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M!Courier/? - Remain Nameless [4a/?]
Date: 2011-11-26 08:00 pm (UTC)He was staring into the slowchurning embers of a dying campfire when his heart raced, instinctively reacting to the approach of soft footsteps before his mind could process them. He turned slightly, saw Regis emerged from his tent and walking to him with uncharacteristic sympathy in his eyes. "Hey," he greeted quietly. Simon nodded to him, arms wrapped around himself. "You're here about Anders."
Simon looked at him. At least there was no need for awkward expositions. "Should I expect more people to know?"
Regis shrugged, standing by him and looking in the fire. "Diane only told a few of us the ultimatum. Myself, Jack, Melissa. Jessup, I think, but he didn't particularly care."
"The ultimatum?"
"The one she had given Anders," Regis explained gently. Sympathy registered uncomfortably on his proud face, an unusual breed of sad undertone to his quiet dignity. "It was brutal. For a while there it looked like they were going to settle it in the ring. Then they duked it out privately and she just... won. Neither of them would tell us why, but she won."
Simon looked back at the fire, chest growing oddly tight. "I just... Why? Why is she against us being together?"
"That's not a question I can answer," Regis said simply. He looked at Simon until the courier met his eyes. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Are you serious about this? None of us knew about the whole thing with you and Anders-- I mean, it makes sense when I think about it but... Is this the real deal between you two?"
That was the question that had been on Simon's mind ever since he started this journey. The truth was that none of his postulating and theorizing about what he would do when he found his visitor, discovered his identity and whether he was friend or enemy or real stranger, none of that had prepared him for the moment when he saw the scar on Anders' left hand. He tried to dissect and decontextualize his feelings during these past few days of searching since, tried to intellectualize the whole ordeal. Because he and Anders were friends, of course, friends who had been forged in an experience unmatched by any other in Simon's personal history. They got along famously. They never lacked for companionable connection, even if it was a simple pass of a bottle. But this reasonable approach had no place in the primal surge Simon felt when he realized what they had really been sharing, and the way his soul was immediately set on him. Like some untappable part of him had realized he had been looking for Anders long, long before he'd taken him down from that cross.
"Yes," he distilled his answer for Regis.
Regis was silent, watching the fire beside him, before resting a big hand on his shoulder. "Go talk to her," he said. "To Diane. She's a reasonable woman. She'll be straight with you."
The camp was slowly waking up around them, Khans slowly crawling out of tents and joining them around the freshly-stoked fire by the longhouse, slow buzzes of quiet conversation mixing with the smells of breakfast cooking in the air. None seemed to have the same new trepidation around Simon as Regis had, clapping him on the shoulder with sleep-addled grumbled greetings. Simon sat by the fire as the sun rose, eating thin corn cakes drizzled in sweet syrup and slivers of fried gecko, still next to Regis, the two of them passing one of Jack's breakfast beers back and forth.
"You really think she'll tell me?" Simon asked when the sun was hot on his shoulders.
Regis looked at him. "She's an honest person," he said after a moment of thought. "But she hasn't maintained our position out here by being nice. Keep that in mind." Simon nodded, and made to rise when Regis' low voice momentarily anchored him. "Khans don't love lightly. Never have. We fall in love like a magnum blast to the heart and tend to stay that way for good. You need to remember that."
M!Courier/? - Remain Nameless [4b/?]
Date: 2011-11-26 08:03 pm (UTC)"I'm here about you," Simon said, stepping into the trailer. "About this ultimatum I'm hearing of."
Diane sighed, the air of one dealing with a child. "Look, Simon -- I like you. You're a good kid, and you've done well by us. You've done well by me. But I'm gonna need you to let this go."
"No."
He had meant to say something far more eloquent, but that was what came out, unbidden and honest. Because with each step this was evolving beyond something as simple as lonely nights. He had always missed Anders when he was out on a run while Simon stayed at the camp, and today, it was an even more powerful feeling, burrowed inside his chest like some malevolent insect that had made itself a new home.
"Did you tell him to stop seeing me?" Simon asked.
"Yes."
"Why? How is it any of your business?"
There was that hard set to her eyes that Simon had always respected, a foe he didn't need. "Do you know how many jobs a runner of mine needs to pull off per month to keep us comfortable?" she said evenly. "And right now, this qualifies as comfortable, this shithole we've tried to make our home, forcing us to seek outside help, fucking up our self-sufficiency -- this is the comfortable I'm talking about. It doesn't just happen. It takes work. So when one of my best runners is taking twice, maybe three times as long to get a job done because he wants snuggle time with his boyfriend? When he's going to places he has no business going to, when he's pissing off the Legion? When we're falling behind because of your precious little rendezvous? I'd say that's my business."
She took a heavy breath, and said, "Look, it's... I know you get it. We're Khans. We're survivors. And to survive, you have to know when to drop weight that's slowing you down. It's nothing personal against you. It's just business."
"We can work that out," Simon said. "If we just talk--"
"No," Diane said resolutely. "We've had enough talking, the thing to do now is just to let this go."
"Well, I can't do that."
"You said you don't believe in 'can't'."
"Then won't."
Diane pinched the bridge of her nose. "I had a feeling you wouldn't."
"Will you tell me where Anders is?"
Diane looked at him, and was quiet for a beat. "Out on a run."
"More specifically."
Diane leaned back on her heel, her eyes taking on that thoughtful gleam Simon had only been privileged enough to witness a couple of times. When her mind was becoming numbers and dates, measurements and roadlines. "Okay," she said. "Tell you what. You do something for me, and I'll tell you."
"I feel like we've been down this road before," Simon said, "but sure. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it."
Diane nodded. "Right. Good. A little north of here, back in the mountains near that super mutant settlement, there's a shack that's brimming with supplies we could use. Problem is, the place is a wreck. Overloaded, and it takes time to separate the useful stuff from the crap. And I just don't have the time or the men to sort it out here. If you can go there, sort it all out, and carry the useful bits back perfectly sorted by tomorrow morning, then we can talk."
"That pass behind Jacobstown," Simon said, rolling it over in his mind. "You mean the place that's damn near overrun by cazadors."
"We have a deal," Diane said, turning back to her work. "It's up to you if you honor it."
Re: M!Courier/? - Remain Nameless [4b/?]
Date: 2011-11-28 02:47 am (UTC)WOW! This is just.... I love it. I absolutely love it!
Re: M!Courier/? - Remain Nameless [4b/?]
Date: 2011-11-28 11:47 pm (UTC)Re: M!Courier/? - Remain Nameless [4b/?]
Date: 2011-11-30 05:43 pm (UTC)D: D: D: Oh mah God. I'm rooting for Simon and Anders so hard. But I can't be mad at Diane, because I understand where she is coming from.
The Great Khans have just been screwed over and over again.
I love you, guys. You can make it work. D: D: D: