Way Back Home: If You Break My Heart I'll Die
Notes: In which we find absolution. Warning: This chapter gets extremely dark and there is some very disturbing, violent imagery, some of it of a sexualized nature.
Midday at the Atomic Wrangler was peculiar. There was a motley collection of drunks and chem addicts populating the tables and the bar. About half were stragglers from the night before; the others were starting their night early. Some settlers from Outer Vegas sat at one of the gaming tables in shabby finery, too broke to make it to the Strip but determined to blow hard-earned caps in games of chance anyway. By the stage sat a group of young guys – probably from out in the NCR, based on the way they talked – already drunk as shit and cracking each other up with lewd jokes. Nearby, with just a table between them, sat a couple of NCR troopers, both dour-faced and staring at the group uneasily.
Honey slid into a barstool and began counting out caps. Ten for the room, another five for hollering at James, ten more for breakfast –
"Heard you gave my brother some shit last night." Francine Garrett appeared in front of her as if rising up from the very floor and Honey startled, blinking at the woman. Francine set a cup of coffee down on the bar and nodded at it. "Looks like you could use this,"
The coffee was bitter, or maybe sour – sometimes she had a hard time with flavors these days – but it was hot and the caffeine sent a rush through her. She added a couple caps to the stack before her and pushed them to the barmaid.
"Thanks, Fran."
"Don't mention it. Everyone knows my brother's a greedy little perv, I'm just glad to hear someone finally laid into him." A flash of teeth in a feral grin. "You need breakfast?"
"Yes. On a tray, please, I'll be taking it upstairs."
Side-eye from Francine. "Yeah, that fella a'yours probably won't be looking too hot this morning after last night, huh?"
A blush crept up her cheeks, hot and slanderous. An easy mistake to make, and her reaction probably didn't help make her case. "He's not my 'fella.'"
"Yeah, sure," Francine said, hustling back to the kitchen to put in the breakfast order. Left alone at the bar, Honey took another blistering sip of her coffee, trying to ignore the pounding in her head. Behind her, the table of west coast guys let out a gale of laughter at something; probably it was good she didn't know what about. With a glance behind the bar – Fran was still in the kitchen – she leaned over and swiped a cigarette from the pack Francine had left sitting out.
Deep inhale, deep exhale, and another drink of coffee, and then she felt a bit more human again.
When Fran finally returned with covered dishes balanced precariously on a tray with a couple clean mugs and a fresh pot of coffee, she'd smoked that cigarette and swiped another one, tossing a few caps on the floor behind the bar as if they'd been forgotten to pay for them.
"Here you go, then." She took the tray and began the careful trek upstairs, dishes clattering with each step. The rattle of the ball on the roulette wheel, the quiet despair from the people at the gaming tables laughter from the guys near the stage – it all faded as she walked down the narrow balcony towards the door of her room. Opening the door with the tray in her hands was impossible, so Honey set it on the floor to turn the knob, then bent over to lift it again.
"Honey, I'm home," she called as she walked in, chuckling at her own joke. Where had she heard that? It was some old saying, that much she knew, but –
John lay on the bed, propped up on the pillows, eyes closed. Was he asleep?
No, something about the scene was wrong, though she couldn't pick out what. She stood there, tray in hand, staring, and then it hit her.
He wasn't breathing.
The moment stretched as if it would break, the heavy tray weighing down her arms, and she waited for his chest to rise, then fall.
Her heart beat once. Twice. A third time.
He didn't move.
He didn't move.
The tray fell to the floor; there was a distant smashing sound as mugs broke and dishes shattered, a wet gurgle of coffee spilling into the carpet. The smell of coffee hit her, and eggs and brahmin sausage, so strong she thought she might be sick.
Still, he didn't move.
She took a step forward, then another, so close now her knee bumped the foot of the bed. From this angle, she could see now bit of rubber tubing that had fallen from his arm to coil on the floor like a snake.
The needle still stuck in his arm, the way the metal bits on the syringe caught the light.
