1x1 -- "Flanagan's Pub" (from "Underneath: 2048) closed

[Alice2015]

"Flanagan's Pub"

Closed​

OOC: This is a 1x1 that begins 28 June 2048, prior to the start of the parent role play, "Underneath: 2048", which begins 8 August 2048. If you are a reader of "Underneath: 2048", please feel free to subscribe to this thread now and read it as replies are added, or wait until later when it catches up to the time line of the parent thread, to which all Subscribers will be alerted.

Also, the post below is the same post, word for word, as you would have read here in the parent thread.

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26 June 2048 -- 11am:

The woman slowed the overheating, chattering car atop a small rise just east of her destination. She got out to take a look. She'd seen pictures of the city that once sported a population of 30,000. Today, it looked nothing like it had before the Collapse, with upwards of half of the structures burned down or scavenged for their wood, metal, and other resources that for the most part were no longer being manufactured.

Suddenly, the car kicked, then again, then belched a cloud of black smoke, and died. The automotive mayhem caused the boy laying in the back seat to wake and rise. He asked with a sleepy voice, "Are we there yet, momma?"

"Almost, honey, but," she began. When he asked but what, she eyed the multitude of lit indicators on the car's electronic console and told her son, "But I think we're walking the rest of the way."

They donned backpacks and extended the wheels of their rolling suitcases and began walking. They didn't hurry. The temperature was near 100 and there was no cooling wind at all. They stopped twice in shade they found along the road.

A mile and a half or more short of town, she heard the roar of motorcycles coming from the same direction she'd come from. She moved her son off the pavement and beyond the dry draining ditch as four big Harleys with rough looking, leather wearing men approached at as unhurried a speed as she had been. They slowed and came to a stop before her.

"You know how to use that little lady?" the nearest man asked, seeing the semi-automatic pistol dangling by her side in a tightly clenching hand. When she didn't respond, he said, "If you go into town alone, just you and the boy, you'll be dead or flat on your back in a whore house by dark."

He gave her a moment to consider his claim, then asked, "You have someone waiting for you? Someone you know in town?"

She hesitated before nodding her head.

"Climb aboard," he told her, peeking over his shoulder to indicate the jump seat behind him. He glanced to the Harley behind him that had a small trailer behind it partially filled with what-not. "Put your things in there, and the boy can ride with Carl there."

Another biker scooted back a bit on his bike and patted the seat before him. When she didn't move, the leader shrugged, kicked his ride back into gear, and said, "Suit yourself."

"Wait!" she said quickly. After yet another moment of hesitance, she took the steps the man had listed, telling her boy, "It'll be alright, honey."

The Harleys roared away, and a couple of minutes later they were passing through a road block guarded by heavily armed men who wore some of the same symbolism as the men on the bikes. As they continued into town, men and women obviously connected to the bike operators took notice of her and her child.

Much of the town they were passing through had been razed by years of mayhem, while other parts of it seemed to have faired well. She couldn't help but notice that each of the still operating businesses or still standing and occupied homes and hotels had armed men and women out before them.

They came to a stop in front of the destination she'd given to the men, a small hole in the wall bar stuck between two businesses that looked as though they'd been gutted and abandoned near two decades earlier. It, too, appeared to still be in proper working order. Dismounting, she thanked the man with whom she'd ridden before moving to collect her son.

"I'll be wanting payment for services rendered at some point," the man told her. When she looked back to him with a look of horror, he was eying her shapely body in its old but tight fitting tee shirt and jeans. He looked up to her face and said, "I'm busy now, but, I'll catch up with you later."

She didn't respond, other than to show the man an expression of dread. He and his cohort sped off down the street leaving her standing there with her boy and their bags. She flinched at the sound of movement behind her and spun to find a ruggedly handsome man stepping out of the establishment's front door.

"You look like you could use some cold water and some shade," he said in a kind tone with a smile. He stepped over to assist with the bags, and when she indicated that that was fine, he picked one up and looked to the boy. "And I've got some home brewed root beer for you if you'd like it. You ever had root beer?"

The boy looked to his mother for guidance first, and when she nodded that it was okay to respond, he shook his head and said, "Grampa let me taste his beer. I didn't like it."

The man laughed. "Not the same thing. You'll like mine better. Come inside."

The pair followed him into the bar, which was otherwise empty save for a man passed out on a cot along one wall. The man said, "Don't mind him. I let him stay here in exchange for cleaning up in the morning."

"It's noon," she pointed out.

The man laughed again, clarifying, "Well, we don't all set our watched the same these days, do we?"

He set the bags down at the end of the bar and circled around it to fetch a glass of ice water and a unlabeled bottle of what he told the boy was boy's beer. He looked the woman over while she wasn't looking at him, then diverted his eyes when she looked back.

"I don't have any way to pay you," she said. She's waited until they got their cold liquids before she pointed it out obviously. Recalling what the biker had said about payment for services, she quickly said with a firm tone, "And I don't part my thighs or lips in turn."

The man behind the bar smiled, then laughed. "Well, then we're gonna get along well because I don't part mine either. Not for water and root beer anyway."

He laughed again, and it seemed to relax her a bit. He told her, "I lost my kitchen girl a couple of days ago. Interested? Cleaning, cooking, run some errands."

"In return for...?" she asked.

"Room and board," he told her. "There's an apartment upstairs, cross the hall from my own. Three meals a day, course, you have to cook it your self. Separate bed in the corner for the boy if you want one. What's your name, son?"

"Henry," the 5 year old said between sips at the bottle.

"This is my business, and I run it how I like it," the man said. He nodded toward the windows, beyond which a pair of armed bikers were chatting on the sidewalk. "I'm protected well because I, um, well, let's just say I provide the militia with some of their hardware needs. "You come to work for me and you don't have to worry about the Rollers. Holy Rollers they call themselves. They may look mean, but they're actually pretty good guys, for the most part."

He was being generous, of course. The Holy Rollers MC ruled the area with a tight and sometimes brutal grip. But if you were under their umbrella of protection and paid for that protection, you could go to bed at night or walk down the street at any hour without fear of being robbed, raped, or killed, and not necessarily in that order.

"I'm Shane," he said, extending his hand over the bar. When she took it, he told her, "Shane Flanagan."

"Yes, I know," Vanessa said, her lips spreading in a friendly smile. She took his hand, squeezing it softly as she responded with expectation, "I'm Vanessa. Vanessa Blackblood."

She waited for him to show a familiarity with her name, but all the man did was say, "It's nice to meet you, Vanessa. Blackblood? Native American, obviously. Are your people from one of the Nebraska tribes."

He was off to a cooler, putting together a couple of plates of food after Henry had whispered that he was hungry. Behind Shane, Vanessa's face filled with an expression of disappointment.

Shane had never heard her name before, which was in great contrast to Vanessa's familiarity with him. The bar owner's name had been mentioned so many times back on the farm in Iowa when her then-lover, Weston McMann, spoke fondly of one day getting back to his home town of North Platte, Nebraska.

Vanessa came quickly to an obvious thought incorrect conclusion: Wes hadn't made it home, either not yet or not at all. It had been almost 6 months since he'd left the family farm outside Fort Dodge, eager to get home to his parents and his little sister, Willa, who by now had reached her 21st birthday, if Vanessa recalled correctly.

She found herself having to divert her face when her eyes welled up with tears. Wes was dead. There was no other conclusion to be had. He wouldn't have left Vanessa, with whom he'd been building a life and been regularly and consistently enjoying the most incredible sex of his life to come home to his family, and then not make a bee line directly for North Platte.

Shane inquired about the job offer again, and Vanessa accepted the job whole heartedly. He showed them to the room and told her she could toss out anything she didn't want to make herself and her boy more comfortable. He told her of half a dozen businesses at which he maintained credit lines, adding, "If you need anything, clothes, bedding, hygiene products, girly stuff. I'll put together a list downstairs. Come get it, and we'll figure out a way for you to work it off. Not undressed, of course."

He laughed at his reassurance that he wasn't going to make Vanessa pay off any potential debts by wetting his cock with one of her holes. Once he was gone, Vanessa put Henry in the tub for a badly needed bath, then moved back out into the bedroom.

She broke down in tearful sobs.

 

[Wyld52771]

26 June 2048

After Shane got Vanessa and Henry settled, he went back down to the barroom. Going behind the bar, he poured a shot of Jameson, and then a glass of ice water.

He then walked over to the cot, and kicked it. "Finn...get your lazy arse up."

Finn moaned, and rolled over. Shane kicked the cot a second time, and said more loudly, "Finn...get up! Stop fucking around."

Finn let out a deep snore, and with a shrug and a grin, Share followed the same routine he'd had for the past three days...dumping the glass of ice cold water over Finn's head.

Finn sat up so fast he nearly fell out of his cot, sputtering and exclaiming loudly, "Bloody Hell!"

Shane laughed, and said, "I told you to lay off the booze last night, my friend," and handed the shot of Jameson to Finn. "Hair of the dog. Drink up."

Finn downed the shot in a quick swallow, and then shook the water out of his hair and wiped his wet face with his hand, and standing up unsteadily.

"It's the end of the world, you arsehole!" Finn replied, irritably, his Irish brogue very noticable in his indignation, "There's no better time at all to be shite-faced!"

Shane laughed again. Finn Lafferty was one of Shane's distant cousins, and really the only family Shane had left, since the pandemic had taken the rest of them. There was no notable family resemblance between the two of them.

The two Irishmen were practically polar opposites. While Shane was average height, trim and athletic, Finn topped out at a hulking six-foot-five, and had a huge beer gut. Shane was ruggedly handsome, with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, while Finn had a huge, unruly beard which covered a face only a mother could love.

Still, aside from Wes, Finn was the best friend he'd ever had...they'd grown up together back in Belfast. Finn had lived in Boston before things went bad, but when Shane's Grandfather Angus died, Finn came out to North Platte without delay to pay his respects, and had then decided to stay.

Shane had put him to work as a bouncer...Finn was insanely strong, and one of the best hand-to-hand fighters that Shane knew...and also had Finn keep the place clean, in return for as much drink as Finn could want and a roof over his head.

