Something I Never Knew About You
The three women meandered up and out of the Third Rail, heading straight for one of the houses that lined the narrow streets of Goodneighbour. Piper had no idea just how Blue had gotten hold of such a place, but she couldn't deny that it was in a pretty ideal location. It was literally just a few paces away from the Third Rail's front door, and just down the street from KL-E-0's shop.
Blue fished a key out from her trouser pocket and opened the door, beckoning Cait and Piper to follow her inside. It was only when crossing the threshold that Piper could fully appreciate what Blue had managed to acquire in the building. It was a proper house, complete with standing walls made of brick that sealed out the elements, and even proper furniture like settees and tables. Piper had rarely seen such a complete looking home in her life, and had come across even fewer that weren't just fashioned together with scrap and veritable refuse.
"Nice place you got here, Blue." Piper nodded approvingly. It was only sparsely decorated, mostly with ancient posters of long forgotten films and things that Nora had presumably rescued from across the Commonwealth.
"Thanks, it took me a while to put this all together, but I like it." Nora smiled warmly at the place.
"And it took me a hell of a lot of time lugging all this stuff here." Cait mumbled as she unceremoniously plonked herself down on the big settee which she patted. "You know she made me drag this bastard all the way from Diamond City, right?"
"Oh, stop complaining." Nora smirked. "I paid you well, didn't I?"
Cait's mouth found a lazy, self-satisfied smirk of her own. "Yeah, you did."
Piper could well imagine what sort of payment was charged for such work and didn't bother to pry any further. She was more hung up on just how Cait had managed to lug the furniture through the ghoul and super mutant infested ruins of Boston, but she was tired and didn't think she could face a long story. What's more, Nora and Cait had been clinging to each other pretty tightly since leaving the bar, like they wanted nothing more than to cling to each other all night, among other things.
"Well, I suppose I should leave you two to it." Piper made to stand, not wanting to be a third wheel again.
"What, no! Don't be silly!" Nora protested, immediately at Piper's side. "It's too late to leave town now. Where would you go?"
"I'll just … go find a room at the hotel or something." Piper provided meekly.
"Why waste the caps?" Cait piped up, leaning her head back over the headrest to stare pointedly at Piper. "Don't be an idiot, just stay here the night."
"Are you sure?" Piper asked them both with something like a grimace. "I really don't want to intrude."
"Of course, you're not intruding at all!" Nora enthused, already pulling Piper over towards the settee. "You're special to us. Isn't she, Cait?"
"Sure, for a nosy reporter." Cait smirked.
Piper threw a scowl the brawler's way, but she'd learned enough about the redhead to know when she was just teasing.
"See?" Blue put hands to her hips as though the matter was settled. "Now don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a sec."
With that, Nora hurried off to a room at the back of the house.
"You really happy with me staying?" Piper asked Cait quietly as the sounds of banging and crashing emanated from the door Nora had vanished behind. "I really don't mind going if you two wanted to … well, you know."
"Pipes, you're staying and that's an order. You heard it from the queen herself." Cait smirked. "So don't go running for the door now, or I'll have to chase you down and drag you straight back."
Piper swallowed thickly. She had no doubt that Cait could, and would, do that if she wanted to. She recalled very well how being lifted by those well-toned arms felt like. Piper quickly attempted to banish the thought.
"Besides, what's stopping us from, 'you know', anyhow?" Cait smirked devilishly.
Piper immediately took to clearing her throat, turning away to hide her sudden blush.
At just the right time to avoid any more awkwardness, Nora bounded back into the room with another sunny smile, a small collection of bottles clustered in her arms.
"Oh God, you don't expect us to drink all of that do you?" Piper eyed the small mountain dubiously. She'd already had plenty at the Third Rail.
"No, not all of it." Nora laughed as she carefully dumped the bottles on the coffee table with a smattering of clinking. "Just whatever you fancy. I just brought it all to save trips to the kitchen."
"A girl after my own heart." Cait smirked as she pulled a bottle free from the pile. "So, what's the worst fight you two have ever been in?"
"Is this your idea of a new drinking game?" Nora rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Not a game, just a question. You seemed to get your knickers in a twist the last time we played ought." Cait smirked. "Anyway, don't dodge the question. Worst ever fight, go."
"Ok, ok." Nora chewed her lip for a moment in thought. She pulled one bottle free for herself and one that she passed over to Piper. "I suppose it has to have been the first time I got in a suit of power armour. I'd seen them on TV before the war, but I'd never actually used one of the damn things myself. I didn't really know what I was doing. Well, I got into it, up on top of that museum up in Concord, and then I ended up tripping off the roof and landing flat on my face."
