New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 85: Intoxication

A few hours after we settled everything in Vault 22, I found myself in the kitchen (aiming to fix myself a snack) when Veronica walked in.

"Hey... uh... Sheason?" I turned at the sound and saw Veronica standing in the doorframe.

"Yeah?" I pulled a beer out of the fridge, and cracked it open against the counter. "What's up?" I don't know why, but she seemed... a little ill-at-ease. Certainly not her usual bubbly, smiling, fake-happy self. If she wasn't even bothering with the mask, then something was up.

"I was... wondering... if you don't... I mean... can I..." Veronica cleared her throat and straightened herself up. "I need to ask you a favor."

"Sure, anything." I tried to hide my growing concern by drinking my beer as nonchalantly as I could. "What do you need?"

"Do you... think... maybe... you could..." Veronica sighed heavily. "Do you think you can talk to Cass for me?" The pit of my stomach dropped out.

"Talk to Cass for you?" I asked, locking my jaw. Keep your face expressionless, man. Keep calm.

"Yeah," Veronica nodded. "Yeah, that's..."

"Why?" I asked quickly. "I mean... why can't you talk to her yourself? And about what?"

"Well, it's..." Veronica paused.

"C'mon you can tell me."

"It just... I dunno. I just feel like... something's wrong. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but..." She sighed again, hanging her head. "It's like... It feels she's been avoiding me the last couple of days. I just want to find out what's wrong, but... On the off chance that she really is avoiding me for whatever reason..."

"So you want me to talk to her?" Veronica nodded. "Why me?"

"Because... you're easy to talk to, I guess?" She smiled weakly and chuckled grimly. "You're the reason she and I met in the first place. Hell, you're the only reason any of us are even here. You're the glue that keeps us all together, so if she really is avoiding me... who else around could talk to her but you?"

"V... Tell me honestly. What's really going on?" I had a sinking sensation that I already knew what was going on. "Are you guys... having... problems?" Part of me wished I hadn't said anything, just on the off chance I was right. Even so, it was pretty hard work, keeping my expression neutral. Veronica sighed.

"I dunno. Honestly, I just... I don't want to think about it, you know?" She looked back up at me with a heavy sadness in her eyes. "I mean, I'm not stupid. I know there's something going on, I just don't know what. But hey, maybe she's not really avoiding me, and it's just a stupid coincidence. But... I mean, the last time I... had a... you know, a relationship - a real relationship - with someone was... was Christine. And if..." Veronica trailed off, shaking her head again. She waved me off, and started to walk out. "Forget it. I'm sorry, I'm just... I think I'm just being paranoid. Paranoid and stupid, forget I said anything."

"Wait, Veronica -" I started to follow her, looked down at my half finished beer, weighed the options in my head, shrugged, downed the rest, and tossed the empty bottle into the sink behind me. "Hold on a sec. Look, if you think something's wrong - and you think I can help by talking to Cass - then... sure. I'll go and talk to her, alright?"

"I... thanks." Veronica started to slowly nod as I walked past her, making a beeline for Cass' room. Even when I was out of view, I tried to maintain composure. I felt like a man who'd just gone and finished burying a body being asked to help find the killer. Just keep calm, Sheason.

"Cass?" I rapped my knuckles against her door. "Cass, you in there?"

Nothing.

"Cass?" I tried the door handle - it wasn't locked. I peeked my head in and looked around.

"What? What is it? What's wrong?" Veronica asked, walking up behind me.

"She's not in there," I sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised, but..." I rubbed my eyes, trying to come to terms with the implications. "Right. I'll go find her then... Damnit, I thought those two were going to keep her out of trouble."

I was just about to call the elevator (after grabbing my hat from the peg just inside my room) so I could head upstairs, talk with the two scientists, and grab ED-E, when suddenly -

Sombrero.

I was so completely thrown off guard by being face to face with a sombrero (and, obviously, the ghoul wearing it) that I completely forgot what I was doing, and just stared.

"Raul?" Veronica asked; I didn't look, but based on the sound she had followed in my lead and was staring as well. "Is that seriously you under that getup?"

