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1.
“Kieran, I didn’t follow you out of Freeside for you to pass me off as a teacher for the NCR’s field medics,” Arcade grumbles, following Kieran into the shade of the massive statues marking the road out of the Mojave Outpost. “If you wanted to run errands for the NCR you should have gone to pick up Boone and let me go back to the Followers!”
“Awe, don’t be mad at me, ‘Cade,” Kieran says, in that familiar, please-I’m-trying-so-hard-to-be-good tone that Arcade finds both infuriating and amusing. “Ya seen that infirmary, these guys need your help. They ain’t got a senior medical officer here and they don’t know what they’re doin’. Besides, we just got in yesterday. I know damn well ya don’t wanna turn around and follow me right back through all those radscorpions and feral ghouls and shit, do ya?”
“No, and that’s my point,” Arcade replies, exasperated. “We just got here! You need rest too. Just because you keep getting lucky doesn’t mean you’re invincible.”
“I got plenty of sleep last night, and Nipton ain’t even that far away,” Kieran says, wheedling now. “I’ll be back tomorrow night. Next afternoon, at the latest. I won’t let ya miss me for longer’n that, promise.”
Arcade rolls his eyes at this last, too irritated to give Kieran the pleasure of acknowledging his flirtation.
“Sure, fine, whatever,” he mutters. “I know when I’ve lost. But if you come back poisoned, or shot, or stabbed, or what the hell ever, you’re gonna have to get one of your NCR medics to patch you up. This is a bad idea all around, and I’m washing my hands of it, you hear me?”
Kieran, damn him, only grins.
“I’ll be careful, ‘Cade,” he says, slinging his bag across his back and tying his canteen to his belt. “Don’t worry so much!”
Arcade sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses with one hand and waving Kieran on his way with the other: shoo, fly.
Kieran starts down the road, laughing, because of course he is; it’s a beautiful laugh, too, a rare sound of genuine joy in a place with precious little of that to go around, and Arcade gives in despite himself, looking up and waving a proper goodbye.
Kieran returns it, his laughter tapering off to a broad grin as he tips Arcade a mock salute. Then he turns his back and walks on, his rundown boot-heels clocking along the dry, cracked earth, the Mojave sun turning his red hair to tongues of flame beneath its unforgiving glare.
It’s Friday morning, and Arcade watches Kieran go until he’s nothing but a speck in the distance, and he doesn’t see him again until late the following Thursday afternoon.
2.
Arcade is out behind the trader, shoving food rations into his bag. During Kieran’s absence he had taken to playing Caravan as a distraction, and thanks to a few tricks he’d picked up from watching Kieran, he’d cleaned out most of the grunt soldiers. If he hadn’t given the caps right back to the Outpost by buying supplies, they would have run him off days ago.
Cold, creeping tendrils of dread slither up his spine and he grits his teeth, struggling to keep his mind on his work instead of letting it wander into speculation. It’s been almost a week since Kieran left, and Arcade can’t bring himself to stay at the Outpost for much longer despite being certain his departure will end in either death or humiliation.
Death seems most likely; he’ll die trying to find Kieran, or the Legion will kill him as he tries to make his way back to Freeside and the Followers. There is a small and pathetic part of him, however, that fears he’ll run into Kieran alive and well somewhere out in the Mojave and be forced to face the fact that Kieran had dumped him at the Outpost just to get away from him.
There’s no evidence to support that, of course, but the thought keeps intruding regardless, and at the moment Arcade isn’t sure which result would be more painful. All he knows is he’s tired of waiting, of not knowing, and he’ll be walking away from the Mojave Outpost first thing in the morning, for better or worse.
He’s so deep in his own head he doesn’t notice Ghost screaming at him until one of her .308’s rips into the ground near his boots.
“He’s back, you idiot!” Her sunglasses flash. “Kieran’s back and he’s hurt!”
As the words register in his mind, the air seems to evaporate from Arcade’s lungs. He drops a package of rations and sprints around the corner of the building, rushing into the late afternoon shadows of the cliffs. Heart pounding in his chest, he watches a lone figure trudge uphill toward the Outpost, hair like fire in the setting sun.
It’s Kieran, all right...and Arcade is shaken by the sight. He’s wearing a haphazard assortment of Legion armor, he’s lost all his gear except his guns, and he moves like a drunk, weaving his way up the path and clutching his left shoulder.
“Kieran,” Arcade whispers, taking a step forward, “Oh, god, Kieran...!”
A vise clenches around his chest and he breaks into a sprint, meeting Kieran in the shade of the scrap metal statues and grabbing his good shoulder to steady him as he stumbles.
