the tower.

[shortstraw]

It started in Novac, in that lovely Dino Dee-Lite Motel by the dilapidated gas station.

He had told her they could be found in the upper corner room, living the Post-War American dream. If not there, they had others: cabins, bunkers, safehouses, and the like. He gave her all the map points, confident in their future whereabouts. And above all, he was certain they would never be in the New Vegas, beneath the bright lights of the Strip.

The motel room had been empty. The Brotherhood safehouse and the cabin by Jacobstown also held no occupants. After traveling nearly the entire width of the Mojave Wasteland, moving from town to fucking town, she finally caught a whiff of him in Freeside.

The crier for Mick & Ralph's had seen a man matching Alex Seattle Geer's description lately, headed directly into the heavily guarded gates of the New Vegas Strip.

Judas, Sarah had thought. Blood betrayer. She then walked the road back to the Dino Dee-Lite Motel, to that cozy little upper room in the corner, and left Alex a very nice surprise.

Three days later, after finding the presidential suite of the Tops woefully empty, Sarah corners a man in the streets. Their exchange proves short, and with his pockets noticeably heavier, the guy walks the short distance to the center of the road. There, with the Vault Dweller looking on, he straightens to attention and produces a piece of paper from his pockets.

"Ladies and gentleman of New Vegas, may I have your attention please?" he reads, voice clear to the nearby bystanders and vigilant Securitrons. "It is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you a Very Important Person--" The man looks over his shoulder briefly, a quizzical look on his face. "Why is it capitalized?" he asks.

"Go on," she mouths, waving lazily at the gathering crowd.

He shrugs and continues as directed. "Someone who has traveled a great distance and sacrificed a good deal of time, bullets, and money to be here with you fine folks. She is the Champion of the Holy Thirteen, the Swan Song of the Master and His Most Unholy Unity, the Keeper of All Your Dogs, a Sometimes Friend to You and I... I present to you: The Vault Dweller!"

Comments

[doubletap]

Alex laughs quietly in reply, enjoying being able to be here and hold him. "I'm glad of that, too," he says, nuzzling again. "My backside wasn't looking forward to another time of being thrown out on my ass."

[goodfight]

Guilt piques within him, leaving a bitter aftertaste. They're together, however, and Neil is unwilling to fall into habits. Instead, he brushes his hand toward Alex's lower back.

"Your backside's too pretty to be thrown out," he says, smiling. "I should have just kept you." Shouldn't have told Alex to go away.

[doubletap]

Alex laughs in surprise, a flush coloring his cheeks unknowingly. "Wow, ED-E must have seriously mommied you if you're being this nice to me."

He nuzzles again, to show the teasing.

[goodfight]

"ED-E has been a saint." More than Neil can adequately describe. "Managed to eat and sleep like a decent human being for the first time in weeks because he was so insistent. And had tranquilizers."

Nuzzling has Neil pressing his face closer to the other, breathing in the man's scent. "He told me you were hiding inside yourself," he continues softly. "Thought you'd hurt me more."

[doubletap]

"Of course he did," Alex replies in a murmur. Tranquilizers. My god, little baby bot is growing up and able to kidnap a person at a moment's notice. "Hopefully he wasn't any trouble for you...."

A thought caught and trailed off, as it's revealed that not only is ED-E more protective of Neil, but that he's telling him things. Things Alex wouldn't even think he thought. "...He said that?"

[goodfight]

Neil shakes his head, eyes solemn. "Friends are never trouble for me." Never the cause of pain, except when they go away.

The other man reacts in a way most couldn't tell. Neil tightens his hold, watching. "He did. Said my pain worries you."

[doubletap]

Neil calls ED-E friend and Alex knows precisely what it means. Is fucking glad that they apparently bonded more over the past few days, because god knows the both of them need people who love and support them. Neither of them have enough of that.

But Neil is asking a question by saying this, and Alex will always answer. "Of course it does, kid. You're the main thing on my mind."

