A wince as she sat on the barstool, gingerly trying to get in a comfortable position without making it too obvious that she had been nailed by a one-strike hammer. She hadn't indulged in a beer for a while now, almost feeling like a stranger as she took residency in Moriarty's Saloon. Every cap unspent was a cap saved...but that night, she felt like she needed a beer for company and maybe an ear to lean on.
Moriarty was busy inventorying his latest swindles from unfair prices to piss-distilled beer, leaving Gob free to catch up in some side conversation. She could faintly hear Nova moaning from behind a closed door upstairs- everyone had become so accustomed to the world's oldest profession that no one bothered to listen- it still made her blush at the imagery it unwillingly conjured.
"Hey," Gob rasped with an iced Nuka-Cola in hand, discreetly looking over his shoulder. "Sorry, but I wouldn't advise it. Caravan's been off schedule since the last run...Moriarty's been making it stretch."
She set her money down and savored the chilled glass between her clammy hands.
Hey, can I tell you something?
Amata, helloooo, we're best friends. Duh. Of course! She watches her fixing her hair in the mirror of her bathroom. Perfectly straight, dark, thick. Everyone says she has beautiful hair.
You have to swear you won't tell-
Are you pregnant!?
No! It's just...that...well-
Spill the beans! She tickles her in the side, erupting a laugh. She loves to hear her laugh.
"Never seen you with that face before." Gob pulled her back to reality, and then leaned in a little. "I know Charon was looking for you- he came in the bar asking before Simms made him step outside. Are you in a bad place, smoothskin? I told you he was trouble."
Bad place? Not entirely...but there was this emptiness in the pit of her stomach, a jar full of marbles that couldn't quite fill the spaces.
"No. We were just...conducting business." She shrugged, praying to every God there was above and below that he couldn't see past the façade. That would be downright embarrassing.
He didn't, and he began to sort some liquor on the shelves with a nod of his head. "That's good to hear...I was a little worried, is all."
She plunked her chin in hand, amused. "Were you now? Of little old me?"
Gob wouldn't raise his eyes, focusing them intensely on his hands while he worked. "You're good to me, smoothskin...it's nice to have a friend."
She bit her tongue, momentarily stunned at the blunt statement that felt more like a love confession. Sweet jet and tangy sweat sidled up beside her before she could make some sort of cringy reply.
"Been too busy to hang with us?" Nova asked snidely with that sultry flair to her voice, a crinkled cigarette between her lips with musk permeating from her pores. Her eyes drew onto Evelyn's bare throat, and she slightly pulled the collar of her jacket down to expose a blooming hickey. "Oh, who had this honor?"
Gob was staring at the evidence of her hookup with saucers for eyes before Evelyn could clamp a palm over it. The look on his face when he finally put two and two together about just what sort of 'business' she had to attend to glowed a molten firework across her cheeks.
Nova reached up with the pointy end of her umbrella to poke at the heavy, awkward tension hovering over them like a raincloud. "Was it fun?"
Evelyn fiddled her fingers together on the counter, shrinking into her coat to make herself as small as humanly possible. "Uh. Sure, I guess?"
Nova worked a lighter, gave an inhale, and slanted her eyes at the lack of confidence in the response. "First time?"
"OhmyGodamIthatobvious-"
"Take it easy, kid. You'd be lying if you said otherwise." She took a long drag, flicked the ash into a tray. "So." She lifted one leg over the other, the tear in her stockings stretching just a bit further as she spun on her stool to face her. "Who was it?"
Gob met Evelyn's eyes, both privy to the mystery hickey deliverer, and she looked away. "He's not from around here."
The cherry at the end of Nova's smoke burned a deliciously bright hue, casting shadows on her high cheekbones and underlining the bags under her eyes. A little twinkle of perception caught the hidden message shared between the two. "Didn't happen to be that ghoul who came looking for you, did it?"
The absolute mortification on Evelyn's face told her everything mere words could not.
"No shit," Nova mused, stubbing the end of her dying habit out with a last blow through her lips. "Was he packing?"
Evelyn choked on a sip of her soda like a warthog.
"Big hands, big feet, big dick," the prostitute said wisely. She peered down at Evelyn's groin; the shame having long been abolished from years of work. "Bet that ass is sore."
"Okay! Nice talk," Evelyn rushed, leaving her drink half empty and forcing herself to not limp out the door.
"Go sit on something iced, you'll be fine."
"Goodbye!" Evelyn swung the door shut, heavily leaned on the railing, and ignored the bustling evening crowd below in favor of the blanket of bright stars overhead.
I had sex with Freddie Gomez last night, after curfew...we snuck out and did it in the cafeteria.
