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danses-with-dogmeat · 1 year ago

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Day 1 -- Beatrix Russell

The (nsfw) details for Kinktober 2023, Day 1 are just below the cut!

Minors, please don’t interact.

Pegging with Beatrix Russell x M!Six

Woo-hoo! Okay, starting off this lovely Ktober with a fun and especially spicy one! Beatrix is just... goodness she's so fun, both in-game and to write! I mean, what's not to love about this sassy ghoul, honestly?

Anyways, I hope y'all like it, and are looking forward to this month of gratuitous sin like I am! Lol

Here is the link to my Kinktober 2023 Event List so you can stay up-to-date, or re-visit these works as you please.

Included: Pegging, teasing, dom/sub dynamics, master/pet dynamics, light bdsm/restraints, size kink/large cock strap, anal fingering, anal sex, light praise kink, punishment, overstimulation, light spanking, riding, multiple orgasms, orgasm control.

Words: 3.4k

Six’s fingers paled as he gripped the mattress sheet until it felt near to ripping. He panted as sweat dripped down his brow, the heat of the Mojave night sweltering in the dim Wrangler hotel room Beatrix had chosen to do her business in.

“Y’know? Can honestly say I’m glad you decided to come and see what it’s like to be a client of mine.”

She added another finger to Six’s asshole, racking the number up to a hefty four digits spreading him out. Black splotches reigned over his vision, the blissful mix of pain from the stretch, and pleasure from the way her fingers twisted and curled within him making his body tremble.

“Way your thighs‘re shakin’ is making my black, leather-bound heart jus' soar.”

Beatrix dragged her free hand down the line of Six’s back, her fingernails leaving faint marks drawn over his skin.

“Aw, my sweet little cowpoke, this provin’ too much for ya? Got some bad news ‘bout my strap, then.”

“N-no.” Six whined out, thrusting his needy hips back until she reached knuckle-deep inside him. “Please, ma’am, need it.”

He couldn’t even think to be embarrassed about his begging, about the way his cock cried tears of pre-cum despondently into the sheets below, the way his voice shook and his body writhed against his restraints and into her aching touch.

It was all too addicting.

He had to check it out for himself, when he met one of the clients he’d secured for her after a session, and he seemed like a changed man, one whose lost all worries-- and an ability to walk like a normal person. It had… intrigued the courier.

Now… now he wondered if he could ever go back. Not even one full session in, and Six would do anything for Beatrix Russell, anything she asked, and he’d obey without question. She was sure of herself, sexy, confident, rocking more leather than a brahmin, and packing a rubber cock near as big as a bull’s too.

“Hmm, I s’pose you been a decent little pup for me so far.” Her fingers gave a distinctive curl against the walls of his ass, and Six groaned in response as tears sprung to his eyes.

“And so reactive. Opposite o’ boring, ‘s what you are, little one.”

“I’ll be so good for you, ma’am.” Six promised as she hauled her fingers out of him, giving one final tug as they came away, and watching with a vicious sort of pleasure at the way his cock gave a pathetic little jump in its despair. The neglect of it.

“Oh, don’t I know it. Can’t wait to see you writhin' on my strap. Have you lookin’ like a right proper cowboy, with how you’ll be walkin’ so bowlegged in the mornin’.”

Her weight vanished from the mattress, leaving Six to wait with held breath, to cling to the bed with strained fingers as he stayed firmly put on all fours. A spreader bar ensured he remained nice and open and vulnerable to her, and the roughened straps fastened around his wrists kept him from pushing her back, crawling away from her contact, or pleasuring himself without her permission.

It left him wanting; mad with his own need for her attention, her touch– rough and overwhelming as it may be-- Six took what she gave him, and he did it with plentiful thanks.

The clinking of metal fastenings sounded behind him, and Six chanced a glance over his shoulder at the fate that awaited him.

A chill ran up his whole body, the tingles concentrating between his legs and on those peaking points upon his chest as he took in the enormity of the thing. Damn near as long as his forearm, and thick as those four fingers she’d had shoved into him only moments ago, he almost felt like passing out at the mere thought of that monstrosity forcing its way inside him.

Even so, Six couldn’t help but notice the way his mouth watered and his pleading eyes grew narrowed with increased need, at the way one of her hands ran over the dark, intimidating thing, stroking glistening lube along the whole length of it.

He shivered again, especially once he caught her gaze, their eyes meeting as hers crinkled with the dry smugness of her grin.

She’s really going to enjoy this, huh?

Six gulped, feeling the lump in his throat work its way down the center of his body so slowly, like swallowing down a fistful of gravel.

Probably not as much as I will, though.

His own smug smile spread to his lips as Six turned to look away from her. The anticipation of it was too good to ruin by peeking backwards.

Beatrix’s footsteps approached, creaking wood below sure feet; then, the telltale give of the mattress as she climbed atop it behind him. His body gave a violent jerk as she set her hands on him, stroking textured fingers over his back in a soothing motion that soon made his teeth grit together as she decided to dig in her fingernails in and leave another roadway of marks upon him.

Six hissed at the feeling, and heard her approving hum in response. The sound went straight to his cock, any form of praise that escaped the hard woman’s lips serving as more than a miracle in his eyes. Her few-and-far-between compliments were about as likely for him to hear as rainfall in the Mojave, and just about as lovely as that cool, dousing feeling when it did come.

“Ohh, yeah, yer ‘bout ready, I’d say. Eager too. I like that in a pet.” Beatrix practically growled out the last bit, and Six’s erection gave another painful, wanting pulse.

“Let’s see how long it lasts that you’ll be wanting more of me, eh?”

Six bit his lip at the right moment, it would seem, for just as his teeth set over the skin, one of Beatrix’s hands left his back, grasped the thick, rubber head of her strap, and slotted it right over his tender, pre-stretched asshole.

He released a throaty groan as she teased him with the tip, rubbing the slickness generously over his entrance. His unrestrained vocal pleasure was Six’s form of singing praise to her, as Beatrix began to press inside, then pull away a moment, only to return and go a bit further. All Six could do was pant and grunt against the skin of his bottom lip as he held firm to it with clenched teeth.

“More.” He finally begged the woman, after she ceased pushing further, and only popped the wide head of her strap inside, before immediately withdrawing, stretching him painfully over the exaggerated, hard rubber glans with each shallow stroke.

Six’s eyes snapped open wide as he felt the sting of a sharp slap over his asscheek, and he let out a yelp in surprise.

“You orderin’ me ‘round, pet?” Beatrix spat the last word, her voice coarse like sand and dried tumbleweeds as it pointedly left her throat.

“N-no!” The courier insisted, “Just… ah–”

Another too-short thrust into him had Six flexing and whining at the same time.

