New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 39: Double Vision

It was very late. Boone, Cass, and I got back from our little assassination mission about half an hour ago, and most of that time was spent carting our haul inside... as well as getting out of the armor. For all it's protective qualities, it was still pretty uncomfortable, and very, very hot. It was nice to feel air around my limbs again.

I was just about to collapse into bed and get some rest - nightmare free rest, if my current string of luck held out - when I heard a series of sharp knocks on the door to my room.

"Sheason! Sheason, y'in there?" Cass voice was muffled, but still distinct from behind the door. I just sighed, and got up off the edge of the bed. I barely turned the door handle, when the door flung open (missing my face by inches), a hand reached into the room, grabbed me by the shirt, and dragged me out into the hallway.

"Whoa! Hey! What the fuck? Cass? What's going on?" She turned her head to look at me, but didn't let go of my shirt. From the looks of things, she was leading me to the elevator.

"C'mon, we're goin' out." She punched the down button.

"Out? What do you mean out? We just got back, it's the middle of the night, and I'm exhausted." I pointed a thumb back at my room - which had a nice, comfy bed that seemed to be calling my name. Cass would have none of it, however.

"Sheason, there's two things y'oughtta know right now." She finally let go of my shirt. "Th' first, is that this whole situation t'night has left me fuckin' wired. I can't jus' go t'sleep after all that. You might b'able t'go t'sleep after somethin' like that, but I sure's fuck can't. I gotta... I dunno, I jus' gotta go'n do somethin', y'know?"

"And the second?" I asked, trying to straighten my shirt. She just smirked, and poked me dead center in the chest a couple of times.

"Th' second is you gotta learn t'cut loose ev'ry once in a while. Y'always gotta be so serious! So, t'fix these two problems, you an' I are gonna go on a bar crawl t'night." The elevator behind her dinged, and the door slid open silently. Before I knew what was happening, she grabbed my hand, and pulled me in.

"So... where are we going, anyway?" Cass and I had been wandering aimlessly down Vegas Boulevard for a few minutes before I finally spoke up. Despite how late it was, the Strip was still very lively, with plenty of crowds walking up and down the street; every casino was lit up around us , creating an almost moving ocean made out of neon lights. She just shrugged.

"I dunno. Haven't really decided where t'go first."

"First?" I asked. She just nodded her head, and smiled wide.

"Well, yeah. Whole point've a bar crawl is t'go t'lots've bars. Can't just go t'one, stay there th' whole night, an' call it good."

"I guess so," I said with a nod. "I'll be honest, the last time I went bar hopping was in New Reno. The way I hear it, the people who lived there held city-wide crawls every chance they got before the bombs... and then just kept drinking after the world got blown to shit." Cass nodded, and continued.

"I figure, if we stay on th' Strip, we should have plenty've choice. No need t'go into Freeside t'night." She put a pair of fists in front of her mouth, and made an exploding motion with her fingers.

"Wanting to stay away from Ground Zero then, huh?" I asked. She nodded.

"Fer a little while, t'least. They prolly didn't recognize us, but I'm jus' not feelin' th' Atomic Wrangler t'night, y'know?"

"Wait, hang on," I held up a hand to stop her. "What bars are around the Strip? The only actual bar I know of that isn't in Freeside is this one bar I went to in the middle of Bazooko's Circus."

"Where?" Cass looked confused, but shook it off. "You really haven't done much 'round here, have you?"

"Not really. I've been kind of busy, you know?" Cass just shook her head, and made a couple of "tsk" sounds.

"Y'should always set aside some valuable drinkin' time. Anyway, where's this Bazooko's Circus place? I don't think I've ever been there."

"I don't know how you could miss it..." I tried to hold back a chuckle. I don't think it worked.

In what felt like no time at all, Cass and I were standing in front of the neon monstrosity that is Bazooko's Circus. I was about to head in, when I glanced behind me and realized that Cass was still just looking up at the garish casino. I couldn't tell if she was confused or disgusted.

"Well? What do you think of it?" I asked. At first, she didn't respond. She did tilt her head to the side, as if looking at it sideways would make the spectacle make any kind of sense.

"It's... s'like a unicorn vomited up a rainbow an' a whole load've confetti, an' then somebody shoved a plug up his cock-hole to make 'im explode."

"See, I knew you'd like it." I said, patting her on the back and doing my best to direct her into the casino. "I'll be honest, I'm glad you can see it at all. For a long while there, I thought this place was just a hallucination brought on by exhaustion." The two of us crossed the threshold into madness, and Cass finally stopped trying to look at the casino, and instead looked at me with a questioning gaze.

