closed rp Post

[assjerky]

CLOSED RP POST with okiedokies art by pignk

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[okiedokies]

Lucy didn't want to admit that she was tired but she swore she could feel the ache in her legs and everywhere else in her body by the time they reached the split of land he had mentioned to her earlier in the day. She also didn't want to admit that she felt a bit nauseous at times but she was writing it off to having not eaten much beyond a couple snack cakes and some of the cactus fruit they had saved.

She was relieved when they found the houses though and she wanted to rush ahead but she knew better, so she was playing it cautiously as she followed him. Maybe she wasn't cautious enough though as she almost didn't hear the click until suddenly he was hauling her back against him, causing her to squeak in surprise as he kept an arm around her and brought his mouth to her ear. She was instantly alert even as his warm breath fanned across her skin, her eyes darting this way and that before she nodded slowly.

Shifting behind him when he let go of her, she looked concerned as she glanced at the ground and then back to him again. "Can't we throw something at it? What happens if it's more powerful than you think and you get hurt?"

She had reached out to touch him, her hand brushing against his shoulder before she fell back further at his insistence. Biting her lip, she watched him, tension radiating throughout her body as he picked up the mine and eyed it. Glancing at the mine and then back, she licked her lips. "Do you think..."

Shit, he was taking out his gun and so she did the same, pulling her gun from her holster as she glanced at the house.

[assjerky]

They could've thrown something at it or shot it from a distance, but that wouldn't get them a mine he could patch up and use if needed. Waste not want not. Sometimes the risk was worth it.

Thankfully it was the only one...and they didn't have to move much further into the house to see where said mine had been made, a makeshift workbench with all kinds of spare parts laid out on it, also covered in a thin layer of desert dust. He was pretty sure he could sus out what'd happened; most likely the squatters bones were littering the Wasteland, a victim of an angry yao guai or chemed up raider. Or they'd been snatched up by the legion, for slave labor or worse.

Sucked for them. Lucky for him and the Vaultie. His stance relaxed a little as he swept the rest of the house, then started scavenging. "There's a hearth over there, Vaultie," he remarked, jerking his chin towards said stone construct that already scraps of burned wood in it. "See if you can get a fire started."

[okiedokies]

She could see that he was aiming to keep the mine and she wondered how safe it was but The Ghoul seemed to be well versed in these things, so she left him to it. Especially once he decided the house was safe for them with no sign of actual life inside. Thankfully, unlike the last house she had seen, there were no bodies either.

Her gaze still flickered to the broken table nearby, the memory flashing through her mind before she willed it away and continued to look around. At least until The Ghoul drew her attention to the stone construct, causing her to perk up with a smile as building a fire was something she had learned. Not that they had used fires in the Vault but it was still something she had learned.

"Okey dokey," she told him, shrugging her backpack off and setting it down before she went over to the hearth. It took a little while to get all the wood she needed and then she was setting to the task, taking a few minutes before she managed to get a small fire going. She was triumphant looking as she glanced up at him, smiling brightly. "All done. What else do you need me to do?"

[assjerky]

The Ghoul looked up from the cabinet he was digging through, raised an eyebrow, glanced around her at the fire and back to her beaming face. Well. Wasn't she just eager to please.

He allowed himself a moment or two to entertain an impure thought about eagerness as it related to pleasin', then straightened from his crouch to pass her a couple of the items he'd dug up. A stimpak, a few vials of antivenom, a single dose of Med-X, and two cans of pork and beans. "You can stow those chems somewhere safe, and make somethin' to eat."

[okiedokies]

Blissfully unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken, Lucy rose to her feet to take the stuff from him, taking note of each item as she nodded and then turned to do as he instructed. She stowed the chems in her bag, making sure to pack them safely so they wouldn't break as she had already seen what would happen if that set of circumstances rolled around again.

Then she took the cans, studying them and glancing at the fire. Crouching down, she used a stick to nudge the fire, looking for an open spot where she could place the cans to cook without putting them in the open flame. Once she had a spot she was sure would work well, she used to pull tabs on the top to open the cans, giving the food a sniff to make sure it was okay before she set them in to cook.

As she waited, she opened her pack to pull out a bottle of Nuka-Cola, twisting the top off and checking him again. "Want a sip?"

[assjerky]

If it helped, he wouldn't sell her to shady gang associated organ dealers if his vials ended up smashed again. Nor did he have much need for stimpaks or antivenom; they were more for her. They wouldn't be lucky enough to avoid cazadors and night stalkers forever.

