Chapter Text
The sweltering heat of the Mojave is often ruthless, rarely bearable and never truly gone. In caves it’s escapable temporarily, in the current of the Colorado too. Nights are cold, but the sun comes back each morning, white and hot and angry. It looks like she takes up the whole sky sometimes, bright like Nuka Cola Quantum, bright like radiation.
Arcade knows this all too well, spending most of his days in the stuffy air under the sad, grey fabric of the Followers’ tents. It’s better for him than standing out in the sun would be – he’s read about skin cancer and would like to avoid it if he can, not to mention his skin burns as quickly as a fire ant colony burns down a town – but his lungs don’t take it well.
Even now, he coughs dryly into his sleeve, half the desert in his throat. He’s sticky under his coat with the summer in full swing, and a headache is brewing somewhere behind his forehead, tugging at his tired eyes. It’s not the season for exhaustion and yet..
Silently, he mashes a mutfruit to bits for his experiments. Loudly, the noises of Freeside boom through the thick walls of the Old Mormon Fort. Yelling and running, the laughter of children. A smile tugs at Arcade’s lips despite it all.
It almost doesn’t matter that it’s futile, his attempt at medicine. He feels like he’s tried it all already, his scribbled down notes spanning pages and pages of failure. Still, he continues. Maybe because it keeps him occupied, maybe so Julie doesn’t have to think about what to make him do instead. Nevermind she seems to still have hope in these fruit(hah)less experiments.
“Hey, Arcade”, a familiar voice calls to him then, makes his head raise from his work. A welcome distraction, that courier. Still, Arcade’s smile hurriedly hides behind a neutral expression.
“Back already?”, he asks, facing Six - all matted hair under the black Desperado cowboy hat he’s been sporting ever since they’d met, that same dusty leather armor. The only addition to his battered look are the fresh strips of meat slung over his shoulder, drying in the sun. Six’s face well-worn and weary, his eyes adjusting to the dim light in the tent. The brownish black of them, the shadows swimming around his pupils, they’re unreadable no matter what.
“Sounds an awful lot like you want me gone, Arcade”, he says, brows raised and mouth pulled into a frown. Huh. Lips chapped and cut. The Mojave has drained them, has parched not only the meat, but also the man it lay upon.
Arcade offers his bottle of water. Out of instinct, probably. Just not one of survival.
“What do you have there?”, he asks, nodding his chin to the goods hanging off of Six.
The courier grabs the bottle wordlessly, but doesn’t drink his fill. Only half, never more. Anyone else would’ve chugged it all. Arcade takes it back and fiddles helplessly with the label on the glass.
Six simply breathes for a second, gaze already clearer. “Legionaries. Got in my way n’ I chopped ‘em up. Next stew will be hearty.”
Arcade rolls his eyes, he thinks he knows this game. “Alright then, keep your secrets.”
Seconds pass. Six furrows his brows in feigned confusion. Arcade almost believes that this time he’s really lost it. Then, finally. A shit-eating grin flashes over Six’s features, he shoves Arcade with enough force to shake him.
“Gecko meat.” Six looks back at it. “Special delivery for your boss. Doesn’t pay well. Doesn’t pay at all, actually. But she’s cute, so I can’t refuse her, can I?”
Arcade grimaces. “She doesn’t like you like that”, he feels the need to clarify. For Julie’s sake. He’s still not over Six’s switch ups. Always something unruly, something untethered in his ways.
Six nods gravely – “Tragic.” – before a sweet sort of smile replaces his mock-earnesty. “I’m just pullin’ your leg, man. I love her but not like that.” He looks around, as if sharing a secret. “Found some recipes, no idea how useful. That brain of yours might make something of it. Mine certainly can’t – had a bullet in it.”
With ease, Six drops a few notes of various sizes and levels of destruction onto the cramped, crowded desk in front of Arcade. That the mutfruit bits immediately stain half of them purple seems lost on him as he turns on his heel in a beeline towards Julie. Arcade heaves a breath, a sigh almost painful, and picks them out of the mess with pointed fingers.
They do turn out useful. Arcade almost believes Six knew they would.
Stew’s good. Filling. Arcade didn’t peg Six as someone to care for a community, perhaps because he likes to keep his expectations low. But Six is reckless, unpredictable. Usually works for money or for beer. Arcade wants to figure him out, wants to dissect him. Not to mention Arcade’s been lonely for years now, and it's simple to like a man that comes along and shoots smiles at him instead of bullets. A little pathetic, perhaps, but Arcade doesn’t mind.
