#bison steve hotel

[bytesizeambs]

Fallout NV | Primm | Bison Steve #shorts #falloutnv #bytesizeambs #fnv

Fallout New Vegas - Chilling in Primm, watching the Bison Steve sign slowly spin and the clouds go by.

Note:

As always this video is better quality when watched via YouTube.

[aardvark-123]

Before her much-anticipated trip to Primm, Gracie spent a few minutes doing her make-up, and trying to get rid of the green tint around her mouth.

Gracie decided to investigate the abandoned cigarette factory added by "A World of Pain", since it was on the way to Primm. She spent half an hour tiptoeing through the tunnels, shooting geckoes and being chased by geckoes, until finally she emerged with a newfound appreciation for fresh air.

And twenty fresh gecko chops.

With her packed lunch secured, Gracie made her way to Primm. Most of the road signs had lasted since before the apocalypse, so finding her way there was simple enough.

Primm turned out not to be the holiday paradise Gracie was hoping for. (Why was she hoping for a holiday paradise? Who knows.) The wealthy side of town, with the casinoes and shops, was overrun by escaped prisoners. The other side of town, past the shacks and piles of rubble, was home to an NCR platoon keeping an eye on the road. Just the road, not the other half of the town.

Gracie soon had to take matters into her own hands, and spent a few minutes punching her way across Primm. She stumbled into the Vikki and Vance Casino, where a handful of townspeople were sheltering from the… you know. Everything.

Gracie soon found Johnson Nash (husband to Ruby Nash), the manager of the local Mojave Express branch. She told him everything she remembered about her delivery mission and getting shot, and asked about what to do next.

"...Since, presumably, I work for you. Is there a form I should write for lost deliveries?"

Johnson chuckled. "Nope, no form, but you don't get paid until the client's paid us for the package. Was a pretty strange job, all things considered - did you know there were six of you, all carrying something different?"

"Why, I had no idea." Gracie blinked in confusion. "Were all those parcels just a small metal trinket for somebody in New Vegas?"

"That they were. You ask me, somebody wanted to confuse his business rivals, and make it tricky to steal one particular thing..." Johnson pondered. "As for the other thing, you're more of a freelance deliverywoman, not contracted with the Mojave Express. You did do some jobs for us in the past, but there's not going to be much work in Primm for a while now."

"Because of the...?"

"Escaped convicts, yep. There's no goods moving through Primm since they murdered the sheriff," sighed Johnson. "We still have Deputy Beagle, but until there's an actual sheriff again..."

"These convicts," Gracie said thoughtfully. "They'd be from a prison operated by the New California Republic, wouldn't they? Much like the Powder Gangers. It seems to me," she declared, standing up, "that this Republic ought to be cleaning up its mess. See you in a bit!"

Gracie climbed up the roller coaster to sneak into the Bison Steve hotel and/or casino, where Deputy Beagle had last been seen. The casino and/or hotel was a stronghold for the rebel convicts, but Gracie was very light on her feet, and managed to sneak in unbothered.

In a weird turn of events, an NCR soldier was there, and he helped Gracie fight her way through the second floor. I think the game was being strange that morning, since you don't normally have an assistant for the Bison Steve. Gracie was glad of his help anyway, and together they shot or fatally punched nearly ten convicts!

"I do wonder how these people came to be imprisoned," Gracie said to herself, wiping blood off her knuckles with a frilly pink handkerchief. "Were they all murderers, robbers and whatnot, happy jump back into a life of mayhem and violence?"

"Do they have a leader, a grand plan for Primm and this hotel?" she went on. "It feels as though they're here simply for me to punch, with the justification that they're criminals - Bad People, in other words - who attacked the town first."

The NCR soldier scoffed. "Lady, you sound like a real riot at parties."

"What was that?" Gracie asked in honeyed tones, toying with a grenade she'd picked up.

"N-nothing, nothing! Jeez, how do I always get the crazy ones...?"

Sadly, the soldier perished on the way. Happily, Gracie found Deputy Beagle, untied him, and nothing interesting happened while she escorted him to safety.

Gracie had picked up a free dress somewhere in the hotel and/or casino. She changed into it before her trip to the Mojave Outpost, where hopefully there would be an NCR army bigwig she could talk to.

Gracie found her way to the Mojave Outpost, definitely not having been chased and nearly eaten by radscorpions on the way. She talked Major Knight into sending some soldiers to defend Primm, which wasn't especially hard. She also met Cass, an angry, melancholy woman who seemed to be stranded in the Mojave Outpost.

Apparently, Cass owned a caravan company, and despite not having a caravan, she legally was a caravan. For this reason, she wasn't allowed to leave until the roads were safe for caravans. Gracie consoled Cass and, feeling glad she was not a caravan herself, made her way back to Primm.

With more soldiers to work with, the NCR detachment at Primm agreed to appoint their own sheriff, and take responsibility for protecting the town.

"This is good news for Primm. As well as turning back the tide on those Powder Gangers, we'll be able to keep the town safe from wild animals, raiders and things like that," said Major Knight, not pictured.

"Yaaay!" cheered several Primm residents, also not pictured.

"Splendid!" cheered Gracie.

"Furthermore, now that you're living in NCR territory, each of you will be eligible to pay taxes," Major Knight continued. "Our regulations on gambling, outlaw-themed museums, delivery companies, elevated roads and salad naming conventions will also apply. For the forseeable future, Chicken Caesar Salad will be renamed as Chicken California Salad!"

"Y... yaaay?" the townspeople said cautiously.

"Oh, well," sighed Gracie. "At least they're being good sports about me borrowing a helmet."

[qualitysigns]

Primm, Nevada, USA

this casino has a now defunct roller coaster out front, and was the real world location that the Bison Steve casino and hotel in Fallout New Vegas was based on.

[timetot]

Shoutout to my brother @fritzwilhelm for watching me play 2 hrs of Fallout New Vegas and giving me a billion useful game play tips as I fumbled around the Bison Steve Hotel. One day I'll successfully rescue one of these npcs. RIP Ringo & Deputy Beagle 😔

The final frontier is having him explain Caravan to me.

[until-the-brahmin-come-home]

Yeehawgust Day 18: Bandolier

Like all great performers of her kind, Courier’s mother had a unique weapon. 271 words.

A/N: hi. i know it is january. but i finally got motivation to fill out another prompt, so i did. will i keep this up and finish it? unclear. regardless, enjoy

After the whole mess with the powder gangers and the deputy sheriff is done, Courier makes their way back into the Bison Steve Hotel.

It’s nothing at all like what it once was, the whole building a skeleton that hasn’t figured out it’s supposed to have crumbled by now. The ceiling has caved in in places; most of the furniture is rotten.

But in what was once a gift shop, a safe sits solid as it had the day the bombs dropped.

Courier stares at it.

This hotel, this little town living off of Vegas’s scraps, had been the last place their mother had performed. She hadn’t even gotten to die in Vegas, her shining city. No. She had died, out here, in the shadow of her legacy.

And she had left her gun behind.

Courier crouches down and, with deceptively steady hands, picks the lock. Inside waits their inheritance.

Lucky.

The wave of nostalgia crashes into Courier so hard that they sway, so they shift on their heels and rise up from their crouch.

The ivory handle – the gold engravings – the clover-club-callsign stamped on the side. It’s everything Courier remembers, and the gun weighs heavily in their hand.

They could never stand to retrieve it before. Never in the area, and when they were, the wound still felt fresh. Even now, two centuries gone by, Courier almost wants to put it back. Sacrilege, to take a dead woman’s weapon.

But it was their mother’s gun, and now it is theirs. Was always meant to be theirs.

They slip the revolver into the holster at their hip and leave the building.

