Know When to Fold 'Em (Closed for Obuzeti)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara stretches her arms and legs out in a back arching -reach-; then flops back into a graceless jumble of loose limbs in the soft sheets and mattress, lazy.

Morning, or maybe afternoon-or hell, maybe even late evening-that was the thing with Vaults, you never knew what time it was if flux lighting wasn't involved. Jonah was already up and somewhere else-probably the craft bench, next room over.

Kara thinks about that a minute as well as his state yesterday-and then slips out of bed to track him down. Maybe today he wants orange juice? She's almost sure that was the key to good healing. Or maybe it was the key to not getting sick? She'd make for a piss poor doctor, good thing he knew what to do.

There's a bear shaped bottle of honey on the junk shelves, and Kara swipes it as she wanders past, pulls her hands through the sleeves of the night shirt.

She moves through the doorway and there he is, right where he likes to be-working at something, building a thing up with his hands.

" 'ello.". Kara says as she looks him over from the doorway. "Feeling any better? Need soup or...vitamin C?" She glances at the bottle of honey, before giving it a flourishing wave with her other hand. "Brought you this, cause of what you said before about it."

 

[Obuzeti]

"If you would," Jonah replies, absent-minded. The bruises, aided by the wizardry of pre-War technology, have already retreated to faint greenish-yellows, except for a few places over his jaw and collarbone where bone breaks linger. The bandage around his head is gone, also, revealing an angry red scar across his face with stitching in it, but at least it's not an open wound anymore. He doesn't look good, precisely, but he looks far less dead. "Renovating my armor to help against some of the shit I got caught by. Next time we're in town I'm buying a helmet, too, that bitch kept clocking me in the face every chance he got. A good chin guard would have helped a lot."

He sets a patch of aramid weave half-off the table, braces it with one hand, then pulls his knife from its sheathe (where it'd been resting on the table) and plunges it into the strange, stretchy fabric. It catches and holds the tip, deforming and stretching, but doesn't let it penetrate.

He sheathes the knife and hands the weird square of textile over to Kara. "Stuff with take a blow from just about anything, very high tensile strength. My fatigues are real good against bullets, but got no game against Legion fare, blades and so on. Need to swap that up."

He's in full Builder Bob mode, planning out additions and renovations to his armor and with an actual sheet of paper he'd salvaged somewhere with drawings of the inside and outside of his planned work, multiple diagrams, weave patterns, and various other nerdery.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara’s got goals now-tomato soup, and orange juice, and maybe some cheese sandwiches or something-without crust, cause she usually burns them at least a little. She’s usually not the one cooking, and she’s all about it today. The soup thingie works, but not the burger flipping bot.

She trails further into the space while he talks, rubs at one of her eyes while the other peers curiously at the armor. He’s already looking forward to the next fight, even while Kara spins wheels on how to avoid it.

“With something cool painted on the side?” She wants to know, setting the honey down in the hutch of the bench-before he suddenly stabs downward into the fabric. The courier jumps back a pace-and then leans in close and curious, accepts the little square as she steps back up beside him.

She’s tempted to try and bite it, for reasons she’s not exactly clear on.

Carribean blue eyes flick to him over the top of it, warm-and then her lips curve into a smile, setting the fabric aside to smooth her fingers over his shoulder. “S’good idea.” She agrees with a nod, his talk and his diagrams and just-his enjoyment of it, and how he teaches and shares-it all soothes her soul like a balm, and Kara can feel her heart settle.

“I’ll go get some foodstuffs!” She decides, genuine cheer filtering in rather than the previous night’s anxiety fueled mania. She nods to the diagrams. “Brain food.”

And with a bit of flounce, Kara turns on her heel in a swirl of that oversized shirt, and bounces away to make some kind of breakfast lunch.

~*~

Kara in the kitchen isn’t quite a travesty-but it’s not the best of ideas, either. She’s seen Jonah cook some things sure-and could probably copy him, maybe. But she’s got her own way of doing things too, and that’s what she’s going to do because that’s what she knows how to do-no crappy sandwiches for him, nope!

Kara wields a clothing iron, while bent over a cutting board, tongue at the corner of her mouth as she concentrates-even as she hums a little tune to herself during the process. There’s divets filed in a grid like pattern on the flat metal plate of her re-purposed cooking implement-something she’d painstakingly done so she could make waffles.

Beneath the iron she’s got a cheese sandwich between two pieces of wax paper, crisping it just so; she’d cut the crusts off, looked at it-and then cut it into a vague heart shape on a whim.

