Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

Jonah hums something low in his chest, like a whale's groan, and slides himself full-length into Kara a few times, just accustoming them to each other; his hips connect with the soft globes of her ass and push her a little forward each time. The soft lovemaking they'd first started with was fine, but now he wants to fuck her, show Kara in the most immediate, visceral way how much he wants her. When she starts pushing back, he begins to thrust, bouncing her off his firm hips with each slide of his shaft.

"Kara," he returns, warm and intent, and winds a hand through her glorious hair, settling on her shoulder for a firm grip as he plunders her full-length with each stroke. "Place your hands up on the glass."

Jonah's other hand roams over her belly, rubbing from the base of her pert breasts to just over the line of her hips, close enough that his spread fingers just about bracket the tip of her slit. He holds there to steady Kara's body as he fucks her, her little form too easy to jostle with his size and weight.

Kara’s lips formed an ‘O’ on the first more forceful thrust, a noise caught between squeak and moan before he sets his pace, driving her forward with each bounce-the friction is writhing enough, but the impact of his hips against her pert bottom, his thighs to the back of her thighs-those inner walls are already tightening around him, wordless, small vocalizations tumbling from her lips. He says her name, wraps a hand around her slim shoulder to keep her in place-and now she’s taking each stroke in full, the head of him striking something in what felt like her lower belly, the underside of his hard cock sliding along the roof of her sex, making her clit tingle in sparks from within, even without the outer button being touched. Each time he hits she feels electricity and pleasure, driven a little senseless with it each time.

She nods her head emphatically at his instruction, her hair caught in his fingers and against her own shoulder, contrasting with her pale, soft and water slickened skin. “Uh huh-” She can hardly breathe, just shallow pants tinged with those feminine utterances of pleasure-Kara was not a quiet lover. One knew what she was feeling, what things were doing to her.

Compared to the heat of the water and their bodies, the glass felt cool against her fingertips and palms-arms bracing her a little, though he was effortlessly keeping her in place for each stroke, his large hand spread over the front of her pelvis and tummy-she half wonders if he can feel himself move within her from the outside-but it's nothing she focuses on long, attention too caught up with everything else-but mostly the hard length being driven into her core over and over while the water runs in rivets over them both, dripping off the tips of her perked nipples, her bouncing breasts. Fuck. Fuck, she didn’t know sex could be like this.

The steam starts to build up from the heat of the water and their bodies, both. Jonah keeps pounding into her from behind, hips slapping together with steady force, as he eases her up against the glass - Kara's breasts flattening against the cool surface slightly. Jonah leans down and nips at her earlobe, then murmurs, "This is what I want to remember every time I'm in here. That I took you up against this glass, and fucked you, and every time we're in here we can remember that -"

His breath is quickening, and his hand sinks from Kara's belly to between her parted legs, seeking the place they're joined together, to the crest of her sex. His fingers part the folds and search up for her pearl where it rests, hidden, and start to rub needy circles over it.

"- I am yours," Jonah breathes in Kara's ear, and the other hand comes up and cups her chin, and turns her head so she won't bang her chin on the glass - then murmurs the last words against her mouth, each word spelled on her lips - "And you are mine."

With Kara so pinned in place, he doesn't stroke nearly as hard, but now each gliding thrust of his shaft goes deep and long and fully into her, seating against her taut buttocks, and his fingers slide over her clit in time with his hips.

"Come for me, Kara," he murmurs into her lips.

He’d meant the steam and the glass, and how it had to look from the other side flits across her brain before he nips her earlobe and murmurs into it, his voice low and laced with that serious, focused intensity.

"This is what I want to remember every time I'm in here. That I took you up against this glass, and fucked you, and every time we're in here we can remember that -"

Kara’s back arches, her head pressing back into his shoulder with a snap and a sharp, strangled cry-she’s got nowhere to go but her hips still try to move, ride on his fingers even as her inner walls start to tighten around him. Oh, God-

"- I am yours," Her eyes are big and blue and lost in all the stimulation, but they focus on his green ones when he turns her head, widening a fraction. "And you are mine."

“S-stole each other-” She pants against his lips, each thrust driving her closer to the edge, the feel of the cool glass and his hand cupping her chin, his voice, the needy circles over the tight bundle of nerves so that he’s hitting everything inside and outside-fuck, fuck she’s going to die-and they would remember, just like all the pointless stolen little totems to look on and relive the place and event and the experience she’d lifted them from. It was a story, they were a story-Kara makes a keening noise, because despite how suddenly profound and symmetrical she found that, how much she understood it on a carnal, intuitive level-she doesn’t think she can hold out anymore-he’s too big and she’s suddenly too tight, tight-can’t sit still-

"Come for me, Kara,"

Her eyes flare wide and then Kara kisses him hard, forcefully enough he might be surprised she doesn’t draw blood-and then her body obeys, walls clamping down almost painfully tight around him as her entire body seems to tense, her hands fisted tight against the glass-before her sex spasms around him, a wild attempt to buck her hips with it, a flick of her tongue against his mouth.

Jonah holds Kara almost lovingly against the glass, his hips locked under hers and pumping up into her as she climaxes and squirms. She turns in his arms and slams a kiss onto him hard enough to knock his head back, but in turn he just opens up and lets her tongue slide into his mouth on instinct he doesn't understand, winding into and about each other as pleasure swamps her body.

In turn, watching her be undone is the signal Jonah takes to relax his tremendous self control, and his eyes close as he works himself deep into her - long, full strokes into her spasming core - and then slides himself in to the hilt and lets her internal convulsions take him over the edge. His stomach tightens and his brain sparks like fireworks as he jerks, laying seed deep inside Kara. Pinned against the wall as she is, she can do nothing but squirm and steal it from him with her hips and fluttering core, squeezing it out of him. He rocks his body against hers, giving as much as he can.

After several moments, Jonah pulls back from where he's cornered Kara against the glass door, and draws out with a gasping sigh, gathering his breath. Instead, he leans himself against the wall besides the door and pulls this fiery woman to his chest, his touch light and enveloping as he simply holds her, now. No commands, no insistence.

For all the sex is amazing, what he treasures most is the silent communion afterwards, the afterglow in which he feels like the most precious thing in the world, at least to this one woman - who is his own world, entire.

"Good?" he asks quietly, brushing a kiss across her forehead. She's flushed red almost from head to toe, either from the water or from excitement.

It shatters any semblance of thought-she’s briefly nothing more than the internal spasms and the feel of him continuing to drive up and into her until he stops, filling her full-and then it’s entirely too hot, tight confines coated in his own pleasure as he jerks within her, her sex more sensitive and craze inducing until she’s just a breathless, dazed thing pinned between his large, cradling body and the glass door they’d just christened.

Her legs don’t work, and for all the intensity of pleasure he’d just put her through, now she was somehow sleepy, loose and weak bodied-coming to herself enveloped against him and him only, her cheek to his warm, solid chest and her small hands on his skin, the left one mindlessly smoothing her fingers over an inch or two of space, over and over.

"Good?"

