voidsdamned

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twenty-Four

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: Some sweetness. Flirting. Lots of swearing. Dirty talk. Mentions of cannibalism and chem use. Descriptions of torture/violence. Murder! Arson!

Enjoy <3

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.

Rue’s still half-dancing as she runs, a Ghoul and a bobcat on her heels.

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twenty-Three

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: Some sweetness. Flirting. Lots of swearing. Dirty talk. Bit of drinking.

Enjoy <3

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.”  

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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.”

Rue smiles wide up at him before pulling out of his side to overtake his pace, to lead the way through a city she doesn’t know and out into the desert night. “I got all the good ones.”

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twenty-Two

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: Some sweetness. Flirting. Lots of swearing. Dirty talk. Light strangling. Bit of blood. Getting railed in a shower.

Enjoy <3

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!”

“Hush up.” His mouth presses to hers in an attempt to silence her, but she feels the smile to it. “Or I ain’t gonna string ya up from the curtain rail.”

[voidsdamned]

WE ARE SO BACK

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twenty-One

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: standard, bloody stuff. Feels, maybe.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Twenty-One:

The injured ankle plain gives out after another few miles of slogging herself up the highway, and Rue kisses the dirt with a groan and choked sob. She’s so close. The husks of old suburbia rise all around her. The warmth of light glows in the distance, forming a golden halo around the biggest city Rue ever remembers seeing. And she’s never seen something glow like that. Never seen buildings rise up so high or spread out so far. It’s like fantasy.

Rue, desperate, crawls. She crawls and crawls until her arms are wobbly, and then they give, too.  Her chin strikes pavement, little rocks burying painfully into her skin, and the urge to cry hits sudden and fierce. Rue fights it with everything in her, telling herself, “No, no, no,” in such a wobbly, wet tone of voice that almost breaks when Eggshells puts their wet, little nose to hers and taps at her right eyebrow with one of their big, old paws.  

“It’s just been a hard night,” she tells them, voice rough. “Ankle’s fucked. Lucky fucked me up more than I wanna admit, and I been tired for days. And I could crawl into one of these old houses, but every time I think I find some place safe to snooze, someone new comes along and ruins it. And I think I’ll start sobbin’ if that happens again. Shit… Shit. I don’t mean to whine. I’m sorry. I’m tougher than this, Eggy, I promise. Let me just… Let me….”

Rue’s forehead goes to pavement, and despite how ardently she fights, hot, wet tears slip down her cheeks. But she doesn’t make a sound. She refuses to. She lets frustration leak out her eyes, giving herself a few minutes to rest before she drags herself into a sitting position.

“I ain’t gettin’ anywhere on this ankle,” she tells Eggshells, scratching behind their right ear. “Ain’t gettin’ anywhere crawlin’. We’ll find a house well off the road and hunker down ‘til I can move right again, and I’ll just have to shoot ‘til I’m out of bullets and options if someone comes bustin’ in.”

And that’s exactly what Rue does. She uses her rifle in a completely not-safe way that her Pa would shake his head furiously at, but she needs some kind of cane, something she can put her weight on. She uses it to limp off the highway and onto smaller streets. Down a cul-de-sac where she finds a thin drive that climbs up a hill where a two-story house looms.

That’s the one. She’ll find a room on the second floor to be her perch, and hopefully, surely, the stairs will creak loudly enough to let her hear anyone who sneaks in.  

She forces herself up the hill. A small, “Thank fuck,” breathes out of her when the doorknob turns unhindered, allowing her into a silent house that smells dusty and stale. She locks the door behind her, does a cursory sweep of the ground floor, and then hops up the stairs. Another sweep shows her more emptiness, as well as reveals the perfect perch: a street facing bedroom with already shattered windows. The door has a lock on it, too, and Rue makes use of it before scooting a rocking chair to the window and dragging a bedside table close to prop her foot on.

Rue doesn’t mean to, but she falls asleep almost as soon as she sits down, waking off and on to see the world outside growing lighter and lighter in increments until the Wastes are golden with daylight. By that time, her bladder screams at her, refusing to be ignored. She stifles pathetic sounds as she makes her stiff body hop down the hall to a restroom she earlier peeked into. She doesn’t expect the toilet to work, she doesn’t know why she even bothers trying to flush, but she sits shocked when it does. And then she’s springing as quickly to her foot as she can manage to fiddle with the knobs on the pedestal sink.

Water comes trickling out, thrilling Rue, but she wilts just as quickly at the shade of it. Brown. It stinks, too, like dirt and decay. She huffs and cuts the water off. No whore’s bath for her –and fuck, does she need it. She’s ripe, hair a mess, and all her clothes are filthy. Both her skirts are tattered. She’s been going commando since Poppy. She’s down to one blouse. Well, that’s not entirely true. She has the one with roses on it, but that’s… that’s for special occasions….

I can fix me up in the Hub. Get a fancy hotel room, maybe…. Hell, maybe they got hot water there.

The dreamy thought carries Rue back to the bedroom where she desperately desires to fling her body onto the old bed, but Eggshells is in the window, their yellow eyes fastened on the outside and tail flicking wildly. Rue hops as quick as she can to her rocking chair and takes up her rifle.

She’s not surprised to see a man in the street, poking around. He doesn’t get a chance to be surprised. Not when she puts a bullet square between his eyes.

She does this a few more times as the hours drag by, and they really do drag. All Rue can think about is the sleep she can’t have, that she tries to stave off with harsh pinches and smacks. A few times, she prods at her hurt ankle, the pain that wracks through it enough to perk her back up for a few minutes. Then her eyes get heavy again, body tingly and far off, and then she’s jolting up right. Heart beating like a drum. Blurry eyes on the street. No one. Nothing…. Shit, no. There’s movement across the cul-de-sac –someone moving in one of the other houses, passing by a blasted-out segment of wall. Rue’s hands are shaky, inaccurate as she aims. She doesn’t get the headshot but perforates their chest instead –or, at least, that’s what it looks like. She only really cares that they don’t move when their body slumps.

Rue’s body slumps, too, deflating in the stiff embrace of the rocking chair. She breathes out, the sound a rush between her lips that makes her think of wind. …Windstorms always make her sleepy. Some people find them eerie and howling, but she gets some damn fine sleeping in when they come blowing through. Her head nods, jerks upright. She jerks upright, putting pressure on her ankle for just a second for a shock of pain. Sitting is dangerous. She needs a walk –or a hop.

Eggshells still mimics her as she opens the bedroom door and kisses at them to, “Go first. I don’t need ya trippin’ me up.”

They hop out, and then verily levitate, demon screeches belting out of a puffed-up body that lunges forward (and hell, if that isn’t a way to perk someone up).

Because there’s a lady on the stairs –now falling down them with a yelp as her funny-looking gun peppers the wall just to the left of Rue’s head with a line of rusty nails. She gives a, “Whoo!” hopping over quick to find the lady looking oddly bent-necked at the bottom and Eggshells going to town on her nose.

“You’re such a good baby,” Rue coos, slipping her rifle over her head before hopping down the steps herself to pilfer through bent-neck’s things. Eggshells growls around bloody bites, side-eyeing her. “Oh, hush. I don’t want none –ain’t there yet. I just wanna see… oh, fuck yes.”

Bent-neck has three Fancy Lad snack cakes, a little baggie of roasted piñon nuts, some kind of jerky, and a mostly-full canteen in a saddlebag. Rue’s missing appetite comes back at the sight of the modest haul, and she eats as ravenously as Eggshells on the bottom step.

She licks two-hundred-year-old icing off cellophane when something towards the back of the house squeaks. Both she and Eggshells freeze, gazes going somewhere they can’t exactly see into. She listens for footsteps. She waits for someone to step into view. But there’s nothing now. Just silence.

“You haunted?” she asks quietly of the house, feeling very much not alone as cellophane flutters from her fingers.

Something upstairs groans in response, like a door that hasn’t come open in decades forced into it.

Rue holds her breath and draws herself upright using the stair rail. On her feet, she brings her rifle back around and watches the upper floor like a hawk, noticing it when a door at the far-end of the landing slowly opens.

She shoots, breaking the quiet and splintering wood. The door slams shut, and something at the back of the house bangs and clatters. Which gets Eggshells. They scramble off bent-neck and down the right hall, and Rue follows quick as she can manage, relying heavily on tattered, daisy-printed walls. She’s barely made it around the corner when the front door comes flying open to let in three, big bodies –one of which immediately goes toppling back when a hole gets punched through his chest.

Noise erupts all around. Doors banging into walls. Shrieks and swears and rapid fires of automatic weapons. Rue doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream amidst all the chaos as she lurches down the hall. She was about to get hit from so many different angles and didn’t even know it.

A door bursts open at the end of the hall, the violent whirring of a chainsaw joining the melody, and Eggshells goes bolting left through an open door. So, Rue goes that way, too, hopping into a bedroom with a twin bed pressed into the far wall and toys scattered all over. Fading sunlight streams in, in strips through holes in the wall –holes just barely big enough for Eggshells to squeeze their substantial body through.  

Rue glares at the hole, the fleeting fluff of their tail, feeling slightly forsaken. Then a, “Bounty’s mine, motherfuckers!” from the way she came has her limping towards the bed where she goes to her knees and rolls under.

It’s musty and dusty underneath, but it’s a good enough hiding place. Rue will wait right here until all the greedy bastards kill one another, and then anyone who comes into this bedroom is getting a bullet to the ankle. Followed up swiftly by lead to the face.

She loses count of how many shots are fired and how many swears are sworn, but there are at least eight voices. They fall off with squelches, shrieks, and big thuds. Chainsaw screeching and hollow blasts. And when silence settles, it’s louder –more jarring– than all the fighting had been. The quiet enshrouds Rue, like something physical cast upon her, but it doesn’t last. Doors open and close. Solid steps climb the creaky stairs and traipse the hall overhead. She knows they go into her perch. That whoever’s up there is the victor, and they’re hunting her.

Rue waits for them, ready. Rifle loaded and aimed at the open door. Her body pricks with anticipation, listening to the staircase screech as the victor descends. As the hallway floorboards groan, their footsteps accompanied by a metallic tinkling sound. So quiet, so slight, becoming a jingle-jangle the closer they draw.

And how that sends tremors up and down Rue’s spine, hopeful heart thinking them so distinct. Wanting them to be the Ghoul’s. But so many people have spurs. She’s learned that the hard way –she’s been tricked at least three times now. She’s being tricked again, considering how her heart squeezes and her finger neglects the trigger when a pair of cowboy boots stop in the doorway, metal glinting at the heels.

Get your head on right. Fuckin’ shoot. Fuckin’-.

“You havin’ fun? Playin’ hide n’ seek with me?”

Rue’s breath leaves her in a thrilled gasp, rifle dropping from her hands and body moving on its own to claw her way out from under the bed. She babbles excited nonsense all the while, and when she’s half-dragging herself to her feet (left one shrieking at her to please quit), her eyes catch on a tattered duster. A scorpion encased in amber.

Hands are suddenly under her arms, scooping her up impatiently, and those same hands toss Rue like a sack of taters onto the rickety bed. The breath goes out of her for so many reasons –especially when a knee comes down in the space between her legs.

“Rue Vasiliev,” the Ghoul growls her full name, dusky and aggravated, and Rue burns from her head to her toes at the sound. At the sight of his road-worn, familiar self painted in strips of yellow-orange, one falling over the cutting gaze of whiskey eyes to make them glow like fire. “What in the hell are you up to?”

“I’m on an adventure,” she breathes dreamily, trying to reach for him. She needs to touch him so bad. She needs him to touch her. Wrap her up in those strong arms in the tightest, sweetest of hugs. But he seizes her wrists, the firmness of his grip making her brain spin something awful. “Oh, honey, I missed ya.”

Those whiskey eyes narrow and scorch. “I’m mad as a hornet at ya right now, so quit it with your cute shit.”

“What’s a hornet?”

Tighter he squeezes, her name something deep and serious as it grounds between his teeth, “Rue.”

Oh, fuck me….

She’d pat and squish her face if her hands were free, but they’re trapped. And she doesn’t want them free. She wants him to keep touching her in whatever way he’s willing, but she knows he’s being serious now. She tries to get serious, too, but she’s… she’s so excited. So shaky. So desperate. “Sorry, sorry. Ya know ya make me all mushy….” Her fingers wiggle, trying to touch his gloved hand. “Why ya mad? I never mean to make ya mad.”

For half a second, his face softens, but then he’s back to hard-assing her. Scowling. “Ya up-and-dusted without a word.”

Rue shakes her head. “I left ya a note.”

“Ya mean that shit carved into the door that didn’t tell me nothin’.”

Again, Rue shakes her head. She gave him more than she gave anyone. Enough to let him know it was on purpose and it was temporary. “I told ya that I’d find ya, and I left that lil’ heart so you’d know I love ya bunches.”

The Ghoul’s head hangs, hand tensing around her wrists before he lets go his grip. His hands wash down his mottled face. “Rue, honey, y’know that’s not good enough.”

“…More hearts?”

Not a shred of playfulness or levity affects his tone or gaze as he tells her, “I need ya to be the most serious you’ve ever been in your life.”

Rue’s heart almost falls out of her ass. He’s fully mad at her –in a way she’s never seen. Not crotchety because he’s tired. Not menacing her in attempt to have her back down. He’s not playing games with her.

Her voice goes soft. “I don’t mean to make ya mad.”

“I’m not-. I mean, I am. I just saw ya. Things were good. Or I thought they were…. There were a few times I thought somethin’ was goin’ on with ya. Your smile wasn’t all the way… there. Ya were more distracted. But you’d just been shot, and I chalked it up to that. But then ya dust on a man with just a… a ‘See ya later?’.” His knee slides from its slot, boot hitting the ground with a thud and jingle. He’s so serious in the face it hurts her. “Ya don’t think that’s a lil’ fucked up?”

“I’m tryin’ to unfuck things,” Rue hurries to explain, barely explains, pushing herself up on her palms. “I just don’t wanna tie ya up in my bullshit. I didn’t wanna in… insem… incriminate? I did it all vague so they wouldn’t know who it was for, so you’d be safe. And I thought ya would understand. And that was enough for ya to know it was all good, and I’d see ya soon, and I love ya.”

The Ghoul growls, gimlet-eyed, “I already told ya to knock off the cute shit-.”

She raises her hands in surrender. “I can’t help it ya think I’m a cutie pie. I’m bein’ serious.”

“No, you’re dancin’ ‘round what I’m askin’.”

Rue pauses for a heartbeat, and then slowly asks, “What’re ya askin’ specifically?”

Oh, she didn’t think that glare could get meaner, sharper. Or a huff could hold so much aggravation when it slips from his lips. “I’m askin’ what the hell's goin’ on for ya to have run off, gotten a fuckin’ fortune tacked to your stupid self, and pissed off every bounty hunter in the fuckin’ Mojave.”

“I’m… I’m workin’ on some personal stuff.”

“Rue,” the impatience is heavy, so are his whiskey eyes on her.

She can’t hold them any longer. Not when he’s looking at her like that, speaking her name like that. Her gaze goes anywhere else. “It don’t involve you, and it’s almost over, and then it won’t matter anymore. And I’m sorry for leavin’ like that. I… I do know better, but I….” Her mouth is incredibly dry, eyes trained on a divot in the floor that sort of looks like a chicken. “I did it to keep ya safe, and I’m still tryin’ to keep ya safe. So, ya need to skedaddle for just a bit, and I’ll find ya. I promise I will.”

“It Deck?” the question is blunt, short and temperamental.

Rue’s brows scrunch, and her mouth twists. Being an armadillo would be nice. Armadillo’s aren’t expected to talk, and they can curl into safe, tidy balls when they’re feeling cornered and vulnerable. Lucky bastards. She’d want her name to be Tallulah if she was an armadillo.

“Rue.”

She flinches at her name, too stern. Too much. She doesn’t want it. Rue forces out a tiny, “It’s nothin’.” Please let it be nothin’.

The Ghoul sighs, a tired sound. But it’s soft, has give to it. His voice is softer, too, when he slowly comes out with, “I was passin’ through Yucca when I saw your smile on the bounty board. Made my blood run cold. And that ‘Missin’,’ across the top of it…. I made it to Dust before sun-up.”

Guts twisting, guilt burrows in deep. Rue burns with it, fingers twisting in her ruined skirt. “I… I didn’t mean….”

“I felt a little better when I saw the note, but then I realized ya did it on purpose. You were plannin’ on boltin’ all that time we were together and didn’t say a word. And fine. You’re grown. Ya can run off, but still. I would’ve liked a warnin’, at least. Or I coulda helped ya, Rue. Whatever’s goin’ on-.”

Fingers disentangle from fabric, finding her scalp to grasp spastically at roots and tug. Rue shakes her head, refusing him. “Ya can’t help. You’re not allowed. You’re not gettin’ hurt or killed on account of me. Deck’s insane.”

“I ain’t afraid of Deck.” There’s almost a scoff to the way he says it, buried under all that sternness he hasn’t quite let go of. She can even envision him rolling his eyes. “Fuckin’ prick is off his rocker, blubberin’ over ya. I found him in your house when I let myself in to look for clues. He was all twisted up in your bedsheets.”

The thought, the mental image… disgusting. Horrifying. Her soul recoils as her head tucks closer to her chest to hide her grimace.

“He came right out ‘em when he noticed me there, demanded to know what I was doin’. I tell him I’m interested in the reward and startin’ at the source. He unpuffs and lets me do what I do, and all the while, he’s mopin’ over ya. His little bird is lost, kidnapped, or havin’ a bad spell. You’re out there confused and scared. And I scoffed at that –he don’t know ya at all if he thinks you’re scared. I tell him as much and that you’re crazy. You’re probably doin’ better than anyone gives ya credit for, and he puffs up again, askin’ what I think I know. And I tell him I know that lil’ heart on the door’s for me.”

Rue’s gaze snaps up, eyes wide and heart still. Her hands slip from her hair.

The Ghoul before her radiates a smugness, the corner of his mouth quirked and eyes lighter. Fixed on her still, the sun making them glow with mischief. “And maybe when he went red, I thought, ‘Shit, I can get him crimson,' and maybe I wanted to just ‘cause I don’t like the cuck and that he thinks he owns what I goddamn know is mine, but I say, ‘She looks at me with hearts in those pretty, grey eyes when she’s ridin’ my cock.’ And I was right, that had him crimson. Frothin’. And I’m a filthy liar ‘cause you would never set hands on another man –‘specially not a Ghoul. I tell him, ‘Cupcake, she lays more than just hands on me. She says she likes the way my skin feels, ‘specially when it’s draggin’ up her walls’.”

Rue, in all her life, has never been more turned on. Has never been more shaken, on the verge of screaming and laughing and panicking and pouncing on the burned-up man in front of her.

In the midst of all that confusing emotion, she can only get out a dumb, “He didn’t try to kill ya?”

“He ain’t as quick to draw as me, sugar.”

And that… that only makes Rue mad. Not relieved. Not sagging back on the mattress with an exhale that sounds like she expels her very soul. She lurches to her feet, forward, a step closer to the Ghoul her brain half wants to sock in the jaw. She demands, “He dead?” in a rough, rageful voice she doesn’t recognize as hers.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t bat an eye. A hand comes up to plant squarely against her chest, pushing her back. She’s not steady enough on her feet to keep on them, and her ass hits mattress. “Settle down, killer. He’s just got a shiner. I wanted him to burn with the thought of my hands all over ya when I found ya first.”

Wrath flushes out of her as quickly as it washed in, leaving Rue staring blankly up at the Ghoul. “That’s my kill.”                                              

He doesn’t look surprised. “I had feelin’ ya wanted it to be you pullin’ the trigger.”

“That’s the… the whole reason I’m out here," Rue admits. "I want him away from everybody. And I want him outta his territory.”

The shake of his head is a firm dismissal. “He ain’t gonna. Many Ways is as far as he’ll go. It’s the edge of his influence. Beyond that… well, he’s got a price on his head. Plenty of people waitin’ on him to slip up and step out.”

Rue wilts at the information, but curiosity blooms brighter. “What did he do?”

“I’ve heard stories. Like he gave away the location of his Brotherhood chapter to the NCR for a boatload of caps. Then he tried settin’ himself up on NCR turf, and that got bloody. He was forced out and ended up raidin’ ‘til he came out Dust-ways and cleaned up his act. Started playin’ at sheriff. …But there’s a better question,” and the Ghoul takes a knee, putting himself right at her eye level so she can’t avoid his gaze, “what did he do to you?”

Heavily, smally, Rue breathes out a, “Probably… probably nothin’ he didn’t do to a whole lotta other folks.” It doesn’t make her feel better to not be the only one he destroyed. Maybe not so alone, but not better.

“Tell me,” he insists.

“He… uh…. Mm.” Rue’s mouth doesn’t want to work, to make the shapes it needs to. She’s never said it out loud. She doesn’t want to. It makes her throat and chest achingly tight, and she squeezes at her arms like they did something bad to her. “…Have ya seen Eggshells?”

The gunslinger’s mouth opens, closes. Eyes squinting and head cocking. “Ya brought the bobcat with ya?”

“They followed me, and lemme tell ya, half the reason I made it so far is on account of how willin’ they are to fight everything.”

His chuckle is soft, a hint disbelieving, and for a second, Rue has hope the subject has changed. Hope that is shattered when he prompts her again to, “Tell me what Deck did to you,” as he peels her kneading, pinching, grasping hands from her own arms. He doesn’t say anything to her giving his gloved hands the same treatment.

“I ain’t ever said it,” Rue whispers. “And it burns tryin’ to.”

The hands she works the gloves off of stiffen in her grasp. His whole body seems to. “He lay hands on ya when you didn’t want it?” Severity infects a tone that had softened, and his jaw feathers.

Rue shakes her head, and then nods too much. “Well, yeah. All the time, but not in the sexy way. Just all those lil’ touches that made me wanna peel my skin off. Hey.” And she looks to him with pure earnestness. “I ain’t ever wanted him. I ain’t ever been with him. I just want ya to know that.”

“We all got a past, sweetheart,” he says it tender. “I ain’t worried ‘bout that even if ya did have somethin’ with him. I’m worried ‘bout how he hurt ya to have you actin’ like this. I ain’t ever seen ya flinch or shy, and darlin’, your smile’s gone.”

Rue’s hands fly out of his, finding her face to squish and push that smile back into place. Smile goes off in her head, the phantom of Nat King Cole invoked.

“You don’t gotta do that,” he tells her. “Not for my sake.”

“It’s for mine,” Rue mumbles, eyes sealing. She hums the melody, asking -begging, “Can I play ya a song?”

“Rue.” He’s adamant, his grip on her strong as his hands take hers once again. But that grip relaxes once he has her in it, and his rough thumbs run smooth over her skin.

“I know, I know.” She squirms, hands wiggling in his grip until her fingers twist at his knuckles. Oh, she likes his hands. She really does. They do such lovely things. Why can’t they just do the lovely things? Why does he want the things that hurt in the way that isn’t fun? Things with him aren’t supposed to be somber and serious. They’re an escape. They’re separate. But now everything’s all muddled together and much too real. “He… he…. Shit. Goddamn. I’m sorry. I’m tryin’. I promise. It’s like it’s stuck in my pipes.”

The Ghoul doesn’t say a word. He waits for her, patient and letting her give his poor hands the business. She pinches and squishes away at them, mouth opening and closing a dozen times. Head shaking as she tries to rattle out whatever’s clogging her throat. “He…. Deck. He….” A whimper comes out, and she hates herself so much for it. I’m tough. I can say it. I should say it. I should tell everyone. Even if they don’t believe me.

The Ghoul will believe her. He’s right in front of her. He’s asking. He knows Deck isn’t what he’s got everyone in Dust believing he is.

Still, it doesn’t come out nice and neat. It’s forced and shaky and raw escaping her throat. “He k-killed my… my Pa and Bram. Burned… burned our ranch.” She swallows around the burning reluctance that still clings, netting her wobbly fingers with his. “I didn’t… I didn’t know for a long time. I thought he was good and nice and sweet and my friend, but he took my whole world away.”

And there it goes. Whatever coiled tight comes loose, and Rue abandons the Ghoul’s hands to shield a face she can’t keep together. A face gone wet and hot. Lips that she still tries to make smile. “Y’know… y’know what he said to me not too long ago? He told me night my Pa died, he promised him he’d take care of me –‘cause Lord knows I need someone keepin’ eyes on me. How fucked up is that? And I picture it in my head even if I don’t wanna. Like he’s got him kneelin’ and the magnum pressed to his head, and him sayin’ that lil’ line like he’s doin’ Pa a favour. And it’s all ‘cause of me, y’know? I don’t want it to be, but it was. And Artie might be dead ‘cause of me. Lara, too. He put out that hit on her ‘cause I helped her get away –and ‘cause he’s psycho like that. But now he’s gonna be after you, and I was tryin’ to keep that from happenin’. I really was. I wasn’t careful like I shoulda been. I like ya too much. And ya make me feel good, and I just wanted to feel good. Because I ain’t… I ain’t really been happy since the fire. And I been miserable since I found out the truth. But you make me happy even when you’re scowlin’ and mad at me, and I promise I didn’t mean to make ya mad or do wrong by ya. I thought I was doin’ right, but I’m real bad at thinkin’ ‘cause my brain’s all bruised and burnt. And I… I…. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I tried my best.”

Rue didn’t know her whole body was shaking until the Ghoul pulls her into his arms, engulfs her in the scent of radstorms, smoke, and gunpowder. She rattles against his solid, still frame, finding herself grappling pathetically for him. Her arms loops around his neck, face burying in his shoulder as she tries to strangle out the sobs and sniffs and tears.

He pulls her in closer, killing her. Releasing her with a tender, “Rue, darlin’, you can cry.”

It’s like she spent a whole year and some change just waiting on permission because the second it’s given, the floodgates open. She’s doing more than crying. She’s sobbing, full-force bawling in a way that hurts her chest and feels like it may never stop. It’s all her grief and rage and exhaustion, spilling out from the depths of her.

The Ghoul just holds her, shifting so he sits on the bed with her. He keeps her close, keeps her snug. His body radiates a heat that seeps into every cell of her dog-tired, worked-over body, melting her down. Comforting her but shattering her further. She feels bad for sobbing on his shoulder. Close times are supposed to be happy, but here she is, making it all about tears and her.

She finds herself apologizing for it around hiccupping sobs, apologizing for everything all over again.

“Ya didn’t do a thing, Rue,” he tells her roughly. “None of that’s on you. It was him.” She didn’t think he could hold her tighter, but he does. And she didn’t know how deathly and dark that voice of his could go until he’s asking her, “How do ya wanna play this?”

“Bloody,” Rue croaks, snuggling further into him. “I don’t want the devil to want me when I’m through with him.”

“Done.” Plain, simple, and certain. A promise made as a hand smooths over her messy hair. “Done and fuckin’ dead.”