Her back is to the little bar counter, though most of the time they ate at the drop down table inside the kitchenette-probably previously meant for employee breaks or something. Kara guesses the little dinette was more of a snack stand for the vault dwellers that lived here long before she’d ever come across it. It wasn’t as expansive as the mess hall in the upper, currently Powder Ganger occupied portions she hadn’t laid claim to-but that was exactly why she liked it. It had been easy to make it hers, and now-theirs.

The soup dispenser thing dinged just as she flipped the wax paper trapped sandwich and started on the other side. It was hot enough to do its job now, but she’s busy crafting the perfect sandwich. Fittingly for the zany redhead, she'd donned a chef's hat. It was decisively ridiculous paired with the sleep shirt and bare legs, but it 'helped her cook better'.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Let me make it functional before you make it pretty, Kara," Jonah says, but the unscarred corner of his mouth creeps up a little. She bounces away, and he takes a moment to appreciate the glimpse of strong thighs and pretty legs he gets as she leaves, then he turns back to his work. He's still got her jacket to go through after this too, and maybe a proper pair of pants if they're about to go back into heavy combat like they'd just been. He's not about to try to force it on her anywhere they're not getting shot at though.

~*~

It's about a half hour later Jonah ambles over to Kara's bar (because of course she has a bar in their home, even if it's a kitchen bar). He takes a look at the waffles, smiles a little, and circles around behind Kara as she cooks and hums, his arms linking around her waist. The big man noses beside her head, instead of into her hair - the chef hat blocking his usual target. It gets knocked askew anyways.

"Domestic of you," he teases gently, and watches her cook. Most of her kitchen gear was never meant for the purpose she's using it for, but she makes it work, and he's satisfied to watch and hold her for the moment. "What's on serve?"

He entertains the idea of a life of this, and gets a little dizzy at it. He could wake up every morning like this, no question. He could live this life.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara laughs, head tipping a little to the side, tickled. “Barefoot wives, amirite?” She was hardly that, but it was funny to state as such. He’s warm behind her, and Kara basks in that a bit, setting the iron aside. “Waffles and…” She lifts the top piece of wax paper in her best impression of an Ultra Luxe server lifting a silver cloche-and ruins it when she exclaims “Ta-da! Toasted cheese sandwich, custom made!”

The rough heart shape had gotten a little flat on one side where cheese had oozed out of it, but Kara had done a good job keeping the crispness even and mostly uniform. She puffs up with no small amount of pride.

“Obviously perfect. There’s also about to be tomato soup. Everybody likes tomato soup.” Suppose when they eventually run out of stores, it’d have to be tato soup, but that wouldn’t be so bad.

Kara tips her head back to look up at him somewhat, smooshing more of the hat-it's about to topple off her head. "Appetizing, right? I'm a five star chef you know. Certified and everything."

 

[Obuzeti]

"I'll take bare-legged, thank you," Jonah corrects with a faint purr in the back of his throat, then leans down to press a kiss to Kara's lips as she turns her head up, the angle irresistible to him. The hat falls off - he catches it in one hand and flicks it at the bar, where it skids to a stop. "And I bet every single one of those stars you swiped somewhere, but I'm not here to criticize your qualifications. Let's eat."

He releases Kara and serves himself up some of the waffles, then the tomato soup when that comes due. Properly supplied with victuals, he ambles over to the bar counter and sets himself there. The big man isn't limping anymore, which is another improvement of note.

"Think we done good," he says, after taking a bite of the sandwich. It's good, which doesn't surprise him - this has the stink of a secret skill, one of those little talents Kara cultivates on her own time and hides away, gleeful at one more hidden facet she gets to keep. "That girl sent up to Freeside, deserter onto the Gun Runners, slaves freed, the Cove shut down. Decent piece of work, all told. Would have liked to loot that storage shack, but the opportunity didn't present itself."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

That earns him a mischievous, mirthful smirk-and then Kara returns his kiss with a near purr of her own.

Kara happily makes do with her waffles, dipping them into her own little bowl of tomato soup in lieu of syrup or something-she likes the combination of buttermilk and tangy spice. Her ankles cross, legs swinging to and fro on the same side of the bar counter.

“Yeah-it was an action packed night alright.” Kara agrees, mulling it over a little. “I tried to get more people out of The Fort, you know? But not a single one took me up on it. Just Melody.” It’s not something she really wants to think about-she’s already mete out justice in the form of the sabotaged autodoc, nothing more to be done about it.

“Gonna send that kid a whole wardrobe. Her AND the bear.” Kara visibly perks up. Holy shit, yeah! She could find little hats, maybe sew vests and whatever to match whatever she sends over. The possibilities-and the hilarity-are endless.

“It was good.” She glances sideways at him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when asshat attacked, though.” Kara plays with her food a little, tearing off a square of waffle and letting it float in her soup-before sinking it by tipping over one corner.

