Summary: Post-LR dialogue has an unexpected effect on the Courier. 2514 words of gen, angst, flashbacks and trying to figure things out. TW: mentions of suicidal ideation
The words hit him like a truck, mercilessly tearing apart wounds he wasn’t even aware existed, buried deep within his mind - much like his body was supposed to be buried in the Mojave ground. Long forgotten aches from an infinitely distant past came rushing in, bringing chaos and pain into Courier’s mind, making him remember… while still leaving many questions unanswered. He remembered the how, he remembered the pain. Who, when and where - he did not.
Suddenly Ulysses’ actions made a lot more sense. All the antagonizing - of the factions, of Ian and even of himself, - all the puzzling ‘ending to things’ talks, his plan to flood the missile silo with Marked Men in case of Courier’s victory…
“It’s not right to be so careless towards your life.”
The words left Ian’s mouth before he could think them over, driven out by a wave of emotions too powerful to control. Ulysses could not see his face under the riot gear helmet, just as Ian could not read the other’s expression, hidden under the gas mask. Still, he turned to him, his voice quivering with feelings he was not able to identify, his face pale under the expressionless metal:
“You…” He turned away briefly, facing towards the howling abyss beneath them, and slowly sat down clutching to the ground as his only support, the strength leaving his knees. “Don’t you… ever say things like that to anyone. Especially someone- someone who fucking tried to help you. Despite you making the greatest effort to become their arch enemy.” Ian took a sharp, trembling breath - suddenly there wasn’t enough air, so he took off the helmet and held it on his knees, his knuckles bleached white from strain.
“You failed to help them, and they died. Died trying to become someone those arrogant pricks would accept. They DIED because you were not careful enough.”
He swallowed and tried to compose himself, his chest burning deep from inside, his mind bombarding him with new memories, each even vaguer and more painful than the last. He wasn’t gonna lose it, not in front of the man he barely talked out of bombing the Mojave a few weeks ago. Couldn’t afford to.
The pause lingered for what seemed both like hours and an instant, until Ian spoke, his voice still cramped and shaking. He felt like he was being turned inside out.
“That’s fucking suicide, Ulysses. Not as in ‘very dangerous’, as in ‘suicide’, alright?” He turned towards him again, his voice laced with anger and pain. “Whatever happened to that promise you told me about? ‘Courier shall not kill Courier’, wasn’t that so? Why do you think it shouldn’t apply to you and yourself?”
He paused again, biting his lips, and turned away, conflicted by his sudden outburst and struggling to contain everything that his mind poured at him out of nowhere. Then he heard a response, the other Courier’s voice heavy as the world itself, almost making him flinch:
“Walked my road, this is the end of it. Thought you acknowledged it - all these times you came back here. What’s different now?”
Ian clutched his helmet in his hands for a moment before looking up at Ulysses again, his movements just a little shakier than he would like to admit.
“Look. Literally, look.” He nodded at the Ulysses’ arms - veins sticking out, fingernails bearing an unhealthy blue tint. “Does that look normal? No, no it doesn’t. Did you think I wouldn’t notice this place is taking a hell of a toll on you? Stimpacks and RadAway won’t save you from that. Maybe an Auto-Doc will, but, ironically, the only one you have left around after the main silo went to shit is guarded by tunnellers. Yeah, sure, you took some down, I turned a dozen into goo piles, but what does a dozen mean to them? Nothing, you and me both know that.”
He sat stiff and unmoving for a moment before reaching into his inner pocket, taking out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, lighting one and taking a long drag, long enough for his chest to tighten. The two stared in the abyss in silence, bitterness lingering in the air.
‘Damn, all this nerve-wrecking stuff ain’t gonna do me any good at all…’ Ian let out a bitter laugh, exhaling the smoke and watching it get carried away by the wind. This had to be the most emotionally draining day he’s had since their first meeting in the silo. Since Eddie… Ian took another drag.
