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Leo generally liked Paladin Danse. The man was handsome, broad, and had a spine of steel [no pun intended] and a heart of gold somewhere under all that grease and power armor.
Currently, however, the vault dweller had more than a few choice words for his commanding officer.
It was hot that day, despite being chilly the day before [radiation fucked with the weather they told him] and Leo’s clothing clung wetly to him. Sweat stung his eyes under his sunglasses as he stubbornly kept pace with the Paladin.
They were on their way to some recon mission to a power plant, much like their first meeting, and the Paladin set a punishing pace in his power armor.
Focusing on the man on point, Leo realized that he was speaking, and probably had been.
“Sorry, what’d you say Danse?”
The armor stopped abruptly and Leo, with his heat addled brain, almost slammed into the back of him.
“Initiate Lowe,” Danse began, and Leo bit back a groan. “We are on a mission, and-”
“And I should address you as ‘sir’ or ‘Paladin Danse’. I know. Sorry. Sir.”
Danse squinted at him against the sun, turned, and kept walking, hydrolics hissing as they climbed a hill. When they reached the top, the Paladin spoke again.
“I was saying that we will not reach our objective during daylight hours. We will continue our hike for approximately two hours before finding shelter.”
This time Leo couldn’t stop the groan that escaped him. His muscles ached, his head hurt, he was starving, and, though he wouldn’t voice this to Danse, he craved a puff of Jet.
“Pardon?”
Leo ignored the clipped tone and dropped down on the bumper of a rusted out car.
“I can’t go on like this,” he whined.
“Are you ill, initiate?” The clipped tone was gone, replaced by concern.
“This is my life now.” Leo motioned to his soaked clothes, the sunburn. “I have climbed this hill, and now I will die upon it.”
A beat of silence as Danse’s thick eyebrows lifted to the heavens.
“We’ve been hiking for twenty minutes.”