Chapter 7

This is not the Fenway Juan remembered.

The last time he had been here was with Nora, a regular season game. They did it to celebrate his coming home from the army. They had caught the game in the afternoon, had supper at a popular chop house and stayed at a hotel downtown. It had been a hell of a night.

Not in his wildest dreams would he have imagined the incredible collection of ad hoc housing that has taken over the field, and stands. Having seen how the world was now ... it makes sense. This place is like a classical castle, high walls and all.

Looking to either side, the structures were packed in as tight as possible, but there was a distinct change in look between the accommodations on the field and lower stands and the upper stands. The difference was too visible to be accidental. From where he was standing on the staircase, the upper stands area even looked cleaner.

There were chimneys sticking up from jumbled roofs, smoke drifting from most of them. He could see chimneys rising up on long pipes, just strapped to the sides of some structures, until they got higher than the highest roof there.

Juan was surprised that it did not smell as bad as he had thought it would. With so many people living so close together, there is no way they had anything like proper santitation in there.

He could hear the cries of hawkers, not well enough to identify what they were selling, but he could only imagine. Either way, this was the closest he had seen to a town since he had thawed out.

Juan could see that woman, Piper, talking with a younger woman near the base of the stairs. The confrontation with the Mayor just inside the gate was interesting. The guy definitely sounded like a politician. He needed to look for this investigator Valentine, but first do that promised interview with Piper. He had no idea what she would ask, but he wouldn’t mind spending a little time with her too.

Well, Piper definitely acted like an investigative reporter. Her interview of him was something that put him in mind of the pieces he would have seen on news shows. Juan was interested in seeing what the article read like.

She had offered to come with him, as a sort of travel companion/guide. Not a bad idea really. Juan had been caught offguard a few times with the changes in the city while walking around and she would most likely have a good idea of who was operating where and what their agenda was.

At the start of the interview she had definitely been all business, a reporter on the scent of a story. As the interview went on, Juan could see little changes happening with her body language ... crossing her legs, leaning toward him, nibbling on her bottom lip occasionally. At the end she had sounded honestly sympathetic and wanting to comfort him for all that had happened.

They young girl had come through once, heading toward a partitioned area at the back of their home. Piper had made a comment to her about supper possibly being late, and the younger girl just replied something about noodles. Juan was not sure what that meant.

For now, he had reluctantly turned her down, and with a little direction from her, had headed to the detective’s office. Of course that had to be a complication too. The pretty receptionist there let him know that Nick was missing, last seen heading for some vault in the downtown area. Well, if he needed to go wandering through another vault, then Juan figured that is what he was going to be doing.

Juan couldn’t help but notice how good that receptionist looked. Based on the tone of her distress, he had to wonder if something was happening between her and this Nick Valentine. Not that that would make a difference to Juan. Given the chance, he was definitely going to see if she was up for some one on one with him later. On the plus side, he had noticed that just in the few minutes he had been in the office, she had started giving him a few longer glances, maybe starting to flush a bit. Promising start.

Leaving Fenway, he started moving in the direction that Ellie had given him. He moved like he was back in a combat zone. He could hear the sounds of gunfire, sometimes automatic, sometimes the louder booming of a high calibre rifle. The occasional explosion as well.

Downtown Boston was well and truly fucked. Between the rabid dogs wandering around, the huge insects inside some of the half boarded up buildings, the fucking zombie ghouls things that would spring up out the fucking rubble. Not to mention the animals in human form that would just arbitrarily shoot at you from upper floors on some of the buildings that were still in decent shape.

Juan was very happy to have Dogmeat with him during this little walk. More than once, the dog had given a warning growl, just loud enough to alert Juan that something was around and a quick glance at the dog would tell Juan which direction he was warning about. Add to the fact that somewhere Dogmeat had either been taught, or had an amazing instinct, to tackle opponents and hold them down. That was more than useful for Juan to get the time to put a couple bullets in their head.

By the time the two of them had gotten to the Common, where the vault is supposed to be below, Juan had already used half of the grenades he had started out with, and a good quarter of the ammo for the minigun. He had been getting into the habit of using the rocket hammer he had picked up off some supermutants, to try and save on the ammo. That had helped a lot on this stroll.