“But you know what’ll really chap Caesar’s ass, if he finds out?” He was probably going to find out. Legion had spies everywhere it seemed. “Is that he invited us over there. Whoops!”

That at least, Kara can delight in-and she does, visibly perking up, 'rescuing' the sunken piece of waffle only to pop it past her lips and munch it down. Vexing people was almost her favorite pastime, after all.

 

[Obuzeti]

Anyone that had chosen to stay behind in the Fort is dead anyways. It may take them awhile to lay down, but the soul's been subsumed already. Jonah knows better than to tell Kara this, though. Freedom is her religion, and the concept of such an utter prison would ruin this moment.

"If she's up in Freeside, you could probably check in on our way back from House," Jonah points out, munching on his own food. He doesn't mix it like Kara does. That's disgusting. "Hardly much of a detour, given that we've run through everything with so much as a mean look between the Kings and the Lucky Eight."

He sets his food aside for a moment as the topic of 'that asshole' came up. "I'm glad you weren't, honestly. Talked about you - not much, but I got the inkling I was just a by-product of taking a swing at you. No idea why. Anyhow he's dead."

He takes a bite of his waffle. Chews.

"Fuck Caesar, anyways. I'm still a little annoyed you wouldn't let me nuke his shitty tent. Fucker thought he could tell me what to do, fuck him."

Jonah's tone darkens as his brow beetle downwards, but he shrugs it off and instead leans a little against Kara's shoulder. "Thank you for all of this. I appreciate it."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara’s mind was still happily spinning up all the craziness she’d be bestowing on ‘was’ Melody, now that Melody was free in-well, Freeside-when he drops the bit of info about the douche canoe he’d had to fight.

Hold up, her?

Kara visibly puzzles over that. She didn’t exactly have a lot of mortal enemies-that was kinda the whole point of wheeling and dealing, you didn’t want blood thirsty warlords after your hide. She’s sweet talked herself out of trouble time and time again, smoothed things over-or else didn’t get caught as being the perp in the first place.

Oh, she’s vexed people-but someone had had a grudge so strong they’d try to hurt her by hurting Jonah? Someone in the Legion? She’s only recently gone up against them in any traceable form, fucking up their dealings with the Khans-but everything else they’d acted like she was an extension of him. His whore or whatever.

So who the hell had this guy been? WAS he Legion? Who else could fight as nasty as Moray but Dog Hat and his cronies?

It’s a bit disturbing, but Jonah was right; the bastard was dead. Whatever his deal, it’d been resolved with prejudice.

Still, it worries her a little. Jonah wasn’t much of a weak spot given how big and mean he was, but-well, who else would really be coming for her? Duke?

Actually, maybe they outta talk about Duke.

He moves on to Caesar, states annoyance-and Kara’s mouth quirks into a bit of a smirk, but she doesn’t comment. She knows it hadn’t been easy for him, but...he was alive. She’s not sure he would be if she hadn’t gone. It’d been a hell of a gamble following him into that place, but it’d paid off.

Whatever, Caesar would get his.

"Thank you for all of this. I appreciate it."

The smirk vanishes, as does her musing over her secrets. Both were replaced with a thrown expression, a guileless blue eyed blink before she turned both her body and her attention towards him. Kara draws one leg up onto her seat, fingers wrapping around her delicate ankle while her opposite hand moves for the arm he’d brushed her with, twisting on her bar stool.

“It’s what you deserve, Jonah.”

He’s paid his dues. He’s more than paid his dues, more dues than she has by fucking far, and here he is thanking her again for things she so willingly offers up. Beat up and bruised and with a chunk taken out of his poor face because her dumb ass had offered up a Christmas list of items and then left him alone on a hill where some asshat with a grudge tried to gank him.

She’s a piss poor protector.

“I love you.” She says, and there’s the barest bit of a tremble to her lower lip. “Of course I want to share anything, everything I’ve got. You deserve it. You deserve all I can give you.”

Jonah of the whale, the man on par with secret, sparkling geodes.

“And I mean, it’s not like I got complaints, either. This ain’t exactly selfless.” Her eyes narrow a barest smidgen, and she huffs a laugh, humor to cap off the raw truth, her sincerity.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah reaches over and wraps the arm closest to Kara around her shoulders as she talks. He doesn't precisely know what it is she finds so precious in him - he barely manages to be what's the bare modicum of decency, most days, and the rest he can feel the blood-hate howl in his veins. He's either a murderer or haltingly awkward as he tries to feel out things he's never described before, but somehow Kara puts up with all of him, and that's worth something to him. It's worth everything he can give, at least.