Finn had an inkling of what the family business had been, but Shane purposefully kept him in the dark as much as possible. When Finn was in his cups, he had a loose lip.

"We have company upstairs," Shane informed Finn, "a lass named Vanessa. She's gonna be our new kitchen girl. She'll do the cooking, and help ya out keeping the place tidy. Yer to be keepin yer hands off her. I won't have another girl running off because of you."

Finn laughed, and said, "Don't worry, cousin...I'll treat her as if she were my own sister."

Shane shook his head, "No...you'll be treating her like the Holy Virgin Mary...you forget, that I know ya fucked your sister, ya damn fool."

Finn snorted in amusement, "Aye...well, that was not my fault...she's the one who started suckin me off when I was sleepin."

Shane shook his head in amusement, and continued, "She's got a wee one with her...little lad named Henry. You may want to be keeping the swearing and such to a minimum when he's around."

Finn grinned and said, "No teaching the lad to speak like we did when we were young...noted."

"I'll be going downstairs for awhile to get some bookkeeping and other chores done. Try not to disturb me unless it's an emergency."

Finn saluted,and then walked behind the bar, pouring himself another shot.

"And try not to drink up all my damn profits!" Shane called out over his shoulder, as head headed downstairs.

 

[Alice2015]

(OOC: Be aware that the link below is an erotic gif. Open without prying eyes over your shoulder. Also, take it in context. She's not really dancing in the RP as she is in the gif.)


After she recovered from her sobs, Vanessa returned to the bathroom to check on Henry. She was amazed at how clean the water appeared, or at least had appeared before she put her filthy son down into it. She found a bar of home made soap and set forth to scrubbing him clean, which he didn't enjoy nearly as much as splashing his mother.

After she'd dried him and put him in his last set of clean clothes, Vanessa bathed as well. She didn't drain the dirty water from the tub. Clean, safe water had been a luxury in Iowa, where industrial pollution had exploded across the landscape after the Collapse.

Of course, deep into the collapse and for years afterward, industry failed across the country. One might have thought that would make the pollution situation better, but it hadn't. All of those tailings ponds and large metal tanks that had once been filled with pollutants and byproducts were abandoned, and many of them simply leaked into the environment until empty.

Where she'd grown up near Fort Dodge, the culprit had been agriculture chemicals. Millions upon millions of tons of the stuff had spilled onto the ground and into the water table. It was the reason she'd left Iowa. Well. Part of the reason. Wes had been the other part, of course.

Vanessa pulled the plug to drain the tub, then put it back in before taking the luxury of rinsing the dirty, soapy water from her with clean water. When she stood to exit the tub, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Turning right, then left, then smiling, Vanessa couldn't believe how good she looked after having lived in the crumbling world and popped out a child. She needed to shave down yonder again, something she hadn't done since leaving Iowa, but other than that she couldn't help but think that she was holding up pretty good.

"Get your clothes, Henry, we're going to wash them," Vanessa called out to her son as she slipped back into just her bra and panties. When he asked which clothes, she laughed and answered, "If you aren't wearing it, bring it!"

She added more hot water to the tub and began lathering up several of the more absorbent clothing items using the bar of soap. She probably should have done downstairs to ask her new landlord and boss if he had laundry soap or actual laundry facilities, but she was still feeling a bit overwhelmed by her new situation and, to be honest, a bit vulnerable.

North Platte was under the armed control of what her father would have called outlaw bikers. Vanessa had seen a lot of militia-related activity in and near the bigger cities during her life. Many of the smaller towns were often controlled by some local strongman who congregated a force of gunmen (and gunwomen) around him (or her, though, that was uncommon).

The Blackblood Family farm had never been within the realm of one of these would be Nobles, though. Truthfully, if some gun toting thugs of one of these strongmen ever tried to come onto the farm, her father would have shot them all on sight anyway.

He'd very nearly shot Wes when he'd arrived at the ranch. Luckily, that had worked out, for her parent's labor needs and for Vanessa's physical and emotional needs. Wes had filled a void in her life that had been hurting her for a long time. Vanessa should have handled it better, of course. How many times as she'd been erupting in orgasm had she accidentally called out her dead husband's name?

"I'm hungry!" Henry announced as Vanessa was nearing the end of her laundry.

She told him to hang on a bit more as she finished wringing out and hanging the wet clothing on the shower curtain rod and even on the curtain rods in the bedroom. Vanessa donned a pair of cut off white jean shorts and an alpaca fiber sweater she'd hand knitted herself year ago, then took Henry by the hands and said, "Let's eat."

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Downstairs, Henry's eyes were as big as saucers as he looked almost straight up at Finn, who was standing akimbo and looking straight down at him. The 5 year old asked with awe, "Are you a giant?"

Vanessa was behind the bar with Shane as he both showed her some of the food and drink options available for her and her son and and talked about the duties she might be asked to perform in her new job. She looked out over the counter to her boy and chastised only half seriously, "Henry! Leave that man alone or he might step on you and squish you."

She shot Finn a smile and a wink, then laughed as Henry ducked his head and shot between the tall man's slightly parted legs. The boy turned, repeated his duck and run, and began singing, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down..."

Vanessa could only laugh and shrug to Finn. She told him, "If you can find a hook to hang him from..."

She returned to paying attention to her new boss, and as she did she got a much better up close and personal look at his face and into his eyes. As he explained the bar's operation and her new part in it, she began to realize how intelligent and organized and, most importantly, benevolent he was. Shane didn't know her for Eve, and yet he was giving her access to a wealth of food, drink, other supplies, and even the cash drawer, all of which she could pack up in a borrowed vehicle and scream off into the sunrise with while he and the giant slept off a night of drinking.

"Thank you," she interrupted right in the middle of an explanation of how the beer taps worked. When he stopped to contemplate her words, she smiled and said with a sincere tone, "Thank you. You can't know how much this means to me. To me and my son. You won't be sorry. I promise you that."

 

[Wyld52771]

"Ye needn't be thanking me, lass," Shane said to Vanessa, smiling. "Ye needed a place to sleep, and I needed someone to cook, and watch over my drunken giant of a cousin over there to make sure I still have enough drink for my paying customers. As I see it, as long as you're willing to put in the work, we're square."

They both looked over as Finn gave out a booming laugh, as Henry was running figure eights around and through Finn's legs and laughing playfully.

"Looks like those two are becoming fast friends," Shane remarked, grinning. He poured two glasses of root beer, and handed one to Vanessa. "On the house fer employees," he said, giving her a playful wink and then turning and laughing that the sight of his huge cousin trying to catch Henry..

 

[Alice2015]

"Well, I thank you anyway," Vanessa told Shane about all he had to offer her.

"Looks like those two are becoming fast friends," Shane said about Henry and Finn.

Vanessa laughed, and without really thinking about what she was saying began, "Yeah, my son wasn't always like this with strangers, but after..."

She let the thought fade, unable to even mention the name Wes. It would have been ironic if she had, of course, seeing how Weston McCann and Shane Flanagan had been friends longer than Vanessa herself had been alive. This decision not to speak of Wes would have a dramatic effect on Vanessa's near future, though, there was no way that she could know that now.

"You mentioned some stores where I could get some things?" she asked meekly, not wanting to sound like a money grabber. But Shane set her up with the names and locations of some retailers with whom he had connections. "I'll go after I help you with the lunch crowd."

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Vanessa and Henry returned to Flanagan's Pub just before sundown, carrying two bags filled with purchases. She'd been amazed at what she'd been able to find. Much of it was locally made, like the moisturizing soaps and scented shampoos, but she'd also found paper, pens, crayons, and coloring books though, while mostly from the 2020s and 2030s, were still new and for the most part still in original wrappers.

Finn set Henry up with a little table and chair on the band stage, up high enough that Vanessa could keep an eye on him while she worked. She hopped right into cooking and cleaning and serving the evening crowd. There were people here from every walk of life: farmers, ranchers, fabricators, biker-gunmen, automotive mechanics, bakers, tattoo artists, and not at all surprisingly whores.

Vanessa was kept busy, but she often peeked over at or went to speak to her son to ensure he was okay. Every so often, someone would stop by to talk to Henry. Vanessa worried about some of the hard looking characters, but Finn passed by her at one point and reassure her that Henry was as safe here as he had been in her womb. She wasn't sure how she felt about the giant of a man talking about her womanhood, but she understood what he meant.

Eventually, though, the raucous nature of the crowd and the late hour was simply no longer appropriate for Henry. Some how Vanessa learned that Henry now had a nanny of all things. Rebecca took the boy upstairs, got him into his bath and into his new pajamas and then into bed after a fairy tale from Ireland.

Vanessa simply couldn't believe this twist her life had taken. She'd come here looking for Wes, who she incorrectly believed she would never see again, only to find Shane, who simultaneously reminded her of Wes and yet didn't. The two men had the same big heart and benevolence, and yet their personalities and physical appearances set them miles apart from one another.

She'd known the bar owner just barely more than half a day, and yet, just as she had with Wes, Vanessa knew that she could very easily fall in love with Shane Flanagan.

Hell, she was already very much in lust with the man.

 

[Wyld52771]

"Last call!" Shane hollered, repeating, "Last call, ye bunch of degenerates! I don't give a shite if ye don't go home, but ye can't stay here! Fuck off and get out!"

Finn did his regular evening duty of ushering the regular drunkards out the door, and then tossing the ones who'd already passed out, into the street.

Once the door was shut and locked for the evening, Finn walked over to the bar. Surprisingly, he was only slightly drunk. Shane looked at Finn unquestioningly, and Finn explained, "I promised the lad I would teach him some boxing moves in the morning. Never to young to learn to defend yerself. Can't do that if I'm hung over, now can I?"

Shane chuckled, and replied, "Nay...ye surely can't. Go get some sleep...I'll finish up."

Finn yawned hugely and went to his cot, and before long, snores could be heard from that direction.

Shane turned and saw Vanessa had been standing there, watching the whole exchange. He shook his head and chuckled. " I never thought I'd see the day...I think yer little lad is a good influence on Finn. He's a great kid, Henry is...Ye've done a fine job of raising him.

