Hey guys! Welcome back! Recently I've been playing a lot of Fallout 4 and just generally seeing how gay it could get. SO, here's an assortment of stories involving my SS, Angel Mao. I'm sure I'll do a formal story about him eventually...

Word count: 2,817

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, boys in love, PTSD, recreational drug use, a minor description of some really nasty bugs Florida and Hawaii and generally anywhere that is tropical you guys have a bug problem.

Sixty Minute Man

(Preston Garvey/Angel Mao)

"I'd like you to travel with me for this one, if you could."

Preston looks up from the garden he's weeding, surprised. Angel is leaning against the fence, smirking like the cat that got the cream. And really, there is no reason that Angel shouldn't look pleased. Sanctuary is doing well. The other settlements are well-supplied. The Minutemen have made a name for themselves, and raiders think twice about attacking any settlements. They have leads now on where Shaun might be. It's as though, for the first time since walking out of the Vault, Angel is finally getting all of his ducks in a line.

But this is kind of out of nowhere.

"It's just a group of big-headed raiders, right?" Preston gets up off of his knees, brushing his hands off on his pants. "I've seen you take down bigger threats all on your own. I'm sure I'd just get in your way."

"You'd have my back," Angel corrects, though he does look a bit embarrassed at Preston's praise. He ducks his head, and his voice is a bit muffled, but Preston can hear him loud and clear when he says, "I'd just feel better if you were there."

"Is that an order, General?" Preston teases good-naturedly. Angel looks startled for a moment before he gets the joke; no matter how long he holds the position or how many times Preston reminds him, Angel is still not used to being the man in charge.

("Nora was the Captain of my squad, and I was okay with that," Angel had explained one night over a mug of hot cocoa, something Preston never thought he'd see, much less actually drink. They'd found some in the back of an abandoned supermarket, and Angel had smiled like a kid with a piece of candy. Probably because he practically was a kid- only about 32, still pretty young if you exclude the 200 something years he'd been in cryo- and he was, in fact, holding candy.

"When we got married, Nora was always the one making plans and keeping everything in line. I kind of liked that, I suppose. Not having to make the big decisions, not having to worry about fucking up." Angel lets out a shaky breath, leaning heavily against the wall behind him.

He doesn't say anything for the rest of the night. Preston doesn't expect him to.)

Angel, Preston realized sometime after they'd met, is not the most confident of people. Soft-spoken and soft-hearted, he can give orders when they need to be given and take the head off of a raider at 500 yards with a pipe-rifle, sure. But when he has the option, he'd much rather follow than lead. He likes to write and garden and fold bubblegum wrappers into little foil animals for the kids in the settlements ("Folding luck," he calls it as he, ever the dad, dangles a paper crane off of a string to help calm a woman's crying child. "Goodness knows these kids will need it."). He doesn't like to talk much and he doesn't like when people get overly hand-sy with him. He likes cooking and upgrading pretty much everyone's equipment if they let him borrow it. He's afraid of spiders and giant cockroaches ("Lived in Hawaii for about three weeks as a child refugee," he'd said, poking at one of the dead insects with a wary toe of a boot. "Trust me, they get big there without radiation. I'd hate to see how big they are now."), and he's absolutely terrified of failure.

And Preston put him in charge of the Minutemen. Granted, the decision was made when Preston had really not seen all the various facets of the man he travels with on occasion, but, still, he isn't sure he's felt so guilty about anything since the massacre. It's a bit too late to change anything, though: Angel's made such a good impression on everyone that they will accept no other leader likely until after he dies, and Angel is determined not to disappoint no matter how hard it gets to be on him.

It's a good two day's walk to the settlement they're trying to get to, and they make good time and stop pretty late in the night. The house is old, the walls rickety, but Angel shrugs off his pack the moment they're sure the house is clear, so Preston settles down too. The rifles go against the wall, but Angel keeps his pistol close. Always the cautious one, Angel, but Preston doesn't blame him; Commonwealth is a lot more dangerous now than it had been when Angel had lived in it.

("Used to be a park a little east of here," Angel said, pointing out landmarks that Preston wouldn't have even noticed before. "Nora and I would drive out there when we needed some quiet time. Found a puppy there, once." Angel got quiet for a minute, and Preston noted a fine tremble in the man's shoulders and a listless look in his eyes. "I wonder what happened to him."

"I'm sure he was fine," Preston assured, placing a gentle hand on Angel's shoulder. Angel didn't draw away.)

