Work Text:
Originally written for the Fallout Kink Meme in December 2010.
---
As with most things in life, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Courier had vanished over the horizon with Raul a week ago, the other members of their rag-tag crew were either out visiting their home bases or, in Cass' case, parked up at the Wrangler so she could have a room to herself for a few nights and indulge in a few pleasures of the flesh without the added spectre of two moody male roommates.
That left Boone and Arcade alone to their own devices and, as Arcade archly noted, Boone was at the point of cabin fever where he orbited the Lucky 38 like an annoyed asteroid. Then, as ever, he had to just show off how smart he was, how useful his suggestions were. Why don't you go out shooting?, he had said. Why don't you cash out some of that ammo? Why don't you go and work off some excess energy?
Boone had eyeballed him – an unnerving experience, Arcade had to admit – then he shrugged, threw some clean clothes and some cartridge boxes into his duffel bag, then stopped at the door of the guest bedroom and gave Arcade another long, unreadable look before gently closing the door.
Arcade genuinely wasn't expecting to be roughly shaken awake after what felt like twenty minutes sleep. His boots were dropped unceremoniously next to his pillow and before he could work himself up into a righteous state of just-what-do-you-think-you're-doing-ism, Boone said he had half an hour to pack his gear before they got going.
It hadn't taken much for than an empty satchel to be thrown onto the pillow as well for Arcade to capitulate, protesting all the while as he packed the essentials into his own bag. He scooped a bottle of vodka in as well, justifying that it was an antiseptic and not a crutch to make him loose enough to engage Sergeant Mute in conversation. Arcade Gannon, always prepared.
--
All of which came to explain why, two days later, they were picking their way to the Gypsum trainyards, grotty and tired. Boone planned a happy day of picking off Deathclaws with a very new, (formerly) very shiny, and very heavy anti-materiel rifle. Courier had silently given it to Boone after they'd returned from a trip somewhere in the north-east, both wound tighter than normal. He hadn't really pried much deeper into why Boone had been given something worth shy of ten thou' in caps, reasoning that it was either a.) a thank you gift for having to do something terrible, or b.) what passed for a cheer-up gift. When they arrived in the hills above the train yard Arcade made a passing comment about being back in Vegas in time for Happy Hour and was given such a withering look of scorn in return that he'd fallen into uncharacteristic silence for the best part of an hour.
Arcade had been on edge when they'd arrived, justifiable in anyone so close to a veritable party of Deathclaws, but Boone tersely muttered something about being in an advantageous position downwind of their targets and to please be quiet. He'd settled by a tussock and fiddled around with a box of incendiary bullets that seemed comically oversized. Arcade patted his pockets to reassure himself that he had plenty of energy cells spare if, y'know, he was going to have to be a defending hero.
The minutes dragged on as the other man checked and rechecked every inch of his rifle and Arcade was so, so close to making a crack about big guns leading to over-compensation when Boone had exhaled low and smooth, relaxed his shoulders and squeezed the trigger.
A mother Deathclaw's neck exploded in a shower of blood and flames.
All Arcade heard – once his ears stopped ringing – was Boone chuckling as he slid the bolt action back in place. It was as pleased as he'd ever heard him.
“That was...,” he started before Boone irritably waved a hand at him to be quiet.
“Can't concentrate with you talking. Just give me a bit to get my eye back in.”
He smoothly picked off most of the pack across the next few hours, sheer distance muffling their location and giving him carte blanche to line up shots at his leisure. There were only a couple of small blind Deathclaws left when Boone rolled over and motioned to Arcade to lie down and take his spot. Much to his later distaste, Arcade temporarily lost all of his already tenuous grasp on grace and charm and merely gawped at him.
“C'mon. There's only a few hours of daylight left.”
“Yes, but...” Despite his protests, he dropped to his knees and shuffled over to where Boone had been stretched out. Boone had propped himself up on one elbow and nodded impatiently for Arcade to hurry up and settle next to him.
Oh, have mercy on this weak man , he thought. If it wasn't for the sun, the wild animals and the whole gun thing, this is was the ideal set up to what would be a very satisfying illicit fantasy.
If he thought of Boone like that.
Which he didn't.
...not often, anyway.
He mentally shook himself and tuned back in as Boone started talking, taking a moment to peel off his lab coat – why had he worn this, anyway? - and wadding it up to act as a pillow. Boone broke his poker face just long enough to ever-so-slightly quirk the side of his mouth into what was unmistakeably a smirk.
“The pointy end goes at the thing you want to kill.”
Arcade rose to the bait immediately. “I have fired a gun before, you know.”
Boone shrugged. “Yeah, but only little energy guns. I haven't seen you fire, y'know, a real gun. Toy pistols don't really count.”
The look he received back was absolutely filthy, and not in an enjoyable way. “Ut sementem feceris ita metes, Boone. Your turn will come.”
To Arcade's genuine surprise Boone just laughed, a muted chuckle that stopped before it could really begin. He leaned forward slightly and pushed Arcade's shoulder down, letting the rifle butt fall into the right position. “Shuffle around until you're comfortable. Don't let the butt actually touch you; it'll snap your collarbone if you're not careful.” He chuckled again. “I'm not the one to ask to set your bone back, either.”
“An understatement.”
“Breathe nice and steady and find the scope. Don't press against it, just use it.” He waited for a moment for Arcade to wriggle around a little more, reaching over him to press back down on his shoulder. “You can bend out one knee if you need more stability. Don't kneel, just kick it out sideways.”
“Oh please,” said Arcade dryly. “Being all sprawled out like that? People will talk.”
Boone just gave a silent huff of amusement. “I'll risk it. Take a deep breath, use the marks on the scope to compensate for distance, then relax completely and pull the trigger.”
Rolling his neck, Arcade did as he was told, mentally running through a checklist and culminating in an exhaled breath and a tensed trigger finger. Across the trainyard, a young Deathclaw looked around suspiciously as a high calibre bullet completely failed to connect in any way, instead kicking wildly to the left and starting a small fire in a stray tumbleweed.
“Don't say a word,” muttered Arcade.
Boone didn't say anything, rather just rolled onto his hands and knees and leaned bodily over Arcade to pull the stock into a better position, carefully avoiding touching both the hot rifle barrel and Arcade himself.
“Try again,” he said, still far too close for Arcade's liking.
Line up, compensate, inhale, exhale, squeeze. Another miss, another careful adjustment made to his body or the rifle. Another, then another. Finally he tried to clear his mind and relaxed into the gun as smoothly as could, then squeezed. That time the young Deathclaw exploded in a ball of flame, running across several train tracks before dropping to the ground and going still.
There was a begrudging 'not bad' issued from the voice next to his ear, and Arcade twitched involuntarily. This really was starting to feel like some two-bit dirty movie he'd mentally play to amuse himself. The sharp bite of Boone's sweat, the pleasant scent of spent gunpowder and the earthy scent of the hot ground was just adding to the immersion and Arcade groaned inwardly.
“Maybe you should finish that last one off,” he offered. “It keeps moving behind that building and I don't want to set the whole thing on fire.” He got to his feet, wiping dust from his hands and making a convincing show of not being completely unsettled.
Boone shrugged and shuffled back into place. Arcade allowed himself a moment to admire how Boone settled himself – and yes, one leg was kicked out to the side and yes, it was as redolent of... things as he'd expected – before Boone quickly and efficiently took the shot without setting anything else aflame.
