#shitty drawings and all but I think every drawing of Nicky is pretty funny so I'll allow them existing here I guess

[arttsuka]

I had a funny idea about Nick telling jed and octy each in private that mouth kissing is the way to greet a "good friend" in both their cultures, and since they probably don't know anything about eachothers culture so the next time they meet eachother in public they'd kiss and since they both lean into it they actually think it's the way to greet ,until one of the Roman soldiers ask jed about it and Jed's like "ain't that how y'all say hello?" And the soldier shake his head 'no' and ofc they go:

"why didn't you tell 'bout this sooner octy" "pardon? But isn't this the way YOUR people greet ,Nicholas told me himself- oh" then they play a trick on nick as revenge (they still countine to kiss but they're mad nick lied to them)

So, I was trying to figure out a design for Nicky and I was pretty confident in what I came up with so I started coloring it etc. Only to have a flash or realization that 'wait, we know what he looks like, his hair is brown not black' but it was too late. I had already used black in 3/4 drawings.

I was too lazy for actual dialogue so the ask itself should fill in the gaps

I did use brown in the last drawing tho, in a futile attempt to erase my past mistakes

[quinzelade]

Making One’s Bones (chpt 12)

Chapter List

--

Porter Gage is in a pickle. Nuka-World needed a new boss and some woman just killed her way to the top. But a pre-war Mafia boss on the theme park's throne? Well...at least she'll have experience.

--

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my newest fanfic! While this is technically a ‘sequel’ of By No Constraint, you don’t need to read BNC to read this. It can be read as standalone.

--

Consigliere

--

Night had fallen. Bossanova and Gage sat outside on the balcony of the castle, staring into the great blackness below that was Nuka World. A campfire crackled lazily in front of them, washing the scene in warm light and illuminating Bossanova’s gaunt features, while Gage took the last of his radiation medicine banish the aftermath of the battle with Oswald. Bossanova looked terrible. She hadn’t really spoken since she’d cut Oswald down, sealing off their refuge for the evening and settling outside in total silence.

If Gage didn’t know any better, he’d say she was avoiding Oswald’s body.

For the umpteenth time that night, he thought back to that last, brutal fight, and held back a smile. He didn’t want to piss off the boss right now. But every doubt he’d had, every worry, every bit of distrust fell away the second she’d plunged her knife into Oswald’s neck. That one moment had been revolutionary to him.

Gage couldn’t deny it. He felt proud of her. After a moment, he decided to test the water. “Boss?”

Bossanova stared straight ahead, black eyes gleaming in the firelight as she held her sword and a soft cloth in her hands. “Yes, Gage?”

“Can I ask you something?”

For a second, he thought she might say no, but she shrugged. “Sure.”

“Do you feel bad?”

She looked at him for the first time in hours, and he noticed how pale she was. “For what?”

“Killing the ghoul.”

“No.” She returned to polishing her blade. Gage wondered how truthful she was being. Her answer was too abrupt, too clean. She’d been in one of her funny moods all night, leaving Gage a lot of time to think. Truthfully, he didn’t mind whether she felt bad or not—it didn’t matter to him anymore. She’d saved him regardless of the cost. She would step up when she had to, and that made all the difference in the world.

“I don’t regret killing him,” Bossanova said suddenly, and Gage looked up at her. She turned her sword over in her hands. “I kill when I have to. But how it happened...that was too much.”

“I don’t follow.”

“He was in the way. He was going for you, and he had to be stopped. But...he hadn’t actually hurt you.” She gripped her sword tight to her chest. “It was supposed to be clean. I didn’t want him to suffer.”

For the first time Gage wasn’t angry with her sentimentality, but instead trying to make her see reason. “Well, what the fuck could you have done?”

“Nothing. But it shouldn’t have gotten to that point. I should have seen it coming, should have realised what was going to happen. I should have listened to your advice and just let you shoot him from the start. It would have been cleaner. Instead, I go through life making the same stupid mistakes over and over and over again—I always try to talk things out first. Two hundred years on and I haven’t learned a damn thing.”

Gage frowned at her. Her breath was coming out in shuddering gasps, eyes overly bright in the firelight. Every inch of her spoke of pain, from her tense, hunched shoulders, to her clenched fists and sickly pallor.

“Boss…”

She didn’t answer.

Gage decided to carry on. “Sometimes I think you don’t like being overboss. You’re good at it, don’t get me wrong, but...why you doin’ this? You coulda left at any point and let us all go to shit, but you stayed. What’s behind all this for you?”

