[fic] Handyman (Preston/Sturges)
Happy Holidays!
Here’s @tommytonebender ‘s submission for @sakom75 with Preston and Sturges!
Pairing: Preston/Sturges Summary: Written for the following prompt: “I'd love winter in the Commonwealth, any of the pairings below being sweet and staying warm, maybe comforting each other? I give you artistic license to interpret this as you see fit” Work Count: 1,793 Rating: Safe For Work
Life was a series of adjustments for Preston. Always had been. Since childhood, since joining the Minutemen, since the collapse and then revival and... well, he didn’t foresee himself here of all places. Just over a month since a Vault Dweller unstuck in time rescued them from Concord and invited them back to their burnt-out suburb. Carefully laid plans had folded, but unexpected ones rose in their absence. Reclaiming the Castle was once a far off fairytale that now could easily come to fruition. After all, stranger things had happened right in front of his eyes. Til then, he was here, shivering. Staring across a river, winter holidays celebrated and their warmth seemingly millions of miles behind him. Night watch was a lonely place, a sea of pitch over the ruins of past civilization. A glorified graveyard filled with things that went bump in the night, sometimes with eviscerating claws and teeth, and even cannibals wielding RPGs. It could be challenging to keep one’s wits, not to let your mind succumb to the anxieties and inner demons that arose from playing chicken with the void. But most nights good ole Sturges was still up. Rattling around the neighborhood like a ghost with unfinished business, and as if the benefits of sleeping were lost on him. He maintained the cause was insomnia, but Preston couldn’t help speculating if the handyman was keeping one eye on him. Preston had once made the mistake of having a few too many sips of whiskey and maybe confessing a dark thought or two. He was grown, a leader of sorts, he didn’t need to be watched. It was almost-- “Evenin’” greeted the familiar drawl. Preston promptly glanced to his side and saw Sturges smiling at him with a log hoisted over his shoulder. In the act of consciously ignoring his presence, Sturges had somehow snuck up on him.
“Hey,” Preston said.
“You doin’ alright out here?”
Suspicions possibly confirmed. “Fine. But a little cold.”
“Yeah, thought you might need some stokin’,” Sturges said, setting the log down. “Your fire, I mean.”
“Of-- sure,” Preston said clumsily.
OK, there was another thing regarding Sturges that Preston resisted admitting, even to himself. He was... a piece of chiseled perfection. Not exactly what Preston had ever considered his type, or found so eye catching as he did now, but the man at work was more hypnotizing than watching a sunset. He attempted to explain it away as being the byproduct of shared trauma but, well, this wasn’t his first tango with events that scar you for life and Christ, look at him; it’s effortless, like cutting through butter.
“There... that should hold us for a while,” Sturges said, neatly piling the wood. He lifted his arms and stretched, bare skin exposed from under his t-shirt, glistening just the slightest in the glow of the campfire. Preston's eyes tracked the man’s faded tattoos, morphing and changing as they moved along his muscles. The mesmerizing display slowed and then, to his chagrin, came to a halt.
Shit.
Preston’s gaze flew up to meet the handyman’s. Sturges raised his brow as if waiting for a confession.
“How can you walk around like that?” Preston said sheepishly, deflecting the situation.
“Hmm?”
“Like there's no chill in the air. I've got three layers and a scarf and I'm still frozen to the damn bone.”
Sturges gave a hearty chuckle that made Preston feel a burst of happiness. “Well, even if I couldn't stand the cold, I don't have much of a choice.”
The group had left Quincy only with the clothes on their backs and whatever rations they could grab. They were slow to pick up the pieces, Sturges especially becoming so immersed in distractions, presumably to deal with the loss.
“Guess not.” Preston’s leg was shaking with nerves, and he prayed if the other man noticed he’d merely write it off as a side-effect of the weather and not… Sturges himself.
Preston blew between his hands and rubbed them together.
“Guess you don't have gloves either, huh?” Sturges asked.
“Ha, haven’t found time to go shopping yet.”
Sturges took a few steps, then kneeled before Preston, like a knight pledging allegiance to his lord. Before Preston could react or even process what was happening, Sturges’ calloused hands enveloped his own.
“Hoo, no kiddin’,” he said, in the same tone as if he were diagnosing a plumbing problem. “These suckers are as clammy as death-- no offense.”
Preston let out a strangled laugh, half flustered by the touch and embarrassed that his crush found his hands to feel unpleasant. Now he was really trembling.
“Probably circulation based, huh?” Sturges asked.
“Probably,” Preston replied, cursing his voice for wavering in such a way.
“Do you get cold at night too?” Sturges inquired, massaging his frozen palms. “I mean, when you’re tryin’ to sleep?”
“Yes,” Preston breathed.
