hello guys, welcome to this lengthy chapter that allows you to sip a coffee without moving. it was a drag to write but you can probably tell where i've been writing high again, i don't know. i'm not too happy with it but it needed to be done i suppose. in fact i don't even know what i am doing.
i recommend some sweet valley
it's nearly christmas so merry christmas to you guys around the world. i hope you're enjoying your snow.
Only two weeks after killing Benny, Annie was back on her feet and crushing the skull of Big Saul with the hard vertical vibrations of a bookcase. Boone had taken out Nero with a bust of pellets to his chest, spattering blood over the very stony-faced Cachino. The once great feeling of bone crumbling beneath her palm was nothing more than a bore to her now. Killing under order was just not as fresh as killing for loose change.
They (or just Annie with Boone on a leash) had become House's personal 'workers', picking up the slack of the now dead protégée and turning profit and not dire loss. House used Annie as a dish rag, cleaning up all the spills and 'free will's that House couldn't deal with personally. It was like she was a gun for hire, which was definitely something she didn't feel like doing. She was her own woman.
Annie had grown weary of The Strip, the place once beautiful and bright now a constant reminder of her neon prison. She hadn't signed up to be held hostage by a barrage of pixels, especially with the thought of the death-bots wheeling all around them. Something she felt would be a life-changing moment was smothered by a wet blanket printed with the face of a man far past death.
That night after coming home from the Gomorrah, Annie disappeared to House's suite before bursting through the elevator doors an hour later. She flounced around in front of him for a while, bouncing on a silent fight in her mind as he watched her with amused eyes. Literally dancing around a subject it seemed, folding his arms with the pride of knowing her like a soul mate. She finally gave up and only found time to full the bathroom curtains closed.
Boone turned to the dining room, taking things from the fridge to sooth the ache in his stomach left by the empty feeling that was gnawing constantly at his gut. His mind confirmed Annie's worst fears – boredom. He had left Novac to find a path of bloodied Legion bodies, not a golden-brick road to luxury.
But he stayed because Annie was still there. His conscience was already a half-played jenga set and he did not need the Annie-block to be pulled out just yet. She was a part of the foundation – 'losing' (he used that term lightly) her would probably mean the collapse of life once again. Then there would be nothing to live for, just a bunch of blocks to pick up to build for the third time in ten years. Not that he cared for her, not at all… he just knew that if he left her alone in the wasteland she would be deathclaw chow within a week. Living with her dinner-plate eyes in the back of his mind would send him mad.
Well, mad-er than he was now.
"Boone?" Annie was drying her hair with a towel at the foot of the bed, dressed in her new lightweight metal armour. For the first time since they had arrived in New Vegas, her face was free of make up. He had forgotten that her cheeks were flicked with freckles, remembering that she was actually human and not a painted doll with a killing complex. "I've got somewhere to be. I'm going to leave tonight."
She packed her bags silently, and he could see the words itching to jump from her tongue but she bit them back with the gapped pegs she called teeth. She looked thoroughly unimpressed, though he didn't dare say anything. Not that he said much anyway. Whatever she had to do alone was none of his business.
"I'm going to head down to the 188, pick up that Veronica girl. You can walk with us as far as Novac, and then I have to leave you for a while. I know you won't ask why."
She turned to lean her lower back against a bookcase, flattening her palms around the top shelf.
"I won't be gone too long, I promise you that. You're a big boy, I'm sure you can handle a couple of days without me to look after. Go have fun on the Strip, or, er… stay in Novac. Tab is on me." She sounded strained, like it was hard for her to let him down. Boone was a prime companion who knew Annie like the back of his hand… so; really he didn't understand the reason she would leave him behind… "Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not looking like anything." He leant his hip next to her, crossing his arms. Even with his eyes hidden by tinted glass he looked menacing. Now, after all his thoughts about 'needing to keep the girl safe' did he realise that his life really wasn't that simple. She would find a way to slip out of his grasp – like she always did - always throwing herself headfirst into things that needed a foot in the door beforehand.
She smiled up at him sweetly, eyes grazing over his rigid face.