[goodfight]

Alex answers. He always answers, and here, it makes Neil feel pangs in the space that Dogmeat left behind. "I don't want you to have to worry over me," he says roughly. "I will never leave you."

It is a sentiment he doesn't mean to give. He intended to say he would never commit any worrisome acts. This, however, is what Neil Park offers.

[doubletap]

Here, here is where Alex moves where he had been holding back, slipping the hand from Neil's hair to his chin to kiss him, holding him close. He makes a content sound, quiet, then moves to curl, keeping his head close.

"I can worry about you," he says easily, despite the strain in the corners of his eyes. He smiles. "Just like you can hate my grave. I didn't think you would leave me, kid. I just didn't want you to be alone with this."

[goodfight]

The Courier kisses him as he hadn't that day, weeks ago, and Neil trembles as he refused to when he felt no warmth from Dogmeat. Lips meet like, breaths mingling, and Neil wonders why he couldn't just let Alex do that from the start. Let him remind the Lone Wanderer to breathe.

"I left Dogmeat alone." To die by himself. To not even say goodbye, no, not like Marie. Shit, he-- "When he was my only family, I wasn't even there for him."

[doubletap]

There's not a lot to say to this. It's awful and miserable, but that dog died probably the most peaceful way he could--not riddled with bullets or split with lasers. Yeah, the only thing that would have been better would be if Neil had been with him. But only that.

"You're wrong on a little bit, though," he says after a moment. "He's not your only family. And you weren't his only family. Me and ED-E... We loved him, too, you know."

[goodfight]

That's correct, as always. It seems easier to forget the additional bonds that hold them together, and he recalls ED-E and their talk on the cliffside. Neil closes his eyes, murmuring an apology for the mistake.

"You're right," he tells Alex. "We were his family. I wonder if we should have delayed going off for one more day." Even as wondering does not matter anymore.

[doubletap]

"Then he would have held on for that one more day."

And Alex reminds alcohol and something uncomfortable. "We're going to talk, because it will make Neil happy." And Alex vaguely remembers talking about Four Corners, and he remembers that man talking about dogs. A lot of dogs. A couple in particular. Ones that Alex knew of, because of a man named Cooper in the Capital Wasteland.

But that man had said a similar thing. If he had been there.... Except that was different, and something awful, and that man had made an exception. "Even if they had ended up dying naturally in their sleep, I wouldn't have been there for it. Because, dogs, they--"

"...Dogs that love you," Alex says, aware of echoing that man's words. "They don't want you to see them die. They want to spend every fucking moment with you that they can, and it's when you step off for a moment--" Be right back, boy, Neil had said, a quick hurried smile. "--That they can let go. He held on for you, Neil. And he died by himself because he didn't want you to be sad."

[goodfight]

Dogs that love you, Alex says, and Neil can almost finish the rest. They flow out like old world incense, like prayer, saturating the dry and dusty air between them.

He held on for you, Alex continues, and in his arms, Neil starts sobbing. He presses the both palms against his eye sockets to stem the damn tears, but the thought that Dogmeat could let go has him overwhelmed. Has him thinking that perhaps he can let go of that sin still seeped in his bones, the one that started in radiated chambers of the Jefferson Memorial to the quiet campsite in the North.

"No wonder," he chokes out. "He was always such a good boy."

[doubletap]

Neil starts crying, really sobbing, and Alex cradles him like Neil is something much younger and smaller. He scoops him close, holds him tightly, and rests his head against Neil's own. Just being there for him. Being close and willing to take some of that weight.

Neil speaks and Alex rubs his temple against Neil's hair. "Good like when he tore open our packs for food that one time. Or ran to attack enemies when we were trying for stealth. Or made me have to wash my clothes from his radioactive drool...." There's a smile in tone, given easily, and Alex continues. "But he waited. He always waited. And if he had wanted you to be there, he would have held on. He stood next to me on that beach, after all."

