falloutkinkmeme_backup | Fallout Kink Meme Part IV: Closed to prompts, open for fills.

Entry tags:

Fallout Kink Meme Part IV: Closed to prompts, open for fills.

Welcome to the Fallout Kink Meme, Part IV! Please assume the position.

GO TO THE LATEST PAGE TO POST NEW PROMPTS

PINBOARD ARCHIVE: Filled Prompts | Unfilled Prompts

Fallout Kink Meme posting guidelines

Read something? Love something? No matter how old the story is, please let our amazing authors and artists know that you enjoyed their work with a nice comment, and share the love by recommending your favorite fills!

So I've probably got one of the strangest kinks there are...

I've got a thing for love-stories in re-run. Reincarnated characters, years after the original events. Deeply buried, unconscious memories nudging the mind. Someone who seems vaguely familiar. A love that's coming from seemingly nowhere.

Was it a tragedy last time? (e.g. Boone/Carla)? Did it just not work out? Did it all come to a tragic end and will they now get a second chance?

Just fast-forward time and see what happens when souls wearing new bodies and new identities run into each other again.
Maybe someone still lives who kind of recognises them (most likely a ghoul, or someone who's really, really old now), and observes, or even tries to help?

You could take one of your favourites here and do a follow up... give it the ending they deserve. Or maybe it all goes wrong again?

o_O
I probably read too much Katherine Kerr and Holly Lisle.

This is OP having been inspired by her own prompt. Wasn’t sure about the character tagging because a re-born char isn’t exactly OC but not a char either… *confusion*. I took one of my own stories and fast-forwarded eighty years, and I leave the other chars as a little puzzle for the potential readers, to be revealed soon.

Characters: Harkness, a re-born F!LW and other characters from Fallout3
Summary: Their love turned out to have been stronger than death itself. But will they know this? Are the faint echoes of forgotten memories of a forgotten lifetime strong enough to realise that their love was meant to be?
===============

No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories. ~Chris Sorensen

Another cold, grey winter day, the sky made from lead, and the air so cold it scalded your lungs with every breath you took. Harkness had sent the other guards inside to warm up at the fires while he kept watch, he was impervious to the cold and didn’t mind being alone with his thoughts for a while.
He was beginning to feel old.

Maybe it was the human mind in him, the part that was never meant to live that long, and as he was wont to do when he felt like that, more and more often these last years, he wondered if he shouldn’t deactivate those circuits and memory modules completely and put that soul to rest. As an android, the decades behind him didn’t bother him, shouldn’t bother him, but as Harkness, he felt the weight of every single year on his soul if not his limbs. His body would endure centuries, but his mind was becoming weary.

Four years had he lived as Harkness before his memories had been restored, to enable him to protect the secret of his own existence. He had seen the wisdom in that action even then, he saw it more clearly now. One of the last things She had ever said to him was to tell the people of Rivet City the truth before he would be forced to go away to protect himself, and eventually, he had done so. Had called all the citizens together and told them.

So now it was common knowledge that Rivet City was protected by a near-invincible android. And after decades, with the commonwealth still failing to show up to try and claim him, he believed that either news didn’t travel that far, that this news was treated as nothing more but gossip or rumours, or that no one had any more interest in him. Zimmer had to be dead after that long a time; he had been an old man even back then. He had to be dead for sixty years at least. Probably even longer.

Four years and then... almost eighty-one years had passed now since those days. Eight decades. The better part of a century. No wonder he felt old sometimes.
Old, and alone. His affair with Lana had ended the day he had revealed his true self, and he hadn’t blamed her for a day. He still missed her, even so long a time after her death. He missed a lot of people that had died. But nothing ever stayed the same. Not even the market looked like it used to back then, during the days of the Lone Wanderer, as that time was still being called. Stalls had been rearranged a few times, after a large fire, and with changing ownership. People were born. People died.

Only he had remained. He and his memories.

Sometimes children would come and ask him about those times and the Lone Wanderer. She was a legend by now, and a lot of the stories spread about her in the Wasteland were exaggerated or just plain made up. But the children never grew tired of those stories, that he knew to be true, and one of the all time favourites was the one about the Battle of the Purifier.
He remembered that Brian’s stories about the fire-breathing ants had been popular too. Harkness still could remember the day he had come to Rivet City, a wide-eyed and terrified boy of no more than ten, and here he had died more than twenty years ago, an old and white-haired doter.

Thus it was that Harkness, as he stood there with his human mind being so lost in thought and memories, almost called Her name when he saw the woman coming up the ramp now. He had been watching the caravan approach, a caravan of scavengers by the look of it, two guards, and elderly couple and her, a young woman of no more than twenty.

Her name had already been on his lips when he had spotted her and only his android senses and reactions had kept it there. The similarity was striking. It wasn’t so much that she looked the same, but that she looked familiar, and it was her eyes that were exactly as the ones he remembered. Of course it wasn’t her; She had died more than sixty years ago, but this woman could have been her sister...or something even closer. He couldn’t quite name it, though. She just looked familiar. Her hair was blonde, not auburn, she was taller and somewhat broader in back and shoulders, but the similarity was still so strong that it seemed to come right from the inside rather than from her looks.

He nodded at the people passing him by and to his utter surprise, the young woman, her arms full of old and shabby guns, stared at him for a few seconds with widening eyes before she blushed and looked away.
“Sorry”, she muttered. “You... you seemed familiar for a moment. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“No harm done.”, Harkness replied, calmer than he felt, and noticed with dismay that her behaviour had already earned her a clout from the man who had to be her father.

He walked past the group of people to open the hangar door for them and followed her with his eyes as she descended the stairs. It was then – as he watched her with her load of guns head straight for the first stall on the left, only to stop and stare in utter bewilderment at the drugs and stimpacks on display there before she turned around, blinking in confusion, to find the weapon stall right opposite it – that Harkness remembered the ancient, religious legends he had believed to be no more than human wishful thinking.

Having sold their wares the scavengers made their way to the galley, now in the capable hands of Angela’s youngest grand-daughter, to have something to eat. Watching them, Harkness didn’t fail to notice that the young woman kept her eyes cast down, spoke only when spoken to, and that she seemed to be practically afraid of her father. And that made Harkness angry. He remembered Her soul, rejoicing in the strength of her newly-found freedom after she had managed to shed the shackles of her old life and the memories of the Vault, and had to resist the urge to go to her and tell the girl that she need not put up with such a treatment. But it wasn’t Her.

Though he had seemed familiar to her as well, that’s what she had said. She too had stood before the stall back then, which had once been the weapons stall, and been utterly confused as to why she had gone there without looking first. It still wasn’t Her. And even if there was some truth to those ancient legends, it wasn’t Her. She had shed that body and that life, and she was someone else now. A person in her own right. Maybe burdened with a few not-completely-forgotten memories that caused feelings she couldn’t explain. But nothing gave him any right to tinker with her life, and attempt to make her something she wasn’t.

And now that soul, who seemed to be the same soul he remembered, was shackled again, and looking at her father, a man with harsh, cruel lines around his mouth and the demeanour of a practised drinker, Harkness began to doubt that her fate was anything but cruelty itself. Her soul would never have deserved this. It would be easier to think of her as nothing but a wasteland girl who happened to look somewhat like the woman he had known. But the way she had acted told him there might be more to it.

During his rounds on the nightshift, Harkness allowed a part of his mind to drift off in memories of the time back when she had been alive and here in Rivet City, and all the others who had lived here, too. He had buried all of them, and had buried all of their children. He had buried some of their grand-children, even. Angela’s youngest grand-daughter Elisa, who ran the galley now, wasn’t a young woman anymore and was now married with children of her own.
Realising that, he could take a little comfort in the thought that souls might come back to life again. Although, in her case, she seemed to have a heavy load to bear this time, even heavier in a way than the destiny that had led her, if there was any truth to this, through her life the last time.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Sometimes, perhaps, we are allowed to get lost that we may find the right person to ask directions of. ~Robert Brault

Having a coffee in the galley the next morning, Harkness watched the marketplace and the door while idly blowing into his cup when the door opened and a troupe of mercenaries entered, followed by a merchant who went straight for the weapons stall. The mercs, five in all, headed straight for the galley, laughing, grinning and eager for coffee and some serious breakfast.
Harkness watched them, but they seemed well-behaved for such a troupe. Groups of mercs usually spelled trouble, but not all of them were assholes and/or mindless brutes. He hadn’t seen any of the men before and after a glance at each face, shifted his attention to the door again.

This time it was her that walked through the door, together with her mother, and they, too, headed for the galley, waiting for their turn as the mercs ordered coffee and food in ridiculous quantities. By the look of them and the states of their unshaved faces, they had been out on the road for a while now.