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twenty

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: more violence! more death! Chem use, too.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Twenty: Unto Others

Eggshells finds Rue maybe an hour after she’s left the skybridge behind, her feet once more on solid earth. Their yowl-meowing is a bit more ornery than normal, and Rue attempts to correct that with two of the eggs she bought with her darling, little bobcat in mind. The crotchety noises fast become violent purring, and then insistent rubbing at her skirt until she scoops them up. They wiggle their way under her blouse, and she sets off again, particularly pleased with a kitty purring against her heart.

Rue walks until coming across a big billboard along the road, the shadow it casts long and inviting. She curls into the smallest, most unnoticeable of balls at its base, dozing lightly. Waking and drifting over and over again until Eggshells’ throat growling and worming their way out of her shirt pulls her fully awake. She sits upright to find a lone wanderer picking her way close with a double-barrel shotgun in hand and Eggshells puffed up to thrice their size in a defensive stance in front of her.

“I got this, sweetcakes,” she murmurs softly to the kitty, clearing her throat before she opens her mouth wide and lets her head drop back. 

Rue screams her head off, going for the most unhinged, bone-chilling of screeches she can get her vocal cords to produce. Not just one or two. Every time she runs out of breath, she pulls in deep to let loose in the same, jarring manner until her pipes are raw. When she finally decides to shut up, when her eyes find the stock-still woman with an expression of dread on her patchy face, Rue grins her most deranged of grins, something all teeth and wild eyes.

The shotgun-toting wanderer turns right around, booking it and not even once looking over her shoulder. Rue watches her until she’s a speck before plopping back over to snooze again. When she wakes next, night is creeping on. She eats a little, drinks a little, and gets back after it.

The next two days are more of the same. Rue walks the night away, eyes always picking around. Ears always straining. Her rifle becomes a permanent fixture in her hand, and she learns to keep an eye on Eggshells. When they puff up for no discernable reason, Rue takes that as a cue to duck low and keep quiet. Especially when her furball nips at her ankle before scrambling into the wrecked hull of an old pickup truck. She follows their lead, tucking herself away and remaining quiet as death. In the truck’s side mirror, she watches a large, dark shape slink across the highway. A shadow with claws almost to the ground, horns upon its head, and spikes tracing all the way down its spine to the tip of its tail.

Even valiant, violent Eggshells knows to bow to the deathclaw.

The rest of the night is quiet, but morning reveals figures in the distance, and Rue doesn’t risk it. She goes off trail, into the hills, and finds herself a good perch. She waits and waits to see if they follow, knowing the only reason they’d have to leave the highway is if they were stalking her.

Someone all in fur sneaks through slots and snaky trails. Rue picks them off. Fifteen minutes later, a scream from behind alerts Rue to a new presence, and she whips around –looking for a target– only for screamer to come thumping to her rocky shelf with a bobcat deeply imbedded in his chest. Rue doesn’t waste a bullet on him. He gets her boot knife in his throat, and Eggshells has their breakfast.

As is customary, the dead man is picked over for useful items: caps, water, and food. Ooh, and he has a few Jet inhalers. Those will sell for a few caps, or they’ll make for a fun night. And Rue really is tempted to huff one down. She knows Jet is meant for wiring people and could honestly due with a bit of chem-fiend energy to keep her going, but…. She has no idea how her body will actually react, and maybe it isn’t the best idea to find out while people are chasing her.

Rue saves them for safety or desperation and naps on and off for the remainder of the day in her little perch, waking twice more to a growling Eggshells alerting her to hunters that she takes down from afar. Once it’s dusky out, they return to the highway where it’s nice and quiet for a little while.

Someone’s built a low campfire under the leaning, scrappy structure of some kind of roadside stand. Eggshells doesn’t like the looks of it and briskly sprints from the highway. Rue tries to follow their lead, but unfortunately, a group of five, completely blitzed raiders come melting out of the night. They want her caps until one of them notices the guitar case on her back, and then all they want is entertainment.

Rue, always looking for an excuse to show off, doesn’t mind being led back to their camp where she takes requests. El Paso. Midnight, the Stars and You. Rum and Coca-Cola and more. She puts on a show, smiling away and spinning 'round the campfire to cheers and whistles. Genuinely, she enjoys herself, not minding how unkempt the company might be. They're happy and well-behaved enough as she plays, and three-quarters of the way through I’ll Never Smile Again, all five raiders are dead asleep. Rue just walks away, and Eggshells comes padding up to her when the firelight is well behind.

Night goldens to day. A new group appears behind her, and with nothing other than a flat, sandy expanse on all sides, Rue sticks to the road and the fastest of paces. But she never seems fast enough. They get closer and shapelier, and needing some kind of edge, she makes the decision to take a hit of Jet.

The chem hits like a lightning bolt, a cattle prod to the chest, sending Rue’s heart into overdrive and her head into dizzy spins. Little giggles slip from between her lips as the world around her drips like syrup and every step forward feels dragging, heavy-weight slow. But the distance between her and the tailing group grows and grows, and the Jet inhaler empties over the course of the day until it hisses nothing but air and night has come back. A jumpy, jerky Rue huffs down an entire, new inhaler in one breath so she doesn’t crash, and she doesn’t know what happens next. Except that maybe she time travels, and sunlight streams in slashes through rust holes in the ceiling of a partially-collapsed building that she’s lying on the floor of.

And honestly, Rue would rather be dead. Someone tap-danced up and down her body and filled her mouth with sand. Her head with mud. It’s awful, and all Rue can do is lie there with it and swear to herself she’ll never take Jet again. She announces that aloud to Eggshells when the bobcat pokes their head in through one of the rust holes, and Rue doesn’t realize they have the largest, blood-dripping rat in their mouth until they slip to the floor and drop it right on her chest.

The entire world stops. Rue’s stomach flip-flops, and she rolls onto her side to hurl. Twice. Then she dry heaves as she scoots her miserable body into a corner away from the mess she made and the rat Eggshells starts munching on since she’s clearly not going to. She pretends it didn’t happen and spends what’s left of the day nibbling rock-hard bread and sipping water ‘til sunlight trickles out again. Then it’s time to drag herself up and out and through the rest of the night.

Mercifully, it is peaceful, and when morning comes, Rue tangles herself up in the scaffolded innards of a billboard to rest precariously. The peace –the rest– doesn’t last. She wakes abruptly, to a round of laughter, and peers through a torn portion of billboard to see a group of six in the meager shade the roadside advert provides.

Her hands curl around her rifle, and her eyes tick to a severely pissed-off-looking Eggshells who sits with their ears back, making their crabby throat noises. The group is being too loud to hear them. They’re being too loud in general, giving themselves right away as the people who have been following her. They talk about ransoming her for triple the amount that’s been posted, saying, “That fakey, lil’ sheriff can afford it.”

“Ain’t gettin’ shit if she makes it to the Hub,” one man reminds the lot of them, pushing to his feet. He takes a gulp from a flask before tucking it away in an inner pocket of his duster. “NCR don’t play by our rules, so get off your asses and let’s get on.”

The group packs up and rolls out, and Rue maneuvers her way up higher until her upper body is out of the confines of the sign. She lets the troupe of six asshats get a bit further away before she starts taking headshots. 

One. Two. The third figures out where she’s firing from and fires back, grazing her right arm before their head puffs into cloudy, red mist. Rue ducks back into relative safety, swearing filthily, violently, as she rips off one of her blouse sleeves to tie around her upper arm. She’s barely finished knotting the makeshift bandage when one hunter comes through the side of the billboard, but he gets a hiss-spitting bobcat to the face, sending him wheeling backwards with pained, surprised screeches. Rue swings out after, wielding her rifle like a bat at a woman who starts to level her six-shooter on Eggshells.

The blow takes the woman’s legs out from under her, nose erupting with blood when the stock of the rifle hits home. Rue doesn’t waste time. She doesn’t let the woman get up or reach for her nose before she’s atop the hunter, using her own six-shooter against her by firing all the rounds she can into an already bloodied face until the gun goes clicking. And then she’s turning and throwing it straight at the groin of the other hunter who can’t get a grip on the wiggly, wormy, angry bobcat that’s left his upper body carved red. He goes to his knees as Rue draws herself upright, and she doesn’t hold back. She marches straight up to him, grabs him by the back of the head, and drives his face down to meet the sharp rise of her kneecap.

There’s a crunch, a spasming of the man’s body, and he stays completely still when he slumps forward to the ground.

Rue whirls around to face the sixth only to find a wide-eyed woman a few feet away with a double-barrel shotgun at her feet and her hands held above her head in surrender.

She stops short, the violence she was about to inflict halted halfway through. Rue stares and stares, breathing hard and not trusting what she sees at all. She shouldn’t have stopped. She should swing her rifle like she was going to and force it down the woman’s throat to fire into her belly.

But the woman’s patchy face is pitiful and scared, and there’s this tiny voice at the back of Rue’s head that whispers, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

She was gonna get me. It’s only fair I get her.

But her morality is being rubbed in all the ways, leaving her unpleasantly heavy in the chest. Guts twisting.

Rue blows a raspberry at herself and feels so incredibly stupid when, “Ya promise you’ll leave me be?” comes out of her mouth.

The surrendered stranger gives a stuttering, “Y-Yeah,” after a bit too much time has passed.

Rue eyes her narrowly, drawing her rifle up to fire. “That wasn’t very convincin’.”

The woman seizes up, body shaking as pure dread washes down her face, and Rue finds herself pausing again. Finger stilling on the trigger. She recognizes that dread and laughs at it. The woman before her is the same one she screamed her head off at days ago.

Still laughing, Rue says, “I thought I scared ya away.”

The stranger bobs her head furiously, brown eyes refusing to meet Rue’s. “Y-Ya did. For a minute. Then I ran into these folks that were after ya, too, and more than just me felt safer, but… uh…. I’m sorry?”

“Ya sure are,” Rue agrees, finger back to teasing the trigger. “I already gave ya one out, and ya didn’t take it. I’m not dumb enough to give ya another.”

The woman shakes her head. Pleads. “No, no! Please! I swear I won’t mess with ya again! On my life! On my pa’s life! Just lemme go!”

The gut twisting begins anew. How dare a pa be invoked? That’s not fair. Rue can’t go making pa’s sad and daughterless knowingly. She clicks her tongue at the woman, at herself. “What’s your name?”

Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, the lady says, “Octavia.”

Rue doesn’t tell Octavia how pretty she thinks the name is. She keeps trying to be hard-assy and threatening. “Well, Octavia, I’ll consider lettin’ ya go, but ya gotta take these.” And Rue fishes a bottle of pills from her pocket and throws them at the woman’s feet. “Two of ‘em.”

Octavia’s face pulls tight, frown something severe. “What are they?”

Rue shrugs, giving a dismissive, “Euphorics.”

“What’s a euphoric?”

“Don’t ask me. Just take ‘em or you’re gettin’ a hole between your eyes a buzzard can pick brains through.”

Octavia stoops, picks up the bottle, opens, and shakes two into her hand. With a solid minute of hesitance, she holds them in her palm before sighing the biggest sigh Rue has ever heard and dry swallowing them. Or appears to. Rue makes her open her mouth and move her tongue all around to prove it, and once she’s satisfied that the woman has, she orders Octavia to, “Sit down and sit on your hands.”

Her orders are followed, and she pockets her pills, watching the woman without another word. Waiting and waiting for some kind of change to take place, and she sees it when it hits. Octavia sways, head nodding. Her eyes get this glossiness to them, and the pupils take up all that brown.

When Rue asks Octavia how she’s feeling, the woman slurs and mumbles out a, “Pretty… pr-pretty damnnnn goooood. I… I think I l-like eu-euph…euphorins.”

“Eurphorics,” Rue corrects, watching with a smile as Octavia falls onto her back with an, “Oof!”

She observes the patchy-faced lady a moment longer before deciding she’s well and good out of her gourd with the way her eyes spin and her mouth pulls into the most blissed-out of smiles. Shit. Rue kind of wants some of that. She could… no, no. That would be dumb of her. Really dumb. She can wait until she gets to the Hub to test out the euphorics for herself. Maybe Lara will want to?

The rifle falls to her side, and Rue does what she does to all the bodies she makes. Caps are hers. Food and water are hers. But she’s nice enough to leave Octavia and her belongings alone.

“I’m leavin’ ya,” Rue tells the lady firmly, crouching beside her only to be looked straight through. “And I hope when ya come down, ya wise up and keep your promise. I hope ya go back to your pa and give him the biggest squeeze.”

“He’s… he’s back in Red…ding,” Octavia sighs, pulling an unhappy face that makes her mouth tight and eyes squinty. “I didn’t w-wanna be a… a miner. That’s all there is there…. But I s…suck at bounty huntin’.” Those eyes that stare straight through Rue suddenly focus. “It’s gonna be… be embarrassin’ as hell goin’ back. Back with n-nothin to show for it.”

“Ya can still make some caps off sellin’ information on me,” Rue suggests. “In fact, if ya can remember, ya can pass on a message that might getcha a lil’ extra.”

Octavia’s sour expression melts away into something curious and warm. “What’s that?”

“Tell Deck Craven if he wants me so bad, I’m waitin’ on him. He’s the only one I wanna see. The only one I’m gonna let close.” Rue rises and kisses to Eggshells to come on. They immediately pad over and demand to be carried with insistent pawing at her skirt. She plucks them up and kisses their precious head. “If I see ya again, Octavia, I ain’t hesitatin’. You’re dead. I mean it.”

The doped-up woman bobs her head too much and slurs out a, “Happy trails.”

“Happy trails,” Rue echoes, heading out to find a new place to nap.

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

The road signs let Rue know how close she’s getting to the Hub, the distance left to travel shrinking from one hundred miles to fifty. Then to thirty. Fifteen. She feels so close, anticipation crawling up and down her spine. Exciting her steps, keeping her going despite a dragging exhaustion nipping at her heels.

One of those heels gets caught as Rue slides her way down a rocky incline, twisting in an odd, painful way that has her swearing up a storm and hobbling the last few feet to level ground where every bit of pressure she tries to put on her left foot makes her eyes swim and her cursing increase ten-fold. She shrugs off Baby Destiny and her rifle and lets herself fall to the ground in the softest way possible, but the earth greets her ass solidly and mercilessly, giving her something new to cuss about.

Eggshells immediately trots up to sit in her lap, unnoticing or perhaps uncaring of the moderate pain she’s in. Still, it’s sweet. Rue feels comforted as she delicately pulls her left boot off.

The injury just happened, so it’s not yet swollen, and with light fading out, she can’t really tell if the skin is reddening or bruising. But it’s sore as all fuck, tender and sharp when she prods at it. Rue sacrifices the last good sleeve of her blouse to shredding and tying into a good as she can manage wrap to loop around her damn ankle. Her binding isn’t gentle or careful even if it sparks pain. She’s mad at it, mad at herself. Before she started down the incline, she’d thought, “I might fuck myself up,” but she went and did it anyway. It was the quickest way back to the highway after she’d gone into the hills to pick off a few more of her tails.

With a final pull and tuck at the binding, air huffing and puffing tightly from her chest, Rue forces herself upright. Eggshells issues an annoyed throat sound at being moved, swatting at her before hopping from her lap. She gives an apologetic, “Baby, we can’t sit still,” as she tries to find some way to stand comfortably, but there just isn’t. Any amount of weight she puts on the left foot is too much, and it feels as if her heart pounds away in her ankle.

Unsteadily, she shifts all her weight to the right and the ball of the left to give an uncertain lurch forward. Which works. She can move. It feels terrible, but she can move.

Eggshells paws at her skirt for uppies, and Rue’s lips wobble. “I can’t carry ya either.” 

Getting her gear back into place is another great effort, but she does manage. And though her pace is slowed and hobbled, she progresses along, singing quietly to herself or babbling away at Eggshells to distract from twinges and shocks. She feels thinner and thinner with each passing step. Body heavier. Baby Destiny becomes cumbersome in a way she never has been. There’s a solid hour of limping back to the highway where Rue contemplates stowing the guitar someplace safe and coming back for her when she’s able, but she could never. Baby Destiny is sacred, a gift, and so Rue carries her along despite how unsteady and increasingly weighed down she is.

Rue makes it back to the highway and maybe two more miles before an old gas station and garage come into view. All the signage is too weathered and warped, whatever colours it might have held bleached out by the sun and eaten up by rust. It’s just an old-world ghost on the side of the road, and Rue limps her way into it as mindfully as she can, borrowed flashlight in her mouth and her rifle in hand.

The building is scraped clean, not a lick of anything on the shelves or counters. A thick coating of sand has replaced the floors, and a gecko that Eggshells rips to shit is the only occupant up front. Rue drags it along by the tail, Eggshells yowling at her all the while.

Through a back door, Rue steps into a wide garage as picked clean as the front where an old car hangs suspended. She’d like to be up there, perched above everything, and she looks for a way to make that happen, but the one button she finds to press doesn’t do anything.

There is, however, an elevated platform along the far wall where a small, windowed, tin shed rests. Rue hauls herself up those steps, ignoring every creak, groan, and rattle. She makes it to the shed, wipes the front of her already ruined blouse across the streaked, dusty glass, and shines her light in. It’s an office, holding not much more than a desk, swivel chair, filing cabinets, and a term-something. No movement. No skeleton with a gun on the floor by it (which, in her travels, she’s noticed is a common, unfortunate occurrence).

The door is locked. Rue huffs and swears, fishing out her scrap of plastic to give the latch and lock the business. It doesn’t want to work, and Rue, frustrated, ends up taking off her blouse, wrapping it around her fist, and punching in one of the glass panels on the door. Minding the shards left behind, she slips a hand in and unlocks the door.

It comes open with a creaky groan, and Rue tosses the gecko she lugs into a corner, waiting for Eggshells to dash in before she shuts and locks the door behind her.

The swivel chair is the most beautiful thing in the world to her, a cloud to melt into despite how flaky and stiff the upholstery. And melt into it she does, giving a sigh of a groan and whimpering soft when she hefts up her hurt foot to prop on the desk. Rue doesn’t bother to mess with it, check on it. She doesn’t need to. It throbs. It’s visibly swollen. There’s nothing else to do but let it rest and keep it elevated.

Rue cuddles her rifle. She listens to Eggshells devour their late-night snack and has one of her own in the form of a golden apple she wishes was green. At one point, she leans forward in her seat to switch on the term-something, but it’s as dead as that button downstairs had been. So, she leans back in her chair, finding a small hole in the ceiling where a splotch of the Milky Way peeks through.

The exhaustion that’s been riding her sorry hide settles in full. It takes her under, and she dreams about sitting in the chair and staring out the dirty front window. The suspended car keeps falling. Shadows keep moving. Hands keep slipping through the shattered window to unlatch the door.

Rue comes back awake with a start, hearing the door unlatch softly behind the deep, throat growling of the bobcat on her lap. There’s a shadow on the other side; Rue scrambles for her rifle, firing blindly at it.

The crack of the rifle is too loud in the small office and is followed by a scream as the shadow falls back and goes over the railing. A heartbeat passes before a thud stills the air.

But only for a second. There come shouts of alarm, and Rue’s heart beats faster than it had on Jet. She hurries to reload, hurries to push the desk and everything else she can in front of the door. Her ankle barks and sears with pain, but it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter right now. Footsteps thud rapidly up the rickety staircase, along the walkway, and more shadows amass on the other side of the window and door. Rue shoots twice more, earning a yelp and sharp swears before those shadows go backpeddling the way they came.

Rue slots the filing cabinets into place, finishing her barricade, and puts her back into a corner. She grabs a fistful of bullets and the cyanide pill she’s kept on her all this time. Just in case.

“Rue? Is that you?”

A complete stillness overtakes Rue, inside and out. Her heart stops racing, breath steadying. The world stops moving so fast. That’s Lucky’s voice, echoing from down the walkway. Calm and collected. Waiting patiently for an answer.

Rue reloads, wondering if this is it. If she’s about to get her wish or die trying to make it come true. She hopes so, even with the odds stacked against her.

The question she calls out in turn is simple, “Deck with ya?”

“He ain’t,” Lucky answers, still so calm and put together. “But I can take ya to him.”

“No,” Rue says, her disappointment a sigh that slips out of her. “He’s comin’ to me. That’s how this is goin’.”

Silence. It stretches on and on, broken when the walkway creaks. She thinks Lucky tries to disguise the sound by asking, “What’s all this ‘bout, Rue?”

She doesn’t answer; the walkway definitely creaks. She can even feel it vibrating.

“We’re all worried ‘bout ya, Rue,” Lucky goes on. “Deck’s got everybody he has out combin’ the Wastes for ya, tryin’ to getcha home safe. He’s out here lookin’ himself. We can be where he’s at in three days, and ya can talk to him. We can getcha whatever help you’re needin’. I dunno if this is one of your… your fits or what, but I know you ain’t felt right since Geraldine. I could tell that last time I saw ya back at Doc Nguyen’s.”

A shadow, so low to the ground Rue knows whoever is coming is in a crouch, passes by the wide window. Just the top of the head. She holds her breath and shoots through the tin wall, a surge of victory going through her when a hissy, wet sort of gasp is her reward. Whoever’s on the other side of the wall retreats.

Their voice is something wheezy and failing, forced. “Bitch… bitch fuckin’ got my… my….” There’s a thud. An audible gurgling that trails into silence.

“He dead?” Rue asks, once more reloading before her hand reaches out to pet at the puffed-up ball of fur that has settled close by.

No one answers her question, which is answer enough in its own way.

“There’s probably two of ya left out there, huh?”

Again, no answer.

“I have a cyanide pill,” Rue lets it be known, loud and clear. “I’m not afraid to die. My plan is to swallow it the second I think I’ve lost. I’ll have the time to do it, too. Ya shatter this big window and both try to come through, I’m done for. You’ll get to cart my dead body back to Deck and see how that goes over.”

Lucky’s voice doesn’t sound like it usually does when he asks, “What do you want, Rue?” No longer pleasant or patient, his words have dipped low and dark. Heavy.

She wonders if that’s the real him as she states, matter-of-factly, “I already told ya.”

“I’ll take ya to him.”

“Tied up or doped up! And I ain’t fuckin’ doin’ that!” Rue turns her rifle towards where she thinks his voice comes from and fires through the wall. She reloads and lets him have a taste of the real her, too. All the fury she’s kept buried deep. “He’s fuckin’ comin’ to me. On my goddamn terms, Lucky. Ya understand? I ain’t playin’.”

“I ain’t either!” A fist bangs violently against the wall she just shot through. “I’m tired of this, Rue! I’m tired of cleanin’ up the messes ya make by just fuckin’ existin’! Fuck, I wish ya would kill yourself! Swallow that fuckin’ pill! I’d rather take your dead body back to Dust than bring your crazy ass back there alive and have to wait around to see what bullshit happens next.” Another bang. Another and another, each one drawing a flinch from Eggshells. Stoking rage in Rue’s chest. “Ya ain’t worth all the things he’s had me do on account of ya. You’re some stupid, burnt-brained girl who ain’t worth all the death. I hate it’s you he saw when we first came to town. I hate- I hate...." Another shift in tone. Rage to something brittle. Tired. "…Why’d it fuckin’ have to be you? Why’d it fuckin’ have to happen? He was half-sane before he met you.”

There’s a solid thunk, and Rue thinks maybe Lucky’s head hits the wall this time. She thinks she can hear him breathing, too -ragged and heavy. The sound of it fills what would otherwise be a quiet, tension-filled break where Rue ponders all the nasty things she could say to him in turn. Because it hurts to hear aloud that everything that happened was her fault. It’s one thing for her brain to whisper it in low, heart-twisting moments, but to hear someone else say it. Knowing someone else thinks it, too.

Rue swallows thick, heart leaden. Throat tight and burning. She didn’t want any of this. She didn’t ask for it.

“Fuck you, Lucky,” she forces out, voice tight and threatening to break away into tears. "I never.... I didn't...."

“Just come out, Rue," his voice is soft and careful, more like what she knows. "Lemme take ya home, and everything’ll go back to normal. We’ll pretend none of this happened, alright?”

Rue doesn’t even entertain the idea. There’s no going back. He can’t take back the truth he spilled or the venom he just spat at her. She can’t pretend anymore.

“Nothin's normal, Lucky.” Rue draws herself up carefully and quietly, ignoring the throbbing pain of her ankle. She sniffs, dragging her forearm across her face. “It ain't been normal for... fuck. Eight years? Nine?" Another sniff and drag of her arm across her face. "Lucky, ya ever dream of fire? Or heads floatin’ in jars? Ya ever lie in bed at night, eaten up by what ya did to me?”

“I ain’t ever done a thing to ya but look out for ya,” Lucky states, that sharp, angry edge to his voice returning.

“Oh, Lucky,” she gives a desperate, disbelieving laugh, “we both know that ain’t true. I know whatcha did. I know what both of ya did. You fuckin’ told me whatcha did. You were drunk as a fuckin' skunk and told me everything.”   

Silence. Something slides down the wall. “No,” Lucky insists, a note of dread making his voice soft. “No, I didn’t. Ya don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout. It’s somethin’ ya made up in your mind.”

Rue aims her rifle where she knows the voice comes from, exhaling slow. “I’m crazy,” she says, “but not that crazy.” She fires once more, the bullet punching a hole through tin and hopefully through Lucky. 

Thump.

She reloads, and a bullet through the wide window shatters it. Another bullet slots into the chamber as Rue steps through, disregarding the pain. The garage is brighter now with the retracting door wide open. A figure tries to flee through it, but Rue doesn’t hesitate to put a bullet in the back of its head.

Gingerly, she steps over the broken glass, hopping one footed around the side of the shed where she finds Lucky flat on his back with a hole in his neck.

He's still alive, gurgling and watching her with the widest, glossiest, most fearful eyes. And it... it doesn't feel as good as she thought it would. No, it's chest-stabby. Lucky looking like that just makes her sad. 

Rue goes to her knees beside him, taking his face into her hands and smoothing his cheeks over with the pads of her thumbs. “Out of Deck and all his boys, ya were the only one I didn’t hate –even though I really shoulda. And I know it woulda been stupid, but I was gonna let ya live. After all this, I was gonna let ya live and hope ya would take care of Dust 'cause while I hate most everybody there, there’s a handful of folks I want safe and sound and happy.” She runs her thumb along his cheekbone again, brushing away a tear that slips out of those wide, panicky eyes. Guilty eyes. “Don’t cry, Lucky. It’s alright.”

He can’t say anything. One of her hands pulls away from his face to take his, and his grip is so soft and shaky, it breaks her heart a bit. Her thumb smooths over the back of his hand the same way the other smooths over his cheek.

“You don’t need to be scared. Even after all you’ve done and said to me, I’ll sit with ya ‘til it’s all over.”

His hand twitches in her grip, mouth moving. A whisper creaks out, “I…I-I’m s…sorry, R-Rue.” And he really sounds it. Sorry and broken and genuine.

“Shush,” Rue whispers so softly, not good enough of a person to forgive him.

“When I hear the rain a’comin’ down, it makes me sad and blue

Was on a rainy night like this, that Flo said we were through

I told her how I loved her, and I begged her not to go

But another man had changed her mind, so I said goodbye to Flo

Alone within my cell tonight, my heart is filled with fear

The only sound within the room, is the falling of each tear

I think about the thing I’ve done, I know it wasn’t right

They’ll bury Flo tomorrow, but they’re hanging me tonight

They’re hanging me tonight.”

