Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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1. Do you consider yourself average? I think I’d like to be. I’m not, obviously, even if I wasn’t 200+ years out of time most people don’t have the kind of mess I have in my head. But there are some times, usually when I’m with others, friends, or just others in a settlement and we’re all doing something together- or even just our own things, in the same space, and it all just feels… right. like I’m part of some larger whole, not any more important than anyone, just- part of. I love that feeling.

2. Are aliens real? Yes. They are also assholes. What the fuck were they doing on Earth anyway? Was it just some sort of sick horror-tourism? ‘Oh, let’s go and laugh at the stupid earthlings and their irradiated planet?’’ Assholes. Serves them right for crashing.

3. What do you associate with the color green? Do you think of certain emotions or smells? It feels- ambiguous. Maybe I’m just used to the Commonwealth now, where everything is more brown and yellow. I like Far Harbor, and that’s plenty green, but then that’s mixed with grey from the sky and fog. I think if I was ever in a completely green place again, I’d probably feel very uncomfortable, or even have a panic attack. Green is the color of growing things, but it’s also the color of the old world. I’m not sure I want to see that again.

4. Have you ever lost somebody you love? Fortunately no. Everyone I lost are remembered as strangers, or my memories of them are so enmeshed with their betrayal that I can’t say I ‘love’ them any more. I’ve lost people I’ve cared about since coming out of 111, but thankfully no one I’ve loved.

5. Who do you hate the most? Why? *grits teeth* Shaun Brooks. *shuts up, just saying the name’s dredged up a world of white hot, sick emotion that’ll take hours to calm down again*

6. Does anybody hate you? Probably most of the Brotherhood of Steel and the entirety of Institute survivors. Not that there are many. I’ve made sure of that.

7. How many followers do you have? *Nate winces at the choice of words* I don’t have followers. I have friends. I supposed technically I lead the Minutemen, but really that’s Preston’s job and one day I’ll get him to take on that position in name as well as in spirit. I don’t like leading, I’m always afraid we’ll all end up in a ditch.

8. When was the last time you actually felt confident about yourself? Pretty often? Usually when I’m doing something I know I’m good at. Making a sniper shot, building something. Or when I’m dressed up, I got together with Piper and Curie and Hancock after we got our hands on a good stock of prewar cosmetics, afterwards, I felt I could just- take on the entire world and walk away still looking fabulous. Everyone should try it, it’s great.

9. Describe yourself in one sentence. This is good.

10. When was the last time somebody told you they love you? Well, if we’re not counting twenty minutes ago when Dogmeat slobbered all over my dress which I’m sure means doggy love- that would have been Nick, last night. I think he thought I was asleep. He’s self conscious about declarations like that.

11. When was the last time you told somebody you love them? Um, I’m not shy about declarations like that. At all. I think about an hour ago and that already seems like too long. *wanders off to find Nick*

12. Do you have any pets? Lots :) Sturges and I have set up a few cat traps to get Sanctuary a few mousers, and they have been entirely useless since everyone spoils them, myself included. Of course, I also have Dogmeat, but he feels like more of a friend than a pet.

13. Have you changed personality wise since you were a kid? How so? I’m more outgoing, certainly. I used to be more withdrawn before. Something about being an awkward, socially uncertain overweight kid. Yes, overweight. Hard to imagine now, right? I started growing more extroverted as I grew up and hit my growth spurt, and now I’ve stopped caring what people think entirely. No one cares any more, it’s hugely liberating to be able to be yourself entirely, full bore and down to the hilt.

14. Where do you feel safest? With my friends, and Nick in particular, but if we’re talking about a physical place in the world- the Glowing Sea. Which probably is another mark against my being in any way sane to most people but really, think about it. Thanks to the help of some friends at the Nucleus, I’m fairly resistant to radiation. The Glowing Sea is so blasted that absolutely nothing can sneak up on me, which is the biggest risk I face when going out. Finally, anything pre-war has been razed long ago, so in terms of avoiding panic attacks it’s by far the safest place in the Commonwealth.

15. What’s your biggest fear? I still have nightmares about going back- how I was before the war. But that’s impossible since the pills had a one year shelflife so even if someone managed to find any they’d probably just poison me. I suppose it would center around the Institute. So many of my friends and loved ones are synths that I can’t even- consider what would- *Nate breaks off, stares into space for a bit, then quietly walks away to fix a water purifier*

16. Do you consider yourself to be healthy? No. And no one who looks at me is going to think that either. I’d like to be, and maybe as the years go by I’ll find new ways around my food issue, but right now all I can do is try and mitigate the worst of the damage.