Kara laughs breathlessly, nods against his chest. Her eyes are closed and she doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment-the after effects of all the endorphin overflow, a sated smile on her lips. She can hear his heart, feel the thrum of it even over the water, ear pressed against his chest like this.

Wow. Just...wow.

Then she lifts her cheek from his chest and looks up at him, still dazed but also warm, adoring-mischievous again. “It’s certainly a unique creative process, mister artist.”

Her hand moves to touch his face, body still leaning into and against him. “We gonna christen all your vault improvements? Cause you know...” She’s more than a little silly sometimes, especially after being driven up and over the wall. She’s never going to be able to look at that door without thinking about how hard he’d sexed her up against it-and the idea of that was and had been delicious.

Jonah hums in acknowledgement, as his head turns down to rub noses with Kara (sometimes, it seems like he picked up more than a few habits from Hrolf). That had definitely been a rush. "Not all of them," he says. "Just - making things always satisfies me. Building things. I get done with a project, I always have this rush. And you were nearby and I wanted to share that feeling. Sex got the point across pretty quick."

He's silent for a beat, under the shower's spray, before he adds, "Also, anytime you wander around in your panties like that I want to push you up against a wall and fuck you anyways, so double bonus."

His mouth creases in that silent, amused way, and he leaves Kara against the wall to regain her balance as he starts actually showering to get all the dust off. "You're the first person I've wanted to please in ages. It's kind of heady, after so much time moving around alone. You know what I mean. Oh, and don't touch the door."

True to his word, the imprint of Kara's firm breasts is steam-plastered into the door. Wearing a faint grin, Jonah ducks into the spray to work the water through his hair, eyes closed as droplets run down his face.

"Is that all I gotta do? Not wear pants?". Kara's legs are still a bit shaky, but she takes the soap from him and takes over. Her teasing is absently amused, as much as what he says excites her-she's still dazed from coming down from her high.

She lathers up his chest and shoulders, then one arm at a time. It seemed to be her way of taking care of him-there was something sweet about it, maybe a little odd-but Kara did what she wanted.

"I like when your forearms flex." She muses, running her fingers over the arm while the water spiraled all the suds away. "I like how you actually finish things...that it makes you happy." She's sated and sleepy now, all soft.

"I like when you say my name."

She smiles up at him before her eyes shift to the door, a grin curving her lips.

"Snrk-not quite an accurate representation." Kara the art critic muses, cupping her own breasts and peering down almost thoughtfully. "Glass imprint Kara looks like she has bigger boobs."

Which, like a lot of things, makes Kara laugh. She's not the least bit self conscious about anything she's rocking-in her opinion, she had the exact right amount of everything.

Still-the lewd imprint -was- a lot racier than anything she could have drawn-he'd been right. Mostly-just the very real memory of being caught between him and the cool surface, his large hands cupping her face and braced against her lower belly, thick fingers on her outer sex while he drove himself into her-that was something she'd remember forever, and probably with a strong pull to recreate it and a flush to her face.

-*-

The rest of their honeymoon vacation went just as well. Improvised dancing to the jukebox that only devolved into another session in the bedroom, more walks, more projects, copious amounts of cuddling and racier activities-just blissful togetherness. They finished the book he'd been reading and had just started on a new one, The Catcher in the Rye.

They couldn't hide in here forever, though. Kara was eventually too restless to be contained, as nice as the honeymoon had been. She was a ramblin' woman, after all.

It was time to get back to it.

"I figure I'll see if they got anything for me in Primm. Courier work, you know how I do-lets me meet interesting folks I might not have otherwise, easy caps just for wandering through parts of the Mojave I woulda been anyway."

She chatted as she laced up her boots amd checked her jacket's interior pockets, considering. "Where you at in your circuit?"

Jonah hums in acknowledgement, steady serenity written over his face. As opposed to Kara's impatience, he'd found nothing he liked so much as this private life they created together - he'd spent his entire life obliging himself for the sake of others, and he was done with it. Her nature was not his, though, and this he understood. "Probably go hit Lake Mead, clear the Lakelurks again. About time for that to get done," he says, lacing up his boots and doublechecking his new fatigues. He hadn't quite made a set to match his old ones, but this set has more layers of ballistic mesh scattered over his body, and more pockets hidden in innocuous folds. As opposed to the olive green, this one is a more distinctive tan-sand pattern that blends with the Mojave better, and doesn't make him look like an NCR reject either.

As both a joke and a dead-serious assertion, he'd slapped Kara's eagle pin on the shoulder.

"It'll probably take a day or two to thin the population out," he says, considering. "Particularly since I don't have a long gun to do it with. Call it two. I'll head back to Goodsprings after, catch up at that salon of yours. I'm overdue for a Gun Runner meet, so I might organize one of their swaps in this area, tell them I'm settling down. They don't much care where the trades are so long as they're secure, and no one's going to fuck around once I make it clear I'm staying in the area."

Might be worth checking in on the Crimson Caravans, too, he hasn't heard from them in a couple months. That's for later, though.

"Swing by once you get your shit settled," Moray says, and puts his boots down, standing up and stretching idly. Hrolf pads by, impatient to go out and sniff new things. He's trotting in place.

The pin had made it to outside of his fatigues, and Kara had never been so pleased to see anybody wear anything in her life-soon as she had seen it her lips curved into a grin. The good luck charm matched the empty space in her array of pins and emblems, a clear silhouette of the shield shape seen in the brighter blue, unfaded denim of her jacket.

She'd nearly cautioned against some of that, not wanting people to pin down a location she returned to so often-but honestly...who was going to come out wanting to tangle with Moray? Fucking nobody, that's who.

The idea of that sort of safety was odd. She shakes the thought off.

Lakelurks weren't any fun for talking, and she figures she'll be tagging along on plenty of other stuff down the road when she's -not- getting into her hijinks-so parting now was no big deal. They already had plans to meet back up, after all.

"Sounds like a date."

-*-

Primm had two jobs for her-one easy and one easier, but the latter required a trip to the strip, and Kara thought that'd be way more fun with Jonah in tow. Could she get him to play cards? Could she get him to CHEAT at cards? Probably not, but it might still be funny to try anyway.

Kara made short work of the first, though it took a minute to get there no matter how fast she made it-but she still got the promised bonus, then decided to head back and wait on the big man early, talk him into going to the Strip together.

She'd rolled into town to wait for him, and of course-hit up the saloon. Her and Sarah shot the shit a little, which mostly involved Kara telling lies and Sarah rolling her eyes at them-but it was a good enough time.

Until the Fiends came in, that was. Least, she's pretty sure they're fiends-they weren't drugged out and they were more cleaned up, but they looked a little crazier than the usual tribe fare out here.

Two stayed at the door while the other three pretended, at least at first, to look for a place to sit...in the empty fucking bar.

Huh. Kara poured herself another shot but didn't drink it, absently sloshing the liquid around a little. Maybe she'd found her evening activity...or it'd found her.

"Sarah, why don't you head down into the wine cellar and bring up a bottle of somethin' fancy?"