Another wheeze of a breath. A dimming in his eyes. Rue hums the melody softly, feeling his hand go limp in her own. His chest stills, and she drags her fingers over his eyes to close them, hating the way they stare up at her.

It takes a while for her to get back the strength in her legs to stand and a while longer for her to heft her body back through the window she shattered. Eggshells waits on the other side, and they yowl-meow at her until she scoops them up and places them outside on the walkway. She follows after once she has all her things gathered.

They keep on her heels as she hops along the walkway, and they only climb down a step when Rue does. And as they set off into the night together –not even bothering with the bodies she made– Eggshells limps along the same as Rue. Maybe in support? Or maybe they’re making fun of her?

It hardly matters. They have Rue laughing, and goddamn does she need a good laugh.

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Nineteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: violence, babes. Blood and death.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Nineteen: Show 'Em

Radstorms, acid green and thundering, dominate Rue’s dreams. The murky clouds and rain roll through flooding, soaking, leaving muddled puddles of water with a sick, greasy green hue to them. It burns Rue where it touches, but not enough she runs for cover. She just stands in the desert, in the rain, watching a saguaro cactus wiggle and dance and pull itself out of the ground to shimmy her way. Suddenly alive and sentient.

And really in need of a hug.

Rue holds her breath as she tries to reciprocate the spiny embrace. The cactus just came alive, and the first thing it wants is some loving. For someone to be sweet to it. How could she deny it that?

The roll of thunder and lightning cracks violently in her dream, enough to startle her right out of that thorny squeeze and into her bleary, waking mind where a storm rages just the same. The world shakes and lights up, sporadic and flashing as her heart goes a mile a minute. A grimy, earthy, sour scent fills her nose, and a weak groan passes through her lips when she realizes her body hurts as bad in the real world as it had in her dream. Not because cactus spines dig in deep but every minute move of her muscles is a little stab, and her torso –especially her ribcage– is just an ache in itself. Every breath is a twinge of discomfort.

She lies there with it, addled brain not initially remembering or understanding the situation, but when it hits… ooh boy. Rue feels red as much as she sees it, and her bruised-up body is the furthest thing from her mind as she rises like a corpse from the grave.

She looks all around her, for some deserving fucker to go after with everything in her, but when lightning strikes, she sees she’s alone, sitting on the floor of a dark office with her wrists and knees bound separately. Which only puts off the hurt she’s going to bring by a half hour tops. Rue is wiggly, twisty, and determined, and when her hands are free, her legs soon follow.

Thunder rattles the world again as she drags herself to her feet and towards the shut door, the rumble of it disguising any creaks or whines the aged hinges might emit. Muted, orange light washes in, spilling over her boots and skirt…. Rue blinks and stares, brows furrowing and rage building.

Some thieving piece of shit stole her spurs.

Shoot my cat. Squeeze me half to death. Steal my motherfuckin’ spurs…. Dead.

“You’re all fuckin’ dead,” she whispers, stepping into the hall, electricity racing up her spine as lightning flashes again. “Fuckin’ show ‘em batshit.”

The dim orange emanates from up the long hall she’s at the tail end of, and she picks her way towards it slow, looking for anything she can swing or stab with as she goes. A doorway opens to her left, another flash of lightning illuminating a giant kitchen of steel tables, scattered pots, and a wall just of deep, metal tubs. At the far side, a half-collapsed doorway leads straight into the storm.

A hefty, cast-iron skillet finds its way into Rue’s hands, the weight of it assuring. The idea of swinging it mercilessly against noggins gratifying to the extreme. And is that a bottle of whiskey sitting on the edge of a counter? It is! And it’s mostly full and just for her! Rue scoops it up, flicks the cap off, and relishes in the burn that washes down her throat and sears her chest.

Soft conversation reaches her as she reenters the hall, only one or two words tickling her ears in the brief lulls between rolls of thunder and cracks of lightning. None of it’s really important, but her brain perks with interest when she hears something about “suckin’, fuckin’, and gamblin’,” in New Vegas. That sounds like a good time, something she might look into in the future.

But Rue’s about to have herself a good time here in the present.

Not a worry in the world, but a head full of steam and a heart full of fire, Rue moseys into a space of dirty counters and wrecked booths where a campfire blazes at the center and three figures laze around it. Idiots. Don’t they know fire draws predators in?

“The Tops is good middle ground. Cleaner than Gomorrah. Not so squeaky-clean and fancy as the Ultra Luxe,” a tubby fellow with a wily beard tosses out. “Had pretty good luck at the tables, too. Wasn’t flat broke when I left there.”

“I ain’t goin’ to Vegas for clean,” a wiry redhead chortles. “I’m goin’ for the down and dirty. You can stay at the Tops.”

“I kinda wanna stay at the Ultra Luxe,” pipes in the soft voice Rue recognizes as the one that shushed and squeezed her to sleep. It belongs to a burly man with the thickest arms she’s ever seen. “They got hot water there.”

“Yeah, ‘cause they eat people at the Ultra Luxe,” tubby asserts, factual and dismissive. “They wantcha all neat and tidy so they don’t gotta do so much cleanin’ ya up ‘fore they cook ya up.”

Soft voice pulls a twisted-up expression of disgust. “That’s nasty.”

Rue takes a final swig of the whiskey, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she steps up behind the redhead. There’s not much ceremony to what she does next, pouring the rest of the whiskey over his head before reeling back and ringing his bell with everything she has in her, sending him sprawling and face-first into the fire. His head catches like a matchstick, but he doesn’t even scream. He doesn’t move a muscle. He just cooks, filling the room with the potent stench of burning hair.

“People’s pretty good,” Rue informs, sparing a smile and wink at the wide-eyed men who watch their buddy die. “Got a texture like pork.”

Not that she actually knows that for herself. She once had a Fiend in her section that tried like hell to unnerve her, but all Rue did was smile and ask if they like their people with any kind of sauce or just plain (the answer was salt, pepper, and ketchup).

Rue’s barely gotten the word, “Pork,” out her mouth, when the men break from their brief freeze and spring to their feet. She gives an excited, lunatic laugh, chucks her empty bottle at tubby’s face, and whirls around to book it back down the hall, to the kitchen, and into the nasty squall that awaits outside that sagging doorway. She doesn’t go too far; no, she pulls short and puts her back to the wall just beside the door, the mildly-burning rain soaking her through and anticipation leaving her wiggly and giggly as she waits with skillet at the ready.

Rue swings it into the first bounty hunter –tubby- out the door, not tall enough to get a face, but she hits him square in the chest, robbing him of his breath. He goes doubling over, and then to his knees. Rue winds up for a second knock at the back of his head, but she’s hit by what feels like a bighorner. A grappling weight that catches her around the middle and takes her to pavement.

The blow ignites every ache she’d forgotten, adding new ones. Her back sparks and sings with pain, and the way her cheek grates against concrete leaves her face raw. Her swears and gasps fast turn to manic laughter as the hunter scrambles to pin her, but she clings tight to the muscley frame she recognizes, brings her face to his, and bites the every-living shit out of his nose, trying to rip it from his face with all the violence she has in her.

His skin is salty, then very, very coppery. She tells him what a meal he’ll make as he screams and hurries to throw her off. She rolls along concrete, coming to a stop on her side to watch as soft voice holds his nose and tubby finally hefts himself upright.

“Fuckin’ cunt!” tubby hollers over the thunder, reddened, fuming face illuminated by a flash of electric white. “Fuck the reward! I want your goddamn head!”

Rue, still laughing, hefts her battered body upright and eggs him on with goading curls of both hands. An invitation to, “Fuckin’ try! Once I get yours off your neck, I’ll kick it around like a ball for shits and giggles!”

He advances on her but doesn’t make it two feet before a ball of spitting, hissing, raging fur lands upon his head and shreds with wild abandon.

Rue could cry. Rue could sing. Rue could light the whole world with her smile. She crows out a relieved, watery, purely delighted, “Eggshells!” and wobbles to her feet. She runs towards them, wanting to hold them and help them finish off tubby.

A hand snags Rue’s skirt, jerking her back and taking her feet out from under her. She lands in the lap of a bleeding-faced man.

 She’d forgotten about soft voice.

“Was it you earlier who said ya liked my playin’?” Rue queries as his hands wrap around her throat.

“That don’t matter anymore,” whispers soft voice, a white flash showing her how ragged and torn his nose looks. How much blood stains his shirt, spreading with the rain. Glinting off all the buttons and metal bits and….

“I can sing ya another,” she offers, smiling even as his fingers flex. “Ever heard Mack the Knife?”

His grip stills, not loosening. Not tightening. A curious, befuddled expression passes over his face.

Rue uses a soft voice of her own.

“Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear

And it shows them pearly white

Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe

And he keeps it, ah, out of sight

You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe

Scarlet billows start to spread

Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe

So there’s never, never a trace of red.”

But there’s a stream of it running over Rue’s hand as she jams the pocketknife previously tucked away in his shirt pocket deep into soft voice’s throat. The surprise is bright and immediate, panicked. Gasping and gurgling. His hands slip from her neck to reach for his own, and Rue takes the opportunity to scramble off his lap and to her feet.

She also robs him of every opportunity he might ever have by turning right around and kicking him square in the face.

Soft voice goes to his back, hands still at his throat. She crouches, peels them away, and finishes the job she started. A slice from ear to ear. He goes still and quiet, and Rue leaves him to fade, humming the rest of Mack the Knife as she goes to help Eggshells.

But they don’t really need her help. They’ve torn tubby to shreds and sit licking and gnawing away at the mess of his face, and Rue’s slitting of his throat is more of a precautionary measure than a mercy killing.

Rue scoops up her darling kitty, cradling them tight to her chest and getting them both out of the rain. The whole building reeks of burnt hair and burned flesh, but Rue won’t be here too long. Radstorm be damned, she’s not staying here all night. She needs to find her things and make up whatever ground the band of fuckers cost her.

Rue does find her things. All of them. Her spurs are on the cooked redhead, and her horrid, heart-shaped sunglasses lie discarded close to the dying blaze. Baby Destiny, her bag, and her Pa’s rifle and hat rest in a back corner, and they contain everything except her caps. But she finds her stolen property and more amongst the spoils of the dead. She lines her pockets with their caps. She drinks their water and eats their food, making sure Eggshells gets their fill.

And Eggshells…. In the fire’s glow, as they lap up water from a coffee cup, Rue sees most of their left ear is gone and there’s a blood-crusty streak along that side of their head where the bullet must have grazed.

Otherwise, they’re whole and safe and still too cute with their bolo tie around their neck.

Rue dons all her gear, pops some Rad-X, and plucks up Eggshells, tucking them under her blouse. Their head pops out the neck of her blouse with a curious, little churr of a sound, but they duck right back in when she steps into a no-long-so-stormy night. No, the rain has subsided from a downpour to more of a mist that fades out altogether as Rue progresses.

She walks until she finds a road sign, another arrow that points to Many Ways, and marches resolutely on.

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One might think that being scraped, bruised, beaten, and feeling particularly fucked raw that Rue’s spirit would be in the dirt. That she’d be ready to run home and indulge in creature comforts, never daring to set foot outside of Dust again. But that bounty hunter had the right of it, Rue is having the time of her life. She’s on an adventure, every move made with a purpose and shadowed by intrigue. She’s doing things on her terms. She’s making progress after eight years of nothing.

She’s free. She’s alive. She’s proud of herself, and she’s incredibly smug when the cracked, faded highway she travels along converges into a tangle of overpasses where all manners of lean-to’s, huts, and structures have been cobbled together. They form a stacked, little society a hanging, pieced-together sign declares, “Many Ways Rest.”

Though not as busy as Poppy, the rest stop is still bustling. Caravans make ready to leave in the brightening morning light, brahmin lowing and carts creaking. All manners of folks stream here and there, climbing up and down and out. Eggshells, who has seemingly decided inside Rue’s shirt is a fine place to be, grows tense and wiggly, their sharp nails pricking at her shoulder. She can’t go but a few feet passed the sign before they’re scrambling out her neck hole and jumping to the ground.

Rue’s soft call of, “Don’t go,” has barely left her lips when they disappear into a narrow slot between buildings.

She stares after them, hoping they find her again. No. They will. They’ve shown her twice now that they’ll wander their way back to her and they can take care of themselves.

Honestly, Rue probably needs them more than they need her.

Progressing into the small settlement, Rue locates a bounty board and takes the time to rip down her and Lara’s posters. She pokes around a bit, keeping her head down and eyes on a swivel for any gazes that follow her, and enters a trading post run by an elderly couple all sunspots and wrinkles. They quite like the shiny bits and baubles she took from the mall, sliding her a tidy stack of caps for them–along with a few, thick slices of tough bread they say keeps for weeks, two apples, four eggs (she raps them in her spare blouse and sets them on top of her haul), cheese, and brahmin jerky. They’re also nice enough to let her use their tap to refill her canteens.

Rue moves on, spying a directional board and an arrow that points towards the Hub. It guides her higher into Many Ways, to a segment of skybridge that appears to return to ground maybe a mile off. Before she starts down it, she decides a bite to eat at a little restaurant that smells greasy-fried and fantastic is in order. She’s earned it, making it this far.

She ducks aside to let a few, strapped-up men out the door before breezing in. Her eyes tick over her shoulder, noticing one peers back at her, but he keeps moving. She does, too. Eyes forward, landing on each presence in the restaurant. There are four others. One at the far end of the bar running the length of the building, head bowed over their meal. Two ladies sit together at a table way towards the back, chatting amongst themselves as they eat. The fourth is set before a window seat, back to her, hat tipped over their face, and boots kicked up on the table as they soak in the sunbeams pouring in.

The freckle-faced woman behind the bar calls out a friendly, “Mornin’!” that Rue returns with the same cheer as she plops down on a rickety stool right in front of her. She also smiles her best smile, even when the lady gives her a pitying looking over and a gentle, tutting, “Oh, honey, you look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

“I have!” Rue chirps. “But I ain’t sweatin’ it. Can I get your biggest glass of water?”

A smile breaks over the freckled-face. “Sure ya can. …Anything else?”

“Somethin’ greasy and meaty.” Rue desires protein more than anything else, having spent the last two days subsisting off agave fruit, yucca, and scraps of jerky. “A big, ol’ burger if it ain’t too early for that.”   

“Homefries with that?”

Rue somehow smiles brighter, melting into the counter. “Homefries sound real good. Thank ya.”

The tall glass of water is brought around quickly, Rue sparing another, “Thank ya,” before chugging half it down. She sips the rest slowly, savouring it. Her head fills with the smells and sounds of meat sizzling, setting her mouth to watering. Her stomach to grumbling so loudly her arm clamps around her middle to shush it. The demanding organ only shuts up once Rue takes the first bite of a juicy burger topped with a fried egg and jalapeños. She has to bite back a moan too suggestive for the hour and setting. A, “You’re beautiful,” ends up slipping out instead of a third, “Thank ya.”

“Well, ain’t you sweet,” the lady chuckles before moving down the bar to refill the lone diner’s glass. “You enjoy, honey.”

Rue eats like the starved thing she is, devouring grease-dripping bite after grease-dripping bite. Popping fried, seasoned chunks of potato in her mouth. Nothing else in the world exists.

Until the jingle-jangle of spurs traces an excited shiver up her spine. Rue pauses midchew, hearing the tap of boots now. The creak of the floor. Feeling as someone approaches, as that same someone leans into the counter beside her, and her eyes rise and go their way. Hoping. Wanting. Needing.

Deflating immediately when the man who leans in close is some thick-bearded stranger with no regard for her personal space. And no tact at all when he drawls, “Ain’t you the one on the missin’ posters?”

“Ain’t missin’.” Rue pops the last bite of burger into her mouth, disappointed and feeling dumb as hell. He tricked her. “And if you’re ‘bout to make trouble for me, wait ‘til I’m done eatin’ and outta this nice lady’s establishment.”

The man laughs, sinking further into the counter. “If ya ain’t missin’, then what are ya? Had to have done somethin’ to get that fat stack of caps tied to ya.”

“Someone just likes me too much,” Rue mutters, popping another homefry into her mouth. “Ain’t confused. Ain’t kidnapped. Ain’t missin’. …Ya makin’ trouble for me or nah?”

“Oh, it’s trouble for ya, sweetheart,” the man’s voice is soft and cocky, and he settles a hand on her shoulder, fingers digging in. “But only if ya make it.”

Rue’s head lolls further in his direction, a wicked curve crackling across her lips. “I love trouble.”

Her next step would be to hit him upside the head with her burger plate and use a shard of it to slit his throat, but something interesting and messy happens. A click. A bang. A bearded face bursting into red and viscera, coating Rue. She watches the body drop, headless and spurting crimson, and spits on it before looking over her shoulder to see one of the ladies at the far table with a bulky handcannon drawn. Smoking. Her partner dumps a handful of caps onto the table, and Rue does the same as she slides off her barstool.

“Awe, don’t go runnin’ off on me now,” the woman, dirty-blonde, wild-eyed, and smiling like a devil, coos. “I just saved ya from that mean, ol’ man. Think I deserve some compensation for that.”

“Oh sure,” Rue agrees with ease, digging once more in her pocket and coming up with a middle finger waved in the blonde’s direction. “And I got a tip for ya.” And bam! She whips out the other.

The blonde’s smile drops a touch, then eats up the lower portion of her face completely. Her laugh is a short, barking thing. “I like you.” Her finger ghosts over the handcannon’s trigger, a warning Rue doesn’t take seriously at all. “I’d make friends if you weren’t gonna make me rich.”

Rue sticks her tongue out, going for her rifle. “Better use that while ya have the chance.”

Another something interesting happens as Rue’s hands ghost the stock of her rifle, a suppressed bang that has the blonde’s friend dropping to the ground with a hole in her forehead that dribbles red. Her dead hands drop a funky-looking, silver shooter that misfires when it hits the ground, sending a… a syringe? A little syringe buries in the calf meat of one of the three men Rue had stepped out of the way of when first entering the restaurant, and he looks down at it with furrowed brows before he drops, too.

A moment of silence passes where Rue is certain she hears her heartbeat (and a sigh from the lone diner at the end of the bar). She watches the blonde’s eyes pick towards her friend, and then the wild-eyed lady absolutely loses it, firing wildly and repeatedly at the men who had creeped in the front door without their noticing. One gets a hole punched through his chest, while the other lands a shot on blondie’s right arm. Which makes it hard for her to keep her handcannon held up and at the ready. She charges the gunman with a scream, ignoring the bullets that glance her and plowing into him before he has a chance to reload his revolver.

And Rue, well… Rue tosses a, “Sorry ‘bout the mess,” to the restaurant lady, who cowers behind the bar, and makes herself scarcer than rain in the desert.

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Eighteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: blood and violence.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Eighteen: Reckless, Rageful

The yowl-meowing hits Rue’s ears a few miles out of Poppy just as the sun starts sinking, and she smiles like crazy when she looks over her shoulder to see Eggshells padding her way quickly as they can on their big, old paws. The bobcat’s ears are flat and eyes narrowed, but they sure do purr when Rue crouches to give them chin scratches.

“There’s my beautiful baby,” she coos, the hand not petting away going for some gecko jerky. “Ya eaten?”

Even if they have, they chomp up the jerky in heartbeats and have a few licks of water out of her palm to wash it down.

“I’m glad you’re stickin’ with me,” she murmurs, getting some ear scratches in. “Sheriff Shitkicker made things messier than I thought he would, and I need an extra set of ears and eyes. …We probably won’t make it to nightfall without somethin’ goin’ down. We gotta be ready. Well, I know ya stay ready. Ya go after anything that so much as breathes in your direction.”

Maybe she ought to be a bit more like Eggshells, unblinkingly vicious. Ready to pounce. Not holding herself back even an ounce…. It’s a nice thought, going wild after so long of biting her tongue and clenching her fists. Leashing herself so tight.

Eggshells swats at her hand, their polite way of saying, “Quit touchin’ me.” She pulls away, only for the little darling to rub themselves against her skirt.

“Fickle lil’ thing,” she chuckles, standing and dusting her hands off on her skirt. The motions slow and still halfway through, her eyes fixing in the distance.

Two figures march her way, the wide space between making them appear as little more than blobs.

They could be travelers just like her, but Rue wouldn’t bet on it. She bets she had eyes on her the second she stepped out onto the streets of Poppy earlier and they were just waiting for her to march on out of town. Put herself out somewhere open and vulnerable with nowhere to hide. She bets there are more coming, too. She just can’t see them yet.

If they catch her, would they listen when she tells them she’s not missing? She’s out here on her own accord, and she has no intentions of going back? Maybe one or two might, but the rest of them… caps speak louder than she does. More persuasively, too.

Can’t risk it.

“I gotta carry ya,” she tells Eggshells, plucking up the kitty and getting throaty, unhappy growling for it. She clicks her tongue at them, kisses their head, and spins on her heel. “Hush you.”

They don’t hush, but their sounds become chainsaw purring, and they let Rue cradle them as she keeps a brisk pace. She needs more space between her and those blobs that look more and more like people every time Rue glances over her shoulder.

Darkness seeps across the landscape as Rue reaches a patch of the road that winds through rises and falls of rocky hills and buttes, and the cover they afford has her darting off the well-traveled and into riddling crevasses and ridges. Which is immediately not fun and so apparently a terrible idea (even though the idea was high ground and headshots) because of course she picks the narrow, snaky in-between that houses a handful of radscorpions –big boys, too. The kind that could take her head off her shoulders with a snip of their pinchers.

Rue scrambles back, and then up a steep incline, doing her best to keep Eggshells safe and get them to higher ground as click-clacking claws make grabs and tails sting forward.

Eggshells goes apoplectic in her arms, spitting and yowling and thrashing until Rue must let go or risk getting her arms and chest torn to shreds. The reckless, rageful bobcat throws itself at the closest scorpion with no regard, all teeth, spit, and claws as they go for eyes.

Freehanded and not wrestling a wily cat, Rue puts more distance between herself and the big boys and takes hold her rifle. She hastily lines up a shot at the scorpion Eggshells battles valiantly –and violently– and fires. It’s mean, little face spurts weird, greenish juices, and the way it backpeddles sends it crashing into its friends. They all take a tumble down the steep hill, and Rue snatches up an ornery Eggshells that starts back up with their pissy, throat noises.

Rue shushes them and runs, knowing she can’t fight so many radscorpions and that her tails would have heard that shot. Shit, she should really see about finding a suppressor for her rifle. A sharp crack like that can prick at ears for miles. Lead hunters and whoever right to her.

Focus, focus.

Landmarks. She needs landmarks –a way to get back to the road once she’s handled her tails. Her eyes pick along dim ridges and carefully ahead of her, searching for oddly-shaped fauna and formations. A good perch. There’s a cactus that sort of looks like a brahmin. An actual brahmin skeleton amongst a heap of brambles, bones, and scrap…. That’s a fucking deathclaw nest, and Rue is absolutely not coming back this way. Rue doesn’t need to be anywhere near here.

All the weird and twisting ways she goes spits Rue out in a flat expanse of cacti, cracked earth, and ants she brings her boot down on when they try to get at her ankles. Eggshells hops down from her arms and immediately runs off ahead of her to terrorize another ant.

Rue, winded, gives a breathy laugh, “You’re a menace. I love ya,” and picks up her stride again to catch up with them, her eyes on a large, looming shadow in the distance.

It turns out to be a building: a massive, sprawling, crumbly one on the opposite side of an upheaved highway. It sits amongst other structures that are little more than free standing walls or boxes full of sand and the husks of old vehicles. A weathered sign tells her it was once called “----hills Mall.”

Rue’s not sure what a mall is, but it looks like it would have lots of great ambush spots. She needs those, even if a warning of sharp-toothed stick figures is scrawled on the front doors.

Maybe there are cannibals inside she can convince into eating her stalkers?

Quietly, and with Eggshells padding along behind her, Rue enters the mall, fishing the small flashlight she never did give back to Doc Nguyen out of her pocket. She doesn’t need it initially. Moonlight spills in through holes in the ceiling in big, washed-out patches, illuminating benches, garbage cans, scattered tables, and all these storefronts and bars crammed in together. The ground and tabletops are littered with old food containers.

Rue tiptoes through it all, the wide, rounded room she stepped into opening into a long, long hall with hanging signs and glass walls as far as she can see –but that’s not terribly far anymore. It’s black as pitch ten feet ahead of her, inky and not particularly inviting. She clicks the flashlight on, using it to scan the signs and doorways blocked with shutters and gates. Through the glass, she sees mattresses. Appliances. Clothes. Knick-knacks....

"Ooh," slips so quietly out of her mouth when she spies a little cart with rows and rows of glasses upon it. A truly terrible pair snags her attention, red-rimmed and heart-shaped, and Rue can't resist the temptation. In her pocket they go. 

She moves on, deeper into the darkness where her flashlight beam passes over a mannequin in a bolo tie. The light drags down and then snaps back, fixing on the most beautiful pair of boots Rue has ever seen. Even with a thick layer of dust coating them, the dark leather boots in the window are radiant. Perfect with red and pink roses stitched into the sides of them and a set of spurs hanging off the back. Rue could jingle-jangle just like her cowboy….

Fingers dragging down the glass, Rue clicks her tongue at the sudden sharpness in her chest.

She has not allowed herself to do much in the way of thinking about anything outside of survival and her destination. She’s on guard as she trudges through the desert. She’s exhausted when she decides to settle down, falling right asleep. But in this small, fleeting moment, the Ghoul is at the forefront of her brain accompanied by a deep longing. Worse than it’s ever been.

Rue wonders what he’s doing. If he’s okay. If he’s been back by and seen her note. Or maybe he’s seen her poster? Part of her wishes he was along for the ride, and they could pick him out a new pair of boots, too.

With him come thoughts of others: Hal, Mrs. Ira Jean, and Mrs. Rosa. Even Bo and his boys. Bell O’Neil and the Hendersons. They’re all of wonder and worry. Did Deck question everyone she holds near and dear? Did they go into a tizzy when they realized she was missing? Do they hunt for her?

Tiny and barely audible is the voice at the back of her head that whispers she should have told them, warned them, but louder is the voice that affirms her actions. To know would have been to implicate, to tie them to her mess. She’d rather feel guilty about worrying them than the pain and burning of another death on her shoulders.

Rue shakes all the bad thoughts out of her head, shrugs off Baby Destiny, and pushes the case under the gate that didn’t quite close. She follows, wiggling through and cooing very softly to Eggshells until they slink under and in.

The mannequin is taken down, its feet pulled into Rue’s lap so she can twist and jiggle the boots free. When they pop off, she gives a short laugh of victory and hastily pulls them on.

And they fit. That victory laugh turns into a delighted squeal-giggle, and Rue pops to her feet to practice her fancy, twisting footwork, each spin or heel-toe step accompanied by a jingling that makes her warm inside. With more than a bit of pep, she skips around the rest of the store.

