Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

Jonah continues his attentions right on through Kara's explosive climax, tongue moving in soft pushes and flicks against the little pearl in his mouth until her thighs stop their reflexive convulsing on either side of his head. When her body calms down a little, he pulls himself up and reclines beside Kara, idly licking the last traces of fluid off his mouth. It doesn't taste bad at all, he decides.

"Good?" he asks, rolling on his side to face her, his hand settling on her hip as naturally as breathing in a half-embrace. Jonah's always a little surprised at the strength of Kara's orgasms - he can't imagine giving himself quite so completely to anything physical. He loves her absolutely, but surrendering himself to anything else always feels a little grudging. His legacy of self-control doesn't let go easily. "I wanted to try that. Beatrix recommended it to me one time."

The ghoul liked to talk craft, and when your job is fucking people literally instead of physically, your craft is lewd as hell. Jonah half-expects she gets so explicit just to see what reactions it provokes out of people. Up until recently, he hadn't cared a whit on account of the fact he was dead certain he was never going to care again about sex for the rest of his life.

Her advice had recently been useful, however. He's not looking forward to the next time they meet. The old ghoul's going to hold it over his head fucking forever.

Kara is briefly a malleable puddle, fingers smoothing through her own hair over and over, her skin tingling, sensitive. She gives him a dazed nod. It idly occurs to her that Bea was going to find their unlikely pair up hilarious.

But she's not really thinking about Bea-those blue eyes are on his green ones instead. She has no idea how he contains himself like he does, can focus on her and what she's feeling, have that kind of patience. He's obviously aroused, hard as a diamond but he'd gone after her pleasure anyway.

Her hand abandons the red tresses to frame his face as she turns towards him, briefly quiet and marveling over the hard edge of his cheekbone and jaw, that he'd look at her and see both what she is and -what she is- and stick around. She looks good sure, but she's out there. Everybody knows that. She doesn't want to be any different, but then again-he didn't want her to be either.

His hand is warm on her hip. Kara puts her other one on his shoulder, traces the muscle there, eyes following her fingers, the ones of her other hand sliding behind his head. The bliss was winding down.

She might not be very patient, but she sure doesn't lack for energy and passion -maybe that made up for things. It was like Kara flipped a switch-a grip and push on his shoulder and a searing kiss for extra persuasion to turn him on his back with her following. He -never- lets her drive. He's hot as hell and it turns her on not to be in control of something for once, but dammit she wants to blow HIS mind one of these days.

She's straddling him just at the waist, her breasts pillowed against his hard chest as her hands frame his face for impulsive and sudden make outs, not caring about her own taste on his tongue.

"Don't you want any fun?" She breathes as she pulls back just enough to break the kiss, her tone laced with mischief and desire, fire and want. The attack of kisses along one side of his face trail from his mouth to his jaw to ear to cheekbone-fingers smoothing down the other side of his face and trailing down his neck to his shoulder, feather light and then gripping again, other hand catching the red waves and drawing them over one slender shoulder as she kissed down his chest. On all fours now, over him, everything heat and passion.

She considers trying to reciprocate but-well, she just has to have him. Show -him- how SHE could move, and as mind blowing as that had been, it only made her hungrier for the real deal. Maybe she wouldn't get to finish things on top, but the least she could do was start them.

Her deft little fingers found his throbbing member and spiraled down the length of him, a teasing touch turned serious when she gripped him more outright, poised just over his hips now, straight backed and entirely visible to him, perked breasts and taut, soft stomach, the small waist and flare of her hips-that red hair mussed from the previous activity.

"See how maybe I might move for you, only you?"

Jonah startles a little when Kara rolls back on top, but welcomes her there nonetheless, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and the other steadying her hip. Their kisses are needy, affectionate and nipping; and by now he's so hard it's starting to actually ache, clear fluid leaking from the tip of his shaft. When his fireball takes hold of him and strokes - but then poses herself over him, and suddenly it gets more serious. Her body over him is something he'd never considered himself - the soft brush of her nipples against his chest is suddenly so much more insistent with gravity drawing them against his body. Jonah's never really roughhoused or let anyone on top of him at all, and the sensation electrifies him.

For all that Kara concedes control to him, he's never done the same; surrender is anathema to him, and even with her trim, taut body atop of him, ready and naked to take his cock, it takes Jonah a moment to accept that it's okay. His hand slides from her shoulder to palm one pert breast, and his thumb rubs over the nipple as he nods up at his lover. "Alright," he says, a little unsteady at the role reversal. "I trust you."

He's so aroused it's hard to think, and that sends frissions of warning down his spine; his instincts are at war with biological imperative, and the conflict leaves him adrift. But Kara's here, so he just trusts her instead.

"I trust you."

Kara pauses, a little less mischief and more warm softness in the clear depths of her eyes. He’s hard and he wants her, but still new...uncertain. Kara lowers so that his cock was just in front of her instead, the pert curve of her ass resting in the seat of his thighs. Her free hand laces through his fingers on her breast, brings the hand up to her lips to press a soft kiss to his wrist. She’s no maneater, especially not of Jonahs anyway. Trouble, but no longer trouble for him.

“Just you and me, here.” Kara murmurs, another soft kiss to his pulse before she nuzzles her cheek into the inside of his forearm. “I love you.” Her soft voice again.

