#when will somebody propose to me with a grenade ring too...... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

believerindaydreams · 3 years

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Okay I know there has to be a Boone/Arcade scene for pacing but this feels like treading water

Oh well, crossing at dawn 2.75 and then I'll be chronologically in order agsin

Boone

Don't know why now of all times, when we've finally sorted out our problems, I start having nightmares.

That time in the Legion, when I'm awake I hardly think about it. But when I sleep it grabs me, I'm wrapped in crimson that's starting to bleed and armed with a machete against men with grenade launchers and rockets.

Not that strange, it's what happened.

I get off the bunk, stealthy as I can manage; Manny's taken the top like always, he's out cold. My wife's fallen asleep on top of Veronica, hands entwined; I'd start wondering about that if the engineer wasn't so obsessed with this train. She's staying out, so the fling is a fling.

Can't complain, that's for sure.

Arcade's in the dining car, reading with his feet up; the place smells like frying fat and sugar.

"What's up?"

"Can't sleep. Didn't seem worth trying any longer."

"Well, I've got something cooking if you're sticking around. What would you normally do to unwind?"

"Practice my sniping."

"Ah. And you can hardly do that on a train, so no wonder you're stressed out."

Guess he has a point. Not many days I've spent without practicing with some kind of firearm or another. "What's cooking, then?"

"Fried Nuka-Cola balls." He's hiding behind his big book now, can't see him. "It's a classic recipe. I'm testing it."

"Can't get enough of the stuff, huh?"

"Followers," Arcade says, peeking over the top of the book, "are interested in all kinds of prewar experiences, valuable or not. Because it takes more than weapon schematics and vault doors to build a society- I think they started forgetting that, towards the end. How to live when your whole life isn't bent towards destruction. The more frivolous, silly, utterly human scraps we can salvage from the wreckage, the better off we all are."

"...so this isn't about your addiction then."

"Well, that too. Any Follower worth the lab coat can spout off nonsense to justify their actions, it's one of the first things you pick up at the Boneyard." He chuckles and tucks the book under his arm. Picks up a kind of metal net and shakes it out, then upends it over a plate. Golden balls spill out, like Manny's dumplings but smaller and less meaty. "Give those a while to cool."

"Guess I'm not going anywhere."

"Great," Arcade says, actually putting the book down. "Because I've- I have missed you, if that makes sense. Far be it from me to ever imply I miss the Sierra Madre, because I most definitely don't, but- you know what, there is absolutely no way of saying this without sounding terrible. That third rum was a mistake."

"With Nuka in it, I guess."

"...yes. Well. I could be even more drunk, but- you know what it is, I had approximately ten seconds to go from the idea of having finally, unbelievably, made a cautious attempt at opening up, to suddenly being the fifth wheel on a cart."

"There's only four of us."

"I'm talking metaphorically- Boone, it's been a lot to deal with. Manny was just that sniper in the dinosaur, Carla I didn't know at all, this is very much a case where I'm late to the party and I'm trying to get to terms with that by consuming junk food abominations and revisiting highlighted passages of the Wasteland Survival Guide. Please don't hate me for realising I'm not even the most important person in your life anymore."

The weird little fried balls are cooled off. I pop one in my mouth- kind of crispy on the outside, syrupy inside. It does taste like a soda, sort of.

"I'm not going to throw you over just because they came back."

Arcade stuffs a ball into his mouth, doesn't speak until he's done chewing. "Surviving the Enclave collapse did not, I'm afraid, do anything for my capacity to trust that a given situation will remain stable."

"...you want to fuck?"

"No. Yes. I would dearly enjoy a prolonged, imaginative and exhausting fuck, but right now I need to get to grips with this before I can get comfortable with you again. Boone, is any of this making sense?"

Wish Manny and Carla were awake, this is out of my depth. "They've told you they're glad to have you along. Don't know that me saying it helps you much."

We're getting through the balls at a fast clip. Saves looking at each other. "Is this because I shot those men at the Freeside gate? You look at me and wonder what other promises I'd break?"

