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

[goodfight]

Rotting skin, pus, and water grate against the sensitive nerve endings, and Neil stifles a cry. He clenches his hands into fists and tenses on the gurney, staying as such until he regains his ground.

At that point, he slowly relaxes. "You, hm." A pause, as if the man never meant to start with that word. "Are we going back to the-- The Mojave?"

For reasons unsaid, he leaves the last statement alone.

[doubletap]

A mess. But a simple one. It's infected, to be sure, but the flesh under the skin is a vibrant, unhealthy red--no trace of black or yellow or gray. Clean it out, it'll heal fine. Which Alex begins to do, mainly relying on simple unirradiated water to do the job. It flushes blood and clots and thicker fluids down through Neil's hair onto the cloth below.

"At least to stop. I need to check on some things and trade out some stuff. Plus I ran out of 12 gauge rounds back in Missouri, and I'm going to be bitchy if I can't use that slick riot shotgun for much longer." He shifts water over Neil's head again, just rinsing out the sick for the moment. "After that, we'll see where we go, huh? There's a lot you haven't seen of the West. Cali is NCR, but there's some amazing stuff to see there."

[goodfight]

Despite the stinging pain, the awkward, the mess, Neil takes the cleaning as well as it can be expected. Tense and unhappy. It takes much of his concentration not to whimper.

Somehow, this does not stop him from actually responding to Alex. "Cali...fornia is where the Vault...Dweller is from?" he manages between breaths. "Go see...his vault...?"

Because according to a special guy in a special kind of power armor, the Vault Dweller is famous around those parts.

[doubletap]

Without looking away from his work, Alex raises his eyebrows.

"North part of California, from what I hear," Alex answers. The fact of the kid having an interest and preference in where they go sets him back to that first week, where they traveled the Mojave, and Alex tried to seduce Neil into appreciating it. In the end, there was a different kind of seduction, but it was really that Neil was a cute drunk and responded well to kindness and interest under alcohol. Better than most days.

"If you want to go there, we'll make it happen. NCR might be bitches about it, but there's a way." Somehow. "We'll go to Arroyo, too--the city the Vault Dweller started back when. The Hub, Vault City, New Reno... There's a lot of culture, old world and new, in those places."

No wonder Ulysses never went.

[goodfight]

It's a substantial list of places the Courier offers, and Neil, in his drug and pain-laden haze, proves responsive. He soaks the information in, mind flashing forward to a possible future.

"Was originally going to...someplace called San Francisco." The original plan that has yet to come to fruition. "Was going to see the ocean."

[doubletap]

Alex continues, water still running pink. The conversation is far more rewarding than he originally thought. "Frisco?" Alex questions, voice for the first time since Neil came back filled with something close to pleasant satisfaction. "I've been there. I really like that town," he confides. "It has a lot of interesting aspects to it. Hubologists, a group of Chinese from a sub called the Shi, a survivalist group called the Vagrants, and a--"

Alex pauses everything to look up and frown at the opposite wall. After a single beat, he grins ruefully and shakes his head. "...And a live bomb in the middle of town, Wanderer. You'd feel right at home."

[goodfight]

It's the first stroke of luck since, well, forever-- Alex Seattle Geer has visited Neil's original destination and provides further insight in its sights and sounds and unusual groups. As they have a great deal of time ahead of them, he thinks to address them one at a time.

First, working backwards, the bomb. "More people need to...learn..." He takes a deep breath in an effort to focus away from his physical distress. "Learn how to disarm that shit. How...did that happen anyway?"

[doubletap]

Alex carefully peers at Neil's head. Once completely rinsed, he'll be able to see more--the white of bone and the flush of flesh, but he needs to make sure it's completely good before he continues. There was too much rot with that fucking string used, too much inflammation along the edges. The conversation, then, is a good space filler. "Not that sure, to be honest. People mentioned something about revenge from an old rig--Enclave, maybe? It could have been the whole Navarro shit."

He shakes his head. "Either way, we can ask when we're there. Then you can disarm a second bomb," he adds, giving a charming smile.

[goodfight]

Enclave apparently had a pretty big to-do in the West as well, albeit Navarro only reminds him of fire ants and protective fathers. Neil frowns thoughtfully, making a mental note (if he remembers) to ask when they are there. "I'm not disarming any more bombs unless I see caps."

He moves to the second topic. "So Hubologists." Which Alex mentioned once or twice prior. "What's their religion about?"