"Si, seorita," Raul looked up and smiled a broad, crooked smile. It wasn't just the sombrero - he was wearing the whole vaquero outfit. A leather jacket, red bandana tied around his neck, a pair of leather chaps over jeans... and weapons. Lots of weapons. I saw at least two revolvers (one strapped to each hip) complete with fully loaded gun belts, a pair of knives crossed behind his belt buckle, two more revolvers under each arm inside his jacket, two fully loaded ammo bandoliers crossing over his chest (one loaded with shotgun shells, the other loaded with rifle ammunition), and a pair of bigger, lever-action guns strapped to his back. I couldn't see from this angle, but if I had to guess, one was a rifle, and the other was a shotgun.

"What are you wearing?" Veronica sounded like she was really trying to hold back laughter. "You look ridiculous! That hat, especially."

"Well, that's a fine 'hello,' isn't it." He didn't stop smiling that cracked, crooked smile as he walked out of the elevator. "It's like I told you before, Boss. It's time for the Ghost Vaquero to ride again."

"So this is what you've been doing all day?" I asked. He nodded, and I couldn't help but shake my head a little. "You know, when you said you were going to get your guns, I was thinking... you know, maybe one or two, not..."

"What's the problem, Boss?" Raul leaned back, grabbing hold of his jacket lapels. "Not interested in a little competition in the 'carrying an armory department?"

"No, no..." I shook my head and waved it off. "No, I'm fine with that. Wear as many guns as you want. More firepower the better, I say." I looked him over again, still a bit... I mean, he looked like he stepped straight out of one of those old west holotapes! "Seriously though, did it take you all day to find this? I thought you said it was at your safehouse."

"Oh, no, Boss," Raul shook his head. "No, it didn't take me all day to find it. Finding it was the easy part." He balled his right hand into a fist, and rapped his knuckles against his chest several times; each impact resonated with a resounding clang. "Making it bulletproof - that was the bitch."

The penthouse at the top of the 38 was no longer as clean or spartan as I remembered it from the last time I was up here. Standing next to the main monitor was a single Securitron, connected to the console by dozens (possibly hundreds) of cables and wires snaking out and all across the floor. There were plenty of other things that April and Emily had brought up to help them work: a pair of desks, several terminals (also hooked up to Yes Man's mainframe just like the Securitron), a few servers, holotapes scattered everywhere, even a couple of file cabinets apparently stuffed full of papers and clipboards and who knows what else.

"Man, I should start calling this the science corner. You guys have really settled in up here, haven't you?"

There was something missing from this scene: the scientists themselves. For that matter, I didn't know where ED-E was either. I could hear him, buzzing around somewhere, beeping out some kind of tuneless melody, but I couldn't see any of them.

"Hey, where the hell are you guys?" I asked, looking around. The response came from somewhere behind me, on the other side of the penthouse.

"We're over here, in the kitchen!"

"Wait, kitchen? This place has a kitchen?" I asked, following the voice. "I didn't know this place had a kitchen..." Sure enough, the two of them looked like they were getting ready to sit down at the table for a meal, while ED-E hovered above them. April was hunched over in the fridge, while Emily smiled at me as I came into view, giving me a vague half-salute with her cup of tea.

"Hey there, Sheason. What can we do for you?"

"Just wondering if you guys know where Cass is - you know, since you guys said you'd keep an eye on her. I can't find her anywhere." Emily furrowed her brow, and scratched her head, ruffling her red hair and causing her glasses to slip.

"Hmm... not sure. The last time either of us saw her, she was passed out on her bed."

"You really think it's a good idea to leave someone that drunk just passed out?" I asked, a bit concerned. April emerged out of the fridge, carrying a glass of brahmin milk and knocking the door closed with her hips.

"She wasn't drunk when we left." April said simply, grabbing a seat. "She was fine, at least two hours ago."

"What do you mean, fine?" I asked. "She'd been drinking for, like, 12 hours straight before I came up to get you guys." Emily shrugged, drinking her tea.

"I mean, she was fine. I gave her a breathalyzer and ran a chemical test on a sample of her blood. As far as I could tell, her blood-alcohol content was negligible. Less than 0.02%." That was surprising - I knew the Followers taught all their members how to help deal with drunks, but I didn't think the computer programmer would be the one administering the tests. Then again, with the amount of alcoholics in Freeside, it would make sense when the Followers at the Mormon Fort needed all hands on deck... "Either she didn't drink as much as she led you to believe -"

"Seems unlikely," I mused out loud.

