There were times he was happy to go shirtless. Bandits bound themselves up in clothing and rags. Nomads went the extra mile, smothered in full smocks and trench coats. Bruisers had the right idea with tits to the wind at all times, nipple tassels optional and pants worn suggestively low. Psychos of all kinds, however, were exclusively shirtless. It was the best way to be when you were boiling alive.
"Stand still, dammit." Gaige chided Krieg and he jerked his head out of the clouds. She was gripping his leg from where she sat on the metal stoop of the Catch-A-Ride station. Her other hand poised on her drill, bent over the busted machine that he was trying his best to hold in place for her.
Nothing on Pandora ever worked the way you wanted it to, especially jury-rigged car dispensers in the middle of nowhere. Pinning their hopes on technology better of as scrap metal was a bad idea to begin with, despite it being the only one left in the highlands, half torn apart by threshers and barely functional as it may be. The hunk of junk was better off as a footrest, but without a car they were out of options.
Gaige was frantically taping wires with duct tape and prayers, rigging the shell together with a drill and bolts. She was shielded and somewhat cool in the shadow his hulking form provided but Krieg was less than content, exposed and roasting in the midday sun.
Motor oil and sweat smeared on his throat, streaked across in four thick lines. A black hand-print painted the skin where he wiped off sweat, the drops that fell from his chin, from the covered face baking beneath the metal. The mask was a torture device in the heat, clamped onto his brow, over his nose and mouth, respirator working double-time as he sucked in hot air without reprieve.
One hand came up to fidget on the leather straps that bound his useless double face. Kriegs fingers tested the strain, yanking on a strap only to feel it already stretched taut. They were bone dry, cracked, and he pulled at where they cut the reddened skin of his ears. There was no escaping the sunburn blooming on his exposed dome and he growled, jerking his head uselessly and shouting.
"Gah! Boil my brain and pass the butter- I'll be a lobster DINNER at this rate!" His whining earned him a dirty rag in the face from Gaige and he caught it in one greasy mitt. It was filthy but Krieg shrugged, adjusting his grasp on the Catch-A-Ride shell and smacking the rag over his head. It was as good of a hat as he was going to get and it satisfied him, for the moment.
Gaige's cursing was more Pandoran than a bullet in the face and it poured out as she worked, feeding off frustration. It resonated off the pavilion walls, reverberating over the exhausted silence that the hunters stewed in, only interrupted by Kriegs occasional psychotic shouting and the sound of a drill.
Next to them Salvador was flicking bolts at the threshers below the platform and humming a tune. He picked up the stray metal pieces that rolled towards them from where Gaige was fiddling with the busted machine, discarding them the way one would absently eat chips.
Krieg squinted down at the man from where he stood and hoped that the pieces weren't essential, one eye watching the bolts disappear into the dust one by one. Sal snatched another bolt and flicked it away, not even blinking when it was snapped up into a thresher's mouth. They were like coy fish in a dirt pond; the tiny ones still the size of a limb but only half as deadly as the worms that burrow deeper beyond the platform, the same kind that destroyed the last car they'd had. Everything had been peachy before Gaige got roadkill-happy. It made Krieg wonder just whose bright idea it was to let the eighteen-year-old drive. Might've been his.
All six vault hunters sat or splayed out on the metal stoop of the Catch-A-Ride station, cramped in the meager shade offered by the rusted awning above. It swayed and groaned with every hot gust of wind that blew past, the vending machines tilting along with it, straining the thick electrical cords that tethered them to the far wall.
"God, how long is this going to take?" Maya groaned into her palm with a yawn, not expecting an answer.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and closed her book in a huff, defeated. It was too sweltering to even read but she'd passed an hour doing so anyway, half out of boredom but mostly out of spite for the temperature. She only had sweat stains to show for it, having absorbed almost nothing from the pages she stained with dirt and clammy hands.
The siren was tucked in a shady corner of the station, laid out on a stack of crates and seated comfortably above the rest. In her peripheral the neon lights of the machines caught her eye, head hanging over the edge and upside down. Her hair dangled and she blew a strand out of the way, watching the vending machines with new interest, only slightly worried about them falling over and more curious as to how, despite there being an abundance of vending machines on Pandora, not a single one had cold drinks.