So many pretty, dusty things surround her. Blouses, vests, and jeans with shiny stones and fun patterns. Breezy dresses she imagines spinning ‘round and ‘round in. Thick-woven flannels in all the colours. Hats galore in all the styles, some plain and others…. Rue doesn’t know what that orange and black print is around the band of an otherwise dapper cutter-style hat, but it’s not for her. Not for anyone.

Her eyes are pulled away from the atrocity by a display case full of leather goods and jewelry, a few things tickling her fancy. Like the leather over-the-shoulder bag that looks sturdier and a bit roomier than the one she currently carries. She trades it out, packing in all her bits and then a few shiny things that might be worth something to somebody if the gold is real gold. She also snatches up two, silver star pins. One, she pins to the band of her hat, and the other goes into her pocket as she briefly imagines presenting it to the Ghoul and asking him to pretty please match with her.

Then there’s this bone and blue stone bolo tie Eggshells lets her slip onto their fluffy neck after just a bit of coaxing, and don’t they look so handsome in it! Handsome and dignified, and Rue can’t help but giggle again. And she keeps giggling every time she looks down at her pretty kitty to see them padding along so suave in their tie.

Towards the back of the store, she finds a door hanging open, leading into a space of shelves and boxes full of more pretty things. Rue doesn’t let her gaze linger on them. The temptation of a brand-new wardrobe eats at her, but she has nowhere to put it all. No way to carry it…. A cream blouse lying neglected on the floor has roses around the sleeve cuffs. It matches her boots. It matches her boots.

Rue plucks it up and stows it in her guitar case, and then does her damndest to put all the finery out of her head as she slips out another door she finds. She’s on a mission, not a shopping trip. People are literally chasing her, and she was browsing like it’s just a normal visit to Shade and Sundries.

She shakes her head at herself as she steps into a long, dark hallway she traverses slowly with careful sweeps of her flashlight.

It’s easy to get lost. There are more doors, hallways, and signs that read as, “Restrooms,” “Roof Access,” “Manager’s Office,” “Emergency Exit,” and “Security Office.” Rue ends up ducking into the Security Office when a dragging shuffle and crunchy noises come from further down the hall. She waits to see if they come closer or taper out, and they do eventually, the sounds fading off the way she was heading.

Rue’s focus turns to the room she popped into: a musty, dusty space where a skeleton slumps back in the chair set before the wide, metal desk that dominates most of the room. A bullet hole is blasted out the back of the skull, and the .10 mm on the floor close by tells Rue everything she needs to know about what happened.

Her attention shifts to the array of shiny, black glass mounted on the walls and the…  the machine on the desk is called a term-something. She remembers them a little –mostly playing a shoot-y game where she blew up communists. And after staring hard at the term-something for several minutes, she remembers how to turn it on by clicking at a somewhat circle-ish symbol button on the front.

The whole black glass array lights up along with the term-something. Well, most of it does. A few screens stay dead. Others are too dark for her to make out what’s in them. But most show scenes with just enough light for her to make out storefronts and lumpy shadows… oh! She recognizes one of the scenes as the one she stepped into: that wide room with all the tables, counters, and food containers.

And isn’t she a lucky girl to spy two figures creeping in all careful-like with weapons drawn.

Rue relocates the skeleton to the floor, claims its seat, and watches them pick around for ten minutes before noticing a group of three coming in through a collapsed segment of wall that could honestly be anywhere. Ooh, and there come two more into the wide room, but they pick a different way to go from the first group.

“Figure they’ll kill one another so we don’t have to bother?” she asks of Eggshells when the bobcat jumps up on the desk. They don’t do anything but blink slow and sit back on a big button that makes the air crackle and fizz.

“The fu-?”

Rue's voice comes from all around, and her mouth snaps shut. Wide-eyed and wondering, she sits there quietly as the sound of Eggshells’ motor running like crazy rumbles the air. Her eyes tick to the array where her tails have gone stock-still. Very carefully, she scoots the bobcat off the button, and the crackling, fizzy sound goes away.

Investigating the button up close, Rue finds it to be some sort of gadget with a grated look on one end. She presses the button and coos out a curious, “Hellooo?” into the grates, watching from the corner of her eyes as those still figures in the array look all around them in befuddlement.

Rue notices something else. On glass once empty, shadows shift and rise. Stumbling and shuffling and whipping around erratically. It’s hard to make out much about them, but they seem withered and torn and gaunt. One gets close enough Rue can see that it’s missing an arm and most of its face.

Ferals.

She gets the worst –or possibly best– idea.

Rue stands, shuts the office door, kicks a chair in front of it, and whips out Baby Destiny. With a wide smile on her face, she presses down on the button with the heel of her new boot and strums a little ditty she can’t help but sing along to.

“Yippee yay

There’ll be no wedding bells for today

‘Cause I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle

As I go riding merrily along

And they sing, ‘Oh, ain’t you glad you’re single’

And that song ain’t so very far from wrong

Oh, Lillie Belle

Oh, Lillie Belle

Though I may have done some foolin’

This is why I never fail.”

The array flurries with movement and chaos, ferals wrenching themselves about and running wildly to find the source of the noise that seems to come from everywhere all at once. They’re like bloodhounds, tracking down the bounty hunters in moments, and it’s quite the sight to watch some flat-out run while others try to hold their ground, bright pops and distant gunshots adding to the storm. But they can’t do much against a horde of hungry ferals absolutely swarming.

Rue watches the carnage, singing all the while. She doesn’t stop until she hears pounding come from somewhere down the hall, and she moves like a whirlwind, packing Baby Destiny away, snatching up Eggshells, and kicking that chair out of the way –and then immediately having to hoof a feral in its raggedy guts as soon as she slings the door open. It goes stumbling back into three of its friends, and Rue tears off down the hall to where she saw that “Emergency Exit” sign.

Flinging that door open brings on a brand new, terrible, shrill shrieking sound that no doubt alerts everything within a mile radius of the shitshow. Likely drawing them in. Adding to the chaos.

Rue legs it, laughing up a storm.

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Following the road that runs alongside the mall eventually leads Rue back to the one she abandoned. She thinks anyway. The only indication she has that she’s going the right way is a road sign with a spray-painted, “Many Ways,” and an arrow pointing her onward. Or as onward as aching legs, burning lungs, and a desert-dry mouth can take her.

She has to stop. It’s reaching a nonnegotiable point, and the safety she finds is in a thin sliver of a rocky shelf she thoroughly investigates for little nasties before she shrugs off Baby Destiny, slides her into the slot, and then wiggles her way in after. She spreads out flat on the cool stone, belly and cheek to the cragginess of it. She breathes a long sigh, fishes for a canteen, and drains it. She has to, and she meant to conserve her apples, but she polishes them off, too. And then she takes her knife into hand, cuts free pieces of jerky for Eggshells to munch on when they come creeping in, and falls dead asleep.

When she wakes, Eggshells is pressed hard into her side, growling mad and talking about, “The psychotic bitch looked to be goin’ West, so we’re gonna keep goin’ West!” And then the groggy thing realizes that’s not Eggshells talking. There are at least two people passing her by –nope, no. Four. There’s a group of four striding so slowly by mere feet from her. She can see their middles, the golden daylight illuminating how strapped to the gills they are with guns, knives, and leather.

Rue squeezes the knife still in her hand tighter and hopes for dear life they can’t hear Eggshells. She’d shush the kitty, but maybe they hear that. She’s in too compromising of a position to risk it.

“I know that poster said unharmed, but I’m gonna blacken that bitch’s eye,” grumbles a particularly ornery voice. “Trina and Buck didn’t deserve that.”

Another voice makes a fart noise. “I know ya were buddy-buddy with ‘em, but she did us a favour, knockin’ out some of the competition. And I want that full bounty. You’re not gonna fuckin’ touch her. You’re a gentleman, or ya get.”

The grumbly voice grumbles lower, unintelligible.

“We oughta ask for two thousand,” a new, reedy voice chimes in. “Agency said she might be confused or kidnapped. Not fuckin’ batshit, runnin’ ‘round the desert in the night and singin’ Kay Kyser like she’s havin’ the time of her life.”

“That’s who that was?” queries such a soft voice. “I liked it. Her playin’ ain’t bad at all.”

“Shut the fuck up, Barker,” snaps the grumbly voice. “And whoever’s fuckin’ stomach that is, I’m sick of hearin’ it.”

“Huh?”

“Someone’s stomach grumblin’ like they haven’t eaten in decades.” A pause. “Shit, or maybe that’s a cazador?”

Fuck, Eggshells. Rue's arm curls around the kitty, placing her hand over their face in a useless attempt to muffle the growl. They nip at her, that growling becoming a short, pissy yowl.

The group of four had almost left Rue’s field of view, but now they’re paused at the edges of it. Rue tenses. She feels Eggshells tense, too. Ready to snap.

One of the bounty hunters bends at the waist. Rue only gets the briefest look at his face before Eggshells is hiss-spitting and tearing their way into the hunter’s flesh.

And fuck, does he scream, the sound of it alongside Eggshells’ demonic screeching the worst kind of racket. Rue scrambles after, calling out a, "Baby, no!" because what is her pretty kitty going to do against four folks with guns and knives? Maybe get one of them before a hail of bullets leaves her heartbroken. 

The gunshot does come, sharp and cracking and stilling the testy organ in her chest when a different kind of screech issues from Eggshells. Rue slides out of her slot just in time to see blood and fur running away from a shredded-faced man bleeding out on the ground.

Thought ceases. Panic surges, followed by murderous action when her eyes fix on a drawn gun. She pounces, aiming to maim the man who shot her cat. And then she'll let Eggshells eat his remains for dinner if she can find them. She better fucking find them. As she drives her knife down, she raggedly shouts, “Ya better hope they’re fine!”

Sharp, gleaming metal goes through a hand rising in self-defense, drawing shouts of pain and swears tenfold. Rue doesn’t get a chance to jerk it free. She’s jerked herself, arms wrapping around her middle to haul her back as she kicks and curses and ultimately throws her head back as hard as she can, skull connecting with what might be a nose. A satisfying crunch is her reward.

More shouts. The grip around her eases, and Rue slips free of the hold to launch herself at the man she took down, driving her elbow into his solar plexus. Breathless, gurgling, strained sounds wheeze from his throat. A gasping, croaking shout when she rips her blade free from his hand, but then she’s snagged again. The new grip is much stronger, much more mindful of her violent, desperate movements. Her captor squeezes the life out of her, making it hard to breathe. Making her head spin. She takes wild, haphazard knife swings, hitting nothing but air. 

Tighter and tighter the arms squeeze. A soft voice shushing, bidding her to, "Go to sleep, kay?"

"Don't," Rue wheezes, breath finding her barely and body weakening to the point she can't keep a grip on her blade. "I... I don't...wanna...."

Her knife slips from her fingers and Rue into the black creeping at the edges of her vision.

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Seventeen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: blood, skinning, and critter death. Mentions of chems.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Seventeen: Dusty Trail

Based on where the moon hangs, Rue would say it’s just shy of midnight, and she should have fed Eggshells several hours ago. But they’re getting fed now, and they purr so loudly as they violently chomp up the crushed eggs, brahmin jerky, and whatever else Rue had left to spare. She pets at the scruff of their neck idly, whispering how sweet they are. She hopes they forgive her for leaving and not being around for snacks.

The jingle-jangle of spurs has her looking up, watching with a smile as the Ghoul steps out onto the porch. He’s fully dressed, all his gear in place. That specter of death in tattered leather.

Time’s run out. She knew it would –knew this couldn’t last forever– but it was nice to pretend. To have a break from reality. But it always comes knocking, and Rue draws herself upright to embrace it, dusting her hands off on her skirt and giving a teasing, “You leavin’ me?”

His head dips slightly, and she can just see enough of his face to know his lips tick up a touch. “I’ll come back around.”

Rue sweeps up to him, hands running along his chest before her fingers grab hold of leather to pull him closer to her level. She coos a sing-songy, “You gonna miss me?”

The Ghoul’s eyes roll, and his only answer is the brush of his gently smiling lips against hers. “Try not to get shot again.”

Rue returns the feathery, sweet, quick kiss and pulls back to grin wide up at him. She fingerguns. “No promises.”

Chuckling and head shaking, the Ghoul turns from her, spurs jingling with each step off the porch. “Goofy as all shit….”

“Be safe and give ‘em hell,” she calls softly after him, earning only a raised hand as recognition that he heard.

The night swallows him up fast, that jingle-jangle of spurs becoming long, dark silence. Something in her chest burns at his departure, at the uncertainty of if she’ll ever get to see him again. Maybe… maybe she should have asked once more if she could be a bounty hunter with him? She’s always heard “third time’s the charm,” but… she doesn’t want to involve him in the shitstorm she’s setting into motion. Not anymore than she already has.

Rue reaches into her skirt pocket, taking her small knife into hand. She turns to the front door, and with a heavy hand, she carves out:

Hey you

I’ll look for you when it’s all over

♡

The knife drops into her pocket, and Rue drops off the porch, needing one last thing before she hits the old, dusty trail herself.

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Roddie Berk is a Mulholland’s regular –a late-nighter, too– and so, Rue isn’t the least bit worried about running into him when she breaks into his weapons shop. She doesn’t want to do it, but he won’t sell to her. In fact, when she tried in the past to buy a rifle and a skinning knife off him, he meanly laughed in her face and said, “Crazy, you ain’t got no business with either. Get on.”

It’s an easy task despite Rue not knowing how to pick a lock. She has a different set of skills that involves a hard, thin scrap of plastic, finagling, and determination. She forces the door open and lets herself inside, going straight away to the ammo cabinet and knowing where Roddie keeps the key. Or where he used to. She’d see him take or stow it when she visited the establishment with her Pa all those years ago, and she’s just hopeful that it’s still on top of the cabinet itself, pressed into a corner.

And it is! Which makes everything so easy for her. She opens the cabinet without a worry, plucks up three boxes of ammo, and starts to leave a handful of caps in the empty spot because she’s not a complete jackass. But then she thinks better of it, thinks about him laughing in her face, and she decides Roddie Berk doesn’t deserve her caps.

Rue tucks the caps and ammo away, locks up the display case, stows the key, and exits the same way she entered.

The walk home passes in an eyeblink, and she wastes no time in donning her gear –which is just her rifle, bag, Baby Destiny, and her slightly-scorched hat. But that’s all she needs.

She doesn’t halt or hesitate when she steps out her door for what she guarantees is the last time, and she doesn’t look over her shoulder as she marches into the dark. She knows what way West is, and that’s the way the Hub is. She’ll get better directions from someone or another along the way.

Rue walks for hours, through what’s left of the night and into the greying dawn. She doesn’t stop until the coolness of night melts away, and by then, she’s made it to a snaking trail that threads between a mesa and craggy rock formations. She finds herself a shallow cave in the narrow pass, climbs carefully over it, and with a few rocks tossed into the darkness of it, draws out the three geckos lounging within.

They’re easy-pickings, not knowing she’s got the high ground on them before it’s too late. And goddamn does it feel good to fire her rifle, to line up a shot just perfect and take it. The rifle kicks, the smell of gunpowder blooming with it. Heads burst into red clouds like they do in her memories. Bodies fall, twitching and dribbling crimson. Rue slides from her perch and tries to remember how to do the next part. It’s been forever since she’s sliced the meat off something that had just been living, but it comes to her.

The harvested bodies are tossed far away when she’s through with them, and the meat gets strung up with sewing thread from a spiny tree to dry while she snoozes. Then she goes into the cave, has herself a small meal of jerky and careful, conservative sips of water, and tucks herself away in a small corner –rifle in hand– to doze.

She stirs only once, and that is when a slight pressure touches on her chest and something warm fans against her face. Rue opens her eyes to find Eggshells sniffing away and pressing at her with big paws.

“Ooh.” Her lips curve with a drowsy smile, hands uncurling from the rifle to give the pretty kitty a good scritch-scratching under the chin. “You stickin’ with me?”

Eggshells only answer is to sit back all neat and tidy and blink slow. Rue takes that as a yes.

“Well, you keep watch,” she says, stifling a yawn as her eyes tick to the mouth of the cave. The way the sunlight falls tells her it’s at least past noon. “And I’ll carry ya later.”

She sleeps again, a little more deeply this time, and when her eyes part next, the slow setting of the sun has painted everything deep orange. Rue’s body is a mess of aches when she uncurls, but she puts that discomfort out of her head and eats the bread she brought along. Sips her water. Eggshells doesn’t want the heel of the bread, but they do take a chunk of the partially-dried gecko jerky when Rue unties it from the tree it was sunning on. She ties the rest about Baby Destiny so it can continue to dry.

They set off, making it out of the narrow passage by the time it is dim and dusky. Eggshells pads behind her by several feet most of the time, but at some point in the night, they start getting right on top of her feet. Rue reckons that means it’s time for her to carry, so she scoops the cat up and they go on their merry way.

She’s still carrying Eggshells when crooked, leaning shadows paint the night sky darker ahead. She has an idea of what they might be, and the idea is confirmed when they step into a charred, dead-quiet town of skeletal frame and heaps of ash. Ancho.

Rue aims to pass through quickly, knowing critters or scavengers could be haunting the ruins, but when she passes by a blackened storefront that looks like it might have been a weapons shop, she pops inside.

It’s half collapsed and smells heavy of gunpowder and soot; and most weapons she spies are melty and useless to her, but as she toes at the wreckage of what used to be a display case, she uncovers a pretty-pristine knife perfect for skinning. She plucks it up, decides that’s enough pressing her luck, and gets back on the road. Rue only stops once more, and that’s when she spies a leaky, water hand-pump towards the outskirts of town. She becomes a greedy, little, water glutton and drinks her fill before topping off her canteens. Then she pumps water for Eggshells to drink from the semi-steady stream until they are satisfied.

They walk on. On and on through the night until watery daylight breaks, but all there is, is sand. Sand, sand, and more sand without a lick of shade or scrub brush. So, Rue presses further, thankful for her hat as the sun climbs higher and that Eggshells isn’t too weighty. They finally come to an outcropping of rocks where bark scorpions shelter. They’re dealt with; Rue steals their shade, hunkering down to sleep. Sort of. She ends up napping on and off as she chases the shade around the formation.

When daylight slips, she walks and snacks on fruit carefully stripped from barrel cacti. Eggshells puts a dent in the jerky and menaces/devours whatever critters skitter across their path that Rue doesn’t know how to harvest (like scorpions and snakes). A canteen of water goes empty.

Another cycle of this. Another day spent dozing in shadows. Another night with only the moon, stars, and Eggshells to keep her company –and then some coyotes that scatter when Rue downs two and Eggshells rips the shit out of another. Which solves the matter of the bobcat’s dinner.

Rue should harvest what she can, but she’s not so desperate –yet– to eat something that reminds her so much of a dog.

Another day; another night, but this one is interrupted by a stinging sandstorm that has Rue scrambling for meager cover in an old gas station with busted-out windows that doesn’t do much in the way of protecting her. But there are four walls and a corner for her to huddle in with an age-old, oil-stained, plastic tarp thrown over her head. Eggshells sits in her lap, claws pricking her thighs.

The sand doesn’t settle for hours, taking away the rest of the night and most of the next day, and visibility is piss-poor when Rue sets out that afternoon. She almost doesn’t see the cazadors that come buzzing down from cliffs and crevices, but she hears them –sees darker masses of black shifting and fluttering. She takes the shot; Eggshells throws itself at another. They both hit, Rue striking dead center and Eggshells shredding wings. She hurries to help her kitty finish theirs off with a knife shoved into the insect’s middle as it flails around on the ground.

Rue then takes care to remove the stingers off the cazadors, having heard once in passing that the poison glands are worth something. She wraps them in her spare blouse and ties the bundle off around her bag.  

They move on, marching and marching until coming to a road sign that reads, “Poppy,” in broad, black strokes of paint and an arrow pointing Southwest where specks of yellow light shine dully in the dark alongside sloping and rising, rickety shadows.

Rue lingers at the sign, doing just a bit of thinking.

Down to one, half-full canteen, a pit stop is necessary. Vital. So are some actual directions. She can’t keep heading blindly West, or she’ll just end up at the ocean –which isn’t a bad thing. Seeing the ocean she’s only ever heard about is on her list of things she’s absolutely going to do even if it kills her, but Lara is in the Hub; and with the nature of things, Rue can’t afford to backtrack or get lost in the desert.

But what if people are already looking for her? Surely, someone’s noticed her missing by this point. Lucky could be scrambling to find her before Deck gets back to Dust, or maybe Deck’s already back to Dust and he’s scrambling to find her. Maybe he’s sent out word and hunters to find her –maybe he’s tracking her down himself. Deck could be in Poppy –it is one of his.

And while Rue wants to run into him, she doesn’t want it to be on his turf. Their showdown will be on neutral ground, lawless, because she’s going to do things to him that Satan would balk at.

Rue pulls in a deep breath, and then lets it out slow –lets all the thoughts flow out of her brain with it. Survival is what matters. Survival requires water and directions. Whatever’s in Poppy doesn’t matter as long as she gets her hands on those two things.

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Poppy is the biggest place Rue ever remembers being, likely double the size of Dust and a lot more patchworked together. The buildings in Dust are mostly original structures: stone, wood, and iron with some newer lean-to structures. Poppy has a bit of that buried underneath layers and layers of rusty-sharp scrap, old billboards, and even… bone in some places. It makes for something raggedy, cluttered, and not very aesthetically pleasing, but it works. It’s lived in, and it groans and creaks in the quiet of what’s left of the night.

Almost an hour of wandering the dirty, narrow streets leads Rue to an inn –the Buzzard’s Roost– and she lets herself in without hesitation. Well, there’s some hesitation when she realizes Eggshells is no longer on her heels. She has no idea when her pretty kitty might have abandoned her, but such is the nature of cats -especially wild ones. Rue can only hope they come back. 

She breezes through the bottom floor of the three-story building: a saloon-type area that reminds her greatly of Mulholland’s. There’s a sweeping bar lined with liquor, a bony, greying woman leaning heavy into it. The floor is scattered with tables, some empty and some hosting slumping figures. Rue even steps over a conked-out guy as she makes her way to the bar where she procures a room for the night from the apathetic keeper for the terrible price of one hundred caps.

Which leaves Rue with a whopping fifty-nine to her name.

But she has access to a bed and a stained bathtub where she scrubs off the layer of grime she acquired in her march across the desert. She washes her clothes and hangs them to dry on the wooden chair she jams under the doorknob to keep her room more secure (or she tells herself it does). With little care, and more exhausted than she thought she was, Rue tosses herself onto the creaky, slightly musty mattress and has herself a deep, undreaming sleep.

She wakes in the afternoon and sticks to a very quick pace. She dresses in her spares, scrubs at her teeth with a washrag, refills her canteens, and heads out into the busy streets of Poppy where she blends right in with the thick crowds of drifters, caravaners, and townies out doing their business.

While winding her way through, Rue learns how Poppy got the name Poppy. The golden blooms pop up here and there and everywhere all over town -making an interesting juxtaposition of colour and life against shades of derelict grey, brown, and rust- and most businesses are named around the flower. Like there's what is clearly a bar/chem-den boasting a sign inscribed with "Golden Hour" and painted with bunches of poppies. As well as a more upscale inn that proudly declares itself "The Poppy House" in intricate, golden lettering. 

The economy seems focused around poppies as well. Several hawkers try to sell her chems made from them, proclaiming them sleep-aids, hallucinogens, and euphoria in a bottle. One man places himself so boldly before Rue, telling her to pick her poison before he opens his ground-sweeping trenchcoat to her. Rue, braced to see a penis, finds herself laughing when all that is revealed are rows and rows of sewn-in pockets full of bottles, vials, inhalers, and syringes.

In turn, she whips out her cazador stingers, and the dealer delights at the sight of them, offering her one hundred caps and a bottle of his “euphorics” on the spot. Rue takes him up on it, glad to be rid of the extra weight and a few caps richer.

She promptly spends thirty of them at a small restaurant consisting of a patched-together roof that overhangs a weathered bar and kitchen where she watches the owner and operator throw her together a very late breakfast of a massive omelet (that looks to contain cheese, ham, peppers, and tomato), a cup of black coffee, and three of the sour, green apples the lady just had sitting around on the counter.

Rue inhales the meal (saving the apples for later), leaves a few extra caps on the bar because the omelet tasted so, damn good, and makes her way to the town square where she talks some directions out of a caravaner. She’s to take the West road out of town and travel two days to a rest stop set up in the overhangs of old overpasses where she’ll find hanging signs that’ll point her whichever way she needs to go. From there, most of the old road signs along the highways have been marked to let travelers know the way.

Her thanks are expressed with a bright smile and a few caps before she’s turning on her heel to get the hell out of Poppy.

But one thing stops Rue as she navigates her way out of the town square: a wide, wooden board scored with bullet holes and tacked-up wanted posters. All manners of mean mugs, smirks, and dead-eyed stares look back at her. Small-time thieves worth only a handful. Murderers with bounties in the hundreds. Raiders. Seducers. Fiends. Desperados. And… and one Lara Jiminez with a bounty of three-hundred-and-fifty caps. Whoever sketched her did her dirty, penciling in harsher edges, flat eyes, and not a lick of sweetness to her mouth. There’s not any information listed on what she did to deserve her bounty, only that it doesn’t matter if she’s brought back dead or alive.

Rue rips the wanted poster off the board, shoving it down deep into her skirt pocket as her chest bubbles with rage. She’s going to force feed it to Deck, along with cactus spines, bullets, hot coals, and cat shit.

She grumbles all sorts of obscenities and horrors under her breath as she stalks away, pulling short one last time when her eyes catch on a poster that is new, edges unbent and paper unsullied. That bears her name and quite the flattering rendition of her smile.

MISSING: RUE VASILIEV

ALIVE AND UNHARMED – 1,500 CAPS

ANY INFORMATION – 75 CAPS

Rue rips that one down, too, a deranged laugh tumbling from her mouth. "Ooh, boy, you've just made a mess."

Because Deck Craven really has.

A reward like that is enough to capture the interest of all the bounty hunters haunting the area -enough to have them warring amongst themselves to get their hands on her. It will be blood and chaos and danger. Which she can use to her advantage, but it still isn't the least bit ideal. It means high-tailing, sleepless nights, and paranoia. 

A reward like that is enough to have bystanders keeping eyes out for a stranger with a sweet smile and dark, curling hair just so they can make a quick cap off of selling her out. Rue will have a constant trail, a tail. It won't take long for anyone -bounty hunter, cap-hungry prick, or Deck- to find her.

Anyone can profit off her, and they don't even have to dirty their hands with the act of freeing her head from her body.

The poster joins Lara’s, and Rue keeps a tight, shaking fist on her composure as she walks determinedly out of the town square –out of Poppy. Her eyes steadily pick around. Her ears strain. Her fingers itch for her rifle.

The relative peace of Rue’s journey is over, and she’s likely to turn that missing poster into a wanted one with everything she’s willing to do to have her way. To finish what Deck Craven started.