" - or, her body metabolizes ethanol at a speed I've never seen before."

"Maybe she wasn't kidding when she said her liver was indestructible?" April said with a chuckle, drinking her glass of milk.

"I don't know about that," Emily set down her tea. "But it's possible it may have something to do with her irregular heartbeat. Those palpitations weren't really worrying; just odd. I'd have to call in help from someone like Jonas or Lydia - someone who actually specializes in medicine - to know for certain..." Okay, this isn't going anywhere. I sighed and looked up.

"Hey, ED-E?" The eyebot zoomed down, buzzing a few feet away from my face. "I'm gonna need your nose. Well..." I grimaced at the poor choice of words, scratching the back of my head. "I say nose, I mean your scanners. You're better at finding people than I am." ED-E bobbed in place, letting out a trio of satisfied sounding beeps.

By the time ED-E and I left the 38, it was already dark. Then again, it was getting dark earlier and earlier lately - I think the sun set at four-thirty or five today. I used to hate the days getting shorter, since less daylight meant there was more chance of something ambushing you in the darkness, and you wouldn't even get a chance to see what was coming to kill you. But since coming to Vegas and taking up residence in the Lucky 38, where I could fall asleep without worrying... I'll be honest: I hadn't really given it much thought.

I started walking down the steps of the Lucky 38, ED-E floating in the air right beside me, when I realized there was a man standing at the base of the stairs. It was almost like he was waiting for me. He wore a dark grey suit with light grey pinstripes that seemed a bit worn-out, run down, and fraying at the edges. He was wearing a matching fedora hat and a pair of sunglasses (despite the darkness - maybe it was the reduce the glare of neon lights on the strip?). He seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place it...

"Excuse me, sir?" The man nodded at me as I walked down the stairs in his direction. "Are you the man they call Courier Six?"

"Uh..." I paused mid-stride, looking over at ED-E. The robot let out a confused chirp. "Sorry, who are you again?"

"Me? Um... we've never met before. I'm just a messenger. My boss, Swank, gave me instructions to find you." And suddenly, his familiar look clicked in my head.

"Wait, Swank? Are you... you're one of the Chairmen, aren't you?" He nodded. "Are you here to kill me?" I asked, adjusting my stance and planting my back foot. "Because... that's... not going to work out well. For... anyone." He seemed confused.

"Uh... no. I'm not stupid enough to pick a fight with Courier Six, even if I wanted to. And I don't. I'm just here to deliver a letter," He reached into his coat, and I reflexively tensed up, my hand reaching for Roscoe on my hip... but let out a sigh of relief when he just pulled out a folded piece of paper. "He told me to deliver this to you, the next time I saw you leave the Lucky 38. That's all." I raised an eyebrow, carefully taking the piece of paper from him. He nodded and walked away as I unfolded it and started reading:

Sheason Fisher - or should I call you Courier Six? - the next time you get a chance, I'd like you to meet me at my office at the top of The Phoenix, one of the casinos on The Strip. There's some business I'd like to discuss that I think you'd be interested in.

-Swank

"... Huh." I finally said aloud after reading the short letter several times. I turned to ED-E. "So? What do you make of this? Think it's a trap, or what?" ED-E responded with a series of complicated and completely unintelligible beeps. I sighed, rubbing my eyes. "Right. I can't understand your responses. Why haven't I learned that yet?" ED-E let out a pulsating squawk. I shook my head and started laughing.

"So, this is where she is?" I asked. ED-E beeped cheerfully... and I sighed heavily. "Why am I not surprised."

Of course it was a bar. The building was a few blocks directly south of the intersection of Freemont Street and Vegas Boulevard, but unlike most of the bars in Freeside, this place didn't really have a sign over the door. It just said "BAR" above the door. As soon as I entered, I could tell that this was the dive bar to end all dive bars. The place was crowded, noisy, and filled with a pall of heavy smoke hanging in the air. It had the distinct and pungent aroma of stale beer, vomit, and piss. The lights in the ceiling were all different colors - reds, blues, greens, yellows, purples - and were a mish-mash of spotlights, normal light bulbs, and strings of Christmas lights. I couldn't see any of the walls, not because the light was too dim, but because they were almost completely covered with stickers, posters, artwork painted on the walls and over the stickers and posters of things like deathclaws, cazadores, and mushroom clouds, and crude graffiti. Instead of a mirror behind the bar, there was a large message scrawled in white paint which read: "DRINK FUCK FIGHT." On the opposite wall, there was another sign, just as large, scribbled in red paint: "SHUT UP AND DRINK FUCKERS."