[lizardperson]

come all sufferers

part 3: what's a chicken? [on ao3]

fandom: fallout new vegas characters: female courier/original male character rating: m wc: 542 prompts: chicken noodle soup for @sweetspicybingo; #252 spill the tea for @flashfictionfridayofficial

[hurt/comfort bingo masterlist]

---

"Room service!" Mika's cheery voice sounded through the place when she entered, pulling Gabriel out of his daze. He sat up too quickly and everything spun around for a few long moments. When he finally managed to properly open his eyes, she had already placed a couple of pots and dishes on the table next to the bed, and was now frowning at him. "How are you feeling?" He waved it off, rubbing his face. "I'll live, don't worry about it." They had an unfortunate encounter with a couple of radscorpions earlier, and one actually managed to sneak up on him. Damn critters. Gabriel had taken an antivenom, so he would definitely survive it - but right now, he sure felt like dying. It would pass after a few hours of rest, not a big deal in the grander scheme of things, just very unpleasant. They were close to Primm when it happened, so Mika had dragged him to the Bison Steve Hotel for the night, despite his protests, but now he was quite grateful for the bed. She had been uncharacteristically nice the whole way too, not even teasing him about getting stung - though she was probably still saving a few jokes for when he felt better. She looked at him slightly doubting, but decided not to comment on it any further, and instead turned towards the things she brought. "Anyway, dinner! I told Mrs. Nash about your state, and she immediately went into overdrive," Mika chuckled. "Had to talk her out of coming up here to nurse you back to health herself. But she gave me some weird tea that's supposed to help with the poison side effects, and a big pot of soup." "That's awfully nice of her." "Told you, she either wants to adopt or marry you." Mika handed him a cup. "Hope this tastes better than it smells. I spilled a bunch of it on myself already," she reported. Gabriel took a sip and made a face. "Nope. Tastes pretty vile actually." But Ruby Nash was the resident radscorpion expert, so he tried to ignore the smell as best as he could and downed the whole cup. She sat down beside him on the bed, trading the cup for a bowl of soup. "Hey, what's a chicken?" "Some type of bird." "Do they have those here?" "Don't think I've seen any," he remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Then maybe let's not think too hard about what's in this 'chicken noodle soup', as she called it..." Mika took a spoonful and her face lit up. "Oh hey, that's actually pretty good." After they had finished eating, he laid back down again while she took care of the dishes, then joined him on the bed and snuggled into his arms. "Thanks for dinner," he murmured, getting drowsy again. It hadn't been easy to finish the whole portion in his state, but his body would probably be grateful for it tomorrow. "You're welcome. Now, would you rather have some peace and quiet to rest, or do you like company in your misery?" He pulled her closer, nuzzling into her hair. "Company sounds nice."

[tlhgeek-blog]

New Vegas New Problems Session 2

After deciding to make the patrol station a temporary camp the group split up to go about various attempts at foraging and hunting for food. Chao-Chao and Charlie found a bounty of Brain Fungus and wild carrots in the shade of a rocky outcrop, while Vesper found a ripe batch of prickly pear cactus. Vesper’s attempts to harvest the prickly pears were successful however not without Vesper managing to pull a pod of the cactus directly onto themselves. Which while painful and embarrassing was not a serious injury.

Wanda reviewed and stored the loot they recovered from the raiders while Roy kept watch. Wanda quickly realized that they found no signs of a food or water supply. At which point she decided to search in the nearby garage for the patrol station, a separate smaller building from the rest as well as checking in the scattered cargo containers behind the patrol station. While the containers were either empty or sealed shut by centuries of rust and wear the caravan was able to break into the garage. 

There they found the rather limited supply of food and water the bandits had stashed away. The food stash consisted of a handful of boxes of Sugar Bombs, Blamco Mac & Cheese, some canned dog food, a tin of potato crisps and a sealed pack of gum drops. The ‘water’ supply consisted of 3 unopened bottles of beer. Wanda also found a first aid kit half-buried between 2 of the rusted shut containers.

The night watch was uneventful though in the morning the caravan discovered that the raider bodies they had dumped downwind of the station had been chewed on by a variety of wasteland critters.

The caravan continued to travel up north to Primm while Wanda fiddled with the radio tied to Moo-lasses the Brahmin. While Radio New Vegas had a strong signal the various NCR radio stations degraded into static out in the Mojave. The only other coherent station Wanda found was Mojave Entertainment Radio which played catchy but loud and distracting music that according to the Host all came from the same pre-war rock band. Wanda decided to swap back to Radio New Vegas for now as the music variety and news was more pleasant to listen to as they walked down the crumbling pre-war highway.

Primm was a lively little town mostly focused on the 3 businesses that kept it relevant. The Vikki & Vance Casino was a small taste of the gambling and drinking available  in the New Vegas Strip. The Bison Steve Hotel provided a much desired place of rest and relaxation on the long trek from New Vegas to the Hub and vice versa.  Lastly the local dispatch office for the Mojave Express courier service was a vital business that continued to bring trade and caps into the community even outside of ‘tourist season’.

The Vikki & Vance Casino was the first port of call for Charlie and a reluctant Vesper that Charlie enthusiastically dragged along. After converting some caps and in Charlies case NCR dollars into chips, Charlie gave Vesper some dubious guidance on how to gamble and play Blackjack. After seeing Vesper win a few hands Charlie happily wandered off to play the slot machines.

Vesper excused themselves and cashed out immediately after Charlie wandered away. Charlie played for several hours until his winning the jackpot on his machine also resulted in it jamming and sparking violently. After which he was politely asked by the floor manager Gerard Stevens to leave for the day until they could investigate and repair the slot machine.

Wanda, Roy and Chao-Chao stabled Moo-lasses in the safe area inside the ruined roller coaster behind the Bison Steve Hotel. Wanda arranged for two rooms for the caravan as well as a few showers for herself, a pricy luxury but one Wanda was eager to indulge in. The Hotel offered reasonably priced meals with a complimentary glass of clean water. It also offered security safes and a working laundry service. 

In the process of gaining the service the Proprietor Old Laurie mentioned concerns over some rough characters that she had to kick out that came from up north and left the same way. She also noted they had what looked like partial NCR Uniforms so they might be deserters or raiders that took out NCR troops.

Wanda spent little time in the Casino however she did decide to make her way over to the Mojave Express Dispatch and after speaking with Johnson Nash she decided to sign up as a courier as well. After a simple test Wanda received a provisional couriers certification and was informed she would have to speak to the Mojave Express Headquarters in New Vegas. Mr. Nash also mentioned that there is one other Mojave Express Dispatch Office active outside of Primm and New Vegas. That being the one in Searchlight another NCR settlement. There used to be one in Boulder City but it was destroyed in the fighting there between the Legion and the NCR.

After staying a few days and Charlie winning enough to get banned from gambling at the Vikki & Vance Casino the caravan left heading north. Vesper also noticed that Loretta his pet Nightstalker was eerily sneaky and seemed able to keep out of sight from the locals.

 Unfortunately a dust storm came rolling in about halfway between Primm and Jean Aviation, a pre-war abandoned airfield. The group began hustling towards the airfield in hopes of finding shelter from the storm. Chao-Chao became distracted from tracking his elevation as he flew higher to attempt to see in the storm, resulting in Vesper losing track of them and walking directly under the jet holding Chao-Chao aloft. This set Vespers hair on fire and while quickly put out in the wind and dust left a foul smell, frizzled hairs and a small temporary bald spot on the top of Vesper's head. Despite that distraction the party did spot figures ducking into the handful of ruined buildings in the airfield.

The ‘Pickles’ Caravan now has to contend with trying to get out of the storm while dealing with possibly hostile individuals in the various buildings. We shall see how they fare next time in New Vegas, New Problems. 

