Chapter Text
The first thing Deacon did as they emerged from the sour stagnant air of the raider den and into the muted light of twilight was take off his boots.
“Good way to get tetanus,” Whisper teased, raising Deliverer cautiously to the yawning shadows of Walden Pond’s half-collapsed gift shop. They weren’t out of the woods yet, afterall. They might’ve cleared out the basement, but they hadn’t come in this way, and there could still be a lookout standing guard.
“Mmm, and walking around with a half inch of irradiated sludge in your shoes is a good way to make you want to suck-start your rifle.”
A sick splattering sound from behind drew Whipser’s eye, though she still wasn’t a hundred percent certain that they were in the clear. One of Deacon’s socks was drowning in a small puddle of the dank sewer water next to the cash register and he was gagging as he peeled the other from his foot. She shook her head, moving around the counter to peer into all the shop’s little nooks and crannies. “Don’t worry partner; I got it," she snarked.
“You better!" he shouted, making her wince. "Making me swim through a fuckin cesspool like that? You’re gonna have to do all the heavy lifting until I have a chance to drown myself in bleach.”
She slid quickly down an aisle of shelves, her anxiety twisting both with the exposure of the old blown-out windows as she passed them and with the idea of Deacon dousing himself in bleach. He'd said it with an air of snark but she knew him well enough to know that he might not be kidding.
When she reached the foyer and found them to be alone, she reflexively nestled herself into shadow, just as he had taught her. “It was an inch of pond water, Deac.”
“It was at least two.”
She wiggled her own slimy toes and felt only a twinge of ick. She’d spent enough time with a newborn burping and farting and gurgling all over her 24/7 that it didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have.
Another splattering sound - followed by another gag - told her he was wringing out the socks. She wrinkled her nose, casting her gaze around the space. All the windows were blown out, and several of them were north facing, meaning the chill air of the cold front moving in gave the space a real walk-in cooler kind of feel. Probably not great for sleeping, but the sun was already behind the western hills - turning the world bluish and shadowed.
So, not enough time to get back to Lexington or Concord before it was well and truly dark, and while Deacon didn't mind to travel at night in the city, the woods were another story. It had been spooky enough in the winter time, when the bare, scraggly trees would cast shadows and pick at their clothing as they passed. Now that spring had sprung, there were all sorts of creepy crawlies scuttling around that you really ought to be able to see if you’re gonna tango with them.
“Do you have any spots near here?” she asked.
Deacon knocked a boot against the counter. “Yeah, I’ve got a penthouse just around the corner.”
“Deacon.”
“What?" he bit and she shrank into her shadow. Very unlike him. "I never sleep in the woods, remember? Oh wait no, obviously you forgot since you decided to ignore my turn-around rule.”
Fuck. She really thought there’d be more here. When she’d found the note between raiders talking about the stockpile at Walden pond, caricatures of stimpacks and ammo and tech to give to Tom had danced across her mind’s eye and she’d been hellbent on the detour. When she’d dragged him northwest out of Cambridge, Deacon had said “As long as we’re turned around and headed back halfway between now and dark!” - as was his rule for traipsing off into the woods.
Deacon had built his life around anticipating all the ways the Commonwealth was gonna try and fuck him over and getting ahead of it, which is why he wasn’t much of a camper. Couldn’t anticipate a Deathclaw stomping down your tent in the middle of a REM cycle. Could only avoid being in that position at all.
Had she ignored his turnaround rule? Maybe a little. She came up on the halfway point and Deacon had nudged her. She was sure she knew where Walden Pond was, though, so she kept going. They usually drove past it on her and Nate’s pre-war joyrides.
Of course she couldn’t tell Deacon that. He wasn’t even allowed to know her name, let alone the details of all her pre-war dates with her husband. Or the fact that she’d had a husband. Or that she was pre-war.
So when Deacon nudged her again, she'd simply said that they were almost there and that she knew the area.
An hour later, she was ushering him into a drainpipe - as the note had said to do - and since he was ready to have it all be over and done with anyways he’d gone along with it.
It was worth it, though!
…she wished she could say. As it was, they’d crawled through a musky, irradiated drain pipe and stranded themselves in the middle of the woods after dark in the interest of taking out a low-level raider gang and commandeering their- admittedly impressive - stockpile of jet and mentats. And now her partner was hella pissed at her… and rightfully so.
At least his drifter persona could sell their haul for a pretty penny at Daisy’s. They could always use caps, after all, even if they weren’t the main focus of the operation.
But that was down the road. For now, they needed to work out somewhere to sleep.
“So…” she began.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to say but Deacon cut her off anyways, sing-songing “So it’s a good thing that raider boss was my siiiize.”
