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mickume

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He said that so bluntly, as always, though at least this time he spared me that sad smile.  I’m not sure if I fell silent because I knew he was right or because the thought of him lying dead by his own hand brought back a lot of bad memories.  Maybe that was why I’d felt so drawn to Max in the first place.  

He kept his serious demeanor.  "I know I put a lot on you earlier, and I hope you can tell that I’m more... I’m okay now.  I know that bothered you and I’m not going to guess if there was a specific reason or if that was just how incredibly compassionate you tend to be; I’m sorry.  I’m not going to obfuscate anything I tried to do— and I’m pretty sure you realize the full extent of that— but I put a lot on you before we really knew much about each other and I didn’t mean to, I just...  I was pretty desperate.  You’ve really done a lot for me, and I want to repay that.  Maybe I can notice something you haven’t discovered yet; it’s worth a try, right?"

"...yeah."  He hadn’t let me get a word in during that entire explanation and for a moment, I was speechless.  "You seemed like you needed someone; I realized that after... well, after you kind of freaked me out."

He laughed uncomfortably.  "Yeah, that was really... really low.  I’m sorry."

I didn’t really want to believe it, but I had to ask in the hope that I was wrong.  "Were you trying...?  You tried to provoke me to kill you, didn’t you?"

Max got very quiet and stared down at my notes.  For a while, I didn’t expect him to answer, and then he cleared his throat and I realized he’d gotten choked up.  He met my gaze and answered flatly.  "Yes."  His eyes flicked back to the notes and he paged through them probably just to do something.  "I know that was a really terrible thing to try, and I realize I should never have manipulated anyone like that, and I sort of thought you figured it out a while ago, but like I said, I really wasn’t in a good place at the time— and alcohol being a depressant and all that— and I never plan to try that again, and..."  He grimaced and dared to look back up at me.  "I’m really sorry."

"You were desperate," I muttered, though I’m sure we both knew it still bothered me much more than I wanted to show.  I went back to the breakfast I kept forgetting, not really tasting it and staring at the table rather than meeting Max’s gaze.  I didn’t realize he was trying to decipher the subtleties of my reaction until he voiced them.  

"You have some history with this."  I frowned at him and Max clarified, "You don’t have to talk about it, I just hadn’t realized: you have some reason that suicide, or just depression, bothers you particularly deeply.  I didn’t know."  He added before I could really respond, "If you want to talk, I’m here.  I mean, you seem like you just internalize this kind of thing and keep your secrets, but you don’t really seem like you have anyone you can talk to around here, so if you need someone, even if you don’t want to talk, I’m here."  Now I was just speechless again and he must have seen that.  He waved his hand in something between a shrug and a dismissal and pointed out, "You were here for me— more than anyone has been."

He nodded and when I awkwardly returned to my very delayed breakfast, he went back to reading. 

We didn’t really leave the kitchen that day and for the next two days we spent most of our time there as well.  Lucia didn’t show up and neither did anyone else.  Rex had been returned to the King after Max arrived, Raul hadn’t left his shack lately, so I guess Lucia had him working on something, and Lily had been less and less coherent.  Max told me Lucia didn’t want him making the mutant’s medicine anymore, so I hoped she’d returned to Doc Henry because that would be the best possible reason for that request and her absence.  Likewise, I hoped Cass was trying to rebuild her family’s caravan business rather than languishing in a bar now that the Van Graffs and the Crimson Caravan had both been destroyed.  For a while, I’d wondered if Cass had done that herself, but I doubted that even Cass could have handled the kind of guards they employed.  Even if Lucia had helped, there was no way they could have managed it.  Veronica hadn’t been back, but the courier knew where she had gone, so I just figured she and Lucia had gone off on some emergency mission.  The Legion had been getting more active lately and the NCR had more than enough on their hands; Lucia always had something urgent to take care of.  Our only company in the suite was that eyebot.  

While we were left alone, Max perused my notes and I brought in a book to read over anything botanical and make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything.  When the silence dragged on, we’d talk, even though neither of us really minded being left to his work.  For once, I really enjoyed talking to someone.  It was usually one of my biggest pet peeves when people felt compelled to talk while I was trying to read, but Max made interesting conversation.  He was well-read, and he’d grown up watching a lot of the same holotapes that I had— both facts reaffirmed my belief that he’d been born in the Enclave.  We both liked old musicals in particular.  We briefly talked about watching them together on the projector he’d built before that conversation faded and we went back to reading in silence.  Every so often, he’d mention a plant I’d written about and usually we’d discuss the possibilities for a while before concluding it wasn’t feasible to use it medicinally.  Xander root was the exception.  It showed some promising results, but didn’t react potently enough on its own and neither of us had thought of anything that might help it along.  After that dead end, he had stopped to eat dinner out of frustration, but I fully expected this new, adamant Max to work day and night until he succeeded.  And he did stay up so late that I wasn’t really sure if he slept the first night.  