There was a part of me that was tempted to stay - find Cass, wherever she was in here and just get fucked up with her. I can appreciate a good, seedy dive bar, and this place? This place had character. It reminded me of some of the bars I'd been to in New Reno - Jub Jub's, especially. But... now was not the time for that. I made a mental note to come back when I wasn't busy.

I shoved my way through the crowd, looking around the bar to try and find my quarry. It was surprisingly difficult because of the off-key band playing very, very loud at the back of the bar making it so hard to focus on anything. Eventually though, I managed to pick out Cass' rattan hat and her red hair underneath, hunched over at the bar, and made a beeline for her.

"...and so then, th' guy says to her 'It's not a bagpipe, lass, but keep blowin'!" The two people on either side of her started laughing, and she knocked back a shot, upending it on the bar. "Ah! Damn, that was good! Another!"

"Cass." I spoke up right behind her. No response. "Cass!" Still nothing. "CASS!" I grabbed her by the shoulder, and spun her around on the barstool. The shot in her hands sloshed out of the glass thanks to the sudden motion, and I suddenly found the front of my shirt covered in liquor.

"Aw, fer fucks sake! What th' fuckin' - oh!" Cass looked angry and confused right up until her eyes focused and she looked up at me. "Hey, Sheas'n! Funny meetin' you here! Siddown, 'ave a drink!" She tried turning around on her stool, but I grabbed her by her shoulder again, keeping her facing me.

"Cass, we need to talk," I tried to yell loud enough for her to hear over the noise. "Time to go."

"Aw, c'mon ya fuckin' killjoy!" Cass draped an arm around my neck, pulling me down and shoving a glass of beer in my face (spilling some on the bar). "Just a few more -" I wriggled out of her grip and turned her around in the barstool again, staring her down with my best "I'm not fucking around" look.

"No. No more. We need to go. Now." I tried pulling her out of the stool fully, but she grabbed the edge of the bar, and resisted any attempt to move.

"Hey, fuck off man! I'm not done yet!" She reached for the next shot on the bar, but I grabbed her by the hand and forced it back down. "Fucker! C'mon, what th' fuck's yer problem today?!"

"We need to talk!" I yelled in her face. "And I can't do that if I have to keep screaming just to be fucking heard!" I grabbed both her arms and finally dislodged her from her seat at the bar.

"HEY!" A loud voice boomed over the commotion before I could move. A large hairy arm reached across the bar and grabbed mine with a grip like a vice. The arm belonged to a huge, portly man wearing a dirty, beer-stained apron. He had a scraggly mess of a beard topped with an impeccably groomed mustache that curled up at both ends; it contrasted with his completely shaved head, and the eyepatch that covered his obviously scarred right eye. "And just where do you think you're going?" He snarled.

"She's had enough," I snarled right back at him.

"No I haven't, fuck off!" Cass struggled against my grip and socked me in the arm, but I didn't let go. Not yet.

"She's not going anywhere without paying - not with the kind of tab she's run up!" The bartender yelled at me. "Nobody's leaving until someone settles her tab! You, her, The King, I don't give a flying fuck who pays - just as long as I get my fucking money!"

"Calm down," you lummox, I didn't say. "You'll get your money. Just leave the bill with one of the Securitrons outside the Lucky 38. They'll make sure I get it, and I'll pay for... whatever she... owes..." I suddenly became aware that every single noise in the bar had stopped all at once. I looked around, and realized that even the shitty band had stopped playing. Everyone in the bar had stopped, and was staring up at me, completely silent. The only one making any noise was Cass, still struggling against my grip.

"You... you're..." the now-stammering bartender looked about ready to shit his pants. "Y-you're the Courier, aren't you?"

"What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" I asked; out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of people nearest to the door bolt. Other people around me were starting to back up as well. Even Cass had forgotten to struggle against me for the moment.

