent permission. It's simply how he works. Despite how antithetical it is to her own list of irredeemable and redeemable qualities, she does secretly enjoy when he sets boundaries and tells her what is allowed and what is not. At the end of the day, Eris should never be allowed to be in charge of anything.
His eyes watch her closely while she perches comfortably on his leg, a strange feeling because there is absolutely no discomfort – human legs are, in reality, very uncomfortable to sit on, especially when one is as thin as they are.
"Were you ever married, before?" He scoffed at that, and Eris immediately picked up on some sort of inside joke occurring between he and himself.
"Nearly." He replied with dry humor.
Scandalous. She was a hopeless gossip, and this was like a carrot on a stick for her.
House looked rigid as he had last time she'd interfaced with his technologies, but was noticeably more comfortable now, especially now that he was talking about himself. Either of his arms rested on the sides of his chair, and if she squinted, she'd say he was slouching.
"What happened to her? Well, obviously, she's not me, so that's where she went wrong, let's be perfectly frank." Eris blinked rapidly in a bimboish show.
"Charlotte." One upturned corner of his lips told her half the story – it was a funny one if it made him crack. "Charlotte refused to sign the prenuptial agreement."
Now there's a rarity – an obscure prewar term that she's never heard before. Her lips form a stunned 'o' as she searches her vocabulary for the word, but comes up empty.
"By the look on your face, I'll assume you've never heard of that term. The postwar world has no use for it, property rights and assets being as muddled as they are. In those days, men and women could choose to sign prenuptial agreements before their marriage, though it was usually men who wanted it, as you'll soon understand. It's a contract that details which properties will belong to whom in the event of a divorce, done in advance so that one spouse can't take half of the other's properties." He explains, pleased that he can lecture her. "And I owned many properties." That last part is said as an afterthought.
Even though she doesn't need to, Eris bites her lip but soon the flood gates open and burst, leaving her cackling like a madwoman.
"I can imagine a scenario where you tell her, 'um, this marriage isn't a welfare state, Charlotte', ugh, that's priceless. You know, it sounds like a very ingenious way to divine if a fiance's intentions are pure, but it could really go either way. The man might be testing her, but she could be testing him too." To her, it sounds like an extremely dystopian practice among the outrageously wealthy. Dystopian, because it was in demand to begin with.
Eris leans an arm on his chest and props her elbow up on his shoulder, stretching out somewhat, even if she didn't need to. Where is the line drawn between instinct and habit, she wonders?
"Use of it has largely been replaced by violent disputes, the world has forgotten about settling matters with any measure of civility. I will reintroduce it – no, not the prenuptial specifically," he looked at her pointedly, likely guessing she was about to pick on him, "as I already have begun to do with my police force."
Before she could even reply, he segued into something else, only tangentially connected to what he was saying before.
"What are your relations with the NCR? I ask you, on account of the next thing I'll need you to do before the waiting game, if you will, truly begins." A curious question from him, considering he already knew half of the answer. "I have noticed you traveling to Camp McCarran before, and what measures we take will depend on your good graces with them."
Her head lolls to the side while she considers how to answer that, since she considers her relations with them incredibly vague. On one hand, they believe House is neutral in their war, while on the other hand, they see his city as a hostile environment that must be colonized and subjected to NCR taxation and bureaucracy, and there is no longer any question of whether she is on his side or not. Individually, the NCR's people appear to admire her for her dubious services to them, but collectively, she'd not count on any good opinion from them.
"It's complicated, as anyone might expect. Sociopolitics is never simple, you know. On principle, they should and probably do have me branded as a person of suspicion, especially after the fire show in outer Vegas, but.. I think you know as well as I do, that evidence of misbehavior can take a long time to process when any bias is involved. Not only did I release one of their officers from Legion captivity, but I also saved their president himself. By the way, was that intentional on your part? It only now came to my attention, now that you mention you need me to do something seedy with the NCR."
His only answer as a smug, conceited look, one that made her feel like a child being mollified by their parents. Of course, he never did anything for one reason. It left her to wonder why he was letting her visit with him, even cozy up to him. Not only did saving Kimball from assassination give him an easy scapegoat, it also served to make himself, and by extension her, appear less threatening, a condition she knew he needed for the long maneuver he was playing.
"If I could have your mind for one day, I'd finish every chore that needs to be done in less than an hour tops. Your efficiency for solving several problems using only one stratagem baffles me, because I feel like I approach any problem with several. I'll stop myself, your ego is probably as blown as a Californian trooper on Strip night by now." She blinks before she remembers what she wanted to say, "so, as I was saying, they've never put up flashing signs proclaiming their support of me, but Hsu seems fond.
"One thing I've learned through being around them, is that here in the Mojave, they look to Hsu for moral directive, not Oliver or any of the senators out west. It reminds me somewhat of how the frumentarii would theoretically look to Vulpes for guidance, and not Caesar, because Caesar is not in the same frontier as they are. There is a kind of subliminal, impotent rage within Hsu and every other trooper at McCarran toward their superiors, because they know they're fighting an unpopular and unsupported war, and many of them have gone native.
Shaking herself, she noticed that he was following everything she said, but he was beginning to grow impatient. Right, she did have a habit of taking ages to get to a point.
