Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

one for the road	By : Ahnkitomi Category: +A through F > Far Cry Series Views: 2183 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit on this piece of fiction, and Far Cry 3 belongs to other parties. All that's mine is my original character and the order in which the words are arranged.

Chapter List
- 1-one for the road
- 1
A/N:
Hooooooooolyyyyyyy fuuuuuuuck michael mando is a life ruiner
This is an experimental piece. A lot of the fanfiction involving Vaas in here is right into his Far Cry 3 era hostility and instability. Not that that isn't a part of the character we all know and love - and not that it necessarily won't factor into this story, if I choose to continue it - but I thought it would be interesting to see him interact with someone lulled, as it were, into complacency by ignorance.
I'm not entirely sure about the tags yet - it depends how far and where I take the story. These are my best guess yet for the next chapter(s).
This is super experimental and nervous, so I hope you like it!

.
Anita had gotten used to the idea that she was going to see illegal activity in her place of work five weeks into the job.
It wasn't a nice bar. Even if it had been in a nice town, it wouldn't have been a nice bar. Unsubtly armed men walked in and out of the doors regularly, keeping it clean was a constant task that thankfully distracted her from the buzz of conversation around her, and the honest-to-god jukebox was so unreliable the most constant sound was insects dying in the sullen yellow glow of the lamps outside. At first she'd been shaken, unnerved by it, like she was about everything in her graceless new life. She'd kept her head down, jumped at loud noises, and crossed herself - a habit she thought she'd left behind with her abuelita's funeral - every time someone new came in. She'd thought that the people who placed her here had lost their fucking minds.
But she'd gotten used to it. The roughness was reassuring here, and the bitter little hole in the wall had turned into home. A quiet, shadow-choked, sticky home, but a place she knew was safe.
Besides, this piss poor little town was a waystation, not a hub of activity. Men with guns came in, but almost never used them. People came in tired, flat footed, wanting to drink and sleep and in the morning move on.
It was maybe eleven in the morning on a Tuesday when he first walked into her bar. She was pouring a shot of whiskey into a soot-stained hand and when the door banged open the light pierced the dim interior like a glancing blow.
Marco didn't even glance up from his drink, just tugged it to his chest. It was the end of a work shift for him, and he'd be staggering off to bed soon; he came in like clockwork, a reassuring regular who never asked her questions. She clasped his wrist briefly and silently, earning herself a haggard smile - he was two years younger than she was, even though he looked about fifteen years older - and turned toward the new arrivals.
A load of passengers off the ferry, she surmised. Anita glanced over to Fernanda, who had been leaning against the wall fanning herself, it was so empty. Their waitress nodded back, impartially friendly as ever, and waited until the people who wanted tables settled.
Only three of the drifters bellied up to her bar. One wore a hat pulled down low over her voice and ordered scotch, the second was a wire-thin white man with glasses who wanted the cheapest beer she had, and the third paused with a slow, thin smile panned over the bar and didn't speak to her at all for a long, thoughtful moment.
She'd never seen anyone quite like him walk up to her bar. Sweat glistened on golden skin, testimony to the baking sun outside. He wore a raggedly sleeveless red shirt and dirt smeared camouflage pants, and when he slung himself onto her bar stool with a coiled, muscular grace the musk of sweat and woodsmoke wafted across at her.
Dark, dancing eyes stabbed into her. It was like a big cat had come in, making everyone else just a little quieter and tenser and more careful. The broad, angled cheekbones and carven mouth were a little feline themselves. He had a razor's edge grin that raised the hair on the back of her neck, but it was impatient - there and gone - and then he just dug out a crumpled hundred dollar bill and pointed at the bottle he wanted.
She served everyone at the bar quickly. Orders were usually simple; the only time she had an opportunity to make cocktails around here was after hours, the few times Fernanda and she spoke, sitting at the edge of the bar tossing together ridiculous fruity drinks and sipping with their pinky fingers raised. They never talked outside of that laughing hour, but Anita respected Fernanda's silence just as she kept hers.