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Sixteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: the usual swearing and MORE sweetness because I needed to. A little plot.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Sixteen: Favourite Meal

Lethargic and fuzzy, Rue feels like she’s half made of cotton when she wakes. Her head is swimming, body far-off and warm with the growing realization that there's a spring trying to burrow into her hip. And something heavy is draped across her waist. Something sound at her back, breathing rhythmic and slow.

Rue’s heart jumps, body turning fast, and her eyes go wide around as a full moon when she finds the Ghoul is still there. It’s daylight, and he’s still here! In her bed. His arm around her waist. Snoozing away, all cute and handsome and here.

A high-pitched squeal of glee that doesn’t quite leave her throat sounds from Rue. Then come the giddy, little giggles she smothers with a hand hastily slapped over her mouth. She tells herself to calm down. She’ll ruin everything. If he wakes up, he’ll likely just shrug on all his gear and hit the road never really having intended to stay the night in the first place. It was only because she drained him dry of everything.

Rue giggles again, eyes ticking over the Ghoul’s chest and collar. The column of his throat. His jaw. Ooh, she can peer into his nasal cavity, too. And it’s just fleshy and weird in there. A dumb temptation to stick her fingers in briefly seizes her, but she stomps that down as her eyes pick up.

She finds his eyes half-lidded and a drowsy curve to his mouth. Sleepy and gruff, he asks, “Fuck are you gigglin’ about?”

“Nothin’,” Rue says, quieting giggles and wiggling her way closer to him. Her head goes to his chest, and he almost knocks her out with sweetness when that arm draped over her waist curls, squeezing tighter. “I’m just happy.” She presses her lips to his heart. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be quiet and real still. Swear.”

“Ya can’t be still,” he yawns, chest expanding and body relaxing as he exhales. “If you’re not movin’, you’re talkin’, and if you’re not yappin’, you’re wigglin’.”

“Nuh-uh.” Rue reminds him, “I made it three m-. No, no. I was talkin’ that whole time. Hm….” She shrugs helplessly in his arms. “I just got a lotta energy.”

The Ghoul laughs, the sound sleep-rough and delicious. “Don’t I know it. You about killed me....” He sighs. “Let’s see how long ya make it.”

Not long, but she does try. She tries to steady her breathing, slow it down. She tries to keep her body still. But her toes wiggle. Or her fingers tip-tap on the lovely chest she cuddles into. Then she hurriedly makes herself stop because he’s still trying to sleep –she thinks. She doesn’t know if he wanted more sleep or if he’s just watching her.

She looks up at him. He looks down at her, a browless brow cocking.

“Can I make ya breakfast?”

His response is an amused, “Do whatcha want,” as his arm retracts and he turns.

Rue rights herself, leans over to kiss his cheek, and pulls herself out of bed to go freshen up and grab a dose of RadAway from the mirror cabinet for later.

She doesn't do much in the way of dressing after, simply shrugging on boxers and an undershirt because every time she’s tried to cook bacon in the buff, grease has popped her tits. And she’s cooking bacon. She has a special guest, and she’s… she looks in her fridge and kitchenette. Well, she wanted to make something fancy, but she has less than she thought. A few slices of bacon. She has five eggs, and she has to use some of them for Eggshells. Half a loaf of bread. Cheese. Ooh. Enough milk for her coffee! And she has enough of that for him to have some if he likes coffee.

She can make him a bacon, egg, and cheese on toast. That’s plenty fancy.

Rue sets to her most important task, getting the bacon crispy but not too crispy. Reminding herself to hush whenever she finds herself humming. Biting back a swear when grease pops her on the arm. But she must disturb him despite her trying so hard not to, as she sees him slipping into the bathroom from the corner of her eye. When he slips out, he doesn’t return to the bed. No, Rue feels him come up behind her, and she could swoon when his arms encircle her. When his chin comes to rest on her shoulder.

She giggles instead, smiling so much her face hurts. She asks him how he likes his eggs fried.

“Little runny,” he answers, brushing back her curls to place his lips to her neck for a slow kiss. Warm. Teeth grazing the barest amount.

Rue goes weak in the knees, her concentration to hell. She tries to turn around and kiss him, but he holds her in place with a teasing laugh and tells her to, “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”

Impossible. How can she concentrate on something as boring as frying eggs when he’s loving on her shoulders and neck? When his warmth wants to draw her in, devour her? When his arms around her tighten? When those talented hands slip beneath the hem of her shirt, fingers trailing against her skin? When one slips beneath the band of her boxers to smooth over her hips? 

The eggs are done. They have to be. Rue’s going out of her mind, trembling. Making small, pitiful noises. Shaky hands turn off the burner, leaving the rest of breakfast for later. She turns into the Ghoul, and he lets her this time. Lets her wrap him up in her arms and kiss him where she can until his mouth meets hers.

“Forget breakfast,” she pants against his mouth, fluttery hands briefly travelling to her boxers to push them over her hips. They fall to the floor, and she shimmies her undershirt off quick as she can. “I just want you.”

And he just manages to catch her when she jumps up to lock her legs around his waist. He grunts, laughing at her as his arms find new purchase. As his fingers press into the softness of her, making her eyes spin. “Always starvin’ for me….”

“Think I told ya ‘fore you’re my favourite meal,” and Rue follows up the fact with a roll of her hips and hungry frenching. “Nothin’ else tastes as good.” Another roll of her hips, foiled by the trousers she doesn’t know why he bothered to put on when he was going to rile her up. “Sugar. Sweetheart. Darlin’. Why ya got those on?”

The Ghoul groans softly into her mouth, the sound pooling between her legs with a melty sharpness. “Hold on, hold on.” He fiddles with his trousers, pulling them down so that his girth presses, rubs, and teases. “That better?”

It’s better and worse, but she nods, wrapping ever tighter around him as she moves against his length. “Yessir.”

She kisses up his neck, drowning in his swears and the feel of him. Barely aware he’s turned and walked them to the kitchen table where he tries to set her down. Tries, being the keyword. She doesn’t want to loosen her hold on him. She refuses to.

“Ya gotta let go, pumpkin,” he insists, breathy chuckles fanning against her as his lips press to her hair. “I got somethin’ in mind you gotta be set down for.”

Reluctantly, and with all the smooches and touches she can squeeze in, Rue untangles herself and allows him to put her down. She sits as still as she can manage as he pulls back, looking up at him wide-eyed and smiling when he drops his hat on her head.

The Ghoul winks, and Rue’s soul ascends. “Hold onto that for a second for me.”

“I feel so special,” her voice is hushed, disbelieving, as her fingers trace the brim of the hat before trailing down the ruination of his chest. She shoots him a beseeching look. “Can I have one more kiss?”

“Hard to say no when you got them big, ol’ eyes on me.” His head dips, lips meeting hers again. Kissing long and slow. Lingering and… everything. It feels like everything.

But their lips part, only for his to trail down her throat. Down her chest and stomach, pressing kisses here and there –knuckles dragging– before he goes to his knees. Rue’s breath hitches, goes shallow and out of her when his masterful hands grip firm the plushness of her thighs. Squeezing. Kissing. He pulls her closer to him, to where she can feel his breath hot on the sensitivity between her legs.

The press of his tongue is purposeful, a leisurely drag as his eyes lock with hers. All heat and devilishness.

Something breaks in Rue’s brain, a spring popping loose. Confetti bursting from the back of her head. And though she tries so hard to hold his gaze, her head falls back and a stream of swears pass through her lips in a rush. Her chest flutters with rapid breath, legs tensing. Every muscle tensing. It’s hot. Wet. Slick and pressured. Rue’s hands curl around the table’s edge, nails biting into the old wood. For just a moment, she wonders if the wobbly thing can support this kind of activity, but the thought is shattered and scattered with another slow, overwhelmingly luscious drag of his tongue.

Rue has no idea what she says, but she feels his dark chuckle. It soaks into her skin, into the pit of her. Goosebumps prick their way across her skin, and her cunt drips.

“You been wantin’ this, huh?” he asks, fingers coming into play.

Rue sees all the colours of a fabled rainbow when he presses her buttons, when his tongue slips in and sweeps. Laps. Gently fucks.

“Ya did... -yes. Ya did this… this sly, lil’ smile.” Rue can’t concentrate for the life of her, all her thoughts are swimming. “Sweet, ya d-do that better than I dreamed….” A thought comes drifting back by; she seizes it. “But the smile. W-When ya cut that man’s… man’s head off at my feet -mmmm- and told me to clean it up, ya had this d-devil’s quirk to it. And all… all I wanted was to see that… see it… see… sweet fuck. Fuckin’ see it from between my legs, f-feel it on my thighs.”

He laughs against her thigh, nipping. “That’s how I got you?”

Rue nods in earnest, smile blissed-out and soft. Eyes barely parted. “Y-You have the… the prettiest smile. The prettiest eyes. …I’m a sap for ‘em. And the way your voice sounds. The first time I gotcha to tell me a story –and it was ‘bout horses of all things– I had to go splash my face with water to calm the fuck down.”

Another rumbling chuckle against her thigh, a kiss and a honey-eyed look that drips slow and hot through her veins. Rue gives an undignified squeak when he pushes two fingers into her and flicks his tongue across her clit. He pulls away just barely to tell her, “Ya aggravated me for the longest.”

Rue snorts. “I figured that.”

“You still do.”

“I figured that.”

“But ya got to the point where I found ya just a little endearin’.” Another flick of the tongue. A drag and press. Rue’s spinning mind barely catches his sly admission, “And maybe half the reason I came into Mulholland’s wasn’t just ‘cause it’s the only decent waterin’ hole for miles but that I knew you’d be there, grinnin’ goofy at me.”

Oh, that’s pure romance to Rue. It makes her chest all warm and sticky –as well as her immensely smug. “I knew ya liked me.”

“A little.”

And he won’t let her say more, tease or rub it in. His tongue steals her breath and voice with the way it works, with the way his voice coaxes her closer. What a good girl she is. How sweet the taste of her. He’s gonna fuck her jelly-legged as soon as she gives him what he’s after.

Drunk, Rue slurs out a, “B-But I gotta take care of ya.”

“Ya did that all last night, sweetheart. It’s my turn.” And the way he grins as he says it, the feel of the curve to his lips against her clit as he kisses. Sucks. Drags.

Rue, so shaky, goes to her elbows, body wound tight before snapping. A rush goes through her that starts in her fuzzy head and whirls around in her stomach before dripping out her toes. She can’t see anything but sparks for a moment. She can feel them, like they’re on her skin and in her veins. Between her legs as the Ghoul continues to torture her in the most beautiful way before he’s kissing at her thighs –up them. Then he’s at her mouth, stealing away what little breath she’s managed to hold onto.

“You’re magic,” she mumbles against his lips, the taste of herself on her tongue. It works her up all over again, so do the arms that wrap around her middle, drawing her near. To where she can feel his hardened cock between slick, tingling thighs. Teasing her entrance and sending shivers.

“You got a bit of that yourself.”

He pushes in, in increments. Unhurried but steady, devouring every panting, desperate, mewling sound that she makes. His strokes are just as lazy, dragging slow. Bottoming out in the pit of her with such exquisite, breath-stealing friction. She clings tight to his ragged, tough frame, gasping and sense all over the place. She doesn’t know that she has words for how good that feels. Just whimpers and breathlessness as her nails bite into his shoulder blades.

A hand slips up between them, tipping her chin up with a smug chuckle. His thumb presses at her lower lip, dragging. He kisses her deep as he reclaims his hat and guides her onto her back, fucking steadily all the while. Rue follows his direction, lying flat and trying to keep him close even as he tries to pull back.

“I’ll tie those hands, darlin’,” the threat is teasing, mild. Spoken breathy and fond. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“I just like the way ya feel so much.” She sounds so desperate to her own ears it’s pathetic. But she releases him, allowing him to make the moves he desires.

She is immediately rewarded, relishing in the way he palms and grasps her thighs. He grips them tight, dragging her forward and earning himself a sharp cry of pure pleasure. He hefts her legs, hooking them over his shoulders. Shifting. Sinking. Touching something new.

Rue ceases to exist for a few seconds, whatever scrap of awareness left in her head breathing out a dazed, syrupy, “Oh my god.”

“Ya like that?” the Ghoul asks, smile wolfish and knowing. His hips grinding.

It takes Rue forever to get out nearly sobbed, “Sweet, I really, really do.” And she really should just call him Lightning with the way his strokes strike so deep within her, so sharp and electric and too much. But she likes the sparks of pain, the way they morph into unadulterated heat and pleasure. She can’t find words anymore. She doesn’t know what to do with herself other than try to hold his gaze half-lidded as he brings her to shouts and senseless pleas.

“I could listen to ya cry for me all day,” the Ghoul professes roughly, wrecked mouth dragging against the inside of her thigh as his fingers dig in where they grip tight. He presses kisses. Nibbles. Lavishes. “All night. ‘Til you’ve gone hoarse and your legs don’t work. I wantcha to feel me even when I’m not bottomed-out in you.”

That winds Rue up tight, cunt squeezing and drawing even more filth out of his mouth. She loves every word. Every thrust that robs her of breath and thought. All those kisses and bites that’ll bruise up her thighs. The unwavering heat and focus in his whiskey eyes, searing into her. Beholding. Worshipping.

The second orgasm hits shaky and loud, gripping every muscle in her body. Tight. Tensing. Undone. An exhaustive release washes through her in waves, drawing the sweetest, roughest of moans from her cowboy. So many swears and desperate, grasping squeezes. His rutting goes sloppy. His grip on her slips, and her legs come down from his shoulders as he bends over her, kissing her. Filling her with electric warmth with languid, lingering thrusts.

The Ghoul’s mouth drags down her face as he tries to prop himself back up, but he can’t quite swing it. His mouth ends up to her right breast, breath tickling at her skin when he pants out a ragged, “Ya gotta warn me, Rue. You take everything outta me when ya do that.”

“Mmmmmm.” Rue barely hears him. She’s liquid, bubbles and fuzz, head lolling to the side as her legs try and fail to squeeze around the magnificent creature between them. She can’t use the damn things right now. But her arms still work, and her fingers find the back of his neck, scratching and rubbing before trailing on his upper spine.

The Ghoul shivers. He buries his face into her breasts, muffling whatever he says.

Rue hums curiously, satisfied to her core. “Pardon?”

“Nothin’,” the Ghoul insists, dragging himself back up. Pulling himself from her. His grin is lazy, tugging at the left corner of his mouth as mellow, whiskey eyes tick all over her -between the thighs he idly rubs. “Need a picture of that….”

Rue likes the idea of sexy photos. She waggles her brows. “I’ll start lookin’ for us an old camera.”

He laughs. “Gotta love how ya take what I say and run with it.”

Smiling, she extends a hand to him, wiggling her fingers until he takes it and pulls her upright. She thumps against his chest and rests there all snug for a minute, basking in his presence. The glow.

“How do ya take your coffee?” she asks, shivering as he continues to pet away at whatever bit of her looks most appealing.

“Black.” The Ghoul’s fingers trail up and down her spine. “But how about you tell me how ya take yours and I’ll take over.” He pulls away, reaching towards the kitchenette and coming back with the RadAway she’d left sitting on the counter. “And we’ll get you taken care of.”

“Black most of the time.” She kisses his collar, deciding she won’t fight him on that. “But I got milk and sugar this mornin’. So, two big spoonfuls of sugar and three Mississippi’s worth of a milk pour.”

“Easy.” And he ends up carrying her jelly-legged self to the couch, fetching a towel for them both, and then being so goddamn, syrupy-golden sweet to her by finding a good vein in her arm for the I.V. drip and hanging up the RadAway from a nail stuck in the wall above the couch for just this purpose.

The afternoon is all honey from there. They eat breakfast together on the couch, her legs over his lap and RadAway drip-dripping into her veins. He tells her about the last bounty he was after: a brahmin thief with a pension for murdering ranch hands that caught him in the act. They played hide-and-seek for a few days amongst box canyons, and when the Ghoul finally cornered him, a deathclaw snatched the mark up and made a meal out of him. The most he could take back to the agency was a helluva story, but they took his word for it. Gave him a little bit of a payout.

Which somehow leads to him asking, “What happened up the hill? Been meaning to ask you about it since last night, but….” A hand drags up her legs slow. “Kept gettin’ distracted.”

Rue waggles her brows. “I had a lotta love I needed to give.”

The Ghoul’s mouth upticks into the handsomest of half-grins, but he reminds her of the question with a prompting, “Fire?”

She nods, biting back her desire to brag that it was her doing. “Yeah. Night ‘fore last.”

“They know who did it? Or was it an accident?”

Around a sip of her perfectly-prepared coffee she says, “Don’t think they’ve figured it out yet.”

They would have come knocking by this point if they thought she did it. Or maybe they’re waiting for Deck to get back to deal with her? She doesn’t think that’s the case, though –she doesn’t think there’s anything left to tie her to it. Some framework and metal bits are all that stand on that hill, and as far as she knows, everyone thinks she was lain up in a sickbed.

“I’d wager on Nightstalkers, but they’d have burned the whole town.”

Rue doesn’t want them taking the credit for her handiwork, but since she can’t quite lay claim to it yet…. She needs a change in topic. “It puttin’ you out not bein’ up there?”

The hand not loving on her rocks back and forth. “Just means I’ll have to use one of the other offices for a while.”

Rue perks. “Which is closest?”

“Yucca. It’s about a day and a half’s walk North from here.”

“Ooh, so there’s Dust, Ancho, and Yucca?”

“And Poppy and Derecho.”

“They all like Dust?”

“Dust is sleepy and quaint compared to the rest,” he answers, one hand smoothing up her thigh while the other pops his last bite of breakfast-for-dinner in his mouth. “But they’re all run the same. Sheriff’s got a big, ol’ house full of boys playin’ with guns that watch things while he’s away. They all pay out for the bounties he’s issued.”

“Have you….” Rue pauses for a moment. She doesn’t actually want to touch on anything more serious, but she wants to know. She needs to. “Have you seen a bounty out on a Lara?”

His thumb rubs circles on her right thigh as his head falls back on the couch, and he’s thoughtful and quiet until he gives an uncertain, “Maybe on the board back in Poppy?” Then his head turns her way, eyes curiously fixing on her face. “Friend of yours?”

Rue dips her head slightly, eyes turning to look at the RadAway drip. It’s about out. She sets her coffee cup aside and goes for a bandage, but the Ghoul beats her to it, taking care of her again.

He asks, “What did she do?” as he removes the I.V. and quickly bandages.

“Nothin’. Deck’s just… insane.”

There’s not much to his face when he says, “For you to be his sweet, little bird, ya sure don’t seem to like him much.”

A darling smile takes Rue’s face, covering up the sourness she feels at the pet name. Cutesy and matter-of-fact, she informs, “I’m no one’s sweet, lil’ anything –unless I’m your sweet, lil’ maniac.”

Soft and amused, the Ghoul hums. “Is that right?”

“I ain’t proved that to you yet?” she poses in turn, hand lifting to brush a thumb along his pitted, scarred cheekbone.

His chuckle resonates through Rue, all rumbly like thunder; and he’s smooth about sliding onto the couch next to her, taking her straight away into his arms to kiss slow and dreamy. “I think I need a bit more convincin’.”

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Fifteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: the usual swearing, descriptions of injuries, drinking, and sweetness -which is to say, Rue loves on the Ghoul the way she's been wanting to.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Fifteen: Come Alive

Rue stopped thinking when she remembered Artie –everything. She’s rotten at it, and it never does anything but dig her into deeper pits. She’s operating purely by feel, leaning heavily into spur of the moment inclinations more so than she usually does. And so, she didn’t even think about the fact that any of the injured, burning boys from Deck’s house would end up in her sick room. It didn’t cross her mind that pretty much all of Dust would wake up and start swarming like ants, trying to put out the fire. Trying to help. Trying to figure out what happened.

Those in the house don’t currently have any answers. They aren’t in the state where crisp, clear thinking is possible.

Most were out drinking, but Lucky, Yannis, Guzman, Myers, and some nameless man were snoozing away when disaster struck. Lucky is soot-stained, minorly burned, and quietly staring into nothing. Guzman –who always looks sunburned– is just a bit toastier than normal, but he’s coughing like his throat’s been scorched. Yannis is extra crispy, body more burn than whole flesh. Myers is dead, and Rue doesn’t know if they brought him down here dead or if he passed while they were carting him and they didn’t notice. But he’s definitely dead, glassy-eyed and cooling –from smoke inhalation, maybe? Physically, he’s in pretty okay shape –a little sooty and red here and there– so, it has to be something on the inside. But that’s beyond Rue. So is the nameless man’s condition. His left leg is flattened, dangly, and weird; and Guzman just barely manages to cough out, “Beam fell on him,” to let Doc Nguyen know why.

The good doctor is grim for the beat of the heart, but then slips into the straight-faced professionalism she’s known for. She orders everyone –exempting Rue and those injured– out of the room and instructs Rue to tend to Lucky and Guzman while she works on Yannis and No-Name.

Rue does what she can, taking in the destruction she wrought up close. She wipes the soot off an exhausted Lucky, rubbing aloe on minor burns, and does the same for Guzman. She gives them both water to drink, and then watches a Stimpak do the best it can to heal Yannis’ charred form, leaving him tight and shiny with burn scars but still bloody and raw in some places. She helps Nguyen move Myers’ dead body so No-Name can stretch out on the sickbed, and for a moment, she holds No-Name’s hand while Doc Nguyen puts him under. The leg must go.

Doc Nguyen pulls a privacy curtain closed, and Rue helps Lucky and Guzman from the room once the sawing and squelching, squishing sounds become too much for the two men to handle. She gets them settled in the front room, into saggy chairs with their feet kicked up. And they talk to Rue with bowed heads and shaky timbers, telling her they awoke to swirling red and heat. They have no idea what happened, and the last look Lucky took over his shoulder just showed a bonfire blazing on the hill. He doesn’t think there will be much left.

He’s right. When morning comes and Rue picks her way to her home, she sees blackened, skeletal remains smoking on the hill. One wouldn’t know a house used to stand there unless they were aware of its previous existence.

Rue breathes easier without it there, towering over her, and she goes about the mundane with a pep to her step. She does laundry for what is likely the last time. She feeds Eggshells, delighting in the fact that the bobcat lets her give it a few chin scratches that have it purring like a chainsaw. And after accidentally leaving the door wide open in all her back and forth with chores, she comes in at one point to find the bobcat perched all pretty on her kitchenette. It feels like a victory, but Rue mindfully doesn’t act like it’s a big deal. She lets Eggshells be.

She cleans her rifle, checking it over to see if it’s still in operating order, and it is –it even has a bullet in the chamber. She needs a helluva lot more than that, though…. She tunes Baby Destiny, playing a snippet of Some Enchanted Evening for Eggshells before stowing the instrument and packing the guitar case with a few clothing items. She empties out her over-the-shoulder bag of any useless junk and leaves it empty. It’ll be strictly for water, food items, and bullets.

When afternoon comes crawling in, Rue pauses in her work to allow Mrs. Ira Jean and Mrs. Rosa into her home for a dinner of tamales so delicious and flavourful –spicy– she nearly sheds tears. She keeps topics light, changing them when she has to, and does her best to keep both women laughing to keep them from questioning and worrying. And they both really are worried. Mrs. Ira Jean insists Rue come to her ranch, and Mrs. Rosa even chimes in, trying to tempt Rue with the promise of her cooking –breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day (and fuck, is it tempting).

Rue’s mind is made up, though. She can’t be swayed, she can't stay, and her answer is a, “Maybe soon,” that makes no promises. Then she pulls out a bottle of gin to distract them.

It works. The rest of the visit is all of stories and laughter, not another word of worry. When the two lovely ladies leave for the night, they do so with hugs and firm but kindly reminder from Mrs. Ira Jean that, “You’re welcome with us. Ya always will be. I’ll come runnin’ when you’re ready.”

And Rue, more than just a little bit tipsy, can’t help but say, “I love you lots, Mrs. Ira Jean.”

The rancher smiles as she kisses Rue on the hair. “I love you, too, honey.” She squeezes Rue’s shoulder before pulling away to step off the porch and take her wife’s hand. “You be good and careful.”

Rue promises she will (though, it feels like a bit of a lie) and bids them goodnight and safe travels, watching as they hit the road.

If she wasn’t more than a little drunk, Rue might snatch up her bag and hit the road, too.

But she really is, and she doesn’t plan on sobering up. No, she plans to finish the bottle and eat leftover tamales at dawn, and then she’s going to sleep until… midafternoon, probably. Then she’s taking what’s likely to be her last good bath for a while, and then she’ll hit the road.  

So, Rue drinks. She spins around her home, bottle in hand and the radio playing too loud. She sings along with it, dancing when a song is meant for dancing. Disassociating when the music gets a bit too sentimental. At one point, Eggshells wanders back in (and she is leaving the door open for this express purpose now) and hops up on the kitchenette, watching Rue with yellow eyes of searing, heavy disapproval. But Rue doesn’t care. The Wanderer plays on the radio, driving her mood back up. She risks her physical wellbeing by shimmying up to the pretty kitty and scooping it up in one fell swoop.

And Eggshells is so fucking fluffy. So soft. And despite the hateful look it gives her, it purrs up a storm in her arms. Lets her give it a little kiss on its perfect, little head as she turns gently.

In the midst of that turn, as Rue briefly faces the front door, she notices that it had opened wider. Wide enough for death’s specter to post up, back pressing into the doorframe as he regards her in what is clear amusement. His ruined lips quirk with it, and goddamn, does Rue want to kiss death on the mouth.

“I always find you doin’ the dumbest shit.”

“I’m havin’ myself a good time,” Rue tells the Ghoul, matter-of-fact. “You’re just jealous it’s not you in my arms.”

He snorts, eyes rolling hard, and Rue finishes her spin, placing Eggshells neatly back onto the kitchenette before spinning her way towards the Ghoul. The music shifts, becoming Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of Blue Moon. She offers him a hand that he just stares at.

“Are you drunk?”

That offered hand turns into a fingergun. “Only a lil’.” And then it becomes a hand of beckoning. “Don’t break my heart, sugar.”

His eyes roll again. “How ‘bout I break that hand.”

Rue sweeps a little closer, holding out both. She looks up at him with a small, hopeful smile. “Just one dance? I won’t bother ya again.”

The Ghoul’s dark gaze ticks away, mouth pursing. He grumbles out, “You ain’t botherin’ me. I just… I don’t really do that anymore. Not in years.”

A soft sigh leaves Rue’s lips, and her hopeful hands curl inwards. They cross over her chest as she holds herself and whirls away. “I bet ya were smooth as silk on your feet…. I used to have a guy that’d spin me ‘round in the dark. He didn’t have the fanciest of footwork, but it was sweet he tried, y’know? That’s all that really mattered….” Her heart gives a sad, guilty twist. “I didn’t do right by the poor boy. I loved him, but I didn’t love him. I feel like I led him on in a way, dancin’ with him in the dark.”

Among other things….

