A Setting, My Valentine
Lanterns danced through the streets of Kind Harbour, forming a town of diamonds against the chilly, clear night of the Commonwealth. Not an irradiated cloud had bloomed from the dark for once, yet through the late eve's reign the lanterns ascended, billowing, waving and dipping through the northern wind when strung up on long poles, shattered windows and spare stalls. It was as if the lanterns were cavorting in tune with the old song that played on the dusty radio by the water fountain. The waters that may have once jutted from its stem were nothing but a dream for the townsfolk, but the craftsmanship of the stone was still preserved beneath the black ivy and lichen - a relic to what the old world would have once been like.
It was a miracle any of the small town had survived at all since the nuclear blasts two centuries before the year 2077. Devastation was clear in some of the infrastructure. The supports and walls had caved on many old homes, but there were still some sturdy enough to house the townsfolk and their hounds, and a great stone wall stood as a barrier against the perils of the wasteland. They were guarded and secure - a settlement worthy of rivalry when in a place so fortuneless. It allowed the town some small peace. It was that peace that enabled celebrations when the matter arose. It fact, on that night, in the midst of autumn, the town was celebrating the fourth celebration in its coming, a celebration of its founding.
Chains and strips of cloth adorned with candled glass and bullet shells meshed the streets, tied around the roves of houses and weaved cradles to trap lanterns once they were set loose from their ties. The lights winked against the chains. Cheers and small talk pulsed from below the town's high platforms and towers, heralding the people's enjoyment of the festivity.
Leant over the thick railing of a high platform, a young woman stood over, staring down, smiling at the people gathering to join in the merriment the merchants and their stalls had brought, delighting in the variety of ale, whisky, wine and shared tales. Lovers lay perched by the fountain, swapping secrets and an occasional embrace. The younger generation frolicked by the fire pits, playing games in usual youthful antics that happened to catch the eye of an elder here and there.
The town was a fit of laughter, something the young lady could not say for herself. Cast away from the light, save for a few spare shimmers, the wanderer in red slowly brought the cold, cracked glass of her beer bottle to her lips, relishing in the sour liquid that slowly slipped down her throat. Once the bottle lacked its desired contents, the wanderer gently placed the bottle by her boots and patted the mutt that slept by her side. The hound's ears twitched for a mere moment at the sound of glass clanking against the metal floor, but once scratched behind the ears, he returned to his sleep as if nothing had happened.
The ghost of a smile flitted over her lips. Then, turning back to the celebration, a thought struck her mind, and her pale eyes lowered, shimmering lightly against the lantern light. The young woman's smile slowly faded and she drew back a little from the railing's edge, folding her arms across the rusty metal and letting her head land in her arm's valley.
A part of her wished to join them in the festivity. Another part of her feared it, for her place in the town was not as accepted as others who had lived there. She had been a quiet ruler of the town, mostly keeping to herself. In truth she was one of the founders and had not contributed to the town's progress as others had. She had, in part helped recreate some of the homes, encouraged the building of water pumps, was the backbone of the town's first defenses until turrets had been set into place and had even established trade routes with neighbouring farms, but she was a wanderer, selfish in her lust for exploration and too prideful to allow it to ebb away as so many others had. Because of that, the people of Kind Harbour barely shared conversation with her. Her stay in the town was never a long one and the people could never truly understand her decision to leave the town's walls.
"'It's more than simple adventuring," she used to tell them. It was a way of finding herself, an exploration that went further than the sand and husks of departed forests. It was an exploration into the old Commonwealth, of the jagged spires she saw in distant horizons. A few, she knew, went up to the skies and touched the clouds. She wished to know the land once lost and the discoveries that lay dormant, waiting.
"You're just diggin' yourself a grave, love, straight and true," the townsfolk would answer. "A spirit like that wasn't made for this world. It'll die once the bullets get too deep and the pain is too much, you'll see. You'll be alone, kid. No one wants the reaper followin' their shadow and he's hot on your tail."