The two women ordered their food and coffee too, and as the girl loaded her arms full of stuff, her mother paid. It was then that it happened.
One of the mercs, having been at the stall with the miscellaneous goods to buy some smokes, came back lighting one up without really watching where he was going, intent on getting his lighter to work. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his face as dirty and overgrown with a beard as well, and he stepped towards a table the same moment the girl turned around. His footsteps must have been drowned out by the laughter of the others as she hadn’t heard him coming, hadn’t been aware of him until she turned and bumped right into him, her arms full of mugs, and the freshly brewed coffee spilled over and scalded one of his arms.

He emitted a few choices curses as he stumbled back, having lost the smoke that now rested in a small puddle of coffee, but faltered when she looked up into the girl’s dead-white, horrified face.
“Here kid, don’t worry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.” He absentmindedly and gingerly touched his left forearm. “Was completely my own fault.”
Elisa had already reacted and offered the merc a rag drenched in ice-cold water, and as he accepted this and cautiously put it onto the blistering skin, the girl adjusted her cups again and muttered one helpless excuse after the other while her mother picked up the packed food with an expression bordering on furious.

“Here, I said it was my own fault”, the merc repeated, but she didn’t even look at his face.
Her mother now was muttering something into her ear that made her pale even more, and took her by the elbow to drag her away. The merc followed her with his eyes, a deep, puzzled and at the same time worried frown on his face.

Harkness, who had watched the whole scene, observed her departure as well and wondered if that unlucky accident would have consequences for her. By the look of her face, it was unlikely it wouldn’t.
The merc now sat down at the table with his companions and lit another smoke and the conversation picked up again.

Not an hour had passed before Harkness’ misgivings came to be proven true; the girl and her parents entered the marketplace again, obviously to re-supply now. While the girl carried the cups back to the galley Harkness didn’t fail to notice the bruise showing on her left cheek.
Neither did the mercs, it seemed. They stood in front of the weapons stall, debating about some thing or another, but when she walked past, the conversation ground to a halt for a few seconds before it picked up again, in much lower voices.

The girl passed by them, looked up for a second with a fearful expression, and when one of the mercs, albeit not the one with the scalded arm, gave her what was probably meant to be a friendly, encouraging smile, her father yelled at her at the top of his lungs: “Amanda!”

So that was her name now. Harkness looked at her father and back at her and noticed, to his dismay, that she as giving said merc almost the same look that she had given him. Upon hearing her father call her name like that she flinched, and ducking her head, hurried towards the galley to return the mugs. Harkness tried to get a glimpse of the merc’s face again, but he had his back turned on him now. If Amanda was her, then who could the merc be? Harkness frowned a little as he watched her go… had she looked familiar to the mercenary, too?

Passing by them on their way back, both Amanda and her father cast a look at the mercs, hers a shy one, her father’s an outright furious glance that already burned with the sheen of alcohol in his bloodstream.
“Don’t you dare look at her again”, he snapped at the mercs. “I know your kind! Fuck off!”
“Easy there, old man”, the merc who had smiled at her gave back while lighting up a smoke. “I wasn’t doing anything to her...”
He was a sinewy man with hair somewhere between auburn and ginger, a rascally smile and a goatee. Harkness couldn’t place him, at least not as easily as he had been able to recognise her. And he still wasn’t completely sure if he really had.

“Fuck off!”
The merc was just about to make a nasty reply, Harkness could see his eyebrows draw themselves together, when the girl took her father’s arm and pulled.
“Please daddy”, she muttered. “I’m afraid of these men. Let’s just go.”
Her father huffed and dragged her away, and over her shoulder the girl cast a hasty, haggard look at the merc with a hardly perceptible shake of her head.
The merc, in turn, swallowed what he had meant to say, obviously getting the message: Say anything more and you’ll only get me deeper into trouble.

Harkness followed the couple out and watched them descend the stairs, leaning on the railing before him with a frustrated sigh. But what could he do? He couldn’t go there and tell her to abandon her parents and live in Rivet City. He knew he couldn’t just go to her father and tell him to treat his daughter with more respect. With the man he likely was, that would only worsen her situation. But doing nothing... it was the worst moment of his life to watch her go like that, being dragged at her arm and scolded within an inch of her life for nothing more than looking at a man in passing.

He watched them load their brahmin, watched the two guards check their guns, and he watched them depart wondering if he would ever see her again. If it really was how it seemed to be, if it was her soul, the Lone Wanderer, the Saviour of the Wastes. He still shied away from using her name in this context because even if it was true, it wasn’t Her. She was dead.

Harkness watched them vanish out of sight and into the ruins of D.C, and with a shake of his head, went back inside.

x-x-x-x-x-x

It wasn’t even fifteen minutes after their departure that the door of the marketplace opened again and one of the guards on duty at the drawbridge yelled for help and a medic. All heads flew around, Harkness’ included, and to his utter dismay he saw the guard now help a staggering, bleeding figure down the stairs that he identified after a few moments as Amanda.
He was at her side in an instant.

“Miss Amanda, what on earth...”
She looked up at him, her eyes blank with horror. “Mutants”, she whispered hoarsely. “Mutants. Six of them... oh god, please help. Please help...” Blood was splattered on her face and all over her shirt, she was bleeding from gashes in her arm and on her cheek that seemed to have been caused by grazing shots, her shirt was torn in two places and her hair was matted with blood and dirt. “Please help them, oh god, someone... please...”

The mercenaries, having heard and seen what happened, had hurried over while loosening their guns in their holsters. But as they stood there now they exchanged a few glances with each other and with Harkness before one of them, a tall, lanky man with greying hair and moustache, spoke in a low voice. “Not likely any of them are still alive by now, what with six of those bastards having gotten them.”

Stronger than death itself 2c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 10:37 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 2d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 10:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 2d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 19:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 2d/? A!A

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 19:43 (UTC) - Expand

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? ~George Gordon, Lord Byron: Child Harold's Pilgrimage

They had had sixteen years, sixteen years together with little disagreements and little bad feelings. Sixteen years before things had begun to fall apart.
It had started when Shrapnel had begun to feel unwell, tired most of the time, and short of breath. But first when the other two had found out he had been hiding pains in his chest from them had they managed to badger him into seeing Preston.

He knew beyond doubt the he wouldn’t be given any good news when he put his shirt back on. Something was decidedly wrong with him, he knew that much, and the doc’s facial expression told him all he needed to know, and more than he wanted to.
“So?”
Preston cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news”, he said.
“I didn’t expect any good kind”, Shrapnel gave back slowly and crossed his arms. “So?”
“It’s your heart. It’s… I don’t know how to explain it. I guess the best way to put it is to say it is worn out. It is unusually worn out for a man your age, but considering the life you’ve led, especially your past…”
“The past as a raider, is that what you’re referring to?”
“I’m afraid it is”, Preston gave back and pushed his glasses up. “The drugs do a lot of damage to a body, some immediate, some lasting. It’s widely known that Psycho and Jet abuse can cause a multiple organ failure, but most likely, it’s the heart that will be giving up first. Going off the stuff after a prolonged period of time cannot undo the damage done. The failure is still bound to happen, it just happens slower.”

Shrapnel needed a moment to digest this. That this was his past, coming back through the gap of decades to haunt him. “I guess there’s nothing you can do”, he said after a while.
“No. The damage is done.” Preston sighed and shook his head. “All I can do is prescribe medication; all you can do is give your body what it needs and leave away the things that will burden it. But all that can achieve is to buy you a little more time.”
“How much time are we talking?”
“I guess that’s the worst part of the news. I can’t say. A year, two years. Half a year, or maybe four. But most likely not much more than that.”
“Shit.” Shrapnel sat down on the stretcher again and stared at nothing for a while. He felt strangely numb inside. “Sandy’s going to go insane.”
Preston did not reply.

o-o-o-o

He knew he couldn’t keep a thing like this secret for any amount of time; both Flak and Sandy would have his hide for keeping news like that away from them. But sitting down at the table that evening, facing them to tell them he was going to die was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.
The two stared at him with white and tight-lipped faces, both bearing a similar expression of disbelief and denial.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Sandy shook her head and at that moment, her eyes spilled over. “How long?”
Shrapnel swallowed and shrugged. “Doc couldn’t say. Anytime from a few months to four years, but not much more than that.”
“Four years?” Sandy shook her head again and her voice was hoarse and thick with tears. “Only… four years at the utmost?”
“That’s what he said.” Now, a few hours after the news had hit him like a sack full of hammers, he began to feel anger. It just wasn’t fucking fair. Here he had torn out his legs to leave that life behind him, and it caught him and fucked him up anyway now. “Shit. Fucking, bloody heap of steaming shit!” He jumped up from his chair and felt fury wash over him so hot and so violent that he couldn’t remember when last it happened. With a hoarse growl of fury he kicked the table over, then his chair, and would likely have ruined the whole furniture in their cabin if Flak hadn’t taken hold of both his arms to hold him down.

