A/N: The following chapter was effectively co-written with another author on the tab, Interfectorem, a name a lot of you have seen popping up every now and then on this story. I'll keep it short, if you haven't read his previous stories like "The New West" or "Why We Fight" and are not currently reading "The Edge of Glory," you're missing out, but nonetheless this chapter should thoroughly explain the loaned character of Dalton. So don't forget to swing by his stories and say something nice over there. And here. Now on with the chapter.
Chapter 46: The Chat
The two had been travelling through the sands and wind for hours, carrying little else but the clothing on their backs and the scant few supplies they had looted from the bodies. Rosa carried a bandolier of ammunition around her body, along with the canteen. Her new bodyguard, the crusty bastard who went by Dalton, hoisted the empty machine gun across his back. So far, they hadn't had to deal with anything that their machetes couldn't drive off, but in case they ended up getting followed by either that Cade asshole or the big black lizard, this machine-gun they split apart would be their only meaningful means of defense.
The afternoon and evening had been silent. The night had just been two suspicious wastelanders fitfully sleeping in quick and sporadic shifts, leaving in the morning as tired as they had been before. The only thing Dalton said was that they were pretty much a day out from the mining village, and they'd be there before next nightfall. Since then, though, nothing. Nothing but wordlessly passing the canteen between themselves and keeping a lookout.
Rosa wasn't much of a silent type. She needed banter, to insult and joke and tease people she trusted. Crusty Bastard wasn't someone she had any attachments to, had no history with, hell, couldn't even figure out if she could trust or not. The mysterious stranger schtick wasn't something she was willing to put up with for too long for someone she wasn't going to sleep with, even if she was out of other options. So, that left her with two options: fuck him or talk.
Dalton caught her staring at him out of the corner of his eyes. "…Can I help you?" he asked, annoyed.
"…Y'know, I didn't think guys like you live that long. You're, what, seventy, I'm gonna say, eight, and you're still doing the whole random acts of violence thing. Most raiders don't live past thirty, right? What's your deal, anyway?" Rosa began, cheerily.
Dalton didn't even pretend to hide his irritation. "Around 66 actually, if I remember correctly." He kept walking, but soon realized that Rosa kept staring at him, taking a valuable pair of eyes that should be scanning for threats and using them to force him to socialize. She wanted the truth? Fine. Take the truth. Take ALL the truth!
"But 'What's my Deal' as you say? I learned long ago that this world isn't fair in any way shape or form... You might have gained your ability to survive and fight from... I don't know? Training? Some school in New Vegas for aspiring lunatic wasteland 'Wild Cards?'. You know, I heard about the 'Governor' and if you really are who you say you are, I say that most of us out here, those like me, had to learn how to fight by getting beaten into the dirt over and over and over again. Soon enough, morality goes out the window and you ask yourself 'Is doing the "right thing" even right?' There's no such thing as random acts of violence, just people getting what's due to them, fair has nothing to do with the measure of that brutality. But what I really learned is that this world's actually very simple: you're either the one getting stepped on, or you're the one doing the stepping. I didn't learn which one I really was until later in life. Your granddad tried to teach me what I was not long after I could walk when he did what he did to my first home: Oppressor or oppressed, I'm still one of those that suffers in the wake of the 'Hero'."
"Oh, blow it out your ass!" Rosa scoffed, derisively. "I guess it's our fault the Enclave decided to wage a war against the rest of humanity, huh? So, your leaders are just supposed to go from "purge the undesirables" one minute and then fall back on "Oh, why does everyone hate me?" Pathetic!"
Dalton shot a glare at her as she met his gaze. Antagonization aside, they both knew that a fight that broke out here would doom them both, so there was a mutual understanding to keep the blows verbal. Rosa then thought back to Uncle Arcade and his history, wondering how many bullets he had to dodge to avoid becoming this miserable asshole. Studying his features, Rosa began to crunch some numbers. "Ok, so the Rig got sunk sixty years ago. You couldn't have been…"
"Seven. Born Enclave, true and pure, whatever that's supposed to mean. That just means I was old enough to understand why my folks were gunned down but still too young to have any say in the matter. Unlike you, I essentially grew up without my parents, watching everyone I knew leave to fight the NCR only to never come back. This was atop a life that started in a mushroom cloud. Found my true place under Caesar though," he added at the end with just a hint of wistfulness.