"That happen a lot?"

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"What, exhaustion?" I tried to play it off like a joke. "Sure, all the time. I thought that was just a normal part of living. Don't tell me people have been lying to me about that all these years!" I put a hand to my mouth in fake-shock.

"No," Cass could've swapped that for the word 'idiot' or 'moron' or 'fuckhead' and it probably would've carried the same tone. "Hallucinations." I just shrugged.

"What can I say? It's been a weird couple of weeks. Now, where is that carousel..."

"Carousel?" Before Cass could ask any more questions, the two of us were interrupted by bright lights and a voice coming from above us. I looked up, and the nets and trapeze setup that I'd seen empty before were now lit up, and full of people swinging around above us.

"LAAAAADIIIIIIES AAAAAAND GEEEENTLEMEEEEEN!" the voice on the loudspeaker above our head boomed and echoed all around us. "BOYS AND GIRLS! VISITORS OF AAAAAAAAAALL AGES! THE BAZOOKO'S CASINO CIRCUS IS PROUD TO PRESENT... THE FLYING FALLINI'S!"

The next thing I knew, a spotlight shone on one of the people standing on a large raised platform near the ceiling. It looked like a pregnant woman standing in front of an old US flag, wearing an obnoxiously pink leotard that sparkled in the spotlight - complete with frilly tutu. She grabbed a trapeze swing, flew through the air, let go, did a triple somersault in the air before falling, landed on the net, and then the net bounced her right back up in the air. Another one of the people above us was swinging on a trapeze by his legs; in his hands was a big white hammer with a handle wrapped in sparkly red ribbon. By the time she was in the air, he was right next to her - and smacked her stomach with the hammer. There was a sound like a comedy bicycle horn, then a pop, and a baby - wearing a plastic see-through space helmet and wearing his own sparkly jumpsuit - was launched through the air out from between the woman's legs. He was caught in midair by a pair of women on the opposite platform wearing nothing but a couple black and white stars covering their private parts. The music swelled, and there was a shower of confetti that exploded everywhere.

"What the fuck did I just watch?" I asked, after my brain had finally processed what I'd seen. I looked down, and realized that Cass was equally confused.

"Yup," She said finally. "Definitely not drunk 'nuff yet. Where's this bar you've told me nothin' 'bout?"

"What can I getcha?" Joey, the ghoul bartender, was behind the bar at the CarosHELL of Dreams. He looked exactly the same as before - face still painted like a skull, still wearing half a tux, still wearing gloves with glow in the dark fingerbones on the top. And, of course, he still had the shabby top hat perched at what I can only assume he thought was a rather rakish angle atop his head. I think he must just say 'What can I getcha?' on instinct, because when he looked up, he flashed a cracked, crooked smile. "Oh, hey! I remember you. You're... uh..." He snapped his fingers one... two... third time lucky. "Sheason, right? That's it."

"Hey Joey! I'm surprised you remembered me, to be honest," I said, sitting down at an empty stool. Cass was behind me, but having a little trouble getting the hang of the rotating floor. Joey set his glass down and shrugged.

"It's not every day I get to make somebody some Wake-Up-Juice. So, what brings you back to my humble revolving watering hole?" At that precise moment, Cass appeared next to me; I couldn't be sure, but the sound and her sudden appearance made me think that she jumped off the rotating platform and directly onto the bar.

"Shots!" Cass proclaimed enthusiastically. Joey raised what was left of an eyebrow and turned to me. I just shrugged.

"Cass wants to go on a bar crawl all around the Strip, so I suggested we start here, say hi to my favorite bartender." Joey looked back and forth between the two of us and started chuckling, tapping two gloved fingers against his temple.

"Ahh-heh... It's one of those nights, eh?" He smiled wide, showing a mouth full of yellow, rotten teeth once again. "Alright..." The ghoul ducked down behind the bar, and emerged with two tall shot glasses, a bottle of schnapps, a bottle of cream liqueur (how the hell did he find a bottle of Bailey's?), and a small bottle of grenadine.

Next thing I knew, Cass and I both had a shot glass in front of us. I brought my eyes down to the level of the shot to get a close look at it: Joey had poured the schnapps in first, and when he poured in the cream liqueur, it sort of... folded in on itself. The dash of grenadine almost looked a bit like blood floating in the mix, making the whole shot look like...

"It's called The Brain." Joey said, pleased with himself. "You two wanna get fucked up in a hurry, well... this is a good place to start."