She looked up to find him perched in the shadowed portion of the counter and watched as he pulled on his new dry shoes. "So we're not going to make it back to the city before dark.” She waved off the waning twilight outside the nearby window and clarified “Like, dark dark."
"Nope."
"And we can't sleep here."
He pulled the laces of his boot taut. "Because…?" he prompted.
He was just testing her. Ever since he'd taken her under his wing back in December, he'd been training her in survival skills. He’d never asked her why she was such a dummy when it came to the stuff, he’d just picked up on it and started showing her the ropes.
So of course he knew they couldn't stay there. He just wanted to hear her reasoning. "Because the roof is caving in and the windows are blown out, letting the cold in. We could get sick."
"And."
She rolled her eyes. As if that wasn't enough. "And anyone could come along and get the drop on us through any one of these windows. Or the front door. Or the ceiling." She pointed to each potential breach point in turn. When he quirked a brow at her and hesitated with his laces she added, "Or the drainpipe in the basement."
"There's one more reason, my young padawan.”
She furrowed her brow at him, wondering when he could have ever seen Star Wars. She then glanced around the space. Nowhere to sleep. Nowhere to cook a meal. Nowhere to climb onto the roof and scope out the area. None of those were the right answer though…
"Ding! Time's up.” He hopped off the counter and bent to pick up his pack. “It's because the fumes from the sewer those raiders were calling home would burn off all our hair while we slept. And also our eyebrows. And probably fry our eyeballs too."
She cocked a look at him as he approached. "Ok well that bullshit answer doesn't kill my streak. I'm still 4 for 4 on survival skills trivia this week." Which means no grocery duty. Hoo-rah.
"You're right. That bonus answer didn't kill your streak."
She nodded as he stalled in front of her, pulling on a leather jacket she didn't recognize.
"What killed your streak was dragging us out here in the first place - and if you go over on the food budget again, it's coming out of your paycheck, missy.” She scoffed. So much for that "Now, take out your ponytail and gimme your best braid."
Her hand flinched upwards reflexively to fulfill his command before her brain caught up to the moment. “Wha- Wait. We starting the slumber party early, here? Braiding each other’s hair? We still have to find a place to sleep, remember?”
"There’s a settlement nearby,” he explained, joining her in the shadow she’d taken up in and sliding behind her. When his hands went to work the tie out of her ponytail, a cold trail of anticipation slid down her spine. Her mind immediately flew to their escapades at Trinity Tower, only about a week before. The CEO and his inexperienced little assistant. The way he’d suddenly come onto her, groping her inappropriately and humming sweet, filthy nothings in her ear. He’d never kissed her… on her lips, at least…. But he-
“Focus up, Whisp.”
Whisper immediately dropped her shoulders and drew in a slow, even breath as the Wheel of Evasion spun in her mind. It landed on Downplay.
“Makin’ me feel self conscious back there, partner. Something wrong with my hair?”
He’d shaken out her locks with sure fingers, working out the worst of the kinks. “C’mon, you know the drill. If we’re gonna be seen, then we can’t be seen.”
Another new identity. “What do you have for me this time? Am I your wife or your daughter? Or did you want me to go in as a prostitute again?” Oof. Shit. That was a little impulsive. Backtrack. “Because I personally like it when we go in together from the jump,” she clarified.
“Too bad. I already have an identity in this town. A real lone wolf type. Going in with a young lady at my heels all of a sudden might turn a head or two - especially if we have to come through here again at some point… and we don’t need that.”
Young Lady? She wasn’t sure if she should feel offended or flattered. She straightened as casually as she could and watched the tree branches bobbing outside the window as she tried to ignore his hands in her hair, the way it pinged her interest. “Ok so what’s my script?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking… play off of the skittish, nervous thing you’ve got going on-” Whisper couldn’t help but be dumbfounded, her jaw tensing to keep it from falling open. How did he always see right through her? “...and go in as the runaway farmgirl. You were born in a farmhouse just west of the hills, your family has subsisted more or less independently for as long as you can remember, with your father-” His hands paused briefly towards the end of her hair, then continued as he said solemnly, “No, your father died when you were young, didn’t he? Raiders… no wait, Deathclaw!” Another pause. Then, “No. Wait, it was raiders. Definitely raiders.” He tied off her hair, the knot at the end of the braid he’d pulled together thumping against the middle of her back.
“So I’m after the raiders,” she supplied.
“Hell no.” He flipped open the pack at her hip and started pulling things from it. Extra stimpacks, rad-x, radaway… she almost felt compelled to stop him. He was taking her gear! What if he just…
What, abandoned her? Deacon? No. He might’ve been a few cards short of a deck, but he wouldn’t do something so nefarious. Not to her. She had to believe that.
