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]

Sound, sight, the air around Neil's body--everything gives off the essence of fear. Panic. A pure reaction, nothing more, and Alex has never seen the like from Neil Park. Alex's entire body shifts from tension to something looser. He touches the side of Neil's face opposite from his wound, touches the kid's cheek, and leans to kiss him extraordinarily gently. "Hey," he says. "It's okay. I won't let anything happen you don't want."

Alex will keep him awake himself, if Neil is so adverse to the idea. "I got you. I'll fix this. Trust me."

[goodfight]

Contact, pain, a soft kiss-- They do not matter so much as that promise, that protection from that which lurks behind the dredges of sleep. Neil calms, in spite of his wide and bloodshot eyes.

"What you do need from me?" he questions, voice subdued.

[doubletap]

Neil quiets, and for that, Alex is grateful. He straightens, pulling his hand away. "Right now, you need to stay awake on your own for a little bit. I need to make this place a bit more secure before we start. You also need to get a little bit of food in you--and water, to wash out some of the alcohol, or your blood's going to be too thin for me to work with."

He moves as he talks, crossing to his own pack and coming up with an MRE. On the way back, he snags two of the water bottles he filled. "I know it's not shit you like, but we're just going for nutrition here, okay?"

[goodfight]

Food and water, right. His stomach threatens to rebel at mention of both, but it is as Alex says. His blood's too thin; it will flow out faster than is healthy.

Without wanting, out of both frustration and exhaustion, Neil bursts into tears. Nothing else about him changes. "Yeah," he says evenly. "Okay."

[doubletap]

Alex finishes walking over, then puts the bottles and packet on the gurney next to Neil, before crouching down. Head height with the table he watches Neil without judgment.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

[goodfight]

The essentials to this upcoming operation are within reach, but it is Alex that begs for his attention. Neil watches the older man for a long minute, the tears obscuring the details on Alex's face, eyelids fluttering in an attempt for clarity.

Finally, he exhales in a sigh. "It's fine." No, it's not. "I mean, I'll be fine. Eventually."

[doubletap]

Alex, despite everything, offers Neil a grin. He stands, hands on his thighs to push up. "Kid, that was never in question. You pull through anything. Don't you remember passing out in the desert? When those raiders in Kansas got that lucky shot in your gut? There's not a doubt you'll be fine."

But you're not now.

Nothing of Alex shows that--he only expands a casual confidence in the simplicity of the statements made. They're true, of course. But this is something different. It's not just Neil's body in question.

[goodfight]

He blinks, his mind mulling over the painted past. Without the feeling behind the motion, Neil returns Alex's expression with a small smile of his own. "That bullet barely missed my liver," is the response. "Still don't know how I survived that."

Still don't know why he had to continue. Why he had to get on that damn ferry. He grimaces, pain pressing into his skull like needles.

[doubletap]

Alex drops the smile, keeps the quiet presence. "Because you survive," he says. "You always do. You'll survive this, too," he says, meaning more than the head injury.

He turns to head to the door. "Just focus on keeping some food down for now. Drink all the water."

[goodfight]

Survive. "I do, don't I?" Live through to another day, to start another day, to go through another cycle. He's been at this for less than five years, acclimated to the lifestyle by the way of sheer willpower, and Neil--

(Why do we do anything?)

His head screams like someone ripped it open with a Ripper, and Alex is telling him to focus. Quietly, his expression still contorted, he reaches for a bottle.

[doubletap]

He leaves him to it. Walks out the door like it's nothing, like it's just another day, and around the corner and down the hall, Alex gasps, hand to his chest, and leans hard against the wall. His head tilts back to press against the wall, and he squeezes his eyes shut, keeps any tears that were threatening deep inside. "Goddamnit," he whispers. Just. Goddamnit.

ED-E is watching over Neil, and Dogmeat has been staring at Neil since he started talking, and Alex is breathing in an abandoned hallway and remembering what it means to be calm.

[goodfight]

It's hell opening that bottle, but he manages. Takes the water in slow, agonizing swallows as his eyes attempt to focus on the scenery and the remaining occupants. ED-E is closest with Dogmeat toward a corner. Neil recognizes medical equipment as well as an odd familiarity that he just cannot shake.