The next evening, I heard a clunk while reading my botany text and realized he’d dozed off.  I moved him to the bed and went to sleep as well in the hope that maybe a good night’s rest would give me some new insight.  

The following morning, he’d awakened before me.  I found him in the kitchen, on his feet, my notes left at the head of the table while he stood over the counter with electronics scattered in front of him.  I got myself cereal— the selection of food wasn’t great, and as far as breakfast went my options were cereal or fruit.  I didn’t really look at what Max was working on until I was at the table standing across from him and I dropped the bowl of cereal in shock (luckily it landed upright.)  

"Max!  What are you doing?!  Get away from that thing!"

"Relax, it’s deactivated."  He looked up with one hand on the opened eyebot and tweaked a sensor near its weapons’ systems before admitting, "Mostly."  

I was practically beside myself.  "Mostly?!"  I could hear my voice getting embarrassingly high, but I didn’t care.  "Max, do you have any idea what these things do?  You’re poking around in its circuitry— even if you don’t touch the wrong wire or anything, it’s still likely to go berserk!"

"No, it’s not."  He sighed irritably and finished up what he was doing.  "Arcade, I know you don’t trust this thing, but I’ve been programming robots and turrets for most of my life.  I’ve checked damn near all the code in this thing for hidden algorithms and it’s not going berserk unless I want it to."  He tapped his pliers on the table beside a very jury-rigged holotape.  "By the way, I found that; it turns out our friend ED-E had some rather helpful information inside of him."

I raised an eyebrow.  "It was carrying a holotape?"

"No."  Max plugged some wires into their sockets and the little robot whirred back to life.  Max closed the chassis and explained, "I built the tape."  He nodded at the finished terminal he’d constructed and set up on the table near the notes.  "I found some files stored on his hard drive and recorded them to that holotape.  I’ve already reviewed them, but you might want to do the same."

"Why?"  I kept one hand on the plasma defender at my hip, just in case that hovering robot got its bearings and decided it preferred these files kept secret.  It beeped something and Max gave it an odd look.  "I really hope that isn’t a warning beep."

Max snorted.  "Someone gave ED-E a much more advanced AI than usual for eyebots.  He seems to have some amount of simulated emotions, which is why I disabled his internal sensors while I worked on him.  Might be because whoever programmed him wanted him to make it all this way; you should check the tape."  

I plugged the holotape into the terminal and played it.  There were audio files but also technical information— dramatically more than I expected to fit on a single, jury-rigged holotape.  It was Enclave information.  I stared at Max and found him smiling his bittersweet smile rather than his fake smirk or a more playful grin.  Why was he sad about this?  "This is good news, isn’t it?"

"Yeah."  Max ignored the duraframe eyebot’s confused beeping.  I could tell my friend wasn’t lying.  

I knew he wasn’t going to tell me as soon as he waved his hand.  "It’s a lot of things."  I wanted to believe it wasn’t serious and he was just frustrated with the futility of trying to create medical supplies from local plants or maybe just frustrated with the NCR’s power in the area, but given his history of depression, it made me worry.  

"You sure you’re okay?"

"I’m fine!" Max snapped.  He paced for a moment and then gestured to the notes.  "Sorry.  I’ve got nothing; I’ve never been the best botanist, most of my synthesis of chems and vitamins involves inorganic compounds or animal matter— mostly bone and meat.  Plants were never my specialty."

"Sorry, like I said, this research is kind of pointless."  I got up to gather my notes and put them away, but he stopped me.  

"No.  I may not be the best botanist, but I still want to help you with this, I just needed a break."  He practically scrambled to stow the scrap, tools, and terminal in the crate he’d claimed for his things.  "I get sort of... obsessive about things, and when I couldn’t figure this out, it just..."  He gestured wildly.  "I kept thinking through it over and over and I just had to stop and work on something else for a while.  I feel like I’m—"  He paced and ran a hand through his already wild hair— he looked like he had showered but never combed it.  "Like I’m being pulled in a million different directions; I have all these things I want to make, or modify, or get done, and nowhere near enough time.  I’ve never felt like this before."  

That was probably an understatement; he’d been so apathetic he could barely get out of bed a few weeks ago, and now he had something bordering on anxiety.  "You didn’t feel like this before?  Were you... well, were you taking anything when you were in pain?"