“You already came to terms with his death… at least, as much as any young woman could. You stayed home with your mother for several years following the tragedy, but the life of seclusion was killing you.” He flipped her bag shut and twisted it this way and that, as if assessing the way it hung off of her. Then he stilled and caught her eye, saying “You yearn to be free.”
The rarely seen pale blue of his eye turned her stomach in the split moment that she let it. Then she turned from him, dropping her gaze to her bag where she assessed its weight exaggeratedly and moved deeper into cover saying, “Do I also yearn to be dead? I didn’t bring any supplies with me! Father would be so disappointed.”
“Lose the armor,” he replied.
Nora’s jaw would have dropped. Whisper, however, simply had to think a little harder about the rate of her breaths as his voice, pitched low and even, creeped under her skin. She feigned picking at something on her shirt to make up for her hesitation. Then she forced her fingers to begin working at the clasps on her arm piece. “You’re right,” she managed. “Where would I have even gotten this stuff?” Oh God, please tell me the farmgirl could have picked up armor somewhere…Oh! “Unless! It was my father’s?”
“Like the raiders wouldn’t’ve picked him clean?”
Right. “Oof. Poor girl, losing her dad like that.” A glimpse of her own father - an insurance salesman from Pittsburgh who was still alive when the bombs dropped - flashed through her mind and she quickly said “Our girl needs a name, doesn’t she?”
“Pick one. But don’t tell me.” She could hear his gear jangling behind her and figured he was getting into his own lone wolf type character. She started to turn but he said “Ah ah! No peeking!”
She rolled her eyes. Goober. As if it mattered.
“Finish dropping your armor and then head out. It’s just up the hill to the west, by the water tower. We’ll meet back here after breakfast.”
She dropped her arm piece next to the other and bent to unstrap a thigh, asking him with genuine curiosity, “Water tower? Does it have water in it?”
“I dunno,” he supposed. “The farmgirl’ll just have to investigate, won’t she?"
***
Oh yeah. She’d forgotten about the hippie compound. She and Nate had come across it while hiking once. She was early in her pregnancy and he’d made a big deal of the smell of weed smoke. She told him they shouldn’t’ve gone off the trail. He’d said nothing.
Now the little circle of cabins they’d spied from high on the neighboring hill was something of a bustling little town, one of those Minutemen places the guy she’d met in Concord had been building up. She’d helped him get to Sanctuary Hills, given him the clunky pipboy she’d found, and reprogrammed her old robot butler to answer to him and his friends.
She hoped the man wouldn’t recognize her if she ever ran into him again. Could blow her cover. She doubted he would, though. They’d barely spent a day together before she’d taken off to the south.
He’d sure been busy, though. The faction had been growing steadily, and had apparently taken this settlement under its wing in the process. She wondered how long it had been since Deacon’s lone wolf had been there. Then she wondered if he would ever tolerate her asking a question like that.
Katrina Parish had made it through the gate easily. Her wide eyes and crossed off stance screamed “prey” more than it did “predator,” so they let her in with barely any sort of screening. That was the nice thing about the Minutemen. They believed in the best of people.
There was a sizable building towards the front of town with nightly rooms for rent. She wondered how many rooms they could possibly need out here in the middle of nowhere as she gaped up at the splendor of the biggest city poor little Katrina had ever seen. Then she floundered as a friendly looking man with a crooked nose in a pale yellow dress shirt, blue jeans and stupid hat approached her from what looked like a market district in the center of town.
“Welcome to Sunshine Tidings!” he greeted. She wasn’t sure if he would offer a hand or not, but she didn't think Katrina would take it if he did.
She curled her hands in tighter around herself and managed a shaky “H-hi. Thanks. It’s, uhm…” she looked around the meager settlement again, aiming to look overwhelmed. She choked out a few non-words, then said “Amazing.”
The man nodded at her, a patronizing sort of grin on his face. “Well I’ll have to tell the General you said so. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to hear it.”
Uh oh. “The General? Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to bother him…”
He waved her off. “Naw, he wouldn’t be bothered by something like that… not that he’s even here, of course.”
Phew.
“I’m Sam,” he said, seeming to begin to offer his hand before thinking better of it and resting it on his hip instead. “I’m the greeter, I guess you could say.”
The greeter? Were the Minutemen really so well off these days that they could have someone just standing around to say hello to people? “Wow, the city is so…” She lost her words again, taking in the splendor around them.
“Not from around here, huh? Well, can’t say I’m surprised. I’m a transplant too, you know. Came down from Maine way. Heard the Commonwealth was coming up in the world and decided it was worth the trip… but I don’t have to tell you that, do I? I’m sure you know that story.”
Maine! She wondered which part. If it was far enough North, he’d be the farthest traveled person she’d met in the new world. So far, the scrawny loud-mouth merc that had been trying to pick her up in the Third Rail back in February had come the farthest, having come all the way up from DC.
