Juli's lips tasted like honey as he drank deeply from her mouth again and again like a man starving for water. His tongue flitted in and out of her mouth desperately, teasing her lips as it explored her taste like a man starving for food. Her lips were heavy and wide and full and just so fun to nibble on. They felt so luscious under his teeth, and he couldn't get enough of her. He clawed at her with his fingernails with desperation he couldn't ever remember feeling, squeezing her fleshy sides, sliding up underneath her clothes as they made fierce, confident contact with her bare nipples, where he squeezed with a moan.

Boone growled in his throat as his assault on her mouth continued, bolstering his attacks with a yank on her shirt, tearing buttons to reveal her bare breasts, plump and perfect and hand-sized. Boone finally paused for a moment, leaning back, breathless in ecstasy, drunk on her and dizzy without her, as his eyes soaked in her wondrous shape. Her naked form was as glorious as he'd always imagined. Almost confused by her image, his eyes came into hers. She looked away, then back at him, her cheeks flush with modesty and anxiety, her chest heaving up and down, her mouth agape and breathless. Their eyes locked, and she brought her mouth wide, a full smile with teeth like a lion.

He felt himself throb, pound, beneath his jeans as he leaned back even further to yank off her bottoms in one fell swoop, panties and all, but they got caught on her ankle. She giggled as he tugged roughly at the clothing, tossing it over his shoulder unceremoniously before making brief, sheepish eye contact back with her. She was still smiling.

Faster, he tore his shirt off and pressed his chest up against her as he dipped down to her neck to suck on the flesh beneath her neck. Faster, faster, then, furiously, almost angrily, his hands tore up her thighs. He squeezed roughly with all his might, moving his lips back to hers so fast he couldn't tell where his mouth ended and hers began. He fiddled with his own zipper with adept fingers, long since prepped and knowing of his intentions, and he felt her beneath him, felt her pitching forward to engage him. It was like white hot lightning, and, God, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He was overwhelmed. It was in his chest, and, Jesus, this was what he wanted. What he needed. He pined for her, and he couldn't take it anymore. Without waiting, incapable of waiting, Boone unceremoniously latched onto her hips and plowed himself into her as hard as he could, as fast as he could.

His head pitched back, his eyes clamped shut as he cried out, guttural pleasure, a blinding, searing white-hot sensation of home...

But she did too.

In pain.

His eyes shot open.

"Wait!" he cried out, looking down at himself, at them, at himself inside of her, without helping her, at her thighs, her abdomen, her torso. Her breasts, her neck.

"No!" he breathed out.

Shame drowned his drunkenness, constricted his throat, turned his stomach, and he looked up to her eyes to comfort her, to plead with her. He hadn't meant to do that. It was a mistake! He would never hurt her, never. After all she'd done for him? Got him out here, out of that hell in Nipton? He would never hurt her, he realized, and the realization was as equally moving as it was terrifying. It was in his chest behind his lungs, nuzzled in between his stomach and his abdomen. It was everywhere, all at once.

He would never hurt her.

But he did.

He couldn't help it, he was sick and tired and he needed her.

God, he needed her. And she was here and he just wanted to use her because she was here, right here, offering, trying to help, being his friend.

And that hurt her.

He wanted to say it all, but his mouth wouldn't make words. Gaping, he wordlessly grunted a few times to express his regret as he began to shake in earnest, as the implications of what he'd just done had on their relationship.

He wanted to leave now, to get out of her, to hide himself, his face, but he found he couldn't, even now. She was home, she felt so good. He'd never felt like this before today, and he was drunk on it-until he saw her face.

Her mouth was twisted, spread from cheek to cheek in a flat line of anguish, and sobs heaved from her chest silently, tears streaming out of clenched eyes.

He could only manage one word, a pitiful beg for mercy, tears dripping past his cheeks to her breasts.

"No!" he managed, hands all over her gently.

He hadn't meant it. He didn't mean it, but she wasn't looking at him now. She'd covered her eyes with both her hands, and he tried to remove them, desperate for her to look at him, desperate himself to see her eyes and take solace that he hadn't just done what they both already knew he had.

"No, no, no..." he begged, trying to be gentle, but firm-not scary.

He tried to lean forward to kiss her but he was frozen now. Time was frozen. The world was frozen. He couldn't move. Even his hands stopped moving. Time stood still.

This was not how he wanted it to go.

He looked back at her mouth.

"I had a baby..." she shrieked, so loudly that he heard it inside of his head.

He just blinked, saw her face, transformed by anguish and desperation for it all to be over.