The bartender's eyes shifted from the group of men to Kara. There wasn't a fucking wine cellar, and Kara damned well knew it-she's smirking, but she fixed the saloon owner a look on top of it.

The trio of men still hadn't sat down.

Kara's smirk widened into a grin. "But we ain't tippin' if it ain't vintage."

"Sure." Sarah turned and walked into the back-and kept right on going out the rear door before they realized what Kara had just pulled on them. This was trouble-she needed to grab Sunny in a hurry.

Back in the bar with her new friends, Kara toyed with her shot glass, watching the murky, dark reflections in the bottle itself as the steps moved closer behind her.

"So, fellas...you here to buy a lady a drink?"

A hand came down on her shoulder and Kara drew Lil' Devil and shot back and down at an angle for the offender's thigh with a "Not on the MARKET, pal!"

Welp. Here she goes.

"But lemmie buy YOU a drink!"

She kicked against the bar counter to spin herself around, splashing the gutrot straight into another man's eyes from her full shot glass and shooting the man behind the first clean through the chest. Sarah was NOT going to like the paintjob at all.

There was a lot of cursing and shock at the suddenness of violence-per usual when she attacked first, but c'mon-this many gentlemen callers couldn't be for anything good.

She ducked the wild swing of the half blinded man and drew her rigged lighter, spun the Flint wheel-and the foot long shot of flames singed eyebrows and lit the man's liquor soaked face on fucking fire as the two goons at the door moved in, drawing weapons.

The screaming spoke of the flaming man's instant regret as she slipped off the barstool, stepped in just behind his foot-and bodily shoved him back into his buddies.

She brought her gun up again-but the big man she'd shot in the leg surged back up outta nowhere, grabbed hold of that wrist and jerked it wide-just as one of the other goons shoved aside burning face and popped her straight in the mouth. The last of them grabbed her other arm-and she found herself briefly suspended between the two strong grips on her upper arms, firing a kick for Mister Punchy before he grabbed hold and decked her in the gut this time.

The air exploded out of her in a nasty wheeze and Kara sagged, leg released for her boot to scrape against the floor on it's drop back.

Aw, hell.

-*-

They had her. Bitch had been more trouble than they'd expected, but they had her. Speaking of-Davey was still rolling around on the floor, screaming.

He picked the girl's gun up and shot him through the head.

"Jesus Clyde, what the fuck." Ritchie burst, his voice tinged with pain-his thigh was bleeding pretty bad, looked nasty. He shrugged, looking the gun over. It was a nice piece, unique. He pocketed it. Trade for the man she'd downed, and the one he'd just killed because of her shitty trick.

"He was fuckin' loud." Lee pointed out, glancing back behind the bar. They'd have to probably kill the bartender in that cellar. There'd be time for that.

"His modeling career was pro'lly over anyway." The courier breathed, drawing all three gazes-before Clyde hit her again. She was going to piss red for a week at this rate-assuming she'd live past today.

The courier's head dropped against her chest, but despite that she breathed a laugh, giggling to herself nearly. Ritchie leaned away, wary-while Lee used the hand not holding onto the woman's arm to grab a fistful of scarlet hair. He jerked her head back, twisting her head to face him, glaring down at her. "What's so fuckin' funny?"

"Pussy hits like a girl." She's smirking, a measure of manic glee-until Lee pulled her hair even tighter and smacked her-and then she narrowed her eyes and SPIT on him.

Clyde had never seen anyone turn quite that shade of purple before-Lee had her by the throat and flat on her back against the bartop before he or Ritchie knew what happened, but the crazy bitch was still laughing at him, right in his enraged face and even as he tore at her clothes.

Something wasn't right about this lady-but by the time he saw the flash of the knife, it was too late- Lee had pulled his fist back to get another good shot, and she had drawn a nasty looking knife from her boot and rammed it home into his gut-but she didn't stop with that-no, she fired off about four or five stabs into him, her other hand firmly gripping his shoulder-before drawing the knife sideways, gutting Lee like a fucking fish even as Clyde grabbed a hold of the man and bodily pulled him off of her.

He was bleeding fucking everywhere-the girl, himself, the stool, the floor-trying to hold his guts in but a hell of a lot less loud than Davey had been.

Holy fuck-Clyde stepped in and the two of them tangled-he got the knife before she could get entirely off the counter but she decked him in the fucking face-making him curse as the skin tore and bled something nasty.

She was hard to get a hold of but had already been knocked around a bit, had her back to the counter, and he outweighed her by at least eighty or ninety pounds. He knocked her back before spinning her around to zip tie her hands together, a knee between her legs. She STILL somehow cut him at his calf, something sharp at the back of her heel.

"Dirty cheatin' fucks-" She was cursing and he was out of breath from trying to wrangle her in, but at least he had her. She was going to fucking die, but Benny had to have the chip first-then he could fucking murder her, she'd more than earned it.

He jerked her back and all but threw her down on the floor, stepping over and searching one side of her jacket superficially, then the other.

“S’ a fuckin’ robbery?” The redhead seemed incredulous a moment, then looked around the bloodied, corpse ridden bar. “This is the loudest fucking stick up I ever saw.”

"Shut the fuck up."

She grinned at him, and he wanted to kill her right then with her own knife-but then he found the chip in one of her fifty pockets, held it up to confirm it.

“Seriously? This is over THAT!?" She won't shut up. "Shit, I woulda probably GIVEN it to you, you offered me some caps or a stiff drink, hell. Who do you think I am, the United States Post Office?" She thinks she's fucking funny- "Or hell, Moray with his professionalism?”

He shoved her back down and gave her a kick in the ribs for good measure-the sharp cry of pain amd instinctive curl worth it to him-even if she did weakly huff another laugh after it.

She wasn't fooling him, he knew that had fucking hurt-he's got steel toed boots on.

"Take Lee over to that doc, get your leg checked out."

"Fucking spit on me, man." Lee whined quietly, still trying to hold his guts in and pale as a ghost. Richie said something soothing Clyde didn't hear-and then hauled him up with a hiss and started for the door.

One of Benny's Vegas goons stuck his nose in. "Shit man, this what was taking so long? Benny's getting antsy."

"Shut it." Clyde said, hauling the woman up from the floor by the neck of her jacket-and shoving her towards the door. "Bitch coulda been one of us- money better be worth it."

Lakelurks are fairly simple to kill. They're dichromatic, mostly seeing violets and long-wave colors, but have a tremendous amount of trouble distingushing greens and reds, which exist on the other side of the spectrum. He slathers some red paint over a set of green tarps and tacks them up on the hillside sloping down to Lake Mead, and does the same to a set of olive-green NCR fatigues. Their color-blindness renders him almost invisible there. The paint also serves a second purpose, in that it has a terrifically strong scent that throws off his own trail. As far as the Lakelurks are concerned, he doesn't exist.

