Hello ladies~
It has been a fair while since I have seen your beautiful faces but I assure you that things are starting to pull together with this story and soon we'll be getting right back on track and chugging back along on the Vegas train. Now, I would like to place a small amount of blame of my recent dabbling into the world of roleplaying (I honestly hadn't tried it before) - because I've been practising and roping things up and really putting some ideas into old Annie (is anyone still even reading this?)
If anyone is still confused by my writing, which I completely understand because sometimes I love to rabble, please let me know in any way shape or form because I'll go to the ends of the earth to help you or talk to you or even just stare at the computer screen in complete awe and content.
Can't Get Out of This Mood - Kay Kyser & his Orchestra
Annie was having trouble staying straight on the road to Repconn. It took everything in her not to turn back around and leave Boone to sort out the mess she had talked them into. It seemed only fair in her eyes, considering the man owed her the world at that moment.
The sky above was heavy with clouds once again, though it didn't appear to want to rain at all. Only the man above knew how much the Mojave needed the proper sunlight – everything soggy and simmering in the currently muggy air. Creaking and swaying in the soft wind, the rocket ship that loomed over them was a third presence; faded windows like leering eyes far above.
Annie's rage had simmered down quite quickly, a drawback to her hasty plans. There was nothing she could do to control what she felt, she understood that, but even though the thoughts were so intense and gruesome she couldn't bring herself to do anything about it at all. Annie was trapped by an overwhelming need to be rational towards Boone – her counterpart for how many months now – but still felt the festering anger spurt from whoever she used to be.
Boone was all she had known for what felt like a decent part of her (new) life. He was there when the rest wasn't, and that was hard to comprehend. Even if she had lived everything up until now, Boone was the oldest part of her new self. That woman who she used to be didn't feel like her any more. She was Annie – not Anna. But Anna was clawing back up her throat and into her mind again and it was unsettling.
She had been blessed with a hypersensitive body, the feel of the Mojave breeze on her cheeks like an irritating scratch across her already dry face. Her limbs felt like they were screwed on incorrectly and her brain seemed withered and sucked dry after the mass effort of keeping things calm. It did a good job, Annie had to agree, but even she couldn't stop the shivers in her hands.
A tribe of ghouls noticed them at Rex's growl, sprinting instantly towards the two only to be picked off by the crack of Boone's rifle a few feet behind Annie. The courier grimaced at the intrusive noise and headed forward, uncomfortable with the feeling of the man so close to her.
All she had to do was get Repconn cleaned out and then maybe they could get home and she could wander off with Veronica and Cass for a few days… maybe weeks… and maybe Boone would get the message and just leave. It would be easier.
The idea made her visibly cringe, shaking her head quickly to dismiss the idea. There was something simmering inside of her that was still tied to the man who had kept her safe regardless of whatever guilt he had sloshing around in his head. Boone wouldn't, and couldn't, bring himself to do anything bad – like a wasteland saint that kept his priorities straight – and the thought of him doing anything other than that was so confusing and hurtful.
She knew he wouldn't do that – couldn't do that – but he still had done it… and her mind had confirmed all the clues; Manny's sad eyes and Boone's stupid cryptic note that day he had crawled off to die… Her stomach was shredding itself at the idea of having to choose a happy medium. She wanted to destroy the NCR in the most foul and shameful way but Boone was-… Boone was the man she had grown to like. Like, a lot.
And Boone, regardless of his gut full of mess and wrongdoings, wouldn't allow her to start genocide. In fact, Boone would not be happy with her if she kicked Crocker's ass straight off the Strip. But who the fuck cares what Boone thinks? her mind snapped at her in a fit of anger and she pushed it back down, glad she hadn't eaten anything because it would have been rushing out of her throat.
The sniper picked off another fleshy mess, the body bouncing on the rubbled concrete past Annie's boots that walked calmly to the main doors.
"Anna." Boone grunted from behind her and turning around felt like pulling teeth. He was holding out the shotgun they had salvaged a few months back, extending it out as a precaution against whatever was in there. Although Annie made good use of her sledge, it was always worthwhile to have a little gunpowder backing her up. It put his mind at ease at least, making it easier to register the flicker of anger in her eyes at the sight of his face.
"Thanks." She took it and wrapped her fingers around the cool barrel softly, cocking it open to check the rounds. Already loaded. She could have shot him on the spot.