There's a lot of things he wants to say but one that needs come first. He turns to face Kara, bringing his other hand up to cup her chin and raise it so he can hold her gaze.

"I love you," he says, the words unadorned, and then kisses her, soft and sacred as an oath given freely.

When he draws back, after a time, he sets his forehead against Kara's, and starts from the basic axiom that's guided him since the bunker, since he decided to tie his fate to Kara's and found neither regret nor frustration, but freedom from the sulfurous hatred that has defined his life thus far, and happiness. That, most precious of all, he treasures.

"For you," he says soft. "With you, by you, beside you, and because of you. I am given life without grief from the ruin that was I, Kara. I would share it with you."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

She knows it. She knows he does.

Kara could melt in that kiss. Her hand leaves her ankle and trails delicate fingers down his silk encased chest, linger over his heart.

She had wanted to make him feel. Wanted him to be happy. To be free.

He is both of these things, with her.

And so beautiful, in them.

She opens her mouth to say something but her throat is tight, can't get sound past it. She swallows, licks her lips before she tries again-and then finally laughs a little, forehead to forehead and eye to eye. Gives up, and reverts to touch instead-her hand against his chest, the fingers of the other gently caressing the uninjured side of his face.

"You'll make me cry again, Jonah."

She loves him so goddamned much.

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah closes his eyes, and smiles - only ever a crook on one side of his mouth, and even more so now, with the other end scarred and ruined. Instead, he turns and presses lips to her fingers here they rest on his face. He doesn't say anything else on the subject, just presses another soft kiss on Kara's lips, too, and then turns back to his meal. "Eat up," he says, still kind-of smiling. "I made a purchase while we were at the strip, and had it delivered to the General Store while we were at the Fort. It should be there by now."

He suits action to words, cleaning up the last of his meal with gusto, then levers himself up and over to the bed to change into something. His fatigues need washing, and he grimaces before pulling out a faded blue leather vest and some pants, gingerly sliding into them. They're studded with his usual custom pockets and pads, but it's by far the most casual thing he's worn in public in years, and he can't help a little bit of a cringe at the thought.

"C'mon," he says with a grunt as he manages to get his boots on. "I don't particularly trust Chet with it that much. He might try it out, and if he does and breaks the damn thing I'll have to hurt him too."

It's not said with the usual dead heat - almost genial in delivery, it is. But then it's hard to call this morning anything but a good one.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

He smiles, and Kara pretends to take a snapshot in her brain, locks it up with so many other warm, soft, wonderful little bits and pieces of their time together-and is happy. He kisses her fingers, then her again treasuring.

”Eat up.

Kara hums and twists back to her waffle and soup, picks up another torn strip of the former to dip into the latter-when he drops the next bit. Kara tilts her head, stirring the tomato foodstuff with the waffle stick.

“What is it?” He doesn’t say. He never talks with his mouth full and Kara waits, munching on just one more bite of waffle while watching and waiting-but when he finishes, he just walks away!

“Hey!” Kara watches him go a minute, then glances back to her almost finished breakfast lunch-and hops up to hurriedly toss it down the disposal, haphazardly dumping the dishes in the sink. “No really, what’d you order?” She calls as she heads into the empty quarters where she’d originally stolen her-their-bed, the closet she kept a bunch of her clothes in.

Jonah going shopping? What would he even shop for? Some kinda cool gun, maybe. A replacement for Loretta perhaps? Nobody on the Strip would have had anything as fancy as that, would they?

Kara draws in a sharp breath;maybe a back alley gun smuggler!

Gosh, she didn’t get to visit any weapons dealer. He probably had a cool trench coat and a ‘c’mere kid’ gravelly sorta voice- maybe a head wrap and scarf! So you couldn’t see his face? He was an undercover weapons dealer? Upstanding citizen by day, weapons dealer by-um. Also day? Maybe Troike was his frontside-ish business partner?

There were a lot of possibilities there, and Kara was already ripping off her own imaginings to use in a bullshit retelling of how she obtained Lil Devil, or maybe one of her baseball bats-half forgetting the planned pick up until she finished dressing.

~*~

“A back mounted mini gun for Hrolf? With doggy earmuffs!”

The entire walk over to Good Springs proper Kara guessed about what he’d ordered, starting out almost reasonable and expanding into the ridiculous in short order. The more outlandish the ‘guess’, the more entertained she was with it.

Her outfit was a new one, or at least-a new combination. Kara never seemed to wear the same arrangement twice-oh, some components would reappear from time to time, and her jacket and boots were usually constant, but everything else was switched out and around, remixed and rematched in a game of switcheroo without any discernible pattern.

