the story in which Alex Seattle Geer is right for hating enclosed spaces,

[doubletap]

and Neil Park is blamed for his knowledge of vaults.

---

Terminal Entries:

1st Floor, Vault Entry-Room Computer:
- Data Entry 1: Year 20XX, Month XX; There's no escape.
- Holotape Entry 1: Y#4@ SDhig^8705 H98 [data corrupted]; This is hell and I want out of it.

1st Floor, Cafeteria Luncheon:
- Holotape Entry 2: Private Recording; I've had better?

1st Floor, Cafeteria Supply Room:
- Inventory List: Inventory List; A list of food....
- Data Entry 2: Shift Notes; Maybe I should tear the walls down.

1st Floor, Broken Cave:
- Data Entry 3: Preparations; Everything's fine.
- Data Entry 4: Near the End; I'll tell you the truth, but I won't give up my soul.
- Data Entry 5: Finally, the End is at Hand.; This is far enough.

1st Floor, Office:
- Data Entry 6: Vault-Wide Public Service Announcement; Get back to work everyone.
- Data Entry 7: Locked Administrative Reply; You're reaching for straws.

1st Floor, Administrative Secretary's Office:
- Data Entry 8: Drama Hoes; It is sort of funny that people aren't able to lie, though.
- Holotape Entry 3: Bill Self-Log; Byron's access still works everywhere.

Comments

[goodfight]

[A blink, and he's against Alex, his mind falling on understanding and guilt.]

I didn't mean to.

[Neil would never have touched on it if not for this place.]

But I really can't lie.

[doubletap]

[ Alex watches him, wanting... wanting wanting wanting to fucking say what he needs right now. In the end, though, there's nothing he has to respond to. Nothing he has to let out.

He lets go suddenly, eyes tearing downward painfully. ]

...Fuck.

[goodfight]

[There are excuses. Justifications sitting right on the tip of his tongue. But how can you write off something that is as simple as it can be? Besides, Alex is in pain, and that's perhaps the most important.

Neil reaches instead, his arms slowly going around Alex. Preparing for rejecting.]

...I'm trying, Alex.

[To step outside of that tendency. But it's hard to break.]

I'm sorry.

[doubletap]

[ Neil reaches in concern, in closeness, and the difference in actions rips him down the middle. He feels himself tearing and wonders how things will end.

He reaches back, pulling Neil towards him, shifting so it's easier for Neil to straddle him if he lets Alex pull him down. ]

...Just don't want you... to think there's nothing good. Why the hell are you with me if you just...

[ The words hover, slip and fall into place. ]

...want to leave.

[goodfight]

[Neil falls into place as Alex intends, his legs going to either side and his arms slipping closer around the other man. He thinks to comfort, to offer platitudes, but in the end, there is only the truth.]

I don't want to leave you. I don't intend to leave you. I'm just...

[Tired. Hopeless. Running on empty.]

...depressed. Probably in the actual major depressive disorder sense. That'd be what Dad would diagnosis. What I would tell another.

[doubletap]

[ Alex's arms go around Neil's waist and he wonders at the state of things, that most of their conversations of late, not just in this vault, end with them in each other's arms. ]

...Is there nothing good in your life? Not even me?

[goodfight]

You're good.

[The answer is instant.]

Dogmeat's good. ED-E's good. I love reading, and I'm giddy as a shit when I find a vulnerability in the RobCo termlink protocol. When you're holding me, I can breathe. Can forget things for awhile.

[Neil sets his lips into a line and swallows hard.]

But there's been a lot of the bad.

[doubletap]

You're young.

[ He grimaces, backtracks. ]

I know you hate that, but it's true. And I know you've been through a lot of shit, I know that, but you have time to balance all of that out. To make more good than bad, and live your own life.

[goodfight]

[He knows. God, he fucking knows.]

I know. It's just how I am right now. I'm not so hopeless to believe I can't adjust things.