[eyepatchdate]

i feel like im betraying new vegas by thinking this but i really do think fallout 3 has a better city to explore.  ie more complex layouts and ways to move... im STILL exploring all the places the metro leads to and i find it so compelling.  there’s a lot of unmarked locations with little story beats, or just...a lot of streets etc in general.  fallout 3 truly does feel like you’re in the ruins of a major city.

new vegas has moments where it does, but it leans on the desert feeling--and let me tell you there’s more houses and buildings and neighborhoods in irl vegas than there is in new vegas by far.  which is to be expected but fallout 3 just captures the feeling more--theres so many closed off smaller areas that do a better job at suggesting the size of the whole city--the unseen--far better than new vegas does.

[mullbey]

Memoirs of a courier in Bison Steve Hotel.

[nightingaelic]

I love your companions react posts and thought of a good topic! Companions reaction to being told by their courier that they love them (platonic of course)

If I had a dollar for every time someone did this, anon, I'd be rich - you're fine, the fact that it's the courier saying it is enough context

It had been a long day. There had been trouble on the road to Primm, vagabonds and giant ants and an NCR patrol officer who refused to take "package delivery" as a good enough reason to go traipsing through the territory without an escort. In the end, the courier and their companion had made it through okay, but they were late to the Mojave Express outpost and barely managed to catch Johnson Nash before he closed up shop.

Rather than shell out the money they'd just earned for a room at the Vikki and Vance Casino or risk a night in the eerie Bison Steve Hotel, the courier and their companion claimed one of the outdoor fire pits and began to set up camp. There were few other travelers in the town at this time of year, so they had the windswept courtyard behind the main casino to themselves, with the occasional interruption from Primm Slim clanking by on rounds.

The courier unrolled their bedding and smoothed some lumps out before settling down on it close to the campfire. The stars were a little dimmer thanks to the lights of the town, but they still winked and turned overhead like so many dancers at a party the rest of the cosmos wasn't invited to. The courier watched them for a moment before turning to their companion with a peaceful look. "I love nights like this. Sometimes I forget that, or at least forget to say it. And I love you. You know that, right?"

Arcade Israel Gannon: "Um." Arcade rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, then adjusted his glasses. "Yeah. Yeah, I know it. I mean, there are things you do that people I used to... people who care about me have done, in the past. You notice things about me, and you remember them."

"I'm not overstepping, am I?" the courier asked. "You're as red as a tato."

"No, I'm just not good at this." Arcade took his glasses off and started to clean them furiously, just to give his hands something to do. "The last person I said that to... never mind. I... appreciate you, Six. Truly, I do."

The courier smirked and raised an eyebrow at him. "That it?"

"Are you gonna make me say it?"

"Nah." The courier laid back on their bedding and tucked their arms behind their head. "That's good enough."

Craig Boone: Boone bounced a little on his heels as he crouched before the fire, then straightened up abruptly. "Perimeter check. Be right back," he said, before stalking off between the nearest pair of shacks.

The courier sighed and settled in for a long wait. It had been a long day though, and by the time Boone came back to the campfire, they had fallen asleep. The sniper stood for a while and stared into the embers, then settled down for his watch.

"I know," he murmured. The reflection of the dying fire's light danced over the sunglasses he tapped against his leg.

The courier muttered something in their sleep and turned over.

Lily Bowen: "Of course I know that, dearie." Lily smiled. "Grandma loves you, too."

"Just checking." The courier smiled back. "We're both so different now, compared to where we started out. It's just nice to know that some things don't change."

Lily scooted over and put her arm around them. "Grandma will always be here for you, pumpkin. Don't forget that."

"I won't."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: Raul chuckled. "What did I do to earn that, boss?"

"You keep me out of trouble."

"Imposible."

"You keep me out of real trouble." The courier grinned. "Just say it back, viejo. Tell me you're glad I broke you out of the State of Utobitha."

"Te quiero, Six. But I would have gotten myself out just fine, if you hadn't come calling."

"Sure you would've."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Stop it." Cass smacked their arm. "None of that touchy-feely shit unless we're about to die."

"I'm not waiting until we're in the middle of a swarm of radscorpions just to tell you that I care about you, Cass," the courier argued. "Besides, you told me you loved me yesterday, when you were two-and-a-half bottles deep at the Mojave Outpost and getting real misty about your caravan troubles. I'm just returning the favor."

Cass unearthed the half-bottle of whiskey she'd saved and pointed it at the courier. "If I tell you I love you, it is most definitely not a favor, Six. I'm cursed. Bad luck down to the bone. So watch out, or you'll wind up burned to ash, too."

"Haven't you heard?" The courier grabbed the bottle from her and uncorked it themselves. "I'm invincible."

Veronica Santangelo: "Oh." Veronica wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth on her own bedding, blushing furiously. "I... I guess I love you too, Six."

"You guess?" the courier teased. "Fine, I take it back."

"No no, I do! It's just that nobody's... nobody's said that to me in a really long time." Veronica bit her lip. "We're close in the Brotherhood, even the black sheep of the family like me, but we're not always emotionally open, if that makes sense. And the people I wanted to be open with... couldn't. For reasons."

"Sure." The courier scooted closer and put an arm around her. "Well. I love you. I should say it more, but I won't if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Here's fine. But maybe not in public." Veronica smiled gratefully. "People might get the wrong idea. I might not look like it, but I do have a reputation to maintain."

ED-E: ED-E beeped and tilted its speakers forward solemnly. The courier ran a careful hand up its chassis, leaned in to press their forehead to the eyebot's dome. "I don't want to be that person who doesn't really care about their bots. I love you, ED-E. You make my life better, especially my life on the road. I'll take care of you as long as you'll let me."

Rex: Rex whined and snuggled closer to them, rubbing his nose into their hand. The courier chuckled and stroked his fur, before turning back to the sky. "Yeah, you know it, buddy. You're the best dog someone like me could ask for."

[deepest-dope]

OCs as Companions - Cave Mann Fallout New Vegas

Basic info:

Race*: Human

Gender*: Male

Affiliation: None but likes the Kings, the Great Khans and the Followers of the Apocalypse

Role: Weird Ex-Raider mom friend or guy who carries a swiss army knife, lighter and first aid kit at all times

Location: Nipton on a cross on first meeting, squatting in the Bison Steve hotel if dismissed but not sent to the lucky 38

Base SPECIAL: S 8 P 1 E 9 C 3 I 8 A 6 L1

Tagged skills: Medicine Survival Unarmed

Perks: Cannibal, Ghastly Scavenger

The Courier will meet Cave at Nipton, angrily screaming and cursing out legionaries, he’s been crucified and you have to cut him down and help him get his weapons out of a stash just outside of town. With a couple speech checks he’ll share some stuff from his stash with you, and with no speech required he’ll help you kill Vulpes and his dogs with his grenade rifle. After that he’s basically ready to go!

Companion Perk: Pack Animal, Cave is used to being the reliable one out of any group he runs with, and he’s more then willing to help you out. Rank 1 you can give him the items needed for any recipe and he’ll make them for you at any campfire. Rank 2 all consumables are 20% stronger while he’s with you. Rank 3 Crafting items while he’s with you will give you extra items. Rank 4 Talking to him with certain dialogue options now let you use him to craft stuff like food, chems, and healing items.

Cornered Animal: If the player has Cannibal or Ghastly Scavenger choosing certain dialogue options will lead him to teach you about “soft spots” on bodies you can attack to bring your opponent down easier when you’re in a hard spot. It’s An Unarmed technique that you can use at low health or when crippled. The attack is rushing forward to bite your enemy’s throat.

Companion Comments:

Use Melee: “Sure, one sec, gotta tape my hands.”/”I can and do hold my own with nothing but hand to hand, if you’re worried about that”

Use Ranged: “Alrighty then just be careful about getting too close to any grenades yeah?”/”Uh should we get your ears checked? I have been blasting them.”