He let out his breath in something that wasn’t quite a laugh, "I’ve taken over a dozen different things to keep me going, I know this could be my body rebounding from that, or from having been sick for so long, and it doesn’t help that the war actually makes everything feel so... urgent."  He grabbed an apple from the fridge and ate it as he paced.  

He was right; I’d considered the same thing.  This could be the natural response until his body realized it no longer needed to counteract pain, or whatever he’d been taking for that pain, or this could be how he’d adapted to the fact that chronic pain made it much more difficult to focus.  It could also be that he would have been this energetic under normal circumstances and pain had sapped his energy and focus.  Having been in pain as long as he had had almost certainly made him depressed and even if that was cured it could also cause anxiety and that might be what I was seeing now.  His brain would have lost some ability to process multiple tasks at the same time due to damage from his pain, so he might not really have all that much to do— two or three tasks could have seemed impossibly daunting to him right now, but with how capable he seemed, I liked to think that wasn’t the case.  

He finished his apple, pacing and frowning all the while.  He’d washed his hands and started back towards my notes when I asked him quietly, "Is this who you are when you aren’t in pain?"

He turned that thoughtful frown towards me and I suppressed a shiver.  He really looked much older than he was and that spark inside him could be absolutely dazzling.  "I really don’t know," Max admitted.  Before the mood could become too dark, he smiled and added, "To tell the truth, I’m not even sure who I want to be, but I’m enjoying the chance to figure that out."  

It seemed a little too close to flirting to admit that I was glad to watch him figure that out.  He sat down and paged through my notes while I ate my cereal and considered what he’d said.  Whoever he turned out to be, I couldn’t imagine him becoming anything but amazing.  This was a man who could shape the Mojave at least as easily as the courier could, and I didn’t dare admit how large a part I had played in saving him— it seemed just a little too egotistical to think a guy like that might owe his life to me.  

I’d been trying very hard to keep things platonic between us now that I knew how young he was and after the first few sexual comments, Max actually seemed to have backed off.  I don’t think he was open to anyone except myself and Veronica, so I understood that he wanted us to stay close friends; so far it seemed like he was finally willing to leave it at that.  I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t get involved with him (again) but I couldn’t quite manage to be happy that he seemed to agree.  

Max got frustrated with the notes while I was still eating breakfast.  He got up and started pacing so, in an effort to distract him, I brought up the first topic that came to mind.  Failed pre-war socioeconomic policies.  The conversation actually held his interest; he was the first person who didn’t grimace at the very idea of discussing that— which was the reaction I’d expected.  Luckily, Max replied before I had the chance to backpedal.  I think his frustration drove him to complain; he criticized the cut-throat nature of Vegas and how it had become dangerously focused on greed.  We ended up imagining a communist society— with myself and him playing devil’s advocate to each other.  The problem with communism was the people in charge, who typically succumbed to greed, as I pointed out, and that was where I expected the discussion to end until Max suggested, not a human leader, but an automated system.  

As I found more and more often with Max and his wonderful ideas, he left me speechless for a moment.  "...with repair drones, and a very carefully programmed AI— and a lot of back-up systems and a whole lot of luck— that could theoretically work."  He nodded, his brow set especially low over his eyes.  I could practically see him forming a plan, so I asked in surprise, "Do you actually have the means to make that happen?"

He waved dismissively and his fake grin returned.  "It’s just a pipe dream.  Maybe some day..."  He was half lying.  He set this up like an abstract, but he really had an actual plan to implement a computer-run communist government somewhere in the not-so distant future.  And I had no doubt that, Max being Max, he really could pull it off.  I stared at him in something between shock and admiration.  

Max must have realized I saw through his lie, but for some reason he deflected rather than admit it.  He shuffled through my notes.  "Xander root was the only promising specimen, so that might work if we can use something else as a promoter.  Mutfruit showed some interesting reactions with Xander root, but that’s probably an enzyme— I haven’t analyzed it myself and you didn’t research mutfruit yet, so that can be a back-up, but the Legion have this stuff called healing powder and it’s derived from Xander root, Xander root and some kind of flower."

Now I stared for a whole different reason.  "Max, how exactly do you know Legion— and I use the term loosely— medicine?" 

"Long story," he evaded.  He passed the notes on Xander root and several dozen flower species towards me and added, "I’m not supporting the Legion.  I just met some... some dangerous people at the Gomorra.  One of them mentioned healing power when he saved my life."  I wasn’t convinced until he tapped his bracer and I realized why his life had needed saving.  If some legionary saved his life in that place, it was probably a frumentarius, and he’d probably only saved Max because Max dealt in secrets.  Had dealt in secrets, he didn’t anymore.  And if he’d been saved by a frumentarius, I tried not to think that it was probably the only one I’d ever knowingly seen on the Strip.  