And then the liquid heat returns, lowering his hand and trailing his fingers down over her collarbone and back to the pert, rounded breast she’d stolen him from. Her lips quirk into that sexy little smile again. “And I lust for you.” Another stroke to his cock, teasing and promising. He’s so hard. He has to want her, but she wants him to want her, want her as badly as she always wants him-hell, as badly as she wanted him now.

“I want to drive you as crazy as you drive me. Even-” She’s popped back to her knees again, poised over him as she continues in that heated, sultry tone. “Even half as crazy-I just want you so bad, Jonah. Every time you touch me, it’s all sparks ‘n fire. I want to make you feel some of that.” She found the place where they fit and-

A fluttering spasm of slick inner muscles around the length of him as Kara lowered herself down into the cradle of his hips, a sharp exhale and a rippled bounce to her chest at the near impatient movement. She’s extra sensitive from orgasming and always feels tight around him in the first place-he’s hard and always feels a little too big somehow.

But oh-oh. He always feels so right.

“It’s only-” There’s a fetching blush across her cheeks again, an almost experimental movement on him, working him within her a few accustoming times to a noted shiver. “F-fair.”

Fingers move over his solid abdomen and then her own thighs, trail over the tops of HIS thighs just behind her as she straightened her back again, actually leaned back slightly onto his thighs-leaving his length pressing against the roof of her sex again, an involuntary twitch of her hips.

“I want to be crazy together.”

And then Kara started to ride him in earnest. It wasn’t just her movements up and down on him, toned thighs lifting and dropping-her inner muscles were near witchcraft all their own, intentionally tightening and loosening, tightening and loosening around him, little flutterings of contractions in time with her movements, the minx’s molten core massaging his cock in rhythm.

It’s nothing she can do for long, her legs get so weak from everything-but all she has to do is start things, stroke and spark the fire she knows is there.

She's breathtaking. Jonah is magnetized by Kara's charisma, much as he always had been - just momentarily forgotten in his ability to overwhelm her with his own attentions. He skipped from physical attraction to emotional fixation, and here now is the missing link, this physical need he almost doesn't hear (because denial has been his greatest strength for so long). To look at Kara - to want her, not just want to please her - feels like pulling off a scab. His breath roughens as he sees her again, instead of through her to the warm fire within. Remembers, again, just how fucking attractive she actually is.

(it had gotten easier to not notice.)

Sliding into her draws a muffled grunt from him, and involuntarily his hips rise up against hers, too used to initiating their congress; he bites his lip as Kara starts riding him, smooth and rolling, and for once he has nothing to do but focus on his own pleasure and this delightful woman atop him, mischief in her eyes along with raw, rough love. Jonah focuses on exploring her, his hands running the length of her belly, along her firm breasts, cupping her face: a renewed devotion sparking in him.

(It's so hard for him to take in the totality of another human. He's spent so long snuffing them out.)

This is too precious. One of Jonah's hands return to his lips, and he kisses his fingers then presses them to Kara's as he begins to undulate back up against Kara, moving in smooth motion together - down, swirl, and up, rocking in unison. It sends kinks of hot pleasure up his spine, and this time he lets himself feel it, instead of brushing it aside as a byproduct. She's hot and wet and tight around his shaft, and her shifting weight atop him is mysteriously as exciting, that someone would be this devoted to his own pleasure. Jonah's breath grows ragged, his endurance already strained by his sustained arousal.

"Kara," he says, eyes closing, prayer and invocation, and bites his lip as the heat tightens in his abdomen.

There’s a perfect bounce to her chest each time they come together, that growing flush to her pale skin and those breathy little wordless utterances tumbling from her pink lips. They find a rhythm and he actually lets himself be pulled into the intensity of it, and Kara does everything she can to push him to the edge.

Kara wants to please him, wants him to be with her. Draw him just a bit into the heat and the crazy and the mind blowing nature of what he’s turned sex into for her. He was just so much more focused than she was, had seemingly infinite stores of self control-while she had none. It didn’t make for a very reciprocal track record in the bedroom, and it made her feel a little lacking. She didn’t want to be lacking. She wants to twist him up and make him want her just as badly as she always wants him. He says he does, but she’s not sure he really gets the need or the pleasure or the anything-too buttoned down and locked tight. Or at least, hadn’t.

There’s tingles all up and down her spine and anywhere he touched her, she can’t hardly breathe in anything more than pants and gasps, but mostly, his face and the way he’s looking at her. She kisses his fingers and gives them a playful little nip, a dart of her tongue against his skin. -Now- it’s more equal, -now- she’s making him feel, edging him closer and closer and-

”Kara-”

Her eyes widen and a larger spark of electricity spirals through her sex. He’s almost there, and she suddenly is too. Kara goes for broke-she tightens as much as she can with a flex of those seemingly magic pelvic muscles, the effect drawing a distressed, mindlessly aroused note from her lips. She was already tight, but now it was almost impossibly so around him as she leans forward just enough to lean on her fisted hands against his chest-hips moving as fast as she can bounce to drive him ruthlessly over that edge-one she was on the cusp of herself. She can’t win again, not before he does, she won’t leave him alone a second time-together. She wants it together, and the word bounces through her frenzied brain as she watches his face and closed eyes, the white flash of his teeth worrying at his lip-he’s beautiful. The most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

And undeniably, irreversibly hers. No, she's not going to let herself get shot anytime soon.

Together, together, together, together-!