But Katrina hadn’t heard much about the area, and she definitely didn’t know where Maine was. She narrowed an eye at the man, saying “Commonwealth?”
Now he seemed genuinely taken aback. “Uh.. yeah? Here? The Commonwealth?”
“I didn’t know it had a name. Is Diamond City part of the Commonwealth? I know that one.”
He chuffed a short laugh, looking her up and down quickly. Katrina shrank into herself at the unfamiliar gaze on her figure. He looked pointedly away. “Uh, yeah. It is. It’s a ways south of here. That where you’re headed?”
She nodded.
“It’s quite a trip... What’s there for you?”
She shrugged, Deacon’s words echoing in her mind. You yearn to be free... “People. Safety. It’s scary, leaving home. The trip here, even, was…” she shuddered.
He eyed the entrance to the settlement - or the wastes beyond it - saying “How long had you been out there?”
Just west of the hills... Not terribly far then. Maybe the width of the Commonwealth? “Since last night… or I guess early this morning.”
The details Deacon had ironed out for her prior to ushering her out of the giftshop were close at hand, but she didn’t need to dump Katrina’s whole life story on the guy, and she certainly didn’t need him getting too interested and dragging it out of her… especially if she ended up coming back this way again. She uncrossed her arms and clutched the strap of her bag, tucking her hair behind her ear with the other hand. “D’you know where I could get some… uhm some food? I’m pretty hungry.” She actually was. They were usually having dinner by now…
Sam nodded and gestured to a small shack near the inn. “Bar’s there. They serve food, but… uhm…” He hesitated, eyeing her again. “You have caps, right?”
Oh. Shit. Did she? She forgot to check if Deacon had taken hers or not. Surely he would have left them with her…
Unless Katrina’s family was so secluded that she didn’t even know anything about currency.
Wait, so then how would they have survived? Did they really have everything they needed to survive? Were there really people like that out there? Completely set aside from any semblance of society?
“You know what, hon?” Sam asked, pulling her from her musings. “Don’t worry about it. Head over to the bar and tell them I’m taking care of your dinner. Tomorrow we’ll get you set up with a way to pay off your room and board for the night. Probably shouldn’t go wandering in Diamond City without any money, though… so we can help you figure out your next steps too. Who knows? Maybe a Minuteman settlement would be more your speed anyways.”
“O-oh,” she stammered, letting Sam make up her story for her. She wasn’t sure she needed the Minutemen getting too involved in her little charity case but she could sort it out later. For now… “Th-thank you. For bein’ so kind, I mean.”
“Course.” He nodded towards the bar. “Go get some food in you. I’ll let the inn know you’re coming." With that he took off behind her, and Katrina was free to be on her way.
***
The nice thing about traveling with Deacon was that he had safehouses scattered all around the Commonwealth. Sometimes they spent the night in a Railroad safehouse, and that was fine, but more often than not they were in one of his impeccable little apartments, with blacked out windows and locking doors and a comfy place to sleep. One comfy place to sleep. They traded off on who got the bed, usually, which he really didn’t have to do. He really didn’t have to do any of the things he did for her; trading off so she could sleep in a bed half the time, making sure she always had food, teaching her how to survive out in the wastes… and not even just survive really. What they usually did was thrive.
Most people slept in irradiated garbage and drank dirty water.
Like literally: it had dirt in it.
But Deacon and Whisper always had supplies, always had clean water, always had somewhere to sleep - extenuating circumstances notwithstanding - and that was really a blessing for her, because after she’d left that little refugee group of Minutemen behind back in November she’d been pretty lost on her own.
Her only plan had been to make it to Vault-Tec headquarters - see if she could find anything about the Vault 111 experiment, about why they would have taken her son from her. The road was long, though. And cold. And wet. After more than a month of roughing it on her own, freezing her ass off sleeping in dilapidated buildings, being shot at by raiders and eating anything she could get her hands on that seemed at least vaguely edible, she’d been on the brink of really, actually losing it when she’d run into him on the road.
She’d seen him coming and ducked into a building, hiding as best she could and preparing to shoot him if he came after her, but then he’d called in the doorway saying that her limp didn’t look good, and that he could help her. She had a bullet wound that had gotten infected and figured if he could tell something was wrong from just glancing at her, and if he just wanted to help…
It was stupid. He actually told her that later - that she was lucky that it had been ‘just him’ and not some nefarious type trying to get her guard down, because let her guard down she did. He’d been friendly and funny and seemed to know what he was doing. He’d cleaned up her leg and used a stimpack, then asked her where she was headed.
She didn’t give her life story. Knew that would be kinda stupid, to admit when she was completely at this guy’s mercy that she was pre-war leftovers, freshly thawed and ready to eat up. She'd said she was headed for Boston and left it at that. When he didn’t press her, but instead insisted that he didn’t have anything better to do but help her fight her way through Cambridge, she’d been skeptical. Where had he been going? Where did he live? Why was dropping everything and helping a stranger so easily slapped onto his to-do list?