That doesn't make them easier to kill, though - so he cheats. He brings a fresh radstag kill with him, and lobs pieces of it into the lake with a sling. When the Lakelurks cluster on it underneath the water, he tosses in a nitrate bomb after them. As tough as their shells are, it doesn't save them from the underwater pressure wave the explosive causes. It ruptures skulls, swim bladders, and eggs with equal ease, concussing and drowning them. Immediately after the survivors rush out to chase off their attacker, and Moray just waits them out until they retreat again. The process repeats until no more emerge.

In any form of hunting, the knowledge of your prey is the strongest weapon. No instinct or savage strength will ever match an animal's, who is never more than a bad week or a bad fight away from death, forever suspended on the ragged edge of survival. Rather, man learns and conquers.

In an afternoon, Moray pulverizes twenty-two Lakelurks and their attendant nests with plastic, paint, a dead stag, and some explosives, then rolls it all back up and sets to the actually tedious part of the job: cleaning and carving the bodies so that all the fresh meat doesn't lure a new set of predators here to feast on it. Softshell meat is always worth selling, but it's a lot of carving to do. By the time he's done, it's early evening, and he wheels Lucky about and heads back towards the nearest depot to drop off his goods and collect on his contract.


Benny looks at the bodies, and closes his eyes in frustration. "Please tell me she got a quick draw on you and she didn't just whack two guys in a straight fight against three."

Clyde nods, relieved. "Yeah, she drew right as soon as we came up."

Benny snorts. "Well, there's that. Get her over here."

The Cemetery ain't his kind of scene even in the day. They've got two fresh bodies for it and a soon-to-be third, and it all just fits too well. The hairs on the back of his neck are up, the feel of a man about to drop his cards and go for his gun. Kara's already down, and not a hotshot fighter if a vicious one. He doesn't know what he's worried about, but he's not stupid enough to ignore the feeling - he's got eight guys, he doesn't need everyone for this.

"Ringo, Johnny, go post up at the entrance. Stay in cover, don't be obvious about it. You see anyone come up, whistle. I just need a little advance warning," Benny says, and two of the Chairmen nod and amble off, glad to be away from the bodies. Fighting with the blood up is one thing, but burying the bodies, doing the cold work? That's always rough. It's why Benny's here doing it himself. He needs to remember it's hard.

The little firebrand herself is tied up on the ground, with rope binding her wrists and ankles along with a bag over her head. He's not into another big scene - the bartender is already bad enough. He's got her stashed in a safehouse, can't decide whether to buy some silence or off her too. His stomach's already queasy.

C'mon, Benny, focus.

He sighs and gestures at the little woman. "Go on, get her up. Let's get this over with."

Clyde pulls Kara up to her feet and pulls the bag off her head. She's awake, but glassy-eyed, probably concussed. Benny crouches and makes eye contact with her anyways. This shit matters. "Time to cash out, Courier."

The bag is tugged off and strands of scarlet fluff into her face, but other than that Kara's a mess. Her lower lip is swollen against her teeth and her head hurts-why always the head?-and there's a throb to her right cheekbone she doesn't like-but mostly, she's coated in the clothes ripping asshole's blood from her abdomen to her knees. It's done WRECKED her favorite pants and this tanktop, these mother fuckers.

There's a hitch to her side where this Clyde asshat had kicked her too. It's kinda looking like a bad night. Now she's gotta deal with Mister Business here-who the fuck was Benny? She doesn't remember pissing off anybody named Benny. Doesn't rule it out, but still. He bends to make direct eye contact with her. Kara can't decide if that was a good or bad sign.

"Who says all my chips're down?" Either the red head didn't understand the gravity of the situation, or she just plain didn't give a fuck. She's even got a smirk on her lips-but she's not feeling all that hot. Didn't look the least bit afraid, not a lick of it in those big blue eyes, but definitely not in good shape, either.

"Seriously though-this poker chip thing? I don't care about any fucking chip. They didn't pay me enough to care about it." Kara shrugs. They really fucking didn't, either.

"Or to kill folks. Which, by the way, I only did in ONE of your guys, and by accident! C'mon, I'm this fucking big, you really think I managed to off more n' one?"

She feels Clyde's grip on her arm tighten. It hurts, but fuck him. She needs him not behind her so she can work on this fucking rope-she's already got her switch blade pressing tight against her wrist, waiting for use. Besides-time bitching Clyde out would be time not killing her.

"So if this's about the chip, do we really gotta bother? I don't always remember things... ain't so good at remembering, sometimes."

Yeah, this isn't working. Maybe the chips are down. Maybe she's got a low pair and is all out of hidden aces-she doesn't know. Maybe something would come up-maybe she can just burn a bit more of the world with her.

"I never saw it, or you. But if this is about the dead guy-well, Clyde better get the same, he fucking shot the other guy on purpose!". Clyde gives her a shake but Kara blares on anyway-he's only adding credibility to her claim. "You can even ask the other two, you don't believe me-but that one's for sure on him, and I ain't usually a snitch-but that's fucked up, ain't it?"

Benny sits back, licks his lips. She's babbling, which - whatever. That happens sometimes. This other bit, though, that's bad mojo. "Dwayne, slap some tape on her mouth for a bit. Tribe business. Clyde, honest to aces, man. You shoot one of the other two? I ain't gonna be mad."

Clyde glances back and around, doesn't see any guns out or any hands reaching for them, and starts to relax even as Kara's momentarily gagged. "Yeah, Davey got his head lit on fire. Wouldn't stop bitching, so I shut him up."

"You didn't even put him out, man, you just shot him," Ritchie points out quietly. His eyes shift away from the scene and over the gates, both guilty and a little pissed. It coulda been him on fire instead of shot in the leg. What if he'd said ow more?

Benny points at Ritchie. "This man gets it," he says, and indicates the other man's leg, still bandaged. "See that? He's counting the odds. He wants to know how close to bust he was. Maybe he flips a six instead of a seven, doesn't roll high enough. He catches the next bullet sometime you don't want to call for your pals."

Clyde's face starts to turn into a sneer. "I didn't ask you for advice on how to run my crew, slick."

"You should have," Benny says, quiet, and clicks his fingers. Behind Clyde, another one of the chairmen flicks out a switchblade from his sleeve and shanks the fiend from behind, other hand coming up to cover his mouth. There's a muffled shriek, and then the blade goes in again, higher up, and Clyde drops like a rock, slumping over almost on top of Kara.

"Here's the deal," Benny says, and now he has everyone's attention. "Maybe we're scum. Maybe we're backstabbers. We're all one bad deal from being out on the Wastes, and we gotta live with that. But you cut the cards with another man, you don't hide aces from him. You don't pull a gun on a bad hand. You have his back, and you better keep it safe. There's no room for finks in the Mojave. You take care of your people."

He turns to Ritchie, and flicks a business card to him. The other man flinches at first and has to scoop it up off the ground.

"You know the value of my word now," Benny says, frank. "You know how I deal. These are your boys, now, until the job's done. How you sort shit out after ain't my flop, but there's more caps for all of you now, on account of one less share. I ain't looking to repeat that. Capisce?"

"All good," Ritchie says, faint, and nods. He looks away from Clyde's dead body, and whatever he finds in Benny's eyes instead steadies him, and he nods again, more firmly. "I can handle it."