 

[Alice2015]

Friday, 26 June 2048:

Vanessa found it so odd that this town that had been so devastated by so many tragedies and had undergone so many changes in its people and its economy still operated very much as it might have 20 or 40 or 60 years ago.

Last call on a Friday night, right at 2, really?

There were no longer any laws in place regarding such things as an evening (or early morning) ceasing of the serving of alcohol. Hell, there weren't an law agencies to enforce such laws if they existed. And yet, here Shane was telling everyone to Fuck off and get out!

Vanessa could help but smile and appreciate that the man was trying to maintain at least one aspect of the civilization that was now long gone.

Or ... was he simply exhausted and wanting these people, once again, to Fuck off and get out!

She was carrying a tray of dirty dishes back to the kitchen when she heard the conversation about boxing lessons. She hesitated at the door, contemplating the idea of having the Jolly Green Giant teaching her tiny little son how to throw and/or block punches. Oh, she wasn't afraid of Henry learning bad, aggressive behavior or anything like that. She was just afraid of the huge man forgetting just how powerful a man he was and leaving the 5 year old crying after he accidentally popped him too roughly on top of the head

"I never thought I'd see the day," he began explaining about Finn and Henry when he turned and found Vanessa standing behind him. She listened to her new boss and felt a sense of pride. He added, "Ye've done a fine job of raising him.

"Thank you, Shane, I appreciate that," Vanessa told him before heading off to gather up more mugs, shot glasses, and empty bottles. "My parents were very helpful after I lost my husband."

Vanessa had told Shane earlier in the day that she'd lost her husband to the pandemic before this latest one. Will they ever stop hurting us? she'd asked herself an innumerable times. She'd also nearly mentioned Wes by name but didn't. She had concluded, incorrectly of course, that Wes was dead or simply never coming back to North Platte. There was no reason to tell Shane that. Why hurt the man with such horrific information.

They chatted about his little town and about Vanessa's life on the farm while they finished cleaning, and when there wasn't anything left to do that couldn't be put off until tomorrow, she headed upstairs. Rebecca was still there, curled up in a ball on the little couch reading a book. Vanessa thanked her and negotiated a deal for the 19 year old to be her regular nanny.

"Here, take this," Vanessa said, pressing her tips for the night into the girl's palm. "Let me know if that's not enough, and we'll--"

"This is too much!" the teen said in shock. Rebecca thrusted it back while saying, "You worked hard for this."

Vanessa laughed as she refused the return and forced the girl to pocket the whole amount. "Girl, I earned my room, board, and wages by working hard. That I earned by looking good in a skimpy tee shirt and tight shorts."

The pair laughed and made some derogatory observations about men and their hungers before Rebecca thanked her new boss and finally headed out. Venessa took a shower to get the smell of alcohol and smoke out of her hair and off her skin, then slipped into a robe she'd bought at a second hand store called the Rummage Ranger.

Vanessa returned to the bedroom when she heard feet in the hall and a moment later a door opening, then closing. She stood there for the longest time, contemplating her current situation. Looking to Henry sleeping in the bed they would share until they got one just for him and knowing that he could sleep through an atomic explosion without waking, she slipped quietly into and down the hall to the door she knew had just been disturbed.

"Shane," she said softly after tapping softly on it. She didn't hear a response, but she knew he was in there. She tapped again, opened the door a bit, said his name once more, and entered. He looked surprised when he emerged from the bathroom. She smiled, gave him a tentative wave, and said, "Sorry, I knocked."

Vanessa closed the door behind her softly, explained that her son was out like a hibernating bear, then studied the man a moment. Then, opening her robe and dropping it to gather about her feet, Vanessa stood naked before her boss, her body newly shaved from her armpits to her ankles.

"Washing dishes and serving drinks isn't enough to repay you for what you're doing for Henry and me," she explained. She took a step closer before stopping and finishing simply, "So, I thought maybe..."

 

[Wyld52771]

Before the world went down it's current path of self-destruction, if anyone would have ever told Shane Flanagan that it would take the end of the world to make him truly happy, he would have thought them a damn fool.

Yet, that was exactly what happened.

It'd been a long road to get here. Back in Belfast, the only real friend he had was his cousin Finn, who even then was an unusually big boy. Shane had been small for his age, but due to his upbringing, was also the one people were more afraid of. Being Angus Flanagan's grandson had been a blessing and a curse...no one fucked with him, but no one was every friendly to him either, with the exception of Finn. The Flanagan family motto was "If you fuck with a Flanagan, you'll end up doubly fucked... but only once." Which meant that you'd be dead before a second chance to fuck with them would ever occur.

Angus Flanagan was a scary individual...he had been an IRA (Irish Republican Army) assassin, and had plotted and planned numerous terrorist bombings. There were jokes..not when Angus was around, of course...that the drink known as the "Irish Car Bomb" could have just as easily been named the "Angus Flanagan" considering how many of these he'd been involved in orchestrating.

It was even speculated that Angus may have had a hand in the Hyde Park nail bombing that'd occurred in London back in 1982...although, there was no proof he was involved.

His father Connor had also been involved in the IRA, shortly before their militant activities stopped in 2015. Back then, Connor had been married to Mary, his half-brother Sean's mother, who'd died of cancer.

Shane came from his father's second marriage...his mother's name was Fiona. Sean was four years older than Shane...he was a bit of a bully, but for the most part, they got on okay, as long as they stayed out of each other's way.

Shane didn't have a normal childhood. While most children were out in the street playing, Angus had he and Sean learning how to shoot both handguns and rifles...teaching them boxing...teaching them how to make a proper pipe bomb or nail bomb without blowing yourself up. This was the Flanagan version of childhood.

Sean wasn't smart enough to question why they weren't able to be like other children, but Shane always wondered why, and was very resentful about it....he hated that he couldn't just be normal.

When Shane was ten, he was told they'd be moving to the US. At the time, he had no clue why, but later learned that Angus was settling up a business venture. He had bought a bar in a place called North Platte, Nebraska...and was using it as a front to conduct illegal arms deals.

His first day of school Angus told him to find the biggest, toughest kid on the playground, and beat the hell out of him...so none of the others would get it in their minds to mess with him. There was a big kid named Derek, who after hearing Shane talk, started making fun of him, and calling him "Lucky Charms" after the mascot on the kid's cereal. He became Shane's target. He was about to go beat the smartass within an inch of his life, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Don't bother. Derek's not worth a detention...he's a moron." Shane turned around, and saw a fat kid standing there. The kid continued, ""We're all fifth graders, but the other day, when he thought no one was looking, I saw Derek eating paste like some of the kids used to in kindergarten."

Shane couldn't help himself...he burst out laughing, and the fat kid joined him. And that was the beginning of his friendship with Wes McCann.

It had 't been easy maintaining the friendship...his family found it odd that Shane would want to hang out with him. Sean started teasing Shane, and making jokes he was queer for Wes and calling him a pansy...until Shane had enough, turned unexpectedly and punched Sean hard in the nose, bloodying it and knocking him down.

"Guess ye just got her nose bloodied by a pansy, eh Sean?" Shane had mocked angrily. ""What does that make you?"

"Let him be friends with who he likes," his mother Fiona had finally stated, on one of those rare occasions where she stood up for Shane and was heard over the menfolk in the family, "There's no harm in it."

"Fine," Angus agreed, "Maybe it'll help him fit in." He looked at Shane and said, "but be warned, lad...keep yer lips sealed shut about our affairs here. I don't want to add a dead fatboy on my tally when I confess my crimes to St. Peter when I pass to the next world."

So, Shane had kept the secret, fearing for his friend's life if he were ever to tell.

The two of them stayed friends all through middle school and high school, Shane learning quite a lot about Wes. Aside from being a bit naive and a hopeless romantic when it came to girls, Wes was one of the few truly "good" people that he'd ever known...he was kind and generally cared about people, and was always looking to help others.

This had it's downside at times...he had a bit of what Shane liked to call a "White Knight" complex, jumping in to help with no thought of consequence to himself. There was the time when they were seniors in high school, where they walked into the bathroom and found Derek sticking a freshman's head in the toilet. Wes jumped in, and ended up getting punched in the face and knocked to the floor. That might have been the end of it, if Derek hadn't looked at Shane and said, cockily, "You want some too, Lucky Charms?"

"Aye," Shane replied grinning, "I think I do."

It had taken all of thirty seconds before Shane had helped Wes walk out of the bathroom, leaving Derek bleeding and unconscious on the floor

After high school, when Wes left for art college, Shane felt like his moral compass went with him.

When the next pandemic roared through North Platte, it wiped out his whole family...but for some reason, he was spared. For the first time, Shane was free to do as he chose...all he really wanted, was to run the bar the way he'd always thought it should be done.

Finn joined him at the bar, Wes's sister Willa had worked there for awhile...she'd been annoying when younger, but now, having grown into her women's body, Shane was quite attracted to her, and had made his interest known. Unfortunately, Willa didn't stay....she had heard of a safe place, and wanted to get away after her parents died. Shane couldn't follow...he had responsibilities here.

***********

And now, here was Vanessa, standing in all her nude glory, offering herself to him.

He walked close to her, and knelt before her, her sex eye level with him, as he grabbed the robe, and gently laid it back upon her shoulders.

"Ye owe me nothing at all," he said, "and I am not one to be sharing my bed with someone who is feeling the need to offer it out of obligation."

He paused, looking at her. Vanessa was beautiful, standing there with her robe draped over her shoulders, open in front, still revealing her obvious sexual charms.

"Now, if ye were wanting to share my bed, due to wanting to be there, and a wanting fer me, that would be another thing entirely."

He looked questioningly at her, and asked pointedly, "So, which is it, lass?"

 

[Alice2015]

As Shane began walking her direction, Vanessa felt a shiver run up her spine and a moment later her entire body erupted in goose flesh. She wriggled a little bit to the uncomfortable feeling but tried to hide it. She believed it was because of the suddenly chill of being so exposed, but she feared the man before her would think it was because she was uncomfortable and reluctant about what she was now doing in his room.

Honestly, she was both, uncomfortable and reluctant. Vanessa had never given herself to a man she barely knew in her life. Wes had been on the Blackblood farm almost a month before Vanessa held a hand out to him and invited her to lay between her thighs. Her husband had courted her for almost two years before she let him slip a finger inside her, and even then it took him another three months before his cock repeated the move.

