Request (Anonymous): How Vulpes realizes and accepts that he's falling for the Courier.
When Vulpes Inculta begins to fall for you, he mistakes it for anger. He mistakes it for a need of vengeance, a taste for blood. He has long convinced himself that is what he's a companion for anyway--when you killed Caesar and decimated the Legion camp, you had spared him, had refused to kill him for one reason or another. Vulpes had seen this as a weakness, but he was also terrified of what would await him under the new leadership of Legate Lanius once the man arrived; with the death of Casear, the new leader's rage would be unbridled. Lanius already had a disdain for Vulpes, and the Frumentarii knew that well--Caesar was the only man Vulpes trusted not to kill him outright and for that, Vulpes joined you. He didn't bother to claim his desire for reformation either--you simply took him in, likely knowing fully well that it was all the same as letting a rattlesnake in your home. Vulpes thought you a fool and himself as the rightful hand of anger for Caesar's post-mortem wrath, of course, figuring that the hand of fate had given you a lapse of judgement--or perhaps you were simply stupider than he had been led to assume by your actions. Every time that Vulpes decided to kill you, he would later decide against it. No, it wasn't the right time, wasn't the right place. There were either too many people or perhaps he figured there was still useful information to be gained from you. That was how the Legion saw people, after all. Their worth as a resource, their lives a number in the greater plans of conquest. Vulpes was not unfamiliar with this culture of cold hearts and merciless notions, he was a child of the Legion--there was no such thing as care or comfort, only victory and pride. There was no kindness without ulterior motives, no compassion without corruption. He didn't understand you. Vulpes saw your deeds across the Mojave saw how you treated others, how you fought for the weak, how you.... How you spared him. Took Vulpes in to your ragtag family of degenerates and filth, how you disregarded every notion of danger with him in your fold. Vulpes was one of Caesar's most prized Frumentarii, and yet....you offered him the taboo of mercy. The nonexistent gift of kindness. Vulpes had long thought that his thoughts of you were fueled only by hatred and a need for revenge, but as time continued to flow, it became clear those true feelings were simply misunderstood guilt. Care. Compassion. With so many years of Legion ideals forced into him, Vulpes has one hell of a time filtering through his feelings for you--most of them are not spoken, but communicated through action alone. How he begins to protect you, how he begins to open up to the idea of the NCR, how he sees a true beauty in a land without slavery, without a cold, uncaring heart of a man who saw himself akin to a god. That's when Vulpes realized he's in love with you.