Rosa wondered who in their right mind would trade advanced power armor for football pads and knives. Obvious answer aside, she couldn't imagine someone falling so far, so badly. Going from a lifetime of propaganda about the real America with just enough force to back the talk to the tirades and diatribes of a delusional but clever man pretending to be a god. Talk about a downgrade.
Once again, she thought back to Uncle Arcade. Though he regularly denounced both the Enclave and Legion during his lessons to her, he couldn't help but acknowledge that most of the surviving remnants, those who remained around the western coast at least, were just trying to make the best of what they could retain. The old man himself had once offered a bunch of the old fogeys to spend their twilight years as his honor guard, before they passed away in the war against Madame Zhang.
Compared to the Legion, where to her knowledge only one member of their group was allowed entry into the Mojave Nation. Uncle U, a man who retained a heavy suspicion of nostalgia, who often criticized California but never to her memory attempted to justify the Legion. It told her a lot that the Governor would only allow someone the Legion regarded as a traitor anywhere near her.
"... Ok, then. Well, how the hell did you join the Legion? You couldn't have joined the Legion until you were a grown-ass man! What made you join? Did you get press ganged into it or…" she eyes him wearily, feeling uncomfortable about hanging out with someone who volunteered to join the fucking Legion.
"I'd say I 'Joined' the Legion because I understood the Legion. I'd never seen them or even considered joining them before I met a dear friend of mine, but I knew their style. I knew their goals. I knew their power," he stated as he began entering a trance-like state. "When facing the option of hiding in bunkers the rest of your life, or killing yourself under the guise of 'Martyrdom,' you simply crawl out of your bunker and join the winning team..."
A sudden burst of laughter brought him back to reality. Rosa looked like she was about to double over. "Really? The 'winning team'? That's what we're calling Commodus Cueball of the Roman Wannabes?" Rosa interrupted between her hysterics.
"Cute... In my day, I raped and killed girls like you in front of their families for saying less than that about Lord Caesar," Dalton replied in a tone he hadn't used for decades.
"Keep talking like that and I'll end up making you my bitch!" Rosa exclaimed as her hand rested on her machete handle, laughter still going but slowly petering out. As she regained control over herself, she looked at Dalton in the eyes. She had grown up in an environment where dark humor and sick jokes were just another facet of small talk, especially in the Bishop Crime Family and with various wastelander hangouts near bars. The realization soon dawned on her that he was not joking. Her hand began gripping the handle tighter.
"Before you get too scared or angry at simple words, I'll tell you that you have no fathomable idea about exactly what the Legion was in its rise. You might have heard stories, heard about us as raiders and barbarians, awful slavers, etc," he sighed. Before he realized it, he slowly began to betray his resentment. "You grew up in a nation, a city, a place of peace and even prosperity. Me? the Legion? We didn't get the luxury of saying 'That's wrong.' We had to unify this land, carve out a home in a world surrounded by a violent quagmire of unimaginable tribalism that demanded the kind of people who weren't able to say, 'This is evil.' All it took for me was one look at Arizona outside an Enclave satellite for me to give myself over to that friend I mentioned."
"... Doesn't sound like much of a friend if he dragged you into that." Rosa shot back as she turned and began to walk away. What she didn't realize was that she had done something that no one had been able to do in the last twenty years to Dalton, mercenary-terrorist extraordinaire. She had managed to offend him.
"That man, the Legion, they gave me purpose!" Dalton snarled, causing Rosa to turn back. "Of course, the Lord Interfector gained Caesar's favor all by himself, but I was lucky enough to ride that wave with him. Of course, he had to betray a metropolis in order to do so, but I'm sure we already established that morality is simply based on who you ask."
"…No offense, your buddy sounds like a POS, no matter who you ask," Rosa grimaced.
"Ask a Californian, sure. Ask the Legion, ask a citizen of Two Sun, ask a Twisted Hair, ask literally anyone left standing in Arizona in the wake of Caesar? Absolutely not," Dalton shook his head, adamantly confident. "That man gave so many people across Arizona, Legion, tribal, or otherwise, purpose and safety. Me though? That man put me on The Edge of Glory."
