#hcrdtokill

【🔧】— The civillian contractor that was tagging along with them glanced in the woman’s direction when greeted. Most of the members of the Commonwealth Brotherhood had been rather cold towards her, saying that unless she was brotherhood, she wasn’t anything to them, contradictory to being short-staffed and having to hire a mercenary for this particular mission. She would have liked to make some kind of rebuttle simply to see their reaction, but she couldn’t pass up on the money, and it was easy to replace her.

          ❝ You’d be surprised how often I get that, ❞    Valentine responds without missing a beat ;     dryly, but with almost a sense of mirth‒‒‒‒     as if it had come to a point that it fell just short of crossing over into being a joke. But it always would fall short. The joke would never really be a joke no matter how often he told it ;      not when it was about his very existence.

Nova’s eyes quickly shifted towards Gob. She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know if she even should.

The only time she’d ever heard such a thing ( and even then, it was never quite the same phrase, or said with the same softness ) was under the covers of night, with people too drunk or too ecstatic to give a flip what they were saying. People who knew that she wouldn’t ask in the morning, because she didn’t care. But Gob- He was someone she trusted. Someone who’s thoughts and feelings she DID care about.

She slugged down another gulp of wine. Maybe the alcohol would help.

Finally, she moved. Her heavy-lidded eyes closed, and she lowered the bottle back to the counter. She balanced her forehead in her hands, pausing to think her response over once more. She had to say this right the first time. She couldn’t screw this up. She couldn’t lose him because she said something stupid.

“ You’re important to me too, Gob, and I’m-… I’m sorry I’m not exactly forward about it. You’d think, with all the practice I’ve got talkin’ to people, it’d be easy, but it’s not. You’re one a’ the only people in this damned Wasteland who I can count on, y’know ? You’re my friend, because you want to be my friend, and that… That means a lot to me. And it’s hard for me to tell you, because I don’t know really how to say it right. But, just,” she raised her head back up, expression serious, faint hints of hesitance tainting her eyes, “ Just know that you are important to me. And it’s not the alcohol sayin’ that. And thank you. ”

          Gob’s heart skipped a beat‒‒‒‒     forgot, for a single moment, how to beat, and left him without a pulse until it realized its mistake and resumed its pace. And he was left dizzy in the aftermath, because surely that must be why he found it so hard to breathe.

          ❝ You, you mean that ? ❞    he was ringing his hands. He’d been so afraid ;    the moment the words,    ❛   you’re important to me,   ❜    had left his mouth, he’d felt a chill as if he was letting a piece of himself be exposed, or taking it out and giving it to her, only to see what she’d do with it.

          He didn’t want Nova to be repulsed by him. Everyone was repulsed by him. But she wasn’t the same as    ❛   everyone‒‒‒‒   ❜    she was special, she was kind to him when she didn’t have to be, she was...    oh, she was more than such a simple Ghoul had the words for  (  hard to call himself a man, these days ;    he’d quite forgotten how, he was so used to being called everything but  ).   He just hadn’t been able to resist saying what he really meant this time, in the moment, when it seemed like she needed to hear it and goodness knew he needed to say it, risk though it was.

           But she wasn’t repulsed by him. And that shook him right down to the bone.

“Who do you think you are?”

“ Huh, I dunno, ” the smirk on Veronica’s face was stark against the hardness in her eyes, “ I thought that I was the girl who just saved your life, but when you really ask me, I’m not sure ! ”

The sarcasm in her voice was more than apparent, dripping from every word she spoke. However, her smile dropped, along with her sardonic tone.

“ Look, bud, I was just trying to help. In case you somehow haven’t noticed, the bugs around here do a lot more than bite. ”

Veronica made no movement towards the Ghoul, though she glanced over him from where she stood. It didn’t look like the Cazadors had hit him - not enough to cause any real damage, at least. And besides that, she wasn’t really sure she wanted to help someone so rude.

With that out of the way, she held the pneumatic gauntlet out for inspection, slowly running her gaze over pistons and metal surface - not that Cazadors usually caused a problem for the gauntlet. It was just nice to check.

“ Look, how about we start over, and pretend the bug-thing never happened. I’m Veronica. You are ? ” A last attempt at friendly chatter, The Scribe turned her attention towards the other, offering a final smile. You could never have too many friends in the Mojave.

           ❝ Ben, ❞    the Ghoul replied simply, wiping his sleeve off with a gloved hand. He opted not to return the smile, instead to thumb the corner of his mouth and huff with mild indignation at the chastising he’d received from this strange chick‒‒‒‒    on the heels of such an embarrassing incident at that.

            It was damn lucky he hadn’t gotten stung, even with the antivenom he carried in his bag with almost religious dedication. Cazadors had a way of making a guy regret being born, and facing down a whole swarm like that, things could have gone real bad for him. Hell, the antivenom might not have been enough, given their number. Or he might not have been able to take it in the first place.

