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

[doubletap]

"This is going to be..." Embarrassing, he would say, but his body has already taken over.

"I think I can only react to you now. You're like a fucking drug for me, and it's not satisfying unless I'm with you. I don't think I could get hard for anybody else at this point. They aren't you."

[goodfight]

Neil gets that Alex believes he can't have any other. Alex Seattle Geer, however, has had many guys (if the rumors are to be believed), and for that reason alone, the younger has reason to suspect that may not be true. He looks at the other, eyes wary.

"But I suck in bed," is the protest. "Not literally, I mean. ...You know what I mean. I'm having a har-- ...Difficult time picturing that I'm the best you've had when you had, uh, better."

Much like how it was stated in the holotape.

[doubletap]

"Oral would be pretty hot," he states, then attempts to stay on task. Which is a conversation about sex. Godfuckit.

He leans over and knocks their heads together. "It's not about the physical. And my fucking god, I was hoping to keep that a secret for a while. It's the emotions when we're together that gets me, and if I didn't have that, I wouldn't want it. That connection between us... That's what I love."

Red. So so red faced. "And you are. The best I've had. You react so fucking well and are so tight around me, and when you come, it's so fucking pleasing to know that no one else has seen that and that you're coming for me and that you love me over everybody else. And that you've been coming without me touching you randomly, that is ridiculously hot, and makes me feel like I'm going to lose my mind. I'm supposed to be this experienced guy, but you make me feel like each time is my first, and how do I shut up, oh my god."

[goodfight]

"Oral would be..." Neil's entire self is aflame at the moment, for reasons all too shocking and obvious for his brain to conceive. Even as that very brain starts to imagine all the illicit acts they would commit in the name of cocks in mouths, causing him to again smother his face with his one free hand. "...something to try."

Something to add to the list spewing out of Alex's mouth. The rush of words has Neil glancing up to stare outright at the other's face, absorbing the description, the want of connection in heart and in body, and the overall distress of a forced reveal. At its conclusion, he blinks.

"I really am that to you?" he asks, eyes only for the older man, face perpetually stuck on red. "I actually get you off? You usually seem so in control that it's hard to gauge. Calm, I guess? Much calmer than I am, that's for sure."

[doubletap]

The first has him raising his eyebrows, a pleasant expression on his face. Neil being open to stuff is still something surprising, and more and more, Alex is enjoying being surprised.

Something this vault is helping with. They match skin tones, bright and ruddy, and from his peripherals, Alex notices a discrepancy in this situation. Still. Still. "You're asking if you get me off? You know that for a fact. I don't know how you think I'm calm. In control, yeah, because I know what I want and I know how to act so I don't hurt you. I'm not going to lose that control while I'm inside you and risk making you uncomfortable."

Alex leans down, kisses Neil's cheek even as he shifts their hands higher to brush against the hardness he noticed. "You have to know you're everything to me right now."

[goodfight]

"Well, that...makes sense." A pair can't have two utterly reactive ends and expect sex to be go off without a hitch. The logic is an aspect that Neil can accept, even as his heart beats a mile a minute at the contact, at the lips on his cheek. At the you're everything to me.

He inhales, forcing oxygen down his shuddering lungs. The act serves to pacify somewhat, which allows him to ask once again. "Is there anything you'd change about us? Anything that can be changed?" he starts quietly, tightening his hand. "I don't want you to have any regrets about me."

Regrets that might have Alex taking back those words later on.

[doubletap]

The train of thought is one Alex doesn't like, enough to shift up, reaching to pocket the Chip first, then moving further to straddle Neil in an easy motion, keeping their waists pressed close. He takes Neil's hand again, watching him as he moves to kiss the knuckles. "Stop thinking I'll regret you. You're the one who's had a harder time in all of this."

[goodfight]

Alex presses them close together, skin against cloth, lips on his hand. The proximity reminds the younger man of more intimate motions, of two becoming one, and it's only the mentioned word and not lust that fills the cavities in Neil's chest. The mentioned word and one more--regret and that pesky little shit called love.

