Idle Hands

Chapter Thirty-Two: Living Is

Living is washing up in a deep, tin tub with buckets of cold water poured over head, kisses placed to her wet hair as Again plays on a static-crackling radio. Dried and dressed and warming, Rue and Aloe take turns braiding each other’s hair, the strawberry-blonde flipping through the pictures Rue took and doesn’t bother to look at now. It’s all gone out of her, every corner and cranny of her mind that man occupied washed clean. She’s peace and stillness. Weights are gone. Desperation and need have been sated. It’s over and done.

“Foul,” Aloe decrees, placing the photographs facedown. “But goddamn girl….” The strawberry-blonde shakes her head, shivering, before she turns a small smile on Rue. “Thank ya.”

Rue assures, soft, that it was, “My pleasure.”

Living is watching the Ghoul drag a bloodstained, tarped bundle down the arroyo and the embers that soon bloom drifting up into the midnight, lost to the stars. Gone. All gone.

Living is settling into a small bed with him to doze away the few hours of the night remaining, Eggshells sneaking in through a high, open window that lets the silvery air in. He settles against Rue’s heart as Cooper hugs her from behind, and she smiles drowsy, knowing she has so many more of these downy, sweet moments ahead of her.

Living is heading back to the mission, enjoying a clear, blue morning and a sun that feels brand-new on her skin and placating Aloe when Eggshells won’t let her get more than two pets in before he swats a fat paw at her.

Living is having a late lunch with all the people she loves and people she’s already starting to in a partially crumbled cantina. And it’s so lovely to love, to not worry and fret over the consequences of it. It’s feathers in her heart and hers for the taking. Hers to give freely and fully. She enjoys every word and touch –like Mrs. Rosa wiping whipped cream off her nose and Raf calling her, “Loca,” in a needling, teasing way as he takes a gander at her nasty photographs. And those are passed ‘round and burned over a stove eye once everyone who wanted a look has had their fill.

With those pictures gone, it feels like the last, lingering bits of Deck Craven are gone. Despite all he’s done, the battle he just brought that has the mission crumbly and charred around them, no one speaks his name or of the evil he put out there even once. He’s dead and nothing, and there are things to look forward to. Already, plans are in the works for repairs and expansions, Joaquín mentioning he wants Derecho and Dust. Not now –not until he’s pulled things back together at the mission– but one day. He doesn’t care to go any further West than that.

In the midst of all the planning, laughter, and stories, Rue writes a letter to Lara, telling her everything she felt she couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Hal promises to get it to her, having decided the Hub is, in fact, calling his name. And that he’s going to shoot his shot with Billy Tate, see if he’ll come along.

Living is goodbyes in the late afternoon, tight hugs engulfing her. So many –from Hal, Aloe, Oregon, Raf, all the abuelas, and even a slightly awkward one from Joaquín (and he tells her she has a home at the mission if she ever needs one; Nightstalkers to call family if she ever needs one to call on). Mrs. Ira Jean blesses Rue with one of those embraces that sweeps her off her feet and spins her ‘round, that makes her feel like something special and treasured.

“Ya visit when ya can,” Mrs. Ira Jean tells her. “Ya send letters when ya can.”

“I will,” Rue promises. “I really will. And I’ll miss ya. And I love ya.” She hugs Mrs. Rosa, gentle and sincere. “And I love ya, too.”

Living is setting off Arizona-ways with a sky of creamy pinks and oranges overhead and a Ghoul at her side who indulges the fingers wiggled his way, wrapping his hand around Rue’s. For a bit. And then a little bit longer the next time she tries at it. And the day he instigates it himself has her turning a shit-eating grin on him that he flicks her nose sharply for and warns, “Don’tcha start.”

Living is traversing a Wasteland that can and will throw nonsense and shitstorms their way, taking it all as it comes. It’s bullet swapping and days of hunger and thirst. Days when storm clouds rest overhead or thunder-crackle in mind. Days when laughter and chatter sound on a riverbank as Rue tries like hell to get bloodstains out of clothes.

Living is making it to Two-Sun, snippets and tips and goddamn determination pushing Rue South where she finds Artie amongst peaceful, scatterings of folk dwelling within the Madera Canyon. And he seems so happy, at peace, spending his days weaving nets and baskets and passing on his knowledge and stories to a community that doesn’t see him as crazy or a nuisance. He’s just another abuelo who goes off on his tangents sometimes. Standard and accepted.

“No Dust Devils here, Rue,” he assures, so confident and grin toothy. “They don't like it where the water flows, y'know.”

Rue, sat on flat stone and toes dipped into cool water, smiles softly and tips her head, content. “I think you’re right. No devils here at all.”

Living is sidling up beside Cooper on a high ridge in long, low-light, afternoon-y hours, the Santa Rita’s falling and rising around them and woodlands of juniper and oak spreading wide and low. It’s smiling at him like a fool and kissing him on the corner of his mouth before asking, “Think you’ll wander my way a lil’ longer?”

The Ghoul sighs out an, “I reckon,” like she’s twisted his arm into it, but his eyes cut her way teasing. His crooked grin melts her heart, as does the way Eggshells settles in the small swathe of space between them. He’s a bit more tender in gaze and tone when he kisses her back, deepens, and murmurs, “I ain’t sick of ya yet.”

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I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who read Rue's story, who followed along for the year and some change it took me to complete. I'd love to write about Rue for forever (and I have some vague notions at ideas rattling around), but for now, this bit of her tale has reached its conclusion.

I won't get too gushy or anything, but I'm immensely proud of me for actually *finishing* something. And again, I'm immensely grateful to everyone who commented, liked, and reblogged. You were all so very kind and kept me going -you have all my love. And I wish nothing but the best for you all as we head into a new year.

Chapter Thirty-One: Sweet Call

By the time everything’s said and done, twenty-two of the fifty or so left behind to defend the mission are alive, and almost none of them unscathed. Whether that be a bullet wound, missing limb, or a blackened eye, they all have a badge to wear as they pick through the wreckage of the mission, hoping they’ll dig up a twenty-three. Or have enough of a body to lay to rest through fire not borne of thermite.

And there are so many bodies, a deep hole dug into the earth far outside of the few standing walls of the mission filled with Deck’s boys. Those that belonged to the Nightstalkers are treated with more reverence, wrapped and laced with desert flowers to be placed carefully on a pyre set to light the following afternoon.

Nobody Rue knows personally is dead, something she’s so goddamn grateful for, but Mrs. Ira Jean is lain out on a cot, loads of shrapnel being plucked from her back. Hal’s darker-splotched all across the right of his body and jumpy as a chem-junkie after two Stimpaks, Med-X, and a shitload of aloe vera. Joaquín’s arm has to be rebroken so it will set right, and Raf has a brand-new scar across his neck because someone didn’t dig in deep enough to kill him.

Mrs. Rosa and Abuela Julietta are unscathed, and Cooper makes out like he is, too; but in a moment alone, he has Rue digging bullets out of just about everywhere on his person.  

Rue got more scraped up than she realized, had her eye blackened and the left corner of her mouth cut over amongst various other shallow slices, bruises, grazing wounds, and minor burns. Her ass is black-and-blue from the tumble she took from her sniper’s perch, and her right shoulder barks if she moves it in just the wrong way. A Stimpak does wonders to soothe, to patch up the worst of it.

And Deck Craven stews away in a prison cell constructed in the chapel’s basement, blood-chipping, voice raw and gone after calling so much for Rue. Screaming and raging like something in his dark mind and heart have broken further. She leaves him to his madness, and she’ll pull him out when she’s ready.

Because there are more important things to do right now despite how loudly the sweet call of revenge beckons to her. People need tending to, and people need to eat, especially when they're healing up. He's not going anywhere, and Rue's waiting for Aloe and the others to come back from wherever they got sent off to. The strawberry-blonde deserves to get her licks in, too. 

And when Aloe arrives, Rue’s never seen a smile quite so bright or evil on the girl as she stares at the pathetic man pacing and mumbling Rue’s name in his cell, unaware they watch from the mouth of the stairs as he makes a mockery of himself.

“We need barbed wire for him,” Aloe whispers, giddy. “And Joaquín already said we can use the safe house for our fun. It ain’t far. Drag him out that way in just a few hours.”

“I’m ‘bout ready,” Rue whispers back. “It’s just been nice seein’ him in a cage.”

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“I kinda forgot in everything goin’ on, but Doc Nguyen sent me with this,” Hal says, dropping onto the chunk of wall where Rue idly scritches under Eggshells’ chin. It took him two days to pop back up after all the racket, and when Rue found him, it was down in the basement where he was watching Deck narrow eyed. Like he somehow knew.

She glances Hal's way, eyes fixing on a portable holotape player Rue well recognizes. He turns it over in his hands before extending it to her, and he chuckles a little, mentioning, “She said if you were in a bad way, it might calm ya down.”

Rue takes and clicks, a snippet of Smile sounding softly, but she stops it in a heartbeat. Not yet. She’s not ready to hear it yet.

She asks, “Everyone in Dust think I had a fit?”

Hal nods excessively. “Oh yeah. When you’re lil’ radio announcement came through, everyone agreed that bullet must’ve scrambled what’s left of your brains –well, not everyone. Some of us heard it and knew somethin wasn’t right. Not in the you bein’ crazy way. Just how ya called for Deck. It was… ominous. We wondered what in the hell he did.”

“…Did they figure out it was me who burned his house down?”

“That was the popular theory in Mulholland’s right ‘fore I left out with Ira Jean and Rosa.” Hal sighs. “Rue, honey, I dunno that they’ll letcha back there-. Fuck. I dunno that they’ll let me back there. Any of Deck’s boys that lived and high-tailed it back are gonna blackball me.”

“If they saw ya.”

“Don’t matter if they did or not. Folks know we left to look for ya. They know we were on your side.”

“Maybe ya can stay with the Nightstalkers?” Rue offers up, smiling when Eggshells nips quick at the tip of her finger. “It’s really nice here when there’s not a vertibird droppin’ thermite barrels on your head.”

“I think that’s what Rosa and Ira Jean are gonna do. For a lil' while, at least. They sold all their brahmin to the Halburton ranch after it came out you were missin', so they could focus on lookin' for ya.” Hal rubs at his neck, fingers lingering on faded splotches so close to healing. “…Probably should, but Billy Tate and I were gettin’ a lil’ serious. I’d like to see him again.”

Rue's chest does a guilty twist at that, at the upheaval she's caused in their lives. It might be decades before Mrs. Ira Jean and Mrs. Rosa can go back to their ranch -if it's there to go back to once time fades memories and claims souls who still recall. Hal can't wait like they can. And he's right. Even if no one lived to tell the tale, Dust still knows Hal set off to do something. If he comes back and the law doesn't... well, they'll have questions. The answers won't grant him any kindness, and even if people did believe Deck Craven to be the monster he is, would they care? He was good to them. He kept them safe. Now he's gone, and with the way of the wastes....

Chaos will come on back to them. Rue and anyone aligned to her will be to blame for it. 

"I'm sorry for it," Rue mentions soft, genuine. "I never wanted to drag anyone else into this. I tried so hard to make sure it stayed with me."

"Nuh-uh. Don't start with the sorries again. I don't want 'em, and I'm not sorry for what we've done or what's going to change." And for a moment, he pins her with such serious eyes. A look that tells her he means what he says. Everything's good. But he softens them up, and he seems more wistful than anything. "I'm just wonderin' what comes next, y'know? Life's so strange. It got all tipsy-turvy so quick, and now... well, I guess I figure it out."

Eggshells doesn't want anymore pets, but he's open to some forehead sugar. Rue gives him two as she hums thoughtfully. "Maybe you could send Billy a letter? Invite him out? Nighstalkers probably could use a leatherworker. And ya bake real good. Abuela Julietta’d probably love to have ya in the kitchen. Or maybe ya could go out West? I think a bigger city’d suit ya well. Like ya’d fit right in, in the Hub. Lara’s there. Ya could reconnect and be friends, and I’d come visit the both of ya.”

Hal sighs, coal eyes fixing on the wisps of clouds overhead. “Maybe.... I have always wanted to see the bigger cities. Poppy's the biggest place I've ever been, and I've heard it doesn't compare to places like Shady Sands or the Hub."

"It doesn't," Rue confirms, mind full of skyscrapers and crowds of folks flowing like rivers through neon-lit streets. "It's like steppin' into a new world. Ya should see it."

Hal hums, a small smile crooking his lips before his eyes tick her way and his shoulder nudges hers. "What 'bout you? What’re you gonna do? Other than skin the sorry hide off that motherfucker?”

Rue knows exactly what she's going to do, and just the thought has her grinning wide against Eggshells' head as she plants a third kiss. “I’m gonna run off into the sunset with a gunslingin’ Ghoul and do whatever the hell I want. And find Artie. I’m really hopin’ he’s alive out there. I… I told ya ‘bout him the other night, yeah? I can’t remember shit once I start cryin’.”

“Ya did, and I hope he is….” Hal nudges her again, and what he says next sounds of mild offense, “Hey. When were ya gonna tell me ‘bout the Ghoul? And how long’s it been goin’ on?”

 “Ummmmm. It’s been months and months at this point, and it just never came up.”

A scoff. A psh. “I’ve been tellin’ ya ‘bout my conquests! Coulda brought it up at any point!”

“Hal, I love ya, but all of Dust woulda known in ‘bout ten minutes if I had.” She gestures towards the ground where the fakey, soon-to-be-fucked sheriff toils somewhere below in a cage. “And you’ve seen the jealous lil’ fucker I was dealin’ with.”

The barkeep clicks his tongue, scoffs again, but then begrudgingly assents, “…Fair.” And then softer, conspiratorial, he asks, “…He any good? The Ghoul. Like… what’s the below the belt situation?”

“Goddamn magnificent.” Rue sighs, dreamy and warm. “But he really don’t like me braggin’ on him like that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aloe and Rue drag Deck Craven out into the desert, along a path worn by wagon wheels and to a long house of stucco and a sun-bleached barn set off from a washed-out arroyo. He’s not the best behaved dog on a leash, always trying to bark something through the bind in his mouth or dig in his heels. For ten minutes, he throws a writhing, sort of hissy fit on the ground before he comes at Rue with puppy eyes. With soft sounds as he tries to get in close. But she’s not swayed in the slightest, and Aloe’s 10 mm has him backing off –back into undisciplined mutt theatrics.

They take him into the barn, one Joaquín had prepped prior to their arrival. So, there’s a tarp down for easier cleanup and a workbench lined with all manners of tools (Rue eyes a rubber-banded and ready castrater with a fair amount of interest). A thick loop of barbed wire waits against a bench leg, and one would think someone’s left Aloe the most touching of presents with how glossy her eyes get. How she presses a hand to her heart and smiles.

For now, Deck is tied to a post so it’s easier to dose him with Med-X because there’s no way in hell he’s going to let them wrap him up in barbed wire. And Rue ends up having to stick him a helluva lot more because his tolerance is staggering. It takes five before his head lolls and he’s pliable enough to strip down to nothing before barbed wired is wrapped loosely from ankle to neck, the rest of the length thrown over a high rafter. There’s an old winch she strings the wire through, getting it properly threaded and secure before she hands off the reins to Aloe.

Aloe does it slow. Just bit by bit. Little pricks that Deck doesn’t notice until tension pulls the wire taut and barbs dig in deep enough red pools around them. And he can’t do much screaming with the leather bind in his mouth, but what manages to slip free is so pretty. So gratifying. Or Rue thinks so, but Aloe suddenly stops cranking. She lets the wire out, green in the face and eyes averted.

“Shit.” The strawberry-blonde goes into a crouch, heels of her palms pressing into her eyes. “Shit.”

“Hey. Hey.” Rue hurries to comfort, to wrap an arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I-I can’t…. I dunno that I can….” A stream of swears hisses out of her, then a raw, “This doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I can’t fuckin’ look at him like that. What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh.” Rue doesn’t mean to, but she laughs. “Aloe, honey, it’s right that ya don’t like lookin’ at this. Think you’re supposed to be unsettled by torture.”

“You’re fine! You’re over there swayin’ and lookin’ all daydreamy over it!”

“Mm. I… I got problems.” A fact Rue has accepted and even embraced. She pats Aloe’s back, speaking soft and low. Assuring. “Ya don’t gotta do this. Don’t gotta watch either. I’ll get him for ya.”

Aloe doesn’t do much for a long moment, not more than wince every time Deck whimpers or groans. She eventually nods. She sniffs. She turns into Rue for a hug that surprises before she springs to her feet and makes a b-line for the door. And Rue follows her there, watching her disappear into the stucco house before she shuts the door tight.

And locks.

Because Rue doesn’t want to be disturbed. This is what she’s been waiting for, and she doesn’t really want an audience or someone trying to curb her. And while suggestions were fine on the lead up, she’s not interested in anyone’s opinion any longer. This is all for her.

She pulls the holotape player out of her bag, clicks the play button, and breathes a long sigh of relief as mellow chords fill the air. She breezes back to the winch and takes the crank into hand.

“Ain’t this nice?” she asks of Deck Craven, Smile sweetening the air as she hoists him up. “It’s just you and me. Like ya always wanted.” Her smile is soft and just for him. “Don’tcha worry. I’ll take care of ya.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rue only emerges because there’s a prickling at her spine and she’s on the hunt for someone special. Someone she knows followed her even though she didn’t ask him to, and as the door comes open, the desert night washing cool over her, she finds the man on her mind leaned into the barn wall. Whiskey eyes are pinned to the stars before they come to her, drowsily sweeping over the mess she’s made.

“It outta your system?” he asks, pushing slow off the wall.

Rue shakes her head. “But I need ya now. Ya might’ve just been jokin’, but... I want him to watch. I already got him tied and Jet-ed up, so he’s nice and awake for it.” She curls a finger at him, smile crooking impish. “C’mon, cowboy, I need some of that good, good lovin’.”

Cooper doesn’t hesitate, one of the many things she loves about him. He comes to her, into her arms that enfold and drag him in. He pauses only to shut and lock the door behind him, and he doesn’t spare a single lick of attention to the split lump of sad, aching flesh Deck Craven makes upon the ground. Neither does Rue. Not right now.

She partakes of hungry kisses, gradually guiding Cooper to a chair she’d set before the dead man. She pushes him into it, breaking the lock of their lips, but his hands find her so quickly, caressing and rubbing and loving despite the crimson staining her clothes. He assures he hadn’t been joking. He’s down bad, been thinking on it. Waiting for it.

Rue’s always waiting for those hands to kiss her curves, shivering when she pulls her blouse overhead and leather loves her up tender. Cups her breasts before brushing the fabric of her bra aside so he can plant unhindered kisses that make her breath catch and her go light in the head.

But she pushes him back, settling her hands upon his shoulders to keep him rooted. “It’s gotta go like it is in my head.” Her hands travel up his neck, cupping and caressing his jaw. Smoothing thumbs over cheekbones. “I’ll tell ya when to get after it. Just be good for me.”

Cooper’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, a fire in his eyes, but he dips his head shortly. And Rue takes his chin, tipping his head up. A knee slots between his legs, and she leans in to slow-French and feel him up. Press into him while she finds everything to touch and love, threatening him with rope if he can’t keep his hands to himself while she does what she needs.

Because she needs Deck Craven to see what a wonder it is to be loved by her, how she moves and coaxes and brings a grown, hardened man to trembling want with sugary touches and kisses to tender areas. Clothes that come off slow and a warm, soft body pressing. Draping over his back, arms looping, and filth spoken like prayers into Cooper’s ear while her hand meanders down South, winding and tracing until she’s teasing him through his faded trousers.

She tells Cooper how excited she is for him, how wet already. Does he want to touch? To taste? She needs him to do more than just moan and breathe ragged. Let her hear what he wants, and she’ll decide if she’s willing to provide.

“I need ya on my lap, darlin’,” he’s rasp and growl, mouth turning towards hers only for Rue to grin against his lips and pull away, “movin’ like ya do. Keepin’ me warm. Drainin’ me out. Ya do it so good.”

“That sounds so sweet,” Rue murmurs, withdrawing one hand for it to pluck his hat off his head and place it upon her own. And then it snakes between her legs, two fingers coming back slick and glistening. They press to his lips, and he takes them into his mouth immediately to suck them clean. “I’ll get to that, but right now….” Maybe it’s a little aggressive, but Rue’s keyed up and quick, pulling the chair back.

It hits ground with Cooper still in it, him on his back and a little wide-eyed; but that’s gone in an eyeblink, and all he is, is eager. Curling two hands at her and grinning wicked. “I know what ya want, pumpkin. C’mere.”

Rue does, going to her knees and settling straddled over his face to be immediately devoured. Gladly and ceaselessly as her eyes roll and the most pleasure-drunk of smiles pulls lazy at her lips. She’s shivers and shakes and pants, hands at her own breasts to tease and hold as she finds green eyes in a sea of red, discolouration, and swelling.

They’re fixed on her, pained for so many reasons, and dripping salt water. Maybe Deck would be sobbing and screaming for her if he still had a tongue, if she hadn’t sewn his mouth shut. Maybe he’d have the most painful of hard-ons if he still had a dick. But he’s barely a man anymore –if he ever was to begin with. He’s chattel and useless and… and….

“Sweet fuck.” Rue bites at her knuckle, unsure if the sweep of Cooper’s tongue is so devastating or if it’s the twisted sight before her that has her so done up in knots, that crackles through so sinfully sweet and sharp. She’s taut, trembling, and her free hand slips to her clit, desperate for that break –the release.

It hits hard, thighs clenching and eyes in the back of her head. Her love and lust and pleasure slip out unheeding, half nonsense and half filth. It takes her a moment to feel the pinch of Cooper’s fingers at her flank, to hear the rocky, breathless tone of his saying, “It’s a helluva way to go out, but let a man breathe, darlin’. We ain’t done yet.”

Rue slides forward with a tender whimper and tries to shake the sparks and swirls out of her head. “Sorry, sorry. That just… ooh wee….” A hardened cock is suddenly underneath her. Clothed though it is, Rue rocks herself against it, all shiver-shocks. “…No, we ain’t done yet. Ain’t ever gonna be done with you.”

Whatever Cooper says is lost on her, but she sure feels his arms wrapping her up and how the world moves as he manages to get them and the chair up. He's barely settled back into it and her upon him when his hand dips between her legs to make her breath hitch and eyes roll. As she pulls in a soft, shaky breath, the fingers of his other hand whisper across her lips before two press in. The ones below slip inside instead of tease, and Rue spreads her legs wider for him, moaning around the leather in her mouth. Fluttery eyes once again find Deck, the man snotty and so strained in the neck she thinks his head might pop off his shoulders.

Rue’s insides twist again, and she enjoys herself, eyes closing as she rides Cooper’s hand and sucks upon his fingers. Head tipping back to look at him half-lidded and heated.

He swears out a, “Goddammit,” the fingers below really going to work, pumping deeper. Circling firm. “Way you cut them eyes ain’t fair. None of what ya do is fair. Can see how ya drive a man fuckin’ mad as that sack of shit on the ground.” His cheek presses to her hair, head dipping and teeth nipping vicious at the tip of her ear. “Ya turn ‘round and saddle up ‘fore I fuck ya in the dirt.”

Rue’s mmm is shaky, her voice breathless as his fingers slide out of her mouth. “We can do both. Put on a show. Got u-us one of those captive -ah!– audiences.”

His low chuckle sinks into her skin, hands pulling back just long enough for her to stand and him to make the quickest work of his trousers. His breath is tight as he coaxes a painfully hard dick from its awful prison, and Rue’s sweet as she always is, warm and welcoming. Saddling up and sinking down slow, and little more than a breathy, “Yes, sweet,” as he already ruts upwards, giving her friction, fire, and good squeezes at her waist. Kisses at her neck.

Rue sets the tempo, though, squeezing him purposefully when his strokes are too eager. She stills, bites at his lip, and tells him to, “Be good for me, Coop,” kissing him tender when he groans out a, “Yes’m,” and slows his roll.

“I can tell ya missed me,” she murmurs low to him, fingers slipping over and through the layers of his ensemble. Tracing up his neck to cup his jaw and ghost her thumbs along his cheeks. “Did I worry ya, honey?”

He won’t admit to anything but a rough, “Maybe,” before his lips crook wolfish. “But this is all that’s been in my head since I saw ya hittin’ like a hurricane in all that fuss back at the mission.” His hands settle on her waist, not guiding or urging but simply there to hold and warm. To root her. “Red really is your colour.”

“I’m devastatin’ in purple.”

He settles back, eyes dragging lazy. “Mmm. I gotta see that.”

“I can show ya somethin’ else right now,” she offers. “Somethin’ fun.”

His chin tips up, a silent, languid way of saying, “Go on.”

Rue leans back, head tipping and hands kissing ground.

“Fuck, pumpkin,” it’s a grunt, a shake, a rasp. Hands grip and dig, finding new purchase as he adjusts in his seat. Adjusts within her, angle shifting and her gasping as the blood starts rushing to her head. “Didn’t know ya could bend like that. Where you been hidin’ this trick?”

“I was j-just waitin’ for the right time to whip it out.” She whimpers, fingers scraping against the dirt, and all she wants is the wild pleasure he brings. The hard and fast and overwhelming. “G-Get after it, s-sweet.”

He does. What was slow-paced and leisurely upticks, and the hands that had held themselves reserved pet heavy. Grasp and squeeze and pinch. Rue delights in the change, the angle, and the stretch of her muscles. Delights in the way she can hold eyes with the bleeding, sorry, broken, barbed-wire-wrapped fucker on the ground, who shakes and cries and snots. His sorrow and devastation nothing more than smothered mmps.

Rue can’t help the way her insides flutter, that new, sadistic twist of pleasure emerging bright in a sea of it. The Ghoul swears, hands sliding on her thighs, a thumb finding her clit with sloppy, pressured swipes. Her arms go weak, shake, eyes rolling and barely able to stay open. But she keeps them open, keeps them locked on the man she hates while the man she loves brings wounded, lovely sounds from her.

“Ain’t she pretty?” Cooper taunts. “Way them titties sit. Bounce. Way her muscles stretch and them ribs show.” The hand at her clit goes up, dragging along her side –traces at the bottom of her ribcage– before he gets a handful of ol’ Lefty. “And the way she sings for me…. Cupcake, I bet you’re wishin’ it was for you, but this lil’ maniac’s all for me.” He tweaks her nipple harshly, and Rue buckles. Keens. “Ain’t ya, Rue?”

Over and over again, she tells him it is so.

“You wanna show him how good ya take it?”

Rue nods too much, coming back up, hips meeting his rhythm as she fumbles for a sloppy kiss interrupted by an, “I do, sweet, I do.” It leaves her as a plea, desperate and ragged. “However ya want.”

“I’m gonna fuck ya into the dirt like an animal, and you’re gonna love it. Ain’t ya?”

Rue absolutely will. “Make me claw and come and beg, darlin’. Make me cry.”

“Don’t you worry,” he growls, eyes full of fire. Smile something feral, so dangerous and delicious. “I will.”

The Ghoul lifts her off his lap, and while she laments the loss of him (and her ass lights up when it strikes the ground), it’s not for long. He’s there with her, turning her about and hands gripping her waist to jerk her onto her knees. One keeps her locked in place while the other presses down on her spine, presses her low.

He’s resheathed with a grunt, and Rue gasps, mouth falling open in a choking moan as he strokes in, in full. As deep as he can go, keeping her locked in place as his hipbones bite into the plush of her ass. Rue is robbed of breath, voice, and sense, entirety a-tremble. Mind in dizzy spins as her brain already tries to leak out of her ears. Because it's so good. It's almost too much to hold him so deep without a reprieve, and Rue's reduced to begging so quickly, tight-breathed at the way the nails of one hand dig in and leather palms at what it can.

"Y-Ya gotta... gotta move, Coop," she chokes out, breathless. Then whimpering at these tiny cants of his hips -not even a pull back, just a lazy rocking. Grinding. "Oh fuck. Please. Please, please, please, please."

His laughter is this rumbling, dark thing. Low and devilish. His voice this immensely satisfied hum of amusement as he asks, "Where am I at?"

"Everywhere," Rue rasps. "Y-You're everywhere. Guts and eyes and the tips of my fingers. You're everything." And how her fingers rake against blood-spattered dirt at another grind that has her whining pathetic and so close to sobbing. "Please, Cooper. Please, sweet. I need -mmphf- I need...."

"I know whatcha need," he assures, hips finally pulling back for a slow press home that lights her up like an atom bomb. "I know whatcha like. How to take care of ya. How to ruin ya and build ya right back up."

Rue croaks out an, "Oh my god."

"Naw, Rue," the Ghoul chides, another pull back and a determined stroke inwards rattling her to her core. His words do the same, the wicked grinning, "I'm god to ya, remember?"

He is. She could never forget. Not with the way he rules and rides her, barely letting her get out an affirmation of the fact before he answers her prayers. He's there in every molecule, every thought and breath. There can be nothing else. Rue doesn't want anything else. It's filthy and rough, her unable to do anything but take with the grip he keeps on her, but it's heaven to her. Every thrust has her knees scraping, has her clawing at the dirt and crying out his name. Begging for more. Offering him everything.

