song: Protoje, Ky-Mani Marley - Rasta Love

"You wanna do what?" Mordecai asked, sounding like he was doubting Roland's sanity. I sat beside him, playing with his dreadlocks absentmindedly.

"Brick still owes me a favour and Control Core Angel is out in Thousand Cuts. It's the best way to gain access that we have right now. We need his help." Roland repeated with a sigh. He looked utterly defeated.

"You do remember that he ripped Shep Sanders apart, don't you? In front of his family?" Mordecai replied.

"I know, I know. But Brick is our only chance right now." Roland answered.

"And how do you plan on getting him to do stuff for you? You two didn't part on the best of terms, if I remember correctly."

"He owes me. And he wants Jack gone as much as anyone else in Sanctuary." Roland said. Mordecai looked at Lilith and at me and then back to Roland.

"You sure 'bout this?" he asked. Roland nodded.

"Look, Mordy, Brick is still our friend. He'll be happy to be back I'd say. And you want to bring Jack down, don't you?" Lilith asked. Mordecai nodded.

"Hell, yeah. I wanna kill every single Hyperion asshole for what they did to Blood. They deserve a slow and painful death." he spat.

"Then Brick is just the right person for that." Lilith replied.

"You know, that actually does make a lot of sense, Mordy." I agreed. Mordecai looked like he was thinking about that.

"Fine, it's just... Brick has lost so much to Hyperion already. Wouldn't want him to lose any more by getting involved." he mumbled.

"How about you let him decide about that?", Lilith said.

"Fine." Mordecai muttered.

"Good. I'll write up a note for Brick and send the Vault Hunters out to find him and deliver the note. I kinda doubt he'd want to see me and I wouldn't like sending out either Lilith or you on your own." Roland said.

"I'll echo them to get their asses over here as soon as they can." Lilith added.

"Neat. I'm gonna go and have a drink up on the roof, so if anyone wants to join me, you can. Won't be mad if you leave me alone either." Mordecai answered to that. He often got disgruntled like that lately, and even though it was absolutely normal, it worried me a bit at times. I figured I'd crawl up there after a while and keep him company, just to make sure he didn't jump off the roof.

"Hey, guys, Roland has a mission for you, so if you wanna come over here as soon as you can, that'd be great." Lilith spoke into her ECHO and sat down next to me, where Mordecai was sitting earlier.

"How is he doing?" she asked me, once she had turned off her ECHO device. I just shrugged and sighed.

"Not sure. He seems to be a little calmer than before, but he wakes up at night and has nightmares. I think he's trying to keep it together as good as he can, so he's not a burden to the Raiders, but it's not healthy." I said.

"Shit. Are you holding up okay?"

"Sort of. I miss Bloodwing, too. And I'm worried about Mordecai. Add that to the list of things that are terrible since Hyperion has taken over."

"Hey, if you ever want a break from all this, I can probably ask Roland to get you into some Raider mission that's somewhere far out and really easy and simple. Might be a nice distraction." Lilith offered. I shrugged.

"Thanks, but I don't really think we'll have much time for breaks. Also, I don't wanna leave Mordy alone." I responded.

"Alright. But take care of yourself, yeah?" Lilith said. I nodded.

"You take care with your Eridium, Lil, okay?" I replied. She gave me a kinda weird look, like she didn't like what I said.

"Okay, I guess. I'm fine, though, it's helping with my powers." she retorted.

"Alright. I'll go up on the roof and see how Mordy's doing." I told her and went out of the room to go and climb up. It was a mild evening and the sun was just about to set which made Sanctuary look fairly peaceful. Half the time I didn't even realize that we were literally on a flying city, but whenever I thought about it, it made me a little nervous. I blamed it on some basic primal human instinct.

Mordecai was leaning against the wall of the next building, occasionally sipping his beer and looking out over the city. I was surprised he didn't hear me climb up the roof, since I wasn't great at being sneaky, at least not in Sanctuary. But then again, he might have noticed me and was just not acknowledging me at the moment. I walked over to the wall and sat down beside him.

"It's a nice evening." I commented, looking over the clouds being bathed in red and orange sunlight.

"Yeah. Nice and quiet." Mordecai answered, still looking out over the city.

"You miss her a lot, don't you?" I said, realizing that it was a stupid thing to say. This was when Mordecai finally looked at me.

" 'Course I do. Miss her every day. I just... I just keep thinking, could... could I have done anything differently? If I hadn't fallen for the Hyperion trap, would she still be alive? If I had gone in and tried getting her sooner, would that change anything? I don't know." Mordecai replied with a sigh and took another sip from his bottle.

"Hey, don't blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done. I hate seeing you feel guilty over this. Imagine how upset Blood would be if she saw you like this." I said. Mordecai sighed again and put down his bottle.

"Why do you even bother with me? After all this time and all the shit that went down?" he replied quietly.

"I told you already. I care about you. I really do, Mordecai, I'm not just saying it." I answered. He looked at me, somewhat confused.

"But... why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"Why would you care about me? I'm just some drunk loser, really. You could've been off this damned piece of rock long ago, if you hadn't stuck around for so long. You could go and look for your daughter, start new somewhere where people live decent lives. Instead you're here watching me drink myself to an early grave." he said. I looked at him for a second, not sure if he was serious or not. He couldn't be serious, could he? He looked fairly serious and I rarely ever saw him look serious.

"What are you talking about? That's bullshit and you know it." I said.

"You could've easily left while I had that thing with Moxxi going on. You had enough cash. No idea why you stuck around while I was being a dick. And if you had left, you wouldn't have lost everything you had on Pandora. Wouldn't have been in the Gulag, wouldn't have seen New Haven and Sanctuary. Shit, why did you stay, chica?" he explained, shaking his head. Dear God. I had no idea that that was what he was thinking.

"I stayed, because... because... shit, I caught feelings for you, okay? Remember when we had sex, the whole no strings attached thing? Yeah, well, I fucked up and caught feelings, okay? So I stuck around, because I really like you, Mordecai. Shit, even now I couldn't just leave." I replied. He looked even more confused than before.

"But then... how... why... why did you introduce me to Moxxi? Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked.

"Because I'm a fucking dumbass, okay? I didn't wanna go and be annoying, when we agreed that there would be no stupid feelings. And because I'm fucking dumb, I thought it might be easier if you had someone else. Big fucking surprise, it wasn't easier. But still. We agreed, no strings attached and that's that. Sorry." I answered. Mordecai was just shaking his head, and I was pretty sure that this was the end of it.

"But... what about now?" he said quietly.

"I don't know. I mean, if you're still cool with no strings attached, it's okay with me, there's really not that much of a difference, I can deal with it..." I trailed off when he held me by the shoulder and looked into my eyes.

"No. The only reason I ever went in for that whole friends with benefits thing was, because I thought you didn't want anything tying you down to Pandora."

"Wait... does that mean you've actually had feelings all this time?" I asked. He nodded, looking a little embarrassed. Shit. This was... I didn't expect that conversation right now. Was he saying that all this time...?

"But then... why Moxxi?"

" 'Cause I'm a fucking dumbass and thought it'd be easier to get over things." he said and laughed a little. I shook my head and started laughing as well. This was so typical. We were both the worst dumbasses.

"So, what are we now? Like, girlfriend and boyfriend or what?" I asked.

"I'm almost 40, not 14, but if you wanna call it that." Mordecai replied and shrugged.

"You fucking idiot." I mumbled and gave him a long kiss. I never expected to ever have this talk with him and it went so much better than I could ever have imagined. Things were going to shit, but at least there was one thing to be relieved about.