Arcade blinks. Twice. "Not really where I was going with this, but carry on."

"Didn't kill 'em for my sake, when I could have turned myself in. Manny and Carla could have gone back to the Great Khans, they'd be glad to get a good soldier back and she'd stick with him if I vanished. But no way you could have gone with them, with that Legion alliance on the way. Had to make the choice, and I made it."

He slowly crushes a ball in his fingers, opens them up, looks at the dark liquid. "You're saying, cheer up, because I murdered some guards for you."

"Can't make you feel better about the others, because I'm not them. But you want to know if you matter to me? Damn straight you do."

"...I suppose that'll just have to suffice. For the moment."

Comes as a relief, when he quits talking and gets your hands and mouth sticky with soda syrup.

Action's a hell of a lot easier than words.

*****

Manny

Glory be, Veronica should have called it the Love Track. You can hardly move on this train without stumbling over somebody fucking or thinking about fucking or recuperating after the fact.

And I'm not planning to be left out altogether. Third day in I invite Arcade for a roll in the hay. Or maize husks, anyway.

"Why are we here? Cow won't need milking for at least two hours."

"Thought we could get to know each other a little better."

"Ooo-kay. Fine."

He's nervous. Forget the hay, then.

"See, I care about those two idiots out there, bless 'em, but Boone does not do feelings and Carla has been through so many kinds of hell since getting pregnant, I'm amazed she still gets up in the morning. So nobody else is going to ask this- are you feeling all right?"

"Good enough."

Wow. Boone's contagious. "Hey. If I can help, name it. I wouldn't be half as gracious about it if I was the one dumped into a three-way tangle."

"You could satisfy my incessant curiosity, I suppose." He picks up a brush and starts tending Cow; technique all wrong but they're patient animals. "How did you all agree to this, if I may ask?"

"Hmth. Sure you can ask, Boone proposed to her and she turned him down because she didn't believe that he wasn't sleeping with me. He came back to the barracks with a turquoise ring and a broken heart so bad he actually talked about it."

"Were you? Sleeping with him?"

"Not then. But we had done...so next leave, I went to Carla myself, told her it was killing my partner, that if it was me or caps or anything I had the power to change, name it and I'd do it. He'd been so happy with her...well. You met him before he got Carla back."

"I'm not sure I saw him at his worst, even so." Bless the man, Arcade's blushing.

"Could be, I wouldn't know. Well- she laughed and asked if I'd brought a ring too, and I said yes, just in case you wanted one. Nice bit of bone carving, you'd knock that off in a bored afternoon with the Khans. Anyway she suddenly took me seriously after that...she was in love, I was in love, Boone wanted both of us. And she felt better when she heard I didn't go for girls. So I went back, told Boone to try again...went storybook the second time, Carla said."

"Then you were always planning to make a life with them."

"Planning? No. I thought that she'd tell me to find my jollies somewhere else, I'd mope about it for a few months, and head back to the Khans- that was before Bitter Springs."

"So what made you stay?"

"You really don't let up with the questions, do you?" Arcade's not bad to look at, that's for damned sure. The distracted way he's brushing his hair back, for instance. But I'm not going to fuck him just because I'm here and he's here. "Cos I still wanted Boone. Because we were partnered and I couldn't have quit thinking about him if I tried. Because they were a couple of star-struck idiots and they were going to need help."

"I suppose you were right about that."

I'd just as soon forget the word Arizona, thanks. "Sure. Who else would have taught them a triple-step to dance at the Tops?"

"You know a triple-step? I thought that only- well, that only Enclave remembered that."

"Khans were from a vault, back in the day. Good exercise, and it's fun."

"Mmm. It shows."

There's a certain hunger the way Arcade says it, couldn't call it subtle. Suddenly I get to come to terms with just because I'm being polite and hands off, doesn't mean he is.

Well. I wouldn't mind being the one who gets chased, just for a change.

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