“Ugh, ma’am, please…Just a bit further in.”

To prove his point even further, Six thrust his hips back towards her, and nearly cursed as she drew backwards, keeping their contact exactly the same, despite his efforts.

“Please.” It was nearly a sob now, and SIx didn’t have to look to know the shit-eating sort of expression that was plastered to her face at the sound of his pathetic supplication.

“Should make you fuckin’ suck on it, after the shit you just tried to pull.”

Six had to fight not to shake his head aggressively at the thought of it. All worked up, his ass clenching and his thighs shaking as she was so close to truly breaching him, and for her to just… pull away? To set his mouth upon the rubber, making love to an object-- that had no ability to feel-- with his tongue and lips as Beatrix looked down at him; a hard, set brow adorning her cold, amused eyes and a cigarette between her own lips as she watched him debase himself for no gain besides his own frustration and humiliation.

Actually... some days he might not mind that…

Now, though? When his cock is fit to burst, his ass milking anything it can for everything it can possibly give, his voice crying out, leaving him in desperate whines, his hands gripping onto the bed to the point of numbness?

He couldn’t imagine a worse torture.

“But, I’m feelin’ generous tonight, cowpoke. So, I s’pose I’ll just have to punish you another way.”

Six held his breath then, waiting for anything, the worst, even, but it was anything but. With no previous warning, Beatrix pushed forward, sheathing the majority of her gargantuan strap deep inside him with one firm thrust.

A long, deep moan tore itself from the very back of his throat, and a black vignette surrounded the whole of his vision as she reached that point deep inside that made his body sing.

She didn’t stop there, though, no. Six wasn’t given a moment of respite, a moment to get used to the shock of the stretch, of the depth, to soak in that pleasurable feeling inside him, before she began to really thrust. The ghoul’s own grunts left her as she exerted herself and her pleasurable will upon him. Her hands held bruisingly to his hips, and he felt the sharp jab of her hip bones spike into him as she managed to fully sheathe the rubber behemoth inside him on just the third or fourth thrust.

“Goddamn, m-master, I– fuck…” Six could hardly form words, feeling as though he were frothing at the mouth like some wild mongrel as the pleasure overwhelmed his mind. Each pulse of her against him had spots flying over his vision, had his fingers clenching harder to the mattress below, had his breath coming out in great, hot puffs of air like a fire gecko learning to shoot its flame.

“Ohh, call me master again, pet, I like the sound of that.”

One hand stroked appreciatively over his back, and the tingles running up Six’s spine just then felt like shocks of lightning spiking through his veins.

“F-feels so good, m-master. So, so good to me.” He managed out, his eyes set on the dark spot upon the mattress where his sweat was dripping down from his brow and gathering in a small puddle over the sheets. “Need you to keep going, please.”

“Oh, you do, huh?” She continued her blistering pace, pounding away with her hips jutting into the flesh of his ass with each hefty stroke.

“You need it? Really, truly need it?”

“Uh huh.” Six nodded eagerly, deliriously, even.

“Good, then show me.”

His gaze snapped back to her, foggy with pleasure, but his inquiry still plain enough in his expression for her to know precisely what he wished to voice.

“That's right. Ride me, cowboy. Ride my big, hard strap until you feel like yer leg’s’ll fall off, or yer ass’ll split clean open. That’s what I want from you, pet.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Was all he could manage, before Beatrix pulled completely, shockingly, out of him, leaving his ass empty and gaping in its massive wake.

Six was breathless at the feeling, a long moan escaping him at the drag of her thickness over his tender walls, before the feeling was gone, and he was at a loss.

“Bea– ahem, ma’am, I–”

“Who said you was needin’ to yammer on?”

Her voice sounded close to his ear as he suddenly felt her hands set upon the leather straps on his right wrist. The leather loosened as she unbuckled it, then moved to the next one, before she moved, too, to undo the metal clasps around his ankles. Soon enough, Six was completely untethered now, his muscles aching as he moved out of that default position she’d had him locked in for so long.

His first instinct was to grab ahold of his achingly hard cock, to stroke it, to squeeze himself and give his throbbing member the attention it’d been craving for over almost two whole, unsatisfying hours.

She’d never let that fly though.

He paused, considering if it’d be worth it, until he heard a snap of Beatrix’s fingers.

“You wanna end up all tied up again, boy?”

“N-no–” He started.

“Well, even if you did, it don’t much matter to me what you want, does it?”

Six just assumed the question was rhetorical, what with all the interrupting she’d been doing.

“No, it matters what I want, pet. And you know what I want?”

Six’s eyes darted to her gleaming strap as it stood high and proud over her waist as she lay back on the bed.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Both her hands swiped up and down the length of the colossal thing, and Six faintly wondered how the hell it had been all the way inside him. And how the hell it had felt good there.

“So you gonna climb on, or do I need to grab my switch an' give you a lil extra motivation?”

Six jolted at that, instantly moving to obey her wants as he crawled over to straddle her waist.

He had to raise himself as tall as he could manage while still on his knees to be able reach the full height of the rubber cock, and bring the substantial head of it to rest at his winking entrance.

It was intimidating, the feel of the hard material in his hand, the trouble he had wrapping his fingers completely around it, but his own want spurred him forward. That, and the knowledge that, hey, he’d already taken it once.

With a deep breath, he began to slowly ease himself downwards.

Six’s teeth gritted together as he slowly sat down in Beatrix’s lap, his eyes closed firmly in concentration, and in bliss, as the strap somehow seemed to reach further inside than it had the first time.

A groan left him, and sweat beaded on his brow as he finally reached its end, and just as he felt himself starting to relax around the enormity of the beast inside him, a sharp slap stung on his asscheek.

“Let’s get a move-on, cowboy. I ain’t got all night.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He panted out obediently, and began to raise himself a few inches upwards, before letting himself drop back down.

To help with balance, Six’s hands rested on either side of the ghoul’s body beneath him as he began to thrust in earnest, raising as high as he comfortably could, before letting gravity force him back down, until he felt the tip of her strap pounding deliciously into that sensitive place deep within him.

“Make some noise for me, pet. I wanna hear ya.”

His eyes opened as he obeyed, looking down at Beatrix’s expression, and he noted the way his stimulation was rubbing the belt of the strap-on right over her clit, stimulating her just as well. As per her request, Six gave up trying to hold back his sounds, letting the grunts and breathy moans leave him liberally with each heavenly stroke of her rubber cock against his trembling walls, with each dizzying pound of her deep inside him.

“That’s a boy. Much better.”

Her praise left him woozy, lightheaded with the pleasure it brought, and Six’s cock drooled another stream of pre-cum that dripped down his aching, bobbing shaft.

