the pier.

[doubletap]

Let him just say it now--the kid had a lot of problems.

I mean, not really a surprise or anything--Alex had found him dried out in a desert, for crying out loud--but god damn.

Let’s recap.

Alex Seattle Geer found himself in love with a Vault brat from the Capital Wasteland with a daddy complex the size of Hoover Dam. Said kid loves him back--sometimes. Said kid would probably rather put another bullet between Alex’s eyes rather than spend time with him, and didn’t this just go to show it. Neil leaves to check up a rumor, said he’d be back shortly--shortly became two days and by then Dogmeat was back, meaning Neil took off somewhere he was worried the dog would get hurt at. Two days turn into two weeks and counting, and by then, Alex has tracked Neil’s steps, found the fucking pier, the fucking tool of a woman looking for her child, and all of the pieces are too easily placed.

Neil left for Point Lookout. And Alex, ED-E, and Dogmeat are left hanging in the wind.

Alex has been fucking camping on the dirty sand and shit next to that pier, waiting for that stupid kid to come back on that stupid ferry the woman told him about. Tobar the fucking Ferryman, and Alex feels like shooting the asshole just for submitting to Neil’s request. Probably not the guy’s fault, but-- Hell. Yeah. He didn’t traipse all over the goddamn country just to be left in the dust. Is the kid even coming back? Who fucking knows.

Alex will just.

Wait here.

Until Neil comes back.

Yeah, that’s not pathetic at all.

Comments

[doubletap]

"It had to be you."

The sound echoes long after Neil has stopped speaking. Alex holds Neil, and Neil leans against him like nothing is wrong, except this is different, isn't it? There's very few, counting on one hand only few, times where the Lone Wanderer allowed himself to be held like this without reason. Something changed in Neil, out there in that swamp, that ancient park, and something is still changing. And as much as Alex wants to believe it's all good, he can't. He would love to accept this, and take in everything Neil is offering--this easy affection. But only if it's coming from Neil--and not from what happened.

...But that's neither here or there. There are a few things to address, and sadly, he cannot keep to this topic, as much as the heat in his chest would prefer it. "Because you trust me," a statement as a question.

[goodfight]

Stillness. Stagnancy. Neil may be young. He may act out and sabotage his own existence, living as though he might burn to ciders before reaching middle age, but he only knows this. This immobility. This agonizing inertia.

Alex echoes a previous confession, and while Neil understands how hard it is to believe the trust that comes from him, he wishes they could have just moved on.

He opens his dark eyes, the color edging toward black against the dim, his face set toward what's in front of him. "Completely," he says, sounding like death. Like black and its pretty poisons. "I'm sure."

[doubletap]

It's something he probably really wanted to hear at some point. If he was still the same person that started out on this trip, he'd relish it, to be sure. Ask things like, So you trust me over your dad, and, Does that mean you know you're not a "fancy" of the hour? A thousand and one call backs alone to the disappointingly dreary stop at the diminutive Republic of Dave. Let alone that fucking Vault 101.

However, Alex Seattle Geer came out here for a reason, and he's only starting to realize what it actually was.

An escape turned vacation turned forced frustration turned something else. In the Mojave, Neil was prepared to break up whatever they had together, and Alex had, without thinking, invited himself along on Neil's trip. There was something of desperation in the act. Something he wasn't prepared to look at. All that was, and is, clear is that Alex found something that he isn't yet willing to let go of. No matter what the other person thinks they want.

And here, in this fucking depressing Wasteland and its fucked up sights, Alex thinks he can understand. The exact reason why he's here. And it's not self-satisfying or something idle or sheer boredom. It's not something light and meaningless. And it's something just as prominent as every other fucked up event that's happened to him in the past year and a half.

So Alex doesn't ask questions that relate back to himself. And he doesn't seek to clarify in quantifiable means. He moves a hand toward Neil's jaw line (one of his favorite parts about Neil, he can see that now), and watches him. Wonders. "...Enough to listen to what I have to say and hear what I'm saying?"