When he tips the bottle back one more time, recognition strikes and strikes hard, and Neil almost chokes on his water. He coughs instead, grimacing again at the resulting pain in his head. At the conclusion he makes.

This is the place he was born in. The same room his mother died in.

(Skeleton. Birthday hat. "If my kid looked like that, I'd abandon it, too.")

Quietly, with Alex out of the room, Neil starts sobbing.

[doubletap]

He takes a moment. Hopes the kid is eating. Then pushes off the wall and heads to do what he planned to do from the start. Hopefully the assholes upstairs won't come down at all of the noise.

The white couch is pushed up the stairs, angled across the door. The filing drawers that were next to it are shoved to the foot of the stairs, letting people see over it, but blocking the pathway. Alex doesn't really believe it will stop anyone who wants to come down here, especially if they have power armor and are lacking dicks, but it's not for the blocking that he does it. It's for the sound. He doesn't want to be interrupted, and the sound of the couch falling down the stairs or the cabinet slamming against the floor will give Alex enough time to finish whatever step he is doing and pick up his gun.

As a last thought, he pulls the desk and the smaller cabinet into the start of the hall, angling them against each other that it wouldn't be easy to climb over them. Alex looks over his work, mouth a thin, displeased line, but eventually he nods.

In the room Neil is in, the kids have shifted. Dogmeat has moved to sit next to the gurney, looking up at Neil with old eyes, and ED-E has moved even closer as well, beeping quietly in concern. He is not going to call for Alex, but he doesn't know what Alex's friend needs.

Alex comes back in a singular motion, swinging the door around behind him, leaving it open enough to hear anything that happens out there--

But what he hears instead is the sound of quiet sobbing. Alex rotates on his heels back to look at Neil, face a wary mask. The kids are hovering, and Neil hasn't even opened the MRE packet. He makes a motion with his hand to ED-E, and hesitantly, the eyebot backs off a bit. "Neil."

[goodfight]

God, how long has it been since he last cried? Years? Was that when Christine Kendall kicked him in the balls with such force that Dad had to treat him on the classroom floor? What a ridiculous memory, a stark contrast to the here and now.

Neil Park sobs into his water bottle, causing eyebot and dog to hover near in concern. There are noises outside, something that might cause one to wonder, but Neil only wipes his eyes with the back of a hand.

It is his name, however, that forces a hard stop. Noticing the man at the door, Neil swallows the noise and coughs harshly. Closes his eyes at his skull threatening to burst.

"Sorry," he manages between breaths. "I'm trying." To eat, to drink. To fucking survive.

[doubletap]

At that moment, in this solitary second, Alex doesn't know what to do for Neil. Alex is woefully unprepared for this--what do you say to your young lover when his head has been ripped apart by a sociopath?-- No, honestly. Alex has never been close enough to a person to watch them cry and want to comfort them. He doesn't know how. And he doesn't even know if comfort is something Neil would want--or accept.

But he is here. And that is all Alex can offer.

He crosses the room, boots heavy against the floor, and he reaches--touches Neil's arm and keeps his hand there. "Take all the time you need. A few more minutes won't make a difference."

The impatience he had been holding has vanished. The anxiety that causes him to need to move shifting to something thicker, heavier--a steady fear instead, tempered only by the lack of distance between them.

[goodfight]

He inhales sharply at the proximity, the pressure on his arm. Alex exercises patience, and Neil wishes not to test it. Not to mess things up more somehow. Opening his eyes, he reaches for the MRE packet. His fingers slip multiple times trying to fiddle with the opening, and Alex takes the packaging from him, eventually handing back an opened MRE.

Neil manages to start eating, taking pains not to look at Alex directly. Each morsel of food proves blander than their irradiated, pre-packaged brethren, but it is the blandness that stops Neil from throwing it all back up. While chewing, he glances down at Dogmeat and offers a weak smile, attempting to reassure the mutt.

[doubletap]

The kid struggles but continues, and that's the essence of the existence that Alex has come to know. Alex keeps his hand on Neil, keeps watching him, even as the kid won't even look at him. He doesn't know if it's just because of what happened, or if part of Neil really wishes Alex wasn't here right now--hadn't been there when he turned to the pier.

