Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

[Obuzeti]

"You could," Jonah replies. "Or you could pull a muscle when a rock shifts under your hands, then fall and get crushed under all the extra weight you're carrying. If you want buff arms, I'll make weights for you when we get home. Don't fight gravity on its home turf, Kara."

There's that faint tinge of teasing that comes into his voice when they banter, even though he's scanning the cover as they talk. Directly below the truck's hanging back end is a few buildings that he can't see into - but the cages by the storage off to the left indicate that the slaves are in that direction, though he can't see any out there.

That's good, though. The sun would kill them quick, in noon heat.

He focuses on the headquarters opposite, where he can see the distant shine of a Centurion's armor. That's going to be the breaking point - if he goes down first, the rest of the Legion will lose cohesion, and most likely just charge Moray's firing position down. That works fine. Jonah pats Kara's shoulder and points the building out. "I'll hit there first, try to take the leader out, draw them this way. You sneak around down the slope and head to the storage shed to the left - the cages are that way, probably the slaves too."

As he speaks he sets his traps; a pair of wire-trap grenade strings at the peak of the slope, just behind the curve of the earth where climbing opponents won't see it, and then he pulls a set of mines out and begins to litter them over the hillside rise opposite, which is a less arduous climb and out of his line of sight. He also stashes a bag with a pair of clips down and back at the base of the slope, along with more grenades, in case he needs a fallback position. Lastly, he sets aside a bag of oddly-shaped metal spines - each has four points, arranged so that no matter how they fall, one end points straight up, menacing sandal-shod feet. Those he doesn't scatter just yet, though.

"Think I'm set," Moray says, and unslings his carbine, checking the barrel and firing action for rust or blockages, and then ejecting his clip to inspect the individual rounds.

Preparation is key to the art of war, and Moray is a master of it.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“And radio when I’m done, so you can drop the barrels.” Kara notes as she gives a nod of agreement to his plan. It sounds good. Almost easy.

She watches him start to set up-then heads for the ridge proper, the truck. It becomes pretty clear why the Legion hasn’t done anything about it yet; the door was seven feet past the cliff edge and dangling over open air-a hell of a drop, that.

The door’s probably locked, too. She doesn’t have her trusty jacket, but she’d stuffed some of her more useful items into the fanny pack. Lock picks, multi tool, chalk dust, gloves...she’ll probably need the latter, it’s rusty as hell under this thing.

Kara drops to all fours and peers under the carriage. Yeah, she’s going to want those gloves.

By the time Moray’s finished setting up and declares as such-Kara’s already making a bit of noise beneath the truck. The redhead finds a good handhold and briefly balances the toe of her boot in a foothold on the cliff, brow furrowed and her tongue between her teeth as she thinks this through, a little glow stick on a string currently illuminating, just barely, the rusted out components above her.

Somehow, like so many other ruined things-the structural integrity remains mostly sound, even if the edges are flaking beneath her fingertips. She reaches with her right hand to test another component, tightens her grip while she finds somewhere for her right boot to press up against-and takes her weight off her left one entirely.

The courier was now sideways beneath the truck. Bouldering was one thing. But Kara had spent most of her life clamboring up and down and across the abandoned places of the world, structures most sane individuals wouldn’t have bothered with. She’s used to metal and rust beneath her fingers more than stone and rock, and climbed with complete confidence, as assured as she was on the ground.

No wonder Kara had a reputation for being near impossible to keep out-she was practically a spider.

She finds another handhold, another toe hold-and is completely upside down upside down at one point-making her way slowly but surely in a gravity fighting creep towards the end of the truck, all the woman’s wily flexibility on impressive display, the way she can bring her legs in close for a toe hold near at chest level and push off of it, the stretches she makes, how close she hugs herself to the undercarriage and the angles she can bend.

She reaches the end of the trailer feet first, and had to think about how to turn around-slipping her arm through a pipe that, thankfully, holds. It gives her a moment’s reprieve, some sort of cheerful little ‘thinking’ tune-relieving stress.

She creeps a little further down, gets the top of her boot toes pressing on the bumper. A deep breath and she crunches inward on the one handhold and that leverage, manages to wrap her right hand a hand around it, dangling so very high in the air-turns mostly around, and catches at the handle that’d open the mechanism.

Alright! Look at that, easy as pie.

Straining a little, Kara went to work on the lock, popping it in a simple raking/scrubbing job, unimpressed with what the company had used to secure so dangerous a cargo-and then slipped the noose knotted rope she’d tied on the way up, pulling it tight without opening it-and starting back up the way she came, feet full on dangling for half a second there as she gets back over the edge and beneath it.

At cliff’s edge she accepts Jonah’s hand, and is hauled up the rest of the way. The entire operation took her less than ten minutes.

“Whew! How about them apples?” She offered over the rope, sweating a little, chest rising and falling in exertion-but satisfied, triumphant.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Well done," Jonah says, approving, as he hoists Kara back up to the ledge. He coils the rock until a stone so that it won't be blown off the ledge with an errant wind, and takes a last look around. The Centurion outside talking to someone in those bizarre big black helmets the scouts favor; the last light of evening has faded, leaving them in the dark; his guns are loaded and the battlefield is set. It's time to get things into motion.

"I think we're set," he says, finally. "Head down the slope, get into position. When you start hearing gunshots, make your move; they'll be coming up here after me. Get everyone out and to the old prospector's camp, I'll meet you there once I shake pursuit or kill them all."

Privately, he's not sure he can outrun Legionnaires, given all the practice they get - he's in good shape but carrying a hell of a lot more, and in hotter clothing than the breezy shit they tend towards.

He pulls Kara in just enough to plant a kiss on her again, brief and firm - his turn to bestow a little luck. She's not in this alone, after all.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I'll slip in as close as I can to give us the most time. If you have to Jonah, just abandon the truck idea. 'Case you gotta cut and run, I don't get done in time."

He draws her in and Kara returns the kiss with no small amount of heat, the thrill of a scheme afoot.

"You, me, and silk sheets after this. We'll have more than earned it." She murmurs, blue eyes shifting between each of his green ones. "Be careful."

-*-

Yep, Melody was right-bomb collars. Kara can see the flashing red dot even from here, cloaked and sneaking around the outskirts. It smells bad, unwashed and underfed bodies in too small of spaces. She sees four occupied cages-lady and two kids in one, a pair of huddled ladies in another, and two seperated dudes in yet two more, one of whom might be mostly dead-she's not sure. The courier worriedly slips up behind that one since he's not in any condition to notice the distortion-and thinks she sees his chest expand. He's curled up tight in the fetal position, and beat to shit.

Well, she knows who's getting one of her two stimpaks. Kara clicks her radio on but barely touches the volume dial--and sends a single beep that'd sound on his end. She's in position, and ready to start cracking cages.

 

[Obuzeti]

Moray watches Kara slip down the shale on the side of the rise, heading around behind the shacks on the far side. It's the only reason the footsteps get as close as they do - but the faint whistle of something slicing through the air catches his attention, and he instinctively ducks and wheels, dropping the carbine to steady himself and launch back up off the ground. That proves to be wise, as a throwing hatchet sails through the space his head had occupied and thunks into the truck just past him.

He whips around and spots a figure charging from the darkness, dead silent on moccasin feet, some kind of gold-tipped pole lowered to impale him. Moray draws Hew one-handed and levels it at the attacker, only for the other man to drive the pole into the gun and knock it away. Not that it mattered - Moray would have never fired the loud gun and ruined Kara's approach. It gives him enough time to draw his khukri with his other hand instead and block back-handed with as the pole comes back, trying to crash into his skull.

Then the other man hits him like an oncoming train, and an elbow just about cracks Moray's sternum as all the momentum piledrives him back into the truck and pins him there between man and truck. The khukri tumbles to the ground from his suddenly nerveless fingers as the pole saws against them in a quick jerk.