A look he'd seen before.

In the mirror.

She pitched back her head now before looking back at him, eyes in his essentially begging for death.

"I had a baby!"

Crying out, Boone shot up from his cot, arms flailing, eyes blurry with tears, throat raw, chest heaving.

God, he felt her. He still felt her, and, worse, he felt what it was like to be without her. That was his first realization. He was inside of her, and he felt her and-Jesus, it was too much at once.

She had a baby.

He'd hurt her.

It was all a dream.

It was too much. He couldn't do that to her, hadn't done that to her.

Had he?

He abruptly shot up off his pillow and sprinted away, ran until his legs couldn't take it anymore, ran until his lungs gave out, until their campfire was a small string of silvery gray billowing into the dawn sky on the horizon. He looked back once, feeling her around his member, feeling her so vividly he was sure it was real. He brought his hand down his unbelted pants to himself and felt it pulsing with her center, warm and soaking and good. It had been so vivid. He moved his other hand to his throbbing lips, which felt full with her, warm and swollen with desire. He felt her-God, how was that possible?

He felt her.

But it wasn't her.

It was a dream of her.

And Jesus, he'd just forced it into her, forced her to take it, to listen, to do it. He didn't ask, didn't help her, didn't get her ready. He just went ahead and did it because he thought it was okay. He knew it had to be okay. Because he needed it.

It was okay for him, so why not for her? Why would it matter what she needed, after all? She never complained. She'd gotten mad and she'd cried, but she never whined. Never asked for help. Never brought up the fact that she'd lost every single fucking thing that he had and more, by the sounds of it. A village. A lover. A baby.

Jesus Christ, a baby.

He'd never asked, just assumed.

The virgin, he'd called her. He'd called her so many names.

He was a bastard. Worse than a bastard. He deserved everything coming and nothing she'd given him.

Sobs heaved out of his chest as he fell to his knees, sand billowing up around him as he covered his eyes with his hands. He fell forward onto his elbows and just cried there like a pitiful little boy, hoping coyotes would get him, or someone, or anything.

And right then, he felt it all, all of it, at once.

He'd pushed her too hard this time. Pushed her too hard, and he couldn't fix it. He didn't know how to fix it.

And, worse, in a way that made him feel ashamed of himself, he felt horny as fuck, desperate for the release that had just been so close and so far.

He was a disgusting animal.

Because he was here, and she was there. They hadn't fucked, he hadn't made her, but he had pushed her too hard, brushed her away too fast, pretended not to notice too many times.

She was broken now. And he hadn't stopped it when he knew he could have.

Her face, that terrible face, twisted with her terrible admission.

God, he'd never forget it.

And, he realized, crying like a baby there on the ground, he probably never would.

Veronica had left. Off to finish some Brotherhood task or other, but Boone didn't much mind. He'd been practically glued to Juli's side since that dream, almost three weeks ago now. The sun was setting, but the days were still too long and too hot. The two of them made camp near a watering hole where a giant rock cropped up, casting a long, dark shadow over the two of them as they sprawled out onto their cots, perspiring. Veronica was going to be back soon, and the beginning of fall meant that the sands were blisteringly hot from accumulated sun exposure. They had nothing to do but rest and sit and bake.

Boone was long since drunk. He couldn't pretend to know how to fill the empty silences between them with conversations that mattered, and now he knew just enough to fester in his own inadequacy. His eyes were closed and the empty bottle was limp in his hand. His beret was positioned overtop his face and eyes, which made it harder for him to breathe, and he couldn't help but to wish that Juli might get back from relieving herself and smother him with it.

But she didn't. She got back and sat beside him in the shade, small enough to need to be cramped together like this. The two of them just breathed. Boone's chest heaved as he heard her moans of anguish and despair rush through his ears down to his toes and back up again like a bolt of lightning.

He used to think she was a crybaby who didn't know anything about the world.

A virgin.

A kid.

But she had a baby.

Even thinking it made his eyes burn with salty tears, so he turned away from her as she adjusted onto her place next to him on her cot. Then, she was silent. The two sat back to back, practically, but Boone didn't want to look at her. Didn't want to see her. He was afraid of her now, but he didn't know why.

Maybe because that dream kept coming back. The feeling of her as he pushed into her, the guilt that washed over him as he realized with his pleasure came her pain. Maybe it was her face, normally so happy, a monster of desperation. He never wanted to see that on her face again, but he saw it now out of the corner of his eyes in the shadows where waking nightmares made him jump.