This time she had foregone the jacket for the blue denim vest with the pieced together reflective ‘sun’ on the back of it. The symbol previously adorned the vault suit she’d worn (and mostly burned up with that fusion core stealth grenade) in Sierra Madre, and was artistically constructed out of geometrical pieces cut out of the usual Vault suit number designations.

Rather than try to reassemble those jigsaw pieces used to form it, she’d just cut around it in a circle, stitching the darker blue material smack on the back of the denim vest, unfinished, slightly fraying edges and all.

Paired with that she wore a plain black tank top, a familiar pair of tan colored shorts, and rather than the usual shorter stockings-full on black tights. Well, on her right leg anyway. The other was almost completely bare from the top of her calf high boot to the hem of the shorts except for a one inch strip of royal blue ribbon tied into a neat little bow mid thigh. Perhaps Kara’s version of a garter? Was she aware that was typically to hold stockings up?

In all likelihood, she just liked the look of it.

(It had, in fact, won out over her usual metal kneepad.)

When it turned out to be a wrapped package, a package for her-Kara is briefly tongue tied. She forgets to try and bribe Chet on what it was-and follows after Jonah, less certain about prodding him about it part of the way back-and then right back on it, but only guesses that were way too big and much too impossible to be contained in the package, big as it was.

From pet Matildas, to ponies, to submarines, to a new CarboratorMaxmillion 2000-something she most certainly had made up and claimed would power six atomic cars, which made no sense-Kara kept ‘em coming near all the way home.

Finally she seemed to run out of guesses, or maybe just got bored with guessing when he was so stoically tight lipped-and Kara finally looks thoughtful rather than manically entertained.

“I’ve never gotten a wrapped present before.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Jonah slides Kara a look out of the corner of his eye. It's very nearly smug. "Consider it an anniversary present," he says, and places the package on the bar before lowering himself into the seat with a muted groan. Stretching out the damaged muscles was important, but that didn't make it fun. Making the trip for the package had doubled as physical therapy, hopefully without making Kara worry. "We're here, so go ahead and open it up. I'm not about to give up my record of unhelpful answers."

The package is in slightly faded white wrapping paper, set around a cardboard box, with another box inside, and then the movie projector he'd asked for as payment from House inside that. There's a selection of sci-fi and monster movies inside - something House had said "would appeal to Kara's attention span."

He's pretty sure that's a veiled insult, but it's also a fair observation, so Jonah lets it pass.

"Technically, it's supposed to be our payment for the Caesar job, but at this point I figure we can ask for just about anything that's not the total profits of the Strip and get it from House," Jonah says idly, watching Kara pick at the wrapping paper. "He's got to be thrilled about finally getting to use the Chip."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Kara doesn’t sit-she clambors onto the barstool beside him and just stays on her knees there for added height, very curious, and not entirely knowing what to do about getting a wrapped present.

Between this and yesterday night’s laundry list, he’s practically Santa Claws.

She looks at the package a minute, and her fidgeting fingers catch at the counter’s edge and drum at it. It looked like Kara was legitimately trying to guess now, but she honestly-well, she has no idea what could be in there.

And she’s gotta. She can’t withstand another minute of NOT knowing what was in the package.

She hopes it’s something they can share though, because she can’t think of anything she has on hand to give him, not all wrapped up and shopped for special. She finds and picks at an edge of the paper rather than tearing into it, mostly an attempt to be at least mildly respectful about it.

“I don’t doubt it-he needs us to help him, even with his freshly upgraded robot army. He’s lucky we like him.” Well, maybe it’s more his being the Mojave’s best bet. The jury’s still out on him otherwise, his calling her out like that. He did say he’d tell her some prewar stories though, and she does like stories…

Within the box is another box, and Kara briefly wonders if it might be a joke, a bunch of nested boxes one after another, something hilarious like that-but no, it’s-

Kara’s eyebrows lift near to hairline, vibrant blue eyes wide with surprise.

“Where did-I’ve never been able to scavenge a working one of these!” Whoa.

W-h-o-a.

Kara straightens up even further somehow, and suddenly shoves off the counter and her seat, already half moving nearly before her boots even make contact with the floor. She darts off into their main living space, the converted recreational area.

The excited courier climbs the first two shelves and stretches to reach something on the fourth, then jumps back down with a roll of plasticized cloth of some sort in her arms. She excitedly brings that over, pulls it open-and they’re looking at a graffiti’d angry dog looking thing, a line down the middle-and the same dog, with a bone and happy.

Kara peers down, seemingly having forgotten the art project/simple comic-and then quickly and with effort given the thing was so much bigger than she was-flipped it around to the blank side.

“We can use this!”