"I will toss your corpse at her feet!" the other man hisses, and there's only one her in Moray's life worth anything, which lights his nerves on fire. The other man - wearing a gas mask of some kind - whips the pole over his head and tries to slam it against Moray's neck, locking him in place. Instead, the mercenary catches his back arm, ducks a little and shifts his hips for leverage, and rolls his shoulder under the pool cue. It leaves him squatting against the side of the truck, deeply crouched, one arm grasping the other man's forearm and the other loose below.

Jonah explodes upward, rolling his hips and shoulders in a tight downward circle; his grip on the other man's arm rotates downward to face his elbow up, and then his other fist comes screaming in at the side of the joint to obliterate it, ignoring the maple shaft shoving at his own neck. The other man catches wind, somehow, and awkwardly flops sideways, the pole spinning overhead to plant past them and give his attacker a point of balance. It's all that saves the other man's elbow, though he still strains it, knocks the other man completely off of him, and staggers him backwards.

The pole sweeps upwards in a baseball swing as the other man finds his balance, golfing for Moray's head. Rather than dodge, he steps in and catches it on his forearm, bruising his own muscle deeply - but his other fist chambers at his waist, and he steps through, shoulders rolling as his hips pivot and thrust in time with his shoulders. His blocking forearm crashes back into Moray's hip as his fist slams out and catches the other man in the short ribs, who doesn't yet have the balance to dodge the blow. The blow drills into his floating ribs and lifts his feet off the ground for an instant, and beneath the gas mask Jonah hears a choked gasp.

The other man's hand darts to his vest as Jonah shuffle-steps in, fists raising - there's a cracking sound. A flicker of Kara's mischievous face darts through Jonah's head and he averts and closes his eyes, which is all that saves his sight; the other man flicks a handful of crushed and powdered glass right into his face. Jonah tries to snort as much of it away as he can, but his next breath catches some of it and sets his mouth, nose and throat on fire; he can't help but cough.

It's only the space of a breath, but the other man reverses his momentum in that instant as Moray is blinded and stunned, and the rustle of leather and a shuffle away tells him what's coming. He bulls forward and catches the pole in his collarbone, probably cracking the bone as the other man sets it like a boar spear, but his groping hands manage to catch his assailant's other arm, and the submachine gun he'd drawn one-handed. 12.7 mm, it feels like.

The magazine is top-loaded in those. Moray lets one hand slide over the top of the gun and wrenches the first protrusion he feels sideways. The gun's action jams with a thick mechanical clunk.

The pole comes up and drives its metal tip into Moray's jaw in response, cracking it. The flesh tears as what feels like two little razors strip the side of his face wide open, slashing right through his cheek and flaying it open.

Moray's other hand catches the shaft of the weapon, now fully extended past him. He opens blurry eyes to see the other man throwing a fist at his throat. He lowers his chin and tucks his shoulder, deflecting the blow. In response, he pulls back on the pole, pops his hips wide, and jerks his elbow up at the same time, driving the point of it up into the other man's jaw as he gets pulled along with his pole weapon. The blow jars the man's entire braincase and slams his head aside; he staggers.

Bleeding from the slashed ruin of his face, dots of blood coming from his glass-studded eyes, nose, and mouth, and breathing through creaky lungs, Moray steps foward, releases the pole to seize the other man's chest, and brings his other hand around with brutal, tearing strength as he drops back in a wide stance and pushes the other man's chest out with hand and forearm, just as he seizes his hair and scalp and rips it down and around in a circle.

Something in the other man's neck wrenches and pops. It's an ugly sound. He screams, aborted as Moray's knee crashes up into his face and windpipe as the other man begins to fall, shattering his already weakened jaw.

Then Moray's arm wraps around his neck. For a moment, he feels panicked breathing against his side, and the other man tries to bite him through his fatigues. Weak, but still fighting. His hands try to maneuver the pole to jab at him, weak and sluggish.

Moray doesn't care.

He wrenches up and in a tight, vicious curve, the same angle he'd already dislocated the man's neck at. The crack this time is from collapsing vertebrae, crushed against each other and the spinal cord wrenched completely around. Air releases against Moray's side, and the body goes limp. Moray drops him.

The body's still breathing. It's all loose leather wear, Wastelander gear, and some kind of gas mask. The pole he'd been beaten with is a flag pole - the edges that had torn at him were its wings. It lies in the dirt now, gleaming with his own blood in the moonlight.

Moray looks in the other man's eyes, still conscious but clouded. The other man's lips move, but he's not saying anything Moray can understand. He's probably trying.

But Moray doesn't care.

He'd wanted to throw Jonah's body at Kara's feet. Knew how that would shatter her, as nothing else would. The one thing they truly treasure is each other, at this point, and this man would have taken that precious love and used it to tear down the only woman, the only person, Jonah had ever found worthy of it.

He doesn't get last words. He doesn't get a last chance to leave an open wound.

Moray takes hold of the other man's misshapen jaw and grips his neck, and then tears out his throat with his bare hands with a wet rip. Blood spurts in heartbeat pulses, and the other man's eyes flutter uncontrollably, likely the only muscles he has full control of at this point.

Moray gets up. He walks back to his dropped carbine. Feels at his jaw, pulls a bandage from inside his fatigues. Wipes away the glass, the powder - probably some kind of chili pepper in there. It's still burning so hot inside his nose and sinuses that it's making his eyes tear up, but that could be the glass in them, of course.

He carefully wets the cloth with water from his canteen, and wipes as much of it away as possible. Stimpaks himself, behind the jaw in the meat of his neck. Wraps a bandage around his face to hold it in place so the stim can work its magic.

Kara needs him. He hasn't answered yet. If she'd signaled, he'd missed it. He glances over at the shed, and decides he'd taken long enough as it is. The longer she's out there, the more likely some legionnaire decides to take a piss behind the building and spots her.

He picks up the carbine, checks the action and the magazine. Nothing damaged from where he dropped it.

The Centurion is in his headquarters now, visible through the blown out windows on the second story. He leans over his table and a map, brightly-colored pieces of wood spread over it.

Moray raises the carbine, flicks off the safety. Sights in his target. Breathes.

Pain is not enough to stop him.

Moray pulls the trigger; the rifle kicks into his shoulder. Red spurts from the side of the Centurion's helmet, and he staggers but stays on his feet, leaning against the table. His weight shoves it aside. Papers and other clutter fall to the floor. Someone else in the building that Moray hadn't seen rushes forward, trying to tackle the commander down and out of sight.

He isn't fast enough. Moray double-taps the trigger, laying two rounds into the side of the Centurion's exposed neck, revealed when he'd fallen against the table. They tear it nearly in half and the body drops against the table.

Whoever had been in the room starts shouting, but Moray can't hear it against the ringing in his ears from the bark of his carbine, and the residual concussion from being beat with that fucking flagpole.

That's fine, because he can see the Legionnaires boiling out like ants, over a dozen, rushing up towards his hillside, not a one of them looking towards the storage shack.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Nothing happens. Kara tips her head and rattles the radio around a little; she doesn't dare speak into it, not with pair of male voices so close.

Huh. Maybe it's broken, or he's waiting on a clear shot. Kara supposes there’s time. The curled up man wheezes as he stirs, makes a pathetic, breathless little groan. He might not make it, and it’s a grim reality Kara considers but tosses aside, retrieving a stimpak from her satchel. Pressing into the bars, she manages to slip her arm through and jab the poor guy in the ass with it, depressing the plunger.

Good luck pal. You’ll need it.

Still no shot, and now Kara's a little antsy. What's he doing up there? He had checked that gun like, thirty times! No way it jammed. Or...maybe it had? She doesn't honestly know all that much about guns. That worries her a little-the plan has him drawing all the skirts to his position, and if his gun wasn't any good or something-!

