Characters: Arcade, f!Courier, Rex Pairings: None Kink: Rescue Relationship: Gen Summary: She had a habit of saving him. Then one day he returned the favor.
(Authoranon says: This is a little fluffy…but I think that’s what you were asking for? Anyways, I’d like to think this turned out okay and kinda different than my normal stuff. Hope it's everything you wanted!)
There had never been anything short of immediate understanding and mutual acknowledgement between them. He was thirty-something and she was barely a woman, but in the end that had mattered little when it came to Wasteland roving. He’d hitched his boredom to her wandering star, and together they’d skipped away from the neon of the world for a while. Then, their momentary universe became different and new and infinitely daunting, if only for a time.
There was nothing about it he regretted.
She never asked much of him, never questioned his snarky comments but laced them with more of her own. The Courier’s wit was quick, and her rifle was swifter, and it made up for all of his combat failings and made him feel awkward and young all over again.
He would nervously tell her that perhaps, maybe, what they were doing would only end in pain, yet she never listened. Her fists connected with cazadores and Chem Fiends, and she didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘unlikely to succeed’. She laughed quietly but never at anything stupid that he did (unless they could both find it funny), even though he caught himself sometimes snickering at her. Her questions to him were always endless but never annoyingly repetitive, even when his venom was so easily accessed by everyone else that he knew. Her cooking, it was such a rapturous surprise that he thought several times it would kill him, for she had a habit of making more than enough and then telling him he was free to finish the rest. He could not refuse her.
There were sharp edges about her, like all Mojave beasts, but they were blunted by his presence, and by that fuzzball of a cyberdog she never let out of her sight. He caught her talking to the dog often, and Rex would listen, or look like he was listening, and he would see her face soften. There was a hidden part of her beneath the grime and the leather that burned so brightly when she was alone and she felt there was no need to guard her expression. She never let anyone else see it, but it was intriguing to him.
He remembered when he had found out she couldn’t read. Oh, sure, she had memorized place names by rote and she had this funny little ability that if she told herself the name of a courier destination aloud, thrice, she would never forget it until the package was there. But when she handed him the same book a second time one afternoon, even after he had mentioned the title to her, first absentmindedly then slightly sarcastically, he’d realized, and then felt abhorrent when he saw the look of ashamed defeat on her face.
It was so rare, and it was so earnest, that it hurt, that look. He’d taught her as much as he possibly could about reading and writing as the days stretched into weeks and they saved their small world from itself. As a result she had brought him more books whenever she was out in the Mojave, until the small room in Novac was heaped with piles of them that sometimes spilled under the bed and every available surface contained at least one. It wasn’t love that made her do this, well, not romantic love, anyways. It was a sort of bold declaration, that he was her companion, her friend, and she chose to find him all of the things that he delighted in because he helped her. And some part of him, in a warm, slowly-unfurling latitude, cared for her more with each one delivered in confusing ways, ways that were not cold and defensive and fearful of her opinion.
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timeasmymeasure
Doors Unlocked and Open (1/?)
Date: 2012-10-19 06:40 am (UTC)Pairings: None
Kink: Rescue
Relationship: Gen
Summary: She had a habit of saving him. Then one day he returned the favor.
(Authoranon says: This is a little fluffy…but I think that’s what you were asking for? Anyways, I’d like to think this turned out okay and kinda different than my normal stuff. Hope it's everything you wanted!)
There had never been anything short of immediate understanding and mutual acknowledgement between them. He was thirty-something and she was barely a woman, but in the end that had mattered little when it came to Wasteland roving. He’d hitched his boredom to her wandering star, and together they’d skipped away from the neon of the world for a while. Then, their momentary universe became different and new and infinitely daunting, if only for a time.
There was nothing about it he regretted.
She never asked much of him, never questioned his snarky comments but laced them with more of her own. The Courier’s wit was quick, and her rifle was swifter, and it made up for all of his combat failings and made him feel awkward and young all over again.
He would nervously tell her that perhaps, maybe, what they were doing would only end in pain, yet she never listened. Her fists connected with cazadores and Chem Fiends, and she didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘unlikely to succeed’. She laughed quietly but never at anything stupid that he did (unless they could both find it funny), even though he caught himself sometimes snickering at her. Her questions to him were always endless but never annoyingly repetitive, even when his venom was so easily accessed by everyone else that he knew. Her cooking, it was such a rapturous surprise that he thought several times it would kill him, for she had a habit of making more than enough and then telling him he was free to finish the rest. He could not refuse her.
There were sharp edges about her, like all Mojave beasts, but they were blunted by his presence, and by that fuzzball of a cyberdog she never let out of her sight. He caught her talking to the dog often, and Rex would listen, or look like he was listening, and he would see her face soften. There was a hidden part of her beneath the grime and the leather that burned so brightly when she was alone and she felt there was no need to guard her expression. She never let anyone else see it, but it was intriguing to him.
He remembered when he had found out she couldn’t read. Oh, sure, she had memorized place names by rote and she had this funny little ability that if she told herself the name of a courier destination aloud, thrice, she would never forget it until the package was there. But when she handed him the same book a second time one afternoon, even after he had mentioned the title to her, first absentmindedly then slightly sarcastically, he’d realized, and then felt abhorrent when he saw the look of ashamed defeat on her face.
It was so rare, and it was so earnest, that it hurt, that look. He’d taught her as much as he possibly could about reading and writing as the days stretched into weeks and they saved their small world from itself. As a result she had brought him more books whenever she was out in the Mojave, until the small room in Novac was heaped with piles of them that sometimes spilled under the bed and every available surface contained at least one. It wasn’t love that made her do this, well, not romantic love, anyways. It was a sort of bold declaration, that he was her companion, her friend, and she chose to find him all of the things that he delighted in because he helped her. And some part of him, in a warm, slowly-unfurling latitude, cared for her more with each one delivered in confusing ways, ways that were not cold and defensive and fearful of her opinion.