falloutkinkmeme_backup | Fallout Kink Meme Part IV: Closed to prompts, open for fills.

Characters: F!Courier, Vulpes Inculta.

Pairings: Vulpes/F!Courier.

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Cuddling.

Summary: The Courier finds solace in an unexpected place.

I’m not sure this is what you wanted, OP, but I hope you like it!

Residing in the locked box under Wren’s bed back at what used to be the Ultra-Luxe, is a book. Although its main purpose is to look inconspicuous and hide her stash of Mentats (which she is sure would land her a very slow and very painful death if discovered), occasionally the Courier will leaf through the yellow, dog-eared pages to hunt down and memorise the definition of an unfamiliar word that she has come across.

It is around 10.42 PM – whilst attempting to towel herself off with her balled-up shirt – when Wren decides that her dictionary’s entry for ‘Reconnaissance’ is very, very wrong.

It should read: ‘Being sent into the middle of the Mojave desert with binoculars instead of decent weaponry’, or, ‘A fantastic way to get oneself killed’; because ‘A preliminary survey to gain information for military or medical purposes’ sounds tidy and organised, and doesn’t mention ending up in a damp, pitiful excuse for a cave after being chased by Cazadors.

Rubbing the now-damp shirt over her cropped brown hair, she silently damns Caesar with every term she can think of. Her skin is still tingling slightly, and she isn’t sure whether it’s a result of the homemade soap, or the frigid – and probably marginally irradiated – water she rinsed it off with. This isn’t a job for her. This is a job for scouts, or explorers, or expendable recruits lacking both a sense of self-preservation and a copy of ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ which they are only half-way through reading; because damn it, she refuses to be mutilated by giant insects before finding out whether John Horner stole the Blue Carbuncle.

Wren sighs, flicking her bangs out of her eyes, and making a mental note to get a haircut when they get back. If they get back, that is.

Suppressing a shudder – and being unsure as to whether it is due to the cold air on her exposed skin, or the muffled scratching noises coming from the direction of the door – she heads back to the other end of the cave. Vulpes is fast asleep in his bedroll. Bastard. She resists the urge to kick him out of spite as she settles down into her own glorified potato sack. Knowing that his ability to fall asleep so easily is probably due to years of harsh Legion training doesn’t make it any less irritating; especially when she has a draught on her neck and something digging into her back whichever way she turns. Though it seems trivial to miss the Lucky 38 for its fluffy pillows and thick mattresses, she can’t help the slight pang of longing that stirs in her chest. She misses the casino’s previous occupants even more, but she shuts that line of thought off before it can start. Every time she thinks about what happened beneath that weather station she feels physically sick, and sleep will be an elusive target as it is.

Courier Six sighs and counts Bighorners until she can catch the train to oblivion.

When sleep finally washes over her, it is short and fitful. Her dreams are laced with fire, but upon flinching awake, she is clammy and trembling. Arrhythmic, shuddering breaths are all she can hear over the blood thrumming in her ears.

Cook-Cook’s face, twisted in perverse glee as he runs towards her; white teeth gleaming as the flames begin to spark and lick.

The wheezing, croaking rasp coming from the shell once called Robert House. The veins pressing desperately at the surface of his translucent skin – as if trying to escape their 200-year prison. The dark eyes locked onto hers, refusing to acknowledge the barrel of the pistol in front of them. Those eyes were already dead.

Glass shatters; metal screeches. So much noise. Blinding white burns her eyes shut. Heat scrapes against her skin; her ears are ringing, is someone screaming? Knees give way; she sinks to the floor. Tells herself that it’s all for the best, the NCR didn’t deserve the monorail; this is better for everyone, no-one gets hurt. Now get to your feet and get out. She plasters on a shocked expression – not that it’s that hard – and manages to hold it together long enough to stagger out of McCarran without anyone following. Some things are unavoidable.

A breeze caresses her neck as she reaches for the beret. A brow furrows. The questions are cut off before they can start; a sharp crack, and then deafening silence. There is something wet on her face and in her hair and on her clothes and all she can see and smell and taste is red and –

Breathe.

She presses her palms to her temples. Maybe the pressure will keep her head from splitting apart. Inhale. Count to three. Exhale. Her hands won’t stop fucking shaking. She pulls her knees up to rest her forehead against them. Focus on the faint blue-green glow – remember that little night-light mum gave them when they were little? Inhale. Dad plugged it into a fission battery. Exhale. Back when she was scared of the dark. Inhale. Sometimes she isn’t sure if that fear ever truly left. Exhale.