Jona's breath hitches, and his eyes half-lid open as his hips jerk, hands clamping down on her undulating hips as his climax hits him as it never truly has before, not some vaguely-noticed wave passing in the background but the full-body resonance that takes Kara when they couple. He arches upwards from his neck to his heels, his hands clutching tight over her hips as he comes harder than he ever has in his life. It leaves him in bucks and jolts, drawn into Kara's greedy body - her folds clutching and pulling at him in time, wanting him just as much as the woman herself. The flood of sensation blasts Jonas's brain clean and all he can do is gasp her name and spend himself within her until he's empty.

He breathes. Long, harsh, arms releasing their clamped grip on Kara's cheeks to slide up and hold her against him in a loose embrace.

"Jesus," he swears, the oath tripping out of his mouth as he pants. "That was -"

He doesn't have words, and instead he ducks to press his forehead against Kara's. Words always fail him. The simplicity of touch does not. She can read his skin like his mouth can never read his thoughts, just another facet of what binds him to Kara so closely. She knows more about his soul than he does, at this point.

He breaks, his large, strong hands gripping either hip tightly to hold her in place at the same time his entire body arches up and into her, her knees actually leaving the mattress in that moment, gravity and his hands keeping her tight to him-and the sudden heat, how tight she feels around him, her inner walls extra sensitive from her earlier orgasm-a shiver snaps her spine straight and then the fireworks burst behind her eyes, rendering her senseless as they came hard together, one in the same.

Her knees touch down as he drops back into the mattress, and the fiery red head all but crumples forward into his embrace, dizzied by the intensity of it all, the release of feel good endorphins flooding her brain as fading after shock spasms ripple through her sex. There’s nothing in the world but him right now, no distracting thoughts or fancies, no sensory input aside from everything that he was beneath her. The softening hardness still within her, the sound of his panted breathing, the feel of his slickened chest to her softer one, the ruffle of her hair with each exhale-she dazedly realizes she can feel his heart against her cheek, fast and strong behind a layer of muscle.

Hers.

He had promised all of himself, and now he’s made good on his word, as much hers as she was his. Vulnerable in all the ways anyone could be with anyone else, despite it being a dangerous, bad idea out here in the wastes, out anywhere.

He had thrown caution to the wind, not because of flighty impulse and lack of self control but because he trusted her. The weight of it is oddly uplifting, warms her heart and makes it flutter. Trusted her, and she’d sooner cut out her own throat than betray that trust.

Jonah of the whale.

”Jesus.”

Kara picks her head up and looks at him, that slanted, mischievous little curve to her genuine soft smile as he gives up trying to talk, presses his forehead to hers. She nuzzles his nose in a copy of his own affectionate gestures, her deft fingers running over his short black hair and down his neck, smoothing repeatedly, ever restless and wanting to touch him even in the lazy, warm glow of post coital bliss.

“That.” She murmurs, “Was goddamned amazing.”

She presses her lips to his. There’s adventure on the horizon, and while she’s not much for permanence-wherever Jonah was, that’s where she wanted to be, too. She maybe didn’t deserve him, this secret man, this sparkling geode under craggly rock-but she’d keep him for as long as he’d have her. And to hear him talk, that’d be forever and always.

She was plumb lucky that way.

Now properly dressed and finished packing for the trip, Jonah fries up some eggs and sausage real quick for them to chow on while they plan out the trip. Hrolf gnaws on his own breakfast treat as the gunman lays out a map on the table and weighs down the corners with a couple of Kara's knickknacks, ubiquitous anywhere in the Vault. "We know we've got to hit the Strip at some point, but I'm not awful fond of the idea of making a straight run on it without making sure that this Benny dipshit hasn't left any contingencies in place," he says, tracing his fingers over the admittedly long distance they've got to cross. "You know anything about him? I never tangled with the Families much."

They always had enough manpower and guns to solve their own problems, which meant their interaction was held to a minimum. Larger organizations fell prey to bureaucracy, which meant he could find work at outposts or the like, but crime families generally made it a point of pride to do all their own shooting. Even the Van Graffs tended to rely on their own instead of hiring guns.

He sounds studious, serious, but he's parked right on the bench beside Kara, hip to hip, and seems disinclined to move away no matter how many times she actually elbows him in the ribcage trying to eat.

“Yeah, heading straight there does seem a bit too predictable, you’re right. But I don't think we can avoid it for long. Whatever the hell this chip is, it’s important. Part of his justification in offing me was me being too curious ‘n whatever, and I do want to know what the hell it's for-but mostly, I don't want House angry with me.”

Pissing House off sounded like a terrible, terrible idea.

“Big Sal says The Chairmen used to be some warrior tribe, before House set ‘em up nice. All I know about Benny-I didn’t even really know his name before-all I know about him is that he killed their old chieftain to join up with House on the strip.”

“But see, if that chip was for House, and he -knew- it was for House, it makes no sense for him to kill me and take it, for him to move against his benefactor. Everything they got they got because of the recluse, ya know? It makes me think Benny’s operating without the entire tribe’s blessing-they don’t really do treachery. I can’t imagine his second would be hip to it, even. Swank is a lot of things, but he ain’t stupid. Also, pretty sure he’s into me and woulda voted against fucking my face up with lead, so there’s that.”

Kara flippantly munches on a sausage, considering what she knows of Strip politics. As fucked as she felt with all this shady stuff going on just because of one silly job she took on a lark, the presence of the behemoth plunked down next to her eases her trepidation. It wasn’t her against the world anymore.