He was, however, surprised when Boone rolled onto his back and stared up at him, eyes not particularly well shaded by his glasses. He absent-mindedly pulled Arcade's lab coat under his head and gave the appearance of someone looking supremely relaxed, albeit with a face that gave nothing away. Arcade chalked the body language to some sort of sated gun-lust and the unimpressed expression to, well, Boone.
'So,” remarked Boone. “You said my turn would come.”
Arcade Gannon, man of language, was left scrounging for words. “I, what?”
“That little dinky toy gun of yours. Gonna try and tell me that it's difficult to use?”
Oh, thank christ. “Hmm. Difficult, maybe not. I don't know if you have the grace and finesse and the gumption for getting up close and personal though.” Boone merely shook his head and - Arcade could have sworn on a stack of bibles that it was true - he rolled his eyes. Arcade stuck out his hand and, to add to his increasing tally of surprises, Boone took it and hauled himself upright before silently going through the motions of packing for travel.
--
Boone adjusted the rifle on his back, scanned the horizon and set out purposefully in a direction that distinctly wasn't towards Vegas. Arcade looked hesitantly back over his shoulder at where Vegas was – it was hidden behind a series of impassable hills, but still, he could feel the presence of a hot bath and a soft bed like it was his own personal compass – and reluctantly followed Boone down towards the mass of Lake Mead.
For once Arcade had the upper hand over Boone, being both unencumbered with a cannon on his back and generally more nimble on his feet, and took the advantage to quickly skirt around him and take the high ground along a ridge.
“So I can't help but notice we're not going back to Vegas,” he called down to Boone.
'Nope,” was the reply that drifted upwards.
Arcade easily stepped from boulder to boulder and allowed himself a moment of smugness as Boone hauled himself over a pile of loose stones.
“Is there any particular reason we're not making for the bright lights and cool drinks of the city?”
Boone took a moment to stop as he pulled off his beret and wiped a forearm across his face. Down in the gully the late afternoon humidity was thick and cloying, but Arcade was taking advantage of a cool breeze that whipped off the lake. He imagined that it looked rather dashing as it caught as his coat and made it snap in the breeze. If he was walking with the Courier or Cass he'd pose to get a rise out of them, but somehow he didn't think Boone was one for cheap laughs. Instead he opted for medically appropriate thoughtfulness over looking heroic.
“Think quick,” he said, tossing down a bottle of lukewarm clean water. Boone caught it easily and alternated between guzzling it and pouring it over his scalp. His shirt was ringed with sweat under the arms and around his neck and he generally looked as miserable as someone with a granite face could ever look.
“Not much further to walk this way,” he called down. “There's some sort of hut ahead and I'm guessing the lake is a couple miles on from there. This would be so much easier if we could liberate that Pip-Boy off Courier's arm. Just putting that out there.”
Boone jammed his beret back on, straightening up the insignia badge with a practised flick. “There's only a couple of hours of daylight left. If we pounded it back to Vegas we'd be crossing behind that mess of radiation on the range during the dark. This way there's a couple of good camp spots and we can make to walk to Golf and over to Vegas during the day.”
He scratched his neck. “Or we can do it in two. Depends on how much you bitch about getting sunburnt.”
Arcade chose to keep moving, calling back as he crested the slope and started jogging down the loose shale on the other side. “I'm touched that you care. Really.”
--
By the time Boone emerged out of the gully, Arcade was excising the stingers out of a couple of young Cazadores and whistling cheerfully. As Boone approached he turned around, pulled his plasma pistol from his hip and made an exaggerated show of blowing imaginary gunsmoke from the barrel.
“Impressive,” said Boone, pulling the rifle off his back ostensibly to stretch his shoulders but discreetly taking the opportunity to scan around for any more surprises that might be around. Boone knew he was as dumb as a box of rocks next to Gannon, but he also knew Arcade wasn't exactly a wellspring of perception. A second set of eyes really didn't hurt where he was concerned.
Arcade sliced the venom sacs free before wrapping them in a shirt and stowing them in his bag. “They're worth a mint to traders,” he explained to what was actually dead air, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Courier doesn't give me enough pocket money and, well, a man needs the finer things in life.”
“Let's get moving,” muttered Boone, reholstering the rifle. "Swarms of Cazadores off to the west. Don't want to deal with them at dusk.”
A moment passed, heavy and quiet.
“I hate to whine,” said Arcade, ignoring Boone's immediate scoff, “But where exactly are we going? I haven't been out this way before and I'm getting delirious at the thought of sitting down.”
Boone just started walking south, pulling at the collar of his shirt and fussing with the way the extra long barrel of the rifle laid over his shoulder. Clearly the brief moment of levity and what passed for chattiness from Boone had vanished somewhere between the hilltop and here, presumably sweated out in the hot, barren gully.
Arcade freely admitted that he didn't know much more than the cheat notes about Boone (had a nice hat, took most of Veronica's caps the few times she challenged him to a game of pool, made passably decent medium-rare brahmin steaks when it was the two of them left in the Presidential suite and Arcade bullied him into cooking, was about as recalcitrant to talk about his background as Arcade himself was, and that was about it) but it didn't take someone with great intimate knowledge of the man to realise he was annoyed about something.
He sighed and hoisted his satchel and vowed not to talk until they reached wherever it was that Boone wanted to take him. There was a thought, actually. Figuring that a tense Boone was a Boone with over-active alertness dialled all the way up, Arcade permitted himself to drift into a mindless state twenty meters behind the sharpshooter, trudging along on autopilot and thinking some very indecent thoughts about hot skin under blue skies.
---
Fortunately it was less than a couple of miles to wherever it that Boone had in mind, and so wrapped up in his imagination was Arcade that he almost walked straight past where Boone had come to a stop and dropped into a tense crouch.
An iron-strong grip clutching at his calf was enough to spin him to a halt, and it caused a moment of disconcertion as he abruptly ground his mental gears down from fanciful imaginings of a thin mouth hotly licking and sucking down his spine to the tired, sweating, tightly-wound reality on his knees by, well, his knees.
“Uh,” said Arcade, and mentally kicked himself. “What's up?”
Boone had upholstered the anti-materiel rifle and was slightly awkwardly balancing the tremendous barrel weight of it against his shoulder as he peered through the scope. “Lakelurks. Maybe four of them”
Oh, for the love of... “Is that all?” Arcade upholstered his pistol and made a show of checking the energy cell intakes and patting his pockets for extras. “For a minute I thought it was something serious.”
The hard set of Boone's mouth said more than any actual words, and Arcade almost found himself patting Boone on the shoulder. He quickly averted that mistake though, turning it into an awkward show of running his hand through his own hair. “Hey, I've picked off more of these things than you've had hot dinners. I learned to shoot on their beach cousins. Watch and learn, my friend.”
He shucked off his coat, tossing it onto Boone's lap before skirting along a slight crest in the hill and skidding down the loose soil, whooping loudly to get the Lakelurk's attention. It really was ridiculously simple, he thought, thumbing off the safety and neatly firing three bolts of plasma into the nearest Lakelurk. Aim, compensate for the lack of compensation, allow for X travel time times Y distance, factoring in crosswinds if firing across a distance of greater than fifteen meters. So simple he could do it without thinking.
He smoothly ducked under the tunnel of sonic interference spat forth by the next Lakelurk, tidily firing a shot of sufficient force to turn the beast into a smouldering pile of plasma waste. The third Lakelurk was similarly dispatched, leaving only the fourth animal left snarling and hissing before it was unceremoniously dispatched by a large-calibre round to the chest.