His pace only increased from there, as Beatrix’s girth stretched him out, as her own moans left her at the feel of his pressure over her sensitive nub, and her hips began to grind upwards to meet him.

“F-fuck, feels so good, master.” He let slip with little more than a whine, and could feel the smugness coming in waves off of the ghoul beneath him.

“Yeah, it does.” She growled, “How ‘bout this ti– ahh.”

Another moan left her, and Six felt her pace below him stutter, forcing him downwards onto the rubber cock harder than he’d anticipated, shooting stars behind his vision and pleasure up his spine.

"F-finish me off, and I’ll reward you, pet.” Beatrix finished, and with that, Six nodded frantically, and changed his position a bit overtop her. He leaned forward, pressing his hips as close to hers as he could manage, and ground into her there, the stimulation of the strap's head over his prostate causing his thighs to shake until he felt like he might simply topple over.

She’d been closer than he thought, though, Six realized as Beatrix shuddered beneath him, her hands wringing the bedsheets and a throaty groan escaping her as she rode out her release with him still grinding the belt into her clit.

He continued dutifully, despite his trembling limbs, until Beatrix’s hands forced him to sit back and ease the pressure over her oversensitive little nub.

“S’pose that was… good enough.” She panted out, and Six felt another rush of heat to his groin.

“Now yer turn, I guess.”

His excitement hardly had time to bubble up in him, before Beatrix was leaning up against the pillows behind her, and her rough hands were moving to grasp over his darkened, throbbing cock.

He practically squealed as she took a firm hold of him, providing no mercy at all as she used both hands to wring out his cock between strong fingers.

“Fffuck, m-master, please…”

Six was whining now, bucking his hips into her feverishly, unsure if he was trying desperately to thrust into the contact or away from it.

“Please, what?”

“C-can I cum?” He pleaded, eyes closed, mouth gaping, cock weeping and ass clenching as all the sensations washed over him, flooding his body with building bliss that was bound to spill over at any moment.

“Oh…” She pondered cruelly as her hands redoubled their efforts to wring him dry, one scraping painfully over his engorged cockhead until he was shouting out his frustrated pleasure to the dingy ceiling above.

“Fine.”

Beatrix finally said, and not a moment later, Six was spilling his seed generously over his own stomach, and then out onto hers, his pent-up cock releasing like a firehouse with the force of his blinding, all-encompassing orgasm.

“Goooood.” Beatrix murmured as she continued stroking over him, too fast, too hard.

Soon enough, Six’s legs were trembling uncontrollably, his voice was more cry than shout, his ass ached and pleaded for relief from the continuing pressure of the huge strap inside him, and his hips were flinching back from her overwhelming touch. He made to move away, to pull off of her, to push her hands from their place on his spent cock, but Beatrix’s look halted him.

“No, ya don’t, cowboy.”

Six could only whine as his stomach flexed, and his cock spurted the absolute last it had to give weakly down his shaft to dribble onto her gripping hands.

“I ain’t done with you yet.”

“Please…” He croaked out as his body shook, as sweat poured from him.

“Nope. Still got a punishment due, don’t ya? You make to order me 'round, this is what you get. Just consider yerself lucky it ain’t any worse.”

Tears were falling from the corners of his eyes as she continued stroking over him, his cock reluctantly hardening again at her attentions, but becoming no less sensitive to them.

“I’m not hearin’ a ‘thank you.’” Beatrix's voice was so pointed, it may as well have been a spear, pricking at his mind painfully, just as her fingernails dragged cruelly over the beyond-sensitive skin of his shaft.

“T-thank you.” Six sobbed as his cock swelled further still, as his asshole clenched, this time in pain, on her torturous rubber strap.

“Thank you…?”

“Fuck, ah, thank you, master.” Six relented easily, his voice giving way to another shout as his cock was pushed past its limits again, pulsing painfully in her grasp as a few sad little bursts of milky cum left it.

His body was wracked with painful bliss, his vision turning white at her overwhelming attentions, and yet still, Beatrix showed no signs of relenting.

“Aw, now did ya see that?” Her voice had a mock affection to it, “How sweet. Now, just a few more of those, and I say we’ll be done.”

Six only groaned, as he felt his exhausted cock twitch reluctantly in her hands.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout new vegas companions #fallout npc #fallout new vegas npcs #fallout nv #fonv #new vegas #beatrix russell #beatrix fonv #fallout beatrix #m!six #courier six #dwd.nsfw #kinktober #kinktober 2023

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futzingbarton · 1 year ago

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non sum qualis eram

Tan groans softly against Arcade’s neck. “Still don’t feel right,” he says. “Brain’s still being weird.”

Arcade just hums in response. His knuckles graze along Tan’s back: up and down, up and down, tracing his spine like a seam. He wonders, then, if he asked—could Arcade find the weakness in his stitches, reach between his skin and bones to open him up and peer inside to check if he’s really all there? Maybe then he could believe in it, this humanness, knowing that someone wanted to look for themselves.

It's hard to build yourself back up when you have no context for the pieces of what make you. It's even harder to explain that to someone who won't explain how they built themselves to be who they are. Tan can't see where Arcade starts. Arcade can't see where Tan will end. In between, the only promise is violence.

realized i never posted chapter 3 on here. oops! chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4

It is not bad. Let them play.

Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane

Speak his prodigious blasphemies.

It is not bad, it is high time,

Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values.

Arcade’s ears are still ringing, the sharp and tinny sound muffling the panicked shouts of soldiers and the barking of their dogs. Constantine says something, though Arcade can’t make out exactly what against the din. Instead he closes his eyes and lets out a long, shaky breath, reaching up with the sleeve of his lab coat to wipe Caesar’s blood off his glasses.

It takes just a moment, but when he opens his eyes, Constantine is already to the tent’s exit.

“What was that?” he asks. His own voice pounds in his head. Glass shatters somewhere in the camp, followed by screams, sickening screams, and the smell of burning flesh.

“Stay here. Keep an eye on him.” Constantine points back at Benny, who is staring at Caesar’s body and shaking his head.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” His own voice sounds foreign—he’s never yelled at Tan like this before. “What are you doing?” he croaks. “What have you done?”

Tan picks up a spear from beside one of the dead guards by the door. “Stay here,” he commands again, his impatience making him louder.

“I’m not your lackey, Constantine, you can’t just—”

Constantine stomps back over to Arcade and shoves the spear against him.

“I’m not risking you,” he growls. There is a piece of Caesar’s brain stuck in his hair. “Stay.”

Like a dog, Arcade thinks. He opens his mouth, to protest, to scream, all logic fighting to find some purchase against this rising wave of fear. His shaking hands wrap around the wooden shaft all the same, knuckles turning white with how hard he needs to hold it to keep from reaching out to Tan. Perhaps to punch him. Perhaps to hold his hand and refuse to let him go.