But she was young, not as naive as she had been when she had first stepped into the wasteland and certainly not as vulnerable, although her spirit was still free - unshackled by the world's burdens. Even if the people never truly understood why their founder never stayed for long, she could never let it dampen her heart for too long.
She had to admit, though, her existence had for many years been a lonely one.
From behind she could sense the presence of another, someone not born from the town - not by the usual stench of gun powder and smoke, but by the sooty, rusted undertone that mixed with it. Her first instinct was to touch Astari nestled at her belt, the black handgun practically beckoning her to take. Her fingers twitched against the cold railing, instinct unsettling her nerves. Her hand slowly slipped from her crossed arms, down to feel the light prick of the handgun's grooves, then curled around the familiar leather of the hilt. She allowed the moment to pass.
The stranger paused on the edge of the platform. Heavy footed he was, judging by the creaking of the platform's ramp and certainly not an ordinary man. A faint, mechanical hum pricked the air. It almost seemed to vibrate and meshed with the old tune, "Crawl out through the Fallout," that echoed from below - one of those classic, upbeat pre-war ditties that often brought a soft smile to her lips.
"It's a strange thing when people come together," the man said. Holding a tarnished cigarette between two metallic fingers, he used his rusted thumb to tilt the corner of his bent fedora up, before lightly dragging the cigarette over his lips. For a moment he watched the trail of smoke wisp from his mouth, wreathe around his fingers, then curl high and fade into the evening air. He approached the young woman's side calmly and rested his arms over the platform's railing, tilting his head to observe the people below. "You see a lot of folks at their worst in my line of work. Hard it is sometimes not to let it get to ya. Especially when its people you've learned to care about."
Despite his comforting tone and calm display, the young lady did not wish to answer him. She allowed the quiet to distance them, staring down at the dancing and cheer, her blue eyes shifting in the dark like firelight, pretending the man beside her was not really there.
At the silence, Nick eyed her sourly, suspicion plain on his face. "Not talkin', huh? Well, beg your pardon, Miss White, but you're not as heartless as you want others to believe. I know it and they know it so there's no point beatin' around the bush."
He was right, in part, she knew. Deep down, close to her core she was a good person, wished she did not care for the town or their plight but her helping in the creation of it and its people only made her more connected to them. They were a family, of sorts, one large dysfunctional family that somehow created a place of hope. She knew everyone, from the elderly to the few children. She made sure of that. It was rare any strangers were allowed within the town's walls, and she had the final say in if they were permitted entry.
For a heartbeat, the wanderer dared to glance at the old synth. She was surprised when she saw the lopsided smile softening his face. Many-a-time she had seen the old synthetics the scientists had created when wandering the deep, underground halls of the Institute. Memories were difficult to gain sometimes with her only seeing a whisper of what her life was like back then, but the early synthetics were something neither she nor anyone else could mistake. Their steel outer layer smeared pale white, the cold, unblinking amber of their eyes, twitching when a wire went astray or there was a fault with their circuitry. They looked human enough, she supposed, not as human as the newer models of synthetics that began to replace the people of the Commonwealth, but enough to physically represent one. Nick, though, he was different, in so many ways.
His clothing was something Pre-War, consisting of a weathered grey trench coat over a stained white shirt and a well beaten neck tie, scruffily tucked into torn black trousers, all held together by a thick, slack belt. It was something a cliché detective would wear in one of the old comics she had managed to swipe from a ruined bookstore.
His form, that night, lingered in the shadow away from the lantern light, but as he moved, his silvery metallic skin caught the faint glimmer of a stray ray, turning so bright that it sent his golden eyes a-glow. They were strangely beautiful to her, his eyes that burned within the eve, amber fire in the gloom, yet glistened in emotion and startling clarity. Many times she had caught the softness of his gaze when he spoke of a past memory and she had seen the sad, cold dulling that would cloud his eyes upon his pondering on all he had lost. She had been witness to the sharp flicker of confusion that struck his face during a detective case, and could practically see the cogs turning in his mind when he tried to come to the conclusion of a mystery.