Those were the only men who'd ever fucked her: Quincy and Wes. It was rather ironic, Vanessa would realize later, that she'd never told Wes that Quincy was her only lover before him, and now as she was offering herself to Shane, he didn't know that her only other lover after her husband had been Shane's best friend.

"Ye owe me nothing at all," her boss said, though, "and I am not one to be sharing my bed with someone who is feeling the need to offer it out of obligation."

Vanessa was a bit too shocked to be relieved to be honest. She offered her arms as he helped her don her robe once more, but otherwise simply stood there motionless, unsure of what to do now. Should she feel thankful that she didn't have to have sex with this man she'd known for less than two days? Or should she feel ridiculous for having been rejected by him after shedding her clothing and showing him a body that she knew was relatively nice to look at, let alone touch, fondle, and fuck?

"Now, if ye were wanting to share my bed, due to wanting to be there, and a wanting fer me, that would be another thing entirely."

Vanessa found herself staring solidly into Shane's eyes. That surprised her as well. Anytime she'd found herself embarrassed or confused or questioning with Wes, she'd found herself diverting her eyes and often blushing, which considering her dark skin color wasn't always that noticeable. And yet she was looking the man directly in the eye here an now, as it thinking she was going to see something in his eyes that would both explain how he could turn her down and why she was so conflicted about her feelings of that rejection.

"So, which is it, lass?"

Finally, Vanessa had to break the lock of their eyes, looking down to the floor, then to the bed on which she'd expected to already be on her back. She cleared her throat lightly...

...then slowly pulled the ties of the robe to the front of her and began binding them together.

"I'm sorry, Shane," she told him softly. "I, I'm--"

She wasn't sure how to explain what he should know or even if he needed to know it. Vanessa backed up a partial step, then told him, "I should get back to my son. If he wakes..."

He wouldn't, of course, but it was a good excuse to end this awkward moment. But before she left she moved back close to Shane and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. She only said, "Thank you."

And then she turned and was gone.

 

[Wyld52771]

After Vanessa left his room, Shane realized he'd been holding his breath since after she'd kissed him, and it came out in a whoosh of air.

It had taken an extreme act of willpower for him to decline her offer of sex. She was beautiful, had an amazing body, and had been willing, due to her gratitude.

He wasn't a hopeless romantic, like his long lost friend Wes had always been. He'd enjoyed casual sex with multiple partners plenty of times before. In the past, he'd also had previously had no problem trading services he'd offered for sexual favors. Hell, when he was a senior in high school, he'd even fucked his young and sexy mid-twenties spanish teacher on top of her desk in the classroom after hours, all throughout his last semester, earning him the only A he'd ever received that whole year, because, for the most part, he never bothered coming to class because his family needed him at the bar.

However, since the poisonous influence of Angus Flanagan had been removed since his passing, Shane was truly trying to be a better person. To be more like his long absent friend. To do the right thing, for the sake of it being right.

To have fucked Vanessa because she was grateful to have a roof overhead and a safe place for she and her son to sleep...it was not something Wes would have done. And so, he wouldn't do so either.

He stripped off his clothing, slid underneath the sheets, and switched off the lamp. It was a long time before Shane fell asleep, however...his mind kept picturing Vanessa's nude body, causing unbidden fantasies of her laying here with him and doing those things she'd offered.

************

Shane came downstairs a bit later than normal due to his difficulty sleeping the night before. By the time he'd entered the barroom, Finn and Henry were already sitting at the bar, eating breakfast. The smell of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee made his stomach growl...it was obvious that Vanessa had been busy in the kitchen.

Finn greeted him, "Top of the mornin' to ye, cousin! If it hadn't been for the lad here keepin me busy," he said glancing at Henry, "I may have repaid ye fer the last three mornin' wake up call ye gave me!"

Shane walked over and tousled Henry's hair and said, "Well...then I be owing ye my thanks, lad, fer keepin' meself dry and unhurried."

Henry smiled at Shane and said, "Finn wanted to pour water on you, but I said that wasn't nice, because you were tired."

"And ye're definitely correct. Henry," Shane replied, laughing, "Finn should listen to you at all times...perhaps he'd stay dry as well."

Finn snorted in mock indignation, and all three of them laughed together. It was then that Vanessa came out of the kitchen, placing a plate of wonderful smelling food and a cup of coffee before Shane.

"Good mornin' and thanks to ye, Vanessa," Shane said, holding eye contact with her. "This looks wonderful. You've been workin' up a storm, it seems. Care to take a break and join us?"

"Finn's gonna teach me how to fight today, momma!" Henry exclaimed.

Finn clarified, "Nay, lad...I'll be teaching ye ways to protect yerself and those ye care for...not how to be pickin' fights. That there is yer first lesson...the best way to win a fight, is to avoid it if ye can. But if ye can't avoid it, then what I show ye will help."

The big man and the small child spoke back and forth, while Shane and Vanessa shared self-conscious gazes with each other over their food.

Finn noticed the somewhat uncomfortable silence between the two other adults in the room, and said to Henry, "Now that ye've had a good breakfast, let's be going outside fer a bit, lad...and I'll show ye a thing or two."

Henry reached up and took Finn's huge pointer finger, grasping it in his own small hand and practically dragging Finn towards the door, leaving Shane and Vanessa alone, the bar between them...

 

[Alice2015]

Vanessa called out a warning to her son as he dragged the giant toward the door, "Be sure not to hurt Finn, honey."

Henry only laughed as the two exited out the front of the bar. Vanessa looked to Shane and asked with a more serious tone, "He's safe out there, right? I mean, yesterday, when we came into town, I saw an awful lot of guns. The bikers who gave us a ride into town, they're friends of yours, I assume. Or, do you pay them for protection?"

Vanessa listened to Shane's response, not knowing what to expect. When he was done, a moment of silence passed between them before she reluctantly turned to what she knew they were thinking. "About last night. I, um. Thank you for understanding, Shane. I, I don't, I don't do that often."

She laughed with obvious embarrassment, then corrected, "Actually, I've never done that before. I, uh. I guess, I guess I was just feeling as though you'd given me, were still giving me, me and Henry, more than I could possibly compensate you for down here in the kitchen. But, thank you, for letting me save my dignity."

Vanessa smiled wide, then laughed again. "Oh, God, that came out wrong. I didn't mean to imply that I wouldn't want to sleep with you. My God, Shane, you're every thing a woman would want in a man. It's just, well, I mean..."

She didn't honestly know what she meant. She'd thought about Shane after leaving his room, thought about him a lot. And just like him, Vanessa had laid there in bed staring at the cracking, dangling paint on the ceiling for the longest time thinking about what she'd just done.

Finally unable to find slumber, she'd gotten out of bed and gone to the bathroom to masturbate. She drove herself to a quick though not entirely satisfying orgasm imagining Shane between her thighs. And no sooner had she'd recuperated enough to wash up and return to her bed, Wes had filled Vanessa's mind, leaving her conflicted as, spent, she finally slipped away to unconsciousness.

"I should get back to the kitchen," she told him, patting his hand as she turned away. But before leaving him, she paused a moment to give him a devilish smirk. "I, um. I want you to promise me, though. If ever I come to your room and drop my robe, I don't want you to talk me out of it."

She gave Shane a wink and went to work preparing for opening and the day's early lunch crowd.

 

[Wyld52771]

When Vanessa ask Shane about Henry's safety out and about the town, he replied, "I doubt they'll go far...and as long as he's with Finn, you'll have no worries."

Aside from the fact that they knew that Finn worked for Shane and weren't likely to antagonize their main sources of alcohol and firepower, truthfully, most of the bikers were afraid of Finn. A previous altercation between Finn and the MC had taught them this.

One of their toughest and most aggressive had foolishly sought out a fight with Finn once...trying to prove something. Finn tried to avoid the fight...he was slow to anger, and more often then not, was able to avoid violence...but that man had kept at him, pressing the issue, until Finn got mad. He threw a punch at Finn...and Finn had caught his fist in his own huge hand, and promptly squeezed until every bone in the man's hand was broken.

With the other hand, the man had pulled a knife and stabbed Finn. Finn's reaction was to pull the man's switchblade out of his abdomen, drop it to the floor, and then punch him in the face. One punch. He'd practically knocked the man's jaw clean off, and fractured the man's skull as well. With one punch. The man had later died...which was likely a blessing.

After that, word had went out to the local MC that it was best to leave sleeping giants be. Finn and Henry would have no problems with them, Shane was sure.

Vanessa went on to speak of what had happened the previous night, and Shane dismissed the issue, chuckling. "There's no need to feel uncomfortable. Done is done. We'll move forward, and call it a...well, a minor slip in judgment on both our parts."

He couldn't help but smile when she smirked and him and winked playfully, saying, I um. I want you to promise me, though. If I ever come to your room and drop my robe. I don't want you to talk me out of it."

He grinned and returned her wink, replying, "Believe me, lass, you won't be havin' any worries on that account. I'll make that mistake but once. It was hard enough to see ye go and leave first time."

He thought he detected a blush on her face as she went back to the kitchen, and couldn't help but smile to himself as he went back to his work.

 

[Wyld52771]

Outside with Henry, Finn held up his large hands, while the boy punched his palms. "One, two," the large man said, and the boy delivered a punch in turn to each hand. "One, two," he repeated, and the boy did it again. Finn smiled.

Finn had always wanted a wife...imagined having a family, and a boy like Henry for a son. Alas, thus far in his life, that hadn't been in the cards for him...and he had his doubts it ever would be.

By the time he'd been twelve, Finn had been larger than most full grown men...and when he'd reached his full growth, he'd been truly imposing. His large size and hulking build had always intimidated those around him. Even his own family. His parents never gave him much in the way of caring or nurturing. He'd mostly been on his own, for as long as he could remember...never having much in the way of companionship. Especially women. Most acted like they were afraid of him.

Add to that, that he wasn't the most handsome man...he'd heard the word "homely" to describe him for most of his life...and it was not hard to understand why he'd never sired a child. He barely knew how to act around women...with anyone he'd ever been attracted to, he'd end up being either awkward with them at best, or, given his rough upbringing, inappropriate, at worst.

