Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (24 page)

“This is really hard, eh?” Reaver said out of the blue. He put the tray between us. I looked at him, a bit taken aback.
“What... what is?”
Reaver smiled, my heart fluttered a bit. I loved that smile.
He shrugged and I saw a split second of shyness, before he caught himself and it disappeared as quickly as it came.
“Talking.”
I felt a flood of relief wash over me, he had hit it on the head. We were both fried, tired, and in pain right now. At the same time, we were alone, talking to each other for the first time.
Reaver noticed my sigh of relief, he smiled a bit wider and I could almost see a bit of teeth.
“It is a lot at once,” I agreed, feeling the shyness hit me next. I looked down at the drugs, before my eyes found Reaver’s again.
“They’ll help, trust me,” he urged.
Still covered in dried blood, still dirty and stained from the road. Not even changed into clean clothes, or even fed but... smiling at me. His eyes had a glint in them I had never seen before. He was everything I had hoped he would be, he wasn’t the emotionless sentry that he showed when he was in the block. He was... he was real.

He was showing me this side of him now... I think he did like me.

“How do I do it?” I asked warily, my dad had injected Skytech’s synthesized heroin. I’d never paid attention to how snorting was suppose to be done.
A smirk creased the corner of Reaver’s face and he shook his head, obviously very amused. “You were a sheltered little thing, weren’t you?”
I looked at him a bit flatly, even though the more of the greywastes I saw, the more I realized I was. He seemed even more amused as he saw my unimpressed look.

“No,” I said stubbornly.

Reaver, still with the same smirky expression, motioned at me to pick up the straw. I did, and he pointed to one of the lines. “Plug one nostril, snort. Repeat.”
I leaned down and took a line in each nostril, I sniffed and rubbed my nose.
“It will burn for a second, but it wont last,” Reaver smiled. Sure enough a few seconds later my nose started to burn, my eyes started to water as well.
“Now just wait.”

I sniffed again and leaned back into his couch. I could feel him watching me, then a few moments later I could hear him take a few more lines of the drugs. I wished he would touch me again, but I knew I had already being spoilt. My mom had told me he once broke Matt’s fingers when he touched his shoulder. Mom said it was after Greyson got mad at him for killing a legionnaire too close to Aras. Matt was just trying to be sympathetic too.

Well, he was a far cry from the Reaver everyone had told me about. I had always known they were wrong though, I knew they were just scared of him. He was pretty intimidating.
I sighed and felt a warm glow start to envelope my body. They said those things though, because Reaver was all those things; but with me... he was different. If he was the Reaver they had warned me about, he would have never saved me.
“How do you feel?” Reaver asked, he sounded as relaxed as I felt. The warmth had filled me with a light. I felt weightless, warm, and surprisingly almost completely out of pain. I also felt... well, lots of gratitude towards Reaver.
“The pain of everything is dripping away,” I said, I think I understood why my father like these things so much. “I... I don’t feel as scared any more.”

“Your heartbeat has slowed too,” Reaver said. I looked at him a bit confused.
“How do you know?”
Reaver moved the sniffer along his fingers. “I’ve always had this odd enhanced hearing. If it’s quiet, I can hear people’s hearts. Also I can hear electronics, it’s a high pitch whining noise no one else can seem to pick up but me.”
“Wow,” I said in awe. This must have been one of the reasons he was such an amazing sentry.
“What does mine sound like?” I asked, I put my hand up against my chest and tried to feel for it.
“Right now? It’s speeding up,” Reaver said. “I can tell what someone’s feeling sometimes with just their heartbeat. It’s useful for dealing with merchants, or interrogating legionnaires.”
I swallowed hard, I couldn’t hide anything from him. I don’t know how I felt about that.
“Most of the time, I don’t listen though,” Reaver said. He started to get up off of the couch. “I have to pay attention to hear it, and most of the time, I don’t really care.”
As Reaver turned around, I gasped a bit. His back was half exposed, revealing lots of small painful cuts and some larger stitched up ones too. They looked red and angry, and even blackened and burned in some areas.
“Is it really that bad?” Reaver tried to look over his shoulder.
“I can see bits of metal in the lamp light!” I exclaimed, I shot up from my seat. “Tweezers? Doc taught me how to pick out shrapnel.”
Reaver made a dismissive noise and started rummaging through a few cans on his counter. “They’ll come off in the water, I need to wash myself anyways.”
I looked a bit crestfallen. Reaver noticed, he sighed as he started opening the lid of a can of ravioli. “What about this then? We both bathe tomorrow, and then you can hack at me with tweezers and get out the rest.”
I beamed, I felt like I had one my very first victory against the steel will of Reaver. He shook his head at me, and proceeded to dump a can of ravioli and a can of corned bosen into a pot. He turned the stove on.
I should bring my spices over when I get back to my house... I could make that food taste really good.
I stopped myself, a bit surprised at where my head was going. I had never even thought of that, what the hell was going to happen after today? Was I going back home? Would I have to go back to sleeping in the house by myself, and seeing Reaver around the block? What was going to happen?
The drugs massaging my brain told me to shut up, and I listened. A few minutes later, me and Reaver sat down with some food and some water. I was amazed at the fact that he had water rigged up to come all the way into his basement. It was a garden hose with a lever and you just turned the lever and the cold water came out. I was impressed. I got all of my water from the river, and I just put it in a big bucket. I had to keep a lid on it because the cats kept drinking from it. His place was just amazing, though I wish there were windows. I didn’t even know if it was dark outside yet.

