Chapter 28: Dog Days

Chapter 28: Dog Days

Good morning listeners, and welcome back to the Mr. New Vegas show on Radio New Vegas. It looks like it's going to be another beautiful day in the Mojave Wasteland. Partly cloudy skies, with highs of 80, and lows hovering around 69. A word of warning for anyone travelling along the Long 15 south of Primm and the Nipton Highway: reports of sandstorms spilling over from the Divide the last few days have increased with no signs of letting up, so be sure to wear goggles and air filters if you've got them. Got more classics coming to you over the airwaves, so stay tuned.

Boone and I left Bitter Springs before any of the NCR troops - the few that were there - could check to see what all the yelling and gunshots and general commotion had been about. Were they confused by the three dozen or so Legion bodies and dead dogs surrounding the camp, and the blue Corvega speeding away back to New Vegas?

Maybe. Frankly, I didn't care. At the moment, all I wanted to do was to just get back to the Lucky 38, and get at least one or two more hours of sleep before going back to see The King.

Of course, if I'd had my way, we wouldn't have left Bitter Springs as fast as we did. I suggested to Boone that we see if there was a doctor in the camp - or, at the very least, use the first aid kit in my trunk before setting off again. But Boone would have none of it. He didn't want to deal with any of the NCR troops. Too much paperwork, apparently.

So, in the end, we compromised. I was driving the two of us back to Vegas, with ED-E flying alongside, while Boone was in the backseat, trying to administer first aid on himself with a pair of tweezers, a roll of cloth bandages, a pair of scissors, and a couple stimpacks.

"You're cleaning that up," I said, really only half joking as I glanced back at him. Boone just chuckled. He was making an absolute mess. The wound on his arm apparently had been a ricochet from a bullet that bounced off his chest plate, and it really only amounted to a graze. But he still had to pull a few chunks of metal out of his arm before using a stimpack, and he was bleeding everywhere.

When we eventually reached the Lucky 38, the adrenaline that had kept me going since the fighting started had finally worn off. I'm just glad it hadn't evaporated while I was still driving. Waking up to find my car had been put in a ditch because I fell asleep at the wheel would not have been how I wanted to spend a Saturday. I was absolutely exhausted. Even Boone looked tired, and that's saying a lot.

The elevator eventually dinged and, thankfully, no one was there to greet me as the two of us exited into the suite.

"I need a shower. And sleep," Boone said, scratching at the dressing he'd wrapped around his wounded arm. At the time, I'd wondered why he'd bothered with a bandage, since the stimpack should've healed the wound over completely. It made much more sense now.

"Yeah... no offense man, but you look like you need it," I said, trying to keep my eyes open a while longer. "You look like you've been fighting a bear or something."

"Or a bull," It looked like Boone tried to grin, but it ended up being more like a grimace. It took me a second for my exhausted brain to get that, and the two of us chuckled half-heartedly.

"I'll see you in the morning," I shuffled towards my room, and Boone headed for the shower.

"It is morning," he said simply. I just sighed.

"Ugh... you know what I mean," And with that, I shut the door behind me.

I didn't even make it to the bed before I collapsed.

Next thing I knew, I was coughing myself awake, trying to get the taste of 200 year old carpet out of my mouth.

It took me a minute to get my bearings... and the first thing I did was breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn't had another nightmare, which made me feel all kinds of grateful. They were really starting to get on my nerves, with how often they were happening. Second thing I did was check the time: a little after 10:30 in the morning. Which means I did get a little sleep. Just.

I entered the hallway of the suite, closing my bedroom door behind me and still trying to wake up. I heard another softer click of a door from across the hall opening up. It was the door to Veronica's room... but Cass was the one who walked out.

That woke me up pretty quick.

She wasn't wearing her hat or her leather jacket, and she was looking down, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt. She looked up, saw me, and froze. I did my best to hold back a smile. I'm pretty sure I failed miserably. Cass' face flushed immediately, and her cheeks turned very nearly the same shade as her hair.

"Morning," I said breaking the silence.

"Uh... hey," was her response, along with hastily doing up a few more buttons. I could've been mistaken, but it looked like she buttoned it up slightly higher than she usually did. I could barely see the pendant around her neck.

"Have fun last night?" I asked, smirking a little.

"I.. er.. uh..." Cass cleared her throat, licked her lips, and put on her best poker face. "Yep. I did."

"Well. Glad somebody had fun last night, at least. My night consisted of violence against the Legion with Boone. I'd be prepared to bet that you had a better time than I did. I was gonna say you probably got more sleep, but..." I just flashed a grin and chuckled. Cass' poker face evaporated immediately, and she sort of blinked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh... are ya... I mean... yer not..." She sort of trailed off a bit, and ran a hand through her untied red hair. She looked a little embarrassed. For some reason.