"Ouch." Cait winced a little.
"Fuck, Blue, what happened then?" Piper asked.
"Well, I managed to pick myself up, even with a bunch of raiders shooting at me. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but I just about got by with a little help from some friends in the Minutemen."
"Wait, wait, wait, I remember you telling me this. Wasn't the Minutemen just Preston and a bunch of farmers or something at that point?" Cait asked.
Nora nodded with a smile. "Pretty much, but Preston's a decent shot, and Sturges even clocked one of them on the head by lobbing a hammer from up on the third floor."
Cait snickered.
"Everything was going pretty well really, but then the Deathclaw came." Nora sighed. "Damn thing jumped out of the sewers and naturally made a beeline straight for me. My bloody gun jammed and the bastard knocked me over. He started swiping at my helmet and even managed to cut through it." She reached up to rub at some of the jagged lines that had been gouged into her face, her 'souvenir' from the episode.
"Oh God." Piper breathed. She'd heard bits of the story before, but never just how desperate a struggle it must have been. "How'd you get out of that mess alive?"
"Well, Preston managed to get its attention just long enough for me to throw it off. So I grabbed the mini gun that had jammed on me, and ended up beating the bastard to death with it."
Cait let out a high pitched whistle. "Not gonna lie, that's pretty hot, babe."
"I aim to please." Nora winked back with a smile. "So, who's next?"
Cait looked pointedly over at Piper. "It was my question. Fess up, Pipes."
Piper sighed. "Fine, let me think."
"No wait, let me guess." Cait smirked evilly. "Your worst fight was with your printer? You got the mother of all paper cuts."
Piper scowled. "Don't be stupid, Cait."
"She can't help it at this point." Nora shook her head with a sigh. "I'm afraid it's terminal."
Piper let out a chuckle. "Just so long as it's not contagious."
"This one would've got it a long time ago if it was." Cait smirked, reaching over to ruffle blonde hair roughly.
"Hey! Quit it!" Nora complained with a laugh as she fought her lover off.
Cait chuckled, turning her smirk Piper's way. "You'd be looking pretty dicey too by now as well, Pipes."
Piper opted to ignore the comment. "Well … I reckon my worst fight was probably this time when I was looking into reports of water contamination in Diamond City a few years back. You see, we had a pretty awful time when the water purifiers broke down. It was for less than a week, but for that time the only way we could get water was from traders coming into the city. Well, soon enough people were starting get sick after drinking some of the bottled water that was being sold, so I started to look into it."
Cait sighed. "This isn't going to be some boring tale of you trying to convince some trader to tell you their shitty little life story, is it?"
"No." Piper drawled with a scowl.
"Hey, let her finish!" Nora swatted at Cait's arm with a frown.
Piper smiled her thanks at Blue. "Anyway, I chased up what leads I had, and eventually found out that one of the traders was getting his water from an old abandoned well just outside the city. I went to go have a look, and found out that the wall at the bottom of the well had broken through to some kind of underground bunker. Turns out, that bunker had a ghoul in it."
"Just the one?" Nora asked.
"Just the one." Piper nodded.
"Yuck. No wonder everyone was getting sick." Cait chuckled before taking a hefty swig. "How'd you even get down there?"
"Oh, I just tied a rope to a fence that was nearby and fed the other end down the well." Piper answered simply. "Well, it seemed like that ghoul was once the guy who built that bunker, probably did it himself without proper planning permission or knowhow if he got so close to a water supply like that."
"Not seeing where the fight comes in yet, Pipes." Cait perused her nails with a bored expression.
"I was just getting to that!" Piper scowled. "Well, when I managed to get down into the bunker, I didn't know the ghoul was even there at first. It came out round the corner, surprised the hell out of me. I dropped my gun and it went off, hitting the only light in the room."
"Oh fuck." Blue shook her head, biting her lip slightly.
"Had to wrestle with the damn thing in the dark. No idea how it didn't overpower me. Anyway, after a bit of a struggle, I managed to bash its head on the wall a few times and killed it. Got a match out of my pocket and lit it up to find that, well, the damn thing didn't even have any arms!"
Cait snickered. "Ah, Pipes. Nearly killed by an armless ghoul. What a way to go."
"It could have still bitten her!" Blue protested. "That sounds so much scarier than mine."
"Well …" Piper began in a bit of a whine. "Actually, it had no lower jaw either."
"So, what? Best it could do was moan at you a bit?" Cait was chuckling still.
Piper's cheeks flushed a little. "Maybe."
Cait laughed for a good long while at that. Even Nora snickered a little.
