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five times it works (and one time it doesn't)
Title: Five Times It Works (And One Time It Doesn't)
Rating: M
Series: Fallout New Vegas ('courier faction' original characters)
Wordcount: 1073
Summary: Wyn and Avery across universes.
Remarks: A birthday present for Emma, who owns Wyn. Six universes: New Vegas, modern college, zombie apocalypse, Halo, Dishonored, and sportsball.
I
He calls the halt by staggering to a stop, bent over, hands braced against his thighs and breath wheezing between his lips like a sandstorm gale through holes in crumbling plaster. The Mojave air is, as always, heavy and gritty and generally unpleasant, but he strangles down the cough he can feel building in his chest in an attempt to delay the tearing pain it will bring.
At least Wyn notices he’s no longer lurching after her before she gets too far ahead—he really doesn’t have it in him to shout—and even more mercifully she doesn’t keep going.
“You’re not done in already?” she exclaims as she jogs back, and there’s very deliberate insult in the way she loops a neat circle around him before coming to a standstill in front, grin broad and breathing steady. When he just glares at her, she snorts out half a laugh. “Well, now I’m never going to believe you didn’t sleep your way into the army. That’s not what they mean by a fitness test, you know.”
“I passed it,” he manages to get out, “years ago,” and then the stifled cough breaks free and he can’t do much else for a while but enjoy the taste of his own innards as they do their best to crawl up his throat and flop wetly onto the sand.
Through watering eyes he’s aware of a not entirely unsympathetic patting of his back and an unhooked canteen being waved under his nose, the latter of which he accepts. “Just think how much worse this would be if you’d still been smoking these last few months,” Wyn’s voice says, and then adds, “Real charming, Mun,” as he spits a glob of something at the ground and hauls himself into a mostly upright position.
“Thanks,” he grates out, and swills a mouthful of lukewarm water.
“Any time,” she says, and though his chest burns and he may have lost feeling in at least two of his toes, the corner of his mouth still lifts when she rises up on her toes to press her lips against his sweat-streaked cheek.
II
There’s no photo on his desk at financial services, but there are blonde hairs in his hairbrush, half a freshman syllabus under his bed, and a shirt in his drawer that is definitely not cut for his frame. They don’t go to expensive restaurants and scenic outlooks, but he’s running out of everyday places that don’t hold some memory of her. He ignores half her calls, and keeps every text message to the point that his cell starts to lag.
He never says girlfriend, but when Holly asks the questions usually inspired by such a word, he answers with every shade of Wyn.
III
She rocks her hips down just as he thrusts up, and the resulting burst of pleasure arches her spine, tosses her head back. Through the heart-thumping haze, Wyn takes the moment to glance though the window they’d so carefully selected for its low-slung positioning and its wide view of the courtyard below.
After all, there were still zombies out there. Someone had to keep watch.
IV
Logically—intellectually, rather, he hates the assumption that as an AI his processes are bound by the logical, like an overpriced calculator that just happens to be capable of parroting human speech for his audience’s amusement—he’s always known he’s capable of this, of existing within the confines of a person and not a single system spider-webbed through a building, but he’d never much liked the idea. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. Too, he’d thought, small.
“It’s funny,” she says idly.
He hesitates a moment—it hadn’t taken long to realise that Scharfer’s conception of humour was, at best, thoroughly questionable—but he knows she can sense his ill-advised curiosity so he grudgingly says, “What is?”
“From what other people said, I was expecting this to feel…” She waves a hand. “Cool. Cold. Icy stream in the back of my head.”
“Very poetic,” Avery says sourly.
“You know us silver-tongued military types.” Scharfer flashes her teeth in a smile, but rubs her thumb thoughtfully at the base of her neck. “You’re warm, you know? Like having my own little campfire, hissing and spitting included.”
“You’re like the sky,” he says, thinks, drops into her mind without meaning to because he knows about wrong expectations and surprising (relieving) realisations, and he flees behind a dozen hastily erected walls in the wake of her startled laughter.
V
“It’s my duty,” he says, but the uncertainty is plain and he doesn’t knock her hands away when she twists them into the cross-wise strap of his bandolier.
“Your duty to who?” she counters. “Your Empress is dead, your Regent is dead-” He opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest that these things are hers as well, but she doesn’t let him, cuts him off with sharp truths. “You barely know who these newest usurpers are and they sure as shit don’t know you from the next body in black and red.”
He hangs his head, and she almost feels sorry for him, as much as she can dredge up enough energy to feel sorry for anyone in this dying city; he’s never shared his reasons for taking on the watch’s garb, though she has her suspicions, and it is an unrewarding task to try and live in denial of what his position truly represents these days. She may have benefited from his efforts (and she always finds a way to benefit) but that does not mean she has no appreciation for what they cost.
(She is always aware of cost.)
“What would you have me do?” he says bitterly. “Stay here, hiding under your sheets, waiting to see what reaches us first—rats, Weepers, the executioner’s blade?”
“How about,” she says, and tightens her grip to draw him down closer, “we just start with stay.”
(He leaves in the morning, of course, and it’s the last she sees of him until nigh over a week later, when she runs a stock-take request to one of the dispensaries that have sprung up hastily along the streets to find a familiar form standing a cautious guard there for the physic doling out vials of the cure, clad in faded civilian green.)
VI
“What do you mean go the Red Wings?” Avery says, outraged.
