Sometimes overt flattery gets you something unexpected.
They had stopped in Freeside early in the morning when Six realized they were out of Rad-X. They'd ducked into the Followers' fort to trade for supplies, and the head doctor had sent them back to the storage room, where they'd encountered him. Tall and blond, too clean-cut for a local, dressed in the same long coat the other Followers wore, but there was something about him that made Boone uneasy. Something about the way he stood, like he was trying to diminish his own presence while keeping a subtle sharp-edged awareness all around. Something about him that whispered watch out to Boone's combat senses, even though he knew that if anywhere in Freeside could be considered a safe place, it would be the Followers' fort. Something that prickled the hair on his neck and made his hands itch for a weapon...
synopsis: Maybe it is a bit of sickening irony that he looks through the cut sleeves of her shirt—sees more of her skin than he knows he ought.
a/n: man, it has been a while. I didn't abandon this one, I promise
tags on ao3 | read on ao3 | previous chapter | playlist | masterlist | divider by @/coolcatsgraphics
After the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, Six and Boone spent two and a half weeks helping the NCR count the casualties. Telling the putrefying remains of their troops apart from the Legion’s in brutal, dog-day heat, identifying them. If Six thinks hard enough, she can smell the rot of the bodies in that heat, even here; weeks and miles away from it all. Remembers, more than anything, how they’d started to liquefy and seep into the dirt and suddenly identification became a very uncertain thing—it had been easy in the immediate days after the battle. When everything was still intact, when she could tell from the gleam in Boone’s eye which bodies were NCR. Good people, he’d said then. Scratched a name down into the ledger and shoved it into Six’s chest like it’d burn him to hold it any longer.
When Boone’s recognition failed them, Six got in close. Yeah, she had to get in real close. Kiss close. Saw, almost in real-time, how their eyes sank into the sockets, muddy and glazed over, the way their lips curled up past their white gums. They looked nothing like people then, just corpses. Bodies unlike whatever descriptions she had on that ledger.
They spent two and a half weeks identifying bodies in that heat. Six had thought it the worst, then—that nothing could be worse. But Flagstaff is burning. A hellish, sweltering heat; one that’s sizzling the skin off her nose and cheeks as they walk. She doesn’t remember ever seeing Boone this red, not even back then at the dam, in that putrid heat. Hell, he’s almost the color of his beret, which he’d shed completely two days ago; snatched it off his head in a fit of frustration and hasn’t looked at it since. It’s odd, she thinks, to see him without it—a rare thing, to be sure. Rarer now that his hair is starting to grow back in. Darker than Six ever thought it would be. She had never pegged Boone for a brunette but it suits him, she thinks. Suits him better than the meticulous shaving of his head ever did.
She takes a switchblade to her shirt just outside of town proper. They’re holed up in an old auto shop, Boone with his shirt pulled up halfway, back flat against the cool concrete, his head resting on his pack. Six has her back to him, shuffles as best as she can away from the fabric of her shirt while still being in it. The dull blade doesn’t cut through the seam quite like how she thought it would in her mind’s eye, but this was to be expected. Things never go quite how she imagined them. She’s holding the switchblade like she’s gearing up to stab herself in the shoulder, right where her socket is. She drags the blade down harder than she should; the resistance of the seam gives way and it cuts through the rest of the fabric like water. From seam to hem in what feels like a fraction of a second. Cuts through her like water, too, as the tip of it pierces her skin on the way down. Six hisses sharp through her teeth, hears the shuffling of Boone behind her. He’s half sat up when she looks back.
“The hell are you doing?”
Six rolls her eyes, looks at him over her shoulder. “It’s too hot. I’m cutting the sleeves off.”
“You’re gonna kill yourself with that thing.”
“It’s a little-“ she sighs, “I nicked myself, is all. I’m fine, it’s fine.”
Switching the blade to her other hand, she reaches into the shirt now, touching her fingertips to the long line she carved into her side. It isn’t quite bloody, not quite just a simple scratch either. Burning wherever she touches it, she can feel drops of blood fighting their way out through the open skin. Not deep at all, she thinks and sighs almost contentedly. They wouldn’t have had anything to patch it up regardless. Six jumps in her skin a little when she feels his warmth beside her—was too caught up in the warmth of her blood spilling from her side to notice him making his way towards her. He’s looking down at her, craning his head, trying to get a good look at what she’s done to herself through the fabric. She feels a sudden need to shrink away under his gaze though she can’t quite remember ever feeling that at all. Not with Boone, at least. He reaches over to take the switchblade from her limp hold and starts carefully at the fabric. Short, measured slashes with the blade before he can get it even with her original incision. He takes the blade in his mouth then, ripping the rest of the fabric off in one swift movement. It jolts her, maybe a little more than he’d intended, because there’s a bit of fear that washes over his face. Like he’s scared he hurt her. The hole on this side, her right side, is bigger than she wanted it to be. She can see him sizing it up as he moves to the front of her.