Angel takes first watch, settling next to the fire with his pistol in his lap, playing games on his Pip-boy. The Vault Survivor doesn't always sleep easily, and he always wakes Preston when he's tired, so Preston doesn't feel bad about letting him take watch.

Except, tonight, Preston can't sleep. Thoughts roll in his head, fast and vicious and eclectic, switching between stressing topics faster than Preston can actually keep up. The future of the settlements, of the Minutemen, of himself and of Angel: these are things he tries not to think about, but they tend to sneak up on him. He tries not to toss and turn restlessly, but he can't help but shift and fidget. He jumps when Angel calls his name softly.

"Can't sleep that well?" the Vault survivor asks, poking at the fire. Preston turns over so that he can face Angel. The light from the fire casts sharp shadows across his face, accentuating the bone structure and the scars. The scars. There are stories behind those that Preston thinks about all the time, but he's never asked about them. He knows that Angel was a soldier before the war. He gets the shakes, sometimes, after a fight, when he finds a body- man or woman, ghoul or human, adult or child- that's so perfectly preserved that he can tell how they died, when someone says something a certain way.

("Angel, huh? Well, don't you live up to your name?"

Angel flinches away from the ghoul, face seemingly blank but Preston can see the fine lines of stress. Angel smiles and bullshits his way through the rest of the conversation, but he excuses himself as soon as possible. He hurries back to their shared hotel room. Preston holds him while he trembles. Angel cries, screams, thrashes, and Preston understands.)

"Come here," Angel offers with a smile, patting the ground beside him. Preston stumbles over to him, slowly, waiting for Angel to take back his offer. He doesn't. He just smiles, staring into the fire as though it holds all the answers.

Preston settles on the ground next to Angel, staring into the fire with him. He gets it, now, why Angel enjoys this. The glow of the coals shifts and dances, sparks leaping every now and then. The warmth and light is soothing, calming, almost hypnotic.

Angel's knee bumps against Preston's, and it's then that Preston realizes he's been leaning his head against Angel's shoulder. The Vault survivor's body is thin, almost bony, lean muscle and yellowed-paper skin stretched over sharp edges, but it's hardly uncomfortable. Angel is warm, solid, sure, and he doesn't seem to mind the fact that Preston is there, so Preston doesn't move.

When he wakes, he finds his hand entangled with Angel's, the man's thumb very softly rubbing circles into the back of Preston's hand. The sun is only barely peeking over the horizon, and Preston scrambles up when he realizes how long Angel must have been awake. Angel smiles in a concerned fashion, letting out a huffed laugh and shaking his head. He doesn't look tired in the slightest, but Preston still feels a bit guilty.

"C'mon," Angel encourages, standing and brushing the dirt off his pants and getting everything together. "If we leave now, we might even be able to secure a bed for the night."

They do make it to the settlement in time to secure a bed. In fact, they make it just in time for happy hour at the local pub. It's little more than a shack with a bar separating the rabble from the hard liquor, and everyone greets them both with the kind of gusto that suggests they were drinking long before happy hour started. Angel splits of the bar while Preston lingers at the edges of the largest groups of people, hoping to catch at least the gist of the conversations. Most of them are at the point where they're angry at just about everything, but they seem to generally be railing against the raiders. It's the usual stuff: destroyed farms and demands for food and money, a few warning shots here and there. They haven't escalated to hurting anyone yet, but the people are afraid.

When Angel shares his information later that night, he confirms what Preston heard. They're sitting on the bed ("Sorry, Garvey, they've only got a single-bed room left," Angel had said, nervously scratching at the hairs at the base of his neck. Preston just shrugged, pretending not to care. He cared, but not in the way Angel might have thought.), side by side, Angel swirling a bottle of purified water in his lap. Preston can see the foiled edge of a packet of pills sticking out of Angel's pack, and he just hopes Angel is going to save some for a fight. He isn't going to speak poorly about Angel, not going to criticize the way he does things, but he does worry about the man sometimes. He limits himself when taking drugs recreationally, of course, but he is building a tolerance; Preston can see it clearly when Angel has to take more and more of a particular drug for it to be effective in a fight. It worries him greatly.

He doesn't say anything, though. Because he trusts that Angel knows what he's doing. Because he trusts Angel, as reckless and selfless as the man can be at times. He's spent every spare cap on the settlements, sometimes to the point where all he has is a couple magazines of ammunition left in his pack and not enough caps to pay for more and they're scrounging what they can off of the corpses. At least Angel has enough sense to be able to trade drugs for ammo, even if it does take some convincing.

