Sorry this chapter took so long to get out! Things have been getting busy! I've recently started work on another Fallout 2d20 campaign. This next one will be set in New Mexico, where the bulk of the story is focused around the Zetans. Heavy Roswell vibes. I'm loving the cheesy alien-themed tracks I've set up for the radio. If you wanna hear the theme I've picked for the game, I suggest you listen to "Telstar" by The Tornadoes. Maybe if the campaign goes well, it might end up becoming a fic too later!
Chapter 17 - Rules and Decorum
"Billy!" Marilyn greeted the ghoul loudly as she strode up to him, still red-faced, "Here! Your caps!"
He looked up at her, eyes widening as she held out the bag full of caps. Immediately, he was up and out of his chair, leaning towards her.
"What in the hell are you doing?" He whispered angrily, glancing around quickly.
"Huh?" Marilyn blinked, brow furrowing.
"Are you some kind of idiot?" Billy hissed, "You trying to get robbed?"
"I… I was just.." Marilyn stammered, taking a small step back, away from his ire.
"Rule number one of the wasteland, kid," Billy held up a gloved finger, "Never take out all of your caps in public."
"O-Oh," Marilyn blinked, hugging her arms around the bag in a feeble attempt to hide it.
Not that it did anything. Plenty of unsavory-looking mercs were already eyeing her up, and definitely not for the same reasons they had been prior. Billy grumbled and tilted the barrel of his shotgun up to lean on his shoulder.
"Go rent a room from Ricardo," Billy mumbled as he took note of all the aforementioned mercs, "You can pay me upstairs. In private."
"Uh, right," Marilyn nodded quickly.
She turned to move towards the bar but stopped in her tracks as soon as she looked at Dick, who was still seated and chatting with Ricardo. Whining slightly as she felt her face heat up again, she instead took a step back and bumped into Billy.
"What?" Billy glanced over.
"N-Nothing," Marilyn lied.
"Then get goin' already," Billy nudged her forward with his elbow.
Marilyn frowned and hesitantly approached the bar, hugging the bag a bit closer to her chest as she passed some leering mercs. Once she stood beside the bar, she pointedly stared at Ricardo, only shooting a quick and tentative glance towards Dick. He, for his part, seemed relatively unfazed. As though nothing had happened.
"And she's back!" Ricardo smirked, "Ready to return to work? I heard someone hurling by the front porch not too long ago."
"Actually, I don't think I'll be working anymore," Marilyn shook her head, "But I do need a room."
"Ah, calling it quits already?" Ricardo sighed, "Can't say I'm surprised. It's a demanding job. My last cleaner ran off to join raiders. Apparently, he thought that'd be better than working here."
"Leroy, right?" Marilyn tilted her head, noting the way Ricardo's brows rose in surprise, "I, uh, heard some of the mercs mention him."
"Ah, yeah…" Ricardo sighed, looking down at the bar as he wiped it with his trusty rag, "It's been hard trying to replace him. I guess I was a fool for trying."
When Marilyn and Dick both looked at him curiously, Ricardo sighed and tossed the rag aside.
"Leroy's my little brother," He explained with a frown.
"Oh…" Marilyn blinked, looking down.
"I heard a bit about some raiders from the other 'construction' workers," Dick chimed in, "Apparently they don't live very far. Can't you just go talk to him?"
"You mean Shawcrest," Ricardo chuckled as he shook his head, "No, Leroy ran off to join the Keller Boys, way out west by that ghoul city. But even if he had joined up with the Shawcresters, it's not like I could just walk up into raider territory. Those guys shoot on sight."
Ricardo sighed, shrugging away his frown and held out a hand.
"It'll be 100 caps for a room," He cleared his throat.
Marilyn nodded and quickly fished out the relevant amount of caps. Then she hid the bag away inside of her pack, still feeling many eyes on her.
"Upstairs, third room on the left," Ricardo nodded towards the stairs as he scooped up the caps, "It's yours until noon."
Marilyn nodded again as Dick got up from his barstool. Marilyn did her best to emulate his demeanor, trying to pretend nothing had happened. It was obvious and strained for her, though seemingly effortless for him. Convincing, like he wasn't even faking it. She almost wondered if he truly didn't care in the first place.
