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]

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.

[doubletap]

Alex doesn't look away from Neil at all. He doesn't blink, doesn't move. Doesn't loosen his grip on the kid's shoulders, or give off any tension. His body is filling with cortisol and nothing more, but he shows nothing of it. Because he's doing what Neil needs right now. And as much as the kid needs this head fix, he also needs other things just as much.

ED-E beeps something that sounds tired, drained, and in Alex's peripheral vision, Dogmeat rises in either concern or curiosity. Alex keeps his gaze on Neil, moves a hand to touch fingertips to his cheek. "...Worst part over," he murmurs. "Just a bunch of uncomfortable things now, okay?"

[goodfight]

There's movement. There're sounds and affection. Neil blinks against the blanket over his consciousness, the loose pressure threatening to close in, and breathes out. Until that moment, he wasn't aware that he was holding his breath.

"...Okay," he gives with effort, his throat parched and grating.

[doubletap]

...He's overcome by some kind of emotion. He can't think to speak. He rubs a finger against Neil's cheek, then only murmurs quietly. "...Good kid."

He separates slowly, then gives his attention to the eyebot. ED-E gives a hopeful sound, and Alex lays his hand against his friend's chassis. "Good job," is the quiet praise. "Watch for now."

The next is just science. After everything else, the fact of combined chemicals is almost too simple. The substance he put together earlier, from their paste and a hackney biogel and a vegetative aloe is perfectly fine as a solvent and sealant. He lines the bone piece with it liberally, touches dabs to the outside of the hole, and taking a careful bit of time, lines them up so that this time they fit right. The solvent holds long enough for him to cake the stuff on the outside once they're together--it seals in less than ten seconds. A perfectly natural, easily dissoluble, non-obtrusive substance which is not something that will rot and infect.

He had tried not to look in at the brain itself. It's not his specialty, not by any means, and he wanted to get that finished and closed. What he did end up seeing was better and worse than he thought. There was no giant chunk missing--just maybe an indent slightly noticeable. The trade-off was the unhealthy pulsing red, giving rise to Alex's main assumption. If Neil doesn't already have a fever, he'll have one soon enough from all of this--and it wouldn't be good.

"Almost done with this, kid," Alex says, stepping back. "Just need to line up the skin and sew it up. Giving you warning."

It's going to hurt.

[goodfight]

Alex praises the relevant parties and sets to work, but the details are lost on Neil. Mind laden with fog, he drifts in and out of awareness as the world moves forward around him, nearly touching the unconscious before twitching awake. The forms in that room shift and change beneath the light, and--

Well, it's nothing pleasant. It's nothing unbearable. The worst, as stated, is over.

When Alex explains, Neil closes and opens his dark eyes as a response, as if to acknowledge the warning. He does not have the full concentration as he did prior, but the Med-X may curb the worst of what's to come. Hopefully.

[doubletap]

Neil gets a moment. Alex wants to do this as quick and neat as possible. The catgut is flossed through the needle, double pulled for stability, and Alex goes through the motions of a battleground medic, thinks somewhere in his mind it's a little funny, and strangely enough, misses Arcade. Julie, and everyone else doing good. Doc Richards, Doc Mitchell. The Auto-fucking-Doc in the Big Empty. Hah, now that's--

He never actually told that group he was leaving for a while. Time doesn't pass the same for them, but he wonders if he should have, now. Wonders if he should have went to the Big Empty, went to the Divide, went to the fucking Boomers, the Devil's Brigade... Should have told the people who have started to live their lives relying on him that he was going. He didn't think this would be anything but a vacation, and for Alex--traveling is something he's always done. Telling people is something else. All he actually took the time to do is update the Lucky 38 crew and program a new emergency subroutine into the Mk II Securitrons. This vacation was more like an escape and he understands that now. Still doesn't excuse anything. Still doesn't mean those things disappeared because he needed a break. If they get back to the Mojave, things need to be done differently. He's not going to lock himself to a location like House, but he's going to find a way to balance responsibility and self. Going to have to. Because this will work the way it deserves to; play out the way it needs to.

Because the Mojave deserves to live, like the Divide never got to.

The skin is carefully moved into place, and after making sure Neil is remaining still, he begins to thread the needle through flesh.

[goodfight]

It hurts like Alex says, but Neil manages. He barely shifts from the alignment of thin skin, from the pinpricks, the uncomfortable sensation of thread pulling through one's own flesh. The man only sets his jaw and forces his ragged breaths through his nose.

His vision blurs. The skin covering the rest of his face and body starts to feel warm, almost comfortably so. Neil thinks that he might fall asleep, despite his preferences. If he isn't careful, he might go back to those unwanted dreams.

He wonders if he actually has a choice in the end.

[doubletap]

There's too much stillness in the interim, and Alex thinks it's not fair to expect Neil to fill in the gaps. Without looking up from the needlework, Alex starts a running monologue, casual and light.

"So I was bored within a day of you being gone," he says. "And you know that Moira has been on you to do a sequel...."

[goodfight]

Moments before, Neil might have lifted his eyes to Alex, holding exasperation and intrigue. Now, he barely registers the story's beginning. He blinks tiredly, watching and listening with the awareness of a patient slipping happily into their Med-X fix. The only tell is his mouth settling into a line, as if showing his disapproval.

[doubletap]

Alex's eyes glance down and notice the attempt at a hard-set line. He snorts. "Like you're in any position to lecture me. She gave me a list of things; got an open quest log from her. I was going to start, but...."

But the dog came back. And Alex got distracted.

"Anyway, I am going to finish the shit out of that before we go."

[goodfight]

Well, Neil supposes that he's being hypocritical. He did blow himself up with a frag mine for one of her requests. Besides, he recently got his brain cut out of his own accord; there's no room for his complaints.

He opens his mouth to speak but quickly finds disappointment. The question he intended to ask is reduced to a single word. "What...?" gasps Neil.

[doubletap]

"The first one?" He guess at the sentence. "A special fungus that's been rumored to sustain life completely by itself, and can even reduce radiation. She said it's in a place called Little Lamplight."

He finishes one part of the gash, ties it off. Moves on to the other one.

[goodfight]

Oh. That fungus. That place. Neil had planned to bring Alex to Little Lamplight (if the new mayor, since MacCready's likely long gone, is willing to grant entrance), but then everything just kind of petered out. His enthusiasm for his hometown took a nosedive at the amount of crap, and by the time they reached the Republic of Dave, he hated D.C. with every fiber of his being.

The corners of his lips pull down into a frown.

[doubletap]

"Eh, you can bitch about it later," Alex says, with a pat far enough back on Neil's head that it shouldn't pull skin. "But I'm interested to see what she does with the stuff. Especially if--"

He grins. "--If I finish helping her, and we both have our name on a book. We can buy them in a pair and be celebrities."

[goodfight]

Alex pats him like he's consoling a irritable child, and Neil can't help but frown harder. Especially when the other speaks.

The first portion of what he says is fine, but-- What? No. Absolutely not. Neil can't even look at his fucking name on that fucking book; why the hell would he want to buy it?

This is all expressed in a low growl.

[doubletap]

Alex laughs once, tired, but something lightens. Loosens. He stitches the last three stitches and ties it off, reaching for a scalpel to cut the catgut. "Wanderer, you disappear for over a month and get your head cut open, and you are fucking upset by something you should be proud of?"

[goodfight]

Neil's so displeased that he barely registers the finishing touches on his head. And to be frank, he doesn't really know why he got upset over the stupid Wasteland Survival Guide. Normally, he would feign irritation and be done with it. Perhaps now he's realizing the crowning moment of that time in hell was a guide about living in the Wastes.

The emotion's juvenile. It's just flat out dumb, and it makes him want to cry.

So again, he tears up. Blinks angrily to let the fucking water out of his eyes.

[doubletap]

Alex notices. Of course, he does. But he cuts the thread and reaches for the pot of homemade sealant on the table, slathering it over the cut with less careful motions than he did before. It dries into a somewhat sticky cream, but it'll help keep things together while stuff heals.

Which means he's done. Done and done.

He drops without warning, knees cracking on the floor, and leans to press his face into Neil's stomach, to take in, for a moment, that this first part--this first danger zone is over. He moves his head slightly, nuzzling, and just stays there. Stays right there.

[goodfight]

In his absurdity, Neil barely notices the final steps, the last stretch to repairing what had been damaged. It isn't until Alex drops to kneel and presses his face into Neil's stomach that the younger man realizes something has passed. His eyelids flutter as he watches Alex, as he attempts to make sense of what is unfolding before him.

[doubletap]

"Hey," he says for probably the eighteenth time, speaking into Neil's stomach. "You know that I love you, right?"

That this wouldn't have happened for anyone else.

"Please promise me," he says, lifting his head to look over to Neil, eyes tired and dark imprints heavy under his eyes. His face looks gaunt. "That you won't go alone to places you don't know anything about anymore. Please."