There was silence and then wind. Cicadas, more wind. A hawk in the distance, a lowing brahmin on the horizon.

This was the first time since Veronica left that the two had been absolutely alone with nothing better to do than to talk.

He expected her to say something, but then again, Boone wasn't sure why. She'd barely spoken two words since she'd admitted the truth to him, and he'd barely said two words to her. It was like they really had fucked or something and didn't know how to come back from it as friends. In a way, Boone thought, they kind of had. Emotionally fucked each other hard that day.

And now they couldn't go back to just being partners. It was all or nothing, and neither of them were ready.

Or Boone wasn't.

He didn't want to speak for her anymore. He couldn't. He'd assumed too goddamned much last time and look where it had gotten him? He'd hurt her that night, he realized. Probably unimaginably. More than he thought he could hurt anybody anymore. More than she deserved, and more than he could have ever thought.

Because they weren't just partners anymore. He'd admitted it as much himself. They were friends. And he wanted to know her, and all that meant.

She must have thought he was such a coward now, skulking away into the shadows without saying anything, not knowing what to say. A thick knot of pain lodged in his throat when he tried to string words together, and nothing would make the words stick.

She must have thought he was a pig. He saw the raw accusation in her eyes burned in his mind like a brand as she shrieked at him, accused him of thinking she was hideous and disgusting.

His stomach turned inside out. She couldn't be more wrong.

Juli was beautiful, he realized. He thought she was beautiful and it became clearer and clearer every day. His eyes were like grimy windows that her smile somehow managed to clean off, and behind the grit was something miraculous and happy and bubbly.

Or it was.

Boone's stomach turned again and he just wanted...something. That dream. Sex. Her breasts in his mouth. That was old news, of course, but now it complicated things. He wanted it to all go back the way it was before when he pretended that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted it to be safe again.

"Craig?"

Her voice, crackling and broken, tore through his sides.

He couldn't brush her off, couldn't defer to Veronica. He couldn't pretend he didn't hear. So he sat up, rigid, stock still, his back to her, his beret falling to his lap. He clutched his liquor bottle in one hand, his beret in the other. He couldn't open his eyes, but he heard she was breathing behind him. He wanted to look at her so badly, but he didn't know what he should do.

God, he was a fucking coward.

He expected her to yell at him, maybe. To hit him. He wanted her to hit him. After all the things she'd done for him, after he was the one who told her not to "make it weird," that was exactly what he'd done. And he'd ruined everything they'd had.

All because he didn't know what to do. Like a pubescent boy, his heart raced, and his hands felt clammy. A cold sweat settled unpleasantly in the nape of his neck, and he felt it trickle down his spine to the hem of his pants.

But she didn't say anything. Not for a long time. But he knew her. She was thoughtful, chose her words carefully. He could almost smell the smoke coming out of her ears, see her eyes squint in frustration as she waited for him to interject.

He didn't.

"I understand I have crossed a line," she said to him slowly.

Boone's hands were shaking now, and the emptied out liquor bottle toppled out of his hands onto the sand of the desert beneath them. He nearly spluttered with this and whirled around to look at her, disbelief naked on his face.

She bravely met his eyes for just a moment before glancing to her lap, where her beautiful eyes remained. Tears welled in her eyelids, but she didn't say anything for another long eternity. Boone thought he might throw up.

"What?" he snapped.

His voice was hard, loud, and raw. Dammit, why did he always sound so pissed off?

He'd been gentle that night.

Be gentle again, he coached himself.

He took a deep, shaky breath in, but it didn't do much to help.

"You haven't done anything wrong," he whispered.

"Yes, I have," she replied with a wavering voice. "I have said too much. Relied on you when I know you weren't ready. I'm sorry."

Every muscle in his body contracted at this. He was overwhelmed by sadness that, through all this, she thought of his feelings before her own, even if she was wildly off-base.

"I'm not ready," he managed to croak.

"I know," she interjected quickly.

She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed with apparent consternation with an expression he'd never seen before that absolutely terrified him for some reason. She didn't speak, so he knew he had to.

"I pushed you too hard, Juli," was all he could manage.

Her lips ticked upwards at the sound of her name from his lips, which made his do the same, but the smile faded into something devastatingly sad with the blink of an eye.

Then that look again, that terrible look.

What was it?

There was a long moment.

"Why haven't you said anything to me?" she asked, her tone sounding bizarre and out of place.

"I didn't know what to say," his mouth provided.