I paged through the notes and tried to distract myself while Max strode back over to his scrap and started building something that looked like a small radio transmitter.  Looking through the tattered papers, I realized his attempt to dodge my earlier questions had actually put me on the right track; I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but Broc flowers contained a chemical which might well promote the reaction Xander root produced in the human body.  In theory— and in the right amounts— that combination could be used to synthesize stimpaks.  For the third time in a matter of minutes, my gaze locked on Max, this time with something bordering on awe.  He turned towards me to carry an armful of scrap and wire to the table and raised an eyebrow.  "...yes?"

I had to be sure.  I rummaged through the notes and then dug through the cabinet where Lucia left any interesting plants she found— she knew what I was researching and let me help myself to them, but I usually didn’t and I think she just enjoyed looking for them during her weeks of hiking.  Sure enough, I found Broc flowers and after some digging a Xander root as well.  Max settled down at the table and watched me while he worked.  For the first time today, he seemed almost relaxed.  

*       *       *

I’d decided that I just needed to accept that Arcade was too bothered by my age to continue anything sexual with me.  I wanted him to be interested, which had to be why I kept seeing that when I tried to judge what he was feeling.  I still hadn’t decided exactly how I felt about him aside from grateful and that was one of the many reasons I’d been so distracted today.  I’d gotten Veronica out of Lucia’s reach, I hoped, but the courier had been gone for days and that worried me.  She could just be assisting the NCR or someone else, but I couldn’t quite determine if she had enough cunning to work against me yet, or what she’d do if she tried.  In her absence, I’d endeavored to use anything I could to set up my own defenses— that was why I’d opened up ED-E.  I’d been afraid the robot might have some hidden command so she could sic him on me if it came to a fight.  Instead, I’d found a massive amount of Enclave records and schematics for everything from military tech to hydroponics and medicine.  With the terminal shut down, as it was now, it would need a password to be accessed and I didn’t expect Lucia to be able to figure that out, so the data was safe.  I’d set up my own algorithms in case I needed the eyebot to protect me and I’d not only improved his lasers but reinforced his armor as well.  I’d helped Arcade’s research in an effort to repay him, but I hadn’t really expected to be able to really achieve anything and even all the effort I’d made to repay him, to protect him and Veronica, and to make sure the NCR didn’t take the Mojave didn’t feel like enough.  I wasn’t sure anything I could do would ever be enough.  

"The composition’s almost identical!" Arcade murmured to himself, "Aside from some impurities, but I can’t really help that without more advanced technology, and it’s nothing harmful..."  I’d turned around to watch him while the radio broadcast system cooled down where I had welded it and I hadn’t gone back to work even now that it was cold.  I’d been so agitated all day because I had so much to get done and nowhere near enough time, but watching Arcade when he was so clearly ecstatic about his discovery just made me smile.  For one thing, the ability to create stimpaks from such common resources would be a huge asset if I was ever going to run the Mojave independently— or even as some bastard (literally) off-shoot of the Brotherhood— but I found myself much more glad about how happy it made him.  

He turned around and I must have been smiling at him.  "It must be what they used to use to make stimpaks," Arcade explained, "Xander root and Broc flower, or maybe whatever they mutated from."  He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it adorably ruffled, "I wouldn’t have figured this out if you hadn’t mentioned..."

I chuckled and got up to hide the finished radio with the vodka I hadn’t touched in weeks.  "I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t helped me."  He’d been behind me when I said that, but he hugged me and I turned around to hug him back.  

He ended the hug after a long moment, but still held me at arm’s length like he wanted to say something and couldn’t find the words.  I chuckled a bit dryly, "I’d kiss you, but I don’t think you’d appreciate that."

Arcade looked confused.  "You, um... That’s not exactly true..."

Now I was surprised.  "I thought my age was too much of a problem for you?"

*        *         *

It was a problem, but I’d rationalized it.  Whatever his age, he was an adult and we had too much in common for me to pretend his age was a deal-breaker.  I tried not to date men more than ten years younger than I was, but five years beyond that... I guess I could make an exception.  Hell, I’d already slept with him once, as much as I didn’t like to use that kind of justification.  

