A Good Person
F!Courier/Boone, Gen, angst, hurt/comfort, substance
Note: I wrote this back in 2012 and just found the file again. Cleaned it up and here we are.
The Courier took yet another swig from the bottle of vodka, before passing it off to Boone. "So anyway, I was thinking that maybe we could go clear out the NCRCF building in the morning. It isn't far from here and if those crooks decide to try another trick like Primm, well, you saw the place." She eyed him, waiting for the bottle to return.
They were camped out in an emergency service rail yard north of Primm. It was one of a dozen random places that the Courier had stashed supplies in the wasteland since they had met, and the nearest one to the Legion raiding camp they had just torn down. "So wait, you just freed two of their men and now you want to go and wipe out their base?" Boone raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Oh," she tilted her head and looked up at the swiftly darkening evening sky thoughtfully "well, they were just released from Legion captivity! I figure if that won't scare someone straight, what will?" She gave a careless sort of shrug and nodded at the bottle. "You going to take your drink or what?" He grunted and complied, passing it back to the Courier who immediately took a large swig, as though the liquid in the bottle was water and not alcohol.
"So... Are you up for it then?" "Sure. Whatever." "Oh come on Mr. Grumpy. You got what you wanted today and got to rain some pain down on the Legion. I want to do the NCRCF tomorrow. I'm not over the harassment they gave the people in Goodsprings. They're good people, I should know." She gave a small lopsided grin, which turned to a furrowed frown as her fingers traced over the scar on her temple, which turned to another swig from the bottle and her hastily covering the wound with her stringy red hair. Two shots down, she passed it back. Boone was always a pretty heavy drinker (heavier now, without Carla to stop him and the Courier being unable to stop even herself), but she was consistently doing two to three for each he was downing tonight. Something wasn't right, hadn't been for a week. Not since they had gone to Boulder and she had found the last piece to the puzzle of her would-be killers identity. She had been nearly beside herself with excitement, coming up with newer and more exotic ways to confront the man for the rest of the day as she pushed at a breakneck pace towards New Vegas. When Boone had finally convinced her they needed to stop and rest for the night at a deserted shack just south of Vegas, she had put up a hell of an argument.
Then the next day, she had decided that she wanted to investigate the large building to the west, and they had spent the rest of that day exploring an old RepConn building. It wasn't anything new. The Courier was always easily distracted, and he hadn't given it a second thought at first. Then, the next day it had been an old farm building filled with ants. The day after she decided they needed to go back to Goodsprings and resupply - which resulted in a slow nightmarish trek through a long abandoned stretch of highway filled with deathclaws, something that would have been a miserable experience on the best of days was not made easier by the fact that they genuinely did need a resupply. Finally finding refuge in Sloan, they had been informed that the deathclaws on the road were, in fact, not the only ones in the area and that the quarry was full of them just waiting to be exterminated. And so, a promise had been made and after a day trip to Goodsprings, they had returned and set about wiping out the deathclaws.
Next it was down to Primm, because she wanted to see how Primm Slimm was working as a Sheriff (not as well as it could have been, considering they were assaulted in the empty casino), and then it had been on to Nipton (where she had mentioned a recent Legion attack, but hadn't conveyed the level of massacre) and upon finding a wounded Powder Ganger hiding out in the empty store had set them out to recover the captives. Which lead to now. Too many detours, too many people who needed her help and he could tell that she was going to keep finding more and more until it was too late to catch her attempted killer.
"It's been a week, Wren." She started at the use of her name. Boone didn't talk much, and he wasn't in the habit of addressing her (or anyone) properly. "When are you going to go take care of the bastard that shot you?" He took his drink. She reached for it, but he held it away from her. "Not until you answer."
The Courier grimaced. "Thought you didn't like talking about personal stuff." "You force me to. Now it's your turn. Why aren't we in New Vegas getting this Benny guy?" "After you give me the bottle. You want me to talk, I need another shot." The blush in her pale cheeks, however, told another story. Instead he took one, knowing it would egg her on. "That's not fair!" She bawled in shock, almost springing up and trying to take the bottle of Vodka back from him. "You've got three more in those boxes of yours," he said, motioning to the metal crate behind them she had retrieved the one he was holding, "And I said I wasn't going to give it back until you answered." He took another one, and she looked almost pitifully back and forth between the crate and the bottle Boone had, confirming that she was indeed too sloshed to retrieve another. The Courier was wearing a deepening frown as she watched him take the drink then reached beside her and unlatched her pack, rummaging through it.