"Oh, shit, not another one." Honey turned, the action as sluggish and difficult as if she were underwater. Crowded in the doorway was Francine, the two NCR soldiers, a tall ghoul in a cowboy hat and a dominatrix outfit.
What do you do, pussycat?
I don't know. Fuck – I just don't know.
There was a body jostling past her, a glimpse of a brown uniform, a bear insignia winking at her with two eyes. One of the NCR guys bent over the bed. He slipped the syringe out of John's arm, handed it to the other guy. When had he come around?
And still she stood there, feet rooted to the floor. Useless. Frozen. The tips of her fingers were even cold.
The first NCR guy was leaning close over John's chest, two fingers against his throat. The other turned to her, accusatory or maybe worried.
"What did he take?"
All she could do was blink, shake her head.
"Miss? What did he take?"
Her mouth began to move, somehow. "I don't know."
The first guy was tapping John on the cheek, trying to get a response from him, but still he lay there, so still it made her stomach turn. The second guy looked past her and shouted to someone, "Go to the Mormon Fort, get one of the docs there – Julie or someone – and get them back here now. We got a guy with no heartbeat."
Footsteps traveling away, but she couldn't turn her head. The first NCR guy leaned over John, hands on his chest, and began pressing hard between his ribs.
"Do you have any stimpacks? Fixer, anything like that?"
He's talking to you, pussycat.
Somehow the second guy was in front of her now, her hands in his, and all she could see was his eyes, shiny and wide in his dark face.
"Look, miss, we want to help your friend. But in order to do that, we're going to need supplies and information." Behind him, the first guy had bent John's head back and was breathing into his mouth, intimate as a kiss. "'You don't know what he took?"
She shook her head again.
"How long ago did you last see him?"
Her mouth moved without her telling it to. "Twenty minutes? Maybe thirty?"
A nod from the soldier. "And do you have any stimpacks? Fixer, any other chems?"
Her pack. She had to get to her pack. She wrenched her hands from his and turned to the bag on the floor, riffling through it faster than she'd ever have thought possible. A handful of stimpacks and a dose of Psycho that Jack had given her back at the Khans' camp. The double-vial syringe was fat in her hand; she felt a twinge of embarrassment at handing it over but the soldier didn't bat any eye at it.
The first soldier was leaning over John again, pumping his hands hard into John's chest, arms straight and stiff, and there was a terrible cracking noise. The second soldier took the needles from her and pulled a flask from a pocket.
It all seemed to happen in snapshots: she saw him douse John's chest in liquor, the smell of it mingling with coffee and their ruined breakfast. The rubbing of a square of felt on his skin. The plunge of a stimpack, then another. A third. A fourth. The other soldier leaning back, gasping.
The second solider pumping John's chest with his hands as the first had.
Still, he didn't breathe.
The soldier leaning over John's mouth and forcing air in, each breath loud as a scream.
"I don't know, man," the first soldier said, his breath ragged. "I don't think we can –"
"Try the Psycho." The words came from the second soldier in bursts.
"Are you sure –"
"I said do it."
It was hard for them to get the syringe in with the way the second soldier was pumping John's chest, but the after a moment, the first one lined up his shot and jabbed it in, just below the hands clasped over John's heart.
Inside her chest, Honey was sure her own heart had stopped too, and yet still she stood there and watched.
The two sat back, staring at their patient, and then there was a thin gasping sound as – finally - John took a breath.
He and Nicole bounced off each other, but this time John knew who she was. He recognized her wasted, haggard limbs and the two long tufts of hair on her head. He knew the knife thrust was coming at him, so he side-stepped and wrapped his arms around her. It was easy enough to pin her arms to her sides in a rough huge, to rest his head against the back of her neck until she stopped struggling.
I can still save her, he thought.
"John?" She sounded so lost, so scared. At her side, she still held the knife clenched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles had turned white. He didn't want to let her go, didn't trust her not to attack him. Inside his arms she shook like a bird.
"Yes, it's me."
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard you were here." She relaxed against him, and he let her go. Nicole stumbled from his arms as if drunk and turned to eye him shiftily, nervous as a cat. She took a couple steps back from him, but at least she was out of knife range.