"Good man," Benny says, and gestures at Kara. "Tape off. Gentle. Done more bad hands tonight than I like already."

He settles back into his seat as he looks at Kara, leaning back against a great stone angel that stares down at them both, face blank from erosion. "Good play. Can't blame you, because I did need to know that. We need boys that play nice with each other. I'd thank you, but that don't jive with putting a bullet in you, and that's how this ends. So just lemme say: I appreciate it."

He points a finger at Kara. "No offense, but this is just business. You're tough, but House has got forever to crack you once that chip don't come, and no one outruns him for long on the Strip, much less a curious little lady. I'm doing you a mercy, in the long run. Don't look like it from here, but it's a better."

From the inside of that checkered jacket comes a pistol. 10 mm, nicely cleaned, gleaming. Too clean for the Mojave, polished and smooth. In the distance, a wolf howls, lonely and mournful.

"End of the line, girl," Benny says, sober and stone cold as the gun in his hand. The others are silent, magnetized to the ritual in his words. "You got last words or requests, best do 'em now."

They fucking muzzle her best and trustiest weapon, and Kara’s more than a little displeased about that-but he does it so he can start in on the asshat who’d kicked her. The idiot actually confesses. Well, least she had that going for her.

It's funny was how randomly impersonal this was. Instead of her getting shot as the result of a prank or something, her usual seat of her pants antics, she's getting shot in a stroke of just plain bad luck.

Her! Bad luck! Kara's concussed mind is briefly dazzled by the idea, a repressed bit of laughter. ANYBODY could have taken that job. Hell, it was the last in a series, she'd heard. She'd been plain jane unlucky, for once. Dealt a bad hand just like the one she'd started with, getting sold off to Raiders and shit by a red haired lady whose face she doesn't even remember. She supposed it had been a long time coming-she's been coasting on stacked and luckier decks ever since ditching the first unlucky hand.

That doesn't mean she wouldn't try. She's still working at the ropes binding her wrists, trying to look out of it and dazed-docile. It isn't hard-she IS having a hard time thinking through things, but she sure as shit wasn't really docile. She doesn't have a lot of tricks left-but there was her final gambit. It may not save her, but it'd keep Benny from winning, and that'd be enough. If you gotta go, take somebody you don't like with you. Kara sawed a little faster, risking a tell while they were all distracted, slowing only when he finally turns his attention back to her, has somebody remove the tape ‘gently’, deluded fucking asshole-and having to listen to him be ‘appreciative’ and tell her shit she’s already guessed at.

“Well gosh, Benny, can’t believe you’d do a complete stranger such a nice favor.” Even with things looking bad as hell, Kara’s sarcastic and cocky, that manic, chilling cheer to her voice. “Real good of you to look out for little ole’ me like that.”

Kara’s not scared of him, his shiny gun, or any of these douchebag snake oil salesmen. She’s been figurin’ on cashing her chips in since she first left raiders, she hopes he chokes on his ‘mercy’. Maybe he was expecting her to cry or somethin’, she didn’t know.

Getting taken out execution style in a fuckin' cemetery...the only way that could be more stereotypical Vegas was if they had made her dig her own grave first. Least she could have hit somebody with a shovel, then. It only adds to the hilarity of how planned and impersonal this was-they wouldn't have to carry her very far. So efficient! Moray would approve.

And that’s when Kara froze, her other ADD distracted thoughts scattering as her heart half seized and half stuttered, the big man suddenly looming large in the forefront of her mind.

Jonah. The sometimes adorable, surprisingly philosophical, deep thinking man, the sparkling crystalized geode under the craggly surface of so much violence and apathy. Her once favorite prank target, the perfect straight man she’d lived to drive crazy, sometimes.

Reading to her. Loving her. Letting her in, trusting her with a heart he hadn't known about, maybe forgotten he had.

Jonah of the whale.

How had she not considered him until just now? Because she was used to being out for her own interests and her own interests only, that's how. Selfish. She's always been selfish, in her own corner only-until she’d wanted to be in his, too.

Who was going to cuddle with him after this shit? Who would he even allow to touch him? What if...what if he didn't find out what had happened? What if he thought she'd gone off on a lark and left him? Thought he'd been a joke after all, that she hadn't meant the things she had said and the things she had done and all of it meant just as much of nothing as fucking everything else in this hilariously tragic fucking world-

God, what if he thought she hadn't loved him?

The cocky smirk drops off the mouthy merc’s face and her manic disinterest becomes a pale, dry mouthed blank slate. Her heart was pounding and her fingers were suddenly clumsy, a cold sweat washing over her. Shit, this -wasn't- funny, not funny at all.

Benny's talking about last requests but she barely hears him over the rush in her ears, eyes wide and rooted to him and his gun, alarm and even panic flickering through the vibrantly colored blue depths. No smile returns to her lips, no cocky one liner, no nothing. It belatedly occurs to her that she doesn’t want to die.

She doesn't want to die! Her escape and trip west suddenly wasn't enough, she’s suddenly so much less certain of the meaninglessness of it all-and worst, she suddenly can't find the joke, the glimmer of dark humor in it all ending tonight for so stupid a thing. She's got Jonah of the whale as her own, hers. She doesn't want to give him up, or worse; make him think she’d up and run on him.

Fuck.

Fuck, she thinks she’s afraid.

The dumbest, worst thing you could be in a world that just did not give a shit. Either laugh and be in on the joke...or be the butt of it. She gives a final sharp pull on the switch blade against the sawed through, fraying rope around her wrists-

Benny watches the blood drain out of Kara's face. He nods. His face is a little sad.

"Yeah," he says. "Those were some shitty last words, girl."

And then he lifts the pistol and fires directly at her head.

It was the loudest fucking gunshot she’d ever heard. Kara leaned to one side and threw one of her recently freed hands up just on instinct-and made a sharp noise when it impacted hard on the back of her hand and wrist, the bullet deflecting off the armor Moray had sewn there and parting her hair on it’s way over her head. Everything’s ringing in that ear, now, and her already concussed fog doubles down for being stunned-but it’d missed.

He had fucking missed.

Time rushes forward again-be in on the joke, she wants to be in on the fucking joke-and her other hand darts into her jacket and yanks the grenade free before she’s even lowered her arm. Her manic grin snaps back to her face, and half of it is genuine, because this motherfucker had fucking missed Moray’s prayers to bulletproof whatever had fucking worked. Shitty last words-

“Not as shitty as yours!” The gleeful, half deaf retort wasn’t even off her lips before the grenade was lobbed in his direction, intentionally past him so he’d have that to look and worry about that rather than attempting another potshot-the pin still dangling off her thumb as she rolled to the side, sliced through the rope around her ankles with the switchblade-and popped up to her feet to knife a bastard in the fucking eye.

Oh, she’d be in on the joke alright. She'd always in on the joke.

The howl comes again, immediately after the gunshot, a hell of a lot closer, vicious and wild, and the two guys whip around, trying to peer through the gravestones - which is half of why Kara manages to get on her feet and into Dwayne's face, knife buried in his eye.