Rosa felt like she could hear trumpets at the end of the last sentence. He didn't seem like he was looking to excuse or justify who he served or how he lived. If it involved literally almost any other group, it would almost be commendable. Sadly, Rosa felt compelled to continue raining on his parade. "The hell does that mean?"
"It means that he, the Legion, gave me purpose in life... It means I lived most of my life fanatically, with all my mental, physical, and spiritual being in pursuit of bringing glory and honor to something far bigger than you or I... No matter if it means death... Especially if it means death," Dalton concluded, solemnly and with pride.
"That sounds like an awful way to live your life," Rosa heckled.
"Luckily I'm at the age where I no longer have to care about the opinions of people like you," Dalton shot back, equally petulantly. "People who only live so that they can die 'someday' when today will work just fine for such an insignificant existence..." For the first time, he got a good look at the girl. He hadn't been present at the Second Battle, but he remembered seeing bounty posters circulating throughout Legion turf of the Hostis Publicus shortly after the assassination of Caesar. The girl staring back at him didn't resemble that man in the slightest, except maybe around the eyes. "You live in the shadow of someone many say is 'Great'. Though I beg to differ, I can't see you ever living up to someone that made an impact like him," he taunted, not knowing what would happen but curious and eager to find out.
Rosa hocked a loogie straight into Dalton's eye. Dalton, annoyed but not surprised, retaliated by backhanding the brat across her face. This earned a response in the form of Rosa's forehead colliding with his chin, which earned her a blow that Dalton instinctively expected to leave her reeling, his years of experience in fistfights and brawls blinding him to an attribute he had forgotten about his opponent. Rosa, nonplussed, bound her legs around Dalton's foot he had so generously offered her and twisted his leg to the ground, forcing the older man to put his entire body weight onto his other foot to kick her off and away.
Knocking her back, Dalton started to breathe heavily as Rosa returned to loom over him. Staring down at the old man, she offered out her hand to pick him up. Dalton absentmindedly reached out his hand, only to watch as hers morphed into a middle finger as she kicked dirt towards him. "Don't talk shit you can't back up. That's one lesson I do appreciate from my old man."
As she said this, Dalton snaked his legs around her ankle, and as quick as a flash Rosa found her face planted in the dirt. "Good lesson," Dalton admitted as they both picked themselves up. Having an impromptu fistfight in the middle of the desert wasn't one of the more inspired ideas either of them had ever had. "We'll call it a draw for now... Such a temper too?" Dalton smiled as he huffed and puffed. "You can be the Montano to my Aleron, for now."
"The who to my what?" Rosa hacked out as she spat out some sand.
"Doesn't matter," Dalton breathlessly laughed and coughed.
"Well, if you're still living 'on the edge of glory' or whatever," Rosa continued, using her middle fingers as air quotes, "how the hell did you break? Why you out here when you could be serving the Legion out east?"
Dalton's demeanor began to… soften wasn't quite the right word. Never much one for wistful nostalgia, Dalton nonetheless had some things that he still treasured, even after all this time. "I lost my friend... Didn't think it'd hit me like it did until... I had a lot going on when I found out. Caesar was already moving on the Mojave when I was still running nowhere scouting ops into west Texas for the Frumantarii. I swear I would've missed my friend more if he didn't saddle me with his kid before disappearing into the Divide. When-"
"Wait, hang on, you said your friend destroyed a city, and Twisted Hairs thanked him, and..." Rosa began to stroke her chin as she thought back to her tutoring and the stories one of them would tell. "…Uncle Ulysses was in the frumantarii. I think he told me about that guy."
Dalton snorted. "Ulysses?... Never heard of him. Must've given himself a new name after deserting because I knew everyone in the Frumantarii and I'd remember a traitor with a name like that."
"What, didn't you desert Caesar's Legion too?" Rosa sniffed, pretending not to be eager to lord this guy's hypocrisy over him for the rest of ever, however long that would be.
"Not really. I deserted the Legion, not Caesar's Legion. The Legion that my friend brought me into wasn't the same as the one I saw running from Hoover Dam the second time," Dalton replied, feeling the agitation in his gut begin to bubble.