“You want it to match?”
Six shrugs, “I’m not signing up for any fashion shows, I don’t think it matters.”
“What do you know about fashion shows?” He teases as he starts in on the other side. Six snorts and shakes her head. Fights the urge to shove him now that he’s holding a blade so close to her skin.
“Fuck off.”
Things have been easier the further they’ve slipped into Arizona. They’ve fallen into old routines, memory flooding their muscles again like it never left; shirking around Legionnaires, taking them out, it feels like they’re a team again, like they’re whole again.
“Hey,” she starts absentmindedly, and Boone hums in response. “You ever dream?”
He almost sounds like he wants to laugh, “Do I dream?”
“Yeah, asshole, do you dream?”
“Guess I do, yeah,” Six sees him shrug out of the corner of her eye. Can’t really bring herself to look at him and doesn’t know why. “About bad shit, mostly—but, I mean, who doesn’t. Sometimes-“ he stops so suddenly, word and movement altogether, that Six thinks he’s up and died. She can look to him now, almost wishes she couldn’t, and stares into his eyes. Tries to guess what he’ll say next—tries to build herself up for whatever devastation she’s bound to hear. “Sometimes it’s just Carla. Before all the shit, you know. Back at the strip when we met and she’s just talking and talking. And everything feels okay for a while.”
Six smiles a little at that, nods her head and ignores the inexplicable heaviness settling in her chest. She wants to be happy about the fact that Boone can still think of Carla fondly and not have it tainted by what happened. Sort of is happy about it but that heaviness throws her off.
“Sometimes, it’s you, though.” And that throws her off too.
“Really?” he nods, “And what all do I get up to in these dreams of yours?”
Boone shrugs, rips off the final piece of fabric and tosses Six’s switchblade to the side. She swears he’s smiling—no—smirking, almost, as he does it. “What do you dream about?”
It’s her turn to shrug, unsure of just how much she wants to tell him. How far she wants to let him into the visions tormenting her. “I don’t know. Storms.”
“Storms?”
“Yeah, like, tornadoes, thunder. Shit like that.”
He sits back, a genuine, soft curiosity in his voice. Seeing this tenderness in him, it makes her skin crawl. Doesn’t expect it from Boone of all people. “Why dream about storms?”
“Why dream about me?” She’s teasing in her tone, albeit a little prickly. Six has a feeling his answer is the same as hers. Has a feeling that he, too, just doesn’t know.
They aren’t as easily recognized this far east and it’s a little disorienting for Six, seeing Legion walking around and not immediately going for their guns. Not immediately being attacked like they were just a few miles away from Yuma. It makes them all the more uneasy, like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. There are endless tributes to Caesar, odes to his glory. Six wonders who the next one will be—it would have been Lanius, no doubt, but she took care of him long ago. Maybe the next one will just be some nobody from Flagstaff and she can nip it in the bud on her way out. But nothing in the wasteland is ever that easy, she thinks.
Flagstaff is not quite like the fort, would feel like a normal settlement if not for the heavy Legion presence. It’s easy for Six to let her shoulders to loosen here, to forget. But, without fail, she catches sight of a Legionnaire out of the corner of her eye. And for a second she sees him, risen from the grave and wonders if he’s come back for her. She tenses again and Boone looks at her sidelong. Maybe it is a bit of sickening irony that he looks through the cut sleeves of her shirt—sees more of her skin than he knows he ought. The slight pallor of what she hides from the sun, the way her skin wraps and suctions itself around her ribs. The way he can see, through the gaps in the fabric, the side of her breast—
His neck goes taut and feels like it knots, like he’s pulled a muscle from tightening his jaw for too long. She catches him as he flinches at the sudden pain. The hell was that? she mouths. He doesn’t look her in the eye. Boone always looks her in the eye.
What gets her is that the people here smile. Kind, empty half-smiles but they extend such a politeness that Six never thought possible of a Legion settlement. She looks around as they come to the center of Flagstaff. Takes not of the lack of women and feels like throwing up at the relief that courses through her. Relief that, at least on that, the Legion never changes. At least with that, she always has a reason—Boone too. Six brushes her shoulder against his, lets the skin of her arm rest against him and the overwhelming, sunbaked warmth sink into her flesh.
Only one place in Flagstaff will let them rent a room for dirt cheap. A small, dingy thing—used to be a bar, according to the old man running the place. He hasn’t sold any actual alcohol in years, not since before the Legion took over. Not since he could stand up straight, either, Six thinks. He’s perpetually hunched, always looking like it hurts to stare right ahead.
“Know if there’s any work around here?” Six asks, looking past the man and instead toward a pack of cigarettes badly hidden on a shelf behind him. She hasn’t had a smoke in a week and it’s killing her.