Oh, he'd had sex...but not with anyone who'd ever cared for him. There'd always been money involved...whores and prostitutes. Even they seemed ready to run at any moment, especially when seeing the size of his penis. His cock was proportional to his large size...he was almost eleven inches when fully erect and thick enough to make even the most seasoned whore wonder if she'd be able to take it without pain.

All his life, he'd heard the jibes and jeers, from both men and women, when they thought he couldn't hear. Freak. Ogre. Frankenstein. Sasquatch. Gorilla. Giant. Very few people treated him like a person. At best, people looked him as a weapon or wanted him around as a scare tactic...a bodyguard or enforcer. It was what he was good at, but really, it had been the only option he'd ever been given.

He'd turned to drink as a way to dull the pain he felt...a way to cope with the loneliness and isolation he felt...and the fact that he'd probably be alone for the rest of his life, no partner to share it with. He had never drank so much where he'd gotten out of control, however. Even he looked at his own size as a weapon, and worried if he drank haphazardly, he'd unintentionally hurt someone who didn't deserve it...but he had to admit, he had a hard time going without the booze, anymore.

Growing up, Shane had been one of the only ones who'd ever treated him decently, and had always defended him from those who'd ridiculed him behind his back. They were cousins, and the same age, but he felt like Shane was like a big brother to him, and he'd do anything for him. He'd die for Shane.

Looking down at the little boy before him, he realized he'd already become attached to the lad, as well as his mother. Children were actually the only ones who'd ever been unconditionally kind to him, once they got past the awe of seeing him for the first time. Their innocence made them more accepting. Henry's mother Vanessa had surprised him...once getting over his appearance, she'd also been accepting of him. He'd appreciated that.

He was at first, attracted to Vanessa as well, but once he saw the way she looked at Shane, he'd quickly dismissed her as an option for him romantically. Finn was actually very perceptive of the things going around him, and he had no doubts that before too long, Shane and Vanessa would be bedding one another. He was happy for Shane...after all the man had been through with his fucked up family, he deserved happiness...but again, Finn wished he could find someone who looked at him the way Vanessa looked at his cousin. Foolish flights of fancy, he knew.

At least there was the boy....he'd teach him, protect him, and care for him, like he would if he was his own son, while he and Vanessa were with them at the pub. It might be the closest he'd get to ever get to being a father...at least he could pretend.

 

[Alice2015]

(Warning: Open pic link below without prying eyes behind you.)


The next couple of weeks flew by quickly as Vanessa fell into a new routine of her new life. She hadn't intended to stay in North Platte, of course. She'd thought that once locating Wes and his family, should fate permit them to still be alive and well, that she could talk him to come back to Iowa again and wrestle control of the ranch back from the militia thugs who'd murdered her parents and very nearly caught her and Henry as they slipped away.

There was no way of knowing what they might have done to or with her boy, but Vanessa had known without doubt what they would have done with hers.

Vanessa rose every morning at 5am, put on coffee and breakfast for Shane and Finn, fed Henry when he awoke an hour or so later, and got him dressed for his morning exercise with the giant who had turned out to be the best friend her son had ever had.

She spent most of the morning cooking and baking, making an array of goods that hadn't previously been available at Flanagan's. She helped with the shopping after the midday lunch crowd, and returned to cooking, serving, and cleaning until late afternoon.

Rebecca had turned out to be more than just a nanny, too. She filled in behind the bar when Vanessa needed a day off to be with Henry, and she performed a great many of the domestic tasks that Vanessa simply didn't have time for because of her work in the pub.

Recently, Vanessa had also learned just how intelligent and learned Rebecca was, particularly in the current state of the world around her. Shane had an in with the North Platte Elementary School or with one its teachers or the principal or whomever; Vanessa wasn't sure of the connection and didn't ask. After getting a sit down with the establishment's administration, Vanessa landed Rebecca a gig as a 3 day a week K-3 teacher.

Henry could read and write at nearly his 5 year old level, but he had never been in an actual school before. Vanessa had been concerned that her son wouldn't want to be away from her for hours on end, something he'd never done in all of his life.
Fortunately, the four room building was just two blocks from the bar, which meant that after Henry's giant escorted him to school in the morning, Vanessa could walk over there at lunch and, if Rebecca was busy, at day's end to bring him home to the pub building.

Vanessa had also found a young beauty named Becky who, even more so than the half-breed Vanessa, was a descendant of this continent's original inhabitants. She'd reluctantly taken to whoring herself to the Holy Rollers to feed herself and her toddler. But Vanessa convinced Shane to take the girl on as the night time barmaid and custodian, and just yesterday Becky had moved into the tiny one window room across the hall, which until now had been storage space for junk.

Becky's inherent, erotic beauty, enhanced by tight fitting and more often than not scanty, thin-fabric clothes increased the nightly patronage of Flanagan's enough to be noticed. Her history of parting her thighs or opening her mouth to men who would pay initially brought in men who were hoping to buy more than beer and deep fried pork sticks. But it was made very clear to those who inquired that that part of Becky's life was done and over.

But that didn't mean that there wasn't sex in the future for lovely, sexy Becky. For reasons that baffled everyone but Vanessa, the dark skinned, black haired beauty had taken an interest in Henry's self defense instructor. It had begun as just a polite smile from across the room, became an exchange of friendly greetings upon Becky's arrival and departure each day, and more recently had become lengthy conversations in between patrons in which the Indigenous American would quiz the displaced Irishman about life in the Old Country.

Becky liked everything about Finn with the exception of one flaw. She hadn't said anything to him about it thus far, but tonight was going to be different. The crowd was light, and there wasn't too much need for the big man's clear headed ability to deal with trouble makers. So, not realizing Becky's issue with Finn, Vanessa poured the man a large tankard of home brew and set it before him before heading off to other patrons.

Behind her, Becky casually stepped up close to Finn, met his gaze, placed her hand upon his wrist as he was preparing to lift the quart-plus sized glass, and told him with a meaningful tone, "Lips that touch alcohol than never touch mine."

She gave Finn a moment to understand that she was telling him if he drank, he'd never kiss her. Then she licked her lips seductively and told him, "And I don't mean these lips."

And with that she removed her hand from his arm, smiled, and returned to her work serving alcohol.

 

[Wyld52771]

The past few weeks had been interesting to say the least. The pub had been raking in business and profits, both to the improved quality of the food, and service.

Shane hadn't had much time on anything else but work, since things had gotten so hectic, but he liked the fact that the business that had once only been a front for criminal activity, was now a respectable establishment.

Sure, there was the occasional fight, which he and Finn quickly put a stop to, but other than that, things had been pretty great. He'd go to bed each night tired, but it was a good tired of a hard days' work done well.

He'd also spent more time with Vanessa, and she had come up with a bunch of ideas that had really helped out. Adding an extra bartender, for one, had helped increase liquor sales. It didn't hurt that Becky was easy on the eyes...she drew customers like a moth to a flame.

Another reason why he was glad for Becky's presence is the effect it had on Finn. He had never seen Finn sober this long. Between Henry in the day, and Becky's
influence on Finn at night, Finn's drinking had practically stopped. He wasn't yet sure if anything had been going on between his cousin and the new bartender, but he hoped that it would. Shane knew Finn since they were toddlers, and knew that the crux of Finn's boozing had always been sadness and loneliness.

**********

Finn would have agreed...the past few weeks had been hectic. A lot had gone on...and something unexpected had happened as well. Vanessa had hired Becky. She was beautiful and exotic, and Finn's mouth went dry whenever she was near. Stranger yet, Becky actually seemed to enjoy talking with him. She didn't act afraid. She didn't act intimidated. In fact, for the first time in his twenty-eight years on this earth, he thought a woman might actually be flirting with him.

He had no clue why...his size, homely face, large belly, his awkwardness or inappropriate comments...these weren't typical turn ons, for any woman, much less one like Becky. She could have any man she like with but one come hither look and a curl of her finger...but yet, for some reason, she was settling for spending time with him. And settling was what it had to be...he couldn't for the life of him figure out what she saw in him, that every other woman his whole life had not. Still, he was enjoying it...overthinking things could only hurt. He'd just enjoy it while it lasted, until some pretty boy swept her off her feet and out of his life.

 

[Alice2015]

Vanessa retired for the night, going upstairs to relieve Rebecca who was doing her Nanny thing with Henry. The exhausted mother had worked all the way to 7pm to give Becky the early evening off, and not flopping down into a new used couch that was bigger for her and her son to stretch out, she welcomed him into her lap to read his new used picture books.

"This is too much," the nanny said, holding out the wad of Blue Birds. "Our deal was $4 an hour. You're only earning $8 an hour and your tips--"

"My tips go to you and Becky because neither of you are making as much as I am, even if that isn't much at all," Vanessa interrupted. "Shane is paying me what the previous girl made and until and unless he finds a gold mine in the basement of Flanagan's, he's not going to be able to pay me more."

Vanessa would have been shocked to hell to learn what actually was in the basement of Flanagan's. She went on, "He couldn't afford me and Becky, so I'm footing half her pay from my tips. You get the other half."

Rebecca continued to argue, "But you have a son and you need this more than I do."

"If ever I need more," Vanessa said, reaching her hands to her son's head to cover his ears, "I'll stop wearing a bra, find a shorter skirt, and borrow that cute thong you were telling me about."

They laughed, which caused Henry to wriggle out of his muting to ask what was happening. Vanessa gestured to the cash again and said, "Besides, I never really liked that money anyway. I'd just as soon be paid in room, board, booze, and chocolate."

"Oh, chocolate," Rebecca murmured with a tone that made her look as though she was about to orgasm. "When was the last time you hade real chocolate?"

Vanessa pointed at her son and answered, "Before he was born."

The two women and Henry shared their farewells, and Rebecca headed out for the night, being sure to borrow Finn to make sure that she got home to the boarding house in which she lived with a couple of other dozen women, their children, and a quartet of big, mean, and man-hungry Rottweilers.