Open inventory: “Don’t worry man I’m used to being Designated Pack Brahmin”[giving him any chem or sugary thing]”You’re a real sweetheart you know that? wait I CAN have this right?”[giving him fixer, cigarettes or alcohol] “......uh thanks...I’m not ungrateful but... uhh... yknow never mind really thank you”

Overburdened: “Buddy I don’t think I’ve got room in my bag or in my pockets to put anything else in unless you’re suggesting we shove it somewhere sun don’t shine”

Stay close: “What? Cold? I’d give you my coat but all my craps in it”

Keep distance: “Aight, just watch you’re ass so I don’t end up blowing your limbs off on accident”

Be Passive: “I’m gentle as a bighorner lamb”

Be Aggressive: “Kay, stay out of the blast radius if you don’t like gore”

Wait here: “Wait? For how long? HEY! FOR HOW LONG?!?!”

Follow me: “Finally! what were you even doing?!”

Sneaking: “Good old fashioned ambush, alright!”

“Let’s travel together”: “Sure, don’t got anything better to do yet”

“Let’s travel together” (already have a companion): “Not that I’m saying you got bad taste in friends but your pal doesn’t seem like the kinda person I like to take trips with, understand?”

Leaving companion at the Lucky 38: “Wait around in an air conditioned room for an undetermined length of time? Hell yeah, go ahead and take your sweet time coming back for me too”

“I wanted to ask you some questions”: “Bout what?”

“Tell me about yourself”: “I...don’t really LIKE talking about myself though...”[speech check] “Aw fine I guess it couldn’t hurt, I was born in a vault out east but I don’t really remember much from it, got kidnapped age 6 by legion and enslaved, escaped legion slavery with one of the other slaves, had a shit time on the run till we met up with his family who turned out to be Jackals that didn’t like me much, got kicked out by the old man’s son eventually, tooled around for a while until I got arrested, and then escaped with the powder gangers to nipton and now I’m here with you”

“What do you think of the NCR?”: “They act like they’re better then the legion but they aren’t, just called slavery a different name, NCRCF was as much a hellhole as the Slave camp I grew up in”

“What do you think of the Legion?”: “I think they’re a bunch of stupid evil cunts who’ve gotten way too lucky so far and are due for an ass kicking. If I could crush Little Caesar and his roman themed raider gang out of existence I fucking would. I grew up in one of their slave camps and the shit they did to me there isn’t something I can ever forgive”

“What do you think of Mister House?”: “That cunt who kicked the Khans outta Vegas? He needs to get out more, specifically pull his head out of his ass, this ain’t the old world and it won’t ever be, playing dressup with the gangs that bent the knee isn’t making anything better for anyone”

“What do you know about Benny?”: “I think he’s one of the casino owners in New Vegas but thats about it”

“What do you know about the platinum chip?”: “Besides what you’ve told me? Sweet fuck all.”

Death: Before his personal quest “...Finally”/After “No no no no not now not after I-”

Trivia and additional information: Yeah I unfortunately don’t have anything I can even try to draw him with so putting a description of him here: He’s a 5′3 albino dude in raider badlands armor with a real loose trenchcoat over it and a prewar bonnet on his head to keep the sun off, and though it wouldn’t show up in game he has sharp ass teeth, I’m talking double canines here. He has anisocoria which along with the albinism makes him sensitive to light. He also has frequent nosebleeds from a multitude of problems such as being dry as the mojave itself because he does not drink enough water in the desert, eating way too much sugar on the rare occasion he does eat of his own volition, high blood pressure from stress, and the occasional punch to the face when he gets into a fight.

You may have noticed the cannibalism up there and yeah he has eaten people before but it isn’t something he likes doing, he was raised for the latter part of his childhood by a hardcore jackal survivalist though so his opinion is essentially “you gotta eat and if it’s all you have then don’t waste it” he wouldn’t risk kuru if he had any other options but a childhood of malnutrition and food insecurity has given him some impulse control problems to put it politely. If you imply do it because you like eating it you will fail the dialogue that gets him to teach you Cornered Animal. He thinks cook-cook is fucked up in general but is especially insane for cooking people when he has other options.

Cannibalism aside he has some problems with disordered eating and general lack of appetite. He’s so used to barely eating he just hardly ever notices hunger at this point. He also has a somewhat hard time eating regular meat but he can’t really afford to be picky. He tries to remember to keep himself fed to prevent,, unfortunate accidents from happening though hes not too good at it.

He’s an actually damn good cook when he’s cooking for other people though, which is one of the things he used to do for his old gang along with making chems and patching people up when needed. He likes the job too! He loves collecting recipes he can feed other people later, I like to think there’d be a dialogue option to give him your bloatfly slider recipe since the player seems to be the only one who makes those in game and in return he gives you his recipe for desert stirfry. Also stealing Cook-cooks fiends stew recipe in his quest.

Unmarked Quest: Straighten up and Fly Right: Help or hinder Cave’s attempts to quit chems by putting any chems available or fixer and optionally bubblegum into his inventory. The fixer being for withdrawal symptoms and bubblegum to help him build up a new habit to replace chems with.

Personal Quest: Why don’t you do right?

Quest Triggers: Walking into Fiend territory, specifically Driver Nephi and Violet’s areas or taking Three card bounty from Major Dhatri. Cave will initiate dialogue and tell the courier that he has friends in the fiends who joined after he got arrested  and sent to NCRCF and his chapter of the Jackals completely fell apart. He’ll have an extra line asking you to try and spare Nephi and Violet if you took Three card bounty.

Quest Description: He’ll tell you about how for a brief time after the death of the old man the leader of their chapter of the Jackals tried to kill him, causing a split in the gang and ending in Cave briefly becoming leader of it. In this time he met and befriended escaped mormon Nephi and one of the few surviving free hangdog tribe members Violet, allowing them to join his gang, that they weren’t originally fiends and probably only joined after his incarceration for their own safety. He’s sure if you just get them away from cook-cook and motor-runner they’ll be able to recover! (like him if you did his unmarked quest)

You can either let him talk to them both, helping him figure out what to say to convince them to leave the fiends and get help, or talk to them yourself with some high speech or medicine checks, and sending them to either the mormon fort or the great khans depending on how hard you want to press for getting violet to quit chems or Nephi to join a faction. Maybe even get Dhatri to get their bounties taken down.

Violet has the easier speech checks, being quickly convinced to abandon the fiends for her dogs safety, or medicine checks to convince her that psycho is affecting her ability to care for her dogs. The have Cave talk to her dialogue is essentially [Speech 50 Just tell her you care about her dumbass]. She can also be convinced along with Nephi to help you deal with Cook-cook and Motor-runner to still get some rewards off Dhatri. After this you can send her and her dogs to one of 3 locations after talking to one of the leaders, The Thorn to train dogs for Red Lucy, Red Rock Canyon to join the Great Khans, or the old mormon fort with Julie to guard the place.

Nephi is the harder to convince of the two, requiring higher speech checks to convince him of your good intentions. He’s just paranoid as shit about getting sucked into another cult after leaving mormonism. you need high as shit medicine or speech to get him to go to the followers or the great khans, though the check for getting him to help you fight cook-cook and motor-runner is comparatively low. The Cave option is actually easier here as Nephi already trusts him. I imagine you’d need 75 in medicine to convince him to get therapy to you know recover from leaving a cult. It’d take 80 speech to get him to join the Great Khans as you need to convince him its nothing like a cult. The lowest check is probably the one that gets him to go to the Thorn where he’d become champion fighter.

After get them to leave the fiends and optionally help you kill Cook-cook and motor runner after theyre dead you can do some optional things, like if queenie and Motor-runners dogs survive the fights you can also send them to any of the options you sent Violet, her dogs and Nephi to, with dialogue heavily implying you just lead the animals into the fort/camp/underground fighting arena handed the leads to someone and left without explaining anything.