A headache gently throbbed at her temples. It was going to be a long afternoon, she thought, returning to cleaning the last batch of dirty glasses Fernanda had brought. They served limited food, and she thought the man in the red shirt might place an order since he was so visibly settling in for the long hall, but he didn't. Just ran one blunt fingertip in circles around the lip of his glass. His fingers looked dirty, wrapped in bandages, and his knuckles were scraped but his big hands twisted the glass with a magician's deftness, flicking it from hand to hand.
When his hands stilled she waited a beat before her eyes shot up to his. She had been staring at him, she realized, and she felt the blood flush to her cheeks. The look he gave her was flat and cutting, a wall of prickling hostility that made her flinch back.
She almost dropped the glass in her hands. Fumbling with sticky fingers, she managed to tighten her grasp in time, but she'd lost the washcloth.
"See something you fucking like, hermana?" he spoke almost in a whisper, in a rubbed-raw hiss of sound. He had a smile thin as a snake's.
Anita looked away. Bad idea, she thought, a cold sweat threatening to break out over her shoulder. This is BAD IDEA wrapped in living breathing human form. She swapped out for a clean cloth, tossed the dirty one in the bin, and finished the glass with mechanical movement. He might not have been watching her, but she could have sworn she felt his gaze burning into the side of her face. She avoided looking up with an almost superstitious fervour.
She set aside the glass and reached for the next. The sensation faded.
A couple of tired men at the tables were nonetheless already rowdy. Fernanda was an old pro at avoiding wandering hands, and one of them - five O'clock stubble on his jaw, white guy with a hangover squint and two friends almost visibly goading him - let his wandering gaze land on Anita instead.
She suppressed a sigh and focused on her work. It wasn't going to get him to go away if he was determined enough to head up to the bar, but maybe he'd stay at his chair and wait for his drink. Fernanda was busy talking to Miguel, but Anita knew better than to think there was much the other woman could have done to fob him off.
There were times when being the bartender in this place was great. It was a forgotten hole to crawl into, never to be retrieved. It was quiet, and safe, and familiar. And there were times when working in a bar still, even in the ass end of nowhere in a place you knew almost every person in town, was a pain in the ass for a woman.
Dirty hands slapped down on her freshly wiped bar. Anita stared dully at them, taking in the grime under the ragged fingernails and the scabbed knuckles, the too-short sleeves. Just looking at them, she might think he was one of her friendly regulars, not someone who was about to make her day a lot more unpleasant.
"Hey, sweetheart," he said in English in a rusty croon. "How 'bout you? You on the menu?"
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Perhaps he was drunk already, he and his buddies passing a flask around on the rickety bus the ferry man drove to town. "No, señor," she replied, carefully toneless. "Can I get you a drink?"
He glanced over his shoulder, received muted encouragement, returned his gaze to her. "A tall drink of water, maybe," he said, unsubtly focusing on her ass. Anita glanced down the counter, seeing Fernanda duck back into the bar proper and pause.
"Sir," Fernanda begun.
He swiped a hand at her, upper lip curling. "Having a conversation here," he said. He must have been one of the ways to try a go at Fernanda and be deftly rebuffed - his tone was too ugly for anything else. "Listen," he said, refocusing on Anita, and then outright reaching across the counter for her.
She wasn't sure what she would have done. She didn't have to find out. A hand out of nowhere materialized on his wrist.
"Mind your fucking manners." She and the drinker both stared in mutual motionless surprise at the strong brown fingers wrapped around his arm. But not for long; with a careless flick of his hand, the man in red flung the man's arm backwards and away from the bar. "I'm trying to have a drink."
The drunk guy yanked at his collar, then rubbed his elbow. Blood was rising to his face, a drunk and truculent fury swimming up. The man in red smiled again - just a hint of it, eyes still on his drink, and all the hairs on the back of Anita's neck rose up. Her people sense jangled, giving her answers that seemed discordant; no, he wasn't significantly more pissed off than he'd been a minute ago, yes, he was looking for blood. He was using this guy's behaviour as an excuse. She cast a glance at the drunk guy's table, unable to think of any other option. It wasn't like they had a bouncer, so maybe one of his friends was a little less drunk or a little more sensible.