Back in her new home, Vanessa looked at the mostly one dollar bills she would give to Becky when next they saw each other. The new US-issued paper currency, which had only begun to be printed in the 2045, had been given the nickname Blue Birds because when held up to a bright light, whether natural or artificial, the watermark showed a drawing in blue ink that was supposed to have been a Bald Eagle but instead had come out looking more like a Blue Bird. Some reporter had made the comment online, back before the internet went extinct in the nation's center, and the name stuck.

The history of the new currency and the story behind how it came to be the current currency of North Platte was a very interesting story. When the Collapse was occurring, the economy was faltering, and the Federal Government was on the verge of becoming irrelevant, the latter began printing money so fast to pay its troops and other employees that inflation once reached a 2040's high of 50% a month.

Trust in the almighty dollar was vanishing. Coincidentally, in 2047, so did the Washington DC branch of the US Mint, its billions in worthless cash, and most of the city surrounding it when a nuclear detonation turned the US capital into a sheet of radioactive glass.

The Mint in Denver, however, had begun printing new and significantly different $5, $20, and $100 bills. Denver would suffer disaster as well, falling into total anarchy that resulted in that Mint being razed to the ground and all of its money, new and old, being burned in a fire that lasted for weeks.

But a single disbursement of Blue Birds had left Denver, headed for Des Moines to pay loyal US forces there. It never made it. The armored car and its escort of 40 marines were attacked, and cases of the three denominations amounting to $1.2 million were stolen. The thieves, however, had no interest in paper money that, without a government behind it, was little more than scratchy shit paper.

And that was how the money ended up in North Platte!

The militia in question had been and still was in the employ of Lincoln County's most powerful land baron, Victor Boone. Victor was trying to find a way of conducting commerce with the various militias, business owners, and citizens of such towns as North Platte without having to exchange live chickens for bales of hay or bullets for blow jobs.

An arrangement was made by which the area's new currency became the Blue Birds. Disbursement, for the most part, was based upon a calculation of the hard value of an individual or business's net worth, with a little bit of a bonus for those men and women who, if not satisfied, had the men and the means to take a larger share by force if it became necessary.

In the end, about a quarter of the money went to the rich and powerful land barons of the county, each of whom had his or her own militia; another quarter went to business owners and providers of valuable services; and a full half was divvied out to the good citizen of Lincoln County, including those in North Platte, who signed a pledge to obey the laws of the land and, generally, be nice to their neighbors.

Vanessa thought contemplated her hourly wage for a moment. It was, of course, only half of what the State's minimum wage had been at hits height in the early 2030s. But that had been with the now-defunct dollar bill. Everything was different now.

There was a knock on the door, and Becky entered after being called to do so. She told Vanessa they they'd run out of milk and that they would need it for tomorrow morning's baking. When Vanessa asked Becky if she could sit with Henry for a bit, the other woman smiled and said, "No, I got this."

"You shouldn't be out there alone at this time of--"

"I won't be alone," Becky told her. "I'll have a giant with me."

Downstairs, the beauty snagged Finn by the wrist and said, "C'm'on, big boy, we're taking a walk."

He didn't hesitate. Becky knew he wouldn't. She led him to the door and once outside slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and headed them off for the the business called the Fridge. It had once been a refrigeration distribution plant for milk, ice cream, frozen goods, etc. These days it was still a distributorship of goods than needed cooling but was operating at one twentieth of it hay day capacity.

The pair of them walked unhurriedly down the old, cracked sidewalk and crossed the street. They didn't speak for sometime. Becky thought the big man was still a bit awed by her affection for him, and sometimes she wouldn't say anything to him for minutes or even an hour, just to see whether or not he could finally get up the nerve to ask or say something to her.

"She haven't been drinking," Becky said, finally breaking the silence. It was more of a statement than a question. She listened to his answer, then asked, "You're not drinking because I asked you not to drink?"

Becky let the silence reign again for another three blocks. Knocking on the closed business and arousing the armed night watch, she flashed some Blue Birds at him to let him know they were her to buy. The man gestured from beyond the fortified door that he had to get the keys, and after he disappeared into the darkness, Becky looked up into the face of the massive man and asked, "I think it's time we became lovers, don't you, Finn?"

 

[Wyld52771]

"You haven't been drinking. You're not drinking because I asked you not to drink?" Becky asked Finn, as the two of them walked her arm around his. Her closeness was intoxicating.

"Aye," he replied. "For you, because you asked, and for the boy as well. I can't be setting that kind of example for the lad, being a drunkard. I'll admit, it has been hard not take a nip, though. Habit, and all that, of course."

They walked the rest of the way to The Fridge, and placed their order, when suddenly, Becky turned to his and asked. "I think it's time we became lovers, don't you Finn?

His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in surprise. Of course, he'd imagined them together as lovers, fantasized about it, but now here she was initiating the reality.

He replied, "I would like that, but..." he had to think about what to say, still flabbergasted that she actually wanted him, "why would you want me? Ye could have any man you'd want, Becky...I'm not...well, I'm ugly and too big and...I've got this gut, and...ye just deserve better than me."

Again, he felt he had to repeat the question. "Why would.ye...want to settle for me?"

 

[Alice2015]

"Describe me," Becky said simply. It was obvious to her that the big man either didn't understand the request or wasn't sure how to go about fulfilling it. She stepped into the light being casted from the bulb just inside the store's window and as she did a slow turn around, giving him a full view of the delicious curves she knew he ogled daily, they clarified, "Look at me and tell me what you see, Finn."

She waited for him to finish, then gestured him into the light. She swirled an extended finger indicating that he, too, should show her himself three-sixty, and then when he was facing her again, Becky hesitated a moment...

...and after closing her eyes, she began describing a man with the heart of a giant, a man who'd taken a child not of his own blood into his care and instruction and shown him the good and safe world that could be; a man who when not drunk was one of the kindest, most hard working people she'd ever known; a man who was dedicated in full to those for whom he cared and to those who cared for him; who was the best friend that could ever be to the best friend he had (meaning Shane Flanagan without Becky actually speaking his name).

Becky could have gone on but the door lock to the Fridge clicked open, startling her a bit. She opened her eyes to see the night watch rolling a hand cart out onto the sidewalk filled with metal milk crates. He told them they could bring the cart back tomorrow, then repeated the order, "Three gallons whole, one gallon buttermilk, one gallon heavy cream, six pounds butter..."

As he finished listing all the items, not all of which actually needed to be chilled or frozen but all of which were somehow related to the cooking Vanessa would be doing tomorrow, Becky simply stared at Finn with a pleased smile. The man told them he'd add the list to Shane's bill, then closed and locked the door before disappearing into the darkness once more.

"I see a man who would push this cart five blocks for me in the dark of night," Becky continued with a playful smirk.

Once he was behind it, they headed away, once again fell into that long, peaceful quiet in which they'd traveled to the Fridge. Becky's hand was once again inside the crook of Finn's arm, but this time she pulled herself closer to him and sometimes when the walk allowed it leaned her head into his muscular arm.

Reaching the pub again and storing the goods away in the kitchen's much smaller refrigerator, Becky turned to her future lover and suggested, "You should ask me out on a date, Finn. I think it might be a first step, before we take off our clothes and make love."

 

[Wyld52771]

When Becky stepped into the light, turning and then asked Finn to describe her, he was at a loss. Words couldn't do justice to what he was seeing, and he was never good at expressing himself through speaking regardless. He'd never been glib and charming, like Shane...blunt and direct was more his style.

"Beauty," he said, simply, not having other words to clarify what he was seeing, "You're beautiful."

When she made him come to stand in the light as well, and began to describe him, his eyes began to tear up and his heart ached at her words. She was looking beyond his outer appearance and describing what was underneath. If this is how she truly saw him, he suddenly found himself daring to believe that she could be a part of his future. Not only that, but that she wanted to be a part of his future.

She was interrupted by their order delivery, and playfully said, "I see a man who would push this cart five blocks for me in the dark of night."

For her, he would have placed the whole damn cart on his back and lugged it five hundred miles while blindfolded, had she but asked him to.

"Aye," he replied back with a small smile, "that I will do."

On the way back to the pub, Becky held his arm again, and when able, leaned her head against his arm in affection. For the first time, Finn dared believe a woman might care for him...and perhaps even grow to love him...and it made his feel as if heart were soaring free for the first time.

Once the two of them got the supplies placed where they needed to be, Becky turned to him and stated. "You should ask me out on a date, Finn. I think it might be a first step, before we take off our clothes and make love."

Finn nodded at the suggestion. "Aye, you may be right on that account."

He looked at her, almost timidly, and asked, "Becky, might I be requestin' the pleasure of yer company tomorrow evening after work?"

**************

Shane had come downstairs to finish locking up, and had unintentionally overheard the conversation between Finn and Becky through the door, when he'd been about to go into the kitchen.

He backed away quietly, and decided to head back upstairs to leave them alone. He found himself smiling, happy for his large cousin, who may have finally found a woman who could appreciate him for the kind of man he was.

 

[Alice2015]

"Becky, might I be requestin' the pleasure of yer company tomorrow evening after work?"

The dark skinned beauty smiled at the fair skinned Irishman's inquiry. She moved up close to him and stood on her toes, but still unable to reach she took a handful of beard and pulled his cheek down to her lips, giving him a soft but warm and wet kiss.

"I'd love to go out with you, Finn," she said when she pulled back. Then she reached to his beard again, this time to run her fingers through it a bit. The expression was one of slight dissatisfaction, though. She told him, "But it you even think for a moment that you're going to put that furry old face between my legs one day soon, you'll go down to Parker's--"

That was the lone, still operating barbershop in North Platte, though, there were a dozen or more people who cut, trimmed, or shaved hair, beards, and pussies in town.

She continued, "--and you'll get a bit of a trim for that scruff. I wouldn't want what I want you to do to be interrupted by tickles to my thighs. Would you?"

She giggled, turned, and waited for Finn to open the door to Flanagan's. She expected him to follow behind as he was, technically, still on the clock as she herself was. But peeking back she found him just standing there on the sidewalk with a thoughtful expression on his face. She blew him a kiss through the glass and continued inward.

Becky looked around the pub and found it practically empty. She met the gaze of the only female in the place and going to her asked where everyone went. The answer came back, "Then they saw you leaving in the dark with Finn, they all figured your were off the market. Ya know, they only come here to stare at your tits an ass, doncha? You and the new girl, what's her name? Vanessa?"