Rue turns again, shooting the bounty hunter a sleepy smile. Dream softens everything around the edges, and she sighs. Rue loves their dynamic. She does. She doesn’t mind it’s all moonlight visits with ghosts of fondness –it’s fun; it’s what she wanted since she first saw him– but she’s hooked on something different now. On starlit nights where they just talk. On hearing him breathing –deep and even– from close by.

But she supposes they’ll just have to be what they are. Her something carnal –a good time– and he’ll just keep being the moons and stars that make her come alive. …Is that what she was to Bram? Are their rolls reversed now?

Rue sighs a third time. “Ya ever love someone who didn’t love ya back?”

“Lovin’ ain’t somethin’ I much fool with anymore.” But he pushes off the doorframe, catching her in the middle of a spin. She thumps against his chest, heart pounding away at her ribcage when one hand presses at the small of her back and the other captures one of her own. “You’re sentimental when you’re drunk.”

Rue grins wide. “Ain’t everyone? But I ain’t drunk-drunk. Just a lil’ tipsy. Perfectly in my right mind.”

“Nothin’ ‘bout your mind is right, honey.”

Rue makes a, “tsk,” sound but smiles brighter. “I saw that one comin’ the second that came out my mouth.”

He chuckles softly, finishing the turn with her and guiding her through small, gentle movements. “You always give me a good set up.”

The sound, the motion, makes Rue giddy and dizzy. “I like it when ya laugh,” comes dumbly from her lips.

“It’s hard not to laugh when you’re goofy as all shit.”

“I think that’s one of my most desirable traits,” Rue says factually. “Right behind my perky tits and winnin’ smile.”

The Ghoul gives a snorting, “Fuck’s sake, Rue,” as they glide into a moonbeam cutting across the floor. She only grins up at him, letting him get another look at that winning smile. And for a heartbeat, he’s got a handsome half-smile pinned on her.

But it drops off his face in the blink of an eye, replaced by a narrow-eyed intensity as he comes to an abrupt stop. As the hand that holds hers pulls away to brush lightly at the right side of her head. “What the fuck happened?”

“Oh, I got shot.” She’s nonchalant about it, shrugging her shoulders and trying to take his hand back, but he’s got her by the jaw now, turning her face so he can get a better look. “Sweet, it’s nothin’ that don’t happen to everyone out here. It was just my turn is all.”

His grip tightens, both the one on her jaw and the one at her back, fingers pressing into her spine. Which is actually kind of nice….

“Who the fuck shot you?”

Rue’s drifting mind comes back, finding his gaze sharper, darker. His jaw works. “Bounty hunter named Geraldine.”

He clicks his tongue, and there’s a grave simplicity to his query of, “She skip town or is she in lock-up?”

“Oh, she’s dead,” Rue comes out with it plainly. “I bashed her face in so good I knocked her nose bone into her brain.” And she lifts her hands to show him the remnants of her mental break. “Look. I split almost all my knuckles, and I dislocated three fingers. Ooh, and look.” She pulls down the collar of her blouse, letting him get a peek at the scar on her shoulder. “That one went through and through.”

The hand at her jaw slips away, ghosting against the scar. “Shit, that’s right by an artery.”

“That’s what Doc Nguyen said –the uh… the subclavian? Yeah, yeah. That sounds right.”

The Ghoul doesn’t say anything to that, his gaze just goes darker and darker. Burning and burning. His fingers slip more to the center of her neckline, pulling down the collar before he ultimately rips her blouse off to get a look at the bruising on her chest from where Geraldine hoofed her square between the tits. They’re yellowish, fading slow. Not the prettiest thing to look at.

Rue tries to joke, “Sweet, all ya had to do was ask, and I’d gladly take it off for ya.”

“Don’t be cute with me right now,” the Ghoul snaps. Rue has to swallow down her giggles and the shivers that try to rattle up and down her spine at such a… commanding tone. Such a scorching gaze….

But Rue goes quiet. She’s not cute at all. She just stands there in the moonlight, letting him inspect and swear and feeling just a little special that he’s bent out of shape. That he… that he cares.

“It’s really not that bad,” she tells him, unable to repress the shiver that goes through her when the smooth leather covering his thumb drags over the bruising on her left breast. She’s doubly sensitive –due to her nature and how tender the flesh is. “Honey, ya just told me I couldn’t be cute, and then you’re gonna go touchin’ like that? It ain’t fair.”

The Ghoul exhales sharply, hand pulling away and curling inwards into a fist that ultimately drops to his side. Rue debates on whether or not she should try to take it again. The mood feels pretty dead, and the radio’s gone to soft static.

“You ain’t hurt anywhere else?” he asks, still tight-jawed but his eyes aren’t half as stormy.

“My ass is a lil’ sore.”

He almost snorts, but he smothers it quick, shaking his head as he asks, “What happened?”

Rue gives him the shortened, easy version. She failed to avoid Geraldine in all her running around the saloon, and the bounty hunter took great offense. Rue’s brain took great offense to being pushed down and having a gun drawn on her, and… tackling, gunfire, and face bashing ensued. Followed quickly by a panicked Hal running Rue to Doc Nguyen.

He’s quiet with the knowledge for a moment before he says, a bit baffled and a bit amused, “It’s hard to imagine lil’, ol’ you doin’ any of that.”

“I keep tryin’ to tell ya I’m tough, but you just think I’m dumb and soft and spoiled.”

“’Cause you are.” And he flicks her on the nose. “It sounds like ya just got lucky.”

Rue almost flicks him right back but quickly remembers the absence on his face. She could poke him in there, but what if she poked his brain? …If she angled her head just right, could she see his brain?

“You got somethin’ weird goin’ on in there,” the Ghoul interrupts the line of thought, finger tapping on the left side of her head as he eyes her narrowly. “I can tell.”

“Nah.” Rue rubs her nose. “I’m just thinkin’ you oughta take me more seriously, considerin’ I can kill people with my bare hands.”

“It’s hard to take ya seriously when you don’t take nothin’ seriously,” he says it factually, the hands that fell away slowly coming back. One runs along the swell of her breasts while the other presses into the softness of her left side. “I can be threatenin’ ya physically, and all ya do is bat your eyes up at me and smile like I just told ya you’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen since the world ended.”

Rue’s mind whirlwinds, body shaking in response to such small stimuli. She most certainly bats her eyes up at him. “I’m the prettiest thing you’ve seen since the world ended?”

The Ghoul’s lips wobble, fighting a smile and a laugh that ultimately come tumbling out of him. Rue basks in the sound, the sight, warm and bubbly with it. Her fingers want to trace the curves of his mouth, dance along the line of his jaw. She wants to feel the laughter on her skin….

“Hey, I know ya got a thing ‘bout it, but can I touch ya?” she asks him as suddenly as the urge struck her, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “With my hands? Please?”

Laughter ceases, so do those trailing touches. The Ghoul’s head tilts and those deep-whiskey eyes narrow. His tone is a touch hostile when he asks, “Whatcha mean I got a ‘thing’?”

Rue simply explains, “The times we’ve fooled ‘round, ya tied my hands, so I figured ya don’t like bein’ touched.”

The fingers that press at her side suddenly pinch, and Rue jumps, not quite able to stop the small yelp –though, it is more of surprise than pain. The Ghoul deflects, gaze averting. “Ya not into it or somethin’?”

Rue moves a little closer, head tilting until she’s back in his line of sight. She grins up at him. “Sweetheart, I am into it, but I wanna do some of that sweet, coddlin’ shit.”

The Ghoul glowers at her silently, but that grip at her side eases, turning into a flexing. A tip-tapping. A surprisingly gentle caress that is mirrored on her right side, pulling her flush.

All of these are very good signs, but he still hasn’t given his consent.

“Just a lil’ bit,” Rue pleads, voice like honey, saccharine and smooth. “Unless ya like it, and then I’ll do it lots.”

He clicks his tongue, eyes rolling, and then sighs through his no-nose. “You get too handsy,” he grumbles, “and I’m cuttin’ ‘em off.”

“Fair.” Rue bounces, excited. “Can I kiss ya a bit?”

His petting hands rest firm as his head angles down. “A bit.”

And that’s an invitation if Rue’s ever seen one. She seizes it, her arms wrapping around his neck as she rises to the balls of her feet and seals the distance with a slow kiss that quickly becomes so hungry, so needful, on both their parts. The bounty hunter gets grabby, petting and squeezing, and the sounds Rue makes against and in his mouth earn her a groan from him.

She walks him back, knowing her bed is close, but he turns her around and pushes her back so that she hits the mattress first. Then he’s atop her, pushing her into the mattress and stealing the breath from her lungs with devouring, exploratory kisses. Rue lets him for a minute, responds to every touch; but eventually, she places a hand to his chest. She pushes against him, turning her face; his lips press against her cheek.

“Lemme be sweet to you.”

The Ghoul is quiet. Still.

“C’mon. Ya already agreed.”

His deep-set eyes roll. “I was just tryin’ to getcha in bed.”

“And I’m in bed, but I’m tryin’ to getcha out that duster. And vest. And shirt. And trousers. Boots.” She kisses the corner of his mouth. “Please.”

The gunslinger swears sharply, a yielding, “Goddammit.” He pulls back. “How… what…. Tell me what to do.”

Rue sits up. “Kick those boots off.”

She hears them thump to the floor, and the gloves she bids him to take off soon follow. And then she holds out her hand. “Hat.”

His eyes narrow. “The hat stays on.”

“Hat.”

Slowly, reluctantly, and eyeing her like he wants to slap her in the mouth, the Ghoul removes his hat and puts it at the foot of the bed.

That works just fine for Rue. “Put your gun down there, too.”

He makes a, “tch,” sound but complies.

“Bandolier.”

The Ghoul grumbles, ever grouchier, “I’m surprised y’know the fuckin’ word for it.”

Rue laughs. “We’re goin’ for sweetness, darlin’, remember?”

“Never said I’d be sweet –said you could.” Yet he dumps the bandolier, along with the rest of his accessories, at the foot of the bed. “That good, sweetheart? Or do I-?”

Rue shuts that snatchy tone up with a kiss, a hand touching his face ever so gently and drawing him towards her. “That was so good,” she murmurs, pulling back only to place a quick kiss to his mouth. A second that lingers slightly longer. “Thank ya.” The hand not skimming his jaw presses to his chest, softly guiding him to rest on his back.

The bounty hunter is reluctant to go down, catching himself on his elbows. Rue relents. She can work with this. She doesn’t want to make him too uncomfortable, and she can tell he is. Her touches have him stiffer and stiffer, his body a taught wire ready to snap –but not in that good, tensing way because something’s so sweet it just about hurts. It’s like he’s waiting for something to happen. To hit. To hurt. And that… that makes Rue sad for him.

She knows he must not get a lot of softness from people. Most folks barely tolerate Ghouls from what she’s seen, and it always burns her up. They’re the same people they were before radiation started picking them apart. They’re human. They deserve proper loving. Gentleness. Everyone needs it. Even Rue does despite her inclination towards rougher sex. It has to be tempered by some sugariness from time to time so she doesn’t forget, so she doesn’t harden to stone.

So, she’s patient. Her touches careful and slow so they don’t surprise him. She trails her fingers along the back of his head, his neck. Her other hand ghosts along his collar, dipping down for just the barest of grazes at his chest. She feels all his ridges, craters, and ruination. She shivers.

He shivers, the smallest, loveliest of groans rattling from him.

Rue’s smile is gentle, gaze half-lidded as she reaches for his hand. She takes it in her own and raises it to her face where she leans into it, ghosting her lips along his pulse as his rough fingers skim her face.

Wide-eyed shock. Disbelief. They transform the Ghoul’s face, softening all his hard edges and allowing her to see a different shade of him. Something hidden and soft and so wanting. His mouth parts slightly. Closes. He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue but still says nothing. Rue kisses his palm, nuzzling his open hand. He keeps it there, holding it steady himself, caressing her of his own volition.

“Can I take your duster off?” she asks of him.

The Ghoul nods his assent, allowing her to guide him into a sitting position and remove the tattered thing. She repeats the process with the vest beneath: asking for permission and waiting for consent before removing another layer. And again when she comes to the faded blue and gold of the button-up beneath. She’s particularly slow about removing it –the last of his upper layers. She brushes the fabric down his shoulders, pressing her lips to the newly-revealed skin and unhurriedly pets his chest when he’s fully bared.

Withered but toned. Strong. Lovely. She admires him as she once more directs him onto his back.

He goes all the way down for her this time, back flush with the mattress and head landing upon a thin but good enough pillow. Rue persists with her slow, loving work: petting, kissing, trailing, rubbing, and simply lavishing him. She slowly crawls atop him, sitting back on his lap as she unhooks and discards her brassiere. Then she dips forward, pressing her chest to his, and the sigh that escapes him… it’s hitching, breathless, tailed by a moan.

Rue kisses his neck and mouth, smiling wide when his arms drape around her, drawing her tightly to him. The feel of his skin against hers is pure magic, almost sinful it’s so damn good. She prickles all over, limbs trembling. A soft, breathy sigh of pleasure leaves her lips, feathers against his, and his tongue flits across her mouth to taste it.

The bounty hunter shakes when she pulls back, but she hardly notices. Rue’s too intent on doing all the things she’s desired for what feels like forever. Her fingers press soft to his cheeks, trace his jaw. Her heart absolutely soars when those soft, whiskey eyes flutter and he leans into her touch. When his hands and arms move to pull her flush against him once more. One hand finds the small of her back; the other cradles the back of her head as he turns them on their sides.

He engulfs her, entwining their bodies. Rubbing her, kissing her, like no other has in the entirety of her life. So deep, needful, and longing –as if he’s starving. Like he’s been craving what she has offered all his life, and now that he’s had a taste… well, there’s no stopping what she started.

Rue moves with him, grasping him just as dearly, wrapping herself up in him. She only stops to coax him out of his trousers, and he doesn’t need much prodding at this point. He readily comes out of them and his underwear –he’s insistent in getting her out of her skirt and panties– and then he immediately pulls her back into his embrace with a rough, breathless, “Come back here.”

“I didn’t go nowhere,” she says with soft laughter promptly stolen away by the most fervent French-kissing she’s experienced to date. There’s not an inch of her mouth left untouched. Not a single breath he doesn’t devour.

Rue’s on cloud nine. Fuzzy, dizzy, and drunk on more than just gin. Her whole world is bright, soft, and humming. Singing when those rough hands being so sweet touch her in a similar fashion as to how she touched him. Skimming. Careful. Exploratory. Then threatening her sanity when one hand winds lower to be just a little harsh with her. It’s nirvana combined with the tenderness of everything else, especially when gets to fucking her with his fingers, slow and purposeful.

She reaches for him, feeling him in her hands for the first time. His strong, firm shaft with all its ridges and length. She pumps him experimentally, smiling bright when the Ghoul groans into her neck.

“You’ve got such soft hands,” he tells her, lips dragging along her shoulder. “Such soft everything. Fuck.”

“Told ya the first time ya shoulda let me use ‘em.”

“Hush,” he mumbles against her skin. “You can use ‘em now.”

A panting, teasing, “Ya sure?”

He bites her pulse, not as rough as she has come to expect of him but still enough to make her breath catch in her throat and her toes curl. “All ya do is fuckin’ tease.”

“I do much, much more than that.” She continues to stroke him as she hooks a leg around his waist. Her free hand draws his face from her neck, cupping his cheek and jaw, and pulls him in for sugary, slow, greedy kisses. “I give ya every bit of me, every time. I think I deserve to be a lil’ cute ‘bout it.”

Rue guides him into her –initially. Once he figures out what she’s doing, he handles the rest, pressing slowly into her. Sparks and shivers go up and down Rue’s spine until she’s full to the brim with him.

“Ya fit so good,” she mumbles against his lips, peppering him with small kisses. “I wanna feel you behind my eyes.”

The Ghoul moans into her mouth, an arm wedging beneath the leg she has hooked around him so it rests in the crook of his elbow. He hikes her leg up; he sinks in deeper.

Rue’s entirety lights up, unravels. She gasps and grasps at him, fingernails skimming his neck and the back of his head. His hips pull back, pressing in slow and deep again. She pleads for that –as much of that as he can give her.

“Know I shouldn’t spoil ya, but fuck, when ya ask so sweet….” Another pull back; another slow, dragging, firm press that has Rue whimpering. “Ya got a dangerous mouth, darlin’.”

“Ya got a… a mind-n-numbin’ s-stroke and a drawl –ah, mh, please, please. It’s so good. You’re so good. S…sugar, just the sound of ya makes me wet.” The gunslinger groans; Rue’s eyes roll at another toe-curling push of his hips into hers. “Kiss me more. I –mmhm– I don’t wanna breathe.”

The Ghoul eats her up, his hold on her tightening and his lips melding with hers. Hot and molten. Tongue trailing, consuming every sound and plea and praise. All she can see are stars. Her heartbeat and his growls fill her head. She’s melting slow. She’s spinning on an edge.

“This sweet enough for ya?” the Ghoul asks, lips stilling just long enough for her to pull in a breath of air.

“S-so sweet. You’re l…like honey.”

A chuckle rumbles out of him. It makes her warm and dizzy.

“Lemme ride ya. I can be honey, too.”

“You’re more like caramel.” The bounty hunter flips them, exposing Rue’s back to the mild air and moonglow. She shakily drags herself upright.

“Caramel?” She’s never heard of it.

He nods, hands running roughly up and down her thighs. It’s what you get when ya cook sugar, add some butter and cream to it. It’s sweet and warm.” Those calloused hands travel up, gripping her waist and pulling her forward. Rue gasps and quivers at the circles he rubs into her skin. “It gets stuck in your teeth.”

“Fuck.” Rue’s hips roll without her permission, hooded eyes watching as the Ghoul’s head falls back on the pillows. “Ya make it sound so sexy….” Her eyes trace his throat, intently watching the way it bobs when he swallows thick. Something so simple makes her ludicrously wet, ravenous. She dips forward, pressing her chest to his and kissing her way up the column of his throat, along his jaw. Then she holds his face to kiss him dumb and breathless.

She rides him, doing everything she knows to undo him. Her hips roll or grind. She bounces upon the ridged length of him. She pulls back so she can watch him watch her, to see the fixation of his whiskey eyes as she musses her hair or touches her breasts (she also hits her sweet spot a tick better in the upright position). When he reaches for her, when his rough fingers trail against her pert breasts or rub against her clit, Rue forgets everything. Her name. Who she is. Every awful thing that’s ever happened to her.

There’s only the Ghoul. The feel of him inside her, of his ruined skin along the soft, no-longer so pristineness of hers. The sweep of his eyes, the heat of them. The curve of his lips and the praise and roughness that slip from them. And when his arms loop around her, pulling her flush to his chest, she wants to sink into him. To feel the strength and heat and coarseness until… until she’s really okay again. Not masking or stomping things down into the pit of her.

He makes her feel okay again, and goddammit, she must make sure he feels amazing.

She focuses on his pleasure, on meeting his upward strokes and finding his lips when they are wanting. She listens to the quick hitching of his breath, her name breathed like a prayer. She feels his trembles. Tremors. Quick, unsteady snaps of his hips.

“Come on, sweet, fill me up,” she bids, voice husky. A purr. “I’ll be right there with ya. I’m s-so close.”

“Then take it, darlin’.” His hips drive up hard. He holds her down firm, and for a moment, she swears he’s behind her eyes. And the thumb of his right hand mercilessly rubs her clit. The jolt. The pressure. The pleasure. The deep hit and warmth flooding her core. His growling, rasping praise of, “You’re such a good girl. Takin’ it. Lovin’ it. Show me how much you love it.”

It’s a sucker-punch of divinity. Everything she wants. Everything she needs. Sweet, sharp, hot, and molten. Dragging on, coaxed further, with gentler touches that take absolutely everything out of her. Make her so weak and flimsy that she goes to the bounty hunter’s chest. She’s waves of pleasure. Aftershocks. Starbursts and soda bubbles.

When it subsides, she’s a quivering mess, every particle of her shiny and new and tender. His arms around her are almost too much, but it’s all she wants. So are those lips that press to her hair, speaking her name gently. Laughing at the dumb, drooling puddle of idiot that she is.

“Ya called me a good girl,” she mumbles against the warmth of him, “and I ‘bout blacked out.”

The gunslinger laughs louder, and Rue smiles so bright she could probably light the room. Maybe the planet. Fuck the sun.

“You’re a mess.” But it’s said so fondly, accompanied by the sweep of his hand through her hair before it trails down her jaw. Tips her chin up so that she looks at him. “But you are such a good girl.”

Rue about spasms, whimpering again. Shaking from her head to her toes when a thumb brushes across her bottom lip. She immediately sucks upon it, bringing a soft swear from him. A jump from down below where he’s still sheathed within her.

On unsteady arms, Rue pushes herself back up. She finds her breath and one or two pieces of her sense. She doesn’t need them all, not for this. The goal is for him to be senseless and fucked-out. She wants him to be a quivering puddle beneath her.

“Well, don’t you look serious,” the Ghoul’s tone is teasing, curious, as he pets her. He props himself up just close enough to kiss. “What’s that face about?”

“Shh, darlin’,” Rue says softly, taking his face into her hands and brushing her lips against his. “I ain’t finished takin’ care of you yet.”

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Fourteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: the usual swearing, some gore, and arson.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Fourteen: Take Everything

Rue’s Pa loved Nat King Cole. One of his most prized possessions was an old holotape containing the long-dead singer’s discography, and after a particularly long day, he’d pop it into the battered player in the living room and the house would fill with music. Pa would kick back, feet on a weathered ottoman, and soak in the sound. Rue would sway and croon along to gentle melodies as she worked on dinner. Sometimes, when Pa was down for the count, she’d meet Bram outside, and he’d twirl her around in the dark, Nat’s voice coming through a cracked window all muted and fuzzy.

The music that used to fill Rue with warmth now squeezes at her heart with aching bittersweetness, but it’s still so important to her. So… necessary. The song Smile got Rue through the worst time of her life. She listened to it for a week and half while she sat in a sickbed, silent and staring, as her body processed a trauma both physical and mental. As she tried to piece together a way to go on. And it would play in her head in the weeks and months and years after. Anytime tricky grief decided to spring upon her, Smile would spin circles in her mind.

Her finger presses down on the faded button on the small, portable, holotape player Doc Nguyen loans her for these unfortunate occasions, the freshly-ended song going back. Whirring. Clicking. Pausing. Another click; Smile plays anew, the opening notes sounding only in Rue’s head. Closer. Crisper. Clearer. She likes the headphones Doc Nguyen found for her. Or maybe they were more for Doc Nguyen’s sanity than for Rue’s benefit. But it hardly matters. Rue is sated with Nat King Cole crooning in her ears and the privacy a closed door and a “no visitors allowed” order afford.

She’s not quite ready for people.

A sliding sound, just barely loud enough to reach her through Nat King Cole’s hold, draws Rue’s gaze to the right where she has the distinct honour and pleasure of witnessing Hal attempt to haul himself through the window that shines down on the empty sickbed across from hers. It’s a sight, glorious. He’s all elbows, and Rue didn’t realize he had so much leg until she watches him try to work them through the pane.

Rue doesn’t have to put on a smile, smack it on and hold it. One blooms naturally.

She pauses her song and slides the headphones off her head, listening to the orchestra that is Hal’s huffing, puffing, and swears. The frustrated, “Ya don’t get to say no visitors after scarin’ me half to fuckin’ death.”

Which almost makes her frown, her fingers twitching as they want to go for the holotape player, but she buckles down. She gets over it. She’s ready. The outside –the after– has come busting through the window, and she can’t put it off any longer.

Hal slips through, landing in a heap on the empty bed, but he’s quick about rolling to his feet and straightening himself out. And he puts on such a serious face that wavers when his eyes land on her. Coal eyes go so wide; those glossy, puppy-dog peepers looking so sad and upset.

She’s never seen such a face on Hal –never even pictured him with one. Of course he makes the pleading, puppy eyes at her from time to time, and they hang out all friendly-like; but otherwise, he’s utterly composed. Unimpressed –a little amused– and ready to deal with problems with a quick draw and decisive aim.

It’s strange to see sorrow, what looks a little like… heartbreak. She feels bad for bringing out such a shade of him.

Rue smiles brighter for him. “It ain’t that bad for you to be makin’ that face.”

His bottom lip wobbles. “But you’ve got stitches, and a chunk of your hair’s gone.”

“Think it gives me a real badass Wastelander look.” And Rue uses her hands to mime guns, pulling triggers and blowing smoke before she looks to him with a wide-smiling wink Hal doesn’t do anything but frown at.

“What ‘bout your shoulder?”

“All starburst-y,” Rue informs, pulling down the collar of her blouse to show him the jagged scar left behind by one of the two bullets Geraldine hit her with. “Through and through. Stimpak did most of the work here.”

Hal just frowns harder, picking slowly forward before sinking heavily onto the bed. He looks at her shoulder. The peach-fuzzy patch on the right side of her head. He worries his lip before asking, “Can I hug you?”

Shit, that melts Rue. It almost has her lip wobbling. She scoots closer to the poor boy she knows she’s raked over with worry. “’Course, but I’m fine, y’know?”

Hal just needed the okay. He’s immediately pulling her in, holding her dearly, and mumbling into her shoulder, “Then why’d you say no visitors?”

Rue smooths her hand over his shoulder. “I needed a bit of alone time, but I’m glad to see ya now.”

“Last time I saw you, you were bleedin’, screamin’, and rubbin’ blood on my face. I haven’t been able to get it outta my head.”

Rue’s coddling pats at his back cease for a moment. She doesn’t remember doing any of that. “Oh, Hal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to traumatize ya. When I get like that….” Rue shakes her head at herself and squeezes him tighter. “I don’t really know what I’m doin’.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was that bitch. Pushin’ ya down like that over nothin’. Drawin’ on ya for nothin’. She had it comin’. I just… I hated seein’ ya like that. It was different from that time ya tried to kill Louie Redd. You seemed… scared. I never seen you scared. And I was scared. All that blood….”

Rue tuts, shushes. She rocks Hal gently. “Nope. We’re not gonna dwell on it. It all worked out just fine. I’m here, the bitch is dead, and everything goes on.”

Hal’s quiet. He seeks more assurance. “You’re… you promise you’re okay?”

“I am. I can leave tomorrow, but I’m not to go back to work ‘til Monday.”

“I’d quit Mulholland’s if I were you,” Hal says it frankly, flatly, as he pulls back. He’s wiped away the sorry look on his face, replacing it with a straight-browed expression of mild aggravation. “Everyone there’s an asshole to you except for me and Nina. Adel’s just… I don’t know what her problem with you is…. And now you’re gettin’ shot. It’s just not worth it.” He shakes his head. “I bet Mrs. Ira Jean would love to have ya out on her ranch. You’d be in heaven out there, cuddlin’ with brahmin and pups all day long.”

That does sound like heaven…. Part of Rue still wants that, but… she sighs dreamily. “I dunno that I’m a rancher anymore. But you’re right. I think it’s high-time for a change in occupation.”

His brows go up, curious. “You got somethin’ in mind?”

“Outlawin’,” Rue shares with a sweet grin. “Gonna get me a gun and raise some hell.”

