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Thread: [M] [IC] Fallout: Ain't That A Kick In The Head?

  1. #211
    Member LupusSilvae's Avatar
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    By this time, Stephen was well under the numbing effects of the scotch, and as such was more receptive to Joe than he would have ordinarily been. He tossed his bag to the ground and huffed dully. "Yeh, well, have enough encounters like fuckin' that one and you will," he grumbled. He clumsily collapsed into a sitting position, arm resting over a bent knee. Rhea curled up beside him and sighed heavily herself, relieved to be back in the wild and away from the foreign environment of buildings and streets. Stephen petted her subconsciously while he watched the horizon. "Desert's cruel, but people're worse. Whatever bad shit you think is out there waitin' for you in the wilderness, ain't nothin' compared to what some people'll think up. Gave up on folk a long time ago. Best take my chances in the wastes."
    icon art by the always lovely Ekatii@dA

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    As they reached the camp, Nikola sat Dani down next to him as she asked about sleep. Nikola was surprised when Niels moved to lay near Dani. "Well, frankly I'm impressed you stayed awake this long. Now if you wanna fall asleep, all you have to do is follow my finger with your eyes. Okay?" He slowly moved his finger around in front of Dani's face, forwards and backwards, left and right. He stared intently at her eyes, to make sure they were properly dilating. After a minute, he spoke up again. "Good news, you are clear for take off and the world of dreams and magic awaits you! So uhhh... yeah, you can sleep now if you want. I can help lay out your bed if you need, just try to take it easy. Rest is very important for the healing process."

    As this adventure went on, Nikola found himself caring more and more for Dani, and not because he was caring for her wounds. It would seem that Niels was picking up on this feeling he had. Perhaps that is why he laid there next to her.
    "There are bad ways to win and good ways to lose. What's interesting and troubling is that it's not always clear which is which." - Grimsley

  3. #213
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    Joe took a seat next to Stephen crossing his legs, and happy to finally get off his feet. He smiled as Stephen spoke, but not because anything he said was funny. "I suppose you and I couldn't be more different. People are easy. People are all the same. They have the same desires, the same weaknesses, the same pressure points. You say the right words, you can get whatever you want. You keep your hand in the right business at the right time, and keep your head down when you need to, not much can stop you. Problem about people is, you make the wrong slip up once, and your out on your ass. There are no second chances in the struggle to the top. Maybe in that way you and I are the same."

    Joe paused, changing his position on the ground, and then said, "I was raised on a small farm in California. A lot safer there than it is here, thanks to the NCR. But I remember the hard times, when the weather or sickness destroyed the crops. Long days of chasing Molerats away from the fields. As far back as I can remember, I remember telling myself that as soon as I could, I was getting off that farm and headed to a city, where the food never ran out, and you didn't have to keep a loaded gun in your room at night. I did, and I never thought about the costs until I ended up out here."

    Joe paused, feeling a little embarrassed that he had told Stephen all that. He wasn't quite sure why he did, but he looked at Stephen's rough, dirty appearance, and felt that someone like that could never understand him.
    There's a black crow sitting across from me
    His wiry legs are crossed
    He's dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss
    Whatever could it be
    That has brought me to this loss?

  4. #214
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    Dani sighed with relief as Nikola informed her she was allowed to sleep. He talked to her a bit more but his words faded into nothingness as she felt her whole body relax and she leaned against Nikola’s shoulder, promptly falling asleep.One hand resting on Neils’s back and the other subconsciously gripping Nikolas wrist for comfort.


    She felt a sharp pain in her head and opened her eyes with a gasp. Her head was hanging forward and she looked down to see that her arms and legs were bound to a chair on which she was seated. She looked up with complete confusion and realized she was in her bosses office. She heard a familiar chuckle behind her and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. “I see you finally came to! So good to have you back little Danielle.” She felt her whole body begin to shake and her eyes welled up with tears as she was accosted by the posh Scottish accent of her employer. “Dammit. What am I doing here? Untie me you bastard!” She spit the words with contempt and through clenched teeth.