He struggled fruitlessly in Flak’s grip for a while before the fury vanished as suddenly as it had come; only when he had gone limp did Flak let go of Shrapnel again and, with an expressionless face, began to put the table and chairs back into place. Only when that was done did they realise that Cathy was standing in the doorway to her room, eyes wide and lips trembling.

“Oh god…” Shrapnel ran both hands through his hair. “Sweetie, I…”
“What’s happening?” Aged fifteen, she was old enough to understand that something dreadful had been happening, and all three of them knew that she had to know it, too.
“Cathy”, Sandy began, fighting for composure, and held out her arm. The girl hurried over and let her mother embrace her. “I’m sorry. We’ve got some bad news.”
“Has someone died?”
“Not yet, sweetie.” Shrapnel cleared his throat. “But it’s… it’s me. I’m ill. Terminally. Preston said there’s nothing he can do. I’m… I’m afraid I’m going to die soon, Cathy.”
She stared at him, her eyes widening even more. “But daddy… You can’t… there must be something! There must!”
She tore herself out of her mother’s arm and threw herself at him. His face pale, Shrapnel closed her arms around her and held her close as she wept into his chest. “Daddy you can’t die! Please, you can’t die!”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Shrapnel could feel his voice threatening to break. “I wouldn’t hurt you like that if I had a choice.”

He lowered his face into her crown and patted her back, and Sandy now leaned against Flak who closed his arms around her. She was bravely fighting for control over her feelings in front of her girl, but in the end, she failed. Flak buried his hand into her hair and looked up at his friend, their eyes meeting in bleak and hopeless despair.

Sandy had come to Harkness the very next day to tell him and ask for time off, for an indefinite time span. She had been working as a security guard for a few years, ever since Cathy had been old enough to be looked after by her fathers, and had been happy with her choice and very competent to boot. Upon hearing her story, Harkness had immediately cancelled all her shifts he had already put down on the roster, wishing even then that there would be something better he could have done for her.

They hadn’t kept it a secret, which would have been futile anyway. It soon had become clear to anyone who cared to look that something had been wrong with Shrapnel. He had walked like a man two times his age, and he had constantly been short of breath.
But he had fought. He had fought with the determination of a damned man. Harkness was sure that if it had been just the two of them still, him and Flak, he’d have eaten his gun after a night full of booze and be done with it. But he hadn’t. For the sake of his girls, he had fought. He had followed Preston’s every order to the letter, had stopped smoking, had stopped drinking, but in the end, just as predicted, all he had been able to achieve was to buy a little more time. It had gone downhill quite fast after the first one and a half years, and sheer force of will had been the only thing that had made him hold on until Cathy’s seventeenth birthday.

He hadn’t been able to leave the bed by then, and everyone knew that it was going to be over soon.

A few days later Flak had carried him to the clinic because he had hardly been able to breathe. Preston had sent for Cathy then, and the messenger had found her just as she was having a chat with Harkness while keeping things running in the marketplace. She had grown up in the place and had been helping her fathers in running the stall ever since she had been old enough to grasp the difference between a magazine and a clip, and at that time there had been little she hadn’t known about guns and ammo.

Harkness had offered to come with her, which she had thankfully accepted, and Angela, being her godmother, had come along as well, to offer what help and comfort she could.

Entering the clinic, everyone looking at Shrapnel had known beyond doubt that the only reason Cathy had been called was to enable her to say farewell.
He had looked like a dead man already, had been labouring and fighting for every painful draw of breath.

Stronger than death itself 3c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 19:53 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 3d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 19:54 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 3e/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 20:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 3e/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-09 23:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 3e/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-10 04:36 (UTC) - Expand

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Overcome by exhaustion and worn out by her tears, Amanda pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and wiped her eyes again. The tears had finally stopped, but she gave in to no illusion that they would come again, and again and again. For now, she was just too spent to cry anymore, but in the respite that was given to her then, her survival instinct began to kick in.

She was alone now. All the family she had ever had was dead and gone forever, and she was alone. However, if the merc had said they found the Brahmin, then that meant she was not impecunious. She would have to go down, though, and get the crate tied to the brahmin’s harness because she couldn’t leave her fortune unattended in the brahmin pen. She needed a place to stay until she had figured out where to go and what to do, and for that, she needed those caps. The problem remained that the key to the crate was in her father’s possession, he wore it on a string around his neck.

She would have to face it sooner or later anyway, so she cautiously got up from the couch, ignoring the puzzled looks from the two men sitting beside her.
When she left the stall, however, the security chief walked up to meet her. She felt uncomfortable in his presence, because of her embarrassing blunder on her arrival, but he seemed to either have completely forgotten it or was far too tactful to mention it.

“Miss Amanda?”
“I need… I need to go down and see them.”
Harkness nodded. “I understand. Would you like me to accompany you?”
She looked up at him, but his face was nothing but sincere. “Thank you. You are being very generous to a misfortunate stray girl you don’t even know.”
A small smile flitted over his face for a second. “Well… that misfortune happened in my city, more or less. It has swept you into my city, in any case, and whatever or whoever is in my city is my responsibility.”
“I still think it’s very generous. But I have to admit that I have never felt as safe anywhere as I do here in Rivet City.”
Harkness smiled as they ascended the stairs. “I aim to keep my city a decent place.”
“More decent than any.” Amanda looked over her shoulder into the hangar again. “Even the mercs are better behaved than in any other place I’ve been.”
“Everyone behaves in my city”, Harkness replied with a small chuckle. “Otherwise they’ll have me to deal with.”

Out on the drawbridge the light was sharp and clear in the setting sun. Amanda blinked into the orange glow and looked at Harkness again.
“A force to be reckoned with as a security chief, huh?” It felt relieving to think about other things than the events of the day. “In your city?”
“My city.” He looked back at the ship for a second. “I’ve been protecting these people for ages.”
Amanda felt her forehead wrinkle. “You don’t look older than your late thirties to me.”
This time, Harkness had to laugh. “My dear Amanda… of course you wouldn’t know. I am well over a hundred.”
Amanda stopped dead in her tracks. “A hundred? You’re damn well preserved for a ghoul.”
“I am not a ghoul.” The smile died on his face and he looked past her for a moment. “I am an android.”
“A what?”
“An android. A highly advanced, humanlike robot.”

Amanda stared at him for a while before she took a distrustful little step back. “That was the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”
Harkness shook his head. “It wasn’t a pick-up line. I am not sexually interested in you. I was telling nothing but the truth. Here.” He picked up one of the plastic chairs standing at the top of the stairs. It had legs made of steel, and Harkness took it in both hands and, without any effort, bent the leg until it snapped.
Amanda stared at him open-mouthed and finally shook her head. “I admit that’s nothing a human could do but… but I still find it easier to think you’re a mutant of some sort rather than… than a machine.”
“I understand that it can be a bit much to swallow.”

Amanda didn’t reply as they made their way down the ramp. At one point she could smell blood and her hands began to tremble again. Once they had reached the bottom, her legs almost refused to carry her, and Harkness offered her his arm, which she gratefully accepted.

The mercenaries had done what they could for them, had laid the corpses out with as much decency as they could give them. Their eyes and mouths were closed, their arms folded on their chests, but there was no illusion whatsoever that all of them, her parents and the two guards, had died painful, violent deaths.
But as she knelt down beside her father’s pale, bloodied corpse she realised she couldn’t touch him. For a moment she just stared at his lifeless, pale and bloodless face before she realised she was weeping again.

A hand rested on her shoulder.
“Please…” Her voice was hoarse with tears again.
“Can I help you?”
Amanda nodded and helplessly wiped her face. “I need his keys. He wears them around his neck.”
Harkness crouched down on the other side of the corpse and reached into his shirt where he found the string with the keys that he simply snapped before he picked it up. He didn’t hand it to Amanda, however, but got up and walked the few steps towards the water’s edge.

When he came back and handed her the keys they were wet and shiny, and she was grateful beyond words to express it that he had been considerate enough to wash off the blood before giving them to her.

He carried the crate for her while she carried the bag that held her spare clothing and few personal belongings, and once back in the hangar, he bade her to wait.
“I shall find a place for you to stay. The commons are filled up presently and wouldn’t keep your possessions safe, anyway. The hotel is rather expensive for a long-term stay.”
Amanda felt tears choke her at the level of generosity he displayed “I don’t understand but… thank you.”
“I told you I feel responsible for you”, Harkness gave back as he squeezed her shoulder. “I couldn’t just leave you to your fate and still be able to look into a mirror.”

