Work Text:
When all but the watchmen are asleep, Joshua sits down by the fire and rereads the familiar lines.
The light from the flame is flickering, and the words are barely visible, but this isn’t so important — he knows these phrases almost by heart. The book in his hands is more like a symbol, a ritual, a way to calm down.
The sound of familiar footsteps. Joshua shifts his gaze from the Bible to the figure sitting down near the fire.
“Hey. Were you waiting for me?” The Courier stretches out her frozen hands to the campfire, admiring – either the flames or him.
Joshua snorts. “Partly.”
“It’s good to see you alive.”
“Thanks, I tried very hard.” The Courier smiles, as if it was someone else, not her, who barely managed to crawl to this campfire a few weeks ago after an unlucky clash with the White Legs.
Several minutes pass in silence, and Joshua begins to think whether he should offer first. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Courier sitting still, thinking about something, staring - not at him, not at the fire, but somewhere into the distance. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, her gaze becomes conscious again.
“Could you read for me?” she asks finally.
“Sure.”
She habitually moves to his side, takes off her helmet, puts her head trustfully on his hip. Joshua’s fingers find her soft, slightly tangled hair on their own. The Courier doesn’t mind.
He continues reading, now aloud – slowly and quietly. Joshua suspects that the Courier has heard this passage before, but she doesn't show it. Sometimes he thinks that hearing someone's voice and feeling the warmth nearby is much more important to her than the words themselves. A mild form of blasphemy, one he is willing to forgive.
Today was hard. Tomorrow, when everyone wakes up and the work starts, might be even harder. But in this brief moment between “today” and “tomorrow”...
Everything is alright.
They fall asleep without leaving the campfire – not for the first and definitely not for the last time.