In a way, the Institute, who had created them both, had been successful in their way of creating sentient life, be it their intention or not, as for Laura, a synth could not get more human than the synthetic friend that was beside her.
As she looked away, Nick turned his gaze from the people to her. The detective noticed the deepening of her brows, the slight shimmer of loss and uncertainty in her eyes. He noticed the way her gaze lingered on the dancing couples. Flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette, he brushed the back of his head with a rusty hand and cleared his throat. "You uh, could join 'em, if, you know, if really wanted to. I bet the folks would take to you too, after all you've done."
Laura White sighed. She knew he meant well. He always had. She decided to answer him at last, twisting her body to lean back against the railing and refolded her arms. "How many times must I insist that you call me Laura, Nick?"
The old synth smiled. "My apologies. Suppose some habits die hard."
The young lady nodded, but the detective noticed how her attention travelled back toward the festival, which looked warm and inviting. He flicked his cigarette over the edge of the platform and motioned down with a short tilt of his head. "Well, aren't ya going to go down?"
She solemnly shook her head. "They wouldn't want me down there, Nick. It isn't as easy as you make it seem."
"Oh?" he uttered, a note of surprise in his voice. "And you think you'd have a harder time fitting in then I'd have, the ol' circuit board that I am? At least your metal parts are hidden. Institute at least did that for ya."
She chuckled, despite herself, though that flicker of humour faded as soon as it was there. "Maybe, but they didn't bother to hide them as they did with the Gen three's, did they? I may look human on the outside, but once my skin breaks, beneath the blood, you can see straight away that I'm not human."
She extended her arm out and began to softly probe her wrist. She followed the dark blue veins and the pale, jagged scar that ran along her arm, imagining the wires that layered the flesh beneath and the complex design of circuitry that reminded her of an underground railway map. She had cut her arm open, once, with the serrated knife attached to her belt, just to prove to herself that she was not like the people around her. In some way she was proud of her existence. Mortality was not something she needed to fear as humanity did. In another way, she loathed it: loathed the way she was hunted like cattle for the slaughter by her creators; creators that would not even acknowledge her own sense of life and sanity. To the Institute she was a machine, no better than a well-polished toaster, one they would sooner scrap for parts then let roam free.
"They know what you are, Miss White," said Nick. "Doesn't matter how you colour it. And you're the sole reason they're even here. Remember that. They owe you their lives, whether they want to realise it or not."
A stillness swept over the wanderer, made her skin pale in the dark. "I didn't find this place for them," she muttered. "I did it for me. I needed a place to lie low from the Institute. I needed a place where I could be safe with my memories. The Railroad wanted to change who I was - how I look, my personality, everything. Yes, to keep me safe, to give me another life, but how would that have played out?"
Laura quietly leant further over the railing. Her thoughts drifted as the lanterns danced above her, shifting the shadows across her face. "I would have known the truth, eventually. And to lose all that I have gained? I couldn't let them do that and waiting to die was also not an option."
"That may be so but you still helped them. Whether you like it or not, you saved these people even for personal gain, but I think, deep down there's a stroke of goodness in you that you don't wish to see. And the doll you're pretending to be wouldn't be as miserable looking down at the people below as you look right now."
'How must the old synth see the world?' Laura wondered. 'To see goodness in a world full of taint and death?'
Did he read her by the acts she portrayed unto others? Did he read the emotions that passed her face like a file left on his desk by shady lamp light - the smallest details of her being displayed word for word by a delicate hand on smooth, near-perfect paper, with the words blending unto each other, creating a person whole through the text?
Some days, he knew her more than she knew herself. That nerved her more than she cared to admit.
Beside her leather boots, Laura heard the low whine of her canine companion. The hound's muzzle, jutted our below his wide, sunken eyes, lazily nudged her leg. When that had no effect, he pawed her leg feverishly, the claws scratching her skin ever so slightly through her black pants. She looked down, ready to scold the hound. The face she saw left her speechless. Flat, loving and full of emotion, were the large eyes that stared up at her, full of devotion with a tail wagging just as happily as the hound must have felt.