"I'm not sure fucked up in a hurry is -"

"Sounds great!" Cass cut me off. She picked up her glass, and held it up next to me. "Let's get this shit rollin'." Well, now or never. The two of us toasted our shot glasses together, I silently hoped it would be more palatable than Joey's Wake-Up-Juice, and knocked it back. I set down my shot glass, but Cass turned hers upside down when she set it on the bar.

My first thought: Oh, wow. That is actually surprisingly smooth on the way down. Maybe I should have another...

My second thought: Mighty fucknuggets! My lungs are trying to escape out my ears!

"Hey, that ain't bad!" I registered on some basic level that Cass was speaking next to me, but she sounded completely unaffected. "What else ya got?" The aftertaste of the shot subsided just as quickly as it arrived, and once again I could see straight... and that's about the time I realized I was sitting on the barstool backwards.

"I'll see what I can rustle up for ya," I heard the ghoul bartender say. By the time I swung around to look, he was already gone.

"This is gonna set the tone for the night, isn't it?" I asked Cass. She just smiled and nodded at me.

"I sure's fuck hope so!"

"It looks like you two are celebrating." I heard a voice say through clenched teeth from next to me. I looked to my left and saw two men sitting at the bar next to us. The closest to me - the man who spoke - was quite tall and looked very gaunt. On his head was a white bucket hat with a bright green interior. On his nose were a pair of green-tinted, gold rimmed aviator sunglasses. Clenched between his teeth was a plastic cigarette holder and half an unlit cigarette. There was a leather strap with several metal studs wrapped around his right wrist, and a wristwatch on the left. The other man sitting next to him was rather short, extremely fat, and dark skinned with a massive matted mess of black hair, complete with enormous sideburns and giant porn 'stache. He was also wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigarette, and I saw a small bandage on his neck underneath his jaw line. There was a circular medallion hanging from a silver chain around his neck. Both of them were wearing brightly colored aloha shirts with outrageous and ridiculous patterns. In front of them were easily two dozen empty shot glasses, three empty pint glasses, and maybe six or seven lowball glasses - only two of which were still full.

"I'm sorry?" I asked. Cass leaned on me across the bar to speak to them - I realized with a wry sense of amusement that she already had another shot in her hand.

"Fuckin' right we are! Night on th' town, jus' th' two've us gettin' wasted!" She patted me on the back and knocked back the next shot, upending it on the bar. The man in aviators raised his glass in our direction.

"Well, good luck to you with that. Take it from me, there's nothing like a job well done. Except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all." He took a swig of his drink, and continued. "We're not here celebrating, though. My attorney and I are here on a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. A gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. A search, you might say, for the American Dream - but only for those with true grit! And we are chock full of that, man!" The black haired man raised his glass slightly, but barely lifted his head; he said nothing except for a loud belch, and promptly slumped down over his drink.

"I like this guy," Cass said, still hanging off me. The man in the green sunglasses and bucket hat just laughed.

"You shouldn't. I'm a doctor of journalism, man. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It's a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."

Cass tipped her hat back; she and I just looked at each other, confused. She mouthed the words: "What the fuck?" The dark-haired man finally spoke up, just loud enough for us to hear. It sounded like he was trying to talk to his friend, but the way he was mumbling I couldn't be sure.

"I hate to say this -" He hiccupped loudly. "but this place is-" He hiccupped again. "is getting to me. I think I'm-" He hiccupped a third time. "getting The Fear."

"Nonsense!" The man in green sunglasses slapped his friend on the back, who hiccupped again in response. "We came here to find the American Dream! Now that we're right in the vortex, you wanna quit? You must realize, man -" He clenched a fist. "We've found the Main Nerve! Our asses planted right square in the middle of it!"

"Well, I'm ready to try somewhere new..." Cass said, still leaning on me. She handed me a shot of whiskey. "... after this drink?" I smiled, and took the glass from her.

"Sounds good to me," I said. At least whiskey just burned on the way down, and didn't leave a weird aftertaste.

"So, let's get down to brass tacks here," The man in green-tinted aviators spoke up again, and we both turned to face him. "How much for the ape?"

"Wait, what?" Cass said confused. The man in the sunglasses just shook his head, took the cigarette holder out of his mouth and pointed at us.

"Not you," He moved his hand slightly to his left, and pointed somewhere behind us. "Him."

The two of us turned around. Sitting on our other side was a dour looking clown with a curly black moustache in a white jumpsuit and hat, peppered with sequins and swirly designs. Sitting next to the clown was... an orangutan? It was definitely a monkey of some kind. How did it get here? But even stranger than his very presence was the fact that he was wearing a white labcoat, and had a stethoscope hanging from his neck. The ape pursed his huge lips, and made kissy noises at both of us, before grinning wide with a mouthful of crooked teeth.