[goodfight]

It's this. This conversation between them, with its minute impressions, has his damaged brain doing overtime, his recently wrenched cogs turning faster to catch up. To try and understand. This "bullshit" Alex spoke of-- It's bad enough to have the man watching Neil with weight behind his grey-blue eyes. Enough to spook a Neil Park into paying his complete and undivided attention.

The hand at his jaw burns, his eyes waver looking at Alex, but Neil continues. He can only continue. "...Yes."

[doubletap]

He drops his hand down, resting on Neil's knee. The other arm is still around Neil's back companionably. Alex isn't sure if Neil will pull away but Alex isn't going to turn him aside. "There's a couple of things that have led me to believe that something else happened before or during your impromptu surgery."

I don't think your head was the only place he was inside. Yeah, no. That's not the way to say it. Sorry. Alex is distracted by the urge to grind a dead man into paste.

"He used you while you were out," Alex says, and is amazed somewhere that his tone is even. "He had sex with you, and probably made it so your body responded to him as well."

[goodfight]

Dreams, sometimes, are not confined in sleep. They have the propensity to bleed into reality, clouding his senses with two-toned light, color, and sound. With sluggish movements and the distorted passage of time. It happens, sometimes, where Neil cannot distinguish if he's awake or still trapped in the unconscious.

Here, sitting between another's legs, resting in that person's arms, Neil finds that his world is changing. Transforming. Everything--their breaths, the subtle movements of their bodies, the sounds of vowels and consonants--slows to a crawl. Neil squints at Alex, as though trying to make sense of what is being said. Trying to gauge if he might have fallen asleep.

And don't get him wrong. It does make sense that there would have been more. More to it than a simple brain surgery, especially when Neil looks at everything from far away. That-- That person wouldn't be satisfied with a piece of grey matter, would he? It's like a habit to him (like with Neil) to collect trophies, and brains were never the end goal of his exploits. No, that was born from another's request.

No, here, unlike with Nadine, asking why is pointless. Neil would rather--

"Finished me off," he starts, his voice and throat parched. His entire countenance unreadable. "That's what you mean?"

[doubletap]

There's an aspect of worry in the air. Alex keeps to watchfulness, and continues, taking in every reaction. "That's what I thought. There's something on that...jar...three point nine grams... If it was measuring liquid, it might be--" The muscle in his jaw tightens. His control slips for a more, rage flashes behind his eyes.

He kills it.

Closes his eyes and opens them again. Tries once more. "I'm assuming he was measuring come."

[goodfight]

A cold anger blazes behind grey-blue eyes before vanishing, and Neil can only bear witness. He is unable to make sense of the present, aside from the words being exchanged.

(Oh, what he would give for being oblivious instead.)

"You found the jar." A statement. Could be taken for dry humor or neutrality, depending on perspective. There's nothing written on his face, nothing telling in his voice. He keeps his expression (himself) closed. "Had a hard time reading what was on the label when I picked it up."

Due to his blurry vision after, you know, surgery, an epic battle between a ghoul and a living brain, and a crime of passion.

"Was there anything else on that jar?"

[doubletap]

"Yeah," he answers freely. "Personal details," he continues.

Neil is staying quiet on reactions, and Alex wonders what he was expecting. He doesn't have anything to hold this against, so perhaps this is how Neil would react. Perhaps he doubts him. Perhaps he's in shock.

[goodfight]

Neil's right eye twitches, the reaction nearly imperceptible. Aware of the slip, he blinks properly to cover the response. There's a wide disconnect between himself and his body, as if the synapses aren't firing their signals. Unaware of the other man's thoughts, he begins to consider if he might be in shock.

"Personal details," he murmurs to himself. Things like a name, physical features (obviously), perhaps even his words-- Neil blinks innocently, his mind stuttering in its attempts to move on. He would have to look at the label later to get the details, but right now--

(He just wants to stop.)

"You said there were a couple of things," Neil says clearly. "What was the other thing?"

[doubletap]

Alex's jaw sets, and here the anger is far more apparent. Nothing changes in tone or body, but the fire burns between his eyes, hot and potent and full of wrath. But-- His jaw sets, and there appears to only be calm.

