Chapter Text
When he strode into the Fort, Arcade's skin prickled. He couldn't describe it, not honestly or truly. But it was like the Mojave whispered across his nape with a small displacement of air, and he scrubbed his palm over it in an effort to quell the strange shiver, bent over notes scribbled in pencil and two different pens.
"Arcade?" Julie asked, poking her mohawk into the tent. "I've got someone here asking for you."
"Is it that insane courier?" Arcade asked, taking his glasses off to swipe at where the nose-pads had rested. She showed up, every now and then, with 'presents' for him. He'd not really known why the whole almost undamaged Cazador corpse was considered a present, until she'd crouched down in the sand next to him with a borrowed scalpel.
Small quick hands had plied the blade with shocking ease, sliding through carapace and joints to split the cazador open like a blooming flower, pristine and perfect. Red hair swept off her face with a strip of colourless cloth, her fingers had been stained yellow with the insect's blood. She'd pointed out organs that he was unfamiliar with, as well as the more recognisable venom gland. Antiseptic. Anaesthetic. Good for people having fits. She listed off properties and methods of preparation while Arcade had frantically scribbled, trying to absorb this rich knowledge. He didn't know where she'd come from, but it was clear somebody had taught her well. Crouched in the dying sun, its rays reflecting gold and fire off their hair, he'd asked if she'd been a doctor, before. She'd tilted her head at him, brown eyes assessing.
"You don't need to be a doctor. I'm a fixer." She'd said, shrugging one shoulder inelegantly as she rocked back on flat feet like a tribal. "I don't remember a lot of things. But I remember how to fix."
Arcade whole heartedly believed it. The Courier had felt like change. Not a change, no. Not a single man-made event. But the kind of change that was a concept, a pinnacle. It was the shift of the Holocene Optimum, the eruption of Krakatoa and the melting of glaciers. The kind of change that made the Mojave and paid no mind to the whims of men. For that, he had wanted to follow her. But she hadn't asked, instead smiling at him. A full lipped sharp toothed thing as she reached up the full length of her arm to pat his cheek.
"Somebody's following me. You should talk to him. Find out why."
She'd left with Veronica and three days later, Arcade was blinking at Julie while she told him there was a tall stranger asking for him. Walking out into the midday sun, almost everyone else languished in the shade or napped. Right now the Fort was still, nothing stirring. And then a tall black shadow peeled itself off the wall nearby. The man strolled up to Arcade, who felt the faintest bit nervous.
"Uh, hello, I'm Arcade Ganon. I heard you were asking for me? I don't believe we've met before. It's rare to meet someone taller than me so I think I'd remember," Arcade was vaguely aware of his mouth running while his eyes stared. A long braid hung over the man's shoulder, bleached white against his black coat and riot armour. Man must be broiling under there. Even his face was covered, a black kerchief pulled up and over his mouth and nose, his black cowboy hat shading the strip of pale skin across his upper face. Icy blue eyes pinned him. He looked like a spectre, and Arcade felt his mouth sticking.
"You look like somebody she'd know," the giant said, and giant he must be at nearly seven feet. "Sit with me." His voice rumbled smooth, like the shifting of tectonic plates.
It turned out, as they drank a sarsaparilla between them in savoured sips, that the 'she' the man referred to was the Courier. Turned out she had a name, though she hadn't given it. Turned out she had a history, though she gave no sign of knowing it. A history connected to this man, who gave his name as Kale. When he'd removed the kerchief to drink, he'd shown a strong featured, proud face. A hawk like nose, high cheekbones. Teeth that while yellowed, looked to be in good health. Thin lips. He looked like a ghost, haunting the Courier.
"What exactly do you want with our mutual friend anyway? As her doctor, I'm afraid I'm bound by patient confidentiality," Arcade muttered. He was distracted by the way the stranger's red, red tongue slowly peeped out to chase errant traces of sarsaparilla from his lips.
"She's forgotten I'm following her. That's not like her. She needs reminding before she gets herself in trouble without me." The man had produced a slender smooth metal rod from somewhere, tracing it in the packed dirt floor of the Fort. Twisting twining lines that slipped in and out of each other, light trails in the dust that could be swept away at any moment with a dreamy purpose that went beyond doodling. Arcade felt that strange shiver up his spine again.
"So you're, what, stalking her because you care? Forgive me if that doesn't incline me to help," Arcade said, trying not to think about how his palms were sweating. It was eeking into the early afternoon when the heat was strongest, the air still and heavy.
"I'll follow her anyway," Kale shrugged. His fingers twirled the little rod between them. "You might as well come with me."
"Why?" Arcade asked, voice flat and eyebrow raised. "You're not giving me much to work with."
"Because you care. Because you're nosey. Because you can find out why I'm following her, intervene if you think it dangerous" he listed, the flash of sunlight on the metal rod hypnotising. "Because." He paused and icy blue eyes slid to him. Arcade's eyes were stuck between them and the spinning flashes. "You and I are both profugus."
If Arcade were any better at dissembling, he'd have played dumb. Given a puzzled frown and asked him what on earth a profugus was. Instead the red flush from the heat dropped out of his face instantly. His knuckles tightened on the sunset sarsaparilla bottle in his hand. Every hair on the back of his neck stood up. Kale nodded slow and satisfied. "I didn't think you'd be Vault-Issue. But you're not made for here, for small things. You are made for greatness."
"I think you might be overselling things," Arcade managed, his tongue feeling thick and dry in his mouth. "I'm just a Followers doctor." Kale smiled. There was almost a drop of pity in it.
"You are no leader. No king-maker. But that is not the only greatness in life." Arcade waited, but it seemed Kale was both finished and possessed of more patience than him. He rocked back on his heels the same way the Courier did, Arcade noticed distantly. It was an observation somewhere beyond where his brain was screaming. He knew. Three minutes of conversation and this stranger stalking the Courier knew that he was Enclave, that he carried the admittedly undeserved stain of his father and that the NCR would just love to string him up as a warning to an already dead power and- A firm hand settled on the back of his neck. Heavy and warm through the leather glove as he darted a glance sideways. Kale was calm, not even looking at him. "Breathe." Arcade sucked in the dry desert air, the one word command compelling. Kale started spinning the metal rod again and Arcade found himself staring at it.
"You still haven't answered my question," Arcade tried. His scalp felt too tight on his skull.
"Because you and I are both expatriates. We see outside this gameboard. And you are a good, honest man. We need that, her and I."
In the early predawn blue air the next morning, Arcade Gannon left carrying a doctor's bag and following the stranger.