He kept searching for anything else useful and salvaged some ammo, some bits and bobs he thought he could rig some traps from, a spool of thread, a half empty carton of cigarettes, and probably best of all, a shoebox full of caps. Her offer came while he was moving some things off a bookshelf, so he paused to lean over and accept the offered bottle. "Keep the cap," he advised her, before he took a sip and handed her the bottle back. Spotting something on the shelf, he chuffed softly in amusement and pulled it off, giving it a little shake as he ambled back over to Lucy and handed it to her wordlessly. It was an old pre-war snow globe of the Vegas strip in its heyday--dusty, faded, and lacking some of the liquid, but a novel sight nonetheless. Between that, the faint taste of cola on his tongue, and the pleasant popping of the fire in the hearth, he felt a quiet little wave of nostalgia not entirely unpleasant.

His scavenging done, he dragged a mostly intact chair over and sat down heavily, tipped his head back and closed his eyes with a sigh. "Long fuckin' day, huh Vaultie."

[okiedokies]

The fact that he wouldn't sell her again would help immensely. She still didn't know if she was foolish to trust him entirely but they had come to a sort of truce. Plus his company wasn't unpleasant by any means. Sometimes she even found that she enjoyed herself just like she did now as she sat in front of the fire, watching him as he took a sip of the cola and passed it back to her.

Tucking the cap into one of her many pockets, she let her gaze drift to the fire while she brought the bottle to her lips and took a long sip. It was a nice change from all the water she had been drinking lately, radiated and not. She was letting her mind wander until she realized he was offering her something and she had to set the bottle down before she could take the snow globe from him.

She was entranced as she gave it a little shake, watching the white bits swirl up and she realized that it was supposed to be snow. It would have been more impressive if it had been full but she still liked it as she gave it another shake, chuckling softly to herself. She decided it was a nice distraction but didn't linger on it for long.

"It's been a long...few days," she admitted with a shadow of a smile, looking over. "Whatever I had imagined when I left the Vault, it certainly wasn't all this."

[assjerky]

"Oh I bet not," the Ghoul drawled with an amused hum, cracking one eye open enough to glance at her, lips twitching. "All that fuckin' optimism and can-do attitude, I reckon you thought you'd be back in time for supper." He stretched with a wince as muscles that could endure a lot were protesting the paces he'd put them through. "There's a mattress shoved back in that corner, you wanna sleep on something other than the ground for once." He doubted he had to add it weren't exactly clean. What was, up here in the real world.

[okiedokies]

"Not quite," Lucy tilted her head, giving him a 'look' for teasing her because, no, she hadn't thought that she would be back home in time for supper. She had stepped out knowing there was a chance she would never be allowed to come back in but that hadn't stopped her. She had thought she was doing the right thing at the time.

"But I never imagined things going so completely wrong," she continued, lowering her gaze to the globe. She never could have imagined that she would find out the things that she had, that the world was so different from what she had imagined and that her dad had played a hand in it.

That thought caused some of the humor to slip away as she sobered, her gaze looking troubled until he pointed out there was a mattress. She pushed the shadows away and forced a smile back into place while setting the globe aside. "I'll lay down after I eat."

Instead of looking at him, mostly in fear of what he would see, she leaned over to check the cans.

[assjerky]

The Ghoul didn't have to be looking at her to guess the kind of thoughts what whistled through her mind. All the shit she was dealing with was shit he knew better than he knew his own reflection.

"I'd tell you some shit bout time healing all wounds, but I ain't one for lyin'," he remarked, exhaling another deep sigh of a breath and opening his eyes to stare up at the peeling and cracked ceiling. "Gets better, though. Time goes on, you'll stop feeling so much like you've been kicked in the gut every gotdamn day."

[okiedokies]

He had already told her once that he was basically her with just a few years attached. At the time she had brushed that off but even she was starting to see the similarities now.

"I can't tell if that's a good thing or not," she murmured as she got a cloth from her pack so that she could get the cans out of the embers without burning herself. She left one to cool but rose to her feet to carefully bring the other can over to him, holding it out so he would see it. "Watch out, it's hot."

[assjerky]

"Hard to say. Feeling nothing's easier. Don't know if its better." He'd gotten used to it, but he couldn't swear to it that she'd be able to do the same.

Since he still had his gloves on, and figured they were thick enough to handle the heat briefly, he accepted the can from her and dragged a chipped end table close enough to set it down. "Thank ya kindly, darlin'," he drawled, figuring he'd wait til it stopped bubbling to take a bite, rather than risking a singed tongue. Dogmeat came sniffing up to him, and he clicked his tongue and nudged her back. "Hey now. This ain't for pups." He dug a leftover piece of roasted molerat leg wrapped in a cloth out of his coat pocket and offered it instead. A trade the dog happily accepted.