Kara goes dead still and doesn’t dare to breathe for a minute-one of the Legion mongrels has come sniffing around the corner of the shed. Oh, shit. Dogs don't like stealth boys. She's never managed to charm one with it up, anyway. Kara grabs hold of the bars to Mister Unconscious Guy's cage and pulls herself up as best she can, a slight crackle of rust where she shoves her boot in between the metal rods. The dog’s head snaps up and over just as she hauls herself on top of the thing, the courier coiled like a cat on the run.

The dog shifts into stealth mode himself; he slinks through the dark, little more than an inky shadow padding over, circling the cage. He sniffs at where she just was-and then looks up and growls that deep, hellish sounding growl from the back of his throat. His hackles are raised, and so is the fluffy little shark fin most dogs had.

Inside the shed, the voices stop.

Mother fucker.

Kara deactivates the stealth boy before the dog can start barking and alert the whole damned camp. She hears somebody gasp, and intensely hopes they keep their mouth shut. But the courier is too busy looking straight down at the dog to give any signals to the caged up slaves-eyes wide and a hand waving him down, fingers splayed. Her other hand has her index finger pressed to her lips. It's not that Kara thinks the dog understands such a gesture-it's that it helps her think it, -will- it at him.

The dog snaps his jaws shut and tilts his head at her, tail raising and going still. The sharkfin flattens back out in the scruff. He's listening. She doesn't honestly know how her affinity with all kinds of four legged animals works-but thank fucking God it does. Maybe it’s just because she assumes it will, and they don’t know what to think of that sort of confidence?

"Good boy." Kara whispers, taking a moment to rummage through her satchel. His tail wags a little, and Kara likes to think he just KNOWS she's got something for him. It's a happy thing in all this anxiety, at least.

“Mom. Mom! There’s a lady, look!” One of the kids whispers fervently, excited. Kara glances over with a grin-and finds several staring eyes in her direction. They fly to the back of the shed as a door opens, just as the dog scarfs up the little piece of jerky Kara throws down to him. “Good boy.”

He IS a good boy. The best boy, a -quiet- boy. Kara slips from the cage a little cautiously-but the puppy no longer cares that she’s there. He presses his nose against her leg and ambles away. Kara takes it as permission to re-engage her stealth boy-JUST as a man turns the corner, an imperialistic sneer on his face.

"Slaves." The man spits with disdain. "There is no talking."

A second man turns the corner just behind him and carefully blank faced, Kara notes. She’s had a lot of experience studying and perfecting poker faces-and that’s a pretty poor one, she’s gotta say.

The dog slinks to his side, and Kara takes the opportunity of the three sets of footsteps (four if you count the puppy’s back feet, she supposes)-to creep along the backside of the cages, heading for the biggest one, the one with the family in it. The guy will go away, she’s pretty sure. Or else turn and hare off at the sound of gunfire.

“Perhaps I’ve been too lenient.”

Any minute now that shot would go off, and he’d forget about the lady and her two kids-all of whom look frozen. The implication did put a chill in even Kara’s blood, she’s got to admit. She slips the bat from it’s sling and into her hands, slow and smooth. The second guy is trying to light a torch-but his hands are shaking, so he’s not getting far with it. Occasional sparks of flint as he tries to balance everything over there.

The douche-a-holic smiles a very unsettling smile, one that has the two kids scrambling to hide behind their mother-who rises into a defensive crouch in front of them, arms a little back in a pitiful defense.

Any minute now…

He slides a key into the lock, and the kids whimper.

Kara suddenly decides it’s time for a morale boost.

CRACK!

The courier steps around the corner of the cage and swings a homicidal, grinning home run hit right into the guy’s unprotected temple, another violent downward swing as he goes DOWN.

It splatters blood on the bat, on her, and the dirt, and leaves a particularly nasty display of crushed in skull fragments and grey matter on that side of his head. The second guy drops the torch and flint and reaches for his gladius-just as Kara brings her bat down a final and third time to really seal the deal on the first.

“Uh uh-” Kara voices, vividly colored blue eyes snapping sideways even as her bat hovers inches above the dead or dying man-one hand leaving and drawing Lil Devil before he’s even got his sword out of its sheath, the man having apparently struggled with it. He looks all of twenty.

Notably, the mongrel doesn't do anything. He just sits at the man's feet, complacent. For a moment her and his apparent master just look at each other-him frozen in place, and Kara grinning like a maniac. He slowly lets go of his sword pommel, licking his lips as he straightens up.

"If you shoot, they'll all know you're here." He tells her, soft, nearly resigned.

"Wouldn't make you any less dead though, would it?" That he hasn't already hollered out is kinda weird. Lucky, but weird. Kara makes a little motion with her gun, and he follows it. The dog follows too, and while he doesn’t growl at her again-he doesn’t turn and growl at THIS guy either.

"That one's soft." Says the enslaved man in the cage. "He feeds the kids when no one's looking."

Kara huffs-and then the shot she's been waiting for finally rings out. Three of them. Well, shit.

“What’re you, former tribal? You look like one.” Kara hisses as she indicates the dead man at her feet. “Let them out then, if you’re being so smart.”

He goes for the key his superior had carried, unlocks the cage containing the family. Kara shoves him in as soon as they file out. She’s not sure what she’s doing yet, but he sure as shit won’t be hanging out while she’s distracted with bomb collars. The dog had followed him IN of all things, and that-well, okay, so the dog likes him. And he apparently fed the kids. She’ll think about it for a minute.

Kara holsters her gun and loots the other guy for the key to the bomb collars, a triumphant little ‘aha!’ when she finds it. Without being told, the boy had taken the bigger key and unlocked the cage for the two women, and the man, and then- “He’s pretty hurt.” Kara shrugs, but it’s a problem-the faster they're out of here, the better off Moray is, and carting around a maybe dying guy was hardly going to help with that.

“Who are you?” One of the women ask as soon as the bomb collar was removed-and Kara just winks before turning the lady around and pushing her in the direction they’re about to flee in.

“No, really-” The man insists, brow furrowed.

“I’m Kara, you’re some dude, let’s exchange business cards later. You think you can carry this dude?”

“He got beat pretty bad, earlier.”

Kara glances at the legionnaire, who’s a bit broader shouldered than this guy. She unlocks his cage again, jerks her head at him. “C’mon we gotta hurry. Can you help carry this guy? You don’t wanna stay here, right?”

“Not...not really, no.”

“Great! Everybody book it straight that away-there's a kid and two dogs behind those two big rocks. Don't try to touch any of them, Hrolf will eat you."

The skirt doesn’t move, and Kara darts in and grabs his wrist, insistently pulls him out. “C’mon you gotta help carry this guy-we gotta go, don’t be stupid on the way or I’ll knife ya.”

A short scream just up ahead-and Kara goes still-and then sprints back ahead, whether to shut the woman up or try to beat another skull in she’s not sure-and finds herself skidding to a stop as the biggest dog she’s ever seen comes shambling into view.

No, not a dog-a werewolf! Kara drew Lil Devil again but briefly doesn’t know what to do with it, having never seen anything like it and not entirely trusting small arms fire. As wide eyed as it's got her, she's intensely curious. Was that a werewolf? People mutated into ghouls, why not animals? Oh, shit-was it looking this way? She thinks it's looking this way.

"Just...just back up, real slow. Reeeal slow." She murmurs, soft, calm. The ragtag group backs up, staring and wide eyed and in the case of the one lady, sniffling and choking on petrified sobs. It’s the kids Kara’s most worried about, but their mom has a tight hold on them, looked like. "It's fine. Totally fine.” The werewolf circles around some, opening and closing its mouth with an audible clack of teeth. “We're just going to go around-"

One of the women bolts. For fucksakes-

The creature’s head snaps up and it charges, faster than Kara would have thought possible at such a size-they'll never outrun it, though her instincts beg her to try. "Move!" Yells one of the men, Kara's not sure which-and their group splits in two as the thing runs into their midst, splitting like a school of darting fish. The lady who ran had tripped, and was full on bawling her eyes out as the hulking beast rises on its hind legs, long front limbs flung wide as it bellows over her-

With a start, Kara suddenly realizes what the thing is-holy fuck, Sergeant Teddy was NOT the only bear in town.

