A/N: I've been in love with Fallout: New Vegas for years. I've always wanted to write something, but kept putting it off for other distractions. I have too many ideas, and not enough time and energy for them all. I can't commit to something lengthy at this point in time, but I wanted to crank out a one-shot, if nothing else. So, cheers to a good scratch for a chronic itch.

First chapter is rated M.

Second chapter will be very Explicit.

TAGS: Stalking, Psychological Torture, Suspense, Physical Abuse, Coercion, Non-con, Blood & Gore

(I will potentially edit this to include additional tags once the second chapter is finished.)

Towering waves of gold rolled in an endless sea before her. Glittering like ancient coins under a cloudless sky. The illusion of infinite abundance, betrayed by dozens of fallen, desiccated skeletons stretching their brittle fingers towards her. Reaching for a salvation that would never come. Across not a sprawl of gold coins, but sizzling sand, as the dunes met her feet.

Her eyes strained as she tried to focus. Convinced there was something more within the sand...if not part of the sand itself. The illusion struggling to maintain its hold in the form of the tiniest circles, melting in and out of her vision, buried in the grains. One of the elusive mirages flashed close enough for her to catch it in detail.

A large medallion, minted with a bull. Beneath it, 'Legio Caesaris'.

The air wavered around her, refracting in the heat. She felt it hovering so close. A hair's breadth from her skin, like the grazing of a plasma bolt. Any movement would set her ablaze, she feared, and so she hovered in limbo. Never daring to move.

'Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.' An exhausted and bored voice complained to her left. She chanced a glance and was startled by a massive vortex of sand. An intimidating, but unstable dust devil dying in the wind. The tiny grains prickled over her face as it dissipated the moment it brushed into her. The wall of sand rained to the ground, lifeless.

A slight flinch, a shake of her head, and when she reopened her eyes, the incinerating heat of the barren desert was no more.

Darkness replaced the stark gold and blue expanse. Something deeper and more penetrating than the shadows of the night could ever be. She could see nothing. Not even her own hand millimeters from her face, when she held it up. It wasn't shrouded vision, but the absence of sight entirely. Was her hand even there? Was she even there?

The unspoken questions were answered with an invasion of her lungs when she took a breath. A cruel reassurance of her existence. Inky, thick, and toxic. A plume of smoke choking her with the stench of burning rubber and...meat...

The sounds were too faint to understand as they crept in around her. Unclear syllables, groans, and sobs. A short wail of agony from somewhere in front of her, and then echoing from behind.

'There will be more lessons in the days ahead.' A voice hissed next to her ear. Silk soaked in gasoline, ready to ignite.

The only voice that could grip her with a cold chill while she burned in the flames it promised to cleanse her sins with.

She knew, then, that there was a Hell, and she had found it.

'Moral sickness.' The hiss continued. Broken in its speech, but smooth and patient in its delivery. Following her effortlessly as she darted into the abyss, sprinting without direction. Without the feel of any terrain under her feet. Just churning through an endless void of nothingness.

'Dissolution.' A note of disappointment bled into the word.

Wails of pain and terror climbed into a symphony from every direction. Inescapable, no matter how fast her legs propelled her forward. Undulating in pitch and volume, until they distorted into the howls of coyotes.

'Debased and corrupt.'

Deep crimson glowed in her periphery, regretfully restoring her vision. Blooming swiftly into a corridor of licking flames she was barreling down. The shadows of crosses rose in front of them, decorated with ravaged bodies that writhed weakly on the brink of death. The scent of blood and gore joined the smoke. Low growls of Legion mongrels kept pace with her as they stalked her through the flames. Waiting for a stumble, a trip, so they could swoop in and rip her apart.

She felt him behind her. An enduring presence that sensed her every move, every thought, and kept pace as if he were part of her very soul. A presence that would serve as her judge and jury. For not only the crimes she had committed, but for her infidelity to her own purpose. A destiny she thought she could selfishly abandon as the ultimate catalyst to change the fate of the entire Mojave, and the thousands of lives within its rocky borders.

'It was a town of WHORES —"

Sunlight blinded her as the final word hit her like a shotgun blast, jolting her awake. Her head snapped up. Disoriented, bleary eyes took in her surroundings. Finding them unrecognizable, at first. The searing heat returned. Scalding everything before her that didn't fall within the shade of the ledge she was leaning against. A sharp whiff of blood and gore drew her attention to the remains of the butchered fire gecko a few feet away. Dusty dark pools congealed around its dismembered limbs.

The sound that startled her violently into consciousness wracked her a second time, and she jumped.