She spits discreetly into his cup of coffee on her way out.
Rating: M
Series: Fallout New Vegas ('courier faction' original characters)
Wordcount: 1073
Summary: Wyn and Avery across universes.
Remarks: A birthday present for Emma, who owns Wyn. Six universes: New Vegas, modern college, zombie apocalypse, Halo, Dishonored, and sportsball.
I
He calls the halt by staggering to a stop, bent over, hands braced against his thighs and breath wheezing between his lips like a sandstorm gale through holes in crumbling plaster. The Mojave air is, as always, heavy and gritty and generally unpleasant, but he strangles down the cough he can feel building in his chest in an attempt to delay the tearing pain it will bring.
At least Wyn notices he’s no longer lurching after her before she gets too far ahead—he really doesn’t have it in him to shout—and even more mercifully she doesn’t keep going.
“You’re not done in already?” she exclaims as she jogs back, and there’s very deliberate insult in the way she loops a neat circle around him before coming to a standstill in front, grin broad and breathing steady. When he just glares at her, she snorts out half a laugh. “Well, now I’m never going to believe you didn’t sleep your way into the army. That’s not what they mean by a fitness test, you know.”
“I passed it,” he manages to get out, “years ago,” and then the stifled cough breaks free and he can’t do much else for a while but enjoy the taste of his own innards as they do their best to crawl up his throat and flop wetly onto the sand.
Through watering eyes he’s aware of a not entirely unsympathetic patting of his back and an unhooked canteen being waved under his nose, the latter of which he accepts. “Just think how much worse this would be if you’d still been smoking these last few months,” Wyn’s voice says, and then adds, “Real charming, Mun,” as he spits a glob of something at the ground and hauls himself into a mostly upright position.
“Thanks,” he grates out, and swills a mouthful of lukewarm water.
“Any time,” she says, and though his chest burns and he may have lost feeling in at least two of his toes, the corner of his mouth still lifts when she rises up on her toes to press her lips against his sweat-streaked cheek.
II
There’s no photo on his desk at financial services, but there are blonde hairs in his hairbrush, half a freshman syllabus under his bed, and a shirt in his drawer that is definitely not cut for his frame. They don’t go to expensive restaurants and scenic outlooks, but he’s running out of everyday places that don’t hold some memory of her. He ignores half her calls, and keeps every text message to the point that his cell starts to lag.
He never says girlfriend, but when Holly asks the questions usually inspired by such a word, he answers with every shade of Wyn.
III
She rocks her hips down just as he thrusts up, and the resulting burst of pleasure arches her spine, tosses her head back. Through the heart-thumping haze, Wyn takes the moment to glance though the window they’d so carefully selected for its low-slung positioning and its wide view of the courtyard below.
After all, there were still zombies out there. Someone had to keep watch.
IV
Logically—intellectually, rather, he hates the assumption that as an AI his processes are bound by the logical, like an overpriced calculator that just happens to be capable of parroting human speech for his audience’s amusement—he’s always known he’s capable of this, of existing within the confines of a person and not a single system spider-webbed through a building, but he’d never much liked the idea. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. Too, he’d thought, small.
“It’s funny,” she says idly.
He hesitates a moment—it hadn’t taken long to realise that Scharfer’s conception of humour was, at best, thoroughly questionable—but he knows she can sense his ill-advised curiosity so he grudgingly says, “What is?”
“From what other people said, I was expecting this to feel…” She waves a hand. “Cool. Cold. Icy stream in the back of my head.”
“Very poetic,” Avery says sourly.
“You know us silver-tongued military types.” Scharfer flashes her teeth in a smile, but rubs her thumb thoughtfully at the base of her neck. “You’re warm, you know? Like having my own little campfire, hissing and spitting included.”
“You’re like the sky,” he says, thinks, drops into her mind without meaning to because he knows about wrong expectations and surprising (relieving) realisations, and he flees behind a dozen hastily erected walls in the wake of her startled laughter.
V
“It’s my duty,” he says, but the uncertainty is plain and he doesn’t knock her hands away when she twists them into the cross-wise strap of his bandolier.
“Your duty to who?” she counters. “Your Empress is dead, your Regent is dead-” He opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest that these things are hers as well, but she doesn’t let him, cuts him off with sharp truths. “You barely know who these newest usurpers are and they sure as shit don’t know you from the next body in black and red.”
He hangs his head, and she almost feels sorry for him, as much as she can dredge up enough energy to feel sorry for anyone in this dying city; he’s never shared his reasons for taking on the watch’s garb, though she has her suspicions, and it is an unrewarding task to try and live in denial of what his position truly represents these days. She may have benefited from his efforts (and she always finds a way to benefit) but that does not mean she has no appreciation for what they cost.
(She is always aware of cost.)
“What would you have me do?” he says bitterly. “Stay here, hiding under your sheets, waiting to see what reaches us first—rats, Weepers, the executioner’s blade?”
“How about,” she says, and tightens her grip to draw him down closer, “we just start with stay.”
(He leaves in the morning, of course, and it’s the last she sees of him until nigh over a week later, when she runs a stock-take request to one of the dispensaries that have sprung up hastily along the streets to find a familiar form standing a cautious guard there for the physic doling out vials of the cure, clad in faded civilian green.)
VI
“What do you mean go the Red Wings?” Avery says, outraged.
She spits discreetly into his cup of coffee on her way out.