“Please,” Tan begs. Rising up on the balls of his feet so that they can be level, Tan solemnly wipes away some blood from Arcade’s cheek before kissing it. “Stay.”

Then he turns, grabs another discarded spear, and sprints through the tent flaps to whatever bloodshed waits on the other side.

His chest stings with the guilt of lying to Arcade. His throat is dry, aching like he’s breathing in radstorm dust, and he has to do his best to pretend he is somewhere else than in the current moment.

That proves to be harder than expected considering that he’s sitting shoulder to shoulder with the man, who, despite all signs of exhaustion, refuses to put down the book he’s reading and go to bed. But they’d recently found a pristine copy of Meditations by Aurelius, and when Tan presented him with it Arcade had smiled, smiled in such a dazzling and boyish way that Tan wouldn’t pry the book away from him for anything. Arcade reads books as slowly and thoroughly as he dresses wounds: re-reading pages as though to make sure he isn’t missing anything, dog-earing the ones that he intends to go back to, underlining passages that make him frown and furrow his brow in thought, tempting Tan to reach out and smooth out the lines of his forehead.

Instead, Tan swallows thickly and attempts to focus again on tinkering with his Pip-boy. In a scuffle with some Fiends he’d gotten shoved up against a wall, and the holotape player got jammed. He’s since scavenged some new tapes to listen through, though, so it was time to finally try to fish the old one out of there and hopefully not destroy the machine in the process. He isn’t exactly confident with his ability to tinker with computers, especially not ones that are this hard to find, but Raul isn’t here to help him with things. His own fault, that—Raul was off with Boone to scout ahead at Cottonwood Cove. He had sent them out the day prior, though not before stressing the importance of staying entirely undetected, and returning with as much intel as they could gather. Boone had been somewhat disappointed at that, given that he would have loved to perch up high and pick off Legionnaires one by one, but Constantine had assured him that he would soon have his opportunity.

That is, if all goes to plan.

It’s a stupid plan, and he knows it. It’s stupid and driven by the kind of implacable madness that blooms in the hearts of worse and vengeful men. But it’s all he can think of to rise to meet Caesar in a way that leaves him no time to retaliate; proving Benny wrong in the process would just be a bonus, if the poor fucker was still alive somewhere out there.

Tan shakes the thought away. Dwelling too much upon the plan eats at his heart, leaving behind holes that fill with a growing, icy dread, the kind that rots his core and shears away at his conviction. He clicks the eject button near the holotape player instead, unable to stop his sigh of relief when it responds without jamming.

“Got it working?” Arcade asks, glancing over from his book, brow raised. They are sitting next to each other on one of the faded loveseats in the 38’s cocktail lounge, on the side that has the windows looking out over the emptiness of the Mojave desert, the lights of the New Vegas only visible in the periphery. The stars blink indifferently over the distant horizon, and having opted for the glow of a few table lamps in the lounge rather than the overhead chandeliers, they are enveloped in a warm and pleasant half-light.

“You betcha.�� Tan tests the eject button a few more times before he’s truly comfortable with his work. Once he’s content, he sets the Pip-Boy on the side table nearby and allows himself to sink into the couch cushions. He wraps an arm around Arcade’s shoulders, leaning in a little closer to glance at the pages, and Arcade shifts his hold on the book so that Tan might more easily read along.

Things have gotten more comfortable between the two of them, in a way that feels like all the energy that made him want to bounce his leg when sitting still got shaken up, redistributed, spread throughout him to make him fluttery all over, all of the time. At any moment he has to fight back against his need to be doing something about it. When he sees Arcade’s hand resting at his side, his fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and hold it. If Arcade’s hair rustles in a warm and sudden desert wind, he has to push down the urge to pull him close and kiss his head. Everything in him has become agonizingly insatiable, overcome with a childish and covetous adoration for the good doctor.

When Arcade smiles—that is, when the sides of his mouth quirk up just the smallest bit and he squints a little, insisting that the sun is in his eyes—Tan wants to be the one responsible for it. He wants to be the one inciting his laughter and playful ire, his concerned doting and his passionate tirades. All of this energy beats at the walls of his heart like waves—sometimes crashing in just hard enough to chip away at pieces of him he doesn’t remember until they’re shaken loose.

Dad always called me a people pleaser like it was a bad thing. The thought had come out of the blue while he was patching up a hole in Arcade’s extra pair of pants a little while back. Arcade hadn’t asked him to, but he was busy sleeping in for once, so Tan figured he may as well. The memory had hit him with a cold severity, cold enough to draw forth a shiver, but besides that, nothing. No elaboration on who Dad was, or what else he might have said. He’d thought it was a one-off at first, but the more time he spends with Arcade—hell, the more time he spends with his whole gang of misfits—the more disjointed memories seep their way in.

It feels like watching a movie in another language with no sense of the plot. There’s characters, certainly; people he can identify as mom or dad based on vague assumptions and age alone, and people whose easy camaraderie can only make sense if they are his siblings. The terrifying truth of everything that comes back to him is that, were it not for his current companions, he wouldn’t be able to even have enough context to draw what conclusions he has. That’s not to say he’s entirely helpless without them: he has enough general knowledge to understand the basics of what he gleans through memory. But without everyone he’s currently got, he’d have no reasoning behind any of his past actions.

If he didn’t have his memories of play-fighting with Veronica over a snack cake, he wouldn’t have been able to guess that the person he remembered stealing Nuka-Cola from was probably his younger sister or something of the sort. If he hadn’t experienced Lily’s complete acceptance and adoration, he’s not sure remembering what must have been his mother’s hugs and bedtime stories would have felt as valuable and important. He was no one without these people, even if he might have been someone before. He is who he is because of them, but he is who he was because of them, too.

Though it’s not like he has no memories whatsoever. There is someone else there, someone small and innocent, once upon some distant time. His childhood, while clearer than the rest of whatever’s left in his brain, still has the fuzzy filter of nostalgia keeping him from recognizing anything of use. Instead, thinking back to his childhood feels more like watching someone else’s life play out before him as though on a pre-war holotape—burned along the edges, scratched and damaged to the point that there’s nothing worth squinting at long enough to bother to make it out.

There was this someone, this Constantine Before, that lived, and loved, and made the choice to deliver mail across the Mojave. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever find that person again, or if he would even want to come back together with Constantine Before. All he knows is Constantine After. After the bullet, after the grave.

“You done with the page?”

Arcade’s question breaks him out of his musings. He’s looking over at him, a knowing, though silent, judgment behind his glasses. Lately it’s seemed like Arcade can read his mind. Not in a cute, innocent way, but in a way that makes Tan worried he’s thinking loudly enough that Arcade can see his every fault and insecurity, every dissonant thing that makes up the assemblage of disparate pieces that make up “Constantine.”