“You think he’s working with Caesar? Legion ain’t fond of the strip. Or maybe the NCR? They’d probably like better digs and more control. Hm. Might be worth trying to figure that shit out, have information for House if we can’t deliver the chip itself, which I still think is the best bet. Assuming...you know, we can even get to House or contact him directly.”

Maybe one of the Family leaders could help with that. They were sending him Tribute somehow.

“I do have some friends on the strip, particularly with the Omertas, much as they uh, well.” Kara shrugs, leaving a dearth of things unsaid on those guys. “Problem is, they all kinda...leave each other alone. The Three Families aren’t on friendly terms, just keep things professional for fear of breaking contract with House, who has ‘em all by the balls. They run their casinos and pay tribute, and ignore the rest of the Mojave and each other as much as possible.”

“I do got a place in Gomorrah and the Ultra Luxe, but I wouldn’t sleep in either casino if you paid me, not by myself-won both suites gambling, but I’m banned from playing there anymore. And here I thought I’d finish the triad in the Tops. Guess not.” A smirk and cocky nudge to him. This might be a Big Deal*™, but she’s still who she is-cocky, flippant, and assured in her own lucky streak.

Jonah considers. "Tribal means he's got competition. Might be worth pushing some competitor into making a move - better than having to deal with all of 'em. If it's true that he isn't working to their style, be easier than normal, even. Internal strife's definitely more your thing, you take the lead on that."

It's pretty normal for Kara to have the lead anyways, but it's good for her to know that she has his faith in this as well.

"Not Caesar," he dismisses. "Internal tribes, maybe. If he moralizes as much as you say he did, out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, how'd he justify taking Caesar's promises? Men like him are big on respect from others. Caesar doesn't respect fucking anything. They wouldn't even make it through the meeting before he had them crucified."

He taps his fingers on the bar for a moment, then ultimately says, "I'm currently persona non grata to the White Glove Society. The rank and file probably won't recognize me, but anyone who descends directly from the Sawneys will likely recognize me and open fire. I had a retrieval job that took me underneath the Ultra-Luxe - they had done some excavation on the bottom levels. Some messed up shit is down there. They were eating people. Claimed a lot of things about it. I killed everyone I found."

Moray shrugs. He doesn't look upset about it. If anything, he's grimly satisfied. "So they're under strength anyways, and diplomacy isn't going to work. If Benny's working in the Chairmen, they're our target, and the Omertas are our way in and safe place to rest while you work your magic."

He eats in small, savage bites - some strange, beaten-in politeness where he squares up to the table, won't speak while chewing, and eats each portion before moving onto the next, never mixing foods together at all. No ketchup, no salt or pepper, no additives at all. Strange, stilted, full of rules no one else subscribes to. It's very characteristic.

Kara nods along, mildly proud he had that kind of faith in her. Sure, she knows what she’s capable of, but somebody else acknowledging it in a genuine way like that-felt nice. All this mutual respect they got going on.

And then drops a bomb on what sounded like a crazy story-and Kara stares up at him from her position next to him, wide eyed and instantly animated, waving her empty fork around.

“I fucking knew something was off with those people!” Anybody that ‘civilized’ had to be hiding something, by her figurin’. Still, full on cannibalism?! Holy shit on a stick. “Always wanting to gussy everybody the fuck up while eating people in the basement?! That’s fucked up. They deserved what they got, damn.” Kara shakes her head. That was just nuts, specially on the Strip and under House’s umbrella, damn.

Yikes.

“Alright, so we steer clear of those guys, gotcha.” If Jonah’s not welcome, she’s not going to grace them with her company either. “If I can help it, I don’t want House OR Benny to know we’re on the strip until we’ve got something for ‘em. Ideally, bullets for Benny and the chip for House.” Kara had drawn a face in ketchup, and then oddly ate around it, preserving the ‘art’ until the very end, nearly. She didn’t talk with her mouth full at least, but that meant she was slow at it, because she talked a lot.

“So that means avoiding the Securitrons best we can, which is difficult when they check ya at the door. Speaking of-my passport thingie’s fake. Never did get a real one since the original worked same as it did when I was dead ass broke. Anyway-step one, we hit up Freeside. I hear the King’s got a secret way through that wall, somewhere. Step two, we do whatever favor he’ll want in trade. S’only fair.” She’s counting off on her fingers now, plotting out this grand adventure they were about to embark on.

“Step three we slip in and get our asses straight to Gomorrah like you said, find out what we can where we can nice and safe-ish. Step four we talk to Swank, and then we go looking for Benny. We kill him, take the chip and his shiny gun, and then deliver it to House’s agent just as I was originally contracted to do. Then we get paid and...well-we drink!”

Solid plan. No room for distractions, nope! She was going to focus, for once. Absolute focus.

Kara frowns. "...actually, before any of that, we should probably go to Primm. Check in on the Mojave Express and my friend John Nash. Benny knew I had taken that job somehow. See what he knows." Kara shrugs, and then allows for honesty. "And that he's alright. He's kinda old, specially for out here."

Moray looks briefly abashed. "One of them tried to explain when I first got down there. He bled out before he could finish, otherwise I'd know more. I was busy though."

Shooting other people has never bothered him in the slightest, but the suggestion that Kara's curiosity might go unsatisfied bothers him. The contrast makes him snicker, abruptly, and then he swallows the cracked half-smile that peers out and returns to the poker face. With total equanimity, he takes a fork and plants it in her ketchup-face, and then mushes it up some before he goes back to his own plate.