"No." Kara stomps forward, gun out at her side while her other hand curls into a fist, points her index finger at him. "Bad! Bad bear!" She sounds like she's disciplining a dog, and the bear turns to look at her as she approaches, waggling her finger. “And bad bears don’t GET treats!”

"We're going to die." The Legionnaire murmurs-an answering nod from the former slave helping to carry their injured third. Dumbstruck, they watch the redhead stomp closer, nearly in killing range-all five feet of her.


“Nobody look at her, I think you went and made her feel bad!” Kara issues back at the crowd-while the woman on the ground crawls away, still crying messily.

The Yao Gaui seems as confused as the rest of them-it’s arms lower to be in front of her, watching the woman approach without so much as a snarl.

"Jesus, it's working."

“I said don’t stare!”

Those gathered obediently turned away, anxious and rocking on their heels.

Kara flat drops her gun and the waggling finger, rummages around in her satchel again. “But you’re not a bad bear at all, are you?” She says soothingly, already in love with the big fluffy beast. If ever there looked like a more tempting thing to hug...even with the mangy patches of fur missing, the exposed and lesioned flesh.

It's a bigger piece of that jerky she's got in hand now, something she offers up to the bear nearly three times as tall as she was.

It works. The behemoth drops back to all fours and sniffs at the offered treat, seems to think about it a minute-and then accepts the offering almost delicately, dropping it on the ground to then sniff at that-like a dog.

Kara’s glee could not entirely be contained. But she waits, as patiently as she can before tipping sideways as the bear ate the treat, trying to get a look at her again.

“You're a nice bear, huh? Nice bears always get treats."

The bear ambles closer, sniffing at her satchel-Kara lets her, and glances not back to her former, back turned audience-but the camp they’re still entirely too close to.

“Good bears always get treats.”

~*~

Something big glimmers like a heat wave west of the charging column of men, something big and moving fast. And then whatever it is crashes into the platoon broadside, a ripple-and then a Yao Gaui BURSTS out of the distortion, plowing through men left and right with a roar. It skids on shale and gravel before rising onto its hind legs and slashing a man’s face clean off with claws easily eight, ten inches long. Another vicious swipe sends another two men flying, the creature seemingly enraged.

A smoking stealth boy dangles from a torn black shirt around her neck-almost a calling card, evidence to the perpetrator of a bear stealth attack.

As if the resulting chaos wasn’t evidence enough, that was.

 

[Obuzeti]

Moray picks off two more Legionnaires before they figure out where he is precisely - one trying to peek around the corner of the mess hall door at the far side of the rise, meaning his head was out in the open from Jonah's point of view, and another that had started sprinting for the far side of the rise to check it out. That had tipped the rest of them off, and started a rush. Jonah pulls a dud grenade and tosses it in front of the lead runners just to throw them off - they split and dive away from it with impressive reflexes, and then hesitate, as it fails to go off.

His next shot picks a black-skinned Legionnaire off, cleanly coring his head, and the rest scuttle for cover, creeping around the edges and the rise of the slope. Jonah takes a moment to key his radio. "Get clear soon, Kara."

Of course, that's when a screaming, invisible yao guai slams into a Legionnaire attempting to flank left by the shed, mauling him. It bulls him off his feet, latches onto his face and neck, and tears an enormous mess out of it, instantly rendering the man into nothing more than twitching meat, but the screams and yells of the other Legion soldiers aggravate it so much it turns and bellows, charging again at the next closest.

Moray hopes it keeps that flank clean. He's got at least four approaching from the right, and he's already injured. He turns and manages to wing one in the shoulder, but they're skittering between cover too well for him to get off a good shot, and instead he tosses out a bag of caltrops and draws Hew in one hand and his pistol in the other instead, waiting for them to make a charge.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara's on the move-not full on sprinting yet, more a lope meant for long distance-but still a good clip. She leapfrogs over a boulder Hrolf clears in a heavy jump and keeps on going. The big dog was mostly matching her pace, unwilling to leave her behind.

They had split off from the rest, sent them on ahead while they doubled back with Matilda-and sent her headlong into their enemies. The radio on her hip crackles, and Kara snatches it up and responds almost immediately.

"We're clear, we're clear!" Shit, she thinks. Mostly, she wants him out of there. "Drop or bail, them assholes seem real mad!"

Hrolf snuffs up ahead, and Kara pretends it's due to her understatement. "Just hurry."

Kara jumps over a small ridge and continues to hightail it out of there-same as she's done after countless practical jokes all across the Mojave. This once though, it's all too serious.

-*-

Kara arrived at the camp a good few minutes after her beleaguered fellows-glad to see nothing else had interrupted their trek and amused with how happy her return made Melody. The girl was currently getting along just fine with the other two kids, normal and happy and hopeful.

She learned the Legionnarie was named Caleb, formerly of the splintered and integrated HangDogs Tribe. The mongrel wasn't his, but mostly friendly-he called him Danny. Danny got along just fine, but wouldn't let anyone but Caleb or Kara touch him. The two women she didn't bother with, the one was still sniffling and they'd sequestered themselves in a cabin on their lonesome-which was fine with Kara. She's never been a crier, and she's still a little miffed the lady had nearly gotten them all eaten.

It's the beat to shit guy she checks in on-he's lying in the bottom bunk of another cabin, looking maybe a little better...? She thinks? It's so dark in here, she can't hardly tell-even with the moonlight coming through the holes in the roof.

"You know him?" She asks the other guy, but all he does is shake his head and shrug. "He took a beating meant for the boy a day ago. Never learned his name."

Kara frowns over that. "He been out that whole time?"

"Other than a bit of talking in his sleep, yeah.". The man runs his hand through his hair, watches her lift mister hero's eyelid. She decides to risk a brief flash of light from her flashlight.

"My name's Matt."

"Nice to meet you Matt.". Kara murmurs, distracted. "We're just waiting on one more, and then we'll get everybody the fuck away from this place." Maybe it was dumb to waste more resources on the guy, but...Kara shrugs, then injects him with her last stimpak anyway.

"Good luck, mister hero." She says as she turns and files back out, pauses to listen a moment. Whispering from the bench where the mom, kids, and Melody were at. Sniffling in the cabin over there. Caleb's awkward and hovering a little, caught between standing watch with his dog Danny and fidgeting with his armor.

Hrolf and Lupa follow her, shaggy shadows. She heads for the base of the squat water tower and climbs onto the square base the basin rests on, and she waits. She's a little cold-she'd used her long sleeved shirt to tie her overclocked stealth boy around Matilda's neck.

She hopes the bear makes it out alright. Half ghoulified looking thing that she was, Kara still loved her.

But it's not Matilda she's worrying-or waiting-for.

"C'mon Jonah, c'mon." She murmurs. Her boots dangle off the edge of the platform and her hands stay busy, fidgeting with the radio and her smiley, now blood splattered kneepads. She keeps her eyes on the horizon, or at least-what she can see of it. Below her, Hrolf and Lupa wait too.

 

[Obuzeti]

It's minutes later when Moray finally appears over the nearest rise. His pace is a determined hobble - he can't quite get all of his weight over on his left side, and his face has been horizontally bandaged, though his mouth remains unobstructed. The more worrisome fact is the Yao Guai is following him, sniffing as it sort of meanders behind him. There's a knife sticking out of one of its shoulders; it doesn't quite seem to notice, and instead it keeps trying to get at one of the mercenary's pockets. Finally, he stops and picks something out, tossing it on the ground in front of the beast. It promptly eats it, snarfing up whatever it had been.

