
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13280424.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Fallout:_New_Vegas, Fallout_(Video_Games)
  Relationship:
      Craig_Boone/Female_Courier, Female_Courier/Vulpes_Inculta
  Additional Tags:
      Masturbation, Rape_Recovery, Sexual_Fantasy, Vaginal_Sex, Forbidden
      Attraction, Angst
  Series:
      Part 6 of Ad_meliora
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-01-05 Words: 1426
****** Down Time ******
by TinyFakeFanficRock
Summary
     Mel indulges herself -- rather more than she means to.
Notes
     Content note/clarification of tags: This story discusses masturbation
     as a method of helping oneself heal from sexual trauma, and Mel at
     one point has a brief but vivid memory of the first time Vulpes raped
     her, when she was seventeen. Proceed (or not) accordingly,
     neighbours.
When they reached Novac, they split up to run errands. Arcade traded with Ada
Straus for medical supplies and then went to visit his aunt. Veronica took the
worst-off of their gear, including Mel's armor, to Old Lady Gibson for repairs;
they'd probably talk tinkering shop for a while after that. Craig hauled a sack
of the guns they'd found up to Mel's hotel room, where he could repair them so
they'd be worth more when Cass sold them. At the moment Cass was renewing her
acquaintance with the traveling merchants by drinking whiskey with them not far
from where they'd tied up their pack Brahmins; she claimed it'd make them more
inclined to cut her a better deal once the trading started. Mel's job was to
buy groceries from Cliff and turn them into rations.
Ruby Nash's casserole was filling, kept well, and was well-liked by the group,
but once he'd learned the recipe, Arcade had pleaded for a non-venomous
version. Mel had considered a few possible alternatives and when she found
Cliff had just gotten in a surprisingly varied shipment of fresh food, she
decided to try them all.
She didn't see any reason to take up precious oven time in Novac's community
kitchen when she still had the key to the monster-woman's house and its full
complement of dishes, so Mel let herself in and started preparing the smaller
test versions. Three of her four potential recipes turned out well, so she
decided to make full-size versions of those. There was only room for two pans
in the stove at the same time, so she put in the first two, prepared the third,
and washed all the dishes she was finished using. A few doneness checks later,
she exchanged those two pans for the third.
The last casserole needed about forty minutes to bake. Slicing and packing up
the first two took five minutes; scrubbing their pans took another five. That
left her with half an hour of down time entirely to herself. She could -- and
should -- wash herself before returning, but that took maybe ten minutes if she
didn't rush. There was only one other thing she hadn't done in a while that she
really needed privacy for. And, well ... she had that here, didn't she?
Mel checked that the door was locked, then stripped off her pants and stretched
out on the bed, trying not to think about what kind of person she was for doing
this in the bed of a woman she'd helped to kill. It'd already taken her a long
time to get to the point of even considering it as a pleasant way to pass the
time. The first time she'd tried, she'd been unable to sleep in a shabby New
Reno motel. On the other side of the thin wall her bed was pushed up against,
two men were loudly having an amazing time together, and after a while, she
thought, Well, hell, everyone else in this town is getting off, might as well
try, too.
So she unbuttoned her pants, slowly slid her hand into her panties, and brushed
two fingertips against her clit. Her hips jerked up into the pressure
automatically -- just as they had that first night he explored her, searching
out the weak points he spent the next four years using against her. He'd
laughed, dipped his long, slim fingers into her, held them under her nose so
she could smell her involuntary arousal, and taunted her that her body knew he
owned her even if she hadn't accepted it yet. The memory was still so vivid
that she immediately fastened her pants, scrubbed her hands with the strongest-
smelling of the slivers of soap stuck to the sink, and read herself to sleep
instead.
It had been almost a year before she touched herself again, and when she did,
there were many false starts that ended with her hating herself for enjoying
the same movements he had once used on her. But eventually she found solace in
being able to control what happened, the speed and the pressure and whether it
was happening at all. When she finally managed to bring herself to climax, she
felt like she'd taken back a part of herself.
Fantasies came later still, only about two years ago. Now when Mel saw to these
needs, she constructed a lover in her mind's eye, a new one every time. It
wouldn't do to get attached to a particular appearance in case she happened to
meet such a man in reality. Then she might be tempted to get close, and
closeness could be deadly -- for her or for any lover she took.
In the privacy of her own head, however, she could fuck anyone she wanted, any
way she wanted. Mel exhaled, slid her hand into her panties, and started to
imagine the man she wanted today. He was always broad and muscular to contrast
with Kit and her husband's lean, lithe builds, but the other details had to
vary. So light-skinned for once, with his head shaved; the last few had been
long-haired, and she needed to stop before she developed a type.
She imagined them already naked together, her sitting in his lap while they
kissed, his body hard against her -- particularly in one place -- but his
touches soft. He cradled the back of her head in one hand while the other
rubbed her back. After a few more long, tender kisses, he turned her so she
faced away, set his lips against her neck, and gently nudged her legs apart
from below with his own.
Mel let out a low, hissing breath and circled her clit with two fingers,
imagining her lover's thick, callused fingers there instead as his tongue
traced curves on her neck that had her arching into his touch. His free hand
found her breast and squeezed her nipple just right; in response she let her
head loll back on his shoulder. Sometimes her lovers talked to her, whispered
their desires in her ear, but this one was silent, totally focused on her
reactions as he switched to the other nipple and teased two fingers around her
entrance. He had her spread, soaked, and spellbound, but still, she felt
utterly safe in his arms.
This particular fantasy lover seemed familiar; perhaps she was subconsciously
borrowing from men she'd liked in the past. Maybe the bartender in Anza-Borrego
with the kind eyes. Analyze this later, she told herself irritably, and moved
her fingers down to gather more moisture from her entrance before returning
them to her clit.
He clearly enjoyed driving her wild with these strokes and kisses, but when she
moaned desperately, "Oh, God, please," and bucked against him, he entered her
immediately instead of making her keep begging. He kept his fingers in place
between her legs and used his other arm to press her against his broad chest
while she rocked her hips atop him. At this angle, his thick cock hit the sweet
spot just behind her clit, and he was still kissing her neck while they fucked
-- fuck -- fuck --
Mel pressed her fingers down, legs stiffening and body bowing upward as she
came hard, gasping. Damn, that was a good one. She lay sprawled and panting for
a minute or so more, then rose, washed, and dressed, all the while trying to
work out what about that fantasy had made it so compelling. Not their position
-- it was one she liked thinking about, but she'd never reacted quite like that
to it before. She hadn't imagined him touching her in any new way, either,
which left ... something about the man himself? She had thought him familiar,
even though the features she'd picked today weren't her favorites.
She was still turning it over at sundown when she returned to her room to
rendezvous with the others. When she saw the glow of a cigarette on the
balcony, it hit her: The fantasy lover she'd created this time very much
resembled Craig. Shit.
The realization had her flattening herself against the far wall of the nearest
house, as if once he saw her he would know what she'd been doing -- what she'd
been thinking. God, he trusted her -- well, as much as he trusted anyone -- and
she was spending her down time fantasizing about -- No. She hadn't been
thinking anything specifically about him, and even if she had, it was an
impossibility. A moment of her pleasure was not worth the man's life. That was
that. This could never happen again.
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