Outcomes: Obviously you fail the quest if you kill either violet or nephi and lose Cave as a follower but if you got them to leave the fiends and go somewhere else they’ll be where you sent them, wearing wastelend wanderer outfits if in the fort or khan armor in red rock, keeping the fiend outfits if in the thorn. BoneGnash, Ghashbone and Queenie will also be seen in these places if you sent them there.

Endings

He hates basically everything but Independent Vegas lol. I’ve been writing all day so just going to give short summaries instead of trying to write anything that sounds like it could be read aloud by Ron Pearlman

NCR endings: If you don’t help him quit chems or do his personal quest and kill his friends he gets deeper into chems before eventually committing suicide by NCR soldiers. If you help him with his chem problem but don’t do his personal quest or kill Nephi and Violet he dies getting shot down trying to convince them to leave the fiends. If you do both his unmarked and personal quests and sent them to the followers he ends up joining them and getting an actual practicing medical license before getting arrested along with Nephi and Violet when the Followers are pushed out of Vegas. If Nephi and Violet joined the Khans he goes with them to Idaho. For the Thorn they just stay there laying low, fighting in matches waiting for the NCR to find them.

Caesar’s Legion endings: No matter what you did for him before he tries to kill you if you let the Legion take vegas

House endings: If you don’t do either of his quests he joins the fiends attack on Camp Mccarran and dies fighting a securitron. If you help him but not his friends he goes to Freeside after they die to securitrons alongside the Kings. If you help him and his friends out and sent them to the fort he becomes a legit doctor and doesn’t get arrested by the NCR though he isn’t quite happy under House’s rule. If with the Great Khans he either goes with them for their last stand at the Dam or follows them to Wyoming, living a decently happy life where he doesn’t have to deal with house running things. In the Thorn he becomes a Champion fighter alongside Nephi eventually taking over with Violet when she expresses dissatisfaction with how Red Lucy treats her dogs

Independent Vegas: Doing neither of his quests causes him to follow Violet and Nephi there taking over the camp even if Motor-runner is dead, becoming their designated chem guy before eventually dieing of an overdose. If he successfully quits chems but his personal quest isn’t done he ends up joining the Kings, spending most of his free time outside of that trying to get Violet and Nephi to come to freeside to. Both quests complete and his friends are at the Thorn you get the same ending as House basically. If they’re with the followers he ends up dragging Nephi and Violet through a crash course on medicine and getting them to help the Followers with him and is unbothered by the influx of patients mostly happy neither the NCR or Legion won. He still leaves with the Khans if thats where Nephi and Violet are.

[queencryo]

Red and I finally arrived home a few nights ago! I was gonna write this post last night but tumblr fucking ate it and this phone hurts my wrists when I type SO. here's some fucking bullet points!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- pengis

- We spent a really long time, cumulatively, avoiding mountain passes and driving out of our way to go to particularly mild or not-high ones. Shoutout to the wahwah pass in southeast utah for not killing us!!!!!!!!!!

- Plumas national forest in California is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Just jaw-dropping. Red fucking hated it because I took the corners a little hard, but the entire thing was absolutely beautiful. Just this gorgeous canyon that we were going through the middle of.

- My 18-135mm lens broke, so I was left with my 18-55mm kit lens that would come with this camera body if you bought it new like a loser. honk honk ::( Still, I think at least some of the pictures I got were good! And certainly I'll keep around most of the jpegs ::)

- We stayed in Reno. It fucking sucked, honestly, because the town was basically shut down because of unhistoric snow, and our hotel was bizarelly under construction? Like... walk between two pieces of plywood three feet apart to get between the front desk and the elevator sorta under construction. The room was nice though ::) 

- As mentioned previously, we also stayed in Laramie Wyoming for two days. It was a good recharge, plus a developed an addiction to gas station coffee (yay?)

- Before going to Laramie, we went over a strange mountain highway that used to be the Lincoln Highway. It was beautiful, but I spent a large portion of our time on it musing about death, memory, and human life. Red didn't like it very much, since I was driving at the time. Also, apparently the guy who was involved with planning the highway route was an outdoorsman who specifically asked to be buried on this one hill. At the rest stop we stopped at, there was a plaque saying "yeah we didn't bury him on that hill lmao" huh???????????????

- If you're ever in Trinidad, CO, USAmerica, look up Trinidad's Higher Calling U, pretty sick weed shop. They seem overpriced but also like really cool folks. While you're there, look up the art cartopia, which is a warehouse where some weird folks keep a ton of art cars. Absolutely thrilling!

- Our stay in Primm, NV was pretty nice. We stayed in the Buffalo Bill resort/casino (inspiration for the bison steve hotel from NV!!) and saw the Bonnie and Clyde Death Car (a hilariously gauche attraction if ever there was one), I took pictures in front of it! The hotel room also was not super expensive and had a very large bath tub so we took a hot bath together (because we are gay), it was lovely as can be.

- During the secnd to last night of travel, we were pushing hard and drove until like 2 AM. At one point, I drove us to the end of a mountain pass and once we were finally flat again I turned to Red and said "So. Now that we're at the end of that. I think it's safe to tell you that I think I've been hallucinating for the last 30 minutes." I also had a lot of sexual fantasies about the 18-wheeler next to us during a lot of that time. Not the driver, the truck itself, as it existed in motion. Not sure how to explain it. The real will recognize.It was quite frightening in retrospect.

- of the gas station chains we stopped at, I think Maverik was my favourite (this is something I have a preference on now). Every maverik we stopped at at least had hot dogs and decent selection, and none of them disgusted me.

- As far as independent gas station go, I think the one in Dunsmuir, CA, is my favourite, because it felt like a dream and also the guy working there was very nice to me and gendered me correctly (in that sort of intentional way when someone isn't quite sure what to make of you, I think). Gold star.

All in all I'm genuinely a little surprised we made it home safe. More because I catastrophize than anything else, but... yeah, lmao. 

Sometime, I need to chart out our route for the whole trip. Just so that I have it around. I don't think I'll share it though, because it's... kind of embarrassing, how bad a route we took lmfao.

[fallout-lou-begas]

Related to my last reblogged post about how nobody in the Fallout universe never seems to clean up their living areas, I love how the Bison Steve Hotel in Primm was a functional, working, inhabited hotel run by a woman named Old Laurie that only closed down a few months before the start of the game (according to dialogue with Johnson Nash), a hotel that even Cass is well familiar with and can probably be assumed to have stayed in at some point (given her location bark if you visit it with her), but if you go inside the Bison Steve Hotel and check out the rooms on the upper floors, there are literally SKELETONS EVERYWHERE

[datura-tea]

oh i gotta know everything about companion moz

what perk would they give the player?

what's cookin good lookin? - moz gives a bonus to survival skill + everything you craft at a campfire or hot plate adds 50% more hp!

how do you recruit them? are there multiple methods?

you find moz at primm, hiding in the vikki and vance casino with the rest of the primm residents. she’s courier two, back from the strip to complete her delivery, and she was traveling with daniel wyand, who is now dead in front of the mojave express building. he was moz’s friend :( moz wants to give him a proper funeral but she can’t do that with the escaped convicts running around the place. she’ll help you take on bison steve hotel if you want. she becomes a temporary companion if you agree. once you two take on the escaped convicts and all of them are gone, she’ll stop being a companion, but you meet her again at the thorn! she’s in the audience but she’ll come talk to you after you talk to red lucy. you can recruit her from there!

what raises and lowers their affinity?

raises affinity: using campfires, discovering locations, giving her sunset sarsaparilla, taking her to festus will raise the affinity crazy high, doing particular things during some quests idk what those are yet though

lowers affinity: high legion fame, high ncr fame, being unnecessarily mean and violent, threatening regular people, disparaging comments about tribals, murder, cannibalism

how do they react to certain things? what do they say? (eg. lockpicking, grabbing junk, killing?)