The elevator arrived before I could reply, but I’m pretty sure Max knew what I was going to say.  When the doors opened, I was afraid it would be Lucia, who would either drag us off on another mission or be murdered by Max, for whatever reason he’d come up with.  The sound of the elevator arriving reminded me how much he hated her.  I couldn’t imagine anything she might have done to even come close to deserving the level of pain he wanted to cause her—and  that proved a much greater obstacle to our relationship now that I remembered it.  I just found it difficult to know he had that much hate inside of him when he was helping me create stimpaks from common plants and talking about making a communist government feasible; it was the same way I had trouble reconciling the innocent girl Lucia was with the number of people she killed.  

But it wasn’t Lucia who arrived; it was Cass.  Already drunk and having just been kicked out of the Wrangler, of all places, she would have tried to incite a party— or at least a bender— under normal circumstances.  This time, however she caught on to the mood and grinned.  "You open to a threesome today?"

"No!"  I answered immediately and Cass laughed.  I couldn’t tell if Max’s chuckle meant he was amused by how quickly I’d refused or if he was really entertained by the idea.  He didn’t clarify.  Instead, he suggested poker— Cass had forgotten the last time they’d played poker and Max planned to lose on purpose.  I still wasn’t one for gambling, but Max, by some miracle, convinced Cass to keep the betting low and we both knew if we didn’t distract her, she’d continue trying to talk us into sex.  In terms of distractions, Cass had drink, sex, and gambling.  I certainly wasn’t going to sleep with her and whether or not he entertained the possibility, I really preferred if Max didn’t, and getting the already drunk woman even more drunk was even less appealing than losing around a hundred caps in a game.  

As it turned out, Cass still drank.  She had a bottle of whiskey, but at least the game forced her to use two hands on occasion, so she didn’t drink as heavily as she might have.  To my chagrin, Max also drank, though far less heavily.  He brought out one of his bottles of vodka— presumably a brand made purely from potato, considering he didn’t have a reaction to it— and had a few sips as we played.  He was far from drunk when Cass fell asleep at the table.  

Max sighed after she slumped onto her pile of caps.  He gathered the cards together and set the deck aside, leaving everyone’s winnings where they were, including his own.  He grabbed for his vodka and now that the caravaner couldn’t protest I caught Max’s wrist.  "You should really stop drinking."

Max stood and slipped his hand out of my grasp.  He took another small sip.  "I’m nowhere near as drunk as she was.  Besides, you didn’t stop Cass."

"I’m not sure anything short of death would stop Cass... and I haven’t been trying lately.  I’ve been focused on you."

He snorted and walked past me to the fridge.  "I certainly do have enough problems.  I’m not even sure I can handle my remaining problems right now."  He took another drink as he grabbed a squirrel kabob from the fridge and caught my concern as he turned back towards the table.  "I’m not suicidal," he assured me, but added under his breath, "At least not right now."

I got up and took the vodka from his hand.  He didn’t resist me.  "You can handle whatever it is you’re dealing with right now.  I have faith in that much."  Hell, I half thought he could handle anything after what he’d already been through.  

Max scoffed.  "I appreciate your confidence; I’m glad at least one of us thinks I’m competent.  I have to ask, why are you so adamant about taking my booze?"

"Because when we met you were, and I quote, `self-medicating with alcohol." Are you sure you aren’t addicted?"

"I’m sure," Max chuckled, though his good humor left me less than convinced.  He realized that.  "I’m not addicted to alcohol," Max assured me, "I’ve been addicted to a lot of things, vodka is not one of them."

"Then why are you so insistent on drinking?"

"I just appreciate having a drink that isn’t water."  Max gripped the kabob between his teeth like a rose and began an elaborate attempt to retrieve his vodka that I recognized instantly.  

He wrapped one hand around the hand by which I held the bottle, slipping his fingers between mine and steering our arms towards the door.  His other hand rested against my hip.  He stood so close to me that I shivered.  I think that was why he chuckled as he started to guide us towards the guest bedroom.  It was a basic waltz, or something close to it and I wasn’t particularly uncoordinated, but Max being Max I felt incredibly clumsy trying to match his silent steps in a dance I barely knew.  Somehow I managed not to step on his feet and we made it into the bedroom.  I didn’t expect this to be more than an effort to get his vodka back— even if he was interested in me, we’d basically been arguing, which hardly set a romantic mood— so it came as a surprise when he pulled me into a long kiss.  Somehow he continued to hold the kabob but kissed almost normally, aside from the lingering taste of squirrel.  I realized as he ended the kiss that his lips and tongue must have been incredibly dexterous.  He’d already worked his fingers underneath mine, leaving him holding his bottle of vodka entirely beneath my very loose grip, and when he broke the kiss he slipped the bottle free and spun out of my grip, gracefully twirling over to perch on the end of the bed in a move that would have been even more stunning had he been wearing a tailcoat.  As it was, it let his suit jacket billow like a small cape and left his tie disheveled.  Max smirked honestly, for a change, set the kabob on the bedside table, and sipped his vodka.  