Instead, she turned on her heel and pressed through the door with the nudge of her gun; greeted with the shiny green flesh of a glowing one that was tall and thin with the dankest nails she had ever seen. With one quick shriek of surprise, the courier burst the bastard into chunks with the click of a trigger.
The fact that Annie was using her ammo on the ghouls and not him was promising – but then again he shouldn't have been hoping for much at all. He deserved everything she was to throw at him, and he knew it. But she looked so lovely in the afternoon sun with her bunched hair and newly stitched armour – so he followed along like he always did. Besides, from behind, she couldn't see him unhappily watching every part of her.
Another ghoul jumped out and screeched, earning a squeal from the courier and another pump of the lever – blood spattering all over the front desk of the looming centre. There was a scattering of dead bodies in the foyer, one in robes and one that appeared to be a jagged mess of nightkin.
"What the fuck is that thing doing here?" Annie asked no one in particular as she nudged its rotting leg. Her eyes brightened momentarily in a moment of forgetfulness, swinging around to Boone as if she was going to say something smart. Their eye contact made her realise her mistake, mouth gaping with the start of a word but fading into an angry cough. He looked away.
Annie didn't like super mutants. There was something about them that reminded them of her last partner – a looming man with a strange amount of strength born from a life of hard drugs. Nightkin seemed to be the same, spun out on stealth boys or something… All she knew is that as a child, her father had told her that if she ever ran away, mutants would take her. And that was not something the seven year old had needed to hear.
There was a low growl from Rex once again and Annie perked, pumping the lever on her gun awkwardly to find it had nothing inside. The ammunition was in her backpack, which was easy enough to grab but she could see the eerie light of the glowing one heading down the staircase towards them. The sniper, a man usually so precise and stoic, had lost himself in his thoughts about the courier.
The girl was driving him crazy – she was all he could think about. Everything should have been sharp and painful but she was the focus of his vision, like she had been highlighted in his line of view and remained the most important thing in his current state. He should have been shot and killed – he only wanted her when he couldn't have her. How sick was that?
"Oh for fucks- Boone!" Annie had to beat the ghoul off with the butt of her gun, slamming the wooden handle down so hard that it caved the feral's skull. The creature slumped to the ground as it twitched and gargled, arm torn off by a semi-playful Rex. She stepped away as she flung back around again, arm digging in the side pocket of her bag. "Quit moping, asshole, and keep an eye out!"
The kick in the right direction set the sniper back on track and his senses finally tuned into the atmosphere. He could hear soft footsteps on the landing above them and suddenly felt uneasy about the appearance of the nightkin. He had just left a town full of mutants, and it definitely seemed like they were following him.
Rex was gagging up the rotted flesh, licking the dusty floor to get the taste from his canine tongue as Annie stalked around the room, checking things out quickly and quietly with an ease Boone had never seen from her before. The nervous nature of her current state had smoothed all her shaky edges – mind forced to be on the matter in front of her and not on the gooey feelings she felt for the other swirling force in the room.
"Hey! Over here!" A voice crackled from the speaker on the side of the front door. Boone turned to find the noise, pacing towards the small box to listen intently. Annie had paused in her spot, halfway through picking a couple of caps from a floppy ghoul corpse. "Are you listening?" The two made silent eye contact, frozen in their place at the sudden intrusion. They thought they were alone. "Go to the big room on the east side of this building and take the metal staircase all the way up. And hurry."
"Who are you?" His thumb pressed the button and he leant in closer, slightly threatening but getting no fright from the speaker box. Annie walked over quietly, slowly appearing from behind Boone to peek a look at the voice.
"Get moving." It spat, firing the courier up and sanding the sniper down. Another mission they were sucked into by Annie's lack of initiative to stay on task. He knew she wanted to be away from him, but he also knew that Annie didn't liked being bossed around by a chunk of wires and metal.
The girl reloaded the shotgun unhappily before taking a glance at her pipboy, marking a spot on the screen with the twist of a dial. Another ghoul groaned from down the hall, sending Rex into a tizzy as Boone pulled his rifle from his back. He took the slimy bastard down before he could reach the stairs.
Somewhere deep in the basement of the Repconn testing facility, Annie and Boone had found themselves on some platform of hell. Talked into helping a bunch of ghouls by an incredibly charming zombie, the two were in the lower levels attempting to clean out the basement of 'demons'.
The demons being nightkin, no doubt. That ugly motherfucker in the lobby was more than a hint of what was to come – and Boone was not excited to have known that fact. Annie was a little more naïve on the subject, hinting at what could possibly be down there but still trying to hope for the best. The last time she had faced nightkin was when they were off rescuing Raul, and she came out of that with a popped shoulder and a rubbed-raw back.
Rex was left with the ghouls for the mission, Annie not too happy with the idea of setting the King's dog free into an environment swimming with big assholes who tore shit apart for the fun of it. Rex was happy to oblige, making friends with the only smoothskin in the Bright operation. Besides, if you looked closely at the pup you could see the decay on his brain spreading quietly over the ripples.
Boone knew a little more about the subject, having just come in from Jacobstown. Throughout his time up in mutant mountains, he had also learnt more about the nightkin and their need for stealth boys. The thought of those huge blue bastards having the ability to go invisible seemed a little unfair but he had a strange sort of faith that everything would end out like it should.
If he died, he died, and that would be more than okay. Annie could make her way back to Novac by herself – considering all the ghouls were no longer there to bother her… but after that, if a Legion assassination squad came from the distance, she was fucked…
Well, he would try to stay alive until she left him at her own will. Anyway, it wouldn't have felt right to close his eyes for the last time in a dark hallway with the girl who hated him so much. He had become so indecisive on the subject of his inevitable death that it almost seemed like he actually didn't want to die anymore. He wanted to stay it straight and follow the courier through to the end.
He must have let out a sigh because Annie was looking over her shoulder at him; eyes alight with some form of curiosity.
"Nightkin." He told her plainly and Annie nodded slowly, turning back around to face the front. She holstered the shotgun on her back and pulled her sledge free, spinning it unhappily in the palms of her hands.
"Didn't even get to go to fucking Jacobstown and still have to deal with god damn mutants…" She hissed miserably to herself, stepping lightly on the grated floor. Her pipboy was on her nose, checking for the familiar red ticks on the dial that decided her life. Nothing was appearing, but Boone swore he could see creases in the walls.
"I don't like the look of this place." He said flatly and she nodded, chewing her bottom lip in thought as her eyes registered a red flash on her dial. She gagged at the thought, feeling sick at the idea of the blue bastards floating around somewhere. What if they were invisible again?
"There's something down here." She watched the red tick pace back and forth. "That's for sure." She held out her arm without turning around to face him, the man stepping forward to take a quick glance as they turned to check the perimeter. The pipboy came in handy sometimes, when it wasn't blaring stupid music and alerting enemies of their position with its bright light.
The pressurised hiss of a door squealed around the basement, turning the two around to face the looming blue monster that was muttering to himself as he exited a room down the hall. Annie let out a yelp of terror, taking a step back to get into a proper stance. The mutant, alerted by Annie's cry, roared in a mixture of horror and rage, scaring the pants off of the courier and enabling Boone to fall to one knee and take a more-than-necessary shot at its head.
His lone bullet, however, was no match for the huge bastard's thick mutant skull, and only served enough purpose to make the roaring monster more horrified and enraged. With its deep red blood drawing down its face in thick streaks, the mutant took two steps back into the room and disappeared.
The shudder of a stealth boy kicking in vibrated through the basement, making Annie arch up and stiffen like a terrified cat. "Fuck me." She whispered to herself. "You can do this Annie… They're just big people… Big… Strong… Blue… People…" She spun the sledge in her palms again, swallowing deeply. Boone was reloading his gun with something stronger.
It was so dark and Boone didn't like the idea of keeping Annie's pipboy light on. That just made them sitting ducks. He wished he would have packed some CatEye, but then again he wasn't exactly expecting to end up in a creepy old basement with a girl who probably wouldn't have minded sacrificing him to a horde of mutants.
The door beside Annie squeaked open suddenly, the sides sliding into the walls to reveal a room that seemed packed to the brim with gore bags and shattered bones. Other than that, it was empty – free of all signs of life….
That thought made Annie lurch back, nearly bumping into Boone who had charged forward to line up a shot. The two were stumped by the blackness mixed with the possibility that all the enemies they were to face were probably already out there – staring at the two… waiting to rip them limb from limb and feast on their flesh and marrow and everything else in between- Annie's stomach lurched with fear and sickness.