Sturges seemed so casual about it, and practically unaware that he was a great buff slab of handsome behind a pair of thick frames. Preston had never been one to make the first move, in fact he repeatedly waited til it was too late and cursed his inability, but Sturges made it look so easy-- and thank God he took the initiative. Or else Preston would be staring, longing, forever... and with much colder fingers.
“Who's got next shift?” Sturges asked.
“Uh-- it’s uh-- Jun...”
“How long til?”
“Another half hour, maybe,” he replied, uncertain why Sturges was so curious.
Sturges made a contemplative noise. His fingers slipped away as he stood up. “Well, I got a few things to, do but I’m gettin’ mighty sleepy, which is rare for me, y’know.” Preston nodded. “Gonna... finish things off and then hit the hay. If your bed’s too cold, you know where to find mine.”
All words got caught in Preston’s throat. He gaped for a moment, trying to force out a sound. All he produced was a strained “mmhmm”. Sturges smiled, apparently satisfied, then wandered back into the darkness.
---
Preston waited for a sign of life, or rather of consciousness, holding his breath and listening for Sturges’ own. A bulky form could be seen in the bed, wrapped in a quilt. Preston raised his knuckles to wrap on the doorframe-- then Sturges turned over.
“Well... howdy,” he said, his voice thick, possibly with sleep. “You’re quiet as a mouse, huh? Wasn’t sure if you’d show.”
“I went back to get bed clothes. Is... Is that OK?” Preston wasn’t entirely sure what connotations the bedroom invitation contained.
“Yeah. Now it’s a proper sleepover. Wouldn’t want you to wrinkle up your dashing uniform, now.”
Every word, every move made things clearer; reciprocation. And somehow that was more harrowing than rejection.
“C’mon,” Sturges said, sitting up to shake out the blanket. “I warmed it up for ya.”
He could tell Sturges was shirtless, even on a night this glacial, and considered it both a blessing and curse that there wasn’t enough moonlight to allow for ogling. Preston cautiously stepped out of his shoes and into the bed. Already he could sense the heat rising from it -- or maybe it was his own flushed cheeks.
As he laid down, Sturges wrapped the blanket around both of them, but in a meticulous fashion, where Preston felt the other man’s hands in places he’d never felt them before.
Preston’s nerves frenzied again. “Listen--”
“I know,” Sturges replied lightly.
“I... It’s not that I don’t--”
“I know. I said come over; I’ll keep you warm. This is an... ice melter,” he said, then laughed at his own joke. Preston could feel it vibrate in the mattress, and he nearly swooned. “You don’t have to do or say anything. Just sleep. You're exhausted, you work too damn hard.”
“I…”
“There’s no reason for you to offer to take a night watch, you’re nuts. You’re stretched thin as it is.”
“So are you,” Preston parried.
“Yeah, but I’m restless. I like it. You’re... You do it out of obligation. I watch you. I know you.”
“Yes. You do.” He was thankful for Sturges, even before the feelings started. Conceivably Sturges’ devotion to him was a beholden debt to the Minutemen; called to aid based on a mad woman’s premonition, only to be massacred. But either way, having a friend by his side after losing it all, a man so capable and so damn loyal… it was a life raft.
“Now you get as close or far as you want,” Sturges said, flopping onto his back. “And I can get another blanket if you want that too.”
Preston desired nothing more than to be as close to Sturges as possible, both to soak up all his body heat and to know how his muscles felt wrapped around him. But making a move… just the idea of making a move was paralyzing.
“It’s not just the cold, isn’t it,” Sturges stated. “It’s your mind too. You’re like me, but your restlessness is in your head.”
“I just… I have a lot of responsibility now,” Preston sighed into the pillow. “It’s not what I signed up for, but if I don’t do it maybe no one will.”
There was a lengthy breadth of silence, and Preston blinked his eyes. They were heavy but still he felt the routine tremolo in his chest that trapped him in the waking world each night. Sturges seemed to have a system for sleeping, toiling his body into exhaustion until he apparently crashed. A damn clever way to fight a fidgety brain.
“It’s OK to be sad about what happened, I’m sad too,” Sturges said suddenly, and it bristled through Preston’s body. “You don’t have to be sad alone. My strength doesn’t end at my muscles; I can carry some of the load you bear.”
“Sturges…” Preston generally considered his compassions taken advantage of, though endured it willingly in fear of being seen as fragile. For too often he feared if he didn’t believe he was strong as stone, he would crumble to dust. But Sturges was all about fixing things, never seeing anything as too far in disrepair, even when it laid in a hundred pieces at his feet.
Preston realized right then he could break, and not lose any value in the other man's eyes.
“I just wanna see you smile again. A real one, where I see it in your eyes too. When you smile and when you mean it, feels like everything is right in the world.”
Their fingers intertwined again, Sturges’ hands something secure to keep hold of in the sea of uncertainty. Heat spread up Preston’s arm into his chest, and down until it reached his tingling toes. And for the first time in months, sleep carried him away swiftly.