Flinging her head back, she gazed up at the face of a coyote poking over the ledge above her, uncomfortably close. Golden-brown eyes stared back over a scarred maw. It wriggled its nose back and forth between her and the gecko carcass. Drawn by the scent of death and its inherent promise of dinner, but leery of her presence.

It gave one more ear-splitting bark down at her, and then vanished from sight. In the distance, a couple of howls echoed through the hills.

Head knocking back into the hard wall, she closed her eyes with a quiet sigh. Beads of sweat inched slowly down from her temples. Trickling over the fine layer of dust that settled on her skin and trailing dark streaks in its wake.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes that she dozed, but it was long enough. This wasn't a safe place to drop her guard. No place was...but she preferred some kind of barricade around her. Even if it was just some rickety, rusting sheet metal or rotting wood with missing planks. So long as it hid her from view.

Knees popping, she climbed from her slouch. Swiping the black cowboy hat from the ground next to her, and adjusting it over her short, dark auburn hair.

It had been much longer, in the recent past. Always tucked into a messy bun or wound in a long braid. It needed to go, much as she loathed cutting it. For the same reason her favorite bandana and sunglasses needed to go. And the rest of the armor she'd been wearing, for that matter. Made her too easy to identify.

Everything had been shed, during her final night in New Vegas. Her clothing, her appearance, her friends, her title. Even her gender, for the time being.

Courier Six was dead.

Now, she was nobody. An aimless scavenger. An unremarkable man wandering the wastes between pockets of 'civilization'. Until she found a new place worthy of lingering for a bit, anyway. A place far enough away that no one would recognize her, where she could scrap her disguise in peace. Dress like a woman again. Or, at the very least, no longer worry about showing any telling curves.

Steel-gray scales skid through entrails as the carcass was yanked out of the sun, piece by mutilated piece. She knelt in the ever-growing shade of the ledge. Content to skin and store the best cuts of meat that she could reasonably carry, while keeping an ear trained for any signs of life around her. Coyotes rarely attacked unless they were part of a large enough pack to feel confident. Or starving. Or rabid... If they did, she'd stave them off easier than the territorial geckos, though.

Her biggest concern was finishing quickly so she could be on her way. Put as many miles between herself and New Vegas as possible. Disappear into the mountains like the perfect chameleon, before her absence became apparent enough for anyone to start a serious search—enemies or allies.

No one knew where she went, and no one ever would. No matter how painful it was to slip away like a ghost without saying goodbye. It was safer that way, for everyone.

When she was done, two raw steaks dangled from a stripped yucca cane over her shoulder. Left to hang from their tethers of twine and old shoelaces. Most of the animal was left to waste, but as a solo traveler without a brahmin, there was little to be done. Two was what she could manage before the meat would start to spoil.

The pack she wore jingled faintly during her trek. Stuffed with all the bottlecaps and ammunition she dared fit in the limited space she had. Her hunting knife was cleaned and sheathed on her thigh, and her rifle was slung over her other shoulder.

She stared into the empty heat ahead. Miles of scratchy plants—more dead ones than living—rocky hills and mountains. A true wasteland that could very well leech the life from her long before she found another source of clean water, let alone a populated town. The only element on her side was that summer had come to an end. The days were still hot, but not so lethal that she couldn't suffer through a midday hike, if she was mindful of her route.

Once she was further from the Strip, she'd do most of her travel during the morning and evening hours, but not today.

Today, every hour counted.

Worn leather boots scuffed through dried leaves, pausing amidst a tangle of shriveling sacred datura. The looming presence she was unable to escape in her chaotic fever dream tickled along her spine. Haunting her senses still, as if the man himself was waiting at her back. Silently goading her to turn and face him and the sightless dog's head shading his stony features. Acknowledge him as the bogeyman she deserved.

He wasn't there. She knew he wasn't, yet she froze on the spot.

Faint growls and yips, ripping flesh and crunching bone haunted her ears. Memories or hallucinations, she wasn't sure anymore.

She was being watched. That much was certain, even if it wasn't by him.

Shouldn't be him...

She could feel it in the pit of her stomach, though. A pair of eyes trained on her with ambiguous intentions. She had enough experience now to know better than to ignore that gut feeling. It saved her hide a few times already, from sneaky Death Claws to mindless chem addicts willing to split her in two for a handful of caps.

A dull throbbing thickened her skull and dampened her hearing. Pulsing in time with her rising heart rate and blood pressure. It took her a full minute of self-convincing before she turned her head to spare a wary glance over her shoulder. Hoping the feeling would pass on its own first, so she wouldn't need to.

The carcass was far enough to be lost within the desert flora, but she knew exactly where it was. Marked by a single coyote head staring back at her from above the scraggly white bursage. Fur painted in a crimson mask up to its eyes. It started silently back at her, while the ripping and crunching continued below the line of vegetation. A small pack dismembered what was left as they darted about and squabbled.