Fucking with her is fine though.

"We have time. He'll need to get himself a new crew - that had to be his personal squad, no way he'd be meeting raiders with a known hostile element without solid backup - and then figure out what he's going to do and find a way to explain everything. He bet a lot on this and lost," Jonah says, as he finishes and takes their plates to clean and wash - bizarrely meticulous, now that they're leaving. "He'll be scrambling for credit for a couple weeks, yet."

The dishes are clean in seconds, and then he just looks at the sink for a long moment, rolls his shoulders - and Moray comes back around, face even and set. "Alright. Let's get our gear and move out."

It earns him a dramatic gasp and that little crinkle to her nose, the incidental pout of her scowl before she gives a scandalized: “My masterpiece!” But her eyes are lit up with childish, gleeful delight. Any time Jonah makes a crass joke or ‘stoops to her level’ she’s endlessly amused, particularly when he’s so straight faced about it.

She never got bored with him around, no matter what they were doing. For once, she was content and craved no further stimulation. Boredom was torture, after all.

"Alright. Let's get our gear and move out."

Kara had followed after him, and as soon as he turned around she was there to steal as big a hug as she could crush him into-which wasn’t, incidentally, very crushing at all with as solid a man as he was.

“Aye aye, captain.”

~*~

Kara looked much the same as she always did when out on the road-she’d fixed herself a new pair of pants (gotta pay tribute to the other ones, she had said), cutting the leg off a perfectly pristine pair, a look she’d discovered accidentally and decided she’d been fond of, dang it. She had her updated, Jonah approved jacket on her shoulders and those tall boots on her feet, the ace of diamonds caught behind the laces of one and her knife visibly sheathed in the other. Her exposed leg had the usual thigh high stocking-this one a plain brown nylon, but no doubt she had other ones in that pack of hers.

The tanktop underneath her jacket had a haphazard smiley face painted across the front, angled slightly to the left and with a drippy red smile.

As always, the mouthy merc stood out.

“Does Hrolf like other dogs? Maybe he’d like some dog friends. I know all sorts of dogs-like, there’s this lady at the scrapyard, Old Lady Gibson. She actually gave me a dog brain for Rex...his was going bad. The King was pretty sad. Hell, I was sad too, Rex is a good dog.”

“Then there’s this crazy fucking woman, some coked out fiend named Violet. But her dogs like me, so SHE likes me, and-well, she’s not much for conversation, but her dogs are cute. I don’t think Hrolf should associate with them though-they’re hopped up on something too. Bad influences, ya know?”

Drugs were never something Kara had messed with. Not that any of her fellow raiders would have shared with her anyway, but she always thought they were a fast track to getting dead in a hurry.

Good ole whiskey, on the other hand…

Moray wears an updated set of combat armor that looks a lot like an NCR outfit that's been janked the fuck out - the colors are brown and grey, the material is thicker and overlaid with deathclaw leather that's been studded with rivets, and there's a rucksack looped over his shoulders, with a combat helmet secured between his belt and a loop on the sack. The pistol's holstered in one boot, a freakishly curved knife hung on the opposite hip, and a cut-down carbine hung from the rucksack over that. He looks fit for war, and the only thing that distracts from the matte-black array of lethal weaponry is the bird pin that gleams on his chest, worn openly.

Hrolf is Hrolf. Neither of them have managed to touch him yet, so he looks the same. Last Moray saw him, he was burying a scorpion with sand tossed by his paws, about a minute back.


"Not usually," he says after some thought. "I think the breeds are too different. Most dogs are scared of Hrolf, and they give him his space. Gets along with coyotes best. We can walk right through packs of them if he's alongside us."

That's when a powder ganger sprinting at maximum speed comes over the nearest hill, shouting in exhausted glee. He spots them and makes a deadline for Kara, shouting, "Baby, I won the motherfucking lottery!"

Moray gives Kara a look, and then his shotgun comes out of its holster, dangling with deadly promise.

“They’d leave us alone anyway-animals like me and I raced a coyote sled team, you know.” She’s always so full of shit, with bits of truth sprinkled throughout. Animals did like her. So long as she didn’t mess with them, they didn’t mess with her. She even got to pet some of them.

That coyotes like Hrolf though-that’s just precious. “He could lead his own pack! A roving coyote gang, sport spiked collars and mohawks. I could make little vests even, but not for Hrolf-he’s got to keep his digni-”

A man appears at the top of the hill, kicking up sand and full on sprinting before catching sight of them-and shifting to race in their direction. What the hell? Did this guy not see the amount of mean Moray’s toting around?

"Baby, I won the motherfucking lottery!"

Kara’s smirk curves her lips, her eyes narrowing a fraction. “What, you looking to get mugged or something? Cause that’s a good way to get mugged.” As amused as ever, flippant and cocky in equal measure.

“Not that kind of Lottery, not a lotto of caps-” He drew up short and was twitchy as fuck, seemed jumped up on something. Powder Ganger for sure, but Kara doesn’t recognize him from anywhere, really, which made his frenzied introduction all the weirder. “But a lottery.”

It has her curious, she's gotta admit.

“What lottery?”

“THE lottery, the only lottery that matters! I won, I won!” And then he turned and sprinted on in the direction he’d originally been heading, ranting to himself about winning the lottery. Kara stares after him, and even she’s thrown off a minute, giving a shake of her head and heading up the hill he’d just run down.