She turned her head slowly to him, breathing deeply. “Do I need a reason?”

Something in her tone said he was in dangerous waters. He quickly skirted around the topic. “Nope, guess not.”

Bossanova didn’t say anything for some time, drawing her knees to her chest and blanking Gage out. Then, finally, when Gage began to wonder if he should just quit while he was ahead and go to sleep, she mumbled, “Nicky. Everything is because of Nicky.”

Gage let the silence hang, waiting for her to make the next move. She seemed far more relaxed now, almost her normal self, and yet he was still wary about asking the question. He didn’t do people talk, but whatever was going on in her head was long overdue to be shared.

“He wasn’t a good man, but I loved him very much. He stayed by my side right to the end.”

“Husband?”

“What?” Bossanova sat up straight, momentarily distracted.

“Alright, boyfriend then. Fuck buddy. Whatever.”

“Oh God.” She started laughing, despite herself. “He was my brother, you idiot.”

“Oh.” Gage blinked. “Oh.” He felt his cheeks going hot as she broke out into a fit of giggles. “Well I don’t fuckin’ know!”

She grinned, but then the smile faltered and she shook her head. “Nicky would have told me to kill Oswald from the start too.”

Sounds like he had his head fixed on right.

“You ask me,” Gage said, picking up a piece of wood and tossing it carelessly into the fire, “this whole damn world is just here to tear you down.”

“That’s a dreary outlook.”

“True though. Deck’s stacked against you from the very beginning. Most folks just stumble through, scraping some shitty little life for themselves. They struggle on, until something catches them off guard, and then that’s it.” He picked up another bit of wood and threw that in as well. “Lights out.”

Bossanova stared at him. “Are you talking about Oswald?”

“Maybe. He could have taken over the park. Moved his people to a better settlement before they all got fucked in the head. Coulda done anything he wanted, amount of bodies he had workin’ for him. Instead he stays here, too fucking frightened to do anything else. He stagnated. Then he fucked with the wrong person.”

She said nothing, returning her gaze to the fire.

“See, he wasn’t smart enough to do anything different,” Gage went on, “an’ he never saw what he was doin’ wrong either. But some folks are too aware of how fucked everything is, y’know? And they can’t handle it. So they gotta have it all, right now. All the booze and the chems and the caps, and if they can take it from someone else, that just makes ‘em feel like they’re gettin’ the upper hand. Only they ain’t.”

Gage thought of all the gangs he’d witnessed tear themselves apart. He remembered his ‘friends’ from the early days, before Connor stabbed him in the back. “Fucking raiders...they get so greedy, so focused on ‘right now’ they make shitty mistakes and wind up dead. Hell, maybe some of them are trying to get killed.”

“So which one are you?” Bossanova asked, still not looking at him. “Trying to get yourself killed, or just trying to get by?”

“I ain’t neither,” Gage said. He fixed her with a piercing stare, staying silent until she met his eye. “You’re the same as me—you know how to walk the line between control and getting your piece in the world. You know how to pick your fights, when to back off, and when to wait...and then strike.” He frowned at her. “You tried to save both our necks today by avoiding a fight. Did it work? No. Would I have preferred to jus’ kill him from the start? Yeah, because it’s easier. But easy don’t always mean right. You got that figured out.”

She stared shrewdly at him for a moment, and said, “I don’t understand you, Porter Gage.”

“What’s to understand? I kill people who get in my way and I prefer stealing to honest work. That’s pretty damn straightforward if you ask me.”

“You don’t trust raiders. Hell, you just said they’re stupid and suicidal. Yet here you are, working with them. Why?”

Gage opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was a question he could easily answer, but was so personal that the mere thought of sharing gripped his throat, choking the words away. He looked at Bossanova. Really looked at her. The anxious hold on his throat relaxed, and he let out a long, slow breath.

“I had shit figured out early,” he said, trying to sound calmer than he actually felt. “Grew up in your average crap-hole settlement with parents that meant well, but...they were pushovers.” God, they were such fucking pushovers. “Watched them get smacked around by raider gangs for years, handing over whatever they had to keep their lives. One day, I’m watching them cower in front of some punk with a gun, and it just hits me. ‘I ain’t gonna end up like this,’ I says to myself. So I bail. I’m what, twelve years old?” Gage shrugged. “Didn’t matter. I’d seen enough of the world to know how shit works.”