"To make a long story short.. who am I kidding?" She shrugged and offered him a toothy grin then, which was only returned in the form of deepening crinkles at the corner of either eye. "Most of them think I represent the people here, which, in a certain perspective, I suppose I do. Seeing as they want good press with the people, they will pretend to like me even if they don't. Hsu is a different story though, he's smitten with me."
"Is he? Do tell, my dear." His question was posed as jealous, but he only sounded like he was enjoying himself. It was likely that he knew no man could eclipse him. If they tried, he'd start building casinos next to their home and selling Assaultrons to their worst enemy, and they'd lose within a week.
"Yes, he is." She leaned nearer to him, almost touching her nose to his own. His was an aquiline and classic affair, long and slightly hooked, while hers was small and shaped like a button. "He even invited me on a date, but I declined.. I told him I only like older men. And by older men, I mean very, very old men."
"There are many prewar ghouls available for your pleasure, if so. Gomorrah serves every palate, I've heard." He suggested, and Eris shook her head and played along.
"Blackjack and hookers doesn't even come close to cutting it, I'm afraid." Her fingers fumble with his tie, so refined a fabric, ahead even of the suits and dresses in her rooms.
"Poor Colonel Hsu, then. I pity the men who continuously wish for things that they will never have." He smirks at her then, a mirror of one of Eris' hallmarks, only it speaks a thousand words where hers only speak a hundred. She feels as though he meant for his caricature of pity to be directed at more than one of Hsu's wishes. "Before you began yammering, I intended to tell you rather straightforwardly what will need to be done. Mind you, we're not to proceed until the time is right, and as you have requested, I will keep you informed so you'll not be surprised when that is.
"Our next objective is to visit the El Dorado substation-"
She opens her mouth to interrupt him then, and exclaims, "I think I know where that is. That's deep NCR territory, isn't it?"
"I'm surprised you remembered it, since it is but a humble electrical substation. Though however humble it may appear, it has immense strategic value, for it is there that you'll jumpstart the Lucky 38's dormant reactor."
A thousand questions ran through her mind then, mostly pertaining to the effects this might have. Best to ask him, in any case, that is what she does best.
"What will I be doing there, and why would I need to be in the NCR's good graces to do it?" Surely, if it was an innocent journey, there would be no need to schmooze with Hsu and his boys.
This is a habit of his that she doesn't pretend to like – providing deliberately unclear and curated introductions to things. Certainly, she understood that this is what a leader must do, but she wished he knew that he didn't have to sell her a convincing story to get her approval. At this point, she's proven that she's unscrupulous with the many things she's done for him.
"Because you will be installing an override chip, which will redirect power from the NCR to Vegas." If she needed to breathe, she may have stopped just then.
That was certainly big, and bold of him.
"You're choosing to override it on the eve of war, because they will be too intent on defending Hoover Dam from Caesar. I mean, if you had done it even a month ago, they would have had the time and resources to point the finger at you, and they would have declared war. But they won't be able to declare war on both sides while all their intelligence and militia is compromised. That's very astute of you. So, how many people will I be screwing out of their electricity?"
"Exactly none. The NCR will make do with their own power grids. Then you shall see how they are little more than a bloated caricature of the American government. They've no desperate need for this region's power." How she loved the vitriol he bore for his former nation's government. She is, this time, a willing receiver of propaganda from him. "So, there is no need to worry yourself over your part in the lives of innocents. They're obviously willing to jeopardize their own electricity for the sake of this war, and any loss will have been on account of their own poor choices."
Autonomy, accountability – they are values she has had a craving for since she awoke. Countless hours, she's spent contemplating just these two things, and he valued them above all else in the people. If she were anyone else, she might just say their pairing was fairytale, meant to be.
"Thank you for being my ethical guide, suppose it's time for me to pay up?" Either corner of his lips quirked at that, and he shrugged his shoulders, jostling her arm somewhat.
"That depends on the currency.." He cooed, and her eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly adjusts, as she always does.
"Well I think we've established that I, for one, am completely broke. So, I'll have to pay you another way." She winks at him then, certain she would've been flushing in the real world.
Her muscle memory does most of the rest, as she has seen hookers and other mysterious past ladies do. She pecks him on the cheek, and trails her lips until they rest in front of his own. He is like a spider in his chair, waiting for her to walk into his web – it reminds her of why she enjoys surprises.
Here, as she learned last time, his lips are supple, shapely and regal. With a quiet confidence only he could have, he leans up to slot his lips against hers, pulling her down against his chest. Again, she decides it doesn't matter if it is not her own body experiencing this, all that matters is that she will remember it, forever. Eris concludes that neither bar fights nor debates with Followers could compare to his hard-earned affections.
Again, everything is a cliché until it happens to her. While she doesn't recall any kisses shared with other men aside from Benny, her lips know what to do, either because she is decidedly a woman, or because she has some rudimentary experience. Although, she notes, he is far more experienced.
When her tongue seeks his out, she tastes her creature comfort, cigarettes and perhaps coffee? Of course, he would've drank coffee then. How precise this technology truly is, and with him, she is sure she could get lost forever with relative ease.
He is the one who breaks their kiss, and Eris is only half-sober as she meets his eye, so dark and intense.
"I like being indebted to you." She teases, stroking his mustache with her fingers.
"I like it when you are indebted to me." They laugh among themselves, a truly musical harmony.
There is something wrong with both of them, she knows, but it only bothers her when they are apart.