Boone pushed her behind him, the girl rooted to the spot in fear of the lurking monsters that were coming to get her. She suddenly remembered the scary stories the older kids would tell her as they sat around the campfire – bothered by the idea that a super mutant could pick a person up and literally tear them in half.
There was a quick, booming cry that bounced off the walls; Boone's rifle firing from a distance to spatter an angry nightkin into vision. With blood seeping from its bulging thigh, the mutant took three steps forward and took a swing at the sniper with what looked like a chunk of cement stuck to some sticks. Whatever it was, Boone pressed out-of-the-way just in time to feel the shards of concrete spit at his boots.
Annie shrieked from behind him, bringing his attention to the second mutant that had reappeared; rather mad but slightly off-kilter from the bullet in his head. That one had a sledge that was the spitting image of Annie's, the girl crouching instantly to keep out of his line of vision.
"Boone!" She called, tugging the shotgun from her back to toss it to the man. He caught it with the tips of his fingers, rolling the barrel into his hands so he could pump and shoot. The boom of the shot reverberated around the basement corridors, another two doors opening at the noise and a flickering roar of fury bursting towards them.
The mutant's head shattered all over the wall; slipping and dripping with chunks of blue skin drenched in red – little bits of brain resting at the foot of the wall as the swaying asshole above him rocked in his boots. He fell backwards with a large crash, Annie jumping back up to chuck Boone a box of ammunition while she still could.
With the first problem under wraps, Annie sprung into a full height of fury. Watching her partner nearly get his head smashed in by a blue motherfucker was not what she wanted to do that day – annoyed with herself that she had been talked into such a dangerous task. She couldn't help that even without skin, Jason Bright was still a handsome and charming man. This is why she needed Boone – he kept her head straight and on task (even if that meant him being the main focus of her sexual prowess… it had already saved them a lot of trouble)
While the sniper reloaded quickly in a crouch, Annie blurred past him to skim to the second stumbling mutant, brushing up against the wall to get behind the beast. He roared with such anger that it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand, the courier feeling a slight pinch of regret when he turned around to find her already halfway through a swing.
The nightkin raised its forearm in attempt to block, the sledge swinging at an alarmingly fast rate - snapping the bones easily with the crush of energy. There was a spatter and a spurt of blood; the monster wailing in anguish as Annie realised her strength for the first time in a while. The thing's arm had to be the size of one of her thighs.
It was too bad that she had been sucked up in a moment of pride, because the wailing monster reached out and grabbed her with his good arm. The two sledges dropped, abandoned and bouncing together to send heaving and heavy clangs down the hallways. The mutant's fucked arm was wobbling like a rubber prosthetic, the pain pouring more coal onto the beast's already brightly burning rage. His heavy fingers were digging into her stomach – parts Annie never even knew she had were aching and crying and trying not to burst at the ever-tightening grip.
With her face reddening from the squeezing pressure, Annie choked and muttered and gasped as she attempted to pry the fat fingers from around her middle. She could feel her bones creaking and shrieking with pain, her legs losing all feeling as it lifted her up from the ground to give her a big shake. It roared incomprehensible nothings into her face, Annie's eyes bulging at her worst nightmare coming to life. She was like a sad little ragdoll in the grips of an angry toddler.
The pressure around her middle started to buckle, her eyes finding it hard to stay on one thing as her entire being readied itself for defeat. One large clench and the mutant could have forced her organs up her throat and out her mouth.
She slapped her thigh for her knife in one last attempt to fight, tears welling in her eyes when she found nothing. The last time she had seen it was when she head nearly thrown it at Boone… Boone! Where the fuck was Boone!?
Her prayers were answered when she was sprayed with a thin red mist, the grip around her waist slackening quite dramatically. Annie slid out of its grasp, her legs not expecting the sudden weight and crumbling miserably beneath her. Fat drops of warm blood pattered gently on her back, chest heaving and voice box weeping at the shock coursing through her. She lay still for a moment, softly sobbing into the grated floors.
Coughing and bubbling with spit, the courier rolled painfully onto her back to be greeted by the feet of Boone, who was standing over her slightly bent at the waist to check her injuries. From the outside she seemed fine, but by the way she clutched her stomach and cried a little he figured she had taken a fair bit of damage. "You alright?" He asked gruffly as a mutant started stomping towards them.
