A/N: It's been a while since I wrote anything Fallout-related. This is yet another non-kink kink meme fill. The request was, paraphrased, 'The Courier has nightmares about some of his experiences (preferably about the Divide) and someone (preferably Ulysses) comforts him.' I didn't exactly fulfill the request to the letter, but this is what I ended up with.
Lonesome Road spoilers.
Ulysses was woken by shrieking. In the Divide, this wasn't all that unusual an occurrence. The marked men often screamed when the pain of the wind on their skinless bodies became too much. Ulysses had grown all too used to the sounds of inhumane screaming drifting up to where he camped, out on this cliff that overlooked the husk of his home.
Then Ulysses realized the screaming was coming from nearby. Specifically, from the other courier who was lying near the same campfire. Ulysses sat up and gazed impassively at Courier Six.
He'd never seen such night terrors. The way the man was writhing around and screaming was perversely similar to the way that victims writhed under the hands of the most skilled frumentarii as they were tortured for scraps of information. Six flailed and kept screaming in what might have been words, but it was too incomprehensible to decipher.
Perhaps one of his companions would have woken him up, were they here. But Six's companions never came into the Divide. It was a road for the damned, skinless men and two couriers who had altered its fate. No-one else.
Ulysses didn't wake Courier Six up. He just watched him writhe and scream, his voice becoming hoarse. There was a large part of Ulysses who found human suffering interesting, and despite him and the Courier making peace a long time ago, after that final showdown in the Divide, there was still a feeling of deep bitterness towards the man who'd destroyed the Divide.
He watched. And waited. Eventually Courier Six would wake up.
It took a long time. The screams echoed beyond the cliff they were camped on and down into the Divide. For once, the marked men were silent. Perhaps wondering what could make such shrieks, ones much stronger than their own when they bemoaned the pain of the storm.
The sky was starting to lighten when Six suddenly sat up, the screaming ending abruptly at the same time, thought for a while it had been rather raspy in tone. Six breathed heavily, in and out, in and out, while Ulysses just stared at him silently.
In and out. In and out.
"...What?" Six finally asked.
"You screamed for most of the night," Ulysses said bluntly.
"Uh, yeah. That... that happens sometimes," Six mumbled. He was coated in sweat, and wiped his face to try and get some of it off. "S'nothing. Just happens."
"Does it. Then you won't object to telling me what the dreams were about."
"I told you. It's nothing. That means it ain't worth talking about and stuff."
Ulysses just kept staring at him silently.
"...Dude, stop staring at me like that. Seriously."
…
"Dude, come on."
…
"Okay, okay, whatever. Fine, I'll talk. But it's... just stupid, alright? I mean, you've been in the Divide and you don't scream like a baby in your slee—"
"You were dreaming about the Divide."
"Yeah, that happens sometimes. I mean, with all the weird shit I've been through a lot of stuff turns up in my dreams, but the Divide... man, that's something else. It's, I dunno..." Courier Six shook his head. "It's like... I'm there, you know? I'm in the Divide, and it's all crumbly and everything smells like that mix between roasting flesh and urine... and I turn around and I see a marked man, and it's like 'alright, this a marked man, he's going to kill me' and I can deal with that.
"But then, like, I look at him... and I know that face. Because I knew the people in the Divide, man. I didn't know what I was doing when I brought that package here and I didn't know what had happened until you sent that radio message out... but I knew the people here. Pass through as often as I did and it'd be impossible not to. So... I look at this man and I see that he looks a lot like this guy, Andy, who came to the town because he was on the run from the Omertas. Dumb guy, but decent. But now he's just insane from the pain that the storm and shit causes him, and he's got no skin and he's screaming at me...
"Then other marked men start turning up, but some of them ain't men. There's women and children, too, and I keep seeing faces I knew. The little Johnson twins that kept getting in trouble for running off to explore without their father keeping an eye out, and Old Man Fargo who was mental and planted old baked bean cans in what he'd decided was his garden, and I see them all skinless and screaming and out for my blood and I know... I did that to them..."
Courier Six tailed off, shook his head and didn't continue to explain. Looking closely at him, Ulysses could see that his eyes looked a bit damp.
Ulysses stood up, picking up a stick so he could prod at the fire and keep it burning.
"Knowledge of your past mistakes is a difficult thing to live with, isn't it?" Ulysses told him.
"It's pretty... pretty shitty, yeah."
"I know." Ulysses prodded the fire a little bit more, watching the remnants of wood slowly be consumed by the flames. "I have dreamt about such things, as well. Dreamt of the fires consuming New Canaan. Of the very ground of the Divide crumbling under my feet as that machine brought destruction to what was a bastion of humanity. Bad memories haunt all men, and you and I, Courier, have experienced much more than most."
Courier didn't reply, he just rolled onto his back and stared at the sky, hands tucked behind his head. Ulysses continued to tend to the fire.
There was maybe half an hour of pure silence before Six spoke again.
"Do the dreams ever get better?"
"No," Ulysses said bluntly.
"Damn."
"The dreams will always be there. They will always remind us of our wrongs, because it is human to remember such things. Human beings would be nothing without their history. The difference is that we grow stronger, strong enough to bear it." Ulysses looked up and stared at the Courier again. "You are strong, Courier. I learnt such strength from you. You will become strong enough to withstand your past. In time."
More silence. The sky grew lighter. Were it not for the smoke and gases that cloaked the Divide they would be able to see the sun.
"Well. I hope you're right about that," Six said quietly.
"I know I am."
Six climbed to his feet. A few more slow breaths. In and out. In and out. Then he smiled. A small, somewhat sad smile. A silent 'thank you,' even though Ulysses' words wouldn't help ease the dreams of a world the Courier had shattered.