"Check please," both Cass and I said simultaneously.

The next hour or so was kind of a blur. But the good kind of blur, rather than the blur you know you'll wake up from in a haze, half-naked, facedown in a sewer. No, this kind of blur was where you knew you'd wake up the next day with a massive hangover, but with your dignity still more or less intact.

We must have hit at least half a dozen bars after that surreal descent into madness at the CarousHELL of Dreams. Cass led me by the hand the entire way into what seemed like every bar on the Strip. I remember a couple - there was the Stage Left, one of the few dive bars on the Strip that didn't operate out of a casino. Inside, it was all smoke and colors... and old world movie posters crammed into every available space on the walls like wallpaper.

Then there was the Lynd, a bar in the Urbane Hotel and Casino. We didn't stay there long, since it seemed more high-class than anything else, what with the people in tuxedos, the cigars, and the hundreds of martini glasses everywhere. That's the kind of place for people to sip alcohol and pretend to be sophisticated, not pound drinks and act like a hooligan.

The one I remember the most though, was the Panorama: a bar at the Zephyr "Resort" Hotel and Casino. The bar was on the third or fourth floor, and since the building it was situated inside was a giant cylinder, the whole bar was curved. What's more, instead of a mirror behind the actual bar itself, there were windows looking out, lined with shelves of booze, letting everyone sitting at the bar and getting shitfaced have an ideal view of the neon ocean that was the Vegas Strip.

Granted, I didn't really remember that bar for the atmosphere. I remembered it because of the conversation.

"Y'know somethin', Shea?" Cass was holding her drink; we'd finally moved away from shots, and she was just drinking a beer. "I feel... purified."

"Do y'now?" I slurred, drinking some of my own beer. "With all that booze in ya? I wouldn't feel purified after all that."

"Nah, not that, dumbass," Cass backhanded my shoulder softly, almost like hitting me was an afterthought. "M'talkin' 'bout... earlier. Y'know? Settlin' accounts, n'all that."

"Ah," my booze-addled brain finally made the connection. "So... y'really feel good 'bout ev'ry thing we did then?" She nodded, and knocked back more of her drink.

"Fuckin' a, I feel good 'bout it. Payback's a bitch, ladies. I hope they're n'hell right now, blinkin', tryin' t'figure out where they fucked up." She downed the last of her beer, and set it down on the bar with a thud. She leaned over, and looked down into the bottom of her empty glass. Her words said one thing, but her body language said something completely different.

I tried to think: what do normal people do in this kind of situation? This kind of thing was hard enough when I wasn't trying to force my brain to work through a drunken haze. Eventually, I scooted my bar stool closer to her - it was just a high seat, and wasn't bolted to the floor - and patted her on the shoulder. Hopefully, she'd take it as a comforting gesture.

"Cass, seriously... you alright?" I said as clearly as I could, taking care not to slur. She just sighed heavily, and continued to stare down into her empty glass.

"I jus'... I never realized I had all that... anger in me, y'know?" She ran her fingers over the rim of the glass. "Kinda makes me wonder. How much more'm I gonna settle with bullets?" I continued to gently pat her shoulder... and then she brought a hand up, clutching mine and giving it a squeeze. I'm not sure she even realized she was doing it, because she just kept talking. "I mean... don' get me wrong - I'm glad we killed those fucks. No more loose ends, y'know? S'just... part've me was hopin' that I'd feel... something."

Dawning comprehension hit me in the face like a deathclaw.

"You were hopin' killin' them would make you feel happy, maybe. Give you some kinda satisfaction. But all it's done s'left you physically an' emotionally drained." Cass eyes went wide, and she turned in her barstool to look at me. She still hadn't let go of my hand.

"Yeah... yeah... I was hopin' fer some kinda payoff, but instead, I just feel..."

"Empty," I finished for her. She nodded.

"Numb." Cass added.

"Unsatisfied." I said. We still hadn't broken eye contact. She was looking at me with those big grey eyes of hers with...

"How'd you..." she started - but for once, I was the one to cut her off.

"Benny." I said simply. "This is th' same thing I went through after killin' him. Once th' last of th' anger burned off, I was left there in that hallway in th' Tops not... I mean, th' fucker shot me in th' head, an' killin' him didn't... I jus' felt numb." I pulled my hand away from her shoulder, and turned in my barstool back to my drink. A few seconds later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Has it gotten any better?" I heard Cass say next to me.