The man shrugs as best as he can, “There’s work everywhere. We got a board—center of town, you can’t miss it.” And he’s right, you can’t. It was the first thing Six had been drawn to but a cursory glance had Boone dragging her away from it. Too many Legion postings, she supposes, and they’re not that desperate for caps just yet.
“Yeah, no, I saw it. Just wondering if you know about anything worthwhile.”
“Depends on how desperate you are, sweetheart.”
“Not desperate at all.” Boone cuts in, arms crossed on the bar top, still sticky from the ghost of liquor spilled decades ago.
“We’re just trying to get by, maybe do some good while we’re at it. That’s all.”
“Is it, really?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
When he breathes in deep through his nose, Six can almost hear the crackle of his old, worn lungs. It hurts her to watch him breathe, almost as much as the pain beginning to radiate from behind her eye.
“If you’re looking to be a couple of do-gooders, you could always look into those girls, the ones that went missing a few months back. Legion’s been doing jack shit about it.”
“Missing, huh? What do you think happened to them?”
He gets in close, lowers his voice to a whisper. “Look around, sweetheart. You know. We all do.”
“And you’re, what, counting on a couple of strangers to take care of it ‘stead of doing it yourself?”
“We tried but you know we can only get so far without staring trouble. We can only hope they went quickly, now. Last one that went missing was a trader’s daughter. Poor bastard’s been running all across Flagstaff for weeks asking about her. The way I see it, he needs to accept it for what it is and hope they killed her right away rather than-“ he falters by the end of it, doesn’t quite have it in it to finish his sentence. To say the word.
Six does, though. “Rape her.”
“That’s right.”
She feels a sickness rip through her that she can’t quite describe. Slides off the barstool with unease as she fishes through her pocket. Ten caps. “For the room,” she mumbles out, taking the key when he slides it across the bar top.
“It’s four more for a loosie, if you’re interested.” Six stares at him, mouth agape in near disgust.
“Always looking to an extra cap, aren’t you?”
“It’s the way of the world, sweetheart.”
Only candles light their way as they descend to the bar’s basement. A narrow hallway with three doors made into a makeshift motel of sorts. The stabbing pain behind Six’s eye eases up in the gentle warmth of the candle light. She fumbles trying to fit the key into the lock, never quite lining it up right. It gets bad like this, sometimes. Her hands too slow to catch up to what her brain wants them to do. She tries again, and again as her face grows hotter with embarrassment. Can feel Boone’s eyes at the back of her head watching her struggle.
Resigned, she hands him the key and tries to swallow the overwhelming fear that she will get worse. Get worse and lose her mind before she can ever really get it back. Boone opens the door in the fraction of the time one attempt took her. Before he steps through, he stops to look at her—looks at her like he’s sorry. Six scoffs and pushes past him into the room.
For once, it’s Boone that sleeps while Six lays awake—a strange deviation from their routine they’ve kept up for what feels like a year now. And it has, in fact, been a year. More than that, if the math she’s doing in her head is close to right. She stares at her hands, thinking about all the times they’ve failed her, how they could again. Her lip trembles as she imagines her mind filing her soon, too. She deeply dreads losing her mind before getting to Tulsa. Before getting the chance to find out who she really is. She wonders if when—because it feels inevitable now- she loses it, loses it all, it’ll be like that inky blackness she existed in back at Doc Mitchell’s for weeks. It was sort of nice, then. No thoughts, no worries, just the dark enveloping her entire existence. Boone’s rhythmic breathing pulls her from that train of thought. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she was suddenly unable to hear it. She almost reaches to touch him—stops herself halfway. Brings her hand back and starts to pick her lips bloody in the dark.
Ammo is tunning low and it’s making Boone itch to get the hell out of dodge. They’ve been walking Flagstaff up and down for the better part of the morning, searching for some travel-weary trader to take advantage of. And to their credit, they find him, sat on an old milk crate in the shade, head in his hands with his brahmin huffing beside him.
“Excuse me!” Boone watches from a few feet back, nearly in awe at how easily Six can turn the charm up when she wants to. “So sorry to bother you, but my partner and I, we’re in the need of some items. Ammunition, water, you know, the basics.”
The trader tilts his head up towards her, a lazy half-smile on his face and Six plays him like a fiddle. Lowballs him into oblivion, really, flashing that million dollar smile. All teeth, phony but so frustratingly charming. It works, too; Six manages to score them bullets, water, hell, even a stimpack for less than 40 caps. As the trader makes to sit back down on his crate, Six turns back to Boone. She looks proud, smiles with her lips pressed together—it meets her eyes. Boone can’t help the way the side of his mouth quirks up into a grin. Feels proud of her, too.
