Chapter Text
Bullets seared past the wooden crates outside the Monte Carlo Suites, and Deadpan held his breath beside Snow. They’d hurried to crouch behind these boxes—which were worryingly beaten, wouldn’t block a damn bullet—because the Fiends had snuck up on them, sure. They’d gotten the jump. But in this moment, Snow had to breathe, focus on reloading. She glanced up at Deadpan. He met her eyes.
“What?” he said. “Cat got your tongue?”
She groaned, pushed him away with her free hand. A pull back of the revolver’s hammer. Click. Stood, leaned, aimed. The closest Fiend wore a brahmin skull strapped to his helmet. Its blank eyes were the only thing that saw Snow pop up soon enough. Just like Mom had taught her. A breath out, long and slow, and pull the trigger. In an instant, the attacker’s head flung back, and he crumpled to the ground.
And where one might see their comrade gunned down and decide they’d like to live a little longer, the other two raiders swelled with rage. The next one ran at them with a rebar club at the ready. Ever the resourceful little cat, though, Lenore darted forward to clamp her jaws on his ankle. He toppled forth, leaving a gap for the final Fiend to aim her carbine. Surely stolen from a fallen soldier. Snow focused and shot her down, too. Behind her, Deadpan slid past and gripped the panther head of his cane, thrust it into the raider’s corpse, whose yelp was cut short by Deadpan’s shoe on his neck.
A quiet only parted by the shifting wind came over the broken-down street. Though being surrounded by crumbling buildings, it felt nothing like a battlefield. It was a typical day trying to cross through Fiend territory.
Deadpan withdrew his cane and wiped one side, then the other, on the corpse of the raider he’d slain. A fleck of blood landed on his shoe. He brushed it against the Fiend’s shirt, grimacing. “Honestly, these miscreants,” he muttered. “Were it not for their vile temperaments, I would almost feel sorry for them.”
“I only feel sorry enough to put them down quickly,” Snow said. She reloaded her revolver, then holstered it. The horizon called for them, boasting a bounty she’d come to collect off toward Mt. Charleston. Though she knew Deadpan would be glad to be back up there, closer to somewhere he could call a home, they wouldn’t be stopping in Jacobstown for long. Further west were Red Canyon and the Khans. They had no trouble with her. Now, whatever lurked in the location marked on the map of her target—other than the target, of course—would be the obstacle. She hoped it wasn’t nightstalkers. Or cazadores.
Though she wasn’t especially tall, Deadpan was, and as they walked, she had to lean forward to pull on his sleeve. He stopped abruptly though, and she connected hard, close to falling. “Goddammit,” she said as she regained her balance.
“You shouldn’t follow so closely.”
“I was trying to tell you to walk slower. This isn’t a marathon.”
Unamused, he adjusted his glasses. “Goodness, and I thought all this running around would make you faster.” Still, he softened somewhat. “I apologize. I should take pity on the short of leg and small of step.”
They started off again at a more manageable pace. Their footsteps were crunchy in the dry dirt and road rubble, but they would soon be going off on their own path. Taking the 95 would be the typical option to get west. It was serviceable enough. However, it would be much faster to cut through as the crow flies, climb some cliffs, and pop up not too far from Vault 22. The spot they needed to go had to be somewhere nearby, or so said the marker on her Pip-Boy, which hadn’t always steered her straight. She’d sense it on her own, though. She knew the movements of a scared man fleeing the law.
When they’d first started traveling by night, Deadpan had expressed that it was “paradoxical” and “frankly, quite silly.” He had shut up about it based on how infrequently they encountered raiders now. So they walked in moonlight.
An hour or so passed with little but their movements and distant rustlings to accompany them (an unusual situation to be in while Deadpan was around), though the ghoul beside her suddenly broke the silence.
“Doesn’t this make you wish we had a car?” Deadpan said. She suspected their speed was letting him linger in his thoughts. At least this wasn’t about cats.
“If we pledged to the NCR, maybe they’d loan us a truck,” she said dryly.
“Hah! Not after that Camp Searchlight business. I’ve been plenty irradiated for one lifetime, thank you.”
“Me too. Probably taken enough RadAway to melt a mole rat by now.”
“You know, that would make an interesting character,” Deadpan mused. He dug around in his coat pocket, eventually pulling out his leather-bound notebook and a pencil. Snow marveled at his ability to write and walk; he must have been writing in a language decipherable to only him. Trying to peek over his arm made it no clearer.
“You’re really going to write a melting mole rat?”
He gawked at her like she was stupid. “What? No! A femme fatale who takes enough RadAway that she transforms into a viscous substance. Say… the Plasmic Princess.”
“Goo Girl,” she said, a grin creeping up.
“Absolutely not.”
“Sticky Vicky!”
“No, no no no, stop.”
“Slime Dime. Waste Wo–”
Deadpan gave her a cross look. “Never mind.” He stuck the book back into his coat. “I don’t want to hear your criticism about cat puns next time, then.
