Bury my desire
The night after encountering Craig Boone for the first time, Courier Six had found herself unable to sleep. In fact in the end – though it was difficult to recall exactly – she was certain she'd spent the whole night thinking about him. His voice, his hands, his muscles… it had been surprisingly easy to get off on thoughts about the mysterious, first-recon sniper. She didn't know anything about him at the time, but there was something about his physicality that appealed to her fluttery, girlish heart. After that night whenever she spoke to him Six had felt a familiar, desperate ache in the pit of her stomach. When he had agreed to travel with her she'd spent an hour in her hotel room under the pretense of 'gathering her things', when truthfully she'd been in the bathroom, hand rubbing frantically between her thighs. She bit down on the beret he'd given her to stifle her moans. It smelt of him.
Recruiting the others had made things decidedly less difficult for her. She could still feel her heart beating like a conga drum whenever she was near Boone, but at least it was easier to distract herself now.
In the Lucky 38 she mapped out unexplored areas, pinning the elaborate diagrams on the wall and gathering everyone around the kitchen table to discuss her plans. Mostly they were money-making schemes. She treated Boone like everyone else, and if anything they had an even stronger bond than the others. He'd been her first companion in the Mojave Wasteland; even though they'd spent most of the time in silence there had been some kind of unspoken agreement between them. When making decisions Six found herself looking to him first for help, although his words were few and far between. He was a man of action; Six was a woman of thought. Together they made a formidable team, and had thus far wiped out hundreds of Legionnaires together. In combat, or when surrounded by the rest of their friends, Courier Six found it simple to ignore whatever feelings she had for Boone.
The nights though, the nights were long and strenuous.
She didn't know exactly, since thanks to Benny most of her memories of the past were now blurry or gone completely, but Six was fairly sure she was still a virgin. She was also fairly sure that she would not be able to handle her intense Boone-related sexual frustration much longer. Every night as she caressed herself she imagined it was him, had wild fantasies of him bursting into the master bedroom and taking her right then and there. On the road she couldn't even try to ease her own suffering, instead resorting to reading trashy pre-war romance novels until she fell asleep. The confines of the Lucky 38 however brought out the fierce-woman-who-has-needs inside her. In the darkness of her room she spread her legs and whispered his name as she brought herself each time to new heights of pleasure: "Boone…"
Six would reflect later that the pleasurable sensations were always intermingled with sadness. Because she was too crippled with self-doubt to say anything to him or do anything to make him see how she felt. Like Boone she hid behind a wall, the only difference was that he never tried to tear hers down. Courier Six on the other hand was always trying to claw her way past his, brick-by-brick getting a few more words out of him. Of the whole team she was pretty certain she was the only one who knew about his wife. Whenever Veronica – ever the inquisitive one – had asked about Boone's past Six had pretended like she didn't know either. Whenever Cass had tried flirting with Boone, Six had pretended like she didn't care or didn't notice. Not that the sniper had responded to their oft-drunk friend in any way, but the Courier didn't want anyone to guess she was jealous.
Arcade probably knew, that guy knew everything; sometimes Six would catch him raising a suggestive eyebrow her way and looking between her and Boone. She found it difficult not to grin back at him.
One night when seeking out Cass in the guest room, Six had inadvertently walked headfirst into a shirtless Boone, apparently (from the clothes laid out on his bed) he had been mid-way through changing. By all appearances she was apologetic, but on the inside she had been completely elated. Aside from the one time he had allowed her to dress a bullet wound on his shoulder, she had never been in such close contact with the man.
In the collision they had bumped chest-to-shirtless-chest for but for a few glorious seconds, before he had gently gripped the Courier's arms either side to steady her. They were close in height, and without his beret and sunglasses on Six had sworn she'd seen a glimmer of amusement in Boone's eyes. She explained that she was looking for Cass.
"Out." He'd said, turning away to pull on a fresh shirt.
Six had formed an 'Oh' with her mouth but never actually got the words out, instead nodding and going to hide in her room before anyone saw the way her cheeks burned red with embarrassment (or was it arousal?) Later she couldn't remember why she'd wanted Cass in the first place, and wondered complacently whether it had just been her lusty subconscious at work. She'd heard the shower going, hadn't she? Only gone to look for Cass at the last minute and when she knew he would be in the room.
It seemed to her that more often these days she found excuses to talk to Boone or be around him. It didn't necessarily matter if the object of her affections knew about her feelings or not. In the pre-war books they said that unrequited love was painful, and though sometimes that notion proved true, for Six it added much-desired excitement to a wasteland that seemed so bleak and uncaring. Her feelings were probably more along the lines of unrequited lust, but that didn't mean they were any less pure or true. Boone's every movement was sensual to her, his every word as important as the last.
For Craig Boone the Courier was wide-eyed and devoted, and the way he fought so fearlessly at her side made the little flame that burned for him in her chest bright and strong.
She would deny it to everyone but herself – Courier Six was obscenely attached to the man.