Arcade spun on his heel, arching an eyebrow as Boone crested the hill and half jogged, half slid down the slope to the waterline.
“What that really necessary?” he asked.
Boone merely shrugged, cool as ever. “Just thought I'd contribute.” He let the rifle hang loose in his arms, and despite the bulk of it he was carrying it like it weighed barely anything. “Good news is that there's a decent rest stop just ahead. Thanks to your fancy shooting we've got a pretty good meal too.”
Arcade shrugged, secretly feeling both inordinately pleased with himself and unbelievably annoyed with himself for feeling such pleasure at having his achievement recognised, no matter how reluctantly. “I do my best.”
---
The fisherman's shack was exactly what Arcade had expected – damp, somewhat fragrant with the odour of mildew, full of old whisky bottles and striking in its absence of soft beds, hot baths, running water or air conditioning. Boone had dropped his pack inside the door and was surveying the room with a proprietary air, and it didn't take much to guess that he and Courier had camped here overnight many, many times before.
Arcade tried to banish the thought of a long, hot bath out of his mind and instead shrugged off his satchel, dumping it on the sole bed. If there was going to be a squabble over who had the bed later, he wanted to give himself a head start on claiming victory.
Boone was already stalking back to the fresh air outside, presumably off to hack and slash at a Lakelurk so they could eat something substantial later. Arcade chose to kick a broken masonry brick against the shack's tin door, propping it open so the breeze scudding across the lake could air out the damp room. Shack, sweet shack, he thought, and set about unlacing his boots.
By the time Boone returned with the front of shirt acting as a sling for a pile of glistening raw meat, Arcade was sitting on the end of the dock, the radio from the shack dragged out and set behind him. He was cheerfully whistling as he cuffed up his trousers and dangled his feet in the water, a pristine bottle of vodka at his side. A serviceable fire had been started already and if Boone was capable of showing genuine surprise, surprise would be writ upon his face.
“Don't look so shocked,” called back Arcade. “I can tell without looking that you're stunned at my manly abilities, shocked at my firemaking skills, and dazzled by my everything else.”
Boone chose to ignore him, skewering hunks of meat and placing them a respectable distance from the flames – close enough to cook thoroughly, far away enough that they'd take a decent amount of time to cook through.
He joined Arcade down on the dock, hovering awkwardly – or as awkward as Boone ever was – before Arcade slapped the dry warm wood and told him to sit down. There was a moment or two of silence before the twin thuds of Boone's boots being thrown back at the shack rang out, and he sat down, peeling off his socks and tossing them past the radio.
Arcade motioned the vodka bottle at him and told himself he was taking objective, scientific notice of the way Boone's adam's apple bobbed as he took a long swallow.
“Ugh. Rotgut.” He wiped his mouth with his forearm.
“A brave drink for sturdy men,” quipped Arcade, taking the bottle back and swallowing down another swig for courage.
There was maybe another hour of sunlight left, the sun hanging fat and low over the ranges. If you discounted political turmoil, being caught in the middle of a power play between two opposing factions, feeling awfully like your somewhat disreputable past was about to be revealed any day now, and any other issues that came along with life in the Mojave, it was quite a pleasant evening to be spent dangling your feet in the water and listening to the radio.
Actually..., thought Arcade, and wrinkled his nose. The sour stink of sweat pouring off him and the greasy, rank smell of raw Lakelurk rolling off Boone was somewhat taking the edge off his good mood. He pulled himself to his feet, carefully folded his glasses and tucked them into a sturdy knothole and padded back up the dock, leaving a trail of damp footprints behind him.
“Don't look,” he said, and Boone merely kept staring straight ahead as the sound of fabric being pushed and pulled drifted past.
After a moment passed Arcade thought it prudent to mention that he wasn't doing anything weird, and Boone merely chuckled and took another long swig of vodka. To his credit he didn't even flinch when a blur of pale skin and grey underwear shot past him and inelegantly tumbled into the water, sending a spray of water cascading up and over the dock. He just took another drink and waited for Arcade to break the surface of the water.
“Wooo!,” was all Arcade could manage when he bobbed to the surface. Then “Wooo!” again as the shock of the bitterly cold water revealed itself beneath the deceptively warm surface. He kicked in place, scruffing his hands through hair that was now plastered flat against his skull.
“That is... seriously cold.” He ducked under the water again as if to confirm it, then shook the water out of his eyes and said wooo again.
Boone raised an eyebrow and passed the bottle down. “Guessing you checked for 'Lurks then?”
“Ha! I did, thank you very much.” He handed the bottle back up before rolling backwards, enjoying the twins sensation of alcohol burning down his throat and cool water sliding across muscles that were wound tight after a day of unaccustomed exercise. He dove deeper, scooping a handful of fine silt and clay from the bottom before coming back to the surface, floating on his back and scrubbing it into his skin.
After a minute or two of hard scrubbing he deemed himself acceptably clean and sluiced away a day's worth of sweat and grime, feeling marginally human again. He half-swam, half-walked to where his clothes lay tossed in a messy pile. He selected the grotty, limp shirt, saturating it thoroughly and wringing it out over and over until it too was deemed acceptably clean. It was a warm night and the air was dry; it'd be ready to pull on when Boone would, presumably, wake him up at some ungodly hour and continue their march westwards.
“Feelin' better?”
Speak of the devil.
“I do,” said Arcade rather primly. “Good hygiene is the hallmark of the civilised man.”
Boone merely gave a strange, half smile and looked down at the mess of Lakelurk innards painting his shirt. “Guess I could do with a bit of civilising myself.”
A bare minute and a splatter of water droplets later, Arcade had vanished behind the open door of the shack, ostensibly to change into dry clothes. His plans for a graceful exit were thrown into disarray when Boone had neatly tucked his sunglasses into his discarded beret and then started unbuckling his belt.
If Arcade had taken just a little longer or been a little less flustered, he would have seen Boone pause for the slightest moment before picking up his eyeglasses from their wooden hidey hole and carefully folding them under soft red wool for safekeeping.
---
The restorative power of clean underwear having worked its magic upon Arcade, he emerged to tend the the now delicious-smelling hunks of meat gently browning by the fire. His stomach growled loudly and he resisted the urge to pick at the meat – long experience as a back-of-house member of the Followers meant that he was all too intimately experienced with the end results of eating less than fully cooked Lakelurk meat. He'd rather suffer through ten more minutes of hunger pangs and tender olfactory torture than spend the night curled into a painful ball, unrolling only to experience whatever novel methods of evacuation the human body could come up with.
He stretched, popping his back and enjoying the feel of the last traces of sun across his shoulders. The sun was starting to get seriously heavy now; syrupy fingers of gold speared across the lake and teased around the ripples of water surrounding Boone as he floated on his back, serenely enclosed in the few scant inches of soothing warm water.
Arcade genuinely tried not to stare too openly, rather just snatching little glances to store away for later examination in the privacy of his own mind. He sighed under his breath, chastising himself for yet again getting carried away with the idea of someone who happened to be the complete opposite of, y'know, well-balanced and calm, not to mention the big one: interested in men.
He was aware there was some huge dark stain on Boone's personal history, but he was concious of what it was like to have someone drag sticky fingers through your own past. The most unfortunate things had a tendency to stick on first, and there had been a few tense nights where Boone and the Courier had some very... intense conversations in low voices behind closed doors. A couple of times the conversations had been fervent enough for Arcade or Veronica or whoever was in the apartment to wake up and find Boone had stalked out of the building and vanished for a few hours.