"You did, huh? Why, d'you change your mind about fucking me?"
He tried not to snort at that. "I just wanted to see if you were okay. Doesn't look like you are."
She raised what was left of one eyebrow. So skinny, so fragile – but he'd seen all this before. He leaned against a concrete wall, graffiti under his shoulder, and fumbled a pack of cigarettes from his pack. Lit one with a bright flare and sucked in the smoke while he tried to think.
"Of course I'm okay," she said, relaxing a little. "I got a good thing going here. Cook-Cook says I'm a natural."
This again. Cook-Cook again. He knew how this story ended; it ended with him flinging her body against the wall so hard her skull shattered, with a scream and a wail and blood on the concrete.
Well, not this time.
"You hate me, don't you?" A look of surprise pushed out the suspicion on her face.
"I don't hate you." The knife hit the ground with a clatter. "But I don't want some fucking white knight to come save me."
He took another drag from his cigarette. Behind her, the sky filled with dark clouds. The edges of them were green; in the roll of the thunder he could smell salt and brine. There was the call of a gull, but what was a gull doing in the Mojave? He could hear the rain start to fall. Nicole turned to look at the clouds and he pushed up off the wall to stand beside her.
Her fingers reached out and took the cigarette from him; where they brushed his they felt like bone and ice.
"You need to get home, John."
"Not sure I can."
"There's other girls out there like me. There's dealers selling to kids, there's people getting murdered in their beds for looking at Vic or his boys wrong. I wasn't the first and I won't be the last."
He looked back at her, and this time she was gruesome. Her blackened skull grinned back at him, teeth like tombstones and eye sockets empty and ageless. Red and blue flowers adorned her forehead and chin; her cheeks were painted in thick strokes with red diamonds. The bottom of one dripped paint bright as blood down her cheek. One skeletal hand passed the cigarette back into his hand but all he could see was the smoke from her last drag seep through the hole where her nose had been.
"I think I'm dead."
Nicole tossed her head back in a laugh that was more a grimace.
"You're not that easy to kill."
Time seemed to pass unpredictably. In one moment she was watching the NCR soldiers try to revive John; the next she heard a quiet sigh at the door and when she lifted her head from her hands, Arcade stood there.
He paused a moment, glancing over to where she sat in the corner – and when exactly had she sat down? She would never know – and then continued to the bed. The two NCR soldiers – medics, she realized now, blearily – stood at attention. One of them handed Arcade a piece of plastic and the syringe they'd pulled from John's arm. The other was talking, though she couldn't hear anything over the roaring of pain and fear in her ears.
On the bed, John's chest moved shallowly with each breath, but it did at least move.
Arcade looked down at the trash in his hand, and she could see the way his mouth tightened. He nodded at the NCR guys and shook their hands, and the soldiers turned to leave. At some point the breakfast mess had been cleared away, but the dark stain on the rug still stank of coffee.
The pressure on the side of her head where the bullet lay was crushing her. Her stomach wanted to revolt but with nothing in it but a cup of coffee, there was nothing for it to send back up. A man appeared before her and she looked up, from his brown pants to his kind eyes. The medic, the one who'd spoken to her before. He knelt before her, and then the rushing sound in her ears turned off.
"I'm sorry about your friend." His voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. She couldn't speak, so she nodded. The motion made her head feel like it would topple off her neck, so she stopped.
As suddenly as he'd appeared before her, he was gone, and she was left to wonder if she'd imagined that moment of kindness.
The bank of the Charles looked dead from up the hill but as he got closer, John could see the plants that flourished in the wasteland – hubflowers, ferns. In the rocky soil at the water's edge bloodleaf had taken root, the red of the leaves drawing his eye. It was a warm day, sunny and clear, the clouds so white and fat they looked like pillows.
A beautiful day in the wasteland.
There was a buzzing sound to his right. A familiar, distressing flapping and a wet squelch.
This again.