"Are you going to miss me or something?" She ribbed, punching him in the gut. He didn't take the time to flinch, only staring her down more intently than the last time. "So you're not going to ask me where I'm going, you're just going to stare it out of me?" She tsk'd "That's not gonna work, buster. I beat a god damn gun at a staring contest- your steely eyes of persistence ain't going to work on me."
A ghost of a smile drifted past his lips and he straightened up to walk away. Annie watched him head towards the door, grinding her teeth at the thought of being without her own personal bodyguard for a couple of days. But then again, if she even attempted to get him into the Legion camp he would probably swing into a rampage.
There was still a lot of pent up anger lurking in the dregs of Boone's heart, and it didn't take a genius to see it. It was just safer to leave him behind – less chance of him dying under a pile of sweaty men and more of a chance of her returning home to his sweet, sweet face.
The thought of sudden separation pierced the air, letting in a wisp of sexual tension. It left a moist feeling of 'what now?' like the universe was actually suggesting they take advantage of the over-large and under-used bed. If Annie was to die at Cottonwood Cove, she knew she would regret not commandeering his body. But there was no chance, absolutely no chance that he would ever go for that.
Not after that night at the Wrangler. Because that night, other than loosening his joints and momentarily clearing the hazy horizon, tiled another layer of brick around his brain – even if she could have walked to her death the thought of running his fingers down the soft skin of her inner thigh made him sick. He ached for Carla, not a freckle-faced, gap-toothed thing.
"Boone!" She called again and he stopped, stooped in the doorway. He turned to see her staring at him with her brow raised, mouth open ready to speak but nothing came out. She shifted from foot to foot, wringing her hands before wiping her brow. "… we leave in half an hour."
Annie left Boone at Novac in dawn's light. Veronica was piping words faster than Annie could, and the other tittered along in agreement. The warbling of the two women almost warranted a few weeks down time. Boone was excited at the idea of escaping the constant noise in the comfort of his old room—
No comfort, just guilt. His excitement was extinguished instantly at the thought.
Annie slipped a couple of hundred caps in his front pockets as she gave him a quick punch for good luck. She looked radiant in the morning sun, Boone swinging back to the idea of a warm woman with a golden halo igniting the tips of her hair. He burnt to go with Annie and explore the wasteland, like they were supposed to do together, but she had already laid down the law.
"Chin up, soldier boy." Her voice was muffled by tobacco lockjaw as her hand patted his cheek awkwardly - trying to show some sort of physical goodbye without making it too weird. His jaw clenched at her inappropriate contact, the smoke from her cigarette blooming tiredly between their faces. She rolled the filter between her teeth. "Veronica'll take great care of me. She promises."
"Swear it on my little ol' heart." The woman piped up from behind her, power fist covering all of her tiny chest. Annie just grinned.
He was left lazily under the dinosaur, rifle in one hand and the other clenched with a pinch of something like jealousy. There was nothing stopping him from leaving and doing his own thing, but he felt physically bound back to Novac once again.
Boone visited Cliff Briscoe to ask for his night shift back temporarily (and for free), and although Cliff was stiff about it he agreed all the same. There was no reason in knocking back the extra help. Novac life chugged on like a sailboat, the days hot and the nights freezing. He didn't dare step foot into his old apartment; breaking into Annie's instead to feel bad about himself on her unmade bed. His mind was swimming with feelings of abandonment, coming to an altering epiphany that he actually missed her. It was far too quiet, and when he made the bed in the morning he found himself missing the heated patch where her body should have been.
How pathetic, he scolded himself. Did he not remember the days of agony that grated by through the folds of her lips? Did he forget how she prodded, teased and tempted him for a month straight? The companionship was not perfect but it kept his brain level steady and on task… She was so mentally draining but the numbness was something welcomed with open arms.
She returned a week and a half later in the crosshairs of his scope. She was laughing haughtily at something Veronica had said; the wildlife skittering around at the boisterous voices that carried miles ahead. The women beat the mutants to death with their respective weapons, laughing at sad punch lines to bad jokes.
