I wake up and get ready. Today's the day I go get shit done with this tall handsome doc. I listen to his advice and leave some caps here. I have now 1,000 caps in my bag and a book (that isn't the Art of War). The Arsenal of Democracy. I make sure I have enough ammunition and water and some spare cans of food in case I can't find any. I put my hat on (the ball cap my dad gave me on my 10th birthday) and I pull on my armor. Mk II military combat armor. I found it in the Divide. I need a hair cut. But I'm not aloud to get a hair cut because idiots don't really groom themselves. That's why I let my stubble grow and I don't wear my glasses. I can't see as well without them but that works to my advantage. It makes me sound more stupid when someone else and I are looking at something and I can't tell what it is. Whatever. As usual I pack some medical supplies just in case. I finally pull my boots on and I walk out. Goodbye cramped room, hello Mojave.
I walk into the fort and look around for Arcade. It's still a little early so maybe he's still asleep. I hang around the guards chatting some until I spot Arcade. He walks out of his tent with a backpack. I smile and wave. I can't tell if he's smiling back or not but he waves. From there we head out. So far so good. We walk out into the wastes.
"So where exactly are we going?" He asks.
"I-I have 50 st-star bottle caps." I smile at him.
"And?" He asks.
"Th-there's this legend about these. This is supposed to be how many y-you need. To get the reward." I say.
"So where are we going?" He asks.
"Sunset Sarsasparila B-bottling plant." I say.
"Okay." He says. "That could be interesting." He smiles.
"So how-how about you, Arcade?" I ask.
"What about me?" He asks.
"What-what are you like?" I ask, sounding dumb.
"Oh, I'm not very interesting. You'd get better stories out of a Freeside junkie." He says.
"Aww, no I-I don't think so. I-I got got in the back of the head by one. With-with a pipe." I say.
"Oh, sorry to mention it but is that why you stutter?" He asks.
"I don't k-know? Maybe it-it was that point blank headshot I-I took." I shrug. "But we-we're talking about you right now." I say.
"Alright, I'm in my early thirties, well, mid thirties. I'm from west of here and I love reading books about failed socioeconomic policies. You're probably wondering why hasn't some lucky man swept this bachelor off of his feet. Oh right, because I'm boring." He says. I frown at him. "What?" He says.
"Don't-don't say that, any man would be uh lucky to have you. People are dumb though. Of-of course they'd look right over you. Ah-a-a diamond, hidden." I say. He smiles and blushes.
"That's sweet, but really. I'm just boring." He insists. I frown.
"If-if it makes you feel better, n-n-no guy want to be with a-an idiot like me." I say. He chuckles.
"I'm sure there's a guy out there for you. So, you like guys? Romantically?" He asks, slowly because he still thinks I'm mentally challenged.
"Y-yes! N-no good men so far were ever with me though... bad guys." I say.
"Oh, I'm sorry. What did they do?" He asks.
"One-one guy... He hit me so hard, th-the muscle on my-my-my face wasn't even attatched to m-my bones anymore." I say.
"Oh god." He says, "I never would have guessed that happened to you."
"There was a uhm, a doctor. He said he-he could fix it. He did facial reconstruction for e-escaped androids. He fixed it for me." I say.
"Where are you from?" He asks.
"E-east of here. Really far." I say, trying to sound dumber than I have been.
"Huh." He says. I look at the bottling plant.
"Look! Big bottle." I point and smile. I'm a hell of an actor. He nods.
"Yea, big bottle." He says.
"Let's go!" I say, bouncing a bit. We walk over and I go in through the doors, holding them for Arcade. I walk over to the Festus robot. "Howdy!" I smile at the robot, really selling the whole dummy wholesome thing. I dump my caps into the slot and Festus tells the story. I sit and Arcade sits next to me. When the story ends we don't get anything else for those caps. "Seriously?" I say, a little mad. "Th-that's it?" I scoff. Festus directs us towards a path that's blocked by rubble. I sit there and pout. That really makes me depressed. I struggle with depression anyway, but knowing I worked so hard for that makes it worse.