[doubletap]

"Then ask for caps, babe. No one's stopping you." The other side of things....

Alex makes a pained face. "Nothing like a religion at all, that's for damn sure. It's more a long con left over from the old world. But it's really something you should see for yourself."

[goodfight]

There is a brief pause. Then: "Did ask for caps in the beginning." Beginning meaning, of course, when Neil first entered the surface world. "All I got were complaints about how I'm taking away caps from x, y, and z. So I eventually just stopped asking."

It's a non-sequitur. A highly unusual one, but something he felt like saying.

He inhales sharply to gain some stability before continuing. "You're going say the same thing about the Shi and the Vagrants...aren't you?"

[doubletap]

The water begins to run clear. Alex sees the white of bone, an unhealthy crack. There's something off and he starts to get a bad feeling. "No, I'll tell you," he starts, distracted suddenly. "But first you have to help me a bit."

Alex reaches to touch the tip of his pinky finger to the outside of the crack, on the solid bone. He traces it with his eyes. "Do you know what he used to cut the bone?"

[goodfight]

Something within him, something once untouched, stirs, and Neil suppresses a shudder. Tries to think back to the clues, to the tools that might have been used. Not the surgeon. Definitely not the surgeon.

Except nothing really comes to him. Nothing except that vision, that walk through water.

Actually, wait.

"I dreamed--" He pauses, shifting words around. "I think it was a saw with a serrated blade."

[doubletap]

"Brace yourself," Alex says, then peels back the skin on Neil's forehead as gently as he can.

...

Then visually confirms his bad feeling and Neil's words. He licks his lips as not to say anything he'll regret. He thins his lips to remember anger isn't something that has a place here. He breathes and thinks he can possibly remember the feeling of calm.

This isn't it. Not at all.

[goodfight]

From Neil's perspective, the next minute simply disappears. Looking back, he assumes he must have blacked out. Nothing registers in his memory. There's only static on the line.

When he comes to, the entire front of his head feels like it is on fire, every pain receptor screaming at him to stop. Stop whatever madness is causing this, to flail and fight the source. Fortunately, his efforts at concentrating serve him well; Neil manages to neither jolt nor scream during the process.

He is, however, gripping the edge of the gurney with the strength of a deathclaw strung out on Buffout. Consequently, the metal starts to bend and crack.

[doubletap]

The creaking sound of metal alerts him to a threat he overlooked. Aka, Neil Park's inhuman strength, currently focused enough on not moving that the gurney decides to move instead. The wish to comfort vanishes in an eyeblink--nothing other than getting this over with would be something like comfort.

"Sorry, Neil," Alex murmurs, reaching the kid's forearm before retracting it back to work. The skin, thinner than anywhere else on the body, mostly stays where he leaves it, folded along itself. It's fine. It's enough. He doesn't need to do surgery here, just--

"I have to reset the bone," he says, voice tight and angry. "Going to have to do a bit more first. You still going to be able to bear it? Say the word and you don't have to be conscious for this."

[goodfight]

Neil stays like that, frozen in that excruciating agony, for another good minute. The metal bars bend to form decent hand impressions.

A brief touch pulls his attention back to his surroundings, to his body, and bit by bit, Neil releases the tension, the heavy grip on the metal. A piece snaps off and falls to the wayside, which he ignores to concentrate on breathing.

He inhales and exhales for a moment, eyes wide open and chest heaving. It takes him longer to chance speech. "Do...it..."

[doubletap]

One would look at this kid, sharp, attractive, but possibly unassuming, and see the damage he's doing to the gurney and see a threat. Obviously this kid is mutated in some way--his DNA not completely human anymore. A lot of people would see that metal fall away and decide to end him instead of try to help him. Alex only spares a glance for it, and wishes Neil wasn't in that much pain to cause that reaction.

He doesn't waste time answering. The faster he can get this over with, the faster Neil won't have to deal with it. He had tools put aside in case he did have to lift part of the skull to reset it--now he'll be using them to take the entire part off. The awkward oval, cut at an angle, very obviously with a serrated blade--the kind you use for meat to carve, at an old world table, or to gather wood by sawing a tree-- It's probably what's causing most of the problem. A filthy knife, an unclean wound, an uneven cut, and gods be fucking good, a jagged serrated edge on either side.