He swallows. “Yeah,” he lies. “You can flip.” By way of wordless apology, Tan shifts the arm he’s got resting around Arcade’s shoulders so that he can idly brush his fingers through his hair.

Arcade hums a little in disbelief, but flips to the next page anyway, seemingly too tired to bite back with some sarcastic remark. Fully intending to pay attention this time, Tan glues his eyes to the words and starts to read. It takes more effort than expected, given the archaic and flowery nature of the text, but he manages to glean enough that it’s not entirely incomprehensible. He doesn’t make it far before a line jumps out at him, carrying with it enough weight that he freezes up.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Such a simple thing, written with such grand conviction that it can’t help but be anything but the capital-T truth. The letters glare up at Constantine with the kind of gnawing judgment one might find in a confessional, or a military tribunal. He wonders why he might know about either of those things well enough to associate such a feeling with them, and while he wants to follow the train of thought that might find him those answers, he finds he can’t look away from those two sentences. For once, it would be far easier to foray into his memories and find something cryptically distressing there than to stare at this: the reality of his present, the certainty of his future, both so antithetical to the words upon the page.

“Hey,” Arcade says. He looks over at him, the crease of worry between his brows all the more pronounced. “You okay?”

Tan blinks, drawn back into the moment. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, just, uh, got distracted thinking about some things.” It’s technically true. As he takes a few steadying breaths, he attempts to go back to reading, though he can feel Arcade’s eyes still fixed upon him. The seconds drag by, and right as he’s about to blurt an apology, Arcade shakes his head a little and reaches up to where Tan’s hand had drifted down around his shoulder. He takes it and places it back where it had been before, tangled gently through his hair, and sighs before turning his attention once more to Meditations.

Oh.

“I thought you hated when I mess with your hair?” Tan asks, though he is glad to resume his ministrations.

“I do,” Arcade says, flipping the page. There’s that light smirk at the corners of his mouth, the one that makes Tan’s heart do cartwheels and demand that he capture it with a kiss.

All at once, it overwhelms him. It, this capital-i It, this everything. It settles in the pit of his stomach and blossoms out, organ walls be damned, taking up residence in the spaces between, pushing up against the membrane that keeps all parts of him in. He’s weightless, his insides disappearing like someone had leveled a laser rifle at his heart and everything attached to it burst into dust. He’s not a person, just an outline of one, hardly leaving an indent on the couch, let alone the Mojave. The biggest impression he’s left behind is a shallow grave.

Outside the windows of the Lucky 38 lounge, the indifferent lights of New Vegas blink out of time with his hammering heartbeat.

Fuck. Maybe he’s not okay. Maybe there’s something coiling around in all his empty spaces, filling him with something different, something worse. The bullet to his head didn’t take because there isn’t something human in there, no brain to hold his memories or his thoughts or his conscience. Maybe if he aimed something at his chest he’d get right back up from that, too, laser rifle or no. If he’s been empty from the start, it’s not like he would know.

His pulse pounds in his ears, behind his eyes, so loud it feels like he’s doing jumping jacks in a minefield. His blood curdles in his veins, cold and thick. He wonders—if he cut open his wrists, would it crumble out, like ice unstuck from a frozen hose? Crackling and clotted and begging for some relief from the pressure of being contained, of flowing in a closed system with nothing to feed, nothing to keep alive and nourished—would it gush out in little, brittle chunks upon the sun-stained carpet?

“Constantine?”

“Mm?” He doesn’t trust himself to speak, doesn’t trust his voice to stay steady like he needs it to. His breathing is remarkably measured; impressive considering he’s fairly sure there are no lungs in him, nothing making him up but emptiness.

“You’re…off.” Arcade shifts and sits up a little straighter, leaning away to get a better look at him. Tan immediately misses his weight, his heat, his reading voice with its soft and tempered surety. “Cap for your thoughts?”

God, his certainty. The infallibility of those bright green eyes, taking him in with more patience than he’s earned.

That’s just it though, isn’t it? That’s what this is, this thing with Arcade, this terror of lying to him and holding something back. It’s just a reflection of everything else wanting about him that he can’t quite put together, glaring at him like it’s daring him to find some thread of memory and tug, pull until he shakes something loose and makes the pieces fit. His past is fuzzy and dull, like the first few moments you have upon waking up where your eyes are still adjusting—but when he blinks, when he lets the moment settle in, that’s when it shifts to sharp lines and crisp colors. His past doesn’t matter, not really, regardless of how much it haunts him just outside of his reach. It doesn’t make sense without them, without these people in his present.

He doesn’t make sense without them. His past, this gaping hole within him, carved out by the bullet wound in his head, is utterly without importance, and were it not for his companions’ support—or rather, their complicity—in his actions and choices, his present would not mean much either.

Then, devoid of the things that make up a human, of a heart and lungs and memories, the thing that lets him leave tracks upon the red Mojave sand must be the weight of his unworthiness to garner their loyalty.

“Earth to Constantine? Hel-looo?”

Arcade’s alarm is poorly disguised despite his joking tone, and finally Tan looks up and sees him—sees the more pronounced furrow in his brow, sees him shut the book and set it off to the side, leaving it balanced precariously upon a cushion. The oily orange light of the lounge’s ancient fixtures makes Arcade seem distant and out of reach, separated from him in the same way the layer of varnish on a painting keeps him from seeing what truly lies beneath. The distance between them seems so thin, but Tan can’t find the words to bring them closer, to even begin to let Arcade know what’s going on inside of his head. Every breath is a wave, a rising swell to push him out and away to sea within a storm that dissolves anything anchoring him, leaving him lost among the heaving waters.

Arcade, however, seems to have ascertained as much, since he reaches out and takes Tan’s face in his hands, running soothing lines over his cheekbones with his thumbs. The gesture is surprisingly tender, especially given the frown painted across Arcade’s face.

“Come on, give me something to work with, Tan. Anything. What’s going on?”

His voice is thick with worry, and Tan’s heart aches. He wishes he could be more in this moment, more than delicate. He wants to reach into his brain and pluck out the thorn all of this is stemming from, the shrapnel keeping everything up there sealed away with the same efficacy as the Hoover Dam. Instead, he just sits there, frozen, stuck in place, terrified that if he moves he might just shatter. At least in that regard, this mute dissociation is preferable; it keeps him stable, keeps him rooted—however tenuously—like hoarfrost preserving the season’s last flower to keep its leaves and petals from breaking off.

“Riiiight, okay. That’s not working,” Arcade mutters. He does that, talks to himself, when he’s nervous, and Tan feels nauseous knowing he’s the cause of that distress. “I’m no Usanagi, but I’ve taken a few of her trauma classes, so. Um. Let’s try this. Do yes or no questions work?”