"Kinda..." I took a drink - the last drink. Now, it was my turn to stare at an empty glass. "I haven't really thought much 'bout what it means. Don't want to think 'bout it. But there's been..." Maybe it was the booze, but I decided on something right then and there. "Cass, I'm gonna tell y'somethin', an' I want you t'promise not to tell any'ne else." I turned to look at her, and she nodded, urging me to continue. "Ever since killin' Benny, I've been havin' nightmares. Hell, even had one when I was in a coma for two days in Usanagi's clinic. An'... fuck, this is gonna sound really stupid, but... s'like Benny's ghost is followin' me. Hauntin' me. Doesn't make sense..."

Especially when he tries to give me advice, I added in my head. But I thought it was probably best if I didn't mention that part. Cass moved her hand, draping her arm across my back and patting the opposite shoulder.

"I guess we all gotta carry memories of th' people we've killed..." she said, rather somberly. I turned to look at her, and she smiled warmly, her cheeks flush with red from all the alcohol. I smiled back at her, and wrapped my arm around her shoulder, pulling her close.

"Yeah, well... I'll be here fer you, if you promise t'be here fer me. What else'r friends for, right?" Cass just chuckled, smiled, and shook her head.

"Right..."

"So. That's it then?" I asked. Cass nodded.

"That's it... 'cept fer one thing." I raised an eyebrow at her words.

"What?"

"Thanks." Cass turned me around in my barstool to face her once again. "There's not many people'n my company would do what you did fer me." I tried to wave it off.

"Hey, don't worry ab-" Cass put a finger on my mouth to shut me up.

"I ain't finished," Cass got off her stool, and stood up in front of me. "When we figured out what Alice 'n Gloria had done, I was so mad. But there was this little part've me that said, 'you can't do to them what they did t'you.' An' then, when y'wanted t'find evidence... I thought y'wanted me t'hesistate. To cool down. I was so mad... t'was like my conscience was speakin' through you. But in th' end, you backed me, even though I couldn't see th' whole picture. Even when th' odds were against us. Especially when th' odds were against us. You helped me get what I wanted, an' then some..."

One finger moved across my lips until it was met with the rest; she gently ran her fingertips over the scar on my cheek, sliding them across my face until her hand came to rest, clutching at the hair on the back of my head. She leaned in close, staring at me intently with those big, grey eyes - unfocused, as they were. She was smiling at me - in hindsight, I'm pretty sure she was trying to attempt a sultry, sexy smile, but because of all the booze tonight it just ended up looking like a goofy lecherous grin

"I guess, what I'm tryin' t'say is... thanks. Words are... I ain't good with words. An' words sure's hell ain't enough now..." She was leaning very, very close to me. I could feel her hot breath brushing against the whiskers on my face. About a million things were buzzing through my head at that particular moment in time. Warning signs and alarm bells on one side of my brain; cheers and encouragement and a desire for her to close the gap as quick as she possibly fuckin' could on the other. I don't know if it was that conflict in my head or the booze, but all that ended up coming out of my mouth was an ineffectual stammer.

"Cass, what... I mean..." Cass shook her head and grabbed me by the shirt.

"Oh, shut up already."

And then she kissed me.

My eyes cracked open just enough to register that I was in a bed somewhere.

It took me a few seconds for my brain to warm up enough to register something else rather unusual.

My vision was filled with red hair.

Twitch.

I breathed in through my nose, getting a strong hit of the aroma lingering in the hair in front of me: whiskey and beer.

Odd.

It took me a few more seconds to register something else that was not normal - something warm, something soft, something shaped very much like a naked female body pressed up against me.

Twitch.

I closed my eyes, buried my face deeper into the red hair in front of me, and pulled her close.

My eyes snapped open, and I woke with a start.

And, immediately, I wished I'd been more cautious waking up. Ow.

I clutched my throbbing head, and shut my eyes against the blinding, awful, painful light. Slowly, I started to crack my eyes open again to look around at my surroundings.

Eventually, something became quite clear.

I was the only one in the room. There were no signs that anyone else had been here at all. I looked down at my arm, and realized that I must have fallen asleep wearing my Pip Boy - and that it, jabbing me in the ribs, had been the cause to prompt me awake.

I looked at the clock on my Pip Boy - just a little after 7:30 am. I tried to do the math in my head, but everything in my head was just hangover pain. Something about that number didn't seem right. Maybe I was reading the clock wrong? Maybe I was doing the math wrong.

Still, I was left with a rather burning question: Did everything from last night really happen?

Did anything?