My place had so many windows, I spent every night looking at the stars until I fell asleep. The trees blocked the stars a little bit but I could still see them pretty good.

I ate all of my bowl of food. I had had ravioli a few times and had always liked how it looked. It was expensive though, I felt pretty flattered that he had made such fancy food for us.
I looked down as Reaver put half of his food into my bowl. “Eat.”
“Oh, no I’m okay,” I flushed a bit. I felt bad, it was his food after all and he had been hurt more than I had.
Reaver shook his head. “You’re too skinny, you need to take better care of yourself.”

I got even more flustered. I was pretty bad at eating food, I kind of gave up on surviving for awhile and I guess it had become a habit. I was embarrassed that Reaver had noticed, I had hoped my baggy clothes would hide it. Though as I thought back to the factory, I think he had already seen me completely naked. There was no hiding how unhealthy I looked.
I picked up the bowl and busied myself with eating. He was silent, watching me eat.
“Did you have a death wish?” Reaver suddenly said. I looked at him a bit surprised at his brashness. He didn’t say it in a mocking way, or a rude way, he looked at me completely genuine. I... I would have preferred that he said it to be mean or patronizing, then I could have laughed and brushed it off.
I stared at him, I wondered if he could feel my heartbeat speed up. He didn’t break his gaze from me though. I was reminded of... well, that he was Reaver.
“I... I sold my old guitar...”
“No.” Reaver stopped me. “Not this time. Before, all the other times.”

I looked back, I wanted to look away but I felt I couldn’t. His black eyes stared right into me, he already knew the answer... why did he want me to say it.
“Yeah,” I whispered. I felt ashamed.

Reaver nodded, confirming it to himself. “I’m... I’m glad you’re not dead.”
I smiled, realizing that from someone like Reaver, that meant a lot to hear.
“But if you leave the block ever again without me, I will do bad things to you.”
I smiled at him, he tried not too but he smiled a bit back at me. The drugs were making me a bit bold.
“What things?”
Reaver thought for a second. “I’ll break your legs.”

I don’t know why that made me smile more. “What if I try and crawl through the gates?”
He pursed his lips like he was thinking. “I’ll cut your arms off, so you’re just a torso and a head.”
I laughed, Reaver smiled back. “You’re a weird one.”
I blushed and moved the tray towards me, I took the straw and did another two lines. They burned in my nose again, I kind of liked the feeling. I think I was starting to understand my father even more. He had endured a lot in his last several years of life. After being fired after his personal visit from the chimera Elish, he had gone downhill with his drug use. These things must’ve helped him cope with life in the greywastes. It been hard for him.
“These do make me feel better,” I said, Reaver looked pleased with himself. He seemed more relaxed too. I was loving this, he was actually talking to me. Talking! Teasing! He did like me... he didn’t think I was an idiot. I wanted to ask him if Greyson had paid for him to follow me, but I couldn’t do that yet.

“Yeah, I do them a lot,” Reaver said, he motioned towards his suitcase. “I make sure the case is well stocked.”
“Did you get them all scavenging?” I asked. He probably had so many stories to tell me, he had probably lived such an exciting life. I felt boring compared to him. I had spent most of my time in my mom’s bookstore ringing up customers.