He turned to his right and walked along the riverbank until he saw Martin, as he'd known he would. Eight years old, lean and tall for his age. Handsome in a conventional way. Blond hair flapping in the breeze, skinny arms covered in ichor and blood as he pulled out the insides of a dying bloodbug. The creature's proboscis lay on the ground at his brother's feet; blood puddled from the end of it, soaking the dirt and scrubgrass.
"What are you doing?" The shocked tone of his own voice, even though he knew, even though he'd seen this before. Maybe he couldn't change what had happened, but why did it still surprise him?
"I want to see how it works."
"But – it's still alive." You're not five years old anymore, John. You can tell him to knock it the fuck off.
You can't change the past.
His brother looked up at him, and suddenly he wasn't eight anymore. No, he was grown man and the smile on his face was the ugly, vicious grin he'd worn the last time John saw him. Too big, with too many teeth. His brother's face looked like rubber, stiff and animatronic; something about it made him think of Nick Valentine and the way his expressions seemed to float above his skin.
The smell of blood, coppery and insidious, on the breeze.
"It's not like they're people, John." Still, that smile grew. It seemed to take up half his face now. John's skin prickled, each little hair on his arms standing at attention. "They're ghouls."
The bloodbug was gone. Instead there lay Myrtle Staunton, her mint-green housedress soaked in black blood, her ruined face contorted in pain. She let out an agonizing cry that sent an electric shock down his spine. Martin's hands pulled a rope of something out of her abdomen – intestines, maybe – and set them aside.
"I'm just giving the voters what they want," his brother said and John couldn't help it; he turned and retched in the bushes. And then, just like always, he ran, Myrtle's screams chasing him.
"What did he take?" Her hand shook so hard the cup of coffee in it spilled over the side, turning her skin a bright pink though she couldn't feel it. Her entire body felt numb, still, cold from her head to her toes. For some reason she kept seeing the frosted mountains beyond Jacobstown when she closed her eyes, their white-capped tips reaching into an impossibly blue sky.
Arcade's mouth was a thin line, a dark gash across his face. His skin glowed in the dim room. They sat in two chairs – Francine had brought another up, at Arcade's insistence – facing the bed. John lay under a crisp blanket, a formless shape that seemed to suck all the air out of the room, despite the fact that his breath came so shallowly. Arcade had fixed a drip of Rad-Away to the bedframe and the thick liquid made its way slowly through a tube to the needle in John's arm.
A heavy sigh from the doctor, one so deep it sounded like he was trying to let out all the air he'd breathed in his whole life.
"It was something we picked up at the Nellis Research Hospital," he said finally. "Something with an eighty-five percent chance of death."
She couldn't look at Arcade, couldn't look at John. Her eyes focused instead on the dark stain in the carpet, the spot where the coffee had spilled when she'd come into the room and seen him…like that.
"He already died, though." The words caught in her throat. "He stopped breathing. So –"
"'I don't know. I don't know what to expect. We're in new territory here."
Was she nodding? She didn't know. Everything hurt.
"So you don't know what happens to him next?" Honey didn't need to lift the blanket to see what she'd seen the last time Arcade lifted the blanket to inspect his patient. Skin red and rough like he'd gotten a vicious sunburn, so bad that it was starting to peel off in places in long, angry strips. When she'd adjusted his head on the pillow, her hand had come away covered in dark hairs. The injection site was the worst, ulcerated and leaking pus. Arcade kept covering it with sterile pads but the yellow pus leaked through so fast it was hard to keep it clean.
There was only one thing that had this reaction: radiation sickness. She'd seen enough of it – they all had, in the Mojave – to recognize the early signs. Next the ulcers would spread, necrotic tissue tunneling under the good skin, bone and tendon and muscle exposed to the open air. If he was lucky, he'd die fast.
The soldiers who'd saved his life had given him nothing but borrowed time and the guarantee of a painful death. If she'd been the type to pray, she'd hope for him to never wake up, to drift in whatever place he found between life and whatever came after. At least she could pretend he felt no pain then; at least she could lay him to rest peacefully.
"When was the last time you ate?"