moz reacts positively to lockpicking and grabbing junk; killing non-violents is a big no-no though

do they periodically give the player items? what kind of items?

hmm she always has sunset sarsparilla with her but she’ll give the courier her star bottlecaps :)

would they be able to do specialised task? (eg. repairs, hacking)

moz can craft food recipes for you!

would they be romancable?

hell yeah!!! she can be romancable by male, female, and nonbinary couriers

do they have a unique outfit or weapon?

her green jacket made from cactus leather with its many many pockets can only be replaced by a high dt armor (except power armor) or be looted from her corpse. as for unique weapons, she’ll have special spiked knuckles

what would be their personal quest, if they have one?

i’ve been thinking about this a lot and i think her personal quest will have to do with her tribe, the painted heads. whether or not she should go home and help with the family restaurant, drive away the ncr who’s slowly but surely making themselves known, or continue with her traveling, something like that? what do you think, courier?

what are their opinions on certain factions? (eg. brotherhood, NCR)

she dislikes the legion for obvious reasons; ncr, because they’re slowly encroaching on the small town where her tribe settled; the brotherhood of steel and house because they’re both Weird about technology and she just doesn’t trust them. meanwhile, she likes the great khans, the followers of the apocalypse, the kings, the boomers (somewhat), the folks at the tops, among others! she just thinks they’re all swell.

general voice lines? (in reaction to companion wheel selections)

use ranged: yikes, really? [sighs] your funeral, babe. use melee: oh, now we’re talking! open inventory: sure, i think i still have space here... / i swear, if you’re gonna make me bring more trash.... stay close: y’know, my lola always told me if i stood too close to someone else, we’d switch faces. [pause] with you? i’d take it keep distance: holler if you need me! back up: aw, sick of me already? be passive: ok! i’ll try not to provoke anything :3c be aggressive: locked and loaded, baby use stimpak: ay salamat, i was about to handle it my damn self wait here: sure, i’ll be sitting pretty ‘til you come back / good thing i brought a book follow me: that’s the plan :) / where to, amigo? talk to: what’s up? / ooohh what’s the news?

where would you find them in the world?

primm at first, then the thorn

which game would they be from?

fallout new vegas, baby! i can’t imagine her anywhere else.

miscellaneous facts?

she lapses to tagalog when mad/annoyed/near death! also, if you convince her to stay with her family, she gives you a special special recipe

[lesbiancharliedalton]

okay it really is funny how bad a name “bison steve” is. from fallout new vegas instead of the buffalo bill hotel. they just named it bison steve. like was that really the best you could come up with?? fucking bison steve?????

[practicingmedicine]

Practicing Medicine: Chapter One

(+)1

It was eight o'clock in the morning, and Sheriff McBain had just been shot.

There weren’t no lights, no sirens. No outward signs of urgency anywhere, save for the frantic telephone call I’d received just seconds ago and my own bounding heart rate.

It didn’t take me long to pull on my pants or step into my boots. Even with my shaking body, I moved with a sense of purpose, each action a step in a subconscious routine.

Buckle up my pants, lace my boots, grab my glasses, disconnect my Pip-Boy from the outlet, clip that bad-mama on and get it running…

The black screen turned a vibrant green color as I clicked the power button, lighting up my dark room. These were the words on the screen:

PIP-OS(R) v1.0.3

COPYRIGHT 2075 ROBCO(R)

LOADER V1. 1

EXEC VERSION 41.10

32K RAM SYSTEM

16811 BYTES FREE

HOLLOWTAPE LOADED: “THE-SCIENCE-OF-UNCERTAINTY”

INITIALISING….

SUCCESS!

> STATUS

Battery Level: 100%

Wireless Signal: (?)

Operating Temperature: 90F

> HEALTH

BP: 150/120

SPO2: 100%

Temp: 98.5F

RR: 25

HR: 160

> TIME

Day: 25 September 2279

Time: 08:01

> CLIMATE

Current Temperature: 78F

Atmospheric Pressure: 753 mm

Background Radiation: 0.231 RAD

---

I couldn’t read much, so I wasn’t sure exactly what each of them meant, but I got the gist- I knew exactly what I needed to know. I threw open my door and strode into the hallway, grabbing my father’s white coat off of a hook along the way. I slipped it on over my shoulders as I strode up to the front door, where my faded orange doctor’s-bag lay on its side. Before I threw the strap over my shoulder, I made sure to quickly button my coat and pull my green tie tight around my shirt collar, because my father told me that a doctor should always look his best. I hefted my bag up with one hand and pushed the door open with the other.

The morning sun was bright in my eyes. It was hot outside, about 97 Fahrenheit if my pip-boy was telling me the truth. Not that it mattered- I was used to the heat, and my patient was inside the air-conditioned Bison Steve’s Hotel. I didn’t give it much space in my head.

I started to sprint, skirting the corner of my neighbor’s house and running out into the main square, heavy bag swinging wildly in my aching right hand. As much as I wanted to have time to process all this, to stride up all slow and confident like father had taught me, I didn’t have the time. It could be a matter of seconds deciding whether or not the Sheriff survived.

I was starting to feel kind of dizzy, like you do when you’re fixing to vomit. The Hotel was just up ahead now. The big “Bison Steve’s” sign flickered eerily as I walked up to the double wooden doors, which I pulled on at least three times before I remembered that they were push doors. A rush of cool air washed over my skin as I stepped into the building, and tried to regain my composure. I cleared my throat.

“Alright- Alright y’all, listen up: My name is Isaac Saller, and I am a medic! ” I shouted. There was silence. “‘I’m empty holstered, so please don’t shoot!”

That may have been a bad idea, in retrospect, but it was all that I had planned for an active-shooter type deal. I didn’t deal well with confrontation.

The front hall and the reception desk were abandoned, but the lights were on. I stepped through the next set of propped-open doors and into a dark hallway, where a pretty blonde woman was cowering, holding onto a wall-mounted telephone. Her red face glistened with sweat.

That would be Mrs. McBain.

“Oh my god, Isaac! Come here, quickly- I think my husband is dying!” I power-walked to catch up with her, then tried to keep up a comparable walking pace. Which was kind of hard, given my height; I was still, “between hay and grass ,” my father would have said.

“Could you tell me what happened?” I asked. The words felt so strange to say out loud. I’d practiced what I’d do in a real emergency, but now that it was actually happening, I couldn’t believe that I was actually falling into my routine, just like I did for everything else. Must not have seen any other option.

“Well, the boys- Beagle and my husband, right, they were doing firing drills! But then the shooting stopped and my husband started airing his lungs, just shouting something awful. And when I ran in to see what happened, I saw that Beagle had shot him in the leg!”

And, there was the story. I let out a sigh of relief; here I was worried that I might be dealing with some crazy psychopath! Though, the more I let myself think on it, an idiot like Beagle with a gun started to seem just as dangerous.

“Does he still got the gun?” I asked, approaching one of the four doors to what had to be the firing range. The familiar scent of gunpowder stung my nose as I cracked open the rightmost door, and peered into the massive, open room. I didn’t see nobody, but then again, my vision was so awful that my patient could’ve been right in front of me. Mrs. McBain brushed through the doors.

“No, I made him put it down!” I nodded and entered the room.

As I stepped through the doorway, another smell drifted in after the first- a sharp, metallic smell that hung in the air like some sort of leaking gas. Subtle, and not quite so intimately familiar, but I recognized it right away; the acrid smell of blood rubbed on skin.

“Hey Doc, come on in--the Sheriff is lying over here,” said Deputy Beagle, waving his iron about. I flinched.