Pausing to quickly glance over towards Billy, who was leaning back against the wall lighting a cigarette, Marilyn moved to the stairs. She went to the room Ricardo had mentioned, with Dick following closely behind. Stopping in the doorway once they arrived, she assessed the tiny room.
It was small and dark with a dingy window, an ashtray full of cigarette butts upon the windowsill. There wasn't even a bed. Just a ratty, blood stained mattress on the floor. Marilyn frowned at the filthy thing, wondering if it would be better to just sleep on the floor. But judging by the way the bottoms of her boots stuck to the floorboards as she walked inside, she concluded probably not. The only other furnishings were a rusty metal bucket tipped on its side and a small wooden trunk.
"This is hardly worth 100 caps," Marilyn frowned.
"Well, at least it'll be better than sleeping outside," Dick shrugged as he crouched to open the wooden trunk curiously.
Marilyn hummed in agreement before moving to open the window, figuring she could use a bit of fresh air from the smoky bar. It was a bit of a struggle to even figure out how it opened, before realizing she needed to push it up herself. She'd never interacted with a window other than the sort in the Vault, which was just an unmovable piece of glass. But this one moved! Well, it should've. If it wasn't so shoddily constructed that it kept getting stuck. Though after fighting with it for a minute, she managed to finally open the window a crack.
Marilyn took a deep breath of the brisk evening air before turning towards Dick, who was just finishing up setting his things inside of the wooden trunk. She noted how exhausted he seemed when he didn't realize she was looking, though perked up back to normal once he noticed.
"Gimme your stuff, I'll put it away," He said as he held out his hands.
Marilyn took off her backpack, bringing it over to him. She stood over him, watching him tuck it away beside his own. It was then that noticed he'd tidied his hair and cleaned off some of the smudges. She wondered when that'd happened. Maybe while she was off talking to Billy.
Speaking of which, that was when Billy entered the room, as if on cue.
"Alright, let's set some ground rules before this is finalized," Billy began after removing the cigarette from his withered lips.
"Okay, sure," Marilyn said as she turned to him as Dick fished the bag of caps from her pack.
"First off, I'll protect you two but I ain't gonna carry you," Billy gestured towards them both, "We get attacked, you better fight back too."
Marilyn frowned at this but nodded. She supposed it really was inevitable, as Dick had said.
"Second," Billy held up two fingers, "You're hiring me to guide you. So if I tell you that you gotta do something, you better do it."
"Aren't we the ones hiring you, though?" Dick glanced up over his shoulder.
"Ain't talkin' to you, pretty boy," Billy sniffed, "And if you think I'm ever gonna call you kids 'boss' then you can forget about it."
"Fair enough," Marilyn sighed, "But Dick does have a point. You're a guide, so you give us guidance. Not orders."
Billy grumbled a bit at this but nodded, pausing to puff his cigarette.
"Third thing," He gestured to himself, "I'm a ghoul."
"So you mentioned," Dick commented dryly.
"Me being a ghoul means we won't be welcome everywhere we go," Billy continued, ignoring Dick, "Lots of folks don't take too kindly to a face like mine."
"Why?" Marilyn asked as Dick handed her the bag of caps, "I'm sure there's uglier things in the wasteland."
Marilyn immediately wanted to smack herself for the inadvertent rudeness, especially after Dick snickered. Billy just looked at her flatly.
"You kids don't know a lot about the wasteland, so let me warn you in advance," Billy sighed after a moment, "Not all ghouls are like me. Some are, but most aren't."
"What do you mean?" Marilyn cocked her head to the side, "Like you how?"
"Sane," Billy answered bluntly.
"O-Oh," Marilyn blinked.
"Most ghouls go feral. Wild and violent. Rads turned their brain to mush, so they can't be reasoned with," Billy explained, "Not all ghouls lose it like that, but even sane ghouls could turn feral at the drop of a hat. Seen it happen. And nobody really knows how or why."
Marilyn was a bit alarmed upon hearing this. She supposed she could understand why people were suspicious of ghouls, then.
"So yeah, if you wake up in the middle of the night with me trying to maul your face, that'd be why," Billy smirked, taking clear amusement in the grimaces he received in response.
"Um, anything else we should know?" Marilyn asked hesitantly as she eyed his Pip-Boy, "About you?"
"Not at the moment," Billy answered coldly.