Amanda nodded and sat down on her crate, clutching the string with the keys between her fingers. After a few moments she heard steps and when she looked up again, she saw one of the two wounded mercs walking up to her. It was the ginger haired one, a man on the lean and wiry side, and he gave her a searching look as he went into a crouch before her. “You all right, kid?”
“No”, she gave back truthfully. “I just… I just couldn’t have imagined how terrified I’d be without them.”
He didn’t reply at once, and Amanda sighed and looked away. “I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m better off without them.”
“No.”
She looked up, and he shook his head, then produced a pack of smokes. “No, not like this. Sure, I thought you’d be better off, but not like this. Fuck, not like this. I wouldn’t have wished anything like this onto you or them, no matter what.”
“At least you’re honest.” She looked at her hands again. “They weren’t always like that, you know. Before my brother died, they were all right. But he was killed by raiders, and… after that, everything went to pieces. My father went mad with grief and drunk himself senseless and my mother… she just stopped caring. But before that, they weren’t as bad. Really.”
“I believe you”, the merc replied and lit up his cigarette. “There’s people who manage to get over such things and there are those that break.” He looked at her face again. “Don’t let it break you, kid.”

Amanda had to fight the tears again, but because she was so spent and tired already, they vanished as quickly as they had come. She got up from the crate and rolled her aching shoulders. “I didn’t get around to thanking you yet.”
The merc shrugged and looked away, and following his glance she saw the other man who had been wounded, the tall one, was standing two steps away from them.
“It’s not as if we had done much of a service”, the latter now replied around the smoke clamped in the corner of his mouth.
“But you risked your life, all of you, and you two even got wounded, and all for… for my sake and…”
“Easy now, kid.” The tall man took two steps towards her. “We volunteered for that.”
“I could at least pay for your medical treatment and the ammunition you spent.”
“Harkness has paid the doc. But the ammo would be a nice touch.”

Stronger than death itself 4c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-10 15:31 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 4d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-10 15:33 (UTC) - Expand

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. ~Henry Van Dyke

The burial took place the next morning, shortly after sunrise. There wasn’t much to say except farewell, and Amanda turned away from the graves before the workers began to fill them. Her eyes were dry; she had spent so many tears already that she seemed to have run out for the moment.
Upon leaving the graveyard, however, she didn’t fail to notice that a lot of the people, Harkness among them, picked up small stones to place them on a large cairn at the upper end of the graveyard before leaving. It seemed like some sort of reverential ritual.
After a moment’s puzzled hesitation, Amanda did likewise and watched Harkness linger a moment at the cairn in thoughtful silence before she placed her own stone on top of it. As Harkness looked up at her, she could see the sadness in his eyes.

“Who is buried here?”
Harkness sighed and turned away from the grave to face her. “Of course, you wouldn’t know. This is the grave of the Lone Wanderer.”
Amanda looked at the cairn again. “I didn’t know she was buried in Rivet City.”
“She had settled down here after her adventurous years, but sadly, she died all too young. She wasn’t even forty.”
“You seem sad.”
Harkness gave her a tiny, melancholy smile. “She was one of the truest friends I ever had. Without her, I wouldn’t be here. I owe her more than my life.”

A thin layer of moss had already begun to creep up the stones covering the grave and a small plant had taken root in a crack near the top, its small leaves trembling in the wind.

“Is it true that she came from a Vault?”
“Yes. And it still exists. It’s not that far away from Megaton.”
“Why was she called that? The Lone Wanderer, I mean.”
Harkness shrugged. “It started when a friend of hers, who worked at the radio station at that time, began calling her that. She was alone, after she had been cast out of the Vault. Later, she had friends all over the Wasteland, especially here in Rivet City. But the name stuck. It’s good legend material, in any case. And legends that give hope is what people need.”
After brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear, Amanda crossed her arms. The wind kept tugging at her hair as if it was in a rather playful mood.

“Did she leave her family in the Vault?”, she asked after a while.
“As far as I know, she only had a father. Her mother died giving birth to her, and later, her father died defending the purifier against the Enclave.”
Amanda wondered if she could take some comfort in the fact that she had something in common with that famous legend of the Wasteland. Both of them had lost their families.
“Later, after moving in here, she had a child herself. But she died when the girl was seventeen, and the daughter died childless twenty years ago.”
“So the bloodline has died out.”
“So it would seem.”

Amanda brushed some hairs out of her face again. “Is her husband buried here, too?”
Harkness didn’t answer at once. After a silence of several minutes, Amanda began to feel slightly uncomfortable and cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”
“What?” Harkness blinked, torn out of an inner reverie she hadn’t been aware of. “No. No it’s just...” He sighed and chuckled sadly. “I don’t think many people know. I could very well be the only one who does. She had two men.”
“She was married twice?”
Harkness shook his head, that sad little smile still playing around the corners of his mouth. “No, she wasn’t married at all, as such. But she had two men. And not, as you may think, one after the other.”
It took Amanda a few moments to grasp what Harkness had been saying. “You mean...”

“Yes”, Harkness said after another long pause in which the only sound was the whistling of the wind in the ruins. Everyone else had left the cold and draughty graveyard long since. “Yes, her heart had been big enough to love two men.”
“And...” Something about the whole affair made Amanda feel uncomfortable without her being able to explain her feelings. “And... the men? Did they know?”

This time, Harkness laughed, but it was a soft laugh, and still had a sad ring to it. “They lived together here in Rivet City. These men...” He sighed again. “These men were the best of friends I have ever seen. They were a good bit older than her, fifteen years at least, I guess, and both had... a colourful past. They had put that behind them, however, and had settled down in Rivet City, several years before she set foot in here the first time. They ran the weapons stall together.”

A tiny yet ice-cold shiver crept down Amanda’s spine without her being able to identify why.

“They were friends at first, the three. But after the two men had helped her take out a large and organized band of mercenaries someone had contracted for her head, something happened. I guess they discovered there was more.”
“But how...” Amanda stared at the cairn again and the tiny little plant struggling for a foothold in the dry and lifeless cracks of stone. “How could they... I mean...”
“I don’t know. She loved both of them with a passion that was so typical for her, and they... they loved her too. And each other enough to be able to share a woman. I never enquired about any particulars.”
Amanda felt a blush creep onto her cheeks. “That’s not exactly what I meant...”
Harkness chuckled again. “How they did it had never been clear to anyone watching them, but they did. Suffice it to say that they had been very happy for sixteen years.”
“And then?”

Harkness stared at the cairn too and crossed his arms. Deep lines appeared around his eyes. “One of them died. His heart failed him. Not half a year later, we had to bury his friend, too. He had had a stroke and was dead on the spot.”
Again Amanda felt the shiver creep down her spine. “And... she?”
Harkness’ voice was low. “We found her a few days later lying here, between their graves.”
Amanda swallowed. “Did she kill herself?”
“I couldn’t say.” Harkness took a deep breath. “There was no wound, no trace of violence, no trace of poison.”
With her eyes burning in sudden compassion, Amanda swallowed a lump in her throat. “So it is possible to die of a broken heart.”
“So it would seem.”

“What a sad ending for the legend of her lifetime”, Amanda said after a long, thoughtful silence.
“Indeed.”
“And... if she is buried here, where are her men?”
“They lie here, too. One man on either side of her, like they had so often been seen while still alive.”

With her eyes burning and her vision a little blurry Amanda stared at the low mound of stones that held the mortal remains of three people who had, according to Harkness, shared a love as strong as it had been unconventional. And all of a sudden, she felt the urge to be like her; a woman who had been strong enough to go her own way no matter what the world thought about it. She said as much to Harkness who, again chuckled sadly.
“My dear Amanda... when she came here to Rivet City the first time she was hardly more than a frightened child looking for her father. He had left her in the Vault, wishing for her to be safe, but his escape had caused such an uproar in said Vault that she was forced to flee as well, lest she be killed by the Overseer. She had a long, hard way to go before she became the legend she is today.”
“Maybe we have more in common than I initially thought...”, Amanda said thoughtfully.
Harkness didn’t reply, but his facial expression was a strange composition of sadness and melancholy humour.

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. ~Arnold Glasow

A cold wind was blowing on the deck that night, but the lonely figure, standing at the broken railing and staring down at the ruins of D.C., seemed to be impervious to both the cold and the wind. Occasionally, a cloud of bluish smoke would drift up above his head, only to be torn away by the breeze in an instant.

The ship lay silent, or as silent as it could with the wind driving the waves against the hull and the walls of ancient steel creaking and groaning softly in the slow current of the river. A few sputtering lamps cast an irregular, dim glow over the flight deck, and around the small patches of light the skittering sounds of hunting bats could be heard, helping themselves to their share of the insects attracted by the lamps.

The steps of another man echoed hollowly across the deck, booming like thunderbolts through the silence of the night, until he came to stand beside the quietly smoking figure leaning onto the railing.