“Ain’t she good? Ain’t she so willin’?” His voice is more like a snarl, purely the rutting animal, marking his territory. She marks him as hers, gushing around him. Drawing breathless laughter and praises as she makes obscene sounds. “You don’t want me to stop, do ya, Rue?”

“Never,” she grounds out, cheek kissing dirt and eyes rolling. “You’re all I want.” They flick towards the bastard who can’t look away, and she grins. She licks her lips slow. “Sw…sweet, gimme-. Gimme -mm, f-fuck- your gun.”

Cooper doesn’t ask questions; his pace falters for a half second as he reaches for it. His other hand fists in her hair, dragging her upright. His mouth is at her ear, breathing raggedly. Biting. Kissing sloppy at neck and cheek. He presses his messmaker into one of her hands, and Rue turns her face towards his, nibbling playfully at his bottom lip.

Her smile is a shaky, blissed-out thing as she pants a, “Th-Thank ya, s…sweet.” 

“My pleasure,” slips out as a purr, husky and delicious, a hand dipping down to rub roughly at her clit and hips slowing to a purposeful pump. That deep-reaching cant that blooms stars in her mind and makes her so weak and scattered. It’s hard to concentrate, especially with the way he groans. It rattles up and down her spine, has her twisting, as he paints her insides.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he bids, warming her from the inside out and making her wetter between the legs as the both of them drip out. “Show him how good ya listen. How good ya feel.”

He knows just how to move his fingers, that she likes it when he settles in deep. When he lingers. She trembles, whimpers, kissing pathetically at his jaw as she tenses around him.

“Ya should feel it,” Cooper’s tone is pleasure-drunk, slurring, and half-laughing while ecstasy sweeps through, a warp and wave and wash. Liquid glitter and sparks that flare and mellow. She's undone, struggling and hazy, panting as she takes shaky aim. Because he doesn’t stop rubbing, flicking, and playing with her. Smearing the mess of them as he coaxes out the end. “It’s like she feathers…. Guess you’ll just have to die imaginin’ it, knowin' ya never had her the way ya wanted.”

And die he does, Rue’s tongue sticking out as she pulls the trigger. As she shivers and shies with aftershocks, twisting with a damnable pleasure at the sight of his head turning to ick and mist and the lights leaving his eyes.

She drops the gun, breathless laughter tumbling free. Cooper’s arms ensnare as he awards her with another drive in deep that leaves her as warm, dripping molasses melting in his embrace. He searches for her maniacal mouth, declaring her a, "Fuckin' freak," in that devil's chuckle of his as hungry kisses press. He pulls out, and Rue feels like he takes everything with him.

Sagging back into him, Rue breathes heavy, eyes catching on the dead man again, and she laughs harder as she tries to gather up the strands and slivers left to her. She devolves into stitches, actually: a mad woman with tears rolling down her cheeks, howling as she peels herself from Cooper and sways to her feet –gun dragged off the ground with her. Maybe it’s gratuitous, but she shoots Deck Craven twice more, obliterating his noggin. And then the parts of him that somehow escaped her initial onslaught. Shots fired and flesh ripping until he’s nothing but gore, until he’s….

....

He’s gone. Just like that. Gone, and Rue settles. She doesn’t need a thing else. She wipes away tears of joy, laughter, and pleasure (and probably mania), drops the gun, and flat walks out, not ever needing to see him again. Think of him again. It’s out of her system, and outside…. The night is forever and bright and cool, stars bathing her in silvery light. The Milky Way is clearer, brighter, and dreamier than it’s ever been. She could drink it. She can feel all the particles of it quivering in her veins.

“Ya good?” the careful question comes from behind, and Rue nods a lot as she cuts her best smile over shoulder at Cooper.

“Yeah.” She sighs, so light in the chest she could float, and her eyes go back to the stars. “Fuck yeah. Better than good. It’s over, and it’s just starting, and I’m still here, and he’s goddamn dead.” She bounces, hands going behind her back before she’s whirling towards him fully and going on her tiptoes to plant her lips to his cheek. Then to the corner of his mouth. Over and over again until he’s caught on and grinning, his arms wrapping around her middle and his lips meeting hers in full.

Rue could dance and swing and sway. Sing and shout. She could fly.

Chapter Thirty: The Bobcat

Mrs. Rosa. Mrs. Rosa made the threat, and never in a million years would Rue have guessed that with the woman’s shy disposition. But she’s not shy at all when it comes to stomping into the room, going right up to Joaquín, and absolutely tearing into him in Spanish. Sharp and without an opportunity for rebuttal, she goes after the Nightstalker, and Rue watches wide-eyed as he becomes so very small in his leather chair and his hands raise in surrender. But then she’s not paying attention to him anymore. Two more figures follow Mrs. Rosa into the room, and Rue goes rushing to them, half-stumbling until the broad Mrs. Ira Jean sweeps her up in her arms.

Rue loves to be spun. She loves to be held. Nothing else in the world is quite as sweet as being wrapped up in an embrace that feels of love and being able to squeeze back with all the adoration she has in her. And it’s absolutely syrup-dripping when Mrs. Rosa quits her verbal flaying of Joaquín to join in by wrapping her arms around their middles.

Mrs. Ira Jean says a lot. Rue doesn’t catch most of it on account of how hum-buzzing her mind and body are. Because it’s so good to see them. Part of her thought she might never again. But they’re alive and fine, and Mrs. Ira Jean chastises her for not saying a word. She knew something was wrong. She goddamn, fucking knew it, and Rue better spill it. Every morsel, and then Joaquín better loan her a machine gun because she reckons she’s got a heap of people who need a bullet.

“I got it handled,” Rue promises. “It’s almost over now. Just a waitin’ game.”

“That ain’t the answer I’m lookin’ for,” Mrs. Ira Jean speaks in a near-growl, placing Rue upon her feet but keeping firm hands on her shoulders. Blue eyes are akin to steel as she fixes them on Rue, fixes her in place. “Y’know that’s not good enough, Rue. I need ya to be honest with me.”

Grey eyes dart about, refusing to meet those too-blue ones as her heart flip-flops in her chest. “Can… can I hug Hal first and ya grill me after?”

Mrs. Ira Jean only softens a mite, her face maintaining its hard edges but her hold on Rue’s shoulders relaxing ever so slightly before the rancher spins Rue around to face Hal. Who greets her with a sharp flick to the nose and stern-eyes her almost as severely as Mrs. Ira Jean had. Rue smiles at him regardless, arms held wide in a silent beckoning he can’t refuse. He steps in and squeezes her as dearly as she squeezes him.

“I dunno what’s goin’ on,” he tells her, “but how dare you. Ya get yourself shot. Ya run off, and that… that was fuckin’ fun. Had everyone sweatin’. Deck freakin’. And then I gotta hear that message on the radio? Goddamn, Rue. Fuckin’ killin’ me. We’re supposed to be friends.”

“We are! I just….” Excitement already has her wiggly, but the confrontation of the wrong she did and the truth they want her to spill worsens it.  It waits on all sides, boxing her in, and hugs aren’t going to make it go away. Neither does the quick glance to Cooper. He’s just a-watching, drinking straight from the bourbon bottle before passing it over to Joaquín.

Rue’s eyes go to her feet, and her right fingers begin to twist away at the tips of the left. She… she can do it. She can tell them. Just like she told Cooper. Aloe. It will stop being so much like thorns and barbed wire sitting within her. It won’t scratch her raw every time it comes to the surface, and she won’t have to hide things from them anymore. She can have them close. She can let them love her all the way.

“…It’s just Deck,” leaves her on a quiet exhale. “It’s prickly. I’m tryin’.”

A thumb hooks under her jaw, and Hal makes her look at him –into coal eyes gone hard. He’s dark and rageful in tone when he demands, “What’d the fucker do?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cried-out and exhausted, Rue ends up in bed with Mrs. Ira Jean and Mrs. Rosa, tucked between them and lulled to sleep with hair smoothing and promises of dark revenge. She’s much too old for such things, she knows she is, but goddammit, does it feel nice. So distantly familiar and warm. She falls asleep thinking about her Pa: those first few months when a crowbar couldn’t peel her off him and he’d given up on trying to make her sleep in her own bed. She dreams of him, too.

It’s just him and her on the home she lost’s porch. He rocks in creaky, old chair, his rifle close, and she strings up laundry on the porch because it looks like rain. She tells him everything. All the silly things and the mundane. The hard things. That she’s got a man now that he’d begrudgingly like –and maybe it’s not for forever but it’s so good in the now. Life’s short. Pleasure’s taken from where it can be.

Pa was never much of a talker, but he always listened. He does now. He takes in every bit of blather that falls from Rue’s tongue. He laughs in his quiet, rocky way. He sighs exasperatedly. Sometimes, it’s just her name, a tired, “Rue,” that comes as close to a chastisement as he can manage. Or there’s a click of the tongue, and she can’t help but look back at him then, wide smiling and wondering what exactly chapped his ass.

And she realizes she’d started to forget his face. His hard edges that had started to soften as his hair steadily lost black to silver. Sleepy brown eyes, the left raced over by a lightning bolt of a scar that cuts down his chin and neck and ceases just above his collar bone. His eternal stubble all of salt and pepper.

“I think we’ve both gotten older,” she tells him.

“You’re still this big to me,” he tells her, a hand coming out to hover about three or so feet over the ground. And he grins just as wide as she does; in fact, she learned this exact smile from him. He was a somber man, but when he smiled, he could light the world. “And still givin’ everyone hell.”

Rue winks, dropping an old blouse just so she can fingergun at him. “It’s just in my nature.”

Her eyes come open with watery, grey daylight spilling over her, ghosts of his laughter still in her head. She blinks hard up at the ceiling, smiling soft even with the heavy of her eyes. She can’t remember the last time a dream of him wasn’t a nightmare, that a vision of him didn’t leave her hollow and burning.

Dream though it is, Rue hopes he comes back around, and she can give him a hug next time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Breakfast is scattered and simple, eaten in shifts and just a few folks at a time. Hal and Mrs. Rosa help. Lunch is the same. Dinner, too. Rue asks if she can do any prep for tomorrow morning, but Abuela Julietta says she doesn’t think they’ll make it there. They’ll worry about breakfast later if there’s a later to worry about.

Outside, the mission is tense and quiet, like the whole of the complex holds its breath. The walls are stalked constantly, guns at the ready. And Rue’s ninety-percent certain the shadow and silhouette haunting the chapel’s belltower is Mrs. Ira Jean with that machine gun she wanted.

For the first time, Rue wonders if it’s really that big of a deal. It’s not war. It’s a shootout. Those are standard.

Isn’t it?

Cooper finds her as she stands with her back pressed into an alcove, eyes on the orange outline of distant mountains as daylight drains away. She asks him if things are serious. She can’t always tell.

“Maybe it’s not war -not nations and countries involved– but…. Deck’s been shorin’ up resources and men for months,” he tells her, cleaning under his nails with a knife. “We cleaned up some on our lil’ tear here, but he’s got at least a hundred more men spread about his territory. He’ll be bringin’ ‘em all in for this. He’ll be bringin’ all he’s got –anyone who owes him a favour. All his tricks and gunpower. And comin’ here’s different from him headin’ into NCR territory. He wouldn’t dare go West, but he’s been creepin’ this way for years now. Nothin’s puttin’ a damper on this conquest, and the only reason he ain’t come for the mission before is ‘cause he couldn’t find it. They got a special way of gettin’ here. All twisted ways, paths that don’t show themselves until you’re standing in a certain spot to see ‘em. Joaquín went out over the radio with crystal clear directions.”

Rue hums softly at that, knowing they’ve got about fifty in the mission after sending away mamas, babies, the unequipped, and the elderly. And about twenty of those fifty went away into the desert for some sort of flanking maneuver she barely listened to Cooper and Joaquín discuss. So, maybe they’re outnumbered –and maybe Rue’s a little too confident– but that’s just two guys everyone has to kill. She can do that easy.

And they have all the firepower: mortars, machine guns, and ammo out the ass. Cooper loaned some of his war expertise, and Joaquín doesn’t seem like so much of a slouch about that stuff either. Rue’s certain he wouldn’t have called them in if he wasn’t confident –if he didn’t have some tricks up his sleeve, too.

Rue mentions all of that to Cooper, and he dips his head. “I’m sure he’s as prepared for this as he can be, but Deck’ll bring hell. He’ll do it nasty.”

“…Who do ya think’ll win?”

Cooper smiles this certain way. Not so joyful. Not just fully bitter. “Nobody ever wins at this game, sweetheart. Not really.”

Rue’s stomach twists, heart sinking. She’s not worried about herself. She’s worried for everyone else. She wishes Hal, Mrs. Ira Jean, and Mrs. Rosa hadn’t come looking for her. She wishes Aloe, Oregon, and Raf wouldn’t have brought her here. She wishes… she wishes she could just find Deck out on his own in the desert. She’d be the bobcat and him the coyote. And in the end, she’d limp away, leaving his desecrated carcass to rot under sun. Over and done.

But that’s not how this will end. What’s going to happen here has been building for a while, and it would have happened with or without her.

“We oughta go get your rifle, Rue. They’ll hit in the night,” the Ghoul breaks the silence, tucking away his knife and pushing off aged stone. “I brought it and all your other shit.”

She perks at that, eyes leaving the sand to smile smally at him. “Even Baby Destiny?”

“She was a bitch to lug, but I got her here. …Got Eggshells here, too, but he dusted on me when we got too close.”

“He’s fine,” Rue assures, falling into step beside her cowboy. “He had chicken for dinner.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rue braids her hair tight to keep it from her eyes and out of the way. She trades the moccasins Oregon got for her for her rose-embroidered boots and spurs and immediately feels ten feet taller in them. Pa’s hat settles securely on her head, and his rifle is a steady, grounding weight across her back. She could take on the world. Deck Craven is nothing.

Digging ammo out of her bag, Rue comes across a little, silver star: a trinket she’d plucked up weeks ago on a whim –this vision she had of matching with Cooper. She’d forgotten about it with everything that’s happened, and maybe now isn’t the time to give it to him. But when is? There might not be another.

She joins him at the window he peers out of, the coloured glass of Joaquín’s office. Outside, all Rue can really see are the torches lining the mission, but they wink out one-by-one. The moon’s gone new, leaving the desert dark.

A tug at his sleeve has the deep-dark whiskey of his gaze fixing on her, and then on the little pin she holds out in her hand. She chirps a, “For you!”

Cooper’s eyes tick back to hers, to the pin. His lips wobble. “What, ya want me to wear that on my lapel like I’m the goddamn deputy?”

Rue grins wide. “Cute, but I think it’d look better on the band of your hat. And you’d match me. Which is cutest.”

His snort and eyeroll only make her smile wider, so does the, “Fuck’s sake….”

She coos, “Y’know ya secretly want to.”

He doesn’t fight her, though, his eyes do roll again. And he doesn’t say a word as he tips his head just enough that she can reach the band of his hat. She doesn’t tease him as she fastens it or when he’s pulled away and she can see it proud upon the band. She just breathes out slow, squeezes his hand, and plants a soft kiss to his jaw.

“Imma go see if Joaquín’ll loan me a nightscope. I’ll keep eyes on ya once shit hits the fan.”

Cooper pulls her back in before she can pull away in full, kissing her quick yet tender. “Ya worry ‘bout yourself, pumpkin. And ya give ‘em hell.”

A quick peck. A second. A third that lingers slightly longer before Rue drags herself away with a smile and wave. “I always do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How it goes is outside of Rue’s imagination. She doesn’t really get war or tactics. She was never going to be able to see the way it unfolds, call it shot for shot. In her mind and even with Cooper’s correction, Deck’s boys would have no option but to approach on foot, and that would just be shooting fish in a barrel –with an occasional fish getting lucky enough to somehow shoot back.

But Cooper was right when he said Deck would bring hell. Because Deck brings a vertibird, wheeled mortars, more than just a hundred boys, and they don more than just western wear. Amongst his ranks lumber silver suits of powerarmor, old insignias scraped away or painted over.

The vertibird swoops in first, its powerful lights washing wherever they land daylight bright. Blinding. And it first peppers the ground surrounding the mission in a clockwise sweep, setting off the mines having been planted around the perimeter. They go off in geysers of sand and stone, in jarring bangs! But Mrs. Ira Jean’s on the bird like bloatflies on brahmin shit, bullets chink-ing off reinforced metal. The mortars all along the walls begin to fire into the dark, and Rue’s certain she hears shouts distantly behind it all. Pain and rage.

Sweep finished, the vertibird surges forward. The enemy’s mortars begin to fire upon the mission, blasting away chunks of stone and drawing out shouts from within. Rue's vision rattles with each strike, tremors in the foundation trembling up and through her limbs. The nightscope helps her pick out heads in the dark and beyond, and she pops as many as she can before she's blinded by the lights of the vertibird that comes to hang over the mission. 

Fire pours down, an explosion midair that sends out shooting stars to set the whole night alight.

And that’s really where Rue loses sight of things, when chaos begins to reign supreme and her sniper’s perch doesn’t guarantee a lick of safety. Certainly not when it takes a direct mortar hit and she ends up falling to the floor below in a rain of debris. But Rue thrives when plans are kicked out the window, when shit hits the fan and adrenaline jumpstarts her heart. The wild, wicked thing she is on the inside gets to leak out, pull itself from the rubble and dust, and find some sorry soul to lay hands on.

There are plenty. Plenty of heads to pop like balloons and distracted saps to creep up behind, slitting them from tongue to taint or toppling them off the walls –into waiting fire. Licks are given and received. Someone finally brings that bitch of a vertibird to earth, and Rue hoots at its destruction. Swears and cackles when a suit of powerarmor pulls itself from the wreckage to come after her with wild grabs Rue ducks and dodges as she hunts for some way to break through, her bullets chink-ing off metal.

A spinning out of the way puts her out of reach for a heartbeat, but a loose stone catches her foot. The world only topples for a second before Rue’s caught and held, brought back to her feet and her right hand and 5.56 taken, guided.

“Right there, pumpkin,” Cooper’s voice fills her head, brushes against her ear so she can hear him above the clamor. He’s lined her shot up, aim placed just below the chest plate of the armor. His finger twitches, but she pulls the trigger. The suit stills, buckles, and crumbles, and her Ghoul purrs out an, “Atta girl.”

“Hot,” she rasps, turning into him and kissing a devil-grinning mouth. “You’re so fuckin’ hot when ya do shit like that, sweet.”

“I like ya in red,” he growls against her mouth, nipping her lip before he’s pushing her off and spinning her ‘round. “On the wall. Get your ass up there.”

Rue doesn’t have to question what he means –for either statement. She’s blood drenched, and Deck’s on the wall above the splintered mission gates. Deck in powerarmor, going after Joaquín with everything in him, and the Ghoul a surprisingly evasive target that’s somehow managed to knock the fucker’s helmet off.

She goes scrambling, anyone getting in her way dropping without her having to raise a gun against them. She climbs up rubble, clawing her way onto the segment of wall where Deck has Joaquín pinned. The Ghoul’s arm is a limp, dangling, crushed thing at his side. Torn mouth held in a snarl. Her and the Nightstalker’s eyes meet for barely half a second, her best smile thrown his way before she whistles sharp and calls out in her sweetest, most entreating of voices:

“Deck!”

Her call seizes him, pauses him mid-swing and has him wheeling about to show her the face she’d hoped she’d ruined. But it’s infuriating what a Stimpak must have done: left him with this crinkly, c-shaped scar across his cheek. There’s an eyepatch over his left eye, though, and there’s satisfaction in that –in the way he still lights up at the sight of her because He’s Just That Fucking Insane. Insane to think her standing upon this wall, calling his name is a good thing. Something to smile about, for that lone eye to be so bright over.

He comes for her with a desperate, joyful, admonishing, “Little bird! Ya ought not be out here. Ain’t safe for you. I was comin’. I told ya I was comin’. That I’d bring ya home.”

“Do ya remember what I told ya?” she asks him, rocking back and forth on her heels as she peers up into his fire-lit face when he comes to tower over her.

“That you were scared.” A gauntleted hand reaches up, trying at gentleness. At tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “Confused. And that’s alright. I’m here for ya. I know ya. I don’t mind it.”

There comes a hiss and a brief alarm, and those metal fingers just about touching her cheek come to a grinding halt. Deck Craven’s brow furrows, body jerking in his armor.

Rue shakes her head. She gets in close, going for her pocketknife. “Scared’s what you oughta be.” And what a sight she must make, blade held between her teeth as she hefts herself up, climbs to where she can sit upon that frozen arm and reach his face just fine. She boops him on the nose with the tip of her knife before she drags the blade along those new scars that had no right to form. Her whole body shudders at his gasp and shout, at the panic, pain, and confusion surging in his eye as he fights uselessly in the metal shell holding him nice and still.

Rue reminds him, sweet and soft, “I said I’m gonna be your monster.”

“Here.” Joaquín steps around the suit, winded and just a little trembly as he presents a fusion core. “This can… go up his ass?”

Chapter Twenty Nine: War Games

Rue gets an earlier start on her second day at the mission, rising before the sun and joining her abuelas in the kitchen where she nods her head excessively when Abuela Julietta asks if she liked the horchata. She loved the horchata. She’d have horchata every day because just as Aloe had said, it was like a hug in a cup. Homey and comforting and sweet.

Abuela Julietta smiles rather smugly at that, pats Rue's hand, and strolls away only to come back with a cup of coffee and a plate of something with chips, salsa, cheese, cream, and a nicely fried egg. Abuela decrees it, “Chilaquiles,” and two bites in, Rue wonders how a marriage proposal would go over. If the coffee’s so good because Abuela Julietta is magic or if it’s just the simple fact the woman was sweet enough to make it for her. 

Rue cleans her plate, drains her cup, and swears undying fealty to Julietta before being put to work, and it’s more of the same from the day before: prep, taste-testing, heavier lifting, and small Spanish lessons. A few divergences happen, though. Rue’s allowed into the cantina where everyone gathers for meals, and she gets to help serve breakfast. She’s friendly with everyone, smiling and trying for small conversations, but she’s regarded warily by most. Others are too tired to fool with her. The children like her, though. One boy named Leo really wants Rue to see the gap his two front teeth left behind when they recently fell out. And this set of twins, Mira and Sofia, net their fingers in her skirt and won’t let go until their mother comes along to drag them off with an apologetic smile.

After that, it’s clean-up, a brief siesta, and then time to start prepping for lunch. After it’s served, Rue is sent to the animal pens with the withered bits of vegetables and fruits where she ogles over the array of critters the Nightstalkers keep. All the chickens. Four brahmin and a little calf. Six, scraggly hogs. Some other two-headed critters the one tending them says are goats, and even if she doesn’t quite trust their rectangle eyes, Rue still loves them. They prance about cutely and make silly sounds –and try like hell to eat her clothes, hair, and fingers.

When her basket of scraps is empty, Rue heads back to the kitchens and gets swept up in the rigors of feeding an entire community. At dinner, she actually gets to sit down with everyone out in the cantina and not tucked away in the kitchens. Oregon sits to her left and Aloe on her right. Raf doesn’t join them exactly, but he does take up a spot at the end of their long table, sparing Rue a wink when she catches his gaze.

She takes this as good news: a sign that maybe she’s not under the threat of death any longer. But whatever it really means doesn’t matter too much to her. She’s too preoccupied to worry about death and Nightstalker nonsense. When the kids clear out of the cantina after dinner, this peppery-sweet liquor Aloe tells her is called bacanora starts circulating, and folks get a bit messy with it. Not really violent or anything, but there are spills and a few bottles broken. Lots of loud, carrying laughter and conversations Rue can't understand but sound light and engaging. Some of them, she can even get in on because people aren't half as reserved around her as earlier (it's probably the liquor).

7They ask after her. They want to know her deal, and Rue's deal is vengeance. She's just trying to draw blood and have herself a good time. That's not really believed. The little crowd she's brought in think she's too sweet-looking, but Raf cuts in to equate her to a bobcat. Fluffy and cute to look at but full of venom and violence. They haven't heard what she'd done to Deck Craven's face yet?

Perfectly angelic and demure is Rue's smile as he regales them of her altercation with the sheriff, her ever so flattered to be likened to a bobcat. She still smiles about it even as her new friends disperse and the cantina empties out slow, leaving her to clean. She hums to herself as she sweeps, attention lightly on the few unfamiliar Nightstalkers lingering and chatting. 

Until one whistles to her, a cat-calling sound she recognizes: one that has her full attention and her grinning wicked with her back still turned to them. Because maybe Rue had more than just a taste of the bacanora for curiosity's sake. Maybe she's a little fuzzy and bubbly and feeling like screwing around with folks, and if there’s one thing she misses about Mulholland’s, it’s messing around with her good tables. Making them laugh or wilt or gasp. So, she turns to them with an expression of soft curiosity and gives them more than what they bargained for.

Come morning, things are different.

The relaxed air about the quiet mission is vibrating, alive and antsy. People move with purpose, barely sitting down to breakfast. The few times Rue gets to duck outside, Nightstalkers are all along the walls, heavy guns drawn. Children, mothers, and most of Rue’s abuelas leave on brahmin-drawn carts. So do Aloe and Oregon, the former righteously pissed over such a thing and the latter poorly hiding his relief.

"Moves are bein' made," Aloe tells her as she climbs into the back of a cart. "Don't know for sure what -no one actually tells me shit- but I'm guessin' the storm's close if they're sendin' us off...." The strawberry-blonde settles, grumpy expression melting into the teensiest of smiles before a hand reaches out to squeeze Rue's shoulder. "Tear 'em all a new one for me, yeah?"

"Oh, ya know I will." And then Rue hugs Oregon when the softie tells her to stay safe. She assures, "It's everyone else ya oughta worry 'bout."

The carts rattle off; Rue watches them disappear to the East and spends the hours after daydreaming about shootouts, wondering if Deck Craven is coming himself or if he's too chickenshit. She'd like to see the hogs out back gore him to death, her sat pretty on a fence post, drinking horchata and enjoying the show.

Dinner is quiet, simple, and quick that night: just a few figures drifting in and out as Rue and Abuela Julietta make quick things. They're done before daylight's fully leeched out, and Abuela sends Rue away, telling her to take a walk. Clear her head and ready herself -even if tonight's not the night, a mess is coming. Rue’s not particularly afeared or anxious, but she always likes a walk –especially when the air has gotten cool with night’s onset and all that’s left of the sun is a gold-orange glow scorching across the horizon.

It's still and silent save for the intermittent conversations between the Nightstalkers she can't make much sense of, and sometimes the bombcollar 'round her throat beeps if she gets to close to a boundary she can't see. She finds a new path, making a loop through the fields even though she knows Aloe and Oregon won’t be there, and then meandering her way towards the chicken coops where she comes across a ruckus: a screeching, clucking panic of chickens flapping back and forth and clinging desperately to the high wire of their enclosure. Feathers are all in the air, and a poor, lone baby is being feasted upon by-.

“Eggshells!”

The bobcat’s head snaps up at her voice, ears slicking back against his head until he’s figured out it’s her throwing open the gate and rushing it. Visibly, he relaxes, his ears ticking back up and his chainsaw purring sweetening the air, but he doesn’t bother to greet her. No, he just keeps snacking, the meal at hand more important. Rue doesn’t mind. She settles on her knees, smiling away as she pets her pretty baby and coos sweet nothings to him.

“Ya took your goddamn time this go ‘round,” she teases, scritching along his jaw and behind his torn ear. “Trail hard to follow? It was weird to walk. Think it was all landmark based. And we doubled back sometimes, but that might’ve just been Oregon and Aloe not knowin’ what the fuck they were doin’…. Hey, is daddy close? Ya find him and bring him?”

Eggshells keeps eating. A lingering, longing glance around shows Rue absolutely nothing -not even a glimpse of her Ghoul or a sign he’s nearby.

She scoops Eggshells up when he’s just lapping at blood and takes up the bird by the ankle so the rest of its friends don’t have to exist around its dead body. It’s useless to bury things, so Rue chucks it as far as she can. Then she sneaks Eggshells into the kitchen under her shirt, but there’s no one there to pay her any mind as she washes blood off her hands and Eggshells’ precious face in a deep, stone sink.

Not until Raf pops in, at least, and Eggshells has himself a hissing conniption before shoving his girthy body through the teensiest of cracks in an open window. Rue just smiles after him, and then at the slack-jawed Raf.

“Don’t shoot my cat if ya see him,” is all she really has to say on the matter. “He’s shy and don’t really like folks, but he’s a good boy.”

“When the fuck did ya have time to tame a bobcat?”

“Oh, a while ago? He used to live under my house and leave me dead things. Now he follows me everywhere, but it took him a bit to find me out here.”