"Oh Pipes, you are one of a kind." Cait sighed with a smile once she'd finally calmed down. "When I said 'worst', I meant for your toughest fight, not the most pathetic."
"Shut up." Piper sighed, cheeks burning just a little.
"Alright, I'm sure it's your turn now, you cheeky bitch." Nora smirked as she poked Cait in the side. "You did start this after all."
"Alright, alright, alright. Let me think." Cait mused, taking a swig from her bottle. "I've got more than a fair few to pick from, but the very worst was probably just after those raider pricks moved into the Combat Zone."
"Oh?" Piper's ears perked up intrigued.
"Yeah, me and Tommy managed to keep those bastards entertained for a time, just doing our usual stuff, one on one fights mostly, first to knockout the other, nothing crazy. After a while though, the boss of those raiders started to get bored, see. He wanted something a bit more than to see two people knocking seven hells out of each other every night."
Hard to imagine why, Piper thought dryly. Martial sport had never been her thing. Everyday life held more than enough combat as it was.
Cait let out a little chuckle. "So, he gets this brilliant idea to send his men out to catch a super mutant and bring them into the ring."
"What?" Nora and Piper exclaimed in unison.
"Yep." Cait shook her head with a smirk Piper couldn't quite believe. "And guess who was gonna get to fight that big green bastard?" She held her hands out a little as if the question needed answering.
"No way." Nora murmured in shock.
"Uh huh." Cait took another swig. "They're bigger than you'd think you know, up close. Smell worse too. And they hit like a motherfucker. Pretty sure he broke my nose with his first punch. Honestly, I don't even remember too much of the fight, other than thinking 'oh shit, oh shit, oh shit' the whole time."
Piper couldn't help but chuckle just a little.
"How'd you even survive?" Nora asked in an awed murmur.
"Well, I figured out pretty quick that while he was stronger than me, he was a hell of a lot clumsier. Probably how he got caught by those dumbasses in the first place. I kept going for his legs, back of the knees in particular, trying to topple him over. Bastard had skin like steel. Think I even broke a finger or two just punching him."
Cait flexed her hand experimentally. The skin on her knuckles was calloused and scarred many times over. Piper wondered just how many injuries the brawler had suffered over the years.
"Anyway, I managed to get him down a few times, but super mutants are tough sons of bitches. He just kept getting back up and throwing more and more punches, again and again and again." Cait shook her head, something of a dark scowl crossing her features. Her tone lost its humour. "Meanwhile, the whole fucking crowd are loving it, having a whale of a time watching me fight for my fucking life."
"God." Piper shook her head softly. "I'm so sorry, Cait."
Cait's lips quirked just a little and the dark look passed from her eyes. "Well, I got him in the end. Managed to survive long enough to tire him out, then smashed his big dumb face against the cage bars when he was on his knees. I pretty much passed out then and there, right after him. I woke up a few days later with Tommy's ugly mug hanging over me like a spectre of death."
"Fuck." Nora swore quietly. "I'm even more glad we shut that place down now."
Cait snickered. "Poor old Tommy ain't."
"Did that happen often? You know, making you fight against mutants, and … and things?" Piper asked cautiously.
Cait shook her head. "Nah, that was the one and only time. Turns out like five men died just trying to snag the big green bastard. It was just too much of a hassle. That, and the raider boss got himself killed by super mutants a week or so later."
"Sounds like karma to me." Nora chuckled. "Wonder if it was relatives of the mutant you fought that got him?"
"Maybe." Cait smirked. "The guy who took over after him didn't really care too much for the fights, he was just happy that something was keeping his men occupied on the quiet days, so me and Tommy just carried on as normal."
Piper was very tempted to say something along the lines of 'nothing about that is normal', but thought it was probably better not to.
Nora clapped her thighs before making to stand. "Well, I think that's enough stories for one night."
"That's probably wise." Piper smiled. God only knew what Cait would have asked them about next.
"Ok, now are you alright with the spare room or do you want the settee?" Nora asked Piper. "Fair warning, the room is full of parts and things, we just use it as a dumping ground most of the time."
"It's all just junk really." Cait smirked.
"Hush you." Nora scowled the redhead's way, smacking Cait over the head.
Cait just chuckled.
"I'm sure I'll be fine in the spare room, thanks. I pretty much sleep on top of a printing press back home after all." Piper smiled.
"Great!" Nora smiled that sunny smile. "It's settled then."
"So …" Cait began in a drawl, lips lazily curling into a most insufferable smirk.
Piper sighed. "If you're going to say what I think you-"
"How about that threesome?" Cait did not surprise her one bit.
"Jesus Christ." Piper muttered under her breath.
"Oh Cait." Nora snickered.