The last time he did that, Veronica had punched him on the arm and jokingly asked if he went out to The Thorn to wrestle geckos or just Red Lucy. The stare she received back was enough to make her back out of the room with her hands raised in placating surrender.
Never chase the easy ones, Arcade Gannon.
The sound of splashing water shook him out of his reverie as Boone hoisted himself out of the water, easily twisting to sit on the edge of the dock. He sluiced excess water from his skin with the flat of his hand and nodded to Arcade, either not noticing or choosing to ignore Arcade's almost imperceptible twitch when he spoke.
“That meat done yet?”
Arcade eyed the fire. “Maybe another couple of minutes just to make sure. They'll be done by the time you're dressed.”
Boone gathered up his discarded clothes and, clad in soaked wet grey shorts, unselfconsciously made his way past Arcade's back and into whatever modicum of privacy the shack offered. Arcade, his hand forced by hunger and an unwelcome spike of nervousness, got to his feet and went to rescue his glasses, the radio and the vodka from the dock.
It was, he reasoned, easier to get some perspective and stop acting like a hyperventilating teenage boy when there was a decent amount of space between you and the sounds of someone getting naked.
He stopped at the edge of the dock, took a deep breath to relax himself and made the executive decision to rescue the vodka first. He was halfway through a long, greedy swallow when the unmistakeable sound of Boone being exceedingly annoyed ricocheted across the water.
“Gannon. Gannon.”
Arcade frowned, noting his missing glasses. He had bad vision at dusk as it was; being without his eyeglasses meant that anything beyond the fire was rapidly turning into a soft blur.
“Have you seen my glasses?”
There was a sound of someone forcibly applying their fist to a sheet of tin in frustration. “For gods sake. I put them with my sunglasses in my beret. You're going to stand on it.”
Asking why he'd moved his glasses was on the tip of Arcade's tongue, but a rare moment of self-preservation prevented him from talking. Instead he scooped up the beret, sunglasses and all, and pushed on his own thick dark frames. The world came back into focus, and so did Boone.
He was half-hidden behind the door of the wall, modesty barely protected by rust and wood. His face was a thundercloud, and he clenched a wad of grey cotton in his fist.
“Did you mess around with my bag?”
“Did I what now?”
“My bag. Did you fuck around with my bag before we left?”
Arcade shook his head, completely taken aback. “What? No. When would I have had the chance? You barely gave me enough time to get dressed, let alone do whatever it is you're accusing me of.”
Boone relaxed ever so slightly and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Arcade kept his eyes firmly fixed skywards, because if Boone shifted his weight any further onto his right leg he was going to show the full extent of his Boone-ness. So to speak.
Arcade coughed genteelly. “Is there something wrong?”
There was a tiny pause before the wad of grey cotton was unfurled. Arcade stared blankly at it – and not at anything else – before shrugging.
“They're underpants.”
“Yes. They're not mine.”
Oh.
“Oh, uh. If they're mine, then, uh...”
Boone let out his frustration in a hiss of air between clenched teeth. “They're not yours either. They're women's shorts.” He made to stretch them out to demonstrate that they were, indeed, cut a bit higher and tighter than normal but glanced down, realised how much was on show, coloured slightly and stepped more behind the doorframe.
Arcade fought the urge to laugh nervously. “The housekeeping bot must've got the laundry mixed up again. I nearly put on Cass's trousers last week after they ended up in my drawer. Just don't wear them.”
Boone looked at him like he'd grown a second head. “You can't not wear underwear.”
This time he couldn't repress the nervous hiccup of laughter that bubbled out. “You absolutely can. My serious medical opinion backs it up. A night won't kill you.”
Boone shook his head, clearly in a quandary. Arcade guessed that a good straight-laced country boy upbringing and years of NCR personal hygiene lectures were warring against the mild fruitiness of donning ladies tightie greys versus going, in a manner of speaking, unprotected. What a thing to have a logical breakdown over.
He broke the stalemate by nudging the radio with his foot, angling it over to he could easily pick it up with the hand not encumbered with Boone's beret.
“Well, make your decision quickly. That meat is safe to eat and I'm going to eat regardless of your personal pants situation.”
By the time the shack door closed, Arcade was biting on his lip and trying not to snicker loud enough to let the entire wasteland know how ridiculous his day had become.
---
Arcade wisely made no comment when Boone emerged a minute or two later, tugging a standard grey undershirt over his head. He merely offered Boone a skewer of Lakelurk meat and watched him practically inhale it. He'd been hungry but Boone was ravenous, understandably so after hauling around an enormous rifle on his back during the foul afternoon heat.
A second stick of meat went the same way as the first, interspersed with the ruthlessly efficient draining of a warm bottle of purified water. Arcade was starting on his second serve when Boone went for thirds, tearing off chunks of meat with teeth and fingers and seemingly barely chewing before swallowing and taking another mouthful. It was, decided Arcade, impressive and slightly hot in a terrible manners kind of way.
Boone finally noticed Arcade staring and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What?” he said, defensively.
“Oh, nothing. I've just never seen anyone quite that enthusiastic about Lakelurk meat before.”
“Feel free to carry the ammo tomorrow then. And give me back my beret. And don't throw it over the fire.”
Arcade, emboldened by vodka, spun the cap on his fingertip. “Come and get it.”
“Don't be stupid.”
“I mean, I can keep it if you want.” He toyed with the idea of wearing it, but that'd probably get him killed. “Courier can wear the beret that's in the wardrobe back at the 38, I can wear this one and we can be Boone's Band.”
When running through the evening in his mind later, Arcade decided that he really shouldn't have closed his eyes at this point to take another long swig of the now warm vodka, because that meant that he missed the part where Boone got to his feet, took steps around the fire and crouched on his heels, close enough to Arcade that he could feel him block out the radiant heat of the fire.
Instead he opened his eyes to find Boone somehow magically right next to him, hands loosely clasped between akimbo thighs, stating with barely maintained politeness that he'd really like his beret back.
Arcade swallowed, trapped like a... he searched for an appropriate simile, but the heat, the vodka and the close proximity of someone he'd been having silly little fantasies about all day made his mind sluggish and slow.
“Uh.”
“Prefer it if you give it to me. I'd hate to use force so soon after a meal.”
He handed the beret back, his mouth running on autopilot and making some quip that made the corner of Boone's mouth ever-so-slightly twitch upwards. Jamming his beret back on, he took the bottle from Arcade's hand and took a long slug of it himself, rocking back on his heels.
Arcade couldn't help himself. “You haven't done up your trousers.”
“Huh. No, the button is busted. Didn't bother putting my belt back on.” He took another drink and gave Arcade a long look. “Why were you looking?”
Arcade sat up a little, trying to shake the fog from his head so he didn't say something wrong and end up with Boone's fist punching his face into next week. “I wasn't exactly looking. It's just that you're right in front of me and you know me, always observant of the small details.”
'Not that small,” said Boone and he grinned, teeth white in the dark. In the resulting stumped silence he used Arcade's shoulder to get to his feet, and his hand caught Arcade's shoulder for just a moment longer than necessary.