“Kieran, where the hell have you been?” he asks.
Kieran lifts his head and stares through Arcade, his violet eyes blank.
“Kieran?” Arcade swallows with an effort as a chill crawls down his spine. “Kieran, it’s Arcade, can you hear me?”
Kieran blinks; his right eye focuses on Arcade’s face, but his bloodshot left eye turns inward toward his nose. The drift has never been this severe, but after a moment Kieran swears under his breath and closes the bad eye, half-squinting; this seems to help, because his face relaxes as recognition and tentative relief bleed in, easing the tension in Arcade’s chest.
“‘Cade.” Kieran leans into him as he speaks, as if standing up is more than he can handle on his own. “Yeah. Hear you.”
“Good, that’s good. C’mon, let me help you.” Arcade pulls Kieran’s good arm around his shoulders and wraps his own around Kieran’s waist, supporting him as they move slowly into the bright Mojave Outpost floodlights. “You’re okay now, you’re safe, let’s get you to the infirmary...”
3.
Arcade doesn’t know the names of the officers that crowd the small exam room off the infirmary, and he doesn’t care; he wouldn’t even know Ghost’s name if he could help it. The only reason he hasn’t run them off is because he’s using their facilities and supplies.
“He’s wearing Legion armor, why didn’t you shoot him?” One officer asks, looking at Ghost as Arcade checks Kieran’s eyes with his penlight.
“Because one obviously injured Legionary wouldn’t come near this place,” she snaps, “And because I’d recognize that damn hair anywhere.”
Arcade clenches his jaw, fighting to keep his mouth shut as he clips his penlight back to his coat and goes to the counter, gathering what he needs from the cabinets.
Kieran looks up at Ghost, giving her a weak, forced smile.
“Thanks for not pickin’ me off,” he says. “I wasn’t even thinkin’ about the armor, t’tell the truth, but I...put it on as a precaution. I’m...I’m sorry, but...no one in Nipton made it. The Legion...they’d, uh...already been through.”
Ghost’s throat works.
“No one?” She asks. “Are you sure? Did you check...”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Kieran’s voice is too sharp, too tight, and it takes the NCR soldiers off guard. They step back, and with Kieran out from under their shadow, Arcade can see him gripping the edge of the mattress, his knuckles stark white.
“Ya told me where to look and I looked,” he continues, speaking through his teeth. “No one. Made. It.”
Kieran’s obvious agitation is the last straw; Arcade inserts himself between his friend and the NCR soldiers, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m going to ask you to leave,” he says, and even to his own ears, his tone is unyielding. “Kieran is injured and exhausted. He needs medical attention and rest. Morning is soon enough for you to get a report.”
Only one officer attempts to protest, but the two that outrank him silence him with a look. Ghost thanks Kieran for his efforts, and the four of them leave the room, closing the door behind themselves.
Arcade lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Finally,” he mutters, turning toward Kieran. “Do you think you can help me get this damn armor off of you? I don’t understand how it’s fastened.”
“C’mon, ‘Cade,” Kieran says, giving him the ghost of a smile; this one, weak as it is, is genuine, not forced. “Y’could at least buy me dinner first.”
This glimpse of the Kieran he knows so well ought to be reassuring, but the playful words only ignite a slow, smoldering anger in Arcade’s chest.
“Very funny,” he retorts, hating that creeping, burning, lighter-than-air sensation in his chest and wishing he knew how to control it. “Really fucking hilarious, Kieran, but I’m not in the habit of buying dinner for guys who show up a week late wearing Legion armor, so cut it out. Can you help or not?”
“Shit, a week?” Kieran winces. “I...”
Something in Arcade’s expression seems to make Kieran think twice about whatever he was going to say; he averts his eyes, throat working.
“You’re right,” he mumbles. “Sorry. Lemme see if I can...”
Kieran uses his good hand to unlace pieces of the armor; he divests himself of the shoulder pads easily enough, but when he attempts to maneuver himself out of the padded chest protector underneath, something catches in the wrong place, putting strain on his bad shoulder.
Kieran’s teeth click together, his eyes tense, and his face goes white; an alarming amount of fresh blood blooms through the bandages and Arcade grabs Kieran’s good wrist, heart pounding against his ribs.
“Stop it,” he snaps, then catches himself, amending his tone and softening his grip. “I’m sorry, Kieran, just...stop, I’ll cut the rest of it off, okay? Please.”
“That’s...probably the best idea, yeah,” Kieran breathes, letting the chest piece drop back into place with a hiss of pain. “I swear I didn’t mean t’scare ya like that, Arcade.”