 

[Obuzeti]

"We scratch mutual itches for each other, most likely," Jonah says with a shrug. "You and I solve problems out of the reach of his flyswatter. The robot army just makes it a bigger flyswatter, but doesn't fix the problem that everyone can see it coming a mile away. Meanwhile, he keeps relative order so I don't have to shoot all the yahoos."

He's not swearing, which is a new one - but then maybe all the trademark roiling malice has a hard time coming up at the moment. He's all soft-eyed, relaxed as he watches Kara bound about. Absently he leans down and works his bootlaces loose, then kicks the boots off, letting his feet breathe.

"Go ahead and set that up, I'll put a reel on the projector and get it started," Jonah says, mouth crinkled in that special I'm-not-smiling-and-you-can't-prove-it way. He digs around beside the projector and comes up with a trio of reels, both sealed in protective cases that he cracks with unusual reverence - which fades some as he reads off the names. "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Killer Mantis, or The Brain from Planet Arous?"

He pauses. "You know this starts to feel like a list of things people would pay me to shoot."

He lifts the projector up and plunks it down in the recreation area, aiming the bulb up at an empty spot on the wall - probably the only one in the Vault, given Kara's propensity for haphazard shelving and stacking.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“If you shot the mantis, would that make you a Killer Mantis Killer?” Kara wants to know as she tries not to trip over the screen on her way back to the shelves, pulling a nasty looking rifle...revolver? looking thing. The stock was the top part of a crutch haphazardly secured to some sort of jury rigged action with a crank sticking out on side, a cylinder near the size of her head just in front of the trigger. She picks up a railway spike, lifts a compartment up on the barrel of the gun-and slides it in there, buckling it back down.

She turns the crank as she mulls over the three options, tongue caught in her teeth at the corner of her mouth. Then the courier takes aim and fires the monstrosity at the wall-and an eight inch spike of metal drives six inches into it. Gleeful, Kara blows on something attached to the crutch, and distinct, long vanished sound of a train whistle fills the room.

And then the front of the gun dropped off from the rest of it, near right where the loading mechanism was. “Aw, not again.” This thing never stayed together more than one or two fires! Maybe she should tape the whistle onto something else…

Well, at least they had something to hang the screen on! Abandoning the gun on the pool table and hauling the plasticized roll of paper over to its new home, Kara decides on their movie.

“Do the Beast one! Beasts are cool.” She’s stretched as tall as she can reach, trying to sling the rope over the spike. “But what’s a fathom?”

In the bright light of the projector the patched together sun on the back of her vest reflects back in a yellow glow, while the long stretch of soft skin on her exposed leg practically gleams like moonlight.

 

[Obuzeti]

"It makes me pest control," Jonah corrects, as he comes forward onto a knee to check out the Railway Rifle. He catches a glimpse of a bootleg Gauss rail inside of the barrel and nods thoughtfully - normal guns propel bullets that weigh a dozen or two grams, but a railroad spike is half a pound easy. Propelling this thing at projectile speed actually means a hell of a lot of force. "You're missing a Gauss strip. If you want, I can pick one up the next time we go through the strip then patch up the rest of the frame with that. It's going to look less ridiculous as a result, though."

For some reason, that's a quality Kara finds admirable, so the warning is fair he supposes.

"The Beast appears to be a flying head shooting laser beams, but okay," Jonah says, locking the reel into place then carefully extending the film strip into the main casing. He sets that in place and then makes himself comfortable on the couch, idly watching Kara stretch on her tiptoes to get the screen into place. It highlights her taut thigh and hips, and he just lets himself take in the view, content.

When she finally gets it set into place, he hits play, and the projector grinds to life. "Fathom's a nautical measurement of depth, but fuck if I know how big," he says, and makes room for Kara beside him. "Closest I got to the ocean was Rivet City, over at the Capital."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"It's my greatest invention ever." Kara says about the rifle. Coincidentally, that's what she says about ALL her inventions.

"And if trading off some coolness for function means it won't break all the time, that'd be okay by me-I could always paint it."

The courier brightens. "Unless YOU wanna use it? Comes with a whistle and everything!" She finally catches the rope on the spike, and the redhead gives the screen a final flattening sweep of her hand down over it before she spins away and heads for the couch-the trailing little tails of the blue ribbon fluttering in the movement.

She plunks down on the couch and starts on her own boots-less because she has qualms about shoes on furniture and more because she doesn't want to shank herself on the razors in them.

"Maybe it's like a mile." Kara guesses as she slips out of one, then the other boot. "Never been there-or any other civilized place in the capital wasteland-but it's one of the places Maara mighta been from, so I heard. Big boat or something, ain't it?"

