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“May I touch you.”
The request came -- as with so many things about X6-88 -- out of the blue. Caught off-guard, Preston recovered quickly, used at this point to X6-88’s apropos-of-nothing interjections.
Which … said something about how much time Preston had been spending around the man. Not that he particularly wanted to care, but it was both difficult and unwise to forget when someone sitting within arm's reach could kill you six ways from Sunday without blinking or breaking a sweat. X6-88 deliberately made it almost impossible.
“ … sure,” Preston said cautiously.
That didn't stop him from tensing up when X6-88 reached out, very slowly, and trailed a thumb down the side of Preston’s face.
The gesture was meticulously, absurdly delicate -- tracing, Preston realized, as his pulse rate tripled, the scar that ran down from his hairline and over his cheekbone. Hard not to notice the relaxed slope of X6-88’s shoulders, so out-of-character as to not seem relaxed at all. X6-88 doing his best to look unthreatening, the exact opposite of the way he presented himself at all other times.
“What is this,” asked X6-88.
“What,” Preston said, before his brain kicked into gear again. “The scar?”
“I know what a scar is,” X6-88 said. He snatched his hand back, momentarily startling both of them. “Why do you have it.”
Preston shrugged. “No big story. I was … sixteen, seventeen? A raider snuck up on me with a switchblade. My friend shot her off me, but not before I got this.” He tapped his cheekbone with two fingers, the same place X6-88’s thumb had just rested.
“And you kept it … why.” A hint of a frown crinkled X6-88’s forehead. “Reminder of failure?”
“What?”
Sometimes Preston forgot exactly how different X6-88’s world looked; sometimes, moments like this happened. X6-88 looked affronted: his face snapped back into Institute blankness, and his posture stiffened to its habitual, meticulous potential lethality.
“No,” Preston said, a touch stiffly. “We got me to the medic, they stitched the cut, and it scarred because shit happens.”
X6-88 considered this. Very gradually, he shifted back into a more normal posture -- not so relaxed it wrapped around to unnerving, but not Institute-measured, either. “I forget,” he said, “how limited the facilities available to Wastelanders are.”
“We make do,” said Preston. “You were a … soldier, right? You've gotta have a scar or two.”
X6-88’s uneasy silence provided all the answer necessary.
“ … seriously?”
“Coursers,” said X6-88 smugly, “are very rarely injured.” He looked away. “And if we are, the Institute repairs us fully. So no.”
‘Repairs’ sent a horrified shiver down Preston’s spine, which he did his best to suppress. X6-88 remained touchy about his Institute past, and which parts of it were allowed to be criticized by whom.
“I suppose, with the Institute … gone, I may yet acquire some,” X6-88 said, pensive.
“Most people do. Unless they’re sheltered DC types, but -- ” Preston grinned dryly -- “something tells me you don’t want that life.”
X6-88 huffed, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smirk. “Absolutely not.” The humor faded quickly, leaving X6-88 looking pensive again.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Preston began, watching X6-88’s expression closely. Even with practice reading the man’s oft-muted expressions, he couldn’t guess at what X6-88 was thinking now. “If it’s bad enough to scar, it takes a while to heal, but you live. You keep it as a memory, and you make do.”
“Exactly. I’m not worried, General.” X6-88’s spoke easily, relaxed, not what Preston had expected. He lifted his hand again, slowly, and paused before resting his fingertips against Preston’s scar. “You’ve left your mark on the world, and it’s marked you back. In a way, I look forward to it.”
The touch only lasted a couple seconds before X6-88 took his hand back. Preston grinned, tucking the faint regret into the back of his head for later. “Got a romantic streak? Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get hurt.”
“What do you take me for,” X6-88 said archly, lacing his hands neatly on his legs. Preston huffed at the dry joke, and shrugged.
“Capable enough to keep yourself in one piece, given fair odds, and barring freak accidents.” He knew, too personally, what a man trying to self-destruct looked like. There’d been less of that around X6-88, lately. The lightness looked good on him.
“Hm.”
They lapsed back into easy silence, but X6-88’s thoughtful look lasted the rest of the day.