At close range, he's more obviously wounded; he's moving with the careful hobble of someone trying not to jar broken bones, and the line of his jaw isn't quite right. There's a cut on his left shoulder, and some gunpowder splatter, and a lot of blood spray up on his legs and boots, but none of it looks like his. He's actually got a walking stick of some kind, too, an eagle-topped pole. The golden figurine at the end is also coated in dried blood.

"Kara," Jonah says, once he's close enough, with a nod. "Send your dog home, please. I dunno if we can keep this one."

The yao guai snuffles at him again, and without looking back he tosses her another rolled-up bit of ration meat. He'd plundered the dead Legionnaires of their rations, but the bear was hungry, and satisfied non-hungry bear is much better than angry bear, especially if it's determined to follow him around.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara straightens up on her perch, and so do the two dogs below her. She squints at the two figures in the distance, then turns to slide off the edge of the platform, fingers catching at the edge so that the courier dangles there a minute before dropping the rest of the short way.

She hurries to meet him partway, drawing in a sharp breath as she sees more of the damage. The courier skids to a stop, hands up but helpless seeming, eyes wide.

“Oh, didn’t Matilda help at all?” Kara stresses, brow furrowing. She doesn’t even know where to touch him he looks so beat up-even using a walking stick of all things! And here her dumbass was without any stimpaks-

"Send your dog home, please. I dunno if we can keep this one."

Her attention shifts to the big bear, honestly surprised the girl’s following after him, and so calm. She was a good bear. Kara kind of wishes they could keep her, but she might maul somebody, make heading into civilization difficult.

No, the stalwart defender was better off out here. There’s that knife, though-

Kara wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then heads over that way, cautiously reaching to pet her, and when that still goes okay-unknots the torn shirt she’d used to fix the stealth boy onto her, which smells like charcoal and burned plastic.

“You’re a good girl. I’m uh, I’m going to try yanking this out, okay?” Kara reaches up for it, wraps her fingers around the handle. “Don’t eat me.”

She jerks the knife out and the bear makes a short growling noise-but then is fine, giving a shake of it’s shoulders and head. She looks at them both, and Kara makes a shooing motion, points off into the desert. “You go have fun! Try not to eat anybody nice.” And after a final treat-off the bear ambles, as casual as could be.

Kara looks at the knife, then tosses it aside before returning her attention to Jonah, still wide eyed and concerned.

“How can...I know, you can lean on me!” Kara swoops in close under one arm, seems ready to absolutely try and support him on the trudge into the prospector’s camp. “I don’t think we should stay too long, but like-you can probably kick your feet back, I can scavenge around and see if there’s anything here-”

Babbling.

“We shouldn’t have left you alone up there, not with a bunch of douche canoes supposed to move on you.”

 

[Obuzeti]

"She did," Moray says, and it's perhaps indicative of how much he's hurting that he allows Kara to take some of his weight off the injured leg. "Most all of this is from some Frumentarii asshole that jumped me, soon as you left. Pole's from him, actually. He got some cheap shots in, but couldn't keep it up."

The actual Legionnaires themselves had been far less of a problem - he'd gotten to shoot them on the way up, and between the traps and dumping the truck waste on the four that had tried directly climbing the overlook, it hadn't been all that bad of a rumble. He'd gotten sliced a little on one leg, but that's more because he thought one of them was dead when he hadn't been.

"We need to get moving," he says with a shake of his head. "I've got another pair of stimpaks in a fallback bag and some Med-X. I'll juice up with those and we'll push until we're outside of easy raiding range. I'd like to get at least all the way to Goodsprings if we can, fort up there."

Injured as Moray is, distance and speed are their best defenses now. Protecting a group is always a hairy proposition in the Mojave, and with him hobbled, he's not sure he could keep off another pack of Legionnaires from the slaves, let alone if another asshole Frumentarii showed up.

Whatever Vulpes had been teaching them, they were nasty fucking fighters in a scrap.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara hugs into his side and helps in the slow trudge into camp, scowling a little. “I hate those guys.” Kara hisses, and moving fast becomes that much more imperative. They were tough, tougher than tough, enough to fuck Moray’s shit up even-she doesn’t want to run into a group of them. Definitely not if they were all as creeptastic as Vulpes. “Glad you took his pole.” Bit vindictive when it came to Jonah, as usual.

“Yeah, we’ll hole up in Goodsprings. You and me I mean-” Kara gives a nod towards the camp. “These guys, we dump ‘em on the NCR or something. They’re all on their own other than Melody, we’ve helped plenty. Her though, I don’t know-she’s just a kid. I’ll pay to send her to Julie, I guess.”

Freeside would be a nice place to grow up. There’s already more than their fair share of refugees, but Kara figures she can work something out. What’s important is that she's free from that awful place-but she’s not so cold as to set her loose in the big wide world all alone. Even SHE’D had a gang mostly looking out for her, after all.

“There weren’t too many, and this one asshole was kind enough to, er, ‘donate’ the keys to the cages and the collars. Sped things up.” Kara chatters. “We’ve got a guy I’m not sure gonna make it, or at least, make it without brain damage.” Kara says, practically minded about that-but she’s hoping for him. “He’s beat pretty bad, guess he’s been out for a whole day.”

She’s mostly just-talking, same as she always is-but part of it is the relief of his safe return, even if banged up and just...relief in general. She’s glad to be getting away from there. Still, he’s hurt, and that’s something Kara never likes. He’s the most hurt she’s ever seen him hurt, and she’d nearly blown him up the one time, and Vulpes had stabbed him in the back.

“Two girlfriends, one of whom is being a wuss-keeps crying. A lady and her two kids who are NOT crying, some guy named Matt, and-”

They come up on the nervously patrolling kid just as Kara’s getting to him-still wearing his legion armor and the mongrel Danny at his heels.

“Caleb here.”

The blonde Legion defector goes still, taking a step forward as if to help-and then backing off again, not entirely sure he wants to step in range.

“You better find something else to wear kid-that outfit won’t win you many friends.”

 

[Obuzeti]

"Phrasing, Kara," Jonah murmurs, but he half-smirks anyways.

He lets Kara chatter as they approach the campsite; there's a collection of half a dozen former slaves there, and one former Legionnaire who looked very uncomfortable. He had a dog that wasn't snarling though, and Kara's opinion was starting to bleed over to him - a man that raised a decent dog was probably decent himself. They took on the attributes of their masters.

Moray glances back at Hrolf, trotting steady and patient behind Kara, and the smirk turns into a full smile before he can smother it.

Right. To business. The casualty first - no reason to be carting him around if he's dead. The mercenary trots right past most of the crowd - he's already past the amount of patience it takes to interact with other humans - and heads for the body. He crouches beside the still form and turns its head to one side, checks the ear canals.

Blood. When he rolls the man's eyes back it's staining the back of the eyeballs too. Heavy cranial trauma, looks like, and Goodsprings is too far away, and the beating administered a day ago already. As a test, he pulls his canteen and puts it to the other man's lips, pouring a little stream over his lips. They don't move, and he doesn't swallow.

"Dead," Moray pronounces, standing back up. "Or about to be. Reflexes are gone."

That dealt with, he turns past the crowd and heads into the prospector camp, still hobbling, and comes back out with a spare set of settler clothes, which he tosses at the renegade Legionnaire. "Put those on. The Ranger Station is to the north of here. We'll head there and drop you lot off - they'll escort you back to civilization, have to report on the Cove being sacked anyways. We'll lead the Legion off your trail then while you get somewhere safe."

Caleb catches the clothes, a troubled look on his face. "Will you two make it? You barely made it out already."