It took a second, but she managed to get the tallest guy to focus on her. For a second he looked indifferent to her alarm - not fucking surprising - but she slid her eyes pointedly to the man in red. She could tell the instant the gun at his waist and their drunk friend's rising voice registered, and then he was up off his chair in a flash.
"I was just talking to the lady," the guy said, slurring a little, saying 'lady' the way a more honest man would say 'bitch.' The guy in red straightened - she watched muscles bunch and relax in his shoulders and arms with helpless fascination - and turned, the tiny smile not changing.
Then the friend was there, taking the drunk guy's shoulders, urging him back to his seat. "Sorry, sorry," he said muttering, keeping his eyes down like he was trying to avoid antagonizing a wolf.
The guy in red drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the bar, watching them go like he was considering pursuit. Anita shivered and refilled his drink.
That made his gaze flash back to her. "You get the rescue effort going for that sadsack little amigo?" he asked.
Anita capped the bottle and focused on his cheekbone instead of meeting those wide, hypnotic eyes. "I like to avoid bloodshed in my bar," she heard herself say quietly. He laughed under his breath in response. He didn't sound like he was actually pleased, but after a second's contemplation he chewed on his lower lip and settled back over his drink.
"Thanks," she said anyway. He didn't respond.
Anita tried not to let her sigh of relief be too loud.
The man who wanted the cheap beer wanted more. And more. It entertained her, at least, passing new bottles into his hands. He also wanted to talk. And talk, and talk. It was strange because she'd gotten used to the exhausted silence of her usual patrons, and worrying because she thought his nerves meant he was coming here - maybe to meet someone dangerous, maybe to do something dangerous, it wasn't the first time and he looked like the kind of raw white guy that might be panicking - for something other than just drinks.
"Hell of a flight," he said, finishing up his introductions and wiping his forehead. He smiled with his lips clamped closed, nervously. Anita began carefully wiping the bartop, humming in acknowledgement. "Hell of a drive," he added. She started to ease into the rhythm of his uneasy chatter, nodding or tossing in a brief remark. She didn't intrude; he was unreeling, and any genuine input would disconcert him. She could spot it from a mile away.
Time ticked by. Marco left. Fernanda moved between tables, stifling a yawn behind her hand and frowning at her chipped nail polish. The man in the hat cradled the remains of his scotch, head sinking low. The diners and drinkers at the tables ate and drank and filtered away toward the hotel across the street, leaving only a handful of stragglers behind.
During every passing minute, she felt so acutely atuned to the man sitting silently at the stool that she almost tracked his every breath.
And he was getting pissed.
He was doing a pretty good go of it, but it wasn't a calm, contained anger. It stayed under a glassy shell of seeming impassivity, but it was just waiting, not truly composed. And she wasn't eager to see it erupt.
The man in glasses - Bruno, he told her, fiddling with his collar - kept on talking. He paused to eat when she offered him a menu again; banned salsa, ordered a plain burrito, and still coughed, grimaced, and snapped at her and Fernanda as he sent it back to the kitchen. It was just the three of them - Fernanda, Anita and Miguel - and Anita could hear Fernanda through the window, her muffled voice appeasing the cook's indignation.
A couple of the other customers paid enough attention to give the man bored, amused, 'ah, tourists' stares. Anita rubbed at the back of her neck and decided to shelve it under 'things that made the day less boring', but she couldn't stop her eyes from sneaking sideways to the man in red.
It wasn't fair. She should have been able to ignore him. All he was wearing was a casually holstered handgun, for fuck's sake. She couldn't explain it - he just...took up space.
And he just looked bored by Bruno's nervous antics. A heavy lidded glance slipped in the man's direction - but then it flashed up to look onto hers, freezing her in place.
This time he fully smiled at her, but it was a mean smile. One she definitely couldn't trust, and didn't. "Fill me up," he said, and she scooped up the bottle and moved hastily to obey.
When she was leaning forward he tipped his head up suddenly, cocking it to the side. His mohawk was ruffled like he'd run his hand through it when she wasn't looking, and he had surprisingly light eyes, almost amber. "That guy's a talker," he said. The quicksilver grin came again, reckless and dizzying, like a glass of champagne downed quickly enough to make you light headed. "You want me to break his arm, give you some peace?"
