#fofics

[fellowshipofthefics]

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[sabraefics]

Prompt: Beginning

Pairing: (pre) Blaise & MacCready -----

“Didn’t know you were gonna be dragging me up against so many of these ugly sons of bit..er, these ugly brutes.” MacCready remarks, nose wrinkling a little as he kicks at the bloody, fleshy chunks at his feet (which was all that remained of the Super Mutant Suicider he’d blown up with a well-aimed shot to the creature's mini Nuke). “Startin’ to think I should’ve charged you more.”

Blaise doesn’t respond at first, instead kneeling beside the corpse of another fallen Super Mutant to search through the shallow pockets of the creature’s worn scraps of clothing. He doesn’t seem to find much beyond a few more stray bullets for his rifle, which was pretty much all that MacCready had found too, but that was better than nothing. He watches as Blaise pockets the ammo and wipes a few beads of sweat from his brow before turning to face him. “I told you we’d be going through the Commons, MacCready.”

“Yeah, but when you said that I didn’t think you were actually dumb enough to go through with it.” MacCready huffs, drawing back a little sheepishly when Blaise frowns, one of his dark eyebrows lifting. “I mean, most folks around here know to avoid the commons unless you like Mutants, Ferals, and Raiders comin’ at you from all sides.”

“Well then, we just made this street a little safer for the next person to come along.” Blaise says, his mouth quirking up into a slight smile, and it takes everything MacCready has to not roll his eyes.

Blaise was turning out to be an.. unexpected encounter to say the least. MacCready rarely knew what kind of boss he’d be getting when he took on these independent contracts, but ‘Vault-Dwelling Do-Gooder’ was probably the last person he’d expected to hire him. He doesn’t get it either – if he was the one who’d woken up to find that centuries had passed and he’d been dropped into some violent, irradiated hellhole, he would’ve just gone right back into that icebox or ran towards the horizon until his legs gave out.

But instead, Blaise seemed to make it his mission – or rather, their mission - to help everyone they came across, from fetching trivial items to cleaning out Feral nests. Sure, MacCready understood the need for caps better than most, but half the time Blaise turned the caps down, taking people’s gratitude as payment instead. It was baffling and infuriating, making MacCready want to tear his hair out every time Blaise politely rejected another hefty payment, but another, much smaller part of MacCready thought it was actually a little refreshing. Admirable, even.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever met someone like Blaise, who worked tirelessly to help others. The guy built homes and beds for complete strangers, planted food for them, gave them electricity and running water, and whenever someone was bold enough to ask why he gave so much for so little in return, Blaise would just smile back at them. “It’s the right thing to do,” he’d say, shrugging one shoulder and sounding like he genuinely thought it was that simple.

Maybe it was, for someone like him, but MacCready can’t help but wonder when all this kindness was going to be slapped back into his face. The Commonwealth could be a cruel place, especially to the soft-hearted ones..

“You ready to move on?” Blaise suddenly asks, drawing MacCready from his thoughts. He looks over to see the blond man watching him, rifle held loosely in his hands and that familiar, crooked smile on his face. “I’m hoping to reach the Taffington Boathouse before the sun goes down, get that old water pump of theirs working again.”

“You’re somethin’ else, boss.” MacCready remarks with a shake of his head, but his tone is light. He takes a moment to settle a cigarette into his mouth, muttering a quiet thanks around it when Blaise almost immediately offers him an old flip lighter. Blaise was a strange guy indeed, but MacCready definitely felt that this would be the beginning of an interesting relationship.

Now if only he could convince his new boss to just take the damn caps once in a while.

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