She turned, leaving them to their feast. Ironically contented by the sight. They were less likely to trail after her if their bellies were full, and now she knew why her skin was crawling. Or so she assumed.

A cooling breeze picked up as she wove a careful path into the northern mountains. Shorter plants traded in for Joshua trees, sagebrush, and the rare pinyon pine in the steady rise of elevation. Limiting her field of view as much as they provided cover themselves.

The further she drifted from the urban destruction of outer Vegas, the less chance she had of running into raiders or fiends. No traders or scavengers to pillage in the wilderness. They had no reason to be out so far in no-man's land. The wildlife tended to get bigger and more vicious, on the other hand.

A hand pulled back to rest on the holstered pistol at her belt. Fingers traced idly over the engraved nickel and along the mother of pearl grip, hand painted with Our Lady of Guadalupe. The same pistol that put a bullet in her own head, once upon a time. Hard evidence of how she had beaten the odds more the once in her life. Encouragement for what she could yet accomplish.

And yet, no matter how many steps she took, the feeling of invisible eyes following her every move never diminished. Not even after the faint coyote howls and barks dissolved into the wind. The only thing left to hear, aside from the crunching of her own boots. It drained her slowly with a gnawing disquiet. A tension of the mind that never eased, and senses that continuously strained to pinpoint some elusive, silent danger.

Maybe it was simply the sleep deprivation getting to her. A construct of her own mounting paranoia and guilt at the decisions she had made, which were consequently the reasons she slept no more than a couple hours at a time lately. Decisions she second-guessed but was too overwhelmed to know how to correct.

The truth was, there had never been a clear-cut solution. Not one that jumped out at her. It was the paralyzing fear of making greater, and farther-reaching mistakes than she already had that drove her to run. Cast off this burden of responsibility forced upon her entirely and let the power-hungry mobs and tribes of New Vegas backstab each other until one of them came out on top.

If they didn't first get overrun by the Legion or the NCR.

She didn't know what the fate of New Vegas would, or even should, become anymore...but Benny was dead. House was dead. And that's where her role ended. The rest of them would have to fight their own battles.

There was no turning back now.

She was done being a pawn.

"It's a sin, my darling, how I love you

Because I know our love can never be

It's a sin to keep this memory of you

When silence proves that you've forgotten me..."

The voice sang between lapses of soft static behind her. Coming from an isolated cabin that was in better shape than most decaying old-world structures. Finding any building at all, out here in the middle of nowhere, was a stroke of pure luck. One in this condition felt nothing short of a sign from the heavens that fleeing had been the right decision.

The lean, unseasoned gecko steak balled into the pocket of her cheek as she chewed. A dying fire crackled at her feet, its smoke drifting into the wind whipping around the mountain peak. It wasn't the tallest in the region, but she stood high enough to peer down at the Lucky 38 piercing the skyline in the distance.

When the sun set, New Vegas would light up the surrounding valley for miles. Beaming like a glowing ghoul that didn't know how to die.

Mesmerizing as it was, she was relieved for it to be the last night she ever witnessed it.

Binoculars scoured the horizon slowly in a near 360-degree view. Detailing the terrain, searching for any man-made material worth investigating the next day, but most importantly, hunting for anything that might potentially hunt her.

It wasn't until the sun sank below the Sierra Nevada that they dropped to her lap a final time. Blushing orange fading behind jagged blue ridges on the other side of the valley. Enough time had passed. If there was a serious threat close by, it should have already made itself known. Drawn in by the smell of cooking meat and music.

Dirt snuffed the last of the sputtering flames with a few kicks of her boot. She crunched the end of a mesquite pod between her teeth and spit the seed into the smoldering coals. Glancing once to the brightening glow of the city down below, she grabbed her pack and rifle, and climbed up the short porch steps into the cabin.

The only source of light was the small yellow oval of the radio, hovering on a shelf. Her Pip-Boy changed that with a click . Illuminating the large, thread-bare rug with more dust than fibers that covered much of the floor. She stepped across it towards an open metal container left near a desk.

It was filled with water. A bit radioactive, as most water tends to be, but her Pip-Boy didn't crackle as angrily as it did near the water closest to the city. She was just grateful she had found a working pump at all.

There was a tub in the cabin, but she didn't have the time nor the patience to try and fill it up. There probably wasn't enough water to spare, anyway. A quick rinse would have to do.

Shadows raced along the walls as she removed the portable computer and set it on the desk, angling it so that it wasn't shining on her like a glaring spotlight. Wind whistled through the cracks in the old logs as she peeled everything off except a pair of fraying black underwear

Boots came first, thumping to the creaky floorboards as she tossed them. The clothing and scraps of light armor she pieced together were laid out. Leathers left next to her Pip-Boy, and the cloth piled next to the container. She'd wash them the best she could, once she was done washing herself.