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.  "You know things would be very boring around here if you ever just asked for something."

He let out a raucous laugh, "We can’t have that.  Maybe next time I should follow through on that threat I made a few weeks back?  That I’d climb you like that pole?"  I blushed and he chuckled.  "You seem so against my drinking, so I have to ask, why is it that you don’t drink?"

I frowned at him.  "I drink."  I must have drank something around him, right?  I mean, I had wine sometimes, it wasn’t as if he thought I abstained from alcohol entirely...  

Max raised his scarred eyebrow dubiously.  "Really?"

"Yes," I blustered, surprised rather than actually offended, "I drink, I just don’t like living with so many alcoholics."

Max smirked even more playfully and set the vodka on the table beside the bed for a moment.  He stripped from the waist up and grabbed the bottle again.  I didn’t realize what he was doing until he poured a few sips of vodka on the tense muscles of his chest and beckoned me towards him.  "Prove it."

I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t tempted.  I didn’t even like vodka, but looking at Max stretched out like that with the clear drink slowly trickling along his sternum...  He must have done this before; he kept his body nearly level so the vodka stayed mostly in place, but his breathing shifted his chest just enough that it slowly started to flow downward.  And the way he’d been acting, getting things done, trying to improve life in the Mojave, even the flirting and romantic flourishes— all of it just played so perfectly to what I found attractive.  But at the same time, barely an hour ago I’d had to remind myself that for one reason or another, he wanted the courier dead.  It was probably due to his grudge against the NCR, and as much as I disliked them, they had the best odds of stopping the Legion; even setting aside the fact that Lucia was both my friend and relatively innocent, if he killed her, that risked the entire Mojave.  Even if he could stop the Legion and make Vegas independent without her help, I couldn’t just let him kill Lucia.  I don’t think I would have bothered to stop myself and take the time to worry about this except that the last time he’d slept with me, Max had just been trying to distract himself.  I wanted to trust him.  On most things, I had absolute faith in him.  But Max hated the NCR blindly, and by extension, he hated Lucia, and he was cunning enough to recognize that I would try to stop him from killing her.  Trying to get me to drink, even a little, meant he might be trying to get me drunk, and this whole thing could be a method to make sure I fell asleep before Lucia returned.  I’d already seen him use sex as a distraction plenty of times before.  

Max dipped a finger into the vodka on his chest when I hesitated.  He licked it clean more seductively than I’d ever seen anyone lick anything, and that was saying something.  I rallied my self-control and stared him down, trying to find the least offensive way to ask if he wanted to kill Lucia.  He certainly did, whether or not he actually planned to go through with that— if he answered honestly, at least I’d know he wasn’t lying completely.  I might even be able to believe that he wasn’t just having sex with me to distract me.  Damn Enclave lifestyle for making me paranoid.  Come to think of it, that might also be the reason he’d become so deceptive.  

*       *      *

When he didn’t approach, I had to swallow a frustrated sigh.  "What?  Don’t like vodka?"

"Well, I’m not fond of that either," Arcade admitted, "but... are you planning to kill Lucia?"

My brows knit.  I was more disappointed than surprised; he didn’t trust me.  Was this how it would have felt to be the boy who cried wolf?  I know I wasn’t the most honest man, but I did some things honestly.  He might have just caught on that she was helping the NCR, and I wanted them dead or at least out of the Mojave, but more likely given his timing, he thought that I wanted to sleep with him and get him drunk so he’d be out cold when she came back.  I had to admit, the idea had crossed my mind.  I’d tried once before to manipulate him with lethal consequences, and that guilt still tore me up, I tried not to remember that fight.  I wasn’t about to sleep with him so I could murder his friend.  I couldn’t do that to Arcade.  "I want her dead, yes.  But I’m not going to kill her tonight."

"...oh."  He sounded less upset than I’d expected.  I guess he wasn’t surprised.  

In the hope of salvaging my chances for sex, I elaborated, "Look, Lucia isn’t the perfect little angel everyone seems to think she is, there’s a reason she’s got fucking terrifying admirers.  I want her dead, but at the moment, she’s sort of got me stuck and I can’t act against her however much I want to.  I’m not just trying to kill her because she’s NCR, although I admit that doesn’t make me any more forgiving of her actions."  I sighed and gestured towards the dresser drawer I’d claimed for my few possessions unrelated to crafting, "If you really can’t trust me, look in there."  I felt the vodka on my chest make its way to my abdomen as I moved a little too much while I spoke.  