"I'll live." She groaned back, trying to pull herself upright before the next bastard came to hassle them. Her face was stained with the rain of blood from above, bangs pushed back and off her face that was crunched up in pain. There were small tears pushing through the red splats, Boone realising that it was the first time he had ever seen her cry. The idea made him furious; summoning an anger that had last appeared the night he killed Jeannie-Mae.
Bending at the middle to hunch himself under her arms, he dragged her into the room filled with gore bags and tucked her away out of sight, returning to the corridor only to blast the recently arrived bumbling asshole to bits. Annie was working on standing again, using the wall as a brace to pull herself up to full height. Her legs were shaky and her gut was screaming; even the soft rub of her cotton shirt under her amour was sending ripples of pain through her… but she did it.
There was a handgun on the table next to a bloody skull - the idea of a weapon that didn't need a close range quite appealing to the sluggish courier. She couldn't shoot for shit and her hands were shaking like a wet cat under a porch light, but she thought about Boone alone in the hallway with those monsters and she felt a tug of guilt in her already aching gut.
Finding the gun fully loaded was quite an experience, a smile pulling onto her face momentarily as she cocked the thing in her hands. Staggering back against the wall, the woman leant out into the corridor to find Boone reloading by her feet. There was a slink of stealth boy up ahead, Annie aiming awkwardly over the man's head.
Boone looked up at the girl who was leaning out over him, one hand clasped around the metal door to keep her upright and the other shaking furiously with what appeared to be a 10mm in its grip. She squeezed the trigger and the throwback pushed her a little, fingers going numb with the nerves that surged through her palms.
The bullet ricocheted off a pipe in the walls, bursting a small stream of pressurised water from the bent metal. The monster at the end of the hall bellowed unhappily and reappeared with the zap of a stealth boy – charging towards them with an almighty fury. With the extra vision, Boone was able to line up the bastard in his scope and easily pick him off. An animal skull rolled into an empty storeroom.
Annie had her nose back to her pipboy, spinning to the best of her ability to check all directions for any sight of red ticks. When the search came up clear, she huffed and puffed and leant against the metal door, sliding down painfully to come to a rest beside Boone – who was still mid-crouch and slightly terrified at the idea of having to get Annie out of there.
"I fucking hate mutants." She muttered unhappily to Boone and the man gave her a slightly pleased look – glad to know that she was still conscious enough to be herself. She threw her head back on the door and breathed heavily at the roof – shaking a little as the adrenalin began to wear off. Soon her face was streaked with tiny tears, eyes shut in attempt to avoid the sniper who was now unbuckling her armour.
He took her sudden silence as a bad thing – but Annie was only thinking. Her entire body throbbed and pulsed with circulation and it felt like her mind had been cleared of everything but Boone and herself. Her brain couldn't summon the burning hatred for the man, an unfortunate experience on her behalf because she had been so bent on ridding herself of him… but there he was – that hulking part of her life – running his hands across her stomach as she shuddered in pain.
After a while of soaking up his calming touch, she looked down to find him pressing the sharp end of a stimpack into her lower torso, picking the darkest spot of the huge purple bruise that was slowly sifting across her skin. There was a rush of fluid and a slight numbing of pain, chipping away at the iceberg of discomfort and misery that had taken up refuge inside of her.
Even after the prick of a second stimpack, Annie still felt like her body had been rolled-over by a brahmin. Her neck was stinging with whiplash and she had blood in her eyes and every time she breathed she could feel her skin stretch around her torso – shooting a dull but deep pain throughout her. If it were any worse she would have hurled in Boone's boots.
Annie fought her hands out of her lap, leading them blindly to the medkit strapped to the back of her waist. Boone had already opened his, watching her quietly as she attempted to snap it free from its holster. Her hands were vibrating like crazy, shakily unclipping the box to spill its insides on the ground.
Boone counted two stimpacks and a few bandages, a mentats container and a small pair of scissors. He grew annoyed at her lack of preparation but was swept with a small wave of horror as her scrambling hands settled on the small metal box.
She popped it open and the contents rattled with each shudder of her fingers. Boone counted three caps of buffout, a small handle of jet and what seemed to be chew tobacco. "Don't tell anyone at home about this." She hissed at him as her digits fought through the shakes and settled on two of the tablets. "If I find out you've told anyone I will wring your neck. I mean it."