“Fine, fine. I can agree to that.” As much as she liked to complain, she found them silly in an endearing way. Did he know that? She assumed he did, but…
This silence, so common after their little quibbles, seemed more tense than usual. He suddenly looked so tired. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he swerved his head to face her. If she had been fresh out of the surgery chair in Goodsprings, she might have flinched, but she extended her sympathy instead.
“Hey, you okay?” she said.
Deadpan raised his eyebrows—where they’d been, anyway. “Hm? I’m alright, all things considered.” That lowness lingered in his face, though.
“You seem off. Like something is bothering you.” She paused. “You know I was just fuckin’ with you, right?”
“Obviously,” he said, a little of his spark back. “I’m not a nimrod.”
“Alright.” Neither of them started walking again. Lenore sidled up to Deadpan’s leg and gave a gentle trill, requesting attention. Snow stared at Deadpan. Deadpan stared back at Snow. The stare was familiar yet not quite right. Lenore trilled once more, and when they didn’t acknowledge her, turned to an insistent meow.
“Oh, now be quiet, dear,” Deadpan said, finally breaking the shared gaze to pet Lenore. She pushed her cheek up against his hand. He was lost in scratching and watching her fondly when Snow started to walk.
“C’mon,” she shouted, already several feet away. “There’s somewhere we gotta go.”
A quick check back: yep, he was following. And he’d picked up Lenore. Damn if it wasn’t one of the ugliest things she’d ever seen, but he cared dearly about that cat. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to love an animal who ate her previous pet. Then again, it was the Mojave, after all. Dog eat dog. Rather, cat eat cat. Deadpan must have really been rubbing off on her.
When he caught up with her, he gave her the stinkeye but remained quiet save for soft words to Lenore. Snow almost wanted to turn around and pull him along. That would make her a hypocrite given their previous conversation, but what was he gonna do about it? Leave? No, no, even if he complained about long walks the way she did about cat plays, he secretly enjoyed it. At this point, she personally couldn’t imagine traipsing these broken roads without him. How had she done it before? Did he feel that way, too?
Turning the thought over and over in her mind, Snow soon spotted the shack she’d been searching for. It was in a shape—not a good one, but it still stood. Its dilapidated exterior was likely to fend off anyone who’d bother looking around, as it was especially shabby even by post-nuclear standards. The shack had served her well in earlier days.
As they grew closer, Deadpan let Lenore down onto the ground and stayed closer to Snow, his right hand on the hilt of his cane and the left on its scabbard. “No need to be worried,” she said. She blocked him from advancing, so he loosened his grip. “If there’s anyone in there, it’s probably just a radroach.”
And they swung the door open to no one. The stark moonlight barely filtered into the room, giving specks of dusks the spotlight where it landed. Sound dulled from the bone-dry wood walls. Snow’s Pip-Boy light revealed a room typical of a shed in the wilderness: a dingy bed, a broken television, a weathered workbench, a table, shelves of junk, a cracked tub, toolboxes, empty bottles, paper, glass, metal, dirt.
“Reminds me of home,” Deadpan said. Snow couldn’t help but laugh hard. He’d said it with such ironic reverence. He smirked at her. The milky white of his eyes behind his glasses flicked away from her to observe the room. “But really? This is what you wanted me to see?”
“You need to rest. I saw it on your face.” She unbuckled her belt and lobbed it onto the table. The revolver thunked hard upon landing. Lucky it didn’t go off. She watched Deadpan wrinkle his mouth to one side. Lucky they’d made it this far, honestly.
He sighed. “I’m fine, truly.”
“Now, come on, you don’t have to lie to me, old man.”
“First of all—I am not old! I’m wizened. But second—”
“Okay, not old, but you’re a little weathered.” He spluttered at the interruption, but she said, more softly, “I wanna make sure I’m not running us ragged. You gotta admit it; you’re 200-some years old. That can’t be easy.”
Deadpan sat down on the bed with a heavy huff. The springs cried out in protest, and Lenore’s ear laid flat in displeasure. He acted irritated, but the way he fiddled with the buttons on his glove never failed to rat him out. Despite the ghoulification and the black glove on his right hand, he still delicately twisted the buttons of his left glove’s cuff back and forth. Might be that there’s always a pencil in between his fingers.
“Perhaps I’ve been a bit weary,” he said. “But you need not worry on my account. I’ve managed this long, haven’t I?”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t take a break.”
“I suppose. I suppose.” He started to take off his left glove, but stopped halfway. “Wait, is this where you intend to rest?”
“That was the plan. Is there a problem, sir?”
The mottled skin on his face showed traces of a flush. “This bed is a bit small for the both of us.”
Snow sat beside him and barely reacted to the squeaks of rusty metal. Was he getting embarrassed? That was so unlike him. Especially since this wasn’t the first (and certainly not the last) time they’d had to share a bed. It was a little small, true. Still, a bed is a bed. “Afraid you’re too tall?”