"I love you," Neil says. Upon realizing how odd it sounds following the another's claim, he backtracks. Offers context where he wouldn't have otherwise. "And we both had a hard time in this. I just want to be someone good for you, far from what you had in the past year."

[doubletap]

Neil looks straight at him and states his affection, and Alex doesn't know why it makes him feel like crying. His guy is telling him he loves him, that he wants to do right by him, and Alex just feels like a part of him is breaking.

Except he does somewhere. He does know that all of this is his reaction to something real and true and everything he realized in the basement of that fucking memorial. That he lived his life not touching a damn thing, keeping everything simple and light, and suddenly he's in the thick of it everywhere, and everything has so much meaning.

"I can't lose you," is what he says, voice a shift to the side, a slightly distant tone. He holds Neil's hand still, squeezing, and reaches with the other--touching fingertips lightly to Neil's cheek. As if wondering at something new. He smiles, briefly--the expression looking like he might cry. "You have been what's good for me. The only fucking good I've had in my stupid life. I don't know how I found you. How I was able to keep you."

[goodfight]

He looks straight at Alex, at the man on the brink of weeping, and he thinks on the significance. Neil Park feels the tips of another's fingers against his tired skin, wondering if they should just stop. Should just let this disperse into the air before they drown in it. Love and loss and good will come together at some point so why not now? Why not let it pass?

Of course, the vault refused.

"You found me," Neil says, voice barely above a whisper. "I'm here. If you keep me, I will be good for you." Continue being that, even if he might never fit the part.

[doubletap]

The sincerity can't be doubted. And it isn't the vault's chemicals that make Alex think that. It's the tone in Neil's voice, the words that he chooses. Alex believes Neil, not the vault, and there is a difference.

Alex leans his head down, to kiss Neil briefly. It lightens. Slightly, enough, but it lightens. "You say that like you think I'm getting rid of you," he says playfully.

And before he can recall to be careful, his body speaks the rest. "There was only one time I was willing to let you go. Never again."

[goodfight]

Neil spares Alex a look, the kind that speaks more so than words. Then he glances to the side, his lips still tingling from the brief contact.

"When was that?" he asks quietly.

[doubletap]

"Coming back," he answers quietly. Because it explains enough. There was one time they would be coming back, and it was from the Capital Wasteland to the Mojave.

"Outside the Republic of Dave," he continues after a moment. "I gave you the choice to decide whether you wanted me to stay with you. Gave you time. After all the stuff that happened with Point Lookout and the aftermath, I told you you weren't getting away from me. Took away that choice after you already had choices taken away because I thought you needed it. But I planned to give it back. When we got back, I was going to sit down and talk with you and whatever you decided, that was it. You choose how we continue. If we continue."

That was true. But further-- "In Illinois, in that shitty house I locked, you answered me. At least. I took it as an answer. You said you wanted my love. Wanted me. And I decided that was that. I couldn't give you the option after that. I couldn't let you go."

[goodfight]

Coming back, Alex says, from that hellscape carved out of Neil's memories, during their long walk back to the dust and sand of the desert. He remembers that conversation, brought on by trauma he couldn't admit to, and though he would never have expected this answer, the young man thinks he gets the reasoning. The why.

Neil again feels the heat rising from his cheeks. Again, he would continue along the truths he would never voice otherwise.

"That doesn't sound bad," he murmurs. "You never letting me go."

[doubletap]

Alex gives a half-smile at the answer, twining his hands behind Neil's neck. He leans in again, touches their foreheads together. "Close enough for you? 'cause I could stay here all night."

In this person's lap, against him, close like this. Wanting something even closer, but their bond--that closeness--

--To say it a different way: Their hearts already touched, kept them together against all odds. Alex was content with this, close as close could be.

[goodfight]

"It's enough," replies Neil, tilting upward to meet the other's eyes. His own hands slip around Alex's waist, fingers grasping cloth in a show of emotion. "You staying here...is exactly what I want."

With him, close by. At the moment, it is the only desire he has.