They’re scavenging for scraps on the edges of Flagstaff. Looking for things to sell, trade. It feels like they’ve passed by the same building a million times. It’s an old looking thing, even by pre-war standards. Like it was built to be ancient. They haven’t gone in—have felt a push away from the place rather than a pull. Six stops just short of the curb in front of the house. Feels a sort of Deja Vu. Can remember, with certainty, opening the door. Sees in her minds eye, the wallpaper of the foyer peeling down towards them. Can hear their footsteps echo off the walls that have been rotting away for centuries. Up the stairs, she somehow knows, there’s a single room. A bed with a rusting frame at the center of it. She sees Boone walk over to the window, set his rifle down against the sill. She’s seen this before—swears she’s seen this before. Or maybe she’s dreamed it. Wind blows through the moth eaten curtains in this strange memory. Six feels an itch at the side of her face and scratches it a little too hard. Nicks herself with her own nails. Boone looks at her and for a moment, Six thinks he’s about to tell her that he’s been here too.
She begins to hear the start of a song in the back of her mind. It blends in with all the droning, with the freight train winds that are always flooding her ears in the most silent of moments. Six starts to think that, maybe, these are the sounds of home—or at the very least, what home used to mean to her. She wonders in earnest if when they reach Tulsa, she’ll feel a sudden clarity. If she’ll get back what she’s lost all at once. It tugs at her heart, the song. “Nearer”, it drags, the voice of a woman in her head sings it slow like honey. A voice different to the one of her own mind. A voice that makes her eyes burn when she fixates on it. An errant thought crosses her mind and Six wonders if she has ever had a mother.
Flagstaff is different at night. Colder—so much colder. Dark, too. The lack of light casts dark shadows on the faces of whatever few souls lurk on the streets at night. Makes it look like their faces are void of eyes and, in turn, souls. They don’t smile anymore, Six can’t tell if they even look at her. She starts to scratch at her face again, picks at the fresh, newly formed scab and doesn’t wince as she peels it off of her face. Six keeps walking, keeps bleeding. She holds onto the scab, keeps it tucked away the long nail of her middle finger. The board in the center of town calls to her. They really are desperate now—have jack shit to sell. Six looks back at Boone, feels a wet trickle down her cheek, sees the confusion he wears so freely in his gaze as it sets on the blood. He’s closer than she thought. She jerks her head to the job board, “We can’t be picky. Not here.” He seems to understand now. Before she turns, she swears she sees his hand come up out of the corner of her eye.
Anything that’s worthwhile caps-wise is posted by the Legion and Six can feel the disapproval brewing within Boone as he reads over her shoulder. Her back is touching his chest.
There is one job, though, hidden under a mountain of fliers for shitty little fetch jobs and pest control work. A missing girl, the trader’s daughter—the same girl the man from the bar was talking about, she realizes. And the name on the flier, Jeremiah, strikes her too. Places the name onto the trader from earlier today, the one she’d played mercilessly. He has to have been here for longer than the few weeks they’d previously been told, given the aged look of the paper. Waiting. Hoping that his daughter would come back to him.
Six rips the flier off of the board and feels Boone’s hand on her shoulder not half a second later.
“We should think about this.”
“What is there to think about? She’s missing, we have the time to look into it.”
“I just don’t know if there’s anything worth looking into. The guy said it’s been weeks.”
“Would you-“ she can feel the words weigh heavy on her tongue like a knife custom made to dig into Boone’s ribs and twist. The exhaustion and heat are setting into her bones. She doesn’t want to do this here. “Just let me sleep on it, yeah?”
Back at the bar, the man is gone. Everyone is gone. “Guess we missed the rapture,” Six muses, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looks to Boone, half expecting a smile from him. Instead, he looks at her like he has no fucking clue what she’s talking about.
At their door, she stops him from unlocking the door. Gestures for the key. She wants to do this herself. Wants to open the door herself. Boone hands her the key, takes a step back.
With a vice grip on the rusted key, Six fits it into the lock. Turns it.
Boone’s back faces her and she isn’t sure how much time has passed. It feels like hours and minutes all at once. She thinks about the girl, about how the man so confidently said her father should hope she was killed rather than raped. Six presses her hand flat against Boone’s back and wonders if he thought the same about Carla—thought the same about her when she had her little stint with the Legion. He flinches and Six knows better than to ask the words that catch in her throat. She holds the fabric of his shirt in a vice grip, shuffles so close to him that she might as well be under his back. Six says nothing as she sincerely hopes he never thought about her that way. Knows she can’t offer him the comfort of telling him that none of it happened. Maybe this is her way of saving him from the truth.
“We’re gonna find that girl,” she whispers.
And for a moment, she thinks he won’t answer. That he’s dead asleep but then his voice cuts through the silence. “Yeah, I know.”
#lana del rey
#iron lung