“You think that guy was dehydrated delusional, or like, drugged the fuck up? Maybe I shoulda offered him some water for a cut of his lottery win...” She drew up short as the scent of...well, smoke and cooked meat blew over. “-nings.” She trucked up the hill a little faster before dropping lower at the top of it, not wanting her head blown off if shit was hitting the fan on the other side.

“Holy crap, look at all that smoke-that’s Nipton, ain’t it?” She slings her pack down and grabs her binoculars, looking through them despite the cracked right lens. Base of the flames, catches tires but the fire was still burning bright and smoky, obscuring whatever was in the middle of the pyre. Most of the town was in flames, it looked like.

Mostly, it’s the three crosses that draw her attention.

“It’s the Legion.” She hisses, red flushing the back of her neck, her expression darkening at an alarming rate as she turned the knob on her binoculars, zoomed in. “Some asshat wearing a dog head.” Well that’s just two for two.

Kara lowers the binoculars and teeters on her heels a minute, brows furrowed. “I think those guys strung up are still alive.”

Nipton is gone. The Legion do raids, sure, but this isn't a raid. This isn't some hit-and-run game like its patrols usually play at, leaving some bodies and empty spaces in storerooms. This entire town is fucking torched and even at this distance Jonah can see the crosses erected in the town square. They don't bother to crucify dead bodies. All those bodies start out alive, and since the wood-fires are still burning, he'd bet money that Kara is right and they're still alive.

Moray's mouth flattens out. The shotgun goes back into its holster, and the carbine comes down instead. Moray draws the bolt back and checks the action, then chambers a round. "Don't know what the dog hat means," he says, voice flat. "Let's kill them all."

He starts forward - stops - and considers, then turns to Kara. "We going in loud or quiet?" he says. "Just start picking them off or - "

Jonah gets a faintly disgusted look on his face at this next thought, but he manages to offer it anyways. "You want to talk to them first?"

It's a bad idea, honestly, but Kara is his partner. She gets equal say, and while his reflex is just to shoot them until they stop moving, it's worth consideration that his default reflex is always to shoot it until it stops moving, and Kara is the one whose options close up once the bullets start flying. She should at least get the choice.

Granted, directly after the whole cemetary thing, he's not fond of the idea.

"You want to talk to them first?"

“I want to know what the fuck happened, who DogHead is-this shit ain’t typical.” Kara asserts, the bridge of her nose scrunched up and a piece of gum already popped past her lips-not as a weapon but to give her ADD something to focus on, movement. Better to be chewing gum than fidgeting.

Had anyone escaped? What the hell was up with this kind of attack? This wasn’t some tribe somewhere-this was a whole town! A town of NCR troopers during the day, Powder Gangers at night, and hardy con men all the while! She knows the fucking mayor-he’s a scumbag, but he’s a hustling scumbag-how the hell had he let this happen?

“I gotta know at least some of what’s up here, because what the fuck?” On her own, she’d still probably waltz up and try it. Didn’t look like a lot of them were hanging around, probably already moved on with anybody they’d wanted. Talk ‘em up, ‘move along’-but really duck out somewhere and wait until dark, cut those guys down soon as it was safe. With Jonah in tow, she didn’t have to bother with the hiding part. “So I’ll see what they say, and then we can kill ‘em. You can walk up with me or stay outta sight til go time, I don't know.”

She checks Lil Devil for emphasis, then reholsters it in the curve of her waist beneath the jacket. She’s wired, uncharacteristically serious as she chews on that gum, another peek through through the binoculars. “Most important is we cut those poor bastards down, because shit-no one deserves to go like that.” Fucking Legion, man.

Moray heaves a sigh then moves up beside Kara. "You're not wrong," he says, grim, "Typically they don't attack towns at all, and kill people rather than bother torturing them. This is an intimidation tactic. Trying to play hardball. Works better when people know you have any other kind of ball."

He glances at the numbers - an even half dozen he can see plus Dog Hat. "There's bound to be more around somewhere," he says, shading his eyes as he glances around. There's a splash of red ducking behind a scrap pile that is probably another Legionary, but nothing else in immediate sight. "Legionnaires are organized and trained in groups of eight, and move as a squad. I'm not betting on eight guys doing all this; sixteen, though, I could buy that. Be ready for some to come from behind."

Jonah glances down and draws his shotgun, clearing the action and checking the barrel, making sure that all his weapons are clean and ready. "You take lead. Dog Hat will talk shit to you because you're a woman. Then I'll poke him, and he might answer me just to piss you off. When you decide you've learned all you want, cross your arms. I'll pick out targets and go to work. They don't use guns, so I'll fuck them all up easy."

Confident. But this is what Moray does, and bringing knives to a gunfight never works out when the gunman knows his business.

Kara appreciates being asked, and appreciates his going along with what she does ask for. Fucked as everything was down there, they were going to make some part of it right-and that felt nice. He feels nice. Man, she really likes this guy.

She nods along as he lays out the plan, learning from the expert and focusing on what he says. It’s kind of funny how she used to think his effective plans so boring, before-and now was getting to see the interesting bits behind the scenes, and maybe why spontaneity wasn’t really a good idea for him before-taking out sixteen men was no small feat.

“When you decide you've learned all you want, cross your arms. I'll pick out targets and go to work. They don't use guns, so I'll fuck them all up easy.”

Kara pops the bubble she’d blown.

