When she'd brought the brute of a mutant to Sanctuary originally, Preston had been hesitant. After some time to reflect, he'd decided it was a good idea to have the General well protected, and at the very least, when those two weren't together, Strong provided solid protection for the town.
But then she couldn't even get along with the creature, which created an issue. An issue that came in the form of a very angry Super Mutant that couldn't be calmed – not by any citizen, and not by the very person who had convinced him to settle to begin with.
"Look, General, I think it's important that you come to a sort of middle ground with the- with Strong," he corrected himself. "I understand that you have some differences." He leaned closer. "Between you and me, I don't think the mutant has a place here. I have no prejudices, but I don't think he… has Sanctuary's interested in mind. If he decides he doesn't want to play nice anymore, we could have a serious problem."
"What are you getting at, Garvey; get to the point," Clare said with an off-handed sense of irritation.
"We need-"
"You need," she corrected.
He inhaled, then conceded and let out the breath. "I need… you to make peace with him."
"I don't know how you expect me to do that. The creature is entirely unreasonable."
"I don't think he likes being called 'creature.' Or… I don't know, what he likes being called. Or if it matters. Can you just try? Just talk to him."
Clare rolled her eyes so hard she may have dislocated them, then shook her head, pressing her lips together. Fine then. "How do you suggest I talk to him?"
"You know him better than anyone else, why don't you have any ideas-" Preston realized this did no good whatsoever, so finally decided he needed to be the peacemaker. Like Mama Murphy and her love for harmful substances, he had to be the adult in the strangest of situations. "Alright. Follow me."
He led her up to Strong, then steeled himself. He could do this. He led the Minutemen from the brink of extinction to safety and finally into the hands of a capable leader who drove them to victory. When she wasn't refusing to speak to the monster of a green tank she'd led into the town.
He could do this. "Strong?" Preston asked.
Strong lumbered to an angle that vaguely resembled facing them. "What does human want?"
"I… We, the General and I, think you've been having some disagreements lately that should be resolved. If the town is going to be secure, we need to be on each other's side."
"Strong don't care about human town."
Not a good start. "But Strong cares about having Brahmin to eat, right?"
He hesitated. "Meat cows are good."
"Exactly. So if you want to keep getting Brahmin and we want to keep getting…" 'Not dead' wasn't the word. "Cooperation with you, then it's important that you and the General – Clare – are on the same page. We all share common ground. It's just a matter of finding what ground you two share, and coming to an understanding over it. Let's start basic. How would you describe yourself, Strong? Who are you?"
"I am Strong," he provided.
Preston inhaled and contained himself. "Yes, good, I know that. We," he emphasized, trying to create solidarity, "know that. After that. What's your lifestyle like-" he corrected himself quickly, "- How do you like living, Strong?"
"I like living plainly," Strong said. "Chains and leather, mainly." His eyes trailed after a Brahmin that lumbered past them.
"I prefer a lavish suite," Clare scoffed under her breath, her arms crossed as she refused to meet the brute's eyes.
"Go on," Preston said.
"I like eating lightly," Clare continued, those arms still crossed snuggly against her satin blouse, albeit wrought with snags that even hundreds of years in a contained cupboard couldn't prevent. "Vegan dinners nightly."
His eyes continued to trail as the creature moved to past them. "I like meat with extra meat," Strong said, and finally he moved in a way Preston had hoped to be only curiosity.
He grabbed the creature by its neck and shoulders, pulling in one vicious rip, forcing this Minuteman to turn and shield his eyes. A crack, a tear, and a sound Preston had to pretend he hadn't heard later, and then he slowly turned back. He opened his eyes. The Brahman was in his peripheral, but he wasn't about to look at it. Strong munched, and Preston decided that despite all the death he had seen, he could leave that visual of the massacre for later.
"If he's left long enough to be bored, this happens," Preston muttered under his breath. Clare seemed not to care.
"Tried finding it something to do for over thirty minutes. It's just a dumb animal."
She was speaking of the Brahmin, and why it was clambering around the town for no reason, therefore within Strong's grip, but Preston decided it also applied to Strong.
"You're not even trying," he said.
She sighed deeply and uncrossed her arms, hooking her hands on the edges of her leather pants, in between the studs that held the thick material together. "I'm deluxe in my silken undies," she explained, providing a new 'common ground.' Preston hardly felt it was relevant.
Strong decided to contribute. "It's commando for me."
Unfortunately. "Ew," Preston complained.
She leveled the mutant a cold gaze, one of those looks that made Preston wonder if the tactical expertise she brought to the Minutemen was worth whatever coldness she was capable of if that hard gaze turned darker. "My way's clearly better."
"Boringer and deader," Strong countered eloquently.
