abstracts | the pier.

Entry tags:

fallout

the pier.

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.

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"Yeah," Neil replies, tone suddenly serious. "It does." That Alex can maintain his life so easily-- In a way, the fact's a blessing.

Neil frowns at his misunderstanding as well as the aforementioned individuals. "Oh. Tanks deserved to be screamed at, that crotchety bastard. Xavier, though." His expression shifts to something more complex. "I know Outcast. They will never back down, even for their own CO."

And will inevitably cause irreversible damage.

"You know that man died. The one you knew." Tanks. Alex killed him as he did the others. Let him make that point clear. "I killed all of the ones in the basement. But you... Like I said, you had no problem commanding me, did you?"

"I know." There is no hesitation. Neil isn't blind to what occurred.

The latter point, however, is what causes the awkwardness, the distinct feeling of disconnect. Neil blinks, suddenly uncertain. "It was a last-minute decision, and you... I trust you," he gives carefully.

Neil moves in the opposite direction that Alex intended. For the second time in this conversation, Alex stops, surprised, blinking at Neil. The teasing, the baiting, the innuendo he had intended for the subject dies instantly, and instead he furrows his brows, lifts a hand to touch Neil's face.

"I meant to ask you this," Alex starts. "But now is as good a time as any, I guess. I had wanted to ask you about that. You trusting me."

The disconnect worsens, leaving Neil to wonder why the question sits uncomfortably in his chest. He glances away to a nearby wall before looking back at Alex. "I know I told you--" On that one night, outside the Republic of Dave. "--that I can't trust you." That Alex couldn't gain Neil's trust if even James Park could not.

It's denial, plain and simple. "I didn't understand at the time that it was changing." That they were changing. "And when I saw you on that pier, I knew I could trust you. As shitty as that sounds." Neil trails off, going silent.

...When Alex kisses Neil, it's not demanding. It offers things rather than takes, and Alex cups his hands around Neil's shoulders, as if to keep him. They stay like that for a moment, before Alex breaks away.

"I know," he states quietly. "I knew from when you let me hold you on that pier. Then that girl mentioned you hadn't been sleeping, and then you let yourself go the moment I had you. Then with me bringing you here, and letting me handle things... You let me take care of you, let me... basically fuck around in your head, and trusted me to do what I could to make you better. You listened to me when I told you to focus and remember about the ocean. And when those assholes were in that room, you let me protect you instead of pushing your way past me.

"It's new," Alex continues. "It's not something I expected to receive from you. I don't know--" What changed. "--Why that is. Why you trust me to all of those extremes. You put your life in my hands and trusted me not to break it."

He swallows, looking like something caught between sadness and loss. "I don't know what happened to cause that."

Because I don't think that I deserve it.

They kiss, pressing lips in a way that Neil hardly recognizes, and something shifts within the younger man. Something opens up to clarity, the precise and perfect reasons. When Alex breaks away, Neil is silent. He listens to the other's explanations, feels his own, and sorts it all out in his broken head.

The truths involved are things that Neil understands now. Knows more clearly than even the back of his hand. His father is dead. Killed in a dramatic way, but ultimately, dead. There was never enough attention from that source, never the care that Neil craved, and whatever hope he had placed in Dad-- It's gone. All gone. No home on the Wastes. Nothing.

Alex is alive. He offers hope to someone who has learned to never expect hope, patiently despite the constant opposition. But it isn't just that. It's--

"You care about me," Neil murmurs sadly. "That was enough."

There is gravity.

There is gravity and there is weight, and for a perfect, precise moment, Alex Seattle Geer understands how it feels to have the responsibility of someone's life in your hands. Not in a simple way, as he likes, but something firmer and more delicate-- The understanding of trust. He has spoken of trusting Neil for months, but he wonders if he does, to this kind of extent. To this kind of giving yourself.

It's not simple. And it's not an excuse. It's the answer Neil gives to him, and it's enough for the moment. For right now.