“This is some cool spy shit-” Kara says, approving of the plan immediately, because that WAS cool, having a signal. Also...what? They don’t use GUNS!? She hadn’t entirely realized that because mostly she’d only seen the aftermath of their bullshit. She’d just figured they hadn’t needed to shoot anybody, and preferred not to if it meant too quick a death-but no guns at all? What a bunch of idiots.

Idiots that had carved themselves a lot of territory, so maybe not so much-there’s only one Moray, after all. But yeah-these guys didn’t stand a chance. Good, cause they sure as hell didn’t deserve one.

Hrolf was sniffing around at the base of the hill, and Kara gives him a considering look. If they tossed him some commands in Pig Latin, that might be bad. Then again, he’d gotten out of the Legion in the first place and was a very good dog-so she’s honestly not real worried.

“Hang on-” Kara unslings her backpack and takes a minute to rifle through it, coming up with a brown calico print little drawstring sack with ‘Hrolf Snacks’ painted on it-the ‘o’ and ‘a’ pawprints. It was downright ridiculous looking, something childish but clearly with care put into it. She withdraws a piece of jerky before tucking the little bag into one of her inner jacket pockets. Then she set the backpack down entirely, sort of moving it around so it had its own little divet to rest in, wouldn’t be seen unless you were above it on the hill. “You guard this Hrolf.” She says, not at all expecting him to do any such thing, mostly just justifying the treat as ‘payment’, because that always amused her to do so.

He doesn’t mind.

Kara straightens and pulls on the front of her jacket, another burst bubble before she swallows her gum. She ain’t going to need it.

“Let’s do this.”

~*~

Up close, the smell was worse-and signs of resistance more apparent. That pile of goop, for instance, where a Legion soldier had apparently met his end in front of an energy weapon. Nice.

“Having a barbeque?” Kara calls imprudently before they’re even in spitting range, that manic, suspiciously friendly grin already on her face. Seeing if they’re in a talking mood, mostly. She comes to a stop when Moray does, taking his cue for what distance he wants, a hand moving to rest on her right hip. “Brought s’mores, I hope.”

"I'd be a terrible spy," Moray disagrees immediately. "This only works because within five minutes I'm shooting everyone anyways. You are a good spy, but don't confuse my day job with yours."

~*~

Nipton proper is a gallery of horror. The line of captured civilians bound to crosses is almost a hundred feet long, and Moray glances at them as he passes by. Crucifixion, he knows, is a slow death of suffocation and exposure; the more unharmed the victim, the longer the slow crawl to death. Here, the prisoners are all unharmed, in perfect health and with their arms bound outstretched to the arms of the crosses. They'd probably live two to three days, like that. Burning, under the sun.

Moray's teeth peek out from under his lips, which curl back.

Dog Hat, on closer inspection, has a pair of goofy-looking shades under it. He watches them approach with a slightly cocked head, and when one of the Legionnaires nearby starts to approach, hand on the pommel of his gladius, Dog Hat waves him down with the barest motion of his hand. Well trained, this lot. "That would be quick," he says. "Who would learn anything from that?"

His voice is smooth and intimate. The hairs on the back of Moray's neck raise up. Dog Hat talks like a man in his lover's bedroom, amidst the burned alive and the dying, the executed and the tormented. Flames flicker off the polarized reflection of his shades.

"But don't worry," Dog Hat continues. "I won't have you lashed to a cross, like the rest of these degenerates. I let go one, but he won't tell anyone. Not anything useful, anyways. He'll run, and gibber. Amusing, but that wasn't the point."

Moray says nothing. He stares at this other man, and watches his lips curl in nihilistic amusement, bare like a blade.

He could have been this.

“Oh, that’s good,” Kara says, flippant and seemingly unaware or uncaring of the hellish landscape around them. She seems amused. A manic sort of amusement, but amused. “Cause when I rolled out of bed this morning, not being crucified was exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.” Man, she shouldn't have swallowed her gum. A bubble right then would have been perfect.

But internally, her heart’s pounding hard, because all around them people are dead or on their way to a slow dying. She’s got that cold sort of clammy feeling to her hands, the tingles of alarm trickling from the back of her neck to the base of her spine. She’s met some cold, unfeeling sons of bitches before, but this guy legit sounded like he was basking in a sunny, daisy filled meadow somewhere, rather than the heat of burning bodies and tires. She hates Caesar and she hates his psychopathic fucking soldiers. She wants to know who Dog Hat is. She wants to know if this was a sign of things to come, if the Legion was really going to step it up to a full blown war where ever they could get it in the Mojave.

She wants to know what he did, how he did it, and why, even though Kara knows there isn’t always a why.

But she doesn’t want to take too long with it-they gotta help these people. She keeps her body language lazy and uncaring, a silly woman out on a lark and too stupid not to talk Legionnaires at a massacre, but inside she hears a clock ticking away, imagines being up on one of those crosses having to listen to a crazy psychopath and a stupid redhead have a pleasant conversation. Thank God Moray was here-they wouldn't have to wait the whole day long in silence after this.

“Don’t suppose you’re talking a recent, lucky lottery winner, are you? Cause yeah, he was a terrible storyteller. But us? We’re good storytellers, and we get around, you know what I'm saying?” Kara winks at one of the stonily staring men. “So lay it on us, Mister Dog Hat.”