The grin that cracks across Raf’s mouth is wry, and he mumbles something in Spanish before telling her to, “Grab a tray –a few tumblers,” as he motions for Rue to come along. She does, collecting the items and following him to a staircase leading down into the cellar where there are all manners of barrels, casks, bottles, and racks. He plucks up a fancy-looking bottle of bourbon and sets it upon her tray.

“Ya foistin’ me on Joaquín again, or am I actually wanted this time?” she asks as they make their way through the courtyard.

“You’ve been requested,” he says, waving her into the chapel without coming along himself.

By her lonesome, Rue heads towards the back of the chapel, up the spiraling staircase, and straight down the hall where orange glows from beneath the door as it had last she visited. Rue raps twice on the worn wood, not bothering to wait for an, "Adelante," before entering. She was requested after all, and she's mighty curious. He didn't seem to want her anywhere near him last time....

Rue's eyes go wide around, everything in her getting shiny and excited. Because it's not just Joaquín occupying his little office. Cooper's there, sitting in a chair adjacent to the Nightstalker, and he rises at the sight of her. Rue flat-out drops her serving tray to run at him, to jump at him and lock her legs 'round his waist so she can squeeze him like a rattler would its prey.

She knows it’s hasn’t been that long, but she misses him all the time.

“Always so eager for me...,” the Ghoul chuckles into her hair, squeezing her back, but then that chuckle turns into a temperamental growl, "but I oughta knock your brain outta your head for that stupid shit ya pulled back in Poppy.” And he pinches her ass; Rue squeaks, a highly undignified sound that ends with a giggle. “Fuck’s wrong with you?”

“I got excited.” Rue holds him ever tighter, pressing a kiss to his cheek, then jaw. “And he don’t get to even try drawin’ on ya. It made me see red.”

“I had it handled.”

“Well, I know that, but my brain said to pounce. I had to.”

The Ghoul shakes his head, not a lick of mirth to his mouth or a flicker of warmth to his eyes as he tries to hardass her. "I ain't sure yours is one to be listened to."

"Y'know, I might've agreed with ya once, but I think it works just the way it's supposed to." Rue grins at his snort, at the way his eyes roll and he still tries to be all stern with her and not meet the baby greys she bats up at him. But she melts the gunslinger with the very small, "Cooper," she kisses against his neck. The, "I missed ya."

He gives in, whiskey eyes meeting hers and lips fighting a grin he does end up winning against. He sighs out a, “They been treatin’ ya right here?” in a softer, more tender tone.

Rue nods. “Abuela Julietta’s teachin’ me how to make everything, but right now we’re just makin’ simple things ‘cause people are too excited to eat. And we don’t wanna waste nothin’. But we’re supposed to try tamales if we live long enough. And everyone's real nice or don't actually care enough to fool with me, but-. Ooh, ooh! Listen. There were a few guys down in the cantina hittin’ on me yesterday, and I told ‘em I have teeth in my crawl. It sent 'em runnin'.”

Rue can read absolutely nothing on Cooper’s face as he blankly stares at her, the casual motions of him petting her hair falling to stillness. Until, eventually, “What the fuck?”

“Yeah. One of the guys goes, ‘Betcha got a pretty, lil’ kitty,’ and I laugh and say, ‘No, sir, thing’s ‘bout rabid.’ And he kinda wrinkles his nose and says, ‘Whatcha mean?’ So, I tell him I grew up in a small town not far off from a toxic waste dump and radiation left us all screwy in some way, and I got a full set of chompers down there.”

“And he bought that?”

She nods a lot, grin going so wide. “He did, but one of his buddies goes, ‘Uh-huh. Show us.’ And I say, ‘Sure thing, got any Cram?’ And he wants to know what the hell I need Cram for, and I explain it’s the only thing that calms it down. Like if I turn the lights on this thing, it’s gonna rage and I gotta give it a snack to temper it. And the first guy and another just walk the fuck out, and the one left asks if it bites. And I say, ‘Buddy. It fuckin’ bites. I can’t even touch myself.’ He tells me that’s pretty nasty -and kinda sad. I said, ‘Who the hell are ya tellin’? I’m the one livin’ with it. Now, am I hikin’ up my skirt or what? ‘cause I really need that Cram.’ And he just tells me that’s not necessary before he gets up and walks the fuck out.” 

A low, snorting chuckle comes from the other presence in the room -the one Rue had forgotten- and she turns her smile on Joaquín for a half-second before she focuses on the ripple passing over Cooper's face. The quirking lips he fast tries to school, but it's no good. His voice is half of laughter as he tells her, “Rue, sweetheart, that’s… that’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Somehow, she smiles brighter. “But it worked.”

“I… I guess.” He pats her ass with both hands, tone of soft chortle as says, “Down, darlin’. My dogs are barkin’, and I want that drink ya dropped.”

Rue drops, but only after she gets her a kiss with just a little bit of tongue. She goes for the dropped tray, and by some miracle, nothing is shattered. She plucks it all up, stilling for a heartbeat when she catches Joaquín's voice quietly asking, “Is she…? Well, she couldn’t be the one you were looking for.”

“Nah,” Cooper dismisses, firm in it. Yet he does add a, “Guess I don’t mind too much that I found her,” in a voice just a tick softer. 

Curious though she is (and warm and special at the admission), Rue knows that's a don't press kind of cadence. Joaquín must recognize it as well, as he leaves it. He simply assures they've treated Rue as a guest, kindly, as she pops over and fixes two fingers for both boys. He's always courteous. The bounty hunter knows that. 

Cooper tips his head, an arm snaking 'round Rue's waist once she sits herself pretty on his lap. His hand settles warm on her thigh. "Yeah, but there is a bombcollar strapped to her neck." He clicks his tongue as bourbon wets his lips. "Ain't too fond of that."

"Mm. A precautionary measure."

And now feels like the perfect time for Rue to butt in, to casually ask, “Ya convince him not to kill me yet?”

Cooper pauses, the hand at her waist curling in harsh as his eyes settle even harsher on Joaquín, who nonchalantly sips his own bourbon but does guiltily avert his gaze. “Huh?”

“I… did bring her here to kill her,” the Nightstalker confesses. “When Craven arrived, I was going to take her up the mission wall, wrap a rope around her throat, and let gravity handle the rest. An eye for an eye, as they say.” He sips his bourbon again, longer this time. “…It’s what he did to Vielka.”

The grip on her waist eases, the sharp edge to Cooper's gaze falling away. “He got Vielka?”

“For Ancho,” Joaquín quietly admits, sipping deeper until the amber’s drained. “She never liked staying put, you know. I told her now wasn’t the time for one of her adventures, but she said she’d been making the pilgrimage to Joshua Tree once a year –even before the bombs dropped, she was visiting. She wasn’t letting war games amongst boys keep her from her fun. ...His men found her just outside of Many Ways. And mine found her hung from a saguaro.”

Rue reaches for the bourbon bottle, pouring him another two fingers and… tentatively, softly, she pats his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss. …I hope the after’s all spikey trees and starry nights for her.”

“Mierda,” must be Joaquín’s favourite, as he sure says it an awful lot. His hand retreats to drag down his face –both do. “She would have liked you –she would beat me black and blue for bringing you here. But I… I want him to feel as I have.” The hands washing his face curl in as if to claw, then fist against his eyes. “Sleepless nights and burning tears. And then I rip him limb from limb...” The Nightstalker shakes his head, clears his throat –a horribly rough sound Rue knows buries tears. He looks to her, eyes glossy in the candlelight, and professes, “I can’t kill you. I tried to talk myself into it, but I can’t –not since Raf and Aloe conspired against me the other night. They knew… they knew….” He sighs. He rubs his temple, going for the full glass. “You may go once Craven comes. I swear.”

“You can take the collar off her now.” Cooper’s tone leaves no room for argument, a threat underneath it though he doesn’t speak one aloud. “She ain’t gonna run.”

Rue shakes her head. “And I guess ya can rip off one of his limbs, but I need the rest of him. I got plans.”

Joaquín wipes at his eyes, dismissing her with a firm, “His death is mine.”

“Nuh-uh. I’ve had dibs forever.” Well, over a year -well, technically, eight or so. But that really doesn’t matter. “You and Aloe deserve to get licks in, and I’m not sayin’ what he did to ya is any less evil than what he’s done to others, but I want him. And I’m gon’ have him.”

“And what did he do to you?” Joaquín asks, tone chilled. “What makes you think you deserve it more than me? Or Aloe?”

The question makes Rue so instantly small; her face turns and fingers go to wiggle-pinching at each other. That burn in her throat starts up, clogging like it always does and only easing the slightest degree when the Ghoul squeezes the smallest assurance.

And Joaquín’s right in his way. Maybe he does deserve it more. It sounds like Vielka was his heart, his love for decades upon decades. Rue only had her Pa for one.

But she’d loved him more than anything and anyone. She needed him still. She misses him every day. He was her only real person, and their ranch was the only real home she can remember. …And Bram… Bram didn’t deserve to die for someone who didn’t love him all the way. He didn’t deserve to die at all –just especially not because of her.

But no, she supposes her suffering is no greater than anyone else’s. She doesn’t deserve it more. But she wants it -she needs it- and she’s going to have the things she wants.

“It ain’t for you,” Rue tells him. “And Aloe already said I could ‘cause she knows I’m gonna get him the worst. He’s dyin’ slow, in the most pain I can inflict with these two hands. He’s dyin’ in tears and with his rotted heart shattered at my feet. And if I can find a camera, I’ll take pictures of it for ya ‘cause ya ain’t gonna wanna look at that mess in real life.”

Joaquín is very quiet, his brow thoughtful and a hand rubbing over his mouth and jaw as the other swirls bourbon 'round and 'round for a long minute. His hand comes away from his face with an offering gesture and a simple, “I have a camera.”

Rue tries not to smile, to keep whatever hardass-y expression she pulled onto her face, but she can't help the way her lips crackle devilish. “That you lettin’ me have my way?”

“I… I like the sound of the person he loves most betraying him in such a way, hurting him physically and emotionally. It sounds… good. Fair. Cinematic.” Joaquín relaxes back in his chair, taking a long, final draw. “Aloe will want the pictures. I’ve never had the stomach for gore, to be honest.” And he draws a small gadget from his pocket, a button he presses that has the collar 'round her neck releasing its tight hold with a soft hiss and click. “What do you drink, Rue?”

She peels the weight off her neck, leaving it on the small table between them. “I’m a rum kinda gal.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rue’s fuzz and fizz when a knock comes from the door, a sound that has her perking marginally where she reclines on her Ghoul, cuddled up as she listens and only every so often tosses in her two caps at the war games Cooper and Joaquín play.

Joaquín calls out an, “Adelante,” only for Raf to poke his head in and say:

“Three more visitors. One says your ass is grass and she’s gonna mow it, seed it with nettles, if ya don’t let her in.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lonely Mission

Stars are out when the lonely mission rises from the desert, a deeper shadow in the night. Still and looming with high walls and a reaching steeple. It doesn’t look like a Nightstalker’s den or anywhere one would manufacturer weapons. No, it's too tranquil and welcoming with its quiet air and the soft, orange glow of candles dotted here and there. It’s like it’s waiting for them. Like lights were left on just for them.

Raf signals to it with a small pocket light –a quick series of flashes met with another series from above the massive front doors. When they get close enough, a tinier, rounded door opens to let them inside where a lone woman with a rifle slung over her back greets them. She’s all smiles, her Spanish warm, and then she’s blinking curiously at Rue. Recognition dawns; her smile changes, a wicked edge taking it.

Rue’s been on the receiving end of quite a few up-downs but never once so unimpressed and mean (it's impressive, actually). The woman opens her mouth, likely to say something nasty, but Raf puts his hand in front of her face and closes his fingers.

“Cállate,” he says. And Rue just knows that means to hush, though, she’s at a loss on the rest of it.

Whatever he says, the woman ends up huffing at, and then start-stopping on something that sounds of confusion before her mouth ticks with uncertainty. She ends up shaking her head and walking off to a set of stone steps that climb up the mission’s walls. They go on their way, too, keeping close to the walls and ending up on the South side of the compound where a long, stucco building rises three stories.

Raf doesn’t make to come with them, and he keeps Aloe from following Rue and Oregon in. He tells them to head to bed. He needs Aloe for a little bit. Oregon nods; Rue wants to go where they’re going, but Raf says he really just needs her to lie low for a bit. There are… unfortunate circumstances she’s been brought into. He doesn’t want to get into it now. She just needs to go to bed.

Rue huffs a, “Fine,” and follows Oregon inside, stepping into a building the kind of quiet that makes Rue feel like she shouldn’t breathe. Oregon’s like that, too, not saying a thing at all even once they’re tucked away in his modest quarters (just a desk, full bed, and a chest for his belongings). He makes her a pallet on the floor, giving her all his pillows and blankets before he lies himself down quiet on his stripped bed.

Which is incredibly odd since he’s his most talkative right before bed: in that little slice of time between his head touching down and sleep taking him under. For days and days, they’ve been sharing whatever midnight thoughts popped into their heads, and suddenly, he has nothing for her. Or nothing more than this tiny smile that doesn’t meet his eyes, and how those eyes hurry to look away before his back is fully to her.

Rue watches his back, knowing fully what’s wrong. Maybe it got away from her for a minute in the journey, but Rue was captured and brought here for a reason. Deck Craven was left alive when Raf could have shot him for a reason.

Fingers tip-tap along the bitingly cold bombcollar hugging her throat, and her eyes leave Oregon’s back to stare into the starlit night the arching window above his bed offers a view of. Revenge is in the air, and if Rue had to bet on what shape it takes, she’d put all her caps on herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aloe cracks open the door to Oregon’s room come late morning, and though she was never the friendliest, loudest, or brightest, she’d gotten to where she was more than stony-silence and glares with Rue. She was small, wicked smiles and a bit more animation –the type to use her hands too much while talking. But now she’s… dim. Dim and barely there, and all she offers is a, “Mornin’,” before a silent tilt of her chin beckons them to come along.

They end up in a long hall of a room with drains on the floor where there are stools, buckets, and faucets that spurt cold water. The three of them wash-up there, neither humouring Rue’s chatter; and so, she hums to herself as she scrubs off the layer of wasteland grime with a loofah and cactus soap that reminds her of Shade and Sundries. Once dressed, Aloe suggests Oregon run on.

“Tomatoes need weedin’ bad,” she says. “I’ll take Rue on to the kitchen and meet ya there.”

Oregon gives a weak, “Okay,” and parting wave, looking like he wants to cry. 

Rue reckons this is all bad news for her. She knows it is when she spies a flash of Raf on the mission wall, eyes fixed on her. The set of them is narrow. His mouth too serious. And then he’s gone.

Worrying over herself isn’t something Rue’s ever done much of –not even now as her brain decides that, yes, she’s here to die. It’s not… well, it’s not serious in her mind. It’s an eventuality. It’s just what happens. Something is going to get her someday, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s going to happen now. Not here. Not by the hands of the many grannies that bustle around the kitchen, stopping only in their work to regard Rue icily as she and Aloe enter.

The strawberry-blonde speaks to them in Spanish, whatever she says bringing on a few eyerolls and what very well could be the Spanish version of, “Are you fuckin’ for real?” To which Aloe switches tones, gaining an entreating edge before switching to one all of promises.

One old lady, ghoulish and mostly bandages, gives a gruff, heavily-accented, “Fine. She shucks maize,” and then bats a hand towards a heap of on a corner table.

Rue doesn’t have any qualms with that. She gets right to the task, batting her own hand at Aloe when the girl follows her over and offers small apologies over the situation.

“It’s just… weird right now?” Aloe quiets, gnawing at her bottom lip as she seems to decide on what she shouldn’t and shouldn’t say. “We all heard different things about ya, so there’s… impressions. And they ain’t just gonna believe me when I tell ‘em you’re not bad.”

“I ain’t sweatin’ it.” And Rue’s really not. She’s already shucked two ears, and though she knows she’ll be sick to death of it soon enough, she’s finds satisfaction in the activity right now. “And I’ll be fine. Oregon’s waitin’ on ya.”

“All… alright.” Aloe manages the smallest of smiles. “I’ll swing by when I can, though.”

Rue gives her a bright one. “I’ll see ya later, then.”

Aloe goes; Rue focuses on her task, shucking more maize than she ever has in her life. And once she’s done, she’s instructed to grind half of it as fine as she can manage. The other is to be for elotes. That’s a fun word she repeats several times to herself before she asks the brusque, bandaged lady in charge of her what elotes are.

Rather than tell her, the old lady shows her. Bestows upon Rue something so simple yet so magical and delicious. Grilled and buttery. Sweet and spicy. Rue can’t help but to sing the woman’s praises for making her something so goddamn beautiful. Can she have another? Oh, and does she know how to make tres leches? Can she show Rue? She’s been dreaming about a slice of that ever since Mrs. Rosa made her some. Oh, Mrs. Rosa? She’s just the most gifted, wonderful, gorgeous woman to have ever existed. Everything she makes is gold and yummy and riles up such strong emotions in Rue. She didn’t know food could do that until she tasted Mrs. Rosa’s cooking. Things were always just pretty good. Mrs. Rosa showed her divinity.

The elder stares at Rue for a long few moments, a narrow gaze softening as her lips wobble. She’s lightning quick about schooling her expression, though. She asks, “You are… Rue? That is what Aloe said, sí?”

Rue bobs her head, puts on her best smile, and extends a hand. “Rue Vasiliev.”

The woman’s line of a mouth breaks into a soft, quirked-more-to-the-right smile as she takes Rue’s hand to shake. “Julietta, but you call me Abuela. …You like to cook?”

“Mhm! But I don’t know good cookin’ like you do. Kinda just picked up what I could from my Pa, but he was a military man and didn’t know much ‘bout it to begin with.”

“Mi papá taught me,” Abuela says, smiling a tick brighter. “Y su madre taught him. We had a restaurant in our village when I was a girl. I worked there every day.” And then she tips her chin for Rue to follow along. “Venir. I teach you a few things.”

Rue gives the teeniest of excited squeals and sets out to make herself the most useful and attentive of helpers, and it’s not long before she has a mess of abuelas. All the ladies offer her tastes of this and that and little lessons on food preparation and Spanish. Which is so lovely to Rue, eating good, learning the flavourful tongue they speak, and feeling as though she’s been let in on a secret. She eats lunch and dinner with them in the kitchen, getting to have a slice of the tres leches she’s longed for since Mrs. Rosa made it for her.

Raf shows his face as Rue wipes down kitchen counters, him poking his head in the doorway and grabbing her attention with a short, sharp whistle and a curl of two fingers. Rue goes with a smile, just about bouncing she’s had such a wonderful day. She’s decided that in the future, she’d like to be an abuela fussing about a kitchen all day. It’s rewarding and tasty.

She tries to greet him with a question, a bid for his opinion on the chorizo that came with dinner because she played a heavy hand in its creation, but as soon as she’s in the hallway, he’s shoving a serving tray in her hands.

She looks down at it, the rocks glass and squared-away bottle of whiskey upon it, and then up at him, head cocking curiously. “Ya demotin’ me? I like it in the kitchen, and all my new abuelas say I do good.”

“No, no. Nothin’ like that-.” He stops, lips stretching in a wide grin. “Ahhh, so they adopted you. Good, good. It helps. Fantastic.” He rubs his hands together before urging her forward with a persistent press at the small of her back. “Vamos. Got a mission for you.”

Rue lets herself be guided out into the courtyard, and then she falls into step alongside Raf as he leads her into a wide courtyard marked by rows and rows of razorgrain, maize, peppers, and the like. She looks for Aloe and Oregon as they cross the courtyard, but it’s still and empty out. The chapel Raf leads her to is like that, too. It is dark and shuttered save for this circular, colourful window in the steeple where dim orange glows. Raf unlocks the massive, worn, double doors with an iron key and hurries her in.

He speaks to her in a near-whisper as they cross an interior not of pews and pulpit but of workbenches, clunky machinery, hand tools, and pinned schematics. “Now don’t be nervous or anything. This shouldn’t be outside of whatcha did before. Just servin’ a drink. Maybe makin’ a lil' small talk. Just be you.”

Eyes on the high rafters with chains hanging from them, Rue assures in a voice pitched to match his own, “I don’t get nervous.”

She doesn’t. Not as they leave the main floor and head down a short hallway of closed doors or as they climb a spiraling staircase where the hall they step into splits three ways. Raf motions for Rue to head on straight, staying behind with a hand on the banister. She only spares him a short, curious look before she marches on, eyes on the only door where glow drifts out in an orange slice. She knocks because it’s the proper thing to do and waits patiently for a call that does come.

“Adelante.”

Rue only started learning Spanish today, so she doesn’t know what that means exactly, but the voice is friendly enough. So maybe it’s a, “Come in.”

Like she’s done it a million times, Rue opens the door and breezes into the room, body and mind falling back into the old rhythm of Mulholland’s. A practiced, meant-for-customer-service smile blooms, and her gait takes on certain pep. Her eyes sweep the room curiously, settling on her customer: a weathered man marked by radiation and battle scars behind a large desk to her left. He doesn’t acknowledge her entrance, his pen too busy flying across paper.

Rue chirps out an, “Evenin’! I’m guessin’ this whiskey’s for you?”

The Ghoul’s head snaps up, eyes aglow with the candle burning on his desk. The pen he scrawls with ceases its scratching along paper. His brows are furrowed until this slow-drawn realization smooths and dreadens. Like he’s seen a ghost. And he doesn’t have a word for her. Which is fine. Rue always has more than enough to say.

“It looks like some fancy stuff,” she comments, sweeping up to the desk where she places the glass without so much as a clink or thunk on the wood, “with that wax seal and all. We didn’t have any bottles like this back at my old job. Just whatever someone brewed in their basement or pulled outta ruins.” With the wax seal already broken, it’s just a matter of twisting off the cap, and she pours whiskey like she has a million times, the amber of it richer, glittering, in the candlelight.

The top is twisted back on; the bottle left within arm’s reach. She extends a hand, “I’m Rue, by the way. I dunno what I’m supposed to do exactly. Like do I stay to refill? Or is that, that? I don’t mind hangin’ ‘round. It’s neat in here.”

Neat. Deadly. Most of the walls are bookshelves, and they’re loaded with weapons on display amongst glittering knick-knacks. Pistols and carbines. Shotguns and revolvers. Rifles of the assault, sniper, lever-action, and bolt-action varieties. Submachines and launchers. Not to mention blades in all shapes and sizes. Swords.

Rue’s always wanted to hold a sword.

“Can I touch a sword?” she asks, rocking back and forth on her heels. Still waiting for the man that looks up at her wide-eyed to shake her hand.

It takes a moment, but he comes out of his freeze. He blinks. He shakes Rue’s hand slowly, asking, “Who sent you here?”

“Raf.” Her eyes pick longingly over the swords but come back to him with a mischievous smile. “Is he in trouble?”

The, “Mierda,” is sharp and soft. His hand doesn’t linger longer than it has to and fast goes to rub at his temple before washing down his face. “Bastardo.”

That’s a yes. Well, it’s a shit and a bastard, but it’s a yes. Distressed. Rue asks him if he’s okay.

“Mm. Fine.” The hand not at his face thrums along the desk. “I’m fine.” And he sits up a tick straighter, his face smoothing. Or trying to. He plain looks unsettled. “You may go, Rue. And send Raf in.”

Rue tries to do that, saluting with an, “Alrighty.” But Raf isn’t where she left him. Or at the bottom of the stairs. Or in the repurposed chapel. Rue pops back upstairs, sticking her head into the office with an, “I dunno where he went. And I don’t really know my way around yet to look for him. I’ve only been really been to the kitchen.”

The swear is so low Rue doesn’t catch it, and the Ghoul’s head goes down with a thud. Another thud. Another and another.

She tuts at him, returning to his side where she lays a hand gently upon his shoulder. “Now don’t do that. You’re just gonna give yourself a headache.”

But he does it a little more. Swears a little more. Then he turns his face away from her, cheek pressing to paper. He sighs through the absence in his face, long and tired.

Rue sits back on his desk and asks him what his name is.

“J-.” He pauses. He breathes out slow. “Joaquín.”

Rue repeats it quietly, and then again because she likes the ‘quín’ part of it. She tells him so and that she really likes all the Spanish names she’s been learning lately. She likes Spanish. It’s prettier than English. And she…. It’s kind of a secret, but she technically has a Spanish name, too. Rioja. But Vasiliev is her real one in all the ways that matter. Maybe forget she told him? She doesn’t know why she told him. She gets yappy sometimes. Is he okay?

Joaquín doesn’t answer. He doesn’t comment on a word she just said. So very softly, he mentions, “I hear… I hear you ripped into Craven. That you hate him.”

Rue smiles, hums, and swings her legs. “I sure did, and I sure do.”

“But you are his ray of sunshine, no?”

“I ain’t jackshit,” Rue says plainly. “But he is in love with me or somethin’. I dunno. It’s creepy and weird and fucked up. …Oregon was tellin’ me ‘bout yella jackets the other day. I wanna feed him yella jackets.”

Joaquín lifts and turns his head tentatively, his eyes -green-hazel, woodsy- settle on her. “I hear you are… imaginative.”

Her smile goes sweet as she dips her head. “Thank ya.”

The Ghoul sighs, gaze drifting to his desk before he props himself up a little better upon it. Finally, he goes for the whiskey she poured him to take a slow sip that turns into a deeper draw. The glass empties; Rue replenishes.

Joaquín asks, “You are… camarera? Server?”

“Not anymore.” Rue draws her legs up so she sits cross-legged. “I’m an outlaw now. Or maybe just an aggravation? Dunno that I’ve really broken any laws or if there’re that many laws to break out here, but I’ve sure pissed some people off real good. But I might be a bounty hunter or courier someday soon. And I wanna be an abuela when I’m good and done with that. I liked messin’ ‘round in the kitchen, and I like how they are. Like it’s fun to me that they’re niceness comes with this tired sorta orneriness. That they’re dotin’ even if they’re bitchin’ a lil’. …That make sense?”

“It… it does,” Joaquín assents, taking two short sips before he sets his whiskey aside. He’s back to washing his face, with both hands now. Hushed, he comments, “This is not fair.” And then there comes on more Spanish Rue can’t piece together. “The… the abuelas…, they will think you abandoned clean up, and they will not let you forget it. You should head back to them.”

“Yeah, they’ll get me," Rue acknowledges, a little delighted as she drops off the desk and heads towards the door. "Abuela Sonia already smacked me with her sandal when I started pourin’ this sweet milk stuff down my throat. But I couldn’t help it. It was really good, and I ain’t ever had somethin’ like that before….” Rue catches herself before she goes on again and shoots Joaquín a small smile and wave. “Night Joaquín.”

Joaquín doesn’t wish her similar, but he does wave shortly before his eyes fix on his desk. And he goes to slumping before she’s closed the door all the way.

Rue doesn’t go back in this time. She can be clueless, but she knows when she isn’t wanted. When it’s time to leave things behind even if something in her chest wants to see if she can make them better. So, Rue retraces the steps that brought her here, back downstairs and into the chapel. Outside where she looks left and right for Raf but only comes up with Aloe, back pressed to the chipping, dusting stone as she rubs away at her elbows.

She perks at the sight of Rue, pushing off the wall and smiling tepidly. “You uh… things go alright up there?”

“Oh yeah. Guy’s a mess ‘bout somethin’, though.” Rue looks up to the circle window where light shines dully. “He the big boss?”

Aloe dips her head.

“He ain’t what I thought a Nightstalker would be. …None of ya are, really. Was kinda picturin’ somethin’ greasier and rough, but it’s nice here. And I know I’ve only been here like… a day, but I like it. It reminds me of….” The ranch. Of havin’ a family ‘round. Existin’ with more than just myself in a lil’ cage.

Rue didn’t know how lonely she was until this very moment, how isolated she’s actually been even if her nights were spent in a raucous saloon. It sits heavy in her chest and makes her prickle all over, like her body hits a strange, new frequency. One that shivers sadness over the whole thing through her veins.

And then Aloe’s hip bumps into Rue’s own, and her head lolls in the strawberry-blonde’s direction. “Abuela Julietta told me she left us some horchata in the icebox. Ya want some?”

Rue scrubs at her eyes and dips her head. “I want anything that woman’ll give me, but what’s horchata?”

“Like a hug in a cup.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Deep Hurt

Their movements don’t make much sense to Rue. They head East for a while before she’s spun North, and North’s only kept after until a crater in the desert yawns open, its innards full of garbage and geckos (the latter becoming a fitful enough dinner). They camp at its edges, and come morning, they’re South-bound. Then East again. North? East again. She keeps track of their path to the best of her ability, but it’s a challenge with so many spins and change ups. And Rue can’t always concentrate the best with the sun cooking her like it is. She has to focus on one burning step after another.

And learning everything she can about her travelling companions.

Captors might be a more fitting term for what Aloe and Oregon are supposed to be, but Rue doesn’t feel particularly captured by them. Or threatened, really. They’re not… well, they’re not the most professional of kidnappers or the most seasoned of wastelanders.