But right now they're not really desperate for anything, so Angel pops two pills and lies down so that his head is in Preston's lap. It takes a little bit for the drugs to really kick in, but the effects are obvious. Angel relaxes into a squishy puddle in Preston's lap, his gaze far away, his breaths long and easy. Inevitably, he starts to prattle. At first, it's just random stuff as he searches for a topic he can latch on to. He's gone through a range of topics like this, from Swan to mirelurks to his fractured memories from the Vault. Angel wouldn't even get high in his presence without trusting him, after all, so Preston tries not to feel awkward when the topic turns personal.

Angel starts talking about Shaun. Well, more like before Shaun. "Nora just wanted a child, really," Angel says dreamily, closing his eyes and smiling as Preston scratches at his scalp. "Would have been Emilie if it was a girl. But we had Shaun. And we fought so hard to have Shaun. It took us so long to conceive him- and not because of lack of effort on our parts. But he was born… born so early, so little." Angel takes one of Preston's hands in both of his, trembling. Preston takes a sharp breath, ready to cut the Vault Survivor off if it gets to be too much, but Angel just presses on.

"He was in a plastic box for the first couple weeks. When we first got to take him home, we were so gentle with him, so careful. We were taking him into the doctor's office if there was even the slightest possibility of illness. Nora quit her job to take care of him. I wanted to do that too, just so that I could spend more time with him, and…" Angel presses a kiss to the center of Preston's palm, lets out an uneven breath against the skin there. "I'm almost okay with not finding him, Preston," Angel whispers, as though the whole world might be listening in on their conversation. "I'm almost okay with not knowing what happened to him. Imagine what he must think of me! I… I almost don't think I can face him. Not after I've let him down like this."

By the time he's done with his spiel, Angel is shaking so badly that Preston is legitimately concerned that he's going to slip back into one of his episodes. Preston doesn't know what he's supposed to say. Words of comfort seem… empty, in a situation like this. It is not, after all, as though Preston can understand what Angel is going through.

So, Preston says nothing. He very gently rearranges the two of them so that they can lay side-by-side, so that Angel can curl into his chest. He can feel Angel's shaky breaths as he struggles to hold himself together, and Preston holds him as he rides out the panic, the fear, the sadness. Preston holds him as though he's something terribly delicate.

Preston holds him like he never wants to let go.

The raiders have taken up residency in an abandoned warehouse, and Angel assesses the situation through the sight of his rifle with an expression somewhere between a pout and a frown. He slides a bullet into place with the kind of reverence he puts into very few things, and Preston takes that as a cue to line up his sights as well. Preston draws a deep breath.

Angel fires first. The suppressed rifle makes relatively little sound as the bullet pierces the head of a raider two floors below. Preston fires in the lull that is Angel prepping his bolt-action. The power of the shot and distinct lack of recoil startles him, and Angel smirks.

"Nice, huh?" the Vault survivor says cockily, popping another shot. "I made a few adjustments when we were in Sanctuary. I hope you don't mind." Another shot, and there isn't any more time to talk because the raiders have finally figured out where the pop-shots are coming from and they're starting to fire back. Preston tucks himself under the concrete railing, keeping his head down and only taking shots when he was certain the fire was off of his hiding place.

Angel, Preston has come to understand, is a terribly deadly man. A veteran even before he signed up for the Vault, he can be accurate with even the most basic of weapons. Preston has learned just to not bet against Angel; he's lost too many caps to the Vault survivor with a pipe-pistol and a raider at 200 yards.

One final shot, then silence echoes through the warehouse. Angel stays at his sights, tense, for a few moments longer before finally letting his guard down enough to lower his weapon. He chuckles, shaking his head, and starts to disassemble his rifle.

"Damn good shooting, Preston," he says, twisting the suppressor off with long, practiced fingers. Preston ducks his head at the praise, but he can't help the smile that tugs at his lips.

"You too, General," Preston returns, ready to sling his rifle over his shoulder and move out, but Angel pauses, head canted to one side, eyes closed. "General? Something wrong?"

Angel is still for another long moment before breaking into a smile. "Nah. Just me being paranoid." He snatches Preston's hat off of his head and quickly replaces it with his own messenger cap, the Minutemen symbol embroidered on one side, a Valentine Detective Agency button just beneath it. The General's hat, Preston's heard people calling it. Preston felt a swell of… something, wearing it, Angel's hand still resting on his head, that stupid loopy grin on the Vault survivor's face. "Now chin up! We've got good news to give to the settlers, don't we?"

Love, Preston realizes, watching Angel walk towards the stairs. That feeling is love.