"Injuries," he makes out. "Internally. Tears. Cuts. Sores. I know the signs."

Of mistreatment. Of willful neglect. Of selfish ways.

[goodfight]

Just looking at Alex, you wouldn't be able to tell. You would not detect a change. Neil, however, has sacrificed all else--feeling, physiological reactions, and the ebb and flow of time--to absorb what is in his sights, and he catches sight of that fire. That heat caused by the intensity of anger.

Even as he cannot fully understand the why.

But that's not so important. Not right now, at least. Neil thinks back, contemplating on when Alex would have made the assessment. It doesn't take long to figure out.

"Is that why you stopped?" Then shifted in favor of something anomalous to nature? This time, Neil smiles quietly, remembering. Recalling the splintered pain he had dismissed as being appropriate for his situation at the time.

[doubletap]

For a moment, Alex feels a sensation akin to a slap. He feels ashamed, and forgets to breathe. It takes him a moment. The realization. He feels like he betrayed him in that moment.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, then," he says in a rush. "I wasn't going to hide it from you. I just wanted to wait until your fever broke, and you felt more up to moving around, and--"

And it doesn't change the facts. Alex realized what happened and still continued to have sex with Neil, in a way. Just like that-- "I'm sorry. I'm shit. I should have told you then."

[goodfight]

Neil could laugh. Nothing here calls for laughter, and therefore, he settles on merely shaking his head. "Who knows how I would have reacted earlier?" he adds. "What dreams I might have had?"

The latter, honestly, is what strikes the most. What would he have had, feverish and ill, with full knowledge of this?

(Goddammit.)

He raises both hands to his eyes suddenly, to drag them down his face a beat later. The motion stabilizes. Nullifies a distortion somewhere inside him. "Thank you, really. Right now is best time you could have told me," Neil says evenly.

[doubletap]

Despite the remaining question of why Neil seemed so calm, the logical methodology and answer calms something in Alex, and it makes him wonder about the current 1st Recon team, and how they approached Betsy. Alex had spoke to her like he understood, spoke sense and understanding then, but he didn't really understand a thing, did he? It was easy to say to strangers what you couldn't say to the ones you love.

"You were raped. That's not something you can just shrug off."

This is not something either of them can shrug off. Neil's seemingly mature response. His gratitude. Alex can't handle any of it. His arm tightens against Neil's back and the hand on his knee shifts slowly to Neil's chin. "Hey. Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking."

[goodfight]

It is. The best time. Neil wasn't lying. That...probably held enough ammunition to end him for good, had he not had the chance to solidify. He's grateful for the timing, truly. Honestly.

But the cracks are starting to show. The blood is beginning to creep in his veins, to sludge through the pathways beneath his skin, as he thinks about his thoughts. As he thinks as Alex requests.

A hand touches his chin, and it all becomes clear. On the exact nature of the torrent rushing through his increasingly cold and pallor skin. "I'm thinking," he begins. Neil pauses to swallow, struggling with a bone-dry mouth, before correcting himself. "I'm wondering if I'm still the same guy who got on that riverboat over a month ago."

[doubletap]

"You're not," he answers easily, quietly. Despite this being Alex Seattle Geer, known for light responses and constants innuendos, he shows surprising enlightenment at times. "No one stays the person they are. You keep shifting. It's not good or bad... It's just how we evolve. You're different from when you left. So am I."

More than he realized at the start.

[goodfight]

Different from how they were. Whether good or bad or just the way nature intended, Neil cannot argue against that observation. Men change as they live. The only true stagnation is death.

And this time, just once, he laughs. Gives a breathy chuckle.

"We both agreed I fucked up, right?" Referring to earlier, when Alex carried him down the basement stairs. "You said something right after. Like how I choose to move after is all that matters."

He inhales sharply. Regret, weighted and snaring, colors his voice. "Can you tell me how to go back?" asks Neil. "Can you tell me how I can stop myself from walking toward that pier?"

[doubletap]

There's something heartbreaking in this, something that makes Alex wish he knew how to respond, that he knew how to move.

There's an answer in this. His own words thrown back. How you choose to move after. And you can only go forward. You can only keep going. You just decide how you move.