Alex swallows, caught somewhere between rage and disgust. His plan shifts, changes. He's fucking glad for ED-E.

The first thing, however, is honestly the hardest for Neil, though. The bone has started fusing, despite the edges.

[goodfight]

Once said, Neil understands there is no going back. Two weeks have past since his makeshift operation; whatever break making up the hole in his head would have started to fuse. And there is no amount of bracing that's going to prepare him for that separation. He breathes, chest expanding and contracting in a rhythm fit for concentration. For readiness.

Funny thing, though, about pain. Sometimes an overdose of it is enough to keep you from feeling the full extent, keep you from knowing when it finally hits.

Neil doesn't remember. For a brief, unknown point in time, his world spirals into the dark, into that blessed nonexistence.

[doubletap]

The kid goes somewhere inside himself, and Alex is fucking thankful for the moment. He's still conscious--more or less--and still rigid as a board in his attempt for stillness. Fine enough. Fucking fine.

Turning to the side, Alex starts a complicated string of whistles, then coughs, throat dry, swelled. And he doesn't really have a code for what he needs to ask. He Spanglishes the rest of it. It just needs to be-- "--Smooth. Not smaller, if it can be helped, though I can put together a sealant for now. We need something that--" --Fits. Where it's supposed to be. Without pain.

ED-E moves up and down once, then, at a nod from Alex, uses the thinnest laser he can muster on the edges of the small piece of bone in Alex's hand.

[goodfight]

If asked, Neil might say he wasn't ready. When he finally wakes the fuck up, he's practically drowning in the pain. He sputters and gasps while transitioning from a black out to almost all in, while exposing his grey and white matter to the air, and the part of him that's delicate simply dies.

Neil wants to tell Alex-- Tell him to end it. Kill it. He wants to, but his throat catches on the words. So he reaches upward, as if to grasp something.

[doubletap]

He's older than the kid. Alex remembers that again.

Movement catches the corner of his eye, but Alex waits until ED-E is complete, then lowers the bone to a tray on the table. Two of the unused Med-X are picked up, uncapped, and emptied into Neil's neck without warning. Here's to hoping the jugular would take it straight to the heart.

He leans over Neil, hands clasping on the kid's shoulders, and stares unflinchingly into his eyes. "Hey," he says, firmly, quietly, without room for argument. "You have a job to do. You focus on that fucking job. You stay still and you swallow that pain until this is over. You got one more shitty hard part, and then things will get easier. But that shitty part is the part you might die. So you do your job, Neil. You stay awake, you stay still, and you swallow it. Because I did not come all this way out here to lose you."

[goodfight]

Two pricks of the needle register late. The chem goes into effect first, adding weight to his outstretched arms and a blanket over his awareness. Misery does not abate, but Neil feels less inclined to do something about it.

Less and more. Alex holds his shoulders and stares hard, uttering words that start to make better sense as each second passes. Stay still, he can do. Stay awake, he can do. Swallow down the pain to the darkest recess of his awareness. Fuck, Neil can do that.

He doesn't know where that thought comes from. He doesn't really care to know. Instead, breath by breath, Neil lowers his arms and steadies his breathing. By trudging through the shit step by step, he slowly, carefully reaches a plateau.

All right, he thinks. All right.

[doubletap]

All right. All right.

"ED-E," Alex states, staying where he is, keeping Neil's eyes on him, not looking away. The robot makes a nervous sound, then a determined one. Alex pauses. "Neil. You just remember. We're going to see the ocean, okay? By the time we get there, this will just be a memory. Sea to shining sea, remember? This is nothing but a moment."

He doesn't need to make a sound to ED-E to start. They have a motion between them (and Boone), the subtle shift of a finger on the right hand for 'attack', and the road to hell is paved in good intentions, and apparently the start of healing can be done with a weaponized firing laser.

ED-E stills in the air, ratchets his output higher and his beam thinner, and shaves against the jagged edges in an open skull.

[goodfight]

They're going.

That's right. That's so right. They're going to the ocean by the city called Frisco, where Hubologists, Chinese, and survivalists live and thrive. It is where Neil will watch the radiated Pacific, its waves crashing against the shore, with a friend and their companions by his side.

He idly wonders as he gazes into Alex's grey-blue eyes, as he feels the slightest pressure from ED-E's laser, if he might someday see the sun set on those shores. Might someday forget this horrible moment and everything with it.

Be nothing but a ghost lurking beneath his skin.