He’s long known his affections for men, and he’s over being embarrassed by it. The Follower’s don’t care either way, and most other wastelanders find that a doctor’s too good to be shot, so it rarely comes up these days.
Six is good-looking too, a little shorter than Arcade, but well-fed and agile. Scarred some places, freckled others. Tanned, brown skin that’s made for the wastes, that clings to his flesh with purpose. Kinda unfair, the way his hair frames his face, black like a rad-scorpion’s shiny shell. He must know he looks pretty, rolling into the Old Mormon Fort after fixing their water supply issue, just like that.
Arcade nips at his glass, the purified water a much appreciated indulgence after all the troubles of the day. He watches the world around him, the addicts and the gamblers sleeping out their respective highs. Julie reading over his notes for the day, a few of the doctors playing cards. It’s the night that gets busy, same as the morning. Injuries piling up like empty syringes, meds and chems alike. Before sunset they usually still have a little peace.
Six slinking over to him is hard to miss, the courier’s body framed by the lights of the Lucky 38 and these kinds of evening visits surprisingly common for his stays in Freeside. It’s become a habit. A habit Arcade regards with... curiosity.
“How’s work?”, Six asks, gambling for something. He always is.
Arcade watches him, uncertain.
“Your notes were.. helpful”, he tries. “Where’d you get them from?”
Six’s brows shoot up, his smile is forthcoming, coaxing.
“Friends”, he supplies unhelpfully. “Anything else? Or is that all you do, working on the things I bring around?”
Arcade levels him a look, but generously decides not to be pissy. “It’s fine. I don’t work with patients, remember? I don’t get the worst of it.”
Six turns thoughtful at that, though maybe it is just a charade. Maybe he’s planned for this. Arcade can never be sure, can never be trusting. It’s an annoying side effect of his past, of his own secrets reminding him that anyone could keep from him what he keeps from them.
“You look like you need a day off anyway”, Six says playfully, like he doesn’t even read the hidden insult in his words. Or perhaps exactly because of that. “What do you think? Tomorrow, same time? Freeside’s finest?”
Arcade’s mind is processing, slowly, surely, gears turning and turning until any possible meaning is ground to bits before his intellect.
“And Freeside’s finest would be..?”, he asks, trying for clues, only sounding a little stuck up.
Six laughs it off. “The Atomic Wrangler.”
Arcade makes a face at that, halfway between confusion and lack of enthusiasm. The Atomic Wrangler is.. fine, as far as Arcade’s standards go. Dirty and dingy. Cramped. There’s talk sometimes, but rarely trouble if you keep to yourself. It’s cheap and local. The Wrangler’s not really the problem.
Six inviting him out on a drink is.
Arcade’s mouth opens, then closes again. It’s not often that he’s rendered speechless, but this is the kind of choice that paralyses him, the unknown. Is this a.. friendly invitation or a friendly one – the kind that gets NCR soldiers bullied out of their uniform?
“Don’t worry.” Six grins. “I’ve helped them out enough that the beer they serve me and my.. companions doesn’t taste like piss.”
The way he says companions is.. Exhilarating. Makes Arcade feel like he isn’t reading too much into the request. Huh. Fascinating.
“You want to buy me a beer?”, he asks, probably sounding far too intrigued for his attempt at sass. His eyes narrow behind the black frames of his glasses, staring openly, questioningly at Six’s lazy smile. It’s not what Six said he would do. It is, however, a possibility Arcade can’t not explore.
“You’d let me?”, the courier asks in return, smooth and simple. Frictionless. Six is made for that, Arcade thinks, charismatic and quick on his feet. How the man walks between warring factions and broken people and doesn’t get shot (a second time) is still lost on him, but he sees how Six might achieve such a thing.
Unlike Arcade, Six can keep his mouth shut sometimes. Lies without shame too, charms himself behind any barbed wire fence and into any bed.
“Hm”, the doctor hums, aiming for nonchalant. “Maybe.”
Six watches him, curious. He’s perceptive. Not that he knows what to do with the things he sees half the time, but he does see them.
“Can you really refuse something free from a friend?”, he asks. It doesn’t sound smug, more like an inquiry. “No strings attached”, he adds casually. Arcade doesn’t believe Six is still talking about the beer.