“Holster that!” I shouted back, “I’m not going to do anything until-“

“Beagle! You put that thing down right now or I’ll shoot you myself!” Shouted Mrs. McBain. Beagle made a dramatic sigh.

“Fine. But, you know it was an accident, and it ain’t like I’m gonna do it again.” He tossed the gun aside. The cocked, loaded, cold-steel weapon hit the ground hammer-first.

The ensuing, “BANG!” was, no kidding, the second loudest thing I’d ever heard.

“Goddammit!” Beagle shouted, and Mrs. McBain screamed and dropped to a crouch. I just sat, stunned, staring at the gun and trying to think again. It was like my mind was a Television set, and someone had just thrown a brick through the screen; An all-encompassing static crept over my senses.

“Isaac? Isaac, are you alright sweetie ?” asked Mrs. McBain, over the loud ringing in my ears. I nodded.

“I’m okay ,” I lied. I kept nodding.  “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…”

“You sure don’t look okay,” said Beagle. He was too close to me, way too close. I took a deep breath and pushed him back a little bit.

“I’m good! Where’s the Sheriff?!” I looked around warily. My eardrums were still bubbling, but I was starting to be able to hear myself think again. I had apparently dropped my medical bag on the floor, but it hadn’t opened up or spilled.

“Jesus kid, can you not turn your head on your neck? Over there, sitting against the support beam!” snapped Beagle, motioning towards the wounded Sheriff with his whole upper body. I felt like yelling back but I didn’t. I just gave him a quick nod and stumbled over to the fallen Sheriff.  

The bright red pool beneath Sheriff McBain’s thigh had already begun to clot into ketchup-like clumps. As I got closer, I could hear him muttering to himself, though I couldn’t understand what about. I dropped to a crouch beside him, opened my bag and rooted through it til I found myself a pair of gloves. I had to work to get them on with how sweaty my hands were.

“Hello, Sheriff! Can you understand me?” I asked. He smiled up at me.

“Hey! You’re Isaac, the um, the Gambling-Place owner’s son. Uh, Casino! Yeah…” He trailed off. In my head, I started going over my ABCs, because apparently my mind was too overwhelmed to do anything but stick to its beaten-path routines.

He could speak, so his Airway was patent. I didn’t have time to properly test his Breathing, but it sounded fast and a little shallow. That was par for the course, which left me with the real problem, his Circulation- that’d be the bleeding.

“Alright, Sheriff, I’m going to take your pants off. Tell me if it hurts much,” I said, unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers. They got snagged up on his shoes, so I started pulling harder. He just laughed as I pulled them off.

“Actually, I don’t feel much of anything in this leg! Just like I got punched, and now it’s burnin’, sorta.”

That was good. It meant that the bone probably hadn’t been fractured, and I wouldn’t need any med-x. I always kept an emergency syringe of the stuff, but I was reluctant to actually use it on anyone.

Once I’d gotten his pants off, I touched his leg. It was cold and wet. I’d assumed shock, based on the bigass blood pool, but I could be dramatic like that; This was solid confirmation. I was going to have to work fast!

As I searched around in my bag for a tourniquet with one hand, I held up the Sheriff’s leg up with my other, so that I could see the wound in the dimly lit firing range. The hole wasn’t big. At least, not the entry- just a red, penny-sized oval near the base of his thigh, surrounded by bruised skin and seeping out blood. Like a bloody little volcano.

The exit wound, on the other hand, was massive . A jagged hole right under his ass with flaps of skin hanging loose around it, spitting out a torrential amount of bright red blood with each beat of his bounding heart. Based on the color of the blood and the way that it was coming out, I knew that the bullet had nicked or severed his femoral artery. I also knew that I probably couldn’t repair that with forceps and bandages alone. The best thing I could do would be to stem the bleeding, and get a stimpack as quick as possible.

Of course, that presented a little bit of a problem: See, stimpacks are awful expensive, so carrying them around wasn’t always an option for a man like myself. As of now, I didn’t actually have any of them-things in my jump-bag. Some places ‘round here had one in a box on the wall, but I didn’t see none in here, and I’d have noticed one in the hall if there’d been one. I cursed under my breath.

“Go and get me a stimpack!” I ordered. I had finally found where I kept my tourniquets without actually looking into the bag, though if I had any sort of presence of mind, I would have been embarrassed at how long it had taken me. I pulled his shoe off, and slipped the tourniquet on over his leg.

“I’ll fetch one from the kitchen!” replied Mrs. McBain, and I nodded to let her know I’d heard. Now that I had a stimpack on the way, all I had to do was keep the Sheriff from kickin it until I could apply the damn thing.

Easier said than done.

“Why are you squeezing me? You taking my blood numbers or something?” The Sheriff asked, as I pulled the premade tourniquet tight and started cranking on it. I tried to smile.

“I’m not taking your blood pressure, sir, I’m putting on a tourniquet. It’ll hurt, but you’ll bleed a lot less.” When I couldn’t tighten it anymore, I took out another tourniquet, and fastened it right above the first one, against the base of his thigh. It was a good thing that the Sheriff was thin, or I’d be having some issues about now.

“What are you doing? He could lose his leg that way!” shouted Beagle. When I kept on tightening the second tourniquet, he hit me in the back of the head- not so much to hurt me as to get a reaction out of me. I didn’t give him one. “Hey, are you blind and deaf? I’m talking to you!”

“Stop it Beagle! Isaac is a good… he’s a good kid,” insisted the Sheriff, his voice growing weak. I finished cranking the tourniquet, and touched the Sheriff’s ashen forehead. He looked like he’d stuck his head in a drinking fountain, with how much he was sweating...

“Could you try and talk with me, Sheriff? I’m gonna try some more stuff, try to keep you from going into decompensated shock.”

The Sheriff looked confused. He squinted up at me with teary eyes.

“Shock? You mean, the reason why it don’t hurt? I’m pretty sure I’m already in shock, but I ain’t- I ain’t shocked, you know. Like, I know what’s happened. I got my mind about me ,” he grumbled, tapping his head conspiratorially. I removed a few packets of gauze from my bag and tore them open.

“No, I mean when your organs stop working cause your blood-pressure drops and they ain’t getting enough blood!” Finally, I finished packing the exit wound tight with gauze. I started putting pressure on it.

“Oh. Huh. Well, you doctors ought to stop having so many words that mean- that mean all different things,” the Sheriff replied, his breath passing his lips so quietly that I was worried he might have fallen unconscious. I stopped moving.

“Sheriff?” I asked. When he didn’t respond, I reached into my coat with my free hand, and pulled out a small metal tinderbox full of a reddish powder. I waved it under his nose.

“Wake up, Sheriff!” I shouted. He started coughing and looking around wildly.

“Ah, Jesus Christ, what the hell is that smell?” I slipped the box back in my coat.

“N-H-Four, sir! It’s supposed to keep you awake!”

Of course, it wasn’t doing a very good job at it! Before I was even done speaking, the sheriff had puked all over himself and slumped forward. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him vigorously.

“Keep them eyes open Sheriff! Stay with me here!” His eyes fluttered.

“You know, I like your voice! It’s like, you talk like a teacher, but then you got your daddy’s cowboy-thing going on, so it’s sort of funny…” he muttered. His head hung limp on his neck. I let him drop to his side, and focused on applying pressure to the wound again.

“Um, Isaac?” I looked over my shoulder. Deputy Beagle was standing above me again, clasping his hands together. I wasn’t so good at reading emotions, but I’d seen enough pre-vomit patients to know that he was feeling sick. He had spoken so quietly, which was strange considering how loud he’d been before. “Isaac, Is he gonna die? I thought that getting shot in the leg didn’t kill people. Why’s he acting like that?” I sighed.

“I sure hope not. But, there’s a big red-pipe in your leg, and if it gets hit, you bleed a lot. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do if I don’t get a stimpack soon!”