He found a couple signs at the entrance to the Common warning about going in, but couldn’t see anything dangerous after watching it for a good 5 minutes. He still moved in a combat stance as he walked past the state house.

Someone had stored barrels of radioactive crap in one of the stands in the Common? What the fuck were people thinking? He had seen how bad the Chinese treated their countryside and villagers with industrial waste, but seeing something like that in Boston Common ... was just fucking wrong.

The geiger counter in the power armor let him know how far to stay away to avoid any more contamination. As it was, Juan had realized he would need to do a regular regimen of radaway, probably on a weekly basis at the very least, to keep from having his teeth and hair fall out. Though since wearing the suit, it had become a lot less common for him to get any real exposure. Thank God for that.

Standing at the entrance to the subway station below the Common, Juan could tell that Dogmeat was on edge, something in the Common had him half crouched the whole time. He kept looking toward the small pond, so Juan figured whatever the threat was, was over that way. Not something Juan wanted to get into at this time. Maybe come back with the Fatboy once he finds a few more rounds for it. That would probably sort out the issue. For now, time to find a vault.

An android ... really? The detective is an android ... have to admit I did not see that coming. He has the best sounding artificial intelligence Juan had ever heard though. Right down to a local accent. That is impressive.

Juan walked back to Diamond City, going back to Nick’s office with him. Nick was curious where Juan had learned the information that had caused the crazy girlfriend to suddenly ‘see the light’ and head home. Juan could only tell him that there was an old woman in the settlement that seemed to have visions once she got stoned. Nick was not sure what to say to that.

The reception from the guards and people in Diamond City was interesting. They all seemed pretty happy to see him, not a lot seemed to know that he had been gone for a while, but all the comments were friendly and welcoming.

The reunion with Ellie was nice, there was definitely a tone of ... something between them. Nick wanted to go update his client as soon as possible, but he asked that Juan wait at the office and he would be back as soon as he could.

Juan had stepped out of the armour once he knew he would be staying in the office for now. Nick stepped out and Ellie offered to make some tea or coffee. Juan was just trying to stay out of her way, but it wasn’t more than a minute after he had stepped out of the armor that he noticed Ellie was giving him some subtle glances, trying not to be obvious.

She tried to make some small talk, asking about which of the settlements he was from, where he had come across the armor, just friendly curiousity. They were sitting on the chairs behind the front desk, using a second desk in the back to rest their coffee mugs on. Ellie was definitely making sure to look him in the eyes more now, occasionally flipping her hair while smiling at him.

Juan didn’t have any intention of getting in between whatever relationship Nick and Ellie had, but this was something that he couldn’t control. It has been about a day now since he spent some personal time with Scribe Haylen, and his urges were getting a little intense now.

Ellie made the first move. She got up from her chair, reached for her coffee mug and caught her foot on the leg of the desk, this caused her to stumble toward Juan who put out his hands to catch her, and she ended up sitting in his lap, leaning back against him. Juan had his arms around her, bracing her.

“My hero.” she said with a giggle, leaned her head back and gave him a kiss on the cheek. But then she seemed to pause, and Juan heard her give a sniff, followed by another deeper one. Then she twisted a bit in his lap and nuzzled her lips against his neck, he could feel her tongue run over the skin.

“Mmmm ... has anyone ever told you that you taste sexy before?” Ellie said softly.

Ellie did not wait for an answer before settling her lips back against the side of his throat and starting to nibble and suck teasingly. Ellie was shifting her ass on his lap, Juan was getting the impression that she was trying to encourage him to play too.

She had no idea he was more than willing to play. Juan’s cock was already mostly hard, pressing up against her ass as she wiggled. She had obviously noticed as she was moving her ass more along the thickening shaft than across his lap now.

“As much fun as this chair is, is there a couch or bed in here somewhere?” Juan asked her.

Ellie seemed determined to stay attached to his throat, she waved a hand toward the front of the office. Leaning around her, Juan saw the small hallway that he had not noticed previously. It headed behind the door to the office. He assumed that she was directing him toward either a bed of couch, so he stood up, carrying her in his arms as he did, and headed toward the hall.

The bed was visible once he stepped into the short hall. That was a nice sight, Juan was about ready to properly receive her thanks now. He walked over to the bed, and let her stand on her own once he was beside it.