"Hey, forget I said anything man - all her drinks? O-on the house. No charge." He backed up, waving his hands in a disarming gesture. "Just... just don't shoot up my bar, alright?"

"What?" I asked incredulously. I sighed and shook my head. "Whatever, I don't have time to deal with this. Cass, c'mon. We've got to talk." As I led her by the arm out of the bar, everyone seemed to get out of my way. Cass, surprisingly enough, had stopped struggling, and instead started laughing.

"Fuck, man, if I'd known you could've gotten me free drinks, I'd have dropped yer name half an' hour ago!"

About fifteen minutes later, the two of us were on the roof of a nearby building in Freeside, with ED-E buzzing around overhead keeping watch. I'd decided on coming up here because I needed a private place to talk, but I didn't want to go back to the 38 just yet. As soon as I let go of Cass' arm, she started fuming and pacing around the roof, but she hadn't tried to leave yet. So I was taking that as a good sign.

"Alright, so what th' fuck was so fuckin' important?" Cass finally stopped pacing, and scowled at me, her arms folded across her chest. "I'm wastin' valuable drinkin' time up here, dick."

"Veronica wanted me to talk to you," I said from my perch on the edge of the roof. Cass stopped pacing and her expression fell instantly. "Yeah, that got your attention, didn't it?" She looked around, laughing nervously, and eventually leaned back to sit on one of the broken metal A/C boxes.

"Uh..." Cass tilted her hat back, and gulped so loud I could hear it all the way from my seat on the other end of the roof. "What... what'd she wanna talk about?"

"What do you think, genius?" I asked, shaking my head. "She's not an idiot. She knows something is wrong, she just doesn't know what. So, since you seem to be avoiding her, she asked me to talk to you, but to be honest? I wanted to talk to you myself." Cass raised an eyebrow. "I'm worried about you Cass. Seriously, your drinking..."

"Ain't nothin' to talk about," Cass snorted, slipping back into her previous angry disposition.

"Yes, there is. Cass, I'm being serious here - your drinking has gone from delightfully endearing to completely out of hand."

"Delightfully endearing?" Cass repeated, laughing as she said it. "Where th' fuck did that come from?"

"Look, forget how I'm phrasing it - that's not important!" I said. "I'm really worried about you! I mean, I don't want to come down like a hard-ass, but this is out of control. I mean, fuck - you came in this morning completely fucked up, and here you are trying to get completely fucked up again. That's less than 12 hours between bouts of binge drinking, and that's pushing it, even for living in the wasteland - and Vegas is enough civilization that calling anything inside the walls 'wasteland' is a stretch. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Hey, fuck you man," Cass looked down, causing her hat to fall down and obscure her face from view. "What I do with my free time ain't none've yer business."

"See, I think it is getting to be my business," I said, getting up off my perch. "And not just because you made me promise to kick your ass the next time your drinking got out of hand." Cass briefly picked her head up, and looked at me nervously through one of the cut-outs in her hat's brim. "Yeah, you thought I'd forgotten about that conversation, didn't you?"

"... Kinda." Cass mumbled. I shook my head.

"Well, I didn't. But that's not the only reason I'm coming down on you. See, your drinking isn't just affecting you. This is what I see you not comprehending. You've been drinking so much, Veronica thinks you're avoiding her, and that's got her worried - rightfully so. If she's constantly worrying about something she's got no control over, it might distract her at a critical moment, and with the kind of things we've been doing lately, that's not going to end well. And it's not just Veronica, either: I didn't trust you to watch my back when we went to Vault 22 today, so we went in shorthanded. Not only that, but I had to ask April and Emily to keep watch on you, just to make sure you were fine and you didn't choke on your ownvomit, you were so drunk. Which meant that they were distracted from trying to crack into House's computer network. Do you see how many people your drinking is affecting? Do you want me to keep going? Because I will."

"No, y'can..." Cass continued to look away from me, and she started rubbing her arm. "Nah, I get th' point..." I walked over to Cass and put a hand on her shoulder, kneeling down to get eye-level. It didn't really work, because her hat kept getting in the way.

"Cass... seriously. I'm worried about you. Why are you doing this?" She was quiet for a very long time.

