Warnings: Canon descriptions of slavery, Boone's general brutality.
To tell the truth, she didn't know why she asked Boone to come with her until the words were already out of her mouth. She wasn't planning a one-woman assault on the Legion, she was headed to New Vegas! He had made it perfectly clear that he sought only revenge, nothing more, and honestly Vienna could sympathize.
But the bill of sale, two human lives for a measly sum of bottlecaps, put unease in her gut and a grit to her teeth. Faced with him, Vienna had hesitated when asked to see the proof, because what if he hadn't known about the baby? But, she had handed it over, seeing her own grim look mirrored exponentially in his as he took it. He barely read it, checked it for the name and then pocketed it, but the tension did not leave her chest. She felt as though she was holding her breath when she asked him what he wanted to do. When he had said he hadn't really thought about it, she'd blurted out an offer to travel together. He'd, predictably, refused. Though, the way he had done so had not been what she'd been anticipating. It was that refusal that made her press harder.
Snipers work better in pairs, she had pointed out, and he had consented without much fight. Vienna suspected that he had simply wanted someone to follow so that he didn't have to make decisions, and she was as good as anything. It had been days since she helped him kill his wife's seller outside the dinosaur, and in those days he had said very little. Expressed no remorse, expressed no concern or protestations when she revealed she had been shot (though she left out where) and that she was seeking out the man who had shot her. Responded in monosyllable when asked if he'd like to stop for the night, if he was hungry, if he had water — to any attempt at conversation, really. Vienna eventually just turned on her radio, Mojave Music, and walked on. The only time she saw Boone animated was when she promised that any Legionnaire that crossed their paths would cease breathing.
Such was the fate for the four on the road, up to who knows what, spotted by Boone first, three killed before Vienna got close enough to shoot. Such was the fate for the two found camping by the side of the same road, later that day. Such was the fate for three (or maybe more?) that were engaged with NCR troopers along some godforsaken stretch of the desert.
Vienna was beginning to see a pattern. Though, it wasn't like he hadn't warned her when they met.
Only, she hadn't expected him to attack fifteen. What that many Legionnaires were doing this close to New Vegas was a NCR problem, and Vienna had already turned off her radio, crouched low behind a rock, and picked out an escape route on her map by the time she realized that Boone was nowhere to be seen.
The first rounds came from his gun. Three rounds fired off, quickly, and then a cacophony as the Legion reacted. Vienna had panicked initially, rifling in her bag for the dynamite leftover from Goodsprings and chucking it inexpertly at the largest concentration of Legionnaires she could see. She ran out of dynamite, then switched to her 10mm pistol. Ran out of ammo, switched to her Hunting Rifle. Ran out of ammo, switched to her laser pistol. Through it all, she stuck to the cover behind her rock, but Boone seemed to have no such considerations. Though a sniper, though he had told her that it was best that he kept back, he was right there in the fray. Not five feet from the head he was shooting at. When Vienna was finally ushered from behind her rock, Boone had lined up a shot mere inches from the last Legionnaire's flesh, and his chest exploded in bits of indecipherable gore.
The battle done, Boone holstered his weapon and stood at rest, his face his usual impassive stone.
Breathing a bit heavily, Vienna holstered her laser pistol, nudged her glasses up her sweaty nose, and told him point blank, "This is how you get yourself dead, my friend."
He looked at her strangely, a deep frown pulling at his impassive features, and said nothing. Vienna sighed, then sniffed, eyes narrowing at his state. He was bleeding. He was also a grown man who had grown up in the same world she had, who had served with the NCR and could take care of himself, but the same impulse that drew her to ask him to join her had her drawing closer to him. He drew back, eyes narrowing behind his glasses.
"You're hurt," she pointed out.
"I'm fine," he countered.
"Let me see," she instructed, irrationally.
"No," he told her, unsurprisingly.
"I'm a doctor!" she insisted, voice firm. This gave him pause, and Vienna could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes as he considered this. After a long moment he dropped his gaze, turned his eyes to the horizon, and was still. Vienna allowed herself a small little smile of victory, drawing forward to inspect the damage. "Well, sort of," she admitted, quietly.
Naturally, he heard.
"What do you mean, 'sort of'?" he asked, voice a soft monotone. It was the most words she'd heard him speak since they'd left Novac.
"Never actually apprenticed with anyone," Vienna told him, nudging her glasses up her nose while her other hand peeled back the torn fabric of his shirt to inspect the wound beneath. Superficial, though it was bleeding a fair bit. Nothing a Stimpack couldn't fix. "I mean, not formally. Read a lot of those books, though. History of Medicine, D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine…" Vienna's voice trailed off as she dug in her pack for the Stimpack. "Got a knack for it. We're not too much different to computers and robots, when you get right down to it. You know, besides the fleshy bits."
When she found the Stim and looked back up, Boone's steely gaze was on her. She gave him a very tiny, toothless smile, holding the Stimpack out to him.
He did not take it.
"We're not friends," he said, simply.
"Pardon?" The smile faded, replaced by a frown. The Stimpack was in her right hand — stupid! — should she go for her weapon now, was this what she thought it was? Vienna stopped herself from drawing backwards, forced herself to be still, because it made no sense for Boone to attack her now. And, if he did, he was a sniper. Rubbish at close quarters, by his own admission. Of course, so was she…
"We're not friends," he repeated. Vienna didn't speak. A small breeze blew between them, lifted her hair a bit and tugged at his beret. Her arm was beginning to protest, but Vienna wasn't moving. After a long moment, he elaborated: "I'm in this for the Legion, to kill them. Every second I'm awake, I'm thinking about the best ways to kill them. I am not sneaking around them, letting them live so they can terrorize more civilians. The only good Legionnaire is a dead one, so if that's not an arrangement you can live with then we should part ways now."
Vienna blinked. She certainly had no love for the Legion, no problem killing them, but it was usually more self-defense than outright… hunting. Boone's intensity clearly was not fading, not anytime soon, and Vienna opened her mouth to express a problem with killing Caesar's slavers, but then shut it again without giving any sound. She didn't have a problem with the intent or the end-result, only the tactics.
So, she opened her mouth again. "I can live with that," she said, slowly, eying him carefully as though he were a live mine. "I'm just not sure we're both going to live through that. We need to be smarter about this."
Boone said nothing. Stared at her for a moment, then reached out and roughly grabbed the Stimpack from her hand. His momentum carried him away, walking back towards the road. She saw him stab himself with the Stim and toss the refuse aside, all without breaking pace.
Vienna blew out a long, disbelieving sigh, reaching up to adjust her glasses again. "Right," she said, reaching up further to clasp her hands on top of her head, watching the stoic ex-1st Recon sniper walk. "Good talk. Really good talk."
She was half-tempted to let him go. Just let him go off on that suicide mission he clearly wanted and let him be at peace, if there was peace to be found. But her legs started walking, then jogging lightly, then matching step with him. She saw him glance at her, then look forwards as if pretending he hadn't, keeping the determined march forward in spite of her.
Vienna let him have silence for as long as she could stand it. "They can't hurt anyone, because of you," she said, eyes fixed on a mangled building in the distance. She could see him turn to look at her in the periphery of her vision and pretended like she hadn't, like she hadn't spoken at all. Glanced down at her Pip-Boy to turn the radio back on, just in time to catch the tail end of Johnny Guitar.
And, through the periphery of her vision, she saw Craig Boone look forward again.
Story also published on my tumblr, behindthescarydoor.