Arcade opened the drawer and frowned at me.  I explained, "I wasn’t going to bother with this, but handcuff me to the bed frame if you’re so worried I’m going to kill her.  I can’t pick locks and even if I could, the only wire I have is powerfully electrified.  The key’s in there as well, it should be easy enough for you to find."

Arcade sighed as well and from that I gathered that he didn’t like the idea, probably because he didn’t realize that I wasn’t averse to spending my nights chained up, but evidently he preferred to make sure there were no murders tonight.  He brought the cuffs and sat on the bed beside me.  "Sorry about this."

I chuckled, feeling the vodka trickle even lower because of that.  "Don’t be," I crossed my wrists above my head and watched Arcade close the cuffs over them, "I quite enjoy being handcuffed to a bed."  

He managed a half-hearted grin, still trying to shake the knowledge that I hoped to kill the courier.  "I really can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not."  He was going to say something else after that, but I pretended not to notice.  He wanted to ask why I wanted Lucia dead; he was going to ask that sooner or later now that I’d tried to convince him this wasn’t just an old grudge against the NCR.  If I told him now, not only would sex be off the table for tonight, but with myself handcuffed to a bed, he’d probably confront Lucia and get himself killed and I’d be powerless to stop it.  

"The vodka’s been making progress, this will just be a blatant attempt to get you to suck me off if we wait much longer."

"Oh, good," he remarked, "then I still have time."

I hadn’t expected him to joke after the serious matter we’d just been discussing and it surprised me enough that I laughed openly.  The vodka slid along one side of my abdomen, progressing even further.  If we didn’t do this soon, we were going to get vodka on the sheets.  "Arcade," I argued, "I’ll tell you more about what’s going on tomorrow, can we just relax for now?  Lucia isn’t here and even if she was, you’ve got me handcuffed to a bed, don’t just leave me alone like this!"  

He sighed, but I knew he was considering it.  I knew I’d convinced him as soon as I saw that adorably playful gleam in his eye.  "Well, I can hardly waste vodka, now can I?"  

I’d had so many people do body shots off of me and this was the first time I’d willingly suggested it.  It helped that I knew what caused my rash because now I could at least chose a liquor that wouldn’t make things drastically less comfortable.  Where I kept my vodka, it was usually fairly cold and the Lucky 38’s air conditioning meant it had stayed chilled even on my skin.  Most of the time when I served as a living bar, I had scruffy, over-eager drunks pawing at my crotch or ass while slobbering up lukewarm whiskey; even had the vodka been warm, this was a drastic contrast.  Arcade had clearly never done this before, and unlike the previous time when the two of us both needed to lose ourselves in a distraction, this time he was hesitant.  He kissed his way from my chest to my abdomen like he wasn’t sure I wanted him.  I barely felt his tongue until he reached the place where most of the vodka had pooled at a valley between muscles— my abs were especially tensed because I was trying to prop myself up without the aid of my arms.  He sipped the vodka off my belly like he was drinking fine wine from a glass and I nearly laughed out loud.  He did these things that were just so perfectly Old World, like somehow the past two hundred years hadn’t happened and it still mattered that he wore pajamas to sleep, or didn’t drink before noon, or tried not to sleep with men under twenty.  Growing up, there’d been a few fleeting years where old King-Arthur stories and Brotherhood titles had led me to believe that Brotherhood Knights and Paladins really adhered to some moral code beyond military doctrines, but chivalry really was dead, or close to it, and to my great surprise an Enclave-born doctor turned out to be more of a gentleman than the men who sullied the title "Paladin."  

When the vodka was gone, I strained forward against the handcuffs and somehow managed to reach Arcade’s lips for a kiss.  I let the cuffs wear into the skin of my wrists until my straining abdomen had to relax so I could breath.  When I fell back onto the pillow, Arcade followed me.  I felt him stretch out to lie beside me and hooked one leg around his waist before he could lie down completely.  I ran my thighs along his hips and back up until they gripped him just above his belt.  If I wanted to, I could have pulled him on top of me and I’m sure I could have managed to get him off without removing his pants or freeing my hands, but I stopped and let him decide.  I wanted sex, I’m sure he knew that, but if he wasn’t interested after the conversation we’d just had or because of my age, I hope he realized that I would stop.  I’d been ready to leave him alone completely earlier today.  