"I'm not what?" I asked. Part of me wanted to think that... but no, that couldn't be what was going on. There were too many things going on for THAT to be the case. I mean, for one thing, she and Veronica had quite obviously just gotten together. So, no sense thinking THAT was the reason she was embarrassed. For another, I wasn't fully awake yet. I was probably just picking up on some physical cues or body language that weren't actually there. Plus, I did recall something she'd said the day I met her: "Just so we're clear, nothin' an I do mean nothin' is ever gonna happen 'tween us. You'd best respect that."

And you know, that seemed pretty unequivocal at the time.

"I- I jus'..." Cass sighed and shook her head. "Nev'rmind. I'm gonna get some coffee," And with that, she walked past me into the kitchen. I just shrugged, and pushed the button to call the elevator.

"Well. That was awkward."

"Hey, Courier," Vince was leaning against the front door of The Kings' place and smoking when I rocked up. "You lookin' for The King, man?" I nodded.

"Yeah, he said he wanted to see me again. He in?"

"I think so," He tossed his cigarette aside, and led me inside. The lobby had several more empty bottles of booze scattered around than I remembered... Vince leaped over the counter, ducked behind it, and pulled out a few beers, one of which he slid across the counter in my direction. "Grab a drink, make yourself comfortable. I'm gonna go find The King, it shouldn't be too long."

As it happened, I didn't have to wait any time at all; The King walked in from the door on the opposite wall. He was wearing a pair of black trousers, a black jacket, and a red collared shirt that was only mostly buttoned.

"Hey Vince," The King and Vince greeted each other with some complicated looking hand gestures - some kind of secret handshake, I guess - and Vince handed him a beer. "What's the haps, man?"

"That Courier's here to see you, boss." The King turned to me and smiled, grasping my hand and attempting that same handshake... thing. I'll be honest, I couldn't really follow it, and I'm pretty sure I screwed it up.

"Hey, Sheason. C'mon, have a beer," He nodded to Vince, who tossed The King a bottle. "Hell of a party last night, wasn't it?" He tried handing me the beer, but I shook my head and waved it off.

"Actually, I'm here to talk business. Didn't you say last night you had something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"That's right!" He said, snapping his fingers. "Thank you, I'd nearly forgotten." And then, without warning, he let loose an ear-splittingly shrill whistle. Even Vince seemed to flinch at the sound. The King, meanwhile, kept talking like nothing had happened. "There's one last thing I wanted you to do. You know my dog, Rex?"

"I've noticed him, yes," I said, nodding.

"Well, thing is, he's been acting peculiar for some time now. I thought he might be sick, so I took him to the Followers..."

"Wait, hang on," I interrupted. "How can he get sick? Isn't he like a robot, or something?"

"It's not sick like the flu or nothin'," The King explained. "The doctors said his brain is bad... or, something. Thing is, they couldn't really do anything, because they don't have the tools to help him."

That sounds familiar, I thought. At that moment, the cybernetic German Shepherd bounded into the room, his arrival preceded by the sound of metal hitting wooden floorboards. The King kneeled down when Rex entered, and scratched his dog behind the ears; Rex nuzzled into his hand and whined affectionately.

"There's m'boy! Who's a good boy? That's right, you are!" He continued scratching his dog, but turned his attention back to me. "Anyway, thing of it is, I'd almost given up hope that Rexie would ever get better. Then, a couple of days ago, Julie found me and said she'd been looking into this in her spare time. Turns out, she got wind of a man who might be able to help - some kind of old scientist called Doc Henry or some such, living up north in Jacobstown."

"Jacobstown?" I asked, looking at my Pip Boy and bringing up the map. "I've never heard of that place."

"It's up in mountains. Peak of Mt. Charleston, I think. Just take highway 95 north till you hit Kyle Canyon road." I thought about that, and looked it up on the map. Kyle Canyon road was another name for state route 157, and the turnoff to that was a few miles south of the sacked caravan Cass and I had visited about a week earlier.

"Ok..." I turned off my Pip Boy and nodded. "So, what does this have to do with me?"

"Right. Well, I got to talkin' with V, an' one thing led t'another, next thing I know I woke up with my face buried in her chest!"

"Nice," I held back the urge to give her a high five.

"Yeah, it was... but..." she trailed off and took another swig from her flask.

"So what's the problem?"

"Th' problem is... well, I'm just... See, I was just lookin' t'have a little fun last night, right? But I have this nasty feelin' that it was more'n just a bit've fun for her, y'know?"

"Ah," I nodded, finally understanding. "Yeah, I kind of picked up on that when I got back earlier." Saying that made Cass look a little worried.

"She's not callin' me her girlfriend already, is she?"

"Just about." The image of Veronica dancing with joy flashed across my short-term memory. Cass, on the other hand, just grimaced.

"Fuck!"

"Hang on, I'm confused. How is this a bad thing?" I asked. "I mean, no offense or anything, but I'm not sure I see why you're freaking out here. Isn't Veronica kind of perky and bubbly and awesome?" Cass turned and looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head.

"Dude. Have you been payin' attention?"

"I do try my best to pay attention, yes. Why?"