The other half is Moray coming out of the night at a full dead sprint opposite that howl, silent as death, and slamming his palm into the side of Jackie's head at maximum momentum. The blow dislocates his jaw and jars his skull - his hands loosen as they come up instinctively to cushion his fall - his pistol comes out of his grip, and Moray scoops it from the air like a magician. Before his next foot even touches the ground mid-sprint, he's already fired it at the next man in line and cored his skull out.

Then he slams into the third and cannonballs him into a gravemarker behind him. The stone plinth connects at the base of the unlucky man's spine and crunches it with a brutal, grinding pop.

Hrolf comes out of the shadows just as everyone else starts to turn again to face this pale-faced specter, and seizes a man by the back of neck and just bites down and bears the man down to the ground, shaking and tearing. The Fiend beside him shrieks and starts to turn back, but Hrolf releases his prey and leaps forward to check the man's hip. He staggers, and the mongrel darts past, liquid smoke among the graves.

The man under Kara screams thinly as the knife grinds into his eye socket, then it slides up and through the orbital socket into his brain. He goes limp.

Four left.

Benny sees all this happening in slow motion, sees his own death, and turns tail immediately - then spots the grenade again and dives away from it behind a statue.

The man Moray had decked looks up, half-staggered. His jaw has been obliterated, torn almost clean off his face - Jonah had hooked his fingers into the joint and pulled at the last moment as he passed by. In his eyes is sudden shock, trauma, and fear. He reaches for his sawed-off. Moray spins away from the man he's crippled against a grave, and puts two rounds into him before the shitty pistol jams. He drops the gun as the other foe crumples, both shots landing in his left chest through his lung and heart.

Another Fiend is still turned looking for Hrolf, not really registering how fast everything has gone to shit. He starts to look back, and then Moray screams at him. It's the sheer wail of the damned, shockingly high and hoarse and wailing, like a woman being murdered, that awful last gasp of screaming horror. It snaps the Fiend's head back around to Moray, and that's when Hrolf takes him from behind too, first latching onto the man's forearm and breaking the bones with a flex of his jaws, then leaping up for his throat.

Ritchie spins twice - once for Hrolf, and once for Moray - immediately starts backing away to take some cover - and then that howl comes out, like nothing still human, too loud and awful, and it spurs him into a full sprinting retreat, turf flying from beneath his boots as he books it for the entrance of the cemetery, morale broken at the sudden, horrible death happening around him.

The grenade goes off, staggering everyone with its sheer loudness and concussion. It's too far away to kill anyone. Benny is the closest to prepared, with his hands over his ears and in cover, and he immediately makes a break for it on the opposite side, angling out into the open desert. He tears off that distinctive jacket as he goes and throws it away as he breaks into a full sprint for the closest cover line.

Moray doesn't notice. To the backdrop of Hrolf tearing out a man's throat, he turns and takes three long steps to where Kara is laying, knife in a man's eye, and seizes her in his arms and drags her behind cover, snapping his pistol out and aiming into the dark night at no one. His heartbeat is perfectly even and steady, face pale and frozen.

There is no sound but crumbling stone and echoes, and no movement but dying men and figures fading into the distance.

Hrolf howls, hateful and low, mouth caked with blood.

Everything was everywhere-holy shit, her bad luck had flipped on itself and now these guys were fucked. They were completely and utterly fucked, and best of all if somebody managed to off her now, Moray would know EXACTLY what had fucking happened.

Was Hrolf eating people? He didn’t fight…?

Dwayne gets a fistful of her hair as they go down together, but Kara just withdraws and changes her angle, knees tightening on either side of his chest before driving the knife upwards into all the mush, bloodying her hands right back the fuck up from her earlier disembowelment of the OTHER asshat who had pulled it. She would have done this with her fucking thumbs if she had had to-she grew up with fucking crazy goddamned people, hardly a step up from feral. Fuck him. Fuck him AND his buddies.

In the midst of all of Hrolf(the best fur baby)’s howling Kara hears a fucking-she doesn’t know what the hell it is. In her fogged confusion, she actually looks for a lady caught up in all this shit, the battered red head out of breath and only just now withdrawing her switchblade, slapping the dead man’s loosened grip away from her head.

She see’s Benny. Fuck this guy, she’s going to go stab him! Kara shoves at the guy’s chest to stagger to her feet again-and goes down just about as quickly when the grenade goes off. That does nothing good for her head-everything’s tipped sideways, dizzying her already pretty dizzied head and making her have to hold onto the ground a minute, her good hand-before she’s snapped up and hauled behind cover. Oh, damn-Moray really WAS here, she wasn’t hallucinating shit.

“I just wanna know where else Holden’s going to see “Fuck” graffiti’d.” Kara says to him, eyes widening a fraction on the bloodied knife and Hrolf’s howl. Holy shit, that meant HE was really here too, chomping on people. Wow, that was crazy-

Kara does not sound very lucid-and actually, looks more than a little distressed. Not hysterical or anything-just distressed, and it was very jarring on a face that was always so flippantly amused all the time. “If he ever goes home or not-” Mid sentence she interrupts herself. “This shit s’not my fault. Like, I didn’t fuck with any of these guys ‘fore they tried to fuck with me-”

Moray turns his head to look at Kara, close enough their breath mingles. His eyes are wide and his pupils tiny, skin cold and clammy to the touch. Rather than answer, he just pulls her in for a kiss so hard their teeth clack together, and then stabs her in the leg with a stimpak that he'd been fumbling with and injects it. Immediately after the pistol comes back up and he stares out into the black night, searching for more threats.

It's a long couple of minutes of nothing before he calms down enough that the pistol begins to droop, and then it sags to the ground as all the tension seeps out of Moray at once. He curls around Kara like she'd elbowed him in the gut.

"Thought I'd lost you," he says, hoarse, and his arm is tight around her back and up across her chest again. "That gunshot."

His teeth are almost chattering.

Kara had half expected to get yelled at or something for being bested, starting shit-but instead he kisses her hard-and jabs a needle into her thigh again, fuck-

They wait there, huddled down together for more shit to come their way-Kara with her little knife and then the brute stopping power of Moray. She feels the stimpack starting to work-but it’s going to be a long night of it, she thinks.

He relaxes and she does too, flicking the blade back into its handle-before being enveloped in Jonah’s arms.

"Thought I'd lost you,"

His voice is hoarse and somehow awful to her, makes her feel immediately and incredibly guilty. It’d taken her entirely too long to think about him back there, facing down the inevitable. She suddenly thinks she might be something of a bad person-but no one had ever given a shit if she died or not, not really-and having for REAL shit to live for was an entirely new thing, too.

"That gunshot."

“...” Kara almost makes a crack, something flippant and reassuring but...it hadn’t been funny. For a minute, it hadn’t been funny, and this was exactly why. Kara doesn’t know what to think of that, how to feel. She’s gotta be in on the joke...but-

“I...I’m sorry, Jonah.” So fucking sorry about the close call she hadn’t even instigated-about nearly being taken away from him.