[goodfight]

There is comfort that comes from a second presence, from a man who has understood more than any other. Neil releases his hands and shifts to press his face into Alex's shoulder, crying outright. Outright because Alex would understand. Because Neil couldn't do so weeks before.

"Or missed the tree one time and got piss on one of our bedrolls," Neil adds. "He waited, yeah. He always waited. But why?" After all this time-- After knowing better-- "Why couldn't I have just returned the favor?"

Why couldn't he have at least tried?

[doubletap]

Neil shifts to curl into him, and Alex hugs him, arms securely around him. "Do you remember what I said? That I had thought you were like brothers?"

[goodfight]

"Yeah." Of course, Neil remembers. Alex had found them beneath the desert sun, baking like retards. "I remember."

[doubletap]

Alex nuzzles him fondly. "You're the little brother, Neil. You weren't the one waiting. You were catching up all this time. He waited for you. And he was able to let you go when you finally caught up to where he was."

[goodfight]

Salty tears stick to Alex's clothes. They streak across Neil's cheeks and nose, and somehow, it grows worse. Dogmeat was the big brother, waiting all this time. It reminds Neil of--

Nine years ago. Megaton. Outside, near the entrance, they were standing together, facing each other with Neil looking down. There was something old and tired behind Dogmeat's eyes as Neil tested the fluidity of his new T-51b, all decked in white. The nineteen-year-old hesitated then. He paused long enough to reach and touch a mental-enclosed hand to the dog's ears.

"I think it's time for us to say goodbye, old buddy."

To let each other go. Neil was sure, so damn sure, that this battle was the end. This charge led by Liberty Prime and Lyon's Brotherhood of Steel would bring the Lone Wanderer to his grave, and it was time. Goodbye and--

"Take care of yourself, okay?"

--and Dogmeat had whined, in the way the teenager had recognized as a protest. As a sad refusal to let Neil go because his dog, his unhappy pup, knew it wasn't time for Neil. For them. Knew he would only have to wait until this moment, nine years later.

Neil blinks, sagging in his arms. "Letting go." He lowers his voice to a whisper. "It seems too much like leaving me behind."

[doubletap]

There is quiet after the fact. Movement and motion, and then-- Stillness. Neil speaks and Alex recognizes it as truth. "It always is," he says, almost wistful. "The ones left behind are always the ones lost. We wait or we move on, but it's always a loss. But sometimes people have to go," and he doesn't mean it as trite or cliche, he means it as it is, that sometimes people have to move on.

"And he trusted you enough," Alex says. "That he could leave without worrying about you. Because he knew that you could take care of yourself, and keep moving. You knew you had gotten strong," Alex says, and he doesn't mean strength or anything simple.

"Letting go is leaving people behind," he finally concedes. "But it's not always something selfish. And you have to remember, Neil. Just because you get left behind for now, it doesn't mean you're alone."

[goodfight]

Letting go is a fact of life. Any rational thought would lead to this conclusion. Alex tells Neil that Dogmeat trusted him enough, and Neil finds a strange kind of appreciation in the words. Gratitude that there are those who still remain with the ones left behind, enough of it there to want to express the emotion.

It is a question, however, that Neil draws from his lips.

"Do you believe he was correct?" he murmurs. "To place that kind of trust in me? To think that I can keep moving?"

[doubletap]

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I think you can keep moving and show that you've gotten stronger."

[goodfight]

There is another that sits on the tip of his tongue. It's unfair, Neil knows, how his entire being has to ask.

"And would you ever leave me behind?

[doubletap]

For some reason, this is easier. For some reason, this isn't lying. Because he finds the truth in his bones.

He tilts Neil's head up to look him in the eyes. Alex wears his affectionately amused look, as always, with an edge of weariness behind it. "Nah, I don't think so," he says lightly. "'cause you're never going to catch up to me. So I can't leave you be for a moment."