He raises an eyebrow, curiosity pawing at him, breaking him down. A new experiment, another factor. The truth is rarely simple, something free is rarely free. But would he be a scientist if he didn’t try and figure it out, this riddle?
“Audentes fortuna iuvat”, he mumbles to himself. Fortune favours the bold. There’s no harm in letting a pretty man take him out, even if it turns out to be just friendly in the end. It’s not like he’s needed here anyway, his ‘research’ can be postponed.
“Right. Okay”, he says. “Atomic Wrangler. Tomorrow. I can do that.”
Six is beaming as if he’s won the lottery. Arcade pointedly looks away.
Six waits for Arcade at the gate of the Old Mormon Fort. Arms crossed, leg propped up against the wall. He’s washed his hair somewhere, the wavy length of it in a simple braid falling over his shoulder from underneath the leather of his cowboy hat. His armour is as dusty as yesterday, as months ago. His mud-caked boots only don’t leave stains on the bricks because the layers of soil have dried out over time. Still he looks good, like he belongs there. Like he could stand there for eons and eons and never stick out.
Arcade on the other hand feels like he’s baking in his lab coat, hands sweaty, glasses stained. The sun still hasn’t disappeared behind the horizon and he’s had his hands full in ways he hadn’t anticipated today, feels scattered in a thousand tiny pieces, each thought in his head’s a blip before it’s gone.
He almost doesn’t see Six. Almost.
They make eye contact over the handful of metres that separate them, a soft little smile playing around Six’s full lips, solely broken up by the scar that strikes down the left side of his mouth. He’s got an awfully close run-in with a radscorpion to thank for that, and his luck to thank for making it out of the ordeal alive. Though if Arcade had anything to say in the matter he would suggest his sewing skills might’ve also had an impact on how well the cut has healed.
Either way, Six’s face is electric. Arcade’s stomach twists in the sour pleasure of being watched, the high brow pride of being worthy of it, mixed with the quiet horror of it all. It used to alarm him, being seen, but it's not rare for shame to ferment, to turn sweet.
He revels in it now, when he can. There's something comforting in it, something familiar. The honest sting of desire, the fearful pain of being seen as wrong or broken, a traitor or a freak. Playing with shame is easier than overcoming it, and it’s a feeling that turns even sweeter the longer he keeps it an embarrassing little secret.
Wiping his hands on his coat, He makes himself known to Six with a brief wave, then disappears into his tent to put away whatever he doesn’t need to bring to the Atomic Wrangler. There’s no need for his stethoscope, for example. The extra stimpaks he carries would only come in handy in case of a bar fight, and the tent pegs (rusted into near-non-existence) he’d been replacing today get thrown into a corner where they will likely rust into actual non-existence.
Briefly he cleans himself up, ridding himself of most of the sweat and grime on his face and hands at least, then reemerges out of the tent. He turns to tell Julie where he’s going, and she blesses his departure with a short nod. It’s not uncaring in its simplicity, rather it is silently supportive. There is love in nonchalance for Julie. There is love in trust.
Arcade thanks her quickly, being superficially polite. He hopes somehow his genuine, unbridled appreciation of all her work and acceptance swings in his cadence, follows the sound.
“What's up?”, he greets as he approaches Six. A stupid thing to say, really. He remembers what they have planned. It’s just a bit of fun though. And it's much better than letting show precisely how intriguing he finds this.
Six doesn't seem to mind either way, conveniently ignoring Arcade has said anything at all.
“Ready?” His eyes sweep over Arcade with open confidence.
Arcade’s face twitches, his hands are sweaty in his pockets. It’s because it's summer, he tells himself.
He wants to ask something insecure, something too submissive for his own good. Wants to ask if he looks presentable enough, if it’s fine that the sun has ruined him for the day. If this invitation is truly friendly though, that’s a question best left unspoken.
Not to mention Six is young, younger than Arcade anyway, and the doctor would feel ridiculous to appoint Six judge of his appearance. They’re not going anywhere special either, no reservations for the Ultra-Luxe are clutched in Six’s hands. A suit and tie is neither an expectation nor the appropriate dress for the Atomic Wrangler, which sees harnesses and rags and down to earth flannels on a regular basis and notes no difference in them all.
Composing himself, Arcade simply nods.