Bossanova’s eyes widened and he felt a twinge of regret. He didn’t like the hint of shock and disappointment in her face. She chewed her lip and said, “Where are they now?”

He shrugged again. “Who the hell knows? Dead, I’m sure. Probably a long time ago. Doesn’t matter; hasn’t mattered in decades.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“I...what?”

“You don’t hate them. So why doesn’t it matter?”

“Well, fuck, why would it? I was a kid when I went. All they ever did was fail. Fail to stand up for themselves. Fail to put food on the table. Fail to keep a fuckin’ roof over our heads at one point. I nearly died from starvation more times than I can count. So no, I don’t hate them. But I don’t give a shit about them either.”

It took Gage a moment to realise he was standing up and pacing. Somewhere below them, the ghouls shrieked and growled in the darkness, but none of them tried to climb up to the top of the castle. Slowly, he sat down again.

“Maybe,” Bossanova said gently, “they were trying to avoid you getting hurt. They were your parents. They obviously loved you and tried their best, even if their best wasn’t...all that great.”

Gage grunted in response, his arms folded tight across his chest. The decision to leave all those years ago had been a rash one, a child’s choice. He didn’t regret it, but he remembered all too well the battle that raged with him for years after—should he return? Or should he stay away? In the end, Gage opted to stay away. If he went back, he might never have left again.

Bossanova apparently took the hint. She changed the topic. “So what happened after you moved on?”

Gage shrugged. “Bounced around for a few years, taking whatever jobs would pay for food. I was a runner for a caravan for a while—did some scavenging, did odd jobs for settlements. No matter what, one thing never changed. When the raiders came through, everyone rolled over. Raiders took what they wanted, moved on, and that was that. Didn’t take long before I finally figured out where I’d really been heading all along. Next time a gang came through, I joined. Worked my way up over the years, and now here we are.

“Raiders are pieces of shit, but no one fucks with them. They get what they want, when they want, and they don’t bow to no one. I wanted that freedom and I got it. And as it turns out, I’m good at it. I don’t have to trust no one to use 'em.”

Bossanova laughed. “Nicky said something similar when we joined the Mafia. ‘No one will mess with us again,’ he promised. ‘We’ll take what’s ours. We’ll get what we deserve.’ He was right in that respect at least.”

Gage watched her for some time while she stared into the fire, the flames dancing in her black eyes. “Tell me about him.”

Bossanova’s head jerked back in his direction, and she looked as surprised as Gage felt. But he did want to know more about her. Not just how good she was at killing, or whether she could keep the raiders in line, but as a person.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, and then nodded. Bossanova cleared her throat. “Nicky was...probably the only person I ever depended on. It had always been that way, right from when we were kids. We grew up in a bad neighborhood. Our parents moved us from Italy to Boston when he was a baby and I was still in diapers. They always told us they came to this country searching for something. I never really understood what they were looking for.” She shrugged. “What they found was crippling poverty.”

A scowl settled on her face, and she went on. “Didn’t take my dad long to fall in with the gangs. By all accounts, he was pretty good at it. Money came in, and Nicky and I grew up only vaguely aware dad was doing something he shouldn’t. But...well. He got greedy.”

She gave Gage a pointed look. “Moved in on the Irish Mob’s territory. So they shot up our house.” Her voice was light, casual almost. But there was the slightest shake. “Mom and dad died. I was hospitalised. Nicky was unharmed.”

Gage raised an eyebrow. “What good was killin’ your old man? Can’t learn a lesson if he’s dead.”

“It was a quick, messy solution,” Bossanova replied. “Stupid, really. Sparked a gang war, all for the sake of one lousy street corner. And it changed Nicky.”

“Was he pissed?”

“Extremely.”

“Good. Bit of anger never hurt anyone.”

Bossanova laughed and shook her head. “First thing he did after the funeral was contact one of Dad’s old friends. We knew they worked together. Nicky asked for a chance to get revenge for the Bianco name, and they gave it.”

“Bianco?”

“My surname was Bianco. I changed it to Bossanova after I went into hiding,” Bossanova said with an impatient wave of her hand. “Anyway, Nicky didn’t tell me about any of this for months, even when I’d recovered. But eventually the truth came out.”

“Bet that caused an argument.”

“No.” Gage blinked as she smiled and went on, “I was angry he’d lied to me, but for joining up? No, I didn’t really mind.”

“It got your parents killed.”

“Raiders bullied your parents for years. Didn’t stop you.”