He watched Annie point at the sniper's nest, probably catching the glint of his glasses under the moon. Her hand raised and pointed before saluting him with that same grin on her face. The girl's armour was torn and Veronica's nose was bloody but they both seemed high-spirited.
Twenty minutes later, the black-haired woman was behind him in the mouth of the dinosaur. She greeted him with a friendly tap on the hip, leaning between two pegged dinosaur teeth with her flat palms. Her eyes were instantly on his, looking down into the space between his face and glasses.
"Hello handsome. Missed me?"
He snuffed at her, lowering his rifle to stand up straight and languidly nod at her. Her brows rose and she grinned, eyes returning to the flat sands in front of them. "I thought so. I knew deep down that you like me more than you put out." She drawled sarcastically, popping a smoke in her mouth. "Are you rostered on forever here or can we go whenever?"
"I should stay until morning." He spoke to her for the first time in what seemed like a lame eternity. "When's the last time you slept?" Her wide eyes were rimmed a swollen violet.
"I only woke up a couple of hours ago." She sighed at him like a child to a mother "Oh and my trip was fine, thank you very much. I punched a gecko with a power fist for the first time in my life and it was very cool." The fumes spewed out of the dinosaur's mouth like an overcrowded bar, Boone reaching for her pack of matches.
"Sounds like it was a tough mission." The drag of the match on paper fizzled as she guffawed at him.
"You wouldn't even begin to imagine." Annie turned and leant against the teeth, kicking one leg over the other to check him over with rogue eyes. The feeling made him uncomfortable, but all the while he was still glad to see her and her sticky grin that seemed way overdue.
Boone was late to the Veronica Train. Her humour fell on his deaf ears, Annie cackling all the way to the 188 but her shadowy partner simply lurked plain faced. Whether she was funny or not, Boone did not know. Annie laughed at everything and anything, including the desperate comedy ghoul who worked at the wrangler.
They left the brunette at the 188 turnoff however, Annie slapping the girl on the back and leaving a kiss on the cheek.
"You are more than welcome to come and see us at the Strip anytime. We have plenty of beds and food and bathtubs to spare." Annie nudged Boone with her elbow. He shifted awkwardly to the other foot while the younger girl beamed at them.
Watching the Strip glow through the deep purple skies, Annie felt sad. Veronica had left them a while ago, Annie and Boone slowly plodding back 'home' to their monotonous days of dressing nice and playing Hit Man. There was something so much better about the feeling of kicked up dirt and sun-dried skin – more real and less boring. She had a feeling Boone felt the same.
Holding up her hand and rapping him on the chest with the back of her hand, she stopped him.
"Wanna wander around for a while? We don't have to go back so soon…"
He looked down at her listlessly and she huffed a laugh at him.
"I'm not propositioning you, Boone, I just want to stay away from House a little longer. I don't want to go back and sleep in the air conditioning…" She kicked her boots in the sullen sand. "I haven't bathed in a week and I feel great!" Her palms were to the sky and a sly but small smile crept onto his face. "D'you want to go break into the Repconn HQ? I bet that place is rat city. I would like to shoot some rats."
"Break into the Repconn HQ…" He mumbled at her. "With all those robots and all."
"I-…" Annie stopped short, reluctant to turn on her heel. "I definitely did not think about that." She cleared her throat. "But… Now we have to go so I don't think myself a coward faced with a robot problem."
"I won't tell anyone…" He trailed off at her mental dilemma. She shrugged, shucking her boots up her legs with a tug of her fingertips.
"Come on, Boone, Veronica talked so much about pre-war machinery and it made me think a lot." She tugged his shirtsleeve with her wrist at her shoulder. "She told me that there's a solar system model in there. It would be a total riot, don't you think? How small and insignificant we really are in aspect of everything?"
"Veronica knows a lot."
She waved him off, starting to walk. He caught step immediately, scoffing at her words before shoving his hands in his pockets. "You probably know a lot too, Boone, you just don't talk." She cooed, looking up at him with burnt eyes. "I'm sure there's whole books of knowledge just waiting to be cracked out of that big egg of yours."
"Well..." Just like a teenage boy talking to a pretty girl, his ears burnt in the morning air. "Thank you."