Fingertips brush over the thin line of a scar, and suddenly there is sand in her mouth and a gun in her face. New Vegas flickers on the horizon: a glittering utopia that she’ll never reach. ‘Sorry pussycat.’ The moonlight shines on his polished half-smile. He isn’t sorry at all. ‘Just an 18-karat run of bad luck, dig?’

She is on her feet before she realises, her would-be executioner’s parting words still ringing in her ears. Chilled air breezes past, and the hairs on her arms stand on end. A tank-top and shorts are not meant for desert nights.

She swallows; chastises herself for being so childish. She is Courier Number Six. She crawled out of her own grave. She talked Oliver into turning tail at the Dam. She shook hands with the Legate. It’s ridiculous to be scared now, without reason.

There is a faint noise outside – a gunshot – and she moves without thinking, darting across the floor and slipping between the thin sheets with her pulse far quicker than it should be. She lies still, her eyes struggling to adjust to the room’s murky depths. She is overreacting, and she knows it. Sound travels easily through the still night air: that shot probably came from miles away. Logic won’t stop the threads slowly constricting around her chest.

Inhale. Count to three. A smooth voice is asking her if she wants to talk about it. Exhale. She shakes her head before realising they are in the dark. “No.”

Her voice sounds foreign to her own ears: small, and weak. If the Frumentarius notices, he doesn’t say; just draws her into an embrace.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs. It’s more of an observation than a comfort.

Another gunshot; she flinches. The distant repercussions of a bullet leaving a chamber remind her far too much of the one that found its way into her head. She lay in the dark then, too; every regret she’d ever had playing on a constant loop as she tightrope-walked the line of unconscious.

Her head feels far too light. Once, when she was very young, her father told her that people float away when they die. ‘Up into the sky,’ he said. God no longer exists to her, but the concept of being swept away by an unseen force suddenly doesn’t seem as improbable as it once did.

The thought ties her stomach into knots. Burying her face in the Legionary’s chest, she wraps her arms around his torso as if it will somehow secure her to the world.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, a tiny voice is articulating its disgust. ‘Pathetic,’ it cries, and she quashes it, because she is drowning. Asphyxiation’s thin tendrils are slowly constricting her lungs, and all the oxygen in the world won’t silence the phantoms encircling her head like Nightstalkers around a Brahmin calf.

“Sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,” Vulpes murmurs into the Courier’s hair, rubbing slow, soothing circles into her back. It’s an old trick he learned growing up; one that his tribe used to calm a spooked Brahmin. Grown men would hold out their hands and coo double Dutch until the fear dissipated from the animal’s eyes. It seems to work: little-by-little, her breathing is evening out.

Inhaling, he is met with the faint tang of apples and peppermint and a hundred other things that don’t fit into his decidedly square world. He supposes that the little round peg called Wren doesn’t either; yet she is currently nestled in his arms regardless.

He holds her until she stops shaking.

-

‘Sanctuary’ is the term to float into her mind. Of course it’s wrong: she knows she shouldn’t feel safe when the hands offering comfort could just as easily snap her neck. But it’s difficult to see him as a heartless murderer when she can hear the organ beating steadily under the thin material of his shirt.

Soft Latin settles around her shoulders: an intangible guardian against the bony fingers of silence. Most of the meaning eludes her – something about horses and bulls – but the mellifluous flow of the syllables is reassuring nonetheless.

Warmth is creeping into her bones; the threads loosening their grip and slowly unwinding. She can breathe again.

-

Eventually, he pulls away. The Courier starts at the sudden movement, before fixing him with a questioning stare. Slender fingers brush dark hair out of brown eyes too dark and too large for the pale face they inhabit. “Are you going to go back to your own bed now?”

It is a few seconds before she replies.

“Do I have to?” Her tone is light; as if they are two acquaintances conversing about the weather.

“Wren, I can’t feel my arm.”

“I’m still cold,” she says simply, pressing a palm to his bicep to prove her point. After a few moments, he relents with a sigh.

“Fine. Bring your bedroll over; they aren’t made for two.”

A small noise of acknowledgement is made before she rolls onto her back. Several seconds pass without action.

“Wren.”

“I’m working up the energy to move.”

The corners of his lips twitch into an almost imperceptible smile before he gives her a friendly – if a little harder than strictly necessary – shove in the right direction.

“I’m going, I’m going!” She grimaces as she stands; joints audibly cracking and popping as she stretches. “Bloody freezing,” she mutters, stalking across the room.

“I thought you said it was cold in Scotland,” Vulpes remarks, propping himself up on an elbow.

“It is,” she shifts the mattress across the earthen floor “–but we usually had more than a paper-thin blanket at night.”