The flick of a lighter, a pinpoint glow of light, and another set of clouds joined with the first one, mingling in the wind and vanishing without a trace.
None of the two men said a word until one of them, the one on his silent vigil, flicked away the butt end with his thumb.
“Harvey picked up another hire today.”
“Yeah, I heard.” A long and slender finger tapped the ash off the cigarette. “For three.”
“You going?” Another smoke appeared in the corner of the taller man’s mouth as he patted down his pockets for a lighter.
“Nope. You going?”, was the reply, together with an extended hand that offered a small flame.
“Thanks.” Shielding the flame with his hand, he lit the cigarette and leaned back. “No.”

A short moment of silence followed before both men chuckled.
“Seems like we’re stuck together again, Frank.”
Leaning on the railing again, but this time propping up a foot on the lower bar as well, the broad-shouldered mercenary cast a look at his friend before taking a drag of his smoke. “Strange how that always pans out.”
“Could it be...” The other replied while turning around, now leaning his back against the railing and propping his elbows onto it, “...could it be that we’re doing this on purpose?”
Another low chuckle was the reply. “Fuck if I know. But we’ve been waltzing around the Wasteland together now for how many years?”
“Six or seven.”
“See.”

“The question is: what now?”
“The question is: who cares?”, the one called Frank replied. “We’ll sort it out. We always do.”
“You’re probably right. As usual.”
“I know.”
“You were even right when you said to Harvey that the girl would have us all by the balls with her pretty eyes if she wanted to. And damned if she doesn’t go and almost get herself killed a half an hour later.”
A long, deep drag and a large, heavy cloud were the only answer.
“Hey, Frank.”
“What.”
“You really got a soft spot for her, huh?”
Frank took his time to answer. “You know, Steve, I only tell you that ‘cause we’ve been buddies now for a longer time than most people manage to stay alive as mercs.” He inhaled again. “If I knew her, I’d probably say yes. But, fuck, I don’t. I wouldn’t even know her name if her father hadn’t hollered it across the fucking hangar to keep her away from us. I fucking don’t know...” He broke off with a furious drag of his smoke.
“You know, buddy”, Steve replied slowly, rolling his smoke thoughtfully between his fingers. “That probably sounds strange but... you know, I totally know where you’re coming from.”

A long, heavy silence followed that last admission.

Finally, Frank tapped off his ash and took another drag. “You too?”
“Hm.” Steve watched the cloud dissolve above his head with a shrug. “I totally wanted to give that bastard a bloody nose for the bruise she had on her face.”
“You’re too soft-hearted”, Frank replied with a mirthless chuckle. “I just wanted to break his neck.”

Both men smoked in silence for a while.

“Remember that chick in Boston?”
Frank snorted. “I may forget her the day someone blows out the last of my brain cells with a plasma gun.”
Steve chuckled, but somewhat cruelly. “Jesus, she could...”
“I don’t wanna think about that cunt now.”

Steve faltered, but then shrugged. “Considering it was the day we met...”
“I don’t wanna go down the road of old fond memories either.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s ‘shut-your-bloody-jabbering-gob-Steve’-time again. All right.”

Slowly and with a sigh, Frank turned around as well, copying his friend’s pose with his elbows on the railing. After a few moments, he shook his head and stared at the smoke in his hand. “The fuck.” He took another drag. “That cunt sure cuckolded the two of us good and proper.”
Steve chuckled out a cloud. “And to think I was about to slit your throat for fucking my girl...”
“Yeah, but just because I wanted to gut you for fucking mine.”
This time, both men laughed softly.

“Good thing neither of us got what he wanted that day, huh?” Steve dropped his butt end and ground it out under his heel, then shoved it backwards over the railing. “Should’ve killed the bitch instead.”
“Huh. She wasn’t worth a bullet.”
“True.”

Yet another long silence followed and Frank crossed his arms, his own cigarette clamped firmly in a corner of his mouth.
“Couldn’t imagine she’d do that”, Steve said, fiddling with his lighter.
“Who.”
“You know. The girl.”
“Nah. She looks like she’d only open her legs to someone after he’d married her.”
In the pregnant silence that followed, both men stared frozen at nothing.

“Fuck.” Frank took another drag.
“What?”
“What.” He flicked the butt end away, his voice a low, frustrated growl. “What. I’ve run into the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, but she’s a frightened, terrorized creature and the first time she lays eyes on me is when she spills a shitload of boiling coffee over my arm which earns her a bruise that’s going to be visible for another week at least. Fuck!” He furiously clamped another smoke between his lips and angrily attacked his lighter. Exhaling a long cloud, he stared straight ahead, looking at nothing. “And then she has a breakdown and bawls all over my fucking armour because we failed to save her parent’s life and fuck...” Another drag, another heavy cloud. “If I was her, I wouldn’t want to see my fucking face ever again in my life.”

Steve had listened to this uncommon outbreak of his normally less talkative friend with a deep frown on his face. Then he slowly took out his pack of smokes, slowly tapped one out and, as if he needed all his concentration to accomplish the feat, lit it up with slow, concise movements. After leaning back against the railing again he blew out a long cloud and shrugged.
“Shit. You’ve really got it bad, huh?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“You know...”
“Shut it, Steve. I don’t wanna...”
“Whaddya think I was gonna say, twit? Make a fucking joke about losing your head over a pretty pair of eyes?” He snorted angrily, the smoke escaping from his nostrils like two gushes of steam. “Man, when I looked at her I felt as if someone had hit me with a sack full of hammers. I’m no better off than you, buddy.”

That confession made between them, Frank leaned back with a soft snort and crossed his arms. “Sorry, buddy. Don’t know what...”
“Forget it.” Steve exhaled while dropping his head back and staring at the stars. “Just forget it. What we need is another hire to get us away from here and the girl. There’s no way this is gonna end well with the two of us if she’s around.”
“Fuck if I break my best friend’s nose over a chick”, Frank replied darkly, and Steve shook his head.
“Yeah, that’s as may be. But what are we gonna do if she decides she likes one of us well enough, after all?”
Frank took a deep breath and shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We just don’t fucking know.”

“You know”, Frank said after a moment’s thought. “I think you’re right. We get the fuck outta here as soon as we can and try to get the little chick out of our messed-up heads. She’s got no fucking business being there, anyway.”
“I hear you, buddy.” Steve shook his head and watched a small bat dash in and out of the pool of light cast by one of the spluttering lamps. “I hear you.”

Re: Stronger than death itself 6b/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-12 06:29 (UTC) - Expand

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway. ~John Wayne

After having locked herself up in her tiny cabin for four days, the sheer raw physical force of hunger made Amanda finally peel herself out of her cocoon of self-pity, grief, fear and pain. But even as she opened the door and blinked against the light that was harsh in her eyes after the long time she had spent in darkness, she realised she was still wearing her bloodied, dirty clothes, and not only did she look dreadful, she smelled dreadful, too.

So she went back inside, picked up spare clothing and after a serious wash and a change of clothes, felt restored enough to face the world again. She made her way through the ship hesitatingly, and had to admit after a few false turns that she had managed to get herself lost. Yet as she stood there and debated which door to take next, one of them opened and through it came a couple, holding the door open for her. Relieved and with a grateful nod, Amanda stepped through the doorway and entered the marketplace again to head for the galley.

As she clutched a cup of coffee and waited for her food, she began to think about what she would do now, and how she would go about it. There wasn’t much for her to do. Stay here, perhaps? She couldn’t; she had to make a living and doubted that she could find work other than barmaid in the obnoxious bar she had heard about. Barmaid, if she was lucky.
The fact was, she had never been anything other than a scavenger; she had grown up travelling with her parent’s caravan and had never known any other craft than that. She still had the brahmin, she had the knowledge and she had the supplies, anti-radiation meds, stimpacks and other essentials, but what she lacked were fighting skills. She gave in to no illusion that, alone, she would survive no longer than a few days at the most.

For as protected as she had been, her parents had never allowed her the use of a gun and had kept her out of all fights as much as it had been possible. Now that she was without their protection, she was without any chance of fending for herself at all.

Her plate arrived and after a thankful nod, Amanda dug into her food with single minded determination. After the meal she felt even more restored, and she realised that if she wanted to get on the road again, she needed a caravan guard or two; she had the funds to pay for some time in advance, her father hadn’t managed to drink the lot away. For a reason she hadn’t quite understood, her parents hadn’t wanted to stay long in Rivet City. She suspected it might have to do with the mercs, or maybe even with the fact that Harkness had visibly shown his discontent about the bruise on her cheek. People had commented on her father’s treatment of her before, and Amanda could imagine that Harkness wouldn’t have kept his mouth shut forever. And for as little as she knew about him, Amanda had no doubt that he was a man not to be easily crossed.
In a way, it made her feel a tiny bit better to know that for whatever reason, he was feeling protective towards her.

That didn’t solve her problem about the guards however. Yet at precisely that moment she spotted a familiar face at the stall for miscellaneous goods where a few packs of cigarettes had just changed ownership. Emptying her cup, she stood up with a decisive move and reminded herself that she had to get a grip on her life; because there was no one left to do so but her.

x-x-x-x-x-x

When Steve found his friend again in the Rudder later that morning, he fell down beside him onto a chair with a very unhappy expression.

