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]

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."

[goodfight]

"Alex." Neil can't properly hear his own voice, but the name cuts through the murk and the molasses. He calls again, something different this time. "Old man."

Courier. Seattle and Geer. There exists multiple names and titles for the man in front of him, and Neil will settle for his two favorite as he offers his humble opinion. "You're an idiot, you know that?" he concludes. "A fucking idiot. You should find someone your own age."

Not this worthless kid.

[doubletap]

Despite everything, Alex smiles at the kid in his arms. "Your idiot," he pronounces. "Only yours."

[goodfight]

His head hurts like hell. His ears are overtaken by the pounding in his chest. Neil thinks he could step aside the room to seek for a bucket and empty the remaining contents of his stomach into that bucket. Somehow, all of that is made better with that declaration. That dumb, stupid declaration.

Time again flows as it should. He again finds himself in the present, in the thick of reality, and he chokes back a sob at the sight of it.

"Awesome," he says wretchedly. "I've always wanted a forever companion."

[doubletap]

Alex reaches his hand up again, to touch black hair (getting longer), and tuck it behind Neil's ear. Alex's smile turns bittersweet without his knowing. "Sorry. I'm not making anything better, am I?"

He swallows, exhales. "...Want me to leave you alone?"

[goodfight]

That's not the meaning he wanted to convey to Alex, who is only doing Neil a favor. Who still offers affectionate gestures without prompting. The younger man forces himself to take in a deep breath, closing his eyes at the hand against his hair, and try once again.

"You're good. Promise." The sarcasm from before has scattered to the air. In its place, Neil offers another regret. "I should be the one apologizing. This probably was--" Awkward begs to be inconsiderate. "--difficult for you to tell me."

A pause. "Doesn't matter. I just need fresh air. Know you wanted me to stay down below, but--" Here, Neil grins, the expression strained and disquieting. "Ten minutes outside is all I'm asking for."

But he wouldn't fight if Alex disagreed with the request.

[doubletap]

He watches as Neil rambles, as the man continues to speak. When the flow ceases, he moves to speak opposite. To expand where he wouldn't otherwise. "'s not difficult," he mentions. "I'll repeat it as much as you like. Going up would be difficult, though, what with our friends upstairs. I understand, yeah, but--"

--But nothing, actually. Now that he thinks about it.

"You trust me, right? You wanna wait here a sec and I'll see what I can do?"

[goodfight]

At the prospect of a repeat, Neil visibly shudders, head angling toward the floor in shame. He's acting like a trauma victim, like a frail old thing that will crumble at the slightest touch. Fucking worthless.

"Right," he confirms quietly. The man starts to move off of Alex's lap. "Yeah, I'll wait here."

[doubletap]

As Neil moves, Alex can't help it. He grabs for him, holds him there. For a moment, Alex doesn't know why he did it.

Then the answer, selfish as it is, makes itself known. He moves to cup Neil's cheek. "...Do you still love me?"

[goodfight]

Something restricts his motions, and Neil is surprised to find that the source of it is Alex. He turns his head to watch the other, to silently question the reason.

When Alex touches his cheek and utters a question (that question), Neil freezes. Head, heart, and gut scream their answer in unison, but he can't. He can't say what everything in him wants him to say.

So he gives the next best thing. A truth, of course, but still very lacking. "My feelings for you haven't changed," he answers carefully.

[doubletap]

He doesn't try to kiss him again. Not right now. Instead he raises a hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles. "Wait here for me, then."

[goodfight]

Of course, Neil would wait for Alex. Of course, after everything-- After the Courier waited five weeks for the Lone Wanderer to return from an ill-fated trip up to Point Lookout, how could the younger man say otherwise?

"Okay." The lips against his hand affects him more than he can properly say. Neil looks to a wayward wall as he shifts from Alex's lap onto the mattress.