“You never do.” Arcade pulls his combat knife from the sheath in his boot. “Don’t talk, Kieran, not right now. I need you to be still.”
Kieran drops his eyes like a scolded child and obeys, moving only when and where Arcade directs. Soon all the pieces that made up the top half of Kieran’s Legion armor lie in a heap next to the bed, leaving him sitting shirtless, wearing only the bottom half: the ragged-looking skirt-like piece, made of leather strips, makeshift chain mail, and red cloth. Unlike most Legionaries, however, Kieran’s legs aren’t bare; he’s wearing what looks like a pair of tight, close-fitting black jeans underneath, and Arcade cocks an eyebrow.
“Put ‘em on before I ran,” Kieran says. “Didn’t wanna get sunburned.”
“Sunburned...?”
“Redhead, remember?” Kieran gives him another weak smile. “I mean, look at me.”
Kieran has no way of knowing that Arcade spends an embarrassing amount of time trying not to do that; as flirtatious as Kieran can be, flirtation is not invitation. Still, given such blatant permission, Arcade does as he’s told.
Kieran has a point; his face, neck, and forearms have freckled to the point of something resembling a tan, but the rest of his upper body is pale despite the warm undertone in his skin. Even the freckles dappling his torso are pale, and given that Kieran’s legs see the light of day even less often than his upper body, it’s easy to see why he’d take care to cover them. Still, it isn’t an unhealthy pale.
Not like I get, Arcade thinks, If I stay in the shade for a couple weeks I blend into my lab coat. It must be the freckles...there’s so many...like constellations...he’s covered in them.
On the heels of that thought Arcade wonders if Kieran’s freckles truly are everywhere, if they continue down the treasure-trail of dark, auburn-red hair that starts curling just above his navel and thickens as it creeps down...
Heat floods his face and Arcade turns away in a hurry, shifting his train of thought toward some of the worst medical procedures he’s ever witnessed. He yanks open one of the many drawers of the nearby medical cart, rummaging through it as if he has a purpose, talking just to cover his own panic.
“You, um, did the right thing,” he says, pulling out a roll of bandaging from one drawer, medical scissors from another, a bottle of vodka from the very bottom. “It would be easy for someone with your, um, complexion, to...to burn, sunburn, I mean, and a bad sunburn is nothing to mess with, especially not in the, um...in the desert, I’ve seen some terrible ones before, with the Followers, I wouldn’t...wouldn’t want that to happen to you...I think...let’s see...yes, all right, let’s um...let’s look at your shoulder, then, is that all right?”
“Um, sure...just, uh, promise me you won’t be mad?”
The faint sheepish note in Kieran’s voice has Arcade’s awkward arousal bleeding away in favor of exasperated suspicion almost immediately.
“Kieran, what did you do?” Arcade asks, rolling his chair close and setting his tray of supplies on the bedside table.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Kieran answers, and he grips the edge of the mattress with his free hand again, knuckles turning white. “I had to, okay? I had to.”
Understanding dawns in the back of Arcade’s mind, but with it comes a swelling tidal wave of frustration, one that he has choked back a few too many times to ignore.
“Why didn’t I put two and two together?” Arcade mutters, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Left shoulder, left eye. You went up close, didn’t you?”
Kieran only stares at him, his violet eyes pleading, but Arcade can’t take it.
“Didn’t you?!” he demands, his heart stuttering out of rhythm as the panic wells up in his throat. “And you didn’t even have me there to...goddammit!”
He pushes his rolling chair backward hard enough that his teeth click together with the sharp impact against the wall. Covering his mouth with shaking hands, elbows on his knees, Arcade bows his head, trying to get himself together, trying to exercise some shred of control over his reaction, because he’s only known Kieran for a year and he should not care this much, should not be this attached to an idiot redhead merc with a death wish just because he’s a smooth talker and a little bit pretty—
It would be easier if that’s all he was, Arcade thinks, and to his horror he feels tears well in his eyes. God, it would be so much easier.
Kieran’s eyesight had been affected by the gunshot wound that should have killed him, but he hadn’t realized the extent of the damage until Arcade had done a few tests to evaluate. He’s still accurate with mid-range firearms, but melee blows, especially those that come from his left, are a major problem. He can’t gauge the distance or trajectory with accuracy, which has a significant impact on his ability to execute an effective dodge or block.
Kieran—who had once been a decent boxer—still isn’t used to it.
“I’ve told you,” Arcade mutters, “I’ve told you, your depth perception — you know this, Kieran, you — I can’t — I should have...”
