I've been listening to A LOT of Simon and Garfunkel while writing over this past week. If you haven't had the pleasure of actually listening to them (how have you not, seriously) you should definitely look them up. Buy their stuff on iTunes, I don't know.
And, I've been following the tracking graph for this story and it's getting pretty popular. Surely all these views can't be from myself... let me know, in the comments section... let me know...
PS back to Brando here, if you have ever seen A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) then you'll get what I mean when I say I see Boone as Brando. The clothes and general mood, really, not the rapey psychopath side of things. 'CARLA!' ... 'CARRRRRLA!'
Annie bought them both drinks when she returned to bed that night. Sitting on her crossed legs, she watched Boone with heavy eyes. Mouth hidden by the rim of a glass, she offered his – gently letting it pass to his hands as he accepted. The pillow wall that they built each night lay half done, the last piece rested forgotten at his knee.
The courier had turned on the radio on her way to bed, trying to lighten the mood even the slightest. Not that it helped at all, only added a comedic back track to their dreary treaty.
"I'm sorry that I worried you." Grating the taste of whiskey off of her tongue with her teeth, Annie held out her hand in an apologetic gesture. Boone's eyes were free of his glasses, giving her a chance to see the flicker of recognition that flashed by.
"Ask me for my 'protection' and then walk straight into a bad situation." He shrugged, grabbing her hand long enough to shake it. "I accept."
"Thanks for understanding. Surely all this time together has allowed you to gather that I'm really not one for thinking things through. But tonight I got lucky, heh… Well," holding up her finger to pause the conversation, Annie threw the last shot of juice down her throat. She coughed. "I had a good talk tonight with Benny's best man. We made this whole plan about what we can do to bring the fucker down."
"Sounds like a real nice guy. Not too loyal, I take it." Watching Annie stagger up on her skinny legs, he closed his eyes and lay back on the headboard. The courier grabbed the bottle, heading back to lie on her stomach beside him.
"He's a decent guy, Boone. Just not too keen on getting his ass kicked back into the wastes." The clink of glass on glass opened his eyes, tiredly holding out his own for a second serve.
"I was under the impression that you were looking for blood rain." She really liked the way Boone could shoot her down with such a calm look on his face.
"I figured it would be a bad idea if I decided to massacre an entire hotel of attractive men. It would be a living blasphemy."
Boone let out a soft 'heh'.
"But still, all this preparation is exciting. Maybe there's more to life than mindless bloodshed." She winked at him, pulling herself back up on her elbows to take a sip of her drink. An awkward smile (small but new) forced itself onto his face, the alcohol thawing his cheeks to a warm, toasty feeling.
"There's a lot more to life, that's for sure." Resting the glass on his knee, he stared off to the door. The chair that they had placed under the doorknob was straining against the off-coloured carpet, sending Boone little faith about their safety in the old casino.
Licking his bottom lip, he looked over at the girl who was smiling all the same. She had her hands curled around her glass, staring at the sloshing peach liquid with blank eyes.
Her profile was sharper than he had realised, like slopes of a small canyon. She looked like she'd had her nose broken before too, the bump on the bridge protected by a little pink scar. The woman was a rag doll, stuffed with a blended brain they had built from the fleshy debris picked up from her desert grave.
Boone decided that it was just plain bad luck to wake up with no collection of anything. Remembering came easy to Annie, but she never really remembered useful things. Mostly feelings, she explained to him one night a while before, feelings and faces. She could even explain just how much it hurt to have one of Manny's fists in your face, which Boone could understand because he had experienced it himself.
It was so odd how fate had a way of following strings.
"Hey lounge lizard, you done staring at me?" Annie's eyes were bright with a polite humour. He sniffed out of his daydream, focusing back in on the courier's face.
"You wish." He gestured for the bottle and she shrieked in approval.
"Are you joking with me?" She punched his arm repetitively in an affectionate way. "You need to drink more often, you are a completely different person…-" She trailed off, eyes widening with the brightness of her cheeks.
"I was just thinking…" He started, cutting her off to avoid the conversation. He didn't want to ruin a good thought so soon. It wasn't often that a weird streak of faith ran through him - it like waving at a cruise ship from the dock below.
"Ooh, do tell?" She rolled onto her stomach to sit up next to him. Her enthusiasm gave him a mild stage fright.
"How things all tie together…" He kept his glass to his lips to keep his voice low. "You to Manny to me."
"Are you sure you've never taken chems?" She cracked at him, eyes squinting as she thought to herself. They sat in silence, Boone dwelling on the Khans at Bitter Springs while Annie thought about his words. Things did tend to tie together in the universe, like a happy author weaving a desert story. Of all the people, it had to be a particularly quiet sniper and a questionable Jezebel, roped together by an ultimately estranged friend.