Bootless, Kara scoots back on the couch and draws her legs up before stealing his arm for her shoulders and cuddling into his side. She's soft and warm, as always.

A war bonds advertisement plays first, dubbed over in what she swears is the same grandstanding voice always heard in other old ass ads, least ones she's caught on old radio holotape recordings.

If he glances at her, he'd find Kara watching with intense curiosity.

"Only you can help our troops win the war!". Crowed the grandstander over the flapping old world flag and marching power armored military men.

"They were all kinda manic fanatics, 'fore they blew up the world huh? I always wondered if the 'commies' ended up just as screwed as these guys."

And then the movie starts up, and Kara's excited again. "Man, this is really cool Jonah, good idea. You want some candy or something? I totally got boxed gum drops. They SAY radioactive, but I'm pretty sure that was just deceptive advertising."

 

[Obuzeti]

"No thanks," Moray says with a shake of his head as he discards his vest, leaving him in the thin undershirt. "Not my style. More your thing, and besides, you need something with a punch. This isn't a popgun - the rails this thing will spit when I get the other strip in there are going through walls and everything else in between."

His arm wraps around Kara's shoulder, comfortable, and he wrangles a pillow around and under his back as he leans against the arm of the couch, drawing Kara down with him in a comfortable slouch. It looks vastly less dignified than the man would ever allow himself to be in public. The war bond advertisements, too, draw more criticism out of the man that he'd voice otherwise. "See that?" Jonah says, pointing at the screen. "That's bullshit. War bonds were promises you bought from the government that they'd pay you back later, which I suppose happened in spades. They got all the war anyone could handle right at the doorstep."

He shakes his head, offended by the concept in general. "Anyways, there was a Remnant faction of Chinese over in the Capital Wasteland, but from what I heard they're all particularly angry ghouls that don't speak English. Considering the fact that I've never heard of a time their radio wasn't angry squawking Chinese, I'd say the homeland hasn't done well for itself."

The movie is ridiculous as expected. The "beast" is some ancient aquatic dinosaur that's been sleeping on the ocean bed for god knows how long - paleontology is not one of Jonah's strong suits. It breaks shit and bleeds plague and is a considerable handful, and before twenty minutes of the thing onscreen is shown he's already planning out how to murder it with poisoned bait and a heat trap, since it's apparently cold-blooded. This occupies him quite well.

"How is an electric fence supposed to stop a dinosaur twenty feet at the shoulder?" he asks, confused at the plot shenanigans. "No thanks. I think popcorn is supposed to be the traditional thing. That's what the Silver Lining posters said, anyways."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Sounds like a pretty good scam to me. People complain or want their money back, gov’ment could just arrest ‘em!” What a bunch of suckers to loan their money out like that, but like she said-fanatics! A whole religion, that patriotism. Didn’t do anybody any good, neither.

The holed up Chinese ghouls though-man, that musta sucked, spies ending up stranded over here like that. “Kinda too bad, really-not being able to like, integrate somewhere else, not easily. Wonder if they’re still brainwashed with patriotism too.”

Kara shrugs her free shoulder and then the movie starts. Fittingly for their conversation it opens up with an atomic bomb, and some guy waxes poetry about ‘only time will tell what the effects of these tests will be’-and Kara makes a mild scoffing sound over that. Lying back and against Jonah, she’s got a hand on his chest and she traces absent little circles with her fingers or else plucks and fidgets with the fabric of his undershirt. Then they see a frozen dinosaur and her fidgeting stops mid circle, eyes wide and sharp on the screen. Holy crap. Holy crap!

“He’s waking up!” Kara whispers excitedly, and boy was he mad! Everyone but the scientist gets super murdered-and despite the disappearance of his fellows no one believes what he saw.

The angry dinosaur sinks some boats and then knocks over a whole lighthouse before going on a rampage. Oh yeah, he’s real mad.

“Why aren’t they shooting Reed with planes? And I dunno, maybe he’s weak to electricity?” Turns out, ‘Reed’ was NOT weak to electricity, but he is weak against- Kara sits up in alarm and then scowls at the screen as a bazooka toting jackass shoots a big ole hole in the dinosaur’s throat.

“See, now that’s fucked up.” She grumbles as she settles back down against him, fingers returning to drawing slightly faster circles. “They wake him up from his nap, then are mean to him when he’s just tryin’ to go visit his old haunts.” Now people are dying from some sort of disease Reed had been carrying, and honestly- “They’ve brought this whole mess on the public and themselves, and I hope Reed eats ‘em like he did that scientist guy.”

Kara Walker, firmly siding with prehistoric raging monsters in 1950 propaganda films.