“Fought best I could-” She mumbles into his chest-but there’d just been too many of them to deal with, and none with an interest in talking. She’s fucked up and doesn’t even want to know what she looks like, right now. She tries to think.

“Your armor mods in...in the jacket-” It’d saved her life. HE’D saved her life, again. Him and Hrolf.

Jonah's head shakes and he pulls Kara in so tight that his grip hurts for a moment, before he loosens again. "No," he says. "You did good. You fought. Saw the bullet-catch. You did good."

He closes his eyes and breathes as he nuzzles into her hair, inhaling her scent through the gunpowder and the blood that's all around them. It helps put the ground beneath his feet again. "From now on we fight together. No wondering what might or could happen. No one left behind."

From the peaceful serenity to this - and now he understands that backbladed bite that had driven Johann mad, more than anything else. It's in his blood. Whatever his mother had been to the man, her absence had torn out his gut and his heart and left him to die ten years in the doing, and what had been left to fumble until then is just a corpse spreading its disease. He sees out into that awful future and closes his eyes against it, and presses his hand against Kara's chest. Her heart beats against his fingers, fluttering but vital, and he can't help but breathe in response, the knot loosening in his chest.

God, but for what might be.

He had inherited nothing but loyalty and death, and now these are the gifts he has to offer Kara, and the former will go to no one else.

Jonah breathes. He lets it pass away, like sand in the wind.

He opens his eyes again. There are things to be done.

"Medical attention," he says, rough, and stands up. Kara's still half on top of him, and he simply carries her up and sets her on her feet, hand on her shoulder to steady his partner, the other still hovering above his sidearm holster. "Doc Mitchell's. You're not gonna be laid up with a fucking infection after beating a goddamn bullet at Rat Slap."

Hrolf trots up from the side, still a couple of paces off. His head is clean now, except for the arterial spray that still paints his neck from where he'd torn a man's throat out. He glances up at them, then stares out into the cemetery.

"From now on we fight together. No wondering what might or could happen. No one left behind."

Kara considers trying to explain the joke, loop him in somehow-but she remembers that stark and sudden fear where even she had failed to remember to laugh, and she draws up short. How afraid she'd suddenly been for once-not instinct, just plain fucking dread, no dark humor to be found. She's always been crazy and that'd been a pretty solid strength-not everybody could get the joke, and she'd gotten in on it somewhere around ten years old. It made her surprisingly dangerous, sometimes.

There's more to things now. Complications. He wouldn't understand anyway-he's a different kind of person than she was.

And she loves him. He's not a joke. He's something special and outside of it. She hadn't wanted to go.

"...okay. I...I -was- kinda worried you'd think I just cut and ran on you..." She admits, soft. That had been the worst of the fear. This was some serious sort of stuff. Too serious for her. His fingers were pressed against her heart, and Kara closes hers over them. "Still tickin'." She assures with a dizzied ghost of a grin.

He stands up and sets her back on her feet- steadying her dizzied sway. Kara rubs her forehead with a grumble as he continues about the doctor.

"S'most of this ain't even mine." She half protests, pulling her shirt straight and out to look at the ruined, torn at and bloodied garment. That guy had to be dead-she'd unzipped his guts. Least she hopes so-he'd pulled her hair and slapped her like she was some kind of barefoot wife in a kitchen or some shit. Acted like he might hurt her in other, worse ways, ripping at her clothes like that once she'd spit on him. "Lemmie get Lil' Devil, least." Loudest fucking robbery.

She makes her way over to Clyde the dumbass, idiot having confessed to a crime that got his throat slit. Even Kara had figured on that being a bad idea.

He was on his side staring at nothing, but Kara doesn't look at him. Just turns him flat on his back with the toe of her boot. He doesn't move(no surprise, size of that puddle of blood under him) and so it's safe to find her pistol.

"THIS asshat took it. And THEN kicked me in the ribs. Tsk." That wasn't all he'd done, just what Kara finds the most offensive. She retrieves Lil' Devil and taps on the toe or his boots. Steel. "Rude."

No wonder it'd hurt so bad. Shit, he break any of them? Questions for not right now. "Got him killed by talkin'." She says with a jaunty nod as she reholsters the weapon, swiping at her mouth with the back of her unnumbed hand. She's in something of a sour mood. Jonah was all bothered, her head hurts, and despite the stimpack working its magic, her ribs hurt something sharp every breath she draws in.

But she's alive. And there's Hrolf, his usual couple paces off but hovering with them.

Kara smiles. "Didn't know that was you howling out there, puppy." Only Kara would look at so big and wild a dog and call it 'puppy'. She really wants to scratch him behind the ears, but resists the urge in trying to get close enough to do so. Gotta be patient. Gotta respect his space. He's a good dog. The best dog.

"Thought you said he didn't fight? He was sure tearing it up over there." Kara says, focusing on the dog and moving to take Jonah's arm opposite his draw hand. She doesn't want to think on all these new and troubling complications to what had previously been a pretty damned cynical view of the world-and she doesn't want Jonah all bothered either. To the doctor they go, she guesses.

"You wouldn't," Jonah replies, without even the slightest hint of doubt, and that's all he has to say on that.

His hand closes around hers again, steady and supportive, as they begin to hobble towards the exit of the graveyard. Jonah moves slow enough that Kara's dizziness doesn't throw her balance off again. "You fought like hell. I saw the bar. I'm proud of you."

Hrolf pads beside them, about a body's length away, which is already much closer than he usually stays - the mongrel tends to wander around in the same rough geographic area, but might be over the last hill, or ranging out ahead, or sniffing something dead for five minutes while they pull away. Jonah shoots him a glance. "He didn't. When I got to the bar, though, he picked up the scent of your blood and shot off this ways, led me to you. There were two guards at the gate - I picked off one, and then he jumped the other about a half-second later. Apparently he cares enough to contribute now."

For all the acid that sentence might suggest, his tone is soft. As the Clinic starts to come into view, he asks, "What was that all about anyways? Looked ritual as shit. And those looked like Chairmen, all slick suits and gelled-back hair. Do I need to kill them?"

The unreasonable fear is fading from Jonah as they move away from the graveyard, itself an unusual anomaly in his attitude. As his gait smooths and his face evens out to a placid evenness, now comes his usual solutions: violence, and mass violence.

Kara feels better that he knew she wouldn’t of cut and run. Better, and also somehow...humbled? that he had that kind of faith in her. It wasn’t even cause he was dumb or something-he just honest to goodness knew better, knew her. She could never do that to him. Never intentionally hurt him. No, never that.

And she had fought like hell. Best she knew how, mean as she knew how. He’d seen the place, he knew. Where had Sarah gone? She’d sent her ‘to the wine cellar’-to safety when those mooks had shown up, but she was still going to probably be pissed about the mess. Maybe she should go try and clean up a little...she’d like to drink there again.