Remarkably, Tan manages a shaky nod. He swallows and nods again for good measure.

“Great, good, okay. That’s something. Alright, uh. Let’s try some deep breaths?”

Arcade takes a deep and filling breath over a few seconds, holds it, then lets it out just as slowly. He waits, still holding Tan’s face in his hands, until Tan repeats the action. The rise and fall of his shoulders in time with his breathing is jarring, a stark reminder of his physicality, his inconstant mind connected with some spider-silk string to his nebulous body. Were it not for Arcade’s closeness, for the clean, sweet smell of him asserting his realness, Tan wonders if he might just lose himself—let slip the bonds of that thin, thin thread, and let whatever severance was started by that bullet to the brain complete its course. Arcade does it again and Tan follows suit, though this time, his eyes flutter shut for the added focus. Having Arcade gaze at him like that wasn’t helping calm him down, his eyes all desperate and searching—wanting, maybe, for something that isn’t there.

But he breathes. He breathes in, holds it, breathes out, over and over, until at some point he feels his head loll forward, held up only by Arcade. The rest of his body is quick to follow, and he sags towards the doctor before he can catch himself.

Arcade is as surprised as he is, letting out a startled “oh shit” while scrambling to wrap his arms around Constantine to keep him more or less upright. Once he gains purchase, he does his best to hug Tan more securely, resituating them so that they’re supported by the arm of the couch. The angle is awkward, and surely Arcade couldn’t be comfortable, but the absolute relief and warmth that floods through Constantine at being so close grounds him enough to attempt speaking.

“Fuck,” Tan breathes, struggling to lift his leaden arms. His body still feels somewhat separate, like all of the pieces are still slotting back into place. Even so, he manages to snake his arms around Arcade’s waist. He buries his face against Arcade’s neck and takes another steading breath. “Fuck,” he says again.

Pure relief sounds in Arcade’s breathy chuckle. “Hey. Welcome back.”

Tan groans softly against Arcade’s neck. “Still don’t feel right,” he says. “Brain’s still being weird.”

“This ever happen before?”

“Not around you,” Tan says, too slow to stop the truth. Shit. Arcade’s hand stops its path along his back, rests heavily upon his left shoulder blade. “Not around anyone,” Tan quickly clarifies. After a long moment, the hand starts back up again, though this time rubbing circles into his shoulder—the side with the tattoo.

The first time Tan had been shirtless around Arcade, he’d also been bleeding, bruised, with cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder after a deathclaw encounter gone wrong past Sloan.

Tan had hoped to sneak in and eliminate the deathclaws while it was still dark. The plan had been to find a perch with Boone and each aim for the same ‘claw’s head—taking out the alpha and the den mother efficiently and leaving any of the brood alone. This had worked on the male, two shots cleanly through one eye and out the other. The alpha had died sleeping, and Tan was oddly glad that the little ‘claw next to him didn’t have to see the killing. It just kept sleeping beside him, curled up ignorantly as the blood pooled into the soft quarry sand.

Boone had initially protested against celebratory fistbumps after particularly impressive sniper shots, but this time, he had been the one to move his hand over first. Tan had grinned and returned the gesture, and in that moment of playful camaraderie, neither had noticed the crunch of stone behind them. It wasn’t until they heard the mother deathclaw’s guttural breathing that they sprung into action, rolling apart from each other seconds before her claws gouged into the dirt where they’d just been.

She had been patrolling the perimeter, of course.

Tan ordered Boone to find another perch while he kited the beast around, to which Boone nodded after only momentary hesitation. Tan liked him for that. Good at following orders. Good at justifying the ends.

Despite his best efforts scrambling to the side of the quarry cliff, the mother had reached him in just a few bounds, catching his lower back with one of her swiping claws. The strength from that alone had sent him careening forwards, sliding down the slope on his forearms and stomach. As he pushed himself up he could hear the deathclaw making her own way down the slope, and he was grateful for the adrenaline giving him enough wherewithal to lunge towards the bucket of a nearby excavator.

Pressed up against the metal, he couldn’t tell if the tang in the air was from the rust or his blood. His shirt was heavy and wet with it—though he wasn’t sure if it was from the gash in his back or the rash now all along his chest. His hands shook while he palmed through his pockets for some Med-X, and once done with that injection, he tore open one of the pouches he had tied to his belt loops. He’d dubbed this one ‘Nighttime Fuckups,’ and while he dry-swallowed the concoction of Cateye, Buffout, and Mentats, he had to admit it was a pretty fitting name. As the chems began their work, everything fell into place around him—he could tell the mother ‘claw was only a couple steps away, sniffing at his bloody trail and getting close to finding him. The Buffout gave him that spring in his step, the Med-X made everything beautiful and soft and dull, the Cateye let him see all the rocks and excavators in his way, and the Mentats? God, the Mentats, they made him feel whole, like all of the parts in his brain finally started talking to each other, and everything just made sense again.

She was two steps away now, and he shifted to a runner’s starting stance inside the excavator bucket.

One step away, and he took off.

He could see the small pond of water on the other side of some rocks, and he knew if he could just make it there, just get across that stretch, that could slow the ‘claw down enough for Boone to land the shot. He could deal with the inevitable rads later.

It should have been perfect, but Tan had forgotten to account for the fact that there was more than his blood on the wind.

Later—much, much, later—when Tan went back to Quarry Junction to see if the ‘claws were still around, he would find the dried skin and chalk-white bones of the alpha male in the den, and in the dusty sunlight, the bullet holes going through the male’s skull and into the baby deathclaw behind him were impossible to miss.

The mother had already been frenzied, the smell of her dead offspring tainting the air, and Constantine had never stood a chance.

She’d caught up to him in a single leap, slamming him facedown into the mud with a swipe of her tail. The momentum was enough to knock the wind out of him, and while his lungs screamed for air, the Med-X made the clamp of her teeth in his arm feel like pinpricks. When she hoisted him out of the muck and tossed him aside, time seemed to slow. The warm night air felt good upon his wounds, and the last thing he’d heard as his back collided with the quarry wall was the sound of Boone’s rifle.

Start to end, it couldn’t have lasted more than a minute.

Arcade had been sipping his coffee and staring out at the sunrise when Boone had dragged Tan’s body back to Sloan. It was darker in all the buildings than outside, so with the help of the quarry workers, they had turned a picnic table into a makeshift surgery, with a construction light angled onto Tan’s battered form.

Tan had woken up about halfway through Arcade’s patch-up job. He’d tried sitting up at first, just to get pushed back down onto the table. Arcade didn’t have the best bedside manner when it came to Constantine in this kind of state, so rather than anything comforting, he just grumbled out, “Need more chems?”