Oh my God! First- ew. Second- you little harlot! They laugh, more tickles and belly roll pokes ensue. Butch-
Doesn't know! I mean, let's get real, it's not like we're even dating-
Yeah, but Freddie Gomez is just an asshole, and he shacks up with Christine Kendall, (gross!). He said my skin looks like the color of that fake sliced cheese we get!
You know he doesn't mean it.
No, you don't know how they talk about us. That's what she wants to tell her, so desperately. You don't know of the horrible things they whisper just loud enough for me to hear. They want me to hear. They're jerks.
She should have told her that. She should have told her everything, as though it would have somehow let her stay.
The early morning was always worth the ungodly hours to wake up to. A dark velvet blue crushed with violet petals in the same mortar, some sprinkled golden flakes and misted orange citrus. It was quiet, the busy hours of daily life not yet coming to fruition. She liked to sit just outside the gates, watch the sun breathe life.
...which was promptly ruined by a waft of cigarette smoke leeching into her nose. Bleh. She turned her head- Jericho.
"You're up early," he commented nonchalantly, not giving her a return glance as he stared out into the wastes.
"Could say the same," she half-muttered as she watched him procure a cigarette packet from his pocket to shake one out for her to take. "No thanks. Smoking's bad for you."
He shrugged. "Whatever."
Evelyn returned her gaze to the natural wonder, feeling his eyes drill a hole through her skull. She hated that vulnerable vibe she garnered from being around him.
He slaps my face more than his balls slap my pussy...he just pays Moriarty extra for the bruising.
Nova had told her more than she ever cared to know about the ex-raider's tendencies in bed. She inwardly shuddered, thankful Charon hadn't dealt out similar treatment...she couldn't help but wonder if he was reflecting on their experience as much as she was. She assumed not, if she had anything to go by with his immediate departure.
The smell of cigarette-stained clothes was much closer than she would have liked, and she grew irritated at the lack of respect when it came to personal space. Jericho wasn't too upset with their last encounter when she had crushed his nuts, so it seemed. She stood up, dusted the dirt from her butt, and proceeded back inside the safety of the walls, aware of his ogling gaze stalking her as she went.
In an hour or so, the shops would be open, and the settlers would be roaming around like a congested ant farm. She divvied up her loot from yesterday's short-lived scavenging hunt...and then proceeded to sit and inhale some frosted cakes while she stared at her sheets, newly baptized from a popped cherry. She really wanted to see him again...even if she didn't.
Wadsworth came to life from his preprogrammed alarm system, whirring around the place and muttering something of absolutely filthy...I insist you remove your shoes prior to entering, Madam.
Her eyes zeroed in on the dried mud littered about- most certainly not from her. Hey, can you wipe your shoes off? Wadsworth hates the mess.
Ugh. Too cringeworthy. Not like her place was clean to begin with.
Are you hungry? Want a drink?
Too...desperate for social company.
You can stay the night; it's going to be dark soon...
She slapped her face in her hands and groaned aloud. For Christ's sake, one quick fuck and she was already planning future visits like she was actually expecting him to show up at some point. Absolutely pathetic. The hickey on her neck was only getting darker, making her wear a thin scarf around it despite the heat. Forcing herself to get along with her day rather than sit and overanalyze the situation was more difficult than she could have imagined. Thankfully, Moira took her crap with an overly beaming excitement like always, not once prying about her new fashion statement.
"Fission batteries?! You have no idea how much I've been needing these for this project I'm working on!" she chittered, tossing them in a crate with no care whatsoever. "Oh, yeah! Someone came by asking for you by name yesterday, kind of a scary guy! I told him to try Springvale, since that's where you said you'd be going-"
Jesus, Moira, remind me to never tell you where I put my spare key.
Evelyn dumped the currency she had earned into her pack. "Yeah, he found me, thanks."
Did he just talk to everyone about her? He was certainly thorough...and now he knew where she lived, would he maybe come knocking if-
"Hey now! I almost forgot!" Moira spun around, making popping sounds with her tongue as she nabbed something off the shelf. "He came by and left this for you."
An olive-green military-grade sheath was set down on the counter, the handle of the blade that was secured inside wrapped in some sort of worn leather. She picked it up, her tummy exploding with electric butterflies as the blade pulled smoothly from its casing.
Holy shit. It was much better quality than her chipped combat knife, that was for sure. The refined edge told that it was recently sharpened by an expert hand and a trained eye. Something like this would rake in a shitload of caps!
She replaced the knife back inside and held it as though it were forged from glass. He really left this for her? But why? She couldn't get two words from his mouth that weren't condescending (or threatening), and now he suddenly gives her something like this?
He probably paid you, duh.
All at once, her happy butterflies exploded into acidic fireballs. Wow. She was so stupid. It was so blatantly obvious she fiercely bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from crying in public. She did invite him, after all. Amata had never told her anything about gifts from her courtships, and prostitution was a common trade in the wasteland.