---
It was turning out to be quite a nice night, all told. The glow of hot coals, a full stomach, quiet country tunes playing on the radio, the moon shining on the water, a conversation partner... Well, not quite. Boone was less of a conversation partner and more someone who listened with his full attention and who rarely interrupted, two things also satisfactory to Arcade.
“...and when I turned around, he'd stuffed his mouth full of jalapenos and was nearly exploding!” Arcade finished his story with a flourish, and was rewarded with the absolutely addictive sound of Boone laughing. Not a chuckle, but a throaty, gravelly laugh that made Arcade's stomach do a little flip and twist every time he heard it.
Boone had produced a stashed bottle of Cass's moonshine at one point and was making decent inroads into it, occasionally grimacing as the acidic brew burned a particularly fiery trail down his throat. If you'd quizzed Arcade earlier he would have picked Boone for being a tense, angry drunk, but he was actually... well, not exactly charming, but his cheeks flushed scarlet and he physically relaxed and he even laughed at Arcade's more terrible jokes. Maybe if he kept him drunk all the time, he'd find living at the Lucky 38 so much more tolerable.
If a sloshed Boone was a relaxed Boone, a merry Arcade was flirty and charming and a little more inclined to run his mouth and forget about the consequences. It was this increased liberation of mouth from brain that – after an hour of his eye constantly being caught by the glint of a broken button winking at him – caused him to roll onto his elbow and enquire as to exactly what Boone had decided re: the state of his underthings.
It was the first time Arcade could ever describe Boone as looking startled, even after the time he'd arrived back at the Lucky 38 earlier than expected and walked smack into Arcade darting from kitchen to bedroom sans clothing. He'd just sighed and firmly watched the ceiling until Arcade had closed the door, all the while ignoring the loud albeit muffled protests that no one was supposed to be back for hours yet and this was technically his fault and does a man not have the inalienable human right to privacy and and and...
Here and now though, Boone just blinked in rapid succession. “Say again?”
In for a cap, in for a bag of caps, Arcade. “I was curious after your moment of paralysing indecision before.”
“Huh.” Boone propped an elbow onto his bent knee, the other leg kicked out towards the heat of the coals. “Why would you be curious?”
“Because I'm a curious man?” Arcade took another drink and looked at Boone through lowered lashes, the picture of coyness. “You can't blame me, can you?”
“Heh. Guess it's going to be my secret then.”
“Keep it a mystery then, friend. I'll just have to keep using my imagination instead.” Arcade felt the words slip past his lips before he could clamp down on them, and fought back the urge to immediately cover his face. Out of embarrassment or the fear of Boone leaping over and pummelling him in some sort of straight panic, he didn't know.
A long space of dead air stretched between them, and Arcade filled it by looking at the fire, the water, the sky, the dock, his own hands and generally everywhere that wasn't the person directly opposite him. Awkward, awkward, awkward. Dropping little pearls of innuendo was perfectly acceptable given the circumstances, but putting it out there that he'd spent at least a notable amount of time crafting mental pornography was probably pole-vaulting over all sort of boundaries.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”
There was another long stretch of silence, finally broken by the staccato rumble of Boone chuckling. “Who said you did?”
This time Arcade was the one to blink rapidly, feeling the conversation start to slip out of his grasp like so many grains of fine sand. Boone just took another sip of firewater and shifted restlessly, swaying his knee gently from side to side as he stretched out further. That damn broken button caught the light again, and his plain grey undershirt bunched and twisted in tandem with his leg, riding up over and over again to hint at the tiniest flash of steel zipper.
Arcade glanced at the little twinkle of metal, then wrenched his eyes away like they were going to be scalded. He lifted his bottle to his lips, more out of a desire to do something with his hands than thirst, and swallowed thickly. He eyeballed Boone over the top of the clear bottle, his vision warped by thick glass.
The object of his focus tilted his head back ever-so-slightly, amusement flickering at the corner of his eyes if you knew just how to look for it. Arcade screwed the cap back into the bottle, and decided boldness was his best tactic.
“I'm sure that's just that rotgut talking.”
Boone shrugged, that same half-smile ghosting across his face. “Maybe. Could ask you the same thing.”
The metaphorical sands shifted again. Arcade tapped his finger against his lips, stalling for time, and was gratified to note that Boone, heavy-lidded and rosy cheeked as he may be, was watching his mouth quite avidly. He deliberately tapped his thumbnail against his tooth, gratified to hear Boone make a faint exhalation of hitched breath. Oh my.
He swung his legs underneath him and sat up, rolling his neck. “Oh, I'm fairly sure nothing I'm saying is the fault of vodka.” He paused, and went in for the unsophisticated kill. “I mean, unless I've been drunk all through an afternoon of watching you drape yourself over your big gun.”
Arcade Gannon normally cultivated an air of educated poise and grace and preferred to dabble in finely wrought adianoeta, but he certainly wasn't above a cheap, blunt double entendre when he really wanted to make his point.
The twin spots of colour on Boone's cheeks burned a little brighter, and Arcade arched an eyebrow. “Am I saying something inappropriate? You can tell Arcade anything. Anything.”
He was teasing, yes, but he was also giving Boone a great big door to use for a graceful exit. He'd unfortunately been in this position a few times where a straight boy had let his drink and his dick do all the thinking for him, and at least once that had resolved with Arcade scrabbling half-awake out of bed, clutching at his pants and ducking a punch. If Boone went off it'd be like a dozen frag grenades at once. At least.
“Uh, no. Not bad.” Boone cleared his throat. “Thought provoking, maybe.”
Arcade raised both eyebrows at this. “And what thoughts have I provoked?”
He let Boone hang on the line for just a few seconds before getting to his feet, wiping his palms clean against his thighs. He looked at Boone, noting how he was staring blankly into the fading fire, and smiled softly and a little bit sadly. “I'll be inside getting ready to bunk down, Boone. Call me if you need anything.”
He was silhouetted in the door by the time Boone cleared his throat again, looking up with a guarded expression. “Not one for words, Gannon.” He cleared his throat again and leaned forward, a hand reflexively twitching at the hem of his undershirt. “Can't say things well enough. I could probably show you though.”
He leaned against the door frame and watched Boone get to his feet, more sure-footed than Arcade would have given him credit for. Drunk enough to do something silly, thought Arcade, not so drunk that he didn't know what he was doing. It made Boone's sudden advance all that more interesting and a little less, well, cheap.
Boone stopped a mere foot away and took a deep breath, and looked Arcade straight in the eye. “I can show you,” he repeated. “If you want me to.”
Arcade was a deceptively big man. He was tall and lean but had a knack for making himself seem smaller, less threatening. Towering over someone and being snide tended to put people into very bad moods, and considering most people these days were armed, well...
Boone, on the other hand, was very good at giving the illusion of being bigger than he was. Broad across the shoulders and solidly muscled, quiet yet positively radiating barely-restrained anger (most of the time) and giving the impression that he was always, always watching you; it resulted in people rarely looking him in the eyes and somehow always remembering him as a few inches taller and a few pounds heavier.
It was gratifying to see Boone's eyes widen slightly as Arcade reached forward and yanked him closer, fingers hooked through his belt loops. He took full advantage of the height difference to loom over the smaller man, breath skittering hotly across Boone's cheeks.
“I'm not going to say this is your last chance, Boone,” he said, “Because you can always just say the word and we'll stop. But I hope you know what you're asking of me. I would hope you're not that cruel.”
Boone's eyes drifted closed for a moment before they snapped open, bright in the soft glow of the dying fire. “Pretty sure I do. Guess I'll find out.”