Gage opened his mouth and then closed it again. She had a point.

“Besides, the Mafia was supposed to be the means to an end: revenge—oh, don’t look at me like that,” she added, as Gage scowled. “We were barely twenty. Let youth have their bloodlust.”

He snorted.

“Besides, the Mafia were more than happy to accommodate us, once I’d argued my way in. They dragged their heels, tried to block me because I was a woman, but we got there eventually when Nicky reminded them they’d let our father in. Thankfully they never figured out we were mixed race, else we'd have never made it.”

She grinned at Gage’s confusion, but he’d already decided not to question the weird shit the Old World did back then. Trying to comprehend it made his head hurt. “So did you get ‘em?”

“Oh yes. We were ‘associates,’ you see, so not properly inducted. We could be killed without causing a war. Perfect for us. It meant we could request their lives as our chance to be made. Two birds with one stone.”

Gage vaguely remembered her explanation of ‘being made’ and nodded. “Smart.”

“Very. I did the talking and Nicky grabbed one of them. When my mark went to his friend’s rescue, I shot him in the head. Then Nicky finished his side of the job with a wire.”

Wires were messy from what Gage knew. Nisha would probably approve. But something else drew Gage’s interest. “Wait, you used a gun? You can’t aim for shit!” The memory of her firing the Thirst Zapper at Colter and missing was firmly in his mind.

“It’s not exactly hard to put it to someone’s forehead and pull the trigger,” Bossanova retorted. “I used firearms a lot in those days. Had to practice to keep my aim up to scratch, but when the bombs fell, I didn’t see the point anymore. Ammo runs out. A blade can always cut someone up.”

“Sounds like you’re just being stubborn.” He would never understand her refusal to use anything but swords and knives. Why bother skewering someone when you could just fuck them up from afar? Although he had to admit he appreciated the personal touch.

“Anyway, we killed them,” Bossanova went on, “and became soldiers for the family. My capo at the time—”

“Capo?”

“Captain. At the time he told me, ‘Susanna, there are workers and there are earners. Workers do the grunt work. The dirty work. But the earners make the family a lot of money. They climb the ranks. They’re the smart ones. Nicky’s a worker—but you, Suzie, you’re an earner.’”

“You remembered all that?” Gage said, studying her ravaged, peeling skin and gnarled body, and wondering how she could have a name as normal as ‘Susanna.’

Bossanova grinned. “I might have embellished. But it’s rare for someone to be good at working and earning in the family. Most people stay stuck doing the violent jobs, because they aren’t intelligent enough for anything else. But when Mikey Franzese told me that, I knew I wouldn’t stop until I was in the upper ranks. I had ambition, and I was going to get there or die trying.”

“What did Nicky think of it?”

“He supported me, as I knew he would. I came up with the schemes, and he helped me with the legwork. We were unstoppable, and when I finally made it to the top, he was my right hand man: my consigliere. My closest ally.”

“Sounds like a guy who knows his shit and don’t let anyone fuck him around.”

There was a long silence. Bossanova opened and closed her mouth several times, as if trying to force something out. Finally, she stared at her hands, which were twisting in her lap, and said,“You remind me of him.”

Gage gawked at her. “What?”

She shrugged, avoiding his eye. “Nicky stopped me from being too soft. He knew how things worked, and would tell me when I was wrong.” Bossanova bit her lip. “You’re tough, Gage. But you’re no idiot either. You expect trouble and you’re usually right. You know how to make the hard decisions, and you don’t let emotions cloud your judgement.

“It was me and Nicky against the world. No one else mattered. Even when I ignored his advice and tried to make peace with the Irish Mob, he stuck by me.” Her voice was suddenly thick, as if she had something stuck in her throat. “I got him killed.”

Gage wasn’t repulsed by this, which confused him. In truth, he didn’t know what he felt. Something was writhing in his chest, smothering him. It reminded him of the day he left his parents. He had been so angry at first, hungry and bitter and sick of their bullshit. But when the anger faded, the pain set in. A dull ache of loss and regret, leaving him hollow and twisted, almost longing to go back.

But it waned eventually, as all hurts did, to be replaced by the brutality of survival and the thrill of violence. Killing others meant he was alive. Killing meant he was on top, and no one would push him around.

He was not his parents.

“What did you do to them?” Gage asked, keeping his voice casual as he tried to distract himself from the turmoil raging in his head. “The ones who killed him, I mean.”