"Because... it's 'cause I wanna forget about all my fuck-ups..." I took my hand off her shoulder, and decided to just let her speak. "Been thinkin' 'bout my caravan a lot. Tryin' to take my mind off other things... but they're dead cuz I insisted on comin' here."

"It wasn't your fault. We already proved that," I said. "It was Alice and Gloria. The Crimson Caravan and the VanGraff's. You can't still be blaming yourself -"

"Shea..." Cass cut me off. "I was th' one who insisted we come to th' Mojave in th' first place. Carmichael, he said we should steer clear. Wait'll things settle down, an' things get safer to trade. But no. I was just so dead set on gettin' us int'a th' black again, cuz' I'd been runnin' up so much fuckin' debt... 'We need t'go where th' money is,' I said. 'Th' Mojave's where th' money is.' And what'd I get fer it? Ev'rything I built, burned t'ash. My friends - th' people I was responsible for, an' who were countin' on me - all dead."

"But Alice and Gloria were targeting caravans back in California, too," I offered up weakly. "If you stayed in California, they probably would've been killed just the same, and you'd have never figured out who was responsible."

"You don't know that," Cass sighed. "I just... I keep fuckin' up. An' th' whole situation with V ain't really helpin' things much. I can't... I mean... I can't give her what she wants. Not what she really wants, anyway... I just wanted a bit've fun, but she..." Cass shook her head. "Used to be I could just up sticks an' leave if things got awkward'r I fucked up too badly, but... with how things've been going, I don't think I can leave anymore'n you can. We're just too connected to everything that's going on. But I don't wanna deal with any've th' consequences... I just... I wanna forget..."

"Cass," I put my hand under her chin and forced her to look at me. "Let me ask you something. You remember the night you and Veronica first got together?" She nodded. The look on her face practically screamed 'where are you going with this?'

"Uh... yeah, it was th' night The King threw that crazy party... V an' I had been drinkin', and..."

"You two had been drinking a lot. Do you think you two would have even gotten together if you hadn't been drinking so hard?"

"Uh..." Cass shifted in her seat nervously, shrugging. "Prob'ly not. What're y-"

"And your caravan," I kept going, trying not to lose the momentum. "Why was Cassidy Caravans in so much debt?"

"B'cause...when we were transportin' whiskey instead've water, I... I kept drinkin' all th' stock..." Realization dawned on Cass' face, and her expression fell.

"And all those times you've talked about where you left so you wouldn't have to deal with awkward situations," I kept going, trying to drive the point home. "I bet I can guess what made all those situations awkward in the first place. The common thread with all of them was..." I paused, allowing Cass to fill in the blank so I didn't have to say it. She started nodding slowly.

"... yeah. Yeah, I'd... I'd always been drinkin' b'fore things got too bad t'deal with..." She hung her head, looking away from me.

"Cass, if you keep drinking, you're not going to solve anything. You're just going to keep making bad decisions, and things are just going to keep snowballing. If you don't stop, things are never going to get better. You're just going to spend your whole life trying to drink away the problems that have been caused by all your drinking, until your liver finally gives up the ghost and you kill yourself."

"Maybe..." Cass shifted uncomfortably again.

"C'mon. I know you. You're stronger than this. If you want things to get better - if you really want them to get better - then you're going to have to confront your problems head on." Cass snorted, shaking her head.

"Yer givin' me too much credit, man. An' besides... where would I even start?"

"You know where to start, Cass," I said, getting up. "You need to talk to Veronica. And you've got to be honest with her. Tell her the truth."

"The truth?" She looked up at me from beneath her hat, only one eye visible within the cutout in the brim.

"About you two," I said as firmly as I could, knowing exactly what she was implying. But I wasn't going to back down. Not after I'd come so far. "Just tell her what you told me - that you can't give her what she wants. She's not an unreasonable person. You know she'll understand."

"Will she?" Cass asked. "You absolutely sure 'bout that?" I sighed, shaking my head. I was positively fed up.

"I don't know what else to say to you, Cass. Sitting around moping about your problems at the bottom of a whiskey bottle isn't going to solve anything. If things are ever going to get better - and I know you want them to get better - then you need to confront your problems head-on. And right now, that means being honest with V... and yourself. I'm not saying things are going to get better right away, but things will get better. And at least then you can say you tried. What else can anyone ask of you?"