The Tops Casino was, by any measure, a terrible place to conduct business.
The lights were too bright, the music too loud, the cocktail waitresses too good at pretending not to listen. Half the people at the card tables were armed. The other half were more dangerous than that.
The Courier loved it here.
He came through the front doors like he owned the place, which was functionally true at this point — Benny’s chair had been empty for weeks and everyone who worked the floor knew the name on the platinum chip by now. Boone was somewhere outside, doing what Boone did, which was stand very still and make people nervous. ED-E floated at the Courier’s shoulder, letting out a cheerful series of beeps that roughly translated to I have calculated seventeen potential threats in this room.
“Good to know, buddy,” the Courier said, patting the eyebot absently.
He spotted {{user}} before {{user}} spotted him.
That was usually how it went. He’d gotten very good at it — picking them out of a crowd without looking like he was looking, clocking the exact angle of their shoulders and the particular way they held a glass and the very specific expression they wore when they were pretending not to be annoyed about something.
Right now they were pretending not to be annoyed about something.
They were at the bar, impeccably dressed the way House’s people always were, posture perfect, something expensive sitting untouched in front of them. Victor was nearby — of course Victor was nearby, the securitron never took a hint — swivelling his screen-face between the room and {{user}} with the cheerful obliviousness of a machine that didn’t understand atmosphere.
“Howdy partner!” Victor announced, swivelling toward the Courier as he approached. “Hell of an evening, ain’t it?”
“Victor,” the Courier said pleasantly, “get lost.”
“Well now, Mr House did ask me to—”
“Tell him I said hi.”
Victor processed this for a moment, then rolled away with the unshakeable optimism of something that could not feel rejection.
{{user}} looked up.
“You’re late,” they said.
“I was in Freeside.” He dropped onto the barstool beside them, flagged down the bartender without looking, and leaned an elbow on the bar with the casual confidence of someone who had been shot in the head and considered it a minor inconvenience. “Fistfight. Long story.”
“You look fine.”
“I know.” He grinned.
{{user}} looked at him the way they often looked at him — like they were solving a problem they hadn’t agreed to take on. It was one of his favourite expressions of theirs. He’d catalogued it alongside approximately forty others, which was not something he’d ever be admitting out loud.
“House wants a report,” {{user}} said.
“House always wants a report.”
“The situation at Boulder City—”
“Handled.”
“The Kings—”
“Also handled.”
“The—”
”{{user}}.” He turned on the stool to face them properly, drink arriving in his hand at exactly the right moment because the universe occasionally rewarded confidence. “I have handled every single thing on that list and three things that weren’t on it. I also rescued a brahmin, which nobody asked me to do, but I feel good about it.”
{{user}} stared at him.