"I got hurt because I had to cover the rest of you," Moray says, practical. "We're safer with you all in a proper military escort and us without VIPs to protect."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara’s shoulders drop the slightest little bit, eyes reflecting her disappointment. Guy had been fucked before they’d even gotten there, poor Mister Hero. But...that’s that, then. Kara sucks in a breath, gives that tug of finality to her tank top straps in lieu of her jacket lapels, and shrugs.

“Welp! Six out of seven ain’t the worst results.” She declares, drawing the frowning stares of the gathered adults. Kara slaps the closest on the arm-Matt-and smirks up at him, flippant. “You know what they say about life-nobody gets out alive.”

And then the redhead turned her back on the man, followed after Moray just as he was coming back out. He tosses the soldier some much more respectable clothes, and Kara takes that as his approval. Good. She doesn’t mind a defector, she’s glad he escaped with the rest.

“And he’s with ME, now.” Kara puffs up and thumps her fist against her chest in her best ‘tough’ impression. She’s fallen back on flippant, ridiculous jokes given the depressing mood everyone had fallen into. “Kara Walker, bodyguard extraordinaire! Also-Bear Tamer! Now c’mon, let’s get going-it’s thataway, I am almost entirely sure.”

~*~

Kara finds a particularly attentive, gullible audience in the three kids of their ragtag group, and that’s mostly who she talks to on the way to the NCR post. The courier tells her usual mix of bullshit and sometimes true stories, and the fantastical retellings, her enthusiasm and the excitement of the children-it’s contagious. The mood lightens and even becomes a little buoyant the further they get from the horrors of Legion captivity.

The hand they'd been dealt? A mulligan. It's up to them now, but it was up to them. They were free.

 

[Obuzeti]

Ranger Station Echo is staffed by two human officers and a squad of ghoul rangers, which makes Moray snort to see. The human centrism is on full display, there, for all that the rangers talk a good game about only taking the best. That's incidental, anyways. They spot the group trotting up easily and one of the ghouls jogs out to figure out what the fuck's up.

She glances them over. "You look like a bunch of escaped slave," she assesses.

"Half right," Moray answers, dry. "Cove's sacked. Probably want to tell your comm guy to call it in."

She ignores him and instead leans back to shout. "Boss, some civ's here with a buncha runaway slaves! Says the Cove's been sacked!"

A ghoul yelling is always an unpleasant experience to hear, like a bike chain being run through a conveyor belt. Moray tries not to cringe - his hearing's already tender after all the shooting and explosions he's been privy to today, and the concussion doesn't help.

'Boss' comes over then, some pencil mustache motherfucker that looks like he hasn't been so much as slapped since he put the uniform on. But then Moray doesn't work for the NCR, what does he know. "That's Moray, Avarita. Merc works this area. You say the Cove's been done for? What happened?"

Moray shrugs. "Had a disagreement over their recruitment policies."

He doesn't explain further, and just looks at Erasmus when the other man cocks his head and spreads his hands, silently inviting further explanation.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The long silence breaks when Kara cracks up, a mirthful bit of laughter. “Yeah.” Snrk. “Some words were definitely exchanged.”

She saunters over with a more genuine smile for the lady before her eyes shift to Erasmus, bright and cheery.

“You’re welcome!” Her cocky smirk slants mischief now, eyes widening with a flash of excitement. “So! In lieu of a reward-you’ll take these folks off our hands, right? This one in particular-” Kara reached behind her and pulled Melody to the front. “She’s gotta get to Freeside, the Follower’s Fort.”

“We have a mission here, watching Cottonwood-”

“Watch what? We just said-Cottonwood’s done for.”

“Look lady, if McCarren would send us more men, maybe we could do more than watch, but as it is-”

“We already broke ‘em out for free.” Kara points out, bending down to start unlacing one of her boots. She pulled the tongue loose, retrieved a flat little rubber banded bundle of NCR dollars. “Either way-they’re your problem now. Just get ‘em out of here, and this one to Julie Farkas.”

She slapped the money into his palm, then moved to tighten and retie her laces up, humming to herself a little.

The ranger looks down at the money, shrugs-and tucks it behind his armor. “Fine.
Can you at least tell me who all is dead?”

 

[Obuzeti]

"All of them," Moray answers, monotone, annoyed wit the ranger's impracticality. He could have sent a runner already to verify their info, and should have. Instead he's still pissing around here. "The centurion, the decanus, the ferry asshole, the frumentarii stalking the place, all the soldiers. All of them. I also dumped radioactive waste on the town from the overhanging truck."

Erasmus stares at Moray. "Jesus, why? What'd they do to you?"

Moray shrugs. He looks over at the comms officer behind this guy and addresses him instead. "Can you get a runner out there to check on any of this?"

"Shit, I'll do it myself," the guy declares. He looks ready to fight the fucking war on his own, and gets up and books it out at a steady jog, two of the other ghouls falling in line behind him at a gesture. Erasmus is left behind them working his jaw, not sure what's going on anymore.

"Well, assuming you're not bullshitting me - and that mark on your chest makes me think you still are, by the way - I suppose I can get that done," the senior ranger says, pointing at the Mark of Caesar that Moray's still wearing.

Moray looks at it. Shrugs. Takes it off and hands it to Erasmus, who chokes at the casual giveaway.

"I'm bored," he says to Kara. "Let's go."

He takes a step and then pauses before Caleb. "Head south of Freeside, to the Gun Runners. Tell them I sent you their way."

Then he's heading on.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Jesus, why? What’d they do to you?”

Kara’s head tilts a fraction, her smirk widening into a fixed sort of smile. Really? Did this idiot NOT know about Searchlight? Or just-shit, did there have to be a reason to take stuff away from the skirts?

The other guy she approves of. This one can fuck off.

Moray removes the stupid thing that’d brought them out here to see his glorious highness in the first place-and just hands it to the guy before turning his back on him.

Kara steps in and boldly slips her fingers under the collar of his armor-he leans back rather than swat at her, and it lets her snag her money right the heck back.

“Enjoy that egg on your face, hm?” She says, whirling around to tug Melody along with her. The kid’s still wearing her hat with the heart shaped glasses on the brim-Kara decides it suits her. She decides she’s going to send a whole goddamned wardrobe over, matter of fact!

Right on the heels of her bigger partner, Kara steps up to Caleb too. “But before that-” She hands HIM the money instead. “Make sure Melody and Sergeant Teddy gets dropped off in the old Mormon Fort, okay? Since you’re heading there too and all?”

Melody tugs on her hand, and Kara turns into a kneel, returns the quick, fierce hug. “Tell Julie I said to share my Grognak comics and whatever candy she’s saved up for me.” She tugs the brim to the hat down over Melody’s eyes as she stands back up, and the girl laughs as she corrects it.

“Catch ya later kiddo.”

And with a whistle for her lingering, far flung puppy dogs-Kara trotted after Moray, falling back into her lazy, pepped saunter once she’s caught up.

Watching the mismatched pair go, the calmer of the two girlfriends speaks up. “So…who exactly were those two, again?”

~*~

“It’s still kinda a trek back-we can stop if you want, if you think we have enough distance? I’d keep watch!” Kara’s worried over him. Anyone would be, their partner coming back with his face all bandaged up and hobbling as bad as he is.

They’d picked up his fall back stash already, and Kara thinks they’ve made some good time-she’s honestly not super sure, they’re cutting through a patch of desert rather than more familiar ruins, landmarks. Might be the point, she’s not sure, and doesn’t have her crappy map to remind her.

 

[Obuzeti]

Moray shakes his head. As the Med-X and the stimpaks do their work, he's gotten less irritable, but he's slowed some as they've gone. The cracked bones are going to hurt for awhile unless he gets to an Auto-Doc. "I didn't even see that other asshole coming," he says. "And he messed me up on his own. I can cut through a patrol of Legion soldiers, no problem, but he was spitting powdered glass in my eyes, throwing hatchets, shit like that. Nasty motherfucker. I can probably kill another one but I'm going to be down after that, and I have no idea how many assholes like that they've got, or where they are. I'd like a solid door they can't get around between me and whatever else is out there."