The request was so absurd that she smiled involuntarily, incredulous. That might have been a mistake. The guy's grin bloomed into a parody of sweetness, genuine pleasure, eyes crinkling. His mouth was cut in simultaneously stark and luxurious lines, the thin upper lip and lush bottom lip, and her eyes trailed down involuntarily and watched it curl further.
"Um," Anita said. "Thanks, but no." This is fucking bad news, she hissed in her head, but he jerked his chin up and she realized she was still leaned forward, over the counter. She tipped the bottle up again hastily so the glass didn't get too full and retreated.
He was laughing at her. She could see that. His attention had briefly swung to her, from whatever inner rage he was stewing in, and that flash of focus had landed on her skin and lingered like a swipe of honey.
Anita cleared her throat and turned away, grateful accepting the dishes Miguel shoved through the window. Her glasses-wearing tourist begrudgingly accepted them and dug in, apparently finding the food satisfactory this time. The man in red had stopped paying attention to her again, only signalling for another refill and this time settling in to nurse it.
It was only twenty minutes before two men in suits came in to talk to Bruno. Something unravelled between her shoulderblades when she saw them. She had started to glance between the two waiting men, wondering if something was up. Bruno hustled unsubtly off his stool, leaving the remains of his food, and they all went to a booth.
She must have sighed a little too audibly. The man in red laughed low in his throat, a jungle-cat purr. Anita jumped guiltily. "About time, hunh?" he asked, but his lips were twisting into a sneer like seeing Bruno's business happening was annoying him.
Anita gave an embarrassed, dismissive shrug and turned away. The fans turned ineffectually above their heads, stirring the air, and Fernanda visited the booth and came back mouthing orders to her.
"I'm hungry as hell," she said to Anita in Spanish, pausing by the counter.
Anita nodded toward the back. "Eat the plate that - Bruno sent back." She almost said dipshit, but querulous Bruno might speak Spanish, or his associates, and besides. It was unprofessional. Annoyed, but unprofessional. "He only took one forkful."
Fernanda sighed. "Miguel will cry and insist on making me something with flavour."
Anita grinned, the thought of the cook's grumbling lightening her mood. "He gets bored back there. Indulge him."
"I'm on the job." Fernanda shook her head. "I'll take my break soon, yeah?"
"Yeah. Give that burrito to Samson and his crowd, then."
Fernanda nodded and vanished into the back, emerging a moment later with ice water. Anita rubbed absently at the sweat trickling down the back of her neck and returned to checking her cooler instead. The one time Bruno's voice rose slightly, he was sharply hushed.
They cleaned up. A small bag passed between their hands. Bruno left, and the men in suits ate with every evidence of enjoyment. The man in red had stopped asking for refills, and she didn't have the nerve to ask. He chewed on his fingertips like a child instead, brow furrowed. By the time last call rolled around, he had his head down sleepily on his arms.
She didn't know what demon took ahold of her. She wiped her hands on her towel and found herself walking forward, light-footed, toward him.
When she stopped in front of him, his face angled up. His eyes were glittering with rage, and Anita swallowed. "It's about closing time," she said softly, keeping her tone friendly. "If you think your friend's gonna show up, you could stick around while I clean up."
What the hell was she thinking?
His face went blank and slack for a moment and he slowly swivelled his head to look at her from a curious angle. "That's real sweet of you," he said. "But that fucker isn't coming, I get that. Just waitin' for my ride."
"Oh." Anita thought about a range of responses. "Sorry about that," she said finally. "You want another drink?"
He straightened fully with a sigh, body uncurling up from her counter. She waited for his answer through a leisurely cracking of his neck and rolling of his shoulders, and then he swept that carnivorous gaze all around the room. Just the man with the scotch left, snoring. Fernanda was on smoke break, and Michael had closed up an hour ago.
"Who the hell is Samson?" he asked, and she gaped at him for a moment in honest confusion.
"He's a dog," she said finally, mouth moving on automatic. "A three legged stray who hangs around the back door. We built him a little fenced area so he doesn't wander off into the..." She was babbling. Anita reigned herself in, biting hard into her lower lip. "You were listening to that, hunh?"