For one, and this might just be Rue’s opinion, they day travel; and Rue thinks anyone with any kind of sense knows to travel at night when sunlight sears like fire. Two, the first time she asks for a bathroom break, Oregon so kindly unties her wrists so the affair of it is less awkward. Neither remembers to tie her back up when she’s done. And three, who they are as people.

Oregon’s soft and reluctant. Just the little bit he’s said and shown has told Rue he didn’t want to do what he did. He’s upset for doing what he did, guilty. He tries to make up for it -like with a pair of moccasins and a canvas hat bought off a caravan passing them by before old highways are left behind for wilderness. Constantly, he offers her water or a snack (and she tells him, “Ya oughta c-. Cons… conserve? Yeah, yeah. Conserve that.”), and he always ends up making quiet conversation with Rue no matter how many times Aloe tries to take his skin off with the cut of her eyes.

Aloe’s plain mad. If she’s not glaring, she’s ragefully silent and focused dead ahead. The few times she deigns to speak to Rue, it’s in an attempt to needle her, to provoke Rue’s ire or some sort of protectiveness over Deck. But most things roll off Rue, and her fury lies solely upon Deck. She exuberantly agrees with every foul word Aloe speaks about the man, and it only makes the strawberry-blonde angrier and angrier. Insistent upon how much of a liar Rue is, conniving and evil.

And maybe that rage would serve Aloe well out in the Wastes –sharpen her to a deadly, serious point– but she’s clumsy in everything she does. Rue’s never seen someone trip over their own two feet so much, and she’s lost count of how many times the girl drops the 10 mm she almost always has in hand. And when it comes time to using it….

A handful of Fiends pry themselves from crevasses in a snaky pass they travel, and just the way Aloe holds her pistol tells Rue so much. She tea-cups it, but only for a second before something in her must decide that doesn’t feel quite right. So, the strawberry-blonde switches to one handed, and that’s fine for some people. Experienced people. Not Aloe. Aloe shoots wide, thrice, and the one shot she lands is purely incidental and on a completely different target. The gun is knocked easily from her hand by the Fiend she was actually aiming at, a wild swipe of his landing, and the only reason she’s not sliced and diced for dinner is because Rue tackles the cannibal and snaps up his knife to slice and dice him instead.

Oregon’s not much better, but he’s got size and strength. Even if his punching isn’t very practiced or particularly correct in execution, he knocks his opponent’s lights out. But not before they slice across his chest, and it’s too much for him once he notices. As Rue pulls herself off the Fiend having accosted Aloe, she watches the man’s eye blow wide and his hands go scrambling to press at the wound. She can hear how irregular and loud his breathing goes until the ranting and raving of a feral lady advancing on him covers the sound, screeching something about tenderizing him good with her spiked knuckles.

Rue runs at her and jumps onto her back, grappling and stabbing. Oof-ing when the lady falls sideways and half lands atop her in the sand, but it’s not bad. Nothing more than a bit of wriggling to get free before she’s searching for the hat that had fallen off her head.

As she plucks it off the ground, she can’t help but wonder aloud, “This is y’all’s first rodeo, huh?”

Aloe, gingerly inspecting a grazing wound on her left arm, sneers, but the look of derision fast falls away. Leafy eyes round. Her mouth wants to frown, but she won’t quite let it. She doesn’t say a word, only stares at the serrated blade in Rue’s hand as she scrambles to reclaim her gun.

“I’m… I’m a farmer,” Oregon wheezes, ripping off a length of his shirt to press to his chest. “We’re both farmers. Shouldn’t… shouldn’t be out here.”

Aloe grumbles a, “Hush,” without half the steam and venom she normally would. She clears her throat and tries to reclaim her glare to level on Rue. “Put that knife down.”

Rue shakes her head and snorts. “Naw. I ain’t dyin’ ‘til I shove a whole-ass cholla up Deck Craven’s dick hole, and I dunno that I can trust either of ya to keep me alive to see to that. So..., Imma keep this.”

“Ya don’t get to tell me whatcha will and won’t do,” Aloe snaps, rage taking root. It brings that glare back to what it should be, erases that tinge of vulnerability that briefly showed. “You’re the one in the bombcollar. I can blow your head off your neck.”

A fart sound is Rue’s answer as she spins on her heel and starts walking. “Then fuckin’ do it.”

Aloe doesn’t. Aloe’s quiet for the rest of the day, staring hard ahead of them or at the gun in her hand, lips twisted bitter.

Rue could take it if she wanted –take them both out, probably. But she doesn’t know where the hell she is other than out in the deep, sandy, parched nothingness of the Wastes. She also likes Oregon, and she can tell that Aloe means something to him even if she’s not always the nicest to him. She sees it in the way he finds her at the edge of the camp they make that night, puts a hand on her shoulder, and speaks so soft and low to her. Aloe holds her arms, turning face.

Rue, resting amongst the roots of a gnarled, long-dead hanging tree, finds something else to watch: the weathered branches overhead still proudly sporting nooses. There’s a bit of a breeze, and they sway with it. It’s hypnotic in a way, and she entertains herself with visions of Deck and some of her least favourite boys of his suspended midair. Feet twitching. Bodies swaying and gravity heavy on their necks.

Until Oregon picks his way over and sits beside her, his companion wandered off further –just this silhouette against the rise of a distant dune. He smiles weakly at Rue and asks she not hold anything against Aloe. She’s prickly, but she’s really just soft on the inside. Hurt over something Deck Craven did to her. He shouldn’t say –it’s not his to say– but Aloe’s taking out the wrath she feels towards that cazador of a man on Rue. It’s not right. But she’s here. She’s close.

Rue thinks on that for a minute, curiosity stirred, but she assures Oregon that, “She’s not botherin’ me any.” And then she changes topics, asking him how the cut on his chest is doing.

Which turns into him tugging up his shirt and asking her if she thinks it looks infected. It doesn’t (not yet anyway). It’s just fresh and red and makes Rue’s mind turn towards the scars wrapped around Aloe’s throat. She thinks about them until sleep hits, and Aloe occupies her mind the whole next day as they stick East (and she’s sure their destination is in the East, and that their strange trail is guided by the appearance of certain landmarks). She wonders if they’re the same, if Aloe understands.  

Not much holds Rue back anymore, but the familiarity and tenderness of such a subject keeps her from going up to Aloe and saying, “If ya show me yours, I’ll show ya mine.” She also knows Aloe won’t share, not with how she views Rue. And if Rue were to share first, she knows Aloe wouldn’t believe her.

So, she ignores the jabs. She agrees with murderous thoughts and slander. She asks Aloe what her favourite food is and only grins when the strawberry-blonde looks at her as if Rue’s shit on the bottom of her boot.

Rue doesn’t mind. She’s always been real good about wearing people down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aloe doesn’t like it when Rue marches ahead of them, but all the girl’s grouching and unheeded warnings bounce off her back. A half-collapsed arch is just a bit ahead of them, and the shade it offers is goddamn alluring. Rue needs to be settled within it, but she realizes other critters probably felt the same desire. So, her serrated blade is in hand and eyes picking about, looking for a sign of life.

She finds one when she comes around the shade-drenched side: a snoring figure sat upon a large rock with their back against the arch, a wide-brimmed hat further shading their tipped-forward, slouching head. Rue squats to get a look at them, finding a young Ghoul –young as in he still has some dark, curly hair peeking out beneath his hat and smooth patches amongst the scar of him. He also has shiny, twin pistoleros on his hips that Rue is suddenly so lustful for, but she’s only a thief in select circumstances.

Rue’s eyes tick up when Oregon peeks his head around the opposite side of the arch, biggin giving a yelp of surprise to find Rue not alone. The Ghoul’s head snaps upright with wild swears in what might be Spanish, locking in right away on Oregon –who goes from looking worried to relieved. Even scowling Aloe –who comes to stand at Oregon’s side– changes expressions, gaining a tiny smile.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Oregon breathes, hands going to his heart. “Raf. Raf, I’m so happy to see you.”

Raf chuckles, upright posture relaxing. “Well, well, well…. Fuck’re you two doin’ out here?” His elbows go to his knees as his eyes tick between the two before he starts a bit: this small jump of his body as he realizes there’s a third off to his other side. His eyes glide Rue’s way, and she waves two handed at him and smiles even as his mouth falls open and a, “Mierda,” breathes out a heartbeat or two later.

“Mhm.” Aloe’s smug in the face. “We found her when none of you could.”

Raf doesn’t react to that. He doesn’t do anything but stare at Rue, bewildered until a strange smile spreads across his mouth –one that lets her see the slight gap between his two front teeth. “You’re an animal.” It’s said with appreciation, so complimentary. “Crazy.”

Rue doesn’t know him or what he might have seen her do, but she still tips her head gratefully. “Thank ya.”

He tips forward a bit, legs taking to bouncing. His eyes are light and excited. “I saw you -what you did. In Poppy. How’d that feel? Fuck. I’ve been tryin’ to nail that fucker for months before the capture order went out, and you just get to rip his face to shit like that. I’m so fuckin’ jealous. And why? Thought you was his girl?”

Rue’s eyes can’t help but roll as she sits herself cross-legged in the sand. “Ain’t his girl. Can’t fuckin’ stand him. And I was just givin’ the motherfucker what he deserves.”

“Wait.” Aloe gets between them, physically, and with a scowl aimed at Raf that seems to scold him for being friendly.  “Wait. What’re you on about?”

The Ghoul cocks his head, puzzled. “You caught her, but you didn’t even see what she did?”

Aloe is quiet, glare softening and falling to her boots. “Well, no,” she admits. “Oregon and I got split up. He’s the one who found her.”

“And I didn’t even mean to,” Oregon tosses out. “I ducked into an alley when all the chaos broke out, and she just happened to be there.”

“Dios mío….” Raf shakes his head, fingers pinching at the bridge of the nose he’s managed to hold onto. “You two are lucky. …When I ran up on them, Deck was stranglin’ her. Little loca here,” his head tips in Rue’s direction, “probably clawed out an eye -she fuckin’ tore his face open.”

Both sets of eyes snap towards Rue; she winks and fingerguns, wide smiling.  

And Raf gives a short bark of a laugh before mentioning, “I wanted to see what else she would do, so I shot the guy tryin’ to keep her off him. But that… ooh. That made things get crazy. Got my ass shot. Bullet’s still in there.”

“I’m gonna do worse,” Rue assures, imagination and the need to destroy that fucker ignited at the mention of the incident. There was so much more she wanted to do. “My boyfriend told me this thing the uh… the Vi… well, it don’t fuckin’ matter. They’re real old and real dead. But they used to do this thing where they’d crack folk open and rip out their ribs. Pull out their lungs. It’s supposed to look like a pair of wings, and if ya do it just right, they can be alive through it. Alive and in agony. I want that. I wanna make pictures with his blood and sculptures with his bones. Imma hand feed him to vultures just a little bit at a time and make him watch.”

All eyes stick on her. Oregon’s horrified. Raf’s thoughtful as his head nods. And Aloe. Aloe does what Aloe does best. She watches Rue so hard, but there’s this edge of disbelief. This bit of shine that makes Rue grin.

“You can get in on it, if ya want,” she offers. “You’ve had some real good suggestions.”

Aloe stalks off; Rue’s not sure why.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raf takes the lead, a welcome change for everyone. He better knows the way, not having to stop as often as Oregon and Aloe did to scan the landscape or consult the dinged-up compass Oregon keeps in his pocket, and he moves with a confidence through the Wastes the pair that nabbed her simply lack. Rue doesn’t feel like she’s carrying the team anymore, having to watch out for everyone with only a knife at her disposal. She knows she doesn’t when the man proves himself a bonafide gunslinger with those shiny pistoleros, whipping them out in a heartbeat, firing rapid and accurate, and leaving a small nest of cazadors twitching and leaking out vital goo on the ground.

What was a slog across the heated sands becomes a driven trek through the night, and a companionable air replaces what was often silently tense and touchy. Raf's a yapper, free and friendly with his words, and Rue always has a conversation in her, jokes and stories and observations. They can bounce off each other for hours, and Raf certainly doesn’t glare at Oregon when he joins in. But he tells Aloe to cool it when she gets heated to boiling over how friendly they all are, cutting off her shouty, swearing, finger-jabbing tirade with an even tone. 

Aloe’s face twists with a deep hurt even if Raf didn’t speak harshly, and she pulls up the rear for the rest of the night, rubbing away at her elbows and not lifting her eyes from her boots. When they set up shop in a shallow cave for the restful hours of the day, she still keeps her distance, tucking herself away in the meager shade of a lumpy rock instead of in the cooler cave mouth.

She doesn’t even look Rue’s way when she passes her by, hunting for a bathroom spot around the far-side of the formation. And while Rue does indeed find a spot to pee, she also finds a nice saguaro she carefully carves a heart and a, “Hey you,” into.

Because Cooper is following. She knows he is. He might have had some difficulty picking up her trail in the confusion of Poppy, but he’s a bloodhound. He’ll find all the little hearts she’s sneakily left him along the way, and if he misses one, surely Eggshells will help him along. Rue likes to picture them together, her two boys who begrudgingly love her stalking across the Wastes.

Rue just about aches with missing them as she moseys back to camp, which makes her feel a little silly. She always misses the Ghoul, but after having had him around for a good, long minute -getting to live some of her dumb dreams- well, the absence is sharper. She's all longing and lingering glances over shoulder.

“Hey.”

The greeting is even and Aloe’s, drawing Rue from her thoughts. The strawberry-blonde stands a few feet ahead, arms crossed over her chest and expression more serious than severe.

Rue smiles. “Howdy.”

“Are you… are you like… for real?” Aloe asks. “I keep thinkin’ you’re just tryin’ to dig yourself out a hole, tryin’ to trick me, but you’re not with him, huh? You’re not on Deck's side?”

Rue shakes her head. “I just worked at his saloon and was harassed by him on the regular. I think he’s an evil, slimy asshole and a jealous, lil’ stinker. I want him dead.”

Aloe’s jaw works for a moment, fingers curling in the fabric of her worn flannel’s sleeves. Her voice is hushed, serious, when she asks, “What’d he do to you?”

The question sets Rue immediately on edge, pulls something painful and tight in her chest. Her fingers want to do what Aloe’s do. They do, curling in to bite at her palms, and she just stands there, unwilling to do something she’s been thinking on. Imagining what she could change if she and Aloe could just have a conversation about it.

Rue clicks her tongue at herself. She breathes out. “I… I reckon somethin’ similar to what he did to you.”

Maybe less? He give ya those scars?

Aloe’s face goes harder at the answer.

“It’s… it’s hard to talk ‘bout, y’know?” Rue makes herself go on, “‘cause it hurts. It hurts in a way that makes me feel like I’m gonna go to pieces. And hurl. And I don’t wanna cry ‘bout it, and I will.”

The strawberry-blonde softens a touch. She huffs, eyes on her boot as it drags around in the sand before she shakes her head. “I… I get that.”

“I thought ya might.” 

Aloe’s lips wobble a bit as she looks up and across the desert –in that way that says tears want to come. That the old and sad is creeping up on her. Her voice is a little gruff, a little unsteady, when she admits, “We had a farm. My family supplied the uh… the Nightstalkers. Food for guns, ammo… protection.”

And then she looks to Rue, this expectant gaze that seems to say, “You’re turn.”

Rue wets her lips. “Ranch,” she shares, “we had a ranch. Me, my pa, and a foreman -Bram. We were close.” And that’s all Rue can really bring herself to say on the matter with her throat tightening.

“It was me, two brothers, and mama. We weren’t the closest, but I… I loved ‘em all the same. Mama was hard, but she was my mama -and I know it’s ‘cause what daddy did to her before she put him in the ground. So, I didn’t hold it against her…. And Coyote always had his head in the clouds, dreamin’ of somethin’ bigger. Birch was real quiet, focused. Always workin’….” Aloe trails off for a moment. She breathes. She blinks. “Things weren’t perfect, but they were good. Until… until that fuckin’ sheriff found out who we supplied.”

Rue can piece together what happened next. She knows what Deck does to inconveniences and enemies. “…Was it fire?”

Aloe’s head dips short and quick, jaw back to working. “But first it was friendliness. We didn’t know who he was when he came up to us. It was him and two boys, and they were just travelers wantin’ to rest their laurels. We let ‘em –let ‘em stay for dinner and the night. They were downright helpful. Picture-perfect houseguests. Bastard… he somehow got mama to smile? She didn’t much do that anymore…. I dunno why they played around like that. Why they left us untouched in the mornin’ only to come back the next night and….”

Again, the strawberry-blonde’s mouth twitches and wobbles. “I got out through a window. Mama… mama didn’t. Coyote and Birch tried to take a stand, but we were so caught unawares. Hackin’ our lungs up. They strung the three of us up with fence wire from the arch over our gate. I think… I think mine must’ve broke? I dunno. I dunno how I survived. I just remember not bein’ able to breath and how my skin ripped and burned. Next thing I know, it’s mornin’. Black and sooty and hot. A few Nightstalkers are there, parsin’ through what’s left. They find me underneath some charred posts and take me back to theirs. Get me patched up. But… but it was just me who made it. Me and this memory of fire and danglin’ there with bleary eyes and screamin’ lungs as that goddamn motherfucker grinned up wide and bright and evil at me.”

A shiver goes down Rue’s spine at the visual of it, her heart twisted up for the poor girl whose boot drags hard and repetitive across the ground. Who actually had to experience the betrayal and hate of it as what happened, happened.

But Rue… Rue was clueless. Rue was, “Asleep. I was asleep when he did what he did. And I only woke up ‘cause it was so goddamn hot. And I… I don’t remember anything after that. Not a bit of it. I woke up days later at Doc Nguyen’s, feelin’ like warmed over death. And the second I realized I was the only one who made it, I broke.” I ain’t been right since. “But… but I had to keep goin’. Deck was there. He helped in so many ways. He gave me a job and a place to stay. I… I thought he was my friend. Someone warm and steady that I could trust.”

The next part is the hard part, the part that’s always going to get her. It chokes and whispers out, “But he did it. It was him. Him and his boys -and I only know ‘cause one was drunk and guilty and couldn’t hold it in no longer. I spent years lovin’ and lookin’ up to the man who destroyed my life, who took my family. It burns me up so bad. Worse than any fuckin’ fire. I hate it. I hate it so much.”

Rue can't bring herself to say anything more, not with how tight her throat has gone and how fiercely her eyes burn. She looks up into the wide and blue, searching for the lyrics of Smile amongst what's messy in her head.

The music in her mind has barely begun when Aloe breathes out a, “Goddamn. That’s…. He talks like you’re his life to anyone who’ll listen, riles up the whole Mojave to find ya, and he goes and…. That’s fuckin’ twisted.”

It is. It really is, but Rue can’t linger on it any longer. She gets mad instead of sad, shaking her head furiously before a wild, manic smile eats up her mouth. “But it’s alright, Aloe. It’s gonna be. For both of us. I’m gonna get him. I’m gonna take everything. Slather him with tar and set him on fire. Crucify him. Rip his nails off one by one. His teeth. His tongue. I’m gonna use a knife to practice my cursive on every inch of his skin and douse him with lemon juice and salt when I’m done. And that’ll make him cook nice and flavourful. Not all at once, though. No. A leg. An arm. Bit by bit, and he has to watch it as I hand feed a gecko a tender bit of thigh. And you can help, if ya want. I don’t mind it. Ya got a right to it, too. But I really gotta be the one who takes his breath away. I need it.”  

Aloe is quiet, and she’d gotten closer, her eyes picking all over Rue’s face. Her mouth opens and closes twice, a soft sadness and reluctance in her gaze, but then she nods. She nods a lot and something burns in her leafy eyes as she tells Rue, “I know where we can get some tar to slather on his lil’ shrimp dick. And fuck, I dunno what cursive is, but I wanna try that out, too. And I dunno that I got it in me to like… cook a man even though he tried to cook me, but I’ll get the seasonings for ya.”

Rue’s smile softens, loses the edge of insanity. Her energy is still up, strange and all over the place, but that calms and soothes her a touch. Validates her. Her hands clasp together excitedly even though they want to go and squeeze at Aloe’s. “Butter and lemon and somethin’ spicy. I think that’s the best way. Ooh. Ooh. And I can show ya cursive. If ya want. We can practice it now. I don’t really think I can sleep I’m so hopped up.”

And they do. Sat in the sand and shifting shade, Rue spells out their names and all the swears in loops and curls with the tip of her finger. Aloe ogles, and then follows along, copying the script. Cursing and wiping away her worse tries. Shooting Rue glares more playful than malicious when she laughs over it, but then Aloe smiles in a small way. Just this bit of warmth directed at Rue that makes her think they’re friends now. Maybe.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Your Monster

A pounding at the door pulls Rue confusedly, slowly, upright, upper body barely propping upon an elbow and bleary eyes ticking towards the door. She stares for a long moment, long enough the knocking temporarily ceases and her brain slowly comes alive. It notes several things: she's sore as all shit, her mouth is dry as sun-bleached bones, and afternoon light cuts over the door. ...Noon was check-out. The lady with the dangling earrings has probably come ‘round with a baseball bat to chase Rue out or take one-hundred-and-seventy-five more caps off her.

No. No. It wouldn’t be a baseball bat. Too fancy here. It’d be a… like a cane carved with poppies. Silver.

The foggy-headed, lead-bodied thing brings her body fully up, grinning drowsily at her bruised-and-bitten self and then at the Ghoul. And she knows she’d gotten him. She’d bitten and sucked and lavished, but he’s… well, he’s still all scar and burns. None of its hers, though –all her hard work must have healed up in seconds. What a shame….

The pounding against the door restarts, and this time, Cooper’s eyes part a fraction, the arm around her waist pulling back as he rubs at tired eyes. “Give… give ‘em like fifty and tell ‘em we’ll be out in an hour.” And then he just turns over, content to go back to bed.

Rue pulls herself out of bed and dresses just enough in a skirt half-hanging out of Baby Destiny’s case and a partially damp blouse abandoned just inside the bathroom. She finds Cooper’s bag before she finds hers and lets him know, “I’m touchin’ your shit.” To which he grunts, which must mean, “That’s fine,” and Rue grabs a little pouch of caps from it.

Halfway to the door, she realizes her blouse is on backwards, but oh well. It’s coming right back off as soon as she’s turned whoever away.

Despite how groggy she is, and how rude it is for someone to just keep fucking knocking, Rue opens the door with a smile and a bag of caps already extended forward. But she doesn’t get the readied line of, “We’ll be out in an hour,” out. It goes straight out the window as her eyes fix on an unkempt, shadow-eyed, sorry-looking motherfucker who lights up and steps forward at just the sight of her.

Deck Craven, in the unfortunate flesh, stalling her brain and starting it right back up in the same beat of the heart. Her smile draws brighter.

This isn’t how it goes in her head, but if Rue’s anything, it’s flexible.

Leaning into the door frame, Rue tucks the caps into her pocket, fingers skimming against what she recognizes as her knife -her old pocket knife. The one she'd tried to take to his throat once upon a time. Sneakily and quickly as she can, she works it into her sleeve and epitomizes nonchalance. Her arms fold over her chest as she drawls, “Well, howdy, Sheriff Craven. Fancy seein’ you here.”

The sheriff pauses, physically –and it even manages to look like his brain does a funky, little freeze with the bewilderment and confusion that fog up his tired face. “Little bird-?”

“Ah-ah,” Rue gently chides. “Miss Vasiliev will do.” Her grin goes a tick sweeter. “Is there somethin’ I can help ya with?”

Dumb and staring, the sheriff eventually shakes his head. Blinks. His expression goes storm cloudy. “What’s goin’ on, Rue? I been goin’ out of my mind for weeks over you! Didn’t know if ya were kidnapped or were havin’ an episode or-.”

“Miss Vasiliev,” Rue reminds him in such a chipper tone, “and I’m just fine. Great, actually. I went down to the Hub to see Lara, check on her and all since ya were tryin’ to get her killed. And I think after all this, I’ll get into bounty huntin’ or courier work –bein’ a courier sounds fun. It’ll let me see sights, and I got a list a mile long of all the places my Pa told me ‘bout before ya killed him.”

Deck Craven’s mouth falls open, and the expression on his face –in his eyes– is a muddled, fantastic mess of panic, disbelief, and shock. Like his world is ending, like he's caught. Upset and offense fast try to cover, but it's too late for that. Rue saw the split-second truth. She knows the truth.

“Little bird, I don’t know who’s been fillin’ your head with that horri-.”

“Miss Vasiliev,” the gruff and smoke drawl of the Ghoul comes from behind Rue, and shivers go up and down her spine when an arm drapes around her waist possessively and a rough chin skims against her shoulder. “Don’t make her correct ya again.”

Her smiling face turns towards the Ghoul to place a kiss to his mouth that he punctuates with a squeeze at her waist that has her giggling. “Ya can go back to bed, sweet. I’m just talkin’ to the sheriff.”

“But I don’t like the way he’s talkin’ to you.” Cooper’s lips move to her shoulder, a spot Rue knows is marked by a telling bruise. He kisses slow.

“I’m a big girl.”

She watches Cooper’s eyes glide to the sheriff, a lazy grin taking the corner of his mouth. “Mornin’ sheriff.” He pulls back only to insert himself in the doorway alongside Rue, positioning his body in such a way that he’s just a little bit in front of her. And so that she can see he’s just in his hat and trousers, a gun tucked in his waistband. They aren’t even buttoned or zipped. “You’re lookin’ like shit.”

Deck’s mouth works, but no sounds come out. And when something finally does, it’s a, “W-What are you doin’ here?”

“Well, what’s it look like?” the Ghoul shifts his weight from one foot to the other, donning such a wicked grin as he casually adjusts himself through his trousers.

Stammer. That’s all Deck can do, and it’s all Rue can do to keep herself from jumping the Ghoul’s bones. But she can’t keep the, “You’re so hot,” from dumbly leaving her lips.

That wolfish grin turns towards her, and he spares her a wink that would leave her panties soaked if she was wearing any.

“M-Miss Vasiliev,” the sheriff finally works out her name, “Wh-? I-? Can… can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

“’Fraid not. ‘Fraid I’m a lil’ possessive,” Cooper comments, lazy and dangerous. “And this lil’ darlin’ needs someone keepin’ eyes on her.”

A thrilled giggle can’t help but come out of Rue, one drowned out by the snap and growl of Deck’s suddenly regained composure. He’s all hard in the face, red and raging as his jaw works. He spits, “I known her for years, Ghoul,” he says the word like it’s filthy-disgusting on his tongue, with all the malice, “I've been keepin’ her safe and looked after. I don’t need the help. I don’t need you buttin’ in where you ain’t welcome.”

“I’m plenty welcome,” it’s stated as an amused fact. “She let me in herself and ain’t told me to leave.”

“You ain't got no business here,” Deck snarls with a step forward, a puffing of his chest -like he's trying to make himself bigger. Assert a dominance he just doesn't have. “She’s mine.”

“That’s funny.” Cooper’s grin spreads wide, cocky. “I didn’t see your name anywhere on her.” He brushes a hand over Rue’s shoulder, pushing away hair and fabric until one of those good, deep, telling bruises show. “But I put my mark everywhere I could. …She’s got a better one on those pretty thighs, but that really is just for my eyes, cupcake.”

Rue’s brain doesn’t work, she’s so stupidly horny. So thrilled. This is the best day ever in her mind. Flirting with the hottest man alive while the both of them twist the one she so despises into a conniption -maybe an aneurism. It's the best game, the best feeling. And then the real fun starts.

Movement snags her attention: the sheriff going for his belt, metal glinting. Rue moves, too, her knife already in hand and her body connecting with Deck Craven’s. “Don’tcha fuckin’ dare!”

A lot happens in a little time. A gun fires. Her blade swipes. Her body hits floral-patterned walls, entirety ringing like a bell as her face turns to see the slimy, cowardly sheriff high-tailing it down the hall, a blood trail in his wake.

Rue chases, a shout she disregards as she follows after. Down the hall, two corners turned, she breaks into the open lobby where a call to, “Grab her!” has Rue scrambling back and ducking just in time to avoid the two men that fling themselves at her. They collide; they go to ground. She leaps over the heap of them, dashing barefoot after the sheriff who had pulled up short only to start running again -straight out the lobby doors she follows him through.

And Rue starts laughing, a manic, loud, breathless sound. He’s running from her? Little, ol' her with only a knife and a dream?

Gunshots bang distantly behind her, and she realizes he might be running from the Ghoul that’s on her tail.

Deck Craven sprints across the street, shouldering and elbowing his way through the crowd congesting it. Rue follows the path of disgruntled faces and shouts, catching sight of him ducking down an alley as she breaks through herself. Her feet pound harder to catch up, and she's dead-locked, following his zigs and zags. She won't lose him. She's getting him. She's so close, close enough to bring her knife up and then down into his back. To tackle and grasp when he falters, taking him to ground. They skid a few inches, out of the alley and into an open street where people shriek and gasp. Rue pays them no mind. She’s caught him. He’s right where she wants him, and she’s going to carve him open and devour him. She jerks the blade from his shoulder, aiming to drive it back down, but the small blade is shot out of her hand, hot and ripping. She swears up a storm, shaking her hurt hand and looking up to find a foggily familiar man –one of Deck’s boys– steadily walking her way, bewildered and gun smoking.