Slowly, hesitantly, he ran one hand up Arcade's forearm, as if testing out how corporeal he was. Arcade silently let him explore further along his arm, Boone's rough hand tracing along the sleeve of his undershirt, crossing over the broad flat of his shoulder blade and finally skirting along the blonde hair that curled along the nape of his neck.
Arcade's eyes closed for a moment and he sighed, enjoying the feel of fingertips skating along skin normally covered by layers of cotton. Boone's hand snapped away as if he'd been burned.
“Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean...”
Arcade caught his hand and firmly brought it back to his neck. “It was a good sigh, Boone. Just... relax, alright? I'm not going anywhere.” He gave another tug on his belt loops, a quarter step close enough that he could feel the body heat radiating off Boone. “And for gods sakes, touch me like a man. I'm not going to shriek and run away.”
Boone allowed himself a small, lopsided smile. “I guess not.” His other hand drifted to Arcade's lower back and pushed roughly, clashing their bodies together. Arcade untangled his hands from between them, brushing the back of his hand forcefully against the solid lump of Boone's erection as he extricated himself.
“Oh my,” he said wryly, palming his hands across Boone's shoulder and digging his fingertips into flesh until Boone groaned.
“More where that came from,” Boone said, his voice thick. He pushed one knee between Arcade's, forcing him to take a step back before he lost his balance. Strong hands on his shoulders pulled him along and, step by step, they were inside the damp stillness of the shack.
---
Arcade Gannon was a tactile man. He liked to be touched and liked to touch in return, and currently his hands were occupied with feeling the pleasing expanse of Boone's shoulders, tracing down his spine to skirt along the soft, frayed waistband of Boone's trousers before tugging experimentally at his thin grey undershirt.
There was only the slightest fraction of a pause before Boone pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it over Arcade's shoulder to the bed, dislodging his beret in the process. Arcade quickly stole it and styled it on a rakish angle over his blonde hair.
“What do you think?” he said, turning his head from side to side and doing his best to break the heavy air of intensity that threatened to wrap around them. Intensity was for people in love and people in the middle of heartbreak, and whatever you might want to call this... whatever it was, it was neither love nor heartbreak. It was a thing. That would do for now.
It worked. Boone appraised him, said he looked stupid and tossed it onto the bed as well.
“So quick to judge my appearance, Boone,” said Arcade flippantly. “I promise I won't be so cruel when I discover your own dirty little secret.” He toyed with the broken button on Boone's trousers, his intentions broadcast loud and clear.
Boone laced his fingers behind his neck and shrugged, not quite hiding the lopsided smile that played at the edge of his mouth. “Are you still on about that?”
Arcade pulled the tabs of his trousers apart, applying just enough pressure to make the zipper tab slip down a few teeth. “How could I not be? You're like a present to be unwrapped. It'll be like all my birthdays have arrived at once. You should know I'm only being a little bit sarcastic.”
Boone gave a silent huff of laughter, his breath warm against Arcade's neck. “Not a very good present.” He pushed his chin forward and shuffled his feet a little further apart, and Arcade took a little perverse pride in knowing he was keenly aware of the warm hands gently toying with his zipper. “Going to get on that any time soon?”
He merely tugged on the fabric to pull him a little closer, and ducked his head until was almost cheek to cheek with Boone. His voice dropped in pitch a little, a throaty purr delivered via lips that brushed against the curve of the smaller man's ear. “You know me. Delayed gratification is the sweetest pleasure, etcetera.”
He smoothly slid the zip down and pushed the coarse fabric down his hips and over his thighs, one hand roughly digging his fingertips into Boone's lower back until he pushed himself against Arcade. Barely a breath passed before Boone dropped his hands – coarse, calloused, rough – and seized Arcade's wrist, pushing it down to his hips with a harsh whisper to stop fucking around.
Oh my.
He pushed him away just a little to admire exactly how Boone filled out a small, slim pair of ladies shorts. Boone stared at him defiantly, daring him to laugh. Arcade merely took another step back, tapped his finger against his lips and nodded thoughtfully.
“That is,” he said and paused for a moment, searching for an appropriate adverb. “Infinitely better than what I was imagining only a few minutes ago.”
Cut high at the sides and indiscreetly low on the hips, the thin, soft grey shorts looked as if they were custom made for him. Arcade admired the thin trail of soft hair vanishing under the waistband, and fought to hold back a very pleased expression at the very appealing sight of Boone's erection, trapped painfully tight against unforgiving elastic.
“Much, much better,” he repeated. He snapped the elastic band cheekily and used the moment of distraction to press his advantage and grind his own erection against Boone's sharp hipbone, ignoring the ragged inhalation of breath it dragged from the other man. Much, much better indeed.
They stood in silence for a few long breaths before Boone sighed, chest rising in a great full body heave, and twisted free enough to drop his head onto Arcade's shoulder. “Anyone else and I'd make you suck me already.”
“Oh, well. I see,” said Arcade, grinning broadly. “In that case I am willing to bid farewell to delayed gratification in favour of something a little more immediate. Carpe iugulum, right? Undress yourself.”
Boone lifted his head enough to give him an arch look. “Seems a bit one sided.”
“I promise I'll make it worth your while.” Arcade snaked his hand down from where it rested on Boone's flank, fingertips briefly diverting to flick at a flat nipple before trailing downwards to cup and tug at the smaller man's cloth-covered erection, boldly feeling him up over and over until Boone's hips were pushing back against him.
“Still want this?” Arcade questioned, pressing himself a little closer to Boone and using his free arm to effectively hold him in place. He didn't wait for an answer, just pushed those ridiculous shorts down enough to free Boone’s cock before the elastic pinned it against his belly. He hummed in approval and took him in hand, lazily working him through loose fingers and whispering vague, non-specific dirty utterances into the warm, still air until Boone's breath sucked back into a barely restrained snarl and a demand to put his mouth to better use.
He gave a slightly cruel little snap of his wrist and smirked at the faint moan he heard in return. “I'm guessing that's a 'Yes Arcade, please continue pleasuring me.' Feel free to let me know.”
A strong hand caught his wrist and held him still, a grip with enough pressure that Arcade felt the bones in his wrist click against each other. He drew a ragged breath of his own, his own neglected erection returning threefold at the unexpected – well, unexpected-expected – sudden show of strength. Arcade felt it prudent not to rummage around too deeply in his psyche over his immediate base response, at least not at this point in time, and chalked it down to merely his partner ceasing to be quite so passive.
He disentangled himself and, with only slight prodding, forced Boone to take a step back, then another, until the bed hit the back of his knees.
“I think,” he started, pushing his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose as if to clear his head and his thoughts, “I think I'll take you up on that demand to suck you. Strip. I'll be right back. Try not to, y'know, flee or anything.”
Arcade turned and took unhurried steps to the door and stepped outside, taking a moment to look around for any immediate wasteland concerns – stray Lakelurks, trigger-happy scavengers, troops from any number of factions out on night manoeuvres, and whatever else could possibly appear and ruin his good mood and oddly interesting evening. He inhaled a deep breath and, spying the discarded bottle of vodka, picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands.