Chuckling for a moment, then ending in a soft sigh, Laura lightly scratched between the hound's hairy, pointed ears, to which the hound gave a soft whine in content, before falling back down on the floor, pawing its eyes shut.
"Why did you come here, Nick?" the wanderer asked, returning to her pose against the railing.
Nick blinked, taken slightly aback at the change in attitude. "Why?" he asked, scratching the back of his head. "Huh, well I guess I came because I wanted to thank you for what you did back at Far Harbour. Finding DIMA... it wasn't what I was expectin' when we took on the Nakano case, but I'm awful glad you decided to stick around with me, even when it went the way it did."
"It was for the best. The Children of Atom couldn't be trusted," she whispered, and clutched the icy steel of the railing a little tighter. Truthfully, she regretted the decision. She did not regret the deaths of the Children of Atom. One way or another, the fanatics would prove too much trouble and would have had to be dealt with. She knew any religion worshipped within the wasteland would turn awry. She had read it many times in past historic literature. What she did regret was how DIMA had reacted to the news, rewarding her three month long trouble with disappointment and anger.
"What have you done?" he had whispered within the vast expanse of the Pre-War observatory, his words seething with ice and bane. His voice was quiet, chilling, as hushed as a newly filled grave. There was only the subtle ticks and cranks of his half-intact body and the fine flashes of cerulean sparks through the glass flasks hooked to his back, to fill the silence after.
She remembered the loathing in DIMA'S gaze. She remembered the tension in the ancient synth's metal fists, the way every part of his being screamed, as if he needed to lash out and rip her mechanical heart from her core, tearing the wires from the sockets and crushing the casing beneath his long fingers until only tiny specks remained. Yet just as Laura had begun to reach for her belt, she noticed the gentle slack in his stance. She noticed his fingers slowly uncurl, his shoulders sag and the way the white of his eye-plates flickered back and forth, oil leaking from the corners, in what was unmistakably sorrow, perhaps even defeat. It was then that she realised just how old DIMA truly was and how much he clung onto a fraying ideal.
"I... it was going to happen eventually, I suppose," he said softly. "Hard to believe the citizens of Far Harbour, the synths in Acadia and the Children of Atom could coexist. I just wished- I wished it could work out. That we could all live i-in peace!"
Each faltered word, each heavy breath felt like a swift jab to her ribs, a knock to her chest, a slash to her throat, all colliding together to knock the air from her lungs. Her limbs had began to tremble. She stumbled back without realising it, pressing her shoulders so far back into an old terminal that her skin bruised against the control panel and the levers cut deeply into her flesh.
"No more death. No more suffering. An end to it all... and you, of all people, one of my own kind, brought down that dream in a single blow." Not being able to withstand the sight of her, DIMA gradually turned away, angling his near-plastic face into the tower's shadows. "I am tired. Tired of all of this. Stay in Acadia if you must. I need time alone, away from this and away from you."
The last she remembered of him was the crossing wires and sparking flasks of his back disappearing into the observatory's wake, leaving her alone, crouched on the cold, tiled floor with her head in her hands and with only Nick by her side.
Laura lightly rubbed the corner of her eye, refusing the fresh tears to surpass her cheeks. "I didn't mean for it to happen the way it did," she said with a shaky breath. "I wish DIMA didn't hate me as much as he did."
Nick felt more than heard the strain in her voice. Her body quivered incessantly against the railing and the mutt by her side began to stir. Nick knew his brother's opinions mattered to her greatly. The ideals of DIMA, the moral values, the way he had created a city for synths to call their own was something Laura had always wanted, yet could not find at the time she needed it the most. She saw him as a father, of sorts, once she had spent time speaking to the ancient synth, and he espoused the parenting role she had only read about before the tragedy, a role she had longed to be filled and in some way, desperately needed.
The detective gently reached out to cup her shoulder, instantly steadying her body and gaining her full, wide-eyed attention. "Hey, now, he doesn't hate you. Don't worry so much about it. He knows you did all you could. The situation we found ourselves in wasn't an easy one. It could have ended a lot worse, I tell you. And a lot of innocent people are alive because of it."