Immediate laughter bubbles out of Hal, and she knows by the sound of it –the genuine amusement on his face– that he’s not taking her seriously at all. Which is fine. She doesn’t need or want him to. It can all be a joke.

But Rue’s dead serious.

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It’s a dark midnight, the moon new and glow nonexistent except for this curling sliver of silver-white Rue thinks looks like the blade of the short sickle she once took to shafts of razorgrain. Her eyes are trained on it as she quietly wiggles the window above her sickbed open, but once she’s climbed through it and her feet touch gritty earth, her eyes flit all around her. She scans for any sign of life, finding none, and then presses forward.

Rue keeps low, to shadows. She’s quick in her movements, pausing and skulking whenever she hears a shred of a sound. But when it passes, when the coast is clear, she’s back on the move, making her way to the outskirts of Dust where Deck’s house sits on high.

The front porch light is on, and one or two windows are lit up, but Rue isn’t too worried. The blunt of the boys are probably out drinking, and whoever’s home is likely asleep. And if they’re not –if she gets found out– they’ll meet her pocketknife. She won't stop slashing until they're dead or she is, and she's got a cyanide pill she borrowed from Doc Nguyen if it really comes down to that.

Rue approaches from the back, walking the length of the house and studying each window on the second floor. She’s been in Deck’s house before –several times, in fact. She used to visit him back before she found out what a shitstain he is, popping in with extras of something or another she made. He’d invite her in; they’d sit down and chit-chat. Sometimes he’d leave her alone for a bit, and Rue would just wander around.

She never saw any kind of unhinged trophy room on the first floor, and she knows the right-most window on the second floor is his and the one right beside it is a bathroom. Then a closet. A bunk room, and then the corner turns and there’s another bunkroom. She comes to another window, and she has no idea what room it might shine into. She doesn’t think there’s another bunkroom on the second floor. She doesn’t think there’s any space left up top for it to be anything other than Deck’s depraved, little study.

Rue climbs onto the wraparound porch, and then the railing. It takes a lot of finagling, scrambling, and all of her arm strength, but she manages to pull herself onto the roof. It groans beneath her, but Rue pays it no mind. She makes her way to the window, sees the darkness within, and tugs. It only gives a little bit.

She tugs a lot, inching the window up a fraction at a time until there’s enough room for her to squeeze herself through. She goes through feet first, wriggling her body through the gap until she’s all the way into the stagnant, heavy air. She rights herself, dusts herself off, and goes digging in her pockets for the tiny flashlight Doc Nguyen uses to check eyes. Rue clicks it on, the thin beam cutting a yellowish strip across the room and landing upon a high-backed armchair. She raises the beam; her skin prickles.

Jars and jars of severed heads line the room, every inch of wall space dominated by them. They float, suspended in murky fluid. Some faces are etched with pain. Horror. A wretched smile. A few look as if they merely sleep, their death masks utterly peaceful.

Rue draws close with soft steps, inspecting each. She doesn’t recognize any of the faces. Which has her breathing a sigh, but she’s still taught, expecting at any moment to find the one that is going to hurt her. That could unravel the last bit of sanity that she’s clung to in the hopes Geraldine really is just a bounty-faking bitch.

She does find it: a fresh jar with clear-ish liquid and a beat-up head. She presses the flashlight close, examining every line, wrinkle, and hair.

It is with a heavy, sick heart she admits to herself that it very well could be Artie Merlowe. The shade of sparse hair is a match, and the features –though disfigured– do bear some resemblance. But the decay, the damage, they make it hard to be certain, leaving Rue in a nebulous state of rage and sorrow. She doesn’t feel any better; she doesn’t feel any worse.

She stares and stares at the head, willing it to not be Artie. Deciding to believe Geraldine lied. She cut off some other guy’s head, roughed it up, and brought it in. Artie’s still out there somewhere.

Yeah, yeah. Why else would it be in such rough shape? Artie wouldn’t have fought her. She woulda had no reason to mess his face up like this. She’s just a liar. A no-good, goddamn liar. And she’s fuckin’ dead. Hah.

“You ain’t him,” she whispers to the jar, patting the glass separating her hand and the dead man’s cheek. She has to believe that, and she’ll make her way down to Two-Sun to prove it when all is said and done.

Rue puts the flashlight in her mouth and takes the jar from the shelf. With some elbow grease, she manages to open the jar, and it stinks. Chemicals she can't name and undercurrents of stagnated rot make her stomach turn, her head swim, but she recognizes a bite to that pungent smell after all her time around liquor. Ethanol is mixed in with whatever else, and it sure as fuck will burn good.

Rue pads carefully to the chair at the center of the room and pours the contents of the jar onto it, letting the head thump to the seat cushion. And then another jar. Another. She soaks it. She pours it on the floor. She opens all the jars she can, and when she whirls around to grab another, the flashlight beam catches on something above the door. Light bouncing off metal. Gleaming wood.

The wind goes completely out of Rue. Her brain ceases, her heart thumps irregularly, and a whimper escapes her throat.

Above the door, sat upon a shelf all by its lonesome, is her Pa’s rifle. Rue would recognize it anywhere. It’s bolt-action, and the dark wood of the stock is scored with dozens of tallies. As well as a crude, little heart Rue had carved herself when she was a kid. It’s the gun that saved her life. It’s the gun she learned to shoot with before her Pa got her one of her own.

She thought it had burned up in the fire, but goddamn Deck Craven had it all this time. Another trophy on the wall. Right where he could always see it with his chair facing it directly.

Rue’s breath comes to her in quick, uneven pants, and she scrambles trying to get up the wall. Make herself tall enough to reach. She jumps, grasping wildly. Needing desperately. Her fingers snag the old leather strap, and she is able to pull it into her arms.

And she holds the rifle as if it is a child, wanting to sob. To laugh. To sing. She has another piece of Pa –another piece of her. It settles warm and bittersweet in her heart, uplifting and devastating her within the same breath.

“I’m sorry, Pa,” she mumbles, lips pressing to the gun barrel. “I didn’t know ya were here, but I gotcha now. It’s all gonna be okay now. I’m gonna take care of everything.”

Her fingers tip-tap the length of the weapon, caressing. Remembering. The barrel is cool against her cheek. And the weight, the feel of the rifle on her back, is the most assuring thing in the world when she slips the strap overhead and lets it fall into place.

Rue decides she’s done for the night. Enough ick stains the floors and permeates the chair. She pulls a box of matches from her pocket as she goes to the window and wedges it open a bit more before she strikes a match. She flicks it at Deck’s sad, soaked, sagging throne. It catches like kindling, and she’s out the window as soon as she sees those flames spreading, licking across the floors and up the walls. Igniting jars, making the fluid within molten.

She’s down the porch roof in seconds, dropping to the ground and feeling the impact in her knees, but she shakes it off –runs it off. She sprints into the dark to make a wide loop to her home, knowing she can’t go back to Doc Nguyen’s with a rifle strapped to her back.

She constantly glances over her shoulder while she runs, waiting to see if the house on the hill lights up. And it does. What starts of as a soft light becomes a flare and soon blooms into a burning, wonderful beacon. Flames twist and claw at the sky, painting the world hell red and toasty orange. It’s beautiful. It makes Rue flicker, her soul and mood sing.

Rue laughs. She sings. When she reaches her porch, the relative shielding and safety of it, she twirls. Her shoulders shimmy. Her footwork is immaculate, and the way she takes her skirt into her hands and spins feels breezy and magnificent. She feels magnificent. Especially when she peeks around her house to see the guard tower going up in smoke and flame. The world is bright and whirling, orange and red and midnight.

Everything may be terrible and fucked up, but she set hell on fire. And though Deck isn’t there to burn down with it, Rue will take it.

She’ll take everything.

[voidsdamned]

Ghoulish mayor

[voidsdamned]

Full version of this AAT variant fallout cover I made. All hand drawn on procreate

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Thirteen

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: the usual swearing, use of alcohol, mentions of prostitution, murder.

Enjoy <3

Chapter Thirteen: Wrong Decision

The spot on the floor sort of looks like a dog: a big, fluffy one with a dopey, squishable face Rue would very much like to season with kisses. She’d like to give it a hug around the neck, bury her face in its fur, and take a nap. She’d like it if the dog was big enough for her to take a nap on –so big she could lie on its side and sink down into it like a mattress.

Hell, she’d just like a nap after days and days of Deck’s ridiculous, early-morning nit-picking and the long, tiresome nights that follow. Nights where she gets two or so hours of sleep at most because she works so damn late and Deck’s developed this irksome habit of popping in at the ass-crack of dawn for a breakfast Rue doesn’t want –doesn’t have the energy– to make.

The sheriff’s gone now. He left around noon for out-of-town business that’s supposed to keep him tied up for a week or two, and such news nearly brought Rue to tears of relief and joy. She’s still tired, though, and the only thing keeping her going is the promise of a late-morning sleep. But the prospect of lying down and petting the floor-spot dog is sorely tempting.

“Rue, honey, you there?”

Her fuzzy, heavy, half-not-in-her-head brain perks at her name. At the slow, concerned tone of Bo Fortenberry. She glances to him, not fond of the furrow-browed look on his face, and then her eyes go right back to the floor. She points at the spot.

“That look like a dog to you?”

“Huh.” Bo makes a teeth-kissing, curious sound. “Kinda?”

“More like a chicken to me,” Len Thomas comments, peering over the edge of the table. “That dirt or just the way the wood warps?”

“Better not be dirt,” Rue grumbles, scrubbing at the dog spot with the toe of her boot. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t have any sort of texture to it other than wood grain. “Tired of scrubbin’ the damn floors….” She decides it’s just the wood grain and sighs before shooting a grin at her table. “I completely forgot if I was comin’ or goin’. You boys need anything?”

Three out of four boys shake their heads in the negative, but Gen Guthrie bobs his as he takes a big gulp of beer.

“Just to know how long the waitin’ list is on… Ana? Anis?” Gen sets his beer down, head cocking and brows scrunching. “Annie?”

“Second one was closest,” Rue tells him, fingergunning. “Anais. And buddy, ya might not get a spot for months. She really knows how to –and I’m quotin’ Brent Mahonne directly here, ‘Lay it on a guy.’ So, I’m guessin’ she’s pretty good.”

“Brent Mahonne’s a dog,” Fat Patrick tosses in around a laugh. “Long as it’s got a hole, he’d fuck it.”

Rue believes it. She heard him proposition Adel once, and well… Rue doesn’t like that she’s imagined it, but she thinks cigarette smoke probably billows out of Adel’s cooze the same way it does from her mouth. She wouldn’t go near it. But Brent Mahonne sounded earnest and wanting when he suggested they pop out back.

She decides to not share that with the boys, though. Adel’s been shrieking at her enough as is, and Rue’s sick of it. Instead, she smiles devious and says, “Bet him and gulper fucker are best pals.”

Bo gives a short laugh but corrects her, “Naw, they can’t stand one another –both think the other’s nasty as hell and oughta be shot.” He takes a quick sip of beer. “Personally, I think the gulper fucker’s the worse of the two. Takes a depraved fucker to put their dick in somethin’ dead.”

“So, you’re sayin’ it wouldn’t be as bad if it were live when he did it?” Gen poses.

Bo’s nose scrunches, but he dips his head. “Kinda?”

“Stop talkin’ ‘bout the gulper fucker and dead things,” Len groans, green as a supermutant around the gills. “I just wanna drink my beer without hearin’ ‘bout it.”

“Awe, we’ll leave it alone, Len,” Roo coos, smile soft and teasing. She spares a swink for the rest of the boys. “I’ll come back ‘round in a bit.”

Varied appreciation comes from the table as Rue turns to leave, eyes catching on the dog spot a final time before she drags her gaze away. She has to focus and stop thinking about fluffy things to nap on. There’s a shift to get through, and then her lumpy couch can swallow her up.

Her mind spins back around to her couch often, though. When her arms wobble under the weight of a too-full tray. When Yumi keeps stealing her goddamn drinks. When Rina tells Rue she’s, “Just not feelin’ it,” when a neglected table has Rue go hunting for her. When Adel bids Rue to guess at how many caps Harvey James just offered to get Rue in the broom closet with him. When Hal asks her for the dozenth time tonight to run up the stairs to take drinks to one of the girls’ rooms.

Rue slogs herself up the staircase, a bottle of red wine in the hand that doesn’t pull her heavy body upwards with tugs at the stair rail. On the landing, she hesitates but for a moment before heading towards the room that used to be Lara’s.

Rue couldn’t actually say how long it’s been since Lara left –time runs together for her worse than it ever has– but her absence still feels very new and strange. And she frankly doesn’t like it even though she is glad Lara got to leave. Rue’s glad she’s far away and hopefully enjoying the hell of that tall, muscley boy she landed, but Rue misses Lara as fiercely as she misses hot water (if not more). She misses her honey eyes. Her quick smile. Her secret devilishness. She misses the way Lara would humour her silliness and let her try just about anything with her hair and makeup. She misses talking about nothing. She misses talking about everything. She misses the simple pleasure of sharing the same space.

And then there’s the fact that Anais isn’t very nice or likeable. She’s another Molly. Another Rina and Yumi. She’s rude, demanding, refuses to learn how to work the floor in the server kind of way, mistakenly jealous of how much attention Deck unfortunately gives Rue, and doesn’t know how to do her makeup. But she thinks she does. She gets the spitting, throwing shit kind of mad when Adel sends Rue to her room to fix whatever travesty the courtesan has thrown together.

Rue’s quick about the drink drop. She knocks loud and clear, sets the bottle down, and turns to book it back downstairs.

But then she hears her name come from further down the hall, around the corner one would take to get to Adel’s room.

People talk about Rue all the time, and she used to ignore it. She’d space out or leave it, but ever since Artie, Rue hones in when she hears her name. Something in her pricks and demands to know what is said. It could be important. Something she can use. A warning.

She takes a step down the hall, pausing for just a moment when the door to Lara’s old room parts just a fraction and a freckled hand slithers out to snatch up the wine bottle. The door shuts; Rue moves more steps, careful and slow until she comes to the corner where she takes the quickest of peaks.

Lucky and a man she doesn’t know the name of (but she knows she’s seen hanging around Deck for a little while now) lean into a wide, open window. Cigarettes smoke idly between lips or fingers, curls of grey filtering into the midnight air.

Lucky’s taking a particularly long drag, expelling it with a great sigh. “Well, they think Lara probably begged her for it, and Rue… she’s not altogether there, but she’s sweet. Sweet and simple. She’d give anyone the shirt off her back, and Deck’s pissed Lara took advantage of that.”

Rue pulls back, spine pressing into the wall and heart doing all manners of flip-flops in her chest. That’s bad. She hasn’t heard much, but that’s really, really bad.

“That… that still don’t sound like a good enough reason to send someone after her.”

Rue’s flip-flopping heart splats to the floor. She…. Maybe she’s just misunderstanding the situation? Surely, they’re not talking about Lara having a bounty her. Not Lara. Not Lara who’s never done anything but love someone –who didn’t even ask Rue for help.

“It’s enough for him.”

“…He’s weird ‘bout that one.”

A grumbled, heavily sighed. “Buddy, ya don’t know the half of it. He don’t like it when anyone gets too close to her or when she does anything for anyone other than him. And it’s just been gettin’ worse and worse here lately with everything goin’ on. Her interactin’ with folks here is gettin’ to be too much for him. Can’t tell ya how many times he’s complained ‘bout Bo Fortenberry and his boys or that Ghoul takin’ up too much of her time. He’s even startin’ to get weird ‘bout Hal and… and that Ghoul rancher –shit, what’s her name….” A snap of the fingers. “Ira Jean. Just everyone now. And he’s stuck her in the absolute worse place for him to be this way. But that’s the other half of it! He likes to show her off. He likes hearin’ how bad some people want her. It’s askin’ for fuckin’ disaster.”

Rue’s stomach has joined her heart on the ground, and both sort of just writhe down there. Twisting. Thundering. Her head spins hard. Horribly.

“Makes me think of that off-his-rocker fella he was spinnin’ like a twister ‘bout when I first joined up. Think I ‘member someone sayin’ she patched him up on her porch and that’s what set him off?”

A tired, “Yup. …That was one job I really didn’t wanna do. I was relieved whoever hurt him came back and got him so quick.” Another sigh. “But that’s back in my lap now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ya see that redhead that stopped in earlier?”

“Uh… blue hat and a .357?”

“Mhm” A quick pause. A vocal exhale. “That’s Geraldine. She brought me a head, claimin’ it was Artie’s. Said she found him down in Two-Sun just wanderin’ ‘round.”

Everything goes out of Rue, goes brittle and cold, and she goes to shaking so violently her vision vibrates. She bites down so hard on her lip she tastes copper, but there’s no pain to it. There’s only rage and a scream she can’t let leave her throat. She has to keep it together. She has to hear the rest.

Rue stares up at the ceiling, blood dribbling down her chin and eyes burning.

“He escaped?”

“Must’ve. Maybe? I dunno that it’s really his head. It’s busted to hell and back, decayed bad, and Geraldine’s got a reputation for fakin’ bounties. ���She brought us a head off a raider boss, Macho, a few years back. It was in rough shape –we couldn’t confirm or deny the identity– but we took her at her word. ‘Bout two weeks later, another hunter comes in with Macho’s head in pristine condition. No doubt it was his. So, we had Geraldine brought in, and the only reason she ain’t dead –still doin’ business with us– is ‘cause she coughed the caps up, and… well… she soothed Deck’s ego. If ya catch my drift.”

“Think she’d be dumb enough to try it again?”

“Some people don’t learn. …I decided to not to give her the full bounty. Told her she could wait ‘round for Deck to come back to town and take it up with him. Guess it’s sort of a good sign she’s still here, but I don’t trust her.”

“Don’t reckon I would either….” There comes a lecherous chuckle that firmly boots Rue out of her focus. “But I’d let her soothe my ego.”

Rue barely hears Lucky’s response of, “Fuckin’ dog,” as she pushes away from the wall, as she tries to hold her head and heart and her entire self together. She’s moved into a different frequency. Spiraling away. And all she can think about is getting away. Running and running. She’ll explode if she doesn’t.

She almost falls down the stairs, fumbling the last few steps, and she’s not nearly as dexterous as she usually is as she winds through the main floor of Mulholland’s. She’s not right enough in her own mind to avoid folks, and their voices sound like big-band trumpets. Every accidental brush of another against her burns. Pricks like cactus needles. They… they all kind of look like cacti to her. Just these faceless shapes, all lumpy, spiney, and too close.

A figure is suddenly in her path, and Rue doesn’t even think about stopping. She can’t. She collides, teeth and left shoulder ringing. Everything’s ringing. Vibrating. It’s gone from trumpets to a church bell tolling in her head. It’s loud and terrible, and Rue’s hands clamp over her ears to stop the noise, to keep her skull from rattling apart.

She’s hit again, knocked to the floor. Her ass strikes, rough, splintering wood, sending shocks up her spine. Rue’s spinning eyes stare up, fixing on a red-haired woman in a blue hat that is absolutely ranting and raving. Spitting as she glares down, as she pulls out a shining, .357 magnum and levels it on Rue.

Rue goes very still inside, her scattered world coming into intense focus around the redhead. She speaks a name aloud in question, a breath of confusion, “Geraldine?”

“Who’s fuckin’ askin’?” The redhead’s voice is a temperamental, not-quite shout full of growl and venom. “You need to watch where the fuck you’re goin’.”

Rue tries to stand. The redhead plants a boot in her chest. It hits so hollowly –Rue barely feels it– but it puts her right back on her ass.

“I didn’t say ya could get up, cunt,” probably-Geraldine barks. “Ya owe me a proper apology and some goddamn respect.”

The gun glints in the low light of the saloon. There’s a click of the safety being disengaged.

A complete disconnect occurs in Rue’s mind. She doesn’t realize that she lunges forward or that the .357 fires. She doesn’t realize she’s wrapped herself around the redhead’s legs like a rabid radcoon, bringing her down to harsh floors. And she doesn’t realize she’s screaming. That she’s scrambling or straddling the woman, bringing her netted hands down into a combined fist upon Geraldine’s face over and over again. She doesn’t feel the hot wetness of blood. She doesn’t feel flesh connect with flesh, breaking and splitting.

She doesn’t feel the arms around her, lifting and hauling her back. She can only see herself being pulled away from the redhead, who really is just a red head now. A spreading pool of crimson fluid and fiery strand of slicked hair.

Rue shakes again, whole body pulsating. Her vision blurry and uncertain. Worsening. Wet. The world spins, and she looks up at a ceiling. A terrified face she suddenly recognizes as Hal’s. He looks like he might be shouting. Maybe at her?

The world dims. Air rushes. She can barely see him anymore. Will she see him again? Will Deck kill him for touching her? Will he kill Mrs. Ira Jean for her kindness towards Rue? Murder Bo, Len, Gen, and Fat Patrick for being one of her favourites? The Ghoul for being her favourite.

It’s like trying to move the earth, but Rue manages to reach up. To find Hal’s face. Her slick fingers drag across his stubbly cheek, and she presses them to his lips, tracing a red smile.

“I… c-can’t keep ya s…safe,” she tells him, not hearing the heartbreak to her own voice. The way it wavers. There’s just the way it vibrates up her throat and slips through her lips. “I-I could…could…n’t keep… n-no one sss-safe.”

Her heavy, unseeing eyes slip closed, and Rue feels everything go out of her. Every ounce of anything until she’s just a hollowed-out outline of herself that’s slurped up by warmth and nothing. And that nothing, that darkness that eats her up… it’s really, very nice.

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Being spat up is miserable. A brief glimpse at something bright, and then having to claw her way towards it. Again and again until Rue snags a sensation, and it’s wretched. A headache which pounds like a drum in her skull. A throat that feels sharply raw. Her limbs are lead and far away, but not as far away as her body. It’s not real at all. Not yet. But then the nausea hits, and Rue is aware of every inch of herself and the intense possibility that she is going to vomit.

She takes slow, deep breaths. She doesn’t want to vomit. She hates to vomit. She’d rather a knife go through her hand. …Shit, she feels like knives have already gone through her everywhere.

“No, her still being unconscious is very normal. Stimpaks can only do so much, especially with multiple injuries involved. And they’re a strain on the human body. A period of deep rest often follows their use, and compounded with the exhaustion physical trauma can cause… she could sleep for another day.”

Rue’s eyes part a fraction at the sound of Doc Nguyen’s voice, that precise and careful cadence. So clear and no-nonsense. So… educational.

There’s a sharp, puffing exhale. “Right, right. If you’re sure she’s fine. Or going to be…. She’s going to be?”

That sounds like Lucky, and Rue can’t figure out why the sound of his voice puts her so on edge. Makes her want to hold her breath.

“Yes, she will, and you can thank Hal for that. If not for him getting her here as quickly as he did, blood loss likely would have taken her.”

“I’ll… uh….” Lucky sounds so winded, so tired. “I’ll most definitely do that. And thank ya, too, Doc. …Will ya send word once she’s up and ready for visitors?”

“I will.”

“Thank ya –again.”

“You’re welcome. Have a good day, Lucky.”

“You too, Doc.”

Footsteps sound against wood flooring. A door opens and closes. Silence follows in its wake, soon broken by a sigh.

The doorknob to the room Rue guesses she was dying in at some point rattles and turns. The door creaks open, allowing the tall, elegant figure of Doc Nguyen to breeze in. She pulls her salt-and-pepper hair out of her face, into a tight bun at the base of her neck, but stops halfway through the motions of it to cut Rue a mild glare.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough to know I almost kicked the bucket.” Rue’s voice is hoarse and broken, but it works well enough. “And hell, I fuckin’ feel it.”

Doc Nguyen fights off a grin, finishes tying her hair off, adjusts the glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and grabs a chair from close by, rolling it to Rue’s bedside. “You’re lucid enough, so let’s talk. I know you don’t feel well but describe exactly how you’re feeling to me.”

“Mmm. Not all the way here –like half of me’s still down for the count. But what I do feel aches…. Vomity. Headachy. My throat’s raw.”

The doctor spins away. Rue doesn’t turn her head to watch where she goes because it makes the world go into cartwheels. So, she listens as something slides open and gets rattled around. Doc Nguyen comes back and presses something chalky to Rue’s lips.

“Chew.”

Rue does.

Several more somethings with waxier coatings are held to her mouth. “Hold.”

Rue holds the pills in her mouth. The rim of a bottle is held steady to her lips. She is bid to, “Swallow,” and does so, washing the weird flavours out of her mouth.

“Give it ten minutes.”

“I got all the minutes.”

 The good doctor clicks her tongue. “You almost didn’t have any….” Rue snorts; Nguyen goes on. “Why don’t you use a few of them to tell me what you’ve been doing to get a mild case of radiation sickness.”

Riding a necrotic cowboy into the sunset, but I swear I did a RadAway drip each time after….

But Rue’s obviously not going to say that. She likes Doc Nguyen –she’s been caring for Rue since she came to Dust– and she wants to trust her; but Rue’s secrets don’t feel safe with anyone but herself.

“Indulgin’ in Cram despite knowin’ better.” It’s an easy fib. Believable if she’s been eating the canned meat a little bit too regularly. “It’s so good fried, Nguyen. Ya can’t even taste the decades and decades it’s been marinatin’ in a tin can when ya fry it.”

“I’m going to recommend you quit. If not for keeping your rads down, then for keeping your intestines in working order.”

“I’ll take it into consideration.”

Nguyen sighs. “If I weren’t a doctor, I’d hurt you. Just a little bit.”

Rue grins drowsily. “Only a lil’?”

Doc Nguyen’s lips quirk ever so slightly, but she’s good at squashing her amusement down. She’s straight-faced and not-quite-frowning in an eyeblink. “Moving on. If it’s too foggy or hurts your head, don’t press, but I’d like to know what the last thing you remember is before waking up here.”

“I had a fit?” That’s the only thing Rue can currently guess at. She always ends up in Doc Nguyen’s office in a sorry state when she’s had a fit, and it’s a bit up in the air if she’ll remember the why behind it. Sometimes she does; sometimes she doesn’t. She definitely doesn’t at the moment.

“Yes, but let’s not call it a fit. We’re going to say a mental health crisis.”

“That sounds worse.”

Impatience leaks into an otherwise even, professional tone. “Rue.”

Rue sighs. She knows that voice and that she should probably stop dicking around. “Sorry, Nguyen. Lemme think….”

“Take your time.”

The last thing Rue remembers with any kind of clarity is being at Mulholland’s, running drinks and chatting with tables. How tired and ready for bed she was. At one point, she was thinking about Lara. Missing Lara. It twists at her even now, but there’s something deeper there. A worry she doesn’t understand.

Rue starts over, retracing all her steps. Her morning was average. She was able to do all her normal chores and feed Eggshells before Deck and the three or four boys he’s taken to keeping on him at all times swung by to walk her to work. He bid her goodbye on the saloon’s front porch, pulling her in for a hug that lasted for far too long and ended with a kiss against her hair.