"So that was it? That's what made you leave the Legion and become a... Not a raider?" Rosa asked, unimpressed. By now, however, Rosa had moved past simply offending the man. Now, Rosa had managed to discover something of a psychological release valve. Not immediately, it would start slowly, but what happened would build and continue to build and build until she would finally understand everything there was to understand about Dalton.
"I left because Caesar was gone. I left because Caesar Was the Legion. I left because Caesar Was the Lord I served!" Dalton's voice began to raise. "I left because Caesar sent My best friend to die! Because Caesar killed Graham! Because I could not bow to anyone lesser! Because CAESAR WAS ALL!... Because I couldn't bear to raise that boy in a land where the ones who saved you were the ones you hate most..."
Rosa wondered how messed up this kid that Dalton raised had to be. Being raised to be a knife-wielding, skirt-wearing lunatic had to annihilate one's social awareness. Raising the child of your best friend to charge dick-first into enemy fire was all kinds of fucked, which fit into the modus operandi of the Legion, itself. With any luck, that kid either found a quick death or got out of Dodge as soon as possible, for his sake.
"... That boy never knew his father the way I did. After getting back from Texas, I learned the boy was left to me. Barely, what? Four? I was frumantarii, I couldn't raise a child. I didn't want to, didn't intend to, but damn if I wasn't going to. I owed it to my friend, I wanted to, for him. Abel was barely five at the time I picked him up from fuckin Dinero. Doubt he even remembers spending 8 months at Dinero's after his dad died. I'd try to block that out too, but I took the kid off his hands and settled him at a safe place I knew, a place away from the boy camps. I doubt even Dinero remembers that little 'favor' I did for him, but he was an idiot even after the Legion. He does Caesar one favor, and that jackass thinks he's set for life? What a joke..."
This Dinero, Rosa thought, sounds like he got the gig Caesar promised my old man. There was a time when he played the mercenary, Arcade had explained, and the thought of him serving under Caesar was a notion that baffled her for years. What did they have to offer him, anyway? Slaves? Money? Pussy? He wouldn't have known what to do with the first and had more than he could ever want of the last two. She remembered him explaining this to a Californian reporter. I couldn't let the Legion win, I didn't let the NCR win, and I had to let House lose.
That was the burden of freedom, Arcade had told her. Freedom required sacrifices, and certainty was one of them. Some people were content to be wind-up toys, to live their lives and look after their own. It was the right both the Mojave and California promised, to mixed results. Listening to this rant, she began to understand why the Legion didn't die. The Legion was run on broken men, fueled by them, and directed them, giving them purpose and meaning. It's powerful. Sick but powerful. Rosa remembered when Melody had told her that and resolved to give the poor woman a hug the next time she saw her. She left her thoughts upon the realization that his ranting hadn't ceased for a second.
"... And that's why I hate mutants! I can't tell you how many times I saved that boy from a Gila Beast near the oasis. Or did he appreciate the time that I nearly got crucified for abandoning my role on an Insurrection Op just to make sure he was had his training blade properly sharp? No, he didn't..."
Rosa marveled at Dalton's ability to welch. Such a burden, looking after a child you couldn't trust with anyone else. If he couldn't trust anyone else, maybe that should have clued him in on what he was working for? Maybe a little acknowledgment that neither his friend nor he could put any faith in the cosplaying centurions. Deep down, Rosa knew that Dalton had to understand that what he was serving was twisted, and getting out of it was the best thing he could do for both of them.
"... I had to balance so much shit at the time. I had just lost my best friend, I had to take care of his kid, and then I had to serve Caesar the best I could, and strive for a glorious death in the name of Mars. All this was out here, mind you. I was nowhere near the Mojave for most of the war, something that really pissed me off in all honesty. I specifically told Lord Interfector years before, that if we ever march on the NCR, I get first dibs on infiltration ops."