He almost laughs. Memories of threadbare tents and whistling Mojave winds flicker past; thirteen-year-old hands numb as shivers racked his lanky form. Recruitment teaches harsh lessons that few forget.

The edge of her bedroll meets his; neatly lining up together. Flopping down unceremoniously, she rearranges the two sheets to overlap. “Besides, we moved here when I was thirteen. Maybe that messed up my inner thermostat.”

The words are barely out of her mouth before there is a strong arm around her waist, and a firm chest flush against her back.

“Or perhaps you should invest in some proper nightclothes,” he retorts dryly, “and you won’t have to keep leeching my body heat.”

She snorts derisively. “My heart bleeds for you,” she tells him, using her arm in lieu of a pillow and shifting until she finds something that vaguely resembles comfort. “You talk out of your arse sometimes, you know that?”

He tsks. “What would your mother think if she heard you use such foul language?”

She quirks an eyebrow. As far as he knows, her mother is dead.

“What would my mother think if she saw me cooried up with a madman?”

Vulpes frowns slightly at the implication in her words. This is not cuddling. This is preservation of body-heat through close proximity. The head of Caesar’s Frumentarii does not cuddle. Cuddling is for the dissolute.

“If you wish to insult me, I can very easily move this bed back over, and you can freeze.”

The threat is undermined somewhat by the fingertips tracing light patterns on the back of her hand.

“Sorry,” she replies with a small smile, tugging the blanket up to cover her shoulder, “did I bruise your ego?”

In an instant, his presence is gone. Her stomach twists, arm groping blindly behind her, and for a moment, she is sure that she has crossed a line somewhere; pushed her luck just that little bit too far. Her arm meets a body only an inch away. He’s teasing her. Swallowing the last of her pride, she intertwines her fingers with his, squeezing his hand in a vague semblance of an apology.

Victory curves his lips upwards. Behind her sharp tongue, the Courier is just a scared little girl.

His skin is warm against hers. Not that that’s saying much, she supposes: she’s always had cold hands. Growing up, depending on whom she spoke to, it would be presented as either a good omen or a bad one; a curse, or a blessing.

Cold hands; warm heart. Cold hands; cold heart.

Sometimes she wonders which is true.

They lie like that for a while – neither speaking – before he closes the distance between them. His palm finds the slight curve of her waist; the pad of his thumb brushing the side of her ribcage before gently pressing against the bones there.

“You’re so fragile,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.

“Handle with care,” she says, unable to prevent the yawn punctuating her speech.

A ghost of a smile flickers over his lips, his arm slipping back to its original position around her torso.

“Go to sleep,” he tells her, and she snuggles a little closer before mumbling an ‘okay’.

His embrace is secure, his body emanating warmth. It’s making her eyelids heavy. But still, there is a small part of her reluctant to surrender to unconscious. It is fighting a losing battle, but still it protests; crying of invisible, intangible threats lurking, waiting for the moment she closes her eyes.

Suddenly, a noise pierces the air – a distinct thump – and she stirs. Her legs are telling her to spring up and run somewhere – anywhere – but his arms are unyielding; anchoring her in place.

She swallows; voice slightly shaky, “D’you think those Cazadors are still outside?”

“Probably.” Her distress is palpable; he holds her a little tighter. “I’ll keep you safe,” he murmurs, before nuzzling the back of her neck.

Those four little words slip into her head and curl up around her brain as she stops trying to remember how to keep her eyes open and just lets herself sleep.

aw thanks for posting anon this is lovely :)

Aw, thank you! Glad you liked it. :)

well done, a!a
i really enjoyed it

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :3

oh my gosh this is the cutest thing! aahh i love it when v cuddles, it' so sweet! this is such a fluffy little piece of happiness, i love it <3

Thank you! :D

So cute! Lovely fill, a!a...

Thank you! :)

Wike a wittle bunch of Weddy Bears!!!

This was so adorable!!!

Love it Anon! Keep up the good work

HFK

reCaptcha : package

Beware, I am the true Courier 6!! Feel the wrath of my laser beamed eyed!!!

Aww this is so sweet! And very well written too. Loved it!

This is beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measures, with all the weight of her implied history and how everything just went to the Legion. Gorgeously written.

Ah, this was so cute and fluffy! Great work!

Fallout Kink Meme Part IV: Closed to prompts, open for fills.

Heartbeats (1a/1d)

Heartbeats (1b/1d)

Heartbeats (1c/1d)

Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d) A!A

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d) A!A

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d) A!A

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)

Re: Heartbeats (1d/1d)