Annie felt she owed Carla a thank you for lending Annie her husband. She'd grown used to the company of the man, knowing that if she did die prematurely she'd shake the woman's hand in the after life. She had left behind a pretty decent soul – even if he was a brick wall half of the time… Annie probably would have rotted on the road to the Repconn Centre without him.
Spending days on end with a single person really gives one something to think about. Your bodies tend to sync with each other, only really responding to their cues. Annie spoke when Boone couldn't, and he killed the things she didn't know how to. They meshed together like the taste of a radscorpion casserole. You'd think it wouldn't work, but it surprisingly did.
He reached up and took his beret off, resting it on the bedside table, downing the rest of his drink before setting it gently on the wood. His fingers rubbed his eyes, watching the younger woman sip the bottle quietly.
"I'm going to bed. Would you like the light on, or off?"
"Off please." She had already put a cigarette in her mouth, Boone's path back to bed lit by the warm glow of the lighter. Annie offered him one as he sat down beside her, his palm crushing the already brittle packet as he tapped one through the hole in the top. They smoked in silence, faces glowing like the burning cherries.
Annie woke with the realisation that she was going to kill Benny that night... that or she was walking to her certain death. Either way, the idea was thrilling - her body bouncing with a positive buzz throughout the day.
Standing around in her underwear and hair curlers, she ran through her plan with each swipe of mascara. Boone had disappeared back to Freeside for the day (although he decided to sneak to the Vegas ruins to pick off fiends) because he had started to develop cabin fever.
She couldn't blame the man for wanting to escape for a while. The two spent each living moment together, cooped up in the Lucky 38 but only resigned to one room. Annie didn't trust House, and Boone understood that. He was more than content to sacrifice half a bed, considering the presidential suite was probably used to host much larger guests than him. The beds could fit three people without even trying.
But seeing her face every day was beginning to become the norm. He thought about that as he picked off Fiends from the corner of a rotting building. His back was against the cooling concrete, the sun beginning to sink into the ground behind him, the shrieks and zaps of laser pistols not enough to sink through the wall that protected him.
He didn't mind killing fiends. They usually deserved it. They were the kind of people beyond repair; like animals travelling in a very unstable pack. Hopped up on all sorts of drugs, they never played nice or fair and often took advantage of their unbalanced sense of right and wrong. It was like humans were slowly reversing the theory of evolution, returning to their primeval stages.
Fiends were relentless, continuing to file out into plain view – so fucked up that they didn't understand they were walking to their own deaths. And he'd kill them all, or at least try to until he ran out of ammo.
Annie stood in front of the mirror and sighed, eyes shuffling over the wrecked playing card. The woman on the front seemed so confident, winking from behind little black clubs that hid all her bits and pieces. The courier lit a cigarette, wandering around the apartment with little to do. She always managed to get ready too early – too eager to start the night when the sun had only just set.
Boone returned an hour later, out of ammo and low on caps. The ding of the elevator made the girl jump, tugging on a house dress to greet the man at the bedroom door. Leaning against the frame, she smiled gently as he appeared – scanning over him with easy eyes. His faded olive shirt was stuck to his back, itching to be taken off and changed but left alone due to company. There was something stirring in her; a soft arousal burning from the torch of masculinity. She had a thing for men who were... well, men. Not smooth-talking walking suits, but hardworking, dirty men. And in that moment Boone was the epitome of that.
"You're very sweaty." She pointed out, moving slightly to let him push past her. "Have you been back at the Wrangler… hanging out with Beatrix?"
"I'm going to take some caps." He told her, dipping into the leather purse. "Ran out of ammunition."
"Well, alright then." Folding her arms, her eyes followed him about the room. "Now I'm going out tonight to do 'the deed'. Are you staying here, or are you coming too?"
"Do you want me to?"
"You don't have to. I have it all under control." She looked ridiculous with a head full of curlers. Her smile stayed the same regardless, her usual face full of make up heavier and darker to bring out features she didn't really have. "But considering you've been cooped up in here all week I figured you'd want to get out a little."
Boone shook his head, much preferring to tend to the laser burns on his legs. He'd never tell her that though, favouring her idea of his slipping sanity. His life in Novac after Carla had died was exactly the same. Work, sleep, work and sleep… If he could do it there, he could certainly do the same on the Strip. Besides, Boone didn't feel right walking around on the same asphalt where his late wife walked only years before.
The sooner that Annie killed Benny, the sooner they could return to the Wastes. Although the soft bed and warm baths were a plus, they didn't beat the dull thud of a Legionnaire's skull hitting the ground. He often fell asleep fantasizing about that sound.
"I'll stay here." Pushing the caps into his pocket, he brushed past her again. "I'll be back." She patted him on the lower back as he left, the man shooting her a very tired look as the elevator doors closed around him. The woman's face grew red to match her sticky grin, returning to the mirror to remove the cylinders from her hair; fervently hoping that Boone would one day man up and accept her offer.