She didn’t want to examine that gift-horse’s fillings too closely, though, so she’d agreed to the arrangement.
When they came across a horde of ferals and she’d helped him take them out deftly with the 10mm she’d picked up on the road, he’d been impressed by her prowess with a pistol, and it was at that point that he’d started asking questions.
But not about where she was from or how she could pick off headshots so quickly and cleanly - surprisingly… and thankfully.
He instead asked what she thought about all sorts of seemingly innocuous things, asking hypotheticals about helping a stranger in need, about human rights in general. Once they’d made it to the Goodneighbor gates he’d pressed a holotape in her hand and told her to follow the Freedom Trail.
It had been nice having a companion… and extra nice to have someone helping her through the wasteland. She’d gotten farther that day than she had for the whole week leading up to it, once she was able to stop worrying so much about how much noise was too much noise, or whether there were baddies nearby. With his knowledge of Cambridge persuading them around raider dens and feral nests, they’d hardly hit a snag… and it hadn’t taken more than a few hours of being alone again in Goodneighbor for her to begin to miss her temporary companion…
When she’d evetually arrived in the catacombs and learned about the Railroad, about their mission, about their organization, she’d clung to the community of it… and if she hadn’t been hooked on his company before sweeping Switchboard, she certainly was afterwards. It was such a tremendous relief to have someone watching her back, to have someone on her side. Then he’d given her Deliverer and she’d nearly fallen over, because he wanted her to stay. He was inviting her into the fold, and saying that he’d fight for her. Her. All she had to do was not let him down.
Whisper fiddled with the handle of her fork as she ate. Had she let him down today? She’d really been trying. She didn’t think that they would be caught out, she’d just been so… jazzed about the stockpile that she’d turned a blind eye to the waning sun - to the chill creeping into the air.
A part of her was starting to think that he’d made up the bullshit about his lone wolf character just to get a break for the night. They hadn’t been apart for more than a few hours at a time since Switchboard… and if he was really as pissed as he was acting about the drainpipe, then maybe he’d just wanted to be alone for a change.
That was fine. If that was what he needed, she could be Katrina for a night. Be alone.
And staying in a settlement wasn’t turning out to be too bad, because as nice as it was to have the privacy and security and familiarity of one of Deacon’s houses, never quite knowing where you were going to be for the night meant that they usually ate pre-war junk. Each of his safehouses had a cabinet full of pre-war food that they scavenged and bought in the cities and restocked as it was needed. The CIT dorm was one of their most well-used houses and it was due for a restock, which meant schlepping about 30 pounds of food up across the Charles from Diamond City. Only one of them could go - one person stocking up was less memorable to a shopkeeper than two - so they traded off on that duty.
Point was she almost never had fresh meat and produce. She wondered what she could do to convince Deacon that they needed to work fresh meals into their routine somehow…
A tickling, creeping feeling invaded her skin and she blinked down at her food. Someone was watching her. Either out of the corner of her eye or as she scanned the room, she’d subconsciously noted it. It took her only a moment to hone in on the memory and realize that it was the pale blue of Deacon’s gaze on her that she’d seen. He’d come in without her even realizing. Sneaky.
When she actually tracked him down, she found herself blinking hard, trying to clear her vision.
He was sitting across the room from her, with a direct line of sight despite the crowd. His wig was gone, his bald head lackluster under a faux dusting of dirt. He’d dusted all of his clothes, too, giving him a baseline worn out sort of look.
Despite his appearance being so far removed from her companion’s usual immaculate self, she could still sense his fastidiousness in the straight and uncrumpled straps of leather buckling his jacket around him, in his slightly-too-prim-for-a-scavver posture. He looked gruff, yet put together… like he had a good handle on himself. She didn't imagine Sam had given him two looks. The guards might've, though. May have even given him a hard time about what he was doing there.
An unfamiliar shotgun sat on the table before him, comfortably within his reach, and she wondered briefly where his rifle had been stashed. Had he put Deliverer in the same place when he'd replaced it with a pipe pistol?
A spot of pink drew her eyes up like a magnet - the tip of his tongue slipping out from between his lips to wet them. It drifted lazily to one side before disappearing again, his head tilting and chin jutting confidently as his eyes narrowed. The blue of them had become meager in the time since she'd first spotted him; eclipsed by his deepening gaze.
A breath caught in her chest as it dawned on her that he was… staring. Like, openly, full-on staring at her. He hadn't looked away when she caught him… just stared right back into her with a kind of boasting confidence that wasn't quite Deacon… but wasn't entirely unfamiliar to her either. His fingers drummed patiently on the table before him as the corner of his mouth lifted, his tongue hesitating just behind the gleam of his teeth.
