capcious | WAH

No, nothing like that, [Riley says, cutting Zetta off before she can answer "yes" to all of the above like he knows she wants to.] Nothing bad happened. She's just having a bad day anyway.

Fuck everything, [Zetta agrees angrily.]

I thought that was Ferran's motto. He's gonna sue for, like, trademark infringement.

[Deacon pushes himself onto the counter to slide over to the other side and pads over to Zetta.]

[It's embarrassing how much she's missed him. It's only been the better part of a fucking day, jesus. But she's reaching to wrap her arms around his neck as he gets close enough, anyway.]

[He leans down to kiss her on the forehead.]

Hey.

You know what's guaranteed to lift any bad mood? Bowling. And look at that, we just happen to be in a bowling alley.

[Deacon has never bowled, doesn't know the rules, and has no idea if it's even fun or not. But the idea isn't necessarily to convince Zetta to go bowling, it's to chatter and create a distraction from her mood.]

We'd have to set up the pins ourselves. And the lanes are fucked up.

[Zetta doesn't know if she's arguing against it for the sake of it, or if it's because she really wouldn't be in the mood for bowling even if he was serious. Or, and this is an equally likely possibility, if she's trying to egg him on into escalating things until they're too ridiculous. She just doesn't fucking know what she wants. (Other than him.)]

Think of the fucked up lanes as an obstacle course. Like bowling meets miniature golf.

[Escalation is on. He rests his hands on her hips.]

[This is the stupidest fucking thing to feel stable to her, but it does.]

I really don't think that would work. Not as it is. We could certainly make it work, but we'd have to build up the course.

Good thing you're so good at building stuff then, huh.

[He smiles and pulls her closer.]

[She's needed this. ("This" being Deacon's pure, undivided attention. It doesn't matter what they're talking about. They could be talking about his fucking mole rat teeth blowjobs and she'd still be happy.)]

You gonna pay me for it? That's gonna require a lot of work to pull off your dumb idea.

Do you have to be paid in caps or will you accept a trade of services?

[She's starting to calm, he thinks. She no longer looks ready to murder the next creature that crosses her path the wrong way.]

Depends on the service. Has to be equal in effort. Or, at the very least, equal in entertainment value.

[Not far away, but out of Zetta's field of vision, Riley is watching on like he's seeing something rare and amusing. He doesn't know if he'll ever get over watching this happen.]

Hm, I'm not good at effort. If I wanted to work hard, I would have stayed a teacher. But I can totally do entertaining.

[His grin widens. Then he draws in an over-exaggerated breath in preparation to sing.]

[Without missing a beat, Zetta promptly shoves two fingers into his mouth, pressing them down on his tongue.]

That doesn't count.

[He tries to sing a couple notes anyway, but it really doesn't work. So he closes his lips around her fingers and starts sucking suggestively instead.]

[.......................]

Better, [she grins, easing up on the pressure on his tongue. God, now she wants to go home. She leans in to nip at his jaw, then starts to slip her fingers back out of his mouth.

She wouldn't put it past him to then start trying to sing again, or something else stupid, so she's ready to counterstrike.]

[She's right. As soon as her fingers are out of his mouth, he starts singing quietly and twisting side-to-side in a tiny dance, trying to pull her into dancing with him.]

Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
And I fell right into a great ring of fire

Oh, jesus christ. [That is a really stupid joke. She is absolutely not sorry for retaliating.

Which she does by taking her slick fingers and crams them into his ear.]

[He yelps and laughs and pulls away to escape the wet fingers in his ear.

Zetta's definitely feeling better now. Eye-rolling instead of glaring daggers at the world.]

Okay, okay, I surrender.

Good.

[And this seems like a good time to kiss him, so she's going to do that now. She snakes her arm around his waist to prevent him from escaping too far away, leaning in with obvious intent.]

[He stops trying to escape--really wasn't that eager to move too far away anyway--and leans down to meet her kiss.

Ferran leans up against Riley and drawls.]

And for his next trick, Deacon will calm an angry albino deathclaw.

[Riley laughs, arm settling loosely across Ferran's back.]

No kidding. We need to figure out how to do this. It'd save us a lot of time next time she decides to undo all my hard work three times in one conversation.

[Still in the kiss, Zetta rolls her eyes.]

[Ferran nuzzles Riley's jaw as he watches Zetta and Deacon kiss. Fuck, they're hot like that. But he can't let himself get too distracted.]

She does have a remarkable ability to sabotage attempts at mediation. Last time it was useful, however. I gleaned a great deal of information about Dr. Lone from his responses.

[Riley's eyes lull briefly at the nuzzle.]

Yeah? What all did you pick up on?

I suspect that he used to be a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Scientific training could have come from a Vault, but scientific and military training isn't exactly common. I can only think of one organization where a person can feasibly acquire both.

He said the Brotherhood killed his family, though. What do you think happened?

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