"What?" This made her look at Arcade, really look at him for the first time since he'd arrived. He looked so tired, so sad. His hair stood at odd angles, the skin under his eyes smudged and dark. Somewhere he'd acquired a dark splatter on his shirt, though whether it was blood or coffee or something else, she didn't want to know.
"Food, Honey. You need to eat something."
"No."
"Yes. You're already in shock. If you don't eat you'll get sick. And you –"
"I know. I know, I have things I need to do."
Arcade nodded, wrapped one of his cool hands around hers. "Exactly."
Her eyes drifted back to the dark stain on the floor. "I don't want to."
"Just go back to the Lucky 38 for a little while. Take a bath, have something to eat. Get some sleep, maybe. Come back in the morning." A small, futile smile on his face. "I'll be here. If there's anything I can do for him, I will."
You need it, pussycat. You need to be sharp if you're going to do what you promised.
When you finally kill Caesar, tell him hello for me. Joshua Graham's voice – her father's voice – came back to her, dark and full of promise.
Getting' awfully crowded in here, honey baby.
Fuck you, Benny.
With her other hand, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her head hurt – how long had it been since her last dose of Med-X? A day? Two? No, longer than that still; no wonder all her joints were screaming.
"Okay," she said, her voice a tiny and tentative thing.
Arcade gave her hand a final squeeze and she made her way out the door and back towards the Strip.
A hand on his leg, cool fingers walking up his thigh. A baritone laugh in his ear; hot breath against his neck. The tickle of stubble on the sensitive skin where his throat met his earlobe. White sheets, bright sunlight, shiny fair hair.
Arcade.
John let his name out with a sigh and felt a shifting in the bed. A caress on his hip, pulling him closer; Arcade's mouth on his own. Insistent kisses, the barest brush of a tongue on his lips. The rush of a warm, beloved body against his chest. He leaned into it, taking in the smell of cactus and mint and something antiseptic, a groan tearing out of him at the sensation of a hand on his dick.
"You like that, baby?"
John's eyes flew open. The dark eyes staring back at him were Vic's, glittering and hateful. His grin wasn't Arcade's sardonic smirk but broad and taunting. The grip on him tightened and he let out a gasp as the pain shot through his erection. His body jerked as Vic squeezed again, too hard.
The bed was gone, the brilliant morning sunlight, the Mojave below. All he could see were brick alleys, corners full of trash. Puddles and grime everywhere he looked, and his body streaked with dirt. Rain fell half-heartedly in that Commonwealth way, though he could hear from the roll of the thunder overhead that more was coming.
"Fuckin' nancy boys like you make me sick." Vic stuck his free hand under John's shoulder and hauled him to his feet, slamming him into the crumbling wall so hard pink dust came away on his naked shoulder. Without clothes or armor, without a weapon, with his dick in Vic's hand – he was fucked.
As if to drive the point home, Vic gave a tug so rough he let out a choking gasp. Spots swam behind his eyes.
Laughter behind the crime boss – the shadows came together to create the figures of Finn and Ogre, their ugly faces contorted in manic glee.
"Like kicking people when they're down, do you?" He fixed Vic with a glare.
"Fuckers like you? Hell yeah." His dick was going to fall off if Vic kept at it like that.
Time to get to work, then.
"Well I'm not down, you shithead." He wrapped his fingers around a brick that had come loose in the crumbling wall. His knuckles scraped; overhead there was a boom of thunder. He brought the brick around in a wide arc, picking up speed as it went, and slammed it as hard as he could between Vic's eyes.
Lightning flashed somewhere behind him, so loud he went deaf for a moment. The overexposed light made the blood where the brick had torn Vic's skin turn black. A bit of white skull gleamed through the ripped skin.
He looked past Vic as the man fell against the wall, but Finn and Ogre were gone. Vic's hand let go, and he felt like he could breathe again.
Vic turned his head to him, eyes wide and staring. Another flash of lightning, and this time John could see how the skin was falling from Vic's face in wide streamers. Angry red muscle lay underneath, and the warm white of bone.
"Fuck you –" Vic's tongue fell out of his mouth with a wet splat on the pavement. His nose followed, leaving an ugly gaping hole in the middle of his face.