They sat in silence. He didn't know what to do, but he was blowing it. He felt the seconds tick by and the agony came crawling back through the sand like a wilted feral. But he had to do something. She peered at him now in that way she did. He squirmed, twisted his beret in his hands. He didn't want her to see how hard he was shaking.

She didn't say anything, but she wouldn't stop looking at him like that.

Jesus, why was this so hard? Why was her expression so hard?

"I can...tell you about myself," he blurted out. "If you want."

He swallowed, expecting her to retract, but she didn't. He looked into her eyes now as bravely as he could and found in her eyes a new truth that hadn't been there before, a plainness that couldn't have existed before this breakdown.

A glimmer of hope, maybe a new beginning.

And a raw edge that he couldn't begin to understand.

"It's not really my thing," he rambled on, "but...you can ask now. If you want. And...I know you have questions. So..."

He swallowed again.

"What do you wanna know?"

Her eyes cleared somewhat and she sat taller. Past that, Juli's expression was totally blank and lifeless and dead.

Why was she looking at him like that?

His heart pounded and pounded.

"What outfit did you serve in the military with?" she asked.

"First NCR Recon," he said earnestly. "It's a sniper battalion. That's where I acquired...my skills."

He stared down at his rifle, sighing.

"Sees a lot of action."

Still, she said nothing, but she leaned forward, eyes watery and clear and even as they stared into the depths of his sunglasses.

But that weirdness was there. The weirdness he didn't recognize.

Made him itch, like he was being interrogated.

"They moved us around a lot," Boone continued on, feeling urgency for some reason. "I was stationed at Camp Golf for a while. Last I heard they were at Camp McCarran."

"How did you end up with them?"

"They pick you, you don't pick them. If you do well at the firing range, that is. Pays a little better, so I said okay."

He flattened out his hat and looked at the insignia on it, a wistful feeling taking him.

"The hat..." she began. "I forget what it is called."

"Beret," he provided.

She smiled.

"Is that a First Recon beret? Their symbol is this?"

She pointed to the bear skull with rifles behind it.

"Yeah," he said, feeling a lightness in his chest that he hadn't in some time.

Was this what sharing felt like? It'd been so long that he'd forgotten.

There was long silence. Intense silence. Boone's heart raced as he waited, and something was mounting. Something was building. Like a predator that hunted him, he felt ambushed, like he was surrounded and had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The look in her eyes finally reached her mouth.

"I think we should part ways for now," she said.

His blood ran cold. This was it. It wasn't enough. He wasn't enough. He'd blown it.

A few thick seconds passed as he reeled from this. Of all the things she might have said, this wasn't what he'd been expecting.

"Why...Juli?"

She shrugged. Struggled to form words.

"I...need some time."

He looked at his hands, clenched his jaw. His throat swelled up, and he hated how much it hurt, how it became difficult to swallow. His trembling intensified.

"Why?" he finally whispered to his lap.

She laughed in her throat, a sad, bitter sound.

"We've been together almost five months, you know that?"

He didn't speak. Couldn't. He had to listen.

"It took you five months to tell me anything."

She struggled again, but persevered. Somehow, this wasn't an accusation, but Boone hurt inside like it was one.

"I'm not you," she said. "I need friends."

Ouch.

From his stomach rose a beast of rage, fighting to break through the muck.

"I've had your back all this time!" Boone nearly shouted.

"Then why don't you trust me?" she squeaked out.

"I do trust you!" Boone's mouth breathed out, voice raw.

The words hurt her. Juli's eyes scrunched together hard and he saw a tear slide down her cheek.

He could see that she didn't believe him.

How could she doubt that?

Had he given her a reason to?

He had. So many reasons.

Like the dawning of a horrible realization, his stomach turned in knots he'd never felt before. He'd fucked this up so royally.

He was so confused by this. The rage didn't go away, but neither did the hurt. Usually one won and this time they both just sat next to each other, holding hands. And worse, they were joined by a third feeling: desperation.

For what, he didn't know, but it had to do with her proximity to him.

Ren began sniffling. She was crying all over again.

"Are you okay?" he managed, reaching for her.

She shifted away from his hand.

"I just need some time. To forget again. Or pretend. I..."

She trailed off, her voice taught.

"Being around you is too hard right now."

Ren's eyes finally made it up to his, and he was startled by how much that hurt.

Which made him so mad. The kind of rage that was frightening, the kind that took over, made him say things, made him hurt with how bad he just wanted to hurt because of how badly she'd just hurt him. And nothing backed down, it was all here and it was overwhelming.

He blamed her.

It came out as closer to a growl than anything else.

"I don't know how to be any different, Juli!"