    “Now now lovely don’t speak such dirty words. You know I hate it when you curse. You are far too pretty for that.” Her skeevy boss rounded her chair and she glared at him as he lifted her chin to force her to look at him. He smiled and ran his tongue over his yellowed and crooked teeth. He straightened with a laugh and motioned for two of his goons to come forward. He took a step back and crossed his lean muscled arms as his men positioned themselves on either side of her chair. Her shaking grew more pronounced and her boss began to belly laugh with pleasure at her fear.

    She continued to glare at him with pure hatred in her eyes as she tried to swallow past the huge lump in her throat. “Why am I here? What do you want with me this time?” She tried to keep her voice even and calm but it didn’t work very well. His disgusting grin spread from ear to ear and he sat back against his desk and made a quick motion with his hand which signaled the crony on her left to punch her in the stomach. He knocked the wind out of her and she coughed violently and gasped for breath. After she caught it she spit on the man who had hit her. He calmly wiped the spit from his face and kept his eyes forward on his boss.

    “Why Danielle you are here because you failed your mission!” Her heart leaped with even greater fear and she began to sputter a protest but was cut off by a slap to the face on her right. She glared up at the other goon and her chest started to heave with anger. Her boss smirked and motioned for the goon to stand down. “Now you know you are never supposed to argue with me darling. You failed your mission and now you have to pay the consequences.” He flipped open a knife and stepped forward. Sweat beaded on Dani’s brow as he neared and her eyes locked on the knife and she began to hyperventilate.

    He leaned in and his stinking breath hit her face and made her eyes tear up even more than they had already been. He held the knife to her cheek and chuckled as she winced in anticipation of his attack. “Silly girl. I would never ruin that pretty face of yours. It’s one of my biggest money makers! All those politicians and rich bachelors wouldn’t pay me so highly to have you dressed up and paraded around on their arms if you were all sliced up!” She swallowed the urge to argue with him. She dressed up and waltzed around with those people solely for the purpose of being their undercover protection.

    She opened her eyes carefully and watched her boss tapping his toes and fiddling with the knife in his hands. He was seemingly waiting for her to look at him because he smiled, ran a hand through his reddish hair, and swung the knife forward and jabbed it full force into her shoulder. She cried out with pain and the goon on her right back handed her across the face. “Don’t draw attention to the boss’s business bitch.” He growled and went back to his position. Dani bit her tongue and did her best not to cry or make any sound as the boss removed his knife and pulled a white silk handkerchief from his perfectly pressed suit pocket to wipe her blood from the blade.

    He tossed the knife back onto his desk and re-assumed his position leaning back against his desk, motioning for his men to tend to her wound. They worked quickly and silently as she stared down her boss. He sighed and picked up a decorative Chinese fan and began lightly fanning himself. “You know I hate to cause you unnecessary pain my dear but you must learn to take your duties seriously. Your poor deceased mother would be so disappointed to see you now. She didn’t die starving in the gutter to keep you alive just so you could be a failure. I have standards to uphold. So, go now, rest up, and once you've healed up enough you will be going on a very, very, important mission for a client that I will NOT disappoint. If you fail, you might as well put a bullet in your head. Because if you don’t…” He sauntered forward and took her chin in his hand, placing the other one on her waist and began running his fingers down her side and towards her back and butt.

    He pulled her chin forward and forced a kiss onto her lips. She resisted the urge to bite off the tongue that he slipped inside her mouth and a single tear slipped down her cheek. He pulled back and wiped his mouth before continuing his sentence. “If you don’t put a bullet in your head, I will. Because you are beginning to be more trouble than you are worth. Though you are tasty.” His words and the lingering taste of cigarettes on her lips made her shutter and hold back to strong desire to wretch all over his expensive carpet. The goons by her sides cut her ropes and lifted her up by the arms to bring her to the infirmary. The wound in her shoulder sent a lightning bolt of pain down her arm as they lifted and she hissed through her teeth as her tears finally fully flowed down her face.