"I talked to Trudy!" Sam announced, making her jolt. She hadn’t even heard him come up. "You're all set up for the night. Just report to me in the morning and I'll get you set up with a job."
Her eyes were glued to the table, a wash of heat crawling over her. Oh God. She'd been staring. She'd been caught staring, right? And not just by Deacon… although Sam was busy scribbling on a clipboard so maybe… maybe not. Maybe he hadn't quite noticed just how distracted she had been.
"Thank you," she finally blurted. Then his words caught up to her and she winced, peeking at him. "But uhm… wait, a job?"
He looked to her sharply. "Yeah. A job, remember? To pay off room and board…?"
"Right… but what kind of job would it be? It won't be all day, right? I sort of need to head for Diamond City tomorrow."
"No one's expecting you, are they?"
"Well…" Shit. Shit. Her eyes darted to her partner across the room, but only briefly. His eyes were still pinning her to her chair and she had to look away, though she could still feel his gaze crawling under her skin as she grasped for something to say to Sam. Something believable. Maybe a little pathetic - get his sympathy in her hands to work with…
"Hey now, no need to panic," he insisted, "We're not gonna hold you captive or anything, but you do need to pay what you owe. It'll be a day's work, and we'll send you off day after tomorrow. That a deal? Or… uhm…" Sam hesitated, eyeing her half eaten dinner, obviously uncomfortable with having to lay out some kind of consequence for her.
Too memorable. All of this was just a little bit too memorable. She needed to get away, get herself out of his head, then figure out an exit strategy. She’d checked her bag when she'd gotten to the bar. Deacon had indeed taken her caps… but that was fine. She just needed to get some of them back to pay for her stay. She could do that between now and morning.
“You know,” she supposed, “I think I may have picked up some caps somewhere along the way but I just… Well I guess I just didn’t really know what I was picking up…” she leaned in, indicating that Sam should do the same. When he did, she said lowly “And I don’t really wanna dig through my stuff here, you know? In front of everyone?”
Sam’s gaze dropped briefly to her light looking pack. “O-oh,” he said.
“Yeah. I’ll check tonight, though, and come find you in the morning, alright?”
Sam narrowed his eyes at her, straightening again. “Well, ok sure… but, you didn’t know what they were? Where exactly are you from?”
Way too memorable. Shit. She looked away from him, careful not to land her gaze on Deacon and the eyes she could still feel boring into her. “I-I… it’s not important, really. I’m here now… and it’s been a long day. I think I’d like to just finish dinner and head to bed.”
Sam considered her carefully. Then something in his expression resolved and he said “Alright, well don’t run off too quick in the morning, ok? Should make sure you’ve at least got enough gear to get you to the city before we send you off. Got a caravan you could probably walk with, too. A provisioner.”
So she was going to have to sneak out. This guy wasn’t going to let her wander off into the wastes by herself. Goddammit… how had she fucked this up so supremely?
Helpless. Naive. Inexperienced… “A caravan? To walk with?” Safety in numbers, but would she be able to trust them? “I-I uhm…” What, she trusts Diamond City well enough to leave the only home she’d ever known for it, but she won’t trust this rando? Where’s the logic there? How would she…. Fuck. Tick tock. Sam was probably looking at her like she was a lunatic by now. “I- Thank you, S-Sam? For being so nice… I won’t soon forget it.”
“Course.”
Then he caught her off guard, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder. The tender gesture had Whisper melting just a bit, her gaze dropping to appraise his stocky build.
Sam pulled his hand back suddenly, like she had burned him, and something twisted in her stomach. He backed up, putting a respectful amount of space between them. “I-I’ll catch up with you in the morning, alright?”
Katrina nodded.
Whisper wanted to light herself on fire.
Deacon’s gonna be pissed when he hears we can never come back here.
She dropped her gaze to her meal, picking at it now with the sickly feeling really having dug itself in. From the nerves of disappointing her partner to the sludgy sewer water still between her toes to the weird fluttery feeling Sam’s touch had brought on, she had lost her damn appetite.
Katrina would be voracious, though, so she took another bite.
She couldn’t spend the next day working off her debt. No way. So she needed to get her hands on some caps. Enough for a room and the food. 30 would cover everything, including breakfast, and she could get away with claiming that she hadn’t remembered picking up such a small amount. Her spaciness to that point should work in her favor there.
So she needed to talk to Deacon and get some caps, and to do that she needed to find a reason why Katrina Parish, delicate, spacy, nervous farmgirl, would go up and talk to the gruff, sort of scary merc-looking guy who had been eyeing her more covetously than he was his own dinner.
Seriously, though, what the hell was he playing at?