Dalton was so fully entranced in his hatred that he didn't even realize how much he was telling a complete stranger. The Dalton of old would have beheaded himself without a second thought, in all likelihood. "I could bet money that he told Legate G that, but I suppose it doesn't matter, given how that fuck let Caesar down. So, I was stuck doing ops in the far east and having to even spend my respite periods taking care of that kid? All I wanted was to fucking kill in the name of Caesar, Kill those NCR fucks in particular. Fucking profligate sacks of shit. I'll FUCKING KILL THEM ALL! EVERYONE!.." Rosa could have sworn he was beginning to froth at the mouth. "Stuck out east and raising a boy to know and honor Caesar? That's what I did. Honor MY Lord, a Lord I STILL serve with all my being. Honor a man who wouldn't send me to kill the ones I been waiting to kill?..."
Or not, Rosa thought to herself. The only member of the NCR that the Governor killed was General Oliver, as much for his failures as his dependency on a package courier to ensure his victory. The old man never hated California and had done what he could to ensure that the NCR, flawed as it was, understood that he wasn't their enemy. Senator Ziyi was his biggest advocate in the Capitol, and as time had gone on even his harshest critics acknowledged that the NCR effectively lost itself the war long before the Governor's intervention.
This hatred for California, though… Rosa was tempted to ask him if he was aware of the Legion operation that took over Fort Tandi during the War of the Glorious Cause, and if so, tell him what she had heard happened to the perpetrators. Somehow a giant pack of deathclaws had attacked and devoured a fort that had been coincidentally taken over by Legion spies. Was that what he meant? His tibia being used as a toothpick by reptilian killing machines? Is that what he wanted?
Inevitably, his fervent hatred could not sustain itself. His fanaticism spent, Dalton found himself with nothing left but resentment. "I watched him die. I didn't see it firsthand, but I saw it from afar. I saw the wave of crimson flee east, straight towards and then past me. I had nothing left after Caesar died. I watched Lanius run..." He turned to look at Rosa, the betrayal in his eyes palpable. "Do you know what it's like to hear that the beast you looked up to ran away? I'd seen that monster behead whole towns for the single negative word about Caesar. I watched him burn Denver to the ground, and even He ran... Whatever was coming from Vegas was such a horror that it killed Caesar and sent his Legate east..."
Rosa thought back to many of her memories about that "horror" with a sense of bemusement. Walking into his room while he was passed out, clutching an empty bottle of whiskey while a girl or sometimes two got dressed to leave. Listening to him bombard Uncle Ulysses and Uncle Gavino with bad jokes to try and get reactions out of them. Watching him pretend to care when Arcade or the Boones came to discuss things that sounded important. Seeing him run through and gut those tribals when they attacked him when they and Flo went to Zion. The resurgent memory shocked Rosa. She hadn't thought about the Zion vacation in ages. That Old Man, that Governor, yes. That was someone who could scare away the Legion.
"I couldn't be in the Legion without Caesar. He was my purpose, and he was dead. I can't face the world anymore without him, but I know what killed him. What killed him was the west. What killed him was the weak in his ranks. Without him, there is no purpose; he saved me from my past. He taught me how to never be a victim of oppressors like the NCR. I wanted to serve him the best I could, but he had to die and abandon me, my friends, my everything...," Dalton looked like he was on the verge of tears, and despite everything, Rosa felt her arm stretch out to try and comfort him. Then he whipped around and found a reserve of anger he could tap into. Rosa stepped back as his intensity ramped up one last time.
"I know you all killed the hero! My hero! You all celebrate your heroes, people like your grandfather, people like your father, people who ruin lives like mine in the wake of the big heroic deed! You killed the man who stood people like me up. I swore I'd never be the victim of anything again and I'd be damned if I was going to let Abel be a victim of a world that doesn't give two shits either. My friend introduced me to Caesar, and even though Caesar died, I would be damned if I was going to let my best friend's boy get victimized by anything. I don't care if he thanks me for what I did for him or not, his father was not a pushover either! He showed me that just because the world kicks you down, you don't lay there, you stand up and slit its fuckin throat. Survival of the fittest..." and with that, the last of his reserves was spent. It would return before too long, after all this time it always would, but Dalton was spent and tired had nothing left to prove.