Even without one Maya would be alright, for the moment. She decided that once they'd made it to their destination of Opportunity she'd snag one there, maybe overturn an entire vending machine, but she could think of someone who might appreciate it more. Someone that was working up a sweat.
Head still hung over the edge of the crates Mayas gaze left the vending machines, trailing over the winding electrical cords and downward, following them to the in-progress Catch-A-Ride machine, and then... to the psycho holding it in place.
Her eyes stopped on his boot, moved up the shredded pant leg that it tucked into, and higher...
That comb might always be a mystery, Maya thought, and her eyes fell over the bent plastic comb poking out from Kriegs back pocket. She cocked her head to the side, amused, knowing she'd seen him use it at least once, but to what end on a head like his? Maya flipped onto her stomach for a better view, bringing the book up to her face. Her eyes peaked out over the cover, watching from the shadows of the rusted awning.
Above the comb poking out from his back pocket his back was as bare as it ever was. Skin washed in warm sunlight and shadows cast by sharp angles, sweat glinting off the contour of twisted muscle. She ran her gaze over the slickness of his back, the knotted flesh and the curve of his deltoids, a sheen of sweat on it all. It slid down in rivulets from his shoulders and Krieg stood in the hot sun, hunched over, thick arms gripping either side of the machine that came up to his waist with his hips pressed against the metal.
Maya curled a page between her fingertips. Kriegs weight shifted, still turned away from her, but now he leaned back. His hips were flush against the machine and his back arched, neck and shoulders cracking as he stretched out, rolling the ache from his stiff posture.
Sweat beaded on the nape of his neck and Maya bit her lower lip, rapt, focused on it as it toured down the body she watched intently. It caught the light and fell, languidly slipping between his shoulder blades, down the shadowed small of his back, falling down past the dimples above his-
Krieg felt eyes on him.
His head jerked up and he whipped around. The dirty rag flew from its place when he did, but he wasn't fast enough. Maya deftly yanked the book back in front of her face and all but pressed her nose into it.
She held it in place with determination and Krieg squinted into the shade, looking around, sure that he had felt something, someone, staring. Inwardly he chalked it up to his own twitchy body playing tricks on his head or at worse, the sun finally baking his brain into delusions. He shrugged the feeling off, snatching the rag from where it fell and rubbing it over his head before gripping the machine again.
After a tense moment Maya peaked out over the cover, still blushing and not from the heat. She shouldn't have been staring, leering at her own...psycho, from the shadows, but then, what else was there to do while she waited? Against her better judgment, Maya worried her bottom lip and lowered the book, only to jump when Axton spoke up and Krieg spun to face their way.
"You said it would take a minute, Gaige." His words dripped with exhaustion, lounging in the remains of a worn rubber tire bigger than an armchair. His tone was pleading, "Does the word ' minute ' mean something different where you're from?"
"Hey," Gaige popped her head up from behind the machine, standing next to the psycho with her drill in hand, menacing it. "Don't blame me, blame Scooter! This thing's shot to hell and back and it's HIS machine, NOT mine!" Gaige punctuated her defense by slamming the drills handle against the metal.
The machine answered back.
It whirred to life and sputtered and the two hunters jumped back as smoke peeled off of one side. The UI screen lit up a cheery blue, the first signs of life since they'd set on fixing it. Scooters pre-recorded voice resounded with his signature Pandoran twang and the vault hunters hollered, cheering at the noise and jumping up from their spots.
"EUREKAAAA!" Their mechromancer roared triumphantly and shook the drill in her fist. She thrust it into the air and tossed the drill as high as she could, digistructing it back into her inventory with a burst of blue pixels, reminiscent of confetti raining down. "Everybody UP! IT'S CAR TIME."
Krieg screamed with joy along with Gaige and hoisted her into the air, tossing her meters high just to catch her again. The oil rag fluttered to the platform when he did, forgotten for a moment before a blue tattooed hand picked it up from the spot. The psycho cackled and set his small friend down in front of the terminal, leaving her to skip away and summon the bandit technical that was going to carry them across the bridge and into Opportunity.
He was itching to dunk his sunburnt head in the water surrounding the city, maybe cannonball in and emerge ax first, covered in seaweed and screaming for blood like the thing from the black lagoons dirty cousin.