///
He couldn’t bring himself to treat the remains of a being with consciousness as scrap metal, but something in him was revolting against the idea of burying them. After the dust had settled, he returned to the ruins of the silo. He gathered as much as he could find in the ruins and then let the repair eyebots slowly take away the broken parts and process them, keeping parts of the Divide alive. It didn’t ease the pain, not for a second, but in the end it just felt like something Eddie would have wanted - mend and help, even after he couldn’t function anymore.
///
‘First i bring together a settlement, then destroy it, and now my brain has stitches and the only being I remember mourning is an Eyebot. Great.’
“Don’t you look at me like that, you aren’t much better”, he said dismissively at the look of disapproval he received from the other Courier. “Or did you think I don’t know about those little stashes in all your hideouts?”
He turned away hiding the wince at his own bitter remark, late regret for his words slowly dissolving in his troubled mind. His venom did not reach Ulysses, however, who countered Ian’s words peacefully:
“Needed them when this place was still unknown and dangerous - to survive, not forget myself. Those gather dust now. Unlike yours - weaker, but not any less deadly.”
Somehow this didn’t seem judgemental - rather a fact stated than an opinion shared.
Ian watched the smoke whirl and disappear, the cigarette smoldering slowly in his hand. Just like his heart, he thought - filling his soul with smoke more deadly than the radioactive winds of Hopeville, tugging at him like it was a boulder, tied to his neck and suffocating him.
“I…”
He wanted to apologise, wanted to explain what he felt, but the words kept getting stuck in his throat, only making it more painful. He bit his lip, roaming his eyes around and trying to find proper phrasing to the mess in his head before noticing something warm run down his chin. He muttered a quiet curse, wiping the streak of blood off of his face and licking the wound. Great.
///
He’d been visiting Ulysses for a while now. Bringing news, occasional ‘Mojave’s gifts’ and his company to the Divide, he felt like the sharp ends were slowly smoothing out, bringing both men comfort in their talks. They visited the Courier’s Mile together once or twice, doing more looking around and shooting than talking there but still bonding - in a certain, unique way only places as dangerous as that could provide. For perhaps the first time since the bullet Ian could say he had a friend. There were travel companions - Cass and her father’s caravan, Veronica and her Brotherhood chapter, Boone and his kidnapped wife… Still, he wasn’t close with any of them. They helped each other with their business and parted ways - nothing more than that. Ulysses was a whole different deal. The two had a lot in common - and a lot of diametric opposite differences. East and West, loyalty to the Bull and loyalty to no one, one birthplace destroyed and another forgotten. Yet at the same time they walked all the same roads, saw the same wars and strived to reach the same goal… Probably. There was little possibility there was anyone alive to say for sure, but, well, that’s something Ian would like to believe.
///
A minute and another few drags after Ian sighed, breaking the silence between the two.
“I’m sorry about that. Your words… they reminded me of someone I lost long ago. I was wrong to lash out at you. I’m just…” Feeling incredibly guilty because I can’t even remember the name of the person who died because of my carelessness, his conscience prompted derisively, but he tried to ignore it - he owed Ulysses an apology, not a damn emotional vent. Ian took another drag and brushed through his hair, trying to find comfort and escape in the familiarity of physical sensations. “I don’t think I’ll be able to- to endure someone else being gone because of my ignorance or because I didn’t help them when it was most needed. Even though you did and said all that shit, even though I had to let Eddie… prevent another Day When The Bombs Fell… You might as well be the only one who can tell me something, anything from before I got sucked into all this stupid Chip business. You carry history - yours, your tribe’s, Old World history… And my history too, some of it. Call it selfish, but… I need you if I want to figure out who I was.”
Ian put out the cigarette and took a few seconds to examine the cigarette butt before flicking it into the abyss and watching it fall.
“Besides… Your words - and your looks, if we’re being honest - tell me the Mojave fucked you up real bad, maybe worse than me. So just let me tell you something.”
He turned to Ulysses, his frowned gaze seeking to find at least a glimpse of understanding in his eyes.
“You really don’t need to leave your wounds to rot and kill you - no one needs to. You… No one deserves that. Let yourself let go of what happened here. Or else your mind will kill you, and it’ll feel worse than anything here.”
