Chapter Text
“King, I got a job for ya. Come see me when you got a sec.”
“Yeah, yeah, will do,” Rose said absently, not looking up from her tinkering. Her rifle had broken again and needed some urgent care, but more importantly, she needed a distraction from the events of the past week. She refused to think for too long about it, lest that horrible pain twist itself into her gut and make her cry. When she’d lost her mother, she wasn’t even an hour old. She didn’t have to learn how to deal with the loss of a parent she’d never met, and now, she felt lost. For the first time since leaving the vault, she truly had no direction, no goal. She just had to adjust herself to this completely new life and try not to let it break her.
Maybe just one drink, she thought to herself. Her merc work, as she called it, could wait until later. Sighing, she left her rifle on the bed and locked her door behind her. Buying a room in Rivet City hadn’t been a bad idea at all; though the place was far from homely, it was safe. With all its guards and metal walls it was the one place she didn’t feel like she had to watch her back at every step, though that didn’t stop her from keeping her pistol holstered securely at her hip.
Rose kept her head low as she walked into the bar, not wanting to welcome idle conversation while her head was so full, and sat down, not even making eye contact with the bartender.
“Can I just get-”
“Rose?”
She blinked, and turned. Sitting right next to her, so close she was amazed she hadn’t already noticed the smell of leather and hair pomade, was Butch DeLoria, eyes like saucers and the cigarette in his hand completely forgotten.
So much for not wanting to think about the past.