A solitary tear trickled down her wet cheek. Nick silently wiped the stray tear with his thumb, smiling down at her with a fondness and warmth that somehow encouraged a shy smile of her own.
After a moment, Laura could only nod, wiping the rest of the tears away with her sleeve and shaking the memory from her mind. "I hope you're right, Nick. I'm also glad we met your brother. Despite what he may think of me now, what he told me meant a lot. To know I have a home in Acadia, to know there is a city where our kind is, means so much. I hope, one day to begin trade routes with them and Kind Harbour. It'll give the people here more supplies and may help the synths rebuild."
"See?" The detective chuckled, releasing her shoulder, only to playfully nudge the same spot. "Now that doesn't sound like the selfish sole-survivor gimmick you've been trying to pull now, does it?"
The wanderer laughed despite herself and gently returned the nudge. "I have my own reasons for the connection, Nick. It isn't just for this community."
He smirked. "Huh. Wouldn't doubt it for a second." Even if her intentions were supposedly selfish, he had come to learn that they usually ended in the most possible good being done for those around them. The trading relations between two towns? Only prosperity could come from such an action, one he knew would better the people in both.
From the east, an unsteady wind picked up in the night. Lanterns billowed, flags whipped back and posters rattled against shattered windows. Laura drew further in on herself, drawing the fur line opening of her black coat tight when her hair began to sway in the breeze. The wind swirled between her and Nick, waving the trails of Nick's trench coat while he tried to keep a firm hold of his bent fedora.
When the wind died down and his fedora was safely on his head, Nick turned to Laura. For some reason, seeing her huddled up and shivering made her look more vulnerable than he had ever seen her. In that particular instant, she was not like the hardened gunslinger he had seen in the wasteland. She was more like an innocent young woman, without a shred of anger or hate in her being. He gently reached out and lightly held the crook of her arm.
"Hey," he said, voice stern. "I meant what I said. What you did for me, not many people would lay their life on the line for a friend, more so a partner. Thought that stroke of chivalry ended when the bombs fell. Suppose I was wrong. I'm glad for that."
"You would do the same for me, Nick."
He tightened his hold on her, reassuringly. "You can bet on it. Whatever it be, rain or shine, I'm here for ya. Just need to say what's on your mind."
She blinked, peering out from the protection of her coat. Her arms drifted to her side. "Whatever's on my mind, huh?" She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and frowned. There had always been something she wanted to say to the old synth, always something that lingered at the back of her mind upon every case they took together. Perhaps the closeness in proximity had something to do with her thoughts, or perhaps the effects of her beer had finally caught up with her. Still, neither the detective, nor she for that matter, could expect the confession that tumbled out of her mouth until it was too late. "Nick, do you think that maybe we could ever be more than just friends?"
The synth raised a curious brow. "Well, we already are, aren't we?" he said with a guileless grin. "We're partners."
She frowned. "Ah."
"Why? Did you mean something else?" His face slowly sank. "- Oh! I see." Tension arose between them, so thick even a serrated knife would have had trouble cutting through.
She shied away from him, looking into the distance.
He cleared his throat. "You're joking, surely. No. Wait. You're serious? I- can't believe you'd feel like that. I-I'm glad, that is, to be wrong, I just- uh..."
He sighed. "Look, Miss White, it isn't that I'm not flattered. I am. But... come on. Look at me. I'm trash. The Institute threw me in the junk pile way back when, and I've been lucky enough not to be pushing up daisies ever since. I'm falling apart. Hell, my hand doesn't even have skin anymore. I'm just a beat-up old prototype that's only good is to help what good folks I can find, and if it weren't for these hand-me-down memories from a long-dead cop, I'd be nothing more than a goddamn tin opener. You don't want a life with me. Trust me."