Her pack and guns leaned against the wall a couple paces away.

Easing down into a wooden chair, she felt it shift and groan under her weight, as if on the verge of crumbling to splinters. Water splashed over her in shallow handfuls. First over her face, and down her neck. Cooling her in the stale air. Old sweat and dirt dribbled down, flicking and raining to the floor around her bare feet.

"...I have wandered many places

But they're all the same to me

Nowhere I've found to settle down

A little bit further, I'll find my rest..."

She leaned back into the chair, hand stilling as it rubbed down her opposite arm. Her eyelids crept lower. Weighted by fatigue and growing heavier the longer she sat there. Across from her, an empty twin mattress waited on the floor. Cleaner than most she'd come across. Lacking obvious blood stains, new or old, which was a small mercy.

In the Shadow of the Valley faded in the background. A small break between songs interrupted by deceitfully cheerful whistling, as Heartache by the Numbers began.

One of the chair legs cracked when she jolted awake. All her limbs hung like lead as her mind swirled in a fog. Eyes flashing open well before she was ready to process anything.

Nothing distinct roused her from sleep this time. If she dreamt at all, it vanished the moment she moved. Though curiously, a fragment of the last conversation she'd had with Boone bubbled from the depths of her memory. One she wished had stayed buried.

'I've got bad things coming to me. You'd better keep your distance, too.'

'...Because fair is fair...'

The darkness was almost as penetrating as it had been during her fever dream. Only this time, it was real. Night consumed the lone cabin. The only reason she believed she was awake at all was because she could feel gravity this time...and everything ached. Notably her neck, which had lolled back over the chair for who knows how long. She'd apparently dozed off before she even finished her half-assed bath.

Joints popping as loudly as the chair, she groaned as she curled forward, leaning her elbows on her knees. The temperature had dropped enough to make her shiver, and her eyes sought the murky shadows of the floor for the grubby clothes she never got the chance to wash. A pair of 'borrowed' beige NCR pants and the under- and overshirts she wore beneath the leather armor.

A strong gust of wind whistled loudly, rattling the opaque windows.

Her senses sharpened. Jarred alert by the sudden noise. Not because it spooked her, but because it drew her attention to the silence in its absence. The music had stopped, and it wasn't from interference. There was no static.

The pile of clothes on the floor was so dark she could barely see it. The light was out. Her Pip-boy never went out. Fission batteries lasted lifetimes.

Without moving another muscle, her eyes lifted and traced the perimeter. Seeing only vague outlines of the sparse furniture around her. Through one of the dirt-smudged windows, stars twinkled in the sky. Everything else was veiled in black.

Her gaze strained on the last thing she could find in the room as it swept to the right. The only other chair, the one she hadn't used to avoid getting the cushions wet, was no longer empty. It was difficult to see, but she recognized it immediately. The head of the coyote that had been snooping around her down the mountain. It was perched in the chair, staring quietly at her with soulless black pits for eyes.

Fear and relief clashed within her in a strange dance that rendered her immobile after a reflexive jerk. An instinct to jump to her feet, to stand and fight, smashing into the realization that she was in fact dreaming again, and none of this was real.

A sharp exhale squeezed from her lungs. Head hanging, her eyes closed. Pausing a beat to let her heart inch back down from her throat.

"You disappoint me, Courier." The coyote spoke in that too-familiar voice. The words gentle, quiet, yet so close they slipped over her skin as if they were tangible gestures. Like the brush of animal's soft pelt before its jaws clamped down on her throat.

Her eyes snapped open. Staring wide and unseeing into the featureless floor between her pale feet.

"I can't say that I'm... surprised ... I knew what you would do. The moment you entered Caesar's tent, I could read it all over your face."

Goosebumps tightened over the exposed skin of her arms and down her legs, but she didn't feel the cold draft anymore. Her head turned, just enough to catch a glimpse of the silhouette in the chair. Sluggish and stiff, as if her living nightmare couldn't truly manifest so long as she didn't look at him.

The image she thought she recognized earlier made more sense this time. It was the same lifeless pelt that struck her when she gaped at the carnage in Nipton. The one so harshly branded into her memory that she saw his face in every wild dog and coyote she glimpsed in the wasteland. The thick black goggles hung low on his neck this time, useless in the dark.

"But that doesn't exempt you from the consequences."

His shards of ice pierced her, even in the shadows. Hard and discerning, with a calm patience born from the confidence that everything was under his control.

It always was.

"Vulpes..." She whispered under her breath.