Annie forced them into her mouth and swallowed sourly, gasping for air as she reached for the bottle of water in Boone's kit. Cracking the lid, she could barely get the lip of the plastic to her mouth to douse the dull taste of buffout. Handing him back the bottle silently, the girl returned to her mentats box to pluck out the jet – giving it a quick rattle before pressing to inhale lightly. The method seemed age-old in front of his eyes, watching her hands slow slightly and her pupils dilate softly.
Her neck craned so she could face him, the sniper watching the light euphoria fold over her face as the chemicals began to work their magic. "Med-X would be better but I'm not a fuckin' junkie." She explained tartly, scraping the taste from her tongue with her teeth as she watched her hands simmer softly; feeling refreshed and energised just enough to make it up the stairs from the basement. The man, who had watched the crumbling of his last pictorial of Annie's still-pending innocence, packed up their kits and stood quickly.
The girl sighed as she pushed up the wall, head cloudy and less irritated at her position in that moment. All that she could do was focus on the subject at hand – and that was getting out of there. Fuck Jason Bright. Fuck Repconn. Fuck super mutants. In fact, fuck Novac. She felt like she could walk back to the 38 and sleep it off. "Oh man, I haven't done this shit in a while." Annie's breath seeped through her teeth as she took her first steps, the noise coming from her shoes on metal playing like elevator music in her head. "Fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me."
With the sagging courier under his arm, Boone found himself trawling back to his old hometown. Cliff Briscoe greeted him with a medpack and another shoulder to sling Annie over – the woman conking out halfway along the road back. Once the jet wore off in the muggy air, Annie was forced to vomit a little stomach acid on the side of the road and continue half-assed back to Novac. She was drifting in and out of conscious by the time they had reached Cliff.
Manny was watching them from the mouth of the dinosaur, the purple sky above them making it difficult for the man to make out his ex-partner's face in the dark nest. By the time they made it to the courtyard, the Hispanic man was waiting for them, arms folded.
"What happened?" He asked Boone plainly, the man evening his eyes in attempt to avoid the topic.
"Mutants." Cliff Briscoe had already been filled in on the topic, slightly blown away at the thought of a tribe of nightkin living so close.
"Mutants?" Manny blanched uncomfortably. "What were they doing there?"
"No idea." Boone grunted back. "Anna got in the way of one."
"She won't be making it up the stairs, then." Cliff noted. "Are we putting her in your room, Craig?"
The man froze for a moment, uncomfortable with the idea of Annie being in Carla's bed. All of her old clothes were strewn across the mattress; still faintly coated in her perfume and the smell of her shampoo. He was rocked with the idea of giving up something he had kept for his own for so long. The silence was deafening to the point of the courier picking it up, the girl hiccupping awake to grouse unhappily. "Put me in Manny's room." She grunted.
"Is that…" Cliff drew off, looking at the younger man. "Is that okay with you, Manny?"
"That's fine." He answered, sending a look to his old best friend. Boone burnt with a sick feeling of hatred and discontent. There was a swirling storm in his head, spinning out of control and picking up memory-brahmins and blowing over long-term-goal windmills. Annie still hated him – and he still couldn't blame her! He needed to be sick somewhere… alone.
The men lugged the woman into the dark room, Manny clearing his pyjamas off of the bed so Annie could be laid over his mattress. Boone's stomach was turning uncomfortably at the idea of having her splayed out like a display; worrying about Manny's 'wandering' eyes and Cliff's few decades of being a bachelor. He had no reason to be worried, considering the two had something in common…
The other sniper was just floored to see Annie in such a vulnerable position. He hadn't seen her like that since a bad night in the ceremony circle – four against two (fists only) – Annie recycled greatly by a much larger man. He'd never imagined a person could throw-up so much blood, but he had seen it with his own eyes… a very personable Jack mopping her up with a hit of steady and a small rollie of natural bush.
He rested a knee on the bed, leaning over to unbuckle the straps of her leather armor. Boone felt hopeless, watching the man he hated so much get to touch the girl he felt he needed more than anything else in the world.
Did he just think that? He really was going to be sick.