Alex leans his hips into Neil, pressing, and leans to kiss him again. "I love you," he says, before their lips meet. A correction more than a declaration. He loves this kid, Neil Park. Not just care. Not just a passing whim, as Neil had said outside that Republic. Alex deepens the kiss, swallows him down, and doesn't want to stop. Wants to keep Neil in his arms.

It hurts. Past the physical, the motions cut straight into his heart, and despite that perfect clarity, Neil couldn't tell you why. He couldn't begin to sort out exactly why this affection, this correction, this love hurts so damn much.

He thinks respond, to return impressions with like, but he isn't ready. Neil cannot possibly be prepared to offer every scrap and piece of himself. There are delicate matters to consider, a choice to make, and he wonders if this might be the vice that kills him.

There is no going back from here. There is no life if this comes to a premature end.

Therefore, Neil swallows the words. He does not move to reject affection, only stills in his pain and passive acceptance. He breathes in Alex's scent.

Edited 2016-07-11 06:47 (UTC)

The silence does not bother Alex, because he knows Neil's mouth is busy. Because Alex has continued kissing the other man, his hands moving down from Neil's shoulders to trail his chest and diaphragm. To trace the lines of muscle and tendon. Alex kisses him, his own hands and body the opposite of Neil's stillness.

Eventually, he breaks slightly, breathing harder than he had been. "...Is this hurting you? Should I stop?"

There are hurt and pleasantries. There's a calm in the storm, and Neil can barely open his eyes to look at Alex. His breathing comes out uneven. "...Kinda," he murmurs slowly. "But you don't have to stop." Don't have to pull away right now.

Part of him wants to react to the first part. Wants to pull away and be someone who takes care of people properly--makes them rest and doesn't add exertions onto their body. The second part... It's new, though. Neil hasn't really fought him in a while, but giving permission is something that hasn't been voiced.

He's not completely selfish. He tells himself he'll stop before it goes too far. He just wants to continue this. Just for a while more.

"Tell me," he says, in-between kissing Neil again. "Tell me if you want me to stop."

Another first, maybe. Another offer to lay down at someone's feet.

If he was more coherent, Neil might have corrected the other man. Jokingly stated that this is not permission but a non-rejection. As he is, he cannot think beyond the affection, the mixed sensation blossoming beneath his skin. He speaks his assent against the other's lips, the agreement that he would tell him if this becomes too much.

Neil doesn't understand until much later that this is the first time such an offer has been given. The first time he would be given a verbal choice.

This bed is too small, and there are four men in the room above them that Alex is semi-fond of. Their kids are in the room--though, knowing ED-E, he's likely in the process of ushering Dogmeat out, if he hasn't already. Most importantly, Neil is recovering from some psychopath's idea of brain surgery, and they still don't know what that will affect going forward. Neil has a fever from the infection, and it's probably not good to raise his temperature higher. Maybe it would burn out the fever, or maybe it would make it worse.

But Neil acquiesces, and Alex, stressed and strained to his limits, cannot stop after that.

He breaks from Neil's lips, to kiss along his jawline and neck. "Tell me no," he says, voice rough and low. "Just tell me no and I'll stop."

Between the fever and the affection, between the dulled pain of feverish skin and the sweet contact of lips, Neil Park is not in a position to make a rational decision. So the subsequent answer should be completely expected.

He inhales sharply, his mind almost missing the words spoken. "I won't," begins Neil, "tell you no." Reject you outright in this moment.

Days ago, Alex saw Neil Park on a pier. The man was a tight coil of energy, and when Neil spoke to him, the band holding him snapped. Alex reacted. Moved. Acts and motion. Choices and consequences.

It had led them here, to the same circular motion.

Alex is a tight coil of energy, and Neil says that he won't tell him no. And despite all of the sincere reasons as to not, Alex reacts. Moves. Acts and motion. Choices and consequences.