Satisfied that nothing untoward was anywhere nearby, he went back to the shack and leaned against the doorframe, an insouciant comment on the tip of the tongue withering as his eyes feasted on the sight of Boone, the flush on his cheeks brighter than ever, as he lean back on one elbow and lazily stroked himself as he waited for Arcade to return. His trousers and those damnable grey shorts had been kicked off into a puddle of fabric at the edge of the bed, a starting point that let his eyes greedily slide along those strong, well toned legs to the seam of his hip and the shelf of muscle above – external abdominal obliques, Arcade reminded himself on autopilot, then mentally kicked himself – and inevitably to the nicely proportioned, flushed prick being teased by a well-practiced hand.
Arcade stalled for time, more to imprint as much of that sight as possible to his memory than to gather his wits. He took a long drink of the warm vodka and once the burn down his throat had settled, crossed his arms and looked over the edge of his glasses.
“Getting comfortable without me?” he asked, thoroughly amused and, to be perfectly honest, turned on to a terrifyingly strong degree. God, he thought. If he wasn't a straight boy, this would be a prelude to a night of great, worry-free fucking. Alas. Let there be no unearned pleasure, Gannon.
All he got in return was a long look and the image of Boone saying, slightly hesitantly at first, that he said he'd show him and, well, here he was. The slight overlay of nervousness was, well, sweet. Sweet and charming and attractive, and enough to make Arcade gently place the half empty bottle of vodka on the small table, take a step or two and crouch at the edge of the bed. He wrapped his larger hand over Boone's, fingers tangled together for a few scant moments before Arcade pulled those sharp hips closer to the edge of the bed, said something filthy enough to make Boone laugh and, as the sound of that gravelly, underused chuckle trickled into the damp shack, set about putting his mouth to better use.
---
There was a strange disconnect happening, and Arcade was growing weary of it. The constantly twitching prick in his mouth and mellow tang of precome coating his lips and tongue said he was currently inflicting something exceedingly pleasurable on Boone, but the complete silence and unnatural stillness of his body as a whole said that he wasn't.
When even the combination of a deep swallow topped with a low hum in the back of his throat didn't incite a response – and the last time he'd done that to someone, the resulting buck into his mouth had very nearly incited a sudden and unexpected evacuation of his lunch – he let Boone's prick slip free from his mouth with an audible pop and rocked back onto his heels.
“I'm open to constructive criticism, you know,” he said, indelicately wiping excess spit from the corner of his mouth. “Just as long as you're aware I also make a point of not sucking the dick of a man who doesn't want his dick sucked.”
Boone propped himself up on his elbow, looking as confused as Arcade had ever seen him. “Uh. Why did you stop?”
“Your cock says yes-yes--” he paused for the slightest fraction of a moment and made to take him in hand, but settled instead for resting his hands on his own thighs. “--but the rest of you is saying a very loud no-no.”
Boone just blinked, his throat making a dry clicking sound as he swallowed. Arcade pushed his glasses up far enough to pinch at the bridge of his nose, and let out a deep breath, relaxing the tension that threatened to take over his shoulders.
'I, uh. I'm just.” Boone pressed a palm to his temple, marshalling his words. “I don't really know what to do. With you.” He paused, carefully placing the sentence into order like it was due for military inspection. “I don't know what I should be doing with you when you're doing that.”
A short, strangled laugh issued from Arcade, and he finally made good on his earlier aborted attempt to wrap his fingers around Boone's cock, stroking him fast and hard until that same, iron-strong grip caught his wrist with a warning that he needed to stop right now.
He took a moment to reach blindly backwards, hand grasping wildly until he found the vodka bottle. Arcade unscrewed the cap and took a slug, the oily liquid burning a hot trail down his throat. Boone motioned for him to pass it up and echoed his actions, buying himself a little breathing room as his imminent orgasm subsided.
“Please. I've seen you in panties, there are no more barriers to be breached after that. Remember what I said about touching me like a man?” Arcade questioned, taking the bottle back and carelessly tossing it onto the pile of discarded clothes at the end of the bed. He sat up, close enough that his breath swirled hot over Boone's erection, lips grazing sensitive skin. He caught Boone's hand and yanked cruelly, jerking him forward enough to press his unresisting fingers into the soft hair curling at the nape of Arcade's neck.
“Keep it in mind and put some fucking effort into it for me, alright?” he growled out, and only once those fingers had dug painfully into his neck did he take Boone into his mouth.
---
No one could ever accuse Boone of being talkative, but once given the instruction to loosen up and give his hands freedom to roam across the parts of Arcade he could reach, he was an active participant who, Arcade was pleased to note, erred on the side of aggressive.
He focused his attention on his task, the heel of one palm pressed firmly against his own erection in an effort to at least keep a lid on things, because hell if he wasn't getting so enormously turned on by the constant movement of Boone's hands grabbing and digging at his skin, and he'd had a hard time holding back the incredibly loud moan that threatened to spill over when Boone had dragged blunt nails along his scalp and down along his jaw, crooning in a low voice about how fucking good his mouth felt.
Arcade may normally have preferred being a dominant, driving force in his physical altercations, but damn if the thought of straightlaced, silent, ultra-restrained Boone getting carried away and actually talking, let alone talking dirty, was enough of an influential force to keep him on his knees, albeit temporarily.
He ignored Boone's urgent, panted warning that he couldn't hold back any more, applying more and more pressure and friction until there was a grunt and a choked gasp and the thick alkaline taste of semen flooded his tongue and smeared across his lips. Arcade swallowed reflexively and the extra sensation was enough leave Boone half hunched over, his hand tightly wound in soft blond hair as a cascade of half-spoken curses and compliments dropped from his mouth.
Arcade disentangled himself and discreetly took a sip of vodka, swirling it around his mouth before graciously – as gracious as one can be when you've just sucked off a near stranger in a dank, miserable fishing shack in the middle of nowhere and your own erection is neglected enough to be going from good-painful to painful-painful – spitting it out more or less under the bed.
Boone didn't notice, his arm thrown across his face and his chest rapidly rising and falling as he struggled to get his breath back. Eventually he swore under his breath and half sat up, ruddy faced.
“Jesus,” he said, and blinked owlishly.
“Nope. Just me,” replied Arcade, right away wishing he hadn't defaulted to a joke so old it belonged in a museum. He shuffled a little and made to get up and make his leave. He honestly wasn't expecting anything in return – hoping yes, but expecting no – and quite frankly it was criminal to leave himself untended when he'd just filled his memory banks with enough audio and visual material to masturbate himself into a husk for months to come.
The mattress creaked as Boone leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped between them. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again. “I don't think I can return the favour. It's...” He paused, searching for the right words.
Arcade helpfully finished the sentence off for him. “A bit gay?”
“No. Yes, but not what I meant.” He pressed his thumb against his temple, a sign that Arcade had recently decoded to mean 'I am trying to think of the right words, please do not attempt to assist.' He swallowed. “Learning curve, right? Don't think I can go from nothing to putting a man's dick in my mouth in the space of an hour. Might take some time to work up to that.”
As tempting as it was to immediately pounce on the open-ended prospect of Boone's last sentence, Arcade wisely let it pass. “And?”
“And you probably shouldn't expect much from me. Fuck, you didn't even try to kiss me. But...” He paused again, and Arcade swore he could see the thoughts tumbling around behind Boone's eyes, could see the sentence forming before he could even say it. “Quite like to watch. Watch you. If that's ok.” The words tumbled out like he wanted to get them over and done with before he could redact them.