"I'm not hearing a no …" Cait chuckled with a waggle of her eyebrows.
Her amusement was only momentarily interrupted by the cushion that Piper launched into her face.
xxx
Cait hadn't been kidding when she said that the spare room was full of junk. Piper almost struggled to find the bed at first; the room was so packed with all sorts of mechanical parts, bits of scrap metal and even some weapons, sections of power armour and ammunition.
Piper struggled to get to sleep that night, and it wasn't just because it was an unfamiliar bed she was in. She'd slept in much rougher situations before, like when she and Nat had been on the move before stumbling upon Diamond City. The older Wright had given up any and all small comforts to ensure that her sister had an easier time of it, including whatever emaciated mattresses and threadbare sheets they'd managed to find amongst the ruins. So she was certainly not a stranger to rough nights.
No, Piper just wasn't sure why she was having trouble sleeping.
She did wager that she'd maybe drunk a little too much though. Between drinks at the Third Rail and Blue's own home supply she must surely have drunk more in the last few hours than she'd had in the last month combined. Maybe she was just thirsty for actual water?
Piper swung her legs out of bed to get up. Then, after rubbing her sore calf that had collided with a power armour helmet on the floor just besides her bed, she padded out towards the hall to go head to the kitchen downstairs. She made sure to step carefully down the ancient staircase, in case Nora and Cait were sleeping lightly in the room below.
When she reached the lower level however, Piper saw the steady flickering of light peering out from the couple's room. She could also hear the soft murmurings of voices.
Very much keen not to intrude at all, Piper quickly turned away to head downstairs. She nearly made it to the next set of stairs as well, that is until she heard a distinct and unmistakeably familiar voice.
'Ah!' Blue cried into the night.
Piper froze. She turned to face the source of the sound on instinct, and then she really wished that she hadn't.
Through the sliver of an open crack between the door and frame, Piper could see clearly Nora pressed up against the wall, her hands pinned above her head and expression dazed but delightful. Her eyes covered with a black blindfold, blocking all sight.
Pressed right up and into Blue, was Cait. The brawler was deep in Nora's personal space. With one hand, the redhead held the blonde's hands captive up against the wall. With the other, Cait was roaming that slender body with free reign. Piper followed that hand even as it travelled under shirt and below pants. She tracked its every movement, from where it kneaded into supple breasts, down to where it put exquisite pressure between Nora's thighs. Nowhere was spared from Cait's attentions.
Piper knew she should just turn around and make herself scarce, go back to bed or flee the town entirely. She shouldn't be witness to such intimacy, from her closest friends as well!
So why was she stock still? Why did her eyes follow Cait's digits as they reached up to pull and play with Nora's lips? Why did her ears shut out all noise of the Commonwealth beyond those moans and chuckles from the next room?
Then, Piper blinked. Her gaze fluttered up and away from Cait's hand to find Cait's eyes.
They were staring, staring right back at her.
Piper's heart stuttered a moment before running into overdrive. She knew she should run. She knew she should apologise. She knew she should do absolutely anything at all but stay frozen in place and continue to stare. Yet she couldn't move at all! She couldn't even turn her head away somehow!
Yet Cait didn't snarl and yell, nor did she reach over to slam the door shut. No, instead, Cait did something much, much worse.
She smirked.
Cait's eyes never left Piper as she continued to fondle and caress Nora's body. She continued to whisper sweet nothings to the blindfolded blonde, teeth and tongue teasing at Nora's elegant neck. She even turned Blue's head towards Piper as she nuzzled that neck, as if taunting the reporter with Nora's arousal.
Yet her eyes … that burning look in Cait's eyes had Piper somehow doubting that the display was to spite. Somehow, Piper felt an intenseness that wasn't for Nora alone …
The strange creaking of wood snapped the moment.
Piper jumped and looked down. She shifted her weight on ancient floorboards and they creaked a little more.
"Cait?" Nora breathed, sounding breathless. "What-"
"It's nothing." Cait answered quickly in a purr, swiftly pressing two digits up onto plush lips and then onto a lithe tongue, muffling the blonde into an exquisite groan. "Just the wind."
Piper couldn't bring her gaze back up again, not now the link with the brawler had been broken. She carefully edged her way out of the direct line of sight of the bedroom and retreated back upstairs, as quietly as she possible could. She somehow managed to rush back to her bed without hitting any of the clutter en route.
Lying in bed once more, Piper knew she wouldn't get any sleep at all that night. She just desperately tried to not think about what was happening in the room right beneath her, what those faint sounds that wafted up the stairs were, or why she just couldn't shake the image of Cait's scorching gaze from her mind.