17. Have you ever had to see somebody for issues regarding your mental health? Once, and after what happened that time if anyone offered I’d run screaming for the hills. I can theoretically see the benefit, and it would be nice to talk to someone who had a clue about eating disorders and trauma, but if they were running on pre-war studies they’d just get stuck on the whole ‘homosexuality’ thing again, and I haven’t met anyone who’d trying a post war approach to mental health. Then again, I haven’t looked. I wonder if someone at the Nucleus could combine spiritual and mental health support?

18. Do you love yourself? Why or why not? I think so. I’m a pretty good person, I think. Hell, if Nick loves me I must be doing something right, and even when I’m doing something less than moral, it’s nothing I can’t look myself in the mirror for afterwards.

19. Do you like school? What elements of school do you like which ones do you not? I went to a pretty poor school. It’s still standing, actually, you might know it. It’s the one with the pink ghouls. No, they hadn’t rolled out the pink paste initiative when I went there, but there were other, equally stupid ways of raising money. 

I remember one time our maths textbooks were sponsored by Nuka Cola, so all the problems were variations on ‘how much delicious bubbling Nuka Cola Cherry™ would it take to fill a 20x60x5 swimming pool?’ or ‘if happy, satisfied Nuka Cola delivery worker Jim unloads 24 crates of tasty new refreshing Nuka Cola Quantum every four and a half hours, how long would it take him to unload 100 crates before his slipped disc goes and he discovers he doesn’t have health insurance?’ Okay, I added the last bit but come on. There’s a reason I only drink Vim. 

Luckily, that school seemed to be a dumping ground for teachers too kind and talented or incorruptible to be hired anywhere else in that hellscape, so yeah, they were really great and the main reason I got into CIT to begin with.

20. Do you have any strange seemingly useless talents? Literary criticism. Entirely useless, but the Nucleus has a small library and Ware, Devin and I have been setting up a sort of book club. It’s nice to have some people to discuss the symbolism of birds in post apocalyptic fiction who won’t just laugh at me or give me weird looks. Nick plays along but I know he thinks my taste in books is strange. He likes talking about sci-fi and crime fiction though, so that’s fun.

21. Do you understand yourself? It’s a little hard to understand myself when so much of my memory is missing. I can usually piece things together for inference, and a lot of what I’ve lost is not something I want to remember, but there are some things that are still a huge question mark in my life. Such as why I can’t eat more than two bites or so of solid food. Or why the first time I got into a Vertibird I nearly threw myself out while it was airborn- and would have, if Nick hadn’t grabbed the back of my coat. Or why I nearly drank an old bottle of bleach I found at the back of my old house in Sanctuary- and then spent the rest of the night tearing that place to pieces. There are a lot of reactions I have, entire parts of myself, that I just don’t have the context to understand.

22. How much did you sleep last night? About ten hours? I can’t afford skimp on any other vital living processes so sleep is a priority.

23. Are you taking care of yourself? It’s an ongoing job. Luckily, I have support. Curie helps me plan out balanced meals around what I can eat so I at least don’t suffer malnutrition on top of basically starving. As I said above, I try and make up for food with plenty of water and sleep.

24. What do you regret? I- I can’t regret. Nothing pre-war. Even going to that club. It would just have been prolonging the inevitable anyway, and even if I wasn’t caught- what would have happened to me then? I was at CIT. You know, the Institute. Either I’d have been murdered or I’d have become as morally bankrupt as the rest of them. It was a horrible path to walk and I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life but at the end of the day I’m here. I’m alive and more or less in one piece and I’m living a life I could never have dreamed of before. I wouldn’t change anything if it means there’s a chance I wouldn’t be here now. This is good.

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How is your Sole Survivor on the dance floor? Do they prefer to dance with a partner or alone? What kind of music do they dance to?

Oh, Nate loves to dance. He’s not a bad dancer at all. His parents taught him a lot of dances and while Nate’s memory of this is at best erratic, his body remembers. 

He can waltz, foxtrot and swing with the best of them, and can even knock out a decent Charleston. These are all partner dances, and Nick makes for a wonderful partner. He usually leads. 

Nate likes ‘I’m the one you’re looking for’ for slow dances, ‘Nobody here but us chickens’ for faster ones. He would love to swing dance to ‘Voodoo Child’, but alas he’s not found a good holotape of Jimi Hendrix. Fucking pre-war blacklist.

Sole Party Day 5:  Does your Sole Survivor have any crazy party stories from parties before the war? Let’s hear them.