Tan groggily shook his head. Well, as best as he could. From what he could tell, even in his dazed and drugged state, there was a thick, scratchy towel wrapped around his neck, tied together tightly enough to hold him in place. “Can’t feel a thing.”

A beat. Then, “And who am I?”

Constantine had giggled. “Oh, just the most handsomest doctor in allllll the wasteland.” Some part at the back of his brain had warned him that perhaps being overly forthcoming wasn’t the best idea, but it was too late to take that back now.

There was a deep inhale, and the sensation of stitching running steadily through his skin stopped.

“I meant my name?”

He smiled lazily. “Mmm. Arcade.”

“Where are you?”

“Sloan.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Constantine Becker,” Tan answered readily, then hummed. “Oh. Guess that’s my last name, then. Thanks, Mentats and head trauma.”

“...Becker, huh? Good to know.”

Arcade went quiet then, finishing up the stitching along Tan’s back, though judging by the speed of the pricking along his back, Tan figured he was trying to hurry it up. He kept his eyes closed—the dawn light practically blinding with the Cateye still in his system—and took stock of what he could feel.

Needles irritated the inside of his right elbow, so knowing Arcade’s thoroughness, he was probably getting a good dose of RadAway and other IV fluids. His left arm, though…

He had tried to shift it a little, just to be met with a terrible, grinding pain.

“Hey! Stop that, moron. I’m not done. Just lie still.”

“Roger that,” he groaned. He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, but eventually Arcade helped flip him over onto his back. The gash along his back had been packed and sewn up in the worst places, and he could feel the gauze pressing in along his spine.

“We’re going to the New Vegas Medical Clinic to get that taken care of proper. In the meantime, it needs to be able to drain,” Arcade had explained. “I’m doing what I can to keep you alive and in one piece for the long walk.”

Constantine tried to nod, stopped yet again by the brace. “McCarren’s closer,” he mumbled instead, the Med-X making his tongue heavy in his mouth. Turned over like this, looking up at the sky, skin tinging under Arcade’s hands. He’d cleaned the scratches and rashes on his arms and chest with some vodka they’d had on hand, and in the gentle heat of the Mojave morning, Tan had to say he’d felt pretty okay. He had almost dozed off by the time Arcade was lightly patting his cheeks, saying “Hey. I gotta check your pupils again. Up and at ‘em.”

When he hadn’t opened his eyes right away, Arcade sighed and took matters into his own hands, managing a clunky flashlight in one and holding open Tan’s eyelids with the other.

“Still dilated. What kind of concoction did you even take? Cateye, you mentioned Mentats, and what else?” His tone had been tinged with more concern than reproach.

“And Buffout. And Med-X.”

“Shit. That explains that. I gave you Med-X when you got here, and a couple of super stims. Get ready for a good long nap. I’ll see what Boone and I can do to start transporting you while you’re out of it.”

Tan groaned a sleepy thanks, his head lolling to the side, supported by the brace.

“Hey, hey. Still not done, Constantine—come on. I have to get you leaning up.”

“If you say so,” he slurred.

The table had been set up by the side of one of the shacks, so all Arcade had to do was turn Tan to the left, which had been easier said than done. Boone had come over to help, and eventually, the courier was propped up against the corrugated sheet metal wall and shifted to the far edge of the picnic table, his left arm hanging limply at his side while his feet hung off the edge of the table.. A bunch of folded up blankets had been shoved behind his back to keep him more at an angle.

“This is going to suck,” Arcade had said before taking his left hand. With his other hand holding Tan’s elbow, he began to turn the arm outwards.

Tan had never before been so grateful for the existence of Med-X. Even doped up, his muscles spasmed with each millimeter of the turn, and he could feel his shoulder straining out of place. It felt like a string getting pulled tighter and tighter, almost to a point of snapping, until finally, at a certain point, there was a dull clunk, and the intensity faded back out.

Arcade had tucked his left arm to his chest, instructing him to stay still while he tied a makeshift sling around him. Then he disappeared for a little while—Tan couldn’t figure out where, since he’d kept his eyes closed the whole time. He had almost drifted asleep like that when he felt someone hop up on the table to sit beside him.

“What were you thinking?” Arcade had asked, voice far more withdrawn than it had been when commanding him throughout the procedures.

Tan’s first instinct had been to shrug, and when that quite obviously did not succeed, he chose instead to mutter a soft “iunno.”

“Clearly.” Arcade sounded…pissed. Disappointed. Maybe a touch resentful.

He’d been exhausted, fatigued down to his marrow, but trying to sleep now, with this thing hanging between him and Arcade, this thing that was expressly negative and not their usual joking cordiality? That wasn’t going to happen.

With a grunt, he used what strength he could to sit up straight, and when he realized that wasn’t going to last long, he leaned the rest of the way forward to rest his good arm on his knee. His remaining effort went towards opening his eyes.

He was greeted by the oneiric light of a watercolor sunrise, pinks and greens and the most delicate of blues all pooling upon the edges of the clouds on the horizon. The Cateye was already fading—unsurprising, since it was the least potent of the drugs he’d taken—and he was glad of it.

“‘s pretty,” he mumbled, blinking away some tears brought on by the brightness. He brought up his good hand to rub at his face, jostling the bag of IV fluids hanging precariously on a pitchfork leaned up against the table.

Arcade didn’t say anything then, just reached over him. For a second Tan thought he was going to drape his arm over his shoulders, or maybe adjust the knot of his sling, until he felt his fingertips come to rest upon his left shoulder blade. Almost reverently, he began to trace the lines and letters he knew were inked upon his skin. Despite the pain then, and the pain yet to come, Constantine suddenly realized that he’d do it again if it meant it would lead to this, here, the two of them sat together in the rising heat of a Mojave morning.

“You know what it means?” Arcade asked.

“No clue. Doc Mitchell read it out to me when he was patching up back then, but it’s all Greek to me.”

Arcade’s resulting sigh was worth everything. Were it not for the wrap around his neck he would have loved to look over and see the utterly disappointed expression plastered on his face.

“When in Rome, Constantine,” he said, exasperated.

Tan laughed, trying his best to temper his joy given that he was certain a few of his ribs were cracked. “What, you can translate it?”

“Well…yes,” Arcade admitted. “If you’d like.”

Without hesitation, Tan said, “I would, actually. I’ve been wondering for a while. I know what it looks like, kind of? I got the vague description, but I’ve never found a mirror intact enough to see it.”

Arcade cleared his throat. “Right, well. Um. Dulce et decorum est…” he began, reading slowly and tracing every word as he said it, “pro patria mori.” Then, so lightly that Tan could have mistaken his touch for a breeze, he traced the lines of the drawing itself, following every edge and stroke. Tan tried to imagine what kind of picture it could be, but the visualizing of the lines seemed somehow less important than remembering what it felt like to have Arcade’s hand move upon him like that, to have him trace Tan’s skin like he was keeping his place in a book he didn’t want to put down.