“You don't want none of this," Rue warns him brightly, grabbing fistfuls of Deck's hair to start banging his face against the street. “Ya walk away, and I'll leave ya be.”

“Little lady.” The gun barrel spins, clicks, as the stranger levels his revolver on her. “I suggest ya get off, and-.”

Rue's laughter comes back harder than before. She doesn't break eye contact with the lackey as her tingling hand’s fingers dig into the shoulder wound. She only laughs louder at the beautiful sound of Deck’s screams, and then she leans forward, closer to the gun as she wriggles those digging fingers. “Pull the trigger. It’s the only way I stop.”

The body beneath her moves, violently pitching her off, and she’s a bit too forward to catch herself. She hits tiny rock-littered pavement, right cheek and elbow taking the brunt of the fall, but she barely feels the sting. She bounces back quick as she can, turns, but she's not quick enough to block the hand that shoots out wildly and smacks her senseless. Smacks stars and black dots into her vision, and the shot-side of her head kisses cracked concrete with a pain that barks and makes those black dots bloom. For a moment, she can't see. She's swimming and foggy, but something at the back of her head screams and rages. It makes her body move, makes shaky hands push her upper body upright and her blink her eyes and focus.

Grey concrete; orange dust. Her tingly, weak on her shoulders head turns and eyes fix on a red-streaked, wounded, raging face. Beautiful. It's like getting hit with her second wind, and Rue's laughter is brighter, louder. Giddy and delighted. She spits blood right into his face and bids him to, "Try again, cuck. The Ghoul hits me harder than that when we're fuckin'."

Deck lunges at her. Her fingers scrape against the ground for a handful of dirt to throw in his face, and she barely has the time to fling it before he connects. Before she hits the ground and his hands wrap around her neck, tightening and tightening. Her laughter goes wheezing; the breath goes out of her. But she's so happy still. Happy she hurt him and that she's able to see the angry, ugly truth of him. No more smiles. No more sweet, caring, little touches. There's only the monster he's always been, mouth in a snarl and breath ragged, angry.

Then a switch flips. Rue sees it the second it happens, the way the lights in his eyes change.

“Where’d my sweet, little bird go?” the sheriff bemoans the state of her, his rage fallen away into heartbreak as he strangles the life out of her and those black dots come back in bursts. “This ain’t you. What’d these people put in your head? This is why I tried to keep ya safe, Rue. Keep the world away. But don’t worry. I’m gonna getcha the help ya need. I’ll take care of ya. I always have, bird. I always will. You’ll be good.”

The sadistic joy flooding Rue turns into boiling, flame-licking rage, and her hands find his face and dig into the bullet wound racing across his cheek while the other goes digging into his eye. She rips and tears just like Eggshells would, with venom, vitriol, and all the violence she's got in her.

He rips away with more than a shout. He screams; he's frantic to get back and away. Rue goes after him as quick as she can manage, those screams invigorating her -giving her as much life as the greedy puffs of air she pulls in. She drags herself upright, spitting blood. Smiling and smiling as she takes swaying steps towards him. “This is all me, cupcake," her voice is half growl/half pants of laughter, cut off by a frustrated scream of her own when arms seize her up like a straitjacket. But she only starts laughing again as the hold tightens and keeps, too fixated on the way Deck's shaky, bloody hands try to shield his face -hold it together, maybe. "I ain’t ever been right in the head -just real good at fakin’. And I ain't doin' that no more. I've been wantin' ya dead and bleedin' and cryin'. Screamin'." Again, she spits, another glob of saliva and crimson that splats onto the netting of his fingers. "I'm gonna be your monster, Deck Craven. I ain't ever gonna be done hurtin' you. In every miserable life ya lead, I'll find ya and twist and burn ya."

The sound of a gunshot barely tickles at her awareness, but the sudden loosening of the arms around her is noted -pushed through. She comes out of holding arms as another shot cracks through the air and through her murder haze. Because there are screams now, shatters, and rapid fire, and the gathered crowd surges, knocking into Rue and carrying her away in the frenzying tide of them. Deck gets further away as someone breaks through the chaos to pull him to his feet, away.

Yet he’s locked on her, hands falling to let her see torn, magnificent mess of his face. Flapping skin. One eye bright and wild while the other streams crimson. He fights against the hold that pulls him, shouting and promising, “I’m gonna find ya, Rue! I’m bringin’ you home! It's all gonna be alright, little bird!”

Rue growls and spits, trying to go after him, but the stream of the crowd is too much. Bodies and bodies nudge and sweep her away like a flood until he’s out of sight and she’s huffing furiously in the middle of the street. Refusing to move any further, shoving back against the bodies that shove at her. Halfway tempted to slash her way through-.

“Rue!” snags her attention, Cooper’s voice bringing her right back down to earth. Settles her with just the three letters of her name.

She spins around, hunting for him, but she can’t see him anywhere. There’s too much movement. Too much going on. She needs higher ground, a clearer vantage, and so, she pushes through the panicked streets until she can slip into an alley where her eyes fix on a half-hanging fire escape. Quickly, she discovers she's a little too short to reach it, and... a little too tired. She's suddenly so trembly, exhausted, and heavy she has to lean into the nearest wall to close her eyes and just breathe.

“Whoo,” it’s a soft, winded expulsion of breath from behind, and Rue's lead eyes blink open. Her body turns slow. A giant chunk of a man leans into the mouth of the alley, clutching his ribs and shaking his head. “Phew.”

Oh, now he’s hands on knees, cheeks puffing in and out. Rue thinks he might hurl. Lucky him he doesn’t have a hair on his head that needs to be pulled out of the way.

“Ya alright?” Rue asks, her own voice a little winded.

“I don’t know I ever ran that much in my life,” he manages between open-mouth breaths, voice a deep timbre despite how airy it rushes.

Rue picks her way towards him, a hand on the wall to keep her steady. She suggests, “Try breathin’ through your nose, even if it don’t feel like enough or right. It’ll help ya catch it quicker.” She can hear how heavy he breathes through is nose, how quickly they come and go ‘til he’s gasping in a mouth breath. Rue just makes a gentle tutting sound and pats his wide shoulder as she reaches him. “Ya almost had it.”

The stranger tries again, slowly straightening as his breathing evens out.

“There ya go.” She smiles up at him; he spares her a wobbly one. “Feel better?”

He nods. “I-I do. Thank you."

The hand not pressed to the wall bats that away. "Wasn't nothin' but a suggestion."

Biggin's smile brightens a touch, then falls. His brows draw together. "Are, um, are you alright, miss?"

Well, Rue imagines she looks like shit, beaten and bruised and savage. Again, she waves her hand. "Yeah, yeah. I'll be good. Just got my bell rang. It was a pretty...," her fingers dance across the raised line on the right side of her head mostly obscured by hair that's slowly grown back. It's damp and tender, "pretty good lick." And then she grins wide, back going to wall as she double finger-guns at him. "I got my licks in, though. ...Oh, I’m Rue.” She offers biggin one of her finger-gunning hands. “Ya think ya can reach that fire escape for me?”

“Ummm. Sure?” He takes her hand to shake. “Or ummmm. Hmmm. No. No, sorry. I kinda… gotta…. Sorry.”

Something pricks Rue’s skin, sharp. Whooshing. Warm. It spreads familiar through her, and when she looks down, there’s a syringe sliding out of her palm as biggin’s hand falls away.

“Sorry,” he says again, truly sounding it.

Rue clicks her tongue and shakes the tingle out of her palm, that warm whooshing going straight to her head with a giddy, little giggle. It clicks for her when the world goes pink and fuzzy and blue around the edges. “Ooh wee, buddy, was that Calmex?” Colours deepen, trickling in more and more until she’s covered in the fluff of them. “Doc Nguyen only gives me that when I been bad. I ain’t been bad yet.”

Alarm blooms on the guy who drugged her’s face, and Rue winks at him. Or maybe she just fucking blinks. She doesn’t know. She’s slipping and sliding on clouds, still so giggly as she warns him, “I get pukey, sooooo buckle-up, buttercup.”

“O-Oh? Uh-oh. Ummm. Shoot. Aloe!”

Rue tips forward, landing in roses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A scratchy dimness enfolds Rue. A scent so stuffy and musty-nasty that only adds to the rhythmic pounding in her head. Her body jerks involuntarily, a small groan passing through her dry lips.

She didn’t know the world was moving until it stops. She didn’t feel the pressure on her guts until it goes away. She’s lifted like she’s a feather, her stomach pitching as she’s placed on the ground. Her legs wobble beneath her, the only thing keeping her upright the large hands she feels wrapped securely around her arms.

“Hell are you doin’, Oregon?” the voice is unfamiliar, snatchy, and reedy. Like their voice box has been cracked.

“She gets sick. I don’t want her gettin’ sick in that bag.” The voice is… not new exactly. It tickles at the back of Rue’s head. She’s heard it once: polite and deep with this shy, uncertain edge to it.

A hand leaves Rue’s left side, and the sack over her head is pulled away. She squints and blinks bleary into stinging sunlight, and then she tips forward, spilling her guts onto the sand.

“See?”

The other voice makes a disgusted, teeth-kissing sound. “Foul.”

Rue laughs, crackly and weak. She spits. “It’s mostly taters.”

Slowly, her head comes up, eyes still squinting as they focus on… oh, it’s biggin. And he’s got the most concern in his brown eyes. “You alright, miss?”

“I guess so.” Her head lolls, uncomfortable. Pinching. Her bound hands find her neck and the solid chill of metal. She recognizes what it is immediately, a disappointed sigh flowing out of her as her fingers tip-tap against the bomb collar. “You Legion? I’ll just kill myself now. I ain’t bein’ a whore.”

Hands slap at Rue, ripping her fingers away from her neck. “No, no! Fuck is wrong with you?!” And she’s jerked around, made to face a strawberry-blonde girl with an angry scar wrapping ‘round and ‘round her throat. And what a face the girl pulls, something so disgusted as her hands fly back. “Ugh. Foul.”

“Somethin’ on my face?”

“Don’t talk to me,” says the girl. “You got puke on your chin.”

Rue goes to wipe it away with her sleeve, but biggin stops her. “No, no, miss. Just use this.” The rough fabric of the sack previously over her noggin is placed in hand, and Rue thanks him kindly for it as she wipes her mouth and chin.

“Quit bein’ nice to that motherfucker’s girlfriend!” Strawberry is more than just red in the hair. It’s in her face now, colouring her heavy-freckled cheeks as she glares daggers at biggin. And then at Rue. “She’s goddamn complicit with all his shit, and that makes her a piece of shit, too!”

“My boyfriend ain’t a motherfucker,” Rue corrects with a chirp and smile, discarding the sack and deciding if Strawberry says one more nasty word about Cooper, she’ll blacken her eye. “He’s like an ornery, old bighorner with the wiles of a nightstalker, and I love that ‘bout him.”

“Deck Craven is scum.”                            

It clicks for Rue, and she smiles and nods a lot. “Ohhh, that’s who you mean. Yeah, he’s a motherfucker. An egg-suckin’ sonofabitch. A slimy, shit-eatin’ buttfuck. I’m gonna fuck my boyfriend on his dead body.”

Strawberry’s head tilts, incredulous in the face. Rue tilts hers just the same. “But that’s your boyfriend?”

The gag is loud, exaggerated, and for show, but it really is such a nasty thought. “Naw, my boyfriend’s this leathered, old cowboy with eyes like honey-whiskey, a tongue like a hurricane, and a stroke game that’ll make your brain leak out your ears. And he’s gonna be aggravated with me for gettin’ myself snatched up like this.” Perhaps angry enough for spankings? …Rue sighs dreamy, imagining his scowling face when he shows and the sting of his hand. “But he wouldn’t want me braggin’ on him like that, so I’m gonna shut up now.”

Strawberry continues to look baffled and disgusted, and then her eyes tick to biggin, who just looks concerned. “You sure this’s the right girl?”

“Yeah, she introduced herself as Rue and matches the poster.”

“Yeah, I’m Rue.” And Rue offers her hand to Strawberry even if it is a little awkward doing it. “If ya ain’t Legion and ya ain’t fond of Deck, who are ya?”

Strawberry slaps her hand again. “You don’t need t-.”

“I’m Oregon, and that’s Aloe,” says biggin.

“Oregon. I’m gonna smack your jowls off.”

Rue grins at the visual, rebuked hand going to tip-tap on the metal hugging her neck. “You’re uh… Nighstalkers then, yeah? Only other folks I can think of that got a problem with Sheriff Shithead.”

Strawberry -no, Aloe. Aloe turns the glare she’d leveled on Oregon right back onto Rue, and goddamn is she good at glares. Rue almost feels scolded. Almost. “Ya don’t need to know. Ya just need to walk and behave.”

Rue smiles wider for Aloe, so sweet and pretty. “I’m bein’ nice ‘cause we just met, and I’m thinkin’ ya got me pegged wrong. And I think the shade of your hair’s pretty and your scars make ya look wild in the best way. But I’ve started killin’ the folks who are bad to me recently instead of just thinkin’ ‘bout it, and fuck, is it liberatin’. I don’t wanna add ya to my list. And ya might not take me seriously considerin’ I’m collared-up, bootless, and don’t seem to got anything on me, but I’m creative and not particularly afeared. Which is just to say, I’ll fuck ya sideways if ya don’t quit bein’ a cunt.”

Aloe’s hand goes to her throat, eyes averting. Brows furrowing as that glare and the mean set of her mouth evaporate. “Don’t talk about my scars,” she mumbles, fingers gently rubbing.

“I won’t,” Rue agrees easily, and because she’s an adult, has manners, and isn’t a prick she offers a, “Sorry for pokin’ at a sore spot. …Ya wanna try that handshake again, and then we get the fuck on? I don’t like standing in one place –‘specially not with the sand burnin’ the bottoms of my feet up.”

Rue offers her hand a final time, and Aloe turns away, shaking her head furiously. "I ain't doin' friendly shit with the likes of you. Dunno what your game is, but I ain't fallin' for it." Her head turns only slightly back, and only to regard Oregon with the hardest eyes. "And you better remember that we're on a mission."

Biggin deflates, head dipping short and quick. "I...I know. I just don't... I don't like any of this, Aloe."

“Oregon.” Aloe’s voice is pitched low, scolding, and tired. She turns away again, already moving forward -away from the sun. “Quit.”

Oregon’s lips seal, and he won't look at Rue when she tries to peer up into his face. He only makes a quick gesture that seems to say Rue should get moving.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Hot Honey

Normally, the bulk of daylight hours are reserved for snoozing, but a group of raiders hitting them at sun-up has Rue and Cooper pushing further. And a little bit further when what looks like the beginnings of a radstorm hurries them through the bare patch of highway they travel to reach the rises and falls of shelf hills and hollows ahead in search of shelter. But the radioactive rain never comes, and now Rue sits on high, watching the lights of Poppy flick on in the distance. Brighter spots of gold in a fading afternoon of purples and pinks.

Mellowly, curiously, she plucks guitar strings, asking Cooper if he can place the song because even though it’s rattling around in her head, she just can’t put a name to it. It aggravates the shit out of her when that happens, but he’s normally pretty good at finding it for her.

“Quarto de Hotel,” he mumbles, half-dozing where he’s spread out on loose sand and stone. “Quit tryin’ to put me to sleep. Told ya I just wanted to sit down for a spell.”

“Ya givin’ out on me, old man?” 

He grumbles a, “Don’tcha start,” accompanied by a lazy wave of his middle finger that the bobcat on his chest swats at.

“Our son don’t like it when you’re mean to his mama.”

That gets a short, half-snorting laugh out of the Ghoul. “But his mama sure likes it when I’m mean to her.”

Rue hums an amused, “Boy, do I,” her playing shifting to something downright nostalgic that Cooper can name right away and without her even having to ask.

“Sleep Walk. And now I know you’re tryin’ to put me to sleep.”

Rue doesn’t deny it, doesn’t fire back with a new jab to try to say otherwise. Her fingers pick idly at different chords as she spouts out a, “Well, ya didn’t get to sleep much day before either, and I can watch ‘til it’s go time.  Or… or we can do it like this. Sleep tonight in Poppy –rest ‘til like noon, and then eat real good. Get a few supplies. Kill a bit of time. And soon as it’s good and dark out, we burn down the office and get the hell outta dodge.”

Cooper considers the proposition quietly before a slow, “Temptin’, but we gotta do somethin’ about your look to swing it. Too identifiable at this point,” comes out of his mouth.

“Ummmm.” Rue sets Baby Destiny aside, going for her case where her extra clothes are kept. “I got some pants?”

“That’s a start.”

Band of the trousers between her teeth, Rue hops to her feet and drops her skirt, getting a highly irate, “Rue, where the fuck are your drawers? We talked about this,” from the Ghoul. And he comes up to glower at her, causing Eggshells to grumble throatily and get. The bobcat finds a rock to perch upon, his yellow gaze one of heavy disapproval.

Rue ignores both glares as she wiggles into the trousers. “And I told you I’m out and it’s breezy and I may never wear ‘em again.” Her hat comes off, and she sticks out her empty hand to Cooper. “Switch hats with me?”

To which he comes back with a mocking, pitchy-voiced, “Switch hats with me,” before ‘psh-ing’ at her. “You’re gonna feel like an idiot when the wind kicks up and ya show everyone ‘round your ass.” But he does hand over his hat. And he does roll his eyes, fighting a grin when Rue beams bright and says:

“They’re gonna see more than my ass.”

“Not through that bush.”

All she can do is cackle. “Sorry I can’t be all baby smooth down there like some people.” His hat fits just so on her head; she drops hers on his. “I bet you had bush.” And maybe she pictures it. Maybe it makes her face get all hot. “And a sexy, lil’, treasure trail….”

The Ghoul eyes her narrowly, knowingly. Endlessly amused. “That’s all it takes, huh?”

“I got problems.”

“I’m well aware, honey.” Cooper curls two fingers before pointing to the swathe of space that opens between his legs. “C’mere. We gotta do somethin’ ‘bout that hair, too.”

Gladly, Rue settles there, letting him twist and pull and weave and tuck. She shakes her head furiously when he suggests stashing Baby Destiny somewhere. That black case on her back is an eye draw.

“I can’t leave her out here,” Rue protests. “She’s mine and special. Can… can I just leave the case? I guess I don’t need it. Kinda cum…b… cumbersome? I just use it for her and spare clothes anyway. And I guess I don’t need all the spares. But I wanna keep a skirt ‘cause I already ain’t too fond of the way the seam of these is all up in my crawl.”

“Wouldn’t be a problem if ya put drawers on.”

“Ya don’t like the ease of access, sweet?”

The Ghoul snorts, and even though she can’t see him shaking his head, she knows he is. “We’ll go into town separate,” he tells her. “I’ll carry her. We can meet at th-.”

“Poppy House?” Rue suggests. “I stayed at the Buzzard’s Roost last, but it looked nice.”

“Fine. All the rooms there got balconies, so just leave the back door cracked for me.”

“I can do that.” He pats at her shoulders, a quiet way of saying he’s done with her hair, and Rue immediately pops to her feet, already ready to take off. A tug at her wrist has her looking back down at Cooper.

She watches him pull a faded, paisley bandana from an inside pocket. He holds it out to her. “Over your face. That smile of yours might be the most tellin’ thing of all.”

“Whoever drew my poster did a real good job.” Rue takes and ties. “Real flatterin’, actually. Think I wanna keep one when it’s over just for my vanity.”

Cooper makes a psh sound, batting a hand in a decisive flick of, “Get on,” before he’s dropping back to the ground, her hat tipping over his eyes. “I’ll catch up in a bit. Don’t get yourself in any trouble. Don’t go wanderin’ 'round.”

Rue takes up her bag and rifle, halfway listening. Her mind is already elsewhere. “Ya want me to pick up dinner? I want… potatoes. Some kinda potatoes. And I gotta find my baby boy some good dinner. Ain’t that right?” And she coos and pats at the bobcat when he comes up to her, raising on his back legs to rub his head against her open palm. 

“Did ya hear a word I said?”

“Hm?” Rue peers up curiously, cocking a brow at the Ghoul. “Ya want somethin’ else?”

“For you to pull your head out your ass and listen,” Cooper grouses, knocking back his borrowed hat to eye her hard. “Ya go straight to the hotel.”

“But-.”

He says it real slow for her, “You. Go. Straight. To. The. Hotel.”

“…I’m only gonna listen ‘cause I think you’re cute when you’re glarin’ at me.”

Cooper’s head drops back with an, “Oh my god. Get on already.”

Rue does, grinning softly to herself and calling a, “Be safe, sweet!” over her shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eggshells pulls his normal ghosting routine, fading into nonexistence the second it gets too loud and busy, and Rue heeds Cooper’s words despite the scent of something greasy-fried drifting through the night streets. She finds her way back to the Poppy House and pops into the nicely-kept lobby that’s absolutely decked with its namesake. Vases sit pretty on pillars, full to burst. Paintings in thirty different art styles of the same subject matter decorate every wall. Dried bunches of the golden blooms hang from the front counter, and the woman running the joint even has them dangling from her ears. And Rue loves that. She can't help but ogle, wondering where she can get a hole put through her ears so she can be so fancy.

For now, she focuses on getting a room, the woman behind the counter not having a particularly friendly air that invites one to chit-chat. She does a lot of blank soul-staring (at Rue when she opens her mouth), extending her palm (for Rue to press too many of her caps into and retrieve a key from), and pointing (indicating where Rue should scribble down her name in a guest book -she gives a false- and what hall she needs to travel down to get to her room). Rue gives a, "Thank ya," and a thumbs-up, and the temptation to wander the hotel seizes her quick. There are so many rooms and branching halls. Laughter tinkles from one way, accompanied by soft, smoky jazz, and the clink of flatware against plates comes from another. So do good smells, reminding her she's hungry. Maybe she even starts down the hall that will lead her to her stomach's desires, but something at the back of her head that sounds a little bit like Cooper reminds her she's supposed to be smart and careful.

Still going back and forth on whether she should or shouldn't, Rue makes it to the room: a clean, plushy space all in shades of peach and cream with a fluffy, rounded couch and a giant bed piled high with pillows and blankets. And... it has a tinkling, little chandelier. Fancy. Too fancy for someone like her covered in wasteland grime. So, she's careful. She peels off her boots in the doorway and immediately takes them to the balcony -which isn't a balcony. The room is ground floor, so there's a low-walled patio that looks into a garden of poppies, cacti, and an old, chipping, stone fountain that can still halfway spurt water. She leaves them just outside the sliding door and the door cracked just a sliver for Cooper. Her clothes come off next, folded and placed carefully on an ornate dresser where she digs up a big, old button-up someone or another left behind.

The bathroom is fancy, too, with a rounded tub that could easily sit three and a separate shower with two showerheads pointing down into it. Which is just heavenly despite the water not getting much more than warm, and the soap smells floral and sweet as Rue washes away her thick layer of Wastes. Once she’s clean, she spends a fair amount of time trying to take proper care of her neglected curls –more than just a wash. She does some careful brushing and some finger-rolling, lets them slowly start air-drying instead of towel bunching them up to squeeze the water out. She had some butters and oils back in Dust she could put to them that made them so pretty, but she’s destined to frizz and wildness now. Braids more often than not.

When she steps out of the shower, her hair is halfway dried, the too-big button-up hangs off her, and a delicious smell hits her nose: warm and buttery. And doesn’t the loveliest of sights greet her? Cooper kicked back on the fluffy couch with a bobcat on his lap and a paper bag on the coffee table set before it.

Wordlessly smiling, Rue slips over to sit beside him, grabbing up the bag before curling up in his side. Eggshells switches, settling on Rue’s lap as she pulls a paper dish of potato with all the fixings –cheese, bacon, cream, and a glob of melty butter– out of the bag with a delighted, “Ooh.”

Then she tips over a touch, smooching her Ghoul on the bit of his jaw she can get to with a, “Thank ya, sweet,” and a curious, “Ya eat, already?”

“Yeah. Cat did, too.” His hat –or hers, rather; he hasn’t bothered to swap– and head tip back. “Did a lil’ lookin’ 'round. Deck’s boys are out stalkin’, but I never saw ‘em come pickin’ this way. Never saw the dead man either.”

Rue clicks her tongue, disappointed, and then fixates on the best way to eat her potato considering she doesn’t have a fork or spoon. Meh. She just goes for it, taking a wide-mouth bite that leaves her chin feeling greasy. But she doesn’t care too much, the damn thing’s delicious. Another bite is had before she wipes her mouth with the paper bag. “I put my name down as Maudette in the guest book if they do come this way.”

“Maudette?”

“I just thought it sounded neat.”

The chuckle is soft, as is the pet at her hair as he rises. “Well, Maudette, I’m takin’ a shower and my ass to bed.”

“I didn’t use all the hot water 'cause there ain’t any.”

He pokes at her with a, “Sure ya didn’t just turn the knob wrong-ways?”

“I tried all the ways!”

His smile is the last she gets from him before the door shuts, and Rue simply settles back and in. She goes to town on her potato, ‘mmm-ing’ and grinning at the deliciousness of it. It’s exactly what she wanted -and Eggshells, too. He grumbles up a storm until she puts it more on his level so he can have a bite, but the second he takes a sniff, he makes the most offended of faces and gags. His whole spine is put into the heave of it.

Rue does her best to stifle her laughter, but it still sneaks out as she scritches under his chin. “Now what did that? Ya don’t like sour cream?”

Eggshells glares, ears slicking back against his head, and he abandons her with a flick of stubby tail for under the bed.

“Awe. Don’t be like that.” She kisses after him. “You don’t gotta eat any.” But he’s been scorned and doesn’t return, and Rue sighs before eating the rest of her potato in a quiet barely disrupted by the shhhh of the shower running. When she’s done, she tips back on the couch, foot bobbing in the air as she lounges so satisfied. So drowsy. So intent upon the Ghoul when the bathroom door comes open and he crosses the room bare-assed and perfect to plop on the fluffy bed without pulling back the covers.

His hand reaches out to pull a lamp chain, and he tells her to, “Cut the lights.”

Rue does so, leaving the room very dimly lit with orange-yellow that paints a scarred-up back tempting. She slides onto the unoccupied side of the bed where she sits cross-legged and gives a soft, “Hey.”

Cooper doesn’t lift his head or move a muscle. “Hm?”

“I can put ya to bed.”

His voice is a tired –if not mildly amused, “How’s that?”

With her hands, of course. She starts at his neck and shoulders, rubbing down the blades and spine to knuckle lightly at his lower back until he’s groans and grunts and a, “Tick lower, pumpkin. Right… there.”

It’s slow, loving work she keeps after, going for arms before she gets at thighs, and at that point, she moves to the foot of the bed so she can massage his calves. Which he really seems to like, as he turns over to give her a better grip on the left one. She hums as she works, the drowsy notes of Funny How Time Slips Away.

Not too much longer, and she peeks up to see the eyes that had watched her heavy-lidded and tender are closed and he’s slow, deep breathing. Hands slip away, and Rue slowly crawls up beside him to tuck herself against him. Cooper’s campfire warm, making all those fluffy blankets beneath her unnecessary. Just him. That’s all she needs, and she’s golden.

Snug and safe and sleeping just as soundly in moments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“C’mere, darlin’.” The voice that urges Rue awake is sleep-rough and the arms that pull her in so dreamy. The chest she settles upon so sound, the scent of gunpowder still clinging despite showering. It's barely disguised under the sweet-tinge of the soap they’d both used.

Rue breathes him in deep, snuggling into the warmth wrapping her up, and hums sleepily when scarred-up familiarity comes to kiss her slow and exploratory with the urgency of a lazy, hot afternoon. Lingering molasses. She leans into it, gets into it, lips parting for some of that open-mouth, hot-and-heavy sugar.

Her eyes part a sliver when the tongue playing languid with hers presses an acrid, powdery pill into her mouth: a taste she recognizes as Rad-X. “I thought ya were sleepin’, sweet.” Rue swallows the pill, knowing other plans are on the table now –pressing between her legs already.

“Was for a minute there,” he admits, a murmur, “but I’m feelin’ pretty… alert right now.”

Rue grins against his jaw. “Mhmmm.”

“I’m thinkin’ I want somethin’ slow.” A hand cards carefully through her hair; the other squeezes her waist. “That sound good to you, pumpkin?”

Another sleepy, satisfied hum. “You keep rubbin’ me so good, ya can do anything ya want.”

“What if I wantcha ridin’ me in a patio chair?”

“Always thought it’d be hot to do it semi-publicly.” Rue draws upright, sitting herself comfy on her burned-up boy. “What if ya bent me over the fountain?”