Nate doesn’t tell stories about pre-war, unless they are the more harrowing, sick horror stories. He doesn’t want people to think that there was anything back then worth resurrecting. 

He just says he went to one party, and was arrested and handed over to the entity that became the Institute who fucked him up so badly he can’t remember the following five years. Hancock looked pretty horrified by the idea. Nick just looked at him, but said nothing. Everyone else decided post-war was the only place to have a good time, which is exactly what Nate wanted.

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1. What’s one experience your character had that made them very afraid?

The pills. Admittedly it seems like CIT shelved that project after his disastrous result, but it’s still there. The fear. It lives under his skin and even now, when the pills have rotten to nothing he’s still afraid. 

2. Does your character have a deep and/or dark secret? If so, what is it?

One, but it’s a strange one. Nate saw Preston painting a picture once, of John Parker, once the Captain of the original Minutemen. He’d painted him with dark brown skin, an orbit of hair like a cloud around his head. Preston smiled and tried to hide it when he saw Nate “I didn’t know what he looked like, so I just guessed-”

“You got it right.” Nate says, with absolute certainty. “Completely right.” Preston stared, Nate smiled. “It’s perfect, Preston. This is absolutely him. We’ll put it up by the gate to Sanctuary. I’ll make a glass cover for it.”

In a strange way, this world is innocent. He’ll not have it corrupted. Let them believe Black and White related to political opinions, and drop race and sexuality and gender into oblivion.

3. Have they ever lost a loved one? What happened to them, and are they the same as they were before they lost them?

Thankfully no. Nate’s loved ones are all with him now. Maybe he lost loved ones in the war, but then he doesn’t remember.

4. Has your character ever been hurt or betrayed by someone they thought they could depend on? What happened?

By his parents. Nate was seventeen when he was arrested, his parents were called. They were given two options, either Nate would go to jail, or they could sign him up for experimental treatment for his homosexual condition. Nate’s father was very influential in the black community, couldn’t bear what jail would mean to his influence, and pushed Nate to take the pills. They were good parents, kind and supportive and loving, but Nate can’t remember them without shuddering. In the end, he’d meant less that politics to them. He has no memory of them after that final moment.

5. Would they ever turn on someone they just met in order to save themselves?

Not really, no. Nate tends to deal with his own problems. Unless the person he’s just met is a raider who’s trying to kill him, and he has to turn on them in self defense.

6. Have they ever committed a crime, or something they felt was wrong? What was it?

In terms of doing something he thought was wrong, no. As for a crime, yes. Being gay. 

7. If your character was allowed to murder one person without any consequences, who would it be and why?

Prior to visiting the Institute- the director of the Institute. Post visiting the institute- the director of the Institute. After blowing up the Institute- no one really. He has no enemies and no fear of anyone.

8. Does your character have any enemies? If so, who and why?

Few that know about it. Usually the first his enemies know that he is their enemy is when Nate pulls out Apex and opens fire. Usually as their home, family, hopes and dreams goes up in flame around them. Nate has little mercy for his enemies. Luckily, it’s very, very hard to make yourself his enemy.

9. Is the character a victim of abuse?

As ever- not that he knows. His childhood was happy, he’s pretty sure of it. His marriage could have been non-stop beatings but he has only one memory of it, and that is the last morning before the bombs fells. Everything else is gone. 

10. What were the character’s parents like? What was the affect the parents had on the character?

They were kind, and loving. Nate’s memories are patchwork but he can remember his mother’s cooking, and still gets vague cravings for jambalaya. He remembers her teaching him to cook, but the recipes are gone. His father shared his banned and suppressed music. They loved him, and they still, when it all came down to it, betrayed him utterly.

11. What are your character’s coping mechanisms?

Nate stays with his friends, just being near them helps. It’s like the world pressing in on him is just a little further away, kept at bay. It doesn’t help when things get really bad, but it keeps away the smaller, insidious reminders and triggers.

12. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?

Neither. Nate doesn’t like pain unless it’s in the bedroom, and takes no pleasure in others’ pain either. He’s had quite enough of pain in his life, and watching others hurt is just… sickening.

13. What does it take to make your character cry?

Helplessness. Seeing someone he loves hurt and being able to do nothing about it. Knowing people are being hurt and being able to do nothing about it. Being hurt, and being able to do nothing about it. Nate has been helpless enough.

14. What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before.

Nate never had a real relationship before Nick Valentine, but the one thing that has hurt them in the past is Nate being tactless. He isn’t- wrong about things, but he puts them across so bluntly and without much attention to what others- and what the people he loves- might think, that it backfires more often than not.

15. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

Losing himself again. It doesn’t matter if it’s the pills, some new form of mind control or- whatever. Even down to taking drugs like Jet or Psycho or even alcohol. Nate gets a lot jumpier if he thinks those options are on the table, more easily triggered, more terrified, usually he tries to get away from the situation, find somewhere safe to calm down with his friends.

16. What are your character’s vices and bad habits?

Nate doesn’t have many. Sex is the main one, but between him and Nick, it rarely gets in the way of anything important. Anger is another, but that is even rarely, it takes a lot to make Nate really angry, but if that happens, he can get almost myopic in his need for revenge.

17. Is your character afraid of death? Why/why not?

Not at all. He’s seen how bad things can get, in comparison to the pills, death is fine. It’s not something he wants, and he doesn’t believe there’s anything after death, but it sounds peaceful, and at least then, nothing bad can ever happen to him again.

18. Would society call your character a good guy or a bad guy? what would they say they are?

Nate, on the whole, is a good guy. Certainly more people would consider him a force for good in the Commonwealth than bad. Nate doesn’t think about being a good or bad person, but good or bad actions. He thinks he’s weighted more towards good than bad, thus far.

19. What is your character insecure about?

He has done some terrible things. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t in his right mind at the time, or that everyone is now long, long dead. he still did them. He’s also lost five years to that nightmare, and does feel as though he’s still trying to catch up to his own adulthood.

20.  What was something they struggled with greatly and how did they overcome it?

Nate’s main issue, day to day, is not dying. It’s not just an issue of people or creatures trying to kill him, but also of his own mind. The panic attacks are bad enough but the real drain is staying alive in a mind and body that refuses, point blank, to eat. Nate still struggles with his eating disorder, he has managed ‘cheats’ and workarounds that allow him to manage to survive, but it’s still a long, hard road to walk.

21. Does your character have anyone that they really care about, to the point that they would give their life for them? If so, who are they and what is your character’s relation to them? If not, do they wish they did? Is there anyone they wish they could build such a relationship with?

Um, quite a lot of people. Nick of course, but also Piper, Preston, Curie, Cait and Dima. Probably more. Most of them would do the same for him. Nate is very lucky, and so are they.

22. If they could change just one thing about themselves, what would it be?

Nate wants to make the whole of his pre-war life to have not happened. He just wants it to- go away. The only way that would happen would for him to secretly have been a synth since Vault 111, and since that would mean living forever, having a solid excuse to never go near the Institute and being able to write off Shaun as nothing to do with him- um, what was the downside again?

23. Is your character more physically or emotionally strong? Why is this?

Emotionally, definitely. Nate isn’t very strong physically, he’s quite frail. Emotionally- it varies, Nate wavers between being pretty tough, to crumbling into panic depending on the situation.

24. What is your character’s most important possession? Why?

Probably his gun. Nate used to be an excellent engineer, before the war, before the pills. He lost that after the drugs, and the first time he felt he had it again was in making Apex. It was the first time Nate had made something- perfect, something that was the best it could possibly be. Apex.

25. Do they find that they care what others think of them? Or do they not really mind how others view them?

Very, very little. Sometimes he likes dressing up and seeing if people are checking him out, but even if they aren’t, he doesn’t feel too bothered.

26. What, in your character’s life, puts the most pressure on them?

In one way or another, Shaun. At first, it was duty, and responsibility. Shaun was a child and vulnerable, and Nate was the only one who could help him. Later, it was still Shaun, but then it was to stop him and end his terror in the commonwealth.

27.  What would be the worst way to die, in your character’s opinion?

The pills are gone, so that fate won’t fall on Nate again. The one thing worse, however, would be to watch it happen to the people he loves. In the end, that is Nate’s worst nightmare. To be killed, and know that the people he loves- Nick, Curies, Dima, Arcadia and the Railroad, would be- oh Atom, Nate can’t even think it. The Institute. He has to destroy them, and make that end forever fantasy. The last gasp of the Old World. he won’t let it take he loved ones.

28. What is your character’s greatest strength?

His creativity and focus. Nate can look at a situation, evaluate every factor, and create an solution. He’s very good at seeing the third option to every Catch 22.

29. What is their weapon of choice, and what weapon do they dislike using the most?

Apex, his combat rifle. He can fight almost any battle with it, it makes every shot perfectly, and is quick and precise. He is pretty much useless with most melee weapon, but nothing so much as Super-sledges. He can’t even lift the fucking thing, what d‘you expect him to do.