“I found us a hire, buddy.”
“Some hire, by the look of you.”
“I didn’t make a binding commitment yet. Said I had to talk to you first.”
That made Frank cross his arms, for usually, the two of them were of one mind about almost everything. “So,” he said after a moment. “What kind of bullshit mission is it?”
“Caravan guard”, Steve replied without looking at him while he busied himself with lighting a smoke.
Frank lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Scavenger”, Steve added, rolling the smoke between thumb and forefinger.
“Call me thick, but I’m still not with you.”
With a heavy sigh, Steve leaned back in his chair and looked at his friend. “It’s the girl, man.”
Frank blinked twice. “What?”
“You heard me.”

With a heartfelt oath muttered softly under his breath, Frank lit himself a smoke as well. They then exchanged a long look until Steve finally shrugged.
“Not much else in the way of a hire available. All the caravans due are regulars and have their guards.”
“I know.”
“Not likely anything coming by anytime soon.”
“I know.”
“And we’re running out of caps.”
“I know!” Frank clamped his smoke between his lips and crossed his arms. “I fucking know, right?”

They smoked in silence for a while.

“I agreed to meet here in the Rudder tonight”, Steve finally said.
Frank nodded.
“Look, I’m just as happy about this fuck-up as you are.”
Snorting half-heartedly, Frank shook his head. “I know, buddy. I just wondered what the fuck we’re getting ourselves into if we take that hire.”
“Well it can’t be worse than all things going to hell in a hand basket”, Steve replied with a brightness that was as false and unhappy as his smile.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Shortly after the market had closed down, Amanda went to the Rudder, more than a little nervous and still unsure if this was a good idea. There simply were no other mercs available and she needed at least two men with her, due to being unable to contribute to any fighting herself. With a somewhat heavy stomach and a strangely fluttering heart, she looked around until she spotted them at a table in a corner under the stairs, playing cards with their smokes clamped between their respective lips. She watched them for a while and wondered what made her so nervous. They had been nothing but friendly to her.

Maybe that was the problem. Amanda suddenly felt as if all her good intentions of getting on her feet and taking her life into her own hands were crumbling away, and what she was really doing was simply latching on to two strong, protective men who would continue to keep her safe as her parents had done before.

But I need them, she thought to herself. Without a guard, I won’t survive.

And that was really all there was to say about this. So she shrugged, swallowed her anxiety, or tried to at least, and went to the bar to buy three beers with which she slowly approached their table.

The one who must’ve been Frank was sitting with his back to her, but Steve sat opposite of him and saw her coming. He gave his friend a nod and as Amanda came to halt at their table, both men looked up with carefully neutral faces. Amanda realised that she had never had to negotiate with a mercenary before and her nervousness returned in full force, though she managed to keep her voice steady.

“Care for another beer?”
“Sure. That’s my buddy Frank; by the way”, Steve replied and pulled an empty chair over from the adjacent unoccupied table. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.”

The mercenaries stowed their cards away before Steve leaned back in his chair and Frank folded his arms onto the table. Both men mustered her with intense but not unfriendly gazes.

Stronger than death itself 7c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-14 10:00 (UTC) - Expand

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. ~Irish Proverb

Since there was no use in prolonging their stay in Rivet City after the decision had been made, they had agreed to get on the road the very next morning. Leaving the hangar with sunrise, they met the security chief who was keeping watch at the bridge. He nodded to them as they passed them by.
“I see you’ve decided to get on the road again”, Harkness said to Amanda. “I wish you save travels.”
“Thanks.” Amanda shrugged her bag into place, still uncomfortable with the unfamiliar feeling of the rifle on her back and the pistol at her belt. “I hope we’ll meet again someday.”
“You’ll always find me here in Rivet City.”
Amanda gave him a nod and a small smile that he easily returned before she turned to cross the bridge, the two mercenaries in tow.
“I trust you take good care of her”, Harkness said to the two men as they passed him by.
“That’s what we’re being paid for”, Frank gave back without any emotion in his voice, speaking around a cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth. He was carrying a large crate and had his hands full.
“Sure.” Harkness gave both men a nod as well; he seemed to be on the verge of saying something else but kept his mouth shut as he watched them go.

Leaning onto the railing of the bridge, Harkness followed the three of them with his eyes as they walked down the ramp and headed for the brahmin pen where the two mercenaries tied the crate and their bags to the animal with practised proficiency. Harkness then watched the small caravan head for the cleared path along the river. Since the ruins had been torn down and cleared away around the city, he had a clear view of them disappearing before they rounded the corner that followed the bend of the river, and with a sigh, let his eyes sweep over the large, cleared space that provided the guards with a clear line of sight and made ambushing the city that much harder. That had been the Lone Wanderer’s idea, the same with using the rubble to fill in Anacostia Station to rule out a possible ambush from that direction.

His eyes then swept past the former entrance to the metro, past the rubble and towards the graveyard of Rivet City. Even from here he could see the cairn that held the remains of the woman they all owed so much to. Often did he stand there in a silent one-sided conversation with the best and truest friend he had ever had, and briefly he wondered if he would still be doing it after the events of the last week.
On the other hand, Sandy was dead and buried beneath the low mound of stones behind Anacostia, and nothing would ever bring her back.

Amanda, while she might be the soul of the woman he remembered, was not her really. True, they shared certain characteristics, but Amanda displayed a strength in dealing with her personal catastrophe that Sandy had lacked. When faced with disaster, Sandy had had a tendency to lock up into herself, and had needed a lot of effort to do get out of it again.
Amanda was dealing with her parents’ death in a different way. She had locked herself up, too... but then she had gotten a grip on herself. Her life hadn’t been an easy one, growing up travelling as a Wasteland gypsy, and because of that life Amanda had never known the kind of stability and security that Sandy had been robbed of the night that she had fled the vault and entered a world that was alien and hostile. Amanda had been born into that world, without the loving and caring father that Sandy had, and was forced to get on with her life.

With a small smile, Harkness realised that he would most likely never hear Amanda complain about the lack of showers in the Wasteland.

Watching the red-haired mercenary now vanish around the corner as the rear guard, Harkness had to admit that the two young men were as little like the men they had been before than Amanda had resembled the woman he remembered. Both men were not only younger, but they also both lacked that streak of darkness in their soul that had been a remnant of the past they had left behind. A darkness that had shown in their eyes, eyes that had always had been older than the men themselves, eyes that had seen too many things these men would rather have forgotten.

The one called Steve was a handsome, good-natured man who, while equipped with a snarky humour, was certainly not as foulmouthed and ill-tempered as the man Harkness remembered him as. And the one called Frank... to be honest, he would have trusted Flak to be so stubborn a soul that he would be reborn almost unchanged. However, Harkness couldn’t remember a single instance where he had seen the silent, taciturn man do more than muster up a narrow, almost invisible smile, while Frank had been laughing as heartily about some bawdy joke made by one of his comrades as all the other mercenaries had.

All three of them seemed to have drawn a slightly better lot in this life when you looked at it like this, and Harkness could only wish them well, and wished that what he thought fate had meant for them was truly where they were heading. They would deserve it, a second chance without the burden of a past they’d rather forget.

x-x-x-x-x-x

The caravan hadn’t even made it as far as Wilhelm’s Wharf when they ran into their first ambush, luckily only raiders this time and not a horde of mutants. Frank yelled at Amanda to go for cover, an order that she could do nothing but follow since she hadn’t taken a single shot with the rifle on her back yet, and she simply didn’t dare to try it out now. So she was forced to watch Frank and Steve duck for cover as well and take the raiders out one by one. It was five against two, but it was five drugged-out raiders against two well trained and experienced mercenaries, so the fight was over rather quickly.

As soon as Amanda saw the last raider fall she jumped out from her hiding place to head for the brahmin that had taken cover behind a broken wall, and went for the box that held the medical supplies. Equipped with that box, she hurried across the rubble to Steve’s side, who was softly swearing whilst clutching a bleeding arm.

“Can you get that jacket off?”
Steve shook his head with a grimace of suppressed pain. “I think the fucking arm’s broken, kid.”
“Shit.” Amanda dropped the box and cautiously took his arm, then drew her pocket knife and began to slice through the seams of the sleeve. “Hold still.”
Frank had reached them now too and went into a crouch beside them. “Need anything, girl?”
“I just need you to hold his arm still. The bullet went right through it, see?”
Frank silently nodded and took his friend by the shoulder, closing his hand cautiously around Steve’s upper arm.
“You might want to bite on something”, Amanda said softly as she carefully took the forearm to set the break.
Steve just lifted his other arm and got a good bit of leather of his sleeve between his teeth, exhaled deeply and nodded.
“Right.” Amanda took a deep breath as well and with a swift and ruthless move, pulled the arm straight, the bones sliding together again with a satisfying snap. “Done.”
Steve spat the leather out from between his teeth and emitted a steady stream of foul and heartfelt curses while sweat poured down his pale, tight-set face.
“One of the raiders had a pool cue”, Amanda said to Frank. “Bring me a piece the length of his forearm, from the thinner end.”
Frank nodded and got up with a pat on his friend’s shoulder to do Amanda’s bidding. When he returned, she tied the piece of wood to Steve’s forearm with a bandage.