“Hrolf always contributes!” Kara defends-without elaborating on how. “He just didn’t want to send you on the job alone, this time.” Kara leans her head against Jonah’s arm. Man. She could sleep right here, she thinks. “He's a good dog. The best dog.” What a good dog. She loves him to pieces, and he’d up and hired Jonah to kill a bunch of slicks in her defense. Munched on people. “Thanks Hrolf-gonna make you a steak. No, TWO steaks-no, four steaks!” Kara laughs a little, but she should be paying attention, shit-could be somebody else lurking, she doesn’t know.

Also she’s pretty sure sleeping with concussions was a bad idea, maybe?

“Was a fuckin’ robbery, no shit. Loudest one I ever saw.” Chairmen…fuck, she thinks he’s right. She hadn’t even been banned from gambling in their casino yet, what the hell. “Nothing to even do with me. Just bad luck.” Kara cracks up. “Bad luck, taking a delivery anybody coulda had-and that’s what almost got me offed! All my bullshit and pranks and pissing people off, and I just about bit it when some asshole I didn’t even know sicced goons on me cause of a delivery I picked up on a lark.”

Kara’s head swims and her amusement dims as her free hand comes to her head again, a muttered “Hell-I...I can’t remember who the hell it was for...soon as I do, maybe there’ll be an angle we can use.”

Wiping out an entire tribe over the actions of a few seems like overkill-Kara doesn’t like to make messes where there didn’t have to be any, and the Chairmen weren’t flying solo on the Strip, either.

“We don’t need all Three Families and House and shit coming down on us. This...Benny guy definitely fucked up though. Coulda just had me robbed period, or been quicker to shoot. Instead he made it a whole thing.” Kara waves a bloodied hand, still holding the pearl handle to her closed switchblade. She’s sour again, temperamental.

“Looked me in the eye and had the balls to claim shootin’ me in the face was a fuckin’ courtesy-creeptastic fuck. I don’t know if he jus’ wanted to see if I'd beg-didn't-or really buys his own shit, thinks he’s some kind of nice guy. Pretending to be sad or whatever-okay pal, up yours too.” Color comes to Kara’s face and neck as she remembers his expression before he tried to shoot her in the face. Who the hell did he think he was fooling? Fucker had a complex, apparently. You didn’t get to do that. Either embrace that you’re a goddamned asshole who shoots tied up people, or just fucking DON’T KILL TIED UP PEOPLE. He’d made that choice, he could have done things differently but hadn’t. Fuck him.

“I don’t gotta look fucking anybody in the eye-shooting ‘em in the back is fanfuckingtastic to me, the fuck do I care? I don’t have fucking honor when it comes to this shit. Either it’s funny or it’s survival, and that’s all it is to me. And if it’s them or me, I’m sure as shit going to pick me.”

Her blood was getting all up again and with it comes cursing, but it’s making her feel kind of sick as it rushes through her head. She needs to lay down or drink some water or something-maybe a stiff shot of something strong. “He’s pissed me off enough to wanna get the stupid chip back, if only so he can’t have it.” She mutters darkly. Might need to anyway, depending on who it was for. She’ll remember. Just had to think about it.

“...kinda name is Benny, anyway?”

~*~

The door to the clinic opens-Moray shoved it in before Kara could insist on knocking-and they rounded the corner out of the hall. Aaaaand there was Ritchie, apparently his shot leg torn back open from fleeing quick as he had, maybe returning for the companion whose guts Kara had unzipped. The big (but not as big as Jonah) man saw them both as they saw him-and looked like he was going to piss himself, both hands immediately up in surrender as he half tripped back into and over the couch-hands still up even while cowering.

Kara would have laughed her ass off at the hilarity of the situation-but she's busy trying to keep Jonah from slaughtering the SHIT outta that guy. Kara’s somehow already in front of Jonah, a hand on his chest and the other one wrapped partially around the wrist to his draw hand-she’s too small to actually be any use in stopping the death machine whirlwind-but she still tries. He looks pretty fucking murderous. This might not be one of her better ideas.

"Come on, please don’t kill that one, he barely even did anything!” Kara’s back to mildly distressed again, her already large blue eyes that much more arresting when widened like that. She’s just so fucking tired of today, Christ. She doesn’t even know why she’s trying to stop him-just...well, she’d shot him in the leg first thing and he still had hardly done much-he just didn’t seem so bad. A little pathetic maybe, but not bad. Come to think of it, other than get a hold of her gun arm, he hadn't actually done anything to her at all, today.

“Kill the OTHER asshat, if he’s even still alive-he pulled my hair and tried to get rapey 'fore I gutted him.”

It's a lot to consider. The Chairmen are a major tribe, and taking them on isn't going to be a cakewalk. They're concentrated, at least, so he can maybe hide a mini-nuke in their little casino and give them bigger problems to worry about, if they've got enough time to be fucking with Kara. At least Benny's a pussy. He'll still be talking by the time Jonah opens fire.

It's on that note they shamble through the door of the Clinic, and spotting one of the runners from the graveyard dustup immediately puts a bullet point in his day planner. Moray's pistol clears leather in the same heartbeat as they make eye contact, and only Kara's timely intervention prevents a round being put through Ritchie's forehead, though the way he topples backwards onto the couch makes him a tempting target. Doc Mitchell raises his hands from where he's fiddling with a set of scalpels and tweezers, looking faintly alarmed. There's another Fiend on the bed by him, holding together a freshly-stitched gut. He's grey-faced and has his eyes closed.

Jonah glances down at Kara, eyes blank, then over at the other Fiend and nods as he holsters the gun. "Doc," he says. "Kara got jumped by this lot. Address her injuries. Kara, ask Ritchie if he's useful. He should be by the time I'm done."

"What?" Ritchie says, rapidly paling even more. "Oh, Jesus, what now? What about Lee?"

Rather than answer, Moray moves in lethal silence up beside Doc Mitchell, standing over the other Fiend. He cracks his eyes open to look up at the new shadow looming over him. Mitchell instantly backs off, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He shakes his head and goes to Kara's side, already checking her pupils.

"Who's this guy?" Lee asks, voice weak.

Moray stares down at him, still as anything.

"Got something to say, pal?" the Fiend mocks, a challenging little smile coming to his lips.

"No," Moray answers, quiet as the wind, and takes hold of his hair in one hand and his jaw in the other, then pulls with hateful strength. There's a loud, crunching pop that echoes through the room, and the man's legs kick once, trembling fitfully. Lee screams, but he's muffled against Moray's hand over his face. He tries to bite him. No dice.

Moray turns, lets his knees bend a little and his stance widen, and jerks again with his whole body, then twists. There's another loud pop, and this time everything below the Fiend's neck goes completely limp. The suffocated shrieks cut off into choked sobbing that trails into silence as Lee passes out from the pain. His breath whistles in his throat where it's swollen around his broken neck.

Doc Mitchell shudders, but doesn't look back. "Well," he says, rough, as he digs out a pair of painkillers and offers them to Kara with a water canteen, "I think you came out ahead of the competition on this encounter, all told. Where does it hurt, Kara?"

Ritchie, meanwhile, is quietly hyperventilating.