The thought reminded him of his hat and he pawed his head, wondering where it fell.
"Looking for this?"
Maya held the cloth between two fingers, nose scrunched in barely concealed distaste. Kriegs shoulders tensed when he spun around to see her there, eye flicking between her face and down to her hand. He raised his own to grasp it but pulled back, not sure whether to apologize or grab it but stuck in the middle with twitching, grasping fingers. Kriegs mouth fumbled and thoughts buzzed in his head but Maya moved past them, through them, and stepped into his space.
She pressed the rag against his throat and Krieg froze in place, feeling the cool of her digits through the fabric. She was gentle, wiping the oil stain from his skin with slow deliberate strokes, dabbing away the mixture of sweat and grease. Her other hand rested on his shoulder, unbothered by the slickness of the skin on her own. The rag ran over his adams apple and it bobbed as Krieg gulped, forcing himself to stay still while his hands curled and twitched at his sides. They relaxed when she pulled back.
"It must be hot under there," She observed, hand on his shoulder and eyes still on his neck. Two gloved fingers pressed into his jaw and tilted his head to the side. Maya ran them under his chin, down the cords of muscle below, tracing down his throat, over his carotid artery where the pulse ran wild and sweat wet the skin of her fingertips. Her eyes met his, "Huh, big guy?"
You're not making it any easier, the voice whined. He gulped, licking his dry lips, "It's a slow burn..." God, her hands feel good, maybe we can…
One huge hand shook and rose with effort, pressing over Mayas. The siren blinked in surprise, not pulling back, letting him run her hand over his skin. He leaned into it with his good eye shut and hummed with approval. She felt it his throat, and he sucked in air to speak. He was interrupted by an annoyed sigh from below.
"Are you two done?" A thick truxican accent ruined the moment.
Krieg and Maya jumped away from each other, the latter nearly toppling Salvador, who looked on in mild disgust from his spot on the ground. The rag was balled up in her closed fist and Maya looked at it, then hid it behind her back, trying her best to look innocent with a forced smile.
The gunzerker just rolled his eyes at the pair and sat up from his spot, moving away from the PDA and shaking his head. He joined the others gathered at the far end of the platform.
Gaige's pigtails bobbed from where she stood in front of them all, watching the pixels strain themselves into form with bated breath. She beckoned the two stray hunters over with a yell.
Maya found her voice, "We should, uh, probably get over there." She didn't meet his eye as they walked forward, opting instead to look down at her hand resting one hip. The other one snaked around his bicep when they joined the others. She gave him a squeeze and a nod, smiling up at him while Gaige made quick work digistructing the car they'd been waiting around for.
Gaige bowed low, celebrating her latest victory over technology. "Aaaaaand, voila!" The blue light of digistructed blueprints came into view and metal materialized, molded onto the vehicle in panels. "One Bandit Technical, coming right up!"
Their vehicle digistructed fully formed and fell onto the platform, tires absorbing the shock of mechanical rebirth. It was a car alright, but I wasn't what they'd been hoping for.
It wasn't a Bandit Technical. It was a Runner. A two-passenger Runner.
Five vault hunters looked at Gaige and a tumbleweed blew across the platform with perfect timing. The mechromancers smile was still fixed in place and her mouth didn't move, she spoke through clenched teeth.
"What. The. Fuck."
"GAIGE." The group groaned in unison and Maya dropped her face into her hands to scream. Gaige put her hands up in defense.
"I can fix this." She couldn't fix this. "I'll just- I'll just take another look at the-" Before Gaige could reach the service panel the whirring cut off and the mechanical humming slammed to a halt. Something popped from within the machine and sparks blew in a string of crunching noises, each one brought another flinch from the group, standing in the shade and watching helplessly.
Gaige squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her lips together and holding breath. Finally, the noises stopped. Sparks sputtered from the smoking Catch-A-Ride system, and Gaige's eyes cracked open again. She chuckled nervously.
"Well. At least it can't get any w-" The user interface panel fell forward and out of the machine, shattering its glass touchscreen on the metal platform. Gaige ate her words, eyes bulging out of her head as she screamed with her mouth shut. The rest of the party looked on in bereavement and the rigged Catch-A-Ride caved in on itself, dead.
No one spoke.
Maya cleared her throat.
"Were you about to say 'worse'?"