He’s so pretty in deep oranges, a little bit of glow in whiskey eyes. Smiling that half-cocked, teasing way of his as he reclines on the fluffy pillows and palms her thighs before his hands go trailing up to fiddle with shirt buttons. “Why ya gotta one up me like that?”

“Ya just gimme good ideas.” Another comes to mind –well, maybe it’s not the best idea. But…. “Wanna do somethin’ a lil’ reckless?”

Unbuttoned, brushing the shirt over her shoulders in a leisurely drag, Cooper watches her mellowly, the tip of his tongue wetting his lips. “I might be tempted.”

A glance away shows her bag against the bed. She bends and plucks, rifling around until she comes up with her bottle of, “Euphorics. Got ‘em here when I first passed through.” She shakes a few into her palm: one for her and… four for him will probably do something.

A new shine burns in Cooper’s eyes as he considers her and the little tablets she offers. “Chems here are on a different level than Daytripper and Calmex. …Really think you’re up for it?”

Rue shrugs and pops a pill. “I’m up for anything.”

Cooper hums. “Maybe I just oughta-.”

Eyes rolling, Rue pops the others in her mouth to hold and grabs the sweet boy to pull him in and slow-French the chems into his surprised mouth.

A surprise he fast gets over, accepting what she gives him, swallowing, and chuckling against her lips –a ghosting, feathery sensation that deepens when Rue growls a playful, “You’re comin’ with me,” and nips his bottom lip.

He responds in kind, biting and tugging at hers before kissing her dizzy and coaxing the shirt from her without breaking the lock of their lips. It's tossed aside, his arms looping around her middle and hers around his neck. Pulled flush, the heat of him seeps in, and Rue can’t help but sigh, becoming putty so easily.

She knows how to get him there, too: with careful, unhurried touches. Wandering, wondering, listening to the sigh at the stroke of her fingers behind his ear and down his neck. A thumb runs along collarbone, and then up and over to skim shoulder blades, blessing her with a sound so low, soft, and rumbling in his chest. It warms her heart, makes her feel so satisfied when her tongue trails the inside of his lips before swiping against the roof of his mouth.

Which earns her a slight shiver, a murmured, “That tickles,” before his fingers feather at her sides where she’s ticklish.

Though, Rue pretends she’s not. She fights against her laughter and the way her sides seize, but she, “Pfts,” against his grinning mouth, unable to help the way it bubbles out of her once a little escapes. But she supposes he just wanted a taste at vengeance, as Cooper goes back to petting, tasting the giggles that linger until she’s back to breathy, pleasured, “Mmms,” and “Ahhs.”

Cooper purrs at the way she sucks on his tongue, the flex and press of his fingers wherever they land a sensation Rue adores. Such simple, familiar motions that make something down low tighten and ache. Want. It’s all want and heat, eating her up.

And Rue wonders, breathes the question as their mouths part and a hand slips away to paint a warm trail up her spine, “Do I make ya burn like you make me?”

“You fuckin’ wreck me,” the Ghoul admits, the hand at her spine grabbing a fistful of curls. He uses them to guide her back, opening a crack of space between them. “Ain’t had lovin’ like this since… well, a while.” His head dips down, free hand cupping her right breast and rough fingers handling so gently. His kisses are as angel feathers, here and there. “I tell myself not to trust it, but ya got this way of diggin’ in. Of gettin’ me itchin’, and then I can’t ignore it. It’s a need. Like starvin’. Losin’ all my sense for a taste. ...And I guess it does burn. Burn and ache. But I don’t mind it.”

It's a vulnerability Rue did not expect, something she wishes to acknowledge and promise to him she’s being so goddamn serious about him. “I….” But he derails her train of thought when those seasoning smooches become open-mouth –hot, wet– adoration. Full kisses with tongue and teeth and suction. “Coo-Cooper. Cooper.” Her head lolls, breath hitching at the decisive, pressing flick of his tongue over the sensitive peak. “That’s so good, honey.”

“Way you roll them hips is what’s good.” His mouth drags across her chest, voice rasp and thick. His care and attention fix on the neglected left. “Goddamn titties fuckin’ soft as silk. Prettiest things. Makin’ all the blood rush outta my head.”

Rue can only whimper, gasping at the swirl of his tongue and firm suction applied. Her head goes back, lips whispering pleas as the hand entangled in her hair slips down to curl around her waist warm and steadying as he makes her so weak. Makes her blood rush and whoosh until she’s dizzy. And hot. So hot her skin needs to come off, except where his tongue laves. It’s a balm, cooling and needed. Barely enough as each slurp and suckle and switch draws her taut, like strings plucked in her core.

Rue’s shaky, petting and pleading. Almost coming undone at the scrape of teeth, lighting sparking down the length of her spine. She’s fire and liquid all the way through.

“You’re soakin’ my lap, sweetheart.” It’s a devilish laugh as Cooper comes up for air, both hands gripping and fondling, tweaking her nipples in turn before he’s mushing them together to bury his face into. Whatever else he says is muffled, little more than hot breath and vibrations.

“T-Touch me. Just… just a lil’,” Rue beseeches, needing relief. The knot needs to snap or she’s going to cry. “Please. I’m -mn- in a b-bad way.”

“Are ya now?” Cooper barely comes up from the pillow he’s made of her breasts, voice a rumble against her heart. “How bad’s bad?”

“Ya could… could breathe on m-me, and I’d c-come.”

His hum is of mild interest, whiskey eyes intent on the sweep of his thumb across an incredibly tender, glistening nipple as one hand mindlessly, leisurely slips down and between. He’s back to suckling when his fingers glance where she’s doubly sensitive. Just a little press and curl, and Rue’s done for, snapping sharp and sweet. Sounds soft and high, whimper-y, as she grasps at Cooper, likely to smother him with his fixation.

“Rue. Darlin’. I barely touched you.”

She doesn’t know why he sounds so surprised. “I-I… I told you… mmm.” Her thumbs find his cheekbones, ghosting pets as her mind slogs through the honey gunking it up. She tries to get a grip, focus, but she’s glitter, half-submerged in a milky glow. The heat lingers, building back up slow, and it’s the only thing keeping her in her body.

“Somethin’s gone weird and fuzzy,” mumbles out of her, eyes barely coming open to find him watching her with half-lidded wickedness. “Think I got hot honey in my veins or somethin’.”

The Ghoul chuckles, a dark, prickling sound that does her no favours. Neither does that half-smile –or the way he palms Righty and her waist. “Fuckin’ lightweight.”

Rue blinks, shivering, and briefly wonders how Octavia fared with nothing but dead bodies and barrel cacti for miles. She almost feels bad. She would if Cooper didn't seize her attention with a tweak and a slight adjustment in the way he sits. It's just a little friction, but it has her panting out a breathy, “Forgot.”

“Forgot?” Cooper presses a kiss to Lefty.

“Euphorics.” The hands at his face slide back and down. Her fingers press in along his shoulders and then in between, rewarding her with a moan in her ear when her chin settles in the crook of his neck. Rue rocks against him, every ebb and flow sweet and sore. Not enough but good. Good for now. For a minute. So is the feel of his patchwork skin, textured and lovely, and isn’t his voice so pretty when he’s moaning for her?

“Th-They’re fuckin’ good.” He’s all breath, a stammer that gets lost in the sinking of his teeth in her shoulder until a dark, thick, “Sugar, I wanna eat you whole,” spears right through her.

“You can.” Rue would love that. She wants that. Her face buries and nuzzles, returning the lovebite in kind before she’s senseless sounds at the upwards grind of his hips, the friction of him against her center. “Y’know ya can.”

Peeling her off him is a feat, and it's twice given up on to feast on her throat before attempting again. He growls at her that she needs to saddle-up. She insists she was.

“Didn’t ya say ya wanted to ride my face once?” he rephrases, barely managing to keep her at bay with a firm grip at her hair as he bites at her shoulders. Pulls her back further, dipping lower to get her right below her ribs.

Rue gasps, delighted. “You remembered.”

Cooper’s teeth graze, coming back up lip-ways for tongue-twisty smooches that leave Rue lightheaded when he pulls away. “Can’t fuckin’ forget that.” The Ghoul takes her hands, guiding her up as he slips down so he’s flush with the mattress. “It hit like a freight train.”

Rue remembers, “Ya looked mad at me.”

“Thought you were fuckin’ with me, but… there was a thrill to it. A smoothskin like you wantin’ to take an old Ghoul like me for a ride….” He winks at her before Rue claims her seat, feeling the heat of his breath as he tells her, “Painted me nice pictures.”

And then he’s painting nice pictures into her flesh with that tongue of his, barely waiting for her to settle before he gets after her. She nearly comes off him with hissed expletives, but hands grasping like iron keep her rooted.

It’s so much at once, shocks, tensing muscles, and delectable, wet, dragging heat. He paints stars in her mind and on her skin, tongue fucking its way in deep -licking into her as if he’s starving. And the way he sucks her clit… hell, she’s half-convinced he’s trying to suck out her soul. She needs to repay that times one hundred. She can. If she can turn, if she can get the words out when Cooper robs her of breath and sense.

“Sw-Sweet. Coop… Cooper. Oh -oh. Oh, my god….”

Rue forgets what she’s trying to do, forgets everything as fingers dig into the plush of her thighs. Hold her down as a tongue drives up, as teeth graze. As he brings her to the brink again, pushing her into a heated eddy. A swirl and wave. She’s back to blur and glow and glitter, telling him whatever horseshit enters her head. Does he want her soul? He can have it. He can write his name into it, brand it with hot iron. She’s going to fuck him until he’s dumb and drooling. Slow, though. Real slow. Just like he wants.

And then she remembers, grasping onto a tattered bit of sense when his feasting slows to lazy, sweeping laps that coax. Those are easier for Rue to ride, melting her instead of twisting her into knots. Building her up slow instead of shattering.

“L-Let up… a bit…. I gotta… gotta turn.”

Cooper’s grip lessens, tongue stilling except for these quick, light darts that bring small whimpers; Rue gingerly turns, resituates, and tips forward. Cooper finds a new grip and reclaims that sluggish pace of devouring as she takes his cock into hand to stroke and tease. To lick away the bead of precum at the tip, moan against him, before taking him into her mouth.

Rue tends to her cowboy as he slowly stokes a fire that just won't leave her, until he’s roughness and intermittent licks against her clit. Groans and nonsense spoken into her flesh. Declarations that she’s either some sort of voodoo or magic. A succubus meant to drain him dry. Won’t she do that thing with her tongue again?

He bucks when she does, nails digging into the soft and give of her as he swears. As those swears are buried into her clit before he’s sucking hard and nipping. Making her squeak. Making her dumb. Making her head flimsy upon her shoulders, cheek pressing to thigh as she struggles to keep up her administrations. But she gets him with a ragged sound –her name spoken gruff and breathless– and kisses at sensitivities, spend dripping hot over her hand before her mouth finishes coaxing the venom out. Teasing him still as he halfway recoups to feast again: tongue dragging so devastatingly until she comes apart on the devilish muscle. Sharp, sweet, and sinful. All warm pulses, tensing thighs, and the release that takes her breath away. Takes it all, leaving her as insubstantial goo that can just barely recognize that the gunslinger moves and pulls at her.

In a bubbly warm haze, legs all a-tingle, he’s brought her back up to him, arms rewrapping and lips devouring hers in the same way they had her cunt. Mercilessly. Wonderfully.

Hands tease, play, and love wherever they find purchase. Legs twining. Bodies interlocking so neatly. Perfectly. Back to slow where movements drag unhurried and deliberate. Hot and sugary with marks left on shoulders and necks. Sweet nothings slip free so easily. A fixation abandoned is rediscovered as Cooper sucks away at her tits while he finger fucks her open, touches every inch of her. Leaves her feeling known and fluffy in the chest, sticky and gooey as she’s given everything she needs.

And for a while, he lets her return the favour. Lets her love and wander, finding new places to touch that make him shudder and sigh. Work on muscles taut for decades until he’s liquid dripping through her fingers. And then he’s scooping her up, slapping his hat onto her head, and carrying her leg-locked self onto the patio where an old wicker chaise becomes their throne.

Cooper finally slides home, Rue settling and sighing her satisfaction. Her relief at the stretch and fill that cools down the fire a mite. He likes the sound of the sigh. So soft and lovely, he murmurs against her chest. He wants more; he’s given plenty as Rue sets a slow, meandering pace. Something purely downy and languid with lazy, drunk kisses.

“Ya look so good ridin’ me,” growls out of the Ghoul, his head tipping back but his eyes never straying. “Moonlight does somethin’ special to ya, Rue.”

“Guy cross the way’d agree with ya,” Rue hums, just about purring as a hand cups her breast and squeezes. Her chin tips in the direction of the onlooker.

Cooper’s head falls back more, turns, and he makes a soft, “Huh,” at the man three patios down who fists himself quite furiously. “Can’t really blame him, but-.”

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” Rue’s airy tone deepens, commands. Her hand goes for his –the one that plays with Lefty– to suck slow on his fingers as her pace upticks. And maybe she squeezes him on purpose as her tongue swirls around his digits, moaning at the sharp, hip-bucking, “Fuck,” that gets her. Panting, she finishes her sentiment, “Or d-do I need to… to make it h-hurt?”

“Mm. Make it hurt, pumpkin,” the Ghoul rasps, grabbier, fingers pushing back into her mouth for her to suck on.

And she sure does, setting a new tempo. Still slow but goddamn deliberate. A purposeful rock and grind as she moans around the fingers in her mouth, striking that needy, tender spot within. Getting him twitching, moaning her name as those fingers slip out to play at her clit while others scrape at her waist.

“You gonna c-come for me, sweet?” Her voice has gone husky, a provocative bid. “Ya gonna fill me up and fuck it in deeper? I wantcha leakin’, makin’ a mess of me.” She falters, keens, shakes, at the way his thumb presses. She’s right there. “I wanna -ah!– be worried you’d kn-knock me up if your… swimmers… worked.”

The way he bucks lets her know that got him. The way his hands squeeze what they can find is another big hint, how they hold her down as he ruts up with those toe-curling, brain-numbing strokes that have her crying out, reaching out to grab something. Him. There’s just him to hold onto and the way he’s just about slurring, “Fuck, darlin’. Fuck. I’d do it in a heartbeat. Keep ya full and fucked. You’d look so good….”

That gets Rue: the stroke, the words, and the way he’s pulling her in and biting down hard at her shoulder. Lighting her up with pain and pleasure, that pulse of him as he paints her insides. Then she’s all aftershocks and shivers, whimpering and panting. But still needing more. More of that bite and rush.

“I love it when ya spoil me,” she sighs, a hand cupping his jaw. Grin a wicked thing and breath ragged as she bids, “Now hurt me, darlin’.”

The cooling fire in his eyes flares so bright, that honey-drip sweetness going straight to devil’s joy -that crooked, cocky grin that makes her feel like she’s in the best kind of trouble. That meets her lips with fierceness and sharp teeth. Those tender hands turn one-eighty, gripping firm to hurt, and when he’s got his wind back….

Cooper rises. He spares a mean grin over shoulder before growling that they don’t need an audience for this, and he hauls her back inside. She’s tossed onto bed the before he’s on her like a deprived nightstalker, ramming back into her sensitive, overstimulated cunt to have her yelping, gasping, and clawing at him.

It’s the kind of fucking that’s furious and fast. She can barely keep pace with him, can barely do more than moan and cry as he pulls out only to turn her about so he can have her from behind. Spanking as he ruts, full-hand finding the same spot over and over to leave a welt while the other wraps up in her curls to tug and guide her like the bitch he says she is. Going after her until the bed’s out from under her, and then he’s with her on the floor, throwing her legs over his shoulders. It’s all carpet burns, body sticky and wet with sweat and come. Teeth burying on the insides of her thighs to leave matching, angry marks that look of pure desire to her. Like the good kind of loving. He rips out another orgasm to fuck her raggedly through.

How they get into the shower with Rue back on top and cold water pouring on her back is a mystery to her, but she doesn’t actually need to know how it happened. She only cares about the blown-out irises that gaze upon her as if she’s god and the hands that devote such divine attention. She feels golden, silken, and just so… out there. Beyond. Satisfied and hum-thrumming as her sweet boy is left in a mindless daze as he fills her up and spreads like warm butter. Absolutely useless and syrupy.

“We gotta… gotta find the guy who made that shit.” Cooper’s head rests against tile, eyes barely cracked. Fingers barely moving against her thighs as she catches her breath and tips her head back to get a faceful of water that feels as if it washes the last traces of that clinging heat away. “It’s… whoo…. I like it. Probably too much. …How you… how you feelin’, pumpkin?”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Fuckin' Terror

Dawn sees them in the shadow of a free-standing wall peppered with bullet holes, a sun-bleached skeleton their company as Cooper –with a show of reluctance patiently and amusedly waited through– let’s Rue feed him spoonfuls of cake. For a minute anyway. He takes the paper box from her hands to savour at his own pace, occasionally pressing a spoonful of frosting to her lips as she munches on strawberries. Apparently, there’s too much of it for his tastes, but Rue could pipe a bag of it down her throat –and she likes the way the chocolate fluff pairs with the strawberries.

The Ghoul has himself a few of those, too, remarking that she got the worst supplies for desert trekking –tasty but not smart.

“I got smart stuff, too,” Rue assures. “Like this bread that’ll ‘bout break your teeth but least it keeps. Umm, some eggs for Eggshells ‘cause he’ll be wantin’ ‘em when he finds us. Got jerky. Some kinda somethin’ advertised as ‘trail mix’ –which it just looks like nuts to me. An apple or two ‘cause I like ‘em. And then I take whatever I want off bodies, and I know how to cook most critters. Not snakes, though. I tried eatin’ a snake and got sick as a dog.”

“What colour was it?”

“Yella, maybe? Eggshells brought it to me bloody, and then I burned it. And I couldn’t get all the bones out. Thought I was gonna die chokin’.”

Cooper eyes her sideways, the chewing he was doing slowing to a complete halt as his lips wobble. “Sometimes, I think, ‘Rue’s a little cleverer than I give her credit for,’ and then I hear shit like that, and I know you’ve tricked me.”

“Thought if Eggshells could eat it, then I could, too.”

His head shakes for perhaps the millionth time since they’ve met. “That’s not how that works…." Pretty eyes fix a little beyond -from the way they came. "Huh. Speak of the devil.”

Because the devil comes padding up at a quick, determined pace, eyes fixated on Rue. She throws her arms open wide, smiling away, and coos, beckons, “There’s my lil’ killer. Mama gotcha some eggies.”

Eggshells must recognize the word, as he turns into a chirpy, shouty thing. Ceaseless as he settles in her lap and demands his treat, and he doesn’t even hush up once he’s crunching them down. Loud, grumbly purrs radiate from the puffball around bites, and as soon as he’s done with his meal, he abandons Rue for Cooper, who has finished with his own snack and settled back with his hat tipping over his eyes.

The Ghoul doesn’t say a word as Eggshells relaxes on his lap. A hand just pats lazily once or twice as a knowing grin quirks the left corner of his mouth. Something so triumphant and a smidge superior.

And Rue sighs so loudly, so heartbrokenly, “My baby don’t love me no more. I’m just for food.”

“They ain’t grateful when ya spoil ‘em,” is all Cooper has to say on the matter, hands tucking behind his head. “Now hush with your mopin’, I’m due for a siesta.”

Rue pops a final strawberry in her mouth, grinning down at the smug bastard as she reaches to love on her pretty kitty. Who does turn his face into her palm, rubbing and purring and loving her still. And then her lips press to her fingers, and those fingers caress the scarred jaw of her cowboy. He tuts, head tilting slightly so his ruined mouth brushes lightly her skin.

Her hand slips away, smile soft and satisfied as she leans back into the wall. Her rifle replaces her strawberries, and she pulls her mind out of the syrup sweetness of such a thing to watch the morning creep on and the horizon for any sudden shapes.

But it’s a mellow morning (maybe Cooper got everyone currently on her tail back in the Hub?), and the two swap posts at noon-ish, Rue getting her siesta in before they set out again as daylight bleeds out around the edges. They travel the road they came in on –they’ll follow it all the way back to Many Ways. And once there? Well, Rue only really has chaos and vengeance on the brain, but she does have some vague notions at ideas.

If Deck is at Many Ways, of course she’ll get him there; but if not, she’ll be cutting a loud, fiery, bloody trail East through his territory any fool could follow. If he doesn’t catch her on the road, she’ll wait for him in Derecho, a settlement Cooper has described as, “More of an outpost than any kinda town. Closest thing to lawlessness in his claim –just a bunch of hunters and criminals that ain’t got on his bad side yet.”

Which makes it perfect for a grand, last stand. She doesn’t have to feel guilty about upheaving the peace if there’s not much to begin with. She won’t be chasing anyone from their homes when she burns it to the ground. Anyone there can just leave, and if they want to stick around, throw their weight behind a no-good, pa-and-boyfriend-killing taint tickler, they can get a bullet, too.

And Derecho’s closest to Arizona. Rue can tidy things up there, and then head straight to Two-Sun. Or Tucson? Cooper says it’s Tucson –and he would actually know– but Two-Sun just sounds so much more… storybook. Like a legend. So, Rue’s just going to keep calling it Two-Sun. And maybe it’s a little early for her to be so goddamn excited, but she’s mighty optimistic with an age-old gunslinger at her side and looking forward to the walk that way. Cooper says they’ll get to follow a river for a while and pass through dead mountains where there are two-headed ‘tortoises’ that could take her head off her shoulders if they really wanted to.

He also says they might need to do some roleplay action out that way –put a collar ‘round her pretty neck so slavers know she’s somebody else’s already. Rue doesn’t mind him putting a collar on her and treating her like a dog for a bit, but she doesn’t understand why they just can’t shoot all the slavers.

“It’s Legion territory, pumpkin,” Cooper murmurs quite tenderly, his hands wrapping around her throat as if measuring her for that collar. “It’s a whole army of slaves and slavers. Women are just broodmare to ‘em, and they’d snap ya up in a heartbeat. Bombcollar ya and serve ya up nude on a platter to one of their Legates.” Fingers curl tighter, and Rue’s eyes spin for so many reasons. “Or maybe Caesar’d want you for himself. …Ya done with questions, sweetheart? I’m wantin’ a different sound comin’ out that mouth.”

Rue decides she is done with questions and that her cowboy’s pelvis is done for.

But Rue’s getting ahead of herself. They have to get there first. She has to focus on the now, on the survival, because even though wastelanding is a tick easer with a man who’s spent a lifetime or two eking out a living in the sandy desolation, it’s not all poppies and caramel. They have two days of relative peace before more than just bounty hunters are on them like flies to brahmin shit.

Like those raiders Rue lullabied aren’t half as nice when passing through their patch of highway a second time (but they sure do bleed good for her), and a small caravan moseying along as they shelter in the shade of a Sunset Sarsaparilla billboard won’t listen no matter how firm and factual Rue is when she tells them she’s not: one, lost; two, confused; and three, for the last time, the Ghoul at her side did not kidnap her.

It doesn’t penetrate their made-up minds. They’re looking at a victim: a poor, simple girl who’s been tricked by a dastardly Ghoul. Doesn’t she know she can’t trust their kind? He’s probably taking her back to wherever he calls home to fry her up and split her amongst his friends. And if that didn’t make Rue see red, the way all four of the caravaners draw their weapons and aim them at her sweet, buttery boy sure sets her off. Has her swearing up a hellacious storm as she hops to her feet, draws her rifle, and guarantees, “I’ll fry ya up and use your blood as dippin’ sauce if ya don’t get the fuck on right now.” Her finger teases the trigger, beyond ready.   

“Yeah, I’d listen to her. Girl’s a freak.” Cooper doesn’t seem so bothered or concerned as he sluggishly drags himself upright. “I found her eatin’ noses. Soon as she’s finished poppin’ your heads like grapes, she’ll be over there lickin’ your ick off the ground.” His fancy, modified shotgun rises, and a round of eeny-meeny-miny-moe has his aim settling on the caravan driver. “You hungry, pumpkin?”

Rue licks her lips like a ravenous, starved thing. Smiling crazed and hateful. “Sweet, I am. I really am. Keep one of ‘em alive for me, yeah? I always wanted to see if I could actually rip someone’s throat out with my teeth.”

A very tiny, winded, “Fuck,” comes from someone in the caravan. Rue watches a repeater and revolver fall. As the closest guard looks carefully to the driver and shakes his head desperately.

The caravan gets on. Rue doesn’t even begin to settle until they’re distance-hazy lumps, and even then, she’s pacing mad about it until Cooper corrals her into sitting between his legs and takes a wide-toothed comb to her curls. And Rue just sits there, staring off into space until she’s calm, the incident forgotten, and her fingers trail idly through bobcat fluff as she wonders if, “Coop, y’know how to French braid?”

He does.

Honestly, Cooper knows how to do a little bit of everything. Like he’s leagues better than her at sewing, and he’s perfectly handy with her rifle when Rue asks if they can trade for the night because she really wants the chance to fire his mess-making, magnificent bit of machinery. He can cook a snake in a way that doesn’t make Rue sick or bone-choking. And he can sense it well before Rue can when there’s a change in the weather, ushering them into a cave before the stinging sands and howl of storm has a chance to peel the flesh from their bones. And by the stars above, does he know how to keep her warm in those dark, chilly hours spent waiting for the winds to subside.

He definitely has her beat on survival knowledge, and Rue’s no slouch. Her Pa taught her everything he knew –everything he learned from his time as a Ranger– but she didn’t know toads could be toxic until Cooper swats an incredibly fat one out of her hands and makes her scrub them with wet sand until her skin is just about raw. And all the while, he grumbles about how she just had to go and pick up the one that secretes psychoactives that could leave her high as the moon or paralyze her if she gets any in her mouth. And no. No, they won’t be licking the toad. Please use her big girl brain for just a minute to remember that he said it can paralyze. It can kill in large enough quantities.

Then he has to go after Eggshells, snatching the bobcat up by his neck scruff before he can sink his teeth into the retreating toad’s plump tushy.  

Luckily, they don’t have too many situations like that –or have to do too much in the way of adapting when it comes to travelling together. They work in a similar way when mired in the Wastes. Neither fussy when it comes to the barebones sleeping accommodations the desert has to offer. Both eat whatever’s put in front of them –even if it doesn’t taste very good– and understand silence is golden. Which apparently surprises Cooper. He says he’d been expecting her to burn his ears with non-stop chatter.

If they were somewhere nice and safe and tucked away together, she undoubtably would. But in the out there, where it’s very seldom safe and she needs to pay attention, Rue’s verbal spillage is here and there, bubbling up and out when she really can’t help it. Like if she thinks of a question she must absolutely know the answer to or sees something too interesting not to comment on.

She’s also mindful of him, knowing he likes and needs the quiet, but Cooper surprises her with how willing he is to gab. That he has these moments where something will remind him of a paper, book, or article he read who knows how long ago, and all she can do is smile up at him, soaking in the outpour of information. Wishing she could get her hands on some of that old-world literature so she could properly understand, so she could tell him her thoughts.

But there are a few adjustments to be made. Not anything just world-ending or off-putting, but Cooper has to pick up his pace a touch to keep the devil-on-her-heels one Rue naturally falls into, and Rue has to learn to read his hands because he doesn’t always warn her with words. He’s quicker to throw signals. A finger over his lips when she really is meant to be quiet. A hand cupping what’s left of his ear when he wants her to listen close. A point to exactly where he wants her to go. A hand falling slow so she knows to go down. A fully extended, skyward raised fingergun when he wants her rifle out and her on the ready. Some tell her if the people stalking them are male or female –how many. If they have dogs with them or what kind of weapons are on hand.

Rue finds it all terribly fun and feels like some kind of spy when he starts talking with his hands.

And she gets to see a bad day, a day when Cooper wakes up and he doesn’t move for a long minute except to take a hit of whatever chem he’d pulled off the bodies they’ve made. He doesn’t do much more than grunt in her general direction, looking like storm clouds have settled on his brow. His jaw set in a certain, stern way. She knows something’s going on in his head. Maybe one of those bad, errant thoughts that get caught at the forefront and roots. Or a dream more like a terrible memory.

Rue has those, too. She understands not wanting to be fooled with when one’s circulating in her head, though, she very seldom had the luxury of being left alone when she felt that way. But she doesn’t rob him of that. She keeps her pace, letting him walk behind on his lonesome and using a few finger signals of her own to get whatever she wants to say across. If he wants comfort, attention, from her, he’ll seek it.

He does eventually, lazily tugging at a curl before his hip bumps into hers. She bumps him back, a quick squeeze at his fingers silently letting him know she’s here. “We can call it early,” she offers, smiling his way. “And I’ll be on first watch.”

“Naw,” the Ghoul dismisses, pausing to pick up the bobcat that starts rubbing away at his calf now that’s he’s joined them. “We’re gettin’ close to Many Ways. We press on ‘til dawn, hunker down ‘til sun’s about gone, and we can be there by midnight. It’ll be nice and dark. We can get the jump on the dead man if he’s there.”