“Can’t you just stim the bloody thing?”, Steve snapped as he watched her tie the knot.
“Of course I’m gonna stim it”, Amanda fired right back. “But I’m guessing you’d rather have the arm heal straight while the stimpack does its work, yes?”
Steve stared at her for a second, then snapped his mouth shut and looked away. “Sorry.”
Amanda patted his thigh and shook her head before equipping herself with a stimpack. “I’ve done this before, you know.”
“Yeah, I can see that”, Steve replied in a small voice. “You’re doing a pretty good job. Kept good nerves, too.”
At this she looked up again to find him staring back with a lopsided, apologetic smile. Amanda shook her head, but had to smile as well. But then their eyes met, and within a split second Amanda felt a hot blush creep onto her cheeks and she hastily looked away, unable to explain the strange nervousness that look had roused in her.

Stronger than death itself 8c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-16 08:33 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 8d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-16 08:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 8d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-18 16:11 (UTC) - Expand

Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ~Author Unknown

As was to be expected, Amanda was knackered the next morning, but waking up to the smell of coffee was a rather pleasant experience despite that. When she sleepily sat up, she found Steve pouring a thick, black liquid that might have been tar into a cup before offering it to her.
“Coffee?”
“Great.” She peeled herself out of her blanket and reached for the cup, and found herself in a much better mood than she had expected. When she looked around, she discovered the sun had already risen rather high. “Sorry for sleeping so long.”
Steve chuckled around the smoke in his mouth. “Don’t worry, kid. Frank told me you had troubles falling asleep last night, and I don’t blame you. I can imagine the whole thing can be a bit...” He shrugged. “Overwhelming, I guess.”
“You’re right”, Amanda gave back while staring into her cup. “Thanks anyway.”
“Hey, we enjoy a slow start as much as anyone else”, Steve replied and poured himself another coffee. “And it’s not as if we have to be somewhere important by nightfall.”
Sipping her coffee, Amanda realised he was right. “We don’t, do we?” The coffee was strong as an ox and kicked her senses awake, and she realised she felt rather good, despite the lack of sleep. “It’s just us and the road, now.”

After a moment of silence she heard steps and Frank rounded the small outcrop of rocks that they had chosen as a windshield. “Nothing.”
Amanda looked up with a puzzled frown.
“I heard something shuffling around”, he explained while sitting down and accepting another cup from Steve. “All I found were some molerats tracks.”
They had their coffee in mutual but comfortable silence, and after a breakfast of the leftover molerat stew, got under way again, for now following the dry riverbed north and west.

They made camp somewhat earlier that night to make use of the remaining daylight for Amanda’s shooting lessons, and while she had never shot a gun in her life, she found it not as difficult as she had expected it to be.

“You’ve got a knack for this”, Steve said to her when, for the second time in a row, she had managed to hit all five of the stones they had set up for her on a large boulder. “You sure got a good aim.”
Amanda felt ridiculously pleased upon hearing those words of praise, but kept it to herself. Instead, she said: “I guess it’s the moving targets that make the real challenge.”
“That requires practise and experience”, Frank said and weighed a small stone in his hand. “But for now, you got us to bail you out when you miss. Here.” With that, he tossed the stone hard and fast so it flew in a high arch over the large boulder they had used, and while Amanda was quick enough to react and shoot, she missed thoroughly.
“Not bad, girl.” He picked up another stone. “Try again.”
This time, she missed only narrowly. Three more tries, and she hit once, but the next five, she didn’t.
“Let’s leave it at that”, Frank said after that and produced a pack of smokes. “Ain’t no use in getting you frustrated, because then you’ll sure as fuck not hit anything.”

After their meal that night, Amanda felt the need for some conversation. “Where are you guys from, anyway?”, she asked as she put another log onto the fire.
The two men exchanged a glance, and Amanda felt a small blush creep onto her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry; I was just trying to make conversation. Forget it.”
“Nah, it’s all right.” Steve lit up a smoke and leaned back. “We’re from up further north. Ran into each other in Boston.”
“Boston.” Staring into the flames, Amanda slung her arms around her drawn-up knees. “How far away is that?”
“’Bout thirty days”, Frank replied. “Give or take.”

“What about you?”, Steve asked while tapping off his ash.
“I actually don’t really know.” Amanda brushed a strand of hair behind her left ear. “I only remember travelling. I must have been born in some nameless little Wasteland nest, or maybe even Richmond. We hit that town quite often, but after James died, my parents travelled north. Said they needed new hunting grounds. That’s how we got to Rivet City in the end.”

“I guess scavenging in the Capital Wasteland isn’t as profitable as they imagined it would be.”
“No.” Amanda shook her head with a soft snort. “Of course not. They just wanted to leave everything behind that reminded them of James. We’ve been close to starving more than one time, but it didn’t make them turn back. It was just because my father had paid the two guards in advance that they stayed, and at least we had been lucky a couple of times before we reached Rivet City, so we could pay them again.” She sighed. “See what good it did them.”
“Well, that’s what they signed up for”, Frank gave back. “When you’re a merc and a caravan guard, death is part of the business.”
“I know.” Amanda pressed her lips together and felt her eyes burn. “I know. That doesn’t make it any easier, for some reason.”

In the following silence, the crackling of the campfire was the only sound. A log broke and sent a shower of sparks into the air.

“What’s Boston like?”
Frank shrugged. “Like any other armpit of a town in this godforsaken Wasteland. Full of drunkards and good-for-nothings.”
“And whores”, Steve added with a strange undertone that made Amanda look up again.
The two men exchanged another glance before Frank shrugged and lit up another smoke. Steve turned to Amanda with a half-way grin.
“See, when we met in Boston...”
“You sure she wants to know this, buddy?”
Amanda suppressed a grin. “I can’t help feeling that this has the potential to be an interesting story. I’m a girl, remember? I love gossip.”
Frank snorted under his breath and shook his head, but with a lopsided smile.
Steve, in turn, chuckled out a cloud of smoke and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles.

“See, I had a girl in Boston”, he said. “She was... she could be a bit of a bitch, but she also could be a real sweetheart, if she wanted to. She’s the daughter of a weapons merchant. Well; I guess she still is.”
“If she hasn’t succeeded in finally getting her throat slit, after all”, Frank fell in with an unmoving expression.
Steve emitted an amused snort and took another drag of his smoke. “Anyway, one day I walked in on her sucking faces with another guy. See, I should have been out of town that day, but the merchant who’d hired me had to go and break his leg, so he nullified his contracts and I was stuck in town again. So I went to see her to tell her I wasn’t gone after all. And here she was, getting at it with someone else.”
“And what did you do?” Amanda crossed her arms and leaned back. While Steve seemed rather amused by the whole story, Frank’s face showed no emotion at all.

Stronger than death itself 9c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-18 19:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Stronger than death itself 9c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-20 23:05 (UTC) - Expand

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. ~Jean de La Fontaine

During the next few days they established a solid travelling routine, something that took none of them too much effort since they all were used to travelling. All they needed was to get used to each other, and as they made their way up north and west, mthings like making and breaking up camp were accomplished with little effort, time, and almost no words at all.

It was little more than a week after they had left Rivet City that they hit a small town called Hagerstown. The town was big enough to have several bars and inns and after choosing one, Amanda went to find the trading post. Their journey had been mostly uneventful, in terms of adversaries and spoils, so she didn’t have a lot to sell.
Steve and Frank had, in the meantime, taken care of their baggage and the brahmin and were now sitting in the taproom, nursing a peaceful afternoon beer and looking forward to a night in a bed for a change.

They had, the night before their departure from Rivet City, debated about this hire, about the possibilities of finding another job, of getting away from the girl who seemed to have all but bewitched them, but as the time had passed on their journey, none of the two had mentioned that again.
The fact was that despite everything else, they couldn’t just leave Amanda to her fate. In addition to that, another unspoken fact was that they didn’t want to leave Amanda to her fate, no matter what.
They could have seized some of the unemployed mercenaries up, check if they were the decent sort, and broach the subject with her.
They didn’t.

Amanda came to join them somewhat later, entering the bar with the pleased and satisfied air of someone who had made a good deal. As she was just about to order a drink, she was approached by a tall man wearing well to-do clothes. He obviously wanted to stand her a drink and Amanda obviously declined, trying to be polite about it. The man, however, didn’t want to take no as an answer. He was trying to chat her up, trying to be charming, but to Steve and Frank, it was clear that she was beginning to feel uncomfortable. They needed no more than to exchange a single look and both of them slowly got up and sauntered over to the bar, weapons loose in their holsters.

