Description: A Fallout: New Vegas one-shot which may be interpreted as slightly Boone/femcourier. It's up to the reader, really. Mostly it's just a result of me going, "Hmm, how would Boone feel about that? Or that? Oh, I think he'd be pissed about that." And who doesn't love a little extra Boone action?

Oh yes, there will be swears.

Disclaimer: I do not own the any of the intellectual property in the Fallout: New Vegas video game, and make no claims on the characters, locations, situations, etc. that are presented therein. I do not profit from the writing and posting of this fan fiction.

Just Waiting

After exiting the tent, it took Craig Boone roughly four seconds to realize that waiting just outside its flap was a bad idea. He let out a low sigh, more of a growl. His steps almost silent, he hurried to the other side of the NCR camp until he had moved beyond the canvas tents and passed a pair of destroyed buildings. From here, he could see the overpass which led into the town of Primm.

It was quiet. Thank God. He couldn't hear anyone speaking - talking dirty, more specifically - or...

Shit. He did not want to be thinking about that. Unfortunately, he knew from experience that not wanting to think about a topic did nothing to keep you from thinking about it anyway. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect.

"Great," he muttered. One more thing for his brain to constantly run away from. At least he'd walked off before things had gotten too interesting. Still, the imagination can be a real curse sometimes.

And it didn't help that Tyrone was kind of ugly. What the hell was that girl thinking?

He looked up at the sky and tried to empty his mind. He watched the wispy gray clouds flow over the nearly-full moon, became aware of the chill of the desert night seeping through his light armor. He concentrated on his breathing, as he'd been taught to do years ago. It seemed to help. He felt a little less jumpy.

But now he was thinking of his time in the NCR, and that thought could travel down a slippery slope to something even worse than his current situation.

He sighed, crossed his arms. Wondered what he was doing out here, working with some revenge-crazy courier girl, being dragged along on these inane "missions". Not that he could claim he didn't have a little of the vengeance crazies himself, or that he'd been maximizing the use of his time back in Novac. Even so. He felt he should be hunting down legionaries already, not helping to steal drugs from the NCR.

He heard the crunch of pebbles underfoot, the soft buzz of the floating bot. He didn't turn around. He just thought to himself that it'd been fast. Seemed like Tyrone was about as impressive as he looked.

"You done already?" he asked.

"Yeah. I've got the chems, and we can finish Melissa's little errand for her. Then, maybe, the Legion will have the Great Khans after their ass, too. Jesus, all this running around to get their support, and who knows if the Khans will even be a help."

"Well, seems like you managed to find one upside in it all." His tone was bone dry. He kept his back turned to her, but he could almost see her wince. She was silent for a long moment. He let her sweat.

"Fuck off, you judgmental prick," came the witty response, her tone lacking the bite of the words themselves. She was most definitely annoyed, but she also seemed embarrassed. As she should be.

"No, thanks. You've got that department covered." He turned around to look at her, his face devoid of a smile, though it actually was becoming a little funny. And Boone wasn't going to simply drop it, as he preferred to do with most subjects. Why should he? It wasn't like she ever left well enough alone. It wasn't like she avoided pushing and pushing about things that weren't any of her goddamn business.

He was only returning the favor.

Her mouth was hanging open now. Was she surprised that he was pushing the topic, or did she think he was really making some kind of joke? He supposed he wasn't much of a comedian, so both were strong possibilities. Either way, it was fitting that she'd have that idiotic expression on her face right now. Only it was quickly replaced by a mask of indignant fury.

"Who the hell are you to complain?" she demanded. Granted, he wasn't outright complaining, but they both knew what she meant. "What do you expect from me? Just because you only ever care about killing your damned legionaries doesn't mean the rest of us don't have...other..."

He could take a guess at what the last word was, but she seemed to be losing her venom as her face flushed.

"I am not going to talk about this with you," she amended.

"Really? Because up 'til now, it seems like you've wanted to talk about every fucking thing under the sun."

She let out a heated sigh and rubbed a temple. "Is that what this is about? Look, I said I'm sorry. I just have a habit of asking questions about everything, okay? Now can we please lay off my sex life? It's not like I'm proud of it, you know."

"As long as I don't have stand watch while you tend to your 'needs', we're good. It's not what I signed up for."

"Hey, you made your choice to come with me, and you're bound to run into certain things you didn't expect. It's not like I said we'd be going straight after legionaries."

"Actually, that seemed like exactly what you were implying. Something along the lines of 'we'll kill more of them between the two of us'. You knew what I wanted and seemed willing to deliver."

He almost added, "That's the only reason I'm here," but knew it would've been a lie. She was right. He'd chosen on his own to come along, had had the feeling it was the right choice, even though he'd resisted the idea. And it wasn't just to kill as many of Caesar's men as he could - though that was certainly a bonus. No, when he'd agreed to leave Novac with her, he'd simply wanted to get out of the place as fast as he could. After he'd avenged Carla, the only thing Novac had left to offer him was the torture of seeing her everywhere. Going back to his room alone, where there'd once been three of them. Walking past Manny every twelve hours, knowing that their friendship was ruined forever because of his own mistrust and misery. Wondering if anyone in town had known what Jeannie May had been up to, constantly feeling the paranoia and misplaced hatred. The place had been poisoning him for a while, and it probably would've been the death of him, the final thing to push him over the edge at which he'd been impatiently waiting.

That wasn't the way he wanted to go. He wanted to die surrounded by dead legionaries. No more, no less.

While those thoughts crossed his mind, he saw the courier's expression softening. Did she see something on his face? Was she thinking of what she knew of him, maybe feeling pity for him? He hoped not.

"We will kill plenty of them, Boone," she said, her voice heavy with the promise. "The things they do to people...it's gotta stop. But to really put a stop to it and make sure that someday, the Legion will never be able to hurt anyone again, we have to do more than slaughter them all on sight. I plan to help the NCR win this war. I plan to help them stomp Caesar and his followers into the ground hard enough that they'll never get up again. And in order to do that, we're going to have to make sure we have the resources and help we need, and that the NCR has the same. Which means we'll have to be in this for the long haul. Are you prepared for that?"

Boone knew what she was really asking. Knew that she knew what his endgame was. And he also knew she wished it was different. The poor idiot actually gave a damn about him, and it was too bad she didn't see the whole picture. When it came down to it, she was still just a courier, not a soldier. She couldn't understand that there came a time to pay your dues.

Maybe he'd be willing to explain it all to her someday. Maybe it'd be on that day he was waiting for. Not now, though.

"Yeah," he said. "Let's go."

.o End o.

Honestly, I am tempted to do some kind of romantic fic featuring Boone. But given the fact that he seems to have lost his wife and unborn child not too long ago, and there doesn't seem to be any in-game hinting at anything between him and anyone else (not that I've seen yet, anyway - let me know if you've seen otherwise), I would have to roll it around in my head a while to see if there's a plausible way. However, it's possible I'll make a series of drabbles with more hinting or that loosely connect and lead up to something a bit more substantial. We shall see.

Thanks for reading! Keep up the New Vegas lovin', folks!

Edit: Changed "Craig" to just "Boone" due to negative feedback on it (thanks for letting me know). And I have indeed posted a fic with Boone, though the main focus is not romance for a while.