30. What makes them feel safe or secure? What makes them feel insecure or unsafe?

Safe places, safe people. Places he knows, and where he knows he doesn’t have to worry about triggers. People he loves and feels safe with. People he can trust and rely on. 

Nate gets more and more insecure the closer the world starts to resemble the one he thought gone forever. The Brotherhood of Steel called him ‘soldier’ and he flinches. Fragments of the old world push through the ruins and go off like landmines in Nate’s mind. The Institute, a hermetically sealed time capsule, and Nate screams and screams and screams.

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May 1st: Like always, introduce your Sole! What’s their SPECIAL, their likes, dislikes, are they romanced, what faction are they in. Tell everyone a little about them!

Quick screenshot of Nate as we’re hunting Coursers.

So, this is Nate, Nathaniel Brooks. Stats are (upon creation since he’s level 104 or something atm)

Strength: 1 Perception: 7 Endurance: 1 Charisma: 3 Intelligence: 10 Agility: 7 Luck: 1

Nate Loves: Helping people, random acts of kindness, blowing up anything pre-war (military is better), synths, deathclaws, the Commonwealth in general, Atom, Nick Valentine.

Nate Hates: The Institute (oh dear Atom that could be its own post), Shaun, anything pre-war that’s in any reasonably intact state, the pre-war world period, The Brotherhood of Steel, baby mirelurks, trauma related nervous breakdowns and eating disorders.

Very much in love with Nick Valentine.

Nate is very big into helping the Railroad and the Minutemen, hoped for a while that the Brotherhood would be of help but ha, no fucking way. Shot Shaun in the gut and laughed at him as he set the Institute to blow up.

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I wanted to write a happy Nate fic, so here you go! Nate and his favourite book, in his first year in the Commonwealth.

The Month was October 

The man raised his head, two hours up, and he hadn’t even taken the pills yet, his body trembled around him, exhausted. He was a spot of stillness in the rushing mob, numbed calm in the screams.

“Run!” Her eyes burn, her mouth a red circle around the world. The boy is crying. The words run down the man’s spine to his legs, bypasses his slack, senseless brain. He runs up the hill.

She takes his arm, pulls him faster even as his legs tremble and cramp, he staggers, almost falls.

“Come on!”

The sun is bright, staining everything gold. The trees wave above them. A heartbeat.

The light, when it comes, is too much to bear. The man shuts his eyes and the skin of his eyelids turns white.

The clocks stopped at 1.17.

In the silence and dazzling glare inside his head, the memory is coughed up, fragmented, full of holes.

He opens his eyes to the cloud, a cathedral spire rising.

A long shear of light and a series of low concussions.

The frail, skeleton of self looks up in benediction. His mouth twitches upwards, weak and drawn. It’s over. It’s finally, finally over.

He’s dreamed of this since he was seventeen.

A dull rose glow on the windowpane.

The lift rattles down, the shockwave roaring just past his head. She’s staring at him in confusion. “Why are you smiling?”

She’s very still as they fall together, holding the boy. Her heart to his, those dark, alien eyes staring out of Nate like black marbles out of chiffon.

Each others’ world entire.

“I’m not.” Nathaniel Brooks smiles.

 ——————————————————————————————-

The light is the first good sign. Nate raises his hand to shield off the glare, blinks and blinks watery eyes until he squints through to the blue, blue sky above. His damp skin steams as the heat of the world hits, a baked in, ancient fire. He peers through his fingers and the sun is a blazing white star high above.

The banished sun circles the Earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

The birds come next, curious crows on the hanging slackwires from the pylons, and that is a good sign. One of them arches its opalescent black wings and hops up, a flash  of dark against the brassy sky and gone.

Th names of birds.

Nate steps out uncertainly. The world around him a blasted, desertlike.

Ashen scabland. Cauterised terrain.

The ground crunches underfoot. Ants and lizards scurry for cover under the rusted hulk of vehicles, the sunken struts of a construction cabin. Nate’s body flows liquid around him, after the frozen juddering of the pills. He wanders aimlessly around, finds three rations of army rad-away in a petrified crate and it’s a moment’s work to touch them, pick them up. His mind trembles, threatens to snapback however many years.

Look around, to make sure the world is still there.

Like ancient frescos entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.

The world is exactly the same and Nate snorts at himself. He might be mad but he’s never started seeing things. Best not start now. The crows watch him, the tiny animals rustle in brownsnap grass. The trees overhead are bare sentinels, leafless as Nate makes his slow way down the hill.