"No one else making conversation around here," he said.
She wiped her hands on her apron again. At the way a tiny smile played around his mouth she realized it was probably too obviously a nervous gesture, and to cover it up she defiantly stuck out her hand. "I'm Anita."
Anita didn't know how to read him. He kept looked at her with that half smile, head still tilted. The look in his eyes had gone murky and unreadable. With almost exaggerated, theatrical care he reached over his glass and took her hand.
He had a firm grip and warm, callused skin. Anita felt the blood flush to her face. Her brown skin didn't show it, but somehow he smiled at her like he knew. "Vaas," he said. "You been here a while?"
"A couple years."
"Haven't had much call to wander over here. Charming little shithole." He drank, licked his lips and dragged the heavy lower lip into his mouth. Anita took in a shaky breath and glanced to the side. The clock had officially moved past closing time. She didn't have a lot of call for 2AM partyers in this place.
He pushed his glass at her. Anita raised an eyebrow, but she had offered, and it hadn't been explicitly contingent on a meeting. "Drink with me," he said as she moved to refill the glass.
"I'm not off yet," she said automatically. She doubted Fernanda was going to come drink with her tonight. Really all she had to do was roust the snorer and clean up.
"Hey, 'ey, you going to make me drink alone?" His smile took a shattered-glass edge, light spinning off to freeze her in place. "That would be fuckin' rude. Drink up." He pulled out another twenty. "I'll buy."
Bad idea, her mind whispered at her again. But he loomed at her bar, even draped lazily against the wood, golden and promising in the low light. It had been two years since she'd had sex and all of a sudden her palms were itching for the warm broad sweep of his shoulders.
And there shouldn't be any danger in him - or, stupid way to put it, rather there shouldn't be any danger that wasn't just him, in him, his blunt hands and the gun at his hip. He was just waiting for his ride. She'd never seen him before, and chances seemed good she'd never see him again.
"All right," she said, and he grinned wider. "But you have to drink with me, and you have to have what I'm having."
"You think you gotta put conditions on that?" he asked. "Now I'm curious. What are you planning to do with me?"
"Nobody wants cocktails around here," she said, ducking for her cooler a little too hastily. What are you going to do with me? The fire of that thought crept down to her breasts and to nestle between her legs. "It's going to be sweet," she warned. She popped her head up again, lemon and maraschino jar in hand, and he dipped his blunt fingertips into the dregs in his old glass and licked them off with a flash of pink tongue.
Her thighs clenched.
He had such a fucking carnivorous grin. "Hit me with your best shot," he said, and chuckled at his own pun.
Anita made them aviators, unable to resist showing off a little, topping them off with deft slips of her wrist and settling the bottle back down. He stole his drink away before she was finished, and she dropped a maraschino cherry in her own and raised her eyebrows daringly at him.
He considered the fruit and then crooked two fingers, his eyes warm with approval. "Go on," he said.
Anita reached over and let it drop, the stem spinning in the blue liquid. When she went to draw her arm back, he seized it.
She jumped. His fingertips scraped against the tender inside of her wrist. He drew her forward, tugging her body out against the counter, the stretch of her arm pressing her breasts against her T-shirt. His eyes swept down her body like a possessive hand.
It should have been way too much, that possessive flash, that casual covetuousness. Sure, guys looking at her like walking T&A wasn't too new, but there more to it than that. More like somebody measuring the length of her veins rather than simply her cup size. He looked like a guy who got what he wanted deciding what he wanted. And she was pretty sure it was sex.
It was dangerous as hell, genuinely dangerous edging on scary. Anita felt her pulse beat like a fist in her throat. She felt luminous, like her skin was pulled tight and lantern-paper-thin over her heated flesh. He put her fingers messily to his lips and sucked them into his mouth.
The breath cut out of her in a gasp like she'd been gut-punched.
Vaas smiled. His lips curled away from sharp white teeth like a little boy hearing he got two birthdays in one year. She felt the pressure of those teeth on her finger, a tiny pinch of pain.
"How about that," he mused. "Clean up, hermana. Then we'll drink - to long days with sweet rewards."
- 1
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

one for the road