Rue pulls in a dreamy, excited breath. It’s a maybe if Deck’s there or not, but… she feels close. Not too much longer now. Almost there.

“I’m thinkin’ we get rats –and a bucket or a cage. Either works. And we make sure they’re real hungry or real scared, but if we trap ‘em against Deck’s guts, they’ll burrow through him.”

“Ooh.” It’s a darkly delighted sound, and in the glow of the moon, she watches his devil’s quirk press a soft kiss to Eggshells’ head. “That’s medieval, darlin’. …But if you’re wantin’ it like that, I think you’ll be interested in what the Vikings used to do to folk.”

Rue’s grin matches his own. “I’m open to ideas.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many Ways is a ghost town in the midnight, and it would be quiet if not for the creak of all the ramshackle structures thrown up in the collapsed overpasses. Sometimes a soft, distant voice sweeps through on the barely-there night breeze or a shadow will pass up above or down the street. Eggshells doesn’t even bother to book it with all the nothing going on.

But he does slip out of sight when they reach one of Many Ways’ two law offices.

Many Ways doesn’t belong to Deck, but he does have a measure of influence over the settlement given how close it is to his claim. He’s also apparently in good with the actual owners of the rest stop, which is why they let him set up an office on their claim and why he doesn’t have to worry about anyone collecting his head while he’s technically outside of his safe zone.

Well, he should worry. If he’s tucked away in the wavy-tin and wood building Rue watches with an intensity, he’ll be losing a lot more than his head. Rue’s going to take his dignity and whatever sanity he has. She’s going to crush his dreams and heart and probably his penis under the heel of her boot –probably dig her spur into it for an extra layer of hurt. She’s going to make him cry and burn and rage.

If there’s anything left to him by the end of it, maybe Rue puts it in a jar.

Rue always keeps a bullet readied in the chamber, but she checks just to make sure. And then she gets on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the burned-up jaw of the man who stands at her side, who becomes her shadow as she walks resolutely towards the office door and knocks twice before she opens it wide to step inside.

Two souls linger in the front room, both behind a counter where one lounges kicked back with his hat over his eyes and the other leans into the weathered wood, idly clicking the dial on a radio. Tired eyes lazily sweep up, and then round. His fingers still, and the mellow, fuzzy notes of In the Shadow of the Valley fill the room.

Rue smiles pretty, raises her rifle, and fires directly into his face.

She’s quick with the reload, ready for another as his body stumbles back and hits the wall. His snoozing friend jolts upright only to fall back as she lands her shot on him.

Cooper coos a curious question as the door locks soundly behind him. “No one-liners?”

“They ain’t worth my words.” Her rifle is reloaded in a snap, ready just in time for the man who comes scrambling through an open doorframe to the left. He goes cross-eyed trying to look for the hole she puts between his peepers before dropping heavy to the floor. “Cover me for a sec? I been meanin’ to get a sidearm, and guy behind the counter’s got a fancy one on his hip.”

The Ghoul dips his head, moving forward and waiting at the ready as she hops over the counter. “Fancy?”

“5.56,” Rue breathes dreamy, pulling the pared-down .223 from the belt holster of its dead owner. “Pa had one. And somethin’ he called a Sequoia.” She checks how many bullets are in the cylinder, giggling when she finds it fully loaded and a box of ammo tucked away in an inner-vest pocket. “He liked guns, and I liked the way they made me vibrate from my head to my toes when I fired ‘em.”  

She hears his snort, and then the blast of his gun. Shortly followed by a wet thump. She pops to her feet just in time to watch the body twitch once or twice before settling and shrugs off Baby Destiny to leave in safety before tossing herself right back over.

“Wonder if he realized he was raisin’ a maniac,” ponders a different breed of maniac as Rue takes the lead once more, heading down the hall to properly earn her title.  

“Oh yeah. I never really meant to be, but I was a fuckin’ terror sometimes. He got me mellowed out, though.”

“Can’t use was,” Cooper jabs. “You still are.”

“Quit sweet talkin’ me, darlin’,” Rue chides soft, the kick of her new pistol firing through the brains of a wide-eyed fucker who comes peeking around the corner good enough to have her shivering. “I’m workin’ right now.”

His laugh sounds through the hall, eaten up by blasts and pops as they work their way through. And don’t they work so good together? Both quick to fire and fearless in their ways. Cooper because he's... well, he's him. He's been doing this a long time, and he can shrug off most bullets like gnats. Worry or fear don't have much of a place in him, and neither of those things ever really reach Rue the way they should. The returned gunfire, the men coming her way with machetes or glinting knuckles, and the promises of her painful death really don’t mean a thing. She's all thrill. Her heart races from excitement, the scent of gunpowder so heavy in the air. And when the last body falls and the air goes quiet, Rue doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief and sink back into the nearest wall. A flush of satisfaction sweeps through, and she skips around, eyes picking over faces, making sure she didn’t accidentally, prematurely, kill Deck Craven. She still prickles from the adrenaline, feeling as though she needs a round or two with her cowboy to relieve some of the excess energy.

She expresses it by picking up the scattered bottles of booze around the joint and chucking them with all her might at walls, delighting in the shatter. Watching as booze trickles down to mix with crimson pools. Singing along to the distant radio that whispers to her:

“Sixteen coal-black horses,

All hitch to a rubber-tired hack,

Carried seven girls to the graveyard,

And only six of 'em comin' back.

Six crap shooters as pall bearers

Let a chorus girl sing me a song

With a jazz band on my hearse

To raise hell as we go along.”

“He ain’t here,” Cooper confirms, finding her pouring a bottle of gin over the slackened face of the one boy in the office she recognizes. Guzman, flat on his back with a hole in his gullet. The Ghoul takes the bottle from her, having him a draw and stifling a chuckle halfway through it when Rue cups him briefly through his trousers.

She only smiles up at him before breezing on by. He doesn’t let her get away. His arm snakes over her shoulder, pulling her into his side before he offers her a book of matches. She takes and strikes, flicking a lit match over shoulder and only lingering long enough to see it catch. To watch it spread, flare when Cooper smashes the bottle into where it builds.

Then he’s guiding her the way they came, telling her, “Ham radio’s up front.”   

“Show me how to use it?”

It’s pretty straight forward, already tuned to the frequency she needs, and all Rue has to do is down-press a button on the side of a little, grated box she holds a few inches shy of her lips.

“Deck?” she says his name soft and low, with this little twist of sad desperation. “I think I messed up. I dunno what I’m doin’ –what’s all goin’ on. I’m tryin’ to get back home, but all these people keep tryin’ to get me. You’ll come runnin, huh? I need ya. Please.”   

The second Rue lets up on the button, there comes a frantic voice. “Little bird! Rue. Honey. Honey, where are ya? Who’s gotcha? Tell me. Tell me. I can getcha. We’ll getcha home.”

Rue doesn’t answer. She’s leaned into the counter, making eyes at her cowboy as he saturates the weathered wood with bourbon pulled from underneath as smoke and heat begin to pour in from the back rooms. Thanking him kindly when he hands Baby Destiny over and goes to get the door, opening it wide to reveal the mess Eggshells made of a man who must have been trying to join the party. But now he’s just bobcat dinner, Rue’s pretty boy sitting tidy on a torn open chest as he licks away at the bloody spot the man’s nose used to occupy.

“Alright, well now I believe it was him doin’ all the nose eatin’.”

Rue lets out a playfully disbelieving gasp as she lights another match to toss onto the counter. It takes after a moment, a slow spread of low flame. “Ya thought I was lyin’ to ya?”

“On one guy I found, the bite marks looked more like a human’s than a cat’s.” He whistles for her to come along, and Rue does –only after cranking up the radio that belts out something dangerous and loud, with drums and reverbing guitar that hits nice in her head. A song she doesn’t know but she sure does like. That has her doing twists and heel-toe steps as she joins Cooper, who catches her by the hand and spins her around. “I just thought you were too embarrassed to admit it.”

A psh sound is her answer, an, “I don’t get embarrassed,” she proves when he spins her out of his arms only for her to fall into rhythm with the music that still pours from the gaping, flame-flickering door. Painting her world and movements with reds and golds and the Ghoul in shadows as he comes at her with slow, stalking movements that match the beat until he’s mirroring, complimenting the motions she makes. Guiding her into new ones. Grinning wild together until the music melts out to be replaced by a roar, crackle, and pop. Flames that surge skywards, waking the whole of Many Ways.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Too Sappy

Dreams of hanging from a curtain rod and getting the business are shattered when said rod snaps. Which would be heartbreaking if it wasn’t so goddamn funny. But it really is. Rue spends far too long on the floor in a fit of cackle laughter, Cooper standing wide-eyed over her, surprised it happened. But he breaks with a, “Pft,” and he’s almost laughing as hard as she is as he gathers Rue up in his arms and takes her bed.

They make do, binding her wrists to headboard, and inevitably, her ankles to baseboard when she keeps trying to snake her legs around the Ghoul’s waist. And she gets an eye-spinning, tear-inducing pinch to her overly sensitive downstairs the second time she wriggles her left wrist free of her binds to reach out and stroke the lovely beast who makes her cry and shake and come undone in the most divine way possible.

His mouth is everywhere she could possibly want it, drawing her breath from her very lungs. Leaving her lips raw and the taste of copper on her tongue when he nips with fury. Peppering bites here and there and everywhere, a particularly brutal one on her hip because it apparently looks too delicious not to bite into. Same goes for those pretty titties that soon become too tender and too well loved it makes her ache when he so much as breathes on them. And how he feasts between her legs like a man starved, wringing two more orgasms from her before he takes to licking and sucking languid and lazy. No intention other than to tease something that sends jolts up her spine and has her fingers curling tight around the ropes cutting into her wrists.

But Coop kisses her tears away, and he smooths thumbs over ribcage and hips. Pressing in at her sides before gripping and groping with a need and appreciation. All the while, his voice is there, cooing praise or rasping filth. Eyes tender and scorching in turns.

Rue’s out of her mind by the time those ropes come undone; she’s jelly and shot nerves. Fuzzy and tinkling like bells when he turns her over, coming back alive when she feels the heat of him radiating through buzzing skin. Instead of taking her, he melts her. Makes a drooling, dazed expression become one of complete surprise when he rubs those rough, warm, encompassing hands up and down her spine. Kneading her shoulders, sides, and lower back with equal measures care and muscle-deep pressure.

Rue goes liquid, lip wobbling and eyes stinging. That’s all she ever wanted right there: someone soothing her hurt without her even having to ask. Words escape her, leaving her with nothing but soft, incidental ‘mmm’ noises.

“Bobcat got your tongue?”

“You’re beautiful,” Rue murmurs, a little misty. “Inside and out.”

“Don’t go gettin’ sappy on me,” the Ghoul chides soft, hands at her shoulders where they work wonders. “I’m gonna have you screamin’ ‘til your voice goes out in a minute.”

Rue buries her face in her still tingly arms. “I just been wantin’ someone to rub on my back for forever, and here ya are doin’ it so sweet and good. …Could ya, maybe, do it a bit higher? A lil’ to the left?”

Cooper complies with a small, teasing grumble of, “Givin’ me orders,” the heel of his hand rolling up and over, finding the spot. Rue’s eyes flutter, a low sound of pleasure scarcely leaving her throat. Louder when that third leg of his jumps. She’s tender between the legs, and just that slight motion of him has all her nerves prickling. Glancing. Slow-dissolving when he just keeps loving her with easing, attentive hands that undo in a brand-new way. That make her feel… still inside. Like she’s breathing deep and even and easy for the first time in years.  

Rue is getting sappy, too sappy. She clears her throat and blinks her eyes, asking, “Lemme do for you?”

“No ma’am.” Hands smooth down her arms, the body above hers pressing into her spine. She tilts her face when she feels Cooper’s breath on her cheek. He kisses her slow, grinds slower. Nipping at her when she pants and gasps and lights up. “Ya just get to take it.”  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A satisfactory soreness is well settled in bone and tissue, and Rue babies herself through it with a long soak in a bath full of hot water. A rag over her heavy, groggy eyes as she fights off the sleep that she’d honestly rather return to (damn Stimpak has zapped all her energy now that it’s run its course), but she’s spent enough time fucking around and sleeping. She is on a mission: find Lara, kiss Lara’s cheeks, squeeze Lara to death, and then sheriff murdering.

Outside of the bathroom, a distant jingle-jangle has her perking, pulling the rag off her eyes, and a moment later, a door shuts soundly. The Ghoul breezes in, dressed and ready for at least two hours now while Rue has moved with the haste of a slug. He’s got her bag in hand, fingers pulling out fresh, creamy fabric.

“Found one that should fit….” His eyes come up, sweeping. Fixing. A smirk creeps on. “Don’tcha look so sorry, all tired-eyed and bruised up.”

“Mm.” Rue drags herself upright. “Ain’t I pretty all marked up and done in by ya?”

The Ghoul’s smirk spreads into a grin. “Get your ass outta that tub. They’re gonna try to pin us for another night if we ain’t out in an hour.”

Rue moves quick as she can, air drying as she tames her curls into a braid, wiggling into a new set of clothes, and packing away the ones that are very nearly dry. They’ve got fifteen minutes to spare –several of them lost to a quickie when Rue pops out of the bathroom to find Cooper reclined spread-legged in an old armchair and she can’t resist the urge to saddle up.

But after that, Rue’s serious; on the move and out the door, a previous discussion with Cooper revealing most every trading company has an office in the Hub’s downtown. And though she first sets off in the wrong direction, that’s quickly corrected with a tug at her wrist and a push in the right one. They keep close; the Ghoul mentioning in a low-pitched tone she’s already got tails.

Rue’s not particularly worried. Not with what the both of them bring to the table and the NCR’s way of doing things. But she is a little disappointed when they reach the squat, wood-and-brick building bearing the swooshing Crimson Caravan signage and the Ghoul says he’ll find ways to entertain himself while she plays catch-up with her friend. He’s not in the meeting folks mood.

“Ya gonna lurk?”

“Wouldn’t call it lurkin’.” Cooper’s already walking off. “I’m just gon’ keep eyes on the people keepin’ eyes on you.”

Rue sighs a dreamy, teasing, “My hero.”

His snort has her grinning as she pulls open the front door and steps into the moderately hectic office. Chit-chatter overpowers the fuzzy notes of Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes crackling from a radio that needs its antennas fiddled with, and all manners of folk move back and forth, posting up to wait in so many lines. Lines to trade. Lines to talk. Lines where a lady points for a fella to go stand in another line, and Rue's certain she's never seen a face quite so defeated before as said fella trudges off to do as told.

Line waiting seems a waste, a form of torture, but the Hub –the NCR– is a different beast. Bureaucratic, Cooper had told her as he twirled one of her curls ‘round his finger last night. Laws and lines and slow-moving as sap. So, Rue picks the shortest line and waits. A step forward a little bit at a time. Minutes that drag as she rocks back and forth on her heels and plays with her fingers until she stands face-to-face with a woman dressed so smartly in a pantsuit and little bowtie.

Rue smiles her best smile, holds out a hand all friendly, and compliments the bowtie even when the lady’s too-blue eyes tick up and down with derision. “Name’s Rue. I’m lookin’ for Lara Jiminez. She here?”

Another up-down accompanied by a small frown. A handshake ignored. “What do you want with Lara?”

“She’s my best friend.” Rue raps her scorned knuckles on the counter. “And she’d love to see me, and I sure would love to see her.”

“Uh-huh.” And the lady waddles off, disappearing through a door at the back of the room. Rue waits, watching the line build up behind her and telling one lady what a pretty shade of red her hair is.

“Rue!”

She whips around at her name just in time to see Lara sprinting from the back room, head on a swivel as she searches. She doesn’t need to hunt. Rue’s already coming for her, throwing herself over the counter to get at the honey-eyed brunette and answering Lara’s excited squeal with thrilled giggles. They wrap one another up, Rue spinning Lara around like the former courtesan is her great, lost love –decades having separated them instead of a few months– and blinking back tears that don’t have a goddamn reason to trickle out.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” And how watery Lara’s voice is, her laughter rough as Rue plants a smooch to each cheek just like she told herself she was going to do. “Don’t go smoochin’ me! Warner’s the jealous type, and all people do here is talk!”

“I’ll smooch him, too, for gettin’ ya here safe.” Rue squeezes and squeezes, her whole heart in the embrace. “Fuck, Lara, I’m so happy to see ya. See ya okay. I was gonna have a meltdown if ya weren’t here.”

A throat clears loudly. Rue and Lara pull themselves out of their little world where the bowtie-d lady has appeared and eyes them with the thinnest veiled of glares. Her chin jerks towards the door Lara had blown through. “We’re in a professional environment, ladies.”

A loud, disruptive, completely unprofessional fart sound almost leaves Rue's mouth, but Lara’s face is already flaming red, arms tightening as she drags Rue into the back. Down a hall. Through another door that spits them out in an alley the afternoon sun half cuts with gold. Only then do they release one another, and not even completely. Hands still rest on one another’s arms as they take each other in.

Rue’s always heard people can bloom or blossom, but she’d never seen it in real life until she takes a good, hard look at Lara. She’s always been so small, thin, but whatever time she’s spent in the Hub shows in a more filled-out figure. She’s got meat on her bones, a spark in her eyes. She’s tanned-up nicely, too. She looks healthy and happy. Like the Lara Dust was never going to let her be.

And apparently, to Lara, Rue looks like, “The Wastes’ve gnawed on you a bit, but you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen regardless. How’d ya get here? Why? You really came all this way to see me?”

“I told ya I would!” Rue chirps, thinking it’s more like a Ghoul gnawed on her but they can talk bed stuff later. “You’ve been one of the only things on my mind –even when the road was rough. I kept goin’ ‘cause I had to see ya.” And there’s such a weight off her chest. Her shoulders aren’t so heavy. That franticness and need to move just evaporate, and her goddamn eyes get watery again. She has to have another hug where her voice comes out tight in hair that smells sunny. “Lara, I’m so glad you’re okay. Deck put a fuckin’ hit out on ya for leavin’, and I was so scared you’d be dead.”

“I know,” Lara grumbles, fingers trailing along Rue’s braid. “Got ambushed at Many Ways –you pass through Many Ways?– but Warner’s deadly with that repeater. And that’s where I saw the poster, and I just knew what he’d done. Why. Men like him… they think they own everything and everyone. They don’t like it when ya show ‘em that’s a lie.” She shrugs. “And throwin’ his lil’ tantrum only hurt him. Caravan boss had taken a likin’ to me, and she’s already taken it up with her bosses. In a year, their contract with him expires and they won’t be renewin’. …It’s not the most fulfillin’ justice, but it’s somethin’. And I honestly don’t care to worry over it anymore. I’m safe enough here. I got a new life, and Dust is dead to me.”

I’ll get justice, Lara. I’ll find a camera so I can take pictures of it for ya.

“Fuck Dust.” Rue squeezes a last time before pulling away in full. “And fuck Deck.”

“Fuck ‘em.” Lara’s grin is new, wicked, and delighted, and she bounces on her heels. “Ya hate him now, too, yeah? I’ve been wantin’ to shit talk about that grimy sonofabitch for years, but I was tryin’ to be respectful ‘cause I know you two were frien-.”

“I hate him,” Rue professes, and it feels so good to say it aloud. Maybe not everything around it, what caused that hate, but just being able to say, “I hate Deck Craven,” to express the truth. To not pretend. It’s liberating, like loosing a breath long been held. “I been hatin’ him. I’m gonna hate him in my next life and forever, and we can shit talk him all goddamn day if ya want, but we gotta be havin’ fun while we’re doin’ it. We ain’t ever had the chance to be friends in the right way, and I wanna fix that.”

Honey eyes go glossy all over again, and Lara nods too much. Her voice a tight, hopeful breath as she asks, “Ya wanna go shoppin’ and try on things we can’t afford?”

Rue grasps her hands, nodding even more. Desperately, does she want that, and to, “And eat too much?”

Lara sniffs loud, wiping her face on the upper portion of her sleeve. “Yeah, ‘til we puke.”

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A “half-day of vacation” gets Lara out of work for the rest of the afternoon, and they kick off festivities by storming a “bakery.” Which is new. They don’t have one of those in Dust, and it’s a shame because they’re beautiful. Rue is bombarded with fresh, bready, sweet smells the second the little, silver bells tied ‘round door tinkle with their arrival, and a veritable feast is lain out in glass cases before her eyes. Colourful candies. Chocolate-drizzled everything. Powdered. Glazed. Cream-filled. Pies topped with mounds of whipped-something. New words galore on little placards tell her something is “toffee” or “coconut” or “peanut butter.”

Rue’s stands amidst it, overstimulated in five minutes. Probably less. She picks at the tips of her fingers and gets snapped at by a flour-dusted lady for pressing her nose to glass. But she ignores her and ends up doing it again, reading each name for each thing. She doesn’t know what to get. There are too many options, and she wants all of them. And then nothing because it’s too hard to pick, and she doesn’t want to not get the right thing.

Then she sees a little card that says the slices of cake behind it are chocolate-caramel, and Rue decides that’s it for her. She points and slaps caps on the counter with a, “Pretty please, that one,” and scuttles off to a little corner table where she and Lara share bites of chocolate-caramel cake so tasty Rue bites back a moan better suited for the bedroom and a many-layered pastry full of some kind of cream and strawberries (another new) that has her staring off into the distance because she can’t believe she’s gone her whole life without knowing the sheer decadence of such a thing. She doesn’t know how she’s to go on, but buying a small container of strawberries off the bakery lady (and another slice of chocolate-caramel cake) helps.

Afterwards, the two end up in a bustling street market where there is more food to sample, knick-knacks to ogle over, and pretty, handstitched garments to “ooh” at. Rue replaces her other ruined blouse and debates with herself on a pair of sturdy trousers. She stopped wearing britches years ago, not wanting any of the lechers at Mulholland’s to get even a hint at the shape of her, but things are different now. They’re practical.

But skirts are nice and breezy….

She buys them just in case, and then follows Lara to the boutiques –another new word– where clothing is supposedly fancier and worth more. And sure, some of it is devastatingly gorgeous and Rue feels like a princess when she puts on a silky, pale-green number with a thigh slit, but she can’t justify the cost. She doesn’t go anywhere fancy enough to deserve the outfits.

But it is fun to try them on and gasp and gag with Lara over the prices, to put shiny things in their hair and speak in mock, posh voices where Rue uses neither swears nor slang. She’s a prim and proper lady until she looks at the price tag of the wide-brimmed sunhat on her head, and her, “I think I would rather like to own this hat,” goes straight to, “Ya gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me. Fifty caps for this? I saw ‘em for ten out in that market.”

Nothing is bought from the boutique, and as daylight slips, Lara takes them to her apartment, wanting to give Rue a tour and offering a place to crash for the night. Rue turns down the offer of a bed, saying she has courier work taking her back East and she’s got to get on the road tonight.

“Ya travel at night?” Lara asks, rounding the corner of a butcher’s shop where there’s a wooden staircase leading up to a small deck and door. The brunette starts up them, fishing keys from her pocket, and Rue is right on her heels.

“Yeah. It ain’t hot, and I don’t have to break out my flashlight much ‘cause the moon’s so bright ‘til it’s new.”

“Huh.” Keys jingle-jangle, and Rue can’t help but glance over shoulder, Cooper on the brain. Maybe he’s close? She bets he’s getting tired of lurking, but he’ll have to do a little more. “That’s actually pretty smart.”

Maybe it’s debatable, but…, “I have good ideas sometimes.”

“You have the best ideas.” The door opens, and Lara flicks on the lights, beckoning for Rue to step into a quaint kitchen in shades of cornflower blue and cream. “You got me out of Dust. Knew how Adel would be about it. And ya always knew which colours worked for me. I think there’s a bit of genius in that. …I miss you dollin’ me up every day, to be honest.” The door shuts and locks behind them. Lara gestures wide at the space, the way the kitchen runs into the living room, separated by a small bar Rue can imagine Lara and Warner taking their meals at together. “Ain’t it cute?”

It is cute, the space feeling warm and homey. Piecemealed together. And Rue’s jealous of the inside tub that Lara reveals does, in fact, get hot water. She’s spoiled on having one most every day. “And,” in a softer, leading kind of way, “it’s just big enough for me and Warner to melt into. He’ll get in first and then I slide between his legs. It’s… real nice.”

“Ooh.” Rue wishes she’d have done that, pulled the Ghoul into the tub with her and had him settle between her legs so she could return the favour of the rub down he gave her. She cuts a devilish smile and waggling brows at the brunette who leans in the door smiling rather wicked herself. “Sounds like a good time.”

“It is,” Lara professes. “He is. I feel like the luckiest gal in the world, and I just wanna gab about him all day, but the ladies at the office are gettin’ sick to death of me. But I just think it’s ‘cause they ain’t happy with their husbands. Marjorie’s all the time talkin’ about how hers would rather sleep hunched over a bar.”

“She the one in the bowtie?” At Lara’s nod, Rue makes a fart sound with her mouth. “She can get fucked, and you can yap all ya want ‘bout him now. I need to hear he’s treatin’ ya right.”

Lara jumps at the opportunity –literally bouncing on her heels for a moment before she’s whisking Rue back to the living room where they melt into the couch, sip wine straight out of the bottle, and Lara brags on her beau.

He’s off to Shady Sands right now, and Lara wanted to go with him, but it was decided it maybe wasn’t the safest of things. Yes, they’re in NCR territory, but the swathes of Wastes in between settlements might as well be no-man’s land. If anyone still has her bounty on the brain, watches for her, that would be the time to try snatching her up. So, she’s got a job at the storefront. It pays decent. It helps pass the time between runs, and when Warner’s back, he spoils her with fancy meals and long, toe-curling nights where she’s left feeling like she’s living in a storybook.

Rue’s satisfied with that, secure in the knowledge Warner’s doing what he needs to do. Lara’s looked after, happy, and settling into her new life. All that’s left to do is make sure she can take to the road with her partner when she so desires.

A little tipsy, a little swaying left-to-right, Rue rises, takes a swig of sweet wine, and drops the bottle in Lara’s lap. “Aight, Lara, I gotta get.” She bends, pressing lips to brown hair. “Road’s callin’ my name, and I got shit to take care of. Imma send ya a letter, ‘kay? Be lookin’ for it.”

“I dunno that ya should go,” Lara, drowsily pulling from the wine bottle and netting her fingers in Rue’s skirt, mumbles, “Sleep it off.”

Rue bats that away. “Naw, I ain’t bad off, and-.”

Two knocks at the door interrupt them, and Rue and Lara share a look between them before both cautiously approach the door. Lara goes for peephole, but Rue’s already throwing it open wide and grinning at the serious-browed face she finds on the other side.

“It’s just my boyfriend, Lara,” she breathes, delighted and sticky in the chest at just the sight of him. “So sweet, pickin’ me up after my day out.”

“Don’t start,” Cooper warns, seriousness faltering for a heartbeat before he’s scrubbing away a grin of his own until he’s straight-faced and scowling. His arm snakes in to draw her out. “That reward on ya went up by five hundred caps, and maybe I made a few too many bodies for the law to ignore. We gotta go.”

“Boyfriend?!” Lara exclaims, gasps, scrambling around the door and out after. She runs straight into Rue’s back, and the smile Rue cuts over shoulder… the devil might be capable of something half as impish. And it’s something Lara just about matches as she settles in the doorframe to get her a good look. A good, long look. “Ooh. Nicely done. ...You don’t wanna come in for a drink, mister? Introductions? A little third degree?”

Cooper shakes his head, a brief bafflement passing over scars and ruin as his eyes tick between them. “You’re both a little fucked in the head, huh?”

Lara takes it in stride, dipping her head ever so slightly. “Kinda gotta be where we’re from.”

“Thought ya liked that ‘bout me?” Rue’s voice slips low and teasing, batting her eyes up at the Ghoul as she slides easy into his side.

His roll severely as he starts dragging her down the stairs. “Imma claim that reward for myself if ya keep this up.”

Rue only cackles, tossing another smile over shoulder and waving. “Bye Lara! Love ya!”

“Love you, too!” she calls back, grin still a wry, pleasured thing as she blows a kiss. “Have fun.”

“I will!” is her assurance before her attention fixes squarely on the grin-fighting Ghoul who mutters under his breath something she can’t quite catch. “I gotcha a piece of cake and some… some strawberries. Can I feed ‘em to ya all romantic-like?”

“Sure.” Sarcasm just drips from his lips. “We’ll have us a cozy, lil’ picnic in lock-up.”

“Ya can fuck me ‘tween the bars,” Rue offers, a provocative whisper. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Dark eyes flit her way, a gleam in the dark and yellow low-glow of streetlights. She can almost see the way his jaw works, hear that deeper timber of temptation when he admits, “Ain’t a bad idea.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: Missed Ya

Crying like that is the single-most exhausting thing Rue has ever experienced –more so than her trek across the Wastes. By the time her sobs quiet to sniffles, she’s a limp-bodied scrap of nothing, barely keeping her eyes open. Barely aware the Ghoul has swept her sorry self into his arms bridal-style until her brain perks at the sound of stairs creaking. Still hyper alert, thinking someone else has snuck up on her, she almost goes out of his arms to spring into action.