He didn't know if Neil would want to be touched, after hearing that. Alex didn't know if Neil would want changes, or nothing at all, and he realizes that his error was assuming that at all. He's not a fucking girl, trembling and waiting. If Neil wants to reject him, let him. But he's not going to change his ways to make things more unstable.

He was going to wait. He was going to ask permission. But instead he keeps his hand on Neil's chin, and dips down to kiss him.

[goodfight]

The resounding answer lies in a kiss, familiar and wanting. It's sweet, sweeter than anything that has come before, and as he once spoke long ago on an off-white couch in a lonely motel room, he could drown in it. He could learn to absolutely love it.

Except there's liquid stinging his eyes, trailing slowly down his cheeks.

Neil pulls his head back, abruptly breaking contact. Dark eyes close to the world. Palms move upward once more to press against his eyelids, and he thinks he should pretend. Make believe he isn't soundlessly crying about a stupid kiss, about a rape, about a regret he can never undo, no matter how he fucking wishes he can. He's twenty-four. He's just a shitty kid. He can't even control his own damn reactions.

Let alone his own life.

"I'm fine," he speaks immediately, calmly. "Ignore me. This will stop soon."

[doubletap]

Alex does as Neil asks. He does nothing of the sort. He reaches, wrenches Neil's hands down--the kid fights it, struggles to keep his hands there, but he's not using his full strength, and Alex slowly pulls them down.

Then reaches to rub a thumb under Neil's eyes.

Alex watches his own hand, and when he speaks, there's only his low, calm drone. Nothing of emotions or pity. Nothing of unwanted sympathy. "Yeah," he answers, a step out of sync. "You choose how to keep moving forward after. But there's no moving backward. When you move, Neil," he says, and finishes running his thumb under his eyes. He returns his hand to Neil's chin, and tries to catch his gaze. "It's only forward, kid. Only forward. You take a step at a time and you keep going. There's nothing else for it. There's no going back."

[goodfight]

There's fight left in him, but there is also no purpose. No point to resisting. Neil gives up. Gives in. He allows the other man to do as he wills, to wipe away the tears that are falling. Alex speaks, addressing the questions posed a moment too late, and Neil does not move. He doesn't dare interrupt the words he waited for since he uttered the questions.

There's silence after, stark against the pounding of his heart in his head. Neil lets it continue. He counts the beats bringing him closer and closer to the inevitable end.

Is this what it means to move forward? To step toward what is in front of you and never going back?

[doubletap]

Neil says nothing, and Alex basically expected the same. But it's all right. Because he's not done talking. Because he finally realizes what he himself needs to say.

"I asked you outside that Republic if you were going to go it alone when you left here. If there was room in your plans for me or if you were going it alone. Well, Wanderer, I just want you to know that you lost that chance." The ability to make that singular choice.

Alex taps him under the chin, and drops his hand back down to Neil's knee. "Because I'm staying for the long haul, and I'm not walking away. You lost that chance to get rid of me. Now every step you take, I'm going to be dogging your steps. You hear me, Neil?"

I'm not leaving you to walk this path alone.

"You keep going forward. And I'll be there, right beside you."

[goodfight]

Of course, Neil remembers. He knows the choice that Alex speaks of: to walk alone or to walk with another. To be driven to insanity or to permanently embrace solitude, it was an uneasy decision, and he had put that off as long as he could.

Now, much like everything else, he lost that chance. So aptly put and not reassuring at all, to tell someone losing his volition that there's yet another decision out of his reach.

Instead of jumping to assumptions, Neil thinks only to question. To probe. For what purpose, what reason-- All and nothing. "No matter where it leads?" To Heaven. To Hell. To that city by the shore, its radioactive water sparkling in the sunlight.

[doubletap]

It's dumb. And he's too old for it. It's a young response, and possibly an untruthful one. Alex wouldn't follow Neil off a cliff, for example--he'd drag him backwards instead. But still, still he finds himself saying it. Something he would have laughed at someone saying he would have said before. But here, here he echoes without hesitation.

"No matter where it leads."