    Suddenly, as the pain shot through her body, she opened her eyes in the real world. She was staring up at the starry night sky and lying on her bedroll in the wilderness where she had fallen asleep. She shot up and the hot tears that had been flowing down her temples changed directions and ran down her face and onto her lips and over her chin. She reached up to grab her shoulder and realized the pain she had felt was from her previously dislocated arm. She must have unconsciously rolled over onto it. She ran her fingers further up her arm and onto her shoulder. She slipped a hand under her shirt and felt the still fairly fresh scar she had received from the real life nightmare she had been reliving in her dreams. She realized she was still shaking violently and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her knees and placing her head on top of them. She tried to take steadying breaths, but instead, her shoulders began to shake with uncontrollable sobs.
    Last edited by abbiejlee95; 06-28-2019 at 05:28 PM.
    “I mean, it’s sort of exciting isn’t it? Breaking the rules.” -Hermione Granger

  5. #215
    Member LupusSilvae's Avatar
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    Stephen never took his drunken gaze off the sky, even as Joe divulged his worldview. He did not respond at first, his thoughts muddled from drink and making it difficult to even process what was being said. Eventually, though, he scoffed. "Tch. If a few nights gone hungry and some molerats are all that convinced you the desert was worse off than the city, y'ain't lived long enough. Your little fantasy doesn't exist; if you ain't watchin' your own back, I guarantee someone else'll be lookin' to stab you in it." He finally sent a dull glance at Joe. "Even after t'night, all that went down, you're gonna be slinkin' back to your civilization and plush livin' soon's a building crosses that horizon. Come back to me when your daydream finally proves it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Then we can talk about cost."
    icon art by the always lovely Ekatii@dA

  6. #216
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    Nikola was caught off guard when Dani slumped over on his shoulder. He looked over at her and blushed as he contemplated what to do next. As Joe and Stephen had their own conversation, Nikola used his free hand to grab his bedroll, not wanting to risk waking Dani up with too much movement. Positioning it underneath her head, he gently sat her down and laid down next to her, her hand still around his wrist. He sure was going to miss this. Assuming they survived, he would be back in the strip in a week or so, waiting for the next job and hoping that one day he might find a purpose instead of the bottom of another bottle. It was his own doing though, so he had no right to complain. After all, he made the choice to leave Vault City... His thought trailed off as he fell asleep.

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

    He was suddenly awoken by a clearly startled Dani, who had jerked his wrist when she jumped up herself. Nikola sat up next to Dani and saw her trembling shoulders. "Uh... Dani? Are you... in pain?" He whispered too her as he reached his arms out. That is when he saw the tears in her eyes and the pain behind them. With one arm on her shoulder, he slowly went in to hug her, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. "It's okay. I um... I'm here for you, Dani. It's okay." he told her as he wrapped his arms around her and gently pulled her in. As she sobbed, he continued to comfort her. "I'm here if you need anything... It's okay now. Whatever it is, it's okay." Nikola hoped that something he said or did would help, at least a little bit.
    "There are bad ways to win and good ways to lose. What's interesting and troubling is that it's not always clear which is which." - Grimsley

  7. #217
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    "Jesus man, you sound like you know New Vegas. Maybe I was already stabbed in the back, maybe I wasn't watching my back, and the people I thought were my friends did betray me. Maybe they promised me a lifestyle that I couldn't have simply because of where I came from. But you say it's a daydream? Why do you think I'm out here? So I can keep that dream alive, Daddy-O. Just because some vultures kept lending me money so I could play games they rigged themselves, knowing I could never pay them back, doesn't mean Ol' Joe here is through. Far from it baby, all those assholes in New Vegas laugh at me thinking I'm a two-bit conman, but I'll show the real conmen that you can berate me, indebt me, and lure me into a pit, but I'll walk back in those gates with the fucking data disk, and I'll show them I've earned my god damned place. They can eat each other alive in New Vegas, but Joe, he's better than that, better than any of them."