The low bushes hang with strange flowers. Nate snaps a leaf off and sniffs it, bites. His stomach roils warningly but the taste is good. Rich, fragrant. His pipboy beeps and he tastes the warning sickness of radiation at the back of his throat. He spits it out. Okay. His stomach kicks rebellion. Okay.

But it’s food, at least. He passes a strand of wild bluestained corn, looks down to a sparkling, crystalline steam and oh. Nate squats in the path and looks around. The world is half alien around him and hey, maybe he might as well be on another planet?

“Burroughs.” Nate’s voice cracks. “McCarthy.” Maybe the cold had frozen his vocal cords. “I name this world Brooktopia.” He laughs, low at his own joke.

The world is barren from pole to pole, no sign of human life for miles. Maybe anywhere.

They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.

“And thank fuck for that.” Nate answers his own head. Maybe he is alone. Maybe he’ll just live here, go mad and starve to death. Okay. He can live with that.

His body is taut and easy around him, muscles and nerve fluid and quick to answer. He hops down to the stream, jumping from rock to rock like a child.

 —————————————————————————————

Nate dreamed.

Worlds rich or fearful as such might offer themselves but never one to be.

It was a good dream. No memories in it. Nate can’t remember when he’d last dreamed. Half a decade and two hundred years, probably.

He’s warm in the bed. He’d found old tarp in the truck stop, and an oil stained blanket. But the real source of the heat in the heavy, soft body slumped against his legs.

Nate opens his eyes and the first light of the newborn morning glances across the shattered window panes, paints patterns on the far wall. Ancient faded posters, screaming dead ideologies against vanished enemies.

There’s a faint warning against perverts tacked up above the ancient telephone. Another proclaiming the black menace. Nate sits up and pulls them down, tears them up and tosses the rotting paper out of the window. The dog pricks up his ears and looks at him, a low, curious whine.

“At least you’re happy to see me.” Nate strokes his ears, and Dog whines happily. Nate picks up the telephone and turns it in his hands. Wonders if it has enough power left to call up his old home, tell Codsworth what he could do with his pills.

He lifts the handset.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number of his father’s house in that long ago

Nate looks down at the rotary dial. Circles a finger over and over and finally puts it back. He has no idea what the number was. He has no idea of any number. The memories cracked and cauterised and frostbitten. Gone utterly.

“If they wanted me to remember they shouldn’t have made me forget.” He smiles at Dog, strokes his head again. Dog pants. He turns the phone over and pulls it apart, picks out the circuitboard and copper wires. Maybe they’ll find someone, him and Dog, someone who won’t want to kill them like the last few had. Maybe they could trade.

Dog pants and jumps off the bed, coming back with a haunch of the dead molerat things they’d found off last night.

Nate’s stomach growls but the castaway food around them might as well be stone when he looks at it. He shakes his head sadly at Dog and drinks water from a canister to fill his stomach, clinches his belt again, tighter than yesterday.

The holes in it marked the progress of his emaciation

The stimpacks keep off the worst of the damage, but he’s going to be a skeleton within a week. Oh well. Nate shrugs. There’s a world out there. Maybe he can find something his mind can accept as food.

Dog eats the meat happily, then jumps about, eager to be off. Nate smiles.

—————————————————————————————– 

The storm buoys up out of nowhere. “Ah hell.” Nick groans and they dash for shelter under a wooden lean-to under the trees. Barely in in time before the skies open and the rain comes in sheets.

Nate pulls out the old tarp from the Red Rocket, all those months ago, and between the two of them they throw it over the shack to keep the rain out. Dogmeat barks and runs about outside, jumping in the lake before charging back in the shaking himself vigorously over the pair of them until Nick throws a tarp over him too.

“Lovely.” Nick grumbles, flicks through his cigarette packs to find one that isn’t soaked. Selecting one, he leans over to Nate as he fumbles with a lighter in wet hands, their shoulders bumping a little more than companionably. In the gloom of the stormclouds his eyes glow gold. His lips quirk into a small, appreciative smile.

If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

Shut up. Nate snarls at the memory. Not here. Not now. Close and too far. Nick leans back against the rough earth behind them, blows out a stream of blue smoke. Nate watches the smoke, if only as an excuse to look away.

“You might want to look out.” Nick points out into the rain. “It’s worth seeing.”

Nate frowns at him, a faint smile, wondering if he’s being teased. He pulls the tarp off the grumbling Dogmeat and throws it over his head, it rattles like turretfire under the rain. It’s not a radstorm, and the sky is a simple, sullen grey, heavy and swollen with water. Nate squints and looks around. A lot of mud, the lake pocked and shimmering. The smell of dead leaves and moss. Quiet but for the falling rain. Air fresh and cool and sweet.