He nodded, taking a long drink from his water glass, I did too, forgetting it was even there.
“I have a few stashes in various cities around here. I go on foot usually, or go with Reno and his quad. So I can’t carry all the boxes back so I bury them, or hide them in caches.”
“Wow,” I said in awe. “Can... can I come one day?”
Reaver let out an amused laugh and shook his head. “No, you’re going to stay in Aras forever. You’re never stepping foot out of the block ever again.”
My face fell, he looked at me, probably noticing how sad I looked.
“Okay, maybe.”
My face lit up, he gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. I had scored another victory! I didn’t want to leave the block for an extremely long time but I still liked the idea of going on an adventure with him. I could really pull my weight in the block then. I wouldn’t be useless.

“Will you... make me more like you?”
The sentry’s brow creased. “This again? I don’t understand why would you want that?” This time I don’t think I could just shrug the question off.

“I don’t want to be useless,” I said silently.

“You’re not useless,” Reaver said, his voice was almost gentle. “You just don’t realize how dangerous it is out there. I think you know now.”
I looked at the floor a bit ashamed and nodded. I felt a cold chill come up my spine. He was sure right about that, I had seen horrible things when we were journeying but besides that. My town had been pretty sheltered.
“You... you just... why? Why did you leave? How was it worth the risk for an instrument?” Reaver said, his voice started to sound a bit strained.
I couldn’t look up. I felt so ashamed, I could feel his eyes drill into me.
“It would have taken me a year to find the material to make a new guitar, maybe never to find the strings,” I said quietly. I suddenly felt even more stupid for my foolish logic. I was stupid.

“You could have asked me... I would have found you one.”
“You wouldn’t even look at me.” My voice dropped to such a level I hoped he wouldn’t hear it. Then I remembered he could hear heartbeats.
Reaver shifted around a bit, I could tell he was very uncomfortable. This made me feel even worse. I could see him looking around, probably for something to distract away from where this conversation was heading. His eyes came back to the drugs, he leaned forward and did another line. He motioned for me to do the same.
Well it was a good distraction at least. I took a bit more, and afterwards Reaver put the tray on the side table behind him. He got up and to my surprise, he turned on the TV and the game system. He picked up the controllers and handed me one.
“Have you ever played Mario?” Reaver asked.
I perked up and smiled. We had owned a game system before we had had to leave town, I loved playing it.
“No,” I said with a smile. Yeah, I was lying... I wanted him to teach me. “What’s Mario?”
The corner of his mouth went up in a crooked smile. I sighed, feeling the tension go down a bit. Stupid me for bringing up those damn things. I had to be careful, I didn’t want to scare him away. I was learning a lot in this time we had been together. I kind of felt like he was a stray cat I had been trying to feed outside my house. Slow movements, not too much at once.

Fuck I didn’t want to screw this up. I couldn’t bare the thought of him asking me to leave.

I quietly promised myself to stop being an idiot. I finally broke the ice with Reaver, I finally had him talking to me. I wasn’t going to scare him off by talking about feelings. Reaver was the type of guy that hated feelings. He was probably feeling so awkward and possibly annoyed at me.
Reaver pressed some buttons and we started the game. The tension started to dissipate as quickly as it came, to both of our relief hopefully.

The game started, it was the kart game where you race around. My heart jumped, I owned this game! I was great at it, I played this constantly when I was a child. I was really going to have to work on not being good at it.
Reaver gave me a short introduction on the game and pretty soon we were playing. I started driving in reverse. Reaver smiled and corrected me very nicely. He was really nice at first, instructing me, giving me tips, not shooting shells at me. But after I started to get a little bit better at it... well, that ended.

“Oh... looks like I’m going to lap you again,” Reaver smirked. He seemed to be having fun winning every single round, so I had kept letting him win. “I don’t think a bullet can help you now. You can try though, just to make my win a little sweeter.”
I scowled at him, he smiled back. I loved seeing him smile, and I wasn’t a competitive person at all, but I was starting to get a bit done with his attitude. I was very quickly seeing that winning meant a lot to him, he sure didn’t hide his gloating.
I guess he was probably used to playing with Reno. The more I thought of that the more it made sense, I bet they had wild times in here drinking, drugging and playing video games. Men their age did that a lot back before the Fallocaust.