He touches his face with the hand not on his staff and narrows his eyes a little at the crimson tinge they come away with. "Cove was worth hitting. Don't regret that. I just need to be more careful in the future."

Jonah hurts. It doesn't stop him, but it's there, steady and pulsing in the background, and it wears at him to go on a march like this, and once he stops moving he's probably going to drop and pass out. Kara's energetic as ever, but he's been in three pitched fights and covered a lot of ground while injured. Sleep is necessary.

~*~


They press on to Goodsprings, and make a brief stop at the Auto-Doc to patch together some of the broken bones - they'll heal, but he needs to be ginger on them for a couple days. Meanwhile, moving even slower now, they head up to the Vault proper. Once the door closes behind them - Jonah actually keeping his pistol out for the entire time until the door seals, paranoid at some last-chance attack - he leans back against the wall and takes a long breath, braced between that and his new staff.

"Ow," he says, eventually.

Then he pushes off and heads down the hall. "Shower," he says, by way of information. "Need to get all this shit off."

He's been soaked in blood since the Cove, and it's hardened by now into a sticky, uncomfortable mess, his own and others.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Powdered glass? Who the hell had that asshole thought he was, her?

“Yeah-” Kara says, nearly saying ‘the vault’ but skipping over that, mildly paranoid now that he’s said that. “-home’s good for that.”

He says he doesn’t regret the job, and Kara doesn’t think she does either-but looking at him, she can’t quite call it an even trade. He says he could kill another one, but Kara can’t help but feel he could have bit it with the first. Or worry.

No, no stopping today. They’d get straight home, and bunker down. She’d be hard pressed to survive anything that could tangle with Moray for any amount of time.

~*~

Kara’s at his side again, half to offer support, half just to touch him as they head into the cave for the back of their vault. Hrolf leads Lupa in just fine, and it’s not until the door seals with that pressurized hiss that Jonah holsters his pistol.

Wide blue eyes survey him as he leans there a minute, and somehow, it’s even worse than the glimpse she’d gotten at Doc Mitchells.

“Ow.”

“And you look it.” The redhead agrees with a nod. She follows after him and helps him out of his clothing, more to be doing something rather than because he needed it-well, maybe. Was HE concussed? Should he stay awake? He looks so tired, and they’d been trudging along for several hours as it is-no, he’s probably safe, he wouldn’t sleep if he wasn’t.

He needs rest, and lots of it-and then, she doesn’t know-soup or something. Sandwiches and...and lots of vitamin C! That’d be the ticket!

The courier starts to undress, kicking out of her boots, the knee pads, the ‘ranger’ pants-but then seems to think better of it. She herds him into the shower instead, then darts off to run several floors down and into one of the laundry facilities. She passes a curious Hrolf and Lupa on the way-off on their doggie adventures. At least the fur babies are getting along.

She comes back with straight up silk pajamas, the biggest ones she could find. She's also balancing a plate of sandwiches, and a capped off bottle of maybe orange juice, maybe just flavored corn syrup-y water.

There’s also a sleeping cap, but if she could convince him to wear that, she was President John Henry Eden himself.

"Are you hungry?" Kara calls over the shower door, trying to figure out how to set the pajamas down without dropping anything-and just doesn't, waiting for him with it all instead. "Or thirsty? I got some juice. Think there's vodka around here, you want that in there."

 

[Obuzeti]

The door to the shower slides open, and Jonah leans out. In the harsh synthetic light of the Vault, his injuries look even worse, or maybe it's just that the bruises have had time to fully bloom. Purple-black splotches swamp everywhere from his lower jaw to just above his ribs, great night colored blossoms over his jaw, neck, collarbone, and chest, one of his arms, and his leg. With the bandage removed, too, the stitching on his cheek is visible, and the black right through them, where the eagle-topped pole had torn straight through his face into the cavity of his mouth.

It's a brutal amount of damage, and he's all but leaning against the wall now as it starts to lay into him, a full day delayed.

Jonah first reaches up and taps his savaged cheek, then his throat, and shakes his head. Then he taps the plate of edibles she'd scrounged up and points at one of the low footlockers bookending their bed.

His hand comes up, then, to brush Kara's cheek, and tuck some of her hair behind her ear. His skin is damp, and he smiles, or tries to. The open wound on his face visibly pulls a little and he winces instead, and turns the showerhead off as he starts looking for a towel.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara has seen the aftermath of a lot of violence. Kara grew up with raiders. She’s been injured herself, and caused severe injuries -and death-to dozens of people at this point, given the recent full on firefights in Nipton and Gomorrah. She’s read the diaries and journals of bad, bad people, read about the suffering of innocent good ones, has gone through more than her fair share of vaults and bunkers, seen the results of several nasty human social experiments.

She’s come across scavengers and wastelanders who’d cashed out, and knew that that’s just the way it was. Either get, or get got. Kill or be killed. Not everything in the wasteland talks, and sometimes when it comes down to it in the thick of things-it’s just plumb you or the other guy.

Kara’s no stranger to that.

But when Jonah slides the door open and leans out, Kara feels like world tips sideways a little, a rare feeling of vertigo. Oh, her poor Jonah! They had really tried to kill him, kill Jonah, Jonah of the whale and-

Kara’s eyes sting, and he’s blurry before she looks away and has to blink some, will tears away. That wouldn’t help him any, but it hits her hard to see him like this, bruised up and banged around and hurting.

He can’t even talk, or maybe just doesn’t want to talk-Kara swallows, averted eyes flicking back up to his when he touches her face.

His partner smiles up at him, but her eyes are wet and worried.

She’s gotta help him! Do something-doctor Kara, on the case! Sorta-

The redhead shifts the bundle of items to one arm, and it sends the plastic bottle of juice rolling off and bouncing on floor. Kara just kicks it aside and reaches for one of the fluffy towels, hands it to him. Then she separates the plate from the pajamas and offers them up too, trusting herself to speak again.

“I found you some pajamas!” Kara sets them on the edge of the sink counter, smooths over the silky fabric. “They’re...they’re the good kind, you know! Fancy stuff, faaaancy stuff.” Pajamas successfully hawked, the small woman hurries off with the sandwiches-her usual her usual lazy saunter replaced with a high energy, fast little clip. She sets the plate on the same foot locker as the glass green lamp, then picks up the pillow and fluffs it up a little crazily. She flops it against the headboard, hands on her hips-then suddenly leans far over the bed to snag hers too. Kara fluffs it up even crazier than the first one before tossing it against the other. She tugs the sheet and thin blanket up over the messy bed, straightens it up a little in something she clearly was NOT very practiced in.

That’s still not enough-so next scrambles over the bed she’d JUST ‘made’ and slides off next to the footlocker on ‘her’ side to pop it open impatiently. Kara tosses out several stockings, nylons, and prettier underthings out over her head in an almost cartoonish fashion before she finds what she’s looking for at the near bottom of it; a colorful blanket that had holes in it. But, on purpose holes!

Spindly braided threads form a raised sort of pattern in long lines down the length of the woven together blanket, the string? Thick, soft, and most importantly-warm. She tugs the sheet and blanket straight-ish again-and then unfurls the colorful one over them both, particularly on his side.

NOW the bed was acceptable for recuperating in.

Kara glances up at the harsh lighting-and darts around the bed to the switch over by the stairs, turning them down until there’s just the emergency ones along the basedeck, and the softer glow of the green lamp.

Okay, NOW it’s accepta-no wait. Kara cuts back around to the foot locker, and finds slippers-they’re much too big for her, but looking at them again, she realizes they’d be too small for Jonah, too.