"... Do you now how hard it is to carry around all this hate? I didn't get to this ripe old age by being calm. The rage and hate at everything is the only thing keeping me going. The only problem is that now I'm tired of going. It isn't hard to find other people who hate everything, and a lot of people like them look up to me. Some even walk with me. They may fool themselves into believing they follow me for some sort of mission. Sometimes I fool myself into believing I'm on a mission too, but in the end, I'm just tired of hating and being so hated. I lived a bad life that gave me knowledge about all manners of killing and torturing, being killed and getting tortured. I can show you how to work some high-tech gun or show you a lethal way to take someone down, but that's it. I'm just tired of hating everything. A glorious death is what I preferred when Caesar was around, but now, it's been so long since he died, and I did a lot of what I could to the world out there. I think I'm just about ready..." Dalton looked like he was one stiff breeze from passing out.
"…So, those assholes with the plasma weapons? They just got dealt a bad hand and hate the world now?" Rosa asked, and watched with some relief as some light returned a bit to the older man.
"They'd never tell you that verbatim, but yeah." Dalton shrugged and nodded, his energy slowly returning. "They're just a group of people who follow me for a myriad of reasons they've deluded themselves into believing are what I stand for. All those reasons boil down to the fact they just have generalized hate towards the world and the hands they've been dealt in life. Unconsciously, all of them know I am the best at hating myself and everyone. They follow me because I had the most access to the means and ability towards violence, given my past. Abel left because he didn't understand what I was trying to teach him and didn't know that people like his father and I were made what we are in the forge of a bad world... I just don't care anymore... About anything. Live? Die? Causes? Morals? None of those matter, I know what I am: I'm just a man tired of being the enemy in a world that no matter what you do, you'll be the enemy to someone."
And just like that, Rosa understood everything there was to understand about Dalton. She turned and walked, abandoning her questions. Dalton felt relieved, though some part of him felt that there was more to it than the quiet, more like he had finally dropped a heavy pack he had carried so long that he had forgotten about it. They walked for the next ten minutes in silence. Then twenty. Then an hour. Finally, as the sun finally fully peeked over the horizon, Rosa had enough of the silence, once again.
"…Dalton, when we get out of here, there's a few people I want you to meet," Rosa spoke up, firmly.
The sudden sound of her voice made Dalton wince. He spat on the ground. "Spare me the sanctimony, kid. You don't have it in you."
"I know a guy named Arcade Gannon. He's the only other guy I knew who grew up in the Enclave-"
"Stop..." Dalton stated and Rosa obliged. She watched as the recognition slowly began to cross over his face. That name meant something to Crusty Bastard, she thought as she hid her smile. He shook his head, pushing the thought from his mind. "I'm the only one who escaped Navarro before the surrender. NCR hunted down and killed the others after. This 'Gannon' can't be the same one from that family."
"I'm certain he's the same one. You can't make up the kinds of stories he's told me about his youth," Rosa grinned.
Dalton remembered sitting by the boy as they watched the Brotherhood and NCR burn Navarro to the ground. He remembered someone telling that kid that they could kiss America goodbye. He remembered splitting up from the rest of the refugees, himself barely eking out his existence in Arizona while assuming the rest of them had been systematically exterminated as California frequently threatened. Yet against all odds, someone else managed to escape and survive. "…What's he doing?" he asked, despite himself, genuinely curious.
"He's a doctor who runs the Vegas City Council. The other is Ulysses, who you already know. He lives on a ranch and trains the Judicial Marshals on how to survive off the land and talk to tribals. Enclave and Legion, living in Vegas, next to California, minding their own business and helping others. Cool, huh?"
Dalton took a moment to take her words to heart until he realized what she was doing. He let out an exasperated groan while he rolled his eyes. His disappointment was immeasurable. "Seriously? You're giving me the come to Jesus treatment?"
"No, that's Joseph's job. I'm just telling you it's your own fucking fault you're miserable," she goaded him, gently by her standards. "You giving up and lashing out at the rest of the world? Your call, your decision. The only reason it all went down like this is because you decided it had to, geezer. This kid, Abel. Why didn't you go with?"
He thought back to the parlay. Kenzie McGrath had food, folks, and enough guns to make traversing through "his" new territory a problem. Dalton had a sizable collection of angry men and plasma weapons, and the last thing tying him to his old friendship. That thing he ended up trading to Kenzie for a few sacks of tatos, beef, and enough water for them to leave their turf. Dalton turned away after the trade was done, ignoring the screaming as that teenage girl hushed the young boy and told him everything was going to be OK.