This is a day to shape the days upon.

“Up there-” Nick’s ventured far enough to point up, the rainwater coursing off the sleek steel of his hand.

Nate blinks rainwater off his lashes, and peers up. Through the heavy drops, the trees around them are flecked green.

He rubs his eyes, looks up at the tree above. The barren branches are opening, putting out tiny green shoots in the storm.

“Hah!” Nate half laughs, like desert plants, dry and apparently dead until the rains come, and then blooming to life.

-out of a green and leafy canopy-

Nate glances back to Nick, then looks away too quickly, in case his friend can read his mind, or maybe read the same book. But Nick is looking up with him, rain running down his face, coiling in and around his broad, purely happy smile. “Always liked the rain.”

“Yeah.” Nate breathes. He extends the tarp out and Nick ducks under it. They sit together, watching the trees bloom as the rain hammers down on and around them.

There’s a line from his book for this moment. But Nate doesn’t think it. It’s not right. Not yet. Besides, both characters died at the end.

 ————————————————————————————————-

“And we’re looking for what in here?”

“Not really sure?” Nate shrugs. His cheek hurts from the brand and he feels- strange, fey. The world runs under his skin and he feels alive. As though everything he thought could just leap to life around him.

Which would be a nightmare, in any other world, but right now, all Nate feels is wonder.

The little tunnel they’re in is low and narrow, forcing both of them to bend double as they buckle down into the bowls of Far Harbor. “Don’t you just want to look?”

Nick snorts, runs a hand over Nate’s shoulder. Rests it there, in the crook of his neck. It’s the work of a heartbeat for Nate to lean over and press a kiss to those metal knuckles. Nick smiles.

“I read a book once,” Nate continues. “Where the two characters went into a cave. There was an animal down there. You could see through its skin.”

“What sort of animal?” Nick ducks under trailing roots.

“They didn’t say. Always imagined it a bit like a Deathclaw, only on all fours.”

“Hope we don’t run into one here.” They turn a corner. “What happened next?”

“Um- they woke up. It was a dream.”

“Not a great ending.”

“It wasn’t the ending. Came right at the beginning, I think.”

“Ah. Good book?”

“My favorite,” Nate tells him the title.

“Catchy. I’ll keep an eye out for it.” Nick smiles.

Nate can only smile back, turning his back to the tunnel for a moment.

Unfortunately while there weren’t any Deathclaws in the tunnel, there were a large number of feral ghouls. They had to put a temporary end to book week.

 ———————————————————————————-

“Do you know your birthday?” And maybe Nate’s too used to how things work for them, because that seems the best way of asking that question.

the names of things slowly following those things into oblivion

He rests his hands on his bag and reaches into his mind, tries to parse out the beggarly collection of memories, trace comparisons to holidays, to weather, to cold or summer. Finally, he shrugs. “No idea.” Slip away through his fingers and gone. He smiles sadly at Nick. “You?”

Nick shakes his head. “I use April 14th. He sits down beside Nate, on his haunches. “Day I- we-” he stumbles a little over the words, still uncertain, “escaped the institute.”

Nate nods, “Yeah.” His lip curls. Escape. Flee away into the dark and away from the light. Nate looks around at the dusty road, the nodding trees, their leaves shriveling quickly and falling after the rain.

nothing in his memory anywhere of anything so good

“I guess mine’s October 23rd then.”

Nick nudges him in his ribs and Nate rolls with the blow, catching Nick’s coat in both hands and pulling him down, down to the the dust and steaming sunlight and the hubflowers nodding over them.

His hands finding Nick’s body, taut and still and warm with living processes. Nick’s mouth warm and dry and sweet.

Each others’ world entire.

 ————————————————————————————

Nate laughs when the pass through the Outskirts into the Glowing Sea. He looks around at the trees and those are definitely dead. Nick gives him a slightly concerned look, but then this isn’t Nate’s usual breakdown warnings.

“Nah, just-” Nate waves at the vista. “All the books I read-”

“Doesn’t compare?”

“You kidding? This is the first bit that’s come close.” Nate pops a rad-x. It’s not so bad this far out, but he’s glad they packed a hazmat suit for later.

The wind warns of a coming storm and he revises that opinion. A pity. He’s hated that thing since Far Harbor. Better to feel the wind on your face, the storm on your skin. Not for the first time, Nate envies the growing number of people born immune to radiation.