Alex takes in a breath, deep and simple. There's no point to any of that now. Just focus on what needs to be done.

[goodfight]

Neil's halfway through the MRE when his stomach starts to churn, an obvious warning sign. Anymore may result in...unpleasantries. He sets down the packaging and finally turns his eyes to Alex.

The man appears intent, the way he's watching Neil. It's enough for Neil's breaths to catch neatly in his throat.

Finally, he chances his question. "Is it okay if I stop?" asks Neil. "I can't finish."

[doubletap]

He reaches, takes the package from Neil to drop on the floor instead. The dog had been watching his master, unchanging gaze focused on Neil, but he drops his attention long enough to nose at the packet, licking at it in curiosity.

"Water, though," Alex says, and his voice is hoarse, thick, like he's been screaming. Surprised, he clears his throat, tries again. "You honestly gotta drink more than that."

[goodfight]

Dogmeat gets the leftovers, and as he looks again at the dog, Neil wonders if the creature will eat. He has been silent throughout this reunion--no surprise, of course, but the fact remains. The boy and his dog have not remained apart for more than a couple of days at the most. A month and a week must have been torture for Dogmeat.

Neil watches his child for a long minute, despite his attention never leaving Alex. "Right," he murmurs. He reaches out for the second bottle.

[doubletap]

Dogmeat will eat--has not denied any food in the past month. He's a simple creature, and to stop eating out of mourning is something unable to be comprehending. ED-E fried up mirelurks and Dogmeat ate them--but here, the pre-packaged MRE is something else, and he takes to chewing on a piece like a toy, taking it back to his original corner to lay down with. His eyes raise to Neil as he chews, watching him, then he lays his head on his paws again.

As if to say not to be concerned.

ED-E moves back to hovering near Neil's head, likely--Alex thinks--tries to analyze the damage. Organics isn't his kid's strong point, though, but he lets the eyebot worry as he wishes. Not like Alex is any better. "Just a little," he says, and he's surprised to find his tone is something close to pleading. Alex swallows. "You don't need to drink it all, I'm not cutting you open."

[goodfight]

Dogmeat takes back his food to his corner, and Neil exhales, relieved. He screws off the cap and begins to sip the water, his eyes glancing from Dogmeat to ED-E to Alex. Every single occupant in this room is running high on tension. The guilt is almost enough for Neil to ask Alex to forget about treating him.

Alex wouldn't listen anyway.

Neil pauses at the words given, the tone sealed within, and he lowers the bottle. "I can drink the entire bottle," he says softly. "It's not a problem." Except everything about this is a problem.

[doubletap]

--He has the irrational urge to apologize.

The irregularity of it all causes something to shift, snap, and Alex turns away for a moment, hand pushing up through his hair. For a moment--silence, then Alex actually offers truth, without anything attached to it. "Goddamnit, kid," he says, in a tone of tiredness and something close to relief. "I was really worried about you."

[goodfight]

The statement is unexpected, pleasantly so, and Neil Park feels sick just thinking it. He fucked over this guy; feeling good about being worried over was inherently, undeniably selfish.

Sobs sit close to his throat, but Neil manages to force them down, his mind running through the excuses. 'Didn't really think about how long it was gonna take.' 'Sounded like a good opportunity.' 'Wanted to help that mom.' Excuses. He can't bring himself to say any of it.

Instead, he only has room for one thing. "Sorry." He swallows harshly and looks away. "Sorry..."

[doubletap]

Abruptly--surprisingly--Alex turns, holds his arm out to point a finger directly at Neil. "Hey. No."

Like scolding a dog.

"Don't you start apologizing to me. You had shit to deal with. You had just better tell me first next time before you run off and left us all hanging. You had a reason for doing it, fine, got it. You're back. You're here and it's fine." He speaks the words, and finds them effortlessly true. Seeing Neil, holding him while the girl did her shitty explanation, talking to him even now-- Alex's anger was gone, replaced by something else.

He gives a rueful expression. "But I'd really like to come watch your back next time you head somewhere new. Don't want a repeat of this."