He half expected her to say ‘forget about them’—the damage was done, and vengeance would only risk her own neck again. It’s what he did with Connor. Instead, a dark, deep pleasure spread across Bossanova’s lips, and she stared back into the fire, watching something he couldn’t see.

“Tracked them down. Killed them, one by one. Left the guy who actually did it ‘til last. ‘Just business’ they told me. I didn’t care. The family didn’t mean a damn when they took Nicky from me.” Bossanova drew a shuddering breath and slowly turned to look at Gage.

“I locked Joey Gallo in a room,” she said, her voice flat. “Beat him. Tortured him. Starved him. Towards the end he was crying to God.” Her voice took on a whiney quality as she imitated her victim. “‘Oh please God, save me,’ he wept. So I said to him, ‘You got thirty minutes to pray to God to save you. If he does, I’ll let you go.’” Her expression was hard and cold as ice as she gripped her sword. “He prayed. God didn’t show.”

Gage nodded. “Gave the fucker what he deserved.”

She looked away from him, fixing her gaze on her knees. “I failed Nicky. I didn’t want to run another gang ever again, because I was scared of the past. Scared of the ghosts. The idea of Nuka World terrified me. I could see him, Gage. I could see the blood, hear his screams as they tortured him in front of me. But now…” Bossanova shifted where she sat. “You asked me why I’m doing this—what’s in it for me.” Hesitantly, she met his eye. “Nuka World feels like another chance. I don’t want to make the old mistakes again, but I need someone to keep me on the right path. I want you at my side, whatever happens. You and me against the world.”

Gage considered this. Bossanova had many fine qualities: she could lead as well as she could fight. She was violent, but knew when to hold back. She had her flaws—caring about people too much in his opinion—but it was precisely this flaw that made her fight for him—bleed for him. She gave a damn without asking anything in return.

Gage grinned, unable to stop himself. He lay down on the floor, staring up at the stars. There was a lightness he couldn’t place—a warmth and security burning stronger than any fire. He glanced at her, smiling faintly. “You an’ me, boss. Fuck everyone else.”

Bossanova laughed and settled down next to him, gazing at the sky above. They didn’t speak again after that. There was no need—everything had been said. Gage was warm, comfortable, and...content. How long had it been since he was this relaxed? The heavy haze washed over him, and he fell into an easy sleep.

He dreamed of his parents.

--

Bossanova decided to leave the ghouls as they were. “I have plans,” she said to Gage’s questions. “I’ll tell you about them when I’m a bit closer to figuring them out.”

He was curious, and a little stung she wouldn’t share right away considering their talk from the previous night, but it didn’t bother him too much. It sounded like she just wanted to work out the details first.

They crept out of the exit, avoiding the ghouls as they went, and into the park wilderness beyond, before relaxing into a walk. However, they’d barely been going for a minute, when Bossanova stopped dead. It took Gage a few seconds to realise this, and he looked back over his shoulder to see her staring down at the ground. “What?”

Bossanova motioned him over, and he strode back, glancing down to where Bossanova was pointing.

Half concealed in the dead grass was a small ghoul. Gage blinked. He recognised it as the one Colter enslaved instead of handing over to the Disciples. Gage warned him what might happen if Nisha was denied, and earned a black eye for his troubles. Colter wanted her alive, and what Colter wanted, Colter got. Gage snapped the collar on himself.

That had been the beginning of the end, really. Within hours, Nisha dragged Gage aside, pressed a knife to his throat, and demanded Colter be taken down.

All in all, Gage wasn’t sure if the kid was a good omen or a bad one.

Bossanova kneeled down, brushing her hand across the girl’s back, and then put two fingers to her neck. She turned to Gage. “She’s alive.”

“So?” The word left his mouth before he could stop himself, and judging by the boss’ scowl, was not the right answer. He shrugged. “She’s half dead anyway. What use is she?”

“Use?” Bossanova hissed, her black eyes lighting up with fury. “Use?”

Gage gave another half-hearted shrug. If the boss wanted to pick up a dying stray, that wasn’t his problem.

Except it really is.

The girl’s eyes flickered open. She looked pretty bad by all accounts. Her face was messed up, even for a ghoul, and she was covered in deep cuts and swollen bruises. The raiders had probably handed out one of their regular beatings. Bossanova pressed a hand to the girl’s cheek, and the girl smiled weakly. At least she still had all her teeth.

Bossanova carefully lifted the girl into her arms and stood up. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

Gage sighed.