    Joe finished his rant, now standing up looking down on Stephen, realizing that he had said a few things he had been trying to avoid saying, but his nerves were thinner than ever. He wasn't mad at Stephen though, but he was mad. Maybe at himself for being such a fool. Maybe Joe was mad because it wasn't the New Vegas lifestyle, it wasn't the sneering faces, it wasn't the loan sharks, it wasn't the casinos, it wasn't even hydra Corp. It was his own fault he was stuck here in the the Utah wilderness barely hanging on.

    He looked away from Stephen in shame. He couldn't accept that, couldn't accept the blame. "What the hell do you know anyways, you've been a hermit living with animals your whole life. You might as well become one."
    Last edited by Holocene; 06-17-2019 at 04:06 AM.
    There's a black crow sitting across from me
    His wiry legs are crossed
    He's dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss
    Whatever could it be
    That has brought me to this loss?

  8. #218
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    Nikolas voice broke through Dani's panic and she glanced over at him with bleary eyes as he reached for her. She hesitated for a moment as he pulled her against him but was quickly overcome by the warmth and comfort of his arms and the strength of his chest.

    She let the tears fall and she grabbed the front of his vault suit with both hands and pulled herself as close to him as possible. They stayed that way for quite some time as she let her emotions drain. Years of pent up fear and torment and pain poured out of her and onto his chest.

    When she finally began to calm she looked up at him and was amazed at the concern and compassion in his eyes. Not that long ago she had hated this man. But now...

    She was overcome with a mix of gratitude and something she couldn't quite identify as she looked into his deep blue eyes. She reached a hand up to his face and placed a soft salty kiss on his cheek.

    She pulled back with a gasp as she realized what she had done and she felt her face flush with embarrassment. She sputtered out an apology as she pulled away from him.

    "I-im sorry! I didnt-I wasn't- I-I-sorry!" She scrambled away from him and fast walked past the other two who were still talking. She muttered something about needing to relieve herself as she passed them so they wouldn't wonder where she was going so late at night.

    She found the nearest bolder and knelt behind it, smacking her palms against both of her cheeks.

    "Snap out of it Dani! You can't start feeling things for him! First of all why would he ever want someone like you? Nothing but a freeside, orphan brat with nothing to offer... Second, as soon as this mission is over he's going to leave." Her heart sunk at her own words and she realized she might have said them just a little to late.

  9. #219
    Member LupusSilvae's Avatar
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    This finally got Stephen's attention. The look he sent Joe was dark and furious, and his entire body tensed. "Fuckin' bold of you to assume that, mate," he snarled sharply. "You can be pissed off that I'm right all you want, but keep your goddamn mouth shut about me if you know what's good for you. Been through and survived more'n your pansy ass could even imagine. If a sniveling coward like you'd seen half the shit I have you'd be too scared to even face the goddamn sun in the morning. Fuck off."
    icon art by the always lovely Ekatii@dA

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    Nikola sat on his bedroll, absolutely stunned. He stared at Niels, who tilted his head in curiosity, trying to make sense of the events that just took place. After a few minutes of contemplation, he got up and walked off in the direction he saw Dani go, paying no mind to Joe or Stephen who seemed to be preoccupied at the moment. Niels ran off ahead, gently cooing and searching for Dani. He found her crouched behind a rock and slowly crawled up to the distraught woman, putting his head on her lap and rubbing it against her hand. Not long after, Nikola limbed over and slumped down next to Dani, on the opposite side of Niels. After a short moment of silence, he spoke up. "Everything alright? I know we just met on this mission so you really have no reason to believe what I'm about to say, but I... Uh... I care... About you... So... My offer stills stands, if you want to talk about what's wrong." He grunted in pain as he re-positioned his leg. "I'm no psychologist, but maybe it will help you sleep to get this off your chest and sleep is important to heal that concussion. I have to make sure you survive this mission so we can get that drink once we get back to New Vegas. But I get it, if you don't want to talk. Just wanted you to know I'm here." Nikola fell silent as he stared off into the night, hoping Dani would reply but not wanting to push anything.
    "There are bad ways to win and good ways to lose. What's interesting and troubling is that it's not always clear which is which." - Grimsley

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