Kara drops them back into the case with a disappointed huff. Well, that’s maybe something to have Charlene make next time she sees her.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah towels off, watching Kara scuttle about with crazed energy. He gets why she hurts - he remembers how unbelievably, soul-searing afraid he'd been when Benny had taken his shot at her, tried to execute her in an old graveyard as some kind of rah-rah moment for his goons. Even thinking about it makes a cold prickle go down his spine, even now. Instead, though, he carefully rewinds bandages around his face - with his new face vent sealed, he can talk again, if not comfortably until the stimpaks seal the wound. They should really start cooking sometime overnight, when his body's resting.

The pajamas he puts on, to comfort Kara as much as anything else, but the rest is ridiculous and he makes his way out of the shower - slow, much as he hates it - and wraps an arm around Kara's shoulders, his lips pressing into her hair from behind.

"I'm tired," he says, gentle. "Come to bed."

The Cove had been worth hitting, and he wasn't even really shook in his own confidence as the baddest bruiser out there. On the other hand, this is the second time in about two weeks he'd run into someone as nasty as he is, that'd fucked him up in close before he had time to make distance and shoot them. There's got to be some way he can regain the edge. Some trick he's missing, that he's fighting the Legion on their own terms. He's just one man. He can't afford to trade shots - all their folk are replaceable, and he can't leave Kara behind. Clearly not now.

So he sits on the bed and draws Kara in with him, though he has to drag the sheet up over him instead of sliding underneath. The pajamas are a weird change, but good at padding his tender spots. He still kind of wants the sensation of her bare skin against his, though. That's a sweeter antidote to his pains.

"You alright, Kara?" he asks, quiet, in the dark and the still.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Before she can come up with any more harebrained ADD ideas while half dressed and thrumming on anxiety-Jonah reels her in to press a kiss into her hair, murmuring her line.

“Okay.” She agrees, despite being dusty, feeling gross from the physical and emotional activities of the day. They’d done good work. It was good. They’d left things better than they’d found them, and dealt a serious blow to the unrepentant bad guys.

So why does she feel so sick? She shouldn’t have left him up on that hilltop by himself. She’s not sure how the hell that woulda worked to free the people in cages, but still. She’s trickier than this, isn’t she? She’s never had muscle before, and Jonah wasn’t muscle.

He was just hers, and now he’s all beat up and hurting.

"You alright, Kara?"

She cuddles in close to his side, layers of cloth between them-pajamas, sheet, blanket and afghan-but he’s still warm, and alive, and thank God. Luck or providence, she doesn’t know-but thank God.

“Yeah.” She murmurs into the quiet, huddled up with him, bunkered down safe and secure and guarded from all harm, her and him. “Yeah, you know me-I bounce back.”

Silence, and then-

“Are you going to be okay? Stimpaks and...and auto docs and everything going to do the trick?” That quieter voice, the sincere one that never lies, never distracts, never obscures.

~*~

Kara stays there a long time. Even after he’s fallen into the steady rhythmic breathing of sleep, she stays, lying awake and curled in close. It’s kind of a first-she’s always asleep before him, she’s pretty sure.

But not tonight. She’s thinking about this war, and she’s thinking about Jonah. She needs the reassurance of touch right now-the rise and fall of his chest, the warmth that radiates from his body. Death was the ultimate denial of freedom-you were just done, after that. Maybe there was more-she supposed she’d find out someday-but as far as this life goes, just done.

But he’s not dead. He’s still alive, and still free. They’re both still free. There’d been lots of risk today...too many risks. Kara thinks about all the tricky crap she’s previously gotten away with, mostly scot free-and how certain she used to be of going down loud and noisy and long before reaching old age. Hedonism had been her poison of choice, thank you very much.

And now she’s got...well, always HAD morals, she’s just not ignoring them anymore. She understands better, she’s accepting what was always there, always. They got a stake in this thing, because they could move a lot of mountains if they wanted to-not just for House, but for the Mojave in general, the people here.

Stacking the deck as best they could, and letting the cards fall how they wanted. It’s the same as she’s always done, it’s just...she’s using her talents for better purposes, now.

But she can’t lose Jonah over this. Better to live with regret than live without him. She can’t. She won’t. He was never the muscle, and she’d resolved a long while ago not to treat him as such. To act the same as she would solo, right?

She hadn’t really done that today. It’d been a mutual plan and decision, and he’s a man, not a boy to boss around-but still. If he had died, would that have been a good trade? The ‘right’ thing, for Jonah?

No. Never. That would have been the most sour deal this side of New Vegas.

They’d be more careful. It’d been harder this time because they’d walked into the jaws. Kara’s glad they had plucked those people, plucked Melody out from the gnashing teeth of the Legion. She’s glad they were able to strengthen House’s position ten fold. She’s even glad she was there to sneak into Caesar’s stupid tent and sabotage that auto doc before he found someone competent to either fix him themselves, or a scavenging merc like her to find the correct module and bring it back to him. She hopes his hypocrisy kills him dead, and if she did it right-it fucking would.

Her own little secret, her joke-a profligate woman killing Caesar with the very tech he had decried. Son of Mars indeed.

She glances back at up Jonah, his profile in the mostly dark-and she’s grateful most of all for his safe return. He’s alright. He’s okay.

She slips carefully from his side, and the weight of the day finally settles on her shoulders-she’s tired. Climbing around, worrying about Jonah, worrying about enslavement, worrying about Melody, carting the kid on her back, sneaking by Caesar’s tent too afraid to breathe, killing the asshat legionnaire, charging at and charming what others would definitely have argued was a monster, the guy succumbing to the beating delivered long before they got there, so close to freedom but doomed from the start-tired.

The courier first goes to the big vault door illuminated in the blue glow of the hologram of Vera Keyes, and it’s just as sealed tight as it should be, not that she had really expected different. She sleepily heads back down the stairs and wanders past her sleeping partner safe in bed, heading into the hygiene room. She picks her blood splattered pants up and drops them down the laundry chute, yawns-and pulls everything else off too, scrubbing down in the shower and finally rinsing the dust out of her hair, lathering up to ridiculous proportions.

The hot water feels nice, and for a minute she thinks she could sleep right there.

But nah. She pulls on her OWN silk pajama top, several sizes too big and falling about midthigh-and returns to bed feeling mostly human again, moisturized and smelling a heck of a lot better. She climbs in, tucks in close next to Jonah without touching him, worried about prodding a bruise or three-and then she doesn’t think about anything anymore, passing out as heavy as she’s maybe ever done.

 

[Obuzeti]

"I'll be fine," Jonah promises, and means it, before the exhaustion swamps him and he falls asleep.

~*~

In the morning, the stimpaks and the Auto-Doc have done their work; when Jonah runs his fingers over his cheek, raw red flesh twinges in between the stitches. It's going to scar, he knows already, but at least it's not one that will meaningfully affect him. He'll just look a little more gruesome than before.

The bruises are still tender, though, especially the deep bone bruises near the breaks, and he's ginger as he levers himself out of bed. Kara's in pajamas, snuggled up near to him without touching, and he can't help but touch her brow, running fingers over smooth skin.

This is where he finds satisfaction. Kara, back home and safe.

Strange, how easy he calls it home, now. How long has it even been. Two months?

Jonah stands and heads over to the workbench, picking up his fatigues as he goes. He's got some adjustments to make; while the loose material is excellent for moving in stealth, and doesn't restrict his movement or flexibility for close-range combat, it's not protecting him against the blows he is taking. Some ceramic inserts, aramid mesh, and underlaid padding to absorb the new weight will support him better than the shapeless fatigues he's used to.

Problematically, he doesn't have the kind of ceramic he needs, but he managed to cannibalize a set of combat armor for its mesh and padding, then started weaving that into the underlay. He'll have to make a stop by either the Crimson Caravan or the Gun Runners when he's back on the Strip in order to do justice to his vision of the project.