As if on cue, Mrs. McBain came rushing into the room, her dress all bunched up and full of miscellaneous medical supplies. Among the heaps of things I didn’t need, I could see a stimpack poking up.

“Isaac! I brought a bunch of things, I don’t know what’ll help and what won’t, but-”

Suddenly, Mrs. McBain stumbled, and her makeshift pouch came unfurled as she threw out one hand to catch herself.

Aw shit! I dropped everything and ran towards Mrs. McBain, interposing myself between the unsecured, falling medical supplies and the floor. Packaged Band-Aids, bottles of pills and ointments, a pair of scissors- it all went tumbling over me and I didn’t care, until suddenly I saw the fragile old stimpack teetering on the edge. By now, Mrs. McBain was trying to recover, but she was only making matters worse. The supplies were spilling out both sides now, and she was getting dangerously close to just dumping it all on top of me.

The stimpack. That was the focus. I shot out my hand to try to grab it, but I only succeeded in tipping it off it’s balance point, causing it to tumble back into the pouch.

I sat up, and all the supplies that had landed on me spilled back onto the floor.

“Don’t-“ I started, but she had already slipped and let go of the other side of the pouch. I cried out as it all went spilling on the ground.

“The stimpack!” I looked down, and found that through some unchecked reflex, I had caught it on my outstretched thigh. I blinked.

“Huh,” I said, and snatched the needle off my leg. I rushed back over to the Sheriff, who was unconscious and drooling. Beagle was sitting beside him, pressing hard on the entrance with his bloodstained hands and muttering to himself.

“Kurt, you can’t die- I’m, I’m just a deputy, if you die I’ll have to handle this whole town myself, and you know I can’t do that! Please, please don’t you die, please-“ I took a knee beside Beagle and his brother, stimpack in hand. Beagle was crying.

“Am I- am I doing this right?” He asked. I nodded.

“You are doing just stupendously! Just keep doing that!” I replied. I lifted up the sheriff’s leg, tore out all the gauze and probed around with the needle for a minute, until I’d found the deflated husk of his split femoral artery among all of the slick yellow fat and ground-beef looking shit in his leg. I didn’t have much light to work with and it was pretty well buried beneath the gory chaos of the exit, but I knew it when I saw it- despite the tourniquet, the top end was still spritzing out bright red blood with each passing heartbeat. I took my forceps out of my bag, which already had some fishing-line and a hook wrapped around them, and got to suturing the split ends together. The artery kept on pulsing out blood around the edges as I passed my hook and line through it’s thick middle layer.

‘Moment of truth, Isaac,’ I thought, as I squared off my suture. I picked up the stimpack again, prepped the needle with my shaking hands. I took a deep breath.

In the dim light of the firing range, I stuck the pipe.

The freezing cold from the reaction chilled my gloved fingers halfway to the bone. Had it worked? Would it hold? I had no idea. It wasn’t squirting blood no more, so I snipped off the end of the suture and pulled all the fishing line out, then started suturing up his ragged exit-wound, so that the ends of the skin were facing upwards. I didn’t even bother squaring off the end before running a stimpack along the seam. Once his thigh had sewed up along an ugly white line, I pulled all the fishing string out, because otherwise I was just asking for it to get infected. I still had a little stimpack-juice left, so I moved Beagle aside and shot the rest of it into the tiny-little entry wound, to sort out any of the leftover internal damage.

More time passed in silence. I knew it wouldn’t matter, but I loosened and removed the tourniquets to feel like I was doing something. My ears were ringing, blood was soaking into my pants like syrup, but I barely noticed- all that mattered now was if he was going to live, or if he was going to die. I was just going to have to have faith now.

“Is it working?” asked Mrs. McBain. I checked the Sheriff’s pulses, noticed that some warmth had returned to his skin...

Pulse is already stronger , and I can actually get a femoral. I sighed with relief. “It’s working. Pressure’s up.” A few more seconds passed. “I doubt he stopped perfusing to his brain for long, so his head should be fine, if you’re worried about that. He’s gonna need a ton of fluid, though, and he might need some more help with that leg-“ I started, but then Mrs. McBain wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. Once I was over the initial shock, I hugged her back.

“Thanks,” I murmured. Mrs. McBain laughed.

“You saved my husband, Isaac! You saved his life!”

I nodded and tried to free myself from the asphyxiating hug. Unfortunately, Mrs. McBain was a teensy bit stronger than me. “I don’t even know how to thank you. Do you want caps? We- well, you know we aren’t rich, but we have a tin of caps hidden away under the floorboards!” Still struggling in vain to free myself, I shook my head.

“No- no, Mrs. McBain, I don’t want no caps! I just need you to work with me here for these next couple weeks to get your husband healthy again. I mean, he just caught a bullet, he’s gonna need some help getting back to normal...” I was lying about the caps. I would have loved caps, considering how much I was hurting for supplies. But I also wanted to establish that I didn’t charge for my services, and Mrs. McBain had a way of inadvertently spreading that sort of information.

“Oh, but I can’t just let you go back to work like that- look at you, you’re all filthy!” she said, finally releasing me from the hug. I stumbled back and fell onto my rear. “Why don’t you come over to our house- You can get those clothes washed, and I’ll get you some lunch. And a shower too, what would Penny say if she saw you like this?”

Well, I couldn’t disagree with her on that count. Just hugging Mrs. Mcbain, I’d gotten spots of blood all over her dress. Momma had already had to warn me about tracking blood in the house before...

“Alright,” I said. The ringing in my ears was tolerable now. I was starting to be able to think straight again, even if I was still shaking and sweating like hell. I noticed that Beagle had offered me his hand.

“Um- yes!” I said, pulling off my glove and allowing him to haul me up to my feet. He held on real tight to my hand and looked at me with an expression that I couldn’t parse.

“I owe you one, Isaac. I know that this is my fault, and that I’m not always nice to you, but I- I really do appreciate this. I don’t know what I’d have done without my brother.” I tried out a smile. Beagle smiled back at me, and it almost made me forget how much of a prick he’d been when I was a kid. Almost.

“Water under the bridge, Beagle,” I replied. I thought about winking, but I once made a girl run away from me when I tried to wink at her, so I held off.

“Isaac, sweetie-“ I turned around. Mrs. McBain was standing in the doorway. “The door’s unlocked, why don’t you come back to the house first? We can lay my husband down while you wash up.”

I considered. The sheriff seemed stable enough for that proposal, but no one else seemed to quite understand the extent of what he’d just suffered, or the long road that lay ahead for him. I mean, hell, he’d had his leg blown open, lost a third of his blood, and then had a stimpack injected right into a central artery! There were some things I wanted to take care of before I attended to myself.

“I like that idea, but can I borrow one of you to help me finish sorting out Beagle first?” I asked. Mrs. McBain looked at Beagle.

“Beagle, seeing as how you’re the one who shot him…” she started. Beagle put his hands above his head.

“I’ll handle it, ma’am. What should I do?” I raised my hand.

“We’re gonna try to get him on a mattress, if we can. Start him on some Saline and get him drinking water when he wakes up, the stimpack and his body will sorta work together to replace all that blood he lost. He’s going to be in a lot of pain, so we’ll have to give him morphine when he wakes up. I’ve got powder and IV’s with me,” I said, trying my best to cover all my bases without over-explaining. Mrs. McBain started to walk away.

“Alright! You two do what you have to, I'll be getting the house ready for him.” she said, and disappeared through the doorway. I looked at Beagle.

“He didn’t hurt his back none, right?” I asked. Beagle shook his head. “Good. I’m gonna grab his legs then, you grab his arms- let’s get him on one of them cots over there, then move him from there.”

He nodded. We grabbed a hold of the Sheriff’s limbs.

“Alright. Three, two, one-”

[+]