She resisted the tremendous urge to chuck the fucking thing in a bin. It would fetch a decent price with Lucky Harith, at some point, and she couldn't afford her pride to fuck her over...not like he had done, anyway.
With much more sullen airs, she went back home and veered on autopilot to her caps stash that was kept locked away in the upstairs bedroom. Out of habit, she tallied her newest acquisition with the latest sum she had been keeping track of on a folded piece of yellowed paper.
She blinked. She counted again. The same number. She painstakingly went through and counted each and every cap, suddenly flush and nervous and so damn giddy. All those long days, the calluses on her hands from digging through the rubble, the knots in her muscles from lugging a full pack around, the hours spent hiding from every threat and miles she'd walked for every specialty item she could sell...
Two-thousand and sixty-two caps. She could now buy his contract, give the damn man his freedom as payback for saving her life, and forget about him as this debt would finally be rolled from her shoulders.
Well, there was no time like the present.
Out of sheer habit, he went to grab his knife. His fingers brushed the underlying leather of his pants instead, and he was inherently reminded of his impromptu decision before he had left Megaton.
A quick thrum of his fingers on the table (that was compiled with a very vast array of death-dealing instruments he routinely performed maintenance on). He would need to visit Tulip's sometime before his next supply run to replace it, and he was certain he wouldn't find anything near as excellent quality as that one had been.
The ever-turning rumor mill in Underworld was always filtering past his ears. He generally ignored it, had learned to tune out most things a long time ago, but certain key words had radioed in his attention most eagerly (something he would never admit to).
Did you hear? Winthrop's been making something in his workshop, they think it's for that smoothskin...peh...bastard thinks he'll finally get lucky.
Charon hoped she appreciated the knife. It was exponentially better than that walking future tetanus shot she had threatened him with...he might have to kill Winthrop.
He honestly didn't expect to see her again unless they happened to cross paths at Northwest Seneca; Ahzrukhal didn't let his leash drag too far.
The bouncer stretched his spine in his seat, cracked his neck. He was becoming distracted by these asinine thoughts- it was a detriment, and could be dangerous. The wastes did not take kindly to complacency, and here he found himself sitting at this table, his mind wandering to the sound of her whimpered breathing and the taste of her sweat, rather than focusing on the task at hand. Now his dick was at full attention, and he had the unfortunate timing of needing to take a piss.
He grumbled, quickly disassembled a 10mm he sometimes carried as a sidearm for a chance to cool down, and then left the bar for the urinals by the entrance. He did his business (at once reminded of her musky smell that still perfumed him), shook the tip, and craned his head from instinct as the front doors to The Museum of History opened.
That fucking smoothskin was here.
He would most definitely have to kill Winthrop.
The zipper to his pants was shunted up tight, and he found his legs making great strides across the lobby in chase before she entered Underworld. She was lugging a giant duffel bag and small pack with her, to which he grabbed the latter and spun her around. She seemed surprised...and, annoyed.
"It wasn't like that, between us," she spat at him. He did not understand the hostility and took a step back. Her angry, scrunched-up eyes quickly took him in from head to toe. Her voice was dripping with resentment. "I didn't want it, but thanks anyway."
"I do not understand," he rasped. Did she not enjoy the sex they had? She sounded like she had...he most definitely had.
"You should've kept your fucking knife." When he said nothing, she scoffed, "Whatever."
He watched her turn back around and go inside. She did not like it? It was a much better choice than her own selection...should he have given her something else, instead? He came back in, just in time to catch a glimpse of her speaking with Winthrop...and then disappearing inside his office.
The smoothskin wasn't his business. She wasn't his employer. He got laid for the first (and now last) time and that was it.
(He was going to kill Winthrop)
With a hidden bitterness, he climbed the stairs back to The Ninth Circle, took his seat, and resumed his usual routine while trying not to think about what had just happened. The minutes passed, his guns and armor cleaned, and Ahzrukhal counted inventory while he threw out a drunk (maybe a little too harshly...as he ended up sailing over the balcony).
The commotion down below drew out the pair from behind the closed door (and more eyes than he normally cared for) and Winthrop looked up and yelled something he didn't bother to hear. The door slammed shut, he leaned against his usual spot with his arms crossed and expression lethal, and tapped an index finger along his bicep.
"What the hell are you doing?" Ahzrukhal hissed from behind the bar. "Watch yourself, Charon. I don't need Barrows up here again."
He gave a terse nod and resumed his silent fuming. The doors didn't open again for over an hour, and when they creaked on their hinges, he threw the most hateful glare he could have ever constructed, directly at her.
She completely ignored him, went to the bar, and threw the duffel bag on the counter. It sounded heavy. What in the world was she-?
"All two thousand," she said decisively, her tone sharp enough to cut glass. "I'll be taking Charon's contract now."