"At least I'm still pretty."
John turned to head out of the alley, scratching aimlessly at a spot on his arm that burned despite the cool air of the Commonwealth.
He was waiting for her outside the Lucky 38, a man dressed like any other gambler but whose every move was a lesson in appearing casual, in looking like he belonged. The disguise was just a bit too good, so it was no surprise to Honey when Vulpes walked up to her.
"You stood me up."
It was too late for this, and she was too tired. "Something came up."
"Something 'came up'?" His eyes narrowed, thin slivers of blue peeking around the irises.
"Sí." Fuck, she was impatient. "I had an emergencia. You understand?"
His hand was on her arm, hard enough to hurt, though from the way he guided her into a dark corner probably none of the drunks passing by would notice.
"I understand that I went out on a limb for you." His voice was that silky calm that she knew meant danger; guys like Vulpes weren't inclined to lose control over their anger. That was when they were most dangerous.
Compared to the exhaustion she felt, the bruises forming under his fingers were nothing.
"I'm still coming." Even she could feel the exhaustion in her voice. "I'll be there as soon as I can, but –"
"You'll come out in the next week or I'll tell Caesar you were plotting his assassination." A squeeze on her bicep, so violent she let out a gasp of pain, or surprise. She tried to get her brain in gear, but everything came up blank, a slot machine with no winner. "And we'll proceed with the execution of the spy Benny."
Nothing about that was funny, but Honey laughed all the same. Benny, a spy – as if he were sneaky enough to earn that name. The giggles rose up from deep inside her, thoughtless and light as bubbles.
"I'll be there," she said, when she'd caught her breath again.
"See that you are." He let her go and disappeared through the gates, the bowler hat on his head blending in with the others, distinctive only in that it went out the gate instead of in. Honey brought her opposite hand up to her arm and rubbed the bruised skin there, and wondered what her next move was.
"I had the most amazing dreams."
The images were fading already, the memories of his brother, of Nicole and Vic. Radstorms in the desert and rain in the alley behind the Old Statehouse. The Charles River glittering in the sun.
A rustle came from across the room, like fabric and paper. He wanted to sit up, but fuck, his arm hurt. Trying to put any weight on it was too painful, so he lay back down and looked up at the ceiling. White plaster discolored with age, a large crack running through it. Well, that certainly didn't help narrow down where the hell he was.
Arcade's face appeared in his line of sight, his expression neutral. It took him a moment to figure out why that made him sad, and then he remembered.
I can't be with someone who's going to kill themselves.
"I didn't think you were going to wake up."
A hand on his back and another on his shoulder, cool and strong, helped him to sitting. His head swam with the motion; then as Arcade slipped another pillow behind his back, his vision cleared.
"What a trip." His chest felt tight, constricted, and his breath was shallow. His voice didn't sound like his own; it was deeper, almost gravelly. He tried clearing his throat to see if it sounded better. Blinked and found he was almost too tired to open his eyes again.
It looked like they were in the Atomic Wrangler. A chair sat next to the bed, and Arcade pulled a small black doctor's bag from it. He took a stethoscope and laid it against John's back, listening to his heart. There was a burnt smell in the air, like old coffee; from under the door he could hear the sounds of slot machines whirring and gamblers laughing.
Apparently satisfied, Arcade leaned back in his seat. "Well, you're awake. I guess that means you'll probably live."
"What do you mean?"
Arcade quirked one eyebrow up. "What's the last thing you remember?"
He tried to think, but everything was hazy. Laughing at a roulette wheel with a glass of whiskey in his hand bled into Nicole's grinning sightless skull, one red diamond on her cheek bleeding towards her chin. Stumbling in the Freeside night, dizzy and angry and singing. Martin's grin, too broad and full of teeth as he looked out over Diamond City, the Charles gleaming impossibly behind him. The rumble of thunder and Honey's hand in his own. The steel gleam of a syringe in his hand, plastic wrapper falling to the floor.
He didn't want to speak; a chill settled over him, fighting against the heat inside his skin. Suddenly there was a pull in the blanket that was safer to look at than Arcade's eyes.