Ulysses’s expression was unreadable from under the mask, his eyes unmoving. They were deep brown, almost black at the first glance - an ironic opposite to Ian’s ‘old blue blanket with coffee stains’ colour, as he jokingly called it. Ian wondered if he’d gone too far, touched on a subject Ulysses wasn’t ready to talk about. Maybe it was just too high-handed of him, to give advice to the very man whose hope for the better had been torn apart by his actions?
The Courier looked away, feeling his counterpart’s gaze on him and pondering if he fucked up to the point beyond restoring - just like he did in this place, just like… back before the shot.
After some time Ulysses spoke. There was no disdain in his voice, no anger or disappointment, nothing Ian feared to hear. Quite the contrary - there was warmth in his voice, along with seeping sadness:
“You are a kindness. Might not do you the best of services, but you must have your reasons. Still, didn’t know you were…” He took a few seconds to find the right words. “This willing to help anyone you meet.”
“Just thoughts out loud… Nothing special. And you know damn well you aren’t ‘anyone’. But then again, looking back at everything that happened, you’re probably right”, Courier muttered, a tired smile making its way through his frown.
“Wonder what that means for you… ‘not anyone’”, Ulysses said, quieter, his eyes squinting a little.
Having just barely calmed himself down, Ian took a second to realise that his heart skipped a beat at that remark. Was it really that difficult for him to admit to Ulysses he mattered something to him? Or was it too troublesome to speak about the absolute trainwreck that were his emotions?
“Means… I dunno? I- You’re, like, fa- no, a frie?.. Urgh, whatever.” Ian shook his head, frustrated with his own inability to express himself, his words starting to rush more and more as his unexplainable nervousness increased. “I don’t wanna give it a name. Look, man, my head is… a goddamn mess right now. And you’re asking pretty difficult questions right here, okay? You're… the closest I’ve known someone since the bullet - hell, with the Divide being what it is, maybe ever! You almost nuked the Mojave, yet… yet you’re not… bad? You were hurt and you didn’t know how to deal with that, so I guess you thought that inflicting equal pain on others would ease it. I get how that feels and, y’know, that’s not something I’ll be judging you for, bu…”
Ulysses sighed and raised his hand to sign a pause, intercepting him calmly:
“No need to explain yourself. Got your point… Might ask about that later, when you’re more prepared.”
He put his hand back on his knee and watched the storms raging below, the distant howls of the desolated streets singing for the dead. Ian traced his gaze, watching the ever so little figures of the Marked Men go about their un-life, the red lights above their heads slowly blinking, sending a message to a recipient long gone. It somehow felt peaceful - being nothing more than a guest, a spectator who was allowed for some reason to watch as this Old World cradle was lulling its giants endlessly, keeping them quiet and asleep.
***
“Ever thought of leaving? Not permanently, just for some time. Take the time off, y’know?”
“Maybe. Not that it matters. Need to be here.”
Ian sighed, adjusting his posture so that he was facing Ulysses:
“Don’t you think you’ve had your fair share of notes and reminders already? You won’t change the past by making yourself look at the aftermath, and you certainly won’t shape a future that way. I don’t really know if I’m in any position to give you advice, but if I were to do that, I’d suggest we venture out for a bit. None of that big boy business and deciding the fate of the Mojave or whatever, I know you wouldn’t be interested, and, honestly, I’m getting quite tired of people expecting that from me too. But there are people who could use my help - our help. For one, I’ve picked up a distress signal coming from Black Mountain one day. There’s a pack of deathclaws south of Junction 15 blocking the way, but I think it’s still worth investigating…”
Ulysses turned slightly towards him, raising his eyebrow.
“And why are you so sure I will agree?”
“Come on. You’ve been sitting in this place for weeks, if not months before me - you need a breather, whether you admit it or not. Besides, you’re a Courier too - travel is in your nature just as much as it is in mine. Or am I wrong on that?”
Ulysses took a pause, visibly unsure what to say.
“…No.”
Ian smirked derisively and got up, stretching out and watching the sky slowly clear up, the ill yellowness of the clouds slowly giving way to the clarity of cyan skies.
“Then let our little trip to the Mojave begin. Gather what you need, I’ll wait for you.”