 

[Obuzeti]

"That's an easy way to be a government full of bullet holes," Jonah advises. "Soldiers don't come out of a vacuum. Sooner or later the scam hits somebody with a son or a brother in the armed forces, and that's where shit goes pear-shaped."

He shrugs. "The Enclave still is. Caesar's still spouting shit about Rome, over two millennia after it got sacked. Patriotism endures so long as it has a brain to infect."

Kara's fingers play over his chest, and Jonah can't help but feel some deep, raw masculinity in him satisfied by the sensation - though to be honest he can't feel much of it, dosed on Med-X as he is. He returns the favor as best he can by running his fingers through Kara's hair and over her scalp, a soothing rhythm that sometimes slows down to him just brushing a thumb along that crimson mane.

"Reed? He says, confused for once by Kara's darting brain. "Who - oh."

He shrugs. "Well, Reed didn't adapt to his surroundings fast enough. No different then wandering into a cazador nest - animals defend their territory, people are no different. He's fine underwater, could have stayed in the Hudson as long as he liked, picking off fishing boats and salmon. Instead he poked his head in the nest and got stung."

He's got no real sympathy for either side; nature is cruel and impersonal, and neither dinosaur nor the old States did anything but listen to their basest instincts. Marking territory and wrecking rivals, like dueling rams. Of course one loses when it dies, and of course the other isn't that much better off.

The amusement park baffles him, but the lone sniper riding the roller coaster up to the top of the hill makes him throw up a hand in disgust. "What kind of sniper does this shit? Why didn't he climb instead of letting it know where he was, like a dumbass?"

Of course he dies when the beast does, flailing all over the place and setting the park ablaze.

Jonah grumbles. "Idiots."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Despite the fun insanity-and grave injustices against dinosaurs-of the movie, Jonah’s stroking of her hair is oddly calming, relaxing. It’s making her a little sleepy. The redhead draws her black clad leg up a little and overlaps his thigh with her own as she curls into him a little more, smooths his undershirt back out, watches her own fingers instead of the screen.

He’s said something about Rome and Kara wants to ask him about that, what exactly Caesar was basing his whole schtick on-but she’s full up on that guy for now, and maybe awhile until they venture back out there to deal with his stupid Legion.

She likes the amusement park, all lit up like that. Jonah’s voice resonates through his chest beneath her head and fingers, adding to the sleepiness-and Kara just kind of...nuzzles into him a little, eyes closed before she pulls her head back to peek up at him.

“Primm has a coaster.” She says, mostly missing the start of flailing fiery death of both Reed and the jackass who wanted to-and did?-shoot him. “I climbed it, you know. Walked on the tracks, but too many gaps for the cars.” Kind of a bummer, that.

Her eyes flick back to the lit projection, covering her mouth to yawn. “Least he took as much as he could out with him, right?” Didn’t go quietly or easily, nope! Not her beast Reed-he killed a dude and burned down his theme park.

At least...Kara thinks it was that guy’s theme park…? "Hey, who was that guy, anyway?"

 

[Obuzeti]

Kara's touch is as intoxicating as ever, lulling the steady tick of his brain into a low rumble. Her nose and head rub into his good side, and Jonah's eyes slide half closed as he just basks in the security - having everything that he wants at his side. Her thigh slides over his, and his hand drops to tug it a little further across his body - sprawling Kara atop him, almost, between her head, arm, and leg. He doesn't care. The contact soothes him, and a wordless, subvocal purr rumbles in Jonah's throat as he presses his lips against Kara's forehead and brow, sometimes pursing as if to kiss it, but just comfortable in the contact against her skin, mostly.

"Didn't go down easy," Jonah agrees, speaking almost directly into Kara, unwilling as he is to move. His thumb slides against her collarbone where it's wrapped around her shoulder. "Tough reptile, that Riley."

The other guy Jonah didn't even care about. The movie had introduced him but he'd been too busy being pissed at the military for their shitty deployment times, and thinking that an electric fence is going to stop a dinosaur sized to step on condos. "Some asshole."

He could fall asleep here.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

He pulls her leg higher up over himself and Kara takes that as permission enough to slip her arm over his chest in that half a hug she does, a contented little hum in response.

She -is- sleepy. Very warm. And Jonah's ALSO very warm. His lips are gentle against her forehead, a tingle where his thumb brushes over her collar bone-and maybe she'd think a little more about that, if she wasn't so...

Comfortable.

It's just a nice, safe little spot they've got on this couch together. That cloying sense of belonging, again; but she's too content to be choked up about it, right now. Too happy, secure in that mutual treasuring. She thinks Jonah feels the belonging, too.

Kara's lips curve into a little smile-but the courier had drifted off one, maybe two of Jonah's heartbeats ago, without ever having even noticed her eyes had closed.