Arcade broke the kiss, but he took the hint and rolled towards me so he lay between my legs.  With my hands unavailable, I ran my ankle along the inside of his upper thigh before I realized he wanted to say something.  

"Max..."  He glanced down at my ankle, still nearly at his crotch.  I let my legs flop open and he finished his sentence with a look somewhere between amusement and frustration.  I brought up serious topics during sex, so yes, I suppose I was a hypocrite for trying to avoid these conversations when I hadn’t meant to start them.  "Max, do you— er— ...you wanted to work at the Gomorra, right?  You weren’t...?"

I sighed.  "I wasn’t forced into that.  I did actively seek out the job I had.  Although the bosses were a bit more domineering than I’d expected."  It made sense why he was asking; he had qualms about my age, and now he worried that I’d been forced into prostitution, thus skewing my views on sex so I might not really want this.  "Arcade, I want this.  I want you."  I didn’t dare admit that although I’d usually been able to avoid unwanted sex at the Gomorra— through a mix of alcohol, hallucinogens, lies, and aphrodisiacs— I hadn’t been so lucky here.  But I wanted him to know that if he’d picked up on some subtle expression or twinge of fear, he wasn’t wrong.  "I haven’t wanted it every time.  You’re as far from that as anyone can be; I know you won’t do this if I don’t want you to."  I looked away so I wouldn’t see if he felt pity or outrage or if he was just moved that I felt so safe with him.  I tried to lighten the mood.  "Hell, at this rate, I’d almost think you didn’t want this."  

I started to laugh at my own joke, but fell silent as he kissed me.  He undid my belt and pulled it off, letting it slide off to the floor.  With my hands cuffed, I struggled to reach him.  I managed to run my fingers through the soft curls of his hair.  My hair was straight and soft —I liked to think it felt like rabbit fur but if rabbits survived, I’d never seen one.  Arcade’s, on the other hand, was just as soft, but thicker; it had structure more like wool but infinitely softer than the sheepskin lining of my coat.  However terrible they had been, the Enclave had certainly bred stunning men.  

Arcade broke the kiss to see what he was doing as he stripped to his knees.  Well experienced in using my legs for unusual tasks, I shed my own pants and briefs in under ten seconds without the use of my hands.  I could tell what I meant as a practical effort left Arcade both impressed and intimidated.  I had a lot of experience.  He wasn’t the first to find that a little daunting, but he was the first where I wished he didn’t.  At the Gomorra, of the clients I had sex with, I’d had men so eager they would have probably raped me if I’d resisted and I’d had men who paid and then shyly let me take complete control— either through conscious choice or through their own inexperience— but Arcade was very different.  With how often he hesitated, I didn’t dare take a dominant role and I didn’t want to.  I wanted him to be in control; I trusted him to be in control and not hurt me, and right now I needed this just to reinforce to myself that I could still trust people.  It wouldn’t work if he used me as others had and I knew that he wouldn’t; but he hesitated so much that this kept stalling.  When he paused to watch my pants flutter to the floor, I half expected this to stop where it was, despite the fact that we were both mostly naked.  

Instead, Arcade lay back down between my legs.  He did nothing else just yet and he wasn’t visibly aroused, but the position rested his crotch against mine and after years of similar sensations, my cock perked up reflexively.  He must have felt it, but didn’t look down just yet.  

"Max, I want this," he assured me.  "I just want to make sure that you do as well.  I need to make sure.  Max, I swear, whatever happens, I’ll never hurt you."  He kissed me and I kissed him back.  At the time, I took that as his mood talking.  I never thought he was lying, but being on a bed with your dick pressed against another, fairly attractive man’s body had a way of bringing out grand promises even when that other man hadn’t been promising even grander futures all day.  I barely considered the possibility that he was serious and it never once occurred to me that he might hold himself to that promise in the future.  Even after circumstances changed.  

In that kiss, his tongue poked between my lips and then stopped, only pressing further into my mouth once I pushed my own tongue against it.  I pressed our lips together until I felt like they might bruise.  He ran one hand along my back, his thumb tracing the muscles of my side.  I’d noticed it before but it still amazed me that his hands were nearly as soft as mine.  Despite the difficulties of life in wasteland, his skin was like velvet; we’d both lived lives mostly sheltered from the heat and struggle for survival and that showed.  Working with books and tools, I had developed an exceptionally strong grip and I’d noticed he had as well, probably for the same reason— mechanical repairs and medicine or medical research weren’t too different in terms of the muscles they developed.  And whether he’d been officially trained or just figured things out from his knowledge of human anatomy, Arcade’s powerful fingers rubbed the knotted muscles they passed over.  I moaned into the kiss.