"Go with? Go with him where? He deserted me... Never really learned why," Dalton lied, still ashamed. "Still took what I taught him though, so I know he's safe wherever he is. Or he's in an NCR max security prison if he took those 'other' lessons with him. All I know is that I raised him away from the Legion, taught him all I knew in these lands from my time here and now he's gone."
"Maybe it was for the best. Getting that kid as far away from the Legion, from you, is probably the biggest favor you could've done for the kid and his pops, whether you intended his departure or not. Who knows, maybe someday it'll pay off. Maybe you'll even get to see it. Anything other than… whatever this is supposed to be," Rosa indicated, waving her hand around Dalton's general figure.
"War doesn't change and peace doesn't last," Dalton recited something he had heard long ago and decided to add to.
"Oh, I admit I have enemies. You've met one of them, the asshat in the black hat. And the folks who hired him. And these holier-than-thou pieces of shit who light hospitals on fire. And Larain, who's balls I'm going to cut off whenever I see him again. See?" Rosa pointed to her face as a giant fake smile was plastered on it. "Look how happy I am!"
"…Ok, so what about me?" Dalton finally asked.
Rosa looked confused. "What about you?" she repeated.
"Where do I fall on your purview of enemies?" Dalton elaborated.
"You? Nah. You're not my enemy. You, I pity," Rosa snorted as she fixed the ammo belt around her body.
Dalton couldn't help himself. He laughed, though without mirth. "I hadn't been someone to pity since I watched Navarro fall. After that, over time, I've been the worst nightmare of so many people. I was a fucking good nightmare too. The kind of nightmare you awake from, not to realize you're safe in bed, but nailed to a cross with plasma burns all over... Still, age isn't doing me no favors. I got nothing going on and nothing to live for, but if you have any use for an aging menace to the world... I suppose you can call me the incarnate of bad karma, and we're both in a spot where I'm at your disposal."
"My disposal, huh?" Rosa asked. "Tell you what, let's say we run into this guy I met, Larain. If we do, can I have your word that we… take care of him?"
Dalton eyed her, suspiciously. "What and why?" he asked.
"The details aren't important," Rosa shook her head. "Maybe he betrayed some people, maybe he used my best friend for sex, or maybe the wasteland is just better off without him. Point is it doesn't matter! What does matter is you putting your "scary" reputation to good use, for once," Rosa concluded.
"…Good use?" Dalton almost laughed. "Whatever did you have in mind?"
"Well, let me set the scene," Rosa began. "You've just got back from a long campaign. They knew how guns worked, so it wasn't easy. You come home, put your feet up, and suddenly you hear a noise in the tent next to you. You go over and you see someone on top of your best friend's girl. And wouldn't you know, it's a junior officer who's been blaming you for missing rations and has been telling the other legionaries that charging a firing line with a machete is stupid and that Caesar is overrated!"
"I hate him, already," Dalton replied, playing along.
"Great," Rosa smiled. "So, how would you punish him?"
"Crucifixion," Dalton immediately said.
"Boo," Rosa replied, underwhelmed.
"Reverse-crucifixion," Dalton elaborated.
"What's that?" Rosa asked.
"Just hanging the guy upside down," Dalton explained. "Tying his feet apart instead of his arms."
Rosa thought about it. "Making a dude hold the splits for hours while the blood rushes to his head," she thought aloud with a smile.
"Compounded with all the excruciation that comes with standard crucifixion," Dalton nodded. "And you have a recipe for the best possible first phase of torture."
"First phase?" Rosa's eyes lit up.
"Two words, kid. Plasma. Bath." Dalton explained. As the two continued down the desert, Rosa felt her morale begin to climb. Lost, tired, and partnered with a stranger who knew the intricacies of burn torture, she figured that so long as they understood one another, things would at the very least be bearable. Dalton, however, couldn't remember the last time he just took a moment to shoot the shit with someone, even if it was about what passed for "work" with him. It wasn't a close relationship, but it sure beat out that of those who were following them. Cade and Sawney would have overtaken the two of them hours ago, had they not spent their time keeping the other in check.