Marilyn noticed the way he subtly leaned his arm away from her gaze. Not necessarily trying to hide his Pip-Boy, but clearly not wanting to discuss it. Marilyn decided to take the hint. It was probably for the best not to push it right now.
"Alright then," Marilyn said as she opened the bag, "Then let's get your payment squared away."
Marilyn counted out 200 caps, handing them to Billy one by one as she counted. He looked annoyed by this, but at least he couldn't actually complain. He was still getting paid, after all. Even if he found Marilyn's method of counting tedious.
Once it was through and Billy had tucked the caps away into his own bag, he was already turning to head back out the door when Marilyn gestured towards the trunk.
"You can store your things in here, if you want," She offered.
"I prefer to keep my things on me," Billy eyed the trunk.
"But it must make it difficult to sleep…" Marilyn frowned.
"Ghouls don't need to sleep," Billy sniffed.
"Really?" Marilyn blinked.
"Really," Billy frowned, glancing aside, "No need for food or drink, either."
"But we saw you drinking beer," Dick pointed out.
"I said we don't need to. Doesn't mean we can't if we want to," Billy explained grumpily, "Though it takes twice as much booze to do anything for ya. So on that note, I'm gonna go pay Ricardo another visit. I get the feeling it's gonna be a long night."
"Right, well, goodnight then, Billy," Marilyn gave him a small smile.
Billy just grunted and pulled the door shut behind him. Marilyn frowned after him, admittedly a little bit miffed by his rudeness. He could've said goodnight, at the very least. Sighing, Marilyn turned towards Dick, who had since put away the bag of caps and was now seated atop the closed trunk with his elbows resting on his knees. He just gave her a tired smile when she looked at him. That was when she remembered how exhausted he had been when he first came back to the bar, and that was already over an hour ago. But he hadn't complained once, despite Marilyn objectively making everything take longer than it needed to with her awkwardness.
And then she remembered why she was being so awkward to begin with, the memory of what she'd done crashing into her like a piano would in the old cartoons. Her face went bright red as her eyes flicked to his lips. They had been so much softer than she would've expected, and she kind of hated herself for the fact that she even knew that.
"So, uh," Dick cleared his throat, "I dunno about you, but I'm beat."
Dick looked over his shoulder and Marilyn followed his gaze to the mattress.
"Quick question," He looked back at her, "Remember when we used to have sleepovers as kids?"
Marilyn looked at him uncertainly, but he just continued on before she could reply.
"I'm just wondering if you still kick in your sleep," He chuckled, "I'd always wake up covered in bruises, y'know?"
Marilyn's face, somehow, went an even deeper red and she could only stammer.
"Well, I'll roll onto the floor if you do," Dick shrugged as he stood up, before shooting her a playful smirk, "Or maybe just roll you onto the floor instead. I haven't decided yet."
"Y-You better not," Marilyn responded quickly, her disgust at the floor outshining her embarrassment in that moment.
"Alright, alright, sheesh," Dick grinned, holding up his hands defensively, "I guess we'll just have to find out the old-fashioned way, eh?"
Though she'd initially been a bit uncertain about Dick's approach of just pretending nothing had happened, she found herself coming to appreciate that he wasn't making a big deal about it. It made it a little easier to start moving past her embarrassment. Thinking back, he hadn't even made a big deal about it when they'd had their first kiss back in the day. Though they never really talked about that, either.
"I dunno if I'm gonna be able to sleep if you're just gonna stand there and stare at me all night, Mari," Dick chuckled awkwardly.
Marilyn then realized he'd already moved to sit at the foot of the mattress. Realizing he was waiting for her, she hurried over. She rigidly sat at the opposite end, as far from him as she could be while still technically on the mattress. In response, Dick just perked a brow.
"Y'know, cooties have been scientifically disproven," He chuckled, scooting back a bit before flopping back on the mattress.
Marilyn just watched him make himself comfortable, a blush beginning to grace her cheeks when he patted the mattress beside him. With the stiffness of a protectron, she robotically moved to lay down next to him. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, though Dick was nonchalant as ever.
"Night, Mari," He yawned as he closed his eyes, clearly good and ready to sleep.
Marilyn silently followed suit, shutting her own eyes and trying to ignore the hammering of her heart. She was thankful Dick radiated so much heat on his own. That way, he couldn't feel the blazing heat coming from her cheeks.