“The image is of a bear,” he said slowly. “The NCR bear, with the two heads. It’s standing on its hind legs, and the head in the back has its mouth open in a roar. The red star is behind it, with two drops of blood coming from one of the points. It’s got its other head in its claws, and there are three drops of blood falling onto the ground from the spinal column that’s showing. It’s framed with what looks like laurels on either side. And then, in scrolls above and below…dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is sweet and right to die for one’s country.”

With every word in his description, Arcade took the time to outline each thing he was describing, just to make sure Tan understood which word correlated with what line on his back.

“Thanks,” Constantine finally whispered. In his periphery, Arcade just nodded.

At the time, Tan didn’t know how to feel about the translation. Now that he’s had the chance to see the image reflected in the pristine mirrors of the 38, he can’t argue its accuracy.

Arcade has never asked him about it again.

The good doctor’s feelings on the NCR have been made quite clear throughout their travels, so it’s not exactly surprising that he stays quiet about it. He’s seen it when patching Tan up again (because of course he’s had to patch him up again) but now, Tan inhales sharply in disbelief when Arcade traces the lines exactly, as though Tan’s shirt isn’t there at all.

It is then that Tan realizes he might have told Arcade about his plan all along. Might have given him the moment to trust him, to know him, to see his intentions as they are.

He wants, God, he wants to tell him. He wants to tell him everything about his conversations with Yes-man, about his decisions for New Vegas and the Mojave as a whole. Not out of a sense of loyalty or propriety, but out of respect, and the simple need to have him agree. A desire to be understood and heard, and to give him the chance for the same in return.

He had set his rules, his justifications for how to proceed the moment he walked through the doors of the Lucky 38, and out of everyone, he had never expected Arcade to be the one in the group unable to get past them. They are simple, and steeped in the worst of his hypocrisy: all he requires to trust the people with him is to know where they come from, and what their motivations might be in joining him through to the end.

Arcade hasn’t given him that. Arcade hasn’t given him anything besides who he is now, at face value. He is kind and careful and fastidious, and he is running his fingers through Tan’s hair with such unwarranted affection that Constantine shivers with the guilt of it all. All Tan has to offer is this, this current version without context and preamble. All he demands is everything opposite.

You don’t deserve him, he thinks, and shudders. Not any of them. He is vile, and he is nothing without them. He has built himself from the bones of their acceptance and the meat of their love, has shielded himself in the armor of their misplaced trust.

“You cold?” Arcade asks. He rubs his hands over Tan’s back with some gusto, an effort to warm him up. The gesture is so genuine, so considerate. Tan feels sick.

“Kinda,” Tan lies. He takes a deep breath, hoping it will help him choke down the shame that sits there in his mouth, burning on the tip of his tongue. With more willpower than he thought he had, he pulls away from Arcade, sliding over on the cushion to give them both some space. A hint of something flashes through Arcade’s eyes at the distance—hurt? confusion? Tan can’t make it out, and he isn’t sure he wants to. Knowing might make it worse.

Not that things aren’t already worse. Arcade opens his mouth to say something but seems to decide against it. Tan watches his jaw tightens as he swallows, watches how he shifts the last few inches away from him and leans over the side of the couch to pick up the book that had fallen to the ground. Whatever unspoken, honest thing that hangs between them sours and turns to disappointment, and by the time Arcade has the book back in his hands, thumbing to the page he was last on, he’s shifted his posture to face away from Constantine and towards the exit.

“Sorry,” Tan mumbles, apologizing for the wrong thing. He stares up at the ceiling with its pockmarked tiles and burnt out chandeliers and lets out a long breath. He can’t ask Arcade to hold his burdens, can’t ask him to fix things he didn’t break. Constantine knows that he’s worse than broken porcelain—he’s fractured terracotta, some edges so crumbled over time that even if you put all the pieces back together there would be gaps where seams should be. Holes where a heart, a childhood should be.

No, Arcade is Arcade—untouchable, unknowable, lovely like a secret held in cupped hands. Conviction and compassion and contradiction all wrapped up in honey colored hair and sweet, sarcastic smiles.

Maybe this won’t end things. Hell, it might be the perfect way to bring them together, drop all pretenses and strip them bare, force all their unsightly histories on display for the other—or at least, as much of Tan’s history that he can find. They might even be able to uncover that together, if things go well. It’s too much to hope for, so he shoves the thought aside before it burns itself into his plans as something achievable.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks, pleased with how casual he sounds. He needs to start putting things in motion, start making his presence known, and he would rather do that with Arcade in tow.

Silence. The sound of a page turning.

Eventually: “Whatever you have planned for me, I suppose.”

There it is, the consequence of that moment he shattered. Arcade never shies away from saying what he thinks of him, or of anything they encounter. The doctor is well-versed and well-spoken, insults and opinions both easily shared; Tan was expecting something along the lines of “Nothing, why” or perhaps a “nothing with you.” He tries again.

“What do you say to checking out the Ultra-Luxe?”

Another page. More silence. Another page. “What part are you checking out?”

“I was thinking their restaurant. Maybe their pool, their sauna…” He hopes he doesn't sound as pleading as he thinks he does.

The silence is different, this time. Pensive. Aware of the olive branch, though wary.

Tan stops rubbing his eyes. “I might have already gotten some tuxes and masks,” he ventures. “For the dress code, y’know. If you want to come.” He watches for Arcade’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.

That does it. There’s a hint of a smile at the edges of his lips, followed by a resigned sigh.

“I’ll take a mask. You won’t catch me dead in a tux, though.”

It’s a victory, however small, and it’s enough for Constantine to swallow that molten lump of shame and grin. Maybe there are things with Arcade he won’t ever be able to say just right, because how can he even start saying them? Things like I don’t know that whoever I was is enough to justify who I am now, or Being worthy of you means I have to do things worthy of you, and I can’t guarantee that I will. There are enough holes in him—in his head, in his heart—that let the goodness in him leak out, make itself known through a thousand little moments until he has nothing left for the big ones. Eventually he will run out and be left to run on empty, as much of a husk of who he is now in the same way that the spent bullet casing around his neck is a shell of who he was before. Maybe then, when there is nothing left to be broken, the past won’t catch up to him. Maybe then, he can stoop down and pick up the pieces from all the different versions of him and slot them all together, making someone better, someone new.

Maybe that person will be enough.

#nika talks fic #tancade nonsense #fallout new vegas #arcade gannon #m!courier x arcade #constantine becker #fallout fanfic #nika writes things

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