“I know,” Kieran says softly, “’Cade, I know, I remembered what you said, I just...”
“You just what? Did it anyway?”
Arcade laughs, hears the mad, manic note in it, and shuts his mouth, swallowing hard, biting his tongue, fighting to keep himself together.
He has seen Kieran misjudge melee-range attacks several times now, and on two of those occasions Kieran had ended up with a serious wound in the left side of his chest. One had been so severe that Arcade could hear grotesque sucking sounds every time Kieran tried to draw breath, and the sound has been haunting his nightmares ever since; he even hears it now, remembers Kieran’s wide and terrified violet eyes as he clutched at his chest and tried to breathe only to be answered by that hissing, wheezing, sucking...
“You asked me to come with you to keep you alive, goddammit!”
Arcade’s voice cracks just a little with this outburst, and he looks up at Kieran with his hands held out, frantic, almost begging.
“But sometimes it feels...it feels like you’re trying to get yourself killed on my watch, almost like you’re doing it on purpose, and I...Kieran, if your luck runs out, if I’m not there, or if I’m there and I can’t—!”
Kieran moves before Arcade can blink, reaching out with his good hand and pulling Arcade toward him by the back of his neck, leaning forward until their foreheads touch, until Arcade has no choice but to look Kieran in the eye, and the abrupt intimacy of it stuns him into silence. Kieran’s fingers tighten Arcade’s hair and Arcade realizes he isn’t breathing, that his heart is skipping in his chest and every nerve in his skin is on high alert and Kieran’s eyes are a shade of violet that he’s only ever seen in the Mojave’s most beautiful sunrises.
“I had to,” Kieran says fiercely, and his voice wavers even as he speaks through his teeth. “If you—if ya knew, if ya saw...I had to, Arcade, I had to and I’d do it again, but I’d never, ever do somethin’ like that just t’scare you, hurt you! How the hell could ya think that, ‘Cade?! How could you?! D’you have any idea how I feel about you, how I...ah!”
Kieran jerks away, swearing under his breath as he clutches his bandaged left shoulder; the sound goes through Arcade’s mind like a hot knife, forcing him out of his own feelings and back into the present moment.
“Dammit, Kieran, what were you trying to move it for?” He scolds, shocked at the steady, even tone of his voice as he takes Kieran’s left wrist and slips his arm back into place. “Just...just hold still, all right? We can finish arguing later, you’re bleeding again.”
Kieran nods his head, jaw clenched tight, and releases his shoulder. Arcade leans in, unwinding the bloody strips of fabric and tossing them to the side, uncovering the long, ugly wound an inch at a time. It isn’t as deep as Arcade had feared, but it intersects the previous scars.
Arcade works with quiet, focused efficiency, pulling the edges of the wound together with knots of black thread. This is the third time he’s sewn Kieran back together in the same place, and the buildup of scar tissue makes for difficult sutures.
Kieran remains silent, a clenched jaw the only sign of pain. After 20 stitches, Arcade cleans him up and tapes a layer of bandaging in place.
“Done,” he sighs, cleaning his hands on a scrap of cloth soaked in alcohol. “Try to get stabbed somewhere else next time, all right? I’m not sure I can get a needle through another layer of scarring.”
“Yes sir,” Kieran mumbles, with a weak smile. “I’m sorry I scared ya so bad, ‘Cade. I mean it.”
“I know you do.” Arcade sits down again, rolling his chair back against the wall across from Kieran’s bed; the room is so small their knees almost touch. “That’s part of why it’s so frustrating. What happened, Kieran?”
“I ran into the Legion,” Kieran says, and launches into his tale, describing a close encounter with Vulpes Inculta that leaves Arcade feeling sick to his stomach.
“He let you live,” Arcade murmurs, torn between shock and gratitude. “I can’t believe he let you live.”
“He let me live so I could tell the story,” Kieran mutters. “That’s the only reason. I didn’t know what t’do, ‘Cade. I stood there til Vulpes was long gone, just stood there shakin’ like a coward. I felt sick.”
“I’d be worried if you didn’t,” Arcade says softly.
“The whole town just...it reeked of burnin’ bodies, and I heard...I could hear the fire cracklin’ and...behind me, they...they had crucified people.” His voice wavers; his eyes well with tears. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t get ‘em down, ‘Cade. They’d been up there for too long and I c-couldn’t get ‘em down.”
Kieran clutches the edge of the mattress, his knuckles going white with the strain, and he gives Arcade a look of miserable, agonized confusion.