There was some sort of roasted meat on his plate next to a pile of fried tatos. He picked up one of the tatos with is fingers and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, he dipped his head, catching her eye again with his own before licking a bit of grease from his thumb.
That was very unlike Deacon. Committing to the bit, she supposed. Really really committing, from the pinched almost-frown he wore to the untouched silverware that was usually in his pack to the way he was undressing her with his eyes. It was different from how Deacon typically looked her over, even in character. The John in Goodneighbor hadn’t looked at her like this. Even the CEO, with all his knee-weakening coos and demands hadn’t been quite this forward and crude.
It wasn’t until the corner of his mouth twitched upwards, eyes tightening slightly as his teeth gleamed behind his lips that she realized just how openly she was staring at him again. Her eyes glued to her half-eaten food. Just over half eaten. That was enough, right? Maybe Katrina wasn’t used to this big a portion. Right?
She stood.
Right. They could go with that. They should go with that. Because if anyone caught her staring any more than she already had, they were going to have another well-meaning problem on their hands. She needed to bail… for now. Figure out how to approach him later. It didn’t seem like anyone was really watching her like she always feared they were when she was in character - everyone was engrossed in their own dinners and conversations as far as she could see - but that didn’t mean no one had noticed her, and that they wouldn’t go on to notice her approaching the scariest, most stay the fuck away from me looking guy in the room.
She gathered her things.
Later. She’d find him later.
***
Later came. Later went. She still didn’t have anything better than listen at the door for him to go to his room.
So there she sat, awkwardly perched on her bed, unable to get too engrossed in anything for fear that she might miss hearing him come up the stairs. Deacon had quiet footfalls, afterall, though she figured the lone-wolf merc maybe didn’t. Still - she couldn’t afford to be wrong and miss her opportunity to talk to him. Then she’d have to sneak out on her bill, and aside from the fact that the lady at the front desk had already strongly suggested that she not do that, she didn’t want to give the Minutemen a reason not to be so charitable. It was good that there was an organization willing to help people, to lend them a hand and then help them pay it back. The way Sam had so quickly offered her help tugged at her heart. In such a dark and nasty world there were still people trying to be good to one another. Like Sam. Like General Garvey.
Like Deacon, helping her out with her infected gunshot wound and escorting her to safety all those months ago, then offering her community in the new world. Guidance. Purpose.
Though he had also, in a move that had not been so charitable of him, taken her usual pajamas out of her pack and replaced them with a ratty, though mostly clean, oversized t-shirt. She started to wonder where he had picked it up from but stopped herself, deciding that it was really better if she didn’t know. She could trust that Deacon wouldn’t give her anything disease-ridden or flea infested to wear.
Her room in the inn had a bucket and a pitcher of water ready for her, and she’d taken the opportunity to start her sewer sludge covered pants and socks soaking. She got her hair combed - her hairbrush was missing from her pack, figures - and washed as much of herself as she could manage with the rag and soap he’d let her have. Then she finally changed into her new nightshirt.
When she saw that the hem hit just below the bottom of her underwear, she kicked herself for not thinking farther ahead. Deacon wouldn’t mind necessarily, though she didn’t typically waltz around in her underwear around him anyways. If she accidentally popped out into the hall when it was someone else she heard coming up the stairs, though, then that could be embarrassing.
Just as she’d assumed, the merc was not as graceful and quiet as a ballerina. She stood and crossed the room when she heard him coming, staving off a shiver as the blanket fell from her bare legs, though he had been thoughtful enough to let her keep an extra pair of socks so her feet were covered. As the footfalls entered the hall just outside, she creaked the door open. The footfalls stopped as she did, her partner stalling just out of sight. She stepped out cautiously, peering around the corner and bracing herself to say Oops, sorry, thought maybe you were the innkeep. Fortunately, she found Deacon standing there, as she had hoped, looking sort of surprised.
“Hey,” she whispered.
He appraised her, blinking, before straightening confidently. “Hey,” he drawled, his character’s tone throwing her. He took a haughty step forward. “I thought maybe you’d liked what you saw, but you scurried out of there before I had a chance to ask.”
The merc’s voice was a creeping baritone that crawled up her spine and tickled the hair at the nape of her neck. She fisted her hand to keep from rubbing at the spot, all too aware of the wild look in his eye as he looked her up and down.
Cut the shit she wanted to say. This particular character felt like he was going to be a step removed from the kind of company she actually liked to keep, but if Deacon was convinced that they were in danger of being overheard, so much so that he wasn’t dropping the act, then she trusted him enough to follow his lead.
Problem was, she wasn’t sure how. Not with what she needed to say.
She beckoned him to come closer, prompting him to quirk a brow. He did saunter up, though, coming to within a foot of her… and reaching down to rest a hand casually on the butt of his sidearm.