Amanda cringed when she heard more steps but visibly sagged with relief when she realised they belonged to her guards. She again faced the man who might have been a merchant or a wealthy farmer. “I said no. Please just leave me alone.”
The tall merchant crossed his arms and glared a few daggers at the men beside her. “I see. Those your fuck-buddies?”
“They’re my guards. Now get lost before I let them lose on you.”
He cast a look at the two men again, and following his glance, Amanda realised that she had never seen them look so dangerous and menacing. Each had a smoke in the corner of his mouth, their hands hooked into their belts close to their guns, and both bore the bored, low-lidded expression of a man just waiting for the order to shoot and not giving a shit about why or whom. Their whole demeanour seemed to beg for him to give them the tiniest excuse for redecorating the taproom with his guts.

After a few moments of silent stand-off, the merchant emitted a soft snort and left the bar, followed by two men who had to be his guards. Amanda let out a breath of relief when the doors had closed behind them.
She ordered herself a drink and, as the three of them settled down at the table where Steve and Frank had left theirs, Amanda took a sip of beer and shook her head.
“I was thinking of staying a few days”, she said. “But suddenly I feel like a bed’s not worth the hassle in this town.”
“Could be you’re right”, Frank replied and tapped off his ash with a thoughtful frown. “He doesn’t seem like a guy who’s used to being turned down by a girl.”
Amanda gave the door a worried look.
“Don’t you worry.” Steve leaned back in his chair. “As long as you keep us around he won’t be able to lay a finger on you, kid.”
When Amanda looked at him, a slight flush on her cheeks and a tiny smile on her lips, he looked away, seemingly a little embarrassed. “That’s what you’re paying us for”, he muttered and busied himself with lighting up a smoke.

Stronger than death itself 10b/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-23 06:51 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 10c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-23 06:54 (UTC) - Expand

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon

Just as expected, they reached Boston a good month later, dusty, dirty, and tired. Despite the highways up north being in comparatively good condition, the journey had proven to be difficult; not because of the road, but because of the terrain and multiple spots for ambushes. They had fought off raiders almost every day.

With dusk they reached the southern outskirts of Boston, the one part of the city that had survived the destruction of the war and had been rebuilt – to an extent – into what resembled a town again.

Since Frank had grown up in the area and knew Boston the best, he offered to scout for an inn and while he was gone, Steve and Amanda settled down in a small bar at the edge of town.

“I’m sure looking forward to a bath and a proper shave”, Steve said while running a hand through his shaggy beard. “I feel like I have a dead dog glued to my face.”
Amanda had to chuckle. “I don’t envy you.”
They had their beer in relaxed silence, and because Frank hadn’t returned yet, had another one soon after. By the time they had finished that it was dark outside, and Amanda looked out of the window with a worried frown.
“I wonder where he’s gone?”
“Could be he ran into some old friend.” But despite his words, Steve sounded a trifle worried, too.

The brahmin was still tied down outside and untended, so they took care of their animal, unloading and hobbling it before feeding and watering it. Steve shot a worried glance down the road that Frank had taken and finally looked at Amanda again. “Should I go look for him?”
“You know the town better than I do, so it’d be of no use if I went. I’ll stay here with the brahmin.”
Steve nodded and after another deep breath, lit up a smoke and set off, heading for downtown. Amanda watched him go with a knot of worry sitting deeply in her gut.

When Steve came back it was long past midnight, and he came back alone. He shrugged, sat down at the small campfire Amanda had made and produced a cigarette. Instead of lighting it, however, he sat there for a while fiddling nervously with his lighter.
“No trace of him?”
“No.” He twirled the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “And I didn’t find anyone who had seen him, either. I’m getting worried, kid. It’s not like him.”
“Do you think he’s run into trouble?”
“I would like to think there’s no trouble he could run into that he can’t handle. But...” Steve finally lit his cigarette and after taking a drag, exhaled the smoke through his nose. “I’d best go look again.”
“I don’t know...” Amanda put another piece of wood into the fire. “If he really is in trouble then we’ll be of no use to him if we don’t get some rest. I think we’d best look together tomorrow.”
“Maybe you’re right.”

Each of them managed to rest a few fitful hours while the other kept watch, but when dawn came and Frank still hadn’t showed up, they both were more worried than they cared to admit. In a strained silence, they loaded the brahmin again and made their way into town.

It was as they headed a corner and reached the centre of town that they spotted a large crowd of people heading for the edge of town westward, in their middle was a man who was definitely a prisoner. The crowd was agitated and was clearly a lynch mob eager for blood, and Steve and Amanda exchanged a horrified look.
They had both recognised the prisoner: the bound and gagged man these people were dragging along was Frank.

“Shit.” Steve dropped his smoke and ground it out under his heel. “The fuck are we gonna do now kid?”
Amanda stared at the vanishing crowd, thinking furiously. Then she spotted two women standing in front of a small house who had watched the mob pass by, too. She walked over and greeted them friendly.

Stronger than death itself 11b/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-29 07:12 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 11c/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-29 07:13 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 11d/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-29 07:15 (UTC) - Expand

Stronger than death itself 11e/?

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-29 07:17 (UTC) - Expand

Characters: Boone, Carla Boone
Pairing: Boone/Carla
Kink: Reincarnation
Summary: 317 years before Fallout: New Vegas, Carla waits for Boone.

Janet Castillo is sitting on the poured-concrete stairs of her mother's two-story, tumbledown foursquare house. It's 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, she should be in school. Instead, she is sitting on the concrete stairs, the damp chill penetrating her skirt and raising goose pimples on her thighs. It is March, and her thin spring jacket isn't quite enough to ward off the cold of the wind and the stairs, but her winter coat is in her closet, hidden under a heap of dresses that don't quite fit right anymore. It's ugly, and she refuses to wear it, even though it is cold in March.

She is waiting for her boyfriend, waiting for James Haugen. Jimmy plays basketball. He's not the star and he's not the captain, but he's good enough to letter. He used to drape his letterman's jacket around her shoulders when they went out together, and she wishes she had it now.

He was supposed to meet her here at 8:00. She has been on the steps since 7:30, waiting for Jimmy to come pick her up. He's going to come get her, and they're going to drive across the river and get married in city hall. They're going to get married, because if they, her mother and his parents won't be able to keep them apart.

Mrs. Castillo doesn't like Jimmy. She says there's only one reason a boy like him would pay any attention to a little Mexican girl living in the shadow of the Schmidt Brewery. And Mr. and Mrs. Haugen think Janet is the worst kind of trash. That's why Janet doesn't wear Jimmy's class ring, even though he swears he loves her. That's why when they go out together, they have to go to the diners and drive-ins across the river, where they won't see anyone they know.

Jimmy drives a 1963 Ford Galaxie, red with vinyl seats. His father bought it for him, and it's his baby. Janet felt like a queen sitting in the front seat next to him, never mind that he had to pick her up at the end of the block. They would drive around and go parking by the lock and dam. That was where she lost her virginity. That was where Jimmy got her into trouble.

Janet is sitting on her front steps, and she is waiting for a boy who isn't coming. She should be in school, but she told her mother she was sick. Mrs. Castillo looked at her with eyes hard and cold as quarters, but she was too tired to argue after another late shift at the Ford plant. So she said 'okay,' and she went to bed, and now Janet is waiting for Jimmy, who isn't coming.

Jimmy isn't going to marry her. He's going to enlist, and he'll come home a hero, but his son won't know his name, and only Janet, the mother of his child, will know he's a coward.

But right now, she is waiting for him to come and make everything right.

BRB crying.

OP is running out of hankies.
Thanks a thousand times, A!A, that was absolutely stunning.

D: D: D: Gonna go cry rivers.

This is beautiful, a!a!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any character(s) - Reincarnation

Stronger than death itself 1a/?

Stronger than death itself 1b/?

Stronger than death itself 2a/?

Stronger than death itself 2b/?

Stronger than death itself 3a/?

Stronger than death itself 3b/?

Stronger than death itself 4a/?

Stronger than death itself 4b/?

Stronger than death itself 5a/?

Stronger than death itself 5b/?

Stronger than death itself 6a/?

Stronger than death itself 6b/?

Stronger than death itself 7a/?

Stronger than death itself 7b/?

Stronger than death itself 8a/?

Stronger than death itself 8b/?

Stronger than death itself 9a/?

Stronger than death itself 9b/?

Stronger than death itself 10a/?

Stronger than death itself 11a/?

In Trouble, Microfill (complete)

Re: In Trouble, Microfill (complete)

Re: In Trouble, Microfill (complete)

Re: In Trouble, Microfill (complete)