The wind catches in a rotten, century old branch and the cauterised wood cracks, making them both jump. Nate snorts. “All the trees in the world are gonna fall sooner or later.”

“That’s a quote?”

“From that author I like.”

“Sounds the cheerful sort.”

Nate grins. “Yeah.”

He bends down to the first pool they find. Flecked gold and shimmering, oilslick gilt. Drinks down a mouthful and hears the giger counter scream. Atom. Your blessing. Your world. Thank you.

 ——————————————————————————–

“Happy birthday.” Nick’s hands cast over his shoulders. The bones of his shoulderblades, collarbones still stark against his umber skin, redcast from his dress.

“Huh,” Nate glances at his pip-boy. 23rd October 2288. One year out of the vault. One year and two hundred and eleven since the nightmare ended. “So it is.” He turns in Nick’s arms. “Atom’s too.”

“Give Him my best.” Nate snorts, and gasps as Nick gently nips at his throat, the tender skin at the joint of neck and shoulder. “This is your day.”

“Hmm,” Nate smiles, relaxes in Nick’s arms, hooked around his waist. Nate rests his own hands on Nick’s shoulder. Watches him. That smile, oh, he’d first fallen in love with that smile. Those eyes, and brilliant, too-large soul that radiates from every part of him. Oh, thank you. Thank you. He will never thank the Institute for anything, so he raises that praise to Atom. “Do I get a present?” He leans in to snatch a fresh kiss, and perhaps begin said present forthwith.

The kiss comes, so warm. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

Nate pauses, honestly, he has no real idea what he would want. He has everything he wants. Most of it is in his arms. But Nick smiles, and lets go of him with one hand to pulls something out of his pack. It’s flat, and small, and wrapped in soft black cloth.

“A book!” Nate smiles. And not just a book, the cloth around it is silk, long and wound over and over. There are definitely possibilities with this silk. Oh yes.

But then Nate pulls the sweet silk off and- oh.

“Found it in the old Somerville place.” Nick strokes his back. “Decided to save it for today. Is it the same one you liked?”

“Yes.” Nate breathes. Jet black cover. White printed words. He runs his thumb over the pages and loses his breath all over again. “Nick, this is- a first imprint. Look at the way the pages are cut- handcut. This is- three hundred years old or something-”

He gets another kiss and laughs helplessly against Nick’s mouth. Atom, oh Atom how the hell is he this lucky, his arm full with his boyfriend and a silk scarf and this book. An embarrassment of riches.

“I had a flick through.” Nick shakes his head, half laughs. “Nate, what the hell? Have you read this thing?”

“Repeatedly.” Nate grins, “Or- I probably did. I basically memorised it. Don’t remember actually reading it though.”

“And you like this?”

“Love it.” Nate kisses him again, a brief flash of pure happiness. “Always makes me smile when I read it.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “The world ends- and that’s not enough and you’re got to read about it too. Makes perfect sense.”

“Yep.” Nate draws out the ‘p’, smugly.

“Got it all right, did he?”

Nate barks a laugh. He looks around their little home in Sanctuary, the stacks of books, the broad, warm bed, the chair and couch tucked away. And outside, the waving strands of razorgrain and scattered planters dripping with fruit. Brahmin cropping up dry grasses. Fish from the local river. The water running clear, the flowers nodding around the small town, the sky so achingly blue.

“Not a fucking thing.” He grins, then pauses a moment. Nick blinks, curiously. Nate puts the book down, and cups Nick’s face in both of his hand. “Well, maybe one thing.” He admits.

He leans in. Nick kisses back, gentle, oh, so sweet.

“My world entire.” Nate smiles, and kisses him again, and again.

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I’m just imagining Nate finding out about this and then he’s collecting like a million gold things and just grinning at Nick.

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Nate definitely likes being outdoors. Indoors is okay, but he likes to see the sky. It’s a bit ironic since Nate’s main problem in combat is he focuses on just one enemy and doesn’t notice the guy coming up behind him, so fighting outside is much more dangerous for him. Nick sometimes wonders how Nate made it a full day on his own in the Commonwealth. Nate points out he spent less than six hours max, on his own before he met Dogmeat. Figures.

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In which I inevitably drag in Pacific Rim references.

Whaddya mean Dangerous Minds was not totally a three way Drift?

Tryptych

In which Nick and Nate deal with the aftermath of Dangerous Minds, and I explore why pre-war’s The Eternal 50s would really, really really suck to live in.

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I”m sorry! It’s just too goddamn fun to write. These are all things that happened in my game so it’s not an AU for a change.

Running Ever Faster From Yourself