She rolled her eyes openly. “Are you serious right now,” she whispered, deadpan. What, was he going for an Oscar or something? Here in the quiet unlit corridor of a secluded post apocalyptic inn?
His head tilted as he leaned over her. “Cute little thing like you making eyes at me from across the bar, then trying to lure me into your room after? Sorry, doll, I weren’t born yesterday, and I’m gonna be keeping my friend here nice and close.”
She searched the blue pouring over her, the familiarity behind his gaze calming the tiny part of her that was becoming a little bit worried that it wasn’t actually Deacon she was talking to. If there were any doubt after that, it was completely flushed away when she found the scar on his chin - the one that caught the light sometimes when he leaned close, drawing her eye.
So, Deacon. For sure Deacon.
He eyed the dark room behind her. “You got someone else waitin’ in there? Ready to blow me away and take my haul?” Then his gaze melted down her body, making her skin crawl. “Or maybe you’ve got a switchblade hiding up under there with those legs…”
Deacon. Christ. She clutched the hem of her shirt, pulling it down as far as she could manage… which wasn’t far. “I need caps,” she hissed. She didn’t want to hear any more of what he had to say. She didn’t know quite how Deacon wanted her to dance with this sleazy guy he’d dreamed up, but she was about ready to say fuck it and stomp off the dancefloor without him.
“Yeah? And who don’t?” he snarked.
“Deac."
His brow drew in. “Who?”
Motherfucker. “Listen, ok?” She shifted on her feet, leaning toward him to be heard better as he appraised her carefully. “I need caps by morning, alright? About 30 should do. For room and board. If I don’t they’re gonna make me stay and work, which I figure isn’t ideal since you probably wanna hit the road, right? I’m also not willing to skip out on the bill. So… I mean I’m not sure how you didn’t forsee this being an issue when you took my caps earlier but-”
His previously amused expression suddenly twisted up with rage and she couldn’t help but fall back as he straightened, looming over her. “Took your caps?”
Her hands flew up defensively, her heart stuttering in her chest. “Deacon,” she warned, voice coming out weak.
“Honey I think you must have me mixed up with someone else, because I sure as shit ain’t taken anything from you. I ain’t even met you ‘fore now.”
She tried to catch a breath, her lungs feeling shallow. Silently she begged, her eyes pleading for him to cut her a fucking break but he ignored that, pressing closer, wild eyes still gleaming with anger. She jolted when she bumped into the doorframe, the reality of her being trapped there sinking into her like a lead weight in her gut.
“Now I can be a patient man when I need to be. Really, I can. But you are really workin’ to light my fuse right now, and you can believe me when I say that that thing is already about an inch too short. Now, you wanna make eyes at me, run away, act all coy? That’s all good and well. Part of the fun of it, really. But then you accuse me of stealin from you?” He shook his head scoldingly, his eyes severe on her. “That is a surefire way to set me right the hell off, little girl… and I don’t think those big innocent eyes of yours are ready to see anything quite like it just yet.”
“I’m sorry,” she heard herself breathe, her hand whiteknuckled on the doorknob at her hip. She wanted to look away, to de-escalate, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off of the fury behind his.
“I bet you are. Bet you’re real sorry you ever looked at me and thought easy pickins because that is something I sure ain’t, honey.”
“No you aren’t.”
His eyes remained intense on her for what felt like a small eternity, but had probably only been a few seconds. Then he seemed to see something in her expression that satisfied him, something that answered well enough for his sudden outburst. A measure of the anger sloughed away from the set of his features, as he straightened. “No,” he repeated. “I ain’t.”
She released a breath as his imposing presence slowly eased back from her, every nerve in her body screaming at her to run. It was primal. Instinctual. Her feet may as well have been bolted to the floor, though; her hands glued down to where they clutched the doorframe she’d been pinned to.
“Now… those caps you’re needin’?” he began, and relief crept into her, easing some of the tension. Relief tinged with a righteous annoyance, that is. Fucking sadist. Making her work for this shit. If this was some sort of fucked up punishment…
His eye gleamed with amusement at something in her expression. “I suggest you earn ‘em."
Her eyes fell shut as that sank in. Earn them.
Of course. Because him scaring the hell out of her and calling it square would have been too easy.
As he backed away from her, his smirk - taunting as it was - was actually a little bit of a comfort because it was all Deacon.
“As for how you’re gonna do that?” He shrugged. Then he gestured to a door caddy-corner from hers. “Come see me later after everyone's all tucked in tight. I might be able to come up with an idea or two for a young lady in need.”
When he winked at her something cold slithered under her scalp and she didn’t wait to hear more, or to watch him disappear behind his door. Instead, she gave into her instincts and scrambled backed into the safety of her room, sliding the deadbolt firmly into place.