"You mean more to me then that, Nick," she said to him, raising her hand so that it lightly lay at the corner of his neck, just shy of touching his jaw. Her skin felt so warm against his. Feeling another's touch against his own that wasn't meant to end his life was something surprisingly new. The detective wasn't sure what to make of the feeling. "Surely you know that. And you're not the only discarded prototype around here. I just got to leave by choice while you were kicked out."
The old synth remained apprehensive.
Laura drew closer to him. "Nick. I want this. I want to be with you, despite it all. That is, if you want me? " She spoke the words softly, tentatively. She wanted to reach out for him all of a sudden, to hold him, to be held, to run her hands over the hard collar of his trench coat, to tug his tattered tie loose, to brush her lips against his. To feel the rough metallic collide with warm skin.
He reached out and pulled her body close to him, then leant back against the railing. Her hands rested on his dusty lapels. Her blue eyes were warm, wise and a little uncertain -
'They were spectacular eyes,' he thought.
Her tanned skin seemed to glaze in the lantern light, even under the layers of sand and dust the wasteland had added to her. The long, dark tangles of black hair were twisted in braids and knots that to some would have been slovenly, but in some way, they suited her, gave her the sort of rural, wild beauty he never believed truly existed. She was fierce, intelligent, driven, untamable and unbroken by the perils of the Commonwealth. Nothing was perfect in the wasteland, yet in some strange way, she was the closest to it, not the perfect way the detective knew from before the war, where the perception of beauty came from the images on magazines: young women, dressed in fine garments of silk or satin, with hair heavily brushed and makeup smothering their naturalness from the naked eye. No, her beauty was natural, even with the scars that adorned her cheeks, the light array of freckles that never quite matched on one side of her face and the cut on her ruby-coloured lip. His thumb lightly traced the mark, wondering what the feel of her lips would be like against the cold steel of his own.
'Could he even do that to her?' he wondered. Would he even feel anything? He had nerve endings in the miniature pockets of his metal skin. He could feel as he thought he could. He knew her skin was mostly soft in places. He knew her hands were rough from battles fought and lost. To feel that warmth, that roughness in a different way than simple hand-holding was something he had never thought of, or even comprehended before. Now that it was a possibility...
It slowly began to dawn on him. All his years in life, he thought he knew love. He thought he knew beauty. To him, the one woman he always considered beautiful was that of the man his memories came from, from the original Nick Valentine, a detective back when the law was absolute and justice was done to those that were wronged. That Nick Valentine's infatuation with Miss Jennifer Lands, his Pre-War dame, sweetheart, lover, was something that had fallen upon the old synth. The yearning for her, the overwhelming ache of her loss burned in the old synth's heart for many a-decade, but it was an ache that was not his. The previous Nick Valentine was gone, not even dust upon the stonework. There were no bones for him. In fact, his grave may no longer have existed. All there was of him was a memory. It was then that the detective began to realise.
He had to leave the past memories of the old Nick behind him.
Held tightly in his arms was his future. He knew, just by the sheer devotion in her eyes and the good-hearted spirit he had witnessed that there was hope with her, there was a place for him, like Diamond City, like his detective agency, like the people of the wasteland he had helped and those he had brought to justice - it was his own little slice of the cake. And even if he could only have that much for himself, even when the way he spoke, the way he dressed and the way he thought in some way related back to the old Valentine, the synth could be happy in knowing that the small changes he had made were his. He had that much at least.
The old synth slowly began to smile. Perhaps the previous Nick might have been proud of him. He was a good hearted man, cared for his own. He would not have wanted the old synth to mourn over a girl that was never truly his, especially when she was over two centuries passed.
"Nick?" Miss Laura White whispered, lightly tracing her hand across his jaw. When his eyes flashed up, she froze, battering her lashes at him in mild concern. She gently lowered her hand to his shoulder and squeezed the thick fabric there, affectionately. "Lost in thought?"
"Suppose you could say that, doll," he said lightly, grinning ear to ear at the recollections he had just made. "Apologies for that. Where was I? Ah. The confession. Well... if you really mean what you said...?"