"Then ya should've figured by now - I'm not really 'relationship' material! I'm not th' type t'settle down'r get hitched'r nothin'. I mean, I'm fine with a little fuckin, here'n there every once in a while if it's just a bit've fun, but not if it's gonna turn into somethin'..." Cass sighed, and gulped audibly. "... serious."

"I think you're making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. If that's how things are gonna be, then I think the best thing you should do is tell her what's going on." Rather than looking relieved, Cass just looked even more nervous. I just sighed. "Okay, what's the other problem?"

"The problem is... well, y'were right earlier 'bout V bein' awesome. She's really nice, an' fun t'be 'round, an' really fuckin' hot, an' I'm just... she's been through a lot th' last few years..." For some reason, words flashed across my mind: With regret comes a girl smiling sad... half here, half there... wraps her and her heart up like a pack...

"I... I don't want her t'get hurt, y'know?" Cass continued. "I want to let her down soft, but... well fuck, you know how hard I can be t'deal with sometimes."

"Only when you're drinking," I said with a shrug. She furrowed her brow, thinking about that for a minute.

"I'm always drinkin'."

"Exactly."

"Fuck you," She let out a half hearted chuckle - and punched me in the arm. "Look, point is, I know if I just out-n-out tell her, I'm gonna fuck somethin' up, an' she's gonna get hurt. Things'll get messy."

"Yeah... that's the problem with relationships... sometimes they hurt more than bullets. And you can't heal the scars you get from relationships with stimpacks or trips to the doctor. Some scars stay with you, and you can't get rid of them, no matter how hard you try."

I did my best to fight down images of the raven haired woman from my past... But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quite get her vibrant green eyes and soft, smiling lips or her infectious laugh out of my head. I tried to shake it off, but it didn't really work. Luckily, Cass was on hand to help further distract me.

"Man, fuckin' is great, but feelings are stupid."

"Eloquent, as always," I said. She just shook her head.

"Why d'we have t'have stupid feelings and emotions?"

"Because emotions are what make us human. Yeah, sometimes they hurt. Sometimes our emotions can even destroy us... but without emotions we wouldn't feel joy, or triumph, or hope, or... love. Without the ability to feel, life would just be empty and hollow. Emotions are the things that define who we are, and they can make life stupid and brilliant and messy and... wonderful."

There was a very long silence, and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the wind rushing through my hair. Finally, I looked back to Cass, and realized that she'd been staring at me like I'd grown another head... again.

"What?" I asked.

"You know, I never know what th' fuck I'm gonna get when I deal with you," she said matter of factly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, fuck man, think 'bout it - sometime's y'act like a goddamn moron, like ya can't see yer fuckin' hands in front've yer face, an' other times you pull some serious old world philosopher type shit outta yer ass, like jus' then! You are seriously some kind of idiot savant or something." I admit, I did laugh at that. But I shook it off quickly.

"Look, back to the point - what are you gonna do about this? Eventually you're going to have to tell her that you're not looking for a serious committed relationship."

"Not necessarily! I figure, if I just keep actin' like myself fer long 'nuff, she'll figure out that I'm a shitty girlfriend, and that'll be that." She forced a smile, almost like she was trying to convince herself.

"That's not a solution. You know that, right?"

"Maybe not," Cass shrugged. "But it might give me 'nuff time t'think of somethin' better."

"Do you think this'll cause problems in the short term - say, for instance, the five of us and a halfway-cybernetic German Shepherd piled into my car and heading to Jacobstown?" I asked. She shook her head.

"Nah... I think things'll be cool. For a while, 'tleast..."

There was a very long pause where both of us just leaned on the railing, looking out over Vegas. Neither of us said a word. And then...

"Yer real easy t' talk to. I don' usually open up 'bout... problems like this. To any'ne." I just chuckled under my breath, and patted her on the shoulder.

"Thanks for saying that. What else are friends for, right?"

"Yeah... friends..." Again, she looked out across Vegas in silence.

And then...

"Will say this 'bout V - the sex is fuckin' fantastic!"

"Is it now?" Like before, I did my best to hold back a smile. I'm pretty sure I failed miserably. Of course, instead of her face flush with embarrassment like before, she just broke out into a wide grin.

"Oh man, you got no fuckin' idea! An' th' best part? She's got th' most gorgeous pair've tits in the goddamn world!" I'm not sure she realized she was doing it, but she started groping a pair of invisible breasts in front of her, and I did my damndest not to just bust up laughing hysterically right there. "I mean, y'can't really tell 'neath all that armor, but they're fuckin' huge! They're just, like, these two big, soft, squishy pillows that I c'n jus' bury my face in fer days and just be lost!"

"You know, I think I can see why Veronica likes you now." Cass broke out of her trance, and looked at me questioningly, so I continued. "Your enthusiasm about her chest is positively intoxicating."

At that precise moment in the city below, the people walking around Vegas began to question where the loud and absolutely raucous laughter they were suddenly hearing was coming from.

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