“I tried, with the closest one, but I just...I made it worse, and he...he screamed at me to just kill him. Begged me for it.” Kieran swallows hard, his violet eyes a thousand miles away. “I pulled out my .22 and I asked if he had family, anyone he wanted me to find, but he just started screamin’ again, tellin’ me to shut up and get it over with, to make it stop, and I...I pulled the trigger.”
Tears spill unnoticed down Kieran’s cheeks.
“Wasn’t messy, or nothin’. Not like if I’d used Sugar or Spice. But it wasn’t quick, neither.” Kieran’s throat works. “Didn’t kill him. I had t’do it again. That time he died.”
“Kieran,” Arcade says softly, “You did the right thing. The best and kindest thing. Trust me. There’s...there’s no hope for a person who’s been crucified by the Legion.”
“I know.” Kieran nods, but he isn’t looking at Arcade. “I know, ‘Cade, but see, I had t’do that...that best and kindest thing, I had t’do it again. And again. And...”
He pauses, bringing one shaking hand up to his mouth, scrubbing it over his lips.
“I walked down the streets of Nipton and shot everyone hangin’ on a cross,” he says at length. “Shot ‘em in the head. Twice. Once from the front and again from the side. I did it as quick as I could. Twelve people in ten minutes.”
Arcade tries to imagine doing that, tries to see himself hurrying from one crucified person to the next, double-tapping each of them in the head, and can’t.
His stomach churns. It’s one thing to understand crucifixion on a clinical level, to know that in most cases the merciful thing to do is end the victim’s suffering. It’s another to be in that situation, and another entirely to be in that situation twelve times over.
“I can see how that must have been...traumatizing,” Arcade murmurs. “I’m sorry, Kieran. Sometimes the best and kindest thing to do is the hardest.”
Kieran nods. After a moment of silence, he continues the story, covering his exploration of the town hall and the many, many bodies he’d found there.
“I set it on fire, before I left,” he says, his voice tight. “It wasn’t far from catchin’, anyway, and there was just...it was too many folks for a decent burial. I decided to follow Vulpes east. I had to save those folks...I couldn’t just do nothin’ ‘Cade.”
“I know,” Arcade says. “It’s okay, Kieran. Go on.”
Kieran nods, cracking his knuckles, swallowing with an effort. At length, he continues.
“I hid some of my stuff on the outskirts of Nipton and looted one of the dead Legionaries for his armor, so I might blend in a little bit, even if they saw me from a distance. I wasn’t quick enough to catch up to Vulpes, but I caught the detachment that was escortin’ the prisoners. There was five of ‘em. I got close enough durin’ the night to free the folks that was caught. They got away while I, uh...distracted the Legionaries with Sugar’n Spice.”
A smile tugs at the corners of Arcade’s mouth as he imagines the ‘distraction’ capabilities of two shotgun pistols. “How did you get stabbed, then?”
Kieran sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I killed three of ‘em outright. One of ‘em ran. The other came at me with a knife while I was reloadin’ and got me in the chest. I snatched it out and shoved it in his throat. At that point I knew it wasn’t no use chasin’ the runner, since I can’t shoot for shit at long distance no more, so I grabbed some of their supplies and took off back toward the Outpost. Took less’n a day for ‘em to start stalkin’ me. I tried t’take a roundabout way back, hopin’ I’d lose ‘em, but they kept close ‘til I got within Ghost’s snipin' range. I couldn’t risk campin’, couldn’t risk goin’ back by Nipton t’get the stuff I stashed, so I just kept movin’.”
Arcade frowns; Kieran’s words are blurring together worse than usual. “You mean you haven’t slept?”
Kieran shakes his head. “Ain’t had much t’eat, neither. Or drink, come t’think of it. I just k-kept...”
He pauses, mouth opening in an enormous yawn.
“Just kept thinkin’ I had t’get back to ya,” he finishes, eyelids hovering at half-mast. “Didn’t want ya to...mm. Didn’t want ya mad at me...”
Arcade’s stomach flutters, and heat creeps up from his collar into his cheeks. Still, he does his best to ignore it; there’s no way Kieran is aware of what he’s saying, not after the ordeal he’d faced.
“I’m not mad, Kieran,” he says softly, resting his fingertips against Kieran’s chest as he yawns once more. “Not any more. Lay down for me? You’re safe now, you can rest.”
“Mm. ‘Course I’m safe.” Kieran rests his hand over Arcade’s, giving in to the gentle push and stretching out over the exam bed. “I’m with you again, right?”
Arcade’s heart stutters out of rhythm, but before he can gather himself enough to respond, Kieran is out cold, still holding Arcade’s hand against his chest.