Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 35: Crazy He Calls Me

Kelly's fingers clicked monotonously at her Pip-Boy, taking on Hancock's high score at Red Menace. The wily old bastard had a flair for holotape games and had put her personal high score to shame, trumpeting himself as the 'King Of Menace' one time during a session of Jet, Mentats, and whiskey shots. His focus while hard out shit-faced was uncanny. She wasn't one to back down from a challenge, however.

Manipulating the vault boy in his treacherous yet heroic crusade to save the vault girl, Kelly had him charging through nuclear strikes, leaping objects in his way, scaling ladders, but no matter how much she concentrated, the little shit still sucked dick at it.

Damn vault girl. Grow some ovaries and save yourself, Kelly griped inwardly. Surviving the Red Menace in her past in the Sino-American war should make her sensitive to playing this game. Was it bad that she wasn't? Did it mean she was a cold-hearted bitch? Maybe. Probably.

You see so many things, kill so many people, that after a while you just block out your humanity in order to survive it. Become numb to it.

Like what she did to that raider.

Kelly clicked harder on the buttons and dials, willing the little shit on the screen to do cartwheels at her whim. Instead, he died. Growling, Kelly bashed at the side of her Pip-Boy in her ire.

"Not abusing that poor Pip-Boy of yours again, are we?" came Cade's mock tone from outside her unit.

Kelly cast him a scowl that he didn't receive from behind her privacy screen, and made no effort to respond. Despite his constant influx of taunts at her restless behavior, he had been good to her. He never once spoke of her chem mishap, and never commented on how her collarbones would jut out of her skin when he made routine examinations of her heart rate and blood pressure. He would frequently tell her that her eyes were looking brighter, her dark circles were faded, her cheeks had more color, her hands were warmer. He even told her one time while checking in after curfew that she had a certain glow about her, reminding her of how Nate would always say that when she was pregnant with Shaun. Whether or not any of that was true, she still appreciated it.

She did feel a hell of a lot better, though. Morning weigh-ins on Cade's scales told her she had gained at least a whole kilogram in a few days. It didn't help that she was up and about whenever she could be, wandering the Prydwen in a futile attempt to stave off her boredom and ease her anxiety at being wastefully unproductive. She may or may not have been keeping an eye out for any sign of Danse in his daily grind, itching to catch him off-duty and slap a beer in his hand, demanding he tell her that story of him and Maxson.

Though, they had yet to speak since she admitted to lying about Doom-Guy...

She hadn't caught any sightings of Star Paladin Groves, and figured the acidic woman was probably down at the airport, or off on some classified mission per Maxson's order. Either way, Kelly was just glad not to have to deal with her again.

Lynch had come to visit, if only over a coffee. Kelly wasn't really sure why the young woman was so eager to build a friendship with her, but she welcomed it nonetheless. They had chatted about her patrols, Duval's pedo-moustache, their shared love of coffee, and cats, specifically the ones roaming the Prydwen. Kelly discovered that one was called Deathclaw, and another Radcat. If only one was called Catmeat. Maybe she would embrace her inner kleptomaniac and steal one someday. Being cooped up in an airship was no life for a cat, and Dogmeat might like a playmate...