For a moment, he thought his plan might have backfired and she had a spare bottle of something with her, but instead she retrieved a series of burnt cigarette butts. He looked at them, confused as she lay five of them in a row, filter facing her in a perfect line. She stared at them for a split second, then retrieved a holotape and set it next to the cigarettes, followed by another which she stacked onto the first. Finally, she retrieved the lighter from Boulder city and set it down next beside the others. "I don't know what I'm going to do." she said bluntly, the alcohols effect starting to kick in and thicken her speech. "What?" His own tongue felt pretty heavy in its own right, he noted as the word left his lips. "I. Don't. Know. What. I'm. Going. To. Do." She spelled it out word for word, eyes never leaving the jumble of items in front of her. "If I actually go there. Find him." She stuck her hand out for the bottle and he decided that was at least a start, finally passing it back. She immediately took what could only be described as a gulp, and what was half full was now a third. She winced, obviously in pain from the bitterness she had just swallowed, and grasped the bridge of her nose between her thumb and pointer finger as she rode out the feeling of the drink hitting her stomach.
When it passed, she continued. "I try to be a good person, Boone. You know that, right?" "What sort of question is that?" Of course he knew that. Just about everyone she came across knew that. She was always going out of her way to help every ragged prospector or settler she came across. She had her moral failings, yeah, but so did everyone. Wren's was being a klepto. If it wasn't nailed down, you wouldn't die without it, and she wanted it, it went into her pocket or pack. She defended it with an ends justify the means philosophy and Boone couldn't argue that sometimes some of the stuff she knicked would save their asses though it still pissed him off when she palmed things from honest merchants and it full on enraged him when he caught her with stolen NCR supplies. But all in all, yeah, he would say she wasn't terrible.
"I try to be a good person," she repeated, "but when I think of what I want to do to this Benny guy..." she trailed off and absently ran her fingers over her temple again, "Well, I don't feel like one much." The Courier finally broke her gaze off the objects and looked back at Boone. "I don't feel like a good person at all. I want to hurt. I want to mangle. I feel like a wild beast and I don't know what I'm going to do, when I go there. I don't... I don't want to do something I'll... Regret." She finished slowly, seeming to be displeased with the words she chose. "You see?" She obviously wasn't expecting what he said next, as her face fell stony the moment the words left his mouth.
"That's dumb" was all he said, and stopped looking at her to poke at the campfire with a stick. "Dumb?" she practically screeched, standing up abruptly, the vodka completely forgotten about as it clattered to ground.
"You fucking kidding me Boone? You fucking ask me to spill my guts and then call my shit dumb?" she was hollering now. "I fucking got shot in the head, Boone. I don't remember shit about my past. And you're telling me that being concerned that I feel violent is dumb?! I don't want to hurt people, but I can't fucking shake the feeling that I'd make the streets of the city red with blood if I had to to get to the son-of-a-bitch! And you, calling it dumb?" The Courier had worked herself into a frenzy now. "You fucking dick!" She staggered over to her supply crate and emptied it, carrying all the items back to her bag and dumping them unceremoniously by it, breaking one of the spare bottles of alcohol (a beer) in the process. She snarled and kicked the broken bottle off into the distance, before plopping down and beginning to stuff things haphazardly into the bag. All this Boone watched stoically, and finally she zipped it up, threw it over her shoulder, and tried to start down the tracks, only to trip over one of the railroad ties a few yards away in her stupor. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He called after her, as she tried to regain a sense of balance and dignity in picking herself up off the tracks. "I'm leaving!" she called back, still trying unsteadily to pull herself up from the ground. "Why, because I said your excuses for not facing your problems were dumb? So you're going to run away from that too? No. After everything you've made me deal with, I can't let you do that."
He rose and walked over to where she had fallen, and was now sitting after seemingly giving up the fight with gravity over standing. She looked pouty. "Come on, get up." "No." Like a petulant child. "Wren. Get up." She mumbled something incomprehensible at the ground. "Whatever you said, it doesn't matter, because you're too wasted to go anywhere." "I said I can't get up, so it does matter." Boone's shoulders and head dropped as he gave a large sigh. She had tantrumed herself fifteen yards away, and that was now fifteen yards he had to drag her back to the camp. Reaching around her he pulled her to her feet and started back towards the makeshift sleeping area they had created. "You're always telling me that I have to face my problems. You're being a hypocrite by running away." She tensed, then woozily leaned on him, her hair brushing his cheek and sighed. "You're right. I know you're right." She abruptly stopped dead, just feet from the camp and nearly knocked him over with the suddenness. "Boone," she said, cautiousness creeping into her voice "why are you so concerned about this? Legion's your priority."
The former NCR recon sniper made a small tisk sound, and then pulled the Courier the last few feet before letting her go and returning to his makeshift bedroll and dropping down on it as though he were exhausted by the exchange. "Because, you wouldn't let me do this. I'm not letting you." She was quiet for a moment, then sat down gently, or what could be considered gently for extreme intoxication. "Thanks, Boone."
Silence was all that followed.