"I got high."
"Yes."
"I took the RadSafe! from the hospital up by Nellis."
"Looks like it." Arcade's voice was tight, terse.
John sighed and leaned his head back against the bed frame. There was a spot on his arm that itched almost unbearably, but getting his other hand to it was just too much work. He might have just woken up, but he felt like he could sleep for a year.
"How long was I out?"
"Five days."
"What happened to Honey?"
He could hear Arcade exhale; the heat of his breath brushed John's hand. "I sent her home. She needed some rest."
It was too much work to nod. Part of him wanted to cry, but it felt like all the moisture inside him had dried up. Everywhere he seemed to itch; his skin was on fire. The pit of his stomach felt like it wanted to revolt; his head was so heavy and pulsing and he wondered if this was how Honey felt all the time. He wanted to ask Arcade for something for the pain, but maybe it'd be better if he didn't. Not after what landed him here.
Still, the thought of a little Med-X to take the edge off was tempting.
"So, what's the prognosis, doc?"
Arcade gave a short, bitter laugh. "I don't know if you want to hear it."
That didn't sound good. His eyes traced the line of the crack in the ceiling.
"Gonna have to hear it sooner or later."
He couldn't see Arcade's face, but there was something in the silence that chilled him. Finally, when he thought he was going to break: "You died."
"But I came back."
"I'm not sure for how long."
He wasn't sure why – maybe because of the way his body wanted to heave and hurl, or maybe because of the parched texture of his lips – but this didn't surprise him.
"Ah."
"Yes, um. The thing is –"
"You know, you don't have to do this right now, you know, if you don't want to." Maybe it'd be better not to know, after all. Maybe he could have a little longer to drift, to be free from the fear of what might happen to him.
It occurred to him, all at once, that he didn't want to die.
Arcade sighed again. "I think I do." He cleared his throat. "You're – I don't know exactly what's happening. I can make an educated guess about it, though."
"And that is?" If whatever was happening to him was real, he wished Arcade would just spit it the fuck out.
"I think you have Advanced Radiation Sickness."
The itch in his arm, the tingle in his veins. The burning feeling through his body. The rasp in his voice, and the friable feeling of his throat.
"You think I'm going ghoul?"
"That's not the question. You certainly are, it's already started. If you look at your arm –" John did. His arm was angry, inflamed and raw where skin had sloughed off. There was the curve of a muscle along the top of his forearm, the taut angle created by a tendon in his elbow. At the crook of his arm was the line of the Rad-Away flowing into his body, dark and viscous in its tube. The flesh around the needle was black and yellow, necrotic and festering.
Attractive.
He leaned back and asked the ceiling, "How long before I go feral?"
"Not sure." "I've never seen anything like this before. I was hoping we could use the Rad-Away to fight it, but I've never seen anyone go through the early stages so fast."
John scrunched his shoulders, slumping a bit in his seat, and looked over at Arcade. The doctor looked calm, even clinical.
"I'm sorry."
There was a flare of something on his face, and then Arcade blew. The façade of calm disappeared, his face turned red. He stood, towering over the bed, eyes wide behind his glasses.
"You should be, you fucking idiot. I can't believe you would do something reckless, so stupid, especially after –"
"You're right." That seemed to take the air out of Arcade's sails. He sank back into his chair slowly, eyes narrow with suspicion. "I've been selfish. This whole thing," with great effort he lifted his free hand and gestured to himself, to the room, to Arcade. "Selfish." The breath he took was painful; his lungs felt full, or perhaps too small.
"For what it's worth, I mean it. I'm sorry."
In the quiet between them, there was a cheer that went up downstairs. Sounded like someone had just won big.
"Thank you." Arcade got up and walked to the door, the carpet quieting the sound of his footsteps. When he turned back and met John's eyes, there was a feeling in his chest like a window shattering. "I need to go for a walk, clear my head. I'll be back soon. Why –" John watched him swallow. "Why don't you try to get some rest?"
He didn't wait for an answer, just walked out the door with little more than a look back. John watched him go and found he'd never felt more alone.