[doubletap]

[ To Alex's surprise, they're on the same page. He leans forward to touch their heads together. ]

All right. Then we'll move forward for now.

[ A beat, then he breathes deeply. ]

Got any questions about... the Dam and stuff?

[goodfight]

[Moving on sounds nice. It fills his brain with chemicals and anxiety, but overall, moving on is much better than standing still.]

Okay.

[The subject reaches back to Hoover Dam, and Neil easily thinks of one or two questions.]

I've got about a thousand, but... That Legate you mentioned. You lent me his weapon that time I went to work for that caravan, didn't you?

[doubletap]

[ Alex blinks in surprise, then loosens into a wry smile. ]

How'd ya figure it?

[goodfight]

[How did he figure it? Neil actually frowns.]

Well, everyone about shit their pants the one and only time I used it. Got the story out of another guard, and by story, I mean, "It looks like dat Lay-gate's 'word, son. He used ta chop up fellas back in da day."

[doubletap]

[ He twists his lips, shrugs under Neil's arms. ]

Think I was desperate. Trying to keep you, trying to keep you interested. Hadn't touched it in months, that or the mask I wanted so much at the time. Thought if you were leaving, you should take it. Liked long and sharp things, and it would get it away from me.

[ Something thick moves across his face; his expression evens out to something peaceful. ]

Call it a gift from the dead.

[goodfight]

[He watches, absorbing the reaction. Eating up the reply placed before his feet.]

...If it's a gift, I could do what I want with it, yeah?

[Whether wield it, sell it, or dismantle it.]

[doubletap]

Which is apparently to abandon it. As it's back in my closet by now.

[ He smiles wryly. ]

[goodfight]

More I couldn't find a use for it. It isn't much fun to wield something that will chase away your enemies and your allies.

[Very anticlimactic.]

If you're looking to get rid of it, I could take it back.

[doubletap]

[ He pulls a hand up to touch Neil's nose. ]

These aren't questions about the Dam.

[goodfight]

I'm getting to the damn...Dam.

[He sighs.]

How did you get the bulk of NCR to vacate the premises?

[doubletap]

[ His expression goes flat without his knowing, emotion draining to neutral. ]

I have control of House's Securitrons. Not just the ones in Vegas. There was a whole bunker, big as a Vault, filled with them. All Mark II's.

[ The soldier faces, full of missiles, instead of the cops. He swallows, finding something in this hard. ]

...And I had been good to the NCR. Especially the troops and the rangers. They knew me and took that into consideration. That they had trusted me and I had betrayed them.

[goodfight]

[That answers more questions than perhaps Alex wanted. Neil watches for a beat, dark eyes swallowing the emotion playing out before him. He slowly reaches to touch Alex's cheek.]

So us being in their territory is not good, right?

[doubletap]

[ Neil touches him, and Alex starts, like an animal, before relaxing-- And starting to grow hard again. Goddamn. ]

Pssh. I lived in Cali all my adult life. I'm not going to stop going there just because they don't--

[ His voice catches, chokes, and he thinks of his mother for the first time in nearly decades. ]

--Don't want me.

[goodfight]

[Noting the reaction and the response, Neil places his other hand against the opposite cheek.]

It was business. It was war. NCR would have dropped you like a hot radioactive potato if it would have benefited them. Besides--

[He thinks of that woman from 1st Recon, the one Alex referenced twice.]

--individual soldiers probably remember you more for your help than your one and only rendition of Benedict Arnold.

[doubletap]

[ It's sense, all of it, and nothing Alex disagrees with. No, nothing, but the last. It stings, he flinches, before shaking his head. Because he knows Neil didn't mean anything by it.

Still wincing, he tries to smile. ]

More questions?

[goodfight]

[Yes, he meant nothing by it. The name is more a symbol than the actual act of betrayal. And yet, Alex looks like he just got bitchslapped.

Neil shakes his head.]

Not in this vault. Not like this. I'd rather you offer me details in the right time than being forced to bear facts that just fucking happened.