He moves back to kiss his lips, tongue seeking secrets in his mouth. Alex's hand trails to Neil's hip, under his underwear, and keeps trailing down, dragging the cloth off as well.

It's strange. Alcohol softens sex to something quite pleasant. Sobriety allows the act to be barely tolerable. A fever is something new; it threatens to overwhelm entirely. Everything's warm and hurt and comfortably sharp. It's novelty enough for him to forget, to temporarily toss aside the idea that he's normally not into such things.

Neil exhales shakily, their lips and breaths mingling, his eyes closing shut. More skin opens to the cool air, and he curls his fingers against the mattress.

He drops the cloth off the side of the bed and returns his hand to Neil's hip. Traces the inside of his thigh with his fingers as he traces the inside of his mouth with his tongue. He moves up across Neil's stomach, before shifting down and settling on him there. His hand moves loosely, languid, as Alex shifts to the side to allow better movement.

Moves his other hand up to cup Neil's cheek as he continues to kiss him.

Neil makes a noise against Alex's lips, despite the tongue slipping inside his mouth and hand tracing against his inner thigh. He swallows the next that forms in the back of his throat, settling for uneven breaths and a pounding head. There's a need swiftly rising to overwhelm all others, thanks to lost inhibitions and a growing sickness, and Neil, without thinking, slowly shifts his legs to spread wider. To press the insides of his knees against the other man's sides.

Somehow, in everything, he remembers to breathe.

Edited 2016-07-11 07:59 (UTC)

Neil makes sounds into Alex's mouth, and Alex breaks away, breathing hard. He presses kisses to the skin of Neil's throat and collar, the hand on Neil's face moving to touch the fine hairs at the bottom of his head, petting there even as his other hand continues.

This would have continued, but something changes. Changes the normality of the act. Without prompting or prodding, Neil shifts. Spreads his legs and coils them upward to press into Alex. A motion that drops straight into the bottom of Alex's brain, the primal mind that only knows need.

His hand tightens around Neil, then releases to trail backward to a place well-known.

His head burns. His skull begins to threaten mutiny, and yet, it's still pleasant enough to seep into his bones, into the hollow spaces within. Neil inhales in shudders at Alex's mouth on his throat and the curve of his collar, his nerves frayed and his mind mercifully blank.

At the hand squeezing around him, at fingers releasing to slip back, the man exhales on a groan. Shifts to allow contact. With it, something sparks along his synapses, painful enough for Neil to slip out a small noise. A sound edging toward discomfort.

Between everything else, however, it's hardly distinct, and his motions never pause.

Edited 2016-07-12 03:32 (UTC)

Here, Alex finds balance. In Neil's gasping breaths and shaking form, Alex finds peace. As much as others may judge, this is his art form, and Neil is always his favorite (now only) partner in creating it.

Between sweat and fluids leaking, it's enough for Alex just to touch. When they turn to more, he'll have to grab for one of their bags, but for only fingers....

He presses inside, only a knuckle, and it's not a sound of pleasure that Neil makes.

Because, let's be honest, dubious consent or not, Alex has always perfected creating pleasure in his partners. Neil, more than any--maybe because he's neutral toward the act, or maybe because when he's finally pushed over the edge that it's so enthralling-- With Neil, Alex has spent more time with, finding the ways in which Neil personally takes pleasure. And even in the beginning, Alex had never done anything to cause pain.

Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe it's just discomfort, from a longer absence and lack of use. He moves inward more, and the sound repeats more clearly, Neil shifting slightly away from the penetration. The pain. If he was another, Alex would wonder if this was a rejection. But he's not. He's confident in this act, even when Neil had said no. And saying yes, wanting it, is a whole 'nother matter.

But honestly, that's neither here nor there. Because when Alex had pressed inward, he had felt differences in the body he knew best.

