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]

The minute tensing isn't something Alex is aware of. His fingers reach to touch Neil's back.

Christine, he thinks.
My sister, he thinks.
Veronica's....

"Christine Royce," he answers. "You probably heard me mention her at the memorial. She was hunting Elijah on orders from the higher up BoS. And because he took what was most precious from her."

[goodfight]

The changes are easy to detect. The memory hardly takes effort to recall, especially that protective voice spoken with quiet pride. Neil has no want to dig deeper because these things speak for themselves.

"You wish she hadn't?" Stayed, that is.

[doubletap]

He thinks, deeply and quietly. Comes to his own conclusions that he would share. "I don't," he answers. "I wish she had come with me. But she had nothing to leave for," he goes on. "She thought there wasn't anything left for her.

"So at least," he continues. "She's able to protect something that needs her."

[goodfight]

Nothing to leave for. Nothing else. He ain't going to be an asshole and question further.

"I get it," Neil murmurs. "It's probably something decent to do." Than waste your time in a world that didn't need you.

[doubletap]

Seemingly out of nowhere, Alex leans back to kiss Neil. Demanding and hard. "You, though...."

He presses his forehead against Neil's. "You better not ever stay anywhere but by my side."

[goodfight]

Alex kisses him, as though seeking out a truth, and Neil thinks to tell him that the gesture is unnecessary. That there would now always be the truth that's living at the forefront of his existence.

With another's forehead against his own, Neil reaches with a hand to touch off-white hair. "There is nowhere else," he says, "I'd rather be than here. Right here."

With Alex.

[doubletap]

"Funny," he says, leaning against the hand touching his hair. "That's what I thought earlier. That us sitting together and just being together-- That's really all I could want. Just to be with you. In whatever way that happens to be."

It's irrevocably mushy girl feelings, and something he can't--won't--take back, but it's out there. His real feelings on the matter, and it's not a priority of sex or the like. For some reason, Alex had thought that it would lessen him some way, as a man. But here they are, and he feels so much fucking better. Lighter. To just say what's the truth.