---
Everyone who knew him socially had always eventually ended up accusing Arcade Gannon of loving an audience, and tonight he supposed he could be accused of loving an audience a little too much. He felt like his skin was on fire, even kneeling here on a dirty wooden floor with his undershirt rucked up and his underwear pushed down to his knees. It was restrictive and uncomfortable and the snarl of cotton prevented him from kicking his knees apart quite wide enough to comfortably stroke and cup himself. Regardless, he arched his back a little and bit his lip, the small bit of his higher functions still coherent and not focused on the need to come now dedicated to noting that Boone inhaled sharply when he did this, that those fingers splayed out on Boone's knee tightened when Arcade swiped his thumb across the head of his prick like that, that he'd leaned forward just a little when Arcade had leaned over enough to spit on himself for lubrication.
A week or two ago in conversation with Veronica he'd flippantly described Boone as two eyes and a bottomless pit of ears, more interested in getting a cheap laugh as he described how Boone lurked around the apartment like an uncommunicative and surly wraith. Here and now though, with all that intense attention focused on Arcade, he felt like he was temporarily the center of a very small world.
“Come here,” he said, and was pleased when Boone slid to the edge of the mattress without hesitation. The temptation to lean forward and press their mouths together was almost too much to resist, but who knew where the limit was tonight? No amount of caution was enough to stop him from wanting to though, and the thought of spilling all his dirty thoughts into that mouth was unbearably tempting. Arcade bit his lip again and slowed a little. Delayed gratification. If this was a once-off, he wanted to spin it out until his nerves jangled and sang.
Boone shuffled a little, trapping Arcade between his knees. He didn't say anything, just sat up a little straighter and rubbed his hand across his unshaven cheek. He made to say something but paused, clearly trapped by indecision. A long moment passed, then another, and finally Boone swallowed and leaned forward once more.
“Don't know if this is right, Gannon,” he said simply, and that ghost-quick flicker of a smile crossed the edge of his mouth. In a movement prefect copy of how Arcade had tangled fingers with him before, he wrapped his hand over Arcade's and slowly set the pace and rhythm on his prick.
Arcade swore. Not an elegant curse or a vulgar spray of a dead tongue, just a base groan that trailed off in a ragged deep breath. He swore again when Boone mimicked his actions over and over again, one hand on the sniper's thigh, fingertips digging into flesh hard enough to blanch white under the force of his hand.
He caught Boone's jaw in a harsh grip, snatching a brief glimpse of eyes heavy-lidded with drink and arousal before he pressed his cheek to Boone's own. It gave him the perfect angle to drop his guard and murmur exactly how it'd drive any man to take a risk like this when his head had been full of fantasies about Boone all day, thoughts of how much he'd like to be the one to lay there and admire the sight of Boone between his knees with a mouth full of Arcade's cock, how he'd like to undress him every day if he always wore those little grey shorts that hugged his dick like that, how he'd been distracted all afternoon by thoughts of getting him off under a bright and unforgiving sun, and and and...
He didn't care about his promises to himself to keep his thoughts to himself, not when Boone impatiently forced Arcade's hand away and pumped his cock with strong, albeit untutored, strokes.
When a terse order to keep talking came from Boone, he poured his thoughts into the waiting air about how good he imagined Boone'd look on his cock, how he'd wrought a fantasy of Boone kneeling over his lap as Arcade wrapped his hands around his hips and pressed into him, how he'd fuck him until he saw stars, how how how ...
The words tumbled out over and over until Arcade released his jaw and pushed Boone's hands away, a heavy breath shuddering from deep within his chest as he spilled himself across the wooden floorboards and the abandoned tangle of those damnable grey panties.
---
Arcade always found dawn somewhat distasteful when viewed from any angle other than 'stayed awake all night', and being shaken from sleep to resentful wakefulness as the sun broached the horizon proved no flaw in his theory. He groaned and pressed his face into his lab coat/pillow, ignoring the twin thuds of his boots being dropped next to the bed and soft footsteps padding across the room.
Boone had been awake for some time, judging by the small fire outside. A saucepan of water was jammed onto the coals, steam gently curling from the surface. Arcade braced his arms against the doorframe and stretched, his shoulders popping loudly as his muscles protested the activity. He really, genuinely wasn't cut out for walking miles across the desert on a whim.
Boone sat crosslegged outside the door, carefully guiding a straight razor across the planes of his face and methodically sluicing away spent stubble with hot water. Arcade thought he could probably do with a shave himself, but he hadn't even thought to bring a razor. He hadn't even thought to pack a spare shirt.
“There's leftover Lakelurk in the fridge,” said Boone, voice faintly muffled as he slid the razor along his cheek.
Ah. It's going to be that kind of morning, thought Arcade. Out loud though, he merely politely refused. Cold Lakelurk was the kind of vile texture a sane man would go miles out of his way to avoid. Reheating it made it even worse.
Boone finished shaving and got to his feet, taking a few short steps to crouch down and wash his face in the bitingly cold water of the lake. He wiped his skin dry on his shirt and Arcade guiltily looked away, not wanting to be caught watching the expanse of stomach Boone was inadvertently revealing. Never mind that he'd seen all of him not a few hours earlier, something here in the cool light of dawn made this felt more personal.
Arcade was perfectly capable of making that kind of a morning even more of that kind of a morning all by himself. He'd never been good at graceful, tactful exits to begin with. Making a smooth exit when you knew you were going to spend the next eight hours walking side by side with the same person, let alone spent an indeterminable amount of time cooped up in a windowless apartment with them was beyond the realm of even the most gracious person, surely.
He blinked, realising that Boone had been trying to get his attention. “Sorry,” he said. “Have rather a lot on my mind this morning.”
Either Boone didn't pick up on his undertone or he chose to ignore it, instead kicking dirt over the coals and telling him to hurry up so they could get moving before the sun turned the landscape into a syrupy hot hell. He was brusque, but, as Arcade thought as he pulled on his now-dry shirt and laced up his boots, Boone was always brusque. He was practically the dictionary definition of the word.
He sighed, chastised himself for acting like a teenage boy about it all and got to his feet, ready to seize the day. Carpe iugulum indeed.
---
They were passing by Camp Golf when Boone fell into step beside him and cleared his throat.
“So,” he said, and paused. True to form he pressed his fingertips to his temple for a few moments and Arcade stayed silent, patiently waiting for whatever words were about to be presented. “Have a question.”
“Shoot,” replied Arcade, neatly making his way over a crop of boulders, his long legs and light pack making short work of the stones. Boone, restricted by the weight of the anti-materiel rifle, took the long way round and emerged a minute later with mud caking his boots.
“What you said before. Last night. About...”
“About wanting to fuck you?” Arcade baldly said, a tiny dark part of him enjoying the almost imperceptible flinch that earned.
“That and everything else. You mean that?”
Arcade took the sensible, adult option and merely shrugged. “Things said in the heat of the moment usually have a grain of truth to them.” He paused, and when no reply was forthcoming, decided to take a flying leap into the unknown. “Is that going to be an issue?”
There was a long silence, long enough that Arcade thought maybe he didn't hear him. He was about to repeat his answer when Boone cleared his throat yet again.
“Probably not. Just given me more to think about, I guess.”
“I am a thought provoking man,” muttered Arcade, and was surprised to hear that rare gravelly laugh out here in the morning air and not through the fog of vodka. He gave Boone a sideways look and was even more startled to see him almost smiling.
“So,” said Boone. “Gonna teach me to shoot that little toy gun of yours any time soon?”
---
You will be gratified to know that Craig Boone is a terrible shot with a plasma pistol.