The slight curve of Dog Hat's lips doesn't move even a fraction of a millimeter. His arms haven't moved, and his body weight hasn't so much as shifted side to side. Kara's sarcasm and biting wit slide right off of him, and Moray gets the sense he isn't so much listening to the words - he's staring at Kara's body language, straight into her eyes behind those black lenses. Looking for weakness; for the weight balanced back onto her heels, or a defensive posture, a flinch or hesitation. He says nothing, in that predatory stillness, and in that prolonged silence, just long enough to balance the knife edge between awkward and dangerous, the rest of the Legion starts drifting into view. They come from around the corner of rubble piles and past the stacks of burning bodies, drawn to the quiet like jackals and vultures.

Kara might have pushed her luck too hard.

"I wonder," Dog Hat says, voice still soft and intimate, "What desperation drives you to ask so easily, profligate. To walk into the jaws."

"The sequence of events," Moray says, rough and absolute, "is irrelevant. My schedule dictates that I pass through Nipton every other week; once per two months, I am contracted to harvest the cazador population in the west foothills. If the contract proprietor is deceased, then it is void, but until I know that I will come."

Dog Hat glances over at Moray. There is another pause, this one shorter, as they just look at each other - Dog Hat's blank shades, and Moray's green, eerie gaze, flat and empty.

Dog Hat leans back on one heel, just slightly, and the tension drains some. "Amicus Moray," he says, still soft, but the amusement billows and takes the place of that lethal edge. "I did not take you for one to indulge in profligate company."

"Contract," Moray says, in explanation.

Dog Hat lets a little huff of air out through his nose, and turns back to Kara, as much acknowledgement as the man is probably capable of. "Very well," he says, ironic grace touching his tone. "I am Vulpes Inculta, and this was a town of profligates. Degenerates - unworthies. Nipton served many masters, and for my coin they gave me the heads of the others. I simply set a wider net, and caught the town as well."

He shrugs, a light and curiously deliberate gesture. It looks like he almost has to remember how to do it - an affectation. "And I said: I will hold a lottery, and he whose ticket wins, will live."

There is definite amusement in his voice, now. "And so they waited in line while I had them disposed of: killed, butchered, crucified. Until only one was left, and that last one I let go. None of them were any different, after all."

Kara, for her part, keeps the act up and convincingly. Not a care in the world, her grin now a close lipped, pleasantly absent smile as she looked around with empty headed interest at the soldiers fading in. Her fist remains on her cocked hip, other hand relaxed at her side. She had felt the shift before she had even stopped talking. Like circling wolves, with an alpha that wasn’t even hungry but here for sport.

Even with Moray in tow, Kara briefly regrets not having them hide and wait for these guys to move on. She waves her fingers at a blond, malicious looking soldier as if they were at a party somewhere.

”I wonder,”

Kara’s vividly colored eyes flick back to him and she raises an eyebrow, seriously looking like she expected a joke. She shifts her weight to both feet rather than just the one however, hip uncocking and her fist sliding off of it in a natural movement. This is the part she’d be shooting, if she was alone. It was also the part where’d figure she was probably going to die.

"What desperation drives you to ask so easily, profligate. To walk into the jaws."

She decides this had absolutely been a bad idea. But Kara’s grin returns in full force as if that HAD been a joke, and it’s not a frozen mask of a frightened person-but the slanted manic smile of a crazy one.

Moray speaks before she fires off something stupid, and she feels bad for being relieved when Dog Hat’s attention slides from her to him. She doesn’t even care when the bastard talks about her like she’s not there. It was a weird thing, knowing you had more mean on your side than the other guy.

He half seems to think she does too, maybe. He turns back, and she smiles at him, in no mood to make a joke at Moray’s expense-not that one comes to mind. She finds out who he is-and what had happened here. As he talks, the back of Kara’s neck begins to turn red beneath the furry collar of her trademark jacket, the color climbing until it reached just behind her ears. Kara was no longer smiling.

“Huh. Steyn owed me twenty caps.” She said, leaning back on her heels as she crossed her arms beneath her chest-right at the level her gun was holstered inside the curve of her waist.

Moray nods, absently, and asks while nodding to the cross behind Vulpes, "Is that one the Mayor?"

Vulpes turns to look up at the man. "Yes. He is."

Moray draws the shotgun from its holster as the other man's head rotates, and fires it without so much as blinking. The other man sways back and down, like a snake, turning his head and shoulder up to intercept as much of the buckshot as he can. It doesn't really work; the double-aught buck tears the other man's shoulder open and detonates the dog hat, rips it in half and flings it skittering across the concrete plaza.

Legion shouts and screams arise from all over the ruins of Nipton as abruptly sixteen bodies start hurtling towards Kara and Moray, the closest from just besides where Dog Hat had stood - who then eats a bullet to the head courtesy of Kara's quick draw, leaving no one directly in front of them. Jonah sidesteps, back to back with Kara, and swings around to blow off the head of another approaching, then drops to one knee as the carbine comes out and the shotgun is dropped, assuming a firing position.

"Plaza in three!" Moray barks, and starts picking off Legion with controlled, precise fire, doubletapping them in the pelvis, hips and thighs. They aren't kill shots but drop the Legionnaires he hits where they are hit, destroying their mobility, and he doesn't have to contend with the thick breastplate and lowered helmets they wear. He gets six in quick succession, a TA-TAP of staccato fire, and then the closest one is maybe a handful of paces away - too close to shoot and adjust in time to get the next one behind him.

He throws the carbine aside and comes forward instead, death in his eyes.