He would've been content with eating in silence, but that hangdog look on the Vaultie's face was spoiling the mood. "So what did yall vault dwellers get up to for fun?" he asked as he poked a spoon into the can, nudging the contents around to cool them off faster.

[okiedokies]

"It doesn't seem like a very healthy way of living but I guess I can see what you mean," she wondered if it would surprise him that she was seeing his way of thinking. Not that she was sure it would work for her either but she supposed it was a way of surviving this hellish world.

"You're welcome," she smiled kindly to him as she walked over to sit down by the fire again, picking up her pack to take out a couple of spoons. She was still close enough to him that she could lean over and stretch out to offer him a spoon after he traded some food to Dogmeat to sate her hunger.

Scooping some food into her mouth, she thought they would be eating in silence too until he asked about what she did in the vault. "Oh, all sorts of things. I was in a bunch of different clubs like gymnastics and rifling. On my downtime, I did gardening, reading and watching movies when I wasn't teaching."

"What do you do?" She asked curiously, arching a brow at him while she took another bite.

[assjerky]

Some part of him--the tiny sliver that still had some pride around the craft he'd once plied--wanted to ask her what kind of movies she'd watched. But if it were any of his, he thought he was better off not knowing.

"Oh its all tea parties and debutant balls up here, Vaultie," he drawled, though without as much acid to the sarcasm as he would've once used. He was clearly just needling her. "I do this, sweetheart. Well--I hunt people down, that is. Usually it ain't personal." This time it was nothing but.

[okiedokies]

She would have answered him if he had asked but it most likely wouldn’t have brought him any comfort. Of course, she wouldn’t know any of that.

She rolled her eyes at him when he made a joke but then she smirked, matching the sarcasm and teasing. “I’m sure you would look great in a pretty blue dress.”

“Do you make a lot of caps doing this? You told your friend you’ve always been good at making money,” she took another bite.

[assjerky]

"There you go, Vaultie. Now you're learning how to be a smartass." He chuckled and finally shoveled a heaping spoonful of beans in his mouth. Blue always had been his color, he thought with bitter amusement. Still was, in a way, though time had turned the bright cobalt to a grimy navy, and most of his old costume was hidden by a vest.

"Mmhm." He couldn't answer properly right away, mouth full, but he grunted a vague ascension and nodded. "Ain't always gotta be people. Could be cargo. Could be a heist. Reckon by now, I've done it all. Why?" He eyed her over another bite, amusement twitching his lips up as he chewed. "You lookin' for a job, sweetheart?"

[okiedokies]

The corners of her mouth twitched under his praise, amusement flickering across her features as she lowered her head in a lame attempt to hide it. Or the fact that she had been pleased with the way he chuckled and looked at her as he did. She missed any sort of weirdness over the fact that he would look good in blue, setting the can aside in favor of the cola.

"I don't know," she answered, giving her head a little shake which caused her bangs to fall in front of her eyes until she pushed them back. "I don't know if I could be ruthless enough to be any good at it."

"Plus I wouldn't be any competition for you," she shrugged, taking another sip. "So you'd get all the good jobs. Or maybe use me as bait again."

[assjerky]

"Course you could." This was the same gal what decapited and fella, tore the Ghoul's trigger finger off with her teeth, and single-handedly fucked up that Super Duper Mart. She had the same capacity he did. Time would tell if she had more integrity. Or maybe not so much more, as more of a desire to hang on to it.

He grunted softly and lapsed into a momentary silence as he shoveled down more food, giving over to the need to refuel the body over having a conversation. He swigged some water and exhaled a contented sigh. "Reckon if I ever feel the need to use you as bait again, I'll at least run it by you first." He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and went back to tucking into his dinner. "Figure that's the least I can do for you saving my sorry life."

[okiedokies]

Lucy wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that he had decided she could do the job but maybe he was right. She had done a lot to survive over the last little while, things she couldn't have imagined doing before. "I guess we'll see what happens. I don't even know if I'd be allowed back into the Vaults."

Certainly not the one she had been expelled from.

She chose not to disturb the brief silence as she focused on eating the rest of the pork and beans in her can. It was a simple meal but it was almost divine considering everything else she'd been eating lately while on the road. She was just finishing the last bite when she looked up at him again, her lashes fluttering before she managed a smirk. "Well, I appreciate that. I figure I can work with almost anything as long as you let me in on the plan. Though next time, I'd prefer not to be tied up and dunked in the water."