"Hey, it's okay. That was a pretty cool story." Arcade pats my back. I nod. "Let's see if there's another way to that desk. Maybe the prize is still there." He says, standing up. I stand up too.
"Th-thanks Arcade. I-I shouldn't be sad about it though... I could uh get over it if you just want to move on." I say.
"No, you worked too hard to not get something for that." He says. I nod. "Now let's get that prize." He says. I smile. That's sweet. He grabs my hand and walks me through the headquarters. We activated that robot. It went around and picked every bottle cap off of the floor. I gave the caps to Arcade. We kept going and we made it to the place. We opened the doors. Sunset deputy badges all over the floor. A dead guy in the corner. That's nasty. Arcade reaches down and picks a badge up for me. He hands it to me. "Here, it's hardly worth 50 caps but its something." He smiles. I smile back and put it on. Cute.
"I-I like this." I say. "It's the um the small things. Right?" I smile at him.
"Right." He says. I look over at the dead dude.
"He-he might have something." I say. I walk over to him and there's a custom laser pistol. Sunset Sarsasparila themed. "Hah, obsession." I say and examine the gun.
"Now that might be worth 50 caps." He says. I point it at something hanging on the wall and shoot. It's an orange laser.
"Yea, you said it." I say. "Sh-shame I prefer plasma." I say. I realize I lost track of what I'm saying. "Uhm, b-but really what's the different?" I chuckle.
"Laser weapons use super-concentrated beams of light, plasma is super-heated matter." Arcade says. Okay time to redeem my idiocy so he won't suspect things too much.
"What's that?" I asks.
"Don't worry about it. It's a science thing." He says. I understood perfectly. I already knew the difference if I'm being honest. I look at the time on my pip-boy and yawn. 11 pm.
"Tired." I whine.
"Yea, it is pretty late. Do you wanna sleep here? We're safe and dry here." He says. I nod.
"Yes." I say. I pull my tarp out of my bag and move to a corner of the room.
"We don't need that, Tony." He says kindly.
"I-I-I like privacy." I say. "I'll just be here." I look down and pin my tarp to the corners of the wall with the pegs I usually put in the ground.
"Do you want me to make some food?" He asks.
"I have some. I-I could give you some too." I say. I set my bag down and pull out some old boxed Salisbury steaks. "Wh-when I can't get um fresh meat I eat that." I say.
"Alright. I'll cook this for us. You just make your tent." He smiles at me. I smile back. I'm finished with the tent and there's just enough room for my bedroll, pillow and blanket. Just how I like it. Wouldn't mind that handsome doctor in here... but time needs to pass before I can even consider inviting him in. I crawl in and pull the book from my bag. I sit back and start reading it. It's interesting so far. I try to slow down my reading so I can understand it better. My biggest problem used to be reading novels in one night then not knowing what I read. I should slow down. I hear the crackle of a small cooking fire outside my tent. I smile and keep reading. That's always a nice sound to hear. That smell too, smoky, meat and charcoal. Campfire scents. Relaxing. I wish I had incense sticks that smelt like that. I can barely make lavender sticks so I couldn't dream of making a stick smell like that. Speaking of, that'd be nice to do right now. Burn a stick of incense. I lean out of the tent and reach into my bag. I pull out a little box. A smaller set of incense. It used to be the sticks and burners were a lot bigger. I cut it down to a half of the size and it's been perfect for me. I set it down and open the box, I made the box so that it acted as the burner when open. I set the sticks aside and light one. Arcade looks at me and cocks his head. "What are you doing?" He asks.
"I-incense. Helps me relax." I say and retreat back into my tent.
"Do you want some food?" He asks.
"Yes, please." I smile, and crawl back out of my tent. Leaving the book inside. We eat and it's pretty good. I catch myself looking at him and I jerk my head back down to my food. It's pretty much gone. I eat what's left and drink some water. I go to get back in my tent. "I'll be um in there if-if you need me." I say and crawl in the tent.
"Alright, goodnight." He says.
"Night Arcade." I say and flop onto my bedroll. I sit there and read until I fall asleep.