"Let's agree to disagree," she said.
Strong repeated it, his malformed tone struggling on the vowels.
Disagreeing meant she went back into the wide open Commonwealth to handle whatever business she felt was important, and Preston was left here to handle Sanctuary – with Strong.
Preston, ever the peacemaker, tried to find the bright side. At least they were willing to share a statement. That was progress. "Alright, not exactly what I had in mind, but not a bad start." He nodded encouragingly to her.
Clare pursed her mouth, then waved her hand. "I like drinking Vino, preferably Pinot."
"I prefer a keg of beer," Strong guffed out.
She shrugged. "I like getting randy with whoever's handy." Preston shot her a look, about to demand why that was any more relevant than the status of her underwear, but Strong offered helpfully:
"I prefer a keg of beer!"
She angled her face, as if daring him to counter her. "Love massages, long walks, and sunsets."
"Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer!"
"Guys, the rhyme scheme," Preston broke in, finding that more offensive than any other part of the conversation. At least they agreed enough to stay in the same vein of topic, but still.
"Frankly, you disgust me," Clare shot back, glaring at his willingness to be so crass. Because beer was crass, apparently.
"You're no picnic, trust me," Strong glared back, though that seemed to be his default.
"Let's agree to disagree," she threw the comment over her shoulder as she paced away.
Strong mirrored it in perfect sync, wandering with her though it seemed to be just for the sake of wandering.
"Maybe you're not getting the concept," Preston said, following after them, concerned they'd leave the town without a resolution. Then Strong would return more confused and bored than before, and Preston wasn't ready for that.
"Just one of us can lead," Clare declared, then snapped with certainty, her back to them: "And that's means me."
"Hell no!" Strong grumbled.
"You want to piece of this?" she turned to face him, now on the edge of town.
"All right, then, fine," Strong roared back.
"Let's go!" they snapped together, but Preston came between, pulling Clare farther back. She didn't appear fearful at all of challenging the colossal mutant, despite the fact that her Fat Man was on the other side of town, and Preston only had a laser weapon. He didn't want to hurt the creature- guy- thing, but he wasn't sure Strong felt the same. Where did her unflinching confidence come from? What was she hiding? She didn't seem capable of dying, but even still.
Strong apparently didn't understand the challenge, or didn't think much of it, letting the distance created by Preston serve as the end to the fight.
"We will never get on together," she said over Preston's shoulder.
"Ditto, obviously," Strong grumbled.
"Right there! I think we finally-" Preston began, honing in on their first agreement to try and build from there. But Clare shoved him off and sidestepped him, huffing.
"Og, is he annoying," Strong grumbled.
"Positively cloying," Clare said more articulately.
"Guys-" Preston tried.
Clare wandered farther, inhaling with irritation. "Why is he still talking?"
"Can it with the squawking!" Strong roared at him, all his attention suddenly turned to the Minute Man.
"Uh-" Preston broke in, feeling things get out of hand.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Strong asked Clare without looking, promise in his tone.
"We're definitely syncing," Clare smiled, shifting her eyes to the river. Preston got a clue soon enough to realize his own mortality.
"You know what? I think it's time to seek outside help?" Preston said, readying himself to back away.
But suddenly Strong's hand was clasping around his bicep. Like a rag doll, he was all at once weightless, lifted high above Strong's head as three large stamps brought them to the semi-deep water's edge and then he was flying. Preston's abrupt cry cut off as fear coursed to catch his throat. Then water was swallowing him whole and his lungs couldn't find air, thrown from the solid nine feet of Strong's stature to the deep end of the river.
Without surfacing, he could hear them beneath the water: "Let's agree to disagree!"
Clare gasped a crying laugh from the shores, Strong's face broken into a smile. She smacked him approvingly on the arm, and he huffed. "Want to go grab some more townspeople and throw them out?" he suggested.
"Hells yeah." She turned about-face, and he lumbered after her back into town. They weren't friends, but they made good co-enemies to everyone else.
As Preston surfaced and found land, he came to the same conclusion. If she wasn't so good at conquering everyone but the Minutemen, he'd consider her a tyrant.
A/N: So apparently I'm a dumbass who can only write dumbass song-fic oneshots. I'm going to call it a gift.
It's a show tune song-fic, which places me even deeper in the circles of hell. If you don't recognize the song, it's Let's Agree to Disagree from the ABC show Gallivant. It got canceled, but seriously, that show gives me such life. Listen to it here: watch?v=9B9rjRzlWtU
Beyond that, while my serious Hancock and MacCready fics sit in draft for 1,000 years, it's a Strong/Clare(my renegade Sole Survivor OC) song-fic.
I'm so funny, damn it!