She paused briefly and nodded. "You're welcome, by the way. After what I saw with the ghouls in that building, I couldn't let it happen to you after you fought so hard to avoid it."

[assjerky]

"They might let you back in...if you're willin' to play ball. Lie out your cute little behind 'bout everything you know." And they'd already established she wasn't. No burying her head in the sand for his little killer. "You know them folks better than me, but I'm willing to bet even if you got back in, they wouldn't listen to the truth."

He was quiet again as he polished off his dinner, and let her talk. He washed the last bite down with the rest of his canteen, chuckled softly as he wiped his mouth. "Course you coulda," he shot back with a wry smile. "And ain't nobody would've blamed you. Ain't about can and can't, darlin'. It's will and won't." He got up and stretched a bit, shuffled off to the kitchen to see if the faucet worked. It did--though the water wasn't the cleanest, and was clearly irradiated. Thankfully didn't neither bother him much. Though, speaking of radiation...

He tucked his canteen away as he strolled back into the main room, paused by her and reached down to catch her chin in his hand and tip her head up. He hummed thoughtfully as he looked her over, brow furrowed. "...Think we might need to scrounge up some meds for rads when we pass through Primm."

[okiedokies]

Her brows lifted towards her hairline before she smiled at him, looking amused. "My cute little behind?"

Oops, maybe she shouldn't have asked him about that out loud even though she doubted he meant anything by it. He liked to call her all sorts of terms of endearment but mostly for mocking reasons, so she wasn't going to assume that he had thought about her 'behind' at all. After all, why would he?

"Fine, then I wouldn't have done it. At least not that time," she answered him honestly, figuring she might have let him suffer if there had been another time when he had done something to cross her and she could have saved him.

Pushing herself to her feet, she started to brush her backside off, not aware of him drawing closer until he was in front of her and catching her chin with his hand. Her eyes widened a touch as her lips parted at the same time, confusion clear on her face until she realized that he was checking her to see if she was feeling the effect of radiation yet. Still, she swallowed thickly, not pulling away though she nodded slightly. "Okay."

[assjerky]

The Ghoul didn't appear the least bit fazed by her clarification, merely raised an eyebrow at her. He said what he said and he stood by it.

That little look on her face, though. That right there was a problem waiting to happen. He canted his head to the side and ran the glove sheathed pad of his thumb along the curve of her chin, the tip tracing the edge of her bottom lip. "Now you gonna wanna be careful, lookin' at a fella like that, Vaultie," he advised in a tone that promised all manner of dangerously delightful things. "Might make a man wanna commit a sin or three."

[okiedokies]

Lucy wasn't sure if it was her heart pounding in her ears or if there was something going on outside but she couldn't help the shiver that crawled up her spine when his voice took on a low tone that did interesting things to her insides. It was most definitely a problem waiting to happen.

She drew her bottom lip in between her teeth, wetting it before she let it go slowly, leaving it a touch shade darker than before as she looked up at him. When she spoke, her voice was soft and filled with the same promise tinged with just a touch of nerves. "Then you should be careful touching a woman like that. She might let that mean do one or all three."

[assjerky]

Truth be told, even with that wide eyed bordering on fuck struck stare, and that little flicker like she was disappointed he hadn't leaned in to kiss those pretty pink lips--he still kept thinking she'd have the expected reaction. She'd shoved his hand away, cringe back, shudder with revulsion, tell him he was touched in the head for even thinking she'd want his hands on her.

But it kept on not being at all expected, and being real interesting. Made him want to keep pushing--like he had before, only instead of trying to crack what he'd viewed as a wafer thin layer of a sugar facade, to see just how she'd react to satisfy his growing curiosity. "That so?" He stepped further into her space, free hand reaching behind them to brace against the wall, trapping her between his body and a hard surface. "Ain't even gonna ask what sins I had in mind?"

[okiedokies]

A small part of her thought that she should push him away, tried to remind her that this was a dangerous man to get entangled with and that there was a good chance that he didn't have the right intentions. The only issue was that she wasn't sure what her own intentions were or the outcome she wanted.

It felt impossible to breathe when he pushed her back, his presence sweeping over her as she took a step back when he stepped further into her space, crowing her back against the wall and keeping her trapped there with little more than an arm barring her escape. Not that she seemed intent on escaping as she looked up at him, her pulse racing faster. "What sins did you have in mind?"