“No. It would be…well, I would feel improper.” The unspoken words: ‘being so close.’ She’d wanted to hide a laugh, but a giggle crept through. Deadpan furrowed his brows. The pink on his cheeks spread. And he grew surprisingly direct. “I’m not a prude with a stick up my rear.” The unleashed force shrunk away behind his typical straight face. “Things were different when I was young.”
Yeah, a significant lack of nuclear fallout. She bit her tongue, instead electing to soothe him. “Hey, I get it. I’ll scoot as far as I can to the edge, you press yourself against the wall. You can even put Lenore in there like a sandbag if you want.”
He had a short, sharp chuckle. That loosened him up a little. “All right, all right. I concede; you win. I can’t rightfully refuse a bed in favor of the floor.” They sat there a while before Snow started to unlace her boots. Deadpan stood to unbutton his coat. Soon, down to their shirt/shorts and white dress shirt/black dress pants (ever the suave figure, Deadpan was), they found themselves lying there on their backs. Lenore had curled up at the end of the bed, close to Snow’s feet. There was no way she’d have fit at the end of her master’s. His legs were bent already. He really should have turned to his side, but she sensed his reluctance to be closer. The minutes passed, grew heavy, started to lace their fingers around Snow to deliver her into slumber.
“Snow.” His raspy voice sent the hands back to the recesses of the dark.
“Deadpan.”
“It would have been nice for us to take our old car out onto the highway.”
She wasn’t sure if she should be worried or if she’d missed something he’d said. “Pardon? Car? When was this?”
“Back before the war, my father had a lovely green coupe. I’d never had much interest in firearms, as you know, so Dad and I bonded over an appreciation of the automobile. The way you could see the world then, when everything was alive and green, to ride down the highway and watch the miles pass you by, fresh air in your face…” He trailed off. She’d never seen him so wistful. A smile played at his lips, but his gaze was lost far beyond their physical presence. In this moment, she watched him as he hadn’t truly before. Each blink, the shape of his face, marred by the horrors of war. Reddened skin where true lips should have been, sparse patches of black hair, earless, noseless, and yet he breathed.
Snow imagined him as a boy, whizzing by road signs on the 95, when it had been more than a series of cracks in tarmac and aged yellow lines. That time was like it didn’t exist, that he lied to create this old world image of pre-war posters. But she knew it was real. Even if she hadn’t know, his memories made it real. Sorrow hit her, too, as she thought of how much he must have lost. Yet his heart had never faded. Humor was a coping mechanism, perhaps, but he was coping remarkably well in her opinion.
Now, Deadpan as a young man, black hair blowing in the wind, his glasses able to rest on his ears, his hands on the steering wheel and his head thrown back in glee. Driving himself and Snow to one of those “drive-ins,” and she’d bet he’d still have that silly antique hat. She’d have to hold it in her lap so it wouldn’t fly off his head.
“I wish I’d known more about the world before the bombs fell,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate it.” He’d evidently been treading a different path in his mind than her. They hadn’t talked at length about his life pre-war. Shit, she didn’t even know his real name—she didn’t think it was “Old World” to name a child Deadpan. There was so much she didn’t know about this man, who had spent nearly every day by her side since they met in Boulder.
Snow propped herself up on her elbows, giving him all her attention. “How old were you? When you went underground?”
He hummed a wandering sound as if doing calculations. Then, a somber: “If I remember correctly, I was about 12.”
The image of them side-by-side in the green coupe seared away like burning photos, the way the radiation had melted film until barely any of the past remained. The reverie was left as their reality: a young woman and an old man lying flat in a world without direction. So she’d been right, sort of. He was old. It was just well under his surface. Buried well, in fact. She’d found one of his journals the “Gremlin” had stolen while roaming the little ghoul town, but it only spoke of maggots in his leg. Where could the missing pieces be but inside him?
It made her tear up. But it wasn’t her struggle. It’d be wrong for her to cry, right? Snow lay back down and took his hand in hers. At first, he flinched, fingers tense. But after a gentle squeeze from Snow, he settled them as intertwined. Surprisingly, his hands were soft. There were some scars and ridges, but otherwise, just as human as hers. His face was redder than before, he couldn’t meet her eyes, and if he’d had ears, they’d be lit up like a laser. It was a little funny, a little cute. The strange feeling she’d only recently discovered shimmered in her chest. Cute. She stroked her thumb gently over the side of his pointer finger. She suddenly wanted to know where that feeling would go—whether it would be as soft as his hand or warm as his flame.
“I’m sorry,” she said, whether that meant for holding his hand or for the many things she couldn’t change.
“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t launch the bombs, did you?” Finally, he smiled at her. Though overcome with emotions, he still granted her a smile. And they laughed together, loud into the night like a campfire blazing away, despite the world around it conspiring to put it out. Before she knew it, their fire drifted down to charcoals, wrapped its arms around her, and pulled her into sleep. She dreamed of his arms.