Becky wasn't sure how to feel about that. As she headed for the kitchen to make space for the cold goods Finn would soon be bringing in, she couldn't help but feel complimented that a dozen men or more had left because she was the only reason they were here. But at the same time, the reason she was here was to help Shane make money.

If they all thought she was off the market and started patronizing one of the other bars across town or maybe the strip club over on Main that was run by the Holy Rollers, what was that going to do to Flanagan's? She shrugged, thinking to herself Shane was making a living before me, I'm sure he'll make a living after me.

Ironically, the thought never once entered Becky's mind to consider that she wasn't off the market. Despite her short lived career as a whore for the motorcycle club, Becky had always been a one man kind of girl. Since the age of 13 when she'd essentially been bought from her destitute parents, Becky had been loyal in every way to the man who had given her Billy, her now 2 year old son.

After her husband's murder, she'd had one long term lover, again showing him total loyalty until the plague got him. If she was going to let Finn between her thighs, he would be the only one spending time there until either she died, he died, or he betrayed her in some fashion that was simply unacceptable.

Finn still hadn't come inside by the time Becky stepped out of the kitchen to the bar area. Vanessa was there in her robe and furry slippers which was surprising. Vanessa spun around in surprise at Becky's greeting. After the more Indian told the less Indian (a private joke that had become popular at Flanagans) explained her reason for still being in the bar, Vanessa surprised Becky once again.

"Listen, that little closet you call a bedroom is stuffy. Why don't you and Billy come use the couch in my room. I honestly think it's bigger than that cot you use, and you can put your son in with mine."

Becky knew there was something going on and challenged the other woman. Vanessa blushed, despite her dark skin. When Becky noticed that Vanessa was hiding a hand behind her back and asked about it, Vanessa hesitated a long moment, then revealed what she was holding.

Finn's new girlfriend smiled wide, then without comment turned and said, "I'll move some stuff over. Thanks. And, enjoy your evening.

<<<<< +++ >>>>>​

Vanessa dropped her robe in the middle of Shane's room, presenting her nude body to her boss in the same way for the second time. As he looked her up and down, she smiled wide and said, "You promised you wouldn't reject me should I ever offer myself to you again. Remember?"

When he stood and neared her, Vanessa held out the secret Becky had caught her taking from a box under the bar. She told him, "I'm not on birth control, and right now my wombs about at hot to trot as a prairie dog on cocaine, so."

She let the string of six condoms dangle from the one in her fingertips, smiled, then asked with a devilish smirk, "Am I setting my sights to high?"

 

[Wyld52771]

: You promised me you wouldn't reject me should I ever offer myself to you again. Remember?

"Of course I remember," Shane replied, smiling, "and I am a man of my word."

When Vanessa revealed the row of six condoms and explained the reason why, he laughed.

"Well, lass," replied to her question, winking" I may not be as young as I once was, but I'm always up for a challenge." He walked over to her and picked her up easily, as she giggled, and added, grinning, "and besides, if we don't finish em off tonight, there's always the mornin'."

He laid his soon-to-be-lover on his bed gently, and then bent to kiss her, his tongue sliding between her lips and exploring, finding her tongue.

He broke the kiss and began to undress before her, enjoying the feel of her eyes upon him. Soon he stood before her nude, and after a moment, joining Vanessa on the bed, their bodies meeting and intertwining as their tongues had just done...

**********

Finn had taken the trash out, and was still outside looking at the night sky, smiling to himself, feeling like he was the luckiest man on earth at the moment. He had a date with a beautiful woman tomorrow and would not disappoint her...he would be heading to the barber, where he planned on ending up clean shaven for the first time in ten years.

He happened to be walking under Shane's bedroom window, and heard the rhythmic squeaking of bed springs from below. He chuckled to himself, recognizing the noise for what it was.

"Breed her well, cousin," he whispered, smiling widely as he wished his cousin a good night, "breed her well..."

Finn headed inside, shutting the door behind him.

 

[Alice2015]

Not that it had happened many times during her life, but Vanessa had never been able to sleep the whole night in an unfamiliar bed. She'd first learned this when she and her husband moved into one of the small Hands cabins on her parents' ranch. It had taken her two months to learn to sleep through the night without waking one an hour or more.

Years later, when she began fucking Wes in that same bed, Vanessa learned she had another sleeping issue: now having a child who was dependent upon her care, she couldn't sleep through the night with someone new sleeping beside her. Wes had never been a very still sleeper, rolling from one side to the other several times a night. Each time he did for the first couple of months of their affair, Vanessa awoke with him. It was often only for a few seconds to a couple of minutes, but awake she was.

Tonight, she wasn't sure just what it was that prevented her from falling asleep at all. She should have been thoroughly exhausted after the fuck she'd just shared with Shane, yet as he held her tight to him and breathed steadily and deeply at the back of her neck, Vanessa's eyes simply wouldn't close to let her mind find the calm enough to also go to sleep.

She finally concluded that the problem was Henry. Oh, not Henry himself, but the fact that she wasn't with him in her room. She hadn't spent a night away from him since Wes left the Blackblood ranch in January. Henry had often slept in the main house with her parents during that time. Her mother understood Vanessa's needs and desires, and keeping Henry up at the house enabled her daughter the space to fulfill them both.

Vanessa slipped carefully out of the bed and padded across the old carpet to a window that looked out on the street. Barrels burned up and down the street to provide a bit of light now that the street lamps now longer worked. It was probably close to 3am, and yet a trio of of armed Holy Rollers sat on their bikes near the opposite curb, keeping vigil on this portion of the town.

North Platte was not at all what she'd expected to find when she left Iowa. Not a single town she'd seen during her drive her had survived the mayhem of the post-Collapse period. Many had been totally razed. Others had been abandoned because of poisoned water or land. Still more were so fiercely controlled by a local militia that the residents either snuck away at their earliest opportunity, got executed for even trying it, or became slaves to those militias.

Looking back to the bed, Vanessa knew that Shane had played a key part in North Platte's survival. Oh, he waved it off any time she brought it up, claiming to be a simple businessman who provided a sought after service to those who actually kept things safe and secure, meaning the Holy Rollers.

But Vanessa knew there was something more to it than that. She'd seen him in private little talks with people she knew and others she didn't, in the little back room where they often played Texas Hold'em. She often thought about trying to listen in, to learn more about who and what he truly was to this town, but in the end she didn't intrude. If he wanted her to know more about him, he'd tell her.

Shane stirred, opened and blinked his eyes to life, and looked to her as the light on the street silhouetted her with flickering oranges and reds. From his perspective, she probably looked like a very sexy, very female Satan with her sexy black curves all tinged in the colors of Hell.

"I was pregnant," she said out of the blue after he'd indicated that he was awake enough to follow her situation. She hesitated a moment before continuing, "Earlier this year. I met a man. He worked for my parents actually, on our ranch. I've told you about the ranch."

She paused again to collect her thoughts. "I had Henry, of course, but I wanted another child. This man--"

Vanessa wasn't about to use Wes's name, knowing that he and Shane had been friends since childhood. She had little doubt, of course, that Wes had perished out there in the dangerous world. There simply had been no way he would passed on coming to North Platte to find his beloved sister and then fail unless something tragic had happened to him.

She drew a deep, calming breath, her silhouetted bosom swelling, then waning. "He was a handsome man, a strong man, a healthy man, and an intelligent man. He had a calm manner about him, but, one time when poachers shot one of our calves and were trying to drag it off the property, he also showed that he could defend what was his, or at least, defend what belonged to those he cared for.

"This man was everything I would want in my children," she continued, "So I went to his bed while I knew I was ready. Well, to his hay loft. He'd been sleeping in the barn then. I went to him and we fucked. That's all it was, fucking. Breeding, my rancher father would have called it. I wanted to be sure, so, I went to his bed the next night, too. And the next night."

She chuckled with a touch of embarrassment before continuing, "And the next night. It had become something more than just trying to conceive a child. And it had become more than just pleasure, which I'm sure you have already concluded was the reason I continued to go back and back again."

Vanessa again drew another deep breath and contemplated that wonderful month at the start of this otherwise horrific year. "I'd never loved anyone like I'd loved my husband. He'd been my soul mate, and I'd always known that no one could replace him. I hadn't been trying to replace him with this new man, of course. But--"

Her words cut short as emotion filled her. Her eyes glazed over, and she hoped that Shane couldn't see the glistening of them. She continued, "I found myself thinking of my husband when I fucked this man. I even, God, I can't believe I'm admitting this. I cried out my husband's name during orgasm. Not once. Several times. And. And he, my new lover, I think he understood because he never once said anything about it. Never once called me on it. Never once let it affect our relationship.

"He had to leave, though. He had someplace to be. He left, and I came to realize that I had gotten what I wanted from him. I was with child."

This time she couldn't hide the sob. There was just one, but Shane couldn't have missed it. "I was with child, until I wasn't. I lost it. Raiders came to our ranch. Killed my parents. Beat me."

She reached a hand to her belly, trying to indicate where she'd been hit. "Henry and I escaped and hid ourselves on the property for a couple of weeks until the men left. The house and barn were burned to the ground, the stock killed or stolen. There was nothing left there for us."

Vanessa almost told Shane that that was when she decided to come here, to North Platte. But that would have raised questions about whether or not she'd come here looking for her lover. Instead she said, "We left with no particular destination at all. I'd heard someone mention Flanagan's Pub, so when the bikers out on the road asked me if I was coming to North Platte for a reason, I said I knew someone here."

She chuckled as a stress releaser, then looked to Shane. After a moment she explained, "I tell you this, all of this, because I want you to know: I want a child, another child. But. This man. I'd come to realize after he left that I hadn't only wanted his seed. I'd come to realize that I'd truly fallen in love with him, and if he hadn't had other places he needed to be, if I hadn't had family waiting for him elsewhere, people he loved, people who loved him, people who needed him, I would have asked him to stay. He'd been only the second man in my life with whom I'd fallen in love."

Again she drew a deep, courage building breath before saying, "And Shane, you are the third."