The Ghoul tuts at her gently, the hands and arms cradling her squeezing an assurance. Holding her down. “Close them eyes, pumpkin. I got you now.”

Rue believes him. She trusts him. …How could she have left such a sweet, willing man in the dark? How could she have made him worry? Make him chase her so far? “I shoulda told ya. I’m sorry.”

“Hush.” Rough lips skim against her forehead, another squeeze of his arms and hands a balm. A tugging under. “We’re past that. I ain’t mad anymore –not at you.”

“I’m mad at me,” she mumbles, eyes slipping shut despite her. “I love ya the most, and I hurt ya.”

A soft laugh of disbelief passes through lips she can imagine quirking into his handsome half-smile. “I’m tough.”

The stairs keep creaking. Groaning. Rue can’t let go. Not yet. “…I’m tough, too.”

“I know.”

An, “I’m built for it,” passes through her lips gentle as a sigh.

She feels the chuckle that rumbles out of him. “You fishin’?”

“I sure am,” she says, right eye parting as much as she can make it.

They’re at the top of the stairs, and he’s glaring down at her, a, “Close ‘em,” her only warning before he gives up an, “I get it. I was wrong. I knew I was wrong the second I heard Red Judy rantin’ and ravin’ over whatcha did to her and her son.”

Rue’s weary head thumps against his chest. A heart having beat for centuries sounds against her ear, soothing her further. “What I do to ‘em?”

“On the verge of passin’ out, and you’re still yappin’.”

“I wanna talk to ya forever.” Her lips skim his chest. “Tell me.”

“They followed ya outta Poppy.” A door creaks open. “Into an old, shoppin’ mall, and all the sudden there’s guitar music and singin’ and ferals. Her boy got ate, and she had a bite taken outta her arm.”

“I was singin’ Jingle-Jangle-Jingle, and ya wanna know why?”

His laughter is short and loud, snorting. “You’re insane?”

Her sleepy grin goes wide, and she manages to lift her right foot to hopefully show off her pretty, embroidered, spur-sparkling boot. “I’d just found these babies.”

He’s still laughing as he lowers her onto the mattress, and fuck, is it the plushest, best thing she’s ever felt in her life. She whimpers at it, sore and melting. Reaching for him when his hands slip away. “Ya can’t let go. Not yet. Not ‘til I’m sleepin’.”

“You’re fightin’ it like the stubbornest, sleep-deprived toddler.”

“I missed ya.”

The Ghoul snorts, the mattress shifting as he settles in beside her. Smoothly, he takes her back into his arms, and she settles immediately. “I can tell.”

Still fishing, Rue asks a soft, “Didn’t ya miss me?”

“A little.”

“What did ya miss ‘bout me?”

“That mouth in about ten different ways.”

“Like me smilin’?”

He sighs; she hears the smile to it. “Ya got the goofiest grin.” 

“And my kisses?”

He hums his agreement this time, fingers carding through her hair before the barest of kisses feathers across her lips.

Her tone drops, husky and drowsy against the mouth that tickles hers, “The way it takes ya so good?”

“So good,” he murmurs back, a kiss pressing firmer. Once. Twice. “And the crazy that comes out it.” Deeper now, syrupy, stealing her breath. All her fight. “Go to bed, darlin’.”

Rue slurs out a sleepy, slipping together, “Yessir,” not having the energy left for more.

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When Rue next wakes, midday yellow floods her sniper’s perch, and the first thing she happens to notice is her hurt foot propped upon a mound of pillows, actual bandages wrapping around it versus a dirty, tattered length of blouse sleeve. And seeing it doctored up properly like that… Rue’s chest gets all sticky and warm. Absolutely honey-dripping and disgusting when her eyes drift to the gold-striped Ghoul where he sits kicked back in the rocking chair she’d drug to the window, boots propped on the side table and a pretty bobcat looking so self-satisfied as they sit in his lap with a finger scratching under their chin.

“Lucky,” Rue mumbles, sleep rough, incredibly jealous of Eggshells.

The gunslinger’s handsome face turns her way, grin lopsided as he continues skritch-scratching away at her beast –whose motor runs so loud she’s certain she could hear them from downstairs. “Your mama’s wantin’ some lovin’,” he says to Eggshells, pressing lips to their head. Again, Rue is jealous, meeting his teasing gaze with one narrowly amused. “Should we give it to her?”

The croaky, little, “Meep,” that comes out of Eggshells is the most adorable, innocent of sounds she’s ever heard from that shrieking, growling, yowling monstrosity she’d take lives for (and has). But it sounds like a teensy, smug, “No.”

Rue’s head goes back onto the pillows, mortally wounded, as the Ghoul snickers.

Despite Eggshells’ decree, the bounty hunter still rises. He still comes to her, sliding easily into the bed and placing the hefty bobcat on her chest. A sandpapery tongue scratches across Rue’s forehead thrice before a fluffy backend is shoved into her face and Eggshells abandons her chest for the Ghoul’s lap.

Again, mortally wounded, but she’s glad they like him so much. She doesn’t have to worry about them tearing him to shit. “I can’t even blame ‘em,” Rue sighs. “I’d rather be sittin’ on your lap, too.”

The smile he shoots her is one of Rue’s favourite: that crooked, quirking to the left one with just a bit of teeth showing. Eyes crinkling with a touch of mischief before he teases her with a, “Think I prefer the cat. Don’t weigh half as much as you do.”

Rue’s grin takes up her whole face as she sweetly says, “I’ll remember ya said that when you’re wantin’ a different kinda kitty lain on ya.” And she wiggles her way into a sitting position as he snorts, leaning in to plant a kiss to his cheek.

But he turns his face towards hers so that their lips meet, and it’s such tender, sweet sugar. Melty. She hates pulling away from him, but she does ever-so slowly. Rue’s bladder is minutes away from bursting, and she can’t imagine anything less sexy than wetting the bed. “You mind bein’ my crutch for a minute? I gotta pee so bad.”

He doesn’t; in fact, the Ghoul is such a perfect, little helper. He gets her to the bathroom. He goes and gets her bag when she asks for it. He laughs at her as she pours water from her canteen over her face in the worst attempt at washing it, and he grins at her all the while she scrubs at her teeth with a corner of a rag, telling her that’s a dead giveaway that she’s a Vaultie.

“This is somethin’ Pa was particular ‘bout,” she tells him factually. “Said they’d fall out, and I need the sonabitches to eat good food. Speakin’ of which, there’s a Fancy Lad in bent-neck’s bag that’s got my name on it.” Rue puts her things away, turning to face the Ghoul and reaching for him. “Uppies.”

He grumbles about her being a spoiled, little brat. Rue just nuzzles him, telling him he’s such a sweetheart as she peppers his face and neck with kisses. Which only gets her a grumble of, “Only ‘cause you are,” that’s undermined by the soft smile stubbornly clinging to his wrecked mouth.

Downstairs, he drops Rue on a saggy couch, tucking a throw pillow under her foot before he goes off hunting for the Fancy Lad. When he comes back, his arms are full of all sorts of treasures: Fancy Lads, canteens, agave fruit, an orange –Rue forgets about the rest when she sees that orange. That’s all she really wants now, but she’s generous enough to half it with him as she chatters on and on about every little thing that crosses her mind.

Because Rue feels like a new woman. He’s got her resting, but she wants to move; and all she can really think about is what comes next. So, the questions come. Where does he think Deck is now? Which of his towns is closest to Arizona? Does he want to go to Arizona with her after she’s killed Deck? What does he mean she can’t go to Arizona? She doesn’t give a rat’s ass if there are assholes playing around at the Roman Empire there, Artie’s in Arizona –maybe. She’s not one-hundred-percent certain if it was his head or not in Deck’s trophy room. What was she doing in Deck’s trophy room? Well, isn’t it obvious? She burned the fucker down. Eye for an eye and all. And guess what else she found in there! Her Pa’s rifle, that’s what. …Where is that by the way? Upstairs? Fantastic. Did he sleep any? A little? He can get some more in. She’ll keep watch and do a damn fine job. He can ask all the people lying around with holes between their eyes. 

“Ya did leave a helluva trail,” he comments, upending a canteen before popping an offered orange slice into his mouth. “And I was half-convinced you were gnawin’ on ‘em.”

“Ain’t there yet,” she repeats the same line she gave to Eggshells. “And Eggshells likes the way noses taste. Who am I to deny ‘em their guilty pleasure?”

“Cat’s a boy,” the Ghoul tells her, rolling his eyes. “Dunno how you’ve missed that.”

Rue throws a handful of piñon nuts at him, a few of which he manages to catch in his mouth (which is honestly quite impressive and his smile ought not be half as dashing as it is as he grins as he chews). “Well, it ain’t like I’m lookin’!”

And it’s as if speaking of Eggshells summons them –or him, rather. He hops up on the coffee table where their feast is spread, nabbing a piece of jerky. The Ghoul gestures to a back end fully on display, and Rue honestly sees nothing but fluff.

“I think you’re just a pervert.” Rue shrugs, chewing the last of her orange slices. Her eyes tick to him with a teasing grin that spreads at his scowl, and she cackles when he fires back with a, “That’s rich comin’ from the girl who starts squirmin’ in her seat when I so much as smile her way.”

Rue shrugs, unashamed. “I get excited easy.”

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Once the meal is over –and the Ghoul has had a nap– they pack up and hit the road as the sky gets dusky, Baby Destiny on the gunslinger’s back, a makeshift crutch tucked under Rue’s arm, and a bobcat trotting behind. Moving is easier with the crutch, with an ankle that’s more stiff than anything, but Rue’s pace is still much slower than she prefers. The Hub creeps on, the sandy expanse of the desert and ruins of suburbia gradually becoming farms and fields of razorgrain, maize, and brahmin.

Then the buildings rise up, growing tall, and noisy streets send Eggshells scrambling into the unknown with her calling to him to be safe.

Rue delves in herself, caught up fully in the size and bustle of a genuine, bonafide city. The Hub makes Poppy look podunk, and Dust… Dust doesn’t compare. All of Dust could be condensed into a street or two of the Hub, and even though many buildings still have that scrappy, lean-to-ness wrought by a fiery deluge, there are more that look almost pre-war. Like they were restored and made anew. And… new looks strange. Concrete usually has scorch and bullet holes in it, and she’s never seen planks of wood gleam before.

Rue half feels like she’s in another world.

A feeling that intensifies the deeper the Ghoul pulls her into the city, a hand at her lower back. He lets her look around, but he’s clearly trying to get her somewhere, not letting her wander off into busy marketplaces. Or get swept up and swept away by crowds that rush back and forth between shops and street corner food vendors. And boy, city folk have some fancy, living standards. They have a shop for everything. Shops just for haircuts and primping. Clothes shops where ready-made wares hang in windows like they did in the mall Rue visited. A… plastic surgery center? Restaurants and restaurants. Nightclubs that switch on the neons as night comes on.

So much goes on, Rue’s not sure how anyone can rest. All the lights, smells, and sounds send her brain into overdrive, and her instinct is to wander. To let it swallow her. But the Ghoul curtails her, leading her down quieter streets that aren’t so packed and to a door that spins around; and despite her movement not being the smoothest or easiest of things, Rue can’t help but spin around with the door. For at least three minutes, she goes ‘round and ‘round, and undoubtedly, she’s a dumbass for it. But it’s fun and new, and she only stops because the Ghoul plucks her out mid-rotation to guide her to an uneven spot in the wall that parts down the middle to reveal a tiny room maybe five people could stand upright in.

Rue’s brows furrow as they enter. She asks, “How much ya pay for this room?”

He cackles as the wall closes behind them, a finger pushing at a blinking button on the wall. “It ain’t a fuckin’ room, ya thick thing, it’s an elevator.”

“Sweet, I don’t know what that is,” she coos, grinning as he laughs, and reaches out for those blinking buttons to press in each one. “What these do?”

He only laughs harder, shaking his head, and then wrapping an arm around her middle when the room suddenly lurches and she wobbles. Her eyes drift all around. She thinks they’re going up?

They stop. The walls open. Close. The room lurches again, stops, opens. Closes.

“What’re we doin’?”

“Ya pressed all the buttons, now we gotta stop on each floor.” And he tips his head at the two, spiffily-dressed strangers who are revealed when the walls part again. “You’re gonna wanna catch the next one.”

“I didn’t know it did that,” she tells him as the wall seals once more.

The Ghoul tilts his head, eyeing her knowingly. “You’d have still done it even if ya did know.”

Rue doesn’t bother telling him he’s right –there’s an allure to a blinking button she’s not sure she can refuse– but she does stick her tongue out at him. To which he bites in warning, the sound of his teeth coming together sharp and thrilling. “I’ll bite that tongue off.”

Waggling her brows, Rue’s tongue slips free once more to swipe languid and leisurely over her lips. “Don’t tempt me with a good time, sugar.”  

“Ya can’t handle me right now, darlin’.” It’s cocky and a little snide, infecting his smile. Just how she likes him. “State of you’s too sorry.”

“Ohhhh, darlin’.” Rue can be cocky, too. Make it twist her smile and colour her words. “Ya ain’t done nothin’ to me yet that I can’t handle.” And she leans in close, dragging her smug grin along his neck. “And ya know I like it when it hurts.”

The Ghoul’s face tilts her way, eyes scorching and teeth nipping viciously at her. “I’mma string ya up and leave ya weepin’.”

Tongue darting out once more, Rue tastes copper. Her voice is shaky and taunting as she plants a red kiss to his pulse. “Promise?”

A rough sound scarcely leaves his throat, and the hand at her side digs in harsh. She presses into him, going for tattered ear. “Y’know… I was near to drippin’ when ya told me whatcha said to Deck. Like how I like ya draggin’ up my walls.” Her tongue traces, earning her another ragged sound, fingers gripping so hard it hurts. “I wantcha so deep I choke on ya.”

“Filthy, fuckin’ thing.” The Ghoul turns fully into her, breath rough –hands rough with her. One climbs up to her neck to wrap tight. Immediately, she’s woozy and dreamy smiling, so deeply satisfied as he enfolds her –lets her feel a cock gone hard against her thigh. “I wanna fuck ya in front of him.” He’s all growl and want against her jaw, fingers tip-tapping around her throat. “Have him hogtied and gagged. Eyes stapled open so he can’t look away while I’m drivin’ ya into the ground.”

Voice airy and brain already so dumb with desire, Rue asks a simple question, “Can I be hogtied, too?”

So much breath and gravel affect his laugh. “Whatever ya want, pumpkin.”

The doors come open again, and there’s a sharp intake of air from outside them. Rue cuts whoever’s there a smile, but her eyes never stray from the gunslinger. “You’re gonna wanna catch the next one.”

He’s at her mouth, kissing her ‘til she’s lightheaded (though, the hand at her throat might have something to do with that), and the next time the elevator doors part, he drags her out and tosses her over his shoulder like a sack of taters. Which makes her lose her cane and giggle like the elated, delighted idiot she most definitely is.

Rue coos at him about what a strong boy he is, and he grumbles that she’s ‘gonna fuckin’ get it,’ when keys jingle and he stops in front of a door. It comes open, and she only gets the briefest look around before he’s shrugging her off and chucking her on the bed. She lands face-first with an “Oof,” rolling herself over quickly as she can to receive the bounty hunter that better damn well be on her heels, but he’s still at the door –he has a foot out it!

“Ya stay right there,” he warns, leaning Baby Destiny against the inside wall. “Or I ain’t layin’ hands on ya.”

“No,” Rue groans, shucking off her bag and blouse. Where the hell does he think he needs to go? “Ya c’mere, cowboy. Or maybe I should call ya horse ‘cause I’m ‘bout to ride ya ‘til one of our hips break.”

“Don’tcha pull them tits out, Rue.”

But bam! They’re out, and she looks at his grin-fighting face expectantly, brows raised. Waiting. “Whatcha gon’ do?”

Curl his hand tight around the doorframe and sweep his tongue across his lips with the most fixated, whiskey-burning eyes. “Fuck ‘em.” The Ghoul takes a half-step into the room. “You’re gonna push ‘em together for me, and I’mma paint ‘em….” He clicks his tongue, steps back. “Ya fuckin’ wait ‘til I get back.”

Rue, incredibly keyed up, gives a pitiful, “Noooo,” as he pulls shut the door, lip wobbling as the lock turns. “Givin’ me blue balls….”

Huffing and puffing, Rue flops back over onto the mattress only to roll onto her back, wiggle out of her skirt, and kick off her one boot. The sound of the spur jingle-jangling makes her wiggly, and she does a lot more undignified huffing and rolling around until pulling herself back up. She needs something to do, anything, but the room is very standard and plain. The only thing of interest is the not-quite a term-something, but it doesn’t do anything but hiss at her when she hops over to it and fiddles.

She leaves it hissing, hopping across the room to an ajar door. It’s dark until she flicks the lights on, and then she’s gasping, reaching to pull off clothes she already pulled off.

There’s a big, old rub with a showerhead dripping into it, and aside from the Ghoul, it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Rue hops as quick as she can, going for fixtures and twist-turning until moderately warm water spills from the leaky showerhead in a steady downpour. She puts herself under it, and it’s… goddamn everything. Liquid magic on her skin, washing away the layer of wasteland clinging to her –and the shade of the water that comes running from her hair!

Foul.

A paper-wrapped bar of soap rests on a ledge, and Rue rips it open to scrub ardently at her hair as she leans into the wall. It smells like yucca, has a grit to it, and as soon as the water from her hair runs clear, she takes it to every square inch of her. And she’s about to start on a second scrubbing when the shower curtain comes open.

“I told ya to wait.”

Grinning like an idiot, Rue looks to the Ghoul that glares at her, noting he has a Stimpak in hand. “But they got warm water.”

He makes a ‘tch’ sound, free hand going to twist knobs.

Rue squeals when hot, luscious, beautiful water pours over her, and she turns her face into it, just about sobbing. “Oh, sweet fuck.”

The Ghoul snorts, fighting a grin as he kneels. “Put that lame ass foot up here.”

The order is followed, but Rue mentions, “Those things wire me. We ain’t sleepin’ if ya prick me.”

Matter of fact, he lets it be known, “Didn’t have plans to.”

Rue’s entirety shudders when the needle bites into the side of her calf, hissing out a, “Shit-fuck,” and then an, “Ooh wee,” when she physically feels that good medicine running through her veins like a stampede of brahmin. It’s jitter-inducing, a whirling whoosh; and medical marvel that Stimpaks are, she immediately notes a difference in her ankle. Stiffness and the dull ache behind it ebb, and after a moment of just letting it sit there, she leans on it without even a twinge.

“Sweet boy,” it’s sing-songy and appreciative. She rotates her ankle freely, painlessly, wide smiling before she shoots the Ghoul a look of demand and devilishness. “Get in here.”

He throws the used Stim somewhere over shoulder and slowly rises. “Say please.”

Zero qualms, Rue puts on her most pleading of puppy-dog eyes and adopts her most saccharine of voices, “Pretty please, sweet.” Her hands find the worn leather of his duster, curling in it and trying to draw him close (but he’s being damn stubborn and not giving an inch). “Lemme love ya good. Lemme worship ya.”

“Awe, ain’t that sweet.” His hand sweeps across her face, through her hair, before it fists in the back and jerks her into him. Wet body sliding on leather, breath gasping out of her, “Didn’t think we were doin’ sweet tonight, darlin’.”

“Just this part.” Her quivering body presses further into his, lips at his collar. “C’mon. Y’know ya want it. I can tell.”

He hums, a curious sound. “Can ya now?”

“Yeah.” Rue slips through his arms, going to her knees. “Your dick’s real hard. He missed me bein’ sweet to him.” She kisses the poor thing straining against pin-striped trousers. Unbuckling. Unbuttoning. Unzipping. Faded drawers scarcely contain him underneath, and Rue bites –not hard. Just enough that he can feel the sharp edge of her teeth and she feels the groan that rattles through him. “Get in here ‘fore the water gets cold.”

The boots come off. The hat. The pants. The vest. All the layers, tossed away and forgotten until he’s bared and the water rushes down his back and over his shoulders. Rue lathers up the yucca soap in her hands to wash her way slow and purposeful up his legs, intermittently kissing at thighs or at the aching length of him. Suds-ing up again before taking him into her hands to pay extra close, careful attention.

His hands find her hair again, the softest sounds coming from him as fingers brush through soaked curls, as his hips take up a gentle cant. Water rinses him clean, and Rue swirls her tongue around the tip of him. Drags along the underneath, teasing him just a bit until she slowly sucks and laves her way onto him, so smug with how his fingers net and the appreciative hum that resonates from his chest.

“I sure did miss that mouth.” His hips push forward, meeting the dip of her head. He goes deeper, scraping at her throat. “Maybe the way them big, ol’ eyes flutter…. Fuck, fuck. Just like that sweetheart.”

Rue hums around him, the hand rubbing up and down his thigh moving between his legs to press fingers somewhere… sensitive. She doesn’t know what the fuck it’s called, and it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that her fingers rub tight circles of pressure, pleasure, and her cowboy’s hips stutter-stop, fingers curling tight at her roots, before a groan emanates from on deep. Tension pulls taught the muscles in his thighs.

“Rue.”

Her insides jump at the gravelly growl and rasp of her name, savage and from the pit of him. She wants that again. Again and again.

With a pop, she comes off him, hands taking up her work as she dips forward to bite at his inner thigh with enough pressure for him to jump and groan again. “Darlin’,” she breathes against his flesh. “Say my name like that again. I wanna hear it just like that when ya come.”

And then her tongue takes the place of her fingers, finding that same spot that has him tense and breathing raggedy, hips snapping sharp into hands that adore.

Her name grounds out of him again. Silk, honey, and smoke, twisting at something lowdown in her stomach –making her moan. Her hips roll into nothing.

“Again,” she bids, heartbeat everywhere.

The Ghoul is so good for her, murmuring her name like a revered bit of scripture. Legs about shaking as his spend drips hot over her hands. Water gone lukewarm washes it away, and Rue toys with his sensitivity by flicking her tongue over the slit of him while hands coax out any drop left. He swears, hissing, muscles in his stomach jumping.

“Ya got no right bein’ that good,” he tells her, eyes half-lidded and pleasure drunk. It’s a good look on him, and the way his hands ghost and rub across her face plain feels good. Indulgent and tender. “That good lookin’ while ya do it.” An uneven, long breath comes out of him. “Shit, maybe I missed ya. All of ya.”

The curve of Rue’s lips stretches wide, and she really tries not to be smug and cocky and insufferable over it, but…. “I know, honey. I know.” She finds her soap, drawing herself upright to slowly kiss up his stomach. Washing torso, wrapping, pulling him into her as she lathers his spine and shoulders. “I’m a treasure.”

He’s rumbly throat sounds against her hair, hands getting grabby and petting before one tips her chin up to kiss at the mouth he likes so much. And she slips her tongue into the mouth she adores, licking at the roof and looping her arms around his neck. Gasping into his mouth when a caressing hand slips between her legs to tease her clit. Knuckle dragging along bundled nerves as other digits ghost and curl.

Rue shakes, so quickly weak in the knees. Pleading and babbly. Because she missed that so much. Her hand isn’t half as good as his, and Eggshells would always look at her with such reproach whenever she tried to sneak her hand under her skirt out in the wastes that she would just not.

She’s pent up in about ten different ways and has been for weeks, and he builds her up so rapidly with firm, insistent pressure and loops, turning her in his arms so he has better access. Pulling her flush against his chest, the hand between her legs redoubling in its efforts while the other settles around her neck. Her chin is kept lifted, mouth where he can devour the breathless moans and whimpers. The fervent, “Yes, yes, yes, sweet. Tight –ah!– tighter with that hand.”

“Needy,” he tuts, but the hand at her throat wraps tighter, sending her spinning.

Rue can’t help but agree. “I b-been needin’ ya, s…sugar. I need… need… mmmmm.”

She comes on those wicked fingers, clenching tight around them. Taught as a noose against his radiation-ravaged frame, dripping as pleasure passes in a wave. Shivering with the here-and-there jolts of aftershocks as those lovely digits continue to coax.

“Desperate thing,” he tuts roughly against the shell of her ear. “Ya weren’t supposed to do that yet.”

“Y-Ya did it,” tumbles out indignant and winded. “And… and I been halfway there since the elevator.”

The Ghoul chuckles darkly, grip around her neck loosening. Fingers slipping out. She watches him suck at them, stomach flip-flopping when he purrs out a, “Even the taste of you’s sweet.”

“Why’re ya so fuckin’ hot?” she whimpers, still so hungry, turning into him to kiss at his chest, collar, and throat. Trying to hook a leg around his waist. “Drivin’ me fuckin’ crazy.”

The gunslinger’s laughter is loud, easy, and his grin so goddamn handsome when he hefts her up and pins her to the shower wall. “Thought ya were already there.” He adjusts them, pushing her legs up high and hooking them in the crooks of his arms. “Crazy as shit since I met ya.”

Rue groans out a, “Beautiful, fuckin’ bastard,” at the slow drag of his cock along her clit. Her head lolls, a wave of swears she can’t even put together rushing out. Eyes fluttering, world glittering, she whimpers out a, “Ya like me crazy,” as he pushes in her slow. Relentless but slow, delving so deep it hurts almost behind her ribs. The stretch and friction lick at her core, stoking the heat she already felt until she’s burning.

“I sure do,” his voice is heady, pitched low with a teasing edge. Hips pull back to stroke leisurely and deep again, and she begs him for three more of those and then for him to fuck her silly brains out in that hard, fast, shattering way.

“’Course I will,” he chuckles, head tipping back with groan as he gives her another one of those languid, reaching, rending thrusts. “Talk some of that crazy for me, pumpkin. Try gettin’ it out around those sorry sounds.”

Even if he hadn’t asked it of her, Rue would have done it anyway. She can’t help herself, can’t help but tell him what each inch of his cock feels like –how it touches things she didn’t know needed to be touched. Didn’t know existed until he came along. And by that time, her three slow strokes are gone, and he’s kissing her sloppy and stupid as he drives in hard and fast. Swallowing down her yelps. Tasting her swears and pleas.

With the position they’re in, she can’t do anything but take the brutal affection. But she loves it. She loves not being able to breathe because she’s being rammed so hard into the wall and every breath she tries to take in is stolen with a kiss or fucked out of her. She loves the way he fucks her through her second orgasm, not able to get a single snippet of respite, leaving her as little more than pain-pleasured sobs. Sharp keens and grasping, desperate, clawing fingers.

She loves the way his own form of mindless nonsense comes slipping out the closer he gets to his end, how desperate he becomes to get there. Pace up-ticking, losing rhythm. Faltering, and then redoubling as he chases and chases. His voice is lewd, raking against her cheek and the side of her neck. Half of it, she can’t hope to make out. The rest is about how he’s going to fill her up and drip out of her for days. Is she choking on him yet?

That gets her. That tears a third orgasm out of her, has her head going back to knock against tile and sparklers blazing behind rolling eyes. Under her skin. It’s burning hot wherever the Ghoul touches, too much and tender and aching sweet, and he’s still obscenely blathering into her neck between rough bites that have tears prickling her eyes.

The way she grips him when she comes is insane. It wrecks him, has him at the line when he’s not goddamn ready to cross it. And the way those close-to-closed eyes find his face to look at him so drunk and glazed and soft…. That little quirk to her lips. She’s a crazy, fucking wonder.

Rue warms all the way through at such sweetness, her body lax and pliant only to tense with shiver-shocks as he fills her up with a groan, a gruff, “Ya take me so good, Rue.” Another messy, panting kiss as he presses in as far as he can, letting her milk him for all he’s worth. Letting him soak. A hand slips up, smoothing over her face. A thumb running over her cheekbone. “Ya with me, sweetheart?”

She can’t do much more than nod, blissed-out and enjoying the fullness –the saturating, spreading warm satisfaction even with cold water dousing her. And when she manages a response, it’s a slurring, “Mhmmm. I… I ain’t g-got no bones, th…though. Lightnin’s done f-fucked ‘em out.” 

The Ghoul snorts, forehead going to her shoulder. Shaking his head until his face tilts to press a quick kiss to her neck. “Call… ya can call me Cooper. Sometimes.”

That brings her back to earth in an instant, has her gasping and eyes flying open, and the Ghoul –no, no Cooper. Cooper hisses, a tight, “Squeezin’ me to death, darlin’.”

“I did it.” Her hands find the sides of his face, and she wiggles and giggles she’s so giddy –which gets her whimpering and him panting. But she doesn’t care. She’s liberally seasoning his face with kisses until he’s turning it this way and that to avoid her. Bemoaning the fact he let it slip. Because she keeps chanting, “Cooper! Coo-Coo Cooper! Coop! Sweet, buttery boy Cooper! Coop! Coop! Coop!”