With his fingers rubbing his jaw, Boone wrapped his other arm around his chest and watched on quietly. What was happening to him? He had never been so jealous and angry and upset in his entire life - it was never like that with Carla! Carla was always so simple and she was always his, but Annie… Annie was leaving! Annie was staying in an estranged man's bed for the night while he slept alone… But then again, maybe he was the estranged man and she was seeking solace from whatever horrors he had set upon her.
Boone let out a noise that fell somewhere between an annoyed grunt and an upset groan, earning a small laugh from the girl on the bed and a sharp look from his old partner. He had to excuse himself momentarily, heading out to the front porch to light himself a smoke. Rough fingers massaged his eye sockets, pressing firmly into a pinch to hold the bridge of his nose. The guilt was going to drive him crazy.
Manny joined him a moment later, taking up a spot a few feet away from the sniper to light up his own cigarette. It was strange being alone together again – the men having spent a lot of time together in their earlier twenties. It was horrible trying to recall the feeling of friendship, but deep down Boone knew that Manny wasn't as upset about Carla's death as he should have been. It had been a year since she had… passed away… and the man beside him still didn't really have it in him to give Boone proper condolences.
"Anna's always gotten herself in this sort of shit." The younger man broke the silence, taking a long draw of his smoke to combat the silence. "No point in worrying about something she's been doing since she was twelve."
Boone stayed quiet, watching the colours deepen on the horizon. His eyes drifted back in the direction of Repconn, the place now an ugly part of his mind. He never wanted go back to that stupid place crawling with problems he had no part in…
He wanted to jump off Dinky when he realised that they had left Rex there.
"One night, Anna got into a fight with my cousin, Malcolm." Manny sounded comfortable, a trait he had always had around Boone. He spoke like they were still friends – like nothing had ever happened. "He fucked her up so bad that for a while we thought she'd died. Her skull must be reinforced with some tribal bullshit because she got back up like nothing had ever happened. Heard rumours she got shot in the head too… Got back up again, like before.
"She will be alright, Boone." He continued, sending the other man a smart grin. Boone simply watched the sky, face not changing as his mind fought over the idea of Manny knowing a little more about her than he did. It didn't seem fair, but the other sniper seemed willing to share. Hearing about the girl in a more positive, rational light seemed to calm his nerves a little – caught in a much brighter web of possibilities than the ones he was faced with in his mind.
"Mm."
"… Are you two… together?" Manny asked quietly, soft in nature but still slightly interested in an answer. He still could not wrap his head around the idea of those two being involved. It was so… odd. Annie was everything Boone had never looked for in a woman – the man always preferring the fairer women of the Strip to the harsh-tongued women of the desert.
Boone missed the opportune time to answer, trailing them into an awkward silence that allowed Manny to make all the assumptions he wanted. The older man was sucking down his cigarette like it was his life source – his head on fire with a complex range of everything under the sun. All of his old goals and all of his passions and hatred and burning desire were mixing and changing and intertwining with a boiling energy that was mottling his own morals. He was still torn between sitting beside her for the rest of the night and throwing himself off the balcony.
He couldn't bring himself to return to Carla's bed when he had such thoughts about Annie. He couldn't help that every part of him wanted to reach out and affect her the way she did him. Boone felt he knew Annie like the back of his hand but he should have read his own notes… she would have preferred him being honest with her from day one. She was an open book and he was padlocked shut. How was he so selfish to have very openly locked himself down in front of her? Christ, she was everything to him.
The thought sent a strange release down his legs, lifting a small amount of pressure from his mind. It felt good to admit it – even if it was only to himself – but she was literally everything that was left for him. Novac held nothing for him anymore, and the NCR was never getting him back… Carla was gone and all he had was Annie. And she wasn't happy with him.
Boone looked at his old partner and pulled his lips into a straight line. "Are you going back on shift?" He asked.
"No, I just finished."
There was a slight silence as the night sniper gave his plan a quick once over.
"I have to go back to Repconn." Boone nodded, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the dirt in front of them. "Keep an eye on her."
"Yeah?" Manny took a final draw and stepped back towards the room, followed by Boone who only returned to grab his gun. Boone took a fleeting glance at the woman who was gingerly sitting up on the bed, reeling back out into the darkening courtyard. The younger man, who was now leaning against the doorframe, stuck out his arm for a handshake. "You're coming back, right?"
The night sniper looked at the hand blankly, trailing his eyes back up to meet the very stoic stare of his old partner. He had no choice but to oblige the man.
"Yeah."