She gave him a moment to consider what she'd just said, then quickly added, "Please! Please don't say you love me back. Men who say they love you after they've just fucked you can't be held to their word. If and when you ever tell me you love me I want it to be like that movie Star Wars, where the heroine, I don't remember her name, pulled a gun and shot the fucking Startroopers and the man said to her, I love you, and she said, Well, it's about fucking time."

Vanessa laughed and admitted that she knew that wasn't how it happened, and if by chance Shane knew that she'd misnamed the bad guys, she just shrug it off with a whatever. She finally finished her monologue, "I want to have a baby again, but I don't know if I want to have one with you. I don't know you enough, Shane. I know you better than I had that man. Yet. I want to know you better than I do even now."

She crossed back to the bed, picking up one of the condoms from the lamp table and holding it out in front of her. She smiled and asked, "Round four?"

 

[Wyld52771]

When Vanessa revealed these very personal things from her past, and then told him she loved him, Shane knew without a doubt that he was going to have to do the same. He'd been keeping secrets for so long to protect the people he cared about, that it had become second nature...but if she were truly to love him, for him to be worthy of that love, he would have to reveal everything.

He pushed the sheets off, and stood, handing Vanessa her robe. "Put this on. I have something I need to show you."

Vanessa looked almost hurt and confused, so he went to her as kissed her. "If we are to move forward, ye'll need to see this. Please."

He slipped on a pair of pajama bottoms and slippers, and once she was ready, he guided her out of the bedroom, downstairs through the barroom, and down to the basement.

He turned to her, and took a deep, shuddering breath before beginning his story.

"I've never spoken of this to anyone before, so I hardly know how to begin." He paused for a moment, and then continued. "My grandfather Angus was a dangerous man. Back in Belfast, before I was born, he was an assassin for the Irish Republican Army. He was a killer...his specialty was explosives...pipe bombs and nail bombs, mostly, although he was an excellent marksman, and I'm sure he took out targets that way as well."

"Growing up, I didn't have a normal childhood. While other lads were out playing with friends, my older half-brother and I were taught how to handle firearms, how to handle explosives, and hand-to-hand fighting. My grandfather insisted we be trained as he was...as my father was as well, before us."

"When I was ten years old, we moved here to North Platte. Angus had bought this bar. I was glad at first...I though things could be normal. I should have known better."

Shane walked over to a stack of beer kegs sitting on a heavy duty pallet. There was a handcart used to move them, and he pulled the pallet out and away, revealing a set of double doors in the floor leading to a sub-basement.

"Ye see, Angus bought this bar, just to use it as a respectable looking front. His real income came from what's below."

Shane opened the double doors, revealing stairs leading downward. He looked to Vanessa, who looked uneasy and hesitant to go down the stairs.

Shane held out his hand, to her,, and said, "It's ok...trust me. Please."

After a moment, she took his hand, and he led her down the stairs. At the bottom was a large reinforced metal door. There was a keypad on the side, and Shane punched in a few numbers, and the door unlatched. Opening the door, he took Vanessa's hand again, and led her inside.

It was completely black, and Shane said, "Wait here, just a moment." He moved to the right side of the doorway and threw a switch, and bright lights flooded the room.

The room was huge...much larger than the bar above, likely stretching beneath two or three of the buildings to the side of the bar. What Vanessa saw in this room took her breath away.

It was a veritable arsenal. Handguns, rifles, grenade launchers...things she couldn't even recognize, lined the walls of the huge room.

"Angus was an illegal arms dealer. He dealt in just about any kind of weaponry you could think of, aside from large scale things like missiles, vehicles like tanks, and such. If it was portable, he could get his hands on it."

"Growing up around all this wasn't easy. Basically, I was told from an early age, if I ever let it slip that anyone I told would be killed. I had no doubts that Angus would have done it."

"What you're looking at is a lifetime's worth of secrets for me. A lifetime of being scared for those around me...at least for those that weren't immediate family who shared in that secret. Even Finn doesn't know all this is down here...although I think he suspects it."

"After Angus, and the rest of my family died from the last pandemic, I was left with all this. I didn't know what to do. I know that Angus had deals going on all over the place, and I keep expecting eventually someone is just going to show up wanting their weapons...but it's been nine months since I have been able to get someone back in Belfast on the HAM radio down here. I was cut off...so, I did what I could."

"Angus had already had contact with the Rollers MC, so I contacted them. Made a deal with them. Told them I would provide weaponry for them for services rendered...policing the town, trying to keep order so everything didn't fall apart."

"I also made a deal with all the business owners I could, setting up lines of credit in return for weaponry."

"My whole life, I've hated all this...but I was stuck with it. I just decided to try to do something good with what I was dealt."

He pointed to the far side of the room, where their were boxes upon boxes against the wall. "There's food, water, medical supplies and medicines. I've been trading weapons for supplies, and having the Rollers distribute them to those in need."

"There's also a large generator that is wired into electrical, to try to keep things going. This way, if power fails elsewhere, we can try to move essential services here to keep them up and running."

He paused, looking at Vanessa, and said, "The reason I didn't tell anyone, is if someone comes looking for the guns, and finds out I have been giving away their weapons to keep North Platte from falling into chaos, I'm pretty much a dead man. They'll kill me. I didn't want anyone else in danger because of me."

"And now...you know. If you want to turn and run, I'll understand..."

 

[Alice2015]

Vanessa was shocked by the unexpected room, let alone what she saw in the room. She'd been raised around firearms, and she knew very well how to handle them. When she went out into the town, she still carried the pistol she'd had hanging at her side the day she arrived in North Platte, just in case.

But this! This gave her flashbacks to when her National Guard Officer uncle gave her a tour of the armory he guarded, back before some of his treacherous men staged a coup, killed the senior staff, and disappeared into the night with the majority of the government stash.

She was silent for a couple of minutes as she simply took a slow walk about the place, peeking back at Shane occasionally with a Holy Fuck expression on her face when she came across some new piece of deadly hardware. He had all the expected American made weapons as she would have expected had she known what he really did for a living. But then she opened the top of one case to find AK-47s neatly stacked side by side; beside a box of American made Law's Rockets she found a similar case filled with Russian made RPG launchers.

And it wasn't just weapons either. Shane had ammunition, of course, but he also had radios and other communications devices. There were bullet proof vests, helmets, camo vests and uniforms, and cases with names of what she thought she remembered as being plastic explosives, though, she sensibly didn't get near them, let alone touch them.

"Queen Vanessa of Lincoln County," she murmured softly after she'd made the rounds and was standing nearer to Shane again. When he gave her a curious expression, she smiled wide and said with a humorous tone, "Queen Vanessa Blackblood of North Platte and Lincoln County. I like that."

She probably would have chuckled at the silliness of it all, but Vanessa's brain was working fast and furious, and she wanted the man to understand where she was going with this. "All kidding aside about royal titles, Shane. We could rule North Platte, Lincoln County, more than that with what you have here. And I don't mean you and me alone. The Holy Rollers, you trust them, yes?"

Vanessa already knew the answer to that, of course. She'd seen Shane deal with them, and she'd always known there was something very tight between them, something she was beginning to understand more so now.

"This, what's his name, Victor Boone?" she began, referring to a powerful land baron who lived to the west of North Platte where Lincoln, Keith, and Perkin Counties met. "He runs roughshod over all of the communities of West Nebraska, because like you said, he got the largest chunk of the Blue Birds and used it to back a militia that has control of, Jesus Shane, just about every west of here."

She looked back to the arsenal he had laying here, just waiting to be used, and said with excitement in her voice, "With this and the Holy Rollers, and with the men and women in this town who are sick and tired of that asshole dictating how thousands of people in dozens of small towns life their lives..."

During her time working at Flanagan's, Vanessa had heard hundreds of horror stories that all had one things in common, Victor Boone. The man had been taxing people all across Western Nebraska and Northeastern Colorado even before the new money became the currency of the land. He charged them for the cost of his militia protecting them, when in truth, the greatest fear many of them had was of Boone's militia.

"His gunmen, they aren't like the Rollers," she went on, not telling Shane anything he didn't already know. "They aren't the benevolent, fair minded men and women who protect the citizenry of North Platte. If it wasn't for the Rollers and for how messy and destructive the battle would be, for how many of his own men would be killed, Boone would have rolled through North Platte years ago. You know it's true."

She moved up closer to him, continuing, "This isn't about me or you having more control or being in charge, Shane. It's about helping the people. More people. Boone takes a third, sometimes half of what the farmers and ranchers to the west produce as tax to support himself and his militia. He controls a dozen clean water sources, charging outrageous fees for people to have access to the most important of resources. He forces young women, girls, into prostitution in exchange for things they and their families need but can't buy otherwise. Food, medicine, even just a safe secure roof under which to sleep."

Vanessa once again looked around herself, then back to Shane. "You have the respect of the people. You have the support of the Holy Rollers. You have the means and resources, firearms and cash, to put together an army, Shane."

 

[Wyld52771]

"I don't want an Army...I just want to live in peace!" Shane exclaimed, his frustration evident.

He nodded, to her comment however. He sat down on a crate, his elbows on his knees, head down and clutched in his hands.

He looked up, sighing, and then replied, "I am hesitant to start up an armed conflict, warranted as it may be. People are dying already, from disease, radiation sickness, exposure starvation. Adding bloodshed...because this would have to end that way, don't ye doubt...will only solve things till the next Victor Boone comes along. Once we get rid of him, are we to go around doing the same to the others? Where would it end?"

He sat down on a crate, shaking his head. "All I ever wanted in my life is to have some normalcy. Some peace, for the first time in my life. I just wanted to run my pub, and live quietly. Try to make things better for everyone. When this started I tried so hard to make that happen here, and things have finally stabilized. It's finally happening."

He looked at Vanessa, and said, "I don't want to jeopardize that. I'm not like Angus, sending people out to die...or kill. Because, then, it is meself that is responsible for it. Do ye understand? I don't want to be him!

He looked back up at Vanessa, the stress and worry of the past year catching up to him all at once, now that his secret and his responsibility was revealed. His eyes welled up with tears of frustration, as he met Vanessa's gaze and whispered asking, "What would ye have me do?"