Chapter 85: Intoxication

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..."This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

"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, 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?"