            His injured pride wouldn’t say that his luck was exclusively because this Veronica had shown up but...     well, he did owe her one for the hand, anyway. 

            ❝ Right, right. Well...     you know. You got quite an arm on you, ❞     he quipped, by way of acknowledging this.   ❝ Seem to really know your way around that thing. Not a bad sense of timing, either. ❞

           Granted that he still wasn’t thrilled about how she’d slammed in, scared the crap out of him thinking that it had been a damn Fiend, given where they were. Where there was one of them, there were always more, and besides that, he knew he’d been trespassing.

           Coming down off the adrenaline rush, though, he found that she was about the furthest thing from a Fiend she could have been. Much smaller than he, with a chaste wardrobe and hood and a Power Fist, which wasn’t too common a piece of hardware out in these parts.

          Odd to see someone like her this far out, Power Fist or no. She seemed perfectly aware of the twin risks of Cazadors and Fiends, however, and had accepted them ;     was capable of handling herself. As demonstrated.

"Well, that was the last of our water supply.”

The Wanderer sighed, examining the water bottle as though, maybe, just maybe, there was a secret slot on it. She knew full well that there wasn’t, but she liked to dream.

“ Yeah,” came a mumbled reply, “ Thanks for keeping track, big guy. Maybe we can make it to Rivet City, or Megaton. ”

Charon had been, in Camilla’s opinion, a great help in- well, just about about everything, really. She had more than once forgotten that he was more than a common mercenary, something that she was reminded by with every reference to “ the contract ”. The idea of being bound to a piece of paper, for your entire life - it seemed like a nightmare. But Charon didn’t seem to mind. And if it wasn’t a problem for him, then she figured it shouldn’t be a problem for her, either.

But, unfortunately, Charon and the contract both were no Project Purity. Fresh water wasn’t going to magically appear, just because they wanted it to. But, always the optimist, the Wanderer knew they had options.

Irradiated water was, while not ideal, definitely there. The Lone Wanderer was fairly certain that alcohol wouldn’t be of any use here, unless she was dying, an wanted to feel good while doing so. And Rivet City- How far away was it? It couldn’t be that long of a trip.

Right?

“ I’ll figure somethin’ out, Char’. I always do. Do you mind if I call you that ? Char’ ? Are nicknames alright ? Actually, we can figure that out later, we’ve got bigger problems right now. ”

            ❛   Char’  ?    ❜       The way she said it reminded him of something. He’d heard it before. It meant something in a strange language. He just couldn’t remember what it was. Even what that strange language was. 

           The great Ghoul grumbled in response, really between growling and muttering in the unintelligible way he so often did when he was uncomfortable or irritated. His moods were not always easy to read ;     it was the best sign he had to give.

            ❝ You may call me what you wish, I suppose, ❞    he said anyway, glancing almost imperceptibly towards his employer. It wasn’t nearly so degrading as some of the things that bastard Ahzrukhal had called him at times  ( quite often, in fact ),  and all in all, he had found Camilla to be exceedingly kind by comparison. He didn’t care much for the shortening of his name, but he did not find it necessary to correct her ;     it was, after all, her place to choose, wasn’t it ?

           He watched attentively as she examined the water bottle and considered their options. She would not do so well as he to drink the irradiated water, he knew, and even as a Ghoul himself, Charon would rather avoid drinking the putrid stuff if he could possibly avoid it. Radiation was not the only danger to be found in drinking unclean water.

SEND “🗹” FOR A FUN FACT ABOUT MY MUSE

@hcrdtokill

Coppelia can see things that others cannot, and may be considered a “Psyker” like Mama Murphy or Lorenzo Cabot. She doesn’t see visions of the future though, but instead sees dead people and creatures and can talk to them as well. 

@hcrdtokill

【🔧】— “Think we’d need a fatman t’ blow this door open, but th’ offer’s appreciated, nonetheless,” Danielle stated, glancing over her shoulder at the young woman.

     It was strange, coming back here, to the Hidden Valley Bunker. The last time she had came here was about thirty-five years ago, when she had travelled here from Texas looking for a new home to rejoin, only to get radio silence on the other end, an unspoken rejection to return to a life she used to know.

       She wanted nothing to do with the Brotherhood now, hearing of how isolated and strict to literal interpretations to the Codex that they were compared to the Texan expedition, but with more and more securitrons going missing in the area, and the Courier stating that they wanted to leave them alone, Danielle felt the responsibility to recover the bots, or at least, keep the Brotherhood from attacking more, fell on her hands.

🔅💣🔹– Ah, there it was, the infamous sound of metal clanking to the ground and the Courier’s renowned ‘Oops’ shortly following afterwards. Cotton wasn’t even entirely all that sure what she had broken or if it could be fixed, but the terminal making a strange dial-up noise caused the former tribal to back away from it, alarmed.