"Don't yell at me," she pleaded, not rising to the challenge, "I just-"

"This isn't what I signed on for-I'm not your fucking father!"

He regretted it as soon as he'd said it.

Fuck.

Shit.

Fuck.

Did he just say that? Did he really just say that?

Juli stared at him openly, unabashed shock splayed out that quickly and visibly turned to pain.

"I know," Juli quipped crisply.

"Wait, wait, wait-"

"I didn't intend to put you into this position."

Her polite tone made him feel sick to his stomach.

"No, Ren-Juli, I-"

"If I was at my best, I wouldn't have, but I-"

"I didn't mean it, Ren, come on-I...please-"

"I've made up my mind," she forced out, pivoting away, turning her back on him. "I don't want to inconvenience you any further. This feels best for both of us."

He snorted. Being alone? Again? Didn't sound like much fun.

"Where are you gonna go?" he asked her, pitiful, bitter anger mounting.

"Wherever I need to," she replied. "Now drop it, Boone, I'm not going to argue with you about this."

And that was the end of it. She turned her back on him, and Boone didn't know what to say.

So he got up in the blistering heat and he ran again, ran and ran, ran hard and fast, ran until his lungs gave out, his knees collapsed, his eyes burned, his skin caked with sweat. He returned and it was evening. He'd half expected her to be gone, but was relieved to smell a fire around the corner of the rock's shadow.

Juli was crouched there, wringing out her hands. She stood when he returned, relief in her eyes.

"I was worried," she said.

He fought his own childish malice.

Like you fucking care about me, he thought spitefully, but thankfully he said it with his eyes, which she couldn't see, and not his mouth. All his mouth asked was,

"Why?"

"You're my best friend, and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

The sweetness and simplicity of that statement and her tone were paramount to his waning rage, and his arms dropped to his sides.

Best friend.

"I needed to clear my head," he growled dismissively.

His heart was heavy and his chest hurt, but he didn't want to talk. He went to his cot and, with his back to her, pretended to fall asleep.

The next morning, Juli's bag was packed, and she paced before him, as if unsure of what to do.

"You're really doing this, huh?" he drawled out bitterly.

"I feel like I have to," Juli replied.

"Because I'm a dick? Come on, I've always been a dick. You don't have to - Juli!"

He reached out for her wrist and turned her to him. She stopped pacing and avoided his gaze.

"Look, I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said, I just-"

"This isn't about you," she said gently, slipping her smooth fingers through his grasp.

"Feels like it is."

"Well, it's not."

"Still feels like it."

"Come on, just let it go."

"I can't let it go, Juli, you're leaving!" he shot back louder.

"I'm having trouble and I need some time alone, so stop - stop pushing me all the time-okay?"

Something in her voice stayed his next snarky comment, and he just watched her pace. In that moment, for the first time ever, he saw and heard in her what she saw and heard in him. Dysfunction. Desperation. The fleeting desperation for an end begging for the mercy of quiet peace in the now.

It was in her tone, in her body language. He saw it, and it broke his heard.

It stayed his tongue, and he just watched her with desperate abandon, aching to know how to help her, and furious that he didn't know how.

Abruptly, she turned towards her bag.

"I have something for you," she said, and leaned down to her pack, withdrawing a chinking cache of bottlecaps.

She extended her hand out.

Boone sneered, crossed his arms.

"I don't want your money."

Deja vu took him as he realized it was the exact sentence she'd said to him to start their partnership. It was the sentence that changed his life, that made him think about her differently enough to head out with her.

It felt sour on his mouth now.

Hesitating, she put it back in the bag, hovered awkwardly, turning every so often as if to say something.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"Can I count on you to be there when I get back?"

His heart hurt.

"Of course," he replied unflinchingly. "I've got your back."

Always, his head thought.

Boone stood tall.

Where did that word come from?

Where the fuck did that word come from?

And what did that mean?

Without realizing any of this, Juli turned, picked up her pack, looked back at him. Her smile was small, but it was there. Boone felt a tearing in his gut, which roared in his throat.

"Be safe," he managed.

"I'll find you," she said back.

Boone didn't know what to say, but he sure knew what he was thinking.

I'm counting on it.

He watched her go, each step stretching their cord of connection until he felt it snap. He cleaned his rifle when he couldn't see her anymore. Took it apart, cleaned it again. Unpacked his ruck, repacked it. Organized his cot, straightened out the corners. By the time he was done, it was late afternoon.

Then, he sat back against the rock, the throbbing, searing pain in his throat becoming real, and cried like a baby.