The small roughness of scabs beginning to form. In the places the tears were deeper, torn flesh can still be felt, texture he knew should not be here. He knows the feeling. Of course he does. Even Alex Seattle Geer had been a younger man once, entirely given over to self-pleasure rather than the pleasure that comes from his partner's body-- Hedonist that he is, he knows the difference. Both are self-satisfaction, of course. He wouldn't have it any other way. But the latter is pleasure from playing your partner's body like an instrument, and taking a higher pleasure from the reactions gained, the body beneath oneself writhing and trembling and tensing around you. The former is brute force, blunt strength, and mindless self-indulgence. There's no art, and once upon a time, Alex Seattle Geer had been that clumsy. That careless.

His partner had bled, torn and ripped, and the man Alex had slept with had been pushed to tears at the pain.

So yes. He knows this. He knows this well. And this... This here...

This is not of his doing.

It's too easy to put together the pieces. To slip the facts into place. Neil had been drugged, this is a fact; unconscious and likely bound. Violated and cut open. And someone--that someone (that psychopath)--seemed to take pleasure in those as lifeless as corpses. A clumsy attempt. A complete self-indulgent act. A ridiculous--

--Someone--not Alex--had been inside Neil Park. Had hurt him and torn him to the point of this, weeks later. And Alex had wondered at the reason why Neil was having nightmares.

Lust and loves mangles too easily to rage and hate. And it's extremely important that Alex does not show that at all to Neil.

He can't kiss him, not at this moment. The emotion would be too easily felt--he cannot reach for lies through lips at the moment. Instead his head dips lower, his mouth closing on a nipple and tracing the dark edge with his tongue as he sucked. As he does so, hoping for reactions--distractions--he retracts his finger slowly, moving at the same speed until he closes his hand around Neil again, holding firmly. These motions, a rhythm, are simple--easy. Something he can do at the moment. He shifts his lower body further back in an attempt to hide that any excitement he had held was gone--dispersed as fast as the realization had dropped. He licks and kisses back to Neil's collar, intending to bite--

And stops in that moment, laying a kiss there instead. No. No. He won't be adding to any pain.

The discrepancies start small, as they typically do. It begins as glass pieces embedded in flesh, grinding with each motion, each pressure tearing into his mind like static. Like white noise. There's pain in another barely moving inside him, enough to cause Neil to adjust, to shirk slightly away. He breathes, eyes blinking rapidly, and wonders for a beat.

But as stated, between everything else--between a rising fever, a previously open head, and missing grey matter--it's hardly worth anything. Something to note in the present moment, to pass along in the next.

Except that finger moves away.

Now, Neil would be the first to admit: sex is something new to him. He's had no lovers, no flings, no moments where he sought out gratification. His methods now typically consist of just taking it, and he couldn't really ever tell you the steps and the patterns. Removing a hand from a place can mean much and many; he honestly shouldn't care.

Neil, however, knows Alex. At least understands some of Alex's patterns, behaviors, rhymes, and reasons. Neil knows enough to say that things have always progressed (except that one outright rejection). Things have never stopped, never stagnated, never backpedaled into something else.

This, right now, is an abnormality. Is something entirely new, and despite the haze of illness and sex, the increasing pressure at the base of his torso, the ministrations along his collar and chest, Neil fully opens his eyes. He quiets, leaving only shallow breaths.

"Al...ex?"

The response to his name being spoken feels like pain, because of everything, and because Alex knows Neil will be asking questions. The response to his name being spoken is Alex's hand tightening, the rhythm speeding up, because Alex just wants the kid to fucking feel good after everything, because he wants Neil to get tired enough to rest without dreams.

It's the refocusing that allows him to shift back up. There's no anger present, not right now, but the edges of mourning trail around his eyes.

He moves to kiss Neil, as slow as his hand is fast. Murmurs only-- "...Just relax right now. Let me do something for you."

There is something-- A hint of something that catches in the light, but Alex quickens his pacing and closes in to kiss. Whatever was touching his mind disappears without a trace, and Neil allows it. Remembers trust in this man and keeps it close by.

He gently, quietly eases back in, his dark eyes closing.

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