At the end of the question, a sliver of doubt sank into his mind. The thought became his centre of thinking, the doubt causing his throat to tighten, his senses to heighten, his fingers to still. He could feel the fluid inside of himself surge through the thin, vein-like tubes of his inner chest to the ports of his robotic heart, where the large organ began to pound in an erratic rhythm that sent his circuits alight. Fear, it was: anxiety for doubt. She could decline at any moment. She could come to her senses and realise that they were too different, that he was rain and she was hail. That when he saw hope and light within a dying world, she saw reality and fact. They didn't blend like the light snow and soft wind they wished to be, but were as impractical as an idealist's views to a historian. In Nick's mind they were two entities that were not meant to be intertwined on such an emotional level. They worked as partners because there was no friction between them, no complicated abnormalities. The complication of a romantic relationship was something he had never thought of.
But then Laura gave a small nod, and that small action was enough to get that sliver of doubt to disappear almost entirely.
His grip around her loosened, allowing the wanderer to catch her breath and lean further into his embrace. The old synth's arms settled around the small of her back, fumbling with the soft padding of the coat when he spoke, "Then, I suppose I just got lucky, didn't I? Knowing you feel the same way."
"You do?" she asked, her blue eyes twinkling like the stars in the distant sky.
"'Course I do. Been tryin' to hide it best I could but it was getting hard to. You've come to mean a lot to me, Miss White. Never thought an old synth like myself could come close to something like this. Can't say I regret it though."
"Poppycock. I bet you were a heart-breaker back in the day," she joked.
'Back in the day,' he thought.
He pursed his lips. "Guess you could say that, but none of that matters anymore. You, this crazy world we live in? That's what matters. Can't believe it's taken me this long to realise it."
Laura frowned. "You didn't knock your head on anything, did you?"
"Hah. Always the joker. Hey, what do you say to comin' down to that festival with me, hmm? Give those townsfolk really something to talk about?"
Laura's eyes flashed and she struggled a little in his hold. "Nick, I-I'm not sure. They wouldn't want me there."
"To hell with what they want. It might be better starting to do things the way we want to, and not care what others think. You'll enjoy it, I promise ya. So, what do you say?"
She gave a small nod despite the nerves that bundled in her chest and followed the old synth down the rickety platforms and into the centre of the town, were many of the people danced and cheered, not even noticing the new faces that had joined them.
And throughout the night the the two synths danced, joking and twisting throughout the town with nay a care in the world. When the radio's song had changed, turning to a quieter, slower ballad, the moon had passed far into the west and the majority of the townsfolk had turned in for the night. The two synths had found themselves alone in the quiet.
During the dance they leaned in to one another, slow at first - each just shy of the other's touch, until their lips met. The kiss was sweet, tender, gentle, a little awkward compared to what Laura expected, but pleasant. It was a first for them. For Laura it was the first intimacy she had shared with a person she felt so vulnerable to, and for Nick, it was the first real kiss he had ever experienced since waking up in his electronic body. The second kiss was more natural, the kinks in their wires having coupled and the nerves of the first over in a shared breath. Laura's arms gently tugged on the collar of the detective's trench coat, then an arm reached back, hooking at the base of his neck. In turn he pulled her closer, feeling the hot breath of them caressing each other in unison. Laura gradually began to feel light headed, as if there was a lack of air between them. She held on for the last few moments, however, relishing in the shared touches, moans and sighs. Once she felt it was too much, she reluctantly loosened her hold on the older synth and stepped back, biting her lip upon their parting, yet held still in the detective's embrace.
She smiled. "Hmm. I do believe we will find our happily ever after all, Mister Valentine."
Nick laughed. "Forever and always, Miss White. Forever and always." And despite himself, Nick thought of the world before, of the two of them dancing to an old tune off the radio in his detective office, forgetting the hours that passed on the ticking clock above his desk and the street lights flickering outside his shrouded window. And even if that dream was real, he would not change the reality of his new world for it. Because to him, even in nuclear fallout, it was as near-perfect as it was ever going to get.
'Not bad,' he was sure the old Valentine would say. 'Not bad at all.'
...
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