Rue mentally pushes that away, wishing she could erase it completely, but she’s never so lucky as to forget that kind of shit. But she was a little lucky when she went inside the saloon and popped behind the bar to tuck Baby Destiny in her safe place. Hal had saved her a muffin, and Rue scarfed it down in three bites before helping him with stocking glasses. Then she headed upstairs to help the girls get ready, and that was as thrilling and enjoyable as it usually is.

Now that she’s thinking about it, she spent an awful lot of time going up and down the stairs last night because Anais likes to share drinks with her clients. In fact, Rue has a very vivid memory of watching Anais’ arm slip out her cracked bedroom door and snatch up a wine bottle before she… she followed the sound of her name and her heart went to hurricane-ing.

Because Lucky. Because Deck. Because Lara. Because Bo. Because the Ghoul. Because Hal. Because Ira Jean. Because Geraldine. Because… because Artie.

Rue’s sore fingers spastically clench. Her whole body recoils, and she wants to claw out the heart in her chest that goes so tight. That aches and rages and breaks apart bit by bit.

“Rue? Rue, what’s wrong?” A hand comes down gentle on Rue’s bandaged right hand.

Rue stares at it hard, seeing it red stained. Seeing red on floors. Red hair.

“Did I kill that lady?” Rue asks, quietly.

Doc Nguyen is silent for a long moment, and when she speaks, she does so plainly, “You did. One of your blows struck her nose in a very particular way. It shoved the bone into her brain.”

Rue keeps staring at her bandaged hand, through it. Through the thin bedsheets and mattress and all the way down to the hell she never thought existed. But she thinks it might now. She thinks it might be all around her. Demons and figments and bright spots only used to hurt her even worse later.

“You aren’t in trouble for it, Rue,” Doc Nguyen goes on. “Everyone agrees what happened, happened because the other party escalated the situation when she pushed you down and drew her firearm.”

“Nguyen,” Rue says carefully, as calmly as she can muster with her heart and eyes burning like wildfire and her throat so tight on account of tears. “I don’t wanna talk no more.”

“That’s… that’s alright. We don’t have to.” Doc Nguyen’s hand on hers pets so gently. “Is it alright for me to run through my check-up?”

Rue simply nods, not moving another muscle as the doctor does whatever she needs to do.

And Rue’s brain spins through what she needs to do. Or not do. She can’t do anything. She couldn’t save Artie. Lara might have a goddamn, fucking bounty out on her. Everyone who comes into contact with her is in danger because Deck Craven loves her in the most twisted, fucked-up, obsessive way someone could love another. But it’s not love. It’s not right. He’s ruining her life. He’s ending lives. And the universe doesn’t want her to end his –or that’s how it’s really starting to feel. Every attempt she made was foiled, and he’s gone the night she snapped and killed someone.

It shoulda been him. It shoulda been him. It shoulda been him.

She… she doesn’t know what to do anymore. Did she ever? It feels as if she’s made every wrong decision, but they always felt like the only ones she had. She couldn’t run. Bounty hunters would have gotten her. She never wanted to tell a soul what he did, never wanted to drag them into her shit. It was her and Deck’s business. It was never supposed to be anyone else’s. No one else was supposed to die because of her.

Rue’s eyes slip shut, the keen, horrible realization that everything she’s ever done and endured was pointless burrowing deep. Breaking her down so low, making her feel so weak and helpless and small. So, so stupid –as stupid as everyone says she is.

Rue suddenly, desperately, wants her Pa. No, she needs him. She needs him to scoop her up and hold her tight. Needs him to pat her hair and tell her everything is alright, and goddammit, he always made it so. He always knew what to do, and she really fucking doesn’t. She’s just some burnt-brained kid fumbling around, making bigger and bigger messes that get the people she loves killed.

“N-Nguyen,” Rue’s voice is watery, wavering, “do ya still-.” She sniffs, breathing uneven. “Do ya still have my holotape? I-I wanna hear Smile.”

Nguyen looks up from the small, scabbing over cuts on Rue’s knuckles. Her hazel eyes pick over Rue’s face, and for a moment, Rue sees sadness and worry. More kindness she doesn’t deserve. More love she can’t have. But she wants so desperately, that she greedily clings to despite knowing better.

“Of course I do.” Doc Nguyen rises, patting the back of Rue’s hand very carefully before stepping away. “I promised I would keep it safe. I even have a pair of headphones for you this time around if you want to try them.”

Rue can only bob her head, no longer trusting her voice to speak.

[voidsdamned]

I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you're able to write loads & make lots of progress <3

[voidsdamned]

Wicked Natures - The Ghoul/OC (Female Character) Chapter Twelve

Summary: Bounty hunters are frequent customers at Mulholland's Saloon, and Rue's taken quite a shine to one gunslinger in particular: a cantankerous, old Ghoul in a tattered duster. Witness her unabashedly lust after him in all his irradiated glory (as we are all currently doing), as well as navigate the precarious relationship she unfortunately has with local law enforcement.

Minors, do not interact.

Content Warnings: the usual swearing, use of alcohol and chems, mentions of blood, mentions of murder, but it is generally mild.

It took forever for this chapter to come out in a way I was satisfied with, and I hope whoever reads enjoys it.

Chapter Twelve: Make Sense

Rue knows she’s never seen anything beyond the desert and distant mesas, but she doesn’t think anything in the world could be more beautiful than they are to her. She loves how the grey-orange stretches on and on, how light shimmers on the horizon like magic’s being cast. She loves the way rocks, hills, and cliffs bloom and fall away in waves. The vegetation, though sparse, is so cute to her. Barrel cacti are plump and squat, and prickly pear are flat and funky. She likes the tumbleweeds that go rolling by even though they’re painfully sharp and hurt like a motherfucker when they blow into her legs.

It might get hotter than the devil’s downstairs, but it’s what she knows.

Even more beautiful than the desert during the day is the desert at night. The temperature drops; the air hits her lungs crisply. The stars are so endless and clear, painting the landscape in such a dreamy cast. The moonglow outlines rock formations in silver, and Rue’s not sure if it’s a real sensation or if she imagines it, but she swears she can feel the lunar lights washing over her skin. All silvery and liquid and cool.

The harsh world just seems so much softer in the dark.

“That’s the Milky Way,” she says, voice carrying over the sound of her gentle strumming. “It’s cold, I guess. Don’t make much sense to me, but that’s what I’ve been told.” 

Rue glances to the far side of the porch where the creature that typically lurks under her house sits loaf-like and cutesy. It’s no longer a creature, though. No longer this ambiguous, dark, toothsome shape. It’s some kind of massive, yellow-eyed, pointy-eared, bob-tailed cat that drew her out of the house in a hastily tugged on pair of boxers and undershirt when it went to fighting, yowling, spitting, and banging all around with what sounded like a coyote.

At first, Rue only caught a glimpse of it as it went scrambling quickly under her porch, but she saw enough to know it was cute and bloodied; and if it fought off a coyote –even if it wasn’t for her sake– then it deserved a meal. She smashed up several eggs in a bowl (the stray dogs like it when she does that for them), sprinkled the top with brahmin jerky, and left the offering at the edge of the porch. Rue then went to grab her guitar and settled herself down in her rocking chair to idly play and watch.

It didn’t take long for the big kitty to investigate, to eat, and once it finished, it laid itself down beside the bowl to lick away the blood on its paws. It's sat there since, peacefully with its eye closed and tucked in on itself as Rue talks about nothing in particular to it.

The cat –Eggshells, she decides– obviously doesn’t say anything back to her. Doesn’t really do anything other than blink slow and yawn. Which is unfairly cute. A temptation. Rue badly wants to pet it, but from what she knows of cats, it must come to her. If she went crawling to it, it would either skedaddle or claw her eyes out.

They can be friends at a distance for now.

“Who the hell are you talkin’ to?”

Rue’s head snaps in the other direction, eyes wide around and heart exciting at the familiar voice. The dark form of the Ghoul looms under the closest oak, the limbs further shading him. He’s still, head cocked curiously to the side.

You’re not gonna giggle and kick your feet. You’re not gonna giggle and kick your feet.

Rue giggles and kicks her feet. “Hey you.”

She feels the eyeroll more than she sees it. “Don’t act so excited.”

“Not actin’,” Rue insists, fingers plucking out the first few notes of Stardust. “If I had a tail, it’d go to thumpin’ anytime you came ‘round. …Hey, what kinda cat is this?” With a tilt of her head, she motions to the kitty sitting at the opposite side of the porch from them.

The Ghoul approaches slow, each step accompanied by the tiny jingle of spurs and solid thuds against the porch when he climbs up. He pauses just before Rue, eyes fixing and silence stretching until a tired, “Rue, that’s a fuckin’ bobcat,” breaks the quiet.

“Ooh. On account of its tail?”

Another stint of silence broken by a sighed, “Yeah.”

“They friendly?”

“No, not usually.”

Rue hums. “Maybe this one is?”

The Ghoul shakes his head, shooting her a look that tells her exactly how stupid he thinks she is. “Try and pet it, and it’ll probably rip your throat out.”

She smiles up at him and winks. “So will most things…. I’m lookin’ at one of ‘em, but he ain’t done nothin’ but love me good so far.”

The look of judgement slips away with an eyeroll, replaced by a tired aggravation. “Cut your cute shit. I feel every bit of the old man I am tonight and ain’t in the mood.”

Rue decides to leave it alone for now, mostly because she can see the tired on his face and pressing on his shoulders. “It get that,” Rue mumbles. And she does. She’s had one of the longest weeks of her life (all of freak-outs, retribution, pointless training, and general jack-assery), and if not for the kitty, she’d be conked out. “Know I ain’t got but two decades and some change under my belt, but my back’s fuckin’ killin’ me. Sheriff Buttfuck came in with a barrel cactus up his ass and had one of his spazzin’ freak-out sessions. Made us all come in at eight this mornin’ to deep clean. I got stuck on my hands and knees all day scrubbin’ floors.”

“Boo hoo.” The jab is dry as a bone, pitiless. “You like bein’ on your knees.”

Rue’s lips quirk tiredly. He just said he wasn’t in the mood for that kind of shit, but now he’s the one making pervy comments? It's a double-standard she doesn't do much more than chuckle at before cooing, “Only for you.”

The bounty hunter scrubs away the grin that tries to take his lovely mouth. “Told ya already to quit the cute shit.”

A helpless shrug as she plays the last few notes of Stardust. “It’s just in my nature, sugar.”

Whiskey eyes roll, and the bidding curl of two fingers tells Rue to hop up. She does so curiously and is promptly brushed aside so that he can claim her chair. He sinks back, almost dripping over the edges, and with a yawn, he asks her, “What kinda liquor you got inside?”

Rue laughs, half-disbelief/half-amusement. She props Baby Destiny carefully against the house. “Well, why don’t I just pop in and see, your majesty.”

The Ghouls sighs, tired yet pleased. “Majesty, huh? Don’t sound half bad….” He waves her away. “Hop to it.”

Rolling her eyes, Rue leaves him to the porch and raids her kitchenette, coming up with a short, mostly full bottle of whiskey. She takes it, and then rifles through her discarded skirt’s pocket for a Vial. She then rejoins him on the front porch, places the bottle in the hand that waits outstretched for her, and drops a Vial in his lap.

He’s immediately more interested in the Vial, as the whiskey is set aside and a delighted, “Well, don’t mind if I do,” hums out of him.

Rue watches close. She’s never seen anyone take this chem before. She’s never known if it was something one drank, dripped in their eyes, or shot into their veins. So, she’s very intrigued when he produces a pump inhaler to snap the uncapped Vial into. He gives it a little shake, presses it to his mouth, and squeezes.

An airy hiss. A long, long, deep drag. A pleasured groan that does too much to Rue’s mind. Vapour pools from his nose slow like a dragon from a storybook she barely remembers.

“What’s that feel like?” she queries.

His chuckle is drowsy and deep. “Like a full-body rub down, inside and out.”

“Ooh.” Rue bends at the waist, putting herself in his hooded line of sight. “Can I try?”

“Ya don’t want none of this,” he dismisses with a lazy bat of his hand. “It ain’t for your kind.”

“My kind?”

“Smoothies,” he clarifies, deep-set eyes cutting knowingly her way, “or prim and proper lil’ Vaulties.”

Rue perks at the name, never having once been called that in her life (and not remembering when she let that little tidbit about herself slip). Her grin goes wide. “Oh, honey, we both know I ain’t prim and proper.”

Lopsided and dangerous is the tilt to the Ghoul’s lips as he murmurs, “And I ain’t even sure you’re really a Vaultie.” The inhaler falls to his lap, and his hand wraps around the whiskey bottle. He flicks the cap somewhere off the porch before taking him a good glug that ends with him dragging his leathered hand across his mouth. “I think you’re just tellin’ me stories all the goddamn time. Should be mad at ya for it, but I know you ain’t playin’ with a full deck of cards.”

Rue snorts. That’s still not the meanest way she’s been called dumb. “Sure I am. It’s just one of those caravan decks.”

He laughs against the rim of the bottle, the warm sound of it twisting at Rue. She pats and squeezes at her face, hurriedly turning from him. She sits herself down with her back pressing against the house before she’s won over by the desire to straddle him.

The gunslinger pokes at her further, “Betcha can’t even follow the game.”

She doesn’t bother to tell him that his assumption is correct. She can’t keep the rules straight, and Hal’s tried teaching her a dozen times so they could play to help pass the time of slower nights. His lessons never stick, and normally, when she sees him going for his cards, she finds herself something to clean.

She redirects the conversation. “Why do ya think I’m tellin’ stories?”

He answers plainly, “You don’t make sense.”

“How’s that?”

The Ghoul sighs, sips, and sighs again. “You say your Pa was a ranger before becomin’ a rancher. That’s believable –I did kinda believe it. But then ya tell me you came up in a Vault, and those two things don’t make sense together. A Vaultie doesn’t go from cushy, fuckin’ around to bein’ a ranger, and then a rancher in what I’ve figured is only a few months.”

When he puts it like that, it does sound like Rue’s telling stories. She didn’t realize she’d put that information out there in such a muddled way. “Well, that’s easy to explain.” And it really is. The truth isn’t secret or sacred. “Pa wasn’t my real pa.”

The bottle stills halfway to the Ghoul’s lips but just for a heartbeat before he takes a deep pull. “Alright, I’ll bite. Make it all make sense for me, darlin’. But you insult my intelligence a bit too much, and I’ll string you up from that tree and let the bobcat eat ya from the toes up.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” escapes Rue’s grinning mouth before she can even hope to stop it.

His head lolls her way, and his eyes lazily rake over her before he takes another slow sip of whiskey. “You’re a mess.”

She holds her hands out, shoulders shrugging. “I can’t always help it.”

The Ghoul’s mouth upticks behind the bottle’s rim, and she knows he doesn’t actually mind it. “Get to explainin’.”

Rue buckles down as much as she can. “Okay… so… I was born in a Vault. Couldn’t tell ya which or where or why it is I left. I don’t remember too much ‘fore comin’ to Dust on account of trauma and a few hits upside the head.”

The gunslinger snorts. “Now that I can believe.”

Rue, unbothered, starts listing them off for him. “Got pistol whipped by a slaver. Alice Dunn hit me upside the head with a board ‘cause I was tryin’ to kill her for whipin’ snot on my guitar. And night the ranch burned, a beam fell and caught me here.” Rue’s fingers glance at the right side of her head, against a faded scar mostly buried by her thick hair. “Or so I’ve been told. I don’t rightly recall.”

“Got a hard fuckin’ head.”

Rue grins, winks, and fingerguns at him. “And some kinda luck.”

His snicker is drowned out by whiskey, and Rue keeps going despite getting into icky territory she’s discussed with maybe three other people.

“Again, I don’t remember too much about leavin’ the Vault or the few months after. Everything’s this desperate, hungry haze until this one, sharply clear memory I got where my birth lady is bein’ handed a fat sack of caps by a dirty man and these other dirty men keep tryin’ to grab me up. But I bit the tar outta one of ‘em, and he let me have it with that pistol. Then it’s all nasty and fuzzy again.”

“Well, shit,” the Ghoul interrupts. “Guess Vaulties can get down and dirty with the rest of us.”

Rue’s head cocks. “Huh?”

“I ain’t had the displeasure of meetin’ too many Vaulties,” he explains around a few, quick sips. “Few I met were these self-righteous folk who’d go on and on about morality. Turn their noses up at violence, at the world up here. They could make it better. It was their responsibility –destiny or some shit. And then they’d turn up dead or I’d find out they went runnin’ back to their Vaults with their tails between their legs.”

Rue can’t remember enough about her biological folks to say for certain they were like that at first, but she can absolutely believe Vaulties in general are like that. She knows her time in the Vault was pleasant. She can feel that. She was safe and happy until whatever happened, happened. And she remembers a... Golden Rule. It was hammered into her head –everyone’s head. It was a creed to live by. Something she still tries to remember even when everything feels so goddamn shitty.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Her sperm donor and incubator should have known that, too. Had it a deep-seated as she, but….

“I guess mine made it long enough for the world to change ‘em,” Rue muses, picking at the frayed edges of her boxers before pulling Baby Destiny into her lap. “I used to wonder what happened to ‘em. Wondered if maybe they regretted what they did to me. But now whenever they come to mind, I just start wishin’ on stars that they’re dead somewhere. That they turned ‘round, and someone else just shot ‘em dead for that same bag of caps.”

“Highly fuckin’ likely,” grumbles out of the Ghoul as he goes fiddling around in the saddlebag over his shoulder. He comes up with a small baggie of powder that he upends into his mouth. He swallows, his whole body shivers, and he somehow sinks deeper into the rocking chair. “Slavers probably gunned ‘em down soon as they turned. No one takes Vaulties seriously. No one likes ‘em.”

“What was that?” Rue asks.

“Huh?”

“In the bag.”

“Mostly Daytripper.”

Rue likes the sound of that. She scoots a little closer, propping her chin on the rocking chair’s arm. “Can I try it?”

His head lolls her way, and he gives her another appraising up-down. “Why?”

“I been thinkin’ ‘bout gettin’ into substance abuse,” she says simply, fingers sliding against the strings of her guitar. “And you look like you’re feelin’ nice and loose, and I kinda want some of that.”

“You ever done chems before?”

Rue shakes her head. Her Pa heavily discouraged their use, but she’s an adult. She’s going through shit. She wants to try it. “Well, Doc Nguyen’s given me Calmex ‘fore. That count?”

The way his mouth pulls says, “No,” but he asks her, “And what’s Calmex like for ya?”

“Warm and rosy. I go to sleep like that.” She snaps her fingers. “But… I end up pukin’.”

He shakes his head firmly. “I ain’t babysittin’ ya, and I ain’t cleanin’ ya up when you go to pukin’.” He shoves the bottle of whiskey into her hands. “You finish that off.”

“I’m more of a rum gal,” Rue says, making a ‘tsk’ sound.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

She rolls her eyes but takes her a swing that burns like she swallowed red-glowing coals. Voice tight, she tells him, “You ain’t no fun, old man.”

He laughs as he pulls out what Rue recognizes as a Jet inhaler. “And you ain’t finished with your story.”

Rue takes another glug that makes her entire body wince. “Don’t even remember what I was talkin’ ‘bout anymore.”

The inhaler goes to his mouth. Rue watches as he huffs it down. “Slavers,” he tells her, vapour leaving his lips and nose cavity.

“Slavers…. Yeah, yeah.” A final glug before her fingers pick meaninglessly at strings. “They were bringin’ me through Dust, and we passed by my Pa’s land. Guess he couldn’t stand for it, so he did what he was good at. That’s all… bloody red in my head. Heads burstin’ into clouds of ick, and then a stranger pullin’ me out a cage….”

Rue remembers clinging to Yuri for dear life, seeing the gun that made all that gore strapped to his back and feeling the barrel of it still warm from firing. She wouldn’t let go. He probably had to hold her for two days straight, and even after that, she held onto his shirt or pants everywhere he went. He could scarcely go to the bathroom alone she was so clingy.

Her chest tightens, her eyes sting, with the thought of her Pa. The sudden, immense sensation of missing him. She sits upright, eyes fastening ahead of her, on that silver lining distant mountains and mesas.

Rue honestly doesn’t like to think too much of her Pa. There’s just guilt, loneliness, and missing someone so much it’s like she lost a limb. But she swallows down all that sadness with a long gulp of whiskey that barely touches her with the way she’s already burning.

A sigh comes from the Ghoul, but she can’t look his way yet. She has to stare and stare until her eyes dry. But he doesn’t give her that option. A rough hand grabs her chin with more gentleness than he usually reserves for her and makes her look up at him.

She wouldn’t say he’s gone soft, but he’s not so many hard edges and aggravation as he sticks a finger into her mouth. “Don’t go cryin’ over it now.”

Rue’s surprised, quickly flushing with delight, but she’s mostly curious when her mouth fills with the most bitter of tastes. Acid and powdery like she didn’t swallow a pill quick enough before it started dissolving in her mouth.

“I ain’t,” she says when his finger slides out. “It just kinda stings sometimes what I’m not expectin’ it to….” She smacks her lips. “What’d ya put on that finger?”

“Rest of that Daytripper.” His grip on her jaw relaxes, slips away. “Probably not enough of it to do much to ya, but….” He shrugs. “We’ll see, I guess.”

Rue hides her satisfied smile behind the whiskey’s rim. “I’ll behave.”

He settles back into the chair, a hand reaching out to grab the whiskey from her. “Uh-huh.” He takes down the rest of the bottle before letting the empty thing fall to the porch. “So, he saves ya, takes ya in, and that’s that?”

Rue nods. “That’s that. …You done bein’ skeptic and shit?”

His drawl is lazy. “For now.”

She sighs, a sound half of laughter. She scoots a bit further up, putting herself better into his line of sight so she can look up into his face and he can’t avoid the shiny, roundness of her grey eyes. “Why ya want me to be a liar so bad?”

The Ghoul shrugs. His scarred mouth pulls at the corner, an expression that looks more like discomfort than amusement. “It’s not that I want ya to be one. I just don’t get you, and it’d make more sense for you to be a liar than for ya to be…,” he gestures vaguely to her entirety with one hand, “whatever the hell this is.”

The stretch of Rue’s lips goes wide as she winks. “I’m choosin’ to take that as a compliment.”

“I could call ya straight up insane, and you’d blush and wring your fingers all bashful-like.”

Rue starts to laugh out a rebuttal to the spot-on observation, but the Ghoul cuts her off with a, “Don’t bother tellin’ me I’m right, sweetheart. I already know it.”

She rolls her eyes, turning her face from his before she rests it against his thigh. “Why don’tcha tell me where ya got off to that wore your ass out so bad.”

The Ghoul makes a, “Tch,” sound of disapproval. She’s not sure if it’s at the query or her using him as her pillow, but he doesn’t push her away. Doesn’t make any kind of snarky comment. She feels movement, eyes ticking up to find him pointing towards the far-off rock formations. “There’s a lil’ town on the other side of the mesa. Ancho. Weapons’ manufacturer your keeper’s feudin’ with burned it.”

Rue’s eyes trace along the flattened shape, the silvery outline. She’s not sure if it’s a real thing or if it’s in her head, but that silver strand quivers, warps and waves before it settles. She rubs at her eyes, recalling smoke coming from that way a few days ago. She didn’t pay it much mind. Shit burns all the time out here.

“The uh… the Nightstalkers?”

He must nod. “I was there when they did it. Minutes from snappin’ up a bounty I was after. But they scared him off, and it was pure pain huntin’ him down again. He ran all over creation.”

“But ya got him?”

A hand comes down on top of Rue’s head, making her eyes go wide around and her heart thunder. Her eyes flutter from pleasure when his fingers run through her hair. “Darlin’,” his chuckle is dangerous, “I always get ‘em.”

Rue’s breath catches. Her mind whirls. It’s such a small thing, it really is, but it feels so intimate. It’s new. It’s unexpected of him. It makes her want more and more, but she chants at herself to calm down. To just enjoy it and not comment so she doesn't risk him pulling away.

With a mouth like sandpaper, she asks him, “Why’d they go after Ancho instead of Dust?”

“Sheriff had that town in his pocket, too,” the Ghoul explains, another pet making her shiver. “They did it as a warnin’.”

Rue blinks at that. “Two towns?”

“Five,” the Ghoul corrects. “Well, four now. …He’s got himself a nice slice of pie carved out down here.”

Despite how lovely his simple, petting touch makes Rue feel, the information sinks like a stone in her belly. Drags her mood down. Deck’s reach is broader than she thought, and it bothers her severely. She already knew running wasn’t smart due to all the bounty hunters he’d send after her and she’d never be able to pay off, but this… this makes it feel so much harder. Her so much smaller, and him so much bigger.

Another pet, a gentle drag of the bounty hunter’s fingers through her hair, sets Rue’s eyes spinning. Her thoughts scattering. More so than usual. She’s feeling so warm and outside of her body, and suddenly, none of that Deck business really matters. Nothing does except the Ghoul’s touch and the way the silver draping over the mesa slithers like a snake.

Quiet laughter bubbles out of Rue, and she nuzzles the Ghoul’s thigh, placing a kiss to it before she drags herself away. She can’t keep sitting in all that desire or she’ll end up in a state he already told her he didn’t feel like dealing with tonight.

“I think the Daytripper hit.” She carefully gets to her feet, feeling like she’s made of soda fizz. And fuck, she’s suddenly starving. “You wanna come in? I got some fancy cake in a fancy, lil’ fridge Mrs. Ira Jean gave me, and I don’t mind sharin’ with ya.”

His whiskey eyes find her, amused and a little interested. “What kinda cake?”

“Oh. Um…. Some kinda milk cake… tres… tres leches. Mrs. Rosa made it.” Rue bends carefully to grab her guitar and doesn’t realize she’s tilting more and more until the Ghoul’s hand wraps around her wrist to pull her back upright.

“You got zero tolerance if that lil’ taste of ‘tripper got you like this.”

His touch is like static shocks, and Rue has to bite her lips as not to make the most desperate of needful, little whimpers. “I-I’m fine,” she assures as she straightens, holding Baby Destiny tight to her chest. “Just a lil’ bubbly.” She tries to pop all those bubbles and breathe deep as she smiles down at him. “You gonna get up, or do I need to wheel ya in, old man?”

The Ghoul is almost instantly on his feet, tongue clicking and the look he shoots her dangerous in so many, thrilling ways. “And here I was thinkin’ bout lettin’ you ride my thigh while I enjoyed a slice of cake.” Another disapproving click of the tongue and a shake of his head that seems to say it’s such a shame. “Oh well.”

Rue doesn’t know if she’s physically shaking or if it’s her brain doing all that in her head. She laughs. “I ain’t that desperate that I’d start humpin’ ya like a dog beggin’ for scraps.”

The way his eyes pick over Rue feels like they lay every thread of her bare, see everything she is, thinks, and feels. And he grins: one of wicked knowing and amused disbelief that she would try to deny something he's certain of. “Oh, honey….” He takes her by the chin, his knuckle dragging across her lips. “We both know ya are.”

Rue’s legs almost go out from under her.